31

BEAR HEARD IT FIRST.

For most of the morning, the dog had been trotting far ahead of them, as though he already knew the way, although the boy had never before brought him up this mountain. They had traveled for hours without speaking, conserving their breath during the climb, Maura trailing last behind the boy. Every step was a struggle for her to keep up. So when Bear suddenly halted on a ledge above them and gave a bark, she thought it was directed at her. A canine version of Come on, lady! What’s taking you so long?

Until she heard the growl. Looking up, she saw he wasn’t focused on her, but was staring east, toward the valley from which they had just ascended. Rat halted and turned to face the same direction. For a moment they were silent. Pine branches creaked. Snow swirled, stirred up by invisible fingers of wind.

Then they heard it: the distant baying of dogs.

“We have to move faster,” said Rat.

“I can’t go any faster.”

“Yes you can.” He reached out to her. “I’ll help you.”

She looked at his outstretched hand. Looked up into his face, filthy and haggard. He has kept me alive all these days, she thought. Now it’s time for me to return the favor.

“You’ll move faster without me,” she said.

“I won’t leave you behind.”

“Yes you will. You’re going to run, and I’m going to sit here and wait for them.”

“You don’t even know who they are.”

“I’ll tell them what happened to the deputy. I’ll explain everything.”

“Please don’t do this. Don’t.” She heard tears break through his voice. “Just come with me. We only have to get over the next mountain.”

“And then what? Do we have to climb the next one, and the next?”

“It’ll just take another day to get there.”

“Get where?”

“Home. My grandpa’s cabin.”

The only safe place he has ever known, she thought. The only place where he’s been loved.

He looked across the valley. There, on the snowy flank of the opposite hill, small dark shapes were moving. “I don’t know where else to go,” he said softly and wiped a filthy sleeve across his eyes. “We’ll be okay there. I know we will.”

It was magical thinking, nothing more, but it was all he had left. Because nothing would ever be okay for him again.

She looked up toward the peak. It was at least half a day’s climb to the top, but it would give them the high ground, if something went wrong. If they had to make a stand.

“Rat,” she said, “if they get too close, if they catch up, you have to promise me one thing. You have to leave me behind. Let me talk to them.”

“What if they don’t want to talk?”

“They could be policemen.”

“So was the last one.”

“I can’t outrun them, but you can. You can probably outrun us all. I’m just slowing you down. So I’ll stay and speak to them. If nothing else, I can buy you enough time to escape.”

He stared at her, dark eyes suddenly shimmering. “You’d really do that?” he asked. “For me?”

She touched a glove to his dirt-streaked face, smearing away tears. “Your mother was crazy,” she said softly. “To ever give up a boy like you.”

Bear gave an impatient woof and stared down at them with a look of What are you two waiting for?

She smiled at the boy. Then she forced her aching legs to move again, and they followed the dog up the mountain.

BY LATE AFTERNOON, they had climbed above the tree cover, and she had no doubt their pursuers could easily spot them, three dark figures moving up the stark white slope. They see us, just as we see them, she thought. Predator and prey, with only a valley separating us. And she was moving far too slowly, her right snowshoe wobbling on her boot, her lungs wheezing in the thin air. Their pursuers were steadily closing the gap. They weren’t tired and tattered and hungry from days in the wilderness; they didn’t have the body of a forty-two-year-old city woman whose idea of exercise was a leisurely walk in the park. How had it come down to this unlikely moment? Slogging up a mountain with a dog of uncertain breed and a cast-off boy who trusted no one, who had every reason not to. These were the only two she could count on out here, these two friends who had already proven themselves again and again.

She looked up the slope at Rat, moving tirelessly up the path ahead of her, and he seemed far younger than sixteen, just a frightened child, clambering up the hillside like a mountain goat. But she had reached the end of her endurance, and now she could scarcely move one foot in front of the other. She struggled up the trail, snowshoes creaking under her weight, her thoughts on the encounter to come. It would happen before nightfall. One way or the other, she thought, by tonight all will be decided. Glancing back, she saw that their pursuers were already emerging from the trees below. So close.

We’ll soon be within their rifle range.

She looked up the mountain again, to the peak still looming far ahead, and the last of her strength seemed to crumble and fall away like ashes.

“Come on!” Rat called down to her.

“I can’t.” She stopped, sagging against a massive boulder, and whispered, “I can’t.”

He scrambled back down to her, scattering powdery snow, and grabbed her arm. “You have to.”

“It’s time to do it,” she said. “Time for you to leave me.”

He pulled harder on her arm. “They’ll kill you.”

She took him by both shoulders and gave him a shake. “Rat, listen to me. It doesn’t matter now what happens to me. I want you to live.”

“No. I won’t leave you.” His voice cracked, shattered into a boy’s sob, a boy’s frantic appeal. “Please try. Please.” He was begging now, his face streaked with tears. He would not stop tugging on her arm, hauling with such determination that she thought he would single-handedly drag her up the mountain, whether she cooperated or not. She let herself be pulled a few more steps up the slope.

Suddenly she heard the crack of wood, felt a bolt of pain shoot up her right ankle as the broken snowshoe collapsed under her weight. She toppled forward, arms splayed out to catch herself, and sank up to her elbows in snow. Spluttering, she struggled to rise, but her right foot would not move.

Rat wrapped an arm around her waist and tried to wrench her free.

“Stop!” she cried out. “My foot’s stuck!”

He dropped to the ground and began tunneling into the snow. Bear stood by, looking bewildered as his master dug like a frenzied dog. “Your boot’s wedged between boulders. I can’t get it free!” He looked up at her, eyes lit with panic. “I’m going to pull. I might be able to get your foot out of the shoe. But it’s going to hurt.”

She looked down the mountain. Any moment, she thought, those men will be within rifle range, and they’d find her trapped like a staked goat. This was not the way she wanted to die. Exposed and helpless. She took a breath and nodded to Rat. “Do it.”

He wrapped both hands around her ankle and began to pull. Pulled so hard that he groaned with the effort, so hard that she thought her foot would be torn apart. The pain ripped a cry from her throat. All at once her foot wrenched free of the boot and she sprawled backward onto the snow.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rat cried. She smelled his sweat and fear, heard him wheezing in the cold as he grabbed her under the arms and hauled her up. Her right foot was clad only in a wool sock, and when she put her weight down on it, her leg sank knee-deep in snow.

“Lean on me. We’ll get up the trail together.” He draped her arm over his neck and grabbed her around the waist. “Come on,” he urged. “You can make it. I know you can make it.”

But can you? With every step they took together, she could feel his muscles straining with the effort. If ever I had a son, she thought, this is the kind of boy I would want him to be. As loyal, as courageous, as Julian Perkins. She clutched him tighter, and the warmth of their bodies mingled as they fought their way up the mountain. This was the son she’d never had and probably never would have. Already they were bonded, their union forged in battle. And I won’t let them hurt him.