Page 45 of Snow River

In other words, he’d be in his eighties now and probably wouldn’t look anything like the sketch.He might even be dead.Oh well—it might still be useful.

Paulina tore the page from the sketchbook and handed it to Lila.“Even if this doesn’t go anywhere, I feel better.I’ve done something for my Gwennie.”

“You have,” Lila assured her.“I think you’re very brave.One more thing before I leave.”

Paulina was already yawning; Lila felt badly that she’d demanded so much energy from someone still recovering from a fall.“If you think you’re sick, you should let us take you to a doctor.They can run some tests.”

“No.”From her reaction, Paulina was more frightened of that prospect than of the man in the drawing.“They won’t let me come back here.”

“You might just have low iron, or low blood sugar or something.Maybe it’s something that’s easy to treat.”

“No,” she said flatly.“I made a promise to myself that I would never leave here except in a coffin, and not even that because I left strict instructions that I want to be buried in the forest so the mycelium can reclaim me.It’s all written down, signed and sealed.Bear has it.”

Was there anything Bear didn’t do for this town?“Is that even legal?”Lila wondered out loud.“Just getting buried in the woods?”

“Who cares about that out here?What would they do, arrest me?They don’t do anything about the live criminals, let alone the dead ones!”

Lila giggled, happy to see Paulina regaining her spirit.

“Well, I’m sure Bear will have your back,” she said wistfully, “even after you’re gone.”

Paulina put her glasses into place to peer at Lila.“What’s that tone all about?”She held up a hand.“Let me try a wild guess.Is Bear freezing you out?”

Was that an accurate assessment of the situation?“Not really…maybe…I suppose you could put it that way…”

“Don’t pay any attention to that.Just barrel on through.”

“Barrel on through?”

“Bear has got a heart like a puddle of melted honey.Sweetest boy I ever saw.Always trying to take care of his mother, take care of his grandpa, take care of everyone.Someone like that gets hurt.Disappointed.Self-protective.”

Lila nodded along, her heart swelling, because every word of that felt true.“You remember him from when he visited his grandfather?”

“He told you about that, huh?Proves my point.He likes you.Don’t let him shut you out.”

As she drove backto town, Lila kept glancing at the passenger seat, where she’d set the sketch of the man who had scared Paulina so badly that she’d held her tongue for forty years.Her memory of the man’s face was crystal clear, at least judging by the sketch.Every time Lila looked at it, it seemed more lifelike.Everything that Paulina’s artist’s eye had observed about the man at the time, consciously and unconsciously, she’d poured into that sketch.

Military.The knowledge flashed into her mind.He had military training, but that was in the past.He was freelance.A professional.An assassin?He’d come to Firelight Ridge with a purpose.A mission.It meant nothing to him on a personal level.Only money.Someone was paying him.He was in this godforsaken wilderness because it profited him, not because he liked it.He just had to get the job done, then beat feet for civilization.He didn’t want to kill the woman on skis, but he would if he had to.She had about two seconds to decide to either go away or scream for help.

Lila wrenched herself out of her reverie as the truck skidded around a curve.How fast was she going?She pulled her foot off the accelerator and almost slammed on the brakes, but all of Bear’s instructions worked and she tapped them instead.

But the truck was such a big piece of machinery, and she’d gotten her speed up too high, and now it wouldn’t slow down quickly enough.The trees were coming at her—straight toward her!Holy crap, she was headingintothe forest.

She wrenched the wheel to the right, and the truck bounced off a moss-covered bank like a gigantic unwieldy pinball.If only she wasn’t on a downslope, if she could just make it to the bottom then the upward climb would slow the truck down.Why had she stayed so late at Paulina’s?Darkness was gathering at the base of the trees.The overcast sky and failing daylight made the road hard to focus on.The world was a swirl of gray confusion and menacing forest.

And now the man in the passenger seat was mocking her for being such an amateur driver.Better run, little girl.Run and hide.Run and hide.

That phrase!Stunned, distracted, she loosened her grip on the steering wheel and the truck leaped toward the trees.

21

When it was past eight,full dark outside, and Lila still hadn’t returned, Bear chased everyone out of the bar and closed the place down.

“Storm coming, everyone better get home,” he told them.Close enough—his weather radio was warning of a blizzard in the mountains to the east.But storms could change course at any moment and it would be best for everyone to go home and batten down the hatches.Especially for the first storm of the winter, which always functioned as a kind of shakedown cruise.

He hopped into his 1988 Toyota pickup, which he’d accepted as payment for a tab that had stretched for three and a half years.He didn’t want to panic if there was a perfectly innocent explanation for Lila’s delay.Maybe she was so deep in conversation with Paulina that she’d lost track of time.Maybe she’d agreed to model for her; Bear had made that mistake once, and it had eaten up half a day.

Or maybe she’d decided to drive out to Ice Falls since she had a vehicle at her disposal.Sometimes he worried that she worked so much she didn’t have a chance to enjoy this stunning part of the world.She could have paid a visit to the Chilkoots.He knew she was helping a few of the younger kids learn to read.Kids loved Lila, and not just young ones.She had a way of treating kids of any age as if they were important and wonderful.

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