For twenty-three winters, Amos Vale had lived high enough in the Colorado mountains that ordinary human voices no longer belonged to his world. He measured time by snowpack, animal tracks, the condition of the creek beneath the ice, and the number of times wind stripped needles from the lodgepole pines. He had not kept a proper calendar in years. He had not needed one.
The mountain gave him everything he required and nothing he could not understand.
Cold punished carelessness.
Hunger punished laziness.
A poorly tied knot failed.
Rotten timber broke.
A storm never pretended to love a man while quietly planning to ruin him.
People were different.
That was why Amos preferred the mountain.
On the January morning Lavinia Beaumont entered his life, he was three miles from his cabin checking a line of traps when he heard a sound no animal made.
Timber snapped.
A horse screamed.
Then silence fell across the ravine.
Amos stopped.
His gloved hand settled instinctively near the rifle hanging against his shoulder.
He waited.
A second scream never came.
Only wind moved through the trees.
He changed direction.
Ten minutes later he stood above an abandoned logging road looking down at a black Concord coach half buried in mud and snow.
One axle had split.
A horse lay trapped beside it.
The second horse was gone.
So was the driver.
Amos saw the bootprints immediately.
One man.
Running downhill.
The fool had cut the good horse free and saved himself.
Amos remained behind a deadfall until the coach door moved.
A woman kicked it open.
He had expected screaming.
Instead she crawled out, fell to one knee, pushed herself upright, and walked toward the injured horse.
That surprised him.
Her clothes made no sense at that elevation.
Expensive wool.
Silk beneath.
Leather boots meant for city pavement.
A dark traveling coat trimmed with velvet.
Her brown hair had partly escaped its pins and blew across a face made pale by cold.
She knelt beside the horse.
The animal’s eyes rolled wildly.
The carriage frame pinned one ruined foreleg.
The woman put her hand against its neck.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
It was not.
Amos came out from behind the trees.
Her head snapped up.
He saw assessment before fear.
Good.
Fear made people stupid.
Assessment sometimes kept them alive.
“Your driver left you.”
His voice sounded strange even to him.
Unused.
Rough.
The woman looked toward the footprints.
“I noticed.”
Amos stopped several yards away.
She looked at the rifle.
Then the knife at his belt.
Then his fur coat.
“Can you help the horse?”
“No.”
Her jaw tightened.
“What do you mean, no?”
Amos walked past her.
The horse trembled.
He crouched beside it.
The woman saw his hand move toward the knife.
“What are you doing?”
Amos did not answer.
He ended the animal’s suffering quickly.
When he stood, the woman had gone white.
But she had not screamed.
“It was suffering.”
“I know.”
Her voice shook only slightly.
Amos wiped the blade.
“You’re five miles from the valley road.”
She looked toward the sky.
“The driver will bring help.”
“No.”
She turned.
“You cannot know that.”
“He cut the healthy horse loose.”
“So?”
“So he plans on reaching town before dark.”
“Yes.”
“Without you.”
Understanding entered her expression.
Amos continued.
“Sun is gone in less than an hour.”
“The temperature will drop hard.”
“You stay here, you die.”
She pulled her coat tighter.
“Can you take me down?”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“I don’t go down.”
For the first time, anger overcame her composure.
“I am stranded in a destroyed coach in the middle of a mountain in January, and you’re discussing your travel preferences?”
“My cabin is uphill.”
“How far?”
“One mile.”
“Then take me there.”
“That was already the offer.”
He turned.
Behind him she called:
“I have trunks.”
“They’ll survive until spring.”
“I need them.”
“You need fingers more.”
He kept walking.
For five seconds he heard nothing.
Then boots sucked free from mud behind him.