Matt left the packing behind and went over to shake their hands. “Thanks for seeing we needed help and calling in the cavalry,” he told the redheaded woman, who simply nodded. He turned to her companion. “How are you, Tom?”
“Starving,” the older man said with a shrug. “Otherwise can’t complain.”
A somewhat uncomfortable silence fell as everyone waited for the other to say something. Finally Matt glanced back at his backpack. “So, uh, did you need something? I was about to go on a trip for the town.”
Jane jerked her head at Tom. “That’s why we’re here. Mayor Tillman wanted someone to go with you and we volunteered.”
Matt frowned slightly. He’d come to respect Jane’s ability and thoroughness out on patrol, and the women was polite enough when he talked to her, but she’d kept herself aloof from the town and even those who went on patrol with her. Especially the refugees. Matt didn’t know if she’d always been standoffish or it was thanks to whatever she’d suffered before coming to Aspen Hill, but Jane Mathers wasn’t around to make friends. “You volunteered? Why?”
The redheaded woman shrugged. “The extra payment of food made it a tempting offer, and we were through that area more recently than anyone else so we can be useful.” She shrugged again. “Besides, if the guys you’re going after are the same ones who saved us from those bandits I’d like to meet them. Get their autograph, express my undying gratitude, you know.”
Matt turned to look at Tom, who sighed. “It’s not my idea of a fun way to spend however many days it takes to get there and back, but my family needs the food. Besides, I feel like I owe it to Jane, and to Mitch, to look after her. We wouldn’t be here without their leadership and protection.”
If anything Jane looked almost annoyed by the high praise as she waved at Matt’s pack. “Got everything you need? It’s going to be cold up in the mountains.”
“Yeah, I’m set.” Matt went over and started to pick up his pack. “Let’s go talk to the Mayor about food for the trip.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Sam asked, turning him around and standing on tiptoes to kiss him with surprising fierceness. He got the hint when she didn’t show any signs of breaking it off, holding him tight in a way that suggested she wasn’t letting go anytime soon. After a few seconds he got over his surprise and let the backpack drop out of his hand so he could wrap his arms around his wife. Neither of them had had the energy for this sort of thing for what felt like forever, and he wasn’t about to complain.
An impatient cough from Jane brought him back to the present. He pulled back to see her and Tom still waiting by the door, the older man grinning at them. Meanwhile, familiar with the necessities of living in cramped quarters with multiple couples, including newlyweds, April was already shooing the boys out the door while Terry and their parents followed close behind.
Matt felt his face redden, and he gave his traveling companions a sheepish look. “I, um, need to say goodbye. Can I meet you at the storehouse a bit later?”
Even as important as this task was, out of necessity Catherine’s generosity could only extend so far. She allotted them enough food for four days, the bare minimum needed to get to the cousins’ hideout near Candland Mountain in snowy conditions from where they were, then back again. Matt had taken the backroads up to there riding in the Halssons’ SUV and knew the way, which was good since Jane and her group had gotten lost and taken an incredibly circuitous route to get to Aspen Hill.
He was willing to allow that it was possible to make the distance there and back in that time on foot, but he had no idea how the terrain combined with deep snow would complicate things, especially since they were all weakened by hunger. It almost annoyed him that Catherine’s solution to that was that they’d certainly reach the hideout in four days, and if worse came to worst they could always take whatever provisions they needed for the trip back out of the food the town was purchasing from the cousins.
The Mayor was a sensible woman, not one for making assumptions, but he supposed in desperate times they had to take a leap of faith.
He kept a steady pace after they set out, slowing down rather than stopping whenever any of them looked winded, and having them eat their meals of crudely dried meat as they walked. They all carried the water bottles they were currently drinking from in their coats to keep them from freezing, which Matt insisted on since eating snow would only chill them and sap strength they needed for walking. He planned to light a fire when they stopped for the night, not only for warmth but so that they could melt more water to fill their bottles and get a good long drink, then hopefully keep whatever they melted unfrozen for the next day’s hike.
Compared to the hikes he’d done last fall their pace was fairly slow and he’d never felt so exhausted, thanks in part to hunger and in part to a mostly uphill climb. That first day they made enough distance to get up beyond where the snow piled around their ankles to where it piled to their knees or even their hips in some places.
With their packs they couldn’t hope to walk on the crust without sinking, some places a few inches and some places a few feet, wading through powder and barking their shins on the icy crust with each step. Matt regretted not thinking to bring snowshoes, but as long as they picked their path carefully they should be fine. At the very least there’d been no sign of any storms when they set out, and the weather continued to remain clear, if colder up at these elevations.
They’d made about half the distance in half a day, but unfortunately it was the easiest distance. Now they had deep snow and steeper inclines to contend with, which would make it a question of how long it would take to cover the rest of the distance the next day, if they even could. Matt was optimistic as he helped set up camp, though, estimating that with an early start they’d reach Highway 31 sometime in the afternoon. From there it wouldn’t be long to the hideout.
The morning dawned clear and cold, and Matt was pleased to discover that the-relatively-warmer temperatures yesterday that had softened the snow and made it such a chore to trudge through had resulted in a solid frozen crust that held their weight even in their packs as long as they stepped carefully. He had them quickly break camp and continue on, eating breakfast as they went. The snow crust carried them for a few hours, but it wasn’t the heat of the rising sun that made it disappear.
They’d come high enough that even during the day it wasn’t warm enough to melt much of a crust to freeze on the snow. From here on out they’d be wading through powder the rest of the way, a tradeoff of lighter snow that was easier to kick through, but up to their hips or higher so every step was a chore. Their speed cut down dramatically, and Matt was sure he wasn’t the only one whose muscles began to burn so fiercely he was forced to rest no matter how slow they’d been going. Tom especially was red-faced and huffing, the strain in his expression giving the lie to his insistence that he was ready to move on at the end of each rest.
But finally they reached the highway, a bit later than Matt had estimated but not too far off course. The road itself wasn’t much better than anywhere else with snow piled high along it, but at least the railings to either side had gathered snowdrifts from the prevailing winds and left the powder not quite as deep on the far side.
Grinning with relief, Matt crossed to the lee side of the railing and led his companions north for the final short leg of their trip.