“Okay, honey, come on,” he said, clicking the flashlight off and stuffing it in his coat pocket. “We’re going to get someplace and warm up. Just a little farther.”
“I can’t feel my feet,” she whispered.
He stood, gripping her wrists, and pulled her upright. She was not a small woman, and it took everything he had. He realized that he also was on the edge of collapse.
With his arm tight around her waist, he walked facing into the driving snow, hoping to run into cliffs at the valley’s edge that would provide a lee. The shapes of trees appeared like specters, and Monks got the dizzying sense that the branches were clutching at them. They stumbled on, slipping and panting, in a nightmare fantasy where all that mattered was the next step toward a goal that they would never reach.
Then he started seeing rocks among the trees-at first stumpy granite boulders thrusting up from the valley floor, then outcroppings and piles of sharp talus. They had come to the base of a mountainside. Up close, in its shelter, the driving snow lost its force and fell as gently as on a Christmas card. Now he could see dimly for ten or fifteen yards. With the dark line of rocks to follow, he decided to take the chance of going on alone to scout for an outcropping that would get them out of the wet. He eased Marguerite back, sitting her down against the slope, then unslung Mandrake and settled him beside her.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he said, then added sternly, “Don’t move, you understand?”
She nodded faintly, eyes closed. It was unlikely that she would try, but she might be hallucinating by this point and stumble off toward some imagined safety.
Monks stood for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to gather whatever strength he had left. Then he walked, fifty yards, a hundred. There were dry patches under cliffs that would be better than nothing, but no real shelter. He pushed on for another hundred yards, aching to collapse, and fearing that if he went much farther he wouldn’t be able to make it back.
Then he saw a break in the cliff face, a darker splotch the size of a car. He got out the flashlight. Its beam showed a cavity ten feet deep, where the cliff base sloped back in. Boulders lay tumbled to the sides like buttresses.
He set the flashlight on a rock, leaving it on so he wouldn’t miss it on his return, and started back to get the others. A fierce giddy elation pierced the numb shield of his fatigue. Now they had a chance to make it through this night.
Monks trudged back to the cave with an armload of firewood, dry branches that he’d snapped off a dead tree. Crouching under the low stone roof, he dumped them on the ground and broke them into shorter lengths under his boot, then built a small circle of brick-sized rocks and filled it with pine duff.
Marguerite lay huddled up, shivering and chattering, watching him through glazed eyes. Mandrake was sprawled in his rucksack like a lifeless doll.
With stiff, shaking hands, Monks lit a match. The pine needles glowed briefly, but didn’t catch. The match went out. So did the next one.
He clamped his teeth tight, concentrating, and pawed through the duff for the driest clumps.
This time, the bristles flared up and stayed lit. He fed the flame with other clumps, then with small twigs, and finally layered bigger sticks onto the rocks in a grid, making sure there was plenty of air flow.
When the fire had built to a crackling blaze that gave off real warmth, he knee-walked to Marguerite, unlaced her boots, and pulled them off.
“Get undressed,” he said.
She started working dully at the zipper of her jacket.
Monks lifted Mandrake out of the pack. The rain had soaked through the back of his snowsuit. That would be another blow to his resistance. Monks pulled the wet clothes off and rubbed him down quickly with his pajamas.
Marguerite had managed to get out of her jacket and was struggling to pull her sweatshirt over her head. Monks freed her from it, then unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off. He had expected that she would be wearing warm underclothes, but she was not, or even a bra and panties, maybe because of her assignation with Hammerhead. He took her by the hands and pulled her to sit close to the fire. Then he picked up Mandrake and laid him in her lap.
“Put your arms around him,” Monks said. “It’ll warm you both up. I’m going for more wood.”
He made three more trips, scouring the dry areas under trees and overhangs, stoking the fire each time he returned to the cave. Finally, he decided that they had enough firewood to last another couple of hours.
He sank back against a stone wall and pulled off his own sodden clothes. Marguerite was cradling Mandrake like a Junoesque Madonna with child, her long black hair spilling down over both of them. Her eyes were closed, her head still sagging in lethargy, but her skin was starting to take on the flush of returning warmth. The lure to warm his own half-frozen flesh was too much to resist. He knelt and clasped her-just for a few seconds, not long enough to risk that the chill might set her back.
Then, astoundingly, he felt the tickle of arousal in his groin.
He moved away in quick embarrassment and got to the other side of the fire.
It brought a whole new level of meaning to the term survival instinct.
Monks squatted at the cave entrance like a savage, gazing out into the quiet night, the rifle resting across his thighs. It was just past five A.M. The fire was subdued to embers, which he kept at a careful level, evenly filling the space with warmth and helping to dry the clothes that he’d spread out on rocks and sticks. Marguerite was more animated, helped by the heat and a couple of candy bars that he had coaxed her to eat, the high-sugar fuel that her depleted body needed. He hadn’t been hungry himself, although he should have been ravenous, and he realized that his appetite was killed by the methamphetamine. But he knew he needed food, and forced himself to chew the tasteless bread and baloney.
Rested, he worked to balance the complex equation of factors and probabilities they faced. The storm seemed to be subsiding, at least temporarily. The visible fire was a risk, the more so as the snow diminished, but the heat was essential, and the longer their clothes could dry, the better. But if the snow stopped, they were going to leave a trail that, come daylight, would be highly visible. A man on a vantage point, with optics, could probably see it from miles away.
If Marguerite was feeling strong enough, it was time to move on again.
He set the rifle upright against the wall and got out the insulin and syringes. He drew a three-unit shot and knelt beside the little boy nestled in her embrace. She had been wetting his mouth every so often, and she watched with anxious eyes as Monks pinched up a fold of skin over Mandrake’s abdomen and slid in the needle.
“Are you up to starting again?” he asked her.
“I guess so.”
“If you’re not sure, we’ll wait.”
“No. I’m okay now. This helped a lot.”
“Then let’s pack up.”
Monks gathered her clothes and gave them to her. They were far from completely dry, but at least they were no longer soaked. Without the pelting rain and wet snow, body heat would help to dry them further. He got his own shirt and jeans, and then realized that she hadn’t moved. Her head was bowed, her face hidden by her hair.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“He’s looking for us.” Her voice was muffled and tremulous. “He’s getting into my head. That’s how he’ll find us.”
Monks stared at her in disbelief. “You mean Freeboot?”
“He’s telling me I should just wait here. He’ll come get me.”
He knelt beside her and gripped her wrist.
“Marguerite, you’re imagining this,” he said. “You’re stressed out, maybe feeling guilty. But Freeboot’s not getting into your head. He might have made you believe he can do that, but he can’t, not really. Nobody can.”