In the Bleak Midwinter

To her right, at a distance impossible to judge in the gloom, a series of steep little hillocks rose from the general downward slope of the mountain. It would mean heading away from the road, which was a disadvantage, but there were thickets of evergreens mixed in with the birch and maples, perfect for what she had in mind. She clung to the hemlock trunk and swiveled around. If she were quick enough, she could backtrack to the small ridge she had stumbled over and make her trail from there, something big and obvious to lead him to the ambush. And her real route . . . she squinted, willing in that moment to trade a year’s pay for a single set of binoculars. The last hillock was cut by a darker gash. She followed it as far as she could with her eyes. It looked as if it might be part of the crevasse that had taken her car. Running water would explain the little hills, harder stone rising from the softer earth of the mountain, eroded away each spring.

She bit her lip. The crevasse it would be. She descended from the hemlock gracelessly, crashing and dropping as fast as possible. If her assailant caught her out in the open, all the clever plans in the world wouldn’t amount to a snowball in hell. She retraced her trail to the spot beneath the lip of a ridge where she had stumbled and fallen. From the well-thrashed disturbance in the snow, she set out for her ambush site, trotting in a fast, low shuffle that left a clear path plowed through the snow. She took the most direct route possible, avoiding any cover, arrowing straight for the thickest clump of fir trees at the edge of the first small hill.

It would look, she hoped, as if she had seen a potential hide and bolted. She turned and shuffled back the fifty yards or so to the ridge, more slowly, careful not to stray outside the path she had laid down. She was damp with sweat under her parka, her heart rattling the cage of her ribs from exertion and fear. Back at her starting point, she picked her way downhill, stepping on fallen branches as much as possible, swinging around tree trunks to conceal her footprints from her hunter’s view. She wanted him to see nothing but the dense clumps of evergreens, see that she would have picked it as a good hidey-hole, see there were more places to huddle unseen at the top of the hill, where a frightened woman could crouch and pray to be overlooked.

From behind her, she heard a noise. She froze, crouching, her gloved hands folded against her mouth to still her breathing. It came again, a crackling. Then a scrape. She fought the urge to close her eyes like a little kid, hiding from the monsters’ sight by refusing to see. There was a rushing, a clap of air, and from the corner of her eye she saw a snowy owl take wing. Her lungs wrung every ounce of oxygen from her body. For a second, she couldn’t move while she tried to remember how to breathe.

She headed downhill again, moving faster as she got farther away from her starting point at the ridge, risking obvious footprints in order to gain time.

She hit the crevasse unexpectedly and nearly went headfirst to the bottom when she fell short of the rocky outcrop she had picked for her next foothold. She slid belly-down a few uncomfortable yards before hooking onto an exposed root, breaking her fall. She grimaced at the wide trail she had left. Just like her car. She would simply have to hope he wouldn’t track her this way, because she was committed now. No time to make alternative plans. She clambered down the remaining length of the crevasse, wincing at the feel of snow-dampened pants clinging to her legs.

Balanced on a rock edging the black, rushing water, she hesitated for only a heartbeat. She might have been able to make it all the way to the hillocks hopping from stone to stone, never wetting her feet, if she had half an hour. But her time was measured in minutes and seconds now. She stepped in. The water was shallow, rising just over her ankles, but so cold, it brought tears to her eyes. She jogged downstream, slowly at first, picking up speed as she got her footing on the smooth cobbled stones lining the stream. It felt as if she had two great toothaches at the ends of her legs, and every joint in her body throbbed with sympathetic pain.

She kept jogging, her teeth gritted hard against any sounds she might make, her arms held away from her body for balance. On and on she sloshed through the almost-freezing water, unable to think of anything except her misery. It wasn’t until she looked up and saw the darker outcropping of heavy stone that she realized she had reached the hillocks. She thrashed her way to the shore and leaped out of the stream, shaking and kicking each foot to expel as much water from her boots as possible.