Part 5
The men stopped advancing.
“She’s hit,” one of them said.
A flashlight swung across the mare, then toward the trees. The man with the injured leg was hauled upright. Wade drew the handgun and ran several steps after them, firing toward the dark where they were retreating, but by the time he reached the broken gate, all three had disappeared into the pines.
Noah was calling Lark’s name.
Wade dropped beside them. Blood darkened the hair along her shoulder. He put his hand against her neck and waited, breathing through his mouth.
A pulse touched his fingers.
He bent closer. Air moved at her nostrils.
“Still here,” he said. “You’re still here.”
Noah pressed his face into her mane. “She did it again.”
Wade pulled him close with one arm. The child’s bare feet were wet and red from the snow.
He had to move. First the boy, then the mare. He wrapped Noah in a blanket, found his boots, and brought out the lantern. The mare was too heavy to shift safely while she lay so deeply sedated, so Wade pulled a tarp over her and stacked hay bales to block the wind. He kept her nose clear and covered the wound with clean folded cloth.
His shoulder throbbed every time he reached. Once he dropped the lantern hook and had to stop, close his eyes, and make his hands work again.
Before dawn, he managed to get a broken message through on the radio. He couldn’t tell whether anyone had heard all of it.
Noah fell asleep against his side. Wade held the rifle across his knees and watched the ridge lighten.
He hadn’t prayed much since the avalanche. Now he bowed his head over the child’s hair. No words came, but he stayed that way for several breaths before lifting his eyes to the trees.
As the drug wore off, Lark began trying to rise. Wade waited until she could gather her legs, then helped guide her the short distance into the barn. She reached the bedding and lay down again.
He had just covered her when Denise’s vehicle came up the drive.
She climbed out, taking in the broken gate and the holes in the cabin wall.
“Wade.” Her voice changed. “Where’s Noah?”
“Barn. Alive.”
She moved past him, then stopped at the sight of Lark.
“They came for her,” he said.
Denise took the spent dart he handed her. She turned it in her glove, then put it into a bag from her coat.
“Capture equipment.”
“They told me to get out of the way.”
“We need the boy somewhere else.”
Wade’s face closed.
“Look at me,” she said. “They fired into your house.”
“I know where they fired.”
“This isn’t about whether you’re brave.”
He looked toward Noah, who had both hands resting against the mare’s neck.
“I’ve already tried leaving the living part to somebody else,” Wade said. “I’m not doing it now.”
Denise stood without speaking. Then she took off her coat and hung it on a nail.
“Bring me clean water.”
The bullet had torn a shallow path across Lark’s shoulder rather than going deep into her chest. Denise had years of livestock emergency work behind her, and she used the radio to get instructions before they started. They cleaned the wound with warm saline, controlled the bleeding, and carefully closed and dressed the torn skin with the supplies she had brought.
Wade held the lantern. Noah sat well back in the straw and hummed a tune under his breath.
Lark trembled once. Her eye stayed open, following the boy.
They worked until the light outside had begun to fade. When Denise finally straightened, she pressed a fist into the small of her back.
“She needs quiet, warmth, and no more excitement.”
“I’ll put that on the gate.”
Denise gave him a tired look, but it almost became a smile.
She promised to contact the state office and left before the road iced over again. Wade watched her taillights until they vanished, then returned to the barn.
Noah waited beside the bedding.
“Will she die?”
Wade crouched so he didn’t have to look up at him.
“We’re helping her stay.”
“Can we make her?”
Wade’s hand settled on the boy’s shoulder. “We won’t quit on her.”
Snow began again after dark. By midnight it was driving against the cabin hard enough to work beneath the door. Wade sat near the stove, checking cartridges while Noah slept on a pallet nearby.
Then he heard the metal sound from the ridge.
He went to the window. Lights moved between the trees, higher than the road, stopping and starting where no vehicle should have been traveling.
He stood for several seconds with his hand on the sill.
Then he went to saddle Tuck.
Noah woke as Wade carried the saddle past the cabin door.
“Where are you going?”
“Up the ridge.”
The boy followed him into the barn, dragging his coat on.
“Don’t.”
Wade pulled the cinch tighter than he needed to, then loosened it. His jaw was aching from how hard he’d set it.
“Stay with Lark. Keep the stove going. Don’t come after me.”
“You said you’d come back.”
Wade looked at him. “I mean to.”
He rode out before Noah could answer.
Tuck climbed through the fresh snow with his head low. At a split in the trail, Wade found two sets of vehicle tracks and followed the sharper ones. The wind carried the smell of burning fuel and wet canvas.
A small fire showed through the trees.
Three men sat around it. One had his leg stretched in front of him. Near the truck stood capture poles, a coil of chain, and a folded tarp.
Wade dismounted behind the trees and held Tuck’s reins close to the bit.
“The boss says she’s tagged,” one man said. “Says she’s worth more than this whole load.”
“Then he can come get her.” The injured man shifted and swore. “That kid’s still down there. She won’t leave him.”
Wade brought the rifle up.
He stayed there long enough to know he could still turn around.
Then he fired.
One man went backward off his seat. The others scattered, and shots struck the branches above Wade. Tuck jerked against the reins. Wade fired again as a man moved behind the supply tarp.
A lantern broke. Flame spread through spilled fuel and caught the edge of the canvas.
Wade didn’t wait to see who got up. He mounted, pulled Tuck around, and drove him down the trail while men shouted behind him.
At the barn, Noah was waiting in the doorway with tears drying on his face.
“The stove’s going out,” he said. “And she won’t lie still.”
Wade slid from the saddle and went inside.
Lark had gathered her legs beneath her. Blood had seeped through the bandage, and her shoulder shook as she tried to lift herself.
“Easy.” Wade knelt beside her. “You’ve done enough.”
She pushed against him, unsteady and heavy. He braced one hand along her neck and got clear of her feet.
Noah moved back to the wall.
Lark rose, swayed, and took a single step toward the boy…
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