Part 2
“Tom’s alive,” Wyatt said. “He’ll know as soon as I can get you down.” Clara closed her eyes, but her hand stayed locked in Adrian’s mane. When Wyatt offered his own hand, she took it for a moment. Her skin was cold; the palm beneath it felt feverish.
He took off his sheepskin coat and worked it around her without moving the splinted leg. The canvas coat underneath had been made for someone much broader. Wyatt looked at the missing boot, the burlap, and the swelling above it. He had no way to know what damage lay under the wrappings. He did know that the smell from her leg was getting worse.
Clara flinched when the coat brushed the splint. “Sorry,” he said, and waited for her to release the breath she was holding. He pulled the sheepskin down over her arms instead of trying to slide them into the sleeves. She had kept her injured leg protected with branches and torn cloth. Wyatt could see where she had retied the strips as the swelling changed. They had been tightened by hands that could barely stop shaking now.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, then stopped himself. She was shivering too hard to answer. The town was twelve miles from the washout, and their climb had taken nearly an hour. However she had reached this shelf, she had done it injured and alone.
Snow blew across the mouth of the cave. The wind turned, driving it in sideways. Wyatt looked down at the track they had climbed. In daylight, with both of them healthy, the descent would be difficult. Clara could not sit a saddle yet, and the rock beneath the new snow would soon be impossible to read.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” he told her. “I’m going to make it warmer.”
Her fingers tightened once around the mane. He took that as an answer and went to work. He found the dry branches Clara had collected against the back wall, split a dead limb lodged in a crack overhead, and built a small fire where the draft would draw smoke out from under the overhang. His first match failed. The next caught the dry moss he had pushed beneath the kindling.
The flame gave Clara’s shelter a shape he could finally understand. Stones kept the tarp down; a few remaining twigs were tucked beneath the blanket where she could reach them. She had made a place that offered some protection from wind and had kept just enough fuel close to light it. Wyatt gathered every dry scrap in reach, then rationed the larger pieces beside him.
He tore a strip from a loose edge of the tarp and weighted it where the draft pushed snow inward. It would not close the opening, nor did he want it to trap the smoke. It kept the worst gust off Clara’s face. He returned to the fire each time it sank, breaking the dead branch into pieces small enough to burn steadily. There was less wood than he had first believed.
Clara sagged against the wall. Wyatt covered her with his saddle blanket over the sheepskin. Adrian stood with snow settling on his back, too tired even to object when Wyatt shifted the saddle and removed it. The horse folded his legs under him at Wyatt’s familiar pressure on his shoulder and lay near the fire. Wyatt drew Clara’s bedding close enough for her to feel the heat of the roan’s broad back. Adrian lifted an ear but stayed where he was.
Wyatt melted snow in a tin cup. While it warmed, he checked above Clara’s knee with the back of his hand. Her skin was hot and the joint was swollen. He left the splint and the burlap alone. Whatever was happening under them required a doctor, not his guesses by firelight.
He offered her a little water first. She could swallow. After a while she accepted a tiny sip from his flask, coughed, and pushed it away. He capped it and made weak coffee with the rest of the hot water. She held the cup between both hands while he steadied its weight.
“I lost the truck,” she said.
“They found it.”
Her gaze moved to the fire. “The water came through the road. I got out the window. There was a root on the bank.” She paused to breathe. “My leg hit a rock. I climbed because the water kept coming.”
Wyatt could picture the searchers spreading out along the river while Clara dragged herself farther from it, following higher ground toward the pass. He had been one of those searchers. He remembered the places he had checked and the place he had never thought to look.
“We looked for you by the water,” he said. “Tom was there.”
“I waited.” Her voice frayed on the word. “I thought he’d find me.”
She tried to say more. Wyatt leaned close, thinking she was asking about the search, but her eyes followed his hand to the cup. He gave it back to her. She drank, slowly this time. The simple request embarrassed him; he had been so busy imagining what three months had meant that he almost missed what she needed in the next minute.
Wyatt let the fire speak for a while. Telling her that Tom had tried would not bring back the nights she had spent listening for him. He offered a softened strip of jerky. She took small bites after he reminded her to slow down.
“Bark,” she said, noticing him watch her eat. “Bugs, too. Anything I could get.”
Outside, the cave entrance vanished behind a shifting curtain of snow. Wyatt gave her more water, then put another branch on the fire. Sometimes she slept for a few minutes; sometimes she woke with her hand searching until it found Adrian. Through the long hours, the gelding scarcely moved. Wyatt stayed awake to feed the flame and listen for Clara’s breathing.
He had brought enough food for one man riding home, and Adrian had worked hard enough to deserve better than the handful of oats left in the saddlebag. Wyatt divided what he could. When the horse stirred, Wyatt took a quiet minute to loosen the stiff hair along his neck and check his legs for an injury from the climb. The roan accepted the attention, then lowered his head again. Wyatt’s watch moved through the hours more slowly than the firewood burned.
By morning the storm had stopped. Wyatt pushed through the drift at the opening and saw a smooth white slope where the track should have been. Two feet of fresh snow concealed the ice and loose rock. Behind him, Clara woke with a moan. Her cheeks were flushed now, though her hands still shook.
He looked from the buried trail to the heat in her face. Waiting for clear ground would give them an easier descent. It might give Clara’s leg another day that she did not have. Wyatt kicked dirt over the last coals and went for Adrian’s saddle.
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