Blizzard: Colorado, 1886 (6 page)

Hadyn blinked. His eyes ached with cold, but he couldn't stop peering through the driven snow. Whoever the riders had been, they seemed to be as lost as he was. At every rise he had been expecting to see a ranch house, or a cabin, or a camp. At the least, he had hoped the riders would lead him back to the road. But all they had done was to keep blundering upward, in what seemed like an almost random path, skirting rocks and slopes too steep to clamber up. Now, their tracks led through a copse of aspen trees growing within a maze of fallen logs and fire-blackened stumps.

Hadyn staggered out of the stand of aspens, then hesitated, blinking owlishly, trying to clear his vision. The stark, white snow seemed flat, without detail. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, then opened them again. Suddenly he glimpsed movement up ahead.

Hadyn's heart leapt with hope, then crashed when he saw cattle lumbering through the deep drifts across the meadow. They were spread out; two of them were nearly into the trees on the other side. His eyes frantically followed the trodden snow from
where he stood all the way uphill to the lead cow. Suddenly he understood. There weren't any horses or riders—and there never had been.

He balled his numb hands into clumsy fists and fought panic. Cows? How could he have been so stupid? He shook his head in disgust. Instead of finding help, he had only gotten himself more lost—and in more danger.

Hadyn let his bag slide from his shoulder to the ground. He rubbed his hands together, blowing warm air into one glove, then the other. He tried to think, to figure out what he should do next. It was snowing harder. Maybe he should go down the way he had come up. He might have a better chance at finding the road again.

Hadyn turned into the wind, pulling his hat low over his eyes. Two of the cows were at the top of the slope now, headed back into the trees. Whether the ground rose or fell from there, Hadyn couldn't tell. Everything past the edge of the meadow faded into the blur of the falling snow.

Hadyn glanced down at the hindmost cow. It was smaller than the other two, he realized. Much smaller. And it wasn't moving. It looked like it had
lain down next to a rock. Was it resting? Hurt?

Hadyn blinked again. As he stared down the slope, the smaller cow seemed to shudder, jerking back and forth. For a moment Hadyn couldn't understand. When he did, his heart slammed against his ribs and he held his breath.

The rock wasn't a rock at all. It was the mountain lion, its muzzle red with blood. It had killed the youngest cow and was now eating its dinner. As Hadyn watched, the cows carcass shuddered again as the lion ripped loose another mouthful of flesh.

Hadyn stood helplessly, afraid to move, afraid to attract the big cat's attention. Walking sideways up the hill, Hadyn bumped into a blackened aspen stump. He stood, pressed close to it, unable to take
his eyes off the mountain lion.

The wind gusted and Hadyn could hear the branches of the aspens below him rattling against each other. The snow stung the side of his face and he ducked his chin down into his coat collar.

Suddenly the mountain lion straightened and raised its reddened muzzle. Hadyn caught his breath. The cat lifted its head, then turned slightly to face Hadyn. The big animal seemed to look straight into his eyes. As cold as he was, Hadyn felt a clammy sweat rise on the back of his neck and on his forehead.

Moving like tawny liquid up the snowy hill, the mountain lion took one step toward him, then another. Hadyn swallowed, gripping the aspen stump so hard that his fingers ached. Hesitating, the cat looked back at the cow's carcass, then came forward again.

Hadyn moved backward without meaning to, stumbling over a fallen log. Scrambling up, he saw the cat breaking into a trot. His breath ragged with fear, Hadyn spun and ran.

Maggie was glad when the tracks turned out of the wind. The cows and Hadyn were all still headed upslope, so the going was rough. Nonetheless, it was a relief not to have the wind battering her face as she maneuvered Rusty through a stand of lodgepole pine.

Maggie leaned down and patted Rusty's neck. For a good hour she had been urging him along, making him go as fast as she dared. She wasn't sure what time it was, but it had to be well past noon. The storm would erase all evidence of the cows' passage by nightfall, she was sure. And Hadyn's tracks wouldn't last even that long. It was still snowing hard.

Rusty faltered, picking his way over a fallen log. Maggie reined in and dismounted again. This was
a burn, the remains of a summer lightning fire. Beneath the snow, the ground was littered with blackened logs and half-burned branches. Riding over this kind of terrain was dangerous even in the summer. Maggie led Rusty more slowly up the steep, snow-slick grade.

As they emerged from a stand of aspen trees, Maggie searched the open ground ahead. The cows had strung out, the big calf falling behind. Maggie followed its trail with her eyes. When she saw the bloody snow she caught her breath.

Instantly, Maggie moved to Rusty's side, ready to mount. She scanned the tree line at the top of the slope, then turned and studied the grayish tree trunks below. Wind tears blurred her vision but she forced herself to keep looking. She half expected to see the mountain lion; it might be staying close to guard the calf's carcass.

Rusty was fidgeting. The wind was bringing him threads of cat scent, Maggie knew. He kept tossing his head, his nostrils flared and his eyes wide. Maggie talked to him softly, telling him that the cat had already eaten and it was probably afraid of people anyway. Still cajoling, Maggie tugged on Rusty's reins
and got him moving, headed in the general direction of the dead calf.

It was hard going. There was loose rock beneath the snow and every step required concentration. Rusty was surefooted and steady, but this was asking a lot and Maggie knew it. She braced herself against the gusts of wind that buffeted her from behind. Squinting to keep the snow out of her eyes, she finally saw what she was looking for—Hadyn's tracks.

From the way the prints looked, Hadyn had seen the cat—or at least its kill. He had come this way following one of the older cows, then suddenly struck out at a sharp angle. Standing beside a blackened aspen stump, he had hesitated, then run. Maggie turned Rusty, following Hadyn's footprints in the snow; Rusty was happy to leave the strong smells of lion and blood. Hadyn had run across the mountainside, then veered, going straight upward again.

Maggie stopped, standing in Hadyn's boot tracks. She faced into the wind once more, staring at the trampled, red snow around the calf carcass. There. She could see another line of prints, this one carving a slender, graceful path through the deep drifts.

A sudden gust slapped at Maggie's face and she squinted. The cat's tracks led away from the calf, toward where she was standing now. Maybe the cat had gone after Hadyn? It wasn't likely, she knew, but it was possible if he had been foolish enough to try to scare it away from its kill.

Maggie walked slowly uphill, frozen rock rolling beneath her feet as she followed Hadyn's course up the mountainside. At the top of one ridge, the wind gusted, roaring past her. It knifed through a snowdrift, scattering it. She hunched, turning her face away, blinking at the tiny shards of ice. Struggling to keep her hat from blowing away, she pulled it down over her ears, then slapped her hands together until they tingled.

Rusty balked when she tried to go on. She leaned her weight into the reins, talking fast, promising him the biggest supper of oats he'd ever had if he would just move. Finally he took a reluctant step and she dragged him along, terrified that he would stop again.

With her eyes streaming from the vicious wind, it was hard to follow Hadyn's tracks. It was obvious that Hadyn was running scared. He changed
direction often, sliding and stumbling, but always heading upward.

Maggie clenched her teeth, letting out an angry breath. Why was her cousin so everlasting stupid? The mountain lion had probably just been curious. It would never have followed him if he hadn't acted like a crippled deer, floundering and aimless. But even so, she reassured herself, it probably wouldn't attack him. Mountain lions rarely bothered people.

Maggie kept a constant pressure on Rusty's lead rope as she walked, wondering who was really the stupid one, Hadyn or herself? She raised her head and looked up the mountain. The burn extended as far as she could see. Even if she found Hadyn now, their chances were slim. She figured she could find her way back to the road eventually—but in a blizzard like this, she wasn't sure that would be fast enough.

Hadyn ran as hard as he could through the tangle of fallen logs. The air was so thin, it felt like it was pouring in and out of his lungs too quickly. His heart labored in his chest and he had to slow down long before he wanted to. He could still see the cat walking below him, its blood-darkened muzzle raised. It
was following him, he was sure of it, toying with him the way a cat played with a mouse it was about to kill.

Hadyn tried to run again, but his legs felt leaden, his muscles numb. He stumbled, barely managing to right himself. Scrambling with both hands on the ground, he realized for the first time that he had left his bag behind. Fear as sharp as broken glass stabbed at him. He began to run again.

Forcing himself up the mountain, glancing back at the cat every few seconds, Hadyn tried to think clearly. He knew he had almost no chance of finding the road now. But maybe he should circle around and follow the cows again. They might be headed for some kind of shelter against the storm. Maybe, if he had stayed behind them, they would have led him to a barn, or even a ranch house.

Hadyn glanced back. The lion was a dim shape in the distance, but it was still watching him. He kept climbing, driven by his fear of the cat. The aspens closed in around him again, their trunks blackened, their bark scarred. Finally, after a long time, he was free of the aspen snags. He stopped, sobbing for breath.

He couldn't see the lion anymore. Where had it gone? Using one gloved hand to shield his eyes from the stinging wind, he tried to see back into the trees. If the cat was still following, it had hidden itself.

Hadyn faced the open ground above him. A sudden gust shoved at him, pushing him forward a few steps. Unable to stop glancing behind himself, he managed a heavy-footed, swerving run toward an outcropping of rock. His whole body felt weighted by fatigue and hunger and fear. He forced himself to stagger on, grateful that the vicious wind was behind him.

As the wind got stronger, Hadyn could hear its shrieking through the trees below him and the boulders above. It punched at him, shoving him up the slope. Twice he barely managed to make his way past jagged rocks, pushing himself clear with stiff arms, cold, clumsy hands.

Hadyn could no longer feel the heaviness in his legs or the hammering of his heartbeat. With every step the wind pummeled him, forcing him along. He could see beyond the outcropping of rock now, and what he saw terrified him. It looked like the land dropped away. All he could see was the swirl of snow in empty space.

There were twisted, malformed trees among the rocks. Their tortured silhouettes were lopsided, as though the high winds had ground away half their branches. They bent in the gale and Hadyn caught hold of one, stopping himself for a few seconds before a gust of wind wrapped itself around him, breaking his numb-fingered hold.

Grabbing at every boulder, clawing to reach another tree, Hadyn inched closer to the outcropping. Terrified, he realized that the margin between life and death was narrowing. If he could angle far enough to his right, the wind would shove him up against a solid wall of rock. If he couldn't, it would blow him over the edge.

Hadyn couldn't stop and the driving snow wouldn't let him see how far he would fall if he missed the rocks. It might be ten feet, or a thousand. The gale was a force, a howling presence that seemed to take away his strength, his breath, his will.

“Oh God, Rusty, you have to,” Maggie pleaded, pulling on the reins. The last stretch of terrain had been awful. In the burn, every step had been treacherous. But now that they were almost to open ground, Rusty had balked.