Page 103 of The House of Cross

“This helps,” I said, pointing at the thin snow cover. I set off quickly toward the northeast corner of the plateau. “We need to move as fast as we can now without working up a sweat. We’ve probably got two and a half hours of light left.”

“You know where you’re going?” Sampson asked, hurrying after me, surprised.

“I think I know how to get back to two rifles I stashed—”

“You’re going for rifles first?” Bree said, jogging up beside me.

“My pack’s there too, with food, a tent, and survival and medical gear. But my gut says if it looks like we’re going to be able to walk out of here, Malcomb will send his people to stop us. We need the guns.”

“I agree,” Sampson said. “I think this is all a game to him.”

“Except we’re the game,” Bree said.

CHAPTER 78

THE DARK CLOUDS BEGANto spit snow when we were less than a hundred yards from the old switchback mining road down the north side of the butte. Until that point, we’d been blessed to move quickly across the scoured plateau. We’d been checking our six constantly for pursuers but saw none.

The moment we started down the mining road, the snow deepened, blown in against the bank by the wind. Luckily, the temperatures must have been above freezing during much of the day, and some of the more recent snow must have been relatively wet because the drifted snow there was firm enough in places to hold Bree’s weight.

But Sampson and I were postholing in knee-deep and sometimes thigh-deep snow. Every step became a big effort. Wewere both sweating by the time we reached the first switchback turn.

“We have to strip down,” I said. “Carry our clothes until we need them.”

“It’s getting colder,” Sampson said doubtfully.

“Weren’t you the one who taught me the dangers of hypothermia?”

With a scowl, he took off his parka, bunched it, and put it under his arm like a football. Bree had her parka and hat off when we started again.

By the time we reached the second switchback, we’d lost almost an hour of daylight, and the snowfall had shifted from scattered and intermittent to steady, large, wet flakes.

“How far?” Bree asked.

“Two miles?” I said. “If we can reach the edge of this big meadow before dark, I should be able to spot the lone dead tree at the far north end. It towers above everything. The guns, the pack, and our ability to start a fire are at eleven o’clock from the base of that tree in a clearing beyond some Christmas trees.”

Sampson asked, “What else is in that pack of yours?”

“I don’t know exactly. It was Fagan’s. She said it had all the survival essentials.”

“Then let’s get there ASAP,” Bree said, starting to shiver.

John began to break trail to the bottom of the butte, where strangely the snow depth dropped again. It wasn’t until we’d reached the flat that we realized it was because the trail had been packed down by sleds before the latest snowfall.

“I followed Bean in here on another trail from the north,” I said. “It was packed down in a lot of places. If we can find it, we won’t be wading around in unsettled snow.”

“What about there?” Bree said, pointing across the small clearing to a definite break in the line of fir trees.

“We came in the dark, but that has to be it,” I said, and I was starting toward that trail when something changed in the sound of the place.

If we had not had our heavy wool hats off, we might never have heard it. But what had been muted and muffled by the falling snow now sounded like a low whining buzz.

Bree peered in the sky and said, “Drone.”

“Where?” Sampson asked.

“Up there somewhere,” she said, pointing through the falling snow back up the side of the butte.

“I hear it there,” I said, gesturing toward a gnarled tree near the first switchback.

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