Cover Of Night

Toxtel had been bellowing for a good fifteen minutes, and there hadn’t been so much as a flicker of movement on the other side. He might as well have been farting in the wind, for all the effect he was having.

After half an hour, Toxtel’s voice was hoarse, but finally a hand waving a white piece of cloth appeared out the front door of the first house. Toxtel shouted again, then waved his own flag, and an old man shuffled out onto the porch.

The old guy looked to be close to ninety, Goss thought in disbelief, watching as he laboriously made his way down the steps and tottered the hundred yards to the mangled wreckage of the bridge. Was this the best they had to send? But then again, why send the best? Why take that risk? Come to think of it, the old guy was a damn smart choice.

"What do you want?" he demanded querulously, looking disgruntled at having to go to all this effort.

Toxtel went right to the point. "The Nightingale woman has what we’re after. Tell her to hand it over, and we’ll pull out and leave."

The old guy stared across the ravine separating them, working his jaws as if he were chewing the idea over. Finally he said, "I’ll pass the message on," and turned around, retracing his steps as if uninterested in anything else they might have to say. They carefully placed themselves behind cover, then watched until he was once more out of sight.

"What the hell do you make of that?" Toxtel asked rhetorically.

"They’re pissed" was Goss’s reply.

Chapter 28

The first snowflake drifted down just after five that afternoon. Cate stopped in her tracks, staring at it in consternation. Several more flakes followed the first one; then they all disappeared in a swirl of wind.

"Did you see that?" she asked Cal.

"Yep."

It was early in the season for snow, though not unheard of. With any luck, those few flakes didn’t have any buddies. Rain had started falling in earnest several hours ago. As cold as the temperature had gotten, though, falling steadily through the afternoon hours as they climbed higher and higher, they had to assume a real snowfall was possible.

Snow wasn’t good for a couple of reasons, the biggest one of which was that they wouldn’t be able to continue. The footing was treacherous enough when they could see where they were stepping; if the way was covered with snow, they would be risking life and limb. Nor were they dressed for snow, or for weather this cold. They’d left the ponchos on as protection against the wind and rain, but they didn’t have the layers necessary to keep them warm.

She’d been shivering for some time now, even though she’d put on her sweatshirt jacket and pulled up its hood as well as the hood of the poncho.

Cal pulled out the rough map Roy Edward had drawn of the abandoned mines. "Are we close to one of them?" Cate asked, moving to his side to look at the piece of paper. She hoped so; they had to get out of this weather before nightfall, which was only a couple of hours away. They would freeze if they had to stay out in this all night.

"I don’t think so," he said. He pointed to an X. "That’s the closest one. and by my reckoning we’re about here." He indicated another spot. "If Roy Edward was anywhere near accurate with his guess, we’re at least a mile from there, plus another five hundred or so feet in altitude. At the pace we’ve been traveling, we wouldn’t make it by dark. Even if we could, we need to stop now, and get dry and warm. Your shoes are soaked."

Unfortunately, he was right. Her feet were so cold and painful she was already hobbling. If getting anywhere required any climbing, she couldn’t do it. "What are we going to do?"

"You’re going to get somewhere out of the wind and stay there while I scout around. Here’s where I earn my keep."

Since the wind was swirling from every direction, she didn’t know where that would be. But he found a big fir with branches so thick the ground beneath it was dry, and she sat down there, with her knees hugged up under the poncho to preserve her body heat. She looked up at him through the rain, seeing how reddened his face was from the cold and wind, and remembered that he wasn’t dressed any more warmly than she was. His only advantage was that his boots were waterproof, so his feet were still dry. "Be careful," she said, because that was the only thing she could think of.

"If I can’t find an overhang, I’ll make us a lean-to." He began removing all of his climbing gear, putting it beside Cate and placing the coil of rope on top. He gently touched her cheek, then was gone. All he took with him was his trenching tool. She watched him stride off through the rain with as much energy as if he had steel springs inside his legs, while every muscle in her body was aching, not just from the rigorous exercise she’d given them that day but from shivering for so long.

Tiredly she pulled the front of the poncho up over her nose so the air she was breathing would be warmer. Instantly she felt better able to endure the cold, though wind still whistled through the trees and rain dripped all around her. The sloping branches of the big fir created a natural runoff, like a living umbrella spread over her head.

They had been gone from Trail Stop for twenty-four hours. What was going on there now? She and Cal hadn’t been able to talk, because they had spent the day either strung out across a rock face or hiking uphill, neither of which made conversation easy. They had stopped when they had to, then pressed on, always aware of time slipping away.

Half an hour later, the rain became mixed with snow. Cate stared out at it, willing the white flakes away. She didn’t mind snow flurries, though she wished the weather had stayed as warm as it had been the day before; she just didn’t want snow on the ground. Down in the valley, they probably weren’t getting any snow at all.