They camped without a fire at a place where the trail broke from the heavy cover of pines and led across an alpine meadow. Just beyond the trees on the far side, the land climbed a steep slope with a rocky face that even in good daylight would have been dangerous to attempt. They positioned themselves along a stream where the horses could water. With the stub of a pencil he’d found in the pocket of his coat, Parmer had been tracking their progress on the map Kosmo had provided, and he calculated that they’d gone nearly fifteen miles. While Parmer hobbled their horses for the night, Cork tried the radio in order to report their final location, but he got only static. They settled in between two fallen trees that provided some protection and didn’t light a fire for fear Nightwind might see.
“How much farther, you think?” Parmer asked as they sat eating tuna and crackers.
“To the cabin? Only Nightwind knows that.”
“Think he knows we’re following?”
“He’d be a fool to believe that somebody wasn’t.”
“How do you think he’ll do it? If he decides to jump us, I mean?” Parmer didn’t sound nervous, just interested.
“I’ve been trying to think like Nightwind,” Cork said. “What is it he really wants out of this?”
“To get away?”
“Get away to what? The woman he loved is dead. He’s given up his ranch. And I keep thinking about that note. Unfinished business. What business?”
“I hope to God we have a chance to ask him,” Parmer said.
In the rain and without moonlight or even the ambient light of the stars, they were nearly blind. Parmer, just a few feet away, was almost invisible. Only from the occasional snort and the clap of a shoe on an exposed stone did Cork know where the horses were hobbled.
“Cork?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really believe it’s possible Jo’s still alive?”
Cork didn’t answer.
“I mean, where would he have kept her all this time?”
“I don’t know what’s possible anymore. I couldn’t have imagined that anyone would survive what happened in Bodine’s plane, but she did.”
“Could she be his unfinished business?”
“I wish I knew, Hugh. I wish to Christ I knew. Let’s get some sleep.”
He pulled his blanket around him but didn’t sleep immediately. He spent a long time staring into a dark that was full of things unknown.
In the night, the drizzle turned to snow, and in the morning, in a shroud of falling white, the two men rose, donned their body armor, mounted their horses, and continued after Nightwind.
They rode through the day without incident, the whole time in snowfall. Periodically they stopped to rest the horses, but only briefly. In the afternoon, the snow came down harder and a wind kicked up. The blowing mess cut their field of vision to less than a hundred yards. Nightwind’s tracks became harder to follow. Cork knew that the snow and the clouds would bring an early dark, and he was worried he would lose his quarry. Every hour or so, he or Parmer tried to raise Kosmo on the radio, to no avail. They both understood that until the weather cleared they were cut off and alone.
Late in the afternoon, they came to a stream that issued from what appeared to be a deep canyon. The tracks of Nightwind’s horse led beside the stream and into the canyon.
Parmer checked the map. “Dead-ends a couple miles farther.”
Cork balked at following the tracks. In a canyon, if Nightwind knew he was being followed, it would be easy for him to establish a vantage above and pick them off. And the dead end was doubly disconcerting. Cork’s natural inclination was to climb to higher ground and try to track from above. But if he did that, he might lose Nightwind for good and in doing so lose any hope of finding Jo.
“We split up here,” he finally said. “You head up, follow the rim. I’ll stay below with the stream.”
Parmer looked ahead into the canyon. “If he’s going to jump you, this is where he’ll do it.”
“It’s where I’d do it,” Cork agreed.
“If that happens, do your best to keep him busy,” Parmer said. “I’ll get behind him as fast as I can. If you hit the end of the canyon and nothing’s gone down, backtrack and I’ll meet you here and we can figure what to do next.”
They shook hands. Parmer turned his horse up the slope and began to mount toward the canyon rim. Cork made sure the magazine on his Savage 110 was full, and he chambered a round. He cradled the rifle across his lap and urged his horse ahead at a walk.
In the protection of the canyon, the wind ceased to be a problem, but the snow still dropped a translucent curtain all around. Above him, the rock walls, dotted with juniper and scrub brush and jumbles of broken rock, rose up and disappeared in the snowfall. The ground snow was deeper here, sometimes reaching midway to the horse’s knees, and the only sign of the trail was the mess left by the passage of Nightwind. Judging from the lack of drift in the prints, Cork figured the man wasn’t far ahead.
Fifteen minutes into the canyon, the trail ended abruptly. The prints of Nightwind’s horse simply stopped. The snow ahead was unmarred, as if the man Cork had been tracking had vanished into thin air. He realized that Nightwind had backtracked and was behind him.
He spun his horse just as the first shot came. Cork felt a club hit him in the middle of his chest, and he was knocked from the saddle. He hit the ground and his horse charged back the way it had come. Cork lay facedown in the snow, still as death. His chest hurt like hell, but the Kevlar vest Kosmo had provided him had stopped a round that would have pierced his heart. He waited, barely breathing. Finally he heard the crunch of Nightwind’s boots in the snow. The man stopped a couple of feet away.
“Christ,” Nightwind said. “Didn’t I warn you?”
He stepped closer and knelt. He laid his rifle in the snow and slid his hands under Cork’s body to turn him faceup. Cork made his move. As he rolled over, he reached up and grabbed Nightwind’s coat. He caught the man off guard and flung him easily to the ground. Not two feet away from Cork lay the rifle. He snatched it up and swung the barrel toward Nightwind, who’d scrambled to a crouch and was about to launch himself.
“Move and you’re the dead man,” Cork said.
Nightwind froze. He studied Cork, his body tensed while he weighed his options. Finally he relaxed, abandoned his crouch, and stood to his full height. “Now what?”
Cork rose to his feet, keeping the rifle trained dead center on Nightwind’s chest. “Now you tell me about my wife.”
“And then what?”
“Then I take you back.”
Nightwind shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re not in a position to bargain.”
“On the contrary, I’ve got what you want most and I don’t intend to give it to you without getting what I want in return.”
“Which is what?”
“You let me go.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then your wife is lost to you forever.”
Cork said, “Not necessarily. Right now I’m thinking I might string you up and have a go at you the same way you did Gully.”
Again Nightwind shook his head. “Uh-uh. That’s not you, O’Connor.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of. Especially where my wife is concerned.”
“I know you love her and I know how that feels. My whole life Ellyn’s been everything to me. Whatever I’ve done and tried to do it was for her. That freedom I’m asking you for, it’s about her and about love.”
“How so?”
“Why do you think I headed into these mountains? Just to run? Hell, I’ve got nothing to run to. Everything I care about is gone. Ellyn. My ranch. A future. I figured up here I could regroup and then go after the men who killed Ellyn because I’m damn sure they’ll be coming after me. It would have been easier for me if you hadn’t crippled my planes.”