Part 6
Nolan could hear hooves somewhere east of the barn. The wind carried the sound away before he could judge how far.
A lantern approached from the cottage.
Evelyn had her coat fastened wrong at the throat and her hair pinned on only one side. She looked at the ruined fence, then at Nolan.
“Where did he go?”
“Toward the trees.”
“He’ll want cover from this noise.” She shielded the lantern glass with her hand. “What’s out there besides timber?”
“The old line shack. In a hollow, nearly two miles.”
“Something breaks the wind there?”
“Rock behind it.”
“That’s where I’ll look.”
He caught up with her at the barn door. “We’ll saddle up.”
“You ride. I’ll follow his tracks.”
“In this?”
“If we come up behind him mounted, he may keep running. I want you well out to his south, then ahead if you can manage it. Give him room to find the shelter.”
Nolan looked into the dark. Snow stung the back of his neck.
She was already choosing a long lead from the pegs.
“The extra pad,” she said. “The one beside the gray blanket. Please.”
He handed it down, then began saddling a steady spare horse. Cold fingers made a simple buckle difficult. He missed the hole once and pulled too hard the next time.
Evelyn waited until he had finished before giving the direction again. Wide to the east and south. No shouting. No attempt to drive Flint toward the higher ground.
“If you haven’t found him in forty minutes—”
“I know what I’m following.”
“Evelyn.”
She looked up. Neither had used the other’s given name before.
Nolan held the saddle steady with one hand.
“Come back if it worsens. I won’t lose you over a horse.”
She considered him for a second, then tucked the folded pad against her side.
“Stay wide, Mr. Kessler.”
He watched her lantern move beyond the barn before mounting.
His horse wanted to turn its hindquarters to the wind. Nolan urged it gently through the yard and out along the lower ground. Every working instinct he possessed objected to the route. A loose horse ought to be caught. You went after it, got a rope on it, brought it home.
He could still see Hank sitting motionless on Flint’s back that morning in December. Weeks of Evelyn apparently doing very little had made those thirty seconds possible.
Nolan held his pace.
Near the creek, he lowered his lantern and found tracks where the wind had not yet filled them. Flint had come down the bank and moved northeast. The prints no longer showed the reach of a bolting horse.
He was walking.
Nolan brought his own mount to a halt and listened. He could hear water under ice, the rattle of dead stems, the rub of his horse’s bridle. Nothing else.
He turned along the creek, keeping his distance from the tracks.
Evelyn had found them earlier where the soil beneath the snow still held the hoof marks. In exposed places, she lost them. At a patch of brush or a dip in the ground, she picked them up again.
She kept the lantern low enough to see the next safe step. The long lead lay over her shoulder, unused. There would be no value in arriving with the right equipment and the wrong temper.
The hollow announced itself through her ears.
One step brought her out of the wind’s full force. She could hear her own breathing again. The lantern flame stopped bending inside its glass.
Flint stood near the rock beyond the shack.
His sides were working, but his feet were planted. He had found a place where the canvas could not reach him and the wind did not strike from every direction.
Evelyn stopped well short of him.
She lowered the lantern to a bare patch under a projecting stone. Beside it, she spread the familiar wool pad, then sat on a low rock with her hands resting in plain sight.
Flint watched.
She turned her face a little aside. He knew her voice, her smell, the small sounds her clothing made. She gave him those things and no demand to cross the space between them.
The cold entered through her soles first. She pressed her toes down inside her boots and waited.
Once he lifted his head toward the hollow’s entrance. She heard nothing, and after a moment he looked back at the pad.
Several minutes passed.
Then one forefoot came forward.
He stopped, tested the air, and came a little farther. Evelyn let her hands remain where they were. The horse stretched his neck until his nose almost touched the wool.
There were familiar traces in it: his own coat, saddle soap, the clean cloth she used to rub his shoulders. He breathed over it, then raised his muzzle toward her.
Only then did she lift her hand.
“Hello, you,” she murmured.
Her fingers met the fine hair above his nostrils. He let out the breath she had learned not to hurry.
She sat until his sides slowed.
There was blood on the lower part of one foreleg, a narrow dark line rather than anything flowing freely. She could examine it when he had settled another minute. For now she kept her hand against his face.
Outside the hollow, another horse approached.
Evelyn felt Flint notice. His neck rose slightly. The hoofbeats stopped before reaching the entrance, and she heard leather shift as a rider dismounted.
Nolan came around the rock on foot, carrying his lantern low.
He halted when he saw them: Evelyn on the stone, Flint standing close enough to lay his chin across her shoulder, both of them looking toward him.
“Found a long way around, did you?” she asked.
Nolan’s breath came out in a short, unsteady laugh.
He set his lantern down beside hers…
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