Blizzard: Colorado, 1886 (5 page)

The road was slick and rutted. Along the top of a ridge, where the snow was a shallow dusting on the frozen earth, she managed to canter for a few hundred yards before the drifts deepened again and she had to rein in.

When Rusty slowed, Maggie glanced upward. The sky was darkening. She prayed once more that her father was going to be all right. There were three doctors in Lyons. Surely one of them could help him.

Maggie rode on. She could hear wind sighing in the treetops. Rusty settled into a rambling walk, covering the rough rocky stretch of the road that led down to Black Canon Creek, then back up. Here, on the north-facing slope, the ground was completely covered with snow.

Maggie suddenly noticed an odd, uneven set of tracks setting off from the road at a sharp angle. She rode closer. They were boot tracks, about the right size. Hadyn?

Maggie slid out of her saddle and led Rusty to the prints in the snow. The wind was softening their edges; it wouldn't be long before they would be filled in completely. If she had waited another day to ride the road, she might never have seen them at all.

A perfect print, sheltered between two rocks, caught her eye. She could even see the pattern of the shoe nails, a half circle in the center of the heel. It was Hadyn. No one in Estes Park wore fancy boots like that. Maggie slapped the reins against her thigh. Why had Hadyn left the road? She stared down into the pines, then led Rusty along the side of the road, trying to see where Hadyn had come back up the slope. After she had gone a few hundred yards, she began to feel uneasy. If he had just been answering a call of nature, he wouldn't have gone very far off the road. Snowflakes settled on her back and shoulders as she remounted and tried to figure out what to do.

The night passed so slowly that Hadyn wondered if it would ever be over. It had been a long time since he had last heard the terrifying scream of the mountain lion; still, he was afraid the cat might appear at any second, snarling and close.

Hadyn hunkered a little deeper into the crevice, his ankles grating on the rock. The wind had eased during the hours of darkness, but now it was snowing harder. He shivered, as he had done all night. His layers of clothing hadn't really kept the cold from seeping into his bones.

Hadyn longed to stand up straight, to stretch. His whole body ached from his cramped position. He could feel, deep in his knee joints, a dull pain that had been sharp at first. He flexed his fingers inside his gloves and tried to squeeze warmth back into his hands.

A birdcall made him open his eyes. Hadyn lifted his head. The sky was finally getting light. It was still snowing. Flakes fell on his numb cheeks. Hadyn lurched to his feet, reaching out to steady himself against the jutting rocks. His knees barely held him up. He gathered his loose clothing and managed to stuff it into his bag.

Hadyn turned his back to the wind and found himself facing a thick stand of pines that were closer than he had thought the night before. In the gray light of dawn, the trees looked nearly black, their needles sharp and threatening.

His knees knocking against each other, his steps unsteady, Hadyn made his way slowly out of the rocks. Then, just at the edge of the boulder field, he stumbled again and crashed sideways. He fell, trying to protect his face. He skinned one wrist so badly it bled, but he couldn't feel anything—his skin was too cold.

Hadyn staggered to his feet. He had to find the road. He had to get to Cleave's store. For a second he imagined a fire, a warm hearth, and a steaming cup of coffee. He had been stupid, and he knew it. But the truth was, if it hadn't been for the mountain lion, he would never have gotten lost. Maggie should have told him the lions follow people like that.

As Hadyn walked, his hands and feet tingled, the feeling coming back into them. He walked with the wind at his back, his collar flipped up to protect his neck. He stopped to readjust his hat and his scarf and to pull his coat closer around his shoulders, then bent to pick up his bag once more.

When he straightened, he saw a glimpse of movement in the trees on a steep slope above him. He waited, holding his breath, watching closely. There. It was a horse, he was pretty sure. He yelled out,
dropping his bag to wave both arms over his head. He saw the sorrel color of the horse's coat flash between the ash-brown trunks again, then disappear. The rider hadn't heard him. For a second Hadyn stood still, his eyes stinging, his heart pounding in his ears. Then he scooped up his bag and started running.

Halfway up the slope, Hadyn dropped back to a walk, gasping in huge breaths of frigid air. He struggled through deep snow, his boot soles skidding across rocks he couldn't see. At the top, he stopped. Three sets of tracks caught his eye, and he started toward them.

There had been three horses, Hadyn decided. And their riders had forced them uphill. He could see the marks their bellies made as they lunged through the drifts. Their hoofprints were buried deep in the snow, but the paths they had made helped Hadyn climb after them.

It was much easier walking behind the horses, and Hadyn settled into a steady stride. All he had to do was follow the tracks long enough and the riders would lead him to safety. They had to have a ranch house or a cabin somewhere nearby. Once more, the image of a crackling fire taunted Hadyn. He shook
his head to clear his thoughts and forced himself to keep going.

The horses' tracks led him onward. He could see where they had floundered through deep drifts and shouldered the snow aside, heading relentlessly uphill. Hadyn stopped only once, to take out the corn bread he had brought. Then he ate as he walked, the food reviving him.

At the top of one ridge, the snow suddenly gave way to dark, uneven rock. Hadyn slowed, uncertain what to do. The tracks were impossible to see here. He searched the trees ahead, hoping for another glimpse of the sorrel horse, a chance to shout at its rider. He could see nothing. Hadyn glanced at the sky. The clouds were thicker and darker now. Snowflakes battered at his face.

Maggie shifted in her saddle and squinted up at the sky. It was snowing harder now. If she left the road to look for Hadyn, she could end up in trouble too. But what else could she do? Even if the Cleaves, or the McAllisters, or the folks at the Elkhorn Lodge were willing to come immediately, it'd be late afternoon before they really got started—if the storm let them search at all. And Hadyn had already been out all night. . . .

Maggie pressed her heels into Rusty's sides. He grunted, startled at her sudden decision, reluctant to step off the road into the drifted snow. She leaned down close to his long, shaggy ears. “Rusty, you have to be good today. I am about as scared as I have ever
been in my life.” She rocked her weight forward, digging her heels into his ribs. Slowly, Rusty gave in, lifting his hooves high in distaste as the snow deepened.

Maggie was heading straight into the wind at first. Rusty plodded along, ignoring her pleas to go faster. He walked with his head low, his ears pinned back. Maggie skirted a rocky area, then found Hadyn's tracks on the far side and followed them again. Where Hadyn had waded drifts, Maggie had to get off and lead Rusty through. He balked at the icy touch of the snow on his belly.

The storm was getting worse. Maggie looked behind herself every few minutes. Rusty's tracks were filling in. In an hour or two, if it kept up, they would be covered completely. Over and over, Maggie looked up at the sky to orient herself, then remembered that the sun was hidden by the thick, snow-heavy clouds.

Maggie came to a rotten aspen snag that looked like an old lightning strike. More than half the trunk was blackened. Beside it, Hadyn's tracks stopped, turned, then stopped again. Maggie rubbed her hands together, pressing hard. She kept at it long enough to feel a little warmth coming back into them. Then
she tightened her collar and pulled her hat down over her ears. How far could Hadyn have gone? He was headed straight away from the road now.

Maggie remounted. The thick stand of aspens ended at the base of a steep slope. Hadyn's tracks veered off to the north. Even though the wind had softened them, blurring details, Maggie could tell he had been running all out, skidding. She shook her head, tucking her hands beneath her thighs to warm them.

“What was he so scared of?” Maggie wondered aloud.

She guided Rusty across the clearing and uphill again, following Hadyn's tracks. He had still been running, that much was easy to see. With almost every step he had slid backward a few inches, sometimes leaving knee and glove prints in the snow as he lost his footing.

Hadyn's tracks kept changing direction, sometimes plowing through deep drifts, sometimes angling off and running in long curves. The tracks finally swerved and headed straight uphill. At the top, Maggie let Rusty stop.

Blinking into the wind that scraped over the crest
of the hill, Maggie saw an expanse of broken rock. Some of the boulders were huge. Many were deeply fissured, with wedge-shaped cracks disappearing beneath the snow.

Slowly, Maggie rode around the edge of the field of rock, her eyes on the ground. She hunched her shoulders against the wind. It was getting colder. She tried to remember whether Hadyn had dressed warmly before he left. Even if he had, he must have spent a miserable night.

Finally, on the far side, she saw Hadyn's tracks again. The wind had blurred them and the snow had dusted out the nail patterns. Still, Maggie thought they looked a little newer than the ones she had followed up the hill. Maybe Hadyn had holed up for the night in the rocks. She hoped so. They would have sheltered him from the wind at least.

Maggie stared at the jumble of tracks. Hadyn had paced a few steps one way, then another. “He was probably trying to figure out which way to go,” Maggie said to Rusty, who tossed his head and sidled, trying to turn back. Maggie tightened the reins. “Not until we find Hadyn, Rusty.” She looked back down at the ground.

After four or five false starts, Hadyn had set out in a beeline. The tracks headed downwind, but up a slope so steep that Maggie couldn't imagine why he would have chosen to climb it at all, much less in weather like this. To make matters worse, the hill was covered with thick stands of Engelmann spruce and lodgepole pine.

Ignoring Rusty's grunts and resistance, Maggie rode on. The ground beneath the snow was rocky. Maggie dismounted and led Rusty. The farther they went, the more puzzled Maggie became. This was terrible terrain. There were places where Hadyn had fallen, sprawling over snow-buried logs. Rusty plodded solidly along behind her, and Maggie was glad she hadn't brought her father's mare.

At last they were free of the trees. Maggie blinked snowflakes from her eyelashes and tried to see where the tracks led. For a minute, she couldn't make sense out of what she was seeing. There were three deep paths that went uphill from where she was standing.

She worked Rusty closer, then stood looking down, shaking her head in disbelief. The hoof-prints were cloven, like two fat half-moons facing each other. Cows. What were cows doing up this high?
They had to be strays, looking for yellowed grass uncovered by the wind. One of them was considerably smaller than the others—maybe a fall calf that was still with its mother.

“But why is Hadyn following them?” Maggie wondered aloud. She looked up the slope, then back down through the aspens. She lifted her gaze to the horizon. Mummy Mountain and Ypsilon Peak were invisible today because of the storm—so she would have to find another way to mark her direction.

Maggie faced the wind. Coming down the road it had been on her left, out of the east as usual. Hadyn had walked in a mile-wide curve. He was moving north now, toward the high country. Maggie pulled off her glove and got a biscuit from her knapsack. She ate, stamping her feet. Rusty nuzzled her arm, begging for a piece of her food, but she patted him instead. There was no way to know how long the food she had brought was going to have to last.

Setting off again, Maggie realized that Hadyn had walked in the broken snow left where one of the cows had passed. She did the same. It made traveling easier on her, and on Rusty. The wind was getting higher and it would only get worse farther upslope.
Maggie stopped a moment and checked her cinch and the ties that held her father's bedroll to the back of her saddle. Maybe Hadyn would decide to start back down soon, or already had. She could only hope that he would realize that he was heading into even more danger.

The cow tracks took a sudden turn and Maggie stopped to examine them. As she straightened, the icy wind biting at her face, she saw another set off to one side. Curious, she led Rusty toward them. The ground was criss-crossed with fallen logs, almost impossible to climb over. Rusty balked, snorting, his eyes ringed in white. Maggie tied his reins to a stout log, then went to take a look.

In an instant, Maggie understood what Hadyn had been afraid of and why the cattle were running uphill in a snowstorm. The paw prints were soft-edged and huge. It was a mountain lion.

Maggie stared at the tracks. The wind whistled through the bare aspen branches behind her. As she looked back up the hill, she realized it was snowing much harder than it had been a few minutes before. She could see only a few hundred feet in any direction.