The engine sounds changed. It took him a moment to understand the difference, but then he knew. They’d split. One machine was heading away from them, the noise fading slightly. Circling, maybe. Trying to find and follow the tracks.
The other engine was still loud, bearing down on them. Two snowmobiles. There’d been three in the camp. Did one of the men stay behind?
“Rock face,” Steph said, barely above a breath. “Fifty yards.”
He couldn’t see it yet. He trusted her anyway.
The trees thinned slightly, and then he saw it—a dark mass rising out of the snow, maybe twelve feet high, the base of it drifted with snow on the windward side and partially sheltered on the other. She went around the leeward side without slowing.
As they approached, he smiled. There was a narrow gap in the rock, where two faces of rock met at an angle and left a space between them.
It wasn’t a cave, not even close, but a compression of space, dark and sheltered. What he wasn’t sure of was whether it was deep enough. Could they both fit in there and avoid the spotlight beam? They had to try.
She went in sideways, and he went in after her, the rock pressing against his back and his chest. They were side by side, shoulders touching, both breathing hard.
“We should take our packs off,” she said, her voice low. “It’ll give us a little more room.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can. Besides, if we have to move fast...” Jack’s voice faded away as the sound of the snowmobile increased.
“Let’s try to get farther back.” Steph inched into the crevice. When her arm no longer touched his, he noticed the absence immediately and moved to correct it. They gained maybe six inches. Six inches that might keep the spotlight from finding them.
The snowmobile was close. He could feel the engine noise in his chest, the vibration of it moving through the ground. The light swept through the trees near the outcropping, a blade of white cutting back and forth across the snow.
It was still dark in the rock crevice. He searched for Steph’s hand, and she grabbed on to him and squeezed.
The wind had found them while they ran, and it was working harder now, pushing through the trees with real intent, the roar amplified inside the crevice.
The temperature had dropped another degree or two in the last hour, the kind of drop that was gradual until it wasn’t. He was aware of Steph against him, the warmth of her, the way her breathing was returning to normal.
The spotlight swept again, closer this time.
She squeezed his hand again, not hard but enough.
The machine idled about thirty feet away.
“They’re going to see our tracks,” he said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. The snow wasn’t smooth where we passed, plus the wind is blowing and more snow is falling. And the rocks were clear of snow. We might have a chance.”
Jack released Steph’s hand and moved his own hand toward his chest, where the pistol lay under his jacket. The gun wasn’t a match against rifles, but if this guy found them, and he had the element of surprise, maybe it would give them time to get away. They could take the snowmobile and escape.
Steph had activated the personal beacon signal. Help would be on the way soon.
He eased the zipper down as a plan formed. Shoot the poacher. Steal the snowmobile. Hightail it back toward Silver Mane’s Lodge. The rescue team might even meet them around the same time.
The snowmobile engine revved once and moved. Jack tracked the sound carefully, the way he’d tracked wind direction on a shooting range, using it to read what was happening beyond his line of sight.
The machine moved parallel to the rock face, maybe twenty-five feet out, then angled away. The spotlight raked across the outcropping, and he leaned closer to Steph as the beam passed over the crevice opening without slowing.
Ten more seconds and the engine noise started to fade.
Not gone, not exactly, but circling. The sound rose and fell as the man worked through the trees, the spotlight still visible as he moved. The second machine was farther off, deeper in the woods.
He let out a slow breath.
“How long?” she asked. Her voice was barely there, just breath shaped into words.
“Should we sit here and wait here?”
