like the cries of ghosts all the way back to when men hunted with clubs and sharpened stones and feared animals we couldn’t even imagine now.
The wind blinded us, too. Visibility was at most ten, twelve feet, occasionally much less. The path was straight so that kept us on track, anyway.
Darkness came quickly.
Jen was eager to push forward but I said no. Another storm was on its way. The cloud mass and color told that. She argued that we could probably reach her brother’s hiding place soon; two, three hours at most.
I didn’t argue. I just tied down my horse and went looking for firewood. When I got back she’d set up a lean-to. Clarice sat bundled inside it, eating some of the bread and jerky Jen had given her. Jen didn’t speak to me. I didn’t blame her for worrying about her brother but I wasn’t ready to die in a night of near-blizzard conditions.
The fire proved to be a bitch. Wind and snow assaulted not only us but set the forest areas to swaying so hard that you could hear timber crack. I did well enough to heat up coffee and beans but then the wind changed directions and put the fire out for good.
That night Jen and Clarice stayed on one side of the lean-to and I stayed on the other. She had answered a grand total of three of my questions since we’d made camp. One-word answers. She was many things, this Jen I felt closer and closer to all the time, but forgiving was not one of them. My apology might have helped the situation. But I didn’t make a habit of apologizing when I felt I was in the right.
The storm that had stopped around midnight whipped up again just before dawn. It was of enough strength to make traveling impossible. It was windand snow equally. This fortunately was brief though it had turned into sleet.
When the storm died we quickly set off.
Jen was familiar with what we needed to do to find the cave. She signaled where we turned east along a narrow trail through heavy timber.
She was speaking to me again. Not in the way she usually did. She was taking it slow, making me appreciate each modest advance. The previous night had been one-word answers. We were up to two-word answers by then with the prospects of three-word answers on the horizon.
Clarice apparently had a nightmare about her mother. During an odd silence in the woods, she began screaming so hard she fell off the horse. The blankets she’d been wrapped in broke her fall. She wasn’t hurt but she’d been stunned out of the lingering nightmare.
Amazing how maternal and tender Jen could be when she was still mostly ignoring me. She held the kid tight and rocked her back and forth and started saying those half-whispered words that sounded like cooing again.
The sun appeared midafternoon, just as we came to an outcrop of rock.
And that was when we met up with Connelly and Pepper.
They had left the outcropping so they could fire at us from the left, from up on a hill that gave them pine-heavy cover. Exposed like that, we were much easier targets.
We dismounted quickly, Jen grabbing Clarice. We managed to scramble behind a thin copse of pine.They had to kill something to amuse themselves so they took our horses. At the sound of the gunfire the horses spooked and made the mistake of turning to the edge of the outcropping. My horse was shot twice in the face and pitched sideways off the trail. Jen’s horse fell, too, but balanced perilously on the edge of the outcropping. Its legs jerked as it died, propelling her horse over the edge.
The trouble was the trees were sparse and from their perch on the hill, Connelly and Pepper could see us without much trouble.
I couldn’t get any kind of clean shot off. I needed to get closer but in order to do that I’d have to move closer to the trail. This would invite a barrage of gunfire. Getting killed was part of my job. But neither Jen nor Clarice had signed on for that. I needed to get them to a place that was safer than that relatively open place.
The gunfire kept
The wind blinded us, too. Visibility was at most ten, twelve feet, occasionally much less. The path was straight so that kept us on track, anyway.
Darkness came quickly.
Jen was eager to push forward but I said no. Another storm was on its way. The cloud mass and color told that. She argued that we could probably reach her brother’s hiding place soon; two, three hours at most.
I didn’t argue. I just tied down my horse and went looking for firewood. When I got back she’d set up a lean-to. Clarice sat bundled inside it, eating some of the bread and jerky Jen had given her. Jen didn’t speak to me. I didn’t blame her for worrying about her brother but I wasn’t ready to die in a night of near-blizzard conditions.
The fire proved to be a bitch. Wind and snow assaulted not only us but set the forest areas to swaying so hard that you could hear timber crack. I did well enough to heat up coffee and beans but then the wind changed directions and put the fire out for good.
That night Jen and Clarice stayed on one side of the lean-to and I stayed on the other. She had answered a grand total of three of my questions since we’d made camp. One-word answers. She was many things, this Jen I felt closer and closer to all the time, but forgiving was not one of them. My apology might have helped the situation. But I didn’t make a habit of apologizing when I felt I was in the right.
The storm that had stopped around midnight whipped up again just before dawn. It was of enough strength to make traveling impossible. It was windand snow equally. This fortunately was brief though it had turned into sleet.
When the storm died we quickly set off.
Jen was familiar with what we needed to do to find the cave. She signaled where we turned east along a narrow trail through heavy timber.
She was speaking to me again. Not in the way she usually did. She was taking it slow, making me appreciate each modest advance. The previous night had been one-word answers. We were up to two-word answers by then with the prospects of three-word answers on the horizon.
Clarice apparently had a nightmare about her mother. During an odd silence in the woods, she began screaming so hard she fell off the horse. The blankets she’d been wrapped in broke her fall. She wasn’t hurt but she’d been stunned out of the lingering nightmare.
Amazing how maternal and tender Jen could be when she was still mostly ignoring me. She held the kid tight and rocked her back and forth and started saying those half-whispered words that sounded like cooing again.
The sun appeared midafternoon, just as we came to an outcrop of rock.
And that was when we met up with Connelly and Pepper.
They had left the outcropping so they could fire at us from the left, from up on a hill that gave them pine-heavy cover. Exposed like that, we were much easier targets.
We dismounted quickly, Jen grabbing Clarice. We managed to scramble behind a thin copse of pine.They had to kill something to amuse themselves so they took our horses. At the sound of the gunfire the horses spooked and made the mistake of turning to the edge of the outcropping. My horse was shot twice in the face and pitched sideways off the trail. Jen’s horse fell, too, but balanced perilously on the edge of the outcropping. Its legs jerked as it died, propelling her horse over the edge.
The trouble was the trees were sparse and from their perch on the hill, Connelly and Pepper could see us without much trouble.
I couldn’t get any kind of clean shot off. I needed to get closer but in order to do that I’d have to move closer to the trail. This would invite a barrage of gunfire. Getting killed was part of my job. But neither Jen nor Clarice had signed on for that. I needed to get them to a place that was safer than that relatively open place.
The gunfire kept
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