The Servants of Twilight

Joey sat beside him but said nothing, didn't even acknowledge his presence. Charlie was too weary to attempt to elicit a word or a smile from the boy.

Chewbacca licked his paws. They were bleeding a little.

Christine sat, too, and took out the map that Charlie had spread on the table at the cabin, yesterday, when he'd insisted on showing her how they would get out of the mountains if Spivey's people arrived and tried to corner them. Christ, how unlikely such a situation had seemed then, and how terribly inevitable it seemed now!

Christine had to fold and refold the map, keeping it small while she studied it, because the wind occasionally broke out of the meadow and lashed between the trees, reaching some distance into the dense forest to slap and poke and grab at everything in its path.

Beyond the perimeter of the woods, a fierce blizzard raged across the valley floor. The wind was from the southwest, roaring like an express train from one end of the valley to the other, harrying sheets of snow in front of it. The snow was so thick that, most of the time, you could see only about a third of the way across the meadow, where the world appeared to end in a blank white wall. But occasionally the wind subsided for a few seconds or briefly changed directions, and the hundreds of opaque curtains of snow fluttered and parted at the same instant, and in the distance you could see more trees crowding the other side of the meadow, and then the far wall of the somewhat narrow valley, and beyond that another faraway ridge crest where ice and rock shone like chrome even in the sunless gloom.

According to the map, a little creek cut through the middle of the meadow and ran the length of the valley. She looked up, squinted at the white maelstrom beyond the forest, but she couldn't see the creek out there, not even when the snow parted.

She figured it was frozen over and covered with snow. If they followed the creek (instead of crossing the meadow into the next arm of the woods), they would eventually come to the upper end of a narrow draw that sloped down toward the lake, for this was a high valley that funneled southwest, and they were still far above Tahoe. Yesterday, when he had first brought out the map, Charlie had said they would follow this route if they had to leave the cabin and take to the wilds, but that had been before he was shot. It was a three- or four-mile hike to civilization from here, not a discouragingly long way-if you were in good physical condition. However, now that he was wounded and weak, and with a full-scale blizzard moving in, there was absolutely no hope of getting down to the lake by that route. In their circumstances, three or four miles was a journey every bit as epic as a trek across China.

She desperately searched the map for some other way out or for some indication of shelter, and after consulting the key several times to interpret the cartographer's symbols, she discovered the caves. They were along this same side of the valley, half a mile northeast of here.

Judging by the map, the caves were a point of interest for those hardy hikers who were curious about ancient Indian wall paintings and who had a mania for collecting arrowheads. Christine could not determine whether it was just one or two small caves or an extensive network of them, but; she figured they would be at least large enough to serve as a place to hide from both Spivey's fanatics and the murderous weather.

She moved closer to Charlie, put her head to his in order to be heard above the cacophonous wind, and told him what she had in mind. He was in complete agreement, and his confidence in her plan gave her more faith in it. She stopped worrying about whether going to the caves was a wise decision, and she started worrying about whether they would be able to make it there through the storm.

"We could walk northeast through the woods, following the base of the valley wall," she told Charlie, "but that would leave a trail."

"Whereas, if we went out into the meadow before heading up the valley, if we traveled out there in the open, the storm would obliterate our tracks in no time."

"Yes."

"Spivey's people would lose us right here," he said.

"Exactly. Of course, to reach the caves, we'd have to re-enter the woods farther north, but there's not a chance in a million that they'd pick up our trail again. For one thing, they'll be expecting us to head down the valley, southwest, toward the lake, cause civilization is that direction. ' '

"Right." He licked his cracked lips." There's nothing at all northeast of us but. more wilderness."

"They won't look for us in that neighborhood-will they?"

Christine asked.

"I doubt it," he said." Let's get moving."

"Walking out there in the open, in the wind and snow.

isn't going to be easy," she said.

" I'm all right. I can make it."

He didn't look as if he could make it. He didn't look as if he could even get up. His eyes were watery and bloodshot. His face was gaunt and shockingly pale, and his lips were bloodless.