Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

Fifteen minutes later they reached a ridge where the road leveled off momentarily. Madigan shifted to neutral and pulled on the brake. Hooper took a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment and they got out. Taking turns with the glasses, they looked back down the mountain. The first section of their tracks leading off the highway were now completely covered and there was a fresh layer of unmarked snow on the highway itself.

“Perfect,” said Madigan. “Just like I told you, huh, Sam? First snowfall is always heavy.”

“Just like you told me, kid,” Hooper admitted. He turned his gaze upward. “How long will it take us to get to the cabin?” “About three hours, from the looks of the snow.”

Hooper turned back to the car. “Well, let’s get going.”

It was nearly two in the afternoon when the car pulled the last steep grade and made the top ridge. They were high up now, in a primitive part of the great mountain range where the sky looked strangely close to them, where there was nothing visible except snow-covered pine trees, where the air was exhaustingly thin, the cold sharp and painful.

Hooper looked back down the road. “Are you sure nobody can follow us up here?”

Madigan shook his head emphatically. “By the time the snow stops, this road and everything around it will be in drifts up to eight feet deep. And it’ll stay like that until the spring thaw. It would be impossible for a car to even go down, much less come up.”

Hooper looked around at the white wasteland on all sides of them. “Where’s the cabin?” he asked.

“Just up ahead.”

The car moved through snow already deep across the rutted, narrow, little road, and crawled slowly around a thick group of trees into a small clearing. There, with three feet of snow drifted up against it, sat the little cabin.

“Home sweet home,” said Madigan as he drove up as close as he could and cut the motor. They got out of the car.

“We’ll have to dig our way in, looks like,” said Hooper.

“Yeah.” Madigan opened the trunk and took out two hand shovels.

“How’s that work?” Hooper asked, indicating the large fuel storage tank mounted on a raised wooden platform next to the cabin.

“There’s a line running into the cabin,” Madigan explained. “It’s got a regular tap like a water faucet. We use the fuel oil for our lanterns, for the stove and for the heater.”

“Sure there’s enough to last?”

“Plenty,” Madigan assured him. “Probably be a hundred gallons left in the spring.”

The two men went to work clearing the snow away. When they got the door open, Madigan took the shovels and put them back in the trunk. “You grab the money,” he said easily, “I’ll unload the suitcases.”

Hooper nodded and got the sack of money from the front seat. He went on inside and looked around. One corner was piled high with magazines. A table in the middle of the room had decks of cards and other games of amusement on There was a radio on a shelf on the wall. In a little alcove Hooper saw cases of canned goods and other supplies. There were two folding cots, each with three new blankets stacked on it. Between them was a large kerosene stove.

Not bad, thought Hooper, considering that it’s only a four-month stretch that we must hibernate.

The door slammed behind him and he turned to see Madigan putting their luggage on the floor. “Get the binoculars out of the glove compartment, will you, Sam,” the younger man said. “If we leave them out there the lenses will freeze.”

“Sure, kid. Then let’s get a fire going and warm the place up, what say?”

Madigan smiled. “Good deal.”

Hooper went back outside and waded the snow over to the car. Opening the door, he reached inside and got the glasses. Have to get this car around back and get it up on blocks someway, he thought. Got to be sure and start it every day, too, so it won’t freeze up. He closed the car door and made his way back to the cabin. There was a thermometer nailed to the wall just outside the door. Hooper saw it was only fifteen above zero. He shivered and pushed through the door.

Just as he stepped inside, Hooper felt the muzzle of the shotgun jab into his back. He stiffened and held his hands very still.

“That’s the ticket, Sam,” said Madigan evenly. “Don’t even think about moving.” He reached around under Hooper’s coat and lifted the .38 from Sam’s shoulder holster. “Okay, Sam,” he said, pushing him away, “go on over there and sit down at the table and keep still so I don’t have to blast you.”

Hooper sat down, feeling the hardness of the little automatic in his hip pocket, very glad now that he had never mentioned to Madigan that he carried his ‘kicker’, his ‘hole card’. He stared coldly across the room at Madigan. “Double-crossing me, kid?” he asked in a measured tone.

“That’s it, Sam,” Madigan said, smiling.

“So you lied to me,” Hooper accused quietly. “You said there was no way out of here until spring.”