Page 104 of The House of Cross

We all saw it at the same time, appearing from behind that tree: a large black drone with wide stabilizing fins. It swept down the mining road toward the second switchback and the final drop to the clearing.

“He’s tracking us. Get in the trees!” Sampson said and sprinted across the clearing with Bree and me right behind him.

We got into the shadows on that trail through the woods before the drone came to within forty yards of the trees and hovered there, so close we could see the camera shifting, looking for us. But for some reason, it did not come nearer.

I peered down the trail and saw how intertwined the branches were about ten feet up.

“The drone can’t come any farther,” I whispered. “It will crash in here.”

The drone spun and gained elevation, and we lost sight of it.

“We’ve got to move,” Sampson said. “They know this trail and where it comes out. If the drone doesn’t have enough power to flythere and wait for us or if the snow picks up, Malcomb is going to send his snowmobiles after us.”

In the distance, coming from back up on the plateau, we heard a low growling noise that expanded and got stronger with every second.

“He’s already sent the snowmobiles after us!” Bree said. “Run!”

CHAPTER 79

THE TREES OVERHEAD FORMEDa thick canopy, and the trail had been fairly well used, so we were able to move fast and hard north, hearing the snowmobiles behind us whine and then stop below the rim of the butte.

“I bet they’re bogged down in all that drifted snow,” I said.

“This is our chance, then,” Sampson said. He surged in front of me to break trail through the snow that had made it through the tree limbs overhead.

John was one of the strongest men I knew, and his long, powerful legs blew through the snow as if it weren’t there. I stayed right in his tracks, both of us cutting the way forward for Bree, who was puffing along, holding her own.

“I run all the time,” she said at one point, gasping. “Why can’t I breathe?”

“High altitude.” I grunted. “I feel like I’m going on half a lung myself.”

“Or worse,” Sampson said as the trees began to thin. The powder under our feet deepened, and the snow falling intensified. “Is that your big meadow up ahead, other side of that last stand of woods?”

“Has to be,” I said, forgetting how tired I was and surging after John in the now knee-deep snow.

We’d made it to the south edge of that last stand of fir trees when we heard the snowmobiles rev up a solid mile or more behind us.

“How long is that meadow?” Bree asked as we moved fast into the shadows and the cover of the woods.

“Less than a mile,” I said. “Do we stick to the edges or stay on the trail?”

“The trail,” Sampson said. “We’ll move faster.”

We could see the long meadow and had almost broken free of the trees when my foot snagged on something buried in the snow. I felt something pop, and I fell hard.

“Alex!”

“My ankle!” I moaned, looked back, and saw my boot was caught in a loop of rusted cable sticking up out of the snow. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Probably left over from the old mining days,” John said, quickly pulling on the cable and loosening the loop enough to release my boot.

We could hear snowmobiles moving again. A lot of them. One sled sounded like it was already on the flat, less than a mile back.

“You two go get the guns,” I said, wincing as Bree helped me to my feet. “I’ll hide in the woods here.”

“We’ll never make it across that meadow,” Bree said. “They’ll shoot us down.”

“She’s right,” Sampson said. “We don’t have a choice now. This is the last cover. The last place we can ambush them.”

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