“Big enough.” He slips through the gap.
I follow.
The cave opens up beyond the entrance; not a cavern, but a chamber maybe fifteen feet deep and ten wide. The ceiling is low enough that Rafael has to duck, and it strikes me that I haven’t realized how tall he is. I’m not short by any means, but I have to tilt my head back to look into his face.
Inside, the floor is packed earth and dry. Dry,thank God. After a full day in rain and mist and now snow, the dryness of it makes my legs weak.
Someone has been here before.
Not right now; no actual occupation. But the signs are there. A ring of blackened stones near the back wall, arranged for a fire pit. A stack of firewood against the far side, dry and split, too neatly piled to be deadfall. A folded square of oiled canvas tucked behind a rock. When I pull it out, it’s dusty but intact; heavy-grade tarp, the kind you can rig for shelter or wrap around yourself in a freeze. Beside it, there’s a fire striker and a battered tin cup.
“There’s scent.” Rafael’s voice is quiet. He’s standing near the entrance, his head tilted. “Not fresh. But it’s here.”
I sniff. He’s right. Underneath the mineral smell of rock and the cold, there’s something else. Faint. Musky. Heavier than wolf. Not human, not exactly.
“I don’t recognize it,” I say.
“Neither do I.” His brow furrows. “It’s not wolf.”
Whatever it is, whoever was here, they left a fire pit, dry wood, and a tarp. I’m not in a position to be suspicious of gifts.
The entrance faces south, which means the wind doesn’t reach in. The temperature inside is cold but stable, several degrees warmer than the mountain outside.
The snow is falling harder when I look back through the gap. The world outside is disappearing into white.
“This’ll work,” I say.
Rafael is standing at the back of the cave, one hand on the rock wall. His eyes are half-closed. He’s listening again…or feeling. Reading the stone the way he reads the air, with senses I don’t fully understand.
“There’s a fissure back here that leads into the mountain. But it’s clear,” he says. “Defensible.”
“Good.”
The snow thickens. The entrance narrows to a gray slit as the weather closes in around us. Within an hour, the mountainside will be invisible. The helicopters won’t fly in this. The thermal imaging won’t work through the rock.
We’re hidden. We’re sheltered. We’re alone.
I sit on the dry ground with my back against the cave wall, and my body registers the absence of movement for the first time all day. The ache in my hip. The sting of my torn palms. The bone-deep exhaustion of ten hours of climbing on no food and stream water.
Rafael sits against the opposite wall. The cave is narrow enough that our feet would almost touch in the middle if we stretched our legs. The light from the entrance is fading as the snow builds.
He’s watching me, his eyes indigo in the dim light. His face calm. Present.
“Your hands,” he says.
I look down. My palms are raw from the rock, the skin scraped and beading red.
“They’re fine.”
“They’re bleeding.”
“I said they’re fine.”
He holds my gaze for a moment. Then he leans forward, reaches across the narrow space, and takes my hand, turning it palm-up. His fingers are gentle. He looks at the scrapes, the torn skin, the grit embedded in the heel of my palm.
“Can I?” he asks.
My chest tightens. “Can you what?”
