At the moment there was no sign of Spivey's people. Of course, he could not see particularly far down into the shadowed woods. Although the trees were not as densely grown on the slope immediately under him as they were on the lower hills, nevertheless they appeared to close up into a wall no more than a hundred or a hundred and twenty yards below.
Beyond that point, an army could have been approaching, and he would have been unable to see it. And the wind, whistling and moaning across the top of the ridge, evoked a noisy hissing and rustling from the branches of the enormous trees, masking any sounds that pursuers might have made.
Instinctively, however, Charlie sensed that the cultists were still at least twenty minutes behind, maybe even farther back.
Climbing toward the top of the ridge, slowed down by Joey, Charlie had been sure they were losing precious lead time. But now he remembered that Spivey's gang would ascend cautiously, wary of another ambush, at least for the first quarter or half a mile, until their confidence returned. Besides, they had probably stopped to have a look in the cabin and had wasted a few minutes there.
He had plenty of time to arrange a little welcoming party for them.
He went to Christine and Joey, knelt beside them.
The boy was still detached, almost catatonic, even unaware of the dog rubbing affectionately against his leg.
To Christine, Charlie said, "We'll head down into the next valley, as far as we can go in five minutes, find a place for you to get out of the weather a little. Then I'll come straight back here and wait for them."
"No."
"I should be able to pick off at least one before they dive for cover."
"No," Christine said, shaking her head adamantly." If you're going to wait here for them, we wait with you."
"Impossible. Once I'm finished shooting, I want to be able to clear out fast, make a run for it. If you're here with me, we'll have to move slow. We'll lose too much of our lead on them."
"I don't think we should separate."
"It's the only way."
"It scares me."
"I've got to keep picking them off if I can."
She bit her lip." It still scares me."
"It won't be dangerous for me."
"Like hell it won't."
"No. Really. I'll be above them when I start shooting. I'll be well concealed. They won't know where the fire's coming from until it's too late, until I've already pulled out. I'll have all the advantages."
"Maybe they won't even follow us up here."
"They will."
"It's not an easy hike."
"We made it. They can, too."
"But Spivey's an old woman. She isn't up to this sort of thing."
"So they'll leave her behind at the cabin with a couple of guards, and the rest of them will come after us. I have to make it hard for them, Christine. I have to kill all of them if I can. I swear to you, an ambush won't be dangerous. I'll shoot one or two of them and slip away before they even have a chance to spot my location and return my fire."
She said nothing.
"Come on," he said." We're wasting time."
She hesitated, nodded, and got up." Let's go."
She was one hell of a woman. He didn't know many men who would have come this far without complaint, as she had done, and he didn't think he knew any other woman who would consent to being left alone in the middle of this frozen forest under these circumstances, regardless of how necessary the separation might be. She had as much emotional strength and stability as she had beauty.
Not far north along the ridge line, he found where the deer trail continued, and they followed it down into the next valley.
The path made two switchback turns to avoid the steepest slopes and take full advantage of the friendliest contours of the land.
Charlie hoped to lead them most of the way to the bottom before turning back to set the trap for Spivey's people. In five minutes, however, because the deer trail added distance as well as ease to the journey downward, they had not reached the floor of the valley, were not even halfway there.
He found a place where the trail turned a corner and passed urider a rocky overhang, creating a protected hollow, not a fullfledged cave but the next best thing, out of the wind and out of what little snow sifted down through the trees. At the far end of the niche, opposite the curve in the trail, the hillside bulged out, forming a wall, so that the natural shelter was enclosed on three of its four sides.
"Wait here for me," Charlie said." Better break off some of the dead branches toward the center of that big spruce over there, start a fire."
"But you'll only be gone. what. twenty or twenty-five minutes'? Doesn't seem like it's worth the effort to build a fire just for that long."
"We've been moving ever since we left the cabin," he said.
"We've continuously generated body heat. But sitting here, unmoving, you'll start to notice the cold more."
"We're wearing insulated-"
"Doesn't matter. You'll probably still need the fire. If you don't, Joey will. He doesn't have an adult's physical resources."
"All right. Or… we could keep moving, heading down along the deer trail, until you catch up with us."
"No. It's too easy to get lost in these woods. There might be branches in the trail. You might even pass one without seeing it, but I might see it, and then I wouldn't know for sure which way you went."
She nodded.
He said, "Build the fire here, on the trail, but just out beyond the overhang. That way the smoke won't collect under here with you, but you'll still be able to feel the heat."
" Won't they see the smoke?" Christine asked.
"No. They're still beyond the ridge, with no clear view of the sky." He quickly unstrapped the snowshoes from his backpack.
"Doesn't matter if they see it, anyway. I'll be between you and them, and I hope to take out at least one of them, maybe two, and make them lie low for at least ten minutes. By the time they get started again, this fire'll be out, and we'll be on down in the valley." He hurriedly slipped off his backpack, dropped it, kept only his rifle and pocketsful of ammunition." Now I've got to get back up there."
She kissed him.
Joey seemed unaware of his departure.
He headed back the way they had come, along the narrow deer path, not exactly running, but hurrying, because it was going to take longer to go up than it had to come down, and he didn't have a lot of time to waste.
Leaving Christine and Joey alone in the forest was the most difficult thing he had ever done.
Joey and Chewbacca waited under the rocky overhang while Christine went into the trees to collect dead wood for a fire.
Underneath the huge spreading branches that were green and healthy, close to the trunks, the evergreens provided a lot of dead branches thick with old pine cones and crisp brown needles that would make excellent tinder. These were all dry because the upper, living branches stopped the snow far above. Furthermore, the weight of those snow-bent upper branches had cracked and splintered the dead wood underneath, so she found it relatively easy to wrench and break off the kindling she needed. She swiftly assembled a big pile of it.
In short order, with a squirt of lighter fluid and a single match, she had a roaring blaze in front of the cul-de-sac where she and Joey and the dog took shelter. As soon as she felt the warmth of the fire, she realized how deeply the cold had sunk into her bones in spite of all the winter clothing she wore, and she knew it would have been dangerous to wait here, unmoving, without the fire.
Joey slumped back against a wall of rock and stared at the fire with a blank expression, with eyes that looked like two flat ovals of polished glass, empty of everything except the reflection of the leaping flames.