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Reed stood for a long moment, his hand curling around the knife protruding from his chest. He gripped the handle and pulled it out. He stared at it, and then at James, and collapsed on top of the man he’d almost killed.
James rushed forward, jammed his handgun into his holster and felt for a pulse in Reed’s neck. He had one, but it was faint and fluttering erratically.
The man beneath him, grunted and pushed at the bulk of the dead man weighing him down. “Help me,” he said.
James grabbed Reed’s arm and pulled him off the other man, laying him flat on his back.
Reed stared up at James, his eyes narrowing. He whispered something.
James leaned close, barely able to hear.
“Where the…snake…threads…needle’s eye,” Reed coughed, and blood dribbled out of the side of his mouth.
James pressed his hand to the wound in Reed’s chest. Having seen similar wounds in Iraq, he figured the knife had damaged a major organ, and Reed wasn’t going to make it out of that cave alive.
Reed raised a hand and clutched his collar in a surprisingly strong grip. “They’ll never find it.” He chuckled, a gurgling sound that caused more blood to ooze from the corner of his mouth. Then his hand dropped to his side, and his body went limp.
James pressed two fingers to the base of Reed’s throat, feeling for a pulse. When he felt none, he started to straighten.
Something cold and hard pressed to his temple. “Move, and I’ll shoot.”
His heart hammering against his ribs, James reached for the gun at his side. A cold feeling washed over him that had nothing to do with the gale-force winds blasting down through the canyon outside the walls of the cave.
His holster was empty. He couldn’t believe he’d helped the other man, only to have him take his gun and turn it on him.
“What did Reed say before he died?” the man behind him demanded.
James held up his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t remember.”
“You better start, or you can join him in his cold place in hell.”
“Seriously, I couldn’t hear what he said. It was all garbled.”
“He said something about a needle. I know you heard him. Tell me.” The angry guy behind him fired the gun, hitting James in the right arm.
Pain knifed through his arm, and it hung limp against his side.
“Tell me, or I’ll shoot again.”
Outside, a rumbling sound made James forget about being shot at again. “If you want to get out of this cave alive, we have to leave now.”
“I’m the one with the gun. I say when we leave.”
“Then you’ll have to shoot me, because I’m not going to be trapped in this cave by an avalanche.” James lurched to his feet and started for the entrance.
Rocks and snow started to fall from the slope above the cave’s entrance.
“Avalanche,” James called out.
The entire hillside to the south of the cave seemed to be slipping downward toward the floor of the canyon.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot again!” the man in the ski mask yelled.
“That’s what got the avalanche started in the first place. If you shoot again, even more will come crashing down on us.” James kept moving toward the cave entrance, looking north at a narrow trail leading out of the other side of the cave from where he’d entered. “If you want to live, you better follow me, and for the love of God, don’t shoot again.” He’d figure another way out of this mess, if he didn’t bleed out first. For now, James knew he had to get the hell out of there. If they stayed inside the cave, they’d be trapped. If they hurried out the north end, they might make it away from the avalanche.
Rocks and snow pelted his back as he hurried across the slippery slope, praying the bulk of the avalanche was well on its way to the south. But more snow and rocks rushed toward him and the man holding a gun on him. His head light from blood loss, James ran, stumbling and skidding across loose gravel and tripping over small boulders. A rush of snow and debris scooped his feet out from under him and sent him sliding down the slope. He fought to keep his head above the snow. Then he crashed into something hard and everything went black.
