Page 134 of One Last Stand

Shep glanced at Axel, who wore a red jumpsuit, earphones. Not dressed for weather but for going out the door on a line, bringing up victims. Shep was the one who manned the open door, buffeted by the high winds, and he’d donned an extra jacket, a wool hat, and thermals under his jumpsuit. Besides . . . snow was his element.

As Moose found a wide space, Shep reached for his snowshoes, then clipped them on. Grabbed a headlamp, took off his helmet and fitted it over his hat, then took a handheld walkie and clipped it to the collar of his jacket.

“Do not get lost,” Axel said as he opened the door.

“I’ll turn on my GPS,” Shep said as he landed in the snow. Here, a snowmobile trail had packed down the white into tiny ridges, and he ventured out from the chopper’s ring of light, following the glow of his headlamp.

“Do not get lost.”He was in a perpetual state of lost, it seemed like. Or maybe two pieces of him were going in different directions.

Focus. London had made her choice. And he’d made his. He’d have to get his brain around that.

Now, he walked a hundred yards up the trail, scanning the ground for footprints. His feet crunched in the snow, and the farther away he got from the glow of the chopper, the darker the world became, just his tiny light illuminating his next steps.

Weirdly, his father’s voice entered his head.“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Around him, the wind lifted, and in the distance lingered the mourning howl of wolves.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?”

There—he keyed his mic. “I see footsteps off the main path—looks like he followed a trail.” Shep headed toward the path, a swath through the forest. And then saw why?—

Ahead, in the darkness, a light flickered, a fire maybe, the glow scattering against tree trunks and into the night, winking out as it hit the clouds.

“I see a campfire. Maybe he hunkered down for the night.” Not a bad idea, although if he’d had the means to camp, he would have stayed with his family.

Unless . . .

He followed the ebbing and glowing light, the darkness thickening behind him as his headlamp parted the forest. The smells of campfire burned into the breeze, and as he came up to it, he spotted a man crouched in front of another man, seated on the ground. A pack sat in the snow nearby.

The first man, dressed in a heavy winter coat, wearing a furry shapka, the flaps tied up on his head, held a Sierra cup, helping the second man drink it. The other man, wearing a red jacket, had lost his hat, his hair tipped with snow, his ears nearly white.

Willis James, his lost snowmobiler?

Fur man looked up at Shep. Nodded. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

What?

“I heard the chopper. I figured you were hunting our lost hiker here.”

“I’m with Alaska Air One.” He looked at the man on the ground, who was still struggling to drink. “Are you Willis James?”

The man looked up and dropped the cup. “My wife?—”

“We have her. And your son.”

Willis covered his face with his hands, shaking.

The man in the fur hat stood up. “I found him on the trail just up the way. He’d collapsed. I had to carry him to my camp—” He stepped forward, held out a mittened hand. “Judah.”

Shep took it. “Shep.”

Judah’s long dark hair fell from the back of his hat, and he was tanned, as if he spent time out in the wild.

“What are you doing out here?” Shep asked Judah as he crouched next to Willis.

“Visiting a friend. He’s got a cabin about a mile from here. I was walking on the trail when I spotted Willis here.”

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