Lewis was busy seasoning the wheat he’d just boiled, with strips of rabbit cooking on the stovetop nearby, when Trev burst into the hideout.
“You’ve got to see this!” he said, doing his best not to shout.
His cousin immediately drew his 1911, holding it ready to quickly raise and aim. “Intruders?”
Trev couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “Kind of. You’ll have to wait and see. Come on.” He turned and started back down the gentle slope toward the cliffs overlooking the road.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lewis demanded, standing at the threshold so he wouldn’t get snow on his socks and shivering at the icy blasts of wind swirling into the lean-to around him. “I’ve got food cooking!”
“Take it off the stove. Believe me, it’ll be worth it.”
Trev kept on going, and about a minute later his cousin trotted down the path they’d trampled through the deep snow to catch up to him. His boots were untied and he was still pulling on his heavy coat, and his irritation looked like it was about to boil over into actual anger. “Seriously, man, “Wait and see” is not the right response to a potentially dangerous situation.”
Trev grinned and took the last few steps to the edge of the cliff, motioning towards the road south of them. “So why don’t you show me what the proper response is.”
Grumbling to himself, Lewis accepted the binoculars Trev offered him and followed his pointing finger. He spent a few tense moments adjusting the range and getting a good look at the three approaching people, then slowly lowered the binoculars again to let them hang from the strap around his neck as he continued to gape southward. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”
Grin widening, Trev stepped up beside his cousin. “That’s what I thought. Should we go welcome our guests?”
His cousin thoughtfully reached up and tugged at his full beard. They’d made it a point to bathe regularly and do the necessary trimming and grooming, but as the days got colder and colder they’d both taken to letting their hair grow out to provide that added bit of warmth. Trev couldn’t grow a very good beard, mostly on his jaw and neck, but it still warmed his face.
He got the hint. “I suppose if they’re still an hour or so away we could take some time to make ourselves presentable.”
Matt left Tom and Jane behind at the road with his backpack while he crossed the river on the familiar rocks and started up the slope towards his friends’ hideout.
He wasn’t about to give out Trev and Lewis’s secrets to anyone, even if he trusted the two new residents of Aspen Hill well enough. They’d certainly pointed out where he’d expected to find the “Spirits of Huntington River” who’d saved them from bandits last Halloween. It had been a few miles to the south of here, but it strongly supported his suspicions about Trev and Lewis being the ones who’d helped the refugees.
On the way across the river he nearly slipped on the icy rocks, barely catching himself before tumbling into the partially frozen-over water, and he muttered in annoyance under his breath. He’d known it was going to still be winter up in the mountains, probably for another few months yet, and had prepared accordingly. But at the same time it was a bit of a pain to leave during the first relatively mild days of spring down in the valley and come up here to trudge through several feet of snow in temperatures well below freezing to search for his friends.
Trev and Lewis may have had a good reason doing it, but he still thought they were crazy to come live up here where snow stuck around for 9 months of the year. Assuming they were still alive at all. Matt shook aside that grim thought and started up the slope, finding it even more slippery and treacherous than he remembered with all the snow around.
They were alive. If an idiot like him had managed to muddle through the winter with his family those two would be just fine. They had to be.
He was perfectly certain of that, but it didn’t stop him from picking up the pace.
A recent snowfall had been hard enough to drift a layer of snow under the dense trees growing up the steep slope, covering the treacherous deadfall underfoot, and although he didn’t see any sign of a trail Matt thought the snow was a bit deeper to either side of the route he’d taken. The familiar one he’d hiked up with his friends a few times on fishing trips when they were much younger.
Was it possible there was a trail buried under this snow, that his friends had used to get down to the river for fishing or to draw water? If so they hadn’t used it recently.
It took longer than he’d expected to reach the bottom of the cliffs and the treacherous gap that would allow him to climb up to the landing above with a bit of work. On the broken rocks there he finally saw what he’d been hoping for, the scuff of a boot print in the dirt that had gathered in one of the cracks. It was concealed from wind and snow by a slight overhang, but even so it couldn’t have been there for more than a few weeks.
Grinning in relief, he pulled himself the rest of the way up to the top of the cliffs, pausing for a moment to peer down at the road below, where Jane and Tom still waited. The trees down below partially obscured his view of them, and considering that he waved and they didn’t wave back it must have obscured their view of him as well.
“State your business.”
Matt was so surprised he almost fell off the cliff as he whirled and fumbled at the .40 on his belt. Then he recognized the voice and relaxed. “Seriously, guys? You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Trev popped up from behind a snowbank to his left, grinning like an idiot, while off to the right Lewis stepped from behind a bush. The older cousin started forward calmly to meet him, while Trev bounded through the snow to pull him into a crushing hug.
Matt was surprised at how healthy the two looked. Their faces were leaner than he remembered, sure, but not in a way that suggested hunger. And while Trev’s winter clothes made guessing his weight impossible Matt could tell by the strength of his arms that he had muscle under there. They were both clean-shaven, Lewis with a few small nicks on his cheeks, and their hair had been carefully trimmed and combed. And speaking as someone who’d lived with seven other people in close quarters Matt also had to admit they didn’t smell that bad either, all things considered.
What did you know, living up in the mountains in the dead of winter and the two were doing just fine.
He had a feeling his grin was probably as goofy as his friend’s as he stepped away from Trev to grip Lewis’s offered hand. That grip was also nearly crushing, suggesting strength hidden beneath those bulky clothes. “The Spirits of Huntington River,” he said, looking between the two.
Trev frowned. “What?”
Matt motioned down at his traveling companions below. “We had a group of refugees come in around Thanksgiving, and the two people with me are actually part of that group. One of the reasons they came along is because they wanted to thank you. They told us they’d been saved from bandits in this area by some mysterious figure, and since it happened on Halloween that’s what they started calling him.” Matt paused. “Or in this case them. That was you, right?”
Lewis snorted, glancing over at Trev. “So we’re dead and haunting this place, eh? Guess the townspeople prefer it that way.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Matt said, feeling a bit guilty even though he hadn’t helped Anderson’s group empty out the shelter. “Listen, Ferris and his FETF goons ditched us a week or so before Thanksgiving, during the Indian summer before cold really set in. They packed up the rest of the town’s food supplies in bicycle trailers and pedaled off for good, leaving us to manage things on our own again. And good riddance.”