“I see. And that makes him utterly trustworthy.” Kali stamped her feet, already missing the warmth of the firebox.
“I didn’t saythat, but he probably won’t try to rape you out there.”
“An admirable quality in a man, I’m sure, but why does he want to go with me? Did you tell him…?” Kali watched her friend’s eyes.
“Only that you were hiring. He came in asking about the folks and businesses in town.”
“Asking?” Kali said. “Like fishing for information?”
“He spoke of doing some prospecting, but I could tell he was a tenderfoot who needed looking after.”
Kali arched her brows. Cedar might be new to the area, but he had already proven he could take care of himself. Besides, the only men Nelly worried about “looking after” were handsome ones.
“I told him he couldn’t prospect for anything in the snow,” Nelly said, “and he might as well settle in and get a job ‘til the streams thawed. Coincidentally, you were hiring.”
“Yes, but Iwasn’thiring.” Kali glowered to let Nelly know she did not appreciate the big-sister interference.
Nelly waved away the glower, unperturbed. “You need someone out there with you, and he’s a fine enough fellow to keep you company. In more ways than one, I’m sure.”
“Nelly.”
“What? You’re too young to act like an old maid. Just because Sebastian was a scheming scoundrel doesn’t mean all men are.”
Kali shook her head. “This one’s up to something sly. He doesn’t seem desperate enough to work for thepossibilityof pay.”
“You’re overthinking this, Kali.” Nelly gave her a friendly shove toward the sled. “It’s a three-day race. How much trouble could you two get into?”
Kali found it impossible to dismiss her glower as she returned to the furnace.
Part III
Daylight brought little reprieve from the cold. The sun occasionally peeped through a cloud, but it provided only light, not warmth. The wind continued, whistling down the river valley between snow-smothered hills dotted with spruce trees. Kali’s sled chugged along at the rear of the pack. The next slowest sled disappeared around a bend ahead.
“Should we be concerned?” Cedar asked.
He jogged beside Kali, frosty breaths puffing before him. Though he wore a heavy pack, the pace did not appear to bother him, and his sure feet never slipped on the ice. She steered from the rear of her contraption, riding footboards as a real musher would. She would have preferred to create a seat up front so she did not have to peer past the gray plumes of smoke rising from the stack, but Francis had insisted she build something that looked and drove like a real dog sled.
“No,” she said. “The dogs will get tired. My girl won’t. We’ll make up lots of ground after we get off the river at Forty Mile. The return route goes through the hills.” Kali patted the side of the smokestack with a gloved hand. “Welovehills.”
He eyed her sidelong, probably thinking her odd. He wasn’t the first.
Something glinted on the hillside ahead, like sunlight bouncing off a watch or a spyglass. Kali frowned. Trailsdidrun through the forest up and down the river, but few traversed them in the winter. And she and Cedar were more than ten miles outside of town.
His face had turned toward the hill too.
“Did you see it?” she asked.
“Perhaps nothing,” he said.
“And perhaps something.”
“Yes.”
Cedar removed his rifle from his back and flipped the safety off. For the first time, Kali got a good look at it. Meticulously cared for, the Winchester 1890 had a fancy checkered walnut stock and engraved inlays.
“Nice rifle.” Kali arched her eyebrows. “Though not the kind of weapon you expect from someone desperate enough to sign on for work with a gal who can only pay him if she wins a race.”
“Bad economy of late.”
“Uh huh.” Kali checked to ensure her father’s old Winchester 1873 was in reach. Nobody would call her an expert marksman, but she had taught herself enough to be deadly-occasionally to animals instead of herself. Thanks to a couple modifications, it fired more rapidly than normal as well.
“Will the other teams stop and come back to help if there’s trouble?” Cedar asked.
She snorted. “It’s a race for one thousand dollars. What do you think?”
He turned a steady, considering gaze toward her.
“Probably not,” she said. “Even if they put human life above money-which isn’t all that common out here-I’m not the best liked girl in town.”
“Because you’re a witch?”
“I’m not a witch,” Kali snapped.
His eyebrow twitched.
“It’s none of your business.” She studied the hill, but no movement or further glints came from that direction. That did not reassure her. There were not as many hiding places as during spring and summer, when dense green undergrowth cloaked the hills, but the evergreen trees offered plenty of cover.
“Down!” Cedar shouted.
Even as Kali ducked, a rifle cracked. The bullet clanged against the metal frame of the sled and ricocheted off. She heaved on the brake lever and stopped the machine a heartbeat before Cedar grabbed her and dragged her to the side of it.
They crouched behind the boiler, using it for a shield. Something that would only work if attackers waited on only one side of the river. She wouldn’t count on it.
Cedar rose, laid his rifle across the sacks and supplies loaded on the front of the sled, and fired. A return shot came promptly, but he ducked in time. The bullet hammered into the ice behind them.
“Did you see him?” Kali slid her own rifle out, grabbed a wooden box, and put her back against the sled. She scanned the shoreline and the hills on their side of the river.
“Them,” Cedar said.
“Oh, them. Of course. They might get lonely planning ambushes without friends.”
Several meters in front of her, a branch dumped a load of snow. Too much weight building up over time? Or had someone bumped it? Kali went down on one knee, pressed the stock of the rifle into her shoulder, and watched over the sights.
Cedar fired again, then dropped to reload. “See something over there?”
“Perhaps nothing.”
“And perhaps something?” He smiled as he quoted her words back to her. God, was he enjoying this? What a nut. “Stay here. When their rifles are empty and they’re reloading, I’m going after the ones on the hill.”
“Youarea nut.”
“I prefer offense to defense.”
She thumbed open the wooden box. Four shiny brass globes rested on velvet inside, each one half the size of her fist. She slid one into each parka pocket and returned the box to the sled.
“What are those?” Cedar asked.
Before she could answer, he leaned out and cracked a shot. Return fire pounded the sled and the ice. Cedar nodded to himself with each shot, counting rounds, Kali guessed.
The last one clanked off the boiler. Kali clenched her fist. If they ruptured the boiler, there would be more trouble than a little gunplay….
“Quit shooting at my sled, you bastards!” she yelled.
Cedar must have decided their attackers had spent their rounds, for he lunged around the corner and sprinted across the ice. The idiot was going to get himself shot before he reached the cover of the trees. Nelly should have put intelligence down as a prerequisite for the job, not pugilism.
The branch that had dumped snow a moment before shivered. Someone swaddled in furs leaned out, a rifle in hand. Kali fired instinctively.
The person ducked back behind the tree for cover, but left blood on the branch. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, debating. From that side of the river, she was an easy target, but to move around the sled would open her up to the people firing from the hill.