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Montani Semper Liberi

"Mountaineers are always free men" (Book Two of Mountain Evasion) Silence filled the shadowy recesses of the granite gulley; the echoes of the blast and of the resulting rockslide having several minutes before reverberated and died out, the dust beginning to settle in the dusky light of that increasingly overcast March evening. The men on the ledge, scrambling to tend to their wounded, had little thought at that moment to spare for their erstwhile prisoner, who had disappeared into the dust and smoke and flying rock as the ledge had fractured and given way before the force of the explosion. Far below and too faint to be heard over the shouts of the deputies and agents on the ledge, there was a faint stirring on the gulley floor; up against the rock wall a freshly broken flake of granite scraped and slid and flipped over, then another. A sign of life

Slowly fighting his way back to consciousness after the blast, Einar, covered with dust, found himself pressed up against the rock face on the blast side of the narrow rocky chute where he had come to rest after his fall, much of the rock having been thrown clear of him to land against the far wall. A number of chunks of fractured rock had come to rest on his lower body, pinning him to the ground, and he worked to free himself, lifting and shoving them one by one, glad that none of the jagged fragments were too heavy for him to move. The gulley was still full of dust, the acrid smell of freshly broken granite hanging heavily in the air, reminding him of times when he had been up high and too close for comfort when lightning struck rock, and Einar knew he had not been out for long. His thinking was muddled and slow from the concussion that had knocked him out, but something screamed at him to move! Get out of here! Shoving at the rocks, he was beset by a sudden wave of nausea, turned his head and vomited, saw that there was blood in the vomit. It took him a minute to realize, to his relief, that the blood was coming from a freely bleeding laceration on his cheek, rather than being an indicator of some type of serious internal injury. Which I may end up having, anyway Turning his head to look up at the route of his fall, he was sent sprawling onto his back by an overwhelming surge of dizziness. When the rock walls around him had finally stopped spinning to the point that he was again able to make some sense of the world and attempt sitting up, Einar quickly tried to assess the damage, and found that in addition to one side of his face being coated with blood from the wound where a rock had grazed his cheek, his head throbbed sickeningly, and the ribs that had previously been injured were again tender and painful. Gingerly probing the side of his head where the pain seemed to be originating from, he found his hair damp with oozing blood, a lump the size of an egg already forming just above and forward of his left ear. Well. Thats not so good. Head trauma with loss of consciousness Anything else? Unaware of the most immediately serious of his

injuries until he deliberately inspected his legs, Einar discovered a deep gash just under his left knee which had already produced quite a pool of blood on the rock beneath him. Thats a lot of blood. Got to stop that. He quickly tore a strip out of the already damaged leg of his orange prison uniform, tore another piece and wadded it up against the wound, then tied a strip tightly around his leg to hopefully provide enough pressure to halt the bleeding. He fumbled with the strip, eventually getting it tied despite the handcuffs he was encumbered with. I can get these off, but not here and now. No time. Bruised, bleeding and beginning to be in serious pain, Einar told himself that at least youre conscious, you can move, youre not bleeding to death any more. Go up. They wont expect you to go up. But he was feeling awfully weak and dizzy and was pretty sure he was going into shock. The pool of blood beneath his leg, while it had stopped growing, was not insignificant. Yeah, well you cant exactly lie still and elevate your feet right now Einar, so just get movinghope you can somehow keep it up long enough He didnt know what was going on up on the ledge, or where the ledge had beenthat recipe worked a little better than I thought it wouldbut could hear the occasional shout, and supposed they must have sustained some injuries. Glancing quickly aroundand regretting it the next minute for the stabbing pain and dizziness it set off in his head Einar decided that there was no obvious way for them to reach him without ropes and technical gear. Which he did not believe they had with them. So I may have a chance, here. In the dimming light he could see a smaller side chute that joined his some twenty yards up. It was a narrow, steep gnarly-looking thing that he expected probably ran out into cliffs not far above his position, but was angled in such a way as to offer him concealment from the men on the ledge, so it looked to be, if not his only chance, at least his best. To continue up the main gulley meant climbing in full view of the ledge, allowing him to be seen, and possibly recaptured or, if he resisted, shot, by anyone above who had remained uninjured. Which, as he figured it, ought at least to include the three Sheriffs Deputies, because he had been careful to make sure they were some distance behind when the blast went off. Keeping as close as he could to the ledge side of the gulley, hoping to avoid being seen, Einar began dragging himself up towards his escape route. He had not gone far before realizing that, with his heart rate high and his blood pressure low due to the blood loss, he was not going to be able to move very quickly at all. Anxious to be out of the area as soon as possible he tried anyway, but the slightest exertion seemed to produce immediate dizziness and, if he raised his head too quickly, a rapidly spreading blackness that threatened to send him collapsing in a heap on the rocks. Slow and steady, Einar, or pretty soon youre not gonna be moving at all Reaching a point directly across from the side chute, he studied the terrain above him, looking for any sign that people might be watching, but could see nothing. Praying that he would not be seen, he hurried across the big gulley and clambered up into the protective shadows of the narrow one that he hoped would allow him to make his escape. And promptly passed out again. Einar woke up bleeding, the improvised bandage having come loose in the scramble, and did his best to again secure it in place, wadding a fresh strip of cloth from his pants and shoving it under the strip that he had bound around the

leg. He wished he could get ahold of some of the yarrow he had used so successfully the previous fall as a coagulant, but it was too early in the season. The snow had just barely begun leaving the ground in open, sunny places at his elevation. Beginning his climb up the steep chute, glad that its angle did, indeed, conceal him from the ledge, Einar struggled to make progress despite the difficulties posed by the cuffs, wishing he was not effectively reduced to climbing one-handed. Once he put his weight on an unstable rock which promptly came loose, and he had to scramble to put some downward pressure on it with his other foot to keep it from clattering down the gulley and giving away his position. Raising his head after the struggle with the rock, he was overcome by a terrible dizziness, simultaneously losing his sense of direction and his tenuous grip on the steep rock, sliding sideways into a steeper section of the chute that he had been carefully avoiding, falling. Scratching uselessly at the steep rock of the chute with his cuffed hands, he was pretty sure he was headed for a nasty and rather abrupt ending until finally the cuffs snagged on a protruding root, arresting his fall rather painfully but saving him from disaster on the rocks below. Einar was stuck, hanging helplessly by his wrists on the nearly vertical slope, unable to get his feet under him. He tried pressing the soles of his boots against the wall, hoping the friction would give him enough leverage that he might be able to free his hands. Below him by no more than eight feet and a little to the right was a small rock bench, and he thought that he could possibly roll to the right and land on it, once free of the root. But he couldnt seem to free himself, couldnt break the root even when he tried, and soon it would be too dark to see what he was doing, risking a serious fall when he did get loose. Every time he struggled he could feel a fresh warm trickle of blood running down his leg and knew that the bandage must have long ago soaked through. Swinging himself to the left, Einar tried bracing his foot against the granite slab that met the one he was trapped on, forming a dihedral, wanting to wedge the toe of his boot into the crack where the two met, but he could not get close enough to do it, and was rapidly losing the light as the clouds lowered and a wet spring snow began to fall. It was beginning to look like he might be spending the night. Not a good idea He knew he was staying warm only because of his ongoing efforts to free himself, that he would quickly become hypothermic when that struggle was inevitably cut short at some point by his growing exhaustion. Then you die, Einar. He knew that his blood loss combined with the cold could very quickly turn lethal as temperatures fell for the night, especially if he should happen to be hanging there by his arms all night with no way to curl up for warmth or slow the bleeding from his leg. And if you do somehow make it through the night, theyll find you right here in the morning when they send searchers up this chute. There was a narrow ledge above him, composed of little more than an inch of granite, that he could just hook his heel on if he tried very hard, but, with his boot up higher than his head, could not use it to lift himself at all. That ledge, though, seemed to be the key to his escape. All he needed were a few more inches, and he would be able to raise himself far enough to get some weight off of his arms, work the cuffs off of the root, and hopefully be able to grab the root with his hands and lower himself to the larger ledge beneath him. He knew the more likely scenario involved falling as soon as he freed the cuffs, having neither the strength nor the speed to grab the root in time. Even that,

though, was looking better than staying where he was. After trying unsuccessfully several more times to raise himself using his boot soles on the smooth wall, Einar remembered an ice climbing moveintended to help out when you have solid handholds but nothing to do with your feet that he had used a few times in the past. I could still do this pretty easily two years ago, but nowwell see. Spreading his elbows as far apart as he could and leaning back out away from the rock face, he brought his right foot up between his arms, hooking his leg over his arm so that the thigh rested near his wrist. This allowed him to lift himself enough to get some leverage with his left foot on the little lip of granite, raising himself and at the same time sliding the cuffs up and off of the root. He didnt even have time to think before falling, let alone make a deliberate effort to control his landing, and lay half a second later on the rock shelf, slowly untangling himself, grateful that he had not instead fallen all the way down. His hands had lost all feeling as he hung there, the cuffs cutting into his wrists. He tore more strips from the leg of his prison jumpsuit and dressed the wounds the best he could, replacing the blood-soaked cloth on his leg before resting on the shelf for a minute, catching his breath and waiting for a bit of feeling to begin returning to his hands. In the last of the evenings light and with the snow now coming down in earnest, Einar worked his way over to a less steep portion of the chute and resumed his climb.

Slowly making his way up the increasingly steep and slippery chute in the dark that night, Einar knew that he needed to find a way out of it before he fell again. The wet snow was making footing very tricky, and it had so far showed no sign of letting up. Which was, as he saw it, one of the few things he did have going for him, along with the fact that the Sheriff had given him back his snow boots, as it meant there would be no helicopters as long as it went on. He hoped to be out of the area of the likely search by the time the snow moved out. So far though, the walls of the chute had consisted of steep rock and, while the route he was following was steepening as well, it still seemed more sensible than attempting one of the walls. As he continued to gain elevation, Einar began to be aware of a diffused glow coming from somewhere far below on the ridge, and realized that they must be down there searching the gulley. The snow muffled any sounds the searchers might be making, and, as he inevitably knocked loose the occasional rock in the near darkness, Einar hoped it was doing the same thing for him. The glow of the lights, diffused and reflected by the snow, was making it a bit easier to pick his route, which was a good thing, as the angle and slickness of the chute were such that each step required quite a bit of deliberation and care. Reliable handholds were becoming scarcer also, his unprotected hands numbing in the snow as his pace slowed. Einar kept stopping to warm his hands against his stomach, but after a couple of close calls, he began to seriously consider finding a secure spot and waiting for daylight. Which he knew meant risking discovery with the coming of morning, especially if the snow ended. Crouching behind a boulder, relieved at the temporary break from the constant possibility of falling, Einar rested and worked at convincing himself to continue, to go for it, that finishing the climb and finding a way out of the chute was just something he had to do. That used to be

enough. Just knowing I have to do something has always been enough. His head was hurting terribly though, he was beyond exhausted, could hardly keep his eyes open. And the thought of the steep, slippery snaking chasm of rock and snow that lay aboveand below him scared him like nothing in his recent memory had, though he knew he had many times been through worse without giving it a second thought. Come on. Move it. You know youre just thinking this way because of the injuries. You lost a bunch of blood. Hit your head pretty good. But stop here, and theyll have you as soon as the snow ends, if you last that long The pain and the dull, confused feeling it brought to his head were making it hard to think, though, sapping his confidence and causing him to seriously doubt every decision he made, and he wanted in the worst way to wait in that little place of refuge until the confusion subsided and he felt like himself again. Yeah, how longs that going to be? An hour? Couple of days? What are you afraid of, anyway? Falling? Dying? Why? Gonna die anyway, if you stay here. And he couldnt answer, but that didnt make the obstacle any less real. Huddled behind the snow-covered boulder in his prison jumpsuit and the grey sweatshirt the Sheriff had talked the agents into allowing him for warmth on the hike that day, Einar warmed his hands and waited forhe wasnt even sure what. Finally, though, he just got too cold to keep still, and was forced to again begin moving up the chute. In the dim glow from below, he could make out a dark crack in the far wall of the chute, and, hoping it might offer a way out, his goal became reaching that crack. Easier said than done. As he attempted to cross the smooth, snow covered rock of the chute, heading for the other side where there were some small stunted trees and larger rocks he could use as handholds, Einars feet kept slipping and threatening to go out from under him, until he could hardly bring himself to try the next step. An idea came to him, a way to secure his hold on the rock as he searched for the next foot placement. Not far above him on the steep slope was a three foot spruce, growing out of a crack in the rock. Carefully balancing himself, he tugged on it to see that it was firmly anchored in the rock, then hooked his cuffed hands around behind it. This gave him the confidence to go ahead and move from his secure footing and seek new footholds. The difficult part was freeing his hands once he had repositioned his feet, but he managed it, and after that, went on with the climb, using the technique often as a backup and eventually as a way to haul himself up nearly featureless sections of the rock, using small trees, roots, even rock features to anchor himself as he climbed. His hands had for some time been too numb to feel, but a warm trickle of blood down his arm alerted him to the fact that this climbing method was taking quite a toll on his wrists. The next time he passed a spruce, he stopped and took some time to shake off the wet snow and search along its branches, glad when he found several hanging clumps of usnea lichen. Working the soft, stringy lichen in between his injured wrists and the metal of the cuffs, he went on, satisfied that he had done all he could to stem the bleeding and prevent further injury. A unique bit of climbing gear Ive discovered here, but it really could use some modification The shadowy crack Einar had observed from below did not turn out to be something he could use to climb out of the chute, but somehow the discovery did not prove nearly as discouraging as he had thought it might. Keep going. This is working. The haze seemed to have lifted some from his mind with the renewed activity, and though a good bit of pain and weakness still remained, he managed to make progress up the chute until finally it widened and he was

able to climb up a bank of loose rock into the timber above. Collapsing beneath a fir just inside the forest, he lay on his back for quite a while before his breathing slowed and normalized some, rolling over and sitting up to check the improvised bandage on his leg. The strip of cloth was gone, but inspecting the wound in the glow from the gulley, he saw that, though the jagged edges still gaped open, it barely oozed blood. Probably the coldhope so, because otherwise I must either be awfully dehydrated, or I lost a lot more blood than I was aware ofeither of which is possible, I guess. Pulling some more lichen from a nearby branch, he used his teeth to tear another strip of cloth from the pants got to do something about all this orangebinding the lichen to the wound against the time that it again began bleeding. After resting for a while and melting a few globs of wet snow in his mouth, Einar hauled himself back to his feet and continued into the timber, wanting to put more distance behind him and make tracks while the snow was still falling to conceal them, and too cold to reasonably sit still, anyway. Stumbling out onto a snow covered rockslide, the burnt-out, split trunk of what must have once been an enormous tree loomed up at him against the fresh snow. He leaned against the twisted, hollow trunk, catching his breath. Looks like you had a long, hard life up here before that lightening finally did you in, he addressed the tree. And now youre gonna help me, some. Climbing up into the hollow of the burnt trunk, he rubbed charcoal all over the his jumpsuit, which was already pretty dingy from the climb and well on its way to not being orange anymore. The grey sweatshirt had two pockets, and breaking off some chunks of burnt wood, Einar filled his pockets with them, knowing that he was once again almost entirely without supplies, and thinking of the many potential uses of the charcoal. Thisll come in handy as camouflage for my face and hands when Im hunting this summer, I can grind it up and mix it with spruce pitch to make a sturdier glue for making arrows, tools, all kinds of things, I can write with it (on what? And why?) and if I get enough, might even be able to use it to make a rough water filter. He knew that it had just been luck, or Providence, that he had so far avoided waterborne illnesses after all the times he had found himself with no choice but to drink water in whatever condition he discovered it, especially last fall before he had a fire. Giardia is mighty uncomfortable at the best of times, but right now, it would probably finish me off. Not that my charcoal filter would eliminate Giardia, anyway But he knew that the charcoal would remove arsenic, mercury and a number of other contaminants from water, and such a filter might be a good idea if he found himself getting his water from a seep near a mine tailings pile again, especially of he planned on using the source for more than a few days. Oh, and I could use some of the charcoal as medicine if I eat some bad food and need to absorb it and get it out of my systemha! Thats not too likely, though havent seen a thing to eat since I started this climb Dragging himself out of the burnt tree trunk, Einar hurried back into the timber and continued on his way, knowing that, all joking aside, hed better start thinking very seriously about obtaining some food in the near future, if he wanted to be able to keep going.

As the night went on, the snow moved out, the sky cleared and the temperature plummeted, creating a hard crust on the wet new snow that made traveling much easier

for Einar. He barely left tracks at all as he hurried along the ridge under the sharply brilliant stars, keeping up an exhausting pace in an attempt to stay warm, tremendously glad that none of his injuries this time had left him unable to walk. Despite the difficulty he was having with the coldhe was seriously worried about his hands after the long climb in the snow, and with the constriction caused by the cuffshe was very glad to have the crust to travel on. He knew that there are times in the spring when the daytime temperatures cause the surface of the snow to begin melting in the sunlight, only to be turned firm and hard as cement again over night. At those times you can travel in the morning, skipping across the surface and barely leaving a sign of your passage, while anyone who may be pursuing you, if they are several hours behind, will find themselves floundering up to their hips in rotten spring snow, as the crust again softens and gives way. A great tactic for outdistancing a pursuit, though one Einar hoped not to have to use that spring. Really hope they lost my trail back there in the gulley Though travel on the firm crust was relatively easy, dizziness continually plagued him, and he found that the only way to avoid periodically succumbing to it and falling in the snow was to keep his head as still as possible as he walked, looking straight ahead and avoiding looking up or down or especially to one side or the other, which he quickly learned would earn him a certain fall. He hoped this malady was not to be permanent, imagining himself trying to gather firewood or check snares or any of the numerous other things he would have to do to stay alive, without being able to turn his head. Wouldnt be easy. Occasionally as he walked Einar was overcome, seemingly out of nowhere, by a sudden and pressing sense of hopelessness and blackness, that in the instant it hit him threatened to swallow him up and made it difficult to take the next step, let alone contemplate the next day or week of his life. The cold and the imminent threat of freezing if he stopped in his wet clothes kept him moving through it, though, and after awhile the feeling diminished and the world again appeared its normal selfcold, wet, somewhat hostile, but something that he knew he could deal with. After the second such incident he had to get rather stern with himself, telling himself that its not real, its just the injury, keep moving and dont make any decisions when you feel like that But it was real to him, scared him, left him feeling completely vulnerable, largely stripped of the persistence and determination that he knew he needed to keep him going. By the time the stars began paling against the increasing grey of the morning sky, Einar had covered quite a distance form the scene of the blast, following the tree covered ridge far back into the wilderness area, descending once and climbing an adjoining ridge when his own threatened to take him too far above treeline into a snow-choked basin where there would have been no cover from the inevitable air search. Stumbling along cold and exhausted that morning, leaning heavily on a spruce stick to remain upright, he wondered why there had as of yet been no sign of an air search. Are they waiting to see if there is a body? The sun was about to rise; a glow that had begun as a cold but promising green, highlighting the stark forms of the stunted, wind-twisted little sub alpine firs had grown on the distant horizon, white, yellow, then the brilliant orange of coming day, and Einar allowed himself a moment to sit on a bit of exposed rock at the edge of a boulder field

and watch the transformation, blinking into the sunlight in near disbelief after an incredibly long night. He had not meant to sit for long, but before he knew it minutes and then an hour had passed, the sun climbing higher in its path and finally beginning to provide him with the tiniest hint of warmth. Einar, dozing with his elbows on his knees and his forehead pressed against his hiking stick, was jolted back to wakefulness by the screech of a surprised pika, discovering his presence as it emerged from its rock den to bask in the morning sun. He shook his head, staring at the small round rabbitlike creature as it criticized him from a nearby boulder. What? Cant you share one of your snow-free boulders and a little sunlight with me, little oneyou probably have a den full of food and a warm, dry bed back there in those rocks. This is all I got this morning. I need it. Need you for food, for that matter he thought to himself as he sat shivering in the weak sunlight, wondering how he might be able to trap the little creature which, while sometimes mistaken for a rodent, was actually part of the rabbit family. A deadfall would work, but how am I going to make a trigger, without a knife or even that sharp piece of quartz I had before? He knew he needed iron rich foodspika meat would be a good startif he was to begin recovering from his blood loss and regaining some strength. Looking around, he saw that a number of the surrounding boulders had sharp, fractured edges that he might be able to use to rub and scrape the necessary notches into a few sticks, but all of the ones that stuck up out of the snow were way too big to pick up. OK. So I bring the sticks to them. He found a dead fir, broke off a few of the smaller branches, kept breaking them until they were the right lengths to form the three parts of a figure four trap trigger, and carried them over to one of the exposed edges of jagged rock. It took him quite a while to create something he was satisfied with, struggling with his numb, battered hands as well as the inadequately sharp edge provided by the broken granite boulder. Tentatively setting up the trigger without putting much weight on it, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it would probably work. OK. Bait? Pikas, he knew, did not hibernate, rather retreating to their dens in the rock to live off of grass, flowers and other vegetation that they had carefully cut, dried and stored throughout the summer. So this little guy is probably hungry for a taste of something fresh and green, after a winter of hay Searching among the snow covered rocks for any sign of plant life, he found a few tiny alpine sorrel leaves, just beginning to emerge from the rocky soil on the sunny side of a granite boulder. Ought to like these. Come to think of it, Id probably like them, too. He chewed a couple of the succulent leaves, refreshing and tangy with oxalic acid. He knew that, while the sorrel could make for a nice snack, you shouldnt eat too much of it raw, as the oxalic acid could eventually be rough on your kidneys. No chance of that, right now. These few leaves are all I see. Carefully setting up the trap on a nearly flat topped rock not too far from the place where hed seen the pike, Einar eased a flat slab of rock down onto it, disappointed when his clumsiness caused him to set it off, starting over several times before finally succeeding. Carefully backing away from the deadfall, he retreated into the trees to wait, hoping his presence and activity had not scared the creature away from the area for the day. He doubted it. Pikas are pretty precocious little beings. Several times as he had traveled the high country that winter he had seen pikas emerge sleek and fat and content from the rocky fastness of their winter shelters to lounge on boulders, sunning themselves and picking at the orange and green lichen that grew on the

granite. Once or twice he had seen their dens, had even broken one open once in search of food, but it had not really contained anything he could eat, and he felt bad about disturbing the little creatures winter store. Along with the assortment of dried grasses, bistort flowers and clovers in the little shelter, he had seen the skulls of several birds, neat little holes chewed in the backs of them where the bone was the thinnest, and he supposed the pika had stored birds it found dead throughout the year, eating the brains for fat during the winter. Smart critters. Come frost next fall, Im gonna be sitting on top of a heap of good food in a nice safe hole somewhere like those guys do, warm and dry and ready and not needing to run and starve all winter like I did this year. One season of that was quite enough It was a nice dream, anyway, and helped warm him just a bit as he sat there wet and freezing, waiting and hoping for his lone deadfall to produce a pika so he could eat. He waited there for several hours, creeping out into the sun and curling up on a dry rock when the cold got the better of him, but seeing no more of the pika and beginning to think that he would have to move on, return to check the trap at some later time. The wind that swept up from the valley that early afternoon was a bit softer than it had been of late, and brought with it the faint smell of the awakening forest. Spring was coming. Had already come to the valleys. Einar, taking measure of his situation with an objectivity and detachment that perhaps ought to have alarmed him, knew that if he could make it through the initial search and avoid succumbing to the immediate effects of his injuries, and if there was not something more serious going on internally as a result of the fall that he was not yet aware of, he would probably live. As the snow receded, avalanche lilies and spring beauty, both of which had edible, starchy bulbs, would be up, and the rabbits and other small animals would soon become more plentiful, as well. If He pulled himself upright, stuck a little glob of wet snow in his mouth and let the icy water trickle down his parched throat. Time to move.

Continuing along the ridge under the trees, Einar knew he must find some shelter before the sun went down and he again lost the meager warmth that the day had brought. He knew that he would probably be unable, without food or at least more rest, to manage another night of constant activity, knew the smartestand certainly the most comfortable thing would probably be to find a sunny spot and sleep for a few hours so he would be ready to keep active during the freezing night hours. But, weighing this need against the desire to put more distance between himself and a probable search, he decided to keep moving for awhile. At least it looked like his clothes were going to be mostly dry before darkness, and the cold, returned. As he traversed the ridge, weaving his way in and out of stands of spruce and fir, Einar stopped now and then to harvest the stringy clumps of lichen that hung like hair form some of their branches. While the lichen was a common sight in certain areas of these mountains, there had been very little of it near his previous shelters, and he was glad to now find himself in an area where the it was apparently pretty abundant. Collecting the wispy green clumps and stuffing them in between his jumpsuit and sweatshirt for

insulation, he ran through their many possible uses in his mind. Already he had used them successfully to slow the bleeding from his injured wrists and leg, and he knew that the usnic acid they contain is strongly antibacterial, effective against staphylococcus, streptococcus, and pneumococcus, as well as being antiviral, and would help prevent infection in his wounds. Wish Id had a bunch of this stuff back when I was having to use that improvised snow boot. Just might have kept me from getting frostbitten toes. And I know some of the Indians ate hair lichen, too, but Im pretty sure they always boiled or steamed it for quite a while first to neutralize the acid. Seem to remember hearing that some of them would add ashes from the fire to the boiling water, since theyre so alkaline and would get rid of the acid quicker than water alone. But he knew that it would probably be a few days, at best, before he was boiling anything, maybe a good bit longer if there were signs of an active search that made a fire too risky. And in the meantime, terribly hungry after his climb and the miles traveled over the previous night, he stuffed a wad of the dry lichen in his mouth, added a little clump of snow, and chewed. For quite some time. The stuff was tough, stringy and very bitter, but once hed got it down, Einar reached for more and repeated the process over and over, keeping at it because the bulky lichen made his stomach feel less empty and, he hoped, might yield enough nutrition to keep him going for awhile. It wasnt long though before he was doubled over with stomach cramps and then nausea, and he began to think that there was probably a very good reason the Indians had boiled the vile stuff before using it for food. Despite the nausea, he was able to keep his meal down, and was soon up and moving again despite the continued cramping, collecting more of the lichen as he went. Needing shelter and a place to wait out the air search he still expected to see, Einar really wanted to go either to the rocky cavern behind the waterfall where hed spent the latter part of the winter, or to the mine tunnel he had discovered on the way to Lizs, but for the moment chose to stay far away from the mine tunnel, because it was not that far from the area of the blast. Looking up at the surrounding peaks to get his bearings, he set off in the late afternoon sunlight, intending to use what was left of the day to make as much progress as he could towards the cavern. If he could reach it, and if searchers had not somehow discovered it first, he would be able to retrieve his sleeping bag and rabbitskin blanket at least, which would prove very helpful, as he still had several long cold months ahead of him before summer really came to the mountains. Hed be lucky if all the snow was gone by late June, the way things were looking. As he walked, he thought of all the things hed packed up and taken with himand subsequently lost when he was arrested and unable to return to his cached backpackthat fateful morning he had set out for the ranch househis tin can cooking pot and stove, extra clothes, socks, snare wire, knife, fishing kitalmost everything he owned, actually. Wish I had a way to get some of that stuff back. Getting kinda tired of having to start all over again so many timesOh well. Comes with the territory, I guess. At least he would have a way to keep warm at night, once he retrieved the sleeping bad and blanket. A huge improvement over his present situation. Reaching a ridge opposite his old shelter near dusk, Einar, very tired and anxious for the warmth of the bag and blanket, considered heading straight down and across the gulley without delay. He made himself wait, though, sitting under a tree and watching the area

for some time before satisfying himself that nothing was amiss, that no one was down there waiting for him behind the waterfall. Struggling down the steep slope into the gulley and back up to the little opening in the rock behind the waterfall, whose ice was beginning to rot and flow again with water from the melting snow, Einar ducked behind the fall, doing his best to stay dry as he entered the cavern in the rock behind it. The rock, which had been icy all winter, was now in places damp and slick with mud, and he moved very carefully to avoid falling and sliding out under the falling water. Reaching the area where he had spent much of the winter, he poked around with his boot, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. His foot bumped against something lightweight and rounded, which went rolling away in the darkness. Searching for it, he found one of the empty Nutella jars he had carefully cleaned and saved after eating its contents that winter, planning to use it to carry water on his trapline next summer. Some sharp-toothed animal had apparently picked the jar up in its jaws, squeezing it and causing the lid to come off. He could feel the jagged places where its teeth had pierced the plastic. Wont be using this one to carry water The jar brought back thoughts of food, reminded him how hungry he was, and he tried unsuccessfully to get his mind on something else. No use. Visions of full jars of Nutella, Lizs chicken casserole, and big bowls full of steaming split pea soup flashed through his head unbidden and quite unwelcome. Quit it! He told himself. You can eat later. What you need now more than anything is a good warm nights sleep. Which, despite his cramping stomach, he knew was the truth. He was too tired to think, to stand up straight, and he believed that, unlike a hot meal, a nights sleep was at least within reach. Right there in the back of the cavern. Though the shelter was damp and humid with mist from the awakening waterfall, he was hopeful that his bedding, stashed far back in a rock crevice, would be dry. Better go find it before it gets totally dark in here. Finding his way to the sheltered crevice where he had stashed his bedding, Einar felt around until his hands came in contact with something soft, grabbing it and dragging it out into the weak daylight, not wanting to believe what his senses were telling him. The sleeping bag was in tatters, shredded and torn apart by some animal, its down filling scattered and trampled all over the damp ground, and the rabbitskin blanket seemed to have fared even worse, some of the rabbit hides partially eaten by whatever hungry creature had raided his shelter. After staring at the wreckage in disbelief for a minute, shaking his head and laughing the broken, humorless laugh of a man who has reached the end of his rope one too many times and doesnt really care anymore what comes next, Einar told himself in no uncertain terms to snap out if it! Get moving! Nights coming and you got work to do. He forced himself up, returned to the crevice, dropping to his knees and starting to gather the fragments of fur and canvas, working fast to counter the scared, sinking feeling in the pit of his empty stomach. He had really been counting on that warm nights sleep. That night Einar crouched on the tattered canvas remains of his sleeping bag, his head and shoulders covered as well as he could manage with the remaining rabbit skins, and choked down some more of the lichen, attempting to quiet the painful rumblings in his

stomach. Before entirely losing the light, he had explored the corners and crevices of the little cavern, finding in one sheltered area a scattered pile of bones, rabbit, mostly, it looked like, and one distinct furry track preserved in the mud that he was pretty sure was lynx. He picked up the cracked bones one by one, hoping to find one that the cat had overlooked and obtain a bite or two of marrow, but the creature had been hungry, too, and quite thorough. Nothing. Got to have something soon. Some meat, hopefully. He knew he was badly anemic from the blood loss, that things would not really improve for him until he found a way to reverse that. Well. Tomorrow As the night went on and the dripping waterfall froze up, Einar dozed off and on, waking when the cold became unbearable to stand and stomp his feet and beat his elbows against his sides in an attempt to generate a little heat, angry that the handcuffs kept him from swinging his arms back and forth across his body to aid in the process. Tomorrow these must come off After a couple hours of that, all he wanted was to get away from the damp, humid place, convinced that while the cavern had made a fine winter shelter, it was no good now that the water had begun to flow. During one of his wakeful times early in the night he heard, muffled by the surrounding rock, the rumbling of a helicopter as it passed low over the ridge. He expected that it was probably connected to the search; by the time it made a third pass, he was certain. So. They must have decided there is no body back there in the gulley. Guess Im stuck here for the night, at least. Too cold to immediately sit back down and try to sleep, Einar limped over to the opening in the rock and looked out. The night was bitterly cold, the harsh white landscape illuminated by a waning half moon, and as he looked out across the gulley, Einar thought he saw movement. Straining his eyes in the dim light and focusing off to one side, he could pick out a shadowy form making its way up over the snow of the gulley. Before long the creature emerged from the shadows, showing clearly in the moonlight. The lynx! His first thought was that the creature seemed to be headed his way, and that it was a potential source of food. He shook his head. Do you really think its a good idea for a half dead guy in handcuffs to choose to wrestle a full-grown lynx, Einar? Nobut Im gonna be all the way dead here before too long if something doesnt change. Got to go for it. He considered waiting with a large rock and attempting to hit the creature in the head with it, but knew that in the feeble light cast by the moon and with his cuffed, clumsy hands, such an attempt was almost certain to fail. And there would be no second chance. Got to get my hands on it Positioning himself in the shadows to one side of the opening in the rock, he clenched his chattering teeth and fought to control his shivering breath as he waiting for the animals approach, knowing that lynx have an incredibly sensitive sense of hearing. As the lynx began the final climb up to the cavern, Einar could see that it carried an animal in its jawssomething brown and weasel-like, but not an ermine, because they were still white for the winter. The cat was large, probably a male, and to Einars dismay he realized that it probably weighed upwards of thirty pounds. Seeing what he was up against almost made him reconsider, but knew he must have food, and more protection from the cold, if he was to survive these freezing nights. Here, kitty The lynx paused just outside the opening, cautious of the human smell in the cavern but

having grown somewhat accustomed to it in the days after Einar left, as it had sheltered there and eaten his rabbitskin blanket. As the animal passed through the crevice, Einar threw himself at it, grabbing for its head in the hopes of being able to quickly snap its neck, but missing, ending up with two handfulls of fur and thirty pounds of writhing, scratching furious lynx beneath him. He quickly got a good grip on the fur on either side of the cats face, and held on for all he was worth as it wormed its way out from beneath him and began slashing at his arms with its claws. Einar knew he must get the cat back under him, that his only chance of ending the struggle successfully was to press it into the ground and somehow cut off its breathing. The two of them rolled over and over on the half frozen mud of the cavern floor, Einar wishing his hands were free so he could grab at least one of its front feet and control the claws. The cat kicked viciously at him with its hind legs, gouging a deep row of bloody trenches down one thigh and almost causing Einar to lose his grip before, with one tremendous effort, he flipped over and pinned the animal to the rock, bearing down with the handcuff chain until finally it stopped struggling. Einar collapsed on the muddy rock beside the dead cat, panting for breath and pressing his damaged leg to slow the bleeding. He found a sharp granite flake and with great difficulty cut through the fur and skin of the lynxs throat, catching some of the resulting blood in the empty Nutella jar, which, while it had holes near the top of it, was better than nothing. Exhausted and knowing he badly needed the iron, Einar sipped from the jar, leaving the remainder in the container to freeze for the next day. Einar was bleeding from numerous deep scratches on his forearms and torso, and dragging himself out into the moonlight so he could see what he was doing, he took a minute to press clumps of lichen to the worst of the scratches, binding them with strips of canvas from the ruined sleeping bag. Totally spent, he crawled back to the pile of shredded canvas, pulled the still-warm body of the lynx over himself, buried his fingers in the fur of the cats stomach, and slept. A helicopter woke Einar that morning well after dawn, and he lay blinking in the glare of the sunlight that streamed in through the opening in the rock. Bone cold and shivering, he tried to rise, realizing then that he was terribly stiff from the cat scratches, angry red welts with white centers running along his arms, chest and one leg, so swollen that he could hardly bend his left arm. He was glad, then, for the cold of the night, knowing that without it the reaction would likely have been much worse. Dragging himself into the patch of sunlight, he changed the blood soaked lichen on the worst of the wounds, wishing he had something to disinfect them with, looking out at the snowy world outside the cavern and working to get his hands flexible enough to begin gutting and skinning the lynx. Now for breakfast. Going to be interesting, trying to skin this critter with a granite flake

As Einar set about searching the cavern for the flake of granite that would best allow him to begin the job of gutting and skinning the lynx, he wondered whether perhaps this cat

might be one of the same ones that had torn up so much of his bear meat back at the ledge the previous fall. He wasnt sure exactly what their range was, but thought it possible. Well, either way, youre my breakfast, now. He had eaten lynx a few times in the past and liked it, though not recently, at least not that he would admit in public, since the lynx had been granted protected status. Ha! Think the Division of Wildlife is probably the least of my worries at the moment, though He had discovered in the daylight that the lynxs prey had been a pine marten, which, while it wasnt a species that would have been his first choice as a food, was a welcome bonus at this point, as anything edible would have been. And he was delighted to have the sleek, glossy dark brown pelt, which would go a long way towards keeping him warm. He was already picturing a hat, a Russian style hat with big warm ear flaps, because he was pretty sure he had a little frostbite on his ears after the previous night. Hmm. Now thats pretty ambitious, Einar. But Ill find some way to attach it to my head, anyway. He began working to gut the animal, using the granite flake, pounding it with another rock to make progress, again wishing he was rid of the cuffs so he could use his hands normally. Frustrated at his slow progress in making the necessary cut along the cats underside, he paused, studying the cuffs and searching around the cavern for anything he might use to pick them. OK. Whatve I got here? SticksI know theyd just break before doing me any good. Bone splinters? I could try that. He made his way stiffly back to the pile of chewed and split rabbit bones, sorting through them until he had found several longish splinters of different shapes and sizes, returning to sit in the sunlight and attempt to free himself. Rubbing and scraping the tip of one splinter on a piece of granite to reshape it, he was hopeful that the tool would allow him to make some progress. It broke, though, the first time he tried it, his clumsy hands preventing him from using the precision and care necessary to the task. Einar knew that at least part of his clumsiness and the cloudiness that continued to plague his mind was due to hunger, so, putting aside the cuff removal project for the time, he returned to the cat, finishing the cut and gutting it, enjoying a breakfast of half frozen but iron and calorie-rich lynx liver. Finished eating, feeling stronger and less shaky, he again concentrated on the cuffs, knowing that he had to get them off, had to have full use of his hands if he wanted to last very long. Cant picture how Id ever manage a bow and drill fire with these things onmaybe a hand drill? Might work. Might just have to try that. Because so far his efforts to unlock the cuffs had been entirely unsuccessful. Frustrated, he raised his hands over his head, slamming them down on either side of a sharply fractured, angular chunk of rock in an attempt to break the stout little chain that linked the cuffs. No luck, just a fresh trickle of blood from his battered wrists. He groaned, tucked in some fresh lichen to help control the bleeding. If I just had an extra set of handsone extra hand, even, I could bash that chain with a rock until something came apart He went back to trying the little bone shims, shaping a new one and painstaking manipulating it in an attempt to unlock the cuffs, stopping only when his hands finally cramped up to the point that he could no longer grasp the tools. Alright. Take a break. Back to the cat. The lynx, being half frozen, proved difficult to skin, as he had expected,

but things began going much better after he had the idea to use the lid of one of the damaged Nutella jars as a skinning tool, breaking it with a rock in the hopes of obtaining a sharp edge. The white plastic fractured easily in the cold, and the resulting tool, after he had ground it a bit against a rock, proved very helpful as he carefully separating the furry hide from the animal, working hard to keep it as intact as possible, needing every inch of it for warmth. Finally freeing the hide, he laid it carefully on a dry section of cavern floor, thinking to himself with some measure of satisfaction that apparently there really is, as they say, more than one way to skin a cat because this sure isnt the method Id have chosen, but it kind of worked. Severing the hind quarters of the cat with a rock, he piled the meat on the hide, adding the head, which he had lacked the tools to successfully skin, to the pile. He knew he would be wanting the eyeballs, and probably even the brain, before many days had passed. He then tied the legs together, creating a bundle that he could sling over his shoulder as he traveled. He gathered up all of the remnants of his sleeping bag and the fur scraps from the blanket and stuffed them inside his jumpsuit, tearing a long strip from the tan canvas to use as a belt, so the fragments would not fall down his pants as he walked. Searching the cavern in the daylight, he found one undamaged Nutella jarthe animal, whatever it had been, must have given up after finding the first couple emptythat he stuck in one of the sweatshirt pockets for future use. Hey, at least Ive got a warm vest, now, with all this insulation stuffed in here. Really wanting to be rid of the cuffs before leaving the shelter of the cavern, Einar again concentrated on picking the lock, twice thinking that he almost had it, but finding himself each time unable to complete the task because his hands were shaking. The third time he put all the focus and concentration he could muster into the task, but tried a little too hard and the bone shim jammed and broke off in the lock mechanism. No, no, no! Not good at all! He shook the cuffs, slammed them against a rock in an attempt to dislodge the bone fragment, tried retrieving it with another bone splinter. The thing was really stuck. Well. Einar shook his head, stood, returned to his preparations for leaving the cavern. What else can you do? Preparing to duck out under the waterfall and be on his way, Einar thought he heard the rumbling of another helicopter, couldnt be sure because of the noise of the water, waited until it grew louder and he was certain. The chopper, though low, did not circle the area or double back, and he was pretty confident that, though they were actively searching, they had no real idea of his location. Lets try to keep it that way. Time to move, get further from their starting point. As Einar walked he harvested and ate more lichen, and it seemed that each time he made a meal of the tough stringy stuff, his reaction to it was a bit less strong, the nausea more manageable. He wasnt sure that the lichen was actually doing him any good, and not entirely certain either that it was doing him no harm, but the less empty feeling it temporarily gave his stomach was certainly welcome. Seriously concerned about his ability to remove the jammed cuffs without more tools, he knew he had to stretch his food supply as far as he could, knew that obtaining food would continue to be a major

challenge as long as he lacked the free use of his hands. Heh! One advantage, thoughI guess I really only need one mitten

Einar needed shelter, something dry and secluded that would shield him from the air search and allow him to stay put and recover from the blast and his fall. Hed so far barely had the chance to stop and catch his breath, let alone begin heading in the right direction. He hoped also to be able to have a fire in a few days, when things quieted down some. Would be a really good idea to be able to heat some water to clean up all of these dings and dents, maybe throw in some Oregon grape root if I can find some in an area thats started to melt out. Dont need to be dealing with an infection right now, on top of everything else. And while he had eaten the lynx liver raw without too much concern, the meat was another matter, because he had heard of people becoming infected with trichinosis from eating raw or undercooked cougar in recent years, both in Canada and the American Northwest, and that was not something he wanted to risk, if there were other alternatives. He knew the chance that he would encounter a problem was probably slight, told himself that he was being overcautious, (not usually a problem of mine) but decided that if he could, he would wait on the lynx until he could have a fire. The second mine tunnel he had previously discovered was still out as an option for immediate shelter, since returning to it would mean heading in the direction of the search, rather than away from it. The timbered ridge he was currently following, if he followed it back into the wilderness area, ascended fairly quickly, terminating in a red, cliffy bluff, high and windswept and devoid of trees on the topnot a place to spend much time when there was an air search onbut he knew that down on the other side of the ridge, below the barren crest and the red, eroded cliffs of sandstone, were a number of small basins, surrounded and concealed by black timber. Far from roads and even established trails, the high basins were not places that a casual hiker was likely to stumble across. Some of them, as he remembered, had good southern exposure, and, before long, the snow should begin to leave areas of them, allowing him access to the several varieties of spring plants with starchy tubers, that would help stretch his food supply. The more he thought about the little basins, the more the image of them grew in his mind as a place of refuge, of safety, a place where he could perhaps set himself up for the longer term, avoid contact with people who might endanger his continued existence, and finally quit running for awhile and catch his breath. The secluded, timber-filled valley below, replete with numerous small creeks and seeps, could provide him a good place to set up a number of snares, and, before long, to perhaps take some larger game. Home, maybe. Would sure be good to stay put for awhile somewhere where there was more to eat. First, though, to cross that ridge. It took Einar, stiff and hurting from the previous nights battle with the lynx, longer than he had hoped to reach the point on the ridge where the timber petered out and the open slope began. The scratches left on his legs by the claws of the cats powerful hind feet crossed his knee in a couple of places, making it very difficult to bend. The swelling had not gone down much, the scratches seemed red and inflamed, and he worried about

infection. The sky had grown overcast as he climbed, and though there did not appear to be an immediate threat of snow, the wind had picked up significantly, and he had not heard an aircraft for some time. Good. Means I can go ahead and cross, hopefully find some good shelter before dark tonight Crouching against a stunted little fir up near treeline, Einar allowed himself a few minutes to change the lichen dressings on his scratches and the injuries on his wrists and leg, melting snow in his mouth as he worked to help quench a growing thirst. Passing the tumbled boulder ramparts that guarded the wide, treeless area that ran along the top of the ridge, he started out into the open, suppressing the prickly feeling that crept along his scalp by telling himself that theres no way theyll be flying in this wind. Einar had developed quite an aversion to open areas, and hurried to cross this one as quickly as his condition would allow. The snow of the ridge, swept by near constant high winds over the winter, had been packed and sculpted into a continuous series of hard little ridgesknown as sastrugithat would have made skiing difficult, if I was lucky enough to have skis As he went on, Einar found that the wind on the ridge was an incredible force against which he could hardly remain standing, let alone make much headway. It whistled and blasted over the stark landscape with a violence that took his breath and slowed his progress tremendously, whipping up the newer snow into a near whiteout. After being actually knocked off his feet more than once by the wind, he ended up crawling at times out of sheer necessity lest he be blown off the mountain, the cold wind sapping his strength nearly to the point of collapse by the time he was halfway across. he couldnt feel his hands, his face and the entire windward side of his body was numb as the wind flowed right through his inadequate, mostly cotton clothing. Einar stopped, fumbled with the tied legs of the lynx hide, dumped the meat out of it onto the ground, in desperation threw the hide over his head and shoulders, drawing it tightly around his neck and huddling there for a minute trying to feel a little warmer, but without success. Eventually he made himself get up and go on, doggedly clutching the fur with his cuffed hands, knowing that once he dropped down off of the ridge, the wind ought to be far less, remembering seeing some huge angular boulders near the dropoff that might well serve as temporary windbreaks. He had not gone far before a thought occurred to him, a dim, fuzzy thing on the edge of his consciousness that told him that something was wrong, that he was making a big mistake. He stopped, looked around him to see what it might be, but the blowing snow limited his world to the three foot circle of wind-packed white directly around his boots. So, knowing all too well that he would soon reach the point where useful work would become impossible and his mind too clouded to realize it in the cold, he went on, silencing out of necessity the little voice in the back of his mind that told him he was messing up by doing so. The sight of his boots, black in a world of swirling, blinding white, seemed at times to be the only thing that kept him tethered to reality as he traveled, reminding him that there was, indeed, a world waiting for him out there beyond this place of seemingly limitless, all encompassing whiteness and wind and crushing, bone-freezing cold. Then he remembered. The meat. He hunted for it then,

doing his best to retrace his steps, stumbling around in circles, knowing he must have it or die, but beginning to think that if he kept up the search for too much longer, he might actually die trying to find it. Finally, unsuccessful and growing colder by the minute, he decided that he must go ahead and start down, but he couldnt remember which way he had come from, was totally disoriented in the swirling whiteness. Fighting hard to hold a growing panic at bay, he sat down, drew the lynx skin tightly around his head and shoulders, and tried to think, desperately searched his mind for any tidbit of information that might tell him which way to go. Please show me OK. Ok, the wind. Climbing the ridge, the wind had been from his right, as the greater numbness of his right leg and arm could well attest. So. Put the wind on my right again. And go. Go! Stumbling, he forced himself up, staggered in what he hoped was the right direction. ` Einar, doing his best to keep the wind to his right and hoping that it was not periodically changing direction and throwing him off course, kept pushing his way across the open slope towards the shelter that he knew lay beyond it. Focused on his boots, he almost ran into the head-high, rectangular red boulder as it loomed up out of the swirling snow. Leaning heavily on the massive chunk of sandstone, catching his breath for a moment, he knew there were none like it on the wide expanse of the ridge, knew he must finally be near the sharp dropoff that marked the edge of the ridge. Careful, now. Got to find a way down between these cliffs. The visibility already improving a bit, Einar could just make out a steep but not unmanageable slope directly before him, and he descended slightly from the ridge, suddenly finding himself walking out of the squall into nearly still air and the last slanting rays of evening sunlight as they pried their way out from beneath the descending cloud cover, the sun preparing to slip beneath the horizon. He realized then that it had never been snowing at all on the ridge, that the whiteout had consisted entirely of already-fallen snow being whipped up by the incredible wind. Looking back, he could see a long streamer of snow curling off the ridge, white against the darkening sky. He sank to the ground, blinking into the sunlight, staring out at his suddenly expanded world, tremendously relieved at the cessation of the wind. Far below, he could see the basins that were his intended destination, a bit of exposed ground already showing dark against the snow in one of them. Alright. Down into the trees. Sitting there in the sunlight, Einar briefly considered returning to the ridge to search for the lynx meat, but, looking behind him, saw that the wind was as intense as ever up there, and with darkness approaching, he quickly decided against it. Go down. Got to be a little warmer down there in the trees. That night he spent beneath a spruce some distance down the slope, stuffing a clump of lichen in his mouth before settling in, on the general principle that it is a good idea to eat something every once in a while, even if it is just a wad of tough, bitter tree hair, and finding himself too tired to do anything that night about the pine marten that he was glad to find still attached to his improvised belt. Huddled against the spruce trunk with the lynx hide over his head and shoulders, the seconds dragging by as he waited for the sky to begin graying with morning, Einar dreamt fractured, disjointed snatches of dream as he shivered through the nightvisions of the valley, fire, food, of Liz, even, ran through his head, but his periods of sleep never lasted long in the cold, and the dreams just left him wishing for things he knew he could not have, made it that much

harder to return to the reality he found himself in when he inevitably woke minutes later. Bitter joybrittle joyyoure not part of my world right now. Stop taunting me. Leave me alone. And eventually it did, the dreams ended, and he was again alone with the cold and the darkness and the unbearably, immeasurably slow passage of time. It was a very long night. The night ended, though, as even the longest of nights always eventually do, and Einar, knowing he must move and that first he must eat, set about looking for a way to skin or at least cut open the pine marten that he had tied to his improvised belt the day before when he left the cavern. The creature had not fit in the lynx-skin pack with the other meat, which had seemed inconvenient at the time, but now pleased him. As much as a person could be pleased about anything after a night like that. After a number of failed attempts, he managed to make a cut along the belly of the half-frozen marten using the broken Nutella lid, glad that, though the meat had ice crystals in it, it was not frozen solid. He was able to remove and eat some of the internal organs, continuing his meal by worrying back the skin and tearing off rough strips of the meat with his teeth, terribly grateful for the food, but thinking that he was getting pretty tired of freezing and starving and existing like an animal all the time, and a poor one, at that. So how long does this go on? How long you gonna keep living like this, Einar? And, as he stiffly gathered his meager possessions and prepared to move on, the only answer that would come to his mind was as long as it takes The journey down the timber-choked slope to the first of several basins he intended to look at that day was not an easy one, his progress hampered by numerous fallen trees whose trunks crisscrossed one another and were in places stacked several deep. It looked like a great wind had come through at some time in the past, toppling and breaking many of the trees. Eventually though, after going off course several times in the heavy timber and once ending up having to cross a deep, steep walled gulley, he saw not too far below him the little spine of rock that he had chosen as a landmark for the first of the basins. Reaching it, he waited cautiously in the trees for awhile, reluctant to leave their cover and explore the small meadow, parts of which were beginning to show brown with the emerging dirt as the snow receded. The day was still and calm if not sunny, and several times on the descent he had needed to seek refuge beneath thick trees as a helicopter or small plane passed over. So, not wanting to leave tracks for them to see in the open meadow, he skirted around it, keeping to the trees and heading for the rocky escarpment that he had seen from above. Which was a good thing, because he would have walked right past the cabin without ever seeing it, if he had chosen to cross the meadow. At first, seeing what appeared to be a manmade structure over against the rock of the ridge, he doubted his eyes, thought he must just be seeing a pile of fallen trees, but there was something too regular about the shapes he was seeing through the trees, something too orderly, and he detoured from his course, heading over to the base of the ridge to take a look. Half buried in the melting snow, the roof long gone from much of the structure, sat a rough cabin, its logs clearly hand-hewn and quite old, but stout and apparently not too badly rotted. Most of the roof had caved in and long ago rotted on the floor, but the roof beams still lay across the logs, and in one corner a roughly four by four patch of

roofing material remained, providing a small sheltered spot beneath, nearly free of snow under the additional protection of the heavy evergreens that loomed over the little structure. Wary, but realizing from the lack of tracks that no one had been to the cabin for the second half of the winter, at least, Einar made his way to the protected corner, scratching around in the shallow snow on the floor, turning up several old square head nails and a thick piece of blue glass that appeared to have once been the bottom of a bottle. Immeasurable wealth to a man who two minutes ago had owned nothing but a broken Nutella lid and a half eaten marten carcass. Glancing around, he saw several sheets of tin, apparently nailed to the walls at some point to help keep out the wind, and he could only imagine what other treasures might lie hidden beneath the snow. Einar could think of only one reason that a personother than himself, perhapswould have gone to the trouble to build a cabin in this remote and nearly inaccessible location, and, heading for the ridge some fifty yards behind it, found his suspicions to have been correct. There in the rock of the ridge, some fifteen feet up from the forest floor and concealed from the air by several ancient-looking spruces, the darkness of a mine tunnel awaited his exploration.

Einar could tell from the extent of the tailings pile beneath the dark opening in the rock that this tunnel had been worked for far longer than the two previous he had taken shelter in. The remnants of an old ore chute, some of the tin still in place, could be seen to one side the tailings pile, dilapidated and mostly fallen apart, but surely a source of much salvageable metal. Climbing the tailings pile, he kicked at some scattered rocks that had fallen at some point from the ceiling of the tunnel, partially blocking the entrance. They were covered with dust and a thin coating of calcite from water that in the warmer seasons must drip from the moss and dirt above the entrance, and did not appear to have fallen recently. Got to be careful, though. Not sure how stable this thing is. In his experience, he had found that it was usually reasonable to trust the stability of any tunnel that had not been timbered by the original miners, but the quantity of fallen rock gave him pause. Waiting just inside the tunnel mouth for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, he hoped that the tunnel would be habitable, because he knew it would actually provide better shelter from the wind and weather than the remains of the cabin, especially for the next couple of months when snowfall and below-freezing temperatures would still be commonplace occurrences. Exploring his immediate surroundings, Einar found the tunnel floor, once he was in a few feet, to be dry, dusty, and, with the exception of the first yard or so, not overly cluttered with fallen rock. Good. I may leave all that debris, maybe even add to it to discourage anybody who might be passing by from exploring very far in. Cause I sure hope this is going to be home for awhile... Shuffling around in the dark, his foot snagged on something, and he caught himself just short of falling. Carefully he freed his foot, felt around until he found the thing that had snagged him. It was cold, metallic-feeling, about half an inch in diameter, and seemed to be twined or twisted like rope. Steel cable! He had seen long abandoned, rusted coils of similar cable at many other old mine and sawmill sites in the past, had cautiously used cable that had been bolted into a rock wall rock and abandoned in some past time as an

aid in descending a steep patch of rock a time or two, but never had he been so glad to see it as he was at that moment. OK. Finally gonna get out of these awful cuffs! He grabbed the cable, tugged at it to free it from the dust of the tunnel floor, but found it held fast by some force that was not obvious to him in the near total darkness of the tunnel. Feeling along the slightly frayed steel, he found the place where it disappeared into the ground, dug around it with a sharp rock, pulled again. Nothing. Got to break off a piece, then. The stuff was quite strong, though, the strands held fast to each other by a thin coating of oxidation, and Einar tried without success to pry up one strand so he could work it back and forth and eventually break it off. His repeated attempts were just tearing up his hands, as his somewhat numb fingers were sliced and bloodied by sharp slivers of steel that stuck out in places form the cable. Once more he struggled to free the whole coil, getting a loop of the stiff metal around his leg and straining forward until with a scrape and a rattle, the entire mass of cable came loose, sending Einar sprawling on his face in the dust of the tunnel. Picking himself up, he hauled the cable out to the entrance where there was more light, but stayed inside where it was dry, worn out by his efforts, but happy that, for the first time since starting up the windy ridge the previous day, he was almost warm. In the dim light that shone in from outside, he could see that the cable, while clearly old, was not terribly rusty, having been protected from the worst of the moisture by its location inside the tunnel. The black oxidation that bound the strands together was worst on the top, and, turning it over, he found metal that was barely covered with a light grey film, the strands still separate. Good! Pulling one of the square head nails from the cabin out of his pocket, he began prodding at one of the strands, finally getting it up far enough that he could grasp it and pull. Alternately shoving and prying with the nail and pulling with his fingers, he was able to separate a several-inch long section, which he bent back and forth in an attempt to form a weak spot so it could be broken loose. The metal, after a good bit of work, began developing a white spot at the bend, and he finished it off by laying it on a rock and striking it with another. OK. Now for a bit of concentration, a bit of delicate work, and Ill have my hands again. Resting for a moment, though, he could see from the shaking of his hands and the dizziness that had come over him that any amount of concentration and delicate work just then would be a severe challenge, at best. Better eat something. Which, at the moment, meant some more half-frozen pine marten. After letting a few bites of the tough, icy stuff settle in his stomach for a minute, he was feeling steadier and ready to attempt the task. The fragment of bone shim that had broken and lodged in the locking mechanism of the cuff proved quite difficult to remove, even with the length of wire, and Einar poked and prodded at it for some time before finally thinking to create a little hook at one end to reach behind the fragment and grab it. Success! It took only a few minutes after that for him to manipulate and release the lock mechanism. He spread his arms wide, took a deep breath and stretched, allowed himself a little whoop of triumph before getting down to inspecting his badly damaged left wrist, which was swollen and red and deeply lacerated from the metal of the cuff. He was pretty sure there was some frostbite in the mix, too, after the skin being in constant contact with the cold metal over the course of several freezing nights, but with all the other injuries, he

couldnt be certain. The second cuff went easier now that he had the hang of it, and soon he was free of them entirely. His inclination was to toss the vile things as far as he could into the trees, wishing never to see them again, but he stopped himself, knowing that a man is his situation could not afford to dispose of anything as potentially useful as the steel cuffs. He set them on a large flat rock some distance inside the tunnel mouth, adding the coil of cable to his little stash. Back outside in the daylight, Einar decided that his best course of action would be to gather as much dry evergreen duff as he could find around the trees that had begun melting out, and heap it in the tunnel so he would have some chance of keeping warm when night came. Jubilant at his newfound freedom of movement and the wealth of his discoveries that day, he bounded down the tailings pile into the forest below. As he headed for a nearby spruce in search of dry needles, Einar was sent scurrying and stumbling back up to the tunnel by the distant rumbling of a large helicopter. Crouching in the shadows, badly winded and gasping for breath as the chopper thundered low over the basin, he was reminded that, though his situation had improved considerably with the discovery of the cabin and tunnel and the removal of the cuffs, he was still only a few days out from an escape from federal custody, that he was injured and again almost out of food, that his situation was still extremely precarious.

Down at the FBI command post in the valley, a massive new search effort was being organized, but this time there were no press releases, no news conference, just a new fence put up between the old feed store and the highway, to keep curious onlookers at a greater distance. When officials did comment publicly on the case, the word was still that they believed the subject to have perished in the blast, but they knew quite well by the morning of the second day that there was no body to be found down in the gulley. The air search was pursued with a renewed intensity as they hurried to put an end to the manhunt before the snow melted and their subject found himself with far more travel options in the high country, and themselves with an infinitely greater area to search.

Unable to even contemplate fire for the moment due to the air search, and knowing that he badly needed to be warm and to sleep after his days of harrowing travel since the blast, Einar worked to gather all the dry spruce duff he could find, which wasnt much. While the snow was gone in places, most of the exposed needles were still cemented together by ice left behind by the disappearing snow pack, and were not helpful to him in keeping warm. What he really needed was a fire, but he had counted four helicopters in the last couple of hours, and numerous small planes that slowly crisscrossed the valley, limiting the amount of time he was able to spend out of the shelter of the tunnel. Confined frequently to its darkness, Einar set about organizing the place as well as he could, laying all of his possessions on a flat slab of rock, looking them over and trying to come up with a plan for keeping himself going as he waited for spring. While he finally had shelter from the wind and the ongoing search, he still lacked a way to keep warm at night,

pending his decision that it was time to again have fire. So. Need more food if Im going to be short on warmth. Wonder if I can use some of these cable strands for snares? He expected that they would not be flexible enough, but decided to try and separate one anyway to experiment with. In the meantime, he was hungry, and decided to find a piece of tin that could be made to serve as a skinning knife, and finish removing the marten hide. Need that hat. Hat would help a lot, especially at night. Returning from the old ore chute with a suitablelooking scrap of metal, he took the time to collect more lichen from the surrounding spruces, looking forward to soon being able to boil it to neutralize some of the bitter acid that continued to nauseate him somewhat whenever he ate the stuff. And theres always spruce bark like I did up at the other tunnel, once I get a fire so I can roast it and make it chewable Heading for the tunnel, Einar had an idea. He had seen some fallen aspens as he skirted around the open area of he basin and returned to them now, seeing loose, hanging bark on several of the leaning trees that had caught on their way down. Pulling off great strips of the black inner bark, he coiled it up, returning to the tunnel ahead of yet another helicopter whose distant rumbling he had been hearing for some time. His initial thought had bee simply to pile the bark up on the tunnel floor to better separate him from the heat-leaching rock as he slept, but, seeing the substantial quantity of bark he had hauled back and realizing that there was far more where that had come from, he wondered about the possibility of creating some sort of rough overcoat or blanket from the fibers. I know some of the Indian tribes using different kinds of grasses to make sleeping mats and coveringsduvets, I think, was the word the French trappers used for them. Maybe I could do something similar with this aspen bark. And he remembered hearing that the Oetzi Ice Man, found mummified on a pass in the Swiss Alps after apparently perishing there one winter over 5,000 years ago, had been wearing a woven grass cape in addition to his goatskin leggings and jacket. Im no weaver, but anything at all would help at this point. It sure doesnt have to be pretty. Uncoiling the strips of bark, he laid the longest of them side-by-side on the dusty floor of the tunnel, creating a patch that was about three feet wide by five long. Taking one of the shorter strips, he began weaving it into the longer ones, over, under, over, until he reached the last long strip. He continued in this way, continually pushing the long strips together to tighten the weave as he worked, finally stopping when he ran out of short strips. Hmmgnarly-looking thing, but I think it may actually work. Poking his head out of the tunnel and listening intently for aircraft before leaving its concealment, he headed down to the aspen grove to collect more bark, returning to finish the blanket. As he worked, the thought occurred to Einar that he could more than double the protective properties of the blanket by weaving a second layer, stuffing the inside with some of the remaining rabbitskin fragments from his damaged blanket, canvas strips, spruce needles, and anything else he could come up with, before somehow attaching the two layers, like a quilt. Ha! Like a quiltcant say Ive done any more quilting than I have weaving, but I bet I can figure something out The weaving took longer than he had thought it would, and by the time he had worked his way halfway down the length of the blanket, the sun hung low in the sky, not far from touching the spiky spruce tops on the other side of the basin. Ok. Now all I need to do is finish this

thing, somehow get ahold of some goatskins, and Ill be almost as well-off as that Ice Man...before he died on the pass and got mummified, that is. Now though, Ive got to eat. Having finished off the marten as he worked on the bark blanket, Einar set out in the last hour of sunlight to hopefully find some more food. Descending down into the little basin below the cabin and tunnel, he saw that a large area of it had recently begun melting out, white stringy snow mold still covering the surface of the springy, tundra-like ground as it awoke and prepared for spring. At these elevations the growing seasonthe snow-free seasonwas so short that everything happened very quickly during the few months of warm weatherplants emerging, flowering and dropping their seeds just in time for the snow to again begin falling. Carefully inspecting the barely thawed ground, Einar discovered a number of avalanche lilies, their green leaves just beginning to emerge. He dug down beside the leaves, scratching at the icy soil with a nail and resolving to soon find or create a better digging tool from the scattered metal debris around the tunnel or cabin. The shallowest of the roots were several inches down, and with difficulty he extracted several of the long skinny white tubers from the dirt, cleaning them on the remains of his jumpsuit pants before eating them raw, right there at the edge of the meadow. Einar knew that the roots contain a carbohydrate, inulin, that is not digestible in its raw state. Cooking the bulbs would convert the inulin to fructose, readily usable as energy. Einar, though, was certainly too hungry to wait another day or two for a fire, and hoped the roots might provide him at least a bit of nutrition in their raw state. He finally stopped digging and eating when the sun went down and he began to get too cold crouching there on the damp, half frozen ground. Retreating to the tunnel, he curled up on his side on the meager pile of dry spruce duff he had managed to collect, pulled the lynx skin and the half finished blanket over himself, and slept, shivering before long, but certainly warmer and able to sleep for longer at a stretch than he had been since the blast. Einar woke thirsty in the predawn darkness, his need for water so pressing that he dragged himself out of his bed to creep out through the tunnel mouth and collect a handful of snow from the slope outside. The morning was clear and very cold, the stars casting a pale light on the remaining snow of the basin, and he hurried back into the tunnel, quickly wrapping up in the lynx skin and draping the stiff aspen-bark blanket over his head and shoulders, shivering as he melted his handful of snow and let the water run down his throat. Despite the cold, Einars face felt hot and flushed, his throat parched and his head light and dizzy. He was pretty sure he had a fever. Must be those cat scratches finally getting the best of me He had taken as much care as he was able of the injuries from the struggle with the lynx, but there had been only so much he could do, and with the woefully inadequate food supply and near-total lack of sleep he had been dealing with since the blast, he knew his immune system couldnt be operating at 100%. His left arm throbbed painfully, and gingerly probing it with his finger, Einar found it to be swollen and tender. Great. Guess the usnea lichen must not have been enough. Gonna have to findsomething in the morning, some Oregon grape or something. Got to stop this thing right here. When it gets light Suddenly very dizzy, he lay back down. Shivering in his improvised bed that morning, his fever high enough at times that he was delirious, Einar was aware whenever it subsided enough for him to have lucid thoughts

that he was in trouble, that he had better think of something quickly and act on it as soon as it was light. When at last he looked up and saw the glow of morning in the tunnel mouth, Einar rolled stiffly out of his makeshift bed and inspected his arm in the daylight. He found the area of the scratches to be puffy and inflamed, angry red streaks extending outwards from the ends of the scratches. Those werent there yesterday. Not good. He knew evergreen pitch was antibacterial and could be used to help prevent infection in scratches and scrapes, but figured that his current problem had unfortunately already gone way beyond that point. What he really wanted was some Oregon grape root, so he could take some of the tea (uhhow are you going to make tea, without a fire or a way to hold water?) internally, as well as washing the site of the injury with it. The fever was coming and going, and, with the morning breezy and cold, he did not want to risk wandering around and getting his clothes wet just then under such conditions. Deciding to wait in the tunnel out of the wind until the sun was up, at least, he worked clumsily on the blanket, struggling to focus on the weaving through the waves of dizziness and nausea that seemed to accompany the fluctuating fever. Seeing sunlight through the tunnel mouth, he waited for a time when the fever again seemed to be subsiding before leaving the shelter, the lynx skin wrapped around his shoulders against the cold. Making his way around the edge of the meadow, Einar methodically searched the base of every tree and boulder where the snow had begun melting out, but found no Oregon grapes. He wondered whether he was perhaps too high, or maybe just over on the wrong side of he basin. Better head over and check out the other side. The fever returned as he walked, and he sat down after nearly blundering headlong into a tree in his dizziness. After staring dully about for some time at the swirling and undulating forms of the surrounding trees and ridges, Einar began eating snow to cool himself, and, finding that it felt good, lay down on his back in the snow, his damp clothes steaming gently in the crisp morning air. Some minutes later he sat up, shaking and very cold, the fever for the time broken and his mind once again clear and able to function rationally. OK. Quick. Do something. This is really getting worse fast. Stumbling to his feet, he glanced around for anything that might help. Got to reverse this infection, but have to control the fever some, first, or Im gonna end up doing something really stupid while Im delirious, not get the chance to try and deal with the infection. A small grove of aspens stood nearby, and he chose a small tree, scraping and digging at the bark with one of the nails in his pocket until he could pry back the white outer bark and reveal the inner layer, the same one he had used for the blanket, but fresh and white instead of dried. Pulling out a strip of the tough slippery stuff, he chewed it, adding a little snow to help the juice go down. He knew that the aspen bark, like that of the willow, contains salicin, and also populin, both of which can help to break a fever. Dont think the stuff is as concentrated in aspens as it is in willows, so Id better chew a bunch of this, he thought, scraping and prying to reveal more inner bark. Having done what he could for the moment about the fever, he continued the search for the Oregon grapes that he hoped might help reduce the infection.

Not far from the aspen grove, he saw something strange sticking up out of the snow, and, going over to investigate, found a dead porcupine, desiccated and partially eaten from beneath. Flipping it over with a stick, he wondered what might have killed it. Einar carefully set about collecting a number of the quills to take back with him, intending to return later with a strand from the steel cable so he could safely haul back the entire carcass. As he worked, he remembered hearing once that the waxy grease that coats the quills and makes up about ten percent of their volume has strong antibiotic properties, to protect the porcupine from infection when it falls from a tree and stabs itself on its own quills. HmmNever heard anything about humans using this as an antibiotic, but I guess Id better give it a try. Rubbing several clumps of usnea lichen over the animals quills, he rolled them up to keep them clean before stowing them in his sweatshirt pocket. His idea was to bind these to the infected area after hopefully treating it with Oregon grape root. Inspecting the arm again, he could see that, though the fever had not been back for awhile, probably due to the aspen bark, the redness and inflammation was spreading. He had an idea. Sitting on a rock, he carefully cut the barbs off of several of the quills before wrapping them in lichen to keep them clean and stowing them in his pocket. This may give me a way to deliver that antibiotic porcupine quill grease down where I really need itSeems like a bad idea to go sticking anything at all in there, but this things spreading, and Im flat out of ideas. Do nothing, and I die. Got to try it. First though, to find some Oregon grapes He wandered over to the base of the rocky spine that ran all the way back down to the tunnel and cabin, knowing that often in the past he had found Oregon grapes growing among rocks, and hoping that the lack of snow on the exposed rock might increase his chances of finding some. Searching for quite some time without success, he finally found his way into a protected little alcove in the rock, and found a number of the plants growing out of a crack on a narrow ledge several feet up from the ground. Working carefully to avoid breaking off and losing the roots down in the rocky cleft, he pulled up several of the plants. OK. Youre obviously not making tea, so better just chew a few of these. Which he hurried to do, swallowing the resulting bitter yellow juice. Einar then chewed a couple more of the roots, spit out a mouthful of juice into the snow, packed the snow against his infected forearm and held it in place with a wad of lichen, waiting until the searing pain subsided and the skin, at least, became numb. He then took the three quills that he had cut the barbs off of, and poked them down into the most inflamedlooking areas of the arm, leaving them for a couple of minutes, trying to breathe slowly and not pass out from the pain. Then, removing the quills, he packed the area with another batch of Oregon grape root infused snow, not leaving it on for quite as long this time. He sat there catching his breath in the little alcove of rock, realizing that it blocked almost all of the wind, while reflecting sunlight on him from three angles, warming the air. The pain beginning to subside, he swayed and dozed in the sun, face upturned towards its warmth, letting it begin to erase some of the pinched whiteness of the long hard winter. At last giving in to his weariness and languor, Einar lay down on his side to sleep, finally warm, not just not freezing at the moment, but truly, wonderfully warm. He

dreamt as he slept, as his body fought to overcome the infection that had begun in his arm and spread to threaten his life, and in a dream he saw the old cabin, fixed up with a new roof of spruce poles, salvaged tin, bark and moss, smoke curling out of the chimney, and he realized as he approached that he carried a deer quarter slung over one shoulder, a bow in his hand. He limped still as he walked along the floor of the basin, but walked well and strongly nonetheless, breathing in the crisp evening air and hungrily anticipating a good supper after a day of hard work and far travel over the spruce-covered ridges. As he neared the cabin, the door opened, and Liz came out to meet him, the warm homey smell of something baking following her out the door, a lamp glowing in the window in the fading light of a fall evening. Liz He woke, rolled over. Fever must be back, Einar. Get that nonsense out of your head. Not ready to be awake yet and kind of wishing he could get that dream back for a moment, he stared sleepily at a few wispy little clouds that were making their way across the bright afternoon sky, hearing water drip as snow began to melt on the rocks up behind him. Nearly asleep again, he was jarred out of his reverie by the thunder of a National Guard helicopter that suddenly emerged from over the ridge not three hundred feet above his head, sending him scrambling for the rock of the ridge. Einar had not heard the chopper until it was nearly on top of him, and he pressed himself against the cold rock, hoping it was enough to conceal him, hoping that he had not left a bunch of visible tracks in the snow as he hed stumbled around earlier in his delirium

The chopper did not circle the basin, but continued on down towards the valley and followed it, remaining low. Einar waited for several minutes, plastered up next to the rock, crouching in a bit of shadow, before he dared to move. The basin was quiet; he heard nothing to indicate that the helicopter was doubling back, but he had a bad feeling about this one. That thing was awful low, and here I was right out in the open. How could they not have seen me He hauled himself to his feet, feeling a little woozy from sleeping so long in the sun, but at the same time wonderfully rested and somewhat stronger. Good thing, because it looks like Im about to be on the move again. He shook his head. Had hoped to be done with that for awhile. Stretching out his swollen arm and removing the lichen dressing, he found that it was still red and puffy, the places he had treated with the quills looking more inflamed than they had before, but the spreading red streaks that had worried him so much that morning seemed to be a bit shorter and less red, and he was hopeful that his experimental antibiotic was having some positive effect. Evening was coming, and, operating under the assumption that he had been seen and that they would be back for him, or at least for a second look, Einar debated his course of action, trying to decide whether he should stay at the tunnel, or take advantage of the darkness to cover as much ground as possible in an attempt to get as far as possible from the place where he believed he might have been spotted. Dont know how much sense that makes. I may be nearly blind at night, but those buzzards sure arent. Bet Id show up real good to them against all this snow He knew, though, that if searchers actually ended up on the ground in the basin, they would eventually stumble across the cabin and, very likely, the tunnel, and he could be trapped in there. On the other hand, he seriously

doubted they would send in ground crews before further scouting the area from the air, in which situation the tunnel might be his best hope for avoiding detection that night. Faced with the possibility of again having to run and losing his newfound bounty of mine debris, Einar set out at a brisk pace for the cabin site, intending to gather what he could and pack it in the lynx skin so he could, at least, take some of it with him if he had to leave in a hurry. Very careful not to leave tracks in open areas, he skirted around the open meadow, scouring it as he went for any tracks he might have previously left in the snow. Save for a little mark here and there where he had crossed a swath of snow with painstaking care on his way to dig avalanche lilies the previous day, he saw nothing. Doubt theyd recognize those little scratches as footprints. But then, emerging from the trees near the cabin and looking back across the basin, he saw the spot where he had stumbled out into the meadow that morning before lying delirious in the snow. The whole area was dotted and smeared with his clumsy, weaving tracks. It looked like an elk had been wallowing and rolling in the snow. Hope they think thats all it was Prowling around the cabin, he dug up and pocketed four more nails, a larger metal spike of some kind, two small broken bottles, and a partially rusted sardine can that looked a good bit newer than the other items. Guess there has been at least one other person up here since the 1890s He was sure there was more, but it remained buried beneath the snow for the time. Before heading up to the tunnel, he pulled a roughly one foot by two foot piece of tin from the underside of the remaining bit of cabin roof, bending it in half and tucking it under his arm. A small plane droned slowly overhead as he worked, forcing Einar to take refuge in the still-covered corner of the cabin. As he stood there waiting for the hum of the plane to fade into the distance, he could not help but think that the cabin, what was left of it, appeared pretty solid, that it would not be impossible to turn it into a very serviceable shelter once again with some work. The image from the dream had stuck in his head, and his mind was already busy with a number of things he could do, given a few basic tools, to make the place not only livable but quite comfortable. As the plane circled back and made another pass up the valley, a new roof for the cabin took shape in his head, a floor neatly tiled with pieces of flat grey shale from a nearby outcropping he had noticed that day in his wanderingsbet I could even use some of that shale to build a Russian stove, make some mud and spruce needle mortar to hold the thing together, really keep this place warm next winterand translucent but insect-proof coverings for the two small window openings, made from the stretched and dried stomachs of the deer that he would take with the bow he hoped to make as soon as things settled down. The roughly hand-hewn logs were massive, many of them well over a foot in diameter, and the more he studied the cabin, the more he had to admit to a growing admiration for the men who had built it, using rough tools and, and, at most, the help of a mule or two to haul the heavy logs. The plane had finally moved on, and Einar, beginning to shiver in the evening chill as the sun went down, knew that it was high time for him to move as well, and hurried up toward the tailings pile. While the cabin plans had provided fodder for some pleasant daydreaming, he knew that for someone in his position, setting up a permanent residence as he was now contemplating probably meant inviting disaster. You gave up the chance

at a settled life like that a long time ago, Einar. Youll probably spend the rest of your lifehowever long that may bemoving from one place to another and watching your back trail like the hunted creature you are. And he knew it, accepted it, knew it was part of the price of remaining free, but hey, cant a fellow dream now and then Yeah, maybe, but not right now. Got to get moving. Back at the tailings pile he quickly surveyed the available mine junk, snagging a two foot long iron rod that appeared to have once been part of the ore chute, another small piece of tin, and, to his delight, a much-rusted Pulaski head, some rotted fragments of the wood handle still clinging in place. He saw more that he would have liked to take, assuming he might not be able to return to the basin, but the lynx skin could only hold so much, and it was all he really had to carry things in. He had not even had time to make any cordage that he might use to sling additional items over his shoulders. Hauling his newfound treasures up to the tunnel, he worked to tie them up in the skin, tossing in the handcuffs and marten bones, leaving a couple of the bones out for his dinner. Coiling up the steel cable as well as he was able, he secured it by wrapping the coil with a loose strand, tossing it over by the lynx-skin pack. OK. Thats it. Guess Im ready. He was still inclined, though, to spend the night in the tunnel, fearing the possibility of being surprised out in the open on the snow that night if another helicopter popped up over the ridge. So, settling in near enough to the tunnel mouth to hear what was going on outside but far enough in to remain out of the dampness of the entrance, he draped the marten hide fur side down over his head for warmth, tying two of the legs under his chin and crouching on the pile of spruce duff, pulling his roughly woven aspen bark cape close around his shoulders. Ravenous after his day of activity and no food, he broke open a couple of marten leg bones with a rock, slowly scraping out and eating the small amount of fatty marrow that they contained, stretching his meager meal as long as possible and already knowing that he was really going to miss the added warmth of the lynx skin that night.

Huddled inside the tunnel that night, straining his ears for the sound of approaching aircraft, Einar ran through various scenarios in his mind, trying to decide which was the most likely. He knew that it would be a major effort for ground crews to hike into the basin at this time of year, and wondered if they might be flown in by helicopter. Im pretty sure the closest place they could land that thing is the top of the ridge And, as far as he knew, the constant high winds that swept that high open place would probably make it an impractical landing spot. Every time he had looked up at the ridge over his past two days there in the basin, Einar had seen quite a plume of snow streaming off of its craggy edge. So he guessed they might have to hike in, after all, unless there were nearby terrain features he was not aware of that would allow them to land closer. Which was entirely possible. He really wished for a map, wished he was more familiar with this side of the ridge. With the exception of one small plane that seemed to be following the course of the

valley, Einar heard no nearby aircraft that night, and by the time the patch of blackness in the tunnel mouth began paling, he was beginning to seriously question his previous nights resolve to move on as soon as morning came. It bothered him that he seemed unable or unwilling now to follow through on a plan that had been pretty firmly set in his mind only hours before, that he was having trouble getting motivated to leave. It worried him, because always before he had found it easier to go than to stay in any given place if he suspected such a move was necessary, even back when he had been reduced to crawling by his injured hip. Watching morning creep over the basin outside the tunnel, he wondered if his new propensity for indecision was yet another lingering result of the head injury he had sustained in the blast and fall. He was still plagued by occasional dizziness, his head hurting frequently and waking him sometimes in the night to blinding pain and splinters of light before his eyes. He just kept hoping that things would eventually improve, and spent the early part of the morning struggling with the decision to go or stay. By the time the sun came up and there had been no sign of additional flyovers in the immediate area, he had convinced himself to stay, for the moment at least. Though there had been a couple of times in the night when he had felt a bit feverish and dizzy, Einar saw that the arm appeared to be doing much better that day, and hoped that he was out of the woods (Heh! Not the best analogy for you to use, Einar) on the infection. Cracking open the last two marten leg bones that morning for a totally inadequate breakfast after another long cold night, Einar knew that he must get more to eat soon if he wanted to be in any condition to run again, should it suddenly become necessary. What he really needed was a way to take some bigger game, now that the deer and even elk would soon be returning to the high country. While he supposed that it might be possible to snare a deer with some of the steel cable, the stuff was stiff, somewhat rusty, and very difficult to work with, and what he really wanted was to make a bow. He knew that, with the limited and less than ideal varieties of wood available to him up theresub alpine fir and Engelmann spruce, to be exact his best bet would be to make a longbow, from a long branch or even a small tree his own height or slightly higher. The length would mean that the bow would not need to support as much draw weight, hopefully allowing him to take game without breaking the barely adequate wood of the bow in half. Einar had a vague idea of how to go about making a longbow, but knew that, never having actually tried it before, his efforts at first would be largely experimental. Better get some snares set out first, so I dont starve trying to get this thing to work He began working to free another strand or two from the partially oxidized cable, finally working loose a three foot long strand. Pulling the smaller piece of tin out of the pack, he used a nail to repeatedly score then break off a small rectangle of it, hoping to be able to make a locking mechanism for the snare. The cable strand was so rigid that he doubted its ability to secure a rabbit without a way to lock and hold ground as the animal struggled and it tightened. Before shaping the tin, he worked carefully with the sharpest of his salvaged square-head nails, boring a small hole near each end for the cable to pass through, and a narrow slot down the center of the piece. Then, using two nails as tools, he bent the tin in three places, curling one end over a bit. Threading the cable through the

improvised lock, he tested it, taking it apart and making a few careful adjustments before calling it good and starting on the next one. The single-strand cable did not grab all that well in the lock, the tin was somewhat brittle and not all that strong, and Einar didnt know if the lock would work once, let alone multiple times, but he had to give it a try. He had been able to free enough of the single cable strand to make two snares. Two. Well, at least its something. He wondered what other raw material might exist that he could use for cordage. If nettles grew in the basin, and he suspected they did, they were still well-buried beneath the snow, and the aspen bark that he did have access to was not nearly strong enough to hold a struggling animal. Hmm. Hair? He reached up and pulled a little plug of hair from the back of his head where it was the longest, cording it and, liking the strength of the finished product, wishing he had not chopped off most of his hair before heading down to the ranch house the other day. Well, theres still enough here to make it worthwhile. Ill just have to splice the thing more often than I would have had to if it was longer. He used a sharply broken edge of the roofing tin to hack off some of the longer hair in the back, cording and splicing and ending up with several feet of thin cordage that, when he doubled it over and twined the two strands together, he believed would be strong enough for the job. Alright, well thats three snares. Keeping well within the trees, he headed over to a little thicket of stunted serviceberry bushes where he had seen rabbit sign the previous day, and set the snares. Now for the bow. Einar knew he needed tools to work the bow with, to split the tree or branch he hoped to find and shave it down into the right shape. Searching the area of the ore chute, he found a bar of roughly quarter inch steel which while black and rusty and somewhat pitted in places, seemed to have been more protected than harmed by the oxidation. It was about a foot long and three inches wide, with two holes drilled near one end. He wondered what its original purpose had been. Finding an appropriate piece of granite, he began methodically drawing the bar across it at an angle, over and over, slowly beginning to sharpen one edge. It took several hours, but he was eventually satisfied with the edge he had ground into the metal, knowing that while it almost certainly wouldnt slice cleanly through a sheet of paper, he had at least created a useful tool for shaping trap triggers and, hopefully, the bow. Dont have any paper, anyway Which random thought caused him to wonder how he would go about making paper out there, if he ever decided that he needed it. An interesting project for more leisurely timesif they ever come. The sharpened bar was stout enough that he believed it would even be helpful in splitting a tree for the bow, if he could get it wedged in and then pound it down with a rock. Next he started on the Pulaski head, removing as much rust as he could and sharpening the axe side of it on the granite slab. The tool needed a handle. If he could fit it with a handle, it would be tremendously helpful in cutting a branch or little tree for the bow, and hopefully later for cutting and splitting firewood. Heading up into the timber above the ore chute, he searched for an appropriate piece of wood. Several small aspens, one of them long dead and devoid of bark, stood there among the spruces, and while they were nearly the right diameter, he was pretty sure that they would shatter under the strain that would be put on them is used as axe handles. A bit further up, he saw a dead spruce, choosing and

breaking a shiny yellow barkless branch some four feet up off the ground. Not entirely straight, but itll have to do Working one end of the branch with his improvised knife, he fit it into the opening on the Pulaski head. So. Now I just need some water to soak this wood in, to get it to swell up and fit securely. He had seen one place in the melted out area where he had dug the lilies that had looked sort of marshy, and he headed that direction, hoping to find enough standing water to soak the handle and Pulaski head. Could use some more roots, too, in case the snares dont produce tonight. Finding a muddy little puddle in the tundra-like soil, Einar broke the thin film of ice that had remained on it through the day, and submerged the Pulaski head and handle. Hmm. Thisll almost certainly freeze solid over night, but I dont really have a better idea First standing still and listening intently for approaching aircraft, he dug a number of avalanche lily bulbs, eating several as he worked, stopping when the sun set. He made a little detour on the trip back to the tunnel to check his snares, which were, as he had kind of expected, still empty. The discovery was a bit disheartening nonetheless, as he could tell from the way the temperature plunged as soon as the sun was gone that he was in for a much colder night than the last few had been. Sure would like a fire about now. That, or some more to eat. He shook his head, shivered at the thought of the coming night. Well. Tomorrow, I will start the bow.

The next morning, after stomping back and forth in the tunnel a few times to warm up and gnawing on the two half frozen avalanche lily roots that he had managed to save from the previous evening, Einar started across the basin to retrieve his Pulaski from the puddle, hoping it would be serviceable after a night in the water to swell up the new handle and make it fit securely. Limping stiffly through the trees at the edge of the meadow, alternately wrapping his arms around his middle and beating them against his sides in an attempt to get some blood flowing, he told himself that, if there were too many more nights as cold as the last one had been, he might just have to become nocturnal for awhile, keeping active at night and sleeping during the day when it was a little warmer. He checked the snares on the way over, but they were still empty and undisturbed, and he wondered if he would have to end up moving them before having any success. The puddle had, of course, frozen nearly solid, and Einar struggled to break the Pulaski free of its icy grip. He finally succeeded, bringing a chunk of ice and a rather substantial clod of dirt with it, which he beat off against a boulder. Well, unless its just frozen on, looks like this handles going to hold. Wasting no time and too cold to remain still anyway, he took off into the trees in search of a bow stave. Einar passed several small dead spruces before finally settling on a live one, about eight feet tall, expecting its wood almost certainly to be easier to work with the inadequate tools at his disposal. He chopped it down using the axe end of the Pulaski, pleased that the handle seemed to be holding. In the area he saw several other trees of similar sizes, and took the time to cut two more, expecting that he might not succeed on his first try at the bow. A major concern to him was the numerous branches that bristled out of the trees trunk, and the inevitable knots that he would have to work around. There really wasnt any wood available up in his area, though, that did not present similar challenges, and hoping that he could make it work anyway, he took some time to remove most of the branches before

hauling the logs back to the tunnel to begin his work. Einar returned to the tunnel to get his improvised steel blade and a few sharply fractured rocks that he had collected and kept as tools, but it was cold in the tunnel, and he was having a very difficult time keeping any feeling in his hands as he began his work. He had an idea, took the tools and the two most promising-looking tree trunks, and made his way to the protected alcove where he had been surprised by the helicopter two days prior, glad for some shelter from the stiff morning breeze and seeing that the sun was about to rise over the ridge. Why freeze my hands in that dark tunnel when I can work out here in the sun? He wondered about using the Pulaski to split the log, but, afraid of damaging the wood, decided to try the blade, instead. Wedging it into a crack that already existed from where he had chopped down the tree, he wrapped one end of the blade with a coil of aspen bark fiber to protect his hand, grasped it tightly, and began hitting the other end with a rock. Very slowly the tree began splitting, and Einar worked the blade down one foot, then another, but by that point he could see that this particular tree was a lost cause. Though it had appeared good and straight, the wood was splitting in a gentle spiral, and he could now see that the grain was not straight. He expected this pattern had been caused by the wind or other conditions where the tree had been growing, and very much hoped that all three of the trees he had picked did not share this flaw. Abandoning the twisted tree, he started on the second, with much greater success. The split was clean and straight, and after some careful work he ended up with two long straight sections, one slightly thicker than the other. He set aside the thinner portion, wondering if he might be able somehow to split it further and use it for arrows Taking a seat on a half rotted log, Einar marked an area in the center of the stave where the handle was to be, then found two large rocks to wedge one end of the split trunk between, propping it on another and beginning to shave away at the stave with the steel blade, wrapping each end of it in aspen fibers to create handles of sorts. By that time the sun was up, and Einar watched it rise higher in the sky, anxious for the chance to finally begin warming up. He peeled off the bark, setting aside the slippery inner layer to hopefully roast and eat later, trying to dull the pains in his stomach by chewing on a wad of the slightly sweet stuff. He knew that the bow needed to be thinner out towards the ends, but wasnt sure how much thinner, so intended to just keep going until he thought it looked right. Continuing his careful scraping, switching ends every so often, he debated whether to turn the log over, or do all the scraping on one side. Beginning to get a bit impatient and thinking the task might go more quickly if he alternated sides, he flipped the stave over and began shaving on the reverse side. Several hours later, having stopped only to eat the occasional mouthful of snow to ease his thirst, he finally finished the task to his satisfaction, painstakingly carving nocks into each end of the bow. Now for a string As he worked, he had gone over and over in his mind what available material might be best used for the bowstring, and had not really been able to come up with anything that he was too excited about. Aspen bark cordage, he was pretty certain, was far too weak, and it was really the only source of fiber available to him. Except for my own hair But he had already used most of that on the snare the previous day. Lacking a better plan, he went and retrieved the snare, stretching out the cordage and seeing that he had over four feet of it. Not enough, but its a start. Eventually getting the necessary

length of cordage, he tested it for strength, figuring that it would probably do. He had been worried about the splices, but they seemed to be holding quite well. Very carefully he bent the bow, strung it, inspected his days work. Not beautiful, but looks like it ought to send an arrow downrange. He drew it back carefully then, slowly, liking the feel of it, until the sickening sound of cracking wood told him that all of his work had been for naught. The stave had not actually broken in half, but it had been near enough. Discouraged, tired, his stomach empty and hurting, Einar removed the string, stabbed the wood of the now useless bow down into the snow and started back for the tunnel to retrieve the third tree and see how much he could get done on in it before he lost the light. Taking a slightly different path back to the tunnel and not paying as much attention as he ought to have been to his surroundings, Einars foot caught on something just beneath the snow, sending him sprawling. Picking himself up and brushing the snow out of his eyes, he saw that he had tripped over the desiccated and partially eaten carcass of a small deer. The creatures hair was coming off in clumps, and it appeared to have been dead for several weeks, at least. Hard to tell in the cold weather, but it hadnt been buried beneath too many snows since losing its battle with the waning winter. He wondered why it had been up so high, this time of year. You hiding from something, too? Didnt turn out so great for you, huh? He prodded at the carcass with his foot, flipping it over and inspecting the reverse side. The coyotes had been pretty thorough with the carcass; the internal organs and the meat of the haunches were gone, but he saw that some shreds of meat, dried and shriveled, remained on the ribs and around the neck. And the animals had not bothered with the legs, at all. Pretty desperate for some nourishment by that point, Einar decided to risk eating some of the meat in its current state, figuring that it had probably never been much above freezing, and hoping that the creature didnt die of disease. Letting a few fragments soften in his mouth, he set about inspecting his find, realizing that he had just stumbled upon an excellent source of material for a far superior bowstring to the one he had been planning to use. Struggling with the dry, hard skin of one of the deers hind legs, he finally succeeded in prying it back and gaining access to the dry, stiff tendon beneath. He knew that best of all would have been the long, tough sinew that ran along the deers back, but the coyotes had all but obliterated it in their quest for food. But he knew that with some work, he would be able to make a strong and quite serviceable length of cordage from the fibers of the leg tendons. Having swallowed the first batch, he pulled off some more shreds of frozen meat from the deers neck area, stuffing them into his mouth. He would much rather have cooked the meat, but was glad, at least, that it did not smell or taste at all decayed. He was reminded of stories he had heard of the selection and training routine for the Selous Scouts, a Rhodesian Special Forces unit from the days when there had still been a Rhodesia. Captain David Scott-Donelan, the main trainer for the scouts, had gone on to found a tactical tracking school after Rhodesia was taken over by the Communists. Glad the feds didnt recruit him to track me down. Id probably have been done for months ago. Part of the selection process for the Scouts had involved the candidates killing a monkey, hanging it from a tree for a week or two until the meat was good and rotten, then boiling and eating it, maggots and all. If he remembered correctly, only about twelve out of every one hundred and fifty recruits usually finished the course and went on to become Scouts. Well. Ive still got it a lot better than those

guys, all things considered. He started on another mouthful of dead deer.

Einar decided that, rather than try to dismantle the deer carcass for all of its useful parts there on site, the best idea would be to haul the entire thing back to the area of the tunnel, and do it there. Maybe he would be able to find a way to hang it in a shady area where what was left of the meat would be protected from scavengers and sunlight. Kicking at it to free the one hind leg that was frozen into the snow, he started for the tunnel, dragging the remains of the deer. In addition to the bits of dried meat and sinew for a bowstring and numerous other potential uses, if there was any sinew left after thathe was anxious to break open a leg bone and see if the marrow was still in a condition to be eaten. It was fattier than the meat, and he was hungry. But dinner would have to wait for later. The day was far more than half over, and he was anxious to get working on a new bow. Dragging the deer up into the tunnel, he pulled off and ate a few more fragments of meat, hoping the remainder would be safe for a few hours, at least. He had seen no coyote or other scavenger tracks anywhere near the tunnel since his arrival. Looking at the one tree he had left behind that morning in the tunnel, Einar remembered why he had left it for last. It was, he could see, more twisted than the first one had been, and having split two of them now, he could tell by looking that this one would not work out. He left it where it was, taking the Pulaski and starting up into the woods to find something else. This time, rather than choosing a small tree with all of its knots and the apparent likelihood for a twisted grain that came along with life at this high and windy elevation, he decided to try a large branch. Finding a fairly straight looking one, he freed it with the Pulaski and hurried back to the rocky alcove, realizing that the sun was only a couple of hours from the horizon. This time he worked more carefully, shaving wood from the branch with long, smooth scrapes of the steel, working on one side only and leaving the other untouched to maintain the integrity of the wood grain. He shaved the bow down a good bit thinner this time, giving it a gradual but steady taper out to the ends. It was very nearly dark by the time he was ready to try stringing it. Carefully doing so, he drew it back, dreading the possibility of having to start all over and very relieved when it did not even threaten to crack. Finding his way by the light of a bright quarter moon, he hurried back to the tunnel, satisfied with the days efforts and looking forward to a supper of marrow and some more of the dried deer meat in preparation for the cold of the night. Things, at last, seemed to be going his way, at least for the moment. That night he was able to get some snatches of sleep, warmer than he had been since finishing the pine marten. Morning came clear and frigid, and Einar crept out of bed tremendously glad that he had something to eat for breakfast, but, stiff with cold and hurting after the previous days work, wishing very much that he could allow himself a small fire to eat it over. Soon, maybe. He had heard two small planes and a helicopter pass over in the night, and dared not risk having one of them spot the heat signature from a fire. So, cracking one of the leg bones with a rock, he enjoyed a meal of frozen deer marrow, instead, before leaving the tunnel to begin the work of making arrows for his bow. He took with him the two long, round pieces of tendon that he had been able to

remove from the deers hind legs, intending to work on turning them into a bowstring, to replace the one he had made the previous day from hair. Using the sharpened steel bar, he split some straight, thin pieces out of the unused half of one of the split tree trunks, choosing to work with a length of it that was most free of knots. He then began working carefully to round them a bit, again using the steel bar, in addition to a notched piece of granite that he rubbed the arrows back and forth in to take off the sharp corners from the splitting. Once he had finished four arrows in this way, he sharpened their tips, being careful not to get them so sharp that they would be likely to break too readily. He wished he could have a fire to harden the wood, but fire was just not an option at that point. Nor did he have anything to fletch the arrows with. He had brought along some bits of down that he had been able to scrape up from the ruined sleeping bag back in the cavern, but they more closely resembled bits of fluff than actual feathers. Well. I can make some better ones later. Just need these to get me by for awhile, get me something to eat so I can concentrate on other things. He wondered about making arrowheads from some of the tin of the ore chute, pounding and working it with rocks and securing it to the arrow shaft with some of the deer sinew. Something else to try. It is steel, after alltinned or galvanized steel... Might work. Heading up to the ore chute, he decided to give it a try, hoping perhaps an arrowhead might give him a better chance of actually taking a deer. He scored and broke some of the tin, bending, folding and carefully pounding it until he had something that he thought might possibly be superior to the sharpened wood. Splitting the tip of one arrow, he stuck the tin arrowhead down into the crack. Just need some of that sinew now, to wrap just under the tin and give this thing some chance of staying in place. Setting one of the round leg tendons on a rock and gently pounding it with another, he worked until it gradually began flattening and the fibers separating, before pulling some of them off and softening them in his mouth. He then wrapped some of the fibers tightly around the wood just below the split that held the arrowhead, satisfied that it should hold together pretty well once the sinew had a chance to dry and harden. Balancing the arrow at arms length and studying it, he wondered how much impact the weight of the thin steel head might have on the flight of the arrow. He began to think he might be totally sunk, without the addition of feathers. I really have no idea what Im doing herewish Id made a point to try this back when there were still other ways to get food if it didnt work out the first time or two, or three, or four Einar took a minute to rub the white, exposed wood portions of the bow with the bits of charcoal he had been carrying in his pocket since the morning after his escape, not wanting to risk startling potential game with the stark white of the inner portion of the bow. Waiting for the sinew on the arrow to set up and dry, he pounded out some more of the fibers, dampened them with some melting snow, and set to work cording the sinew so he could use it for a bowstring, taking special care with the splices so as not to produce weak spots. Satisfied with the length of cordage and thinking that the single strand would probably be adequate for his needs, he took off the hair cordage string, replacing it with the new one but deciding to take the old one along as backup anytime he intended to use the bow. After some practice shots with the new arrows, Einar got to thinking that perhaps if one deer had been up in the basin recently, there might be others, especially if he went just a

bit lower where things were beginning to melt out and the grass starting to emerge. He knew any deer he encountered up at these elevations, or anywhere near them, were likely to be skinny, shabby creatures just then at the end of winter, but he didnt care. Probably in better shape than I am, anyway Taking the lynx-skin pack with the sharpened steel bar and a few of his other tools, the extra bowstring he had corded of hair, and some bits of dried meat from the deer carcass, he set out for a lower basin that he had seen as he crossed the ridge. After covering what he believed to be about half the distance to the lower basin, traveling mostly on steep, spruce covered slopes where he sometimes struggled to keep his footing, Einar began seeing deer tracks crisscrossing the steep slope, not plentiful, but enough to give him hope that his hunt might succeed. Reaching the edge of a small clearing, he waited behind a tree, seeing nothing out of the ordinary but reluctant somehow to go further without watching for a moment. There. A doe, her ribs showing some after a long winter, stepped into the clearing, pawing at the snow to reveal a bit of last years yellow grass beneath, tearing it up in hungry mouthfuls before pawing at a fresh spot. Though her ears flicked about warily as she ate, Einar could see that she was pretty intent on her meal, not even taking the trouble to periodically stop eating and look up, as deer usually will. Rough winter, huh? Tell me about it. The wind was in his face, and Einar hoped it did not shift quickly at some point. Very slowly and deliberately he stalked closer to the deer, carefully compressing the snow with each step, not committing his weight until the last moment, ready to pull back if he felt a stick or other potential noise maker beneath his foot. Inadequately clad for the breezy, overcast cold of the day, he found that his shivering made the stalking far more difficult than it ought to have been, but as he devoted his concentration fully to making the next deliberate move, the shivering diminished and became manageable. He had noticed a similar phenomena in the past, finding that very focused thought could for a time reduce or even eliminate shivering long enough to allow him to complete some critical task. He had always wondered if the concentration somehow interrupted the brains signals as it told the body to shiver, or if some other mechanism was involved. Anyway, he knew from experience that the effects never lasted all that long, knew that he must not take all day at the stalk if he wanted to be steady enough to take a shot at the end of it. Einar eventually worked his way to within thirty feet of the animal, who was slowly eating her way across the clearing, scraping the snow away and cropping the grass beneath. Stepping out from behind the little blue spruce that had served as his most recent concealment, he concentrated on stopping his shivering for long enough to take a steady shot. The arrow struck a bit behind the deers shoulder, and, he thought, went in pretty deeply. Maybe not the best possible situation, but it should do the jobeventually. Startled, the deer stumbled once, righted itself and bounded off into the trees on the far side of the clearing. Following, Einar moved as quickly as he was able while still taking care not to leave too many obvious tracks where they would show from the air, puzzled at first that the deer was headed down the slope instead of up, deciding at last that it must be attempting to reach a place where there was less snow and travel would be easier in its injured state. He knew he should wait, give the deer some time to wear out and bleed out before following, but the thought that a coyote or cat or some other predator might reach his kill

before he did kept him moving, probably unwisely, on her trail. In addition to the clear tracks he was following through the snow, he began seeing the occasional drop or two of blood, and once or twice a larger stain in the snow. Twice he stopped and scooped up the pink snow, hoping it would add a bit to his own failing strength and allow him to continue tracking the deer to a successful conclusion. After several miles of slogging through the snow, which was at times rather deep, Einar was really starting to get exhausted, and he knew the injured deer must be, as well. They had lost quite a bit of elevation, had bypassed the lower basin altogether, and seemed headed for the valley, and, while Einar was not looking forward to hauling the deer back up several thousand feet to the tunnel, he did notice from its tracks that the creature was beginning to stumble from time to time, and he was hopeful that the pursuit was nearing its end. Sure hope so. Gonna be dark before too long. The dark timber that he had been descending through began thinning, a wide and treeless valley floor opening out beneath, split down the center by a depression that he took to be a creek. Too much snow left to tell for sure. In the flat light of the overcast evening, he was having trouble telling whether the deers tracks crossed the valley, or kept to the trees, and, careful to keep to the most heavily timbered areas, he kept descending until he reached the point where the forest gave way to the open meadow of the valley floor. There. He saw the tracks, saw that the deer had been stumbling and occasionally falling, thought that it couldnt have gone far beyond the roughly two hundred yard wide meadow. Then he saw something else. Just his side of the creek, a heavily packed and apparently recently used snowmobile track ran the length of the meadow, the deers path crossing it nearly at a right angle. He could see a discoloration in the snow where the deer had fallen and bled on the trail itself. Immediately he began searching for a way around the meadow, some way he could get over to the other side and pick up the deers trail without leaving one of his own where people would surely see it, but the open area ran along the valley as far as he could see in either direction. OK, Einar. Pick a direction. Walk until the trees close in and theres some way across. That deer wont be going far, from the looks of the trail recently. Itll wait. Youll find it in the morning, if not before. Which all sounded quite doable, until a group of snowmobiles, returning from a day in the meadows at the far end of the valley, came zipping along in the evening light, the lead machine pausing and the rider leaning over to inspect a mysterious pink stain on the trail.

Einar stepped back into the trees as the snowmobiles approached, crouched there behind a boulder, watching as the three riders studied the tracks and blood spot on the path. He took advantage of their momentary focus on the trail to retreat some distance up the slope into the heavier timber, concealing himself behind a clump of low-growing spruce saplings, anxiously watching in the hopes that the riders would move on and allow him to go and claim the deer. He knew if they decided to follow its trail up the mountain they would soon run across his tracks, and at that point he would have little chance of outdistancing them, considered for a moment forgetting about the deer and making as much distance as he could before that happened, but he needed that meat, needed it bad, especially after the long slog through the snow, so he waited, hoping they might soon move on. They did not appear to be part of any formal search, and as he watched their

actions and observed the gearor lack of itthat they carried, he became more and more convinced that they had simply been out enjoying the snow for the day. So go on, get out of here. I got to eat. He hated to think that he might be returning to the tunnel with empty hands and an emptier stomach after what had turned out to be a rather strenuous journey for him, and knowing that the more difficult half of the trek still lay before him up the mountain that night. But it was looking more and more like that was to be the case. The three men down in the valley were showing no interest in following the deers back trail, but, sinking at times up to their knees in the deep, rotten spring snow, tracked it out across the meadow and into the trees on the far side. He could hear shouted words as one of them apparently reached the animal first. Still Einar waited, hoping they might see the dead deer, inspect it briefly, somehow miss the arrow, and leave so he could go to it, but these hopes were dashed when two of the men emerged form the trees, dragging the deer by its hind legs. He shook his head in disbelief. What? Feeling more than a little desperate as he saw his chance for a good meal slipping away and realizing that he was now armed with a weapon capable of (eventually) killing a deer, Einar pictured himself hurrying down to the meadow and threatening the three men with an arrow, demanding that they return the deer to him, and the plan seemed reasonable enough in that moment that he came pretty close to acting on it before getting ahold of himself and remaining still. Well. Starting over again, then. Better get moving up that mountain. Gonna be another long night. As he started retracing his steps up the slope, Einar realized that his earlier descent had been fueled largely by the adrenaline and excitement of the hunt, by the prospect of fresh, warm food, that he was badly exhausted and it was going to be no easy task dragging himself back up to the tunnel. As he went, Einar tried his best to conceal his tracks from the air, doing what he could at the same time to leave as little sign as possible on the ground, knowing there was a possibility that he could be followed. The snow, having softened during the day and not yet refrozen for the night, did not cooperate well with his efforts to leave no trace, but one thing that gave him hope was the increasingly leaden sky and a restless wind that was beginning to sweep down from the peaks. It chilled him as he climbed, but, his focus on remaining undetected, he welcomed the coming storm. He was pretty sure he smelled snow. Sometime after dark the snow did indeed come, heavy wet flakes blanketing the trees, changing over gradually into late-season powder as the cold deepened and Einar gained elevation. It showed every sign of turning into a major spring storm. Pushing on into the wind, Einar struggled to stay on course, following the spine of a little sub-ridge that he knew should eventually take him to the basin when the snow and the growing darkness conspired to obliterate his trail from earlier in the day.

Down in the valley, brothers Jeff and Pete Jackson and their friend and business partner Rob Warren, heading home from what they expected to possibly be their last Saturday snowmobile excursion up the valley before the snow began disappearing in patches from its grassy floor, had stopped to investigate a strange deer trail as it crossed the track. The

animal had clearly been injured, and from the look of the tracks, had passed by not long before. Curious, the three followed the trail, finding the animal dead not twenty yards up the spruce-covered slope on the far side of the meadow. Turning it over, Jeff discovered the arrow, realizing that a poacher had been at work. Jeff, a hunter himself who, with his brother, ran an outfitting business out of Culver Falls, had very little tolerance for poachers, especially for one who would run a deer at that time of year, when it was obviously struggling to survive the last few lean weeks of winter before the snow began melting out. Adding to his ire was the fact that whoever had shot the deer had just gone off and abandoned it, apparently satisfied simply to have killed it and not even wanting to bother with the meat, such as it would have been, this time of year. Fuming, he dragged the carcass back to the snow machine with his brothers help, intending to take it down to the local DOW office when he reported the incident the next morning. Angry as he was at the apparently senseless and wasteful actions of the poacher, Jeff realized as he inspected the roughly made arrow with its head of some sort of thin metal and sinew sinew? wrapping, that this was rather an unusual case.

Einar eventually made it back up to the tunnel, stumbling in through the entrance shortly before daylight. He felt around in the darkness of the tunnel for the deer carcass, and, relieved to find it apparently undisturbed, pulled off and ate a small handful of the remaining fragments of dried meat, knowing that he must give himself some fuel before attempting anything else. Having eaten and rested for a minute, feeling almost warm now that he was out of the wind, he struggled out of his wet and partially frozen coveralls and sweat shirt, doggone cottoneverything Im wearing is cotton crouching on the pile of spruce duff in his boots and marten-fur hat and fumbling with the bits of cordage that tied shut the lynx skin pack. Finally removing the ties, he dumped the packs contents out on the tunnel floor and clutched the lynx skin tightly around his shoulders, dry side in, and wrapped up in the partially finished aspen bark blanket, having decided that anything at all was better than being wet, just then, and trying not to think too much about the fire that he knew he could not have. Einar, as he huddled in the tunnel that morning trying to be warm and wondering how he was ever going to manage to dry his clothes without a fire, had no way to know just how serious his loss of the deer would ultimately prove to be.

Jeff Jackson, sitting at his reloading bench in his heated workshop after dinner that night, inspected the arrow he had pulled from the poached deer. It was crude work, apparently created with very rough tools. The tin arrowhead appeared to have been bent, folded and pounded instead of cut, which really puzzled him. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to create the arrow and, turning it over and over between his fingers, he slowly realized that there was probably only one thing this discovery could mean, considering where they had found it, and the fact that the wounded deer had apparently come from somewhere up on the ridge, where very few people went during the winter months, with the exception of a few backcountry skiers who hiked up to ski some of the high cirques. And they were

not generally known for poaching deer with homemade arrows He knew that valley had not been the focus of the federal search, but it was close enough. So. He must have made it. And we just took his dinner, the poor fellow, and with this storm coming on Not wanting to talk about it over the phone but also not wanting to risk Rob or Pete saying something to someone about the deer, he drove over to Robs. Pete was already there when he arrived; he and Rob were next door neighbors. Guys, that deerI was looking at that arrow tonight and you knowwell, I think it must be Asmundsons. I mean, who else Rob cut him off. Seriously? You think he could have made it all the way over those ridges and down there to the valley, after being blown up and all, like they said? That must bewhat? 30 miles or something? And not country Id even care to venture into this time of year. Yeah, but remember that September couple years back when he worked for us packing stuff in to the high camp up on Falcon Creek before elk season? That guy was one hard worker. Made two, three runs a day sometimes to my one, just said he liked the work, when I commented on it. Never talked much, but he sure did earn a days pay. He was a weird one, though, come to think of it, the way he always just disappeared into the timber every evening instead of hanging around the campfire and sleeping in the tent Told me once he liked to see the sky when he slept. And you know, some of those days I never did see him eat a thing, not even in the evening. Almost like he was getting himself ready for something like this. So, unlikely as it sounds, I wouldnt put it past him. He might have made that trip. Woulda been mighty rough, though. So Rob continued, If youre right, I suppose the responsible thing would be to take that arrow down to Culver to that fort the Alphabet Soup boys got down there, tell em what we know Dont know about you though, but I just dont think Im feeling all that responsible, tonight. Hmm. Yeah, I figure hes pretty much earned himself the right to a deer or two. I say let it be. Matter of fact, kinda wish we could take the deer back, leave it where we found it. Old Einars probably getting pretty hungry, up there. Rob nodded. Pete had listened in silence to the conversation, and did not comment, but sat nervously rubbing his ear, waiting impatiently for the little get-together to break up. Pete, unlike his brother Jeff, who lived pretty simply and didnt have a credit history for the simple reason that hed never taken a loan or used a credit card, had allowed himself to become too caught up in the good life. He was now struggling with a second mortgage on his house, was having to sell his brand new truck, and now on top of it all the stress of his financial situation was beginning to create a rift in his marriage. Pete had seen the reward posters; everyone had seen the reward posters, as the FBI made sure they were kept posted on the bulletin boards of the Ranch Supply, outdoor stores, and even the

grocery stores around town, and his only thought now, as he listened to the discussion, was of the million dollar reward that they offered. Pete needed that money. But he couldnt let Jeff know his thoughts, certainly couldnt come out and ask him for the arrow, knowing his views on the federal occupation and search. Well I dont care for it, either, cut into business pretty bad this past year, but thats why I really need that money, and anyway, ending this thing will be good for business, next fall, so Ill be doing all of us a favorbe doing Amundson a favor, for that matter. Guys gotta be freezing to death, out there. In the dark hours after midnight the following morning, Pete drove the two miles over to Jeffs house, parking his truck some distance down the road and walking, cinching the hood of his parka tight against the blowing snow. The workshop was locked, but Pete had a key and let himself in, searching with a flashlight until he found the arrow, carefully balanced on top of a tray of brass Jeff had been preparing the previous evening on the loading bench. He grabbed the arrow and hastily left, feeling like a thief and knowing Jeff would be angry with him, but after all, I was the first one to spot the deer, and surely Jeff would forgive him when the feds came through with that reward.

The spring snowstorm continued well into the morning, and Einar kept inside the tunnel, alternately huddling under the aspen bark blanket and rising to swing his arms and stomp around the tunnel in an increasingly less effective struggle to stay warm. Every time he rose, he pulled off and ate some more of the rapidly dwindling dried deer from the nearby carcass, once breaking open another leg bone for its marrow. The act of pounding with the rock had warmed him just a bit, and he went ahead and cracked the remaining two leg bones, intending to save their marrow for another day but in the end unable to keep himself from eating all of it as quickly as he could. Difficult as it was, his routine seemed to be workinghe was shivering badly but not becoming immobile or, he was pretty sure, anyway, so hypothermic that he was unable to make logical decisions, so he kept it up, just hoping something would change before he became unable to maintain it. Like the weather. Sure wish the sun would come out And it did, several hours later, and Einar dragged himself to his feet one more time and went stumbling out into the snow outside the tunnel, wrapped in the blanket and carrying his frozen clothes, hoping to find a place where they could be spread and dried before night came again. Einar was about as glad to see the sun that late morning as he had been to see anything in his life. For the previous hour or so he had barely been able to scrape together the strength to rise, and whenever he finally did, had just stood there, feebly shuffling his feet for a minute before sinking back to the ground, exhausted and not even sure anymore why he had been supposed to stand up in the first place. The appearance of the sunlight on the snow outside the tunnel had jarred him out of his stupor for long enough to take some action, and he stood now in a little clearing at the bottom of the tailings pile, trying to soak in a bit of warmth before beating some of the ice out of his clothes against a tree trunk, shaking the new snow off of a couple of little spruces and draping his sweatshirt and jumpsuit over them to dry. Or at least thaw? Please?

He was just getting settled on a snow-free, sun bathed log, having scraped the snow off with his boot, and was beginning to warm when he heard the helicopter. It was actually below him, following the valley where he had lost the deer the previous day, and Einar realized with a sick feeling that the snowmobilers must have reported the deer, that the feds had somehow become involved. Darn. Theyd mostly been leaving this side of the ridge alone. Hating to leave the warmth of the sun so soon but finding himself without a choice, he gathered his clothes and hurried back up to the tunnel, hoping his tracks were well enough concealed by the trees. At least that snow last night should have wiped out my trail up to the basinI hope.

The FBI agents at the command center in the old feed store were very interested in the story Pete Jackson told them that morning, and, once they got over the sight of a civilian driving his truck up to the gate of their compound and emerging from the truck with a sharp implement, they escorted him in through the two layers of concertina wire topped fence that protected the compound from the herds of hostile natives that the agents apparently feared so greatly. They asked him about the arrow, who else had handled it and when, before taking it directly to the on-site mobile lab they had set up in a specially outfitted travel trailer behind the building. After several hours of questioning Pete was becoming rather anxious to be on his way, telling them that he had a job to get to, but they insisted he partake of their hospitality for a bit longer, because they would be requiring his services to accompany them out to the meadow and show them the precise location where he had found the arrow and dead deer. Riding behind one of the agents on a snow machine rented by the FBI for the duration of the search, Pete guided a team of four agents, one of them a tracker, up the valley, wondering at the single set of tracks ahead of them in the new snow. As they neared the area Pete saw a sled stopped beside the trail, realized with a growing dread that it was his brothers, that it was Jeff they had been following up the valley, that he had probably decided to actually return the deer as he had mentioned the night before. Pete had assumed that to be idle talk between Jeff and Rob. As they came to a stop beside Jeffs sled, he came walking out of the trees on the far side of the meadow, stopping still in his tracks and putting his hands up when the agents shouted at him to do so. One of them sped over to him, drawing his weapon and demanding to know what he was doing in the valley. Jeff looked up and saw his brother, his face white and drawn. Pete? Whats going on here? And what do you mean, what am I doing here? I live around here. I come here all the time They questioned him for a minute about finding the arrow and about why he was there that day, and seemed satisfied with his answers, until one of the agents followed his trail up into the trees and found the deer. Hanging from a nearby tree branch he also found a backpack, containing a rolled up one-piece snowmobile suit, gloves, a butane lighter, six Hershey bars and several cans of sardines. Jeff had a hard time coming up with a quick answer for that one, and the agents, not interested in taking any chances and anxious for

someone they could actually get their hands on and successfully prosecute in this case, placed Jeff under arrest on suspicion of being an accessory to unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and of providing material support to a terrorist. After searching Jeffs home later that day, they dragged his rather substantial but entirely legal gun collection out into the yard and spread it on a tarp for the TV news cameras, amending the charges to include a trumped-up firearms count just to make the whole thing play better for the media.

By that evening, the remaining bits of dried meat on the deer carcass were nearly gone. Einar had made them last as well as he could, but in the absence of any outside source of heat, of dry clothes, even, he knew his only hope of maintaining an adequate body temperature was to continue eating and staying as active as he could, there in the tunnel. Before long, he had cracked and scraped the rest of the bones for marrow, even the smaller ones, cracked the skull and eaten the shriveled and partially dried brain, knowing there was some small risk of chronic wasting disease, but thinking that it was probably one of the least of his worries at that point, and by the next morning, with the renewed air search in full swing, he was reduced to scraping the hair off of the remaining tatters of hide and chewing them until they were soft enough to be swallowed. He wished he could have a fire so he could boil the bones for broth. Einar was feeling pretty nervous about staying in the tunnel, wondering whether his tracks had been entirely destroyed by the storm, wondering whether they might even bring dogs again, if the snowmobilers had given them enough information to know where to start them. At least the deers tracks would have been covered, too, so perhaps they would be unable to follow them up into the trees and even see where his own had begun. As wet and heavy as the snow had been when it began falling down in the valley, it should have stuck quite nicely to the layer beneath, making it more difficult for trackers to clear it away and decipher the trail beneath. Much more difficult than if it had been dry powder, by far. He hoped. Because as badly as he wanted to move on, the last thing he needed was to be surprised out in the open by a helicopter, the way he had been in the sunny rock cove only days before. The way it had popped up over the ridge, he had been given no warning at all of its coming, no time to hide, and he knew that it could happen again, with the way that the ridges distorted and at times muted distant sounds. And there was the little matter of his still-frozen coveralls. Not great odds, if you decide to head out right now And not looking so good if he stayed, either, but those were the two choices, and, for the moment at least, he decided to stay in where he was safe from the menacing and near constant buzz and rumble of circling aircraft. Huddled in the tunnel, Einar knew he needed something to do, something to keep his mind off of the cold and keep him from thinking constantly of the search that was now going on in the air and in the valley, to keep him from jumping up and taking off into the snow as he had a very strong urge to do. He wanted to work on the blanket, having a

leftover pile of aspen inner bark strips stored up against the tunnel wall, but as the blanket was really all he had to cover himself with, decided that project would have to wait. Unable despite his best efforts to think of much besides the cold and his hunger, he decided to work on getting a bow and drill set ready to go, so there would be no delay when the air search finally ended, or another snowstorm came and grounded it for awhile, and he was able to have fire. He had previously set aside some likely-looking branches from a dead fir over on the other side of the basin, and part of an old board from the cabin area, and, glad for something to focus his attention on, he worked the wood with the sharpened steel until he was satisfied that he could use the results to produce a coal. All he would need to complete the set would be a small branch for the bow. Towards evening the wind picked up, and taking advantage of the temporary lack of air activity, Einar hurried over to check his snares, carefully watching how and where he placed his boots as he traveled. All three of the snares had been covered by the new snow, but digging around under the tree he had remembered as a landmark, he found them. The first he found, the one he had made of hair cordage, was empty, as was the second. He saw that the lock he had meticulously struggled to fashion out of the brittle tin had fractured, releasing whatever the second snare may have held. The third, though, contained a small rabbit, and Einar, amazed that a coyote or some other scavenger had not found it there under the snow before he did, quickly removed it, reset the snare and hurried back to the tunnel, grinning in delight at the prospect of his first (relatively) fresh meal in days. And in a day or two when they get tired of hovering over my head up there, Ill go find another deer. The bow worked. Next time Ill get even closer, and it will work better. I may see spring, yet. Feeling considerably stronger after having eaten the rabbit, Einar decided that he must find a way to dry his clothes so he could get out and try to hunt again, as soon as there was a lull in the air search. OK. Dont have much choice here, I guess. Better get started while I still have that rabbit in my stomach to work with. And, after beating the coveralls against the wall to remove all the ice he could, Einar donned the icy cotton suit and spent a good part of the night repeating every aerobic exercise he could think of, knowing this activity would probably end up consuming more energy than the rabbit had given him, but glad to see after awhile that the cloth was finally beginning to dry in places. By the time he stopped, only the lower legs and the collar area remained wet and/or icy, and, resting, he found that the coveralls were finally dry enough that he was quite a bit! warmer with them than without. Well. Progress. And he slept.

Einar woke sometime in the early morning to the realization that something had changed, something was different, but not immediately sure what it was. He lay very still, listening for a minute before realizing that he had not heard an aircraft for some time. Feeling his way to the tunnel mouth and sticking his head outside, he learned why. A great wind tore through the trees, causing the tall, limber black spruce tops to sway violently against the slightly less black night sky . The wind, while cold, did not quite have the sharp edge of a true winter wind, and Einar knew that it would likely blow for a day or two, gusting and flowing over the mountains and beginning the process of melting

the snow for spring. Its time to go. He regretted it, because he had, even as recently as the past evening, held out some hope that the active search would end or at least move on and allow him to remain there in the basinit really was a promising location and one in which he could see himself spending a pretty comfortable summer, at least, but the search only seemed to be intensifying, and, though he was several miles and at least three thousand feet above the valley floor, he was becoming seriously concerned that he might start to encounter searchers on the ground, in addition to the endless barrage of flights that kept him confined to the relative safety of the tunnel, unable to hunt or set more snares or even sit out in the sun for a few minutes in the afternoon to thaw out. Too much pressure here. Maybe I can come back in a month or two when they get tired of this or run out of money or something, and go homeYeah, keep dreaming, Einar Gathering everything, including as many of the deer bones as he could reasonably carry, into the lynx skin and securing it closed with some cordage, he slung it over his shoulder, after putting on the still-icy sweatshirt, which he knew would remain frozen in the cold wind, and actually offer him some measure of protection from it. Using two of the loose ends that had remained when he finished it, he secured the aspen bark cape around his shoulders. Finding the coil of steel cable, he put it over his other shoulder, on top of the cape to keep him insulated from contact with the cold metal, and also to help keep the cape in place. Testing the snow, he knew that, for the next few hours at least, an icy crust the rough consistency of cement would remain on top of the snow pack, allowing him easy, nearly trackless travel, as long as he stayed away from tree wells and areas that had been too shaded the previous day to melt and subsequently refreeze to form a crust. On the way out, he collected his snares, stowing them in the lynx skin. Carrying the bow, he started across the slope, heading up the valley but not interested in gaining enough elevation that he would come out above treeline. Having crossed the open stretch on top of the ridge once in a high wind already, he had no desire to attempt it again, if there were other options. His intention was just to get out from under the active search, go until he found a quiet, timbered slope somewhere one or two ridges back from the valley where he could find a little shelter, hopefully some food, and wait out the active search. It was quite dark when he started out, but the faint glow of the stars on the surface of the snow was enough to allow Einar to see where he was going, though he was having trouble with his eyes watering so much in the wind that his vision was at times obscured. With the wind as strong as it was, Einar was doubly glad that the snow was crusted over, rather than remaining as loose powder that could be whipped up into a ground squall. He very much hoped to be able to keep his dry coveralls from again becoming soaked on this trip. Keeping in the timber as much to take advantage of the marginal relief it provided from the wind as out of a concern that he was leaving tracks, he made fairly good time, eventually angling up the ridge and crossing it in an area where it dipped lower and was timbered all the way to the top. Starting down the other side, he had to stop and rest, crouching in the lee of a brushy little spruce until he caught his breath some. The frozen sweatshirt had, indeed, proven somewhat effective as protection from the wind, but after several hours of pushing forward into the powerful gale, he was exhausted, numb with cold and more than ready to find a sheltered spot to rest for a few hours. Looking out across the brightening landscape as he rested beside the tree, Einar saw that he had come

farther than he would have guessed, that he was probably well out of the center of the search area. The wind showed no sign of letup, though, and he knew that nobody would be flying low over the ridges as long as it kept up, and that he should take advantage of the opportunity to leave the search even farther behind. Several hours later, Einar had crossed another ridge and started up the dark, heavily timbered slope of a third. He was running out of steam, found himself unable to force his body to move fast anymore, and decided that the only sensible course at that point would be to find some shelter where he could get out of the wind and rest for a time. Rising in the distance, he had been for some time getting occasional glimpses of a rugged spine of rock, and, hopeful of finding shelter up against the ridge, headed for it. He was starting to become seriously weary, to the point that he caught himself several times stumbling along with his eyes half closed, but his attention was brought back into sharp focus when, having a sudden feeling that he should look up, he saw the feathery shape of a grouse, roosting on a branch not eight feet in front of him. Stopping still, he considered his options. He knew that the birds, known for good reason as fool hens, were fairly easy prey, and he almost wished he had a good throwing stick or even a rock, rather than a bow, as he had taken them that way, in the past. But he could see nothing of that type within easy reach, so, very slowly, he reached back into his pack and grabbed an arrow. The arrow did strike the bird, but did not kill it right away, and he went bounding down the steep, spruce-covered slope after it, finally tackling it against a tree stump and finishing the job. Resting against the stump, he inspected the grouse, hardly able to believe his luck. Some good fatty food, and feathers to make some better arrows! Now if I could just have a fire, I could roast this critter and itd be just like Thanksgiving. But, even though he knew he would be eating the bird uncooked in a cold camp under a rock ledge somewhere, Einar was indeed immensely thankful. Continuing on towards the spine of rock, he paralleled it until he found a small overhang, the dry area beneath it barely large enough for him to stretch out in, and not high enough to allow him to stand, but, with the heavy timber above, he hoped it would be enough to break up his infrared signature, should this prove necessary. Which he hoped it wouldnt. The wind had slacked off some time ago, and for the past hour or so he had been hearing the occasional rumble of a helicopter or the drone of a small plane as they scoured the valley and the ridge he had left, but they seldom passed near his current location. Still, he did not dare tempt fate with a fire, knowing that all it would take to refocus the search on his area would be one slipup on his part, and determined to wait it out, despite the fact that he was knew he would really be freezing there on that dark, nearly sunless north slope. He was determined though, to make his shelter on the north side of the ridge rather than the south, as the vegetation was far less dense over there. It seemed there were always tradeoffs, no matter what decision he made, and now, as usual, his top priority was remaining undetected. So, I freeze for a few more days. Whats new? At least Ive got a good dinner, tonight.

Pete returned to the FBI compound that evening, hoping to speak to someone and explain

that his brother was in no way guilty of the charges they had decided to pin on him, but found himself rather unceremoniously escorted off of the property and told in no uncertain terms that he was not to come back. He had served his purpose, answered all their questions, and they were through with him. Unless, he was told, they ended up subpoenaing him to testify against his brother in a couple of months. Pete, distraught that he couldnt even put his house up as surety for the bond that he hoped Jeff would be offered, since he already had it mortgaged twice over, and unwilling to go home, where he would be faced with explaining the situation to his wife, headed across town to Culver Falls only bar for the evening. Rob, who had been questioned and released by the FBI earlier that day, went to some of the members of his church for help, and the next day, Bill and Susan took up a collection after church, hoping to be able to help Jeff make bail at his hearing at the federal courthouse in Clear Springs on Monday. Most people in the area were very skeptical about the material support charges against Jeff, because it was widely believed that Einar was dead, if not in the blast then of his injuries or exposure shortly afterward, and certain segments of the community had for some time been pretty well convinced that the feds were just using the ongoing search as a way to get in some (obviously) badly needed training and as an excuse to harass decent folks like Jeff, who made an honest living and also happened to like firearms. It had long been believed by many in and around Culver Falls that the agents were spending a good bit of their idle time collecting intelligence on locals who had little or no connection to their case, and now, with the arrest of Jeff Jackson, they were sure of it. The already tense relations were further soured be the arrest, and the agents, many of whom had become regulars at several of the little coffee houses in Culver Falls, suddenly found the quality of the service much reduced. Eighteen men from the Culver area, mostly folks who had worked with him and several from Bill and Susans church, also, attended Jeffs arraignment in Clear Springs the next morning, packing the front row of the spectator section and making the prosecutor just a bit nervous. Jeff made bail, with the help of the money collected at church and his own house as surety. Bill, inspired by Einars persistence but having always thought that it was an awful shame that the guy had to do it all alone, that he had to end it the way he did, offered Jeff a ride home, so they could have the opportunity to talk. Driving back to Culver, Bill assured Jeff that he was welcome up at their place anytime, including on the date of his next court appearance, if that was the way he wanted it to go. Jeff thanked him, said hed think about it, spent the rest of the day working to clean up some of the destruction left behind at his house in the wake of the federal search. Bill and his son spent much of that week doing maintenance work on the 500 feet of steep, rocky slope above their long driveway. That narrow set of switchbacks was really the only good way to access their property from the valley, unless you wanted to make quite a hike up the mountainside, inevitably crossing a couple of wide open avalanche chutes that were clearly visible from the little ridge above Bill and Susans log house. And Bill had a habit of spending a good bit of time up on that ridge, honing his long range proficiency on a number of targets mounted on a series of welded steel frames, each of them spray painted a different color to indicate their distance from his position on the ridge. Anyone determined to gain unauthorized access to the property would just have to hope they

didnt accidentally step in front of one of Bills targets...

Over those next few days that Einar spent under the ledge, difficult as they were, the symptoms from his head injury did finally begin diminishing, and it was only as they slowly faded that he realized how greatly he had been affected by the injury. The frequent dizziness and headaches had been obvious and, unless he happened to be climbing at the time, manageable, but the clouded thinking and frequent feelings of confusion, indecisiveness and depression had nearly done him in more than once. Now as he slowly healed it was as if a heavy fog was lifting, bit by bit allowing himself to be his old self again. For the first couple of days the air activity remained quite heavy, and though it was still focused a good distance from his present location, Einar mostly stayed beneath the shelter of the ledge. To keep himself busy, he wove a second layer for the bark blanket, stuffed it with the canvas and rabbitskin scraps he had saved, and secured the two sides to each other by running numerous loops of aspen bark cordage through both layers and tying them on the top. It was a rough, spiky-looking attempt at a quilt, but he rolled up in the finished product to stay just a bit warmer at night than he had been able to before. Still, once the sun went down each evening, the temperature plunged quickly, and Einar just had to keep reminding himself, as he shivered through one freezing night after another, that spring was coming, that things would get better. But for the time, at least, they were not showing much sign of improvement, and as the days went on, exhausted from the extended lack of sleep, he took to being an almost nocturnal creature, trying to stay active at night to generate a bit of heat. He napped in the warmer daytime hours, dragging the bark blanket out and lying on two dry aspen logs that he had rolled into the sun, pulling the blanket over himself and hoping that it would not catch anyones attention from the air. For those three or four hours every day that the sun shone on the slope, he was something approaching warm, and usually woke rested and ready to get some work done before losing the light for the night. This usually consisted of checking his snares, scouting the area for deer sign, and working on making a few more arrows against the day when he dared venture far enough afield to hunt. He saw another grouse on one of these little excursions, but it was high in the branches of a spruce, and he lost an arrow among the trees needles before the bird finally became alarmed and flew off. Einar climbed partway up the tree in search of the arrow, but after slipping on a patch of ice on one of the branches and barely saving himself from a nasty fall, he hastily climbed back down and went looking for a straight branch to replace the arrow. Sure dont need a broken leg, right now. He also collected quite a pile of dry firewood as he scouted the mountainside, piling what would fit under one corner of the overhang, the rest of it on an improvised wood rack of two small-diameter fallen aspens beneath the cover of a large spruce. He would be ready when the time finally came that he could have a fire. Einar used the sharpened steel bar to remove long strips of inner bark from some of the spruces in the area, chewing bits of the slippery stuff for its sweetish sap as he worked, but hanging most of it on tree branches to dry for the time when he could have a fire and roast it. To ease his hunger, he chewed almost constantly on a mouthful of usnea lichen,

which was fairly plentiful in the spruces on that slope, though he found it to be far more bitter than the what he had been eating during his days in the cavern, and he really wished he had a way to soak it for a couple of days before eating it. Though the lichen did keep his stomach from being totally empty, it never satisfied him for long, and after awhile he had trouble making himself choke the bitter stuff down at all. Einar came to really look forward to his little naps in the sun, and the occasional stretches of cloudy weather were pretty rough, sometimes keeping him from warming up much for several days at a time. He felt as though he had become almost a cold blooded creature, unable to generate much of his own heat and dependant on lying in the sun like a lizard to warm before he was mobile enough to do much. Got to find more to eat, Einar. This is not the way its supposed to work On the sunless days, he tried his best to exercise to stay warm, but his meager diet of an occasional rabbit meant that it was not something he could sustain for long. His snares seldom yielded anything, and he finally concluded that the area he had chosen to shelter in simply did not seem to be especially heavily populated with rabbits. He had seen some sign, but as yet had snared only one small rabbit in the eighthe thought it had been eight, anywaydays that he had been under the ledge. On the third day of an especially long and cold overcast spell, he finally discovered another a rabbit in one of the snares. Wolfing down the meat as soon as he got the rabbit back to his shelter and skinned, Einar knew that he must use the strength it would give him to move on, to hopefully find someplace that would offer more frequent opportunities to obtain a meal. Lower would be good. All the critters have gone down to eat the little shoots of grass and things that are coming out for the spring. This just isnt working.

The sun had gone behind the ridge hours ago on Einars north facing slope, and, accustomed in recent days to staying up most of the night anyway, he decided to use the last of the light to gather his possessions, rest a bit, and begin his journey in the darkness. He was sorry to leave the firewood he had collected without having the opportunity to use any of it, and considered leaving it in case he should pass that way again, but did not want to chance a hiker or hunter someday stumbling across it and alerting the authorities to the fact that he had stayed there. Carefully scattering the wood beneath a number of different trees and remembering a conservation slogan hed seen once on a Forest Service map, he thought to himself that Im really taking this leave no trace thing to the extremeold Smokey Bear would be proud. Hmm. Or how about the one that goes, take only photos, leave only footprints? Well, in my case, Id better not even leave those footprints, when I can help it Einar took the coils of spruce bark that he had gathered, hoping soon to be able to have a fire to roast them. Maybe if he could finally get far enough away from the search area that the flights were not passing directly over him anymore, he would finally decide it was worth the risk. As Einar traveled, he passed large south-facing bank of snow, stained a strange shade of pink and smelling, to him at least, exactly like watermelon. He knew that the color and smell were caused by a type of slime mold that was common in late season snow, and that it was not a good idea to eat

it, but he was tempted to try, just to see whether it tasted anything like it smelled. The first goal he set for himself was the top of the next ridge, from the top of which he hoped to get a good view of the surrounding country and pick a route. Assuming there was any light left by the time he made it up there. He thought there might be at least a little. He eventually made it to the top of the slope, intending to cross it and get even farther from the area of the search, but, emerging from the trees into a snow-filled cirque and seeing the red sandstone escarpments that guarded the ridge, he thought to himself that it looked an awful lot like the red, windswept ridge he had crossed before stumbling upon the old mining cabin. He knew that particular ridge ran for nearly fifteen miles, ending, at its north-eastern terminus, in a little valley full of jumbled rock and a good sized alpine lake, before rising again into a stark, steep-sided 14,000 foot peak of granite-like rock so light in color that it appeared nearly white under some lighting conditions. Could I possibly be that turned around? He doubted it, but as hungry and worn out as he was, such a mistake was not beyond the realm of the possible. Rather than starting up the wide open expanse of the cirque, he kept to the trees, angling off to the right and topping out on a lesser, timber covered ridge that branched off from the open, red-rocked one, realizing even before he reached the top that he would be lucky to have any view at all, through the trees and in the deepening darkness. The moon would not be up until well into the wee hours of the morning, and he could see a heavy bank of clouds rolling in from the west. He was right about the view from the top of the ridge, couldnt see a thing, wished he could get up higher somewhere and get his bearings before continuing, but, after resting for a minute, was driven to keep moving by the cold. He had brought along the rabbit bones, and chewed and cracked a couple of them as he rested, for the marrow. For the rest of the night Einar kept himself moving, traversing the long, timber covered ridge and stopping only occasionally to drop to his knees and rest, eating a bit of snow each time in a marginally effective effort at obtaining the hydration that he was beginning to need rather desperately. Late the next morning he stopped under a spruce and cracked the last of the remaining rabbit bones, but the bits of marrow, though they gave him a bit of temporary energy, mostly just served to reawaken his empty stomach and set it to cramping painfully. He crouched under the tree, wanting perhaps fifteen minutes of rest, of stillness, at least, but ended up staying not even that long, driven on by an increasingly biting wind. A storm was blowing in. Einar had for some time been noticing the restless, unsettled feeling that he often got before a major storm, and as the sky darkened and the wind picked up, he began to think that he ought to be finding some good shelter, someplace where he could hole up and stay dry and protected if the weather turned truly nasty. He knew that any snow that fell this time of year was fairly likely to be wet and heavy, and the last thing he wanted just then was to be wet. Reaching the bottom of the slope, he had seen nothing too likely as far as possible shelter, and continued on up the next ridge. Einar was not halfway up before he noticed that his pace was really slowing, waves of dizziness and light headedness threatening at times to halt his progress altogether. He realized then that hed been going for probably close to twenty hours, that the meager energy from the rabbit had long ago been used up, that he just didnt have it in him to make it much further without some serious rest. The wind had become relentless, though,

tearing through the trees and bending them in toward the ridge, and he knew that if he could just make it up over the crest, the wind would be far less powerful. That thought kept him going, but as he rose after a brief rest forced on him by his increasing dizziness, he nearly fell back down in the snow, as immense black shapes welled up in front of his eyes, blotting out his vision. He crouched with his head bent, almost touching the snow, waiting for his vision to clear before moving on up the slope. As he climbed, though, he noticed that his heart didnt seem to be behaving normally, speeding up before apparently slowing, leaving him dizzy and gasping for breath. Well. This is new, and I dont much like it. Wonder how long I can keep climbing like this? He sat there for a minute in the hopes that things would get back to normal, but that did not seem to be happening, and the wind was increasing in strength, chilling him badly as he sat. Well, one way to find out, I guess And he pulled himself back upright, stuffing some snow in his mouth to combat an increasing thirst. He kept thinking, as he stumbled from tree to tree, resting frequently against them, that he smelled the distinctive odor of scrambled eggs, and was even sure that he could smell the pepper with which they were seasoned. Not immediately able to think of anything in nature that ought to smell like scrambled eggs, and quite certain that he was not near any inhabited areas, he decided that it must be must be his hunger and exhaustion conspiring to play a cruel trick on him. You really need some sleep, Einar. But he kept going, having some time before glimpsed a few small patches of snow-free ground below him through the trees, and having set it as his goal to reach them before resting, hoping to find a drier spot and hopefully a few avalanche lilies or other plants of some kind that he could nibble on for some starch. As he neared the area, a heavy, wet snow began falling, the wind quickly plastering it against Einars side and soon soaking his clothes. Finally reaching the floor of the little basin, Einar stepped out of the trees into a small open area, steep rocky slopes rising sharply on both sides, their snow cover broken in places by bands of trees. He stopped still, squinting through swirling snow, staring in near disbelief at what lay before him.

Through the storm that was rapidly increasing in intensity and blowing the snow almost sideways, Einar could just make out a rough circle of rocks near the opposite edge of the small clearing, steam curling up from it to be snatched away by the wind. He now knew exactly where he was. Oh, wow. I really did mess up back there. Einar realized that he was looking at the little hot spring that he knew lay in a high rocky basin at the top end of the red ridge that he had suspected he might be following the previous dayfar from where he had intended to be heading, and, though also far from the center of the search, too close for comfort to routes frequented by backcountry skiers. He knew for a fact that the hot spring was an occasional destination for skiers, as well as a waypoint on a long and difficult journey that a few hardier souls made each winter, following the ridges and high passes between Lizs valley and one fifty miles to the east. It was certainly not a place that saw much traffic during the winter months, but at over 11,000 feet, what are you doing this high, Einar, you crazy fool? it was one of the highest known hot springs in North America, was well known, and there was always the risk that someone would

pass that way. He saw no recent tracks, though, and somewhat desperate for the chance to warm up, skirted around the clearing, keeping to the trees. Hanging the lynx skin pack beneath the heavy cover of a thick spruce for protection from the snow, Einar approached the circle of rocks, peering out through the steam at the ninety-five degree water that collected several feet deep in a small pool that had been shored up and modified by hikers over the years to hold more than it naturally would have. He held his hands, nearly frozen from being unprotected all day in the wind and snow, in the steam until the circulation began returning, appreciating the slightly warmed air over the pool, before immersing them in the water, as far as he could get from the place where the hot water trickled out of a fissure in the rock and ran in rivulets across a little section of the slope, kept snow-free by its constant warmth. He drew his breath in sharply and jerked his hands back out of the water, sticking them down in the snow for relief from what had felt to him like the scalding heat of the water. He knew that while the water emerged from the fissure at well over a hundred degrees, it would be somewhat cooler by the time it mingled with the snowmelt and reached the far end of the pool, and not nearly hot enough to actually burn him, but it had certainly felt that way to his somewhat damaged fingers. He took it a bit slower the next time, and was able to hold his hands in the water until the intense pain of returning circulation began to lessen, and his hands again became flexible. Drying them on the inside of his sweatshirt he stuck them in his armpits to keep them from immediately getting cold again, and sat there on a rock by the pool, breathing the warm steam and nodding sleepily, thinking of stories he had heard of mountain man John Colter. Colter was believed to be the first white man to have seen what is now Yellowstone National Park, and had spent part of a winter in the refuge of its geysers and hot pools after being pursued there by an angry band of Blackfeet Indians, who believed the place cursed and would not follow him beyond its borders. The place later became known as Colters Hell. Hmm. Wouldnt mind spending the rest of the winter here, myself, if I had any reason to believe that federal agents were superstitious about hot springs. Not likely, though He could just picture himself spending most of the next month or so soaking in the warm water, not caring whether it snowed, or froze, or whatgot to admit, that sounds pretty good, about now. Edging a bit closer to the warm water, his thoughts drifted back to Colter. Einar had long admired the mountain man, who had several times found himself facing the wrath of the Blackfeet, once having to literally outrun a large band of men who, having captured him, were intent on making a sport of running him down and ending his life. He had to run across a six mile wide plain scattered with prickly pear cactus to escape them, then slip into a river and hide out overnight in a beaver lodge until most of them gave him up for dead and moved on. Then, having no gear, no weapon, no clothing or shoes, even, the Blackfeet having taken everything when they captured him, Colter had covered over two hundred and twenty five miles in the space of seven days or so, to reach Fort Raymond and safety, gaunt, exhausted, and at first unrecognizable to his associates there. Einar, thinking of Colters plight, was reminded that, most of the time at least, he really did not have it all that bad. It did help, though, that those Blackfeet couldnt fly Sure wish my pursuers couldnt fly, so I could at least have a fire now and then. The thought of which brought him back to the reality that he was sitting on a rock in the middle of a near

blizzard at 11,000 feet, wet and freezing and almost certainly becoming dangerously hypothermic, drifting towards sleep. He had almost forgotten, caught up in his musings on John Colter. The solution seemed obvious to him at that moment, and, putting aside the risk of being discovered as secondary to his need to live through the next hour, he struggled out of his snow-encrusted clothes, threw them under a tree, turned his boots upside down beside a rock to keep out the snow, and lowered himself into the steaming water. For a minute his whole body, numb from the cold and wind, stung fiercely, but he made himself stay in the water, and before long the stinging was replaced with the most wonderful warmth and feeling of relief as his tense muscles began relaxing for the first time in days. He leaned back against a rock, almost floating in the water, the snow falling heavily around him as he shivered violently in the warmth of the water, his temperature slowly beginning to return to normal. He had a brief thought that, not knowing just how hypothermic he might be, it probably was not a very good idea to submerge himself in water that warm, since under the right conditions it could quickly send the cold blood in his extremities circulating back through his body before it warmed adequately, potentially stopping his heart. He knew that was a real possibility, but, his judgment rather too clouded by the cold to actually worry about it, he just laughed at the thought and sank deeper in the water, thinking that if it did kill him, at least he was going to die warm and happy. Could be a lot worse He seemed to be suffering no ill effects at all from the water, though, and after warming some he summoned up the courage to go dashing through the snow to his pack to retrieve the old sardine can he had found at the mining cabin, wishing for some spruce tea after many days without any. Hurrying back into the water and collecting a can full of spring water from near where it emerged from the rock and was the hottest, he crushed up a bunch of spruce needles and let them sit for awhile to steep. The water was really helping the itchy, binding scabs that he had left over form the struggle with the lynx, and he was hopeful that by spending enough time in it to soften them, he might find movement a bit easier and less painful afterwards. Einar stayed in for hours as he warmed and his shivering slacked off, dreading the time when he would eventually have to leave the water, dreading the icy clothes and the cold, windy world that awaited him outside of that tiny island of refuge. He did reach out of the water once to drag his aspen-bark blanket over to the edge of the pool, using it to create a canopy to keep the snow off of his head. Drowsy and more comfortable than he would have allowed himself to imagine possible hours before, he drifted around the edges of sleep, thinking for awhile of John Colter, then thinking that all that separated his present situation from absolute perfection was the unfortunate lack of food, and, his mind slipping easily into a state somewhere between hallucination and dream, he created for himself a big Thanksgiving turkeyor a grouse. of course, it has to be a grouse...and mashed potatoes and gravy, a lot of gravy, gallons of gravy, sweet potatoes, peanut butter pie, pumpkin piehe was pretty sure he could eat a whole one himself, so maybe there had better be twobecause of course Liz was there to share it all with him. Matter of fact, she must have cooked it, because as he looked around, he realized that they were in

the little cabin in the basin, all fixed up and cheerfully lit by the glow of three oil lamps, the floor neatly tiled with the grey slate that he had noticed in his time in that basin. A wood cook stove stood in one corner, and Liz was just removing a pumpkin pie from the oven. Einar, though, was suddenly disturbed by the impression that he and Liz were no longer alone at their soon-to-be Thanksgiving dinner, and became sure of it when he distinctly heard another human voice, a mans voice, somewhere behind him. Waking then, Einar was at first not even sure where he was or how he could possibly be so warm when he saw snow all around him, but was mostly just disappointed that he had not got the chance to eat any of that incredible bounty of wonderful-smelling food. As the confusion slowly cleared from his head, he realized that he had indeed been hearing other voices, looked up and saw that they belonged to two skiers who stood in the snow near the edge of the pool, staring at him as if he were some sort of museum exhibit. Einar, knowing that to take off randomly into the snow without his clothes was to die, stayed right where he was, hoping to be able to pass for a fellow skier. Howdy. You coming in? Waters fine.

The skiers looked rather skeptical when Einar spoke, stared at him for a long moment without answering, until he began to wonder whether he could possibly look that odd, or if their reaction perhaps meant that they had recognized him, and were trying to decide what to do. Finally one of them spoke, unclipping his ski bindings, sticking his skis vertically in the snow, sitting down on one of rocks next to the pool and beginning to remove his boots. Whew! Man! We thought you were dead. You looked dead. You totally had us spooked! Are you OK? Uhyeah, not dead. No, definitely still breathing, here. Just enjoying the water for a minute. Dude, its been way longer than a minute. Weve been here for, like, half an hour, at least. You never moved. We were just about to come poke you with a ski pole to see for sure whether you were dead, only I wanted him to do it, and he wanted me to. The guy laughed, indicating the other skier, who was nodding and grinning. We didnt even think you were breathing. Oh. Fell asleep, I guess. This waters great. So Ive heard. But we werent about to get in there with a dead guy, you know, so you nearly spoiled it for us! And they both burst out laughing again, apparently rather relieved at the lack of a corpse in the hot spring. Einar stayed low in the water, wanting to remain submerged as much as possible to keep

them from asking about the barely healed cat scratches all over his chest and arms. And he knew that he absolutely must not allow them to see the handcuff scars that were still quite visible on his wrists. You come over from Ore Creek? Whats it like over on the other side of the pass? Has the big bowl slid lately, because we were kind of thinking of camping here and going back down in the morning, if it hadnt. He tried to think quickly, realizing that the guys didnt seem to know who he was. No wonder. With this steam and all, they cant have got a very clear look at me. Hope they dont ask where my skis are, or anything like that. He knew that it would be to his advantage for the two skiers to continue on over the pass, because it was quite a bit farther than if they were to go back the way they had come, well over a days travel, giving him more time to clear out of the area before they had the chance to possibly talk with others about the strange guy they had met up at the hot spring. And he sure didnt want them hanging around the hot spring for the night, because he could not leave the water as long as they were there, as they would then almost certainly see his orange jumpsuit. They would have to get suspicious at some point if he just stayed in the water, and he didnt want to face the prospect of too many questions from the pair. So. Send them over the pass. Yeah, looked like it slid within the last day or so, probably two days ago when we had that sunny afternoon. You should be OK as long as you dont wait too long and let this new stuff build up too much. Great. Well get moving again pretty quick here. You done this route often? A few times. The two skiers had joined him in the pool, and were retrieving food items from their packs, spreading them on a flat rock between them. Einar tried not to stare as they began eating a lunch of sandwiches, tea from a thermos and a big block of cheddar cheese that they passed back and forth, carving off huge slices with a pocket knife. He kept his eyes half closed in the hopes that they wouldnt see the desperation, but it was all he could do to keep himself from attacking them with a rock in an attempt to get at that food. This is just too much To make matters worse, one of the guys kept going on about how hungry he was after a long morning of skiing, and how good his sandwich was. Einar lay back until his ears were in the water so he wouldnt have to listen, but the skiers kept trying to engage him in conversation, so that did not last long. Hey, you run into any of the commotion from that search over on that side, or is it too far? They had a big sign down on the bulletin board at the trailhead, and these two guys were talking to everybody that came down from the trail, asking them all kinds of questions. Hmm. No, nothing unusual on the side I came from. Must be too far for them to bother

with. I dont know why theyre bothering to keep searching like this at all, really, said the skier, laughing and shaking his head. Silly flatlanders. You know theres no way that guy is still alive up here after those two storms we had since he went missing. I mean, anybody that thinks so just has no idea what its like this time of year. Dont you think? Einar nodded wearily. No idea at all. None. Finished with their lunch and their brief soak in the hot water, the two skiers dried off and got back into their clothes, thanking Einar for the information about the pass and continuing on their way. He watched as they climbed the slope up out of the basin, hardly able to believe what had just happened. He was pretty sure they had never suspected that he was anything other than a fellow skier enjoying a couple of days in the backcountry. That, or they were really good at pretending, and would be calling the authorities as soon as they got within range of a cell tower. That was possible, too, and he had no idea what they might have been discussing as he slept. In the second scenario, he had two hours, at best, before he could expect to start seeing a helicopter over the basin. Way past time to clear out of here. He saw that there were some crumbs of chocolate left on the flat rock, and quickly scooped up and ate them, noticing also that one of the guys had apparently not cared for the Swiss cheese on his sandwich. Two thin slices of it sat in the snow where he had discarded them, and Einar gobbled one, but made himself save the other. Einar rose, so weak and shaky that he could barely stand, feeling as though the hours in the hot water had taken all the strength out of his legs and replaced the remaining muscle with lead weights. He knew that in truth he couldnt possibly have had much left to lose in the first place, that what he was feeling then as a result of relaxing so long in the water was probably far closer to reality than had been his stubborn refusal to heed the signs of his weariness and exhaustion as he climbed, pushing himself almost to the point of collapse before allowing himself to admit that anything was wrong. Sure was making it difficult to get motivated to leave the warm water, though. Well. Just do it. Just get started. Youll be freezing again in no time, and thatll be motivation enough to keep you moving. Youll be so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that you wont have time to notice much of anything else Yeah. Right. You say. Was that supposed to be encouraging, or something? You know, youd make one heck of a motivational speaker, Einar. Teach them stuffed shirt cubicle dweller types a thing or two about what it takes to keep going, out here Hmm. Somehow I doubt theyd like my style much. Cant say I care for it that much myself, at the moment. He shook his head and allowed himself a little chuckle, glad that he had somehow managed to retain a bit of a sense of humor, such as it was. Hauling himself up out of the pool, feeling like he weighed five hundred pounds, he stood on one of the snow-free rocks by the water and looked out across the little basin, studying the small patches of exposed dirt where the pool drained for any sign of edible

life. There were a number of small green shoots emerging from the soggy, steaming ground, and he was pretty sure they were avalanche lilies. Einars feet hurt, and, inspecting them, he saw that they were covered with red, wrinkled, irritated-looking patches, with a number of small blisters in places. He attributed this to the fact that, though the boots had been quite adequate to prevent frostbite, he had been unable to change his socks for days or dry his feet from the accumulated sweat from climbing the ridges, figured he was now suffering from some form of trench foot. One more reason to get to a place where I can have a fire. Got to have a way to dry things out. Sure that the ground would not be frozen in the bare spots where he had seen the avalanche lilies, he hurried across the snow to crouch in the warm mud, which felt rather good on his damaged feet, and dig some of the roots. The ground was soft and he found digging fairly easy, despite the rockiness of the soil, and he soon had a small pile of the starchy white roots, onto which he threw some of the brilliant green, inch-long new leaves, knowing that they were good to eat, as well. Then, already freezing and shaking in the wind, he scrambled up the slope to the pool, sank back into the water with a huge sigh of relief, and rinsed the dirt off of several of the bulbs before slowly chewing them. He wondered if the water, where it emerged hot and steaming from the fissure in the rock, could eventually cook the bulbs enough to convert their indigestible inulin into the more usable sugar, fructose. If he had been able to stay, he figured he would have strung a bunch of the bulbs on a strand of wire from one of his snares, attached the wire to a rock near the fissure, and found out. Too bad I got to leave this place. He knew that he must, however, and with the light beginning to dim, decided that he must not keep putting it off. He figured his best bet at that point was to hurry down out of the high country as quickly as he could, find a place where the snow was well on its way to leaving and the nights werent so awfully cold, and hopefully find some more to eat and get some strength back, while continuing to avoid the search area. As he struggled back into his icy clothes and began hurriedly stumbling through the snow towards a patch of heavy timber he could just make out through the fading light in the valley below him, he thought to himself that hey, at least I have good dry boots, a bit of food in my stomach, and a few hours sleep behind me. [URL=http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1257331315053559768HgdVWl] [IMG]http://thumb8.webshots.net/t/14/15/3/13/15/257331315HgdVWl_th.jpg[/IMG] [/URL] The hot spring, or one very much like it [URL=http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1257328515053559768DabHzN] [IMG]http://thumb8.webshots.net/t/34/35/2/85/15/257328515DabHzN_th.jpg[/IMG] [/URL] Despite his optimism, Einar had not gone far before he realized that he had seriously overestimated his ability to generate enough heat simply by moving quickly. The weakness he had felt upon first standing up out of the water had persisted, leaving him

shuffling and stumbling rather slowly through the snow, already shaking badly in his snow-crusted cotton jumpsuit, ice forming in his wet hair and beard. The wind had picked up as the sun set, and was tearing at him, quickly stiffening his arms and legs to the point that it was becoming difficult to keep going at all, let alone quickly. Dont think this is going to work, Einar. Wishing to live, the decision was an obvious, if not an easy one for him. It was nearly dark by the time he made it back up to the pool, telling himself that the skiers had probably already made camp somewhere for the night, that he surely would be safe there for a little while, because even if someone else did come along, they wouldnt really be able to get a good look at him in the failing light. He wanted fire, knew he must have a fire, if he was to dry his icy clothes and have a chance of being able to travel through the night. But before he was to have any hope of being able to use the bow and drill he had previously made and stashed in his pack, he knew he had to thaw his hands some, and hopefully stop shaking so hard. Stumbling to the waters edge, he plunged his hands in, then his arms, almost up to the elbows. After a few minutes, shaking his hands and attempting to dry them on his shirt, he hurried over to a little clump of sub alpine firs that stood not far from the pool, searching for anything dry that he could use to build a fire. He found a number of dry, dead barkless twigs on the undersides of some of the branches, which he quickly broke off and piled on a slab of bark that he had been able to pry off of a dead tree. He stomped around in the snow under some of the little tree clusters near the hot spring, hoping perhaps to find a place where others had camped, hoping there might be something there that he could use, but if such a place existed, it was thoroughly hidden beneath the snow. Too few skiers passed there during the winter months to keep a camp free of the heavy snows that fell. Einar, though disappointed, realized that this also meant that he was not especially likely to encounter anyone else there that night. He somewhat doubted his ability to even successfully start a fire at that point, but all he could do was try. He ate his remaining little slice of Swiss cheese for a bit of energy, went back to the water and soaked his hands again until they became flexible, and continued adding to his supply of firewood. Every time his hands became too stiff and unfeeling to continue with the workwhich was happening far more quickly than he would have likedEinar hurried back to the pool and thawed them in the water, finally getting a fire ready to go on a slab of bark and settling down to the business of producing a coal with the bow and drill, using the lace from one of his Sorels as a string. It was no easy task in his condition and with the wind, but Einar finally got a little coal, wrapped it carefully in a bundle of aspen inner bark fibers from his pack, and blew it to life, setting the blazing bundle beneath his carefully arranged tepee of dry fir twigs and adding a few little strips of canvas that he had saved from his old sleeping bag. As the fire crackled to life, he added some larger branches, aiming for the drier ones that would produce little smoke, but not too concerned about it in the near darkness. Breaking some branches from nearby trees, Einar huddled and hovered over the little fire, feeding it and turning first one side, then the other toward its warmth, working at drying his clothes. He took off one boot at a time, thoroughly drying his socks and feet, but knowing that he did not have time to get all of the collected moisture out of his wool felt boot liners. That would have to wait until he was at a settled location where he could spend several hours beside a fire, at least.

By the time Einars clothing had thoroughly dried and he had covered the coals of his little fire with snow and then, when they grew cold, with a slab of bark, concealing the spot as well as he could, the new, somewhat wet spring snow had frozen hard, forming a crust. Setting out down the valley in the darkness, he moved easily over the crust, swinging his arms and hurrying to get the blood flowing before he again became too cold, but having to take great care on the steep sections, so as not to go sliding out of control and slamming into a tree below. He was glad of the crust. It would allow him to leave far less sign in case the skiers did sound the alarm upon reaching the valley. Einar kept himself going most of the night, traveling far from the hot spring, far from the place he had last been seen by others, as non-threatening as they may have seemed. His clothes dry and the wind somewhat less in the heavy timber, he was handling the cold fairly well, but his hunger and general exhaustion were another matter. Stumbling, falling, sometimes nearly asleep on his feet, he knew from past experience that the time was rapidly approaching when he would either have to obtain a good amount of food, or risk finding himself curled up under a tree somewhere without the strength to rise. He had been there before, earlier in the winter at the mine tunnel when he had been injured and out of food for too many days, and had been saved only by the timely appearance of a porcupine that he was able to kill by pushing rocks on it from his ledge. Thankful that he was at least still somewhat mobile and determined not to allow it to go that far this time, he resolved to spend the following day gathering food and, hopefully, resting some. Unless they somehow find me again, and I have to run. I sure hope that doesnt happen. I need that not to happenplease. Down in a little alpine basin the next morning, Einar found a southwest slope where the snow had just recently melted out, seeing what looked like thousands of avalanche lily shoots poking up through the saturated ground. Breakfast! He hurried over to the slope, dropped to his knees on the dirt and began digging with his fingers, only to find the ground frozen solid and quite impenetrable. Seriously, what did you expect? For a good while he scratched at it with a nail and then the steel bar from his pack, but all of his efforts yielded only one small bulb, split and dirty from the digging, and hardly worth eating at all. He knew he was expending more energy going after the roots than they would return to him, so, almost too exhausted to remain upright anyway, he retreated to the trees to wait for the sun to soften the slope. As he waited, huddling against a spruce trunk and conserving heat as well as he could, Einar was encouraged by the fact that he had not heard or seen any sign of an air search that morning. He was hopeful that perhaps the skiers had not mentioned his presence to anyone, but knew that it was just as possible that they had simply not made it down yet. He knew he ought to be collecting firewood so it would be ready for later, really intended several times to get up and do it, but just couldnt seem to summon enough energy to actually get started. It was good to rest under the tree, good simply to not move for awhile, and he did so, drifting in and out of sleep as he watched the sun slowly creep down the nearby slope to the bare patch where the lilies grew. Einar woke with a start some time later to the realization that the sun was on his face, his body shivering feebly in an attempt to use his failing resources to keep him warm and alive. He rolled over, sat

up, pulled his stiff hands out of his armpits and beat them against his legs to get a little blood flowing. All right. Go get food. And he dragged himself out onto the sunny slope, collapsing in the middle of a patch of lily shoots and beginning to dig with the steel bar, slowly adding to his little pile of plump white roots, eating some as he worked but knowing that he would not be able to extract too much nutrition from them until he was able to heat them and convert their sugars into something his body could use. Lying on his stomach in the sun, grateful that he had heard no aircraft as yet, he dug and collected the roots until he had several pounds of them, struggling hard at times against the urge to lay his head down and sleep. Looking with some satisfaction at the growing pile of roots, Einar realized that he needed a way to carry them, because the lynx-skin could not hold much more than he was already asking of it, and he hated to think what would happen if he was forced suddenly to leave the area, losing his mornings work, and his only current source of food. Making his way down to a marshy section of the basin, he cut a bundle of straight little alpine willow shoots with the sharpened steel bar, and sat down on a rock in the sun. Spreading some of the shoots out on the ground in front of him, he began work on a rough carrying basket for the roots. As he added layer after layer, he decided to keep the bottom of the basket small, making it tall and narrow so that it could be easily slung over his shoulder, and carried without being awkwardly bulky. When the basket was finished to his satisfaction, it had an inner diameter of about six inches, narrowed significantly towards the top, was approximately eighteen inches high, and just held the roots he had dug earlier that day. He took some aspen bark from his pack and made a handle, not taking the time to cord it, but just tying it onto the basket as it was. He would cord it later, and also planned to make a coiled cordage lid for the basket. For now, though, he just poked a number of short willow sticks, left over from the basket making, through the top of the basket so they formed a pattern like spokes on a wheel, to keep the roots from spilling if the basket should tip. Heading into the trees, he began collecting dry branches. Time for a fire.

Down in the valley that afternoon, the two skiers, having finally made their cautious way across the bowl, which appeared rather heavily laden with new snow and did not seem to have slid anytime in the recent past, finally reached their Subaru at the trailhead. Heavily loaded with wind packed snow, the bowl had let go and slid just as they had finished crossing and entered the trees on its far side. As relieved as they were to be through with the treacherous journey, they were also rather irritated at the strange, quiet guy they had met up at the hot spring, who had apparently deliberately mislead them and nearly got them killed in an avalanche. They wished they had got his name. Hungry, they drove into town to meet a couple of friends at a local restaurant.

Picking an especially thick blue spruce and scraping away the duff down to the frozen

ground, Einar prepared a fire that he hoped would not produce too much smoke. He still had seen no sign of search aircraft that day, and hoped he was far enough out of the area that a small, nearly smokeless fire would not draw too much attention. Because he really needed to cook up a bunch of those lily roots, needed to dry out his boot liners to keep his feet from getting any worse, and badly needed a way to keep warm for awhile, other than the constant shivering, which was really wearing him out. Sitting over his little fire half an hour later, Einar stirred and flipped a dozen or so lily roots that he had placed on a flat rock on the coals, waiting for them to heat and roast. While waiting, he melted some snow in the old sardine can he had salvaged from the mining cabin, glad to see that, despite its rusty, pitted appearance, it apparently held water. He felt much better after a meal of sweet, roasted roots and spruce tea, and allowed himself to doze for a few minutes over the fire before heading out to dig more roots before the night came again and froze the ground. Returning to camp with another good-sized load of roots, he stirred the fire back to life and began stringing the roots on wire strands from the steel cable and suspending them over the fire to roast. He had found the cooked roots to be a far more satisfying meal than the raw ones had been, and wanted to roast as many as possible to use for travel food whenever he decided it was time to move on from that spot. Einar took a few minutes to clear a spot adjoining his fire and build a second, wanting to heat and dry a larger section of ground against the coming cold of night, and still having heard no low-flying aircraft. Resting over the fire with his aspen-bark blanket around his shoulders, Einar nearly met with disaster when a spark landed on it and started it smoldering. Luckily, he was not quite asleep yet at the time, noticed the smoke, and was able to flip the blanket over into the snow before being burned or losing too much of it to the flames. The incident reminded him how very long it had been since he had last had a firenot since making the blanket, certainlyand he would have to be more cautious with it in the future. Before settling in for the night, Einar scouted around for a suitable place on a rabbit trail in an aspen grove, and set two snares, hoping for a breakfast of rabbit. As the bitter cold began descending on the basin that evening, Einar scraped aside the coals of his fire and curled up on the small patch of dried, warmed ground where it had been, using a stick to carefully fish several rocks out of the coals and place them close to him for added warmth. Covered with the lynx skin and his aspen bark blanket, waking once to pull a few more still-warm rocks from the pile of coals when the first batch cooled, he slept quite well that night, waking in the morning only a little stiff and barely even shivering after a night of temperatures that, if hed had a way to measure them, Einar would have found to be well down in the single digits. Moving the flat granite slab and wad of aspen bark fibers that he had placed over his coal pile the previous evening in the hopes of finding a live coal or two in the morning, Einar was glad to see that, when he blew on the white heap of ash, a few embers responded by glowing a cheery orange. In no time he had a fire going again, and allowed himself a cup of hot spruce tea and a few lily roots before rising stiffly to go check his snares. To Einars surprise and delight, one of the snares actually held a rabbit, not yet even cold,

and he hurried back to the fire, a bit of spring returning to his seriously dragging step at the prospect of meat for breakfast, and cooked, at that! What a concept! With only the small sardine can to boil water in, Einar knew that he could not, of course, stew the whole rabbit at once, and ended up skewering part of it on a stick and roasting it in his hurry for breakfast. Not the most efficient way to cook this critter as far as keeping all the nutrients, but by golly I need some food now, and it is the quickest way He enjoyed the still-warm liver raw as he waited, cutting up some of the remaining meat and tossing it in the sardine can with some snow and a couple of chopped-up lily roots to stew. Having devoured the skewered portion of the rabbit almost as soon as it was warm, Einar was still feeling pretty desperate for some fat, and knew that he would have to obtain some soon, if he wanted to keep things moving in the right direction, but for the moment he was starting to have a bit of energy again, and his stomach hurt far less than before the meal. The stew in the sardine can was beginning to bubble, but the can had a hole in one corner where water had apparently sat for who knew how many years and rusted it out, and as the broth boiled, it dislodged the little plug of rust that had been keeping the can watertight, causing it to spring a leak. Einar heard the hissing in the coals as his precious stew began escaping through the hole, and, not wanting to lose any of the tiny amount of fat that had been on the rabbit and was now melting and bubbling in that water, he snatched up the can and gulped the hot liquid, scalding his throat a bit but satisfied in the end that he had minimized his loss of the broth. Got to fix that hole. He pulled a little lump of hardened pitch off of the trunk of the spruce his fire was built beneath, setting it on a hot rock to liquefy and pounding and rubbing a bit of charcoal from the fire into a powder, adding it to the pitch and pressing the resulting sticky ball into the hole in the can. Hmm. Well see just how much heat this can take without melting out of there, but its worth a try. Finished with the rabbit, he cautiously melted a little snow in the bottom of the sardine can, glad to see that the patch seemed to be holding as long as he did not set it directly in the coals, stuffed the can with usnea lichen from the spruce, added some more snow, and set it down on a rock near the coals to simmer. Hungry again in very short order, he cracked and chewed on a couple of the rabbit bones for their marrow while the lichen heated, changing the water once as he waited and eventually eating the steaming mass of softer and slightly gelatinous lichen. Mmm Much better cooked. It sat better in his stomach, too, than had the slightly nauseating quantities of raw, acidic lichen he had forced himself to eat over the past weeks.

The skiers had arranged to meet a couple of friends at Juanitas Cantina, one of the few affordable eating places left in a town that had over the last decade begun increasingly catering to the influx of wealthy tourists that had come for the skiing, liked the place, and built or bought high-end condos, raising property values for everyone, but completely changing the flavor of that small mountain town. Settling down to a meal of big bowls of steaming Chile Verde and black bean burritos, the pair began recounting their adventures of the past several days, going on excitedly about their near miss with the avalanche. One of the friends who had joined them, a ski patroller at the local ski area, chastised

them for taking that kind of chance in known avalanche terrain, but they just laughed it off. It was the dead guys fault. Yeah, the dead guy. Totally his fault, cause we were going to turn around at the hot spring, and head back down for the night, till we met him. Dead guy? Whoa, hey, what dead guy? Oh, he turned out not to be dead, exactly, but we thought he was, because he was sleeping in the hot spring, and he looked pretty dead, but eventually he woke up. Some old hippie dude, or something, I guess. Didnt quite seem all there. But he said hed skied that route a few times, and it sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Told us the bowl had slid already, so we went ahead, and by the time we got there and saw it hadnt it was almost dark and we didnt want to camp out in the open like that, so we just went ahead and chanced it. Turns out that guy was just making things up, though, because we never even saw his tracks at all down on this side. So if he didnt come up from this side, and you say there was nobody in front of you whered this guy come from? See, thats the weird thing. Because I dont remember seeing any tracks at all. I mean, it was snowing pretty hard when we got there, but wed still have been able to see ski tracks if there had been any. Unless he had, like, been living there, or something. Since the last snow. They both started laughing at that idea. You know though, he kinda looked like he might have been up there a while. Kind of ragged, you know, and did you see the way he kept staring at our sandwiches? Like some sort of a hungry animal, almost. And when we got out that chocolate bar, I thought he was about to jump us for it. Um, guys, the ski patroller interrupted their exchange, did you ever consider that you might have just missed your chance to become millionaires? One of you, anyway They stared at him for a second with blank looks on their faces before it dawned on them what he was suggesting. Dudeno way! That Einar guys dead! Got to be dead, and this guy Wow. Do you think? But how would he have got skis? Did you see skis? I never actually saw skis. But how else

The ski patroller had gone to the entry area of the restaurant, and returned shortly with a copy of Einars wanted poster that he had pulled off of the bulletin board by the front door. Well, guys, heres the number. Finishing their sopapilla sundaes with homemade vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, the pair argued over who should get to make the call.

Studying the two photos on the reward poster their friend had retrieved for them, the skiers became a bit less sure about their intended call to the FBI. The fellow in the photos bore only a passing resemblance to the dead guy they had encountered at the hot spring, and not sure what sort of trouble you could get into by providing false information to a federal agent, but thinking that it sounded kind of serious, they were leaning towards dropping the whole thing. Until they spent the next hour engaging in a lively conversation about how they would use the reward money, consuming several pitchers of beer as they did so. After awhile, the call began to seem to them like a good joke, if nothing else, and they finally flipped a coin to decide who would have the honor. The agent on the other end of the line thanked them for their tip and asked some details about the location of the hot spring and exactly when they had encountered the subject in question, but did not think the tipsters sounded especially credible. Which of course, by that point, they did not. The agent on the phone took their names and addresses anyway, though, and after some discussion a the command post outside of Culver Falls, a couple of agents were sent out to their homes the next morning to interview the pair. Some of the details the skiers gave them interested the agents greatly, and they decided the matter was definitely worth further investigation.

The day was sunny, and as soon as the ground had thawed sufficiently, Einar got back to digging lily roots, wanting to gather as many as possible while he had the chance. As he worked, he made an occasional trip back to the fire to string fresh bulbs onto the strand of wire, removing those that he could tell had softened and cooked adequately, stowing the finished ones in his basket. Need to make another basket, later. Havent seen this much food for a long time. Keeping the fire going continuously to roast the bulbs, he was running out of the small, dry branches he had been limiting himself to out of concern for smoke. Reasoning that if the skiers had reported him, he surely would have seen some sign by then to indicate that the focus of the search had shifted, he gradually allowed himself to begin using some larger branches from a nearby dead aspen, and, eventually, laying the whole trunk of the tree in the fire to allow him to go longer without having to

return and add wood as he harvested roots. The sun was warm on his back as he worked, and Einar found himself enjoying the almost leisurely activity of digging the roots, nearly dozing at times in the late-morning warmth. Something was gnawing at him, though, causing him to startle and look up at odd moments almost like he expected to see or hear something coming at him, and he was starting to become seriously uneasy, knowing that, despite the reassuring lack of aircraft, he had been in one place for too long, had really let his discipline go with the use of the fire. He knew that he really needed to get down lower, anyway, where his chances of taking another deer would be far better. The lily bulbs, as substantial a boost as they had given him in his near-starved state, would not be enough to really turn things around without the addition of some serious fat and protein. Soon. All right. Time to go. Just as soon as I finish filling this basket. Einar was on his stomach in the middle of the dirt patch when he heard the plane. It was low, and already quite close by the time its sound reached him. He raised up on his elbows, listening for a fraction of a second before rolling to his feet. Knowing he had no chance of escaping notice there on the exposed dirt in his orange coveralls, he scrambled for the nearest cover, which consisted of a stand of scrawny aspens, wishing his aspen bark blanket had been within reach to throw over himself for additional concealment. It was lying rolled up against a rock near the edge of the melted-out area, where he had left it when the climbing sun had rendered it more of an encumbrance than a necessity. Standing upright in the shadow of an aspen trunk, pressed up against the tree, Einar hoped desperately that his grey sweatshirt would blend in well enough with his surroundings that he might be overlooked. Glancing over towards his campsite, he saw to his great dismay a faint blue haze of smoke drifting and hanging above the timber as his unattended fire cooled and smoldered. He clenched his teeth, angry at himself for his foolish lapse in discipline. Theyll see that, for sure. Twice the little plane passed over the area, returning to slowly circle it once before heading off down the valley. As soon as he was sure the plane was not immediately returning, Einar made a pouch with the front of his sweatshirt, shoveled the pile of roots into it, and hurried back to the camp where he hastily killed the fire, stomping it out and beating at the two smoldering ends of the tree trunk where the fire had finally burned it in half. Scrambling to pack his few possessions back into the lynx skin and basket, he did what he could to disguise his camp, but the snow around the tree was all trampled down and there was no correcting that. He did throw a bunch of spruce duff over the fire pit and burnt tree remains, but knew there was no way it would be enough. All right. Slow down for a second. He forced himself to actually sit down then on the half-burnt tree trunk and plan his next action, knowing that he was tending to rush around somewhere near panic and that his immediate future, at that point, depended entirely on his ability to make clear decisions and carry them out. So. Theyve seen the smoke. They will find this place, will get people on the ground here to check it out, as soon as they can. How long? He couldnt say for sure, but knew that it would depend on how they decided to bring the searchers in. Which he figured would almost have to be by air, because he was probably almost a two day hike from anywhere you could take a vehicle. His hope was to put as much distance behind him as possible before they actually got people on the ground, hoping to give himself at least some chance of throwing them off his trail when they did show up.

As he took off down the rocky slope, Einar could already hear the distant rumble of a helicopter, precluding him from returning to the open area where he had dug the lilies to retrieve his blanket, as he had intended. Avoiding the soft snow where he could and sticking to the still-frozen, exposed ground beneath the trees, he wove his way down the slope below him, eventually working his way over to a rocky-banked creek which he followed for awhile, fairly confident that he was not leaving too much sign. Before long, he came across a small, mossy-bottomed rivulet that trickled into the larger creek, hardly as wide as the breadth of his boot. Cautiously picking his way across the main creek on a row of icy, partially submerged rocks, he stepped into the trickle, placing one boot in front of the other with extreme care as he followed its winding course steeply up the slope, seeing with satisfaction that he was leaving no mark on its sides. He had to take great care as he went not to brush the overhanging, snow-covered branches of evergreens that sometimes nearly blocked his path, struggling over fallen trees that were at times slippery with frozen mist in places where the rivulet dropped sharply by a foot or two, sending a thin mist up into the cold air. Einar knew that his actions would not help if they brought in dogs, knew that they might not fool an experienced human tracker for long, either, but should buy him a little time, at least, which was all he asked at the moment. The sun was going down, the cold returning rather quickly, and with the exception of a small plane that seemed to be making near constant runs up and down the valley, frequently circling the area of his old camp, Einar had as yet heard no indication that a search was under way. But he knew that would not last. As soon as they saw his camp, the chase would be on, for sure, and he knew he had better be as far away as possible when that did happen. The steep little rivulet eventually petered out into a snow covered boulder field beneath firs that were progressively smaller as he climbed higher. By that time it was cold enough for the snow to have formed a crust, but, assuming that the feds would probably bring in real trackers this time, now that they had a solid lead, he decided that he must do everything he knew to do to keep them off his trail. Sitting on a rock, he tore off the lower portion of each of the legs of his jumpsuit, setting the rough rectangles of cloth on the snow. Next, he pulled some small side branches from nearby firs, rubbing a bit of charcoal from the supply in his pocket over the wounds where he had removed the branches so they did not show fresh and white to anyone who might happen that way. Placing the little branches in the center of the cloth pieces to form the rough size and shape of his boots, he set the boots on them and tied the cloths to his feet. Well. That should keep me from leaving boot tracks, anyway, if I hit a soft spot, and though Im sure a tracker could still see the disturbance on the crust from these things, its gonna be a lot more difficult, and might give me some edge. And he took off across the snow, keeping for the time to the trees, but realizing that he would soon lose them due to the increasing elevation. Keep going up. They will not expect you to go up. No reasonable person would go up. He was to be reminded of that thought numerous times over the next few days. Nearing treeline, Einar realized that the air portion of the search, at least, was concentrated in the little basin where his camp had been and on the timber covered slopes

below it, and he saw that he had guessed correctly about the initial strategy of the searchers. The thought came to him that perhaps if he could get over on the other side of the high rock ridge in front of him, that he might just be able to slip away from his pursuers entirely. He knew where he was now; there was no mistaking the flat-topped, nearly vertical walled peak that lay before him, its long narrow approach ridge running on in an apparently unbroken buttress to his left. He also knew that there was supposed to be a pass of sorts somewhere in that wall of rock, a low spot that would allow you, hopefully with an ice axe but without the need of technical climbing gear, to pass over into the high rocky basin that lay on the other side. Einar had never been through the notch, had never seen it, even, though he had been on top of the peak once years ago and looked down into the desolate basin on the other side of it, which at over 13,ooo feet held three large lakes that were seldom visited even in the summer due to their remoteness. He had spoken once, though, to a man who had accessed the basin that way, and according to him the most difficult part of the scramble was dealing with the loose rock in the narrow, steep chute on the far side of the ridge. Eating a few roasted lily bulbs as he studied the wall in the uncertain light of a quarter moon, he thought he saw a low spot in its ramparts of nearly white rock, a notch that might allow him passage, escape. Well. Shouldnt have any problem with loose rock, this time of year And, reluctant to expose himself but thinking it his best option, he set out at as fast a pace as he could maintain, hoping to make it across the expanse of open snow that lay between the trees and the wall before something flew over and spotted him.

Pete Jackson, having spent far too much time at the bar in Culver Falls the night after he inadvertently got his brother arrested, attempted to drive home when the place closed, and ended up missing a curve on the rather winding stretch of road between town and his home, ending up halfway down the riverbank, the front end of his truck smashed in against a cottonwood tree. The next morning, a couple headed into work in Culver saw the fresh skid marks and discovered his truck. Pete was unconscious and badly injured, but alive, and was pulled up out of the ditch by members of the volunteer fire department and taken to the hospital with a punctured lung, broken ribs, and a leg that was fractured in three places. Jeff, because of the court hearing in Clear Springs, did not learn of his brothers accident until the following day, when Rob came by to tell him. They drove together to the hospital to see Pete, who was recovering from the second of several necessary surgeries and was still unconscious when they got there. Rob was almost glad, because he had a number of things he wanted to say to his former business partner, none of them, unfortunately, very kind. Jeff was mostly just worried about his brothers condition. Two days later, Jeff was served with a court summons for the next day in Clear Springs, on a motion revoke his bail. The reason: intimidation of a witness. Jeff, seeing that the deck was apparently to be stacked against him from the very start in this court case, decided that the time had come to talk seriously with Bill about his offer. He threw a few things into his truck, dropped his two dogs and a fifty pound sack of dog food off at Robs and headed out. Jeff checked carefully to make sure he was not being followed, before

turning off onto the steep, rocky road that led up to Bill and Susans.

Einar made it across the increasingly steep, open snowfield without incident, struggling up the slope towards the notch, kicking his toes into snow that was growing steadily more cement like as the temperature dropped. Finally reaching the top, he stood there for a minute nearly doubled over in an attempt to catch his painfully rasping breath, having far more trouble with the altitude than he was used to and knowing that, in addition to his lack of food, he was probably still somewhat anemic from losing all that blood after the blast, which put him at rather a disadvantage at altitude. Ha! One good thing, though, if any of those agents from near sea level in San Francisco or wherever they come from decide to follow me up here, theyre gonna have it just as bad Resting for a moment, he stared out at the basin, its large icy lakes showing as flat spots in the snow cover, not a tree visible anywhere, looking stark and enormous and frozen in the moonlight, and not at all like a place that would sustain life. Well. Hope the feds think the same thing, if they end up looking this far out Knowing that he must not stand still for too long in that cold, Einar started cautiously down the steep chute. Slipping, he barely caught himself, crouched there behind a little wind-hardened ridge in the snow, trying to get his courage up to continue down the chute. He was acutely aware that he was entirely alone in remote and potentially very dangerous place, that if he fell now and broke something or became otherwise incapacitated, he was almost certainly out of luck. In the past when he had deliberately put himself in such situations, he had liked the way that feeling kept him sharp and focused, far more so than when he had climbed with others and could count on them for help if something went wrong. That night, though, that familiar feeling tended a lot more towards producing a paralyzing fear than the keen anticipation and alertness he had come to enjoy, grabbing him around the middle and threatening to squeeze his breath out with its icy teeth. The only thing that finally got him going again was the thought of the search and probable pursuit behind him. Got to do it, Einar. The crust that had made travel so easy and relatively trackless as he had crossed the snowfield now added greatly to the danger of the descent, and Einar found himself sticking very close to the side of the chute, where he could cling to protruding rocks and carefully lower himself until he thought he had another secure foothold. Eventually though the angle of the wall changed, and it no longer provided him with anything to hold onto. He wished he had crampons, thought of an account he had read of Australian Antarctic explored Douglas Mawson, who lost most of his gear and nearly all of his food when his sled fell into a crevasse. Making his way back alone to the place where he hoped his ship was still waiting for him, his companions having died along the way, Mawson made improvised crampons for himself by pounding sharp pieces of metalit might have been nails, but he couldnt remember for surethrough the soles of his boots. This allowed him to travel down the ice shelf to the sea without ending his journey in a disastrous fall, as he almost certainly would have without the altered footwear. As he remembered, though, it had worked only marginally well, as the nails had the tendency to keep

working their way rather uncomfortably back up through the soles and intruding on the space needed by his feet. And Einar only had the two nails, anyway, that he had kept from the old cabin, so he decided against trying it. Instead he used the bow, which he had been carrying unstrung, as a walking stick, hating to think that he might break it, but at that point so focused on getting down to the basin without suffering a serious fall that anything was fair game if he thought it might help. He tried kicking in his toes, his heels, digging his bare hands into the snow for traction, but the surface was no longer just crusty snow, it was coated in places with thin water ice where snowmelt had trickled down the previous afternoon and frozen. He was doing pretty well at avoiding the ice, which carried a greater sheen in the pale moonlight than did the snow. Clouds had been building, though, and one occasionally scudded across the moon, taking his light, and at first he stopped and waited each time for the clouds to move on, but there were more and more of them, and he was getting too cold to keep waiting. Feeling ahead of him with the bow, he tried his best to detect and avoid the icy patches, but when he was nearly two thirds of the way down he missed one, placed his weight on it, his foot went out from under him, and he fell on his side and began sliding down the steep snow. Looking up, Einar rolled quickly to his left to protect his head from a rock that rose black and menacing out of the snow, knowing that to hit his head and lose consciousness for any amount of time then was almost certainly to perish in the cold of the night. Gaining speed, he flipped over onto his stomach, hanging onto the bow for all he was worth and attempting to jab it into the icy surface to halt his slide, but it just scratched uselessly along the icy surface and finally was snatched forcefully from his hands as it suddenly caught behind a protruding rock.

Einar lay still in the snow at the bottom of the chute, not feeling at all like moving but eventually, as the shock of his last impact with the icy surface began wearing off, forcing himself to sit up because he knew that it would be a very bad idea to allow the snow to begin soaking into large areas of his clothing. He sat there for awhile slumped over against a boulder with his head on his knees, dizzy and sick, waiting for the flashing in front of his eyes to stop obscuring his vision. Hed ended up actually tumbling a few times when the slope had dropped off steeply beneath him, and, though he was pretty sure he had somehow managed to avoid striking his head on one of the numerous exposed rocks, the icy snow of the chute had certainly been hard enough when it came into contact with his unprotected head. And something was seriously wrong with his left arm, or elbow, or perhaps even the shoulder. He couldnt tell which yet, and for the moment it hurt too much to really do any exploring. After a few minutes, knowing he must not remain still for long if he was at all able to move and beginning to think that the origin of the pain was actually nearer the shoulder than the elbow, Einar began trying to assess the damage. Gingerly pressing and poking at various points along his collarbone, he found the worst of the pain and tenderness to be greatly concentrated out near its end, which gave him at

least some assurance that his collarbone was not broken. OK. This could be worse. Torn ligament of some sort, I think. Itll be alrightin a couple of months. Got to find some way to keep it still for now. And he really wished he could stop the shivering, too, because its constant motion certainly was not helping with the pain of the injury. Good luck on that one, at least until you get moving Which, the thought having occurred to him, he hurried to get started on. Rising shakily to his feet, unspeakably glad that his legs, with the exception of some nasty-looking, blood-oozing scrapes on the lower portions, seemed to be uninjured, Einar looked around for his gear. And discovered that everything was gone. The bow, the lynx-skin pack with all of its contents, the basket full of lily rootseverything. With the exception of the coil of steel cable, which had somehow remained slung over his shoulder throughout the fall. He fought back the sense of doom and finality that came over him at the discovery, tried to think of the next step any next step, just to keep himself from sitting back down in the snow as he was feeling increasingly inclined to do. He had a very strong feeling that if he did that, he would not be getting back up. Ive got to have that food. I will not die in this basin tonight. I will make it back down to treeline by morning. But not without some food. And he started hobbling about, beginning to stiffen badly from the tumble, searching for any sign of his scattered possessions. A cloud had been obscuring the moon, and as it drifted on in its course, he was able to make out a couple of dim black shapes above him in the snowy chute, somehow appearing different in shape from the jagged rocks that stuck their teeth up through the snow at random intervals. Thats got to be it. Trouble was, he had no idea how he was supposed to climb up that slope without the use of both hands for balance, and to move his left arm just then was sheer agony. Eventually he stuck his left hand in the collar of the sweatshirt in an effort to keep the injured arm still, and started cautiously up the slope, his legs trembling alarmingly at times as he inched his way up the icy incline. It was not long before he began finding a scattered item here or there, first a nail, then the sardine can and his two wire snares, the steel bar sticking up out of the ice where it had apparently landed after going airborne in the tumble, and by the time he had reached the indefinite dark lump that he hoped was the lynx skin, he figured he was doing pretty well at reclaiming his possessions. Loading everything into the lynx skin, he struggled to tie it shut with freezing hands, trying to warm them against his stomach but finding that even that tried and true method was not working especially well that night. He just wasnt producing enough heat, knew he needed fuel if he was to keep going like that. As yet, though, he had seen no sign of the lily roots or their basket, which he knew he needed possibly more than any of the other items, if he wanted to last the night and make it down out of the snowbound basin. Reaching a large boulder and feeling around in the shadows behind it, he finally found the basket, empty but for a half dozen or so bulbs in its bottom. Badly needing the energy that he hoped they would provide, he stuffed two of the remaining roots in his mouth as he began searching in the hopes of finding more. A thin haze of cloud had crept over the moon as he climbed, and now, shining down through a ragged gap in the cloud cover, the moon dispelled some of the shadows behind the rock, allowing Einar to see that a good number of the bulbs were scattered over the snow above it, caught behind small rocks and little irregularities in the snow. He began collecting them, bracing his

feet against anything he could find to give him a bit of a hold and balancing on his knees before searching the dimly lit snow for the precious roots. Caught behind one rock, he found ten or twelve of them in one place, feeling himself quite lucky indeed at that moment, before the reality of his situation again set in as he unthinkingly tried to move his left arm. Having rounded up all he could find of his supplies and being unwilling to make the risky climb back up to where he believed the bow to be, Einar carefully downclimbed and at times slid back to the bottom, almost tripping over the bow when he went to stand up. He realized then that it must have slid down behind him as he fell, that he had overlooked it in the dim light before starting back up the chute. Good. This is good. He picked it up, started out across the basin, which, while he knew was indeed expansive, appeared that night to stretch on nearly forever before ending in stark, sheer walls of unforgiving grey granite. Somewhere in the distance, he knew, the walls gave way and the land sloped downwards towards the trees, towards a valley that, of he could reach it, offered him a chance at continued life. But first, to cross the basin. Sometime later as he traveled, Einar had a sudden flash of remembrance, so real that it stopped him in his tracks for a minute, of the way it feels to get back within sight of the house from a long ski, after dark, hungry and worn out and cold and knowing that you have a fire all ready to light in the stove to sit by while you wait for a hot supper to cook. He had always thought that feeling must be one of the most wonderful in the world, and it brought a twisted, ironic little smile to his face now as he thought of it. Finding it easy to slip back into the dream or hallucination or whatever it had been, he let it carry him along for a while, livening his step a bit and making the time pass a little less slowly, not caring that he was probably in for a difficult letdown whenever he was finally forced to abandon the fantasy. Einar kept descending, stumbling towards the trees below him, eventually reaching them and going on under sub alpine firs and a few spruces as the sky began graying with morning. His legs were shaking so badly from his prior exertion and the shock of the fall and injury that he at times feared collapsing on the snow, but managed to remain upright. He had some time ago stopped allowing himself to sink to his knees and rest periodically as he had at first been doing, sensing the direness of his situation and fearing that he might perhaps come to lack either the will or the strength to rise, and not wanting to test the possibility. Each time he stopped to rest, though, leaning over with his good elbow almost on his knee and trying to let his heart slow down for a minute, he did make himself eat a lily root. The pain from his shoulder precluded him from feeling any hunger, but he knew that the sweet roots would help keep him going. He was looking for shelter, for anything that might give him a dry place to rest and hopefully some cover in case somehow they did track him over the ridge or guess it as his path, and send aircraft. He stumbled along in a haze, time having long ago ceased to hold meaning for him, the only thing that counted being the fact that he kept putting one foot in front of the other, one more time. To think of it in larger terms at that point only brought him swiftly to the brink of despair, so he carefully avoided such thoughts, just focusing on continuing to move and doing his best to avoid leaving sign. Which he doubted he was doing a very good job of.

Emerging from the trees at the edge of a little dropoff, Einar stood in the growing light of day in the hour before sunrise, looking out at the valley that stretched away below him, white with snow up close but honeycombed with small patches of brown and grey and even the soft, brilliant green of emerging vegetation lower down. Struggling through the basin that night, Einar had not really expected to see the valley, or daylight, even, for that matter, and the sight revived his flagging spirits a bit with the hope that with a few more hours travel, he might be able to reach those less-frozen lands below, where he could find more food, some shelter, a chance to rest. First, though, he had either to navigate his way down the steep, icy-looking rock of the twenty foot dropoff before him, or avoid the cliffy area altogether by going some distance out of his way and working his way down through the scattered patches of timber and snow-covered rock that broke up the steepness of the mountainside. The second definitely seemed like the better option, but it meant traversing the slope for some distance before he could again begin heading down. He leaned heavily against the trunk of a little spruce, twisted and bleached white and apparently long dead, nearly devoid of branches, trying to set a goal for himself somewhere down among the jumble of snowy rock and timber. It was, now that he studied the landscape, a very long way indeed down to the first patches of exposed dirt. Several thousand feet, he guessed. Too far. Its too far. Got to stop for awhile. He was exhausted, dizzy, had been stumbling every few steps for some time now, and he knew that to attempt the gnarly descent without some measure of rest was to invite disaster. Again. So. Rest. But where? Scanning the land around him, he was met with soaring, nearly vertical rock on two sides, the dropoff and valley below, and the steep, snowy, timbered slope he had just descended behind him. Not too many likely prospects. Up against the wall on his right, somewhat above his present position and lying at the top of a little rockslide, he could see what liked like a very small and narrow gap in the rock, blackness within. Worth a try. The dark slash in the rock looked awfully far above him, and there were no guarantees that it would even provide useful shelter when he did reach it, but the prospect of sitting down for awhile in a dry place out of the wind made it worth the effort to find out. Preparing to head up the slope to the potential shelter, he shifted the lynx skin pack, which had become somewhat tangled with the handle of the root basket. He had been experiencing quite a bit of difficulty with carrying the lynx skin, basket and wire coil all on one shoulder, having to stop frequently and readjust everything to keep it from falling off, but he reminded himself that it was probably actually better in this case that he did not have a conventional backpack, as he doubted he would even have been able to use it, with the shoulder injury. Einar started up the snow of the rockslide, arriving breathless and panting some time later at a tiny level spot under against a wall of rock that towered several hundred feet over his head, overhanging just enough at its top to keep rain in the summer, and snowmelt in spring, from falling on the small sheltered spot. But what really interested Einar was the dark slit in the rock face itself. Not even three feet wide but at least ten or twelve high, the opening led into a cavelike space, free of snow and floored with dusty dirt. As his eyes adjusted, Einar could see that bats had spent a good bit of time in the cave, and

though he did not see any there at the timeway too cold for them up here this time of year, I guess there was a big pile of guano over in one corner that indicated that they used the place for a summer roost, if nothing else. The cave went back only about ten feet into the mountain, more of a closed-top slot in the rock than anything. Several feet inside, he found signs of an old fire, having sat so long that orange and green lichen grew on the charred remains of several sticks of wood that had been left behind. A small tin can, charred from the fire but barely rusted after years of sitting in that high, dry hole in the wall, sat on a flat rock beside the fire, looking to Einar like it could have been placed there that morning by someone who intended on returning shortly after checking his snares He wondered about the man who had previously taken refuge there, hoped things had turned out all right for him, whoever he had been. Probably just some hunter who had stopped for a snack and a little fire. The previous occupant, hiker, hunter or otherwise, had chosen his shelter well, as Einar discovered when the sun finally inched its way up above the rocks on the other side of the valley and slanted brightly into the cave. Out of the wind and sitting bathed in the midmorning sun, Einar thought to himself that there could hardly have been a more welcome confluence of circumstances just then. Then laughed at himself for thinking, unless you could add a giant plate of biscuits and gravy into the mixand a three foot wheel of cheese. It does come that way, doesnt it? Thatd last me awhile, and I could just roll it along down the mountain in front of me as I went alongHmm. Wheels of cheese Such bounty firmly out of the reach of even his active imagination at the moment, though, he satisfied himself with chewing on a few lily roots as he sat shivering in the wonderful warmth of the sun. After resting for a few minutes, he began inspecting himself for injuries, not that he was equipped to do much about them, but he supposed that it was better to know of them than not tofor whatever it was worth. He knew his fingertips would be at least mildly frostbitten from the climb and the desperate scramble in the snow to retrieve his gear, but they had not really had the opportunity to warm up and start hurting yet, and he didnt know how bad it was going to be. He was encouraged, at least, that none of them had the white, waxy look that would have meant he was in serious trouble, indeed. His knees, of all things, seemed to have some definite frostbite as well, he supposed from balancing so long on them in the snow while recovering the lily roots, and his feet, though protected by the Sorels and not actually frostbitten, were showing signs of advancing trench foot that had him worried. He knew that if not turned around, it could lead to gangrene and in his situation, probable death, almost as easily as actual frostbite. OK. Nothing that will keep me from making it down to the valley, anyway, where I can hopefully have a fire and find some cottonwood buds and Oregon grape roots to help patch up the damage. Dozing in little snatches, he heard a helicopter pass overhead and hoped, before dropping off to sleep again, that it was just on its way somewhere to refuel after searching on the other side of the ridge. If that was not the case, he was pretty sure he should have seen more activity by then. Einars badly needed sleep was cut short when he slouched over against the rock wall of the cave, jarring his injured shoulder and snapping himself awake rather quickly. The shoulder was swollen, and exploring it very gently with his right hand, he could feel a lump out near its end where it had apparently been injured as it slammed into the ice the previous night. He knew he needed a better way of

immobilizing it than tucking his hand into the collar of his sweatshirtthough that had kept his left hand a good bit warmer than his rightbecause every time he had tripped or stumbled, the hand came out, allowing the shoulder to flex rather painfully and, for all he knew, possibly doing it more damage. Lacking anything at all with which to make a sling or wrap the arm against his body, he pulled a strand of wire from one of his snares, flexed it back and forth in the center and finally pounded it with a rock to break it, and, holding his left hand up near the collar of his shirt, poked the sharp strand of wire through the cuff of the sleeve and the collar of the shirt, bent it, poked it through a second time and twisted it, pinning his arm in place. Concerned that the cloth of the shirt might end up tearing, he added a second piece of wire to secure the sleeve to the collar. Adding another such tie down near the elbow to help keep it from swinging out away from his body as he traversed the rough terrain ahead, he ruefully wished for a couple of great big safety pins to make the job a bit easier. And maybe a fire, to stop the shivering that continued to be necessary in the frigid air despite the sunlight, making his work that much more difficult. Eying the nice pile of small sticks left by his fellow traveler who had sheltered in the little cave some years before, which were quite dry indeed after who knew how many years of sitting in a cave at 11,000 feet, Einar wished he had the means of starting a fire just then. He was pretty sure he would have risked it, if he had. Though the improvised sling had already done quite a bit to reduce the constant pain of his shoulder, he couldnt help but think that this current injury could possibly prove more challenging than being stuck in handcuffs, when it came to climbing and carrying out the tasks that would be necessary to sustaining his life over the next few weeks until the shoulder began to heal. Like making a fire. And how can I ever hope to take a deer, with one arm?

In the log-walled, tile floored dining area of Bill and Susans large kitchen the evening before Jeffs scheduled bail revocation hearing, a serious conversation was underway between Bill, Allan, Jeff and several others who formed the core of a close-knit group of eight or so who met regularly at their house to discuss preparedness and freedom-related issues and do some target practice and other training. Jeff Jackson had never really been associated with the group, but most of the folks knew and respected him, and none of them were pleased about his treatment by the federal occupation force that seemed to be running rampant over their community of late. Bill had called a meeting the previous daymeetings were usually up at Bill and Susans, as it was somewhat centrally located in the valley and provided ready access to the National Forestto discuss Jeffs situation and their willingness to help. The general consensus was that, though Jeff had never been a group member, he was an upstanding member of the community, was regarded as a reliable and trustworthy individual, and that his situation was exactly why the group existed. A stand had to be made somewhere, and the obviously frivolous and malicious prosecution of Jeff Jackson seemed to them as good a place as any to make it. Hopefully though, without the feds ever finding out. No one in the group, prepared as they might be, wanted to deliberately invite the kind of trouble they knew that would bring. As the group sat around the large aspen-plank table that Bill had made years ago when

their five children had still been at home, enjoying cups of coffee and generous helpings of Susans serviceberry cobbler, Bill reiterated his offer to provide Jeff a place to stay in lieu of attending a court hearing after which he was likely to be jailed, but did ask him to start from the beginning in recounting the events leading up to his arrest. Now lets get one thing straight though, before you start, Bill began. We dont want to know if youve been helping Asmundson. Were not asking, and we dont want to hear about it. So, just tell us about the arrest, about how the FBI got involved, if you would. Well, I can be real honest with you about that first part, because I wasnt doing anything of the kind. I assumed he was dead, along with everybody else. This all started when Rob and Pete and I ran across a weird deer trail that day up along Muskrat Creek. Followed it, found a poached deer, hauled the critter back intending to take in to the DOW next day, but then I got to looking at that arrow, you know, and thought twice about it. Arrow? The FBI had not released information about the arrow or their renewed search effort to the press, and Bill was curious. Yeah. Real rough looking, not all that well done, but you know the thing that really got my attention was that whoever made it had wrapped sinew just under the head to hold it in place. Now who does that? Nobody does that. And if they did, if they were trying to recreate an authentic primitive arrow or something, well, I figure theyd have paid more attention to the other details. And would have knapped the head out of flint or something, not used some old folded piece of tin like this guy did. He shook his head. No, this was a thing of necessity, a tool meant to help a hungry man take some game, and I started to feel real bad about stealing somebodys dinner. Wont even speculate about whose. So next day I took the thing back, left it where I found it. Now where I may be in some real trouble with the feds is that I figured whoever was out there in the snow trying to take a deer with a homemade arrow like that was probably in need of some other supplies, so just trying to be a good neighbor, I hung this little backpack by the deer in a tree My big mistake though I guess was showing my brother that arrow the night before. He Jeff stopped for a minute, clenched his teeth and shook his head, trying to quell his anger for Pete by reminding himself of his brothers current plight in the hospital. He snuck into my workshop and stole it. Went to the feds with it. My brother. They came that morning just as I had finished dragging the deer back up into the trees where we had found it. The rest, Im sure you all know about already. Liz, helping Susan wash up the dinner dishes, had been listening intently to the conversation, allowing herself for the first time since the blast to hope that perhaps Einar might have made it. She wanted very much to ask Jeff more about the arrow, about exactly where they had found the deer, but did not think it her place to intrude on the conversation. Later. There will be time to ask him later. I sure hope that was you, Einar She spent the rest of the evening listening to the building storm outside and worrying about what Einar, if he was out there, would eat that night since his deer had been taken away. She knew very well that he could ill afford to be missing many meals,

wanted to pack up some food and warm clothes and go right out there and look for him, knowing, though, that if the feds could not find him, she had little chance of doing so herself. If. If it was even him. Which there is not much chance of. You know hes gone, Liz. Stop this. Susan noticed the anguished mixture of hope and concern on her face as she listened to the conversation, squeezed Lizs shoulder, but did not say anything. Bill continued with the questioning. So, this latest thing, this intimidation of a witness? You figure thats just their way of locking you up until trial? Got to be, because you know what? Pete wasnt even awake when I went to see him. How could I possibly have intimidated him? Rob was there. He saw. But for some reason theyre leaving him out of this. I figure theyre just trying to add on more charges to make sure they get their conviction. Jeff, now the way I see it, theres at least two ways we can go about this. If you want us to help raise money for a good lawyer Jeff shook his head, interrupted him. No. Ive seen the way that goes. They had this trial decided before they hauled all of my stuff out in the yard for that news conference. Man, they planted stuff in my workshop. I never, never messed with any of that Class Three stuff. Never. So what they say they foundno. Not mine. But now how am I going to prove that in court? Theyve probably got my fingerprints all over it and everything, by now. And Im really not interested in enjoying their hospitality for the next eight or ten years or whatever. Well Jeff, Bill said, rising and putting on his coat, Looks like we got us a truck to hide

After resting in the rock crevice for a couple of hours until the sun left it, Einar got back to his feet and continued down the valley, choosing to go the extra distance in order to avoid the dropoff, which, looking at it realistically and with a somewhat cleared mind after having rested and eaten, he realized was not something he ought to attempt to downclimb. The descent through the band of timber and rock seemed to go on forever, but eventually he made his way down to the valley floor, following a frozen little creek that wound its way through thick tangles of alpine willow and red osier dogwood that would have been somewhat higher than his head, had there not still been five feet of snow on the ground. Before his distant view had been obscured by the thickening vegetation of the valley floor and the gathering dusk, Einar had caught a glimpse of a larger river some distance lower, and continued following the course of the creek, hoping it eventually dumped into the river. He wanted to get down near that river, thinking perhaps to find some melted out areas near it where be might be able to dig some more avalanche lilies to supplement his dwindling supply, maybe a little pond where he would have a chance to trap a muskrat, even. Darkness had come as he passed through the

willow thickets, descending swiftly on the narrow valley sandwiched between its high rock walls and slowing his progress until, at length, the moon rose to again illuminate his path. Descending, he found himself in a steep gulley, strewn with large red sandstone boulders and icy with the melting, compacting snow of spring. The lower he got, the taller the spruces became, obscuring his route at times with their dark shadows, eventually giving way in places to little patches of scrub oak. Einar took the time to stop and pull a handful of leaf buds from one of the scrub oaks, bitter with tannic acid, but, he knew, containing some protein. He continued picking and eating them as he clambered down among the boulders, avoiding the icy patches as well as he could. In a protected spot where an enormous slab of sandstone had at some point come loose from the hillside above and wedged in the gulley to create, in effect, a stone lean-to, Einar discovered a huge quantity of last years scrub oak leaves, apparently swept and piled there by the wind. Those far under the slab had been kept free of snow, and, crawling into the three-foot high space, he discovered that they were crunchy and dry, save for some moisture in the bottom layer that had collected and frozen hard. Feeling around in the total darkness under the sandstone, he guessed that the leaves must be a couple of feet deep at the back of the shelter. Quite worn out by the long descent, he burrowed down in the leaves, lay back in them and rested, glad of a dry place to stop for a minute. Or longer, as he was fast asleep almost as soon as he stopped moving. Einar woke stiff with cold sometime later, his shoulder hurting terribly with the shivering, thankful for the insulating bed of leaves that had no doubt meant the difference between life and death as he slept an exhausted sleep that night. Dragging himself through the leaves, he rolled over and looked up at the sky, seeing that, though the moon was gone, the darkness was not complete. So. Morning again. Having been still for too long in the cold, he knew that he must get up and move, knew that even the leaf insulation could only hold it back for so long. Based on the picture in his mind from the previous evening, he knew he couldnt be too far from the river, and wanted to head down to it and try to set a snare or two in the hopes of obtaining some badly-needed meat before facing another night out in the cold. Knowing that he would likely return to the lean-to the following night to again take advantage of its wealth of dry leaf-insulation, he was tempted to leave most of his gear there in its shelter, but took everything with him in the end, afraid of losing it all again if he for some reason ended up not being able to return. Reaching the bottom of the gulley as the pale light began brightening into morning, Einar stepped out from behind the last of the boulders into a narrow, protected meadow, last years dry yellow grass beginning to show in spots through the thinning snow cover. And nearly walked right into the middle of a small herd of sleeping elk.

As quietly as possible, Einar stepped back behind the boulder and tried to force his cold, sluggish brain to plan his next move, realizing then that he had for some time been smelling the sweet, almost fennel-like odor of elk urine and chiding himself for blundering out into the meadow and nearly spoiling everything with his carelessness.

Spoiling what? What are you gonna do, go beat one of them to death with a rock? With one hand? He had heard no crunching of the snow to indicate that the elk had startled at his presence, was pretty sure that they remained unaware of him, stared at the bow in his hand, thinking it an awful shame that there was no way he could use it. I wonder. Are you really physically unable to use it? Is there no way , or are you just unwilling because you know itll hurt? Hmm. Guess I dont actually know for sure. But He fished the coiled up sinew bowstring out of his pack, shook the coiled wire and root basket from his shoulder and removed the wire ties that pinned his arm in place. Were about to find out. He struggled to brace the bow, gritting his teeth against the pain of raising his bad arm as he slid the looped sinew string into the nock at the top of the bow. Then, carefully straightening his left arm, he held the bow at arms length, clamping his mouth shut to avoid crying out at the pain it brought his damaged shoulder. He held it there for a bit, experimentally attempting to draw the string back, but in addition to the pain, there seemed to be a great weakness in the arm, leaving it trembling and sagging almost immediately. After a little rest he tried it again, this time knowing to anticipate and attempt to ignore the pain, but the results were the same. Einar sank to the snow, nauseous, pressing his left arm hard across his chest. OK. I thinkthink Ive got my answer. The shoulder, rotated and extended as it needed to be to use the bow, simply did not seem stable enough to allow him to do the job. An attempt was likely to result in a miserable failure, just spooking the elk and ruining any chance he might have at obtaining some food. But he knew he had better at least give it a try, because the shoulder was not likely to be much better for a while, weeks, most likely, and he doubted he would soon have another opportunity like the one that waited for him then on the other side of that red boulder. He tried to think of other means he might use to take one of the elk, but none of them seemed practical, without either time or equipment he did not have available to him just then. All right. You dont have too long to experiment here, Einar. Critters will be awake soon and moving on. Taking the one arrow he had left, which thankfully was one that he had made a tin head for back at the old cabin, he prepared to step out from behind the rock. Then he had a thought. He remembered seeing something years ago about a man who had been born without arms, and had learned to use his feet for nearly everything driving, writing, playing a number of musical instruments, evenand carried on a fairly normal life. And I have one more arm than he did. I wonder Sitting in the snow he experimented, placing the grooved Vibram sole of the toe of his boot up on the bow where his left hand ought to have been, carefully balancing to avoid tipping over and drawing the string back a bit. It was awfully difficult and, with the poorly-healed break to his left hip from the fall in the canyon the year before, rather awkward, but he thought it offered him at least some chance of success. Probably a greater one than if he tried to use the bow conventionally. Einar eased out from behind the rock, seeing that the elk had not moved, and, taking painstaking care to avoid alerting the sleeping animals to his presence, settled himself on a little rise at the edge of a one or two foot dropoff, perhaps seven yards from the nearest

sleeping cow elk. Her head was bent around the side opposite him, leaving one side exposed for a perfect shot. If, that is, I can manage any shot, at all Getting his boot into position on the bow and nocking the arrow, he struggled to keep everything steady while he lined up on the sleeping elk. Almost there, almost there and, focusing so completely on the elk and the awkwardness of keeping his left leg from interfering with the arrow, he forgot entirely about the need to balance, and found himself without warning toppling to his left toward part of a fallen cottonwood that stuck up out of the snow, its dry, brittle branches just waiting to snap in the silence and startle the elk. Einar caught himself just in time, rolling on his injured shoulder and avoiding the tree. Afraid to move, he listened for any sign that the elk had heard him, but there was nothing. Very slowly he sat up, dragged himself back up onto the little rise, and twisted himself back into the position that offered him his only hope at taking one of the animals. He was breathing hard from the near miss with the tree, and concentrated on slowing his breathing and steadying his aim. Einar was starting to tire badly, his left leg beginning to tremble, and he knew that he could not maintain the strained position for much longer, that he had better go ahead and take the shot. As he let the arrow fly the bow jumped up off of his foot and went spinning out across the meadow, sending Einar sprawling on his back in the snow with an awful cramp in his thigh, hearing the commotion of half a dozen large animals scrambling to their feet and crashing into the forest. Ignoring the cramp, he flipped over to his stomach just in time to see the his quarry take off across the meadow, the arrow appearing to be deeply imbedded very near the spot he had been aiming for. Exhausted and hurting, he lay there on his stomach with his forehead resting on the snow for some time before picking himself up and going to check the elks trail for blood. Einar collected the bow from the spot where it had come to rest against a clump of sagebrush, looked over the icy depression in the snow where his elk had been sleeping, and retreated to the leaf filled shelter to rest and eat a few lily bulbs while he gave the elk some time to tire. He tossed and fretted and couldnt seem to lie still though, and it was all he could do to force himself to wait. He worried that perhaps the arrow would not be adequate to bring the animal down at all, or that at the very least the elk might be able to go many miles before stopping, and that another predator might get to it before he, with his slow pace, could reach it. Another thought that occurred to him as he lay there in the leaves was that the animal might end up down lower in the valley, somewhere near a road or a house where he would not dare go to retrieve it. With great difficulty he forced himself to continue waiting for over an hour, reminding himself of the disastrous results that had ensued when he had previously allowed his desperation to get the best of him and chased the deer down to the valley below the cabin, only to end up losing it anyway and sparking a renewed air search that had left him confined for days to the mine tunnel to very nearly starve. As he lay in the lean-to, he replaced the wire ties that had bound his arm to his side, hoping very much not to have to attempt using it again for at least a few days. The pain of the damaged ligament was causing the muscles of his upper back and neck to tense up and become nearly immobile, and, not able to find a comfortable position to lie even in the thick bed of leaves, he headed down to the marshy area near the river, in the hopes of finding a few willows. Breaking off several willow shoots and

peeling back the outer bark, he stuffed strips of the slimy, bitter inner bark into his mouth and chewed them for their juice, which he knew that, while nowhere near strong enough to eliminate the pain, would at least go a long way toward dulling it to a manageable level as he began tracking the elk. Going back up to the rock lean-to and collecting his gear in anticipation of not being able to return right away to its shelter, Einar set out on the elks trail, encouraged when after a time he began seeing flecks and then larger spots of dark red on the icy surface of the spring snow. I may eat today yet

Knowing that they were way out of their league in attempting to navigate the rugged ridges and snow choked basins above Culver Falls, the FBI had been relying heavily on the expertise and assistance of the local Mountain Rescue, outfitting and hunting communities (which really did overlap significantly) in carrying out the active ground portion of the search for Einar. With the arrest of Jeff Jackson that assistance became significantly more grudging, and when they issued a federal fugitive warrant for him after his failure to appear at the bail revocation hearing, it nearly dried up altogether. Adding to the tension was the fact that, as former acquaintances and associates of Jeffs, many of the local outfitters found themselves the subject of questioning and investigation in the ongoing attempt to locate and re-arrest him. Which left the agents to primarily fall back on their own resources as they searched the area around the basin where the remains of Einars fire had been discovered. But help, of sorts, was on its way. Gordon Metz had apparently decided that it was his mission in lifefor the moment, anywayto save Einar and end the federal siege of Culver Falls. Metz was a complicated man with a shadowy past in Army Intelligence and a present role traveling the gun show circuit and talking the talk as far as opposing federal abuses of power. Some, though, were not at all sure that he had entirely severed his connections with his former employer. A few even suspected that perhaps he had accepted commissions from other, more nameless agencies that at times moved in the shadows and blurred the lines between civilian and military intelligence and law enforcement operations. He just seemed to mysteriously turn up in the middle of too many near conflicts between freedom-loving citizens and the Alphabets for it to be coincidence. And whenever he did help resolve a situation, it always seemed to be in a way that benefited the government agenda and left citizens in federal custody. Still, he promoted himself as a patriot, and, his personal presence and powers of persuasion being undeniably strong, some still believed him. Metzs Flying Circus swept into town one Thursday afternoon shortly after Jeff skipped his bail hearing, setting up camp not far from the FBI compound in a public campground, a small village of wall tents and travel trailers springing up in hours. Camp duties finished, the first thing Metz did, naturally, was to call a press conference, which was well attended by members of both the local and national press. Metzs message, though, was not for the media. It was aimed primarily at Einar. Metz looked directly into the camera and appealed to Einar to turn himself in, either to him or someone in his party (who could be identified, he emphasized, by the blue scarves they would all be wearing

as they scoured the snowy mountainsides), promised that he would not be alone as he faced trial. What were offering you, Einar, is a way to end this favorably for everybody. Nobody gets hurt. Everybody wins. Why, Metz even announced his intentions to use the reward money to hire Einar some really great lawyers The feds hardly knew what to make of this uncalled for assistance, and most of the locals just rolled their eyes and shook their heads when Metzs name was mentioned. A group of citizens from Culver and the surrounding area, organized by Bill but choosing to remaining anonymous for obvious reasons, wrote up a statement that they delivered to the local radio station, so that if Einar was indeed out there and had any way of hearing radio communications, he would know that Metz did not represent the sentiments of everyone in the community. We want everyone to know that Metz does not speak for all of us, the statement read in part. We understand what you would face if you came in, Einar, and we think you should just stay put. Perhaps without intending to, Gordon Metz had done almost as much as months of federal occupation to solidify local support firmly behind Einar. In addition to dealing with the local antipathy, Metz had one big problem when it came to his newly announced rescue mission: he was not from those parts. And neither were most of his volunteer crew, though a couple of local boys, respecting his service record and interested in the challenge, had agreed to help with the operation. So he really needed an experienced local guide or two, if he was to have much hope of saving the day. Rob, seeing that no one else was likely to step forward and curious to see where the job might lead, volunteered.

For hours Einar tracked the elk as it climbed through the evergreens, zigzagging up over a timbered ridge and down towards another valley. At one point the elk stopped bleeding for awhile, and he almost lost her trail where several other elk had crossed it. He eventually picked it up again by following the one animal that seemed to have broken off from the group and gone its own way, traveling down as they continued on up the slope. He hoped the creature was finally tiring, because he certainly was. The elks trail led him across a melted out meadow near dusk, the damp, exposed ground already having frozen hard in the bitter cold of that crystal clear evening, the icy dirt not having taken impressions well at all as the wounded animal had crossed it. Einar first tried to track it across the meadow, down on his hands and knees at times trying to pick up any little detail or disturbance that would show him the direction taken by the elk. No luck, and he was freezing as he crouched there nearly immobile on the frozen ground, the sun having gone down some time before. He could see that a good bit of snow remained beneath the evergreens at the edge of the meadow, and he headed over to it, searching the patches of snow in the hopes of picking the trail back up, but seeing nothing. At that point he realized that he had been on the move for hours without stopping to eat or even thinking to melt a bit of snow in his mouth for water, and he sat down heavily on the trunk of a fallen aspen then and did both, his body crying out for something more substantial than lily roots and snow after the long hike, urging him up after a very brief rest to continue

tracking his elk. He couldnt get the smell of liver and onions out of his mind as he went, and was finding it a bit distracting as he returned to the meadow and attempted once again to pick up the trail. Einar had just located the last clear disturbance left by the elk in a patch of last years grass when a small plane came over and he had to scramble stiffly to his feet and run for the cover of the trees, barely making it before the aircraft came into sight. When he was sure it was gone, he hurried back out into the near darkness of the meadow, searching in vain to find the point where he had seen the last definite track. By the time he admitted to himself that he was not finding the trail that night it was dark, and he could hear the plane returning. Hurrying back beneath the trees, Einar burrowed down in the three or four inches of icy spruce duff that he was able to kick loose beneath a large tree as it solidified for the night after having been dripped on all day by melting snow from the branches above. Telling himself repeatedly that with the morning light he would easily be able to pick up the trail, that he would be eating elk for breakfast, Einar spent a cold, hungry night shivering in clothes that were damp from pushing through the dense undergrowth and crawling around the meadow in search of tracks, staring up through the gently swaying spruce tops for any sign of the coming morning.

Einar heard the singing of coyotes in the night as he huddled there the icy spruce needles, and hoped very much that the creatures were on the trail of some other game, rather than having found his wounded elk. He didnt much want to think about what would happen if the elks trail did not lead him, before too much longer, to the opportunity to eat. He had taken a chance in expending energy that he barely had to follow the wounded animals trail up one ridge and down another, a trek which had, in his current state, been rather strenuous and dangerously exhausting. The risk had been worth the chance at obtaining several hundred pounds of rich meat, bones he could crack for the fatty marrow, and a large, strong elk hide which would offer him some protection from the cold and wet. But now he pictured himself finding the elk carcass some time the next day, torn to shreds by coyotes and offering him mere scraps of meat for sustenance. Or worse, not finding it at all, perhaps losing the trail all together or, more likely, losing the ability to continue following it to its conclusion. He liked to think that he would not simply sit down in the snow at some point and give in to his exhaustion, but was not at all sure. All the signs told him that he was again getting back into the dangerous territory where he might soon find himself without much choice in the matter. I really need to find that elk in the morning He barely waited past the first hint of morning before rising and stomping around under the tree to warm himself, stiff and trembling and having more difficulty dealing with the cold than was usual for him. Taking a few minutes first to work on limbering up his stiff right hand he loaded everything back into the lynx skin pack, having untied it sometime in the night and dumped everything out to clutch it around his shoulders in an attempt to reduce the seemingly enormous amount of body heat that had been leaking out into the bitter night air. He was none too anxious to give up the added protection of the skin now,

but it was all he had in which to carry his gear. Hope to change that soon. Sure hope to change it The lily bulbs were gone, so he breakfasted on some of the crisply roasted spruce bark that he had prepared during his time up in the last basin. In the sharpshadowed light of the hour just after the sun rose, Einar was easily able to pick up the elks trail once again, following her path as she traversed up the ridge opposite the one she had descended the day before, and it seemed to him that she must have possessed quite a will and a ready supply of endurance to keep going that way, despite what he still hoped was a decent shot on his part. He tracked her for a couple more hours, seeing what appeared to be some clotted blood on the snow at one point, then larger spots as her stride shortened and her tracks grew closer together. The cow had finally collapsed on her side under the evergreens, neck stretched out at an odd angle in a last attempt to maintain her labored breathing. Einar, badly winded and feeling rather like lying down himself, knelt beside her in mute gratitude for a successful end to what he had begun to think might well be his last failed effort at obtaining the nourishment he so badly needed to stay alive. The animal had been stubborn, persistent, strong. It had died well. Staring at it for a moment before beginning his work, Einar could only hope for the same, whenever his time came. The cow was large but not massive, as a bull would have been, which was alright with Einar as he struggled to roll her slightly down the hill into a more favorable position for gutting. He guessed the elk weighed somewhere near four hundred pounds, though seeing the animals ribs through her dull brown coat, he could tell that there was not going to be too much fat, this time of year. No matter. Be a lot more fat than there is on lily roots and rabbits, anyway. Pounding with a rock at times to help the barely sharp steel bar slice through the skin of the elks stomach, Einar finally succeeded at opening up the body cavity and sliding the internal organs downhill onto the snow, cutting with the steel to free them. He pulled out the liver, warm and steaming in the cold air, knowing that there must be at least four pounds of it, if not more, and set it on a nearby flat rock. He carved off generous slices with the steel bar, devouring several huge mouthfuls of the wonderful, fatty, iron-rich stuff before leaning back against a tree with his eyes closed, feeling life and strength begin to flow through his body once again. After a few minutes rest he got back to work, knowing he had an awful lot of it ahead of him if he wanted to take full advantage of the elk and make it last as long as possible as a food source. At least it was still too early to worry about flies, a very good thing indeed. Einar began working to skin the elk, wanting to allow the meat to cool and especially wanting the hide for protection during the night that would be coming all too soon, but finding progress difficult almost to the point of impossibility using one hand and a blade that was barely sharp and entirely lacked a tip. Out of frustration he unpinned his injured arm and carefully attempted to use it to help hold the hide back as he cut the white membrane that attached it to the meat, but the shoulder was more swollen and tender than ever that day, and the lifting, pulling motions that the skinning necessitated were just not possible with the injury. He had an idea, got around behind the elk, on the side opposite to the cut in the belly, and grasped the cut edge of the hide in his teeth, tugging and pulling it back as he freed it with the blade. Stopping after a few minutes, he coughed

and spat elk hair out of his mouth, satisfied that, difficult as it would be, this method would allow him to finish the job. As he worked, Einar thought that what he really needed to do next was to dry large quantities of the meat so he could carry it with him. Which would take forever in the cold without a fire. The thinly sliced (ha! You really think youre gonna be able to slice it thin with that dull steel?) meat would freeze, losing moisture only slowly and putting him at risk of losing everything again if he had to move on in a hurry. For a time then he puzzled over how he might be able to make a fire, wondering at first about the possibility of using a hand drill, which he had done successfully in the past with a dry mullein-stalk spindle and a split cottonwood branch for a fireboard. The raw materials were all available back at the meadow he had crossed the evening before, maybe even closer, but as he thought about it, he realized that this method would probably be even harder on his shoulder than the traditional bow and drill. First, though, he would need to dig a small pit with a side-tunnel to draw in more aira Dakota fire hole as he had used early in the winter back at the mine tunneland find a couple of large flat rocks to keep handy to place over the openings and snuff out the fire if he heard an aircraft approaching. And this time, he knew that he must only allow himself to have fire at night, so as not to risk smoke being seen by a passing plane forcing him to run and abandon the elk. Even the night fire would be risky, though he knew that by careful use of the pit and the dark timber, he could minimize the light that escaped. And hopefully planes and helicopters equipped with FLIR would not pose too great a danger. He knew the devices would be able to easily spot the warmed ground from his fire, even if he had managed to slide the rocks over the opening before the aircraft got near, but, knowing that he had traveled far from the area of the active search, he did not expect to encounter FLIR-equipped aircraft doing random searches. I do hope not, anyway Though its probably all irrelevant, because I doubt I can even start a fire with one hand Finally Einar succeeded in freeing the hide from the elk, after many hours of exhausting, difficult work during which he had stopped frequently to eat snow and more of the liver before returning to struggle with the heavy animal, once having to roll it onto its other side to finish the job, glad that there was still snow on the ground to keep the meat from becoming coated with spruce needles when he rolled it. He knew that snow, being full of air, insulates better than bare ground does, actually causing the meat to cool more slowly, but as cold as it was, he was not too worried about spoilage. And he was glad that, as of yet, there been no sign of emerging bears, though he knew that the time could not be long in coming when they would begin to be a concern. He hoped though, for that night at least, that the meat would be safe where it was on the ground, with the exception perhaps of a small scavenger or two, because he was totally beat, his hand shaking from overuse, his whole body shaking from exhaustion and from the cramped, unnatural positions he had contorted himself into as he used his teeth to aid in holding back the hide as he skinned the elk, and he knew there was little point in even trying to go further with the project that evening. Some time earlier during a little break from his work, Einar had discovered a small sheltered spot up against the hillside not too far from where the elk had fallen, filled with collected scrub oak leaves much like the sandstone lean-to and protected from the snow by the roots of a massive spruce that had fallen at some time in the past. Rolling up the elk hide and eating another large portion of the liver, he took it,

and the hide, up to the shelter and prepared to sleep. Einar lay in the leaves under the overhanging roots and dirt that night, drowsy, warm, stuffed with elk liver, and as he heard a chopper pass over in the distance and watched with half-closed eyes as its red light blinked through the treetops, the words come to himYou prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemiesand he drifted off to sleep with a little smile on his face, realizing that he had never before even come close to grasping the true significance of that passage. My cup runneth over

Down at Gordon Metz tent camp that evening, Rob, Metz, and several of his team studied topo maps and planned the next days activities. Rob had previously assumed that there must be more to Metz plan than wandering around in the mountains waiting for Einar to step out from behind a tree and ask to be taken in, but as he listened to Metz talk that night, he realized that, odd and unlikely as it sounded, that really did seem to be the extent of his strategy. It seemed that he just wanted Rob to use his familiarity with the country to anticipate the area or areas where Einar he might be hiding, get Metz close, and let him do the rest. The man really seemed to believe that Einar would gladly come to him and accept the help he offered, on his terms. And Rob doubted that Metz could possibly be that ignorant. Must be more to this The more time Rob spent around Gordon Metz, the less he liked him. The man was blustering, boisterous, self-absorbed, and it was clear that he was much better at speaking than he was at listening. And beyond that, there was something about him that made Rob immensely uncomfortable, as if there was more there than met the eye, even in the mans blustery carryings on. One minute he would rail against the federal occupation, the size of government, the general abuse of power that was taking place in Culver and around the country for that matter, and he had Rob finding himself not only in agreement, but enthusiastically so. The next minute though, hed make some comment about how the FBI was the finest agency he had ever worked with, telling some story of heroism from the Bureaus history and putting down people that criticized its actions, and a couple of times he found himself nodding in agreement and nearly getting carried away by that talk, too. More than once he had to catch himself and remember which side he was on, for a minute. Conversations with Metz usually left him feeling a bit confused and fuzzy about what he actually did believe about any given subject. The man had skill with the spoken word, that was for sure. Rob, though not especially well versed in such things, began to get the feeling that the folksy, down to earth facade that apparently endeared Metz to so many and helped him in gaining their trust was just a cleverly cultivated cover for something far more powerful and perhaps, he felt, even sinister. He smelled a snake. A very clever, dangerous snake with the power to influence people and manipulate them without their ever suspecting his intentions. But, uncomfortable as Metz made him, Rob hoped that by agreeing to guide him, he could keep the man and his crew of eager volunteers from actually causing any harm to Einaror, for that matter, to his business partner Jeff Jackson who, for all Rob knew, might be out there himself, since skipping his

bail hearing. Rob had no idea. All he knew was that Jeffs two yellow labs and a big bag of dog food had shown up in his back yard the afternoon before the hearing, and that he had not heard from his friend since. Nor expected to. Though, by the actions of the two FBI agents who sat across the highway in an unmarked but pretty conspicuous white van, apparently the feds had somewhat different expectations.

Einar was not entirely surprised when he heard the flurry of snarling and yelping coming from the direction of his elk sometime in the night. Startled from an exhausted sleep, he scrambled up out of his little shelter, shouting and crashing through the brush and throwing sticks in the direction of the clamor. The coyotes, entirely unused to human presence, took off at the sound of his voice, leaving Einar to fumble around in the darkness in an attempt to find the elk and assess the damage. He had known that he was taking a risk in not staying up all night to guard the meat, known that losing it at that point might well be a matter of life and death, but that past evening, sleep had seemed a matter of similar priority. He could feel that one shoulder of the elk had been torn into, but other than that could detect no damage, and was hopeful that the morning light would not reveal too much more. Doggone coyotes. Well, Im sure theyre hungry, too. But this elk is mine. Speaking of hungry, though He found his way back up to the shelter and retrieved the remainder of the liver, ravenous again after his meal the previous evening, gobbling a good portion of it and eating some snow before dragging the hide down nearer the carcass and rolling up in it on the icy duff beneath a spruce. Not quite as warm as up there in those leaves, but theres no way Id be able to get back to sleep up there, wondering if the coyotes are coming back. What he really wanted was a fire, which would have helped to deter scavengers altogether, but, knowing that no such thing was happening that night, he settled for breaking off a dead spruce branch a couple of inches in diameter and sharpening one end to a point with the steel bar. He set the weapon beside his improvised sleeping bag, and spent the rest of the night sleeping lightly with one ear out for danger. By the light of morning, rolling with difficulty out of the nearly frozen elk hide, Einar saw how lucky he had been that the coyotes had got into a snarling match over his elk before they had the chance to do it much harm. The carcass was ringed with tracks; he was pretty sure there had been at least eight of the coyotes. Very little meat was missing, though he could see where they had begun tearing at one haunch, as well as the shoulder. That was close. He took the time to eat some more of the liver before getting down to the work of the day, which he started by breaking off a number of branches from a nearby dead spruce, removing most of their small side branches, and making a rough drying rack that could be placed over the fire, assuming he was successful at coaxing one into existence. In the meantime, the rack could be placed in the sun, to at least begin the drying process as he sliced up the meat. Einar used wire strands from the two snares to secure the branches in placecould have also used cordage to lash the branches, if hed had anycreating a rough, pyramid-shaped structure with several levels of horizontal

poles for the drying meat to hang on. Before starting on the meat, Einar removed the slabs of fat, meager as they were after the long winter, from the animals shoulder and back areas, burying them in the snow to protect them from the warming temperatures of the day. He also collected the lumpy, yellowish globs of fat from around the kidneys, stashing them with the slabs. He knew that he would really need to render this fat called tallowby heating it over the fire, if he wanted it to last well. Hopefully that could be accomplished while he dried the meat. The work of carving thin enough slices of meat from the elk with the then rather dull steel bar was proving nearly impossible, and he had to keep pausing in a semi-successful attempt to sharpen it on a nearby chunk of granite. The use of both arms would have helped tremendously, and after working slowly and in frustration for some time, he finally freed the injured arm, repinning it at a lower angle that, while it did not do as much to ease the pain in his shoulder, did allow him limited use of the hand, which made his work much easier. Even this limited movement was not especially kind to the shoulder, though, and before long Einar found himself really wishing for some willow bark to help dull the pain. Well. Maybe later. Keep going. By the time the tree-shadows began growing long, he had more than filled the drying rack with slices of elk, having stopped frequently to eat as he worked and, though exhausted and hurting from the use of his injured arm, feeling remarkably revived with the addition of unlimited quantities of fresh meat to his formerly dismal and inadequate diet. Earlier in the day he had taken the time to wander around and find the materials for a bow and drill fire, had prepared them, and dug a small pit and tunnel near a large spreading spruce that would help conceal any light that might escape. Thin, dry sticks were in abundance with the presence of the nearby standing dead spruce, and he had gathered quite a pile of them, and some larger branches, as well. Evening was fast approaching, and he knew it was time to begin working on the fire. He was aware that it might well take him quite some time to master the technique of (nearly) one-armed bow and drill fire. The plan was to go ahead and use his left hand to press on the bearing block, bracing it against his left leg and keeping it as close to his body as possible, hopefully minimizing the pain enough to allow him to complete the job. But it wasnt the prospect of the probable difficulty or pain associated with the task that was keeping him from beginning it. Einar was scared. He had so much, such bounty with the successful hunt of the elk, and it seemed to him that no matter how cautious he was, having a fire was risking losing all of it again and having to take off into the snow to scratch out a meager existence on roots and rabbits. But he knew that he would end up losing much of it anyway, unless he dried it and made it easier to carry and more stable against decay as the weather warmed. He knew what he had to do. Come on, Einar. There has been no air activity here all day. Its as good a time as any, and you know you have to start drying this meat. The warmth wont be bad thing, either. He worried, though, having had bad experiences in the past when he had relaxed his discipline and allowed himself a fire when he probably shouldnt have. He kept telling himself that in this case, it really was a risk worth taking. But he still knew that there was a possibility that skiers or snowshoers, if they happened to be within range, could end up smelling the smoke and getting suspicious. Nahdont think so, though. Im not anywhere near a trail here; nobody ever comes up this brush-choked little valley, except maybe during hunting season. And

Im far from the ground search. Why would anybody be up here this time of year? Go for it. And he did.

On Gordon Metzs second morning in Culver Falls, Rob, carrying skis attached vertically to the sides of his pack, guided him and three of his volunteers up towards a remote, forested slope that the map had told them was an area riddled with old mine tunnels, which should provide any number of likely hiding places for someone like Einar. They had reached the area by first snowmobiling up a frozen creek bed in a narrow little valley, until the encroaching vegetation had caused them to leave the snow machines and proceed on foot. Metz had made it clear to Rob that he would greatly prefer to go out for a day of searching and return to the camp with ample time to have a hot dinner before hitting the cots, but, at Robs insistence, they had packed bivy tents and sleeping bags for that first day of searching. That evening, their intended search area before them but the light fading fast, they prepared to make camp in a frozen little meadow, last years yellow grass beginning to show in patches as the snow melted off.

In the failure of Jeff Jackson to show up for his bail revocation hearing and the noticeable public antipathy in the Culver Falls area toward helping them find out where he had gone instead, the FBI agents stationed at the command center in the old feed store realized they were witnessing the latest manifestation of a disturbing trend. The public, in the immediate area especially, but nationwide as well, seemed less and less intimidated by their presence, less likely to comply with requests out of fear, and the feds knew that this was largely due to the situation with Einar and with their continuing inability to resolve it quickly. Or, apparently at all. For the first time in nearly a decade, the public perception of the Bureau seemed to be shifting significantly. Not that it had necessarily been especially positive before, but after a series of well-publicized actions that had turned out rather poorly for the citizens who had been the targets of the Bureaus wrath, they had at least had an element of fear going for them in their dealings with the public. This shift in public perception, more than anything else, was the price the Bureau was paying for Einars continued successful evasion, and was a much more powerful motivator in their continued efforts to capture him than was bringing him to justice on the original charges. They were becoming a public laughingstock, and that had to end. In addition to reducing the stature of the FBI, and in a trickle-down effect, all other federal law enforcement in the public eye, the ongoing search was making them look bad in Washington as well, was even threatening their requested budget increase which was to be up before Congress in a few weeks. FBI Director Ferris Lee was putting increasing pressure on his agents in the field to produce some results. He even had a visit to Culver Falls on his schedule for the following week, which, while its stated purpose was Showing support and solidarity for the agents who risk their lives everyday in the field

in our ongoing efforts to apprehend this dangerous fugitive, everyone at the command post knew it was his not-so-subtle way of letting each of them know that he was watching their actions very closely. They knew well that heads would start to roll if they did not soon produce some measurable and positive results. The agents knew that if they could not soon get their hands on Einarwhich was not looking especially likely they had better procure another unlucky citizen to make an example of. They had hoped Jeff Jackson would fill the bill, casting him as a dangerous gun fanatic who was a threat to the peace and security of his community. Instead, though, the positive publicity they had received from his arrest had been rather overwhelmed by the public backlash against his perceived persecution, and now his case seemed well on the way to being yet another public relations fiasco for the Bureau. And they really did not know, past the usual and so far fruitless process of investigating his known associates, where to start searching for him. Time to divert attention elsewhere. On to the next target.

Rob, doing most of the work as the search party set up camp that evening in the partially snow-free little meadow, kept running across things that puzzled him. He had noticed an elk track or two, just a faint mark where the hard edge of the animals toe had scratched against the frozen dirt, and thought little of it. It would not be unusual for an elk to be taking advantage of last years newly exposed grass after a winter of subsisting largely on bark stripped from small trees. What had Rob rather curious was an odd set of scuffs and scratches that he had begun noticing near one edge of the meadow as he gathered firewood for the roaring blaze that he, as the guide, was expected to start and maintain. The marks were numerous, and somehow did not remind him much of elk. They seemed too large, too random, but were also too ill-defined for him to be positive of their origin. Until, that is, he saw a clear impression, two inches wide and nearly four across, of Vibram boot treads in the snow. Rob quickly obscured the partial track by covering it with one of his own, but, glancing up, saw that Metz had been watching him as he crouched beside the patch of snow. What d you see there, Robert? Metz boomed, approaching through the sparse aspens that dotted that side of the meadow and breaking a dry branch from one of the trees in pretense of helping him gather wood for the fire. Tracks? Elk. Looks like there been some elk through here, last night, maybe. See there? Rob pointed out one of the scuffs that he was sure had been left by an elk. Came down after this grass, I guess. Metz was nodding but, to Robs dismay, was studying his face rather than the ground. Rob sometimes got the impression that the man could see right through him, could perhaps even see his thoughts. It gave him a creepy feeling that he did not at all care for. The moment of strangeness having passed, Rob lugged his load of firewood out to the meadow, kicked a couple of rocks loose from the nearly-frozen ground, and set about preparing a firepit. He did not know whether Metz had suspected or recognized the odd scratchings as human sign. He had given no evidence to that effect, but then, Rob

figured, he probably would not have. The marks had been pretty subtle, and he just had to hope that Metz had overlooked them. The volunteers had succeeded in getting the tents up, pounding the stakes into the icy ground with rocks and creating a ruckus that echoed off the surrounding hillsides and, Rob thought, could probably be heard for a couple of miles in the evening stillness. Crouching on the icy dirt, he began splitting aspen branches with a hatchet in preparation for lighting the fire. Rob was almost done when he smelled the smoke. Its odor was sharp, distinctive, unmistakable, and he hurried to finish preparing the campfire in the hopes of masking its presence before the others noticed. Looking up, he caught Metzs eye. Too late. Whoa, hold off there, Robert! I think we may be onto something, here. Smell that? Hmm. Yeah. Ithink so. Cant tell where its coming from though, exactly. Winds real funny in these valleys. Well I think its a pretty good bet that its coming down from that hillside up there, Metz replied, indicating the steep, timbered ridge across the meadow from their camp. Wouldnt you say? Seeing as the wind right now is coming pretty much straight down that slope? Now I wonder who might be up there? Good work, Robert. We may be heading back down to town before morning after all.

After trying unsuccessfully for some time to get a coal with the bow and drill he had earlier prepared, Einar could see that he would have to do something different. Despite his best efforts, he seemed unable to even begin to produce much of the black dust that would have meant he was near succeeding. Holding his left arm out away from his body as was necessary to brace it against his lower leg as he normally did was extremely painful, and, try as he might to grit his teeth and work through the pain, the spindle kept jumping out of the bearing block to go rolling away into the snow. The arm simply seemed not to be stable enough to allow him to do the job. And he was rapidly losing the light, there under the black timber. Think, Einar. Try something else. He knew the Innuits and some of the far Northern Indian tribes had made drills, both for fire and other applications, where a mouth-piece of wood or bone was used to apply downward pressure, instead of the left hand on the bearing block. But even then, they had usually needed both hands to steady the setup and make it work. And I certainly dont have time to be whittling any mouthpiece before it gets dark, here. He thought he ought to make more use of the arm if he could keep it in a position that put les stress on the injury, which at that point seemed to mean keeping his hand up near his collarbone. So maybe if I had a longer spindle Hurrying against the rapidly descending darkness, he found an aspen that had a few dead, barkless branches, broke off the straightest of them and returned to camp. Leaving the new drill long, Einar found that he could lean way forward, bracing his left hand against his chest and keeping the shoulder in a better position. This created a rather awkward, difficult situation when it came to drawing the bow back and forth, and he found that the shift in the position of his torso necessitated a

longer fireboard than the one he had been using, as the spindle naturally came down a good bit further out from the point where his left foot held the fireboard. Quickly splitting a dry branch, he remedied that situation, and, after several minutes of hard work, had a smoking coal all ready to deposit in his waiting fire bundle. Einar allowed himself a few minutes just to enjoy the fire before beginning his work. As always when he had been without for a time, the flames and the warmth they provided seemed an almost miraculous thing to him. He would have liked to straddle the small firepit, wrap up in the elk skin and enjoy a few hours reprieve from what was turning into a bitterly cold night, but knew that he could afford no such luxury, with an entire elk to somehow slice up and attempt to preserve. As he broke more wood to add to the fire, Einar kept stopping, thinking he heard something out of place, a rhythmic, perhaps even metallic sound. But the wind was blowing downslope in great restless gusts, snatching whatever it was away from his ears before he could hope to identify it. Dragging his drying rack of meat over close to the fire, he reminded himself that he didnt want to actually cook the meat, only dry it, and let the flames die down some before moving the drying rack overtop of the pit. Before doing so, he took advantage of the lively flames to cook a thick steak that he had cut from the backstrap, skewering it and roasting it until it was brown and sizzling before enjoying his first hot meal in what seemed to him a very long time indeed. To complete the meal, he melted several cans full of snow, using the can he had found in the rock crevice below the high pass and snow-filled basin, and making himself some very welcome spruce needle tea. Removing his boots before he ate, he set his socks to dry and worked on drying his feet, softening a chunk of elk fat on a rock that he pushed partially over the pit and rubbing the melting fat into his painfully cracked feet, finding some relief but knowing that he needed to get ahold of some cottonwood buds to really help them heal from the damage caused by the constant cold and dampness of the past many days. Finishing his tea, he chopped a section of the solid white fat up into small chunks, setting the can on his cooking rock and waiting for the fat to melt and bubble. As it heated, it retained a lumpy, somewhat jell-like texture and gave off a smell that he was pretty sure he would have found unappetizing if he hadnt still been so darn hungry. As the liquefied tallow neared what he took to be a state of doneness, Einar began to think of how he might best prepare it for transport and later use. He didnt exactly have a ready supply of containers, and thought he was pretty sure he could make such from lengths of the elk intestine, tied off with bits of cordage or sinew, it was too late to begin such a project that night. Hmm. Wonder if I could just pour it in the snow and let it solidify? Knowing the fat would solidify rather rapidly in the temperatures that must be down near the single digits by that time, he used the steel bar to shape a little square mold in some nearby snow, before pouring the fat into it to harden. Only to look on in dismay as the hot fat quickly melted down through the top layer of snow and disappeared. He dug around frantically in the snow until he was pretty sure he had collected most of the then-solid little globs of tallow, returning them to the can for another try. Too bad. It sounded like a good idea. Then he had a thought. Ice! Melting some snow in the sardine can, he shaped another square mold in the snow, slowly dripping and then pouring cool water into it until a hard layer of ice formed. Adding more water, he thickened the ice until he

thought it had a good chance of holding up to the hot fat. Letting the fat cool a bit this time, but not so much that it started hardening, he tried again. Success! In less than two minutes, he was rewarded with a solid sheet of tallow that he could easily pry up out of the ice mold and set in the snow, soon to be joined by another. Einar created two more of the molds, and went to work rendering down one can after another of tallow, using both the new can and the sardine can, adding to his growing stack of tallow slabs. He knew that this means of transport would only work as long as temperatures stayed cool enough that the rendered fat would not begin to melt again, but, pretty sure that air temperatures would have to be near ninety degrees for this to happen, figured he should be good for awhile. Quite a while, indeed He shivered. Thinking of warm temperatures, or the lack of them, had reminded him that he would soon have to stretch, scrape and work on tanning the elk hide if he wanted it to be really useful to him. He really dreaded losing its warmth and protection for the days it would take to complete the process though, and, for that night at least, covered himself with it as he huddled by the fire, heating can after can of the fat before pouring the gooey liquid into its ice molds to solidify. As the chunks of tallow hardened, he placed them, one by one, into the lynx skin pack, still well aware of the fact that he was a hunted creature, and might at any time have to take off again into the timber.

As Metz and his volunteers prepared to head up the slope in search of the fire, Rob studied the timbered ridge with binoculars, but could see no smoke in the fading light. Metz was certain, though, that he knew where it was coming from. Rob loaded all of his gear, with the exception of his bivy tent, into his pack, but Metz, not doing especially well with the altitude and the exertion of the hike, left almost everything behind. Rob, though, glancing at him as he sorted his gear, did see that he was taking several pair of plastic handcuffs, a radio and a sidearm in addition to the .45 that Rob had noticed that he always carried. Metz looked up, saw Rob securing his skis to the sides of his pack, and shot him a quizzical glance. Why the skis, Robert? Its winter in the mountains. I always have skis. He replied shortly, not doing especially well with the friendly faade he had intended to maintain for the duration of the outing. He stopped just short, though, of asking Metz why he had the handcuffs, if the whole idea was to talk Einar into coming in voluntarily. One of Metz three volunteers, overweight and already breathing hard form the altitude, opted to stay behind at the camp and tend the fire while the others hiked up the ridge in search of the source of the smoke. Rob led them up the slope, Metz wanting him out front because he knew the terrain, and it was difficult going in the dark, snowy timber. They kept running into little ravines, steep and rocky and choked with downed trees, having to struggle down one side and up the other, the near complete darkness broken only by the narrow beams of their

headlamps. As they went, they smelled the smoke off and on, depending on what the wind was doing. Rob, having been quite serious when he mentioned to Metz that the wind could be pretty tricky and hard to figure in that terrain, finally suggested that they head up the opposite ridge, thinking perhaps they would be able to see the glow from the fire, and get some idea of where they should go from there. As they climbed, though, it became clear that there was not to be much of a view, of the opposite ridge or anything else, for that matter. And the smoke was becoming more difficult to smell, also, as the wind carried it away down the valley rather than up towards the searchers. Rob pushed himself hard as he climbed the ridge, knowing that if he was climbing at a pace near the edge of his endurance, it would likely be too much for the flatlanders he was guiding. Which was of course the exact opposite of what he was used to doing as a professional guide who had always to be thinking of his clients comfort and safety, and of providing them with an enjoyable experience so that they would return and give him their business again the next year. He was breaking all the rules that night, and having rather a good time doing it. Hey Rob Metz had stopped some distance below, and was shouting up at him, his voice hoarse from the effort of trying to maintain the strenuous pace at altitude, and lugging more than a few extra pounds, even though hed left almost all of his gear back at camp. Hold up a minute. These treestoo thick...cant see a thing. Theres a clear spot up here at the top where the trees peter out, and I think we might be able to get a good look back over at that other ridge from there. Its just right up here a little ways. Though he failed to mention that his definition of a little ways, that night at least, involved about 1500 of additional altitude gain. And he took off again without waiting for Metz answer. Metz had been about to add that his headlamp had just gone out, and to ask Rob if he happened to have extra batteries, Metz having left his back at camp to help reduce the weight of his pack. Metz had installed fresh batteries before heading out that evening and was expecting many hours of light from them, but, with temperatures barely even up in the single digits, he had not taken into account how drastically the cold reduces the life of alkaline batteries. Rob, the battery pack of his lamp clipped to his belt for warmth, was having no such difficulty. And of course, he had spare batteries in his pack. Reaching the open spot at the crest of the ridge long before his clients, he glanced over at the opposite ridge, straining his eyes for any sign of a fire, any glow among the trees, but was met with an unbroken sea of inky blackness that stretched on for probably thousands of acres on the long, gulley-riven ridge. A slow smile spread across Robs face as he looked down off the other side of the ridge he stood atop, into the perfect, untouched snow of an alpine basin, softly illuminated by the starlight. An opportunity that the backcountry skiers he occasionally guided in the winter would have paid dearly for, indeed. Ah, Mr. Metz. Methinks two can play this game And, freeing his skis from the webbing straps that held them to the sides of his pack and clipping his ski mountaineering boots into the bindings, he launched off the cornice and began making turns down through the trackless, pristine snow, long out of sight down in the trees below

by the time Metz and his two weary volunteers struggled up to the crest of the ridge, gasping for air.

Clouds had begun rolling in, obscuring the stars and making it difficult for Metz and his two cohorts to see Robs tracks by the time they reached the top of the ridge, the remaining two headlamps having died by that time, also. One of the two volunteers had a lightstick in his backpack along with a small first aid kit and a Bic lighter, but they had all, to some extent at least, been counting on Rob to supply their needs if anything should go wrong. So much for Metz supposed mind reading capabilities It took them awhile, inspecting the crusty snow in the dim glow of the green chemical light stick, but they found the spot where Rob had skied off the cornice. There was some argument as to their next move, but in the end Metz won out, with his plan to follow Robs tracks down into the basin. While he suspected as much, Metz was not yet willing to concede that Rob had ditched them, and therefore thought it foolish to strike out in a direction other than that taken by the only member of their party who had any firsthand knowledge of the country. Besides, Rob had all of the maps, and most of the food. They traversed the ridge until they found a route that allowed them passage around the cornice, and started cautiously down the steep slope after Rob. The volunteer who had possessed the foresight to bring the alternative light source attached it to his coat after nearly dropping it on the steep snow. Which ended up being a very good thing for him, when he fell. Gaining speed quickly in his slick snow pants on the steep snow, the man ended up headdown in a little ravine at the bottom, one leg trapped at an odd angle between two fallen trees, struggling to free himself. Using the glow of the light stick to guide them, Metz and the other volunteer reached the unfortunate man, just as he finally managed to kick free of the logs and go tumbling down the remainder of the ravine to the little creek below, where he passed out from the pain of his badly broken leg, halfway in the water, halfway out. His companions pulled him out of the water, and Metz, who had at least some medical training, assessed the damage to his leg, realizing as he did that their manhunt had just become a rescue mission. And they found themselves there at the bottom of a snowy basin in the middle of a very dark night with no headlamps, no maps, and, realizing that the injured volunteers pack had been lost in the fall, little food and no way to light a fire. The injured man had been the only one in the party with any actual mountain experience or knowledge, and Metz could see that he was going into shock and rapidly sliding towards unconsciousness. Metz, his own boots thoroughly soaked from entering the creek to pull out the injured volunteer, realized that they were in some serious trouble. He shouted for Rob, they both did, as they did what they could to tend to their injured companion, but when after some time he had not had returned to check on them or answered their shouts, they were left to conclude that he must have indeed abandoned them. Metz, badly needing to stay active in an attempt to warm his own freezing feet, climbed back up to the top of the ridge to try and radio the man who had stayed behind at their base camp in the meadow, only to discover that they were hopelessly out of range.

Einar spent that night working on the elk, not getting a lot of sleep, but finding the abundant food a fine substitute, for the most part. Whenever he became so exhausted that he could go on no longer, he would roll up in the elk skin by the fire and catch few minutes of sleep, before returning to his work. He had no trouble waking back up in a timely manner; his hunger saw to that for him. Now that he had begun eating again, he craved food almost constantly, and could devour a huge chunk of roast elk, only to find himself ravenous minutes later. If I keep going like this, I wont have so much meat to dry, after all Which he knew was an exaggeration. There was plenty of meat to go around. He did hope, though, that he did not have to take off suddenly up the ridge for any reason, with his stomach stuffed with elk. As he worked, Einar occupied his mind with future plans, now that it again appeared that he might have a future to plan for. He knew that, as high up as he was, fall, and the return of snow, would be coming just a few short months after the snow finished melting off, and if he intended to make a go of it the following winter, he would have to hustle to obtain and preserve food during those brief months of plenty. And he really wanted a fixed locationmine tunnel, cave, something that he could prepare, insulate and weatherproof so he would not have to use up most of his calories just shivering to maintain his body temperature the following winter. He had proven to himself that it could be done, and hed do it again if he had to, but it hadnt been especially enjoyable. And he knew there had been numerous times when he had barely made it at all, between the ridiculously meager diet, the forced running, and the cold. He was well aware that it had been only Providence, and perhaps a good bit of sheer orneriness on his part, too, that had kept him from sitting down and giving in to the welcome relief that death would have brought during the especially rough times that past winter. Ive got all summer to get ready, this time. I can do better than that. His thoughts returned to the fallen-down mining cabin in the remote basin below the red ridge, and he wondered if the search that he had fled from weeks ago had ever made it up and out that far, or if that basin might perhaps be a place he could consider returning to, when the snow had further receded. He had felt fairly safe there, between the steep, rugged, timber-choked slopes that surrounded the place, the rock ridge directly behind the cabin, and the remoteness of the basin. The cabin could be repaired, roofed, and, assuming his shoulder healed well and fairly quickly, a makeshift stove built from some of those flat shale slabs that were so plentiful up there. Going over and over the pros and cons as he worked, he decided that it would be worth making the trip when conditions allowed, just to see whether there was any evidence that searchers had been there. Something really made him want to return to the place. During the following day, Einar spent much of his time slicing meat to be dried, spreading it on tree branches to begin the process until the batch currently on the drying rack was finished and could be removed. Though he was tempted to keep the fire going, he thought better of it damped it down under a flat rock and a heap of shredded aspen bark, to preserve coals for darkness while eliminating the risk of releasing visible smoke

and imperiling his elk preserving operation. His elk camp was attracting a variety of small scavengersalready he had chased away several ermine, a pine marten and the occasional ravenand he just kept hoping that all the bears were still in hibernation, which he thought pretty likely, considering the amount of snow still on the ground and the rather low temperatures of the past few weeks. He knew it would not be long, though, until they emerged hungry and crotchety after a winter of hibernation, knew that his life would then become rather more interesting. As if I really need that Better make some more arrows, and a better spear. And come up with a way to hang this meat in the trees at night, so I dont end up as bear bait. On his second day of elk processing, sometime in the late morning after he had damped the fire down and begun slicing a fresh batch of jerky strips, Einar was startled by a nearby helicopter that popped over the adjacent ridge to hover for a long minute before disappearing back behind the timbered slope.

FBI Director Ferris Lee arrived in Culver Falls that Sunday to a lowering grey sky and a sharp wind sweeping down from the mountains, and spent the afternoon reviewing operations at the command post in preparation for his press conference the next day. While he intended to express nothing but solidarity and accolades for the work of the agents in his public appearance, the talk in the old feed store that afternoon was all about the upcoming funding vote in Congress and the need to either produce some visible results in the stalled search effort, or cut their losses, declare Einar dead and again scale back their presence in and around Culver Falls. Many of the agents who had been involved in the search were strongly in favor of the second alternative, doing their best to impress upon Lee the extreme likelihood that their subject would have perished in the mountains by that point, describing to him the hardships of day to day operations in the field, the enigmatic and ephemeral nature of the few leads they had come acrossan occasional report of smoke, mention of a strange hippie dude found hanging out at a remote hot spring, this latest discovery of a high camp in a snow-filled basin. It could be anyone, they told him. Or no one. The locals could just be playing with them. It had happened before. Ferris Lee was not impressed. Lee was a short, intense man with close-cropped dark hair and black eyes that snapped and flashed alarmingly when he was displeased. And the Director was greatly displeased. Without a body, he told the agents, there was no way anybody was going to get away with declaring Asmundson dead. Again. Just not happening. And anyone who decided to cross him on the matter could forget being considered for promotion, that they could, for that matter, forget about continuing their careers with the Bureau. Do you really think Todd Leer chose early retirement? He asked the room full of assemble agents, only to be met with deafening silence. Well think again, gentlemen. They got the message. The next morning, a gaggle of reporters and cameramen gathered from a variety of local and national press and TV news outlets, Ferris Lee began his press conference out in the chilly, wind-swept parking area of the compound, the white-tipped peaks backed by a heavy bank of angry-looking black clouds behind him as he spoke.

As the news conference got into full swing down at the FBI command post that morning, Gordon Metz pushed his way through the hopelessly thick brush of yet another valley floor, having been on the move all night in a desperate attempt to stay warm and save his freezing feet. In doing so, he had wandered far from the course he had intended to take in an attempt to reach civilization of some sort, unknowingly crossing the wrong ridge and descending into a small valley that was taking him deeper and deeper into an area of trackless wilderness that rarely saw human traffic until well into the summer. The night before, Metz and the uninjured volunteer, Dan Wendell, had worked together to carry the injured man down the valley, but they finally realized that they must stop and attempt to get him warm if they wanted him to have a chance. He was wet, shivering, in shock and barely conscious by the time they took shelter under a spruce and broke off a number of branches to make him a dry bed. No one in the party had brought any dry clothes, so Metz replaced the injured mans drenched coat with his own dry one, splinted his leg using some spruce branches and two of the blue scarves that had been supposed to identify them to Einar, when they ran across him, and announced his intentions to head down the valley alone after help. Wendell, a kid from back east with little wilderness experience but a good bit of common sense, wanted them all to stick together for the night, doing their best to keep the injured man warm and waiting for morning before trying to signal help or find their way out, but Metz had insisted on going for help that night. He headed out down the valley, certain that he would be able to reach a road or a house or something before daylight, and at least salvage what was left of his crew, if not the operation itself. He left Wendell to care for the injured man, who was doing rather poorly between his broken leg, wet clothes and the cold. The injured volunteer, having lost consciousness early in the night, had been mercifully unaware of his situation as his core temperature dropped and he drifted into what was probably to be his final sleep. Not a bad way to go, all things considered. Especially compared to what Metz was enduring as he struggled through a seemingly endless thicket of dense willows that morning on feet that might as well have been made of wood, his sweater damp and freezing from passing through the snowy brush, more and more disoriented and verging on panic. Down at the base camp for Metz search operation, the remaining volunteer was really wondering what had happened to the rest of his team. He had finally got weary of keeping the fire going the night before and, unable to raise anyone over the radio, had gone to bed. By evening of the following day, he was beginning to be seriously worried, and, running low on food anyway, he considered heading down the groups back trail to the waiting snow machines, but, all the volunteers having been strictly instructed by Metz not to involve outsiders in their search, he waited until the following morning before actually doing so. He reached the snowmobiles after a long slog through the snow and rode down to the parking area at the end of the plowed Forest Service Road, many miles down the valley. Only to find the truck with the snowmobile trailer that they had used to reach the trailhead mysteriously gone. He took the sled down the four miles of snow packed Forest Service road to the highway, where he was eventually able to flag down a passing motorist and hitch a ride into town. Returning to Metz camp near town, he

reported the situation to the other volunteers, who after some heated discussion about what Metz would want them to do, went the County Sheriff to report the search party missing. Sherriff Watts notified Mountain Rescue, and they sent out a team on the ground and also, concerned about the potential for worsening weather, got a chopper in the air fairly quickly. On a heavily forested ridge not far from Metz camp in the meadow, the chopper crew zeroed in on a promising thermal signature which appeared to be larger than one person and therefore interesting, radioing the ground crew with coordinates to go and investigate. This investigation was cut short, however, when on the next pass over the area the crew spotted Robs ski tracks and Metz trail down into the basin, and the ground crew headed up the ridge to begin their search. Among the eight Mountain Rescue volunteers that started up the valley that day were Allan, Bill, and their newest trainee, Liz Riddle.

Einar was sitting under the spruce near his firepit, slicing more elk strips for drying when he heard the helicopter. He had discovered that the flat granite slab he used to cover his firepit during the day made a fine place to sit as he worked, as the rock retained the heat of the fire for hours, helping him stay warm. Popping up over the ridge, the chopper gave him little advanced warning of its presence, and he quickly left the firepit to press himself up against the trunk of the tree, crouching with his good arm wrapped around his knees in the hopes of looking like a sleeping deer to the FLIR device he assumed the chopper was equipped with. The thing seemed to be hovering directly over him, seemed to stay there for way too long before continuing on and buzzing the ridge on the opposite side of the valley. Now what did I do this time? Howd those buzzards know where to find me? I was being so doggone careful! As soon as it moved on, Einar began scrambling pack everything up so he could get out of there, glad he had been setting the tallow and drying meat in his pack as it became ready. He really couldnt imagine how they had found him this time. He had been extremely cautious, had produced no smoke during the day, and had noticed no plane in the night that might have seen his fire. He shook his head, angry about having to leave the rest of the elk. Hed had plans for the hooves, bones, everything, but knowing that he could only carry so much, he hurried to fill the pack with the highest-priority items, including breaking open the skull and removing the brain, which he needed for tanning the skin. He considered concealing the firepit under the spruce duff, but thought better of it, deciding the warm rocks might serve as a good decoy to keep the chopper focused on his camp as he hopefully slipped away undetected. And there was no was no way to reasonably conceal the entire elk carcass, and it would be obvious to anyone who saw it that the creature had not been killed and butchered by animals. As he worked, Einar found himself fighting a growing anger and frustration at being forced to leave his elk camp before he had taken full advantage of all the animal had to offer, and, feeling much stronger after several days of rest and plentiful food, he wished very much that he had the means to do something about it. He badly wanted to fight back, or at least to leave something behind that would make those lousy feds regret that they had ever discovered

his camp. And reluctant to approach any they might find in the future. No time, though. That chopper was obviously homing in on the warm fire pit, or on me, and they may decide to send somebody up here, if it didnt quite look like an elk to them. I got to be far from here, by then. Back to work, Einar. He supposed, when he thought about it, that he ought to take it as a good sign that he once again had the energy to become angry at all. It had been a while. Having crammed everything he could into the lynx skin and rolled and tied the elk hide into a neat bundle that could either be slung over his shoulder or dragged behind him to save energy, Einar left the elk camp, heading up the ridge into the black timber, working hard to avoid leaving much sign as he went.

The FBI, learning not only of the rescue effort being mounted for Metz team but of the reason Metz had been searching that area in the first place, redoubled their efforts in the field, anxious at the possibility of some progress in the caseperhaps a capture, even while Director Lee was in town. They focused their attention on the area around the search for Metz, thinking that, with the potential local connections he had, perhaps he had managed to obtain a bit of information that they lacked.

Dan Wendell did the best he knew to do for his injured companion that night, piling his own coat on top of Metz and heaping spruce duff over that in an effort to reverse the hypothermia that seemed to be rapidly claiming him. With the morning light, he wanted to return to the gulley to search for the lost pack, hoping to find some matches or something that would allow him to start a fire, but they had traveled some distance from it the previous night, and he was afraid to leave the injured man alone for as long as it would take to search for the pack. He did explore the immediate area by daylight, finding a small open area, covered in snow. Breaking a bunch of branches from the nearby evergreens, he created a giant X in the snow, hoping Metz had made it to help by then and that there would soon be rescuers in the air out searching for them. As the day wore on, nobody came, and towards evening Wendell found that he was no longer able to wake his injured companion or get any response from him, and though the man was still breathing, his breaths were shallow and, it seemed to Wendell, coming too seldom. He stopped shivering sometime in the late afternoon, and Wendell could no longer find a pulse, but knew the man might perhaps still have a chance, if rescue came soon. Which, of course, it did not, Metz having badly misplaced himself in one of the remotest valleys in the area, and the remaining volunteer at the base camp waiting until the following morning to report the party missing. Wendell huddled next to the injured man, using the spruce duff in an attempt to keep himself warm but eventually, thinking his companion surely beyond help, taking back his coat to increase his own chances of making it through the night. The next day, sometime in the late afternoon, Wendell heard a helicopter, struggled up out of his spruce bed stiff with cold and stumbled out to the little meadow where he had made the X, waving and shouting at the helicopter as it hovered over him, dropping to his knees in relief and amazement at what appeared to be imminent rescue.

The FBI, watching the movements of Mountain Rescue and the Sheriffs Department chopper that was aiding in the search for Metz and his men, soon got their own chopper in the air and joined the search, hoping it might lead them to Einar and, even if it didnt, needing to put on a good show for Director Lee. They even took him up on one of the search runs that evening around dusk, to demonstrate to him firsthand the difficulties presented by the terrain.

The Mountain Rescue volunteers snowmobiled in as close as they could to Metz base camp, and hiked in the rest of the way, following the search partys trail up the valley from the camp. Having been given the coordinates of the thermal signature on the ridge by the chopper crew, they were headed up that way to investigate when the call came over the radio that tracks had been spotted on the far side of the opposite ridge, changing their course. Liz, hiking behind Bill at the back of the little group, asked him where he figured those coordinates would have lead them. Bill pointed up at the tree-covered expanse of the ridge. Somewhere up there, I spose. He glanced at Liz, who was intently studying the unbroken black timber of the ridge, which ran for miles before ending in a rugged, treeless expanse of snow-covered rock and finally a snow-crusted peak. I know what youre thinking, Liz. Forget it. Its just a couple of elk up there. And if its not, well, all the more reason to drop it, you know? She nodded, and they continued on up the ridge in search of Metz and his team, but she kept staring back at the opposite ridge as they climbed, wondering about the reported thermal signature and what it might mean. Are you out there? And she had rather a strong feeling that he might be.

Einar was indeed out there, making his way up through the timber, stopping to crouch like an elk beneath the thickest vegetation he could find, whenever a distant rumble told him the chopper was returning. He reached a place where his path was cut by a long, snow-filled couloir, seeming to stretch far upand downthe ridge, and he was faced with the decision to try and find a way around itprobably slowing him by hoursor wait until the chopper had just passed, and go ahead and cross it. He chose the latter, hurrying across the steep, somewhat icy snow of the gulley as quickly as he could, thinking from recent observation that he had nearly five minutes to cross it and greatly alarmed when he heard the returning buzz of the small helicopter after only one or two. He was still out near the

center of the wide, exposed area, knew that to actually run was to risk a fall, but, lacking other ideas, began shuffling quickly across the crusty surface towards the trees on the other side. And, clumsy and poorly balanced with all of his worldly goods suspended from his right shoulder, promptly slipped. Einar fell head-down and rolled a couple of times, having trouble halting his tumble with only one arm free, before finally catching himself by grabbing a stunted little fir whose top stuck up through the snow in a rather fortuitous location. The chopper was close by that time, and, forcing himself up despite the wrenching pain in his left shoulder, he scrambled beneath the nearest concealment he could find, which consisted of a little rock ledge that stuck out from the slope and provided a protected space perhaps three feet high, and not much wider. Crouching under the rock, Einar hurried to brush the snow from his clothes before it had the chance to soak in, hoping he had not left a clearly noticeable trench as he fell in the snow. He thought not. It had been pretty icy. As soon as the noise of the chopper had again faded into the distance, Einar inched a bit nearer the edge of the small flat spot beneath the ledge and searched the snowy slope for his pack, elk skin and willow basket full of elk jerky, which had come off his shoulder as he tumbled, ending up at various places many yards below his position. He let his breath out in a huge sigh, shook his head. It all appeared to be there, having mostly come to rest over at one side of the gulley, not far from the trees. Which he hoped would keep his possessions from looking too suspicious from the air, until the search quieted down or moved on and he could go retrieve them. For hours Einar crouched under the ledge as the search continued in full swing outside, the FBI soon joining the Sheriffs Department in the air. He was encouraged by the fact that none of the aircraft seemed to be hovering over or especially concentrating on his position, but was at the same time puzzled that their main focus seemed to be on and even perhaps beyond the adjoining ridge, rather than the site of his elk camp. Strange. But as long as they were in the area, making such frequent passes, there was no way he intended to leave the shelter of the little ledge. He was freezing, though, had been for some time, as the space beneath the ledge was not deep enough to have kept snow from blowing under and accumulating through the winter, and though he had crouched there for some time in a rather uncomfortable position in an attempt to avoid sitting down on the snow, eventually his badly healed hip would not allow him to maintain it any longer, and he had to sit down, the snow quickly beginning to melt through his jumpsuit. Sure glad I didnt have to do this one on an empty stomach Though it was certainly beginning to feel empty again, after two days of gorging on elk whenever he felt like it, and he found that his body seemed to be having a pretty hard time understanding that things had changed. Wish I at least had that elk hide up here right now. Itd make this waiting a whole lot easier. As dusk approached Einar worried that if he continued to be pinned there as the deeper cold of evening set in, he might have more to worry about than surviving the rather uncomfortable night that was looking inevitable at that point. He was concerned that the little ledge he was sheltering beneath would not be nearly enough to conceal his heat signature from detection, and that, his current position not being a place where an elk or deer would be all that likely to take refuge, he might become the focus of some unwanted attention. But he wasnt to have long to think about that. From below, he heard a chorus

of familiar snarls and yips, which made his blood run cold(er) and sent him scooting to the edge of the shelter as quickly as possible to watch in horror as three coyotes emerged from the trees to begin gobbling his elk jerky and tearing at the hide in an attempt to carry it off. He shouted, pried a rock from the overhanging ledge and threw it at the creatures, causing them to run scared back into the timber. To his relief, Einar saw that they had left the rolled up elk hide, apparently finding it too heavy to drag off in their hurry. Another helicopter was approaching, and he crammed himself back into the recesses of the shelter to wait it out. When the noise had died out, he peered back down the slope, seeing that the animals had again returned to decimate his food supply. For awhile he shouted at them and threw rocks, but the shouting did not go on for long, as he was concerned about the potential of it being heard by searchers on the ground, and eventually he ran out of rocks, also, and the creatures grew bold and returned. Einar was left to watch helpless and shivering, his stomach rumbling painfully as the creatures devoured the food he had worked so long and hard for. And had been counting on.

Einar spent a long cold night under the ledge, taking advantage of a break in air activity sometime towards morning to slide and scramble down to his lost gear and salvage what he could from the coyotes, who had done a pretty thorough job on the jerky and torn up the lynx skin pack, but had left some of the tallow slabs, of which, though they had shattered in the fall, he was able to retrieve some large chunks. He found that the coyotes had done only minimal damage to the rolled up and tied elk hide. Which, wet and freezing and dreading the wind that seemed to be picking up, Einar considered to be the priority anyway. He had thoroughly expected to get down there and find it gone, or shredded beyond usefulness as a source of warmth and protection. Amazing what you can find yourself unspeakably grateful for, under the right circumstances. Dragging everything back up under the ledge, he got himself wrapped up in the elk hide, which though frozen and fairly rigid, still provided some protection, once he had wrestled it open and got it around himself. He stuck a piece of the tallow in his mouth, wondering if he should be alarmed when it showed no sign of melting at first, trying to begin warming up and listening as a small plane returned to circle the area. Sometime after daylight, Einar was startled out of a near sleep by the faint and distant but unmistakable sound of gunfire. He listened, puzzled, but heard no further shots after the initial three or four, and shortly after noticed that the air activity had lessened greatly, then ended altogether. Well, dont know what on earth just happened, but Ill sure take it. Bundling his gear and remaining food up in the elk hide, he struggled to get his stiff, trembling limbs to cooperate, carefully traversing the remainder of the open slope and heading back into the trees, relieved to be moving again and anxious to be far from the place where he had been trapped for so long.

FBI Director Ferris Lee called another press conference that morning, which was scheduled to be his last in Culver Falls, wishing to talk about the challenges that faced the

agents on the ground and laud their hard work, now that he had seen the search area from the air. Halfway through his prepared remarks, he was interrupted by an agent who hurried out of the warehouse and handed him a note: Shots fired, suspect apprehended. Chopper ETA 20 minutes. Which, while only the semi-legible scrawling of the excited agent who had first heard the news over the radio, Lee took to mean that Einar had been captured. He did not want to announce this publicly without some confirmation, but did hastily dismiss his audience, telling them that he had some urgent business to attend to, and that a bigand positive announcement in the case should be forthcoming before the hour was out.

Gordon Metz possessed a good bit more stubbornness and fortitude that he did mountain know-how or personal integrity, and it had kept him going, stumbling around on frozen feet and fighting the hazy, sleepy feelings that urged him to lie down and rest, that he knew would men his death if heeded. He had heard the Mountain Rescue helicopter as it searched for his two lost volunteers, had heard the FBI chopper that joined it, and had even seen it once for a brief moment, as it passed across a patch of open sky that was visible to him from his narrow valley. But the aircraft had never come anywhere near close enough for him to attempt signaling them, so he kept pushing on, hoping to find some sign of human presence and get help. Struggling through willow thickets and over slick, snow covered rock slides, Metz followed the valley down until it spilled out into a larger valley, this one containing a decent-sized river whose steep, rocky banks he attempted to navigate, on the theory that the brush was less thick on the banks than slightly further up the slope on either side of it. All night he kept going, clumsy, exhausted, slipping and falling often on the rocks and twice nearly falling into the river, which he knew would have been the end of him. Towards morning he began smelling smoke, and his pace quickened at the prospect of finding help. The FBI camp was situated near the river at the mouth of a steep-walled valley, miles outside Culver Falls but as near as they could easily get, by snowmobile, to the search for Metz and his crew. Who they still hoped had possessed some bit of intelligence about Einars location. When the bearded, disheveled, snow-encrusted man stumbled out of the woods into the camp that morning, shouting something and waving his arms, there was only one thing the two nervous agents who were awake and about at that point could conclude, their judgment a bit clouded by a couple of nights spent in an unfamiliar and seemingly very hostile place: Einar had found their camp, and had come to attack them as they slept. So they opened fire on him. Metz, acting on instinct, dropped to the ground and returned fire, and the agents were lucky that he was nearly incapacitated by the cold at that point, or at least one of them almost certainly would have been dead. As it was, Metz bullet only nicked one agents shoulder before he realized what was going on, dropped his gun and shouted his identity at the startled agents before they could turn him into Swiss cheese. The eighteen or so

agents at the camp, thoroughly awakened by that time, tended to the wounded agent, gave Metz some hot coffee and called in their chopper, which landed in the meadow half an hour later to take the injured agent and Metz, who was suffering from some fairly severe frostbite to his toes, in to the hospital in Clear Springs. Initial reports of the incident, radioed back to the command post in Culver, were that Einar had been captured. A case of mistaken identity that those involved were never to live down, especially after the Director had his press conference interrupted by the news, only to later have to explain this latest embarrassment to the press. Metz eventually recovered from the dehydration and hypothermia brought on by his little adventure in the mountains, and in the end only lost a couple of toes. At the hospital he learned that, while the injured volunteer had succumbed to the cold and passed away, Mountain Rescue had reached Wendell in time, and he had made it. Metz went home after two weeks in the hospital in Clear Springs, discredited and despondent after his first failure at citizen-federal conflict resolution in quite some time. Metz wife, exasperated at his latest escapade and the pressure she had been receiving from a number of their former friends and acquaintances at Gordons would-be role in apprehending Einar, moved out while he was gone, leaving him no more than a note after many years of marriage. Several weeks later Metz, claiming that his life had no meaning without her, attempted to take his own life. Which attempt, fortunately for him, ended no more successfully than did his search for Einar. After that, Metz faded quietly into the background, having lost all credibility with his former Patriot followers and fans, and thus having little value anymore to his erstwhile federal employers, who had relied on him using his guile, charm and reputation to insinuate himself into difficult situations where he could then do their bidding. Einar, of course, rather busy keeping himself alive and maintaining as much distance as possible between himself and even the most well intentioned of federal stooges, had never even been aware of Gordon Metz efforts.

After the mistaken identity fiasco with Metz and the hurried departure of the angry Director, and amid much talk of rumored review and censure, the FBI agents on the ground in Culver Falls were doubly anxious to produce some positive results before the scheduled Congressional hearings and vote the following week. What they needed was a villain to parade in from of the cameras, an individual or group of individuals actually in their custody whose arrest or arrests they could put forward as the result of a successful operation, an example of the ongoing threat that necessitated the budget increase the Director was so set on, and on which, they were pretty certain, hung numerous of their careers with the Bureau. Jeff Jackson was to have been this villain, he had even come (nearly) complete with a collection of evil black rifles for them to show to the press, and they had carefully and quickly filled in the holes in his collection in a way would allow their charges to stick. But now, with the hearings and vote approaching, they had no idea where Jeff could be found. A problem they were working frantically to remedy. After much asking around town and a bit of digging to collect wayward bits of intelligence, the general consensus was that, if anyone in the area was providing refuge to Jeff Jackson, there was at least a good chance that it might be Bill and Susan. Bill had

quite a reputation for, shall we say, community organizing when it came to firearms and other Constitutional issues, and some of his public statements in the early days of their search for Einar led the agents to the conclusion that his place would be as good a place to start as any, in their search for Jeff. Not enough evidence for them to actually earn a warrant, but enough to convince them they were looking in the right direction. Time to go strong-arm a Federal judge. One problem. Bills house sat at the top of a rather long, steep and exposed driveway far from anyplace you could land a helicopter, and he was known around town as one who didnt appreciate unannounced guests. There was also, as they discussed possible plans of action, the problem that Bill seemed to enjoy fairly widespread respect in the community. And while they were nonetheless determined to move forward in searching his premises for Jeff, it was an operation that clearly would require quick and decisive action, and would need to involve a strong public relations component if it was to end in anything short of disaster.

Einar kept moving up the ridge that morning, using a snowy peak in the distance as his landmark in an effort to keep traveling away from the area where the search of the previous day and night had been centered. He still wondered why they had ended up focusing on that area, rather than the area of the ridge near where they had apparently noticed his fire. Thinking about it as he limped through the trees in the flat light of what was shaping up to be another cold, cloudy day, he was half tempted to go back and see what might be left of the elk carcassthere had still been some meat on it when he was forced to leave, and certainly some larger bones he could crack for their marrow, which would be a welcome addition to his again-meager food supply. A few small scraps of the jerky remained in the bottom of the damaged and chewed willow basket where the coyotes had been unable to extract them, and he stopped under a tree, huddled against the sharp wind in the feeble shelter of its trunk, and stuck one of the fragments of dry meat in his mouth to soften, debating with himself and eventually making the difficult decision to forgo returning to the site of his old elk camp, knowing that the searchers could have left someone behind in anticipation of his doing just that, or could have perhaps rigged the area with seismic, noise or other sensors that would get him a surprise visit from a chopper as he worked on the carcass. And besides, he told himself, the coyotes had probably thoroughly decimated what was left of it, anyway. Still, though, whatever they would have left almost certainly represented to him a far greater bounty than anything he now possessed. He shook his head, made himself rise, leave the shelter of the tree trunk and start back up the ridge into the wind, one step after another, having a awfully hard time just then convincing himself that it was worth continuing at all. Exhausted, cold and, despite his best efforts, rather despondent at the loss of the elk, he badly wanted to sit down, to lie down, to let the elements have their way with him and finally allow himself an end to a life of struggling and hardship that of late just seemed to go on and on without letup. He knew that was a foolish idea, though. Knew the absurdly stubborn thing in him that had consistently denied him rest and relief at other such times would find some reason to make him get up and go on again before it was too late, weaker than before but unable to give in, further prolonging his miserable and futile existence. Maybe, he told himself, the best thing would be to head back down the valley, find one of those

federal search parties, andno. No, even in his state of near-despair, he was unwilling to consider allowing himself to be taken. But perhaps if they tried to take him and he resisted Einar stood there trembling in the wind, staring at the ground and trying to make up his mind as to which of the two rather bad alternatives he saw before him wasless bad, when for some reason the sight of those vile coyotes devouring his elk jerky flashed across his mind. His despair suddenly turning to rage, he stood there seething with anger at the creatures and what they had done to his food, to his chances of being able to keep going. Stupid coyotes. You wait. Im gonnasnare your scraggly butts, eat your lousy, stinking stringy meattan this elk skin with your brains, and use your hides for a coat before this thing is over. And, he thought, he could perhaps use a bit of the remaining jerky to do just that. He still had the coil of steel cable, and thought that perhaps if he tried hard enough, he might be able to separate some more of its partially oxidized strands to make a coyote snare or two. Consumed with the thought, he again began trudging up the ridge, his pace quickened a bit as he thought of the revenge he would wreak on the animals at his first opportunity, warming him slightly and sharpening his focus as he worked to keep moving without leaving sign in case he ended up being followed. Einar felt somewhat foolish taking his anger out on creatures that he knew were only, like himself, struggling to make it through the lean days of early spring in the mountains, but he sure needed something to be mad at, something to put a little determination back into his step and keep him from seeking refuge and rest in the icy duff beneath one of the spruces he was passing, which, his bleak mood broken somewhat, he knew would be a big mistake, for a number of reasons. With his clothes soaked and icy in places from the night under the ledge and still shivering badly despite being on the move again, he knew that his only real hope was to keep moving and thus generate whatever heat his body was still capable of, and getting out of the area was looking like a wise idea anyway, considering the close proximity of the recent air search. He still puzzled over the meaning of the gunshots he had been sure he heard that morning, and the cessation of the air activity shortly afterwards. Had someone on the ground been shooting at the chopper? Ha! Likely as anything, those jokers just got spooked and started shooting at each other Later, descending down into a remote little valley and digging a few lily bulbs to give him energy while he worked to create the coyote snares he had earlier envisioned, Einar thought back to that morning and the dangerous thoughts that had crept in to his mind and very nearly led him to do something rather foolish and potentially irreversible. At that moment he was grateful to the coyotes, or to the memory of what they had done, anyway, for jarring him out of his despair and getting him going again. Guess you little buggers probably saved me, in a way. As if in answer to his thoughts, a distant howl rose from the opposite ridge, sharp and clear in he cold, still evening air. And youll do it again, too, you ugly old flea-bitten brush wolves, because I was real serious about using your meat and brains and hides Just got to get ahold of you, first.

Bill had known he was taking a risk by offering sanctuary to Jeff when he decided not to show up for his bail revocation hearing, and had prepared accordingly. But this turn of events was by no means the first time he had thought about the possible need to make his home defensible, nor the first time he had worked on doing just that. He knew that it was not realistic to think that an individual or group could adequately fortify a position against the weaponry available to the modern military or even, under the right circumstances, the right federal agencyone rocket through a window or a bunker buster bomb on top of your location and it would all be over. But, short of an all out assault of this type, which he expected was fairly unlikely at the present moment at least, he knew he could do pretty well in at least buying some time for his loved ones to escape the area, and at the same time make the losses to whoever chose to attack him heavy enough that they would think twice about mounting such an operation against another citizen. And, thought he realized that he might not himself make it out the other side of such an action, he fully intended to make his best effort to do just that if the circumstance ever arose, on the theory that a live resistance fighter is a lot more effective in most cases than a dead one. Bill had planned for and rehearsed a number of different scenarios, both alone and with his family and the small group that met weekly at his house. That day, having heard increasing rumors and grumblings of a possible escalation in the search for Jeff, he spent most of the morning cutting pairs of aluminum squares, approximately four by four inches, out of a number of thin printing plates that he had acquired when the old print shop had closed years ago in Culver. He then cut an equal number of pieces of thin cardboard, slightly larger than the squares. Finished with this work, Bill retreated to his machine shop to begin the next step in his project.

For the next couple of days there was almost no air activity in Einars immediate area at all, but he could still at times hear an occasional rumble in the distance that kept him on edge and moving along the ridge. Though he did not think fire an acceptable risk that first night, opting instead to huddle under the elk hide with spruce duff piled around him for additional warmth, by the second evening he was ready to give it a try. Scratching a small pit into the ground with the steel bar, which was by that time too dull to be harmed much by such abuse and badly in need of sharpening, Einar gathered a quantity of dry wood and a rounded up a big flattish rock to throw over the pit in the event of a flyover. He did not take the time to dig the little side tunnel that had made his other fire holes so successful, as he did not plan to be in that location for more than a night and perhaps part of the following morning, before moving on again to put a bit more distance behind him before hopefully finding a place to settle for a longer stretch of time. All he wanted that night was a bit of warmth, a chance to hopefully get more than the scattered snatches of sleep allowed him by the intense cold of the past several nights. He knew that his neardisastrous lapse in mental discipline the morning before had been due at least partially to lack of sleep, and knew he must do all within his power to prevent such a thing happening again. Being the second time that he had used the somewhat awkward bow and drill setup that he had adapted to spare his injured arm, the firemaking went somewhat more smoothly than it had the previous time, and before long he was huddling

over a tiny fire, feeding it with sticks and eventually adding a few larger branches that he broke off and shoved deeper into the pit as each section burned. Though he really had nothing to cook, besides a scrap or two of jerky that could be stewed but which he had resolved to savein case of emergency, which thought made him smile slightly and shake his head at the ironyEinar did greatly enjoy the multiple cans of hot spruce needle tea that he made himself as he sat over the fire. In his pocket he had a couple of lily roots that he had dug earlier in the meadow where he had stopped to work on separating the strands of the steel cable for coyote snares, and he tossed them in, almost cheerful as he fed sticks into the little fire and waited for the bulbs to boil and sweeten. As he sat there wrapped in the elk hide, the ice that had formed in the flesh side began to melt and steam him a bit in the heat of the flames, forcing him to flip the heavy thing over, hair side in, and reminding him that he had better get down to the work of fleshing and tanning it as soon as his situation allowed. Guess Im gonna need those coyote brains, now. He slept the sound sleep of exhaustion that night, dreaming of coyotes and waking at first light to find the fire dead but his clothes dry and himself a good bit less stiff and cold than he had been in recent memory on waking. Cleaning up the camp, filling in the little hole and replacing the carefully removed plug of dirt that he had set aside the previous day, Einar rolled everything back up into the elk hide and slung it over his shoulder, scattered spruce needles to conceal the random specks of dirt that had been left on the duff by his activities, and left the area, taking meticulous care to avoid leaving a trail as he did so. Despite the encouraging lack of air activity, he was determined to take no chances when it came to assuming that no one had noticed the smoke from his fire were at that very moment using it to pinpoint his location. He had been wrong about such things in the past. While he knew, having seen tracks, that the coyotes he now sought frequented the valley where he had spent the previous night, Einar was not at all comfortable spending any more time in an area where he had allowed himself a fire. Sometime that past evening, as he had crossed a small meadow to his camping spot, he had caught a glimpse of a rocky escarpment that ran for quite some distance at the top of a nearby timbered ridge, and his plan that morning was to make for that area, remembering that he had often seen coyote sign in similar settings, in the high country. The ridge became progressively steeper as he climbed, and was broken here and there by steep, rock-filled gullies, some of them coated with an amount of ice that made Einar fairly certain they must contain springs. In several places where the snow had begun melting off of the exposed slopes, he was sure he saw the remnants of tailings piles, though only once did he spot something that could have perhaps been a tunnel entrance, and the yellow rock of the hillside had sloughed off and eroded so badly over the years that he seriously doubted his ability to make the climb up the in places nearly vertical slope of loose rock and hard packed soil to investigate it. And doubted even more strongly the wisdom of any such attempt. One thing that did interest him greatly as he climbed, though, was the occasional glimpse he had been getting through the trees of what looked to be a manmade, if badly decayed structure on the opposite side of one of the steep gullies. While he had been afforded at best fleeting sights of the object of interest through the rather dense timber, Einar had been fairly sure once that he saw a

number of worked logs, perhaps indicating a cabin. The spot did not look at all a likely one for someone to have chosen to take up residence, did not in fact even look especially accessible, considering the work done to the slope below it by over a century of erosion but, with the obvious mining activity that had once taken place in the area, it was not out of the question. Something to look into. Later. First, he intended to reach the top of the ridge and look for a suitable place to get ahold of a coyote or two, and also hoped that the ridge crest might afford him easier access to the little spur on which he had seen the logs. As he continued the climb, Einars imagination was busy with the potential bounty of materials that he could possibly end up finding if the odd-looking pile of logs did indeed end up being the remnants of a cabin or shack of some type. Reaching the conclusion of his climb after numerous rests forced by his weakness and not a few others necessitated by his nearly incessant need to slow his breathing and quiet the pounding in his head enough to listen for helicopters, Einar found a coyote trail along the edge of the high ridge, its course following along no more that a foot from where the yellow, crumbly rock dropped away steeply into the valley below. It looked rather well traveled. He could see fresh tracks and sign, and there was a place where the path, running through a narrow passage between the precipice and a ten foot high wall of rock, was blocked by a heavy tangle of brush. He could see from the numerous strands and tufts of grey and brown hair caught in the tangle of old chokecherry sticks that the animals typically chose to crawl under the blockage rather than go around it. Einar grinned. Perfect.

Because he had not been able to think of a good way to create a locking snare with the equipment he possessed, and knowing that the little lock he had bent from tin for his rabbit snare would be far too brittle to hold up to the weight of a struggling coyote, Einar knew that he would need to create some type of a spring snare if he was to have much hope of successfully holding his prey. The coyotes, he estimated, would weigh somewhere around twenty or, at the most that time of year, thirty pounds. They had looked pretty scrawny. Scanning the area, he saw only one tree, a little spruce two or three inches in diameter and standing not far from one end of the tangle of brush that blocked the trail, that looked like a good possibility. Einar, grabbing it with a wide strip of aspen inner bark to avoid directly touching the wire of the snare, having smoked it over his fire the previous night to remove at least some of his scent, suspended the loop a few inches off the ground in the place where he could see that the coyotes emerged from the tangle of vegetation as they traversed their trail. He used a single strand from the cable as a support wire. Setting up the simple two-piece trigger he had laboriously scraped and whittled the day before with the dull steel bar, he pulled down the tree, just hoping it didnt decide to break, and wired it securely to the trigger. Slowly straightening up and backing away from the setup, he let out his breath in a big sigh on seeing that it all seemed to be holding. OK. Ill be back up here during the day tomorrow to see if anything comes of this. After setting the snare, he headed back down the treed spur in what was left of the

daylight, hoping to use it to locate the structure he had been pretty sure he saw from the other side of the gulley as he climbed. The timber was so dense on the spur that Einar was almostliterallyon top of the cabin, by the time he spotted it. It was a crude structure of hand-hewn logs, backed up to the mountainside at such an angle as to be half-buried, a feature which appeared to have been intentional rather than being the haphazard result of time and erosion. Nearly all of the roof was gone from one section, though a number of spruce poles and some tar paper remained on another. Aside from window and door frames of milled lumber, all of the work appeared to have been done by hand, and the square head nails sticking out twistedly from odd places in the windowsill told him that it harkened from the mining days of the late 1800s or early 1900s. He had to wonder, as he explored the place, what had possessed someone to build in that particular location. It seemed far more unlikely than had the first cabin he had found, even. The terrain was forbiddingly steep and timber choked, and there was not even any likely source of water that he could see, anywhere closer than the apparent spring way down at the bottom of the gulley. Had to be the lure of gold, I guess. Or silver. But he expected the cabin should, even in its ruined state, give him some protection from the wind and cold of the coming night, and with this in mind, he began removing bits of roof debris from the still-protected area where its collapse had not been complete, in an effort to clear a spot large enough to sleep in. Beyond the possibilities it offered for shelter that night, he was seeing in the wreckage of the cabin a multitude of useful scraps of metal and lengths of milled wood, not the least among them ready timbers to use in the creation of a frame for stretching the elk hide, assuming the timbers were sturdy and un-rotted enough for the task, and assuming that he actually managed to snare a couple of the coyotes, and that their brains would work for tanning the skin. Thats an awful lot of assuming, Einar. And I sure never heard too much about tanning anything with coyote brains But as he thought about it, he could not come up with a good reason that it should not work. The brain of any creature, as far as he knew, was largely made up of fats, and it was the fats in brain tanning that served to soften the hide and keep it pliable and, in combination with smoking, waterproof. He supposed that he could even use some of the old nails, extracted from the rotting wood of the door frame and pounded in with a rock, in the construction of his frame. Curious at the possibility, he began sorting through the wreckage in search of timbers that had been shielded from the weather and would have the best chance of holding up. He was in the middle of this search when, prying up a pile of rubble, he made the discovery. There beneath the jumble of partially rotted wood and fallen tin, largely protected from over a hundred years of weather by a section of tarpaper-covered roof that had fallen at an angle over it and caught on the beam above, sat a small cast iron wood cook stove, probably not looking too different than the day the miners had abandoned it, and the cabin. The lighter metal of the chimney had been twisted and destroyed by the falling roof timbers, but Einar, as he inspected the little four burner stove complete with a small oven, figured that he could improvise a new one out of some of the roofing tin. Visions of a winter spent in a cozy, log-walled space heated by the little stove, stacks of wood waiting for him outside from a summer of work and a ready supply of food in the attic and in raised caches outside the cabin just begging to be cooked, danced before his eyes as he practically drooled over the stove. He marveled once again at the determination and stamina of the

men who had lugged such a heavy thing up the incredibly steep and rugged slope below in pieces, on the backs of mules, or possibly even on their own backs. Amazing. And a real shame that he was probably not going to be there in that place long enough to enjoy it, if past history was any indication at all. Before concealing the remains of his firepit that morning, Einar had dug down in the ashes until he found several still-glowing coals, and had carefully wrapped them in a bundle of aspen inner bark that he had rubbed to break apart the fibers, separating them nearly but not quite to the degree that he usually did for the fire nest when he did a bow and drill fire. Next, he had added a thick pad of very dry usnea lichen to each side of the growing bundle, sandwiching the entire thing between two small slabs of hard outer bark that he had pulled from a dead aspen beside his camp. Stowing this fire bundle in the pocket of his sweatshirt for lack of a better way to carry it, Einar had stopped periodically during his travels that day to open up the bundle and let just enough additional air in to keep the coals smoldering, without actually causing them to burst into flame. He had forgot about the fire bundle in his excitement over the discovery of the cabin, and hurried now to see if it was still alive. Opening up the bundle and pulling back the top layer of lichen, he felt with the back of his hand to see if any warmth remained in the coals. Yep! Think so. Think itll go. This will save me some work tonight, for sure. Several times at his previous camps Einar had considered trying this method for carrying fire with him to his next location, but it seemed that every time he has either had to leave in too great a hurry to put the bundle together, or had been actively trying to evade either a ground or air search, with fire being the last thing on his mind. He was finding it incredibly nice that night not to have to start all over. The prospect of easy fire made the place seem almost like home. Not so sure I even remember what that means, anymore. Choosing the rustiest and therefore least otherwise useful of the several large tin cans he had found in a tumbled heap in a corner of the cabin he sunk it down into the accumulated duff and dirt in the center of the floor, piled a few rocks around it to further reduce the amount of light that would escape, and proceeded to break up some small dry branches for a fire. Scrounging up a large sheet of tin from the floor, he bent it and stuck one end down in the loose duff not far from the fire can to act as a reflector and help concentrate a bit of heat in the one semi-intact corner of the cabin. Almost as an afterthought, he stuck a few shreds of old tarpaper from the roof, too tattered to be especially useful to him in other applications, into the can to help the fire along. Placing the coal bundle down among the sticks and blowing the fire to life, Einar sat very close to it for a bit, enjoying its warmth and again working to dry his socks and knead some softened tallow into his damaged feet. As he worked, staring into the flames and watching as fire curled energetically out of the shreds of tarpaper, he wondered whether he could perhaps make use of any of the larger pieces of remaining tarpaper as a rough rain suit-type garment or, at the very least, a wind and weatherproof tarp that he could take refuge beneath as he traveled. He rather doubted the rain suit bit, thinking the stuff would have to be awfully brittle by that point, but decided the matter was definitely worth pursuing, after daylight. It was after dusk that evening when Einar, rolled up in the elk hide on a bed of spruce duff in the dry corner of the cabin, the little fire with its tin reflector putting out a fair amount of heat not three feet from him, was startled out of his sleep by what he took to be

the wanderings of a rather large animal in the brush some distance below him.

He lay perfectly still for a few seconds just listening, his eyes darting around in the nearcomplete darkness for any sign of trouble before very slowly and deliberately reaching out of his bedroll and covering his fire with the flat rock he had kept handy for that purpose. His first thought was that he might be hearing a bear, awakened early from its hibernation and attracted by the scent of the elk hide, but he realized as he listened that there was not nearly enough crashing and trampling for it to be a bear. And way too much for a big cat. So. Deer? Elk? What? The tangle of fallen trees below the old cabin was so heavy that he doubted a deer or elk would choose it as a path of travel. Which really just left one thing, that he could think of. They found me, somebody found me. Dont know how, but thats got to be it. He struggled to picture in his mind exactly where he had left everything when he settled in for the night, and, rolling slightly, felt around in the blackness of the cabin behind him until his fingers closed over the sharpened stick he had kept near him as he slept at his elk camp. Fumbling in the darkness, he removed the wire ties that held his injured left arm in place, deciding that, while it would hurt and would be of limited usefulness, he wanted to have the option of using the arm if he ended up in a struggle for his freedom. Whatever it was seemed to be just below the cabin by that point, and Einar, having convinced himself with fair certainty that his stalker must be of the human variety, crouched in the inky darkness against the wall of the cabin, grasping the spear in his good hand and bracing it against the cabin wall at an upward angle, hoping he would be able to see a dark shape against the faint starlight that filtered down through the heavy timber in time to make the first move. Because, he figured, whoever it was would almost certainly be armed, and, though he had only heard one set of movements, might not be alone. And may not be blind, either. He knew there was a good chance that whoever was out there that night hunting him, whether federal agent, bounty hunter or otherwise, probably had some form of night vision or thermal imaging device. In which case he was in some serious trouble. He imagined the man jumping up from behind the remaining foundation logs of the ruined cabin and blinding him with a flashlight Well. Its a long way from here to anywhere, so if hes alone, I got a pretty good chance of making it so I dont go all the way back with him, even if he does get his hands on me. Though if hes a fed, hell just restrain me and call for backup, anyway. If the radios work this far out And, such thoughts keeping him as alert and ready as a starved, exhausted man is capable of being, he waited. But no shape came, no silhouette bulking against the sky, no blinding light in his face, and Einar crouched there for some time, waiting, straining his eyes and ears for any further clue, but there was nothing. After a time his arm began cramping badly in the cold, he was having more and more trouble keeping still, and eventually he had to lay down the spear or risk dropping it with a clatter to the cabin floor. Huddling in the darkness, he clamped his jaw against his chattering teeth and waited for whatever was out there to move again so he could be certain of its location, pretty sure that if it was human and already knew his position, it would not have waited so long to make a move. Maybe I can get the jump on this guy, come up behind him. Maybe hes got a coat I can

have, some food He saw that the moon, nearly half full and glinting through the trees just above the horizon, would before long be passing into a gap in the heavy cover of branches, and Einar hoped to be able to use its light to get a look at the source of the sound. Moving extremely slowly and deliberately, using the elbow on his injured side to help things along, he crept over to the two logs that still sat one atop the other on the downhill side of the cabin, lying behind it with his forehead on the ground and waiting for the moon to move into a position where it would shine through the trees and illuminate the ground near the cabin. When at last a patch of moonlight fell through the spruces and illuminated the ground near his left hand, Einar got slowly to his knees, spear poised, and looked over the logs at the snow-covered, moon-dappled forest floor outside the cabin. It took him a minute, but he saw it, saw its ear flick in the moonlight, as his eye was caught by the motion. A deer. A scrawny, starved-looking doe, curled up in a little hollow at the base of the cabin logs, looking to Einar like it had gone about as far as it could before choosing that spot to lie down. He let his breath out, rested his head on the log in front of him, the tension passing out of him and with it the strength he had summoned for what he had fully expected to be a desperate struggle for his life and continued freedom. He raised his head, saw that the deer had not moved, and decided that he must attempt to turn it into some food. Einar wished he had an arrow, knew that his chances of bringing down the deer would be much greater using the bow, but knew just as well that he had to work with what was available to him at the moment. Which meant the spear. He supposed he could get up onto the logs above the sleeping animal, and drop the three or four feet down onto it with the spear. Which would probably break, or, considering that he was basically limited to one arm, prove ineffective. Worth a try, anyway. But he was stiff and clumsy from keeping still for so long in the cold, and despite his best efforts at careful movement, soon tripped over a protruding board and fell heavily against the cabin wall. By the time he scrambled to his feet, the deer had taken off down the hill, bounding over the crusty snow and sailing over tangles of downed trees that Einar knew would involve slow and painstaking work for him to navigate. Well. Its gone. Probably would have just got knocked on the ground and kicked in the head trying my plan, anyway. Limping back to his little camp in the corner of the cabin, he found himself overcome with relief and exhaustion after the unexpected series of events. Einar flopped down on the elk hide, laughing out loud with relief until tears were running down his cheeks, chastising his foolishness in letting his imagination run away with him. He realized that he had very nearly gone running off into the night again, leaving almost everything behind and in all likelihood never returning for fear of an ambush. Youre losing it, Einar. Been living this way for too long. Ha! A little old scrawny deer, and here you were all ready to do battle for your life. Suddenly rather acutely aware of the cold once again now that the excitement had passed, he rolled up trembling in the elk skin, lying on his stomach and reaching out with one hand to attempt to stir the fire back to life. Fortunately enough lively coals remained in the bottom of the can that he was able, without too much difficulty, to bring it back once again, creeping close to its warmth and curling around it as he tried to get back to sleep. The false alarm, foolish as he now felt for his response to it, had reminded him of the fact that it probably was not wise for him to spend much time in a location that others, even if

they were only a few local hunters, were likely to know about. Still, the place with its ready shelter andto himbountiful resources was very tempting, and as he watched the sky brighten that morning, he decided to make a thorough search of the area after daylight and try to determine if the cabin had been visited recently by other humans. That morning after drinking the can of slushy water that he had set in the coals to melt before going to back to sleep after the deer and sticking a little piece of elk tallow in his mouth to melt, Einar prepared to head up the hill to check his snare. Wanting to leave the heavy elk hide at the camp if possible to make the long climb up the ridge a bit less taxing, he used the coil of steel cable to suspend it, wrapped around most of his remaining tallow and other gear, from the high branch of a nearby aspen, hoping that would put it out of reach of most scavengers who might attempt to harm it. He took with him only the steel bar, some chunks of tallow in one pocket, and the spear, hoping it was not a decision he would come to regret, but honestly not all that sure that he had the strength to haul himself and all of his gear up the steep ridge that morning. He needed to eat. Pushing himself up the ridge at a fairly quick pace in an attempt to warm up, Einar wondered what he would do if the snare was empty, supposed that he would have to look for a place to try and get ahold of some rabbits or, as a last resort and rather a poor one, return to the valley with the creek where he had dug the lily bulbs the day before. He topped out on the crest of the ridge, and caught a glimpse of grey-brown fur over in the vicinity of his snare. Breathing hard from the climb and chilled despite the exertion, Einar hurried towards the spot, an almost childlike expression of glee creeping over his face as he saw the animal that was held in his snare, somewhat scrawny looking but still bearing a fine cold-weather coat. Gotcha! Never would have guessed I ever could be this glad to see a coyote Finishing with his project in the machine shop, Bill carried three of the completed items out to an area up behind the Quonset hut where he had a number of years ago cleared just enough brush to create a narrow, somewhat steep 200 yard shooting range. There was no flat ground to be found on Bill and Susans property, but Bill didnt really mind. Dealing with varying elevations was just part of shooting in the mountains, and, he figured, the more practice he had in adjusting for it, the better. Wired to each of the three-layer aluminum and cardboard sandwiches Bill had created was a length of PVC pipe, each containing, for the purposes of the test, a 9 volt battery and a small white LED that stuck out through a small hole he had drilled. The 9 volts were for the tests, only. He had sized the pipes to house and protect 6 volt lantern batteries, and would need their greater push (amperage) when it came time for the real thing. Settling down behind his Blaser R93, made by Sig and chambered for .308, which he had been shooting for a number of years and liked for its long range accuracy as well as the fact that it could be quickly and easily disassembled and stowed inconspicuously in a backpack, Bill chambered a round. Getting the little square of olive drab-painted aluminum centered in his crosshairs, he watched it drift gently up and down for a couple of breaths, and took the shot. Success! The light had come on and, more importantly, had stayed on, meaning that a good electrical connection had been established as the bullet tore through the two thin sheets of aluminum, making a neat hole in the thin

cardboard that had insulated them from one another and forcing the two layers of metal into contact as they bent and distorted. All Right! If itll complete the circuit well enough to keep that light on, itll sure do the job I need it to do, also. Just to be safe, Bill went ahead and put bullets through the two remaining switches that he had set up as tests, pleased when they both functioned as well as the first. Before heading out to complete the next phase of his project, Bill returned to his workshop and painted the three remaining switches with a single layer of strontium aluminate-based glow paint, which ought to ensure that he would have something to aim at, even at night. The targets would be angled in such a wayup slightly towards his position on the ridgethat he was not too worried about anyone on the ground lower down picking up on what would be a rather faint glow. The rest of the afternoon he spent climbing the ridge above the long, steep driveway, going about it a back way so his movements would not be too obvious to anyone who might be watching the house. Very carefully, he set up the switches and the devices he had intended to pair them with, near the tops of each of the three main avalanche chutes that cut the ridge. Most of the snow was gone by that point, but Bills interest that day was in rock, anyway. Specifically the several tons of rock that were being held back by three carefully-constructed log berms concealed at critical points along the ridge. Several years ago he, with the help of his son, had made some these rather interesting improvements to the slope above the driveway. The slope did require a fair amount of routine maintenance to keep it clear of hazardous accumulations of snow in the winter, and loose rock in the spring and summer, so Bill was able to complete his modifications without arousing anyones suspicion as to why he was spending so much time up there. It had become a private joke between Bill and Susan, though. Whenever he told her he was off to do some rock-fall mitigation, she knew that meant he was about to spend some time on one project or another that she might be better off not asking him too many questions about, so she usually let well enough alone, dismissing him with a wave of her hand and an admonition to be careful up there, then, and dont be late for supper. Over time, the term rock-fall mitigation became their code for any project that was better not spoken of outside the immediate circle of trust. And there were indeed a number of such, over the years. As it was to turn out, Bill completed his project not a day too soon.

As he freed the coyote from the snare, Einar saw that the tree he had used had been barely adequate for the job, just raising the creatures front feet off the ground. He could tell from the way it had torn up the dirt with its hind paws that death had taken awhile, and for that he was sorry, even if this had perhaps been one of the same beasts that had stolen his elk jerky. He ran his hand through the fur, thinking of the coat he hoped to make, if he could manage to get ahold of one or two more. Gonna be real warm. And, living at such elevations, the animals shouldnt even have any fleas for him to contend with. As far as he knew the only fleas that lived that high were the snow fleas that you could often see congregating in the warmer, still air down in fresh elk tracks. The cold-

blooded little creatures are attracted to the warmth that lingers in the tracks, but do not, as their name suggests, actually feed on blood. They are a type of springtail, jumping and, to the naked eye, appearing much like fleas, but feeding on decaying forest debris. Einar reset the snare where it had been before, doubting that it would yield again in the same location but, seeing that the tangle of brush did block what appeared to be a major thoroughfare for the animals, willing to try again. He would have his hands full for a couple of days anyway, between skinning the critter, fleshing out the hide, and chopping up and attempting to preserve some of the meat. The first order of business on returning to the cabin, though, was to dig a Dakota hole in the icy dirt where the floorboards of the cabin were long rotted and gone, knowing that he needed a better setup than the little fire in the can if he intended to cook the critter before eating it. Which, in this case, he certainly did. Finishing with the fire hole, he did what he could to sharpen the badly dulled steel bar, also choosing a torn shard of tin from the collapsed section of roof, wrapping one end of it with aspen bark fibers to create a handle. He knew this tool would likely not be strong enough to cut through the skin, but might be helpful in separating it from the body once the process was started, especially around the head where he knew it could get tricky. Cutting the skin around the animals lower legs and just below the tail, he pulled the hide off of each of its legs like socks, taking a minute to stick a couple of strands of steel wire in between the animals tendon and leg bone near the lower leg joint, wrapping the wire around a small tree just outside the cabin. Struggling to do the difficult job with one arm, he braced his foot against a rock and began pulling and tugging at the skin, working it off of the animal from back to front and using the sharp tin only seldom and with great care, lest he nick the hide. The shoulder area proved somewhat difficult, as did the head, but he finally got it done. His hands were freezing as he worked, and he had to keep stopping to warm them, glad when he finally tugged and cut the last bit of hide from the coyotes head, freeing the nose and turning the hide back fur-side out like a sock to keep the flesh side free of needles and duff when he set it down. Catching his breath and contemplating the scrawny, hairless, hideless coyote, looking for all the world like a slightly short-bodied, slightly stocky greyhound, Einar thought ruefully of the perfectly good elk he had been forced to abandon, and of the abundance of jerky that the coyotes had gobbled shortly after. Oh, well. This will have to do. Protein is protein, I guess. Speaking of which, his stomach was rumbling painfully despite the stink of skinning the creature, and he decided it was high time to get some stew going. Sure dont want to eat this one raw, if I can help it. Filling his water can with fresh snow, he set it down in the coals to begin melting, knowing that, despite his hunger, he must wait until after dark to stir the fire back to life. While he waited for darkness, which was still several hours off, Einar prowled about the ruins of the cabin until he found a length of worked wood that stuck out of a tumbled-down portion of the wall at an upward angle, looking like it might well have once been part of a roof beam. Sliding the coyote skin onto the beam like a sock, he began carefully scraping the remaining bits of fat and membrane from the hide, in preparation for tanning. He was tired, his arm sore from the work of pulling off that hide with one hand, but the fleshing was something that had eventually to be done anyway, and it was helping to keep him warm as he waited for

dark. Several times as he worked he rose and stretched, beginning to cramp up from the bent-over position necessary to scrape the hide, attempting to keep it from moving around too much on the beam by leaning against it with one knee. Einar was awfully hungry, was feeling the hunger especially acutely after that mornings climb and the hard work dealing with the coyote, and, seeing the carcass hanging there from a branch, he was having a hard time waiting until dark to start eating. If, he kept telling himself, you couldnt have a fire, Im sure youd eat this critter raw before you would go on starving like this But he made himself wait, knowing that a scavenger like the coyote was almost certainly full of parasites, and that cooking it was the far better option, since it was one that was available to him. By the time the darkness deepened to a degree that Einar considered fire-safe, coyote stew was sounding mighty good indeed. He had already chopped up a quantity of the backstrap meat and thrown it in his water potone of the gallon-sized tin cans from the trash heap in the cornerand had it boiling not long after transferring the remaining live coals from the fire-can to his new pit, and coaxing it to flame. Getting creakily to his feet and hobbling over to a patch of snow, he attempted to scrub his hands of the coyote stink from skinning the creature and working the hide, wondering whether the smell would ever come out but deciding that, seeing as the animal was providing him with a desperately need meal, he really didnt care one way or another. Sitting sleepily over the fire that night with the elk hide around him and a belly full of coyote soup, a can of spruce needle tea nearing a simmer on the cooking rock, Einar could not help but think life was pretty good right at that moment. He knew, though, that he had better enjoy the warmth of the elk skin while he could, because in the morning he was to begin the tanning process, and it would be a good many days before he had the benefit of using it again. Sure hope things stay quiet here for the next while, so I can get these hides taken care of.

The next day Einar began working on the elk hide, taking two of the tin cans from the cabin down to the little seep in the gulley and digging down in the partially frozen dirt until, slowly, enough water accumulated to fill first one can then another, hauling them up the hill one at a time and adding their contents to the snow he had managed to melt over the night before and keep from refreezing by setting the can down in the covered fire hole when he went to sleep for the night. He had no container large enough to soak the entire elk hide in, which, as dry as it had become, he knew needed to be his first step before attempting to flesh and tan it. So, setting down four timbers in a rectangular pattern on the cabin floor and spreading the hide out, he poured water into the large shallow dish this created, folding the edges down into the water so the entire flesh side of the hide could soak. Not ideal, but this may end up working And he headed down to the seep for another can of water, planning to boil down the coyote brain that night so the solution would be ready as soon as he got the hide prepared. Not convenient, only being able to have a fire at night. Ha! But an awful lot better than not being able to have one at all Near the seep on a small shelf of level ground in the steep gulley, Einar discovered a small patch of alpine willow, cutting a number of the shoots and carrying them back up

the hill with him. Peeling off the inner bark, he chewed a wad of it, sticking a good quantity of the remainder in his small can with some water to sit. The injured shoulder, as hard as he had tried to spare it, had been bothering him considerably with all the work he had been doing, and the small relief provided by the willow bark was welcome, if incomplete. On another trip down to the seep that day he discovered a few spring beauty plants, their narrow leaves of brilliant green just emerging from the damp, thawing ground. As far as he was concerned, they represented one of the best root vegetables that could be found in the high mountains, and there was even an alpine version that grew far above treeline. The roots ranged in size from peas to small walnuts, and were almost pure starch, with the taste and texture of new potatoes. The plants would often cover a grassy slope or the forest floor beneath an aspen grove to the degree that a good, filling meal could be dug with half an hours easy work, lying on the ground and prying with a sharp stick. Of course, it was too early and too high for them to exist in that quantity there by the little seep, but as he dug the ones that were scattered around the small muddy spot, enjoying the succulent leaves and stems raw as he went, Einar was encouraged at the sure sign of the changing season. He leaned down and smelled the thawing soil, thinking that it smelled like life itself after the seemingly endless winter. Spring is coming, Einar. Spring. And it was about time, too. He was pretty sure it must be sometime around the middle of April, by then. Depositing his little pile of spring beauty roots in a pocket of the sweatshirt, which was little more than rags by that point, he grabbed his can of water and headed up the steep-sided gulley, anxious at the prospect of having potatoes to go with his boiled coyote that night. Several times that day Einar paused in his work to eat leftover coyote stew. He did not know, of course, whether the coyote he had snared was one of the group of three that had torn up his supplies and stolen his food earlier, but as he ate the cold soup, he liked to think that it was. The thought made the stuff a bit more palatable. After that first night huddling over the fire without the elk skin, his clothes damp from lugging water up the hill all afternoon, badly wishing to lie down but too cold to leave the fire, Einar was rather anxious to see if the stove might be made to function. He had been for the past two nights making sure to damp his fire down several hours before dawn to give any residual smoke a chance to dissipate before daylight, and he spent those last couple of dark hours that morning stomping around in the cold, shivering and plotting his course of action in preparing the stove for use. There were plenty of downed trees in the area, as well as burnable rubble from the ruined sections of the cabin, and he though he lacked axe or saw, he knew he would be able to obtain and break up enough wood to make the stove worthwhile. After cleaning out some of the built-up ash and kicking at the slightly rusted damper to free it up, he saw that there was no reason at all that it ought not work. And with all of the tumbled-down lumber and roofing material sitting around, he knew he could probably rig up an enclosed space that the stove could heat quite nicely with a minimum of wood. He bent some roofing tin for a crude chimney and stuck it in place, knowing it would leak some smoke but supposing that he could gradually work to create a tighter one, if he was able to end up staying. As he worked to accomplish this, thinking what luxury it would be to sit in a dry room with sixty or seventy degree air for a change, the thought struck him that the stove, as hot as it, and the air around it would get, would make one heck of a target for any aircraft that might happen to fly over with

infrared sensors So, Ill insulate the roof. Pile duff on it But he knew there was no way he could keep heat from leaking out through the gaps in the walls. Knew with fair certainty that the place would look like a big glowing box from the air, and he would not have the option of covering it with a flat rock and shoving a heap of pine duff overtop as he could with the fire hole. Real bad idea, Einar. Maybe in a few weeks, but right now, you just cant do anything that might make you have to run again. Cant afford that. This scrawny little coyote will keep you going while you work on the hides, but no more than that. Cant afford to get chased all over the place again. Einar spent the next several days living on coyote stew and spring beauty bulbs from the little melted out spot near the gulley, but living nonetheless, which was the only part that really mattered to him at that point. The details could always be improved upon later. Building a rough frame and stretching the elk hide on it, he slowly worked through the steps of brain tanning the skinsomething he had done before, but certainly never with the use of only one arm and a limited supply of water. Perhaps his biggest difficulty was the lack of a nearby source of water. The constant need to descend the steep gulley to the seep and struggle back up again while carefully balancing a can full of water was really wearing him out and adding to his exhaustion as he struggled to stretch, wring, and rub the hide, all with one arm. He went through a lot of willow bark during those few days, chewing almost constantly on a wad of the bitter stuff and drinking the tea in the evening when he got the fire going. After the first day or so it seemed to become somewhat less effective, but he kept at it for lack of other options. On the second day he decided to make the trek up the ridge to check his snare again, taking most of the morning to rig a way to suspend the stretching frame and elk hide from a tree with the steel cable, hopefully out of reach of critters. The snare, rather to his surprise, held another coyote, this one a male and somewhat larger than the first. Great! Now I might actually have enough brain to take care of the whole elk hide, though the coyotes will still have to wait. Returning to the cabin and skinning out and fleshing the animal, he stretched the hide on an improvised stretcher he had made from three boards, held together with nails he pried out of the windowsill and pounded in with a rock. With the two skins, Einar was sure he could make a decent coat, or at the very least a really good hooded vest that would allow him to travel and sleep much warmer than he had been able towell, for most of the winter, when it came down to it. The nights were a bit rough, as he had little shelter from the cold with both the elk and coyote skins unavailable to him, but he ended the days so exhausted from his work that he slept anyway, huddled under a pile of duff in the corner of the cabin and waking stiff with cold each morning to stomp around for awhile before breaking the ice on the remnants of the previous nights pot of stew for a slushy but very welcome breakfast. On the third day of his work on the hides, having reached a point where he had to let the elk skin sit undisturbed for a time, Einar decided to descend the steep slope back to the little meadow with the creek where he had dug avalanche lilies several days before, hoping to supplement his food supply and perhaps locate some additional food sources in the area. Carefully suspending everything from trees and grabbing his steel knife, some chunks of

coyote steak for lunch and his spear, Einar set off down the slope. After digging lilies for an hour or so and stuffing both of his pockets, Einar wandered over to the creek, which had thawed significantly since his last visit and was running pretty good, wary of spending much time near it because of the possibility of its noise drowning out the sound of approaching danger, but wondering about the possibility of finding fish. He had eaten up most of the remaining elk tallow by then, adding it to his nightly coyote concoction to make up for the fat the creatures meat lacked, and was again beginning to feel a need for an additional source of fat. A fish or two, even if small, should be just the thing. Crouching on the snow beside an undercut bank, he watched for some time before his eye was caught by a slight flicker of movement in the shadows. He had the spear, but lacked experience in fishing with one, and thought his chances somewhat better using his hand, which he had done before with success. Rolling up his sleeve and submerging his hand for a minute to allow the skin to approach the temperature of the water, he very slowly and carefully moved it nearer the fish, sliding it beneath the creature and waiting until he was sure of his aim before making a move. Getting his fingers in the gills and hanging on tight, Einar scrambled to his feet and took a step back from the creek, jubilant at the sight of a rainbow trout that had to be at least ten inches long. It was then that he noticed for the first time the man who stood on the opposite bank watching him, his AR-15 at low ready.

They stood there for a moment staring at each other, separated by the ten foot expanse of the creek and several additional feet of snowy bank on each side, neither seeming exactly sure what was to come next. Asmundson? The man finally spoke. You Einar Asmundson? Einar just stared, not entirely certain of the mans intentions but, noticing his tactical vest and radio in addition to the rifle, thinking he had a pretty good idea of what they might be. Einars eyes darted around for any way out of the situation, but he saw none immediately obvious, with the rifle now trained on him at a distance that virtually eliminated any possibility of the man missing if he decided to take a shot. Einar, unwilling to allow for a repeat of the set of circumstances that led to his capture the first time, was about to take his chances and test the theory by running. The armed man spared him the decision, acting first and reaching with his left hand for the radio that was clipped to the front of his jacket, letting the muzzle of the carbine drop slightly in the process. Einar saw what the man was doing, took advantage of the temporary shift in his focus. He had found himself caught completely off guard as the man approached him under cover of the river noise, but this was a scenario the likes of which he had gone over and over in his mind in the quiet hours of many sleepless nights, and his next move was automatic, without need of conscious thought and without hesitation, as he dropped to the ground behind the little rise that lay between him and the creek, rolled once and slithered down into some willow brush beside it. He heard the deafening blast of three rapid-fire shots rather close behind him, pressed himself down into the soggy snow of the willow swamp and low-crawled into the densest part of the thicket, heard splashing and cursing

and crashing in the thick willow brush as the man attempted to follow, and he scrambled along on his hands and knees, able, completely unburdened as he was by bulky clothing and gear, to move far more quickly than his pursuer through the tangle of brush over ground that was essentially a soggy, icy, partially thawed bog. Einar reached the nearby evergreens, scrambled to his feet dripping icy water and was running, zigzagging up the heavily timbered hill before dropping into a narrow draw where he slid and jumped and at times practically tumbled down a steep slope covered with crusty old snow and frozen duff and deadfall jumbled and twisted and at times completely blocking his path. It was quite some time before he stopped moving, brought up short when he slid and wedged his leg between the parallel trunks of two fallen aspens, almost panicking at the thought that he might be trapped, that he might have broken it, struggling frantically for a moment to free himself before he realized that there was no sound of immediate pursuit behind him. Slowly extracting his trapped leg, finding it badly bruised but fortunately no worse, Einar was about to take off running again, but made himself crouch there for another moment, listening. OK. Stop for a second. Whats the plan here? Hed been going for a while, had covered quite a bit of ground, and thinking about it, he realized that the fact that he had not yet heard the approach of a helicopter likely meant that the man had not been able to immediately reach anyone over the radio, and had probably needed to climb to be able to do so. Then again, the man might have decided to be a hero and attempt to track him down without backup. Einar doubted it. He had been moving fast, but not that fast. The man would have caught up to him by then, or at the very least would have been close enough behind to be heard, if he was actively pursuing. So I may have a bit of time, but not much. He really wished he knew who the man had been. He had certainly looked, from his rifle and gear, like a fed, but was he alone? Part of a larger group, perhaps? Was he a tracker who had been on Einars trail for a day or two, finally making his way to the meadow? Who knows? Einar knew what he needed to do, knew that his chances of being able to maintain a good pace and keep a clear head as he put more distance behind him were much greater if he had access to the food that was back up at the old cabin. And he was going to need some of those hides, too, if he was to be on the move again. He looked up at the mountainside, but was prevented by the trees from seeing much. Knowing that the ridge with the coyote path on its crest ran for quite a distance, he expected that if he just started climbing in that direction, he would be able to reach the ridge and descend to the cabin. If whatever search the armed man called down had not closed in too much by that point. Taking off up the slope towards the ridge crest, Einar pulled himself up the steep, slippery slope by grabbing evergreen branches, chokecherry shoots, anything that presented itself to aid his progress. He had popped loose the wire ties that pinned his injured arm to his front as he crawled through the willow swamp, and continued to use the arm now out of necessity, knowing that the shoulder was not yet fully healed but needing its assistance to make better time up the slope. Reaching the crest of the ridge sooner than he would have expected (nothing like an active search on your tail to really get you motivated) he hurried along the coyote trail, casting an anxious ear to the sky but still hearing no sign of approaching aircraft. He dropped down off the ridge at the dead spruce snag he had been using as a landmark on his trips up there to check his snare, taking the steep downslope in giant, barely

controlled leaps and slides that got him down to the cabin in very good time. Half a can of slushy water remained unfrozen in the slightly warm firepit under its protective rock, and, panting for breath, he took several big swallows from the can as he glanced around the cabin and tried to decide what he could take. The hides Einars clothes were soaked from crawling through the snow by the creek and sliding down the slope, and most of one sleeve of the grey sweatshirt had been torn away when it snagged on a protruding spruce branch as he went down. He knew he had better find some way to wear the coyote skins for protection, because he wouldnt be having a fire again any time soon, and the nights were still plenty cold enough to kill him if he didnt show them adequate respect. Pulling the stiff, as yet un-tanned coyote hides off the stretching racks he briefly inspected them, trying to figure some waysome quick way to turn them into clothing. Well, an odd little voice began, interjecting a bit of ill-timed humor into the situation, if I get much skinnier, I could probably just cut off the head, make arm holes, and slip this thing on like a sweater-vest. He shook his head. Hmm, yeah, but any skinnier, Einar, and I think you would be whats commonly referred to as a skeleton. Not the direction you want to be heading in. Now come on. Quit joking around, and clear out of here! He decided that there was no quick enough way to create even a rough vest from the coyotes, and figured he would be moving too quickly to become dangerously cold for awhile, anyway. One of the coyote hides he turned into a hastily improvised backpack, stuffing it with whatever he could grab in a hurry and thought he could reasonably carry without slowing himself down too much, including one of the large tin cans, everything he had previously salvaged from his torn up lynx-skin pack, and as much of the remaining coyote meat as he could hastily remove from the carcass. He glanced up at the elk hide, suspended from the tree in its stretching frame, soft and supple and finished aside from smoking to make it waterproof, which he had intended to begin that night, and could not bear the thought of leaving it. The hide was heavy, though, and bulky, and he feared that it might slow him too much. No point getting killed over nice warm clothes. He went back and forth on it for a moment, but the matter was decided for him when he looked down and realized the toll his latest flight had taken on his remaining clothing. The jumpsuit was in sorry shape, was mostly gone from mid-thigh down, and what remained of the sweatshirt was threadbare and falling apart at the seams. Well. Got to try with the elk hide. I can always abandon it later if it becomes too much of a problem. He quickly lowered the stretching rack, removed the hide and folded and rolled it up, securing it to the outside of the coyote skin, which he slung over his shoulder. Thats it, then. Nice knowing you, cabin and stove. Sure would have liked to stay for awhile and enjoy your shelter. Perhaps another time, if I get out of this one. If And he took off up the ridge, hoping to be on his way down the other side of it by the time the helicopters came. Which, to his dismay and consternation, was not to be.

Einar was no more than halfway back up to the ridge crest above the cabin when a familiar feeling of impending doom alerted him to the presence of the helicopter almost a full second before he was actually aware of hearing it. With the unpredictable way the sound bounced and echoed off the surrounding ridges and peaks he could not tell exactly what direction it was coming from, but hurried over to the dropoff into the gulley that ran along beside the slope he was climbing, knowing it would provide his best chance of quickly finding some rocks to get under. The gulley, once he had slid down into it, did indeed offer an undercut bank of sorts where the water of many years of spring runoff had eroded the dirt away and left rock exposed along one side, and Einar squeezed into the narrow hollowed out space it had left behind, lying down flat and rolling up against the rock at the back of the dark horizontal space. Waiting for the chopper to approach, he found himself glad that the day was, for a change, sunny, perhaps giving him the advantage as far as remaining undetected for the moment. Unfortunately though, thing that really had him worried was not the prospect of immediate detection by the chopper crew. He knew that if the man on the ground was not following him, others almost certainly soon would be, and having made the two trips back and forth between the cabin and the creek on nearly the same path, there was no way his trail would be missed by even the least qualified of trackers, let alone the professionals the feds would probably bring in, now that they finally had a solid location to start from, and him with only a rather slight lead on them, time-wise. With that in mind, he realized that one of the things he had most to be concerned about was the possibility of being pinned down by the chopper while the teams on the ground followed his trail and cornered him under the shelter he had found to shield himself from aerial observation. Pulling the coyote skin and attached elk hide in beside him and resting his head on the fur to help insulate himself from the cold rock, he pulled a chunk of roast coyote haunch from the pack, struggled to tear off a piece of the tough stuff with his teeth and choked it down, feeling more nauseous than he did hungry at the moment with the adrenalin of the chase coursing through his system, but knowing he would be needing energy for what lay ahead, and might not soon get another opportunity to eat. Einar realized that his only chance this time might well lie in slowing or temporarily halting the ground pursuit to give himself the chance to put some distance behind him and make his trail scarce, which he knew he could do, but probably not in the awful hurry he would be traveling in if he knew pursuers were on the ground close behind him. So, how to slow or stop them? Lying on his back and looking out at the adjacent slope, he saw a place not too far above his shelter where the steep ascent of the mountainside was broken by a small bench, nearly level and covered with a thick growth of small-diameter aspens, so numerous that many of them were within inches of their companions. He nodded, an idea taking shape as he studied the spot. All right. May just be able to see to it that this is a really bad day to be an FBI trackernow if that buzzard would just move on so I could get busy. And dont they know its way too cold to keep lying here like this? Apparently they did not know, or did not care, because the chopper had neared, and took its time as it slowly circled the area several times. It was difficult for Einar to tell exactly what it was doing from his position beneath the cliff, but after circling it seemed to hover

for a time in an area that he thought ought to roughly correspond to the meadow where he had encountered the armed man, then its sound changed and for a time he did not hear it at all. Sliding out from beneath the ledge he rose, jerking to free the soaked sweatshirt where it had begun freezing to the rock and hoisting the pack onto his shoulder. He was preparing to start out up the gulley, anxious to put his plan into effect, when from below the whine of an engine followed by the pounding of propellers picking up speed told him that he had better take cover again pretty quickly. The chopper, it was now apparent, must have landed in the meadow by the river and was preparing to take off again. Well. Here comes that ground search, then. And with that added urgency Einar very much wanted to be on his way, but was forced to wait for nearly another half hour, freezing in the shadows of the ledge as the chopper continued to circle and probe the nearby ridges and valleys, the fact that it seemed to be focusing only on his side of the creek telling him that they had at least a good idea of where he must have headed, but had not yet pinned down his exact location. At last the helicopter rumbled off down the valley, to refuel or pick up more searchers or who knew what; Einar certainly did not know what and he did not care, he cared only that it stay gone long enough to allow him to move, to get up to that aspen-covered shelf and put up an obstacle that would hopefully make them think twice about following him. Or, as he saw it, his chances of getting out from under them this time were looking poor, at best. He had even been thinking, as he lay there waiting for the chopper to move on, of what his options might be if they did indeed catch up to him at some point. He had the bow still, though he had abandoned the spear back at the creek, and during his time at the cabin had made four more arrows, two of which he had tipped with bent tin from the roof and two with broken nails. He wondered of the agents would be wearing body armor. Maybe, maybe not. They have to know by now that Im not armed, and theyll be breathing hard in this thin air and probably looking to save on weight wherever they can. So maybe if I can hide myself at the last minute Even at that, he didnt know whether his improvised arrows would necessarily go through the multiple layers of winter clothing the men were likely to be wearing. If they get that close though, it will mean something has gone seriously wrong, anyway. They will not travel alone, and the reality of it is that at that point Ill just be making the best last stand that I am able, with little chance of coming out the other side. Gonna try and make sure it doesnt come to that. And, listening as the last echoes of the helicopter reverberated from the nearby walls and died out, he shoved the coyote skin out of the shelter and into the snow of the gulley. Rolling stiffly out of the rocky crevice, he stumbled to his feet and began climbing through the mixed rock and snow towards the shelf, making no attempt to conceal his trail and, clumsy and shaking after lying for too long pressed up against that freezing rock, glad that he had no intention of doing so at that point, because it would have been quite a challenge. Passing a stand of chokecherry bushes he stopped to hack at them with the steel bar, gathering seven or eight of the straight, flexible red-barked sticks and pushing snow over the cut ends to conceal them. Seeing how the bark peeled easily in thin, sturdy strips from the wood beneath, he cut several more of he sticks, longer ones this time, before hurrying up into the aspens. Before beginning his work he stood very still at the edge of the shelf, listening but hearing nothing to indicate that anyone was close by. There was really only one easy approach to the little shelf, and it was the one he

had taken, leaving clear sign but not, he hoped, so clear as to arouse the suspicions of his pursuers. Working his way over to a point that overlooked the approach, above it by only ten or fifteen feet and separated by a steep section of rock fall and scattered brush, he sat down on a rock and began stripping bark off of the long chokecherry branches he had gathered, testing it for strength and glad when he found that it would hold quite a bit of weight. He knew that as soon as it began to dry, it would quickly lose flexibility and strength, but in this case that was irrelevant. All I need is an hour or two. At most. Which reminded him. He had better make quick work of this. Trimming eight of the sticks to a similar length, he bound them together at several points with wraps of bark, carefully bending the finished bundle and thinking that it ought to do. Next he corded two strips of bark together, then two more, combining the finished cords to make a single one that, while bulky and ugly, was quite strong. He tied a loop in each end, bent the tied bundle of sticks, and inspected the finished bow. Ought to work. Once. Choosing two inch and a half diameter aspens whose straight white trunks grew within several inches of each other, he hurried to set up the next step of his ambush device, concerned that he could begin to hear voices from somewhere far down the slope. Got to pick up the pace here, Einar. You got a ways to go on this.

Hurrying but trying not to get too careless in his haste, Einar bound the bow tightly to the gulley side of the two tree trunks with some of the bark strips, at a slightly downwardfacing angle. He knew that if he could get this trap to function, even if it did not end up doing his pursuers any serious damage, it would surely put some caution in them, slow them down, and cause them to approach every shadowy section of trail, every branch that seemed out of place and every disturbed spot on the ground differently. The minutes he gained from such hesitation just might make all the difference. Attaching a length of twined chokecherry bark to the center point on the bowstring and looping and tying the other end of the bark around the center of a five inch long section of broken aspen branch, he pulled it back, carefully drawing the bow and relieved to see that the length of the string he had attached, as he had estimated, allowed the stick to reach a point just behind another set of two small trees that grew very close together. Pulling the stick between the two trees, he turned it so that it was parallel to the tree trunks, holding it in place by inserting two short sticks at right angles to the trunks, and carefully easing the first stick down so that it sat across them forming roughly the shape of an I, the weighted bowstring holding them all in place. He carefully backed up, glad that everything was holding, and inspected the setup. Itll work. Slowly releasing the tension on the bowstring and setting the trigger sticks on the ground, he hastily stripped and spliced together a number of long bark strands, creating a trip wire that would run around the trunks of at least two other small aspens before stretching inconspicuously across his back trail in the shadowy, melted out area beneath two large spruces. The other end of the trip line he attached to one of the horizontal trigger sticks that served to hold back the bowstring. When the line was tripped, the horizontal stick would be jerked out of place, releasing the vertical stick, and thus the bowstring. By choosing small aspens to run the trip line around in its path from the trap to the trail, he

ensured that it would slide well and not get bound up, as the aspen bark was very smooth and coated with a white powdery substance that would act as a lubricant. He got everything set up, wishing he had a way to test it, arrow and all, but, not wanting to risk having it work too well or possibly lose the arrow, he settled for a test minus the arrow, hoping it would not be too hard on the roughly improvised bowstring. Everything went smoothly, and he did his best to mask any additional sign he had left near his trail in setting the thing up, rearmed it, and put the arrow in place, choosing one of the two that he had tipped with part of a nail. Looking down the little dropoff toward his trail, he saw that the tripline, running through some brush, was nearly invisible even to him, who knew exactly where to look. All right then. Come and get me, if you insist And, the occasional voices from below becoming steadily more audible, he hoisted his pack, turned and, with a little prayerContend, O Lord, with those who contend with me draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers! he hurried up into the dark timber above the shelf. As he climbed, Einar took a moment here and there to stretch a bit of twined bark across the trail, suspend a fallen branch from a tree at an odd angle, disturb the ground a bit, and generally make the woods a very unfriendly-looking place indeed to group of searchers who, he hoped, would have recently encountered his trap when they passed that way. Keeping this up for some distance, he finally chose an area of dark timber to stop leaving sign and make his trail disappear altogether. Einar knew that his pursuers had been closing in behind him when he left the shelf, but he did not realize how very close they had been until, less than fifteen minutes out into the dark timber, he heard a faint and distant but distinct commotion of shouting and crashing below him, and knew they must have reached the shelf. Heart pounding hard, he picked up his pace even more, wanting very badly to be up and over the ridge by the time the helicopter returned, which he knew would probably not be long now, especially with this new development in the search that would have told them, if they had retained any doubt, that they were indeed on his trail. Einar knew that, between the stretch of black timber that currently concealed him, and the crest of the ridge, lay an area of stunted little aspens and chokecherry scrub, sparsely vegetated at best and not at all something he wanted to find himself trying to cross with a chopper hovering overhead. His progress was significantly slower now that he was taking care not to leave sign, and by the time he reached the edge of the black timber he was concerned, though the had not yet heard it, that he might not have time to cross the open area before the chopper showed up. There were no other good options though, as to stay in the patch of timber was to risk being cornered against the open area or even, if his pursuers were numerous enough and well organized enough, surrounded. He doubted they would attempt anything like that; the racket they had been making as they climbed indicated to him that they were not necessarily especiallytactically savvy about how to approach someone in the woods, but he figured the trap would have sobered them up some and made them realize they werent on a walk in the park. Since the commotion, he had heard nothing to indicate that they had continued climbing, and he wondered whether they had just gone quiet, were waiting for more help, or whether perhaps he had got lucky and actually hit one of them with that arrow. That would be some luck, all right. He doubted that his hastily

constructed trap had the ability to do more than perhaps scare them and slow them a bit. And perhaps convince them to let the chopper do most of the scouting, from then on. Encouraged as he was tempted to be by the lack of noise behind him, Einar knew it would be a big mistake to underestimate the imminent danger he was still in. All right. So I go for it. And he started out from under the shelter of the spruces, moving as quickly as he was able while being careful of his trail over the somewhat rocky, snow-dotted ground that lay between him and the summit of the ridge. Reaching the ridge crest without incident, he hurried to cross the wide, nearly flat ground just below and beyond its summit, heading for a small stand of firs that would allow him to move undetected for a short distance, at least, while he looked things over and planned his next move. He was finding that there was less forested area over on this side of the ridge than he had remembered, but he could see some distance below him a red-rocked, cliffy area that might well offer some good prospects for shaking his pursuers. Then suddenly and without warning a helicopter rose from behind the adjoining ridge, skimming along his own and heading straight for him. Einar glanced around for some hasty concealment but there was nothing, no rock overhang, no dark timber, not even a single likely evergreen, just the sparse vegetation of the ridge, and he knew that if they had not already seen him, they soon would. The chopper was doubling back and he dropped to the ground, pressing up against the side of a boulder, flattening himself into the ground and attempting to take refuge in the inadequate shadow of the rock, pulling the coyote skin up over what remained of the orange jumpsuit to hide it. The thing was hovering, was low, he could feel the wind of its propellers in his hair as he lay there, dust and grit from the ground being stirred up and nearly blinding him as he squinted and huddled closer to the rock. And then they must have seen him because they were shooting, and Einar, glancing up for one startled instant, saw a man in BDUs and body armor with an AR-15 leaning out of the chopper as it hovered, and then he was running, sprinting down the steep open ground of the ridge towards a stand of fir trees not fifty yards below him, leaping over rocks and clumps of vegetation and as he zigzagged down the slope, taking shelter briefly beside another boulder when he heard more gunfire, only to have his face peppered the next second with flying rock shards, sending him scurrying to his feet in one last desperate dash for the trees, finally diving into the shadow of the forest and scrambling back up to go running some distance further before throwing himself to the ground and rolling beneath the thick, low-swept boughs of a large fir, realizing that the chopper was no longer directly above him, though not far from it, and knowing that he needed to take a second and make sure that he had not been hit by more than the rock fragments. After a brief inspection he was satisfied that he was not, at least, losing blood at a dangerous rate, and the rest of it could wait until later. The shooting, without so much as a shouted warning or demand of surrender from a megaphone or some such, had surprised him a bit, but he supposed it ought not to have; he had, after all, been the one to take it to that level with the trap, which he supposed must have been at least somewhat successful to get them that riled up. What Einar could not know was that his trap had in fact killed a man that morning, a sixteen year veteran of the FBI who had been unlucky enough to be second in line after the man who had stumbled across Einars trip wire. He had taken the arrow through the neck, and had never even had a chance.

Einar was also unaware, but might have found a small glimmer of encouragement in the knowledge if it had been available to him, that the FBIs response time was had been significantly longer that morning and their attention at first divided in the renewed pursuit of him by a series of events that had developed that day in the predawn hours when they started up the hill to serve their search warrant on Bill and Susan. Creeping out from beneath the tree and dragging his pack behind him, he was glad to see that he still had the bow, had dropped it beside the tree as he rolled under it. He had not until then known for sure whether he had lost it, or not. Pulling the sinew bowstring from his shirt pocket where he had some time ago secured it with a twist of wire, he strung the bow, repositioning his three remaining arrows in the pack so that he could easily reach back and grab them, should the need arise. The chopper was behaving in a way that made him suspect they had at least a good idea where he was, and the patch of evergreens was not all that large, if they should get people on the ground after him, so he moved toward the red rocks he had earlier seen, slipping from the shadow of one tree to the next and just hoping that they did not get a clear look at him in the meantime. Reaching the last tree in the cluster, he pressed himself against his trunk and surveyed the land before him, an open slope of recently melted out dead grass ending abruptly in the world of broken, looming red sandstone that he had noticed from the top of the ridge and that he now hoped might offer him escape. Waiting for the helicopter to move on or at least change direction he studied the rock, noticing a faint trail, no more than a trace and probably used mainly by bighorn sheep and maybe even mountain goats, that took off across what he might have otherwise mistaken for a nearly sheer rock face. He had seen such trails before, had walked them, in fact, only to look back from the other side and wonder what on earth he had been thinking. They never seemed quite as narrow, nor the dropoffs below them quite as steep, when you were actually on them. Einar knew then what he must do, knew that from the air that red rock face would appear entirely impassible, knew that, as near as the trail was to the overhang above it, he should be completely invisible to the chopper crew while on it. That, or they would see him and shoot him down as he crossed the exposed rock. It was a risk, but one he preferred to waiting trapped in the little stand of firs until they came and took him. So he waited until the chopper passed behind the trees, quickly crossed the open slope and took off on the narrow thread of a path, struggling at times to maintain his balance on a narrow ledge that was shadowed and in places icy and covered with loose gravel from the freeze and thaw cycles of early spring. He could hear the helicopter but could not see it, continued on the trail until it finally emerged from beneath the overhang and passed over a wide, exposed rockslide before again continuing along the impossible-looking cliff face. He did not want to go back if he could help it, was not in fact even sure he would be able to successfully get himself turned around on that narrow sliver of rock, especially with the bulky pack, and he couldnt reasonably stay where he was for long either, because, exposed to the sky there at the edge of the rockslide, there was a good chance that he would eventually be spotted. In fact, he could hear the chopper turning, returning for another pass, and he looked about for any place to conceal himself, seeing nothing, save for a dark little crack just below him, no wider than two or three feet. He couldnt see the bottom, was not sure looking down that that it really had one, but he figured that

even if it snaked down a hundred feet or more, it was narrow enough that he ought to be able to wedge himself in it and slide no more than a few feet down. And then hopefully be able to climb back up out of it when the time came. The chopper was nearing and Einar, slinging the bow over his shoulder and hoping very much that he did not break it, launched himself into the darkness.

Einar slid down further than he had intended into the narrow rock crack, quickly sliding twenty feet into the darkness, scrambling frantically and finally stopping his descent by pulling his knees up and wedging himself in, glad that the walls were of sandstone instead of something less abrasive and more slippery. Though his knees were rather wishing it had been less abrasive. As his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, he was able to make out a rock shelf some five or six feet below him, and, growing rather fatigued from bracing himself with his knees, carefully slid down until his feet rested on the ledge. The space narrowed as he went, the walls of red rock closing in until, by the time he reached the angled chunk of rock, they were barely two feet from each other. Finally safe from immediate danger of falling, he let his breath out in a sigh and sagged toward the ground in exhaustion, not getting very far because of the narrowness of the space, finding himself unable to sit down or even crouch, finally finding a position where he could get a bit of rest by leaning his chest and one side of his face against one wall, his backside against the other, and letting his knees take most of his weight as he hung there. Water. He needed water. He was parched from his dash up the ridge and the hurry of the escape from the chopper, his throat sandy and too dry even to swallow. Looking around in the hopes of finding a little snow-covered ledge somewhere, the best he could come up with were some little frozen rivulets where snowmelt had apparently trickled down into the chasm on some of the warmer days, freezing as it contacted rock that never saw any sun or had the chance to warm up. Very carefully lest they drop and shatter and be lost to him, he pried at and freed several flakes of this ice, finding them gritty with red sand but tremendously welcome nonetheless. He wondered how long the sun had to be on the cliffs above before those frozen little rills started running again. Looking up at the tiny patch of blue above him, nearly obscured by the looming wall of sandstone that had concealed him in his travels on the sheep trail, he rather hoped he would not be there long enough to find out. Before long he started becoming very cold from being pressed up against the rock on both sides, and, very careful not to drop it, he maneuvered the pack over to where he could reach it and painstakingly removed the elk skin, working it in increments around behind his back and over his shoulders, tucking it around his knees to remove them from direct contact with the rock. A bit better, and the hide did keep the breezes that seemed to be constantly finding their way into the crack from chilling him quite so badly, but it did not take the cold of the rock long at all to seep through the hide, and there was just no escaping the fact that he was stuck between two layers of icy rock in a place that never saw the sun, at least not that time of year. He eventually worked the second coyote pelt up out of the pack and wedged it between his back and the wall, getting some measure of relief. He was having real trouble with his feet, his toes were going numb in his damp socks and he had to keep wiggling them and shuffling his feet to

keep circulation going. He wanted to loosen his boots and try to dry his feet, but the confinement of the space kept him from reaching down and doing it. Later in the day he could hear people on the open slope outside, and hoped the steepness of the rock face was enough to discourage them from coming and looking down in the crack he hid in, because he knew there was absolutely no way he would be able to maneuver and use the bow in the cramped space. It seemed, from the little that he could hear, that they eventually moved on, though one of two helicopters, the light one that had held the agent who took the shots at him, not the Huey that had later joined it, continued to regularly buzz the mountain. It seemed that they must know he could not have gone too far, and he wondered how long they would continue to scour the place. Not too much longer, he hoped, because he was becoming seriously cold and had as of yet discovered no way to really improve things in the narrow confinement of the rock crack. Hmm. Maybe some hikers will come along and set up camp at the bottom of this crack, and decide that it looks like a good chimney for their campfire. That would help a lottill I got roasted. Or smothered by the smoke. Continuing with that line of thought for awhile, liking the distraction it provided him, he drifted somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, the cramped position he hung in keeping him from ever truly falling asleep for more than a few seconds, despite his weariness. He daydreamed, half asleep, of Liz, of the little cabin in the basin, of a dimly remembered world where there was enough to eat and no need to hide the smoke of your fire and flee at the sound of approaching aircraft, returning to awareness some minutes later freezing and shivering to the sound of the helicopter and a bad cramp in his leg, wanting very badly at that moment to be anywhere but where he was, wanting warmth, better food and more of it, perhaps some human company of a sort that wouldnt be trying so awfully hard to end his life as were the men that prowled about outside that day. He didnt allow himself to indulge such thoughts for long though, knowing they were unproductive if not downright dangerous, telling himself that hed gladly settle for simply finding a way out of his present jam before the sun hit the rock face the next morning and set the snowmelt to trickling down the crack, as it was clear from the fresh ice that it did, at times. Better start working on a way out of here, Einar. Believe it or not, this can definitely get worse. He wondered if it would be possible to descend further down the chasm, perhaps eventually coming out the bottom or at least reaching a place where it opened up enough to allow him to exit, perhaps in a stand of trees. The obstacle to trying involved the angled rock shelf that he stood on. It jutted out somewhat beyond the confines of the crack, and, with its downward angle, passing it would likely be a real challenge, though one that he was willing to try, considering that it might offer him a way out of the immediate area of the search. That attempt would have to wait, however, as the chopper still patrolled the area quite persistently, and he would have to expose himself for a time as he passed the block of sandstone that he stood on before dropping back into the concealment of the fissure. Though he hoped this could be done quickly, he knew from experience that it could end up being long slow work involving much searching and testing of hand and footholds, especially if the thing was at all icy or slippery. And that red sandstone had a real reputation for being far less firmly anchored than it might appear. In fact, local climbers had a saying that, in these mountains, you often have to

hold your handholds in place while you use them. He had found this to be quite true, and in the past had nearly perfected the technique of balancing himself and applying the correct pressure to these questionable holds. But he had never attempted it with one injured and marginally functional shoulder, an awkward and unwieldy pack swinging from the other and angry men in a helicopter shooting at him all the while just to improve his focus, and did not think this a good time to start. So the continuation of his descent would have to wait until he was reasonably certain that the chopper had moved on for a time. Waiting, really beat from the exertion of the day and knowing he would need all the concentration he could muster when it came time to finish the descent, he slept, his exhaustion finally overcoming the discomfort of his cramped quarters, clutching the elk hide around him and shivering as the massive expanse of cold rock drew the heat out of him at what would have been an alarming rate, if he had been awake and able to pay attention. In his sleep Einar heard a scrape and a rattle on the rock far above him, struggled to wake up and get a look at the source of the noise. Finally succeeding in opening his heavy eyelids he squinted up at the little patch of light, which had dimmed some as the afternoon progressed but was still quite bright enough for him to see the silhouette of a human head, leaning over and looking down at him. Are you OK down there? Are you stuck? He shook his head, stared for a moment, realizing that he had been discovered and vaguely surprised the shooting had not yet begun. He was, beyond question, trapped. The person spoke again, repeated the question, and though the shape was fuzzy and indistinct in the diffused light, he realized in disbelief that the voice very definitely belonged to Liz. No, he spoke quietly, afraid of alerting his pursuers, not stuck. Justhiding. How what are you doing here? How did you get past the search? Oh, Im with Mountain Rescue now. Theyll let me go anywhere. Im going to get you out of here, but you cant come out until theyre gone. Youll have to wait a while. Einar did not answer immediately. Something seemed very wrong about the whole situation. He knew there was no way that they would have allowed Liz, or any other civilian SAR personnel, into the middle of a hot search like was ongoing. And besides, Liz had left the valley long ago, had gone back home towherever she was from, he could not recall the name of the town, but she was certainly not still around, and as far as he knew, she had never had anything to do with Mountain Rescue. He was cold, was confused, everything seemed just a bit too hazy to make much sense of, and he wished he could get his brain to work and tell him what to make of the situation. She was telling him again that he would have to wait, asking him if he could wait, and he answered quickly, afraid that the searchers would hear her is she kept talking like that. Alright. I can wait. Im waiting. Do you have any food, though? Its awful cold down

here. II could really use some food. Yes. In my pack. Just a minute. And the head disappeared from the patch of light that constituted his only visual connection to the outside world, a series of loud crashes and scrapes making him seriously wonder what she could be up to out there.

When the FBI headed up the hill to Bill and Susans early that morning, intent on serving the search warrant in a rather dynamic manner and leaving Jeff, if he was indeed there, no chance to slip their grasp, there were several things they failed to take into account. The first among these was the call, not over the phone, which they had wisely cut off before the raid, but over the frequency used locally by Mountain Rescue, warning Bill in somewhat cryptic language of the suspicious activities around the command post. The second thing they failed to plan for was the well-organized and prepackaged welcome Bill had arranged in case he was ever visited by them or their ilk. As it turned out, he did not even need to use half of the special measures he had arranged for. The agents on the ground at Bill and Susans that morning, particularly those in the APC that led the way up the steep switchbacks, hardly had time to distinguish between the crack of the bullet as it flew over their heads, the noise of the blast, and the roar as several tons of rockwhich had been held back by the carefully constructed and camouflaged log wallcame thundering down the mountainside around them. When the dust settled, the APC was thoroughly trapped, half buried beneath several dump truck loads of rock rubble that had been held back by Bills log berms, and at least that much more that had been brought along by the momentum of the slide. The drivers of the two Suburbans that had been following along behind managed to stop their vehicles in time to avoid being crushed or carried over the side by the tumbling rocks. Bill, watching from his position on the ridge, quickly put in a call over a local emergency frequency that he knew was monitored by the Sheriffs Department, reporting that there had been a rockslide on his property, and that he saw lights and believed a vehicle might have been trapped. By the time Watts and his Deputies arrived, the place was crawling with FBI agents, and a heated dispute broke out between the Watts and several of the agents as he tried to figure out what had just happened, and why the feds had been taking a tank, as he kept referring to the APC, up his friend Bills driveway at four in the morning. The FBI, knowing that their element of surprise was by that point totally gone, knowing that Jeff, if he had ever been up there, had just been given ample time to clear the area, and seeing that the Sheriff was scrutinizing their every move, decided against executing their search warrant that morning. Bill watched the goings on through the Nightforce scope on his rifle, which did a rather fine job of collecting the ambient light from the ongoing efforts to free the trapped APC, allowing him to see the show. As he watched the animated discussion take place between

Watts and the fed that seemed to be in charge, then saw the federal agent turn angrily and head down the hill to the truck he had come in, Bill was confident that, for that morning at least, disaster appeared to have been averted.

Heres your food, Liz shouted cheerfully, her head reappearing in the square of light. Before Einar could do anything about it something hit him hard on the shoulder and went clattering away down the chasm, taking several small rocks along with it and followed by another projectile, which he got a good enough look at to see that it was a jar of some type, its white plastic lid telling him that he had probably just missed his chance to snag some Nutella. Wait! He shouted, dodging a can of corned beef hash. Slow down. I cant Another jar of Nutella hit a nearby rock and bounced past him, just out of his reach, coming to rest on the rock slab near his feet, followed by a tin of sardines that somehow strangely managed not to burst open when it slammed into the rock, but, like the Nutella, ended up hopelessly beyond his reach. Hey, Liz She seemed to be ignoring him, though, kept dropping things on him, Einar avoiding them the best he could while striving but each time failing to catch the food that bounced and clattered past him to go rolling down into the darkness of the chasm below, some of it stopping on his ledge and beginning to pile up a bit against a raised slab of sandstone that sat near the edge of his little platform. A large canned ham had his especial attention, and he struggled to reach it with his foot. He finally caught one of the flying jars of Nutella and, ravenous, tried unsuccessfully to get the lid off, only to realize with a sinking feeling that the object in his hand was nothing more than a fist-sized chunk of red sandstone. Startled, he looked up just in time to see a small cascade of rocks hurtling down the crack at him. He scrambled and shoved, dragging himself six inches further into the small space, which was all the room he had to maneuver in and which fortunately was enough to keep him from being pounded by the fusillade of falling rock. When the tumbling of the rocks had stopped, Einar leaned out and looked back up at the patch of sky, calling for Liz and hoping she had not been injured or even knocked off the narrow trail by the rock fall. There was no answer. He looked around, saw that the entire pile of food he had watched accumulate on the ledge was actually composed of rocks. Kicking at the pile and rubbing his bruised shoulder, his cold brain slowly wrapped itself around the fact that Liz had, of course, never been there at all. He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head on the wall. Wow, Einar. That was a good one. I hope you were just imagining shouting at her, too, or they may have heard you Now that he was fully awake and thinking a bit more clearly, he realized that there was no way Liz could have ever been expected to find him, no way she would have made it past the choppers and the ground search, even if she had somehow guessed at his location. The realization left him feeling a bit desolate for a moment, lonely, almost, if he would have allowed himself to admit it, but there was not much time for such thoughts, because he found himself

wondering what had actually caused the rocks to fall in the first place. Had a search team found the trail and knocked them down as they passed? Or had a bighorn sheep perhaps done so? He knew that while either of these scenarios was possible, it could just as well have been nothing more than a single rock coming loose at the end of an afternoon of thawing, starting the cascade. Whatever had started the slide, it seemed over for the time, and if it had been a fed passing on the little thread of a trail, apparently they had not discovered him. But the crack was clearly a death trap, and no place to be spending any more time than he had to. He knew he had only narrowly missed catching a rock or two with his head. It was near dusk outside, the sun was almost entirely gone from the section of wall that was visible to him, and, though he expected that with temperatures dropping quickly as the sun went down, the danger of rockfall was likely over for the night, he very much hoped to be able to escape his current predicament before darkness set in and he was forced to wait until morning to finish the descent. The prospect of a night spent sandwiched in that icy crevicewell. He was pretty sure he could make it through if he ended up without a choice, but certainly had no desire to try. Already he had been there long enough, his legs stiff and cramping and his hands nearly without feeling, that he wondered about his ability to effectively down climb the remainder of the crack, let alone make it over the exposed bulge of sandstone that blocked his progress. But he had not heard the chopper for a good while, and knew that he must try. Unable to move much at all in the narrowness of the crack, he tensed and relaxed his muscles repeatedly, trying to get the blood flowing a bit and warm up as much has he could before attempting the climb. Rolling up the elk hide with difficulty in the confined space, he secured it to the pack, slung the pack as securely as he could from his shoulder, and edged out across the downward-sloping stone block. The descent over the bulge of sandstone was not easy, and once the freely swinging pack, gaining a bit of momentum, nearly caused him to lose his tenuous hold and come off the rock, but he made it, and rested for a minute down in the darkness and comparative safety of the chimney below, immensely relieved that the chopper had not returned while he had been stuck there out in the open. For some time he worked his way down the crack, finally seeing some daylight down below, a bit of rock-strewn ground and a solitary bank of half melted snow that apparently marked the end of the descent. Some twenty feet from the bottom, the walls suddenly grew much farther apart beneath him, too far to continue much longer descending the way he had been, and he stayed there with his back pressed against one wall and his feet against the other for some time, trying to decide whether he should attempt to climb back up to the ledge, or take the risk of dropping the twenty or so feet that remained between his position and the ground. Einar knew that he almost certainly lacked the strength to make that climb, and, even if he succeeded, doing so would just leave him stranded again on the ledge, as the chopper had returned during his descent to make slow passes along the ridge. Well. Twenty feet. I can do that. He eased the pack off of his shoulder and, craning his neck to get a good look at the ground below him in the half-light of evening, dropped it to the rock-strewn ground below, sending the bow after it, flinging it to one side to reduce his chances of landing on it and praying that he would find it still usable. Taking a couple of deep breaths he dropped from the chimney, aiming for the somewhat softer landing he hoped the pack would provide. Einar landed

hard on his feet in the spacious, almost cave-like rock alcove that opened up beneath the long chimney, his knees bent, protecting his head with his arms as he rolled onto his left shoulder, tumbling once and hitting his head on a rock despite his best efforts. He managed to drag himself a bit further under the sheltering overhang and pull the elk hide, which had come loose in the fall, partially up over himself before losing consciousness, fighting it all the way but in the end unable to fend off the blackness that rapidly overtook him. Einar woke stiff with cold sometime well after sunrise the next day to the steady drip of icy water on the side of his head, coughing and spluttering and trying to raise his head but finding his beard partially frozen to the rocky ground beneath him. He jerked himself loose, rolled over to get out of the dripping water, and lay there for a minute waiting for the pain of his re-injured shoulder to subside some before dragging himself back over to the tiny puddle that had collected near where he lay, sucking the water out of it to relieve his thirst and staring dully about in search of his pack and bow. He saw them not far away, relieved that the bow appeared undamaged. Sitting up and slumping back heavily against the wall of the alcove, he pulled the elk skin up over his head and shoulders, wiped his face dry on it and huddled with his hands in his armpits, trying to get some feeling back in his fingers and decide how bad the damage might be from his fall. He dimly remembered hitting his head, but beyond a little lump on his temple he could find no sign of injury, and, aside from his left shoulder, which he had rolled on and which seemed unfortunately to be almost as bad as it had been when he had first injured it, his arms and legs seemed basically alright. The agony in his shoulder seemed just a bit better when he remained immobile in the hunched-over position he had settled into, and he was close to talking himself into staying put for awhile on the theory that, if they had not yet discovered him, perhaps he was safe there for a time. Which he knew was ridiculous. The search would make its way down there, eventually. And he was freezing. Needed to move. Come on. Get up. You got to get warm. Got to get out of here, too, because they havent found you yet, but they will if you stay. That prospect was enough to get him going. He tried his legs, managed to stand and found that, though he was awfully stiff and sore and shaking so badly in the cold that it was a challenge to put one foot in front of the other, he could walk. Good. Thats all you need. Now go. Things will start to loosen up as you move. Youll get warmer. And he went, sticking close to the rock face and stopping still in its shadow as a helicopter appeared from over the ridge, grinning slightly through his chattering teeth as he watched it run a tight zigzag pattern over the timbered area far above him. They still think Im up there...

For the rest of that morning, Einar kept close to the shelter of the red cliffs, his progress slowed greatly by the frequent need to seek shelter from passing aircraft, finally working his way down into a green-carpeted valley where he stopped at the edge of the timber near a little creek for a few minutes, badly needing more than the occasional mouthful of snow for water. Hastily scanning the valley floor for any sign of danger, he flopped down beneath a fir and pulled out the remainder of the roast coyote that he had left from his previous camp, wolfing it down hungrily and gulping snowmelt water from the creek,

silty and roiling and cold enough to make his head ache as he swallowed great mouthfuls of it. The air was warmer down there in the valley, and though he quickly became chilled lying in the shade of the tree, Einar could tell that, if it had been safe for him to be out in the open, he would have warmed up in a hurry, sitting in the sun. He found the thought rather encouraging. Resting in the shelter of the tree and smelling the green, alive odors of emerging spring, he had the feeling that, if he could just successfully get out from under the current search, the precarious balance of factors affecting whether he lived or died might just start to tip in his favor, for a change. If, that was, he could get some more food soon. He had one coyote hindquarter left, but with no way to cook it knew that, lacking an alternative food source, he would soon be faced with the choice to go hungry again or eat it raw, risking acquiring a potentially dangerous parasite. Despite the risk, he was pretty sure what he would decide. With the rivers and larger creeks having finally thawed, he knew fish would begin to be an option, but after his last experience with the water, was afraid to spend more than a moment near the sound-masking rush of a snowmelt-swollen creek in search of fish. Better would be a small alpine lake, of which there were many but nearly all of which had yet to melt out. And as these lakes often drew hikers and backpackers, he knew he would have to be very careful about how and when he approached them. Lying there and musing about coming alpine summer that he knew would be all too short in its bounty and greenness and warmth, Einar worried that the ongoing search might keep him too busy moving from one location to another, just barely scraping by as he put all of his energy into eluding capture, to be able to put anything by for the next winter. Which, despite the fact that the aspens were just then beginning to show the soft and brilliant green of emerging leaves down around the edges of the meadow, he was well aware would be on its way all too soon. He knew he had better find a way to start putting on some weight pretty fast, catching and jerking some meat for the lean times, and hopefully getting himself set up in a sheltered location that he could insulate and prepare and where he might have some hope of spending at least part of the winter protected from the elements. Without such preparations, which rightfully ought to take most of the summer, starting as he was from the beginning, he knew that his chances of making it through another winter were, realistically, rather slim. Einar scooped up some more water from the creek and drank, raising his head to take another look out across the valley for any sign of his pursuers and suddenly, reminded of his current plight, found his thoughts of next winter rather funny, in a dark, desperate sort of way. Heh. Next winter, you say? Well, seeing as your chances of making it through the week are probably something like one in five at best, I wouldnt spend too much time worrying about next winter just yet, Einar. Oh. Thanks. Real comforting thought. Ill try and remember not to worry. He chuckled a little, shook his head, got up and started on his way once again, too cold to remain still. And nearly stepped out of the trees into a waiting group of twelve armed men in BDUs that were making their way up the meadow, before he noticed their presence. Hastily stepping behind a thicket of low-growing evergreens, pretty sure that he had not

been seen, Einar dropped to the ground and pressed himself down into the damp fir needles, silently removing one of his three remaining arrows from its place in the pack and sliding the bow around in front of him as he waited, barely daring to breathe, listening as the men approached his position. He could hear occasional words among the spread out group, but they were too far away for him to decipher their meaning. After a time, the muffled voices told him that the men had passed him, and he cautiously raised his head enough to peek out between two clumps of vegetation, watching as most of the group continued up the meadow, a member stopping every fifty yards or so to take up a concealed position behind a tree or rock over on the far side of the meadow. He watched for awhile, expecting that they were going to begin walking across the meadow and up his ridge in a search formation, but they remained where they were, occasionally saying a word or two over their radios. This puzzled him, worried him a bit, even, just because it left him unable to guess at their strategy. But it did mean that he might have the time to slip away, before they did finally get organized and start up the hill at him. The trees were not especially thick right where he was, but Einar believed they were heavy enough to conceal his retreat, if he moved very slowly and stayed low. Starting out, his main problem was that he could hardly use his left arm, certainly could not support any weight on it, making crawling a rather difficult task. This meant that he was not able to both crawl and keep the bow ready, so he moved with it slung up over his back, hoping that if they heard him and came for him, he might have enough warning to get it into position and get one shot off, at least, before it was all over. Which he knew would probably mean using his foot instead of his left arm, as he had in taking the elk. A cumbersome though successful method, and one that he doubted he could manage with anything resembling haste. So. All the more reason they must not hear or see me. Creeping from tree to tree and taking great care not to set any of the slender things to swaying by brushing against them too heavily, he wove his way up the ridge, picking up a bit of speed as he put some distance behind him and reached an area of more dense timber, leaving the mixed, patchy aspen and fir forest behind. Finally feeling a bit safer he stopped to look back, having heard no sounds of pursuit, and could just make out a couple of human forms half concealed down in the trees across the meadow. They seemed not to have moved, and by that time the entire column had disappeared into the forest. So whats your plan here, boys? What makes you so sure Im going to go walking out into that meadow? And then he saw.

Far up the rocky hillside above him, just visible through the thinning vegetation around treeline, Einar spotted one man and then another, realized what was happening even before he saw the eight or ten others that were spread out in a long, loose line across the open expanse of the ridge. He knew then that they had him hemmed in, trapped between the rocky height of the ridge top and the grassy meadow below. They must, he decided, have come over from the top of the ridge where they had shot at him before losing his trail, systematically searching, knowing that they would have to eventually run across either him or his sign. He wondered whether he had been spotted by one of the flights, or

whether this search was widespread, encompassing the area of the red rocks and cliffs and much of the rest of the ridge. He wished then that he was still back in the rock crevice, where he might actually have stood some chance of being overlooked by this type of search. Thinking of the rock chimney, he was reminded with a sudden flash of alarm that he had accidentally left a boot print in the muddy ground in the alcove beneath the crack, obscuring it as well as he could with a rock but certain that a tracker would be able to see through the ruse and possibly pick up on his trail. Not that they would even need to, the way things were looking. He glanced to his left, knowing that to the right lay the red cliffs he had come from, an obstacle which he could not pass without being observed by the helicopter that still scoured the ridge. The men on the ridge, unlike those in the meadow, were moving, were descending the slope in a line that stretched for some distance, and would be able to cover a much greater area by sight, as the trees were not especially heavy, even where Einar was presently. His only chance, he quickly realized, was to take off to the left, and fast, hoping to slip out from between the closing ranks before they trapped him completely. Another option he briefly considered was hunkering down somewhere in the stand of mixed firs and spruces that currently concealed him, covering himself with duff or even climbing a tree and hoping that they would pass him by, but he saw that there were too many of them, that his chances of avoiding detection in that way, with minimal time to set up a hide, were not good. Get out of here. He went, moving from tree to tree with the intention of staying hidden from the men above him, knowing that there was enough timber between him and the meadow that he probably did not have to worry about being spotted from below. Unless they were really studying the slope with binoculars. And why would they not be? This is bad, Einar. The trees were running out ahead of him, growing smaller and sparser before petering out altogether in a rockfield and he started descending to stay in them, but stopped before long as the meadow came into clear view. He knew at least some of the men in the meadow had radios, and with a clear line of sight up to the higher searcherstheyre not searchers anymore at this point, theyre huntersabove him, they would have no trouble letting them know his position if they saw him. He thought of going back, of heading towards the red cliffs and trying to lose himself again among the jumble of red rocks, but the men up above were moving at a steady pace, and he knew he did not have time. What, then? Ahead of him, just before the trees ran out entirely, there was a little depression in the rocky ground, a trench that had been carved out or at least deepened by the weight of the snow that slid down the slope above and collected there, progressively pushing the rocks up in front bit by bit every winter. He knew that this feature would conceal him from below, but was less certain about its value against those on the slope above. It seemed his only chance, though. Crawling, staying as low as possible and making an effort not to scrape the rocks against each other or make any sound that would carry to the ears of his pursuers, Einar started out across the rockfield, his scalp prickling at the prospect of the bullet that he half expected would end his life before he ever heard its blast. But none came. The rocks increased in size as he went, slowing his progress but also providing progressively more cover as he wormed his way between them, heading forwellhe had no idea, wasnt at all familiar with the place, but hoped some

avenue of escape might present itself over where the ridge had appeared to drop away steeply. Maybe there will be more trees. But there were not. Not for a good distance, anyway, and the trench he had been using ran out long before reaching them, the slope smoothing out and the size of the rocks decreasing, leaving him pinned in a small concealed space beneath a series of large boulders at its edge, crouching on top of a section of ice, dirty and melting but preserved by the constant shade of the rocks, left over from the waning winter. The men were coming, had to be coming, he knew it as surely as if he had been able to see them, and wondered if they might miss him if he stayed where he was, if they might walk on by and find their snare empty upon reaching the bottom of the mountain. Doubtful. He could see the place where the terrain changed, grew steeper and more broken up, the slope disintegrating into a series of small cliff bands and crags that might offer him some chance. The change began not all that far from his hiding place, but reaching it undetected was another matter. Especially in light if deep rumble that told him the Huey was headed over to his section of ridge. Its cold out here, cloudy, the rocks had very little time to absorb the heat of the sun this morning before the clouds rolled in. Theyll see me with their FLIR, even here under this rock. If that thing gets in over top of me, Im done. And he was running, keeping low and sprinting across the rockfield towards the broken land beyond it, hearing a shout but no gunshots, realizing that he must still be far enough away for them to consider him out of range. He made it over to a stunted, twisted little copse of sub alpine fir that marked the edge of the dropoff, crouched there out of breath, realizing that the drop below him was steep, nearly vertical, ending some seventy or more feet below him in a series of jagged granite pinnacles. He was trapped, glanced wildly around but saw no way out, and the chopper was hovering now, the men approaching from above, shouting words that were snatched away by a growing wind. But he had no trouble guessing at their meaning. They were offering him one last chance at surrender, had to be, or somebody would already be shooting. So hows this going to go, Einar? Youve always said freedom or death, said you would never let them take you again, well, this is it. No way out. You really gonna die today? He stood there for another second, staring out at the rugged canyon below him and looking for some sort of peace, for a bit of resignation, perhaps, to what appeared to be the inevitable, but finding instead a boiling anger at the men who had him cornered, who were literally running him to death and would not leave him alone, and with it an almost eager excitement at the challenge before him. No, his answer came, but some of them are

Einar had seen something that he was pretty sure his pursuers, especially those on the ground but likely the chopper crew as well, had not. There was a little shelf of rock not ten feet below him, partially shielded by the jutting shelf of fractured grey schist that composed the edge of the little plateau Einar found himself trapped on, and that shelf had

a crack in it. Not much of one, but a gap of two or three feet that he believed would allow him access to the protection if the shelf below. He acted quickly, knew he must act quickly because they would likely start shooting at him as soon as they realized what he was about, scrambling over to the edge and wedging himself down into the crack, the backpack hanging up alarmingly for a second before his weight hanging on it pulled it down after him. He pressed himself up against the rock face, as far under as he could get, and lay on his back with the bow ready, waiting for someone to appear in the crack above him. He intended to make sure they knew it was going to cost something to follow him down there, maybe make them hesitate long enough for him to find a way out. Not wanting to lose the bow over the side, he quickly pulled the lace from one of his boots, tied it with one end through the top loop on his boot and the other around the bow, hoping the improvised tether might keep it from springing over the dropoff if he had to use it. The chopper was approaching, sweeping dust and small stones loose from the surrounding rock and drowning out all other sound, and he wondered if they were actually going to try and bring it down into the gorge. The gorge was quite narrow, and he knew if the chopper was to be used to get a look at him, it would have to be maneuvered down between those walls of rock, leaving only a few feet of clearance on each side. A dangerous situation indeed. He had no more time to think of it just then, though, because a head appeared in the little square of light above him and he let the arrow fly, heard a grunt and a thud above as the man, apparently struck, rolled to the side and narrowly missed tumbling down into the gorge. He heard shouting then, muffled by the pounding of the propellers as the chopper apparently landed on the open slope above him and quickly became airborne again, in what he assumed was a hasty rescue of the injured agent. For a couple of minutes then there was complete silence, and Einar sat up, peering down into the gorge in search of any land feature that might offer him escape. He saw a possibility and was untying the bow tether in preparation for trying it when the shooting started. At first he could not figure out what they were doing or why, but that was before the bullets began ricocheting off of a nearby fin of rock, one striking not too far from his head and sending rock splinters flying. He pressed himself lower, pulled the pack over his head to shield it from the splinters, knowing all the while that if they kept at it, they would eventually have to hit him with something that would do some real damage. After awhile the shooting stopped, and though he had no way to know it, they believed him dead, though no one was interested in volunteering to stick their head down the crack to check. No need, as the chopper was returning, ordered against the better judgment of the pilot to descend down into the gorge and let them know the condition of their quarry. Einar saw what the Huey was doing, saw at the same time the swaying of the trees on the opposite cliffs as the wind picked up, sending great gusts down the gorge. He had to admit a grudging admiration for the courage and skill of pilot, who was managing to keep the thing steady and avoid rock walls that loomed mere feet from his rotors on either side, and as the chopper came into view he silently shouted at the man to go on, get out of here, surely you got something better to do with your lifeI dont really want to see this happen. But he kept at it, perhaps as a matter of pride, perhaps ordered to do so by his federal employer. No one was ever to know the whole story, because the next minute a

powerful gust of wind swept down through the gorge, and with almost no room to spare between itself and the unforgiving grey granite of the walls, the already laboring machine drifted to the side, struck rock and tore itself up on the pinnacles below. Einar tucked himself up under the little ledge, not sure whether or not to expect an explosion, but none came, and he glanced down the seventy feet of narrow gorge to the wreckage, barely visible due to the undercut nature of the cliffs. Knowing that he had very little time before the bottom of that gorge was crawling with rescue personnel and FBI agents, Einar made his way down from his hiding place, clinging to the rock and finding that he could in fact use his left arm if he absolutely had to, which he did. The men on the plateau above could not see him and, he hoped, their focus would be temporarily on the crash and on getting help down to the site, anyway. He finally reached the bottom of the gorge, somewhat below where the chopper had gone down, and walked out. It really was that simple, once he hit the bottom. He kept expecting to meet with a rescue crew or someone coming up the gorge at him, but none came, and he fairly quickly reached an area where the timber extended down into the gorge, providing him a way out, though one so steep that he had to cling to tree trunks as he dragged himself up the frozen dirt of the shaded North slope. Traversing the ridge in the timber not too far below treeline, afraid to go anywhere near the valley and not really even knowing exactly where he was anymore but glad that the small chopper no longer made passes directly over his position, Einar kept himself moving for several hours over rock and frozen duff interspersed with patches of the hardpacked, icy remnants of the past winters snow. A number of times as he climbed he began experiencing pains in his chest and had trouble catching his breath and he knew that by continuing to push relentlessly forward he was demanding things of himself that were very possibly beyond his physical ability to come through on, but he kept at it, driven on by the knowledge of the ongoing search behind him. Thinking that there was at least a possibility that they might find his trail somewhere along the line and bring in dogs, he zigzagged up and down the slope through the black timber, clambering up one steep, rock-strewn gulley and down another, weaving in and out of the thick stands of chokecherry and close growing, small-trunked aspens that clustered in old avalanched chutes where the larger trees had at some point been swept away, wanting to make good and sure that he confused any human pursuers who might be on his trail, and make them lose faith in their dogs, if they were using such. He was pretty certain most dogs would have trouble following the trail he was laying down, anyway, a he had seen the difficulty many canines had in descending steep rock, as their nails caused them to slide and become hesitant to continue. Dogs that were not familiar with mountain work, he figured, should not have much of a chance. Which meant that he might have some. While he believed he was doing pretty well at not leaving much of a visible trail, Einar had to admit that he was unsure. For the past hour or so of his travels, he had been struggling so with bouts of faintness and dizziness that he was not always entirely certain what he was doing. His entire focus was on continuing to make some distance, in an attempt to put himself well beyond the area where their search would be focused, to

ensure that he had at least some chance by the time he inevitably collapsed. Try as he might to keep telling himself that he must not stop, he could feel it coming. The only thing he really wanted, and he wanted it very badly by that point, was to crawl into a hole somewhere and rest, sleep, curl up in a ball and not move for a very long time. Finally setting for himself a goal of reaching a band of heavier timber that sat just below the crest of a nearby ridge, he made his way up the slope and dragged himself under a tree, weak and shaking and unable to go any further. He kicked at the duff to hollow out a little spot before wrapping up in the elk hide on the frozen ground, curling up with his head nearly on his knees, asleep almost instantly. The wind swept over the mountainside that evening, heralding a coming weather front that had the FBI and the civilian SAR teams they had called in for help scrambling to free the two FBI agents who had been trapped by the crash. With temperatures hovering right around freezing they knew that any precipitation brought by the storm would likely fall as heavy, wet snow that would make mountain travel hazardous and seriously hamper the rescue effort, not to mention the ongoing search for their fugitive.

The glare of sunlight on his closed eyelids woke him, exacerbating a splitting pain that seemed to have settled between his eyes to throb in time with his heartbeat, a sickly yellow sunlight that pried its way out from beneath a bank of descending clouds to shine weakly through the trees and urge him unwillingly back to consciousness. Einars throat was dry, he couldnt swallow, reached out of the elk skin with a hand that functioned more like a claw in the cold and scraped up some crusty snow, letting it melt in his mouth and trickle down his throat until he could swallow again, kept eating little bits of it in this way because he knew he must need water badly after his flight the previous day, hoped that as he got some, the feelings of heaviness and confusion that seemed to be pinning him to the ground might lift some. He thought he had some coyote meat in the pack still, where is the pack knew he ought to eat some if he wanted to have the strength to move on that morning, but he didnt know for sure where it was, and wasnt really all that interested in expending the effort it would take to check. If he was cold he wasnt much noticing it, though his jaw ached from clamping it against his chattering teeth, so he supposed that he was, or had beenhad been was definitely more like it, because he didnt seem to be feeling much of anything just then and he knew this apathy and numbness would end up killing him if he didnt find a way to pull himself out of it, but the motivation to do so seemed seriously lacking. Besides, moving would mean leaving the shelter of the elk hide, and it looked awfully windy out there. And cold. Which sounded bad, even if he wasnt really feeling it anymore. Staring up through the restlessly swaying tree tops, he could see clouds moving at a good pace, speedy, slender little things, drawn out by the wind and sent racing across the sky to build up against a row of distant peaks, and he knew that despite the partially sunny start to the day, a storm was coming. Something told him that this information was significant, that he should perhaps be acting on it and using it to his advantage in some way, but he didnt seem to be able to complete the thought or translate it into action.

Eat. You need to eat, something told him. Find that pack and get something to eat. Come on. You got to move, Einar. Need more distance behind you. No He closed his eyes, turned his head away from the dismal, dying sunlight. Cant run anymore. Dont want to run anymore. Not without more rest. Not sure I could even get up right now if I tried. Got to have more sleep. Then Liz was there beside him offering him some steaming tea from a thermos and urging him to get up and be on his way before somebody found him, lifting and pulling and trying to get him to stand. He told her to go away, told her he was OK and begged her to let him sleep, but she wouldnt quit, and he finally let her help him to his feet. Einar stood there swaying and trembling, leaning heavily on an aspen when his legs threatened to give out, and though he indulged his imagination for awhile because the thoughts of Liz were somehow comforting and because he really had been at a loss as to how he was to manage standing up, he knew this time with a clarity that he almost wished he lacked that she was not real, that he was indeed completely alone on that windswept mountainside with a storm coming on, unable to seek help because human contact would mean death or worse, and in all likelihood not far at all from perishing from a combination of starvation and cold and just plain exhaustion. The difficulty he was having catching his breath and the way his heart raced when he stood, almost to the point of causing him to black out, told him that he might not be making it very far that morning. Well. Gonna give it a try though, arent we? Yes, she told him, you must try And he was walking, shuffling and stumbling along through the trees and stopping now and then to scoop up a little handful of snow in an attempt to ease the thirst that seemed especially to be plaguing him that morning, following Liz even though he knew he was just imagining her presence there ahead of him as she led him up one ridge and down another and looked back occasionally to make sure he was still on his feet and moving. Several times he let the pack with the heavy elk skin drop to the ground, seriously intending to abandon it, feeling like it was crushing him into the ground and thinking for some reason that he would not be needing it anymore since spring is coming, but each time Liz insisted that he pick it back up again, so he did. Einar kept on for what seemed to him a very long time, as the clouds gathered and a wet snow began falling, draping the elk skin over himself like a cloak to keep the snow off and wondering occasionally where he could be and how far he had gone from the site of the crash. He realized later that evening during a break in the storm that he did indeed know where he was, that he had somehow by a rather circuitous route and without being consciously aware of any effort to do so made his way back to the area of the red, windswept ridge below which lay the remote basin with the first mining cabin he had stumbled upon some time ago. He found that he was, in fact, as he studied the nearby landmarks and begun to recognize his surroundings, walking near the crest of a little sidespur that ran along a basin just to the East of the one that held the cabin. Wow. You covered a lot of miles back there, Einar. Dont expect theyll be looking for you this far out. And, with darkness very near and not wanting to lose his way now that he actually

had some idea where he was, he chose a large spruce to shelter under for the night, crouching in the dry area beneath it as the snow came down heavily outside. As he drifted near sleep, fighting it a bit but knowing he would eventually have to give in, he resolved that if he was indeed allowed to see the light of another morning, he would make for the cabin and take shelter there for awhile, as it was far from the area of the current search. Thank you, Liz And he slept.

As the grey light of morning slowly began seeping through the heavy cloud cover, Einar worked to get himself limber enough to think of moving on as he chewed on some of the frozen coyote remains from his pack, quite certain, unlike the previous morning, that he was cold. He was, in fact, freezing, was shaking badly as he huddled under the inadequate cover of the elk hide in clothes that had not stayed entirely dry as he trudged through the snow the evening before, keenly aware of the damp chill of the stormy morning. Oddly, he found this rather encouraging, knowing that it meant he was aware enough of his surroundings and thinking clearly enough to do himself some good, which he barely had been the day before. And he knew that nobody would be flying in that weather, leaving him free to approach the cabin without too much risk of being observed, though he would have to be careful of where he left tracks, in case the snow stopped before covering them, and someone should happen to fly over before it melted out. The elk hide, dampened by the snowfall the evening before, had stiffened overnight, leaving him wishing that he had been able to smoke it before leaving his previous camp. He knew he would have start all over now on the process of rubbing and softening it, and it would prove rather a challenge to get the thing rolled up for transport. Not that Ill be rolling it up today, though. Got to keep this snow off of me. The gravity of the situation he had managed to walk out of back at the ledge was just then sinking in for Einarhe hadnt possessed the time or inclination to really think about it, beforeand as he sat there trying to knead some feeling back into his hands and get his leg to stop cramping so he could stand up, a sort of weird elation began to creep over him, a feeling of having been snatched from the jaws of the beast once again and set in a wide place with yet another chance at life. A rather wet, cold, hungry life at the moment, yes, and one that could greatly benefit from a week or two of solid sleepbut life, nonetheless, and at that moment Einar was pretty sure that the big old cold snow covered world around him had never looked better or held more possibilities. He loved it. This bitter joy persisted as he rearranged his pack and set out into the snowstorm, buoying him and keeping him going as he limped along on legs that seemed inclined to cramp every few steps as he made his way down through one basin and up over the ridge that separated him from the one that held the cabin. At the cabin, he hoped to find some better shelter from the spring storm that had dumped

a good bit of snow on the ground overnight, and showed no sign of letup, perhaps a dry place where he could spend a few days or, if all went well, even a couple of weeks. Been a while since I was able to do that There was also the possibility, which had occupied his thoughts considerably as he had shivered through the night, of finding a number of additional useful items around the cabin and mine site, now that the snow cover had receded considerably. He knew that there was a good amount of tin, and nails as well, and he needed to make some new arrowheads, and had been thinking of a couple of other little surprises he might be able to construct, given the right materials and a bit of time, incase his pursuers should end up close on his trail again. He very much hoped he had shaken them, as all indications were, by walking out of the gorge and into the snowstorm, because, though he for the most part refused to allow his thoughts to linger on the possibility, he knew that if he had to continue running just then, he might at some point find it beyond his ability to recover from the exhaustion of the chase. Even if he did manage to successfully evade the search. Not going to let that happen, though. That would be a rather silly way for all of this to end. Laughing, he pictured some search team in a few months combing the dark timber and stumbling across a skeleton in a threadbare orange jumpsuit, a bow in one hand and a well-gnawed coyote bone in the other, a gruesome grin on its face and its legs still in the running position. Must have died on his feet, anyway, they would tell each other And he laughed again, but he knew there was nothing funny about the heaviness of his steps of late, or the way his heart seemed to beat irregularly at times, or the fact that he woke up each morning with his hip and shoulder aching something awful where he lay on them because there was so little flesh left on the bone. Need some time, Einar. Got to have some serious rest. Or food. Hey, both would be even better But its got to at least be one or the other, and pretty soon, I think. The storm seemed to be slacking off a bit for the moment, and Einar took advantage of the change in the weather to climb a few dozen extra feet up to a tree-free crag on the ridge he was crossing and look back in the direction he had come from, searching for any sign of pursuit. He saw nothing that looked out of place, and had not really expected to, but did suppose that as soon as the storm moved out, the air activity would resume at a level he had not yet seen, as they scrambled to locate him. While he could not know for sure how many might have lost their lives when that chopper went down, it certainly had not looked good, and he knew they would blame him for it, even if it was almost certainly the result of some bureaucrats foolish decision to order the Huey down into the gorge in the uncertain wind conditions of a brewing storm. Well. I expect its gonna get real interesting for the next few weeks. As soon as this storm is over, Im probably going to have to figure on mostly staying put for awhile, or at least keeping to the dark timber when I do get out. Which Ill have to do, because Ive got to eat Starting down the other side of the ridge towards the cabin-basin, Einar moved carefully, staying beneath the trees and watching each foot placement with the thought of how it might look from the air, wanting to leave no chance that his trail might be spotted from the air and give him away. The snow that remained beneath the new layer, which was wet and heavy, compacting down to only three or four inches deep in most places, was hard and icy, easily supporting his weight as he walked and ensuring that the tracks he

did leave were not too deep, and would disappear quickly as the new snow melted off. Stopping on the last little rise above the basin, he studied the area where he knew the cabin lay, backed up to the cliffs and well concealed by a thick stand of tall spruces. No tracks marred the smooth snowy expanse of the basin floor, nothing caught his eye as he scanned the treeline and let his gaze wander up along the high rocky line of the cliffs behind the cabin, and he was about to finish the descent to the basin when the sun, stabbing through a small gap in the leaden grey of the sky, glinted briefly off of something up on the cliffs. Einar, without the slightest hesitation and without taking the time to look twice, dropped to the ground and rolled behind a boulder there on the hillside, staying still for a good while before carefully peeking out between the branches of a little fir that grew beside the rock. The clouds had closed back in on the little ray of sun and, though he easily found the odd shaped rock that stuck up on the ridge and roughly marked the spot where he had seen the flash, he could not determine to his satisfaction whether or not there was anything unusual about what he was seeing. The rocky promontory was some distance off, his guess put it at nearly a quarter of a mile, and he very much wished he had binoculars, wished his vision was not blurring so, as it seemed to do with greater frequency now when he had too little to eat. The thing that troubled him most was that the place provided almost the perfect vantage point for someone who might want to watch the basin and the approach to the cabinand the slope he was descending, too, for that matter. Studying the cliffs, he saw that it was very nearly the exact spot he would have chosen. Knowing that he must not stay where he believed he might have been observedif I saw that flash, they may have seen me, may decide to call in the choppers if they dont get another look at me, as soon as the weather permits ithe kept low, pulling himself across the snowy ground on his belly behind the trunk of a fallen aspen until he reached a thick stand of bushy little spruce saplings, confident that they concealed him thoroughly. Einar crouched there for some time, keeping as still as his shivering would allow him and trying to decide if he ought to abandon the idea of the cabin altogether and do his best to leave the area without being spotted again, or wait in the hopes that the sun might come out again and let him get a better look at that cliff. Of course, if there had been someone up there, they could well have moved by then, anyway. And he knew that he would never feel safe about approaching the cabin now, would always wonder if he was being watched or was walking into an ambush. But the snow seemed to have ended entirely, the clouds were thinning and the sky brightening, and he knew that it would be quite a challenge to get off of that somewhat sparsely vegetated hillside without leaving a trail that stood out from the air, while at the same time making sure he was not visible to whoever might be up on those cliffs. Got to give it a try, I guess. And then he heard the helicopter.

The chopper was still some distance off when Einar first heard it, which he supposed must mean that it was not especially low, and he glanced around at the meager opportunities for concealment provided by the few clumps of evergreens and stands of

chokecherry scrub that dotted the hillside. Nothing much. Best of a number of bad options appeared to be the rock he had initially sought refuge behind after seeing the flash of light on the cliff, with the fir that hugged it on one side and gave fairly good shelter from above. None of it would end up mattering much anyway, he expected, because the trench he had made crawling through the snow along the aspen trunk would likely be clearly visible from the air, if anyone was looking. All he could do was try. Reaching the boulder he curled up beside it in the little hollow beneath the fir, waiting as the chopper neared. And passed overhead without so much as deviating from its course to circle the basin. As quickly as it had come it was gone, leaving Einar trembling under the little fir, wondering what on earth had just happened. He had been certain that it had been called in by whoever was up there in the rocks with a scope, and the fact that he had apparently been wrong left him without a clear idea of what to do next. So. This must mean they didnt see me, because surely they would have at least been communicating with it and had it hover over here for a minute to confirm my position, if nothing else He began moving again, slowly working his way across the hillside to the thicker evergreens that covered the lower portion of the cirque wall above the basin. Reaching the trees and finally sure that he could no longer be seen from the cliffs he stood, taking a minute to secure the now stiff and cumbersome elk hide to his pack and rub his bare shins, which were purple from the extended contact with the snow as he crawled, trying to decide on his next course of action. He had been counting on a dry, sheltered place to sleep for a while, and its certain existence had been to some extent the thing that had kept him going, the one thing that was, in his mind, going to hopefully shift the balance of factors that were sapping his strength and allow him to go on living. And now it was out of his reach Well. Just keep moving. There will be other shelter. Which he did, though he was not sure he believed that voice anymore. It had lied to him more than once, and he was getting tired of listening to it, tired of forcing himself to continue against his will and beyond the limits of his strength. Tired. Taking his time and stepping carefully through the dark timber as he headed for the cliffs in order to skirt around them, Einar heard another helicopter, curled up under some trees and waited it out, realizing that it, like the last one, was just passing overhead on its way somewhere else. They dont know, then. That is good. And the thought came to him, from a place of near desperation and need, that since he apparently still possessed the advantage of surprise over whoever was up there in the rocks, perhaps he ought to try and stalk around behind the cliffs, climb up there, and do what he could to get ahold of some gear, some food, whatever they might have that would give him some better chance of making it. A rifle wouldnt be bad, either He figured that there would be no more than two men up there, though there almost certainly would be two instead of one. If he could get in close, undetected, and take one of them with an arrow That would still leave the other one to take his leisurely time choosing whether to shoot you before, or after calling for help on his radio, as you fumbled to get the bow back up on your foot and use your last arrow. And thats assuming your first shot even hit well enough to do any real damage, and didnt just hang up in his coat. Bad, bad plan, Einar. They dont know where you are. Your only chance is to keep it that way. He tossed the idea back and forth for a bit, but eventually decided that the advantage of having his location once again apparently a mystery to his pursuers outweighed any potential benefit he might receive

from snatching gear from the rocks, an attempt that he did not figure he had an especially great chance of living through, anyway. Disappointed but knowing it was the right decision, he kept to the trees, skirting around the cliffs and beginning the descent towards a neighboring basin, and away from whoever waited for him up on those cliffs. On the way down the back side of the ridge, the rotten crust over the old snow gave way as he crossed a place where it had been drifted high by the wind, leaving Einar submerged up past his waist in snow, kicking and pulling at the nearby chokecherry scrub in an exhausting attempt to extract himself. His struggles caused some of the chokecherry branches, weighed down all winter by the snow, to spring free of it, revealing several clusters of dried, shriveled chokecherries that had somehow been overlooked by the birds that past fall and covered by the snow before they could be eaten. Einar stopped, stripping them from the branches and stuffing most of them in his pocket, but eating a few right then, spitting the cyanide-containing pits back into the snow under the bushes. The dried chokecherries were sweet, though slightly fermented-tasting after a winter sitting under the snow, and Einar felt an immediate change in his energy level as he ate, marveling at their sweetness and feeling that he could once again go on. He knew that many of the tribes had used the fruit for food, most mashing the berries and separating out the pits before forming the pulp into little cakes that they dried for later use, usually reconstituting it but sometimes eating it dry as a trail food. A few of the tribes had dried and ground them, pits and all, gaining extra nutrition from the pits, which lost their dangerous levels of cyanide sometime during the drying process. Not entirely clear on the details and unable to chew the pits anyway, he chose to keep spitting them out, but made sure as he traveled that they went into his pocket instead of onto the ground, where they could potentially act as yet another sign of his passage to anyone who might end up on his trail. His clothes were pretty badly soaked from the fight with the chokecherry bushes, and he moved quickly along the ridge, attempting to delay the inevitable chilling that this would bring him. The sugar in the fruit had done wonders for Einars level of alertness and his ability to move at a good pace, and though he knew it would likely be rather short lived, he wished for other sources of such energy. There was one potential source he could think of that ought to be available to him if he could safely access it, but as he walked, he could not really come up with a way. While there were certainly no sugar maples in the area, there were box elders, a scraggly-looking maple cousin that produced sweet sap. He had been around once or twice when people down in the Culver Falls area had tapped them, and though the resulting syrup was not as strongly flavored as maple, it was, if boiled down, similarly sweet. He knew that days like theseor at least, days like these had probably been down in the valleyswith warmer daylight hours and still-freezing nights, were just the sort needed to get the sap flowing. He even knew how he would go about tapping the trees, using one of the nails in his pack to bore a hole about an inch into the tree, enlarging it, and pounding in a hollowed out section of willow shoot for a spout. Another nail beneath the spout would hold one of the tin cans to catch the sap, of which he knew you could expect to collect a gallon or more from one tree, on a good day. Even if he currently had no way to boil it down, the straight sap could be drunk and would contain enough sugar to give him some continuing energy as he traveled. Too bad there was no

time to stop and take advantage of the trees just then, and no way he was no way he was willing to spend enough time just then down in the valleys where the box elders grew, either. Continuing up out of the basin through the black timber, he reached the crest of a little rise and looked out at ridge after timber covered ridge that lay before him, some of them with high, windswept summits rising several thousand feet above treeline; an enormous place that he was not especially familiar with, but that he hoped might now offer him some refuge, some rest, a reprieve from the constant need to flee. All right Einar. Go lose yourself in that. Forget that cabin. It can lead only to more trouble, to more running, to death. Such a move would mean leaving the roughly twelve thousand acre area he had wandered in since his escape, remaining within its confines because he had been, to some extent, previously acquainted with it, knowing where its ridges ran, what he could expect to find on the far side of this pass or that, which areas of it were popular with skiers and needed to be avoided. This knowledge had served him well, had probably even saved him, a time or two, but he now was faced with an increased search that would keep him moving almost constantly if he chose to stay, never spending more than one or two nights in a given area, and he knew that such constant movement was something he no longer had the resources to maintain. Heading for the valley that he knew he had to cross before reaching those ridges, he continued his descent. Leaving the spruces to skirt around a little meadow in a stand of aspens not far from the base of the cliffs, Einar stopped in his tracks, wondering whether he had just stumbled upon the best find of his life, or the ambush that would finally end it.

Einar could clearly see the two sets of tracks where Vibram soled boots, their wearers apparently carrying rather heavy loads, from the looks of them, had approached the spot through the snow, the trampled area that had obviously been a hastily-arranged camp of sorts, a three-season tent half concealed behind a little stand of firs. He retreated behind a tree, though being an aspen, he knew it provided him little concealment, and listened intently for a moment. Nothing. And he had experienced no warning as he approached the place, no hesitation, no little prickle in his fingertips as he often did when danger, or even a non-threatening human, was near. The spot seemed abandoned. But in this case, that assurance was hardly adequate. He knew that his level of alertness had suffered considerably with the hunger and growing exhaustion of the past weeks, and he had caught himself slipping up more than once. And his fingers were close to being frozen, anyway, from digging around after those chokecherries, so he considered that perhaps his early warning system would not be working as he had grown used to expecting, anyway. He watched the place for a minute trying to make up his mind what to do, his inclination being to leave the area as quickly and stealthily as possible, heading for the dark timber and hoping to be far from the place by the time the owners of the two sets of tracks returned and discovered his own. As he watched, though, he became more and more convinced that no one was in the immediate area. It just had a quiet feeling to

it that went beyond the obvious cues that he could hear and see, and which told him with more certainty than they would have that he was alone. And he really wanted to explore that camp, see what he might be able to carry away. As he looked over the items that were strewn about the little campthe ski bib and pair of wool socks that hung drying from a nearby tree, the two collapsed and nearly emptylooking black backpacks that sat in snow beneath it, and especially the various food items that lay neatly arranged maybe too neatly? on a flat, snow-free rock that had apparently been used as a platform for a camp stove, foolishly tempting any bears that might be awakening and standing out as the true mark of a mountain greenhorn, Einar knew that he would have to give it a try. Approaching the camp, Einar walked carefully in the already-existing tracks, knowing that though his boots had a slightly different, and far more worn tread pattern, they were nearly the same size as one of the sets of tracks. Perhaps the pair would turn out not to be especially astute at tracking and might at first overlook the double tracks, or perhaps they would even arrive back to their camp after dark and not notice the missing items until daylight, giving him some valuable time to disappear. It was certainly worth a try. Heading over to the tent, knowing that he must either start there or stay on edge the entire time wondering whether it was occupied, he watched it for a minute before carefully unzipping it to look inside, thinking it would be just his luck to be met by a startled FBI agent. Which of course did not happen. The tent was, in fact, disappointingly empty. He had really been hoping for a sleeping bag or foam pad that would have meant a tremendous savings in the resources he had to expend in keeping warm as he slept. What did you do? Take the bags up in the rocks with you so you could stay warm while you waited for me? Wimps. Another pair of socks hung inside the tent, and he quickly snatched them, relieved at the chance to allow one pair of socks to dry while he wore the other. His current pair, with holes in the toes and heels, were worn to the point of barely being useful, and he seldom had the opportunity to dry them, or his boot liners either, resulting in his feet being in such poor condition that it was all he could do some days to continue walking on them. The chance to begin reversing this situation was well worth finding the camp, in itself. And he was by no means done. In fact, looking over the bounty that existed, he began wondering how he was going to carry it all with him. He knew that there was little chance of him being able to use one of the backpacks, and the thought was confirmed by a quick experiment, which caused him to nearly cry out in pain as the weight of even the nearly empty pack pressed on his injured shoulder. Nope. Sure not doing it that waythough I could probably manage if I loosened that left strap a whole lot, and mostly relied on the other strap and waist belt to take the weight. He was about to try it when the thought struck him that perhaps it would be a big mistake to simply grab as much as he could carry, anyway. If I take everything I wantha! More like everything I can carry, which is a different matter altogetherthen they will surely realize what has happened as soon as they come back here tonight, and that means I will have less time to get out of the area before the choppers, trackers, maybe even dogs are brought in. But maybe if I just snag a bit of food and gear here and there, I will have until morning before I need to be seriously

worrying about pursuit. A bunch of gear is not going to do me any good if it gets me tracked down. Hard to enjoy warm clothes and good food when youredead. Exploring the packs, he found that each of them contained, in addition to six MREs each, a Camelbak style water bladder integrated into the pack, near the wearers back where they would be kept from freezing. One of them had some water left in it, and he pulled it out, taking a big swallow of the icy water before rolling it up and stuffing it in his pack. Taking a can of beef stew and one of chili from the kitchen rock, he could see the little marks in the skiff of snow that remained on the flat rock where the feet of the stove had set as the men presumably cooked their breakfast. Wish that camp stove was around here somewhere. With that, I could occasionally melt snow and heat water safely even with an air search on. Mustve taken it up there on the rocks with them so they could have some hot drinks during the day. He knew though that he probably wouldnt have taken the stove even if it had been available, as it was one item that almost certainly would have been missed right away. And with no way to renew its fuel supply, it would have soon been nothing more than dead weight to lug around, anyway. He did find and take a little green waterproof tube of matches in a side pocket of one of the packs, though. In the same pocket, he came across a plasticized National Geographic Trails Illustrated map of the area, which while not exactly one of the 7.5 minute quadrangles he was used to, was still quite detailed, and was far more map than he had, at present. He took it, figuring that they must have another packet of maps somewhere, and likely would not miss it right away. Debating with himself how many of the twelve MREs he could safely take without having their absence noted in the dark, he finally settled on removing two from each pack. Along with the MREs, one of the packs held several packets of Ramen noodles, a few cans of sardines, and several small oranges, and he helped himself to one of each. Einar realized that the entire success of his system of choosing what to take was dependent on the men not returning until dark or close to it, and he knew that he had no reason to be so sure that they would not be back in an hour, instead. And no reason to assume that they would not realize their camp had been pillaged, if modestly, even if they did return after dark. All the more reason to hurry and get out of here. Though he hoped that perhaps men foolish enough to leave all of their food within easy reach of hungry bears might also overlook his careful modifications to their camp supplies. As he worked, he could not get the thought out of his mind that the camp could still be a trap, even if it was not an ambush. What if, for instance, there were tracking devices hidden in some of the gear he was preparing to take? He had no way to know for sure, but, though the prospect rather worried him, when he made himself think about it logically, he decided that there was no reason for them to have expected him to return to the area, and no way they could have expected him to discover this particular camp, if he did. At least not enough reason to make it worth their while to set up and maintain a dummy camp in this location for the purpose of luring him in and trapping himunless they were perhaps getting better at predicting his movements and behavior and learning from their mistakes. Fast. Einar shook his head and kept sorting gear, trying to silence the nagging, paranoid section of his brain, knowing all the while that, in his situation, he had every reason to listen to it and heed its warnings.

In a front pouch of one of the packs he found a black collapsible entrenching tool, and recognized it from a threaded section near the top of the handle as one that contained a small saw, hidden in the handle. Oh! Now this is our tax dollars at work! Good choice, guys. He grabbed it, considering its nearly two pounds of weight well worth carrying. All right now. No more. Packs full, and you been here way too long, already. Glancing around to make sure everything appeared basically as he had found it, he left the camp. Backtracking for a good while, he eventually split off from the agents trail and headed up into the black timber, climbing several hundred feet up the ridge to a place where he could look down out of the trees and watch the area of the camp, without much chance of being seen, himself. It had taken all of Einars considerable willpower to keep from sitting down on one of packs back at the camp and tearing into the food as soon as he had discovered it, but he had managed to make himself wait, knowing that he must not spend any more time at the camp than was absolutely essential. Now, though, it was way past time to eat. He could wait no longer. Before beginning his meal, he took a minute to pull on the borrowed ski bib which, though still a bit damp around the lower legs, was far better protection from the cold and wet than the orange coveralls, which were by that time threadbare, tattered and barely holding together at the seams. And, being woodland camouflage, the ski bib was a good bit more stealthy, too. He could not help wishing briefly, as he donned them, that there had been a parka to go along with the pants, but no matter. He had both the coyote skins and the elk hide to make such from, if and when he ever got to stop running long enough to do so. Einar had already cut open a pouch of chicken and noodles, finding it partially frozen but wanting to save the heater for future use, when he thought to stop and be thankful for this new development that had most likely saved his life. And he was very thankful, indeed. The chicken noodles were gone in short order, followed by most of the packet of peanut butter, after which Einar decided that, too long unaccustomed to such rich food, he had better save the rest. He finished off the meal with part of a cracker and a couple of red hot cinnamon candies, saving most of them with the thought that they would be a good source of a bit of emergency energy later, when the rest of the food was gone. Leaning back against a log after eating, Einar had perhaps never in his life felt more like curling up and sleeping as the nutrition he had been so desperately needing began to be absorbed by his body, warming him and easing the tight, painful knot that had been growing in the pit of his shrunken stomach. Later. He could rest and enjoy the bounty later, and he had more food with which to celebrate the occasion, but at the moment he knew he had better keep moving, if he wanted any chance of enjoying it. It was not long before he was doubled over with horrible stomach cramps, telling him that, despite his best efforts, he must have eaten too much or too fast. Or both. Or they poisoned those things, and are giving me an hour or so to collapse before they track me down and take me without a struggle... It was a terrifying thought, and one that almost made him want to go hole up someplace where they could not get to him, in case that was in fact what was happening. He could hardly think of anything worse than being in a position where they came to take him, and he found himself unable to resist in any way. He really doubted that he had been poisoned, though, knowing that he was experiencing symptoms very similar to the ones that had plagued him at Lizs when he began eating

again after going without for so long the last time. Only then, he had been able to lie on the couch for a few days and wait it out, which he would in no way have the luxury of doing, this time. He just hoped that the next step did not involve the breathing difficulties and near-paralysis that he had also dealt with at Lizs. That turned out to be an electrolyte imbalance of some sort, I thinklow phosphorous, or something. He remembered eating the half box of powdered milk that time, on a guess, and the great improvement that it had brought his condition. Not wanting to take any chances, he paused for long enough to fish a packet of fortified hot chocolate mix in its green mylar packet out of the MRE he had opened, pouring its contents into a bit of clean new snow and stirring with his finger before scooping up and eating the resulting ice cream. Wow. Now thats good! It did nothing to ease his discomfort though, which briefly started him thinking on the poison theory again. As he thought about it, though, another reason he doubted poison was that he expected the drug of choice in that case would have likely been some sort of heavy-duty tranquilizer, to knock him out but presumably keep him alive until they could reach him, and he doubted such potions would cause the hideous cramping he was experiencing. It certainly felt like it was trying to kill him. Ah, wellI can still move, cant I? Thats all I need. Einar continued on his way, knowing that reaching the far ridges he was headed for would entail crossing the valley where he had shot the deer some time ago. Though he did not look forward to the prospect of exposing himself to detection in that way, he hoped that by descending to an area where the snow was already gone, he might be able to leave fewer tracks, though he knew that the damp, newly exposed ground of the valley would not help any in that regard.

Down in the Culver Falls area, the investigation was ongoing into the cause of the rockslide that had spoiled the FBIs surprise raid on Bill and Susans house. No one had been injured in the slide, though it had taken many hours of work to free the trapped APC and the agents inside, work for which Sheriff Watts recruited Rob, who supplemented his seasonal outfitting and snowplow driving income by doing occasional contract work as a heavy equipment operator. Slowly making his way up the switchbacks of Bill and Susans driveway that morning in his backhoe, Rob could not help but chuckle a bit at the irony of the whole situation. Rob, as he carried out the duties associated with his winter job as a snowplow driver for the state Department of Transportation over the following days, was aware that he was being watched from time to time, and as a former business partner of Jeffs, this did not surprise him. What did surprise him a bit was that, so far at least, he had suffered no repercussions form his hasty decision to abandon his clients, Metz and associates, up on the snowy ridge. He had known he was taking a gamble in returning at all after that stunt, but he had responsibilitiesdogs, horses, the plowing job, a business to try and saveand he had made the decision to return and see what came of it. Rob knew that Metz was a dangerous man and not one to be taken lightly, but he also had a pretty good

idea that Metz, proud and arrogant as he seemed to be, might not be too interested in making public the fact that he had been unable to easily lead his cohorts out to safety after being abandoned in the mountains by a local guide. Banking on the fact that he would want to keep such an embarrassment out of the public eye, Rob skied out of the wilderness area approximately eight hours after jumping off the cornice on the ridge top, taking a circuitous route back to the trailhead where they had parked the snowmobile trailer the day before, and driving home in his truck. As he had guessed, Metz never went public with the details of the events leading up to his disastrously failed search mission in the mountains, and Rob went about his business day by day, becoming a bit more confident over time that he had dodged that particular bullet, but not so confident that he did not keep his skis and pack with him in the plow truck as he cleared the state highway between Culver and Clear Springs and worked to keep the pass open through the last couple of major spring snows. Jeff, in the meantime, was nowhere within fifty miles of Culver Falls, having hiked around the backside of the ridge for a prearranged meeting and ride out of the area a number of days before the raid.

The much-anticipated Congressional vote on the requested budget increase for the FBI had to be delayed at the last minute, since Director Ferris Lee was unavailable for testimony at the hearings that had been scheduled the day before, and without which testimony many members of Congress were not interested in considering the measure. Director Lee, much to his dismay, had been required to make an emergency return trip to Culver Falls the day before the scheduled vote, in light of the sudden developments in the search for Einar, particularly the loss of the helicopter, pilot and two of the three agents who had been on board. One of his first duties upon arriving in the area was to stop by the hospital in Clear Springs to pay a well-publicized visit to the agent who had been injured by Einars arrow during the search back at the ledge. The arrow with its rusty nail tip had caught him in the hollow space just beneath the left eye, necessitating surgery to save his sight and introducing a nasty infection that had nearly claimed the mans life. It would be awhile before any more federal agents casually stuck their heads into rock crevices in search of Einar. While in Culver Falls, Ferris Lee announced that the reward amount for information leading to Einars apprehension was being raisedagainmaking it second only to that being offered for a certain turban-wearing former Saudi who was believed to be hiding out on the mountains of Afghanistan. Decision makers at the FBI was beginning to be seriously disturbed by the duration and escalation of the ongoing search, and were pulling out all the stops in a concentrated effort to end it.

Einar was unaware, of course, of the goings-on down in Culver Falls. He did not need

that information, however, to know that he was still in the middle of a rather serious situation. He knew he had struck the agent with the arrow back at the ledge, he had seen that helicopter go down, and, though he finally had a bit more food and some muchneeded clothing and other gear, expected that in obtaining it, he ultimately had alerted his pursuers to his location and set them on his trail again. But having been traveling for nearly an hour since leaving the camp, and as yet hearing no unusual air activity that seemed focused on his location, he had some hope that the agents up on the cliffs might indeed be waiting until dark to return to their camp. I may have a few hours then, to pull this off. Which meant descending down to the valley, crossing it, and heading up into the country on the other side where he could hopefully lose his pursuers for good. When he had descended far enough that the patches of snow became smaller and more spread out Einar stopped, sitting on a fallen aspen and removing the second coyote hide from his pack, unrolling it and cutting off the two front leg sections of the hide. Slitting them down the middle with the little saw from the handle of the entrenching tool he had borrowed from the federal camp, he lay them flat on the tree trunk, fur side down, he placed his boot on one of them, seeing with disappointment but not too much surprise that it was too wide and overlapped the hide by about an inch on each side. He had expected this, and quickly cut two roughly oval sections of hide form the haunch area, laying one in the center of the longer strip and again testing it with his boot. Good. Thats wide enough. Next, he made a slit down the center of the strip behind his boot, bringing the two tails this created up around either side of his ankle to meet on top of his boot. He made a small slit near the front of the long strip just forward of his toes, and ran the two tails through the slit, first crossing them over the lower tongue area of the boot. Pulling the tails back toward his heel to cinch the improvised overshoe tight, he secured it in place by wrapping the tail ends several times around his bootlaces where they crossed the lower tongue area of the boot. He took a few steps, saw that the thing would hold, for awhile, at least, and got started on the other overshoe. His greatest concern was that the fairly thin coyote hide would end up tearing as he walked, likely where he had made the slit near his toe. It was dry and fairly hard, though, so he had some hope that it would hold out. All right. Time to head for the valley. His digestive distress continued as he traveled, making it a bit more difficult to concentrate on the task before him and requiring all of his focus as he strove to make his back trail disappear. Finally within five hundred feet elevation of the valley floor he paused, lying on a slab of red sandstone and inspecting the green expanse of the valley, looking for anything out of place, watching for movement but seeing only a doe that made her way lazily out across the meadow, ripping up mouthfuls of new grass and occasionally raising her head to listen, seemingly finding no cause for alarm. A good sign. He was somewhat disturbed, though, that the angle of the slope he was descending prevented him from seeing the strip of valley floor that was nearest him. He knew there was a river or a creek in the valley, knew it was being concealed by the slope, though he was not at all sure of its size, as the only time he had actually been down there it had still been thoroughly frozen over and covered with wind packed snow. Well. One way to find out Though an increasing roar as he lost elevation told him quite a bit about the condition and size of the river, long before he was able to see it.

The closer Einar got to the valley floor, the clearer it became to him that he would not simply be wading across the river and continuing quickly on his way. The thing was huge and swollen with snowmelt, grey and silty and frothing, carrying fractured ice chunks and branches and occasionally entire trees along as it roared towards the lower elevations with an awe-inspiring speed and force. Einar thought that it seemed a bit early for high water, but he had to admit that he actually had no idea what the date might be, and it had been significantly warmer lately, even up high. Warm enough, clearly, to bring down a bunch of the melt water in a hurry, because he could see that the water had already crept all the way up its steep rocky banks, and was tugging and tearing at the lower branches of the evergreens that lined the side he was on. The timber extended down all the way to the river on Einars side, and he went down near the water, gingerly walking out a few feet onto a heaving tangle of partially submerged logs, icy and slick from the spray of the passing water, and looking up and down the river for anything that might allow him passage. Nothing. He certainly could not stay there on the slope above the river, though, as those agents would have to return to their camp at some point, and it was more than he could hope for to think that they would not sometime in the following hours discover his tampering and report it. And, if he was guessing correctly, the search that they would then call down on the area would make their previous efforts look like a childs game of hide and seek. He knew that they would be taking the loss of the helicopter, and perhaps of several men as well, very seriously, and expected that this time they would be ready with trackers, more aircraft and more troops on the ground than he had so far encountered. Having increasing difficulty keeping his balance on the slick logjam and knowing that he would not find his answer by staring in a daze at the roaring water, Einar slowly made his way back to the solid ground of the bank, sitting down heavily on the spruce duff and reaching into his pocket for the rest of the peanut butter. Whatever he chose to do, he knew would be needing the extra energy. Seeing that there was no ready way across, he was tempted to try and use the river for travel, knowing that such an attempt would mean risking injury from swiftly moving logs and submerged rocks, and that hed come out of it soaking wet and cold, but with the snow gone in the valley and the temperatures a bit warmer, these were not his greatest concerns. Nor was the fact that he would probably end up losing at least some of his gear, and thoroughly drenching the rest. The biggest problem, as he saw it, was that the river flowed only one way, and I sure dont want to go downstream. Downstream means people, houses, towns, trouble. And from the looks of it I very likely might not be able to control when or where I got out of the water. For all I know this river could spit me out right beside some camp of theirs. Besides, despite telling himself that he had greater concerns, he knew that there was a pretty good likelihood that he would not come out of that water in one piece, anyway, especially without any sort of flotation device and going into it with barely enough strength to keep on his feet, let alone contend for long with an icy, raging torrent such as the river had become. Hey, it worked once before though I could break loose one of these logs and hang on to it to keep me above water, come out a mile or two downstreamcould plan on staying low so Id just look like some river debris if anybody saw me. Stuff the ski pants in the pack, wrap and tie the elk hide

around the whole thing, and I might even have something dry to wear when it was all over. No. No, that last ride you took down a river very nearly killed you, and it wasnt even high water. And you were in better shape then than you are now, even if you couldnt exactly walk. Youd be lucky if you could take ten minutes of that ice water right now. And what about when you get out and cant have a fire, or course, and find out that oopsyou cant move fast enough to get warm, either? So, better ideas? All he could think of was to walk the bank for a distance and see if there might be a fallen tree that could cross on, but knew that if someone ended up tracking him and saw that his trail seemed to be heading for the valley, they would search all along the river bank for the place he had crossed. He knew he had better, then, do all he could to minimize the sign he left along the bank, which preferably meant not tramping up and down on the steep, damp needle-covered slope where one little slip or scrape that he overlooked could end up easily giving him away. The river appeared to narrow some upstream, and he headed that way, keeping wherever he could to the rocks, but finding his fur moccasins to be dangerously slippery if he ventured too near the icy rocks by the water. For some time he followed the river upstream, twice seeing fallen trees that might have been suitable bridges at other times of the year, when they were not busy acting as spillways for the white foaming water to cascade over. The longer he paralleled the water the more anxious Einar became, knowing that over its thundering he had little chance of hearing a helicopter and none at all of a small plane. Something was changing in the sound of the river above him, a booming hollowness and a depth that had been absent before, and rounding a bend where the trees thinned out, Einar saw why. Some distance ahead the course of the river was broken by a concave rocky bowl, grey and smoothly waterworn and well over fifty feet high, out the top of which the river spewed with a thundering fury, spitting out half-chewed trees and occasional rocks in a thick-looking churning slurry of silty water and ground ice. Below it, just beyond the reach of its spray, lay the access Einar had been seeking, a smooth black log that stretched the entire span of the river, starting high up on the slope on his side of the water and angling downwards to the opposite bank. He could see that it had been a massive tree, almost certainly a blue spruce, and numerous years of spray from that waterfall had removed all vestiges of bark or side branches from it, leaving it smooth and burnished and looking almost as if it could have been iron instead of wood. Einar shuddered, looked about for a good way around the waterfall, but saw none. Well. Theres my bridge. Best not put it off, or Ill start having doubts and probably sit here thinking about it until they sneak up behind me, or something. Climbing thirty or so feet up the slope to the place where the huge tree was anchored to the ground by what remained of its roots, he rested against them, catching his breath and once again inspecting the mountain around the rocky bowl, seeing that though he would have to detour quite a distance to get around the bowl, it could be done. Perhaps if he did so, there would be another opportunity to cross, one that did not involve navigating sixty

feet of slick, sloping tree trunk with no branches to grab to steady himself. But he had already traveled some distance back from the valley floor that he wanted to cross, and was faced with backtracking once he did get across. That would only be worse if he managed to cross up higher. And, more importantly, if he did find a higher crossing and happened to fall in while traversing itwell, Id get chewed up and spit out along with all the other debris in that waterfall. Fish food. That convinced him. That, and the fact that he had no idea how long it might be until the search became active on his back trail from the federal camp by the cliffs. All right. Go for it. He removed and stowed the fur boot-coverings, but was having a hard time deciding whether to secure the pack more firmly to his side so it would not swing and unbalance him on the narrow log, or simply let it hang by the one strap created from the tied coyote legs, in case he fell in and had to jettison it quickly to keep from getting pulled under. Looking down at the roiling mass of grey water and wood and ice below him and considering how small his chances probably were if he fell into that, he decided to put most of his focus on not falling in the first place. Using the remains of the orange coveralls that he had stuffed into his pack after donning the ski pants, he wrapped the pack solidly against him to prevent it shifting or swinging as he crossed. Briefly he considered removing the ski pants and wrapping them in the elk hide to keep them dry if he did fall, but supposed that to do so would leave him shaking so badly in the wet, windy chill of the waterfalls breath that he might lose his balance. Knowing that he had spent too much time already putting off the inevitable, he climbed carefully up through the black roots of the tree that stretched out like the gnarled, curled fingers of some dead giant, stepping out onto the wet, slippery wood of the log, his world quickly narrowing down to the thin, rounded black path that sloped down with alarming steepness in front of him, somewhat obscured by the clouds produced by his breath in the cold, humid air, his face and hair already wet from the spray.

When the FBI trackers reached the river the next morning they temporarily lost their subjects trail among the rocks along its banks, but found it again when one of them spotted a partial boot print in a little patch of snow in the shadow of an uprooted tree that stretched black and slippery across the booming river. Climbing up to an open, rocky knoll and calling in the chopper to ferry them across, they were deposited in a little meadow and made their way back to the river to continue their search, but never did find any more tracks that morning.

Einar inched forward on the slick log, realizing after three unsteady steps that he lacked both the balance and the traction to manage it standing up. The thing was not just wet, it was icy, and he crouched, easing himself down onto the tree and grabbing with his knees, the slick material of the ski pants not proving especially helpful. He sat there for a minute, considering seriously the possibility of turning back and heading up around the

waterfall, but in the end deciding that, without knowing that there would be a better way across and without a clear idea of how close behind him his pursuers might be by that time, he must continue. First, though, he decided that he must better secure some of his possessions before making the slippery journey, so he carefully backed off the tree, back onto solid ground, and took off the pack. He took the waterproof container of matches and the small orange and stuffed them in the pocket of his sweatshirt, wiring it shut with the wire ties that he had previously used to immobilize the arm on his injured side. Into the other pocket he managed to fit the can of sardines and two nails, similarly wiring it shut. Thinking that it would be an awful shame to lose the MREs, or the entrenching tool, either, he poked small holes with one of the nails in the outer edges of the thick plastic packaging on the meals, careful not to actually puncture the waterproof seal (except on the one he had already opened) but knowing that even if he did, everything was individually sealed inside, and ran a longer strand of wire through all of them, wrapped it around the e-tool and finally secured as well as he could to the loop of tied coyote legs that made up the carrying strap of his pack. He knew this arrangement would only serve to drag him down if he did fall in, but he was picturing the possibility that he might at some point in the course of the crossing end up sliding to one side or the other and spilling the contents of the pack, without necessarily losing his balance. This was the main thing he was trying to prevent, with his modifications to the pack. Because I am not going in that water! Though he knew he ultimately might have far less say in the matter than he would like to think. Next he considered the bow, which had just been slung over his shoulder, deciding to remove the string and coil it up in his pocket where it, at least would be more secure. The stave he shoved down in the pack, which of course left it sticking way up above his head when he put the pack back on, but it was light enough that he knew it ought not affect his balance. On with it, then Up there near the roots the tree was much too wide to get his arms or legs very far around, though he saw that about halfway down it narrowed to the point that he could probably do so, which ought to make the going a good bit more steady. He had an idea, carefully untied one boot and then the other, reached under the log but could not reach far enough to connect them, ended up kicking with his left foot until the freed lace swung over and he could grab it on the right side and tied them together, not sure whether they would hold his weight and not at all certain that he would even want them to if he did fall. He could picture himself hanging there helplessly by his bootlaces as he slowly died of exposure in the icy spray of the waterfall, or even as the trackers possibly caught up to him. But looking down at that ice choked water below him, he knew he had to do all he could to avoid ending up in it. Maybe the few extra seconds before the laces in all probability broke would give him the chance to right himself if he began slipping. OK. Self belay with bootlaces, here we go And with his improvised safety system anchoring his mind if not his body a good bit more firmly to the slick tree, Einar began scooting across, anxious to reach the other side. All went well for awhile, his slow but steady progress taking him out past what he had judged to be the center point of the log, which had begun narrowing and should soon, he

thought, be small enough for him to reach his arms around, if he had to. Not quite halfway across Einar began picking up some speed, sliding a bit faster than he wanted to because of the angle of the log and the slickness of the ski pants, and he tried to grip the tree with his knees to slow himself, but could feel himself drifting to the right as the weight of the pack unbalanced him. He saw not too far ahead a little protrusion on the side of the tree, a broken branch that stuck out an inch or so just below his right knee, and he tried to grab it as he slid past, missing it but succeeding in snagging the remains of the orange jumpsuit on it. This, unfortunately, pulled him even further off center, leaving him hanging precariously from the side of the log as he carefully worked to get himself back on top of it, knowing that the orange cloth could not possibly hold his weight for long. Which it did not, soon ripping and leaving him lunging to get his arms up around the tree as it tore. For a few seconds he hung there with his hands locked around the trunk, which was just barely narrow enough at that point for him to do so, but his shoulder injury combined with the slickness of the log made it impossible to maintain this for any length of time and he lost his grip. The force of his weight falling on the bootlaces jerked his right boot partway off, and he fought to keep his ankle bent and maintain his tenuous hold on the tree as he struggled to lift his upper body and get his hands back in some kind of contact with the tree, wanting to grab the protruding branch with his right hand. His foot pulled out of the boot before he was able to do so, however, and the loose boot whipped around the tree and struck him on the leg as he went down, leaving a large swatch of orange jumpsuit hung up on the protruding branch, flapping in the breeze of the waterfall and already partially encrusted in ice by the time he hit the water. Einar knew that if he could get through those first few seconds in the water he might be OK, might have a chance, at least, and he fought hard against the panic that wanted to take hold as he went under and the icy water crushed the breath out of him. He surfaced moments later gasping for air and knowing he needed to get his feet out in front of him, but concepts like in front and behind seemed at first to hold little meaning in the churning chaos of that water. He finally got himself somewhat oriented, pointed downstream and breathing again, but it was not long before he was suddenly jerked backwards and down, at least thats what it felt like, tried to rise to the surface but could not, opened his eyes but could see nothing in the silty water. It felt like his foot was caught, and yet he knew he was kicking both of his feet in a frantic attempt to reach the surface. Forcing himself to be as calm as he could, he reached back along his leg, discovering that his right boot, the one that had come off in the fall, was hung up on a snag beneath the water, the force of the water dragging him forward and preventing him from getting his head up. Which is one reason a person should never enter swift water with a rope tied around their waist when attempting to perform a rescue. Not that Einar had time to think such thoughts as he held his breath in the frigid water, pulling at the trapped boot, kicking at it with the other foot, and finally managing to raise it by an inch or two and free it, just as he was reaching the outer limits of his ability to hold his breath. He was snatched away down stream then, surfaced coughing up water and fighting for air, his face completely numb from his time beneath the water.

He did not know how long he had been in the water or how far it had carried him before he had the chance to get out, a current taking him into a calmer, nearly still little eddy beside a slightly undercut bank, where he was carried around in the gently swirling, foamy water for a minute with a bunch of driftwood and evergreen branches before he felt himself scrape on some rocks and made an effort to reach the bank. Reaching it, his hand closed on something, and he realized dimly that it was the lower branch of a box elder tree, its scrubby appearance making it easily recognizable even without its leaves and he began dragging himself out, battered and bruised from the logs and fractured trees that had been hurtling down the river around him, slumping over against the tree and just breathing for a minute before trying to move again. He looked around to see if his pack was anywhere within sight only to find that it wassomehowstill slung over his shoulder, apparently held in place by part of the jumpsuit, though from its deflated appearance he guessed he had lost a good many of its contents to the river. He sure hoped some of the food was still there. Couldnt see the MREs, fumbled with the pack and finally succeeded in shrugging it off of him, looking rather like a drowned coyote and, to his dismay, nearly empty. The wire that had held the MREs was still there, the entrenching tool down at the end of it dangling out of the pack and looking only slightly damaged where it had apparently slammed into a rock, but the MREs had been torn loose and carried away by the water. Uh Not good The elk hide, though, was still attached by one corner where he had wired it around a coyote leg with a strand of cable. It trailed off into the river, soaked and heavy and leaving Einar wondering how he had ever managed to keep his head above water with that attached to him. Einar knew that he needed to try and move, to make some effort, at least, to figure out whether he was capable of movement, and he staggered to his feet, glad that he seemed not to have broken any bones but soon discovering that he was so stiff and uncoordinated that he could manage only a couple of lurching steps before collapsing to huddle on the icy rocks, his body wanting to stay in a drawn up position with his arms bent at his sides and his head on his knees to retain whatever heat he had left. He stayed like that for a minute or two shivering and hoping to begin warming up, but knew it was not going to be enough, knew it would probably not be long at all before he lost the ability to even recognize that he was in trouble and must do something to correct his situation. Move. He knew also that he must get away from the river because people would eventually be on his trail if they were not already, and he would never hear them there by the water. Need some energyneedneed something to get you going, Einar. He had the sardines but what he really needed was sugar, and was sorry then that he had not opened another of the MREs and stowed some of its contents in his pockets, also. And he was finding it beyond impossible to get his fingers to function enough to remove the wire ties that held shut his pocket. Not that it mattered, really. He was certain that the river would have by that time thoroughly dissolved and washed away all traces of the open packet of cinnamon candies it had contained. His mind wanted to drift, did not want to focus on anything too detailed, but he made himself continue to take inventory of his immediate area, searching for anything that might allow him the energy to get moving. Methodically pondering each object his eyes came in contact with, he very nearly overlooked the most obvious answer, which he

discovered in the box elder tree that supported him as he crouched there against the multiple shoots of its trunk. SapI could use the sap And he thought perhaps if he could get a nail into the tree, enough sap might ooze out to do him some good. The nails, though, were in his pocket, secured by the wire ties that he had very diligently twisted and tightened before crossing the log and which now denied him access nearly as well as a padlock might have. He stumbled over to the backpack, picked it up between the heels of his hands and shook it, hoping perhaps somehow one of the other nails might have remained inside. Out came a battered tin can, the steel bar that he had been using as a knife, and, to his relief, a small nail and the four inch spike that he had picked up at the cabin. Before he reached the bottom of the pack, he also shook out the water bladder from the FBI agents backpack and the handcuffs he had been wearing when he escaped, which he had not yet found a use for but which he had continued carrying. It took a good bit of concentration for him pick up the spike, gripping it between the heels of his hands and managing to wedge it in between two rough ridges on the bark of the main trunk of the box elder. He sank back to the ground then, not feeling much like moving and huddling in an attempt to warm up a bit, having to remind himself rather sharply to get back to the task at hand. He was sleepy. Rock. Find a rock, pound in that nail. A smooth, elongated piece of granite from the river bank was the first thing he could come up with that was not frozen into the ground, and he sandwiched it between his hands, clumsily pounding at the spike and twice knocking it from its niche in the bark and having to replace it before going on. When the spike had been driven a good ways into the tree he stopped, waiting, staring at it for what seemed like a long time and wondering if anything would actually come of his efforts. Waiting, he leaned back against the trunk, drifting near sleep only to be prodded awake again as the sap began running, dripping insistently on his face. Einar stirred, shifted position a bit and started catching the drops in his mouth, feeling the effect of the sugar-laden sap almost immediately as an increase in his wakefulness and ability to concentrate. After a time he again dragged himself to his feet, the sap having given him enough of a boost to get up and leave the river. Which he knew he must do as quickly as possible, having already been too long near the deafening roar of its water. He hoped, at least, that his unplanned ride down the river might have done something to create a more difficult trail for his pursuers. Though he doubted any such benefit would in the end make up for the fact that he was now drenched, frozen and again nearly without food. At least the snow is gone, down here Only then did he think to wonder where his boots might be.

Einar stared at his feet, one bare and the other still wearing one of the soaked green Thorlos from the feds tent, thinking it odd that he had not been aware of losing his boots in the water. He knew that he must find those boots. Not likely to be going much of anywhere without boots, torn up as my feet are already. He stood up, stared at the rocks around him, saw nothing that resembled a boot, and sank back into his hypothermic crouch, leaning on the tree and finding it dangerously easy to accept the fact that the boots were gone, and that he therefore wasnt going anywhere. Better to sit still anyway.

Movement hurt, reminded him that he was cold, and he really did not want to hurt anymore. Knew he needed to, though. Knew that as long as he did, there might yet be some chance of reversing the crippling hold that the cold was quickly gaining on him. OK. The boots. Go look for them. He got himself to his feet again, stumbled over to the river and began walking the bank, checking rocks and snags and partially submerged trees for any sign of the boots, but seeing nothing. Finally he started back for to the undercut bank where he had first crawled ashore, and as he went a picture entered his mind of the little eddy pool that had finally allowed him to exit the river, and in the picture was a boot, hung up on a floating log and following him as the current carried him around the pool. Hmm. He reached the pool, found it clogged with sticks and branches and brown frothy foam and a boot! Einar spotted it floating four or five feet out from the bank, laces hooked over a log just as he had pictured it, giving him some hope that the second might still remain attached to it, dragged along beneath the water. There were a number of long driftwood sticks and poles washed up on the rocks of the bank where they had been left by water a few feet higher than now flowed down the river, and wanting very much to avoid a second dip in the icy water, he chose a long one and tried to grab it, but couldnt get his hands to close around it or grasp it. He finally picked the stick up by squeezing his hands together on either side of it, mostly relying on the larger muscles in his arms. After a number of tries he got the stick up under the bootlaces and tried to pull the boot towards him, but watched in dismay as the current pulled the stick out of his weak grasp and carried it along for another trip around the pool. Nothing for it. Have to go back in. And he did, relieved to find that the water, though it squeezed him around the middle and felt like it was sucking the remaining life out of him, did not feel nearly as cold as he had remembered. Retrieving the boot was a different matter, though, as was staying on his feet, which he was not able to do for long walking as he was on slick rocks with feet that were by that point too numb to feel a thing. The first time he fell he went under, the water closing over his head and temporarily disorienting him before he pushed himself to his feet and got his head back out of the water, which was not especially deep. After that he crawled, catching up with the boot and trying unsuccessfully to grab it, telling himself that he must hurry and get out of the water, finally gripping the knotted laces in his teeth and tugging, bringing a mass of little sticks and branches along with the boot. Not until he reached the bank and pulled it out did he realize that the second boot was, indeed, firmly tied in place. As he struggled to pull himself out of the water, feeling like he weighed a thousand pounds, his eye was caught by what looked like a bit of dark colored plastic sticking up from between two pieces of driftwood on the bank, and he crawled over to investigate, hoping that perhaps one of the MREs might have washed up there with him. He was starting to be disappointed when he found that, instead of food, he had discovered the chemical heater from the MRE he had previously opened, but then he realized that it was, after all, a source of heat, and as such perhaps the best thing he could have found. Aside from a little hot spring He took a minute to search among the washed up forest debris on the bank incase any of his other possessions had made it there as well, but found nothing else.

Einar dragged himself back over to the box elder tree and dropped the boots, knowing that he had to find a way to open the MRE heater and get some water into it so it could begin warming up. Pressing it against the tree with his elbow he tore open the packet with his teeth, working to stuff it down into his sock before adding the water, so he might be able to hold onto it without getting burned. He also knew that the wet wool of the sock would produce a good bit of steam while in contact with the bag of boiling water, and something told him that perhaps the best way for him to gain a little heat from the thing was to breathe as much of that steam as he could. He saw that the nail he had driven into the tree was still dripping sap, and kicked the tin can from the backpack under it before stumbling up the bank towards the nearest evergreen, wanting to be off the icy rocks when he sat down. Up under the spruce, Einar kicked a trench into the deep, dry duff and struggled out of his sodden clothes, knowing he had nothing dry to put on but pretty sure that the wet cloth was probably pulling the heat out of him faster than if he was wearing nothing at all. Sucking some of the remaining water from the water bladder he spit it into the heater, pressing it between his stiff hands and waiting for it to begin reacting. It seemed forever that he waited to begin seeing steam or feeling warmth, and he was not entirely sure what he would do if it ended up not working but thought that it would probably involve some serious and long-term sleep. Soon. But nothing was wrong with the heater and the sock soon began warming and steaming, and Einar, burrowed two feet down in the duff, curled up and held it close to his body, breathing the steam and knowing that he was probably burning his hands a bit, but not caring. As the sock began drying he put more water on it to keep the steam going, thinking that perhaps if he had ten more of them, he might actually have a chance. He was shivering again though, which he had all but ceased before, and knew that he had better eat if he wanted to be able to keep it up long enough to do him any good. Pulling the sweatshirt into his little shelter he fumbled at the wire ties that held shut the pocket, frustrated that his hands were still unable to do the task and finally resorting to pulling them off with his teeth. The sardines were still there, the can a bit dented from the ride down the river but not breached. With one of the nails that he had also stowed in the pocket he eventually managed to hook the little pull tab and get the can open, and lay there eating sardines and shivering as the MRE heater released the last of its energy and began cooling. Retrieving the sardines had reminded him of the waterproof match holder in the other pocket, saw that it was still there, and wondered if he would be able to strike one. He was pretty sure that he could, with enough effort, and there were plenty of dry dead sticks within reach on the branches above him. He could get a big fire going there under the tree, dry his clothes, begin to get warm. Yeah. A big, smoky fire, right here by the river If one thing was clear in Einars cold, foggy brain, it was the fact that he was being pursued, and that he did not want to live if he was captured. But I do want to live Working on it. Im working on it. When the heater at last ceased to impart enough warmth to keep the sock steaming Einar struggled to his feet, rounded up the scattered remains of his gear and stuffed them, including the sodden elk hide, into the pack, which felt like it weighed well over fifty pounds though he knew it could not possibly be anywhere near that heavy. The little tin

can was by that time nearly half full of sweet sap, which he quickly drank before stowing the can in the pack. He waited until the last minute to get back into his wet clothes, dreading the moment and stuffing the still-warm sock and heater down in the ski pants so that it sat over the small of his back and continued to warm him a bit. Glancing around the rocky bank, he took some satisfaction in seeing that, with the exception of the hole he had scratched under the spruce, he was not leaving behind much sign of his presence. Einar started out up the bank in the waning light of the evening, weak and nauseous and beyond exhausted, but at least warm enough to feel cold. There was hope.

Stumbling along the low, rocky ridge at the top of the riverbank, Einar worked his way toward the meadow he intended to cross, using all the concentration he could muster in an effort to leave as little sign as possible. He was not finding it possible to move very quickly, was forced to the ground by bouts of dizziness whenever he tried to maintain even a moderate pace, and had to settle for stumbling along like someone in a dream, maintaining a tenuous hold on reality by continually reminding himself of the need to step carefully and avoid scuffing the ground or stepping on soft soil. He finally reached the edge of a band of large rocks and aspens that hugged the bottom of the little ridge, dropping into a crouch beside a granite boulder for a moment of rest before starting across the meadow. He wished he still had the coyote skin over moccasins to put on his boots for crossing the meadow, which he could see was in places damp and even muddy, but they had been lost in the river and he was fairly certain he lacked the dexterity to create new ones. And he knew it would be dangerous to stop long enough to try, as the chilly breeze on his wet clothing was making things increasingly difficult, even when he was moving. The small rest was a welcome thing, though, as he had been having increasing difficulty catching his breath and had been bothered more and more by disturbing feelings of tightness in his chest. Continuing, he felt a bit steadier for having paused to breathe for a minute. Aware that he was becoming progressively clumsier and worried about safely crossing the soft ground of the meadow, he was glad to discover a well used elk trail that cut through the grass. Following it and carefully avoiding the muddy areas, he stepped from one grass hummock to another, knowing that he was mashing them down but hoping this might be mistaken for wear from the repeated tramplings of the elk. As he approached the trees on the far side of the meadow the ground began rising and becoming drier and rockier, and he left the elk trail, heading for a thick stand of aspens under which he could see that the ground once again became a boulder field. Before stepping off onto the rocks, he stopped and, leaning heavily on a tree for balance, did his best to dry the moisture of the meadow from the soles of his boots so as not to leave damp tracks on the boulders. Once Einar reached the dark timber above the boulder field he relaxed a bit, sinking to the ground for a moments rest and knowing that he was about to head up into country that he had so far not set foot in during his time on the run. He hoped that by doing so, he

might be leaving his pursuers behind to continue searching the area between Lizs valley and the one he was now crossing. It had been an enormous swatch of high rugged land, but perhaps not large enough, with the increased focus they were certain to be putting on the search since the helicopter went down. His immediate intention, if he could make it, was to get at least halfway up the ridge that loomed above him before stopping for the night, at which point the knew he would have to attempt a fire, if he wanted any chance of seeing morning. He was just too cold to sit for any length of time without one, and far too weary, he knew, to go on walking all night. The energy just wasnt there. It seemed reasonable to him that if by sometime around dusk he had not begun hearing helicopters, he could take that to mean that they did not discover his raid on the camp that evening, and that he would probably have until morning to rest and enjoy a fire. If he was even capable of making one. He was not sure, but was certain that he had been crouching far too long on the cold ground thinking about it. Get up. Now. And he dragged himself to his feet, heading up the steep slope into the dark timber. As soon as Einar began climbing the strange fluttery feelings and occasional pain in his chest returned, this time accompanied by a cough that could not quite seem to keep up with a growing feeling of congestion in his lungs, slowing him even further. He could not seem to catch his breath even when he stopped to rest, and wondered if he had inhaled too much water again going down the river, but certainly did not remember doing so. Something else must be going on. Youre falling apart here, Einar. Things are falling apart Some time later after slowly ascending several hundred feet from the valley floor, Einar began noticing a number of large boulders protruding from the forest floor, some leaning against each other to create sheltered spots beneath. It was by that time nearly dark, and he began searching seriously for a place to shelter for the night. A large, leaning slab of granite finally provided him the refuge he sought, the cave-like space beneath it surrounded by sizeable boulders and heavy timber that would help hide the light of his fire from anyone in the meadow below. Crawling into the protected space, Einar found the floor to be dry and rocky, with numerous packrat droppings in one corner that looked like they had been there for some time. Searching in a dark crack between two boulders he found, as he had hoped, the packrat nest, which consisted of several cubic feet of small, dry sticks and shredded aspen bark. May just have a fire yet. He shoved some rocks together to form a rough fire circle, and kicked the contents of the nest into it, his hands still practically immobile from the cold. Fumbling with some of the shredded bark he rolled it on the ground until its fibers were separated and fluffy, returning it to the center of the nest for tinder. Outside the shelter, he collected some dry spruce branches, kicking at them to break them from the trees and pushing them back to the shelter with his feet. It had not taken long after he stopped moving for the feeble amount of heat his motion had been generating to dissipate, chilling him further, but to his dismay he found that instead of beginning to shiver harder, he was just growing quickly stiffer and more clumsy. Better hurry with that fire Which of course he could not really do. Finally the time came for him to attempt striking a match, after removing the threaded lid of the little container with his teeth, but Einar found himself entirely unable to grip a match, let alone strike it. After several tries and several lost matches that had fallen and rolled off into the growing darkness, he slumped over against the rock wall of his shelter,

worn out and discouraged, wondering what other options he might have. He knew he had neither the time to make a bow and drill setup nor the dexterity to hope to operate it, but also knew that he must not continue dropping matches, because he only had a few left, and could not hope to find the lost ones until morning. A hazy idea came to him, seemed worth trying, and he got a good bundle of shredded bark tinder from the fire ring, dropped it on a slab of spruce bark that he had found, and with painstaking difficulty got a match positioned on a flat rock just above it. Putting a slab of bark over the back half of the match and clamping it down with his left foot, he tried to grab a small slab of rough sandstone in his right hand but could not get the hand to close, finally managing to grip it between his thumb and the side of his hand. He struck the match, too hard, only to have the head come off and go rolling away across the rock. More careful on the second try he was successful, watching the match flare into flame before raising his foot to allow it to drop into the little nest of tinder, where it quickly took. Clumsily he picked up the bark slab by pressing its two ends between nearly useless hands, carried it over to the waiting packrat nest and tipped it in, collapsing on the ground and blowing it to life. He lay there watching the lively flames for a minute before getting up to add some sticks and remove his drenched and icy clothes, spreading them on nearby rocks to begin drying. A dimly remembered bit of information drifted into Einars cold brain that told him it would be a bad idea to get too close to the fire at first, since this could send the cold blood in his extremities circulating too quickly and shock his heart, but he didnt know how close was too close, and the warmth of the flames felt so awfully good that before long he was huddling over the little fire, adding wood and holding his stiff hands over its heat. Before long his enjoyment of the fire was cut short by a terrible dizziness, and he rolled onto his back and lay on the rock slab for a good while as his heart raced alarmingly, too dizzy to move and feeling like he was about to pass out every time he raised his head. Eventually his head began feeling a bit clearer and he sat up, leaning back against the boulder behind him, afraid to get too close to the fire lest he experience another such incident. He did not know how many of them his heart could take, and did not want to press the matter. He knew he must get warm, though, knew that sitting five feet back from a tiny fire in the night air while leaning on a cold chunk of granite was not going to do it. Fumbling with the ski pants he found the sock that the MRE heater had been wrapped in and used it to pick up one of the smaller rocks that made up his little firepit, shoving it over to the spot where he had been lying, repeating this until he had gathered a number of them. Throwing his wet sweatshirt on the pile of hot rocks, he rolled over on top of it, lying on his back with the steaming sweatshirt under his torso. Einar lay there for a time with his hands in his armpits and the steam rising around him as he began warming and eventually shaking violently, finally deciding that he was warm enough to try sitting by the fire again. I hope Approaching the fire carefully and sitting down at a respectful distance Einar shivered in its warmth, waiting to see if he would start getting dizzy again, and gradually moving closer as nothing bad seemed to be happening. When his hands had limbered up enough

to manage it he retrieved the tin can from the pack, scooped up some crusty snow from a little bank that remained in the shadow of one of the rocks that composed his shelter, and set it to heat. He stretched the soles of his feet out towards the fire, seeing that they were cracked and bleeding again and glad that temperatures were not getting down as low as they had been a month ago, or he knew he would be losing toes for sure. Frostbite or not, though, the feet were cracked and painful and, with only one sock and a lot of distance to cover still, he knew he had better do what he could for them. Rummaging in the pack, he found the empty sardine can, a bit of oil clinging still in its corners, and worked to rub it into the worst areas of his feet. Checking his clothes he found that they had barely begun to warm, let alone dry, and he moved them a bit closer to the fire, wondering if he could use hot rocks to hurry things along a bit. He ended up wrapping the sweatshirt around several of the hot firepit rocks and gradually streaming it dry, continuing to breathe the steam as he worked and beginning to feel a bit better as he did. The wool boot liners he held over the fire occasionally to speed up the drying of the densely felted wool, dropping a hot rock into them from time to time and watching the steam rise out, but he knew that the synthetic ski pants would just end up full of holes, if he tried the same thing with them. His only hope of drying the pants seemed to be to keep the fire going, and continue turning them over from time to time. Sometime in the middle of the night the shirt was finally dry enough to put on, and Einar sat there by the fire in the dry shirt, a hot rock wrapped in the sock and pressed against his chest beneath it, sighing and feeling like he had suddenly discovered the very height of luxury and comfort. What could possibly be better Sleep. Sleep could be better. He wanted to sleep, badly needed to sleep, but made himself stay awake and continue feeding the fire, knowing that he had only until daylight to finish drying his clothes, before he must put out the fire. Possibly less time, if they should for some reason choose to mount an air search near the river that night. Please, no I could sure use a few hours.

It was well after daylight when Einar heard the first helicopter down by the river and knew his previous days activity at the federal camp must finally have been discovered and reported. He lay curled around a pile of still warm rocks on the ground where his fire had been, having scraped away its coals sometime in the early morning when he decided it must be put out, and laid down with the hope of getting a bit of actual sleep before he had to move on. He had managed, by keeping the fire going nonstop until the sky began graying, to dry his boot liners thoroughly and the ski pants nearly so, and to warm himself fairly well by keeping rocks constantly heating in the fire and frequently changing out the ones he had in the pockets of his sweatshirt and held against himself in the sock. Also, he had been drinking numerous cans of warmed water as he sat by the fire, the hydration helping him perhaps even more than the warmth of the water in his stomach. He had not realized until then how very dehydrated he must have allowed himself to become, but, hoping to avoid slipping right back into it, had melted a good quantity of snow and nearly filled the water bladder for use after he no longer had access to the fire.

Now, with lightand a helicopterin the sky, he knew it was time to move on, to put several ridges between himself and that meadow before seriously seeking a place where he could hunker down for a time and rest. It certainly seemed easier said than done though, because between the beating he had taken in the river, the ensuing struggle with hypothermia from which he had certainly not yet entirely recovered and several hours spent lying on the hard rock floor of his shelter, it was all he could do to sit up, let alone drag himself around the camp and prepare to leave. For a good while he just sat there rubbing his cramping legs and trying to restore a bit of flexibility to his battered body, finally managing to haul himself to his feet. Movement hurt some, but he made himself keep at it, stiffly dragging himself from one task to the next as he searched the corners of the shelter for the matches he had lost the previous evening, rolled up the elk hide and reinserted his dry boot liners, which he had been wearing as he slept, into his icy boot shells. As he went about the simple tasks he had set for himself, Einar had an increasing inclination to huddle down on the slightly warm patch of rock where the fire had been and slip into a stupor, caught himself crouching there more than once staring off into the dark corners of the rock lean-to without a thought in his head and with even less desire to move, and he finally decided that if he wanted to keep going that morning, he must eat his one remaining item of food, the orange from the federal camp. He was just pushing the limits of his depleted energy stores a bit too closely and could tell that he needed some help if he wanted to maintain consciousness much longer, let alone head on up the ridge. The orange, a little Clementine, had frozen, of course, but he finally got the peel off and stuffed a section of it in his mouth, finding its benefit to be immediate. He stashed the orange peel in his pocket, not wanting to leave it where his pursuers, if they should trail him that far, might easily be able to spot it and recognize it as being from the camp, and thinking that he might find a use for it later. He actually did not even have to think about the first part, having years ago made it a habit not to leave anything, be it metal or plastic trash, wrappers, or even biodegradable items like egg shells or banana peels, behind as he traveled through the woods. It had always made him cringe when people he hiked with tended to do so with impunity. Why deliberately leave a big old sign that says I was here he would think to himself, but did not say it out loud after seeing the blank stares on his companions faces the first time he mentioned it. To him, it was a basic operational security measure that seemed a matter of simple common sense. Just one of a long list of reasons why he had, in his prior life, nearly always ended up hiking alone. Which had been just fine with him, anyway. Continuing to eat as he finished loading his few possessions into the coyote skin, Einar was at last ready to move on, and did so, having not heard the chopper in over ten minutes and hoping, that it would, for the time at least, be staying over near the river. Having been pounded and bruised by logs and rocks as he rode the river, he was not especially steady on his feet that morning and was again having some trouble with the previously injured hip, but he was able to keep on his feet and hold up under the modest load of his few supplies as he started out beneath the dark timber. Another day

Not too far up the slope, taking a little break in a patch of sun at the edge of a small clearing with the intention of finding a suitable stick to take some of the load off of his aching hip, Einar spotted a good sized patch of stinging nettle shoots, only a few inches high and glowing with the brilliant, deep green that distinguished nettles in the spring. Stopping, he began collecting the nettles with the aid of his sock and stuffing them into the pack, knowing that they would make him a decent meal that night, assuming he was again able to have a fire. As he harvested the little nettles, Einar accidentally stung his hand on one of the stems, realizing that, along with the considerable pain of the sting, the feeling seemed to be returning to his hand which had previously been nearly numb with cold. He grabbed a nettle with his other hand, wondering if he had perhaps unintentionally discovered a good way to get the blood flowing again in his stiff hands and make them more useful. Several minutes later he had decided that this was, indeed, the case, as he was finding his hands a good bit more flexible than before. He supposed the stings must somehow stimulate circulation, and wondered if they might be used to help his damaged feet, as well. Continuing to gather the shoots, he decided to experiment with this idea later that night, after he had hopefully settled in somewhere. Sure wouldnt want to eat them raw though, even if they did warm me up insidethat sounds like a real bad idea! He knew, though, that the formic acid that made the nettles sting, incidentally the same compound that an ant injects when it bites, would be easily destroyed by a couple of minutes of boiling, leaving him with a tasty green vegetable that was composed of over ten percent protein, the most contained by any leafy green. The leaves also had a high amount of vitamin C, calcium, and B vitamins as well as potassium and phosphorous, and, most importantly, contained a good bit more iron than spinach. Einar was sure that he must be anemic, as starved as he was, and that this condition must be contributing greatly to his constant state of exhaustion. Steamed nettles, boiled nettles, nettle teahe knew he had just stumbled upon a very useful source of nutrients, and collected a large bundle of the shoots before moving on, taking the time also to gather a number of last years old, dead stalks for cordage, which he knew he would have to get busy making as soon as he was at a more established location. The nettles, though, as beneficial as they would be, certainly would not be a long term substitute for the serious nutritionfat, calories, proteinhe needed to stay alive and begin building up his strength, and the thoughts of cordage had reminded him that he had lost his snares as well as all of the remaining cable strands and the large cable coil, to the river. He had nothing, then, aside perhaps from the bowstring that remained coiled in his pocket, with which to make snares. And the bow itself had been lost in the water. He told himself that he would make nettle snares as soon as he had the opportunity, would set up some deadfalls at his next camp, but in the back of his mind he knew that his life was precariously balanced at best, that the loss of the snares might well be the thing that finally tipped it irreversibly in the wrong direction. Get those thoughts out of your head, Einar. Not useful. You got distance to cover, a lot of work to do once you get to another safe spot. Gonna feast on nettles tonight.

When the two agents at the camp by the cliffs woke the following morning and realized they had been robbed, they put in a call over the radio and a search was quickly underway, two FBI trackers being brought in by helicopter from the command post at Culver Falls, along with over seventy armed agents to help comb the ridge for Einar. Which they did quite thoroughly, quickly trampling the ground and generally making working conditions miserable for the trackers, who still ended up finding enough sign of Einars passage to be fairly certain he had been heading for the river. Slowly walking the riverbanks, having finally prevailed on the powers that be to allow them a good distance out front of the bulk of the search party so the ground would not be trampled beyond recognition by the time they reached it, the two men discovered the log and the partial boot print Einar had accidentally left in the little patch of snow in the shadow of the treebridges roots. They did not even have to look twice at the high, icy log to know that they had no interest in attempting to cross it, and instead radioed for the chopper, climbing to an open, rocky knoll to meet it and be ferried across the river to a little meadow some distance from its banks on the far side. Making their way back to the river bank on the far side and working their way up to the terminus of the log bridge, the trackers found no sign at all of Einar. They were about to move on when one of the men noticed an odd, ice encrusted shape adhering to the side of the log, about halfway across. Thinking he saw a bit of orange through the ice, he quickly confirmed his suspicion with binoculars, still unwilling to risk the walk out across the log to investigate further. As neither the trackers nor the FBI agents participating in the ground search that morning were equipped with technical climbing gear of any description, and only a few had more than a passing knowledge of its use, Mountain Rescue was called in for technical assistance on retrieving the item in question. A team of seven volunteers responded, a team which included Allan and Liz, but not Bill, who was understandably inclined to stick a bit close to home for a few days following the foiled federal raid on his home. The volunteers quickly set up a belay and sent a man out across the log to fetch what turned out to be a good sized scrap of orange cloth. The discovery of what was clearly a piece of a much worn set of prison coveralls, combined with the complete lack of tracks and sign on the far side of the river, was enough to convince most of the agents that the subject of their search had, indeed, gone into the water. Liz, waiting with the other volunteers to see if their further services would be required, watched from a distance and listened as the agents discussed the next phase of the search. Splitting the main search force up into two groups, they decided to walk the banks on each side of the river to search for any sign of the fugitive, at the same time putting in a call to the swiftwater rescue team from the adjoining county whose assistance they had previously recruited in searching a different river for Einars remains. The general consensus among the agents was that their search had just become a recovery mission, though they were certainly not willing to take this for granted, having wrongly believed such things more than once during the course of the manhunt. Liz watched the goings on with a knot in her stomach, wondering what Einars chances could possibly be if he had, indeed, gone into that water. She wanted to do something, anything, wanted to hurry down there and walk those banks herself, but had to wait along with the others while the feds planned and organized their search efforts.

When she glanced at Allan, looking perhaps for a bit of reassurance, for some reason to hope, he just shook his head and stared down at the roaring torrent with its churning cargo of logs and branches and crushed ice. I dont think so, Liz. I sure wouldnt want to end up in there. And I heard one of the trackers say that he was pretty sure the boot print they found over on the other side was made sometime yesterday. So even if he made it out of the river, hes been out there all night Liz nodded, knowing the implications and fighting to keep ahold of herself, wishing that she did not have to be there when they found the body. She knew, though, that she must do her best to appear normal and participate in the search in whatever capacity the other volunteers were called on to assist. When the swiftwater rescue team arrived Liz, Allan and the other Lakemont County volunteers mostly just observed and helped some with rigging, lacking the training and experience to participate on a more active basis with the operation. Though after several hours no sign was found of a body, several items, including an MRE and a packet of Ramen noodles were discovered at various points along the river, reinforcing the belief that Einar had indeed gone in the water. Liz knew that the fact that no body had turned up certainly did not mean that there was not one, especially under the sort of conditions presented by that snowmelt-swollen river, but the longer the search went on without any sign of Einar, the more she allowed herself to begin hoping. Allan glanced at her. I can see you thinking, Liz. What? Think we ought to take off and go look for him? Liz frowned. That was, in fact, exactly what she had been thinking, though she had certainly not intended on mentioning it to anyone. Allan, he had to be pretty desperate to take things from that camp, I mean, to take that chance. And if he went in this river She shook her head, stared at the water for minute. I just wish we had a way to get some of this stuff to him, if hes out there, she waved her hand, indicating the well-stocked packs carried by each of the volunteers. Yeah, hed be needing it, alright, if he Liz, you know the chances are like zero that he would have lasted the night, right? And thats if he even made it out of the water. Which is not all that likely. I mean, look at those logs, and then there are the submerged rocks, tree snags, heck, this water is moving so fast that its dragging rocks along with it. Hear that? Thats rocks scraping along the bottom and bouncing off other rocks. Its moving that fast. He looked at her, saw that her eyes were bright with tears that she resolutely refused to allow to fall as she stared at the water, and decided that perhaps he had gone too far. He hadnt seen any sense in letting her build up too much false hope, though, and he did indeed believe it to be false. And, if he had been willing to admit it, maybe he resented this probably dead guy just a bit, resented that he, or his memory, anyway, seemed to be keeping him, Allan, from getting anywhere within ten feet of Liz, who he thought he really might like to get to know a bit better, if she had not insisted on being so steadfastly distant around him all the time. Oh well, it is what it is. And now Ive gone and upset

her. You know though, he said, I guess Ill come with you, if you want to give it a go. Looking for Einar, I mean. Liz glanced up warily at Allan, almost taking him up on his offer before reconsidering. No. If their trackers cant find him, how can we expect to? And even if we somehow did, we would probably just end up leading the feds to him. Thank you, though. Hey Liz Allan knew he was pushing his luck, but decided to try anyway, Ive got to know. That Sunday last winter when you got to church late and asked me all those questions about nutritional deficiencies and suchwas Einar She dismissed the question with a wave of her hand before he could even finish asking it. That was just idle curiosity on my part, Allan. Im a very curious person, you know! He rolled his eyes. Yes, Liz, that you are. Liz, watching as the search of the river went on around them, sent up a silent prayer for Einar, doing the only thing she knew to do for him under the circumstances. Help him, please. Give him whatever he needs most today. Keep him out of their hands, and in Yours

What Einar needed most at that moment, at least as far as he could tell, was something to eat. His progress had become maddeningly slow due to the increasingly frequent need to stop and rest, just to let his head clear and allow the growing blackness that welled up and threatened to blot out his vision to subside enough that he could see to continue. He had finished climbing one ridge and followed a narrow, rocky gorge for awhile as it steadily gained elevation, liking the fact that he could keep on the rocks and leave minimal sign by doing so. Eventually though it grew too steep for him to continue in, was in fact close to ending in a dry waterfall type of formation, and he began seeking a way up out of it, prevented by his injured shoulder from doing much actual climbing or even scrambling. Finally he found a rockslide that was slightly less steep and allowed him passage, taking the rocks one at a time with a step grown increasingly heavy as the day wore on. Reaching the top and walking out onto the steep, treed slope he sat down to rest, able with the elevation he had gained to look out at the valley and even see a small area of the meadow, over by the river. He could see no activity, save for a Huey that appeared to be following the course of the river, nose pointed down. Still focused over there, seems like. Good. From his vantage point, Einar could see a rocky escarpment about halfway up a nearby ridge, and hoping to find shelter for the night and concealment for the fire he hoped very much to have, he traversed the ridge he was on, heading for those rocks and not knowing that his immediate plans were about to change in rather a big way.

Einar had worked his way back to a point almost directly above the dry waterfall formation that had ended his travel along the gulley floor, struggling to maintain his footing on the steep, slick, needle-covered ground when he saw what looked like a small, light colored deer, lying on the rocks below him, its head bent back. Hanging onto a little spruce for balance he leaned out to get a better look, unsure at that distance exactly what the creature was, but quite certain that it was dead. He knew coyotes occasionally worked together to drive an animal over a cliff like that, allowing them to kill something that would otherwise have been beyond their means to take down. More than once he had found the picked-over bones of such an unfortunate creature at the base of a drop. From his perch high above the gulley floor, he could not of course tell how long the carcass might have lain there, but the fact that it appeared fairly intact gave him cause for hope that it was recent enough to do him some good. And at this point Im gonna be eating it, even if have to fight (or eat!) the maggots to get at it. He didnt expect to have to contend too heavily with maggots just yet, though. It was still too early in the season. The carcass appeared to have come to rest on a step in the dry waterfall formation, an area of rock roughly ten by thirty with the sheer main drop of the falls above it and a smaller one beneath, and he hoped very much that he would find it within his ability to climb up that shorter drop below the step and get at the meat. There might well be a good reason that the scavengers had so far left it alone. Searching unsuccessfully for a closer way down to the gulley floor, Einar ended up having to retrace his steps and descend the steep rockslide, which seemed to be one of the few access points that allowed passage around its nearly sheer rock walls. Reaching the bottom of the first step, which consisted of a steep, water-polished section of rock, he began looking for a way to the top that did not involve attempting to haul himself up thirty feet of slick rock. On the right side, where the waterfall course met the canyon wall, there was a narrow crack out of which grew a few gooseberry shrubs and a stunted fir or two, and Einar focused on this as his potential access. The rock was steep but not, thankfully, actually vertical in the area of the crack, which was just wide enough for Einar to jam the toe of his boot into for some leverage. Very slowly he made his way up the crack, wishing he had the use of both arms but finding the left nearly useless due to the shoulder injury. The pain of attempting to use the injured arm and the exertion of the climb several times brought blackness welling up in front of his eyes and a hissing to his ears, forcing him to lean into the rock, sticking his arm into the crack and twisting until his hand and elbow locked it in place, most of his weight hanging from the arm as struggled to get his buckling legs back beneath him. Sick and dizzy, he rested his forehead on the cold rock until he could go on, hoping desperately that he would make it to the top without actually losing consciousness. Alternately jamming one foot then the other into the crack, grabbing the edge of the rock and occasionally a bit of brush to help himself along, Einar reached the top of the ascent, rolling over a ring of rocks at the rim and collapsing on the flat, water-polished surface, promptly passing out. He came to some minutes later when a raven landed on his boot,

opening his eyes and squinting at the bird, keeping himself very still and wondering, desperate for food and for the moment having forgotten about the carcass, if perhaps he could move quickly enough to catch it. A ridiculous notion, as he quickly discovered when he attempted it, sitting up way too fast and nearly tumbling back down the way he had come, as his head spun with dizziness. Quickly he rolled over and dragged himself further away from the dropoff, suddenly remembering why he had made the climb and searching the rocky ledge for his deer carcass, or whatever it had been. He realized the raven must have been there after it, and hoped the winged scavengers had left him something. He could see no sign of it, dragged himself to his feet and headed for the vertical expanse of the upper waterfall, finally seeing a bit of tan hair and a small hoof sticking out from behind some rocks. The creature, as it turned out, was a young bighorn sheep ewe, not very big but also, from the look and smell of it, not too long dead. The ravens and perhaps other winged scavengers had done a small amount of damage, but there was plenty of meat left. Einar rose and looked back down the crack he had ascended, wondering what his chances would be of getting the entire carcass down that drop. He wished he could just roll it down over the edge and collect it below, but the smooth face of the lower fall was broken by several small ledges, and studying them, Einar saw that the sheep was almost certain to hang up on one of those ledges if he let it drop. It would then be hopelessly beyond his reach, unless he wanted to try a difficult and risky climb up the slick rock, and in all likelihood a nasty drop back to the rocky ground below. Sure wish I had a ropecould keep tossing it down and hauling it up until it made it all the way down. Lacking that, his best option seemed to be quartering the animal or cutting it up in way he was able, given the limited tools he had to work with, and taking it down the way he had come up, loading whatever would fit in the pack and making several trips. Working to sharpen the steel bar that was his only knife on a rock, Einar remembered the entrenching tool, took it out of the pack and removed the saw from its place inside the handle, thinking that it ought to prove quite useful when it came to severing tendon, and that the shovel itself ought to do quite nicely for breaking bone, if he should need to do so. The internal organs of the animal, unfortunately, were green and soft and degraded to a degree that Einar knew he must not attempt to eat them raw, if at all. Thats too bad. Sure could have used the fat in that liver. But much of the meat seemed just fine, and he looked forward to mutton with his nettles that night. As he worked, something kept bothering Einar, a little warning in the back of his mind that kept gnawing at him and demanding his attention, but which he could not seem to pin down firmly enough to discover its origin. He wished his mind would be just a bit clearer, but knew that might not happen until he got some serious food and sleep. Tonight, maybe The feeling kept him on edge, though, pausing at random intervals to look up and listen for he knew not what. A trickle of water, tracing its way down the smooth rock above him, pooling in a little crevice and dripping coldly on his head, finally made clear to Einar just what had been bothering him. He was, obviously, standing in a watercourse, and one that clearly flowed quite heavily at some point during the year, if the banks of accumulated sticks and branches and red silt that lined the sides of the little canyon were any indication. The thing had not begun flowing yet, but only, he now

realized, due to the colder temperatures of the higher elevation. At some point when enough snow melted above it, the waterfall and gulley would almost certainly be flowing with a fury similar to that of the river in the valley, if only for a few days. He knew that, barring an almost unprecedented sudden thaw up high, he did not have to worry about being caught unawares by a torrent of water suddenly descending the gorge, as he might have expected in a desert canyon during a rainstorm. No, the water would come slowly but steadily, increasing as the sunny portion of the day wore on and diminishing some overnight. Comforting as it was to know that he was probably not about to be washed over the dropoff by a sudden flood, Einar saw that the little trickle was increasing, that trickles were appearing at other points across the high rock face and beginning to drip steadily near the sheep carcass, and he knew that he had better find some way to get the meat out of there fairly quickly if he wanted to avoid getting it, and himself, soaked. Which he very much wanted to do. Sure would rather not start the night all wet again. Lets try and wait a few days, at least. Need some sleep. And the prospect of attempting to descend the thirty feet of slick rock below him, even with the assistance of the crack, when it was wet with melt water and all the slicker, did not especially appeal to him. He hurried, finally getting one hind quarter separated and loaded in the pack, but, stopping to listen before beginning the descent, he thought he could hear the distant rumble of a helicopter. There was only one place on the ledge that offered concealment from the air, consisting of a little overhang to the left of the waterfall. He crawled under it, sure by that time that a chopper was approaching, and waited as it skimmed the opposite ridge, hoping that what he was seeing was simply part of a routine search of the area, and not an indication that they had picked up his trail across the meadow. Not wanting to be trapped there as the flow of water increased, he thought briefly of hurrying over to the crack and trying to get down while the chopper was focused on a different ridge, but he knew any such descent would mean at least tem minutes of slow down climbing on some very exposed terrain, at best. Wait. Before long, watching the chopper, he became reasonably certain that they had no solid idea of what they were looking for, as it followed one ridge for awhile, doubled back and scanned a valley, then did a tight zigzag for a while on a timber-covered slope. The thing was not going away, though, and after waiting under the ledge for over half an hour, Einar was getting seriously concerned about the amount of water that was coming over the waterfall. The entire surface of the large ledge was by that time wet, if not from direct contact with the water then from its splashing, and, though Einar had so far been able to keep himself dry by huddling up against the rock wall and shielding himself from the splashing water with his pack, he could see that even this would not protect him for much longer. He could see that years of falling water had worn the rock away some towards the center of the ledge, leaving a slight depression that was rapidly becoming a pool. It would not make a very deep pool, as the water would spill over the side before that time, but looking at it, he was pretty sure that it would reach his little shelter before spilling over, leaving him stuck lying in the water if that chopper stayed around too long. And then having to somehow make his way across a slick ledge covered with flowing water before descending the crack. Which, for all he knew, might be flowing by that time, too. Go away, you buzzard!

As the afternoon wore on, the helicopter continued its slow, methodical search of the surrounding area, preventing Einar from leaving the shelter of the little rock crevice beside the waterfall, which was by late afternoon running quite vigorously with the days melt water. As the sound of the water increased from a trickle and a drip to a lively chorus of splashing and finally to a roar as the water volume increased, he was prevented from hearing the chopper, but if he poked his head out from under the rock, he could usually see it, focusing its attention on one ridge or another. He had very much hoped that his unwelcome dunking in the river would have at least left the feds, if they managed to track him down to its edge, believing he had perished in its icy grip. Judging by the actions of the chopper, it had not gone that way. They must not have found the place where I came out of the water, though, because if they had, they probably would have tracked me across that meadow, and this air search would be a lot more focused on my position by this time. As careful as he had tried to be in concealing his passage through the meadow and up the forested ridge beyond, he realized, looking back, that he had barely been aware or in control of his own actions at times during that journey. It had been all he could do to keep on his feet and continue putting one foot in front of the other, let alone keep vigilant about not leaving sign. Still, it looks like they did not pick up my trail, after the river. All he could think was that perhaps the years of consistent and deliberate trainingin which he had treated nearly every walk in the woods, hike and hunting trip as a training exercise, picking a scenario and working it like his life depended on ithad paid off, and that when it really mattered, he had done automatically what he had lacked the wherewithal to do with deliberation. Hope so, because I was really out of it back there Einar wanted to go out and get the rest of the sheep, fearing that it might be carried away by the water if the flow became much heavier and fairly certain that he could still make it over to the carcass without being knocked off his feet by the force of the water, but he could see that doing so would mean getting thoroughly drenched, as it sat just behind where the bulk of the spray was hitting the ledge. Knowing that he could not have a fire as long as that chopper buzzed the nearby ridges and valleys and lacking the room in the confined space of the crevice to even be able to remove his clothes prior to the trip to keep them dry, Einar decided against making the attempt. He had the rear quarter of the animal that he had finished removing and stowed in his pack just before the chopper made its appearance, and if he ended up losing the rest of the meat, that would just have to do. He was well aware that he had never warmed up entirely after his struggle with the river, as was made clear by the fact that he had begun shivering again almost as soon as he had stopped climbing. The prospect of lying still in the little crevice, drenched and pressed up against the cold rock for some undefined period of time after dragging the sheep from beneath the waterfallhe just didnt know if he could survive such a thing for long, at that point. In fact, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to go on lying there at all, as the pervasive damp chill of the place and the constant breeze from the falling water combined with the bottomless heat sink of the enormous mass of limestone on which he lay to draw the warmth out of him at an alarming rate. He was not

sure though, as he lay there shivering, what other option he might have at the moment. At least the water in the little pool had not, as he had feared, actually reached the level of his hiding place, spilling over to go cascading down the slick rock below mere inches before inundating the crevice. This had been a relief, though a short-lived one, as before long the increasing flow of the water began dragging along silt and sticks and branches from above, and he watched the debris build up against the rocks at the edge of the dropoff, slowly raising the level of the pool. Then an entire log washed over, snagging at the brim of the lower fall and acting, along with all of the other junk, like a dam, causing more debris to be trapped and build up behind it. Einar could see that before long at all he would be lying in at least three inches of icy melt water. Feeling a bit frantic to avoid this, he began scrambling to get rocks beneath him, raising himself with one arm and sliding them under one at a time in an attempt to get himself a few inches further off the ground. There were not many rocks available within his reach, though, not nearly enough to keep him up out of the rising water, and most of them were already thoroughly wet from the spray. Twisting himself around as well as he could in the confines of the crevice, he began pulling rocks from behind him, from up against the face, finding more there but having a very difficult time maneuvering them beneath him. Already the water was lapping at his pack, trickling and oozing coldly in beneath him and beginning to soak through the ski pants at one knee where it had been scuffed and damaged, drenching one elbow and creeping up his arm. The ground rose slightly behind him, and as Einar pulled out more and more loose rocks, tossing them out into the water when they ceased fitting beneath him, he wedged himself up into the space they left behind, earning a temporary reprieve from the rising water but increasingly fearing that he might become trapped by it. Surely it will start spilling over again before then That had certainly appeared to be the most likely scenario, but as the water continued rising, he wondered. His legs were halfway submerged by that point, and his torso would have been, had he not been putting all of his strength into keeping himself raised the few inches off the ground that the cramped space would allow. The water tugged at him as it flowed past, leaving him to wonder whether he would drown first, or be washed out of the crevice and over the dropoff. Drown, I guess. The current probably wont get much stronger until the water starts spilling over, and I only have a few inches of air left, here, so by then itll be too late He knew he would not wait that long, though, would not simply lie there and drown. At some point he was going to have to make the decision to leave the crevice for air, and his intention was to do his best to grab that log that had snagged at the edge of the fall, hoping to be able to use it to pull himself over to the opposite end of the ledge and perhaps find some way out that did not involve taking the fast way to the bottom of the gulley. As he pictured the place, though, all he could see were sheer rock walls, without even so much as a gooseberry shrub for him to hang onto as he waited for the water to subside so he could descend the crack. And that water wont be going down any, until the sun goes and it cools down for the night and that snow stops melting. And Id be gone long before then, anyway. Already freezing, and that water cant be any warmer than the river was. Gonna have to try it, though, because I cant stay here. And I better do it before this water gets much deeper, if I want to keep breathing.

Squirming around in preparation for leaving the crevice, he kicked hard at the rock face behind him, startled when his feet, after knocking aside a pile of loose rock, hit a void. He pushed himself backwards, probing with his feet and finding a cavity, just large enough to cram himself into when he tried. Which he did rather quickly, pulling his nearly-floating pack in behind him, wanting to be out of the rising water and seeing that the cavity was a good bit higher than the soggy ground he had recently occupied. Huddling in the small space and watching the foamy water rise up over the rocks he had just been lying on, Einar was surprised to find that he could sit up, that the ceiling of the little cavern was in fact at least four feet from the ground. Well! Now theres no way the water should get this high! He knew that the water should not rise much above the top of the crevice before spilling over and ceasing to rise, based on the height of the dam created by the trapped log, and decided he could always duck under the water and rise to the surface if he had to. Which he ought not, even if the water did rise to the top of the crevice and cut off his supply of fresh air, as there should be enough air trapped in the little space to see him through a few hours until the water started going down for the night, if he kept still. Crouching there for a minute in the darkness, glad to be out of immediate danger of drowning but wet and beginning to be very cold indeed, he began exploring the small chamber, finding the walls to be of a rough, pitted limestone, reminiscent of some of the caves he had explored not too many miles from that area. If this is a cave, maybe it goes somewhere And he began feeling around in search of a tunnel, though he knew in all likelihood that his shelter was just a pocket hollowed out of the limestone by the action of many years of melt water. Einars search yielded nothing, and he began focusing on how he might keep himself from getting too much colder before evening came and the water receded, at which point the knew he would have to go out and find wood for a fire. If that chopper was gone. If it kept searching into the night He shook his head, shivered, prayed that it would move on before then, before he became too cold to get a fire going or to remember that he needed one. At least there was no wind in the rock shelter. Though the comfort this brought was merely intellectual. He was freezing. Einar tried everything he could think of in his attempt to hold his ground against the cold that afternoon, finally resorting to eating some of the raw sheep meat from his pack, knowing that it had been sitting for awhile and was of questionable quality, but physically unable to keep up the activity needed to maintain his temperature and unwilling to sit there and let the elements claim him without a fight. The meat, though raw and not tasting quite as fresh it might have, helped quite a bit. Sometime after dark the sound from outside the cave told him that the water was diminishing, the noise eventually quieting until it spoke to him of no more than a trickle of water making its way down the course of the waterfall. Knowing that he must have fire to make it through that night and having no wood there in the little cave, he crept down to the opening in the rock, rolled out of it and stood with difficulty, the light of a nearly full moon gleaming on the little pool of water that had been left behind by the earlier torrent, the surface of the ledge already slick and icy where the wetness had begun to freeze. The helicopter was gone, and all was silent save for the drip of water from the rock face above him. The sheep was, to his surprise and relief, still there, pinned against

the log and branch dam where it had earlier become trapped by the current. He grabbed it by the front legs, icy and waterlogged and already partially frozen to the mass of branches, and dragged it back to the crevice beneath the rock shelf, wedging it in but not blocking his access. OK, Einar. Wood. Got to have a fire, got to warm up, and you can now, since that chopper is gone. The most obvious answer was to try and descend the crack and find some dry wood in the gulley, but finding it wet and icy, he doubted his ability to make that descent without suffering a serious fall. He looked around for another way off of the ledge, but could see none.

Inspecting the ledge in the moonlight as he stomped around on the icy rock in an attempt to generate some heat, Einar realized that there was indeed wood available, and plenty of it, tangled and twisted and pressed together in the dam that had held the water that had nearly drowned him earlier that day. Trouble was, the stuff was soaking wet and icy. He kicked at the tangled mess, searching for anything that might be less than entirely water logged. The top half of a long dead spruce, apparently broken apart by the force of the water, had lodged near the edge of the dropoff, and attempting to break off one of its side branches, he was encouraged to find that the thing snapped sharply and cleanly, indicating that the tree couldnt have been in the water for too long. The bark, though, was quite soggy and beginning to freeze, and he knew that he would have to somehow get it off, if he was to get a fire going. And he entirely lacked any sort of dry tinder, doubting his hands possessed the sort of control and dexterity he would need to finely split or shave some of the drier wood into the splinters that would give him a chance of lighting a fire with one of the matches. He wished he had a little candle to light and push under the damp wood, knowing that this would in time dry it out and let it ignite. Breaking off and collecting a good bundle of branches from the dead spruce, he was about to return to the little cave when he saw that the log that had created the dam was apparently the bottom half of the dead spruce, and was covered along one side with dried blobs of sap. Breaking off a marble-sized piece and sticking it in his pocket, he searched along the trunk, finding a number of these gobs of dried pitch. All right! Got my candle. This stuff should keep my fire going long enough to dry the wood some. Assuming I can strike a match in the first place He opened and closed his stiff hands with difficulty, beating them against his legs and doubting that he would be able to grasp the match, thinking that perhaps he would have to resort to again clamping it under his foot and striking it with a rock. Hurry up. This breeze out here sure isnt helping things any. He dragged himself back into the cave, dropping the pile of sticks and hauling the coyote skin pack out into the moonlight so he could see to find the entrenching tool. He realized then that he had better plan on starting the fire under the rock shelf where the moonlight would give him enough light to see what he was doing, instead of up in the pitch black cave. Working in the darkness, he knew he would probably just lose or break most of the matches before he even got one lit. Working to split some of the drier sticks and remove their half frozen bark proved to be a slow, frustrating and largely futile endeavor for Einar, who ended up with more nicks and cuts on his hands from the saw

blade than he did pieces of split wood, finally abandoning the saw and resorting to using the barely sharp steel bar, which while it made the splitting more difficult, also did him less harm in the process. He worked with painstaking care, everything seeming to be happening in slow motion, balancing a stick on end, steadying his shaking hands enough to get the blade placed near its center, pounding with a rock until the thing either began splitting or, more likely, fell over and forced him to start all over again. After a steady ten or fifteen minutes of work he rested, cold and desperately weary, staring in dismay at his dismally small pile of crudely split sticks, each of them damp on at least one surface, knowing that they would hardly suffice to get a fire going. And most of them were not nearly fine enough for his purposes. He took a minute and tried warming his hands against his stomach to restore some flexibility, but it didnt seem to be especially warm, either, I think that should probably worry me and this had little effect. He stayed there for too many minutes just staring at the moonlight on the little pool of water, at the thin rim of ice that had formed around its edges. Hey! What are you going to do, then? Because sitting here sure isnt working. He stood slowly, stared dully around in hopes of some inspiration. Then an idea came to him. The nettles. He remembered the nettles that were to have been part of his supper, remembered their warming effect on his hands that morning when he had inadvertently stung himself collecting them, and fumbled around in the pack until he found them. At first he couldnt even feel their stings, but kept handling them until he could, slowly feeling the blood return to his hands as he did so. After that the splitting went much more quickly, and before long he had a good little stack of thinly split wood, which he began arranging on one of the drier rocks beneath the ledge, carefully placing blobs and strings of dried spruce pitch throughout the little fire teepee. Several more of these chunks he placed beneath it on the rock, intending to light them with the match, of he could hold it steady enough. In ferrying the split wood up under the ledge, Einar noticed from the deposit of silt and sticks that though the water had not quite reached the top of the little crevice that let air into his cave, it had certainly come within an inch or two. And if tomorrow happens to be a warmer day, it will come up even higher. Got to be out of here in the morning, before that water starts flowing. The nettles and the work of splitting wood had helped his hands a good bit, and Einar found himself able to hold the match to strike it, using both hands to steady it and holding his breath as he carefully slid it under his split kindling and held it to one of the pitch blobs. Which took, sizzling and sputtering as a flame slowly grew from its center and became more lively as it began to melt. Before long the little flame had climbed up into the kindling, which steamed and hissed some as the water was driven off, but eventually caught, also. Einar carefully added some of the larger sticks he had split, huddling over the fire until it seemed well enough established to safely leave before hurrying back out to the dam to break more branches from the dead spruce. These, after stripping them of their bark, he set on rocks near the fire to dry out. Conditions were damp, breezy and cramped at best under the ledge, and Einar worked to move the fire into the cave, using a burning stick with a bit of pitch on the end as a small torch to light the place as he worked. He knew that attempting to have a fire in the small cavern might just result in a quick and suffocating buildup of smoke, so he kept the fire under the ledge going for the time, incase he had to retreat there for fresh air. He really hoped it might work to have a fire in the cave, though, because he knew it would provide a bit more concealment of the

heat signature if a chopper should happen over in the night, and ought also to allow a good bit of heat to accumulate. Because I think Id kind of like to actually be warm for a few minutes, for a change. Maybe sleep some. Rather than build up in the cavern and suffocate him, Einar was delighted, though not entirely surprised, to find that the smoke was drawn rather rapidly into a tiny passage that he had previously overlooked, and carried away into the intricacies of what he had guessed might be a rather extensive underground limestone landscape. He knew from prior explorations that once the water began working on limestone, releasing carbonic acid and progressively dissolving the rock to create tunnels and caverns, it seldom stopped with one little chamber. The passage, though appearing far too small for a man to crawl through, worked quite well as a chimney, and the way it drew the smoke told Einar that somewhere in the recesses of the rock, that tunnel led to another source of outside air. In a moment of curiosity and excitement, he all but forgot that he was wet, freezing and starved and was ready to attack the wall with the entrenching tool to see if the little tunnel might be made large enough to allow him passage. Forget it, Einar. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight, dry out, get warm, rest. Some of the nettles he had earlier collected had fallen out of the pack when he had earlier removed the entrenching tool, and seeing them there on the ground by the fire reminded him that it was time to eat. Badly needing some nourishment, he set the can of water he had previously collected from the pool by the fire to heat, using the saw from the entrenching tool to carve off some chunks and shreds from the sheep haunch. Tossing them in the water, he waited for the stew to begin heating, leaning over and breathing its steam as it did. Doesnt smell bad at all. Collecting the nettles he tossed some of them in, knowing that he was about to eat the best meal hed had access to in quite some time. He was still awfully cold, though, shivering in the warmth of the fire but seeming to take forever to begin thawing out. Remembering how the nettle stings had seemed to help the circulation in his cold hands, he wondered if he could use the same idea over larger areas of his body to help him get warm, or perhaps more importantly to keep him warm that night, if the chopper came back and he had to put out his fire. He thought about it for a second before quickly tossing most of the remaining fresh nettle shoots into his cooking can to keep himself from experimenting. No, I dont think that would be a good way to keep warm. Might work, but I dont think Id like it at all. In the end it might just end up making me lose more heat, anyway, if I got the blood flowing to the skin when my body was trying to keep itself warm by concentrating the blood towards the core. But it might be useful on a small area like my feet. Have to try that, later. For the time though, the little fire was doing its job very well, the small space heating up quite nicely and Einar finding himself before long sitting in a dry shelter surrounded by sixty five degree air, relaxed and almost comfortable as he took off his wet clothes and set them to dry. The sweat shirt, unlike the insulated ski pants, had not been soaked thoroughly, and with a bit of attention was dry before too long. Einar really slept that night, for the first time in way too long, drawing his legs up inside the sweatshirt and resting his head on his knees, waking occasionally to shove more wood into the fire as it dried. He woke slowly after several hours of steady sleep to gently smoldering coals, diffused sunlight from under the ledge reflecting off the wall of the cave and the muffled sound of

roaring water from outside, realizing with a start that he had slept way too long.

Scrambling down to the space under the ledge, Einar saw that it was already nearly full of frothy brown water, lapping at the rock mere inches from the ceiling. My sheep! At first he thought it had already been swept away, but, searching, saw one hoof sticking up out of the water, the animal having hung up on a spur of rock that protruded from the face. Removing his sweatshirt to keep it dry, he struggled to float the carcass over to a place where he could pull it up out of the water, knowing that he had to get it up into the cave itself if he did not want to eventually lose it to the water. The sheep barely fit through the short tunnel, and took up rather more room in the little cave than he had anticipated, soon causing a cold, slimy puddle to accumulate on its rocky floor and sending Einar scrambling to get his nearly dry ski pants up out of the reach of the water and put on. He sat on a rock, catching his breath and contemplating the situation in the dim glow that entered through the several inches of space that still existed between the ledge and the fast-moving water outside. He had fully intended to leave the shelter of the cave sometime before the sun came up, before the water again began trickling, let alone flowing so strongly that he had no hope of crossing the ledge and descending the crack to safety. Well, I slept too long. Way too long, because it must be nearly afternoon already. Big mistake. And now, like it or not, looks like Im here for the day. And, though he was a good deal closer to the river and meadow than he had intended to be when he took more permanent shelter, Einar had to admit that he really did not mind having to spend another day in the cave. He had food, water, protection from the elements, and could look forward to another fire and some good warm sleep the following night. Though he was rather short on wood, and knew he would have to venture out when the water slowed to obtain more. He was also concerned that at some point the water would not stop at all at night, but might keep up a constant flow for a month or two. I doubt thatll happen today, though. So there should be no harm in another day or two. But after watching the water in the tunnel slowly rise as it narrowed and finally entirely blotted out the little crack of light that has been providing him his fresh air, he began to wonder about his prior confidence. For the time at least the air seemed to be holding out just fine, and he hoped that enough fresh air might be allowed in through the tiny tunnel that had acted as a chimney to keep the place from becoming too stale before the water level outside started going down. He waited there in the darkness, feeling around for his pack and taking out a chunk of sheep haunch that he had cooked over the fire and saved from the night before, very aware of his hunger after the good meal the previous night and thinking that he had better go ahead and eat as much of the sheep as he was able, in case something happened and he lost all or part of it before he could finish it. By the time he had finished his breakfast, the air was becoming rather close and stifling, and Einar decided that the little tunnel was probably not going to be much help to him, after all. In order to breathe, he supposed, the cave system must need both entrances open for air to pass through. With the outside access beneath the ledge blocked off by the flowing water, there was simply no draw to pull air through in either direction. Now, he speculated as he sat there trying to breathe slowly to conserve

oxygen, if a person had some PVC pipe with an angle joint or two in it, they could run the thing out through the tunnel and secure it to a spot on the cliff outside where the water would not reach. Youd have to find some way to paint it grey like the rock of course so it didnt show up, but with a little planning, you could turn a place like this into a really comfortable, hidden little shelter. Sitting there on the rock and trying to keep himself very still both inside and out to slow the deterioration of his air supply, Einar let his mind wander off on rabbit trails, nodding and slipping into something like sleep as he balanced on the rock. He traveled far, leaving the little cave and climbing ridge after ridge as he made his way deeper into the wilderness area, finally finding a little basin much like the one the first cabin had been in, only without a mine or cabin. There was a spring, though, and plenty of good timber, much of it already dead and leaning or recently fallen where a great wind had swept through at some point and uprooted a number of tall, straight spruces. He chose a spot up against a rocky little ridge for the cabin site, hauling the logs one by one and working them by hand with an axe as the cabin took shape. He looked around and saw that the aspen leaves were gold with autumn, and took satisfaction in knowing that the shelter would be finished and snug by the time snow fell. Turning and heading back to start work notching the next log, he picked up the axe. Which Liz must have brought when she came up, because he certainly never had one, before He wondered where she was, looked over towards the cabin and saw her there, cooking something over the fire. Einar startled awake, caught himself just before he fell off the rock. Liz was gone, and his feet were wet. He stood up, hastily splashing over to his pack and grabbing it, fumbling for the entrenching tool. The failing air supply, apparently, was not to be his greatest concern after all. It was nearly dark in the cave, but with the sun on the water outside, a tiny amount of sickly light seeped in, proving to be just enough to allow Einar to see that the water was several inches deep on the cave floor, and rising. He knew that he would probably have to duck out through the tunnel and take his chances with the waterfall outside, chances? Not much chance at all that thisll come out good, and you know it but he decided to take a minute first to see if he could make any headway in enlarging the little chimney tunnel to allow him passage. It started several feet off the ground, and he had noticed the day before that the rock in and around it was loose, and looked like it could be moved, with some effort. Prying at the rocks with the entrenching tool until one of them gave way and fell to the ground with a splash, he kept working until after a time he had the sense of a growing void in front of him, probed with his hand and found that the removal of the rocks had exposed a low crawlway, no more than one foot high and two or two and a half wide, but large enough, he thought, to accommodate him. Its walls were of rough and pitted limestone, with the little calcium protrusions here and there that told him that the tunnel was, or recently had been, part of a living cave, rather than merely being a dead-end cavity that resulted from a somewhat desperate man attacking a bunch of loose rock with a shovel. Good. This should go somewhere. And it was a good thing indeed, because as he worked, the water had risen another four or five inches with alarming speed, until it was nearly spilling over the tops of his boots. The faint light that

he had been working by was entirely gone by that point, as the brown silty water outside deepened, and Einar felt with his hands, running them up and down the rock on either side of the tunnel in an attempt to determine how high the water had previously risen in the little chamber. He wasnt sure he even wanted to try the tunnel if it was a near certainty that he was to be trapped and drowned in it. Better to take his chances with the waterfall, so he could at least take his last breath out under the sky, if it came to that. The crusty layer of dried mud, though, seemed to stop about halfway up the height of the tunnel opening, leaving him wondering whether the tunnel went up, or down Well, Ive got to try it, because even if the water comes only that high and leaves me a foot or so of breathing room here in this chamber, its feeling pretty likely that Id pass out from lack of oxygen before the water starts going down, anyway. And it was a heavy snow year, so the water could end up going higher than that old silt line, anyway, So either way, going looks like a better option than staying. After leaning heavily on the wall for a second in an attempt to catch his breath in the depleted oxygen of the little chamber, Einar felt for his pack, stowed the entrenching tool and hurriedly tied the end of his right bootlace to one of the coyote legs, hoping to be able to drag the pack behind him as he squeezed through the tunnel. The sheep remains would have to wait, as there was no way he could hope to drag them along, also, and he was glad to still have part of the sheep quarter in the pack. He was not even sure that he would be able to drag the pack, but had to try. Before tying the pack to his boot, Einar had removed several split sticks of dry wood that he had partially coated in pitch at his fire the night before, amazed that they had remained dry, stashing them in his sweatshirt pocket. He supposed he could use them as torchesvery small, temporary torches, but as they were his only potential light source, they would have to be made to do. He certainly hoped there was better air in the tunnel. Think Id give just about anything right now for a couple of lightsticks, flashlight, anything that makes light without using up air Thoughts went through his head as he pulled himself up into the little tunnel, pressing flat and dragging himself several feet in before struggling to get his right arm back behind him and pull the pack up into the passage. What if I get a good ways into this, and the water comes up and traps me at a point where I wouldnt be able to make it back out in time? Or if this little tunnel pinches down to nothing after a few yards, and I have to try and back out all the way, only to find the water all the way up to the tunnel when I get there? The questions were legitimate, he knew, but options were very limited and there was no sense delaying things any further with such fruitless speculation. Get moving. And if the thing does floodwell, you always did say you thought cave diving would be kind of interesting, right? He shook his head, you get less funny every day, Einar, and continued with his slow forward progress into the inky darkness. His left arm, he could already tell, was going to be a big problem as he navigated the tight passage, the limited mobility of the injured shoulder preventing him from moving and twisting as he would have liked to ease his travel through the confined space, and which might become absolutely necessary later if the passage narrowed any further. Ahead he could feel the ceiling closing in on him, flattened himself into the ground and pulled on a rock protrusion with his fingers, half wishing the passage was a bit muddy so he could slide

along more easily but knowing that the absence of mud was, in fact, a huge blessing. He would soon have been wet and freezing again if hed had to slither along through wet mud. As the ceiling of the crawlway became progressively lower, he remembered the story of Floyd Collins, and thought, sure hope I dont end up stuck in here like that guy in Kentucky Collins was a well known cave explorer who, in 1925, had become trapped as he navigated a narrow crawlway in an unexplored portion of Sand Cave, near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. His leg had been pinned by a rock, which though it was not particularly large or heavy, he found himself completely unable to reach in the narrow space. Collins had died fourteen days later, a week after a cave-in cut him off from further rescue attempts. Well, I seriously doubt Id last that long, at this point. Id probably just go to sleep after a few hours, maybe a day at most, and theyd never even find my body. Not so bad, if it comes to that. But of course, he had no intention of letting it end that way, if there was any other option. Which, at the moment, there was. In order to continue, though, he had to squeeze all of the air out of his lungs so he would be flat enough to pass through the increasingly narrow slot in the rock. He tried it, and found that he could indeed continue to make progress in that way. Hmmthere are, apparently, some advantages to being this skinny He pulled himself forward, shoving in tiny increments with his toes and turning his head sideways until his cheek scraped along the tunnel floor to allow his head to fit through. Einar had been in spots that tight before, places where you had to remove your helmet and shove it in front of you just to fit through, where you had to hold your breath because there was, for a space, no room for your chest to expand, but hed always had light when hed done it, had always been able to see at least something of his surroundings. Doing it in pitch blackness he found to be a different matter entirely. Progress was very slow, and with the passage too tight for him to draw a breath, Einar wondered how long he could hold out, how much of the blackness before his eyes was the darkness of the tunnel and how much of it might be his oxygen-starved brain drifting towards unconsciousness. Keep goingkeep going. You pass out here, youre dead. And he went, inch by inch, until suddenly things opened up and he drew a huge, gasping breath, and the air was good and fresh and felt like life itself as it entered his burning lungs. He lay there for a minute just breathing before rising to his knees when he found the space large enough to allow it. When Einar had recovered some, he checked to see if the pack was still behind him, glad and a little surprised to find that it was. He had half expected it to get hung up on something in the low tunnel and stay behind. Though the darkness around him was total, the place had a spacious, hollow feel to it. Time for one of those torches, I think. Would kind of be a shame to go blundering around in the dark until I crawled off the edge into a fifty foot deep pit, or something. The pitch sticks, a couple of them broken, were still in his pocket, as was the match holder, and he struck a match, lighting one of the sticks. In the orange, flickering light of the flame, Einar inspected his surroundings, finding himself in a fairly large chamber, its ceiling vaulted away above him, out of reach of the feeble light of the pitch stick. OK. There is good air in here. Where is it coming from? His hope, beyond the immediate and pressing need to avoid being drowned in the rising melt water, was to find another entrance, something that would allow him to exit the cave

without going back and descending that icy crack beside the waterfall. Carefully standing and inspecting the grotto, he found only one tunnel that led out of it, and, excited by the find, saw that the flame flickered gently as he neared it. Ah. A breeze! Knowing that his light would last for a very limited amount of time, Einar started down the passage, relieved that he could actually crawl this time instead of slither. After crawling for twenty or thirty feet, the space narrowed and at the same time the ceiling soared off above him, leaving Einar standing up, carrying his pack and squeezing through a long narrow slot that took him for quite some distance between two massive rock faces, towering above him in what was in effect an underground canyon. The walls were white with calcite and thin straws of calcite hung from jutting protrusions in the walls. Then the floor dropped out from under him. He saw it in time, stopped at the edge of the drop and hurriedly considered his next move. The torch was sputtering and about to die. In its fading glow, he saw that the walls appeared to stay close together, close enough to allow him to continue by chimneying, his back against one wall and his knees and, if it widened, toes against the other. Without light he would have to do it entirely by feel, a less than ideal situation, but one he believed he could manage. OK. I can do that. Unless the walls suddenly get a lot farther apart, and I dont realize it in time, or I get too worn out to go on, and am too far out to make it back Its useful life over, he leaned out and dropped the torch into the blackness below him, wanting to get some sense of the depth of the crevice. It was narrow and twisting and rather deep, well over forty feet, by his estimate. Please dont slide down that The walls, though their distance from one another did vary, stayed within a range that allowed Einar to make slow but steady progress, though after awhile he did start to wonder when he might reach the end, and how he would even know it when he did. For all he knew, the floor could have raised already and be there waiting three or four feet below him, but he would never know it in the darkness, and might just go on chimneying until his strength gave out and he fell. His hip was already aching terribly and he was shaking all over from the exertion. An idea came to him, and bracing himself firmly with his knees against the wall, he felt with his hand along a narrow little ledge of rock in front of him until he encountered some small, loose stones. Stuffing a number of them in his pocket, he dropped one between his legs, hoping to hear it hit solid ground not too far below him. The rock, though, clattered away into the depths, bouncing and ricocheting off the walls as they twisted and drew closer together towards the bottom. Still an awful long way down. Got to keep at this for awhile. And he did his best, his left leg cramping and nearly useless, until the wall that his feet were braced against suddenly grew wet and slick and he lost his footing, catching a glimpse of a crack of light in the rock ceiling far above him as he went down.

For some time Einar hung there a bit stunned, wedged in fairly well where the presence of his backpack had meant that he was too wide to continue his slide down into the narrowing space between the two rock faces, not feeling much like moving and staring up at the little sliver of daylight which appeared to be a great distance above him. It took Einar a minute to realize that he ought to be glad that his fall had not ended any worse than it did, having scraped one knee and badly wrenched his injured shoulder, but

fortunately hanging up in the narrowing crack before actually hitting bottom. As the blinding pain and nausea of his re-injured shoulder slowly began to fade, he started looking for a way out of the situation, feeling around with his right hand in an attempt to assess just what that situation might be. Discovering his pack, he was suddenly very grateful that it had not fallen off as soon as he had slipped. As his mind began working again, he realized that he very easily could have fallen all the way down, could have been killed at the bottom or at the least, considering the distance, broken something and found himself entirely unable to climb back out. As soon as he carefully pulled out and lit one of the remaining pitch sticks, the implications of this became even more clear. He could see the bottom, not fifteen feet below him and covered with jagged, broken rock. He had become lodged at a constricted point where the walls drew their closest together, though only briefly. Below him the crack again widened, the walls flaring apart before ending at the rocky floor. The sight sent a brief electrical thrill through the pit of his stomach. Einar knew he must have been moving pretty fast by the time his fall had been halted by the narrowing slot. This one was a little close It would have been a nasty end. Thank you Now, to get up out of here. For a moment he considered finishing the descent and seeing where the narrow ribbon of ground at the bottom of the crack might lead, unsure at the moment that he possessed the strength to climb back up at all, but almost out of pitch sticks and very much wanting to find out about that daylight he saw above him, he decided to go ahead and try the climb. In the glow of the pitch stick he could see that he had been mere feet from the end of the crack, on the upper level, when he had fallen. The rock walls closed in not far from where he hung, leaving the ribbon of rock-strewn ground at the bottom to continue on through a tunnel created as they met. He saw that if he made the ascent and chimneyed for a very short distance more, he would again be standing on solid ground. Well, that figures Movement was not easy in the confined space between the two masses of rock, requiring the constant use of elbows and knees and toes as he inched and scooted his way higher, and with the use of only one arm, it was frustratingly slow. Attempts to use the left arm and elbow, though, quickly convinced him that he must make do with the slow pace. The going became slightly easier as the crack widened and he was again able to use more traditional chimneying moves, but between his general exhaustion and the renewed trouble he was having with his hip and the near-continual cramping in his left leg, it was all he could do to convince himself not to give up and go sliding down to the bottom just to end the agony of climbing. Grimly forcing himself to continue up the crack, Einar finally reached what he guessed to be the level of the floor, stopping to light another pitch stick for fear of slipping again if he could not see the place where the water oozed down the wall. By the light of the flame he made his way over to the rocky floor, hauling himself up onto it and remembering to snuff out and save the half-burnt pitch stick before collapsing on the damp rock, badly exhausted. After a minute he rolled over onto his right side, wanting to spare his wrenched shoulder and aching hip. Einar slept then, or something close to it, until the soggy chill of the ground forced him up, shivering and brushing the sticky mud from his face and hands, struggling to rise. His mouth was dry and sandy, and feeling his

way over to the damp, slippery wall, he tried without success to collect some of the barely trickling water in his hands, finally using the sleeve of his sweatshirt to sop some of it up, wringing the gritty stuff out into his mouth and repeating the sequence until he was again able to swallow. Before extinguishing the pitch stick he had seen that the passage before him, the one that led towards the little splinter of light, was wide and fairly level, and he started down it cautiously, carefully feeling in front of him with his boot before committing any weight and keeping a hand on the wall. The crack of light turned out not to be as close as it had appeared, and even seemed to be moving away from him as he went. He knew that this was an illusion, but it was somewhat discouraging, nonetheless. The passage narrowed as he went, to the point that he could eventually no longer squeeze through it anymore, even dragging the pack, and had to chimney up to a point where it was wide enough to allow him passage. At least this time he knew how far down the bottom was After what seemed to him an unreasonable amount of time considering how close that light had at first appeared, Einar felt rocks beneath his feet, carefully tested them and found that the floor of the passage had risen up to meet him, and he could once again walk. Or scramble, more like, because the ground was littered with good sized boulders, some of them slippery with mud, over and among which he made his way as the passage climbed sharply, bringing him much closer to the sliver of outside light, which, as he approached it, took on a much more defined shape, until he could see the silhouettes of the jagged rocks that rimmed it, and, he believed, even the branches of evergreens outside. Suddenly the walls that had enclosed him for so long widened out and vanished, and Einar stood in what felt like a rather large chamber, looking nearly straight up at a little patch of sky and trees. Blue sky, but beginning to pale with evening. He sat down, stretched out on the ground and stared at the sky for a minute, immensely thankful but too tired for words. Taking the half burnt pitch stick from his pocket and lighting it, knowing he was using one of his last few matches but needing to get a look at his surroundings, he discovered that he was in a large, roughly oval shaped chamber with a good deal of rock fall along one side, rock fall which looked as though it might possibly provide him a way to climb up and access that little door back out to the world of sky and trees and firewood! Freezing in here Though he knew the air in the cave was actually significantly warmer than the average outside temperature that time of year, probably somewhere near a consistent 46 degrees in the inner portions at least. This outer chamber, exposed as it was to the outside environment, would be somewhat colder. He was certain, though, that he would be quite comfortable as soon as he was able to dry his clothes and clean off some of the cold, sticky mud that unfortunately had come to coat him rather thoroughly during the final portion of his scramble. Einar could not tell for sure in the dim glow of the burning pitch whether he would actually be able to climb all the way up to the opening, let alone exit through it, and would not be able to until he made that climb. Which could definitely wait a few minutes, at least. His leg was cramping so badly that he found it very difficult to remain standing, let alone hobble around and inspect the grotto. Directly beneath the far end of the crack that opened to the outside was a little waterworn depression in the rock, and he saw that it contained a good amount of water which,

though of course stagnant, at least looked relatively clear. Crouching down he gulped several handfulls of the icy water, hoping that it was clean enough to do him no harm and badly needing it to wet his parched throat and help clear his head and hopefully ease the cramping some. Walking around the chamber as the pitch stick burned low, he found, in addition to the crack that he had entered through, one other passage that appeared promising, and which lead off at a right angle to his entry as a low tunnel, its walls streaked white and purple with mineral buildup. Also, just opposite the little pool of water, he discovered a small side chamber, no more than five feet high and six or seven deep, its walls covered nearly entirely with a curtain of nearly smooth white calcite that appeared still to be flowing, though he found the walls to be quite dry. Here he left his pack, thinking the small space should do quite well as a place to spend the night. The torch had by that time burned out, and as his eyes readjusted to the darkness, Einar realized that the split in the ceiling was actually admitting a fair amount of light, enough to allow him to move about in the grotto without tripping over anything or stepping into the little pool, if he was careful and did not move too fast. Which he was certainly not feeling especially inclined to do, anyway. All right. Got to try that opening before I lose the light. Fire would sure be a good thing, tonight. Returning to the side chamber he felt around until he found his pack, slinging it over his shoulder, unwilling to leave it behind in an unfamiliar place for even a short time. He had seen no sign whatsoever that humans had been in the cave, certainly not recently, at least, and had seen no animal sign belonging to anything larger than a rat or a squirrel, but he was not going to risk losing what little food he did have to such creatures. He was going to be needing every bit of it, as he was pretty sure that he was not going back after the rest of the sheep anytime very soon. But I may see it differently in the morning. Or in couple of days. That little crawl, climb and scramble would have been fun after all, under slightly (alright, very) different circumstances. Something I would have chosen to do, and not hesitated to repeat the next week. But there was more food back then, as I remember. And fewer people trying to kill me whenever I poked my head up out of a hole. Makes a big difference Either way, he addressed the creatures that had left the droppings, speaking aloud in the echoing chamber, I will end up trapping you for food, if youre still down here! The rediscovery of daylight had greatly improved Einars outlook on life. Finding his way over to the pile of rock fall, he began climbing, the light strengthening as he neared the opening, which appeared to be roughly two feet wide by four long. Reaching the top of the rock pile, he discovered that the opening, which turned out to be situated more in the wall than the ceiling, was still at least a foot or so above his head.

Reaching his hand up out of the opening in the rock, Einar tried to learn what he could about the situation outside. Which was not much. All he could feel was rock, slightly damp rock with a light covering of dry spruce needles. The branches he could see as he looked up through the crack told him that he was beneath some pretty heavy timber, but beyond that, he could discern nothing. The spot where he stood was somewhat

precarious, being little more than a pile of loose rock, parts of which seemed disconcertingly inclined to shift and tip as he moved, so jumping to get a better look was out of the question. He stretched up on his toes, hooked his wrist around a rough, waterpitted limestone spur and grabbed on, struggling to lift himself and scrambling at the wall with his feet but finding it wet and slippery with seeping water. Hmm. So this is how that little pool gets filled Following the path of the seeping water, which glinted on the rock in the dim daylight glow from above, he saw that after trickling down the wall it oozed out along a little shelf, slowly dripping and collecting on a slightly angled slab that stuck out several feet into the empty space of the grotto, eventually dripping down into the pool. At first he supposed that it was probably just melt water, and would therefore dry up in a few weeks or a month and cease to supply the pool. Exploring a bit, though, he encountered a quantity of slimy algae and up where there was more light, moss, telling him that there was very likely a little spring somewhere above that kept the area supplied with a steady trickle of water all summer long. Good! Very good. Now back to work. Again he attempted to lift himself high enough to see out of the crack, stopping to catch his breath after several unsuccessful tries, frustrated at the memory of the one armed pullups he had routinely done as part of his conditioning less than two years prior. OK. Well Im sure not doing any such thing today, solets raise this floor a bit. He began stacking and piling some of the loose rock, trying to make the heap wide enough that it would support itself and not be too likely to tumble over when he put his weight on it. In order to give himself some chance of being able to make it up and out into the daylight, Einar knew that he would have to send his pack out first, having seen that he had virtually no chance of being able to lift both himself and the pack with the use of only one arm. Removing the pack, he hoisted it up, intending for it to come to rest on the ledge but swinging a bit too vigorously, watching horrified but unable to reach it as the pack slowly toppled over and went tumbling down out of the crack. In the split second when it disappeared from view a vision flashed across his eyes of a crack that opened up in a cliff face, thinking that perhaps he had just sent his pack tumbling five or six hundred feet down a sheer cliff to splash into a river or get hung up in the topmost branches of an evergreen at the bottom. He had certainly seen cave entrances in such places, situations where you had to rappel down eighty or a hundred feet from the top of a cliff just to reach the thing, then carefully get yourself swinging on the rope until you could reach a little ledge and grab hold of something, securing the rope so that it would be there waiting for you to ascend when you finished exploring the place. Surely not. Too many trees here, above, around, below, for it to be a cliff. But the thought was only marginally reassuring. With the added elevation of the rock pile he was finally able to pull himself up high enough to hook his right heel on the edge of the crack, hoisting himself up and very nearly tumbling down the rather steep and tree covered slope outside. Einar, the conjured up vision of the infinite spaces and precipitous drops that were perhaps waiting below him still very fresh in his mind, caught himself just before he fell, clinging doggedly to the same protrusion he had used to haul himself up out of the cave as he struggled to halt the momentum he had put into getting himself up onto the ledge in the first place, very grateful for the rough, grippy nature of the waterworn limestone. Carefully he balanced himself on the narrow little ledge of rock just outside the crack, straddling it and

squinting in the weak evening sunlight as he looked down almost straight down! at a timbered slope, nearly free of snow but clearly damp with snowmelt and in places already frozen in the evening chill. A drop of five or six feet of vertical limestone separated him from the sloping ground, while above his head, the cave entrance was well protected and hidden by a jutting limestone overhang, creating a sheltered space beneath it that appeared to have remained free of deep snow over the winter. He could not see especially far due to the concentration of timber around and above him, but the dark, damp feel of the forest told him that he was on a north-facing slope (makes sense, because that waterfall was on a south-facing oneI mustve come all the way through that ridge!) while the position of the sun indicated that it must face north-west. Well, good. Im at least a little further from the valley and river than I was at the waterfall. And he was pretty sure that no one was going to be tracking him into and through the cave, anyway. The waterfall was such an unlikely looking place for a person to go in the first place, and the rushing melt water would have rendered it impassable as a travel route. His pursuers, even if they managed eventually to track him to the bottom of it, would have no way to know that it had not been flowing for days, and surely would turn another direction to continue their search. And judging from the behavior of the chopper the previous day, (can that possibly have been only a day ago?) he believed they had lost his trail at or just beyond the river, anyway. Lying there on the ledge as a lively breeze moved among the spruce tops and blew coldly against his damp clothing, Einar quickly came to appreciate just how relatively warm it had been in the cave, compared with the outside air. Already starting to shiver in the evening chill, he was anxious to return to its shelter. First, though, he needed to find some firewood, and retrieve his pack, which had come to rest against the trunk of a large spruce some twenty or thirty feet down slope. He saw that it could very easily have gone a good deal further, that tree not brought it up short. Easing himself down over the ledge and dropping to the steep ground below, Einar rolled a couple of times before stopping himself, scrambling down to the pack and checking to make sure nothing was missing. Alright. Firewood. The area to the right was thick with deadfall, a little gulley that ran along beside the ledge that sheltered the cave entrance containing four or five fallen spruces, in varying states of dryness. Originally he had planned to simply break off some branches from the driest looking deadfall for his fire, but climbing a short distance above the level of the rock ledge and inspecting the trees, he found a small one which, though appearing a bit rotten and punky where several feet of it sat in contact with the ground, looked for the most part very sound and burnable. Struck by a sudden idea, Einar wondered if it would be possible for him to drag the entire tree down to the crevice and stuff it whole down through the entrance. He knew that he would eventually have to get out and try to set some snares, hope those dry nettle stalks are still in the pack, Ill have to check later but he was really beginning to think that he ought to try and remain in or at least near the cave the following day, and attempt to get as much rest as possible. It kind of scared him that he had lacked the strength even to pull himself the short distance up out of the crevice, and, realizing that he never knew when he might again find himself forced to flee again, a day of rest sounded like a wise idea. And it would give him the opportunity to work on cordage for some snares, also. He had some of the sheep quarter left in the pack, and with the ready supply of wood that the dead spruce would provide,

he wouldnt have to worry about getting out to collect firewood for the following night. Sounds good. But moving the tree, of course, was far easier said than done, as the trunk and several of the branches were partially frozen into the ground. After kicking and pushing the tree until his legs cramped up and forced him to stop, Einar sat down and got out the entrenching tool, using the saw to work his way through several of the offending branches. The branches freed from the ice, he was able to roll the small tree free and begin hauling it down the gulley towards the limestone ledge. Wanting to keep as many of the small branches intact as possible, knowing that they would be necessary for getting the fire going and wishing to save the work of having to walk around and collect all of them after breaking them off, he wrestled the tree over to the crack, struggling to lift and shove it into the small space. After five or ten minutes of hard work he had managed to get the top five feet of the tree in through the crack, which allowed the protruding branches to catch and hold it when gravity tried to pull it back down on him. Bent double in an effort to catch his breath, Einar was seriously questioning the wisdom of trying to fit the entire tree in through that narrow crevice. Dumb idea, Einar. Kind of like trying to stuff a porcupine in through a window thats only open a couple of inchesnot that I have actually tried that, but I can imagine. Too late now, though, because I dont think I can pull it back out, and theres not room to crawl around it Seeing no good alternative, he kept at it, finally reaching a point where the heavier portion of the tree was underground, and the trunk tipped up and its weight lifted off of him. He would have shouted if he hadnt been so badly winded. After that the job almost did itself, and Einar crouched on the little ledge, listening with satisfaction as the tree splintered against the rocky floor some thirty feet below. Grabbing his pack, he carefully clambered down the rock pile inside the cave, waiting a minute for his eyes to readjust to the semi-darkness before inspecting the tree. It had indeed broken, most of the small dry branches splintering off and flying all over the grotto to be collected later, the main trunk lying in two large pieces on the floor not far from the pool. The fracture had left numerous thin shards of wood sticking out of the trunk where it had occurred, reminding Einar of a tree that had been snapped in half by a sudden strong wind. He had more than once collected these thin dry splinters and used them with great success as kindling, and was delighted to have such a ready supply of them in front of him. Collecting a pile of the splinters and searching about for a favorable location for a fire, Einar worked with the glad knowledge that in less than an hour, it should be dark enough to safely allow for one.

Sitting by his fire that evening in the small side chamber, the white calcite coating on its walls reflecting the light and the confines of the space allowing the air to heat quite nicely, Einar waited for a stew of sheep and leftover nettles, wilted and a bit muddy but still green, to begin heating. He had built the fire at the spot where the small grotto ended and the space opened up into the largeness of the main chamber, which allowed the smoke to be easily drawn up and out of the crevice to the outside air. There seemed once again to be a slight draft, telling him that the waterfall at the far end of the cave system had probably gone down far enough to allow air in. The cave was breathing again. By

locating the fire at the open end of the calcite chamber, Einar had created a situation where the low, curved rock walls and ceiling behind it acted as one big reflector for the heat, warming him quickly as he sat between the fire and the back of the chamber. Reluctant to leave the warmth of the little room but seeing that he would soon be needing more wood, he crawled around the fire, gathering an armful of broken branches as he navigated easily about the larger space by the reflected light of the fire. The damp, punky lower portion of the spruce trunk had broken open when it fell, and, knowing that even this wood should burn if adequately dried, he picked up a few chunks of it to set near the flames, discovering as he did so that a number of plump white grubs had fallen from the wood as it broke apart. He started gathering them, knowing that while they contained some protein, their greatest value to him lay in their fat content, which was, ounce for ounce, significantly higher than that of the sheep meat. You are going in my stew tonight Continuing to search the floor, Einar found enough of the grubs to fill his two cupped hands, deciding to save most of them for future meals, allowing him to stretch out his meager supply of bighorn sheep until he could hopefully get some snares made, set and beginning to produce. He wondered how best to preserve the grubs he did not plan to eat that night, finally deciding that since they had apparently been doing just fine down in the damp wood of the spruce trunk, that was probably where they should remain. Scraping out a little hollow in a large section of the trunk with a rock, he deposited the creatures, still and dormant in the cold, into the makeshift refrigerator, confident that they would be there the next day when he needed them. As his stew simmered, Einar worked to dry his clothes, finding that they were beginning to steam and dry fairly quickly in the growing warmth of the cave. Hungry as he was and tremendously anxious for supper, he wanted to let the stew boil for a bit to make sure the sheep meat was thoroughly cooked before he began devouring it. The stuff was definitely not smelling especially fresh that afternoon, and he knew the last thing he needed to deal with just then was a bacterial infection of any sort. The stew did not really begin to smell much more appetizing as it simmered, but he knew the boiling ought, at least, to kill off any harmful pathogens and render it safe to eat. And, he told himself as he wrung a few drops of water out of the sweatshirt sleeve, I think tonight Id eat rotten onions with maggots crawling out of them, if that was what was available. And this stew is gonna be a whole lot better than that! He wasnt sure what had made the rotten onions come so vividly to mind, and supposed he ought perhaps to be somewhat disturbed that they actually sounded so appetizing. It seemed the longer he went at a stretch without adequate food, the more frequently these little hallucinations? he wasnt sure what to call them, occurred. Often he would just be going about his business actively thinking of nothing food-related, when he would see, or worst of all smell, one food or another in detail as vivid as if it had actually been right in front of him. He had long ago learned not to allow these involuntary little flights of fancy to bother him, sometimes even enjoying the momentary diversion they provided to his sometimes dismal existence. It could be difficult though, to have to be smelling fresh baked pizza or pastry or hamburgers, when you knew you would have to satisfy your rather substantial hunger on a cup of spruce needle tea or two bites of coyote jerky. So the illusion of maggot-infested rotten onions was actually a pleasant one, as he knew that he had something far better to eat that night.

After dinner, Einar used a bit of water from the pool to get some of the mud off of himself, leaning over the fire to dry before crouching near it and holding the sweat shirt open above the flames to speed its drying. Doing so, he realized that it had become nearly as threadbare as his orange coveralls had been when he found the ski pants, and had not been helped at all by all the crawling and scrambling he had done in the cave. The elbows were in tatters, and he could see firelight through most of the seams. Got to work on that elk hide, soon. Its already brain tanned, so all it ought to need is a bunch of softening and then smoking, and I can make something to replace this when it finally gives out... Or burns up! He jumped to his feet, beating the shirt against the cave wall and leaving little black marks on its white surface where the flames had begun charring the drying cloth of the shirt down near the hem. Einar had fallen asleep over the fire, letting the shirt trail in the flames for a moment before he had awakened. Whew! Not good! Didnt lose much of it, though. Now about that elk skin Drifting off to sleep, sitting with his head on his knees to avoid lying on the cold rock of the floor, Einar decided that he must go out and get some evergreen branches the next day to make a bed, so he could actually sleep lying down for a change. Lying down or not, though, he was asleep very quickly that night, warm, mostly dry, his stomach not empty if not entirely full. Einar, as exhausted as he was, did sleep long. Shortly after falling asleep he was startled awake to the sound of a low helicopter, hovering, the wind of its propellers pressing him into the rock and blinding him with fine white calcite dust. He covered his head, flattened himself into the ground and tried to disappear, but they must have seen him already because the thing continued to hover, and he couldnt understand how this was possible at all, until he looked up and saw that the cave roof had crumbled and fallen in great, grey-rock shards standing sharply all around him, starkly illuminated in the glaring white beam of a flood light, leaving him trapped without anywhere to go. He knew he had to try though, and did, took off running in the direction where he believed he would find the slot he had entered throughand promptly ran headlong into the white calcite wall of his little bed chamber. Einar sat there by the glowing remains of his fire, waiting for the dizziness to subside and rubbing his sore head, trembling as he came to realize that it had all been a dream. That kind of thing doesnt happen, OK. You know it doesnt happen. Tons of rock dont just fall in like that, and if they did, youd be crushed to death by it anyway, and wouldnt have to worry about any old buzzard hovering over you. Now go back to sleep. He added a few sticks to the fire, rested his chin on his knees for awhile and stared into the flames, waiting to feel sleepy again but realizing pretty quickly that it just wasnt going to happen. He was wide awake and jumpy despite his great weariness, straining his ears in the silence of the cave for any outside sound, and didnt feel the least bit like sitting still, much less sleeping. Seeing the black smears on the calcite wall where he had snuffed out the flaming sweatshirt, he had an idea. He poked at the fire with a spruce stick, picked it up, blew out the flame on its charred end, and tested it on the smooth white of the grotto wall. Rubbing the charred stick end on the rocky ground to sharpen and shape it, Einar

began carefully sketching on the wall, finding solace in the focus demanded by the detailed work, keeping at it until he had created a reasonably good representation of the helicopter as it had pursued him down into the narrow canyon just over a week prior, capturing the moment when its rotor had struck rock, including himself crouched under the ledge with his bow. He stepped back and looked at it when he was finished, appearing oddly animated in the flickering light of the fire, thinking that it did not look entirely unlike old images he had seen, preserved on parchment or in silver or bronze, of his ancient Norse ancestors battling dragons. Though in this case, I did not really have anything at all to do with the beasts demise. The thing did itself in, on those rocks youd have made a lousy dragon slayer, Einar. He was about to rub the picture out with his hand, thinking it unwise to leave such a thing for his pursuers to potentially find someday, but stopped himself at the last minute. The chances of them stumbling upon that place, he knew, were incredibly small, and if they ended up discovering it because he somehow gave himself awaywell, then they would already know he had been there, and there would be no harm in them seeing his little mural. Instead of destroying it he began adding detail, first a tree or two, then the mountain up behind the cliffs, complete with its descending line of armed agents as they hurried to close the jaws of the trap they had set for him. Finally, eyes again heavy with sleep, Einar curled up on the ground with his back close to the fire, resting his head on his arm and sleeping soundly for several hours.

Waking as the coals of his fire cooled and the cold of the ground seeped into his bones, Einar wondered what had ever made him think it could be a good idea to lie directly on the rock floor in the first place. He was stiff with cold, his hands didnt work, and he was pretty sure it was too late in the day to safely rekindle the fire. Kicking at the remains of his fire, which still contained a few glowing coals, he cleared the area of rock where it had been, dragging himself onto the warm ground and curling up. He lay there shivering until he began warming some, drifting in and out of sleep until he saw light beginning to find its way in through the crevice, crawling out of the calcite chamber and peering up at the little patch of daylight. The sun was up an it appeared to be a clear day outside the cave. Feeling around in the still-complete darkness of the side chamber, he located his cooking can, covered with a flat slab of rock to protect the remnants of the previous nights stew. Breakfast was cold but, to Einars delight, not actually icy as it would have been had he slept outside. His plan had been to remain in the cave and rest for most of the day at least, working on nettle cordage for snares and perhaps even beginning what he knew would be the time-consuming work of softening up the elk hide to prepare it for smoking. He did intend to leave the cave that day for one thing, at least, knowing that his sleeping situation would be greatly improved by a pile of evergreen branches to insulate him from the cold rock of the floor. He was still stiff and moving with difficulty after the night on that chilly rock, and did not look forward to repeating it if there was an alternative. Ill go get those branches in a few hours. Let it warm up out there some, first. Sitting in a spot in the large chamber where a good bit of light found its way into the cave, Einar

began work on the dry nettle stems that had, to his relief, remained in the pack as he had crawled, scrambled and fallen through the cave, wetting them in the pool before pounding gently with a smooth-edged chunk of limestone to begin separating the fibers. The damp chill of the cave made it increasingly difficult to maintain the necessary flexibility in his hands as he worked , and before too long he was shivering and had to stand up and stomp around for a bit before continuing with his work. Even the comparatively mild 46 degree temperature of the cave was proving to be a bit of a challenge to Einar, immobile, hungry and wearing only one layer of clothing. Got to finish that elk hide But he knew that his first priority at the moment was to get out and set the snares that he hoped to create from he nettle cordage, giving them time to start producing while he worked on making some better clothing and meeting his other needs. He was dry and out of the wind, and should do just fine for a few days in his current clothing, if he could manage to keep active during the day when he couldnt have a fire. The sitting still had been a large part of the problem. Perhaps, he thought, if he was determined to rest during the day or had a good bit of work that would keep him confined to the cave, it might be a good idea to heat a portion of the rock floor in the small calcite chamber by moving the fire throughout the night, so he could sit or lie on the warmed rock during the day and hopefully allow some of the meager food he did have to start sticking to him, rather than having to use it all up just struggling to maintain his body temperature. Too late for that at the present, though, and while the ground where his fire had been remained slightly warm, it was not enough. He had allowed the fire to go out too soon. Thinking of fire reminded him that he ought to have made some effort to preserve the coals from the previous nights fire, so he did not have to use one of his three remaining matches to light one that night. While he knew he could probably find the materials for a bow and drill in the vicinity of the cave, a desire to spare the injured shoulder made the use of one more match sound like a rather good idea. Then Ill be sure to keep some coals smoldering, and save these last two matches for emergencies. Trouble is, most of my emergencies tend to make it so that I cant have fire, anyway. But you never know. For now though, might as well head outside and round up some of those branches, if I cant sit still. Loading the entrenching tool, cooking can, steel bar and his remaining food into the pack, he climbed the rock pile to the crevice that allowed him access to the outside world. Squinting in the somewhat muted sunlight of the treed slope outside the cave, Einar listened for a long minute but heard nothing to indicate that anything was amiss, not even the rumble of a chopper in the distance. He was beginning to feel fairly safe at the cave, but would not be entirely confident in the security of his location until he made the climb to the top of the plateau above the slope, and got a look at the country around it. He needed a distant view that would give him a better idea of just where he was, in relation to the river and valley where he had (he very much hoped) lost his pursuers. AndI can see some firs up there on that plateau. Mostly just spruces down here, and firs make a much better bed. A lot less prickly. He chided himself the next second for entertaining such a thought. Getting soft, are you? Must have been here in this nice spot for too long already but decided to go after the fir branches anyway, needing the vantage that he hoped to gain upon reaching the plateau. The climb, an ascent of some seven or eight

hundred feet of steep, evergreen covered mountainside, took Einar quite awhile as he found himself having to stop more frequently than he would have liked to catch his breath. During one such stop, as he leaned against the rough bark of a spruce, he noticed a number of little globs of dried sap, remembering how invaluable the pitch sticks had been as he made his way through the cave, and thinking that it would be a very good idea to have more, in case the need arose. And, come to think of it, he had been wanting to explore the little side passage that he had discovered in the large grotto and which, along with the slot he had entered through and the crevice that led to the outside, comprised his third way out of the large chamber. Unless it just ends or becomes completely impassable after the first few yards. He very much wanted to find out, especially after his dream of the previous night which, while by daylight seemed wholly unrealistic, had nonetheless served to vividly remind him of the precariousness of his situation. Better have a bunch of pitch sticks if I plan to do that, so I can light one from the other before it goes out. Because I only got those two matches left. After that he kept a close watch for more pitch, collecting quite a bit of it and storing it in his cooking can, also gathering a good quantity of usnea lichen from the evergreen branches as he went, stuffing it in his pockets. Not the best food maybe, but it is food. And I think it would probably help my feet some if I stuffed my boots with it, since socks are a little scarce at the moment. The remainder of the climb was filled with thoughts the planned exploration of the rest of the cave, and of various things he might do to improve his existence there, for however long he might be able to stay. Only a hundred or so feet below the top of the slope, the steep, duff covered ground gave way to a band of broken limestone cliffs, as the limestone formation that held the cave system broke through the thin layer of dirt to make Einars travel a good bit more difficult. After scrambling between the bands of exposed rock for some time, clinging to spruce branches for balance and seriously wishing he had the full use of both arms, he stumbled upon a little gulley that made his continued progress, if not easy, at least possible. Able once again to devote a bit of his focus to something besides avoiding a fall, his thoughts returned to his future at the cave, and by the time the ground began to become less steep, he had planned his entire summer and, in his mind, turned the place into a very comfortable winter refuge. Seeing a grove of small aspens above him, the soft and brilliant green of their spring leaves just beginning to show, Einar knew he was about to step up out of the rocky gulley onto what had appeared from below to be the nearly level ground of the plateau. The sure sign of spring provided by barely unrolled leaves of the little aspens reminded Einar of the bounty of berriesserviceberry, currant, chokecherry, Oregon grapethat should await him up there that summer and fall, if he was able to stay, and his mind was already busy with thoughts and plans of how best to collect and preserve the harvest. Plans that were suddenly called into serious question when he hauled himself up the last three feet of steep rock, poked his head up above a clump of currant bushes, and saw what awaited him on the plateau.

The road was clearly visible from the spot where Einar stood, coiling through the band of

small aspens he had seen from below, muddy and still covered with the remnants of rapidly melting snow banks in places. Knew I probably wasnt far enough from civilization yet, but I sure didnt expect thisthought I was in the Wilderness Area already. He crouched down behind the thick stand of currant shrubs, parting them just enough to watch the road without being seen himself if someone should happen along. What concerned him more even than the discovery of the road was the fact that he saw tire tracks in the snow, fresh looking tracks, and following the road with his eyes he saw where they had broken through one of the higher snow banks, and the scattered snow did not even look like it had seen the sun yet. Great. Hope no one smelled my smoke. Keeping to the brush, he carefully followed the road, climbing to the top of a low rise and dropping the ground when he saw the tents clustered in a grassy little meadow on the far side of it. Crawling forward until he could see the camp, Einar lay on the frozen ground under the cover of a patch of ground-hugging evergreen scrub, noting the two yellow dome tents accompanied by a large blue Coleman-style six-man tent. Off to one side sat three ATVs and a grey pickup with chained tires, nearly every inch of it covered in splattered mud. The camp did not have the look to him of a federal operation, the tents and vehicles definitely appeared to be civilian, though what a large group like that was doing up in the cold, muddy high country at that time of year was a bit of a mystery to Einar, and one that worried him some. I mean, Id have done it, but most folkstheyd wait till things were greener. And warmer. Or until hunting season. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to stay still on the frozen ground, and Einar wished the sun would hurry up and reach his position to warm him a bit. He knew though that he had better be out of there before it had time to thaw the ground too much, though, because it looked thoroughly saturated and, unsure of the nature of the camp, he did not want to leave too many obvious tracks as he left the area. There had as of yet been no sign of life at the camp, and he wondered if its occupants could still be asleep, or if they had already left the camp for the day to dowhatever it was they were up there to do. He doubted that they were gone, expecting that they would have taken the ATVs. The truck interested him greatly, as he could see even through the mud splatters on the rear window that its camper shell was packed full of equipment. Whoever the campers were, he was pretty sure that they would have some basic gear in that trucktarps, sleeping bags perhaps, if they had already left the camp for the day, something warm to wear, an axe, maybe. And food. They would surely be keeping their food in the truck because of the risk of hungry bears just out of hibernation. The truck was closest to him, separated from the tents by the parked ATVs, and Einar had just about talked himself into going down there to see if it was unlocked, when a man emerged from one of the yellow dome tents, stood and stretched, and headed for the truck. Hastily squirming back another foot into the brush, Einar watched as he lowered the tailgate, pulled a two burner propane stove from the heap of gear in its bed, and set two pots to boil, after filling them from a blue plastic five gallon water can that he had hauled out onto the tailgate for ease of use. The breeze was blowing towards Einar, and before long the smells of coffee and some kind of foodit smelled to him like chili, which he thought a bit of an odd breakfastreached the little hummock where he lay hidden, causing him to bury his face in the moist, pine scented ground litter in an attempt to end the twisting stomach pains that came as a result of smelling the food. He continued waiting, wanting the man to

return to the tent or at least move away from the truck before he risked causing the revealing movement of the brush that would be somewhat inevitable to his retreat. Finished with his cooking, though, the man sat down on a log on Einars side of the truck to eat, pulling his stocking cap down to his eyebrows and zipping up his down coat before devouring the steaming contents of the food pot, pausing now and then to slurp instant coffee, to which he had added the partial contents of a can of sweetened condensed milk, out of the other. Einar watched hungrily as he shivered under the lowgrowing evergreens, hands in his armpits in an attempt to protect them and once again very grateful for the nighttime shelter of the cave, hoping that maybe the man would leave something behind in the pot when he finally left the camp. Wouldnt be smart, with the possibility of bears, but Einar had noticed that people often did things that were not smart, and was fully prepared to take advantage of such an oversight if it should occur. As good as the chili had smelled as it cooked, it was the can of milk that held Einars attention. It sounded like just what he needed. Hurry up and eat, go away, dont you know Im freezing up here? The man glanced up in his direction, and Einar pressed himself into the ground, certain that he could not be seen in the shadow of the low branches that hung down in front of his face, but careful not to direct his thoughts towards the man after that. He knew that some people, and many animals, could hear such thoughts, even if not on a conscious level. Thinking about the situation, it seemed to him that the man in the down coat man must be the only one who had not left the tents earlier, and he wondered why, wondered where the others had gone, and when they might return.

After it was discovered by the higher-ups in Washington that the second in command at the FBI base in Culver Falls had leaked a comment to the local paper about the search of the river, along with an assertion that Einar was, once again, believed be dead, the Attorney General put a gag order on all of the agents involved in the search, and word came from the Director that if anyone was to speak to the media about the case, it would be him or someone from his office. With the enforced change in media relations came yet another shift in strategy in the hunt for Einar. Congress had finally come through on the requested FBI budget increase after the loss of the chopper and agents in the canyon, but had made it clear that it was coming at the price of increased scrutiny and oversight. Director Ferris Lee knew that something had to change. So he again scaled back the number of agents actively involved in the search, maintaining enough of a presence at the base in Culver to keep up the appearance of an active and vibrant investigation while at the same time saving a good deal of money. In addition, he began working closely with the senior agents on the ground to develop a strategy for finding their fugitive and ending the growing embarrassment of the ongoing and thus far fruitless search. Lee was an intense and ambitious man with political aspirations that went far beyond his current appointed position of FBI Director, and had no intention of allowing the failures of others to endanger his own career as they had ultimately ended those of two of the three Special Agents who had so far been tasked with overseeing the search. He made a point to schedule frequent visits to the old feed store outside of Culver, hoping to boost the morale of the agents on the ground and at the same time let them know that they were

being watched, that he expected results. The new strategy developed by Lee, working with senior agents on the ground, involved relying far more heavily on local (or close to local) assets and knowledge to assist in the search. To that end, agents drove fifty miles from Culver one morning early in May to pay a visit to local geologist and avid caver Darren Raintree. Darren Raintree had reluctantly agreed to assist the feds in their search, mostly because his lifes work had been the mapping, study, preservation and in some cases where damage had already been done, the restoration of local caves, and he couldnt stand the thought of a bunch of feds scrambling all over things, tracking mud around and causing irrevocable harm to the delicate mineral formations and fragile cave environments that they had made it clear to him they intended to thoroughly scour for signs of their subject, with or without his help. They agents had initially approached him for maps, which he had provided, but it had been clear to him from the start that they did not have anybody who really understood how to read the maps, let alone go about searching the dozens of known caves without doing them serious harm. While Raintree had agreed to take them through some of the better known caves as they had requested, he knew, and had mentioned to them, that if someone was intending to hide, and had any idea what he was doing, he would probably stay pretty far away from known and mapped locations like they were asking to see. After which they promptly demanded that he guide them to the lesser known locations, and help them hunt for some that might be as yet unknown. What Darren Raintree neglected to mention to the agents was that he had actually met Einar years before on a hike up a canyon to a remote limestone bluff in another part of the county, the two having traveled together for a few miles and chatted about caves, climbing, and other interests that they had shared, and Darren had thought the man decent enough company, if a bit intense at times. Einar had eventually taken off up a steep, nearly impossible looking rocky gulley and quickly disappeared. Raintree had returned the following week to explore that gulley, but had never found any sign of a cave, or of Einars passage, either, for that matter. Nor had he been able to discover a way up out of it, eventually having to descend back to the floor of the main canyon. It had been a mystery, and one he had wanted to ask the man about, but had not encountered him again on the trail and had never got around to looking him up. So, while Darren Raintree did not wish Einar any harm, there was at the same time a sense in which he looked forward to the challenge of matching wits with the elusive fellow. Raintree had guided a team of six agents as they searched some of the lesser known locations in the high ridges and cliff faces around the Culver Falls areahe had insisted that the team be no larger than six, as a safety matter and also to help protect the delicate caves interiors from the inexperienced agents, though he had conceded that more men could come along, with the agreement that they would remain above ground. The first week of searching had not yielded so much as a footprint of a scrap of cloth that had appeared promising, and Raintree had begun a new week of guiding by urging his beat up old Nissan, loaded to capacity with gear and agents, up the muddy, winding switchbacks of a seldom used and poorly maintained Forest Service Road to a little plateau he had explored some years before, its exposed limestone cliffs and numerous sinkholes speaking to him of an extensive cave system that likely lay buried somewhere beneath its

grassy meadows and scattered clumps of aspen and stunted sub alpine fir. He had never found anything aside from a small blind hole or two, and looked forward to the chance to do some more poking around, on Uncle Sams tab. Several additional agents following the laboring truck on ATVs, the party finally reached Raintrees intended campsite near dark, setting up camp and sleeping in preparation for a day of searching. Each time they went out to search, one agent was tasked with remaining behind at the camp to guard it, a task that had quickly come to be labeled bear duty after an unfortunate overnight incident involving a hungry black bear and eight MREs, which had occurred after the agents had failed to follow Raintrees advice about securing their food overnight. Bear duty, with its requisite hours of sitting around in a cold camp on one desolate plateau or another, was not a coveted job, and the agent who had drawn the short straw that day, after finishing his breakfast and stowing the camp stove back in Raintrees truck, retreated to its cab for a nap, carelessly leaving his unwashed cooking pot and partially used can of sweetened condensed milk sitting on a nearby rock. Einar watched from his hiding place in the evergreen scrub as the mans head nodded with sleep. OK. Sure hope he left me something

Einar waited beneath the concealment of the evergreen shrubs for some time to make certain that the man in the truck was really asleep, debating as he did so exactly how much he ought to try and take from the camp. His immediate need was food, but some clothinga warm upper layer and perhaps some socks, would certainly make his life easier. From the look of the camp, the tents, the apparent lack of organization and especially the old beat up truck that was loaded rather haphazardly with gear that appeared well used, Einar was convinced with fair certainty that he had not stumbled upon a federal outpost. While the campers choice of location and season still struck him as a bit odd, and therefore worthy of suspicion, he finally decided that if he could sneak in while the man slept, get a look in that truck bed and find perhaps one or two articles of clothing and a bit of food, he ought to be able to gain some things that would benefit him a great deal without arousing too much suspicion on the part of the campers. But he would have to pick and choose very carefully what he took, and limit himself to things that might not be missed, or at least not right away. Carefully backing up and ducking behind the low rise of ground before making his way around it, he intended to approach the truck from behind where he would not be seen. By that time he had decided that the sleeping man was very likely alone at the camp. Surely some of the others would have been up by then, if there were others. Staying low as he made his way through the brush at the edge of the camp, Einar, directly behind the truck at that time, saw something that made him stop and look twice. Barely visible through the mud but nonetheless unmistakable he could make out a small bumper sticker on the upper right portion of the camper shell, yellow with the black image of a bat in flight. Cavers! Well, that explains the odd choice of campsite and why they dont mind being out in the muddy season before the scenery has really greened up Hmm. Wonder it its anybody I know? He doubted it, having done much of his exploration, to the

consternation of others, alone. Maybe I should have got to know some of those fellows a little better, taken them up on their offers when they asked me to go along with them sometimes. Might have meant that I could walk into this camp right now and get some help from folks who would not be at all likely to talk about it in the wrong places. If theres one thing cavers can do, its keep a secret. Sure would help to get a ride down out of here, maybe see if they could dump me out somewhere fifty miles down the road and Id never hear from the feds again. Be nice to just focus on living this summer, on getting ready for next winter, without having to be so awfully careful all the time. Just think of being able to have a fire at any time of the night or day, without having to worry about whether someone might see or smell the smoke! He had nearly convinced himself to approach the truck, wake the sleeping man, and ask if he might be amenable to such a proposal. Which would of course have resulted in his making the man in the truck one of the luckiest and most well known federal agents in the nation that day. Forget it, Einar. The idea had sounded plausible, had sounded pretty good, actually, as weary and hungry andif he was honest with himselfjust plain tired of running as he was, but he had no intention of actually approaching the stranger. And the knew that he probably would not have approached the cavers for help, even if they had been acquaintances of his. His past experiences with approaching former acquaintances for assistanceLiz being the one major exception had left him with a very bad taste in his mouth, and a wariness that prevented him from even seriously considering such a thing as an option. People change, people get scaredsome people might well be tempted by that reward money. Doesnt matter anyway. I dont even know these folks. At once relieved at what he believed to be solid confirmation that the campers were not feds, and a bit concerned that perhaps the cavers might stumble on his hiding place, Einar decided that, so long as the sleeping man did not wake prematurely and spoil everything, he ought to be fairly safe in approaching the truck and spending a few minutes inspecting its contents. If the rest of the campers were down in a cave, assuming they had not left camp before daylight, they probably would not be back anytime soon. The tailgate of the truck had been left down, and he could see a number of large stuff sacks, backpacks, and cardboard boxes that surely contained what would be to him an unimaginable wealth of gear and clothing. Very cautiously he approached the truck, stopping once to listen for any sounds from the area of the tents but hearing nothing. As he passed the rock and log where the man had eaten, Einar saw that there was indeed a bit of the chili left in the bottom of the pot, and over half of the milk in the can, also, but passed them up for the moment, intent on inspecting the contents of the truck bed. In order to get a look at the gear in the truck, he saw that he would have to first move the camp stove, which the man had placed on its side just inside the open tailgate, and he began carefully maneuvering it, concerned that the least little metallic bump or scrape had the potential for waking the sleeping man. Einar had just got the stove placed with painstaking care on the tailgate when he heard voices. The sounds were muffled and indistinct, but unmistakably human in origin, coming from somewhere a good distance beyond the tents. Fellow cavers or not, he knew he must not allow these people to discover his presence. Hurriedly replacing the stove, he took off for the trees, scooping up a handful of the remaining chili and stuffing it into his mouth

before hastily placing the pot back on its rock, grabbing the can of milk at the last minute and scurrying into the nearest stand of firs, which lay just beside the rise in the ground that had previously helped to conceal him. Rolling to his stomach just as they came into view, Einar watched as the five men in muddy coveralls and helmets made their way into camp, dropping packs and helmets and two coiled ropes beside the tents, several of them shouting and gesturing and apparently giving the man in the truck a rather hard time when he was discovered to be sleeping. An increasingly strong and gusting wind prevented Einar from hearing their words, but it seemed to him that they were rather overreacting. Poor guy was just trying to catch up on some sleep, after all Oh, well. Maybe he was supposed to be fixing food for the group, and now theyre upset that they have to wait to eat. The previously sleeping man had climbed out of the truck by that point, and was pointing at the chili pot there on the rock. A rather animated discussion ensued among four of the cavers and the man who had stayed behind, as they alternately bent down to inspect the pot and stood to stare off into the meadow and surrounding woods, shading their eyes from the sun. OK. Time to get out of here. The recently sleeping man had apparently noted the absence of the milk can, and had alerted his companions. They probably think it was taken by a bear, but I dont want to be stuck here if they come beating around in this brush after the critter! As carefully as he could, Einar got himself turned around and crept through the bushes until he was well behind the rise in the ground, standing and starting down the slope. If he had waited around to watch, Einar would have seen the agents remove a black hard plastic case from the truck, and begin to process the chili pot for fingerprints right there on the rock where he had left it, covered in grubby fingerprints that were obvious even to Darren Raintree, who had absolutely no training in forensics.

Einar carefully picked his way down between cliff bands, heading for his shelter and unaware of the developments up at the cavers camp. His biggest concern, aside from what he believed to be a fairly remote possibility that the cavers might stumble upon the little crevice that would give them entrance to his shelter, was the realization that he probably should not allow himself a fire until he was sure the cavers were gone, lest they smell the smoke and become curious. He knew that he could deal with the coldit wouldnt be pleasant, but he had been through worseespecially seeing that his clothes were dry and he had a bit of food left to eat, but he had really hoped to begin smoking the elk hide the following night, and knew that he also needed to turn the decent amount of pitch he had gathered into pitch sticks against the time he would either choose or need to return to the deeper recesses of the cave. Well, I expect those folks will have a fire tonight after theyre all done with the days activities, even if only for a little while. I should be safe lighting one and keeping it going just long enough to make the pitch sticks and warm the ground a bit for sleeping. And boil up some more of that sheep, maybe. Because I seriously doubt that its safe to eat raw anymore, if it ever was. Having smelled food all morning and tasted the chili, his stomach was rather urgently demanding

more. The more Einar thought about the fire, the more firmly convinced he became of the necessity of saving both of his remaining matches for lighting torches if and when he explored the rest of the cave. To go into it with only one was to risk being stranded in total darkness if he dropped it or broke it or failed to light the next torch before the first one died out. To that end, he began looking for the materials for a friction fire, finding a suitable straight dead spruce branch for a spindle and an aspen branch to split for the fireboard. Having difficulty this time coming up with anything to use as a bearing block, he finally settled on hoping to find a smallish chunk of limestone with a depression he could work and deepen, until he remembered the sheep haunch, wondering if the hip socket could be used. Thinking that it would likely require less preparation than a rock, unless he found one with a suitable depression preexisting, he decided to give it a try. With the realization that fire was not to be a big part of his life over the next several days, gathering evergreen boughs for a bed took on added importance. He knew he would have to sleep sometime, and he had already tried doing so lying directly on the cold rock of the grotto floor, finding it not to be an especially good situation, even if he had a fire to lie near. There were a few firs scattered among the spruces down below the cliff bands, and he focused on these, collecting as many boughs as he could carry and stuffing them in through the entrance to his cave, first carefully inspecting the soft ground below the ledge for any sign that it had been visited in his absence. There was none, but, he realized, he had been leaving quite a bit of sign as he scrambled up and down from the ledge, and it would be obvious to anyone who passed by that someone had been making frequent trips in and out of the crevice. Not good. He took a few minutes to carefully press a rock over the obvious boot prints that he had left in the damp soil, obliterating them and sprinkling a fresh layer of spruce duff over everything. Wouldnt fool a tracker, but it might keep a caver from realizing that he was standing at my front door. Not that it would do me much good. If they find this place, theyre gonna be coming in, anyway to check out this opening, but at least maybe they wont do it expecting someone to be in heremight give me a minute or two to figure something out. Thirsty from the climb, Einar scooped up and drank a double handfull of water from the little pool on the cave floor, realizing as he did so that the bite of chili from the pot at the camp had long ago worn off, that he was beginning to feel dizzy and shaky, badly in need of something more, if he intended to continue doing useful work that day. Collecting the fir branches where they had fallen and dragging them into the small calcite chamber, he wondered if he would ever manage to get ahead at all when it came to nutrition. He very much wished to be in a position where he could build up a bit of a reserve, so he did not have to spend nearly every moment of his existence thinking about food. After working on his fir-branch bed, Einar sat down heavily with the can of sweetened condensed milk from the camp, resting his head on his knees for a minute to catch his breath before enjoying a few scoops of the rich sweet goo, stopping himself with difficulty from tipping the can up and drinking its entire contents. He could already feel the tremendous energy boost that the sugar-laden substance was giving him, and knew he

had better make it last, as short as he was on real food. He would be needing it later, and hoped to be able to dole it out over the course of several days, perhaps saving it for occasions when he found himself having trouble with the damp cold of the cave, as he knew he would, in the absence of fire. A carefully placed smear of the milk here and there might also prove useful as bait for the snares he hoped to be setting before it got dark that evening. Feeling around in the darkness of the calcite grotto, Einar found the nettle stems he had previously started work on, again making the climb back out to the daylight to sit on the ledge outside the cave and work on snare cordage. He had a good start, having previously pounded the nettle stalks and corded nearly two feet of the fibers, and sat there under the ledge, taking advantage of the daylight to create enough double twined cordage for three snares. Only a start, but it is a start. Before leaving to set the snares, he prepared the fireboard for that evenings fire but waited to assemble the bow, for which he intended to make use of his bootlace. Grabbing his pack from the ledge beside him, he dropped to the ground and began descending in search of a likely place to set the snares. Thinking that the cavers would probably have little reason to descend below the band of limestone, Einar did so, wanting to reduce his chances of accidentally running into them as he checked his snares. Returning to the cave near sunset after a climb that had proven a good bit more taxing than Einar thought it should have, he crawled into the calcite grotto and flopped down on his bed of evergreen branches, his heart pounding, feeling weak and sick and not even sure he could find the strength to get up and prepare his fire, let alone operate the bow and drill long enough to get it going. In the dim evening glow that made its way through the entrance crevice he could see the can of sweetened condensed milk, reached for it and scooped a little of it into his mouth, lying there and continuing to do so until he felt a bit better. Youre starving again, Einar. Using too much energy climbing all over this mountain, and not replacing it with anything. Those snares better start working pretty quick, or youre just going to have to leave this place and head down that slope until you find a big creek or something where you can get some fish. This is not working. The milk was gone, but Einar, once again able to stand up and, even more importantly, think a bit more clearly, did not much care. Hed hardly had a choice. He used the remaining light to prepare his firepit, shaving off some of the few remaining bits of sheep and setting them, along with nearly half of the grubs that waited sleeping in their refrigerator of rotten wood, in the tin can along with some water, wanting the stew to be able to begin heating just as soon as the fire was lit. He was still pretty nervous about having a fire at all that night, and very much wanted to reduce the amount of time he kept it going to what was absolutely necessary. Choosing a number of the thicker splinters from the fractured spruce trunk for his pitch sticks, he placed them beside the fire pit on a flat rock, along with the sardine can full of spruce pitch that he intended to melt. Feeling stronger for having finished off the can of milk, Einar was tempted to go ahead and make the climb up to the ledge again that evening to see if the cavers were gone, aware that such a discovery might well spare him from the unnecessary discomfort of a night spent largely without fire, but decided to give it another day, just to be safe. He knew that he would soon have to move on regardless, as he would always be wondering if it was safe to have a fire, and, with summer coming, could expect to be seeing an increasing amount

of traffic up on the plateau. After boiling his rather foul-smelling stew of rotting sheep meat and grubs long enough that he was confident it could be eaten safely and making twenty pitch sticks of varying widths, Einar put out the fire, knowing that he had no way to even be certain that the cavers, if they were still there, would have one of their own to mask its scent. They could just as easily have cooked their supper on the Coleman stove, and gone to bed. Pushing the coals aside, he dragged some of the fir boughs over the warmed rock, curled up and slept. The quick fire had hardly warmed the rock past the first inch or two, though, and that heat quickly dissipated, leaving Einar to wake shivering and hungry barely an hour later, rising to stomp around the cave and wishing rather strongly that he had more to eat. Desperate and growing colder, he raided the compartment in the rotten spruce trunk and swallowed the remaining grubs raw, removing the heads and gulping a bit of water with each of them. He was dismayed to find that there were only four left, but the sheep haunch, what little he had left of it, had developed a smell that told him that eating it without first subjecting it to some serious boiling would likely mean risking an illness that might very well do him in, in his present condition. He reluctantly made himself leave it alone. Einar was drifting in and out of sleep, having finally curled up shivering and exhausted on his fir bed after a long chilly fireless night of pacing and stomping around the grotto in an attempt to stay warm, when he heard the helicopter. His broken sleep had again been troubled by many dreams that morning, and at first supposing the sounds to be part of a dream, he stirred, shifted position on the bed and tucked his nose inside the collar of his shirt, attempting to get back to sleep.

If he had been up on the plateau that morning when the sound of the helicopter had disturbed his sleep, Einar would have seen a good deal of additional activity up at Darren Raintrees caving camp, despite the predawn darkness. Unlike the previous instance, the helicopter Einar had heard in his sleep that morning had not been purely the product of his troubled dreams. It had been real, had landed on the plateau to deliver a team of three FBI trackers and twenty additional agents to help in the search and provide security, after the agents had finally confirmed the fingerprints on the chili pot to be Einars. It was fortunate for Einar that the ground around the camp had still been frozen when he had walked on it the previous morning, and that the agents had trampled all over it looking for any sign of the thief, greatly increasing the time it took for the trackers to find and begin following his trail as light began creeping across the plateau that morning. They did eventually find it, though, and made their way very slowly and carefully down the steep slope that descended at times nearly vertically between fins and escarpments of exposed limestone, delayed for nearly half an hour at one point as they waited for a team to arrive and rig ropes for a particularly exposed section of the descent.

After more than an hour of exhausted sleep another sound woke Einar, this time jarring him wide awake and instantly very alert, realizing that it had come from the direction of the cave entrance. At first he thought that perhaps an animalraccoon, cat, or even a young bear, as an adult could not squeeze through that crack, might be entering the cave. Grabbing the entrenching tool and locking the handle into place, he waited to see the creature in the dim glow that shone through the crack, ready to leap at it in an attempt to acquire some badly needed food. Nothing came, though, and, continuing to hear scrapes on the ledge outside and the occasional rattle of a small rock as it tumbled in through the entrance and went rolling and clattering to the floor below, he rolled stiffly up off of his makeshift sleeping pallet and went to investigate. Daylight was streaming in through the crack in the rock, illuminating the thin snaking shape of a climbing rope that had been dropped into the darkness below, dislodging the rocks that had awakened him.

Einar realized instantly that the cavers must have found his shelter, hurried back into the grotto and rounded up his cooking can, still half full of re-solidified pitch, and the empty milk can, which, in addition to the shovel, were the only possessions that he had not kept in the pack overnight. He stuffed a number of the pitch sticks into his pockets, stashing the rest in the pack and slinging it over his shoulder before hurrying out into the main grotto, sticking close to the wall as he headed for the slot that had first allowed him entry. No one was yet visible on the rope or in the little patch of sky that showed through the crack, and Einar crouched in the darkness of the access slot, very much regretting not having explored that third way out. There was no way he was going to take it just then, though, not knowing whether it might leave him trapped after a few yards to explain his presence to a group of startled cavers. He heard muffled voices, looked up and saw a human head and torso silhouetted against the sky, a slung rifle clearly visible as the man turned to adjust the rope. Einars breath caught briefly in his throat as he realized that the camp on the plateau had been no ordinary cavers bivouac. They are here for me. Should have known it, Einar. Should have known that camp couldnt be a coincidence. Should have picked up and left this place just as soon as you discovered that camp. Hurrying, he left a few clear boot prints in the narrow strip of damp, muddy ground that passed in front of the second tunnel, wiping his boots on his pants and jumping back across the muddy strip onto the rock floor of the main grotto, hoping that the necessity of investigating the fresh tracks, however briefly, might perhaps give him a chance to escape. Just as he ducked into the narrow slot that had allowed him entrance, a light was lowered in through the crevice, a bright spotlight of some sort that lit the up grotto with a stark white gleam and made every detail and corner stand out sharp and clear. And ended any further thoughts Einar might have harbored of waiting at the bottom of the rope with the entrenching tool in an attempt to obtain one of those rifles. Too bad Im not armed. You boys are gonna make some fine targets when you start coming down that rope, with all this light. Id just stay here in these shadows and see how many of you wanted to keep coming down, and you

might get me eventually, but itd be worth it. Not an option, though. What am I gonna do at this point? Throw rocks? If Id have really thought ahead, I could have set it up so rocks fell on them as soon as they got down to the grotto floor. Wouldnt have been too difficult, with that angled slab up there that the water drips off of, a log, maybe, and some cordage But of course, he had done nothing of the sort. Had got to feeling too secure in the cave, had not prepared. And now he was worried. He knew they would quickly discover that he had been in the cave, knew his tracks in the mud of the second tunnel probably would not fool them for long. Starting down the rocky incline into the slot, Einar wondered what his chances could possibly be if it came down to an actual chase through the cave, wondered if he even had the strength to make the journey out to the waterfall himself, after a day of climbing and very little food or sleep over the past twenty four hours. He just had to hope that his experience and recent familiarity with the geography of the cave might serve to balance the fact that his pursuers were certain to be better equipped, well fed and uninjured. And would have lights that did not consume oxygen. Oh Yeah. That sounds like itll balance out, all right Youre gonna die in here, Einar. He continued quietly down the slot away from the glow of the spotlight, thinking that, as his dire prediction was almost certainly correct, he wished all the more that he was armed so he could at least make a stand in the grotto, make his life cost them something. Or, better still, that he had possessed the time and foresight to rig the entrance and make it discouragingly difficult and dangerous for anyone who chose to intrude on his place of refuge. Then he could have been making his escape while they dealt with the consequences of trying. Well. Work with what youve got. And he continued down the passage, reluctant to use one of the pitch sticks lest the light be seen, but knowing that in the absence of light, he would have to be very careful not to fall into the narrow, twisting slot that he had previously chimney across. Moving in a shuffling walk, feeling far ahead with his foot before committing any weight, Einar reached the dropoff, warned of its presence by an increasingly muddy smear on the passage floor even before his foot probed the open space at the edge of the slot. Looking back he could see the glow of the spotlight, saw a man on the rope and wondered how many might already be down in the grotto, how long it would be before he had company there between the walls of rock. Hurry. And he began chimneying, glad that the slot curved and twisted and soon blocked the light behind him from direct view, leaving only a diffused glow that at first aided his travel a bit, but soon faded to near invisibility. Though he kept urging himself to move faster, it was in reality all Einar could do to keep himself wedged in the crack and moving forward, making constant but maddeningly slow progress with limbs that were already beginning to tremble and cramp up and threaten him with an untimely fall. Einar had not been going for long before he realized that someone was pursuing him, that the glow he saw was changing, brightening and occasionally flashing in a way that told him someone with a headlamp was following not all that far behind him. He will have seen my tracks in that mud by the dropoff. No way to not leave tracks in that Pausing for a moment to look back, he could see that the man with the light was moving much more quickly than he was able, that as soon as he rounded one or two more curves, that light would be shining directly on him, at which point he would really have no way out.

He considered going down, seeing if he could make his way along at the bottom of the crack where he might remain hidden, but for all he knew, it might quickly become too narrow for him to make any progress at all, and while there was always the chance that the entire search might pass over him and move on, he was not interested in taking that for granted, if there was another option. Which there was. Go up. Let him pass under you. The walls grew farther apart up higher, and as he ascended, Einar found himself having to switch from chimneying with his back against one wall and his knees/feet against the other, to straddling the space with one foot on each wall, wishing very much that he had the use of both arms, and that his hip was not protesting so greatly at the activity. The going was a bit more unsteady than he would have liked with only one hand to help balance himself and the rubber of his boots worn nearly smooth in places from many months of hard use, but at least the walls were mostly dry in that section, and he found the approaching light, which was by that time flashing off the wall directly adjacent to him, to be a rather powerful motivator. Looking up, Einar saw, with the assistance of the glow from the agents headlamp, a massive block of rock some fifteen or twenty feet above him, wedged in the slot and spanning it like a bridge. Heading for the block with a burst of desperate energy, Einar pulled himself up on top of it just as the man rounded the last curve, his headlamp flashing on Einars boots as he dragged himself up onto the rock. He lay sprawled on top of the block, waiting for the cramping in his leg to subside and struggling to quiet his breathing so the approaching agent would not hear him. The mans progress had seemed to slow greatly as he rounded the curve, and Einar, facing the other direction, could not turn to look behind him to discover why without risking knocking loose one of the small pebbles he felt beneath him and possibly alerting his pursuer to his presence. After a minute he heard a series of metallic clanks and clicks, including the distinctive sound of a carabiner gate clipping closed, and decided that the agent must be setting up an anchor, perhaps with the intention of rappelling to the bottom of the crack. The light was moving again, and Einar found that he could get a look at the man by carefully inching forward on the block, and craning his neck over the edge. It did not take him long to realize what the agent was doing. Chimneying along, he was placing protection every five or six feet in a narrow crack in the rock that ran parallel to the slot, choosing chocks and cams from a large rack slung over one shoulder on a piece of webbing. As he placed each piece of protection, he clipped a rope into it before moving along. They had apparently sent their best climber ahead to set up a safety line for the rest of the search crew. No. No, I dont think so. Sharing this place with a dozen of your well-armed buddies is not my idea of a good time. Or of a good way to live through the day, either, and I do want to live. Very carefully, Einar slid his pack down beside him on the block, felt for the piece of cordage that secured the heavy, stiff elk hide to one of the coyote legs, and untied it. He was very sorry to be losing the hide, but knew he would soon be losing a good deal more than that, if he allowed all those agents in behind him. There was still a good distance to cover before he would reach the narrow squeezeway that he hoped would halt them altogether, and as slow as he was moving, he knew they would almost certainly have him long before that. Carefully maneuvering the elk hide out in front of him on the block, he waited until the agent was directly below him and thoroughly absorbed in his work. The hide hit the man squarely on the helmet, knocking

him loose and sending him sliding down into the narrowing, twisted depths of the slot, his climbing gear and slung rifle rattling and clanking against the walls as he went down. Scrambling, Einar felt around on the block until he found some large chunks of loose limestone, sending them down after the man for good measure. This is my territory down here. You should not have followed me. He could already hear voices in the passage behind him as he hurriedly began chimneying his way across the remaining fifty or sixty yards of the slot, aided by the light of the fallen mans headlamp, which seemed to be pointing straight up, but worried at the same time that it would give him away if any of the others rounded the curve before he made it to the end. He could see their lights flashing on the wall in front of him as he struggled with his cramping legs, the distance he still had to cover suddenly appearing immense.

By the time Einar reached the far end of the slot, he found himself barely able to move, plagued by cramps and a constant and nearly incapacitating tremor in his left leg, brought on by overuse and fatigue and commonly known to climbers as sewing machine leg. Several times he nearly fell, catching himself and putting all his strength into pressing with his right foot, giving the left leg a chance to rest in the hopes that it would begin functioning a bit more normally. No luck. He could see the ledge that he was aiming for, dimly illuminated in the reflected light of the fallen agents headlamp, finally reached it, stepping down onto it and immediately collapsing on the muddy ground where he allowed himself a brief and necessary moment of stillness. When his rasping breath had quieted some, he lifted his head and listened for any hint that the other agents were starting across the slot, at first hearing nothing. He wanted to descend to the bottom of the slot, to see if he could perhaps obtain a headlamp, rifle or other gear from the fallen man, but as he lay there trying to decide whether it was worth the risk, the muffled sound of voices reached him, and with it the brightening glow of more than one headlamp as several agents slowly made their way through the slot to see why they had not yet heard from their companion. He heard shouting as they discovered the reason, heard them repeatedly call to the man and get no response, then he heard something else, something that made his scalp tingle and sent him scurrying down the corridor as quickly as his stillcramping legs would allow him to move. Raintree. They were calling for Raintree, and if hes in on this, I am in more trouble than I had guessed. Einar had only met the man a time or two, but knew him by reputation to be perhaps the most knowledgeable person around when it came to Lakemont Countys hollow bands of limestone. Aside, perhaps, from Einar himself. This is not good. He may know of this place. He may even know of that other entrance. Or be able to guess at its location accurately enough to get me trapped in here. Got to move fast, now. What Einar did not know, but might have surmised if he had taken the time to think through it, was that Darren Raintree, as the only experienced caver among the federal searchers, was at that moment being called upon to spearhead the difficult and dangerous rescue of a man who all involved believed likely to be suffering from serious head and neck injuries, and who had somehow to be extracted from the seventy five feet of narrow, twisting slot down which he had fallen, without further exacerbating those injuries. It

was not to be an easy task, or a quick one. Einar continued down the passage, between walls that he knew from memory if not from sight were white with calcite, feeling as he ran his hand along them the occasional protrusion of a delicate calcite formation. Einar did not know what conditions would be like at the other end, whether he would be able to get out at all, or even whether there would be enough air to keep him going for long enough to do him any good, if he found the water to be up over the top of the other entrance. If the draft he had been feeling in the grotto each night and morning was any indication, the water level was still going down low enough every night to expose the small chamber where he had left the sheep remains to the open air. Perhaps he could hold out on whatever oxygen existed for the few hours he estimated he would have between the time he reached the chamber and the time when the cooling temperatures of evening would begin to lower the water level, allowing him to duck out of the chamber and take his chances with crossing the slab above the waterfall. Perhaps the log that had jammed at the top of the waterfall would still be there, perhaps the water level would be low enough that he could use it to steady himself as he waded across, allowing him to maintain his footing and not fall to his death. He shook his head, tried to shove those thoughts to the back of his mind, for the time. He had a lot of work ahead of him, and needed to concentrate if he wanted a chance of making it. And he knew that he could soon be dealing with the additional complication of being pursued through the narrow passages by a dozen angry federal agents with rifles and headlamps. Reaching the large chamber that he had first discovered after squeezing and dragging himself through the tight, breathless crawlway from the waterfall, he felt around for the opening, found it, and hastily tied his pack to his boot for the crawl. The passage was tight, but not quite as tight as he had remembered it, and he did not know whether to attribute this to the fact that things were shaped slightly differently coming as he was from the opposite side, or whether he had simply lost more weight since first passing through its confines. Almost certainly both He did have to hold his breath, but it was not nearly as bad as the first time, since he knew it would not need to last long. Very soon the passage opened up slightly and he was crawling again, rather than shoving himself forward inches at a time with his toes and pulling with his fingertips. A welcome change. Crawling along in the darkness, Einar had noticed for some time a growing rumbling, though he was aware of it more as a vibration in the rock than as an actual sound, convincing him that he must be approaching the waterfall. He was glad. The air had been growing increasingly stale and close, and he found himself straining for breath and coughing frequently as he pulled himself through the low crawlway. The stench told him he was nearing the chamber before he was even aware of the widening of the passage that he had been counting on as a sign to warn him before he crawled over the four foot drop, and potentially into the water. Feeling ahead with his hand, he found the drop, reached down until he found the inevitable water, glad to discover that it was several feet lower than the crusty silt line that marked its high point just above the top of the little tunnel. So. Waters already on the way down for the evening. He was well aware, though, that ones sense of time can easily become warped

in a cave, that for all he knew, it might already be the middle of the night, and the water at or near its low point. Hope not The air was bad in the little chamber, close and foul smelling from the rotting sheep carcass, and Einar was anxious to be out of it. Mainly, of course, because he still expected his pursuers to be somewhere back there behind him. He was pretty sure though that there was no way any of them ought to be able to get through that dreadfully tight squeezeway. Not, that is, if they were in the habit of eating regular meals. They might have ways of widening a passage, though, or they might, thats a horrible thought decide to toss a couple of smoke or pepper grenades through the tunnel if it finally became too low to allow them passage. And the longer he waited, the greater the likelihood became that they might discover the tunnel entrance by the waterfall, and be there waiting for him. He knew the crevice would not be visible with the water as high as it was, but if anyone knew of the opening, he thought, it was likely to be Darren Raintree. Or someone the caver knew personally and could go to for information. The speculation was rapidly becoming less relevant, anyway, because he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe, and knew that if the water level did not soon go down, he would have to take his chances and duck out through the tunnel in search of oxygen. Cant live long without that. Lying on his stomach in the muddy tunnel, the thought occurred to him that perhaps his best plan might be to lie there until the water went down, let himself pass out if that became inevitable, and count on the influx of fresh air to wake him when the level went down far enough to let it in again, and him out. Yeah, but what if they do somehow make it through that tunnel behind you? Or if the water never goes down that much, and you just dont wake up? Pretty sure it doesnt make much sense to keep lying here, Einar. Youre just tired. Better move. But he was becoming less certain, was having a difficult time making a decision, having trouble, in fact, remembering that he had a decision to make at all. It seemed enough just to lie there, each breath a great enough effort that he couldnt really imagine why he would want to exert himself any further. Time passed. The water below him seemed to be glowing with an odd green and purple iridescence that swirled and crackled, held his attention, made him very much doubt his eyes, then nothing, blackness, silence, the stench of death and the immense weight of the rock closing in around him. He shut his eyes. Struggled for the next breath. And the next. Words came to him, lines dimly remembered in the shadowy recesses of his dimming brain, and he searched for them, clung to them, struggled to bring them to his lipsOut of the depthsthe depthsAnd suddenly they came to him, and they were his words, his prayer, his cry, and he was saying them with all his strength, silently, over and over again: Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O LordLord, hear my voiceI sink in the miry depths where there is no footholdhear my voicedeliver medo not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me or the pit close its mouth over mehear me. Lord. Please. And He did, He must have, because when Einar opened his eyes, a tiny sliver of light was showing, just a crack of dusky light between the black water and the blacker mass of rock above it, and a handit looked to him very much like Lizs handwas reaching in through the crack, reaching for his own, and Einar struggled out of the tunnel, rolled into the stinking, slimy water below it and went under, pushed himself to his feet coughing and choking and spitting out water, stumbled towards the

hand. Liz Please Help me He grabbed the hand, was pulled rather insistently out of the crevice, swept out into the open air where he clung to the rock above the opening, submerged up to his armpits in the icy, silty water, barely keeping his footing, gulping great breaths of the good sweet life-giving air and blinking in the evening light, alone on the ledge above the waterfall.

Struggling to keep his feet under him, Einar glanced around in an attempt to formulate some sort of plan that would get him off the ledge, and further away from his pursuers, without drowning him in the process. The planning was not going especially well, as it seemed to be taking all of his focus, and all of his strength, as well, just to remain standing and maintain his slippery grip on the rock outcropping that was keeping him from being swept over the falls. He did not remember the water being so deep before, but supposed the logjam that had allowed the level to begin rising in the first place had acquired more material over the past several days, further backing things up. He could see that the ground rose fairly quickly in the direction of the waterfall, and very slowly began moving that way, sliding his boots along the slick surface and hanging onto the rough limestone protrusion with his left hand, keeping it close to his body because of the injured shoulder as he reached for the next handhold with his right. Inching forward in this way, Einar was able to reach a place where the tug of the water was much less insistent, rising just above his knees and swirling slightly in a small eddy pool created by an alcove in the rock. He stood there for a minute leaning on the wet limestone of the wall, relieved at the sudden elimination of the constant struggle to stay on his feet, exhausted and beginning to seriously notice the cold. The damp spray of the booming upper fall was unavoidable, its constant breeze seeming to chill him more quickly than the deep water had been, though he knew the reverse was more likely to be true. Taking another step in towards the wall, he noticed something dragging at his right foot, tried to lift it and suddenly remembered that he had never removed the backpack, which he had tied to his bootlace in order to haul it through the cave crawlway. Hope its not empty He lifted it, nearly fell as its sodden weight unbalanced him on the slippery surface of the water-covered silty limestone, caught himself and went to his knees in the water, fumbling at the knot that held the pack, his hands already rather too stiff to manage the fine work. The knot had become impossibly tight as he dragged the pack behind him through the cave, and Einar searched around for the roughest, most water-pocked limestone protrusion that he could find, rubbing and abrading the boot string on it until it broke. He lifted the pack out of the water and onto his shoulder, heavy, streaming and looking like a drowned coyote. A lumpy drowned coyote. Good. Somethings left in here, at least. Maybe a tin can and that e-tool, if Im lucky. If Im really lucky, maybe itll be the can thats half full of pitch. Burning that in the can like a little stove may be my only chance to warm up some after I get out of this, without making smoke for those feds to smell. Glad the stuff is waterproof. As he stood there shivering, trying to force his foggy brain to tell him what to do next, Einar could feel a familiar inertia beginning to come over him, sapping his remaining

strength and resolve and tempting him with the comforting lie that the safest thing, the only reasonable thing was to remain still, to wait, to see if perhaps in an hour or two the water might go down enough to allow him easier passage. He knew it wasnt true, fought it as if fighting for his life, which he was. Move. Find a way across. Its gonna be dark soon, and theres no way youre lasting an hour or two, let alone the night in this water, even if it is less deep here. But what to do? He knew that the only way off of the ledge that did not involve going over the lower fall had to center around the crack he had first used to access the ledge and which, straining his eyes in the gathering dusk, he could see was probably beyond the reach of the flowing water. As he was already nearer the waterfall itself than he was to the logjam and edge of the lower fall, Einar wondered if he might be able to make his way behind the falls and stay away from that dropoff altogether, but a quick inspection of the brown, thundering water that slid down the rock and left no space behind it told him that trying anything like that would likely just lead to a fall which, if it didnt result in his being quickly swept over the edge, would probably get him beat to death under the force of the falling water with its occasional floating logs and branches, or trapped beneath it and drowned. The logjam, then, seemed to offer his only real chance through the rushing water of the ledge, and he knew that if he was going to try it what choice do I have? he had better do so quickly, before he lost any more of the light or got too much colder and lost his coordination and balance entirely. Carefully retracing his steps and sharply chastising himself for even considering ducking back through the widening crack into the relative shelter of the cave chamber where there should now be plenty of air! And where you could wait until the water goes down some more, and could resthe reached the logjam, alarmed at the strength of the current that wanted to pull him up and over the logs to be crushed on the rocks below, or, just as likely, trapped and drowned on one of those little ledges that had prevented him from rolling the bighorn sheep down the drop, several days before. He started across, clinging to the slippery log and bracing his feet against the tangle of branches that it had trapped, fighting against the panic that tried to seize him when his boot became badly wedged between two branches, ducking under the water to allow himself to reach and free it. Holding his breath as he struggled to force apart the branches that held his boot, Einar realized that the current that had nearly been knocking him off his feet when he stood seemed far less forceful down beneath the level of the logjam. His boot once again free he rose, gasping for breath and hurrying to complete the crossing. The closer he got to the center of the ledge where the bulk of the water was coming down, the stronger the current became, until it was all he could do to keep his feet beneath him while clinging with both hands to the tangle of logs and brush and leaning into the current, let alone continue to make any forward progress. He considered going back, considered releasing the death grip he had on a clump of slippery, tangled willow brush and letting the water take him, but ended up choosing neither, just standing there growing colder and knowing that before long the decision would be taken out of his hands. An idea came to him as he clung there, and, remembering the reduced current strength he had noticed when freeing his boot and completely out of other ideas, he dropped to the ground, went under, started pulling himself hand over hand along the rocky surface of the ledge, using the tangle of branches, surfacing for air when he could hold his breath no longer before going under again. While the current was weaker

several feet beneath the surface, there were places where the tangle of trapped debris was thinner, and before Einar could do anything about it his legs and lower body were pulled through one of these gaps, leaving him trapped and unable to breathe, being slowly dragged further over the ledge as he fought to pull himself back. He finally made it, hauled himself several feet beyond the gap before surfacing to gasp for air, his strength spent, too weary to be glad at the discovery that he was beyond the worst of the current, and could once again stay above water. Einar took a few dragging, stumbling steps over to the shallower water near the crack he hoped to descend, dropped to his knees and rested, his head throbbing from his time beneath the icy water. Knowing that he must keep moving, he stood, stumbled over to the crack, glad to find that only a small amount of water trickled down it, finding his hands nearly useless with the cold and keeping his footing with great difficulty as he began the descent, once losing it altogether, catching himself by grabbing some gooseberry bushes before falling the last ten or fifteen feet, tumbling twice and splashing into the shallow water at the bottom, briefly trapping one leg in the silty buildup at the edge of the pool. He hauled himself up out of the water, flopped over on the spruce duff and lay there on his back for a long minute, exhausted and hurting from the fall, but not, he was pretty sure, seriously injured. Looking up through the trees at the dimming sky, Einar wondered what the chances would be that all of the agents from the camp might still be down under the mountain trying to rescue the fallen man from the cave. He knew cave rescues could be rather complicated, drawn out matters, that Darren Raintree was already down there, and that he ought to be kept quite busy until the rescue was finished, possibly leaving his truck and gear unattended on the plateau. Then there were all those ATVs He knew the idea that was taking shape in his mind was a daring and perhaps a foolish one, the desperate plan of a man in desperate need, but he did badly need food, needed clothes that were dry and not falling apart at the seams, needed that truck. He could see the top of the plateau as he lay there, its covering of stunted aspens showing sharply against the paling orange of the evening sky, and it seemed not unreasonable to think that he could make that climb. Until the approaching buzz of a small helicopter, barely audible over the rumble of the water, sent him scrambling up beneath the nearest evergreen to watch as it hovered for a minute, white with a blue stripe and lettering that he was too far away to read, before landing on the plateau.

The cave rescue was soon to be big news in Lakemont County, and before long nationwide, as well, as several Mountain Rescue members, who were not of course covered by the federal gag order and had no interest in keeping the FBIs secrets, would leak information to the press. Arriving on the plateau in a caravan of several trucks and Jeeps after a call was put in to the Sherriffs department for assistance with the cave rescue, Lakemont County Mountain Rescue converged in the main grotto where Einar had been sheltering, to help in raising the injured man out of the narrow crevice, several of them working to rig the ropes as two others went into the slot to help Darren Raintree secure the injured man to a rescue

stretcher for lifting. The FBI agents on scene would not allow any of the Mountain Rescue personnel into the small grotto, where they had set up lights and were busy photographing the walls and collecting evidence. Curious, Liz, who had stayed behind with the group that was rigging the ropes to lift the injured man out through the crevice, crouched down at the entrance, Einars charcoal scratchings clearly visible on the white walls in the harsh light of the spotlight. A young agent was busy photographing the images, and she attempted to strike up a conversation with him, finally convincing him to allow her in for a look. She had never seen anything Einar had drawn, of course, but when she noticed the little oak leaf down in one corner of the mural, she was sure that the work was his. He is alive! Or was, at least, not too long ago, and doing well enough to take the time to scratch this story on the wall of the cave. Too bad they found this place, because it looks like a pretty good shelter. Where are you, Einar? Somewhere safe, I hope, and beyond their reach. Having finished helping with the setup of up a system of ropes and pulleys to haul the injured man up and out of the crevice, Liz, Allan and one other volunteer were sent back up to the plateau to begin setting up camp, as it looked like the rescue would be lasting well into the night. Darren Raintree, a number of feet lower than the others participating in the rescue, noticed something odd down below, a shapeless object that he could not readily identify, wondered, squeezed down into the bottom of he narrow crevice after they had raised the injured agent and picked up the elk hide that Einar had used to dislodge the agent and halt the search. While it was stiff and covered with drying mud from being dragged through the cave, the hide definitely appeared to Raintree to have been scraped and worked with some care, and was tied with what was obviously roughly made natural cordage of some type. Darren inspected it, turning it over and over in the beam of his headlamp, before letting it fall back to the bottom of the crevice where he had found it. Let the archaeologists wonder about that one, someday. Besides, he may be back for it. He did not mention the hide to his federal counterparts. Darren had done what he had come to do, had guided the agents as they searched and protected the caves as well as he could, and as a bonus had even discovered a cave previously unknown to him, while leading agents to a place that contained recent evidence of the subject of their search. And, his task accomplished, he was beginning to feel a bit of remorse for helping them continue so closely pressing a man who he had met, had hiked with and found not to be bad company at all. Having seen Einars improvised living quarters in the small calcite grotto, it had been clear to Raintree from the well-scraped and chewed animal bones, and not many of them, at that, and the remains of grubs that had clearly been used as food, that the man was struggling to get by. He doubted that Einar would return to the cave after such a search, but was half inclined to drop a dry bag with some additional supplies down beside the elk hide, just in case. From the still-wet mud on the hide, it was clear to Raintree that Einar had quite recently been in the cave, and, depending on what other access might exist and be known to him, very well might still be. He eventually decided against leaving supplies, knowing that the agents would likely take great exception to such an action, if it was to be discovered.

Watching the helicopter from beneath the shelter of an evergreen on the steep slope above the waterfall pool, Einar regretted that its sudden appearance had prevented him from attempting his climb up to the camp, not sure this time that he would be able to keep himself going without the food he had hoped to obtain up there. The escape from the cave and the subsequent crossing of the waterfall had taken all the strength he possessed, its completion leaving him very nearly unable to lift his head, let alone work to put the needed distance between himself and his pursuers. The thought of raiding the camp had given him something to focus on, and he had been pretty sure that with it as his goal, he could drag himself up the slope beneath that plateau, with the understanding that things would improveor at least changeat the top. Change being the operative word, as he knew there was no real reason to assume that everyone would necessarily be underground, and he was under no illusion that he would be able to outrun or, at that point, even outsmart anyone he might meet. But it had been worth a try. Now, faced with a hungry night out in the open at 10,000 feet, wet and worn out and seemingly out of options, all he could think to do was to somehow keep himself moving. Another helicopter was arriving, this one larger and painted a flat olive drab, in contrast to the obviously civilian blue and white chopper that still sat perched on the plateau, he supposed awaiting the injured agent. He knew that the arrival of the choppers likely meant that they either had or were close to extracting the agent who had fallen, and were ready to transport him somewhere for help. The plateau would be crawling with people just then, and that those who were not down continuing with the cave search would probably maintain a presence there throughout the night as the hunt proceeded below ground. He wondered if they would find his exit point, knew that he had better find a way to get moving, not wait around to see. But first, he had to warm up some, even if it did mean losing some time. Looking around for a land feature that might best serve to conceal the little fire he hoped soon to have from the observation of anyone on the plateau, the best he could come up with was a little hummock where a large spruce had apparently fallen some years ago, its roots pulling up a large section of ground as it went down. He hauled himself up the slope to the place, rolled into the little depression in the ground behind it, leaning back heavily against the upflung roots of the tree with their load of dirt and duff. It will have to do. Time to see what I got left in here He turned the sodden pack upside down and shook, dumping its contents into the depression beside him, regretting it the next instant when two cans clanked against each other loudly enough to alarm him. Got to be more careful! But at least that means Ive got two cans left to clank together. Good news. He picked up the sardine can, set it on a log, found that the other remaining can was, indeed, the one in which he had melted the pitch for the pitch sticks, and which remained nearly half full of re-solidified pitch, its smooth surface gleaming in the evening light. All right. Gonna try this. He found the steel bar, which had somehow also managed to stay in the pack, looks like everythings still here, actually, pressed it between his hands and began attempting to scrape some flakes from the surface of the hardened pitch, holding the can between his knees and struggling to get his shaking hands to perform the task. After a time he got a fairly good little pile of flakes and scrapings, fumbled in his pocket for the waterproof

match holder, relieved and a little surprised to find it still there, along with several of the pitch sticks, their wood of course thoroughly soaked. On his first try he dropped the match, searching for it on the ground in the near complete darkness and glad to find that it had not fallen in one of the small patches of snow that remained in the shadow of the uprooted tree. After several more careful attempts, he successfully lit the match, intending to push it in through one of the air vents he had poked in the side of the can, but realizing very quickly that he lacked the dexterity to do so. He ended up just dropping the match on top of the pile of pitch shavings, greatly relieved when they took, the little flame spreading through the shavings, growing, and eventually igniting the surface of the quantity of pitch in the bottom of the can. Einar shivered over the little stove, knowing that it would not allow him to dry his clothes, but hoping that perhaps it could warm him enough to get him moving up the slope, away from the plateau and the growing federal encampment that sat perched on the open ground on its top. Scraping up some of the crusty snow from beneath the tree roots, he set the sardine can on top of the can that he had turned into a stove, trying to breathe the steam as the water heated but getting nearly as much acrid pine tar smoke, before he discovered that he could avoid this by placing the can off to one side, instead of trying to center it. He drank the water as soon as it was warm, scraping up more snow to thaw and heat. In the light cast by the stove, which was not all that much with the sardine can partially covering it, he began inspecting a chunk of wood, part of a fallen and largely rotted aspen that had at some point fallen partially across the depression caused by the uprooted spruce. The section of tree had caught his attention because it had reminded him of the punky lower half of the spruce trunk from which he had collected the grubs back in the cave, and he began pulling away the blackened, crumbly bark, damp and almost squishy in places, glad that it had not yet frozen for the night. Sure enough, after several minutes of searching, he had come up with three fat white beetle grubs, not a feast by any stretch of the imagination but, he hoped, enough to give him a bit of energy for his travels that night. He downed the grubs with another can of melted snow, unawarethough it should have been one of the first things he thought about when choosing his location that the glow from his little stove was being reflected off the smooth white bark of several nearby aspens, clearly visible from the plateau, if anyone chose to look in that direction.

Liz, her camp duties finished for the time, walked through the stunted aspens at the edge of the plateau opposite to the one that held the cave entrance where the agents and most of the Mountain Rescue crew were still working to bring up the injured man. It was after dusk, the sky clear with the chill of night having fallen quickly as the sun set. She had been drawn to the edge of the plateau, had wanted to get a view down into the canyon, finding it deep and prematurely black with the gathering shadows of night. Scanning the lower recesses, down where she knew the creek must be, she thought she saw a faint glow, looked again, keeping her eyes off to the side instead of focusing directly on the spot, and was sure. Assuming that it must be Einar down there, she wanted to go and

warn him of the federal presence on the plateau, wanted to take him some of the food and supplies that she was sure he could probably use, but she knew that to do so would almost certainly be to put him in greater danger, as she might very well be missed and followed, leading them right to him. As she watched, though, the glow grew brighter until it was unmistakable, obvious, a beacon to anyone who might walk away from camp and find themselves anywhere near the south end of the plateau. What is he thinking? She knew then that she must go and try to warn him, must do so very carefully so as not to bring anyone along after her. The rest of the camp occupants were still back near the tents finishing up their evening meal, and she hoped that Allan and the other Mountain Rescue volunteer might take her absence to mean that she had retired to her tent for the night. Which would not be at all like her, and would probably make them wonder, but she supposed could tell them later that she had not been feeling well. Trouble was, the pack with all of her gear was back in the tent, and there was no way she could go and retrieve it without being seen by the volunteers and the federal agents at the camp. She settled for hastily and quietly going to Allans truck at the edge of the encampment, where she had left a daypack with extra supplies incase they ended up being out for more than a day. It contained mostly clothing, but in its side pockets she also had stashed a number of other items, all of which she knew would be useful to Einar, if she did end up finding him. Cautiously latching the truck door without making a sound, she hurried back to the little aspen grove at the edge of the plateau, seeing that the glow in the canyon was as bright as ever. In the dimming light Liz tried to choose landmarks, something that would let her know where to look in case the fire had gone out or was hidden by a land feature once she reached the bottom, and she saw that it appeared to be near a spot where the canyon ended in a rocky bowl-type feature, and she supposed that if she descended, followed the creek nearly until that bowl, which she expected must contain a waterfall, from the looks of it, and climbed twenty or thirty feet up the opposite slope, she ought to be pretty near the fire. Wasting no time, knowing that someone at the camp could choose to explore the little grove of aspens at any time, and that, even worse, the Med-Evac helicopter would be taking off again as soon as they finally got the injured man up onto the plateau, she started down over the side, careful about her footing on the loose rock of the steep, sparsely vegetated slope. As she went, she told herself that even if someone else did end up seeing the fire, at least she, with a head start, ought to be able to reach it first, warn Einar that they were coming, maybe give him some chance of getting away before they arrived. Unless they sent up the larger chopper that had arrived that evening, bringing in additional agents to aid in the search. She knew it was equipped with FLIR, as she had overheard Allan talking about it with a couple of the agents. Put out that fire, Einar, or theyre going to have you! It took Liz longer than she had anticipated to navigate the steep descent to the creek and, by the time she reached it, she could no longer see any glow, was glad, hoped that meant it was no longer visible from above, either, but knew she must go check, just in case. The creek was wide and shallow at that point, crisscrossed by a network of logs and branches that had become trapped on the rocks when the water level went down for the night, and she decided to go ahead and cross incase it became narrower and deeper higher up,

slinging her boots over her shoulder and wading at times leaning into the current and using a stick to help maintain her balance, stepping from rock to rock when possible and using logs to aid her passage. Reaching the far side and sitting on a rock to put her socks and boots back on, she thought she caught a whiff of smoke, though it did not smell to her exactly like wood smoke. Making her way up the creek bank, Liz was pretty sure that the smoke smell was growing in intensity, though the growing breeze kept her from telling exactly where it originated from. Theres the bowl. Sounds like a waterfall, all right. So, just a little ways up the slope from here She started up into the mixed evergreens and aspens of the mountainside, looking for any hint of brightness, searching for places that appeared to be likely locations for a man to shelter in.

Einar was asleep, lying on the damp ground in the hollow left by the fallen tree, curled around his little stove, which had long ago burnt up its supply of pitch and grown cold. He certainly had not intended to sleep, had planned only to warm himself for a few minutes and drink a bit of warm water before hopefully moving on, but his exhaustion had finally got the better of him, and he lay there as the evening went on, always intending to get up in another minute, but finally sleeping instead, quickly growing dangerously cold and rather too worn out to wake up and do anything about it.

Liz almost walked right past him, following the faint, lingering smell of smoke up the slope. A fallen spruce, its upflung roots looking wild and weird in the moonlight drew her attention, and approaching it, she saw him there behind the fallen tree, mostly hidden by the shadow of its roots, his face partially illuminated by a patch of moonlight that fell between the aspen trunks, looking terribly gaunt, hollow, barely alive. She would, in fact, have thought him dead, had he not still been occasionally shivering. Einar? She spoke quietly, not really expecting him to respond, but not wanting to approach him entirely unannounced, either. Einars eyes jerked open, though, he rolled to his stomach and pushed himself up to his knees, collapsed back against the tree roots, tried again and made it. Its all right. Im alone. I dont think they know youre here. I saw your fire, but I dont think anyone else did. Are you OK? She didnt really need to ask, though. He looked awful. And, at the moment, very confused. Einar shook his head, slumped back down against the roots. Uhno, no fire here. Too close His speech was slurred, indistinct, but she was somewhat surprised he was speaking at all, the way he looked. You had a fire, a light of some kind, because I saw it. Here. This can. You hadwhat, pine sap in here? You were burning pine sap? Theyre up there, you know, she pointed in the direction of the plateau, theyre camped up there,

and I was afraid they would see your fire. Alarmed, he remembered the little stove, got to his knees again but could not rise. Yeah. Iwas cold. Waterfall. Had tohad to warm up so I could go...didnt work. Waterfall? She felt his sweatshirt, which was soaked and freezing, having barely begun drying before the fuel burnt out of his improvised stove. You sure have a way of ending up in the water at the worst times. She hurried to retrieve an extra polypro top from a stuff sack in her pack, but he pushed her away and curled up against the tree roots when she tried to help him into it, thinking her an especially persistent and somewhat aggravating illusion, just another product of his cold and deteriorating mind. All he wanted just then was to be left alone, to sleep, to lose himself again in the merciful dullness of unconsciousness that her arrival had so unkindly jarred him out of. Liz had other ideas. What are you doing? Wake up! Youre freezing. Ive got dry clothes for you. And food. Here. She took some dried fruit out of a side pouch of her pack, insisted that he eat it. Einar chewed the dried apples, realizing that the energy they gave him was real, too real to be part of any dream or hallucination. He sat up slowly, squinted at her in the pale light of the quarter moon. Liz?

Thats better, Liz said, glad to see that the food seemed to have allowed Einar a bit more awareness of his surroundings. Now stay awake, OK? Lets get you into some dry clothes. She removed the icy sweatshirt, helped him into the polypro top, zipped her jacket overtop to help keep out the chilly breeze, and did the same for the ski pants, glad that she was in the habit of always carrying an extra pair of polypro bottoms, also, which while they were too short, certainly fit him otherwise. She was very much alarmed at the amount of weight he seemed to have lost in the two months since she had last seen him. He really looked starved. Einar, have you been eating at all? Not...much, I guess. Not enough. Whathow did you he had meant to ask her how she had found him, but couldnt seem to find the right words, at the moment. She pulled her stocking cap down onto his head, gave him some more of the dried apples from her pack, along with some of the almond and chocolate chip trail mix she always carried, but could see that he was too cold and exhausted for the dry clothes and food to be sufficient; he was going to need some outside source of heat. Liz knew that he was in trouble; he was hypothermic, disoriented and by all appearances badly undernourished, and she had only a few hours to get him warm, fed, to do all she could for him before she must head

back up to the plateau so as not to arouse the suspicion of her companions and have people come out looking for her. And she knew that they had better not stay where they were for much longer, because others could easily have seen the glow from the fire, could have decided to investigate its source. Einar, having finally realized that Liz, for once, was not merely a product of his imagination, was, in addition to being baffled about how she could possibly have found him, very concerned that she might have been followed, that someone else must have seen the light of his ill-conceived fire. There were things he needed to ask her, thing he needed to know about the search, but he seemed to be having a difficult time getting Liz to answer his questions, and supposed that his words must not be making as much sense to her as they were to him. Which they were not. And then, despite his best efforts, he fell asleep again. Liz could see that he needed the rest about as badly as anything, but knew that she must not let him have it, until she got him moved to a safer location and hopefully a bit warmer. She was not sure that he would even be capable of walking, but knew she had to try. Waking Einar with difficulty, she gave him several more of the dried apples that had seemed to help before, lifting him and helping him to sit up in the hopes of keeping him awake. Can you walk? We need to get out of here, in case somebody else saw that fire. Understand? You have to try. He nodded in agreement, stood with her assistance before remembering that he had dumped and left the contents of his pack, sank back to the ground and tried unsuccessfully to begin gathering his few possessions. Liz saw what he was doing, searched around until she had found everything and stuffed it in the coyote hide, slinging it over her shoulder and pulling Einar, who had nearly fallen asleep again, back to his feet. After several minutes of walking, Liz taking them across the slope towards the waterfall, knowing that in the other direction lay the road up to the plateau, she heard the sound of the Med-Evac chopper powering up, and they paused beneath a spruce as it took off, the sound of its rotors seeming to pierce through the fog in Einars brain sufficiently to get him standing up on his own again and more than ready to keep moving away from the plateau. Their progress was faster after that, Liz finally deciding that they had gone far enough when they descended down into a little gulley that bisected the slope and could no longer see the glow of the lights at the camp on the plateau. She chose a large spruce with a good pile of duff beneath it, kicked at the duff to fluff it up a bit and create a flat spot, and sat down near its trunk, getting Einar, who had sunk back to the ground as soon as she had stopped, in front of her where she could support him. Rummaging in the side pocket of her pack, Liz found a space blanket, some hexamine tablets, her little Esbitstyle stove and some matches, and hurried to set up an improvised shelter, wrapping the space blanket around the two of them and setting the stove on a rock between Einars knees.

Concerned that the faint blue glow of the hexamine might show from the plateau, but far more worried about the reality that she had to get Einar warm, awake, mobile and able to care for himself before she left in a few hours to head back up to the plateau ahead of the coming morning, Liz went ahead and lit two of the fuel tabs, filling the sardine can from Einars pack with water from her water bottle and setting it to heat. The burning fuel tabs quickly heated the air in the near-tent created by the space blanket, and as it warmed, Einars shivering become more intense, which Liz knew meant that he was finally beginning to warm. As soon as the water in the sardine can was warm, she stirred in a good quantity of the hot chocolate-Tang mixture she had stashed in a freezer bag in the pack, a habit that she had picked up from several of the other Mountain Rescue volunteers. The warm, sweet drink seemed to go a long way towards reviving Einar, who was able to drink the second can without her help. After that he slept for awhile, Liz holding him and keeping the space blanket around them as she wracked her brain trying to think of what to do next. She was really worried about his physical condition, realized that he was in serious need of food and rest, and lots of it, over an extended period of time, if he was to recover, spent most of the night trying to think up a way she could get him this kind of help, without getting him, and herself as well, killed or captured. Einar mostly slept, though whenever he woke, she tried to get him to drink some more of the tang mixture, and eat a few bites of trail mix. After, that was, she convinced him each time that he was in no immediate danger that required him to take off up the hill, and talked him into staying in the warmth of the shelter. Which was no easy task, and took all the patience she could muster. She knew that there might be people on the trail behind them by that point, but thought it likely that they would have got the FLIR-equipped chopper airborne to aid in such a search, if it was indeed happening. She certainly hoped so, hoped there would be some warning, hoped she would have time to get back up to the plateau and somehow sneak back into camp before anyone noticed her absence. If they had not already. Clouds were moving in, low, heavy clouds that had begun early in the night as a few ragged streamers that raced across the moon, building up against the distant peaks until they covered the sky, obscuring it and making Liz glad that she had a watch, because she knew that she would not otherwise have been able to tell when morning was nearing. Around 4am she decided that she must be going, woke Einar and encouraged him to eat some more trail mix, told him of the plan she had devised as a result of her night of thinking. It wasnt much, but, she thought, was worth a try. Einar, you follow this creek down a little ways, maybe a quarter of a mile, and youll come to the place where the road switchbacks to start up there to the plateau. There are a lot of trees around there, so nobody should see you. Wait there, and Ill come for you tomorrow. In a white truck. Sometime around the middle of the day, to give those folks time to clear out from on top. OK? Think you can make it that far? He nodded All right. Ill take you somewhere safe. You understand? Where they cant find you. He nodded again, but she was not entirely confident that he understood, and even less so that it was something he would be willing to contemplate.

She hated to do it, but had to take back her orange Mountain Rescue jacket back just before she left, knowing that its absence would certainly be noted back at camp. Einar said he understood, thanked her, mumbled something about being careful, and promptly went back to sleep. Wanting to keep him as warm as possible as he slept, she rolled him to the side, kicked a trench in the duff and lined it with the space blanket, rolling him on top of the blanket and wrapping it around him before piling a thick layer of duff on top of him, leaving only his face exposed. She wished her daypack had contained a couple of chemical heat packs, so she could have included them, as well, but it had not. Im sorry, Einar. This is the best I can do for you. I really want to stay, but If Im not back there pretty soon, were both going to be in a lot more trouble Please show up this afternoon, OK? And she started down the slope, hurrying against the coming of morning and an increasingly restless wind that promised an impending change in the weather. Einar woke less than an hour later, knowing that he had to get moving and puzzled at the memory of a pleasant dream that had left him, it seemed, a good bit warmer and drier than he had been when he fell asleep. Attempting to rise, the crinkling of the space blanket very suddenly reminded him of just how he had come to be so dry and warm, reminded him that it had been no dream, and he hastily got to his feet, scrambling up out of the little gulley and looking up at the plateau, wondering how much time he had before the trackers reached his lower camp near the creek. Einar could clearly see the diffused glow from the federal camp reflected on the low cloud bank as he looked up at the plateau, wondering what the searchers had been doing all night that had required them to set up lights. Still searching the cave, I hope. Maybe its taking them a while, and theyve set up some sort of a base camp up there. He shook his head, suddenly remembering lighting the pitch stove in what had to have been pretty clear view of that plateau, if not of the actual camp, despite the little hummock he had crashed behind. It had certainly made sense to him at the time, had seemed, in fact, like the only thing that made sense. Must have really been out of it, to think that. He still did not understand how Liz had come to find him, how and why she would even have been in the area in the first place, though some dim memory of their one-sided conversation that past night told him that it had something to do with Mountain Rescue. Soshe is part of the search, then? This prospect alarmed him further, but it made sense, in light of her seeming hurry to leave that morning, saying that she had to get back somewhere before it got light. He really wished he had been more awake and aware that night, had been able to ask her some questions. Well youre awake now Einar, so you better get busy in case theyre on your trail back there. Returning to his bed on the side of the gulley, Einar searched in the darkness for his coyote skin pack, finding it hanging from one of the lower branches of the spruce, Lizs daypack beside it. It was too dark for him to get a good look at the contents of her pack, but he could feel that it contained a bit of clothing, a half-full water bottle and a length of

paracord, among other things. There would be time for further exploration later. He hoped. He was about to sling the pack over his shoulder when a thought struck him, causing him to toss it back down under the tree like it was full of copperhead snakes. If Liz is somehow associated with the search, doesnt that mean that maybe theres something planted in her pack? A tracking device of some sort, so they can watch me on a little screen somewhere and wait until Im out in the open, or sleeping, and pop up over a ridge in a chopper and come take me before I can do anything about it? It seemed reasonable to think that they might have chosen to do it that wayperhaps they had seen his fire, knew where he was, but did not want to attempt to take him there, afraid he might escape into the creek or disappear in the heavy vegetation of the slope, instead choosing to send in someone he knew to plant the tracking device, allowing them to finish him off on their own terms. As he thought about it though, it made less and less sense to him that the device (he had convinced himself by then that there must be a device) would have been hidden in the pack. The feds probably would not have considered that a secure enough means of ensuring that they would be able to track him. They probably would have just had her put the thing in these clothes, or hide it in my hair, or have me swallow it with that drink she kept giving me Rooted to the ground by his indecision, Einar very nearly made up his mind to put back on his old, wet clothes, abandon everything Liz had left him and take off up that ridge as fast as he could, hopefully leaving the feds to focus on his camp with the tracking device it would contain, their discovery of his location confirmed by a decoy he would construct from the space blanket and one of the trioxane tablets he guessed must remain in the pack. For a minute, it looked to him like the only way out of a certain trap. He had already begun hastily removing the polypro top when he stopped himself, struggled to push aside his growing panic and think through things logically. Yeah, OK, but this isnt about logic. Its about trust. And he trusted Liz. But what if they found out that she helped me before, threatened her with prosecution, and gave her the choice of serious prison timeor this? Do I really know for sure what she might do in a situation like that? He did not, of course. Knew what he wanted to think, but knew at the same time that it might have little to do with reality. For several minutes Einar stood there debating with himself, knowing that he was losing valuable time but feeling too lost and confused, himself, to make a decision, feeling rather more trapped than he had in the cave chamber with the water rising outside. She would have warned me. He finally decided. I know she would have found a way to warn me. And he knew it was the truth, knew with as much certainty as was possible for him considering the circumstances, and it was enough to get him moving again. Hastily pulling the space blanket up out of the needle-filled trench he rolled it up and added it to the pack, slinging both packs from his right shoulder and starting out up the gulley, after kicking the duff back into the depression where he had slept in what he knew would probably end up being an inadequate attempt to conceal the evidence of his camp, if anyone should discover it. After a few steps he stopped, returned to the spruce and did it right, carefully smoothing and scattering the needles and tossing a few sticks on top when he was finished, pressing them into the ground to make them look like they had

been there a while. Still, in the dark and finding himself dreadfully weary (another ten or twelve hours of sleep would have been real good, about now) and rather clumsy he knew his efforts probably still left something to be desired, but he had to try. Wanting to give himself the best possible chance of throwing off any trackers who might be on his trail up from the river, or Lizs trail, for that matter, he continued up the rocky gulley, watching his steps carefully and mostly sticking to the exposed patches of limestone that honeycombed the area. He topped out on the ridge not long after sunup, or what he guessed would have been sunup, had not the sky been so heavily overcast, and took a minute to rest under a fir beside an eroded grey spire of rock, looking down at the valley and clearly seeing the creek and the little road, beginning its switchbacking journey up the mountain just as Liz had described. He was not high enough to get a look at the flat area atop the plateau, but could see a dark colored truck and a Jeep slowly making their way down the increasingly muddy switchbacks. It was raining up there, or perhaps snowing, but it looked to him more like rain. He could see great sheets of it blowing across the top of the plateau, soon obscuring the little aspens that dotted its skyline. It was moving his direction, and would reach him before long. As cold as it was, he was pretty sure that the rain would soon change over to snow, even at the lower elevations. He was sure that the temperature had been dropping as he climbed, and more rapidly than could be accounted for by the gain in elevation. Looks like some fine weather were in for, today. There may be some hope yet. He wondered if they were still in the cave, still hunting him in there. Cave operations could be slow, he knew, especially if they were taking any sort of precautions with the thought that he could have rigged some of the passages to make himself more difficult to follow. Maybe that will keep them occupied while I get out of here Which was his intention, having remembered Lizs offer to meet him at the bottom of the road and rejected it without much thought as unreasonably risky for everyone involved. The precipitation began on Einars ridge as a thin, piercing drizzle that quickly drove him beneath the shelter of the thickest evergreen he could find, anxious to keep his clothes dry. As the wind picked up and sent the rain slanting nearly sideways, Einar hurriedly retrieved the space blanket from the pack, draping it over himself and huddling against the leeward side of the spruce trunk, waiting for some time as the storm broke over the plateau and ridge, cold rain drenching everything and eventually beginning to drip through the branches of his shelter-tree to land in a steady rhythmic pattern on the space blanket, nearly lulling him to sleep as he crouched there, dry and warmer than he had been for some time, despite the weather. Anxious as he was to keep moving, he decided to wait for a bit in the hopes that the rain would go ahead and turn to snow, knowing that he would have a far easier time keeping his clothes dry traveling in the snow than he would in the present rain squall. And, he told himself, the weather should prevent them for the time from using the larger chopper that he believed was still up on the plateau in any search for him, and ought to really slow any trackers who might be on his trail, also. Truth was, he was beginning to have second thoughts about Lizs offer, beginning to wonder what the chances might be of such a

thing turning out well. He was tired. Dead tired, tired enough to sometimes catch himself almost wishing he would die, so he could finally have some rest. He knew that was a dangerous place to be, knew he needed the sort of rest and recovery that could only come if he was somewhere safe, where he did not have to be constantly struggling to maintain full alertness, constantly looking over his shoulder and waking in the night wondering if it was way past time to move on again, as well as attempting to secure food and find shelter and do all the other things necessary to keep himself going. But he knew at the same time that he would probably not get that, or anything approaching it, by allowing Liz to take him to someones house at that point. With the search as active as it was bound to be, surely they would have her under surveillance, would have him before they got out to the main road, let alone any distance from the center of the search. He rested his chin on his knees, drew the space blanket tighter around him in an attempt to keep out more of the biting wind, stared down at the brown snaking switchbacks of the road, blurry and nearly obscured by the rain. Einar felt a bit of sadness, of loss over the fact that he had not really been able to talk with Liz at all. He had certainly wanted to, though most of what he had wanted to tell her that past night had revolved around why she must never, never again take such a risk, must not try to find him, must forget him. Why anything else could only end in one or both of them being killed or captured. Perhaps, he told himself, he ought to be glad, after all, that he had not been able to express those thoughts to her. They sounded rather ungrateful, in light of what she had just done, and was offering to do. He knew he ought to have been thanking her, that he ought to be awfully grateful to her for keeping him alive that night. Looking back he was quite certain that the sleep her arrival had interrupted had not been a good thing at all, had not been something he had possessed the strength or ability to pull himself out of. It would have been his last. And hed been too far gone to even realize it. He shivered, beginning to grow cold in the damp breeze of the ridge, decided that it was time to take inventory of the little pack and see if there was any food left. Hoped so. Looking down at the valley, Einar watched as a white king cab pickup made the last turn off of the switchbacks, stopping in a wide place just after they ran out. Someone got out of the drivers side, raised the hood. He was pretty sure that he recognized Liz.

Liz hurried down to the creek in the predawn darkness, making sure to take a different path than the one they had climbed up on, so as not to leave an even more obvious trail than she expected she had already left. Crossing the creek was a bit more challenging without the light of the moon to aid her, but she managed it without incident, keeping up a good pace for the climb and topping out not too far from where she had started down the evening before. The camp was well lit, quiet save for the attached generators that powered the light towers, and she knew that she must not simply go walking back into camp without some good explanation for where she had been. Carefully making her way through the bushes some distance outside the circle of lights, she was glad of the hum of the generators, knowing that it would serve to cover any small sound she might make as

she crept over to the area where the Mountain Rescue volunteers had set up their tents. Liz had positioned her own tent off to the side, some distance from the others up next to a thick stand of chokecherry, and was suddenly very glad to discover that the brush should cover her approach, if anyone was watching. Crouching in the shadows just behind her tent, she saw that a couple of people were stirring, and recognized Allan and two of the other volunteers, standing around the fire and drinking coffee. The sound of muffled voices could be heard from the FBI portion of the camp as well, a light showing through the fabric of one of the canvas wall tents they had set up. Liz stepped out from behind her tent, yawning and walking over to join the little group by the fire. Hey, Liz. Allan noticed her first. Wondered when wed be seeing you. We were just discussing breaking down the camp and heading out pretty soon, cause it looks like were in for some weather this morning. Snow, probably. And they, he nodded towards the wall tents, have made it pretty clear that they wont be needing us, today. As they loaded tents and gear into Allans truck, Liz tried several times to decide how to bring up the subject at hand. She didnt have a vehicle up on the plateau, had ridden up with Allan, and knew that, while Einar would not like it at all, Allan he had to be in on it, this time, if there was to be any chance of success. She could see no way around it. Hey Allan, can I drive down today? He looked a bit puzzled. Uhsure. Fine. Why? Remember a couple of months ago when you said to let you know if I needed any hypothetical help? Well, now I do. It did not take Allan long to realize what she must be talking about, but he wanted more details before agreeing to participate. While he had some doubts about the wisdom of the plan as Liz described it to him, especially considering the rather large federal presence on the plateau, he did agree to help, said he supposed they could decide to have engine trouble on the way down, pull over at the bottom, and he could stay hidden so as not to spook Einar, but get out and appear to be working on the truck if anyone else came along. All that remained was for them to find a way to delay their departure so as to arrive at the bottom of the switchbacks closer to the middle of the day. This ended up being a nonissue, as two of the vehicles that headed down the hill ahead of them became badly stuck in a narrow, muddy portion of the track, which had been greatly worsened by the increasing rain, requiring several hours of work to extract them.

The rain had turned to snow as Einar sat there watching the white truck, had slowly begun whitening the saturated ground and plastering the tree trunks as the wind whipped it nearly sideways, entirely obscuring his view of the valley at times. He was hungry, getting cold, wanted to explore the contents of Lizs pack for anything that might improve the situation, but waited, not wanting his next move, which he seemed to be

delaying with all his might, to be dictated by what he found in there. Which at that point he knew it very well might be, if he allowed himself to look. He was pretty sure that a discovery of minimal or no food in the pack would sway him in favor of heading down the ridge as quickly as possible to that truck, to warmth, shelter, food. And probable capture. The pack can wait. It was a silly thing, he knew, knew that if the pack contained food, however little there might be, he ought to be eating it to help keep himself warm and give him energy to keep moving, but Einar was learning something of how his mind functioned in his current depleted state, knew that with his resolve not as strong as it ought to be, he must allow himself, for the moment at least, to hang onto the hope that the pack contained a good bit of food. And maybe some dry clothes, because I dont think these will be dry for long, in this storm. He rose, shook the accumulated snow and frozen rain from the space blanket, slung the packs over his shoulder. Good bye, Liz. Thank you. He turned away from the dimming image of the truck, of the road, of the valley below him, started up the remaining ground that separated him from the crest of the ridge, beset by a sharp sense of loneliness and loss that he had somehow managed to keep at bay throughout his entire ordeal up until that moment, but knowing that he was doing what he had to do, for both of them. Einar did not look back once he started up the ridge, and would not have seen much, if he had. He certainly would not have been able to see the two white vans that had pulled in behind and beside Liz and Allens truck, or the four men who quickly exited the vehicles to assist them. Nor would he have seen the insistence on the part of the friendly agents who, once the truck was running again, insisted on following Liz and Allen out to the main road, in case they experienced any further problems. The snow was increasingly heavy, wind driven and swirling along the ridge, cutting his field of vision down to the few yards that immediately surrounded him. Einar walked hunched over, leaning into the wind and hoping that it would lessen once he reached the crest of the ridge and headed down the opposite side, but finding the opposite to be true. The space blanket was helping some in his desperate efforts to keep his clothes dry, but he was finding it a constant struggle to keep the wind from snatching it away from him altogether, let alone prevent it from raising a corner enough to allow the wet snow in. He knew he needed to stop, to seek shelter and get out of the wind, but kept telling himself that he must go on, must put more distance behind him while the storm kept the choppers grounded and hopefully interfered with the work of the trackers. That thought kept him going down the backside of the ridge and a good distance down the valley this lead him to, traveling downvalley for the simple reason that he was too worn out to climb anymore. Finally, knowing that he must either stop and choose a place to shelter or have it chosen for him by his growing exhaustion, he picked out a stocky evergreen with lowsweeping branches and a boulder nearby to help block out the wind, dropping to his knees under the relative shelter of the tree and knowing that his immediate future would largely depend on exactly what he found in that pack.

Ducking his head under the space blanket to shield himself further from the wind, Einar found that beneath the spruce, its force was enough reduced that he could keep the crinkly mylar sheet in place by digging down several inches into the duff and piling it along the sides of the space blanket, leaning back against the trees trunk to finish pinning his little shelter in place. Cold and worn out from his extended struggle the storm, he took a minute to catch his breath before unzipping the pack, starting with one of the side pouches. The first thing he found was the little Esbit stove that he dimly remembered Liz using to heat water the previous night. Beside it was a tube of hexamine tablets, half empty. Wonder if these are some of the leftovers from my little cooking experiment Pretty sure that he would not run across a better time to use one of the fuel tablets, if only because he knew he might not live long enough to find himself in greater need of them if he didnt keep from getting too much colder, Einar shook one of the round tablets out of its tube and opened up the stove, pulling his sweatshirt out of the coyote pack to get at the single match left in its pocket. He hoped Lizs pack might also contain some matches or other means to light a fire, but knew that the priority was to get warm; he could finish searching the pack in a few minutes when he stopped shaking so bad. Finally managing to get the match and the fuel tab lit, Einar huddled over the little blue flame, thinking after a minute to fill the sardine can from the half empty water bottle that Liz had left in the pack and get some water heating. Reminded by a fit of coughing that hexamine fumes were not the best thing to be breathing much of, he reluctantly adjusted his shelter so that his head was out in the fresh air, glad for Lizs knit cap and the dense spruce branches that kept out nearly all of the snow, if not the wind. As the water heated and he regained some feeling in his hands, Einar tried to determine just how much snow had managed to get through his improvised poncho to dampen his clothes. Quite a bit, as it turned out, and the stuff had been wet and had melted quickly, soaking the sleeve and shoulder areas of his top and doing worse on the bottoms, where the space blanket had offered him little protection. Wellgood thing this stuff really does still insulate some when its wet. Doesnt feel great, but its an awful lot better than that cotton sweatshirt, anyway. But he was certainly not warm, knew he must not spend a night sitting still in his wet clothes, wondered just how many hexamine tabs it might take to dry them, and was quite certain that it would be many more than he had. Continuing with the inventory of the pack, Einar found, also in the side pocket, the length of paracord that he had earlier discovered, along with a waterproof match container which, when he shook it, sounded nearly full. Not as good as a fire steel, but sure is a lot more than I had, before! And food! In the bottom of the pouch was a plastic bag with the remains of the trail mix he had eaten the night before, some almonds and raisins and chocolate chips, and a full pint bag of what appeared to be the same mix. There was also another bag with some sort of mysterious brownish-orange powder, which upon smelling, he recognized as the source of the wonderful hot drink Liz had given him. Munching on trail mix and carefully pouring some of the powder into his heating water, he went on to explore the main portion of the pack, the contents of which were enclosed in a small white drawstring garbage bag, apparently to help keep them dry, which Einar was rather glad of, considering the weather. And considering the welcome discovery that the bag held a spare polypro top and a pair of black fleece pants of some sort, also dry. After

getting into the dry clothes, Einar found that the water was warmnot yet hot, but good enough, as the smell of the hot chocolate-Tang mixture was making it rather difficult for him to waitand he drank it, refilling the tin to hopefully heat again before the fuel tab burnt out completely. The pack also held a small stuff sack with a lightweight rain jacket, which while too small for him, would be of some help, nonetheless. Two pairs of socks completed the contents of the main chamber of the pack, and were perhaps the discovery, up to that point, that delighted him the most. His feet, after so many days of existing in damp boots in the chilly weather, were in sorry condition and would be helped greatly by the ability to always have one pair of socks drying as he wore the other. Now if I can just stay out of rivers and waterfalls and rainstorms and swamps and things long enough to let my boot liners dry, I just might be able to get somewhere! In his excitement over the socks, Einar nearly forgot about the remaining side pocket, which would have meant overlooking three Bear Valley Pemmican meal bars, and a small commercial first aid kit, consisting of a bright yellow zippered bag approximately the size of an index card that held a few bandaids, gauze pads and some foil pouches of antibiotic cream among other assorted items, including a small nondescript pocket knife with a black Delrin handle and two not quite sharp blades, which he supposed Liz must have added to the kit. Feeling around in the bottom of the pouch, which he had supposed must be empty by that point or nearly so, he discovered something that he knew by feel and that brought a big grin to his face as he remembered the time Liz had introduced the stuff to him with the information that it could help a person recover from starvation. Well, too bad it doesnt come in five gallon buckets, then! Pulling out the jar of Nutella, he silently thanked Liz for keeping such a thing in her pack, deciding that there could be no time better than the present to begin recovering. After a couple of large scoops he reluctantly made himself replace the jar in the pack, knowing that it would be a rather unfortunate mistake to consume too much of the rich, fatty goo without giving his body some time to get used to eating again. That was it, the sum total of the treasure held by the pack, and Einar considered himself a rich man, indeed. And, with such a relative bounty of food in front of him to remind him of the fact, a very hungry one. He sat there slowly working on one of the Pemmican bars, staring sleepily at the remains of the fuel tablet as it burnt itself out, his thoughts drifting from one thing to another before finally settling on the question of what he was to do next. All he could come up with at the moment was to return to the plan he had been working on when he was halted by the temptingly secure shelter of the cave, which was to make his way deep into the area of wilderness that lay on the South side of the river, traveling far from the area of the search before hopefully finding a suitable location to set up a more permanent shelter and prepare for the following winter which, while the current early May snow squall could have easily fooled a person as to the time of year, he knew would be on its way all too soon. Well. First thing is to get a little further from that cave and the search, find a place to hole up for a few days, rest, eat, hopefully get to a point where Im not trying to fall asleep every ten or fifteen minutes. Not gonna get too far, like this. And the words kept repeating themselves in his mind as he, not unexpectedly, drifted towards sleep only to startle awake moments later when he dropped the partially eaten Pemmican bar. He snatched it up off the ground and made a meticulous search for any crumbs that might have dropped, scarfing up and eating the

few he found. He had started out worrying that he might have trouble keeping himself from devouring one entire bar and starting right in on the next, but in the end found himself only able to eat a small portion of it before having to stop. He re-wrapped the unused portion and stashed it in Lizs pack. The food and the hint of warmth provided by the blue flame had left Einar terribly sleepy, and seeing that the snow was still falling quite heavily outside the circle of protection offered by the spruce, he decided that he ought to be fairly safe lying down for a few minutes. He kicked out a trench in the duff, spread the space blanket in it and lay down, knowing that Liz had definitely done right by him when she had left him in such a shelter, wrapping up in the blanket and pulling duff back in overtop of it. Scraping up a heap of needles and piling them in a rough U shape around the area that was to be occupied by his head, he provided himself with a bit of further protection from the wind before lying down. Einar fell asleep with his arms around the pack, not willing to let the sustenance it contained any further from him than that, dry and out of the wind, dropping very quickly into a deep sleep as the storm raged on outside the shelter of the tree.

Waking with the distinct impression that someone or something was very close by, Einar kept still, listening, knowing that to move in the space blanket was to certainly give away his position. The footsteps he was hearing were heavy, lumbering, almost clumsy sounding, not at all like a person attempting anything approaching stealth, and he very carefully twisted his head in an effort to get a look. The snow had slacked off considerably, the wind died out altogether, though the clouds were still too low and heavy to allow him a guess at the time of day, but beyond a bit of sky and the heavy, crisscrossing boughs of the spruce above him, Einar could see nothing, nor would he be able to without sitting up. The noises had stopped altogether, leaving whatever was making them out in front of him and, he estimated, not far outside the circle of this shelter-tree. Then it moved again, this time letting out a distinctive whuffling sound that finally let Einar know just what he was dealing with. Bear! Probably a hungry one, this early in the season, and here I am with a backpack full of almonds and Nutella and stuff, right next to me. He supposed bears would find Nutella nearly as attractive a target as he did at the moment. The animal seemed to be approaching, and Einar knew that his best bet, unless the critter had cubs with it, and hed just have to take his chances that it didnt, was to make himself appear less edible and a bit more intimidating by standing up and making some noise. The noise was inevitable anyway, considering that he was wrapped in a sheet of mylar (heh! Maybe the critter would find the wrapper unappetizing and leave me after a couple of experimental bites?) and, not especially wanting the bear to get any closer he rose suddenly, shouting, seeing the bulky black form of the creature not ten feet from him just outside the low-swept boughs of the tree. It backed up a step, reared up on its hind legs, snuffling and sniffing at the air, Einar continuing to shout and wave his hands and shake the spruce branches as it finally dropped back to all fours, wheeled around and took off into the trees. Einar sank back to the ground, dizzy and close to blacking out from having stood up too

quickly, his heart pounding sickeningly at what had been, if not necessarily a near miss, way too close for someone who could hardly afford to be injured, or horrible thought! to lose what little food he had to a prowling bear. Wish I still had my bow or some other way to take the critter, though, because this food will not last all that long, and there was an awful lot of meat on that bear, if not nearly as much fat as there would be in the fall. Remembering how long it had taken the elk to die, though, he seriously doubted the wisdom of putting an arrow in a bear, even if he had the opportunity. Sounded to him like a sure recipe for a wounded, infuriated bear, and he figured hed better be in or at least near a good tall tree if he ever tried that one. That, or come up with some better arrowheads. Or both. Maybe Ill have a chance to work on that in a while. He knew, though, that the bulk of his diet that summer was likely to come from whatever he could snare, and while this meant mostly small game of the rabbit and squirrel variety, the addition of the paracord to his available resources meant that snaring a deer or even an elk was not totally out of the question. Einar took a big swallow of water from Lizs bottle, ate a few more bites of the Pemmican bar, and decided that it was time to move on, lest the bear decide to come back the next time he fell asleep. Which he was fighting hard to avoid doing as he sat there, despite the excitement of the bear. He nodded, his head sinking toward the ground and resting for a moment on the pack in his lap before he startled awake, shaking his head and knowing he must get on his feet and put some more distance behind him while the snow was still falling to cover his tracks and keep search aircraft grounded. Repacking and zipping the pack, he realized that he had done a rather foolish thing, sleeping with the food so close, but the snowstorm had put all thought of bears out of his mind. Of course they would be awake, at that point, hungry, and probably looking for an easy meal, as the new snow made some of their normal food sources harder to access. Food gets hung from a tree from now on, when I sleep. And he knew he was not likely to forget, no matter how tired he happened to be at the time. Continuing to make his way down the little valley, sticking to the dark timber on its side to help conceal his tracks in the snow, Einar reached a place where the steep evergreen covered slope he had been traversing gave way to a broken landscape of jagged rock and scattered patches of vegetation as the ridge dropped off sharply into a meadow where the small creek he had been for some time noticing terminated in a series of small beaver ponds. On the far side of the narrow meadow the ridge again rose, rugged and steep and ascending up out of sight into the low cloud bank. Off to the left another valley joined the one he had been paralleling, and seeing that it took off in a direction that would lead him further from the cave, Einar decided to follow it, sorry that circumstances did not permit him to stay for a time near the meadow, where he expected he could have found a number of things to eat. He could see a fairly large area of cattails in the swampy area on the far side of the beaver ponds, last years stalks and leaves having been fairly well flattened by the recently departed snow load, but enough of them left standing to clearly tell him what he was seeing. He knew they ought to be beginning to send up new shoots about then, and there were always the starchy roots he could access as long as the ground wasnt freezing hard. And he could use any of the fuzzy down the winter had left on those stalks as tinder, or, if there was enough of it, even to pad his clothing and offer him more insulation against the cold. Then there was the possibility of trapping a beaver or two, and probably muskrats at that series of ponds But he knew the area was too open,

too close to the search for him to safely spend a useful length of time there. He did not even want to risk leaving tracks across that meadow to go take a look at the cattails, knowing that the snow could stop at any time, leaving the signs of his passing clearly visible to anyone who flew over before the three or four inches of heavy, wet new snow melted off. As warm as the days were becoming at these elevations and as saturated as the ground had been before the rain changed over to snow, Einar was hopeful that the snow would not linger long at all after the storm ended, erasing all the tracks he had made from his shelter beneath the spruce and hopefully leaving his pursuers without a clear idea of the direction he had taken. But he knew better than to take this for granted. It could just as easily turn bitterly cold for a day or two when the skies cleared, preserving his tracks for that time as if in wet cement. He chose his steps carefully with this in mind. Making his way down through the rocky outcroppings and scattered boulder fields of the ridge and starting up through the trees near the bottom of the narrow valley that he had chosen, he stayed low, paralleling a little creek that wound among the scattered aspens and evergreens of the valley floor. Einar usually preferred traveling near the crests of ridges, keeping to the high ground far above the valleys where he could keep an eye on the surrounding country and hopefully allow himself some warning if trouble was coming. That afternoon, though, he chose to stick close to the valley floor, knowing that, inclined as he seemed to be to fall asleep at random intervals, it would be wise to stay down where there were more opportunities for shelter, and where the wind was less intense. That, and the fact that he was finding it awfully difficult to climb very far at all that afternoon. As he slowly made progress up the valley, roughly following the little creek and finally reaching a point where he was fairly certain that he had put three or four miles behind him, he began looking for a place to hole up for the night, settling on a fallen spruce in a grove of evergreens some fifty yards up the slope from the creek. It was still light, but Einar was exhausted, dragging, more than ready for sleep and beginning to worry that he might make a serious mistake if he kept going. The storm seemed to be returning as well, the wind, even there in the valley, sharpening and temperatures dropping as snow again began spitting from the leaden sky. Crawling under the windfall spruce and finding the duff beneath it to be mostly dry and fairly thick, Einar decided that he had found his shelter for the night. He lay down, stretching out with the intention of testing the place, but instead falling asleep almost instantly.

Liz and Allan sat in somber silence as they drove down the remaining four miles of rocky dirt road that lead out to the highway, followed closely by their federal escorts. Liz started to say something once, but Allan motioned discreetly for her to be quiet, not knowing whether their entourage might have ways of eavesdropping on the conversation. They could discuss the matter later, in a more secure location. The snow became progressively wetter as they descended, splattering on the windshield as little balls of slush and finally changing over altogether to a thin, cold rain as they reached the valley and turned onto the highway, headed for Culver Falls and the Sherriffs Department where the Mountain Rescue volunteers had met the previous morning and left their

vehicles to share rides up to the plateau. As they sorted gear in parking lot, Liz loading her pack into her truck, one of the Sheriffs Deputies wandered over, asking Allan what the latest word was in the search of the cave. Feds wont tell us a thing, the Deputy lamented. Last we heard was that they got their man out of that cave and were flying him to Clear Springs. Sounded like he was in pretty bad shape. Rock fell on him, or something? Dont know for sure. They wouldnt tell us much, either. I wasnt back in there where the accident happenedthey mostly had me out with the crew rigging the entrance to lift the guyand they wanted us up out of that cave just as soon as the rescue was finished. Insisted on it. One of the fellows that was back in that crack, though, said that it was all muddy and slick in there. Said it looked like the injured guy had slipped and gone down to the bottom of that crack, and there was some fresh rock fall, too. We were definitely acting on the assumption that he had some neck and head injuries. We finally brought him up around eleven last night, and they were kind of pressuring us all to pack up and go home right then, but we already had tents set up and everything, so we just told them no. Havent seen Raintree since he went down there, and it seemed like five or six agents must have been down in the cave with him all night, because they never did come up, either. Two or three came up about halfway through the night, just after the chopper left, but thats the last we heard from them. Overheard some of the agents talking this morning, and it sounded like they had found a bunch of tracks down there, all made by the same boots, and were just trying to figure out if he was still in there, or not. Well, I doubt it, the Deputy responded, chuckling a little and heading for the door to get out of the increasingly heavy rain. Way this thing has been going, Asmundsons probably miles from that cave by now, sitting in a well-stocked old mine listening to the radio and laughing at the thought of those boys spending the day crawling around a cave looking for him. Though I did overhear a couple of agents in the Diner this morning discussing the possibility of calling in some military assistance to drop a couple of those Daisy Cutter bombs on that plateau, you know, like they been using in Afghanistan, and call this whole thing done. I think they were just joking, but Im pretty sure theyd do it, if they could. Liz and Allan went their separate ways, Allan telling her to let Bill and Susan know that he would be coming for dinner that night. Liz was glad; she knew she had to let them know about Einars situation, see if together they could come up with a way to help him. She knew Einar well enough to realize that he probably would not have showed up at the truck even if the agents arrival had not prevented it stubborn old independent fool! but hoped it had been his choice, rather than being dictated by the fact that he was still lying under the tree where she had left him, by then dead or close to it. That image would not leave her mind, and she really feared for his life, after seeing what a struggle it had been for him to remain awake that past night, let alone make sound decisions or do the things necessary to ensure his survival.

The wind picked up significantly as the storm moved in that evening, gusting down the valley and tearing at Einar as he lay under the fallen tree, shivering in his sleep as it flowed through his single layer of snow-damp polypropylene to chill him. Fortunately for Einar, one of the gusts also drove some of the dry, hard snow pellets through the protective roof of evergreen branches around him, stinging his face and waking him before too many minutes had passed. Shaking and chilled, he scrambled out from under the deadfall and to his feet, beating his good arm against his side and stomping around under the trees to get warm. Oh! That was a bad idea! Guess I cant trust myself to lie down at all until Im good and ready and have a warm bed all fixed up and my gear stowed somewhere safe. Not good. Squinting up through the branches at the stormy sky, he saw he was already beginning to lose the light, and headed down to the creek, wanting to refill Lizs water bottle before the darkness became complete, and knowing that he had better move around and warm up a bit, anyway, before settling in for the night. Beside the small creek was a stand of cotttonwoods, one dead and fallen, its branches sticking up at odd angles, dry and grey and barkless after sitting for a number of years in the weather. He wished he could have a fire, as those branches would have allowed him a ready supply of nearly smokeless wood. It was tempting, as he knew the storm ought to keep search aircraft grounded for the night, at least, but Einar made himself walk on by the tree to the creek, knowing he was still too close to risk a fire. Moving as slowly as he knew he had been that day, he was aware that he could not have put that many miles behind him, and for all he knew, trackers and searchers could be out on the high ridges that evening, might potentially see the glow of a fire, or smell its smoke if he allowed himself one. He had food, clothes that remained mostly dry, and a big pile of spruce duff to burrow down in for the night, with the space blanket for added protection and warmth. He knew would make it without fire. But the fallen cottonwood did offer something else that Einar knew he could use to improve his situation that night. The bark of the trees main trunk, deeply ridged and well over an inch thick, had loosened over time, hanging from the underside in long, rigid strips, some of which nearly half as wide as the large tree. Carefully he pried at one of the strips, finding that it could be loosened and pulled off in one large chunk. He freed a number of the bark strip, also gathering a good quantity of the shreddy brown inner bark that was freed by this process, coiling up the flexible stuff and slinging it over his shoulder for future use as a weak cordage that would be similar, but slightly superior to what he had previously made from the inner bark of aspens. Loading his pile of outer bark strips and chunks on one especially large piece for transport, Einar filled his water bottle at the creek before struggling to drag the load of bark shingles up the slope to his shelter site. It was getting dark by that point, but he took a few minutes to lean the bark strips up against the main trunk of the fallen spruce he was sheltering beneath, kicking and digging around beneath another nearby tree and loading up a great heap of duff on the large bark slab, dragging it over to his shelter and adding it to the bedding it already contained. Now, dinner. Which consisted of the remainder of the Pemmican bar topped with a generous scoop of Nutella, with the thought that he had better give himself some fat to burn during the night, if he wanted a chance at staying warm. As he sat beneath the tree enjoying some much needed nourishment, Einar took stock of his remaining food, trying to decide whether he ought to

continue using it as travel food to allow him to get further from the search, or if he should work on setting some snares in the morning (bet a little smear of Nutella would be good bait for a row of squirrel snares,) staying where he was for a few days and hoping to supplement and stretch the food supplies in Lizs pack. Having eaten, he prepared the pack to be hung for the night, stowing it in the garbage bag that it had been lined with, hoping to keep it from getting any wetter in the storm. The match case, spare socks, first aid kit and knife he stashed in his pocket, wanting to make sure something went with him, if he had to leave suddenly in the night without the chance to retrieve the packs. Looking up through one of the many gaps in the roof of his shelter, Einar drifted off to sleep with the idea that he ought to go down and get some more of that cottonwood bark, if he ended up staying more than one night.

The decision whether to leave the shelter at daylight or stay for a bit was made easier for Einar by the fact that he woke that morning with awful cramps and a feeling in the pit of his stomach that precluded breakfast and made it difficult to motivate himself to rise out of the drawn up position he had adopted sometime in the night when the trouble had begun. The motivation provided itself not long after daylight, though, when an urgent need to find the outhouse sent him scrambling out of his improvised sleeping bag and shelter to stumble a few steps down the hill and crouch beneath a spruce. Dragging himself back up the hill, he crawled under the fallen tree, glad that its boughs and the strips of bark he had added had kept nearly all of the nights snowfall out of his shelter. Rolling back into his bed and hastily scraping some of the duff back over himself he lay there for a minute shivering in the morning chill before summoning up the strength to reach a hand out for his water bottle, sipping from it and nearly spilling it before getting the cap back on. He was dizzy, lay his head down, thinking that he was probably just experiencing the beginning stages of the discomfort he had gone through twice before when he had finally begun eating again after extended periods with very little. Better back off some on that Nutella, today Which proved not to be a problem, as the very thought of food of any kind turned his stomach and made him scrunch his eyes shut and take deep breaths in an attempt to control a growing nausea. That worried him some. Before, he had always found food very appealing during the times when his body was readjusting to eating, he just hadnt been able to handle much of it at once. He wondered if something else could be going on to cause the nausea, hoped not. Though he felt more like sleeping than anything, Einar was determined not to go back to sleep just then, having decided that he really needed to get himself further from the cave before settling down for the days of rest that he knew he needed. The fallen tree shelter with the protective slabs of cottonwood bark he had added was a tempting argument for staying, though, as he knew that with a few hours work, he could haul up a bunch more of the bark slabs, weaving the wide, flexible inner bark strips between layers to add insulation and help waterproof the shelter. Add a long curved section of bark horizontally

across the top to help shed water, stuff in a bunch more dry duff from beneath the surrounding trees, and he would have a snow proof and very nearly rainproof shelter in which he could spend a few days resting snugly, without even the need of a fire. He could tell from the way he had felt after a couple of meals and a decent nights sleep well, the way he had felt, anyhow, before the latest problem set itthat it would only take another day or two of such conditions to allow him to be in much better position, as far as being able to travel and work at obtaining more food. His mind felt clearer and sharper that morning than it had in some time, despite the new digestive troubles. And the fact that no one had shown up yet had encouraged him that perhaps they had not discovered his trail up from the river before the storm had moved in, but he did not want to take that for granted. Knew he really ought to move on, despite the favorable shelter situation in his present location. The thing that finally tipped the balance in favor of leaving was the reality that whatever was causing the cramping in his gut and the increased feeling of shakiness and weariness seemed to be worsening, despite the fact that he had eaten nothing since the previous evening. He was beginning to be convinced that it must be something more than the typical problems associated with adjusting to the availability of a reasonable amount of food again. Got to move now while I can, then, in case this turns out to be something serious (heh! Almost anythingd be serious, at this point, Einar) or long lasting, and I end up incapacitated for a couple of days. Like to be further out if that happens, hopefully far enough that I can have a careful fire under the right conditions, in case I need a little help staying warm from time to time. Einar walked slowly, bent over, the slung packs seeming heavier with each step and himself feeling terribly hollow and sick inside, having to stop frequently to crouch beneath trees and making an effort to sip some water each time, but knowing that he could not possibly be coming close to replacing what he was losing. Finally he had to sit down, and when he looked back and realized just how little distance he had covered, he came close to giving up for the day and curling up beneath the nearest tree to sleep. The sky was clearing, though, and he knew that it probably would not be long at all before an air search became active, and he very much wanted to be further out before that happened. Finally his halting movements worked themselves into something of a routine get up, take a few steps, lean on something and rest, do it againagain. He found that it helped if he picked a landmark, preferably something not too distant at all, and focused on reaching that, not thinking of what would come after until he did. Breaking up the distance in this way seemed to make the travel a bit more manageable, less overwhelming, and the next time he allowed himself to look back, five landmarksegments later do fiveyou gotta do five before you can look back he was pleasantly surprised at the amount of ground he had covered. Swaying, he sank to the ground to rest, crawling under a spruce and leaning against its rough trunk. Though he was slowly gaining elevation, the snow was melting as the day warmed; in the stillness he could hear dripping and the sound of percolating ground as the moisture trickled down through the recently thawed dirt. Spring. He closed his eyes, listened for a minute to the sounds of the thawing and awakening world around him. And then he heard something else, something that made him very glad he had insisted on putting more distance behind him, despite the way he felt that morning.

The helicopter was blocked from view by the evergreens, but Einar could tell that it was back in the area of the ridge he had climbed up and over the morning before, moving slowly, hovering occasionally as it scoured the area for any sign of him. He hoped the falling snow had hidden his tracks well enough, or at least that the new snow was as nearly gone back there as it was in his current location to prevent them seeing sign of his passage and guessing at his movements. The chopper did not seem inclined to head up his valley at all, and after a few minutes he rose slowly, tightly gripping a branch to steady himself and looking up the valley in an attempt to determine the best route that would give him continued concealment from the air. He was dizzy, knew he should eat something, knew he needed energy if he was to continue, but food still sounded entirely revolting, so he compromised by stirring and dissolving the tiniest amount of the chocolate-Tang mixture into his drinking water, finding that he was able to keep down the results, and benefited almost immediately from the energy boost provided by the sugar. OK. This will work. I can keep at this for a while. And he did, making himself take a sip or two of the sweetened water every time he stopped to rest, whether he felt like it or not, because he knew that serious dehydration was a real danger at that point, and as he was having to stop for rest pretty frequently anyway, this system ensured that he was getting at least a minimal amount of water and a bit of energy back into himself on regular basis. He traveled that way all morning and into the afternoon, hearing the almost constant rumble of a helicopter behind him, but getting a glimpse of it only a time or two, and at a good distance. Einars long-range goal had for some time been a low spot in a rocky ridge that he got an occasional look at when the trees thinned out, thinking that if he could use it as a pass to get over to the backside of that ridge, he would finally be satisfied enough with his distance from the center of the search that he could begin to think seriously about finding more lasting shelter. Emerging from a stand of firs at the edge of a little meadow he was able to look up the valley and see the ridge, not more than a mile distant by his estimate, the low spot not looking nearly as low now that he was closer, but the route was still, he hoped, doable. A scattering of spring beauty plants covered the soggy meadow, their succulent leaves and small pink and white flowers flourishing in the moisture of the recently melted snow, and he stopped for a few minutes to dig a handful of the bulbs, which was fairly easy with the soft, damp ground. He still was not feeling much like eating, but knew that he must be on a constant lookout for additional sources of food. The last time he had stopped to rest he had tried eating a few bites of trail mix, but it had upset his stomach and gone right through him, discouraging further tries, for the time. As he dug the little marble sized potato-like bulbs of the spring beauty, Einar wondered whether he could have picked something up from drinking that stagnant water in the little cave pool before boiling it, when he had first discovered the large chamber and had been rather desperate for moisture, or if his malady might be the result of eating the spoiling sheep meat, that last night in the cave. It had tasted pretty ripe, pleasethink about something else! but he doubted that was the source of his troubles. Hed boiled the stuff rather thoroughly, which should have killed almost anything that would have made him sick. And he would have expected to start seeing symptoms earlier, anyway, if that was it. Who knows Later that day he knew, as the origin of his distress revealed itself just

before he started up over the ridge in a series of sulfur-tasting belches that told him he had likely acquired Giardia. Had to be that water in the cave, I guess. Too soon, if it was the creek by last nights shelter. Though drinking that probably wasnt the brightest idea, either, knowing that there were plenty of beavers in the area. Hed had Giardia once before, or had been pretty certain of it, anyway, and it had been unpleasant, but not a disaster. Of course, he had been at home then, had been well fed at the start of it and had not been attempting to evade anyone, so he knew that might have colored his perspective some. As he remembered, he had managed alright, and been back to normal in seven or eight days, more or less. A number of pounds lighter, though, and it had been a mild case. He sure hoped he was wrong about his diagnosis, because he certainly did not have ten or fifteen pounds to spare, this time around, and already the malady, if it was indeed Giardia, seemed far more serious than what he had dealt with previously. He assumed this would be largely due to his already compromised health and an immune system that couldnt be operating at full strength after so many weeks of near starvation. The prospect scared him a little, but at the same time made him all the more determined to find good shelter before the malady had the chance to weaken him any further, as it seemed rather determined to do. The sun was beginning to peek through the dispersing clouds, and Einar pulled the damp polypro layer that he had been wearing in the snowstorm out of the pack and attached it, tops and bottoms, to the back of the pack where they could dry, hoping perhaps to have something dry to change into when he stopped for the night. As he climbed the ridge, heading for the low saddle that he had seen from a distance and taking care to keep beneath the trees, Einars view of the country behind him improved until he could clearly see what he believed to be the backside of the ridge he had stood on as the snowstorm moved in, watching Lizs truck and making the decision to turn away. May end up regretting that, if this case of the runs doesnt clear up pretty soon. Kinda wish I had a few gallons of that rehydration stuff she mixed up for me, when I was at her house last time. Already the snowy morning on the ridge and his last meeting with Liz seemed like quite some time ago, a thing dim and hazy with distance, as was the ridge. Hmm. Or maybe its just my eyes again He shook his head to clear his blurring vision, steadied himself against a tree. A helicopter, hovering over the ridge in what he expected must be the ongoing search for him, appeared as little more than a speck in the sky, the rumble of its rotors barely audible over the slight breeze that sighed through the spruces. Einar nodded. He had gone far enough. Whatever awaited him on the other side of the saddle, he would hope to be able to make his home there, for a time.

The sky had cleared completely as the afternoon went on, and while Einar was enjoying the sun, he knew that the clear weather would also make for a colder night than the last several had been. Reaching the crest of the ridge he scanned the basin that opened out below him, looking for a likely place to shelter for the night. Checking the polypro top that he had secured to the outside of the pack he found that it had barely begun to dry, and would not be much help to him that night. Insulation was going to be big priority.

As he descended into the basin, heading for a large swath of dark timber on its far side, Einar surprised two grouse from beneath a stand of small firs, watching as they went flying clumsily off to roost in a large spruce some twenty yards down the slope. He knew that he ought to be looking at the birds as a food source, ought to be trying to come up with a way to take one or both of them, and the mild, detached curiosity with which he regarded their flight alarmed him a bit. A day or two before, the birds would have had his complete and entire focus, until he had either found a way to procure them for his dinner, or exhausted every option in the attempt, and here he was about to continue down the hill without giving them a second thought. Whoa, Einar. Wake up! Just because food doesnt sound good right now doesnt mean that you get to slack off on this. Youre gonna be needing every bite you can get your hands on, soon as youre able to eat again. He sat down, quietly opened the pack and pulled out the coiled length of paracord that he had used the previous night to suspend his possessions out of the reach of curious bears. Studying it, he tried to think of a way he could create the device he had in mind without cutting the cord, but could not, and ended up using Lizs pocket knife to cut three two foot lengths out of what he estimated to be twenty or thirty feet of cord, tying them together with a simple overhand knot at one end. Searching around on the rocky ground where he sat, he found three roundish rocks, giving preference to ones that had irregularities that would help retain the loops of cord he intended to tie around them. He knew that smoother, rounder rocks might have been preferable, but did not exactly have the time at the moment that would have been required to work grooves into such rocks to prevent the cord from slipping. The rocks tied on, he tested the weapon, slinging it around several times before deciding that it ought to do. If his aim was any good. He would have liked to have some practice before attempting to use it on a grouse, but figured he might as well give it a try. Quietly making his way closer to the spruce where the birds had roosted, he finally got within fifteen feet of them, carefully stepping out from behind a low fir and whirling the hastily improvised bola a few times before releasing it in their direction. After the turmoil of flying feathers and frantic squawking settled down, he was able to see that one bird still sat up in the tree, one wing bent back at an odd angle. Well. He had hoped that the bird would become tangled and fall to the ground, but saw now that such a thought had been absurdly optimistic, considering the number of branches that surrounded the bird. Looking at the situation he was, in fact, amazed that the weapon had not become tangled on a branch short of the birds, letting them fly away to safety. So. Guess Im climbing this tree. The spruce had many low branches and he did fine at first, even climbing as he was with one arm, but after the first six or seven feet of climbing Einar had to stop and rest, leaning over a branch and panting to catch his breath, deciding that he must have seriously underestimated how greatly his unfortunate intestinal troubles had weakened him that day. He finally made it up to the bird, quickly twisting its neck to dispatch it before untangling and dropping it to the ground, very nearly following the grouse in its tumble, as he was overcome by a wave of vertigo that left him clinging blindly to the tree, his arms wrapped around a branch as he struggled to maintain consciousness. After a minute the spell passed and Einar worked his way shakily to the ground, slumping down heavily beside the dead grouse and resting his head on his knees until he was able to rise and continue slowly down the slope, carrying the bola in case another opportunity should present itself. This is a fine way to

take birds, but only use this thing on open ground from now onplease. At least until you can climb trees again. Reaching the dark timber that he had set as his destination for the evening, Einar discovered the whole slope was damp from the seeping of the melting cornice far above, and as he tried to burrow down in the duff beneath his chosen tree, he found the needles on the surface damp, the duff frozen solid not two inches down. He kicked at it, finally managing to free a large frosty chunk, but realizing that the dense, icy mess had little to offer him in the way of protection from the cold. He explored several other nearby trees, finding the situation to be similar with each. The sun was gone, temperatures were falling rapidly and Einar was beyond ready to stop moving for the day. He knew that the situation might be a bit better over on the other side of the basin, but the trees were not as heavy over there, the slope rocky and the vegetation scattered, and he really wanted to be in or at least near the protection provided by the mass of dark timber on his side of the basin, just in case the ongoing air search happened to work its way into his area during the night. Well, I can make it work. Wont be as good as the cocoons I had the last two nights, but itll keep me alive, and thats the whole point, right? And he began breaking and gathering spruce boughs, piling them behind the trunk of the tree where the ground was, if not flat, at least not so steep that he was likely to roll down the hill as soon as he fell asleep. Despite his confident assertions to the contrary, Einar felt sure he was going to freeze that night as his growing dehydration greatly reduced his resistance to the cold, leaving him clutching the space blanket around his shoulders and wishing he could have a fire as he shivered on his bed of spruce boughs, forced to rise frequently by his grumbling gut and growing colder each time he had to leave the minimal protection of his improvised bed. Though temperatures barely dropped below freezing that night, Einar could have very easily been convinced that it was colder than all but one or two of the others he had spent out in the open that past winter, despite the dry fleece layer and space blanket. He tried pulling his still-damp second pair of clothes overtop the space blanket where it seemed that they might least offer some additional insulation, but after having to rise for the third or fourth time, he stopped bothering. It seemed that he barely had time to begin warming before he had to scramble up again, anyway, and after several long sleepless hours of this he finally decided to use one of his two remaining fuel tabs in an attempt to warm up. Sitting on the spruce boughs with the mylar sheet around him and the Esbit stove precariously balanced on the uneven pile of branches, Einar huddled over the little blue flame and heated himself a sardine can of slightly sweetened water, remembering to retrieve the bola from the spot where it hung on the tree and melt the freshly cut ends of the paracord over the flame to prevent them from raveling further. Feeling a bit better after the drink and the ten minutes of warmth afforded him by the hexamine, Einar finally fell asleep sitting up as dawn neared. When he woke again and looked out at the suntopped evergreens and rock escarpments high up on the opposite slope, it was with the determination that he had to find better shelter, and perhaps also a way to add a layer of insulation to his clothing before night came again. But not before he made an attempt to halt the worsening intestinal troubles that seemed to be rapidly sapping what little strength he had left and interfering with what would have otherwise been an excellent

opportunity to rest, eat and recover. Under other circumstances, Einars typical course of action would most likely have been to wait for the ailment to run its course, making sure he got enough to drink and dealing with the difficulties it presented as well as he could, but he knew that in his current state, the inability to keep any food or much water in him could be the thing that finally did him in. Gotta find some way to get rid of this thing. His only thought was to find some Oregon grapes, whose roots he had used successfully for other maladies in the past. He was pretty sure he remembered hearing that the berberine they contained had been successfully used to treat Giardia, and had been proven in several studies to be nearly as effective as the prescription drugs that were commonly used for the same purpose. He could not recall the study in enough detail to remember how much of the root extract the subjects were taking, but it seemed to him that it had been quite a bit. Better find a great big patch of the stuff, then, and get busy. He had to give it a try. Didnt know how many more days of this he could take.

Up at Bill and Susans the night after Liz and Allan came down from the plateau, the talk centered, of course, around the search, Bill questioning the two of them in an attempt to find out as much as he could about recent federal activities. Ordinarily Bill would have participated in the rescue operation himself, but after the failed federal raid on his house, he had taken a leave of absence from his Mountain Rescue duties, which would have occasionally taken him far from home, leaving it unprotected. There had been no further trouble with the feds, and the word, at least when they spoke publicly about it, was that the rockslide that had halted the raid was believed to have been accidental. Bill was certain, though, that they must know more about its cause than they were willing to let on publicly, and expected that he would have to deal the repercussions at some point. Bill was anxious to hear about the search, and Allan gave his report of the federal activities on the plateau and the small amount of additional information he had learned from speaking with two or three of the agents at the camp, Liz going on to describe the charcoal drawings in the calcite chamber. Rob, who had been invited up for dinner as well, listened attentively to their report. Before sitting down to supper, Liz had taken Bill aside and let him know that she had something of a rather serious nature to discuss with the group. Finished eating, they adjourned at Bills suggestion to the Quonset up the hill that housed his workshop, setting up a circle of folding chairs. All particularly sensitive matters were discussed out there rather than in the house, as Bill considered it a bit more secure against unwanted listeners, being a windowless metal structure that he, in recent times at least, regularly swept for listening devices and cameras. Liz, I believe you had something else you wanted to bring to out attention? Bill asked, sitting down and pulling his chair into the circle.

Yes. She hesitated. Hope this is the right thing to do here, Einar. I waswalking near the south edge of the plateau last night and saw a glow, like from a fire, down near the creek. She had everyones complete attention at that point. I know I probably shouldnt have done it, but I climbed down there and went looking for where that light had been, smelled some smoke She glanced from Susan to Bill to Rob, trying to reassure herself that she was indeed safe telling them what came next, though she already knew it. Hes pretty bad off, guys. He Whoa, Liz! Rob stood up suddenly, causing his folding chair to scrape noisily across the cement floor. You trying to tell us you actually found Einar? No way! She nodded. He was all wet and frozen, said something about a waterfall, but he wasnt making a lot of sense. Howd he know you werent a fed? I mean, didnt he try to run or anything? Rob, slow down, Bill insisted. Let the girl tell her story. We hadsort of met before, she responded, staring at the floor and clearly not too interested in giving more details. I knew it! Allan chimed in. He was at your house uncles house last winter, wasnt he? When you were asking me all those questions about starvation and deficiencies and were acting all weird and everything? She shrugged, nodded, looking exasperated. Allanyes. But I dont think its a good idea to go into the details. The less everybody knows, the better, right? Bill agreed, and Allan dropped the matter. I wasnt going to bring it up at all, Liz continued, but I really think he needs help. I waswe were, she indicated Allan, going to try to meet him on our way down and take him somewhere safer, but these two vans full of FBI agents ended up coming down right behind us, and they stopped to see if we needed help, then insisted on following us out. And I dont know if he would have shown up, anyway. Hes been pretty determined not to accept any sort of help. Bill nodded, scowling thoughtfully at the floor for a minute before answering. Smart guy, Id say. You know, Liz, whatever hes been doing seems to have been working pretty well for him, so far Its not, though, right now. Hes starving. I mean, literally. And hes hurt, he was hurt before, and I dont think he really ever had the chance to heal from that, and now he

seems to have one arm that he really cant use at all. I left him my daypack with some dry clothes and a few other things in it, but he could barely even stay awake long enough to eat last night, and when I finally got him up and walking, he was falling asleep on his feet. And I know he wouldnt like that Ive even mentioned any of this to you, and I wouldnt have, but Im really afraid that he might still be lying up there under the tree where I left him Liz had been very calm and matter of fact up to that point, but Susan, sitting next to her, could see that she was beginning to tear up a little, and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. There was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of the logs in the 55 gallon drum that Bill had turned into a wood stove to heat the shop. Bet I could find him, Rob spoke first. You give me a starting point, show me on a map where you left him, and Ill track him down and make sure he gets some help. And hows he going to know youre not one of three or four federal tracker teams theyve probably got out there looking for him at this point? Asked Bill. Seems like it has not always ended well for the people who end up pressing him too closely. How many of those federal boys have made that mistake now? Three or four, it seems like. More, if you count the chopper incident. I wouldnt necessarily want to be the one to come across him, even if he is having a hard time of it. Maybe especially then. And at the very least, youre going to cause him to take off running again, which sounds like the last thing he needs right now, assuming hes even mobile. Rob nodded, but he wasnt through. Well, Einars not the only one who can come and go without leaving much sign. Ive got some practice at it, myself. And Im not interested in getting close enough to try and convince him to come in, or anything. Just want to find him, make surefrom a distancethat hes up and mobile and not needing any emergency assistance, drop off some stuff and head out without him ever seeing me, hopefully. Bill was shaking his head. Rob, as one of Jeffs closest associates, dont you think theyre probably watching your every move, hoping youll eventually lead them to him? And thats even if they dont know anything about your role in Metz well-earned little mishap He shot Rob a mischievous little grin, chuckling at the memory of the debacle but quickly regaining his somber demeanor as he awaited Robs answer. Mmm I know they got me under at least occasional surveillance, cause its hard for them not to be a little obvious at it, out where I live. But it doesnt seem to be constant, and Im pretty sure I can get out from under it, especially if I can get a ride with somebody. I wouldnt start anywhere near the access road to that plateau, either. Im pretty familiar with the area, and there are several other starting points I could use that would throw them off pretty bad, even if they did spot me on the way to one of them. Who knows? Maybe I could no more find him than them feds have been able to, but Id kinda like to try. Figure we owe the poor fella something for tying up all those federal resources for so long. I mean, who knows how many lives he may have saved, just

keeping them occupied like that? Plus making them burn through several years worth of operating funds, most likely, just running around the hills making fools of themselves! Its been downright entertaining, at times. Ha! That it has. I want to do something for him as much as you do, Rob, and I know you have the skills to get out there and do this safely, but. Well, man like that would probably rather just be left to fend for himself than risk having a tracker or somebody follow you as you hunted for his hideout. Itd sure be an awful shame if anything we did ended up leading to his capture, after all hes chosen to go through, avoiding it. Susan excused herself and left for the kitchen to make coffee. It was clearly going to be a long night of debate and discussion.

Einar got all of his gear rounded up and slowly started out for the other side of the basin, where he had decided on a large clump of spruces around what appeared through the shadows to be a rocky outcropping as a likely place for a shelter. Hurrying as well as he could across the open space pf the meadow and pausing to refill his water bottle at the little creek that ran through it, he began climbing the opposite slope, moving with difficulty through a series of worsening stomach cramps and stopping when he stumbled across a good sized patch of Oregon grapes under some aspens at the meadows edge. Good. Now I can give these a try. Better get started And he wiped the dirt from one of the roots, chewing on it and fighting hard against the nausea as the bitter juice trickled down his throat. Hope it helps. About halfway up to the shelter site he stopped, dizzy and knowing that he must try to drink something before going further. Despite his efforts at hydration, his legs seemed to be cramping up at every opportunity, and his eyes and mouth felt terribly dry and sandy that morning, which he might have attributed to the slight fever that he was pretty sure he had, except that he had noticed at the same time that the flesh on his hands appeared strangely hollow, sunken, and feeling his face, he found it to be the same way. He was beginning to be seriously worried about his apparent inability to keep up with the amount of water he was losing. He sipped from the bottle before pouring some water into the sardine can and adding a bit of the remaining Tang mixture. Einar knew that in addition to the sugar water he had been managing to take sips of, he must be in serious need of salt and electrolytes by that point, but when he tried eating several of the salted almonds from the trail mix, he quickly discovered that eating was not yet a good idea. He had a thought, put a number of the almonds in the sardine can and poured water over them, swishing the water around to help dissolve the salt before removing the almonds and setting them on a nearby sunny rock to dry. Adding a pinch of the tang mixture to the salted water he drank it, immediately feeling a bit better and knowing that he had settled on a way to create a weak improvised electrolyte mix, of sorts. Of course it was not complete, and he would soon run out of salted almonds to soak anyway, but it had to be better than nothing. He sat there letting his body absorb

the drink for a minute, trying to think what he could have replaced it with, if he had not had access to the drink mix and almonds. Guess I could have tried to get some more box elder sap for the sugar, if I was able to find some of the trees, but saltthat can be more difficult. Though I do have that grouse, and blood is salty, so I suppose that would help, if I could stomach it. He supposed it ought to contain a useful amount of potassium, as well. And the eyes. The fluid in the eyes is especially salty, if I remember right, though there cant possibly be much of it in the tiny eyeballs of that grouse He figured he might as well try it anyway, being pretty sure that the birds blood, which he had caught and kept in his cooking can the previous evening, would be too substantial for him to stomach at that point. Though as he began to get a bit better, he could perhaps benefit from beginning to add it, also, to his water as he drank it, for its iron as well as the for the salt it contained. It might allow him to begin to get some nourishment even before he could stomach solid foods. He inspected the can that held the blood from the grouse, seeing that the clearish plasma had separated in the night to form a layer across the top of the darker, coagulated blood. The plasma, he knew, would be mostly water with a little protein and trace amounts of sugar and electrolytes, and he poured it off into his can, deciding to try it with his next drink of water. The dark sludge in the bottom of the can he would save for later, possibly letting it dry to help preserve it so he could use it to enrich a can of grouse stew, whenever he was able to start eating again. He knew seal and caribou blood had been important nutrient sources for the Inuit, as well as for his Norse ancestors in ancient times. He shook his head, shoved the can out of his view. All the thoughts of food had left him rather queasy, and not wanting to lose the two cans of water he had just consumed, he directed his mind elsewhere for the time. Or tried to. He knew that his next priority, after locating better shelter and setting some of the Oregon grape roots to soak, was to begin working on snares so he could assure a continued supply offood. No way to not think about it That fact reminding him what a huge part of his life the constant search for food had become. Hmm. Well. Nothing too unusual about that, I guess. Im sure it is the opposite situation that is the exception, if you take all of human history into account.

The group of trees that Einar had hoped to use for shelter proved to be a fine location, the duff being much drier beneath them than it had been on the other side of the basin where he had spent the previous night. The rock overhang, while it concealed a small protected space only seven or eight feet long by five or six deep, offered good protection from the weather and perhaps the beginnings of a more permanent shelter, with the addition of some bark slabs and branches across its open front. The dirt beneath the ledge looked relatively undisturbed, aside from the plentiful tracks of some small carnivorehe took it to be foxthat had apparently sat there from time to time to eat its kills in the shelter of the rock, leaving a scattering of small, well-chewed bones behind. Kicking at the dirt, Einar found it to be dry and dusty, indicating that the weather was largely kept out by the overhang. The trees, though not providing coverage as dense and continuous as they did on the other side of the basin, were clustered quite heavily around the overhang, and he knew they should serve well to conceal the light of the small fire he hoped to have that night.

Knowing that he needed to look no further for that nights shelter, Einars attention shifted to preparing a solution of Oregon grape root to hopefully help alleviate his ongoing gastric distress. Dragging a large flat rock beneath the shelter of the overhang, he used the pocket knife to scrape a good portion of the bright yellow inner bark from a number of the roots, covering the bottom of the sardine can and pouring water over it, knowing he would be able to extract more of the berberine using hot water, but not wanting to wait until after dark when he could have a fire to get started with the process. The knife, dull though it was, made much quicker work of the roots than the awkward steel bar had the times he had used it for that purpose, and he knew that as soon as he took the time to sharpen the blades a bit, the work would be easier still. All right. Snares. There was a spot along the small creek that flowed through the meadow in the bottom of the basin where water had collected in a slight depression in the ground, forming a large puddle that, from the tracks he had observed near it, attracted all sorts of animals. He had seen deer tracks, and though he had not taken the time that morning to follow them and see where the animals chose to emerge from the brush, he was pretty sure that when he did, he would discover that they had one or two main routes by which they approached the clearing. Rabbits and squirrels were one thing, but if he could take a dear he would have a ready source of meat and fat that he could live on while he stuck close to camp and recovered for a time, delaying the necessity of establishing a trapline that he would need to walk every morning to ensure something else did not get to his quarry before he did. And, snaring a deer would eliminate the likely need to track it for some distance as he would need to if he were to make another bow and take one, which under normal circumstances would not have been a problem, but could prove rather challenging, in his present condition. Making a loop in the end of a length of paracord and securing it with a slip knot, he suspended his pack from a branch with the remaining cord better find some nettles or something and get working on some more cordage, here before long and went scouting. As he was leaving the shelter he had a thought, turned back and lowered the packs, stuffing everything into Lizs and taking the coyote skin with him, thinking that he might well find things that he would want to haul back. Of the two three main deer trails that emerged into the basin, one in particular appeared to him to be the most well traveled, and he chose it, in a place where it passed near a large spruce, as the site for his snare. The brush closed in around the trail on either side in the chosen spot, making it very unlikely that a deer would attempt to go detour around his loop, which by the time he got dine with it would be fairly well concealed, anyway. Tying the free end of the paracord securely to a stout branch not far from where it met the tree, he used some nearby chokecherry shrubs to help keep the loop open, disguising it a bit at the same time. He had to take a minute to sink to his knees and rest after securing the paracord to the branch; looking and reaching above his head like that had set off a terrible wave of dizziness that had very nearly knocked him off his feet and had reminded him rather undeniably of his condition. He had been so absorbed with the placement and construction of the snare that he had almost forgotten. When he was finished, the center of the loop was just below waist high, and he left the area quietly, intending to check the

snare sometime the next morning. He knew that it might have been preferable if he could have set it in an area that he could have seen from a distance, so that he did not have to make a trip across the basin every time he wanted to check the snare, possibly alerting his intended quarry to his presence and spooking it in the process, but there had been a lack of suitable trees as he approached the open area, and the current would have to do. Getting himself some distance from the snare site, Einar picked a dry spot beneath a tree and flopped down on his side to rest, having for some time been feeling a pressing need to do so. As he lay there, dizzy and struggling to catch his breath, waiting for his heart to slow enough that the nausea could begin to subside, he could not help but think that he was, despite the food and gear in Lizs pack, not all that much better off than he had been the week before, in the cave. Cant eat it, after all, so Im still starving, and now I cant seem to get enough to drink, either He knew it wasnt quite as bad as he was making it out to be, though. Youre just worn out. Its messing with your perspective. He told himself rather sharply to stop complaining and be glad that it appeared that, for the time at least, he had once again slipped away from his pursuers. The human ones, anyway. The elements, his hunger, the possibility and now the reality of illness and injurythese things were far more persistent and difficult to shake than the gang of ill-prepared flatlanders who kept insisting on running around the mountains after his hidethough it would be a lot easier to deal with the elements, and with getting enough to eat, if I was not having to constantly worry about being spotted OK, true, but at least you have these good dry clothes, now, a place to shelter that is miles outside of any area they have known you to be in, and some food and gear to get you started, whenever you are able to eat again. Not bad. And, drifting towards sleep, he rolled over and made himself get up and continue back down to the basin, not wanting to risk sleeping the day away and finding himself far from his shelter when darkness came. He knew that it was going to be challenge enough, just dragging himself up the five or six hundred feet of slope back to the shelter, the way he was feeling. On his way across the floor of the basin earlier, Einar had noticed a number of dry cattail stalks in the half-frozen marshy area beside the little tarn where the deer gathered to drink, and stopped to gather a number of the still-fuzzy heads, remaining from the previous fall. Before leaving the rock overhang that morning, he had hung his damp polypro tops and bottoms from a tree where he expected they would be able to get some sun, and as mild as the day was shaping up to be, he was fairly sure that they would be dry before dark. As he stuffed the coyote pack with cattail fuzz, he looked forward to the opportunity to use it as a layer of insulation between two sets of polypro. Maybe Ill actually get some sleep tonight.

After returning to the ledge and digging down beneath one of the spruces near it to create a bed, Einar cleaned and plucked the grouse he had taken on his way down into the basin, intending to cook it while he had a fire that night. Should have cleaned this thing last nightsure would have been easier to get these feathers offbut I was just too wiped out

by the time I stopped for the evening to do much besides try to sleep. Oh, well, guess Im kind of getting used to that, too. Or finding ways to live with it, anyway. Which was a good thing, because so far at least, his symptoms had shown little sign of lessening, and seemed, if anything, to be progressing in the other direction. He doubted that he would be able to eat much that evening, but knew that, with the daytime temperatures beginning to warm, the meat would keep better once it had been cooked. He set aside the feathers and the small amount of down that had been on the bird, sandwiching them between two slabs of bark he had pulled from a nearby dead spruce and holding them down with a rock. Wonder how many grouse it would take to make a down vest? Inspecting the tiny heap of down he had saved, he figured it would have to be an awful lot. But he intended to have a down vest before winter came, and had a good idea of how he was to accomplish it, too. Milkweed was plentiful in some of the high valleys, and if he waited until fall and collected a good quantity of the seed pods just before they burst open, he knew he would have a ready source of down that was, in some respects, superior to that from birds. The silky fibers, whose intended purpose was to give lift to the seeds and carry them to new locations, had the unique property of being unable to absorb moisture. That, combined with the fact that they were hollow and filled with encapsulated air, gave them excellent value as an insulation, and made them float, as well. The material was, in fact, used in lifejackets during World War II, as was cattail down. But Einar was more interested in its insulating qualities. Though I could certainly have used a lifejacket, a time or two over the last few months! He knew that milkweed fluff was very resilient, springing back when crushed, making it a far better insulation than something like cattail fuzz, which once it was compressed, never regained all of its texture or loft, which is a very important factor in how much air a material can trap, and therefore in its value as an insulation. And being non-absorbent, it would not have the problem of taking forever to dry if it happened to get wet, no! Now how could that happen? or gradually accumulating moisture in the form of ice throughout the winter, as was sometimes a problem with down sleeping bags and clothing. So. The grouse do not need to fear a massive roundup when fall is approaching. Ill just keep an eye out for milkweed patches through the summer, and harvest a jacket when the time comesMaybe pick up a bunch of the stalks for cordage, at the same time. Can never have enough of that. Though he knew that, milkweed down being one of his favorite tinder materials, he would have to be somewhat careful just how close he sat to the fire when wearing that vest! A potential problem he hoped to remedy by making the vest itself of deer hide or something similarly fire-resistant. Planning the down vest had reminded Einar that he was getting pretty cold as he sat there, having cooled down thoroughly from his climb and finding that he was having an increasingly difficult time maintaining a normal body temperature without some sort of outside help as the effects of the Giardia continued to rob him of nutrients and make it difficult to stay hydrated, and he decided that it was high time to test out the cattail down that he had gathered. He shook the pile of cattail heads out of his pack, putting on the finally dry second polypro top and stuffing the cattail down between the layers as he stripped it off the heads. The stuff immediately fluffed up and became very difficult to

manage as soon as it was freed from its moorings, and he was very glad the afternoon was not especially windy, or he knew he would have been losing about as much as he managed to keep hold of. Einar discovered to his satisfaction that he had enough to stuff the torso and sleeves of his top, with a bit left over, though it quickly became clear to him that it would tend to shift, settle, and clump up in one area as he moved, leaving the rest of him uninsulated and cold before long. He had an idea, tying his remaining length of paracord around his waist, centering it to leave equal amounts hanging off on each side. These tails he crossed over his stomach, took them around and crossed them on his lower back, and so on, creating a quilt-like effect that he hoped might serve to keep the down in place and prevent it from bunching up. He ran out of cord before he was able to try a similar concept on his arms, but after a few minutes, could see that it was going to work as he had hoped, on his torso at least. Finished with the improvised down jacket, Einar rested for a minute, his arms crossed, still a bit shaky but feeling much warmer than he had before. Its going to be a good night. Even without a fire, it would be good. But he intended to build a fire, anyway, wanting to make some Oregon grape infusion and cook the grouse before it had a chance to begin spoiling. He knew that he could extend its useful life by boiling or otherwise coking it every day until he was able to eat it, which would kill any bacteria that had begun to grow and slow the spoiling process, but which he knew from experience had its limits, also. Better still would be to dry the meat over the fire, which he supposed he could try, with the leaner portions. He hoped such options would prove to be irrelevant, though. Knew he was going to be in big trouble if he was not able to begin eating again, soon. Preparing the fire pit and splitting wood for kindling proved to be refreshingly easy, with the use of the entrenching tool and knife he had recently acquired, leading Einar to think just how far he had come from the previous winter when he had to scrape his firepit into the rocky and partially frozen ground just inside the mine tunnel with a deer scapula. Though that did work, in the end. Glad to know I can make do with whatever I have. He positioned his firepit well beneath the ledge, surrounding it on the open side with a semicircle of rocks for additional concealment and digging a short tunnel to let in additional air, as he had done in the past. One of the remaining cattail heads he stuck down under the kindling he had split, pulling a bit of the fuzz out and fluffing it up some to allow more air around it. Shortly after dark Einar had a fire going, reflecting nicely off the surrounding rock to warm him as he spread out his still-wet grey sweatshirt and ski pants to dry. He wanted to have the sweatshirt, ragged and thin as it had become, to wear over the polypro for protection from the inevitable sparks that he would encounter, working over a fire. Having seen how the cattail head went up when he touched a match to it, he certainly did not want to have an ember melt through the shirt and get at that layer of insulation. Einar let his Oregon grape root tea heat for a while, then set it on a rock and steep until it was a rich yellow color and quite bitter, adding a pinch of the Tang mixture before he drank it in the hopes that he would be able to keep it down, grimacing as he sipped and then gulped the stuff, wanting to be done with it. It stayed down, though, and he set another can to heat.

As he boiled the grouse, Einar began feeling a bit hungry for the first time in several days, and was able to sip a bit of the broth, though when he tried swallowing a bite of the meat, his stomach protested strongly enough that he decided to stick to the liquid. Finally, more than ready for sleep, he hung all of his food, including the remaining grouse broth, from a tree some distance from the camp, one which he had picked out while it was still light, and rolled into his bed beneath the spruce. Einar slept warm and soundly that night, surrounded by multiple layers of insulation in the form of cattail down and over a foot of dry spruce duff on all sides of him, warm rocks from the fire adding initially to the comfort of his cocoon. His sleep was disturbed only twice by his lingering ailment and once by the distant rumbling of a helicopter, and he was able to warm up and get back to sleep fairly quickly each time after leaving his bed. Which was a very good thing, as the next morning was to bring him all the work he could handle, and more.

Morning brought a cold, steady rain that woke Einar to the soft sound of water dripping in places through the spruce boughs, making him very glad that he had chosen to shelter beneath the densest area of a rather large tree. He was dry, only a few drops of rain having found their way through the branches to land in the area of his bed, and he lay there for some time, sleepy, drifting, feeling very secure and warmer than he could remember being for a very long time. He rather dreaded getting up, wanted very to go on lying there, but a serious need for water was being exacerbated by the dripping of the rain, eventually making it nearly unbearable for him to continue lying still. His mouth too dry to swallow, he reached out of his bed and felt around until he found some needles that were wet from the rain, holding them in his mouth in an attempt to gain some moisture, but finding it hardly enough to help eliminate the cracked, sandy feeling that had developed overnight. He finally dug himself out of his nest of spruce duff, wishing very much that he had not neglected to take his water bottle to bed with him the previous evening when, exhausted and sleepy from the warmth of the fire, he had left it on a flat rock up under the ledge. Getting to his feet, he climbed up the ten or fifteen yards to the overhang, hurrying across the open spaces between trees to avoid getting wet. The rain jacket he had stashed with his other gear in Lizs pack, which had been suspended in a tree overnight out of the reach of bears, and he detoured in his rush to the ledge to retrieve it, finding the pack mostly dry despite the downpour. Einar took a minute to fish out the rain jacket, its windproof fabric proving a welcome addition in the wet, windy chill of the morning, which had already set his teeth to chattering, despite the cattail insulation that had served him so well overnight. Reaching the overhang and taking a long drink from the water bottle, he shoved aside the flat rock that he had used to cover the firepit overnight, poking around in the ashes and blowing on them until a faint orange glow told him that a few live coals still remained. With the storm, he decided that it ought to be reasonably safe to go ahead with a fire, even after daylight, and he broke some of the dry sticks that were left over from the previous day, adding them along with another of the remaining cattail

heads and coaxing the fire back to life. Warming his numbed hands over the flames, he set a can of water to heat on the flat rock, pushing it partially over the pit to act as a cooking surface before shaving a quantity of bark from several of the remaining Oregon Grape roots to go in the water. He intended to consume as much of the infusion as he could tolerate that day, encouraged by the reduced number of outhouse trips during the night, though not yet ready to attribute the improvement to the bitter yellow juice. Time would tell. It could have been coincidence, he supposed. But he did feel a little hungry that morning, and was able to drink a bit more of the grouse broth and even cautiously eat a small strip of the meat, before his stomach warned him to stop. He was glad to be able to take in some nourishment, no matter how small the amount, as he was feeling awfully weak and listless that morning, despite the good nights sleep. His head hurt, he was dizzy, and he was having a hard time keeping feeling in his hands, despite holding them over the fire until they ought to have been thoroughly warmed. As the tingling and numbness seemed to be progressively affecting his feet and face as well, he eventually concluded that it was more likely due to a worsening state of dehydration than to the cold. He finished off the bottle of water, realizing then that he had barely consumed an entire bottle since the previous morning, all the while losing a good bit to the effects of his illness. And a good bit of that water had gone to boiling the grouse, whose broth he had only managed to take a few sips of. Not good. Got to go refill this thing, and do better about drinking today. Knowing that he would likely be able to find some water trapped in depressions and pockets in nearby rocks, and that he could catch a good bit himself by scraping a little depression in the ground in an open area and lining it with the space blanket to catch the falling rain, he nearly talked himself into avoiding a trip down to the creek, not really feeling up to a journey of that length and dreading getting his clothes wet and the long, chilly process of drying them over the fire that it would necessitate. As parched as he was feeling, though, he knew that he had better go ahead and make that trip, rain or not, if he wanted to halt the dangerous progression of a condition that he knew could incapacitate and kill him as surely in the spring as it could in the heat of summer, if he did not keep on top of it. Removing one layer of polypropylene he stowed it, as well as the bulky cattail fuzz, well beneath the dry shelter of the ledge. That way, he figured, hed at least have something dry to put on when he came back more or less soaked and certainly chilly from his foray to the creek. Lizs rain jacket would do him some good, but as it was rather too small, his arms stuck out by several inches. Ah, well. Itll be alright. Its not even all that far. Just seems like it, this morning. Being somewhat steeply downhill from his shelter, Einar made fairly good time to the creek, managing to keep mostly dry for a good while by staying beneath the timber as he traveled, emerging out into the meadow just as a renewed rain squall swept down the opposite slope of the basin, reducing visibility to a few yards and soon soaking his polypro bottoms as it was driven nearly sideways by the wind. As cold as it seemed, he was a bit surprised that the moisture was not falling as snow or at least sleet, and expected that it might change over before too much longer. He half wished he had brought the space blanket to drape over his head to help keep off more of the blowing water, but knew that he would have hardly been able to hang onto it in that wind,

especially considering the trouble he was having with his hands, which seemed to be varying between numb and tingling, and which seemed not to be especially dexterous, either way. Filling the bottle at the creek, he turned to head back up to his shelter, wet, cold and exhausted from fighting the wind, but stopped before long to sip water from the bottle, his resolve to wait and boil it before drinking proving no match for his immediate need for moisture. Facing away from the wind, hunched over against its lashing, he realized that, in reaching the creek, he had already covered well over half the distance to his snare, and decided that the only sensible thing was to go ahead and check it. Already wet. He took a moment to wring water from the exposed cuffs of his polypro top, tried unsuccessfully to restore some feeling to his hands by pressing them against his stomach. Might as well go ahead and do it as long as Im already wet, in case this rain lasts a while. Which he expected it would not, anyway, as weather in the mountains was notorious for its rapid and complete shifts in mood, but one never knew. Hate to lose a deer to coyotes or something, if I did get one, though. Which I doubt, with this rain. But I dont really know when it started, and it may not have been going on all that long. The deer may have been out and about earlier, before it really got started. Turning back into the wind, he descended again to the small creek, stepped across it and started up towards the two scraggly spruces that he had previously picked out as a landmark for the general area of his snare, realizing even before he reached them that something was not quite right, though he couldnt put his finger on exactly what it was. He stopped, listened, but could hear nothing over the wind and rain, which had turned to an icy mix of sleet and partially solidified pellets of slush as he climbed, plastering itself against his jacket and pants and drowning out all other sound. As he followed the deer trail and stepped out into the little clearing just before the snare-tree, Einar realized what has disturbed his subconscious as he approached the area. It had been the look of the skyline. The branch that he had secured his snare to was broken, gone, a long splintery strip of broken wood left hanging from the tree and a wide swath of trampled vegetation leading off down the slope through the chokecherry scrub. He wondered how a deer could have possibly made such a complete mess of the thicket.

The sleet was falling heavily, having already covered the exposed dirt of the deer trail with a layer of ice, and Einar knelt and carefully brushed it aside, hoping to reveal at least a piece of the story that has led to his snare being gone, and the branch it had been attached to broken. It appeared that the ground had been at least partially frozen when the drama had taken place, meaning that the animal had left no clear tracks, but he did spot some scrapes and shallow gouges in the ground that spoke of the struggle. The sign had clearly been left by a hoofed animal, but was too indistinct from the effects of the melting sleet and the rain that had come before it for him to be certain of the size of the hoof that had left it. It certainly appeared to him somewhat wider than what he would have expected from a deer. But Im pretty sure I set that thing too low for elk, so He began following the wide trail of trampled and parted chokecherry scrub, finding that it presented little challenge, even with the worsening weather that was further reducing visibility. The creature had left a pretty wide swath of disturbed and trampled vegetation as it fled, apparently dragging the broken branch behind it. The trail was headed

downhill, which pleased Einar, as it meant the creature would be that much closer to his camp when it finally got hung up on some brush and strangled itself, but at the same time, he was concerned that if it had actually ended up making it out into the meadow, the chance existed that he might lose its trail altogether, or at least be in for a long wet day of attempting to track it across what probably would have been the at least partially frozen, tundra-like ground of the meadow, at the time of its passage. Emerging from the chokecherry thicket, Einar followed the animals trail of destruction across a small clearing and through a stand of the previous years nettles, their brown stalks bent and trampled, (Cordage! Ill be back!) and into a grove of small-diameter aspens, their newly emerged leaves heavy with the freezing sleet. The aspens had, much to Einars relief, finally stopped the flight of the snared animal. It lay slumped oddly forward next to one of the trees, sleet matted in its hair, nearly covering the dark ruff around its neck and shoulders that told Einar that he had, indeed, managed to snare an elk, if a small one. It looked to be a small yearling bull, and did not appear to be breathing. The creature had apparently taken off running when his snare tightened around its neck, breaking the branch dragging it along through the brush, stopping only when it finally caught crossways between two aspens that grew fairly close together. Einar approached cautiously, knowing that the last thing he needed was to have the animal suddenly rise and kick or trample him, wanting to know for sure that it was dead before getting too close. Walking up behind the animal to the trees that had finally snagged the branch, he tugged on the cord, not wanting to risk freeing the branch, but needing to know whether the elk was actually dead. There was no reaction when he raised the cord a few inches, the animals head flopping limply back to the ground when he released it, convincing him with fair certainty that he was safe approaching it. Only then did he ask himself just how he was going to get the elk back up near his camp where he could work on it and hopefully keep it out of the reach of bears and other scavengers. Freeing the branch that had finished the animal off, he brought it over his shoulder, braced it against his chest and attempted to drag the creature down the hill, having some success on the slick, sleet-covered ground, until it slid into a tree and managed to become wedged on its uphill side. He knew that the weight could be significantly reduced by gutting the elk, but at the same time he was pretty sure that he would be wanting and needing nearly all of the internal organs for one purpose or another, and had no other good way to carry them, once they were separated from the animal. Well, I could fit some stuff in the pack But he decided to give dragging another go, first. After bleeding the animal out, as well as he could. Might already be too late for that, but Ill give it a try. He wanted to keep the blood, knowing that he could benefit from adding it to his diet as soon as he was able, but was at a loss as to how to catch it, until he remembered the three gallon-sized ziplock bags in a side pocket of Lizs pack that had held the trail mix, Pemmican bars, and some of the other small items she carried. He hastily emptied two of them, thinking he could attempt to catch at least some of the blood and save it, perhaps doubling the bags up for transport. This ended up working fairly well, though it was a messy proposition, and he was glad to have the sleet to clean the bags on before carefully stowing them, each about half full, back in the pack.

Rolling the animal out from behind the tree that had trapped it, he continued on down the slope, glad that it was fairly open and free of downed trees, which would have made his task all but impossible. Perhaps a bit too open, and too steep also, as he soon discovered, the elk beginning to gain momentum on the slick hillside, which held a bank of stillmelting snow, as well as the sleet that continued to fall. At first he tried to hold it back by stumbling along behind it, the snare cord wrapped around behind his back, hoping to keep the dead weight of the animal from again becoming wedged behind a tree, but he could tell very quickly that it was not going to work, and was instead a rather dangerous proposition. He let go of the branch, but it jammed behind his backpack as it whipped around behind his back, jerking him off his feet and sending him sliding and rolling down the hill after the elk, ending up crumpled against the base of a tree, the impact fortunately softened significantly by the small patch of gooseberry shrubs that surrounded it. Slowly picking himself up and untangling the paracord, which had become wrapped around one leg as he fell, he looked for the elk, finding it to have stopped just below him, apparently brought up short by his impact with the tree, combined with the lessening grade of the slope. Einar finally got the elk, still whole, down to the meadow, knowing that his task was about to become immeasurably more difficult as he tried to drag it across the uneven and in places somewhat swampy ground of the meadow, which while it started out nearly flat, soon began sloping and climbing up towards his ledge and shelter. He stopped for a minute to rest beneath the shelter of a tree, soaked and cold and desperately thirsty after the struggle of dragging and lowering the elk down the slope, gulping nearly half the water in the bottle and resting his head against the trunk of the tree for a minute until his racing heart slowed to a more workable pace. Looking out across the meadow, which was by that time white with sleet in all but the most heavily vegetated, alpine willowcontaining sections, he hesitated at the thought of attempting to drag the animal across that open expanse. The storm seemed to be lessening, and as quickly as the weather tended to shift in the mountains, he knew that in fifteen minutes or less, there could well be full sun and a clear blue sky. And helicopters. As yet, none had approached the basin more closely than a mile or two, best as he could tell, but he knew they might at any time choose to expand their search, possibly surprising him in the middle of a white meadow with a dead elk and a clearly visible set of tracks marking his back trail. Not the best idea. He knew it was going to take him quite some time to drag the elk, small though it was, across the meadow. If he was able to manage it at all. Einar finally decided to take a quarter only, suspending the remainder from a tree with the snare cord and returning for it later, piece by piece, until he got everything up near his shelter. Before leaving, he decided to gut the animal to cut down on the risk of spoilage, and because he wanted to take the liver with him, in case he found himself able to eat that night. Which he very much hoped would be the case, as he hardly imagined that he would find himself capable of making return trips after the remainder of the elk, otherwise. Emptying the stomach of the elk, its contents still warm, stinking and steaming lightly in the cold, I know the Inuits often ate the stomach contents of the caribou they killed, as a way to supplement a near complete lack of plant matter in their diets during some seasons, but I believe Ill pass, at the moment he cleaned it as well as he could with

some of the gathering sleet, and stashed the heart, liver and kidneys inside it, loading it into the pack, which prevented him from zipping it closed, but would allow him to haul the innards back up to the camp. He wanted the lungs as well, but was out of carrying space. Perhaps in the chilly weather they would still be good when he returned. Getting the elk hoisted up into a tree with difficulty, knowing that the height allowed him by the fairly short piece of paracord might not be enough to save the meat from a determined bear, but lacking a better idea and hoping what he had done might prove to be enough, Einar set off across the meadow, weighed down by the heavy pack and the quarter that he carried slung over his good shoulder.

It took longer than Einar would have liked to cross the meadow, stumbling under the weight of the elk quarter and his loaded backpack, wishing he was able occasionally to shift the load to the other shoulder. He fell more than once, rising with difficulty and finding himself exhausted and struggling for breath by the time he reached the creek, watching the sky clear and becoming increasingly concerned about the potential for aircraft passing over and spotting him. Stopping to refill his water bottle, he let his load slide to the ground, kneeling beside the creek and resting his head on the pack. He was soaked and shivering from the rain and from repeatedly falling on the slushy ground, his sleeves having absorbed water where they stuck out beyond the shorter ones of the rain jacket, and he knew he must not stop for long in that condition, knew he must get back up to his shelter and fire no, no firenot if the sky keeps clearing like this and dry clothes as quickly as he could, and he forced himself up, pushing doggedly ahead until he collapsed again upon reaching the trees at the edge of the meadow, finding himself too dizzy to rise, even after a few minutes rest. Einar knew he had to get some energy in him if he wanted to go on, took out his pocket knife and carved off a few thin strips of meat from the elk quarter, quickly swallowed them with a gulp of water, pretty certain that they were not going to stay down but hoping he might be able to absorb at least a bit of nourishment from them, in the mean time. Maybe enough to allow him to reach the shelter, at least, and hopefully get the quarter hung from a tree where the scavengers, including bears, could not get at it. His stomach cramped up horribly at the introduction of the solid food, and he had not gone many yards up the slope before he found himself doubled over beneath a tree, and it was all he could do after that to get himself back to his feet. For a minute he thought he was going to have to abandon the meat for the time, focusing on getting himself up to the shelter where he could dry off and get warm, taking his chances that it would still be there when he was able to come back. After another minute the worst of the weakness passed, though, and he was able to slowly get to his feet and continue up the slope. Back beneath the overhang, Einar, thoroughly chilled by that time, got into his dry clothes and huddled over the lingering warmth of the firepit, the sky being too clear for him to consider risking a fire. The dry clothes made all the difference, though, and he was soon, if not comfortable, at least out of danger from the wet and cold. He drank the Oregon grape solution that he had left steeping that morning before venturing out into the evergreens to pull up some small, flexible spruce roots, tying several lengths together to

create a hastily improvised cord to hang the elk quarter, being out of paracord at that point. The existence of the small knife meant that he had a far easier time splitting the roots to create splices than he had the last time he had used them, to hang the bear carcass back at the mine where he had spent much of the previous winter. That experiment had ended in near disaster when the rope failed at one of the splices, sending him, and the bear, tumbling down the steep tailings pile. Staring up at the successfully suspended elk quarter, he turned the folded knife over and over in his hand. A simple tool, yet it had the potential to go such a long way in tipping the balance in favor of his survival. His immediate task completed, Einar crawled into his bed of dry duff, which had been kept that way by his careful placement of the space blanket before leaving the camp that rainy morning, spreading it over the area of his bed and holding it in place with piles of duff. Exhausted, he was asleep within moments of lying down, waking nearly two hours later to the slanting rays of the sun as they angled across the basin in advance of the coming evening. Einar was hungry, rose and went up to the overhang, where he was able to eat a good portion of the leftover grouse and drink a quantity of the broth, feeling much stronger and only experiencing a minimum of cramping after having done so. As he sat for a minute letting his body begin to absorb the badly needed food, Einar looked up at the sky, which had grown sunny, and decided that he probably had two or three hours until sunset. He saw that the sun had melted the sleet off the meadow, cutting down on his chances of leaving a trail that would be visible from the air, and decided to make one more trip that afternoon in an attempt to carry back the other quarter of the elk, at least. The trip across the meadow went far more quickly than it had the first time, the distance seeming far less daunting now that Einar had managed to keep some food down for more than a few minutes, and he reached the hung elk without incident, quickly getting to work on separating the second quarter, this time making good use of the saw from the handle of the entrenching tool, which he had thought to bring along. Into the pack, which he had nearly emptied before leaving the camp, he loaded the lungs and, after emptying them somewhat, the intestines also, intending to clean them in the creek and use them, cut into segments and tied, as containers for the pemmican he hoped to make from the tallow and dried meat of the animal. With little room remaining in the pack and even less time before the sun would set, he hurried to free a portion of the backstrap of the animal, rolling it up and stowing it in the remaining ziplock bag to keep it clean, before hoisting the carcass back up into the tree and starting for the creek. His plan was to return the next day and skin out the elk, packing back a good portion of the remaining meat and fat, as well as the hide. A task the he knew would keep him busy for most of the day. After again filling his water bottle at the creek, Einar decided to go ahead and clean out the elk gut, so it would be ready as soon as he had some of the tallow rendered down and ready to store. As he worked, he began feeling rather uneasy, in a vague, indefinable way that he at first attributed to the fact that he was crouched down in the middle of an open meadow, focused on something that might well prevent him from noticing the approach of danger. The feeling grew, though, and he finally stood, glancing around and listening for anything unusual. Nothing. Then he looked up at the terrain above the basin, saw a man descending the opposite slope, taking a path that roughly corresponded with the one

he had used to enter the area, a large pack on his back and an oddly shaped object in his extended hand. Einar dropped to the ground, rolling behind a clump of alpine willow that grow low and dense there by the water and peering out through an opening in the brush, squinting up at the man, who he guessed to still be well over seven or eight hundred yards away, at that point. As he watched the man turned slightly to make his way down a rocky section of the slope, giving Einar a good look at his profile. Suddenly he recognized the object in the mans hand as an antenna of some sort, consisting of one horizontal bar approximately two feet long, with a vertical bar of a similar length crossing it at each end. The man moved slowly, turning this way and that, stopping frequently to fiddle with something that appeared to be clipped to his jacket. Hes tracking me! The realization came to Einar with a shock like the icy water of the river, and he struggled to remain still, make himself think before taking off blindly for the trees. Tracking what? Must be something I got from Lizthe pack? Gotta be the pack, because that looks a lot like one of those radio rigs the Division of Wildlife uses to track the bighorn sheep and stuff that they fit with radio collars, and Ive seen the transmitters for those things up closetheyre kind of bulky. Too bulky to hide in anything but this pack. And he was about the abandon the pack where he was and take off slithering thorough the low willows in an attempt to be as far as possible from the place by the time the man arrived, but then the thought struck him that there was at least a possibility that the man could be a tracker, and might easily pick up his trail and follow him if he did that. Better keep the pack for a minute, set something up to slow the guy down. Einar didnt know for certain, but he was fairly sure from what he had heard that the man he saw was not likely to be working alone. Something about triangulating the signal. There would probably be at least one other out there somewhere with an antenna, and he expected that they would surely be in communication with each other. Wonder how far out the other guy will be? He low-crawled through the willow scrub, heading for the trees on the side of the basin opposite to the ledge and shelter, striving to stick to the slightly more open areas where rabbits and in some cases deer had left passages through the thicket and working hard not to set the brush to swaying and possibly alert the man to his position. As he went, Einar debated with himself whether his best course of action would be to hide the pack as well as he could and hurry to leave the area before they discovered that he was not with it, or perhaps to stash the pack, and set up an ambush for the man with the antenna.

Heading up into the evergreens, keeping well away from the spot where he had hung the elk and hoping very much that the man did not stumble across it, Einar worked his way deep into the black timber, wanting to leave a trail that would give the man as much difficulty as possible with maneuvering the antenna. He finally settled on a deadfall tree to stash the pack beneath, concealing it with duff and branches after stuffing its contents into his shirt, tucking it in to prevent everything from falling out. Lucky I left almost everything at the camp, since I have to ditch this pack. Or maybe not so luckyLooks like Im gonna end up losing everything again. Well. Whats new? At least I have the knife and saw, this time. And the matches. Wish I could have carried that elk quarter, but

no way to be stealthy and quick while lugging that thing. Sure hope the guy with the antenna doesnt follow the creek and find it. Of course, they apparently already know Im here, so no big loss if he does As he climbed, working frantically to decide on his course of action, it did not take Einar long to reject the idea of setting up an ambush. If something went wrong and the man was able to contact his partner, wherever he may be then they could conceivably call in air support fairly quickly, likely pinning Einar down and preventing him from leaving the area, if not immediately spotting him. Better to leave the pack, hope hell have some trouble locating it and then approach it cautiously (I do believe they will have learned by now to approach me cautiously) when he does, while I get as far from here as I can. Without leaving a big old obvious trail for them to follow. Because if this guys not a tracker, I can be sure theyll be bringing them in, as soon as they discover that Im not with that bag. Einars inclination was to leave the area as quickly as possible but the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he must first make an attempt to return to the overhang and retrieve the rest of his gear. Or else Ive got no way to carry things, no shelter from the wind and rain, no food or spare clothes. Ive done it before, and in colder weather, too, but Ill have a much better chance if I can get ahold of some of that stuff. He worried some about just where the man or men who would likely be out there helping to get a fix on the signal from his backpack might be, but decided it was a chance he had to take. Quickly! Taking a careful and circuitous route back towards his camp, stopping from time to time to try and get a look at his pursuer, Einar finally reached it, sensed nothing amiss, and began hurriedly stashing everything he could fit into his coyote skin pack, again stowing the liver and heart of the elk in the stomach, along with several pounds of meat that he hastily removed from the quarter that hung near the camp. Its enough. Itll keep me going long enough to get out from under this search, and get set up somewhere else. Though he could not help but think that he would very much like to be able to quit running, for awhile, and just focus on living, on getting his health back and preparing for next winter. Well. Later. He took a moment to down the remaining grouse broth and meat, which wasnt much, washing it down with half a bottle of water before taking off again, heading up the treed ridge and out of the basin, very careful of his trail and able to focus fairly well after the small meal. Looking down through a break in the trees, he saw the antenna flash in the last rays of the sun, the man having reached the basin floor and beginning to climb up towards the area where Einar had snared the elk. Time to be gone from here. Topping out on the ridge and looking far down a grassy slope to the largely open basin below, Einar noticed a number of cow elk, many of them grazing in the greying light of evening, and he was fairly certain that he saw one or two small ones in among the herd. Huh. Must be calving season. So that kind of explains why that yearling was off by himself when he ran into my snare. Mama must have kicked him out to make way for the new one. Knowing that he must not risk spooking the elk and giving away his position, Einar carefully detoured further into the evergreens that flanked the left side of the basin, walking quietly and leaving very little sign on the springy duff groundcover beneath them. It was still light enough to get a look at the elk when he reached their level, and

Einar took a moment to carefully approach the edge of the timber, wanting to see if the animals sensed any approaching danger. He hoped that his pursuer might be somewhat less stealthy than himself, and might perhaps have given himself away to the elk, if indeed he had opted to follow Einars trail after discovering the abandoned pack. The animals seemed calm, though, twitching their ears this way and that as they grazed and occasionally stopping to look up, but never in a particular direction or with any sense of real alarm. Good. Ive got a lead on them, at least. And, with that knowledge, he allowed himself to sink to the ground and rest for the first time since spotting the man with the antenna, having covered a distance of well over two miles from his camp and lost at least a thousand feet in elevation since reaching the top of the ridge. He was not sure how he had done it, as worn out as he had been at the start, but figured he could attribute it to the fact that there were probably few motivators as powerful as the prospect of an active search behind you. Which there still is, or is about to be. Get moving! First, though, he stood still for a minute surveying the land below the basin, which seemed to consist of a largely unbroken expanse of dark timber that went on at least several thousand feet lower before being lost to his view by the angle of the slope and the gathering dusk. OK. Thatll make a good place to lose myself for the night, maybe climb up that adjacent ridge in the morning, or whenever I reach it, if they have not brought in the choppers, yet. He was a bit surprised that they had not done so, already. Thought that perhaps the man with the antenna was having a worse time navigating with it through the dark timber than he had dared to hope. But theyll eventually discover that the pack and I are not together, and I had better have something more than those trees to crawl under, if they start scouring these basins with FLIR, tonight. Gonna be a cold night, now that the weather has cleared. He expected that there would likely be some boulders down in the timber that would do a decent job of concealing him. Just as he was turning back into the black timber to continue his descent, Einar spotted the radio collar on the nearest of the cows, and looking, noticed that three or four of the others wore similar devices. He stood quite still, letting the implications of the discovery sink in, some of the frantic energy that had been compelling him forward draining away as he realized that he had probably never been the target of the man with the antenna. Of course. Elk calving season. Theythe Division of Wildlife, I supposelike to keep statistics on the number of live births, size of the herd, such things. He shook his head. Einar, you fool! Its not all about you. Now get out of here before that guy finds his elk and spots you down here in the middle of the herd. And then go back for that pack. Youre gonna need it. He hoisted his pack up onto his shoulder, feeling at the same time like an enormous weight had been lifted from him. It looked like he was not going to lose all that elk meat, after all, and be left to spend the night and at least part of the next day dodging through the timber and crouching under rocks to avoid an air search when what he really needed was to sleep for two or three days, waking only to eat. An incredible relief. The cow startled, lumbered to her feet, and Einar froze in place, thinking that he must have unwittingly done something to alert her to his presence. Two seconds later, he

picked up on the approaching rumble that had spooked the elk.

Making a brief swing over the Wilderness Area to check out a reported sighing of smoke, the chopper crew probably would never have even noticed the Division of Wildlife research technician, had he not been standing out in a little open area on the high point of the ridge, attempting to reacquire a signal after having lost it climbing through the dark timber. One of the agents spotted him, and the chopper doubled back, circling once before hovering above the ridge. Einar had curled up beneath the largest tree he could find, digging down in the duff and partially covering himself with it as soon as he had realized how close the chopper was, hoping that he might be mistaken for one of the elk that grazed only yards from him on the grass of the basin. Peeking out beneath the spruce boughs as the chopper hovered, it did not take him long to see that the focus of the chopper crew was neither on his position, nor that that of the backpack he had abandoned, and to realize that they were fixed on the man with the antenna. The DOW man had dropped the antenna and was making angry gestures at the chopper, which hovered low over the ridge at that point, apparently upset that it was scaring off the elk herd that he had spent the day searching for. The chopper crew apparently had not seen the antenna, and when the man bent to pick it up with the intention of showing them what he was doing, and why they needed to quit hovering and ruining his efforts, they interpreted it as a hostile act and opened fire, fortunately only grazing the mans arm. The man dropped the antenna, raised his uninjured arm above his head and shouted uselessly over the thundering of the propellers, pretty sure that they would stop shooting at him if they realized that he was a state employee, and while the agents on the chopper were not able to surmise as much as they hovered two hundred feet above his head, they were becoming increasingly certain that the man must not after all be the subject of their search, as he was making no attempt to run or to bring them down with the ominouslooking metal object that he had been holding. The chopper circled once more, and, the agents seeing that the man was right where they had left him, on his knees by that point and waving frantically at the chopper, the decision was made to land in the open space of the basin below, and attempt to mop up the damage from what was beginning to look like a bad case of mistaken identity. The elk scattered, took off running as the chopper hovered and then descended towards the basin floor, one of them nearly running into Einar where he stood, and he realized as he dove out of its path that he had better not be the only warm-bodied creature that stayed curled up under a tree when all the others were taking off running, incase anybody was watching. Keeping beneath the trees, he followed the elk, moving quickly in the trail left by three or four that had fled one behind the other, seeking the refuge offered them by the higher ground of the treed slope that rose above the basin. Guess I know for sure now that Antenna Guy was not after meunless this search is even worse-coordinated than I thought! Always a possibility Panting and out of breath, he stopped several minutes later, realizing that he no longer heard the pounding of propellers from the basin behind him, leaning on a tree and looking down at the helicopter where it sat, just able to make

out the forms of several men as they climbed up the grassy slope towards the wounded antenna man, several of them carrying rifles. Poor guy. First I almost decide to ambush him as a searcher, and then this Einar realized that he now had a problem, he just didnt know how to judge the extent of it. With all the activity in the area, he did not dare try to return to his camp at the overhang that night, and was not sure that he ought to plan on doing so, even when the present activity died down. After all, he did not know what course the man with the antenna might have taken up the slope above the creek in the last basin, and there was always the chance that he could have stumbled on the abandoned elk quarter down by the water, or even the entire carcass where it hung from a tree branch just inside the timber. If he reported such a find to the agents from the helicopter No. I cant go back. Id never be able to know for sure whether they had found some sign of me, whether they were camped out somewhere around that basin, watching. Cant do it. That place was a nice stop-over, but its time to move on, put some more country behind me. If things turn out well, Antenna Guy will not have discovered that I was back there at all, and they will have no reason to search this area further. Though I do wonder why they were out here this evening, in the first place? And he took off up the ridge again, not wanting to be further delayed by doubt and speculation that he knew could not, with the information he had, reasonably end up changing his course of action that evening. It was nearly dark by that point, and Einar began looking for a place to spend what was turning into a fairly cold night, finally settling on a spot beneath a large limber pine on a rocky bluff with a view back to the basin, but a good distance removed from it. Despite the best efforts of the FBIshort of finishing the job they had startedto keep the incident quiet, a front page story detailing the debacle on the ridge appeared in the next mornings Sentinel. Oscar Bennington never was one to keep quiet, about anything

DOW employee shot in near-tragic case of mistaken identity Valley Sentinel May 12 Culver FallsOscar Bennington, a research technician with the Division of Wildlife who had been conducting a multi-day study of elk migrations and calving habits in the wilderness high above Culver Falls is recovering in the hospital in Clear Springs this morning, after apparently being grazed by an FBI bullet, highlighting the growing tensions that have become almost routine in the ongoing search for Einar Asmundson. Bennington was attempting to locate an elk herd by following the signals given off by their radio collars when, he says, a helicopter appeared from over the ridge, scaring off the elk, which he had just spotted in the basin below, and causing Bennington to begin gesturing rather insistently at them to leave the area. What happened next might be considered difficult to believe, and, as the FBI refused to comment on the situation, we are left for the moment to take Bennington, a longtime Lakemont County resident and

DOW employee, at his word. The following is a brief excerpt from our reporters telephone interview with him this morning from his hospital bed: Bennington: They were spooking the elk, you know, running them, and they had a bunch of little ones on the ground down there, so I was trying to get that chopper to leave, waving at it and all, but they wouldnt, so I picked up the antenna and held it over my head so they could see what I was trying to do, but instead, they just started shooting at me. Sentinel: Did they give you any sort of warning first, shout at you, anything? Bennington: Well, I sure dont think so. I mean, it was awful loud, maybe I missed it, but I dont think so. Sentinel: What did you do when they started shooting? Bennington: Iyou know, I dont even really think I had time to do anything, before that bullet hit me. I could hardly believe what was happening, at first. Thought maybe the wind from the propeller had stirred up some little rocks or sticks or something, and slung one at me, but then I looked up and saw this guy with a rifle, and he was pointing it at me, so I just stuck my handswell, the one hand, anywayabove my head and hoped theyd quit shooting. Sentinel: What happened next? Were you seriously injured? Bennington: Noturns out I wasnt, but I sure didnt know it at the time. There was a lot of blood. They landed the chopper down in the meadow, scared off those elk so quickboy, I was mad at them for doing that! Maybe even madder than about being shot, at the time. Just what they needed, having dropped their calves not three or four days ago, Id say. I tell you! Then three of four agents came charging up that hill with their rifles and bulletproof vests and allwell, charging as fast as they could, I guess, not being used to the altitudeand for a minute I was pretty sure they were going to finish me off (nervous laughter.) Well, instead they stuck a dressing on my arm, but not before searching me, for weapons, I guess, which I did not have with me, aside from the tranquilizer gun, which kind of alarmed them, even though I was trying the whole time to tell them who I was and what I was doing up there. They were about to cuff me, when the one agent who was searching my pack finally found some paperwork that apparently satisfied them that I was a State employee, like I was claiming The full text of the interview will be published in Sundays edition of The Sentinel. Repeated requests to the FBI for comments on the situation have gone unanswered, but as we have repeatedly told them, there is a standing invitation for an interview, to be published in its entirety, anytime they are willing. Evidence of Asmundson, 40, was last discovered in a previously unknown cave on a remote plateau above the Juniper Springs road when FBI agents, guided by local caver

Darren Raintree, came across charcoal drawings and remnants of a camp that appeared to be very fresh. One of the agents, searching for Asmundson in a dark passage of the unmapped cave, fell and sustained serious injuries, becoming trapped and sparking a rescue effort that lasted overnight and involved Sheriffs Department personnel and Mountain Rescue teams form several counties. While the FBI refused to comment on the drawings that first indicated Asmundsons presence in the cavern, one of the Mountain Rescue volunteers, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells us that, ominously, they depicted a scene in which an FBI helicopter crashed in a canyon, a tragedy that happened several weeks prior to the discovery of the cave. While the investigation into the crash is ongoing, some associated with the search have publicly speculated that Asmundson might have been shooting at the helicopter with an improvised bow and arrows moments before the crash, a theory that is backed up by the images on the cave wall, which according to witness involve a depiction of a man with a bow, hiding under a rock as the chopper goes down.

Einar huddled under the pine as the darkness became complete, listening to the chopper in the valley power up and finally watching it leave, traveling, he thought, in the general direction of Culver Falls. It did not head his way, which was what mattered most to him at that point. He was nauseous, found himself unable to eat despite the knowledge that he needed to, after covering so much ground that day, and at first he attributed it to the lingering adrenalin of having the chopper nearly land on him back in the basin, but before long a series of sulfur belches, followed very quickly by the urgent need to go crouch under a tree, told him that the Giardia that had plagued him earlier had not been entirely eliminated, and was acting up again. He tried to sleep after that, waking several times to scramble back from his roost at the edge of the bluff and crouch under a tree, finding his water bottle empty after the first couple of hours and sleeping fitfully because of his thirst and the digestive troubles that seemed to have returned with a vengeance. He knew that in the morning he had better get started right away at finding some Oregon grapes, and the good news, as he thought about it, feeling his way back to his bed after one of his bouts with the illness, was that the place he had chosen to spend the night was just the sort of terrain they tended to prefer. Cold and shaking in the single layer of polypropylene that had been dry enough to wear that evening, he curled back up beneath the tree, chewing on a pine needle to combat the dry, sour feeling in his mouth and drifting around the edges of sleep until he was again forced up by his condition, dizzy and stumbling as he searched for his outhouse tree. Hope I dont go the wrong direction one of these times, and walk right off of this bluff. Itd be a second or two of falling, then splat! And Id be jerky for the vultures after a few hours of sunlight on those rocks down there. He laughed a weird, dry little laugh at the mental image of a wheeling vulture looking down at his desiccated body, thinking twice and moving on to look for tastier fare. Yep, pretty sure even the buzzards would pass on me, right now. Think Im already well on the way to being all dried out, and not that much meat left, either With that thought, exhausted, he slept, vivid, garish dreams bringing him visions of vast, arid expanses of open land where there was not a shred of

concealment and no water to drink, and the sharp, alkaline dust rose to cake his dry mouth and nose as he ran how is it possible to be so thirsty and so awfully cold, all at the same time? weaving and stumbling, driven on by the ever present thunder of propellers close behind him and thinking that if he could just make himself move a little faster, perhaps he would begin to warm up, at least. The chopper was low and persistent and left him wondering why they didnt just shoot him and get it over with, and the dust that it stirred up was choking him, blinding him, and he pressed on with the small hope that perhaps it was also blinding the chopper crew, perhaps there might still come some means of escape. Just when he was becoming certain that he could force himself to go no further, he tripped over something and fell hard, struggling to get back to his feet and realizing that he was no longer on the seemingly endless dusty plain, but beneath the dark timber of a high slope, the air sharp and clean with the moist smell of evergreens after a rain, a soft damp carpet of fallen needles beneath him and the thick, dark glorious safety of the black timber above his head. He slumped back to the ground, resting for a moment and trembling at the horror of what was behind him before picking himself up and going on, wanting to get deeper into the forest before the chopper, which strangely he could no longer hear, made its return. Einar smelled smoke, aspen, it seemed, and he followed the odor along the ridge and quite some distance from the place where he had been lying, curious and cautious at the same time, reaching a spot where the trees parted and he stood on a rocky outcropping looking down into a little clearing in the aspens below. Peering around a clump of low, close growing firs, he saw a small cabin, roughly constructed of hand-hewn spruce and fir, smoke curling out of the chimney in the cool morning air, and the sight looked to him oddly familiar, though he could not immediately place where or when he had seen it before. Then the door opened, Liz emerged, and Einar turned away, wishing with a brief flash of anger that she would leave him alone, stay out of his dreams, for he knew then with certainty that it had been merely a dream, which was at once a relief and a disappointment to him. The dream faded after that, and he blundered about for some time in a dark world of vague and looming images that pursued him relentlessly through a tormented landscape of thirst and dizziness and confusion from which he very much wanted to seek escape by waking, but which, for the time, held him firmly in miry grasp. Einar woke some time later to the smell of woodsmoke, squinting out at the brightening world below him and struggling to get his eyes to focus through a dull, pounding pain in his head, knowing that he must go and find water before thinking of anything else. It did not take him long to gather his possessions; the coyote skin pack and tied-shut elk stomach that held his supply of meat hung from a nearby tree where he had left them, and seeing in the daylight the result of the previous nights inadequate attempt at bearproofing, he was grateful that no bear had come, because it would have easily torn down and made off with all of his gear and food. He got the pack slung over his shoulder, staring dully about in an effort to choose his route and finally deciding that he must head down into the narrow valleymore of a gulley, than a valley, reallyat the bottom of the ridge that he had traversed that past evening. There would almost certainly be a creek down there, which should, at that time of year, yield at least some water as the high snow finished melting and coming down. But what about that smoke? He had nearly forgotten about it as he prepared to leave the camp, but realized that he could still smell it quite

clearly, though staring out at the sun-topped ridges around him, he could make out no sign of it on a horizon that blurred and danced maddeningly as he tried to focus. He shook his head, clamped his eyes shut against a wave of dizziness. You need water, Einar. Bad. Head downhill. And he did so, carefully skirting around the rocky areas that would have provided far too many opportunities to lose his footing in his dizzy state and go tumbling forty or fifty feet to the rocks below. He noticed some Oregon grapes growing among the rocks, stunted and scraggly in that exposed place, and stopped to collect a few of the roots, frustrated when the first two he tried, digging around their bases with a rock and gently pulling to free the root, broke off in his hand. He kept the lower portions of their stems, anyway, knowing they contained at least some portion of the yellow berberine held by the roots. He dug deeper around the next plant before pulling, and managed to get most of the root. Six or seven roots he collected in this way, figuring that he had better do so while the opportunity existed, and knowing that he could at least chew the roots as he traveled, hopefully reaping at least some of their benefits, even if he found himself on the move and unable to have a fire to heat water for tea. It turned out that there was indeed a creek at the bottom of the slope, small and clear in the morning chill, the snowmelt of the day having not yet reached it, and Einar knelt and filled his bottle, gulping the frigid water until his eyes ached and refilling the bottle, leaning back against the half-exposed roots of a tree as his body began absorbing the water, his shriveled stomach feeling uncomfortably bloated. It was not long at all before he was sick, leaning over the roots of the tree to keep from contaminating the creek, his stomach unable to tolerate the volume of icy water that he had swallowed. Nonot good. Gotta keep something down. Youre not going to make it unless you can keep something down. And he tried again, this time adding a bit of the Tang mixture and drinking much more slowly, sipping a small quantity of water and sitting hunched over by the creek, hardly daring to move for fear of losing it again. After several minutes he ventured a few more sips, keeping at it until he had drunk nearly half a bottle. After managing that successfully, he gingerly tried chewing on one of the Oregon grape roots, its bitter juice tying his stomach in knots but no worse. Getting stiffly to his feet, Einar started back up the ridge, not wanting to travel for long down in the gulley where the creek might mask sounds that would otherwise give him warning of approaching danger. And he wanted to make his way up higher where he might get a look at the surrounding country, too, hoping that his vision would be a bit better since he had taken in some water. He knew that he needed a plan, an idea of where he was heading, and his immediate thought was to keep going deeper into the Wilderness Area, seeking shelter when he was a sufficient distance from the meadow where the chopper had landed to again risk a fire. While there had been no air activity at all over the area since the previous night, Einar was not entirely satisfied that Antenna Guy might not have seen some sign of his presence back in the other basin, and passed the information on to the authorities. Seems like they would have been in the air by now, if he had, but not necessarily, I suppose. They could have opted to bring people in and track me quietly so I would have no idea of what was going on, and no chance to set upobstacles an their trail. The possibility certainly precluded any thought he might still have been harboring of returning to the elk carcass for more meat. And Ive got to be

pretty careful about my trail still, just in case somebody is on it, and manages to work their way up to where I slept last night. If, that is, Im able to keep moving at all, today. He was beginning to doubt it, as the constant dizziness that had been with him since the return of his Giardia symptoms had, as he climbed, been joined by occasional spells of faintness during which the world began going black and he had to quickly sit with his head between his knees lest he fall. Well, Ill do what I can. Better have some more of that water Reaching a spot high on the ridge where his view opened up a bit, Einar studied the ridges and valleys around him, finding nothing that appeared amiss and settling on following the ridge he was presently on, which appeared to continue for some distance, perhaps crossing it at some point in a mile or two and dropping down the back side to see what the country was like over there. He stood swaying, daydreaming, his eyes drifting closed, jerking back to wakefulness the next moment and telling himself rather sharply to get moving! The sooner you put some more distance behind you, the sooner you can rest. Then he saw the smoke. Just the faintest wisp rising in the clear, still morning air, but it was unmistakable, and not all that far away on the lower slopes of the opposite ridge, seeming to come from beneath a dense stand of spruces.

Stepping back inside the cover of the trees, Einar studied the area where he had seen the smoke, which had dissipated almost as soon as he had noticed it and not reappeared. He doubted that FBI trackers would risk giving themselves away like that, and for that matter doubted that they would still be in camp, so late in the morning. And the camp was not anywhere particularly near his back trail, anyway. So who, then? Maybe one of Antenna Guys partners? That seemed to make sense, more sense than anything else he could come up with, and while such an individual was still a danger to him and contact with him something to be carefully avoided, his presence was perhaps not the emergency that would have been presented by the presence of trackers. Which was a relief, because Einar was increasingly struggling with his bodys apparent need to shut down and lose consciousness, and as difficult as it had become to stay upright and keep his vision clear enough that he didnt run into things, he knew that, try as he might to avoid it, he had to be leaving pretty clear sign. Finding a well-used deer trail that cut horizontally across the steep slope of the ridge he followed it, figuring that the safest thing was to quickly (ha!) and quietly distance himself from the area of the smoke, hoping that whoever was down there would have no reason to suspect his presence. Reasonable as that all sounded, he was beset as he walked by a strong sense of foreboding and of danger, of something being terribly out of place, his mind screaming at him to get off this trail! Get up into some dark timber, now! but try as he might he could find nothing to substantiate those feelings, finally deciding that he must have just been spooked by the smoke. And he was too tired, anyway, he told himself, to go scrambling up into the evergreens, running from the shadows in his mind when the deer trail in front of him presented a clear, fairly level path that took him in the direction he had already decided to head. Be sensible! You sure dont have any energy to

waste, today. He did, though, take a few minutes to construct a hastily improvised spear by splitting the top few inches of a dry spruce branch, inserting the open pocket knife into the split and wrapping his remaining length of paracord around it to hopefully keep the thing in place, working with difficulty to coordinate his shaking hands and blurry vision as he built the weapon. Einar couldnt seem to stop shivering that morning, even though the soft ground and rapid melting of the remaining banks of snow told him that it was already well above freezing. He felt like ice. Time to move, then. Which he did, stumbling along like a man in a dream, leaning heavily on the improvised spear. Asmundson, youre leaving tracks. Einar froze at the sound of the voice, slowly turned to face the man, a small sad smile creeping across his face along with the awareness that though there probably wasnt going to be a way out of this one, he intended to find or make one, or die trying. He was ready, whichever way it went. All morning hed been dogged by the grim and unshakable feeling that he was walking way too close to the edge, pushing things too far, that unless he found a waysoonto reverse his worsening dehydration, he probably wasnt long for this world. He knew it was a dangerous line of thought, even if it was true, but was too tired to put his accustomed amount of energy into quashing it, using all of the focus and strength he could muster to keep himself moving along the ridge. And now this. In a strange way, he almost welcomed the encounter. At least now I get to die on my feet and fighting to stay free, rather than curled up under a tree somewhere like a sick dog His vision blurry, it took Einar a moment of blinking and searching to locate the man, clad in Realtree camo and wearing a homemade-looking Ghillie hat, who sat on a rock not far above the deer trail Einar had been following, behind the trunks of a few small aspens. He did not appear to be holding a gun, which surprised Einar some. Tracks, huh? That how you found me? Einar responded in the hollow, raspy voice of a man who had been too long without enough water, food, rest, as he carefully eased his improvised spear into a better position and glanced around out of the corners of his eyes to get some idea of the lay of the land. There was a sharp-looking dropoff not ten feet to his left, where the hillside had sloughed off at some point, and he wondered if hed be able to make it over there before the man was able to draw a sidearm, or jump down and tackle him. Worth a try, I guesshe wont jump on me, cause hed land right on this spear. And if he decides to shoot mewell. Whoa, relax, OK? The man spoke up, seeing what Einar appeared to be contemplating, and he removed his hat as he spoke and held up his empty hands where Einar could easily see them. Im not with the feds. Im not with the search. Remember me? Rob. I work with the Jackson brothers. You know, Juniper Creek Outfitting? You worked with my partner Jeff one fall. Einar looked skeptical, took another step back towards the dropoff, but the man had looked familiar, and now that he had the context, he did indeed recognize him as who he claimed to be.

What are you doing out here, then? Working for the DOW? Nolooking for you, actually, Rob answered. Isnt everybody? Einar replied wearily. Dont know what you planned to do with me when you found me, but Ill be on my way now. Thanks for mentioning about the tracks. Ill be more careful. And he continued down the trail, watching Rob out of the corner of his eye and glad that he was not jumping up to follow. Einar did not want to have to use the spear on him (yeah, mostly because it would probably fall apart if I tried) but was prepared to do it, if the man insisted on getting in his way. Rob could hear the irony in Einars voice, the bitter determination of a man who was resigned to his fate but intent on facing it on his own terms, and could see that he had no intention whatsoever of sticking around, but realized at the same time that it was all Einar could do to keep on his feet. He was reeling, stumbling, leaving clear sign as he made his way down the deer trail, and Rob had an idea. Asmundson, hey, theyre gonna be able to follow that trail youre leaving. Youre not walking straight. Scuffing up the ground. My camps right down there in those spruces. Come on down and have some breakfast with me? Might make you a little steadier on your feet. Einar turned back to look at him, nearly losing his balance as he did so and catching himself on a nearby aspen. Dont do ityou know you cant do this. What if they followed him here? What if this is all a trick to get you down there to his camp where he can hit you over the head or sedate you or something until he can radio the feds and claim that reward? But he silenced the voice by telling himself Rob was a local, someone he had been acquainted with before, that perhaps he could be trusted (Perhaps? Youre willing to stake your freedom on some half-baked perhaps?) and that, besides, if he didnt get help of some kind, hed probably wind up unconscious under a tree by the time evening came, at which point the cold would easily come in and finish him off. He nodded, slowly got himself turned around and limped back towards the man. OkOk, thanks. Rob jumped down from his perch above the trail and offered to take Einars pack, but could see that the mere suggestion made Einar very nervous, so he backed off and did not offer again. Its right down there, see, where the trees get heavy, just the other side of the creek. I see. Saw your smoke, this morning. And they headed down the slope together.

As soon as they reached the camp, Rob began stirring the fire, adding some dry aspen branches and a pile of shredded juniper bark that he had apparently gathered at some lower elevation on his way up. Wait, Einar insisted, standing up and taking a step back from the fire. Somebody might see that smoke. Its Ok. This dry wood wont smoke much at all. And you look pretty cold; thisll help a lot. Ah, no, Im alright. Been a lot colder than this. I mostly just need to drink a bunch of water right now. Havent been able to keep much of anything down for a few days. Giardia, Im pretty sure. Think its about done me in. I can tell. Rob half filled a canteen cup, rummaged around in his pack and stirred something into the water, handing it to Einar. It smelled like lemon. What is this? Some sort of rehydration mix that I got from a paramedic I know, when he helped me pack my medical kit. It ought to be better than plain water, with the troubles youve been having. Supposed to have some rice powder or something in it, to help with the runs, too. Seeing Einars hesitance, he handed him the empty packet that had held the drink mix, wanting to demonstrate that it was indeed what he said it was, and nothing else. Einar glanced at the yellow CeraLyte packet, nodded, trying the stuff and hoping he could trust Rob not to be poisoning him, finding the drink to be wonderfully refreshing and not upsetting to his stomach as the overly-sweet Tang water had become of late. As he drank, feeling somewhat revived, he explained to Rob his marginally successful attempts to create a similarly effective drink, mentioning the box elder sap and elk blood, but deciding at the last minute to leave out the part about the Tang, not wanting to possibly compromise Liz by having to explain where the Tang came from. Though hes probably already wondering about this polypro and the jacket thats too short for me, because this stuff has obviously not been out here as long as I have Want some more? Uhbetter leave it at that for now. Dont want to risk losing all of it. But if I could have just a bit more water he pulled several of the Oregon grape roots from his pack, wasting no time as he started to break them up in preparation for making some berberine solution. Thinking a bit more clearly and feeling slightly less wiped out after the electrolyte drink, he was becoming more and more certain that he must not spend much time at the camp, and wanted to take full advantage of the opportunities it offered to meet his basic needs, during whatever time he did spend there. Nesting the cup down in the still-warm coals of Robs fire, Einar crouched trembling over its warmth, waiting for the water to begin turning yellow. As he waited, he unwrapped the paracord that had held his

pocket knife into the improvised spear, closing the knife and stashing it, along with the hastily coiled cord, into the zippered pocket of Lizs windbreaker, where it joined one of the Pemmican bars, the small first aid kit, and the little waterproof bottle of matches he had got from Liz. As an afterthought, he reached down to the bottom of the coyote skin pack, pulling out the pair of handcuffs and stowing them in the jacket pocket, too, thinking that if he was somehow separated from the pack and it was discovered in Robs presence, they were the one thing that could positively identify it as his. Guys trying to help me, after all Not a great idea, but maybe I can keep him out of jail. Oregon grape roots? Rob asked, staring quizzically at the yellowing water. Thats not something Ive ever seen used for tea. Wont it be kinda bitter? Its for the Giardia. Was starting to work, I think, but then I had to move again and didnt keep up with it. I need to drink a whole bunch of this stuff, if I want it to work. Please, if you ever see me not working on some, remind me Will do. Hey, think you could eat something? Id sure try. Got some elk liver in this bag, here, that ought to still be Ok, after that cold night. Rob dug down in the coals, setting a little titanium pan down in them and pouring in a bit of oil from a bottle, adding thin slices of the liver which very soon began to cook and sizzle and emit a wonderful odor, leading Einar to realize that he actually felt hungry again for the first time since his illness had returned. As the liver cooked, Rob searched his backpack for something, coming up with a little fire steel and striker on a cord, stowed neatly in a small leather pouch. Liz sent this for you. Im sure its something you can use. Einar took it, inspecting it before slipping the cord over his head. Sure isthanks, he finally answered, not acknowledging the mention of Liz. Listen, I know you probably think you have to protect Liz by pretending not to know who Im talking about, but she came to us, you know. Shes the reason Im here. That, and the fact that Im always glad for the opportunity to mess with the Federal Occupation Force! Einar nodded, grateful but at the same time wishing that Liz had got the message when he failed to show up at the truck near the waterfall and cave, and left well enough alone. They ate in silence for awhile, Einar taking it very slowly, glad that the food seemed to be inclined to stay where he put it, for the moment at least. So, he asked Rob, realizing that he had better come up with all the information he could, while he had the chance, how did you find me? Why this area? Why did you come here? Well, theres this old timer I know, Oscar Bennington, who works for the DOW on some of their elk tracking programs, and he was up in this general area yesterday, when apparently the feds mistook him for you, and shot him in the arm while he was operating a radio telemetry antenna. Apparently they thought it was a rifle, or something. He

shrugged, rolled his eyes. Well, I went to see Oscar in the hospital last night, and he told me about a couple of thingsstuff he saw over on the other side of that ridge there, he indicated the slope behind them, that made me wonder, so I had to come check it out. What kind of stuff, what did he see? Einar, who had been leaning back against a tree, sat up again, bolt upright, staring intently at Rob as he waited for the answer. Elk quarter with saw marks on the bone, a few tracks, things like that. Now Oscar didnt think it made an awful lot of sense for poachers to be up here this time of year, much less to be taking a half grown little elk like that quarter was out of, then leaving it sit in the middle of the basin like somebody did. And when he told me about it, I was pretty sure what it meant. Though I gotta say, you made your tracks disappear pretty good, after you started up out of that basin. Found your pack, though. Why did you leave it, anyway? So you could move faster? Einar shook his head, pulled himself to his feet. May be in more trouble than I realized, here Did uhOscar tell this stuff to the feds, too? Guess he probably would have I wouldnt have come, if I thought he had. But I really dont think so, and heres why: Oscar loves to talk, to tell stories, you know, and I was in his room when he gave a phone interview to The Sentinel. And he didnt mention one word about the elk or the tracks, which would have added a little mystery to the whole story, so I think hed have brought it up, if he wanted it to be public knowledge. And he waited till everybody else was out of the room to tell me, too. So Im thinking he didnt tell them. Einar let his breath out in a big sigh, sat back down heavily. Ok. Sure hope not. But one more thing. How did you end up ahead of me on my trail this morning? You said I wasnt leaving tracks up out of the basin, so how did you find me? Are you kidding? You were crashing around like a bear, coming up from that creek this morning. Id spent the night down here, just trying to think where somebody might go if theyd seen the chopper that shot at old Oscar. When I heard you this morning, I just got in close enough to where I could see you, figured out which way you were headed, and went ahead to wait for you. Einar nodded. I know. I was getting pretty clumsy. Tell you whatdont ever go for I dont know, a couple months, anyhow, with way too little food and sleep and too much country to cover, then get a nasty case of Giardia to top it all off. It really messes with your concentration. Messes with? Rob burst out laughing, apologizing profusely the next moment. Im sorry, I know thats not funny at all, its justwell, that must be the understatement of a lifetime, or something. Jeff said you had a habit of understating things. Hmm. Maybe. Convince myself, sometimes I guess, that things arent as bad as they seem, oras bad as they are, as the case may be. Helps some.

Einars initial enthusiasm at the renewed energy and clarity brought him by the electrolyte drink and bites of liver was, unfortunately, rather short lived, as he ended up minutes later creeping off behind a tree and losing his breakfast from both ends, barely making it back into camp afterwards before collapsing in a heap on the ground. Rob tried several times unsuccessfully to wake Einar before rolling him into his sleeping bag, pulling his knit cap down almost to his eyes and zipping him, pale and shivering, into the bag. Rob mixed up another packet of the rehydration drink, so it would be ready when Einar woke, and hung his coyote skin pack from a nearby branch where he would easily be able to see it. The still-damp second pair of polypro tops and bottoms he draped over evergreen boughs in the sun to finish drying. For the rest of the day and into the evening Einar fought with the heaviness that held him down, unconscious at times, knowing that he needed to be getting up, moving on, but finding himself entirely unable to do so much as sit up and have a conversation with Rob. It was as if his body, quite independently of what his mind was so insistently telling it to do, had reached a point where rest was essential and could be delayed no longer, seizing upon an opportunity and forcing him to comply. Einar didnt like it, but found himself able to fight it only in his troubled dreams. During the brief periods of wakefulness that Einars condition allowed him, Rob got him to take sips of the electrolyte mix and of his Oregon grape concoction, keeping watch over the camp and, honoring Einars prior request, waiting to rekindle the fire until after dark. Waking to the glow of the fire, Einar found his clarity of mind if not his strength to have finally returned somewhat, and along with it the sure knowledge that something was wrong. He did not know what, but the sense was of something immediate, pressing, demanding action without delay. Einar knew better than to second guess such inklings. He grabbed for his pack, found it missing, got quietly to his feet and took a few steps back away from the glow of the fire, crouching beneath a spruce and steadying himself against the rough bark of its trunk. He could clearly see Rob, sleeping wrapped up in a wool blanket not far from the fire, and nothing looked amiss; all was quiet on that still, moonless night. But the warning of danger was stronger than ever, bringing all of his senses into sharp focus. He heard a twig snap, and another, and higher up on the ridge a larger movement as of some sizeable animal. But he knew those sounds, knew the pattern they made, and knew that it was no bear or wandering elk that he was hearing.

Taking another two steps back from the camp Einar nearly tripped over something, finding it to be the empty elk stomach that had housed his supply of elk meat and liver. Rolling it up with the knowledge that he was probably not going to be able to return to the camp for the rest of his gear, he stuffed it as well as he could into the emptier of his two jacket pockets, stopping after a few more steps to listen, certain as he did that the camp was being approached from several different directions. He wanted to warn Rob, thought of throwing something at him, but decided that perhaps it would be best if whoever was out there just discovered him sleeping by a fire, making no effort whatsoever to conceal his presence! Hope he has a good cover story for all of this.

Einar took another step out into the evergreens, traversing across the hill, suddenly beset by a very strong feeling that someone was nearby, just above him. He dropped to the ground and scooted behind a tree just as the near-silence of the night was split by the sharp crack of nearby rifle fire, one of the three shots impacting the trunk of Einars tree, not two feet above his head. Einar quickly rolled over, dragged himself several more feet away from its source, realizing as he did so that the men would almost certainly be equipped with night vision goggles, and could likely see him as plain as day at that point, unless the trees were concealing him. There was a crashing of branches behind him, a few shouted words, and Einar was on his feet, running and tripping down the slope, hands out in front of him to hopefully prevent a hard impact with a tree, dodging and zigzagging in the hopes that it might save him from meeting one of his pursuers bullets. Which it very nearly did. He made it down to the creek, splashed across, slipping once and getting back to his feet before starting up the opposite slope, but the timber was not as heavy there, the trees more widely spaced, and the bullet took him in the back of the left thigh, a few inches above the knee. Einar stumbled, went down briefly but picked himself back up in a hurry, scrambling on up the hill as fast as he could. The leg seemed to be functioning alright for the moment, and he hoped that meant the shot had missed the bone, but he knew that despite the current numbness, he would be hurting before long no, wrong, youre gonna be dead before long, if you dont get out of herepretty clear what their rules of engagement are, tonight. There was some kind of commotion going on at the camp behind him, and for the moment Einar did not hear sounds of pursuit, but he did not wait around to find out why not, dashing up towards a patch of blackness that bulked blacker than the rest of the dark world ahead of him, hoping desperately that it might be dark timber that would give him some concealment from his night vision-equipped pursuers. Which it was, and did. He kept climbing beneath the concealment of the trees, remembering the dropoff that had been behind him when he had first met Rob, (should have jumped off of it then, like I was thinking, and saved myself all this trouble. I could be sleeping quietly under a spruce right now, and the feds with no idea where I was) thinking it might well represent his one chance to lose a team of pursuers who were obviously armed, could see in the dark, and would be moving a good bit faster than he was capable of. Einar was getting dizzy, though, stumbling more frequently, and he knew he must be losing blood, stopped to check and found the back of his polypro pants sticky and soaked down nearly to the ankle, discovering after some hasty probing both an entry and an exit wound in the back of his thigh, most of the blood, he thought, coming from the exit, which to his dismay seemed a bit more extensive than the single neat hole he could feel on the other side. There was a good bit of blood, but the wound didnt seem to be gushing like youd still be going, if it was and he was pretty sure he could control the loss if I had a minute to work on it, which I probably dont Pulling the torn remnants of the surrounding polypropylene over the wound and pressing the heel of his hand hard against the damaged flesh, the pain beginning to catch up to him a bit as he did, he wasted no time in opening his jacket pocket and fumbling for the first aid kit, knowing that it was hardly designed to be useful in such emergencies, but having little else to try. His fingers slick

with blood, he couldnt even get the little zipper started, though, finally managing it with his teeth only to find himself unable to get the internal plastic bag of kit components out of the narrow zippered opening, and he finally gave up trying after several failed efforts, knowing that he hardly had the time to waste. Instead, seeing the outline of shaggy spruce boughs against a sky that was slightly less black than the trees themselves, he grabbed a handful of Usnea from a nearby branch, running his hand along it and stripping off as much as he could find, by feel. He stuck a wad of it under his left hand, pressing hard again and glad that the flow seemed to have lessened somewhat. This is taking too long, its all taking too long Below him he could hear crashing and the snapping of branches as his foe again took up the pursuit, but he knew that he must have a way to hold the hasty Usnea pressure bandage in place if he wanted to keep the bleeding in check, felt around in his pocket for the small coil of paracord this is bad, need something wider, but its all Ive got and wrapped it several times around the injured area, stuffing clumps of Usnea under the wraps against both of the wounds on his leg and wiping away as much of the blood as he could with his sleeve, hoping to be able to check later to see how much he might still be losing. Breaking off a short section of a nearby dead branch he stuck it between the wraps of cord so he would have a way to tighten the bandage, if needed. Remembering at the last minute to stuff the first aid kit back in his pocket so it wouldnt be there for his pursuers to find, he took off again, feeling awfully faint, but managing to keep on his feet. By the time Einar reached the ridge crest and began searching for the open, treeless area that he knew would mark the dropoff, he could clearly hear the sounds of pursuit behind him, though his pursuers seemed to be spread out in a way that indicated that they were covering a large section of the slope with their search, rather than actually following his trail. He wondered if they knew they had hit him, supposed that they must have seen him go down. Ok. Well, no way Im gonna be able to outrun them once they get up here, so He ran a short distance along the spruce needle-covered crest of the ridge, leaving the clear, scuffling sign of a man who is beginning to drag an injured leg a bit (dont even need to fake that one) stopping when the ground underfoot became rockier and he knew his trail would naturally become more difficult to see, returning carefully to the dropoff, leaving as little sign as possible. He started down over the edge, hanging onto a fir branch and swinging himself out away from the edge before letting go, to reduce his chances of leaving telltale scuffs in the lose, shale-flake covered ground at the top, slipping and sliding on the lose shale, glad that the slope wasnt any closer to vertical and hoping that his pursuers were still far enough behind him that the racket of sliding and crashing rock would be blocked by the hillside. Einar lost elevation quickly on the steep slope, picking up speed as he went, rolling twice before getting himself flipped back over onto his stomach and coming up short against a ledge of solid rock that stuck out from the steep slope. He lay there for a moment with his breath knocked out before getting shakily to his feet, shuffling along the ledge and feeling in front of him with his foot, hoping that he would not walk off the end of it at some point. The Usnea bandage had been loosened and dragged out of place during the

tumble, and he stopped to readjust it, realizing that he was bleeding again and taking a minute to scrape up a handful of dust from the slope beside him and scatter it over the trail of blood drops that he could just make out behind him on the ledge. Such an action, he was well aware, would do him no good at all if men ended up on the ledge following his trail, but might make things less conspicuous from the air, anyway. He hoped. Though he realized that the loose shale that had come down with him would have left quite a path, clearly visible to anyone who flew over the area. Such small rockslides were not at all uncommon in the spring months as things thawed and let go, though, so he had some hope that the sign might be overlooked as a natural occurrence. A definite possibility, though Einar knew that it was not especially likely to matter much, in the end. In all likelihood theyd have him long before daylight came. That, or blood loss from the injury would do him in. He knew that, being already pretty badly dehydrated from his illness, it wouldnt take the loss of much blood to leave him in shock and unable to continue with his flight. Briefly acknowledging the truth behind those grim musings, he quickly banished them to some dark corner of his mind, knowing that they were, though probably accurate, not especially useful to him at the moment. Einar knew that his barely controlled slide and tumble couldnt have taken long at all, and expected that his pursuers would not yet have topped out on the ridge. Crouching on the ledge for a moment of rest, He wondered if his ruse up on the ridge would work, when the men did reach the its crest, sending the search off at least temporarily in the wrong direction. He rather doubted it, but perhaps there was at least some chance, in the darkness. Ill know, soon enough.

Feeling around in the darkness, Einar tried to determine the best way off of the shale ledge, seeing the dark shapes of a number of evergreens in the distance and anxious to reach them. In exploring, he found a small protected space beneath the ledge, dropped into it and briefly considered staying in its shelter, but quickly decided against it. Theyd find me soon enough, if I did that. Surely it wont be long before theyve got a chopper up, and Ive got to be out of this open area by then, or theyll just pin me down till its light enough for them to track me again. Hopefully it will take them a while to figure out that I went over the edge of the bluff back there, give me a little time to figure something out, at least. Reaching the trees, he started up towards the top of the ridge, intending to cross it, go down the other side and, air traffic permitting, cross any meadow that might exist at its bottom, and start up and over the next ridge. His pursuers, he figured, would expect him either to follow a creek along a valley floor, heading down, as most people naturally tended to do when running, or to follow the contours of a ridge just below its crest, gaining elevation as he had often done in the past. So, Im gonna do the opposite. Up and over, one after another, and hope to lose them. By the time he reached the crest of the first ridge, dizzy, dragging and out of breath despite maintaining only a moderate pace as he worked to avoid scuffing up the duff and stepping on exposed ground where he would leave more sign, Einar was thinking that there was a good reason indeed why most people tended to head down a valley when fleeing. Yeah, but most people tend to get caught, too. Keep at it, Einar. He was soon helped along by that added encouragement of a helicopter behind him, crouching beneath

a tree when its rumbling approach first reached his ears, but soon getting back on his feet and continuing on his way as it became clear that the choppers focus was on the immediate area of Robs camp, by then some distance behind him. He wondered what had happened to Rob, didnt like the idea that the man might have got into major trouble, or worse, trying to help him, but he had not, after all, requested the help, though he had made the mistake of accepting it when he ought to have known better. Shaking his head, he pushed that thought to the side to join the others he had dismissed earlier. Got plenty of my own troubles to worry about, at the moment. Though I do wonder why that chopper took so long to show up. Seems like the guys on the ground would have called for it right away after finding the camp, even before the shooting started. Hmm. Wishing to be further from the sound of the chopper, he started down the back of the ridge. Einars bleeding, while it had slowed to a level that he was pretty certain ought not be endangering his life anymore, had certainly not stopped, and Einar, feeling weak enough as it was and wishing he had a way to halt the loss altogether, stopped from time to time to ease himself down in an open area of the slope and feel along the ground with his hands in search of yarrow, whose blood stopping properties he had taken advantage of in the past. He had no luck, though, and finally gave up on the matter, tightening the bandage again and deciding that it would have to do, until daylight. The wind rose in the night, chilling Einar as he moved through the forest in his damp clothes, limping along, stopping occasionally to tighten the bandage or to replace a soaked clump of Usnea with fresh, listening to the whispering and whistling of the evergreens as he kept on for a space of time that seemed rather longer than any night ought to last, and with the wind grew a hope in him that the dogs he was sure his pursuers would be bringing in might not have an easy or quick time staying on his trail and catching up to him. He finally stopped to rest after having not heard the chopper nearby for a while, easing down onto his right side beneath a tree to keep pressure off of his increasingly painful and swollen leg, but not allowing himself to lie down for fear of dropping off to sleep for what might prove to be too long, with men possibly on his back trail. He did doze in little snatches though, his eyes closing for a few minutes at a time, but jerking back to wakefulness each time with a barely suppressed yelp as he inevitably moved his injured leg in his slow slump towards the ground. Fine alarm clock, but Id sure like to quit jarring the leg like that Searching his pockets in an attempt to keep himself focused and awake, he took inventory of what he had left. Not much. This is just what you needed right now, Einar. Lose everything, and get shot, to boot. He shook his head ruefully, realizing that he was back down to almost nothing again, had lost the coyote skin pack, even, along with nearly all of his food, and was left with the elk stomachand the pockets of the windbreakeras his only carrying container, and he supposed he would have to try and cook in it, as well, because he had lost the sardine can and larger tin cooking can, also. In one of the windbreaker pockets he did discover, much to his surprise, six or seven packets of the CeraLyte powder that Rob had been mixing up for him. Ah! This may be very helpful! Guess he stuffed these in here while I was sleeping. Now, I wonder what he did with my other clothes? Not that it matters, at this point. He realized that he was

back down to one set of clothes agian, the polypro tops and bottoms and windbreaker that he had been wearing when he arrived at Robs camp and which were damp from slipping in the creek on his way across, one leg sticky with drying blood. At least it is drying means Im not losing so much anymore. May have a chance. Though when he thought ahead to the soon-to-be pressing need to clean, irrigate and disinfect the wound if he wanted any chance of avoiding a potentially life-ending infection, his head spun at the seeming impossibility of the task, knowing that he could not even hope to have a fire (though at least now I do have an easy way to start one, if it ever ends up mattering again) to sterilize water anytime in the foreseeable future. The most important thing that I lost tonight was the progress Id made in getting out from under the search. I was almost to the point where I could stop and rest like I need to do, have fires again, but now And, though it had been bothering him less since his day of forced stillness at Robs camp, he doubted that the Giardia was through with him, yet. Einar closed his eyes, rested his pounding head against the trunk of the tree, fighting a growing inclination to wish that the whole thing could just be over. One step at a time, Einar. You slowed the bleeding, made it so theyre not right behind you anymore, just take it one step at a time and youll make it. Or make a good end of it, anyway. One step at a time. And the next step, he knew, in addition to continuing to put more distance between himself and his pursuers, had to involve finding some water. When Einar rose some minutes later, it was to discover that his leg had grown terribly stiff and painful during the rest, making movement, let alone the careful movements of a man who had a potential need to lose a team of experienced trackers, rather a challenge. Daylight was approaching, dismal and flat through the cloud cover, and he took a minute to inspect his wounds by the dim light of the increasingly overcast and windy morning, loosening the paracord and carefully attempting to remove the Usnea dressing, but finding it firmly held in place by the blood that had soaked it and dried as he rested, the cessation of movement reducing the flow. He knew that Usnea possessed strongly antibacterial properties, but at the same time did not think it a good idea to leave the stuff in place for too long. For all he knew, there could be bullet fragments, or, at the very least, spruce needles or gravel from the shale slope embedded in the wound, needing to be removed. If I was headed for help, someplace where I could expect to get actual medical attention in the next day or so, I think the best thing would be to leave the Usnea, butthats certainly not happening, and Im gonna really have to stay on top of this, if I want to avoid an infection. Better go ahead and find a way to wash it out. And better get some more Oregon grape roots today and start drinking that stuff again, just as much of it as I can manage. Maybe if I can get enough of it into me, it will help stave off infection, and finish off the Giardia, at the same time. First, though, he needed water, and headed for a nearby gulley that cut the ridge he was descending, hoping that it might contain a small creek or at least a seep that he could use. While there was no creek in the steep, evergreen-lined declivity, Einar did find, after a bit of searching in the growing daylight, a spot where the needles on the ground were wet, the ground squelching and oozing as he probed it with a toe, and he dug down with his hands, waiting until the little hollow he had scooped out filled with water before cupping the slightly muddy stuff in his hands and drinking. Well, Ill drink it right now, but I certainly cant wash my leg with this goop. Got to find a clear spring or a creek, at least, for that. Once he had

begun drinking his body wanted more, and, seeing how slowly the hole was refilling, he scooped another, going back and forth from one to the other until he could hold no more water. Shaking a bit of electrolyte powder into his hand from one of the packets, Einar mixed it with a small amount of water and swallowed the resulting paste, finding that it almost immediately lessened the exhausted, dragging feeling that had been increasingly slowing his steps, and figuring that he could keep himself going for a good while on it if he was able to take occasional breaks to gulp some water and swallow a bit of the paste. Climbing up out of the shallow gulley and straining his ears for the sound of the chopper Einar could just make it out over the growing wind that swept along the ridge, bending the trees and bringing with it a few hard-driven drops of cold rain, stinging his face and making him very grateful that the windbreaker, while rather too small for him, at least had a hood. Chopper wont be up for long, if the weather keeps heading in this direction. Come on, storm! And as he was met by a fresh gust of wind and an increasingly steady downpour that blew across the dimming landscape in great sheets he grinned, tightened the bandage on his leg, and began once again hobbling up the ridge, the stormwind lending an odd, frenetic energy to his exhausted movements that helped to carry him along and keep him going. Thank you The rain that swept Einars ridge that morning was widespread, persistent, and for the first time that spring, did not turn to snow, even at the higher elevations. Moving beneath the cover of the trees, doggedly sticking to his plan to travel up and over the ridges in an attempt to baffle his pursuers, Einar was able to keep himself going at a steady if slow pace, stopping when he had to and catching a few drips of water in his hand as they poured off the end of an evergreen branch, adding some of the electrolyte powder and resting against the tree for a minute as his body absorbed the stuff, before going on. Eventually he learned to anticipate when he was nearing the point at which he could no longer continue without a break, stopping just short of it and finding that things went quite a bit more smoothly when he did so. In addition to the electrolyte powder, he occasionally nibbled on his one remaining Pemmican bar, though his leg was hurting enough at that point that he really did not feel especially hungry. The ridges were becoming progressively higher and more rocky, and Einar, stopping for one of his routine breaks, could tell that he was before too long going to reach his limit and have to stop. Walking was becoming more and more of a challenge, and he had for some time been relying on a stick, the trunk of a small aspen that he had found lying in a boulder field, to take some of the weight off of his leg. Despite adding several more clumps of Usena to his improvised bandage, the exit wound continued to bleed from time to time, and Einar knew that he needed to get off his feet, stop the movement if he wanted to control it. He set himself a goal, a spruce covered escarpment that he had seen from a good distance back, red rock showing in broken patches through the timber near its summit. Get up over that thing, and you can stop, rest, look for some shelter. He hadnt heard a helicopter or any other sign of pursuit since the rain had begun, and was hopeful that his trail might have been lost in the storm. Either way, he had to have some rest, had to try and do something for his leg. On the

way up the ridge that he had decided on as the final section of his journey for that day, he found a few scraggly Oregon grape plants growing among the rocks in an open spot, and ventured out into the downpour long enough to collect several of their roots, finding that, after moving a few rock slabs that sat among the plants, the roots could be pulled fairly easily out of the saturated ground. Stashing the roots in the elk stomach and pausing to wring the water from his sleeves where they stuck out from beneath the windbreaker, which was itself beginning to admit moisture after a morning of soaking, he went on, finally reaching the ridges crest. Starting down the back of the ridge in search of shelter, he traveled into a section of dark timber where the trees, at times, grew close enough together that they made his progress all the more difficult, and before long he found himself growing rather weary of pressing through their dripping branches and stepping over the multitude of old, fallen trunks that littered the ground and threatened to send him sprawling down the slope, his leg trapped behind him. Getting a glimpse of what appeared to be a slightly more open area he headed for it, finding the reason for the somewhat less dense tree cover to be an outcropping of rock, grey and granite-like, that punctuated the otherwise unbroken sea of evergreens. Einar found that he had emerged from the timber at the edge of a dropoff, looking down some twenty feet atmore treetops. His view of the larger world was entirely cut off by the continuing rain and an icy fog that rolled in great banks along the mountainside, at times preventing him from seeing even the tops of the trees that he traveled beneath. Going off to the left of the dropoff, Einar picked his way down among the rocks, hoping very strongly to find at the bottom of the bluff a little ledge beneath which he might take refuge from the winddriven rain and the falling temperatures. Wet, sick, exhausted and beginning to be feverish from the wound, he was all done in, ready to be out of the worsening storm, which he was sure would have at least significantly slowed if not halted the search, and be still for a while. The granite outcropping, though, provided no such opportunity, petering out in the trees below without offering so much as an overhang for him to squeeze beneath, and he stumbled along down the slope, stopping after a few yards to sit on a fallen spruce that blocked his path, seemingly unable to haul himself up and over it. Looking back up at the outcropping behind him one last time, hoping to find some protection that he had overlooked at first, Einars eye was caught by something that seemed out of place, just a bit too regular to be a part of the forest around him, and he blinked at it through the rain and his own blurring vision in an attempt to identify it. The object appeared to be some sort of box or frame, lighter colored than the surrounding forest, and he squinted at it through the trees, but he could make no sense of it. Curiosity overcoming for a moment the growing inertia of his exhaustion, Einar got up off the tree trunk, falling when his injured leg gave out but using the stick to drag himself back to his feet, stumbling over to investigate the object. What Einar discovered would have startled and even alarmed him a bit, had he possessed the energy to feel such things. The box he had seen from a distance turned out to be a window frame, visible because it was of a lighter-coloredand drierwood than the surrounding cabin, whose irregular angles and dark, water-soaked wood had blended quite well into the rain drenched forest. Einar leaned on the large, rough-hewn logs of its wall, looking up at a roof that was, along the backside, buried beneath many years accumulation of spruce duff, realizing that he must have walked very nearly overtop of it

as he skirted around the outcropping and thinking dully that such an oversight did not speak well of his level of awareness. Walking around to the front of the small structure, nearly losing his footing on the steep, slick slope beneath it, he found the door, shoved against it, but soon realized that it was being pinned firmly in place by a sagging roof beam. Returning to the window opening he crawled in, rolling to the floor beneath and blinking in the semi-darkness, waiting for his eyes to begin adjusting before moving around much. The dirt floor was littered with debris from the damaged roof, but it was, to Einars relief, dry, and he was amazed at how intact the roof and walls seemed to have remained, despite the sagging beam that had pinned the door in place. Something clanked and rolled away from him with a metallic rattling as he moved his hand, leaving him to wonder if it might be a can that he could use to heat water. There was a hole in one corner of the roof, and as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could see that a good quantity of spruce needles had fallen in through the collapsed section, being swept by the wind into the opposite corner and accumulating to form quite a drift against the wall, and Einar dragged himself over to it, dug down a bit and sank to his stomach to rest, glad to be out of the rain and the relentless wind, and wishing his injured leg would allow him to curl up for warmth but discovering very quickly that he needed to keep it stretched out straight behind him. Einar fell into an exhausted sleep as the wind gusted against the cabin walls, with the twin thoughts that he must get up in a minute and get out of his wet clothes, and that the cabin, dry and secure and clearly quite well concealed, would be as far as he was going for awhile. Perhaps a long while.

Einar had meant only to rest for a moment before working to dry his clothes and tend to his leg, but instead, exhausted, he slept long and without stirring, waking only because his increasing shivering led him to instinctively curl up in a ball to conserve warmth, moving his damaged leg and jarring himself awake. He lay there for a minute shaking and sweating, his head heavy with fever, waiting for the pain to subside enough that he could breathe somewhat normally again. He was very cold, guessed that, though temperatures were clearly above freezing, they couldnt be very far above. Move. Getting to his hands and one knee, dragging his injured leg behind him, he hauled himself over to the window, slumped against the sill and looked around for any sign of danger before removing the jacket and polypro top, wringing water out of it and finding himself very thankful that the polypro, unlike the cotton jumpsuit he had been stuck with part of that past winter, really was better than nothing, even damp. Would have probably frozen in my sleep this time, in that thing. But less damp would be an awful lot better right now, he said to himself, wringing at least a cup of water out of the top. The pants posed a bigger problem, as Einar found that he could bend his left knee only with great difficulty, and not very far, even then, and he settled for wringing out the right leg, figuring that the other would dry on its own, eventually. The level of stiffness and inflammation around the wound bothered him, and, unsure what he ought to really expect from such an injury, he worried that he might be in the beginning stages of an infection. The fever that left him sweating off and on even as his teeth chattered in the damp cold only served to reinforce his concern. Better try to do

something about this. Those pants cant have been all that clean, and who knows what else I may have got in there, besides, as I ran last night. I know Ive waited way too long to clean it, already, but what else could I do? Einar realized that he had a lot working against him when it came to his chances of recovering from the injuryhis extended malnutrition and at times near-starvation, dehydration, and inadequate protection from the elements that resulted in an almost constant struggle with hypothermia would have left his immune system, normally quite robust from a lifetime of training and testing, functioning poorly at best, and he had been able to tell from a brief inspection of the wound that the exit site was all torn up in a way that indicated that the bullet had probably split apart, doing a good bit of damage and likely leaving fragments in his leg. Ok, then. Better get busy. Wonder how much daylight I have left now? The world outside the one window of the cabin remained the same flat, dripping grey that it had been all day, and he did not know how long he had been asleep, but it mustve been a while, to end up so doggone colddoesnt seem any dimmer out there though, so I guess Ive probably got an hour or two, at least. Out of the elk stomach he pulled the Oregon grape roots he had collected earlier, deciding that he had better peel them pretty well and discard any portions that had come in contact with the stomach, before attempting to make a berberine solution to wash out the wound. He shuddered, shook his head at the seemingly impossible task of cleaning the wound adequately and keeping it that way, especially in light of the fact that he currently had no way to boil water. The continuing rainfall and gusting wind, combined with the existence of the fire steel in its little pouch that hung reassuringly around his neck and the dry wood that he was certain he would be able to find inside the cabin tempted him with the prospect of a fire. I know I could boil water in that elk stomach. And with a little fire, I could warm the corner of this cabin real well, and have some light to work by while I do what I can for the leg He really wanted the comfort that a fire would provide, in addition to the ability it would give him to purify water, but he knew that it would gain him nothing to save himself from infection only to be captured because someone had smelled his smoke. Not gonna do it, absolutely not. Not even an option. Just do what you can without it. Now, what can I do? He decided that the best way, perhaps, to come up with some reasonably clean water might be to collect rainwater as it fell, using his windbreaker. It should have been washed pretty clean as I walked today, I guess. Looking at the it, he saw that it was covered with dirt and dust and the occasional rodent dropping from the cabin floor. No. Bad. Guess I could use the inside, though. Rolling up the jacket to keep the inside as clean as possible after emptying the contents of its pockets on the cabin floor beside the pile of duff, he hobbled over to the window and, struggling with his nearly useless leg, got himself outside. Einar spread the jacket in a relatively open patch of forest just beneath the rock outcrop, which was only a few yards up behind the largely buried back of the cabin, turning it into a collection bowl of sorts by hollowing out a small hole in the duff and pressing the center of the jacket down into it. He put a couple of granite slabs around the edges to hold the setup in place against the wind. Guess it would probably be better if this water came directly out of the sky, rather than filtering through the tree branches and bringing a bunch of dissolved bird droppings and stuff with it, but this is

the best I can do without climbing back up to the top of that outcroppingwhich Im not doing, right now. In fact, he doubted his ability to make such a climb at the moment, with his leg protesting loudly at every step and the fever making his mind feel dull and slow, weighing him down and unsteadying his movements. Got to drink something. Which he did, finding a place where water streamed off a slight overhand on the granite outcropping, catching it in his hands and gulping until his thirst was somewhat lessened. Hurrying as well as he could back to the cabin, chilled and anxious to avoid becoming any wetter, Einars next challenge was to find something to contain the water, once a useful amount collected in jacket. He knew that he must not use the elk stomach for fear of further contaminating the wound with the bacteria it was sure to contain, and, sorting through the items that had been in his pockets, found that the only other option left him was the little plastic bag that contained the items in the small first aid kit. Carefully removing the assorted band-aids, packets and small gauze pads that comprised the contents of the kit and sticking them back in their zippered nylon case he inspected the bag, which he thought might hold about half a pint of water. It will have to do. He had an idea then, searched through the zippered case and, scooting closer to the window where the light was stronger, sorted through the little foil packets until he came up with four that contained iodine prep pads. Ok! Now I can purify that water, and maybe even add enough of this iodine that it will work as a disinfectant. He was pretty sure that strong iodine would be the wrong thing to use on deep, open wounds like he would be attempting to treat, as it could actually end up doing more damage, but also knew that watered down iodine solutions were used to wash out deep wounds after surgery, to reduce the chance of infection, and hey, its what Ive got. Ill use that, cover the thing with some of this dry Usnea Id been keeping in the jacket, then wash it with the Oregon grape stuff next time, and drink a bunch of the Oregon grape, too, and maybe if I can get enough of it into me, I wont end up lying here in a few days dying a horrible (though in my condition, at least itd probably be pretty quick) death from gangrene and sepsis may have a chance, yet. With that thought motivating him pretty effectively, Einar got himself back up and out of the window to collect the water from his jacket, chewing on an Oregon grape root as he went. He got the water, poured it into the bag, squeezing in the iodine from the pad, pressing and rolling the packet to avoid touching it and introducing further contamination. Gently shaking the bag, he watched as the iodine mixed with the water and changed its color, knowing that, if past experience with purifying water for drinking was any indicator, he would need to let the solution sit for a bit to allow the iodine to do its job. The pad contained a10% Povidone iodine solution, and he knew that four drops of the stuff should be enough to prepare a liter of water for drinking, and that the small bag he was working with could not contain more than a quarter of that amount of water, and probably somewhat less. So this shouldnt need to sit long at all, using the whole pad like this While he waited on the iodine solution, Einar dug down in the pile of duff, scraping together additional piles and drifts that he found elsewhere in the cabin, attempting to create a better bed that might give him some chance of safely sleeping for awhile after he finished working on the leg. Knowing that he would stay warmer if he could curl up a bit

on his side than if he was forced by his injury to lie sprawled out on his stomach, he searched the cabin until he came up with a likely-looking block of wood. Experimentally lying down in the finished duff bed with the block between his knees, he found that it protected the injured area well enough to allow him to sleep on his right sidewhich was the only one he could sleep on, anyway, because of his bad shoulderwith no more discomfort than he had experienced while on his stomach. Good. Ill be warmer, this way. Handy that most of the damage is on one side, I guess. Though I suppose Ill always be kind of lopsided, even when all of this heals up. Oh, well. Pretty sure that the iodine water ought to be ready to use, he worked carefully, easing the old Usnea dressings off of his leg and noticing that the area between the two wounds was swollen, bruised-looking and deformed, and wondered how much damage the bullet had done as it passed through. He knew that if he was at a medical facility, they would probably make an incision the entire length of that track, clean it out, and keep it partially open for a bit before stitching it up. Well, no way Im trying that, with a pocket knife, three packets of iodine and no fire! He was pretty sure that attempting any such thing in his present circumstances would greatly increase his chances of infection, and death. Opening the little zip-lock bag just a crack, he squirted the iodine water into each of the wounds, cleaning them out as well as he could and struggling with a welling blackness before his eyes as he worked on the damaged flesh around the exit. The water gone and Einar ready to bind the fresh Usnea dressings in place and be done with the whole thing for awhile, he grimaced at the sight of the blood-stiffened coils of paracord that he had been using for that purpose, wishing he had something better and searching his meager pile of gear for a likely candidate. There was a layer of a mesh-like material inside the windbreaker, and, struck with an idea, he cut out a three inch wide strip of it, using it to bind the Usnea in place with the thought that it ought to be a good bit more secure than the paracord he had been using. Hope it may be a bit more comfortable, too. Not that he could tell, at the moment. His whole leg, it seemed, was on fire after being tampered with, and he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, squeezing hard with his thumb and finger a point on his left hand in the webbing between the thumb and the fingers, finding that while this technique, which he had often found very effective in relieving pain, relaxed him slightly, it did little for the burning in his leg. Lacking other ideas he kept it up, eventually reaching a point where the pain began to subside and he was pretty sure he was going to be able to stay conscious for a minute, creeping over to his bed and pulling the duff over himself for warmth. Well. Hope that helps

For the next few days Einar lay in the cabin, sick and feverish and only occasionally fully aware of his surroundings, forcing himself during those brief times through sheer will and determination to crawl outside for water, taking it from a little seep he had found near the base of the outcrop when it stopped raining and he could no longer collect the water that dripped from the overhang. He swallowed a bit of the electrolyte powder every time he took a drink, knowing he needed to be drinking far more, and wishing he could use the windbreaker to carry water back to the cabin so he did not have to make the agonizing crawl up to the outcrop quite as often, but he was cold, shaking badly almost all of the

time, and did not know if it was from the fever, the lingering Giardia symptoms, or simply because he was chilled from being basically immobile, but wanted that jacket kept dry to wrap himself in as he lay in the cabin. Einar used up the iodine, continuing to wash out the wounds several times each day and dress them with fresh Usnea. When the iodine was gone, he warmed and prepared a berberine solution by constantly keeping a bag of water with Oregon grape root fragments pressed under his arm, or held against his stomach by the elastic waist of his pants, alternating between drinking it and irrigating his wounds with it. On the second day, the weather still wet and rainy, Einar crawled around the dark interior of the cabin, remembering the metal object that his hand had bumped when he first entered the cabin and hoping that it might be a can that he could use to hold water. He was tired of crawling across the wet forest floor after water, returning each time wet and freezing to spend the next several hours shivering miserably beneath a pile of duff as he waited to warm up, only to start all over again. Cutting the trips down to one each day would be a great relief, especially until the weather cleared. Which its got to do, soon. It never rains for this long at a stretch, in the mountains. Though it may be the only thing that has kept them off of my trail, and if so I should be awfully thankful for it, because I sure cant do any running, right now. Einar found the item he was searching for, which did prove to be a large can, rolling it over towards his bed for further inspection and dragging himself along the wall of the cabin, finding a good bit of wood and metal debris that he could not identify without more light, and a wooden box or crate of some sort that seemed to be fairly well intact, aside from what seemed to be a bit of damage to one side where some animal, he guessed a packrat, had apparently attempted to gnaw its way in. He tried to drag the box over to the window where he could get a better look at it, but found it either too heavy, or held firmly in place by the surrounding debris. He wasnt sure which, but decided that it could wait. Dizzy and having a difficult time keeping upright, he headed back for the bed, head down, his hand coming in contact with something smooth and cold as he carefully picked his way across the cluttered floor. Digging down in the pile of broken wood and spruce duff that held the item, he pulled out a fairly large bottle, chipped some around the neck but otherwise seemingly intact, holding it up to the light of the window and marveling at the find. The inside of the bottle was choked with moss and dirt, but he knew that, as soon as he cleaned it out, he would have not only a way to carry and store water, but to heat it. Good. And he crept back to his bed, taking the bottle with him and searching the floor for an Oregon grape root before lying down, chewing the root as he had taken to doing almost constantly whenever he was awake, having found a good supply of the plants beneath some trees in the partially clear area near the granite bluff. He had come to rather dislike the bitterness of the roots, their juice upsetting his stomach and seeming to burn as it went down, but he kept at it, increasingly worried about the appearance of the exit wound, which was red and inflamed and continued to ooze fluid, bleeding whenever he insisted on moving, which, as he became terribly dizzy and was threatened with the loss of consciousness every time he tried, was as seldom as possible. Einar lay in his spruce bed, waiting for the pain of moving his leg to subside so that he could sleep and turning the bottle over and over in his hands, thinking of all the possible uses it could

have. I could make a trap with it, I suppose, set it up at a steep angle and bait it with some crumbs from the Pemmican bar, maybe catch a chipmunk or two. Saw a couple of them over by the rocks yesterday when the storm slacked off. He didnt feel much like eating, but knew he had better be thinking about obtaining some more food, if he wanted to go on living. It had been far too long since he had taken inand been able to keep downany significant amount of nutrition. The bottle slid out of his hand as he fell asleep, dreaming troubled dreams in which he seemed stuck in an endless cycle of chasing chipmunks up and down the rocks with the glass bottle, attempting to coax them into it and finally throwing it at them when that was not successful, breaking the bottle and scaring away all of the chipmunks. Now what did you go and do that for? He woke with a start to the fuzzy feeling that something had changed, lying still in an attempt to figure out what it was, and whether it might be a threat. Everything was quiet, strangely quiet, he thought, and looking out the window, he realized that the rain had finally stopped. Patches of sunlight fell through the trees, and dragging himself out the window he sat on a rock in the sun against the cabin wall, thinking that it would probably do his wound some good to expose it to the sunlight for awhile. After I set up that chipmunk trap. He was hungry.

Rob was asleep when the men burst into his camp, opening his eyes at the sound of the first gunshot to find himself looking up the barrel of a rifle, held by a man in BDUs, a bulletproof vest and night vision goggles, as a number of similarly equipped men hurried through the camp and down the hill below. The man with the rifle jerked the blanket away from him, kicked him, ordered him onto his stomach and, with the help of two of the others, cuffed him with plastic cuffs and began asking him questions. Rob, sitting on the ground surrounded by agents, was glad that he had ended up sleeping clothed and in his boots and coat, as the blanket hadnt been quite adequate for the chill of the night, and Einar had been in his sleeping bag. What do you mean, what am I doing out here? he asked, indignant, in response to their questioning. Im out here trying to finish Oscar Benningtons job, since you guys shot him up from your chopper. Look in my pack, youll find the stuff. And now you storm into my camp like this, blasting awaywhats going on? The agents seemed very dubious of his claim, but, carefully searching his pack and finding a folded radio telemetry antenna, maps with notes about elk herd movements and a clipboard with some DOW paperwork, they seemed to be at least willing to entertain the thought that he was telling the truth. But not to remove the cuffs. Rob, as he saw it, had two options: continue to comply with the agents and assert his story, which they might or might not end up believingor try and make a break for it. In the confusion following the shooting, only one man had been left to guard him, and as he had not done anything to resist and had not been carrying a weapon, the guard did not appear especially vigilant, beyond perhaps the level of tension that one might expect

anytime shots had been fired. He seemed, in fact, far more focused on what was happening down the slope, and in communicating with the other agents, than he was on watching Rob. Rob was pretty sure he could get the cuffs off, with enough time, rubbing a small section of the plastic band repeatedly back and forth on his bootlaces until the plastic heated up, began to stretch, and gave out. It was something Bill had demonstrated for the group one evening, though he had said that it would be a lot more likely to work heating and weakening the cuffs before you wore through the boot laceif you replaced your laces with paracord or, even better, something tougher like Spectra cord. Before you actually needed to use them for that purpose, that was. Which Rob had done, though at the time he had certainly not expected to need the technique, and had not practiced. Keeping still, he let his eyes wander around the camp, settling on a three foot section of small-diameter spruce trunk that he had cut for firewood, thinking that perhaps he could move quickly enough to grab it and incapacitate the agent, if he waited until the man was distracted by the happenings in the woods, or was talking on his radio. Rob knew that if he could take off in a different direction, make some of the agents abandon the search for Einar in response to his actions, perhaps Einar would have some chance of escaping. Who am I fooling? The poor guy could hardly stand up, this morning, and now theyve been shooting at him, may have hit him, even. For all I know, they may have him already. And as it is, theres some chance at least that they may believe my story, that I may have some life down there, after this, but if I do this, theres no going back. Guess I should have thought about that before I came out here after Einar. Doggone feds mustve followed me. Well. Too late now, and I think I have to try this, for him. He had been working on the cuffs all the while, and, beginning to feel them stretch a bit at the point he had chosen, he brought the weakened plastic bands down hard on the sole of his boot, felt one side break, and kept still, waiting for the agents attention to wander.

Digging out a depression in the duff near the rocks where he had seen the chipmunks, Einar nestled the bottle down into it, scattering a few crumbs from the Pemmican bar around it on the spruce needles and dropping a larger chunk down into the bottle. The idea was that, in addition to the steeply angled smooth glass being difficult for the animal to climb up out of, it would not be able to pass back through the narrow entrance with its cheeks stuffed with the food he had left as bait. He had seen it work before, and while it certainly would not have been his first choice for obtaining food (not much meat on one of those little critters, anyway, though on five or six) it was what he had at the moment, and was worth a try. Seeing that the flat rocky area at the top of the bluff appeared to be in full sun at the moment, he decided to make the scramble up the twenty feet of steep ground beside it, in the hopes of finally getting his damp clothes to dry out entirely. As he climbed, he broke a thin dead branch off one of the nearby spruces, using it to help him up the slope and planning to sharpen the end for use as a spear if when! he ended up actually catching something in the jar. Einar stretched out on the warm rock shelf at the top of the outcrop

and pulled back the bandage on his leg, hoping that a few minutes of direct sunlight on the injured area might help to speed healing and do away with whatever lingering bacteria was causing him the intermittent fever and dizziness that continued to make it difficult to do much of anything if thats whats even causing it. Could be a lot of things, I guess. But a little sun sure wont hurt anything Except, as it turns out, for his ability to stay awake, which he was determined to do, knowing that he would likely be visible there in the open if a low aircraft should come over. At first he succeeded in staying awake by looking down over the dropoff and watching the trap, waiting for the chipmunks to come back out and listening for the sound of approaching aircraft, but the sun was warm and good and he was soon asleep, and in his sleep he saw himself standing on a low granite bluff, carrying a bow and an elk quarter, looking down at the cabin in the timber, tired and hungry in the good, satisfied way that can only be earned by a days hard work, knowing that he was almost home, the smoke rising from the chimney telling him that Liz was back from running her trap line, as well, and then his eyes were open, but to his surprise everything was as it had appeared in the dream, except that there was no smokeor chimneyand of course he had no elk. He realized then that the cabin, and particularly the view of it from the bluff, was the one not only from the dream he had just awakened out of, but the one that had occupied him the night before he met Rob, and a number of times before that; it was the same, in nearly every detail. Except of course that Liz isnt down there, shed better not be, anyway, because if she is then they probably followed her here, and Im about to have to take off again. Which I really dont want to do, right now. Warm, relaxed and in less pain than he had been for some time, Einar drifted in and out of a light sleep for awhile, keeping one ear out for anything out of place as his mind wandered and he thought of the cabin, of what he could do to fix it up and make it more secure against the weather and, if he stayed, against possible human trespassers, and by the time he was forced up by the growing chill of the evening, he had transformed it in his mind into a rather comfortable and secure refuge. Just dreaming again, I guess. But it felt good to plan for the future, to allow himself again the luxury of thinking that he might actually have one to plan for, and he did not want to let go of the notion just yet, even if it was comprised of no more than the leftover fragments of a foolish dream. Heading back for the cabin, having collected his trap and the chipmunk that, to his amazement, it contained, he came across a spruce on whose lower trunk a good bit of pitch had collected and dried in white and older yellow and orange globules on one side, and he gathered a number of the softer white and the fresh, nearly clear ones, scraping them onto a piece of granite with a stick. Thinking ahead to a time when he would hopefully be able to stay awake for longer than an hour or two, and might need a source of light in the cabin, he pulled a bit of shreddy inner bark from a nearby fallen aspen, rolled and worked it between his hands until it was shredded finely, portions of it nearly powdered, and mixed it with the soft, sticky pitch on the rock. He knew that by combining the pitch with the bark, the end result would burn longer and more evenly than would the pitch alone. Choosing a small branch on the dead aspen, one that had been on the ground and had begun to rot, he broke it off, carving and poking at the soft, punky wood on the broken surface where the branch had attached to the tree. As soon as he had pried out enough of the wood to make an inch-deep depression, leaving a lip of wood and

bark around the outside, he pressed the gooey pitch and bark mixture into it, satisfied that his improvised torch ought to work, and that it should do so without dripping hot pitch on him, as the pitch sticks he had used in the cave had tended to do. Cant make pitch sticks, anyway, until I have a fire to melt the pitch in the first place. Sitting on the fallen aspen and resting for a minute first, Einar went on to scrape enough additional pitch from the spruce to make two more sticky bark-and-pitch balls, dusting them lightly with a bit of dry dirt that he dug from near the base of the tree to make them less sticky and easier to carry. He considered trying to cook the chipmunk over the pitch torch, but knew that if he simply held it over the flames, it would end up coated with a sticky residue of burnt pitch long before it actually cooked, and while he supposed that he could suspend the glass bottle over the flame and boil the little critter, the possibility of cracking the glass and losing his only means to transport water quickly dissuaded him. Einar ate that evening, and his meal was rather small and not, as he would have preferred, cooked, but it stayed down, and he found himself amazed and unspeakably grateful at the renewed energy and warmth (and hunger! He was suddenly aware of being awfully, ravenously hungry, as he had not been since before the Giardia symptoms had begun many days ago) the little creature brought to his beleaguered body. Got to start making a regular habit of this eating business, again To which end, still unwilling to risk a fire but confident that he was safe using the little torch he had put together earlier, he lit it and began a more thorough exploration of the cabin. Poking around in the debris that littered parts of the cabin floor, Einar came across numerous bits and lengths of wire, most of it too rusty and brittle to be of much use, but he found that a few pieces that had been up off the ground remained flexible enough to serve as snares for rabbit-sized creatures, at least. There were also a number of tin cans, but they all seemed rusted to the point of being very nearly useless, at least for purposes that would require them to contain water. He was sure the metal would come in handy, anyway. Remembering the crate he had bumped against in his wanderings the previous night, he stuck the torch in the ground near it, and began inspecting it for a way in.

Rob took the agent by surprise, catching him between the shoulders with the spruce club and knocking him off his feet, wasting no time in grabbing his rifle and two spare magazines. His intention had been to handcuff the man to a nearby small aspen, but it seemed that some of the other agents must have heard the commotion; he could hear them coming up the hill at him, their attention temporarily pulled away from the hunt for Einar. Glancing at his pack but deciding that it would slow him down too much, Rob quickly headed up into the evergreens, dodging and ducking and working his way into the heaviest timber he could find, which unfortunately was not especially heavy in that area, and he could hear men behind him, shouting and breaking branches, and then they must have seen him and they were shooting, and Rob rolled to the ground behind a fallen spruce and returned fire, knowing that he had the high ground, but entirely lacking the advantage of being able to see in the dark. The agents seemed surprised at the discovery

that Rob was armed, fell back some distance and he could hear suppressed voices and the occasional crackle of a branch as the men moved around and apparently worked to decide on the best strategy for taking him, which theyre probably going to do, hard to see a way out of this one, but its sure not gonna be cheap for thembut no one seemed to be approaching. Hope youre making some good time here, Einar. I think most of them are over on this side, now, so maybe youve got a chance. Then he heard a faint noise down to his right, much closer than the other men had been, ah, a sneaky one and he waited, wanting to get a better idea of exactly where his opponent was, and when a branch snapped fairly close to his position, he quickly put a few rounds into the nearby timber, aiming low, hearing through the ringing in his ears the distinctive sound of a man tumbling down a steep slope, then shouting and crashing as the other agents went to the aid of the wounded man, who, though Rob would never know it, was the FBIs main tracker on the ground that night. Listening for movement and using it as his guide, Rob kept sending rounds downrange, the agents firing back, and by the time the feds got somebody in above him on the increasingly open slope to take the shot that would end his life, Rob had managed to ensure that they needed to call in more than one rescue chopper to transport the casualties.

The crate, a box of rough planks that was roughly two feet high by two deep by three long was nailed up tight, and Einar searched around for something to pry with, finding in the debris pile that surrounded it a chisel, pitted with rust but still useable, and worked to loosen one of the planks on the top, finally getting it off and starting on the next. By the time he had freed two of the three planks, Einar found that he had exhausted the energy lent him by his meager supper, was getting cold and was beyond ready to sleep, but curiosity kept him going, holding the dimming torch down near the opening, seeing that it contained another, smaller wooden box, as well as a number of loose items. Reaching in he pulled out another chisel, less rusted for having been in the box, two pick heads, and, alarmed at how heavy it seemed to him (you really got to find more to eat, Einar) a small Dutch oven, rusted and lidless. He wondered where the lid might be, but did not see it in the crate, the only items remaining in it besides the smaller box being four lids to a cast iron cook stove, two lid lifters, and a small round tin with letters embossed into its top. He lifted out the tin, holding the torch close to read the writing and easing it back down into the crate and scooting back a couple of feet as soon as he saw the word caps. He was pretty sure, then, what the smaller box contained, his suspicions confirmed by a greasy stain that appeared to have been slowly spreading along the wood near the bottom of the box, its edges white like dried saltwater. Blowing gently to scatter the heavy layer of dust that covered the box, he saw, faded with age, the number 25 and the letters HER, with an arrow beneath. He scattered the rest of the dust. Yep. Hercules Dynamite. 25 pounds. Oh, boy. Youre pretty lucky to be alive right now! You were shoving and pushing pretty hard on that box yesterday, and just now getting the planks off, too. Wonder just how much is left in that box? He moved the torch back a bit further from the crate so that it would not land on the ancient box of dynamite if it happened to tip over, chuckling and shaking his head. Would have been kind of funny in a way, if it

had all ended right here with a big old hole in the ground and little pieces of me splattered all over these trees Pretty sure those federal buzzards would have got a good laugh out of that one, too. But, wanting very much to go on living and thinking that his discovery might laterand with great careprove to be useful, Einar worked cautiously to remove all of the non-explosive items from the crate, discovering to his delight an single bit axe head beneath the stove lids, only slightly pitted in its decayed leather cover. Now this I can really use! But not that night, because despite the excitement of his discoveries, Einar was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open, and could feel that he needed to lie down soon before the choice was taken out of his hands. In exploring the cabin, had nearly forgotten about his still serious condition and the fact that the fever and sickness from his wound had not entirely left him, and as soon as he stopped for a minute and sat still, it kind of hit him all at once. Gingerly replacing the planks on top of the box to preclude anything falling into it in the night with potentially disastrous consequences, he crawled back to his bed, taking the dying torch and inspecting the axe head by the last of its glow. Ill have to do some looking, find a good branch and make a handle for this thing, then I can get to work fixing up this roof. And he went to sleep thinking of the stove lids, and wondering where the rest of the stove could possibly be, whether it was still around and in any condition to be used. Einar woke the next morning hungry and, he thought, less feverish, his mind feeling clearer and the leg, though stiff and very painful, seeming slightly less swollen. He stuck a chunk of Oregon grape root in his mouth and began gnawing on it, wanting to keep things moving in the right direction. Though the berberine, used both internally and externally, seemed to be helping with both the Giardia symptoms and the inflamed exit wound, he had known that he was probably getting too much of it, and as he worked to get himself out of his bed and mobile enough to make the trip up to the seep for water that morning, he was certain. His hands and feet were tingling and nearly numb, and, though he was chilly, he knew he was not that cold. He seemed to remember hearing somewhere that such problems with the extremities could be one sign of overuse of berberine, and it concerned him a bit, because he knew that it could end up being pretty rough on his liver and kidneys, if he was getting that much of it. Cant stop, though. Think its just a chance Ive got to take. The Giardia alone could still do me in at this point if I dont do anything about it, and this infection He shook his head, beat his barely functional hands against his sides and rubbed them together in an attempt to restore some feeling. I expect it would help some if I could get more to eat. Thats got to be a big part of the problem, here. Better get some snares set out. He had seen rabbit sign up around the rock outcropping he had visited the previous day, and worked to twist the few scraps of still-flexible wire that he had found into snares, concerned that the wire was too stiff and knowing that he had better not rely on it, alone, to stay closed and hold his quarry. Using pieces of wood that he found in and around the cabin he worked on triggers for each of the five snares he had been able to make, sitting in the sun against the cabin wall and marveling at the degree to which having a knife, even something as simple as the generic pocket knife from Lizs pack, helped tremendously when it came to simple tasks such as whittling the triggers. Pretty sure Ill never take it for granted now, after last winter. And I better be thinking of making

another blade or two. Might be able to find the right sort of rock around here somewhere, now that the snow is gone, and theres bound to be some metal I around here that I could use, too. The thought of the potential resources available in the junk that was scattered around the cabin, as well as the wealth he had already discovered, worried Einar some, reminding him that already he had spent several days in the same location, and aware that such a length of time had often been pushing the outer limits of safety and wisdom, in the course of the search. Got no reason to think Im not Ok staying here for the moment, but I better get serious later today about gathering up a few things from around the cabin here, and finding a way to carry them, in case I have to take off out of here in a hurry. Which he rather dreaded the thought of, but knew it was always a possibility, and did not want to be left with nothing again, if it did happen. Cant afford to start feeling too safe and at home, even herenot just yet.

It seemed that nearly half the residents of Culver Falls and the surrounding area, including Sheriff Watts and many of his deputies, attended Robs funeral the following week. There was a large FBI presence as well, as they hoped that perhaps fugitive Jeff Jackson might decide to show up for his friends funeral, and Watts soon found himself busy trying to maintain order as a number of verbal confrontations developed between the thinly disguised FBI presence and the irate locals, one elderly woman who had been a neighbor of Robs cornering an agent against his van, shouting murderer! and jabbing at him with her cane until Watts interjected himself between them. After that Sherriff Watts put in a call to the FBI command post, demanding that the agents be pulled off the church property, for the sake of public safety and order. He knew that he and his deputies could handle the public outrage and the occasional shouting matches, but what really concerned Watts were the tight little knots of grim-faced men who stood over in the parking lot, talking quietly and glaring at the agents as they passed. Watts knew most of those men, had worked with a number of them in the past, and he knew that at least a few of them were certain to be armed, simply because they always were, and worried that the confrontation might progress from shouting to shooting at some point, especially if any of the agents made a threatening move. The armed and angry citizenry of Lakemont County was not to be the FBIs biggest worry, not that day, at least, because Oscar Bennington, his arm still in a sling, had attended Robs funeral, and as soon as it was over he promptly walked over to the network television satellite truck that had shown up town in response to the latest developments in the search for Einar, parking across the street from the church at the news of the tense situation that was developing between the feds and the locals. Oscar was angry, and Oscar was talking.

After baiting the chipmunk bottle-trap (hey, theyre scrawny little critters, but I got to eat something, and theyre all over the place) and setting a number of snares along the rabbit trails that he found among the small, close growing firs above the bluff, Einar collected

more Usnea from the trees on the shady slope, hungry enough to try eating some, but finding it, in that area, to be rather bitter. He choked it down anyway, his stomach grumbling a bit less as he filled it, until it discovered exactly what he had filled with, at which point Einar was reminded by an awful bout of cramping and gas why the stuff was much better boiled in a couple of changes of water before eating. After lying in the sunlight on the bluff for a few minutes to allow his leg some exposure to the sunlight, which seemed to be doing it about as much good as anything else he was trying, he headed down to the little grove of aspens below the rocks, where he was sure he had seen a few spring beauty flowers the day before, hoping to be able to dig enough of the starchy bulbs to get something of meal, even if his snares did not begin producing right away. Probably wont get back up there to check them till tomorrow, anyway. His leg, though he had managed that morning to do a bit of careful walking on it, was stiff and hurting badly enough to preclude making that climb twice in one day, if it could be avoided, which was one reason why he very much hoped to find a good number of spring beauty plants. He could lie on his stomach as he dug them, allowing the leg to rest and hopefully gaining himself a meal, at the same time. The aspen grove proved not to be a disappointment, yielding enough of the small starchy corms, some as small as a pea but many of the larger ones more closely resembling tiny new potatoes, to keep him busy for awhile, filling the pockets of the windbreaker and snacking on a few of the succulent roots and stems of the plants as he dug. Finally, beginning to be chilled from lying on the damp ground and his pockets full anyway, Einar got himself back to his feet and headed back to the cabin, stopping on the way to strip the inner bark from a fallen aspen, where it hung in long, loose shreds. Maybe with this I can make a small bag to carry at least at few things in, in case I have to leave the cabin in a hurry. He was encouraged, though, that after four days at the cabinhe thought it was four, anyway, but had to admit that he was not entirely certainthere had been no air activity in his immediate area, and apparently they were not able to track me from Robs camp, or theyd have been here by now. Slinging the coil of aspen bark over his shoulder, he broke dry branches from beneath the spruces as he walked back, thinking that it might be about time to have a fire. Back at the cabin, Einar dug a fire hole in the corner where a section of the roof had collapsed, keeping it small and lining the bottom of it with one of the old, rusted out cans that he had found among the debris on the floor. Hmm. This would probably do better with more air He knew from hearing the wind at night that it tended to blow along the short side wall of the cabin, and he worked his chipmunk-spear out through the dirt at the base of the wall to mark the spot, climbing out the window and searching along the wall until he found it. Boring and scraping in the soft ground, he eventually hit the open space of the fire pit, enlarging the hole until he thought it was large enough to do some good. In addition to the spruce branches he had collected, he gathered a little pile of dry-rotted wood that lay on the cabin floor for use in his fire, knowing that it would burn very quick and hot and with little odor. Realistically, he knew that he probably had little to be concerned about at that point when it came to having a fire, but past experiences and the realization that he was in no shape to run again at the moment led to an overabundance of caution. He would wait for dark. If Im here for very long, it might pay to build some sort of a more permanent stove, maybe from some of those granite pieces down at the bottom of the bluff, held together with some variation of mud-and-spruce needle

mortarthat is, if I cant find the stove those lids came from. Sure wonder where it could be The fire hole finished, he decided to head up the hill to check the chipmunk trap and partially fill the elk stomach with water, in anticipation of the fire he hoped soon to have. Before starting for the water seep, Einar decided to explore a bit below the cabin, which involved more walking than he had felt like over the past several days, but which was to prove to be a very worth-while endeavor. A short distance below the cabin, concealed by several spruces that had apparently grown up since the place had been abandoned, Einar noticed something shiny propped in the y between the trunks of two trees that had grown too close together and fused. Working his way closer, he found the object to be a small bottle that had been stuck between the trees and carried upward with them as they grew, almost becoming part of the trees, itself. Looking around at the oddly raised hummock of duff next to the tree, he began to see other manmade objectsa bit of tin sticking up out of the ground, some badly rusted steel cableand he kicked at the duff on the hummock, exposing a broken bottle and an enameled bowl or pot of some type, its handle broken and, as he discovered when he knocked the accumulated moss and duff out of it, a hole rusted into its bottom where the enamel had apparently been chipped, many years before. Further exploration turned up a number of other bottles and cans, the tin cans mostly rusted beyond use but several of the bottles, various shades of thick blue and green glass, mostly, intact. He even found one quart Mason jar which, while chipped around the rim, he saw could be made quite useable if worked carefully with a rock to remove the sharp edges. Its starting to get dim, tonight, so I better head on up and get my water so Im all ready for a fire when its dark enough, but who knows what all I may be able to find down here, with a bit of poking around? The small bottles got him to thinking, wondering if he might be able to knap some arrowheads out of their thick bottoms. He stuck one of them, a jaggedly broken half-bottle of light purple glass, into his pocket so he could contemplate it over the fire that night. Einar had no experience knapping things out of glass, but he knew that it was done quite successfully. All I need now is an antler or something to make a couple of tools from. Guess I need to be thinking about a bow again, too, because I sure could use something bigger than these chipmunks to eat. Noticing a small patch of nettles in an open spot below the trash pile, he collected a few of the fresh ones for his dinner and a good bundle of the old dry stalks, as well. Can never have enough cordage! Something caught his eye as he turned to start back up the hill, a dark space beneath what appeared to be a small overhang on an especially steep and heavily timbered section of the slope, and he went over to investigate. Ah! The mine! Which turned out instead to be only a small exploration tunnel, going back eight or ten feet into the slope before petering out. But his interest was caught by a large object , wrapped and covered with obvious care in multiple layers of tar paper that had been held down by rocks, that sat several feet inside the tunnel, blocking it. Einar began lifting off the rocks, pulling back the paper to reveal the stove that must have gone with the four lids he had found in the cabin, and he wondered what the miner could possibly have been thinking to haul the heavy chunk of iron all the way down into the tunnel. It was in

remarkably good condition for the length of time that he assumed it must have been there, rusted only in a few places where it appeared that water, seeping in through the ceiling during the spring thaw, had infiltrated through the tar paper, and looked to still be in workable condition. If I can ever manage to get it up out of here. Maybe after things heal up some. If Im still here, then. He continued to struggle over whether he ought to work to make the cabin his long-term residence, a place where he could plan to hunker down for the coming winter, or whether he was still too close to the area of the search and ought to move on just as soon as he was physically able. The discovery of the trash pile with its treasure horde of raw materials and especially the stove were inclining him to want to stay, but the wariness he had developed through the months of running told him very strongly that the execution of such a plan could well be the last mistake he ever made. Well. Plenty of time to think about that, because Im sure not going anywhere at the moment, if I can help it. Except up there to get water, then straight in there to cook some stew! The little fire pit worked quite well, most of the small amount of smoke produce by the dry wood going out through the hole of the roof, rather than remaining in the cabin to choke him, and as he tended it, adding wood now and then to build up some coals, Einar used one of the old tin cans to scrape a depression into the ground near the fire, skewering the elk stomach in several places with sharpened spruce sticks and placing them horizontally across the depression to hold it up it and keep the water from running out. He had considered using the Dutch oven, but it was badly rusted and really needed a bit of work before he cooked in it. Setting a number of rocks down in the fire and waiting for them to heat, he cleaned the chipmunk, tossing the tiny liver, kidneys, lungs and heart into the water, along with the carcass. Extracting a couple of the hot rocks from the fire with two sticks, he watched as the water in the elk stomach heated and began to bubble. As soon as he saw that it was going to work, he added the spring beauty bulbs and nettles, breathing the steam as they began to cook. In the past he had always found the bulbs to be fairly bland, if filling, but that night they smelled wonderful. As his supper bubbled, Einar sat over the fire, enjoying the unaccustomed warmth and turning the shreds and strips of aspen bark he had earlier collected into a coil of rough, loosely twined cordage, from which he intended to make a carrying bag for his few possessions. After a while, able to stand the wait no longer, he fished out the spring beauty bulbs and deposited them on the slab of aspen outer bark he had brought to use as a plate, nearly scalding his fingers in his hurry to slip the skins off and eat them. After enjoying the few bites of meat provided by the chipmunk and drinking most of the broth, he cracked open the tiny chipmunk bones for the thin strips of marrow they contained, tossing the bones back into his improvised cooking pot and adding more water, which he had carried down in the bottle after washing it out. He knew that by breaking up and boiling the bones he would be able to extract more nutrients from them, ending up with a small amount of mineral-rich broth that could only do him good. Though I sure hope those rabbit snares start producing soon. One chipmunk a day and a few of these bulbs may keep me going for awhile, but it will hardly be enough to get me moving in the right direction, let alone start putting anything on for next winter. He was feeling awfully hungry after those few bites of stewed chipmunk and wild potatoes.

Changing his bandages by the light of the fire and exposing the wounds to its heat for a few minutes, he saw that while the entrance wound was significantly less red and inflamed looking, the exit did not appear to be doing so well. The area was all chewed up, leaving an ugly, irregular crater in his leg where a chunk of flesh had been destroyed, the area around it swollen and discolored and painful, which he hoped was mainly a result of the bruising that must have been associated with the injury. He feared that the injury had left damaged tissue that ought to have been cleaned out and removed, which of course he had hardly been equipped to do, and it worried him some that things looked worse that evening than they had the day before. All he could think to do was to attempt to consume even more of the Oregon grape root, which he did, though he had struggled all day with the growing numbness and tingling in his hands and feet that told him he had been getting too much of it, already. Well. Hope I can beat the one problem before the other gets me For the moment, though, he was sleepy, and knew that he still needed the sleep nearly as much as he did food. Reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire but barely able to stay awake after his (relatively) large supper, Einar crawled over to his bed, scooping the duff over himself and enjoying the warm, lazy feeling that had come over him after all that stew and drifting off to sleep thinking of the rabbits that he hoped to find in his snares in the morning, and of the deer he would take with the glass arrowheads he was going to knap. The dreams lasted a few hours, only, though, because he woke in the night shaking and feverish, his joints aching, knowing that he had been correct in his concern over the appearance of the wound.

For a long while Einar lay there staring out the window at the slightly less black darkness of the night outside, his barely coherent, fevered thoughts revolving around the fact that he had better work on setting up some shutters or another way to bar the window at night, lest a bear smell the remnants of his dinner some evening and decide to attempt entry. The window wasnt all that large, but a small bear could, he expected, worm its way through, and Einar, a bit delirious, saw plain as day what would happen if a larger bear tried it and got stuck in the opening, leaving his only exit blocked by a very large, very angry animaloh, bad, very badbetter work on that shutter and a second way out of here, tooguess I could dig a tunnel under the wall for now, if I cant get that door to open. By the time Einars wandering mind finally made it back around to the subject at hand, his inclination was to try for more sleep and deal with the new problem when daylight came, but he knew that he was going to have to end up trying something beyond his efforts to date to deal with the apparently worsening infection in the wound, and supposed that whatever he did decide to do would probably involve the need for boiled water and possibly also the ability to boil and sterilize other things. So I better do it now. Dont want to risk a daytime fire, and this does not seem like something that I can afford to wait on until next evening when it gets dark again. The way he was feelingguess the infection must be spreadinghe knew it could very well be too late, by then. Einar had briefly entertained the notion of waiting until daylight, dragging himself up into the sun and exposing the wound until some flies found it and left their eggs, knowing

that maggots could be very effective in removing dead tissue and encouraging healing in deep, infected wounds. He knew that they secrete antiseptic compounds, as well as allantoin, which is the same protein that makes comfrey so effective in aiding healing. But he knew that the eggs, supposing flies even found him, would take several days to hatch, and he was not sure he had that long to wait, fearing that the infection might have spread or be about to spread into his blood, at which point there would be little he could do for himself, besides finding a spot with a nice view where he could spend his last few hours. But maybe I could find a dead critter that already has maggots, and borrow some of those, and it would work in time He decided against it, though, thinking that it would probably just increase his chances for a worse infection, and doubting that he could get around well enough to locate any of the critters, anyway, in his current state. And allowing flies to find him and do the jobwell. I know where flies spend most of their time. That would just be asking for it, introducing new and maybe worse contamination. Unless of course nothing else works, at which point He knew, though, that he had to somehow get the dead, decaying flesh out of the wound if he wanted to have a chance. Guess I got to do it myself. Lighting the pine-tar torch and using it to get a fire going, he was glad that he had thought to stack up some dry wood within easy reach of the fire hole. Not sure of the wisdom of washing the wound with anything that came out of the elk stomach, and knowing that it would be a good bit easier to keep water boiling in a hot Dutch oven, anyway, as it would retain the heat, he scrubbed the worst of the rust out of it with spruce needles, adding a bit of water and swishing it around, rinsing the pot out. Its pretty clean, and now if I get it hot enough, that ought to kill off anything thats left. Emptying the water jar into the oven, he got it heating. As the water began heating, he removed the bandage and inspected the wound by the light of the fire, alarmed to see a spreading redness around the margins of the damaged area, which was oozing and did not look at all good. He got into his supply of clean Usnea, setting several clumps of it on a nearby rock so they would be ready for bandaging things up when he was done. Einar was dizzy and sick, finding it difficult to stay focused on the simple tasks he had set for himself, praying that he would be able to stick with it long enough to do himself some good. Trying to think of something that he could sterilize and use to scrub the wound in an attempt to remove the decaying areas, he settled on cutting a section of the ribbed fabric out of the hem of his polypro top, tossing it into the water to boil and adding some crushed up Oregon grape roots. As he waited, he prepared a bag of berberine solution for rinsing the wound out after he scrubbed it, sorting through his pocketswheres that first aid kit? Need to find it, because now would definitely be the time to take that little packet of aspirin or whatever it is, though he doubted it would end up doing him an awful lot of good, and was glad in a way that he was nearly out of his mind with fever, because he doubted he would have had the courage to do what he was planning, otherwise. And knew that his life might well depend on it. Clamping a spruce stick between his teeth and rinsing his hands with some of the water from the pot, he did his best to clean out the wound, dipping the rough cloth frequently into the hot water and scrubbing as hard as he was able, and he somehow managed to get the area rinsed and bandaged before completely shutting down from the pain.

When he was next aware of his existence, Einar kicked the Dutch oven into the pit to smother the fire and dragged himself over to his bed before passing out again, seeing that it was beginning to be light outside. He did not know if his efforts had done any good, and did not at the moment care, either, wanting only to return to a place where the dark, merciful heaviness of unconsciousness dulled the pain a bit, pushing it into the background if not eliminating it. Which he promptly did. For the rest of that day Einar lay there on his stomach, drifting in and out of consciousness and wandering as he did through a loud, frightening fevered world where there was nothing to drink and where the bear that had made its way in through the window and cornered him against the wall tore relentlessly at his leg with its filthy yellow claws. There seemed no escape, and he cried out in pain, cried for help, thinking somehow that the cabin roof must be preventing his desperate prayers from escaping the dark, hot, smothering confinement of the cabin. In vain he wandered around and around the interior, searching for a way out, searching for the hole in the roof so his prayers, at least, could escape, if he could not, the bear chewing and clawing at his leg unrelentingly all the while. Finally he found the hole, looked out and saw the stars, realizing then that he had been foolish for thinking that his prayers were not being heard, suddenly remembering the time when he had been trapped in the cave with the water rising outside, and somehow finding the memory, and the knowledge that he had been delivered from that impossible situation, incredibly comforting. After that he stopped writhing and tossing and was still, the sweat beginning to dry on his face. When Einar woke it was dark, he was quite cold and the fever seemed broken. Realizing that in his delirium he had crawled out of bed and stretched out on the cold dirt floor of the cabin, he dragged himself back onto the pile of duff, gingerly feeling around the edges of the bandage, pretty sure that the swelling was down some. Einar slept then, slowly warming in his bed of pine duff as the night petered out and the sun rose outside his window. He woke thirsty, desperately thirsty and with a splitting headache, but feeling that he just might be able to make it up to the little seep for water, if he took it slowly.

The day outside was warm and sunny by the time Einar got himself started up the slope to the seep, and, limping along with his spruce stick, he was hopeful that perhaps he might be able to make it up to the bluff to check his snares. Need to eat, need to eat more than a chipmunk today, and I may not even be able to get one of those, since I kind of need this bottle for hauling water right now. Better look around that trash pile for another bottle, later. By the time he reached the base of the bluff, the reality of walking on his swollen and painful leg had significantly dampened his enthusiasm, and when he looked up at the granite escarpment, it appeared awfully, incredibly high and steep that late morning, and suddenly he wasnt sure he was that hungry. Dont know. Maybe after I have some water. May look different then. Which it did not, but he decided to go ahead and give it a try, anyway, knowing that if he did not get some substantial nourishment before too long, he might well become too weak to make that climb at all, and would be left with the few chipmunks and spring beauty bulbs that he could come up with in his immediate area. And that would be a losing proposition, for sure. Get yourself up that

hill, Einar. But first, more water! Einar made it up the slope, badly winded after the first few yards of climbing but making himself go on until he came out of the trees on the granite shelf of the bluff, looking up into the woods beyond for the leaning tree that marked the location of his first snare. Which proved to be empty, as did the second. The third and fourth snares, as he could see from a distance, had both been tripped, and as he neared the little clearing on whose edges he had set them, Einar say that they each contained a rabbit. Hurrying despite the protests from his leg, he crossed the clearing and freed the animals from the wire loops that held them, suspended well off the ground. One had clearly been there over night, but the second, which was by far the larger of the two, had hardly even been dead long enough for its eyes to glaze over. So! I really get to eat, tonight! This is more like it! Sitting in the sun for a minute after resetting the snares, Einar noticed that the skin on his hands was looking a bit odd, yellowish and discolored, and he soon discovered that the condition was not limited to his hands. Huh. Think maybe Ive been way too diligent with the Oregon grape roots. Better limit it to external use for a day or two, see if things get better He knew that too much berberine could irritate the liver and potentially lead to jaundice, but had no way to know if this was the source of his trouble, or whether he could perhaps blame it on the extended lack of adequate nutrition, or any one of a number of other factors. He hoped that it was not a sign of some serious trouble that would add to the difficulty of his recovery. Speaking of which, now that the fever was down and his mind was a bit clearer, Einar did not at all look forward to the prospect of again having to scrub the wound, remembering that it had been pretty bad even in his altered state and just hoping he would be able to stay conscious long enough to bandage it up afterwards. Wish I had some willows here nearby. Might not do an awful lot of good, but at least it would be something Studying the steep slopes below him, what he could see of them through the trees, anyway, he searched for anyplace that might provide a likely location for a little patch of willows, knowing that the salicylic acid that was most concentrated in their inner bark might help him just a bit if he was able to chew a good amount of it next time before he cleaned the wound. And I could also boil down some of the bark to concentrate the stuff, store it in one of those old bottles from the trash pile, and have something that might take the edge off, just a tiny bit. There was a small draw, little more than a deep ravine that cut the hillside not far from the bluff, and he saw that there was a small patch of aspens and perhaps a stunted cottonwood or two down on its edges where the timber thinned out, telling him that it might be a place where water trickled or ran at times. And if theres water, there may be willows. Worth a try. He tied the rabbits together with the bit of paracord that he had left, slinging them over his shoulder and limping over towards the ravine, stopping along the way to gather spruce pitch that he found dripping down the side of a tree, dusting it with some fine dirt and sandwiching it between two little slabs of bark to make it easier to transport. Next priority has to be finishing that bag. Really need a way to carry things. Einar also found a number of dry nettle stalks, some mullein and a bit of yarrow along the edge of a little clearing not far from where he had left the fifth snare, which remained empty, and he gathered a number of the stalks, bundling them up with the

rabbits. Removing his knit cap, he lined it with mullein leaves before nearly filling it with yarrow, thinking that it would be wise to set them out on boards back at the cabin to dry, so they would be ready if he needed them again. Sure could have used some yarrow, when I got shot and was bleeding all over the place. Could have moved faster, not been quite so wiped out afterwards, if I had not lost so much blood. He supposed he could find suitable containers for the dried plants among the jumble of refuse in the trash heap. And people down there in civilization talk about multi-tasking Hmm. They should try living like this, sometime. You got to be on the lookout every minute of every day for things you need, and for that matter, for places where things you need will probably appear laterplants sprouting, berries ripening, animals coming down to a puddle to drink in the eveningand gather them and carry them with you when the chance comes, because you may not get another one, later. Think thats the only way this can work. And thats not to mention listening and watching for danger, which for me means people, even more than bears and bad weather and such. Reaching the edge of the ravine, he saw that, though there was no visible running water, the ground was damp, and, sure enough, some fifty or so yards uphill, a patch of low, close-growing alpine willow did indeed inhabit the floor of the ravine. He smelled them even before he saw them, the sharp, sweet willow-smell mingling with the odor of wet ground to tell him he had come to the right place. The descent of the steep, loose rock of the ravine wall was not easy for Einar but he made it, more than ready at that point to get ahold of some of that willow bark and see if it might lessen the pain of moving his leg. It had begun bleeding again as he traveled, but he supposed that was inevitable, with the scrubbing he had given it the night before. Or was it two nights ago? Think I slept for quite a while, after. No wonder Im so hungry. He replaced the soaked dressing with fresh Usnea that he had gathered as he walked. Stripping and coiling a good quantity of willow bark for the trip back to the cabinhe supposed he could separate the inner bark from the outer once he was back at homehe stuffed a wad of it in his mouth, coughing at the bitter juice that it produced, but continuing to chew in the hopes that it might ease things a bit. In addition to the bark strips, he cut and took quite a few of the new little stems and twigs from several of the bushes, knowing that they could be boiled or chewed with a reasonably good result, as well. A small cluster of short green plants, their serrated leaves and squared stems catching his eye, grew in the dampest area to one side of the willow patch, and Einar crushed one of the leaves between his fingers, the sharp, refreshing smell of mint confirming his suspicions. He did not know which of the many varieties of wild mint-family plants it might belong to, but he gathered a good number of their stems and leaves and stowed them in his shirt, knowing that they ought to be soothing to his stomach, no matter what variety they turned out to be. With all the willow bark extract he expected to be consuming over the next few days, Einar knew that he might end up finding the soothing properties of the mint very welcome, indeed. There were deer tracks near the willows, the sharp impressions of the animals toes clearly visible in the damp mud where they had apparently stood to eat the new little grasses that were taking advantage of the moisture to sprout and cover the area with a soft and brilliant carpet of green. He studied the tracks for a minute, followed them with his eyes and saw that there was really only one good way down the opposite side of the ravine to the damp spot at its bottom, saw that the deer had worn a path into the spot to the degree

that a winding, descending trail had had been carved into what otherwise would have been a packed dirt and rock hillside of nearly impassable steepness. At one point nearly halfway down into the ravine, a lone spruce stood, having somehow scratched out a life in that rocky dirt long enough t become established and deeply rooted. A few currant shrubs, their new leaves not yet full sized at that elevation, were clustered around the tree, creating a slight obstacle that the deer had to push through as they used their trail. Well! I see venison. And his stomach growled at the thought, his mind quickly working out the details of the snare that he intended to return and set beneath that tree. But for now, Ive got these two rabbits, and had better be starting back, because its not gonna be a quick thing, climbing back up out of this gulley here, and Ive got a lot to do back at the cabin before dark. Need a little more firewood, and (shuddering at the memory of his fevered nightmares) really need to find a way to block up that window, in case a bear smells my dinner. And, though he would not admit it to himself, he was more than ready to lie down for awhile, and was actually beginning to have a difficult time staying on his feet. He needed to eat.

Back at the cabin, Einar worked to strip the inner bark from the willow coil he had brought with him, finding a mostly-intact mason jar in the trash pile that he supposed he could use for boiling down his improvised aspirin syrup. Think Ill start it first thing as soon as I get that fire going, because Id sure like to have some of it in me before I have to go messing with that wound again. His plan was to cook the rabbits in the elk stomach using hit rocks, as he had before, leaving the Dutch oven clean and available for heating the wound-washing solution and sterilizing the rag that he intended to again use to clean things out that evening after he had eaten. And done whatever else I need to do, cause I doubt Ill be good for much for a while, after that. Hopefully Ill just be able to sleep. In preparation, he partially filled the Dutch oven with water I know it will cause the thing to rust more, if I do this too often, but I dont want to have to go stumbling around after more water after dark and returned to the seep to refill the bottle and mason jar so he would have something to cook his supper in and use for the willow solution. Not wanting to wait for the fire to get the willow solution started, he wadded up the inner bark, pressed it down into the jar of water and set it outside in the sun to begin steeping, adding a few mint leaves as an afterthought. Might help keep it from being so rough on my stomach, and will sure make it taste a bit less awful, anyway Those immediate tasks out of the way, the rabbits hung in the cool shade of the cabin and everything as well set as he could get it for the coming evening, Einar finally allowed himself to curl up in a sunny spot up against the outer wall of the cabin, chewing on a wad of the yarrow leaves he had carried back in his hat in the hopes that they might help control the fever he felt returning, at least to the degree that he would prove to be somewhat rational when it got dark and the time came to have a fire and tend to his leg. His fever not as high as it had been before, perhaps partially due to the yarrow or maybe simply because the wound was less inflamed, but Einar slept soundly and without stirring, until the sun crept behind a stand of spruces and he started getting cold.

Seeing that the sun was nearly below the tree-covered horizon, Einar rose, somewhat alarmed, knowing that he had intended to seek a way to bar the window before it got dark again. Better hurry down to that trash pile and see what I can find. Some boards, maybe, that I can use as slats, pound in a few nails if I can find them. But hurrying was easier said than done for him at the moment, his injured leg having stiffened almost to the point of immobility after the climb followed by several hours of stillness. Well, come on. Got to move. Which he did, relying heavily on the aid of a spruce branch as he hobbled down to the dump area, clinging to the branches of the trees he passed in an attempt to avoid slipping and falling as he negotiated the steep, needle-covered slope below the cabin. He hoped the damage to his leg was not to have permanent consequences, as he had been having enough trouble with it as it was, due to the poorly healed hip injury. Well. No point worrying about that, right now. Got a long way to go before Ill even know. Have to stay on top of this infection, or none of that long-term stuff is going to be especially relevant Something in the slightly less densely forested area just beneath the garbage heap caught Eianrs attention, a scattering of plants that he thought he ought to recognize, but could not quite identify from that distance. As soon as he got a bit neared he knew them, knew why they had caught his eye, and was very grateful that they had. Hounds tongue! Known as noxious weeds down in ranch country because of their aggravating and numerous burrs and the ability of the leaves to sicken and even kill livestock that happened to feed on them, the plants might as well have been gold, to Einar that day, their distinctively drooping red-purple flowers reminding him that they were a close relative of comfrey, and contained the same compound, allantoin, that made comfrey so effective in healing wounds. He dropped to his knees and, with a work of thanks, began gathering the grey-green, hair-covered leaves, thinking for the first time since the infection had developed that he actually had a realistic chance of beating it and coming out the other side. The Oregon grape had been doing a decent job of disinfecting the area, and the quantities he had been taking internally had probably been helping some, too, or he doubted that he would have come through the last bout of high fever and aching joints, but all the signs told him that his body was having more and more trouble tolerating the quantities that were necessary to maintain the benefit. He knew that he had to cut back, knew that the apparently worsening jaundice that was plain to see in the yellowing of his hands and arms was a serious sign that must not be ignored. Faced with the loss of his only source of internal antibiotic at the same time that he, still feverish and sick from the lingering infection, knew he had to keep scrubbing out the wounda risky and frightening proposition under his circumstances, despite his efforts at sanitationhe had known that his chances were not looking especially good. He knew that the allantoin in the hounds tongue, though, should help his body dissolve eliminate the dead tissue the source of the ongoing infectionand actually allow it to begin to heal, as well. He hoped that perhaps he might be able to get away with scrubbing the wound out one more time, relying on the hounds tongue after that to keep up with the damaged tissue and start the healing process, washing occasionally with the berberine solution to see that it stayed disinfected. While he knew it was still too soon to declare victory, the world was indeed looking like a brighter place.

Suddenly remembering what he had come for, Einar began poking around in the trash heap until he came up with three fairly solid boards, only slightly rotted where they had not been protected by a torn sheet of tar paper (hey! This may come in handy whenever I get around to fixing that roof!) he hauled them back up to the cabin, using a rock to pound in several nails that he had found scattered around the cabin and stuck in the walls, positioning the boards in such a way that they would prevent a bear from entering, but leaving a slot at the bottom wide enough for him to haul himself out through. Not that it takes a very wide one, these days. Which reminded him that, with dusk well underway, it was time to get inside and begin preparing the rabbits for his dinner. Which presented a bit of a problem, because while he wanted to cook up both of the rabbits, he discovered that he had not brought back enough water to come close to submerging them both in the elk stomach, and considered finding his way back up to the seep for more, but did not want to leave his stew unattended, lest some scavenger smell it, realize he was not at home, and take advantage of the situation. He knew that one solution would be to plaster the animal with mud or clay for cooking in the coals, where it would not interfere with or threaten to drip in his pot of berberine solution that he needed to keep as clean as possible for scrubbing the wound, but he had neither mud nor clay at the moment, nor enough water to make mud from the dirt there in the cabin. So, Ill cook it from the inside out. Now to get this fire going!

Heating his mason jar of willow bark on a rock set partway over the firepit that night and waiting for the rocks to heat up so that he could begin cooking, Einar worked on the coil of aspen-bark cordage he had begun on his first night at the cabin, adding a few feet to its length as his supper bubbled and the willow bark solution began to put off a sweet, tangy smell that reminded him of river basins and high marshy areas on warm sunny days in the spring. Every time the water neared boiling he moved the jar back a bit, wanting to keep it at a simmer rather than allowing it to boil hard. As soon as a second batch of rocks had heated, he carefully lifted several of them from the fire, stuffing them into the cavity of the second rabbit, which he had cleaned but not skinned. Skewering and holding it shut with a few bits of wire that he had collected from the cabin floor, Einar buried the rabbit in the duff for additional insulation, knowing that after a few hours, he should be able to dig out and eat a moist, well-baked meal of rabbit. Dont know about the lower legs. They may not get done, but not much meat, there, anyway. Ill just toss them in with the next pot of stew if it doesnt work out. The rabbits innardseverything but the gall bladder and intestinesgot chopped up and added to the stew that was bubbling along in the elk stomach, as Einar knew that the lean meat alone would not be enough to sustain him or allow him to begin regaining his strength. Need fat, minerals, iron, along with all that good protein. Cant live on rabbits alone, but a person can come a lot closer to it, if they actually use the whole critter. Which reminded him. The brains. Temporarily removing the steaming carcass from the water and setting in on his kitchen rock he freed them from their housing, adding them to the stew. Einar knew that in some parts of the country there had been concerns about eating the brains of wild mammals, especially squirrels and deer, due to the possible risk contracting of a mad

cow-like disease, but he also knew that the chances of this were very small, and unless I start getting some serious nutrition, Im probably not going to make it long enough for something like that to be a concern, anyway. Wont worry about it, right now. Which he did not, the smell of the stew making it difficult enough to wait until the stuff was cooked, let alone be particular about its ingredients. Finding a partially rotted board among the rubble on the floor, Einar placed it crosswise in the corner of the cabin near the fire, wedging it into irregularities in the wall and setting the mullein and yarrow leaves he had collected out to begin drying. He supposed he could use small glass jars or other items from the junk pile to store them in once they were dry, but really wanted a good way to carry some of each with him, so he would have access to them if he ended up on the move again. Much as he wanted to think that he could stay at the cabin indefinitely, Einar was determined to be as well prepared as possible, under his current circumstances, in case he had to leave it in a hurry at some point, as recent history told him he might well have to do. Best thing would be to have some small pouches to carry this stuff in. Need to get that snare set up in the ravine up there, get me a deer. He could picture how the snare would work on that steep hillside, the animal inevitably becoming trapped as it took the only available path down to water across the nearly vertical slope of exposed, sun-baked dirt, taking off in a panic and losing its footing, at which point gravity and the angle of the slope ought to do the rest. Then I could have rawhide pouches and maybe a larger bag to carry a few things, if nothing else. And, as long as I am here, I know that I have a place that I can secure against bears and cats and things, and maybe I can actually get a bunch of jerky put up, this time. Pound it up, mix it with tallow, pour the goop into the rawhide pouches, and Id have some pemmican to use for travel food or put away for the winter. Id be all set. Yep. Need that deer! For the moment, though, Einars stew was ready, and he ate, finishing off the rabbit and drinking a bit of the broth, but saving most of it for boiling the bones, as he had decided not to go for more water that evening. As he ate, the Dutch oven had been heating, its water boiling, and Einar took a curved piece of glassthe side of a broken bottle or jar that he had found down at the trash heap and set it in the water to sterilize, intending to use it a clean surface for mashing up the hounds tongue leaves, which he had decided to use as a poultice on the wound. Not wanting to further contaminate it by packing it with ground-up leaves, he had considered simply making a wash from the plants, but knew that for the allantoin to really do its work, it would need to be in contact with the area for a longer period of time. Sorting through the remaining contents of the little first aid kit, he found two wrapped gauze pads, and supposed that he could soak one in the boiled Oregon grape water in the pot, and put it down between the mashed leaves and the wound to keep pieces of the leaves from getting stuck and potentially making things worse. Dipping the leaves briefly into the hot water to soften them up and mashing them as well as he could, Einar set the resulting paste aside to await the cleaning of the wound, which he seemed to be managing to continue putting off, for one reason or another. He was beginning to be terribly sleepy though, and knew that if he waited much longer, he risked falling asleep and neglecting to do anything about the leg that night, which would almost certainly lead to a resurgence of the infection. All right. Got to do it. Cant be all that far from gangrene, right now, and

I dont think there would be too much I could do about that. Cooling the container of willow bark tea for a minute he took a big gulp, shuddering at its bitterness and glad that he had thought to add the mint leaves. Without waiting any longer and giving himself time to think up another excuse for delaying the inevitable, Einar used a bit of the heated Oregon grape water to soak the Usnea dressing that had adhered pretty firmly to the wound during the day, finally resorting to jerking it away with the thought that it ought to take some of the dead tissue with it. After he had recovered a bit from that, he went on to scrub the area once again. The strong willow tea seemed to be helping, or perhaps it was simply the fact that he had some substantial food in his stomach that night and was not so desperately ill and hungry, but either way, he managed pretty well, and though the process was still awfully painful, he managed to stay conscious and lucid enough to add a bit of warm water to the hounds tongue poultice and wrap it in place, afterwards. Another swallow of the willow solution, brown and concentrated and scaldingly bitter by that point, and he was off to bed, taking the jar with him and setting it on the ground near his head in case the pain became too great during the night. The next morning after a hearty breakfast of leftover rabbit broth and a good portion of the hot rock-cooked rabbit, which had baked nicely overnight and was, in fact, still warm when he dug it up, Einar left the cabin with the intention of stopping by the seep for more water before heading up to the bluff to check his rabbit snares and set one out for deer. His leg seemed a good bit less inflamed that morning and his fever all but gone, leaving Einar amazed at the capacity of the body to heal itself, given half a chance. He decided to leave the poultice in place for the morning, dampening it with a bit of the boiled water from the pot and planning to change it when he returned. The day was warming quickly, reminding him that it must be well into May. Once this leg is a bit better, I need to take some trips down lower, find a meadow with a big creek or something, scout for chokecherries and serviceberries, because it wont be all that many monthsweeks in the case of the Serviceberriesbefore theyll be ready to collect and dry. Im gonna be good and sure to go into this coming winter better supplied than I did the last one. Like a pika, sitting on top of his pile of dried clovers and grass and everything, safe and secure under a rock by the time the snow flies. That's gonna be me, this fall! And, as he climbed, he found himself actually looking forward to it. Einar had just reached the top of the bluff, resting for a minute in the sun before going on, when he heard the helicopter. He had for the last five or ten minutes of his climb been plagued by an increasingly uncomfortable feeling that had told him something was not quite right, and he while he had known better than to ignore it, he had been unable to put a name to it until the distant beating of rotors told him that something large and slow was on its way. Hurrying over to nearby granite boulder and curling up between it and a large, overhanging fir, he waited for it to pass, unsure at first whether or not he had a problem but getting a good indication when he realized that the chopper was scouring the opposite ridge, stopping now and then to hover before moving on. He expected that his ridge would be next, and hurried to conceal himself better in the cold shadows beneath

the boulder.

As the helicopter hovered not two hundred feet above the top of Einars ridge he pressed himself flat in the dirt beneath the overhanging granite boulder, knowing that he could not be seen and hoping desperately that the same could be said for the cabin. He doubted that it would be especially visible from the air, except perhaps at certain times of the day like early morning! Like now! when the walls might cast an odd shadow that would show as something unnatural among the unbroken sea of spruces. Even still, the passing of the years had left the place with hardly a square angle anywhere, and the roof was thoroughly covered with fallen branches and over a hundred years of duff, trees having grown in very close around an above it, that he doubted anything would show. Which left him to wonder what the chopper was doing in the area, in the first place. It seemed to be scanning and searching all of the nearby ridges, rather than actually focusing on the cabin site, and he wondered of someone could have smelled smoke from his fires and reported it. Doubt itIm way far out here, and have been awfully careful to use the driest wood, havent had a fire going within three hours of dawn, not once. Nobody would have seen anything, for sure. It would have to be smell, alone, if they somehow noticed my fire. Or heat. The thought sent a chill up his spine, made him want to take off up the hill as soon as the chopper moved out of sight. I sure havent heard any low-flying aircraft of any kind at night, but a couple of those nights when the fever was the worstI sure could have missed something. That wasnt regular sleep, some of those nights. I was totally out of it. Something could have flown over and seen the warm air coming up through that hole in the roof, could have done it more than once, even, for all I know If that had been the case, though, he would have expected them to perhaps have his location pinned down with more certainty, rather than having to scour the ridges and valleys as they seemed to be doing. After ten or fifteen minutes of slow, careful searching and hovering during which Einar huddled beneath the rock and tried his best to plan his escape from a situation that he realized he actually knew very little about, the chopper moved on, giving some attention to an adjoining ridge before its rumbling finally faded from his hearing and left the ridge in silence. It was several more minutes before Einar dared leave the cover of the boulders, rising to strain his ears for anything out of place before hurrying up the slope toward the area of his snares, determined to check them one more time and salvage the wire, at least, in case he had to make a hasty departure. His first thought had been to hurry back down to the cabin and retrieve the axe head, elk stomach and a few of his other recently acquired possessions that he had left behind, but he was far closer to the traps than he was the cabin, and knew he would be badly needing the meat he hoped they might contain, if he had to run again. Einar was fairly confident from the actions of the chopper that it had not pinned down either his position or that of the cabin, but knew at the same time that something must have tipped them off and led to a search of the area that was clearly far more serious than a passing glance. Perhaps they had gone away satisfied that the area merited no further attention, and perhaps they would be back shortly, with friends, but he knew he must be ready, on either account.

The snares were empty that day, though one had clearly been tripped, bits of fur and the disturbed ground beneath attesting to the struggle that had taken place when a predator which he determined by a partial print in the churned-up dirt to have been a bobcathad reached his quarry ahead of him. Well. Ate last night, and I ate this morning, and thats pretty doggone good, considering. Though another rabbit would have been real good. He was hungry. Gathering up all of the snares and carrying them with him, along with the triggers he had whittled for the three that he had placed beneath springy branches, Einar quickly headed down to the cabin, having heard no further sign of the chopper. His progress was interrupted by a small plane, though, sending him scurrying to press himself up against the rocky side of the bluff as it passed low over the ridge, slowly circling the are twice and making a run several miles out along the ridge before doubling back again. For some time Einar waited there, wondering if the plane was support for a ground search, wondering how much time he might have to clear out of the area, if it happened to be. He really wanted to be able to make a trip back to the cabin before leaving for good, and hurried to do so as soon as the plane had been out of earshot for long enough to convince him that it was, for the moment, finished with its mission. Whatever that may be At the cabin he hurried to gather the axe head, the mullein and yarrow he had been drying, a couple of small glass bottles and the pile of hounds tongue that he had harvested from the area beside the trash pile. Reluctantly he made the decision to leave the Dutch oven, knowing that its weight would slow his too much if he ended up having to move fast. And if I dont, Im coming back here, anyway, so no loss, either way. Last of all he carefully nestled the quart jar with its remaining inch or two of willow solution down into the contents of the pack, knowing that at least he would have it to carry water and cook in, if he could avoid breaking it. Slinging his hastily improvised elk stomach pack over his shoulder he left the place, briefly considering rigging the cabin so that any attempt to enter by the window would result in something heavy falling on the box of unstable dynamite, scattering the raiders and leaving a big crater in the hillside, but decided against it, as it seemed as likely as anything that a bear would come along and trip it, leaving him with no shelter and possibly alerting someone to his presence with when they heard the blast. Now if I knew for sure that someone was comingdifferent story entirely! Despite the fact that there had been no additional air activity as he packed, Einar decided that the only wise thong would be to spend the rest of the day and the following night away from the cabin, in case it had been spotted, either by that days flyovers or by an aircraft with FLIR on one of the previous nights. Climbing again up to the top of the bluff and working his way over to the edge of the ravine, he decided on a sheltered spot up against some rocks as a potential place to spend the night, deciding to use what was left of the day to climb down to the bottom of the ravine and get water, collect some more mint to add to his willow solution, and, aircraft situation permitting, set the deer snare as he had originally intended to do. Because if all this with the choppers and planes turns out to be nothing (yeah, how likely is that,) Im still gonna have to eat, and would hate to have wasted a day when I could have possibly been getting ahold of a deer. Despite a

strong desire to stash it beneath a rock to cut down on weight and make the climb easier his leg was hurting pretty badly after all the activity that morningEinar took the elk stomach and all of his gear with him when he went to set the snare, determined not to lose everything again, if he had to run. Returning from several hours spent carefully negotiating the steep ravine sides and climbing up the precariously narrow deer trail to set the snare beneath the one tree on the nearly bareand nearly verticalopposite slope, Einar sat beneath a tree and worked to once again turn Lizs pocket knife into an improvised spear in case the worst should come and he had to try to fight his way out of a very bad situation. Thinking of this, he was reminded once again of the need to create a better weapon of some type, perhaps a bow, that would give him a better chance if he should find himself with pursuers close on his trail. A chance, huh? Not much of one, I would say. And he wished that he had been able to bring a couple of those sticks of dynamite and some capsheh! No way youd even need the caps, as unstable as that stuff has got to bewith him, but it was precisely this instability that had caused him to dismiss the idea almost as soon as it had occurred to him. He had seen the white crystals that coated the lower portions of most of the visible sticks of dynamite, and knew that to attempt moving one, let alone trying to carry it in a roughly improvised pack over mountainous terrain, meant likely disaster. So, the spear will have to do, for tonight. As he struggled to change the bandage on his leg that night, Einar was reminded what a tremendous advantage he had been afforded in being allowed to in a fixed location in the shelter of the cabin for the past several days while he rode out the worst of the infection and the attendant illness and delirium that had plagued him, and he wondered what his chances would have been of coming through it, had he been forced to be on the move that entire time. Well, Id have done my best, but the chances would not have been so good, I think. Not good, at all He lay in his shelter beneath the rocks that night, hungry and not especially warm as occasional gusts of a wind that had grown downright cold as the evening progressed found their way between the boulders and beneath the duff that protected him, dragging himself further beneath one of the boulders and bringing the heaps of dry duff with him, anxious to be out of the path of any rain that might end up falling. He knew very well that as high up as he was, the wet and the wind could quickly turn into a dangerous and, for someone in his condition, potentially deadly combination, even in late May. Or the middle of summer, for that matter. He shivered, pulled the duff up over his chest and raised the hood of his windbreaker, wanting the extra protection it would provide but bringing it only halfway up over his head, leaving his ears well exposed so that he would have some chance of hearing the approach of danger in the night and finally drifting into a light sleep. Einar woke with a start several hours later to the certainty that he had heard something out of place. The wind had ceased for the moment, and the night was quiet. Einar kept still, listening, carefully felt around until his hand closed around the improvised spear as he caught the tiniest of noises from somewhere over on his right, just a slight scraping as of something or someone moving carefully over rocky ground in the darkness. In the

ravine, I think, which means they wont have seen me yet. Wonder if theyre coming up the mountain, or down it? He did not know, had not heard enough of the faint sounds to give him a good indication, and waited, hearing the scrapes and rattlings peter out and grow quiet, trying to decide which direction of travel would give him a better chance of getting out of whatever net his apparent opponentsof unknown numbers and certainly better able to see in the dark that he washad laid for him. Then for a few minutes the silence returned, heavy and still and complete aside from an occasional restless wind gust that tore through the trees, bringing with it the smell of rain and departing with a sigh, promising an impending shift in the weather. Einar did not know how long he waited, listening, before somewhere out in the dark forest a rock scraped and then rolled down a steep slope, then another, followed by a commotion of sliding, fracturing rock that was nearly drowned out by a powerful gust of wind that tore down the mountainside, bringing a thin, cold rain in its wake.

Einar would have liked to think that the commotion in the ravine had been caused by a deer encountering his snare, and was a sign of big meals and good times to come, of the chance to spend long evenings dozing over the fire after his third bowl of venison stew, but it seemed strange to him that a deer should be out on a night that was becoming increasingly cold and stormy. For a moment he kept still, the wind snatching any further sounds away down the mountain before they could reach his ears, wanting to creep to the edge of the ravine and see if he could determine the cause of the ruckus, but knowing that he must not risk such a move, because if the rock fall had not been started by a deer or some other large forest animal, then it almost had to have been his pursuers, taking to the ground to investigate whatever they had seen from that helicopter earlier. They, he knew, would certainly be wearing night vision goggles and likely also using handheld FLIR units, and would spot his as soon as he emerged on their side from the sheltering boulders. A minute later, a series of muted but distinctively human grunts and mumblings, followed by a harshly whispered word or two that he caught during a lull in the wind, told him all he needed to know. Got to move, and quickly, before they climb up this side and trap me here. But in which direction? The ravine, which he had planned on using as an escape route in the event of unwelcome company that night, was clearly out, and while he supposed the thing that made the most sense was to quickly head down and away form the ravine, he had no way to know for sure that they were not coming at him from both directions. Dragging himself out from beneath the boulders on the side farthest from the ravine where they would still serve to block him from view and also, he hoped, continue to block his thermal signature, he hastily got his gear together and slung from his shoulder, starting out quietly and moving as carefully and quickly as he could manage in the rainy darkness, heading downhill, a daring plan beginning to form in his mind as he traveled. The forest floor, its deep carpet of spruce needles dampened already by the falling rain, allowed him silent passage as he hurried down towards the cabin, all hesitancy gone and the details of his plan working themselves out seemingly without his conscious assistance as he walked, the whole thing coming together in his mind crystal clear and appearing

more plausible than it probably was. For some reason unknown to Einarperhaps it had something to do with the week of rest and the two rabbits he had recently feasted on--it seemed that his mind was for the moment once again working the way it had before the starvation and exhaustion and the endless strain of the chase and of his injuries had taken their toll on him, turning him into the confused, hesitant, skittish creature that he had often found himself, of late. Einar was loving it. And, at the same time, he was angry; he had liked the cabin, had relished the opportunity to be still for awhile, to rest, and to make plans for a place where he very much hoped to be able to spend a quiet winter, just working to stay alive without having to constantly look over his shoulder. To that end, he had used every caution when building his fires and moving about the place, doing everything he knew to do to reduce the chances that he would draw anyones attention. He did not know exactly what sort of a dirty trick his opponents had used to locate him this time, but he figured that they ought to have to pay for making him move again, just when he was getting all settled in. Time to bring this fight to them, the buzzards, and since Im not exactly equipped to do it directly, at the moment, well, Ill let them do the work! As clear and workable as the details of his plan appeared to Einar, he knew that its success, and likely his survival of the night, as well, depended entirely on the hope (assumption? Knowledge? It seemed to him strangely like knowledge at that point, and he hoped he wasnt fooling himself) that the searchers had not yet discovered the cabin, that they were all still above him on the mountain, or at least a good distance below, if their plan happened to be attempting to sandwich him between two search parties and him and pin his down that night. He knew full well that if they were waiting for him in or near the cabin, his plan would amount to little more than an interesting way to die. Well. Well see. Thus far he had heard no movements from down below, and though he knew the rain might well mask such signs, he had a very strong sense that all of the activity was up above him, that night. Sure hope Im right! Reaching the bottom of the granite bluff and determining his location nearly as much by feel as by the familiar shape of the outcropping as it bulked inky black against the heavily overcast night sky, Einar kept himself still for a good two minutes, working to slow his breathing and quiet his mind to allow himself to pick up on any tiny and easily overlooked sign that might indicate the presence of immediate danger. But there was nothing. The night world around him was quiet, felt safe, felt like home, and Einar was encouraged by a sudden certainty that he, for once, definitely had the advantage over his pursuers, even if they were well fed, better armed and equipped to see in the dark. They lacked a critical piece of information, and he was pretty sure it was going to make all the difference. He grinned, took a big breath of the damp, spruce-scented night air, and gave himself a second to dip some water from the seep before continuing. Down at the cabin Einar paused for a second before entering, still sensing nothing amiss, feeling his way over to the firepit and tossing in a bunch of the wood that he had previously stacked beside it, glad that the pit itself was partially protected by a jutting piece of tin that stuck out over the jagged hole in the roof. That protection, he thought, should be enough to keep his fire from being extinguished, which was good, because he

might need it to burn for a good while, if his plan was to work. Sticking around long enough to get a good bed of coals built up and stoking the fire with a good quantity of the nice dry wood from the cabin floor as well as some damp pieces that he knew would dry, heat and eventually catch, he pulled his flat cooking rock partially over the pit to keep the fire smoldering happily for the longest possible period of time. Nice heat signature, isnt it? A lot like the one you must have somehow seen from the air, that brought you down on me in the first place, yes? Well, come and get me, boys! This ought to be your most dynamic entry yet! Might just end up redefining the term, as a matter of fact. Ought to be a pretty doggone dynamic exit, too, I do believe And he chuckled a bit at the picture it created in his mind, casting one regretful glance back at the Dutch oven, wishing he could take it but reminding himself that youre barely able to keep yourself on your feet as it is, with that legforget it! before crawling out the cabin window for the last time. Though Einar would have liked to stick around and watch the coming excitement, he of course had no intention at all of being anywhere near the cabin when the federal troops arrived. Propping a few more boards up against the partially boarded-up window opening in a way that prevented someone on the outside from getting a clear view of the interior and doing his best to make it look like the job had been done from the inside, he took off down the draw that opened up below the cabin, grateful and honestly a bit amazed that he had not been cornered in the cabin as he worked on the fire. So, they must still be working to pin down the exact locationGood. He could hear movement up on the bluff as he eased himself down into the draw, careful not to dislodge rocks that could clatter down and give away his position but hurrying at the same time, sticking to the needle-carpeted soil beneath the trees as much as possible to cut down on sign and wanting to avoid being seen by the night vision and infrared devices that he expected would soon lead his enemies to the cabin.

Pausing for breath partway down the draw, Einar listened for sounds of pursuit, for anything that would indicate what the searchers were up to at the moment, but he could hear nothing, beyond the soft sounds of the rain on the boughs of the evergreens and the occasional gust of wind that tore along the ridge tops. He certainly heard nothing that would have warned him of the two dog teams that were out on the mountain that night assisting the searchers, nor anything that would have told him that one of the dogs was onto him, the fresh scent he had left as he descended along the bluff amplified by the close, humid weather and not yet washed away by the rain. Cutting above the cabin and bypassing it, following Einars scent down the draw where it had been concentrated and protected somewhat from being dissipated by the wind, the dog and his handler were alone on Einars trail, the rest of the searchers focusing on the newly discovered cabin, which it quickly became very clear had been the source of the thermal anomalies that had brought them to the remote mountainside in the first place.

Quietly the searchers surrounded the cabin, waiting for the arrival of the second team, whose members had been making their way down from another ridge in an attempt to

prevent their subject from slipping away as he had done in the past. The first team had come down quietly after having made their way up the backside of the ridge, seen the heat from the cabin and radioed the second team to meet them for the action. As they got into position around the cabin its thick logs prevented them from telling with their thermal imagers exactly where inside the subject was, but they heard no movement, and were increasingly certain that they had caught him sleeping. In any event, they were sure beyond a doubt that they finally had him. There would be no escape for Einar Asmundson that night.

Having started up the ridge when the timber became heavy enough for him to be sure that he would be concealed from anyone approaching the cabin, Einar had left the draw some time before, crouching on a steep, slick section of hillside, trying to quiet his rasping breath enough to listen for sounds of pursuit. All sound was muffled and distorted somewhat by the rain and the stiff breeze that had been growing increasingly strong and steady as the night went on, but he thought he heard something down in the draw, listened, cupping his hands behind his ears and slowly turning his head until he heard it again. Definitely an animal of some kind, and definitely heading his way, up the slope! He couldnt see much, just the faint, shadowy shapes of the surrounding trees and boulders if he focused his eyes off to the side, but Einars ears told him all he needed to know about this particular animal. He could hear the distinctive panting of a dog hard at work, and could tell from its movements that it was no bloodhound he was about to be dealing with, but an aggressive animal that was, in all likelihood, trained to kill its quarry, or at least to hold it until the handler could arrive. Which, to Einar, amounted to about the same thing. The dog was close by then, very close and approaching rapidly enough that he knew it must not be leashed, as a man could not climb that quickly, and he braced his improvised spear against the tree trunk behind him, intending to take the creature in the chest if it jumped him. The dog, a big Shepherd or Malinois, was on him before he had expected it to be, and as he saw its bulky shape silently spring at him out of the darkness he rolled back against the tree, bracing himself and catching the dog hard in the chest with his boot, sending it temporarily sprawling. It was back on him again with astonishing speed, though, and it was dark, too dark for him to really see what was happening, and Einar struggled to keep the animal away from his head, attempted to connect with it using his improvised spear, or at least to get it to clamp down on the thing with its jaws, and he finally hit it in the side with the spear, sending it yelping back a step or two, but his hasty lashings gave way and the knife bent sideways, and he was pretty sure that it had been dislodged from the spear altogether, and then the dog was on him again, clamping down on his right arm as he raised it to protect his face. Einar, with a strength that came of the desperate knowledge that the handler couldnt be too far behind, rolled to his knees, making a sudden motion that jerked the dog in close to his body and taking his trapped arm sharply upward and back, breaking his attackers neck. Einar, over a mile away and halfway up the tree covered ridge, clearly heard the blasta series of blasts, actually, three small ones followed almost instantaneously by a larger as the crystallized nitro went and then a deeper boom as twenty five pounds of ancient

dynamite released its energy into the mountainsideas he struggled to free his damaged and bleeding arm from the jaws of the dead dog, taking some satisfaction in the fact that, even if he was about to be accosted and shot by an armed and angry dog handler, he had at least made his death cost them something, that night. And, as far as he was concerned, it was far from over, anyway, because he heard no sounds of movement down in the draw to indicate that the man was anywhere close by, which was a good thing, because he would certainly have heard the struggle, had he been. So come on, get out of here before he does show up, and see what youve done. Freeing his arm, Einar wrapped and tied it with a strip from the shredded sleeve of the windbreaker to help with the bleeding, which did not seem to be bad enough to be a big danger, though it was raining so hard at that point that he was having trouble telling for sure, regretting as he did that he had been forced to kill the dog and knowing that they would eventually find its body, telling them for certain that he had not perished in the blast, as they might otherwise have believed. Well. Hopefully theyll be busy enough cleaning up that mess that itll take them a while to figure it out. And, since there was no taking back the fact that his assailant was dead, Einar figured that he ought to at least get a meal or two out of the creature, fumbling around in the darkness until he found the broken spear, immensely relieved to find the knife still attached, though bent back at an angle that had made the weapon useless in the struggle. Ready to begin work on the animals haunch he hesitated, considering that there might be at least a slim chance that the searchers might decide the dog had gone missing or walked off a cliff or something when it did not return, and he considered leaving its body intact and attempting to find a dropoff to throw it from so that they could discover it and perhaps believe the broken neck was due to natural causes, but he knew he was losing blood and was feeling terribly weak after the struggle, knew that he must eventually have something to eat, if he hoped to be able to continue moving after the adrenalin wore off some and his exhaustion caught up to him. And he doubted, anyway, that he ought to risk staying around long enough to either make the body disappear or make the death appear natural, as the handler could be, for all he knew, not that far behind his dog, and would be armed and not necessarily alone, and while Einar supposed that perhaps he would be able to get up into a tree and surprise the man and take him out, he knew that any such action would let his opponents know for certain that his life had not ended in the blast. Better not wait around for that. Or to skin this critter, either, though I sure would like to have its hide to help me stay warm. Drenched from the blowing rain, he was beginning to shiver as he cooled down from the struggle, and he hastily went to work on the dog, eating a sliver of the meat raw and figuring it should be pretty safe, as a dog like that would have had regular vet visits and dewormings and would have been generally very well cared for. Loading the meat as well as he could into the elk stomach and securing it with a wrap of the paracord carrying strap around the still-attached hind leg of the dog, he stuck his knife in his pocket, the one on the left side where the windbreaker had not been left quite so tattered by the struggle, slung the pack over his shoulder, kicked some of the disturbed duff over the dog, and continued quickly along the ridge, pausing after a minute to fumble around in the pack in search of a wad of yarrow leaves to stick beneath the bandage and press against the wounds on his arm, which had begun bleeding quite freely as he moved.

It would not have taken anywhere near the concussion generated in the confined space of the small cabin by a single stun grenade to set off the twenty five pounds of unstable, one hundred-plus year old sweated and crystallized dynamite that Einar had not dared try and remove from the premises. Let alone the three or four of them that the agents, wanting to make good and sure that Einar would not be resisting when they broke down that door, had tossed in through the window as they surrounded the place. By the time the clods of dirt and duff and the splintered spruce trunks and fractured rock quit falling, fifteen of the twenty three agents who had taken up positions around the cabin were dead or injured, some rather severely, as an already unstable chunk of the granite bluff had been fractured by the blast, raining rock on those unfortunate enough to have been too close to it. The investigators would be scraping up pieces of the five man entry team for weeks. As he moved that night, Einar tried his best to keep track of where he was, of where he was headed, tried to keep a picture of the landscape in his mind, but it was very difficult in the near total darkness of the overcast, rainy night, the wind whipping the spruce branches into his face as he struggled along the steep, slick mountainside, and he finally settled for simply heading away from the deep rumble of the choppers that seemed to be managing to make an appearance somewhere back near the cabin, despite the rain and winds that were gusting and at times quite heavy. I wonder did they find a meadow to land in, or are they just using a long line and lifting people out? He guessed from the amount of hovering that he was hearing that they were doing the second. And dropping more searchers in, too, I expectthough maybe theyll be forced to focus mostly on the evacuation, for now. That would be real good, for me. He figured that quite a few of his pursuers must requiring urgent evacuation after that blast for them to risk flying and hovering over the rough, unforgiving terrain of the mountainside in such weather, which he supposed was a pretty good bet, especially if they had all insisted on clustering around the cabin before entering, as he knew would be standard procedure. Well. Guess they wont be trying that again. Might be a good thing to know, if they ever end up actually cornering me in a place like that cabin. He realized, though, that his chances of seeing another winter would be greatly increased if he could stay out of such situations altogether. Next time they wont dare get in close, so theyll probably just put an RPG through the window or something, before I even have a chance to realize theyve found the place. And he laughed at himself a little for thinking that they would take it to such extremes, but knew that his speculation was probably not all that far fetched. Whenever the wind died down to the point that he had a hope of hearing anything Einar would stop and listen, turning his head this way and that, hoping to catch sounds of nearing pursuers soon enough to do something about it, if they indeed ended up coming. Not too long after leaving the dead dog he had paused briefly to split a spruce stick and once again lash it together around the open pocket knife, this time inserting the knife

handle deeper and taking more wraps around the split spruce in the hopes of keeping the thing in place in the event that he had to use it, thinking all the while that he must work on some more serviceable weapons as soon as he had the chance. He wished once again that it had been reasonable for him to bring along a stick or two of that ancient dynamite from the cabin, as it had been volatile enough not to even require caps (which is exactly why I could of course not bring any) and could have proven quite a deterrent if left in a deadfall-type trap or two on his back trail. But the stuff had, he supposed, done its job quite adequately back at the cabin, and as he walked, Einar found himself wondering just what had happened back there, how many of his pursuers had been killed and injured and, strangely enough, he caught himself wondering who they might have been, who they might have left behind when they perished on the mountain that night. He forcefully shoved that thought aside as soon as it entered his mind, though, knowing that while it might well be something that would occupy the long wakeful hours of his nights sometime in an almost unforeseeable future when he was no longer fleeing for his life, it had absolutely no place in his thoughts that night, or any time in his immediate future. They were the men who were sent to kill you tonight, thats who they were. Thats all they were. And now a bunch of them are not coming for you, anymore. But, knowing that others soon would be if they were not already, he focused all of his attention on his route and on making good distance away from the place they last knew him to be. By the time daylight arrived, Einar was thoroughly soaked from traveling through the rainy timber in his half-shredded windbreaker and polypropylene, having sought refuge beneath trees for a few minutes here and there during the worst of the downpours, but knowing that for the most part he must keep moving while the weather held and increase his chances of slipping out of what he was certain would soon be a tightening noose from which escape might prove difficult. Morning was heavily overcast and drizzly, but the bulk of the rain seemed to have moved on, leaving everything wet and sodden and seeping, ragged streamers of cloud and fog scudding torn and wind-driven along the ridges and over the peaks. Einar, shivering as he took a break beneath a dripping tree, stepped back and forth form one foot to the other in an attempt to keep from becoming further chilled as he sliced a strip from the dog haunch, enjoying a breakfast that, while perhaps not ideal, would certainly help to keep him going. He wrung the water from his wool cap, wishing very much that the jacket hood had not been one of the casualties of the struggle with the dog but glad that it had not been his neck that the animals teeth had closed with, instead. The wind changed direction, gusted hard along the hillside, chattering his teeth and sending him scrambling in an attempt to put the trees trunk between himself and the worst of the wind. He needed shelter, badly needed rest and a chance to tend to his injured arm and to change the dressing on the leg wound also, lest he lose the progress that he had begun to see in its condition. Crouching as well as his injured leg would allow him on the leeward side of the large spruce, Einar took a minute to unwrap and inspect his arm, which he had immobilized as well as he could in a makeshift sling of shredded windbreaker sleeve, tied to the paracord loop that he had used to sling the elk stomach from his shoulder. It had nearly stopped bleeding, but the dogs teeth had left a double row of deep puncture wounds and there was a good bit of tearing as well that must have happened, he supposed, when he made

the sudden movements that broke the dogs neck and finally ended the struggle. His entire forearm was tender and swollen and badly bruised, an effect that he supposed should begin to lessen with the passage of a few days. Concerned that his already taxed immune system might have a hard time handling those deep wounds without major infection setting in, Einar knew that he must find a way, without further delay, to wash the arm with something that would help disinfect it. He had brought several partially dry Oregon grape roots with him in the pack for continuing to rinse his leg wound, and finding one, he broke it up into the small ziplock bag he had been using for that purpose, looking around for a source of fairly clean water and finally deciding that he could collect some of what was running down the rock face that he had taken refuge near, removing the elastic cord from the neck area of the windbreaker, supposing it to be the cleanest piece of cordage he possessed at the moment, and sticking one end in the bag while pressing the other against the rock face to catch and channel some of the oozing water into the bag. When the bag was partially filled, he stuck it in the waist band of his pants to warm a bit and release more if the berberine from the roots into the water, moving on up the ridge with the intention of stopping after another half hour or so to tend to his arm, but not making it for nearly that long before tripping on something and falling headlong on the soft damp duff and moss of the forest floor. Picking himself up and going on, Einar very soon found himself sprawled out on the ground once again, looking about in the rainy dimness in an attempt to discover the cause of his sudden inability to keep on his feet. Aw, great. The boot. The sole of his right snowboot was finally giving out, a section three or four inches long having separated on the toe end, flapping and catching on the ground and causing him to trip. Who knows how many miles this thing has already been good for, but what a time to fail! He knew that with some evergreen pitch and a fire, both for melting the pitch and as a source of ash to mix with it, he could come up with a glue that would gold the thing in place at least temporarily, but those things were about as far beyond his reach that night as was a brand new pair of boots. Digging around in the pack, he found by feel one of the snares he had created from wire found in the cabin, sliding it over the toe of the boot, tightening, wrapping and twisting it until he was satisfied that he would be able to go on without falling or losing the sole altogether. My foots about to be soaked, though, I guess. And he was concerned about the distinctive marks the wire strands would clearly leave in the soft ground he might be stepping on as he traveled, allowing his tracks to show up where they might otherwise have been overlooked. He had an idea, loosened the wire and wrapped Usnea clumps around it before retightening it, knowing that they would eventually wear through and come loose, but supposing that he could replace them when they did. Of course, a clump of Usnea sitting on the ground in a place where there is none in the trees will be about as obvious as the wire marks wouldbut its pretty common here in these woods, and I cant solve everything, so itll have to do. As the light of morning grew stronger it seemed that the air traffic behind him increased as well, and Einar expected that by that time the body of the tracker dog probably would have been discovered, and that at least some of the traffic represented what he expected to be a redoubled effort to effect his capture. Before long a heavy chopper, sometimes followed by a small plane, began working the nearby ridges, leaving Einar scrambling for

the nearest outcropping of damp grey schist-like rock that he could find and pressing himself into a miserably small and damp crevice beneath a jumble of boulders that seemed to represent the only suitable concealment available to someone in a great hurry. For far longer than he would have liked he remained pinned in the cramped space, water dripping coldly on his back from the mossy rocks above as the chopper scoured the nearby landscape, straining to keep his face up out of a growing puddle of water on its rocky floor and finally finding a position that allowed him a bit of rest, his forehead leaning heavily on a protrusion in the rock, shielded from direct contact with its rough surface by a fold of his sodden wool cap. Einar was aware that, while his proximity to the mass of rock might protect him from detection for awhile, he remained far too close to the cabin site and the center of the rescue effort and of any search that they had been able to mount for him in the midst of it. And he was still not entirely certain that trackers might not be on his trail, especially if they had been able to locate the dead dog and start another dog from that point. The rain would have helped him, and might even have been enough to wipe out his scent, but he was not certain. Need some more distance, if these buzzards would just stop buzzing over my head long enough to let me get some. The assistance Einar needed arrived a short time later in the form of a series of wind gusts that blasted and tore across the ridges and swept through the valleys, bending the tall, wiry spruces nearly to the breaking point and snapping a good number of the more brittle aspens, grounding the air rescue effort for a time. Einar made the best of it, pushing on into the wind and frequently sweeping the water out of his eyes to clear his vision and nearly getting the top half of an aspen dropped on him as he passed hastily beneath a small grove of the trees as he struggled along the steep mountainside in his efforts to leave his pursuers further behind. As hard as he was pushing himself Einar knew that he ought to be able to move faster, supposed that he might have lost more blood than he was aware of in the fight with the dog, but knew that it was just as likely that a combination of factors, not the least of which was the still-weakened and near starved state he had been in when he left the cabin, were conspiring to turn his legs to lead and make his breath rasp painfully in his throat as he climbed. Well. Youre still moving, arent you? Just keep it up. Hopefully, it will be enough He steered clear of the aspens after the one that nearly fell on him in the wind, sticking to the evergreens and finally emerging on top of the ridge, getting a fleeting look at a broken world of jagged grey crags and flutings high up on the opposite slope, heading for the area without hesitation in the hopes of reaching it and losing himself in its convolutions before the weather settled back down and the air search resumed, which from the thinning appearance of the clouds and the softening winds, he thought might be all to soon. Reaching the low point between the two ridges, Einar hurried across the small basin, sticking to the low-growing firs and spruces at its margins where any sign he might leave would be less visible from the air and heading up into the crags, stark and black and hostile looking in the fog, cautiously climbing for some time on the rain-slippery rocks before finding a place of concealment, its entrance hidden by black timber, where the schist face had split at some time, leaving a high, narrow crack whose floor angled steeply up, its walls not three feet apart at its widest and, once he stepped inside, he found

that that the walls soared nearly a hundred feet above him before he again saw open air. Ought to work. He climbed up on the steeply angled gravelly surface into the close stillness of the place, supporting himself at times by leaning against the rough rock of one wall or another but glad that the place did not require any actual hand and foot climbing, as he doubted his injuries would have permitted it at the moment. Einar continued until the sky was just a narrow ribbon of grey above him, the rock closing in around him, enveloping him and cutting off all outside sound, went until he reached a place near the end of it where the crack narrowed down to a mere thread of a crevice and going on would have meant chimneying up the slick rock to the sky and trees far above his head. There near the end he found a slight overhang in one of the pressing faces of rock that afforded him meager shelter from the continuing drizzle outside, curled up on the cold dry dirt in that space like a wounded animal and slept, wet and chilled and exhausted, as the evacuation and search dragged on through the dismally grey May day outside. Einar woke some time later to eat a bite or two from the dog haunch and remove the Usnea dressings on his arm to again wash the wounds with the bit of berberine water that remained in the little bag, concerned at the inflamed appearance of the bites and wishing he had more of the water, but reminding himself that he was already a good step ahead of where he had been in treating the gunshot wound, an effort which had been delayed for hours due to the ongoing chase, giving the dirty wound time to fester. And hey, at least this critter wont have had rabies! Im sure he would have been current on all of his shots, so if I can just clean these bites out and keep them from getting contaminated again, well, I may just have a chance. He sighed, shuddered at the pain of applying fresh dressings to the arm, leaned back on the rock wall behind him for a minute, suddenly feeling immensely weary as he thought of the difficulties that lay ahead of him, even assuming he was out from under the search. Which he very much doubted. So I better see what I can do about that boot. He considered leaving the wire in place, but knew that with too much more walking on rock, the wire, already somewhat brittle with age, would end up breaking, leaving him once again with a boot that was a major tripping hazard at what might well prove to be a very bad time. Removing the wire, which had worked surprisingly well, though it had of course not kept the sole in place well enough to prevent a good bit of water from getting in and soaking the inner lining of the boot, he studied the problem, deciding that in the absence of pitch glue or any other type of adhesive, improvised or otherwise, his best bet would be to attempt to crudely sew the sole back in place with the wire, poking holes in the rubber of the sole with an awl of some type, feeding the wire through and doing the same on the heavy canvas-like cloth on the soleless underside of the boot. He had a couple of nails in his pocket that he had salvaged from the window frame of the old cabin, and, filing, thinning and sharpening one of them as well as he could on the hard rough schist that was quite plentiful around him, he used a chunk of the rock to drive holes into the rubber boot sole, spacing them roughly an inch apart and nearly tossing the project aside in disgust when he found upon finishing with the holes that they had closed back up behind him, leaving him to poke and prod with the wire before finding each one. Eventually, though, he got the sole reattached, figuring that it would do for a few miles, anyway. And if I ever get to have a

fire again, I can make some pitch glue, or even some hide glue type of stuff by boiling down some of this dog hide thats still attached to my food supply here, and really do this job right. His throat dry and hurting, Einar set the empty quart jar that had contained his willow solution wish I had some of that, right now just beneath the ledge, sticking one end of the elastic string from the windbreaker hood in a crack in the water-glossed and dripping rock face outside, letting the other end trail down into the jar, lying there half awake as he watched the jar fill with a nearly immeasurable slowness that seemed well suited to the silence and stillness and pressing isolation of that place. He fell asleep after a time of watching, and Liz, who had been absent for many days from his dreams, came to him as he slept, and he was at first very glad to see her, as he had been quite alone through all the long days and nights of fever and pain at the cabin as he fought to rid himself of the infection in his leg. His gladness was to be short-lived, though, as Liz kept telling him that he must find better shelter before night came, that a night huddled on the cold dirt between colder rock faces in his soaked clothes could easily be the end of him, even though the snow was no longer on the ground and the aspens were a soft and brilliant shade of green as they hung out into the little ribbon of sky so far above his hiding place. He told her that it was alright, that he had food and had been eating, that he could stay warm by waking through the night to eat and move about a bit whenever the cold began to grip him too tightly in its teeth of iron, and that it probably would not get below freezing that night, anyway, but she was as insistent as ever, kicking at his torn up arm and telling him that the cold must already have hold of him if he was saying such foolish things, that he must rise and do something about it right away if he wanted to see another day. Seeing that Einar responded by curling up tighter and burying his face against his shoulder she began tugging relentlessly on his injured arm, finally pulling him painfully to his feet so that he woke to stand trembling and swaying on the narrow steep band of gravel and schist chips that that ran along beside his hiding place, supporting himself against rock walls that were separated by no more than two and a half feet of damp, cold space. Liz was, of course, gone, and he heard a chopper, sounding hollow and incredibly distant as it passed over his thin slice of sky, and Einar dropped back to the ground and rolled beneath the overhang just as it came into view, low but not hovering or seeming especially to focus on his location, which was somewhat reassuring. The chopper passed, he drank the two inches of water that had collected in his jar and set it to begin filling again, lay down and drifted somewhere near sleep for a time, but eventually rolled back to his knees and sat up, knowing that Liz had been right about the coming night and seeing that already the overcast sky was dimming with evening. Drinking the additional water that had accumulated in the jar as he slept, he stowed it in his pack, getting to his feet with difficulty and staring up at the slender arc of sky above him, seeing that the clouds had moved out entirely, leaving the deep, clear blue-black of a high mountain sky freshly washed by storm. A few stars were beginning to show; it was going to be a cold night.

After the rescue personnel began arriving at the blast scene and taking over from the survivors on the ground, the handler of the missing dog, who had hurried back to do what he could for the injured after hearing the blast, set out in search of his dog, following the signal from the animals GPS tracking collar down the draw and up the hill, towards a spot where the device told him the dog had stopped moving. He hoped that perhaps the dog might have the subject cornered and be holding him, a dangerous situation to walk up on, but he had worked with that particular dog enough to know that the animal would likely have incapacitated even as persistent a man as he was apparently trailing fairly quickly, and at that point, over an hour after the signal showed that the dog had stopped moving, he expected that the subject might not be in the best shape, especially if he had tried to resist the dog. Well. The handler was not too concerned. No one on the mountain that night was feeling the least bit friendly towards Asmundson, and he knew there would be no complaints if the prisoner had received some damage from the encounter with the dog. The handler, though he knew that he probably ought to wait for backup, decided to go ahead up the hill and apprehend the man himself, if the dog did indeed have him, as most of the agents up at the blast site seemed to believe that their subject had perished in the cabin. It would be a major achievement, under those circumstances, for the handler to effect the capture, and he did not especially wish to share that with anyone, nor did he expect that any of the personnel could be spared from the blast scene at the cabin to accompany him on what they would likely believe to be a wild goose chase. It was a real mess up there. Cautiously approaching the point where the GPS locator told the handler he should find his dog, he explored the area in the green glow of his NV goggles, seeing the disturbed ground and signs of a fight and bringing his rifle up into a low ready position as he realized that something must have gone terribly wrong. There was no sign of the dog or of the subject, though the locator told him that he should be nearly on top of the collar at that point. He discovered a spot beneath a tree where the ground was not just damp, as the entire forest floor was after the rain, but dark as well, determining the spot to be blood, glancing quickly around for fear that he might have walked into an ambush but seeing nothing that betrayed the presence of the dogs killer. Kicking at an unusuallooking pile of spruce duff and freshly turned dirt up the slope and some distance from the blood-soaked area under the tree, he uncovered the mangled body of the Shepherd, one of its hind quarters missing altogether and the stomach area all torn up and nearly gone, leaving him to wonder exactly what type of weapon the fugitive must be armed with to have done such damage. Dragging the mauled body free of the dirt and duff that had partially covered it, the handler removed the GPS collar, shaking his head in disgust at the apparent brutality of any man who would kill a dog by ripping its entrails out as had apparently been done to the Shepherd. Removing his pack and crouching to stow the collar in it, the handler had just straightened up when the lion, a large male who had just finished feasting on the dog and who was not at all pleased to see his recently buried kill stolen by an interloping human, leaped from the spruce above and landed on his back.

Einar had assumed that the only way out of the crack was to descend the steep graveled incline and leave the same way he had entered, but upon exploring the end of the crack in the dimming light, he discovered that, far from being the sheer rock face it had appeared at a glance through his haze of exhaustion when he had first entered the place, there was an irregularity in the rock, a series of broken stair steps and ledged in the rough schist that might allow him to carefully make his way up and out of the crack. It would require a bit of climbing but, it looked to him, nothing too severe, and knowing that his left arm with the injured shoulder could not support too much of his weight, he gingerly tried the right, finding that, while any such effort hurt considerably, he could count on the arm to assist his climb, if necessary. Thats good. Never liked to go back the way I came. Makes me feel like Im walking into an ambush. It was a real concern; while he had no reason to think that he had been followed, and had heard nothing to indicate that anyone was waiting for him outside the crack, he knew that after the cabin his pursuers would likely be very reluctant to follow him into tight spots such as the one he had sheltered in, and it was not unreasonable to think that they might wait for him to exit on his own before attempting to take him. With that in mind, he started up the broken path in the rock, chilled to the bone and glad to be moving again, but soon a bit alarmed at the difficulty of his progress on rock that was, while thankfully abrasive enough to provide him relatively good traction, still wet and dripping and awfully slick in places. To further complicate matters, his left leg did not seem to be working properly at all, could not bear much weight and was constantly cramping or on the verge of it. What were you thinking, coming up here? By the time he had put nearly half of the elevation behind him, Einar knew that he had made a serious mistake in choosing to attempt the climb, but knew also that he would likely never make it back down the steep, slick rock if he stopped then. Downclimbing is always more difficult, and brings with it a much greater likelihood of falling than does ascending. He knew that the only hope was to go on. Reaching a wide ledge that afforded him a safe spot to pause and rest, Einar sank to his knees on the rock, nauseous and hurting, resting his head on the wall and pleading for the strength to go on, to finish the climb without slipping and tumbling to his death or, worse, giving in to what he was finding to be an incredibly powerful urge to let go and allow his struggle to be over. Somewhere in the course of the past few minutes of climbing, that possibility had somehow managed to work its way into his thoughts as an option, as something that could be considered, and he was not entirely sure that he even wanted to resist it at that point. The chasm below was calling to him, drawing him with a strength that scared him and left him doubting his ability to match it, and he knew he needed help if he was to resist its promise of rest, of an end to the ever-present hurt and exhaustion that seemed, at the moment, rather overwhelming. Please, let me want to live If Im going to go tonight, at least let it be while Im fighting to keep on, not crouched here on this ledge or splattered all over those rocks because I chose the easy way out. Please Einar waited there for some time as the cramp in his leg eased and darkness began creeping over the surrounding crags, and the help that he was pleading for did not come in the form of a blinding light or a sudden realization of some truth that let him see his predicament in some new way, but simply as a quiet acceptance of his situation and of the

value of the struggle, whatever its final outcome might be, that crept in and lessened the call of the dropoff behind him, and when he again looked up at the route above him it appeared clear and doable, if dim in the fading light, and he knew that there would be rest at the top, rest and a fine supper of cold dog lunchmeat. Hey, what could be better? Life isiswell, it is, anyway, and thats saying an awful lot, considering the circumstances. And he laughed a little as he struggled to drag himself up the rest of that crack in the rock, suddenly looking forward to a bit of dinner at the top, and to discovering just where he might be and what his route options looked like for the coming night, through whose dark hours he was pretty sure that he had better keep traveling, if the choppers were not pressing him too closely and keeping him pinned under the rocks for concealment.

Nine killed, dozens injured in mountainside blast

President vows renewed focus on domestic terrorism Wednesday, May 21 Associated Press Fugitive antigovernment extremist and survivalist Einar Asmundson continued his campaign of terror Tuesday in the deadly ambush of a team of federal agents who were attempting to apprehend him, blowing up the remote cabin that he had apparently been using as a hideout, a blast which resulted in the tragic deaths of nine FBI agents and the serious injury of seven others. The agents, acting on information gained from a routine night surveillance flight over the area, perished during the early morning hours as the booby trapped cabin where Asmundson was believed to be sleeping exploded, gouging a huge crater in the mountainside and sending trees and rock flying. Recovery efforts were still ongoing last night at the rugged, remote forested mountainside blast site, hampered by rain and gusting winds that grounded helicopters for hours at a time as crews worked frantically to evacuate the wounded and recover the dead. Authorities say that while indications are that Asmundson may have perished in the blast, they are taking nothing for granted, and an intensive search continues for him today, both on the ground and in the air. The governor today declared a state of emergency in Lakement County, allowing the activation of the National Guard to assist in the rescue and in the ongoing search for Asmundson, and at the same time the newly elected President declared the county a federal disaster area due to the ongoing threat posed by the fugitive, making additional federal resources and funding available for the hunt. In a prepared statement this morning at his daily press briefing, the President commented on the tragedy: Our thoughts and prayers this morning are with the families and friends of the federal agents who were tragically killed and wounded last night in the heroic attempt to apprehend this brutal terrorist. This case forcefully demonstrates the ongoing dangers posed by a particularly virulent strain of homegrown terrorism that clearly has no place in

a free and open Democratic society. It could even be said that these violent hate filled extremists, and the apparent willingness of some within local communities to aid and shelter them, pose a greater and more immediate threat to National Security than that presented by the ongoing specter of radical Islamic terrorism. These elements must and will be identified and eradicated, and to this end I will be working closely with my advisors over the next few days to craft a new policy in our war on terror, a shift in focus, if you will. In addition to the federal disaster declaration that makes available vast additional resources to those involved in this search, I have asked the Department of Homeland Security to work closely with the FBI, BATFE, U.S. Marshals Service and state and county agencies to bring this search to a quick and successful conclusion. The President refused questions on the matter, referring them to FBI Director Ferris Lee, who declined to give an official statement or address any questions, saying simply that We have no comment at this time, but are pursuing a full investigation into the blast. Sources within the FBI, speaking on condition of anonymity, say it is believed that Asmundson must have cached massive quantities of explosives at various locations in the nearly one hundred and fifty thousand acres of National Forest that surrounds the tiny mountain community of Culver Falls in the years before going on the run, and speculated that the fugitive likely also has strategically placed caches of food supplies and likely even weapons throughout the area, saying that this might explain why Asmundson had apparently stayed in the same general area for the duration of the search, and that it also presented the only reasonable explanation for the mans apparent ability to go for months at a time without contacting associates or re-supplying, even in the dead of winter. Ive been all over those mountains this spring, our FBI source told us, and theres just no way somebodys going to make it on his own out there, without supplies or ongoing assistance. Not possible. Prior to Tuesdays explosion, the last contact federal authorities had with the elusive mountain man was over a week prior, when FBI trackers led authorities to the remote camp of Culver Falls guide and outfitter Rob Warren who is believed to have been providing assistance to the fugitive. When the agents approached the camp, which evidence later suggested was occupied by Asmundson as well as Warren, one or both of the men opened fire, FBI agents returning it and, they believe, wounding Asmundson as he fled into the night and, as he had done so many times before, disappearing without a trace into the rugged and unforgiving wilderness that at times appears to act as his ally against the federal agents working to bring him to justice. FBI Director Ferris Lee, who was asked by the new administration to retain his post due to his familiarity with the case, said this morning that If Asmundson was wounded in the exchange with our agents over a week ago, we expect that he will seek out assistance from the local community, and I once again strongly urge any individual or individuals who may be contacted by him to inform us immediately so that he may be brought to justice. Failure to do so will be viewed as aiding and abetting, and will be vigorously prosecuted with all of the resources of the federal government. This is a very dangerous individual who had once again demonstrated his willingness to commit heinous and wanton acts of violence against

federal officers, and who poses a grave and ongoing danger to the citizens of Culver Falls and Lakemont County. Rob Warren, the outfitter alleged by the FBI to have been aiding the fugitive, was to die later that night from what authorities maintain was a self-inflicted gunshot wound after they surrounded him on the mountainside above his camp, a version of the incident that continues to be hotly disputed by those who knew the outfitter. Local wildlife worker Oscar Bennington, who was himself shot by searchers in a case of mistaken identity, has claimed that Warrens activities that night had nothing to do with Asmundson or the search, but that the outfitter was simply working to finish the elk tracking project that Bennington had been near concluding for the State Division of Wildlife when his arm was grazed by an FBI bullet, cutting short the project. In a telephone interview Sunday from his home in Culver Falls, clearly irate and at times emotional as he spoke of the death of his friend, Bennington provided our reporter with the following statement: Bet they didnt tell you what Rob was really doing up there, did they? Cause you know what? He was helping me out, doing me a favor after those (edited for language) tore up my arm shooting at me from that chopper. He knew that if I didnt get that data recorded right away, then two years worth of study and hard work were going to go down the drain. The feds know that. Rob had my radio gear with him, all my paperwork, too, and Im sure they found it, but do you think theyre gonna tell you that? No way! Because theyve decided my friend Rob is some sort of a monster, and theyre not going to tell you anything to the contrary. They know my radio stuff was on him and if they tell you any different, the scum are lyin to you! Which is apparently what they do best! Regardless of how and why Warren died, it is believed that he took the lives of four federal agent and wounded eight more with bullets from a rifle stolen in the struggle from one of the agents. The investigation into the incident is still ongoing, but, according to Bennington, If Rob shot at anybody, I can guarantee you they shot first. Which they should not have done, because that boy was a darn fine shot. Serves them right! The FBI emphatically disputes Benningtons assertions, labeling them absurd and insulting.

Finally making his way to the top of the crack and pulling himself up over the rim, Einar rolled over onto his back on the rocky ground beneath a sparse grove of stunted, wind twisted little aspens, waiting for his breathing to slow and staring up at a sky that was brilliantly clear and gleaming with the innumerable white pinpoints of stars on a cloudless night high in the mountains, still and cold and unblinking, appearing quite close enough to touch through the thin atmosphere. He had made it, had not fallen, and was immensely thankful, if nearly too exhausted to express it. Much as he wanted to remain still, to enjoy for a time the relatively diminished pain afforded him by the cessation of movement, Einar knew that he could not stay where he was. Already he was trembling in the breeze that played among the aspen leaves, rustling them with the sound of softly

falling water, and he knew that the first chopper or plane that took a course low over the ridge would easily spot him there in the open on the exposed rock. He sat up, hacked off a chunk of dog meat and chewed it as he squinted into the darkness in an effort to get a feel for the lay of the land about him, soon discovering that he was not on a ridge at all, having in fact emerged on a sort of flat-topped pinnacle, the ground dropping away sharply on all sides, falling almost vertically in places into a jumbled world of spires and broken outcroppings whose wet grey rock gleamed slightly in the starlight. Huh. Not so good. Wonder if theres even a way off this thing that wont get me killed if I dont wait for daylight? Moving cautiously he began exploring the place, finding the level area to be rather small and all potential exits to involve a bit of downclimbing, at least. There was no way to simply walk off the pinnacle and up into the forest above, as he wanted with increasing urgency to do, beginning to feel the familiar rumble of a helicopter somewhere in the distance. Ok. No concealment up on this flat spot. Got to get some rock over me, at least. Lacking other options, he backed down over the rim in the spot where the dropoff looked least severe, where it seemed that he might at least have a chance of finding a foothold. It was too dark to see the details of what he was getting into, but, the chopper growing louder, he lowered himself, supporting his weight with his elbows while probing the air with his feet for a place to stand. Not too far down Einar found a ledge that he could just reach with his toes, let himself drop onto it and rolled forward towards the rock face with the hope that he would not tumble further, which fortunately he did not. Feeling around in the darkness for any feature that might afford him concealment from the approaching helicopter, he discovered a leaning slab of slick wet rock that had fractured at some point from the face above, falling and coming to rest on the ledge, and he scrambled beneath it, huddling in the dripping darkness as the chopper passed low overhead, praying that the slabs bulk would be enough to conceal his thermal signature but doubting that it would, if the chopper lingered for long over the escarpment. Which it did not, skimming a nearby tree-covered ridge and thundering off into the night. Einar was relieved, but knew he must get off the spire and down as quickly as possible into the forest where he could move more freely and would have more options for shelter and concealment and water! Awful thirsty again In attempting to resume his descent, however, he quickly discovered that, in hiding from the passing helicopter, he had succeeded in trapping himself on the ledge. In the darkness he could not see exactly what was below him, but after a bit of careful exploration with a stick, and dropping a few small rock chips to listen to how they bounced and where they landed, he realized that any attempt to descend further without the benefit of daylight or at least a bit of moonlight would likely result in disaster. Back up, then, and find another way off. This is no place to spend a night. It did not take Einar long to realize that he lacked the strength to climb back up the way he had descended, but he tried it anyway, stopping after the third attempt resulted in him losing his grip on the rock with his right hand, dropping all of his weight onto his injured shoulder which of course gave way and sent him sprawling back onto the ledge, narrowly missing a nasty fall. Dragging himself back beneath the slab, he curled up to wait for the moon, whose course he had lost track of over the past two days of rain, but which he knew would be up eventually to aid his

descent. Huddling under the slab and trying his best to stay warm, Einar did what he could for his still-healing leg and the bites on his arm, changing the soaked Usnea dressings for dry ones that he had in his pack (well, they were dry, anyway, before that last rain. Dont know if Im doing more harm than good or not, here, but it seems wrong to leave the old ones on for much longer) and wishing that he still had some berberine solution to wash the wounds, and particularly the leg, which seemed significantly more swollen and tender than it had been over the last day or two, and had him worried a bit. He did find a chunk of Oregon grape root and chewed it, hoping to prevent the return of a full-blown infection in his leg. He could not shake a bad feeling that it might already be too late for that. Einar had not thought to notice, the last time it had been light, whether the alarming yellow cast to his skin had begun fading, but hoped that it might be safe to begin chewing the roots again, in moderation, after giving himself a break of nearly two days. Having tended as well as he was able to his injuries, Einar ate some more of his meat supply, dipping rather deeper into it than he had intended in an effort to stave off the increasing bitterness of the night chill, which he was finding terribly hard to tolerate in his wet and squishy clothes and with the constant breeze that the rock slab did not quite keep out. Finally, after what felt like many long slow hours of waiting, the moon made its appearance, and he began picking his way down the steep series of ledges, rockslides and dropoffs that separated him from the forest below. As he went, Einar saw an increase in the number and frequency of flights over his area, though they did not especially seem to be focusing on the series of outcroppings and ledges that concealed him as he carefully descended in the pale light of a quarter moon. The flights were slowing his descent though, forcing him to hole up frequently in rock crevices or beneath overhangs or, in the occasional absences of even these sources of cover, to simply press himself up against the rock face and hope for the best. The air activity was heavier than Einar ever remembered it being before, and he supposed that the blast at the cabin had really angered his pursuers, and perhaps at the same time added to their reluctance to pursue him on the ground, encouraging them to rely instead on locating him from the air. He could only hope that was the case, because he certainly had not been moving very fast that night, and knew he would be in real trouble if they ended up tracking him to the rocky pinnacle while he was still descending. During the intervals between flyovers Einar hurried, trying to keep himself from becoming too careless in his haste and knowing that one slip-up could easily result in a swift death, but at the same time badly needing some movement to keep the blood flowing. He was cold, shaking, soaked from traveling over rocky terrain that was universally wet and in places actually dripping, and he kept wondering why the descent seemed so very much longer than the climb had been. He guessed that he must have already downclimbed well over a thousand feet, and supposed he must be going down into a gorge of some type, but had seen no alternative, no place that offered him the opportunity to traverse to the side and halt his descent by taking off onto a forested slope. By the time he got out of the worst of the cliffs and ledges and reached the relative safety and stability of a steeply-angled rockslide, Einar had slipped, stumbled and nearly lost his footing so many times on the wet rock that it had all but ceased to alarm him. He was

immeasurably weary and numb in both mind and body, continuing more out of habit than because he possessed any real motivation to do so, and when he heard a plane and rolled beneath a spruce, the first substantial tree of any kind that he had encountered since leaving the pinnacle, he knew that he must soon have rest if he was to go on, regardless of the state of the search. As his breathing normalized and the blood stopped pounding so loudly in his ears, Einar could hear water, realized that he must be nearing a river or at least a major creek, and wished for a map so he could get some idea of how the ground search might reasonably go, and where the watercourse led. Such information would have been very helpful in planning his route over what he could only assume would be a very critical next few days as he worked to get himself out from under what was shaping to be the most serious and widespread effort yet at locating him. As he thought about it, it seemed to him that it would be a mistake to follow a river too closely, but if he could stay on the ridges high above it, thought that it could potentially provide him a quick and direct route out of the area. Got to have some water, maybe a little rest, before I do anything else. Ill see what things look like when I get down there, make a decision then about whether to follow the thing, or cross it and head up that opposite slope. Einar would not know it for nearly another hour, but he was to have little choice in the matter.

Recovery effort continues as hunt for Asmundson enters new phase

Dog handler found mauled to death, apparent victim of killer cat Friday, May 23 Associated Press National Forest above Culver Falls2500 feet up a remote mountainside from a rugged and nearly inaccessible wilderness valley in Lakemont County, the grim task of recovering bodies and identifying the dead continued this morning, three days after Tuesdays terrorist blast that is believed to have taken the lives of at least nine federal agents and seriously injured a number of others in the ongoing hunt for fugitive Einar Asmundson. Recovery efforts and identification of the mangled remains, having to be done in some cases through DNA analysis, had been severely hampered by the rainy weather, which finally moved out last evening. Authorities say they have narrowed down the type of explosives used in the ambush, and though they refuse to release any information at this time, our sources in the FBI and BATFE, who are working jointly under the Mountain Task Force umbrella to investigate the tragedy, tell us that These were definitely military-grade explosives. All signs point to the use of a very sophisticated device in this case. This was not the work of an amateur.

While there has been speculation that Asmundson himself may have perished in the blast, authorities continue an intensive search for him this morning in the rugged wilderness around the blast site, taking full advantage of the additional assets made available to them by the state and federal emergency and disaster declarations. Agents involved in the search refused to give any details of these assets or of the search strategy, saying that they believe Asmundson is likely receiving ongoing assistance from one or more of the local residents, and perhaps even a highly organized and tight-knit group of supporters. Not wanting to jeopardize the ongoing investigation or compromise the safety of their agents on the ground, all of our official sources have refused comment on the details of the search, with our confidential sources declining our questions on the matter, as well. In an attempt to ferret out the local aid officials believe is helping to shield and supply Asmundson in his continued evasion of their search efforts, Mountain Task Force spokesman B.J. DeLorre announced Wednesday that the reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone who might be providing assistance to the indicted terrorist has been increased to $100,000, on top of the $5 million being offered for Asmundsons capture. If anyone has information on the person or persons who may be aiding this dangerous killer, we once again urge them to come forward. The U.S. Attorney Generals Office is prepared to offer full immunity to anyone who comes forward with this information. To further compound this unfolding tragedy, an FBI dog handler believed to be on Asmundsons trail Tuesday night was found dead on Thursday, his mauled body partially buried on a hillside not far from the blast site, the apparent victim of a mountain lion attack. The dog has not been found, though the canine officers GPS tracking collar was discovered in the handlers backpack, indicating that he had discovered the dog, believed also to have fallen prey to the big cat, before being attacked. Wildlife officials were called in to trap the killer cat, but due to the nature of the search and the threat posed by Asmundson, if he is indeed still alive, law enforcement officials are not allowing them to go out without armed escorts, which, say the wildlife officers, may alert the cat to the ongoing presence of humans, scaring it deeper into the wilderness area where they are less likely to be able to find and destroy it. Following the tragic incident with the mountain lion, our federal sources say that the agencies involved in the search have instituted new rules that prohibit agents, including trackers and dog handlers, from going out alone. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of our sources tells us that, in addition to the vastly expanded air search, agents would likely be setting up listening posts on a number of ridge tops in the area with a special emphasis on routs that would likely be used by a fugitive attempting to leave the area of the blast, from which surveillance would be conducted both day and night using a number of sophisticated technological means that he declined to discuss. An independent analyst that we consulted told us that these means would likely include a variety of night vision, infrared and sound detection technologies to search for telling anomalies and unusual patterns that invite further investigation, as well as seismic detection devices to cover some of the obvious routes in and out of the area. Thats a vast, vast area they will be trying to cover, but with the

nearly unlimited resources now at their disposal, I would say the there is now a relatively high likelihood of success in the hunt for Asmundson, said the analyst. The residents of Lakemont County and in fact all of the citizens of a nation in shock and mourning at the loss of so many of our finest federal agents in the line of duty this week can certainly hope this is the case.

After quickly dispatching the man who had been attempting to steal his tasty supper of well-fed dog, the lion, finding the handler significantly less appetizing that his canine charge, partially buried the man on site, scratching dirt over him and dragging the dog some distance further up the hill and concealing it for his next meal.

Approaching the river cautiously, wary of remaining for long where the rushing of its water where would muffle other sounds that might warn him of the approach of danger, Einar quickly filled his mason jar with the achingly cold, slightly silty water, retreating a number of yards back up the slope to crouch beneath a tree and drink, where the sound of the water did not so completely fill his ears. Resting and waiting for his shivering to subside as his body struggled to assimilate the large quantity of icy water, he squinted down at the moonlight-dappled water, trying to decide on his best course of action. It seemed that his path down among the cliffs had led him to intersect the river at a fairly wide and shallow section which appeared quite crossable, unlike the narrow, cliff-bound torrent that the river became not too many yards in either direction The river was not, in fact, especially deep-looking at all, though he could tell by its roaring that it was still bringing down a good bit of water as the last vestiges of snow began melting out of the high basins. Einar knew that it would be a mistake to attempt crossing it in one of the deeper sections where the gorge narrowed and the water became smooth and dark and swift, especially with the trouble he was still having with his injured left leg, which continued to cramp badly, at times locking up and proving barely useful, but expected that he could manage alright, if he stick to the shallower water of the ford in front of him. Of course, Im already soaking wet as it is, so not much loss if I do fall down a time or two as I make my way across. This shallow spot looks long enough that I could probably work my way over to the side before I got carried out of it and into real trouble, even with only one good leg. He wondered for a minute whether the river, if he could find something to hang onto that would help ensure that his head would stay above the water, might provide him a good way out of the area, but hearing the way it thundered and boomed not much further down the gorge, he was pretty sure that any attempt to use the river for travel would be a mistake. Possibly a deadly one. He shuddered at the memory of his last encounter with a snowmelt-swollen river, and his near-death from hypothermia following the experience. And this water cant be more than a degree or two warmer than that was, and me in no better shape, either. So, across and up that opposite slope, and Ill be back on my way again. It would feel good to be out of the rocks, to be able to move at a more normal pace that would perhaps allow him to finally begin warming up a bit. He was looking forward to it.

Choosing a long stick to help him keep his balance as he crossed the river, Einar took off his boots, tied them together and slung them over his shoulder for the crossing, glancing around one final time at the black and silver world of the moonlit night forest around him, seeing nothing to arouse his suspicion but unable to shake a feeling of wrongness, of danger that he could not entirely attribute to the uneasiness brought him by his proximity to the deafening sounds of the river. He stopped at the waters edge, glanced around, hastily put his boots back on and hurried some distance back up the slope behind him, once again taking refuge beneath an evergreen and staring intently at the ridgeline of the slope opposite his, looking for anything that might explain his uneasiness, a glint of glass in the moonlight, perhaps, a light, anything There! That red glow. It had been visible for only the briefest fraction of a second, and might well have been a trick of his hunger and exhaustion-bleared vision, at that. Eye troubles had continued to plague him frequently over the past weeks, and Einar knew that they, combined with his lack of sleep or even adequate rest and the strain of the chase since the cabin blast could be playing tricks on his mind, conspiring to create a danger where none existed. He knew that it would not be the first time. Never before had his vision difficulties manifested themselves in such a manner, though, and Einar waited, scanning the ridge near its crest where he believed the source of the strange light to have been, but seeing nothing further, though he was twice certain that he heard sounds that seemed out of place. Einar never had the opportunity to investigate the noises up on the ridge, however, as the sound of an approaching chopper soon became audible over that of the river, and he was faced with the immediate dilemma of how best to conceal himself on that rocky and sparsely vegetated steep slope above the watercourse. The chopper, fortunately, was high and distant when he first heard it, and Einar, knowing that he likely had a minute or two before it came into view, hurried once again back down to the river, thinking that the overhung rock banks he had noticed as it narrowed a short distance downstream might serve better to conceal him than the thin and scraggly little spruce that he had sheltered beneath on the hillside. Reaching the river, urged on by the approaching rumble, he thought he sensed movement on the opposite hillside, froze and could make out what appeared to be two or three shadowy forms passing through a broad patch of moonlight high up on the ridge, headed his way, and he glanced at the water suddenly thinking that it looked like a very viable means of travel, indeed, but could see nothing to help him stay afloat in its frigid, swiftly-moving current, not so much as a piece of driftwood, and knew, besides, that going into the water would put him in direct view of the chopper when it showed up in moment, and he thought briefly about fleeing back up the rocky slope, but knew that to do so would mean trapping himself against a series of ledges and crags that he could not half expect to be able to climb. The chopper was close by that time and, out of ideas, Einar entered the water, which quickly rose above his knees, and inched along the vertical walls of rock that overhung the river as it thundered downstream, pressing himself into the rock and clinging to it as he inched along in a desperate attempt to conceal himself and keep his balance, knowing that it could not possibly be long before the current took him, and wondering briefly whether it would happen before the chopper neared enough that its crew saw him as an anomalous smear of heat plastered up against the cold rock wall.

The chopper was nearing and Einar, feeling along the wall with his foot before committing his weight to another step, discovered a small depression in the solid rock face, a place where the water had at some point worn a deep notch into the wall, and he slipped into it, crouching in the water and waiting, unable to hear the chopper or anything else, but hoping that he might be well-enough concealed.

Einar found the undercut bank he had dodged beneath to be somewhat similar to the one that had given him refuge back by the waterfall some time ago, but without the advantage of a cave at the back of it to crawl up into. He knew because he searched the area thoroughly, feeling with his hands and kicking at the wall, wanting to get as far in as possible to reduce his heat signature and, hopefully, to reach a place where he was not submerged nearly to his shoulders in the icy water. At least the water was not moving too swiftly there in the little cove; he was in no immediate danger of being dragged out into the current. Waiting, he wished he could hear the goings-on outside, wished he could hear anything at all over the rushing of the water, and wondered how he would know when it was safe to emerge from his hiding place if he could not tell when the chopper moved on, but knew that it would be a serious mistake to duck out from under the rock for a listen if the chopper happened to be hovering overhead. Which he did not expect it would, unless it had been called in as support for a ground crew that had reason to suspect his position, which was a genuine concern after the odd light he had been certain he saw up near the ridge crest, followed by the movement on the hillside. For all Einar knew, he might have been spotted. Crouching lower in the water until it came up past his chin, he looked out and caught a faint glow on the opposite bank, similar to the one he had been sure he saw higher up on the ridge, and as he watched, he was certain that he saw occasional movement out there in the shadows. He wondered if they had a way to know where he was, or if perhaps they had seen him as he descended the last bit of the opposite slope before losing track of him when he ducked beneath the undercut bank. He supposed they must have lost track of his position at some point, or surely they would have crossed the river and been on him, by then. Unless theyre waiting for backup, or something The thought occurred to him that perhaps the chopper could have been dropping off reinforcements, but he supposed such a response would have been far too quick, unless they had been watching him for some time as he descended from the pinnacle. Which is not at all impossible, especially if they had people up on top of that opposite ridge. That prospect very nearly convinced him to head out into the river and take his chances with the current and with being seen by whoever was moving around over on the opposite bank, but he forced himself to remain still, to wait, telling himself that to exit the shelter of the undercut bank at that point was almost certainly to be seen, if anyone was looking, and that there was, after all, at least some chance that they did not know exactly where he was, and that he might be able to wait them out. All I can really do is wait. Wait awhile, and hopefully theyll

decide that whatever alerted them was a false alarm, and move on. He certainly hoped that it would be soon, too, as he could tell that sitting there in the icy water for any length of time was going to be a very bad idea Einar waited, keeping himself more or less upright by leaning his knees against a large submerged rock, his elbows braced on his knees and his hands tucked under his chin for warmth, attempting to conserve heat as well as possible. More than once he caught himself on the edge of sleep, clutching the little fire steel that hung in its pouch around his neck and trying to remember what it felt like not to be freezing and wet, thinking that the way things were going, chances were awfully slim that he would ever get the opportunity to use it again, but that, if he did, it would be a sure sign that better times had come. And he thought of Liz, of the little cabin that had so often filled his dreams with the probably false! promise of what his life could be if he could ever make a good solid break from his pursuers, settle down somewhere and get back on his feet. It all seemed very real to him, very near, very possible as he constructed the story in his mind that night. Nonsense, all of it. You know youll never spend more than a few weeks in the same place, Einar. Unless they manage to get hold of you again, and then youll be looking back on this life and all this moving around and starving and such as the good old days. And he made an attempt to banish the dreams of Liz and of how things could perhaps be if circumstances could change just a bit, telling himself that such silly fantasies were not the least bit relevant to his immediate situation, which was at the moment looking undeniably dire. It wasnt long before the thoughts returned, though, and he made no further attempt to push them from his mind, as he was finding it dangerously difficult to stay awake, and it seemed that the semi-wakeful dreams gave him something to hold onto, something, perhaps, to keep his chilled, wandering mind from losing all contact with reality and allowing his body to shut down and sleep, as it was increasingly crying out to do, as the lapping water drew the warmth out of him and scattered it away downstream. Stay with me, Liz. Stay, if you can. And she did, but of course, as usual, would not let him rest and kept insisting over his protests that he must get moving again, resorting to kicking at his injured shoulder when he did not respond to her requests, until he began to think that perhaps he would have been rather better off by himself. Something slammed hard into his left shoulder as he crouched there, and Einar, startled finally into something near full wakefulness, put out his hand and discovered it to be a log, sodden and sitting low in the water and not terribly buoyant, but, he thought, perhaps buoyant enough to keep his head above water in the rougher sections of the river, if he tried it. Which he supposed he had better do, and with out too much delay. When he crouched lower in the water to allow himself a view of the far bank he could see the occasional movement in the scattered patches of moonlight, just enough to tell him that one or more of his pursuers still waited for him on the opposite bank, and he wondered if that meant that they had somehow detected his presence beneath the ledge. He supposed he might well be putting out enough heat to show up on infrared-based optics, if they were using such. Wont be for long, though, if I dont get out of this water. Thats a problem that is working on solving itself, and not in a way that I much care for. He had no idea how long he had been crouching there near sleep, but was well aware that it had

been too long. For another minute he debated with himself whether it would be better to attempt to retrace his steps along the rock face until he reached the wide spot in the river and go ahead and cross, or use the log and head down the river for a distance, and while he was anxious to be out of the water, and the sooner the better, the certainty that there had been people over on the other bank of the river and his complete lack of information as to their current positions kept him from seriously considering that option. And he knew from exploring that there was really no way out of the immediate area that did not involve crossing, unless he was to climb back up the way he had descended, which he knew was probably beyond his ability at that point, as well as being a sure way to expose his position to his pursuers. The thought of the river had, as he crouched there beneath the bank, lost much of the fear it had first held for him, anyway. At that point, almost anything seemed better than remaining in the dark and freezing confines of the little undercut, waiting to see whether his pursuers would find and decide to route him out before, or after the cold had completely incapacitated him. It was not a game Einar especially wanted to go on playing. Checking to make sure that the one windbreaker pocket that remained intact was zipped securely and contained as many of his possessions as it could reasonably hold, he secured the elk stomach pack over his shoulder, keeping it high in the hopes that he might avoid smashing the mason jar against a rock, tightened his boots as well as he could with his numbed fingers, tore off a few quick bites from the remainder of the dog haunch, and pushed the log out into the current. The river was swift and swept Einar along quickly, keeping the log near the undercut bank for a time as it carried him along between high walls of rock that drew rapidly closer together, concealing him from the ridge-top observation postand the three armed men that had scattered throughout the forest after a lookout had spotted Einar through his NV goggles as he had first made the final few hundred feet of the descent to the river almost before they got a look at him. But not quite. Immediately deafened by the roar of the water, Einar never even heard the chopper that quickly returned to hover over him, following the glowing smear of his head against the cold black water.

The river carried Einar for some distance as he struggled to keep his feet out in front of him where he could ward off the exposed rocks that otherwise threatened to slam into his head and knock him loose from the slippery log that, he was sure, was the only thing keeping his head above water. Somehow he managed to keep his grip through the worst of the rapids, and was spit out the far end into a stretch of relatively calm but still swift water as the canyon walls receded some and the valley once more opened up just a bit. As the roar faded from his ears Einar heard the chopper, looked up and was able, finally, to make out its shadowy form against the deep grey of a sky that was creeping towards morning. He ducked a bit lower in the water, knowing that he would be clearly visible nonetheless and thinking it a real possibility that someone in the chopper might start shooting at him, as the river calmed down and he become an easier target.

Knowing that he must get out of clear view of the chopper, he kicked towards the riverbank, felt the log snag on something, reached out with his right hand and found that the log had become tangled in a jumble of driftwood, branches and partial trees that had accumulated several feet high in a little backwater along the bank, and he had an idea, pulling himself along the snagged debris for a distance before ducking under the churning mess and beginning to pull himself back upstream, rising to get a breath now and then but mostly staying beneath the water, stopping when he felt the logjam thinning and surfacing for a quick breath now and then, keeping that up for as long as he could stand it but finally having to get his head above water and rest, hanging onto a floating spruce trunk and gasping for breath. Feeling above his head, Einar discovered that he was covered by a tangled, silt-and-ice encrusted mass of branches, driftwood and small trees, realizing at the same moment that such cover might well be enough to at least temporarily mask his thermal signature from the chopper that he could still hear rumbling overhead but not, he thought, as directly overhead as it had been before. It seemed to him that the sound of he chopper was focused somewhat downriver, near where he would have first gone under, and he was pretty sure they did not realize that he had pulled himself back upstream. And my skin must be getting down near the temperature of the water by now, anyway, and I dont know exactly how thatll be affecting my visibility, but its got to help It was not, though, a method of concealment that he supposed he would recommend at all. Not sure Im coming out of this one Einar waited and waited as the helicopter hovered above him, feeling eventually that he might not be able to maintain consciousness for too much longer, but at the same time knowing that he must not leave the cover of the logjam while the chopper lingered overhead. Struggling, he pulled himself up as far out of the water as was possible in that confined space, wedging his left arm firmly into a gap between two floating trees so that he would not, at least, slip entirely beneath the water if he did pass out, but he knew that it would not in the end matter all that much; if he lost consciousness then, he would not be waking back up. Waiting, he wondered if the long slow approach of hypothermic sleepgrey fading to a deeper blackness that morning beneath the silt-encrusted logjam was what it was going to mean, in the end, for him to die free. Einar supposed that he was ready for it, if the time had come, had been ready for some time, actually, as the life he had been living provided him a daily reminder of the infinitely fragile and temporary nature of earthly existence, but there was still something in him that made him want to fight it, well, to the death, and, finding himself hanging onto the fire steel and realizing how very, very badly he wanted to live, to see once again the long green days of summer, the crisp clear evenings when the coming chill turned the aspen leaves to gold on the mountainsides, to seeto see Liz again, Einar, shivering under the tangle of icy branches and struggling for words that seldom came easily to him, pleaded for the strength to let go, if thats what You want. I know my life is not my own, know Ive been living on borrowed time for an awful long while now, and if You mean for this to be the endOk. But if theres any way at allany way out of this and he waited, barely awake, feeling awfully alone and coming close to wondering if anyone had even heard him, but then the words came to him, not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, and they rang very true to Einar as he huddled there beneath the icy branches that morning, thinking that its a good thing, because I sure dont have any of those first two left at all, or any idea what to

do next, either It was only then that he realized that the rumble of the chopper was fading, receding, departing downriver, and he did not at first believe his ears, turning his head this way and that and finally, as the sound faded away entirely, certain of what he was hearing. It took no more than that to get Einar moving, dragging himself out from beneath his tangled, floating hide and scrambling towards the riverbank, telling himself that Im sure theyre not giving up that easily. Sothey must have to refuel, I guess. That meansCulver, probably, thatd be the closest, and thatshow far is that from here, anyway, I wonder? His mind badly clouded by the cold, Einar couldnt make enough sense out of the question to provide himself with an answer that he trusted, but he supposed he ought to have a few minutes, anyway, and knew that his best chance probably lay in creating a diversion for the chopper crew to focus on upon their return. He had an idea. Pulling himself up out of the water, very nearly too paralyzed by the cold to stand, Einar struggled to his feet and headed for the black bulk of the rock wall that loomed not fifty yards distant from the water, knowing that he had absolutely no time to lose if he wanted any chance of his plan succeeding, clumsily breaking handfulls of little dry twigs from the undersides of the branches of a spruce that stood near the wall. Einar didnt know what he was supposed to use for tinder, knew that he would be hard pressed to find anything at all, in a hurry and in the dark and without even a dry scrap of clothing on him that he could tear off and use to catch a spark, but then he remembered that there was a single cotton ball stowed in the waterproof match container that he had from Lizs backpack. He had carefully saved itnow to see just how waterproof that thing really isbut he quickly learned that his most immediate problem was to be getting the lid off, in the first place, a task which he finally accomplished by grasping the lid in his teeth, the little container between the heels of his freezing hands, and twisting in opposite directions. Everything inside had, in fact, remained dry, and he carefully pulled out the cotton ball, considering using one of the matches for the fire but knowing that, in his condition, he actually had perhaps a better chance with the fire steel. Hastily arranging the dry twigs in a rough cone shape over the cotton ball, which he had spread and fluffed out as well as he was able, Einar clamped the fire steel at a downward angle under the toe of his boot on a small flat rock that happened to be in the area, discovering that there was no way he could grasp the strikera modified length of dull hacksaw bladein his cold hands and finally squeezing it lengthwise between the heels of his hands forcefully enough that he was able to grip it as he struck sparks. It was a clumsy arrangement and Einar was clumsier still, but after several failed tries the cotton ball took, Einar getting down on ground level and blowing the little pile of twigs to flame, scrambling to his feet to gather more before it had time to die out. After the little fire had reached a point where it was no longer in immediate danger of going out, he broke some larger dead branches from the spruce and added them, shoving the rock he had propped the fire steel on into the flames and adding several others that he had tripped over as he searched for wood, thinking that they would help the area retain heat and give off a good, visible image long after the fire itself died. Not that youll be needing it to last that long. Theyre gonna have another chopper up here any minute. Get moving!

Seriously chilled from the water and knowing that he was about to reenter that icy current, Einar huddled briefly over the flames, knowing that by doing so he was only making it that much more difficult to force himself back into the frigid water, but thinking that if the fire warmed him even slightly, it might buy him another minute or two of useful movement and clear thinking once he returned to the water, minutes which might well end up making all the difference. His hope was that the chopper crew, seeing the fire, would remain in the area to watch and cover it as ground teams, who ought to be very cautious about approaching him at that point, came in to investigate. Of course, they would see no heat signature near the fire that especially resembled a human form, but he hoped that perhaps they might believe him to be sleeping beneath a rock ledge in the massive granite face that loomed above the little fire. Einar was well aware that the effects of the ruse, if it worked at all, would be temporary. They would bring in trackers and dogs, and at that point it would quickly become clear that he had reentered the river, rather than taking off into the woods. He knew that, in such a case, standard procedure for the handlers would be to take dogs along the river banks until they found the point where he had exited and picked up his trail, which was one reason why evading dogs by traveling down a river or creek was seldom the sure thing it is portrayed as in movies, or even, in most cases, a particularly helpful strategy, but he knew that in this case the terrain would work tremendously to his advantage. The dog teams would be dealing with incredibly rugged, rocky terrain, vertical or nearly so in places and extremely heavily forested, the riverbanks cut every few hundred yards by deep ravines and draws that would have to be crossed as the search progressed, slowing it greatly and providing numerous opportunities for injury to dogs and handlers alike. Einar, considering this, thought that he just might have a chance, if he could make it a good distance downstream while the chopper focused on his false camp, giving him time to find a good spot to exit the water and somehow make his getaway. Reluctantly tearing himself away from the fire before it had begun to warm him even to the point of being able to shiver vigorously again, Einar headed for the river, turning back at the last minute to snatch up two of the rocks that sat heating near the coals, wrapping them in pine duff and sticking them down inside his tucked-in shirt, thinking that, while they would by no means serve to counteract the icy grip of that water, their warmth could not hurt, either. Finding a floating log along the riverbank, Einar eased into the water and pushed off, the warm rocks sizzling and hissing as the water surrounded them.

The river, winding its way down between high rock walls that became more and more visible as the daylight strengthened, was also rapidly becoming rockier and Einar, having trouble enough as it was maintaining his hold on the slippery log that he had chosen as a floatation device, knew that he must get out. Besides the increasing danger of being slammed into a rock or trapped in a sieve and drowned, the rapids were preventing him from hearing when the chopper returned, which greatly increased his chances of being spotted. Waiting for a relatively tame stretch of water where the river relaxed its grip on him somewhat, Einar kicked for the bank, heading for the dark mouth of a heavily

timbered draw and reaching the bank not far downstream of it, rolling off of the log in the shallow water and using the submerged rocks and finally some exposed roots to drag himself up onto the spruce needle-covered ground. Exhausted, he lay there for a moment with his eyes closed, but knew that he did not dare allow himself to remain so for long, knew that if he did, one of his pursuerseither the search teams or the coldwould surely have him, and before too long. The draw he had chosen was a narrow, twisting thing, lined with trees and containing a small creek that tumbled down over the alternating moss-covered granite boulders and shale shelves that occupied its floor, which climbed quickly up into the dark timber. It looked alright to Einar, and seemed to offer at least some protection from the air, and hopefully a path out of the area. He wanted to get away from the water, knew that his pursuers would end up following it, probably very soon from the air and likely on the ground as well, though that would take a good bit longer. Lying on his back and staring up at the sky, he tried to judge the time and decided that it would probably be an hour, at most, until sunrise. The morning was still, clear and, he was pretty sure, judging by the partially frozen mud back on the riverbank, fairly cold, though it was difficult for him to tell, after all that time in the river. He was wanting to rest, to huddle down in the fairly dry duff and scrub oak leaves that had collected in a rocky alcove just up from the river, and sleep. Oak leaves. Must have lost a lot of elevation, for there to be oak leaves. And he crouched there for a minute, shivering, staring at the leaves and trying to get his brain to tell him what to do next, how and where he must travel to avoid the search that would be coming. In the distance he heard a chopper, knew from the sound that it was making a sharp turn, wheeling around, probably circling his dummy camp up by the granite face. Surely they would know soon, if they did not already, that he was not at that camp. Get up. Move. Go. Climb up this draw for awhile, just to get away from the river. Which he did, first dumping the water out of the elk stomach bag and using his teeth to rip off a piece of the small amount of remaining dog meat, pale and waterlogged and unappetizing but not, he supposed, dangerously spoiled after its time in the cold water. He realized then that he had, as he had feared might happen, lost the mason jar, which lay in shattered pieces at the bottom of the bag, one large chunk consisting of the base and a jagged inch or two of glass still intact. Knowing that he would eventually find a use for each and every glass shard from the broken jar, may be the last glass I see for awhile. Had a lot of plans for all those broken bottles back at that cabin. Oh, well Einar left them where they lay, intending to stop as soon as his walking had (hopefully) returned some circulation and flexibility to his hands and gather the pieces, stowing them in the intact section to keep them from eventually damaging the bag. He knew that any such attempt in his present half frozen condition would only leave him badly frustrated and with sliced-up fingers. To Einars dismay, the jar was no longer useful as a water carrying container, and he thought about returning to the river for a good long drink before heading up the draw, but the last thing he really wanted just then was anything more to do with the water. He was quite certain that he had swallowed more than enough while on the river to last him a good while, leaving him with an awful, sick waterlogged feeling that made it all the more difficult to feel at all like moving. He did it because he knew he must, knew that once he started, it would be far easier to keep moving than it had been to find the gumption to get himself going, in the first place. For awhile, at least.

Starting up the slope ahead of him, glancing back to make sure he was not leaving behind too much obvious sign, Einar saw the mess that his clumsy attempts at forward motion had made of the forest floor, went back and fixed it as well as he could, but realized that, while his trip down the river had perhaps allowed him for the moment to get out from beneath the most active portion of the search, it had also robbed him of any ability he might have had left to move quickly and carefully. He knew he would be leaving a trail, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, and would have to count on being able to make his way out of the area before they discovered its start. Pushing himself as hard as he was able, Einar climbed up the steep draw, staying in the trees a few yards up from the creek and refusing to allow himself to stop for quite some time, knowing that in the continued movement lay his only chance, and a slim one, at that, to escape with his life from his pursuers, and from the deadly stupor that his chilled, exhausted body so badly wanted to lapse into. When finally he had begun warming to the point where he thought himself perhaps capable of the task, he stopped beside a cluster of boulders and removed his drenched clothes, wringing out as much of the water as he could before struggling back into them and hurriedly inspecting his leg wound and the punctures on his arm, which had begun hurting again as some of the numbness began to leave him. The leg looked pretty bad after the day of neglect and the rough treatment of the river, the area around the wound once again alarmingly red and swollen, but the punctures and tearing on his arm, to his surprise, seemed rather improved, barely swollen anymore and showing, as yet, no sign of infection. There was a pretty good sized jaggededged flap of loose skin and flesh on the arm, though, where the dogs teeth had torn it as he had fought with the animal, and he knew that he would have to work hard to keep it clean as it hopefully healed and grew back together. Which it is not all that likely to do, I think. He supposed the poor circulation in his extremities during and after the extended soaking in the icy water probably would not have increased the chances of that happening. Needing some fresh Usnea to pack everything with, he glanced around for some, realizing then that he had noticed very little of it since leaving the river. While he knew the lichen was common in the spruce forests of the area, it was by no means universal, and it seemed that he had found his way into an area where it was very sparse. Got to be watching for it, collect some every chance I get. Dont have too many other options, and Ive got to keep the dirt out of these things, or Im done for, for sure In beginning his climb, Einar had taken off more or less at a right angle from the river, but he eventually realized that he had unconsciously gone back to paralleling it, if at a good distance, discovering this when he topped out on a little ridge and found himself looking down at it, some three or four hundred feet below him in a narrow gorge. Got to quit this. This is what theyll be doing, following the river, just as soon as they clear that camp back here, and maybe before, if they know what theyre doing. Which they probably do, by now. He was, in fact, rather surprised that the only air traffic he had so far needed to contend with had been two choppers that he had heard in the distance, following, he believed, the course of the river but apparently not repeating the route when a cursory search yielded nothing. Einar was not sure whether he ought to be encouraged, or worried, by this lack of activity in his immediate area, but supposed it meant that his

ruse had delayed them significantly, perhaps giving him time to lose himself in the endless sea of timbered ridges and rocky gorges that he was working hard to put between himself and his pursuers. Though he had been climbing, descending and weaving his way over and around a number of ridges, he realized by the changing vegetation that his course was definitely tending downward, and while this ordinarily would have alarmed Einarlower elevations are, after all, where the people usually areand caused him to remedy the situation by immediately seeking higher ground, that morning he welcomed the change, knowing that his enemies probably would be expecting him to go up, having learned that it was his usual course of action, and realizing that he needed any and every advantage available to him if he wanted a chance at making it through the day. Along those lines, he knew that if he could make his way into one of the less timbered, rockchoked canyons that he expected to begin seeing somewhere down around eight thousand feet elevation, he would be encountering summery weather that would, on clear days such as the one that was shaping up, heat the masses of rock and render the dreaded FLIR units carried by the choppers nearly useless in finding him, as long as he stuck to the canyons. There simply wouldnt be as much temperature variation between himself and the rock as was inevitable up in the high, damp forests. Plus, I wouldnt mind warming up a little, myself. Spent way too long in that water. Rolling up against a boulder at the approach of a small plane, Einar used the break to study what he could see of the land around him, deciding to follow what appeared to be a spur of rocky, treed land that descended gently, offering good cover from the air and plenty of places to hole up if the search got too hot. Following the spur for nearly a quarter of a mile, Einar reached a place where the trees ended and the terrain opened up, and carefully stepping out into the open area after listening for a full minute to make certain nothing was approaching by air, he found himself standing at the edge of a long vertical drop, looking down into a canyon still filled with shadow in the morning light, the rock falling away for more than eight hundred feet below his boots to end at a large river, and suddenly Einar knew exactly where he must be, and was startled at how far he had traveled since leaving the cabin. Must have been on that river for longer than I thought, last night Hearing a train whistle, he grabbed a spruce branch to steady himself and leaned out over the chasm until he could see the tracks, hugging the wall as they wound through the canyon on his side of the river. Well. I wonder

As the long heavy coal train labored up the gradually steepening grade, powered by three engines at the front, one in the middle and two at the back as it followed the rivers snaking path along the canyon floor, Einar lay on his stomach at the edge of the cliff and studied it intently, wondering what his chances might be of successfully hopping a similar train and letting it carry him clear of the search area. It was not moving all that fast, but he knew that he wasnt going to be doing too much actual running that day, and realized also that he really had only one arm at the moment that he could trust when it came to grabbing hold of a moving train, and it had just been chewed up by a dog. He flexed the arm, painfully opened and closed his right hand a couple of times. The entire lower arm was, despite showing remarkably little sign of infection, torn and badly bruised. He

would have been more comfortable with it in a sling. Ok, well as hard as that is, Im thinking its gonna be pretty interesting, trying to hop a moving train. Not the best odds. Sure would be a quick way out of here, though, maybe a way to break my trail for good, and it would certainly buy me some time, if nothing else. Unless someone saw me, of course, or I fell off and ended up under the train. Which actually would still break my trail, come to think of it He laughed a little, shook his head and grimaced at his lame attempt at humor where none was really called for, and, shivering again, scooted a couple more inches out into the warmth of the sun. Lying on the sunny ledge, mostly concealed from above by an overhanging evergreen, Einar inspected the cliffs below him, looking for any weakness in them that might allow him descent, finding none from his present vantage point but reluctant to move right away for a better view, still badly chilled and enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face and arms. While he had for some time been warm enough to function fairly well and even to use his hands some, the river had by no means loosed its grip on him, and he had found that morning that he quickly began shivering again every time he stopped for a break. Einar knew from experience that it would take many hours for him to feel normal againwhatever that means. Dont think Id know it if I saw it, at this point. Ravenous after his time in the water and the distance covered that morning and thinking that the addition of some calories might help warm him, he finished off the remains of the dog meat, using a rock to smash open one of the small metatarsal bones in the lower leg for its bit of fatty marrow but saving the larger bones, knowing that he might find himself badly needing the energy later. As he lay there watching the train disappear around the bend, Einar wondered, given a choice, whether he would be better off catching an Eastbound or a Westbound train, and his first thought was that it seemed like a bad idea to go too far West, where he knew the terrain quickly became far more open and desert-like, but when he thought about it, East over the mountains did not sound like an especially great plan, either. Einar shrugged. When it came down to it, while he urgently wanted to get out of the area, out from under the search where he did not have to be so awfully careful about everything he did, the truth was that he did not want to go too far. If I knew what I was doing, I could go down to a city somewhere, get cleaned up, get some kind of cash job for a few days, eat, (then eat some more!) come up with a new ID, and start over. But quite frankly, the idea of being in a place where he would be cut off from the familiar world of the mountains and surrounded by other people, even if they were not actively looking for him, was terrifying to Einar at that point, especially in his current condition. He knew he would be as out of place and lost there as a lifelong city resident who happened to get dumped in the middle of the National Forest. He shook his head. No. No way. Wish I could, butno. Not proud of it but I have my limits, and I think thats one of them. Kinda like Jeremiah Johnsons character in that movie, when his trapper friend tells him that maybe hed best go down to a town...get out of those mountains for awhile, seeing as several of the local tribes had apparently made it their mission to end his life. And Johnson just says, Ive been to a town Yep. Thats me. Einar, too, had been to a town, a time or two. It had been enough. He knew that his inability to adapt to that particular environment might well end up being his downfall, but it was one area where, perhaps to his

detriment, he was unwilling or unable to make the effort. While the backcountry had not been especially kind to him of late, it was what he knew, and he knew for certain that he could make a fine living there, and a fine life, too, if he could just get the searchers off his back so he could take full advantage of the resources available to him. And a train ride was looking like just the opportunity he needed to get started with that, but Einar knew that he had best not delay any further, being completely in the dark, aside from the somewhat reassuring scarcity of low-flying aircraft, as to the progress of the search. Ok then, if Im really gonna go down there, better see what I can do for these clothes, in case I happen to get spotted. Guess it would be best if I could look more like your average bum thanuhBigfoot or tzi the Iceman, or something. At least whats left of my clothes are fairly clean, after the river this morning. The river had done nothing for the bloodstain that covered the entire lower half of the left leg of his tan polypro pants, though, or for the tattered windbreaker that was missing much of its right side from the struggle with the dog. Well. Guess I just have to make sure nobody gets a look at me. Suppose I better hide the elk stomach under the jacket, anyway, just in case. And maybe get rid of some of this hair? He had let his hair go pretty wild over the past months on the theory that it might help just a tiny bit when it came to staying warm, and though he was pretty sure it had not actually done a lot of good in that regard, hed told himself that it helped camouflage him, anyway. About to hack some of it off with the pocket knife he thought better, deciding that it would be a very bad idea to potentially leave something behind for trackers to find. Ill just tuck it up into the hat, I guess. Exploring along the canyon rim, he found a spot that offered him a different perspective, seeing that the sheer, broken cliffs that separated him from the train tracks were cut in places by steep, timbered draws, appearing only very slightly less vertical than the canyon walls, themselves. Well, if trees can grow in it, I can climb it. Or descend it. And Einar hurried towards the nearest draw, finding that, though it did offer him passage, the task was not to be nearly so easy as he had optimistically tried to make himself believe it might be. Just over halfway down, having wedged himself in behind a scraggly little spruce that grew out of the severely angled rocky ground, Einar fought to catch his breath and adjusted the elk stomach pack, which had shifted dangerously and threatened to unbalance him as he had navigated a particularly unforgiving stretch of the descent, clinging to the thin, flexible branches of the scattered spruces and firs and praying that they did not come off in his hand as he put his weight on them. Tree rappelling. Hey, it works, usually Once, without realizing what he was doing, he had grabbed a smalldiameter dead fir, which had promptly come out of the ground in his hand, leaving him to slide eight or ten feet down the slope before again catching himself on a stunted little stand of chokecherry bushes, halting his fall just before things got steep enough that he would have begun tumbling. Einar continued very cautiously after that, knowing that, in addition to it being greatly preferable that he not end up taking the fastest way to the bottom, he absolutely must not knock rocks loose to go cascading down onto the train tracks, possibly alerting anyone who might be paying attention that someone or something was up in the cliffs. Several times on the descent he had heard helicopters or small planes, but they had not passed directly above him or anywhere close to it, seeming instead to be focusing on an area somewhat upstream, along the river. He supposed that

they must be searching the area where the river he had got dragged down emptied into the main one that followed the tracks. Time to get out of here, for sure! Resting behind the little spruce, wedged firmly to prevent himself from sliding, he watched a second train pass, also a coal train, heading East, as the first had been. Looks like that whole debate about which direction to go and how far I ought to ride is going to end up being irrelevant, anyway, because it seems I am going to have no choice but to take a coal train, and I dont see too many good hiding places on those coal cars. Gonna have to get back off before we get out to a place where things start to open up, and I might get spotted. And I cant climb up and ride in with the coal, with all these vultures buzzing around, so I guess Im going to have to crouch on that little ledge at the back, behind the ladder, and just hope the train is still going slow enough for me to get off without breaking something, when the time comes. He had heard of people taking refuge in the second or third engine on those trains, which were sometimes empty, unlocked and a rather comfortable ride, but Einar was more than happy to leave such pursuits to those who had less to lose than himself, if discovered. Continuing down, he reached a rocky promontory not a hundred feet above the tracks, pausing once again to survey the situation and noticing for the first time something that he had previously been prevented from seeing by the angle of the slope. Just a bit further upstream from the point where he would emerge from the draw was the start of a siding, running on the cliff side of the main track and winding around the bend out of sight with it. All right! Now, I may really have a chance. He knew that, as slow as he was moving and as much trouble as both of his arms were giving him, his chances of boarding a stopped train would be rather better than they would with one that was moving, even if slowly. In the distance he could just begin to hear a rumble, thought for a second that it was a helicopter but soon realized that another train was coming, and he scrambled to make the last hundred feet of the descent, just in case he might end up having the chance to get down there in time. Reaching the canyon floor ahead of the train, Einar painstakingly squeezed between the strands of cable that made up the railroads rock fall warning system, careful not to disturb them and trip the alarm, and hurried along the tracks at a weird limping run, relieved when he reached a clump of dense oak brush, already leafed out for the summer, that grew above the start of the siding. Throwing himself to the ground beneath the brush, Einar waited for the train, which was alarmingly close at that point. The tracks curved sharply just beyond his position, and he hoped it might provide him with a chance to board a train, should one end up stopping. Which the approaching train apparently intended on doing, as he could tell from the lessening rumble that its already sluggish pace was further slowing as it reached the siding. As the rumble of the train faded, it was replaced, to Einars dismay, by the drone of a low-flying helicopter, approaching from downriver and sounding like it must be traveling well below the level of the canyon rim. The oak scrub that concealed him offered little cover from the air. Far too little. Einar knew that he must act quickly.

Einar could tell that the chopper was close by the time he was able to hear it, and seeing that the train had nearly stopped, he scrambled down to the tracks and, without hesitation, up onto the back of one of the coal cars, pressing himself as far back as he could into the deep shadow against the hopper and balancing on the narrow ledge of steel that ran along its back, hoping the cover would be enough to prevent his being spotted from the air. The chopper, passing overhead moments after Einar had hidden himself, did not linger over the train, seeming intent on reaching some destination upriver. Hugely relieved, Einar stretched out on the ledge, bracing his feet against the steel ladder on the far side of the back of the car, anxious for the train to get moving, but determined to get a bit of rest while he could and knowing that there would be none once it got under way. The little ledge was covered in a fine coating of coal dust, as was the back of the hopper that he had huddled against in hiding from the chopper, and seeing how it had blackened his clothes wherever they had come into contact with it, Einar deliberately blackened the areas that were still tan, thinking that this would help some when it came to blending into the shadows and avoiding being seen. Before long the westbound traina long string of empty coal carspassed, leaving Einar wishing that he was capable of running along side it and grabbing on, supposing that he could have got down in one of those empty coal cars and perhaps ridden a good bit farther than he was going to be able to safely do in his current spot. Probably best that I cant, anyway, because it would be way too tempting, and Id probably end up getting spotted from the air that way, just as sure as if I climbed up into one of these loaded coal cars. Id just feel safer, until it happened. Not good. Down below here is the only place thats safe from aircraft. His train was moving again, slowly picking up speed, and he was sitting up and leaning forward on the narrow ledge, hanging onto the ladder for balance, bracing his feet against the vertical steel supports that ran from the top of the hopper to the steel rail that ran parallel to it just above the cars wheels. It was an unsteady arrangement at best, made more so by Einars weakness and the tendency of his legs to cramp up after less than a minute of bracing him against sliding off the ledge. It soon became apparent to him that the ride was not to be an especially comfortable one, and that his primary concern, in addition to finding a good place to jump back off, was going to be staying on the little ledge, in the first place. Before long his left leg, constantly working against the forces that were trying to drag him off the back of the car, was cramping up badly enough that he knew he must not continue to rely on it, and Einar lunged for the ladder on the river side of the car, wrapping both arms through its rungs and clinging there as the train continued to pick up speed, crouching with both feet on the rail at the ladders bottom. As he rode, Einar watched for a reasonable-looking place to jump off, knowing that he had to make it soon lest he end up riding out of the canyon and into the open country beyond where the tracks, at some point, paralleled a major highway. A nearly idea situation, he thought, and one that could really end up confusing his pursuers and further breaking his trail, would be if he could get off the eastbound train fairly soon, and somehow hop a westbound, getting himself far out of the search area and in a direction opposite to the one his pursuers would be expecting, if and when they tracked him down to the canyon rim and realized what he had likely done. Because he still very much

doubted his ability to board a moving train without serious injury or worse, Einar knew that for such a plan to succeed, he would probably have to walk back to the siding where he had originally hopped the train and wait for a westbounda risky proposal, considering that he had no idea how far behind him his pursuers might be, and also considering that there was no concealment from the air in the area where he would have to wait. Another option was to stay on the train, ride it out of the canyon and wait until it passed another siding, jumping off there and waiting for a westbound train to stop. While that seemed perhaps the better of the two plans, the idea of clinging to the side of the coal car in full view of the Interstate highway for several miles seemed like a very bad one, indeed, for someone in his situation. Alright then, better get off pretty soon here, because were almost out of the canyon. His boot soles, worn very nearly smooth after months of hard use, gave him almost no traction on the metal ladder and the surrounding steel supports, which were damp and slippery in places from contact with his wet clothes, and it proved to be quite a challenge to get himself around and standing on the outside of the it, where he waited until most of the cars in front of his disappeared around a curve and he could no longer see the engine at the back, and let go, kicking off from the ladder and doing his best to keep his injured shoulder from absorbing too much of the initial blow before rolling and tumbling down the steep coal covered bank towards the river. Einars tumble was brought up short by a willow thicket, and he lay there for a moment tangled in the flexible, tangy-smelling willow shoots, very grateful that they had stopped his fall before the boulders along the riverbank had got the chance to do it. Finally dragging himself up to his hands and knees Einar set about trying to determine whether or not he was still in one piece, which, somewhat to his surprise, he seemed more or less to be, if a bit more battered and bruised than he had been before. Peeling off a long strip of inner bark from one of the willows that had snapped in breaking his fall, he stuffed it into his mouth and chewed, gathering more and adding it to the contents of the elk stomach. He could tell he was going to need it. Now to get out of here before another chopper comes, or they somehow get the idea that they need to search the tracks for a few miles in here, or something. He wanted get over to the other side of the river, knowing that his travel options would be far more numerous if he could head up into the series of canyons and plateaus that made up the immediate landscape over there, and he wormed his way down through the willow thicket to get a look at the river. While fairly high and swift looking, the river was past the high water stage, and Einar knew from the look of it that he could handle a trip across it, especially if he had a float of some kind. The float problem solved itself very quickly, as he discovered that a number of logs and large pieces of driftwood had been deposited on a nearby gravel bar by the receding water, and, going down to investigate, stumbled on a very valuable discovery. Just inside the willow scrub down near the gravel bar was a place where rafters or canoers had apparently camped not too long ago, and they had been sloppy. Among an assortment of broken bottles and paper trash, Einar found several empty beer cans, a tangle of monofilament line with a rusty fishhook and float attached, and, hanging from a tree, an abandoned pair of jeans and two socks that, if mismatched and a bit weather-damaged, were certainly in better shape than the badly worn pair he currently had. Near the firepit

he also found two plastic grocery bags, one empty save for accumulated rainwater, but the other containing a partially rotted apple, the edible portions of which he quickly devoured before exploring the rest of the camp, finding himself terribly grateful for the existence of careless and unethical campers. The only other really useful items he came across in his hasty survey of the area were a lone tent stake and a nylon drawstring bag that looked like it had probably once held tent poles. The bag had some slight damage to one corner where a mouse or other small creature had done some experimental chewing, but it was otherwise in fine shape, and, along with the plastic bags, a better container than anything he currently had with him. The elk stomach was in sorry shape, and had been nearly finished off by the tumble down the bank from the tracks, having been sliced in several places by the remnants of the mason jar that it had still contained. Wadding it up and stuffing it into the bottom of the nylon sack to plug the hole, he loaded everything into the sack, and hurried down to the river to choose a float log. Finding another long piece of monofilament and a half-empty jar of salmon eggs as he looked over the float choices, Einar thought, wow, if I could follow this river for a mile or so, imagine the wealth I might come up with, and then fish for dinner! Which he knew was an absurd and dangerous thought. Get away from this river, Einar, and dont come back. Or they will soon have you! He was nervous enough about crossing the river, spending all that time in the open to possibly be seen by a passing plane or chopper, but it seemed not quite as risky as remaining on the coal train would have been, and was one of very few options that he saw open to him. Ok, one more time in the water, and then no more! So get it over with, before another buzzard comes along and you lose the chance. And he pushed the log out into the water ahead of him, kicking against the powerful current and making it to the far bank a good distance downstream from where he had entered, leaving the river in a rocky area where he knew he would leave no sign of his passage, at least not one that would persist after his dripping slug-trail across the rocks dried and disappeared. Einar knew that there was a possibility that his pursuers might eventually work out parts of his trail and figure out what he had done, but he doubted it, and doubted even more strongly that they would be able to do so before his scent trail faded and whatever traces his passage left behind were erased by time and weather. For the first time in many days, he had genuine hope that he might have finally left his pursuers behind. It was spring down on the canyon floor, late spring and warm, and Einar was free. And awfully hungry, and finding himself barely able to move, as he stiffened up from his tumble down the riverbank. Well, at least it is warm. Seeing a spot only a few hundred feet above the canyon floor where the dark timber came down to meet the orange rock of the canyon, he headed up the draw for it, thinking that it looked like prime grouse country, and that the trees would provide him aerial cover as he put some distance behind him, while allowing him to remain close to the warmed rocks of the canyon, in which he hoped to take refuge for the night, where their radiating heat would help protect him from infrared detection, and possibly allow him to sleep a bit warmer than he was used to of late, also.

Just before starting the climb up out of the canyon. Einar spotted the green tops of a

couple of small cottonwoods not far up from where he was, and, knowing they were a sure sign of water, went to investigate. He wanted water to take with him for the night, but had not thought it a wise idea to spend the time back at the river bank to collect it, nor had he especially wished to intentionally drink water from such a major river, without first boiling it, as he knew he would not be in a position to do for some time. The cottonwoods, as it turned out, surrounded a small seep on the lower edge of which also grew a dense thicket of willows and, near a small pool of accumulated water, a few scattered cattails. Thirsty and also somewhat anxious to be up under the protection of the tree, Einar was about to go ahead and drink from the pool, but the memory of his recent battle with Giardia was still very fresh in his mind, and its symptoms had not, in fact, entirely left him. He knew this put him at greater risk of re-infection, and had no desire to repeat that experience; he was not, in fact, at all sure that he could survive another such incident, following so closely on the last one, especially considering the negative reaction that he had been beginning to have to the levels of Oregon grape root that had been necessary to give him relief and treat the infection in his leg. But Ive got to drink, or the result ends up being the same, anyway So he compromised, digging out a narrow hole just over a foot deep in the sandy soil several feet distant from the pool, knowing that it ought to soon fill, the water filtering through the sand andhopefullyleaving most of the organisms that might harm him trapped in it. He knew that it was not a sure thing, but the possibility was worth the minimal effort of digging the hole. Washing out and filling the two empty beer cans that he had salvaged for canteens in the accumulated water, Einar used chunks from a dried mullein stalk that he found nearby, its core pithy and corklike, to stop up the openings before stowing them back in the tent-pole bag. He broke off two more of the stalks and stuck them in the bag, also knowing he would have a use for them later. Finding a sharply broken cottonwood branch on the ground, the apparent victim of a wind gust, he used it to dig down in the soft, oozy mud around several of the cattails and collect their starchy roots, which he knew would provide him with some decent food, as soon as he was able to have a fire to boil them, after which he would be able to scrape a wonderful starchy mashed-potato-like substance off of the root fibers. His stomach growled painfully at the thought. Mmm mashed cattail root with grouse gravy! Now that sounds awfully good! So very good. Wont be long, and Ill be eating like that He hoped. Even lacking the ability to cook the roots, he knew that he could submerge them in water if I had a big enough containerhave to work on that, break them up to free the starch, let it settle and pour off the water and fibers, leaving himself with a soupy, starchy mess that, while it would still be better cooked, would provide him some measure of nutrition, at least, in its raw state. The plant stalks themselves, though, gave him something that he did not have to wait at all to eat, and, sitting on a nearby rock, he peeled the lower foot or so of the stalks, enjoying the sweet, slightly crunchy centers which ranged from white to a very pale green and thinking that, if it had not been so long since he had tasted any, he might have compared them to a blander version of celery. He could tell that it would not be too many more weeks before the cattails sent up their bloom spikes and, later, the protein-rich pollen heads that had provided some of the native tribes with a flour substitute. Hope to find a bigger patch, by then. I count less than eight of these things, right here. Before leaving the seep, Einar drank his fill from his little water collection hole and, having decided they

ought to prove useful to him in obtaining some food in the near future, cut a number of the straightest willow stalks that he could find, choosing them from scattered locations around the seep and leaving the cuts rough, carefully dabbing a bit of mud over each one to make it a bit less noticeable. He bundled up the willow shoots with strips torn out of the cattail leavesnot an especially durable cordage, but adequate for his purposes, and slung them over his right shoulder as he climbed, glad that willow wood is reasonably light. On he was up to the trees, he collected a few Oregon grape roots, stopping to fill the little plastic bag from the first aid kit with water from one of his improvised canteens and break up one of the roots into it, securing it under the waistband of his pants to begin warming for cleaning his leg wound when he stopped for the evening. It was looking bad after the frantic running and rough treatment it had seen over the past two days, and had not been especially clean after the train ride and tumble down the bank, at some point during which the bandage had been ripped off, yet again. The river crossing had removed any visible debris that might have become imbedded in it, but Einar knew that he was still at serious risk for a debilitating and ultimately probably deadly system-wide infection, if he did not tend to it properly. Or as close as he could come, anyway. As he climbed he chewed on one of the roots for good measure. Shortly after reaching the evergreens, Einar began noticing a number of low-growing leafy plants with round purple flower clusters and, recognizing them as dwarf waterleaf, which has an edible if nearly tasteless root, he began pausing to dig them up, ending up with a fist-sized pile of the slightly starchy little off-white tubers. Again, not going to be all that digestible unless I can somehow heat them first, but theyre something, anyway. He knew that the leaves, too, could be eaten, though they were far better before the plant had flowered. Not long after digging the last of the waterleaf roots that he was to collect that day, Einar surprised a pair of grouse, the birds taking off with a thunder of wings into the high branches of a nearby Ponderosa pine, and though he waited quietly in a nearby thicket for some time with a rock, they did not seem inclined to return to the ground, and he eventually moved on. Tomorrow, I will use some of these willows to build a box trap for one of you fool hens. Yep, the willows, half an hour or so, and a few feet of that fish line I found down at the river, and Ill have it. Then maybe that trap can get me some dinner, while Im working on something else. Or sleeping, even. Einars pace was beginning to seriously drag as the day wore on, and when tried to think back to the last time he had been able to get any appreciable amount of sleep (or food. A person really does need one or the other, now and then) he found himself not at all surprised. As the pressing need to evade what had for a time appeared almost certain capture had diminished and the adrenalin worn off some, the reality of his starved and worn out state had returned to weigh heavily on Einar, leaving him wishing for nothing so much as a good meal followed by about a month of uninterrupted sleep. Well, you can forget about that, but perhaps this will be a good night for sleeping, at least. By the time he was satisfied with the distance he had put behind him, it was approaching dark, and Einar knew that he must look for shelter before he lost the light entirely. Temperatures had dropped some as he climbed, and he wanted to get down in the heat-radiating rocks to sleep, and make sure he had some good insulation, too, because his clothes, while mostly

dry after the climb in the sun, were still a bit damp around the seams. The spare pair of jeans that he had found at the river camp had very nearly dried, attached to the back of his pack to hang in the sunlight, and he supposed that they would do very well as an extra layer of insulation that night. As he prepared his bed beneath one of the numerous overhangs in the upper reaches of the red rock canyon country just below the evergreens, Einars thoughts were occupied with the details of the grouse trap, leaving the bird, by the time he was finished working on the shelter, nearly as good as caught, in his mind. For that evening, though, the grouse remained well out of his reach, and while he did have the raw waterleaf roots and a few ants and ant eggs from a nest he found beneath a rock near the shelter, he found himself too hungry to think much of sleep, despite his exhaustion, and cracked open the large bone from the dogs leg for the marrow, finished it, and moved on to the little jar of salmon eggs he had found down by the river. He had intended to save them for later use as bait in a fish trap or even for small mammals which he knew might not eat them, not caring for the taste of whatever they were cured in, but would definitely be attracted by the smell. By the time the sun finally dipped below the horizon and the cold began returning the salmon eggs were looking awfully good, though, and he struggled to limit himself to just under half of them, not feeling so well afterwards and wondering just what the things were cured with, anyway Oh well. Probably nothing that will kill me, this once. Got to come up with some real food, tomorrow. Probably before I do too much more traveling, it looks like. And he curled up in the little rock crevice feeling less hungry if only because his stomach was upset, having dragged in enough of last years oak leaves to insulate himself somewhat from the rocky ground and stuffed more into his top and the right leg of his pants, covering up with the nearly dry pair of jeans from the river camp and quickly falling into a deep sleep from which he did not waken fully until well after dawn the following day. Numerous times in the night he did hear the rumble of helicopters, but the sound was always reassuringly distant. His hunger finally overcoming the need to go on sleeping, Einar squinted out at the brightness of a day already bathed in sunlight, the knowledge that he had to get some more to eat, and quickly, reinforced by the terrible dizziness that came over him when he tried to sit up. Time to make that trap.

Before beginning work on the trap, Einar tended to the exit wound on his leg, washing it with the berberine solution that had been soaking in the ziplock bag overnight and bandaging it with a mullein leaf from a nearby plant, being out of Usnea and having seen none in the nearby trees the last evening. The wound did not look especially good that morning, but he took it as a good sign that he did not, at least, seem especially feverish. Perhaps it was still on the mend, despite being neglected out of necessity while he fled. Breaking the willow sticks up into lengths that varied from two or more feet down to five or six inches, Einar chose two of the stoutest, longest ones for his starting sticks, laying them parallel to each other on the ground and connecting their ends with pieces of monofilament that were approximately one and a half times their own length, ending up

with a rectangle, the long sides of which were made up of the fishing line. He then flipped one of the two starting sticks over, twisting it so that the lines formed an X between them, and lay it flat on the ground, weaving in the sticks he had broken, adding them one by one by passing them beneath the X of monofilament, one on one side, then one on the other, building a roughly pyramid-shaped cage as more were added. Adding shorter and shorter sticks as the box took shape, he finished it off with a couple of short sticks to close off the hole at the top, then picked up the trap to test its tension, seeing that things were a bit loose still, allowing the box to shift when he moved it, and he remedied this by adding another layer of sticks at the top, cinching everything more tightly together. Einar stood back, satisfied, glad that the monofilament seemed adequate to the task. He had made these traps in the past, but had always used paracord or improvised cordage of some type, and had been concerned that the fishing line might not stretch enough to allow the box to be made, or that it might be so slippery that the sticks on the finished box would slide around too much. While he could tell that the box would have been just a bit more stable had he used nettle or some similar cordage, it seemed that his creation would work just fine. Now, for some bait. He had gathered a few of last years brown curly dock seed stalks as he walked that previous evening, intending to eat their tiny, slightly bitter buckwheat-shaped seeds himself at some point, but wondered if the birds might like them. He supposed they would, and secured one of the bunches to the end of the thin trigger stick he had made from a willow twig, splitting it and inserting the dock stem into the split so that the bird should trip the trap when it began picking at the seeds. Choosing a flat spot beneath a large Ponderosa near where he had seen the birds the previous evening, he set the trap, carefully balancing the trigger stick between the bottom of the box and an upright that he placed under it at a slight angle. Testing the trigger with a light touch from another stick, he was satisfied that a bird should easily trip it. Scattering a few loose dock seeds on the ground around the trap and carefully leaning a few twigs and small branches along the sides of the box to prevent the birds from reaching in for the seeds rather than walking completely under the box, he left the area, praying that the trap would be discovered, and yield him some food. Returning to his bed in the rock crevice, Einar considered braiding together a few strands of the monofilament and setting out a few squirrel or rabbit snares, but decided against it, not wanting to stay in his present location any longer than necessary, believing it to be far too close for comfort to the canyon, and knowing that it would likely be many hours, or even the next morning, before snares yielded anything. Its certainly too close to risk a fire. Ever! I dont want to really settle in until Ive put a good many more miles behind me. And, though their rumbling was muffled by distance, he could still hear the occasional helicopter over in the direction of the canyon that morning, telling him that the search was still very active and keeping him always on edge, anxious to move further from it. He knew that if the trap did not produce, he would have to continue the journey without the benefit of a real meal, relying on the meager nutrition that his body might be able to squeeze out of the uncooked waterleaf and cattail roots, and whatever ants and other insects he might be able to come up with by turning over nearby rocks. If he was really lucky, he would be able to come up with a fatty grub or two from a rotten stump. I can do that, if I have to. Can keep going for awhile on that. Sure would be good if that trap works out, though. He was beginning to recognize the signs that he was, once again,

getting onto dangerous ground in regards to his food needs, his heart racing and beating irregularly at times and leaving him dizzy and light headed and struggling for breath, his vision blurring more frequently. Well. Covered a lot of distance these past few days. Guess this should not surprise me. Einar, hoping that perhaps he would feel better after some rest and knowing that he must take advantage of every opportunity to get it against the time when he had to move on again, and finding himself with little choice in the matter, anyway, collapsed on his bed of oak leaves, pulled the jeans up over his torso for added warmth, and slept, dreaming of mashed potatoes and gravy, of a grouse browning over the fire, crackling and dripping fat. The sound of an angry bird woke Einar to find that the sun was already high in the sky, snapping him quickly out of the fog of sleep to lie perfectly still for a moment, unsure of exactly what he was hearing until he remembered the grouse trap. Dinner, I think! Which turned out to be the case, leaving Einar, as he carefully lifted one of the crossed sticks aside and reached in his hand to secure the bird, sorry that he could not have a fire. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to carry the bird with him, see how much ground he could cover before dusk, and find a safe spot for a small fire so he could cook it. Not much, he told himself, not much ground at all, Einar. Not enough for you to have a fire, Im pretty sure. Which, despite being willing to go ahead and make the effort if there seemed a good reason to do it, he knew was the truth. He was dizzy, barely able to walk straight, relying heavily on the trees that he passed to keep him upright as he stumbled around the hillside. Got to eat. Now. Which he did, thinking that he had never tasted better bird sushi in his life and feeling a great deal more ready to get up and go on, afterwards.

When Todd Leer had ended his FBI career after Einars escape from custody the previous spring, he had never intended to look back, let alone go back, and had been leading a nice quiet life with his family in a large beach home on the California coast, managing stadium security for a major sports franchise and doing some consulting work here and there when that did not keep him as busy as he liked to be. He was, then, somewhat surprised and a bit dismayed when FBI Director Ferris Lee showed up at his door one Sunday morning. The two of them had never known each other well, but their relationship, during the search for Einar, at least, had been somewhat adversarial as the Director continually pressured Leer for results in the hunt, and tended to blame him as it dragged on month after month without success or conclusion. Leers attitude was deferential that morning, though, remarkably humble and subdued in comparison to his typical demeanor, and Leer picked up on it immediately, and wondered what the Director wanted. Director Ferris Lee had a major problem. Having agreed at the request of the new President to remain as FBI Director for the specific reason that he was already familiar with the Asmundson manhunt, which had been declared a top domestic security priority by the new administration, he had been under tremendous pressure to begin producing appreciable results. And that was before the nine agents lost their lives in the cabin blast. That, combined with the preexisting inclination of the new administration to prefer focusing on the politically charged and largely trumped-up specter of domestic

terrorism rather than on foreign threats, had left Lee in a very tight spot. In the months since Einars escape, he had presided over the coming and going of five different Mountain Task force heads, two of which had actually resigned, with the remaining three urgently requesting reassignment. The Director, then, knew he needed Todd Leer. Leer, though he had not, of course, effected Einars capture during his time at the old feed store in Culver Falls, certainly had the drive and intensity that the Director knew would be necessary in the man who was to head the remainder of the search, and Ferris Lee knew that, while he might not admit it, Leer had been personally humiliated by Asmundsons persistent resistance to capture. He knew that the man would likely relish the opportunity, aided by the nearly limitless resources made available to the search after the cabin blast, to begin rectifying that situation and restoring his good name and pride. That morning, sitting at Todd Leers dining room table and using plain, open language of a nature that his associates were not accustomed to hearing from him, the Director laid out his proposal. You know, Todd, I had intended on retiring soon, and do not plan on serving out this entire term. As soon as Asmundson is brought in, I will to do just that. Now seeing that the President has made this case his top domestic security priority, it seems to me that whoever heads up the Mountain Task Force has a pretty good chance of being offered the position of Director, when I leave That was all it took. Leer told the Director that he would need a couple of days to consider the offer, but Ferris Lee saw the gleam in his eyes, and as he boarded his private jet that morning and headed back to Washington, he knew that his mission had been a success. He had a good feeling that things were about to turn around.

Taking apart the trap and bundling up the sticks with the monofilament for later use, Einar continued on his way, traveling in the trees near the rim of the little canyon and finding that his energy level had been helped tremendously by the grouse, part of which he had saved and carried with him in the hopes that he might be able to enjoy at least a bit of the bird cooked, if he should manage to reach a place where he decided fire was safe, before getting too hungry and worn out again and having to finish it off. It was a nice thought, but he rather doubted it would happen. Difficult as it was to do entirely without fire, it was, he told himself, an awful lot easier than being discovered and having to run again, and Einar doubted that he would find himself willing to risk a fire any time soon. The train ride had given him a chance to baffle and possibly entirely lose his pursuers, which brought with it the possibility that he might finally be able to get a chance to stay in one place for long enough to really get a trapline going, allowing him the weeks of undisturbed rest and recovery that he knew he must have, at some point, if he wanted any chance of making it through the next winter. Or, realistically, the next couple of months, even. It was an opportunity that he had been badly needing for some time, and the apparent success of his escape seemed to him very nearly too good to be true. There was no way he was going to risk losing the advantage it had afforded him in trade for some roast grouse. And, at least it is warmer now. If I went without fire for weeks at a time last winter, I can certainly do it now.

Finally making it up to the top of the miles-long draw that he had been roughly following since leaving the river, Einar emerged onto the enormously spacious, high plateau at its end, mostly forested but broken up here and there by grassy meadows that ranged in size from a few acres to well over a hundred, green and beginning to be dotted and splashed with the reds and whites and purples of the Indian paintbrushes and bistorts and dwarf lupines, as a vibrant variety of plants competed with each other to take advantage of the few short weeks of warm weather to send up shoots, flower, pollinate and drop their seeds before the snow returned. Standing beneath a cluster of limber pines and looking over the vast landscape that lay spread out before him, Einar, who had suspected as much but been up to that point unable to confirm it, knew then exactly where he was. He had, by a most circuitous path, returned to the plateau, many thousands of acres in size, where he had escaped from the helicopter the previous fall by falling into the lake and being helped by the sheepherder. Briefly he wondered about the man, a Basque whose name he had never even gotten, and hoped no harm had come to him when the searchers questioned him. Einar knew that if he would just stay away from lakes and the few rocky jeep roads that wound their way across the plateau, he would be unlikely to encounter anyone, except perhaps during hunting season, when he knew he would have to lie low. So then, if I plan to stay up here, all the more reason to hurry up and find a place to shelter, and start spending all of my time and energy on getting ready for winter. Because Ill more or less lose that last snow-free month or so to hunting season. He set a distant rise in the spruce-covered ground, its rocky. Oddly shaped top well above treeline, as his goal, deciding that if he could get around to the far side of it, he ought to be far enough from the search area to begin looking for some more permanent shelter. The day that had started clear and warm appeared determined to end overcast and possibly stormy; Einar was sure that he smelled rain in the wind that crackled cold and sharp over the plateau, gaining momentum as it raced through the open meadows before being pulled down into the canyon with a force that convinced Einar that he did not want to spend the night, which was fast approaching, up on top. Better look for some shelter down below the rim, here, or Im gonna get soaked if it does rain, with the wind blowing sideways like this. Hunting for a way down among the steep and broken rock of the canyon rim, wishing to head for a small cluster of evergreens on a large ledge some fifty feet below the rim, it was not many minutes before Einar began to be pelted by large cold drops of wind driven rain, and when he looked out across the plateau he found it to be nearly obscured by sheets of falling water, heading his way with alarming speed. Gonna get soaked in a minute here, and I sure dont want to go into the night soaked again, especially a cold, windy night like this ones going to be. And he ducked behind the ample trunk of a large, gnarled limber pine that had scratched out a meager existence there at the edge of the rim for what he supposed must have been several hundred years, for it to get so big around in that thin cold air. Crouching, keeping out of the wind against the tree trunk, he watched as the squall moved in around him, quickly soaking the dirt and pounding it into a wet, streaming muddy mess, staring at the ground and huddling against the biting wind as dry pine needles began floating in the growing rivulets beneath the tree before being carried away and dumped over the rim. Well. Moved too slowly on this one, for sure! Should have ducked down over that rim the moment I smelled rain. He scooted in closer to the trunk, seeing that while there was a

small area that seemed to be staying entirely dry, it was not large enough for him to fit into entirely unless I stand upbetter try standing upand wishing very badly that the windbreaker had not been so seriously damaged by the dog. He knew it would not do much to keep him dry in its current sorry state, if he had to venture out into that rain. Which, with the wind shifting and the rain beginning to pelt his left side once again, he knew he would have to do. Knowing that if he followed the rim for a few hundred yards he would run into the cluster of pines he had first stood under when he topped out on the plateau, Einar pulled his knit cap down nearly to his eyes, put one of the plastic grocery bags from the river camp over his head and tied it under his chin as a serviceable substitute for the jackets dog-shredded hood, and ran for it, slipping and sliding in the flowing mud and, inevitably, falling a time or two before reaching the shelter of the trees. Finding that the thick grove of pines did, indeed, provide him with a good measure of shelter from the downpour, he settled into a crouch against one of their trunks in the neardarkness of that stormy evening, wringing the water from his hat and taking off the soaked, muddy jeans, glad to find his polypro pants still nearly dry beneath. So. Not going to be much of a night, I think. But if I work at it, I may be able to avoid getting any wetter, at least, and its sure not warm up here tonight, but these trees block a lot of the wind, and Ill do Ok. Einar ate a few bites of the remaining grouse meat so his body would have something to work on in the night as it tried to keep him warm, and hurriedly dug a depression with the heel of his boot in the ground outside the protection of the trees where the rain was falling heavily, lining it with one of the plastic sacks, glad for the opportunity to collect some good clean water while he slept. Having done what he could to get himself set for the night and suddenly feeling immensely weary, he huddled down to sleep, head on his knees and arms wrapped around his legs for warmth, thinking with a wry smile that the storm, while it might mean that his sleep that night would be chilly and perhaps a bit scarce, would go a long way towards wiping out any trail he might have left on his journey up from the river, scent or otherwise. As he drifted near sleep with the song of the rain in his ears, modulated and punctuated by the howling and occasionally violent gusting of the stormwind, some of the fear and tension that had come of being a wounded, desperate, closely hunted creature strongly as he might have denied it, would have had to deny it, even, that was what he had been, and he had known it, and it had worn on himbegan to leave him, and Einar slept, his mind busy with plans for the summer, for shelter and for stocking up for the coming winter, busy but at peace. That peace lasted, however, only until the torrent of rainwater, having soaked the dusty ground beyond the point of saturation and finding itself with nowhere else to go, invaded Einars shelter sometime in the middle of the night, sending him scrambling to his feet to escape several inches of frothy water and cold, oozing mud.

The storm that swept across the high plateau that evening, rousting Einar from his meager shelter and sending him scrambling to escape the mud, reached Bill and Susans mountainside home less than forty five minutes later, quickly soaking the ground,

battering the little comfrey and chamomile sets that Susan and Liz had put out the day before and washing over Bills Quonset hut machine shop, drumming on the roof, its melody fitful and irregular as the wind gusted violently and blew it down the mountain in great sheets. Inside, the prevailing mood was well expressed by the weather outside, a tight little group of five somber faced menand Susan and Liz, of course, was gathered around the wood stove, some sitting in folding chairs but most standing, pacing around the shop or leaning on chair backs, shifting their weight uncomfortably and waiting for someone to start talking. Bill began, not because he especially wanted to, but because he knew everyone expected him to and because Bill, despite having advised him against it, had known that Rob intended to go after Einar, had known, and had not done anything more to stop it, and now Rob was dead, Einar had likely been, according to leaked accounts, shot, and Bill could not help but take upon himself some measure of blame for the whole mess. Theyre really stepping things up, arent they, since Rob is gone Allan, you said a couple of agents visited you yesterday? Allan stood. Two of them, while I was at work. Didnt identify themselves at first, but it was pretty obviousI mean, who else would be asking questions like that, about Rob, about how well I knew him, about you guys? They know who we are. All of us. Must have been watching us for awhile, I guess. Anyway, these two finally identified themselves, gave me this big talk about the possibility of RICO charges, about how we could all end up losing out houses and assets, even if they couldnt stick us with conspiracy charges of some sort, said the Attorney General is thinking about convening a federal grand jury to investigate whether there may be a widespread conspiracy around here to help Asmundson, and they told me that, to quote one Special Agent Day, as he identified himself, you could all be looking at Conspiracy to Murder Federal Officers charges or at the very least Aiding and Abetting the Murder of Federal Officers, everybody who had anything to do with Rob Jackson. And if we can make a grand jury buy that youve all been assisting Asmundson in some way, each and every one of you is looking at conspiracy or aiding and abetting charges in the deaths of the nine agents, too and the charge there, among others, will be conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the murder of federal officers, in relation to the terrorist blast at the cabin. Now, I dont know why they chose to come to me with this, because this, if any of it is even real, is clearly aimed at the entire group. Some of you knew Rob better than I did. Most of you, in fact, and if Im not wrong, Im pretty sure they were making an attempt to recruit me. An initial attempt, just to feel out where I might be and see how badly they could scare me. I think they expect me to turn informant, or something, to save myself from these threatened charges. Everyone was silent for a minute. Sounds like, Bill finally spoke up. So how did you leave it, with them? Do they think youre willing to consider it? Well, they never came right out and asked me to do anything, I just got the impression that they were feeling me out. I didnt really answer any questions, or anythingbut I dont think I came across as especially hostile, either, so they may think Im worth

talking to again. You know what this sounds like? Bill spoke up after staring thoughtfully at the stove for a minute or so, Sounds like theyre trying to divide us. Make us wonder if we can really trust each other. Now I have not been approached, but that is probably because they pretty much know where I stand in all of this. I mean, they all but came out and said they believed I was harboring Jeff here a month or so ago when they tried to drive their APC up here during rock fall season There was a bit of subdued laughter from the group at the obvious irony in Bills voice. But they may be a bit less sure about the rest of you. Which, for what its worth, I am not. They may think they can drive a wedge between us somewhere, maybe more than one place, and bring us all down. There was general nodding and agreement in the room. So, be careful, Allan. You got to decide for yourself how to handle this one, but if they come to you again, Id certainly do something to let them know you are not interested in playing their little game. Tempting as it might be to go along with it for awhile and try a reverse sting kind of a thing, Ive seen what happens when those go wrong, and its not pretty. This is their game, its what they do. Dont really think we can hope to beat them at it. Oh, Allan responded, I wasnt planning on trying. I was kind of hoping they would not approach me about it again, hoping it was just a general scare tactic to discourage me from ever thinking of doing any of the things the agents were mentioning. But, if no one else has had a similar experiencethen I think you must be right, Bill. If theyre looking for a partner, theyre going to have to look elsewhere. Bill stood up. Well, with that out of the way, lets get into the real reason were all up here tonight. Does anyone know how the mosquito killed the moose? That got him a couple of blank stares, but most in the room smiled and nodded, shifting in their seats and knowing that they were about to really get down to business.

Todd Leer, traveling with the Director after accepting his offer to return to the Bureau to head up the Mountain Task Force, made a point of attending each and every one of the funerals and memorial services for the nine FBI agents who had died in the cabin blast. They took place over the course of several weeks, as the remains were slowly identified, and of course none of them were open casket events. A fact that Leer, in speaking with the press after each of them, brought up frequently in his bid for public sympathy and support. The network news outlets, of course, covered these events quite heavily, playing up the domestic terrorism angle and dredging up old propaganda pieces from ten and fifteen years prior when it had been highly fashionable to apply that label indiscriminately and with little or no evidence to back it up, adding a segment here or there to give the pieces a modern sound, and replaying them ad nauseum in news broadcasts and on the weekend TV news magazines as the Sunday papers dutifully sported headlines that screamed alarming questions such as, Did Asmundson Act Alone in Cabin Massacre? Federal Authorities Suspect Local Complicity. The body of the article did not even need to contain any substantiation. The damage was done by the headlines,

as most would not even look especially far beyond them, and would certainly not bother to question the assumptions implied by the language used.

Continuing through the dark hours in fits and starts, the rain went on for hours that night, and Einar, realizing that he had taken shelter directly in the path of a mudflow, gathered up the few items that had not been in his pockets that evening, pulling them down from their spots in the tree above him, remembering at the last minute to snatch up the plastic bag that he had put out as a rain collector, only to find it hopelessly lost beneath the mud. He set out into the rain to look for a better spot slipping and sliding and not caring too much that he was quickly getting drenched. The water that had wakened him had already done a pretty thorough job of that. Einar spent the remainder of the night huddled wet and shivering beneath a slightly overhanging boulder that he hadquite literally stumbled across near the canyon rim, wringing out his clothes as well as he could and draping the shredded windbreaker over his head and knees in an attempt to keep the constant dripping of water from the top edge of the boulder from landing on him. The boulder, at least, shielded him from much of the wind, without which benefit Einar knew he would have been far worse off, that night. It was only that meager protection, combined with the fact that he knew he might well walk off the canyon rim in the darkness and confusion of the storm, that kept Einar pressed up against the boulder that night instead of deciding to strike out in search of something better. Too cold to want to remain still and knowing that he needed to find something to eat, he headed out into the heavily overcast grey morning as soon as it was light enough to see, winding his way up through a band of sub alpine firs and taking the incline as quickly as he could, hoping to warm up a bit. He had intended to head for the landmark that he had set for himself the previous day, the oddly shaped little peak whose far slope he had decided on as a reasonable place to begin looking for more permanent shelter, but soon found his course changed somewhat by an unforeseen, though certainly not unwelcome discovery.

Scrambling up a rockslide that came down between vertical bands of sub alpine firs on the slope he was climbing, Einar was startled by a sharp shriek, looking over to his left and seeing a marmot, a bit skinny and scruffy looking after a winter of hibernation, shrilling its warning to three or four other such creatures, who promptly left their rock top roosts in the tiny patch of weak sunlight that had found its way through the clouds, diving beneath rock slabs. He sat down on a rock, keeping himself very still and watching as, one by one, the marmots reemerged to again stretch out and sun themselves on their respective rocks. Alright. Whistle pig, tonight! Kinda scrawny, but theyll certainly do. Einar knew that while a full grown adult marmot might well be expected to weigh in around ten or eleven pounds in the fall, a good bit of that weight in stored fat, he would be lucky to get a six or seven pounder, so early in the spring. Retreating some distance back beneath the trees where he would not alarm the marmots as he worked, Einar pulled out six of the shorter willow sticks from his bird trap, breaking and trimming them to the right heights and carving notches in them to make two figure four trap triggers, regretting

as he did so that he had not been able to stay our in the sunlight as he worked. He was awfully cold. Well. Ill be a lot warmer if I can give myself several pounds of marmot to work on, thats for sure! He had to keep stopping to warm his stiff hands against his stomach, though, and thoroughly messed up one of the trigger sticks, angling the notch wrong so that the top stick, the one that would hold the deadfall rock, kept slipping out of place whenever he tested it, and he eventually had to start over on that stick. The two triggers finally finished to his satisfaction, Einar began thinking about bait, wondering if one of the creatures would be curious enough about a few of the salmon eggs he had left wander under the deadfall and investigate, but knew that the marmots diets consisted almost entirely of a variety of plants. Getting stiffly to his feet, he returned to a small meadow that he had crossed shortly before finding the rockslide, gathering a generous handfull of little clovers and other greens before noticing a sparse scattering of avalanche lilies over along the meadows far edge, their yellow flowers having been replaced by seed pods. The lily greens were, he knew, a favorite of marmots, and I better dig the roots for myself, in case neither of these traps produce. Returning to the rockslide he set up the two deadfall traps on rocks near the ones the marmots were using to sun themselves, startling them into hiding in the process, but knowing that the curious creatures would soon emerge again. It was their curiosity and relative lack of fear of human presence and scent that Einar was counting on working in his favor when it came to obtaining some food that morning. He knew that one of the marmots would eventually get around to exploring a trap, hopefully nibbling at the bait and giving him some meat. Knowing that it would not pay to sit around and watch the traps, Einar returned to the meadow to make certain that he had not perhaps missed any avalanche lilies, having gobbled the four small roots that he had earlier dug and finding himself able to think of little besides food that morning. He had not missed any, of course, but did find a small patch of spring beauty, spending a few minutes sitting in the sun and digging their marble-sized roots with the sharpened end of one of his willow sticks, eating them raw on the spot along with two grubs that his digging turned up. Einar, youre eating like a bear. Only those critters do it nearly constantly, which youre gonna have to start doing, too, if you hope to put on any weight at all before the snow flies again. Living bite to bite like this right on the edge of starving to death is just not working all that well, and one of these times, youre going to be a little late finding that next bite, and thatll be it. Need to get ahead somehow. First, though, before getting serious about a trapline and hopefully beginning the process of putting away a bit of meat here and there in addition to finally getting something near enough to eat day to day, he still wanted to get over on the far side of the massive bulk of tree and rock that loomed in front of him, looking, unfortunately, many miles farther away than it had the previous day. Finished digging all of the spring beauty bulbs he could find in the little meadow he stood, stretched, headed back through the trees to see if one of his deadfalls might have been successful. The sun was gone, a heavy overcast having returned as Einar collected his small breakfast of bulbs to darken the day and leave him feeling the sharp wind all the more keenly in his still-damp clothes. Shivering, he hurried through the band of trees that separated him from the rockslide, stepping carefully from rock to rock, anxious to avoid slipping on their slick wet surfaces

and carefully avoiding stepping on sticks that might snap and alert the marmots to his approach. He knew, though, that if his trap was empty he probably would not be having marmot for lunch that day, because the creatures would retreat to their dens beneath the rocks to wait for the reemergence of the sun. The marmots had gone, the traps stood untouched as he had left them, flat, heavy rock slabs carefully balanced on delicate triggers, just waiting to be disturbed by a curious marmot. Einar was not surprised. He knew it had been ridiculously optimistic for him to hope to trap a marmot in the ten minutes that the sun had stayed out, after he set the deadfalls and made his retreat. The creatures would have hardly had time to emerge from their dens in that amount of time, let alone get curious enough to approach the strange leaning rocks he had left, in search of a bite of glacier lily leaf. Though not surprised, he was disappointed and despite his best efforts a bit despondent at the lack of success, was at a bit of a loss, actually, as to where he was to find the energy to continue around that mountain to a place where he could hopefully at least have a fire that night to partially compensate for the continuing scarcity of food. Slumping down on a large-topped boulder at the edge of the rockslide, he pulled the grouse leg bones out of his pack and sat there as the first drops of rain began falling from an increasingly leaden sky, cracking them for their tiny bits of marrow before returning them to the pack where they joined the other, smaller ones. He had saved them all. They would be boiled down for broth, if he ever again found himself able to have a fire. Cold, exhausted and really feeling the lack of food that morning, he was starting to wonder if that chance would come for him before the end did. It felt awfully near, that morning, breathing down his neck, and Einar realized that though his human pursuers seemed, for the time at least, far behind him, the elements and the reality of his condition were pressing him as closely as they ever had. Perhaps too closely. Dont talk like that. Thats ridiculous. Youve had it a lot worse. This is just a little spring rainstorm, Einar. You can have a fire tonight, just as soon as you get around the other side of this hill, here. So get walking. Which he did, into the rain, sheltering himself as well as he could from its wind-driven fury by keeping beneath the firs as he traveled, making better progress than he had expected possible, until the repair he had improvised some time back to keep his failing boot sole in place finally gave way, and it separated entirely. Well. That complicates things just a bit.

Knowing that he needed a fire before he would be able to do much for the boot, Einar rubbed the separated sole on some fresh, clear pine sap that he found oozing from a nearby tree, wrapped some monofilament around the sole and the boot, and went on his way, hoping very much that it would hold until he could do a better job on the repair. The last thing he wanted was to be walking around with only the canvas inner shell of his snow boot between the rocky ground and the inner felt liner. He was having enough trouble with his feet, as it was. For the time, his improvised repair seemed to be holding, and he expected that it probably would until the monofilament inevitably wore or cut through on the rocks, and he found himself right back where he had started. Well. Hope to be around the other side of that mountain by then, where I can maybe have a fire. Einar walked his way through the remainder of that rainy day, finding that he had to keep

moving if he wanted to stay warm or anything like it, stopping now and then to chew on one of the grouse bones in an effort to quiet the painful rumblings in his stomach and perhaps come up with just enough additional energy to keep him moving. It was working, but just barely, and it was with great relief that he found a small scattering of waterleaf plants in a dismal, dripping little grove of aspens sometime around mid day, sinking to the muddy ground in his already soaked pants and taking advantage of the ease with which the rain-saturated soil released its hold on the roots. They were cold, raw and a bit grainy from the hastily wiped off soil, but tasted slightly sweet and seemed to help his energy level just a bit, so he took a few minutes to look for more, stopping beneath the aspens and digging roots for as long as he was able to stand the stillness in breezy chill of the damp, drizzly day in his wet polypropylene and mangled rain jacket. He kept one of the two plastic grocery sacks from the river tied over his hat while he worked, and while a poor substitute for the shredded jacket hood, it did seem to add a bit of protection from the wind and helped keep his knit cap from being so badly soaked by the frequent showers that continued to sweep across the plateau that day, though this protection did not last all that long, because the crinkling of the bag in the wind obscured his hearing too much, leaving him so jumpy that eventually he had to take it off, rain or not. Einar knew that an air search would not be active in the weather he was seeing, and believed that he had finally broken his trail thoroughly enough that he did not especially need to worry about being followed on the ground, but anything that interfered with his hearing, sight or other senses brought an immediate discomfort that quickly verged on panic if he did not do something to remedy its cause, so that from his perspective a wet hat was far preferable to being half-deafened by the rustling of that plastic sack. Einar supposed it would take a good while for him to really come to accept that he was out from under the search, and that was just fine with him. A useful safety mechanism, I suppose. Though kind of annoying, because I would really appreciate not being any wetter, right now. To that end and whenever circumstances permitted, he sought refuge from the frequent downpours beneath the thick sheltering boughs of an evergreen, huddling up against the trunk and turning his left side, where the rain jacket was still more or less intact, towards the wind. At those times, struggling to hold the flapping ribbons of his rain jacket and shivering in the wind, Einar wished very much that he had the means to secure a deer, thinking how greatly it would improve his situation if he had a hide to wrap up in against the weather, or just a little hole to crawl in, like most halfsensible critters do when it storms like this! Well. Just get around to the back of that hill like you decided before, and you can start hunting for one. Youre way too cold to stop and hole up right now, even if you did find a place. As Einar plodded along, he gradually began noticing a change in the weather, starting with a slight lifting of the heavy overcast and eventually culminating in a part in the clouds large enough to allow a narrow sliver of sunlight through, which while of course beyond Einars reach, did help him keep his pace up as he hurried towards his chosen destination, which, through what seemed at that point like anything but a coincidence to him, was the only area in sight that was sunny. Finally reaching the sunlit area on the shoulder of the mountain, Einar, once again dangerously nearer the limit of his endurance than he would have been willing to admit, lowered himself onto a flattish rock near the

edge of a large rockslide and rested in the sunlight, asleep in no time, his head against an aspen trunk, as the sun slowly began to warm him. The warning shriek of a marmot wakened him to the sight of wet, lichen-spotted rocks steaming in the afternoon sunlight, his own clothes beginning to do the same, and fighting a strong urge immediately leave the open area and dash beneath the trees for concealment, he kept himself very still, shifting his eyes and slowly turning his head until he could see the creature out of the corner of his eye. Ok. Another chance. And if I did not drop them somewhere along the way without realizing it, I should still have those figure four triggers. Dragging himself to his feet with the help of the aspen and taking a few steps into the trees so as not to unduly alarm the marmot, he searched through his pack until he came up with two of the triggers, setting the traps in a sunny area of the rockslide and baiting them with some mountain sorrel that he found growing up between rocks. Returning to the aspen grove, he sat down to wait, alarmed at the difficulty he was having in staying awake praying that a marmot might be provided for his dinner, knowing that he could not keep himself going indefinitely by digging a few roots here and there and gnawing on old grouse bones. The next time Einar woke, the sun had shifted significantly and he scrambled to his feet, anxious to see the state of his traps. Approaching through the trees, he saw that one of the rocks was down, and hoping that it had not been tripped by the continuing wind, he was delighted to see a furry hind leg sticking out from beneath the lichen-covered slap of granite. Tremendously grateful and knowing that he was in pretty serious need of some immediate nutrition, he skinned the creature on the spot, finishing off the liver right away and re-wrapping the rest of the rather scrawny creature in its own hide for transport. With a renewed surge of energy, Einar continued around to the backside of the mountain, reaching the general area he had set as his destination sometime before sunset and beginning the search for shelter, which he found in the form of a windfall tree that lay across the front of a slight undercut in a steep, rocky slope. Breaking branches from nearby firs to make himself a bed and scratching out a fire hole before it became dark, Einar settled down to the tasks of gathering wood and chopping the marmot into chunks that would fit into the two beer cans that he had salvaged from the camp near the river, carefully severing their tops and adding the meat to water that he had collected from a nearby seep that oozed out from beneath a granite boulder near the bottom of the steep slope to puddle up in the spruce and fir duff that surrounded it. As he worked, the clouds, which had closed in around the sun shortly after he took the marmot, lowered and responded to a sharp gust of wind by releasing a torrent of fresh rain, leaving Einar very glad indeed that he had the shelter of the overhang to crouch beneath. Realizing that he was not going to be able to fit all that much of the marmot meat into the two beer cans, he retrieved the folded elk stomach from the bottom of his pack, scraped a depression into the ground and spread it out, securing the edges with rocks and adding the rest of the marmot, including brains, eyes and most of the internal organs, along with a few nettles that he had found along the way, making three trips out to the seep before he had enough water to submerge the carcass. With the rain falling steadily and darkness very nearly complete, Einar got his fire going, setting a number of rocks down in it to begin heating and suspending the beer cans on a rack of green sticks that he set over part of the hole. The meat in the cans, he knew,

would be done sooner than that in the elk stomach, which would have to wait for the rocks to heat before it could begin cooking. Before long the contents of the cans were boiling and bubbling, as Einar warmed his cold hands and face over the flames. He realized, sitting over the little fire and beginning to thaw a bit for the first time since crawling out of the river, that he had better take full advantage of it while it lasted, as it looked like fire might well be a rare luxury for a while. With that in mind, he took off his boots, removed the felt liners and dropped a hot rock into each of them, watching the steam billow out and wishing that he could dry his wet clothes in a similar way, so he did not have to go on sitting there in wet clothes as they slowly dried. He knew that direct contact with the hot rocks would quickly melt the threadbare polypropylene, though, and did not care all that much about the wet clothes at that point, anyway. The warmth of the fire was so wonderful after the river and the two intervening days of cold drizzle that not much else mattered to him just then, not, that is, until his cans of marmot began bubbling and steaming, the smell nearly driving him wild with hunger. Determined to allow the meat to cook since such was, for once, actually an option for him, Einar tried to content himself with breathing the steam and imagining just how good that stew was going to taste, finding himself shaking nearly as much from anticipation and hunger as he was from the lessening chill as the fire began to warm him. Youre a mess, Einar. Get ahold of yourself. Its just a scrawny, stringy old marmot and a few past-tender nettles, after all. But he let out a gleeful little chuckle and went right back to breathing the steam, suddenly finding it difficult to stop laughing and telling himself that he really was losing it, but pretty sure that he couldnt care less. He was going to eat!

To help himself pass the time as he waited for the stew to cook, Einar, his hands finally warm and flexible enough to do so, sat over the fire and worked on some nettle cordage, using the previous years dry stalks that he had found near the fresh nettles he had gathered for his stew. He knew that the nettles, already tall and dark green, would be somewhat tough and grainy and not the best eating, as nettles went, but badly needing their iron, vitamins and the ten percent by volume of protein that their leaves contained, he did not especially care. Enveloped by a cloud of warm, marmot-flavored steam and concentrating on a length of cordage, it took Einar a while to realize that the level of the water in the elk stomach, which was bubbling quite well with its freshly added hot rocks, was steadily going down. Pulling a stick from the fire and shoving it in the ground beside the improvised pot for a bit of light, he scrambled to find to source of the loss, soon confirming his suspicion with the discovery of a hairline crack along one of the fold lines on the bottom of the stomach. Kept it folded for too long in the bottom of that pack, I guess. Scrambling for fear of the crack widening and allowing more of the broth to escape, he lifted the stomach and repositioned the rocks that held it in place, shifting it so that the bulk of the water, at least, was in the non-damaged section. Need a different pot, looks like. Better work on burning out a log or something, whenever I have fire. Wont be especially portable, but as long as Im here Satisfied that the meat in the cans ought to be thoroughly cooked, Einar began his meal, starting slowly by sipping bits of the broth, thankful beyond words and knowing that it

would be a mistake to eat too fast, but quickly giving that up in favor of gulping the stuff as it began to cool, barely chewing the tough meat and hurrying on to the next can. The spring marmot really did not have much fat on it, and though Einar knew that he had better find a way to get ahold of some more without too much delay, it did not take him long to begin feeling full, fishing some of the nettles out of the bubbling mix in the elk stomach and eating them with some broth as he waited for the rest of the meat to cook, but deciding in the end to save it for the next day when he realized that he was not far from getting sick after gulping his first substantial meal in way too many days. Though he had seen no sign of bears in the immediate area and doubted they would be out in the rain, anyway, he knew that he must not chance losing his remaining food, and, scooping some of the broth off into the cans, he tied the elk stomach shut with monofilament, slid it, marmot carcass and all, down into the nylon bag from the river camp, and used the rest of the fishing line to suspend the thing from a high branch of a nearby tree. Einar knew that if a bear did happen to be out on that stormy night, it would inevitably find its way to his shelter beneath the ledge, attracted by the lingering cooking smells, but that did not concern him enough to convince him to venture away from the fire and out into the rain in search of another sleeping spot. Leaning back on his bed of fir boughs, positioned between the fire hole and the rock wall for warmth, Einar sipped from one of the cans of broth and worked for a while on the nettle cordage, finally curling up and drifting off to sleep in nearly dry clothes and with a full stomach, first shoving a rock over the fire pit to eliminate any chance that it might still be producing smoke when daylight came. Einar need not have worried about the fire, as it turned out, because his hunger got him up again before two hours had passed to feel around the fire pit until he found the remaining can of broth, by then cold in the night air, a thin layer of solidified marmot fat covering the surface of the broth. Breaking out the solid fat and eating it, scraping around the edges of the can until he was sure he had found every trace of it, Einar drained the can and crept out into the dripping night outside the protection of his sheltering ledge in search of the remainder of the marmot, hung securely from the tree. The rain seemed to have stopped; he could see a few stars through the jagged remnants of the storm clouds as they were carried away in front of a restless wind, but everything was still wet, recently fallen rain dripping from the boughs of the evergreens and shaking loose in great showers whenever an especially strong gust of wind played over the timber. Finally locating and lowering the pack, Einar hurried with it back beneath the protection of the rocks, glad to have a place to shelter from the wet and at least most of the wind, fumbling with the tightly tied monofilament that secured the elk stomach shut and easing it back into the depression it had sat in as he cooked, again securing the edges with rocks and making sure to keep the liquid away from the torn section, which seemed to have grown significantly larger since he had first discovered it. Einar had planned on leaving the dead fire to lie and eating his midnight snack cold, but he had not been able to keep his clothes especially dry when he left the shelter to retrieve the marmot, and was shivering again in the sharp wind and temperatures that were falling quickly as the cloud cover broke up and moved out. Poking around in the fire pit with a stick, he found a few coals that still glowed a dull orange, and adding a wad of aspen inner bark that he had earlier gathered from the underside of a leaning dead tree, he blew the little fire to life, adding sticks from a pile that he had shoved to the back of the little shelter to keep them out of

the blowing dampness. Before long Einar was enjoying cans full of reheated broth and marmot meat, and though there seemed not to be enough to really fill him up again, it did help. Before again giving in to his tiredness and curling back up to sleep, Einar fished a couple of rocks out of the coals and let them cool for a bit before wrapping them in strips of aspen bark and taking them to bed with him, where they helped him stay warm enough to catch a few hours rest. Morning came clear and cold and breezy, the wind prodding Einar out of a restless sleep with its chilly fingers to huddle on the slightly warm rock that covered his fire pit, eventually rousing himself enough to pull back the lid and poke around among the mostly dead coals in search of a still-warm rock or two. He found them, but, being pretty sure that they were no longer warm enough to have much of an impact on the icy water that he was about to go and collect from the seep for his breakfast, he instead held them in his hands, pressing them against his chest and letting his body absorb their meager warmth, shivering as they began driving out the nights chill. Today I set out some snares. Need to start getting enough food to be able to make more of my own heat, the way a warmblooded critter is supposed to. Its pretty ridiculous to be freezing like this all the time at the end of May. Deerskin coat wouldnt hurt anything, either. Looking out at his surroundings in the brightening light of what was to be a sunny day, Einar saw that his shelter was situated just under halfway up a moderately steep, heavily forested slope, and though he could look down and see open meadows through occasional gaps in the dark timber, they looked to be well over a mile away. He supposed it would do, as a temporary location at least. There ought be rabbits, grouse and the occasional deer in the timber, he had water if this seep doesnt dry up as soon as the rain has stopped for a day or two. Have to see about that one and he had, finally, made it around to the far side of the mountain that he had initially set as his goal. Ok, Einar. Time to get down to business, here. Need to make this shelter a little more windproof so you can do more sleeping and less shivering at night, get those snares set, and maybe make a trip down to one of those meadows where you can hope to find a wet area or a little pond with some cattails so you can boil up the roots and stuff your clothes with some down for tonight. Feeling a bit worn out just thinking about all of that work, he hurried to get started while his midnight snack was still with him to give him a bit of energy. The first task Einar set for himself, after getting a drink from the seep, was to begin collecting branches from nearby fallen dead trees and propping them up against the ledge of rock that overhung his shelter, hoping to keep some of the wind out the following night and figuring that the project ought to be his first priority, as there was no way to know if snares would even produce on the first day, but there was a good certainty that less wind would mean a better night for him, and less energy spent in trying to stay warm. Finished with the dead branch framework, he began cutting live branches, one here, one there, and leaning and weaving them in, checking frequently to make sure that his creation was not visible from above and occasionally taking one of the branches he cut into the shelter to add to the bed. The work was not easy, as the still-healing dog bites on his right arm left it rather stiff and painful and of limited use, and the left shoulder was still no better, having had to do more than its share during and after the dog attack. Its working, though. This thing is starting to look pretty good, actually. Once he had added

a satisfactory number of live branches, he began collecting piles of duff from beneath nearby evergreens, spreading them on top of the network of leaning branches and adding more dead ones on top to hold the layer of insulation in place. Einar wanted to go on working, having decided to carry armloads of duff into the shelter to pile around the bed and further seal out the wind, but he suddenly found himself so exhausted that he had no choice but to sit down, wondering what had made him think he could keep going like that in the first place, eventually creeping into the shelter and lying on the fir-bough bed, light headed and nauseous but at least, for once, fairly warm. Which did not last for long at all, and he was soon forced up again and back to work just to stay warm, moving slowly and thinking that this is really not the best situation. Not the worst, either, because at least Im not in a river somewhere with a buzzard over my head, but Im too hungry and worn out to do much of anything, and get cold too quick to rest for long. Somethings got to change, and hopefully that means I get more to eat, because I dont much like the other alternative. He knew it was past time to head out and find some places to leave his snares, and possibly a couple of deadfalls, too, if he could find another rockslide that was inhabited by marmots, and, collecting his gear, set out to do just that. The problem not being one of the more obvious of the numerous that faced him, Einar had entirely forgotten about his deteriorating boot, until on his way across a nearby rockslide to set a deadfall, the monofilament finally wore through and the sole peeled off again, falling down into a narrow, black crevice between two granite boulders.

Einar worked for quite some time in an attempt to retrieve his boot sole from the rock crevice, but the space was narrow and twisted and much deeper than he could reach, even with the help of a bent stick coated and sticky on one end with pine pitch. The way the passage twisted, he could not even feel the rubber sole, and for all he knew, it could have tumbled and slid ten or fifteen feet down, down to where he could hear the distant and rhythmical trickle of melt water as it ran beneath the rocks. He knew that there was no way he could expect to move the car-sized boulders or widen the space between them, ha! Think Id have more chance of success if Id just sit here and wait until I lose a couple more pounds, and could squeeze down between the rocks, myself. Thatd be pretty funny of they found me stuck down there in a year or two, because I made it down and couldnt get back up again. Which is probably what would end up happening. Not to mention the fact that if I lose a couple more pounds, Im probably gonna be dead at that point, anyway, and not caring an awful lot about the state of my snowboot Frustrated and worn out by the failed efforts to secure the boot sole, he rolled over onto his back on one of the boulders and rested in the sun, seeing as he did so that the marmots seemed to have grown accustomed to his presence as he worked and ceased to find him threatening, sunning themselves on the rocks not ten yards from where he lay. Using as bait some of the greens he had collected on his way to the rock slide, kept fairly fresh and unwilted in the cool shadow of one of the boulders, Einar set up the two deadfalls, watching the marmots disappear beneath the rocks as he stood but knowing that they would soon be out again and, hopefully, interested in a snack of mountain sorrel and avalanche lily leaves.

Einar, then, wanting to head down to the meadow for a while, was left with one sole-less boot, and he knew that its canvas bottom and the internal wool felt insert would not last long on the rocks and rough ground of that mountainside. Remembering the improvised snowboot he had created the previous winter of twined and coiled aspen bark coated with spruce pitch, he supposed that he could use a similar idea to make a temporary sole replacement for the boot. Hunting around in a little aspen grove that adjoined the rockslide, he found several downed trees, one of which displayed the telltale split white bark and shreds of black outer bark hanging off the bottom, letting him know that he had found a good source for his bark cordage. Wont be able to cement this thing on very well until I can have a fire to melt the pitch, but I guess in the meantime I could tie it in place with this broken fishing line I saved from the last repair. He inspected the two shorter, slightly mangled lengths of monofilament that he had managed to grab from their precarious resting place at the edge of the crevice after his boot sole came off, thinking that they ought to be adequate to hold the improvised sole in place for a while, each tied on separately. It would be a clumsy arrangement, but might at least allow him to do the traveling he needed to do, while sparing the remainder of the boot. Choosing a sunny rock out of sight of the marmots rockslide, he sat down to cord the aspen bark, working quickly and enjoying the fact that his hands and the rest of me, for that matter, were unaccustomedly warm, relaxed and easy to work with. He was, in fact, having an increasingly difficult time keeping from falling asleep, leading him after a time to rise slowly in his sun-induced stupor and make his way into the shade of the aspens, resting his head on his knees for a minute before resuming his work, knowing that, as good as it would be to get in some sleep under conditions where he did not have to make so great an effort to stay warm, he must not allow himself to do so out in the open where he might lie unawares in an exhausted and peaceful sleep as a small plane or chopper passed over and spotted him. Completing a good length of aspen bark cord, he began coiling it into an elongated oval that slowly took the rough shape of the bottom of his boot, stitching it together with monofilament and glad that he had found a good quantity of the stuff down at the river. When the little mat was finished he tied it onto the bottom of the boot, first wiping on some fresh spruce sap that he had left on a sunny rock to warm as he worked, knowing that it might not do a whole lot to hold the new sole in place, but might help a bit when it came to preventing the clumsy thing from shifting and slipping as he walked. Ok. Time to try this out, I guess. And he reluctantly got up and headed down the slope for the meadow, glancing up at the rockslide to make sure that neither of his deadfalls had been tripped yet, which they had not. Sure hope those critters are hungry, or at least curious. The improvised boot sole proved to be a bit difficult to keep in place at first, though as he walked, it seemed to settle in place and stop slipping quite as badly, which he supposed was from the sap being worked into the canvas and bark, sticking the two layers more firmly together. He could tell, though, that it was not going to last all that long, and knew that he had better be thinking of other solutions. Need to take a deer. Better be looking out for materials to make a bow and a few arrows. In the meantime, though, he knew that he might have to make it for a while on small game, and coming across several areas where there was plentiful rabbit sign on his way down to the meadow, he set two snares

of braided fishline and one using some of the nettle cordage that he had managed to get done while sitting over the fire the evening before. Finding a swampy area near one edge of the meadow as he had hoped, Einar began digging cattail roots, filling his bag with them and pausing now and then to munch on one of the crunchy, celery-like lower portions of the plant stalks. A number of the previous years brown fuzzy seed heads still remained on their dried, brown stalks, and he collected them, stuffing them down the back of his shirt and knowing that their insulation would be very welcome when the sun set and the cold returned. Remembering the trouble the cold wind had been giving him, Einar cut a number of the long green cattail leaves, bundling them together and setting them over on the dry ground to be slung over his shoulder for the trip back up to camp. With a bit of simple weaving, he would have a wind-resistant mat that could be used to help seal off the front of his shelter, or, if he had to leave or spend a night away from it, wrapped around him as he slept. Inspecting one of the previous years brown stalks and noticing how straight and lightweight it was, he wondered if functional arrows could be made from some of the stalks. He was pretty sure that he had heard of the Utes and some of the other local tribes using them for that purpose, and collecting seven nor eight of the stalks, he stuck them down into his pack, intending to sort through them back up at his camp and choose several of the straightest to experiment with. So. A bow? A small patch of willows partially surrounded the cattail swamp, and Einar, his boots both soaked through despite his attempts to keep them out of the water, made his way over to them, breaking one of the larger diameter willow shoots with his hands and glad to see that it was strong and fibrous, quite sturdy, as willows went. Cutting four or five fairly thick shoots, Einar figured that his best chance of making a hastily improvised bow that was strong enough to take a deer might be to bind several of the willows together as he had done with the serviceberry branches in making the bow trap for the agents that had been pursuing him earlier in the year. Before leaving the willows, Einar stripped the inner bark from several shoots, coiling it up and sticking it in his pack so that he would have some handy if a pressing need arose for its pain reducing qualities, at a time when he was unable for whatever reason to make a trip down to the meadow. Carrying everything out to the dry ground beside the swamp and leaning it against the trunk of a fallen aspen, Einar asked himself how he had ever expected to be able to carry back all that he had harvested, working with it until he had all the willow shoots and cattail stalks and leaves somehow hung from or attached to his body, starting slowly up the slope towards his camp. The five hundred feet of elevation gain up through the varying aspen and spruce slope to the camp took Einar a good while, with several stops to readjust sagging and slipping loads and a couple more as he sank to the ground in an attempt to work the cramps out of his overtaxed legs. He finally made it, dumping everything on the forest floor beside his shelter and dragging himself onto his fir bed for a few minutes of rest before stacking his new finds beneath the shelter of the ledge and heading for the rockslide to check his deadfalls before the sun went down. To Einars disappointmenthe was badly in need of some nourishment after what had been, for him, a day of hard workthe deadfalls were untouched, and with the sunlight already gone from the rockslide for the afternoon, he knew that they would likely remain so until the next day. Well. Celery for dinner, I

guess. And he dragged off across the mountainside for his camp, very nearly too worn out to care that he would not really be eating that night. Einar did take the time to kick apart a couple of rotted logs that he encountered on his return trip, collecting a grand total of five fat white grubs to add to his dismal little supper of cattail celery and bits of marrow from the few marmot bones that he had managed to overlook the first time around. Einar settled into bed early that night in a cold camp, unwilling just yet to risk a fire on a clear night, hungry and exhausted but at least marginally warm enough to sleep, due to the wind proofing and insulation improvements he had made that day.

Darren Raintree was glad that spring had finally come. He did not mind pushing his little truck up spring roads slippery with mud and half melted snow and did not, for that matter, even mind snowmobiling up to promising locations and setting off on skis or snowshoes to reach the remote limestone gullies and faces that he was constantly probing for undiscovered underground worlds to explore, but spring and early summer were perhaps his favorite times for exploration. Urging his truck as far as he could up the barely existent old mining road that led up into a vast landscape of wooded hills and expansive meadows, all of it sitting over an enormous chunk of cavern-riddled limestone, Darren shouldered his pack and set off on what promised to be a fine opportunity for exploration and, hopefully discovery, gleeful at the prospect of an uninterrupted five days off of work.

The next morning, after checking his snares and finding them empty, Einar returned to his camp and worked for a while on the willow bow, binding the shoots together and carefully sharpening several of the dry, brown cattail stalks by methodically scraping them on a rough chunk of granite. As he worked he chewed on a few spring beauty and waterleaf roots that he had dug in an aspen grove on his way back to camp, finding that they did little to quiet the twisting pains in his gut. He needed fat. Bracing one end of the finished bow against the ground and cautiously putting his weight on it he experimentally bent it, supposing that it would do, though the willows probably would not retain their flexibility and springiness for very long. Having nothing to use for a string braided fishing line? I wonder. Too bad I dont have any thats long enough anymore, after making those snares. Might give it a try Einar set out in search of more nettle stalks, knowing that he could make something of satisfactory strength form nettle cordage, if he double twined it and took care that none of the spliced areas overlapped, creating weak spots. As he had got in the habit of doing, he carried his pack with him on the search, and also took the spear he had make with his pocket knife and a stout split-end willow stick. He also carried several of his monofilament snares with him, having left two of them in their previous locations but wanting to spread the others out to hopefully increase his chances of coming up with a couple of rabbits. Topping out on a forested rise, Einar found himself looking out across a wide, evergreen-bordered meadow, and right off the rim of what appeared from his vantage point to be a rather extensive canyon, the streaked and layered limestone walls of its far side just visible to him. Curious, he

headed towards it, sticking to the band of trees that followed a slight drainage at the edge of the meadow. Making his way over to the canyon rim, Einar stopped on a ledge of roughly pockmarked limestone, its grippy surface providing him secure footing as he leaned out over the edge of the precipice, staring down perhaps a hundred feet to a rocky outcropping that supported a few scraggly evergreens, and another seven or eight hundred feet below that, the narrow canyon floor through which wound a small creek, its rushing just barely audible to him when the wind slacked off. Stepping back from the edge, he crouched beneath a spruce, letting his eyes wander up and down the open expanse of rock and trees. Some distance further up the canyon he saw a number of dark depressions in the limestone wall, and wished his vision was less blurry at the moment so he might be able to tell for sure what he was looking at. He was pretty sure the dark shapes were cave entrances. Well. Where there are one or two, there are probably more, and if I could find one whose entrance was hidden by a big spruce or somethingmight just have me a place to spend the winter! Walking the rim for a short distance and finding a break in the rock that he thought might allow him to descend to the level of the caves, where there appeared to be a narrow ledge that would allow him to traverse the canyon wall, he started down, securely strapping the spear to his pack where it would not get in his way. The descent was interesting, to say the least, with Einar several times finding himself very grateful for the intervention of the twisted, wind-battered little firs and limber pines that were anchored here and there in the steep limestone slope, without which he would have lost his hold more than once and gone sliding and eventually tumbling down to the ledge below. Reaching the ledge, he caught his breath beneath a large spruce whose dropped needles had turned to dirt over the years, allowing a few scraggly currant bushes to scratch out an existence in the limestone. Down on their level, he could see the three cave entrances much more clearly, and was finally certain about what he was seeing. It appeared that if he followed the ledge system he ought to be able to work his way over to the holes, perhaps discovering another cave or two on his way. The path would be rough and a bit precarious, especially with the trouble he was having with his balance, but Einar believed that he could do it. As he picked his way along the ledge, his view of the caves was frequently blocked by the contorted ramblings of the canyon wall, as he wandered in and out of little draws and bends in the rock. Rounding a bend where the path ahead of him had been for some time hidden by a kink in the canyon wall, Einar, after traveling for nearly half an hour from the start of his journey, found himself looking out at the continuation of the ledge, which was blocked not ten feet in front of him by a man in grey coveralls and a helmet, a coiled rope slung over his shoulder, appearing at least as surprised as Einar felt. It was a tight spot, too tight to safely turn around in, even for someone who did not have one injured and marginally functional leg as Einar did, as immediately below the two would-be cavers lay a vertical drop of five or six feet, below which ran a very steep and loose-looking apron of limestone chunks, ending in more cliffs. They stared at each other for a long second, Einar recognizing Darren Raintree and seeing that he appeared to be alone and not armed, and while Einar had his spear, it had been securely bound to his pack to allow him to travel unhindered over the steep ground. Einar crouched there staring at Raintree like a

trapped animal, Raintree for a moment seriously concerned for his life as he watched the fear and surprise in Einars eyes quickly harden into what appeared to be a certain readiness to spring at him and drag him over the cliff. Einar, glancing down at the dropoff below them, knew that Raintree had a reputation for going out alone for days at a time, knew that he would likely not soon be missed if anything should happen to him, and Darren knew that he would know. Raintree could see that Einar, clearly starved and injured, would be no match for him, but at the same time knew that it would be a serious mistake to underestimate the potential of a desperate man. Not knowing exactly what else to do, the caver greeted him. Einar nodded in acknowledgement. Darren. You by yourself? Raintree nodded. You know us cavers, Asmundson. Loners and oddballs, every one. Specially when were out scouting new stuff. Neither of them made a move or spoke for a full minute, Einar finally rising from his crouch and retrieving the spear from his pack in a single fluid motion, the speed of which somewhat surprised Raintree, who had been a bit concerned that Einar, appearing rather unsteady on his feet, might be about to topple over the edge of the dropoff. Einar took a step towards the caver just to see how he would react, half expecting that he had already surreptitiously pressed a button on a GPS locator beacon or some such to alert the authorities to the fact that he had located their target. Einar had no wish to be stuck out in the open on a cliff face when the inevitable choppers showed up. Raintree did not appear inclined to move, however, and Einar saw that he could not pass by on the narrow ledge unless the man got out of his way. Was headed this way. Better let me by. Listen, my camps just up there over the rim in those aspens. Care to join me for some dinner? Foods been a little scarce out here, from the looks of you, and Ive got a mess of eggs and some Spam to fry up. You were hunting me, Raintree. Back up at that plateau last month. He took another step towards the caver, the spear drawn back in his right hand. Darren, seeing the wild look in Einars eyes and realizing that the man likely intended to use the weapon on him, raised his hands and took a careful step back, trying to show that he was not a threat. Relax, Einar. Im not here looking for you. Im just scouting caves. Nobodys looking for you here. Its too far out. Man, youre thirty or forty miles or something from the last place they were seriously looking for you. As far as last monthfeds were going to search all the caves they could find, with or without me. I just went along to try and keep them from tearing everything up and stomping all over it with their boots. You know how people can be. Einar nodded, lowering the spear a bit and wanting to believe him but not quite daring to do so, and Raintree, seeing his hesitation, repeated the offer of food. Pretty desperate for something more substantial to eat, Einar was tempted by the offer, but more even than his immediate need for food, his desire to talk further with Raintree was driven by a need for information about the search, assuming he could believe anything he got to be accurate. Besides, he told himself, the damage had already been done as far as Raintree having sighted him and knowing his general area, so he might as well take advantage of the

opportunity to get all the information he could from the man. And food, dont forget the food Oh, I have not forgotten. Havent forgotten the last time I accepted food from somebody, either. Lost a chunk of my leg, on that deal, and about died from the infection. Nope, no thanks, Ill come up with my own food. Im getting along Ok, and with the bow Im making, Ill be taking a deer soon. If, that is, I make it through the next hour or so without being killed or captured, which is not all that likely. He still believed that there was a good chance that the whole thing was a trap of some sort, with Raintree as the bait to bring him in to a spot that was favorable for capture, and was unwilling to approach the cavers camp directly or in whatever manner Raintree happened to suggest. But he did want the chance to pick Darrens brain for information on the search, and knew that balanced precariously on a thin ledge of rock with neither of them quite trusting the intentions of the other was no place to do it. Got to take my chances, I guess. Nothing to lose, because if hes working for them, Im sure he has already alerted them to my presence. Where exactly is this camp? See up there where that one dead limber pines perched out on that crag there? Right behind that, in the aspens. Well, Ill meet you up there in a bit. With that, Einar carefully got himself turned around and headed as quickly as he could back in the direction he had come from, wanting to get up to a vantage point where he could look over that camp for awhile before approaching it. And he wanted to keep Raintree in sight the whole time if he could, so that he would have at least some chance of seeing if the caver contacted someone on a radio or did anything else that seemed even remotely suspicious. As Raintrees path back to his camp consisted largely of ascending the two hundred feet of free hanging rope down which he had rappelled to reach the ledge that led to the caves, Einar had no trouble keeping an eye on him for that time, at least, though he did lose him as soon as he made it up over the rim and into the trees. Einars plan to make it to the camp before Raintree and have a look at things turned out to be a dismal failure, as he found his movements frustratingly slow, having to contend with fairly frequent bouts of vertigo that made his ascent difficult and at times downright dangerous. Once he was up into the trees himself and sure that Raintree could no longer see him, and having not yet having seen any sign of choppers in the area, Einar began seriously rethinking his plan to meet back up with Raintree. The only reasonable thing seemed to be to secure his getaway while he had the chance, heading up to his camp and gathering what he could carry before quickly leaving the area in case Raintree had indeed summoned help. But, if Raintree was telling the truth about being up there alone on his own businessand Einar knew that there was a pretty good possibility of this, as it was how the caver tended to operatethen by rejecting Raintrees offer, he would be passing up his first opportunity to get ahold of some solid intelligence on the search since seeing Rob. Which isnt going to do you a bit of good if the feds show up while youre sitting there and start shooting again. Theres no way youre making it out of another one of those. Einar paused in his climb up through the trees, angry at his uncertainty, shaking

his head and wishing desperately that he could clear for even a brief moment the fog of hunger and exhaustion that was clouding his judgment and making it very difficult for him to choose his immediate course of action. Eventually, unable to come to a conclusion that satisfied him and falling back on his default position of avoiding human contact at all cost, Einar turned away from the canyon rim and hurried up the slope towards his camp with the intention of grabbing what he could and heading out once again, knowing that he was in no shape to run and half wishing something would happen to change his mind.

Einar stopped when he was nearly halfway up the slope to his camp, looking back down the hill and across the meadow to the cluster of aspens on the canyon rim where Darren Raintrees camp was supposed to be, leaning heavily against a spruce as he waited for his heartbeat to return to something like normal and his vision to clear and once again running all of the options through his mind, trying to find a way to talk himself into heading back over to see Raintree. He really wanted to talk with the caver, knowing that it would probably be his only chance to find out more about the search, to get an idea of what the feds were up to and what, at least, was known to the public of their future plans. Whatever he could learn, it would be far more than he knew already, and might prove extremely valuable. And, removed somewhat from the immediate situation and looking at it a bit more objectively, he was pretty sure that if Raintree was working with the feds, they would have already made their presence known, before he had a chance to get away. Though Einar did not know Raintree well, he knew enough of him to be fairly certain that he was not the type to go carelessly running his mouth about every interesting discovery he made, whether it should consist of a newly discovered cave or a chance meeting with a wanted man. And if he chooses to talk, well, hes already seen me. Cant take that back. So, I ought to get something out of the deal, too. Even with that in mind, and having nearly convinced himself that the caver was probably not, at least, working directly with the feds, Einar was not sure that it would be a wise decision to have anything further to do with the man. His prevailing thought, in fact, and the thing that his wary mind kept screaming at him loudly enough to drown out nearly everything else, was that he had better get moving and make the best time he could away from the area, because even if Raintrees intentions towards him had started out good, the man might very well change his mind when he got to thinking about that reward. And itd be all too easy for him, once Im in his camp, to pull a gun on me or just whack me over the head with something, tie me up and wait for the feds. Wouldnt be much I could do. And, though these thoughts kept running unbidden through his mind, Einar soon found himself heading in the direction of the camp, telling himself that he at least needed to get a look at it, from a distance, to know whether Raintree was indeed alone, or if others were with him. Carefully working his way over to within less than a hundred yards of the cavers camp, Einar found a vantage point on a low rock outcropping from which he could get a good view of the area, noticing a green and grey one-man tent nestled beneath a stand of aspens, its pointed tip just visible under the trees, the rain fly apparently having been left

off during the day. He lay there on the rock as the light faded, watching Raintree uncoil and straighten two ropes and sort a variety of climbing gear, laying everything out on the flat rocks around his camp before loading much of it back up into his pack. As darkness descended the caver got a fire going in a small fire ring he had hastily constructed from limestone chunks, not a half buried discreet little fire like Einar would have done but also not, to the mans credit, the huge roaring inferno preferred by many of the weekend campers he had learned to steer clear of back when spending time in the wilderness had been a choice rather than a necessity. Sometimes when he thought about it, he could hardly remember those days; they seemed rather like something that had happened to someone else. Well. Its fine that way. Would kind of prefer this life, anyway, if I just had a little more to eat and less folks so bent on trying to take my sorry hide. And its up to me to get to a place where the second is true, so the first can be, also. I'd be doing just fine if I could put more energy towards getting food and a lot less into running. Raintree was cooking something, probably those eggs! and Einar could hear the sizzling from where he lay. It was not long before the smells reached himthe warm sulfur-like odor of scrambled eggs and the salty, tangy aroma of some sort of frying meat and though Einar was keenly aware of them they somehow, like the fading memories of his life before going on the run, seemed a thing of fantasy, a pleasant illusion to help him pass the time, and he was a mildly alarmed to find that he did not actually feel the least bit hungry or especially motivated to scrape himself up off the cold rock and see if he could get ahold of some of that food, lying there in a daze as he watched the camp and eventually falling asleep or passing outhe was seldom certain anymore where the line was between the two, or which one happened more often, a fact which should have scared him but did not; he had accepted it, like so many things, as a part of life. Einar woke shivering and freezing some time later, his face and arms numb where they had been pressed against the rock (Ohthat was a really bad idea!) with the distinct impression that he had heard an unaccustomed sound of some kind, metal on rock, pretty sure thats what it was He lifted his head to find that it had grown completely dark, clumsily rolling off of the limestone slab, rubbing his stiff arms and getting himself into a position where he could have a look at the camp. Raintree was moving around down there; Einar could tell from his silhouette against the glow of the fire that he had had pulled a jacket out of his pack and put it on before sitting back down. The unintentional lapse in consciousness while lying out in the open frightened Einar some; he knew that, without the timely intervention of Raintrees camp activities to wake him, he could easily have lain there unconscious as the limestone slab drew the heat out of him until, weak and starved, he succumbed to the chill of the night. Which would have been pretty silly, after making it through the winter and all That realization, combined with the crushing wave of vertigo and frighteningly rapid heartbeat that assailed him when he tried to rise, convinced Einar that he must accept the meal that the caver had offered him, find out what he could about the search, and hopefully make his exit from the camp before anything too disastrous could happen. The way he felt, he was doubtful that he would see morning if he did not eat something and get warm, and though that fact alone would not have been enough to send him walking into a situation where capture seemed likely, he was convinced by that point that Raintree was alone, as he had claimed. So, get down there. You stay here, and youre choosing to die. For no reason. That what you want?

Einar was honestly not sure what he wanted at that point, but supposed the argument seemed logical enough, and, being awfully tired of arguing with himself, he went. Darren was somewhat surprised when, enjoying some coffee by the fire after dinner, he suddenly had an odd feeling that he was being watched and glanced up to find Einar crouched against a tree at the far side of the little clearing in the aspens, just visible in the flickering glow of the fire. He had never heard a thing. As wary and spooked as Einar had seemed at their meeting on the ledge, and when he did not show up earlier that evening, Raintree had been sure that he had would not be seeing the fugitive again, and had been sorry, as it had been plain to him that the man was hungry, hurting and not especially well equipped. A situation for which Darren felt partly responsible, knowing that without his assistance, the FBI likely would never have found Einars hiding place in the remote grotto on the plateau. It had been a good location, warm and dry, and Darren had thought often of Einar since leading that search, wondering how he was making out since being forced to leave it. When it had become clear to Darren that Einar was probably not going to show up that evening, he had gone through his pack and collected a little pile of items that he decided he could do without, intending to leave them by his fire ring the following morning when he went out caving, where they would be accessible to Einar in case he did show up. Hey, Einar. Darren remained seated, not wanting to unduly alarm his guest. Ive got some eggs left. Fry you up a couple? Einar got himself to his feet and took a seat on Raintrees side of the fire, settling into a crouch against a small aspen with his back to the flames to preserve his night vision, the spear close at hand on the ground beside him, nodding. Sure could use something to eat.

Darren, having got the eggs frying and set a pot of water to heat, noticed that Einar had started shaking pretty badly as the fire warmed him, and offered him the loan of his down jacket, Einar accepting without question on the theory that he might very well end up having to leave the camp on short notice, and ought to do what he could to get warm in the meantime. Raintree could see that Einardespite an obvious level of vigilance and an apparent readiness to use the improvised spear if he felt threatened that left Raintree a bit dubious about his own safetywas having increasing difficulty staying upright, swaying and tipping and having to catch himself on the tree to keep from falling. Filling his enameled coffee mug from the pot of heating water by the fire, Raintree dumped in a generous portion of sugar and some milk powder from a couple of ziplock bags and stirred them into the water. Here. This should help while youre waiting for the food. Einar noticed an immediate increase in his energy and wakefulness as his body absorbed the sweet liquid, and felt a good bit warmer and steadier after having finished it, too. Wow. Thanks. Just what I needed.

By that time the eggs were ready, and Einar sat for a minute holding the plate and breathing the steam thank Youthank You before slowly beginning his meal. It was pretty clear to Raintree that Einar had not seen that much food in a while, and he busied himself with fixing more, in case his guest should finish it and still be hungry, lowering his food bag from an aspen on the far end of the clearing and fishing out the remainder of a can of Spam that he had been saving for breakfast, slicing and frying it in the hot skillet. Must be hard to get enough to eat while youre running like this, huh? Einar nodded. Can be. Its kinda rough when I have to keep moving all the time. Raintree sat down near him but not too close, having noticed the seemingly involuntary motion with which Einars hand closed around the spear when he brought him the plate of food, and not interested in unnecessarily testing the reflexes of a hunted and hungry man. He had a distinct impression that he would likely come out on the losing end of any such experiment, despite Einars condition. Noticing the improvised sole on one of Einars boots and wishing to break the uncomfortable silence, Darren tried to strike up a conversation. Thats one interesting boot you got there. You like that? Aspen bark and pine pitch. Seems to be working, for now, but I got to make a better repair pretty soon or Im gonna end up losing this sole, like I did the last one. Turns out these boots are really only good for so many miles, and then He shrugged. It looks like that rain jacket has seen better days, too. What happened? You get into a fight with a briar patch, or what? No. With a dog. Big Shepherd or Malinois or something. That thing was not just a tracker, it was trained to kill. I took care of it, but the jacket came out a little worse for the wear. And my arm. He pulled up the sleeve of the borrowed down jacket and showed Raintree the barely scabbed-over bites and tears on his right arm, some of them having been too wide to close on their own and Einar having lacked a means to close them. The loose flap of skin and flesh that had been left by the attack had eventually begun shriveling and turning black, and the point had come where he realized that he had to remove it, using his pocket knife and working by the light of his fire under the ledge two nights prior. Washing the area frequently with berberine water and chewing willow bark for the pain had seemed to be working fairly well, but Einar knew that in his depleted condition, things were not healing as quickly as they ought to be, leaving him more susceptible to infection. The arm looked pretty bad. Critter took some chunks out of me, for sure, but I took a bigger one out of him. You know, dog does not taste half bad, when youre hungry. Even raw. Raintree did not quite seem to know how to respond to that.

So, Einar continued. The search. You said theyre not looking, around here? Uhno, not as far as I know. Last I heard, they were pretty sure you drowned in the White Hawk River, after that cabin, after you blew it up, and all. Theyve been pretty reluctant to say anything publiclyI think theres some sort of a gag order in place, actuallybut I hear from local law enforcement that after the cougar got one of their tracking dogs and killed the handler back by that cabin Raintree got a strange look in his eye and glanced at Einar as he made the connection between the death of the dog and what Einar had just told him about the dog attack, but thought better of asking him about it. Anyhow, they set up pretty strict rules after than about having security follow along with all the trackers and dog teams. The trackers absolutely hate it, from what I hear, and say that the other agents are getting in the way, trampling stuff, distracting the dogs and things. Anyway, I guess that turned into a major problem when they were trying to look for where you might have come out of that river. Friend of mine whos a Deputy says they finally found a place on this steep slope by the river where they thought there were a couple of tracks, but the security team had trampled it so bad by the time the trackers got there that they were never able to tell for sure whether they were yours, or maybe belonged to one of the agents. Anyway, there was a pretty heavy air search down in that area for a few days, and along the big river that the White Hawk dumps into, also, and they were out there dredging it at one point, too, but never found anything or picked your trail back up, from what my friend tells me. And now of course, with Leer gone, everything has been scaled way back. Leer? Who is this Leer? Todd Leer? You mean you dont huh. No, I guess you wouldnt have heard about him. He was in charge of the Mountain Task Force out here, came out of retirement to help find you after they lost all those agents at the cabin. He was really the one driving this thing. He was determined, and angry. Seemed like kind of a personal thing with him, some sort of obsession. Pretty funny that you didnt even know who he was. Anyway, he new guy seems mostly content to let everyone think youre dead, though he wont actually come out and say it, to avoid future embarrassment. New guy? What, this Leer fellow just give up and go home? Yeah, thats right. You dont have satellite TV or probably even a radio out here, do you? See, last week Leer was in DC attending the funeral of one of the agents from the cabin, he and the FBI Director both, and afterwards when they were having a private discussion outside the funeral home, they both collapsed, so the reports go, almost simultaneously, and they had to be replaced. Apparently they were left paralyzed, and the official word is that it was due to some kind of previously unknown poison or biological agent. They found tiny pinprick marks in their necks, and the official word is that somebody must have used a blowgun to deliver the poison.

Raintree paused in his narrative to grab the skillet and stab the two browned Spam slices with a fork and deposit them on Einars plate, mixing him another mug of sugar water to go with them. Well, a couple of days later during a press conference at the FBI headquarters in Culver Falls, there was this explosion inside the building and some of the reporters found leaflets in Arabic, again mentioning some Arab terrorist group that nobody had ever heard of and claiming responsibility for both the blast and the poisoning of Leer and the Director. There was wild speculation for a day or so about the resurgence in Islamic terrorism and how our nation was under attack, but the Attorney General was not buying it, and neither was the new Director. Theyre now calling it a case of radical right wing domestic terrorism, by antigovernment forces sympathetic to you, whatever that means, and have made solving the case their top priority, with the new administration solidly behind them. They talk about it every night on the news, it seems like, but the good thing is that its got a lot of the focus off your case, for sure. And off of Culver Falls. A bunch of agents are still there, I mean, theyre not just going to give up on finding somebody thats responsible for taking out so many of their agents, but the search has been scaled way back. About that, cabinhow did you manage to haul all of those explosives up there, anyway? Einar hesitated, his mind reeling, trying to absorb all that the caver had just told him and wondering whether he could even believe it. Parts of it sounded pretty incredible, but then, Einar knew that his perspective could well be a bit off. He had not even begun to guess that the impact of his continued evasion would have been felt much outside of the local area, and was not sure what to make of what Raintree was telling him. He shook his head. Didnt. Didnt haul any explosives. Found some old dynamite in a mining cabin where I was holed up trying to recover after they shot me; it was all sweated and crystallized. Didnt dare touch the stuff. Feds came, I got out just ahead of them. They threw in a bunch of flash bangs, and got what they got. Though Im sure thats not the story theyre telling, is it? Nah. Theyre saying you rigged that cabin with some sort of a sophisticated explosive device that was definitely not the work of an amateur, if I remember the wording correctly. Nine of their guys died, you know, plus the tracker and dog up on the mountain that night that theyre saying a lion got, and now theyre making you out to be some sort of mass murderer. But anyway, Leers out now, the Directors out, and the new guy doesnt seem quite as interested in dumping all of the Bureaus resources into this black hole, as theyve come to refer to Culver Falls. Einar nodded. Good. Good to know. Thanks. He rose, leaning on the aspen and stretching in an attempt to fight a growing weariness and heaviness that increasingly threatened to claim him. After eating all of that food and drinking the two mugs of sugar water that Raintree had made him, Einar had felt euphoric, giddy, full of energy and wanting to talk, move, do thingsfor about five minutes, after which he had been hit by an incredible, overwhelming sleepiness. Knowing that it would be extremely unwise to sleep near the fire or in Raintrees presence and growing increasingly nervous about the

amount of time he had already spent in the camp, he stretched and moved his injured shoulder and hip, hoping to jar himself back into a satisfactory state of alertness and convince his body that it was not yet time to shut down and rest as it processed his first satisfying meal in days.

Einar could tell that he must get moving, and quickly, if he wanted to avoid falling asleep right there by the fire. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open. The unaccustomed comfort of the abundant food and warmth combined with his exhaustion were quickly beginning to get the better of him, and he hastily removed the down jacket and stepped back a few feet from the fire, hoisting his pack up onto his back and handing the jacket back to Raintree. Better get going, I think. Thanks for the food. Hey, could I have that empty Spam can? Could use something to cook in. Sure, yeah, you can have it. How about some food for the road, too? Ive got some trail mix here and a couple of chocolate bars that you can have. And some socks orI know! Those boots are looking pretty rough. Why dont you see if these fit? Einar inspected the footwear that Raintree handed him, a pair of black tennis shoes that the caver often wore while doing his mapping work to reduce the damage done to the delicate cave environments. They were fairly well worn and, at the moment, somewhat wet and muddy, but at least the soles were still firmly attached. Einar tried one of them on, finding it to be a bit tight around the toes but workable, if he did not tie it too tightly. Would be a big improvement, for sure. These boots have seen better days. Take them. I can get more. Raintree had retrieved his pack from the tent and was busy emptying its contents onto a large flat limestone slab near the fire, tossing a pair of socks at Einar and asking what else he might need. Wire. Do you have any kind of wire? Or string? No wire, butwell, Ive got some emergency prusik loops that I always carry in case something goes wrong with one of my ascenders. Here. He tossed three tied loops of red utility cord, one a good bit shorter than the others, at Einar. Will these work? Ah! Theyll be great! What about lightsticks? I always carry a couple of these in case I somehow end up losing all my other light sources when Im down there. Einar thanked him and worked to stuff the lightsticks down into the narrow tent-pole bag that he was using for a pack, which was already fairly full, and Darren, seeing the problem, offered him one of his rope bagsessentially a water resistant nylon sack with a drawstring at the top and two narrow webbing straps sewn on to act as makeshift shoulder strapsto carry everything in. This way you can have room to carry your old boots, or the shoes, whichever youre not

wearing at the time. And Ill tell you what. I go pretty light when Im caving, dont have too much with me besides what youve seen, and my tent and bag and a little survival kit, but Ive got a bunch more stuff back at the truck, down that way a couple miles where the road gets too rutted out. Ill be heading out in the morning, and if you want to meet me down there, I could give you some more food, a daypack that would carry more and be more comfortable than that rope bag, and Ive got some spare coveralls in there, even, if you could use something like that, and some survival stuff and a pretty comprehensive first aid kit. Hey! And a spare sleeping bag. Its pretty lightweight, but if it doesnt look like enough, then you can have mine, because I dont know how you do this, without one. Dont you just freeze? Gets awfully cold up here at night, even in the summer. Einar just shrugged. Guess Im kind of used to it. And spruce duff and cattail down can be pretty warm. Though when Im as hungry as Ive been lately, it does get pretty rough. Times like that, any morning I wake upwell, I figure thats a good morning. Raintree could see that Einar was drooping, struggling hard to stay awake as he transferred his gear to the rope bag and added the new items, and he mixed up a mug of instant coffee with a generous helping of sugar, offering it to Einar, who gulped it down and accepted a second mug when Darren made it for him, but soon found that to have been a big mistake, as the unaccustomed jolt of caffeine to his already taxed system left him jumpy and on edge to the point that Darren found himself wishing that he could get the spear away from him and hide it somewhere, but knowing it would be a huge mistake to attempt any such thing. So he just kept his distance and avoided any sudden moves, Einar realizing that things werent quite right but unable to do much about it. Anyway, that sleeping bag ought to help your nights be better, and if you still need wire, Ive got a bunch of different stuff in the truck tool box that you can look through, and I bet you could use a hatchet, too. Einar nodded. Well. Yes, that sounds real good. Dont know why youre so anxious to help me, though. Kinda risky. Oh, I figure the feds have plenty of help, maybe you could use a little, too. No, really, Im justuhawfully sorry that I ever agreed to take the feds on that little tour of the Caves of Lakemont County. Should have just said no when they asked me, but I figured theyd end up finding most of them anyway, and do a lot more damage in the process than if I was along to restrain them. Never figured that we would actually stumble upon your hiding place. It looked like you had a pretty good little setup there, and it cannot have been a good thing to have to leave it so suddenly. Quiet for a moment as he recalled his desperate escape back through the cave and the near drowning and hypothermia that followed it, Einar shrugged. Sure didnt help any, but I dont guess I hold it against you. Just dont do it again. No, no my career as a consultant for the FBI is over and done, and good riddance! I kept wondering what had happened to you after that cave, if you were dead in there, or

had somehow made it out another entrance. Didnt even know if you were alive, until that outfitter got shot by the feds and they said you had been in his camp. Glancing up at the caver, Einar tried to keep his face passive and not betray too much interest. Outfitter? Yeah. Rob. Rob Warren. The official word is that he had been harboring you at his camp, and shot up the federal search team that came to take you. Though the DOW guy that the feds had accidentally shot the week before said Rob wasnt out there helping you, but was just finishing up some elk tracking project that got cut short when he was injured. I dont know, though. Something went on there that night, and however it started, it wound up with five feds being choppered off to the hospital with gunshot wounds, and two of them ended up not making it. I know thats a fact from talking with one of the Deputies I know down in Culver. He was on scene later that day as part of the rescue crew for the less seriously injures agents, and he says it looked like Rob put up quite a fight. Guess his body was still out there that morning, and the Deputy says it looked like he just took up a position behind a bunch of logs, and let them have it, till somebody got in a head shot at him. Is that when you got shot? For a while Einar just crouched there staring at the ground, finally nodding. If Raintree knew all that, then the FBI surely knew it, too, and no harm could be done by telling his side. Rob was asleep. I heard them coming, started to get out of there. No warning, nothing. Shot me in the leg while I had my back to them. After that I was out of there pretty quick, just trying to get away from them and control the bleeding. Ididnt know about Rob. Never should have gone anywhere near that camp. He was a real decent guy, like you probably are. But he didnt realize what he was getting into. Einar stood, shouldered the rope bag, grabbed the spear, and stepped away from the fire without another word to Raintree, who went after him, maintaining a respectful distance. So. See you in the morning, then? You cross the big meadow thats right on the other side of these aspens here, then down towards the canyon rim for about a mile and a half, and youll find the road. Will you be Ok out there tonight? Youre welcome to stay. Einar stopped, looked back and shook his head, wanted to tell Raintree that, as the chances that he would actually be able to talk himself into a second meeting were pretty slim, hed appreciate the opportunity to take a bit more food, maybe the ziplocks of sugar and powdered milk, the survival kit Raintree had mentioned and a sweater or something, but he still did not trust Raintree quite enough to let on that he was considering anything other than the plan they had discussed. If the proposed meeting at the truck was a trap, best to have Raintree think he was falling for it, for as long as possible. Ill be fine. Einar was feeling so good and full of eggs and Spam and warm sugar watersuch a contrast to the recent days of starving and shaking nearly constantly because his body just did not have enough to work with to easily maintain a normal temperaturethat he was pretty sure he could just curl up on the nearest rock and sleep quite comfortably for the next twelve or fourteen hours. Which he came pretty close to

doing not at all far from the camp, as the immediate effect of the coffee wore off and he was again assailed by a nearly irresistible weariness. He caught himself not five hundred yards up the slope from the camp sleeping on his knees against a tree, forced himself back up and kept himself going, painfully flexing his injured shoulder until he was thoroughly awake and sure he would stay that way for awhile, working his way up to the rocky top of a ridge some six or seven hundred feet above the cavers camp and finding a place to shelter just below its crest where he huddled in some spruce duff that he shoved beneath a granite slab, seeing the faint glow of the dying coals in Raintrees fire ring and knowing that he would have a clear view of the camp when morning came. His intention was to watch Raintree as he packed up the camp in the morning, hoping to see something suspicious if there was anything to see, before following him from a distance to the truck and checking things out for a time before heading down to meet Raintree. As he finally relaxed and allowed sleep to claim him, though, Einar thought about Rob and knew that he probably would not, in the end, risk a second meeting with Raintree. Though the thought of obtaining a sleeping bag and axe made the prospect very tempting, as did the knowledge that by the time morning came, he would find himself ravenously hungry and able to think of little but food once again as his starved body looked for that night's feast to continue.

Tired as he was, Einars sleep was restless and sporadic that night as his mind mulled over the possibilities for the coming morning and the proposed meeting with Raintree. Twice as he lay there staring up at the stars through a crack in the rock ceiling above him and becoming increasingly doubtful of the wisdom of risking another meeting with the caver, he very nearly had himself convinced that the most reasonable course of action would be to go during the night, break into the truck and take what he needed before putting as much distance as possible behind him before Raintree got up and hiked back to the truck. Raintree had, after all, offered those things to him, and such an action would eliminate some of the concerns he still had about Raintrees intentions towards him. Yeah, or it could just make him mad enough that he decides to turn me in, drives down to the nearest phone, calls them, they bring dogs, and have me within an hour or two. So, I take the truck. Really put some distance behind me before he even knows its gone. And he most likely has no way to communicate with anyone, so itd take a long time before anybody was on my trail, and Id be so far gone by then Einar liked that idea, liked it well enough that he dragged himself up out of his leaf bed and into the clear, starlit night where he shrugged into the rope bag and stood shivering in the night breeze, leaning on the granite slab and staring out at the dark world around him, trying to reconcile the directions Raintree had given him with the dimly starlit hulking forms of the landscape that spread out in varying shades of grey and black beneath his ridgetop perch. The meadow that Raintree had described was clearly visible, as was a darker swath of timber beyond it, in or near which he expected to find the truck. A low evergreen covered ridge, visible only in that it blotted out the stars and created a void, appeared to run above that swath of trees, and he supposed that if he could make it across the meadow and climb

that ridge, he might have a view of Raintrees pickup, which was supposedly in a little open space just beyond the evergreens. The meadow, quite wide and by his estimation over a mile long, presented quite an obstacle. He did not want to spend that much time out in the open, but thought that he could opt to follow the mostly-timbered canyon rim, instead, which would be a longer route and which, riddled as he knew it would be with little draws and gulleys, he would be lucky to complete before daylight. Suddenly dizzy and a bit disoriented in the darkness and not wishing to chance a fall down the steep, rocky slope below him he felt his way back beneath the rock slab and slumped down on the pile of duff. Rummaging around in the rope bag he found the trail mix Raintree had sent with him and ate a small handful, knowing that he needed to keep his energy up, whatever he decided to do, and already beginning to deal with the allconsuming hunger that he had known would be coming not too long after he ate the meal at Raintrees camp. It helped that he knew basically what to expect, by that time. Made it a bit easier to acknowledge the feeling, push it aside, and get his focus back on the matters at hand. A bit, but not much. So he downed some more of the trail mix and a square chocolate, having serious second thoughts about his plan to borrow Raintrees truck. You know theres a real good possibility that this whole thing was a setup from the start, and that the feds, being pretty smart about these things, predicted your likely actions and are waiting for you right now down near that truck with NV goggles and rifles. Or that Raintree is working with them, up here searching caves for them, has a radio and contacted them as soon as you left to tell them about our plan, so they could be waiting. In which case, the whole team is probably already in place around that truck, and if not, surely at least a scout or two with NV. You could go take a look at the area, but what will you realistically be able to see from some distant ridge? Probably not even the truck, itself, in this lighting. And if you get in close enough to see anything, they will probably see you before you even realize that anything is wrong. Likely as not, theyre staked out on top of that very ridge, scanning the meadow and parking area with infrared viewers and just waiting for me to get out in the open and in one place or the other. If they are, and I do it, then the only thing left to be decided will be whether they want me dead or alive, and the choice will mostly be theirs, cause it doesnt seem that Im likely to be moving quick enough or thinking sharp enough to get myself out of the situation this time if any kind of contact is made. If Im really lucky, theyll just go ahead and take a head shot before I even know theyre around, but it seems Im seldom really lucky, so theyll probably end up crippling me and hauling me off to a cell somewhere. No way. Not walking into that. If I could sneak back down into Raintrees camp, though Einar had seen the location of the aspen where Raintree had suspended his backpack out of the reach of curious bears for the night, and realized that it was far enough from the tent that he could probably sneak in and lower it without ever alerting the caver. He knew that by raiding the pack he would be risking Raintrees wrath, risking turning the man against him, but he also knew that his chances of living through the next few weeks

would be a good deal better if he could get ahold of some of the warm clothing and additional food that he had seen in the pack when Raintree had dumped its contents out on the flat rock. Sleeping bag would have been great, but a sweater or an intact rain jacket that I could use as a second layer to replace this tattered one would go a long, long way. Wind is killing me, and this jacket is hardly doing anything to keep it out anymore, not to mention when it rains... This way, I can get the gear and be out of here before daylight, well on my to another place before the team down by the truck realizes that Im not showing up. If there is a team. Got to assume that there is. Entirely without meaning to, Einar fell asleep there under the granite slab with his head on his knees as he sat planning his raid on the cavers camp, and when he again woke, the cold finally forcing him reluctantly from an exhausted sleep, the eastern sky was just beginning to brighten ever so slightly with morning. Scrambling to his feet with a start, Einar grabbed for the rope bag and spear, fumbled the trail mix bag open with hands clumsy from the night chill and hurriedly ate a couple of bites before heading down the hill, hoping that he still had time to sneak into Raintrees camp and out again before the caver left his tent for the morning. Einar had not covered more than half of the descent, his progress slowed by ground that was rocky, steep and unpredictable, rife with rocks that continually threatened to give way beneath his feet and go clattering down the slope to waken Raintree, before he saw the orange glow of a fire reflected on the limestone below him. Stopping under a spruce, panting for breath and trying to quiet the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears so he could hear what was going on, Einar watched as Raintree moved about the camp, clanking metallic-sounding objects together and apparently preparing breakfast. You messed up, Einar. Messed up big. Now its too late. The morning breeze, icy as it flowed through his single layer of polypropylene clothing, soon carried the food smells from Raintrees camp up to Einars location until his growling stomach had very nearly convinced him to head down the hill and join Raintree for breakfast, before following the caver to his truck and obtaining the promised gear. By the warming and strengthening glow of the daylight, his night fears of a federal ambush were beginning to fade, to seem a bit foolish, even, and he told himself that he really needed to stop seeing agents behind every rock and sinister plots behind every honest offer of assistance that came his way. Thats no way to live. Go on down there and get some breakfast, Einar. Which, hungry and chilled and thinking that the fire looked almost as good as the frying eggs smelled, he hurried to do.

Darren Raintree, anxious to get to his truck that morning ahead of Einar and load some things into the spare daypack for him in case he was in a hurry when he showed up, rose early and got a fire going, intent on enjoying a mug of coffee and some eggs before heading out. The eggs were just beginning to sizzle in the skillet when he heard the rumble and realized that the Blackhawk was already on top of him, having popped up over the canyon rim and settled into a low hover over his camp, its rotor wash splattering his breakfast in his face and sending a minor firestorm of embers swirling wildly about the camp to melt big, ragged holes in the grey nylon of his tent fly and go plummeting over the canyon rim and into the darkness below like a meteor shower.

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FBI Director affirms commitment to capturing Asmundson

Tuesday, May 28 Associated Press Newly appointed FBI Director Terry Lotts, until recently the Deputy Director under Ferris Lee, emphasized in a Washington, DC press conference this morning the Bureaus ongoing dedication to bringing to justice fugitive Einar Asmundson, who has so far been indicted in the deaths of fourteen of the federal agents who have been pursuing him, with charges pending in a number of other cases. Nine of the agents perished in last months terrorist blast at the remote cabin where Asmundson had been holed up, the remaining five losing their lives in a deadly string of stealth attacks and explosions taking place over the course of the last year and spanning several counties in the remote mountain region. Lotts, a twenty year veteran of the Bureau and longtime friend of former Director Lee, gave a statement this morning, speaking in front of the FBI Headquarters in Washington before answering reporters questions. While solving the bioterrorist attack against former Director Ferris Lee and Special Agent Todd Leer remains a top priority for the Bureau, I want to assure the families of the agents who have who have bravely given their lives in the line of duty in the ongoing hunt for Asmundson, and the American public as well, that we will not give up until this brutal terrorist and mass murderer has been brought to justice. The danger posed by his continued freedom is very real, and we can tell you that a number of leads are being pursued, and that we will continue to devote the full resources of the Bureau to bringing a swift and successful end to this investigation. Former FBI Director Ferris Lee remains in critical but stable condition in Washington, DCs Howard University Hospital DCs today after suffering a massive stroke days after what has alternately been described as a bioterrorism attack and an assassination attempt while attending the funeral of a slain FBI agent last week. The extended care facility where Todd Leer had been a resident since shortly after the attack declined to comment on his condition, but family members say that, while breathing on his own, he remains paralyzed and has so far shown no signs of improvement. The exact nature of the toxin used against the two men has yet to be determined, but it is believed by federal investigators that the attack was perpetrated by far-right domestic terrorists belonging to a shadowy and loose-knit group that sympathizes with Asmundson. Investigation into

these claims is ongoing and, according to confidential sources within the FBI, farreaching.

Above the plateau the night before, NASA's Ikhana unmanned science demonstration aircraft, a civilian variant of the militarys Predator B, had flown high and silent, relaying infrared images of the areavery nearly in real-timedown to the FBI command center by satellite link, where they were processed by a crew in the mobile flight control trailer that had shown up in the parking lot of the old feed store some two or three days prior. As the images came in, team of FBI agents and other Mountain Task Force personnel worked with National Guard Blackhawk Helicopter crews to develop that mornings flight plan, being under orders to do flyovers of each and every backcountry fire, large or small, that showed up on the infrared images within a sixty mile radius of Einars last known location. The Ikhana UAV, based out of NASAs Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, had been successfully used during recent California wildfires to help fire crews locate lingering hotspots as they worked to control the blazes, and, with all flight operations being fully mobile and operation silent and undetectable from the ground, it was ideally suited to the task at hand. And, that early in the year, there were not an especially large number of campfires in the backcountry for the chopper to focus on.

Einar could feel the wind of the rotors in his hair, the gritty sensation of finely pulverized granite dust between his teeth and in the corners of his tightly squinted eyes as the chopper hovered very nearly level with his position, not a hundred feet over Raintrees camp. He felt around behind him, running his hand over the sharply fractured surface of the granite boulder that he lay curled against, having not moved from the spot where he had dived for cover upon realizing that the increasingly unsettled and nearly panicky feeling in the pit of his stomach had not been the result of his hunger or of his apprehension at approaching Raintree, but rather his body and mind subconsciously screaming at him that danger was near, was about to rise up out of that canyon and swoop in on him if he did not do something about it. I was almost down there. Just a few minutes later, and Id have been down there He shuddered, suddenly very thankful for the fact that he had slept as long as he had, delaying his descent. His shelter-rock lay beneath a densely-boughed Engleman sprucehe prayed that it was dense enoughwhere it had come to rest after at some point breaking off from the rock face above to tumble down the steep slope and become partially embedded in the trunk of the tree, which had grown up and around it as if nothing was wrong. Einar, wanting better cover, could feel a deeper declivity behind the boulder on the uphill side, could just feel with his fingertips where the rock dipped in and gave way to a few inches of open space beneath, and moving so slowly that his progress would hardly have been noticeable had someone been watching, he oozed around the rock, scraping out a bit of loose dirt to

make another inch or two of room, and curled himself into the declivity, looking up and seeing that he was covered and, for the first time since having to squeeze through the narrow cave passages, finding himself not quite as dismayed as usual that that he was so badly starved. Has its occasional advantages, I guess. Resistance to the cold, however, was certainly not one of them, as he was soon reminded when the chill of the half-frozen dirt and the massive heat sink of the cold granite chunk quickly combined to rob his body of heat where he was pressed against them, leaving him with little to do but pull his knit cap down to his eyebrows and shiver, hoping that the chopper would soon move on. He could not see what was happening down at the camp, and certainly couldnt hear anything, either, over the thunder of the rotors, and the thought occurred to him that the chopper might have brought searchers, trackers, dogs, even, if Raintree had, as it seemed, summoned it, and as he thought about it, Einar was assailed by a sudden wild urge to go dashing out from under the rock and scrambling up the ridge away from the hovering vulture, away fromwell, whatever was going on down there. Stillness became nearly intolerable in that moment, and it was all he could do to restrain himself from acting on his rash impulse, pressing himself into the ground and reminding himself rather firmly that the feeling would pass, that to act on it would be to give himself away. And good luck to them, anyway, if theyre planning on trying to start dogs from the camp, after this thing blasts the ground and rearranges the top inch or so of dirt for awhile He supposed that, since Raintree did not know where he had been planning to spend the night and therefore could not tell the agents, even if he wanted to, and because the chopper crew apparently did not at the moment know his exact location, the best thing for him to do would be to remain still right where he was, hoping it would leave so he could do the same. And then And then its back on the trail again, because if this thing doesnt land here and drop off a search team right now, Im sure one will be along pretty close behind, and Im just gonna have to hope that I can be a little smarter about this than I am fast, because this is going to be a tough one to get out of. Einar could tell that he was not going to be doing any ten or fifteen mile travel days, that he was, in in fact, going to be hard pressed to keep moving for very long at all without having to stop and rest or sleep, or pass out under a tree somewhere until they catch up with me, more likely Gonna need some help if Im coming through this one. Please, Lord. I could sure use a hand. For a time whose length Einar could not reliably guess the chopper continued hovering, the sound roaring in his head as he lay there freezing, drifting, to his surprise, alarmingly near sleep at times, always aware of the imminent threat represented by the closeness of his pursuers but a good deal calmer about it than he thought he ought to be. He supposed he must simply be too worn out to get all worked up about it, anymore, and that, in itself scared him some, because he knew he would be needing all the alertness and awareness he could muster over the next few days if he was to escape. The chopper finally moved on, the dust settled, and Einar, after waiting a few long minutes in the silence to make certain that it was not immediately returning, stood, stepped out into the sunlight and stretched and rubbed his cramping arms and legs, breathing the warming, spruce-scented air of late morning and taking off along the ridge, sticking to the dark timber and wanting to get back up to a place where he could have a

look back down at Raintrees camp to see what was happening. Some distance down below the canyon rim, nobody saw the little wisp of smoke that curled up from a patch of dry grass where one of the embers from Raintrees fire had landed, the small flame fanned by a rising wind and slowly smoldering its way down into the roots of a long-dead evergreen on a steeply inaccessible section of canyon wall.

Despite the rain that had swept the high plateau several days before, it had been a dry and windy spring, overall, and, for that matter, a fairly dry winter up there, with the snow pack being less than three quarters of its usual depth and, unlike the area where Einar had spent most of the winter and where there had been an overabundance of snow. It did not take long, reaching pockets of pitch in the long-dead tree whose roots the ember had burned down into, for flames to rise and fully engulf the tree, the warming winds of morning rising from the canyon to quickly spread the fire to the nearby limber pines and dry grass, until within less than half an hour, several acres of forested canyon wall were engulfed in flame. Darren Raintree, slowly making his way down the sharp switchbacks of road that led down from the plateau, was the first to call in the fire, as soon as he rounded a shoulder of the plateau and found himself in cell range again. He had first noticed the smoke when the snaking contortions of the switchbacks carried him out onto a long spur of rugged land that allowed him a view back up the canyon, and it did not take him long to guess what must have happened. He had stomped out the three minor grass fires that had flared up around his camp after the departure of the helicopterand, to his dismay, done serious damage to a portion of his tentand had carefully searched the immediate area for hot spots, but had known that he could well be missing something, as far-flung as the embers had been by the rotor wash from the chopper. The thing had never even landed; it seemed that once they got a look at him, and saw that he was simply standing there staring at them with egg all over his face rather than running or taking some sort of hostile action, they had been satisfied to move on. Leaving Darren to scrape half-cooked scrambled eggs out of his hair and off of his glasses, which had, fortunately, saved him from what might otherwise have been a rather serious eye injury. As it was, he discovered that he had sustained minor burns to portions of his face from the hot, airborne breakfast, and a scald on one arm where the boiling coffee water had caught him as the pot was sent flying. Watching as the chopper took off across the plateau in the direction of his truck, he had hoped that Einar was not already there waiting for him, or, even worse, out in the open crossing the big meadow that lay between his camp and the band of trees where he had left the truck. After taking down his camp, packing everything up and securing his ruined tent to the back of his pack, Raintree had hurried off on his way to the truck, relieved when the chopper did not seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time hovering over it before moving on. They ought to know who I am by now, if they did not, before. If any of the agents on that chopper were up at the cave search, they probably recognized the truck. And if they dont know whose camp they just wrecked, well, theyre about to, soon as I get down to town! Darren had waited at the

truck for half an hour in the hopes that Einar would show up, but in the end was not surprised when he did not, figuring that the appearance of the chopper must have spooked him too badly, and possibly even led him to question the cavers motives and wonder if he was still working with the feds. Poor guy. What else could he think, after that? Before heading off down the hill, Raintree loaded up the daypack with a number of things he thought Einar could use, leaving it hanging in a tree just inside the aspen forest from where he had been parked. He had expected that Einar, if he had not already done so, would eventually be over to take a look at the parking area, and hoped he would find the pack. It had been all he could think to do, short of spending another night up there and hoping Einar would show up again, but that did not seem at all likely, after the helicopter incident. After pulling over to call in the fire, Raintree hurried as well as he could down the narrow switchbacks to the valley some two thousand feet below, wanting to be well clear of the area and thinking that the remainder of his day might be well spent in paying a visit to his friends at the Forest Service to let them know just how the fire had started up on the plateau that morning, then perhaps wrapping things up with a stop at the Culver Falls office of the Sentinel, whose staff he expected ought to be busily preparing a story on the fire by that time, and would gladly welcome the scoop he intended to give them. Minus the part about Einar eating dinner in his camp the previous evening, of course. The first clue Einar had that something was amiss in the canyon was the appearance of a small spotter plane, which he heard in the distance as he hurried to put more distance between himself and Raintrees camp. Crouching under a tree, grateful for a break from the forced movement and using the opportunity to nibble at a few raisins and peanuts from the trail mix, Einar listened as the plane approached and apparently commenced circling an area that, near as he could figure, roughly corresponded with Raintrees camp. Well, seems they dont know where I am, but what are they doing over there? Needing to know, he started up the low, forested rise that he had been traversing, catching an occasional whiff of smoke as he did so and not entirely surprised when he topped out on the ridge and saw smoke when he glanced over in the direction of the canyon. Not surprised, but certainly somewhat alarmed, as the fire already appeared quite large, and headed his way in a hurry. It was windy, was almost always windy up on the plateau, and though it was not blowing directly in his face as he stared at the smoke, Einar knew that it could easily shift on a dime and bring the thing racing at him, at which point there would be no escape, as he could not have, even at his most fit, ever expected to actually outrun a wind-driven wildfire. About the best he could hope for was to hunker down in a little depression in the ground and wait to see if he would still be breathing after it passed over him. And if notwell now that would be awful ironic, wouldnt it? Spend the winter freezing and splashing around in icy rivers and such, somehow make it through all that, only to end up as a crispy critter on some ridge in the spring All joking aside, Einar could see that he was potentially in quite a fix. He knew that he ought to head down, that fire, when behaving normally and not subject to the odd fluctuations in wind pattern that can come on warm afternoons in the mountains, wanted

to travel upslope, and that he should therefore go down to avoid itbut of course the only down in the area was the canyon, and that was where the fire had started. Just above him was the narrow band of timber he had been following along a low rise, and beyond that, hundreds of acres of open meadow before there was another large block of timber. The meadow was cut in places by shallow, tree-lined gulleys and sunken areas a surface indicator of the vast hollow world of limestone passages and chambers that lay beneath the plateauand Einar supposed that he might be able to stay low in one of those depressions, making his way out of the burn area without being spotted from one of the numerous aircraft he expected to begin seeing as the firefighting effort got underway. Well, at least they wont be focused on looking for me, with this fire to think about, and it ought to be playing havoc on the search team that the chopper probably dropped in this morning, toounless of course the feds set this fire in the first place hoping to flush me out into the meadow were they could swoop in and grab me, or shoot me or whatever they plan to do, after Raintree told them what he knew. He doubted that, though, doubted they would risk using such an unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable tool as wildfire in their efforts to apprehend him, but could not be sure. As he hurried through the timber, heading for the edge of the meadow and what appeared to be the nearest of the series of shallow gullies, Einar heard the first plane of the morning, aside from the small spotter that had continued circling the fire, and glanced up to see an orange and white painted Twin Otter slowly circle, drop down a couple of hundred feet, and loose a load of water on the general area of the fire. Ok, it looks like if the feds set this thing intentionally, they must have forgot to inform the BLM, or the Forest Service, or whoever that is up therethat, or it got away from them and they had to pull out and turn things over to somebody who actually knows what theyre doing! Either way, looks like their search is getting interrupted, and I may have a chance to get out of this one after all, if the fire doesnt do me in. Reaching the edge of the timber and seeing that he would have to cross nearly twenty five yards of open meadow to reach the forested gulley, he waited until the spotter plane banked and disappeared behind the trees of the low ridge before making the dash, staying low and moving more quickly than he would have guessed himself able, rolling beneath a spruce at the edge of the depression and lying on his side for a minute, light-headed and struggling for breath, a bit alarmed at a heartbeat that seemed far too rapid for the mere seconds of exertion that had brought it on, and very slow to get back to normal. Finally rolling to his stomach, he sat up and glanced around to make certain that there were no visible signs of imminent danger before retrieving the bag of trail mix and one of the beer cans, half full of water and stoppered with a mullein-stalk cork, from the rope bag. He was nauseous and dizzy and did not feel much like eating, but could tell that he had better give it a try, if he wanted to be able to keep moving. This is bad, Einar. Better get ahold of some serious food and lie low for a few days just as soon as this is over. Do not like the way that felt, and what if you had to go farther? Faster? Think that might be the end of you, right there. Einar crawled in closer to the trunk of the spruce, leaning against it as he gulped some water and a small handful of the trail mix and kept a wary eye on the sky above the trees, where a second plane, larger than the little spotter but not as large as the Twin Otter, had come into view, circling the area once. Wondering at the purpose of the new aircraft, Einar did not have to wait long for his answer, as four plummeting figures

appeared, quickly blooming with color as their parachutes opened, the square canopies telling him that the smoke jumpers were probably with the BLM rather than the Forest Service. Watching them descend, Einar was glad that he was not directly between the jumpers and the fire, and ought to have no trouble at all keeping out of their way. Glad, that was, until a gust of wind caught one of the jumpers as he neared the ground, sending him into a drift and quickly carrying him towards the gulley and band of trees that concealed Einar, where his canopy hung up on the top of a nearby spruce.

Einar watched the canopies drift towards the ground, hurrying to better conceal himself as soon as he realized that one seemed to be drifting way too close to his trees. The best he could come up with was a long-fallen spruce trunk with a bunch of bracken ferns growing up around it, and, taking as much care as possible not to crush the ferns, he slid down along the trunk, rolling partially beneath it and lying on his back, fluffing the ferns back out over him and hoping that it would be enough to conceal him. Just in case, he kept his spear handy, knowing that the man would have a radio and could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to communicate with his fellow jumpers or with the plane if he spotted Einar. From his hide, Einar was able to watch as the brightly colored canopy drifted and hung up in the top of one of the tallest spruces in the little cluster that concealed him, the jumper briefly ending up tangled in one of the shroud lines before righting himself and setting up to rappel to the ground, reaching it and removing his helmet, face-shield and well-padded tan one-piece Kevlar reinforced jumpsuit, its high, flared collar designed to help protect jumpers from encounters with tree branches when they had to do timber landings. The man carried the jumpsuit with him as he left the gulley for the meadow, much to the dismay of Einar, who had decided that while the suit was bulky and awkward-looking and not something that a man could probably move especially quickly in, it did look fairly warm and weather resistant...if itll keep them from burning, will probably also keep me from freezing. He wanted that jumpsuit. And the spare chute that was stowed in its black bag on the mans harness, too, and the metal hardware from the harness Well. Cant have it, but if I can get myself up that tree, then a bunch of those lines and maybe even part of the canopy can be mine. The jumper, emerging from the trees, shouted to his companions and hurried to join them out in the meadow where they waited as the plane again circled the area and dropped the paracargo boxes that contained firefighting tools and support items for the jumpers. Einar, having settled into a low crouch behind the fallen tree, watched as they collected the gear, rolled up and stashed their jumpsuits, and took off in the direction of the fire. I think they left some stuff. Some food, probably, maybe other things. More rope in all those leg pockets, for certain. Sure would be good if I could get over there and check. Have to see. Once the men were far enough away that he was certain they would not see him, Einar rose from his hiding place and made his way over to the tree. Quickly dismantling his improvised spear so that he would have the use of the pocket knife and leaving his gear on the ground at the base of the tree, Einar started up the tree, a difficult climb that was aided by the letdown rope that had been left behind by the jumper to be retrieved later when he returned for the canopy. Except I believe Ill be taking it

with me, too! He knew that when the jumper returned, it would quickly become clear that someone had been tampering with his gear, but Einar hoped to be far away by that time, his trail wiped out by the fire, well on his way to a place where he could use some of the newly acquired cordage to set up a bunch of snares and make a bowstring and generally set about the business of coming up with a steady supply of food so he could stop starving all the time andOk. Sounds great, but you got to actually put your hands on it first, then get out of here without them seeing you. And without being burnt up, too. Now, up this tree. Though aided by the letdown line that the jumper had left hanging in the tree, Einar was still faced with the reality that he almost entirely lacked the use of his left arm, when it came to climbing, and that his hip was nowhere near as flexible as it ought to be, either, with his left leg wanting to cramp up every time he asked very much of it. Well. Wish these branches were a little closer together here low down, but I can do it. Got to do it. Which he did, slowly working his way high enough up into the spruce that he could begin to reach high enough on the lines to cut off useful lengths, taking as many of them as he could get hold of without leaning too far out and risking a forty foot fall that almost certainly would have finished him off. Wrapping the letdown rope several times around his left arm as he worked and keeping a firm hold on it with his hand, he hoped that the setup might be enough to catch him if he did lose his balance, which seemed not at all unlikely, considering the frequent waves of vertigo that had him pressing his eyes shut and leaning his forehead against the trunk of the tree until they passed. Wrapping and tying the lines around his waist as he worked, Einar gathered a good number of them, also cutting away the little drogue chute, which hung somewhat lower in the tree than the main and which, aside from being brightly colored, looked like it could be modified to make an excellent nylon-and-mesh carrying sack or even backpack. He tucked it under his widening belt of wrapped lines, working as quickly as he could and taking occasional glances back over his shoulder at the ominously close wall of smoke and flame that seemed to be growing by the minute. Just as he was cutting the last of the lines that he could reasonably reach and beginning to think about attempting to inch higher and retrieve the canopy, a strong gust of wind swayed the tree, and looking back, Einar saw that the fire had again shifted, the strengthening wind sending it directly at him, jumping from tree to tree as it went. Past time to clear out of here. He wanted that letdown rope, though, and instead of using it to help himself quickly descend, he cut it as high as he could reach, hastily coiling it over his shoulder and doing a quick descent that consisted of nearly as much falling as it did climbing. Reaching the ground and checking to see that all of his salvaged gear was still attached and all of his limbs still more or less functioned, Einar grabbed the rope bag and hurried off up the gulley. He had wanted to go out and take a look at the gear the smoke jumpers had stashed by the boulder in the meadow, maybe get ahold of one of those jumpsuits or even some food or a tool they had left behind, but he realized that the fire was approaching too quickly for that to be a good idea. Although if I wait until the smoke is blowing over the meadow, I suppose I could dash in and grab something without being seen It seemed worth a try. The wind picked up yet again, however, sending the flames his way at a speed which precluded any such attempt and sending him hurrying instead through the gulley away

from the oncoming fire in the hopes that he might be able to outmaneuver it, without exposing himself to being spotted from the air. Einar had already left the gulley and made his way to a larger swath of timber by the time it became clear that the fire was going to overtake him. The safest thing to do, and the thing that he would have done, had he not been a hunted man, would have involved hurrying as quickly as he could to the already burnt ground near the canyon rim. He could see that, the way the wind had shifted the flames, his path was clear to do so, and though he might have ended up with damaged boot soles (uhsole) from the still smoldering ground he would have to pass over, the damage would likely not be any worse than that. Cant do it, though, because theyd see me for sure. No cover over there, and those jumpers are probably doing exactly the same thing about now. Einar knew he could not hope to outrun the fire, but hoped that if he could get to the top of the rise and down the other side, perhaps he could find a place to hunker down as it passed over him. Running as well as he could up the hill, determined at first to hang onto the gear he had gained, Einar could tell that he was not going to make it, weighed down like that. Drop the pack, Einar, lose it now, or youre gonna die! Do it! And he did, unwisely taking the time to retrieve the trail mix and chocolate and stuff them into his zippered jacket pocket before taking off again, hearing the roar of the fire behind him and knowing that it would be pointless to hang onto his gear only to lose his life to the flames. He could feel the acrid smoke in his throat, stinging his eyes and nose, his lungs were burning with the effort of the climb and with the smoke, and he could feel his legs cramping up and turning to jelly as he demanded too much of them in his push to reach the ridge crest before the fire overtook him, his heart bounding and skipping in an alarming manner that left him dizzy and unable to catch his breath. Come on, come on, dont give out on me now. This is not the way I want to die. Einar reached the ridge crest, hauled himself up the last few feet by grabbing the low-swept branches of a nearby fir, its top already burning as the firestorm caught up to him. He tried to rise, collapsed and went tumbling down the opposite slope, coming to rest against the soil-encrusted roots of a fallen tree, dragged himself down under it, rolling beneath the trunk and the considerable amount of dirt that had been scooped up when it fell. Einar got settled just as the fire roared in around him, lying on his stomach with his face pressed into the damp ground beneath the log, hastily scraping out a deeper depression beneath his face, pulling his wool cap down over his ears and wishing he was wearing something other than the polypropylene long underwear that he expected to find melted to his skin like shrink wrap when the fire had passed. The roar was deafening, the air quickly became hot and, depleted of oxygen, caught in his throat as he tried to breathe, making him urgently want to jump up in search of better air, which he did not do, knowing it would mean death. Stay down, stay down, its hot down here but gonna be an awful lot worse up there, even a few inches higher. You got to stay down, Einar. At one point he was sure he was going to pass out from lack of air, but managed to hang onto consciousness by breathing slowly, concentrating on the damp coolness and the good earthy smells of the forest floor below him and thinking that he

really, really wanted to come through this, if there was any way. Please And as he lay there waiting for the roaring to stop and things to begin cooling down around him, wondering how it could possibly take so long for the fire to pass and wondering at the same time just how long he could reasonably expect to hold out in the depleted air, Einar once again found himself seeing vivid as life the image of a little cabin against the cliffs somewhere, shielded by heavy timber and looking more like home than ever, Liz holding the door open for him as he approached through the woods. It all seemed way too real, and Einar, in his matter-of-fact and occasionally fatalistic way, told himself that the vision likely meant his time had finally come, that he needed to bid farewell to any earthly hopes he was still foolishly hanging onto and ready himself for the end. Something would not let him, though, some voice just on the edge of hearing that spoke quietly and firmly and told him not yet, and it sounded like Lizs voice, but he could not be certain, over the roar and crackle of the burning forest. In time the roaring subsided, breathing became gradually easier, and Einar began to think that he might, indeed, be coming through the inferno alive. He made himself go on lying there for a time, though, knowing that the air above him would still be very hot, that a lungful of it so soon after the passage of the flames might still do him in. Finally rolling out from under the tree and dirt Einar sat up, sweating and shaking as he slowly came to realize that he was basically unharmed. He had been sure that the polypro clothes would melt from the heat, even if the flames did not get at him, bringing serious injury and a most likely a slow and horrible death as he succumbed to the infection and dehydration brought on by the burns. But it had not happenedhis clothes were certainly heat-damaged and slightly crunchy in places, his skin a bit tender beneath, but they had not melted to his skin, and aside from some minor burns to the top of his left hand, he seemed uninjuredthe mass of dirt above him, combined with the speed at which the fire had torn through the trees overhead, had apparently been enough to shield him from the worst of the heat. The explanation would seem reasonable enough to him later when he looked back on the event, but at the moment, it certainly seemed no less than miraculous. Nor was a hair of their heads singed He shook his head in thankful amazement, got himself to his feet and glanced at the ruined landscape around him, knowing that he must get himself out of there in a hurry if he wanted to go on enjoying the benefits of his delivery from the flames. Planes would surely be coming over before long, and he would show up pretty easily there among the burnt trees, if anyone was looking. Einar took a couple of steps towards an area where he saw un-burnt timber, heard a plane and glanced up, just in time to see over twenty seven thousand pounds of red-dyed fire retardant water, fertilizer and bentonite clay billowing out of the belly of a low-flying DC-7 and hurtling down at him in an inescapable torrent.

Throwing himself at the base of the nearest tree, Einar ducked his head and hung on as the heavy, lumpy red slurry stuff fell all around him, breaking branches out of his tree and feeling like it was pounding him into the ground, leaving him drenched and bright red,

coughing and spluttering for breath as he found the air full of vaporized fire suppressant. Not the best breathing. He knew that he had to get out of there right away, as the jumpers might well be along in a few minutes to mop things up, but it took a minute before he was finally able to stand and get moving, as the pounding had left him feeling more than a little a bit stunned, and wishing very much that the slurry had been better mixed and free of the sizeable clods that had rained down on and around him in the midst of the liquid. Knowing that he needed to clear out of the burnt area and well aware that he was bright red and likely to stand out like a beacon in either the blackened areas or the still-green timber where he urgently wanted to head, Einar removed his knit cap and turned it inside out, trying without success to wipe the redness off of his face and clothes. In doing so, he discovered that his back and shoulders had become rather tender where they had been less shielded from the heat than his lower body. He wanted to find some water, someplace where he could wash off and assess the damage, as he found that the sticky red slurry itched and stung terribly where it had soaked through his clothes and contacted the burnt areasmust be that fertilizer they put in itbut supposed such a luxury would have to wait. Instead, he stopped at the edge of the red swath and rubbed himself all over with ash and cinders from the ground, finding that the stuff, including some partially burnt branches and bark slabs, adhered quite readily to the sticky mess he had become, soon turning him into a barely human-looking form that blended quite well with the burnt-out landscape he found himself journeying through. Hmm. Wildfire Ghillie suit Should work alright in the unburnt timber, too. He hesitated beneath a partially burnt evergreen, debating whether to go back after his bag, or whatever was left of ithe was heavily leaning towards escaping from the area as quickly as possible, insteadwhen a thought came to himthe handcuffs! His first inclination was that if he left them and they were found amongst the melted remnants of the rope bag, perhaps the discovery would lead the firefighters and subsequent searchers to believe that he had perished in the fire. He knew, though, that they would then mount a massive hunt for a body, and would expect to find one, as the fire had certainly not been intense or long lasting enough to have consumed it entirely, and they would know that. Then, even if he had left the area, the sure sign that he had been there at one time and had apparently made it out of the fire would bring the search down on the plateau, where teams might find other signs the he would leave as he left the area, might even end up on his trail again. Ok, then. I got to go back for those cuffs. Ill be some leaving tracks in this burnt ground, I guess, but hopefully by the time anybody sees them, the jumpers and hotshot crews and all will have been trampling all over the area, and my tracks will get lost in with theirs. Its just up over that rise down there and down a ways that I dropped the bag, so if I hurry, maybe they wont be in the area, yet. He was starting to cough, though, and was afraid the jumpers might hear him, figured he had, despite his best efforts, breathed in quite a bit of smoke. The finely vaporized fire retardant cloud had not seemed to help, either, and though he had started out feeling just fine and even a bit elated after realizing that he had survived the firestorm, things suddenly seemed to be going downhill in a hurry. Starting up the slope with the thought of finding his bag down on the other side, the choking sensations and tightness in his throat and chest steadily worsened until he was finally forced to sit down and rest by an uncontrollable fit of coughing, after which he could not really seem to catch his breath. It felt all of a sudden

as if his airway was closing down, leaving him wheezing badly as he struggled for air. Realizing he was in trouble and might not be doing a lot of moving for a while, he crawled under one of the few trees in the area that the flames had mostly spared, backing himself up to its trunk and leaning forward with his chest on his knees, just breathing and hoping that things might start to get better, but they did not, and Einar realized that he must be experiencing the delayed effects of breathing too much smoke, and possibly even a hot air injury of some kind to his nose and throat, though he did not think it had been that hot down on the ground where he had sheltered. Either way, it suddenly seemed all he could do to get enough air to stay awake, and he could tell from the sickly blue-grey tinge to the skin under his fingernailsas if he really needed confirmation of the fact that he was not getting enough oxygen. Well, Einar, this is real badmay not be through getting worse, either. And Im not sure there is much you can do about it. Just wait, I guess. And pray. Which he did, at the same time wracking his dimming brain for any tidbit of information that might provide him with some way to help himself, before he quit breathing altogether. Which certainly seemed the direction things were headed in. Have to get the swelling downif the ground wasnt burnt black maybe I could find a plant to help with thatsome cattail stalk maybe, or some oak leaves or barksome source of tannin. He shook his head, doubted he would be capable, in his current condition, of getting himself to a place where he might be able to come up with any such thing. Then he remembered. Of course! The willow bark! Having filled his jacket pocket with the bitter, pain-reducing stuff the last time he had been near willows, he knew there was still some left, and it seemed reasonable to hope, at least, that the same anti-inflammatory properties that made it an effective if mild pain reliever might also work to slightly reduce the swelling that threatened to close off his airway. Just a little bit. All I need is a little help, here, and I think Ill be able to make it Wasting no time, he stuffed a wad of the bark, brittle and dry from the heat it had been exposed to, into his mouth and chewing, realizing then that he was badly dehydrated and keeping at it until some saliva finally came, allowing him to swallow the bitter juice. For several minutes he sat there hunched over, breathing with frighteningly rapid, shallow breaths and well aware that he was barely holding his own against the effects of the smoke. Eventually, though, after two mouthfulls of the willow bark, things did seem to be easing just a bit, his breathing slowed and relaxed some, and the blackness gradually began to clear from in front of his eyes. Knowing that he had better get himself down to a place where he could find more willows in case the swelling began worsening again, he stood as soon as he was able and make his way up and over the rise, in search of his bag and the incriminating handcuffs that he knew he must not allow to remain where they could be discovered. Finding his baglittle more than a charred and melted mass of nylonwith little difficulty, Einar pried loose the cuffs and stuck them in his pocket, pressing himself up against the trunk of a burnt tree as a plane took a pass overhead before returning to salvage what he could from the mess. Which was not much. The Spam can was there, charred but still appearing as if it ought to hold water, and he found the fish hook he had brought up from the river, embedded in a sad little pile of melted monofilament line, but everything else was gone, even the aluminum beer cans had been damaged beyond

usefulness. He did take a minute, though, to collect the eight brass grommets from around the top of the rope bag, knowing that he would certainly find a use for them, though not immediately able to think what it might be. Climbing back up the ridge, seemingly moving more slowly all the time as he again had increasing difficulty getting enough air, Einar nearly tripped over a partially burnt fallen log, kicking it apart and seeing that a number of medium-sized grubs, once white but roasted a light brown by the heat of the fire, had been making their home in the log. He quickly gathered the ones he saw, kicking at the log to reveal more and eating some as he went, knowing that he needed their fat and protein which he knew was, ounce for ounce, more concentrated than in ground beef. Which, of course, he did not have access to at the moment, anyway. As he climbed the hill, forced to move slowly by his breathing difficulties and hoping that enough vegetation still remained overhead to shield him from causal observation, Einar covered the bottom of the Spam can nearly an inch deep with the grubs, in various states of roastedness, which seemed to have fared rather badly in the fire. Food is food, and I am almost out of that trail mix, so What he really needed, in addition to calories, was water, and as he traveled over the burnt and in places stillsmoking landscape, the need began to grow terribly urgent, but there was little he could immediately do to satisfy it. Just keep moving. Find a little valley somewhere with a creek or seep in it. Making his way through the burnt timber en route to the inviting, concealing band of green that existed beyond it, Einars eye was caught by something odd looking, something out of place over against the blackened trunk of a spruce, and it did not take him long to figure out that he was looking at the charred and twisted hind leg of an unfortunate deer that had not quite made it out ahead of the firestorm. In the distance he could hear a plane, and he scrambled to press himself up against the trunk of the tree as it approached, hoping he might be black enough by that time to blend in and go unobserved. Watching as the plane dumped its load of water somewhere in still-smoking woods far over to his left, Einar smelled the singed hair of the burnt deer, but smelled something else, too, that made his mouth water and his stomach knot up despite the nausea and splitting headache that seemed to be part of the after effects of breathing the depleted air for so long as the flames passed over him. Venison! Portions of the deer had, apparently been cooked rather than just charred, and he hurriedly went to work on a rear quarter, cutting away the charred skin and burnt, dry meat near the surface to get at what was underneath and eating some of it right there on the spot before working to free more, stuffing it into the drogue chute. Einar did not hear another plane approaching, and working as quickly as he was able, managed to use his knife and a lot of pounding from a nearby chunk of limestone to finally sever both quarters of the deer, doing a rather rough job of it and loading them up in the drogue chute which he had opened up with the knife to allow them in, kicking cinders and burnt branches partially over the deer to help conceal his work. He knew that it would be obvious to anyone that happened along on the ground that something was out of the ordinary about the whole scene, but he really hoped to be far away from the area of the fire by that point. And eating venison for dinner! Carrying the nylon sack slung over his shoulder was not the most comfortable thing considering the minor burns he had sustained when his clothing had been damaged

by the heat, but Einar rather lacked alternatives, and was so grateful for the food that he did not really care. Before reaching the timber, he came across two more unfortunate fire victims, one clearly a squirrel and the other, he thought, a rabbit, though it was rather too charred for him to be immediately certain. They joined the deer quarters in his improvised pack, Einar glad that he finally had enough to eat, but thinking that he would be able to enjoy the fact more if he was able to breathe properly, and did not have such an awful, splitting headache. Well. Hopefully those things will resolve themselves. I think if I was going to stop breathing over this, it probably would have happened by now. Seems to have stopped getting worse, at least. Despite a rather strong desire to curl up in a bed of spruce duff Einar slept sitting up that night, as he couldnt seem to breathe adequately when he tried lying down, and it hurt, anyway, for his slightly burned shoulders and back to come in contact with the ground. So he sat with his knees on either side of a tree, leaning forward with his head against its trunk, cushioned by the coiled up letdown rope. It did not make for an especially restful night, and, his clothes still damp from the fire retardant, he had to accept pretty early on that it was going to be a cold one, and that he would just have to make the best of it. The supper of roast deer, and the knowledge that a similar meal awaited him in the morning, hung high out of the reach of bears in a nearby tree, helped make it all quite a bit more tolerable. Though he had heard quite a bit of air activity that afternoon and evening, all seemingly concentrated over the area of the blaze, it tapered off as darkness fell, and ended altogether as the cold, more humid night went on and the winds died down, which went a long way towards reassuring Einar that the his presence on the plateau was probably not known or even strongly suspected.

Shortly after the sky began brightening Einar, cold and thirsty and ready to be on his way, enjoyed a quick breakfast of fire-roasted deer before moving on, wanting to be farther from the area of the burn before the winds had a chance to pick up and it again became necessary for a number of aircraft to join the firefighting effort. He headed for a place he had seen in the dimming light of the previous evening just before his weariness and an increasing difficulty catching his breath had forced him to look for shelter and take a few hours rest, a slight, aspen-filled depression that turned out to be the head of a gradually dropping and deepening canyon. Terribly thirsty, he hoped to find water down there where the vegetation changed, knowing that there were numerous small lakes up on the plateau but reluctant to approach one if he could find another water source. The plateau was, from his prior experience, crisscrossed with little creeks and dotted with seeps, so he expected to find water fairly quickly as he descended into one of the numerous timbered draws that cut the wide, grassy meadows. In addition to the water that he badly needed, Einar wanted to find willows to further help reduce the aggravating swelling in his throat and nasal passages, which while no longer threatening as it had done the day before to cut off his air supply, certainly did not allow him to move especially fast or comfortably. The coughing was no better that morning, either, and though it alarmed him with the thought that he might be heard, he supposed that it would probably be with him for awhile. As he made his was towards the aspens, the quest for water was lent additional urgency by the

layer of dried fire retardant that still coated him (well, guess Im at least a little safer now, if the fire catches up to me again) having soaked through the layer of ash he had rolled in shortly after he had entered the timber the previous day to leave him a distinct if somewhat muted shade of red. It left him feeling rather more like a target than he was remotely comfortable with. And the stuff was terribly itchy and irritating where it had soaked through his clothes, leaving the cloth stiff and crunchy with a layer of thick red crust. He hesitated to even attempt removing his shirt until he had some water to help soak it off, fearing additional damage to his shoulders, which by that time he had no doubt had sustained, at the least, some minor burns. Despite the difficulties that the morning brought, Einar found himself not entirely unhappy, his mood buoyed by the realization that his pursuers, apparently, did not know where he was, which told him that Raintree must not, after all, have been part of the search effort or told them what he knew, after the early morning visit from the helicopter. If he had, Einar was certain that the air presence over the plateau would have been far more intense, and would have continued through the night rather than ending at dusk as was common in firefighting operations. The confirmation that Raintree had apparently been, as he had represented himself, genuinely willing to help and apparently without ulterior motives, was a tremendous encouragement to Einar, somehow, and while he was more convinced than ever of the need to avoid contact with others for the moment, he found it very good to have had a reminder that the entire human race was not hostile and bent on his destruction. That could be a very difficult thing for him to remember at times, and while for the most part he could hardly have cared less and did not even think about it except as it was relevant to his avoidance of people, the friendly contact had done him more good than he would have expected or was willing to admit. The ready access to what had until the previous evening been, in his current condition, a seemingly unattainable quantity of food had helped Einars energy level and disposition as well, though he knew from past experience that he had a rough road ahead of him as he began to rebuild his strength and get his body used to eating again. A realization that was confirmed by the sudden need to find a tree to squat beneath. Oh, well. Itll get better. Awfully good not to be facing imminent starvation at the moment, anyway. Maybe Ill be able to keep it that way, this time. Not long after starting out that morning Einar did begin to hear the occasional small plane or chopper in the distance, their buzzing interrupted now and then by the deeper rumbling that told him the pair of Twin Otters were still making drops on the fire, though this was happening with far less frequency than it had been the previous day. Just before dropping down off the top of the plateau to head down into the aspen grove in search of water, Einar had to cross a wide and somewhat exposed shelf of limestone, and he stuck to the edges where the timber offered him some concealment, emerging briefly when he saw a healthy green mat of purslane growing out of a soil-filled crack between rock slabs. The leaves of the low-growing, succulent plant were, he knew, rather high in protein for a green leafy vegetable, and, containing significant amounts of iron and a number of vitamins, would make a good supplement to his meals of venison. His main interest in the purslane at the moment, though, came of a need for the soothing properties of the juice and the jell-like contents of the leaves, which have been compared to aloe for their usefulness in treating minor

burns. Which I hope is all Ive got, but I wont be able to tell for sure until I get this red stuff off and can take a look. Quickly collecting a number of the plants by twisting and breaking them off near the ground, he hurried back beneath the trees, unwilling to spend much time out in the open, even if the search did not seem focused anywhere near the area. He was very interested in keeping it that way, and did not want to risk having an odd, red-tinged human-like figure show up on some surveillance photo, crouching on the limestone to harvest purslane and re-focusing the search in his immediate area. Gonna have to lie real low for a while, work my way further from this place as Im able, and hope to leave them behind for good. Later that day, having found a small creek in the aspen-filled head of the draw that he had seen from a distance, Einar crouched shivering in the sunlight as he waited for his shirt, carefully soaked off in the icy water before being thoroughly washed in the creek, rung out and spread on a sunny rock, to dry. His jeans he had washed also and set to dry, keeping the less-reddened polypro bottoms to wear while his laundry dried. After scooping up and drinking his fill of the creek water, he had scrubbed the soot out of the Spam can and filled it with water, setting it near him in his sunny waiting spot high above the creek, so that he could continue drinking as he waited for his clothes to dry and tended to his burns. Which, after resting for a minute and allowing the sun to warm him after the icy water of the creek, he hurried to do, finding that the burns were beginning to sting pretty badly as the areas dried. The injuries to his shoulders and upper back turned out to be more extensive than he had first realized, a fact that he had discovered when he had finally got the shirt soaked loose, only to find, to his dismay, that it had taken the top layer of skin with it, in places. Well, great. At least Ive got this purslane, but I better find a way to bandage the area, too, or Im probably gonna be dealing with another infection here before long. Sure dont need that. Rising and exploring the slopes above the creek he located several mullein plants, collecting a number of their larger leaves and returning to his gear stash near the creek, where he cut a long strip of nylon from his small parachute-turned-backpack, washing it thoroughly and hanging it in the sun to dry. The mullein leaves, which he intended to use as bandages, he also set in the sun on a rock, knowing that while he did not have the means to actually sterilize them first, a few minutes exposure to the sunlight and heat of the rock would not hurt. Mashing up a mess of the purslane leaves he carefully applied them to the raw areas on his shoulders, topping the mess with the mullein leaves and wrapping it in place as well as he could with the dried nylon strip. Tending last to the back of his left hand, he used another strip to wrap and tie it, satisfied that he had done what he could, for the time, to help himself and prevent the onset of worse problems. Just make sure I get plenty to drink, and hopefully this will turn out not to be too serious. Though I had better be on the lookout for some Oregon grape to make an antiseptic wash, and the allantoin in hounds tongue would help speed up the healing, if I run across any. The breathing troubles that had plagued him throughout the night, at least, seemed to be steadily lessening, though he was still dealing with a frequent and sometimes painful cough. He wished it would stop, as the noise concerned him and left him edgy and stopping frequently to look around and listen for any sign of approaching danger, of anyone who might hear him. He wondered if chokecherry bark could be used to make a cough suppressant, but doubted he would find the time to try it.

As he crouched there chewing a wad of willow bark and waiting for the pain of cleaning his injuries to subside, Einar emptied his jacket pocket and spread everything out on the half-shredded windbreaker, needing to take inventory of what he had left and thinking that it would be a wise idea to concentrate good and hard on something for awhile, until the pain went down some. Munching on some left-over purslane as he worked, Einar quickly realized that he had, once again, lost nearly everything, including the shoes that the caver had given him. He was encouraged, though, by the things that remained. Perhaps most importantly he still had the pocket knife, which, though not much as knives went, was so very much better than nothing, and a good bit more useful than the poorly sharpened steel bar that he had found at the old mine and been stuck with using the previous winter. That thing had never seemed quite able to take an edge, and had been heavy and unwieldy as well. In addition to the knife the fire steel and striker from Liz remained in their pouch around his neck, meaning that starting fires should pose him little difficulty whenever such a thing again became reasonably safe for him to do. The parachute linehe estimated that he had salvaged somewhere around seventy feet of it, altogether, had been slightly damaged in places by the heat of the fire, but most of it was still quite usable and showed great promise as snares and in an almost unlimited number of other applications. The letdown rope, almost all ninety feet of it, remained as well, and would prove similarly useful. Ok. Add to that one fish hook, the Spam can handcuffskinda wish I could get rid of those, but hey, theyre metal, and might come in useful for somethingthe boots, one without a sole, one soon to lose it. Whats left of the shredded up windbreaker. A bunch of deer meat, one roasted rabbit and a singed squirrel. And thats it. But thats not too bad. Thats something to work with. Sentinel Staff The Canyon Rim fire, which has so far charred over two thousand acres in the upper reaches of the remote and environmentally sensitive Dark Creek Canyon, is said to be over 50% contained this morning after calming winds and a humid night aided firefighting efforts. A team of four smoke jumpers was dropped in on Wednesday in an attempt to contain the blaze, but gusting winds and dry conditions after a winter of sparse snowfall quickly caused the fire to spread, endangering the smoke jumpers and requiring the use of planes to drop water and fire retardant material on the blaze. Hotshot crews from the BLM and Forest Service arrived yesterday to combat the fire on the ground. The cause of the blaze remains officially under investigation this morning, though local caver and environmental activist Darren Raintree, who was on a caving expedition near the canyon when the fire started, has come forward with information that he says links the origin of the blaze directly to actions taken by federal search teams in the ongoing hunt for fugitive Einar Asmundson. Speaking to our reporter Wednesday afternoon, Raintree described a dark colored helicopter that appeared out of the canyon to hover low over his camp early Wednesday morning, scattering coals and burning his tent. Raintree

Searchers in Asmundson case responsible for blaze?

tells us that there was no sign of a wildfire when he left his camp some time later, but experts with the Forest Service tell us that coals can smolder for hours or even days, in some cases working themselves deep into the roots of trees, before reaching the critical point where flames burst out and a blaze begins. Raintree first spotted the smoke over an hour later as he drove down the steep switchbacks that connect that end of the plateau to the valley below. Mountain Task Force spokesman B.J. DeLorre, speaking to us by phone this morning from Task Force headquarters just outside Culver Falls, strongly denied that the FBI or Mountain Task Force had a helicopter in the area of the plateau on Wednesday morning, but declined to give any specifics about the ongoing search for Asmundson. Regardless of what the FBI said, Sheriff Watts believed Darren Raintree to be a credible witness, as indicated by his reputation and by Watts own dealings with him, over the years. In addition, he knew that with Raintrees political leanings being quite different from those attributed to Einar and most of the people in town who supported him and/or vocally opposed the federal occupation, Raintree should have no real motive to make up a story about the FBI setting the mountainside on fire. It was clear to Watts as he read his morning paper that the FBI intended to deny the allegations all the way, and Watts decided to do a bit of investigating on his own. As the top law enforcement official in Lakemont County, the Sheriff was, in name at least, a member of the Mountain Task Force, which was supposed to be an interagency cooperative in the effort to locate Einar. The contempt on the part of many of the federal agents for local law enforcement was obvious to Watts, but he attended all of the Task Force briefings, anyway, and hoped to be able to obtain some solid information about the origin of the Canyon Rim fire at that mornings session. If not, if it at some point became clear to him that a coverup was underway, Watts fully intended to go to his friends in the local Forest Service office with all the information he was able to scrape together, and back up Raintrees claim. If Raintrees account proved to be accurate, then the Sheriff wanted to see the agents responsible sitting in front of a Grand Jury on arson charges as soon as reasonably possible. And that was assuming that no one ended up being injured in any way during the firefighting effort, in which case far more serious charges would await the perpetrators. Watts intended to ensure that the matter was pursued to the fullest extent of the law.

As he waited for his clothes to dry, Einar worked to collect bark from some of the willows that congregated around the little creek in one spot, assembling quite a bundle of it and tying it with parachute line before stowing it in the bag with his supply of deer meat. Hungry, he stopped for a snack, slicing off a generous portion of deer haunch and thinking as he did so that he had better not wait until he was almost out of venison to begin working to obtain more food. He knew that he might have to take off running again at any time if circumstances beyond his control or circumstances that I dont know I need to controlstill dont know an awful lot about how theyre conducting this search again set his pursuers on his trail. If he was forced to run again before he

managed to put on some weight and get a bit stronger, and lost some or all of his food in the process, he knew that it would be a mere matter of days before he was dangerously starved and out of energy again. As he thought about it, the answer seemed pretty obvious. Need to dry most of this deer meat, make it more portable so it goes with me if I have to take off again. Itll be lightweight once its dried, and I can make a pouch out of part of this parachute, carry the stuff around my neck or on an improvised belt or something, so itll be a lot harder to lose. In the meantime, Ill eat what I need to of it, but try to come up with enough small critters to keep me going, and save most of the deer. Einars first inclination was to keep moving that day, put more distance behind him before stopping to dry the meat and hopefully get some snares and deadfalls set out, but, realizing that the occasional sounds of the tanker and spotter planes were very distant and faint, and that his pursuers most likely did not even know he had been anywhere near the fire, it might make most sense to stay right where he was, for a few days. The place offered water, concealment, a good supply of the mullein and purslane that he knew he would need as he worked to heal his burns, as well as being a prime location for coming up with the small game he would need if his plan to dry and save the deer was to prove workable. And Ive already put quite a bit of distance behind me. Miles, from the sound of those planes. Need to rest, to be still, or something close to it, for a change, and this looks like as good an opportunity as any. Convinced, or nearly so, Einar wasted no time, beginning to slice thin strips from the deer haunch and string them on a single strand that he freed from one of the parachute lines, knowing that it was not the best idea to be drying already-cooked meat, but certain that he would end up losing some of it to the warming weather, if he did not. It was a normal evening up at Bill and Susans mountainside cabin, as normal as any had been since the failed raid some months ago and the start of the ongoing tension surrounding the manhunt, the search for Jeff, and, most recently, Robs death. Bill was up at the Quonset hut working on one of his many projects, with Susan and Liz cleaning up after supper. There was to be a meeting at the house later in the evening to review the progress of the little project that had been discussed during the last meeting, the aim of which was to make Culver Falls an increasingly inhospitable place for the federal forces to spend time. The campaign so far seemed to have been working, with closeup aerial photos of the Mountain Task Force headquarters appearing in numerous locations online as well as posted on bulletin boards in local grocery stores, libraries and hardware stores, a fact which had made the occupants of said compound more than a bit uncomfortable. While there had been no specific threat attached to the release of the photos, the agents had certainly taken it as a hostile action, and wasted even more of their already stretched resources investigating the origins of the photos and flyers. Everyone involved had been very careful about not leaving fingerprints or other evidence that could easily tie the photos directly to them, and had carefully avoided actually breaking any laws in carrying out their campaign of harassment. They knew that the impact, in reality, would probably be minor, but figured that anything and everything they could do to reduce morale among the agents and boost their antipathy towards their assignment in Culver Falls ought to help hasten the day when they, or a majority of them, anyway, would finally leave the

area. While no further action had been taken against Bill and Susan, and Allan had not again been approached by the agent who had seemed to be attempting to recruit him, everyone remained on high alert, with Bill having set up a camera on the roof of the Quonset hut so that he could monitor the long, winding driveway up the mountain even while he was working in the shop, and insisting that Susan and Liz wear their sidearms at all times. It had not taken much convincing, and was something Liz had made a habit of even before Bill brought it up, beginning shortly after Robs death. Bill and his son had set up additional security measures as well, ensuring that no one would be able to approach the house undetected. Not, that is, unless he had first climbed over a thousand feet up the mountainside, skirted around behind the house on the cliffs, and somehow made his way down seventy five feet of vertical granite to approach from behind. It took everyone quite by surprise, then, when a knock came at the back door that evening, loud and insistent, shortly after Bill had returned from the shop.

Nodding to Susan and Liz, who had already drawn their pistols and turned off the kitchen lights at the unexpected back door arrival of an unknown guest, Bill carefully made his way over to a kitchen window, from which he was afforded a fairly clear view of the back door, finding as he peered through the deepening dusk that the man who had knocked no more than a shadowy and indistinct figure, in that lightingappeared to be alone, and, though seeming alert and watchful, did not look especially ready to storm into the house when he opened the door. Which he proceeded to do, swinging it wide with his left hand to find a camouflage-clad stranger standing there in the dark doorway, squinting, one eye squeezed tightly shut against the onslaught of light from inside the house as Susan turned the kitchen lights back on. It took Bill a second to recognize the face, badly out of context and aged significantly since their last meeting a number of years ago and half a world away, but as he did he smiled broadly and motioned to the man to enter, closing the door behind him. Foreman? Bill Foreman? Havent seen you since Bill let his words trail off, and the two exchanged significant glances. Yeah. Been awhile, hasnt it? There were things that neither of them cared to talk about in the presence of those who had not been there, things, perhaps, that were better not talked about at all, and the tension of something left unsaid and perhaps even unfinished was obvious to Susan and Liz, who were quietly observing from the other room. What are you doing out here, Foreman? Last I heard, you were back in Foreman cut him off. Ah, forget what you heard. Im told you folks are having some trouble with certain federal agencies, out this way, and I thought He smiled, a cold, humorless grin that went well with his hard, intense eyes and was very familiar to Bill, but a bit alarming to Susan and Liz, who had never met the man before.

Bill recognized that gleam in Foremans eye, knew well the look of focused intensity that meant the man was on the hunt, that somebody out there, and maybe a bunch of somebodies, had better be getting their affairs in order, and quickly, as their days were seriously numbered. Thinking it unwise to inquire further into the details of his friends mission in the area, Bill instead invited him in for a cup of coffee and a piece of the pie that Susan had made for the small group that would soon be arriving for that nights meeting.

Einar worked for much of that day, slicing the partially roasted venison into thin strips and hanging it in the sun to dry, stopping from time to time to check his clothes and finding that even after the thorough washing, they retained a bit of a red hue and were stiff and crunchy, a problem he attempted to remedy by beating them against the flat rock they had been drying on. That worked fairly well with the jeans, but the polypropylene top, already nearly worn out from weeks of hard use and the dog attack, and further damaged by the fire, threatened to give out entirely as he worked to soften it, and Einar, having nothing else at the moment to wear on his top half, quickly gave the matter up and decided that the shirt would probably become more flexible as he wore it. The burns on his shoulders were by that time painful enough that he did not want anything in contact with the area, though, much less the crunchy, scratchy shirt. His hair, matted and stiff in places with dried fire retardant material that he tried unsuccessfully to wash out in the icy water of the creek, further irritated the burned areas, and in frustration he finally attacked it with his pocket knife, shortening it by several inches and burying the trimmings lest someone later stumble upon them and suspect his presence. Collecting a number of the largest mullein leaves he could find, Einar worked to pad the injured area with them, finding that the modification helped quite a bit, though he would still have preferred not to have any pressure at all on the area. He was glad of the decision to remain at his present location for a day or two, and hoped very much that he would be able to carry through with the plan, as carrying the parachute-pack slung over his shoulder would have been quite a challenge at the moment. Wanting to do all he could to help the burns heal quickly, especially in case it became necessary for him to take off, carrying the pack, Einar went in search of some scrub oak, which he found some distance below his camp on the creek, on the roughly south-facing side of the draw that it descended through. Tannic acid, he knew, was an ancient if somewhat controversial burn treatment, and should help with his need to get the injuries to scab over as quickly as possible to help prevent infection and get him ready to travel again in case such an action became inevitable. Einar knew that, in the Western world before the advances of modern medicine, patients with serious burns who were treated with tannic acid had shown a much higher survival rate than those who were treated with the other common methods of the day, a result which was believed to have been due to the rapid crusting over of the wounds in response to the tannin, preventing excessive fluid loss and greatly reducing the chance of serious infection. Tannin, he knew, is also antiinflammatory and antibacterial, and certainly seemed to represent his best chance of helping the burns heal well and quickly. And while these are probably not especially

serious burns as those things godont know, cant really see back thereI certainly do not have access to modern medicine, and cant be taking any chances with infection. Having found the oaks and gathered a good quantity of the inner bark, relatively loose and easy to remove with the freely flowing sap of spring, Einar, returning to his camp, was faced with the problem of how best to extract the tannic acid. Best, he supposed, would have been to simmer the bark in water until it turned the deep reddish brown that would have told him it was ready to use. Boiling was certainly not an option he was willing to consider at the moment, though, and he knew that tannin is soluble in cold water, though far more slowly than in hot or even warm. He had an idea, filling the Spam can with water from the creek and breaking the bark up into it, setting the can on a sunny rock and supposing the heat of the sun would aid in leaching out the acid. Finding a number of dark colored rocks he piled them around the outside of the can in the hopes that they would help collect heat and speed up the process. This is going to take a while. Better keep working on that deer, while I wait. Before again starting his jerky-making, Einar added some shreds of willow bark to the tannin-water, knowing that washing the burns with it was going to sting pretty badly, and hopeful that the salicin from the willow bark might reduce that, somewhat. Would be a good idea to have some Oregon grape root in the mix, too, because its a much stronger antiseptic than the oak bark. Searching beneath the aspens that clustered around the creek he eventually located a few of the lowgrowing, holly-like plants, scraping some bright yellow root shavings into the oak-water and chewing the rest of the root in an attempt to better help his body fight off infection. All right. Back to that deer. Einars mind was busy as he worked, planning and reviewing and going over all the things he needed to do, and soon, if he was to make it through another winter. First among them, aside from hopefully continuing to stay out of the reach and sight of his enemies, was to find a place to set up a longer-term shelter, and he let his eyes wander as he sliced and strung the thin strips of meat for drying, scanning the surrounding landscape for anyplace that looked promising. He knew, though, that it would be wise to move a bit further before getting serious about setting up his winter camp. Einar stopped occasionally in his work to snack on some venison and purslane, looking around at his little camp and finding himself nearly overwhelmed with gratefulness at the relative normalcy of the day. Sure, he was still short on clothing and equipment, fireless, injured and in a good bit of pain and at constant risk of being rediscovered by his pursuers and having to run againa reality that was never far from the surface in any of his thoughts but it was wonderful to have a day where he could simply focus on living, on providing for his continued existence and planning for the future, even if it ended up being one that circumstances ultimately prevented him from seeing. Thanks. After several hours in the sun, Einars tannic acid concoction had darkened and reddened significantly, convincing him that it was time to give it a try. He seemed to remember hearing that the standard tannin treatment of times past had involved washing the burns with the liquid several times each day, and keeping them covered with tannin-soaked bandages, between times. Well, guess the mullein leaves and nylon parachute strip will have to work as bandages, and I had better get another batch of this started, just as soon

as Im through here. Will be losing the sun in another hour or two. After washing and bandaging the burns, Einar decided to go ahead and give the shirt a second washing in the creek, careful not to scrub or wring too hard and cause its total disintegration, in the hopes that it might come out a bit more wearable on the other side, and kind of needing something to keep his hands busy and take his mind off the stinging for awhile, anyway. Willow bark could only take care of so much, after all. Though he did keep a wad of it in his mouth throughout the procedure and afterwards, and was pretty sure it was helping some. After that he found himself badly in need of rest, but couldnt lie in the sun, as the injured areas were very sensitive to sunlight at the moment, and he did not especially want to risk falling asleep in the open, either, where he might miss the approach of an aircraft, but found that he quickly grew very cold in the shade. The wet bandages did not help any, in that regard. Weary, he finally resorting to dragging a number of sun-warmed rocks beneath the protection of a spruce and lying on his stomach to rest, the rocks pressed against his sides for warmth, asleep very quickly. Though not for long.

Not certain what had awakened him and thinking it might well have been his breathing, which was still somewhat labored when he was lying down, Einar lay still for a moment, waiting for the noise to repeat itself and realizing when it did that he had, once again, come far too close to losing his supply of food. A large black bear, still somewhat scruffy in the first month after emerging from hibernation, stood not far from his camp, flipping over rocks in search of insects and pausing now and then to snuffle interestedly in the direction of Einars strips of drying meat, hungry but cautious about closely approaching the unfamiliar human scent. And a good thing, too! If this was down near a town or even a campground, he would have been so used to human scent that he would have already come over here and eaten up all of my jerky! Grabbing in each hand one of the rocks that he had been using to keep warm as he slept, Einar rose with a shout and took a step towards the bear, which let out a startled whuff and stood up on its hind legs, testing the air and trying to decide what to make of the scrawny, disheveled, slightly red-tinged two-legged critter who continued shouting and tossed a rock in its direction for emphasis. Alarmed at the rock and the unaccustomed sound of a human voice, the bear finally dropped back to all fours, turning and shuffling off quickly down the hill, its suspicions about humans confirmed, leaving Einar to sit back down heavily on the pine duff, relieved but very nearly drooling over the thought of all the fat on that bear, even so early in the spring. He knew then he must give top priority to the task of coming up with a better weapon or two, both to defend himself if attacked by some wild creature that was after his food, and hopefully as a means to take some food, also, if the opportunity should present itself. He doubted he would be doing much intentional hunting, as opposed to trapping and snaring, until he had healed up a bit, but hey, if some edible critter ends up wandering across my path, its be good to at least be equipped to take it. Though maybe I better hold off on trying to take a bear, for the moment, with a spear or atlatl and dart, or whatever I come up with. Sounds like a pretty certain recipe for disaster, since Im probably not fast enough right now to get out of the way, if something goes wrong.

Considering the materials he had readily available to him, and knowing that the Inuits had commonly made arrowheads, spearheads and knives of ivory and whalebone, and that a number of tribes had used elk and even deer bone for similar purposes, Einar decided to attempt something of the sort, using the deer leg bones that he had brought from the fire. The meat on the lower legs had been too charred to be much good think Ill end up eating it anyway, though even if I have to resort to pounding it to dust first to make it swallowable but he had left them attached in the hopes that he might find the sinew still usable, and knowing that he would be needing the fatty marrow. Which did not sound at all bad, at the moment, and he hurried to find appropriate rocks to begin the job of scoring and splitting the bone. Removing and setting aside the long sinew bundles that ran up the side of the deer legs, finding the job to be more difficult than he was used to due to the fire damage, Einar stripped off all of the brittle meat remains that clung to the bone, storing them in his zippered jacket pocket and scraping one of the bones clean with his knife. Scoring it repeatedly with a sharply fractured granite chunk until he had etched two fairly deep trenches longways into opposite sides of the bone, and a short one across half of its circumference where he wanted the piece to fracture off, Einar, wishing he still had eve none of the nails from the old mining cabin to make the job easier, carefully held a granite chip in place and gave it a hard whack with a larger chunk, delighted when the bone fractured very nearly as he had been intending for it to, leaving only a small jagged area along one side where he had failed to score deeply enough. It will work! Would have worked better if the bone was a bit older and not so recently alive, but the fire did a lot to dry it out, it seems. Pausing to enjoy a snack of fatty marrow, Einar looked over the bone piece he had split off, planning how he would shape it and marking out a rough design on its surface with a chunk of charred wood he had stuck in his pocket before leaving the burn area. He had decided that his first project would be a spearhead, which, attached to a stout willow stick from down near the creek, would give himself something to defend himself with if some predator got too close, and would also allow him to dispatch animals that he caught in his snares without getting in too close, in case he ended up at some point snaring something a bit more aggressive than a rabbit. And itll let me keep the pocket knife in my pocket, rather than tied on the end of a split stick, where it does not make all that great of a spear, anyway, and requires that I pull it off every time I need to use it as a knife. That would improve things a good bit. Taking advantage of the break in his work to check his second batch of tannin water that was brewing in the sun, he found it ready to use, or close enough, and decided to go ahead and do so, not especially wanting to be pouring water all over himself after the sun went down. Which reminded him. Better start work on some sort of a shelter, before it gets too late tonight. Im not going to be able to curl up for warmth like I will need to, with these burns, but I think my breathing is going to be good enough to lie down, finally, so I better get busy on a shelter, if I want any chance of being warm enough to sleep tonight. Its clear, and gonna be cold. Washing his burns and exchanging the old mullein leaf bandages for fresh, tannin-soaked ones, Einar took care to leave a bit of the brown liquid in the can, drinking it when he was finished. The tannin-rich water was

very bitter, but he knew that it was reasonably effective against diarrhea, a problem that had been endlessly plaguing him that day as his body struggled to adjust to the influx of food that he had been flooding it with since acquiring the venison. He had begun to worry that he might be losing more nutrition than he was taking in, and hoped occasional doses of the highly astringent tannin water might help halt the problem. Ok. Shelter. Finding the long, thin trunk of a small fallen tree, a few long-dead branches still attached, he kicked it loose from the ground and dragged it beneath the spreading boughs of a nearby tree, propping its thick end up against the trees trunk, secured against a branch at a height of just under three feet. Breaking and cutting a number of spruce branches, he leaned them against the ridgepole of his shelter, creating a low tent of branches which he stuffed with as much duff as he could scrape up, gathering it from beneath other trees as well, until just enough space was left for him to slide in between the pile of insulation and the ceiling. Collecting several more armfulls of duff and piling it around the edges and up the sides of the shelter, Einar stepped back and looked at it, satisfied that it ought to go a long way towards keeping him warm that night, and perhaps for a few more, until his back healed up enough to allow him to curl up again for warmth, as he was accustomed to doing. This ought to go a long way towards keeping the heat in, and the wind out. The sun went down as he put the finishing touches on the shelter, and Einar hurried down to the rock where his shirt had been drying in the sunlight, hoping very much to find that it had finished drying, and relieved to discover that it had. The second washing had removed a bit more of the fire retardant, leaving the shirt slightly more flexible, but also a good bit more worn, and Einar realized that it probably would not make it through another washing, or too many more weeks of wear, for that matter. Gonna need to get a deer snare or two set out tomorrow (unless I decide to move on, in the morning,) maybe down by the creek, because I need to be getting real serious about replacing this shirt. Hanging the stilldrying jerky strips and the remains of the deer quarters from a tree out of the reach of bears, Einar retreated to his shelter with the bone fragment and a couple of rocks, working on the spear head until it was too dark to see what he was doing.

Morning began cold and clear, and Einar made a trip down to the creek first thing to refill the Spam can with water and get it set out on a rock where he believed the sun would first hit, shredding a good quantity of oak and willow bark into it before lowering his food bag and hanging the jerky back out to finish drying. Sitting on a rock in the first rays of morning sunlight that hit the west-facing slope where he had sheltered, Einar slowly worked on a breakfast that consisted of a portion of the of the singed squirrel from the fire, hungry for more but intending to limit his meals to smaller, more frequent portions that day with the hope of further reducing his digestive difficulties, which seemed a bit better after all the tannin tea he had consumed, the day before. Watching the sun light hit his cooking rock as he sat there, Einar was anxious for the sun to heat his oak tea so he could go ahead and wash the burns, knowing that he needed to get a look at them and see if they showed any sign of beginning to crust over. He hoped they would, as he was well aware of the significant risk that they would become dangerously infected, under his

current conditions. Sure glad I have not had to try and take care of this mess while running, though, because that would have probably meant neglecting it nearly entirely, and that might not have ended so well. At least here, with this water, I have some chance of keeping things relatively clean. Though a fire, he ability to boil water, would be very helpful. He did not want to change the mullein dressings, though, until that days first batch of tannin solution was ready to use, but did tighten the parachute-nylon wrapping that held them in place, finding it very uncomfortable when they shifted and slid as he moved. The morning was breezy, and he was hopeful that the meat would finish curing by the end of the day to the dry, brittle texture that he was looking for, in order to ensure that it would be long lasting. Even better would be if I had the whole dear, so I could render down the tallow, pound the jerky up into dust and mix it with the fat, to make pemmican! That would be some filling food, alright, that would let me travel a good distance on a little bit, if I had to. Oh, well. Up to me to come up with a deer. But Id really like to go a bit further from that fire before settling in for long enough to try and take a deer. Because Im still too close to have a fire, and Im not very well going to be rendering down any tallow, without a fire Einars thoughts, occupied with what he must do to prepare to move on, settled on his boots, which were in sorry shape and would not, he knew, stand up to much more rough travel, particularly the hastily repaired and soleless right one. The improvised sole he had quickly put together with bark and secured with pine pitch and monofilament was in ragged condition after all the traveling he had done on it, appearing very nearly ready to fall apart altogether. Retrieving the remains of the deer quarters, Einar inspected the skinbadly charred in places but largely usablethat had been left over the meat when he found the animal after the fire, and which he had carefully scraped and saved it as he worked on his jerky, knowing that it would have some use. Measuring the usable-looking portions of rawhide against the bottom of his boot, he saw that there ought to be enough to make an improvised and probably temporary rawhide sole, and he started on the project right away, fracturing part of the leg bone that he had taken the spear-head section out of and using one of the splinters as a basis for an awl, working, narrowing and sharpening it on a rough piece of granite until he had something that he thought ought to work for punching holes in the rawhide. Next, he scored and then cut the boot-sole shape from the hide with his pocket knife (and with a good bit of difficulty,) boring holes in it every half inch or so to accept the sinew thread that he intended to use to attach it to the nylon shell of the boot. Sitting down on a large flat rock, he worked the sinew by gently pounding it with a rounded-edged piece of granite from the creek, finally getting it to the point where he was able to pull the fibers apart and make it possible for him to cord them, which he did not do just then, wanting first to decide for certain what he was going to use the bulk of it for. A bit of it, at least, he planned to use in securing the spear head to a stout willow shaft, as soon as it was finished, and, if there was enough left after that, he supposed he ought to cord and then braid or at least double-twine it for a bowstring, against the day when he could reliably use a bow again. For the moment, though, he needed to secure the rawhide sole to his disintegrating boot, if he was to travel without completely destroying it. Wetting and twisting the end of a thin bundle of sinew to create a bit of a point, he

laboriously threaded it through the holes in the rawhide and corresponding ones he poked in the nylon, holding the latter open with the awl as he passed the sinew through. A good bit of the morning was taken up by the task, but at the end of it, Einar once again had a boot that, he was reasonably certain, would stand up to some travel once again before wearing out. Satisfied, he put the boot back on, and went to check the progress of his tannin-water.

Picking out a stout willow shoot for use with the bone spearhead that was by that point nearly finished to his satisfaction, Einar inspected some of the smaller, more supple shoots that made up the bulk of the willow patch, flexing a few of them and thinking that they ought to make fine darts for use with an atlatl, assuming he would find himself able to throw them, in his present condition. The dog attack had not, apparently done any permanent structural harm to his right arm, and the wounds it had left, though still healing and sometimes painful, were well on the way to no longer being a problem. The biggest obstacle to using such a weapon at the moment, as he saw it, was the mess of heat-damaged flesh on his shoulders, which was, to his relief, finally beginning to crust over after numerous tannin treatments. The crust was very thick and binding, and he was somewhat concerned about the possibility of breaking it or pulling it apart, if he started making the vigorous twisting motions that would be necessary to throwing a dart any great distance or with any amount of force. Might as well go ahead and make the thing, though, even if its a few days before I decide to try it out. He cut a number of long, narrow willow shoots for use as darts, searching around afterwards until he found a dead, dried willow, thicker than those he had chosen for darts, breaking it and taking it with him, also. From experience Einar knew that green willow could be a bit more difficult to carve than dried, and he knew that the atlatl, unlike the darts, did not need to be flexible; the Inuits and others had sometimes used antler or bone for their version of the weapon. Having found a suitable dead willow, he climbed the low ridge opposite his camp, up to a place where he could watch as he worked to make sure no wild creature tampered with the still-drying jerky, and which, being the highest point in the immediate area, would also give him a bit of a look at the wider world around him. After several days of sticking very close to his camp in the small basin, Einar, unused in recent times to remaining in one place for so long and having become conditioned to expect that disaster would be close on his heels if he did so, was beginning to feel the effects of the confinement and had a strong urge to spend some time on a high spot where he could watch things for awhile. It was, as it turned out, a good thing that he ended up acting on that notion. Well on his way to having his simple atlatl ready to test out, Einar felt the presence of something unusual, glanced up and saw a column of smoke rising up into the near-purple of the clear, high altitude sky, far in the distance on the plateau, in the general direction he had come from after escaping the fire. For a time he watched it, seeing the smoke go from grey to black and back lighter again, dying down a bit after that. It did not appear to be a widespread blaze, as he might have expected of a resurgent wildfire, and was, by his estimation, probably ten or twelve miles nearer to his camp than the fire had ever been.

While his first thought was that someone must have, despite the care he had taken, ended up on his back trail, the careless column of smoke soon convinced him that, whoever was out there tossing wood on a fire that morning, it was almost certainly not trackers or agents involved in the search. Not even the feds can possibly be that dumb, can they? Though it seems like whoever it is must be taking a pretty bad risk, having a big old bonfire like that so soon after the fire. But, maybe that fire was not enough to get a fire ban declared, especially so early in the season, and even if it was, well, some people He shrugged. Either way, Einar, as he watched the smoke diminish, began to think that he had better get in a bit closer where he could have a look at the area, just to reassure himself that he did not once again have someone on his back trail. If he did discover someone, especially if they happened to be careless enough to have a big fire like the one he had seen (bounty hunters or some such, I suppose they would be,) he was pretty sure that there would be time to put a bit of distance behind him and set up a nasty surprise for them, in case they felt a need to continue on his trail. Concerned that his cough, still quite frequent when exerting himself at all, might give him away as he approached the camp, he gathered a handful of the mint leaves that he had earlier discovered down near the creek, having found the chewing of them to help quiet the cough. Spruce needles also seemed to help, though not quite as much as the mint. Of course, Ill need to be moving pretty slowly, anyway when I get close, so it may not be much of a concern. Einar did not have to get very close to the camp at all before it became clear to him that the builders of the bonfire were not related to any serious search effort. They had dogs, kids and ATVs, and, having worked their way up the recently snow-free jeep roads in a small convoy of trucks and trailers until they became too muddy to continue, had set up camp and dragged a number of large blue coolers out of the trucks. It appeared, as he watched from a heavily timbered section of a nearby ridge, that the group had definitely spent at least the previous night, and were packing up to leave the area. Settling in behind a fallen tree to wait and watch, Einar saw that the campers tossed a number of items down beside the fire, and though when they finally got turned around and rumbled away down the road it did not appear that they had left much, he could see that there were a number of bottles and cans around the fire ring, some of the glass bottles broken, some not, as well as a large plastic bottle that had apparently contained soda of some type, and he really wanted to get ahold of those containers. Hurrying down the slope after the sound of the trucks had completely died out, Einar, after listening intently for a minute, wasted no time in getting himself out into the clearing and heading for the fire ring, knowing that he would lose the nerve to do it if he waited too long, that he would likely convince himself that it was too risky. In too much of a hurry to thoroughly inspect the area, he snatched up four intact beer bottles and fragments of three broken ones, two tin soda cans, and the large two liter plastic bottle that he had noticed from above, seeing that it still contained nearly two inches of orange soda, and came complete with a lid. Quite a find! Near the fire and partially burned sat a recent edition of the Valley Sentinel newspaper, and Einar, seeing that it contained a front page story about the wildfire and knowing that the paper, itself, would prove incredibly valuable to someone in his position, carefully rolled it up and stowed it in his pack with the bottles, knowing that it might well be the last he ever saw. Hastily glancing around he did not see much else that looked useful, aside from a presumably empty sixteen ounce propane canister from a

Coleman-type stove, which, being metal, he took along without hesitation, though he could not immediately think what he was to use it for. Hurrying back beneath the cover of the timber and pausing to catch his breath and wait for a coughing spell to pass, Einar once again found himself more grateful for the existence of careless, littering campers than he would have ever imagined he could be. As soon as he could breathe well enough to travel again, Einar made good time away from the area, anxious to get far from the place and return to his camp, where he could spread out and inspect his new finds, and perhaps take a few minutes to do the first reading that he had been afforded the opportunity of in months. Finding himself finally, for the first time in quite a while, doing well enough that he could allow the occasional luxury of thinking of something beyond keeping himself breathing and out of the hands of his pursuers for the next ten minutes, the newspaper, and the thought that he might very well not see another one, or have contact with another human, either, in the foreseeable future, made him pause for a moment, reflective, suddenly wondering what the ultimate purpose might be of a life that went on indefinitely as his had for the past year or soalone and continually fighting to stay alive and meet his basic needsbeyond, or course, the value inherent in the struggle itself, in continuing to preserve something that had cost him so very much to hang onto. Yeah, that, and making sure my pursuers dont get the satisfaction of finding a body, anytime soon! And thats enough, isnt it? Thats always been plenty. Whats wrong with you, anyway, asking this kind of thing? What more could you possibly need? And realizing somewhat to his surprise that he had a very definite idea of what that might be, he was about to answer the question, but instead forced a hasty end to the whole internal dialogue, not liking where it was headed. You could do yourself in thinking too much about that stuff, Einar. You really could. The next moment, fighting to shake off a growing pensiveness that bordered on gloom and threatened to slow his work in a way he knew he could ill afford, he laughed at himself a bit for even entertaining such thoughts, shook his head and picked up his pace as if to leave the whole thing well behind him. Too deep there, Einar. Let it go. If you really need something to worry over, how about next winter? Its coming! You been feeling pretty good and all lately with a little food in you and several days of rest, but it has got to be June already by the look of things, and you have no permanent shelter, your clothes and boots are falling to pieces and youve only got a few strips of half-charred deer jerky set aside for food. Get yourself all hunkered down somewhere dry and safe where you can have a fire, with a great big heap of food to set on all winter like a pika in his den, and then maybe youll be able to afford a bit of speculative philosophizing, if youre still inclined Ok. Now that is what I call motivation! Thats something solid to work towards. Still, he found himself a bit subdued and thoughtful as he made his way back to camp. Sitting down on a sunny rock near his camp to read the newspaper article about the fire before getting on with that days tasks, Einar was soon to find that he had far more to be concerned about than the rather abstract matters that had occupied his mind as he walked; concerns far more immediate, even, than his plans for the winter, but which were to end up affecting them greatly.

Before beginning to read the paper, Einar spread the treasures he had collected from the camp out around him on the flat rock, glad to have some glass to work with when it came to making arrow points, skinning knives and other tools, as well as the wealth of intact bottles and cans to store and cook things in. The propane canister could, he supposed, be used to boil water in, as well, if he could find some way to enlarge the mouth. Something to work on. Next he turned his attention to the two liter soda bottle, which as a way to carry water where he had before possessed none besides the open-topped Spam can, was if immeasurable worth. Opening its lid and finding the sticky orange liquid inside to smell incredibly sweet and good, he drank a sip of it, then a good bit more, feeling rather giddy and almost light headed from the unaccustomed concentration of sugar. In his prior life the orange sodasoda of any kind, actuallywould not have been something that he was especially inclined to drink, but just then he could hardly imagine anything being better. Half tempted to finish it off right then and there, he stopped himself. Alright. Quit. Got to save most of this for travel food. It would be a big boost if Im all worn out sometime, and needing to move fast. I can pour it into one of those glass bottles and make a stopper from a willow stick, so this big bottle is free for carrying water. Einar wondered briefly whether by drinking after the campers, he was putting himself at risk of catching some virus that might prove to be worse than annoying in his current depleted state, but quickly dismissed the worry, as he supposed that most people probably did not drink out of the bottle, and besides, it was too late! Thinking about the matter, he realized that he had not been sick with so much as a cold, since leaving civilization the previous fall. Well, unless you count the time I had pneumonia after inhaling half of that river last fall. Real bad idea. And I think Ill be pretty lucky to get away without some sort of a repeat of that, having breathed all that smoke the other day. Sure dont like this cough, and its pretty hard to breathe right when Im lying down. Wish I had a way to simmer some mullein, for the steam. But still, no viruses, and I suppose if youre never around peoplewell, it does have its benefits. My immune system has had plenty to do, anyway! Pulling a small piece of deer jerky out of his pack, Einar started on the newspaper.

Canyon Rim Fire 80% contained

NASA drone aiding in firefighting effort NASAs Ikhana drone, a civilian version of the militarys Predator B unmanned aircraft, has been flying high in the skies above the Dark Creek Plateau over the last few days, too high to be seen, even, in a high-tech and largely successful attempt to aid firefighters in their efforts to control the first major wildfire of the season. Using a specially built array of infrared sensors that can penetrate smoke and relay crucial data about the fire size, intensity and the direction it's moving to crews on the ground, the drone has been helping firefighting crews plan their assault on the blaze, while greatly increasing the safety of those on the ground. The aircraft, complete with its ground control operations base which is housed in a mobile trailer, was already in Culver Falls when the fire started, where it was, according

to confidential sources, being used in the ongoing search for Einar Asmundson. The Canyon Rim fire, which, fanned by several days of strongly gusting winds and spreading quickly in the dry vegetation after a season of sparse snowfall followed by an early thaw up on the Plateau, is said this morning to be eighty percent contained, with firefighting crews expecting full containment by sometime tomorrow, if the winds continue the calming trend that greatly aided yesterdays efforts. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, though local caver Darren Raintree claims that it may have been started when a helicopter, presumably part of the search for Einar Asmundson, hovered low over his camp, scattering embers and burning his tent. Several other sightings have been reported of a similar helicopter in the area that morning, but so far the FBI and Mountain Task Force have consistently denied having any such aircraft in the vicinity. Before he was halfway through the story Einar had jumped up and left his sunny perch on the exposed rock, glancing furtively at the sky as he scurried beneath the nearest tree to finish reading, realizing that as careful as he had been, he would have to redouble his efforts, now that he knew something of what he was up against. He wondered whether he might already have been camped too long in one spot, spending a good bit of time as he had out in the sun, and up on the limestone bluff in the open collecting purslane. Definitely time to move on. And he was on his feet, stowing the newspaper in the pack and hurrying in the direction of his camp, ready to toss everything, including the halfdried jerky, into the pack, fill up the water bottle, and clear out of there as quickly as he could. Though if they thought I was here, surely they would have been here by now to have a look Einar knew that, if possible, he should try to spend one more night at the camp, to make certain that the venison was thoroughly dry and would not spoil as he traveled, and also to give him time to come up with a better way to transport his growing collection of material possessions. The drogue chute, slung as it was over his right shoulder, had rubbed badly on the barely scabbed over burns on his upper backthe pressure of even the light pack was becoming very nearly unbearable as he neared his campand he could tell that, upon inspection, he was going to find that they had opened back up. The last mile or so of his walk was made carrying the pack in his arms to keep it from further injuring the burned areas. Settling in on an adjoining ridge and watching the camp until he was convinced that no one had arrived there ahead of him to set up an ambush, Einar descended to the camp and dumped his pack beside the branch shelter where he had been spending the nights, creeping into it to lie still for a few exhausted minutes before scrambling back to his feet to finish his preparations for breaking camp. Changing his dressings and preparing to wash the burns once again with the batch of tannin water that had been brewing while he was away, Einar quickly confirmed his suspicion about the damage done by carrying the pack. Soaking off the mullein leaves that had covered his right shoulder, he saw to his dismay that the tannin-crust had broken up and sloughed off, leaving the area raw, inflamed and hurting badly enough to send him scurrying down to the creek for a fresh bundle of willow bark before he made any attempt

to wash and re-bandage the area. Once he had finished that task and recovered enough that he was able to see straight again, Einar wasted no time in acting upon an idea that had come to him for modifying his current pack setup. Knowing that he must keep the weight off of his back and shoulders, he began work on a large and hastily constructed pack basket of thin, flexible willow shoots from the patch down by the creek, thinking that he ought to be able to make a waist belt of sorts from a strip of parachute material, and a tump line to go up around his forehead to take the rest of the weight, rather than using shoulder straps of any kind. If it worked, he thought that setup ought to allow him to lean the basket out away from his back near the top, letting it rest on his lower back and supporting it with the tump line. It was not something that he had tried before, and he knew that traditionally with such a setup you were supposed to lean forward and let your back support a good bit of the weight, but he lacked a better idea. It has got to work, because I sure dont want to leave everything, and I am not carrying it over my shoulder, if I can help it! Leaving the weave on the basket very loose to speed the project up and knowing that he could use the small parachute as an internal bag to prevent things from slipping through the cracks, Einar worked steadily on the project for a while, eventually stopping to eat the rest of the fire-killed squirrel and assemble his deer-bone and willow spear. He was quite happy with the way the spear head had turned out, and was anxious to try it. Hopefully on something in a snare, rather than as a last resort on a tracking dog or a hungry bear Softening a few strands of deer sinew by chewing them, he wrapped them tightly around the joint between the spear and the head, which he had inserted in a carefully-made split in the end of the stout willow pole that he had chosen. Would be better if I could make some glue from spruce pitch and charcoal to glop over top of this and help hold it in place, but the sinew will have to be enough, until I can have a fire. Turning his attention back to the pack, Einar wove in a few more rows of willow, cut a strip of parachute material for a waist belt and wove it near the bottom of the basket, passing it through in several places and testing it by tying it around his waist, yep, plenty long enough, alright. Guess its gonna take more than two or three days for me to start putting on a useful amount of weight Finishing the creation by braiding together several parachute lines and weaving them into the basket near the top, he brought the two free ends of the braid around in front of his head, measuring and leaving them long enough to allow the basket to lean back at such an angle that it would not come in contact with his shoulders or upper back, and tying a short piece of parachute material between them as a head strap. Loading up the pack with everything but the still-drying jerky, he sat on a rock and tied it around his waist, slipped the strap up over his forehead, and gave it a try. Several problems were immediately obvious, not least among them the fact that it made his footing rather unsteady and threatened to pull him over backwards, but he was pretty sure he could make the pack work.

Sitting down with the paper and a bit of jerky, Einar carefully spread out the fire-brittled pages on a flat rock, discovering on page two another small article about the fire, its main focus being the natural history and significance of the area that had burned, but the thing that drew Einars attention was a small map that had been printed beside the article. No larger than an index card and covering quite a bit of ground, the map was not especially

detailed, but was extremely valuable to Einar nonetheless, as he new very little of the area he was currently traveling through. Previous to that day, he had thought that he was already within the boundaries of the Wilderness Area, a notion that had been challenged by the appearance of the campers in trucks, as motor vehicles were forbidden in the wilderness, and he could see from the map that he was still a number of miles from its edge. Alright. Now I have something to work with. Got to get in where there are no roads anywhere nearby, because I sure dont want to be running into any more campers or anybody! Climbing to the top of the low ridge above his camp, Einar looked over in the direction of the fire, where occasional columns of smoke still rose in the nearly still air of the afternoon, a blue haze lingering heavily over the canyon. Roughly orienting the map based on the fire, canyon and the position of the sun, he picked out a series of landmarksan odd, flat-topped rocky promontory, a ridge with a swath of beetle-killed evergreens running down the side of it, and a bit of high ground topped with red rock that he thought he stood some chance of getting an occasional look at as he traveled, and which ought to take him in the direction of the Wilderness. Judging his current position based on the map, which did seem to show the plateaus network of jeep roads in some detail, Einar realized that he had roughly eight to ten miles of travel ahead of him before he would hit the roadless area. Having initially planned to remain for one more night at the camp before moving on, he was increasingly inclined, as he loaded the willow pack basket and took the dried, brittle deer jerky down from the tree where it had been hanging, to make his departure without further delay. The thought of that NASA drone (and they could very well be using others, if they are using that one. It seems the only reason that one even got mentioned was that it ended up being used for the fire) thousands of feet above him, lost to sight in the vastness of the sky but with the ability to broadcast his every move down to his pursuers and stay airborne for twenty hours at a time had him spooked. He knew that, tired as he was after the long trek to check on the source of the smoke that morning, he would not sleep that night if he remained where he was, but would spend the night stretched out in his branch shelter, straining his ears for any sign of an enemy he knew he would never hear until it was too late, wondering if ground teams were already on his trail and approaching from over the ridge. His hand tightened on the spear at the thought. Might as well get moving. When he really thought about it, it seemed to Einar that as long as he had been at his camp, agents would have already been by to have a look at it, if the unmanned aircraft had spotted anything that aroused their suspicion. Which might have been an argument for remaining right where he was, aside from the fact that he very much wanted to reach the wilderness area, now that he knew for sure that he was still some miles outside of it. And whats to say that they did not see me before, but may have spotted me when I went out in the open to grab the bottles and cans down at that camp. They could have been watching the camp Having got everything loaded into the pack, leaving the jerky attached to the parachute line it had dried on to keep it together and prevent its loss through the cracks of the basket, he took a minute to cut a small section of material from the parachute, breaking up and placing a number of jerky strips on it and pulling the edges together, tying them at the top with a short length of parachute line which he then looped around his neck, adding the bag of jerky to the fire steel and striker that he wore in their pouch around his neck. He could just imagine himself working to

negotiate some rough and steep section of ground, falling and losing the pack, only to have it go bouncing and rolling down the mountainside and dumping all of his possessions down between two boulders where he could not get at them. The image was very vivid in his mind, and left him with a hollow, sick feeling inside. Such things had certainly happened before, had happened almost every time he got ahold of any significant quantity of food, as a matter of fact, and he certainly could not afford to be losing that deer jerky. At least this way Ill have a little of it, even if I lose everything else. There had appeared to be enough usable hide left from one of the deer quarters to make a small rawhide bag, and Einar decided that once he was settled somewhere, he would get busy with its construction, so that he could perhaps carry more jerky and his knife, slung over his shoulder. Once these burns are a little better. And if I dont decide to keep that rawhide for a boot sole replacement. Have to see how this one does. That hide was not particularly thick, and I got some rocky ground to cover. Taking the pack on a test run down to the creek as he went to fill a bottle with water for the trip, Einar found it very difficult to keep the thing from swaying dangerously from side to side, unsteadying his steps and making it very difficult to keep his balance in the unnatural stance that he had to adopt in order to keep the pack leaning out away from his back and shoulders. He fell once, having been unable to see a loose rock underfoot and unable to steady himself after stepping on it, landing hard on his hands and narrowly preventing a tumble that would have landed him in the creek. After that, realizing that the pack was going to be very difficult to use as he had intended on any but the flattest ground, he gingerly tried leaning forward until the basket contacted his back, which helped greatly with his balance, but he found the resulting pain to be more than he was easily able to deal with, knowing that he needed to see if he could make it work and keeping at it until he descended the remaining two hundred yards to the creek, where he promptly sank to his knees beside the water, vomited and briefly passed out. The cold shock of the water on his forehead brought him out of it, sitting up and removing the head strap to allow the pack to fall to the ground behind him. That did not work too well. Maybe I could do it with some more padding back there, but even if I could manage the pain, it would be doing more damage to the burnt spots, wiping out any healing that had happened, and putting me at even more risk of ending up with an infection. Not a good idea. Filling one of the brown glass beer bottles from the camp with creek water and stopping it with a plug of willow, Einar carefully made his way across the creek on a series of slippery, half submerged rocks, and started up the opposite slope, wanting to get to some higher ground where he could begin to get occasional glimpses of the landmarks he had set for himself in his quest to reach the Dark Creek Wilderness Area. As concerned as he was about the possibility of being spotted by a drone after having read that newspaper article, Einar was, at the same time, somewhat relieved that he had not heard or seen a search-related aircraft since the helicopter gave Darren Raintree a rather rude awakening several days prior. Though Einar had no way of knowing it, there were certainly other factors at work in the near total cessation of the visible search effort. The FBI agents down at the Mountain Task Force compound in the old feed store were, as it turned out, simply finding themselves too busy at the moment with other, more pressing matters, to

pursue the search as they had been.

Less than an hour into the trip and seriously worried that the swaying pack was going to lead to disaster on the sometimes steep and rocks slopes he found himself traversing, Einar stopped and wove another parachute line into the basket around its midpoint, wrapping a free end of it around each of his arms a couple of times before gripping it in his hand, using a bit of pressure on the lines to steady the pack when it began swaying alarmingly and threatening to pull him off his feet. Travel went a bit more smoothly after that, but he was still slowed by the awkwardness of the pack, and by the slowly healing burns to his upper back and shoulders that made any movement of his shoulders rather painful and difficult. Even turning his head too far to one side or the other had become a challenge, as the motion pulled on the damaged skin, and the difficulty of continuing to make distance under such conditions very nearly convinced Einar more than once to turn around and go back to his camp, spend a few more days there until the burned areas had hopefully had time to return to a more normal state. He knew he was slowing their healing by insisting on the constant movement. This would have been a good time to stay still for a few days, butnot an option, as usual. Even if I had stayed at that camp, I would have had to keep moving, setting and checking snares and deadfalls, getting water down at the creek, climbing the ridge to have a look over towards the fire and check on things. Wouldnt have been a lot different than what Im doing now, aside from carrying this pack. Just have to make the best of it. Einar took a break from his travels as the dusk deepened to darkness that evening, having constrained himself to moving largely beneath the black timber in the hopes of avoiding being spotted by the NASA drone he had read about in the newspaper article, or any other similar assets his pursuers might have declined to mention to the public, and not wanting to lose sight entirely of the landmarks he was using to keep himself pointed in the direction of the Wilderness. Crouching under a spruce and working on a strip of jerky, he estimated that he had put no more than two or three miles behind him since leaving the camp, constantly struggling with the cumbersome pack and having to stop frequently to readjust it in an effort to keep it from coming in contact with his back. The moon would be up before long, he had watched it the previous two nights, red-tinged from the lingering smoke and appearing enormous as it crept above the fringe of evergreens on the low ridge opposite his shelter, and he was sure that once it was high enough in the sky, he ought to have no trouble picking out at least one of his landmarks and continuing with his journey. In the meantime, he took off the pack, hoisted it up into a nearby tree with several lengths of parachute line tied together, and huddled beneath a spruce, chest on his knees and duff scraped and piled around him to form a partial barrier against a wind which had grown strong and gusty as the day ended, sleeping until he grew too cold and woke. The moon was up. Time to go. Retrieving his pack, Einar started for a small clearing he had seen as darkness was falling, hoping from there to be able to get a look at the flat-topped rocky peak that was his nearest landmark. There was a brief lull in the wind as he traveled, and Einar strained his ears to identify a strange, rhythmic sound that he had been catching occasional hints of since waking. Nearing the clearing, the trunks

of the aspens that surrounded it gleaming softly in the moonlight, the source of the noise become clear to him. Bullfrogs! He could hear them plain as anything by that point, and, scanning the half-moon dimness of the little meadow, could just make out a boggy area at one end of it, the brown heads of the previous years cattails showing against the pale silver of the water. Hmm Cattails and frog legs, all in one spot! Sounds like a meal, and a starving scavenger can't afford to pass up on a ready meal, so I guess Im stopping here for a bit. Einar knew that it would be an unwise idea for him to go splashing around in the chilly water of the pond after frogs and ending up soaking wet and having burned more calories than would be provided by the few mouthfulls of additional food he would be able to obtain, but glancing at the spear in his hand and seeing the moonlight reflecting off of the water, he knew that he must not pass up the opportunity to add to his stillmeager supply of food. Smelling the sweet, tangy aroma of willows and knowing that he would find them down near the water, he considered setting aside the spear and going in search of a forked willow stick that he could cut and sharpen into a two-pronged if unbarbed frog gig, but decided against spending the time, thinking that the bond tipped spear ought to be quite adequate, though he was a bit concerned about the possibility of missing his aim and chipping or even shattering the bone spearhead on a rock in the semi-darkness. Which would be real shame, when the potential reward was no larger than a frog. Well. Ill be careful. And he left his pack in a tree, quietly heading for the little bog as a sudden, vivid vision of fried, breaded frog legs, the tender white meat nearly falling off the bone, caused his stomach to rumble loudly enough that he was half afraid the frogs might actually hear it. No he told himself, shaking his head and brushing aside the absurd, mouth-watering, grease-dripping illusion. Sorry, but thats not exactly how its going to be. If youre lucky enough to get ahold of one or two of those slippery little critters in the first place, youre gonna be eating the slimy, muddy-tasting stuff raw, and its not just going to be the legs, either. Youll be sitting here by the water picking every shred and scrap of meat off those bones, then drying out the bones in the sun tomorrow to save for stew, in case you ever get to see a fire again. Which sounded just fine to Einar, who found himself perpetually hungry despite a dwindling supply of venison that allowed him the occasional bite of jerky as he traveled. He knew that the frogs, if he was able to get ahold of any, would give him nearly twice the fat per once of that provided by the venison. Before he had cut off and eaten all the deer fat while making the jerky Ok. Lets get it done! Dont get carried away and fall in, though, because its not gonna be worth it if you end up all soaked and having to shiver the rest of the night. Einar knew that he was still tiptoeing awfully close to the edge as far as downright starvation, that he must carefully plan all of his actions to revolve around making gains in fuel and nutrition he needed to be taking in as much as he was using, and more, hopefully, or he would eventually simply cease to live. Which makes all this hiking and climbing and stomping around the woods a really bad idea right now, but I cant stay where they may have seen me. Because if they catch up to me, I m dead, anyway. This staying alive business would all be a lot easier if I did not have that to think about. He shrugged. It is what it is. Maybe someday Moving as quietly and lightly as he was able so as not to alert the frogs, Einar crouched

near the pond, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness of the moonlight on the water and scanning the muddy edges for any visible sign of the creatures that were nearly deafening him with their bellowing. It took him a while, but he spotted one, stalking in close and crouching with the spear poised, hoping that his aim would be decent enough in the dim light and finally, his arm growing tired, thrusting at the creature and pinning it to the mud where it had been sitting. Anxious to prevent the wounded frogs escape, Einar snatched it from the spear and gave its head a hard knock on a nearby rock, inspecting the dead creature in the moonlight and guessing that it must weigh nearly a pound. Which he knew was not bad at all, as bullfrogs are not native to the area, but had been accidentally introduced as people stocked streams and lakes with trout, eventually becoming an established species, though with the cold winters and always-chilly waters, they certainly never grew as large as their Eastern cousins. The remaining frogs had fallen silent at the commotion, and Einar retreated a few feet back from the water and sat still, waiting for the chorus to resume so he could return to his hunting. He could tell that he had torn open the crust on his shoulders again with the sudden movements, but he figured that he might as well try for a couple more frogs, since the damage was already done. After much waiting and some careful stalking around to the other side of the bog, followed by another long wait during which Einar, his sleeves damp from retrieving the speared frog, began to feel the effects of the nights cold wind pretty badly, he managed to spear one more frog, not as large as the first but still, he was pretty sure, worth the minimal effort it had taken to secure it. Waiting did not use up all that much energy, after all, aside from the bit of shivering that had been necessary as the night continued to cool off. Anxious to get moving again, Einar skinned one of the frogs right there beside the pond, huddling behind a boulder to get out of the wind as he enjoyed a substantial and satisfying meal of bullfrog sushi, barely even missing the breading that he had drooled over in his earlier musings. Rolling up his sleeves and pants and removing his boots and socks in an attempt to keep his clothing as dry as possible, Einar dug and pulled up a number of starchy cattail roots, breaking them up a bit and stashing them in his pack, knowing that, while not ideal, he could eat them raw by cutting them open and scraping the starch from the root fibers with his teeth, or by chewing a mass of the fibers, swallowing the starch and spitting them out. He had done it before. Returning to the cattail patch, he broke off a number of the green cattail corn bloom and pollen heads, which, cattail being a distant relative of corn, somewhat resembled it in both taste and nutrition, though he knew they would be rather dry and fibrous raw, and much improved by a quick boil. It would not be many more weeks before the time arrived for collecting the yellow, protein-rich pollen that the plants produced in abundance, for later use as a flour substitute, if he was ever in one place long enough to try his hand at baking some simple ash cakes. And if Im not, I can always just mix the stuff with some water, let it sit for a few minutes, and eat it that way. Pretty good, especially if I have a few wild mustard seeds or some watercress to break up and add! Last, having ended up damper than he had intended from splashing about after the wealth of food offered by the cattails and beginning to be seriously cold and ready to get moving, Einar cut a number of shoots to peel and eat the next day, thinking that he might use some of the clear, thick soothing gel that is found between the outer leaves and the crunchy, white centers to help treat his burns. It seemed to have a rather dulling effect on

pain when applied topically, which he knew would be much appreciated by the time he was finished with another few hours of travel. Making his way out to the center of the clearing and squinting out at the silver-bathed forested slopes ahead of him, Einar could just make out the flat, rocky promontory that he knew he needed to head for, getting into his pack and starting down the slope below the clearing.

As the moon rose higher in the night sky, Einars travel beneath the timber became easier, aided by the patchy silver light that fell through the swaying spruces to give some definition to the ground, allowing him to maintain a decent pace without losing his footing too often. Whenever the terrain allowed, he would find a high spot and try for a look at one or another of his landmarks, pleased that he seemed to be basically staying on course despite the darkness and the focus that was demanded by moving with the still somewhat precarious and unstable pack basket. The weather was changing, long streamers of cloud rolling in from the West and occasionally obscuring the moon, and Einar could feel the coming of rain in the restlessness of the wind. Wanting to put a few more miles behind him so that he would hopefully end up well inside the borders of the Wilderness Area before having to hole up against the rain, he made only occasional stops to gulp mouthfuls of water from his bottle, once taking a few minutes to gather a handful of dried pitch globs that he found grouped along a spruce trunk where it had been damaged by a large granite boulder that had apparently rolled down the hillside and come to rest against it. Strangely enough Einar did not feel at all hungry as the hours passed, and supposed that the frog must have been more filling than he had expected it to be. Towards dawn, though, he began to be convinced that something more must be at work, because in addition to the lack of hunger he was starting to experience a growing nausea. Trying at first to ease his unsettled stomach by chewing on some of the mint leaves that he had gathered from the creek and stuffed into his pockets to help with the persistent cough that had been following him since the fire, he found that they did little to dispel the queasy feelings that were tying his stomach in knots and he knew there was no way to avoid the inevitable. After spending the remainder of the night trudging along sick and dizzy and struggling to drink enough water to replace what he was losing as the nausea kept periodically wringing his insides, Einar, bleary-eyed, light headed and fairly certain that he was a bit feverish, watched from beneath a tree as a flat grey dawn slowly crept over the land. Rain was coming; he could smell it. Well. Guess frog sushi may not have been the best idea. Not too many options for cooking food right now though, and I guess something like this was bound to happen eventually, with the way Ive been eating. Better start chewing on some Oregon grape roots, as soon as I can find them. This is really going to slow me down, and maybe worse if I have trouble keeping up with the liquid Im losing. It was clear to Einar that what he needed was a fire, a way to quickly produce a good

quantity of berberine water from Oregon grape roots to hopefully knock out whatever he seemed to have picked up from eating the raw frog, and perhaps simmer some mullein leaves for his lungs, too. The cough and the painful tightness in his chest were worsening instead of fading, and recognizing the feeling and not liking it, Einar knew he needed to take fairly urgent action if he wanted a chance at avoiding a debilitating and, likely as not, deadly progression of the lung irritation he had been experiencing since the fire. Gonna have to have a fire, Einar. Need to get these things under control quick, or between the two you will end up under a tree somewhere before long too wiped out to move. That, and those burns are going to be in need of some serious attention by the time you stop. So. How are you going to make this happen? Without making yourself a target? He waited, swaying a bit and beginning to feel the dreaded nausea well up once again, hoping some brilliant answer would make itself obvious but knowing that such a thing was most unlikely in his current condition. Kinda short on ideas He sank to his knees. Tired. Some time later, still on his knees because he was too dizzy to get up and leaning heavily on his spear to keep steady, Einar, who normally had a difficult time asking for assistance under even the most dire of circumstances, bowed his head. This is all dragging me pretty low right now. I know You refine us as silver is refined and I guess this is part of it in my case, but I got to say, sometimes Im not at all sure whether Im the silver that is being refined, or dross that is being consumed by the fire. Right now I feel an awful lot like a little heap of ashes with the coals barely alive down underneath. Andhe glanced up at the sky as the first cold drops found their way down the spruce boughs to land on his head, its starting to rain. It was not a complaint or even a request for help, exactlythough it was perhaps as close to being the latter as Einar was able to bring himself, most timesjust a statement of fact, and Einar, not waiting for an answer and not aware that he had already received one, hauled himself to his feet and slowly shuffled off across the slope, half in a daze but suddenly realizing that he must head for the area of rocky pinnacles and flutings below the flat-topped peak that had been serving as his landmark, hoping there to find some sort of shelter that would make fire a reasonable risk. Yes. Makes sense. If I can find a place where two rock walls come very close together, leaving just a little crack like that place I hid for awhile just before this last time in the rivermaybe the rock would absorb enough of the heat on its way up the chimney that it would not show up all that bad. Especially if there are some trees up at the top to disperse the smoke. Then I could do the fire in the daytime when the rocks would be heated some by the sun, so there would be even less contrast and less chance of my fires heat showing up on one of their sensors. Though it sure doesnt look like there will be any sun today, but maybe tomorrow Not having any way to know if such geographyassuming he was even able to locate such a placewould truly be enough to mask his heat signature, Einar knew that he had to give it a try, knew that between the new stomach ailment and his worsening cough and breathing difficulties, he was once again existing dangerously near the edge of his enduranceand that had been before the rain had started. Got to keep dry, if I can. Stopping beneath a tree and readjusting the remains of the tattered windbreaker to better

cover his head and shoulders, Einar wrapped the deer jerky more tightly in the parachute material, stuffing it in the bottom of the pack and heaping everything else on top of it in the hopes that it might remain dry, or mostly so, at least. Seeing a downed aspen not far from his temporary shelter, he dropped the pack and scurried over to it, stripping off long streamers of bark, pausing to collect a large handful of leaves from a mullein plant that grew nearby and hurrying back beneath the cover of the evergreen, wringing the water out of his hat before it had time to soak through. Draping strips of bark over the top of the basket and weaving them down into the willow wands, he made a hasty, rainshedding cover for his pack, already damp and chilled and wishing he had enough bark to do the same for himself. Huddled up next to the tree trunk and fairly well shielded from the weather, he considered digging down in the nearly dry duff to wait out the storm, but knew that until he was able to have a fire and prepare some berberine solution and mullein tea, there was little chance that his worsening ailments would show much improvement. And he could certainly not have a fire there on the timbered slope, though he was sure that the rain would keep any smoke it produced from being seen by human observers or aircraft. Doggone UAVs. Wish I knew more about their capabilities, but this sure isnt the time to be finding out the hard way. Need to keep moving. With a very specific vision in his mind of the sort of place he sought, Einar made his way toward the rocky peak ahead of him, keeping beneath the evergreens as much to stay out of the increasingly heavy rain as to keep hidden from high-flying drones with arrays of cloud-piercing sensors. The rain squall soon thoroughly obscured his view of the landmark, and Einar kept on by feel alone, hoping very much that he was headed in the right direction and possessed of an unsubstantiated and perhaps unreasonable confidence that he was.

When the weather cleared enough for Einar to again get a look at where he was, he hauled himself up onto a rain-slick boulder in search of a view, only to discover that his landmarks were nowhere in sight. All he could see, in fact, was a seemingly endless sea of tree covered ridges fading to nothingness in the storm, their unbroken ranks of evergreens showing with an alarming sameness through ragged tears in the wind-blown fog. It was a disappointment and worried him some, as he had been counting on finding himself near the granite flutes and spires by that time, hoping to be able to start searching for a place where he could build a fire, dry out, and brew up a concoction or two that would hopefully relieve some of the ailments that were making continued travel increasingly difficult. Well. Not happening, not now anyway, because you are not doing a fire without more cover than this, no matter how bad it gets. Because capture would be worse, and its gonna happen if they see you out here. Youre moving pretty slow at the moment, if you hadnt noticed. He slid down from the rock and stood nearly doubled over on the soggy ground beside it, coughing and struggling to catch his breath, his teeth chattering in the damp, chilly wind. For some time, his fever apparently worsening, he had been going rather quickly from hot to cold and back again, his damp clothes steaming in the cool air at times, while at others he found himself freezing and shaking as he walked through the grey, dripping, wind swept world. A contrast which Einar found

oddly fascinating and perhaps even a bit entertaining in an abstract, detached sort of way and which he was pretty sure he would have been able to live with for awhile without too much difficulty, had it not been accompanied by an increasing lack of oxygen. This sure isnt getting any better. Not getting enough air, Einar. You want to keep on breathing, I think that fire had better happen before too much longer. Youre gonna need some pretty massive amounts of that berberine stuff if you want to beat this thing, and some mullein to open things up. Having been gathering Oregon grape roots as he traveled, pulling them fairly easily from the saturated ground, all he needed was a fire and a source of water and dripping rain could provide that for a while, if I find the right spot, and he could boil up a bunch of the roots, breathe some mullein steam to get some immediate relief, and spend the rest of the day making and drinking the yellow tea that represented his best chance of staving off the worsening lung troubles that seemed to have taken root after breathing the smoke of the wildfire. He hoped the berberine might also help put an end to or at least shorten the duration of whatever bug he had picked up from the frog sushi, though the breathing troubles had largely pushed it to the background, by that point. He had nothing left in his stomach to lose, anyway. Ok. One foot in front of the other, keep going, and youll find a place. Maybe in time, even. Who knows? And with that rather dire thought passing as humor at the moment, Einar started up the gentle slope in front of him with a bit of renewed spring to his dragging step. Emerging from the heavy timber on a steep section of forested slope, Einar discovered, nearly in disbelief, that he was actually on the lower slopes of the flat-topped peak that he had been seeking, that in the rain he had wandered around the back side of it, and that reaching the rocks should be a reasonably simple matter of traversing over to the right, skirting the lower reaches of the mountain. He could just barely catch a glimpse of the angular, treeless top of the mountain far above him. Nearly as grateful as he was exhausted, Einar struck off in the direction where he knew the rocks must lie, encouraged when he began seeing an increasing number of sharply fractured granite boulders among the spruces, heading uphill and beginning to climb towards what appeared to be an area of heavy timber interrupted every so often by rockslides and cliffs. The rain had closed in again, clouds scudding across the lower reaches of the mountain and preventing him from seeing anything in too much detail, but before it became heavy, Einar had seen a dark, narrow-looking gulley that cut the rock face above him, and he headed for it, glad to discover that the looming rock face blocked a bit of the wind as he neared it. Hauling himself up into the dark chasm of the gulley, he saw that it immediately became steep and very rugged, and flowed with water from the rain. No. Got to find another place. Several similar areas he explored, all to no avail, and was close to giving up and moving on when he stepped into a narrow crack in the rock, its entrance concealed by a heavy stand of stunted and scraggly firs, and found himself looking up at a barely visible ribbon of grey sky and trees well over fifty feet above his head, nearly blocked from view by various twists and protrusions in rock walls that were separated by mere feet. The spot seemed as good as any he was likely to find, and he hoped that the various ledges and twistings of rock that intruded between the floor and the sky above might serve to slow the rise of the heat, absorbing much of it like an enormous replica of a Russian stove and

reducing the heat signature he would be producing. He knew the trees at the top ought to help greatly in dispersing any tiny amount of smoke that his careful fire would produce, as well. Hope so, anyway. The floor sloped up gently, and Einar continued for twenty or thirty feet as it narrowed and rose gradually, stopping when he found a place where the contortions of the walls had left a fairly sizeable dry area, protected from the rain and from direct exposure to the sky. Einar dropped his pack, fumbled loose the knots and removed the waist belt, resting for a minute with his head on his knees before shoving the pack further under the ledge and going in search of firewood. Breaking dry, barkless branches from the undersides of nearby evergreens in the area around the rock chasm and shielding them from the ongoing rain with the remains of the windbreaker, Einar realized that he was going to have to become very efficient in his use of fire, taking full advantage of it whenever circumstances permitted him to have one. It was beginning to look like it might well be a very rare luxury, at least for awhile. Im taking a chance here having a fire at all, I know that I am, but can see no good way around it. Will keep this as quick as possible to cut down on their chances of seeing me, if this crack doesnt end up being enough to hide the heat. They can only pass over so often, anyway. Guess I can do the fire, then real quick pack everything up and go somewhere else, in case they did get an image they think is worth taking a second look at. Have no idea when the next fire may be, so I had better make up a bunch of things to carry with meboil down some strong willow bark solution, the berberine, of course, and a bunch of tannin for the burns, and its a good thing I brought some oak bark along, because there arent any around hereand Id like to melt down all that pitch I have been collecting and mix it with pounded up charcoal for glue. And cook that second frog! Better try to dry my clothes, too, and cook up a bunch of those cattail roots. By the time he had collected enough dry, brittle branches from the undersides of spruces to think about making the fire, Einars head was spinning with all of the tasks that he had set for himself, and he returned to his shelter in the chasm, scratching a shallow fire hole into the rocky dirt of its floor and shredding and rolling a bit of the aspen bark that he had used to waterproof the pack for tinder. As soon as the fire was well enough established that it did not need constant attention, he poured some water into the Spam can and set it in a flat rock that he had dragged partway over the flames, breaking up mullein leaves and shivering over the fire for a minute as he waited for the water to heat. He did not have much time to sit and enjoy the warmth just yet, though, as he knew that he would be needing more water for all the projects he had in mind for the little fire, and had seen no creek or spring nearby. Grabbing three of the empty beer cans he had collected, he hastily enlarged their mouths with a sharp rock, carrying them to the entrance of the chasm where he remembered dodging an insistent stream of water from the rocks above. Positioning the cans to capture this falling water, he saw that it would not take long at all for them to fill. Hurrying back to the fire and finding that the mullein was simmering nicely, Einar sat down with one leg on each side of the fire, leaning over and breathing the steam until he was forced to stop by a coughing fit that brought up a good quantity of nasty looking phlegm. Not so good, but maybe I got to it in time, maybe I can get through it a little easier than the last time. And he could certainly breathe easier than he had been able to

in several days. Taking off his soaked jeans and jamming a long stick between the two walls of rock a number of feet above the fire, he tossed the jeans over it to begin drying, not willing to risk melting his already damaged polypropylene top and bottoms by subjecting them to the same treatment. Making another trip out to the chasm entrance he found that all three cans were full to overflowing, and took them back to the fire, setting them on the rock and breaking up several Oregon grape roots into one, tossing a coil of willow bark into the second, and waiting on the third, as there was not room to get it close enough to the heat to begin using it, just yet. Breathing more of the mullein steam before drinking the hot liquid as a tea, Einar got out the frog and chopped it up into pieces that would fit in the can, adding the bones from the one that had apparently made him sick and knowing that whatever the offending bacteria had been, it ought to be thoroughly destroyed by being boiled. His stomach did seem a bit more settled since drinking the tea, and though he was not entirely sure that the food would stay down, he was feeling hungry for the first time that day and awfully weak, too, and decided to give it a try. Once the frog was boiling, Einar decided to try roasting the cattail roots, lacking a large enough cooking pot to boil more than a few small pieces of them at a time, ending up using most of the starch he scraped off of the first root to soften in the coalssplitting it and scraping with his knifeto thicken his frog stew and eating a few fingerfulls of it as mashed potatoes right after scraping it free of the fibers. It tasted wonderful to him, and, combined with a keen anticipation of the thick, bubbling, mouth watering stew that he was about to enjoy, more than made up for the fact that he was still wet and shivering and knew that he would soon have to put out the fire and move on.

Waiting as he gave his stew time to cook thoroughly, Einar inspected the boiling willow solution, finding it to be fairly dark, with nearly half of the water having boiled off. Throwing in most of the mint leaves that remained in his pocket as a bit of a buffer against the somewhat strong salicin from the willow bark that tended to be rather upsetting to his stomach, he moved the stuff back a few inches from the fire, letting it simmer gently for another minute before removing it from the heat to begin cooling. He was left with half a can of very concentrated liquid whose pain dulling properties, he knew, would make things at least a bit more manageable if he took a swallow of it a few minutes before dressing his burns. Which I had better be thinking about doing, before long here. He had been putting it off, knowing he had done further damage to the areas by traveling and by the occasional unavoidable contact of the pack with portions of his back when going over especially rough ground, and had not had much attention to spare for the burns or anything else, really, until he had done something about his breathing. With his breathing much improved since inhaling the mullein steam, though still labored and somewhat painful, Einar knew that he must deal with the burns. Taking a small gulp of the cooling willow juice, he heated a few oak bark pieces in the remaining can of water, letting the resulting tannin-rich liquid cool down to somewhere near body temperature before washing the burnt areas in it, waiting for the hissing, crackling splinters of white light in his head to dissipate some so he could see again before soaking

fresh mullein leaves in the remaining liquid and dressing the wounds, taking a long swallow of the scaldingly bitter willow solution and thinking that it would not be lasting him long at all, at that rate. Better make some more before I head out of here. Gonna be doing this for a few more days at least, I think. The burns looked bad, what he could see of them; the areas around the remaining tannin-induced crust were red and puffy and oozing, and he knew that it could not have been a good thing to have the rain rolling down his neck most of the day, inevitably carrying dirt and bacteria into the wounds. While the perhaps excessive amount of willow infusion had taken a bit of the edge off of his pain, it had also succeeded in leaving Einar terribly sleepy, struggling to remain focused on the tasks in front of him and wishing that he had not gulped so much of the stuff. Never really did this to me before. Not this bad, anyway, but then, I was probably pretty sleepy coming into this, and just didnt notice it until I had a chance to sit down and warm up a little. Not wanting to risk falling asleep just then he rose, shook his head to clear his vision and went to the chasm entrance to set the empty tannin can to refill with dripping water, letting the icy stream splash on his face for a minute until he was thoroughly awake. Einar hurried back to the fire then, wide awake and shivering, marveling at the difference in air temperature between the outside and the area immediately surrounding his fire. The rock walls and the ledges and protrusions that stuck out into the space above his little camp seemed to be allowing quite a bit of the fires heat to linger long enough to be absorbed by the surrounding rock, which he hoped meant that not too much of it was escaping to be seen by passing aircraft. Either way, it certainly was turning the narrow slot in the mountain into a cozy, inviting shelter for someone who had spent the previous night and morning wandering around sick and barely able to breathe in the cold wind and rain, and Einar sat back down by his fire, more than ready to eat the stew. If he had been sleepy before eating, Einar found himself doubly so after the meal, nodding over the little fire and enjoying the good, full feeling in his stomach, which seemed finally to have finished turning itself inside out. The starch from the cattail roots had thickened the stew very nicely and, combined with the boiled meat and bones of the frog, was going a long way towards renewing his energy a bit. He allowed himself a minute to enjoy the feeling, letting his body absorb the nutrition of his recent meal and the heat of the fire, his mind wandering pleasantly, before getting back to work. Gently heating in its can, the Oregon grape solution had simmered itself down to a bright yellow, sharply bitter half cup of liquid as he ate, and Einar, swallowing a mouthful of it in the hopes that it would help knock out his lung troubles before they progressed too much further, carefully poured the rest into one of the brown glass bottles he had found at the camp, stoppering it with a short piece of willow stick wrapped once in aspen bark to form a tight seal. Taking the empty can down to his water collection area at the mouth of the chasm, he exchanged it for the one that had been filling, adding the last of his oak bark to it and setting it on the flat stone to simmer. His intention was to make a full bottle each of willow infusion, tannin from the oak bark, and the yellow Oregon grape antiseptic and antibiotic that he knew he would be needing, both internally and externally, over the following days. And who knows when I will get to do another fire. Could be days, a week, even. And Ill be in much better shape at the end of that if I can have some

of this stuff to work with, in the meantime. Alright. While that simmers, time to work on this pitch. The can of spruce pitch, which was nearly a third full after his wanderings over the past day and a half, had been sitting not far from the fire, beginning to soften, and he carefully moved it closer, poking around with a couple of sticks in the fire and removing several small coals, quickly rolling them around on his flat cooking rock to put them out and stop them from smoking. Crushing the coals with a rock and rubbing the pieces until they were nearly powder, he pushed them into a little heap at one end of the rock, checking the state of the pitch and moving the can a bit closer to the flames. When he had made pitch glue in the past, he had usually added a bit of fat of some sortdeer tallow, usually, as he found that it improved the texture, but of course he had nothing of the sort lying about that day, and certainly wouldnt have been using it for glue, if he had. The charcoal will do. His usual recipe, though he never measured, exactly, just roughly estimated, was to mix one part ground up charcoal or ash with one part tallow and five parts pitch, sometimes adding a bit of finely pulverized dry grass or moss to stabilize it. The pitch had melted, and before mixing in the charcoal, he dipped several dry, split spruce sticks from his wood pile into it, letting them cool and harden on a rock some distance from the fire. Pitch sticks had certainly come in handy for him in the past, as an aid in getting a fire going in nasty weather and even as a temporary source of light in caves, and he wanted to have a supply of them, since the opportunity had presented itself. Picking up the cooled sticks he dipped each of them again, coating their other halves and ending up with a small pile of three and four inch long slivers of dry wood, completely coated in and waterproofed by pitch. He stowed them in the pack, straining the finished tannin liquid into another of the glass bottles and setting it in the dirt to cool before adding the stopper. Mixing the charcoal dust into the pitch, holding the hot can with a wrap of aspen bark and stirring as the mixture began to cool, he brushed the bit of charcoal dust that had remained on the rock out across the surface of a nearby cool rock, slowly pouring the pitch onto it and rolling it into a long snake, pulling off pieces of the quickly hardening mixture and rolling them into hasty doughnuts, leaving a hole in the center large enough to string a piece of parachute line through. The hole in the center of each doughnut was large enough that he could later jam a stick into it to give himself a way to hold it over the fire to heat and melt when it came time to use the glue. He wanted to give himself the best possible chance of hanging onto the glue, and had come to realize that the only really good way for someone in his position to hang onto anything was to have it tied to something. He even considered wearing the glue pellets on a string around his neck, but did not want them sticking to him, and ended up tying the string to a couple of the willow wands that made up his pack basket. Dabbing a bit of the still-liquid pitch mixture from the can over the sinew wrappings that held the bone spearhead onto its willow shaft to better secure it in place, Einar set it aside, added a few more sticks to the tiny fire and rested for a minute, reasonably satisfied that he had made good use of the fire, had made the significant risk that it represented count for something, and in doing so had given himself a much better chance of being able to fight off the ailments that had been combining that morning to threaten his ability to continue and (no sense denying it, Einar) even threatening his life. This is great, the food, the mullein, being able to breathe again! But it would be a lot better if

I was able to kind of lay low here for a day or two, stay warm, dry, let the burns heal over again and work on getting rid of this nasty cough and whatever else is going on with my lungs, set out a few snares and get a bunch of sleep while they work on catching me some fresh food This place is dry and out of the wind, and Im pretty sure its narrow enough that I dont even have to worry about bears getting in to take my deer jerky. The prospect was a tempting one, and Einar, who had been dead set on heading out as soon as he had finished the pitch glue and put out his fire, struggled with the decision as he sat there working on a second can of mullein tea and listening to the steady dripping of the rain outside his shelter.

Evening was coming; as he sat there over the coals of his fire, Einar could just begin to notice a dimming of the cloudy grey slivers of sky that were visible above him if he craned his neck at an odd angle, a brightening of the cheerful orange glow of the embers as dusk began creeping into the deep split in the mountain. Breathing fairly easily in comparison to the previous day and enjoying the unaccustomed warmth that was reflecting back at him from the surrounding walls of rock, Einar studied the shelter, rising to turn the drying jeans over so the heat could more easily reach their other side and thinking that without too much difficulty and only a minimum of climbing (better wait a few days on that climbing) he could set up a whole network of crisscrossing horizontal sticks, braced against the two rock walls and using some of the numerous protrusions and irregularities in the rock to keep them securely in place. Some could be used as supports for a network of sticks and branches to further weatherproof a portion of the shelter, and, leaning back to get a better view, could almost see string upon string of drying jerky strips suspended at different elevations between sticks in the natural rock chimney above him, slowly drying in the rising heat of the fire. If I could get a deer, it seems that I could even hang it in here, in the back beyond the fire hole, to do most of the butchering, and sleep well at night knowing that the bears couldnt get at it! And any small critters that came in after the meat, Id be ready for them, and could maybe add a couple of them to the food supply! The plan sounded good to Einar, so good, in fact, that he found himself looking up at the sky and wondering if there might be enough light left for him to reasonably go scouting for deer snare locations. He rose, shook his head and pushed all of the warm, homey, comfortable images out of his mind while reprimanding himself for allowing such thoughts to take his focus away from the immediate danger represented by the fact that he had just sat for several hours beside a fire with no way to know for certain that it had not been spotted from the air. Quit daydreaming, Einar. The reality is, you probably just gave your location away, so I hope you enjoyed that little rest, because it may be the last youre getting for a while. Now get moving. As tempted as he had been to settle in for a dry and comfortable night in what had already begun feeling rather like a secure refuge to him, Einar reluctantly began the task of packing everything up into his willow basket, wrapping and tying the glass bottles with their precious contents in aspen bark to prevent breakage, adding the large packet of jerky, which had stayed nearly dry wrapped in the parachute material, and topping it off with the two liter bottle with its remaining inch or so of orange soda, that he was, he told

himself with a wry little smile, saving for an emergency. Kicking dirt down into his fire hole to smother the coals, he struggled into the nearly dry jeans and grabbed his basket, carrying it for the moment in his arms, as the place was to narrow for him to negotiate while wearing it, and made his way out to the entrance, where he stood beneath the firs that guarded it, staring out at the grey, rain-soaked and dimming world that awaited him, smelling in the sharply chilly air of evening the tang of the freshly washed evergreen forest. All was quiet, save for the soft sounds of the still-falling rain and the occasional pattering of larger drops when a gust of wind shook the evergreens free of their accumulated water, and Einar would have felt quite secure in returning to his shelter of rock and spending a cozy night out of the wind as he very much wished to do, save for the very real threat of an invisible and silent presence high above the clouds that had the potential to be watching him through their cover, locating the heat signature of his fire and sending the information to searchers on the ground, who could conceivably then approach him unawares as he slept, corner him in that death trap of a rock crevice, and it would all be over, unless they managed to shoot him in the legs or otherwise incapacitate him and drag him out of there in handcuffs to wait for the chopper to come, leaving him wishing that it was over Ok. Enough of that. Wasnt seriously thinking of staying, anyway. I may come back, would sure like to come back, but first, have got to put a little distance between me and this place, watch it for a while and make sure everything looks alright, wait till the weather clears and see if they bring in a chopper or anything for a closer look in case they saw something that interested them, then maybe set up to stay here for a while. The place has some real potential, gives me a lot of shelter for very little work and Im awful tired of picking up and moving every few hours about now. Need to rest and get some more food put away, and this looks like a fine place to stay while I do it. Can even think of a few ways to set it up so that Id have a bit of warning if someone was coming, maybe give me a chance to get out, even fix it so the intruder would end up being real sorry he ever poked around in here, in the first place. Einar stood under the trees for a minute, his mind busy with defense plans for the shelter, coming up with more than one that looked reasonably doable to him. But not tonight. Attempting to hurry lest he lose the light but finding himself unable to manage much beyond a slow, creaking lopsided walk that he supposed would have looked pretty humorous if anyone had been watching, he moved as quickly as he could to cross the small open area some distance in front of the evergreen grove that concealed the chasm entrance, aided by his spear and struggling constantly with the unruly pack basket. Einar disappeared into the band of trees beyond the small meadow and started up an increasingly rough slope, wanting to find a place where he could get some rock between himself and the sky for the night, and which was far enough from the location of his fire that he would stand some chance of slipping away when (if, Einar. If) they came for him that night. Reaching an exposed band of vertical rock and following it, searching for an undercut area that might offer him some protection for the night, Einar reached a place where the evergreens ended and the ground dropped sharply away in front of him, broken rock soon giving way to a steep grassy slope that descended for several hundred feet, ending in a small alpine lake. The sight largely obscured by the rain and the failing light,

he was unable to tell much about the area surrounding the lake, but was hopeful that it might prove to be a source of more cattails and perhaps even some frogs or waterfowl, if he got to stick around long enough to find out. Which, based on recent history, he doubted would happen. But one can hope. Now find someplace to crawl in and hide for the night, and hurry up, because theres just no way you can keep completely dry with all this rain and wind. Following the rock wall in the other direction, back into the trees and around the shoulder of the mountain in search of shelter, he found himself looking down a gentle, timbered decline, the spruces giving way to aspens and a small grassy area before closing back in again in advance of another rugged wall of granite that rose up nearly fifty feet out of the trees, its top lost in the fog. The place had an oddly familiar feel to Einar, though he knew he had never been there before, and, with darkness descending swiftly and the rain picking up, he had to content himself that night with simply finding shelter, leaving the mystery of the little basins familiarity for the following day. Choosing a heavy spruce that grew very nearly out of the rock wall, a jagged ledge of granite providing a bit of overhead cover, he scooped several armloads of nearly dry duff beneath the overhang, wringing water from his hat and settling in for a night that promised to be a bit less than comfortable. Einar, having gone for well over twenty four hours without any sleep by that point, was way too tired to care much, barely managing to wash his burns with some of the tannin he had saved in the glass bottle and change the mullein leaf dressings before falling asleep with his head on his knees, his pack shoved behind him beneath the overhang in the hopes that the rain would keep bears and other scavengers from tampering with it.

It was a cold night for Einar and not a particularly restful one, as his cough and breathing troubles returned, seemingly worsened after the climb up from the area of his rocky hiding place, in whose shelter he found himself often wishing he had been able to remain, as the wind pried and tore at the remainder of the rain jacket that he clutched around his shoulders. The fever that had broken some after he was able to drink the berberine solution and have some rest earlier in the day was back, also, leaving him at times drenched in sweat only to be badly chilled and shaking in the wind a few minutes later. If he had been able to lie down, Einar knew that he would have managed to do a much better job of keeping himself warm that night; he would have dug down deep in the duff beneath that tree and buried himself like a squirrel in its nest, probably spending a reasonably comfortable night shielded from the wind and temperatures that hovered a few degrees above freezing. The burns, unfortunately, made it very difficult and more than a little painful for him to lie down and curl up to conserve heat, though he finally got desperate enough to try it anyway, only to discover that he could not breathe well at all while lying down. Breathing was not negotiable, of course, so he ended up having to shiver quite a bit in a largely failing attempt to keep warm, sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and very grateful that he had at least been able to eat fairly well that day. Not sure Id be making it through this one, without that stew in me. There were times that night when he was less than certain that he would be, anyway, and he made an

effort to reach back whenever he thought about it and take a sip of berberine water from the bottle in his pack, hoping that it might stave off the apparently worsening infection in his lungs. Remind me not to go breathing any more smoke any time soon During one of his brief periods of sleep Einar once again found himself wandering about in a variation of what had become a familiar dreamapproaching a small, roughly built, well concealed cabin that seemed to be his home, Liz coming out to meet him, granite cliffs rising above a mix of spruces and aspens in a small, hidden basin and the cabin pressed up against the rock. He woke struggling for breath and a little sad (why must these dreams always end before I get a chance to talk with her?) having recognized the spot in the dream as one very near where he had taken shelter for the night, and knowing very well that there was no cabin there, no home. Yet! And he drifted into a deeper sleep with a little smile on his face and that hopeful if rather unrealistic thought to warm him a bit, until an especially sharp gust of damp, chilly wind tore the rain jacket out of his hands and sent it blowing off into the night. Scrambling through the rain-damp forest after the jacket, Einar finally found it pasted up against a nearby aspen, held in place by the wind and showing black in contrast with the white of its trunk, and he returned with it to his shelter, but it was a long time before sleep found him once again. For a while he watched the slow movements of the stars in the clearing sky, passing the time by picking out fragments of constellations, following them as they passed behind the black silhouettes of the tree branches, one after the other, at an almost imperceptible pace that well matched the passage of the seconds for him that night, losing himself in the swaying of the trees and the infinitely slow creeping march of the stars, feeling himself an absurdly tiny speck in a vast and unfathomable universelost, invisible, he could hope, to his enemies, his pursuers, but most definitely not aloneand taking great comfort at the thought. He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names Eventually, though, Einar had to give up even the stargazing, finding that he had begun shaking too hard to keep track of the tiny pinpoints of light and growing frustrated at staring with increasingly blurring eyes, trying to find them when he lost track of their positions. His cough had grown worse, too, and it was beginning to seem that the act of breathing was requiring all of his focus. The rain moved out well before dawn that morning, bringing a drop in temperature that precluded further sleep for Einar, under his present circumstances, and he left his shelter as the sky began graying, struggling into his pack and keeping to the trees, finding a vantage point overlooking the area of the rock shelter, where he intended to spend a few hours watching to make sure no one had been sent in on the ground. If they came by air, he knew he would hear them some distance off, as there was no canyon for them to sneak up, this time. Lying there on his stomach beneath a spruce near the edge of the dropoff as morning brightened he saw nothing to arouse his suspicion, saw that the birds and other creaturesincluding a doe that wandered out into the small meadow between his current location and the rock shelter to crop mouthfulls of grassseemed to be going about their morning routines without any hint of alarm, and was finally satisfied that no one was lying in wait for him down by the rocks. The sun was up. Einar, still shivering from the long night and seeking a place where he could sit in the sun for a minute and have a bite of jerky, found it on a little rock ledge that overlooked the small lake he had noticed in

the failing light of the previous evening. Squinting, he could just make out a large marshy area on one side of the lake, the side closest to him, and was certain that he saw a good number of cattails. Keeping to the trees and moving slowly on the steep, rocky hillside, he made his way down to the lake, approaching it carefully in an area where the band of evergreens descended very nearly to the waters edge, reluctant to go out in the open in such a place but wanting some of those cattail roots to add to his food supply. For a number of minutes he sat there watching the place, noticing a few ducks paddling around at the far end, seeing a muddy spot on one side where it appeared the deer and possibly even elk came down to drink. He was not close enough to clearly make out the tracks, but could tell that they were numerous. Finally satisfied that he was the only one around, Einar hurried across a small clearing and down into the tangle of willows and cattails that surrounded the outlet creek below the lake, digging with his spear handle and pulling up as many of the starchy roots as he thought he would be able to carry in the pack basket, hearing the odd speech and splashing of the ducks as he worked and knowing that he had better be thinking of a way to snare or shoot one, before too long. Crossing the clearing again on his way back to the evergreens, he startled a small songbird that flew up nearly in his face and off into the trees, and, curious as to why it had been hiding out there nearly in the open among the marsh marigolds and alpine willows, he inspected the ground, finding a tiny nest of grass beneath one of the broad, shiny marsh marigold leaves, and seeing that it contained five small speckled white and brown eggs. His mouth watering, Einar carefully collected the eggs, wrapping all but one in bundles of grass before stowing them in his zippered jacket pocket. Sure hope I dont fall Limping over beneath the trees and crouching beneath one of them, he cracked the egg into his mouth, enjoying a better breakfast than he had known in quite some time, if rather too small. Well, if theres one nest, there are bound to be others, and I hope to be coming back here to check! Climbing back up to the timbered basin where he had spent the night and pausing for a long break, doubled over and badly winded from what should not have been an especially strenuous climb, Einar thought he heard the trickle of water, and seeking its source, discovered a small spring up near the base of the granite cliff where the cabin had been in his dream. Taking a drink and filling his one empty glass bottle, the one that had contained the berberine that he drank up during the night in an attempt to help his body fight off the lung troubles, he found the water to be sweet and good. Hmm. This place really would not make a bad spot to settle down, someday. For the moment, though, he returned to the vantage point on the other side of the basin that allowed him a view down to the rocks, watching for another hour or so before deciding to return to the shelter, reasonably sure that they would have sent choppers or planes by that time, if they had seen anything suspicious the day before. After deepening his firepit a bit Einar made a tiny, smokeless fire of brittle-dry, barkless spruce twigs, boiling three of the remaining eggs and allowing himself what seemed like an incredible feast of hardboiled eggs and nettle greens that he had collected on his way over, putting out the fire and sitting with a flat, warmed rock between his chest and knees, warm, nearly full and asleep almost instantly, staying that way for hours as the sun climbed overhead.

Einar woke with the feeling that he had been asleep for a long time, scooting out to a place where he could get a look at the sky and seeing that the sun was still up, at least. Checking the can of Oregon grape roots that he had set to steep while he slept and finding the liquid to be a bright yellow and quite thoroughly cooled, he took a swallow before pouring it into its bottle and pressing in the stopper. Time to go set some snares, I guess. Taking his knife, spear and a number of the parachute lines, some of which he had braided together as he had sat over his fire the previous day, he headed out in search of favorable snare locations. Exploring the little meadow where he had that morning seen the doe, Einar found a spot where a deer trail, switch backing its way down the steep, evergreen covered slope below the little basin where he had spent the night, emerged out into the grass, providing the only ready passage through a very close-growing and tangled thicket of chokecherry bushes, their long bunches of white blossoms humming and bustling with bees in the afternoon sunlight. Well, heres one source of food this fall, if Im still in the area. He knew that by the time the first frost hit, cascades of red-black, bitter-sweet chokecherries would be ready for him to harvest and dry for the winter, as the Utes had done in times past. For the moment, though, Einar knew that the from the inner bark of the chokecherries he could make a very soothing preparation for his cough, which should also help with the recurring fever that seemed to go along with the persistent irritation or infection that had plagued his breathing since the fire, growing worse in recent days. They used to use the bark syrup for treating things like whooping cough, pneumonia, even. If I remember right, its supposed to be good for the digestive system, too, and help stimulate your appetite. Which I dont really need, right now. But some help with the cough would be good, because Im gonna end up scaring away all the game and maybe even giving away my position at a bad time, if things keep up like this. And its really wearing me out, too. He knew that some caution would be required in the use of the bark, as the same compounds that worked to soothe coughs also produced cyanide, and they would be more concentrated in the spring, less so after the fruit began forming. Have to limit the amount that I drink Freeing some long strips of bark with his knife, Einar coiled them up and stuck them down in his shirt for transport. Got to make some more bags for collecting things in. Maybe use whats left of that drogue chute, or make something out of cattail leaves. Maybe both. And hopefully soon Ill have some critter skins to use for that purpose, too. Which reminded him. Time to set that deer snare, so I can get out of here before they get real active for the evening. Following the deer trail up through the tangle of chokecherries to the place where it emerged from the evergreens, he chose a stout tree to secure his snare to, knowing that his chances of success would be greatly increased if he could create a trigger and pull down a big springy branch to lift the deer at least partially off the ground when it walked into his snare, limiting the time it would have to struggle and possibly break free. Intending to retreat some distance to sit and work on the trigger pieces, to minimize the amount of human scent that would be left in the area of the snare, Einar decided first to test his ability to pull a branch of the needed strength down to hook it to the trigger. Which was a good thing, as it saved him all the trouble he would have gone to in preparing the trigger sticks. Between his injuries, shortness of breath and the fact that he weighed somewhere between half and two thirds of what he probably ought

to have, Einar found himself quite unable to pull the branch down low enough to set the spring portion of the snare. He ended up climbing a short distance up into the tree and working his way out onto the branch in an attempt to lower it, only to end up flipping over and dangling briefly from it by his right hand and the heel of his right boot, before dropping to the ground and lying there in a heap for a minute, hurting, his breath knocked out. Wellthat was interesting. Anything broken? He stood, coughing and fighting for breath, but pretty sure he was mostly unharmed otherwise. Good. NowI could find a way to do this, Im sure, but the sun is going down and I need to get out of here pretty soon so I dont spook the deer and completely ruin my chances. Going to have to rely on the snare itself to hold the critter, this time. And I think between this stout branch and the braided parachute line, that should not be a problem. Getting the snare set up, Einar made his way back down the deer trail and quickly across the little meadow, taking the time to set several rabbit snares in a little grove of aspens where he had seen a good bit of sign earlier, bending small branches on three of the four to make spring snares. This gives me some chance, at least, of having some fresh food in the morning. I need to be doing better about saving that deer jerky, if Im going to start putting anything away for later. He had intended, after setting the snares, on making the climb up to the basin where he had spent the previous night and back down to the area of the lake on its other side to search for more of the small speckled eggs he had enjoyed so much earlier, and to perhaps collect some of the dried cattail stalks he had noticed, so that he would have something insulating to sleep on as an alternative to the cold dirt and rock floor of his shelter. It had sounded like a fine idea when he had first awakened from his long nap, but staring up at the slope that rose well over five hundred feet above the little meadow, sore and limping pretty badly after his fall from the tree and barely able to breathe as it was, the plan was looking a bit ambitious. Ive still got one egg left, and all those cattail roots from earlier. That will do just fine, for tonight! Gathering dry sticksand anything else that looked usefulas he went, Einar got himself back to the rock crevice and deposited his little harvest of firewood beside the firepit, emptying his shirt of the small collection of chokecherry bark, spring beauty leaves, two Oregon grape roots and a number of dried spruce pitch globs that he had collected in his wanderings, setting everything on his cooking rock until he could find other places for it. Time to make some more willow baskets to keep everything in. If Im staying here, that is. Every time I have decided to stay somewhere, seems like I end up losing it, and everything else, besides. Maybe Im finally far enough out this time He wanted a fire to roast a few more cattail roots for his dinner, but first made one more trip out to the entrance of the chasm, choosing a flat rock that was large enough to thoroughly cover his firepit and carrying it back, leaning it against the wall in case the need should ever arise to quickly put out his fire without risking smoke. Once again allowing himself a tiny fire as the cold of evening set in, Einar got several cattail roots roasting, boiling his one remaining egg and stewing up the spring beauty leaves he had gathered as he wandered, setting some of the chokecherry bark to simmer in one of the beer cans over on the side of his cooking rock. He had saved the eggshells from the eggs he ate previously, and set all of them near the hot edge of the rock, allowing them to heat and roast until they could be easily rubbed into a powder with a smooth rock. This powder he scraped into his stew pot, not certain that the calcium in the egg shells was in a form that

his body could readily absorb and use, but figuring it could not hurt, either. Finding the tiny egg and the little handful of starch he scraped from the roots to be hardly a satisfying meal after the effort of setting the snares, Einar broke up and boiled two strips of his deer jerky, eating them and slowly drinking the weak broth they created, telling himself that he must stop after that, must save what remained of the deer. He hoped the snares might produce something overnight, particularly the deer snare. He needed fat, needed more than he could obtain from a few robin-sized eggs and the occasional frog, and could not stop thinking about the relatively thick white layer of tallow that he could expect to find on a deer, even as early as it was in the summer, imagining how he would cook up and eat great chunks and slivers of it (who says the stuff doesnt taste good? Bet they werent especially hungry, when they said it) add it to his stew, tea, everything Now stop it! You got food to eat and a dry place to sleep, which is more than youve had most days, lately. And, to get his mind off of the images of sizzling, dripping wonderful fat that were tormenting him and making his stomach rumble painfully, he got out the stout willow stick that he had been carrying with him for the purpose of making an atlatl, and went to work. Carving a forward-facing v shaped notch in the back end of the willow stick, Einar took advantage of a spot where a twig had used to attach, carving out a bit of wood beneath it to accept the dart and carefully working to enlarge the depression. Einar had seen an atlatl used and had tried it out himself a couple of times, but found himself regretting as he worked that he had never put the time into really learning how to create and use the device. He had a basic image in his mind of how it ought to look, and hoped that it would be enough. Cant be too difficult, right? I just need a little hook that will catch and throw the stick, and I should be ready to give it a try. He was sure that, as with most things, it would turn out to be a bit more complex than that, once he really got immersed in the project and tried to make a few darts hit their marks. But he had to start somewhere, and doubted that he would really be able to use the thing much for a few days anyway, until his back had done a bit more healing. He was pretty sure that the twisting motion necessary to get in a really good throw would tear the scabs back open and leave him to start all over with the healing process. Again. Knowing that he would probably have several days to work on and refine the dart-thrower before trying it out too seriously, Einar took his time, pausing now and then to stir the seemingly perpetual batch of Oregon grape solution that he had steeping by the fire, wanting to keep his supply up in case he had to take off again. When he got the notch in the end of the atlatl shaped in a way that he considered worth trying out, he began thinking about darts, supposing that he could use some long, straight willow wands from beside the lake, and for tipsbone? Glass from the broken bottles? Havent really seen any rock in the immediate area that would work well for knapping. Its mostly granite and shale right here, some limestone over near the canyon. Retrieving from his pack the remains of the deer leg bone that he had used for the spear point, he used his pocket knife to scratch outlines for three dart points into the bone, choosing one whose bottom edge and one side were in places where he had previously broken the bone and would need little attention, and working it with a sharply fractured piece of granite,

abrading away the bone with repeated strokes and finally, after much work, knocking free the rough shape of the dart tip from the larger bone. All right, now I just have to keep shaping and grinding it with a couple of rocks, taper the edges, thin it down some, make a couple of notches so I can attach it to the willow shoot, and Ill have something that should work. Maybe. Itll probably break the first time it hits a rib, or something, but its worth a try. I know some of the tribes used bone arrowheads, and antler, too, so they must have been at least somewhat effective. Catching himself several times dozing over the fire, his work dropping out of his hands, Einar decided it was time to put the fire out and settle in for the night, but his bad hip was already aching from contact with the cold ground, and the way temperatures had plunged as soon as the sun went down, he could tell it was going to be a colder night than the last had been. He really wanted to get some insulation under him. Which means spruce duff, because thats the only thing close enough to get ahold of tonight. Emptying the pack basket he filled it with duff from tree not far from the crevice entrance and made himself a somewhat insulated place to sithis breathing was still not sufficiently good to allow him to lie down to sleepknowing that the loose duff would tend to scatter and shift as he moved around in the night, with most of it probably ending up pushed to the sides rather remaining than beneath him where he needed it, but that will just help me remember to go after those cattails, tomorrow. Need to make a trip over to that lake, anyway, to see if I can come up with a bunch more of those eggs. Unless I find a deer in that snare in the morning, which will change everything! And he fell asleep thinking of fresh venison but his dreams that night were not of food or the work of the coming day, but were troubled, frenzied, filled with the need to move, to run and with visions of men who were definitely not smoke jumpers coming in high and silent, gliding down and landing in a nearby meadow before hurrying to get into position above and in front of his shelter in the crevice. He woke to the distant rumbling of helicopters, in a sweat and feeling trapped there in the rock crevice, grabbing his spear and sitting in the dark while his heart slowly stopped pounding so hard and straining his ears for any sound that was out of place, but hearing none. The night was clear; Einar could see stars when he looked up through the rock chimney at the sky, and, still unsure whether the helicopters had been a thing of dream, or reality, he felt his way to the entrance of the crevice and stood shivering in the night breeze, hearing nothing but feeling a good bit less safe and secure than he had upon going to sleep that night. They clearly dont know I am here, or they would have paid me a visit before this. But that doesnt mean they are not still looking. Im pretty sure that chopper was real. He shook his head. The fires a bad idea. Real bad idea, especially at night when the contrast is going to be greater because there has been no sun on the rock for awhile. No more fire after dark, and only when its absolutely necessary, and with the driest little sticks, in the daytime. Getting cold in the windhe hadnt been especially warm to begin with, as sitting between two rock walls in a single layer of clothing on a June night at ten thousand feet is bound to be somewhat of a chilly prospecthe hurried back into the wind-free confines of the shelter, huddling down on his little pile of spruce needles and trying to fall asleep again, but subconsciously afraid to do so. Morning eventually came, and Einar, anxious to check his snares, hurried with his twice-

daily ritual of washing his burns in berberine water and then tannin before changing the mullein leaf dressings have to remember to look for some more mullein leaves today, wishing he was able to turn his head far enough to get a good look at what was going on back there, without tearing open the scabs and the (hopefully) healing skin. He could not, though, so had to do his best to clean and treat the areas anyway, hoping that he was past the point where serious infection was likely to set in, but sometimes less than certain, as several spots still seemed to be oozing quite a bit. Einars snares were empty that morning, though one of the rabbit sets had been tripped by something as it passed, and he reset it and left them in place, hoping they might yield something later in the day or that evening. Starting up the slope to cross the basin to the lake in search of food and cattails for his bed, he could not seem to shake the lingering dread of his dreams that past night, wondering if it really was time to move on before something happened, before he was somehow discovered. He supposed that it probably was, and found the thought rather discouraging at the moment, as the past two days had given him real hope that he might finally have reached a place where he could stay for awhile, where he could provide for his needs reasonably well and give himself a chance to get back to a somewhat normal state of health. Well. Should have known that could not last. His mood improved some upon reaching the lake and very quickly finding two more nests full of small speckled eggs, and he managed to get a bit better look at the little brown and white birds that flew up from them, thinking that he recognized the birds as some variety of pipit, but not certain. Or especially concerned, except as a matter of interest and a way to keep his mind working, because he knew that the eggs would be no more or less edible or wonderful! regardless of species. Passing a few pleasant minutes searching for and collecting eggs, satisfying his grumbling stomach with several of them as he worked, Einar began to wonder if it was, after all, necessary to move on right away. The dream had been, after all, nothing more than that, and nothing had really changed that should make imminent flight a necessity. Thats right. Nothing has changed. Which is exactly why you cant be settling down and getting all comfortable here. Nothing has changed. Theyre out there hunting you, theyre up above you so high you cant see when they pass over, and the day you stop acting like it is the day theyre gonna have you. All of which he knew was true, but with the sun warm on him and food in his stomach, he found it dangerously easy to push the warnings aside and immerse himself in his work. Remembering his discomfort the past night, Einar headed into the cattail marsh, picking out and cutting several large bundles of the previous years dried stalks, whose pithy cores he knew would make very effective insulation. He supposed that he could put together a narrow little sleeping pad that would fit on the floor of the crevice by making a number of stalk bundles, and binding them to each other with parachute line. Which I can slowly replace with nettle cordage as I have time to get some made, so Ill have the sturdier parachute line for snares. Though he knew that the next few nights, at least, would probably involve a good bit of sitting, as his burns began healing and his lungs hopefully cleared, also, he supposed he might as well make the pad long enough to stretch out on, looking ahead to a time when he would once again be able to lie down to sleep. Well. The pad will certainly be better to sit on than the cold dirt and rock floor, too. With all of these dried stalks, I can make round bundles four or five inches thick,

and end up with the best bed Ive had in a long time. Be a lot better than the rocky floor, especially until I manage to get enough to eat that Im not just skin and bones anymore. Get sore pretty quick sitting on that floor, and lying down isnt going to be any fun, either. Having gathered as many cattail stalks as he thought he could reasonably bundle together and carry back, Einar sat down on a log at the edge of the marsh to enjoy one more of the little eggs before heading back up the hill. Still shadowed by the memory of his dream, Einar was not terribly surprised when he heard the helicopter. What did surprise him, as he glanced up mid-dive beneath the nearest evergreen, was the kind of helicopter that he saw out of the corner of his eye.

The Chinook was low, coming in just above the trees beyond the meadow on the far side of the lake, and Einar, crumpled at the base of the spruce where he had sought refuge upon first hearing it, watched in horror as the chopper slowly touched down in the meadow not eight hundred yards from his position. Pressing himself into the ground beneath the tree, he watched as two more of the massive twin rotor cargo choppers appeared over the horizon and set down in the meadow. Coughing uncontrollably after the exertion of diving beneath the tree, Einar struggled without success to keep quiet, finally letting himself go, knowing that no one would be able to hear anything over the thunder of those rotors. He recognized the Air National Guard insignia on the choppers, wondered vaguely how they had located him, guessed that the drone must have snapped an image or two of the heat from his fire, and thenwell, he supposed they could have watched him cross the little meadow down by his shelter that morning, cross the basin, could have been flying overhead as he collected cattails, for that matter. And there could easily be over a hundred guys between those three choppers. Even if they did not already spot me on FLIR as they came in, theyre bound to have seen see those cattail bundles that I left out in the open Theyre too close for me to have time to set up any serious deterrents on my trail, and as far as just slipping out of the areawell, soon as I start moving up that hill, Im gonna be coughing my head off again and giving myself away. And theyve probably got coordinates on my shelter, since that must be what brought them here in the first place, may have even dropped another team over there already, for all I know. Looks like this is it. Im done. He raised his head, tried to get a look at the choppers in the meadow but could see little besides their rotors, which were powering down. Might as well go out on my feet I guess, rather than waiting for them to overrun me here under this tree. At least Ive got the spear. They wont be taking me alive, and its gonna cost them something. Wish I had finished that atlatl and some darts. Doesnt much matter now about breaking the burns open, and Id have liked to be able to put up a better fight, maybe slow them down some and give myself half a chance. Well. Get moving. He started up the hill, staying low and hurrying from one tree to the next, struggling for breath, glancing back occasionally and, to his surprise, seeing no sign of the armed men he had expected would come pouring out of the helicopters to give chase. Dont know whats holding them up, but maybe theres some chance here Ha! Right. You can

barely move, Einar, and that Predator thing is probably up there somewhere plotting your position every few seconds and sending the coordinates down to the guys on those choppers. Youre done, Im telling you. But instead of sitting down in despair at the thought, he broke into a dire, hypoxic grin (his breathing really was not all that good, the trouble being aggravated by his attempt at hasty climbing) and attacked the slope above him with renewed fury, somehow finding himself more than ready to meet the challenge. It is not over yet. Dropping down into a dark little rocky gulley that cut vertically up the slope, shadowed and concealed by a tangle of close growing firs, he focused on making distance quickly and quietly, thinking that if he could gain some elevation on his pursuers before they found their way over to the cattail bundles and picked up his trail, perhaps he might be able to fix it so that an untimely rock fall would significantly slow their progress, giving him time to escape. Einar knew that, realistically, his chances of making it out of the present situation were pretty slim. He was well aware that he had just barely been managing to keep serious infection at bay in the burns with the careful and diligent use of his tannin and Oregon grape solutions, and was pretty sure he had picked up a case of pneumonia or some similar affliction after breathing all that smoke. Without the food and medicine that were stashed back at his rock shelter he had serious doubts about his ability to survive the next few days, let alone to do so while on the move and fleeing an active pursuit. But I cant go back there now, theyre probably waiting for me. Just gonna have to do what I can do. Einar did not make it even halfway back up to the basin before he was forced to stop by lack of oxygen, each breath hurting deep in his chest and his hands and feet tingling and beginning to go numb. Slumping down on the uphill side of a fir and fighting to get enough air to fend off the growing blackness that increasingly welled up before his eyes, he knew that he would not be maintaining such a pace for much longer. Guess this is where I make that stand. Wonder if theyre on my trail yet? Crawling up the side of the gulley, pulling himself up with the aid of tree roots but avoiding grabbing branches on small trees that might start swaying and give away his position, he carefully peeked up over the rocky gulley rim and looked back down the slope to the lakes. What he saw struck him as odd, so odd that he did not at first believe what he was seeing. It appeared that no one had exited the choppers; the meadow was large, and he was reasonably certain that they would still be visible, if they had, and the choppers appeared to be powering up again, the growing rumble beginning to reach him over the wheezing and rasping of his own breath. Lying there on his stomach at the edge of the gulley, Einar watched as the trio of Chinooks rose and thundered away in the direction they had come from, away from his present position, and away from his camp. As the thunder died away into the distance, Einar let his forehead rest on the ground, remaining still until the dizziness passed and he was able to see straight again. What was that? What did I miss? Did they somehow get a small army of searchers off those choppers and concealed while I wasnt looking? He really doubted it. Well, better not wait around to find out. Get up. Move. And then something occurred to him, a dim memory of a bit of information that he had heard shortly prior to leaving his old life and

going on the run the year before. There had been a few news articles and even a public meeting in a neighboring county about proposed changes to wilderness regulations that would have allowed the Air National Guard to practice high altitude helicopter takeoffs and landings in local Wilderness Areas, an activity that would traditionally have been prohibited in such places but which the Guard argued was necessary to prepare their pilots for possible service in the mountains of Afghanistan. Wow. I wonder Such a training exercise certainly would seem to explain the odd fact that the choppers had apparently remained on the ground for only a few minutes before taking off again, but he knew that it would be a grave mistake to attempt to explain away the sudden appearance of the Chinooks as a normal occurrence and unrelated to the manhunt. Right, Einar. That would be some coincidence. You know they are here for you, you just dont know their strategy. Yet. Reaching a vantage point on the rim of the basin where he could look down and see the area of his shelter in the crevice, he scanned the place for anything out of the ordinary, squinted and stared and listened and could see nothing. He had a sense that all was as he had left it, that no one was down there waiting for him, but knew at the same time that his senses were probably not at their sharpest at the moment, and that if there was indeed a team down there waiting for him, they would be well concealed and quiet by that point, anyway. So I may end up dead if I go down there, but Im probably dead anyway, without that stuff. Itll just take a few more days Without further hesitation he started down the slope, doing all he could to suppress his cough in case anyone actually was down below and pausing frequently to look and listen. Taking a circuitous route that allowed him to keep beneath the thickest possible vegetation, Einar worked his way around to the crevice mouth, hastily loading everything into his willow pack basket and leaving the place, pausing just outside the crevice to look back and see that he was not leaving too much obvious sign to draw the attention of potential searchers to the place. It looked alright; he had been careful. Then he remembered the snares. Got to take a few minutes and grab those, in case somebody ends up looking around down here. Starting with the rabbit sets in the nearby aspen grove, he carefully dismantled all of the snares, stashing the trigger sticks in his pack for later use and working his way over to the deer snare, climbing above the location and approaching through the evergreens in order to avoid crossing the small meadow and fighting his way through the chokecherry thicket, which did not provide the best overhead concealment. As he neared the snare site, separated from it by some scrubby evergreen growth, Einar got the distinct impression that something was wrong, something had changed, that he was not alone. Two more steps took him around the intervening cluster of small firs, and he saw the doe.

For a brief time Einar stared at the doe, her still open eyes barely dulled with death, filled with dread and wishing for one awful moment that he had never set the snare. He needed that meat so very badly, needed the fat, the marrow in the animals bones and the sinew in its back and legs, needed the hide. But he knew that he could not have it, that he could, at best, stay long enough to cut out the liver and maybe a bit of meat for his packno way Im carrying much of this critter with me for any great distance. Can barely manage

what Ive got on my back right nowbefore dragging the deer into the heavy brush and hoping that the coyotes and bears would do their work quickly before his pursuers came along and discovered that the creature had been worked on with a blade. The thought of losing the meatalong with the bounty of other resources represented by the deer, and probably his best chance to stay alive, toowas almost unbearable. He wanted in the worst way to sit down right there, warm up by a big fire and feast on fresh venison before curling up under a tree to sleep for a week or two, and forget about the consequences! It made him sick to think that he must pass up on the opportunity, but he could see no way around it that did not involve probable capture. He was pretty sure they would be coming back, whoever had been on those helicopters, and if they happened to show up while he was in the middle of butchering the deer, it would be more than obvious to them that he had been there, even if he did manage to slip away. Theyd be close on his trail, which he knew would almost certainly mean the end, in his condition. His pursuers would easily catch up to him, or would run him to death in very short order. Better to slip away now while I probably have some time, hope the deer will look like a coyote kill by the time they find it. Which it probably will. Heard some howling last night. He dropped his basket, turned to start up the tree to retrieve the snare cord, the chilly wind seeming to blow right through him as he had little doubt it would soon be blowing through his bones, picked clean by the vultures and coyotes on some deserted slope somewhere. Which bleak image did not disturb him nearly as much as he thought it probably ought to have, as close as he expected it was to becoming reality. He supposed he really was getting tired. Sleepy, too, apparently. His eyes jerked open. He had nearly fallen asleep on his feet, for the third time since setting out to collect the snares. Wake up, Einar. You got work to do. Distance to cover. Suddenly he saw Lizs face, plain as day in front of him, and he shut his eyes and shook his head to clear it of the image before she could speak to him, certain that she must have been about to rebuke him for his decision to leave the deer. Dont say it, he growled. I know what this means, but I dont see a lot of other options. What do you care, anyway? She came to him then, kept him from falling as he had been about to do, spoke to him words that he could not later recall, but which brought to mind the image of the little cabin he had so often dreamed about, of a winter of warmth and plenty and The hoarse call of a raven, wheeling over the dead deer and the man who was honestly not all that far behind it, jarred Einar from his daze, and when he opened his eyes Liz was gone and he had collapsed against the tree, but he found his desire to go on living rather stronger than it had been before. He was a bit disturbed, though, at the realization that he had been carrying on a conversation with his own imagination. Again. He was pretty sure he had even been speaking out loud. Come on. You cant keep doing this. Youre a mess, Einar, and none of this is gonna get any better for you until you start getting more to eat. For more than a day or two at a time. Gonna flat run out of steam one of these times, and even if you do make it through the summer running like this every few days and just barely eating enough to keep you going, all itll take this fall is a few really cold nights, and youll be gone. Stay. Eat. Turn most of this deer into jerky. If they comewell. No way theyre gonna be able to dig you out of that little crack in the rock in one piece, if you dont want to go. Good

enough, right? And he nodded, let out a big sigh, feeling rather like he had just taken a step back from the edge of some deep dark pit. OK. Get busy with it. But first, youre making one more trip up high where you can get a look at that basin and the lake down below, just in case they did end up letting some folks off those choppers and setting up camp in that meadow or something. It would be a really bad idea not to check, before settling in to work on this deer. Not wanting to leave the deer on the ground for scavengers to have their way with while he scouted out the meadow. Einar tied a rock to the end of the smoke jumpers descent line and tossed it over a high branch, climbing up the snare-tree and freeing the parachute line, securely tying it to the other end of the descent rope. Raising the deer was another matter, as it weighed a good twenty or thirty pounds more than Einar did, and he ended up having to brace both feet against the ground, lean back and drag it up into the tree in small increments, partially wrapping the rope around a nearby tree each time he had to stop for rest, to keep from losing ground. Finally lifting the deer far enough that it was well out of the reach of passing bears, he gave the rope several wraps around the tree, tied it, and started up the slope for the basin, where he intended to spend some time watching the meadow near the lake, and the area around his shelter, also, for any sign that the helicopters had left pursuers behind. Reaching the basin, he decided to climb up to the top of the granite cliffs that rose high above the basin and the little spring, heading up the back where they were not so steep and settling himself beneath the cover of a heavy cluster of spruces near the dropoff at the top, finding that the spot afforded him a good view of both the meadow and his shelter area. Several nearby granite boulders, really the fractured and tumbled remains of a single giant, offered him the possibility of protection if aircraft should come, which ended up being a good thing, indeed. Not long after Einar had got his coughing under control and his racing heart had begun to slow enough that he was able to squint out at the meadow and have some hope of seeing a clear picture, he began hearing the familiar rumble of a distant helicopteror helicoptersscrambling for the boulders and sliding into a low angular gap between two of them, waiting for some time as the rumbling drew nearer. He could not see much of the sky from beneath the rocks and did not dare leave their protection for a place where his view would be better, but he became increasingly certain that the thunder he was hearing was not coming from a single chopper. At length the sound changed, telling Einar that they had touched down, and he wormed his way forward on his stomach to a spot where he could look down unobstructed at the meadow. Three of them again. Blackhawks, this time! Watching the three as they lifted off one by one and made their way over to the area of the canyon rim where they hovered for a time before descending again, Einar was left with little doubt that the incident with the Chinooks must have, like what he had just witnessed, been part of a training exercise. So I must have settled right in the area those conservationists were arguing about last year. Well, that figures. But at least now I know for sure that Im inside the Wilderness Area! Im gonna need to make tracks out of here just as soon as I can, in case this training is a regular thing. But not until I get that deer processed! Convinced that he had seen enough, Einar started back down from the cliffs, stopping at their base to fill two of his empty bottles with spring

water before returning to the deer, knowing that he had an awful lot of work to do before darkness fell that evening.

During the descent back to the deer, Einar worked to collect as much yarrow as he could, knowing that he would once again be relying on it to keep flies off of the meat, as he worked to slice it thin and dry it. The ideal situation would have involved hanging the dressed out deer in the rock chimney above his shelter, somehow hoisting it up high enough that the heat of his small fire would not speed up the spoilage too badly, and keeping the flies away with a steady stream of smoke from his fire hole. Not an option though, and he hoped that perhaps it might remain cool enough in the rock shelter to keep the majority of the flies at bay. It certainly never felt especially warm in there, to him; as the sunlight never reached very far down into the crevice, it seemed to retain the chill of the previous night quite well, as it retained the heat of his fire when he had been able to have one. With night time temperatures barely above freezing most nights, the chimney seemed a reasonably good place to hang the deer. If I could get the entire critter back there, maybe I would not have to worry so much about flies, once I start chopping it up. And it would certainly save a bunch of trips back and forth around that meadow, which as slow as I am right now, are just going to cut into whatever time I have here, before I have to move on or before the meat starts spoiling. Wondering if he might as well wait to clean the deer until he got it a bit closer to his shelter, having plans for most of the innards and not wishing to get things all contaminated with dirt as he dragged it the deer, Einar supposed that, as long as it had sat already, little additional harm would come of waiting another hour or so. Ha! An hours pretty optimistic, dont you think? This is gonna be one interesting afternoon. Lowering the deer, he removed the braided parachute line snare from its neck, wrapping and tying a couple of loops of the much wider diameter descent rope around the animals neck and up around its nose to create a rough halter that would keep the head up off the ground as he pulled, meaning that there would be one less thing to hang up on fallen trees and rough spots in the ground and impede his progress. Well, heres one thing that would definitely have been easier in the winter with a bunch of snow on the groundmay end up losing a lot of the hair because of the dragging, but I guess that just means less work for me when I go to tan the thing! He wrapped the remainder of the ropeand there was quite a bit of itaround and around his hips to create a belt several inches wide, taking a loop up and over each shoulder, working to position them so that they did not come in contact with the burnt portions of his shoulders and back. He was pretty sure he would end up having to abandon the shoulder strap idea eventually, but considered it worth trying. Grabbing the lines in his hands, around which he had also wrapped the stabilizer lines for his pack basket, he set off for the rock shelter, knowing that he had a difficult journey ahead of him. The meadow with its flatter, largely obstacle-free expanse was a great temptation at times as he struggled through the brush, stopping far more frequently than he would have liked to stand nearly doubled over, leaning forward in the harness as he fought for breath, but he knew that the meadow must be avoided if he wanted to keep from being spotted and his chances at keeping the deer ruined.

Einar finally arrived in the aspen grove where he had set his rabbit snares, sitting down heavily on a fallen tree for the first real break he had allowed himself, quite worn out but encouraged that he had managed to move the creature that far. It had not been an easy go, dragging the doe across uneven ground that was in places heavy with undergrowth and having frequently to stop and roll his burden up and over fallen trees, and he knew the most difficult part of it was still in front of him, as the ground sloped uphill to from the aspen grove to his shelter. His chest hurt, his heart pounding sickeningly from the effort, and as he tried to stand and grew immediately dizzy to the point of falling, Einar began to seriously doubt his ability to finish the task. Got to finish it. Just drink some water, and youll be OK. The water did seem to help a bit, at least until he next attempted standing, at which point the dizziness returned with a vengeance to knock him off his feet. He rolled over, crawled back to the aspen log and got this upper half propped up on it. Try something else. What about that orange soda that you were saving? Is it still there? Rummaging in the basket he found that it was, and hoping that the sugar in the two or three remaining swallows of soda might give him the boost he needed to get on his feet again, he finished it off. The sweet sticky liquid did seem to have a immediate effect on Einars ability to maintain consciousness upon standing a good thingthats got to be a good thing and he wasted no time in straightening out the tangled haul lines, getting into his pack and starting out on the long haul up the slope toward his shelter, knowing that it would be significantly easier to keep moving once he had started than it had been to begin, in the first place. Some time laterEinar had lost all concept of time by that point, and knew only that he must keep putting one foot in front of the other, must continue dragging his immeasurably heavy burden up the slope until he reached the appointed placehe emerged from the aspen grove and found the deer to be sliding much more easily across a carpet of spruce duff. He stopped, dropped to his knees and freed himself from the pack basket. Not too far from the shelter now. This is as good a place as any to clean it. Which he did, positioning the deer so that its hind legs faced downhill and cleaning it there on the ground, doubting that he had the strength left to raise it up into a tree again. He attempted to bleed the deer by opening up one of the major arteries in a hind leg, finding it only marginally effective after the amount of time the dead animal had sat, but managing to collect a good bit of partially clotted blood in the two liter soda container that he had just emptied of its remaining orange soda. Finished with the task he jammed a stick between the ribs to keep the cavity open and let the carcass cool, curling up under a tree with the liver and his knife, totally spent, staring at it for a long while in a daze before remembering what he was supposed to be doing. Slicing off and eating small slivers of the rich, fatty, still-warm liver, thankful beyond measure and stopping frequently to say so, Einar began feeling after ten or fifteen minutes of that as though he just might go on living, after all. The past hours had left him with serious doubts. He was growing awfully sleepy, though, as his body tried hard to shut down and give him time to absorb the nutrients he had just consumed and begin rebuilding, and he knew that he must hurry if he was to get the deer to safety before the decision between sleep and wakefulness was taken from his hands. Come on now, up on your feet. You sleep here with this critter on the ground, the coyotes will have it for sure. Get up!

The liver had given him some energy but even so, those last few dozen yards up to the crevice were perhaps the most difficult part of the journey, as Einar was exhausted, shaking all over from the exertion, his legs and arms cramping up terribly as he tried to get them to move in concert. The fact that there was more food waiting for him when it was over over? Heh! This isnt gonna be over for days, Einar made the whole thing quite a bit more bearable, if not physically any easier. Finally dragging the deer back to the end of his crevice-shelter where the walls closed in and pinched off the passage, Einar collapsed on his bed of spruce needles for a while, curling up on his side for warmth, too worn out to be much concerned about his burned shoulder being in contact with the ground and watching the sky slowly dim above him, knowing that he needed to get the deer hung before darkness fell and he had to start worrying about defending his food from scavengers. Einar finally got himself back up with the promise of a few more bites of liver as motivation, fighting his stiffening muscles into some semblance of order and staring up at the rock chimney above him, seeking the best way to hang the deer. Striving to keep his burned upper back out of contact with the rock but having a good deal of trouble due to his cramping legs, Einar carefully chimneyed up a few feet into the crevice above his head, firmly jamming a length of stout spruce branch between the two walls and testing it with his own weight before dropping down, finding that it held. Removing the improvised hauling halter from the deer and making two small slices just above the hocks on the animals hind legs, he strung the rope through the holes, threw one end over the jammed stick, and worked to raise the deer, finding the task no easier than it had been the first time, despite the deers lesser weight. He finally resorted to wrapping the rope around behind his back and throwing himself to the ground, wrapping and tying the rope around a protrusion in the rock to keep the deer suspended. Its front feet were brushing the ground, but Einar decided that the setup would just have to do. The scavengers would have to walk right over him to get to get at it, anyway. And then I can maybe add to my food supply. If I wake up Which reminded him to grab his spear and set it nearby, before collapsing on the rocky floor of the shelter beneath the deer and sleeping soundly until the growing congestion in his lungs made it too difficult to breathe lying down, and he woke to creep over to his pile of pine needles and eat another bite of liver before again falling asleep.

The scavengers did not find Einar and his deer that night; perhaps they were content for the moment with the bits he had left them beneath the spruce where he had cleaned the creature, and Einar slept but not especially well, cold in clothes damp with sweat from the effort of hauling the deer, but at least out of the wind and with some food in his stomach. Sleeping too deeply at times to remain sitting upright with his head on his knees as he needed to for his breathing, Einar periodically slumped over on the spruce needles and lay there until he was forced by lack of oxygen to once again wake just enough to drag himself back into a sitting position, shivering and huddling against the cold of the night and plagued by frequent leg cramps. Despite the difficulties he managed to get a few hours of sleep that night, though his rest was punctuated by vivid

dreams, including one in which something went terribly wrong when he went to retrieve the deer from the tree where he had hung it, and he ended having to climb the tree before falling from it and hitting his head on a rock in an attempt to get at the deer. Lying there on the ground under the deer, unable to move, apparently paralyzed from the fall, Einar stared up at the hundred and twenty pounds of unreachable fresh venison, terribly hungry and slowly growing unbearably cold but unable to shiver, knowing that he was to die that way, unless a bear or a few hungry coyotes came along first and decided to finish him off. He woke with a start, freezing and hungry and staring up at the deer silhouetted against the blue sky above it at the top of the crack, tried to move and found to his immense relief that he could, sitting up stiffly and trying to push the memory of the dream out of his head as he worked to get his cramping limbs flexible enough to be of some use to him. Got an awful lot of work to do today, but first He knew that the liver would not last long once the day began warming, knew that neither could he take for granted that he would be able to remain in the shelter long enough to take advantage of all of that venison, and he started the day with a large meal of liver. Knowing that he risked the digestive upsets that he had previously experienced upon beginning to eat again, Einar hoped the cattail roots and eggs that he had consumed over the past few days would have kept his digestive processes going to a degree that would ease the transition. In one of the glass bottles he had a few swallows left of the chokecherry bark solution he had been using for his cough, and he took a good drink of it, remembering that it was supposed to be a digestive tonic and thinking that such a thing might do him some good, as he enjoyed his plentiful supply of venison. Need to be making some more of that stuff, and the Oregon grape and tannin, too, but theres no way I can have a fire here, not with those choppers coming in and out of the area several times a day. No way I can guarantee that there will not be the occasional whiff of smoke, and Id always be wondering if they had seen something. Guess Ill just have to set the bottles out in the sun, and see if thats enough. His breakfast finished and feeling a bit warmer for having eaten, Einar got started on skinning the deer, finding that he had to lower it a bit more in order to reach the top portions, as the pulling and straining of the past days hauling had left him very nearly unable to lift either of his arms above his neck, and certainly not capable of doing much useful work with them, when he did manage. The right one he knew ought to be alright after some rest, but the left had shown little sign of improvement since he had injured his shoulder the past winter, and he supposed that he had re-injured it one two many times while it had been trying to heal, probably leaving him stuck with it. But hey, at least you can walk, sort of, and you got a whole deer right here in your shelter. Really, what could be better? Which question he did not allow himself to answer Rolling up the hide and setting the bundle in a cool, dark corner of the shelter to begin work on later, Einar started in on the meat, having to stop frequently to sharpen his knife and finding himself increasingly concerned at the toll his work had been taking on the little blade, which was beginning to show serious signs of wear after repeated sharpening on the smooth piece of granite and small chunk of sandstone that he had been carrying for the purpose. This is one thing that I cannot make out here, but I had better be seriously working on some alternatives. I have bone and glass already that I can work with, and

maybe Ill be able to find some chert or something up near some exposed rock on one of these high spots around here. Never done all that much knapping, but it looks like Id better be spending some more time at it. When I get time. Pausing in his work, Einar jammed two sticks vertically between the rock walls as he had done for hanging the deer, approximately eight feet distant from each other, and just above head height, having tied four parachute lines to each of the sticks to create something like a clothesline system, for hanging jerky. It was hard work, and without the full use of his arms, he had to chimney up the crack each time he needed to adjust something. The system looked like it would work, though, and before long two of the strings were heavy and drooping with thin strips of meat, Einar pausing now and then to take another bite of liver or a swallow of water from one of his bottles. He was not sure how long the meat would take to dry in that dim, chilly placehe would have rather hung the strips out in the open air where the wind could help things along, but did not want to risk having someone in a low-flying chopper or plane see something that drew their interestbut hoped that the air was cool enough to keep it from spoiling, for as long as it took. Having so far seen no flies near the deer carcass, he was hopeful that perhaps the coolness of the place would prevent them from showing up, but did not want to take any chances as the day began to warm. I think its warming, anyway. Ought to be. Suns out. Im kind of freezing in here. Taking a break from his work, Einar stepped outside the shelter, standing for a moment with his face in the sun and deciding that, yes, it seemed that the day was going to be fairly warm. So Id better get busy with that yarrow that I collected yesterday, in case the flies start finding their way down inside that chimney. First though, he took a minute to warm uphis hands had begun cramping pretty badly between the chill of the crevice and the fine work he was demanding of themfinding a little cove near the entrance where the suns heat was reflected by the rock so that it came at him from three directions and crouching against the rock wall, shivering and flexing his chilled hands and finally returning to his work when they had become a bit more limber. Ok. Get in there and eat some more, first of all, because its just ridiculous that youre freezing like this in the middle of June on a sunny day. Even if you are up high. Got to put some meat on your bones so you can start making your own heat again, like any other reasonably healthy warm-blooded critter. On his way back to the shelter, Einar noticed a few bistort plants, their white clusters of tiny flowers just beginning to open up on long stalks, and stopped to dig a few of the roots. Bistort, the alpine version of which he knew grew on tundra like slopes even far above treeline, has small starchy roots that are tasty and somewhat filling, even raw. With a few minutes of work he ended up with a double handful of the small, twisted roots, wiping the dirt off of two of them and eating them without waiting. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/3407181655_8701397185.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3538/3407990590_a2be20902f.jpg Back in the shelter he tied sprigs and stems of yarrow onto several parachute lines every few inches, climbed up and hung them from the stick that held the deer to create almost a curtain of yarrow which he hoped might protect the meat from flies. If not, he knew that

he could keep them at bay by rubbing the meat frequently with the plants as he had done that past fall with the bear, and was glad the he had seen plenty more yarrow in the aspen grove not far from his shelter, in case that became necessary. Even working as quickly as he could, he could see that it was going to take him a while to get most of the meat sliced thinly enough that it could begin drying. As soon as he had filled the first drying rack with venison strips, Einar tied a second one, climbing up with some difficulty to place the end-sticks and finding that he had to chimney up and over the first rack of drying meat in order to place the second stick. Sure hope I dont fall and knock all that meat into the dust down there. Slicing another large pile of deer strips, carrying them in his pack basket which he slung around his neck and climbing up above the second set of sticks and strings, he jammed his knees against one of the rock walls, his lower back against the other, and proceeded to drape the jerky strips over the strings by reaching down between his knees. It was an awkward setup and rather difficult for Einar, who was still suffering the effects of the rather strenuous journey with the deer the previous day, but he managed it, and managed to get back down to the ground, too, without falling and destroying all of the work he had done. Making another trip outside to sit in the sun and sharpen his knife yet again, he debated whether he ought to take the time away from his work with the meat to retrieve the cattails he had gathered previously, knowing that they would provide him with a good, insulated place to sit and work, as well as a far more insulated and warm sleeping spot than what he had at the moment.

As the morning wore on with no sign of the repeated helicopter flights that had kept him scrambling the day before, Einar decided to take a break from his work with the deer to cross the high basin and retrieve the cattails that he had cut and left lying in bundles on the ground below the lake, as much out of concern that they would be seen by future chopper crews as from a desire for more comfortable quarters. Also, he needed access to the fast-flowing water of the little creek that descended from the lake, as it was the nearest creek that he had yet come across. Piling rocks up just inside the crevice where it reached its narrowest point, he hoped to further discourage large scavengers from entering while he was away, having struggled to hoist what remained of the deer carcass up higher so that it would be out of their reach, if any did venture in. A bear, of course, would still be able to get at the deer, but as the crevice was just wide enough at the start for Einar to pass through, he knew that only a very small bear should be able to enter, and that had been before he had piled up the rocks. Leaving the pack basket behind in the crevice, Einar rolled up a number of items in the drogue parachute and tied it around his waist, wishing to avoid further damage to his burns and knowing that the basket tended to seriously slow him down, anyway. Keeping to the trees as he skirted the meadow, he stopped to set several rabbit snares, thinking that he ought to start working to getting ahold of a couple of bobcats, also, so that he would have their fur to use for winter boot liners. The climb to the basin went without incident, Einar stopping once to gather pitch lumps from a porcupine-damaged spruce and again to strip a good thick coil of shreddy aspen inner bark from a large fallen tree. Finding the cattail bundles to be exactly where he had left them upon the sudden arrival

of the Chinooks, partially concealed from the air by a stand of willow brush, Einar watched the area for some time before convincing himself that it was safe to emerge from the cover of the evergreens to retrieve them. Hurrying with the job, he quickly dismissed an urge to spend a few minutes out in the open meadow searching for more of the speckled brown eggs that he had enjoyed so much before. You got food back at the shelter. Plenty of food. No going out in the open, for now. They may still have that drone thing up there taking pictures, and I expect all itd take is one photo of some funny looking guy in a meadow gathering bird eggs, for the search to go active again. Give it a couple weeks, anyway. Stashing the cattails beneath a spruce, Einar went down to the creek that drained from the lake, approaching it where it entered the evergreens and unrolling his parachute waistpack, removing the deer intestines and bladder that he had stashed in it that morning and setting them on a large flat rock near the water. From a spot near the creek he collected a large pile of dark green, ridge-stemmed horsetail reeds, setting them near the flat rock. Also known as scouring rushes, the reeds were very tough and high in silica, having been used in the past for everything from scrubbing dishes to sanding cabinetry and other fine woodwork. Choosing a section of creek that was narrow and fast-flowing, he cleaned out the contents of the intestines, letting the water flow through them a bit before taking a small bundle of the horsetail reeds, dividing it and clamping the deer gut between the two bundles, wrapping some grass around one end as a hasty binding and slowly drawing the gut through to clean the outside of bits of fat and membrane that remained and would cause spoilage if left. He then began the tedious work of turning it inside out, slowly rolling from one end and allowing the flowing of the water to do some of the work for him, stopping partway through to warm his hands, which had lost all feeling in the icy water. Once the thing had been turned inside out, he took more of the reeds, again carefully clamping and binding them around the intestine before pulling it through to remove the slimy layer on the inside, which contained the digestive enzymes and led Einar to wonder whether he ought perhaps to be saving the stuff, drying it and keeping it to use one day like commercially-made rennet from cow stomachs, for making cheese. As if you will ever be making cheese out here What? You planning on domesticating a herd of mountain goats and starting a dairy, or something? He laughed a bit at that why ever not? Sounds like a fine plan, once they quit looking for you and youre able to get out on the rocky ridges some picturing himself as an old man with wild white hair living in a high mountain cave near a ridge top somewhere, emerging in the morning to round up his herd of rock-skipping mountain goats for milking time. And dont forget that wool! Incredibly warm, a good source of fiber for cordage, and you could get all you need by shearing one or two of the critters every year and felting the woolthink of it! Felt liners for your elkskin mukluks!or taking one every now and then for meat, and using the hide. What a sleeping bag! Cant wait to get started! Realizing that he had almost begun to take his little flight of fancy as a serious option to aid in his long term survival, he laughed at himself again, shook his head. Ok Einar, youre getting goofy now. Enough of that. Pretty sure you will not be doing anything of the kind! And if it ever comes upwhich it wontI believe you can use concentrated stinging nettle juice to coagulate milk for cheese. He returned to his work, squeezing as much water as he could from the cleaned intestines and rolling them up in his pack,

cleaning the bladder also, for use as a small container. He knew that a salt and vinegar solution would probably be the best thing to soak the cleaned intestines in before drying for future use as pemmican wrappings, but having no source at all of that amount of salt, the best alternative he could come up with was to soak the guts in a very strong berberine solution to kill off any bacteria that would cause spoilage, until he was able to render down the deer fat and pound up some thoroughly dry jerky for pemmican. Dont know if itll work, but its worth a try. Starting back for camp, he collected a good number of Oregon grape roots for his ongoing health needs, as well as for the new project. For the return trip, Einar decided to skirt around the high ground that held the basin, thinking that it would save energy if he could avoid that climb and descent, and also that he might discover something useful by making the detour, which proved to be quite true. The second half, anyway. Thickly overgrown with brush and almost swampy in places, the route around the high ground did not prove to be a particularly easy one for Einar, especially carrying the long, cumbersome bundles of cattail stalks. At times, growing increasingly exhausted at the continual struggle through the tangled brush, he was certain that it would have been less work to go up and over the high ground. Rounding the shoulder of the ridge, though, he fought his way out of the grasp of a particularly tenacious willow thicket and discovered something that made all the extra effort worthwhile. Growing up the side of the ridge in front of him was a large thicket of serviceberry bushes, covered with small, under-ripe green berries that promised the arrival of gallons of ripe, juicy purple fruit within a few weeks. Despite the dryness of the spring on the plateau, the berries looked to be in good shape, near as they were to the runoff from the lake. Einar knew that if he could get to a good many of the berries before the bears did and dry them in the sun without having some animal eat them up, he would have added an important source of nutrition to his winter stores. Better get started making some more baskets to gather these things in, and thinking of the best way to dry them, too. As he pushed and wormed his way through the remaining brush that separated him from the aspen woods and clearing in front of his shelter, Einar got to thinking that if he could make his way down just a bit lower into one of the many canyons or smaller draws that cut the edges of the high plateau, perhaps he would not have to wait to begin gathering the berries. Knowing that the sugar they contained would be a good additional source of energy as he worked to process the deer, he decided to consider such a trip within the next few days. Down in the valley the serviceberries were indeed ripe, and Liz and Susan were out every morning picking them from the bushes that overhung the long, snaking driveway up to Bill and Susans place, Susan showing Liz how to make serviceberry jam and syrup. Liz enjoyed the work; it helped to keep her occupied, kept her from wondering constantly about Einar and worrying that he might not be getting enough to eat, that he might be injured and in need of help that no one could safely give him. She knew that such thoughts were fairly pointless, that whether he lived or died out there, she would probably never know, that she should hope she never knew, in fact, because if she had any word of him, it would probably come in the form of news of his capture, and she knew enough of Einar to be well aware that he would prefer death to that, even if it was a slow and painful

one from starvation or injury. Still, she could not keep the thoughts from her mind, and Susan noticed her frequently glancing at the nearby ridges with a faraway look in her eyes as they worked quietly together, and had little doubt as to the nature of her thoughts. Hoping to cheer Liz up a bit, Susan promised to take her up into the high country in a few weeks when the berries began ripening up there, to show her some especially plentiful spots where in a good year a person could easily fill a two gallon pail in well under an hour.

Removing the rocks that had blocked the passage into his shelter, Einar entered carefully, waiting to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness and keeping his spear at the ready in case he was met by a hungry lynx that had stumbled on his meat supply. The crevice was unoccupied, however, the meat appearing un tampered with, and Einar sat on the cattail bundles, relieved, and finished off what remained of the liver before getting back to work. Still hungry and craving fat, he carved off a few slices of it, thinking that while he would have perhaps preferred it melted into a nice stew, he had really hardly tasted anything better. Not that he could really remember, anyway. His memories of pizza and barbecued spare ribs and such had grown pretty dim of late, though at times they tended to return as vivid as life and complete with smells and the sounds of sizzling and cooking to torment him in his hunger. Not at the moment though, as the deer fat was quite satisfying. He shaved off another thin piece and let it begin to melt in his mouth before returning the flat rock that held much of the fat to its dark, protected ledge some three feet up from the floor of the shelter. Stacked up on the flat rock in solid white slabs, the deer fat was certainly not as thick or plentiful as it would have been in the fall, but was substantial nonetheless, and Einar knew that he would soon need to be able to have a fire and render it down, if he wanted any chance at keeping it from going rancid. Reaching up and testing a piece of jerky, one of the first he had sliced and hung out to dry, Einar was disappointed but not especially surprised to find that it had hardly begun drying at all, except for a bit around the edges. If he had been able to hand the meat in the sun (and maybe I could, maybe Im being too careful, but I dont think so) the first batch would have been done, or nearly so, by then. This is going to take awhile. But as long as it doesnt rain and I do not have to leave suddenly for some reason, it should work out alright. Its like a refrigerator in here. The stuff is not going to go bad, and it will eventually dry. He was encouraged to see that there was no sign of flies around the remainder of the carcass, their potential appearance being one of the things that had concerned him the most about his absence from the shelter during the trip over to the lake. Whether it was simply too cool for flies there in the recesses of the rock crevice that certainly might be it. He shivered. Seems to be a good ten degrees or so colder in here than out in the open air, and it didnt turn out to be that warm of a dayor whether the yarrow had simply been effective in deterring them he was not certain, but decided to collect more yarrow and refresh the supply, in case it was doing the trick. Checking his row of brown glass medicine bottles before heading out he found that he had a bit of Oregon grape solution left in one of the them, and not wanting to give the

deer intestines time to begin spoiling, he packed as much of the slippery mess as would fit down into the Spam can and poured the bright yellow liquid overtop, turning and pressing until everything was yellow. He hoped that by immersing first one half, then the other, he might be able to hold off spoilage and give them a good preservative treatment that would keep them good until he could prepare a new, even stronger batch of the liquid from the pile of roots he had collected in his way back from the lake. Hurriedly chopping and shaving up a number of the new roots, nearly filling the bottle before pouring water overtop and setting it out in the sunny little alcove in the rock that he had discovered not far from the entrance to his shelter. Glancing at the position of the sun, Einar estimated that three or four hours of sunlight remained, which would not be enough to turn the roots and water into a very strong solution, but it would be a start. Better see how much more of this deer I can get drying, and then turn the cattail stalks into a bit more of a bed, before it gets dark this evening. Better flesh that hide, too, so I can dry it. Cant really think seriously about tanning until I get done with the meat. Before beginning on any of those projects, though, he retrieved his half-full bottle of tannin water and a few clean mullein leaves from their little ledge in the shelter and returned outside to the sunny alcove to clean and re-bandage his back, relieved to see that the burns looked a good bit less puffy and inflamed that day, and had nearly stopped oozing, in all but a few places. Those spots he paid special attention to, treating them several times with tannin and hoping that they would scab over before too much longer so that his continuing risk of infection would go down. He could turn his head just enough to see that the raw areas roughly corresponded to where his shoulder had been in contact with the rock floor of the shelter the previous night, after he had passed out in exhaustion upon finally getting the deer back to the crevice and hung. This will heal a lot better if I can manage to avoid that kind of thing for awhile and he wrapped the fresh mullein leaves in place, hopeful that, for the coming night at least, perhaps he could. Wandering back to the crevice and collecting yarrow as he went, he stopped here and there to gather dry sticks and dead branches from the undersides of evergreens to add to his growing stash of firewood, still not quite feeling safe about the prospect of fire but hoping that the time might soon come when he could. Removing the deers backstraps and setting a portion of the meat aside to be eaten fresh before he sliced up the rest for drying, Einar took some time to clean and scrape the long flat sheets of shiny sinew, having first cut them away from the meat in much the same way that he had skinned the deer. He carefully scraped and removed all of the remaining meat and the connective membranes that coated them, spreading and smoothing the cleaned sinew strips onto a long flat section of the shelter floor, whose smoothly fractured, nearly featureless rock he had previously cleaned to remove all debris and dust. Einar knew that by adhering the strips to the rock for drying, they would come out flat and smooth and ready to begin using once they were dry. Creating another drying rack with two sticks and several strands of parachute line, he chimneyed up above the two he already had in place, carefully wedging the sticks in between the walls and straightening the lines in readiness for their load of jerky strips. After nearly filling the new drying lines with strips of meat, sharpening his knife and pausing to once again turn and re-immerse the deer intestinewhich was by that time

taking on a cheery if not quite uniform yellow huein its berberine bath, Einar turned his attention to the cattails. Removing the parachute line bindings that had held the bundles together for transport, he made a row of loose bundles, each of them thick enough that he could barely get his hand around it. Tying the bundles together with two parachute lines, he started with one on top and one on the bottom and wove up and down so that the small bundles were held together as a single unit, but also stayed a bit separate and retained round shapes that would provide a good thick layer of insulation. When he was finished, Einar ended up with a mattress that was about six inches thick in most places, just over two feet wide and approximately five and a half feet longthe average height of the cattails. It was perhaps not much of a bed by civilized standardshe would have to curl up a bit to be able to fit on it, length-wise, but then he always found himself curling up to sleep, anyway, due to the coldbut looked great to Einar in contrast to the freezing, rocky floor with its scattering of spruce needles that it was replacing. Now, if only I could lie down That will come. And this will not be bad to sit on, either. Which he did not wait to test out, sinking down on the thick mat and carving himself a generous sliver of deer fat. This will definitely do. And I can always go back for more cattails, if I decide at some point that it could use work. Reclining on his elbows to keep his healing back out of contact with the cattail mat and relieved that he could, for the first time in days, actually relax in a semi-prone position without immediately feeling like he was drowning, Einar finished off the sliver of fat and stared up at layer upon layer of drying meat strips against the ribbon of blue sky far above him, finding himself immensely thankful and thinking that life was, at the moment, very, very good. Now get up and back to work, because youve got some daylight left, and that hide to flesh out before it starts going bad.

In searching through his possessions for a tool to use in fleshing the deer hide, Einar came across the handcuffs that he had gone back to retrieve from the charred hillside after the fire to prevent their discovery by the fire crews. Turning them over and over in his hands for a minute he rubbed the raised white scars on his wrists where the cuffs had cut him during his escape after the blast, as he had struggled to free himself from the root where they had hung up and halted his tumble down the nearly vertical rock face. He supposed he would always have those scars, certainly did not need the cuffs to remind him what awaited if he ever let his guard down. But, instead of burying them beneath the rocky debris at the far end of the shelter and being rid of them once and for all as he was inclined to do, he quickly rose and hung them from a rocky protrusion in the wall opposite his bed were they would be in plain sight of his work area, and, most importantly, of the firepit. The extra reminder cannot hurt Finally settling on splitting a branch from his firewood pile to create a fleshing tool for the deer hide, he chose a fairly straight spruce branch that already had a split starting in one end from where he had broken it off the tree and he carefully widened the split by inserting a thin flake of granite, alternately pounding it with another granite chunk and pulling on half of the branch until it split cleanly with a series of little snaps, leaving him a thin half and a thick half. Wrapping some shreds of aspen bark from the coil he had

been saving for cordage around each end of the split branch for handles, he carried the hide outside and found a fallen spruce trunk to work on, scraping until he had removed all remaining flesh, fat and membrane from the hide. Returning to the shelter, he hung the hide from one of the lower strings on his drying rack, knowing that once it dried, he could store it away in a dark corner of the shelter and not worry about it until he was ready to tan it. Which I had better be soon, just as soon as I get the rest of the meat taken care of, because I dont want that brain to rotor to tempt me too much as a nice filling meal, either! His stomach growled. No. Forget it. Going to be needing something to cover my feet with here pretty soon, and I already need a shirt, pretty bad. This ones coming to pieces where the fire damaged it. And the jeans are OK for the moment, but the polypro pants are in sorry shape, so I better be thinking about another deer or even an elk, if I want to have anything to wear after a few more weeks. Picking up his half finished willow-wood atlatl, he used the remainder of the fading daylight to work on it, deepening the trench he had begun carving beneath the hook that would hold and throw the darts, and cutting a long strip from the deerhide to use as a finger loops. Better give this a try in the morning, start with some willow wands, start practicing. The cattail mattress helped quite a bit that night, and Einar found that he could sleep much longer at a stretch without the insidious cold of the rock constantly creeping up into his bones to chill him and make his bad hip ache terribly, as it had done the night before. Even with the mat, though, he began getting pretty cold after an hour or two, and finally rose and fumbled about in the crevice, able to see his breath in the weak moonlight that made its way in through the chimney and eventually finding the deer hide, which he removed from its drying line and draped over his head and shoulders, fur side in. After that Einar was able to remain asleep for much of the night, waking cold and shivering in the early morning with the drying hide having hardened and taken on the shape of his back and head. Well. No matter. Im gonna have to soak and soften it anyway for tanning, so it doesnt really matter what shape it is, until then. Might as well use it to keep me a little warmer at night. Only a little, though. He shivered. Better get out there and check my snares, move around some and hopefully warm up before starting on the meat, or anything else. Wish I knew what that doggone Predator drone thing was up to, so I could have a fire. They might have taken it out of here by now to go to work on another wildfire, for all I know. Havent heard any choppers for almost two days now, so maybe theyre done for awhile with whatever training they were doingbut without knowing more about that drone, I just dont know if I can risk fire. He glanced up at the drying meat. Got too much to lose, at the moment.

Einar, of course, had no way at all to know that the drone was no longer a threat to him, having crashed into a mountainside several days before due to the accidental actions of the pilot down in the control trailer in the Mountain Task Force parking lot, who had unintentionally hit the fuel cutoff switch while handing over the controls to the next shift. Nor did he have any way to know that a newer, enhanced replacement was already on its way, a MQ-9 Reaper surreptitiously on loan from Air Force, and equipped with far more than cameras and heat sensors.

It was a crisp, sunny mid-June morning, a soft breeze rustling the leaves of the aspens with a sound like gently flowing water as Susan and Liz worked to pack the bed of Bills 1988 Chevy Silverado King Cab truck with flats of comfrey, lavender and rosemary plants that the two of them had spent the spring tending in one of Susans greenhouses. Liz had been learning a great deal from Susan about the cultivation and use of various herbs, as well as about the business of growing them for a number of local landscapers and nurseries, and the flexible hours of her work with Susan left her available when her duties as a Mountain Rescue volunteer demanded her attention. Susan and Liz had recently sold a large load of the plants to a major nursery in Clear Springs with delivery promised by that evening, and Bill had spent part of the previous day creating a twotiered timber frame for the truck bed that allowed them to stack the flats two-high, without harming the plants. Once they had loaded everything to their satisfaction, Bill covered the load with a white tarp to reflect some of the sunlight and prevent the bed from getting too hot for the plants, and they were ready to go, Susan joking that it looked like they were smuggling something. Bill parked the truck under the shade of the aspen grove in front of the house, and they went inside to eat lunch before heading down the hill to make the hour-long drive to Clear Springs. As they enjoyed their lunch, Bill, Susan and Liz were completely unaware of a meeting that had taken place the week before at the Mountain Task Force headquarters outside of Culver Falls. Newly appointed FBI Director Terry Lotts was under a tremendous amount of pressure, having been threatened with the loss of his position after searchers in a helicopter, acting on his direct orders, had scattered embers from Darren Raintrees fire and started a major wildfire, a situation that it had then become Lotts unfortunate responsibility to attempt to cover up. He had so far been fairly successful, doing his best to discredit the eyewitness accounts provided to local media by Darren Raintree and several other campers that his chopper had disturbed up on the plateau that morning, but he could tell that Sheriff Watts, for one, was not buying the story. Terry Lotts was worried, and was feeling increasingly backed into a corner by the Sheriffs pending investigation of the fire. Hoping to quell a growing chorus of internal calls for his resignation and the threat of Congressional hearings into the mismanagement of the search, Lotts had, the previous week, outlined an aggressive new strategy that was designed to root out the local support that he was firmly convinced the subject of their ongoing manhunt must be receiving. By cutting off that source of aid, he hoped that he could force Asmundson to mess up, to take risks that would ultimately lead to his capture. And, if Lotts was lucky, he might even be able to catch a couple of the locals on the act of providing aid, leading his men to Einar and allowing them to arrest and show off the offending citizens, as well. To that end, Lotts had begin holding daily briefings for the agents each morning by teleconference from his office in Washington, reviewing intelligence old and new and going over lists of local residents that they believed bore watching.

Easing down the steep switchbacks of the driveway through bands of aspen and spruce, Bill brought the truck to a sudden halt, backed up and squinted at something just above head level in the tangle of serviceberry bushes that lined the driveway, prompting Susan to ask him what he saw. Just a minute, be back in a minute, and he stomped on the emergency brake, leaving the truck and carefully scrutinizing the ground and the surrounding trees for a minute before retrieving a faded boonie hat from the bushes where it appeared to have been casually tossed. Bill knew better. There was nothing causal, nor accidental, either, about the placement of that hat. Foreman, he grunted in response to Susans curiosity upon spotting the hat, but did not seem inclined to elaborate. Foreman? What? Are you two cooking something up? What were you talking about the other night when he came by, anyway. Susan could tell from the look on Bills face that she ought not expect an answer. The purpose of the visit Foreman had paid them remained largely a mystery to Susan and Liz, as the two Bills had done most of their talking out of earshot of the house. Bill and Susans silver Chevy had just passed the FBI compound on their way to Clear Springs with the load of herbs when Bill first noticed the two black Suburbans behind them. Having helped clean up the aftermath of too many serious accidents that had resulted from drivers taking the tight curves of the narrow mountain road too quickly, Bill tended to drive a bit slower on the more winding portions of the highway, and was used to having people pass him. He watched in consternation as the Suburbans approached, slowed and kept pace some fifty yards behind him rather than maintaining their speed and passing. Rounding a curve and entering a mile-long straight stretch of highway, one of the few that existed between Culver Falls and Clear Springs, Bill slowed further to give the vehicles a chance to pass, but they kept pace, perhaps, he thought, even falling back a bit. Bill knew that, as the road and river ran through a six mile canyon with fairly steep red walls at that point, he would have no chance to turn off the road for several more miles. Susan and Liz had picked up on his concern by that point. Dont look back. Dont let them know were watching. I think we may have a problem, here. Is it the feds? Susan asked, not turning her head, but glancing in the mirror. Yep. Think so. They stay on us like this much longer, Im going to see if we can get turned around, head back to town and stop at the Sheriffs. I dont like this. The Suburbans had edged closer, one easing out into the opposite lane. Bill could see what they intended to do, and wanted none of it, especially with Liz and Susan in the truck. A log truck was approaching; the Suburban that had been attempting to get in beside Bills truck fell back behind him to let it pass.

You gals got your seat belts on? They answered in the affirmative, and Bill hurriedly downshifted into second gear, jerking the wheel to the left and sending the truck into a barely controlled spin that left them in the opposite lane, nearly at a stop. Taking off after the logging truck, Bill quickly caught up to it and passed, just before the straight stretch of road ended and it again began winding and snaking through the canyon. He grinned, glanced at Susan who was leaning back in her seat a bit breathless, thinking he had lost them for the moment. The Suburbans quickly followed suit, though, one of them nearly being forced off the road by oncoming traffic when it attempted to pass the truck on a curve. Bill could tell his tired old truck was going to be no match for the Suburbans; they were gaining on him, one pulling up beside him, the man in the passengers seat signaling for him to stop. Which Bill, recognizing the man as Special Agent Day, had no intention of doing. Day had gained a reputation around town as a bully and somewhat of a loose cannon, and Bill doubted that he was up to any good that afternoon. Bill gave the truck more gas, knowing that he was just over three miles from town, hoping to make it. The Suburban rammed the rear drivers side corner of the truck hard though, sending it into a high speed fishtail from which Bill managed to recover, but followed it quickly with another, causing Bill to miss a turn and sending the truck skidding and careening down the steep bank, down towards the river. The truck came to rest at a steep angle against a cottonwood feet from the water, slowed some by a tangle of serviceberry bushes on the way down. Bill, having hit his head on the steering wheel but remaining conscious, glanced up the bank to see four men scrambling down towards the truck, and he guessed from their drawn weapons that their intentions went beyond helping out the victims of the accident they had caused. Feeling around under the seat where he had stashed his .45, he could not find it, tried to reach down to explore the floor but found that the dashboard was rather closer to his knees than it had been before the crash; his legs, in fact seemed to be trapped. He glanced over at Susan, wanting to tell her to take Liz and get out of there into the brush before the agents reached the truck, but found her hanging limply forward in her seat belt, unresponsive, a deep gash running along the side of her forehead where she had apparently come into contact with the truck door. He briefly pressed his handkerchief against the gash in Susans head, but could see that it was not bleeding heavily enough to be an immediate threat to her. Liz he could see no sign of; the back seat seemed to have come loose on impact and shifted forward, and Bill could see through the shattered rear window of the truck that he did not have much time before the agents arrived. Forcing open the damaged glove box he pulled out a knife, stuck it beneath him within easy reach, and again struggled to free his trapped legs as the agents approached, pistols drawn.

Einars snares yielded two rabbits that morning, and he carried them back to the shelter, cleaning and skinning them, carefully scraping the skins and hanging them to dry, eating the livers and hanging the carcasses in a corner of the shelter in the hopes that he might decide it was a good idea to have a small fire that evening and cook them up. Warmer

after the activity and breakfast, he decided to cut and hang another batch of jerky before going out to the edge of the meadow for some experimental practice with the atlatl. He was not even certain that he would be able to throw the darts, with the binding, barely scabbed over burns still covering much of his upper back and shoulders, but he needed a weapon with a longer reach than the spear that he had taken to always carrying, and the atlatl seemed a better option at the moment than a bow, as he knew that his shoulder would still make normal use of a bow all but impossible. After climbing up and hanging the jerky he had sliced, Einar looked over the remains of the deer carcass, seeing that he had carved up and hung a good portion of the meat, already. Time to start cracking some of these bones for marrow. And what I really need is a way to boil some of them, too. Could get an awful lot of soup out of them, that way, with all the little scraps of meat still attached, maybe add some cattail starch, and they could feed me for days. Add a few rabbits to that and Ill be doing pretty well, as far as saving most of this meat. As hungry as Einar continued to be, he found himself nearly as concerned with saving a good portion of the soon-to-be dried meat as he was with getting enough to eat at the moment, though he knew that his priority probably ought to be putting on weight and getting himself back to a state where he was not so easily exhausted and prone to getting sick. He knew that it was critically important that he stretch the deer as far as he could, not knowing when he might get another, or when he might again find himself forced to travel, and too rushed to put much effort towards obtaining meat. So. Soup. He wished he had cleaned out and saved the deer stomach for use as a cooking pot, as he had done before with the elk, but he had been too worn out to really consider the task by the time he had hauled the deer back and cleaned it, and knew that the scavengers would have by then cleaned up all remnants of deers innards that he had left outside the protection of the shelter. I could do a big wood-burned bowltake a piece of an aspen trunk, burn and scrape a big depression into it, fill it with water and use hot rocks to boil it. A project, he knew, that would have to wait until he could have a fire, but he supposed he might as well be keeping his eyes open for a suitable chunk of wood to use, when the time came. Taking his atlatl and a number of long, straight willow shoots that he had cut and bundled in with the cattails several days before at the lake, he headed over to the meadow, staying beneath the evergreens at its edge and fitting a notched willow shoot onto the spur he had carved into the end of the atlatl. His first throw provided encouraging results, the willow shoot traveling much farther than he would have been able to throw it by hand, and hitting near the tree he had picked out as his aim point. Sending three of his remaining willows downrange, he managed to actually hit the tree with one of them, coming close with the others. Excited about the preliminary success of his experiment, he returned to the tree where he had left the rest of the willow sticks, picking out several more of the longer, straighter ones to try. Standing up from his crouch, he felt a warm trickle of blood trace down his backbone, and stopped to determine its source. Upon exploring his back, Einar discovered that he must have put too much force into the throws, and had once again broken open one of the larger scabs on his back. He had not brought any fresh mullein leaves to change his bandages with, but figured he might as well go ahead and get in a bit more practice, since the damage had already been done. Which he did, but found his aim to be off, probably due to an unconscious attempt at caution. Well. At

least I know its going to work. Guess I can practice some more, later. Got to make some better darts, too, turn some of that broken glass and maybe some deer bone into heads, and maybe I can even find a few pieces of chert up around here to experiment with. For the moment, though, he headed back to the shelter to tend to his back and get something to eat, afterwards sitting in the sunny rock alcove outside the shelter to begin work on a couple of bone points for his atlatl darts, growing sleepy in warmth of the sun. Drifting in and out of sleep and relaxed in the suns warmth, Einar dreamt of Liz, but rather than the usual comforting, hopeful dream that had so often sustained him, he had terrifying visions of twisted metal and smoke and imminent danger, and woke with a start, scrambling to his feet and grabbing for his spear with the feeling that something was terribly wrong. He stood there for a minute pressed up against the rock, listening for anything out of place, staring at the quiet, still world around him and finding nothing to justify his alarm. It was just a dream, Einar. No more real than any of the others. Now back to work. But he found himself thinking often of the dream that day and of Liz, hoping that she was alright.

Two of the agents covered Bill and Susan while Agent Day and the other jerked open the tarp on the back of the truck, which had torn and split sometime during the bumpy ride down the embankment, shouting and kicking at the ruined flats of herbs and turning each one over as if they had expected to find someone hiding beneath them. Finishing their search they joined the two agents up at the cab of the truck, shouting questions at Bill, repeatedly asking him about Einar, about where he was and who was helping him. Bill truthfully answered that he had no idea where Einar was, told them to call for help, that his wife was hurt, but they ignored him, kept shouting and rephrasing their queries, repeatedly slamming his head into the steering wheel when he steadfastly refused to answer any further questions until they called an ambulance for Susan. Sometime during the questioning Susan regained consciousness, saw through barely open eyes what was happening to Bill, saw the knife, too, and kept still. Very slowly she moved her arm, got her hand over near the knife, waited until Agent Day was leaning in close and grabbed it, lunging and stabbing Day in the arm before two of the other agents got the passengers door open and subdued her, which did not take much effort, considering her injuries. They dragged her from the truck then and questioned her much as they had Bill, with the addition of threats that she had no doubt they would probably have made good on, had they believed there was time. Susan refused to talk to them at all after that, infuriating Day, who was already angry, pressing his cut arm to slow the bleeding. Day shoved her to the ground, repeating his questions and kicking her when she would not answer, the other agents standing and watching in silence. Day kept it up until Susan finally stopped moving, ending with a vicious kick to the head for good measure and leaving her there bleeding on the river rocks to die, clearly a confused accident victim who had wandered away from her vehicle before expiring.

Liz heard the shouting of the agents, heard Susans groans as they pulled her from the

truck, but the sounds came to her as if from a great distance, and she struggled to open her eyes, to move, but by the time she finally managed it, all had gone quiet. She could hear the river, the song of a robin, a truck passing by up on the highway. It was dark, and she was pinned in an unnatural position between the seat and the collapsed seat back, her face mashed into the fabric of the seat, but nothing hurt terribly badly, and she was pretty sure that she was not seriously injured. The worst of it, as far as she could tell, was the painful knot on the side of her head where it must have struck something solid, knocking her out. And the fact that she could hardly breathe, with the heavy seat back pressing down on her and the gravity of the sharply angled truck keeping it there. Experimentally attempting to sit she shoved at the seat, finally managing to move it a few inches at a time and get it to catch on something, leaving her a bit of space, and she slithered out from under it and sat up, coughing as her lungs were finally able to fully expand. She saw Bill, still in the drivers seat. Dead, she was pretty sure, slumped forward against the steering wheel, his forehead and face a bloody mess. She could not find a pulse, did not remember hearing a gunshot but knew the agents must have done something to him. He had been talking shortly after the crash, and certainly did not appear in any shape to do so at the moment. Susan. Wheres Susan? She was not in the truck. Why would she leave Bill? Did they take her? Squeezing out of the damaged back seat, Liz exited the truck through the open passengers door, nearly crying out when her right foot hit the ground. Something wrong with that ankle. Maybe just sprained. She forgot all about the ankle the next moment when she saw Susan, curled up on her side on the rocks down by the river, her face covered in blood. Limping over to her, Liz knelt by her side. The halo of grey-flecked dark curls that framed Susans usually-cheerful face was matted with drying blood, one eye swollen shut and her face terribly bruised and deformed, her right arm bent beneath her at what looked to Liz like a very odd angle But she was alive, was breathing, and Liz quickly looked her over to check for obvious sources of serious bleeding, but saw none, and did not want to risk rolling Susan to her back without help for fear of causing her greater injury. Liz limped back to the truck, struggling to retrieve the wool blanket that she knew Bill kept on the floor of the back seat. Spreading the blanket over Susan, she returned to the truck, found Bills cell phone on his belt but did not expect or get a signal there in the canyon. She knew that they were near the middle of a six or seven mile stretch where there was no cell service. Next she went to try the CB, but it had been smashed beyond use by the wreck, or the agents, or both, and Liz started up the steep bank for the road, knowing that she must get help and afraid that the agents might decide to return at some point to make sure their work had been thorough enough. It was a long way up to the road, steep and loose and slick with mud in places, and Liz, beginning to feel her injuries and the effects of what she had just seen, kept thinking of Einar as she climbed, thinking that if he could keep on when he was starving and sick and half frozen and barely able to walk, surely she could make it up that bank to the road. The thought helped, gave her strength, and she used the bushes to help pull herself up the rocky bank, stopping periodically to take a deep breath and fight back the blackness that wanted to reclaim her. On one of these stops she looked back down the slope and saw Susan, the woman who had become almost like a mother to her in the past months, lying

in a bloody pulp in the rocks by the river, and after that she had no trouble making it up the slope, her shock and pain being replaced with a hot rage that almost had her wishing that agentDay. Bill called him Agent Daywould come back, so she could hide in the bushes and jump on him from the bank and bash his head in with a rock. Finding a nice chunk of river-rounded granite, she carried it with her, just in case. Reaching the highway, Liz sat down on a rock, concealed by a tree and knowing that she should go out in the open and try to flag someone down, but afraid at the same time that it might end up being an agent who knew what had caused their accident, and did not care to see witnesses remain living. She was a bit surprised that the men had not simply shot Bill and Susan, but supposed they had to make it look like a legitimate accident, when they were finally found. I guess they werent counting on me being there! The road curved sharply just beyond the point where the truck had gone over the embankment and she could not see very far at all down it in either direction, but there was a steep embankment above her, and she pulled herself several yards up the loose dirt, hiding when she heard a vehicle approaching, before continuing with her climb until she reached a spot where her view of the highway was improved. For several minutes she sat there watching vehicles approach and pass, knowing that she must wait no longer, that Susans life could well depend on getting help, and soon. Please, help meI dont want to get her killed by flagging down the wrong person. She watched the highway for another minute, saw a log truck in the distance and decided it would be a pretty safe bet. Waiting another second before descending the bank, she noticed a white pickup some distance behind the log truck, and thought she recognized it. Allan? It was. She knew the truck. Sliding down the steep embankment, she reached the road just as he rounded the curve, stepped out where he was sure to see her. Allan saw Liz but passed her, unable to stop in time, returning a few seconds later to park in a wide spot on the shoulder on the opposite side of the highway. Liz? He hurried across the road. What happened? Youre bleeding. Im alright. Allan, I think Bill is dead. Susans down there. I couldnt wake her. She pointed down the bank. The feds ran us off the road. Without waiting for more details Allan ran back across the highway and radioed in to Dispatch, grabbing his medical bag and, she saw, tucking a pistol into his vest before helping Liz back down the bank. After a brief glance at Bill he focused his attention on Susan, having Liz hold her head while he carefully rolled her onto her back to check for additional sources of bleeding and straightened and splinted her apparently broken arm. What happened here, Liz? The truck does not look that banged up, and she didnt get thrown out of it I was stuck under the back seat. Couldnt see. But there were three or four agents down here. I heard them shouting at Bill, asking him questions. There was some sort of a struggle up there and then everything was quiet They pulled Susan out. I heard them shouting at her and she struggled to grasp memories from her time under the seat, to

get ahold of them and turn them solid enough to vocalize. Allen, I think they were kicking her, hitting her. Thats what it sounded like. I heard them threaten her with things. To do awful thing to her I couldnt wake up, couldnt stop themif she dies The admirable control that Liz had maintained up until that point was beginning to crumble just a bit as the details began returning to her, hot tears of rage and frustration pooling up in her eyes, and Allan, knowing he needed to give her something to concentrate on, assigned her the task of staying with Susan to immobilize her head. He went to see if there was anything he could do for Bill, and it was not too many more minutes before the rescue crew and ambulance arrived, and work began to extricate Bill from the truck and get Susan up the bank to the waiting ambulance.

Returning to the rock crevice to cut and hang another string of jerky, Einar was encouraged to find that the strips he had first hung were finally beginning to show signs of drying. Another day or two, and maybe I can think of pounding some of this up for pemmican. He was glad, as he found himself becoming increasingly anxious to make a journey down to one of the slightly lower draws that split off from the high plateau to check on the state of the serviceberries, and knew that he first needed to get the meat dried and put away somewhere out of the reach of scavengers. He supposed that he would need to construct some variation of the raised caches that had been used by the tribesmen and mountain men of times pastsmall log structures on high stilts that were designed to keep bears and other animals from accessing the stored meat. Some of the Northern tribes who lived in areas where trees were not as plentiful had simply wrapped the meat in animal hides and built a heavy cairn of rocks over it, he knew, and he wondered if he could do something similar in the back of his shelter. Could also build a platform here in the chimney, I guess, keep it up on that. The idea of a traditional log cache out in the woods worried him some, as he knew there was always the possibility that someone might happen along and see it. At which point he would probably be forced to move on without his food supply, at best Better keep it hidden, keep it here in the crevice, one way or another. Either way though, Im not really going to have any deerskin to spare, for keeping it dry. Got to replace these clothes pretty soon. Theyre falling to pieces, too worn out to really be repaired, and that one hide will barely make me a vest, let alone a shirt and some moccasins like Im really needing. Need to try for another deer. Hmm. I wonder about some cattail-leaf baskets or bags, coated with pitch to keep the water out, as a way to temporarily store some of the jerky? While Einar knew from past experience that he could also construct a corded and coiled aspen bark basket that could be waterproofed with pitch, the process was far more time consuming than a simple weaving of broad, flat cattail leaves would be. And he was beginning to seriously feel the press of time, with berry season upon him and only a limited number of weeks until the snow again flew. Better get started on those pouches, because theyll have to dry thoroughly before I can coat them with the pitch and put jerky into them. Which meant another trip over to the cattail bog, and a risky foray out into the open to cut the cattails.

Wanting to make the most of the trip over to the lake, Einar collected another bundle of willow shoots in addition to one of cattail leaves, wanting to test them out as atlatl darts, and leave himself enough to make another willow basket, also, for when he picked berries. Looking back at the marshy area of cattails and willow brush as he made his way back into the woods after finishing his harvesting, Einar began to grow a bit concerned at the altered appearance of the place. Careful as he had been not to decimate a single area, but to take a few shoots and leaves here and there, it was clear, at least to him, that someone had been there, had been cutting things and trampling around on the soft, muddy ground. There had been no helicopter flights since the day the three Chinooks had first surprised him, but he worried that if they ever did come back, one of the crew might notice the signs of human presence in the bog. Got to be more careful, got to keep working towards moving on, too. But hopefully not for a few more days, yet. As his burns continued to heal, it gradually became a bit easier for Einar to move and to carry a small amount of weight slung over his shoulder, as he had to do with the bundles of cattail and willow, but he still found himself tiring very easily, and was dragging, more than ready for sleep by the time he made it back to the shelter with his load. Wanting to make the best use of the daylight, though, he allowed himself only a brief rest and some food before beginning work on the cattail jerky-storage containers. He settled on creating a series of flattish pouches or envelopes rather than baskets, with the idea that they would be easier to store and less likely to crush if he ended up building a rock cairn over his cache of meat, to protect it from animals. Not knowing how many of the pouches he would end up needinghe intended to turn a good bit of the meat into powder to be mixed with the deer fat and stored in the cleaned intestines as pemmican, but knew there would be a good bit of jerky left over after the meager supply of fat on that spring deer had been usedhe ended up getting four of them finished that evening before the light began to fade. Deciding that a small fire was not an unreasonable risk that night, hoping that the drone might have moved on by then if its operators had seen nothing to catch their interest and praying that he was not making a potentially fatal mistake in thinking so, Einar used his fire steel to throw some sparks down into the finely shredded nest of aspen bark he had kept in the firepit for the purpose, setting a number of rocks down in the pit to heat as soon as he had got the fire going. That night he enjoyedand enjoyment hardly came close to describing his delighta few pieces of the backstrap meat that he had set aside, fried up in a generous helping of deer fat with some purslane for greens, and eaten with mashed potatoes from a couple of roasted cattail roots, which were also liberally smothered in deer grease. Only thing this meal is missing is a few serviceberries for sweetness, and I should be remedying that, in a day or two! He took advantage of the existence of the fire to cook up the two rabbits from that morning, also, cutting up and boiling one and stuffing the other with hot rocks to roast. Well, theres tomorrows breakfast! He kept the small fire going well into the night, hoping the gentle rising of its heat in the rock chimney would speed along the drying of the meat so that he could store it away and get on with other projects that were going to require his extended absence from the shelter.

Knowing that his future ability to use fire was largely dependent on the continued lack of air activity near the shelter, he used the opportunity to simmer down some of the Oregon grape roots he had collected earlier that day to create a strong yellow berberine solution which he stored in the brown glass bottle that he had been using for that purpose, glad that his lung troubles and the inflamed areas on his back seemed to have settled down enough that he no longer had to consume such large quantities of the stuff. He had begun once again feeling the ill effects of such consumption, and seeing the telltale yellow tinge to his skin that indicated a fairly urgent need to cut back on the amount. But I had better get some of this put away now while I have the chance, because it really does work, and I still need it to put on my back, anyway. The solution that he had been making by setting one of the brown bottles with some crushed roots and a little water in the sun for a good portion of the day was weaker, though still apparently effective, and he was glad to know that he had that option, for times when fire was not practical. Relaxing by the fire after eating, Einar worked on the dried leg sinews that he had removed from the elk, pounding and softening one of them with a rounded rock until the fibers began to separate and he could pull them apart, making a small drawstring pouch of parachute material in which to store the valuable sinew strands. Growing sleepy and contemplative there in the unaccustomed warmth of the fire, Einar allowed his mind to wander back through the events of the past few weeks, a somewhat dangerous pursuit that he knew better than to allow himself too often to engage in. It had been quite a journey, and only as he slowly began to gain strength and feel a bit better did he come to realize how very bad off he had been, and for how long. When in the middle of it, he had very steadfastly avoided thinking about the matter, had kept himself going at a sometimes unreasonable and certainly unsustainable pace until it had become almost a habit, and with the certaintymistaken or notthat if he ever stopped, ever let himself sit down and breathe for a minute, he would die. If not at the hand of his pursuers, then of his own injuries and the weakness brought on by his extended starvation and lack of rest. Though it was a startlingly odd experience for him and one that he hardly knew what to do with, Einar found that he was rather coming to like just sitting and breathing, every now and then. He knew better than to allow himself to take such circumstances for granted, though, knew things would almost certainly be changing again, and all too soon. The heat of the fire, absorbed and slowly released by the surrounding walls of rock, allowed Einar a much warmer night than usual, curled up on his cattail mat with a few fire-heated rocks, able to breathe well enough for the first time in days to lie down to sleep and finding it a good bit more restful than sitting had been, though still having to be very careful of his burns. Waking early the next morning feeling rather more refreshed than he had in many days, he started out to check his snares, thinking that he might want to make a preliminary scouting trip down to one of the nearby draws after serviceberries later in the morning. Finding the snares empty that morning, he took a few minutes to dig spring beauty and avalanche lily bulbs from a small patch in the aspen grove, watching the sun rise and thinking that he ought to take a few days, do some exploring and find some high basins where the two plants were plentiful, digging enough of the roots that he could dry and save a good quantity for the winter. After the berries.

Heading back to the crevice to prepare for his scouting trip. Einar could tell even before he reached the entrance that something was not right, that he was not alone. He listened, could hear nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly could not see anything in the blackness of the space between the rock walls, but was beset by an overwhelming sense of wrongness that experience told him he must not ignore. Retreating a few steps and setting down his carrying bag full of roots to give him two hands for the spear, he cautiously approached the dark chasm, hearing a clatter followed by the smashing of glass from inside as he did so.

One of Sheriff Watts deputies arrived at the scene of the accident shortly after the first ambulance, taking Lizs statement as the rescue crew worked to raise the stretchers that held Bill and Susan up the steep bank to the road. Liz could remember the last three letters of the license plate on one of the Suburbans, but no more, but she did tell the deputy about the presence of Agent Day, and was able to give him a pretty good description of the driver of Days vehicle, also, afraid to talk out of concern that the agents might find out where the report came from and come after her, but even more afraid of the truth not getting out. Liz was angry; she wanted justice, told the deputy all she could remember about what she heard from beneath the seat, including the specific and rather graphic language used by Day as he had threatened Susan. Dutifully writing everything in his report, the deputy took some photos of the crash scene before heading back up to the highway to inspect and measure the skid marks. Neither he not Liz were aware that minutes before, the driver of the logging truck had made a call to the regional Highway Patrol office, reporting the incident with the Suburbans. He had not witnessed the actual crash or the moments directly leading up to it, but had been surprised by the aggressive and very nearly disastrous actions of the two vehicles as they had passed him on the curve, and had managed to write down complete license numbers for each of them when he later passed them again, parked on the shoulder of the highway after Bill and Susans crash.

Late in the afternoon the day of the crash, FBI Director Terry Lotts jet landed at the airport in Clear Springs, the Director then being driven to the FBI compound at Culver Falls so that he could personally supervise the enacting of his aggressive new strategy in the effort to bring an end to the hunt for Asmundson. His visit had another very specific purpose, as well, as he intended to announce the promotion of one Agent Day, who had of late distinguished himself with what Lotts considered to be outstanding effort and initiative in pursuing the search, using creative tactics in an attempt to obtain potentially critical information from the unreasonably reticent locals. Upon his arrival at the compound, Director Lotts had been briefed on a developing situation there in the Culver Falls area that involved an auto accident not far from the compound, and two dead or seriously injured local residents. The Sheriff was making noises about an investigation, having apparently received a report from some truck driver about a couple of Bureau Suburbans being driven erratically in the immediate area at the time of the of the crash,

and it wasnt long before the Director received the full storyor most of it, anyway from Day and his cohorts. Lotts, having himself always been a fan of creative interrogation techniques, had no problem with the tactics that the four had employed in an attempt to extract information from a couple of uncooperative citizens who had already been on the watch list and who had appeared to be involved in potentially suspicious behaviortransporting something hidden beneath a tarp in a truck bedwhen the incident began. What he did have a problem with was the fact that nobody seemed to know for certain that both of the subjects had expired on the scene. There were conflicting reports on that matter, and they troubled the Director. Have to resolve this. Would be extremely embarrassing to have something like that come out in the local papers. Especially shortly after I promote Day. Could be big trouble for both of us. That evening, Lotts inspected the Bureaus newest acquisition--loan, to be exact walking around the Reaper UAV where it sat at the end of the landing strip and pulling a Sharpie marker out of his shirt pocket, joking that he would like to write a message for Asmundson on one the UAVs Hellfire missiles. Lotts told Agent Day, who had been given the honor of taking the Director on his tour of the compound, that I fully intended to be in Culver Falls when they drag Asmundsons burnt body out of a cave somewhere. Dont disappoint me, Day. And Day, working his way up the Bureau ladder more quickly than he had expected possible and being a man who liked power and sought it, had no intention of disappointing the Director, if he could help it. The Director had already assured Day that the little mishap on the road that morning would have no bearing on his announced promotion, but Lotts did make it clear that he wanted to start seeing some serious movement in the search efforts, and soon. Youve got the tools now, he said, nodding towards the armed Reaper. Now lets have some results.

The crashing of glass from inside the shelter was not accompanied by the alarmed snarls and hissing that Einar had expected, thinking a member of the cat family to be the most likely intruder. He had seen bobcat tracks in the area over the past few days. So. A fox? Could be a fox, coyote, even. No way a bear could have got in there. Whatever it was, Einar knew he must get rid of the creature before it had time to decimate too much of the meat. His biggest fear was that it might go for the deer fat, destroying his ability to make pemmican and wiping out a crucial part of his food supply. He was about to begin shouting and tossing in rocks to frighten the creature off and put a quick end to its pilfering of his food, but he needed hides, needed furs for the coming winter, and knew his chances of taking the creature would be far better in the confines of the rock crevice than they would be as it came dashing out in alarm. The idea of walking into that winding, dark space to face an unknown opponent whose vision was likely far better in the dimness than his own was not especially appealing to him, however. He was just beginning to reach a point where his injuriesthe burns as well as the dog bites and poorly healed gunshot wound in his legwere no longer threatening him with deadly infection, and wanted to keep things going in that direction. Now if I could get above it there in the crevice, get a look at it and drop on it with the spear Food and fur, and Id be on the way to making up for whatever it has already eaten and destroyed! Very

quietly he began stacking up rocks until he had nearly covered the entrance to the crevice, stopping when only a small sliver of blackness remained at the top. Entering, he sealed the space with one final flat slab of granite. OK. Committed to this, now Carefully chimneying up the crack until he was at least fifteen feet up off the ground, Einar eased his way towards the back of the crevice, where his camp was situated some ten or twelve yards beyond the entrance. The animal, whatever it was, continued to rummage around in his belongings as he climbed; he could hear the occasional rattle of glass or metal as it shuffled about beneath him, and the whole space was pervaded with a strong and rather unpleasant odor that he did not quite recognize, but that put him in mind of the weasel family.. He supposed the intruder could possibly be a pine marten. As Einars eyes began adjusting to the dimness of the crevice, he could look down and see the creature gorging itself on a string of jerky that it had pulled down, the sleek dark fur of its back set off by a lighter ruff around it, and he readied his spear, prepared to drop on the intruder and add that fur to his supply of clothing materials. He accidentally knocked loose a small stone which fell near the creature, causing it to startle and revealing his presence. Einar was surprised that his scent had not given him away sooner, but supposed it had so pervaded the crevice by that point that the creature had not been able to tell the difference. And the intruder had been making such a racket down there that it had not heard him, either, until the rock nearly hit it on the head. The scavenger looked up at him with a rage-filled snarl, the place suddenly filled with a foul and choking stench, and Einar fell, having been too far along in his preparations to spring to reverse the process when he realized that he had misjudged the nature of the intruder, his final, rather irrelevant thought as he went down being that the last confirmed wolverine sighting in the area had been nearly 30 years prior

Einar did not manage to land on the furry intruder and drive his spear into its backbone as he had intended, his element of surprise having been completely destroyed by the falling rock. The wolverine quickly backed up against the wall to avoid the falling man, and Einar landed hard but fairly well on the rock floor of the crevice, rolling forward but getting back to his feet with remarkable speed considering his bad hip and the fifteen foot drop, and not entirely unprepared when thirty pounds of snarling, furious wolverine was on him the next moment. He got in in a good jab with the spear as the creature leapt at his face, grabbing and slashing with its claws, and it backed off a bit when the spear took it in the shoulder. Not for long, though, and the next time the wolverine charged, it went for his right arm, and Einar brought his knee up hard into its stomach, barely avoiding having his lower arm clamped in wickedly strong jaws that almost certainly would have broken the bone, as little flesh as there was left to protect it, at the moment. Einar was already bleeding from more than a dozen deep slashes that the animal had managed to get in, knew that he had to end the struggle in a hurry, or he would surely end up losing, even if he managed to kill the beast. Every time it got near him it was using its claws to full advantage, and he knew those teethspecially designed for ripping frozen fleshwere bound to eventually close with him if the fight went on.

He wanted to brace the spear against the rock wall and let the animal impale itself as it leapt for him, but the space was too narrow; he was finding it difficult, in fact, to use the spear at all because of the confinement of the crevice, and then it was on him again, and Einar fell as it grabbed hold of his upper arm, unbalanced by the weight of the creature and landing on top of it, the spear breaking under him as he fell, struggling to control the vicious claws that slashed at him as the creature lay on its back. He felt wildly for the spear in the growing darkness, found it beneath him slippery with bloodhe wasnt sure whoseglad when he happened to grab the correct end, and began stabbing at the wolverine, aiming for the neck area and finally breaking the bone spearhead when it went all the way through and contacted rock. His efforts had been enough, though; he could tell by the raspy breaths and the gurgling flow of blood from the creatures throat that it was done for, and he lay on it until finally it stopped struggling, prying open the iron jaws of the dead wolverine with difficulty and pressing a shred of polypropylene material against his torn up arm to slow the bleeding. Sinking back to the ground, he was still for a minute. Einar did not want to move, but he knew he was going to need a fire; the darkness was nearly complete by that point, and he had a lot of work ahead of him if he was to adequately clean and treat his injuries. Getting shakily to his feet, he began feeling around the wrecked interior of his shelter for firewood, finally remembering that he had wedged a few pitch sticks into a narrow crack in the wall so that they would be easy to locate in the darkness and finding them by feeling along the wall beside his firepit at what he remembered to be the correct height. Setting one of the sticks on the ground and grabbing a wad of shredded up aspen bark from the ledge above his fire where he had been storing it for use as tinder, he wiped his blood-slick hands on the remains of his jeans before attempting to strike sparks with the little fire steel that remained in its place around his neck. Finally getting the tinder bundle to take, he used it to light the pitch stick, jamming it back in the crack in the wall once it was burning and staring around at his ruined shelter. The floor was littered with broken glass from the remnants of his medicine bottles, the two rabbit skins that had been drying shredded and trampled, and random pieces of mostly dried jerky scattered among the debris where the wolverine had apparently neglected to gobble them. Picking up the pieces one by one and brushing off the broken glass and dust as well as he could, Einar began stacking them on the cooking rock by his firepit, gathering up his strewn firewood as he went and tossing it down into the firepit until he had enough to reasonably start a fire, lighting it with the pitch stick. As the fire blazed up and gave light to the crevice, reflecting off the walls and illuminating the dim corners, Einar glanced up at his supply of drying jerky, realizing with a great rush of relief that the intruder had only managed to pull down one string of the stuff, that despite the devastated appearance of his shelter, the bulk of his food supply remained intact. He even saw the pile of white deer fat chunks and slabs on its little rock ledge, apparently untouched. Thank you! Turning his attention to his injuries, Einar gingerly removed the tattered remains of his polypro shirt, setting the bottle of tannin solution on his cooking rock to warm, for the simple fact it was the only one that had not been broken, and knowing that it was somewhat antiseptic and that, being a strong astringent, ought to help slow the bleeding

some. Aside from the ragged bite wound that seemed to wrap most of the way around the upper part of his right arm, leaving his triceps a bloody mess, the bleeding seemed not to be all that serious, so he focused on the arm, washing the wounds with the slightly warmed tannin and pressing several mullein leaves to them, binding them in place with a strip of cloth from the shirt. As he went along, Einar found himself glad that he was still working on the adrenalin from the struggle. Form the look of the arm, he knew it ought to be hurting a good bit more than it did, knew that it probably would, later, and wished the willow bark solution had not all been lost when its bottle broke. Moving on to the gashes from the animals claws, which seemed concentrated on his chest and arms but had not entirely spared his legs, he carefully washed each one, covering the worst of them with mullein leaves until he ran out of leaves and knowing that he needed to come up with a better antiseptic to treat them, if he wanted any chance of staving off the nearly inevitable infection that those filthy claws were bound to bring. Already he was beginning to feel a bit of the hot, dizzy confusion in his head that told him the gashes were becoming inflamed, and with it came a seething angerat his attacker and to a lesser degree at his circumstances themselves and the pursuers who had confined him to themwhich he allowed to go unchecked because he knew it would be useful to him, would keep him going, keep him from curling up in a corner before he had tended to his wounds and got the shelter back in order and found some way to keep himself warm for the night. Storming and stumbling about in the crevice, cleaning up and gathering firewood and attempting to get the place back in some sort of order, Einars glance again fell on the slabs of deer fat, and while he didnt feel at all like eating, the sight did give him an idea. Melting some fat in the Spam can, he broke up and tossed in a couple of the Oregon grape roots that had been drying on one of the jerky lines for later use, watched as the liquefied fat began taking on a yellow tinge, and moved the can back a bit from the fire to reduce the chances of the fat getting to hot and bursting into flame. Knowing that it would take some time for the roots to release a useful amount of berberine into the fat, he limped over to the body of the wolverine, having intended to take out some of his rage by kicking it but instead lifting the animal by one of its massive rear paws and admiring the soft, thick fur that he knew would provide him a good bit of warmth, once he got the critter skinned and all of the drying blood washed out of the fur. Letting the body drop to the ground he inspected the pawover half the size of his hand, despite the fact that the wolverine did not weigh much over thirty poundsand looked at the row of strong, sharp claws, remembering stories he had heard of youths from some of the Northern tribes who had worn necklaces of grizzly claws, but had been allowed the privilege only after dispatching the bear themselves, using nothing more than a knife. Well this wolverine was quite enough for me, tonight. Bear would have killed me, almost certainly. But he pulled out his knife and removed one of the long, curved claws, anyway, wrapping and tying it in the center of a loop of parachute line before slipping the line around his neck, figuring that he had earned it. Einar found his rage to have cooled some with the acquisition of the claw, the notion of being angry at the lifeless body of his assailant suddenly striking him as a bit foolish, despite the damage the beast had inflicted. The wolverine had, after all, just been attempting to live a solitary existence as he himself was striving to do, had jumped at the chance for some easy food exactly as he might have

done, and had paid the price for stealing from him. Now I got to see if I can live through winning this one Kinda hope so. Was almost starting to look forward to winter, these past few days. Adding a few small clumps of spruce pitch to the deer tallow which had by then turned a bright shade of yellow, Einar applied the stuff, warm but not too hot, to his wounds before sticking the mullein leaves back on top and binding them in place with the tattered remains of his shirt. After that he spent a good portion of the night huddling under the stiff, mostly dried deer skinthe only protection left him with the destruction of his polypro shirtand feeding his small fire, keeping it up until he ran out of wood and letting it die at that point, rather than venturing out into the night in search of more wood. Sitting there wide awake for a good while in the darkness, Einar finally drifted into a fitful sleep, grasping the wolverine claw around his neck and waking now and then when the pain became too great to chew on a bit of dried willow bark that he had managed to salvage from amongst his wrecked possessions.

With the destruction of what had remained of his shirt, tanning the deer hide became a top priority for Einar, a fact that was reinforced for him when he woke shivering and stiff with cold the morning after the battle with the wolverine. There simply is not a time of year when it really stays warm at night at the elevation of Einars shelter, and he had spent the last hours of the night continually repositioning the rigidly dried deer hide in a fruitless attempt to shelter himself. Watching the dawn light slowly begin to strengthen and creep into the rocky crevice, he chewed on the small scrap of willow bark that he has worked on periodically throughout the night, his arm aching terribly where the animal had managed to sink its teeth into him. The numerous gashes left by the creatures claws were problematic also, as he found when he tried to move. OK. More willow bark. The arm was bleeding again; he was out of mullein leaves for fresh bandages. Must go find more. But first, food. Einar was hungry that morning despite the hurt of his injuries, ravenously hungry after having eaten nothing the evening before, and having expended tremendous amounts of energy in the fight with the intruder. He took the hunger and his apparent lack of fever as a good sign, hoped it meant that he was not yet, anyway, dealing with a serious infection in any of the wounds he had sustained. Chewing on one of the strips of jerky he had salvaged from the floor the past night and adding to it a few slivers of deer fat, he studied the deer hide in the growing light of the day, planning his next steps in tanning it. He knew he would have to soak it before he could get the hair off, knew that water, and the ready access to it, was a fairly important element in successfully tanning anything, and he supposed he would need to make a trip over to the creek, possibly even camp over near it temporarily while he completed the process. Rising to go look for more mullein leaves, Einar grabbed for his spear, found it missing and remembered damaging it in the confrontation with the wolverine. Searching about the shelter, he found the pieces. The spear was broken, useless. He had the roughed out atlatl, but no darts. But I do have deer bones, and I have broken glass. I will make something. Anyway, Ive still got the knife. And he bound it to the willow stick that had

been the top half of the spear shaft, removing the broken fragment of remaining deer bone and inserting the knife in the split before wrapping it in place with a length of parachute line. The resulting weapon was only half the length of the old spear and was a bit awkward and unwieldy, but at least it was something. Einar had existed many times with less. Outside the shelter the day was overcast and windy, a solid mass of low grey cloud promising rain, and Einar hurried to gather a good pile of mullein leaves from a few plants that grew near the edge of the meadow, checking his snares and finding one rabbit before heading back, his pace quickened by the knowledge that he was about to be soaked by a cold, wind driven rain from which he had very little protection, at the moment. Hurrying as he was, he did not quite manage to beat the rain back to the shelter, and reached it breathless and chilled several minutes after the rain came sweeping down on the area, shaking the water out of his hair and stomping around in the shelter to warm up. The storm, from what he could see, appeared to be quite extensive, and with the strong gusts of wind that accompanied it, Einar was pretty sure that there should be no high altitude helicopter training in the area that day, leaving him free to have a small fire. Need wood, though. Out of wood. As little as he looked forward to venturing back out into the storm, the thought of a fire and a fresh-cooked rabbit made the idea a good bit more tolerable, and Einar hurried from one tree to the next, collecting small dry sticks and rushing with them back to the crevice before they could become too damp in the rain. Warming his berberine, deer fat and spruce pitch salve by the fire, he again treated the wolverine bites on his upper arm, seeing in the daylight that the tears they had left were jagged and rather deep, and could certainly have benefited from stitches. He could not immediately think of a way to accomplish such an effect, however, and knew that the wounds probably needed to stay open for a few days, anyway, so he could make sure that infection was not setting in. As the fire slowly heated his shelter, Einar worked to sew up the slashes in his jeans left by the wolverines claws, first sitting over the fire and working one of the bone fragments from the ruined spearhead with the chunk of granite he had been using to sharpen his knife, until it was thin and sharp on one end, somewhat resembling a needle. As he did not want to take the time just then to do the tedious work of abrading an eye into the bone needle, he simply left a slightly wider spot near the back, wore a depression into the bone below it, and tied a thin strand that he laboriously worried out of a parachute line in the depression. The needle was a bit clumsy and wider than might have been ideal, but it worked, and he had soon secured the loose flaps of denim with a series of small stitches, and was well on the way to returning the jeans to their original function, and preventing them from falling to pieces. The denim was badly worn, though, and as he worked he could see that the jeans were not all that far from falling apart at the seams in places, and his polypro pants were not far behind them, having not been spared the wrath of the intruders claws. Finishing with the jeans, he hung them over the fire to dry, starting work on the polypro pants, his efforts slowed somewhat by his unwillingness to take them off while he sewed. By the time he had finished his repair work the jeans had dried, and Einar switched them out for the polypro pair, tying the latter loosely around his neck to provide himself some small measure of warmth and protection as he moved away from

the fire to deal with the wolverine. Skinning the creature as efficiently as he could with his limited tools, Einar fleshed the hide and hung it on one of the drying strings, turning his attention to the carcass, which he knew did, despite what his nose told him, contain meat. Food. Sustenance. And he was certainly in no position to turn it down. Supposing, though, that wolverine jerky might not be the best thing he had ever had the privilege of eating, he decided to go ahead and use the meat fresh, hanging the carcass in a dry corner of the shelter for the moment where it would be well clear of the occasional drops of rain that were finding their way down to the floor. Knowing that he ought to take advantage of the rain to soak the deer hide so he could work on de-hairing it and getting on with the tanning process, Einar hauled it out to the entrance of the shelter, setting it on a large slab of granite beneath a steady stream of water that had begun pouring from a ledge far above, propping the already concaveshaped hide with rocks so that it would retain something of its shape as it softened, and contain the water that fell on it. Standing just beneath the shelter of the rock overhang, Einar watched as the hide bowl began filling with water, knowing that he was going to miss the warmth and protection it had given him at night, however limited it had been in the hides rigid state. He knew, though, that the sooner he was able to get it tanned, the sooner he would have real clothes to wear again. At least it is summer. Didnt much feel like it, though, and he shivered, turning away from the icy mist that blew in the stormwind and heading back to the firepit, where he used the Spam can to scoop up some ashes from the pile that he had recently removed from the pit, dumping them in the soaking hide and rubbing the thick slurry into the hair, knowing the ash should help loosen up the hair and make it easier to remove. Sitting back down by the fire, wet again but having had the sense to leave the polypro pants inside where they would stay dry, he wrapped them around his upper half as well as he could, warming up by the fire and sitting nearly on top of it so that his jeans could dry as his can of rabbit stew began to simmer on the cooking rock. Supposing that he might as well use it before it had the chance to go bad, he had chopped up and tossed most of the wolverine liver into the stew, not sure what to expect as far as taste, but knowing that it ought to be good for him. The stuff smelled fine, anyway. Lost in thought and staring at the little flames as they slowly consumed the sticks that he fed to them, Einar realized that something had changed, the world grown quieter, and he looked up to see that the occasional raindrops that had been finding their way into the shelter had turned to snow. The June snow shower was not at all unprecedented in the high country, but Einar watched the falling flakes with a bit of dismay, thinking that he would have found it considerably easier to welcome them if he already had that buckskin jacket finished Well. At least I have this shelter. Fire. Im eating. That is good.

Liz had refused medical attention for her ankle at the scene of the crash, insisting that it was only sprained and fairly certain that she was correct, riding with Allan to the hospital in Clear Springs where they were soon joined by Bill and Susans son, daughter in law and two grandsons, as well as a number of their other friends from the Culver Falls area. They spent the rest of the day in the hospital waiting room awaiting word on Susan, who

was in surgery for a ruptured spleen and compound fracture to her arm, as well as a broken jaw and other facial fractures. Bill was in surgery, also, to relieve the pressure from what was being described as a massive brain hemorrhage. Many hours had gone by without word on his condition, and the little group in the waiting room continued to grow, the pastor and a number of members from Bill and Susans church showing up. Towards evening Sheriff Wattsa personal friend of Bills for many years, even if they had not always seen eye to eye on everythingpaid a visit, spending nearly an hour talking with Allan and Liz and Bills son, insisting that they call him right away if anyone gave them trouble. Watts was well aware of Lizs report to his deputy at the scene, and of the corroborating evidence provided by the truck drivers call to the Highway Patrol, in which he had reported the suspicious and reckless behavior on the part of the FBI Suburbans. Pacing from window to window as she waited for word, Liz watched the world outside darken and the streetlights come on, unable to avoid blaming herself for not being able to act quickly enough to do something to prevent Bill and Susans injuries. She knew on a practical level that if she had managed to regain full consciousness in time to take some action, she would probably be in surgery herself, at the moment, if not dead. But that knowledge did little to assuage the guilt and the growing anger that she felt, both at herself and at the people involved in the attack. Day. Day is gonna pay for this, if I have to do it, myself! She knew, though, that the best thing she could do for Susan would be to head back up the hill to the house the next morning and work on filling the herb order that they had been delivering when the agents forced them of the road. That was, she knew, what Susan would want her to doshe had worked so hard over the years to develop her businessand Liz expected that the nursery in Clear Springs would very likely forgive the lateness of the delivery, considering the circumstances.

Continuing through the morning and into the afternoon, the snow drifted several inches deep in places outside Einars shelter between the two rock faces, but it did begin melting as soon as it fell, the ground too warm for any great amount to stick despite temperatures that plummeted well below freezing as the storm moved in. Einar huddled over his tiny fire of spruce sticks, working to create a new spearhead and occasionally having to venture out into the wind and snow to get more firewood, wrapping the wolverine hide, which was over four feet long, nose to tail, and covered in thick warm fur, around his shoulders for some measure of protection against the wind driven snow. Even with the hide, he returned from each of his forays badly chilled and quite grateful for a dry shelter that gave him protection from the wind and was warmed reasonably well by the little fire. The storm, he knew, would not last, the rare June snow would soon melt and be gone more quickly than it had come, but he knew that he would have been in serious trouble indeed, had he been forced for whatever reason to be out traveling in that storm, clad as he was. Wolverine liver, Einar discovered when he ate his stew, was not all that bad, and the next time he grew hungrywhich was not very long, as it seemed that he was constantly

hungry as his body began trying to repair itself and return to something like a normal statehe tried some of the wolverine meat, roasting a haunch over the fire and knowing as he ate it that if he had been much less hungry, it might well have been one of his last choices. But I think I like it a bit better than coyote, come to think of it Could get used to this. Which he knew he would not have to do, as the wolverine that had attempted to rob him of his deer jerky was likely one of a very few living among the thousands of acres of forest and meadow on the plateau. Though still angry at the beast for the harm it had done him and reluctant to admit it, Einar felt an odd kinship with the wolverine that he had killed. Just another solitary creature, struggling to make its way in tough terrain. Finishing his new spearhead, made from a section of leg bone from the deer quarter he had brought out of the wildfire, Einar worked on the paw of the wolverine that he had taken the claw from after the fight. Removing the rest of the claws from that foot, he tied them, hooked and sharp, to the parachute line around his neck until the entire foot was represented. Perhaps not the most useful of endeavors, but the work did seem to lessen the throbbing pain in his arm where the animal had mangled it, or at least to divert his attention just a bit from focusing on it. Liking the result, he slipped the string back over his head. Towards the end of the day Einar found that much of the jerky on the lower strings was dry after sitting in the rising warmth of the fire, and he carefully moved one of them lower to have a final drying over the coals, leaving the meat on the parachute line and knowing that if the line started melting, that would be a good indicator that he was getting the jerky too close to the fire. One by one he set the brittle-dry strips aside on a rock to cool, using his rounded granite knife sharpening stone to begin gently pounding them into the powder that he would use to make his pemmican. Einar had been very anxious to get some of it made, the knowledge that he might have to move on at some point with little or no warning weighing heavily on him and never very far from the surface of his thoughts. Or dreams. It was going to be a great comfort to finally have some of the stuff put away. Retrieving the dried, berberine-yellowed deer intestines from their spot on a hanging line, he carefully cut out several short sections, twisting and tying one end of each with a short strand of sinew from the deer leg before working his fingers inside and opening them up. Next he used the Spam can to melt down some of the deer fat, snatching bits of it here and there to eat as he worked and removing and eating the cracklings that were left unmelted as the fat liquefied. Allowing the fat to cool some, just enough so that he could touch it without the heat being uncomfortable but not so much that it had begun solidifying again, he stirred in the powdered meat, mixing and adding until the can contained nearly twice as meat as fat, by volume. Scooping the cooling mixture into the deer gut cases, he squeezed the air out as well as he could, twisted and tied them shut, setting the finished pemmican portions on a rock to finish cooling and solidifying. It was a slow process, with the Spam can as his only rendering and mixing vessel, but Einar kept at it until he had filled eight sections with the greyish mixture, sampling it as he went and sitting back, satisfied, to look over the fruits of his labors when he was finished. The pemmican, he knew, should last almost indefinitely, (assuming I dont eat it all up, before whenever indefinitely is) the deer

tallow preserving the meat and preventing moisture and air from contacting it. He had heard stories of pemmican caches being discovered fifty or sixty years after being put by, and the stuff still being perfectly edible. Not that mine will be around that long. But its good to know that I dont have to worry about it spoiling. I can put it aside, hopefully, and live on other meat that I take so that there is something to fall back on if I end up on the move again, or injured in some way that keeps me from checking the snares and hunting. And it will be good to have for this winter, if nothing else. Toss one of those packets into some hot water, maybe add some dried serviceberries, and Ill have a good stew. Thinking of the serviceberries made him wonder how the crop might be affected by the sudden shift in weather. He hoped the berries were far enough along that they would not be damaged by the brief dip below freezing, and knew that, even if they were, he ought to be able to head down lower and find plenty that were undamaged. The snow, he knew, would almost certainly be confined to the top of the plateau and the surrounding peaks, and should have fallen as rain in the valleys. With the hastened deterioration of his clothing situation that had been brought on by the fight with the wolverine, though, he knew that his planned berry scouting expedition would need to wait until he had been able to turn that deer hide into something wearable. Which reminded him. Time to check on that hide, see if the hair is ready to come off. Knowing that the hair was not likely to be loose enough to remove yet at that point, he took another can of ashes along, to renew the solution that he had rubbed into it earlier. He also hoped that the strong ash solution might help keep animals from messing with the hide, but intended to bring it back into the shelter overnight, just to be safe. Brushing the wet snow off the hide, he discovered that, as he had expected, the hair was not yet easy to get out. With some effort he was able to pull and twist a clump of it loose, though, and anxious for obvious reasons to finish up the tanning process, he decided to go ahead and work on slipping the hair. Glancing around, he settled on a fallen aspen that lay at an angle, partially beneath a big spruce, to drape the hide over as he scraped. But first, back to the shelter and get that wolverine hide! Kinda chilly out here. Wrapping the wolverine hide around his shouldersfur side inand leaving the polypro pants inside where they would stay dry, he stoked the fire and shoved the flat cooking rock most of the way over the pit, hoping to keep some coals alive for when he returned to the shelter. Knowing that it was not the ideal tool but hoping that he might be able to make it work, he grabbed the dried, split spruce stick that he had used for fleshing the deer hide, sharpening one edge of it with his knife before scraping the branch lightly with the knife-sharpening stone, wanting to eliminate any protrusions that might snag and tear the hide as he scraped off the hair. Scraping a hide is hard work under any circumstances, and it was made more difficult for Einar that afternoon by the fact that his right arm was not really working properly after the brush with the wolverines teeth. He would have liked to give the arm a few days in a sling until it had started healing, but the motivation to obtain materials for clothing was, at the moment, a more powerful one. The repeated motions necessary in scraping off the hair and top layer of skin on the deer hide kept causing the mullein-leaf bandages to loosen and the wounds to bleed again, and it seemed that he was endlessly pausing in his work to retie the strips of tattered polypropylene that held them in place. The work kept him reasonably warm, though, the tree sheltered him from the bulk of the wet, blowing

snow, and things were not going too badly, at least not until the wind, which had slacked off considerably, picked up again. It did not take long for the wind in its renewed fury to numb Einars hands and slow his pace, and though he kept at his work with a grim tenacity that had become an all too familiar part of his existence, he was finally forced to admit that the remainder of the scraping would have to wait. He was growing clumsy, careless despite his best efforts, and in the dimming light knew that he was running an increasing risk of tearing or otherwise seriously damaging the hide. Rolling up the hide and stumbling into the shelter, Einar crept to the back and sat in the dimness on his cattail mattress beside the firepit for a minute, exhausted, catching his breath, before adding a few sticks to the fire and blowing the coals to life, slowly thawing over the flames and setting some snow to melt for a batch of wolverine stew. The next day, he knew, he could quickly finish the dehairing, and begin the process of braining the hide.

Daylight found Einar back out under the tree working on the deerskin, having dried the wolverine fur as well as he could near the fire that previous night before putting it out, wrapping and tying the nearly dry fur around his shoulders for protection. The night had brought a freeze as the storm moved out, turning the wet snow that had remained on the ground into an icy crust on which he left no tracks. The prospect of leaving tracks did not concern him too much, anyway, as he knew that the snow would be gone nearly as soon as the sun hit it, which would not be long; the morning sky was crystal clear. Working on lashing together a hasty frame for stretching the deer hide, Einar moved quickly in an attempt to keep warm. As quickly as he could, anyway, with his right arm bound to his side just above the elbow with a strip of cloth from the wrecked shirt, a measure he had resorted to after seeing what the previous days activities had done to the area that the wolverine had mangled. The clots of blood that had formed in the wound had kept breaking loose and the bleeding starting up again, and he could see that, with the animals teeth having torn well down into the muscle, there was little chance of anything beginning to knit together and heal, as long as he was using the arm. Need some of that hounds tongue to make an allantoin wash for it, speed up the healing. Have to go look for some. Einar could not really see himself finishing the tanning process with one arm, and his bad one, at that, and really had to have something, even if it was just a vest, to replace the ruined shirt. So he ended up treating the area with some more of his berberine and spruce pitch salve and bandaging it as well as he could, wrapping the arm to his body with a strip of cloth just above the elbow, immobilizing the top half but still leaving his lower arm and hand somewhat useful to him. The setup slowed his work some, but he made up for it by redoubling his efforts in a struggle to stave off the cold of the morning, collecting four small dead trees, removing protruding branches and lashing them together to form a rough square. He managed to adapt pretty quickly to the limited usefulness of his arm, and finished the frame without slowing down long enough to get seriously cold, but found himself strongly hoping that the sling would not be necessary for very long.

As he worked, watching the world slowly thaw and the snow melt out of the trees as the sun came up he worried about the berries over near the lake, concerned that they might be a loss after the freeze, however brief it had been, and decided to make a trip over to check on them later that day, after the snow melted and he had got the hide brained and set to dry. Finished with the stretching frame, he propped it against the tree and made a hasty return to the shelter with the dehaired hide, unwilling to risk a fire on a clear day but supposing that he might as well at least be in out of the wind while he prepared the hide for stretching, using one of the sharply fractured fragments from his broken spearhead as an awl to create holes every few inches around the edge of the hide so that he could pass parachute line through them and stretch the hide in the frame he had created. Returning to the frame with some parachute line and the prepared hide, he worked to lace the line through the holes, wrapping it over the frame and stretching the hide tightly between the four logs as he went. The task was difficult with his injuries, and he ended up having to start over twice before getting it done to his satisfaction, sitting down on the ground to rest before throwing a rope up over a high branch of the spruce and raising the frame and hide well off the ground, knowing that he could do no more until night came and he could have a fire to cook down the brain solution. Returning to the shelter, he slumped down on his cattail bed and sat for a minute with his head on his knees, worn out again and realizing that in his haste to secure some new clothing, he had entirely forgotten about breakfast. Cutting a few slivers from the wolverine haunch he had roasted the night before, he ate them with some deer fat, seeing that his supply of fat was rapidly dwindling with the making of his first few batches of pemmican, and knowing that he would have to use a bit more of it in tanning the hide, to supplement the brain. Time to set out another deer snare, I guess. He knew that a steady diet of venison jerky would do him little good without a source of fat to supplement it, and he found himself very tired at the thought of processing another deer just then, for the first time in many months almost wishing that the whole thing could be over so he could just walk into a grocery store and buy a big pail of peanut butter like everybody else, regardless of the consequences. And one of lard, and a bunch of butter, and dont forget cheese It was a foolish line of thought and a brief one, Einar quickly dismissing it by laughing and telling himself that if he was not careful enough in his use of fire, he might very well be getting an airdrop on or near his location, but I highly doubt that itll have anything at all to do with food. There had been nothing in the article he had discovered in the newspaper salvaged from the camp after the forest fire that indicated whether or not the UAV the feds were using was armed, but he knew it would be foolish to assume anything other than that it was. Or could be, if they decided to take such a step. And Einar still found himself pretty jumpy about the fact that his shelter was so near an area that was clearly used, if not on an especially regular or predictable basis, for helicopter training. He worried at times that he was perhaps already becoming too complacent, too dependent on the protection of the shelter and beginning to lose a bit of the edge of alertness that had so far kept him free, if not always (always?) comfortable. Well, I cant exactly leave right now, though. Can work towards it, but Ive got to get this meat put away, get the hides taken care of so I have something to wear, so like it or not, I am kind of dependent on the shelter at the moment. Better just make the best of it.

Securing the wolverine hide around his shoulders for his planned scouting trip over to the serviceberries near the lake, Einar realized that he could, with a few hours hard word, rub, stretch and soften the hide to a nearly tanned state where it would be more flexible, and use it as a garment of sorts as he worked on the deer hide. It would be better than nothing, and was certainly quite warm, if not exactly large enough. Blocking up the entrance to the crevice with rocks in the hope of preventing another wolverine-type incident, Einar took his knife-spear as well as the bone spearhead he had nearly completed the day before, hoping to find a new willow shaft for it on his wanderings. He felt a bit vulnerable with only the clumsy, half-length pocket knife spear in his hand, wanted something longer, though he knew that his injuries left him with a somewhat limited ability to use it, at the moment. Upon reaching the serviceberry covered hillside over near the lake, Einars fears were confirmed. Not only did the half-grown berries appear to have been nipped by the freeze, the late-season snow, wet and heavy and nearly slush when it fell, had broken a good many of the branches from the bushes, meaning that the berries would have no chance of finishing their growth and ripening, even if they had managed to survive the brief dip below freezing. Staring at the ruined berry patch in dismay, Einar collected a few small, berry laden branches to carry back with him, curious to see if the tiny green fruits might be edible when dried, even thought they were a long way from being ripe. He doubted it, doubted that they would be especially digestible, anyway, and knew that the sugar content would be very low at that stage. Well. Better make that scouting trip down to a lower gulley somewhere, just as soon as I have that deer hide brained and drying. Tomorrow, hopefully. Cannot risk letting the season pass by down there without me taking advantage of it. He knew that in times past, dried serviceberries, known as Saskatoons in more northern latitudes, had, with their abundant sugar and carbohydrate content, been a staple winter food for many tribes, along with meat of various types, and had hoped they might serve a similar function for him. Not wanting to wait on the berry scouting trip until he had finished the hide and made some sort of garment out of it several more days, at besthe decided that the wolverine hide would just have to do. Itll be alright. Weather has moved out, and it is, after all, summer up here.

The snowstorm that had added to Einars difficulties as he had prepared the deer hide for tanning had also kept the Reaper UAV, out on a scouting flight, from landing on schedule. The operators had kept it in the air, surveying a large area for any interesting heat signatures as they waited for the weather to break and, aided by the contrast provided by the sudden cold snap, finding two that the controllers and analysts on the ground at Mountain Task Force headquarters thought worth pursuing

As the serviceberry patch was not all that far from the lake, Einar decided to go ahead and complete the trip to the swampy area beneath it, pulling a number of cattail roots

from the saturated ground and choosing a stout willow stick to couple with the new spearhead he had made. Starting back, picking his way between willow clumps in an attempt to avoid becoming too soaked by the remains of the snow that clung to their branches and shoots, Einar had very little warning when the Blackhawks rose up out of the distant canyon and approached the meadow just beyond the lake, hovering in preparation for landing. Dropping to the ground in the willows upon first hearing the approaching rumble, Einar scrambled up the hill towards the nearest evergreens, crawling with great difficulty until he tore loose the strip of cloth binding his right arm at his side and was able to move a bit more quickly. Huddling against the trunk of a fir as the choppers landed and barely daring to breathe, he was hardly reassured by the knowledge that the Blackhawks were almost certainly there on a training flight similar to those he had previously witnessed. Too close. Im sure they were just waiting for a break in the weather to start up their training again, pretty sure the timing can have nothing to do with me coming over here, but Im afraid Im having an awful hard time believing in coincidence just now. Lacking sufficient cover to make his way out of the area while the Blackhawks were on the ground, Einar pressed himself into the fir needles beneath the tree, finding them to be a bit sparse due to the steepness of the slope and digging in as well as he could behind the tree. Covering himself with the wolverine pelt he waited, wishing he could get a better look at the spot on the edge of the meadow where the choppers had landed, but prevented by the intervening wall of willow scrub near the lake from seeing anything below their propellers. Waiting, working on his new spear shaft to keep his hands busy, he tried to push from his mind the wildly speculative visions of dozens of armed men being disgorged from the helicopters to start on his trail, keeping himself still with repeated reminders that such had not been the case in the past when they had made their landings, and should not be at present, either. He certainly hoped not, as he could see his chances for lasting the winter (winter, huh? How about the next storm?) dwindling away in front of his eyes, if he was forced to move on just then before securing a good supply of food and coming up with something to wear. The Blackhawks, though, left shortly after landing, just as they had in the past, and Einar got himself up out of the depression in the cold dirt behind the fir, stomped around for a minute to warm up, and started back to his shelter, as confident as he was able to be that the helicopters had simply been on yet another routine training mission. He was not sure if it was a potentially worrisome sign of complacency, or just a bit of desperation to get ahold of something to wear after the chilly foray to the lake from which he had still not managed to warm up entirely by the time the sun set, but Einar decided to go ahead and have a fire that night, wanting to heat the brain mixture and get the tanning started. There had been no more helicopters after that first group, and he worked to gather a big pile of dry branches that evening, going from tree to tree and hauling several loads of them back to the shelter. Preparing the brain solution in several batches due to the limited size of his largest cooking pot, Einar made repeated trips to the stretched hide in its frame out under the spruce, working into the night by the pale glow of a quarter moon, unwilling to break light discipline by taking a lit pitch stick outside.

Finishing with the initial braining of the hide and raising it back up into the tree for the night, he returned to the shelter, eating a few chunks of wolverine with the fluffy starch he scraped from the insides of two roasted cattail roots, and augmented with a generous helping of melted deer fat. The meal represented, he could see, one of the last times that he would be able to so freely add the deer fat to his food. Several chunks of it he had needed to add to the brain for the tanning paste, and he intended to turn most of the rest of it into pemmican that night, as the bulk of the jerky had finally dried to the point of brittleness. Einar kept his fire going much of the night, pausing to doze now and then when his eyes became too heavy and he began dropping his work into the fire, but otherwise working steadily on the pemmican, mixing and sealing nearly two dozen packets of it before finally running out of deer fat. He was exhausted, needed sleep if he was to be as alert as he knew he needed to be when going berry scouting to distant gullies the next day. Taking a few minutes to clean and re-bandage his arm and the other wolverine slashes, he curled up on the mat by the fire with his spear beside him and the wolverine hide providing him some protection from the growing chill as the fire gradually died out, hoping for an hour or two of sleep before the daylight woke him.

Waking after surgery in the hospital in Clear Springs, Susan asked about Liz, tried to sit up and would not calm down until one of the nurses went to look for her. Liz followed the nurse into the room, went to Susan, who was covered in bruises, her lips and parts of her face grotesquely swollen, eyes barely slits, speaking with difficulty through her wired jaw Bill. Alive? Is alive? Liz honestly did not know the answer to that, doubted it somewhat, with what they had been told, but as he had been alive, the last she had heard, she thought it best to allow Susan to hope, for the time. Theyre working on him, right now. We dont know much yet. But, yes. Susan did her best to smile. Good. Tried to kill him. I saw. Kept hitting his head steering wheel. I grabbed the knife, but She shook her head, closed her eyes. Liz sat down in the chair next to her bed. SusanIm so sorry. I wanted to help, after the crash Why sorry? Susan grabbed her hand with a strength that surprised Liz, considering the way she looked. Thought youdead. Back seat all messed up. What matters, youre OK. I couldnt wake up, couldnt breathe, was stuck back there. I heard you, heardthem Susan, did they? NoLiz. Nothing like that. Said he would, but Justkicked me, is all. Be OK. His name is Day. Bill said Day. You tell the Sheriff. For Bill.

I have told him. Sheriff Watts was here earlier, and I told him. Susan nodded, drifted off to sleep again, very weary and having done what she could, for the moment. Liz stayed there beside Susans bed for the next hour or so while she slept, and the next time she woke she seemed suddenly to have remembered where the three of them had been headed when the crash happened. After asking if anything more was known about Bills conditionwhich it was notshe started asking Liz about the herb plants, whether or not they had all been destroyed in the crash. Im afraid they were a loss. Some of them were probably alright after the crash, but those agents turned everything upside down, stomped all over it. Im sorry. There should be enough left. At the house. To fill the order. Could you do it? Maybe get a ride up thereuse the other truck to make the delivery? Liz assured her that yes, of course she would fill the order, would take care of the plants in the greenhouses, and would do anything else that Susan needed her to, until she was back up on her feet. Wont be long. Be up soon. Have to show you where to pick berries. They should be almost ripe by now, up high. Cant miss the season. We have jam orders to fill, too. Tell you what. Tomorrow after I deliver that herb order, Ill come back by here with some maps from the house, and you can show me where to go for berries. Ive already made jam with you a few times, so that should not be a problem. Susan thanked her. Liz could see that the next few weeks would be rather busy ones for her, and she was glad. Sometime in the dark hours early the next morning Bill died, despite the best efforts of the surgeons, during the second emergency operation to relieve the pressure on his brain. Bill and Susans son came into the room to give Susan the news; he didnt even have to say anything, she could tell from the look on his face. Liz, standing at a distance, saw the silent tears begin to squeeze out from between Susans swollen, purple eyelids, took her hand and cried with her for awhile. As Susans family and friends gathered around her to offer their support and condolences, Susan lay there with her eyes closed, seeing clear as day the sunny morning when she and Bill had been married on a carpet of gold beneath the fall-brilliant, rustling aspens up on his mining claim, the place where over the next years they had worked together to build their house, raise five children, and later welcome grandchildren. That September would have marked Bill and Susans forty-first wedding anniversary.

Having reviewed the thermal images captured during the summer snowstorm in the high country outside of Culver falls and eliminated any hotspots that were near established campgrounds and places where local consultants said backbackers were likely to be, the

Mountain Task Force was left with two sites that they believed warranted further investigation. Teaming up with the Air National Guard, who had high altitude landing and takeoff training scheduled over the following days, they arranged to have both sites flown over by FLIR-equipped helicopters over the next few nights, wanting to see if the heat signatures reappeared at either. The first nights flights yielded nothing of interest, the Blackhawks having hovered for several minutes over each site, and the agents back at search headquarters hoped that results might be more promising on the second. If such turned out to be the case, the Reaper was armed and ready, the rules of engagement clearly spelled out in a conversation between Director Lotts and Agent Day, who after his promotion was heading the Mountain Task Force.

The helicopter woke Einar before dawn, not all that long after he had finally fallen asleep, its rumbling reaching him faint and distorted at first by the mass of rock that surrounded him, funneled down the wide chimney to echo weirdly off the walls. Startled, alarmed because there had been no night training exercises before, he scrambled up, felt for the firepit, found it mostly cool, but the nearly dead coals still radiating a bit of heat. Fumbling around for his cooking rock, he shoved it over the pit, tossing the wolverine hide over the rock to further cover the heat source. As the chopper hovered, seemingly directly over his shelter, Einar crouched against the cold rock of the wall, praying that the soaring faces of granite around him and above him had not been heated so much by his earlier fire that he would be given away. If they were even looking. They certainly seemed to be looking, unless they had randomly chosen the crag above his shelter as a landing spot in some sort of predawn training exercise, which did not seem especially likely. Moving carefully so as not to expose himself to the ribbon of open sky, Einar collected the packets of freshly made pemmican that he had finished earlier in the night, stashed them, along with his cooking pot, a few deer bones and everything else he was able to locate in the dark, in his willow pack basket. As the burns on his back had begun healing more completely over the past few days, he had replaced the tump line on the pack with a set of crude shoulder straps, made from parachute material and providing him with a fairly stable way to carry the pack, that seemed not to damage the previously burnt areas too much, as long as he did not carry too much weight in the pack. Supposing that he might very well not be returning to the shelter, he pulled down several strings of remaining jerky that were within reach without him chimneying up between the walls, stuffing jerky, strings and all into the pack and sticking a piece of the tough, brittle stuff into his mouth to soften so that he would have a bit of ready energy if the present situation came to involve any running. All packed up, Einars greatest concern was how he was to get out of the shelter in the first place, with that vulture hovering over it the way that it was. Down between the walls, he knew that his heat signature would be largely concealed, which would not be the case if he ran out into the open. Best seemed to be to wait on the departure of the chopper before making his move, but for all he knew, it might be dropping off a team to

come investigate the crevice, quickly trapping him if he did not get out before they reached it. For a few moments he waited, trying to judge his best course of action and knowing that if it was to leave, seconds of hesitation could lead to all being lost. The thought that the hovering chopper could have dropped searchers growing in his mind as he waited, Einar was about to leave the crevice and make his way along the rock wall of the crag that contained it, when the vulture moved on and spared him the decision. Standing in the entrance to the crevice and watching the Blackhawks blinking light fade off into the distance, he returned to the firepit for the wolverine hide, tied it around his shoulders and stepped out into the early morning dimness, standing still and silent beneath a rock ledge and listening for anything that might betray the presence of others, but hearing nothing, feeling nothing, smelling only the sharp, damp morning scents of spruce and granite and the distant tang of willow as a rising breeze carried it over from the lake. Einar was certain within the space of a minute that he was still alone. So. Decisions. Stay or go? The decision was not difficult. He went, regretting having to leave the hide and the remaining jerky but not wanting to take the time that would be required to retrieve either, lest the chopper return, and hoping very much that he might be able to go back in a few hours for his remaining supplies. Sticking close to the rock face in the dark timber, Einar made his way up to the place where the rocky escarpment curved, heading towards the rise that held the high basin overlooking the lake. Climbing for some distance up that steep, heavily treed slope, he stopped near an outcropping of granite that showed black and looming in the predawn light. As he settled in against the rock, wrapping himself as well as he could in the wolverine hide and preparing to observe the area of his shelter for awhile, Einar once again told himself that he really needed to be moving on, looking for another place to shelter that was farther from what was clearly a routine training area. He was doing better since food had become less of a problem, was stronger and able to work for longer stretches without collapsing in exhaustion, and though he could not say that he had visibly put on much weight at all, he certainly was feeling the positive effects of the ready access to fat and protein. That change, combined with the fact that he was finally able to carry a backpack somewhat normally again, meant that moving his food and gear to a new location would not represent quite the brutally difficult challenge that it would have only a week prior. Improved though his condition was, he certainly had hoped not to have to move so suddenly. Maybe they wont come back. Some coincidence, though, hovering over the shelter like that Morning came, the sun brushed the rugged crag above his crevice-shelter, slowly crept down to brighten the undulating green of the meadow; he knew it would be several hours more before it reached the spot where he crouched shivering against the mass of granite on the steep North slope, softening a piece of jerky in his mouth. Einar rose, stretched, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stomped around for a minute, rubbing his hands and readjusting the mullein leaf bandage on his arm. In the two or three hours since he had abandoned the shelter, there had been no additional helicopters, no sign of activity on the ground, and Einar was becoming anxious to get on with his day. Not wanting to return to his camp until after the time that the helicopters usually did their high altitude trainingwhich seemed to fairly consistently happen in the afternoon, he supposed so that they could learn to operate under the generally windier conditions later in the dayEinar decided to go ahead and make his trip down to lower ground to check

on the state of the serviceberry crop. He was feeling the constant press of time, of the passing of days, the progression of summer, and knew he could ill afford to miss a days work just to sit under a rock and watch his camp. Starting out by carefully traversing the slope below the basin, rounding its shoulder and passing the lake, Einar dropped down into a fairly level section of timber that paralleled a big meadow, heading in a direction that he knew would eventually take him to the edge of the plateau where he could perhaps find a draw to descend, in his search for berries. The rim, as it turned out, was a good bit further from Einars camp than he had estimated, using the rough map he had pulled from the partially burnt newspaper he had salvaged, and by the time he finally reached it, the sun stood nearly overhead. Weary, estimating that he had traveled well over ten miles, Einar sat on a fallen aspen on the edge of a rugged, eroded dropoff that marked the plateau rim, ruefully allowing that I guess when that paper said the map was not to scale, they really meant it! He was tired, his legs cramping and shaking as he sat there, and was beginning to realize that he had probably overestimated the extent of his recovery. The route to the rim had taken him on a long, gradual descent, and he seriously doubted his ability to make it back up to the camp before dark, even if he turned around right then. Well. I can always curl up under a tree, if it comes to that. Weather looks fine, and the meat I left in the shelter is all too high for critters to get at it. Gulping some water from the one unbroken bottle he had left and wrapping the wolverine hide more tightly around his shoulders as he cooled from the exertion of the hike, Einar studied the jumbled landscape of the rim, looking for a way down into the aspen-filled draw that stretched into the distance below him. The drop down from the rim was not vertical in that area, the rock broken and eroded and small pockets of stunted firs and even aspens growing in places among the lichen-covered talus. Warm air rose up out of the draw; it appeared from the occasional cottonwoods that he could make out among the aspens and evergreens of the draw that a creek of some description flowed through it, and the narrowness was broken intermittently by wider spots which he could see contained a series of small meadows. Nearly perfect terrain for serviceberries, not to mention a fine-looking place for snaring rabbits, maybe even beavers. Looked warmer down there, too. He saw a way down, saw that it would involve some travel across an open talus slope, but not much. Listening hard for any sign of danger before hauling himself to his feet and leaving the cover of the trees, he hurried across the open expanse of rock, dropping down into the aspens below it and eventually finding himself down in the draw, staying some distance up the slope as he paralleled the creek in its bottom to keep from having to climb over the numerous fallen aspens that crisscrossed it. Einar smelled the berries even before he saw them, the warm, rising air carrying him the scent, and after following it for some distance, he located the source of the aroma in a densely growing thicket of serviceberry scrub just up from the creek, on the edge of a long narrow meadow. Concealing his pack beside a rock where he was sure of being able to find it again, he pulled down one of the berry-laden branches so that it was within reach, sat down on a rock and made like a bear preparing for hibernation, the sugar in the rich purple fruits instantly boosting his waning energy. Einar was going to be there for a while; he no longer cared that it was probably too late for him to make it back to his

shelter that night.

When Liz let Allan know that she intended to go ahead and fill Susans herb order in Clear Springs and attempt to keep her business going for her as she recovered, he insisted on meeting her up at the house the next morning and giving her a ride, not certain whether or not the agents knew that a witness existed to their misdeeds, and not wanting her to be out on the road alone. The next morning after Liz and Allan loaded up the plants in his truck to make the delivery, they were escorted to Clear Springs by a convoy of three other vehicles, members of the little group that had regularly met up at Bill and Susans, and who were determined not to allow anything to happen to Susan or Liz. No one gave them any trouble on the trip, and, with the entire convoy armed and in radio communication with each other, it would likely have gone very differently that time for the troublemakers, had they decided to show up. Dropping Liz off at the house after the plant delivery, Allan asked Liz what else he could do to help out around the place, and she showed him a map that Susan had marked with some of her favorite berry picking locations, telling him that she intended to go and explore a few of them before focusing on one or two to from which to begin picking the bushels of berries that would be necessary to fill the jam and syrup orders Susan had from a number of stores in the area, as well as through her mail order business. Allan expressed a good bit of concern about her wandering around in the woods anywhere near the search area, and together they settled on what seemed to be the safest of the marked locations, along a hiking trail up near the base of the plateau where the forest fire had been, several weeks ago. The area was, as far as either of them knew, well outside the current parameters of the active search, and ought to be fairly safe. Allan still did not want Liz to go alone, and let her know that he was willing to go along, whenever she decided to make a trip up there. Liz appreciated Allans offer, saw the sense in it in light of what had just happened to Bill and Susan, but she was badly in need of some time alone, and snuck off shortly after he left the house, taking her sleeping bag and intending to spend the night up there, as it was already late morning. Reaching the area that Susan had marked as a promising one for berries, Liz kept going, planning to do most of her picking on the way down and finding herself not wanting to stop, finding great solace in the solitude of the place and in the high walls of sheer rock that rose above her at times, the evergreens along their tops appearing tiny, distant, perfectly uniform in places against the deep blue of the sky. Thinking of Einar as she walked and stopping occasionally to work at filling her basket with berries, Liz covered a good many miles by the time the sun began to dip low on the horizon, following the trail which climbed through a winding, high-walled canyon whose bottom varied between steep talus slope and wide, gentle grassy meadows, whose edges were lined in places with serviceberry thickets. Occasionally narrow, steep draws branched off from the main canyons, climbing quickly up to the plateau high above, small creeks tumbling out of

many of them to join the main creek that paralleled the trail, and Liz thought several times of taking off up one of those side routes, but ended up sticking to the main trail, somehow finding herself drawn up the canyon, wondering what might lie at its far end. Liz did not know it as she wandered through the high country that afternoon, but Agent Day had obtained a copy of the accident report written up by the State Trooper at the scene of Bill and Susans accident, knew there had been a witness, and, acting in his typical fashion, had put out vague and unwritten orders to his subordinates that something was to be done about the problem, the next time she was seen driving on a suitably isolated section of highway. The following morning, having sheltered under a tree after filling up on serviceberries and slinging his pack from a high branch to keep it well out of the reach of bears, Einar woke as it began getting light, staring up through the branches of his shelter tree and thinking of the work that lay before him that day. Good work. He was incredibly blessed to have access to all of those berries, and knew it. He had not been able to find a tree with the huge buildup of duff beneath it that had so often kept him warm at night and was pretty chilly when he woke, but certainly warmer than he would have been up on the plateau, after a similarly spent night. The mangled area on his upper arm seemed more painful that morning, and upon changing the bandages, he found it to be red and inflamed and not looking good at all, and knew that he had neglected it over the past day as he had traveled; the berberine salve had not been one of the things he had been able to find in the darkness and in his haste as he had prepared to leave his shelter in the crevice, and he knew that he would soon have to deal with the wound, or risk serious infection. Better be on the lookout for some more Oregon grapes. He had thoroughly chewed the last root in his pack, the previous day. Wanting to see if there might be a beaver pond somewhere lower down on the creek he began following it, stopping here and there along the way to add to the growing stock of berries in the pack as he raided the serviceberry bushes, which in places lined the creek in a thick tangle, interspersed in places with chokecherry thickets, white and heavy with bloom. It was looking like a good year for berries, and Einar, unwilling to leave such bounty to the bears without having taken full advantage of it, began to think that he needed to set up a temporary camp somewhere near the draw, spending perhaps a week picking and drying berries and hopefully living off rabbits he snared, rather than his stored pemmican, before heading back up to the plateau. He knew that many tribes had commonly set up berry camps, working for days to pick and dry the berrieseither whole or mashed up and formed into cakeswhich were an important trade item as well as providing a winter source of sugar. The dried berries had been used in many ways, added to stews or cooked and eaten with deer fat, avalanche lily bulbs and usnea lichen as a complete meal. Guess I could make some cattail mats to dry the berries on, a few loosely woven willow baskets to dump them into overnight as theyre drying, so I can sleep without worrying that a bear is going to come along and finish them off, and within a few days I could probably end up with as many dried berries as I could carry back. Looks like I need to come up with some cattails and willows, then! Discovering a game trail down near the creek he followed it, finding that the lower he got, the more ripe

berries were to be found among the still-red, under ripe ones, and knowing that a lower camp would mean warmer nights, anyway. A distinct advantage, since he had no intention of risking a fire after the incident with the Blackhawk the previous night, and with the knowledge that the further down the draw he went, the closer he drew to a series of hiking trails where any mistake on his part could end up revealing his presence to a hiker or backpacker. Rounding a bend in the narrow draw and stepping out from behind a clump of scraggly box elder trees, wish Id been down here earlier in the spring! Would have been great to tap these trees, boil down the sap, end up with a couple of pints of syrup for this winter. Well. Next spring he found himself looking down at a the largest meadow yet as the walls grew further apart, a beaver pond at one end of it and the greatly diminished creek winding and snaking its way through a meadow of seemingly impossible greenness beyond it. A great tangle of willows encircled the upper end of the pond, and below it, a large growth of cattails graced the marshy area where water trickled through the stick and mud dam. Looking over the sudden bounty before him, Einar, despite the continuing pain in his inflamed upper arm and a bit of nausea that told him that the infection was beginning to require urgent attention, could not help but thinking that the day really was going his way. Listening carefully for approaching aircraft before venturing out onto the open, Einar hurried over to the cattails, pulling up one of the blossom shoots and peeling the bottom part of its outer leaves, using the clear jell that clung to the lower foot or so of the stalk to treat the inflamed bite wound on his arm, supposing that if he could come up with some Oregon grape roots later that day, he could chop some of them and combine the pieces with the already antiseptic cattail jell, giving him a ready made salve. The pollen was out on the cattails; his hands and arms were yellow with it after pulling up the shoot for its jell, and he tasted some of it, knowing that it was full of protein. Not bad at all. Removing what was left of the drogue chute from his pack basket, he spent the next half hour in the cattail patch, shaking the pollen spikes and collecting what he estimated to be well over five pounds of the stuff, wishing he could have a fire so he could attempt cattail pollen and deer fat ash cakes. It had been a very long time since he had tasted bread of any sort, and it sounded good to him. No matter. Ill have a fire again, and then some of this can be cooked up into a cereal, made into ashcakes, who knows what all? And theres more of it here just waiting to be collected, but first I better work on finding a place for this berry camp Studying the surrounding landscape, he saw what looked like a small hanging basina levelish spot, anywaysome two hundred feet up the steep aspen and spruce covered slope, and he began climbing, finding the spot to be much as he had pictured it. Surrounded by timber, there was less than half an acre of open, grassy meadow, a jumble of rock under the trees above and behind it, and it did not take Einar long to discover a sheltered spot among the boulders and slabs of granite where he could spend the nights secure from detection, drying the berries in the sun of the meadow during the days, and picking in the evenings after the sun left the meadow. All right. Back down there and start getting ahold of those berries, make a couple of cattail mats for drying them! Working to fill his basket with serviceberries, Einar gradually made his way along the

game trail down the draw, traveling several miles and eventually finding that the draw emptied out into a wider one, a canyon, almost, through which ran a trail that reminded him more of a hiking path than a game trail. Cautiously approaching it, he discovered human boot tracks, confirming his suspicions. Unfortunately for Einar, a patch of the largest, most plentiful berries he had yet seen grew up near the junction of the two trails, in the moist spot where the small creek of the draw dumped out into the larger canyon creek. Not wanting to risk exposing his presence to hikers but at the same time finding it difficult to pass up on those berries, he concealed himself deep in the thicket, and began picking. Einars basket did not fill as quickly as he would have liked, as he still could not lift his left arm far above his head due to the shoulder injury, and the inflamed wound where the wolverine had grabbed and torn his right upper arm was not making it all that easy to use, either, but he eventually developed a system, grabbing a branch down low and gradually working his hand up higher, bending it down as he went until he could reach the majority of the berries, holding the branch with one hand and picking with the other. The hours went by as Einar filled his basketand his stomachwith the ripe purple berries, and as he worked an occasional hiker passed on the trail, but with the valley open and grassy and sloping gently downwards in that area, he always had ample warning of their approach and was able to crouch down in the thicket and remain unnoticed. Even if his view had not been so good he would have had plenty of warning, as most of the hikers, the ones who were not alone, at least, gave themselves away long before he could even see them by chattering on like magpies as they approached. The propensity of humans to talk constantly when in the company of others was something Einar had never really understood, even before his time alone in the woods, but after his months of solitude the habit struck him as somewhat revolting and patently unsafe. The hikers, engrossed in their own little worlds as they passed, seemed to have little awareness of what was going on around them, and he could not help but think how fortunate they were that there were no large predators in the area. He grinned. Yeah. Like grizzlies, or crazy half-starved cannibal mountain men with spears and atlatls, and strings of wolverine claws around their necks He did appreciate the extra advanced warning the racket gave him, though. Late that afternoon as he was beginning to consider heading back up to his camp, Einar looked up to see a lone hiker, a woman, from her apparel, approaching from down valley. He was about to hunker down and wait out the hikers passage when something made him look again. There was something familiar in the way the woman walked, and as she neared, Einar realized that it was Liz. Knowing that such a coincidence in timing was highly unlikely at best, he at first thought his imagination must be playing a cruel trick on him, his mind finally losing entirely the ability to discern between daydream and reality. It would not have entirely surprised him. As the hiker approached, though, he became certain that it was indeed Liz. Einar flattened himself on the ground then, pressing his face down into last years serviceberry leaves and covering his head with his arms, afraid that somehow Liz would be able to sense his presence as she had that day down by the river the winter before when he had clung to the spruce roots. That time, near passing out from hypothermia and close to slipping into the river and drowning, he had wanted her to

see him, had been silently calling to her in the hopes that she would, but now, pressing himself into the damp ground of the thicket as if he wanted to become a part of it, he dared not even think of her for fear that she might hear his thoughts and discover him. Finally daring after some time to look up again, he saw that she had passed him, was continuing on up the trail, and as he watched her disappear into the timber at the far end of the meadow, he was overcome by a terrible, aching loneliness, telling himself rather sternly that he must not go to her, must not put heror himselfin danger that way. He knew, though, that she would almost certainly be returning by the same trail the following morning, or whenever she headed back down, as the only other way out of that canyon involved a difficult climb up a thousand feet of loose rock and cliff bands, knew that it was going to be all he could do to keep himself from returning to that meadow and stepping into her world as she passed.

Returning to the cattail marsh below the beaver pond that evening after suspending his basket of serviceberries from a tree up in the tiny basin where had decided to set up camp, Einar cut and bundled as many cattail leaves as he thought he could carry up the slope, spreading them on the short, tundra-like grass to begin drying so they could be made into mats for drying berries. He knew that the next few days were going to involve a good bit of time spent at or near the camp, keeping animals away from his drying berries and being ready to drag the mats under a tree at the sound of approaching aircraft. The drying setup, he knew, would likely show up clearly from the air, even if he scattered the drying mats a bit rather than placing them all side by side in a great big rectangle, as he had initially pictured. Concerned as he was that the UAV he had read about could still be in use and in the area, he considered simply spreading the berries on the ground to dry, but knew that, as they would leak juice and tend to stick to anything they were in contact with during the process, such an attempt would leave him with a big pile of dirt/spruce needle granola. Not so good. Going to use the mats. Knowing that the leaves would dry more quickly loose than woven into mats, he decided to wait until the next day to begin the weaving. Along with the cattail leaves he had brought back, Einar had cut two bloom stalks, wanting to use the aloe-like jell between the outer leaves and stalks on his inflamed arm. Carefully peeling back the leaves, he scraped the clear jell onto an inner leaf section, shaving some of the outer bark from the root of an Oregon grape that he had found on his climb up to the basin and mixing until the goo began taking on a yellowish hue. Folding over the leaf to cover the concoction and securing it with a rock, he left the salve to steep until just before he went to sleep, chewing on the remainder of the Oregon grape root as he went about his work. Taking a coil of parachute string, he set out into a fairly level grove of aspens just above the little basin, looking for rabbit sign and hoping to get a few snares set before it grew too dark. The snares finished, he returned to his temporary shelter between the boulders, carrying in armloads of spruce duff for warmth and propping several strips of rigid, curved bark from a dead spruce across the two boulders as additional overhead shelter. It was not dark yet, and Einar, though immensely weary after the miles he had covered that

day, could not sit still, his thoughts seeming to drift back to Liz whenever he paused in his work. This will not do. Youre not going back there. Retrieving his atlatl from its spot lashed to the pack basket and choosing the straightest of the willow sticks that he had cut down near the lake earlier and brought back to strip of their pain-easing bark, he notched their ends, and returned to the little meadow for some atlatl practice, throwing the crude darts at a particular tree, retrieving them, and starting all over until he was worn out, blood beginning to ooze from beneath the mullein leaf bandage on his arm. While the practice turned out not to be especially good for his wolverine-gnawed arm, it did help occupy his mind and improve his skill with the weapon just a bit. Having brought several deer bones and his knife sharpening rock with him, Einar intended to spend a good many of the sunlight hours over the next few days when he would be confined to the area of the camp on guard duty for the drying berries working on dart points and hopefully finishing a few decent atlatl darts, so that he could hope to use it to take some larger game, as his arm healed and his skill improved. Yeah. The arm. Better deal with this bleeding, put some of that cattail goo on it before bed. Einar could not sleep. The arm was troubling him some, aching and sending sharp pains all the way down to his fingers whenever he shifted in his bed of spruce needles or moved to draw the wolverine hide more tightly around him against the growing cold of the night, and he felt a bit feverish from the inflammation in the wound, but more than anything, he just couldnt get Liz out of his mind. He knew that he must not contact her, that such a thing would involve taking a foolish and inexcusable risk that could only lead to trouble for both of them, but the knowledge did not ease his restlessness and finally, giving up on sleep for the time, he got up, took his spear and set off across the little meadow, wrapping and tying the wolverine pelt around his shoulders in a half effective effort at keeping out the chilly night breeze. Einar had intended only to wander about for a while until he found himself ready to settle down and sleep, but he ended up picking his way carefully down the steep slope below the basin in the near total darkness beneath the black timber, reaching the bottom of the draw before he decided to turn back. At that point, his arm hurting pretty badly and the prospect of the climb back up to camp not sounding all that appealing, he wandered around a bit more, finding some serviceberry bushes by scent and snacking on a few berries before moving on, never really answering the halfhearted question of what are you doing? that some part of his sleep deprived brain kept repeating to another. He knew that if he answered it, he would probably have to return to camp, and so steadfastly refused to do so. Following the faint trace of the game trail by starlightthe moon would not be up until much laterEinar neared one of the places where he had picked serviceberries the day before, heard heavy footsteps, and stopped still. There was a faint breeze, and he could feel that it was at his back, carrying his scent to whatever creature was crashing about in the berry thicket. He had a good guess of what it might be, and was not especially interested in trying to take a large black bear with his spear, at the moment, so cautiously continued, picking up a large rock from beside the game trail and hoping that the creature might allow him to pass unchallenged. As he neared, the shuffling and crashing stopped,

there was silence and then, nearer than he had expected and almost behind him by that point, a loud sniffle as the creature caught his scent. Looking back, Einar saw the bears massive head and ears, black against the faintly lit V of sky that showed in the center of the draw. Rearing up on its hind legs, the creature continued to sniff and snuffle in his direction, and Einar, the rock ready in one hand and the spear in his other, slowly backed down the trail away from it, the bear eventually returning to gorging itself on berries, far more interested in the ready supply of tasty food than in the scrawny human who smelled rather like a wolverine. Continuing to pick his way down the dark trail, Einar half regretted not having made an attempt to frighten the bear away from his berries, but knew that unless he intended to stand guard over them all night, any such effort would be laughably ineffective. The creature would simply return as soon as he left the area, and might end up getting a bit grumpy about the apparent competition for its food source. Guess there are enough berries to go around, anyway. What I really need is to get good with that atlatl, or better still make another bow, so that bear could be my food source! Think of all that fat! And his stomach grumbled hungrily as he continued down the trail, leading him to pause at the next cluster of serviceberry scrub and gather a handful of berries to quiet it. Reaching the spot where the draw opened out into the wider canyon, recognizing the place first by the rustling and gurgling of the larger creek, he approached it cautiously, pausing to listen, to smell for any trace of smoke that might betray the presence of nearby campers, but detecting nothing. Making his way deep into the tangled thicket of serviceberries near the junction of the game trail and the hiking trail in a place that he knew would afford him a clear view of the canyon wall in the morning, while thoroughly concealing his presence, he settled in with his back against a fallen tree, kicking loose slabs of bark to sit on so that he would not be in contact with the wet ground. Waiting, he caught his breath from the hike, still finding himself rather more easily tired by the simple act of walking than he liked. The long journey down from his shelter had certainly taken its toll on him, and sitting there in the darkness, Einar realized that he had hardly slept at all in the past twenty four hours, as he had worked late into the previous night, being jarred out of his sleep by the chopper shortly after lying down. He was beat. Hungry, too, and he realized then that he had left all of his food, aside from the small pouch of jerky around his neck, back up at camp, hung from the tree out of reach of bears. Softening a small piece of jerky in his mouth, he studied the dimly starlit landscapethe meadow with its gently swaying grass and scattered boulders, the creek that showed white in places where the water passed over barely submerged rock, the canyon walls soaring sheer and dark up to meet the skyand wondered what had ever got into him to convince him that it was a good idea to leave his nice sheltered bed and wander down to the canyon to sit in a cold, swampy serviceberry patch and wait to become bear bait. Hmm. Well, at least Ill have a head start in the morning when it gets light enough to start picking berries. Though I didnt exactly bring anything to carry them in. He shook his head, supposed he could use the spare pair of polypropylene pants, or the jeans for that matter, as the polypro ones were a bit warmer, tying off the legs to create bags for the berries. OK. That should work. And he sat there, his head nodding, knowing that sleep

was inevitable and would not be long in coming and half hoping that he would sleep into the morning and be spared the temptation of standing up and speaking to Liz when she passed on the trail.

Mud. The mud woke Einar, sticking to his cheek, plastering his eye closed and oozing coldly into his ear, and he lay there confused for a second before remembering that he had fallen asleep in the serviceberry patch down near the creek. Slowly sitting up, glad that his face was the only thing that had ended up in the mud when he had finally slumped over, he wiped off the black ooze as well as he could, wrapping up in the wolverine hide, which had partially come off during the night, and shivering, trying to get warm. His hair was wet on one side; it amazed him that he had not wakened sooner. He glanced around, craning his neck to look up at the canyon walls and seeing that as yet, no sunlight showed on the spruces that lined their rims. It was still early in the morning, barely beginning to get light, the sky showing very little color. Einar got to his feet, weary and a bit confused with sleep still, and feeling the dull diffused ache in his lower back that told him he had not got nearly enough to drink the day before. He found a few berries that were within reach and ate them, the sugar giving his some energy and a bit more focus. Better get some water. The puddles that stood stagnant and black with rotting serviceberry leaves near his sleeping spot did not look like the best drinking water, especially not with the big creek close enough that he could hear it gurgling over the rocks, and he studied it, searching for a place where the brush approached it closely and finding one, making his way through the brush as quietly as possible in case anyone was out using the trail, at that early hour. The small creek that emerged from his draw was an option, also, but as he knew for sure that there were beavers not many miles up it, he thought it perhaps wiser to take his chances with the large one. He certainly did not want to end up with Giardia again, knew that likely as anything, there were beavers upstream on the big creek also, but he had to have water, decided to take the chance. Crouching warily in the serviceberry thicket that overhung the creek, Einar reached down the foot or so of slightly undercut bank and filled his cupped hands with water, keeping an eye on the trail as he drank, but seeing no sign of other people. It seemed unlikely to him that anyone else would be out so early, but he knew he must not risk being spotted, as he could not even remotely hope to pass as a backpacker or hiker, if he was. Ought to work on that, I guess, if Im going to be spending any time in places like this. Which he knew he probably should not be doing, anyway. Should not be down here at all. You know why you came back down, know you cannot do it. Go back up that draw. Forget about her. That was, he knew, the only sensible thing to do, the only one that would not end up likely leading to the end of his freedom and possibly of Lizs, also, but at the same time he felt very strongly that if he just hid there in the thicket and watched her pass by that morning, there almost certainly would not be another chance for him towhat? He shrugged. Thank her, I guess. I dont know. It doesnt really matter, because you cant do it. Now get going, get out of here before somebody comes along and sees you, or you decide to do something really stupid.

Finished drinking, Einar was about to return to the area where he had spent the night and begin picking berries, but something caught his eye, a wide spot in the trail where the ground had been scuffed up by numerous boots and shoes over the season leaving a small patch of bare dirt, and beside it a long-fallen tree where it appeared hikers occasionally sat and rested on their way up the trail. The loose dirt had given him an idea, a way he could perhaps communicate with Liz, without putting either of them in undue danger and without actually meeting with her in person, and he quickly crossed the shallow creek on a series of exposed rocks, using the spear for balance and ducking into the brush on the far side of the trail, out of breath and glancing up and down the valley to be sure that he was still alone. No sign of anyone. He stepped out of the thicket, looked for fresh tracks in the dirt, saw none, saw that no one had yet been down the trail that morning. Talking a stick, he quickly traced a stylized oak leaf into the loose, dusty dirt in front of the logseat, made its stem a not-too-obvious arrow that pointed to a spot on the fallen log where he had noticed a rotten, punky spot that had left a depression nearly four inches across and an inch or two deeper than that. Pulling out some of the rotten moss and wood that clogged the depression, he pressed a few serviceberry leaves into it to form a nest, dropped in a few of the berries that he had collected that morning, and carefully set a strip of deer jerky on top of them. Looking back to make sure he had left no tracks in the dirt, Einar hurried back across the creek and up into the thicket where he had spent the night, immersing himself in gathering berries and several times nearly making the decision to return and scuff out the sign, knowing it foolish to intentionally expose his presence in that way, or any other. Something held him back though, waiting and continuing fill his improvised berry basket until he knew it was too late to emerge from the brush and wipe away the sign, as the sun was on the meadow and hikers would likely soon be out and about.

Making her way down the trail in the sharp-shadowed early morning sunlight, Liz stopped still when she saw the oak leaf. It was immediately obvious to her that she was not merely looking at the idle scratching of some weary hiker who had sat on the tree stump for a moment to rest. She knew that sign. Had seen it before. Startled, almost unwilling to accept the implications for fear that she should turn out somehow to be mistaken, Liz glanced around at the meadow, the timbered ridges canyon rim, the distant peaks that showed above it in places. Are you really out there? She was almost afraid to use his name, to think his name, even, had been so uncertain that he was even still alive. Studying the image in the dirt, she realized that it included an arrow, followed it, found the berries and the jerky. She sat down on the log, took them, inspected them, could tell that the berries had just been picked, had sat there for mere minutes, and that the jerky was not damp with the mornings dew. Where are you? She could see no sign of him, no tracks on the ground that looked more recent than her own from the previous night. Feeling that she was being watched, she looked up, her eyes resting on the serviceberry thicket on the far side of the creek, studying it, drawn to it, thinking she saw a flicker of movement, looking more closely and realizing that it had been nothing more than a few leaves moving in the wind, made more visible in contrast with a long fallen tree that lay behind them.

Realizing that Einar clearly wanted to remain hidden, knowing that it would be a mistake to attempt to find or follow him, she dug around in her pack and pulled out a little bag of almonds and chocolate chips, carefully placed it in the nest of leaves where the berries had been, feeling rather more like she was leaving some sort of offering or tribute than concealing food for a real person to find and eat. Einar, watching from behind the fallen log, saw Liz discover the oak leaf and sit down, and pressed himself into the mud behind the fallen tree when she glanced up and seemed for a moment to look directly at him. Pulling himself forward until he could see out between two closely growing clumps of serviceberry at the far end of the tree, he watched as she placed something in the hollow in the log, seemed to reconsider, and pulled it out again, rummaging about in her pack and appearing to tear a strip of paper from the side of a topo map, writing on it before adding it to the bag, replacing the bag in the hollow in the tree and covering everything with a plug of moss. She stood, took a minute more to scrutinize the landscape, her eyes again coming to rest on the fallen spruce for a minute before continuing down the trail, Einar watching until she disappeared into the aspens at the downhill end of the meadow.

Anxious to go and see what Liz had left, Einar knew that he must wait, must give it some time, not wanting to risk the possibility that Liz might be hiding in the trees and watching for him, and beginning to see the occasional hiker make his way up or down the trail. Waiting, he continued picking berries, working to fill one of the tied off legs of his blue jeans and eating a good number of the berries as he went, in a less than successful attempt to quell the increasingly loud grumblings of his stomach. Hungry. He had finished the jerky in the little bag around his neck, wished he had brought a packet or two of pemmican with him when he had set out on his ill-advised nighttime ramble so that he could have had some fat along with all of those berries. At one point, he took a break from the berry harvesting to carefully make his way a short distance back up the small draw, searching the drier soil along one slope until he found a few scraggly, sun scorched Oregon grapes, carefully digging down a bit around one and working the long yellow root up out of the ground. The arm continued to trouble him as the morning went on, the wolverine wound still inflamed and, he thought, causing a bit of fever, and all he could really think to do for it at the moment was to continue chewing Oregon grape roots, until he could get back up to the cattail patch so that he would have something clean to mix them with for direct application to the wound. Sitting on a rock and chewing at the incredibly bitter yellow root, Einar paused to study it, wondering if his frequent use of the rootsrequired as he attempted to combat infection in injuries that had been all too frequenthad anything to do with the reasonably good condition of his teeth and gums, despite the extended period of near-starvation. He had kept expecting to have trouble with his mouth, had, when he thought about it, dreaded the day when he would have to remove a tooth or attempt to heal himself of an abscess. The day, to his surprise, had never come, and though his gums had been sore and bled quite easily during

the especially hungry times, he seemed to be managing to keep ahead of any major trouble, tooth-wise. He supposed the berberine in the roots would be helping to kill off the mouth bacteria that were responsible for tooth decay, and thought that his frequent use of spruce needle tea when he had fire and his frequent habit of chewing the needles when he could not, had probably contributed to the situation, as well. The needles high concentrations of vitamin C had, at the very least, prevented him from developing any of the dreaded symptoms of scurvy, even when he had been near death from lack of calories and fat. Rising, Einar wandered over to a mullein plant that he had noticed and gathered a few of its large lower leaves, deciding that it would be a good idea to go ahead and change the bandage on his arm, even if he had no salve to treat it with. The appearance of the wound alarmed him. No wonder Ive got a fever. This really cant wait until later. Starting up the game trail, he covered the mile or so up to the cattail marsh in pretty good time, glad that the trip would give Liz plenty of time to clear out of the area before he ventured out to retrieve whatever she had left for him. By the time Einar reached the cattails, smelling the rich black muck of the marsh even before he saw the green cattail tops around the bend in the rather narrow draw, he was feeling pretty sick. His arm was throbbing, aching, and he felt nauseous and dizzy and a bit hot despite the breeze and the relative coolness of the day. Sinking down on a rock near the edge of the damp, oozing ground, he cut a cattail, removed the bandage on his arm, and spread on the soothing jell from between its leaves and stem, staring at the black mud of the marsh and suddenly thinking that it seemed like a good idea to pack the wound with it. He knew that mud poultices had been used at times on infected animal bitessomething about drawing out the pus as the mud driedbut was pretty sure the mud referred to had actually been clay. And had probably contained a good bit less organic material andI dont know. Frog and bird droppings and suchthan did the stinking black mud of the marsh. Forget it. This sounds like a pretty awful idea. The cattail goo had done little to ease the stabbing discomfort in his arm, though, and Einar, hurting and somewhat confused with fever, decided to try it anyway, spreading the wolverine-chewed portions of his upper arm with a generous layer of muck before applying the fresh mullein leaves and binding everything in place with the wrap of parachute material. The cool mud gave him instant relief from the burning pain of the inflamed wound, and though he was later to be alarmed at his actions when the fever went down and he began thinking more clearly, for the moment he simply enjoyed the cessation of pain. Before heading back down the draw, Einar cut a small bundle of cattail leaves to take with him, thinking that he might need to wait until dusk to go out in the open after Lizs note, and wanting to work on the pouches that he intended to coat with pitch and use to weatherproof his remaining deer jerky when he cached it. Returning to the serviceberry thicket at the junction of the two creeks, Einar picked for a few more minutes, rather hesitant for some reason that he could not quite identify to see what Liz might have left him and, by the time he made up his mind to go, seeing a hiker approach in the distance from down valley. He was weary from the sparse sleep of the previous night, a heaviness that was increased greatly by the early afternoon sun that fell

in golden patches through the gently swaying cover of the serviceberries, warm and good and causing him to feel unbelievably sleepy. Dizzy and hurting from the injured arm and from his insistence on continuing to employ it in the berry harvest, he sat down on the fallen tree, leaned his elbows on his knees and let the sun beat down on his back, slowly relaxing him and easing away some of the pain. Einars eyes were heavy, the drone of the bees in the nearby meadow and among the berries reaching him, singing to him, sounding almost like human speech at times, interspersed with the harsh and distant calling of ravens as they soared and circled up near the canyon rim in the waves of warming air that rose off the meadow. As he drifted towards sleep, the sounds melded together, weaving in and out of the gurgling and rushing of the creek and the breeze in the leaves over his head, and they were Lizs voice. She was there sitting on the tree beside him, talking to him, and in his half awake state he could not quite make out her words, struggled to understand them, finally realized that she was asking about the cabin, asking how it was coming, when it would be finished, so she couldwhat cabin? He interrupted her. There is no cabin, will be no cabin, I live in a not-quite-cave like a half crippled old mangy wolf and eat stringy, stinky stewed wolverineexcept when I can have no fire, and then I eat it rawnot much of a life but its mine and youd better go now, before we both end up dead, or worse. Instead of leaving, Liz edged closer to him on the fallen tree, said something about his life not sounding all that bad, about wanting to come with him, and he was somehow unspeakably grateful, even though he knew that he must soon convince her to leave and not come back. Einar nodded, sagged forward, nearly fell off the log. Eyes jerking open, he stuck his hand in one of the black, stagnant puddles near the tree and rubbed his face with the tepid water, smelling the good earthy scent of rotting leaves and the sun on the grass of the meadow, struggling to maintain wakefulness. The sun was awfully warm. Good. He saw the hiker. The man had stopped, sat down on Lizs tree, and in one nearpanicked moment, Einar was afraid that the stranger would find whatever Liz had left him, that he would never even get to find out what it had been, but the hiker seemed to be paying no attention at all to the little plug of moss that covered the depression in the log. Einar watched, nodding again before long and wishing that the man would move on, but he had removed his backpack, taken something out, and seemed to be eating lunch. Einar was drooping again, nodding with sleep, and he fought it, splashed more water in his face, wanting to keep watch and make sure the man did not find the packet Liz had left him, did not take it, did not

Brutal beheadings shock small town, outrage FBI

Three FBI agents kidnapped and butchered, a fourth shot, severed heads left inside heavily secured compound Tuesday, June 30 Associated Press

Culver FallsIn a grisly scene more reminiscent of medieval Scotland than rural America, federal agents at the Mountain Task Force headquarters outside Culver Falls woke this morning to the sight of the severed and bloody heads of three apparently kidnapped and murdered agents, displayed on sticks inside the double row of concertinawire topped chain link fencing that surrounds the compound. Names are not being released, according to Task Force spokesman B.J. DeLorre, in order to avoid compromising the investigation, but our sources tell us that one of the slaughtered men was Agent Day, who had recently been promoted to Agent in Charge of the Asmundson investigation, and also head of the Mountain Task Force that is working to apprehend the fugitive. Another agent was shot and killed, and a fourth had his ear severed in a roadside attack this morning that agents are calling almost certainly related. This terrorist beheadings, coming days after the release of a Department of Homeland Security report on the rising danger of right wing extremist groups, seems to more than confirm the worries expressed in that document, according to the Attorney General, who made a statement this morning expressing condolences to the families of the dead agents and vowing to route out, hunt down and eliminate the terrorist elements that were responsible for this heinous crime, their accomplices, and everyone who shares the radical ideology of hate and violence that they represent. The recent DHS report clearly did not go far enough in expressing the immediate and severe danger posed by the resurgence in these groups The Justice Department, in cooperation with Treasury and the DHS, will be establishing a new task force to combat right wing violence and terrorism, and with the powers granted the various federal law enforcement agencies under the Patriot Act and the additional funding approved by Congress in an emergency session this morning, we expect that the crackdown should be swift and effective. While neither the Attorney General nor FBI Director Terry Lotts would comment on possible suspects in the attack, it is widely suspected that the attacker was either indicted terrorist and fugitive Einar Asmundson, or perhaps a close-knit group of local sympathizers who are angry about the ongoing manhunt, and its impact on their town. FBI Director Terry Lotts, having just returned to Washington the day before the attack, boarded a plane that evening to head back out to Culver Falls, accompanied by the Attorney General. The two of them intended to make a joint statement at the compound the next day, expressing their solidarity with the agents who were continuing to put their lives at risk in the hunt for Asmundson, and officially announcing the creation of the new Federal Joint Task Force to combat domestic terrorism. Former Mountain task Force head Todd Leer, sitting in his wheelchair in the activity room at the extended care facility where he shared a room with former Director Ferris Lee and watching news of the attacks unfold on the big screen TV, was almost glad, for once, that he had been paralyzed in the as yet unsolved incident two months prior. Had he not been, he knew that his head might very well have been among the three out there on those sticks.

Einar woke with the feeling that he had been asleep for a long time, thought it odd that he was not cold, that the wolverine slashes and bites did not hurt anymore, that his shoulder did not ache as he had come to expect after extended periods of stillness, lay there for a minute enjoying the absence of pain, thinking about Liz and wondering about the contents of her note, but something was wrong, the air was still, stale, and he experimentally opened his eyes. And remembered. The white cement of the walls that pressed in around him, the tiny vertical slot of a window that provided his only contact with the outside worldand afforded him only a view of the cement exercise yard, at that, where he was allowed to stand in a little chain link dog run, surrounded by cement, and breathe fresh air for an hour every week, if it was a good weekthey were his world now. An overwhelming black emptiness swept over him as he returned to full wakefulness and the reality flooded back in on him, crushed him, dissolved all the images of the mountains, the high desolate places where he had awakened erroneously believing that he had spent the past year of his life, left him grasping desperately at rapidly fading memories, melting, shimmering, ephemeral things that slipped through his fingers before he could get a grip on them and make them stay. He closed his eyes, pressed his hands over them to shut out the harsh, undying light that was reflected and magnified by the whiteness of the walls. The dream had been so real this time, so vivid, so detailed, so long. He had really believed he was still out there, had forgotten while he slept that it had all ended early one spring a number of years ago when he had made the mistake of listening to his stomach rather than his good sense and had gone down to the valley in search of caged pheasants to supplement the meager winter diet of rabbits and squirrels that had nearly starved him. He had been captured then, just like in the dream, detained by a private security guard patrolling the fancy summer houses down by the river, and as in the dream had traded with his captors, giving information on his cache of improvised explosives in exchange for his life. But not, as in the dream, in exchange for a chance to regain his freedom during an escorted trip up the mountain to show them the location of his cache. That is ridiculous. That does not happen. No way they would actually let that happen. Should have been a clue right there that I was only dreaming Had Liz been merely a dream, also? He didnt think so, but was not sure, was not sure of much anymore, was even less certain that any of it really mattered. Hunger was not a problem anymore, had not been for several years, not since a few weeks after he was first incarcerated. At first the weight gain had been a good thing, but it had not stopped, and though he knew he was putting his health in danger by allowing it to continue, most days he had a very hard time bringing himself to care. About anything. Einar rolled to face the wall, pulled the blanket up over his head, tried to go to back to sleep. The dreams, it seemed, were about all he had left, especially since having given up hope of escape several years prior. Oh, he still scrutinized the cement walls of the exercise yard, still memorized the patterns of the comings and goings of the guards

who, as a matter of policy, seldom said so much as one word to himstill stared up at the sky when he was outside and tried to imagine himself out under it, free, still told himself that perhaps it was a possibility, that perhaps someday But he knew. Knew very well that these hopes were nothing more than lies he told himself in an ongoing but largely futile attempt to maintain his interest in life. In living. This is not living. I am not alive. Yet he was not dead, either, and though his hope in the next world remained strong, he was having an increasingly difficult time keeping himself from wishing to be there now. Without further delay. He sat up, could not get back to sleep. Near complete lack of exercise will do that to you, to him, anyway. Sometimes he would go for days without sleep, sitting on the cement bed in the corner nearest the window and staring out at the little sliver of sky that showed over the stark cement wall of the exercise yard, watching the sky change, watching the clouds move, wishing everything was not so brightly lit at night so he could see the stars. It would have been a comfort. As it was, the place was set up so that no glimpse could be caught of the nearby mountains, not even from the little dog runs in the yard. This was, he knew, quite deliberate. The place was scientifically designed to end all further contact with the natural world, with other humans, with reality. To slowly and steadily make its residents forget who they were, what they were, forget what it meant to be human. And it worked. More slowly on some than on others, but it worked. He knew that now. The slot in the door clanged open. Breakfast. He was not hungry, did not move.

Einar must have finally fallen asleep there on the cement bed in his cell, because when he was next aware of his surroundings it was dark, darker than he could ever remember it being in the cell; he could tell through the closed lids of his eyes that the hateful, harsh, undying light had somehow gone out, and he felt a bit of curiosity stir somewhere in him, a glimmer of interest. Not enough to motivate him to movement, though. He wanted to go back to sleep, but something cold and wet seemed to be pressing on the back of his neck, which did not seem at all normal. A startled whuff greeted him when, still half asleep, he casually swatted at the source of the wetness. Einar opened his eyes, turned his head and lay there staring at the bulky silhouette of a black bears head against a pale sky, the enormous creatures nose inches from his own. Einar tried to keep still, realized that he was shivering uncontrollably, couldnt stop. He could feel the bears breath on his face. It smelled of berries. With one hand he felt for his spear, could not find it, couldnt much feel the hand, for that matter. Supposed he must be pretty cold. The bear reached out with an experimental paw and in one swift, powerful motion rolled him, its claws digging into his ribs, leaving him on his back in the black ooze and sending a wave of nauseating pain coursing through his injured and inflamed arm. Again the creature sniffed at his face, blew a great breath out through its nose as if in disapproval, and shuffled on. It was almost darkor almost light, he had no idea which, and as his heart slowed and his breathing began to return to normal from the shock of being nosed awake by a bear,

Einar realized that he was cold, freezing, lying in the black oozing mud behind the fallen tree, covered in muck, his hair and beard soaked and matted with the stuff, but thinking at the moment that there was absolutely nowhere on earth that he would rather be. Very stiffly he sat up, dragged himself up onto the log and wrapped his arms around his knees, shivering violently in a chilly wind that bent and swayed the dark forms of the serviceberry bushes, overcome with relief and gratitude as he slowly came to realize that the crushing finality of the prison had been merely a dream, that the awful, despairing, apathetic creature he had seen himself aswas gone. He had stared into the eyes of futility and despair, had peered into the abyss, and had been snatched back from its edge and set in a wide place. Once again. The reality that he had awakened to hurt too much to be a dream, was too cold to be a dream, and Einar was overjoyed to discover that his reality was still the harsh and often painful one of the mountains that had very nearly starved and frozen him more than once, but among which he had his freedom, if little else. Looking up, he saw the stars blinking and flickering from behind the swaying serviceberry leaves, the Milky Way running in glittering splendor like a stream of silver fire flowing between the blackness of the canyon walls, filled his lungs with the sharp, chilly, spruce and leaf-rot scented night air. And wept. At some point his weeping turned to laughter, the silent, convulsive half-crazed cackle of a man who had the moment before been dead certain that he had lost everything, only to have it all handed back to him most unexpectedly, tears of joy and relief tracing down his mud-smeared face. Thank you! The darkness had deepened, telling Einar that it was evening rather than morning, and he realized, when his last fit of silent laughter finally faded and gave way to exhausted stillness, that he was still awfully wet and cold. Shaking. He could barely feel his hands and arms, his exposed back was like ice, and he knew he must find a way to get dry and a bit warmer, if he wanted to see morning. His legs collapsed beneath him when he tried to stand, leaving him to crawl about for a few minutes on the damp groundglad when his hand came in contact with the spearuntil he found the improvised berry-collecting bag he had made from his jeans. The bear had apparently been drawn to the concentration of berries, had mashed a few of them in its explorations but had smelled him and grown alarmed before it had the chance to do much damage. Dumping the berries out in a heap on a dry, slightly raised area of grass and earth, he struggled out of his wet pants and into the drier, if slightly sticky ones, huddling on the hummock of raised ground and rubbing his cramping legs until he was able to stand again. Wheres that wolverine hide? He found it on the log, thankfully still dry, wrapped up in it, fur-side in, and again hugged his knees to his chest in an attempt to get warm. The fever that had earlier sickened him seemed gone or at least significantly reduced, but his arm was still quite painful and swollen, and Einar, remembering his attempt at treating the wound with swamp muck, hoped he had not done himself in. It had seemed like the best thing to do, at the time, but the reaction was making him seriously doubt the wisdom of that decision. Supposing that he ought to try and wash off some of the mud in the creek and see what he could do for the arm, he started in that direction, only to have his legs give out on him again, a wave of dizziness nearly dumping him back into the cold mud. Leaning heavily on the spear, he got himself back up onto the fallen spruce, waited for the worst of the

dizziness to pass. He needed water, needed to eat, needed some strength so he could hunt around for a better place to spend the night, and downed a handful of berries from the pile he had dumped in the grass. Standing on the bit of dry ground beside the berries and shifting his weight from one foot to another, the water in his boot liners squishing and squelching, Einar worked to warm himself. As he began to warm the pain in his arm grew, and he started to sweat again despite the fact that he still felt like ice. Unlike earlier in the day, the entire arm was throbbing, not just the upper portion where the wolverines teeth had left a mess of torn and damaged tissue. He stopped, sat down. Thirsty. Stumbling down to the creek, careful despite the darkness of the night to stay in the serviceberry scrub and not step out into the open, he threw the wolverine pelt over a branch where it would stay dry, scooping up handful after handful of the icy creek water, drinking the first few and proceeding to splash some on his face and wash most of the mud off of his arm, the chilling water beginning to ease the burning pain. Lying on his stomach on the edge of the bank, he submerged the entire arm in the creek, let the water soak off the layers of mostly dried muck and the mullein leaves that had stuck fast in the mess, leaning over until his forehead was in the water. Remaining that way for several minutes Einar finally sat up and shook the water from his hair, his head hurting fiercely from the icy water but the fever reduced enough that he could again think a bit more clearly. The wind was picking up. He dried off, sat on a rock near the creek bank and huddled in the wolverine hide, hungrily picking and eating a few nearby berries that he had smelled as stepped back from the water. For the first time since waking from his nightmare of the prison, Einar remembered Liz, remembered the packet she had left for him in the fallen tree, and sadly shook his head, knowing that he must leave it, must leave the area and have no further contact with her. At the same time though, he felt after waking from that dream almost as if he was being given a second chance of some sort, and sitting there on the rock in the cold darkness, he began to question his life, to question what really was important, what he ought to do with the chance it seemed he had been given. He did not ponder the matter for long. Letting his breath out in a great sigh he shook his head, stood, took another step back from the creek. Quit it. Must be the fever coming back. Youre not making sense. He was, though, already so close to the fallen tree-bench beside the trail, and as he stood there, he began to think that perhaps there would be no harm in taking whatever Liz had left, as long as there was no further contact. Especially if she had happened to leave food. And he really was curious about what she might have written on that strip she had torn from the map.

Not especially wanting to be any colder or wetter than he already was and with an undetermined amount of night still left to get through, Einar considered waiting to cross the creek and get ahold of what Liz had left, but he was not confident in his ability to remain awake, and feared accidentally sleeping until daylight, and missing his chance to safely retrieve the packet. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he must not simply walk away and leave the note where it was, as had seemed the only wise choice shortly after having wakened from the dream. There was always the chance that someone else might find the item, and, though he hoped and believed that Liz would know better than to leave anything that would give away the presence or intentions of

either of them, he decided that it was simply not a chance he could take. That was what he told himself, anyway, as he worked his way back down to the creek and began searching for the wide shallow spot where he had before crossed on a collection of half submerged rocks, and he hoped it was not merely an excuse he was using to cover for the fact that he really wanted to know what that note said, wanted to see if she might have left him anything to eat. He was growing awfully hungry, and knew the cold of the night would be easier to take with something more than berries in his stomach. In the darkness and as Einar was still rather clumsy from his hours lying in the cold mud, the creek was a good bit more difficult to cross than it had been the day before, and after slipping off of the dimly visible exposed rocks numerous times and once ending up falling to his knees in the icy water, he gave up trying to stay dry and simply waded across, making it without further incident, though less than happy that the wolverine hide had ended up somewhat damp in places. Stomping around in the serviceberry thicket on the far side of the creek, Einar struggled to get back some feeling in his feet and legs and to get the cramping to stop, standing still for a good minute after that, watching and listening before hurriedly stepping across the trail and into the brush behind the fallen tree where Liz had sat, careful not to step in the dust of the trail as he felt around for the plug of moss she had used to conceal whatever she had left. Finding it, he retrieved the items, which seemed to be contained in a quart-sized plastic bag, good, maybe theyll stay dry if I fall again, and started back for the creek. Einar knew that it was too dark for him to hope to be able to read the note, and though he still had a few matches kept securely in their waterproof vial in his jeans pocket, he did not want to risk lighting one in an area where he knew there could possibly be campers that he was not aware of. Though curious about the other contents of the bag, he waited, knowing that his priority had to be finding a dry, insulating place to pass the remainder of the night, and to do it before he ran out of steam again and sat down, at which point he knew that his chances of falling quickly back into an exhausted sleep were pretty good, despite any efforts he might make to the contrary. In addition to the immediate necessity of finding shelter, Einar was for some reason he could not quite identifynot that he had much energy to spare on tryingrather reluctant to reveal the contents of the bag. Perhaps it was the knowledge that the packet and whatever it held represented, in all likelihood, his last and final contact of any sort with Liz. Returning to the place where he had dumped out the berries, he gathered as many of them as he could find in the darkness, switching out his soaked jeans for the muddy polypro pants that he knew would be, despite their dampness, a good bit warmer to wear than the wet denim of the jeans. Tying off one of the legs of the jeans and loading the berries into them, picking his way carefully through the soggy serviceberry patch and up the dry slope beyond it. Settling on a big treeit was too dark to tell for sure what sort, but there were an abundance of dry needles beneath it, which was all that mattered to him at the momenthe burrowed down in the duff, curling up with the dry part of the wolverine pelt over his top half and making an effort to keep his torn up arm from touching the ground. Cold. He tried pressing his arms to his sides for a bit of additional warmth, but his ribs were hurting where the bears claws had contacted him, and he shifted his position to alleviate some of the pressure, gingerly probing his side in an attempt to determine the extent of the injury,

which he had nearly forgotten about until that moment. He could feel three deep, jagged gashes and one less serious one, crusty with dried and drying blood, running for several inches horizontally along his ribs on the right side. Well. Thosere gonna hurt in the morning, and I better find a way to clean them pretty good, too, because bear claws cant be one of the more sanitary things around. There was a good bit of bruising around the gashes, a fairly significant amount of pain when he pressed anywhere near the area, but he was pretty sure nothing had been broken. Would have noticed that, before now. Einar closed his eyes, still inexplicably hesitant to explore the contents of the bag from Liz, but couldnt sleep, was shivering too badly, his ribs beginning to ache and the inflamed arm throbbing once again. He almost wished the fever would come back, so he could feel a bit less cold. But it did not. Which he took to be a good sign, as far as the condition of his arm. And things will warm up quickly when the sun comes. A few hours. You can wait. Shifting again, attempting to replace some of the duff that had been scattered by his shivering, he heard the bag crinkle, decided to go ahead and open it. He had been fairly certain that he smelled food of some sort in it, and needed the calories pretty badly. As Einar had guessed, the bag contained food, in addition to the carefully folded scrap of paper, a mix, as he soon learned, of almonds and chocolate chips. Gratefully consuming a good half of the bags contents, Einar lay back in the spruce needles, resting for a minute before hauling himself to his feet and taking a few steps out into the chilly night to throw the bag, tied to one end of a parachute line that he had pulled out of the back pocket of the jeans, over the branch of a tree. The last thing he needed was to have a bear rough him up again in pursuit of food. Einar slept rather better than he had expected, his stomach full of good food, and rather longer, also, waking to the sunlight slanting down into his eyes as it peered over the canyon wall far above. For a moment he kept still, listening, heard nothing to alarm him, and sat up, immediately reminded of his meeting with the bear by the searing pain that shot through his ribs when he twisted his torso, in rising. Drawing a sharp breath through his clenched teeth he looked down, seeing that a large portion of his right side was a mass of purple and yellow bruising where the bear had pressed on him before flipping him over, the slashes from its claws appearing as angry red welts that traced along his ribs. Between the wolverine bites and the damage to his ribs, he could tell that he would be using his right arm only with significant difficulty, for at least a day or two. Better get up to that camp in the basin where at least I have some food, and can work on gathering and drying berries until my arm is useful again. Rolling to his knees and shuffling over to a nearby aspen, clinging to it with his left hand to help him rise, he retrieved the bag of trail mix from its secure spot in the tree, lowering himself back to the ground and eating a few bites of breakfast. He saw the note, decided that the time had come to read it.

Liz, upon returning from her camping trip and stopping by Bill and Susans house to water the herbs and drop off the berries she had picked before heading in to see Susan in the hospital, was met by Allan at the bottom of the driveway. Liz! Whereve you been? Are you alright?

Fine. Im just fine. Allan was a bit surprised at the cheerful, almost jubilant tone to Lizs voice, the sparkle in her eye, considering the very recent tragedy of Bills death and the ongoing threat to her life, as one of the only witnesses. I had to get away for a day, Allan. Had to get out of here. Went up and checked out one of those berry patches Susan told me about. Have you seen Susan today? How is she? You shouldnt have gone off without telling me, Liz! Especially not yesterday! I said Id go with you. What if those guys had followed you, decided to run you off the road or something? He could see that Liz had no intention of answering. About Susan, noI havent seen her today, but I talked to her son. Shes doing better, physically, but Bill you know, its got to be pretty rough on her, losing him like that. I take it you havent heard about Agent Day? Liz had not, of course, and Allan told her what he knew of the situation as they drove together to Clear Springs to see Susan in the hospital. Passing the federal compound at the old feed store, the increased security was quite obvious, a new guard tower having been hastily constructed, more concertina wire added on the perimeter, and several armored personnel carriers sitting rather ominously just inside the fencing. Strangely enough, though, there was no sign of either the Reaper, or its ground control trailer. Susans hospital room was empty. Liz and Allan, seeing no one they recognized as her family or friends in the waiting room, rushed around the hospital in search of someone who might know what had happened to her, finally being told that she had signed out against medical advice and had been wheeled out to a waiting van by two well dressed gentlemen who had claimed to be her sons.

Sitting in the shadows beneath the tree, Einar fumbled with the scrap of paper Liz had left him, warmed his hands for a minute, finally managed to get it unfolded and spread out. Two days, the note read. Noon. Same place, and she had drawn a little jar of Nutella down in the corner, a spoon beside it. That was all, and Einar smiled, at once gladthe note gave nothing away if it should fall into the wrong hands, she had done welland saddened, as he had somehow hoped forhe didnt even know what. Something different. Something more. The proposed meeting was not to happen, must not happen, of course, and he knew it, but supposed that he could perhaps leave her somethinga wolverine claw, maybe. Noon the next day. He would have some time to think about it. In the meantime he had a lot of work to do, and headed up towards his berry camp, stopping at the small creek that ran through the draw to clean the bear scratches as soon as he had achieved what he took to be a safe distance from the more heavily traveled canyon. The scratches were red and painful as Einar soaked off the dried blood with repeated applications of creek water that morning, scrubbing with a mullein leaf, drying the area with a second and smearing on a layer of fresh spruce sap from a porcupinedamaged tree that he discovered near the game trail, but he could see that much of the discomfort and stiffness was due to the heavy bruising that the bear had left on his side. Not too serious, I guess. Scratches are kind of deep, but nothing like those wolverine

bites, and they dont look too bad this morning. Think they probably bled enough last night to clean most of the nasty stuff out. The wolverine bites were another matter, though strange as it seemed to him, the swamp muck really did seem to have done some goodsomething had, anywayand though the area was still rather redder and more inflamed than he would liked to have seen, he was hopeful that with a good bit of Oregon grape solution both taken internally and applied to the arm, it might begin to heal before it did him in. Sticking a couple of fresh mullein leaves to the sap on the bear scratches, Einar got to his feet and continued up the trail, stopping to gather berries and add them to the stash in the tied off leg of his jeans as he went. The sun was up, the day warm and still, and before long his pants had dried and he was walking with the wolverine hide draped over one shoulder rather than clutched tightly around himself against the cold. The warmth was a relief, gave him one less thing to think about, and allowed him to use the wolverine hide as a rough sling for his right arm, binding it to his body and reducing the movement of his bruised ribs and wolverine-chewed upper arm. The sling helped, and he made good progress with the berry picking, Starting up the hill to his camp when he had collected several pounds of the rich purple serviceberries, eating all the while. As he neared the tree where he had hung his pack basket with its load of jerky and pemmican, he grew increasingly concerned that some innovative and determined creature might have found a way to get at his supply, leaving him with only berries to live on for the immediate future. The pack basket, to his relief, was just as he had left it, though, and Einar gratefully lowered it to the ground and sat in the sun on a fallen aspen and ate part of one of the pemmican packets, needing the fat after the previous night spent wet and shivering in the cold. The cattail leaves that he had gathered and left under trees to dry had done so in the time that he was away, and Einar, knowing that the previously collected berries in the pack basket had sat long enough and needed to begin their drying time in the sun if he wanted to avoid mold, did not want to take the time to weave the leaves into the mats he had planned for his berry drying operation. Instead, spreading the dried leaves out on the ground and placing a layer facing one way, overlaid by a group facing the other, he poured the berries out on them and spread them in the sun, glad when he saw that very few berries were falling through the cracks and contacting the ground. The main advantage that mats would have given him over the loose layers of leaves, as he saw it, was that it would have been far quicker to move the mass of berries and leaves beneath the concealment of the trees if he should hear an approaching plane or helicopter, had they been on mats that he could drag. As it was, he knew that he would likely end up losing a good number of the berries if forced to move them quickly. The mats would have also given him an easy way to dump the partially dried berries into their baskets for their nighttime storage up in the trees, out of the reach of bears. Well. There are some leaves left. Maybe Ill have time to make a couple of mats, later in the day. For the time though, the berries spread out to dry, Einar headed out to check his snares, not liking that he had missed a day and concerned that, if he had caught anything, a predator likely would have been along to devour it in his absence. Three of his four snares were empty, with two showing definite signs of having been

occupied, before some scavenger happened along and ripped them to shreds, leaving Einar mere scraps of fur and frayed lengths of parachute line hanging from the bent trees he had attached to the triggers. To his relief, the fourth and final snare yielded a large rabbit. Having set the snares in a wide half circle around the meadow, Einar was able to keep an eye on the berries while he checked them, vigilant lest a bear approach and attempt to rob him of his harvest. With the abundance of fresh fruit in the area, he doubted that day old, half dried berries would prove especially attractive to a bear, but was hardly willing to take the chance, thinking for a brief moment that he really could get an awful lot more work done, if there was only someone else around to guard the berries while he did it. Ha! Right! So maybe the next wolverine you run across, you can give it a piece of jerky or something, instead of jumping on it with a spear, make friends with it and teach it to guard the camp and chase bears away. He grinned, shook his head, knowing that no such thing would be happening, and rather hoping that he did not run into another wolverine, anytime soon. Youre on your own here, Einar. Youll get it done. Enough of it, anyway. Despite the difficulties that Einars injuries were giving him that day, he could hardly suppress the sense of gladness and genuine joy that came over him every time he recalled the previous nights dream, and realized all over again that he had been delivered from it. He wanted to jump, shout, run around the basin getting things done, but had to settle for limping slowly about with his right arm pressed tightly across his chest to keep his bruised ribs from moving. It was enough, was a gift. Resetting the spring triggers on the snares with only one arm, and his bad left one, at that, was a major challenge, but as the day went on Einar was feeling more and more like he had been kicked in the ribs by a mule where the bear had pressed on him before flipping him over, and keeping the arm tightly bound in place seemed to be the only thing that helped at all. After a few painful and less than productive attempts at using the arm, he re-wrapped it, finally managing to wrestle down the small, springy trees with his left hand and get three of the snares reset, at which point he realized that he had left the rest of the parachute lines back in camp. Once the rabbit was cleaned, skinned, pounded flat on a rock and hung in the sun to dry, Einar sorted through the cattail leaves he had left, choosing a number of the greener ones and beginning work on the small pouches that he intended to coat with pitch and use as waterproof storage containers for the jerky that remained back in his shelter in the rock crevice. He would have to wait until a fire was possible to do the pitch coating, but supposed he might as well use part of his time there in the berry camp weaving them, as they would be very lightweight and, strung together on a length of parachute line, easy to carry back with him to the crevice. They would need several days of drying time, anyway, before being ready to coat with pitch and fill with jerky, and he hoped that by beginning work on them, they might be suitably dry by the time he made it back to the crevice. If it doesnt rain. Rain would really complicate things right now. There was no sign of a change in the weather, though, and he knew it was still too early in the year for the characteristic pattern of daily afternoon thundershowers to have set in.

Liz, standing in Susans empty hospital room, was well aware that Susan had only one son, and that the van described by the hospital receptionist did not in any way resemble his vehicle, or those belonging to Susans daughters or other relatives who had come to town after the wreck. Finding a nurse that she recognized and spending several minutes obtaining as much information as possible from her, Liz discovered that Susans son and the two of her daughters who had stayed at the hospital that night had left for breakfast just minutes before the two men came and helped Susan out to the van, and though she believed that Susan had signed out, she could not actually find the form, and in talking to Susans doctors, found that no one seemed to know anything about it. Liz and Allan, becoming seriously concerned for Susans safety, hurriedly put in calls to other members of their group.

The black van pulled up to the locked gate at the FBI compound, the well dressed gentleman who drove it flashing his credentials to the heavily armed trio of guards before they opened the gate and let the vehicle pass, darkly tinted windows concealing the vans human cargo. Susan, having been sedated by a man dressed in grey scrubs before being quickly wheeled out of her hospital room, lay in a heap on the van floor, barely awake. Heads had rolled, in a very literal sense, had ended up on pikes inside the FBI compound, in fact, and someone had to pay. The agents were intent on finding out who, before he managed to get to them, too. Knowing they had to start somewhere, they hoped that Susan, injured as she was, would prove an easy target for interrogation.

Susan woke in the van with her face mashed against the carpet, dimly remembered being wheeled out of the hospital, wanting to cry out, to resist, to call for help, but being unable to. Carefully looking around, she saw that she was alone in the vehicle, and that it seemed to be parked in a building; she could just make out a corrugated steel wall through the heavily tinted glass of the window, feet from the drivers side of the van. Using her good arm and clinging to the seat in front of her, she pulled herself upright, looked around for any sign of the men who had taken her, but could see none. Agent Day was dead; her son had brought her the paper in the hospital that morning, and, surmising that she had been taken by the feds, was relieved to know that she would not be dealing with him. The manner in which she had been taken certainly suggested to Susan that her kidnappers? intended their actions to be covert, and at first she wondered if they intended to finish the job they had started after the wreck, eliminating the witness to Bills murder. The more she thought about it though, the more firmly convinced she became that she would never have been brought to the building, which she recognized as the old feed store-become-FBI compound. Very slowly and quietly she tried the door of the van that faced the wall. It was unlocked.

Much of Einars afternoon was spent working on the cattail leaf pouches that were

intended to hold his jerky supply, as well as guarding the drying berries, occasionally rolling and stirring them with a stick in an effort to hurry up the drying, which seemed to be going fairly well. The day was warm, and though he had spent parts of the morning attempting to keep flies from landing too heavily on the drying berries, the wind that picked up as morning slipped into afternoon drove them to the nearby thickets, speeding the drying of the berries at the same time. Sitting there working on the storage pouches for his jerky supply, Einar heard the high-pitched warning screech of a marmot, then another, coming from somewhere in the rocks just below the point where the basin ended and the ground began its sharp descent to the creek far down below. Einar stopped what he was doing, sat completely still for a moment, listening, concerned that he might be about to have company. Grabbing the willow pack basket and slinging it over his left shoulder, he got to his feet and took his spear, melting into the aspens up behind his camp before the third marmot had time to take alarm and, yelping, dive beneath a rock. Quickly working his way around through the aspens, careful to keep a heavy thicket of chokecherries between his position and the sloping rockslide home of the marmots, Einar wormed his way through the brush until he could get a look down at the rockslide. It took him a minute, but he eventually saw the source of the marmots alarm, in the form of a small silver fox that seemed to be seeking a meal among the rocks. He watched the animal for a minute, relieved, having thought that he might be about to be forced out of his camp by the approach of other humans. Starting back through the brush to his camp, Einar decided to return to the rockslide later in the day and set a couple of deadfall traps for the marmots, hoping perhaps to obtain some breakfast when they came back out the next morning to sun themselves. His hands busy with the weaving and his mind free to wander, Einar struggled to come up with some sort of plan, something to give him direction for the coming days. He had initially intended to spend three or four days harvesting and drying berries before heading back to his shelter in the rock crevice, but with the festering wolverine bites and the new injury from the bears claws to be concerned about, he was seeing a need to return for the salve he had previously made, and which had seemed to be helping the arm. His current camp was, he knew, far too close to an established and fairly well used trail to risk a fire, which he would need to make more of the stuff, and he really was not interested in having a fire at all, unless he could do so in a place similar to the rock crevice. He still wondered about the helicopter that had hovered over his shelter the morning he had left, but having seen no sign of additional activity, either that morning or after, supposed that they must have decided that whatever had drawn them to the spot in the first place did not merit further investigation. That, or theyre all set up waiting for you to come back, so they can take you Which seemed doubtful. Either way, he knew that the crevice, as ideal as it was in some ways, would not do for the long term, established shelter he so badly needed. It was simply too close to the area where the helicopters seemed to fairly regularly practice their high altitude drills. Another reason for his desire to cut short the berry harvest and return to the crevice was his need for clothing, for protection from the elements. The wolverine hide was helpful, but the past two chilly nights had demonstrated to him that sleep was going to be a rather difficult thing to get enough of, as long as he was having to spend most of his time

waking to tuck the hide back in around himself and warm up after lying out in the open with little protection. And the exposure to the elements was really increasing his need for food, which was still in rather limited supply, as he was trying his best to save most of the pemmican This all would have been less of a problem, Im pretty sure, if you had managed to stay up here where you have this good dry bed of spruce duff, rather than insisting on spending the nights lying in the wet muck of the swamp! Einar had left the deerskin hanging from the tree and, supposing nothing had climbed the tree and got at it, all (Ha! All? Now thats pretty funny) that lay between him and a good soft usable hide was to scrape off the brain solution that he had left to dry on the hide, cut it out of the stretching frame, prepare more of the solution and thoroughly soak the hide in it several times, wringing thoroughly between soakings. Then he would have to pull, stretch and rub the hide for three or four hours as it dried, if he wanted to end up with something that was soft and usable. Get that done, hang it in the rock chimney and smoke it for awhile, and Ill have the raw materials forwell, a shirt would be real good, but with only the one hide, Ill be doing well to have enough material for a vest. Thats OK. Can add sleeves later. Einar knew that the remaining work that needed to be done to the hide, and particularly the stretching step, was going to be rather difficult, in his current condition, and he just hoped that the bruised ribs would heal quickly so that he could use his right arm fairly normally, when the time came. The wolverine bites would be a problem, but, he thought, should not interfere too much with the function of the arm. Having begun to think about the return trip and the work that awaited him back at the shelter, Einar found himself increasingly anxious to head back in that direction, but knew that it would make no sense to haul back the still-heavy, moisture laden berries when another partial day in the sun would reduce their weight by pounds. And then there was the matter of Liz. He had been scrupulously avoiding thinking of the decision that he knew he must make, knowing that the only really sensible thing was to finish drying the berries and clear out of the area without revisiting the tree-bench, but somehow having a good bit of difficulty making the decision to do so, ahead of the time mentioned in Lizs note. He was feeling indecisive, and did not like it one bit, knew that such hesitation could end up leading to disaster. So, just decide, already! How about this: youre leaving first thing in the morning. See? Done. Packing up and getting out of here. Now, go get those deadfalls set up. Which he did, though finding himself less than certain that his decision really would be final.

In setting two deadfall traps for marmots on the rockslide that afternoon, Einar, a bit clumsy on the loose, tilting rocks with his right arm bound to his chest, inadvertently caught his toe on a the protruding edge of a small slab of lichen-covered granite, flipping the rock over and exposing the food cache of a pika, who scolded him noisily from a nearby rock before diving for cover. Picking himself up from the rather uncomfortable position his tumble had landed him in, Einar inspected the pikas home, noting the neat little piles of cut and drying grass and clover, interspersed with stacks of mostly dried clover and Indian paintbrush blossoms. While these were all things Einar could eat, he

had little interest in the cache, until he spotted what at first looked very much like a tiny replica of a potato, sitting off to one side beneath another slab. The root, of course, was not a potato but instead a spring beauty corm, and in removing the thin slab of rock that covered it, he discovered to his surprise and delight a collection of the little tubers that would have very nearly filled a pint jar. Gathering most of the roots and loading them into his pack, Einar carefully replaced the rocks that covered the animals home, chewing on a few of the starchy roots as he went. While he had seenand dug and eatena few spring beauty plants near his camp earlier that day, he certainly had not run across a place in the area where they were available in such quantity. Hoping perhaps to run across such a place, he took a slightly different route as he headed back to the camp. Climbing back up through the band of aspens below his camp, Einar discovered an open, somewhat slanting area among the treestoo small to really be called a meadowand in it, the source of the bounty he had discovered in the pikas lair. The entire area, both the open grassy section and the ground beneath nearby aspens, was filled with the half-dead and drying leaves of thousands of avalanche lilies and a good scattering of spring beauty, the ground damp nearly to saturation in places with oozing, percolating water. Skirting around the spot and sticking to the trees, he soon discovered the source of the wetness in a small spring or seep that trickled out from beneath a partially imbedded slab of granite, quickly dispersing into a multitude of tiny channels that soon became lost among the low growing alpine grasses and other plants of the slope. Scraping at the wet earth near the rock with a stick, he discovered it very soft and easy to move, and had soon created a shallow depression that gradually filled with water before it spilled over and disappeared among the lilies and paintbrush and marsh marigolds that thickly covered the damp ground. The water was sweet and good, and Einar, having had none since starting up from the creek that morning, filled his cupped hands with it time and again, waiting between drinks for the depression to refill with water. Retrieving the spam can cooking pot from his pack, Einar filled it with water to carry back to camp with him. Using the sharp-ended stick that had proven effective in digging out the spring, Einar freed a number of the avalanche lily bulbs and the rounder, potato-like spring beauty corms from the damp black soil of the slope, watching the pile grow and realizing that he had just come across a food source that very nearly equaled the berries in value. The starchy roots could be dried and saved indefinitely, providing a good source of winter food. Einar remembered hearing that a number of the northern tribes had yearly spent a week or two camped near alpine meadows and basins where avalanche lilies and spring beauty were abundant, the women and children digging the roots and processing them so that they were ready for storage and winter use. Many times each family would end up with several bags of the roots that weighed ten pounds or more each, and which went a long way towards supplementing their winter diets, as well as being a valuable trade item. The spring beauty corms, easily digestible even raw, had usually just been dried rather than also cooked at the time of harvest as the avalanche lily roots often were, sometimes strung onto lengths of sinew or a horsehair and hung for drying, and sometimes flattened and dried on rocks in the sun. Sometimes, he recalled, the fresh corms had been mashed up, mixed with mashed serviceberries, and the resulting mixture formed into cakes and dried on rocks for later addition to stews. Avalanche lilies, their roots rather poorly

digestible in their raw state, had been slowly steam cooked in pits over the course of two or more days, their indigestible inulin slowly converting to fructose as they cooked. Hmm. Steam cooked in pitsI wont be able to do that, at least not here so close to trails and everything, but they could always be cooked later, if I had them Near sleep in the warm afternoon sun, his mind drifting, Einar stared in a daze at the grassy little clearing, the warmth rising in shimmery waves from the ground and the hum of the ubiquitous flies and mosquitoes droning in his ears, seeing in his half wakeful dream a number of people, clad in buckskins and putting him in mind of the tribes whose root harvest of former times he had been contemplating, scattered through the clearing digging roots, filling baskets with them, and he could dimly hear their speech as they worked, and what sounded like the occasional laughter of children. A moment later he looked closer and realized that only two of the people remained, and that one of them was Liz, or someone that looked an awful lot like her, anyway, but wearing a nearly white buckskin dress and a sun hat that appeared to have been woven of cattail leaves. She glanced up, smiled at him, spoke to a young child with an unruly shock of sandy-colored hair that sat near her in a patch of Indian paintbrush, playfully poking at the ground with a smaller replica of her root-digging stick. Einar sat up with a start, having been jarred awake by the pain of his bruised ribs when he finally slumped over in sleep. Scrambling to his feet, he shook his head violently to clear it of the dream-images, (what is wrong with you, Einar! Where did that nonsense come from?) rubbed his eyes and stole a furtive glance at the clearing to make certain they had been merely dream, and seeing that he was alone, returned to his routine of digging and piling up the roots, wanting to get as much done as possible before the sun went down and he found himself with a need to return to camp, and shelter ahead of the cold of night. He couldnt get the images out of his head, though, desperately wanted them gone, removed the wolverine-hide sling and began using his right arm more freely to assist with the root harvest in the hopes that the pain would bring him back to reality, drive the memory of the dream from his mind. Which it did, for the time at least, leaving him to re-bind the arm minutes later to end the agony. Now about those roots. I could do like those tribesmen used to do, get hold of a bunch of the roots, dry them, have something more to put away for the winter. Probably should do it, as a matter of fact, since Ive got the opportunity, here. And I could make some of that berry-and-spring beauty dehydrated stew stock, too. Got the berries right here, both kinds of roots, and a ready source of water with this little spring, to drink from while Im here working. Any such plans, though, would have to wait until the next morning, at least. The sun was sinking behind the spruces on the opposite slope, the cold quickly descending as it went. Time to get back up to camp. That night was a better one for Einar, huddled down in his dry, insulated bed of spruce duff and protected from the wind by the surrounding boulders and the slabs of spruce bark he had covered the space with, his stomach full and nearly satisfied after an evening meal of pemmican, serviceberries and starchy white spring beauty potatoes. Completely worn out from his recent nights of scant sleep and a day of working hard

while trying to cope with his injuries, Einar slept long and soundly, waking with the sun in the morning and heading down to the newly discovered spring for a drink. Deciding to spend the morning, at least, digging roots in the little clearing below the spring, he returned to camp for the bundles of cattail leaves, spreading them in the sun above the spring and setting the berries out to finish their drying, knowing that they needed only an hour or two more, and they would be finished. Einar had abandoned his resolve to leave the area first thing in the morning after the previous day discovering the bounty of additional food that awaited his harvest, but had not abandoned his resolve to keep away from Liz. He had no intention of meeting with her, and had decided that even leaving a wolverine claw or some other token of his presence represented an unjustifiable risk, to both of them. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, though, the noon hour nearing, he found himself loading the roots into his pack, collecting the dried berries and containing them in a wrap of parachute material, concealing the cattail leaves beneath a spruce and heading down the hill. Hurrying along the game trail in the bottom of the draw, making surprisingly good time towards its juncture with the canyon, Einar told himself that he would do nothingmust do nothing to reveal his presence, to let Liz know that he was still in the area, nothing that would encourage her to return there again, and, difficult as he knew it was going to be to follow through on that resolve, he knew that he would do it. He just wanted to see her one more time, if only from a distance. For hours Einar waited, watching the hiking trail in the canyon and picking berries in his concealed location across from the tree-bench that was the designated meeting place, but Liz did not come. He knew that he had arrived well before noon, a good two hours before, by his reckoning, and he wondered, as the day wore on and the tree-shadows lengthened around him, whether he had somehow missed a day, lost a day to the fever and delirium of his infected arm, whether he could have possibly misunderstood the meaning of the note. The note was there, stashed in his boot between the liner and the outer shell where he had inexplicably chosen to conceal it after reading it, and he fished it out, slightly worn and a bit faded, but readable. No. No misunderstanding. And he hardly thought it possible that he had slept away an entire day without remembering it, though stranger things had certainly happened to him at the worst of his starvation that past year. But Ive been eating, so its not that. And the fever has not been all that bad, I dont think. I know this is the second day since she left the note. Finally, the sun gone and darkness swiftly descending on the canyon and the draw up which lay his camp, Einar turned and left, knowing he ought to be thankful that he had been spared the temptation of going to Liz had she appeared, but instead feeling rather pensive, dejected, alone. He shook his head, picked up his pace. Alone, huh? Youre always alone, remember, and its really never been a problem before. Sure cant start being one, now. Anyway, plenty of work to do, tomorrow. You will soon forget.

No one seemed to know anything about Susan, about who she had left the hospital with or where she might be, and Liz and Allan, accompanied by Susans son, daughter in

law and other relatives who had come into town after Bills death went down to the local police station in Clear Springs to file a missing persons report, but were told that since Susan was an adult and appeared to have voluntarily signed herself out of the hospital, there was not too much they could do to help in the search. The next morning, the morning of the day she was to meet with Einar, Liz found herself in Bill and Susans kitchen at five am, preparing breakfast for the group of seventeen of Susans friends and relatives who had stayed there the past night and were preparing to split up into several groups and start out in their search for Susan. Sheriff Watts had assured them that he, personally, would join them, along with several of his deputies, if any part of their search took place within his jurisdiction in Lakemont County. He had also put in a call to the police in Clear Springs to let them know that he, as an acquaintance of Susans, did not believe that she would have willingly left the hospital without telling her family, and that if she had, she might well be distraught over the recent death of her husband, and in danger. As the morning went on, Liz saw that there was no way she was going to be away to get out of there without everyone noticing her absence. Allan, fearing for her safety after Susans disappearance, had not once let her out of his sight that morning, and as it was a four hour hike up to the tree-bench where she had left the note for Einar, she could think of no way to make the meeting, even several hours late. Very briefly she considered including Allan, asking him to cover for her absence or to come with her, even, but she knew that to involve anyone else would be to endanger Einar, and whoever she let in on the project, also. And she doubted very much that Allan would allow her to go alone, especially considering the uncertainty over Susan. The matter would have to wait. Im sorry, Einar. I will come when I can. She feared, though, that he would take her absence as sign that something was wrong, that she had been found out, perhaps, and avoid any future meetings with her. Allan could not help but notice that Liz was trying very hard not to let anyone see how upset she was, but assumed it was all out of concern over Susan.

Quietly, carefully, Susan lowered herself to the ground between the van and the grey steel of the wall and stood, leaning heavily on the van, but she had a problem. She could not walk, her legs collapsing beneath her when she tried to take a step, and she supposed that it must be due to the lingering effects of whatever the agents had given her before taking her from the hospital. Pulling herself back up into the van, she hung on to the seat in front of her and got a look at her surroundings. No one seemed to be around, but she could hear voices coming from just beyond one of the nearby partition panels that had been set up in the building. The only doors in her section of the old feed store were the twin loading dock doors that sat directly in front of the van, and the large sliding door at the far side of the building, which she thought they must have driven the van in through. That door had been left open by a few feet, not enough to get the van through, but she was sure the heavy vehicle could manage to sufficiently widen the opening, and possibly get her through the gate and out of the compound, also. Raising herself up a few more

inches she looked into the drivers seat. No keys. There was a jacket, though, a dark blue jacket with a big yellow FBI on the back, and she grabbed it, got into in as well as she could and draped it over the rather obvious sling that held her broken arm. OK. Not taking the van, then, and theyre bound to be back soon. Other ideas? Well, cant walk but I bet I can crawl. Maybe one of those loading dock doors is unlocked, maybe I can raise it by a few inches without them hearing, and get out. Which she knew was pretty unlikely, with her broken arm and other injuries, but even less likely seemed the possibility of her covering the distance to the sliding door the van had entered through, crawling, without someone happening by and discovering her. Then she saw the forklift. The machine sat not ten feet from the van, and Susan knew she could cover that distance, knew also that the propane-fueled device would be nearly silent to operate, and she hoped that by donning the hardhat that she saw sitting on its seat and picking up one of the large wooden crates that sat in a row along one wall of the compound, she might be overlooked as she drove the forklift over to the sliding door, went through it, and left the building. What she would do after that she had no idea, but knew that she must try to avoid whatever her kidnappers had planned for her. Leaving the van, Susan made it over to the forklift, finding crawling to be rather difficult with the use of only one arm but managing it quite well, climbing up onto the seat and starting the forklift, perching the hardhat on her head and hoping that it would help to conceal her bruised and puffy face, which she supposed would be a dead giveaway that she was not the agent whose jacket she had borrowed. Stopping to pick up one of the wooden crates on her way to the door, Susan had just got the forks under it and begun lifting when she heard a shouted challenge from behind, glanced around and saw two men hurrying towards her. She raised a hand in a wave, was about to say something, but could see that they were onto her, and supposed they must have been the two who had taken her from the hospital. The men were between her and the open door, and quickly turning the machine, she pushed it for all it was worth towards the nearest of the closed loading dock doors, raising the crate another foot or two so that it was up in front of her face where she hoped it would offer her some protection, as well as helping to push through the closed door. She knew there would be a rather sudden three or four foot drop outside the door, and hoped she could manage to jump clear of the forklift, rather than being crushed beneath it when it fell. Standing as well as she could and hanging on as the heavy crate and the momentum of the moving machine easily shoved aside the thin steel of the closed door, Susan threw herself from the forklift as its front wheels came off the edge of the loading dock, the machine quickly unbalancing and pitching forward over the dropoff, pulled by the weight of the crate. Hitting the grassy ground to the left side of the loading dock, Susan rolled twice, brought up short by something large and smooth and white, crawling behind it and flattening herself against the ground. She could hear shouting in the building behind her, and a loud, insistent hissing as the forklifts punctured propane tank began releasing its contents. Guessing what the sound was, she raised her head and glanced back, seeing a shooting blue flame like a small blowtorch emerging from the place where the forklifts tank had been partially crushed against the cement corner of the dock in the crash. Realizing that the structure she had taken refuge behind was a large propane tank, and

that there was probably about to be a much larger fire in the area, she quickly pulled herself forward, seeking other cover.

Finding his way back up to his camp in the dark after Liz failed to show up, Einar searched until he found the rockslide, scanning the skyline for the oddly shaped dead snag that he had chosen as a landmark to help him find the deadfalls he had set, finally recognizing its silhouette against the sky. Moving slowly, remembering the spill he had taken the last time he had been on the rockslide and uninterested in repeating the mishap in the darkness, he reached the area, felt around with his boot until he found the first of the traps, still intact. Leaving it, he moved on to the second, and after a good deal more searching and prodding than he had expected would be required it he found it, discovering that he had passed it over the first time, mistaking the collapsed slab of the trap for a naturally occurring feature of the rockslide. Lifting the slab with his boot he felt around underneath and sure enoughdinner! The trap contained a good sized if somewhat flattened marmot and Einar was glad, being pretty hungry after having eaten his fill and more of berries during the day, but little else. Einar was, as before, finding the intermittent food supply as he began recovering from his latest struggle with near starvation to be almost as difficult to deal with as the near complete lack of food had been. His body, once again becoming used to eating on a somewhat regular basis, was constantly wanting more than he had to give it and the marmot, while it had not yet managed to put on the thick layer of fat that would see it through the winter, was nonetheless a good deal fattier than the serviceberries he had been consuming, and would be a welcome addition to the diet, allowing him to preserve more of his remaining pemmican for later. Thinking about the thin but quite prominent layer of white fat that he knew he would find beneath the animals golden brown hide, Einar found himself very nearly drooling. Planning to clean the creature up near the little spring where he would have access to water to wash up afterwards, he headed in its direction, smelling the damp ground even before he heard the faint trickle of the water as it seeped into the ground. Good as it would have been to settle down to a nice evening meal of roast marmot, Einar did not even seriously entertain the possibility of having a fire up in the little basin that night; the two small planes that he had earlier heard and then spotted off in the distance remained fresh in his mind, ensuring that the prospect of fire was not even remotely tempting to him. Not without some better cover, and not so close to areas where people may be camping. Sitting in his cold camp that night after a supper of raw marmot and spring beauty corms, Einar huddled in the wolverine hide with his back against one of the boulders that sheltered his sleeping spot and watched the stars slowly show up in the increasingly blackening sky, barely even blinking in the clear, thin air, allowing himself a few minutes of rest before dealing with his arm one final time, and attempting to get some sleep. The arm had been bothering him a bit less that day, and he had several times washed and treated it with a berberine solution that he had brewed in the sun using spring water and Oregon grape roots that he had dug from under the aspens above the little spring. The

wounds seemed to be beginning to heal, though rather slowly. His ribs were a different matter, and though he did not believe the bear could have actually broken any of them, the creature certainly had left them bruised and aching terribly. Though he had used his right arm some that day, the only thing that offered his injured ribs any relief was to keep it tightly bound against his chest, to limit their movement. So much for my atlatl practice. Was starting to get pretty decent with that thing. Einar was beginning to become increasingly uncomfortable with his lack of any weapon with a longer range than the spear. Any that I am able to actually use, that is Working to clean and bandage his arm, he very deliberately kept his thoughts focused on his need for weapons, on the root harvest that he intended to continue the next day, on the vest he hoped to make from the deer hide whenever he was able to return to the creviceshelter and finish up with the tanning process (Hey! Get ahold of a few more marmots, and that vest can be turned into a shirt, with marmot hide sleeves! Why not?) and off of Liz and the fact that she had not shown up as she had promised. Every time the matter did sneak into his conscious thought, it brought with it a sharp sense of loneliness and loss that he knew was not useful to him, was perhaps even a bit frightening, or would have been, if he had allowed himself to think about it. Forget it. You know it is best this way. And he slept.

Susan had very nearly made it to the corner of the building by the time the small propane tank that had fueled the forklift finally exploded, sending shards of hot metal flying at a high rate of speed into the adjoining one thousand gallon tank that was used to heat the compound, the resulting explosion flattening a large section of the wall and caving in a good portion of the roof. The explosion and ensuing fire sent the agents inside scrambling for the exits and pouring out into the fenced area around the compound, carrying whatever they could grab and quite certain that they were under attack by whatever shadowy forces had recently left the heads of their Agent in Charge and two of his colleagues on rake handles inside the perimeter, disappearing without a trace. Having escaped further injury by throwing herself behind a row of cement barricades that had been set up in front of the compound, Susan made for the perimeter fence in the confusion after the blast, seeing a row of vehicles and hoping to find one that contained keys so she might have a chance of getting through the double row of concertina-topped chain link that stood between her and freedom. She had almost made it to the vehicles when she was spotted, still wearing the borrowed FBI jacket and taken at first for an injured and confused blast victim. The two agents that rushed to help her soon discovered her identity, and confined her to one of the vans, two armed men remaining to guard her.

The next morning, Einar made a trip down to the cattail and willow bog below the beaver pond in the draw, needing to make another container or two to hold his growing

collection of dried berries and avalanche lily and spring beauty tubers. Cutting a number of willow wands and climbing a short distance up the spruce covered slope above the pond, he began work on the first basket, having decided that it would be easier to carry a completed basket or two back up the hill than it would a loose bundle of smooth, slippery willow wands that would be constantly wanting to slide and shift and come loose from whatever binding he used. The morning was chilly and once again clear, and Einar edged further and further out from beneath the trees as the sun reached the floor of the draw, anxious to absorb its rays and begin warming after what had been, inevitably, another cold night for him. He had managed alright as long as he had been moving, but sitting still, it was a constant struggle to keep his hands limber enough to weave and twine the willows into the carrying baskets he was attempting to make. The wolverine hide, while certainly helpful, had again been folded and wrapped to hold his right arm somewhat steady in an effort to reduce the pain that moving it brought to his bruised ribs, leaving him with less protection from the cold than if he had been able to wrap and secure the pelt around his shoulders, as before. Sure will be good to get back up there to the shelter and finish that deer hide, so I got something to wear on my top half! After another day, two at the most, Einar expected that the roots he had been digging would have lost enough of their moisture that they would not be too difficult to haul back up to his shelter in the crevice, though six or seven days would likely be required for them to dry completely. Realizing how difficult it was going to be for him to carry any significant amount of weight on his back over the ten or more miles of rugged, sometimes steep ground that lay between him and the crevice-shelter, Einar was beginning to seriously consider caching some portion of the bounty in the area of the basin, where he could later return for it and where, if he for some reason had to abandon his shelter with little or nothing as had happened in the past, he could be certain that something, at least, waited for him. First, though, he knew he would have to find a way to protect the dried food from animals and moisture, so he could have some hope of finding it intact and usable, when he did return. He wondered how well it might work to store the dried goods in willow baskets that were stuck down inside pitch-coated coverings of woven cattails. With enough workand enough pitchhe knew he could create a good sized storage vessel or two that would be entirely waterproof and would likely discourage small animals from chewing through it, especially if he imbedded a bunch of granite chips in the still-hot and malleable pitch, as he worked. The food caches could then be hung high in the tree branches where they would be out of reach of larger critters such as bears, waiting his return. Or, if he could find a suitably protected rock overhang or ledge with a good bit of loose rock litter around and under it, he could stash the baskets at the back and pile rocks over them to keep out the scavengers. Not quite as secure as hanging in the trees, but certainly less visible if anyone should happen along, and even more protected from the weather. All right. So at least one of these baskets will end up coated with pitch. Better start looking for some more pitch, on my way back up today. He had a good bit of pitch saved up, gathered here and there from damaged trees, but knew that it would take more still to coat and waterproof even one good sized basket. And the process would, of course, require the use of fire, which he was still not at all sure that he could talk himself into

doing, as close as he was to other hikers and, potentially, campers. The prospect of being able to cache some of the food he was acquiring made the temptation far greater, and, he told himself, so what if someone does end up smelling the smoke? Theyll probably just think its another nearby backpacker, and not give it a second thought. And anyone who sees the signature from a plane, will think the same thing. Which all sounded quite reasonable, but the thought of having a fire at that point spooked him so much that he knew he would probably find a way to talk himself out of it, despite the possible benefits. On one of his several trips back to the bog to cut additional willow wands, Einar, a bit thirsty from sitting in the sun, cut a cattail shoot to get at the crisp, juicy celery of its inner stalk, noticing as he ate a covering of brilliant green, ground hugging leaves in a nearby pool of water. Thinking he recognized the luminous, almost shiny green of the nearly floating plant-carpet, he picked one of the leaves, crushing it and finding confirmation in the tangy peppery smell. Watercress. He took a few leaves with him to eat as he worked intending to return just before heading up the slope to the basin to gather a pile of the leaves as a tasty addition to his dinner of marmot and serviceberries. As the day warmed, the mosquitoes came out in force, and Einar found himself barely able to concentrate on the basket he was attempting to finish, as they swarmed and bit him. Looking around for some yarrow, which he knew worked quite well to deter the thirsty pests when rubbed on the skin, Einar could come up with only a few small leaves, and, not wanting to take the time away from his work to hunt down an adequate supply and increasingly harassed by a growing cloud of whining, biting mosquitoes, he set aside the half finished baskets and hurried down to the marshy ground below the beaver dam, filling his hands with the gooey black swamp muck and smearing it all over his arms and torso, with the exception of the recent bear scratches and the wolverine wound, and skipping his face with the thought that he could probably come up with enough yarrow to protect it. Chilled at first by the cold mud, Einar sat in the sun, soon finding that, in addition to keeping the mosquitoes from sucking out all of his blood, the layer of darkcolored mud had the added benefit of absorbing the suns warmth, soon leaving him a good bit more comfortable as he worked through the cool morning. The drying mud was a bit itchy and odd feeling, but, he figured, an awful lot better than being covered with mosquito bites. He could wash it off at the spring later. As he worked, Einar became increasingly frustrated with the necessity to keep his arm bound across his chest, which was slowing the work and forcing him to get into odd positions in order to use his right hand. The bruised ribs still hurt pretty badly if he moved his right arm, but as it seemed that the simple act of breathing, which he of course had no intention of stopping, was causing nearly as much pain, he eventually took his arm out of the sling and began using it a bit more normally. Not for lifting any significant amount of weight, though, as his first attempt to do so produced a rather sharp reminder that it was not yet time. Doggone bear! Soon as these ribs are a little better and I can get in a couple more days of practice with that atlatl, Im coming for you.

While Einar had been thinking very seriously about the possibility of going after the bear as soon as he was again able to use a weapon well enough, it was to be not nearly so long before he again saw the creature. A bear, at least, as it had been rather too dark the night of his prior encounter for him to notice anything about the animal that would allow him to recognize it when they met again. It had been large, and had mashed his ribs as it flipped him over; that was really all he remembered. That, and the fact that the bear had seemingly saved him from what had been shaping up to be a long and miserable life in a very small cement box, for which he found himself continually grateful to the creature, though still not above pursuing it as a source of much needed food and fur. Nearly finished with his storage baskets and preparing to make a final visit to the bog before heading up the slope Einar felt a presence, felt that he was not alone, and looked up. He spotted the two rounded, furry ears even before he began to hear the telltale shuffling in the brush, studying the serviceberry thicket on the far side of the creek and seeing the bear, a big cinnamon, gorging itself on berries not over a hundred yards from where he had sat working on the baskets. The day was still, and Einar had been still himself for a long while, quietly finishing the baskets in the sun beside the spruce he had chosen for shelter; the bear seemed not to be aware of his presence. Watching the bear, Einars hand tightened around the spear that sat at his side, visions of dripping, sizzling fatty bear steaks nearly overpowering his good sense and sending him charging down at the creature. Which probably would have been disastrous. He restrained himself, watching and wondering what his chances would be if he attempted to take the creature. Not very good, Im guessing. Which arm are you planning to use for the spear, anyway? Because I dont think either one is up to the task. As the bear continued to gobble berries, oblivious to his presence and slowly working its way closer to his position, Einar fought with himself over the wisdom of trying to turn the creature into food, one minute telling himself that there was no way he could afford to miss the chance, that the rich, fatty meat and the layer of bear-blubber, not to mention the hide, could mean the difference for him between life and death, that if he used both arms for the spear, angered the bear and managed to find a boulder to brace the spear against as the animal charged at him, he could manage it, and the next moment chiding himself for entertaining such thoughts. Critter would kill you, Einar. One swat and youd be down, and then if it was really angry, or at all hungry, it would finish you off easy as anything. Youre not moving real fast right now, if you had not noticed. And if you did manage to drive that spear into its gullet, or whatever you had planned, youd probably still die of your injuries. Sure dont need any more injuries right now. The argument was an interesting exercise, but he knew that it was little more. The chances that he could sufficiently anger a black bear to cause it to charge himunless it was a mother with cubs, which this one was notwere very small. More likely, the creature would turn tail and run at the first sight or smell of him. He needed a longer range weapon, the atlatl or perhaps a bow, if he wanted a good chance at taking the bear. Just to make certain that he would no longer be at all tempted to stalk down the hill and try to confront the creature with the spear as he had been initially considering, Einar raised it in his right hand and drew it back in one swift motion as if to throw, the shooting pain in his ribs as he made the move doubling him over and nearly causing him to black out as he leaned his forehead on the rough bark of the spruce,

taking cautious, shallow breaths in an effort to minimize the pain. OK. I get it. Will be waiting on the bear. What did you have to go and do that for? When the screaming in his head had quieted some and he was again able to take more normal, if still somewhat shallow breaths, Einar got carefully to his feet, wiping the sweat from his face and looking for the bear, which was right where he had left it, munching berries and adding to the layer of fat that he hoped to soon acquire as sustenance. You go right ahead and keep that up, friend, keep putting on that fat. Doing a good job there. I will be back for you later. Very quietly Einar returned to the swampy area below the beaver pond, cutting several cattail shoots and collecting a mess of watercress to eat with his supper, adding a dab of mud here and there to his arms and shoulders where it had dried and begun flaking off as he worked, allowing the mosquitoes to get at him once again. Ascending the slope above the beaver pond, he noticed a small patch of milkweed in a sunny little steep-angled clearing, its small pink blooms having given way to tiny seed pond that he knew over the next week would grow and swell until they almost resembled okra, and would be, in his opinion, nearly as good to eat. They were no good raw, however, as the white sap that gave the plant its name and was present in small quantities even in the seed pods was mildly toxic and somewhat nauseating, but destroyed by cooking. Well. Maybe I can take some back with me when I leave here in a day or two, boil them up back at the crevice. The thoughts of the crevice brought to the forefront a nagging concern that had been eating at him ever since he left the rocky shelter after the early morning visit from the Blackhawk, several days prior. The fact was that he did not know for certain that the place was even safe to return to, had no way to be sure that whoever had thought it worthy of investigation from the air that morning had not later returned on the ground for a closer look. He had, of course, watched the place for several hours that morning to see that nothing of the sort was happening, and it had not, during that time, but could have later. And if searchers had ended up on the ground anywhere near the place, they would have inevitably seen signs of human presence, would have discovered the deer hide stretched and hanging in the tree, would have eventually found his den in the rock. But Ive got to go back. Need that jerky, need the hide, need them real bad right now. Ill be careful, watch the place for a day, two, whatever it takes for me to be sure its safe. Got to have that stuff. The bear had never seen him; Einar headed for his camp in the basin.

By the time the Culver Falls Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene of the blast and fire at the FBI compound, the agents had set out with Susan, sedated and under heavy guard, to the Regional FBI Office in Clear Springs for the intended interrogation that they had been unable to carry out at the now-burning compound. Only one of the four men that accompanied her in the van was of the pair that had initially removed her from her hospital room; the other, following close behind her as she made her attempted escape by crashing the forklift through the loading dock door, had been standing in the door when the propane blast went off, and was also on his way to Clear Springs, aboard a Med Evac helicopter.

After the recent unsolved beheadings of agent Day and his two cohorts and in light of their general mistrust of the local population, the agents insisted on searching the fire trucks before they were allowed inside the perimeter fence, and good bit of damage had been done to the building by the time the agents finally allowed the firefighters in, the fire having spread to several vehicles and the brush near a pair of half empty thousand gallon gasoline and diesel storage tanks that stood behind the old feed store. The immediate efforts of the fire department were focused on controlling the blaze in the patch of scrub oak that had grown up behind the fuel tanks, hoping to prevent them from heating up too much and catching fire or exploding, and on keeping the fire from jumping across the cleared perimeter area and up onto the dry hillside beyond, where it could have spread rapidly. By the time they were able to shift their efforts to the building, it had been fairly thoroughly gutted, as had one of the bunk-trailers that had been hauled in to house some of the agents participating in the search. Susan woke less than an hour later in a white walled holding cell inside the Regional FBI Office, strapped firmly to a hospital bed. She struggled to sit up, her would-be interrogators seeing, and entering the room.

Who is Bill? We know you know who he is, so lets just get this over with. It was the sixth time they had asked the question, by Susans count, and the fourth way they had phrased it. The two men, one appearing to be in his thirties and the other somewhere around Susans age with hair close-cropped and graying around the temples, each carrying a clip board, had taken seats in chairs on either side of her hospital-style bed, raising the head of the bed and placing a digital recorder on a nearby table. Susan stared straight ahead, focusing on a little spot of chipped paint that she had picked out on the steel door of the holding cell, just below its small window of double glass with its enveloped layer of wire mesh, debating with herself whether or not to say anything at all to the men. She was sure they were taunting her about her dead husband, assumed that it was their way of softening her up for the real questions, whatever they were going to be. Something to do with the initial reason the agents had run them off the road in the first place, she supposed, or perhaps they simply wanted to find out if she remembered anything of what Day and the others had done after the crash. Day was dead, as were the two agents who had watched while he attacked her. She remembered that, and was glad, did not believe that her captors had any intention of finishing the job Day had started. If they wished to kill her, why bring her toshe did not know where she was, but it appeared to be a jail of some sort. She closed her eyes, thinking of Bill, of the last time she had seen him alive, after the crash. Before they had taken her away and killed him. She realized that the men were getting more insistent with their questioning, the younger one in particular. She did not much care. Just wanted to be with Bill, felt that if she just let go and stopped trying to stay awake, it would probably not be all that long before she could join him. Bill. He would not want her to give up so easily. She knew he would want her to fight,

to live, to resist these men and whatever it was they wanted from her. Susan decided. She would answer their first question, the cruel, mocking question that could not to her mind be anything but rhetorical, but after thatwell, just let them try to get me to answer any more. She opened her eyes, one still squinty from the swelling, and stared defiant and unafraid at the agent who was then addressing her with the fifteenth repetition of the question, the older man with the short, graying hair. Bill, she said very distinctly despite her wired jaw, was my husband. You murdered him. And she closed her eyes, lay her head back down.

Unable to obtain any information on Susans fate from the hospital staff or local law enforcement there in Clear Springs, Allan paid a visit to the Mini-Mart across the street from the hospital, wearing his EMT uniform jacket and putting on his best professional tone as he informed the attendant that he was investigating the disappearance of a patient, and would need to see the surveillance tapes from earlier that day. The attendant never even asked for ID, and Allan left with the tapes from three separate cameras that covered the general area of the hospital.

Knowing that he would need a good bit of pitch if he was to waterproof the baskets he had just made and use them to cache some of his food, Einar made a deliberate effort to seek it out on his way back up the mountain to the basin-camp, alert for trees that had been damaged by hungry porcupines or gouged by rocks that had tumbled down from higher up on the slope, and fairly quickly filling the bottom of one of the new baskets with globs and chunks of the sap, in varying states of dryness. His hands were soon sticky enough with the stuff that he barely even needed to hold onto the basket; it stuck quite firmly to his fingers where he held it. Though making an effort to focus on his pitch-collecting work, it seemed all Einar could think of was that bearthe wealth of meat and fat it had to offer, and the tremendous improvement a bear skin blanket would bring to his chilly and often sleepless nights. Einar had not gone very far up the slope above the creek and beaver pond before he stopped, wheeled around with an odd mixture of frustration and glee in his eyes and began hurrying back down towards a grove of spruces that stood just behind the serviceberry thicket, on the bears side of the creek. Noticing the strange, wild haired, mud smeared creature limping quickly down the hill in its general direction the bear let our a startled snort and ambled off down the draw to seek other, less contaminated sources of berries. Einar wanted that bear, needed the bear, and was fairly certain that he had just come up with a means of getting his hands on it, without being mauled to death in the process. Reaching the spruces, he chose an area where the trees grew fairly close together, but not so close as to make travel difficult for a bear, found a spot where the trunks of four good sized trees formed a rough rectangle, the trunks on the short sides or the rectangle no farther than a foot apart. Einar set about searching for a couple of suitable fallen trees to use in making a deadfall, one to place on the ground, and the other

for the weight that would, if all went well, come down and trap the bears head as it went for the bait he would leave it. Pemmican. That ought to tempt a bear all right, even during berry season. Finding a spruce that had died, rotted inside and been snapped off in a wind he struggled to slide the twenty foot portion that sat nearest over into the slot between the four trunks he had chosen as the frame for the trap, unable at first to do anything but roll it slightly to one side or the other. After breaking off a few of the extraneous branches that still clung to the trunk, dragging became a bit easier, Einar using the branch-stumps as handles and making every effort to spare his damaged ribs. Which unfortunately meant minimizing the use of his right arm. By the time he had hauled and shoved the trunk over into the space between the four tree trunk-braces, he was beat, exhausted, sat down on the log and rested his head on his knees, rising again when his heart had slowed sufficiently that the nausea began to subside. Whew! Not quite back to normal yet, Einar. Need a few more days of rest, food, and maybe things will get a little easier. OK. Got to find another log like this, for the top part. The top log, he knew, would have to be heavy, preferably green, if it was to have sufficient weight to deliver a fatal blow or at least hold the creature in place when it fell. The same wind that had broken the rotten spruce had also snapped off a good sized aspen several feet above the ground, leaving a mass of splintered wood sticking up into air where the tree had been. The broken section that lay on the ground was, of course, far too long for use in the trap; even if he managed to raise the entire thing at an angle and support it from underneath with a brace that was linked to the trigger stick, the top of the tree would almost inevitably catch on other trees on its way down, leading to failure of the trap. Have to cut it. Einar had his pocket knife, the bone spearhead andthat was it. Wish I could just make a fire under it and burn it through. That would be quickest. But, no. Searching around, he found several sharply fractured chunks of a granite-like rock, set them down beside the trunk, and began work with the knife, removing the bark all the way around at the point where he wanted the tree to break, cutting and shaving at the green wood with the three inch blade of the pocket knife and seeing that he had rather a long task ahead of him. The rocks, as he discovered which of the fractured surfaces worked best for cutting, proved to be a tremendous help, and he soon worked out a routine in which he would carve and shave for a while with the knife, then use the weight and cutting power of the rocks to chop out the chunks and slivers of fibrous green wood that he had begun carving loose. It was slow, laborious work, and Einar found himself unable to switch back and forth from one hand to the other, due to his ribs on the right side, having to manage the entire task with his left hand. As his work on the tree neared completion, he began to wonder just how he had imagined he was going to be able to raise the top log to set the trap, once he did get it cut and dragged into place. He did not have a good answer. Just going to have to start trying things, I guess. Before attempting to set the deadfall, Einar went around into the brush behind it, weaving together and tangling the chokecherry scrub, adding a fallen branch here and there to make it less tempting for the bear to simply walk around behind the deadfall to get at the bait, rather than sticking its head into the trap as he hoped it would do. Though aware

that it would be a challenge, Einar found that he had entirely underestimated the difficulty of raising the heavy green aspen log to set the deadfall. After several failed attempts, one of which led to him slipping and nearly crushing his own leg in the trap, Einar stepped back, leaning on a nearby tree and struggling for breath, very close to giving up on the entire thing and simply walking away before he managed to hurt himself any worse than he already had. Very anxious not to waste all the effort he had thus far put into the trap, he decided to make one final effort, actually working his way in under the log and using his back to help raise it, rather than counting on his arms, both of which seemed disturbingly inclined to betray him at the worst of times, to do the task. Struggling with the dead weight of the log, using his right hand to steady it as he was not able to lift his left that high, Einar made his best effort to ignore the pain in his side where the bear had bruised his ribs, knowing that if he dropped the log at that point, he would almost certainly end up injuring himself in some way, and even if he escaped harm, would not have the strength to lift it again. Finally raising the log high enough that he could stick the bracepart of a spruce branch that he prayed was going to be sturdy enough to bear the weightbeneath it, he carefully let the log come to rest on it, sank to his knees and breathed for a minute, pressing his arm to his side and knowing that he was not quite done yet, must not rest for too long until he was. OK. Trigger stick. Shoving a good sized lump of pemmican onto the stick, he again got his back under the deadfall log and lifted, setting the stick on the lower log and precariously balancing the upright brace on top of it so that the log wouldhopefullyfall when the bear pawed or bit at the bait. Carefully extracting himself from the trap and rolling to the ground in front of it, Einar partook of a few minutes of forced rest; despite his best efforts, he had passed out. Coming to when a gust of wind blew leaves into his face and slowly getting to his feet, Einar limped down to the creek, very thirsty. He glanced back. The trap was finished, looked like it ought to work, but it felt like the effort had torn something in his ribcage where the bear had bruised him previously don't know what that would be, but I better be careful for a few days and he just hoped the struggle would end up having been worth it. He started up the slope for camp, finding it difficult to get a deep breath without serious pain, stopped to bind his arm with the wolverine hide in an attempt to reduce it, realizing as he did that the restless wind that had picked up as he built the bear trap was quickly turning colder, bringing with it a high thin skiff of cloud that promised a shift in the weather. Hurrying as well as he could, Einar was very anxious to get up to his camp ahead of any rain that might be coming, to make certain that the food he had been drying was safe from the moisture. As so often happens in those mountains, the weather situation progressed very rapidly, and before he was halfway up the slope a close thunderclap echoed off the canyon walls behind him, followed immediately by a tremendous downpour that within seconds washed most of the mosquito-repelling swamp muck from Einars back and sent him scrambling, drenched and chilled, for the cover of the nearest stand of spruces.

Waiting out the heaviest of the downpour in a small, nearly dry sheltered spot beneath the

spruces, Einar pressed himself up against the trunk of a tree to avoid the wind, quickly untying the sodden wolverine hide from its position as an arm sling and wrapping it around his shoulders, glad that parts of the fur had remained dry due to the way he had folded it before tying. The initial intensity of the storm subsided a bit after a couple of minutes, the rain continuing in a steady deluge but lacking the initial pounding fury that had driven him beneath the trees, and Einar, already soaked and in a hurry to check on and secure his dried berries and the drying roots, continued up the hill, rolling up the wolverine hide and stashing it in one of the baskets, which he carried upside-down in an effort to shield it from the worst of the rain. He knew he would be badly needing something reasonably dry to wrap up in once he reached the shelter. Between the wind, rain and the fact that anything beyond small, shallow breaths hurt his injured ribs pretty badly, it was a slow, somewhat miserable climb for Einar, and he reached the basin winded and awfully cold, crawling under the slabs of sheltering bark and rolling up in the wolverine hide for a few minutes, exhausted, before mustering the strength to go back out into the weather and check on his food supply. Protected by the boulders, overhanging trees and the long, curled slabs of spruce bark that he had placed across the two rocks it was nestled between, his bed, at least, was mostly dry. For that he was very grateful. Leaving the wolverine hide in the shelter to avoid further wetting it, Einar dragged himself to his feet and went to investigate the condition of his food, and see what he might do to protect it from further water damage. The baskets of dried berries and partially dehydrated spring beauty and avalanche lily tubers, hung high in the evergreen branches to keep them from becoming bear food, had fared reasonably well despite the rain, as Einar discovered when he lowered them. Retrieving a packet of pemmican form his pack basket, he used some of the cattail leaves that he had been spreading the berries on to dry, and which themselves had remained dry where he had stashed them beneath a tree, covering the baskets and hoisting them back up into the branches where they would be safe from scavengers. If there are any scavengers out and about on an afternoon like this. Which I doubt. He was thirsty, did not want to make the long trip down to the spring in the rain and the premature dimness of that stormy afternoon, instead catching the drops that were gathering and dripping off of the evergreen branches, wetting his parched throat but no more. Got to drink. Near the shelter, he set the Spam can to fill where a particularly good amount of water seemed to be dripping and at times almost streaming down from a sharply broken branch high above. By the time Einar made it back into the shelter, he knew that he was going to need a fire. He had been considering having one anyway that night, to melt the pitch he had collected and coat the cache baskets, but his extended time in the icy rain and relentless wind, combined with temperatures that seemed to be falling rapidly as evening moved in, had moved it from the realm of possibility to that of necessity. Got to wait till dark, though. Even in weather like this, a smear of smoke could show up against the trees if anybody was looking, and I think theres gonna be some smoke this time. Things are pretty wet. Darkness was not all that far off, from the looks of things, but he could tell it was going to be a long wait. Fumbling with his chilled hands he scraped away the duff in a small area against one of the boulders, dug down to the dirt and arranged some of the drier sticks so that he would be ready when the

time came for a fire, sticking part of one of the previous years fluffy brown cattail heads beneath the tent of sticks as tinder. Wrapping up in the wolverine hide and lying back in the duff, covering himself as well as he could with the dry spruce needles, Einar nibbled on a bit of pemmican and tried to relax, to keep still. The shivering hurt his ribs. No deal. He was too cold, could not stop. A decent sized pile of previously-gathered dry sticks lay against the boulder near his tiny fire pit, supplemented by a slightly less dry pile that he had broken off from the undersides of spruces after checking on his food stores, and Einar clutched the fire steel that hung from his neck in its leather pouch, waiting for darkness and the opportunity to get warm. The fire steel made him think of Liz, and he wondered once again why she had not shown up as the note said she would. He hoped nothing had happened to her, that someone had not discovered that she had been trying to contact him. That makes no sense. How would they have known? They obviously dont know where you are, or theyd have been here for you by now. She probably just decided it would not have been a smart thing to do, which is of course true. Good for her. Now forget it. But he did not, could not seem to turn his thoughts in a different direction, his cold mind wandering off into pleasant daydreams of a cozy little cabin well stocked with food and the smell of supper on the stove as he returned from a long day of hard work and travel, Liz standing in the doorway wearing the white buckskin dress he had seen her in the previous day when he had dozed off while digging roots. He smiled sadly, eyes half open as he watched the storm outside, knowing it was a life that could never be his, but somehow comforted by the images, nonetheless. Those thoughts, along with the growing anticipation of possibly finding a bear in his trap the next day, helped Einar not to feel the cold quite so acutely as he waited, shivering, for the last of the daylight to die out so that he could have a fire. At some point in his daydreaming Einar, worn out from the days labors, actually fell asleep for a minute, finding himself to his horror back in the whitewalled prison cell of his previous nightmare, for a brief moment tasting again the evil black despair that he had known in the midst of that dream. He woke, sat up, let out his breath in a big sigh as he put out his hand and made contact with the damp cold reassuring rock beside him, the wind gusting in between the boulders and chattering his teeth. Thank You! Thanks for this big old cold wet world of Yours, for keeping me out of their hands and out of that place... Lighting the fire as dusk gave way to darkness beneath the drenched, dripping trees, Einar set the Spam can, by that time nearly full of water, beside it to heat, throwing in a spruce sprigblown from its tree in the great winds that continued to sweep the area drinking a few swallows of warm tea before removing the needles and plopping an entire packet of pemmican into the heating water. He wanted to work on pitch-coating one of the baskets, but knew that he needed some energy first, needed to warm up a bit if he wanted his hands to work, and was sure that the hot, fatty pemmican stew would be just the thing. The boulders reflected the heat of the tiny fire nicely, and before long Einar, his stomach full of rich, warm stew and his clotheswhat remained of thembeginning to dry, was feeling much better. Melting the collection of pitch lumps and globs he had earlier collected in the empty Spam can, Einar worked to coat the larger of the two baskets that he had made, using part of a cattail leaf for a brush to apply the pitch and

ending up with rather tacky, slightly burnt fingers from handling the sticky goo. To his dismay, Einar found himself struggling constantly with the smoke as he worked, the weather system keeping it from rising normally and leaving it to settle in and around his shelter, watering his eyes and causing occasional fits of coughing and choking that left him doubled over on the shelter floor at the pain this brought his bruised ribs. One time, unable to stop coughing and blinded by the smoke, he stumbled out into the night to lean on one of the boulders, catching his breath, nearly oblivious to the fact that he was again being drenched by the still-falling rain. After that it seemed that the wind picked up, gusts frequently sweeping lengthwise through his shelter and keeping the smoke cleared out for the most part, but also carrying away the heat of his tiny fire and chilling him as they passed. He had no more coughing fits after that, but he never did quite get warm again either, or entirely dry. Finally satisfied with the basket, he set the waterproofed basket and its round, tightly-woven lid aside, thinking that it was unfortunate that the berries, slightly damp from the rain, were not in any condition to be immediately sealed in it. He would have liked to get the project finished up, that night. Well. Later. Got a lot done, and it sure is good to be a little warmer, if not quite dry. Einar fished a rock out of the coals of the dying firea small chunk of granite that had apparently fallen at some time from one of his shelter-rocksand set the pitch-covered Spam can outside the shelter to fill with rainwater so he would have something to drink in the morning. The fire out, Einar huddled down in the spruce duff, clutching the warmed rock to his chest, still damp and soon shivering again, having an awful time finding a position to lie in that did not hurt, but when he finally drifted off to sleep it was with a wry little smile on his face, thinking of his dream of the prison, of the stark contrast between it and his current life... A good life, and will get better. Starting with some bear roast tomorrow, maybe Descending the slope the next morning, the wolverine hide drawn closely around him against the chill of the clearing weather and moving slowly and stiffly after the previous days exertion, Einar did not even have to cross the creek to realize that something had gone wrong with his bear trap. It had been tripped, that much was obvious, but no bear was in sight. Approaching the trap, Einar saw what had happened. The wind, gusting ferociously the night before, had toppled a small aspen, its top landing on the trap trigger and dropping the top log that he had struggled so hard to lift and place. Most of the pemmican bait was gone, having been gobbled by some creature in the night, and Einar scraped up and ate the crumbs that remained, hungry and cold and feeling pretty dejected about the whole thing. Well. Guess I get in there and start over, raise that log again and reset the thing, if I can. About to do it he stopped, sighed, shook his head. No. Need to get out of here, get back up to the crevice and take care of the rest of that jerky. Leave it there for too long and my scent is going to fade, some critter is gonna get brave enough or innovative enough to find a way to get it down and run off with it. Plus theres the deer hide. Need a vest or something awful bad, and with this rain, it should be all softened up and ready for the next step in the tanning. Cant just leave it to sit, though. Ill go, take care of the jerky and the hide, then come back for more berries, more spring beauty. Can reset this trap then, and maybe get my hands on that old bear. The decision, though he would not have admitted it, was something of a relief to Einar. He had not

been looking forward to another struggle with that heavy log, had, in fact, been fairly certain that he would have ended up injuring himself pretty badly if he had insisted on trying to lift it that morning. Ready to return to his basin camp and retrieve everything for the long trip back up to the crevice-shelter, Einar paused, looked down the draw and trying to talk himself out of acting on a sudden compulsion to venture down to the canyon one last time and check the meeting-log for any sign that Liz had been back. It was early still, barely light, and he knew that few if any hikers would yet be out on the trail, supposed there should be no harm in checking. Federal agent loses life in freak forklift accident FBI compound sustains heavy damage in propane blast and fire July 4 Associated Press Culver FallsIn an incident that can only be described as bizarre, FBI agent J. Peter Gonzales was killed yesterday morning in a propane explosion that followed a runaway forklift incident at the Mountain Task Force headquarters outside Culver Falls. Officials with the Lakemont County Sheriffs Office and the Culver Falls Volunteer Fire Department who responded to the blast tell us that it appears the propane-fueled forklift somehow started on its own, gaining momentum and crashing through the closed door of the buildings loading dock, falling to the cement below where its propane tank exploded, igniting a large propane tank that sat nearby and sparking a massive explosion that collapsed one wall of the steel building and set fire to its contents. It is very strange, said Lakemont County Sheriff Jim Watts in a telephone interview this morning. Ive never seen anything like it. We do not have an answer as to how or why that forklift got started moving towards that door. Agent Gonzales, according to two witnesses who were in the building at the time and spoke to us on condition of anonymity, was doing his best to catch up to the speeding forklift, following mere steps behind it when it crashed through the door and exploded on the cement below. The FBI refused official comment, saying that the forklift and other evidence was being sent to the FBI crime lab for further analysis and investigation. While the FBI would not comment on their cleanup plans for the damaged compound, our reporter watched this morning as five portable office trailers were brought in, and filled with computer and other equipment apparently salvaged from the fire. This incident comes days after the horrific and still-unsolved beheadings of three FBI agents, including the recently appointed director of the Mountain Task Force, Agent Day. Interim Task Force head B.J. DeLorre, formerly spokesman for the organization, tells us that The investigation into those brutal terrorist attacks is ongoing, our agents have been interrogating a number of material witnesses over the past few days, and hope to conclude the investigation and begin making arrests in an expedient manner. Upon inquiry, DeLorre refused to give the names, hometowns or any other information about

the material witnesses the Bureau is holding, citing Patriot Act provisions and national security concerns.

Theyve got Susan. Allan slammed the paper down on the brown formica table of the local Clear Springs diner where he, Liz, and several of Bill and Susans family members and friends were eating a hasty breakfast of eggs and hash browns before starting their search that morning. Shes got to be one of these material witnesses theyre talking about, and this article says they dont even have to tell us about it. Material witness? Susans daughter in law asked. Just how long can they hold a material witness without pressing charges of some kind? Because theres no way they have anything to charge her with. I dont know. Until they can drag her in front of a grand jury to testify, I think, except theres no way she even knows anything that would be relevant to what theyre talking about here! And that DeLorre guy mentioned the Patriot Act. I guess if theyre bringing that into it, they can keep her indefinitelywithout ever arresting or charging her or letting anybody know where she it. The small group was quiet for minute. We know it was them. Allan began. We have the tape. I say we go to the media, start with the local paper and then talk to everybody we can get in contact with, mainstream, alternative, talk radioget her name out there, let everyone know about her medical condition. Get copies of that tape out there, to everyone. Let them deny it, then. That past evening at their motel, the group had managed to talk someone into letting them use the TV and VCR in the hotel conference room, and they had looked at the Mini-Mart surveillance tapes from the time of Susans disappearance, had seen the black van, the two men that had taken her, had seen what clearly appeared to be its federal plates. It had been obvious to them that Susan had not gone willingly with the men, that she had been unconscious or very nearly so at the time of her abduction. Allan was pretty sure they would be able to read the plate number on the van, if the video could be enhanced slightly. Hurriedly finishing his breakfast, he took Liz and went to get a dozen copies of the tape made and distributed to the wind, before heading to the local TV news station where he hoped a certain particularly ornery investigative reporter with a longstanding reputation for sticking his nose where it did not belongand his neck on the linemight be willing to help out with enhancing the tape and chasing down the vans plate number.

Einar stood in the serviceberry thicket feet from the creek in the canyon, watching the sun slowly illuminate the spruce tops nearly two thousand feet above him on the opposite rim and staring at the log-bench, hating with a passion the growing indecisiveness that kept him there debating with himself whether or not he ought to risk a quick trip across the creek to check the depression in the log. His unaccustomed hesitance scared him, his

doubt, his seeming inability to make up his mind, as did the obvious breakdown in discipline that had allowed him to venture back down to the canyon in the first place, when he knew that he ought to have left well enough alone. Whats got into you, Einar? This is not the time to be asking for trouble, taking risks that you dont have to take. You losing your focus? Losing your way? He shrugged, grumbled at himself to be quiet, glanced up and down the valley and started across the creek, knowing that he did not have an adequate answer to those rather timely questions, but at the same time finding himself greatly in need of knowing whether or not Liz had been back. Need, huh? What you really need is more sleep, Einar, more food, maybe a few days where things dont hurt quite so bad all the time. Youre not making an awful lot of sense here. The ground on the trail side of the creek was wet and soft from the previous nights rain, and Einar moved carefully lest one of his steps put too much pressure on the fragile alpine grass and leave a skid mark that would be a sure sign of human passage. The possibility of leaving actual boot prints concerned him less, as he was able to avoid that by sticking to the more heavily vegetated bits of ground, but glancing at the soles of his boots, he realized that it would certainly be a problem if he did end up leaving a clear impression or two. No way they could be mistaken for the prints of the regular backpackers or hikers who sometimes pass through here. The one boot that still possessed its original soleparts of it, anyway, as there were good sized chunks of rubber missing here and therewas heavily worn and rather distinctive looking, and the other, on which he had improvised a repair with rawhide, sinew and later spruce pitch, certainly did not look like anything a person would expect to see in the backcountry. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Inspecting it, he noticed that the rawhide was wearing rather thin in places, very close to wearing through, in fact. And the other boots not all that far behind. Water already comes up through the sole in several places, and it looks like its going to come loose any day now. Past time for some moccasins. But for now, I may just have to make do with replacing the soles with some more hide, because I sure dont have enough for both a vest and a complete set of moccasins. OK. Step across the trail, into the thicket behind the bench, and get another look up and down the valley before you go out in the open. Best get this over with, if youre determined to do it. Approaching the fallen tree from behind, Einar carefully removed the large plug of moss that covered the cavity in the punky wood, seeing, not entirely to his surprise, that a black cloth bag, cinched tight with a drawstring, had been concealed in the space. He had strongly suspected that he might find something there, had been fairly certain, actually, that he would, though the nagging, burning pain from his bruised ribs and inflamed arm had been screaming rather loudly and persistently at him of late, combining and conspiring with his exhaustion and continued weakness and tending to drown out the subtler, nearly imperceptible cues that he normally relied on quite heavily if subconsciously in collecting information about his surroundings and making quick decisions, leaving him feeling at times as though he was blind, or a very near equivalent. This distraction had led to doubt, had led him to question his own judgment and had left him feeling a bit lost and uncertain about everything, including the cloth bag which, having lifted from the cavity in the log, Einar balanced in his hand as if to judge its

contents. The bag was small but heavy, and though he thought he felt the familiar ridged lid of a jar of Nutellahis stomach rumbled painfully at the discoverythere was something else, too, an object that he could not immediately identify. He hurried back across the creek lest someone come along and spot him while he was focused on exploring the bags contents, crouching in the thicket to investigate what Liz had left. What Einar saw upon opening the bag startled him, alarmed him a bit, left him questioning seriously whether he was dealing with Liz, at all.

The Nutella was there, all right, and Einar, grateful and more that a little hungry, was about to open it and dig in when he saw the second item. His mind had busily worked, as he picked his way across the creek, at discerning the possible identity of the second item in the bagtoo wide and stubby to be the decent knife that he so badly needed, too compact and heavy to be clothing of any sorthe supposed it might be another food item. Upon spotting the small blue and black FRS/GMRS radio, he jumped back like hed seen a rattler and very nearly dropped the bag. Taking the radio from the bag, Einar hastily removed the batteries and inspected the device, looking for any sign of a backup battery but knowing that if one had been added and deliberately concealed, he would probably not find it, short of destroying the radio. Which he was of half a mind to do. That, or, even better, carefully wipe it down to remove his fingerprints and replace the bag and its contents where he had found it in the log. The only thing that kept him from doing so without further delay was the fact that he recognized the radiothe brand and model, but also the odd little scratch that ran deeply down one side of the displayas one that belonged to Liz, as the very one, in fact, that she had tried to send with him when he had left her house for the final time the winter before. The second thing that gave him pause was the fact that upon removing the batteries he had dislodged a carefully folded note that was clearly and unmistakably done in Lizs handwriting. Ed, it said. Every third day, quarter after noon. Get up high somewhere, these things have limited range. The note was signed, Edie, and Einar remembered that Liz had suggested they use those two aliases before, when she had been trying to convince him to take the radio and stay in communication with her. Taped to the bottom of the Nutella jar he found four spare batteries, and a digital watch. So it must have been her. The handwriting I suppose they could replicate well enough to fool me, but no one else could possibly have known about Ed and Edie, unless of course she told them That was a horrible thought and one that he wanted to shove away as soon as it occurred to him, but Einar knew that he could not rule it out. He had been away for a long time, had no idea what was going on in the world down below, and knew that he would be foolish not to leave open the possibility that Liz, faced with arrest and the prospect of prosecution and likely some serious prison time, could have agreed to help bring him in, in exchange for leniency. In which case the radio, and possibly also the watch, would certainly contain a GPS transponder that would bring the search helicopters down on him the first time he tried to use it. Or perhaps it would be tracking

his position continuously, so that they could choose the best time and place to swoop in and take him. Einar shook his head. No. Come on, think! If she was working with them, they would surely have had her under surveillance and would have seen me take the first packet, would have taken me then, or shortly after. Or, just now He rose, glanced at the meadow, listened for the dreaded rumbling that would tell him they were on the way. Nothing. And the idea that Liz would turn on you after all of thisthats pretty ridiculous, Einar. You know that she would not, you knownothing. Searching desperately for something solid to grab onto and hold up as the proof he needed, Einar could find nothing. You know nothing. No one. Everything you think you know about Lizits allall of it!a bunch of assumptions, dreams, the absurd, barely sane fantasies of an injured, starved lonely old fool who constructed a bunch of things in his head because he had to have something to hold onto, when quite frankly there wasnt much reason to keep on going a lot of these timesin other words, nothing! Nothing you want to stake your freedom on, anyway, not in the real world. Einar had been walking as he tried to reason through the situation, traveling hurriedly up the draw towards the beaver dam and marsh where he would cut off and begin the climb to his basin camp, determined to gather everything and clear out of the area without further delay. He had also, even as he attempted to untangle his thoughts and make some sense of the situation with Liz, been working on a way that he could keep possession of the radio and watch good to have options, I like optionswithout subjecting himself to being tracked, if either device did contain a hidden GPS transponder. Stopping on the firm ground beside the black muck of the cattail bog, Einar stuck the radio and watch into the protective plastic freezer bag that had contained them, within the black cloth bag, tossed in the batteries and pressed out all of the air, creating a tight seal. Then, scooping up great handfulls of the stinking black swamp muck, he plastered it to the outside of the bag until it was covered quite heavily, wrapping a couple of cattail leaves around the object to help hold the mud in place, and glopping on a second layer. Wrapping, weaving and tying more leaves around the second, thicker layer of mud, he split and hastily twined two cattail leaves into a rough carrying strap, attaching it to the odd, lumpy cocoon he had created, slinging the thing over his shoulder and starting up the slope, feeling as confident about his decision as he had about anything, in recent memory. Track this, you buzzards! Theres always a third option, if you look hard enough! And its usually the best one, because its not the one they expect you to pick. Halfway up the hill, his ribs hurting and the breathing necessitated by his pace becoming more difficult, Einar stopped for a brief rest, remembering as he did the jar of Nutella that he had nearly forgotten about in his turmoil over the radio. Only as he sat under a tree catching his breath and enjoying a quick snack (Boy this stuff is good! Unbelievably good! Way better than wolverine liver, even, and thats saying a lot!) did he allow himself to again wonder about Liz, and what her intentions might have been in leaving him the radio and instructions for contact. He would have liked to believe that the whole thing was straightforward and exactly as it appeared, (Ha! Well seeing as it appears to be a trap, youd better hope its not what it appears, in this case) but his wariness prevented him from doing so. He knew and accepted that most of his thoughts and dreams of Liz were the absurd products of his own imagination and perhaps some no way! I dont think so very real need for a connection with someone, some other human

being, at his darkest times, even if the connection was merely imagined, but he was not sure he would be able to take it if he came to find out that she had actually betrayed him. That uncertainty scared him perhaps more than the prospect of the setup, itself. Well, thats why it doesnt pay to count too much on other folks. Not when it comes to things like this, anyway. Better just go ahead and assume she is setting you up, so you can get used to the idea. Might make it a little easier when you find out that it is true. Because if it comes to that, youre probably going to be in a pretty tight spot when you find out, and there wont be any time to spare on moping around or being unsure about anything. Now get busy. Got a lot of work to do, got to get everything packed up so you can head out of here before it starts raining again. Einar was anxious to be up off of the more sparsely treed slopes of the draw and in the heavy timber of the big mesa by the time afternoon came, in case another thunderstorm ended up rolling in. Would sure be great not to end up all soaked and freezing again, just in time for sunset. He greatly doubted that he would be able to make it all the way back to the rock crevice-shelter that night, but would go as far as conditions, and his own condition, allowed him. His greatest challenge that day seemed to stem from the bruised ribs and the rather significant pain they gave him every time he had to breathe hard with exertion. The wolverine bites on his arm, while still hurting and quite a mess when he uncovered them for cleaning and treatment, seemed a good deal less inflamed, the fever that had previously sickened him gone entirely, and to his amazement, it seemed to Einar that his body was once again healing itself from what could have quickly developed into a deadly infection. Better stay on top of it pretty good though, because from the looks of that arm, its gonna be a long time before everything is all closed up and out of danger. Carefully sorting through the dried and drying roots and picking out only the ones that he was certain were entirely devoid of lingering moisturehe tested the lily roots by snapping one in half, to get a feel for what dry was likehe filled the pitch coated basket, adding most of the dried serviceberries on top and tossing in a few packets of pemmican and some jerky from his pack basket, before seating the pitch coated woven willow lid he had made. It was a tight fit. Unable to have a fire in the middle of the day to melt more pitch and seal the basket as he would have liked, Einar instead searched from tree to tree until he found one that was oozing fresh sap in a few places, scraping it up with a stick and daubing copious amounts of it around the edges of the lid, sealing the basket and finishing the waterproofing of its contents. He stuck some dry cattail leaf pieces in the tacky, fresh sap to protect it from weathering and cracking as quickly as it might otherwise have, and hoisted the finished cache high up into the branches of a broken-topped, distinctive looking spruce a distance from his sleeping spot, that he knew he would recognize when he returned at some future date. Caching the food gave him less to carry on the long hike back to the crevice, and also gave him something to return to, if he should at some point end up losing everything else. The cache gave him a sense of security that he had not known since beginning his time on the run, and one that he knew he must not take for granted or come to rely too heavily on, as there was always the chance that it might, despite his best efforts, be destroyed by animals or discovered by curious humans, or that circumstances might prevent him from

ever returning to the area to claim it. But at least it was something.

After making the rounds of the local news stations with the information about Susan, and largely being disappointed at the lack of responseeveryone seemed just a bit hesitant to get involved in the case, once they learned that the feds were invoking the Patriot Act Allan had driven Liz up to Bill and Susans house, where she needed to spend the afternoon tending Susans plants in the greenhouse, feeding the dogs and doing other chores around the place to ensure that things did not fall apart too badly in Susans absence. Working in the greenhouse after Allan left, Liz hurried to finish her chores, knowing that Allan intended to be back first thing in the morning to check on her and let her know what was happening with the search for Susan. It was three in the afternoon. All right. That gives me about fifteen hours, by the time I get finished with this work and head up there. That should be plenty of time to make a run up to that meadow, leave the things for Einar, and be back before Allan, or anyone else, suspects anything. Hurrying to her room as soon as she was finished watering the plants and doing a bit of long overdue weeding in one of the outside herb beds, she hurried to her room, grabbed a radio and some extra batteries, stuck them in a ziplock bag from the kitchen cabinet, and retrieved an unopened jar of Nutella from the pantry. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she hastily penned a note, which she concealed in the battery compartment of the radio, where it would likely be overlooked by any hiker who might happen to stumble upon the bag with the radio, if Einar did not show up for it. Liz would have liked to have more time to organize the drop, to plan things, would have liked to go to Allan or one of the other men who had often gathered up at the house for meetings while Bill was still alive, to get some advice or some more secure equipment to leave Einar, but none of those things were options, as she saw it. She worried that if she passed up the opportunity to go out that night and leave the packet, Einar might leave the area altogether and she would lose her chance to possibly arrange a meeting with him. And, worse, she expected that if she did not show back up at the tree-bench as her note said she wouldalbeit latethat Einar would think she had deliberately misled him for some reason, and would not trust her again. I suppose chances are pretty slim that he is even still in the area at all, that he will check the fallen tree again, but Ive got to try, and this is the only way I can think of to do it. She had been somewhat reassured by the fact that he had left her the deer jerky. At least it seems that hes eating, that hes doing well enough to take a deer. Borrowing Bills old Jeep, Liz set out for the trailhead that evening, half surprised when it seemed that no one was watching or following her. Rain was moving in; it had already begun drizzling by the time started up the trail, and the storm continued all that evening and into the night, varying in intensity and leaving Liz very grateful that she had brought her rain jacket and pants. Hope youre somewhere dry and warm, Einar. Covering the miles of trail up to the meeting-log by the serviceberry patch as quickly as she could, Liz

checked the depression in the log, disappointed when she found that Einar had left her no sign that he had been back. Please come back! I could not help being late. Having concealed the bag under the plug of moss in the log, she sat for a minute, taking a drink from her water bottle and enjoying a brief reprieve in the rainfall, listening to the sounds of the nightthe creek gurgling and splashing over the rocks, the soft whispering of the breeze in a nearby grove of aspens, the popping and oozing sounds of the recent rain percolating into the ground, and as she sat there she wondered how Einar was, where he was, wished very strongly that she could be there with him, wherever he might be. Einar had of course been, at that moment, two miles and fifteen hundred feet above her in the basin upslope from the draw, huddled damp and shivering in the spruce duff in his shelter of boulders and spruce bark, after having spent the evening waterproofing his food cache basket with pitch, hoping as he tried to be warm enough to sleep that he might wake to find a bear in his trap so that he could obtain the food and fat that he so badly needed to continue sustaining a life that was, despite a few recent improvements, still on undeniably precarious ground. Sometimes two miles can be a very great distance, indeed.

The rain was returning; Einar sensed the shift in weather long before the first drops fell, pushed himself at a rate that he knew he could not long maintain as he strove to reach the plateau, and the protection of the dark timber, ahead of the storm. He did not make it, did not even get especially close, but found himself instead crossing a large rockslide far below the aspens at the edge of the plateau when the sky opened up. He stopped beneath the barely existent shelter of a scraggly little avalanche-scarred aspen that somehow managed to scratch out a meager living there in the rocks, draping the wolverine hide over his head and flopping it up over the willow pack basket, hoping to keep its contents at least somewhat dry while he scurried for the trees. By the time he reached the timber he was thoroughly soaked, freezing in the wind, pushing himself to continue because he knew that it would be a big mistake to stop before he was sufficiently far back into the timber away from the plateau rim that he considered fire a reasonable risk. And thats going to be a ways. Pretty good ways. Just keep moving. Which he did, for miles, keeping on in the direction in which he knew that the crevice lay, hopeful that he might be able to reach it before dark. The wind was unrelenting, though, was stiffening his movements and slowing his pace, and he increasingly felt as though it was blowing right through him, taking the life out of him as it went. Several times Einar caught himself involuntarily sinking to his knees on the wet ground or standing still on the slightly less windy lee side of an evergreen, arms drawn close to his body against the cold and his eyes drooping. Dangerous ground, Einar. He knew he had to stop, looked around for shelter and found it in a dark cluster of trees that huddled up against a looming rock face, nearly covering it, tossing wildly against the gleaming, dripping grey of the granite in the stormwind. Choosing a well protected tree near the center of the grove and kicking away the duff at the base of the tree until he reached the dirt, Einar fumbled with the sinew tie that he had used to close the little packet of tinder that he had taken to wearing around his neck, along side the fire steel and striker. Consisting of a short section of dried deer gut, the packet held a good sized wad

of very dry, shredded aspen inner bark and cattail down. He had been saving the supply for just such an occasion as the one that now presented itself. Dumping the tinder on the dry dirt, Einar got the pack off his back, seeing that, while the draped wolverine hide had done little to protect his exposed torso from the blowing rain, it had very nearly succeeded in keeping the contents of his pack, including the precious lily and spring beauty roots, dry. Good. That is good. He had some little chunks of pitch left over from waterproofing his food cache basket, found them in the basket and stuck three of them down in the tinder and among the pitiful little pile of barely dry sticks that he had been able to break off from the protected areas on the undersides of some of the spruce branches. The sticks had been dry when he found them, but his hands were wet, dripping, and though he tried to dry them on the tree trunk before breaking off the sticks, the kindling still ended up a bit damp. The pitch made all the difference, igniting after the sparks took in the tinder and burning hot and steady for several minutes as the damp sticks slowly dried and caught. Einar, protected from the rain by the thick branches of the spruce and shielded somewhat from the bone-chilling fury of the wind by the nearby rock face, huddled over his tiny fire as a can of water heated, breaking up and tossing in spruce needles and breathing the steam as his tea heated and simmered. He drank the spruce needle tea very hot and before it was quite ready, gulping the near-scalding liquid before setting the can back in a stream of water that dripped and dribbled from the end of a spruce branch to refill, thinking all the while that a good dry snow was an awful lot easier to deal with than the rain, for a man who possessed inadequate clothing and minimal gear, and had a lot of ground to cover. Well, snows coming, before too many more months. Youre hardly ready for it though. The rain had loosened the mud wrapping that he had packed around the radio in its plastic bag, and he worked to re-wrap the surrounding cattail leaves to keep it in place. Every third day, huh? Suppose I can count this as the first day, because I saw some tracks down there this morning in that mud by the trail that looked pretty fresh, like they had not had sun on them, yet. So looks like she must have left the bag last night or early this morning. Well, he told himself, guess Ive got a couple days to think about it then. First though, got to get back up to my old den in the rocks, gather up the jerky and finish tanning the deer hide so I can clear out of there. Its way too close to all of that helicopter activity, and I was there longer than is even remotely smart or wise, considering Which reminded himnot that it had ever been far from his thoughtsof the strange incident with hovering Blackhawk the morning he had left the crevice. Better not just walk straight back there. Im gonna need to get up high someplace where I can look down at the area, watch it for a day or two to make sure they dont have someone down there waiting for me to come back. What Einar did not know, could not have known, was that as he huddled over his fire in the rainy dimness that afternoon, and array of seismic detection devices, infrared trail cameras and sound sensors were indeed keeping watch over an area not far from his shelter, broadcasting their findings at appointed intervals back to the agents who were attempting to carry on with the search from the cluster of office trailers they had been confined to after the compound explosion and fire. The devices had been there for

several days at that point, set up after one of the instructors with the high altitude helicopter training program had noticed what seemed to him to be odd visual changes in the area around the lake near where they did many of their landings and takeoffs. An observant man and a curious one, he had taken the time on one of the training flights to walk over to the lake and inspect the cattail marsh below it, discovering clear signs of recent human activity in the area. That afternoon another helicopter had landed in the meadow above the lake, a number of FBI agents spreading out to canvas the area.

Special Agent Joseph Stramecki, the older gentleman with the close cropped greying hair who had participated in Susans initial interrogation, was less than a year away from mandatory retirement, and found himself liking his job less and less every day, especially since being assigned to the Asmundson investigation. He was presently in the third month of his second rotation in Culver Fallsthough he sometimes worked out of the regional office in Clear Springs, as welland had five times over the past weeks written and destroyed various versions of his letter of resignation. Joseph Stramecki had a wife, two grown daughters and a comfortable little house on two acres in rural Fayette County Pennsylvania, had three young grandchildren that he rarely got to see due to the constraints of his job. He had had readily accepted these matters as long as he had believed that his employment was serving an important function in helping to combat crime and create a better place for those children and grandchildren of his to grow up. The Asmundson case however, and especially the way the Bureau had conducted itself in relation to the local residents in the Culver Falls area, had left him disillusioned and increasingly convinced that the Bureau had lost its way. Though he had not let on to his colleagues, Susan had been the last straw for Stramecki. The quiet dignity with which the woman conducted herself, her resolute refusal to give in when repeatedly badgered by a number of the younger agents, and the fact that he truly believed her assertion that she knew nothing of the attack on Day and the others to be the truth, left him with a growing respect and even admiration for her, over the two days that he oversaw her interrogation there at the FBI regional office in Clear Springs. While he was on site, he did his best to see that Susan was treated with the dignity she clearly deserved and afforded the deference due a subject in her obviously compromised medical condition, but his duties often called him away from the office, and he was well aware that some of the other agents were using interrogation tactics that he found unnecessary and completely unjustified, in her case. He knew that quite a few of the younger agents had been admirers and would-be protgs of Agent Day and his tactics, and when newly appointed Agent in Charge B.J. DeLorre announced that they would be keeping Susan for a third day of interrogation, Stramecki knew he had to act. It was with complete confidence in his decision, and not a little relief, that Special Agent Joseph Stramecki penned the sixth and final draft of his resignation letter that morning, set it on his desk and waited until almost everyone else in the office was at lunch. Helping Susan out of the holding cell and into a van, he headed for the Sheriffs Office in Culver Falls.

Einar traveled through most of the night, putting out his fire that evening when the rain ended and the sky begun clearing, and finding himself rather too damp and chilled to get much sleep, after that. His walking that night was broken up only occasionally by brief rests that consisted of a few minutes spent on his knees, often as not leaning on a tree trunk to keep himself from falling over in exhaustion, struggling to wring a bit more of the water out of the soaked wolverine hide in the hopes that it might provide him a bit more warmth, if only it could be slightly less wet. A fine idea, but it did not much work, and his rests never lasted long, as the cold soon got to him and prodded him back to his feet to seek relief in movement. Not that it offered much. The activity seemed not to be helping his bruised ribswhich had been further aggravated in the struggle with the heavy trees he had used to build the bear trapand the pain was making it increasingly difficult for him to get a full breath, which was of course essential if he wanted to maintain a pace that would keep his blood flowing well enough to stave off the cold. Lacking better options he pushed on, his eyes straying frequently to the horizon to check on the dark silhouettes of certain land features that he had picked out to guide his wanderings and keep him headed in something like the right direction, making his best effort to ignore the pain and getting a bit of occasional relief by pressing his left hand to the damaged area, clamping it in place with his right elbow as he walked. Einars only real consolation that night lay in the fact that every time he stopped, he allowed himself a taste of the Nutella that Liz had left him, its sugar and fat lending him energy and making the deepening cold of the night a bit more tolerable. He had at first wished that she might have thought to leave him some article of clothing, something warm or waterproof, or a knife, that would have been good, but as the night went on, he came to be more than grateful for the food. She had no way to know my situation, anyway, couldnt really know what I needed. Though he supposed she could have guessed And also supposed that she might have refrained from trying to leave him more with the thought that his need might encourage him to maintain contact, and agree to a meeting. Which, still unsure in his own mind that the whole thing was not part of some trap or setup, he was not feeling especially inclined to do. That uncertainty, the tension of an important decision left unresolved, ate at him whenever it entered his mind, which was not all that often, as he found that the simple acts of continuing to move and get enough air as he climbed were requiring all of the energy and focus he could muster, most of the time. Once during the night, limping along beneath the timber, his energy fading, fighting to maintain his alertness and to keep from leaving an obvious, dragging trail through the duff, Einar caught his foot on something and fell hard, sprawling on the wet ground and lying there for a minute catching his breath before getting to his knees and feeling around in an attempt to determine what had knocked him off his feet. What he found surprised him some, led him to detour briefly from his travels to search the ground for additional objects of interest. The cable that had tripped Einar resembledto the touch, anyway, as the night was too dark to allow him a good visual image of itthe cable he had previously found at the old mine and cabin site, only it was much smaller in diameter.

Pulling at the cable, coiling as he went, Einar gathered what he estimated to be nearly thirty feet of the stuff before it ran down beneath a rock and he found himself unable to either pull it out or move the boulder that pinned it in place. He wanted that cable, could think of a number of uses for it, or parts of it, and wasted no time in beginning to bend it back and forth repeatedly near the spot where it disappeared beneath the rock, weakening it before pounding with a sharp rock, bending some more, and finally severing the cable. The coil was heavy, in his current condition, at least, but Einar was determined to take it with him, slinging it over his left shoulder. Before continuing on his way, he made a cursory exploration of the area, finding an ancient, rusted out tin can and a bit of broken glass, but no more. The presence of the cable, though, told him that there must have at one time been a mine nearby, and he climbed a few feet up into a spruce, scanning the dim night skyline and looking for a feature by which he might remember and be able to return to the place. Satisfied that he had it sufficiently fixed in his memory and growing terribly cold with the extended stillness, he moved on. Sometime just after dawn Einar stopped again, sitting on the drier ground under a tree as he chewed on a few of the leathery, partially dehydrated spring beauty roots from his pack and hungrily shook the remaining few crumbs of pemmican from a nearly empty packet, knowing that he needed more if he was to keep his energy up and finally giving in and taking the edge off of his hunger with a big scoop of Nutella. As with the previous ones, the break did not last long. Einar made it up to the area of the crevice around midmorning, taking a circuitous route up to the rocky high ground above the little meadow and the rock face that concealed his shelter and pausing for a few minutes upon finding a tangle of wild raspberry canes among the rocks, collecting a small handful of ripe, extremely flavorful berries and noting the location so that he could return for more as they ripened, if circumstances allowed. Reaching the top of the rise, he carefully approaching the edge of a broken, timbered crag from which he hoped to get a view of the area. Crawling out onto a protruding ledge of rock, he peered down over the edge, seeing in the distance the meadow, recognizing the big tree from which he had hung the stretched deer hide, and, squinting, was just able to make out the dark streak in the rock, nearly concealed by trees, that marked the entrance to his shelter. Nothing appeared amiss, but he knew that nothing would, most likely, even if they were down there waiting for him. Better give it some time, see if anything stirs. He settled in among the rocks, getting the sodden but still somewhat insulating wolverine pelt between himself and the cold granite of the ledge and rolling onto his left side to give his aching ribs some relief. The sun was out, the day warming quickly, and Einar struggled to stay awake and alert as he watched the meadow through the shimmering waves of heat that rose gently from the rock, the sun slowly driving the nights chill out of his bones and relaxing him. Tired. Will be good to be back in that shelter again, even if its only for a day or so, this time. Having determined to spend a good portion of the day in watching the area of his shelter, Einar made the best of the time, working for a while on a bone point for one of his atlatl darts, shaping and sharpening it on the rough rock that surrounded his lookout post and starting on a second, when he had it finished to his satisfaction. As the day warmed and

he found himself better able to do without its insulation beneath him, he spread the wolverine hide to dry on a nearby sunny rock, pausing now and then in his work to stretch and rub it over a rock in the hopes of keeping the untanned hide somewhat flexible as it dried. The cable that he had acquired the previous night appeared to be in reasonably good condition, not too badly rusted, and he worked to separate one of the wire strands, thinking that it ought to make reasonably good snare wire, assuming it was not too brittle, which it seemed not to be, with the exception of a few especially rusty spots. Might as well set out a few snares, if Im going to be up here for a while Rising stiffly from his position on the cold rock of the ledge, Einar stretched, took the lengths of cable he had cut from the separated strand, and headed up into the spruces behind his lookout-crag, in search of likely snare locations. All morning he had been seeing and hearing a number of squirrels as they busied about in the treetops, scolding him whenever he moved but seeming curious about his presence at the same time, and he decided to focus on them in his efforts to obtain a bit of fresh food. He removed his pack, rummaged around. Bet you guys would like this Nutella almost as well as I do Choosing a bare, fallen spruce branch and propping it at an angle against the trunk of a tree some distance from his position on the crag, Einar fashioned a number of small wire nooses, twisting one end of each around the branch and leaving the loop free, waiting to trap any squirrel that happened to choose his angled branch as a way to start running up the tree, as he had noticed them often to do. The idea was that when the squirrel felt the wire noose tighten around its neck, it would struggle or attempt to jump, falling and strangling itself in the snare. To make the snare-branch a bit more tempting, he smeared bits of Nutella here and there on the branch to encourage the lively little creatures to explore it. Hope these snares work, or Ill be back here in awhile to scrape this stuff up off the branch, myself! Before the sun set that evening, Einars snare-branch had netted him three squirrels (he had removed the first two and added a bit more Nutella before the third fell for the trick, and he set them in the cool shade beneath a boulder to cook up that night, as the day had passed without any sign of trouble down at his crevice-den, and he was strongly leaning towards heading down there for a more sheltered and comfortable night, though not, he expected, an especially restful one. He had a lot of work to do jerky to package up into the cattail-leaf pouches he had made and waterproof with pitch, a deer hide to scrape and hopefully work on finishing, and squirrels to cook up for dinner! Gonna be a good night.

Removing the rocks that he had stacked up in an attempt to seal off the entrance to his crevice-shelter, Einar entered, wary, listening, the wolverine smell still lingering and reminding him, as if he needed any reminder, of the last time he had reentered the shelter after being away for a time. He certainly did not want a repeat. It was dusky in the shelter, dim with evening, and Einar lingered near the entrance as he waited for his eyes to adjust. The place was quiet, still, and he was quite certain that he was alone, but still made his way to the back with some measure of involuntary reluctance, his spear held at the ready. It was only after he had probed the dark corners of the shelter and found nothing to be lurking that he was finally able to sit down on the cattail mattress and ease

the pack from his back, weary, resting, relieved to be in familiar surroundings once again, relatively safe and out of the chilly evening wind that had gained intensity with sunset. A decent pile of firewood remained in the dry corner where he had previously stacked it, and he moved the rock slab that covered the small firepit, eagerly anticipating his supper of stewed squirrel. Got to wait for dark before I can have that fire. Need to go get that deer hide down, cut it out of the frame, see if the brain mixture I set aside from before is still usable. First though He lay back on the mattress, closing his eyes and letting his breath out in a big sigh, covering himself with the wolverine pelt and for a few moments allowing his weariness to take over, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury afforded him by the dry, padded bed. He felt that he could go on lying there for a very ling time, sleep for hours, days, probably, if he allowed himself to. Later. This winter maybe, when youre all settled into a cozy little den somewhere with a big pile of food like a pika, and a bunch of deer skins and bear blanket to wrap up in. But youre sure not there yet, so get to work. Einar opened his eyes, looked up. The jerky was still there, five strings of it hanging just as he had left them, waiting to be pulled down and stashed somewhere safe. He was relieved to find the jerky in good condition, having half expected some creature to have found a way to get at it. Emptying his pack onto the mattress, he lined up the five woven cattail pouches that he had made while guarding the drying berries up in the basin, setting beside the large glob of pitch that had been left over from his coating of the cache basket, and to whose size he had more than doubled as he made the hike back to the crevice. Ought to be enough to do three or four of them anyway, maybe all of them if I get the pitch good and liquid and put it on pretty thin. He wished he had thought to save some of the eggshells from the small speckled eggs he had found down by the lake, knowing that the addition of ground up egg shell would help keep the pitch a bit more flexible and keep it from cracking quite as easily. This had not mattered on the basket, as it was rigid to begin with, but the softer pouches would inevitably flex some as they were carried and handled, and he did not want cracks to develop, admitting water. Well, it will have to do. I can powder up some charcoal, and add that, at least. Leaving the shelter to retrieve the deer hide, he lowered it from its tree, finding it to be in good condition despite his extended absence, just damp enough from the rain to be flexible. Before cutting the hide out of the stretching frame for the next step in the tanning process, he scraped the previously applied and dried brain solution off of it with a rib bone from the deer, carefully collecting the removed material and piling it on a flat rock to take back into the shelter for reuse, knowing that he was going to end up rather short on brain, as he proceeded with hide. Maybe short on brains, too, Einar. What makes you think its a good idea to be spending more than a few minutes here? Sure, everything looks OK, but you still dont know why that chopper was hovering the morning you left, dont know for sure that they have not come back, that they may not come back tonight while you have that fire. This could be a very good way to lose everything. He recognized the truth in those concerns, yet knew at the same time that even one day at the shelter would make a huge difference, as far as how prepared he was to travel and get on with his preparations for the winter. Having a vest to wear will make a huge difference! With one day here, I can get the hide into a usable condition. May not

have time to smoke it unless I stay for a second night, but I could do that later. And I can get the rest of this jerky sealed up in pouches and stashed somewhere, too. Need to do it. No amount of rationalization, though, could cover up the increasingly creepy feeling he was getting about the situation, as if something ominous and unseen was looming over him, waiting for him to trip up so that it could clamp him in its jaws. He made no particular effort to silence that voice of warning as it shouted more loudly and insistently at him as he worked on his projects through the evening, knowing that to ignore it altogether would likely be a big mistake, but neither did he act on what it was telling him, which was to head out into the night without further delay, and not look back. Sorry, I got work to do. Its gonna have to wait. Between cooking up the brain solution for the deer hidethe solution he had saved from before was a bit sour smelling, but he figured it ought to still work, and added the three squirrel brains and the scrapings from the hide to the mixpreparing his dinner of squirrel stew and melting the pitch to coat the jerky pouches, Einars single cooking pot was in a state of near constant business that night, as was Einar. He barely found time to stop and eat, gulping his stew and finishing the meal off with a small scoop of Nutella before returning to his work on the hide, which he had brained, wrung, and pulled and brained again before eating, rolling it up into a ball to retain its moisture as he gobbled his supper. Returning to the hide, he proceeded to wring and wring until all of the moisture was out, hanging it from a length of parachute line and wrapping it around a stick, twisting it up tight to get it as dry as possible. By the time he had got the hide wrung out for the second time he found himself exhausted and aching from the effort, but knew he could not stop, lest he wake up in the morning to find the hide shrunken down quite small, dry and hard and nearly useless until he repeated the process. Which he rather lacked the brains to do, anyway. As little as he looked forward to spending the night, or a good portion of it, in such work, Einar knew that for the next three or four hours he would need to keep the hide in near constant motion, pulling, rubbing and stretching it as it dried, to separate the fibers and ensure that he would end up with a soft, usable piece of buckskin when he was finished. Jamming a stout stick between the narrow rock walls of his shelter, Einar tied one end of the hide tightly to it, and began the process of stretching and pulling, grabbing on and leaning back with all of his weight on the hide, keeping his elbows close to his sides in an attempt to minimize the pain to his bad shoulder and injured ribs, periodically untying the hide and reattaching it in a different place to ensure that it got stretched in all directions. The stretching was very hard work and as time went on became excruciatingly painful to his bruised ribs, but he kept at it, thinking all the while of the buckskin vest he was soon to make, and the marmot hide sleeves he could add, if he wanted to, slumping over every now and then on his cattail mattress for a minute or two of rest before getting stiffly back to his feet and resuming the work, wishing very much that he had a bit of willow bark to chew. Sometime before daylight but not, he guessed, very long before, the hide was finally completely dry. Einar shoved the cooking rock over his fire, wrapped up in the soft, warm deerskin, pulled the wolverine pelt over himself, and lay curled up on his bed, trembling from the nights exertion and waiting for the pain to subside some so that he

could sleep. Beyond exhausted, sleep found him in moments, and did not release its grip on him until the sun climbed high enough to send a few rays slanting in to touch the upper reaches of the inside of the rock chimney, brightening the place and stirring him to wakefulness. Einar opened his eyes. He was warm. Warm, at least, in comparison to any morning in his recent memory, and would have been almost comfortable as he lay there blinking up at the sunlight and blue sky, had it not been for the deep aching agony in his right side that was associated with each breath he took. The effort of wringing and stretching the hide had definitely not helped the injured ribs. Well. It is certainly good to be warm. The other will heal. Time for breakfast, then I can get to work on this buckskin vest! Thinking was one thing, acting, as he discovered when he tried to rise, another entirely. He managed to get to his feet and remain upright, hobbling stiffly around the shelter and gathering up some leftover squirrel and a small chunk of deer fat for his breakfast, before sinking back down onto the mattress, squeezing his right elbow to his side and lowering his head to fend off the encroaching blackness and nausea, struggling to breathe slowly and regularly. His side was on fire, the act of breathing bringing sharp pain, and he could tell that if he wanted to do anything that day besides crouch against the wall of the shelter and press his injured ribs, he would be needing some willow to dull things just a bit. OK. Not that far over to the lake. Eat something, then get going. Which he did, wrapping up in the deer hide and tying it at his neck, taking minimal gear to speed up what he knew was shaping up to be a rather slow two mile round trip. Before starting his stretching work on the hide the night before, he had slipped his feet into the inverted skins if the two largest squirrels that he had snared, wanting to give them the chance to take the shape of his feet as they dried, and smearing bits of brain solution on the topsides to help them dry a bit softer, but leaving the bottoms untreated so that they would dry into hard, semi-rigid rawhide. While pitch-coating the jerky pouches, he had painted a layer of charcoal-mixed pitch onto the bottoms of the roughly improvised moccasins to give him a bit of traction, intending to wear them in place of his failing boots, for as long as they lasted. They were a tight fit, and his toes stuck out a bit where the creatures heads had been guess I could sew up those openings with some sinew, but with the weather at least consistently above freezing if not always exactly warm, he figured that he had better save whatever was left of his boots for the return of cold weather. Though they took a bit of getting used to, he found himself adapting quickly to the moccasins, liking their lighter weight and finding that his feet, having grown fairly tough after months of traveling over rough country in badly broken down boots, were reasonably comfortable in them. Finally making his way around the base of the ridge that separated the area of his shelter before the lake, Einar stopped still, his mind screaming at him of some unknown danger. He listened, tested the air for any unusual scent, studied the lake shore, the expansive meadow above it, the willow thicket where he supposed danger of some sort could lurk unseen, but seeing nothing, and was inclined against his better judgment to head out into the open after the willows.

Special Agent Stramecki took Susan to the Sherriffs Office that morning, refusing to leave until he had spoken personally with Sheriff Watts and leaving him with a notarized affidavit detailing Susans mistreatment at the hands of his fellow agents, and a separate account of a conversation he had personally engaged in with the late Agent Day regarding the initial incident on the road and his direct responsibility in Bills death and Susans beating, as well as a copy of Susans interrogation video that backed up many of his claims. Stramecki knew that he was in trouble or about to be, but was satisfied after speaking with the Sheriff that he had done his duty in regards to Susan and made at least a small step towards atoning for the lack of oversight on his part that had allowed Day to abuse his power so gratuitously. Driving to the next town large enough to have a car rental agency, Joseph Stramecki used an alternate ID to rent a small, nondescript vehicle, and started out on the long drive that he hoped would enable him to see his family one last time before his world crashed down around him. Susan, afraid of ending up in the wrong hands again, refused to return to the hospital, instead requesting that the Sheriff call her family and friends, which he did, sending a deputy to watch the place and promising that he would provide such protection until matters were resolved. When Allan arrived up at Bill and Susans late in the morning after Lizs all night hiking expedition, he was not alone. Liz watched as four trucks and a Jeep, led by Allans white king cab, snaked their way up the long, switch backing driveway to the house, recognizing the other trucks as belonging to members of the group that Bill had led, as well as Susans relatives, and wondering what was going on. Her curiosity was deepened when she saw a Lakemont County Sheriffs Deputy vehicle pull into the driveway behind them, stopping down near the bottom and parking, partially blocking the driveway. The trucks had not made it halfway up the driveway before Liz, watching with binoculars, saw that Allan had a passenger, and by the time they had rounded the last bend, she recognized the woman as Susan. Hurrying out as soon as Allans truck stopped beside the house, she helped him get Susan inside, settling her on the couch and listening as Susan, seeming to be doing remarkably well in light of her recent ordeal, told Liz the short version of what had happened.

Einar remained within the cover of the trees, waiting, supposing that the strong warning he was feeling might be due to the approach of a helicopter, still distant beyond the range of audible perception. He certainly had experienced such things before, the faraway rumble registering in some dark corner of his subconscious long before he was able to say that he heard the sound, urging him to caution. After several minutes had passed without the appearance of the telltale rumble, however, he was beginning to doubt himself, thinking himself overcautious and knowing that he was wasting precious time in standing there. He could not, however, quite bring himself to cross the open area that separated him from the willows and cattails, opting instead for a longer route that took him in a wide half circle around the marshy area, sticking to the trees and heading for the outlet creek that spilled out of the lake. While not as plentiful as those in the bog, he

knew that the creek banks hosted at least a few small patches of willow which he could access without stepping out from beneath the shelter of the trees for more than a few seconds, which seemed very important at the moment, though he still could provide no solid reason. Just get over there, Einar. Need that stuff pretty bad. Pausing for a brief rest beside a tree-sheltered, moss encrusted boulder on the slope that overlooked the willow bog, Einar again studied the meadow and surrounding area, catching a glimpse of something down near the lake that appeared slightly out of place, a bit too regular and symmetrical, and he carefully climbed up higher on the sun-dappled rock for a better look. With the added height of the boulder offering him a different perspective, it became immediately obvious to Einar that he was looking at something manmade, if reasonably well concealed, the small olive-drab painted dome sticking out in the open halfway up a tree, mounted on what appeared to be a metal pole that had been similarly camouflaged. Scrambling up another foot higher on the rock, pressing his palms flat on its rough surface for traction, he was able to make out two small solar panels, high up in the tree and painted in irregular, muted tones on the bottom so as to be somewhat concealed from ground level. So. How long has that been there? And is it the only one? Flattening himself against the rock, Einar scooted backwards on his stomach until his legs were hanging down over the back side of the boulder, leaving him just able to get a look at the area while, he hoped, remaining hidden from whatever cameras or sensors were powered by those solar panels and transmitting information through what he was pretty sure he recognized as a satellite uplink of some sort. One thing was clear. The willows would have to wait. For whatever reason, it appeared that his presence near the lake had been discovered or at least strongly suspected, and Einar knew that there was a strong possibility that he had already been seen or otherwise detected, that morning. Einar had a brief wild urge to attack the tree, grin into the camera before smashing it to bits with a rock, tear down the monitoring equipment and spend whatever time he had left using the wreckage to devise some nasty surprises for whoever ended up responding. Come on! Why not? Itd be about as good a way to go as any Games probably up this time, anyway, especially if they saw you just now and are already on the way. Youre moving awful slow, can hardly breathe with these ribs, youre walking funny and leaving sign, all your food is back at the crevice, and without that He shrugged, let out a dry little laugh, shook his head and started up the heavily timbered slope. Someday, perhaps, that time will come, and when it does Ill leave em wondering if any of this was worth their while. But not today. For now, better see just how fast I can get back there and round everything up. Maybe theyre not watching too closely, maybe Ill have time. He hoped so. Einar wanted to live. Seems that tomorrow is the Third Day, after all, and I got a radio call to listen for. Keeping to the rockier areas to cut down on the sign he was leaving and using the occasional tree branch to pull himself up the increasingly steep ravine he had picked as a concealed route out of the area, he climbed towards the small basin above his creviceshelter, not wanting to retrace his steps, in case he had been spotted. The bruised ribs, as he had expected, limited the speed with which he could climb, and finally in frustration he stripped some long streamers of fibrous inner bark from a fallen aspen and tightly

bound them around his ribcage, further restricting his breathing but leaving the pain a bit more manageable. Now get moving! Reaching the outcroppings that overlooked his meadow and shelter badly winded but encouraged that he had not yet heard the thunder of approaching helicopters that would signal to him that it was too late to retrieve his gear, Einar took a few hasty gulps of water from the little spring he had discovered on his first visit to the place kinda like it up here. Too bad it did not work out to stay in the area before descending the slope to the crevice, moving quickly but working hard to obscure his trail at the same time. The area was quiet, appeared as he had left it, and as he knew that there had not been time for anyone to enter the area on foot since his nearmiss hope it was a near miss, anyway with the sensors, he did not hesitate to skirt around the meadow and go to his shelter. The thought had occurred to him as he climbed up and over the ridge that there could very well be cameras and sensors elsewhere than the lake, though he had quickly dismissed the idea that the crevice might be under such surveillance. Theyd have swarmed in and had me last night or this morning, if it was. Glad that he had the previous evening before beginning the near night-long stretching work on the deer hide taken the time to coat the jerky pouches, filling them with dried deer and sealing them with pitch, Einar pulled them down from their spots on the drying lines, attaching them to the outside of his pack with parachute line. Loading the pack basket with everything he could cram in, Einar glanced around the shelter to make certain he was not overlooking any critical item, turned and left. Lingering for a moment at the entrance to allow his eyes to grow accustomed to the sunlight again and listening for approaching danger, he said a prayer of thanks for the place, for the safe refuge it had given him as he turned the deer into well-preserved traveling food and, with the completion of the tanning, warm clothing. Moving quickly but carefully he made a wide, sweeping circle through the rugged country behind his former shelter, focusing on leaving as little sign as possible and taking the occasional detour through the gnarliest vegetation he could find, weaving and turning and changing direction frequently in case he had been seen and his pursuers ended up bringing in dogs. Einar knew where he was going. Remembering the landmarks he had picked out against the dark horizon two nights prior, he headed for the spot where he had literally tripped over the steel cable, knowing that he would, at the very least, find other useful scrap in the area, and hopefully a mine, as well, so that he could once again take refuge beneath the earth.

26 Year FBI veteran found dead at Kansas rest stop, suicide suspected Coworkers say he had not been himself lately Associated Press July 7 Colby, KansasWith the apparent suicide yesterday of FBI Special Agent Joseph Stramecki at a deserted rest stop just outside of Colby, Kansas, it appears that the ill fated Asmundson search has claimed yet another life, this one, according to police reports and

statements from those who knew the 26 year FBI veteran and grandfather of three, a victim of suicide after the pressures of the job simply became too much for him. Maintenance workers found Stramecki in his rented car yesterday afternoon parked beside the rest rooms, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. Grieving friends and colleagues this morning tell us that the agent had not been himself, over the past weeks, growing increasingly withdrawn and sullen, but no one suspected how serious the matter had become, until Stramecki left a resignation letter on his desk yesterday morning and disappeared without notifying either his coworkers or his family. Mere months from retirement, the resignation letter came as a shock to those who knew him best, but there had been signs, according to two of Strameckis friends who requested their names be withheld, that he had been under an unusual amount of strain in recent weeks. The pressures of the job, and especially of this (Asmundson) investigation have been getting to all of us lately, especially since the attack and the fire at (Mountain Task Force Headquarters,) according to an agent who worked closely with Stramecki. He had taken on a lot of extra responsibility, extra hours, since the terrorist attack on Agent Day and the others. But we had no idea that the pressure was getting to him like this. He had always handled it so well. Sadly, it seems that those pressures simply became too much for Special Agent Joseph Stramecki. He leaves behind a wife, two daughters and three grandchildren. In an unrelated matter, the FBI conducted a raid on the offices of Lakemont County Sheriff Jim Watts last night, in what an FBI spokesman tells us was the culmination of a nearly year-long investigation into possible misconduct, lost and mishandled evidence, and misappropriation of federal funds within the Sheriffs Office. Agents hauled numerous crates of paperwork, computer equipment and electronic media out of the building, working late into the night and loading several vans with seized evidence. Sheriff Watts was outraged by the raid, vehemently denying the allegations and telling our reporters that the action endangered the county by virtually closing down the Sheriffs Department. They wouldnt let us answer calls. They disconnected the phones and seized our cell phones and radios, first thing! If there had been a wreck, a break in, an incident of any kind in this county last night, we would have been totally in the dark. Last nights irresponsible and unwarranted actions on the part of the FBI seriously compromised the safety of the residents of Lakemont County, and prevented us from carrying out our sworn duties. They have to be held accountable for these actions. The FBI spokesman this morning tells us that charges may be pending in the case, but refused to discuss details of those possible charges, or whether Sheriff Watts himself may be a target of the investigation.

Finding the spot where he had previously discovered the steel cable proved to be a bit more difficult than Einar had anticipated, especially coming at the area from a different angle, after circling widely to avoid the large meadow that held the lake and, as he now knew, the monitoring devices that had very nearly tripped him up for what he expected would likely have been the final time. As he walked, sticking to the heaviest timber he could find and searching for a place where the horizon would begin looking something like the image that was fixed in his mind from the dark night when he had last passed that way, Einar continued to be amazed that he did not hear the approaching rumble of helicopters, or even the buzz of a small plane. It seemed nearly beyond belief to him that he had avoided detection by the array of sensorsonly a small portion of which, he was sure, he had actually seenand been able to leave the area without being followed. Knowing that there was at least some possibility that they had picked up on his presence and somehow got people on the ground without his knowledge, he maintained a high level of vigilance about his back trail, frequently seeking high ground where he could get a look behind him and taking scrupulous care to avoid leaving sign. This was not an easy task, as he was carrying a good bit of weight, far more than he had ever attempted to haul in the pack basket, and continued to suffer from rather labored breathing as his injured ribs made it very painful to take a full breath. Whenever he allowed his concentration on his trail to relax in the slightest, Einar found that he almost immediately slipped into focusing nearly exclusively on his breathing and on managing the pain, almost certainly leaving more sign than a man in his situation ought to. Forget the ribs, Einar. And the breathing. It will have to take care of itself. If they end up following you now, it wont matter how well you can breathe, because before longyou wont be! Now pay attention. The level of focus needed to push everything else out of his mind and give himself entirely to disappearing without a trace was extremely tiring, especially when combined with the constant pain in his side, which seemed not to be diminishing any as the day went on. Once, descending the side of a small draw that he knew he must cross to reach the place where he hoped to find the mine, Einar discovered an area of moist soil where it appeared water had flowed during and after the last rain, and in the dampest area, a few willows. He stopped, cut a number of the long thin shoots and stuck them in his pack, immediately peeling the bark from one of them and stuffing it in his mouth, Immensely glad to have found something that might take the edge off of the growing discomfort that was, he knew, messing with his concentration and increasingly sapping his energy. His breaths had been growing shallower in a largely involuntary effort to keep from further aggravating the injury, his pace slowing, and he had for the past hour or so taken to stopping occasionally to chew like some giant, scrawny rodent on the woven willows of his pack basket, though he seemed not to be able to get enough of the bark that way to offer him any relief. Sitting on a rock, his pack beside him and his head on his knees as he waited for the fresh bark to begin taking effect, Einar found himself once again tremendously grateful for the tanned deer hide that he wore like a cape, tied at the neck. Despite the coolness of the day and the fact that he was sitting motionless in the shade in a fairly strong breeze, he was not shivering, which may not sound especially impressive, except in contrast to the existence he had been leading in the days since his clothing had begun seriously falling apart. The protection was a huge relief. All right. Time to get

going. Willows starting to help a little. Despite the slight relief given him by the willow bark, Einar was hurting and badly exhausted by the time that, several hours after his hasty departure from the crevice, he began recognizing the skyline, seeing the boulder that the steel cable had been pinned beneath. Dropping his pack beside the rock, he rested for a minute before beginning his first daylight expedition of the area. At first all he noticed were a few scattered pieces of badly rusted steel and a small chunk of blue glass that appeared to have come from the bottom of some sort of medicine bottle, but climbing up a nearby slope into the spruces and sub alpine firs, he began seeing an obviously milled timber here and there, a scrap of something that resembled ancient tar paper, a few long thin pieces of twisted, rusted steel. Useful stuff, all of it, and that tar paper makes me think there used to be a structure around here somewhere. Maybe I can find the remnants, salvage some materials. Now wheres the mine? Sure could use a place to hole up for a while. Several more minutes of searching gave him the answer he sought, when he caught a small glimpse of the exposed orange rock of a tailings pile, almost completely concealed beneath a thicket of currant scrub and firs on the steep slope above him.

The mine was not much, tunneling back less than ten feet into the blackness of the mountain before it ended, leaving Einar to wonder where the main tunnel could be. Looks like there was more activity around here than youd expect, if they only went back this far and decided to abandon the area. Must be another tunnel. The space was dry, though, except for a small area just inside the entrance where water apparently trickled down through the rock layers when it rained to drip out and form a small pool just back of the rock shelf that overhung the tunnel mouth. Black and stagnant and full of spruce needles and last years decomposing currant leaves, the water did not look especially good to drink, but he knew it would be useful, anyway, and could probably be consumed in a pinch. Taking a closer look, he found that the little pool lacked the characteristic pinkish-orange evaporation residue around its rim that would have warned him of the presence of arsenic, not an uncommon thing at some of the old mines in the area. The place was quiet, still, well concealed as he stood just inside and looked out at the sundappled forest that dropped away fairly sharply below the mine, the smell of sun-warmed spruce needles and currant blooms drifting up to meet him. Not too far in the distance he could hear a trickling and gurgling of water as a small creek spilled down through one of the numerous small ravines that carved deep grooves in the precipitous face of the forested slope. Thisll do just fine. While he would have liked to begin unpacking everything and improving the comfort and functionality of the shelter right away, Einar kept the willow basket loaded up and sitting near the entrance, still not entirely confident that he had not been followed after leaving the lake. Taking a few minutes to catch his breath and eat a few bites to help bring his energy back up a bit, Einar took the pack and climbed up the increasingly rocky slope above the mine, eventually reaching a spot where he could traverse over to a sharply delineated change in the landscape where the slope broke off precipitously in a tumble of

broken rock and heavily eroded soil, a deep ravine that flowed with a trace of clear, sparkling water near its rocky bottom. The break in the forest allowed Einar to get a look back at a portion of the land that he had covered since leaving the crevicehe estimated that he had walked six or seven milesand he studied it intently, scanning the meadows for movement, listening for aircraft but finding nothing that alarmed him. May just have stopped in time, not been noticed. Ready to head back down, he reached into his pack for another wad of willow bark to chew, only to find that he had used all of it up. Guess I wont be needing it as bad, if Im done with the serious travel for a day or so. Though simply breathing still brought him a good bit of pain, it was far more manageable in contrast to the stabbing and burning that accompanied each breath whenever he was required to climb or work hard. Retracing his steps back down the slope, he picked up the last wad of bark he had discarded and stashed it in the pack, just in case. Returning to the mine and dumping the pack, he scraped up a pile of duff from a tree near the tunnel mouth, heaping it in a dry corner and returning for several others, knowing that his first priority had to be getting ready for night, and thinking that it would be most unwise to have a fire again, just yet. Kind of a shame I couldnt have carried those cattail mats with me. Would have saved some work tonight. Just too cumbersome, though. On his third trip to the tree, Einar noticed among the currant shrubs with their as yet under ripe fruit a few thimbleberry bushes, their leaves somewhat reminiscent of raspberry leaves, but much larger and wider and looking a bit like maple leaves. Some of the berries were ripe, frustrating Einar when the first few he went for fell from the stem and were lost in the tangle of brush before he could grab them. More careful after that, he gathered a small handful of the large, light red berries, knowing they did not save well at all and enjoying them as a snack right then. Have to check back here every day, so I dont miss any of these! And there are bound to be more in the area. If I get enough I could dry them on a rock in the sunsure wouldnt take longand have some for this winter. A good bit of sugar in these berries. While going after the berries Einar had noticed something unusual down the slope through the trees, the obvious remains of a man made structure, and decided to go and investigate, if there was enough daylight left after he got started turning the deer hide into a vest of some sort, as he did not want to end up being forced to move on again without having done so. Settling on a rock in a patch of sun beside the trunk of a fallen aspen that he supposed he could use back the leather when he cut it and poked holes in it with one of his deer-bone awls, Einar reluctantly shrugged off the hide and got to work. Stretching out the hide and measuring it against himself, Einar tried to decide how he could get the most coverage out of it, as an item of clothing. After the warm sleep he had enjoyed the night before while rolled up in the soft hide like a blanket, he was seriously considering leaving it unmodified. The cape concept that he had tried on his hike that day was a bit too cumbersome when going through heavy brush, though, and if it had been a colder day would not have done nearly as much to keep him warm and out of the wind as an actual vest would have. Choosing the approximate center and rather hating to mar the hide at all, he carefully cut a vertical slit for his head, making two shorter horizontal slits that extended out in a T shape from its top and folding down the flaps that this created. Guess I can leave those on as a collar that I can flip up when its windy

and cold, or maybe end up cutting them off if I need the leather for something else. Trying on the partially completed garment he found that it came down past his waist in places, and covered his shoulders and upper arms to some degree, also. OK. Thats good. Now to lace up the sides somehow, I guess. Never really done anything like this before, but I can sort of picture what I want to end up with. Suppose I could just tie something around my waist to keep it in place, but lacing would keep more of the wind out, and that can be a pretty big deal, at times. With a bit of charcoal that he had carried from his camp in the crevice, he marked the spots beneath his arms where he wanted the lacing to end, crouching against a tree as he cut off a small extra looking section of hide, set it on the trunk of the fallen aspen, and began the long, spiraling cut that would turn it into a length of lace. About halfway through Einars lace-cutting the mosquitoes found him, waiting in the currant bushes when the wind gusted to come swarming out at him whenever it grew still, biting him and whining in his ears and finally forcing him to take a break from his work to search for some yarrow, of which he located a good quantity not far from his work area. Rolling a big wad of it between his hands and rubbing it all over himself, he finished up by tucking several long leaves of it behind his ears, knowing that the sharp smelling juice of the plant would at least drastically reduce the number of the pesky creatures that decided to land on him, allowing him to focus on his work for fifteen minutes or so, when the insects return would signal the need for a second application. Punching a neat series of holes in the buckskin with one of his bone awls, Einar laced one side up, slipping his arm through the unlaced portion at the top. He had placed the holes a few inches in from the edge of the hide, so that the vest could be somewhat fitted instead of hanging too loosely on him, and it seemed that his plan was going to work. Starting on the other side, he told himself that if I ever gain a lot of weight someday this will not fit so well anymore, but I could always just loosen these laces, or even make a new set of holes for the laces out closer to the edges, or maybe sew another piece of hide into the side where it laces up. He laughed out loud. Who do you think youre kidding, Einar? If you get a bear or something and actually manage to stay in one place long enough to use all of the meat and blubber you might be able to put on a little fat for the winter, but living like this, itll never be enough to make this vest need modification! Though I can sure see lining it with rabbit pelts as winter gets close, and maybe giving it a wolverine collar or something. Though I think that wolverine may end up getting turned into a hat, before the snow comes. Finishing up the initial work on his vest/poncho, Einar was feeling better and more hopeful about his future than he had in some time, despiteor perhaps even partially because ofhis near miss with the federal trap up at the lake. It was beginning for the first time to look as though the coming winter might be something other than a constant, desperate struggle to keep himself going for one more day in the hopes that something might change, as the last one had at times been. He shuddered, the memory-shadow of that past winter with its terrible hunger and near despair hanging darkly over him for a moment before he pushed it aside with thoughts of the work at hand. Lots to do, but this winters gonna be different. Ill be setting cozy in my rock-nest like a pika by the time the snow flies. Who knows? He glanced back up at the mine. Maybe even right here

Einar knew, though, that he could end up back in a similarly dire situation quite quickly could lose his supplies, get injured in some way that incapacitated him for too long, could again find himself freezing and on the brink of starvation. Huh. Not all that far removed from the second one, right now The margin of error for a man alone in the country where he was hoping to make his home was very slim, he knew, death always a near and very real possibility. But there is no freedom, without risk. Ever. Ive always known that. The concept just became an awful lot more real and immediate, over this past year. Guess Im with that Robert Service fellow, though and he struggled to remember lines from a poem he had long ago heard and liked, something about an old trapper and prospector who was stuck in the city for whatever reason, recounting the dangers of the Arcticavalanches, starvation, frostbite, on and onand saying that in town, Im trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt/ I cower in the crash and the glare/ Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt/ For I know that its safer up there!* Thats the one. That guy knew what he was talking about, alright! Yeah, Id take this, any day. Though it sure would be great not to have folks so bent on taking my hide all the time, to be able to have a fire whenever I wanted, things like that. He shrugged, rose, tried on the roughly finished buckskin vest and stood there for a minute inspecting it and adjusting the laces before calling it good. All it needs now is some fringe down here on the edges to help the rain drip off (Oh! And I got to smoke it before it gets rained on, or all that stretching I did will have been in vain. Not good!) and itll be done. That, and maybe a fur lining when it starts to get real cold again. Covered and warm and fairly comfortable in his new buckskins and the improvised squirrel hide moccasins, Einar started down the slope to investigate the partial structure he had earlier glimpsed. __________________ * http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I%27m_Scared_of_It_All

While hardly as intact as the cabin that Einar had stayed in while attempting to recover from his gunshot wound, the structure he found nestled among the trees at the bottom of the tailings pile was quite a find. Roughly built of unpeeled spruce logs, most of them fairly small in diameter, the cabin was missing its roof entirely, save for a single beam that appeared to be in good shape, and the back wall was leaning badly and appeared near collapse. Sheets of corrugated, partially rusted tin had at some point been nailed into the structures two windows, and he found the door lying inside, its hinges having rusted apart. Very little milled lumber had been involved in the building process, the window and door frames and the door itself being the exceptions. Making a cursory survey of the area, Einar saw two or three half buried rolls of steel cable, an assortment of broken glass bottles and jars, rusty wire and, leaning against a tree and badly rusted, what appeared to be an iron lid for an old cook stove. Curious, he picked it up and walked into the cabin. Well now! This is interesting! A small and much rusted box stove leaned against one wall of the cabin, its odd angle giving away the fact that one of its legs had rusted or broken off at some point, nearly half covered in spruce duff. The missing leg, Einar soon

learned, was somewhat of a blessing in disguise, as it had left the stove sitting at an angle against the wall that had prevented the bulk of the moisture from getting down inside through the hole left by the missing lid. It appeared that most of the rust inside was surface rust, nothing more. Parts of the outside of the stove were a different matter, the iron deeply pitted and, in places, flaking away quite readily when he scratched at it with a nail from the window frame. Maybe useable, maybe not Continuing his exploration, Einar came across a large enameled wash basin, rusted in places and containing a small hole in one side of the bottom where water had pooled up and sat for perhaps a dozen decades. Aside from a good number of nails and some bottles and jars in various states of repair, he saw very little that looked useful, but knew that when he had more time to investigate and could dig around in the thick layer of duff, he more would likely turn up. Well. Dont even know if Im staying here, and I might end up spending the winter in the mine instead of the cabin, if I do, but it looks like with enough work the place could be fixed up and weatherproofed, if I was inclined. With that, the sun setting and a number of miles to cover before noon make that quarter after noon, he climbed back up to the mine for a bit of food and, hopefully, some sleep. Einar slept reasonably warm that night between the new vest and the wolverine hide, during the brief periods when he actually did sleep, that is. Despite his exhaustion, his rest was interrupted numerous times as he found himself startling awake and lifting his head to look up at the small patch of sky that was visible outside the mine entrance, nagged by the idea that he might sleep too long and miss the chance to get within radio range by the appointed time. As worn out as he was from his hiking and from the frequent disturbances to his sleep that night, Einar, dead tired, finally fell into a deep sleep sometime towards dawn, waking and scrambling to his feet when the sun slanted into the tunnel and brushed his face. Pausing at the tunnel entrance for a moment to listen and observe the area he stepped outside, squinting up at the sun, relieved to see that it was not nearly so high as he had feared. On the theory that one or both devices might contain a tracking device of some description, he was unwilling to break open the thick mud cocoon that encased the watch and radio, to check the time. Probably still have time. Doesnt look all that late, yet. Though he knew he would be able to move more quickly without his pack, Einar found in the memory of a number of previous unfortunate incidents sufficient motivation for taking it with him, though he did leave several of the jerky pouches where he had put them the night before, cached securely beneath a pile of heavy rocks at the back of the tunnel. His old boots and the coil of steel cable stayed behind, also, but everything else went, as he wanted to be ready if things went terribly wrong at a quarter after noon that day, and he had to split in a hurry. It has been known to happen While he did very much want to be close enough to receive the radio call, Einar had no intention of being anywhere near the log-bench drop location where he and Liz had been leaving things for each other, when the time came to listen for it. He knew they had already used it too many times, and the discovery of the cameras, sensors and antennas up by the lake had left him even more spooked about the whole thing than he had been before. The possibility that his radio could be rigged with a concealed GPS locator of

some sort was still foremost in his mind, telling him that there was at least some possibility that his pursuers would be notified of the radios position as soon as he put the batteries back in, or as soon as I break it out of this mud cocoon, if they thought to hide a backup battery. Even if Liz isnt in on it, they could have found out what she is doing, got to the radio, and tampered with it. Or switched it out for one that they had prepared for the purpose. Sure, it has that little scratch on the display just like I remembered, but they surely would have notices and replicated that, too. Sowhy are you doing this? Youve got what you need now, or are in the process of getting it, anyway, and youve got a really good chance of making it. Why risk this at all? Wouldnt it be better to bury that radio under a bunch of rocks and forget you ever saw it? He stopped, thought for a minute, shook his head and continued on towards the canyon rim without really answering himself. In light of his uncertainty about the true nature of the situation, he strongly doubted that he would end up responding to Liz, if she actually showed up as the note promised. But it seemed awfully important to him that morning that he at least show up and listen. In some odd wayand he knew this ought to have scared himit seemed at the moment to be the only thing that really mattered. Heading for the canyon rim high above the serviceberry patch at the confluence of the two creeks, Einar figured that a position on or near its edge ought to put him in range of wherever Liz was planning to be, when she made the transmission. And itll keep me well out of the area, in case anyone is watching or listening. Settling into a spot beneath a large limber pine on the precipitous canyon rim, his side pressed up against a boulder, Einar studied the valley far below, the creek flashing white in places with foam as it cut through the meadow and wound its way into the timber some half mile down valley, and...there! He saw the tree-bench, recognizing the wide area of beaten down earth that lay between it and the narrow brown thread of the trail. There was no visible sign of Liz, no activity down there at all, as far as he could tell. The sun was fairly high in the sky by that point, and he decided that it was time to begin removing the mud wrapping that he had hastily applied to the bag containing the radio and watch, in the hopes that it would render ineffective any tracking device that might have been concealed in them. OK. Here goes. He unwrapped the cattail leaves, broke off the mud and took the watch out of its plastic bag. Huh. Ten after. You sure dont leave much margin for error, Einar. Waiting two more minutes he turned on the radio, half expecting to hear the rumble of a distant helicopter or two as they zeroed in on the GPS device in the radio, almost had himself convinced a couple of times that he heard it and should drop the radio and run to save himself Stop it! Now you know that doesnt make any sense. After a few minutes, somewhat alarmed at how nervous and excited he was about the whole thing, he began to think that he must have misunderstood the instructions, that something had gone wrong, that he was not going to hear from her at all, and was about to secure the radio and get out of there in a hurry. Right on time though, the device crackled to life. Ed, this is Edie.

Einar waited. There was no repeat transmission from Liz. Thats good. Shes being

smart about this. Or trying to make me think she is, so Ill take the bait Lying near the edge of the rim he looked down, squinting and studying the valley for anything that appeared out of place. The bench was empty, no hiker in sight anywhere on or near the trail, but he thought he saw something in the serviceberry scrub behind it, just a tiny patch of color that did not quite match the rest of the surrounding vegetation. The day was warm, heat rising in shimmery waves from the valley floor, rippled by a breeze that flowed gently up the canyon, the mirage distorting his view and leaving him uncertain of the movement he thought he saw. For over a minute he waited before the wind calmed and the odd variation in the brush moved and grew, and he recognized it as a person standing up from behind a clump of serviceberry bushes. Liz. She was leaving. Let her go. Perhaps she will not try again. You know that would be best. And he almost did, watching as she did something to her pack, got it onto her back and turned to go, waiting until he thought it would be too late before he responded. He held down the talk button, his voice a bit rough with disuse. Hello Edie. He turned the radio off then, shook out the batteries, hastily stowed it in his pocket, frightened at the step he had just taken, seeing that Liz was staring up in his general direction, scanning the canyon rim. He knew then that she had heard; it seemed for a moment that she was staring directly at him. Einar hastily low crawled out from under the lightening-scarred limber pine that had been sheltering him, back away from the rim, stood when he reached the heavier timber and took off up the steep slope, not slowing down until he had put a good bit of distance between himself and the canyon rim. Stopping near the base of a rocky outcropping he struggled to catch his breath, coughing painfully and pressing his injured ribs, digging a wad of willow bark out of his pack. As soon as his breathing slowed enough to allow it, Einar listened, turning his head this way and that and cupping his hand behind his ear to pick up any distantly approaching aircraft, but there was nothing. Climbing up the backside of the outcropping where a scattering of oak brush offered him a bit of cover, he wormed his way out to a place where he could see back down to the meadow in the bottom of the canyon. Liz was gone, no one else in sight, but he was anxious to put more distance behind him, on the chance that the communication had been overheard and had aroused the suspicion of someone with the means to investigate further. Taking a gulp of water with the hope of quieting an increasingly violent cough, he loosened the strips of bark, padded with mullein leaves, with which he had bound his ribcage that morning as a last resort to in order allow himself to move at a reasonable pace despite the pain brought on by breathing. While the wrap had done what it was intended to do, he was beginning to fear that it had also restricted his breathing too much, preventing him from ever quite getting a full breath and allowing his lingering lung troubles to flare up again. Well. Better be looking for more of those Oregon grapes I guess. Saw some over near the mine yesterday, I think. The sky was changing, clouds heavy with the promise of moisture rolling in as the afternoon heated up, and Einar set a respectable pace for himself, heading up through the spruces for the plateau above, and the series of landmarks that would lead him back to the mine. Pausing to dig spring beauty roots from a large patch he discovered in the open aspen woods that made up part of his return journey to the mine, Einar sat on the damp ground after harvesting a double handful and stowing them in his pack, fighting for breath and

studying the contours of a high rocky ridge that rose up out of the spruces in the distance. Something had caught his eye, a flicker of movement, and as he squinted up at the stark grey of the rock, he suddenly realized that he was looking at a large animal, the gleaming white of its coat showing in sharp contrast with the increasingly black sky against which it had highlighted itself. A mountain goat! The storm was nearing, he could smell rain in the restless air that flowed down from the nearby peaks, setting the aspens to trembling and urging him to seek shelter with all the speed he could musterstill havent smoked this vest! Gonna have a real problem if it gets rained on now!but he fixed the place in his mind, intending to return and further investigate yet another possible source of food, as well as a hide that, if he managed to take the animal in the fall once its winter wool had begun to come in, would keep him warm through whatever fury winter might have to offer.

It had not been easy for Liz to get away from the house that morning. Susans relatives, Allan and three other friends from their church and group were staying up at the place to assist Susan and make sure she stayed safe, in light of the ongoing uncertainty about the situation with the FBI. The rumors were flying about the Sheriff and the possible federal charges pending against him for misconduct that few in the county believed he would have engaged in, about a possible coverup regarding Bills death and Susans mistreatment at the hands of Day and the others, and its possible connection to the untimely death of the agent who had rescued her from the ongoing interrogation. A number of people had volunteered to stay up at Susans house on a rotating basis until things were resolved, an offer she gratefully accepted. The presence of the extra help eased the duties that had fallen on Liz while Susan was in the hospital and in federal custody, but she was kept quite busy, between helping Susans daughters to cook for all of the company, and doing the greenhouse chores. Determined not to miss the third-day contact with Einar and risk losing his trust entirely, she told Allan that morning that she had to go out and pick more serviceberries so that Susans jam orders could be filled not at all untrue, actuallydiplomatically refusing his company when he asked to go with her. They need you up here. Ill be careful. After much discussion back and forth Allan, realizing that he could not stop her short of forcibly locking her in the Quonset hut, insisted that she borrow a truck from one of Bill and Susans church friends who was staying up at the house, so as not to draw undue attention by driving Bills old truck, which he expected agents would know and might be watching for. Liz thought that was a fine idea, and when the owner of the truck gave ready permission, she loaded a couple of Susans berry buckets into the truck in preparation for the next mornings activities. In response to Allans queries as to where she would be picking, Liz showed him one of the locations that Susan had marked on the map as a good spot for the berriesone that happened to be many miles from where she was really headed, of course. What Liz did not know as she set out in the predawn darkness the following morning was that the headlights she occasionally saw in the distance behind her as she rounded the many curves in the winding mountain highway were Allans. He had no intention of allowing her to go without protection in light of what had been done to Bill and Susan,

especially with the possibility that someone in the FBI might have figured out that she had been a witness. Puzzled when she turned off in a direction that did not even remotely correspond to the spot she had indicated on the map, Allan kept his distance as the two trucks bounced up the steep, rutted Forest Service road in the brightening light of morning.

Liz was not especially surprised when Einar did not respond to her second transmission. She had been fairly startled that he had answered her, at all. As wary as he had been the last time she had spent any length of time around him, she could only imagine what he must be like after nearly six more months of running. But she was determined to keep trying. She was reasonably certain that he had been watching her when she picked up the berries and jerky he had first left hershe had felt eyes on her, had even thought she saw him, over by the log in the serviceberries on the far side of the creekand supposed that he might have been watching, also, when she returned to leave him the note, yet he had chosen not to meet in person. So it would be unreasonable to expect him to do it, today. But hopefully he at least heard me this second time, and will come back. Turning off the radio and stashing it in her pack, she took one last look around before leaving, her eyes inexplicably drawn to a spot on the canyon rim high above the valley where a lone limber pine stood out against the skyline, its branches gnarled and partially blackened from a long-ago lightening strike. I guess you want to stay hidden for now Einar, and thats OK. But please come back. Ill be here when I said. She was worried about him. He had sounded odd, the strain in his voice obvious even through the static, and she hoped he was alright, but had the feeling that something was wrong. Starting back down the trail, Liz paused here and there to work on filling the berry buckets, alarmed to find Allans truck parked next to her borrowed one when she made it back down to the trailhead near dusk.

Allan was not in the truck, was nowhere to be seen, and Liz thought that rather odd, as she had not met him on the trail down from the meadow, either. He had followed here there, that much was plain, and Liz was furious at him for having done so, but more immediately, was concerned that he might have also followed her up the trail, seen her using the radio and got some idea of what she was up to. Which she knew would mean an abrupt end to her communications with Einar, and all before she had really got the chance to leave him the supplies that she expected he was needing. Good thing I ended up not leaving anything hidden in that log today. If Allan did follow me, he probably would have found it! Wanting to know just how things stood before starting down, she waited in the truck as darkness began descending and the wind picked up, bringing with it occasional spats of rain that pelted her windshield and spoke of more to come. As she sat in the truck, warm and dry and about to head down the mountain and drive home to a good supper and a safe bed, she hoped Einar had a decent shelter somewhere up there, hoped he was out of the rain. It would be a cold rain, she knew, as high as he was; that was the only sort that ever fell up there, even in the middle of summer. She had not been

waiting fifteen minutes before Allan showed up, walking down the trail and straight over to her truck. She rolled down the window. Allan? What are you doing here? He gave her an odd look, walked around the truck and let himself in to get out of the increasingly heavy, blowing rain. I could ask you the same. This isnt anywhere near where you showed me on that map. What? Changed your mind? Yes. And I guess I was getting a little tired of people always keeping tabs on me. Im not used to that, you know. Oh, I know. But I just decided at the last minute this morning that somebody ought to be around in case the feds decided to try something. You know, if they wanted to interrogate Susan, they might decide to de the same to you. I was only going to follow you to wherever you turned off the highway, then go back in the evening and make sure nothing happened on your way home, but I had to end up coming all the way when I realized that I had no idea of where you were headed! Im sorry. I should have told you I was coming. Well if you were bound and determined to follow me all the way up the trail, you should have brought your own berry buckets, and we could have doubled our take. She indicated the two buckets of large purple berries in the bed of the truck, covered against the rain. I wasnt following you. Not past the trailhead, anyway. Didnt expect those federal boys would come out here after you. They seem much more at home on the highway. I just poked around near the creek down there, he nodded towards the sharp limestone dropoff that fell away below the parking area, ending in a lively mountain stream, fished for awhile, ate lunch, read a book, then finally wandered a ways up the trail and tracked elk for an hour or so. Found a few berriesIve got them in this grocery sack here. Liz nodded, wondering whether she could believe him. He generally seemed quite trustworthy, but she had her suspicions, in this case. He was acting rather odd. We better start down, she said. This road will get muddy quick once that rain gets here.

When it became clear to Einar that he was not going to reach the mine ahead of the storm, he took off the vest and rolled it up, hurriedly stashing it in the bottom of his pack and piling everything else up on top of it, which he managed with some difficulty, considering the bulkiness of the vest. Reluctant to lose the protection it gave him from the increasingly chilly wind and the occasional waves of damp, drizzly air it brought, he liked even less the idea of soaking the unfinished buckskin and having to start all over with the softening process. Seeing a fallen and half rotted aspen trunk nearby, he stripped off long strands of its inner bark and used them to bind down the precarious load that

teetered above the rim his pack basket, adding more strips over the top in an attempt to keep out the water. The rain began shortly after he had secured the vest as a thin, piercing drizzle that quickly left Einar damp and dripping, hunching his shoulders and shaking in the wind as he reminded himself that it could easily be worse, that rain often fell as sleet at those elevations, that at least he would have the dry vest to get into once he reached the mine. If it happened to stay dry Those thoughts did not help all that much he was still wet, freezing and struggling for air, miles from the minethough the possibility of the rain soaking through and dampening the buckskin, requiring him to spend the entire night stretching it lest it dry rigid and nearly useless, certainly motivated him to keep moving faster than he would otherwise have thought himself capable, as labored as his breathing had become. The pitch sole of one of the squirrel skin moccasins, made brittle by the cold rain, had flaked and worn off of the front half of the shoe as he traveled, leaving it terribly slippery on the wet, streaming ground, and he found himself falling frequently, especially when crossing areas of rock. Finally, tired of bruising his knees and concerned that he might end up really hurting himself or spilling the contents of the pack where they could go tumbling down between the boulders and be lost to him, he removed the moccasin, figuring that his bare foot would give him more traction than the soggy, slippery rawhide. At first he considered turning the squirrel skin inside out so that the fur could give him a bit of traction, but not wanting to wear off the insulating fur by using it so, he went with the bare foot. Hurting a bit at first as he traveled over the sometimes sharp edged granite slabs, his foot was soon partially numbed by the wet cold, not bothering him anymore. Reaching the far end of one of the rockslides, Einar spotted a thicket of twinberry honeysuckle, immediately recognizable by its numerous clusters of double berries, shiny black and each topped with a reddish husk. Stopping, he collected a handful of the large, juicy looking black berries. Incredibly bitter and nauseating, the berries were not poisonous but could hardly be considered edible, though with his cough seeming increasingly unable to keep up with the growing congestion in his lungs, Einar had a feeling that the berries might come in handy, later that evening. They had not been available to him that past winter or shortly after the fire when he could really have used them, but were now an option. He knew that eating more than three or four of them would tend to induce rather sudden vomiting, which he expected might help loosen up the phlegm that felt like it was trying to drown him. May try it, if all else fails. Not touching them, otherwise! He shuddered, remembering one summer many years ago when he had been hot and thirsty and without a ready water source, and had somehow managed to choke down a number of the sleek, juicy berries before becoming violently ill. Einar also took the time, as he fled soaking wet and wind battered for the shelter of the mine, to collect mullein leaves whenever he saw the plant, knowing that it would be a good idea for him to breathe their steam at some point, if he decided fire was a reasonable risk. Well, itd be a more reasonable risk than the one you just took with that radio, for sure! This storms probably the only reason the choppers dont have you pinned down in some rocks somewhere, yet. Now hurry up and get back to that mine. You're moving like a turtle here, and this wind is getting awful cold.

The rain came, great sheets sweeping down from the high ridges to drench the plateau, wind-whipped, driven, relentless, and Einar watched from the protection of the mine tunnel that he had finally stumbled into mere seconds before a close clap of thunder ended the drizzle and released the torrent. Leaning on the tunnel wall and working to catch his breath after his hasty climb of the tailings pile, he brushed and shook off as much of the water as he could before drying himself on a corner of the wolverine hide, his teeth chattering loudly in the sudden stillness of the mine. Getting hurriedly into the buckskin vest, which to his relief had remained almost entirely dry, he was soon sitting on a rock just inside the tunnel with the wolverine hide drawn tightly around his shoulders, watching the lightning flash in the near darkness and listening to the wind as it tore through the trees, punctuated by the occasional crash of a falling aspen branch or spruce top. Einar was dry and beginning to get warm again, starting to think about dinner and the possibility of a fire, thinking of Liz and the implications of the contact he had made that afternoon, immensely grateful that he had made it back before the worst of the rain hit. He would have been quite comfortable had breathing not been such a struggle.

Having previously stashed a good supply of dry wood near the back of the tunnel, Einar hurried to get a fire set up before the darkness became complete, also taking a minute to stretch one of his remaining pieces of parachute line across the tunnelgetting low on this stuff. Better be thinking about coming up with some nettles or milkweed so I can make morewith the thought that he had better get the vest smoked, in case he managed to be caught out in the rain again. Scratching a slight depression into the rocky ground near the tunnel entrance, he hoped to avoid filling the mine with smoke, which worked reasonably well as long as the wind did not shift direction too dramatically and blow in through the entrance. Hanging the vest over the line he had strung, keeping it two or three feet above the fire, Einar propped it open with a stick, intending to keep the fire going for a few hours before flipping it over to allow the smoke to begin permeating from the other side. He knew that to really finish the process, he would need to keep the smoke going for ten or more hours, repeating it for several days running. He also knew, though, that even a few hours in the smoke would give the buckskin some measure of protection from the moisture, and keep it from being ruined by the next rain. Ill do what I can, when I can. Though he had collected a good bit of spruce wood he tried to stick with aspen for the smoking process, not sure that he wanted the buildup of resin that could be expected with the spruce. Once he got the fire going, Einar retrieved a number of chunks of punky, half-rotten aspen that he had set aside, tossing them in the fire and stirring it occasionally to keep the smoke rising. This smoking would have been easier if I had done it before making the vest, could have just glued the hide together with a bit of hide glue, made a big tube out of it, and hung it over a firepit so it acted almost like a chimney. Turn it inside out halfway through, and things would have gone quicker than they will, this way. Was kinda in a hurry to wear the thing, though, and couldnt have a big old smoky fire that day, anyway. Come to think of it, would also help if I had some hardwood to burn, some oak or something. This aspen does not make for very good coals.

With the smoking process underway and Einar finally warmed some up from his rainy hike, he retrieved the Spam can from its place outside the mine where it had been catching water, and set it to heat. He did not feel especially hungry, was a bit nauseous, in fact, a side-effect of his struggle for air and the fact that he was barely getting enough of it, but he knew he must eat. First though, some mullein. Breaking up several of the leaves into the simmering water he breathed the steam, but could not seem to get it deep enough into his lungs to have the desired effect. Trying made him cough, and while he hoped the coughing would break up some of the stubborn phlegm and allow it to come up, that did not happen, leaving him to eye the little pile of gleaming black twinberries that he had set on a rock some distance from the fire, knowing that he might have to resort to trying them if things did not soon begin to change for the better. Wellat least this time I have them to try. Now. Better eat something, because somebodys got to stay awake to stir this fire, and I dont see anybody else around. The miles covered that day were beginning to catch up to him, his body demanding either sleep or fuel. Shaving some pemmican into the leftover mullein liquid that he had not drunk as tea, he made a thin soup that went a long way towards restoring his energy though a little more oxygen would be even better, I think Finding that he could not drink the soup very quickly without worsening his nausea, Einar found himself a project to focus on between sips, collecting the long strips of aspen bark that he had used to tie down the load and partially waterproof this pack that afternoon and twisting them, already damp and soft and in perfect condition for working, into several yards of cordage. Studying his cooking potthe rectangular-shaped Spam canas he worked, Einar had an idea, and began coiling up the cordage and sewing each layer to the one before as he went with a single strand from one of the parachute lines, ending up with a rectangle whose size roughly matched the inner area of the Spam can. Continuing to add layers he brought the sides up, working until he had a tall, narrow rectangular vessel whose bottom portion would fit inside the can and whose top spiraled in and narrowed to a small hole that he could plug with a piece cut out of an aspen branch. Einar inspected the container, satisfied with his work and estimating that it would hold somewhere around a quart of water, once he coated the inside with pitch. Ive been needing a better way to carry water than in this open canusually end up losing most of it that wayand this will let me not only carry water, but carry the pot at the same time, and save some space in the pack! Better go ahead and coat the inside with pitch, while I have this fire. Taking a few chunks of hardened pitch-charcoal mixture that he had left over from coating the jerky pouches, he tossed them into the water container along with several small hot rocks from the fire, rolling and shaking the container for some time until he felt the rocks beginning to stick, at which time he shook them out and replaced them with fresh, hot rocks that could finish melting the pitch mixture and allow it to thoroughly coat the inside of the container. Finishing with the task, he shook out the final batch of rocks and melted a small piece of the pitch that he had set aside, using a length of aspen bark to brush it on around the outside of the rim of the bottle that he had just completed, to keep the exposed bark from being soaked every time he took a drink. OK. All it needs now is a shoulder strap and a couple of shorter straps that can be slid down under the can to make sure it cant fall off while Im

walking, and Ill have a functional if weird looking replica of a canteen and canteen cup. If it actually holds water, that is. Ill test that out soon as it has time to cool. His soup had grown quite cold as he worked, the fat in the pemmican solidifying into hard lumps, and Einar set it back near the fire to reheat. Finishing his supper, Einar cleaned out the cooking can and set it outside to refill, rummaging around in his pack by the dim light of the smoldering coals and finding a small bag he had made from a bit of parachute material, in which he had taken to keeping some pieces of dried Oregon grape root, dried yarrow and a few other plants that he wanted to keep handy. Sorting through the contents of the bag he pulled out a good bit of the Oregon grape, adding it to the water that had accumulated in the cooking can and setting the mixture near the coals to simmer for a while. The mullein seemed not to have done as much for him as it had in the past, and he was beginning to grow seriously concerned, feeling like his was drowning, or about to be. Got to try those berries. First, though, he wanted to simmer the Oregon grape roots for a while until he had a strong tea, so that their antibiotic compounds could be in his system and hopefully have a chance to begin working on whatever nastiness had settled in his lungs by the time he used the berries and hopefully cleared out some of the gunk. Waiting for the tea to simmer down into something strong enough to have a chance of working Einar dozed, half sitting against a rock near the fire and trying to get some rest while he waited to add a chunk of punky aspen and stir the fire for what he figured would be the tenth or twelfth time. His sleep deepening, Einar rolled onto his side, the dim orange light of the low fire flickering on his face as he lay there struggling for air, and before much time had passed he heard Lizs voice, looked up and saw her sitting there by the fire, feeding in chunks of aspen and telling him that she would tend it for awhile so that he could sleep. About to scold her for having followed him, he realized that he was too tired to do so, that he really was grateful to have some company at the moment. Though he really hoped she had not herself been followed. Thanks. Could use some sleep. First you need to drink this tea though, she told him. Stay there, Ill bring it. She brought him the tea but he saw her add something to it at the last minute, after which he refused to drink it until she told him what the additional ingredient was. Yarrow, she said. You need it. It should help break up that congestion, because its not going to do you any good to eat those berries and get sick if you dont loosen the phlegm up first so it can come out. You have to try it. The mullein isnt working, and youve got to do something. You cant breathe. Einar normally avoided drinking yarrow tea, greatly disliking the mild sedative effect it seemed to have on him, and he told her no, that stuff makes me sleepy. Dont want it. She kept insisting, but he was not about to allow Liz to make him drink the stuff, even though he knew she was probably right about it helping the congestion. Liz would not give up though, holding the pot up to his mouth and pouring when he continued refusing the tea, and he struggled to sit up, feeling as though he was about to drown. Which he was, but not because of the tea or of Liz, who had of course been there only in his dream.

Coughing and wheezing and near passing out from lack of oxygen he rolled to his stomach and sat up, the change in position easing his breaths just a bit. OK. Yarrow. She was right about that. Have to give it a try. He hoped the tea had not boiled dry, was relieved to discover that it had not. He had not been long asleep. Breaking up a number of the dried yarrow leaves from his pack he stirred them into the water, getting to his feet and flipping over the smoking hide as he gave the yarrow a minute to simmer. Sweating and coughing as the yarrow began to take effect, Einar edged closer to the tunnel entrance in anticipation of the inevitable effects of the nauseating berries. He took the entire handful of twinberries and stuffed them in his mouth, chewing and shuddering at their insipid bitterness and washing them down with the last swallow of yarrowOregon grape tea, which seemed almost sweet in comparison. Before long Einar was seized by a wave of awful stomach cramps, his stomach turning inside out and leaving him glad he was near the tunnel entrance. After the vomiting he had a violent coughing spell that brought up what seemed to him like a ridiculous quantity of thick greenish phlegm, after which he could breathe far more freely, though the cough persisted. Worn out and finally breathing well enough to do so, he threw a few more chunks of wood on the fire, curled up with the wolverine pelt on his bed of spruce needles, and slept. Einar woke late the next morning breathing better than he had in days, hungry. The rain had stopped, and he took a big breath of the fresh, crisp storm-scrubbed morning air. Time to go try that atlatl.

Returning to the house and showing Susan the berries she had gathered that day, Liz discussed with her the details of the jam making, which she intended to begin the following morning, using the berries she and Susan had earlier gathered along the driveway and the roadsides near Culver Falls, and frozen. Those days seemed very long ago indeed as Liz thought about them, back before Agent Day and the others had run them off the road, before Bill had died. Susan seemed to be doing remarkably well, both in recovering from her surgery and other injuries, and in coping with Bills death, though Liz had walked in on her more than once and found her crying when she had thought no one else was around. It seemed, though, that her kidnapping?Liz did not quite know what to call itand interrogation by the FBI had somehow strengthened her, had forced her to be strong despite her loss, had given her something to resist and a reason to keep going. Liz had not talked with her about it and doubted that she ever would, as Susan was a rather private person, but she could sense the difference in Susan upon her return from their custody, a steely new resolve that she had always suspected was somewhere beneath the surface and which had always led her to admire Susan, but which had become quite prominent over the last days. When Liz told her of the plans to go ahead with the jam project in the morning Susan wanted to help, insisting that she was up for it and did not need to stay off her feet for another day or two as everyone was suggesting, and Liz, knowing that Susan needed to keep her mind occupied, assured her that they could work together on the jam. Susan did

need to keep busy, knew that she must, but she had other motivations for wanting to spend some time alone with Liz that coming morning. It went well, then, the berry picking, Susan asked as Liz was leaving for bed, and Liz thought the question a bit odd, considering the fact that she had just got done looking at the buckets full of berries and must have seen that it went well. You found what you were looking for? Liz looked up, met her eye and nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, before holding up the full buckets and replying cheerfully, Yes, I did! Good night, Susan.

Taking the atlatl, two tipped darts and two practice darts, the newly improvised canteen and a few other small items but leaving his larger pack, Einar set out that morning in the hopes of running across some game that he might attempt to take with the atlatl, and also meaning to set a number of snares so he could begin obtaining fresh food again and stop living off of his stored pemmican. Reaching a small meadow some distance below the mine he grabbed one of the practice darts, chose an aspen on the far edge of the meadow, and let the dart fly, feeling the pain in his ribs but not allowing it to alter his throw, the dart hitting the target tree and bouncing off. All right! Catching his breath, teeth gritted against the pain I can do it. Ill keep a dart ready as I walk this morning, and who knows what I may see? He knew, after his near-suffocation hours before, that he had got himself into trouble by being too cautious with the injured ribs, the shallow breaths he had been increasingly limiting himself to in an attempt to minimize the pain and the bark strips he had bound his ribcage with acting to keep him from ever quite getting a full breath, allowing the infection to take hold and his lungs begin to fill with the fluid that had nearly drowned him that past night. Cant let that happen again. Got to work at breathing normally, even if it hurts. Which it did, and fairly badly in fact, but the knowledge that it was a necessary part of working to maintain his health made it a bit easier to take. He certainly did not want a repeat of the last night, was not entirely sure, even, that he could manage to live through another such incident. If it hadnt been for that yarrowwell. It just wasnt time. I guess. Wonder why I didnt think of using yarrow? I knew it had those properties, but it just didnt cross my mind last night until she He shook his head, laughed at himself. There was no she you know. Just your own goofy brain managing to remember something useful at the last minute, as usual, and using rather creative means to tell you about it. But he was not entirely certain about that. Wandering a bit and setting a few snares in likely looking locations, Einar found himself headed in the direction of the rocky ridge where he had spotted the mountain goat on his return trip to the mine, and curious to learn more about the creatures, turned his steps deliberately in that direction. The day was clear, cloudless, and liking the feel of the sun on his back and reveling in his newfound ability to take a full breath he kept going, standing before too long on a large chunk of lichen-spotted granite up near treeline, studying the jagged contours of the mountain goat ridge that met the sky not a thousand

feet above him. No. Not today. Too soon. But he was climbing, one foot in front of the other in a rhythm whose old familiarity was returning to him with every step, urging him on and eating up the distance, and almost before he knew it, he stood atop the false summit of the ridge, looking up at the expanse of rocky, tundra-like ground that separated him from the top, dotted with tiny clusters of red kings crown and the deep purples and delicate blues of sky pilot and alpine forget-me-not. Not far. Might as well Not before a moment of rest, though, as he was aching and badly winded, his lungs clearly not yet entirely back to normal. As he neared the high point of the ridge, which he estimated to be somewhere just shy of 12,000 feet, Einar began seeing wispy strands of white stuck here and there to the lichen covered rocks that he at first mistook for spider silk. Seeing more and more of it though, he realized that it must be mountain goat hair, and began collecting it. The summit of the ridge was littered with large, irregular boulders, and Einar sat down on the sunny side of one of them for a rest and a bite of pemmican, inspecting a narrow, sharply fluted spine of rock that appeared to at some point join his ridge, though he could not tell from there exactly where they connected. Squinting out at the ridge, its grey rock appearing nearly white in the sunlight, he thought he could just make out a bit of movement, looked closer and saw the form of a mountain goat, silhouetted briefly against the sky before it stepped down from its rocky lookout and continued along the ridge. Einar wanted to get over to the ridge and have a better look, but upon standing and exploring the summit area of the ridge he was currently on, discovered that his way was blocked by a bank of steep cliffs which he could see no good way around. Looks like I could descend that, though and he started carefully down the loose, nearly vertical rock of the face. There were a few areas of solid slab where he could downclimb fairly efficiently, struggling a bit with his injured ribs and primarily using his left hand where he could, but most of the face was so loose that he had to carefully test each hold, removing and setting aside loose rocks before proceeding. The focus demanded by the climb was so complete that Einar nearly forgot that breathing was still a bit of a struggle in the thin air, and certainly had no energy to spare on being alarmed at the thing he was attempting. At one point, he found himself nearly spread-eagled on the steep rock without a clue as to what his next move ought to be, and he searched somewhat desperately, feeling his legs and his one reasonably functional arm tire rapidly and knowing that he would fall if he did not soon find a way to change his position. He finally found it in a narrow, previously overlooked channel in the rock that allowed him to gain some purchase on the steep, crumbly face, wedging his bootsand occasionally his left elbow into the rock and lowering himself, inch by inch. Finally reaching the more level scree field at the bottom of the cliff, Einar sunk to the ground, leaning on a boulder and looking back up at the route he had taken, wondering whatever he could possibly have been thinking to attempt downclimbing that loose pile of granite chips and flakes! Well, you did it, anyway, so I suppose now it only makes sense to go over and have a look at the ridge where you spotted those goats. Which, he now saw, meant first ascending another steep slope and crossing a rock field that separated him from the sharply serrated rock of the ridge. Consider it a hunting expedition. Which it was, of course, if perhaps not the most appropriately timed one he had ever embarked upon. Sure hope a helicopter doesnt

come along just as Im starting out onto that little ridge

Climbing the broad, rocks slope that separated him from the mountain goat ridge, Einar began finding more and more of the wooly white goat hair, some of it in wisps and strands stuck to the rocks, but he did find a number of larger clumps also, partially submerged in the dirt and grave where it appeared the goats had been resting and rolling around to free themselves of the shedding hair. He reached the summit of the rise and sat down beside a large pile of haphazard boulders for a minute of rest, surveying the area as soon as he could breathe again and his vision cleared. From his vantage point, Einar could clearly see large swathe of the plateau including the edge of the area that had burnt on the Canyon Rim fire, the blackened timber appearing as a sea of dull grey through the slight haze of the day. In the other direction lay peak after peak, stacked up, reaching with their still-white tops for a sky that appeared nearly purple with less atmosphere to dull its color. Some of the mountains he recognized, others looked strangely foreign and misshapen from that perspective. Dim in the distance though, he was quite sure that he could make out the high ridge that ran parallel to the valley that held the town of Culver Falls, and its distance pleased him. Feeling some presence behind him, Einar slowly looked around and saw a full grown mountain goat, rags and streamers of shedding hair hanging from its sides, making its way off the narrow ridge that had been his destination, and up onto the nearby if somewhat lower slopes of the peak on which he sat. The goat appeared unaware of Einars presence, though he suspected that with its keen vision, it probably knew quite well that he was there, and considered him reasonably non-threatening. Which in reality he was, at the distance that separated him from the animal, though he found himself gripping the atlatl and wishing that its range was a bit greater. The creature was at least five hundred yards distant, though, and he knew that any such attempt would only result in his losing a dart, and probably straining his injured ribs again with the effort. Anxious not to waste the opportunity, though, he began stalking closer to the goat as it picked its way across the mountainside, wanting to see how much he could narrow the gap between predator and prey (ha! Keep dreaming) before the animal spooked and picked up its pace or changed course. Not much, as it turned out. Einar was clumsy, still breathing hard despite efforts to slow and control his breathing, and his stalking more closely resembled the awkward movements of a badly winded, half-crippled black bear than those of a hunter approaching his would-be prey. He was half surprised that the goat did not start laughingor whatever the goatly equivalent might bewhen he tripped over a rock and the creature turned to look at him for a moment before taking off at an agile run across the incredibly steep slope of rock, leaving him with just enough time to notice a streamer of wool caught on one of its horns, before it disappeared around the shoulder of the mountain. Squinting out at the spine of rock that the goat had come from, Einar realized that it appeared nearly too narrow in places to allow a human passage, unless he wanted to straddle it, or perhaps cling to the firmly attached, I hope! rocks of its crest, while finding

some purchase with his feet along its nearly vertical sides. He studied the route for a minute, shrugged, began picking his way out across the narrow crest of the ridge, placing his feet carefully and taking occasional glances down at what appeared to be sheer dropoffs of nearly a thousand feet on either side of the ridge. Why not? Despite appearances to the contrary, the going on the ridge was not as difficult as Einar had expected, as he found that the goats, following it year after year, had picked out and slightly worn down a path that followed the most level route, and though he realized that a single misstep at any point could have sent him sliding and tumbling irreversibly for the rocks below, he was able to continue, step by step. Quite a distance out along the ridge, and just after having passed through a particularly tricky section where the path was blocked by a jumble of large, precariously balanced boulders, he spotted a young goat headed towards him from the direction of the lake that lay far below at the far end of the ridge. Hiding himself on the ground behind a pile of rock he waited. The little goat picked his way along the ridge, stopping not ten feet from Einar and staring up a slight rise at him with great curiosity, apparently having never seen a human before, no fear showing in his large eyes. Einar knew that he ought not pass up the chance for food, but knew at the same time that to attempt carrying even so small a goat as that one over the treacherous ground of the ridge might very well lead to a fall that would rather quickly render the meat a moot point. Still, he found himself carefully working the spear around to a useable position, bracing his foot against a rock behind him to ensure that he would not go rolling and tumbling into the abyss that lay not two feet to his side, raising the spear and preparing to strike. The young goat took a few tentative steps closer and Einar waited, knowing that even a few feet could give him a tremendous advantage, well aware that it was going to be all he could do and perhaps more to manage an animal that weighed perhaps fifty pounds, if the spear did not go exactly where he needed it to. Even then, there seemed a good chance that the goat in its panic might flee over the edge of the ridge, falling and wedging somewhere partway down where he would stand no chance of retrieving it. Well, as long as I dont go down with it. Have to let go, if it starts dragging me over. Timings going to be pretty tricky. And he drew back the spear, scooting to the side a bit to get a look at the side of the baby goats body, but never got the chance to try his spear. Focused on his intended prey and on keeping himself from tumbling from his precarious perch, Einar was not aware of the large goat until it was almost on top of him. The creature was alarmed, perhaps even angryhe suspected that it might be he mother of the young one, and knew that the nannies are often the most aggressive of mountain goats and it made a short little charge at him, lowering its head and leaving him sure that he was about to be trampled to death, or shoved off the ridge to meet the rocks below. He was in a bad position to defend himself from the charging animal, which came at him from above as he lay on his stomach. Quickly rolling over and getting himself into a low crouch with his back against a boulder, Einar braced himself and prepared to drive the spear into his assailant, bracing it also on the rock behind him and praying that it was not loose, as so many on the ridge were. If it moved when he made contact with the goat, he was dead. The charging creature skipped aside at the last second, whether sensing Einars intent and grim determination or simply finding a sudden respect for the humanscent, it danced out along the ridge, the baby following close behind, before he even had

a chance to use the spear. Letting his breath out and coughing uncontrollably for a few moments he watched them go, glancing around and seeing on a slope of brilliant green some distance below himin the direction that he would likely have fallen had his spear met the charging goattwelve or thirteen other goats grazing and resting in the grass, one sitting on a crag high above the herd and seeming to act as a lookout. A storm was rolling in, black-bellied thunderheads stretching far up into the purple alpine sky and the wind shifting direction to bring them lumbering slowly in his direction. Carried to him by the strengthening wind, he could begin to hear the occasional grumble of thunder. Need to be down before that storm gets here, or Im real likely to get fried by lightning! Hurrying as well as he could on the precarious rock of the ridge, Einar made his way back to the rocky peak that it took off from, the storm looming behind him as he skirted around the peaks summit and studied the possibilities for his return route. He did not want to climb the loose, nearly vertical rock face that he had earlier descended, was not even sure that he could, if he had to. His ribs were hurting pretty bad after that descent, and he was not sure how much help his right arm would be, if he had to make that climb. And it would take time, perhaps more time than he had before the storm arrived. Another option existed, though, and at that point almost anything sounded better to Einar than attempting the climb, likely leaving himself stuck halfway the treacherous face up when the rain and lightning arrived. Following a wide, downward sloping ridge that took off from near the summit, on the far side of a vast grassy basin from the cliff he had descended, Einar took the slope in great bounding steps, hearing the thunder echo from the surrounding peaks and badly wanting to be down in the basin before the storm reached him. His hip was getting sore, the bounding becoming increasingly more difficult and leaving him feeling a bit unsteady, but when lightning struck the peak he had just left and was followed immediately by the roar of thunder, he knew he was well within range. This knowledge lent speed to his lagging pace, but when his left foot came down on a loose rock during one of the bounds his hip gave out, sending him tumbling ten or fifteen feet down the steep slope to end up tangled up in a small thicket of stunted sub alpine fir, their wind-battered tops reaching no more than three or four feet above his head as he lay there trying to decide if he was still in one piece. It was, as Einar would soon discover, to prove one of the most timely falls of his life. Lying tangled in the evergreen scrub, suspended nearly a foot and a half off the ground and checking to make certain that he was not impaled on anything before attempting to free himself, Einar was suddenly aware of a blinding flash of light just upslope of his position, and a loud hissing crackle that seemed to come nearly simultaneously with an earth-shaking boom of thunder that he felt as much as he heard. His ears ringing and his eyes burning at the incredibly pervasive acrid smell of burnt and broken granite, his cheek stinging where he had been hit by flying shards of rock, Einar twisted his body sideways until he could look up at the slope that he had just descended, seeing that the boulder he had been leaning against shortly before taking off on his last bound before the fall had been hit, a large flake cleaving off its side to lie fresh and white-looking in the

sea of grey rock. He lay back in the trees for a moment, finally letting his breath out, almost unbelieving. I was almost there. Even these few feet down the mountain Id have probably been dead just now, if I hadnt been held up off the ground by these trees. He knew that the electric charge from a lightning strike can easily pass through rock to injure people many feet from the actual strike, and with his heart still showing occasional signs of weakness from the extended starvation that he was just beginning to come out of, he expected that such an occurrence very well might have killed him. Thank you for these trees! Now I better get out of here, before that happens again. Because I wont be so safe if it ends up striking one of these little trees! He rolled to the side, freed himself from an especially stubborn branch that had tangled itself in his buckskin vest and dropped to his knees on the rocks beneath, scrambling to collect his atlatl and canteen and feeling that his right leg was not working entirely correctly, but when he could find no immediate cause for the apparent trouble, he decided to ignore it for the moment. The need to leave the area and reach lower ground further from the ridge crest was quite pressing. Einar was just about to resume scrambling down the ridge when he heard the sound. Between the growing wind and frequent nearby thunderclaps he was not at first even certain of its origin, but then the wind slacked off for a moment, allowing him to hear it quite clearly. The thin, distressed bleating of a goat, and coming from somewhere quite close to the spot where he had come to rest after his fall, though slightly uphill of it in the first trees that one would reach, upon falling. Einar hurried up to the area, noticing that it lay directly beneath a sharp dropoff that he himself had missed by mere feet, and which would have made for a rather more uncomfortable landing when he hit the trees. Which, it appeared, was exactly what had happened to the goat, a small and rather sickly looking one that had already lost a good bit more of its wooly outer coat than the one hw had seen earlier. The animal was caught in the vegetation, one of its hind legs appearing trapped, and it stared up at him with what he supposed must be fear, but he thought it looked rather more like pleading. For a moment he stared back, knowing he needed to clear out of there but suddenly unwilling to leave the little creature trapped as it was. All right, Ill see what I can do. He did not speak out loud, knowing that the sound of a human voice would likely panic the animal and set it to flailing about. Didnt matter anyway, as the battering of the wind would certainly have snatched his words away and blown them halfway across the mountain before they had ever reached the goats ears. Feeling along the animals body, he found the spot where it was trapped, knelt and discovered the extent of the problem. The goats left hind leg was badly broken, bone exposed near the hock, dried blood matting its coat where a sharp branch had been broken in the fall and impaled the goats upper leg, exiting in its lower flank. It did not struggle as he inspected the injuries, just letting out the occasional thin wailing bleat, seeming very weak and dehydrated. He wondered how long the creature had been trapped like that. For a moment Einar considered carrying it back to the mine and attempting to patch it up, heal it, raise it for a pack goator the start of your milk-goat heard!or to butcher later for meat, but he knew the idea was far from practical. Youre barely keeping yourself alive at the moment Einar, never mind a badly injured little goat

like this. This is how things go out theregoats fall fairly often, predators get the young ones, you know that. This critters suffering, bones exposed. If it doesnt already have a massive infection in that leg, it probably will before long. Only one thing to do. Once he had made the decision Einar acted quickly, ending the creatures suffering and draping the small body, which he doubted weighed much more than twenty five pounds, over his shoulder as he scurried down the remainder of the slope to the creek. The lightening, it seemed, had only increased in intensity over the minutes since the near strike, and he kept low as he made the final few yards down to the creek in the bottom of the basin, throwing himself into the willows some distance from the water and crouching as the storm broke over him, praying that he might be spared a direct hit but hearing in answer a quiet little voice that told him, you already have been which he knew was quite true, and which he took as a reassurance, though not entirely certain that it had been meant as one. Guess Ill know soon enough. The storm showed little sign of easing as the minutes dragged on, and when a close thunderclap seemed to open the floodgates, releasing a torrent of windblown rain that pelted Einar and soon soaked him to the bone, he knew that he must move, must seek better shelter than that offered by the willows. Reluctant to leave the scant protection of the willows with the lightning still hitting all around him, Einar huddled there for a time, shielding himself as well as he could from the rain with a large piece of curved, half rotted bark that he pried loose from a nearby fallen spruce, long dead and half returned to the soil that had nurtured it. Some of the water was shed by the bark, but much of it found its way around and through the cracked arch of protection as well. Einar knew that some distance down lower in the basin lay numerous stands of evergreenshe had seen them on his climb of the ridgeand he shouldered his load, taking the open ground in short little bursts as he went from one low spot to the next, the hair on his arms standing straight up and his fingertips tingling, expecting the lightning at any moment to strike near him. Going was difficult along the basin floor and not as fast as he would have liked, the ground alternately boggy and dense with willow and covered with loose, slick rock that seemed especially difficult to manage after whatever he had done to his right leg in the fallit did not hurt much but seemed a bit weak and left him limping more than usual, slowing his progress. Eventually he reached the series of tree-covered hills at the lower end of the basin just before it spilled steeply down into a heavily timbered valley the sight of which was totally obscured by sheets of driving rain, arriving beneath the timber on a steep little rise breathless, dripping and more elated than he could remember feeling in some time, blowing water out of his mouth and nose and cradling the dead goat. Made it. He sank to his knees, let his load fall to the ground, lowered his head. As his heart slowed and he felt able to begin thinking once more, Einar realized that his breath was coming hard, his chest a bit tight and his cough more frequent than it had been earlier in the day, and he knew that it had probably been unwise to attempt such a climb before giving his lungs more time to return to normal. Think its gonna turn out OK though. Ribs hurt a lot less today, even with all this climbing and moving and carrying things. Should be able to take fuller breaths now, stay out of trouble as far as the lungs go. While the trees he had stopped beneath offered a reasonable amount of shelter from the

rain, a good amount was still blowing in, and Einar got back to his feet, seeking refuge deeper in the forest, hoping very much that the vest had absorbed enough smoke in the single night of smoking he had been able give it to keep it somewhat soft and flexible after the soaking it had just received. Speaking of whichIm kinda freezing. Fire might be a real good idea about now. No way anybodys going to see the smoke, in a storm like this. With a few minutes of preparation Einar had a small fire going near the trunk of a large sprucenot too large, though, as he had no desire to sit beneath a lightning-magnet. Warming himself and hanging the steaming buckskins a good distance above the fire to begin drying, he wrung the water out of his pants and hung the jeans to dry also, wearing the polypro pair which provided a bit of warmth even wet, and which he did not want to risk melting by hanging over the fire. Crouching over the small circle of flames, Einar stared out at the storm, realizing that it was well into the evening, that darkness was coming and that he had little chance of reaching his shelter in the mine before it arrived. Not a problem. Dry here, and I can burrow down in this duff when it gets cold. He turned to the small goat, knowing that he needed to eat.

Renewing his strength with a meal of roast goathe had brought nothing to boil food in Einar relaxed against the trunk of the spruce he had chosen for shelter, the stack of rocks and a half rotted log that he had piled up just on the far side of the fire helping to shield it from the wind and reflect a good bit of its heat back onto him. Roasting and eating small portions of meat until his hunger was satisfied and he began feeling warmer, Einar would probably have fallen asleep right where he sat with his back to the tree and the small fire between his knees, had it not been for his thirst. He had drained his improvised canteen during the climb, and had been in too great a hurry to get out from under the lightning to refill it at the creek that he had roughly paralleled as he scurried down the basin. It had not been enough, not nearly, and between the climb, his cough and the relentless wind, his mouth was so dry that he was beginning to have difficulty swallowing his food. Upon reaching the shelter of the trees and deciding to stay long enough to have a fire, he had set the canteen, its willow wood cork removed, out in a clear spot where rain dripped from the branches of the spruce to begin filling, and he retrieved it, quickly absorbed its contents and set it to fill again. Waiting as his second helping of water slowly accumulated and trying to keep his mind off of the dripping sounds that only aggravated his thirst, Einar worked to ensure that he would have a good warm breakfast for the coming morning, slicing off a generous chunk of meat from the haunch of the baby goat and coating it with mud that he dug from a spot just outside the shelter of the trees, putting on several layers before burying the meat in the still-glowing coals of his dying fire. Darkness was descending swiftly over the basin, the rain continuing unabated though the flashes and booms had to his relief grown a bit more distant, less frequent. Einar had always enjoyed thunderstorms and he had, in fact, come to greatly welcome stormy weather of every kind during his time in the woods, as it always offered him at least some measure of protection from his pursuers. He had never enjoyed feeling like a target, though, which was exactly what he had been up on that ridge as the electrical storm

moved in. The strike on the mountain had been way too close, as had the continued electrical outpouring that had stung the ridges and peaks and, it seemed, the ground all around him as had run at a crouch down along the course of the creek, hoping to reach the trees before it got to him. Still just a bit on edge after the experience, he was glad to see the lightning growing more distant that night. Weary, he kicked a short trench into the duff between his fire and the tree trunk, preparing to curl and get out of the wind for the night, but knowing that he must not do so until he found a way to get the remains of the small goat up off the ground where they might attract predators. He was not too worried about bears, though he had seen them up at similar elevations flipping over the rocks to eat the nutritious moths that took refuge beneath them from the sun. No moths to be had on a rainy night, but just to be certain he tied one end of a parachute linehis last one, he was pretty surearound the small hind foot of the creature and suspended it from a branch of a nearby tree, his aching ribs providing ample reminder of the need to avoid tempting bears. Gonna leave my breakfast in the coals though. If a bear comes, he should be focused on that rather than on me, and at least the rest of the meat will be safe. Einar got more sleep that night than he would have expected under similar conditions only a week beforethough his sleep was troubled at times by a persistent cough that seemed to grow worse towards morningand when he woke, cold and a bit stiff from a night spent half clothed in damp polypropylene and burrowed down under a dripping tree but able to function and basically alright, he supposed that the increased food supply must finally be having some positive affect on his health and his ability to maintain a normal body temperature. Good. Because I sure got a lot to do before the snow comes back. Better start by heading back to the mine and getting the rest of this goat drying, start working on the hide. The young goat had a fairly thin, poor coat, leading Einar to think that it might not have been in the best of health even before the fall that had broken its leg, but its wooly hide would still prove quite valuable, he was sure. Sometime in the night the rain had ended, though the sky remained overcast, and Einar, hungry and chilled, dug down in the coals of his fire, which he had covered with a couple of flattish rocks before going to sleep, unearthing the chunk of goat haunch that he had buried, its coating of mud dried and cracked by the heat. Knocking a bit of the dried dirt from the outside of his breakfast, he sliced it down the middle with his knife, revealing a thoroughly cooked goat steak that was still warm enough to steam gently in the sharp chill of the morning air. Grabbing his buckskin vest from its spot in a branch high above the firepit he hastily put it on, wanting the shelter it would offer from the morning breeze that had set him to shivering soon after digging his way out of his nest of spruce needles, even if the leather was still a bit damp. Which it was, though not terribly, and he was relieved at the discovery that the dried areas remained nearly as soft as when he had finished tanning it. The warm breakfast proved very welcome at a time when Einar would not have considered starting a fire to cook anything, and he discovered that the thick mud coating had left the meat quite moist while allowing it to cook thoroughly in the heat of the coals. Well. Have to try that again sometime! Leaving his campsite and heading in the general direction of the mine, Einar was dismayed to find himself already rather worn out by the time he reached the edge of the basin and began descending through the heavy timber that would take him down to the

plateau, a result, he supposed, of what had become a near constant cough. His sore right leg was not helping either, especially on the downhill portions where his knee seemed to tire very quickly. Must have wrenched it a little when I landed in those trees ahead of the lightning. He tried chewing on the occasional evergreen needle to ease the cough, not wanting to try too hard to suppress it for fear of allowing phlegm to begin building up in his lungs once more and leaving him again struggling for breath and wondering how long he might be able to hold out on the reduced oxygen. Which, at the moment, he was not. Will be slow going, but I can keep this up. Sure wont be sneaking up on anything much, though. May have to wait to try out the atlatl on some live game. His cough did end up quieting a bit as he lost elevation, and Einar kept as alert as he could for the presence of game as he descended through the spruces, collecting tufts and strands of usnea as he went and tucking them into his vest, which he had secured at the waist with the parachute line that he had used to hang the goat carcass overnight. Pausing in the shadow of the trees before stepping out into the meadow at the base of the slope below the basin, Einar studied the grassy expanse, let his eyes wander over each of the exposed boulders that sat among the alpine grasses and lupine of the meadow, probing the shadows among the far trees that were his destination. About to start out into the open, he saw movement, got a dart into his hand and secured against the hook at the back of the atlatl.

Susan sat in a chair at the kitchen table, a pillow propped behind her back and her broken arm in a sling, helping Liz sort stray stems and leaves out of her harvest of serviceberries before mashing and boiling them for jam. They were alone in the house, Susans relatives having gone into town for groceries and Allan the other men who were helping watch the house all outside, and they worked quietly for awhile, neither quite wanting to interrupt the thoughts of the other. Susan finally broke the silence. Youve been seeing him, havent you? When you go up there for berries? Liz kept sorting berries, did not look up. No. She finally answered. I dont know where he is. Susan was quiet for a minute, but Liz knew that the conversation was not over.

On the pretense of retrieving another gallon bucket of berries from the fridge, Liz went over to the phone, intending to unplug it from the wall before the conversation Susan had started went any further, only to find that Susan had already done so. She sat back down. Liz Susan continued, my jaw may be wired shut and my arm broke in a couple of places, but Im certainly not blind. I havent said anything about it for obvious reasons, but Ive knownor guessedabout this for quite a while. Now I understand why you had to say what you said, and Im glad you answered that way. Thats the only good answer you can give to anyone, about any of this business. I know I dont have to tell you how serious this is. You were there on the road that dayyou know what the feds

are willing to do. Susan stopped speaking, looked at Liz until she finally glanced up and met her eye. Im not saying that you shouldntbe doing whatever it is that youre not doing, up there. But please be careful. For you, and for him. I think BillBill was right that night when he told Rob to stay out of it, to leave him alone, and you know what happened when Rob decided to step in anyway. Almost got both of them killed. Liz, if they follow you up there one time She shook her head, looked away. I think hes made it pretty clear that he would prefer almost anything to letting them get their hands on him, and I just dont want to see you be the cause of that happening. That would be pretty hard to live with. Please give this some serious thought before you head up there again. Liz was nodding, looking at the floor. There were things she wanted to tell Susan, to ask her advice on, but she knew that she must not. The current conversation with all of its generalities and vague terms did not even seem like a wise idea. She said nothing. Susan could see the conflict in her eyes, but behind it a quiet determination, and she knew that Liz had made her decisions. She just hoped her warnings were getting through to the young woman who she had come to regard almost like a daughter over the past year. You know, Liz, we will be needing more berries if were to get these jam orders out. A lot more berries. And thats what Ill be telling anyone, if they ask why youre going up there so much. And if theres anything I can do Thank you Susan. There is one thing. Allan followed me yesterday. He seemed upset when he found out that I went somewhere other than where I had shown him on the map. Maybe hes just worried about the whole situation with the feds, but I dont know. He was acting weird. Please dont say anything about what we were justnot talking about, to him. You know I wont, Liz. But surely you realize that this is not just about him being concerned for your safety as he is for mine, dont you? He really cares for you. Liz looked a bit puzzled, then exasperated, having rather overlooked any such possibility. Thats the last thing I need right now! Well maybe you can help me convince him that I dont need to be followed, at least!

Einar could not at first locate the source of the movement he was sure he had seen, and he crouched there in the chokecherry scrub at the edge of the timber, slowly and silently lowering the goat to the ground and passing the shoulder strap of his canteen over his head, freeing himself if all encumbrances so that he would be ready to take his best shot with the atlatl as soon as his prey gave away its location. Letting his vision widen and wander over the open space, he waited for a flick of an ear, the shifting of a foot, anything. He had a strong impression that the creature had been at least the size of a deer, perhaps a small elk even, and also knew without being able to name a reason that the creature was not alone, but as he waited, he increasingly came to doubt his initial

estimation of the animals identity. It was not behaving like a deer, seemed to be deliberately hiding from him, though he had kept himself very still since first detecting its presence. Not typical deer or elk behavior. Growing increasingly uneasy, he had no clear idea of why, but something was not right about the whole situation. Struggling to keep himself from coughing, chewing on a spruce needle and working to keep his breathing as slow and regular as he could, Einar wished the creature would go ahead and move, so he could take his shot and be done with it. He had very nearly decided to stand up and make a noise in an attempt to flush the animal out when he saw a flash of color, just a flicker of yellow that appeared between two clumps of lupine on the far side of the meadow and was gone, but it was enough to stop Einar in his tracks and send him sinking to his stomach in search of better concealment. That is no deer. Studying the spot where the color had appeared, he could just make out through the intervening meadow grasses, swaying slightly in the wind, the shape of a hat bill, grey with some sort of yellow piping out near the edges. Looking through the lupine, it became clear to him that what he had taken as the color from a field of bluebells or some such in the background was actually the mans jacket, a light sky blue of some kind. Einar was not alone. Without moving his head, he glanced around out of the corners of his eyes, scrutinizing the land behind him and trying to decide on his best route of escape. The timber, it had to be the timbered slope he had just descended, because anything else would leave him skirting the meadow through the brush, which while it was definitely thick enough in places to conceal him from sight, was also matted and tangled, the ground beneath it carpeted with the previous years fallen leaves that could rustle and crinkle and give him away as he walked. The coughing has probably already given me away. How could he not have heard me as I came down through those trees, just now? And why is he hiding like that, if he has not seen me? Einar, struggling hard to suppress yet another coughing fit, stuffed the tender, almost neon green new tip of a fir branch in his mouth and chewed, the tangy juice for the moment quieting the urge to cough, but he knew it could only last for so long, knew he had to get out of there in a hurry lest his presence be revealed to the man. All right. Up into the timber then, and take it real slow. Wonder if hes alone? He had the feeling that the man was not alone, though he could not quite place the location of his companion. One thingthe only one, reallythat was a bit reassuring was the fact that it seemed highly unlikely that the man (men?) were part of the search. They would have been better camouflaged. Carefully backing up deeper into the brush, cautious not to set its flexible tops to swaying as he moved, he dragged the goat and canteen along with him, rising carefully when he had put a number of thick evergreens between himself and the meadow. Getting the goat situated a bit painfully on his still-injured left shoulder, atlatl at the ready in his right hand, he peered through the trees, getting a glimpse once again of the man in the blue jacket, able from his changed perspective to see why the man was lying there behind the lupine. He lay behind a long-lensed camera on a short tripod, his attention seeming to be wholly absorbed by a pair of mountain bluebirds that were taking turns flying down from their nest in a hollow-trunked old aspen to land on the ground near the man in search of food. Well. You just keep watching those birds, buddy, while I clear out of here. And Im gonna try real hard not to cough and scare them away for you, OK? Because I really like

how theyre keeping your attention off me. The photographer did not look up when Einar mentally addressed him, further confirming his total absorption in the three feet of alpine grass in front of his face. Einar was still quite concerned, though, about the second presence he had been fairly certain he felt in the area, stopped his retreat to listen, but could hear no sign of a second man. Or woman, as the case turned out to be. She surprised him, having apparently caught sight of him at some point and sneaked around behind him in the timber, and when she stepped out from behind a clump of firs, he reacted almost before he knew what he was doing, getting the atlatl up into position and the dart ready to throw before discovering that he was looking at an apparently unarmed and badly startled woman with a camera. The woman, twenty something with a mess of unkempt brown hairdreadlocks, almost held back by a faded red bandana, a small silver ring through her left nostril and a camera around her neck took a step back, startled but recovering quickly, appearing more curious than anything. She quickly pulled out the camera and snapped a photo of the gaunt, scarred, wild-eyed man in his buckskin vest and squirrel-hide moccasins, atlatl and dart drawn back in his hand and a partially eaten mountain goat kid slung over his shoulder. Cool. So do you, like, live out here or something? The sound of the girls voiceany human voicewas strange to Einar, its volume and pitch seeming horribly out of place in the quiet woods, and he glanced over at the man in the meadow, who having apparently got the shot he was looking for had risen and begun to collect his camera equipment. Quiet, he growled, not lowering the atlatl, now give me that camera. He supposed his words must have come out a bit more gruff than he had intended, as the girl was clearly frightened, backing up and tossing the camera in the duff at his feet. He had expected her to take off running, hopefully without screaming or anything, perhaps giving him some time to get out of the area before the man found his way over, but she did not. Einar wanted to pick up the camera so he could make a run for it, but could no do so without either lowering the atlatl or dropping the goat, neither of which he was willing to do. He waited. The girl stood her ground also, looking him over, seeing that he was wound pretty tight and appeared not unlikely to throw theshe didnt know the worddart of some kind with a nasty looking sharp point on the end of it, but noticing at the same time that it appeared to be a major effort for him to go on holding it up like that. His arm was shaking, he did not appear especially steady on his feet, and his breathing was odd and irregular, as if he was trying very hard not to cough. The half-crazed look in his eyes scared her some, but she wanted the camera backit wasnt even her camera, and it was expensive! She had to get it backsupposed that the wild man would have already killed her if he really intended to do so, and decided to try and wait him out. Einar was not liking the wait one bit, was anxious to get moving before the man found his way over and, hearing thunder in the distance, before the rain started up again. The girl could see that he was becoming increasingly uneasy. You hungry? she asked,

more quietly than before, reaching into the pocket of her tan cargo pants, intending to offer the stranger a few bites of trail mix in the hopes of improving his disposition. Einar eyed her suspiciously and took a quick step forward, kicking the camera several feet behind him as he advanced. Get your hands where I can see them. Now. And she did, thinking that she had perhaps underestimated the mans determination. Now go. Get out of here! He shook the atlatl at her for emphasis, and she took another few steps back, but decided to try one more time for the camera, starting off into the trees before darting around behind Einar and making a grab for it, attempting to trip him with a branch she had snatched up off the ground. He saw what she was doing, lunged at the camera and reached it ahead of her, dodging the stick and getting quickly back to his feet, tossing the cameras shoulder strap over his neck. He had dropped the atlatl but had the spear in his hand, was of half a mind to use it on the girl before she could cause him any further trouble, but knew he really had no justification for doing so. She apparently was not armed, was just trying to retrieve her property. He was coughing too hard to do much anyway, the exertion of diving for the camera having finally got the best of his efforts to suppress it, and he stood there nearly doubled over and hardly able to get his breath, just trying to keep an eye on the girl and make sure she attempted no sudden moves, but knowing that the man must have heard him, would be coming. With a supreme effort he halted the coughing, wiped his blurring eyes on his arm and grabbed the atlatl, only to find upon rising that the man in the blue jacket stood not three feet from him, aiming a rather large can of pepper spray at his face, having shoved the girl behind his back. Einar squinted at the photographer, gave him an exasperated little half smile, still gasping for air. Youoffering to season this goat for me? He held the goat out in front of his face where it would take the brunt of the pepper spray and hopefully leave his vision still intact, if the man acted on his threat. Well thanks. It could sure use some seasoning. At which the girl began laughing, and the man lowered the pepper spray. Youre pretty funny for a wanted man, Mr. Asmundson. Now if I put down this pepper spray, can I have your assurance that you wont skewer us with that spear and roast us for dinner? Einar nodded, lowering the spear just enough to demonstrate his good faith while leaving all of his options open. I just want to be left alone. Now I dont know who you are or why youre up here, but Im gonna head up into the timber now, and if you follow me either of you he glared at the girl, well, consider yourselves warned, cause there will be no second warning. Wait. Wait a second! What about my camera? The girl shouted, and Einar stopped just to get her to quit yelling, leaning on a tree while she carried on an animated but rather hushed conversation with her companion. Einar wanted to leave, and wanted to do it without further delay; rain was coming, and it would help to cover his tracks should the two hikers report sighting him, and he knew he needed to put some good distance behind him before they had a chance to do just that. He did not, though, wish to risk having

them follow him, and though he knew he could double back and take a circuitous route that would likely leave them lost and bewildered before they had covered a mile, his slow pace and the cough he could not quite seem to control had him a bit concerned about his ability to lose them as quickly as he normally would have been able to. He wished the hikers would leave first, but was not sure how to convince them to do so, without resorting to the use of force against them, which, as they appeared to pose no immediate threat to his life, he had no intention of doing. The storm was almost on them, rolling in over the ridge that he had climbed the day before, a sharp damp wind promising rain and the approaching thunder growing louder. Einar was getting pretty cold, needed to move. And then the lightning reached them, striking a tree near the one that sheltered the two hikers, dropping a large branch and sending them scrambling to their feet, clearly frightened and unsure where to go, rain pelting the meadow and beginning to find its way down through the trees. Einar hurried away from the trees near the edge of the meadow and into the black timber where he knew the relatively uniform height of the spruces would provide him protection from lightening strike, and when he saw the two hikers following him he made no effort to stop them. They chose a tree near the one he settled beneath, the man zipping up his blue jacket and the girl pulling a hooded sweatshirt out of her pack, neither of them, it seemed, in possession of actual rain gear. Einar shook his head, a bit disappointed. He had hoped to perhaps be able to bargain with the seized camera, coming away with a poncho or a tarp or some such that would have greatly improved his life and prevented the repeated icy soakings that seemed to have become rather a habit for him of late. Oh, well. Be doing good to get out of this one with enough time to run back to the mine and get my stuff, before they reach a trailhead or something and notify the feds. Forget about snagging extra gear Chilled and knowing that he ought to take advantage of the storm to cook up a portion of the goat so that he would have ready energy when the time came to put the hikers far behind him in a hurry, Einar kicked out a rough trench beneath his shelter-tree, digging down to the dirt and gathering some dry sticks for a small fire, placing the firepit between the tree trunk and a fallen, partially rotted spruce that would help protect it from the wind. The two hikers watched intently as Einar got the fire going, stabbed a goat steak on a stick and set it to roast, and huddled over the fire, shaking uncontrollably as its warmth seeped into his bones. Though the sequence had become quite routine for him he didnt at all like having people see him that way, but couldnt turn his back on them, either, still not entirely sure of their intentions. The girl stood, took a tentative step towards him. Mind if we join you? She shouted over the wind. Got some soup and tea you can have, and some chocolate bars, if youll share your fire. OK. L-leave the packs though. And that pepper spray. And you, Bluejacket, leave the camera bag. The pair did as he asked, hurrying over to the fire and warming their hands over the flames, sitting on the log. No rain gear, huh? They shook their heads. Well me either. Whats your excuse?

The pair looked a bit embarrassed. The forecast said the man started, and Einar cut him short with an ironic little chuckle. Forecast? Where you folks from, anyway? Forecasts dont mean an awful lot up here in the high country. San Francisco, the girl spoke up, here for the summer. Im Juniper, by the way. You can call me Juni. And this is Steve. The guy in the blue jacket held out his hand, but Einar did not take it, not wanting to let go of the spear now that the two were so close to him. Juniper? Whats that? Some kind of a hippie name? I guess. But its no odder than yours, you know, and at least I dont have half the country out looking for me, she shot back. Einar was seized by another coughing fit at that point, and it was a while before he could speak again. That what you folks are doing up here? Looking for me? No! Not at all, insisted Steve, fearing that their safety might well be at stake. From what Ive read in the Clear Springs papers, nobody has any idea that youre way over here. Juni and I are up here taking advantage of the wildflower season to get some good shots for a series of books Im putting together. Thats what I donature photography, wildlife, mountains. The man pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out to Einar, who squinted at it but did not take it. Ah. Youre the guy who does all those post cards and calendars and things. Seen them down in Clear Springs. Yes, thats me. And Junis working on her journalism degree, doing an internship at the paper in Clear Springs for the summer. OK. The soup was ready then and they ate, Einar working to restrain himself but sure the others must be able to tell how hungry he was simply by the way he looked at the food, which consisted of some sort of freeze dried clam chowder in a large foil packet, to which the photographer had added water that he had heated in a small camp pot. The soup gone, Einar offered his guests slices of the goat steak, which the girl readily accepted but the photographer took only because he appeared afraid not to. Einars unwillingness to put down the spear made him very nervous, as did the wild, intense look in the mans eye that made the photographer question his sanity, just a bit. Einar tried to eat some of the goat but just began coughing again, struggling for breath, exhausted. He was having a rough time, really wished the two hikers would pick up and leave, so he could deal with it instead of having to continually keep an eye on them. He knew he needed to breathe some mullein steam, regretted leaving his cooking can back at the mine, but had no

intention of asking to use the photographers pot. Figured he might have to though, if things got much worse. The girl spared him the decision. That cough sounds really bad. You want some tea? Einar nodded, and she got some water heating, moving it back from the flames just before it boiled and adding a teabag that smelled of blueberry and ginger. She handed Einar the pot, and he took a mullein leaf from the rawhide pouch around his neck, breaking it up into the tea and inhaling the steam, his breathing gradually growing a bit easier. What was that you put in the tea? Juni asked. It really seemed to help. Mullein. Keeps yourlungs dry, clears mucous. Needed it pretty bad. Thanks. Steve started another pot of water heating and they all sat there in silence for a minute, listening to the wind and thunder and, with the exception of Einar, staring into the flames. Junis mind was busy as she sat, the idea having occurred to her that the biggest opportunity in her young life as a would-be journalist was sitting there on the other side of the fire. An opportunity, in fact, that any well known and established journalist with years of experience would jump at. If I could get him to talk, just to answer a few questions, it would be the interview of the centuryor the decade, at least. I could go on all the TV news magazines, on NPR, I'd have a job waiting for me before I finished school. Besides, the guy's kind of interesting to talk to. Einar, she said, handing him a chocolate bar, Ive got a question for you.

Liz supposed that Susan must have had a talk of some kind with Allan, because he seemed to be giving her a good bit more space than he had in recent memory, and when she tried an experimental trip into town that afternoonshe and Susan needed more pectin to finish the jam-makinghe did not follow her. She did not want to miss the next radio contact with Einar, scheduled for the following day, but had no intention of going anywhere near that canyon unless she was confident that Allan was no longer following her.

While the Lakemont County Sheriffs Department remained in a state of limbo several days after the initial FBI raid, there had as yet been no arrests, and Sheriff Watts was ready to fight back against what he knew to be an arbitrary action aimed at intimidating him. He had a contingency plan, something that he expected ought to keep the FBI sufficiently occupied to get the heat off of him and his Department, at least allowing them to carry out their duties once again while waiting for the results of the federal investigation.

The tape of Susans interrogation and abuse was not the only one Special Agent Joseph Stramecki had entrusted to the Sheriff that morning before renting the car that he was later to die in, and heading over the mountains on his way home to his family in Pennsylvania. Stramecki, well aware of the lengths certain corrupt elements within the Bureau were willing to resort to in order to cover up evidence of their misdeeds, knew when he made the decision to rescue Susan that his time might well be limited. Stramecki had made a tape of his owna statement, a testimony, something that he hoped would speak for him if things worked out such that he was no longer around to tell the story himself, which he had fully intended on doing, as soon as he had seen his family one more time. Sheriff Watts, being fairly wise to the intrigue and deception that surrounded the ongoing search and the resulting federal occupation of his county, had immediately made several copies of both tapes that afternoon, sending them to several trusted friends and delivering the original to a trusted attorney, who stored it under his own name in a safe deposit box, after also making and distributing several copies on the Sheriffs instruction. Watts, outraged at the imaginative and entirely false allegations against his Department and knowing that he possessed a powerful weapon in the propaganda war that the feds had started with him, left his home that morning, stopped by his attorneys office for a bit of advice, and drove with a copy of each tape to the State Capitol three hours away, where an old and trusted friend of his worked for a major media outlet.

The cold stare that Einar gave Juni Melton when she mentioned the possibility of doing an interview left her thinking for a moment that she had pushed the wild man too far, and was probably about to die. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Steve scooting carefully backwards, and she hoped he was going for the pepper spray, rather than simply abandoning her to her fate. Not that he would be able to reach it in time. Instead of jumping to his feet and coming at her with the spear as she feared, though, Einar slowly rose, slung the goat over his shoulder and took a couple of weary, limping steps back from the fire. Do not follow me. And if youve got any sense at all youll go ahead and camp right here where you got a fire and some shelter. This rains awful cold, not letting up, could kill a couple of city kids who forgot their rain gear. He started off into the timber then, moving at a better pace than the two hikers would have expected him capable, from his appearance. Juni was not about to allow her unbelievably fortuitous opportunity for journalistic renown to depart so easily into the dimming light of that rainy afternoon, and rose to follow him, Steve trying to stop her and grabbing for her arm when she ignored him. She dodged out of his grasp, ran after Einar but took care not to get too close, keeping a couple of trees between them. Listen. Einar. I didnt mean to upset you. Just think about it. Weve got more food. And how about this? How would you like to go through our packs and take whatever you want? Except for camera gear and note pads, of course. You could have anything. Everything.. All you have to do is answer a few questions, let me write down your answers, and give the camera back. Now you know the FBIs been

talking to the press, and their side of the story is all anybodys been hearing. Its been front page news for months now. Theyve made you out to be some sort of a rabid homicidal monster, which must not be true, or wed be dead by now. Right? So why not let everybody hear from you, for a change. And weve got sockslots of socks that you could have, she added as an afterthought in a last desperate attempt to reach him, seeing that one of his squirrel skin moccasins had worn through on the rough rocks, and that he seemed to be favoring that foot a bit. Einar wheeled around on her, seething, exhausted, wanting to be alone, feeling rather like letting one of the atlatl darts fly, using a second on the man and leaving the bodies for the coyotes, proving the FBI right once and for all. He was really angry for the first time since encountering the pair, and realized that it was largely because he knew the dreadlocked, pierced-nosed nettlesome little hippie girl had a point. He glared at her for a minute. I will talk with you, but not here. And Im gonna search your packs before we go, jackets, everything, and anything that I say stays, stays right here. OK. Thats great. Sure! Now Im gonna stand right here. You go about halfway back, stay out in the open where I can see you, and tell Bluejacket to put that pepper spray back with the packs under the tree. I saw him grab it just after I left, and I do not trust him. He needs to dump out the packs and take off his jacket and whatever else in underneath it and then come over here to you, with his hands on his head. Still want to do this? Well do it! And she was confident, but it seemed that Steve the photographer was a bit less enthusiastic about the whole proposal when she shouted the details to him, and Einar could hear them arguing, though the words were snatched away by the wind. He thought he heard something about a camera, supposed the photographer did not like the thought of all of his expensive gear being left at the mercy of some uncouth caveman who ate baby mountain goats for lunch and wouldnt willingly give interviews to perfectly reasonable reporters who had just stumbled upon him and cost him everything he had worked so hard for over the past weeks. Yeah. Bet thats it. The girl apparently talked him into it, though, and Einar watched as he dumped out the bags beneath the tree, very deliberately set the pepper spray where Einar could see it, and walked out into the clearing, having left his shirt and jacket back under the tree. Einar, satisfied that neither of the hikers were currently armed, skirted around them, never letting his eyes off the pair and settling in under the tree to sort through their gear. He had a plan, had a location in mind for the interview that he supposed he had just agreed to, and wanted to make sure no electronic equipment, cell phones or GPS devices, which it turned out the pair had plenty of, came along.

The photographer was clearly uncomfortable standing there in the rain, but Einar ignored him, sorting everything into three pileshis, theirs and electronics, which were to stay behind for them to retrieve later. The things he intended on taking he loaded into the

girls packshe had more of a motive, he figured, to stick with him and keep her end of the deal than the photographer did, and if one of them split, he didnt want it to be the one who was carrying his gear. Not that he found all that much that would be of use to him. There were, as the girl had promised, socks, five pairs between the two packs, and he intended to take all of them, along with a plastic bag of mapssome folded 7.5 minute topos and a few larger scale ones, which he figured would, alone, have been worth giving the girl her interview. With the maps was a little Silva compass, two small spiral bound notepads, some pens and pencils and small pair of high quality binoculars. In one of the pack pockets he found several lighters, a bag of cigarettes of various descriptions which he left where he found it, a small pocket knife much like the one he already had, and a partially burnt candle. Another pocket held a small first aid kit. That was about it, aside from a generous amount of freeze dried and other food, several water bottles, the small cooking pot and thirty or more pounds of camera gear. The hikers were apparently already wearing all of their extra clothing, having, it appeared, assumed that the windbreaker and hooded sweatshirt that currently sheltered them would be enough for any weather they would encounter. It seemed that they had not made provisions for spending a night out, planned or otherwise. Well. Thats a mistake theyll not likely make again. Sure wish they had a poncho, tarp, garbage bag, big piece of plastic of some kind though. Sure could have used that. Fleece jacket or sweater wouldnt have hurt, either. Into the photographers pack he put the rest of their gear, things he didnt want or figured would be too much for him to carry, plus a few basic essentials he supposed the pair might need to make it back to their vehicle, which was, according to one of the GPS devices, approximately eight miles from their current location. OK. Eight miles. Its another four up to the mine, soyep. Ought to work just fine! Securing the cell phones, GPS units and a small device that he took to be a digital voice recorder in one of the waterproof camera bags he hung it from a high branch in the tree, sticking the pocket knife in the pouch around his neck and lashing the pepper spray to his improvised canteen. The rain had increased as Einar sorted the gear, finding its way down through the tree to dampen his clothes and leave him wishing that he was already up at the mine, alone and sitting beside a fire watching a supper of goat stew bubble and steam, as he very nearly would have been by that time, had he not been discovered. OK. You folks can get your gear now. That stuff up in the tree needs to stay. The photographer hurried back into his shirt and jacket and stomped around under the tree, wet and cold and appearing to be pretty unhappy about the whole situation. The man stared at Einarwho in his jeans and buckskin vest was shaking a bit but hardly seemed to notice the coldas if he was some sort of alien life form. How do you live like this? I mean, day after day Einar just shrugged and hoisted the goat up onto his shoulder, starting up into the timber. You two keep up, stay where I can see you.

Pausing occasionally to study landmarks and make sure that he was on a course that would take them to his shelter in the minea shame to lose that place. Thought I might be spending the winter thereEinar chose routes that kept them out from under the heaviest timber where they would have found the best shelter from the rain, not especially liking the drenching he was receiving, but needing to make sure his guests ended up thoroughly soaked. They hiked in silence for a time, Juni and Steve falling further and further behind as they ascended, Einar having to stop and wait as they caught up and several times very nearly making the decision to go ahead and make his escape, abandoning them to find their way back down. Each time he decided against doing it though, wanting those socks and especially the maps, and wishing that he had insisted on carrying them from the start. Nothing to gain from ditching them now, anyway. Ive already got to move on from here, and might as well give the girl her interview, see what information I can get out of them. Itll be taking them an awful long time to make their way back down, and I bet they wont want to try it at night. If I work this rightand dont fall asleepI ought to have a fifteen or sixteen hour head start, even if they call the feds as soon as they get back down to their truck. Not falling asleep, he could tell, was likely to be the most challenging aspect of the evening, perhaps even more so than choosing what to say to the reporter. It had been a rather long day, and, between the poor sleep he had got the night before and the exhaustion brought on by his constant struggle to get enough breath and stop coughing, he was pretty sure that he could have curled up right where he was, wet clothes and all, and enjoyed fifteen or sixteen hours of sleep. Well, think again. Gonna be quite a while before you have that kind of time, and you got a lot of miles to cover between here and there. The hikers were catching up; Einar realized that his pace was slowing. Hey Asmundson, the photographer shouted, catching his breath several yards below Einars position on the steep slope. I dont know if well be able to make it back down to the truck tonight, if we go much further. We didnt bring sleeping bags. Einar glanced back at him, a twisted, ironic little half smile showing what he thought of the question. Dont worry. Lots of beds out here. Just pick a tree when it starts getting dark. Coughing, unable to return to his former pace, Einar walked beside the pair for awhile, studying them and pleased to see that Steve the photographer, at least, appeared to be tiring, having a hard time catching his breath. Einar needed them to be weary enough, and wet enough from the ongoing rain, that the shelter he was going to offer them would appear far more attractive than a night spent wandering around in the dripping woods in search of their vehicle. To that end he had been pushing himself as hard as he could up the slope, and the strain of the effort was beginning to catch up to him. Seeing that he was finally going more their speed, Juni took advantage of the opportunity to ask Einar a few questions, curious about how he had come to be in possession of the goat kid and not realizing until he tried to answer that he had been using all of his breath just to keep moving up the slope. Seeing how he was struggling she interrupted his story

of the lightening strike and finding the baby goat. Sorry. You dont need to answer that now. Wait till werewherever it is youre taking us. GoodIll wait. Almost there. By the time they reached the mine a premature darkness was descending beneath the heavily overcast sky, and Einar left the hikers under the spruce at the base of the tailings pile while he scrambled up and got a fire going, wanting to have a few minutes to conceal the radio and Nutella jar before his guests had a chance to spot them and start asking questions. Sinking to his knees on the pile of dry spruce needles inside the mine, Einar allowed himself a brief moment of rest, as weary as he could remember being and knowing that he still had a long night ahead of him. Gonna need some help with this one. Please dont let me fall asleepplease Einars head snapped upright as he realized that he had been repeating the words over and over in his mind, his body sagging towards the ground. He shook his head, splashed his face with some water from the little pool by the tunnel entrance, and worked to get his cold hands to cooperate in the fire making effort. As soon as he had a good fire going and the items from Liz well concealed at the bottom of his pack he called down to his guests, who scrambled up the tailings pile and into the mine, more than anxious to be out of the rain and wind. Crowding around the fire, the pair spent the next few minutes removing soaked outer layers of clothing, wringing them out and hanging them to dry on the line that Einar had previously suspended over the fire for that very purpose, Einar giving them some space, busy in back of the tunnel as he skinned what was left of the little goat and tied up the meat and some of the larger bones in the hide, preparing a neat package that would be easy to transport when he hopefully made his escape in a few hours. Finished with the task he joined them at the fire, cold but not wanting to take off the wet buckskin, knowing that they would have questions about the scars, bruises and barely healed wolverine bites and slashes that covered his torso. Setting some stew to heat, he crouched against the wall as his guests heated water for one of their freeze-dried meals in a bag. Eventually, not at all relishing the thought of starting out on a night-long hike with still-soaked clothes, Einar did hang the jeans and buckskin up to dry, sitting back down but realizing that his guests were staring at his arm where the wolverine had shredded the muscle, leaving a large, poorly healed red and white depression that wrapped halfway around his upper arm in an angry-looking spiral. Juni, overcoming her reluctance and getting into reporter mode, spoke up. What happened to your arm? That looks pretty bad. Wolverine. Wolverine? He attacked you? Tell me about it. She searched around in her pack until she found the map bag, took out a notepad, and began writing furiously.

Einar did not really want to say any more about it. The event was done, hed lived through it and come out the other side, and as with so many things over the past year of his life, he saw no need to review it. Juni was staring at him though, trying to catch his eye and waiting with her pen poised, and he could see that one word answers were not going to suffice. Well, I guess this is the interview. Sooner its done the sooner they can get to sleep, and I can be on my way. Had a shelter once in this little crevice in the rock, he started, taking a stick and stirring the bubbling goat stew so he would not have to look at her as he spoke. Came back after a day of checking my snares, heard something in there and it turned out to be a big old wolverine. Supposed to be all but extinct here, but go figure. Well, he was trying to get at my foodsome deer meat that was drying, and some fatand I didnt have any food to spare at the moment. Was hurt, pretty near starved, could not afford to lose that deer meat. Climbed up in the rock chimney above the critter and dropped on it with my spear. He turned the spear over in his hand, remembering the desperate struggle with the wolverine. That was a different spear though. Broke that one when I landed. Critter was mad, we kinda fought for a while and I finally got him through the neck with a piece of the broken spearhead. Deer bone, like this one. He took a chunk out of my arm, but Ive got his hide. He rose, retrieved the wolverine pelt from his pack and showed it to them, letting them admire it for a minute before wrapping up in it, finding that he was not getting an awful lot warmer crouched there against the wall in his wet polypro pants, and wanting to be able to quit shivering so as not to make the conversation drag on any longer than it had to. The goat stew, to which Einar had added a few dried serviceberries and a number of spring beauty potatoes, was ready, as was the hikers supper of freeze dried pasta primavera and they took a break from the discussion to share a meal, Einar relishing the unaccustomedly flavorful pasta and the hikers finding his fare to be filling and not half bad tasting. Didnt that get infected though? Juni abruptly returned them to the discussion, inspecting the wound on Eianrs arm. Does your arm still work? Uh, yeah, got infected. Was real sick for a few days. Its better now. Still hurts some, but I can almost use it normally again. Are those the wolverines claws on that necklace? He took off the necklace, handed it to her. Some of them. Juni inspected the claws, long and yellow and still retaining in their cracks and grooves traces of blood that she supposed must be Einars. She handed it back to him gingerly, almost reverently. This must a very powerful item for you. He squinted, shook his head. Not really. We were just two old loners, that critter and I,

who basically wanted the same thing. To eat. Be left alone. I lived, he died, thats all. Figure I earned the right to wear this. He slipped the knotted cord with its row of claws back over his head, retreated to his position against the rocky wall of the tunnel. Juni nodded, a bit unsure how to proceed with an interview that was so entirely outside the scope of anything she had dealt with before. She noticed that Einar, even with the wolverine pelt around his shoulders, was still shaking pretty badly, supposed that must be due to the fact that he appeared, despite mentioning that hed had more to eat recently, very nearly starved. You look like youre freezing. Here. You can have my spot. Im almost dry now. She scooted back from fire, making room for him beside Steve, who was heating a pot of tea and trying to keep himself in the background, knowing better than to interfere when Juni was in reporter mode. Einar shook his head. Nah, Im fine. Been a lot colder than this. I expect you have. I cant imagine how you got through the winter. Didnt you just freeze? Oh, I kinda froze sometimes, sure. Mostly I dont mind the cold but some of the times when Ive been real hungryyeah. Can be a big problem. Done a lot of shivering. It helps. Uses up a bunch of energy though, and when youre right on the edge as far as lack of foodwell you can end up in a situation where you just get too worn out to shiver anymore and then He shrugged, looked away. That has happened to you? Come way too close a couple of times. She shook her head. Havent you ever considered just heading down there and turning yourself in? So you could rest, sleep someplace warm, get some decent food, maybe some medical attention? He looked her in the eye for the first time since the commencement of the interview, the directness and intensity of his gaze scaring her just a bit. No. That is one thing I never did consider. And she had no doubt whatsoever that he meant it.

Ready to continue with the interview after a minute of uncomfortable silence, Juni reached for the atlatl and dart, which lay just in front of Einar on the rocky floor of the tunnel, intending to ask him about them. Not the thing to do, as she rather abruptly discovered when Einar somehow got himself to his feet, kicked the atlatl out of her reach and pinned her to the ground, the spear at her throat, seemingly all in one swift motion, knocking Steve off his feet and sending him sprawling in the rocks when he jumped up to save Juni. It was all over in seconds, and the next moment Einar was helping them up and apologizing, making sure everyone was alright, which they were, if a bit shaken up.

Sorry! Im sorry! I shouldnt have done that! I didnt mean anything by it. Juni repeated, trying to salvage the situation and realizing that she should have known better than to reach for a weapon, even though she had certainly had no intention of using it as such. She supposed the interview was over, which was at the moment a bigger deal to her than the fact that she just been seconds away from death. Steve had returned to his place by the fire, less surprised than Juni at Einars reaction and thinking, in fact, that he had shown remarkable restraint, considering the situation. Einar had retreated to the far wall of the tunnel, crouching near the entrance with his spear, breathing hard and trembling, quite wide awake if he hadnt been before and wanting for the moment to stay as far as he could from his guests. It was a good while before he would talk to them again or even acknowledge their presence, Juni finally convincing him to return to his previous position near the fire when she offered him a pot of tea that Steve had just prepared. Reluctantly and keeping a wary eye on the pair Einar rejoined them. He took the tea when she held it out to him, cradling the pot in his left hand, unwilling to part with the spear. The tea gradually relaxed him a little. Im sorry about that. He addressed Juni. But dont ever, ever do it again. Understand? I do. Yes. Im sorry too. I was just going to ask you about that dart thrower thingI didnt think. He nodded, picked up the atlatl and handed it to her, minus the dart. Its called an atlatl. Lets you throw dartsjust long arrows, reallya lot farther than you could throw them without it. I made it because I hurt my shoulder and it was hard to use a bow. This thing only takes one arm. Yes, I saw you with it when we first met down there by the meadow. I believe you were about to use it on me, then. She said it in a light, almost playful manner, trying to further dispel the tension that had settled over them since the misunderstanding with the atlatl, and Einar responded with a humorless little chuckle, but she could see his features soften just a bit. Well you need to quit surprising me like that all the time. Real bad idea. Oh, I wont do it again. So, have you done much hunting with that thing? Looks like you must be pretty handy with it. No, not too much. Hurt my ribs just after I got it done, and just recently started trying it again. What happened to your ribs? I see where theyre bruised. That looks like it must have really hurt. Oh, got stomped on one night by a bear cause I slept too close to the berry bushes, bruised a couple ribs, maybe cracked them. Who knows? He shrugged. Anyway,

couldnt really breathe right for a few days, kinda hurt to take a full breath and I ended up with some nasty gunk in my lungs. Pneumonia I guess. Could hardly breathe at all, actually. That one almost did me in. Sounds like youve still got a pretty nasty cough. Are you OK? Heh! OK becomes a pretty relative term after awhile. Right now Im breathing, I got food to eat, Im not fighting a potentially deadly infection, and Im dry and almost warm. SoIm great! Would be, anyway, if I was by my self Juni rose, moving slowly and carefully, and took Einars vest down from the line where it hung drying. It looks like you made this shirt. What is it? Deer skin? Did you kill the deer with that atatalall? Atlatl. No, this deer I snared with some rope but he grinned, dont tell the Forest Service! Dont want them to tack poaching charges on top of everything else, you know. Needed that deer. I was awful hungry at the time, and had been moving around too much to really rely on snaring enough to eat. You mentioned the other charges. Do you maintain your innocence? I just maintain my life, or try to. Got nothing to say about the charges. He was quiet for a minute then, his face dark, staring out at the jaggedly framed blackness of the world outside the tunnel mouth. Guess I do have one thing to say, he continued quietly. I do not believe for a minute that they have any intention of letting this case get to trial. The last several times they got anywhere near me they made it pretty clear that they mean to kill me, on sight. First time they shot at me without warning from the helicopter while I was unarmed, except for a bow that I was too badly injured to even use right at the time, and the next time they got close they did shoot me, in the back. Well, back of the leg. Then they sent a killer dog after me. They even shot that guy who they thought was me. That Division of Wildlife guy in the basin a couple months back. After they shot me, well that made it pretty clear what their intentions were. So any charges they want to tack on about whats happened to the folks that keep coming after me and keep not going homewell those charges Id have to dispute. Thats all been self defense, on my part, and if they want it to end, theyre gonna need to stop sending folks for me. You can tell them that. Einar had not raised his voice as he spoke, had not moved from the spot where he crouched against the wall, but Juni and Steve exchanged a glance, noticing the cold blue fire that flashed briefly in his eyes and seeing his grasp tighten on the spear, sharing a sudden realization that they were very fortunate to find themselves alive and being treated as guests by this man, rather than as enemies. Steve, knowing that Juni often managed to be rather forward and abrasive with her questioning, hoped she could manage

to keep it that way. You say they shot you in the leg. How did you get away from them, if they were that close and you were shot. I assume you were bleeding? Just kept going. Wrapped a string real tight around and around the wound to keep a big wad of lichen over it, slow the bleeding, and I just got out of there. Stumbled on a real favorable terrain feature that let me break my trail some. Stumbled. Yeah, quite literally. Fell all the way down this shale embankment, in fact. I was pretty weak from the blood loss I guess, but the leg barely even hurt at first. The real hard part came later How did you manage to treat it, without medical supplies? I assume you had no medical supplies? No, except what I could scrounge up in the woods. Lichen for dressings, Oregon grape root to chew for antibiotic. Wished I had some yarrow to pack it with to help with the bleeding, but I couldnt find any just then. It was hours before I even got a chance to clean it out, and by then the infection had already set in. Those next few daysdont even think I was conscious, half the time. Holed up in an old mining cabin for awhile and crawled out once a day to get water from a little seep in the ground. Bad fever, real sick, got awful dehydrated I think. Finally realized I had to clean that wound out somehow, or I was gonna die. Boiled up some water, cut a piece off my shirt, scrubbed all the dead stuff out. First time I tried it I kinda passed out from the pain as soon as I got it bandaged back up, but I did a little better the next time. Had to do it several times. Pretty rough. Worked, though, especially when I started washing it with hounds tongue and Oregon grape afterwards. Chewed so much Oregon grape that I got jaundice or something, and had to stop for awhile, but I guess it had some effect, or I know Id have ended up with gangrene. Leg still aches some, but Im getting around OK. Juni was shaking her head. What did you do for the pain? I cant imagine having to do that to your own leg, and more than once? Its not like I had other options. It was that, or die, and I knew it. You do what you have to. The pain? Had nothing for it at first, then I managed to crawl down to some willows below the cabin, boil up some of the bark real strong. Then Id gulp that before working on the leg. And after. Guess it didnt do that much, butit was something, anyway. So would you say thatgetting shotwas the most difficult thing youve had to deal with out here? What has been the hardest part of all of this? He thought for a minute. No, just being so hungry and worn out a lot of the time I guess has been the worst. Never much been sick before in my life, but when you get all worn down like that, starvedpretty soon nothing works right anymore, everything hurts, everythings pretty hard to do, even simple stuff. But Im still here. You mention being hungry. It looks like you must have lost a lot of weight during your

time out here. What all have you eaten when food got scarce? Hungry, yeah. Started this thing in the fall when a lot of the summer crops were already gone, have had to rely on small critters mostly which would be fine, but it can be real hard to get a trap line set up when youre moving all the time. Or when youre hurt. Which I have been, time to time. Ive eaten whatever I could get my hands on Coyote once, bear, lots of rabbits and squirrels. Elk, grouse, little brown and white bird eggs, a bunch of grubs. Grubs have a lot of fat. Youll die without fat. Roasted tree bark a couple times. Wolverine, of course, and found an old winterkill deer carcass once when I was about starved, pulled off the dried meat and cracked up the bones for the marrow. Marrows real fatty, you know. Didnt taste so great from that old pile of deer bones, but it kept me going for awhile. I eat the marrow from everything I kill, brains too, internal organs. With that winterkill I would have boiled up the bones for soup, old rotted green shreds of meat and all, but I couldnt have a fire. Doggone helicopters. Things are better this summer. Lots of starchy roots around like the ones in the stew, berries for some sugar, stuff to supplement the meat. She nodded, looking thoughtful and writing furiously, asking him to repeat a few of the things he had mentioned. What do you miss the most out here? Hmm. How about not having people trying to track me down and kill me all the time? Yeah, kinda miss that. The rest of it He shrugged. Rest of it would be easy if I didnt have to think about that all the time. It was getting late and Steve, more tired than Juni after the long day of hiking, finally went to bed on the pile of spruce needles Einar had offered them, taking off his boots and leaving them near the fire to dry, grabbing his nearly dry jacket to cover up with for the night. Juni continued with the interview, starting some more water for tea. Ive been wondering Why didnt you just go to Mexico or something when all of this started? He laughed. Uhgonna have to leave any and all questions about my strategy and plans unanswered, if its all the same to you. Yes, of course. Sorry. Can I ask you, though, about your life before all this started? I dont mean the crime. The alleged crime. Just your life, what you did, how you learned the things that have kept you alive out here. You can ask anything you want. Probably wont get too many answers if you head that way with it though.

Their conversation went on long into the night, with Einar refusing to answer many of Junis questions but finally making a comment here or there on others, and before things wrapped up for the night, Juni handed him one of the notebooks from the map bag, along with a pen and a pencil. On the last page of the notebook she wrote her address. If you ever want to tell more of your story, just write it here and mail it to me. Ill see that it gets out. Einar thanked her, stowed the pad and writing implements back in the map bag. She handed him her backpack. I guess this is the stuff were trading for the interview? He nodded, retrieved the camera from his willow pack basket where he had hidden it, took out the memory card and returned the camera to her. I would really like a photo to put with the interviewif theres any way I could have that card back? The photos OK. But I need to see what else is on there. Not much, from this trip. She handed him the camera, and he saw that she was telling the truth, the only pictures from an area that even resembled the one he was in being closeups of a few wildflowers. No way those could hurt him, if they fell into federal hands. Einar was a bit startled at his own appearance in the photo Juni had snapped of him as he came at her with the atlatl that morning. He thought he looked old, starved, half dead and not the least bit sane. Oh well. Probably true, all of it. And once that picture gets out there, all Ill have to do is trim my hair and get rid of the beard, and I probably could walk down into town and not have anybody recognize me. Huh. Yeah, you can keep the card. But if I were you, Id delete the one of that ugly old Sasquatch critter you got on there. That things scary. Juni retrieved her dried sweatshirt and headed off to bed, stopping halfway and returning to Einar, who was sitting over the dying remains of the fire, absorbing its warmth and working to repair his damaged left squirrelskin moccasin, after visually inspecting Steves drying boots and finding them to be woefully small for his own feet. Where will you sleep? She asked him. We just took your bed. Like I said before, the woods are full of beds. Good night, Juniper. Waiting until the light of the fire had died out entirely and the breathing of his guests had grown regular and deep, Einar shouldered his packs, slung Steves boots over his shoulder and headed out reluctantly into the cold rain and the dark, windblown night. Got a lot of ground to cover before morning comes.

Einar did not retrace any part of the path that he had led the hikers on as they ascended to the mine, instead starting up into the rockslides behind it, skirting around the shoulder of the mountain and keeping to rocky terrain and the occasional grove of sub alpine firs, where he would be unlikely to encounter rain-softened ground that would readily take

and hold impressions as he passed. The rain was pouring, pounding, slanting sideways in the wind at times and blinding Einar as he sought to find his way through the darkness, focused on leaving as little sign as possible for the trackers that he had to expect would be on his trail sometime within the next twenty four hours. Juni had promised not to reveal the location of the interview, nor any details that would lead the feds to the general area, even, but Einar had no reason to think that she would not, once she returned to civilization and published her story, decide to attempt to become rich as well as famous by claiming the reward, which she had informed him was up to 2.5 million dollars. She had seemed quite sincere when she assured him that she had no intention of doing so, had even asked if there was anything more she could do to help, suggesting that she was willing to leave some food and supplies for him in a prearranged location, an offer which he had rather promptly refused, but appreciated. Even if he could trust Juni to keep her worda matter that he was by no means taking for grantedSteve was an unknown quantityhe had seemed a good bit less enthusiastic about the whole situation than Juni, and Einar expected that he would be none too pleased to wake up and find his boots missing, either, with a long and slow twelve mile descent ahead of him. As Einar saw it, hed had little choice when it came to taking the boots. He needed to slow the pairs return to civilization and the ability to communicate with others about their encounter with him, needed to give himself all the lead time he could in case they intended to call the feds at the first opportunity. Einar had noticed in observing the pair as they climbed that Steve was the one with all of the route finding experience; Juni would be highly unlikely to hurry ahead of him on the way down, for fear of ending up separated and lost. It would then, he expected, be one slow return trip down to their vehicle with Steve making his way along bootless, perhaps with an hour or two of additional time wasted in searching for the tree where he had left all of their electronics and camera gear. Einar had thought of leaving Steve his squirrel skin moccasins as a poor substitute for the confiscated boots, but knew he would be needing them himself; Steves boots were a size or two too small, and would not even go on his feet. Kind of a shame, since I had to take them anyway. Look like pretty decent boots. The moccasins were, despite the hasty repairs he had made that night by the fire, in bad condition from the hard use thy had seen on his hike along the mountain goat ridge, and Einar found himself slipping fairly frequently as he crossed the rocks, heavily burdened by a load that, while welcome, was quite a lot for him to carry. The struggle with the packs and with his footing did go a long way towards keeping him warm that night, or at least helped in keeping his mind off of the cold. There was little he could do, though, about the clumsiness that overtook him as his limbs inevitably stiffened in the chilly wind that plastered his rain-soaked clothes against him as he walked, and Einar tried to compensate for it by sharpening his focus on his trail, making sure to leave little sign. The rain, he knew, would help significantly in destroying faint traces that a tracker might pick up, and would seriously reduce the usefulness of dogs, if they were brought in. It was not the frequently-seen drizzle that simply dampened the ground and created perhaps the ideal environment for the retention of scent, but was a ferocious downpour; Einar felt reasonably safe. At some point, long after wrapping around the side of the mountain that held the mine and angling off into the timber, he stopped for his first break, eating a few bites of roast goat meat and an energy bar from the hikers food stash and fighting to keep

himself from falling asleep as he sat there in the minimal shelter of a spruce trunk, huddling against the wind and trying to be warmer for a minute or two before moving on. It was going to be a long night. A minute later, having little trust in his ability to stay awake, Einar got back to his feet, loaded his burdens onto his back and stepped out into the wind. Trail. Think about your trail. And he did, the focus it demanded keeping him plodding along steadily for another hour or two, but he eventually found himself moving in a confused haze of exhaustion and cold, staring at a treed horizon that was dimly visible as the point at which the black sky gave way to the blacker shadows of the timber, heading always for a promontory that rose rocky and high and flat-topped in the distance. It, he knew, marked a spot just beyond the head of the large canyon that held the trail and meeting-bench where he had exchanged notes and items with Liz, and which he intended to skirt as he made his way out of the area. If he could stay just below the rocky promontory there was at least a good chance that he would meet the canyon at its extreme upper end where crossing it would entail no more than a descant and climb or several hundred feet. After some time he neared the rocky landmark, knowing it in the fact that he could no longer make out its flat summit and searching for the descent that would take him across the depression that marked the canyons start, and out along the far rim. Crossing meant leaving the protection of the timber and journeying through an open area of oak, chokecherry and serviceberry scrub, and though the trees had by no means been blocking all of the wind, he quickly discovered that they had been providing him with a significant amount of protection from its force. The cold shock of the wind on his drenched clothing momentarily snatched his breath away, and though he gritted his teeth and pushed ahead into it, he could feel himself growing weaker with the constant struggle. Einar was wading through a thicket of serviceberry near the head of the canyon, struggling down one side of the gentle draw that marked its top, when he became entangled in the dense mat of slender branches and shoots, loosing his footing and hanging there, feeling as though he lay face down in some sort of branchy hammock, supported, comfortable, done. Sleep. And he did, but mere moments into the rest Liz appeared, draping a wind breaker over him and taking a seat on a nearby rock, speaking to him in word whose precise meaning he could not discern through his weariness, but he knew that she was reminding him of the pressing need to get up, go on, put more distance behind him. He told her no, not right now, not before I rest thanked her for the jacket and closed his eyes. At which point she pulled the jacket off so that the wind once again battered him, shook him loose from his roost in the thicket, sending him tumbling the rest of the way down the slope to come up short in a clump of scrub oak, rubbing his aching legs and checking a bit frantically to make sure he had not lost any of his gear in the tumble. To his surprise Liz was still there, standing to the side of him and blocking the worst of the wind, shouting something that he struggled to hear over its gusting. Eat something! She insisted. Whats wrong with you? You have food, eat! And he dug around in Junis day pack until he found another of the energy bars, huddling there on the muddy, streaming ground and eating until he once again had the strength to rise and go on. She stayed with him for a while as he pressed on through the night, sagging under his load and at times half delirious with exhaustion, her presence

a great comfort to him. Sometime towards morning the storm finally exhausted the last of its fury, the rain tapering off and with it the wind, and Einar found himself standing on the canyon rim at daybreak with the first rays of the sun slanting down through a heavy, dissipating fog, the silver ribbon of the creek just visible in the depths far below. He saw something else too, as he sat on a rain-washed, water-pocked limestone slab and studied the brightening world through red-rimmed eyes, and it seemed the sure answer to a dilemma he had been struggling with for much of the morning. That day marked the third (can it have been only three?) since his radio contact with Liz, and he knew she would be there, or try to be, to speak with him again. He had wished ever since being discovered and realizing that he must move on to be able to return the radio, to let her know that he was breaking contact and spare her any more risky trips up there in search of him, but had ruled it out as something he did not have the time to do, thinking that the only way down into the canyon was the one he had previously used, and whose access point was by that time far behind him. The land feature he now studied changed everything. It consisted of a narrow, steep gulley, a spruce and oak brush filled break in the canyon wall, and Einar knew that his decision had been made for him. He could not make out the meeting-place through the fog that lingered below, not even with the binoculars from Junis pack, but recognized a wide bend in the creek that he knew lay near it. Einars initial plan as he began picking his way down the dangerously steep series of rockslides, timber patches and small dropoffs that made up his chosen access to the canyon floor had been to quickly make his way up to the meeting bench, leave the radio and be long gone before the time came for Liz to arrive in the area. The more he thought about it though, the more certain he became that he needed to see her in person, just once, before leaving the area for good. No one would expect that, so its probably safer than what I had planned to do, anyway. If they happen to be listening for the radio contact, and I dont make one, theyll assume Im no longer around. Ill go down there, down below the meeting-bench by a mile or so and find a good place to wait for her as she comes back down. Got plenty of time to do that. At which point his mind began going over and over all of his old concerns about Liz, about people in general and how they are best never trusted too much, and by the time he was halfway down to the canyon floor he was all in a turmoil and had very nearly talked himself out of the whole thing, sure more than once that he heard helicopters in the distance only to discover minutes later that he had been mistaken.

Lizs sleep that night was troubled by restless dreams, including one in which she saw Einar, drenched and cold, lying face down in the brush on a muddy slope somewhere, seemingly unable to rise as the rain pelted him. She woke with a start to the sound of the wind-driven rain lashing her window, rose and paced about her room for a time, wishing she could go to him and hoping the vision had been only a dream but knowing that it had seemed like much more. She lit a candle, using its light to inspect and repack the things she had loaded into her daypack for the berry picking expedition the later that day, adding

several items that seemed like wise inclusions in light of the stormy weather that showed no sign of letup. For hours she remained awake, listening to the storm and praying that Einars greatest need, whatever it was, would be met that morning. I cant reach him, but I know You can Unable to go back to sleep, Liz took the berry buckets and set out before dawn that morning. As she worked her way up the muddy track and started up the trail as the storm broke and the sun began streaming through the clouds, she had no way to know that Allan, despite the warning from Susan, had followed her that morning, keeping his distance and using far greater discretion than he had before, watching her turn up the rocky Forest Service road towards the trail head, but waiting for over an hour before taking off after her, concealing his truck in a thicket below the parking area and starting up the trail after her. Nor did she have any idea of the fact that Allan, his odd behavior at the bottom of the Forest Service road observed by passing FBI agents and he being already very much on their radar, had been followed as well, the team that tailed him using greater discretion still.

Working his way down the tricky terrain of the steep, ledge-riddled gulley, Einar struggled to banish the thought that perhaps Liz, faced with a renewed threat of prosecution, perhaps having been discovered attempting to aid him, might have agreed to work with the feds in an attempt to recapture him. When he really thought about it, the idea that Liz would turn against him like that seemed ridiculous and more than a little paranoid, but with nothing beyond his own imagination and the sum total of his experiences over the past year to keep him grounded in reality (that ought to be enough, right? Ha!) Einar sometimes found himself unsure exactly where the line between reality and fantasy lay. His mind was busy that morning with all the different ways in which the whole situation could potentially be a trap, going over and over a number of possible scenarios and their likely outcomes, but in the end all of the scenarios involved Liz cooperating with the feds to do him in, and he just couldnt bring himself to believe that she would. She had been tested, had proven true, and, though hed never been much for trusting people, she had become one major exception. Though he did fear sometimes that the Liz who had taken shape in his mind over the months and whose memory had comforted him during some of the darker times might not have all that much to do with the real person He did not, after all, know her that well, and the feeling that she had been right there with him through so many of his trials and travels was, he knew, only an illusion, a story constructed by his mind to make things more bearable and repeated often enough that at times he very nearly forgot that it was not true. He finally reached the canyon floor and started through the thick growth of scrub oak and serviceberry that lined the creek with the thought that while the meeting might well be the last mistake he ever made, he was determined to give it a try and find out. Somehow it seemed to him that in discovering for certain whether or not he could really trust Liz, he had finally found

something for which he was willing to risk the continuation of his freedom. Ridiculous, Einar. What are you doing? Is this how its going to end? He took a few more steps, struggling to balance the awkward willow basket that sat on top of Junis daypack, and keep it from swinging out and causing him to loose his footing on the wet, steep rock that bordered the creek. End? Not if I can help it. Passing the message-bench, seeing it at a distance through the brush and trees, he checked the watch, found that he had over an hour before he could expect to see her. Plenty of time to go some distance down the trail and conceal himself. He chose the spot carefully, picking a place beneath the aspens where a thick stand of box elder and serviceberry would thoroughly conceal him from the trail, a rocky outcropping rising up behind from whose top that he was allowed view of the canyon floor for some distance in each direction. Just behind the outcropping rose, steep and timbered with fir and spruce, a narrow, twisted gulley much like the one he had recently descended, and which he hoped might offer him a means of escape if things somehow went terribly wrong. He took off the packs, stashing them in some rocks just behind the outcropping and concealing them with a fallen, leafy scrub oak branch, wanting them readily available as if he had to leave in a hurry. He took only the atlatl, spear, canteen, binoculars and the few things he had taken to keeping in his pockets. Those things, and the radio. It was early still. He climbed up to the rock lookout and used the binoculars to study what he could see of the canyon floor, finding nothing out of the ordinary in the brilliant green contours of the meadow grass, in the silver flashes of the creek as it made its way down from the high country, or in the behavior of the raven that made occasional passes overhead on the rising current of warm air, inspecting him curiously as it passed but seeming unalarmed at his presence. Yet something troubled him, a sense of foreboding that he could not quite explain, and he hoped it was just his lack of sleep and general exhaustion speaking, but he was less than certain. OK. Move. Gonna fall asleep sitting here in the sun like this. His clothes were beginning to dry though, steaming in the sunlight after the long rainy night, its warmth beginning to drive a bit of the chill out of his bones and he hated to move, but made himself do it. Einar went down to the creek, which was in that spot heavily overgrown with willow and shaded in places by stands of box elder and even a few large cottonwoods, and refilled his canteen, sitting on a rock and watching the water, mesmerized, losing track of time and realizing he had been sleeping when he toppled forward and landed face first in the creek. Jumping to his feet and shaking the water out of his hair he splashed his face with an icy double handful of it to help keep his eyes open, and decided that it would be a good idea to take a bath, of sorts, if there was a chance he might be seeing Liz. Might help me stay awake, too. Wading out into the knee-deep current he thoroughly scrubbed himself with creek sand, careful to avoid areas that were still healing and realizing that they were all too numerous. Lowering himself into the water he rinsed off and briefly submerged his head before hurrying out of the water and sitting on a sunny rock to dry off, freezing and finally wide awake. After a few minutes he got back into his clothes, which were nearly dry by that time. Just in time for another storm, it looks like. The western sky was already beginning to darken, though the overcast was not yet widespread. He returned to the lookout rock, thoroughly awake after the icy water and finally trusting himself to stay

that way, scanning the trail and creek and a bit startled to see Liz, already heading back down from the area of the message-bench. Must have slept longer than I thought down by the creek! Not good at all. He scrambled down the back of the outcropping then, not wanting to risk being seen and reconsidering in that moment his resolve to see Liz, the shadow of foreboding that had earlier troubled him returning to cloud his enthusiasm and slow his steps as he made his way down to the chosen meeting spot. He waited just beneath the trees, carefully checking to see that no one else was around and watching Liz make her way down the trail, noticing that she was not walking on the trail in the muddier portions, but stepping to the side, into the grass or rocks. Not gonna keep somebody from following her if they know what theyre doing, but at least shes trying Liz was close, just opposite his position when he stood and snapped a dry brittle stick to alert her to his presence. Stopping, Liz looked his way, saw him, stood there for a brief time as if not quite sure what she was seeing. Einar! Einar just stood there with a big goofy grin on his face, waiting for her under the cover of the trees; he had no words. Liz ran to him, threw her arms around him, and he stood there awkwardly for a long moment, hands at his sides, before clumsily embracing her and burying his face against her hair, keeping one wary eye out towards the trail for any sign of danger. Einar. She held him at arms length, studied his face for a minute. You looklike youve been eating! He nodded slowly. I have. Turning into a pretty good summer. Liz was somewhat alarmed, though, at the change in his appearance since she had seen him last, by daylight, at least. His hair and beard were heavily streaked with white, his face deeply lined, and, though it looked like he had perhaps put on a bit of weight and was doing better, he had a sort of gaunt, haunted, hollow look about him that made her wonder about his health, both physical and mental. Neither of them quite seemed to know what to say, and Einar finally broke the silence by handing Liz a little piece of deer jerky from the pouch around his neck. She took it, dug into her pack and came up with a plastic bag full of cheese slices, offering him a piece. Here. I brought this, brought some other things too I didnt know if I would see you She could tell that Einar was having trouble staying on his feet, swaying and leaning heavily on a nearby aspen, and she led him over to a spruce some distance up the rise toward the rock outcropping, where he gladly sat down, seeing that it offered a view of the valley nearly as good as the one provided by the lookout rock. Youshouldnt be up here, Liz. Not with the way theyre hunting me. What are you talking about? Im just up here picking berries. And she held out the bucket, nearly half full of ripe purple serviceberries. Einar took a handful.

Yeah, well me too! But try telling them that! After sharing a momentary laugh his face grew dark again, serious. I mean it though. You cant be doing this anymore. Thought you were going away for the summer, anyway. I was, but Bill and Susan invited me to stay, and I did. Im helping Susan with her business, volunteering with Mountain Rescue, or was, until She had been about to tell him about Bills death and the attack on Susan, but thought better of burdening him with that, at the moment, instead offering him some more of the cheese. Einar needed the fat, gobbling the cheese despite his best efforts at restraint, and Liz tried not to stare, seeing that he was rather self conscious about the whole thing. Einar, Im so sorry! I wish I could have done more, helped He stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. You did. More times than you know. He was quiet for a minute. Thereve beena bunch of times when I just could not go on, was so out of it that I didnt even know I needed to go onand you were there. Every time. Dont understand it, but you were. Made me get up, keep moving, kept mealive. I prayed for you. Every day, every minute you were in my thoughts I know it. Sure dont know why but he took his eyes off the trail for a minute, looked at her, thanks. They were silent for a time. Came to give this back today, he finally spoke up, unclipping the radio from the waist of his pants and handing it to her. Have to go, have to get out of here, didnt want you to keep coming up here, because I wont be around. Einar, where She never got to finish the question because Einar held up his hand, motioning for silence and pointing down in the direction of the trail, hurriedly taking a look through the binoculars. Liz did not even need binoculars recognize the lone man making his way up the trail as Allan. He followed me! She hissed, angry. Who? Who is that? Allan. From church. He Some things have been going on down in town lately with the feds, and hes afraid something will happen to me if I go off by myself. He had offered to come when I go berry picking, but of course I had to say no. And now hes going to wonder why Im not up there ahead of him on the trail, when he gets to the top! She rose to go. Ive got to go hurry around and get in front of him, or Ill have some explaining to do. Ill be back. Right back, Einar.

Liz, wait. He was standing too, had the spear in his hand and she thought he looked a good bit more steady on his feet than when she had first encountered him. What kind of things have the feds been doing down there? What do you mean? Have they tried to hurt you? She didnt immediately answer, seeing something in his eyes that scared her just a bit and not sure she wanted him to know, for his own sake. Ill tell you about it, but first Ive got to go take care of Allan so he doesnt have any questions. She left then, taking the berry bucket and hurrying down to the creek, where he could see her paralleling it, keeping to the heavy brush and moving quickly. He watched as Allan disappeared around a bend in the trail where a buttress of rock jutted out from the canyon wall, and Liz must have seen him round the bend also, because she emerged from the brush and went hurrying along beside the trail, the berry bucket swinging as she walked. Then he saw something else. Three men in BDUs came hurrying along the trail behind Liz, shouting something at her that reached him muffled and unintelligible with distance. Whipping out the binoculars he saw the radios clipped to their pockets, the emblems on their jackets, and he was moving down the hill, arriving in the thicket beside the creek just as they, some two hundred and fifty yards further up the canyon, reached Liz.

Einar kept low in the brush as he paralleled the meadow, using a cluster of large boulders for concealment and working his way to within a few yards of the spot where Liz stood, surrounded by the three camouflaged men. The agents, dressed in BDUs but without vests, as far as he could see, and carrying only sidearms, had Liz in plastic cuffs, wrists and ankles, and were asking her a series of rather insistent questions. As he had stalked nearer the clouds had gathered, a gusting wind and occasional thunder keeping him from making out all of the words over the rushing of the nearby creek, but did hear his name mentioned. Then one of the agents kicked her, shouting something and coming at her again, only to be stopped by another of the men. There was a brief and terrifying instant in which Einar nearly convinced himself that the entire sequence of events that morning had likely been a setup to lure him out into the open so that he could be killed or captured, that perhaps there was another team waiting in the bushes on the other side of the creek, or snipers positioned up in the rocks, ready to take a precisely aimed shot that would be intended to disable rather than to kill, and the thought very nearly weakened his resolve to the point of inaction. The hesitance lasted only a fraction of a second; Einar knew that Liz would have found some way to tell him, would not willingly participate in his death. The men had stopped their questioning entirely, two of them taking turns kicking and hitting her with a scrub oak trunk as the third walked around them, his weapon drawn. That was all Einar needed to see. The dart was already in place in the atlatl when he rose, stepping out from behind a rock and letting it fly, dropping to the ground and using a slight depression to cover his quick movement to a rock two yards closer to the little group, where he raised his head just

enough to see that the two men who remained standing were focused on the brush on the other side of the creek, the man he struck having spun around as he fell and confusing them as to the origin of the assault. The second dart went true also, taking the man in the neck and eliciting a hasty volley of gunfire from the remaining agent, again in the wrong direction, Liz having pressed herself into the ground. Einar waited a moment for the man to turn in a direction that presented a more favorable profile before loosing the last dart, but he was tiring, his aim off by a few inches, and the dart buried itself harmlessly in the dirt beside the mans boot where he knelt in the grass. The agent grabbed Liz, crouching low and holding her in front of him, alternately aiming the pistol at her head and at the surrounding thickets, searching the brush for any sign of his assailant. Einar dropped the atlatl, leapt out from behind the boulder with the spear and charged at the man, who heard a stick snap and wheeled to face him, turning the pistol on him and letting off two quick shots in his general direction but missing, dropping the empty magazine and grabbing for its replacement on his belt. Liz, the agents focus momentarily off of her as he frantically worked to reload his weapon before the madly charging buckskin-clad berserker could reach him, took advantage of the distraction to raise her bound feet up over her head and kick him hard in the arm, knocking loose the weapon just before Einar drove the spear into his shoulder. The agent rolled to the side, coming up with a knife and taking Einar hard in the side with his knee, sending him sprawling as he tried to recover the spear, which had glanced off the mans shoulder and ended up in the grass nearby. Einar was on him in an instant, pinning him to the ground and slamming his head into it with his left hand as he grabbed for the spear with the right, but the agent managed to free his right hand just enough to drive the knife deep into Einars left side, flipping him onto his back and going for his throat with the knife. Einar grabbed the mans hand with both of his and held it, inches from his neck, struggling furiously to free himself but weakening fast, unable to breathe, the mans knee pressing hard on his injured ribs. Just as Einar felt himself about to black out for lack of air the agents head exploded in a cloud of pink mist, the man collapsing on him, a dead weight. Liz, her ears ringing, kept the gun on the man, glancing around to make sure that neither of the others were moving and finally realizing that the agent was quite dead, that all three of them were, getting to her feet and looking for Einar, who lay beneath the dead agnet, covered in his blood, struggling to rise. She rolled the man off of him, dragged him to his feet. Einar looked bad, pale and sweating and having a very hard time getting his breath, and she quickly supported him when he seemed ready to fall. Can you walk? How bad are you hurt? Let me check you. He brushed her off, muttering something about just getting nicked in the ribs, nothing serious. Good, because weve got to get out of here. That last guy, just before you came out from behind the rock, I heard him on the radio, and he was giving them some sort of coordinates. Theyre sending a chopper, Einar. Theyre coming for you. Here. I got his radio.

Einar stuck the radio in his pants pocket, his breath coming with difficulty. Youre bleeding Liz. Let mesee. Its not mine, its all theirs. They hit me a few times with a stick, but its just bruises. Im fine, really, but I think he got you with that knife, she said, lifting up the buckskin vest in an attempt to find the source of a rather prolific stream of blood that oozed black and slippery down the leg of his jeans. He tried to push her away again saying something about being alright, but she insisted, Einar, no. Sit down and take a look at this. It needs attention. Which he discovered to his surprise was truehe had barely been aware of the stabbingsticking the agents Glock 23 into his waistband and telling her to grab one for herself and collect all of the extra mags she could find while he patched himself up, upon which he began feeling terribly dizzy and his legs promptly folded under him. Discovering a deep-looking wound just beneath his ribcage on the left that seemed to be the source of the bleeding, he quickly ripped a loose shred of cloth off of his blue jeans and wadded it against the wound, pressing his left elbow over it and holding it in place with his right hand, adding more pressure. The bleeding slowed, but Einar knew he was going to have to move, and soon, knew he would be needing the use of both hands, and was looking around for a way to tie the wad of material in place when Liz showed up with a compression bandage from the kit in one of the dead agents pockets, quickly ripping it open and wrapping it tightly around his torso, alarmed at how gaunt he had become. The bleeding stopped for the moment, Einar struggled to his feet and quickly inspected the three agents boots, taking the pair that most nearly approximated the size of his own feet and, with Lizs help, securing a pair of BDU pants to replace his own badly worn and tattered jeans. Jamming his feet into the boots after hastily wrapping the ball of his left foot in the unneeded tail end of the compression bandage, Einar took a few experimental steps, and decided that they were definitely an improvement. He had lacerated the foot fairly badly in the mad dash over the rocky ground to close with the agent who held Liz, and knew that he wouldnt be getting far on foot without some better protection than the nearly worn out squirrel moccasins provided. While he got himself into the new boots and pants, Liz had searched the other two agents pockets, coming up with two more small kits that contained compression bandages, scissors, tourniquets, Angiocath needles, and small packets of something that she recognized as a hemostatic powder. Also in the pockets she found some bug spray, as well as two more small kniveslockersto go with the four inch, double edged boot knife that the agent had stabbed Einar with. Only one of the agents wore a pack, a small hydration pack that contained, in addition to a mostly empty water bladder, a few snacks, a lightweight emergency rain poncho of clear plastic, and a small survival kit. She rolled up the pack and stuffed it into her own, which was larger, returning to Einar. The rain that had begun after a close clap of thunder sometime during Einars struggle with the agent had increased, letting loose a downpour that soon had the canyon walls streaming, the creek rising fast, seeping up around the dead men and saturating the blood stained ground, leaving the rising water tainted with pink-tinged foam. Liz found Einar crouched on the ground with his chest on his knees, staring at the creek and pressing his injured side. She did not know that he was busy formulating a plan, thought he was perhaps just too weak from blood loss to remain

standing. The bandage, she could see, had nearly soaked through despite the pressure, and she was about to ask him if he would let her help him keep additional pressure on it, or maybe try some of the hemostatic powder she had found in the agents pockets, when he stood. Einar, my truckits just five or six miles down the trail. If we hurry No. Theyll be coming. No time for that. Been listening to the radio. They know somethings happened. Sounds like we have about fifteen minutes to clear out of here. Maybe a little more with this weather, but not much. Well, lets go, then. Liz, you cantyoure not coming with me. Einar, I just shot a federal agent. Im covered in his blood. I dont think I have much choice. And those guys were trying to kill me. You saw. I sure dont want to meet a bunch of their buddies coming up that trail as I go down! He nodded. OK, heres what were doing. This creek is rising fast, before long itll be flowing over these guys and messing up our tracks, making it hard for them to tell just what happened or where we went. Its usually a real bad idea to walk down a creek when youre trying to get away, or at least not a very useful one. But this time it may save us. Follow me, stay on the rocks and watch your trail. Theyre gonna be all over us as soon as they see this mess.

The night before the encounter between Liz and Einar and the agents in the canyon, Sheriff Watts news-producer friend, seeing that the videos presented him by the Sheriff thoroughly contradicted the official version of the ongoing Asmundson manhunt and cast doubt on the alleged suicide of Agent Stramecki, had run Strameckis videotaped statement as his lead story on the six oclock news: Hello. I am Special Agent Joseph Anthony Stramecki. I have proudly served as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the last twenty six years, and will do so until tomorrow, when my resignation takes effect, though sadly no longer with pride. Im an eye witness to the torture and brutal interrogation of Lakemont County Resident Susan Goodland regarding the Einar Asmundson case. Im making this tape just in case I get Fostered when my former employer realizes that I sprung Susan from her illegal confinement, and passed on information about her treatment to the County Sheriff so that it can be properly investigated . Two FBI agents acting under the direct orders of Agent In Charge Day and the Director of the FBI, kidnapped Susan Goodland from Memorial Hospital in Clear Springs, injected her with a powerful sedative, took her against medical advice, threw her in a van, and brought her, after a brief stay at Mountain Task Force headquarters in Culver Falls, to the FBI Field Office in Clear Springs, where she was

denied medical treatment and abusively questioned for days. When I found out about this treatment, and that we had been lied to by Agent Day and the Director, I tendered my resignation effective tomorrow, and returned Susan to Sheriff Watts custody until they could arrange security to return her to the hospital under armed guard. This whole rotten mess started with an exaggerated and disproportionate response to the charges against Mr. Asmundson, and a manhunt bungled by the ex-Director and AIC, resulting in the needless deaths of numerous Federal Agents who were under pressure to bring him in regardless of the cost, to settle a vendetta against Asmundson by the Director. Ive reached the limits of my personal ability to look the other way while federal laws are broken on a daily basis by the Agents charged with upholding those same laws. I am no longer able to carry out the duties of this job, my former calling, in good faith. Too many within the Bureau and other agencies seem to think they are above the law, that they supersede the law, and are acting as the stereotypical Jack-Booted Thugs. Ill probably be dead tomorrow, but at least I will have died with a clean conscience. Perhaps time will reveal the truth surrounding my demise, as it may with this badly mishandled investigation.

Einar moved carefully down the rising creek, keeping his footing with difficulty on the slippery, silty, water-smoothed rocks, Liz following, until it led them out of the meadow and beneath the shelter of the spruces. They left the water in a rocky area and headed up across the duff, Einar knowing that as long as he did not slip or scuff the wet ground beneath the layers of needlesand Liz followed his examplelittle sign of their passage would remain for the trackers who were surely soon to come. He did not see the drop of blood as it fell, having oozed out from beneath his bandage, to splatter on a waterrounded oval of granite, nor did he know that, sheltered as it was by the branches of a fir, the rain would not soon scour it away. On the occasions when he paused and looked back at Liz, she appeared to be paying close attention to her trail, and he hoped it would be enough. Hoped, in fact, that his own efforts would be enough, as he was growing increasingly dizzy and confused-feeling, his vision blurring and darkening at times until he was hardly able to tell what lay directly in front of him, let alone keep a close eye on the ground beneath his feet. OK. There. He spotted the rock outcropping, dim through the blowing rain, jutting black and glistening up out of the surrounding timber, began climbing towards it. There had as yet been no sign of approaching helicopters or other aircraft when Einar and Liz reached the place where he had stashed his gear, and he quickly dragged it all beneath a thick-branched evergreen, resting for a moment before digging out a map See that gully? He asked her, indicating the steep, timbered draw, half concealed by rain and a rising fog. She nodded. Well here it is on the map, and what I figure we can do is stick to the heavy timber on its edges, climb up and out of the canyon before they can come in and trap us down here. He reviewed the route again, asking Liz to point it

out to him and finally satisfied that she understood. Einar was dizzy, faint, felt a fog descending over his mind, and wanted her to know what was going on in case things kept progressing and he became less than useful at route finding before the day was over. The bleeding from the stab site had stopped or nearly so, but he was awfully nauseous, weak, had the feeling he was still losing blood at a pretty good rate despite being able to see no evidence of it. His whole left side hurt, stabbing pains reaching up to his shoulder, even, and the only thing he could think of was that perhaps the blade had injured his spleen when it went up under the rib. That cant be good. Will be a lot of bleeding, I guess. Liz, you know what yarrow looks like? She nodded. As were going up, get as much of it as you can, stuff it in my pack or your pocket or something. Im gonna need it, and Im having some troubleseeing right nowkinda dizzy. Ill get the yarrow, but I think we need to stop here for awhile. You lost a lot of blood back there, need to rest. She handed him a water bottle, and he drank. Cant stop yet. Not yet. If the storm moves out theyll send choppers, we got to be a lot further out by then. He paused for a minute to catch his breath, not wanting to let her know that he believed he was still losing blood internally, lest she insist on stopping when they could absolutely not afford to do so. You just find that yarrow. Ill be OK. He was not, though, found it all he could do to get to his feet, with the spear in one hand and Liz grabbing the other, and nearly passed out when he tried to take a step. He kept at it, squinting against the dizziness and making his way up the steepening rock of the gully like a man in a dream, his movements slow and labored. Einar had insisted over Lizs protests on carrying most of the gear, but seeing that he was barely able to remain on his feet she grabbed him gently by the shoulder, took the willow basket and put it on over her daypack, Einar looking at her with grateful eyes but too badly winded to say anything. The gully was steep and rocky much like the one he had descended to reach the canyon, and Einar was struggling, Liz leading the way before long, scrambling up over each ledge and reaching back down to help him up, stopping frequently and urging him to drink, asking him if he wouldnt consider resting for a few minutes, just long enough to catch his breath. At one point he turned to her a bit exasperated and told her, You know youre even more insistent in person than in the dreams And you more stubborn than in mine! She quickly responded. Finally, all stubbornness aside, he could go on no longer and they stopped beneath a tree, Einar wedging himself in on its uphill side as the ground was too steep just there to sit without sliding, collapsing in a heap with his forehead on the ground. For a moment Liz wasnt even sure he was still breathing, but after a few seconds he got back up to his knees, leaning heavily on the spear. He was in bad shape, hunched over pressing his side and seeming to be in a lot of pain, very pale and barely responsive when Liz tried to get him to take some water. After much urging he drank, and she helped him out of his pack, told him to rest. Ill watch, listen for radio. You close your eyes for a few minutes. Einar curled up on his side and she put her jacket over him, sitting beside him to help

keep him warm as he got his first sleep in many, many hours, though it did not last long. His breathing woke him, a sudden feeling that he had to sit up to get enough air. The pain in his side had worsened as he slept, and when he inspected the area around the wound he found it to be dark and purplish and a bit distended, rigid to the touch. Dont really know the way out of this one. Anything that might slow the bleeding at allthats all I can think to do Liz, do you have anything in your packa candle, trioxane, anything? Yes. Both. Down in the bottom of the willow packtheres a little white cloth bag with some cattail pollen. Grainy looking yellow stuff. I need you to put it in a can or something, hold it over a flame and roast it. Needs to go from yellow to brown. He was quiet for a minute, doubled over, waiting for an especially brutal cramp to pass. Stuffs supposed to helpwith internal bleeding. Hope it works. She had already found a packet of trioxane and set it on a rock, was searching his pack for the pollen. Youre bleeding? She was scared, but tried not to let it show. This was far beyond her area of knowledge, even with the additional training she had received through Mountain Rescue. You think the knife Yeah, it nicked something. He showed her the purplish discoloration on his left side. This is bad, Liz. Pretty bad. Im hopingmaybe if I can swallow some of that stuff wanted to make some yarrow tea too, but I think Ill just chew it up, at this point. No time. She handed him the sizeable wad of yarrow leaves that she had collected on the climb, and he began chewing them for their juice, which has hemostatic properties and which he hoped might be enough, along with the cattail pollen, to give him some chance of not bleeding out into his belly. Not great odds. Could sure use some help, here. After a brief rest and a hastily gulped can of roasted cattail pollen mixed with some water to help it go down, Einar insisted that they continue with the climb, seeing that the rain was slacking off and concerned lest they be trapped in the semi-exposed upper reaches of the gully when aircraft started showing up. An hour passed, or two. He was not sure. The sky was clearing, night coming, Einar knew he had been moving terribly slowly and he spoke to Liz, sure she was a dream but feeling the need to tell her, just in case, to go back. Go down. Its clearing off and theyll be in the air any minute now. You mustnt be found with me. But she stayed. No matter what he said, she stayed, her hand on his shoulder steadying him, guiding him, keeping him from sinking to the ground and staying there as his body was all but demanding that he do, and he thanked her, swallowed the water she held to his lips and told her he was very glad she was just a dream, a creation of his wandering, fading mind, because the choppers would be along any minute, and he couldnt stand to see anything happen to her. And then he heard them, heard the rumble from down the canyon, looked up and saw a

big cluster of spruces some distance above him in the gully, spinning, turning, shimmering crazily and dimming through his dimming eyes. Dizzy. Come on. Faster. Theyll be here any second. And he was not sure whether it was Lizs voice or his own, everything seemed so strange, so distant, but then he saw her up ahead, reaching for him, and he took her hand and gave the dash to the tree his best effort, falling to his knees against its trunk, the nearing thunder of the choppers lost in the rushing and hissing of his own blood in his head as he slumped forward under the tree, and everything went dark. Liz listened as the chopperstwo or three of them, from the little she could see as she looked down at the evening light flashing off their rotorsrumbled their way up the canyon and landed in the meadow below the message-bench. I hope the rain covered our tracks. Please let the rain have covered our tracks so they dont start up here after us It was getting cold as twilight came, and she spread her jacket over Einar and piled up great armfulls of duff around him, over him, put the poncho over everything to help keep the wind out, and sat on the windward side of him to further shield him from its chill. And sat, waiting, watching him struggle for breath, his lips tinged with purple and his face an awful ashen shade of grey, almost in tears thinking that no sooner had she found him, than it seemed she was about to lose him again. For good. And she couldnt help but think that if she hadnt insisted on finding him in the first place, perhaps none of it would have happened.

Down in the valley an FBI tracker, working with difficulty in the midst of the heavily armed four man security team that had been assigned to him and about to run up against darkness, discovered a single drop of blood splattered on a smooth granite stone near the creek, preserved from the rain by an overhanging evergreen branch.

Allan had just rounded the bend in the canyon, climbing up a series of small rocky ledgesteps as the trail wound its way around a soaring limestone buttress, when he heard something that made him stop for a moment, tilt his head, listen. The sound came again, or he thought it did, a faint popping that echoed off the canyon walls, its point of origin lost somewhere in the twisting maze of rock. Between the rushing of the creek and a strong wind that swept down-canyon at himhe was pretty sure it was about to rainhe was not even entirely certain he had heard anything. Probably just some rock fall. He went on, wondering where Liz could be, why she had already followed the canyon up higher than where most of the berriesher supposed reason for the hikegrew in lush abundance on the banks of the creek in the lower meadows. He began to wonder if perhaps he had missed her, walked right past her as she stood several feet from the trail, concealed by the vegetation and too absorbed in her work to notice his passage. Just as likely she did notice me, and decided not to say anything Lizs recent standoffishness was nothing new to him; she had been like that most of the summer, distant, rather formal in her dealings with him, but had been different for the last

week or so, seeming annoyed that he paid her any attention at all. He had at first thought she was simply under a lot of stress regarding the situation with Bills death and Susans subsequent kidnappingshed been through a lot, having witnessed the attack on the two of them, and with the continuing concern that she might be the next targetbut with her recent vehement insistence on repeatedly going alone to the wilderness to pick berries, Allan had come to strongly suspect that the situation must be a good bit more complicated. If she wanted to mope around and ignore him that was her business, but he was not about to let continue to place herself in the middle of a very dangerous situation with an individual who was extremely dangerous if only because so many were bent on killing or capturing himwithout a fight. If she was doing what he had come to suspect she was, he meant to put a stop to it, one way or another. Where are you, Liz? Its about to rain. Why havent you headed back yet? He kept climbing, having decided to follow the trail until it began sharply ascending at the head of the canyon, switchbacking up beside a waterfall that spilled in a number of cascading steps over the rim far above. Surely she would not have gone beyond that point; there were no berries, only rock. Allan turned back at the point where the trail began climbing steeply from the canyon floor, zipping up his rain jacket and finding himself glad that the wind was basically at his back as the storm broke. Some twenty minutes later he reached the scene of the carnage in the meadow, two of the three bodies nearly floating in the rising creek, checking them for any sign of life before retreating to the cover of the trees and putting in a call to the Sheriff on his radio.

It seemed to Liz a very long time that she sat there with Einar, shielding him from the wind and growing increasingly convinced that she was watching his final struggle, watching him die, but unsure how to help. She heard activity down below in the canyon, echoing off the walls, saw light and heard the rumble of generators as they set up for the investigation and search that night, and a thought occurred to her that Einar was not going to wake up on his own, that his only chance lay in her going down there as quickly as she could, giving his location to the search teams and hoping they could reach him and get him to a hospital before he bled to death. She knew she would have to take the spear, the atlatl and darts, and both firearms so whoever got to him first would not believe themselves in danger and finish the job by emptying a magazine into him. Hesitantly, she took the atlatl and darts from his pack, set them aside and reached for the spear. Einar had gone to sleep with the weapon clenched in his fist and she found that, even unconscious and fighting for breath, he grasped it too tightly for her to easily take from him. She tried to open his hand, but could not. The hand felt like ice, and she took it in both of hers, wanting him to be warm and knowing that she should have tried to keep him awake long enough to get him into the dry clothes she had in her pack. His pulse was weak and fast, and she supposed she might not have much time to carry out her plan if she wanted help to come in time. His hand had relaxed as she held it, his breathing slowed some, and she took the spear, set it out of his reach and was about to retrieve the pistol and head down the mountain to do what she believed she had to do. Einar grabbed her hand, though, opened his eyes and stared at her briefly before losing consciousness

again, and she saw something in his eyes that she had never seen there before, nor expected to. Trust. She lost her resolve. I know what you would say about this idea, Einar. OK. Im not going. I know you would choose to stay up here, however it turns out. She knew that her plan, while it might have succeeded in prolonging his life, would have been immensely selfish, very nearly unforgivable. Einar had settled lower on the ground and seemed to be having more trouble breathing, occasionally coughing and choking as he lay there, and Liz lifted his head and shoulders, trying to get him into a better position. He woke, looked up at her, almost smiling for a moment before the shadow of pain and the awareness of their situation returned to cloud his face. We have to go, he said. Heard those choppers. He rolled over, slowly got to his knees. Any water left? Awful thirsty. She helped him drink some. How long since they came? Once she got over being startled at his sudden return to consciousness and the way he asked the questions as if nothing was wrong, she checked her watch. Not nearly as long as she had thought. Its been about half an hour. He grunted, getting to his feet and reaching for the pack. Liz pushed it out of his reach. Let me. You just concentrate on getting yourself up to the top. He nodded, took a piece of jerky out of the pouch around his neck and offered her one which she took, still amazed that he was standing and talking after she had thought him very nearly dead. Lizwhile I was sleepingyou said something about hounds tongue? No. No, do you need some though? Because I saw some down there not too far below us in the dirt on the side of that little outcropping where we stopped to rest. Remember? He shook his head. Idont remember it. Was pretty out of it. Do you thinkwas I leaving a lot of sign, scuffing up the ground, things like that? The last hour or so is kind of a blur and Im afraid I may have messed things up bad. You were kind of stumbling around at the end, but before that it looked like you were really watching where you put your feet. I was too. Einar nodded. Good. Hounds tonguewould it take long? No. Ill be right back. There are dry clothes in my pack here. Why dont you do what you can while Im gone, and Ill help you when I get back, if you need it. Liz left, and Einar worked to get out of his wet clothes, found a spare set of mid-weight polypropylene in Lizs pack and got himself dressed, finding that movement greatly worsened the pain in his side but encouraged by the fact that the purple discoloration under the wound seemed not to have spread, the area seeming, if anything, a bit less rigid and painful when he carefully explored it. Maybe it clotted up in there, stopped bleedingcan that happen? The injury was outside of his area of knowledge, but he knew he was in trouble. The blade had clearly gone fairly deep, had hit something

important and allowed him to lose a good bit of blood. He supposed the internal bleeding must have stopped or at least slowed, though, or he would surely no longer be conscious. Conscious? Youd be dead, Einar. So. Dont know if all that yarrow and cattail pollen helped or not, but better keep trying things. Hounds tongue should be even better than those two for stopping the bleeding. Like comfrey. The wound itself had all but quit bleeding; the additional bandage he had put overtop the original one had not even begun to soak through. Well. Maybe with a little help I can at least get out from under this search, get up high somewhere out of their reach so I can die in peace in a day or two when the infection sets in. He sat there glumly for a minute, resting from the exertion of changing clothesif thats exertion, how do you think youre gonna get up out of this canyon?and staring down at the white glow from the halogen lights in the meadow, finally shaking his head and hauling himself grimly to his feet, lowering his head against the spreading blackness before his eyes. Die in peace? Forget it. Now you start looking for some Oregon grape to chew on, and see if maybe Liz has some antibiotics in that pack. This is not over. Liz returned with the hounds tongue and they started up the gully again, traveling in near darkness with the glow of the search behind them.

Steve the photographer was not pleased. His boots were gone, as he had discovered shortly after waking to the sunlight streaming into the tunnel that morning, knowing that the absence of their interview subject and all of his gear meant that they were gone for good. Juni just laughed and told him, well, I guess you should have brought them to bed with you! Which did not do much to improve Steves foul mood as he stormed around in the little tunnel, sorting through their one remaining pack in search of something to protect his feet for the descent. Juni soon discovered that, though Einar had taken most of their food, he had left their cooking pot, complete with a breakfast of jerkyserviceberry stew, nestled in the coals and still warm, which they ate with great appetite after the previous day hike and a night spent in the relatively chilly tunnel. Steves anger was abated somewhat by the warm, hearty breakfast, by the fact that their host had been thoughtful enough to prepare and leave it for them, as short on food as he was, himself, and as exhausted as he had seemed that past evening. You know, he didnt just steal your boots because he wanted them, Steve. They wouldnt have fit him and look she pointed to the dusty tunnel entrance, he was wearing those squirrel things when he left. Huh. Yep, youre right. Just wanted to slow us down, didnt he? Sneaky. Well Im certainly not looking forward to walking all that way with bare feet, but this should help some. While they spoke he had been removing a layer of semi-rigid foam from the inside of his backpack, cutting it with the single knife their host had seen fit to leave them for the trip back, and binding the two folded pieces to the bottoms of his feet with the tail ends of several webbing straps that he cut from the pack. Odd looking and not especially grippy on all the wet rock he knew they would have to cross, but he supposed they would be better than nothing. Dont guess I can complain too much. Were pretty lucky just to be alive after that little adventure. Isnt he charged with twenty murders or something,

after that cabin blew up the last time they tried to capture him? And then you go grabbing that atlatl thing right out from in front under his nosewhat did you expect him to do, anyway? Steve was shaking his head and chuckling. Juni was bold, spontaneous, and he liked that about her, but sometimes she could be far too impetuous for her own good. The pair wandered for some time, Steve believing he was leading them in the approximate direction of the meadow near which all of their camera and other electronic gear waited, and while his sense of direction was essentially correct, they ended up descending into the wrong draw at some point, just a small mistake at the start, but one that was to leave them drastically off course and bewildered before many miles. Steve realized at some point that they were not on ground they had covered the previous evening, but kept them going down the draw, descending, hoping the terrain would soon open up and let him get a look at something familiar, and save him having to climb up out of the steep-walled draw in his awkward, slippery foam and webbing sandals. But it did not, finally dumping them out in a gently sloping aspen forest that neither of them recognized in the least. Juni and Steve were lost. Steve had know it for a good while, Juni only recently having caught on when she realized that he seemed to be wandering somewhat aimlessly, stopping far too often to look around and readjust his improvised footwear, clearly bewildered. Juni, I messed up. I think we need to go back. What? All the way? No, just to where we left the spruces back there, and started down. But that was several hours ago! Look. See that, up there where it opens up? Lets just go that far first, and see if theres a way around, or something, so we wont have to do all of that climbing. Steve, finding climbing rather slow and difficult without his boots, readily agreed, and they wandered through the aspen grove, soon discovering that the open space Juni had noticed was in reality a massive canyon, whose rim lay just beyond the trees. They had definitely gone the wrong way. Well said Juni, ever the optimist, so its not where we meant to be, but maybe theres a trail down there that we could walk out on, at least, hitch a ride into town, get you some shoes and go back for the cameras and the car. Tomorrow. Steve thought that sounded pretty reasonable, and got out his camera, the only one that Einar had allowed him to keep in his pack, so he could zoom in and get a look at the canyon floor, hoping to be able to tell whether or not there was a trail and quickly determining that yes, there was, and it appeared fairly well used. Hey! Looks like I found us a way out of here! There was, in fact, a hiker near the trail, a woman it seemed, walking rather quickly along in the grass beside the trail. Following

the trail down canyon with the lens, Steve reached the point where it disappeared into the timber on the far side of the meadow, tried to get a glimpse of its lower reaches, but was prevented by the dense forest. Zooming out a bit to get a wider view he saw movement, went in close again and noticed three camouflaged men hurrying up the trail. Interesting. He followed them as they caught up to the woman. Something did not seem right, and he began snapping photos, giving Juni a running commentary as he watched events unfold. Looks like they knocked her down or somethingthat one, he got a stickhitting her! Theyre hitting her. Should we yell or something? Drop rocks down over the wall so they know somebodys watching and stop? Juni had pulled out her own borrowed camera; the zoom was not nearly as powerful as on Steves, but she was able to make out the distant figures well enough to get some idea of what was happening. Theyre beating herSteve! Weve got to do something! Theyd never hear us if we yelled. Not with this wind. Nothing we can do. Except this. And he continued capturing the event as it unfolded, the camera that he normally used to freeze falcons in flight as they dove for their prey capturing ten frames per second, recording more detail than Steves eye could pick up. Hey, look! He suddenly exclaimed. What was that? One of themdid you see that? Just fell to the ground, and there goes anotherand looktheres some guyhey, I think thats Einar! Dressed like him, and who else dresses like thatrunning at the last guyhesoh darn, the rain! Sweeping down the canyon, the storm had suddenly and completely obscured the canyon floor, just as Einar ran in with the spear. Their view completely cut off and wanting to avoid a repeat of the previous days soaking, Steve and Juni hurried for the cover of a nearby stand of limber pines, crouching in the small dry space beneath one of them and reviewing the photos that Steve had captured.

Einar and Liz slowly worked their way towards the top of the gully, but Einar found that the renewed movement brought with it a terrible dizziness and pain in his side and shoulder that very nearly kept him from making any progress at all. His hands and feet were tingling, his face felt numb and weird, and he was pretty sure he must be bleeding again, though if he was, it was all taking place internally. Several times helicopters made their way through the canyon, following the floor before rising to slowly scour one rim then the other, sending them scrambling for cover beneath one or another of the rocky ledges that were fortunately quite plentiful on the long ascent. Liz could see that crouching made him more comfortable, and wished they were in a place where he could stay like that, but both of them knew that it was not possible. The whole area was buzzing with activity both in the air and on the ground, more and more men and equipment, it seemed, being brought in down below; they needed to be out of the canyon. Finally Einar stopped, sat down on a rock with his arm around the trunk of a little aspen to keep himself from toppling head first down the steep gully, knowing that he must either take a minute to rest or find himself unable to keep on his feet. Liz was beside him, giving him water as she always seemed to be doing, asking him questions that he did

not much feel like answering, wanting to take a look at the injury site and getting her headlamp out of her pack. It was completely dark. He told her no. No light. We cant have any light. She wanted to at least be able to feel the injured area, see how it had changed since their last stop, but he refused to let her. Liz was exasperated, scared because other than continuing to get him to drink and swallow the cattail pollen that had seemed to temporarily help, she did not know what she could do for him, even if he had let her examine him. And short of sitting on him and pinning him downwhich after seeing the way hed handled himself in the fight with the agents, she was not certain she could manage, despite his injuriesshe was not sure how to corral him long enough to take a look. At a loss, she offered him more water. Einar took the bottle, but his mind was on other things. Listentheyre gonna end up in this gully sooner or later, even if they dont track us to it. Not that many ways up out of the canyon, and this is one of them. I know Im moving slow, anddont think I can keep this up much longer. Yougot to split. Get out of here. Know your way back down to the trailhead or something? Yes, but Good. Now theythey dont know you shot that agent. They dont have the gun. Theyll think I did it. You just change clothes and leave the bloody ones with me, wash up real good in a creek somewherescrub your hands, arms, everything with sand, walk back down to a road. Tell them Ikilled those guys, kidnapped you, was bleeding real bad and passed out, or something, and you got away. Ill come up with a place for you to tell themsomething far from here, something thatll send them off in the wrong direction. Itll help me, Liz. You got to do it. I am not leaving you. You have to. I cant move fast enough. Too close to hole up. You cant be here when they come. Einar was out of breath, didnt have the energy to argue with her, prayed that she would see the sense in what he was saying, and do it. In a hurry. He wanted to stop, had to stop, meant to find a little ledge to crouch under and dig in and see if he could manage to keep himself conscious until the search showed up. He sure didnt want to pass out somewhere and have them stumble upon him when he was unable to do anything about it. That was just about the worst possible outcome he could imagine. He was armed, would have the advantage of being on the uphill side of things; the steep rock of the gullys upper reaches would be a decent place for a stand, if he could keep himself awake. But not with Liz around. Liz was thinking fast, trying to come up with a way to talk Einar out of his determination to make her leave. She sensed his intention, could tell that he was near the end of his rope and meant to go no further, and was determined not to abandon him when it seemed he most needed help. They may not know I fired that gun, but they know I was there. I think when that guy called for help on the radio, he mentioned me. I cant go back right now. Ill help you. We can get up out of here. There has been no sign of anyone even

starting up the gully, and surely they wont do it in the dark We need to get you up someplace where you can rest, let me take a look at your side, see what we can do. Now youve sat there long enough. Get up. He mentioned you on the radio? Are you sure? What did he say? I think he said something. Theres a lot I havent told you, Einar. Ive been under investigation, they ran Bill and Susan and me off the road to question us, bashed Bills head in and nearly beat Susan to death. I was stuck under the back seat in the wrecked truck and they didnt know I was there, but theyve found out I was a witness. Theyll never believe I was kidnapped. Theyll arrest me if I show up down there right now, and find a way to pin some of this on me. Einar was on his feet, angry; she had succeeded. Well lets get up out of here, he growled. We got distance to put behind us.

Einars pace on the remainder of the climb surprised Liz, and might have surprised him as well, had his dwindling energy not been so totally focused on the next step, on avoiding leaving sign and carefully choosing their route through the jumbled world of slick, gently gleaming rock slabs and dark tree islands that composed the upper reaches of the gully, just below the rim. He was thankful for all of the rock, so very thankful that they were not being forced to pick their way across soft, muddy dirt or up slopes of loose shaley scree that would shift and slide and leave sign of their passage that would be clear from the air, the lighter colored dry rock of the lower layers spilling down over the shining black of the rain soaked rock as a beacon to their pursuers. He was not so thankful, though, for the openness of the slope, the relative lack of cover, and the constant knowledge that a chopper could come along at any momentso far there had been three since they had resumed climbingwhich kept him moving steadily and almost swiftly as they climbed, his pain and weakness and the awful exhaustion of his second night without sleep kept at bay by the knowledge that he had to get up out of that canyon, had to do all he could to lose his pursuers, not just for him any more, but for Liz. He knew it would all catch up to him at some point and knock him off his feet, but knew just as surely that he must get them to safety before it did. At one point, he saw some low growing vegetation among the rocks in front of him, stepped to the side to avoid crushing any of it and leaving obvious sign, and stopped, a faint but familiar scent having got his attention. He bent down, felt the leaves and discovered them to be the spiky, holly-like leaves of Oregon grape. Carefully moving a few of the smaller rock slabs that surrounded the plants he grabbed one near where he felt it disappear into the ground, working it gently back and forth before slowly pulling the root up out of the saturated soil. With his fingers he scraped the wet dirt off the root and stuffed it back in the hole, moved the rocks back to their original positions and blew on the ground, hoping to disperse and hide any dirt chunks or particles that might have been scattered on the surface. He handed the root, plant and all, to Liz so that she could feel it.

Oregon grape. Help me look for more as we go. Ill be needing as many as I can get, assuming you dont have some antibiotics or something in that pack. She explored the leaves, handed the plant back to him. NoI wish I did. I did not expect to be meeting you yesterday, didnt know if you would even make radio contact again. I have a few extra things in the pack that Id started carrying just in case, but that was not one of them. I do have some oregano oil that I keep in the first aid kit though. It might help prevent infection. Ill try it. Try anything at this point. She got out the oil, contained in a small brown bottle and smelling very strongly of Italian foodthats the thought it brought to his mind, anywayand told him to take a drop or two under the tongue, and hold it there for a minute before swallowing or drinking. The stuff was a lot stronger than it smelled, stinging and burning and tying his stomach in knots, but he followed her instructions, gulping the water she gave him after a minute or so had passed. Well good. Now at least I wont taste the Oregon grape. No way that bitterness can compete with this stuff. More climbing, the temporary distraction provided by the oregano oil soon wearing off and the hurt and exhaustion returning in full force to narrow his world down to the area just in front of him, to the act of lifting his feet, taking just one more step, over and over again, for what seemed like half an eternity. At last, the end. Or a change, at least. Above them rose steep and streaming in places with remnants of the evenings rain the final approach to the rim, and he studied it in the diffused glow of the search lights from the federal camp, looking for any weakness in the wall, a deformity that might allow them passage. The gully had petered out short of the top, had opened up into a wide scree field that ended abruptly in the vertical wall of limestone, at least forty feet high and running as far as he could see in either direction. He had been too close to the canyon wall earlier that day when he examined the route to see that particular aspect of the terrain, and on the map the last bit of the climb, while it had clearly appeared steep, had looked passable. Well. Probably looks worse than it is. Just tired. Einar limped over to a scraggly little group of trees that showed dark against the rock, sat down. Liz was beside him, tried to get him to eat some trail mix but he was nauseous, couldnt do it. At the top he told her, the rimtheyll walk the rim. Might even get flown in to look at the likely places where we could have come up. We have to really watch what we do up there, not leave them anything they can pick up on too easily when they check it out, or we could end up losing an awful lot of time, find them right behind us in the morning. Liz nodded, gave him some water and searched for something in an outer pocket of her pack, coming up with a little packet of honey that she squeezed into the remainder of the water, adding some salt from a bag and shaking the bottle. Drink this. Itll help you with the last bit of the climb. She didnt even want to ask him how he was doing, did not want to risk breaking whatever concentration had allowed him to make it as far as he had, could see that he was working hard to maintain it, barely

acknowledging her presence. The wall was steep, nearly as vertical as it had appeared, and though they did find a break, a steep rubble-filled chute whose water-eroded limestone sides were rough and grippy like sandpaper, the going was not easy for either of them. Einar was by far the more experienced climber of the two, experience which helped him greatly as he inched his way up the dark chute, the rock damp and in places slippery despite its texture, but the pain of twisting his body into the positions necessary to continue making progress, repetitively and without the chance to stop and rest, soon left him questioning his ability to remain conscious. He had insisted on going first up the chute but Liz was not far behind him; he could hear her down there in the rocks and waited, his feet balancing on a four inch wide ledge of limestone and his knees resting on the wall, pressing his forehead against the rough rock and breathing as slowly as he could, attempting to drive away some of the dark, billowing shapes that filled his vision and threatened to cause him a fatal misstep. It wasnt working. Liz had reached a position just below his, was waiting. His mouth was dry, his voice coming with difficulty. Go. Go around me. He didnt want to tell her that he thought himself about to fall and wanted her out of the path, but she guessed it, found a spot on the ledge beside him. Einar, I saw a rope in your pack. How about if we tie that around your waist, I can climb ahead and find a place to sit and belay you, keep the rope tight, help you a little here and there. We cant be that far from the top, it would probably only take a time or two. He was quiet, not liking the idea much but feeling his legs begin to tremble and knowing that he very well might not be able to finish the climb, otherwise. You done anything like that before? Only a few times without hardware. With Mountain Rescue. They made us do it this way a couple of times in training, just in case. Thats good. But Imhaving a real hard time, dizzy, cant see much. Dont want to pull you off with me. You wont. Ill pick really secure spots to sit, and Ill only climb when youve got a good wide place to wait. Is the rope in this willow pack that Im wearing? Youre going to need to get it out for me. Here. Ill turn to the side. Einar retrieved the rope, careful not to knock either of them out of balance, and began uncoiling it. He did not want to tie it around his waist, thinking that if he did fall, or even if it got pulled hard, it could kill him, could break loose whatever clot seemed to have stopped or at least slowed the bleeding, could do further internal damage. Instead he wrapped and tied it around his upper chest just beneath his arms, knowing that if he fell and hung that way for any length of time it would be really bad news, but doubting that a fall in the chute could leave him hanging like that, as there were no overhung areas and few that were truly vertical, even. OK. Sure you want to do this? She was sure, told him so, and checked the knot he had

used in securing the rope. They settled on using tugs at the rope to communicate, not wanting to speak above a whisper for fear that it might be heard in the canyon below them. The night had turned still, and they knew that sound had an odd way of carrying in places like that. Liz made her way up to the nearest spot where she could safely sit and assist him up, crouching behind a boulder that lay in the chute like a giant chockstone and bracing her boots against it, giving the rope a bit of tension as Einar climbed. He reached the spot minutes later and sat down beside her, badly out of breath, taking advantage of the first opportunity to sit for a moment since starting the climb. Is it working? She asked, checking to see that the knot was holding. Yeah. Working. Little lesstension on the rope next time. Im pretty slow. Dont want you having to drag me up. Sorry. Less next time. You OK? Ill go ahead and start up again. They repeated the sequence three more times, moving some distance up into the trees on top before stopping to put the rope away, hearing the distant rumble of a chopper. Sure glad that thing didnt come along while we were climbing. Nowhere to hide, and trying to hurry would not have ended well. He was glad, and a bit surprised, actually, to have made it at all. Without the help Liz had given him with the rope, he was pretty certain that he would have ended up falling. Twice he had, dizzy and disoriented despite an enormous effort at maintaining his focus, slipped on a steep section and felt a bit of his weight go onto the rope momentarily before he had recovered, hoping that Liz had found herself a good secure place so he would not unsteady her. If the rope hadnt been there Well. Would have given them a good laugh I guess, when they found me splattered all over the scree field in the morning. The chopper was nearing; they crouched at the base of a limber pine that grew thick and spreading and gnarled beside a large slab of limestone, squeezing beneath the rock as well as they could until the rumbling faded away up the canyon. Well. Think we probably broke our trail. They wont expect us to have climbed that. Cant count on it though. Better get moving, and watch your step. Which they did, and kept it up for several more hours, Einar somehow keeping himself alert enough to make semi-coherent decisions about their route and Liz doing her best to make sure that he kept taking the occasional sip of water and, when he seemed able to tolerate it, a bite or two of food, also keeping her eye out for Oregon grapes, keeping alert for the feel of them against her boot as they traveled beneath the dark timber, and stopping occasionally to carefully harvest one in the way he had shown her. For the first hour of their journey they continued hearing helicopters, taking refuge each time beneath any available cover in case one should come close, but noticing that they seemed to be staying over in the general area of the canyon. Morning came, the time before dawn when the sky is just beginning to grey and you can start to see your boots again when you look down, and Einar swung around to look behind him at the ground they had covered since leaving the canyon, and was pleased that

he could see no sign of the canyons presence. They stood near the top of a low, timbered rise, more of an undulation in an unbroken sea of spruce and fir than a ridge, really, the ground rising another two hundred feet behind them to end in a rocky, somewhat open saddle that marked the low point between two nearby mountains. Einar was glad to see it, recognizing the spot from his previous days study of the map. He had a plan. And a problem. Well, several, but most pressing at the moment was the fact that he seemed increasingly unable to maintain any semblance of alertness, several times catching himself walking with his eyes closed and once actually running face-first into a tree before he woke. Liz had hurried to him that time, helped him up and asked him something that made very little sense, and hed found himself unable to string together enough words to ask her what on earth she had been talking about. Which seemed to worry her some, but what was he supposed to do about it? The world, when his eyes were open to see it, had taken on a strange, sharp edged look, crackling and shifting unpredictably around him, the ground rolling and heaving most inconsiderately and occasionally sending him sprawling in the rocks or, more to his liking, on the spruce duff, leaving him shaking his head and wondering what had happened. Hed been that tired before, but not often and the result had never been good. Seeing an overhanging ledge of rock in the slowly strengthening daylight he headed for it, dropping heavily to the ground beneath it. Time to stop for awhile. Gonna be leaving a trail a blind kitten could follow, wallowing around like this, and Huh? Blind kitten? Whats that suppose to mean? Tell me? Who knows, but its beside the point. Anyway, you sure dont want a bunch of them following you, right? He jumped when Liz sat down next to him and put her hand on his arm, realized he had been mumbling out loud and tried to apologize, but she just held the water bottle to his lips and took off his pack, telling him to lie down. Which he did without any argument. Dont make a firewhatever you do, dont make a fire now hope you know thathope Im saying this out loud in case you dont Einar was asleep almost instantly, or unconscious, Liz was not sure which, but she saw that he was cold, shaking despite the dry fleece jacket and poncho she had spread over him, and she feared that the early morning chill might be dangerous to him, as much blood as he had lost. She lay down beside him, pulling the jacket and poncho over herself, as well, wanting to add her warmth to the inadequate amount he seemed able to generate. She was tired also, having hiked all night, but knew that with a potential search so close behind one of them must stay awake. Eventually Einar stopped shivering, his breathing became more regular, and she rose, tucking the jacket in around him and climbing the rocky little pine covered rise up behind their shelter, wanting to watch and listen and get a feel for the place, for whether they were being followed. She thought not. Returning to the shelter of the ledge--stopping on the way to collect dome Oregon grape rootsshe brushed the spruce needles off of a large patch of rock, opening her pack and beginning to empty it. She expected that they would be there for a while, and it seemed wise to take inventory of the supplies they had between them. Not as many as she would have brought had she known how the day was to turn outguess a person should always expect that a day might turn out like thisbut, she supposed, a good bit more than Einar had been in possession of before.

Sheriff Watts, six of his deputies and three Mountain Rescue volunteers arrived first on the scene of the carnage in the meadow, using the Departments ATVs to negotiate the last mile or so of the muddy Forest Service road up to the trailhead, where they had to continue on foot due to the narrow, rocky nature of the lower portion of the trail. The FBI was not far behind them at the start, but most of the agents lacked experience on the slick mud of those roads, and their arrival on the scene was greatly delayed when the first federal vehicle in line got bogged down in the mud on a particularly steep hairpin curve. This led to an unfortunate confluence of circumstancesunfortunate for the agents, at least; these things always have two sidesin which the lead Suburban ended up sliding sideways as soon as its driver started back up the hill after getting it free of the worst of the mud, the right rear tire dropping over the edge of the rather precipitous bank below. The agents in the vehicles behind him watched in horror as the driver struggled without success to keep the truck from sliding further, shouting at him without avail to jump out as the Suburban lost its battle with gravity and went rolling down sixty five feet of very steep rocky bank to land on the next switchback down. Which, as it turned out, was at that moment occupied by another FBI vehicle which had just rounded the corner and whose eight occupants had no knowledge of the drama that was unfolding directly above them. Not that they would likely have had time to act, even with that knowledge. The resulting crash was quite impressive, the single track road not wide enough to halt the tumble of the first vehicle and its impact with the second sending it, as well, careening over the edge, both vehicles making a rapid and unconventional descent to the narrow, rocky bottom of the ravine, some two hundred feet further down. A third vehicle, moving more quickly than it ought to have been in a barely successful attempt to avoid bogging down in the mud, rounded the corner just after the impact occurred, its driver swerving sharply in an attempt to avoid the wreck, in a place where the unforgivingly narrow track left absolutely no room for error, let alone a wild swerve. There were trees immediately below the road in the spot where the last Suburban swerved, and they prevented its occupants from suffering a fate similar to those in the first two, leaving it precariously balanced with both front tires off the road, butted up against a stand of young and not especially well-rooted aspens, thoroughly blocking the narrow road. The three men inside barely dared breathe, let alone move, staring down at the two hundred feet of nearly vertical shale that lay below them, steam from the first crash gently rising in contrast with the water-dark rock, the ravine stark and black and looking like doom itself. The extrication of the trapped agents was a slow and delicate operation, the retrieval of the vehicle that blocked the road an even more time-consuming process that ended up involving the FBI, Sheriffs Deputies and the owner of a local jeep touring outfit who heard about the incident and showed up to assist. While the rescue and retrieval were taking place, two agents and later more Mountain Rescue volunteers who arrived on the scene rappelled down to the resting place of the two trucks that had gone over the edge, others who had remained up at the road putting the Clear Springs hospital on notice to be expecting up to ten major incoming traumas, sometime within the next hour. Only two of those beds were to be needed. One FBI vehicle that was ahead of the roadblock continued up to respond to the initial

incident, but the helicopters, even having to wait for the cloud deck to lift some, arrived on scene before any of the agents who were hiking in. Allan, having identified himself in his radio call to the Sheriff, waited near the scene for the arrival of the deputies, knowing that it would not look especially good that he was the first one on the scene, and that he was armed, but more concerned about the fact that Liz appeared to be missing, than anything. Watts, who knew and trusted Allan and had little doubt that the evidence would clear him of any involvement, took him into protective custody ahead of the FBIs arrival, not wanting them to get their hands on him. The Sheriff expected that there were going to be some serious jurisdictional conflicts in the investigation into the death of the agents. The incident had taken place in his county, on Forest Service land, in the middle of a Federal manhunt. It was going to be a mess, but after the way Susan had been treated, he had no intention of surrendering his friend Allan to the feds so that he could disappear without a trace for a few weeks or end up dead in his vehicle at some desolate rest stop.

Steve and Juni, sitting under the tree and reviewing the photos that Steve had captured, very quickly dismissed any possibility of continuing down into the canyon and finding their way out to a road on the trail that followed its floor. They were not entirely certain what they had just witnessedand captured on filmbut knew that it involved the beating of a handcuffed woman by three official-looking men, and had ended with two of those men falling over with what Juni immediately recognized in the moment-by moment images Steve had captured as Einars atlatl darts in them, a buckskin-clad man charging at the third with a spear. The rain had prevented them from seeing what happened next, but whoever had prevailed it seemed a very, very bad idea to walk down there with him still prowling about. If the pair had thought they had a breakthrough story before, they were now certain, though not entirely sure of its implications. In complete agreement that they must protect the interview and photos at all costs, they headed back up the gully they had descended to the canyon rim, Steve taking them in what he believed to be the general direction of the meadow where the rest of their gear waited for them, his improvised backpack-foam shoes wearing quickly on the rocky ground and soon falling to pieces.

Liz began her inventory of their gear with the small daypack that Einar had been wearing beneath the willow pack, puzzled by the presence of the freeze dried food, maps and especially the spiral notebook with Junis name and address on the last page. Have to ask him about this Not at the moment, though, as he was fast asleep and she had no intention of disturbing him. Instead, she unrolled the wolverine pelt that had been lashed to the top of the willow pack, adding it to the jacket and poncho that covered him. He still looked cold, huddling on the thin layer of spruce needles that she had been able to spread over the bare dirt before he fell asleep, his exhausted rest disturbed occasionally as his face contorted with pain and he shifted position in an attempt to find some relief. Liz

wanted to be able to clean out his wound and get a better look at it, but he had not allowed her to do so while they had been on the move, saying that he could not afford to risk having it start bleeding again and slowing them down. She knew better than to attempt any such thing while he slept, at least as long as a weapon was within his reach, and had to settle for keeping an eye on his vital signs as well as she could without disturbing him. His pulse was still fast and weak when she checked it, his breathing quite rapid, though he did seem to settle down and rest a bit easier when she sat with him, so she dragged her gear-sorting project over beside him and held his hand for a while as she worked. He felt feverish. After she had finished taking inventory of all three of the packssome of the things in Einars she had not even recognizedshe left him for a time, having been studying the maps and curious what she might be able to see from the ridge that rose rocky and partially open above them. She didnt know where Einar planned on going, did not know for sure if he even had a plan, but supposed that it would be helpful if she had an idea of the lay of the land. On the way up she found a large patch of Oregon grapes, stopping to collect a number of the roots and stash them in the agents near empty hydration pack, which she had brought along in case she found anything that looked useful. Reaching the rocky, open area at the top of the ridge she picked a large flat-topped rock just inside the aspens that lined its crest, spreading out the map and orienting it using a distant peak and the long, red-rocked ridge that ran high and broken in the other direction until it was lost from sight behind a nearby slope. She recognized that ridge as one she had often seen from Bill and Susans house above Culver Falls, only from there the view had been of the other side, and, she guessed, fifteen or twenty miles closer. Liz had brought the binoculars from Einars pack, and used them to study the hazy expanse of the ridge for a moment before returning her attention to the map, noticing the white half-circular bubble of the radar dome for the airport in Clear Springs, prominent despite the great distance. The sight somehow unsettled her, made her feel vulnerable and exposed, and she put the binoculars away and hurried to sit down on the ground beside the rock, out of sight of the dome. Which was when she heard it. The sound was so foreign on that remote rocky ridge, so out of place that at first it barely even registered, Liz scrambling the next moment to get into her pocket and silence her cell phone, which had apparently just made contact with a tower for the first time since she had left to go berry picking the morning before, and was informing her that she had voice mails. Liz quickly turned the phone off, pulled out the battery and stuck it in her pocket and sat there for a moment holding the dead phone and wondering how she could possibly have been so forgetful as to bring it with her in the first place, and to leave it on? She had completely forgotten about its presence. Scared, she folded up the map and hurried down the slope to Einar, hating to wake him after what couldnt have been even three hours of fitful sleep, but knowing that she must tell him what had happened, there was at least some chance that their location could have been given away, especially if more than one tower was in range. She did not know if it was. Einar had not moved in her absence except to toss off the jacket and wolverine hide, flopping over onto his back on the dirt beneath the ledge. He was unresponsive to her gentle attempts to wake him, finally rousing enough to stare at her for a moment with bright, fever-glazed eyes when she said

something about the FBI coming, mumbling a few barely coherent words about getting further up under the ledge before he dropped off to sleep again. She grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted, speaking insistently. Einar, listen. The cell phone. I think they may know where we are! He sat bolt upright then, grimacing, his hand going to his side. What? What did you say? She repeated it and he struggled to his feet, collapsed back to the ground and sat there staring intently at her, clearly alarmed and wide awake. Youretrying to tell me that you have a cell phone with you? And its been on all this time? Einar Im sorry. Theres no coverage down in the valley, and I didnt even think Well, its done now. You turned it off, right? Immediately. He was quiet, thinking, leaning back on the cool rock wall behind him and fighting to remain upright despite the waves of dizziness and the hot, confused feeling in his head. He supposed the nearly inevitable infection must have begun setting in. If they drop people in here on the ridge anytime soon, Im done. Slow as Im moving there wont be time to do more than find a good place to hunker down, make sure both pistols are handy, send Liz away and wait. Itd be OK with medoubt I have more than a day or two left anyway, the way this fevers goingbut the fool girl probably wouldnt leave. Wont do. Got to find a way to slow them down so we can get away. Liz, we may not have much time. Minutes. Where are those extra magazines? I need you to help me unload them, pull the bullets, collect all the powder real quick. And if you got gloves in that medical kit, wear them. I dont want your prints on any of this. Need those radios too, and if you have a flashlight, headlamp, anything like that... She got the magazines, and emptied her pack in front of him so he could go through its contents and find what he needed. First youre going to let me look at that wound real quick, and Im going to give you some more oregano oil. Einar nodded, sat back down.

Einar agreed to allow Liz to tend to his injury, but only after she brought him the maps to look at while she worked. The wound itself did not look too bad when Liz got the bandage off and cleaned it out with some water she had prepared in one of the bottles by adding a number of drops of iodine shortly after they had first stopped, just a small slit below his last rib on the left. There was some bruising and inflammation around the wound, but most worrisome to her was the large area of purple and black discoloration below it. She gently felt the area. Einar, you should have let me look at this sooner.

He didnt answer, was studying a folded section of the map intently, his face drawn and grey, appearing to be in a good bit of pain. Does it hurt when I press here? Some. She carefully pressed other areas of his stomach, finding that only the left side below the wound was tender. If it is infected, looks like it isnt widespread yet. Here. Have some more of the oregano oil. And how do you prepare that Oregon grape stuff? Ill get some ready for you. Best is to boil it, concentrate it. No time for that. Ill just chew on the roots. She brought him a root, helped him sit up. Liz supposed that his internal bleeding must have stopped or at least slowed, but it seemed that blood and fluid had collected around and below the wound, and she knew it needed to come out, lest it provide a good environment for the growth of bacteria. She wished they were somewhere safe where she could keep him still for a few days, let the wound drain, give him plenty to eat and see that he rested. She knew that even then, his chances of infection were pretty high. No chance of that, anyway. Just have to do what we can. I think we need to find a way to let this drain. Now I have a couple of nasal airways in my kit. She handed him one of the packets. I was thinking maybe one of them would work. At least theyre sterile Einar grimaced, not wanting to delay their departure any further and not looking forward to having her tamper with the wound but knowing that she was probably right. He knew that the fever was almost certainly a sign of infection, and that his only chance was to stop it before it became widespread, which could happen quite rapidly with the type of injury he supposed he had suffered. OK. Probably a good idea. Arent you supposed to poke another hole or something, lower down, to drain things like this? I guess that would work best, but considering the circumstancesit seems like a bad idea. He nodded in agreement, handed back the sterile packet with its several inch long silicone tube. Guess we could duct tape this thing in, put a dressing over it, tape a plastic bag or something around the wide end to catch the drainage and keep dirt out. Might work. Liz cleaned the area again, got a gauze dressing ready to put over top of it and found a new, unused pint ziplock bag in her pack, donning gloves and opening the packaging on the airway, careful not to let in come in contact with anything but the inside of its wrapper, and her gloves. She taped the bag securely to the fluted end of the airway tube, coated the other end with antibiotic ointment, and searched in her medical kit until she found some Benadryl-type antihistamine liquid gel caps, breaking one open and squeezing the contents around the wound. Hey, whoa, whats that for? Einar asked, not liking that she had done it without asking him first.

Relax. Itll help numb things up a little, wont hurt so much when we put this tube in. He nodded a bit grudgingly and insisted on inserting the tube himself, waiting a minute to allow the gel to take effect, narrowing his eyes and concentrating on breathing through the pain. Liz used some medical tape to hold the tube in place once he had got it in, and duct taped the bag to his side below the wound. He lay down for a couple of minutes after that at Lizs insistence, studying the map again and glad when he checked and found a bit of red-tinged fluid to be making its way into the bag. Huh. Looks like its gonna work. He sat up, seeing that Liz, still wearing the gloves, had emptied all of the pistol magazines, making a neat pile of the rounds. She had also found another plastic bag to put the powder in. Crawling over to her, he began pulling the bullets, using a pair of hemostats from her medical bag and chewing on an Oregon grape root as he worked. Why dont you put five rounds each back in these two, he said, handing her two of the empty mags, so well still have something if we need it. Collecting all the powder from the others and dumping it on the cardboard back of the notepad Juni had given him, Einar took a rounded chunk of deer leg bone from his pack, and began carefully rubbing and grinding the powder finer, wanting to end up with dust, or something close to it. Dont let a gust of wind comeplease dont let a wind come! Finishing and returning the powder to its bag, he gave Liz the pile of bullets. These need to go in another bag. Some of them, anyway. He held up the lid to her steel cooking pot. See this lid? What we want is a bag of bullets, one layer deep and all facing up, thats as close to the size and shape of the inside of this lid as we can get it. Use the lighter to melt the corners of the bag so you end up with a rough circle, put the bullets in, then youre gonna cut a round piece of cardboard out of the back of this notebook, and tape the bullet bag to it. Need to end up with cardboard on both sides, and we need to be able to shove it down into the inside of this lid when its done. OK? Liz said she understood, and got started modifying the bag, but stopped and retrieved some food from her pack. Einar was sweating badly, swaying and seeming to have a difficult time staying upright, and she was concerned about him. First, can you eat something? You really need to eat. Einar knew it was true, but between the fever and the nausea that he had been progressively experiencing as the day went on, he could manage no more than a bite or two. He handed the bag back to her, shook his head. Then see if you can drink, at least. She added some of the Tang mixture from her pack to a bottle of water and gave it to him, worried about the sunken appearance of his face and the dull, distant look in his eyes that morning. Youre not going to be moving very fast, if you dont drink something. He took it, did his best to finish it while she sat there with him, handing her back the half empty bottle when he could stomach no more. Lizyou really dont need toworry so much. None of this in new. Wellexcept for the hole in my belly, I guess. But the rest of it He shrugged. Been dealing with most of this for months. Sometimes theres food, sometimes not, night has meant a lot of shivering and not too much sleep sometimes, Ive been sick and banged up a lot, but Im still here. What we got to worry about now is how soon theyre coming, and if we can get this thing set up and get out of here in time. Now help me get this done, and Ill tell

you the plan. Einar took the pot lid and Lizs multitool, bending and modifying the lid so that it could be shoved tightly down into the pot, top side down, creating a very tight seal. He then took the conventional bulb from her headlampit had one conventional and two LEDs and carefully broke and removed the glass, punching a hole in the bottom of the steel pot just barely large enough to pull the wire through without stripping off its insulation. He then made a small hole in the powder bag, carefully inserted the bulb filament and eased the bag down into the bottom of the pot, securing it with a few pieces of tape. Liz, I want you to stand back for this next part. If it goes wrong, its gonna go real wrong. Go on over behind that big spruce, get down low and dont come out till you hear the pounding stop. If it goes wrong, well he grinned up at her, you can have the wolverine hide! And all of my pemmican. Liz hurried off behind the tree, mumbling something about how shed kill him herself, if he did anything more to harm himself. She didnt think he could hear her but he had, replying that there would almost certainly be no need for her to go to any such trouble, if things went wrong. You wont be likely to find any pieces big enough to get mad at, so dont even bother. Einar pressed the modified steel lid down into the pot, leaving very little space between its bottom and the bulb holder and powder bag, tapping gently with a rock at the raised lip of the lid in an attempt to get a very tight fit. He wasnt feeling especially dexterous, was still a little dizzy, and knew that one false move, one misaimed whack of the rock could end everything, or leave him mangled badly enough that he might wish it had. Please guide my hands. The lid finally in place to his satisfaction, he gave Liz the all clear, and she came out from behind the tree in time to see him pressing the flat, cardboard-sandwiched bag of bullets down into the pot and taping it in place, just on top of the upturned lid. He showed the odd-looking device to Liz. OK. Now all we need is to find the right spot where we can shove this into a little cavity in a rock face, pack it tight with rocks all around it so all of the energy goes forward, and well have it! Front towards enemy! And theyll be following a lot slower than they were before, a lot more carefully. Maybe well have a chance. Ill rig the radio when we get there. Now come on. I been looking at the map, and I see where we need to go for this to work. First, though, he had a small surprisemore a delay tactic than anythingto leave behind near the ridge, in case anyone ended up in their current location looking for them.

Steve and Juni were far from the canyon by the time they heard the first helicopter. Juni was all for heading back to the canyon rim and, the rain having diminished some, trying to get photos of the additional activity. Steve very quickly nixed the idea, or his participation in it at least. He knew it would be a big mistake to try and forbid Juni from doing anything, but hoped she would see the sense in his refusal. For one thing I really dont think my feet need another trip back across all those rocks. Look at these foam sandals! Theyre coming to pieces already, and we still have at least

half the trip ahead of us. Now if I get crippled and cant find out way back down to that meadow and our GPS and all, do you really think youre going to be able to find it? Juni rolled her eyes. I dont, like, have a sense of direction Steve, and you know it! Were sticking together. Your feet will be OK. I just thought if we could get some shots of those helicopters, of whatever theyre doing down there Thats the other thing! Steve shot back. You do realize that your interview subject just killed two men down there, dont you? Probably federal agents. And if the third one shot him, or if they catch up him later, theyre going to find your address and a bunch of gear with our fingerprints on it in his pack! So the last thing I want to do is go anywhere near that canyon again, at this point. Lets go. And they went, Juni agreeing with him and not wanting to do anything to endanger her story and the photos on Steves camera. Sure hope Einar got away, though It was after dark when Steve and Juni reached the meadow and retrieved their camera and GPS gear, the sky beginning to pale with morning again by the time they reached their car at the trailhead, relieved to find their vehicle undisturbed, no SWAT team waiting to apprehend them. Steve was especially relieved. The foam sandals had given out before he reached the meadow, and though he had tried to protect his feed by tying his jacket around one and inserting the other in a camera bag, he had eventually been forced to give this up as too cumbersome after the third bad fall, and was limping badly by the time they reached the trailhead, the soles of his feet a mass of lacerations and bruises. He stretched out on the back seat, letting Juni drive.

Choosing a spot near a stand of thick brushmostly wild rose and gooseberryEinar took the small coil of snare wire from the one of the survival kits that had been in the dead agents pockets, unrolled a few feet of it and attached an end to one of the spare magazines, dropping the mag a few feet from the ledge where he had sheltered, running the wire around behind a tree, kicking at the ground behind the tree to give it a slightly disturbed appearance and scattering a few small clods of damp dirt on top of the spruce needles, as if someone had been digging beneath them. He then covered the wire lightly with duff, lightly enough, he hoped, that anyone who saw it would approach with extreme caution and leave the search unable to proceed until the area had been checked out and rendered safe. Einar knew that the false alarm, and any others he might manage to arrange between their current location and the real trap, should, in addition to slowing the search, cause the agents to let their guard down a bit and perhaps not take the real deal as seriously as they otherwise might have. Better get out of here now. They could show up any time. Einar led the way up and over the ridge, following a course he had pieced together while studying the map, moving as quickly as he could and paying little attention to concealing his trail. Twice more along the way he stopped to lay false trapsa bit of trip wire leading to nothing, a branch pulled back at an odd angle and held with a bit of cordwondering how many false

alarms it would take before the agents relaxed their vigilance a bit. It was a good thing that Einar was concentrating so hard on the plan he had developed, on its minute details and all of its possible variations, because without it to keep his mind in gear, he would have found it very difficult indeed to keep going just then. His lack of sleep had seriously caught up to him despite the brief rest under the ledge, a continuing nausea that prevented him from eating much leaving his body seriously unable to begin rebuilding from the heavy blood loss that it had suffered. The improvised wound drain seemed to be working, though, the bag nearly full when he stopped for the first break, having to be emptied again the next time they stopped, and though he was glad that it seemed to be a success, the amount of fluid that he was losing worried him a bit. Thats probably a big part of why Im having so much trouble staying alert right now. Finishing the water in his canteen in two big gulps, he asked Liz if she had any more, and she handed him the remainder of the Tang water she had earlier prepared, glad that he finally seemed to be taking some interest in seeing that he got enough, because he certainly is the most bullhead, intractable fool of a man that I have ever met, otherwise. Even when it comes to matters that directly affect his continued existence. Though I guess he must eventually get around to realizing that something has to be doneprobably at the last minute each time, from what Ive seen of himbecause he is, as he continually points out, still here. The fluid revived him some, but its effect was fleeting, the fog of confusion soon descending on him as heavily as ever, and Einar knew that he was fast approaching a time when he would have to stop and get more sleep, or risk getting them into serious trouble with his lack of focus. Sure hope I can stay with it long enough to get this trap set up, anyway. Got to do that, at least, if were making it out of this. And he rose, continued up the slope with Liz at his side as she had been in so many of his dreams and half-conscious wakeful wanderings over the past year, and it struck him as cruelly ironic that while so many of those times he had wished her presence real rather than a product of his starved, exhausted mind, her actual presence and the responsibility it brought terrified him as little else ever had. She seemed to sense his dismay, took his hand and helped him over a particularly troublesome, unbalanced patch of the scree field they were crossing. After some time they reached the spot he had picked out on the map, an area where a broken and rugged face of granite rose spruce-topped and gnarly some thirty feet up off the forest floor, two relatively open, treeless gullies acting as natural access points to channel searchers into the area. Here, this is the place, he told Liz, and immediately got started inspecting the base of the escarpment. Walking around the base he reached an area where the ground dropped sharply away below, a series of rock ledges jutting out over open space. He crawled beneath one of them, studied the rock above and beside it, and knew he had found the spot he had been seeking.

When the agents finally began arriving on scene at the meadow they insisted on questioning Allan, which Sheriff Watts allowed, demanding only that he be present for the interview. Allan, concerned for Liz, told them everything he knew about what had transpired that day, but left out the fact that he suspected Liz had been meeting Einar. That was just speculation, and, he was quite sure, not a piece of information that would

help her when she did show back up. Aside from that, he would have gladly told them. Allan found himself caring less and less about what happened to Einar, even wishing at times that the man would be killed or captured, and soon, so the feds would leave and life could begin getting back to normal. He was tired of the uncertainty, the constant strain of having his town occupied and his friends under surveillance, tired of having to worry about Liz and wonder if she was putting herself at risk by meeting with the subject of the search, clearly a dangerous man under the circumstances, if he had not been before. He voluntarily gave the agents Lizs cell number, explaining that while he did not know if she had the phone with her, she usually did carry it. He also told them that it was unlike her to wander off for so long when she had told him she was going out to pick berries, that he was concerned something might have happened to her. There was, or course, no reception down on the canyon floor, so Allan had not been able to try calling her since becoming concerned about her whereabouts. Allan was with the Sheriff near the hastily erected crime scene tent the agents had set up in the waterlogged meadow when a member of the security detail that had been with the tracker returned with two samples from what was believed to be a blood drop, found on a tree-protected rock near the creek. The tracker, having no solid leads and thinking the creek one likely avenue of escape from the scene, had started out by slowly walking its banks, illuminating first one side then the other with a blacklightfinding quite a bit of spent brass near the bodies of the agents, they though it a reasonable assumption that they were likely looking for an injured and bleeding suspectin in the growing gloom of the rainy evening, spotting the blood drop mere feet up the bank from the creek, preserved from the rainfall by an overhanging evergreen branch. FBI field analysts quickly did a series of tests on the substance, determining it to be blood from a male subject, type A positive. While they could not identify the source of the blood in the field, its type certainly did match that of their prime suspect. The second of the two samples was hastily flown to the FBI Field Office in Clear Springs for DNA analysis. The blood evidence, combined with the shard of animal bone they found in the neck of one of the dead agents and the fact that boots and items of clothing had been taken, left the searchers with a reasonable certainty that they were dealing with Einar Asmundson. When Allan heard the agents discussing that possibility, he approached them and expressed his concern that Liz might have been kidnapped or otherwise harmed by the fugitive. Allan, after all, did not know Einar personally, did not know what he was capable of, but if the apparently unprovoked slaughter of the three agents that morning was any indication, he certainly could not be trusted with Lizs safety. As much as he hated the federal occupation, the abuse of his friends and the way the search had been handled, Allan was beginning to see it as the lesser of two evils. With the disappearance of Liz and what he suspected to be Einars involvement, he found himself increasingly willing to aid in resolving the manhunt once and for all. Taking leave of the Sheriff, he walked over to the FBI tent to offer them whatever he could to help further their investigation and bring the manhunt to an end. It was, he told himself, the best thing he could do for Liz, and for all involved.

Einar got the trap set up, carefully placing the modified cooking pot in a crevice in the rock which he had enlarged slightly to accept it, jamming in a thin chip of granite to hold it in place and working quickly to wire in the radio, using a length of wire stripped from Lizs headlampit was one of the models that has a belt-clip battery packto complete the electronic portions of the device, taping the radio to the slender trunk of a stunted aspen that grew out of a crevice in the rock and concealing it with a branch. He waited to connect the wires that would link the bulb filament and radioand insisted on removing the batteries from the other radio while he did itwanting to minimize chances of an accident. It was beginning to look like rain, and Einar knew he needed to hurry. He glanced up at the nearby ridge where he meant to hunker down and detonate the trap, its fringe of evergreens outlined against an increasingly angry sky. Hope Im not just bringing down unnecessary trouble on us by doing this. Dont even know for sure that they were watching for the phone, dont know they picked it updont know. When I turn it back on to bait this thing, I may just be shouting out our location to them, when they had no idea before. Dont know. So I got to assume theyre on their way right now. Watching the weather and picturing the contours or the map, the details of Einars plan had begun crystallizing in his mind as he worked, disjointed but on their way to being a blueprint for action, the thought occurring to him that if everything came together just righttiming, weather, the movements of the pursuers and the successful execution of the trap, they just might be able to make a clean break out of the area. Finding himself suddenly dizzy, the world going black and closing in around him, Einar sank to his knees, leaning on his spear, which, even since obtaining the pistol, he kept with him at all times, praying that the weather would work against our enemies, confuse our pursuers and frustrate their efforts to destroy us. He stayed there for a minute waiting for the blackness to begin clearing, and as it slowly left the splintered fragments of the plan that had been floating around in his head coalesced into something real, believable, almost as if he was seeing a picture of what was to happen, clear as day before his bleary eyes. We may yet make it out of this one. The wind was picking up just a bit, unsettled and gusty as it whispered through the topmost leaves of a band of nearby aspens, setting them to rustling. Einar got to his feet, set up the false-alarm tripwire with which he hoped to convince his pursuers that there was nothing in the area to be too concerned about, and scrambled up into the rocks to place the cell phone, turning it on and securing it in a fork in some brush, checking to see that it had a signal. Just before leaving he set the candle from Lizs pack under the ledge in the area of the trap, also lighting one of the hexamine tablets and hoping that the combined heat might be enough to provide an interesting signature as it leaked out from under the rock. Alright Liz. Time to go. Would be real good if we made our tracks scarce from here onno more pulling up yarrow or Oregon grapes for awhile. Carefully, they worked their way up the steep slope above and to the right of the rock face, Einar aiming for the open area near its top where he had estimated that they would be nearly a mile from the escarpment where the trap waited, but would still have a clear line of sight. Partway up the ridge he began hearingperhaps even feeling, as Liz showed no sign of hearing it, at firstthe distant rumble of a helicopter, glancing at her

and telling her to follow him in a hurry as he headed for some rocks that rose in a jumbled, mossy band several dozen yards above them. They reached the rocks out of breath a minute later, Einar nearly frantic with concern that they would be caught out on the scantily treed slope and seen, diving between two rock slabs that leaned against each other and pulling themselves into the crevice created by the jumble. The chopper was near, but Einar was confident that they had concealed themselves in time to avoid detection. He let his forehead rest on the ground, closed his eyes for a minute. This is because of the cell phone, isnt it? Liz whispered, easing the willow pack off her back and shoving it into a corner, retrieving a water bottle and handing it to Einar. Einar nodded, still fighting for breath, gulped the water. Must befrom the first time you turned it on. May have zeroed in on the signal from the trap, but it seems too soon. If they landsoon as they landwe need to get up the rest of this slope. Too low here for the radio to work. In addition to the remaining FRS radio they had the dead agents radio, but nothing had come over it in some time, and Einar supposed they would have changed frequencies and encryption codes as soon as they discovered that the radio had been taken. The chopper was turning, wheeling, he heard the distinctive hammering of tilted rotors, circling for the kill, they think, circling like a vulture waiting for me to diewell, they got another thing comingI hope. Minutes passed, Liz could see that Einar, despite his wide open eyes and an expression of focused concentration as he listened to the circling aircraft, was having a hard time staying in the present, his glazed eyes and drawn features worrying her a bit, but it seemed that he possessed some mysterious reserve of energy whose source often puzzled her, but that he was always able to draw on when enough was at stake. Dont like the way theyre circling. Its cool today, theres a chance theyve seen us. If they bypass the traps, start up heresee those rocks down there? He indicated a cluster of stark grey boulders that stood over near the dark timber, not far below their hide. She nodded If I tell you to run, you head for those, keep low, down in that little draw, go on up into the dark timber and do not come back. Dont wait around to see why I said run. Ive got the pistol, five rounds, Ill keep their attention long enoughtheyll probably never even know you were here. Then you just find your way out to the road. He pressed the bag with the map and compass into her hand. Keep this in your pocket. Liz didnt answer, and he could see that she did not much like his idea. Liz, he fixed her with his fevered glaze, wouldnt look away. Ive got to know that youll do this. Finally she nodded. Ill do it. Suddenly the pitch of the rumbling changed and Einar squirmed forward to get a better listen, unable to see the chopper but knowing that it was hovering, descending, landing somewhere in the vicinity of the ridge where Lizs phone had first made contact. On the ridge. Got to be on the ridge. Nowhere else open enough. That puts a whole bunch of timber between them and us. He looked back at Liz. Go. Next group of rocks. They scrambled up the slope from one area of cover to the next, finally reaching the spot he had chosen for the hide, settled in and waited, Einar

studying the baited escarpment through Steves binoculars. He supposed it could take a good bit of time for the searchers to work their way through the three false alarms he had set up for them, up the gully and to the rock face where the real surprise awaited them. It was alright. He could wait. Looked forward to the wait, actually, to a bit of stillness and some rest, if not sleep. Maybe after an hour or so of that, Ill actually be able to get up and cover some good ground in a hurry. Got to, if this is going to work. Well over two hours passed as Einar and Liz lay in the rocks just below the crest of the ridge, the sky growing heavy with cloud and a restless wind, colder as morning passed into afternoon, gusting among the tree tops. They heard nothing, saw no sign of the men down below, and several times Einar nearly had himself convinced that they should abandon the trap, make distance while they could in case the men had managed to bypass all of their distractions, and were even then tracking them up the slope, but he managed to keep himself still, very much doubting the likelihood of any such thing. After an hour or so of lying still in the rocks he had started to grow awfully cold, shaking too badly to keep the binoculars steady, and Liz took over the watch, assuring him that she would let him know as soon as she saw anything and giving him her jacket. Einar let his head heavy with fever despite the coldrest on the ground then, hoping to gather up a bit of strength for whatever was to come next, and he spoke very quietly to Liz as they waited, knowing that sound could carry far in high places like that, but confident that the timber should keep their hushed voices from being heard by pursuers that werehe hopedat least a mile distant. Liz, if this works, Im gonna do something different. See, I always go uptheyll expect me to go up. Now if it rains like Im hoping, they wont be able to get dogs started. I think we need to skirt around this whole area, find a draw and head down, walk out and cross the highway. Itll be about nine miles, by the map, but we can do it. That would be unexpected, would throw them off. And he added silently, it would get me on the right side of the highway to start working my way back over near my old stomping groundsplace I lived before all this mess started He wanted to tell her all about it, about his plan and the hope he had for the coming winter, but held back, as part of that plan involved ensuring she wasnt with him when he went, and he thought it best she know nothing of what he intended to do after they parted. Yeahhad a place over there, little cabin I built myself from timber off the property, ten acresway up in the woods, in the aspens, had a little spring and a cisterngarden in the clearing out frontpotatoes did pretty good, even up that high, beets, strawberries, a few othersquite a view from that front deck, too, especially in the fall when the aspens all went gold and sunlight came through the leaves and turned everything to gold for as far as you could see, gold with bands of black evergreens, backed up by those sawtoothed peaks white with the first snow, sky looking almost purple behind themcan never go back there of course, Im sure theyve got it monitored somehow, but a few miles up further in the hills from it Ive got some stuff stashed, and more a little further out than that. Itll have to be done carefully, but I think it can be donewish you could come with me, but you cantkinda wish youd come along before all this started, actually, cause I think youd have liked the cabinIll hope to leave them behind once and for all

after this, and maybe I still have time to get ready for winter, give myself a chance of making it through. Einar did not realize until Liz jabbed him in the ribs and pressed the binoculars into his hand that he had not simply been daydreaming, but sleeping, and he quickly shook the haze of sleep from his eyes and scanned the valley, finding the granite outcropping and seeing that three or four agents were gathered near the ledge that held the trap, precariously balanced on the steep slope and apparently inspecting the tripwire that he had left as a decoy. Einar stood, leaning on a tree, and clicked on the FRS radio, holding down the talk button. Surprise. The results were muffled by distance and the timber, but they both heard the sound, and Einar figured that the device had done its job, knew he was very fortunate that it had gone off at all, with all the factors that could have intervened to cause failure. Finding the spot once again with the binoculars he saw that no agents remained on the slope outside the ledge, knew they did not have time to wait around and try to discover exactly what had happened. It will slow them, regardless. Now to go, move, leave them far behind before they can get on our trail. Thunder was grumbling in the distance, a thin drizzle beginning to fall as they gathered up their gear and started off into the timber, and Einar paused briefly in a little clearing to turn his face to the stormwind. For the rain, thank You, and for bringing confusion to our enemies. The chopper was leaving, getting out ahead of the storm, and in the wind they heard it mere seconds before it was on top of them.

Diving beneath a tree and pressing themselves up against its trunk as the chopper passed low overhead, Einar hoped they had not been seen, thought not, judging by the fact that the chopper continued on its course without circling back around or hovering over their position, and he supposed that they might be engaged in a rather urgent evacuation, depending on how effective his trap had been. One thing was certain. With the increasingly stormy weather, it was unlikely that an air search was in the immediate future, which would be a huge advantage when it came to them being able to move freely and make good time out of the area. The heavy rain also ensured that tracking dogs would not be a good option for their pursuers. Waiting until the thumping of the helicopter died out in the stormy distance, Liz stood and unrolled her rain jacket from its stuff sack in her pack, offering it to Einar and when he refused it, helping him into the flimsy plastic emergency poncho from the agents pack. She also tried to convince him to take her rain pants, telling him that theyll be a little short, but should fit you, otherwise, but he insisted that she keep them, explaining that the poncho was far more than hed had before, and would be plenty. Which it wasnt, really, but he was too fatigued from lack of sleep to notice much when his lower half quickly ended up soaked by the blowing rain, too intent on making good their escape and carefully choosing their route to minimize the sign they would be leaving. He was grateful for the rain and the increasingly bitter wind, not just because they precluded an immediate air search but also because he was finding it easier to stay alert with the icy blast in his face. The rain and wind increased as they worked their way around behind the rocky

outcropping where the trap had been, keeping a good mile or more back above it in the timber as they traveled in a rough half circle and dropped down into a minor canyon that he had picked out on the map, and which would, in time, lead them out to the highway. Einar, beyond exhausted, forced himself to keep up a good pace mile after mile, knowing that they had to take full advantage of the storm to leave their pursuers far behind and work their way down lower and out to the highway, hopefully crossing it eventually and leaving the area entirely. Liz found the sheltera large dry space back beneath an overhanging rock wall in the canyonand led Einar to it, insisting that he come and take a look. He was all for going on and covering more distance, but Liz could tell that he was close to dropping in his tracks from exhaustion. He had not let her check, but she was pretty sure from the times she had grabbed his hand to help him over obstacles or aid him in rising when he fell that his fever had gone up, leaving him sweating and taking off his poncho in the rain one minute, walking with his face upturned as he sought the cooling relief of the icy downpour, shaking and freezing and badly regretting his wet clothes the next. Several times she had tried to talk him out of taking the poncho off, even coming up behind him once and trying to pull the hood back up when she saw that his hair was being drenched, but he had brushed her off, growling something about it being an awfully hot day, though his chattering teeth told a different story. Liz knew Einar needed a break, needed to be dry and warm for awhile and, more than anything, needed sleep, and with the storm continuing unabated and at least five miles behind them according to the map, she worked hard to convince him that it was safe to stop for awhile. Einar eventually relented when Liz insisted that she needed a break, allowing himself to be led into the shelter of a high overhang and sitting down heavily on the dry, dusty ground beneath the overhang, watching as the rain fell heavy and wind-driven outside, dripping and pouring in great streams from the top of the ledge that protected them. It was still light, but the day was clearly near spent, dusk arriving early under the heavy cloud cover. His eyes drifted closed. Liz was speaking to him, and he fought to open his eyes, focus on her words. I want to make a fire so you can get warm, Einar. It should be raining hard enough for a fire to be safe, right? He shook the water out of his hair, fumbled at the dripping and somewhat brush-damaged plastic poncho and finally got it off, draping it over a nearby rock and setting the Spam can out in one of the streams of falling water to fill. Yeahfires OK. Ever done one with a bow and drill? No, but Ive got matches, lighters, a ferro rod and Well, suppose you lost all that stuff, he laughed a little, gave her a rueful grin, and needed a fire pretty bad? It happens. Thats a good point, and Id like you to show me, but not this time. Right now you just need to get warm, and I want to boil up some of that stronger Oregon grape solution you

told me about. Im concerned about your fever. He laughed again, leaving Liz even more convinced that the fever, lack of sleep or some combination must really be getting to him, and reassured her that Im alright. This is just my normal state lately, Im afraid. If youre concerned about the feverjust hide my dry clothes so I cant change into them, kick me out there in the wind, and the hypothermia will soon balance out the fever. Einar, thats not funny. He seemed to think it was, though, and she was sorely tempted to grab a stick and whack the sickly grin off his face, see if she couldnt knock some sense into him. Instead, she brought him his dry clothes. Which he refused to change into, until she got a friction fire started. In my pack Ive got a spindle and fireboard Ive used a bunch of times, and a bearing block thatll look like part of a deer shoulder bone with a hole worn into the socket. Which is what it is. He was seized by a spell of violent shivering then that precluded speech for a minute, after which he continued. If youre lucky, everything may have stayed dry Go find a sorta springy branch for the bow, string it with some paracord. Ill show you what to do from there. Just pretend its really urgent that you get a fire going in the next ten or fifteen minutes. Thatll help your concentration Pretend? She stormed out in search of a springy branch. It is urgent, you stubborn old fool! Youre sitting here with an out of control infection, delirious and frozen half to death and acting like this is all a big joke. I cannot imagine how youve lasted this long out here, if this is your normal state! Liz returned with the branch and a heap of dry sticks for firewood to find somewhat to her relief that Einar had collapsed on the dusty ground, and she hastily began building a fire, thinking that she was to be spared the lengthy lesson and could go ahead and use a lighter to get the fire going quickly so Einar could start warming up. He sat up, though, as soon as she finished laying the fire, surprising her once again with his absurd! resilience. Good. Ready to get started? You know, you really are impossible! Dont you care whether you live? I am alive, Liz. Plan tostay that way for a while, too, if I can. Nowyou ever gonna make this fire? She quickly strung the fire bow with a length of paracord, set the fireboard on a piece of spruce bark and began inspecting the bearing block and spindle. Einar showed her how to make a finely shredded nest of dry, shreddy aspen inner bark from his pack, and she set it on another slab of bark to be ready when she got a coal. Which Ive got to do, and quickly, the way hes looking. Demonstrating the proper position and technique for operating the drill as well as he could with his injuries, Einar sat back and watched as Liz gave it her best effort, ending up with smoke in less than a minute, but losing her first coal when she forgot to keep the spindle straight in her excitement, sending it flying

across the dusty ground, overturning the fireboard. Several tries later she had smoke again, carefully working until Einar crawled over and said it looked ready before tapping the coal into the prepared fire bundle, holding it in her hands and gently blowing to bring it to flame. After some tensefor her, anywaymoments when she thought she was going to lose the coal, the nest bloomed with orange, and Liz looked up over the flames at Einar, delighted, both of them sharing a brief moment in which they wished they could remain together, wished the circumstances were just a bit different. Einar broke eye contact after a few seconds, looked away a bit wistfully. Well. Too bad it cant go that way She set the fire bundle down under the prepared pyramid of sticks, and they watched as it slowly climbed up through the dry spruce. Now will you please let me get you into some dry clothes? Sure would be good. Didnt know if you were ever gonna get that fire going, he joked, his voice a mock lament. Great job though, really. Have been times when it took me an awful lot longer than that to get flame. Yeah, but you probably had a broken hip or a torn up arm or something at the time, she retorted, setting the Spam can, by then overflowing with water, near the fire to begin heating. Before long the small fire was well established and putting out a good bit of heat, situated three or four feet out from the back wall of the shelter, Einar leaning back on the wall as Liz tended the heating water and pulled an assortment of freeze dried meals out of Steve and Junis pack, handing him an Oregon grape root to chew while she worked. Ill make you some of that boiled down solution after we eat, but you can get started with this. Nowdo you want Sweet and Sour Chicken, Beef Stroganoff or Vegetarian Pasta, cause it looks like those are the choices. Really good choices, Id saythough Im wondering where you got this stuffand Im pretty hungry, so I know you must be. Einar, warmer in his dry clothes and the radiant heat of the fire, had fallen fast asleep with the untouched Oregon grape root in his hand as she sorted through the food and described the options to him, so she settled on the beef stroganoff. After setting another can of water with some broken up Oregon grape roots to heat she held the steaming food under his nose for a minute, and was finally able to rouse him enough to take a few bites and drink some of the tea before he fell asleep again. Finishing the dinner, Liz pulled Einar a bit closer to the fire, laying him on his back so that the wound could hopefully continue draining as he slept, and draped the wolverine hide and her coat over him. Several times she went out into the night to collect wood, keeping the little fire going and working to dry their wet clothes and socks, and her bootsEinar, half asleep when she had asked him, had insisted on keeping his boots firmly attached to his feet, wet or not. Finally, having gone well over thirty six hours without sleep herself and knowing that she needed some, Liz let the fire die down, loaded everything back into the packs, put her own partially dried boots back on, and lay down to sleep, eventually crawling over and

curling up against Einar, who had rolled over onto his right side and was shivering again, huddling against the damp chill that had quickly pervaded the place in the fires absence, trying apparently without success to stay warm. They slept that way for several hours before Einar rolled over and dragged himself to his knees, retreating to a far corner and staring out at the stormy blackness outside the shelter, looking for guidance, trying to decide how he was to persuade Liz that they must part ways upon reaching the highway.

Einar had not been sitting there long before he heard Liz stirring, found his way back over to the fire by looking for the faint glow of the dying coals out of the corner of his eye, and sat down. The sleep had helped; he was feeling a good bit steadier, if not as alert as he would have liked. We should go soon. Only four or five miles out to the highway, and itd be good to cross before it really gets light. Do you know what day it is? He heard her sit up. Saturday. Why? The highway. Wont be as many commuters out early this morning as there would be on a weekday, so thats good. He was silent for a minute, taking off his boots and donning his socks, which had nearly managed to dry, lowering his head until a wave of dizziness passed and the hissing in his ears subsided. Lizis there anybody down there you trust, anybody you could stay with until the feds decide not to bother with you? They must not have had anything to charge you with before yesterday, or they would have. She tossed a few sticks on the fire, stirred it to life and used its flickering orange light to find the partially finished can of berberine solution, handing it to Einar. Drink this. Yes, I was staying with Susan, and it was safe up there. The Sheriff had a deputy watching the place sometimes since the feds ran us off the road, and five or six guys from Bill and Susans group were staying up there for security. But that was before. If they found something to connect me with what happened down there You tell them I kidnapped you. You were up in that meadow picking berries, happened along as I was shooting the last guy, I saw you and held the gun on you, made you come along. Tell them I stole your cell phone and a bunch of your gear, tell them whatever you need to. You saw what happened. I dont care what they think of me, I just want it to be believableend it with me passing out or something, and you getting away and wandering around lost for a while until you find your way down to the road. You were so lost that you cant remember exactly where you came out of the brush and onto the road, so they cant find your tracks. Give them a general area, nothing specific, or theyll be able to tell youre making it up. But you gotta act like youre trying to help them find me. I kidnapped you. You say the Sheriff was protecting you, and Susan? Call him once you get up to the house. Tell him all of this. So. If I get you to the highway, can you make it up to the house without the wrong folks seeing you?

It was hard to tell for sure in the dim, dancing light of the fire, but Einar thought he saw tears on her cheeks. She took a deep breath, hesitated for a moment. Yes. The truth is that I probably could. But theres no guarantee that they would believe me on the kidnapping. And if anybody was hurt when they came after my cell phonewell, they might find a way to blame me for that. No. My prints are all over that phone, along with yours. And only my prints are on the rest of itcooking pot, FRS radio, bulletsI wiped everything down real good and then handled it a bunch to make sure of that. That should convince them you were not participating. He had finished the tea, gulping it down in two big swallows despite its bitterness, the continuing fever having left him awfully thirsty, and Liz got him some more water. It seemed that her arguments were failing to convince him, that he had a ready answer for everything, and though she doubted an appeal to his own needs would sway him in the least, it was the last thing she could think of to try. I know you dont want to hear this Einar, but you need me to stay right now. Cant you see that? I can help you carry the gear, set up camp, check snares; Ill sometimes watch at night so you can get some sleep. You know you need rest if youre going to get over this infection, the blood loss. And with winter coming, surely you see the value of having another person to help add to your stores. Think how many spring beauty roots I could digwhile you rest and finish getting over these injuries. I know youve managed on your own, and done an amazing job of it, but I really dont want you to die, and Im afraid thats what will happen if you insist on doing this by yourself. She reached out and found his hand. Please let me help. Einar sat silent for a minute, pulled himself free of Lizs grasp, rose and kicked dirt over the fire. Time to go. They reached the steep slope above the highway just before dawn, Einars surge of energy upon waking having faded fast after he began moving, his determination to cross the road before daylight keeping him going. He had spent the entirety of the time struggling with himself over whether to allow Liz to stay and help out as she had offered, and if not, how to convince her that she must not follow him. He had come to no definite or even especially promising conclusionshis mind felt slow, hazy, unreliablebut he remained firmly convinced that he must not allow Liz to continue to accompany him. It seemed, though, that he was not going to be able to accomplish the separation before the highway, but it better be soon afterwards, in case she has some idea or some way to find out where I used to live, and manages to guess from my direction that Im headed there. Cant have her hanging around there trying to find me, maybe getting the search refocused in that area and ensuring that I starve as soon as the weather turns cold. If I make it that long He had little doubt that his current situation was every bit as serious as she had said it washe was terribly weak and physically drained, fighting an apparent internal infection of some sortbut did not see that he had many options. Please show me how to do this. Im at a loss, and dont seem much good at coming up with ideas right now She was asking him something, and he realized that he had been letting his

mind drift again, his eyes nearly closed. I guess well need to cross the river somehow. We can run across the highway real quick, but I expect the river will take longer. Id better go change into something that will be less conspicuous if someone happens to glance down from the highway as were crossing. Its starting to get light. My other clothes are still damp anyway, and it would be good to keep one set dry. Be right back. And she hurried off down into a little gulley and behind some rocks to change. Einar did not hesitate; he knew the opportunity he had been seeking had just presented itself, knew he must not waste it. As quietly as he could he retreated into a nearby stand of spruces, and hurried down towards the road under cover of the trees, rounding the shoulder of a hill as he went so that Liz would not be able to see him when she returned to his previous position. He felt a momentary twinge of guilt at leaving her like that, but knew there was no other way. Not at the moment, at least, and who knew if another opportunity would arise? Einar reached the highway out of breath, sat down for a moment to slow his breathing and wait for his vision to begin clearing, checked carefully for traffic, and dashed across the asphalt. Rolling beneath the tall, overgrown hedge of chokecherry brush that crowded the far side of the road, he lay flat on his back and stared up at cherry branches, their copious clusters of white blooms showing clearly in contrast with the rest of the dim pre-dawn world. He watched in an instant of terror as headlights flashed on the wall of vegetation a scant two feet above his head, the car continuing on its course without slowing. OK. Guess they didnt see me. Get up. Got a river to cross before she figures out what youre up to. Fighting his way down through the tangle of crossed stems, shoots and branches, Einar began to think that rather than simply crossing the river, perhaps he ought to use it to put a bit of distance between himself and Liz, let it carry him five hundred yards or so downstream. The river was not all that high, the spring runoff having long ago found its way downstream and out to the sea, and, he supposed, should not be nearly as cold as it was earlier in the year when he had nearly lost his life to an encounter with its smaller but angrier brother, ten or fifteen miles upstream. And its not like Ill be weighed down by much gear He tightened the straps on Steve and Junis day pack, lightly loaded at Lizs insistence. She had been wearing his willow basket and her own pack when she disappeared to change clothes.

The river was deep, that much was clear to Einar from looking at it, and he hastily pulled the wadded up rain poncho out of his pack and dumped the packs contents onto the flimsy sheet of clear plastic in the hopes of being able to keep what remained of his gear at least somewhat dry during the crossing. He had little faith in his ability to remain on his feet against that current and with depths that he expected to be well over his waist in places, and was also still considering the possibility of deliberately letting the current take him a few hundred yards or more downstream to further remove him from the area where Liz might decide to look for him. He rolled up the dry polypro pants he was wearing and added them, and his polypro top, to the bundle, putting on the still-damp BDU pants and elkskin vest. The pile on the poncho did not amount to muchtwo freeze dried meals in

pouches, a packet of Ramen noodles, three pairs of wool socks, the binoculars, an empty water bottle, one of the contractors garbage bags, the Spam can, and Steve and Junis small first aid kit. That was it. He wished he had been thinking far enough ahead to demand that he carry the willow pack with all of his tools and suppliesbone awls and needles, spare dart and spear heads, prepared sinew, the wolverine hide! Perhaps worst of all was the loss of the pemmican and jerky, which he worked so hard to obtain and process, and had really been counting on. The cache he had left in the basin above the serviceberry-picking area represented some hope, at least, though he knew not all that much, measured against the totality of the factors that were against him. Not to mention the fact that he knew he could not soon return to retrieve that stash of serviceberries, roots, pemmican and jerky, as near as it was to the place where he had fought the agents. Got to head over to where my cabin iswaswhere I hope those caches will still be, at least Liz had the maps, but he knew he would soon be back in an area he was more familiar with, and could find his way without them. The picture that was fixed in his mind from studying the maps over the past couple of days told him that nearly thirty miles of very rugged country lay between his present position near the river and the cache area, if he took a fairly straight line of travel through the mountains, which, he knew, was seldom possible. The prospect of making that trek in his current condition proved somewhat overwhelming at the moment, so Einar directed his thoughts elsewhere. At least I still have everything that was in the BDU pocketsthe agents pocket knife, blow out kit and small survival kit, whose contents he had not yet explored, a couple of energy bars and fifteen feet of parachute cord. The agents boot knife remained in its place, as did the small pouch that he wore around his neck, containing some bits of willow bark, Oregon grape root and jerky, his small pocket knife and, since the previous day, Lizs small bottle of oregano oil, which he was supposed to be taking several times every day for the infection in his side. The spear was, as always, in his hand, atlatl and darts sticking up out of the pack and the Glock in its holster on his borrowed belt. Well. Less stuff means I can move fasterguess there are some advantages. He quickly tied the poncho around the small pile of items, stuffed the bundle back into the pack and prepared to start across the river, having decided as he secured his gear that it would be both unnecessary and dangerous to attempt a float of any distance down the river. Better have a backup though, in case I end up off my feet at some point. Havent tried to swim lately, but I really doubt it would go too well. He took the black fifty five gallon contractors bag and filled it with air, tying, folding and tying the neck again, wrapping the cord around and around the folded back section and giving it a good solid knot in the hopes that the balloon would stay inflated in case he needed its buoyancy. He then looped the free end of the cord through a piece of webbing high up on the daypack, knowing that he did not want the float trailing in the water and trying to pull him downstream if he didnt need it. Just before starting across, Einar cut a short piece of paracord and tied it tightly around the rawhide wrappings that he used as a grip, attaching the other end to his backpack. He needed it for stability in crossing the slick river rocks, but did not want to risk losing it to the current. OK. No more waiting. Down to that bend where youll be hidden from the

highway by the cottonwoods, and across! As he had expected, the river rocks were quite slick, leaving Einar struggling to keep his feet under him as he waded out into the current. The bend he had chosen to cross on offered him the advantage of near complete concealment from the highway, but also meant that he would not be crossing in one of the rivers shallower areas. He was about to step out into the water when he heard a car coming, crouching down to wait on its passage even though he knew he was well hidden by the cottonwoods. Some time before the vehicle reached the spot where it would have been parallel to him on the highway Einar heard the screeching of tires, a series of thuds and the sound of shattering glass, then silence. Deer, I guess. Hope nobody was hurt. Besides the deer. Ought to just hang around by the highway here, and I wouldnt have to worry about snaring or hunting anything There were no further sounds from the highway, and Einar stepped out into the current. Before he was halfway across he hit a channel of deeper water, lost his footing and was swimming, or trying to, and without much success. Fighting to keep his wits about him as his head went underthe water was icy with high mountain snowmelt even in July he resurfaced, grabbed at the floating bag and got ahold of it, hooking his arm over it creating two pockets of air that allowed him to keep his head above water. The river curved ahead of him, splitting into two smaller channels, and he kicked for the smaller of them, which happened to be on the side of the river he was heading for, glad when he was swept into it. His float caught on a submerged snag just inside the channel and deflated, but the water was shallower there, and Einar was able to get his feet under him and struggle up onto the rocky bank, crawling a few feet back into a waterlogged willow thicket before he collapsed, vomiting river water and passing out. Einar woke cold and shaking minutes later as a morning breeze swept down the river, sitting up and dragging himself, with the help pf his spear, out of the bog and up onto the dry ground of the slope behind it. The July day should be quite warm down there at the lower elevations of the valley, and Einar knew hed be alright, would be able to start warming up as soon as the sun appeared, hopefully manage to avoid another debilitating and potentially deadly struggle with hypothermia. Though he could see that sunrise was still a good hour or so off, wished it might come a bit sooner. Well. Wasnt in the water very long this time. Would be fine if I wasnt so doggone hungry and sick right now. Makes the cold awful hard to take. It made him angry, too, frustrated that he had slipped so far and was unable to live up to his own standards, and he used the anger to get him up and started on his climb of the heavily timbered slope, knowing the movement would do him good. Hey! I got dry clothes this time, too. If they stayed dry He would check in a minute, needed to get his breath first. Needed, in fact, to lie down, and rather urgently, as the world had begun going dark around him as soon as he started climbing.. Einar did not understand the sudden faintness, wondered if it signaled a resurgence of the fever but certainly did not feel at all hot. Or warm, even. His hands were tingling, going numb, and that made little sense either, as they had seemed fine, if a bit stiff, on leaving the water. After lying there for a minute and seeing no improvement he managed to sit up and start getting out of his wet clothes, assuming that he was just reacting badly to being submerged in the river. The dry clothes everything in the pack had, thankfully, remained dry or nearly sowent a long way

towards helping him to begin warming up, or at least stop losing heat, and Einar sat there for a minute enjoying the relief they brought. He had noticed while changing that the wound drainage bag was quite full, and thinking that it must have developed a leak and filled with river waterthe drainage had slowed significantly overnight, and he had emptied the bag before leaving the shelter that morninghe removed the duct tape that had amazingly held it to his side through the crossing. The bag, to Einars dismay, was full of blood.

Liz was not terribly surprised when she returned from changing and found Einar gone. It had been clear to her for some time that he intended to go his own way before long, and she knew she had to respect that, though it seemed to her a very bad decision for him to make, in his current state. She was determined, though, not to let him go without his gear, the bulk of which she was still carrying. Ive got all your food here, Einar! Your wolverine hide, everything. Ill leave you alone after thisI know Ive probably been wrong to keep after you when youve said so many times that you dont want me to, but at least let me give you back these things. She started down the bank in the hopes of catching him before he crossed the river, and had nearly reached the highway when she heard an approaching vehicle, and ducked. Liz was mere feet from the asphalt, crouching behind the two foot high cement barrier that was meant to keep tumbling rocks from rolling out onto the highway, when she heard the car impact the deer.

By the time Steve and Juni made it down the Forest Service road and into Culver Falls, it was nearly midnight. Steve had been busy on the drive, using his laptop to burn several CDs of the photos from that morning, putting them in protective cases and wrapping them in paper, addressing them to a number of his trusted relatives and associatesas well as to himselfand dropping them in the blue mailbox out front of the grocery store in Culver Falls. That taken care of, Juni wanted to go to the Sheriff with the originals, thinking that someone ought to be informed of the attack on the woman before the feds got to the media with whatever account they were planning to use of the agents deaths. Steve did not want to get tied up in the middle of an FBI investigation (Probably literally) he told her, and did not want his name linked to the photos in any way prior to their release on whatever TV news magazine he ended up contacting and working out an agreement with for the exclusive story. Juni was insistent though. We dont know what happened to the lady. If that third agent diedand it looked like he was about to, with Einar running at him like thatand theres no one left but her to tell the story, they may try to charge her with murder if somebody doesnt know the real story. We cant let that happen, when we have all the evidence! Burn another CD. Well wipe it down for fingerprints, park a few blocks away, and Ill put on gloves and take it over to the Sherriffs. Ill stick it in the mailbox, or leave it in a bag on the door handle or something. And if it gets swept under the rug, we still have the originals and all those copies you sent out.

Steve finally relented, burned the copy and Juni dropped it off. Not wanting to stay in town after that, they decided to make the long drive back to Clear Springs that night, to the little apartment Juni had rented for the summer.

Inspecting the drainage bag, Einar realized that he had just lost a pint of blood in a fairly short amount of time. Must have been the swimming I guess. Something had clotted up in there, and I just busted it loose. He stared at the bagful of blood, knowing that he ought to be more alarmed, but just too tired to feel much of anything. Huh. Wish I had some way to put this stuff back in He emptied the bag, scratching spruce needles over the frighteningly large dark stain on the ground. A pint. OK. Surely I can live with that. The drain was still dripping though, his left side under the stab wound once again purplish and somewhat rigid to the touch, and he knew he must have already lost a good bit more than had been in the bag, initially. Glancing around he found some yarrow growing out of the spruce needles around him as it does on so many of the timbered slopes in that area, and began pulling the little plants, stuffing them in his mouth and chewing, somewhat at a loss as to what else to do. It kinda stopped on its own before though I did have that cattail pollen then, which I dont now He supposed the chances were probably pretty slim that whatever internal injury was causing the bleeding would spontaneously clot up again. He was dizzy, his head hurt and he allowed himself to slump over against a tree, resting. The thought occurred to him that there had to be many worse ways to go, almost certainly including the spread of the infection in his side and the starvation that was going to catch up with him again when the weather turned cold or soonerand he supposed perhaps it was a blessing that he was apparently to be spared both of those eventualities. Yeahmaybe. But thats sure not your decision to make, Einar, and if you go on lying here like this, youre choosing to die. If its time then nothing you do is gonna change it, but you got to try. The trouble was, try what? He pulled some more yarrow and wadded it into his mouth, found himself almost wishing Liz was still there, since she was, presumably, a bit less worn out than himself and might be thinking more clearly, might have an idea. Einar briefly considered trying to go back and find her, but knew that she should be well on her way up to Bill and Susans house by that point, and knew, also, that he ought not waste his energy trying to locate her, because he would in all likelihood find himself unwilling to make contact, to bring her back into his world and further endanger her. The bleeding seemed to have slowed a bit as he sat there hunched over and favoring his left side, the drips taking longer to form before falling into the bag, which he had set beneath the drain, his handshands are white, cant be a good sign, think I lost a lot of bloodtoo numb and clumsy to secure it back in place, and he rested his head on his knees, wanting to get up and continue the climb but knowing that stillness was his only option at the momentthe only one that gave him any chance of slowing the bleeding and remaining alive, at least. Einars eyes had not been closed long before Liz showed up how did she find me? She always finds mesitting next to him and giving him some waterhe was awfully thirsty

asking him something that he couldnt quite understand through the pounding in his head. Lowering his head and trying to slow his breathing for a minute he got the fog to clear a bit, and she was repeating her question. Will you let me help you? I want to help but I know I can only do it if youll let me. He tried to say yesplease hoped he had said it out loud but was not sure, supposed he must have, because she was helping him lie down, raising his head and giving him more water. Youre bleeding pretty bad Einar, she was saying, very insistently. Hounds tongue dont you have some in your pocket still from the other night? Youd better take it, along with the yarrow, if you want a chance at controlling that blood loss. He tried to undo the button on his left cargo pocket where he thought he remembered putting the hounds tongue she had collected, fumbled with it for a while but couldnt seem to get his fingers to do the task. She saw, did it for him and handed him the wad of wilted leaves, which he immediately began chewing, adding some more yarrow that grew within reach. Einar had completely forgotten about the hounds tongue, but knew it was a powerful astringent and might give him a better chance than the yarrow alone. Liz took his left hand, squeezing hard on the pressure point in the webbing where his thumb joined the rest of the hand, eventually replacing her hand with his own and telling him to maintain the pressure, because it might help slow the bleeding. Yeah. Should have thought of that. Ive had that work before, not for anything this bad but its sure worth a try There wasnt much strength in his hand, and it took all of his concentration to maintain a good grip on the pressure point. When he finally looked up to thank her Liz was gone, and he knew from the sandy dryness of his mouth that hed had nothing to drink lately. The discovery that her presence had been merely a hallucination or a vision saddened him some; there had been things he wanted to tell her, and though he rather doubted his ability to put them into words, he had decided to try. He very much doubted that there would be another chance. Forget it. Get that stuff out of your head, Einar. Youve just about got more than you can handle right now, without moping around about that nonsense. Youre better off like this, and shes certainly better off. But his words rang less than true, and the sharp sense of loss would not leave him. He supposed he missed her. Whatever that means. For several minutes Einar remained still on the ground, clamping the pressure point on his hand and waiting to begin feeling strong enough to sit up, a splitting pain in his head discouraging him from trying too hard. He was freezing, guessed it must be due as much to the blood loss as to the cool morning air and his dip in the river. Drifting near sleep he thought he heard something in the distance, gritted his teeth and pulled himself upright. Sirens! That got him to his feet in a hurry, struggling into the backpack and looking up dizzily at the slope above him, thinking he must have been spotted crossing the river, reported. Then he remembered the screeching of tires, the breaking of glass up on the highway. The deer. He sank back to the ground, checked the wound drain. The bleeding had nearly stopped. He reattached the collection bag, got to his feet and headed up the hill. Got to be able to have a fire, and sure cant do it this close to the highway. Think it was struggling with that river that broke loose the clot, so Im gonna have to be real careful how I movereal slow, I guessand maybe the new one will hold until I can get someplace where I can hole up for a while, keep still and see if this thing can start to

heal. As it turned out, he was to have no choice when it came to how fast he moved. The slightest exertion brought on a terrible racing of his heart that left him instantly nauseated and struggling for breath, his head splitting from lack of oxygen. Well, one step at a time here He knew that between the blood he had lost yesterday? Two days ago? after he was stabbed by the agent and the estimated pint and a half or possibly even two pints that had just come out, he was facing quite a challenge. Assuming the bleeding had really stopped, and stayed that way. If notwell, it wont be a challenge for long! Moving at a very slow but steady pace Einar got himself up the ridge, down its backside and around another, until he was feeling a good bit better about the distance that lay between him and the highway. At times he lapsed into a state of delirium in which he was quite certain that Liz was there beside him, or at times even out front leading the way, frequently reminding him to stop and check the bag to make sure the bleeding had not started up again, handing him wads of yarrow leaves and demanding that he eat them. He had one frightening moment after struggling up the last few rocky feet of the ridge where he saw a line of red in the crease at the bottom of the bag, fearing that things were about to let loose again. Watching it for a minute and noticing no increase in the level, he continued. Einar needed water, could not remember ever feeling as horribly thirsty as he did at the moment, thought he heard a creek in the distance and headed for it, reaching the steep ravine from which the sound seemed to be originating and nearly tumbling down its rocky side in his desperation for water. Reaching the floor of the ravine, littered with a crisscrossed jumble of black, moss-encrusted fallen spruces, the victims of some long ago windstorm, Einar rolled onto his stomach beside the little trickle of water, lying very nearly in it, and drank. For several minutes he lay there, filling his stomach with water almost to the point of nausea before getting back to his knees. He knew he was going no farther, not without rest, and like any badly wounded and possibly dying creature he sought shelter, concealment, and found it in the dense cover of a windfall some distance up from the creek, three or four recently fallen spruces weaving together to create a dense network of branches some four feet over his head. Dragging himself as deep as he could within the comforting blackness of the windfall, he took off his pack, set the spear on his chest, and slept.

Cautiously rising from behind the cement barrier when the noises of the crash stopped, Liz saw that she had a dilemma. The deer had gone through the windshield of the small passenger car, two of its legs sticking out stiffly through the shattered safety glass, clearly visible from where vehicle had come to rest in the ditch; it was very fortunate, she saw, that they had not gone careening over the bank and down to the river. No one seemed to be moving inside. As the first one on the scene Liz knew she had a duty to do what she could, but knew also that she absolutely must not be on the scene when emergency vehicles arrived, because there was a high likelihood that Allan would be on the ambulance, and if he was not, whoever was would be someone that knew her. In fact, she must make sure that no one, including the victim, got a good look at her. She was

dressed oddly, carrying Einars strange looking willow pack, and it seemed highly likely that passing FBI agents might well stop to help out, and recognize her. OKrun across the highway, hide the pack, do what I can really quick and get out of here Liz checked for traffic, hurried across the highway and found a place to conceal the packs, taking her medical bag and scrambling back up the bank. Still no movement. Just before she started across the road the thought struck her that she ought perhaps to have moved the packsand Einars in particularfarther from the highway and hidden them more thoroughly, in case she was unexpectedly delayed or detained until after law enforcement showed up. She could imagine them looking down over the bank in their search for evidence in the crashshattered glass and pieces of the cars plastic bumpercover were everywhereand discovering the willow basket and wolverine hide, becoming suspicious, and bringing in dogs. Starting back down the bank to move the basket, Liz was spared the effort when a local man, headed into Clear Springs for work, saw the accident and stopped. Donning the packs Liz hurried down to the river, meaning at first to search for signs of where Einar had entered the water, but quickly deciding that it would make more sense to start her search on the far side, knowing that he must have crossed and supposing that he could easily have been carried some distance downstream before emerging from the water. She did not like the thought of him having to struggle with that water, swift and cold despite the season, and hoped very much that he had made it out the other side. The river crossing proved not to be too difficult for Liz, as she chose a wide, shallow section to wade across, rolling up her pants and hoping to keep them dry but soon discovering that the water, even in the shallow section, reached well above her knees. The highway was in view through the entire crossing, and once she thought she might have been spotted, but was reassured when the vehicle continued without slowing. Reaching the far side and hurrying up beneath a tree, Liz quickly changed into dry socks, attaching her wet ones to the outside of her pack to begin drying as she walked, and remained concealed beneath the tree as the ambulance and a Sheriffs deputy arrived on the accident scene. All right Einar. Lets see if Im any good at this tracking business sure hope you havent set any of those traps on your trail, this time! She doubted that he would have, as he had no reason to suspect that anyone would be attempting to follow him. Liz decided that it would be a waste of timeand also put her at risk of being spotted to search the rocky riverbank for signs of Einars passage, opting instead to parallel the river some distance up in the trees until she (hopefully) picked up his trail. It was far easier than she had expected, an area of damp, scuffed up spruce needles betraying his recent presence and a partially covered blood stain worrying her further as to his condition. It appeared to be a good bit of blood when she dug down in the needles, and she wondered if it was from his side, or if he had perhaps somehow injured himself crossing the river. Well, at least he made it across, and I should be catching up to him soon, if this is any indication. For some distance up the slope she easily followed his trail, the scuffed up ground and numerous areas where it looked like yarrow had been pulled up telling of his struggles. Before the top of the ridge, though, he had crossed a rockslide and there she lost him, circling the area twice and searching for any sign of where he had left the rocks, but finding nothing.

The cold woke Einar as the sun went behind the ridge and stopped providing warmth to the heavily timbered slope, and he dragged himself into a sitting position and checked the collection bag, glad to discover less than an inch of blood in the bottom of it. Still oozing I guess, but nothing catastrophic. In his pocket he knew there were several wads of yarrow leaves that he should probably chew to help keep the bleeding from starting up again, as well as some chunks of Oregon grape root that would help combat the infection and, he thought he remembered, help with the anemia that had resulted from his blood loss. He couldnt at the moment remember why, exactly. Something about the berberine helping the liver to release more iron into the blood. But first, he needed water, could not swallow for the awful cracked dryness in his throat, attempted to roll to his knees but collapsed back onto the spruce needles, requiring several minutes of rest before he was able to try again, and with no more success. Bad deal, Einar. Youre gonna have to do better than this Thinking that perhaps a bite or two of food might improve things he dragged his backpack over and pulled out the first food he came in contact with, the freeze dried sweet and sour chicken from Junis pack. He had no water to add to the meal hed lacked the energy and foresight to fill the one water bottle he had when down at the creekbut knew he could eat much of it dry, if need be. Trouble was, he couldnt seem to tear open the mylar pouch that contained the food come onhow much strength can it possibly take to do this? and finally resorted to grasping the bag in both hands and tearing with his teeth. The smell of the food made his stomach growl, but also brought a surge of nausea that left him doubting his ability to keep it down. He knew he had to try, put a piece of chicken in his mouth and waited for it to turn into something he could swallow, but it stuck to his tongue like Styrofoam and refused to begin softening, no matter how long he held it there. It seemed he was too dehydrated to produce much saliva, and he ended up taking the chicken back out, setting it on a rock for later. The presence of the dry food in his mouth had made him cough, and he saw that the coughing was increasing the dripping of blood into the collection bag, feared that it might make the clot break loose again and held his breath in an attempt to stop it, but succeeded only in causing the world to go dark around him as he very nearly lost consciousness. OK. Bad idea. Then he remembered. My wet clothes. He had during the days travels put back on the fast-drying BDU pants, wanting to have access to their pockets for the yarrow he was collecting, but they had not dried thoroughly as slowly as he had been moving, their dampness being one of the factors that had chilled him so badly and finally awakened him. Squeezing the fold of cloth at the bottom on one of the pockets he was able to come up with a few drops of water to moisten his throat and halt the coughing. Got to have water. Looking like I may be here for the night, maybe tomorrow too, if nothing changeshave to get down to the creek and fill this bottle, might be a good idea to set a snare or two also, cause Im gonna be needing some serious iron and protein after losing all this blood, or theres no way Ill be able to make the climb up to where those caches are Thirty miles seemed like an awfully long walk just then, and he was concerned about the possibility of more bleeding if he exercised too hard as when crossing the river, or especially if he happened to fall while traversing the steep slopes in

his current less than agile state. Heh! Yeah. less than agile Thatd be putting it mildly. Einar doubted he could survive the loss of another pint or two of blood at the momenteven assuming the injury would manage to clot up again, of which he knew there was no guaranteeknew hed be hard pressed to recover from the loss he had already endured, under the present circumstances. It seemed best to stay in his current location for a day or so, drink, try to eat some and keep still so that the injury would hopefully begin to heal up a bit better and not endanger his life every time he tried to move. They dont know where I am, all that rain should have broken our trail up there after the trap, so it should be OK to stay here for a little while The thought of remaining within two or three miles of the highway as he believed himself to be made Einar very nervous, especially as he was in no position to run if it should become necessary, but he did not see that there was much choice. Cant have a fire here, though. Have to do without that. Be a little rough at night I guess, but at least the days are warmer. Wolverine hide would have been a big help. Eventually making it up onto his hands and knees he crawled out of the shelter, struggled to his feet with the help of the spear and started down the slope to the water, carrying the bottle in one of his cargo pockets. He was glad for all of the deadfall he had to cross on the descent; it gave him excuses to rest every three or four feet, the tangled mass of tree trunks giving him something to lean on whenever the inevitable dizziness threatened to blot out his vision and send him sprawling. Finally, the bottom of the ravine. Water. He drank, lying once again in the forest litter and rocks beside the little trickle of a creek and taking a sip of the icy, life-giving water, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on a rock as it slowly moistened his parched throat and trickled down to his shriveled stomach. Good. Do it again. Several minutes later when he had drunk as much as he could manage, he filled the water bottle and fished around in his pocket for the agents small survival kit, knowing that he had better try setting a snare before heading back up to the shelter for the night. It was beginning to get dim, the daylight fading, and Einar worked as quickly as he could with the brass wire from the kit, forming a small loop on one end, winding and twisting to secure it and passing the other end through the loop. His hands seemed to be working a bit better since drinking the water, but he was still alarmingly clumsy, cold, his skin pale and almost transparent-looking, and he knew he needed to eat, to allow his body to begin rebuilding from the blood loss, if he wanted to be able to move on, hopefully reach his caches and have some chance of doing the work that lay ahead of him before winter came. Winter? The thought was too much, and he shoved it aside. Just get through the night, the next day. Itll be a start. Einar set the snare in a rabbit run that emerged from a gooseberry thicket near the creek, very thankful that he had not only a knifefar more than hed possessed at timesbut several knives to choose from as he worked on the trigger that would cause a springy spruce branch to let go and hold the rabbit that he hoped to catch. On the return trip to his windfall-shelter he collected more yarrow, along with the leaves from a number of spring beauty plants, whose iron and mineral content he knew would do him some good, if he could manage to eat them. He had seen some nettles down near the creekricher than almost any other local plant in iron and containing a good bit of protein, toobut with no immediate way to cook them, had decided to pass, for the time. Though I guess I

could dry the leaves in the sun tomorrow, eat them dry or mix them with my water. Well. Not going back down there, tonight. Speaking of drying, he knew that he had better change out of his still-damp BDU pants and spread them over the branches of his shelter to begin drying, before falling asleep for the night. He was concerned, also, about the drips of blood that stained the left leg of the pants from where his drain had dripped when he emptied the bag, and supposed it would be best not to go to sleep in the blood-stained, possibly predator-attracting clothing. He discovered upon reaching the shelter that he had bled significantly on the climb, though not at the rapid and dangerous rate that he had earlier been experiencing. He again emptied the bag, crawled under the sheltering branches and lay down for a brief moment of rest before changing clothes and trying again to eat something, but falling quickly into an exhausted sleep as the darkness outside became complete. Einars dreams, uneasy with fever and thirst, were of Liz that night, but unlike in previous dreams of that nature she seemed to have nothing to say to him, no encouragement to offer, no comforting hand or sip of water for his parched throat, simply staring at him sadly from what appeared an immense distance, and he knew it was because of the way he had left her, rejecting her assistance when he had perhaps most needed it. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but he couldnt get any words to come, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and making meaningless clicking sounds when he tried. So he simply stared back, hoping she would be able to see in his eyes a bit of what he could not manage to say. The dreams ended after that, or his awareness of them did, as the night chill crept in and eventually even his shivering ceased.

At a loss as to where Einar might have gone after crossing the rockslide and needing a break from staring at the ground, Liz sat down on a large, flat topped boulder and spread out the map, using the high ridge on the far side of the highway, in combination with the compass, to get it oriented. Studying it a bit, she found a flattish spot where the topo lines grew much farther apart that roughly approximated her present position, trying to remember if Einar had said anything about where he was headed. As far as she could remember, he had not. Whether crossing the highway had been merely his way of trying to get rid of her, or whether the means to some larger end, she did not know. He had mentioned something about not going where the searchers would expect him tobut that might simply have been in reference to heading down instead of up, in the first place. She decided to circle around the rocky area one more time. He had to leave here at some point, and surely there is some sign, something I overlooked before Careful to stay on the rocks so as not to obliterate any evidence he might have left, she scrutinized the area once again A bent and broken Indian paintbrush, its red flower cluster drooping, caught her attention, and she approached it carefully, studying the ground. Noit wasnt him. She saw a deer track near the stem, the spot where the passing animal had stopped to crop the flower off of one of the paintbrush plants. The paintbrush flowers, she knew, were edible by humans also, though she had heard that they sometimes absorbed and concentrated trace minerals from the ground in quantities that could be toxic if you ate enough of them. She could not remember which ones. Thats something Ill have to ask

Einar aboutwhen I find him. She picked one of the flower clusters and ate it. Somewhat bitter, but substantial. Now where are you, Einar? How can you just disappear like this? It seemed that she had been making endless circles around the edge of the rocky area entirely without result, and Liz decided that it was time to leave the rocks, make the circle wider and hope she would notice whatever sign he might have left before she trampled on it and destroyed it. A large stand of aspens, the ground beneath them alive and green with skunk cabbages, yarrow and various grasses, rose up on the slope directly above the rockslide, and knowing that Einar often chose to go up, she started her exploration in them. Nothing. No indication that anyone had recently passed through. Liz was getting frustrated. The day was warm, verging on hot there in the partial sun of the aspen grove, and she stopped for a gulp of water, hoping Einar had thought to fill the bottle he carried, before leaving the river. Well. Obviously he knew how to take care of himself. He would find water. She was a bit concerned, though, that he might forget to look. It had been clear that the infection and blood loss had taken a toll on him, the lack of sleep; he had certainly seemed a bit less rational than usual that morning. She knew, though, that his decision to part ways was, even if coming at a time when he was perhaps thinking less than clearly, consistent with his stated intentions since just after the fight with the agents in the meadow. She was quite sure that he had only let her go with him then because she had convinced him that she was in immediate danger if she stayed. Liz had not really stopped to think about it, had been so intent on trying to help Einar stay alive, but she knew she really had no right to meddle in his life as she had been. Not when he kept telling her that he did not want it. She still believed that he needed her helpknew it, actuallybut knew also that she had been wrong to try and impose it on him. All right. I know this has to be on your terms. I will not try to stay if you ask me to go. But pleaseI need to give these things back to you! Let me do this one last thing. Even as she was thinking it through, she was praying that Einar might come to see the wisdom of allowing her to help him, might come to trust her when he saw that she had abandoned her determination to help, against his will. Liz slowly made her way down into the serviceberry thicket that crowded in against the lower end of the rockslide, near where Einar had entered it. She had not thought to look there before, thinking that it would make little sense for him to leave the area in the same direction as he had entered it. There it was, though, clear sign of human passage trampled plants, a broken serviceberry stem and there, in the soft dirt of a mole hill, the impression of a boot toe. Einar was much easier to follow after that, the trail of scuffings, tramplings and increasingly frequent impressions in the vegetation where he had clearly sat to rest, telling even an inexperienced tracker like Liz that he was wearing out, having serious trouble staying on his feet. Continuing, she was hopeful that she might soon catch up to him. The confusion at the rockslide had delayed her significantly; she had wandered around for several hours before finally finding Einars trail, and she feared that darkness might come before she was able to find him. The thought of Einar spending the night out there without his wolverine hide, wet from the river, was not a good one. By the time dusk arrived, though, she knew she would not be finding him that night. The signs had become more and more difficult to see, and several times she had lost the trail

and had to backtrack for some distance before picking it up again. Fearing losing it altogether, she chose a tree as she had seen Einar do, dug down in the duff and prepared to sleep. She was at that time slightly over halfway down the backside of the ridge that rose above the river, and had come, she judged by squinting at the map in the dimming light, just over a mile. Perhaps the slowest mile she had ever hiked. Though she was very tired, Liz lay awake for a long time with the wolverine pelt around her shoulders, thinking of Einar, praying for him, unable get out of her mind the image of him lying out there somewhere under a similar tree, weak from blood loss, probably still wet from the river and freezing as the cold of night descended. Keep him safeplease. Staring out at the darkening forest, she finally slept, stirring occasionally at the sound of a helicopter in the distancefar in the distance, which she found reassuringbut not waking until daylight. Eating a few bites of trail mix and a scoop of peanut butter to give herself some energy, Liz picked up Einars trail once again, following it with ease down the remainder of the high ridge as it zigzagged in and out between spruces and clumps of brush. She knew that if he had not been stumbling and dragging his feet so, she never would have been able to follow him across all those springy spruce needles. Looking back, she could see no sign of her own trail, though she supposed perhaps an experienced tracker might be able to. Stopping occasionally, Liz collected a good quantity of yarrow leaves and Oregon grape roots, wanting to be able to give them to Einar when she found him. At the bottom of the slope the terrain changed and his trail vanished again, leaving her to search in vain for some time before finding what she thought was a trace of it. For some time she continued, traversing low along the ridge that adjoined the one she had just descended, not entirely certain that she was still on his trail. Upon reaching a steep, rocky little ravine, trickling with water, she lost the trail altogether, sitting on a rock for a minute and studying the map for any clue as to what he might have done next. Finding nothing that provided her with a definitive answer, Liz decided to follow the ravine for a ways, hoping to pick up his trail again. After all, he does usually go upand this looks like a pretty good way up the ridge. After climbing for less than two hundred yards Liz got into a terrible tangle of fallen, crisscrossed spruce trunks that made progress nearly impossible. She was about to turn around and head back down to try and pick up his trail at a previous point when she saw the rabbit, its hind legs suspended off the ground.

Einar was aware of being very cold, saw through barely opened eyes a bleary image of daylight, of sharp-needled branches and dirt-clodded, upflung roots against the brightness of morning, and he realized that he must have fallen asleep before really being ready, before getting into his dry clothes, and he was grateful and a bit surprised that he had been allowed to see morning again, after that. He was not shivering, knew he should be, as cold as he was, guessed his body had just run out of the resources to keep it up. Good thing its the middle of summer Summer or not, he knew he had to find a way to warm up, eat something, get some water down. Couldnt find the water, saw that he had bled more in the night, couldnt seem to raise his head for more than a second or two without blacking out, and he supposed he was dying, or soon would be without that water and some way to begin reversing his situation. He made another unsuccessful effort to find

the bottle before lying down again to rest. A few minutes later Einar stirred again, felt around for his spear and set it diagonally across his chest where he thought it ought to be if the end was really coming, stared out at the sunlight and spoke with his Creator, preparing himself. Time passed, Einar found himself again aware of his surroundings after a period of blackness, realized that he was shivering again and wondered vaguely how his body had managed to come up with the energy. He looked a bit longingly out at the sunlit world beyond the windfall and wished he had the strength to drag himself from beneath the dark tangle of branches so he could be a little warmer, look up at the trees for a while, maybe I could even find that water, get down there and check the snare, fill the bottle at the creek but he nearly passed out when he tried, collapsing on the duff not halfway to the entrance. Come onits only a few feet Slowly, incrementally, resting longer and longer between each effort he dragged himself towards the entrance, until he lay within a foot or two of it, tilting his head back so he could see the spruce tops as they swayed in the wind. He had ended up in an awkward position, not especially comfortable, he didnt think, though it did not seem to matter much, as cold and numb as he was. The sun was moving, shifting, shining through the branches of an aspen on the far side of the ravine and turning the tree to gold, the ridge behind it appearing as a vast and spectacular landscape of high peaks whose tops disappeared into the clouds. Einar watched it for awhile, slipping back into a state of semi sleep that brought with it a series of very vivid dreams that seemed to go on for a long time, then more blackness. He saw her there in the soft, radiant glow from the golden tree outside, her silhouette black against the sunlight, golden light on her hair, and he was quite sure that she had come to take him, to accompany him to the far side of the one river that he had left to cross. Einar smiled; he was ready. Liz came to him, knelt, gently helped him get into a more comfortable position, put her rolled up jacket under his head and covered him with the wolverine hide. He appeared to have really gone downhill fast, and she was worried, could see that he needed water badly, his face very pale and almost blue. She hoped that was due at least partially to the cold and not to serious blood loss, expected that was the case, as he was shaking pretty badly. Einar was brought back to reality by the pain of being moved, realizing that Liz was not a dream but was really, physically there, and was probably about to chide him for leaving as he had. She did not, insisting instead that he take a sip of water from the bottle that he had been unable to find earlier. The water nearly choked him at first, as he seemed to have lost the ability to swallow, but after a while he got a sip down, then another, the water feeling like life itself. He looked up at Liz. Youcame. Tracked me? His voice was raspy and dry, and she sat down next to him, helped him with more water. He reached up to steady the bottle and she found that his hand was very cold, took it in hers to warm it. Einar grabbed her hands with a strength that surprised her. Why did you come? She looked at him, saw that his eyes were brimming with tears that could not fall; he was too dehydrated. I had to give back your things. You left them, and I knew you needed them. Thats all.

I wont stay any longer than you want me to. Youre going to be alright now. He smiled, closed his eyes. I know. Liz held up the rabbit. I brought lunch. Ill clean it, but first Im going to run back down to the creek where I saw some nettles, and make you some tea. OK? He nodded, and she hurried down the steep bank of the ravine, a good bit more concerned about his condition than she had let on. As soon as Liz was out of sight Einar got himself into something like a sitting position, worked to get his hands mobile enough to be useful, fumbled with the pouch around his neck for a minute in search of his knife, and started work on the rabbit.

Steve and Juni pulled into the parking lot at Junis apartment complex in Clear Springs just after two that morning, cleaning and bandaging Steves sore feet and getting a few hours of much needed sleep before discussing how to proceed with the interview and photos. And how to avoid disappearing while making the arrangements, and especially after the story went public. Steve thought it would be wise to attempt to make a deal with a major national newspaper or TV network, giving them exclusive rights to the story so that they would have a vested interest in protecting the two of them, as valuable resources who they needed to keep around for many future pieces of profitably investigative journalism or ratings-increasing television interviews, whichever the case turned out to be. Juni had intended to wait several days before approaching anyone about the interview, wanting to give Einar plenty of time to get out of the area before anything went publicthough of course she had no intention of mentioning the location of the interview, in the story. Steve pointed out that there was no longer any reason to wait, as by that time the FBI surely knew who had attacked the agents down in the valley, or would, as soon as the Sheriff got them copies of the photos. He was rather anxious to find an outlet for his photos, hoping to be able to do so before information was released to the public about the images they had left for the Sheriff.

Liz filled all of the empty bottles from her pack down at the little creek, using the doubled over sleeve of her shirt to avoid being stung as she gathered a heap of nettles to take back, focusing on the fresher, brighter green tops. She knew that the nettles were very high in iron, which was her primary reason for wanting to give Einar the tea. With all of the blood he had lost, anything she could do to help his body begin rebuilding would be helpful. When Liz got back to the windfall, she saw that Einar had skinned and cleaned the rabbit, setting the carcass on a flat rock just inside the shelter with the heart, liver and what she supposed must be kidneys beside it, before falling asleep again sprawled on the floor of the shelter, knife still in his hand. She was a bit leery of approaching him, hoping he would remember that she was a friend and not try to come at her with the knife, and she

deliberately made some noise while still at a safe distance. He stirred at the sound of snapping sticks as Liz approached, tried to sit up but couldnt quite make it. She saw that he was still awfully cold and helped him, shivering, out into the warmth of the patchy sunlight that shone through the spruces, noticing that his heart rate went up frighteningly high when he sat up and started moving around, and seeing from the blank, confused expression in his eyes that he was about to pass out. Rolling him onto his back in the sunlight, she folded her jacket and put it under his head, tucking the wolverine hide back around him and propping his feet up on a fallen aspen trunk. He had finished his halfempty bottle of water while she was gone, and was asking for more. Liz got into her medical kit and found a packet of rehydration solution, mixing it into the water before she gave it to him. Einar, I only have one hexamine tablet left. Would it be safe for us to have a little fire so I can make you tea and cook up this rabbit? The way he looked at her, Liz knew she had asked the wrong thing. He started to say something, knew it wasnt going to come out right and stopped himself, shaking his head. Too close to the road. OK. Ill just use the hexamine to make tea. Can I at least throw that liver and stuff in with it, so you have something to eat? He shrugged. Sure. Best to cook rabbit. Eaten a bunch raw thoughsometimes no choice. You look at the liver, he picked it up and showed it to her. Never eat any of the rabbit raw if you see white spots on the liver. Means its diseased. No white spots here, but I tried to eat somecant Exhausted from speaking, Einar closed his eyes as Liz prepared the nettles and set the Spam can up on a V of rocks with the hexamine tablet beneath. If I boiled the liver, do you think youd at least be able to drink some of the broth? He didnt answer, but hoping that he might be able to take a bit and knowing that he badly needed some nutritionshed hardly seen him eat anything since the stabbingshe chopped the liver finely, knowing this would allow more of its nutrients to be released into the broth, and stirred it into the nettles. Wetting a spare sock with some creek water and warming it briefly over the blue flame of the hexamine, Liz began carefully cleaning Einars hands and lower arms, which were smeared with dried blood from the last few times he had changed the wound drainage bag. His hands were white under his tan, the palms and fingernails a sickly blue-purple. Pausing in her cleaning to check his pulse, Liz found it to have slowed some since she had last checked while helping him out of the shelter, but not all that much. She wished she had a way to check his blood pressure, but knew that it would make little difference. All she could really do was to try and get him to drink as much as possible, keep him still and hope he did not start bleeding again, hope he could recover from the loss he had already endured. Finished cleaning his hands, she moved on to his face, which had also ended up smeared in places with blood and dirt, and was beginning to attract flies. Einar woke then, looked a bit confused and tried to sit up.

Its OK. The teas almost ready. Can I empty that bag for you and clean it up a little? Einar nodded. He had been concerned about the mess the bag had become, afraid that the drain could become a source of additional infection, but had lacked the resources to do much about it. He watched as Liz got a pair of gloves from her medical bag, noticing that she kept stopping to rub two fingers on her right hand. Nettle get you? Oh, just a little. My sleeve slipped when I was stripping the leaves off the stem. Try mud. Mud? Let me clean this bag, then Ill do that. She emptied the bag and did what she could to clean it with some iodine-treated water, wiping the drain down with an alcohol swab. The skin around the drain looked angry and inflamed, felt somewhat warm, but the inflammation did not seem to be widespread. She smeared a good bit of antibiotic ointment around the site and taped on a fresh dressing, using some new tape to reattach the drain to the bag. Liz really wished she had a way to get Einar somewhere where he could receive the care he needed, or at least to a place where she could focus on getting him well, rather than having to constantly worry about whether or not they could have a fire, or what they were going to eat next, and when. She knew, though, that it was a good thing, and an unexpected one, that Einar seemed inclined to let her stay and help out, at all. Hopefully hes not just waiting until Im not looking, so he can drag himself off into the brush and disappear again. Please help me. This is all way over my head Are you still bleeding a lot, Einar? How many times have you had to empty this? Einar couldnt remember, exactly. A few times. Was a little rough crossing the river, think I broke loose a clot or something. Bled a lot after that. Seems like it bleeds some every time I move, but it hasnt really let go in a while. Been eating yarrow and finished up that hounds tongue. It helped, I think. If I can keep mostly still for a bitdont think I can take another major bleed right now. Kinda worn out Which was clear to Liz, as he had fallen asleep again, mid-sentence. The hexamine tablet had burned out, the broth slowly ceasing to bubble beneath the slab of aspen bark she had placed over the can to more efficiently use the heat. Einar was still quite visibly cold, and though she did not like to wake him, Liz knew that he needed to have some of the tea, needed the iron from the nettles and liver, badly needed the fluid and a few calories. After a few unsuccessful tries she managed to wake him, lifted his head so he could drink without choking, and helped him with the broth. Einar was still nauseous, but the broth seemed to set alright, and when Liz mashed some of the stewed nettles and liver chunks into a paste, he was able to get down a few bites of it before having to stop. Thank you. Needed that. You can have the rest, though. Oh, Ill save this for you. Maybe in a few minutes you can try some more. Ill have some of the rabbit, if thats alright.

He looked at her with a bit of humor in his eyes, too worn out to show it any other way. Raw? Isnt that what you said you do, when you cant have a fire? He nodded, gave a hint of a wry smile. Yeahit is. Enjoy Which she did not, especially, being rather more accustomed to eating her food cooked, but she ate a good portion of the rabbit, seeing that Einar was not going to be able to at the moment, and not wanting it to go to waste in the warm weather. She had to admit that, though the concept disgusted her some, the meat did not actually taste at all bad. It was more the texture that got her. Einar watched, eyes half open, thinking a good bit more of Liz for her willingness to adapt. Finishing with the meal, she took Einars again empty water bottle and headed down to the creek to fill it, and the others. Einar felt sleep coming again, fought it, badly wanting to stay awake for awhile if only to prove to himself that he could. His weakness and seeming inability to stay conscious for more than a few minutes at a time scared him, and he was inclined to at least partially attribute it to the fact that someone else was there with him, was caring for him, and that by allowing it, he had to some extent voluntarily relinquished a bit of the grim determination that had served to keep him going through so many difficulties. He knew that was probably a ridiculous way to look at it, though it was his way and he was unlikely to adopt another any time soon. You were barely alive when she showed up, Einar. Freezing, couldnt find your water. Forgotten already? He knew his current state of collapse was the eventual and inevitable result of the serious blood loss, infection and general exhaustion he had been dealing with, and that it would have happened whether or not Liz had showed up. Just that he would probably no longer be alive at the moment, if she had not. He was immensely thankful that Liz was there, if a bit slow to admit it. She was returning from the creek; he could hear the occasional snapping of twigs as she climbed. Got to tell herhavent acted especially grateful for all this help. Better wait though. My thoughts are only making sense about half the time right now, words maybe even less than that. Cant tell. Might mess it up real bad if I try right now. Liz had, in addition to refilling the bottles, filled a gallon ziplock bag with icy water from the creek, and scratched a depression into the duff just inside the cool shade of the windfall, carefully settling the bag down into it. She then lowered the can of broth, nettles and liver bits into the bag, adjusting it so that the water came up just above the level of the stew. Zipping the bag over the can to keep flies out she stepped back and inspected the improvised refrigerator, satisfied that it would keep Einars special food edible through the warm portion of the day. The weather was changing as afternoon approached, towering thunderheads crowding out the mornings blue sky, a chilly wind beginning to blow. Einars eyes were still open, though he seemed deep in thought and did not acknowledge her presence. She sat down beside him. I think its going to rain soon, Einar. Can I help you back into the shelter?

He consented, and she said something about wishing the weather would have remained good, so he could have gone on lying in the sun. Nono, rain is good. We need the rain.

Down on the other side of the river, a Highway Patrol officer walked the state highway, measuring and marking and making notes in the investigation of that mornings crash, in which a Culver Falls man had died when the deer came through his windshield. Combing the brush on the river side of the highway, he saw something white and clambered down the bank after it, believing it at first to be part of the wreckage that had been flung over the bank to become lodged in the thick brush. To his surprise, the spot of white that had caught his attention turned out to be an arrowhead, apparently of bone, that was attached with what looked like animal sinew to a long, slender willow shoot. Photographing the dart where it sat, he retrieved it and started back up the steep bank. A storm was rolling in, thunder beginning to echo off the ridges. The officer returned to the patrol car for his rain slicker.

With Einar back under the windfall, Liz worked quickly to add extra branches to its top, pulling live spruce and fir boughs from trees and weaving hem into the windfall, breaking off some of the existing branches that stuck out in odd directions from its top and spreading the rain poncho, damaged from Einars foray through the brush but still able to shed a good bit of water, over it, holding it in place with more branches. Taking occasional breaks from her work to offer Einar a sip of broth and a bite or two of the liver-nettle mush, Liz was encouraged by the fact that he seemed to be spending more time awake, his color looking just a bit better and his mind seeming to be more present, most of the time. He agreed to take more oregano oil for the infection, and seemed to do alright with it, though it appeared to worsen his nausea for a time. Liz was worried because, despite the seeming improvement, he was clearly still having an awful time staying warm in temperatures that she expected were somewhere in the mid fifties, though falling quickly as the storm moved in. The added stress of struggling with the cold was, she thought, one of the last things he could possibly need at the moment, but she did not have any more clothing to give him, and of course could not make the fire she wished for. Once while giving him a sip of broth she asked him how he was managing with the cold, but Einar just clamped his chattering teeth together long enough to spit out a statement to the effect that It doesnt much matter. Justthe way things go out hereso used to it by now, Id hardly know what to do without it. It was an attempt at humor and a poor one, at that, but she smiled anyway and readjusted the wolverine hide against the wind before returning to work. Liz dropped the matter after that, slightly exasperated but realizing that Einar had out of necessity developed ways of handling the various hardships that his life entailed, and that she would be foolish to second guess or attempt

to change them, seeing that he was, if barely, still alive and mostly sane. At times. Though it sure would help if hed give me straight answers about whats going on. I think he actually must have himself convinced that his situation is not nearly as serious as it really is. May be useful or even necessary when hes by himself, but its only getting in the way, now! Despite his assertions to the contrary she could see that the cold was troubling him terribly, tiring him further as his body was forced to fight it, and she began going from tree to tree, scraping up armloads of the driest duff from just around their trunks, focusing on areas where several large evergreens grew close together, their branches overlapping to keep out most of the moisture that had fallen over the past few days. Piling the dry spruce needles around Einar until he was nearly covered in them, she could see that he was grateful for her efforts. The storm was nearing, thunder echoing off the ridges and rolling down the lengths of the valleys, and Liz knew the rain could not be far behind. Gathering more duff, she piled it around the outside of the windfall, focusing on the side that most of the wind seemed to be coming from. As Liz worked outside, Einar, feeling a bit stronger after all the broth and the few bites of liver he had managed to eat, rolled onto his back and propped himself up against the wall of the shelter, keeping his head as high as he could without the world beginning to go black around him, and searched through Lizs medical kit until he found the tube of antibiotic ointment. He had since crossing the river been concerned about the Glock, had taken out and dried the five rounds he had left shortly after emerging from the water, and had left the magazine out for a bit to give everything some time to dry, but had been too occupied after that with stopping the bleeding and keeping himself on his feet to do anything more. By the time he had reached the windfall the evening before, he doubted he would have possessed the strength to disassemble it. Which he barely did at the moment, but finally got it, setting the slide, barrel and spring on his pack to keep them clean and dabbing a bit of the antibiotic ointment onto the top of a spare sock, wiping down the spring and a few of the surfaces that he knew were somewhat prone to rust, careful to leave no more than a very thin film of the oil anywhere. Cutting a strip of cloth from his BDU pants he greased a square of it and ran it through the barrel with a stick, following it with three dry ones before struggling to reassemble everything. He wanted to tend to his foot, which he had cut on a rock running at the agents while still in his squirrel skin moccasins and had not since found time to treat properly, but he suddenly felt a sudden need to lie down again, and Liz had reappeared in the entrance, anyway, offering him more broth and asking why he was so out of breath. Had toclean the pistol. River. Didnt want itto rust. Should do yours, too. Oh, mine stayed dry.. I put it in the pack when I crossed, and the water wasnt that deep. He shot her a rueful look, was about to say something but gave a tired, lopsided grin instead. Well. Guess it helps when you can actually stay on your feetI kinda did some swimming. Liz returned to her work, spending another ten or fifteen minutes working

on the outside of the shelter. A close thunderclap let loose the storm that had been building, a cold, driving rain chasing Liz back beneath the windfall, where she was pleased to discover that her efforts had created a fairly cozy, wind-free space. Einar had gone to sleep again, lying on his side between the piles of spruce needles she had brought in, and Liz took a minute to gather up all of the food in the shelter and hang it from a tree outside, just in case a bear should happen by. She wanted to keep the broth there for Einar in case he woke in the night, but did not want to risk having to contend with a bear, instead mixing up another bottle of the rehydration mix to give him through the night. She curled up with him to sleep as the rain continued outside, darkness descending, and Einar rested quietly for several hours, finally warm and more relaxed than he had been in some time. Liz lay awake for a long while, listening to his breathing and wondering what else she could be doing for him, alarmed at the sharpness of his shoulders and the way his ribs and backbone stuck out, even through his clothing. Id better try and get him to eat some of that pemmican in the morning. Too bad we cant have a fire, because it would probably be easier for him to eat as a stew. She wished she had a way to get down to town just once, or even to Susans house, for a few supplies. While she knew there was a chance that Einars infection could clear up with the use of the Oregon grape roots, oregano oil and the other things they were doinghed been through a lot, and was apparently pretty resilientit was clear to her that he was facing a rather severe challenge, simply due to the location and depth of the wound, not to mention the serious blood loss and the difficulties it would cause him in recovering. He needed antibiotics, and there were several people in and around town who she knew she could probably get them from, including Susan and her Aunt and Uncle, who raised ornamental pheasants. Well, I cant leave him right now, and had better not do this at all, unless I can find some way to convince him its a good idea. Might as well get some sleep now, while I can. Liz finally slept, just glad that Einar was not shivering any more and seemed to be a bit more comfortable. Which he was, but sometime after dark he woke nearly in a panic, struggling to get away from Liz, shoving her away and scrambling to his hands and knees. She quickly backed away to keep him from hurting himself. Einar, she spoke softly, whats wrong? Its just me. He muttered something about fire, how he had though she was going to make a fire, crawled over to the corner and sat, soon freezing again and swaying with dizziness, and she asked him if he wanted a fire, said she thought it was probably safe, as hard as it was raining. When he didnt answer, she realized that she must have misunderstood. He was quiet for a long time, and Liz finally went looking for him, thinking he had fallen asleep again. She found him sitting up against the branches of the shelter wall, apparently wide awake, his hands like ice, wrapped around the spear. She was gradually able to ease the spear out of his hands, set it down beside the pile of duff, and talk him into lying back down with her to get warm. After some time she could tell he was still awake, that the fever had returned. She gave him some water. Finally he spoke. Did you know Rob Jackson?

I did. He was up at Bill and Susans a lot. He came looking for me a while back, we ran across each other at a time when I wasnt doing a whole lot better than I am right now. Had Giardia real bad, almost died, I think. I let him talk me into going down to his camp, and I fell asleep. Didnt mean to, but I was so worn out Woke up in the night just sure that something was wrong, but couldnt tell what. Hed made a fire, was sleeping by it. Couldnt find any of my gear, hed put it somewhere, but I took off out of there anyway. Didnt get far before I heard people walking, stealthy-like, and I knew I was in trouble. I was trying to reach the dark timber when they started shooting. Guess they had night vision. Hit me in the leg, and I just ran, after that. Got awaybarely. Heard more shooting down there. Well, I guess you know they shot Rob Is that what you were dreaming about just now? She felt him nod. Im sorry, Einar. She thought it best not to mention at the moment the role she had played in Robs decision to go looking for him, in the first place. You dont have to worry. I wont make a fire, unless you ask me to. She felt him relax just a little. Thanks. Einar, I was thinking earlierremember my Aunt and Uncles ranch where I was staying? Well, they keep this tetracycline powder to add to the birds water sometimes, and I know it might not be ideal, but theres at least a good chance it would help get rid of your infection, before it can get worse. Now I know that place pretty well, and it would probably only take me a day or so to get down there and back from here. I could be very careful Einar wanted to get up and move away from her, but he was too weary. Everybody knows youre missing, by now. Theyre looking for you, watching for you. Theres a real good chance somebody would end up following you back up hereand youd never even have a clue it was happening. He was shaking his head. If you do thatLiz, I wont be here when you get back. Please dont. Iif youre still willingI could sure use some help. She fixed the piles of spruce needles that had fallen into disarray when he got up, adjusted the wolverine hide so that it better covered them, gave him another drop of oregano oil. Yes. I am.

Finishing up his investigation of the crash scene, Trooper Larsen continued with the days duties, taking along the odd but interesting dart he had found, sure that it had nothing to do with the crash. He thought his twelve year old son Jason, who had a fascination at the moment with all things primitive, might find it an interesting item to take to the next Boy Scout Troop Meeting, which was scheduled for that Friday. The dart, and particularly its carefully carved head that appeared to be of bone, was unlike anything he had seen

before, except perhaps in a museum. Studying it, he saw what looked very much like dried blood between the wraps of sinew that held the split willow stick onto the head, and wondered who had been hunting with such an implement, and what they had been hunting...

The storm continued through much of the night, an occasional gust of wind finding its way into the tree-shelter but the rain remaining outside, and Einar did a good bit of sleeping, stirring occasionally to shift position, Liz urging him to drink every time he was awake. By the time daylight came, dismal and dripping under the heavy overcast, he had finished the bottle of rehydration mix, and Liz carefully left the nest of spruce duff to make another, knowing that the more he could drink, the better. Seeing that the rain had for the moment slowed to a thin drizzle, she slipped on her rain jacket and hurried over to the tree where she had stashed their food for the night, bringing it back to the shelter. Einar was dimly aware of Lizs departure, brought himself through a very focused effort to full wakefulness and slowly sat up. The sky outside was beginning to be light, and Einar was suddenly alarmed by the fact that he had been lying in the same spot for well over twenty four hours, not two miles from the highway. He had not been aware of any nearby helicopters in the night, but then, thinking back, realized that he had not been aware of much, at all. He thought he remembered Liz giving him some water, but beyond that, was having a difficult time separating the contents of his troubled dreams from reality. Guess if they were tracking me, or her, they would have been here before now. But still, way too close. Wonder if Id be able to travel yet? Sure wasnt, yesterday, but I got to find out. Einar, knowing that Liz might object to his efforts, decided to give it a try while she was gone. Also of immediate concern, as soon as his sluggish brain made the connection, was the possibility that Liz might have decided to go down to the valley after the antibiotics she had mentioned, counting on being able to track him again if he left while she was gone. While he had come to trust that she would do him no intentional harm, his faith in her judgment was not yet firm. If she did that, Im gonna have to move pretty fast to put some distance behind me, have to watch my trail real carefully. The prospect was pretty disturbing, as he did not know how much he would be capable of and was already feeling terribly weary after less than a minute on his hands and knees. Crawling out of the windfall and glancing around for Liz, he saw her, to his great relief, down by a tree a few dozen yards distant, apparently retrieving the food. He had not even been aware of her securing it the night before. Well, glad somebody was thinking Able to move fairly well and even get to his feet and take a few shaky steps when he had worked his way around to the far side of the windfall where Liz would not see him, Einar was encouraged by the fact that, though he felt awfully weak and dizzy, his head pounding and his heart not seeming to like even the minor effort he was asking of it, he was finally able to remain upright for more than a few seconds without blacking out. Progress, for sure. Guess the blood loss must have stabilized, and whatever she was feeding me last night probably helped out, too. He checked the drainage bag, finding it to be nearly half full with a red-tinged liquid that was not, to his relief, all blood. Anxious

to push things just a bit he picked out a point above him on the ridgean odd-looking spruce that had lost its top in some long-ago windstorm and compensated by growing a roundish tangle of branches where it had beenand headed for it, moving as quickly as he was able. He did not make it very far. Returning to the windfall, Liz stirred the leftover liver-nettle soup, breaking up the thin layer of fat that had hardened on its surface and wishing she had another hexamine tablet or a candle to heat the broth over. Einar had seemed cold again that morning, starting to shake when she left the spruce nest, letting a draft in under the wolverine pelt. She supposed that would be a constant struggle for him until he was able to put on some weight. Well work on that, today. Hopefully he will feel like eating more. Liz crawled back over to the nest, spoke softly. Einar, if youre awake Ive got that broth from last night He didnt answer, and when she squinted at the bed through the dimness, Liz realized to her great consternation that he was not there. Quickly searching the corners of the windfall and finding all of the packs but no Einarsurely he wouldnt take off with nothing. Would he? she hurried outside and started looking for the obvious scrapes and scratches that she supposed he would have made as he dragged himself across the ground. There were none. She did not want to shout for him, carefully circling the shelter in search of tracks. It was starting to rain harder again, the clouds closing back in for another round and blotting out the bright spot that minutes ago had denoted the eastern horizon. She could see the renewed downpour approaching, sweeping down the opposite ridge. OK. I have to find him before that gets here. He has no rain gear with him. Go up. I bet he headed up the ridge. She found him half sitting against an aspen trunk a good distance up behind the shelter, further out than she had expected him to be, but apparently not, from the look of dismay on his face, as far as he had hoped to get. She sat down next to him. Are you leaving? It took him a minute to come up with enough breath to say anything. No. Meant to get back before you did, butguess I ran out of steam. Sorry. Just had touse the outhouse. Oh. Its way up here, is it? Had to try some climbing. Had to know what I could do. Not much, looks like. Pretty doggone near useless, still. He struggled to get up, frustrated, and she helped him but could tell that he was about to fall, lowered him back to the ground, where he rested his head on his knees, waiting for the blackness to begin lifting. She offered him water, and he drank. Got a problem, Liz. Been here too long. Too close to the road. Seems they must not know we crossed, or theyd be in the air by now, but we cant count on that. Could just be the weathers keeping them grounded, and that could change at any time. We should use this rainmove while its still raining to help break our trail. Trouble is Iguess

Im gonna be moving pretty slow. But if the storm lasts long enough Liz, thinking the fact that Einars clothes were getting soaked in the rain was a more immediate and pressing problem by far and biting her tongue to keep from blurting out just what she thought about the idea of him trying to go anywhere, yet, draped her rain jacket over him and suggested they go back to the windfall to discuss it. Einar was at first determined to make it back down the hill without assistance and Liz tried not to interfere, but when the downpour reached their ridge and began pounding them, he finally accepted her help, after seeing that she was determined to refuse taking her rain jacket back. They scrambled into the shelter several minutes later quite relieved to be out of the storm, though dripping with rain water. Einar, exhausted, badly chilled and fading fast after the untimely activity, was ready to curl back up in the piles of spruce needles for a few minutes before attempting anything else, but was brought back to full alertness by the discovery he made while dragging his pack further in out of the moisture. One of the two atlatl darts that he had been carrying stuck into the open top of Junis pack was gone, and Einar had no clear memory of when he had seen it last. Crawling around the dim interior of the shelter he searched for it, Liz asking what was missing but getting no response from him. The dart was not there. He rolled onto his side, rest suddenly becoming imperative. The other dart. Missing. You didnt move it, put it somewhere? Einarno. There was only the one when I got here, Im quite sure. I had to move it to get at the food in your pack last night, when I hung it in the tree. Do you rememberdid I still have two down there by the highway? Before I left? This is real important. Liz thought for a minute. Yes. Yes, I can picture them, when I was there behind you on those rocks above the highway. Two darts, and the atlatl. Einar sat up again, and his face would have gone whiter, if it could have. He had a picture in his mind of his gear, spread out on the rain poncho down by the river before he had crossed. The picture contained only one dart. He was sure of it. He knew he must have lost the dart somewhere between the escarpment where they had sat to study the highway, and the riverbank. How could I not have noticed, at the time? Was in too big of a hurry, I guess, hadnt had any sleep. Bad, Einar. Real bad. He told Liz what he had remembered. And that dart has the agents blood on it. If anybody finds it He shook his head. We cant stay here. He dragged his pack over, working off a surge of desperate energy, rearranging everything so that the least waterproof items would be nearer the bottom, as Liz tried frantically to come up with some alternative that would not involve Einar stumbling around all day in the rain.

As soon as Sheriff Watts sat down at his computer and began reviewing the photos on the CD that Juni had left for him, he realized that he was in possession of something big. Based on his recent experience with midnight raids and the federal seizure of evidence from his department, he immediately made several copies of the CD, also emailing its contents to the State Attorney Generals office, requesting that an investigation be initiated into possible civil rights violations, assault and kidnapping by federal agents. There was a massive ongoing search and missing persons investigation surrounding the disappearance of County resident Elizabeth Riddle, whose borrowed vehicle had been found at the trailhead below where the three FBI agents had been killed, and Watts, after seeing the photos, was beginning to strongly suspect that the three men, or others who had been with them but did not appear in the photos, must have had a hand in her disappearance. It did not look good for the FBI that three of their agents were apparently the last ones to see the missing girl alive, even if they had ended up dead, themselves, afterwards. It was known or at least strongly suspected by that time that the agents killer had been the fugitive, Einar Asmundsonblood later determined to be his had been found at the scene and by a tracker on a rock nearby, and upon investigation, it had been determined that while one of the agents had been shot with his own weapon, the other two had bled out after receiving injuries from a sharp, high velocity object of another description. Fragments of animal bonea Clear Springs lab had determined it to be deerhad been found embedded in the neck of one of the dead agents, and all of the evidence pointed to Asmundson. The tracker, after finding the single drop of blood down near the creek, had lost the trail to darkness and then to a pouring rain that continued through the night, and nothing more had been heard from the fugitive, until midmorning the next day when the feds, according to what Watts had heard, had been led into an ambush involving a cell phone listed under the missing girls name, a two-way radio, and a small improvised explosive device that had seriously injured the two unfortunate agents that had been nearby when it went off, embedded in a cliff just at head-level. The use of Lizs cell phone as bait in the trap had led the agents to suspect that she had been involved not only in the ambush, but that she must have had a hand in the murders of the three agents, if only to act as bait in that case, as well, acting in collusion with Asmundson. Watts had been there when the agents discussed the matter, had spoken with Allan, a man he had worked with and who had a solid reputation in the community, and had watched as Allan walked over to the FBI tent and surrendered himself for questioning, leaving the protective custody the Sheriff had offered him. No one had heard from Allan since, but Watts did learn from a source he had inside the FBI compound that Allan had apparently agreed to work with the FBI out of concern for Liz, who he believed might have been in some sort of ongoing communication with Asmundson, and might therefore be in danger. Apparently Allan had told them he believed she had been kidnapped by the fugitive, after his killing of the agents. The photos, though, shed a whole new light on the entire situation and one, the Sheriff knew, that the FBI would not appreciate being made public, as the photos inevitably would, eventually. They would not appreciate having their three murdered agents

dragged through the mudagainI seem to remember an awful lot of mud, at the scene as the last men to have seen a missing local alive, not to mention the fact that they clearly appeared to have been beating her, just before she went missing. The photos, in his eyes, dispelled any possibility that Liz had been a participant at any level in the attack on the agents. She had, rather, been the intended victim of the entire incident. Watts was beginning to see Einar a bit differently, too. As at other times during the long manhunt, he could not help but feel a bit of grudging admiration for the man. He had, it seemed clear from the photos, essentially stepped in and taken on three armed federal agents, himself appearing to be in pretty poor shape, inadequately clothed in animal skins and torn up jeans and armed only with a spear and-well, the Sheriff was not entirely certain what else, but it involved the throwing of long, flexible darts that showed up quite clearly in the moment-by moment series of photos. Not a bow, apparently, as the darts looked far longer than anything he had ever seen used as an arrow. He chose one of the photos that best showed the dart in flight, copied and enlarged that portion, and printed it off to take home and show his son, who had recently been studying Native American weapons with his Scout Troop. Maybe hell know. Only after making and distributing a number of copies did the Sheriff turn the original CD, along with the bag it had been delivered in, over to the FBI. Watts knew that he would have certainly ended up being charged with obstruction of justice if the feds had learned that he was deliberately withholding it from them. He certainly did not wish to find himself and his office at the center of yet another federal investigation. The federal misconduct investigation involving his office had been dropped rather suddenly after the video of Special Agent Strameckis last statement had become local, national and even international news, the FBI wanting nothing more than for the entire incident to go away, amid Congressional calls that a Special Prosecutor be appointed to look into the circumstances of Strameckis death.

Liz offered to go back for the dart, trying to convince Einar that if it was not there for anyone to find, no one would have any reason to go looking for their trail, and that it therefore would not matter that she would inevitably leave more sign in the two additional trips she would be making over their already somewhat obvious path. It wouldnt take me long at all. A couple of hours. Then we could stay here for another day or so, let you rest up, heal, get a little strength back Einar paused in his packing. No. For the same reasons I mentioned before. You could not be sure no one was following you, and neither could I. If they come now, whether because they find the dart and track us, or because they follow you back, Im dead. I know I need the rest, and Ill get it, but not here. We have to take advantage of the rain. Ill be slow, may have to stop a lot, but I can do it. Dont think I can carry much, though I can carry everything. But I dont know that I could carry you very far, so I really wish you would wait a day or two to do this, Einar! Dont you have any sense? You can

hardly stay on you feet for more than a minute, right now. What if you end up crashing someplace where theres no shelter, or not very good shelter? Or out in the open and a helicopter happens to come? She did not say any of it out loud, knowing that it would only add to his determination. And he definitely did seem determined to get moving, so she supposed she would have to figure it out, if and when the time came. Perhaps he was doing better than he appeared to be. She certainly hoped so. If not, she was pretty sure that they would not be going far at all. Einar surprised her by not only staying on his feet but keeping up a decent pace, though it was clear that he was terribly weary and was also making a careful effort to avoid sudden movements, gingerly easing himself over fallen trees and other obstacles, concerned that he might begin bleeding again. At Lizs insistence they stopped every few minutes so she could give him some water, check his vital signs and make sure that he was not starting to bleed, hoping she might be able to catch and reverse or at least slow any developing problem before it turned into something fatal. Einar had a problem. He could not climb. Not enough to be helpful, anyway, in the largely vertical landscape that surrounded him. He was finding that an elevation gain of even as little as a thousand or fifteen hundred feet left him coughing and fighting for air, his hands turning blotchy and purple and his head splitting. He had never personally experienced altitude sickness before, but realized that he was beginning to show a number of the symptoms. He supposed it must be due in part to dehydration, and to the serious blood loss that had left him unable to efficiently utilize the oxygen that did exist. Guess if Id been up a few thousand feet higher when I lost all this blood, Id be dead by now, or unconscious The course he had chosen after looking at the map too them up and across a high ridge to get down into the remote valley behind it, where he hoped they might be able to find a place to hole up for a while. Not halfway up, though, he had to stop and lie down, his headache worsening, unable to focus his eyes. Rest did not help, he was afraid to chew willow bark for his head because of its blood thinning properties, and Einar knew that he had to go back down. In a hurry. Liz had been watching his deterioration, seeing that he seemed not to be bleeding again and assuming that he was simply running out of energy, and he lacked the breath to explain the situation to her. Got to go down. Fast. Noair. Liz could see that he meant it, that he was not only serious but a bit desperate, and she helped him as well as she could, picking paths that were more open and took them around the bulk of the deadfall that had so greatly slowed their ascent, reaching the valley floor no more than half an hour after starting down. Einars breathing had gradually improved as they went, the pounding between his eyes becoming a bit less blinding, and he stopped before they were all the way down and pulled out the map, explaining to Liz that he had to stay low for the time and showing her a saddle between two high points where he hoped they might be able to get down into the adjoining valley. Which they did, Einar barely making it up to the saddle and having to rely on Liz to guide him at times, as the world, strange and dim and full of billowing, shifting black shapes, would not hold still before his eyes. It was still raining when they reached the valley floor, had been raining the entire time, and they wandered for some distance between high walls of broken rock, Liz keeping a sharp eye out for anyplace they might shelter, finally leading Einar up a rocky incline and beneath the spreading

branches of an enormous ponderosa pine, and he was glad that they were finally stopping, that the movement could cease. Though not nearly as glad as he was when he managed to shake the fog from in front of his eyes and see just what sort of spot Liz had picked out. Shes learning. We can have a fire. And he sank to the ground to gather whatever energy he could scrape together, meaning to help her prepare it.

The shelter Liz had found for them consisted of a stand of towering, close growing ponderosa pines, backed up very closely by an overhanging outcropping of a schist-type rock, black and gleaming in the rain. The trees created a nearly rain-proof canopy over the area, with the outcropping serving to break most of the wind that swept up the valley as the storm went on, and, Liz saw, if the water began finding its way down through the dense network of boughs to dampen the area, there was a dry, dusty space nearly three feet wide beneath the overhang where they could take refuge. Einar heard her bustling around, collecting and breaking sticks from nearby trees. He was done, his energy gone, breathing itself seeming like a monumental effort at the moment, and he knew that if he had been there alone, he would have just curled up under that little ledge in his wet clothes and slept, and dealt with everything else later. If he woke up. He wanted very badly to do just that, but Liz was there beside him, was asking about fire, and Einar knew he must see that it was done right, done in a way that would produce minimal smoke, lest he wake to find the two of them boxed in by a dozen feds, with nowhere to go. He propped himself up against the trunk of the tree, Liz helping when she saw what he was trying to do. Yeah, fires OK here, as long as its raining. Make a little pit here under the ledgedig down to the dirt, clear away the duff from around it so it wont smolder and smoke. Pit needs to be real small. No more than a foot across, or so, and about that deep. Feel how the winds kinda coming up that slope at us? Well, if its not too rocky, youre gonna make a little tunnel from the bottom of the firepit, angled up to the ground about a foot away, in that direction. Lets the air flow, fire burns hotter, less smoke. He stopped then, exhausted and out of breath, and closed his eyes for a minute, letting his head rest on the ponderosas trunk. Liz had begun working as he spoke, but stopped to help him into some dry clothes, not wanting him to fall asleep in his drenched ones and seeing that he was very close to doing so. Lizs clothes had stayed mostly dry due to her rain jacket and pants, which Einar had repeatedly refused to take during the hike, making do with the badly torn poncho, and she was glad that they at least had one set of dry polypropylene and several pairs of socks, between them. It was a struggle getting Einar into the dry clothes, as he really did not feel like moving and made a halfhearted attempt to convince Liz that he was fine in the wet ones, but she was fairly insistent and a good bit less worn out than he was, and eventually prevailed. Einar was speaking again, but Liz had to get very close to understand him, his words slow and a bit slurred and beginning to sound rather more like the delirious mumblings of a man about to lose consciousness than the clear instructions he had been giving minutes

before. Think I saw some aspens not far backsometimes you can find one thats fallen and split, got suspended off the ground by a few inches, you can break some good dry slabs and splinters of wood of it on the bottom. Good when you find one that was struck by lightening, tooheh! Specially if its still on fireor that the wind broke off, and left a bunch of long splinters sticking up, just ready-made kindlingtoo wet for that stuff to be any good now though. But you might find a big branch that fell and got caught before it hit the ground. Find one thats been drying a long time, barks gone, looks grey on the outside but white when you break it open. Should break real easysplitsplinter. Wont make any smoke if you split it pretty thin with your knife, then add bigger pieces as the fire gets going She was glad he was done, or seemed to be, had been for some time fighting the urge to shout at him to please stop your incoherent ranting already and let me build the doggone fire before you freeze! She could tell it was important to him that the fire be done a certain way, though, so she tried to be patient and make some sense of his words. Can use spruce, too, he continued, but nothing with any bark on it, nothing with too much pitch. Look for the little dead branches on the underside that are yellow and smooth and slick looking because the bark fell off a long time ago. Theyre OK, and burn hotter than the aspen. Find a big flat rock, keep it by the pit in case you hear a chopper or something and have to put it out in a hurry. If you split the kindling real fine, set it up right, all itll take is one spark in the tinder, and Einar, somewhat to Lizs relief, seemed to run out of words after that, sitting there against the tree with his eyes half open and watching as she got the fire ready. She had been intending to use a match, but wanting to show Einar that she was at lest making an effort to do things his way, she used the ferro rod and striker, and Einar smiled when he saw that she got the fire going with one strike, the hungry orange flames climbing up quickly through the brittle aspen splinters and producing visible waves of heat that distorted the chilly air, but no smoke. Liz got the leftover broth from the previous evening heating, helped Einar move closer to the fire and lie down in the rapidly warming space that lay between the flames and the rock wall. Theres not much of this broth left. I brought some nettles in the packwhat else can I add for you? Could you eat some of that pemmican, if I melted it into the water? Got to try and make the pemmican last. Its about all I have saved up. What is itJuly, now? Yes. About the middle of the month. Einar nodded wearily. Gonna be in trouble when in starts getting cold again in a couple months. Had it all planned out, butdont know how long itll be before Im back to normal, after this. Pretty wiped out, and Im not surethat its done getting worse yet. He checked the drainage bag, saw that it was nearly full of fluid, though from the color supposed that only part of it was blood. Getting kinda late in the year. Better save the pemmican. For now, take therabbit bones. Pound them a little with a rock and boil

them down. Good broth. Gotta use the marrow, brains, everything when youre living on those critters, or you dont get enough fat, and then He seemed to forget what he intended to say next, tried to sit up then to show her how to prepare the rabbit bones, but instead slumped back to the ground, unconscious; his body had simply reached a point where it must have rest, taking the decision out of his hands. Liz thought he had simply fallen asleep, covering him with the mostly-dry wolverine hide and breaking open the rabbit bones before tossing them into the broth to begin boiling. Some time later, the broth ready, Liz lifted Einars head and attempted to rouse him enough to take a sip, but was alarmed to discover that she could not. She spoke to him, shook him gently and finally resorted to pushing on his injured left shoulder, something which she was normally very careful to avoid, as it clearly hurt him. Einar responded by grimacing and twisting away from her, but still would not open his eyes or respond to her words. Liz was worried, wondered if he had suddenly begun bleeding again, checked his pulse and found it to be, though fast and weak, not vastly different from the last few times she had checked. Again she attempted to wake him, with no more success. Einar, come on. I know youre tired, but youve got to eat. Please wake up for a minute. She pressed on his shoulder again, saw a brief awareness of pain pass across his face, then nothing. It was dim there beneath the shelter of the tree, and Liz pulled a flaming aspen stick out of the fire, opened Einars eyes and passed the stick in front of his face to see if his pupils reacted, which they did, but, she thought, a bit slowly. She supposed there might be any number of factors at work in his sudden slide into unresponsiveness, very few of which she had any control over. For now I guess I just have to make sure he keeps breathing all right, keep him warm and hope he comes out of it soon. I know he needs to eat, after all that walking, needs some water. She carefully rolled him onto his right side and covered him up, at which he briefly opened his eyes, but did not appear to Liz to be seeing anything. Einar was seeing things, all right, but they had little to do with Liz or the little fire in the cozy, sheltered spot beneath the ponderosa, where the granite face glowed and flickered with the soft light that escaped from the firepit. The rain was slowing, the wind dying down, and Liz heard a helicopter, distant but approaching, and when she became certain that it was headed their way she quickly pushed the rock slab over the firepit as Einar had instructed her, using a smaller rock to block the air hole and throwing an armful of wet duff over the area. No smoke escaped as the fire died, and Liz found herself immensely glad that she had gone to the trouble of digging the pit and keeping the granite slab handy. Scooting up under the ledge beside Einar she listened to the chopper as it approached up the valley, knowing that if anything could bring him back to awareness, it would, from her past observation of him, be the deep rumble that echoed off the surrounding ridges. He did not stir, and she sat there beside him feeling very alone and wondering what had brought the chopper so close to them, after several days without such an incident. She supposed it would be unreasonably optimistic to hope that the choppers presence in the area had nothing to do with their own.

Sheriff Watts twelve year old son Jeremy was fascinated by the photo his father showed him of the atlatl dart, recognizing it immediately and wondering where the photo had come from, though of course his father could not tell him. Jeremy was even more amazed when the following evening Jason Larsen brought the dart from the photo, or one that very nearly resembled it, to the Scout meeting for everyone to see. Watts was supposed to have been there with his son, but had to respond to a call just as the meeting was getting under way. Jeremy Watts did not mention the photo to any of the other Scouts, as he had got the feeling that his Father expected him to keep it in confidence, when he showed it to him, a feeling that had been reinforced by his Fathers refusal to discuss where he had come across the photo. Jeremy supposed it must have something to do with his duties as Sheriff, but could not imagine what. The dart was passed back and forth and handled numerous times by each of the boys and the dads there at the meeting, several of them commenting that it looked like the genuine article, or a pretty good replica. One of the dads noticed the dried blood between the wraps of sinew that helped hold the head on, and before the evening was over, speculation was running wild in the room about just who would be out hunting with such a thing, in the Culver Falls area. Jeremy Watts couldnt wait to get home and tell his Father about the dart, ask him if it could have anything to do with the one in the photo.

The helicopter came and went, its rumblings echoing up the valley and disappearing off into the distance, Liz fairly certain that it had not lingered unduly over their shelter. Einar had not returned to wakefulness despite the ground shaking and small fragments of loose rock falling from the ceiling of the shelter to land on him, had given no sign that he was aware of the passing menace, and when several minutes had passed with no sign that the chopper was returning, Liz flipped the rock slab off of the fire, checking with the back of her hand to make sure it was not hot enough to burn before carefully sliding it partially beneath his torso for warmth. Knowing that his wet boots could not be helping when it came to staying warm, Liz took them off and set them over the lingering warmth of the firepit to begin drying, changing his sockshe had not let her do it, beforeand discovering in the process the nasty gash on his left foot, still bound with the crusty, blood-caked cloth that he had cut off the tail end of the compression bandage shortly after the fight in the meadow. She shook her head. Einaryou should have let me take care of this for you. Carefully soaking off the bandage, Liz wondered how he had been managing to walk on that foot, at all. It was swollen and inflamed and looked very painful. Treating the gash with antibiotic ointment and a gauze dressing, she slid a fresh sock on over it, noticing that Einars breathing had changed as she workedsped up and become a bit more shallow and irregularand she felt around on his ankle, attempting to check his pulse. She supposed the cleaning of his foot must have hurt some, though he was not awake to tell her about it. Liz could not find a pulse at Einars ankle, checked his wrist and could no longer feel that one, either, finally resorting to the neck. She knew he was dehydrated from the blood loss and from his rapid breathing on the climb, and wished she had a way to give him water. Mixing up the last packet of rehydration

solution from her kitshe hated to use it up, but knew that the need was very great, at the momentshe dipped the corner of a clean piece of gauze into it, carefully squeezing two or three drops of the liquid into his mouth. Einar swallowed, and wondering if that meant he might be able to take a bit more, Liz got his head and shoulders up into her lap and tried giving him a slightly larger amount of the drink, encouraged when he swallowed it. Very slowly she got nearly a quarter of the bottle into him, following it with a small amount of the broth, straining it first through the gauze to get all of the chunks out, unsure whether he would be able to swallow them safely. Einar still showed no sign that he was able to wake up or respond when she spoke to him, so Liz carefully rolled him onto his right side and got his arm under his head in case he ended up vomiting, which while he had shown no sign of doing, she knew was always a possibility. Next she emptied the drainage bag on the wound, cleaned it and the drain with an alcohol wipe and reassembled everything with fresh tape, glad to see that, while there was some blood in the bag, it was mixed with a clearish fluid that she hoped was a natural part of the healing process. Liz was very concerned about the drain site becoming infected, but thought that if she could manage to keep Einar still and out of the rain for a couple of days and keep the area very clean, the chances would be reduced. I sure hope that works out. Maybe that helicopter had nothing to do with usmaybe well get to stay here for a while. She doubted it, though. After staying with him for a while longer, Liz decided that she had to go out and find more water to fill their empty bottles, and possibly try to do something about the food supply. She had seen a few past-prime serviceberry bushes along their route, and wondered, also, if she could figure out and set the snare that Einar had previously used to catch the rabbit. The snare and trigger were in his pack, and she took them, intending to give it a try. She readjusted the wolverine hide so that it better covered Einar, added her jacket to keep his lower half warm. Ill be back soon, Einar. Not going far. I know youll be alright for a little while, youre warm, youve had something to drinkjust please dont go wandering off if you wake up, OK? Be right back. He showed no sign of having heard her, and Liz worried some that he might not be there when she got back, hurriedly tore a piece of paper from the notepad in his pack and left him a quick note, taping it to the water bottle, which she expected would be one of the first things he would reach for, if he did wake in her absence. Einar did, in fact, hear Lizs words as she left, but they seemed very distant, unclear, and not especially relevant to his immediate situation. The thought of returning to the area of his cabin had been troubling him ever since he made the decision to do it; his current lack of food and physical weakness, along with the lateness of the summer, left no doubt in his mind that he would have a far better chance of making it through the winter if he could access the contents of those caches, but at the same time he knew there was a very great likelihood that the whole area was mined with listening devices, cameras, seismic sensors and who knew what else, against the possibility that he might return. He had been trying to work out a plan, a reasonably safe way to approach the area, and had several times very nearly made the decision that it

must not be done, that the risks of discovery and of having to run from a hot pursuit again were far greater than would be the benefits of securing the caches, but his mind kept chewing on the possibilities, kept looking for a way. Somehow in the course of thinking out his return to that area, Einars exhausted, fevered mind had wandered back to the beginning of his ordeal just a year and a month prior, dumping him in the muggy, cramped predawn landscape of Clear Springs to relive that June morning, and everything that had come after. He knew it was coming. Had known, somewhere in the back of his mind, ever since he had left Clear Springs early that morning, carefully keeping within the speed limits as he wound his way through the dull, sprawling expanse of the suburbs and headed back up the winding, steepening road to the mountains, his mountains, breathing deeply of the aspen scented woods through the open window of his truck as he gained elevation, more than relieved to be out of the city and back in familiar country once again. The sun was rising, bright and brilliant through the treetops that lined the ridges above the highway, clear through the thin mountain air, so different from the close, stinking mugginess he had left behind in the lowlands that morning, and Einar should have felt relief, joy, anything but the pressing sense of vague, unquantifiable and therefore unavoidable doom that enveloped him as he pushed his little truck up to the summit of the pass and watched a familiar landscape, brilliant with morning, unfold below him. Something was wrong, had gone wrong, and though he could not quite put his finger on it, Einar knew that it would mean trouble. Eventually. Maybe he had some time. Time to get home, anyway, gather up a few thingswouldnt take much gathering, as they were always ready, or close to itand head out before it caught up to him. Einar reached the gate at the bottom of the old mining road up onto his land just over two hours later, having stopped at the store for a few supplies before heading up. Everything was as he had left it at the cabinhomehe had built it, he loved it, there was no place he would rather be, except perhaps for wandering the hills or picking his way along the high rocky spine-ridges that surrounded it, but it was always great to have someplace familiar to go back to after those forays. And the other kind, too, the kind he was returning from that morning. He got a fire going in the stove and started making his breakfast, turning on the radio that sat in the windowsill, gathering and storing the suns energy so that he could occasionally listen to the one somewhat local station that reached his isolated mountain cabin, AM stations from distant locations during the night time hours, or one of the hundreds of shortwave signals he was able to pick up. Einar had taken a seat by the stove and was starting to eat when the morning news broadcast came on, and he nearly choked on his oatmeal. He sat there for a second as the newscaster finished reading the story before calmly rising and damping down the stove. OK. Well now I know whats wrong. Dont know the why or the howthought everything went pretty doggone well down there but I sure know what, and it sounds like I have to get out of here in a hurry. Because if this is already on the newsyepthere they are! Wow. That was quick. Howd they get here this quick? Looking down the mountain with the pair of binoculars

he kept in the window he saw the vehicles, Sheriffs Department Broncos, mostly, and a few that he did not recognize, winding their way up the switchbacks far below. Doggone it, Sheriff, they sent you to do their dirty work, did they? Wellthis kinda changes things. Einar had plans, backup plans and whatever you call the ones that back those up, but none of them involved crushing the Sheriff and six of his deputies, several of whom he knew personally and counted as friends, or the closest thing he had, to death at the bottom of the five hundred foot deep ravine below his land. Hed never had any quarrel with them, never wanted or really expected to, either, and was unwilling to unleash upon them the deadly fury of rock and explosives that he had planned, tested and carefully maintained against the day someone came for him. The day had come a good bit sooner than he had anticipated, and the someone it brought was not the army of federal agents he had expected to have to face, either. He had been ready for that, but not so much for what was coming up the hill at him. Guess they just sent whoever was closest. Im sure theyll be along, its gonna be their case, but I cant exactly wait around for the festivities. Sheriffll be here in ten, fifteen minutes, and it looks like I got only one good choice, here. Tossing a few bags, crates and waterproof tubs into the bed of the truck, Einar left, not even bothering to latch the door of the cabin. It would be obvious enough once they got inside that he had been there that morningno way to cool off a hot stove that quickand he guessed he didnt want Watts having to bust down the door. Not that it mattered much. Einar knew he was never coming back. Guess Im heading up the mountain, then. And he coaxed the heavily loaded truck up the rutted, shaley track that wound its way into the spruces behind the house, knowing that he would easily be able to join the network of old roads on the backside of the mountain and work his way far from the area before they ever figured out which branch he had taken. Sheriff Jim Watts and his men reached Einars cabin twenty minutes later, found it empty and radioed the FBI agent, then en route from Clear Springs, who had requested that they make the arrest. They were never to know just how close they had come that morning to having their careers ended in a most unceremonious and final fashion.

Liz returned not long after she had left, ducking under the tree-canopy as she heard another helicopter approaching, topped-off water bottles in her pack and her hat full of slightly overripe serviceberries to find that Einar had thrown off all of his coverings, and was sprawled out on his back on the dusty ground beneath the ledge. She hurried to him fearing that he might be freezing again, but found him instead drenched in sweat, his face flushed, burning with fever. Liz felt his head, his arms, knew right away that he was in trouble, that the fever ought not be left to burn itself out as was usually a good idea, cleansing the body of toxins and bacteria and aiding in the healing process. A check with the thermometer in her medical kit provided confirmation; she had to bring the fever down. Urgently she tried to wake him, pushing on his shoulder and calling to him, but Einar just mumbled something unintelligible and twisted away from her, clamping his mouth against the water she tried to give him.

Liz quickly looked through the medical kit, knew Einar could not have the aspirin or Ibuprofin that it contained, as they could reduce his bloods ability to clot lead to further bleeding. There was also a small packet of Acetaminophen, which she knew should not have that effect and ought to help bring the fever down, and she hurriedly crushed up the two tablets that the kit contained, adding them to the rehydration mix in the bottle and trying to give Einar a drink as she had before, by squeezing the liquid into his mouth from the gauze pad. He fought her, though, pushing her hand away and rolling to face the wall whenever she tried to get him to drink. Einar, you need this. Please. Help me, here. Finally, frustrated and fearing that the out-of-control fever might be doing him harm, she tried clamping his head in her arm and dripping the liquid into his mouth, but he struggled and flailed violently until she released him, and she did not try it again, afraid that he might hurt himself and start bleeding again, or hurt her, in his blind attempts to escape. Liz hoped the increased movement meant that he was close to regaining a useful amount of consciousness, but he showed no sign of it, lapsing back into an exhausted stupor as soon as she left him alone. All right then, I guess we have to do this a different way. Liz struggled to remove Einars shirt, knowing that he would be needing it later and not wanting it to get soaked, retrieved his still-wet BDU pants from the branch where she had hung them to dry, and tossed them over his torso, further wetting them with water from one of the bottles and putting a dampened sock across his forehead, another on his neck, glad to see that he no longer seemed inclined to resist her efforts. The damp clothes were soon steaming, and she kept adding water. With evening coming and fire not being an optionhelicopters had continued passing over at fairly regular intervalsshe did not want to end up chilling him too badly, but was at a loss as to how else to begin bringing his temperature down. Liz had been so busy attempting to reduce Einars fever down to a less dangerous level that she had found no time to spare for speculating about its cause, but in moving the BDU pants so she could add water without pouring it directly in the area of his stab wound, she realized that the infection must be spreading, must be the source of the fever. The area of his abdomen below the ribs on the left looked a bit distended and was clearly painful, as Einar responded to her touch by rolling away from her and curling up to prevent further contact. She left his side alone after that, wanting to keep him still so she could continue bringing the fever down. Breaking up the three Oregon grape roots that remained in Einars pack, she dropped them into one of the bottles of water and stuck it inside her jacket where it could begin warming and, she hoped, release a useful amount of the roots yellow antibiotic substance that he always seemed to be making use of. Einar seemed to have calmed down quite a bit since she last draped the wet clothes over him, and Liz approached him carefully, wanting to give him a drop of oregano oil for the infection, but hopefully without setting him to struggling again. It worked; he did not even seem to notice. Liz sat down for a minute after that, realizing that she was, herself, pretty worn out and had better have something to eat. She was feeling a bit overwhelmed, between attempting to care for Einar in his semi-conscious state, deal with his resistance to her efforts and worry about

the possibility that they were even then being surrounded by an army of federal agents. The continued passes by the helicopter or helicopters concerned her; none of them seemed to be hovering over their location, but the activity was clearly unusual, the choppers repeatedly scouring the nearby ridges and valleys. She really wished Einar would wake up so she could ask him what he thought it meant, though at the same time she feared his waking, knowing he would likely be set on heading out as soon as he heard what had been happening, probably finishing himself off in the attempt. Cant keep it from him, though. It got to be his decision. So Id better be able to give him all the details when he does wake up. She got out the notepad, wondering again about the name and address scrawled on the last pagewho's this "Juniper," anyway?and began recording time and approximate direction of all the helicopter passes after that, knowing that the information would likely tell him a good bit more than it did her. The BDUs were nearly dry again, and Liz took Einars temperature, found it not to have come down at all yet and knew that she needed to get more aggressive, pouring the water from two of the remaining bottles over him and soaking his hair, rolling up his drenched knit cap and sliding it under his neck. Nearly out of water then, she hurried out to the nearby creek to refill the bottles, listening carefully for approaching aircraft before leaving the shelter of the ledge. She hurried back to the shelter with the icy water, emptying another bottle on Einar before stopping to take his temperature again, seeing that he had begun shivering in her absence, his lips and hands starting to look a bit purple. It seemed that his condition had left him with a limited ability to regulate his body temperature, and she hoped she was not doing him more harm than good. All right, it looks like hes headed in the right direction. Id better make sure things keep going that way. And she poured on another bottle. Einar he opened his eyes as she was emptying the last bottle on him, and she saw an awareness there that had been absent before, and knew that he had finally returned to full consciousness, or something like it. Einar gave her a quizzical look, glanced at his soaked clothes, then grinned at her. Whatare youdoing? Kinda interesting butI d-dont miss the riverquite thatmuch! Greatly relieved to see him awake and acting more like his normal self again (Normal? Nothing normal about this guy, but thats another matter) Liz knelt down next to him and replaced the soaked BDUs with the wolverine hide. Youve been out for a while, Einar. I couldnt wake you to ask if this was alright. The infection is acting up, you had a bad fever, I was just trying to cool you off. Im sorry. I know its cold. Dont mind. Its OK. Thanks! He tried to sit up but felt the blackness returning at the pain of twisting his injured side, and sank back to the ground, closing his eyes. How long? Were you out? Since just after we got here. She checked her watch. About five hours.

Thought Iheard a chopper Yes. There have been several. I put the fire out when I heard the first one, and it came up this valley pretty low, but I dont think they saw us, or anything. Here. I wrote down when the others came. He glanced at the piece of paper, was shaking too hard to really read it, but got the idea, and dragged himself up into a sitting position. Ten of them? Why d-didnt youwake me? Must havefound that dart. We better get out of here quick. He tried to stand, but found his legs too weak. Guess Ineed a minute. Just a minute. Liz could see that he was still losing heat fast, helped him into the dry shirt and wrapped him in the wolverine pelt, offering him a drink of the broth from earlier. This should help. I guess the fevers gone, for now at least. How are you feeling? He looked at her with a goofy little half-smirk on his face, tried to laugh but ended up coughing instead. I do not know how to answer that. Alive, for the moment. Thats good. Just hoping I can walk in a minute. Einar, I was thinkingarent we more likely to be spotted at this point if we move than if we just stay put? I mean, theyve been back and forth over this area for the last four or five hours, and if they knew we were here, wouldnt they have already come? He thought for a minute, nodded. Was raining pretty hard when we came here. Should have messed up our trail real good. Could be theyd overlook us. Dont like it, though, dont like staying when they seem to know were in the area. Let me see that map. And your notes. Einar studied the topo quad for a few minutes, picturing in his mind the search pattern that was being worked by the aircraft. Looks like a pretty wide area theyre covering. Just might make sense for us to hole up right here for now. Theyll beexpecting us to move. I always move, always go up when they get to following me too close. Break in the pattern could be a real good thing. Gonna be hard for me to sit still, though. Theres a reason I dont like valleys. Several reasons. Could end up trapped down here. If that happenswell, guess its over for me, but it shouldnt be for you. We need a plan He slouched over beside the firepit then, and Liz was at first afraid that he was losing consciousness again, but after a few moments he opened his eyes and went on. Need to make it look like you were kidnapped, got away as they closed in on me, or something. Liz had no intention of abandoning him if it came down to that, but knew that to say so at the moment might convince him that they had to get moving again, so she just nodded and offered him the bottle of Oregon grape root mixture.

Darkness was coming, and the rain had returned as Einar and Liz waited under the ledge, listening for helicopters and hoping the interest of the searchers would soon spend itself and shift its focus to another area so they could move on. That was Einars hope, at least, as he crouched against the wall, leaning heavily on his spear and holding himself rigid against the weariness that wanted to send him sprawling on the ground, trying to remind himself why he had thought it a good idea to stay in a fixed location not five miles from the highway, when the search had clearly been refocused on the immediate area. He wanted to run, to move, to seek the refuge of the rugged, desolate high places where, though he knew in his current condition he might well die, he would at least be certain of not doing so in a trap. The valley provided no such certainty. It was growing increasingly difficult for him to remain there beneath the ledge as the helicopters passed overhead, as he had known it would. He glanced at Liz. She was watching him, had been since he woke, and Einar knew he would not be able to slip away without her noticing. Not that I would at this point, even if I could. Cant just leave her here in the middle of the search, and she wouldnt be too happy about coming with me now, after I just agreed to stay. Which might lead to her making more noise or leaving more sign than she otherwise would Doubt Id make it real far, anyway. Or real high. Kinda having trouble just sitting up right now. He let his head rest on his knees. Were staying. Pleasekeep us out of their hands. Keep Liz safe. Dont let their snare tighten around us. Liz had left Einar alone with his thoughts, seeing that he was struggling with something the search, she supposed, and what to do about itand not wanting to interrupt. She had other concerns, her main one being that Einar seemed entirely unable to warm up after her perhaps over-effective fever-reducing efforts, and that he appeared quite oblivious to the fact. She didnt want to mention it to him as, in her experience, that would simply end in his insisting he was fine and brushing off any efforts she made to help him. So Ill just heat this broth and give it to him, and hopefully his hunger will do the rest. Setting up the little Esbit stove from her packwish I had some of that hexamine leftand arranging slabs of rock around it to keep the wind out and, she hoped, more of the heat in, she squeezed a grape-sized glob of antibiotic ointment onto a small gauze pad, wadded it up, set the can of broth on the stove, and lit the improvised fuel. Einar, who had been staring out at the limited view beyond the shelter, seemingly unaware of her presence, wheeled around at the smell of heat, thinking she had lit another fire. Whats that? Im just heating the broth. There wont be any smoke. This amount of heat wont be a problem, will it? No more than if Id lit a candle Its alright. Did good setting it up way at the back like that, putting the rocks around it. Whatre you burning, anyway? Flame doesnt look like hexamine. A little of the antibiotic ointment. Not much, and we still have a lot of it left.

He nodded, limped over and sat down next to her, holding his hands over the warmth of the little stove. Pretty good thinking. Stuff has a lot of uses. He picked out a few small pebbles from the dusty floor, set them next to the steady orange flame that burned in the little divot in the center of the stove. Can throw these into that bottle of Oregon grape stuff you got started earlier. The heat will help release more of the berberine, and I could really use a bunch of it right now. Growing increasingly dizzy and faint, he lay down. Guess this infection is making a last stand, here. Or I am. One of us has got to go. Hoping Im the more stubborn one. Fumbling with the pouch around his neck, Einar pulled out the bottle of oregano oil, but could not grasp the lid tightly enough to turn and open it. Exasperated at himself, he set it on the ground, and Liz opened it for him, helping him take two drops of the liquid. I have no doubt youre the more stubborn of the two, Einar. Youre going to be OK, but youd get there a lot faster if you let me help out a little more. You need to rest, and eat. She felt his face. The fever did not seem to have returned, at least not yet; he was freezing. Here. The broth is ready. She took some of the dried nettles from his pack and rubbed them between her hands to crumble them up before dropping them into the broth and handing him the can, helping him sit up against the rock wall so he could drink. Einar sat for a long time just breathing the steam and warming his hands, trying once again to develop some semblance of a plan that would keep Liz out of harms way, if the enemy ended up surrounding them down in the little valley. All he could think of was that she needed to be far from him if that ended up happening, far enough that she could not accidentally get caught in the crossfire, hopefully far enough that she could get out of the area altogether and make her way back to the Sheriff with her story of kidnapping and a several-day long hostage ordeal that ended only when the hostage taker was finally surrounded by the agents. Liz could see that Einar was lost in thought again, finally took the can, not wanting the broth to get cold, and helped him drink. You can stop worrying, Einar. Im in this with you now, wherever it goes, and it was my choice. I want to be here. He looked up, wondering how she had known what he was thinking. Well I sure cant figure why you do, but I believe you. GuessuhId have been in a pretty bad way today if you hadnt been here. And yesterday. Thanks. They were silent for a while, Liz supporting Einar and making sure the wolverine pelt stayed in place to help him get warm as he finished the broth and the liver chunks that lurked in the bottom of the can, and she scooped peanut butter from the nearly empty jar in her pack. Rain fell heavily outside, they were dry and had food to eat, and Einar could not help but think that the situation would not have been bad at allif there was not a strong possibility that they were being surrounded by federal search teams, and if he was not, in all likelihood, dying of a massive infection that he lacked both the resources and the physical strength to fight. But he was. Well. Take what you can get. The food turned

Einars stomachit seemed he had been nauseous most of the time since the stabbing but he was able to keep it down, and began feeling a bit warmer as his body absorbed its energy. Yeah. Food. It helps. He had an idea, glanced up at Liz. Ever built a deadfall trap?

Sheriff Watts believed he had little choice but to go to the FBI about the dart at the Scout meeting, once his son told him about it. Word would eventually get around, he knew, and it would become obvious to the feds as they investigated that he had the information or ought to have had it, and chose to withhold it from them. He did not wish to give them any reason to charge him with obstruction of justice in the deaths of three federal agents, not did he want his son pulled into a federal investigation and potentially forced to testify. He was a bit surprised that Trooper Larsen had not become suspicious on finding the dart, but then, he would not have seen the photos, and the stretch of highway where that accident had occurred was many miles from the last know sighting of Asmundson. Watts made a reluctant trip out to Larsens house the following morning, catching him just as he was leaving for his shift and showing him a few photos from the attack, most notably the ones that showed the dart in flight. I believe youve got the murder weapon there, Larsen. Or one of them. Im sure the feds will be wanting to talk with you, and will need your photos from the scene of that accident. Watts went ahead and bagged up the dart, though he knew that by that time it bore the fingerprints of thirty five boy scouts and their fathers, as well as those of the suspect. He doubted that it mattered much. The photos provided pretty conclusive evidence of who had let loose those darts, as if the feds needed any more evidence against Asmundson. Theyve got plenty by now, if they were a bit short in the beginning, as I remember Watts shook his head, thinking back to the morning just over a year ago when he and a few of his deputies had been dispatched up to Asmundsons mountainside cabin at the behest of agents at the FBI Field Office in Clear Springs, who wanted him brought in on a material witness warrant. Watts had been skeptical from the beginning, especially when he was told that the exact nature of the warrant was not to be shared with him, but he had done it, though to no avail. Asmundson was gone when he got there, the stove still warm and a half eaten breakfast sitting in the pot. Wish hed just come in with us that morning, saved everybody a lot of troubleand a lot of lives. Though after seeing how theyve handled this situation, I dont know that Id go with them, if it was me. No turning back for him now, either way, and it seems to me those federal boys had better back off some, unless they want to be holding a big recruitment drive here in the next few months. What Watts couldnt figure was why the fugitive would have taken the risk of crossing the highway when the search had just gone so very active again. Doesnt seem to fit the pattern. Cant really imagine why hed do that. FBI Special Agent Toland Jimson knew why. Or was pretty sure he did. Jimson had taken an early retirement from the FBI that past November, after scaling back the search and declaring the fugitive dead, an assertion not shared by others involved in the search

and which, quite clearly, had proven a bit premature. Returning from retirement at the request of the Director to pursue the man he blamed for destroying his reputation and career, Jimson brought an energy, enthusiasm and an almost vengeful determination to the search that had not been seen in some time, certainly not since the previous Agent in Charge and his two closest associates had rather suddenly lost their heads, and the remaining agents, it seemed, a good bit of the scanty morale they had retained after being involved in such a long and fruitless search. Jimson aimed to change all of that, bring new life to the pursuit and the fugitive to justice, thereby redeeming his own reputation and perhaps even finding himself in line for the Directorship, if all went well. Which he meant it to. Jimson knew that, especially with the current calls for investigations and special prosecutors and the like surrounding the now mysterious death of Special Agent Joseph Stramecki and the allegations he made in his videotaped final statement, he had little room for error. He had to run things in a smooth, efficient and decisive manner, which, for Jimson, was as natural as breathing. The Asmundson case had been the one blotch on an otherwise spotless career, and he meant to cleanse it. And had a good idea where to start, too. As soon as he heard about the discovery of the atlatl near the highway, Jimson sat down with a stack of topo mapshe was old fashioned, that way, hated staring at a computer screen if the actual sheet of paper was availableand began studying. An hour later he had worked out his strategy, and called everyone in for a meeting.

As the light faded under the shelter-ledge, Einar showed Liz how to construct a simple figure four deadfall trigger for taking small game, watching and giving suggestions as she practiced notching willow sticks from the nearby creek for triggers, finally confident after four or five tries that she had the concept. Good. Thats real good. Nowthis rain seems to be keeping the choppers away. Want to go out and set a couple of these? You can use these little chunks of leftover liver as bait, or even better, a smear of that peanut butter, and maybe well have something to eat in the morning. Glad to see that Einar finally seemed willing to rest and allow her to do a few things, Liz hurried down to the creek with the sticks for her two best triggers, seeing that he had allowed himself to lie down as soon as she left and hoping he might fall asleep for awhile. Liz set two of the deadfalls down near the creek, carefully balancing flat rock slabs on the triggers and making sure that the ground beneath was firm, as Einar had mentioned, sliding a large flat rock beneath one of the deadfalls where the ground was soft and a bit muddy. On the first try she nearly got her fingers crushed under the slab, as she waited to smear the peanut butter bait on the trip stick until the trap was set. Jumping back just in time to avoid disaster, she carefully reset the trap after baiting it, knowing that she would not again make the mistake of attempting to bait one after it was set. Near the creek she some nettles, cutting a small bundle and taking them back to the shelter to begin drying for inclusion in Einars food. She wondered about simply powdering the dried leaves and adding them to his drinking water for the extra iron, and supposed it

ought to work. Following the creek for some distance she chose a spot where a spruce overhung the creek, crouching on a rain-damp sandstone slab to fill the two water bottles that had been empty, running the water through her filter as she pumped it into them. Einar, it seemed, drank straight out of the creeks as often as not, but she guessed that was more out of necessity than choice, and as he had mentioned dealing with Giardia at some point, she was determined to filter his drinking water as well as her own, whenever she got the chance. The rain shower was tapering off a bit, and as Liz headed up the slope to the shelter, she saw fragments of blue-grey evening sky peeking out through ragged, wind-torn holes in the clouds, the rain-fog beginning to lift a bit from the valley and drift off through the trees in ephemeral streamers, white and weird against the dripping black of the forest, and she supposed the resumption of the air search could not be far behind. Which it was not, the rumble of the first chopper beginning to be audible in the distance as she ducked under the protection of the Ponderosas that stood straight and tall before the ledge. It wont be long, I think, before Im almost as sensitive to the sound of these things as he is. Im already hearing them sooner than I would have, before. Kind of a safety mechanism that your mind develops, I guess. Einar was still awake when Liz returned, but just barely, and she could see that it was requiring a major effort for him to remain so. The rain seems to have ended for the evening. I know. Heard the chopper. Want to get out of here, but I guess we better stay for the night. Pretty chilly now that the clouds are lifting, and I dont want to risk getting caught without enough cover when one of them comes over. Wed show up pretty good against that damp, cool ground, I think. In the morning thoughgot to move. They may be setting up perimeters. Dont know how fast theyll expect up to be moving, but faster than this, probably. I almost always have. Maybe theyll think they missed us when nothing shows up tonight, move on and we can head away from wherever the search seems to be centered. OK. Why dont you get a little sleep, Einar? Ill listen for helicopters and wake you if anything changes about what theyre doing. And he did, his mind quickly returning to his initial escape.

Einar coaxed the little truck up the shale and spruce needle track behind the cabin, working his way through a band of spruces, across an avalanche path where a collection of scraggly, bent-trunked little aspens told the story of recent winters, and finally up and over the summit of the ridge, starting down the backside. There were a number of reasons he had chosen to build his cabin so close to the top of the ridgehe owned twenty one acres on the mountainsideamong them the ready access the location provided to the rambling, confused network of long-abandoned single track roads that crisscrossed the backside of the mountain, winding and switch backing their way through the dense timber. No one officially maintained them anymore, as most of the mining

claims on that slope had long ago been purchased by the Forest Service and incorporated into the National Forest, but Einar had maintained them, moving trees that fell and doing occasional work to divert water that threatened to wash out portions of one road or another. He had done just enough work to keep the roads passable by his little Nissan, deliberately allowing them to erode and narrow with trees and brush in places to a degree that would stymie wider vehicles, such as the Sheriffs Broncos. Pausing just below the summit, Einar stuck a rock under the front tire to prevent the truck rolling on the steep track, and scrambled back up to the summit, quieting his breath and listening for any sounds of pursuit. Nothing. No vehicles, at least, and as he knew the Sheriffs Broncos were equipped for navigating the network of old mining roads up to the point where they narrowed down ,at least, he could not imagine them following him any other way. Good. Got some time. Maybe. And he hurriedly returned to the truck, choosing the lefthand fork in the road, which took him on a precipitous, tight-turned descent that ended in a slow crawl across an angled band of limestone, a sheer drop beneath leading down to a creek some fifty feet below. Regaining the trees on the far side of rock crossing, he chose yet another fork in the road, worming his way between young spruces and large granite chunks that stuck up out of the former road bed. Continuing like this for a number of miles, having to stop once to remove an aspen that had fallen in a recent windstorm and doing his best to conceal the evidence of its recent cutting, Einar was finally satisfied that he had gone far enough, and was ready to begin on the next stage of his plan, all carefully mapped out and scouted ahead of time. Cautiously pulling out onto the well-used Forest Service road that paralleled the floor of the valley he had descended into, Einar hurried along it as well as he could for nearly five miles, his heart in his throat and one eye on his rearview mirror, knowing that things could easily go wrong in a hurry and not liking the exposure of the meadows he had to pass through. No one came, though, no one saw him, there was as yet no sign of the air search that he expected must eventually come, after what hed heard on the news, and he eased the truck off onto a side track, not even an official road, and made it nearly five hundred yards beyond the last hunters fire ring before the thickening brush forced him to stop, angling the truck down into a small ravine that would prevent its being sighted from any of the long-abandoned campsites, should anyone happen along and use one in the near future. The truck would eventually be found, he knew, probably in the fall when the oak brush and chokecherries lost their leaves, but he hoped in the mean time its total disappearance would give his pursuers (I have pursuers? Great. Guess I better get used to it. This is not a drill) a good bit of confusion as to where, exactly, he had headed. And when it was found, its location would tell themwell, would tell anyone who was at all familiar with the area, at leastthat he had crossed the valley and headed up into the vast Wilderness Area beyond it. Which, of course, he had no intention of doing, meaning to strike out on foot, doubling back to a series of high basins several miles above his cabins where he had a good bit of gear cached against a day such as that one. All in all, he believed he had a good reason to hope that he could thoroughly break his trail, get up to the caches and get back to living a life which, if a bit more primitive and a good deal more furtive than the one he was used to, would at least be one that he was

somewhat familiar with, had trained for, and knew he could do well at, defeating his pursuers simply by lying low until they were forced by time and finances to scale back the search to a degree that would give him a bit more leeway. Carefully exiting the truck on the steep, brushy slope and checking to make sure that whatever was holding it in place was not about to give and send it careening to the bottom of the ravineit wasnt he got started concealing the truck, a job that was made much easier by the head start he had given himself when he repainted the previously white vehicle a flat, muted shade of brown, including anything and everything that had previously been chrome. Taking two quart bottles of used oil from the truck bed, he spread them over the windshield and windows, tossing dirt over the oil to create a non-reflective camouflaged surface, finding that he had enough oil left to do the roof the same way. Next he began collecting fallen branches to put over the bed and lean here and there against the sides of the truck, taking a detour up the far side of the ravine where he noticed a recently fallen spruce whose boughs looked like a good final addition to the concealment project. Sitting down beside the fallen tree for a brief rest, he inspected his work, very nearly satisfied. The one major problem he saw involved the trucks rear tires, which stuck out black and obvious among all of the muted greens and browns of the ravine. OK. Take back a few of these spruce branches, fix the tires and grab my pack, and Im out of here! Things were, he thought, going remarkably well. He found himself almost enjoying the whole thing a just bit, in a weird way. Until, that is, he heard the grumble of an engine, glanced up and saw the truck. Forest Service Green.

Through the night Einar battled the infection, his fever coming and going and Liz doing what she could to make him comfortable, giving him berberine water and oregano oil whenever he seemed awake enough. Sometime towards morning he stopped thrashing around and drifted into a peaceful sleep, Liz curled around him for warmth. She thought his breathing felt a bit more normal, not as fast, and when she took his pulse found that it, also, had returned to a slightly lower and more normal rate. Exhausted, she finally slept. They both woke nearly simultaneously sometime in the chilly predawn darkness, Einar lying still for a moment, listening, before sitting up and making his way out to the edge of the sheltered spot beneath the ledge, feeling terribly hungry and weak, but not nearly as ill as he had the evening before. Liz joined him, silent, listening also. Something was wrong, something had changed. Einar figured it out first. The helicopters. All night they had been rumbling over the area one after another, and nownothing. The weather was still clear and calm, no great gusts of wind bending the black spruce and Ponderosa tops, and Einar did not know what to make of their sudden absence. But Toland Jimson did. Pacing back and forth under the harsh florescent lights in the main building at the FBI compound with the mornings third cup of coffee in one hand and a partially folded topo map in the other, he prepared for the morning briefing. Jimson believed that he knew where the fugitive was headed, knew he must outsmart and outplan the man, as Asmundson had demonstrated a maddening tendency to outrun any active pursuit they threw at him, even when injured as Jimson suspected he currently was, leaving bodies in his wake. And Toland Jimson had a plan.

Einar did not trust the seeming end of the air search, did not know how to take it, but had no intention of waiting around to find out. He wondered if perhaps they had been spotted, and the choppers called off to lull them into complacency as ground teams got into position. Hopefully there was still time to work their way out of the noose before it tightened. Better go take those deadfalls down, in case somebody comes through here later. Maybe theres some breakfast in one of them! Ill get everything packed up. Time to move, Liz Can you? I can, now. A little better this morning, I think. Not so dizzy. Dont have much choice, anyway. If theyre not already out on the ground, they will be, and we could end up trapped down here. What about your foot, though? Can you walk on it? Foot? Oh, it hurts some, but its the least of my worries right now. Just hoping I can climb better than yesterday. Think I can. All that water and stuff youve been giving me has sure helped out. Thanks. She felt around for a bottle and handed it to him to drink while she was gone. Ill take care of the deadfalls. Drink this and eat some of the peanut butter from my pack, if you can. It was just light enough to see where she was going as Liz made her way down to the creek, finding one of the deadfalls undisturbed and dismantling it, carrying the three notched trigger sticks with her for future use. The second had a golden mantled ground squirrellooking very much like an oversized chipmunkin it, and Liz hurried back to Einar, excited about her first trapping success, even if it consisted of only a single ten ounce rodent. In her brief time with Einar, Liz had come to appreciate the value of food more than ever before. It was just beginning to be light in the shelter when Liz returned to find that Einar was nearly finished rearranging the packs, having loaded his own much more heavily than it had been before. She was about to object to the added weight, but decided that Einar would soon discover for himself whether or not he could manage it, and if he could not, she would be there to take it back. If he has the sense to tell me He was flipping through the notepad, and she sat down beside him. I was looking at that yesterday when I left the note for you, and I happened to see that address at the back. Whos Juniper? A reporter. Reporter? Youve been talking to reporters? When?

Well, four or five days ago, I guess. Day before I met you down there in the meadow. It was an accident. They surprised me, this Juniper girl and her friend Steve. Snuck up on me and startled me, took a photo just as I was about to let her have one of those darts. Turns out they were up there taking nature photos and such, but the girl wanted to interview me when the guy told her who I was. Too late at that point, they already knew I was there, so I went ahead and did it, in trade for some of their gear. Thats where I got this pack, some of the food. Led them way back up into the woods, took the guys boots while they were asleep so Id have plenty of time to get away in case they reported me when they got back. Said they wouldnt, but He shrugged. Dumb thing to do, maybe, talking with them, but I didnt figure I had anything much to lose. Got to tell them what really happened at that cabin that blew up, anyway, so if they publish it, at least thatll be out there. Not that anyones interested. Oh, I think theyll be interested, all right. You do realize that this search has been all over the news, dont you? Not just here, but nationally. And nobody has heard your side of it, yetI mean, I couldnt exactly talk about any of it to anyoneso Im glad you were able to do that interview. Though it surprises me a little that you let her keep the photo No harm done. Figure I looked kinda like a cross between Jeremiah Johnson and Sasquatch at that point, and she could have described that just fine for the article, even without the photo. Sasquatch, huh? Well that gives me an idea. How about if I use the scissors from the medical kit to trim your hair and beard so you look less like Sasquatch, then if the agents end up getting close and spotting you, you wont look like the photo and they may not recognize you at first. He laughed a little at that. If they see me, then somethings gone terribly wrong. Guess Ill just count on staying hidden. Hair and beard are part of my camouflage, anyway. Alright. But you never knowif they happened to get a look at you, a change in appearance might cause a couple seconds of confusion, and Im guessing a couple extra seconds can be a very long time when people are shooting at you, or about to be. Einar gave her a sideways glance. Huh. She really does do some good thinking at times. Guess Im just too focused on staying out of their sight to have thought of a thing like that. Well now, that makes sense. But lets get up the hill a ways, first. Dont want to spend any more time down here in the valley. They started up the ridge, Einar wanting to get up high so he could have a look back at the valley with the river and highway, and knowing that its top ought to offer such a perspective. The climb was difficult, Einar tiring very quickly and soon struggling to get enough oxygen as they gained elevation, but he managed to keep at it, eventually settling into a pace that it seemed he could maintain, even while carrying nearly half of their gear, as he had insisted on doing, telling Liz that he would never know how much his condition

had improved, if he did not give it a try. Not as much as he had hoped, as it turned out, but at least the fever showed no sign of returning that morning, and the drainage from his side was nearly clear, rather than the thicker, off-color ooze that had worried him the day before. Not a single helicopter passed overhead during the climb, and the change worried Einar, made him wonder what they were planning. There was no sign, from the rocky vantage he chose just below the ridges crest, of a ground search, no telltale clusters of vehicles on the highway far below when he studied it with binoculars, but Einar knew it must be coming, knew he had to make some distance and get out of the area that they had seemed to be focusing so heavily on the previous night, and do it before they had time to set up any sort of a perimeter that he might have difficulty making it through, especially with his limited ability to climb and to move quickly. With the difficulties the altitude was still giving him, he doubted his ability to outmaneuver or, cloudy as his oxygen deprived brain was feeling, even outsmart an active search, likely as not. Studying the valley through the binoculars, he was struck by an idea. Several miles downriver of where he had crossed, the valley widened a bit, and a private bridge led over to a large meadow, half circled with an array of log cabins and bunkhouses, a horse barn and riding arena off to one side and large racks of red canoes standing on a cement pad between a small manmade lake and the river, a cement ramp leading down into the water. He knew it was some sort of summer camp or dude ranch setup, and the canoes had caught his eye. Liz, I wonder if you could do something for me? See that camp down there? She looked. I dont see any sign of a ground search between here and there. Do you think youd be able to go down there, wait till after dark and get one of those canoes down? Youd take a little of my hair from when you cut it, or even better, he pulled out a plug of hair and handed it to her, take this. Stick it in a crack between the canoe and frame, somewhere itll stay even if the thing ends up turning over in the water, and send it downriver. Then you wait maybe an hour or so, put on these handcuffs and go beat on the door of the lodge down there, all frantic for somebody to call the Sheriff. Make sure its the Sheriff that gets called, and dont tell anybody your name or whats wrong until he or one of his deputies shows up. Then you give them a good kidnapping and hostage ordeal story, tell them I went down there and took off in a canoe, you got away from me as I launched it. Now it looks like rain again, so they shouldnt be able to backtrack you, if youre careful about not leaving too much sign Liz was quiet for a minute, realizing that the diversion, if it was to succeed, would provide Einar with something she could never give him by stayingmore time. And the ability to slow down and not run himself to death, as he otherwise seemed about to do, with or without her. He was struggling for breath, looking at her with a pleading expression that she had never seen from him before, waiting for her answer. Yes. Ill do it. Can Ihow will I find you again, afterwards? Where are you headed? Einar shook his head sadly, looking at the ground. NoI think this has to be where we go our separate ways. Maybe sometimelaterif things quiet downbut not now. Come with me, then! I can cut your hair and beard so no one will recognize you, find

you some other clothes, and we can get away from here, take a canoe down the river for a few miles, get out of the search area, start all over somewhere Take a bus to Canada, or something, get lost in the timber and you can build us that little cabin in the aspens He gave her an odd look, knowing he had never mentioned his cabin dreams to her, and his resolve wavered for a brief moment, wanting to ask her how she had known, to discuss the details of her proposal and see if there was any way at all for it to be made plausible. No. Not an option you have, Einar. You know that. LizI want to. But contact with the outside world can only end one way for me It may come to that someday, but I sure dont want you in the middle of it, if it does. My path right now leads up that mountain. Alone. She nodded, had known what his answer would be, but knew she had to try, anyway. They spent the next several minutes sorting through the packs again, Liz insisting on leaving almost everything with Einar, though he knew he could not carry all of it. She suggested taking it as far as he could, and hiding what he could not carry, for later use. Which Einar thought was a good plan. That was it, then, nothing left to do, and with rain coming Liz knew that she must hurry to take advantage of it. Einar was standing against a tree watching as she took a final look through her pack, and Liz went to him, embraced him, careful of his injured side. You take care of yourself, Einar. I will see you again. He nodded. Thank youfor everything. And yes. Yes, you will. Be careful down there. Liz left, starting down through the mixed aspen and spruce of the slope, moving quickly, clearly on a mission. She looked back once just before entering the dark timber and losing sight of the rock where they had sat to observe the valley, but Einar was already gone.

Einar wanted to wait at the rock and watch Liz for as long as he could see her, make certain she safely covered the two or three miles of steep, hilly ground that lay between the ridge and the river, even considered following her and watching from the brush on his side of the river to make certain that the Sheriff, and not the FBI got there first, and being ready to intervene if she appeared in any danger, but he decided against it. From everything she said about the situation down there, it sounds like shell be safe with the Sheriff or his deputies, and theres no reason anyone else would respond first to the sort of incident she is going to call in. He hoped Liz would report the kidnapping as he had described to her, which he believed would give her the best chance of avoiding possible prosecution for involvement in the death of the agents. She had looked a bit skeptical when he mentioned the kidnapping and hostage story, and he knew she was certainly quite independent enough to decide to do something entirely different, if she believed there was a good reason. Well, if you do that, I sure hope its something better than what I came up with, which it very well might be. Not feeling especially clever, lately. Just hope you realize whats at stake here, for both of us. Which reminded him. Have to get moving. No sense waiting around here or trying to follow her; Id never be able to keep up or get down there in time to do anything if she decides not to wait for dark like I said, and if she waitswell, I really need to be using that time to make distance.

Starting off along the ridge just below the crest, he did not need to look at the map again, not at the moment at least, as he had used the time while Liz got her pack ready to look over the landscape that lay between him and his destination, some thirty miles crosscountry, and pick out several landmarks that would guide his travels for what he guessed would be the remainder of the day, as slowly as he had been moving. After that, if all went well and he did not run into the enemy and have to take a massive and unexpected detour, he expected that he should be back in familiar territory, country for which he would need no map other than the one fixed in his head by countless hours of wandering, exploration and ridge top observation. He had a map, though, should he need it, that covered the area, though it was only a somewhat large scale National Forest map, rather than the highly detailed 7.5 minute topo sheets that Steve and Juni had been carrying for some of the other territory he had recently covered. The first thing he had to do, he knew, was to find a place to cache much of the gear from the two packs Liz had left him, as carrying it any great distance was not, he could tell after several minutes of walking, going to be a good option for him. Climbing had been difficult enough even without the added weight that Liz had been carrying for him on the way up the ridge. He found a spot, somewhat down from the crest on the backside of the ridge, where a jumble of granite boulders and slabs created a multitude of concealed, weather-protected spots, and chose one beneath a dead-topped and distinctive looking Ponderosa to leave what he could not carry, knowing that he could return for it later, after he had got himself set up somewhere and a bit stronger. Quickly sorting everything into two pilesabsolute essentials and too heavy he loaded the essentials into Junis pack, carefully securing the willow pack with the rest of the gear in one of the two heavy black contractors bags that Liz had been carrying, piling rocks around and over it to protect the contents from animals, as well as from detection should anyone walk by. Which he doubted, on that rugged, steep slope. All of the foodand there wasnt all that muchhe took with him, knowing that it was rather essential, at the moment, and that it would certainly attract bears if left. Liz had tried very hard to leave him all of the food, but he had insisted she take at least some of the trail mix and one of the energy bars, as well as some of the water purification tablets and Steve and Junis small first aid kit. Never know when these things may end up taking longer than we expect, hed told her, and she could not dispute the assertion, especially coming from him. She had finally managed to talk him into keeping her rain jacket, at least, an idea which he had at first been greatly opposed to, by reminding him that if something went terribly wrong and she became lost or stranded and soaked in the rain, she could simply make a fire to dry off, as she would not be trying nearly as hard as he was not to be discovered. He was to end up being very glad that he had accepted the jacket. Sometime while Einar was working on the cache the expected rain began, and though he was very glad to see it, knowing that it would help cover Lizs tracks and his own, he had to fight hard against a powerful impulse to remain where he was in the shelter of the rocks and wait it out. He was awfully weary, his legs feeling like they had carried him much farther than the few miles he had so far traveled that day, and the weakness that had resulted from the blood loss and his inability to eat much due to the nausea and fever of the infection scared him some. He had never before struggled with getting enough

oxygen at altitude as he had been since the blood loss, and he could think of few actions he could take to improve that situation, other than to keep drinking as much water as he could. He knew that his problem was not the typical one faced by flatlanders attempting to acclimate to higher elevationshis blood had been quite well adjusted to carry the necessary amount of oxygenbefore he lost what he estimated to be somewhat upwards of thirty percent of it over the course of several days. A good bit of the volume he had lost had been replacedhad to have been, he supposed, or he doubted he would be able to sit up for long, let alone walk, without passing outbut he knew the oxygen-carrying red blood cells would take far longer to regenerate, especially because he had likely been somewhat anemic before the whole incident. He knew that the more iron and chlorophyll containing foods he could eat, the more quickly the process would go, and hastily grabbed a handful of dried nettle leaves before departing the shelter of the rocks, breaking them up and stuffing them in his mouth, washing them down with a gulp of water and nearly choking on the stringy results. Hmm. Tea would be better, but no time for that, nor any way to heat it, if I had time. Better be looking out for more nettles, too, lambs quarter, stuff like that, because that used up most of the nettles Liz had dried and stashed in here. Sure glad she thought to do that. The nettles effects were felt nearly immediately as a surge of energy, and Einar wondered if he was imagining it, or whether the extra iron could really affect him so quickly. If it could, he supposed he ought to be concerned at the seriousness of his deficiency. Well, hey. Youre alive and not bleeding much if at all at the moment, so just be glad of that. And get moving. Enough of this lingering and pondering and analyzing. Be time for that later. If this works. Bet you were hoping youd fall asleep here under these rocks so you didnt have to go out in the storm, werent you? Ha! Not gonna work. Now go. The rest of Einars day consisted of continuing on from one landmark to the next, resting frequently and keeping himself going only through the grim determination that had become a familiar and indispensable companion throughout his long months on the run, one foot in front of the other, over and over, stopping when he thought of it to take a drink and a bite of something to give himself enough energy to take a few more steps. In one sense he was glad to return to that mode of existence, as he had feared he might be losing his ability to keep it up, while under Lizs attentive care. Only in her absence did he begin to realize just how much she had been doing for him, both physically and morale-wise. Now that everything was up to him again, he fought to regain some measure of the dogged determination that had so many times carried him through things he thought himself incapable of accomplishing. Yeah. Like that next ridge. And was glad to see that he was still able to do it. Mostly though, he just wished the movement could cease, wished for sleep. And he missed Liz. Told himself to put her out of his mind, that the thoughts of her were interfering with his progress, slowing him down and messing with his focus, but he found himself unable and possibly even unwilling to do so. Hope she got down there safely. And sure hope shes waiting for dark to cross that river and get the canoe Several helicopters passed over during less stormy stretches that afternoon, but not nearly as many as Einar would have expected, and he still puzzled over the seeming dissolution of the air search.

Toland Jimson kept the air search going on a low level near the river and over the neighboring territory, knowing that he had to cover all of his bases and appease those who believed the fugitive must still be somewhere near where the dart was found. After studying the maps and reviewing the details of the case, though, he had come to the conclusion that the only reason for the subject to have crossed the road where he had, was that he was headed for his old stomping groundsthe ridges and valleys and high, desolate basins that surrounded the cabin where he had been living before he narrowly avoided the Sheriffs Deputies that had, at Jimsons request, been sent up to apprehend him just over a year before. The place had been under heavy surveillance in the first days and weeks of the manhunt, but there had never been a sign of the fugitives return or attempted return. Jimson had a fair certainty that this was about to change, and focused much of his attention on developing a strategy that would lead to his apprehension, if he was to try anything of the sort. He began the process by obtaining detailed satellite images of not only Asmundsons property, but the ridges and basins within a five mile radius, as well. Second, he requested the use of another Predator UAV, this one to come equipped with a lightweight magnetic anomaly detector, (MAD) which, thanks to a newly developed system being tested by the Navy, could be towed behind the aircraft. Already such devices had been used in mineral, gas and oil surveys and Naval submarine detection operations, allowing far more frequent and less costly missions than with detectors mounted on conventional aircraft. Jimson doubted that the fugitive, even if wounded, would be foolish enough to actually return to his cabin, and surmised that if he was headed in that direction as it seemed, it must be to retrieve previously stashed items that the initial search had managed to overlook. Probably, he guessed, because they were searching too close to the cabin. Evidence from the scene of the attack on the three agents in the meadow told Jimson that the fugitive had been injured in the encounter, perhaps seriously, as a good bit of what was later determined to be his blood had been found on one of the agents uniforms and on the ground, in one of the few places where it had not been washed clean by the rising creek, and Jimson guessed that he might be making the return trip to familiar territory out of desperation for some of the supplies that might remain hidden. His prey was wily, for certain, but Jimson smelled blood, believed that this time, he was going to be able to outsmart the man and finally wrap up the long and embarrassing search. The survey work had to be accomplished quickly, though, before the subject had time to make the journey into his home territory, so as not to arouse his suspicions and destroy all chances of the operations success.

It was mid afternoon and raining hard when Liz reached the river, searching for an adequate hiding place that would give her a good view of the canoes and bunkhouses and finding one in a tangle of wind-felled spruces some fifty yards up the steep, heavily timbered slope from the water. The camp down below was quiet, no one seeming to be around and the horses having all taken refuge in the open-fronted pole shelter beside the riding arena. She was tempted to go ahead and brave the river, send a canoe downstream

and pound on the lodge door with her storywhat is my story, exactly? Id better work out all the details before going down therebut decided to wait until dark as Einar had suggested. It was doubtlessly what he would do, and as she was trying to make a convincing case that he had been there with her before escaping down the river, then she knew she must wait. Liz was soaked from the rain; it was going to be an uncomfortable wait, but she did not much care. It was fairly warm down there in the valley, and Liz, when she thought of Einar and what he had been through, simply could not bring herself to lament her situation, even silently. She used the time under the fallen trees to plan, step-by-step, the actions she would take after crossing the river and to work out the details of the story she was going to tell once she made contact with the Sheriffs Department. And, that done, to pray for Einar. She was worried about him, concerned that he might overdo it and start bleeding again, that the fever could and probably would return, that he might lose consciousness again and not wake up, or might lack the strength to help himself when he did. The best and perhaps the only thing she could do for him, she knew, was to successfully carry out the diversion, and continue pray that he would be able to take care of the rest, would be provided with whatever he needed, including the wisdom to know when he needed to stop and take a break. Perhaps if the search was not pressing him so hard, if he had time to slow down and recover, he might do alright. She certainly hoped so. Darkness came, lights appeared in the windows of the lodge but not in any of the cabins or the bunkhouse, which Liz took to mean that no one was staying in them at the moment. A good thing. Ill be less likely to get seen messing with the canoes. Having observed the river for several hours, she realized that she ought to begin her river crossing somewhat upstream of the camp, in case she ended up losing her footing and drifting some, to eliminate the possibility that she might have to walk back upstream between the cabins and the river, risking being spotted before she had taken care of the canoe. Carefully making her way a distance up the brushy bank in the darkness, she went over her plan againget across, take a canoe down, find a place to secure the plug of hair Einar had given her, partially submerge the canoe so that it would be somewhat concealed from the air when they went looking, and would appear to have dumped its passenger in keeping with the story intended to use, put the cuffs on, and go bang on the lodge door, yelling for someone to call the Sheriff. Thinking about it, Liz saw a problem with the sequence of events. The cuffs. She needed them to make the kidnapping story appear reasonable, or thought she did, but realized that it would be fairly easy for the deputies who responded, and especially to anyone who might examine her afterwards, that she had not been tramping around in the woods for several days with the cuffs on. I should have put them on earlier, I guess, so my wrists would have had some time to get injured and bruised and look like Id been wearing them for awhile. But still, Im sure they have a way of telling how old the bruises are. And if I already had them on, I might end up drowning as I cross the river, and would certainly have a very hard time getting the canoe down and into the water without making an awful noise. She had an idea, hid the cuffs and continued on her way. The water was swift but not too deep, and Liz made it across without any major disasters, crouching silently for a minute on the cement boat ramp, fishing gloves out of her

swamped pack and donning them, listening for any sign of activity before furtively dashing over to the canoes and struggling to free one from the rack. As she lowered it, one end dipped down and let out the distinctive but brief sound of plastic scraping on rough cement, and she heard a dog growl from over in the direction of the barn, but it did not bark. Barely daring to breathe, she lifted the canoe from the cement, rolling it up and over so that her head and shoulders were beneath it, and hurried down to the ramp. There were no paddles in sight, but she supposed that someone in the situation Einar would have been in, had he really been down there, would have taken the canoe anyway. Taking the sample of Einars hair from her pack, she stuck it in between the seat and frame, in a spot where it seemed possible that ones hair might get stuck and ripped loose if the canoe tipped over on you, and hurried to get it into the water. The current was nearly nonexistent there at the ramp, and Liz waded out and tipped the canoe until it was more than half full of water, shoving it out further and going with it out into the swift current before letting go and wishing it a good journey. Hope it makes it far enough that they cant find it for a few hours, at least. Not until after daylight. OK. Time to go get help. Approaching the lodge, Liz did not have to use too much imagination to make herself appear as the wet, cold, bedraggled victim of a long ordeal in the mountains and river, seeking refuge from the possible return of her kidnapper. She supposed the first impressions of the people at the lodge might be important when they were questioned later by the authorities, so put all of the tension and anxiety she had been feeling in regard to the success of the canoe mission and he concern for Einar into her act as she pounded on the door, which the couple that managed the lodge opened to find a drenched, muddy, shivering woman on their doorstep, nearly in tears as she begged them to let her in and call the Sheriff. Ten minutes later Liz sat by the stove in the lodge, wearing a bathrobe and drinking hot coffee as she told her story to the responding deputies. Notified of the situation, Watts himself showed up half an hour later, explaining to Liz that he meant to take her into protective custody for her own safety, until she could testify before a state grand jury about the assault by the three agents. The FBI, of course, had to be notified about Einars presence down at the lodge, and a contingent of agents showed up very soon after at the Sherriffs Office, wanting to question Liz about him. Watts agreed, with the stipulation that she was not to be taken from the building, that the questioning must take place in his interrogation room, and that he be allowed to video tape it, as he did all interrogations that were carried out on the premises. The FBI had little choice. Liz repeated to the agents the same story she had given to Watts, keeping the few details she gave consistent no matter how many times the question was asked or how the questions were rephrased and repeated to her. The picture that emerged was one in which Liz had been accosted by the three agents while out picking berries, and, despite repeated assertions from her federal questioners that he memory must be faulty, beaten by them for what seemed to her no better reason than a bit of slowness on her part to answer their questions. Then, she told them, one of the agents had suddenly fallen in his tracks, and when she looked up she had seen an arrow, as she called it, sticking out of his neck. She had put her head down then, and did not see when the second man was struck, but heard him fall. The third agent had begun firing into the brush, at which point, she said,

she had crawled forward until she was protected just a bit by a low-growing clump of brush, and put her arms over her head for protection, lying on her stomach. The rest of the struggle, she said, she had only heard and not seen, as Einar had run in and engaged the third agent, the sound of something metallic telling her that he had dropped his pistol. They had struggled for awhile, she said, and once she had glanced over and seen the agent with a knife. Then a single gunshot, and silence. It had been a while, she said, before she had dared look up, and she had seen Einar, covered in blood, standing over the dead agent with a pistol. He had pointed it at her, told her to help him search the agents pockets and take the pack from the one who had it, had forced her into the creek at gunpoint, telling her he would shoot her if she left any tracks. She did not remember much about the rest of that night, she told them, except that they had climbed up a very steep, rocky gulley, and that he had at some point stopped and made her help him bandage up a cut he had sustained during the knife fight. He made me keep climbing all night. When it got light he gave my pack back, with my water bottle and a little food, and told me I could go. I had no idea where I was, he had my map, compass and cell phone, and I was afraid I would never find my way out of there, so I followed him for a while, hoping he would fall asleep so I could get my phone back and call for help. He never did stop to sleep, and I knew I was lost, so I just kept following him. Once I lost track of him for a while, and didnt find him again until I heard a helicopter come, and went towards it. Before I could reach the little meadow where I saw the helicopter, he found me and held the gun on me again. He was angry that I had followed him, and I stayed down in in a little hollow where a tree had fallen and pulled up some dirt, when he told me to. He was doing something with a radio, but I couldnt see what, and then he said something into it and I heard a pop, kind of like a gunshot, off in the distance, and then he demanded that I go with him again. The agents had extensive questions about Einars injuries, but she kept telling them that he had not allowed her near him after first demanding that she bandage his side, so she really had no idea of their extent or magnitude. He had seemed tired and moved slowly at first, she said, but had apparently recovered quickly, because she had found it difficult to keep up with him. They had traveled for several days, she said, seldom staying in one place for more than an hour at a time, and she had several times decided to sneak off while he slept, but had been afraid of getting lost, and had also quickly realized that he slept very lightly, and had been afraid that he would see her leave and come after her. She had continued to hope that she would get the chance to retrieve her cell phone, but the opportunity had never presented itself. Then, she told them, he had led her down and across the highway, at which point she tried to get away and summon help from a passing vehicle, but the vehicle had hit a deer and Einar had caught up to her and once again forced her to go with him, saying that he would let her go in a day or so, but could not risk having her report him when he was so close to the highway. The next night and day, she told them, had been spent traveling the ridge that paralleled the river, and hiding for hours at a time under rock ledges and trees when the helicopters started coming over. Then, when the choppers went away, Einar had led her back down to the river, crossed, and got into one of the canoes. He had

demanded that she get in with him, saying that he knew she would go right to the lodge and report him if he let her go there, but she had struggled, the canoe tipped over, and she had made it back out of the river and run to the camp lodge. It had been dark, she told them, and she had seen no sign of what had become of Einar or the canoe. Whether or not the FBI interrogators believed Liz was telling them the whole truth was yet to be seenit was clear that Toland Jimson, watching as the agents questioned her, was not taking her words at face valuebut there was little they could do about it that night, one way or another, as Sheriff Watts insisted that she remain in his custody until the State Prosecutor had a chance to talk with her about the assault by the agents, and whether there had been involvement by any agents other than those who had ended up dead. Watts hoped so. He wanted to see someone prosecuted for the attack, and instructed four of his deputies to see the agents to their vehicle when they were finished with the interrogation.

About the time Liz was being let into the lodge and given a mug of hot chocolate, Einar found himself huddled at the base of a spruce, trying to stay out of the wind and get his chilled hands to cooperate as he split willow sticks to accept the deer bone dart heads that he had previously made. He had run across a small willow bog while crossing a low spot between two ridges a while back, and taken a minute to cut three good straight willow shoots, intending to make more atlatl darts as soon as he had the chance to stop for a few minutes. He had the pistols, of course, but if he ended up pursued too closely, the more silent weapon certainly could have its advantages, at least at first. And he wanted the darts for taking game, being unwilling to use the pistol for that purpose, not while so close to what he assumed must be an active ground search. Getting the two dart heads seated, working entirely by feel in the rainy darkness, he pulled out a length of prepared sinew and began winding, tightening the splits around the heads until they were firmly held in place. Next time he had a fire, he would melt a bit of pitch to paint over the sinew wrappings for protection and added strength, but he knew the darts could be used as-is, if he had to. OK. Now eat something. He felt around in the pack, found the nearly empty jar of peanut butter and scraped some out. The peanut butter stuck in his throat, reminding him to drink. He had been forgetting, it seemed, his nausea returning in waves and aggravated by the sheer exhaustion of continuing to move, in his condition. Water. Water helped, and he took another scoop of the peanut butter, knowing he needed the energy. Einar rested then, his head against the tree and his hands in his armpits for warmth, grateful for Lizs jacket and satisfied that he had covered the ground he had sought to cover that day, but feeling at the same time a pressing need to keep moving, as soon as he had got a bit of rest. He could not shake the feeling that, despite the relative lack of air activity, something was terribly wrong, that he was being followed or surrounded by searchers, or was about to be. Just a few more miles tonight, and Ill quit. See where I am in the morning, how far I have left over to the area where that main cache is. Once he reached the cache, Einar knew, watched it for a day or so and

determined it to be safe to approach, he would be doing much better. There he could get ahold of the antibiotics he needed to hopefully finish off the infection in his side before it flared up again and did him in, a rifle, sleeping bag and enough food and other assorted gear to give him a much better chance at being able to slow down for a while and recover, not to mention greatly improving his prospects for the coming winter. He could picture the area plain as day, the charred and twisted trunk of a long dead fir marking the spot where his cache was concealed beneath a jumble of large granite slabs at the edge of a rockfield. There ought to be enough room, as he remembered it, for him to shelter under those rocks for a day or two, hidden from the air and protected from the weather, as he rested and ate and got stronger. And Einar fell asleep there against the tree, dreaming of the next days travel and what it would feel like not to have the dark hungry sharp-taloned spectre of imminent starvation lingering just over his shoulder all the time. Good. Will be very good.

After hiking for another hour in the general direction of his cabin that night, Einar curled up under a tree on the side of the steep ridge that he had been trying to make it over, hoping a few hours of sleep might leave him able to move at something faster than the half-dazed, limping crawl he seemed to have been reduced to that night. Wedging himself behind the tree to prevent any unexpected rolling or sliding in the night Einar was asleep almost instantly, his pack just above him in the branches of the tree, his spear and a pistol handy, hoping bears did not become a problem. Sometime in the dark hours of early morning the rain moved out and the cold set in, causing Einar to stir in his sleep and attempt to burrow deeper in the duff for shelter. Which did not work especially well, as the tree he had chosen was on a steep enough slope that the fallen needles had not accumulated very deeply at all, most of them ending up significantly downslope. Unable to scrape up enough insulation to make much of a difference, Einar settled for drawing his knees up to his chest so he could get them inside the jacket and keep the wind off of his rain-dampened pants and eating a few bites of Lizs trail mix, knowing that the calories would help him stay warm. Or something like it. He found himself once again wishing Liz was still there, wondering, suddenly wide awake, if her canoe project and its aftermath had gone alright, tried to push the thoughts out of his mind but went to sleep thinking about her, anyway. He woke an hour later when the sky began brightening, chilled but thinking that, considering the circumstances, it had been a fine night. Just a bit too short. Looking at the map, Einar realized that, counting the distance he had covered after dark, he had put nearly nine miles behind him that past day. Not very far, by his usual standards, but better than he had expected, though he knew he was still too close to the likely search areawish I knew where the search area was, what there strategy is, here. Dont like the lack of air activity. Whatre they doing, anyway? Watching me with satellites? Sure doubt that theyve given up and gone home to linger too long in one spot. Did OK yesterday. Now, to do it again. Or better. Two more days of this, and Ill be there, then a day or so to scout and watch the place. Not far from his bed-tree he heard the odd, distinctive burbling call of a grouse, moved slowly and cautiously until he

could see the bird, some fifteen feet below him on the slope where it was picking and scratching at the rain-damp fir and spruce needles for food. Quietly, Einar pulled the old dartthe only one that had been treated with a protective pitch coating on its sinew wrappingsfrom the top if his pack, fitting it into the atlatl and carefully taking aim. His arm was weak and a bit shaky, and holding the weapon steady was quite a challenge, but the bird wasnt moving much, and, finally satisfied with his readiness, Einar let the dart fly, taking the bird squarely through its mid-body and watching as it flapped and floundered in an attempt to escape its silent, unseen assailant. The grouse finally stopped moving when the long willow dart became tangled in some brush a good fifty yards from Einars position, though not, to his relief, too far below it. He did not especially want to do too much downclimbing if he could help it, knowing that it would be challenge enough to get himself up what was left of the ridge, and the one after The wounded bird had attempted to go up as it fled, had attempted to fly, actually, though it had not been able to, and he traversed the slope to reach it, finding it dead when he got there and retrieving his dart. As he cleaned the dart and inspected his still-warm breakfast, the thought occurred to him that the dart had so far served him pretty well, both dispatching an enemy and obtaining him a meal. The thought of his struggle with the agent reminded him of the wound under his ribs, and he pulled up his jacket to take a look at it, supposing it was a good sign that it had not by default been the first and only thing on his mind, that morning. Guess maybe its starting to heal some, whatever was going on in there. Whole left side is still awful tender though, and I dont think the fever is entirely gone. Better keep up on this oregano oil, and the Oregon grape. Not wanting to forget, he took two drops of the oil from the bottle in the pouch around his neck. There was some drainage in the bag that morning, mostly clear with a slight tinge of red, and he hoped to be able to remove the drain altogether in few days, as it was an ongoing inconvenience and a major concern as a possible new source of infection, which he certainly did not need. Breakfast was of grouse, warm if not cooked, and Einar was glad to find himself finally able to eat more than a bite or two of food without growing too nauseous to continue, as had been the case over the past several days. Now if I can avoid picking up some nasty bug from eating raw grouse and such, Ill be doing pretty well! Already he felt warmer for having eaten, more awake. Keeping the birds wing feathers and some of the larger bones for future projects, he started up the ridge. Down in the oak brush on the backside of the ridge, Einar found a number of milkweed plants in the seed pod stage in a little clearing where he stopped for a quick break, a couple of the pods opening to reveal the silky white fibers that served to scatter the seeds to the wind, and he stopped to collect some, stuffing a good sized wad of the fluff into the pouch around his neck. The milkweed down was, he knew, one of the best things nature provided for catching a spark when starting a fire with a ferro rod of any sort. Einar was a bit disappointed that he apparently had missed eating the immature seedpods as he liked to do before the fluff developed, the boiled results somewhat resembling okra. Well. Couldnt have a fire, anyway, so wouldnt have been a way to cook them. Still, too bad. Gathering a good quantity of the not-yet opened pods, Einar gave them a spot in the small outer pocket of the pack, knowing that the suns warmth would help finish the drying process. He had in the past found it much easier, when collecting any quantity of the silky down, to gather the pods when still immature, as if they had already started opening

when picked, much of the down tended to fly away when they were picked. Einar had very much hoped to be already in a fixed location by the time the fluff, and that of cattails, which would come later, was ready. If he had been, he would have been working to collect large quantities of it to make a down stuffed vest, and perhaps even a blanket of some type, as the stuff provided excellent insulation that kept its insulating properties even when compressed. Just have to carry what I can, for tinder. Einar still had a faint hope that he might be able to get out from under the search and set up somewhere before cold weather returned, but he was increasingly coming to expect another difficult winter of living day-to-day as he struggled to get enough to eat. The cache, if it ended up still being there and being safe to approach, offered him the head start in preparing for the season that he had not been able to so far find the time or opportunity to give himself, between the injuries and the continued running. But the cache--reaching it, recovering the items, being able to stay in the area long enough to benefit from them--he knew, was a possibility, not a certainty, and to allow himself to come to think about it in any other terms was to set himself up for a mighty rough time if things did not go as he hoped. Well, One way to find out. Starting to recognize ridgelines already. This is country I know, so let's see how close I can get, today.

Agent Jimson reviewed the MAD images from the area around Einars old cabin with a team of several agents and two Airborne Electronics Analysts who had been sent with the borrowed Predator, settling on several specific locations that seemed to merit further investigation. One of them was so far from the cabin--four or five miles, it appeared to Jimson--that the others were reluctant to use the man hours and resources necessary to reach and explore the remote site, which appeared to be up near treeline. Jimson authorized it, though, made it the priority, in fact, knowing that nearly every time in the past when they had made assumptions about what the fugitive had done or was about to do, they had been wrong. Sometimes disastrously so. And it makes sense that if he has something up there, it would not be right near the house. To him, four or five miles is probably nothing. Start with that far out location up near the treeline, he instructed the search team. And take the demolitions team, because if you find something, you can expect it to be rigged. I do not want to see the body count go up, here, you understand? There will be consequences for carelessness, above and beyond whatever Asmundson may have planned for you. Piling into a chopper that morning, the eight agents, one Electronics Analyst and a four man support team from the BATFE headed up to the area of the cabin to begin their work. The helicopter, the first he had seen that morning, seemed to be coming from the direction of Culver Falls, and did not linger over the ridges and valleys as he had come to expect. It was traveling higher and faster than usual; going somewhere. Watching through the low-swept branches of a spruce from his position of the flank of a massive

ridge as the Blackhawk rumbled off into the distance, Einar felt a chill go down his back that had noting to do with the restless morning breeze that swept down from the high peaks, or with the fact that he found himself unable to move fast enough to warm up, that morning. The chopper was heading in his direction of travel, flying over one and then another of the landmarks that that he had chosen to direct his path up to the basins above the cabin, still some eighteen miles off, and though he told himself that the choppers course was almost certainly coincidence, Einar was having a difficult time convincing himself. Which was not surprising. He had always rather doubted the existence of coincidence, and his experiences over the past year had served only to reinforce that doubt. Einars first impulse, and it was a very strong one, was to immediately abandon the idea of retrieving his caches, head in another direction and focus simply on getting himself further from the area of the search. And Ill figure winter out when it comes. Made it through the last one without those supplies, so why should this one be any different? He hesitated, looking over the landscape in an attempt to decide on a direction and tentatively starting off up a nearby draw that altered his course away from the area of the cabin, took a few steps, and stopped. Why should this one be different, you ask? Oh, I dont know. How about the fact that you been starving and running for a year now and youre pretty worn out, you got a bad hip and shoulder, among other things, cant hardly even use a bow, you just lost a significant amount of blood, youre sick and maybe dying from this infection, and you just have nothing left, for starters? Nothing. Now you might make it without that stuff, sure, but the chances are an awful lot better with it, especially as late in the summer as its getting to be, and the shape youre in. More than likely, that chopper has nothing to do with where youre headed. No one knows where youre going, not even Liz. You know that. Now turn around. And he did, reluctantly, rebuking himself for the lapse in discipline that had allowed him, if even momentarily, to question his ability to go on as he had been, despite the difficulties. You let yourself start thinking like that, Einar, and youre real likely to end up just sitting down under a tree somewhere and not getting back up. Now go on up that ridge. Got lost time to make up for, after all this nonsense. You left those feds behind miles ago. Theyre back there wandering around in circles wondering where you went, scared to go out in the open in case you have any darts left! Despite his confident words, a shadow of apprehension still hung over him as he struck out towards his next landmark, which consisted of a series of flat-topped rock spires that rose stark and rugged out of an otherwise unbroken sea of evergreens on the lower slopes of an unnamed eleven thousand foot peak, appearing as separate features but connected at their lower levels, as became apparent when one approached them, by a thin, fluted, fifteen foot high spine of rotten, brittle granite that was concealed by the timber, from a distance. Einar knew them. The Bulwarks. That had been his name for them, anyway. On the map they bore no name, and as Einar had never seen sign of other human presence around them--with the exception of a bit of orange marking tape and a few boot tracks one elk season--it had seemed to him that few others knew of their existence, or cared. They had become a place that he visited frequently, making the ten mile hike from his cabin in just over two hours and spending the day free climbing on the spires, which ranged in height from thirty to fifty feet, and presented a seemingly infinite variation of climbing routes and problems. While the rock of the lower, connecting spine was brittle

and dangerous in places, the spires themselves were solid. He had loved the place, loved losing himself in the intense focus that it required, his mind, for a rare and treasured stretch of time, blank of everything besides the immediacy of choosing his next move, of learning the rock, feeling the rock, finding patterns in how it was constructed and in how he moved over it as he climbed. He had many times taken great enjoyment in a day spent coming to know the intricacies of those spires, pausing on one of their flat tops for some water, a few minutes spent pondering the vast landscape that spread out below him, and the snack he had brought--usually a tin or sardines--before rappelling back down and choosing another route to try. Finally, either at the end of the day or when approaching thunderstorms rendered further climbing unwise, he would flop down beneath one of the dark, sheltering spruces to sleep, his body exhausted but his mind greatly renewed, before heading back to his cabin the following morning. Up behind the series of spires, between them and the mountain, lay a wonderful, hidden little meadow, only a few yards wide but as long as the chain of linked spires, that grew lush and green with the snowmelt water that trickled down from the peaks summit and filtered through the rockslides to dampen it through the summer. Above the meadow the mountain rose steeply, timbered but very rugged and difficult to traverse, bands of cliffs breaking out here and there from the stunted sub alpine firs and little snow-bent that populated its slopes, and the meadow-strip was completely concealed, unless one happened to be climbing on the spires, or flying overhead. Often Einar had rested in the meadow after his climbs, drinking from one of the three snowmelt seeps that found their way to the surface in the rocks just above it and provided water throughout much of the summer, pausing sometimes to sit silent and still as a doe led her twin fawns out into the grass to eat, or lying on his back and watching as a bighorn sheep picked its way nimbly across the rocks above, knocking loose the occasional shard of rock to go clattering down to the nearest rockslide where it shattered, releasing the acrid, almost sulfurous smell of freshly broken granite that spoke to Einar of past adventures in the high, desolate places of the world, of danger and delight and a few encounters with lightening that could only be described as way too close for comfort. He had a few things cached there near the meadow--not much, as it had not, for a number of reasons, been a direction he had planned to head in if fleeing his cabin--and the small cache contained only a few things that he had found useful during his climbing excursions, stashed in a .50 caliber ammo can which he had wrapped in a garbage bag for weather protection and stuck in a protected crevice near the base of one of the spires. At the moment, though, the stash represented significant wealth to him, the food it contained promising a welcome boost of energy to aid him in finishing the grueling--in his condition--climb to the area of his main cache, some eight miles and two thousand feet above it. Especially appealing was the thought of the five tins of sardines that he could picture stacked in one end of that ammo can. His mouth watering, Einar headed in that direction. As the day went on and no more choppers came over, he laughed at himself, at his overactive imagination and the dread he had felt that morning as he had been sure that Blackhawk was heading straight for his cache to lay a snare for him. Weary, feeling the altitude and increasingly exhausted from the strain of maintaining a strenuous pace after so extensive a blood loss, Einar was nonetheless in good spirits as he topped out on the

final ridge that separated him from The Bulwarks, sitting on an aspen trunk and looking out at them across an impossibly uniform two mile-wide sea of black timber, breathing in the delicious odor of the sun-drenched, warming spruce needles that pervaded the area with an almost intoxicating spicy sweetness and thinking that it felt awfully, tremendously good to be home.

Steve spent the morning the long hike back to the vehicle making calls to friends and old connections in the media world, trying to get a feel for the best outlet for his photos and Junis interview, which they had agreed they ought to try and sell as a package deal. The afternoon found Steve hobbling around town in tennis shoes two sizes two big for him, his feet bandaged and rather tender, running various errands and finally booking a flight to McLean, Virginia, for he and Juni, scheduled to leave the following morning.

The afternoon sun was warm on Einars face as he sat on the aspen trunk just below the ridge crest and planned the path that would take him, before full darkness, he hoped, to the hidden meadow behind The Bulwarks, and to his small cache. He nearly finished off a bottle of water, took another two drops of the oregano oil and let it sit under his tongue for a minute as Liz had instructed him before washing the strong, burning stuff down with the a final gulp of water. Hope too much of this wont hurt me, because if it will, Ive probably got a problem. But it, or something, really seemed to be allowing him to hold his own against the infection, keeping it from becoming widespread in his abdomen. If it was at any point to do that, he knew he was probably in for a few particularly miserable days, then the end. Kinda like to avoid that, if its possible. Hungry, he ate a couple of raisins and some almonds from the trail mix, badly wanting to gobble a packet of pemmican for its fat, but having resolved to save it. Be eating sardines soon, anyway! And he started down through the band of aspens that separated him from the rolling sea of timber that he had to cross to reach The Bulwarks. Einar was low in the wide, timbered valley when he heard the distinctive rumble and quickly glanced around for shelter, finding it in a narrow, water-cut ravine whose undercut bank, held in place by a network of intertwined spruce roots, offered him concealment. Pressing himself as far back beneath the curtain of roots and loosely bonded dirt and duff that they supported, he watched through a gap in the trees as the Blackhawk passed over, high and fast as before, in the general direction of Culver Falls. Good. Like I thought. Went somewhere for the day, went to pick somebody up, something like that. Sure arent acting like theyre part of any search. Rolling out of his temporary hide and brushing off the cool, clinging dirt he stood, filled his water bottles from the creek and went on his way. He was using the sun and the position of the ridge that he had recently descended to guide him, having long ago lost sight of the rocks as he dropped down into the dense mass of trees, and though he had kept Lizs compass with him, really did not need it for the job at hand.

The sun, close to slipping behind the high horizon so common to mountain landscapes, could be seen occasionally as a burst of golden fire from behind layer upon layer of black spruce boughs, and Einar pushed himself hard, wanting to reach The Bulwarks before dark so he would have ample time to scout around and make sure it was safe to approach his cache, hopefully in time for dinner! he was anxious to get to those sardines and the other items in the small cache, but was more anxious still for some rest, which he had decided he could have upon reaching the area. Descending from the ridge had helped his breathing some, but the valley floor, even, was above ten thousand feet elevation, and Einar was struggling, breathing much faster than he thought he ought to have needed to, and occasionally having to stop and take his pack off for a minute, just to feel like he was getting enough breath and to keep at bay the darkness that kept welling up before him to obscure his path. It was frustrating, and he wondered how long it would take before he was able to tolerate the altitude again without such difficulty. Couple weeks, I guess. If I get enough to eat, get some good rest. Can start on that tomorrow, hopefully, if I can cover the eight miles and make that climb all in one day. Bet I can do it, since I know whats waiting for me up there. Probably just crawl into that sleeping bag for a couple days once I get there, with a few water bottles and a big bag of food. Can block up the entrance with rocks so I dont have to worry too much about bears, cause if one was determined enough to try and get in, Id hear him in plenty of time to use the pistol. Sounds real good. For the moment though, he dared not even sit down during his brief but increasingly frequent breaks, fearing that his fatigue would claim him, leaving him to wake hours later in the darkness, sprawled under tree, cold, still hungry and likely unable to find the rock spires until daylight. Not a real good idea. Just keep moving. Less than an hour later and with plenty of light still left Einar topped out on a gentle rise and found himself looking up at the tops of the spires, not at all far in the distance. Careful, now. Cant just go walking up to them like youre here for a climb. Better skirt around back so you can get a good look at the meadow, the mountain above, before going anywhere near the cache. Carefully making his way to the spot where the unbroken of connected spires gave way to an area of steep chutes and rockslides that gradually tapered off into a land of evergreen-covered rises and small, aspen-encircled meadows, he chose a relatively hidden chute, overhung with trees, and climbed, circling around behind the hidden meadow and dropping to his knees behind a boulder to watch and listen. Which he was not able to do much of until the pounding of his heart slowed some, the sound in his head diminishing to a dull roar and his vision a bit cleared. The place looked alright, looked untouched by recent human activity, and it encouraged him to see three does feeding in the evening dimness near one end of the meadow. Wonder if thats the doe and her two fawns, all grown up, that I watched a couple summers ago? Could be. The place was quiet; Einar knew he had no human company. And it seemed that, being a good ten miles from his old cabin, The Bulwarks were unlikely to have received any special federal scrutiny after his initial disappearance, or in the months that followed. He saw no reason to expect to find there anything resembling the extensive camera and sensor array that had sent him scurrying away from the lake near his rock-crevice shelter. The cache was where he had left it, buried beneath a number of rock slabs in the large

crevice at the base of the third spire in the row, and did not appear to have been tampered with in any way. He had remembered right. Five cans of sardines. With them was the little cooking pot he sometimes used when camping there, two dry pairs of socks, a stocking cap, T-shirt and polypropylene bottoms that he had added once after getting dumped on by a sudden shower while rappelling down from a climb, matches, batteries for his headlamp--which, of course, he no longer had with him--a small folded tarp, three chocolate bars and a trauma dressing that he had thrown in with the thought that it might come in handy if he ever hurt himself badly while climbing, and had somehow managed to leave his main pack at home. It was not much of a cache, but had never been meant to be, as close as it was to his main one and the three smaller bucket caches that he had planned to rely on ifwell, if I ever ended up like this. Choosing a sheltered place to sleep, Einar finally, to his great relief, lowered himself to the ground and opened a tin of sardines. For a long time he just sat breathing in the smell and half-dreaming about his much anticipated and badly needed supper, thankful and nearly asleep, before being snapped back to full awareness by his grumbling stomach, and eating, knowing that he would, at least, sleep warm that night after the good meal.

Jimson had expected that the place, if they found it, would be rigged with explosives. Most of the agents on the ground that morning had highly doubted that they would even find a cache such as Jimson told them they were searching for, or any other sign of their fugitives presence, either past or present. Both had been wrong. The first location they checked proved to have been a false alarm--probably an iron deposit in the rock, they were told--but the second There were no explosives, at least not set to detonate when the place was tampered with, though it took the BATFE bomb disposal team well over two hours to clear the cramped little half-cave beneath the leaning slabs of lichen-encrusted granite, finally declaring it safe so that the others could enter. The did so carefully, fearfully, almost, though the place had been declared safe, looking frequently over their shoulders at the--to them-menacing alpine landscape of stark rock and small, twisted trees that surrounded the place as if they expected the deadly, elusive ghost-man they sought to leap out from behind one of the tumbled, broken boulders and assail them, or send death their way in the form of a silent, bone-tipped dart. They placed armed sentries at high points around the area, wore vests against the possibility of attack, some of them helmets, even, though the heavy protective garb was soon set aside as they worked in the thin air and the heat of the late morning sun as it beat down on the rock and reflected up at them, almost as brightly as it would have reflected off of snow. Three hours of work, and they were finished. They radioed Jimson with the news. It was done. Ready. Everything appearing exactly as they had found it, so as not to arouse the suspicion of their wily prey. Jimson smiled, leaned back in his desk chair and took a sip of coffee. This time, they would not go to their target, would not pursue him through the dark, tangled woods where he was so at home and they were at a loss. That did not work, had never worked, led only to his men

being killed or, at the least, ending up terribly embarrassed, the Bureaus reputation further tarnished. No more. It had clearly been the wrong strategy, and a game at which they could not win. They would let the fugitive come to them, run to them, thinking all the while that he was running to safety. Jimsons eyes narrowed, his face twisted with a humorless little grin. This time, they would have him.

Einar did sleep warm that night and should have slept soundly, also, as exhausted as he was, but instead found himself trapped in a hellish dream that had him fleeing across a wide open expanse of steep shale, slipping, stumbling, moving, he knew, far too slowly as he heard the growl of an approaching helicopter grow into a deeper rumble that came to encompass his world, approaching quickly, nearly paralyzing him with fear as he struggled across the slope, knowing that he had been seen, that it was too late, unable to get enough oxygen there at eleven thousand, four hundred and fifty feet (what? How is it you know the precise elevation? Thats ridiculous, Einar. Wake up!) to have any hope of reaching the trees ahead of the chopper; already he could feel the wind of its rotors in his hair, the gritty dust of pulverized rock and lichen in his eyes and nose, and he knew he was going to die, stopped and turned and fitted a dart into the atlatl so he could be sure of doing it on his feet and free, at least, and the agents on the chopper opened fire as he loosed the dart, eager to fulfill his last wish. He lay there for a moment drenched in sweat and shaking, listening to make sure it had been a dream and nothing more, before sitting up in the darkness under the tree, feeling around for his spear and checking the pistol, leaning back against the rough bark of the tree trunk as he struggled to get his breath. It was a long time before Einar felt anything like lying down again, and as he sat there with his arms wrapped around his legs and his chin on his knees, he tried to remember precisely the detail of the dream, where he had been, and why, when the chopper came, but he could not recognize in the hazy images a place that he knew. The elevation stuck in his head, though, 11,450 feet, and he supposed he could take a look at the maps in the morning and see if anything matched up. Doesnt much matter. Just a dream, and you know it. Now get some sleep. But he lay there wide awake for a good while, finally drifting into a fitful sleep in which Liz came to him, pulled him to his feet and urged him to follow her, and when he looked up to see where she was going, she was hurrying along in a direction nearly opposite to the one in which lay his cache, moving at a near-run that he knew he would not be able to maintain. She was gone out of sight before he got a chance to ask why she was so set on going that direction, and he slept for a time, and Einar dreamed no more than night, dropping into an exhausted sleep until the brightening sky woke him several hours later, hardly refreshed. Preparing to resume his climb that morning Einars dream was nearly forgotten, lingering only as a slight shadow that darkened his face from time to time as its horror returned to him in some small measure. Just before leaving he pulled out the National Forest map for a last look, wanting to pin down in his mind once again the exact location of his main cache, which he hoped to reach sometime that afternoon. Finding with fair ease the basin that held the cache, a brief flash of memory led him to look at the nearest contour line,

follow it, figure the elevation of the basin. Eleven thousand, four hundred and fifty feet. Einar shuddered, tried to dismiss the correlation as am odd coincidence, but could not. It was with a growing sense of reluctance nearly bordering on dread that he packed up and prepared to finish his climb up to the basin, and his cache.

Sheriff Watts brought Liz the paper himself that morning, along with her breakfast. He slid that days edition of America Today, The Nations Daily Newspaper, in through the slot on the door of her cell, one of only three holding cells that the Lakemont County Sheriffs Office contained, and Liz sat reading it as she ate her breakfast, which had been prepared and brought over earlier by Mrs. Watts. Cheryl Watts had also insisted on bringing a quilt from the Watts home for Liz to use for the duration of her stay, and had visited twice over the past two days, once bringing Susan, still escorted by a deputy for her safety. Liz immediately noticed the byline on the front page story. Juniper Melton, Exclusive to America Today. Then she saw the full color photo of Einar, looking rather like a wild man with his unruly hair and beard, buckskin vest and atlatl, appearing poised to loose a dart in the direction of the photographer. Liz could tell from the look in his eyes that the photo had not been staged; whoever took that picture, she knew, had been in grave danger, perhaps graver than they had realized, at the time. Though he certainly appeared fearsome enough in the photo, Liz also thought Einar looked scared, exhausted, hungry and cold--and this was taken before he got stabbed and lost all that blood--and she wished very much that she was still with him, hoped he was doing alright out there. Well, at least the canoe ruse seems to be working, maybe buying him the time he needed. Being in the holding cell, Liz was able to hear quite a bit of the conversation in the Sheriffs Office, and had been party to a great deal of talk of the search of the river. The canoe, and Einars hair, had been found not all that far downriver of the summer camp where she had set it afloat, thoroughly swamped and snagged on a fallen tree that reached partway across the river, and an extensive search had been mounted, both from the air and on the ground, tracking dogs brought in to scour the banks and a helicopter making near-constant passes up and down the river for most of the day. The dogs had found nothing, which had surprised no one, due to the heavy rain, and neither had the helicopters. Roadblocks had been set up some distance downriver on the highway, vehicles searched and wanted posters handed out to all of the drivers. What neither Liz nor the Sheriff had heard was Agent Jimsons attitude on the river search, which revolved around the fact that while he was diligently pursuing it to cover himself in case it should end up producing results, he did not believe for a moment that the fugitive was headed anywhere but back up to his old stomping grounds. Liz proceeded to read the newspaper story. Farewell to the Last Mountain Man Juniper Melton Exclusive to America Today

It is not often that one gets to meet the most wanted man in America, and a rarer thing still, it would seem, to not only live to tell the tale, but be invited into his hideout for a meal, tea and shelter from the rain. Yet that is the unique set of circumstances my associate and I found ourselves in last week, while trekking in the remote mountain wilderness of Lakemont County, Colorado, in search of wildflowers, mountain goats and other wildlife to photograph. We found wildlife, alright, but not all of the sort that we had expected to meet! When I first encountered Einar Asmundson he was dressed in a primitive-looking buckskin vest, carrying a young, partially eaten mountain goat over his shoulder and holding a weapon that I was later to learn was called an atlatl, and was modeled after a primitive dart-thrower used quite effectively by ancient peoples from the Australian Outback to the frozen forests and tundra of the Yukon. And he was aiming it at me. Finally, seeming to sense that I was not a threat, he lowered the weapon just a bit and asked for my camera, as I had snapped a photo of him, a fact which he did not at all seem to appreciate. I reluctantly gave him the camera, and he turned to go, but a sudden lightening storm sent him--and us--scrambling for refuge from its fury, and we all ended up beneath the same tree, the fugitive sharing with us his fire and a few bites of the roasted goat meat that he had apparently been living on, my companion and I giving him some tea and a chocolate bar in return. The rainy chill of the weather seemed to be bothering him greatly; he was shaking and had a cough that at times kept him from speaking and seemed to make breathing difficult, but he graciously made room for us at the fire, nonetheless. The look that Asmundson gave me when I first brought up the possibility of doing an interview was enough to convince me that we were probably about to die. After some negotiation, however, he agreed to talk with me, provided that we would accompany him to an undisclosed location for the interview. We were not blindfolded, but might as well have been, as he led us through the blackest, most tangled and featureless expanse of forest that I have ever seen, moving more quickly than we were able and seldom pausing for so much as a moment. We followed him, amazed at the speed with which he seemed able to negotiate the rough terrain, limping, emaciated and clearly ill as he was, climbing up through mile after mile of rugged, remote wilderness until we reached the spot where he had been staying, consisting of a long abandoned silver mine tunnel that bored its way some ten or fifteen feet into the mountainside, thoroughly concealed from view by the heavy timber of the slope. As we sat inside by a smokeless fire of what appeared to be very dry aspen wood and shared a meal with the fugitive, the weather, and darkness, closing in outside, he finally let his guard down just a bit, speaking in crisp and unadorned language about his life on the run, telling of near misses with his pursuers, the terrible hunger of near starvation, a winter of chronic hypothermia and a bare-handed fight to the death with an angry wolverine. As he spoke, very reluctantly at first and seeming awkward and not at all comfortable with the presence of other humans after so long a time alone in the silence and solitude of the wilderness, a rather different picture began to emerge of the man who

has in the course of the past year been called everything from mass murderer to folk hero. A man who, according to his own words and the testimony of his actions, quite literally values his liberty over his life, but who at the same time, and quite differently from the way he has been portrayed by his pursuers, has killed only reluctantly and only after it became clear to him, in his words, that I do not believe for a minute that they have any intention of letting this case get to trial. The last several times they got anywhere near me they made it pretty clear that they mean to kill me, on sight. Asmundson, or Einar, as we were both calling him before our conversation was over, concluded by saying that if they want it (the deaths of the federal agents) to end, theyre gonna need to stop sending folks for me. You can tell them that. The atlatl-dart and shooting deaths of three more federal agents in an alpine meadow last week, in which Asmundson has been named prime suspect, provide confirmation that the fugitive meant what he said. And also, with the series of photographs that appear to show federal agents assaulting a young woman on a backcountry hiking trail before Asmundson stepped in and stopped them, it seems that the line between who is in the right and who is in the wrong in this ongoing manhunt is a good bit more blurry than it was, before. Juniper Melton can be contacted through the editorial offices of America Today. Part two of her exclusive story, Farewell to the Last Mountain Man, will appear in tomorrows edition of America Today. There was a sidebar article about the attack on Liz, as witnessed and captured on film by the photographer, Steve. The sequence of photos had been printed in full along the right side of the front page, clearly showing the assault on Liz, Einars atlatl darts flying at the agents, and finally Einar dashing in with the spear, before the rain has closed in and ended the sequence of photos. Both incidents, the story said, remained under investigation.

The lingering uneasiness of his dream lent Einar a nervous energy that had him moving quickly that morning, eating a few bites from the nearly empty bag of trail mix and gulping some water rather than sitting down for a breakfast of sardines as he had pleasantly anticipated while drifting off to sleep the night before. The day was clouding up, a restless breeze setting the treetops to swaying, and he was glad of the approaching weather, hoping that it might serve to help cover his tracks if anything should end up going wrong. All morning as he pushed himself towards his destination day the weather kept up gusty and grey, never coalescing into an actual storm, but certainly promising the eventual approach of one. Sometime around mid day he stopped to fill his water bottles and eat something, changing the dressing that covered his wound drain and, seeing that the bag was nearly empty after several hours of walking, deciding to remove the drain, after nearly a week of having it in place. The setup was aggravating and restrictive while

climbing, and he worried constantly that the drain site could end up allowing entry to a new infection, which was absolutely the last thing he needed just then. Hoping he was not making a mistake he got a few gauze pads opened and ready to press over the wound should it start bleeding, and carefully worked to free the tube, around which his skin had already begun growing and healing. Finally, frustrated and not wanting to lose any more daylight, he just twisted and pulled the tube loose, which while rather painful did not seem to be disastrous, as far as bleeding. Einar got himself bandaged back up, took his oregano oil, a gulp of Oregon grape water and stuck a wad of willow in his mouth to help with the pain in his side, starting back up through the timber. Beginning to recognize landmarks that afternoon and knowing that he had less than a mile left to go, Einar decided to circle around the area and come at the cache from a direction that would be an unlikely avenue of approach for either someone coming from his cabin, or from the road, hoping to stymie anyone who might be up there waiting for him ,hoping to see them first. Which meant a major detour, a climb of another thousand feet, and what he estimated would be at least another hour and a half of walking, leaving him to reach the area of the cache sometime around twilight. No problem. He could wait, if need be, until the following morning to approach the cache. That would give him plenty of time to get a feel for the area, to watch and listen and observe and see if the retrieval was something he wanted to risk. He had been up behind the little basin before, up in the steep, broken, nearly treeless crags that overlooked it, but had gained access to the area from the long, jagged ridge that ran back from it and swooped up to join a nearby peak. Whether it was even possible to climb up from the side he was on, he did not know, but started up through the trees, intent on finding out. The area up behind the basin was a challenge but Einar managed it, moving very cautiously at several points so as not to start minor rockslides that could easily give away his position if someone was down there. Reaching what seemed like a good spot from which to observe the area, a well-protected little ledge at the top of a low escarpment where a mat of tangled, stunted sub alpine firs conspired to give him cover, he crawled out on his belly to the edge of the rock and looked down, picking out fairly easily even in the flat light of the heavily overcast afternoon the twisted, partially burnt-out fir trunk that marked the place, time and weather having created in its wood a swirling, cracked mass of browns, blacks and greys that had always reminded him of a topo map. There were no obvious signs of disturbance around the place, but then, he told himself, they would not be obvious, if they were there. If his enemy had learned one thing in the course of the long pursuit, surely, he thought, it would be that. Dont leave obvious sign of your presence. He pulled out the binoculars, studied the area slowly and thoroughly in the fading light, thought he saw something but could not be sure. His vision had been giving him trouble again in the days since the stabbing, and he couldnt quite get his eyes to focus. He blinked, shook his head to clear his vision, looked again. It was still there. And it did not belong. Something wrong here. The object, upon further inspection, appeared to be the top part of a long dead aspen, leafless and white, black branches extended, standing in the rocks on a little rise above his cache. That in itself was not strange; a few aspens grew up that high, and though he could not remember one of them being right there, Einar had by no means memorized

every tree in the place, which he had only visited three times over the years so as not to leave clear and obvious trails that could lead others to his stash. The odd thing was its placement, the position of its branches and the relative thickness of the trunk, for a tree that was so short.. Either the rocks had somehow slid and piled up and hidden the lower half of the tree without damaging it or causing it to lean in the direction of the slide--very, very unlikely--or the little aspen was one of a kind. Yeah. And I think I know what kind, too. They were too clever for their own good, here. Couple of those branches look way too straight, Id say. So if that thing holds the antennas, where are the sensors, or the cameras or whatever theyve left for me? And, more importantly, he wondered whether he had already been seen. Scooting backwards on his stomach, he lowered himself back down off the escarpment, crouching there between the protection of the two rocky walls and trying to settle on his next course of action. What? What is there to decide? Pick the fastest way out of here, the one thatll keep you as far as possible from that stuff as possible, and move, just hoping they arent already on their way. He did not want to do it, though, needed the items in that cache or some of them, at least, and it angered him to think that his most secret location, carefully and intentionally placed far from the cabin, might have been discovered and turned against him like that. If Im even seeing this right. That odd tree could just be an odd tree. Sometimes, they are. Better slow down and think about this, go look for other sign and make sure youre not reading more into it than is there. The clouds had lowered, a misting rain beginning to fall, and Einar worked his way down through the cliffs and began circling the basin, keeping diligently to the trees and looking for any sign that the place had been approached by humans in the recent past, but finding nothing. Then he remembered. The Blackhawk. So Scanning the area, he settled on a spot near the center of the basin where the piled slabs and chunks of rock grew larger, the formed a spot that was very nearly flat. It was the only place in the immediate area wide enough for a chopper of that size to set down, because of the scattered trees. He wanted to get a better look at it, see if there was any sign that would give away the recent presence of others, but did not want to risk leaving the trees to do so, remembering very clearly the sensor and camera array he had stumbled upon up by the lake some time ago, barely noticing it in time to avoid disaster. Finding another sheltered spot to observe from, he got out the binoculars and scoured the rocks, seeing nothing at first through the mist but , just as he reached the flattest area, noticing a large white scar on a rock slab. It looked very fresh, and far too large and deep to have been made by a deer or an elk, and the slab was far too large for a bear to have turned it over looking for a snack. Somebody dragged something heavy across that rock. Right towards my cache, too. He wondered for a moment how they had found it in the first place, as careful as he had been, but dismissed the thought as something he had no time for, at the moment. From that closer and lower perspective, it was clear that the suspicious looking aspen had been placed where it was, rocks piled around it, and he wondered if it concealed all the sensors they had left, or merely contained the antenna for all of them. No good way to know, but he had to assume that they were all over the place, had to assume, actually, that he had already been seen or his presence otherwise detected. Finally the storm that had been building all day broke as he lay there, a brief hard rain

drenching everything, and Einar knew that he must make use of it to cover him--he hoped--as he made his escape. Crawling backwards until he could no longer make out the dim shape of the antenna-tree, he got to his feet and started down through the timber, stopping short when he nearly stepped on a deer. The half grown doe was dead, though had not been for long, appearing from her oddly twisted neck to have fallen and broken it, and though Einars first thought was of food, something else occurred to him the next instant. There were things in that rocky crevice that he needed, things that could drastically alter the terms of the deadly game he was engaged in, and Einar meant to have them. He now saw the way.

The rain was stopping, a heavy fog rolling in as Einar struggled to gut the deer, knowing that he would not be able to carry the animals entire weight as far as he needed to go with it. He got the job done in a hurry, sliding the entrails, still warm, a few feet down the slope and covering the pile with fallen aspen leaves and evergreen duff, wanting to conceal it for as long as possible. Most likely, he knew, animals would remove most traces before his pursuers ever discovered it. The one thing he had saved was the liver, hoping very much that he had been correct in his understanding that the animal had died in a fall, and not of disease, as he cut off and ate a chunk, stashing the rest in two plastic bags--the empty ones from Lizs trail mix-- in his pack. Lifting the deer back to his shoulders he stepped to the edge of the trees, and looked. Nothing. An impenetrable sea of whiteness stretched out before him, enveloped him, cut off his view of all but his own feet, and the very closest branches of the evergreens, heavy and dripping with moisture from the fog. Now or never. He knew that the cameras, if indeed there were cameras, would not be able to penetrate the dense whiteness that encompassed the basin, though he supposed that the infrared sensors would still work, as would the seismic ones that they likely placed. Thats OK. As long as they dont get a visual on me. Thisll end up bringing them down on me, but no way will they land in this fog, and I only need a few minutes. Though an hour or so to clear out of here would be great, too. Einar reached his cache by feel, rather than by sight, lowering the deer to the ground and standing doubled over just outside its entrance for a minute, catching his breath. His lungs ached, his heart pounded sickeningly in his temples and it was clear to him that he was not yet ready for any such strenuous work at altitude, or anywhere else. Its Ok. This is as far as the deer goes. Hesitating at the entrance, he squinted through the fog, trying to see something, anything at all that would explain the tremendously strong feeling of unease that he was experiencing, knowing that it felt like something more specific than would arise from the fact that he was knowingly walking into a trap. Something was definitely not right, and he entered gingerly, slowly, feeling his way with cautious hands that warned him before he put more than the tiniest amount of pressure on the wire. He stopped still, very gently drew back the hands, letting his breath out in relief when nothing happened. So. You boys are trying to end this without having to get close to me, arent you? Smart. But not happening. Not like this, anyway. Very carefully he felt around, found the wire and stepped over it, wondered whether they had perhaps left him other surprises, in or under his gear. Searching, he found another wire that led from

the inside of the shelter to the outside, but when he followed it found it attached not to a trap, but to a small antenna, which he left alone, following the wire back into the cache until it led him to what he took to be an infrared sensor, which he left in place like its antenna. Yep, that one can stay. Next, he carefully explored the buckets and tubes that held his gear, finding by feel the one that contained his sleeping bag, the bulk of the food, numerous items that would have made his life so very much easier. The medical bucket was, he knew, down near the back behind the bulk of the other gear, placed more out of concern for protecting it from the changing temperatures and weather conditions than out of any thought about quick access. A mistake, but one that I will hopefully have time to remedy. Another of the buckets held his sleeping bag, and while he very much wanted to take it with him, he knew it would hang up and prevent his passage through the narrow spaces he intended as his exit. He did not, for that matter, know for certain that they--a network of crevices between the boulders and slabs that made up the rockfield--would allow him passage at all, but very much hoped so. Focusing on one particular length of ABS pipe that was of special interest, Einar wondered whether they might have removed or altered the rifle that it contained, or perhaps left it and included a tracking device. He was hopeful that they had done neither, as they clearly had not meant him to live through entering the cache, in the first place. It did not surprise him, though, to find the tube too light when he picked it up, the rifle gone. Guess they just couldnt take the chance. A shame. Looks like theyre learning. Einar was disappointed--he was sure hed be angry, later, about the loss of that particular rifle, but there was no time at the moment--but not too terribly. There was something else, something he doubted they had found, and it turned out he was right. The two gallon bucket was still there, and had not been opened. Of this he was sure, as the seal of paraffin that he had carefully poured into place around its lid--while upside-down--and smoothed down with a knife still bore his mark. Marks, actually, and Braille writing to be exact, carefully placed by adding tiny, precise drips of wax on top of the smooth polished seal. What it said was immaterial, the important fact being that the phrase was exactly the one he had placed there when sealing the bucket, with the misspelling in exactly the right place, too, as an extra safety measure. Einar knew that there was no way his pursuers could have replicated that seal, without having taken the entire bucket down to a lab somewhere to study it, make impressions and re create it. Which he did not believe they had done. Good. He opened the bucket and lifted out the contents, wrapping them in his spare shirt and sticking them in the bottom of his pack, doing the same with a small box that lay at the bottom of the bucket. Bad idea to carry these together, real bad idea. But so is deliberately walking into a trap like this, yet here I am OK. Time to finish this up and get out of here. Breaking open another bucket, he took out a stack of eight large sized chemical hand and body warmers, setting them on top of the bucket and closing it back up. Back outside, he got the deer up on his shoulders, carried it into the cache, very careful of the tripwire, and laid it where it would not be visible to anyone without entering. Taking his knife he slit the deers hide in several places, pulled it away from the body and separated the membrane so that pockets were formed. Into these he slid some of the hand and body warmers, activating them and covering the deer with the thirty gallon plastic

garbage bag that had lined the bucket, to help the heat distribute more evenly and collect, and tossed a thin layer of duff over everything. Last of all he carefully moved the tripwire, lowering and concealing it and setting it up so that the slightest pressure on one of the rocks at the entrance would trip the device with which they had intended to end his life. He hoped, and knew that he was probably being over-optimistic, that thee dead deer would be found among the wreckage of the cache, leading the agents to conclude, even if temporarily, that he had never been there, that the IR signature they had been chasing had belonged all along to a deer that had curled up in the cache for shelter from the rain, somehow avoiding the tripwire. Of course, they would eventually find fragments of the hand warmers, he supposed, would discover that the deer had been gutted, but by then he hoped to be far from the place, preparing himself for the coming winter. OK boys, come and get me! But not, he hoped, before he found his way to the bucket that contained his medical supplies, and retrieved the two bottles and one pouch of antibiotics which, though he was doing somewhat better that day, he knew could very well still mean the difference between life and death for him. He did not have long to accomplish the task, knowing that he must be gone before the heat from the hand warmers began showing through the deers hide and accumulating under the bag, lest it appear to the sensors that there were two warm bodies in the cache, probably inspiring more caution in them than he wanted them to have, when approaching. Quick, get it done. It was difficult, though, finding the right bucket, and Einar feared that he was taking too long. The rumble of a helicopter, distant and faint through the piled rock, told him that he was correct. Briefly glancing out the entrance, he saw that the fog had blown away, leaving the twilight sky clear and full of stars. Out of time, Einar. Tying his pack securely to his ankle, he backed into the crevice that he had chosen as the most likely to allow him exit, pulling the modified deer over the crack, getting himself turned around and beginning what he hoped would be a journey to safety. If it was nearly dark outside, it was entirely so there beneath the rocks, and Einar wormed his way between the slabs, hoping to make it undetected to the edge of the rockslide before finding his way back up to the top and getting away through the trees, leaving his pursuers, when they arrived to check into the IR signature, to surround the cache with its decoy and take their time trying to get him out, while he made good on his escape. He had gone a good distance--maybe feet, maybe yards, it was very difficult to tell there in the close darkness--before the rumble of the helicopter drew near, finding his way through dark narrow crevices that he never would have made it though if he had weighed anything near what he ought to have, working his way down to the unmelted ice that lingered beneath the rocks like a glacier, even that late in the season. The chopper was very close--he could feel its rumbling through the rock slabs that he pressed and pulled and twisted himself between--when Einar slipped, the ice dropping away sharply below him and providing no traction when he tried to stop his slide. He slid only eight or ten feet before the passage narrowed and brought him to a rather abrupt and uncomfortable halt, but he ended up head down in the very steep and narrow passage, his left arm pinned securely behind him, with barely enough room between the floor of ice and the granite slab above him to breathe, let alone turn around to facilitate escape. Knowing that he had to be further away before the agents reached the cache, he struggled to back up the narrow, steep crevice, but every time he was able to make a few inches of progress, he

found himself unable to hold it, slipping back once again on the slick ice floor and hitting his head on the rock at the bottom. He stopped after a few tries. The passage went on; he could hear the drips of water that formed as his body heat melted the ice falling away and landing somewhere down there, but when he felt for the opening to see if he could enlarge it, found it not even wide enough to get a finger through.

A rock chip, sharply fragmented, lay to Einars right side, and he worked his hand around into a position that would allow him to grab it, glad that it was just sitting there rather than being frozen into the ice. With the rocks jagged edge, he began working away at the ice in front of him, scraping and chipping and hoping that the warmth from his body and breath would have softened it enough to allow him to make reasonably fast progress. The cramped space precluded him from drawing his arm back very far to get a good run at the ice, and he would not have done so even had he been able, as the rumbling from above had had ended, telling him that the chopper had landed and the agents might even then be approaching his cache. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder whether the seismic sensors--if indeed such had been placed in the area--could tell the agents where he had gone, could perhaps allow them to follow his progress and be waiting for him when he emerged from the rocks. If he emerged Guess I will find out. Right now, I got an awful lot of work to do just to see that I get out of this, in the first place The chipping and scraping was getting him nowhere; he could feel that the space had hardly been enlarged at all by his work, and Einar knew that he must try something else. A slight depression had melted out beneath his torso, the melt water soaking the front of his clothing and the excess running and dripping down through the narrow crevice below him and he supposed that with time, enough ice might melt out from beneath to allow him passage. Which did not seem like an especially good thing to wait for, as he was already quite cold, and knew that hypothermia and frostbite were unavoidable eventualities if he remained there pressed against the ice long enough to melt out a significant portion of it. But he had an idea. After so many days of above-freezing temperatures he expected that the ice must be fairly rotten, and wondered if pouring a good bit of water on it might weaken it to the degree that he could begin to break off larger chunks and make progress down the passage. Eager to find out, he felt behind him with his left hand, brought his knee forward as far as the tight space would allow, but remained unable to reach the pack. Couldnt reach his knife, either, which would have been helpful in chipping and prying at the ice. A solution soon presented itself in a steady dripping of water that began working its way down from above, the result, he supposed, of a fresh rainstorm, and before long the drips became a series of trickles, running down the slab above him and falling from another boulder somewhere high above, and Einar feared that the water could back up behind him and drown him there, if enough fell. Again he struggled to back up out of the crevice, inching his way up by pressing his back against the rock ceiling, his polypro-clothed elbow against the ice floor under his chest, wishing it would begin to freeze in place to allow him some traction, but knowing that with the renewed flow of water, it would not be happening. His frantic effort gained him two or three feet that time before he slid back

down, getting his hand out in front of him just in time to prevent his head from slamming disastrously into the rock slab at the bottom. Exhausted, he lay there for a minute, his cheek resting on the ice as the increasing trickle of frigid water ran through his hair and continued on its dripping path through the opening and to the rocks below. Good. At least the water can get through. Wont be drowning. But that reassurance was short lived, as chunks of ice and rock began sliding down from above with the increasing rain, not enough to bury him or cause him any harm, but certainly enough to jam up the outlet and allow water to begin backing up there in the crevice. Feeling the water rise below him, Einar scrambled to keep the chunks cleared out, but there seemed to be nowhere to put them that did not result in their falling back into the gap, and he resorted to piling them on his back, but he was having a very hard time keeping up, the water coming more quickly and his hand going numb, unable to feel or grasp the chunks of rock and ice that clogged the little opening and leaving him to sweep and swat ineffectively at them. Managing to twist himself sideways just a bit, he raised himself by a few inches and wedged his elbow in sideways to prevent his slipping back, holding his head up out of the icy water, but just barely. Not working. Got to think of something else. What am I missing, here? Show meplease. He released the elbow jam that was holding him up out of the water, going under and feeling around desperately for a rock, slamming the largest one he could come up with into the ice around the blocked crevice and finally breaking loose a small chunk and letting out a bit of the water, just enough to allow him to breathe without suspending himself above the floor of the crevice. The opening soon blocked up again, though, and Einar could not find the large rock, scrambled to get his head back up away from the rising water and his elbow jammed in place to keep it there, but he was wearing out, his arm trembling, his whole body shaking, and he knew there was a limit to the amount of time he would be able to hold himself in that position. He was slipping, felt the icy water rising up his shoulder and touching his neck, and he craned his head up away from it, trying to take slow, deep breaths so that he would be able to hold his breath longer once he went under, perhaps just long enough to find and clear the opening and buy himself a bit more time. The concussion of the blast cleared the blockage between the ice and rock, broke loose a sizeable chunk of ice and nearly knocked Einars breath out, sent the water out in a rush, leaving Einar once again able to breathe without struggle and promising that there was indeed a way out. For water. Doesnt mean Ill fit through, doesnt mean this goes anywhere, even if I do. Lord, I hope this goes somewhere. Please let this go somewhere. Reaching down through the enlarged opening he pulled, sending himself sliding out into the crevice beneath it, where he was kept in a somewhat upright position by the closeness of the boulders, his bent knees resting against one slab and his back against another. For a few moments he hung there, dazed, ears ringing from the blast, rubbing and flexing his left arm, which was dead numb after being pinned for so long against the ice at his side. Drenched in ice water and freezing, his entire front numb from contact with the ice, he felt an odd sensation of warmth on his left side, checked it only to have his hand come away slick with blood, and he prayed that it meant only a small tear at the stab site, rather than a resumption of the internal bleeding that had twice nearly taken his life. Not much to do about it right now, anyway. Got some stuff to patch it up with, later. Which

reminded him. The backpack. It was still there, still tied to his ankle, and he let out his breath in thankful amazement at the discovery, both because he was glad not to have lost his supplies, and because he was frankly dumbfounded that between the falling, sliding and bouncing he had done, and the concussion of the blast, its newly-retrieved contents had not taken on a life of their own, and ended his. When he began to feel the prickling pain of returning circulation in his hand and lower arm he scrambled on further from the blast site, knowing that if he was to escape, he must do it while the agents above were wrapped up in the chaos of the blast aftermath. It was totally dark there beneath the rocks and Einar was feeling somewhat disoriented after hanging upside down for so long, and after the blast, but he pressed on, worming and squeezing his way between the slabs and chunks of rain-wet, streaming granite, hoping that he was traveling in the right direction. Some time later he felt through the stone the rumbling approach of another helicopter, the vibration eventually ceasing, and he knew that help had arrived for the agents up on the surface, wondered whether they had found the deer, or what was left of it, wondered how long it would take them to figure out that it had been a ruse. At least until morning, he hoped. Even before he saw the slightly less dark blackness of the night sky through the rocks overhead, Einar knew by the feel of collected spruce needles underfoot nearby scent of rain-soaked evergreen duff that he was nearing the surface. A minute later, climbing carefully, quietly, checking to make sure he was under the trees, he poked his head out into the drizzly darkness, got stiffly to his feet and took off into the timber, the glow of the federal spotlights a good distance behind him, up the rocky slope. He wondered just where they had landed those two choppers, wondered if they might be unattended, told himself that he had best forget about them and clear out of there, while he still could, that he should hope the deer would fool them at least for a while, would leave them thinking that the animal had been the sole source of the IR signature that had brought them up there that night. Still he wondered, though, about those choppers

Once he could no longer see the glow behind him, Einar stopped amid a jumble of rocks and evergreens, knowing he needed to get out of his wet clothes and do something about his side, which had, he was pretty sure, continued bleeding. He could not have light of course, but managed to feel around in his pack until he came across the spare clothes from his smaller cache over by The Bulwarks. They were, to his relief, mostly dry, and he gladly exchanged his ice-water soaked garments for them, pulling the stocking cap down almost to his eyes and hastily donning his buckskin vest over the dry T-shirt, slipping Lizs jacket over everything and huddling there on the ground for a few seconds. He found himself wishing he had saved one of the heat packs, but they all been used in the deer ruse. OK. May start to warm up now. By tomorrow morning His left arm and hand remained barely functional, his shoulder bothering him more than it had since the initial injury, which concerned him some, but he supposed it would improve, with time. Without being able to see, he could not be entirely certain what was happening with his side, but the area lacked the pain and rigidity that he had noticed during the worst of the

internal bleeding, and while he was certainly badly exhausted, he did not feel like he was losing significant amounts of blood. A careful exploration revealed that the wound site, which had begun healing before he had removed the drainage tube, had torn a bit with the contorted movements that he had been forced to perform while working his way through the rock, the bandage ripped loose and the area bearing a scrape that he did not even dimly remember getting. Good. Can live with that. Probably mostly because I pulled out that tube, but it would have got pulled out anyway, crawling through those rocks, so its a good thing I did. And he bandaged himself up. Flexing his cold hands--he was pretty sure morning would reveal some frostbite damage, on the hands and in other places--he checked over the other contents of the pack, putting on the pistol belt and finding and slipping back over his head the various pouches and small bags that he had taken to carrying around his neck, but had removed for his passage through the rocks. His spear, tied to the pack, had been broken in one of his falls, but the top two feet, head still attached, remained intact, as did his atlatl and darts, and when he checked, the knife was still in its place. Alright, got that settled. Now move, before they end up in the air again, and see you. Einars thoughts returned to the two helicopters as he continued through the timber. He thought he knew where they must have landed, knew the trees would allow him to approach the area fairly closely to observe, if nothing else. There would be a sentry, he supposed, and though he briefly considered taking the man out so that he would have free access to the choppers, it was an idea he quickly dismissed. Theres a chance they dont realize yet that I was at the cache tonight. Not much of a chance, but you never know, and I cant do anything that would give away my presence. Now, if I could fly one of them, different matter entirely But that was not one of the areas where he had experience. Sure would be good to make their trip back to base a real memorable one, though. And that, I can do. He found the choppers where he had expected to, lay on his stomach at the edge of a small, timber-covered escarpment studying the sleeping dragons in the dim glow from a sliver-moon that was just then beginning to show through a tear in the clouds. All was quiet; he had the strong feeling that no one was around, and wondered about the possibility of tangling something in the main rotor, bending or otherwise damaging one of the rotor control rods with a rock or opening a service panel and trying to get at a hydraulic line with his knife. He even contemplated the possibility of trying to damage the forward edge of one of the rotors, but decided against all of those plans as either too time consuming or too obvious, opting instead to toss a rock or rocks into the engine air intake, far enough that they would hopefully not be thrown out by the filters. He supposed he ought to limit himself to one chopper, lest his enemy become too suspicious. The helicopters were sitting in a large rockfield; he would leave no tracks. Whatever sign he might leave--an overturned rock or a small scuff on a patch of lichen--would blend quite nicely with the tramplings and scufflings left by the agents as they exited the choppers. Einar left everything under the trees in the direction that seemed the most likely one for flight, should it come to that, parting reluctantly with Lizs jacket--he was still awfully cold from the time hed spent soaking wet and pressed up against the ice-which was too light a color for nighttime use out in the open. Near the tree that he

sheltered under as he inspected the area was the charred stump of an old lightening-struck spruce. He knew it was there because of the smell, found it with a bit of exploring and took a minute to carefully smear charcoal over every inch of exposed skin that might serve to give him away out there in the open--arms, hands, face, neck--knowing that his pursuers, some of them at least, certainly would be equipped with night vision goggles, but aware also that camouflage is camouflage, and would be somewhat helpful, even under such circumstances. Couldnt hurt to try. In applying the charcoal, he discovered that blisters had already formed on his left elbow and lower arm, as well as the heel of his right hand and a few of the fingers. Well. Frostbite, feels like. Have to deal with this, tomorrow. Last of all he slipped on the leather gloves from Lizs pack, not wanting to risk leaving fingerprints on anything that might later be investigated. Knife in hand in case it turned out that he had been terribly mistaken about the absence of others in the area, he approached quietly, cautiously, circling the silent choppers and finally, fully convinced that no one was around, heading for the nearest one and without hesitation climbing up until he was precariously balanced on the horizontal support of the handrail so that he had a direct shot, barely able to keep his balance between the slick wetness of the metal, and the fact that his left arm was still all but useless. Retrieving the three good sized rocks from his shirt where he had stashed them, he leaned way forward, rested his left elbow on the slick metal and tossed them one by one as far as he could get them into the engine air intake, deciding to go ahead and service the second engine the same way. That way, at least there is a better chance of one rock doing what it needs to do, and Im already here, after all Lowering himself to the ground he hurried around to the other side of the chopper to repeat the action, having deemed it too risky in his current state to attempt climbing up and over the to get at the second engine. Wouldnt do for them come back and find me splattered in the rocks under their chopper! Thatd be an extremely silly way for all of this to end He had just tossed in the second rock when he heard it. A branch had snapped, a stick somewhere up on the rise opposite to the one he had approached from, and Einar stood motionless, hearing the sounds a second and third time and recognizing in them the pattern of human walking. There was a milliseconds-long debate in his mind over whether to drop to the ground and make a run for the trees, or hoist himself up on top of the helicopter, and almost before he realized he had come to a decision he was on top of the chopper in three swift motions, stretching full length beneath its rotors, flattening himself against the metal and slowly turning his head in the direction of the sounds, which continued, approaching, telling him that he must not have yet been spotted. Moving as slowly as possible, he retrieved the knife from its sheath, hid it under his chest and waited. The rain was returning.

The man approached the helicopter, stood in the shelter of its lee side where some of the wind was blocked and kept repeating something into his radio, but seemed unable to rouse any response, and Einar supposed that the terrain must be creating reception problems. He tried walking around the helicopter, holding the radio up in the air, turning

it one way and another without success, attempting but failing to haul his slightly rotund frame up onto the handrail, finally settling for standing on the choppers tire, his head no more than two feet from Einars. Pressing himself flatter on the cold metal of the chopper, wanting to scoot backwards but knowing that to do so might send him into a slide that would make his presence quite obvious, Einar clamped his jaw against his chattering teeth, afraid the man might hear him and glad, at that moment, for the pouring rain that he knew would help mask any small noise he might make. The agent finally made radio contact. Einar gathered from the conversation that the agent--Jimson, he called himself--seemed to be in charge of coordinating the entire search at the moment, that several agents had been seriously wounded in the blast at the cache, and that, so far at least, no one had any idea exactly what had gone wrong, or what had caused the heat signature that they had pursued into the cache. The leading theory seemed to be that their fugitive had perished in the blast, but it seemed that they had found no body, and had found parts of what appeared to be a dead deer. Einar let the man finish his radio communication, wanting to obtain all the information he could and carefully rising when the communication ended, knife in hand, any doubt he might have harbored about the action he was contemplating being erased when he accidentally coughed, alerting the agent to his presence. Without further hesitation Einar launched himself at the man, landing rather badly due to his injuries and the smooth, slippery helicopter top, missing with the knife but slamming Jimsons head quite forcefully into a granite slab, himself rolling several times and ending up face down in the rocks. Einar quickly picked himself back up and hurried over to the agent, who was still and quite limp, feeling for a pulse but finding none. Got to hide him quick, before anybody else comes along Einar tried dragging him but the man was heavy and he was making no progress, and he heard voices up on the rise, approaching. In an adrenalinfuelled fury he got the agents body onto his back and over his shoulders, struggling to his feet, barely able to stand as he lifted what he later guessed to be at least two times his own weight. The voices were nearing as Einar staggered across the open expanse of rock and over to the nearest evergreens where he collapsed on the ground beside the dead agent, out of breath and nauseous from the exertion and the pain in his left shoulder, fighting hard against a welling tide of blackness and barely managing to remain conscious, fighting down the urge to vomit, knowing it would give away his position. He was bleeding again, could feel a trickle going down his side and leg, and supposed the bandage must have soaked through, but knew it would have to wait. Hurrying, he got to his feet, leaning heavily on the tree trunk and kicking a trench into the deep duff beneath the tree, rolling the agents body into it and finding the mans service pistol, sticking it into his own belt. Radio. Better take his radio, might be able to hear something useful, with that In retrieving the radio from Jimsons belt, Einar also discovered a device that he took to be a GPS unit, quickly removing its batteries before stowing it inside his shirt with the radio. The owners of the voices seemed to have reached the choppers, and there was a good bit of shouting and the shining and flashing of lights, but it did not seem related to the dead agents disappearance, but rather to getting the wounded loaded up for transport. Einar raked piles of duff over the body to conceal it, and hastily took off into the trees, skirting around to the spot where he had left his pack, stiffly getting it situated on his back, cinching tight the waist belt but letting the left shoulder strap hang free, the

slightest pressure on his left shoulder bringing a wave of nauseating pain. With that, he headed deeper into the timber, glad of the continued rain. It had been too dark when Einar dumped the last armload of duff on Special Agent Toland Jimson for him to note the faint rise and fall of the mans chest, his hurry too great to think to check again for a pulse, and Jimson lay there barely alive and unhearing as the wounded were situated and the first chopper took to the air, its occupants assuming that Jimson was either on the other chopper, or back with the contingent of men staying behind to secure and begin investigating the scene. Jimson was also unaware of the horrible clamor of distressed metal and belching fire that came when one of the engines on the second Blackhawk tore itself to pieces shortly after it lifted off, the vibrations from the failing engine destabilizing the chopper even before the second engine went moments later, a rotor striking rock and sending the craft rolling and tumbling down the steep rocky slope, leaving behind a fourteen hundred foot trail of twisted metal debris, splintered composite material and bodies. Unconscious and having sustained a serious concussion and a broken back from the force of the man he sought landing on him, the thick dry duff Einar had piled up in an attempt to conceal the body was the only thing that stood between Toland Jimson and a relatively quick and merciful death from hypothermia sometime in the dark early morning hours as the increasingly cold, stormy night went on. There was to be no bed of dry duff for Einar that night, little rest, which was as he expected. He heard the second Blackhawk power up, listened from beneath the tree where had taken refuge at the sound of the first to the thuds and screeches as the engine failed, the sickening crunches and squeals as the mangled chopper rolled down the slope, and knowing that he was out of immediate danger of being seen from the air he dragged himself out from beneath the tree and continued, well aware he had to be far from the area by the time the inevitable reinforcements came in. First, though, got to do something about this bleeding. His clothes--the only dry ones hed had left--were soaked from lying in the downpour atop the helicopter so it was impossible for him to tell in the darkness how much blood he had lost, but a continuing warm trickle told him that the wound needed tending to. Three gauze pads and a few feet of duct tape later, he knew he had done all he could for it, fishing a wad of dried yarrow out of the pouch around his neck and stuffing it in his mouth to chew, against the possibility that his internal injury might have been aggravated into bleeding again by the strain of lifting the agent. Having made it out of the immediate area of the basin Einar climbed, heading up a steep slope that he knew would take him up onto a long, rocky ridge that ran up behind the basin, hoping to be able to circle back around and be far from the area of the blast, and of his cabin, before they either found the missing agents body or determined that the dead deer had been a ruse, and mounted an extensive air search. He was heading for The Bulwarks. That was the idea, anyway. Reality was leaning on him awfully heavily, though, reminding him constantly of his reinjured shoulder and demanding to know--emphasizing the rhetorical question with a progressing exhaustion that left him barely able to remain upright--what he could possibly have been thinking, carrying that two hundred plus pound agent over fifty yards of rough rock field, in his condition. Einar was forced to get rather stern with Reality at that point, informing it that hed had no choice at the time,

that he had no time, either, to sit and mope over his injuries or engage in a casual discussion of the deficiencies in his decision-making skills, not if he wanted to get out of the present situation alive. Which, he was pretty sure, he really did. That certainty became increasingly less fixed in his mind as the night wore on, each step he took on the rocky, uneven ground of the ridge bringing a jarring pain to his shoulder that was barely lessened when he stopped and bound the arm tightly to his chest. Wishing to stop, to sleep, knowing his exhaustion might be powerful enough to knock him out and give him an hour or two without the awareness of pain, Einar kept going, thinking of Liz, of telling her he would see her again, and doggone it, I do not know how or when, but Im gonna make sure that happens. If I can. After a while he had a very strong sense of her presence, looked over and saw that she was walking there with him just below the ridge crest in the grey light of the early, overcast morning.

That morning as Jimson lay near death beneath the tree, a somber rescue effort that was looking more and more like a recovery operation all the time going on in the wreckage far below him, a federal warrant for Lizs arrest sat temporarily forgotten on his desk back at the FBI compound

It was mid-morning, amid all the chaos and confusion of the blast aftermath and the helicopter crash, before anyone realized that Agent Jimson was missing. No one seemed to know for sure where or when he had last been seen, and two of the three survivors from the Blackhawk crash were unconscious in the hospital, the third having a bit of trouble with his memory, so it was assumed that Jimson must have been on the chopper, and had been thrown a bit further than the others as it tumbled down the slope. Dogs were already on scene, had been all morning, and the search area was widened to encompass the brushy woods on either side of the wide, rocky slope. Which, of course, still left the searchers far below Jimsons actual location beneath the basin-tree.

Jimson woke to the blurry, distorted image of evergreen branches swaying in the restless wind between rain showers that afternoon, his face mostly covered with spruce needles and his head splitting as the light reached his eyes. His glasses were gone; without them he was next to blind. Flies, dozens of them, hundreds, even, swarmed and hummed over him, landing on the exposed portions of his face and occasionally attempting to crawl up his nose, some of them definitely of the biting variety. Swatting at them seemed only to stir them up more, providing no more than a second or two of relief, and he covered his face with his hands in an effort to keep them off. Jimsons back hurt; he thought he must be lying on a sharp rock, tried to remember where he was and how he had come to be there, but his thoughts were slow, confused, and he could make little sense of the question, let alone come up with an answer. He was having trouble getting enough air, reached back and shoved a pile of duff beneath his head. It helped, just a bit, but he knew

sitting up would be better, or at least rolling over so that he was not flat on his back. Squinting his eyes against the harsh-seeming daylight, he tried to sit up but was quickly discouraged by a sudden worsening of the pain in his lower back, crying out and returning to his original position, flat on the ground. Something stunk, and as the white splinters of pain began clearing from in front of his closed eyes, he fumbled around with his cloudy brain in search of the source of the stench, realizing to his dismay that he must have at some point soiled himself. That explains the flies. Where is everybody? The awful smell, once he had managed to identify it, helped to cut through the concussion-induced fog in his brain, and he was beginning to remember fragments of the past day--the chopper flight up to the basin, the triumphant knowledge that he was about to finish Asmundson off, end the manhunt, create a slick story for the media and redeem his career, all in one well-planned and smoothly executed mission, the sickening blow of hearing the blast and having his face stung with granite fragments as three of his men received critical injuries, the cache collapsed in a heap of rock dust and rubble, the crushing discovery that the fugitives mangled body was quite absent from the wreckage. It had looked like the three seriously injured men, two of them badly pinned beneath the fallen rock, were probably not going to live, and four more were being urgently stabilized for evacuation as well, when he had left the scene to head back to the chopper in an attempt to make radio contact with the base in Culver Falls. Then what? That was where it was still hazy, unclear, and he struggled to remember anything about how he had come to be where he was, why it felt like someone was driving white hot iron spikes into his lower back every time he tried to move. Reaching for the radio on his belt he found it gone, his pistol, also, and a sense of terror began creeping over Toland Jimson at the realization that he was apparently badly injured and entirely abandoned, without any idea of what had happened or even where he was. Aware that the growing panic would do him in if he did not get ahold of himself he fought it back, tried to focus on answering some basic questions about his situation in the hopes that things might start to become more clear to him. Where am I, anyway? Not the rocks, certainly. He remembered the rocky basin, the open area where the choppers had landed, remembered climbing up on the tire for better reception, remembered His already labored breathing sped up, his knuckles going white over hands full of duff that he grasped as if to choke the life out of them. Asmundson! Had to be. Suddenly he could see the silhouetted form, gaunt and black and spectral against the faint glow of the searchlights, as it hung above him, momentarily airborne before the man made contact, his hands going for Jimsons neck, slamming him into the ground. That was it. No more to remember, but the taste of fear was strong in his mouth as the sequence of events returned to him, and he jumped when he heard a rustle in the brush to his side, tried again to sit up, having temporarily forgotten his injuries. The sound came again and he struggled to hear it over the roiling mob of flies, nearer, heavy, crushing the brush and breaking sticks, and Jimsons mind went to the backup gun in his ankle holster, a Glock 27, and he grabbed for it, only to discover that he could not reach without causing himself excruciating pain. He stopped, straightened out, listened. The noises had ended, which somehow worried him even more than hearing them had, and he pictured some hungry beast--bear? Lion? I dont know, dont know these mountains. Do they have wolves

around here?--about to spring at him from some nearby tree or pile of rocks, and he unable to do anything to stop it. Making a supreme effort and gritting his teeth hard against the pain he bent his knee, slowly inched his leg up until he could twist slightly to the side and grab the gun, seeing as he did so a massive-looking shape out of the corner of his eye, black and menacing and seeming to blot out the sky.

Far below where the rescue teams scoured the slope for those still missing and investigators worked to recover all relevant fragments of the ruined helicopter, one of the men glanced up at the sound of four or maybe five? distant pops, barely audible through the acres of dark timber that separated the two spots, swaying and tossing in a restless, gusty wind that promised the approach of more weather. Shrugging, he resumed his work. The cleanup and investigation at the blast scene had been wrapped up early due to the weather, the trapped extracted and photos and evidence hastily taken before the downpour could erase everything, so no one was up there, either, to hear the five shots.

Daylight found Einar well out of range of the helicopters that had spent the night ferrying rescuers and investigators in and out of the blast and crash sites, but not nearly as far out as he had hoped to be. Walking near the ridge crest among the boulders and twisted, wind and snow-bent sub alpine firs just below treeline as he had planned to do for several miles had quickly proven unsustainable, even with the comforting illusion of Lizs presence at his side. The need for oxygen is simply not negotiable--adjustable, to some extent, but not for a man in his condition--and before Einar had gone a mile he knew that he had to descend. He couldnt breathe, was starting to cough and his head hurt like he could never remember it hurting before, but what worried him most was the incredible, almost irresistible sleepiness that had come over him. He was tired, he knew, ought to be tired, after the last day, but not to the point that he was literally falling asleep on his feet. Go down, now. Which he did, heading up and over and down the backside of the ridge, getting it between him and the basin where all the action had taken place. It was very difficult for Einar to admit to himself that he was suffering from altitude sickness again; the heights had always been his ally. And Im not even that high. What? Eleven-nine? Twelve? No higher, or there wouldnt be any trees. Disgusting, Einar. Whats wrong with you? Despite his indignation and desire to overcome the situation through sheer stubbornness and determination, the fact was undeniable, especially as his breathing began growing easier, the pain and tightness in his chest and the exhausting, wet cough lessening noticeably as he lost elevation. Guess I must need a few more days. Doggone blood loss. Once he was down to what he estimated to be the level of the basin or slightly below he stopped descending, traversing the ridge in the direction he had originally been headed, and keeping it up for the rest of the night, the distant sound of helicopters serving as a continual reminder that he had to make some distance. At daylight he stopped, finding suitable shelter in a water-carved undercut in the rock of one of the many steep gullies

that cut the ridge at intervals, lowering his pack to the dry dirt, scooting into the dark, protected shadows at the back of the undercut and dropping to the ground, feeling exhausted and numb, as though he would never be able to rise again, without about a months worth of sleep. Which was ridiculous; he must and he would, knew it, but allowed himself a few minutes of half-dazed stillness before pressing the matter. OK. First priority, drink. He had emptied his water bottle shortly after starting down from the ridge, knowing that lack of water might account for at least part of the trouble he seemed to be having with the altitude, and had come across no water since. He was, apparently, on the dry side of the ridge. There was a trickle of water in the gully above the undercut, just a trace of wetness on the rock, and he crawled out and sucked up what water he could get to, wringing a clump of saturated moss into his mouth for its eight drops of muddy moisture and returning to his pack, cutting a two foot length of paracord and finding the dampest-looking area of the rock, pressing the cord into the depression that held the trickling moisture and holding it in place with rocks. The other end he trailed down into the empty water bottle, bracing the bottle atop a rock and knowing that the moisture would soon be following the cord, dripping into the bottle and providing him with a bit more to drink. Which I really need, because Ive got to eat something, but better not do it until I have more to drink. Back beneath the rock. He wished there was something he could do for his shoulder, but he could think of nothing. Had not really done anything before, when he had initially injured it, aside from binding his left arm across his chest, which he had already done. Had to undo it, though, for a while, because he knew he had some frostbite to deal with on his left arm and elbow. Easing off Lizs jacket, he carefully twisted his arm until he could see the backside where it had been stuck pressed against the ice, finding a row of blisters, white with some purple discoloration around them, running from his elbow to just above his wrist. Well. Didnt really need this, but I better see what I can do for it. Einar wished he was in an area where cattails were accessible, knowing that the gel between their stalks and lower leaves would make a good ointment for the blisters, very similar to aloe but more strongly disinfectant. Purslane would help, also, mashed into a paste and applied thickly, but again, it did not grow right there where he found himself. And Im not likely to find any cottonwood buds to make Balm of Gilead like I did last time I had frostbite, either. It was only then that he remembered Lizs medical kit, opening it up and discovering a small tube of aloe vera jell, smearing the injured area with it and loosely rolling gauze over it. He wanted to drain the blisters, some of them nearly the size of grapes, knew he would be more comfortable if he could do so, but was not interested in facing the greatly increased chance of infection that this would bring. Huh. Frostbite in July. Kinda silly. Having done all he could for the arm, Einar took off his boots to let his feet air out for a while, and in searching for dry socks happened across the GPS unit he had requisitioned from the agent, turning it over in his hands and contemplating the wisdom of replacing its batteries and trying it out. Having taken the unit directly off of the agent, he had no concern that it might have been deliberately rigged as a tracking device, and as far as he knew, any tracking function that it might have would need to be intentionally activated for it to work. One thing he did not know was whether it could possibly be remotely activated. If it could, then he expected that there would be people attempting to do so, having figured out by that point that its owner was missing and engaged in a frantic

search for him, if the body had not already been found. Only one place I can safely turn this thing on, then, and thats in a mine or cave, or at least way down under a serious ledge where it cant contact a couple of satellites. This one might be enough, if I get way up in the back here where I cant even see the sky. He knew that this would keep him from using the device for its primary function--determining ones own location in relation to the map--but he already knew where he was, and hoped only that the agent had saved some useful information about the search onto the device. That will have all changed, of course, since the blast and crash, priorities will be different, but any information is better than no information, which is what Ive got right now And he reinstalled the batteries, knowing that he needed to tend to his still-bleeding side, but wanting to take a brief break to see what information he might be able to glean from the device.

Einars immediate plans were drastically altered by what he discovered on the captured GPS. Once he figured out how to navigate around on the maps stored on it and found the area around his old cabin and the basin, he discovered that Jimson had a number of spots marked with the acronym MAD, most of them with the work clear beneath them but one--he realized with a shock that it sat over the approximate location of main cache-had a big red X under it. MADWhat is that? Struggling to get his brain out of woods mode and focused on what he remembered of the outside world. I know this bit of information is in there, it just hasnt needed to come to the surface for a long, long timehey, surface! Thats it. Submarines. MAD is one of the things they use to hunt subs As soon as he had the context, Einar remembered what the acronym stood for, realized that they must have recently been using an aircraft with magnetic anomaly detection technology to search for his caches. Must be how they found the big one. Strange, I never saw a chopper or plane with a big boom out front like Im pretty sure that device needs, to get it out far enough away from the metal of the aircraft to be effective. Must have searched this area before I ever got close. The GPS, though, made no mention of either of his smaller five gallon bucket caches, no note or waypoint was set anywhere near either of them, and this told Einar that they must not have been discovered. Well, that, or they were long ago found and removed. But I expect not. Hidden too well to be noticed from the ground, and not too much metal in them, if thats what they were looking for. Knowing that if he wanted to retrieve the items in those caches, he ought to do so while the entire federal search effort, or a good portion of it, at least, was bound to be wrapped up in the rescue and investigation of the chopper crash, and the blast at the cache. Using his paper maps and the ones loaded onto Jimsons GPS, Einar quickly planned a route that would take him on a circuitous path up through the timber of the ridge he had just descended, across (not across, around!) a high meadow and through several rockstrewn basins before bringing him to the general vicinity of the first of the two bucket caches. It would be a long and, the way he was feeling, rather difficult trek, would mean crossing at least one high ridge and likely dealing again for a short time with the altitude difficulties that had plagued him that night, but its almost August, Einar. That leaves you two months at most before the snow sets in, maybe a lot less depending on what kind of a

winter we end up having. Stuff in those buckets would really help you get ahead, give you something warm to wear when it starts getting real cold, in case you dont end up being able to take a bear, or braintan several more deer or elk skins like you would need to do, otherwise. Better give it a try. Itll be rough, but another winter without shelter or food will be a lot rougher. Though probably not for all that long The change in plans, he knew would be a good thing even if he did not have the caches as a destination. There was danger, he knew, in heading for The Bulwarks as he had been, once again seeking out familiar territory and a place where he felt at home. Though probably far enough out not to be on the feds list of targeted areas, the spot was almost certainly too close to be a reasonable place for him to set up residence for the winter which, though he had not admitted it to himself, had been in the back of his mind as he headed in that direction that past night. Theyre also, he finally allowed himself to say, after putting a great deal of effort into keeping the thought from his mind, a fine place for a final stand, if it comes down to that. Which was another facet of their danger to him at the moment. He knew that, as tired and worn down as he was, there was some chance that he would reach the place and decide to go no further, regardless of what his pursuers might do, preparing to meet them if they should come and finish things on his own terms, in a place he loved and one that it would cost them dearly to extract him from, especially with the items he had retrieved from his small bucket cache under the rocks. Tempting, but I really dont want it to go that way. Not deliberately, at least. Best keep away from there for now. Going after those other two caches is the best thing at the moment, for several reasons. In twisting to the side to put the maps away, he again felt the warm trickle of blood down his side, took off the duct tape and gauze that had covered his wound and inspected it. As he had guessed after his ordeal in the rocks, the partially healed stab wound had been torn open again and even enlarged a bit by all the bending and maneuvering he had to do to get out of that twisted, confined space, and the area had been scraped by a rock, as well. Still no signs of renewed internal bleeding though, which amazed him somewhat after the strain of lifting and carrying the agent across the rock field. Well, good. A little tear I can deal with. He saw that he had lost some blood, but nothing too serious, and he cleaned and dried the area, using a few steri-strips from Lizs medical kit to bring the edges of the wound loosely together so that it could still drain, but might be less inclined to tear further. By then, the bottle of water had nearly filled, a fact that came to his attention when he heard a splashing thud outside and scrambled up, fearing that the bottle might have burst in the fall and spilled all of the water. It had not, coming to rest intact and on its side in some rocks, having lost only a gulp or two of water. Carefully retrieving the bottle lest it go tumbling the rest of the way down the gully, Einar sat down right there on a rock and drained it, leaning back with his eyes closed as he felt his body begin to absorb the much needed moisture. Alright. Youre all patched up, had something to drink and a little rest, time to scrounge up a few bites to eat and get moving. The rest was feeling too good, sleep too near, and he wanted to cover at least part of the distance to the caches before giving in to it for a few hours. The few bites to eat ended up consisting of a tin of sardines and a handful of dried serviceberries, which should have brought Einar a great surge of energy, and did, later, but at the moment, the fish eaten and the can wiped so clean of oil that even a bear

might have had trouble smelling it, they served only to leave him feeling overwhelmingly content and sleepy. No. Later. Move. Taking out the GPS batteries and stowing it, and them, in the pack, he started out on the course he had planned, stopping several times that day to harvest serviceberries from small patches he found, mostly dried but still quite edible. Sometime after noon as he traveled near a valley floor several ridges back from the basin where his cache had been, Einar came upon an area where small a creek had long ago been modified by beavers, creating a wide, marshy area that was thick with cattails, their seed heads already well on the way to turning brown and fuzzy for the season. Well. Guess I missed cattail corn on the cob. Too bad. Have to catch it next year. He was quite glad to see the cattails anyway, as the frostbite blisters on his arm had begun hurting badly as the day went on, aggravated by the pressure of the sling that he had to use to keep his arm bound to his chest, lest his shoulder injury be further exacerbated. Choosing a few of the plants that grew near the edge of the swampy muck of the marsh, he stripped off their lower leaves and scraped up fingers full of the slippery goo that he found, applying it to the blisters before re-bandaging his arm. Before moving on he cut several more cattails, taking only the lower foot of the stem on each, knowing that he could later strip off the leaves and have a ready supply of soothing gel, which would last for several days in the stalks without drying out, if he kept them out of direct sunlight. Which shouldnt be much of a problem. Rain is back. Had been, in fact, for most of the day, brief downpours rolling through one after the other, bringing strong gusting winds and a few spectacular lightning shows, striking the nearby peaks and ridges and leaving Einar rather grateful that it had not worked out for him to keep to the ridges, that day. Finally after a long day of travel Einar allowed himself to curl up under a dense stand of evergreens, slinging his pack from a tree and falling quickly asleep, despite the fact that he could not really find a position in which his shoulder did not hurt. Evening came and then a heavy, overcast twilight, and Einar stirred briefly as the chill deepened to dig himself deeper into the insulating duff, checking once again to make certain that a pistol and the atlatl were handy and drifting back to sleep with the thought he must be on the lookout the next day for a willow stick to use in repairing his broken spear.

The FBI Director had been pleased when Toland Jimson agreed to return to head up the Asmundson investigation, but as his small plane was buffeted about in the turbulence over the mountains on the way to the small air strip in Culver Falls, he was anything but pleased. Not only had Jimson led his men into a disastrous situation where for as yet unknown reasons they had ended up involved in a serious explosion and a devastating helicopter crash, he had done so at the expense of pursuing the search of the river, the only recent place where there had been real, solid evidence of the fugitives presence. The Director could hardly believe that Jimson had basically walked out on this opportunity to go chasing around in the mountains after magnetic anomalies. And, the Director fumed, to top it all off he goes missing--hes the only one who hasnt been recovered after the crash--so I cant even put the blame where it belongs. He gets to die a hero, and this mess falls into my lap. Again.

If the Director, despite all of his temporary fury, had been able to see Toland Jimson at that moment, he would not have traded places with the man for all the accolades, promotions and political capitol in the world, nor would he have had the heart to be as irate with the twice-unfortunate agent as found himself when the plane finally touched down after a rather bumpy flight into Culver Falls. Not quite as irate, anyway. The Director was a very exacting man. The bear, a yearling female and not especially large, despite appearing to Jimson to be blotting out the sky, let out a startled whuff as the first sharp report rang out across the basin, turning tail and disappearing at a rolling half-run into the scraggly firs and alpine willows that surrounded Jimsons tree, the noise of gunfire entirely unfamiliar and frightening to her. Jimson, aiming as well as he could at the blurry image of the beast, did not stop shooting until it was swallowed up into the trees and disappeared. He lay back in the duff then, wheezing, breathless, wondering how many shots he had fired; he had been too panicked to keep track. And was far too terrified at the prospect of the beasts imminent return to drop the magazine and check, lying there with the small pistol clenched in his hands, listening, trying to catch over the ringing in his ears any sign that the animal was returning. He was thirsty, his tongue dry and sticking to the roof of his mouth, and the smell of the gently falling rain outside the shelter of the tree was tormenting him, but thinking that the beast might be lurking somewhere just beyond the spot where the vegetation stood in a wall of blurred, indistinct browns and greens, he hesitated to try and move. Eventually his thirst became too much for him and, shoving at the pile of duff on one side to clear it out of his way, Jimson rolled onto his side and then his stomach, dragging himself forward inch by inch until his head stuck out from beneath the evergreen boughs, the ground beneath him wet with rain. Desperate for water, he held his cupped hands out in front of him and tried to catch the falling rain, but it all seemed to be trickling out at one side or another, or between his hands, he couldnt really tell without his glasses, and he gave up on that and felt around on the ground until he found some of last years aspen leaves that had trapped tiny pools of water in the little bowls formed by their curled edges, and he slurped at the water, no longer caring that it was not clean and tasted like rotten leaves. More rustling in the brush, this time below him, and Jimson quickly raised his head and squinted in its direction, unable to see anything but the waving, windblown tops of the alpine willows. The waving seemed to him to be growing stronger though, the crunching and rustling louder, and certain that the beast had returned to finish him off, he quickly let off three shots in what his best guess told him was the likely location of the menace. Jimson never even saw the mule deer as it went bounding gracefully down through the brush and out onto the rocks below, and could not even tell that its light bounding had a different origin from the crashing clamor made by the fleeing bear. His ears were ringing too badly from all the shooting. Which reminded him. How many rounds do I have left, in case it comes back again? Quickly dropping the magazine, he checked. None. Well, one, in the chamber, but none to spare. And that one, he knew, must be saved. No more shooting at unidentified beasts, unless they were literally on top of him. Jimson did not

deal especially well with discomfort or even inconvenience, let alone pain, and he wanted all of his options open if things became unbearable. Which, as he lay there unable to move and in excruciating pain whenever he tried, his vision badly blurred, his ears ringing and no prospect of rescue in sight, he supposed they very nearly were. He wanted a drink. Something stronger than muddy aspen-leaf water. But or course, there was nothing. Some time later he heard a helicopter, wished he had a way to alert it to his presence but could think of none, other than crawling out into the rocks where he could be seen. Dragging himself as he had to reach the water, he made it no more than two feet before blacking out from the pain, waking seconds later when the considerable weight of his suddenly limp body on the downward slope caused him to roll over twice, ending wedged up against a rock but still far from the open area where he hoped to be seen by a helicopter. Whimpering, wheezing and trying without success to roll back uphill a few inches and work himself into a slightly less unbearable position, Jimson pulled out the Glock, pretty sure that he did not wish to further prolong an agony that he knew was only going to end in death, sooner or later. If the altitude or the repercussions of attempting to move with an unstable back injury didnt get him, the hungry beasts soon would, returning to tear him limb from limb. Or the thirst would take him. Or, if he somehow managed to get enough rainwater to drink and lingered long enough--please, no!-starvation. He had read about starvation--the Donner Party, concentration camps, famine in Africa--but had himself never experienced real hunger, had never gone without for longer than a few hours, ever, except maybe once or twice when hed had a stomach virus. And the prospect of dying that way terrified him as little else did. Aside, perhaps, from that unquantifiable black beast that he was too blind to see without his glasses, that was probably going to return at any minute to tear into a meal of his ample and stillliving flesh. But a strange thing happened to Toland Jimson as he lay there with the muzzle of the gun at his temple and his finger on the trigger. He got mad. Seething, raging, white-hot mad. Asmundson. He was speaking out loud through clenched teeth, hissing the words, spitting them out as if they were too bitter to contain. You did this to me. Ended my career the first time, and now youre not only ruining my chances at redeeming it, youre trying to make me die the death youve been too d*** stubborn to accept for yourself, out here alone and without help and with no hope of any being on the way. I see it now. Deliberate, all of it. And it is not going to work. Jimson ejected the last round from the pistol, carefully catching it and rolling it between his fingers, his face beaded with sweat and his breath labored, wheezing and puffing for air after the outburst. This one is for you, Einar Asmundson, if I have to put it in you myself. Matter of fact, I will not let anyone else do it. And he replaced the round in the weapon. Jimsons newfound reason to live went a long way towards getting him moving again, but could not quite compensate for the fact that every time he bent or twisted his back in the slightest way, he nearly blacked out from the pain. Brace. I need a brace. Some way to stabilize it so I can move. Removing his jacket he tore it into two pieces with the help of his knife, leaving them connected at the center so that by twisting the cloth, he ended up

with one long strip. Breaking lengths from two dead branches that hung within his reach, he was ready to give the brace a try, knew he would have to sit up to do so and grabbed the boulder he had come to rest against, heaving himself up into a sitting position, leaning forward and gritting his teeth as he propped the two sticks against his back and wrapped the jacket around, tying it tightly in the front and finding that the improvised brace helped tremendously. He was still not able to stand--seemed something was wrong with his legs; he could move them, but they seemed strangely weak--but could now shuffle along on his knees in a semi-upright position instead of dragging himself, which represented a great improvement in his mobility. After much struggle and a fall or two from which he was sure at first that he would never be able to rise, Jimson finally made it down to the basin and out into the open, choosing a large flat rock slab and dragging himself up onto it, sprawling out flat on his back for the temporary relief he knew the position would bring. He lay there for a minute, hating the rain that soaked and chilled him, hating the mountains and the thin air that made it increasingly difficult to catch his breath, but most of all seething with anger for the man who he blamed for his current predicament. Hearing the choppers but never seeing them, he realized after a while that they were no longer making flights over the basin, but concentrating on an area somewhat lower down, and he did not know why they would be doing that, knew nothing of the crash, but knew he must reach the area. Maybe its Asmundson. Maybe he went down there, and theyre looking for him. Which frightened Jimson for a minute--after the prior days encounter, he feared Einar at least as much as he despised him--before his anger took over again and banished everything else to the background. I will get down there. I will be rescued. Im coming for you, Asmundson.

Starting out the next morning, following a course he had chosen after consulting the topo maps and the GPS the day before under the ledge, Einar slowly worked his way up the ridge he knew he had to cross on his path to the two bucket caches, seeing a good bit of rabbit sign as he climbed and knowing that he needed to be setting out snares and working to increase his food supply rather than living entirely (Mostly, anyway. Did find those berries, yesterday.) off of the dwindling supply that he carried on his back. At this rate Ill be into the pemmican soon, and that leaves me starting winter the same way I did last year, only a lot more banged up and a few pounds lighter. Not a good plan. One of the caches, the one that he would reach first, on his present course, contained a good bit of food that he knew would buy him a significant amount of time, should he be able to recover it. And carry it. Some of the stuff I stuck in there is pretty heavy. But Ill find a way. Even it I am down to using only one shoulder, and the waist belt. This would allow him, he hoped, to focus on taking a deer or even an elk, knowing that a ready supply of red meat would go a very long way towards allowing him to build his blood back up and regain some strength, and the hides would prove very useful, as well, for the coming winter. Even if he was able to reach the second cache, which consisted largely of winter clothing. No boots though, which is too bad. They were in the big one. Have to take really good care of this government sponsored pair, because they got to last me all winter. Unless I can ever get around to making those rabbit lined elk mukluks!

Hopefully I will. That would mean Im holed up somewhere safe for the winter with enough food set aside that Im not having to spend half my waking moments scrounging and scrambling for something to eat, and the other half struggling to warm up again, afterwards. That would be a nice change. He laughed a little, knowing that it would be an awful lot more than nice. Essential, probably, if I want to see another spring. Climbing high to cross the ridge was once more very difficult for Einar, who still had a nasty cough and a lingering headache from the last serious climbing he had tried, but he had taken care to drink as much as he could hold at every opportunity that morning, and found that being well hydrated helped a good bit, though it could certainly not entirely make up for the condition of his blood. He still felt like he weighed a ton as he dragged himself up through a boulder field and into the last wind battered trees below the ridges high, barren crest, coughing and fighting a growing confusion and sleepiness as he hurried to cross the open area and dive into the timber below it. Still got a long way to go before Ill be skipping along the ridges again, but Ill get there. And drinking a lot this morning before starting to climb worked. Here I am. Now, down into these trees, cross one meadow, head up that draw way over there where I can see the creek coming down, and Ill be getting close. Later that day he lay amongst a thicket of chokecherries at the edge of a sloughed-off dirt and rock slope some three hundred yards from the cluster of firs that marked the first cache location, watching for any sign of human presence, either current or recent, and finding none. There was always a chance, he knew, that the spot had been discovered and monitors put in place, but he doubted it. The location was over five miles from his cabin, and not on anything that could be mistaken as a route to or from it, or, for that matter, to or from anywhere else. And there was no mass of metal in the bucket to alert their magnetic imaging technology to its presence. He had even removed the handle, for that reason. Should have taken more care with the big one. Though I was safe under that rock, but I guess it just wasnt enough. With eager anticipation Einar skirted around the marshy-centered little meadow and hurried through the aspens that separated him from the fir grove, which stood backed up to a large area of jumbled, tumbled half-rotted rock outcroppings, brittle and choked in places with thick brush, and scraggly, soil-starved evergreens. He had taken that area as near-perfect terrain in which to lose himself and shake his pursuers, should he ever have need of the cache while evading active pursuit. Which Im not right now, quite, at least not as far as I know. Hope Im right. Reaching the trees and sitting silent for a minute, catching his breath and using all of his senses to probe for any sign of danger, any warning that might be easily overlooked he heard nothing, felt nothing, looked for and found the oddly shaped, moss covered chunk of crumbly schist, sparkling and flashing wherever the sunlight hit it with inlaid fragments and small sheets of mica, that marked the precise location of the bucket. Scraping away over two feet of duff that lay piled against one side of the rock in a very natural-looking configuration, he removed several heavy rock slabs, struggling to do it one-handed as his shoulder protested loudly at any attempt to involve his left arm in the effort. There it was, appearing just as he has left it, and Einars mouth watered as he thought of the bounty awaiting him in that bucket.

The recovery effort and investigation into the Blackhawk crash went on all afternoon and into the night, rescuers and investigators working through the rainy darkness to determine the cause of the crash and locate the one man who was still missing. That man, Toland Jimson, aided by his improvised back brace and driven by a black hatred that grew stronger as his thirst worsened and the nearly overwhelming pain of his injured back became a constant, unwelcome companion, pushed on into the night, heading for the area where most of the air activity seemed centered. Every time he found himself nearly unable to continue, wishing only for his suffering to end, he would stop, rest until his hands stopped shaking and take out his one remaining .40 caliber round, Asmundsons round, rolling it between his fingers and inventing one scenario after another wherein he might get to use it to end the manhunt, for good. By the time he had reached the last band of steep timber that separated him from the search area, he had narrowed it down to two or three favorites that he added to and elaborated on until, badly dehydrated and beginning to hallucinate, he could see the sequences unfold before him, moment by moment, as if they had already happened. Finally, much to his relief, he began to hear the distant hum of the generators that were being used to light portions of the search area. It was almost dawn, and his throat was too dry to shout for help. He doubted they could have heard him, anyway, over the generators. More crawling, an accidental rolling tumble down a steep, needle-slick slope in the timber, and he was there, painfully shuffling from one knee to the other as he emerged out into the rocks at the top of the rockslide where the chopper had gone down. Another ten yards, and he waddled out into the bright while beam from one of the halogen spotlights, leaning against a boulder for nearly a minute until his eyes had adjusted to the point that he could open them again without bringing a splitting pain to his head, and picked up a rock. Slamming the fist-sized rock repeatedly into the boulder beside him, he finally got the attention of one of the investigators, who rushed over to him and quickly radioed the rescuers, most of whom were working an are of heavy brush and massive boulders off to one side of the rockslide, where they believed a man could have been thrown from the disintegrating helicopter and lodged between two rocks, escaping the notice of the initial search. Mountain Rescue had, against Jimsons very specific instructions, been called in to assist with the search once it was determined that he was missing and the FBIs first few passes over the area failed to find him, and it was a Mountain Rescue volunteer who first reached Jimson. Demanding to know the mans identity, Toland Jimson refused all assistance until several FBI agents showed up minutes later, and then allowed them to look him over, remove the improvised brace and roll him onto a backboard for the grueling descent of the boulder field down to where the helicopter waited only after handing one of them his last round of .40 and making the man promise to keep track of it for him. The agent so tasked, thinking the round might in some way entirely unclear to him have relevance to the investigation, slipped it into an evidence bag and labeled it. The agent was about to head down to the chopper when Jimson grabbed his sleeve, muttered a few incomprehensible words before taking a sip from the mans canteen and carrying on about a warrant, telling him to Make sure that warrant gets served, no delayget that girl in our custody, were going to need her. The young agent was about to ask his boss just what warrant he was referring to--who the girl was, he could guess--

when the rescuers arrived and swarmed around him, ending the conversation for the moment. Jimson lay on the backboard as the helicopter powered up, staring up out the window at the dark, bristling evergreens menacingly silhouetted against the brightening sky as paramedics took his vital signs and started an IV, thinking that while he would run the search from a hospital bed for as long as he had to, he meant to be on his feet and actively participating again just as soon as possible. He had made a promise out there to himself and to the pervasive presence of Asmundson, which seemed to him to haunt every outcrop and dark stand of trees in that awful wilderness, and Toland Jimson knew he would not feel whole again until he saw it fulfilled. Launching into yet another review of one of his favorite plans for bringing this about, he did not realize that he was speaking out loud, his voice a dry, venom-filled rattle and his eyes bright with the pain of having been carried down the jarring two hundred feet of boulder field to the chopper. The agents and paramedics who surrounded him dismissed his rantings as the product of what appeared from the looks of him to have been a terrible ordeal. They had no idea the enormous role those thoughts, organized into a more cohesive plan of action than the dehydrated and exhausted Jimson was able to formulate at that moment and backed by all of the resources the Bureau would allow him, were to play in the near future for all of them. Had they, a number of them might have begun seeking alternative employment without delay.

The black plastic bag that Einar had put over the six gallon bucket in an attempt to keep the threads of its screw-on Gamma Seal lid clean and free of debris was as he had left it, and he wiggled the covered bucket back and forth with his boot until it looked like it could be raised, prying and pulling and discovering that he was entirely too weak to lift the buckets thirty pounds up and out of the hole with one arm. He told himself that it would almost certainly be easier had he left the handle in place, but knew that there was little sense making excuses like that, as he knew quite well why he was unable to lift the bucket. Well. Whats in here ought to help a lot. Once I get it out After much pulling and struggling he managed to raise the bucket by a foot, damaging the plastic bag as he did so, but unaware of a way to avoid that. OK. Time to try pulling the bag off, and if it wont come, Ill just have to cut it. He had decided to go ahead and remove the items in the bucket one by one, knowing that this should make it easier for him to finally pull the bucket out of the hole. With some additional damage he was able to work the bag free, rolling it up and stashing it in his pack for later use. The lid opened without difficulty, and Einar sat there for a minute with one boot on either side of the bucket, staring up at the sky above the gently swaying spruces and giving thanks that the buckets contents were undisturbed. Though all the signs had told him that he would find the cache intact, he had been afraid until that moment to let himself believe it. Opening the interior bag that lined the bucket, he pulled out the two topmost items: a quart bottle of olive oil and a similar sized screw-top stainless steel tin of coconut oil, which was intended to double as a cooking pot. He had chosen those two fats for their long storage life, the coconut oil also for the fact that it was a solid in all but the warmest mountain temperatures, making

it less messy to transport once the container had been opened. Unscrewing the lid of the tin, he inhaled the wonderful odor, glanced furtively around to make sure no bears were in the immediate area and scooped out a generous amount of the rich, coconut-scented grease with his knife. As the much-needed and--to him--unbelievably wonderful tasting fat dissolved in his mouth, Einar, almost beginning to feel warm for the first time that day, explored the remaining contents of the bucket, which while very simple represented a good amount of concentrated nutrition. Next came a quart jar of honey, a bag of salt, a small bottle of multivitamins, and three wide, stubby candles in a plastic bag, which he had added to use up space between round containers. The remainder of the bucket was filled out with split peas which, being high in protein and very filling, were something he had known he could live on for time, if injury or other circumstances prevented him from hunting or trapping for awhile. The fats had been intended to supplement a winter diet of rabbits and squirrels, if larger game ended up being scarce or his hunting was restricted by circumstances beyond his control--sure could have used this stuff last winter--and he had added the honey because it represented a hugely concentrated supply of energy that he knew he could add to his split pea soup to supplement it, or just down a spoonful of if he found himself in need of a quick burst of energy. The cache had not been meant as a long term food supply--there had been a bit more of that at the large cache he had lost to the feds, but really, it had consisted more of tools and other items he thought would come in handy in setting up a backcountry homestead, with no chance for resupply. The food he had largely intended on obtaining himself as he had primarily done even while living at his cabin, an idea which he knew would still work out quite well for him if he could ever manage to get over his debilitating injuries and stop running for his life every few weeks. His purpose in packing the bucket had been to give himself a ready supply of food that could be used to sustain him for a few days here and there, let him recover from an injury or keep himself going if he had to lie low for a while during the height of a search. Having removed everything but the bag of split peas he struggled to pull it up and out, finally succeeding and setting it on the ground beside him, collapsing on the duff as his vision went dark and a hissing in his ears told him he was about to lose consciousness. After a few minutes he managed to sit up again, his right arm aching terribly where the wolverine had damaged the muscle, the arm having failed to heal completely. He supposed the damage might be permanent, but certainly hoped not. His side hurt, and he found the gauze nearly soaked through with blood. Come on, quit whining, you lazy sack of bones, he told himself. You just lifted and carried that agent, didnt you? He was an awful lot heavier than this stuff. A bag of split peas, Einar. If you cant even haul a measly little bag of split peas--twenty five pounds at most--out of a hole in the ground, how do you plan on carrying all this stuff on your back, along with the things from the other cache? He shook his head, didnt know, guessed he would have to make more than one trip towherever it was he planned on holing up, next. Which, he knew, could not be at or near his present location. Only five miles from his cabin and a bit less from the compromised main cache, the area was not safe, except, he hoped, to briefly pass through on his way somewhere further out. The Bulwarks kept coming to his mind, the need to settle down somewhere even if there were

risks associated and rest, recover, get ready for winter. The risks associated with not doing so were, he knew, likely to be far greater, and he was running out of time. At ten miles plus from the cabin they still seemed a bit too close for comfort, but he had not ruled them out; the spot had a lot going for it, one of the major factors being his intimate familiarity with it, and the fact that no one knew of this familiarity. He had never mentioned the spot to anyone, never taken anyone there. It is a possibility. First, though, on to the next bucket, and theres no sense carrying all of these peas there and back. Dont even know that I can. Better seal them back up, maybe take the oil and vitamins in case something unforeseen happens and I cant come back, and plan to return for the rest on my way back past here. Deciding to take the coconut oil rather than the olive, as it was contained in the more useful stainless steel tin, he loaded it and the vitamins into his pack, first swallowing two of the vitamins with the knowledge that they would probably be somewhat helpful in rebuilding his blood and reversing the general malnutrition that was bound to be still plaguing him, even if he had become too used to it to tell. Einar took a quick swallow from the bottle of olive oil--ahhwonderful stuff!--before pulling the bucket up out of the hole, replacing most of its contents and wedging it between two boulders where he concealed it beneath a large pile of duff, piling rocks around and over it to keep out the animals and dusting them with duff when his was through to hide the fact that they had recently been moved, should some causal human observer happen by. Not at all likely up here, but you never know. I have found odder things out in the woods, myself, even when not looking for them. And he thought back to the times when he had discovered a little collection of someones earthly belongings here or there stashed in a trash bag and hung in a tree, or concealed under some rocks, usually down near a river. He had always left the caches alone despite his curiosity, knowing that someone might well be returning for them, might be counting on them, even. After this-not that theres gonna be an after; Ill probably be running, in one form or another, for the rest of my life--but if there ever happens to be an after, better times of some sort, and I stumble on somebodys cache, Im gonna be awful tempted to leave them a little something extra, just in case they need it. It was an odd thing to think about. He knew that if someone had happened to do that for him, it would not have been helpful at all, despite what might have been the best of intentions on the other persons part. He would have noticed the tampering and fled the site without hesitation, losing everything. Best for a person to leave well enough alone, if they find something like that. The bucket thoroughly concealed he took a moment to look over the maps before continuing on his way to the location of the second cache, which was several miles from the first, but at a similar elevation. Nearing the second cache and concealing himself a distance from it to survey the area, it did not take Einar long at all to realize that something was very wrong. Well. Guess I know now why this one was not on their GPS target list.

The Director arrived at the hospital in Clear Springs shortly after the helicopter carrying Jimson, met with him briefly before he was whisked off for an extensive series of X-rays

and CT scans and tests to determine the extent of his injuries, and Jimson tried to tell him that Asmundson was the cause of his injuries, that he had been there, that they needed to get search teams up to that basin right away and find him, but between the pain medication he had already been given Jimson the fact that he was still somewhat disoriented from his dehydration, the Director did not know how many of his statements to take at face value. Certainly not, he hoped, the ones about Jimson being determined to go along on every search mission thereafter so he would not miss the chance to put a bullet in Asmundsons brain, like a dog, like the rabid, flea-bitten, foaming at the mouth cur that he is. I have the bullet. I saved the bullet, it was for me but I saved it for him because he needs it more, and Im going to use it on him myself if its the last thing I ever do. Have you seen the bullet? Where is it? I cant find it! It was here in my pocket but I cant find it. Help me get up, I have to go find it At which he began struggling, pulling out his IV and tearing at the various wires and monitors until a nurse showed up and sedated him. The Director shook his head and walked out of the room, hoping his friends lapse into what appeared to be raving lunacy was due entirely to his ordeal and whatever medications they had given him. He needed Jimson, needed him to help complete the search, if he recovered in a timely manner, and though inwardly he seethed at what he saw to be a hasty and poor decision on Jimsons part--pursuing the cache instead of focusing his attention on the river where the overturned canoe had been found--he intended to handle that matter privately with Jimson, whenever he was up to it. Publicly all of his support would remain behind his friend, who had been injured in the line of duty and who was, after all, one of the few survivors of the cache blast and disastrous Blackhawk accident.

The ground around the snarl of dead trees that guarded the old, partially collapsed mine where Einar had concealed his second cache was disturbed in places as if someone had been digging, covered in patches with what looked like squares of staked out black plastic and hardware cloth, each square marked with a numbered flag. Not quite sure what he was looking at, he carefully moved back some distance into the brush, glancing around for any further disturbance in the area and seeing, mounted in a nearby tree, a small antenna and solar panel. Across the clearing, placed near the tangle of trees that marked his cache, was a small white pod of some sort, its antenna aimed at the larger one in the tree. If theyre trying to trap me here, theyre sure not doing a very good job of it. This is real obvious. He heard voices, pressed himself further down into leaf litter that covered the ground. Three people appeared, two men and a woman, all young, students, he supposed, rounding the shoulder of the hill and approaching the disturbed ground, where each knelt and removed one of the patches of plastic or screen, making notes on their clipboards and probing the ground with what he took to be either thermometers or hygrometers. Squinting, he struggled to read the writing on the nearest mans jacket. High Mountain Biological LaboratoryOh, great! My cache site has become the subject of a summer-long nature study of some sort, looks like. He remembered hearing about studies the lab, based in a cluster of long-abandoned mining buildings and cabins in a ghost town above Culver Falls and having a good working relationship with the Forest

Service, had been doing on scattered mine sites around the area, trying to determine the long term effects of mining runoff on the native flora and fauna But here? Thought this was far enough out, and a small enough mine, that I would not have to worry about anything like this. Was wrong. Guess I wait here until they leave, because I really need my warm clothes for this winter, and theres no way to know if Ill ever be able to make it back over here. Carefully digging deeper into the leaves, he prepared to wait. Hours went by as the three students poked and prodded and took samples of the dirt in the various study patches, making notes, taking photos and replacing the coverings when they finished with one, before moving on to the next, stopping at one point to eat lunch beneath the grove of aspens that sat just below Einars hiding place. Whenever the wind blew in his direction he could smell their lunch, which consisted of soup in a thermos, sandwiches--turkey, he was pretty sure--and oranges, and he was somewhat surprised at the way his sense of smell had sharpened over the last months. There were times now when he relied on it nearly as heavily as his searing or even sight to gather information about his surroundings, and while he had come to take this somewhat for granted as he moved through the natural world, it became quite noticeable whenever he was around something out of place, such as the students and their lunches. As they ate the three carried on a lively discussion about the manhunt and helicopter crash. Huh. Helicopter crash. Guess I must have got enough rocks into those engines, after all And, continued the young man who sat nearest him, the one who wore the High Mountain Biological Labs jacket that had allowed Einar to identify the group, I guess they found that missing guy early this morning, from what I overheard in the dining hall before we left. One of the guys had been in radio contact with Mountain Rescue, and they said they found him when he crawled down into the area they were searching. Said he was all scratched up from crawling through the brush for a couple of days, and they think he had a pretty bad back injury, or something, and had made a brace for himself from his jacket and some branches. Apparently he told them he wasnt in the chopper crash, but had crawled all the way down from where that explosion happened, a couple of days ago. I guess he was the guy in charge of the search, or something. Einars eyes opened wide at that, and he would have jumped up and hurried down to the little group of students to ask them a few questions, had he not been quite as acutely aware of the need to remain hidden. So. He must not have been dead. Sounds like as of this morning they knew I was up there, if they had not already figured it out from what they found at the cache. Well. Rain all that rain and the acres and acres of rock I crossed climbing that ridge should keep them from tracking me. I hope. And thereve been no choppers over here that would indicate they know where I headed. Odd. Seems like there would have been a few passing over last night just to check out the area, if this Jimson guy told them about me. He shrugged, lay his head back down in the leaves to wait for the students departure. Their conversation had moved on to other matters, and before long they got up and went back to work. Einar, knowing that he was well concealed, his body still happily working to assimilate the olive and coconut oil he had earlier eaten, dozed there in the warm, aspen-scented woods, the flies droning around his head but an occasional stiff breeze keeping the

mosquitoes down. Dreaming as he dozed, he found that Liz was there beside him, talking about the coming winter and the cabin he was going to build them, collecting salsify seeds with their large white parachutes from the ground there in front of them and telling him that they could be saved for sprouting during the winter, so the two of them would have some fresh greens now and then while the snow was on the ground. We should do the same with dandelions, and even milkweed. You can eat milkweed shoots, so the sprouts ought to be good, too. The milkweed is blooming right now, I saw a bunch of it on the way up, so in a few weeks the seeds will be ready. The down can be saved for stuffing and insulation, and the seeds for sprouting. Dont forget. Winters coming. He told her it sounded like a great idea, drifted into a deeper sleep with images of the coming winter--pleasant, for a change--running through his mind. Some time later Einar startled awake to evening light and the sound of voices, found that Liz was gone and cautiously raised his head several inches, looking down at the open area in front of his cache and seeing that several more people had arrived, and were, to his dismay, setting up tents right in the middle of the clearing.

Mrs. Watts, the Sheriffs wife, went up to Susans house late that morning, trailed at the Sheriffs request by a deputy, to bring Susan in for another visit with Liz, who remained in protective custody. They stopped on the way at Rosies Diner for lunch, where they met several of Bills old friends from Mountain Rescue, the men having just returned from the mission up at the crash site. They all sat down at the big booth in the corner, the four men full of stories of the happenings up on the mountain. One of them had been present when Toland Jimson was found, and recounted for them the mans weird rantings about Asmundson leaping on him from on top of a helicopter. Most of them laughed at this, thinking it sounded highly unlikely that the fugitive would choose to be on top of a helicopter in the first place, much less that he would give away his position by leaping off of it and landing on the Agent in Charge, but one man did not laugh, the one who had been there when Jimson told his story to the first FBI agents to reach him. He sat silent, stirring his coffee and staring out the window as the others carried on with jokes about the incompetent agents and how they wouldnt know Asmundson from Sasquatch, if he was standing two feet from them. I think he meant it, the man finally spoke up. And I believe him. He seemed very sure. And he said something else, too, something about a warrant, about serving a warrant on a girl right away and without delay, about how they were going to need her. He looked over at Susan. Those were his exact words. And you know, I think he was talking about Liz. Mrs. Watts spoke up first. Well, I think my husband will have something to say about that. Wed better go, Susan.

Einar watched as three tents were set up near the center of the little clearing that stood

between him and his final cache, the activities seeming to be directed by an older man who had shown up with the four recently arrived students. So. Looks like the amateur scientists club is having a campout. Right in front of my cache. Guess thats probably my cue to back out of here real quietly and move on. Got too much to lose back at that other cache to risk being seen by these guys and having to run again. He waited though, hesitating, thinking that he had an awful lot to lose at the present location, also, possibly including his life, should he end up injured and hungry again and unable to stay warm when the weather turned cold. The clothes in that bucket, he knew, could end up making all the difference under such circumstances. With that in mind, he wondered if he might be able to manage to sneak around behind the camp once everyone went to sleep, and access the second bucket. It would mean working his way around the tents, removing some of the branches that were piled over the cache, then moving the four or five rock slabs that he had placed over the bucket and the duff that surrounded it. Many opportunities in that course of action, he knew, for creating noise that would alert the campers to his presence. Or, the presence of something. There was a good chance, he figured, that his activities would be mistaken for those of a bear if anyone did hear them, and if everyone slept zipped into a tent to keep away from the mosquitoes that would become more plentiful with dusk, then he would have the noise of the zipper to alert him if anyone decided to investigate the bear, giving him ample time to crash and blunder off into the woods, where he would almost certainly not be followed. Might work. Might. Dont know if might is good enough, in this case. Guess Ill wait here for a while, see how things look when everybody settles in for the night, make sure they all end up inside the tents, maybe give it a try. Einar was a very patient man when he needed to be, had become so out of necessity if he had not been one before, and knew that he could wait as long as he needed to, patience-wise. Though probably not longer than through the night, simply he was nearly out of water and there was none in sight. Aside from the altitude problems that he knew would begin worsening if he allowed himself to go too long without water, he feared a return of his cough if his throat became too dry. Speaking of which, better have a drink. Less than an inch of water remained in the bottle. The day had been warm, for a change, and windy, his breathing shallow and fast as his body tried to make up for the insufficient oxygen that it was able to extract from the thin air, and even with emptying the bottle, Einar knew that he had not consumed nearly enough water since leaving the basin. One of the students had packed in a five gallon collapsible water container, which he had carried down to a creek or spring somewhere on the other side of the camp and filled halfway with filtered water, and Einar stared longingly at it as he drained the last drops from his bottle. Then dinner time came, a fire was built off to one side of the camp and Einar soon forgot all about the water as he was enveloped in a cloud of frying onion, pepper and chicken scent, leaving him to watch with a cramping stomach and watering mouth as several pots of instant rice were boiled up, the contents of the skillets added to them, and a bottle of soy sauce dumped over everything before the students began their meal. Einar was glad he had eaten the oil earlier in the day, because he was not entirely sure that he would have been able to stand watching--and smelling--that feast unfold below him, otherwise. To make matters worse, he was unable to access any of the food in his pack at the moment, concerned that the noise of the zipper, even if he was careful, might be heard by someone

in the camp. So he watched and waited as dusk arrived and the students finished their meal, restraining himself with difficulty as he watched two young men who had apparently not been especially hungry dump portions of their unfinished chicken and rice into the fire so that it would not later attract bears, ashamed to find himself very nearly in tears at the sight. He looked away, tucked his arms beneath his body in an attempt to stave off the chill that had begun seeping into his bones as the sun disappeared from the nearby ridges and a chilly evening wind began sweeping across the area, buried his face in the leaves and rested. Guess they just dont know how awfully good they have it. Cant really blame them, they got nothing to compare it to, no perspective. He shrugged, shivered a little, looked back up. Most of the students had returned to their field work to take advantage of the remaining minutes of daylight, while two, the student with the HMBL jacket and one of the boys who had recently arrived, remained behind to clean up the camp and wash the dishes. Everyone thus occupied and the two kitchen hands carrying on a loud and sometimes rather heated conversation about who would come out ahead in a conflict between a mountain lion and a black bear, Einar finally risked slowly and carefully unzipping the main pouch of his pack and getting himself a few badly needed bites to eat. He regretted only that he had no more water to go with the little meal, knew that he should perhaps have waited to eat until he got ahold of more, but he had been feeling awfully weak and tired, beginning to doubt his ability to stay awake for a good portion of the night as his mission was going to require, had he not eaten. More waiting. The light faded, darkness came and the students sat around the fire for what seemed to Einar like hours, laughing and joking and telling scary stories, including, to his surprise and bemusement, a well-woven yarn about how the subject of the manhunt that was going on a number of miles from their camp had worked his way into their midst, and was even then lurking in the darkness, waiting to slink in as soon as they fell asleep to destroy their tents and kill the all in a great fireball resulting from improvised explosives he had made by mixing bat guano, charcoal and ground up sulfur crystals from a vent he had found near a hot springs, (Einar, shivering in the darkness above the camp, nearly laughed out loud at that part. If only it was that easy) steal their food and truck keys, and escape the state in one of their vehicles. After that the story telling session degenerated into a debate over whose vehicle the fugitive would be most likely to take, and Einar ended up with the professors tan 78 Land Cruiser FJ40, not, he had to admit, a bad choice at all. Now will you kids please go to sleep already? Im freezing out here, and my shoulders starting to cramp up awful bad. It took another hour, by his estimate, but everyone ended up sorting themselves out into one tent or another, and he listened as the voices gradually subsided and silence prevailed over the camp. OK. Get it done, Einar. Walking just outside the brush at the edge of the small meadow in an attempt to move as silently as possible, Einar made his way towards the tangle of dead trees that hid his cache, all going well until he reached the halfway point and began to feel a cough coming on, his already dry throat aggravated by the faster breathing required by the movement. Quickly grabbing a clump of spruce needles and mashing them between his teeth he swallowed their bitter, tangy juice, his throat soothed somewhat. Moving again as soon as he could take a breath without feeling the imminent need to cough, he had nearly made

it past the cluster of tents when he felt a catch at the back of his throat, caught it too late and started coughing. Holding his breath and straining in an attempt to quiet the cough he was unable to keep it suppressed, choked and gagged from the effort. He heard one of the tents unzip, dropped to the ground just as the beam of a flashlight swept the area, someone apparently concerned at the racket and going to see which of the students was having the difficulty. Einar hoped he was close enough to the tents that the coughing would be assumed to have come from one of them, hoped the occupants of the nearest tent would not realize that the sound was too close to have come from the neighboring tent. Footsteps coming through the grass; someone was walking around each of the tents, and he waited until the faint thud and swish faded a bit before rolling over onto his stomach and beginning to worm his way towards the brush, nearly crying out at the pain of having to use his injured left side in the effort. There. He could see the dark mass of the chokecherries in the faint glow of the flashlight as it reflected off of the white trunks of the aspens on the opposite side of the little camp. Just a few more feet. He coughed again, felt the beam of light on the back of his head even before he saw his shadow, wildhaired and shaking with the exertion of trying to spare his injured shoulder, silhouetted on the brightly lit grass of the meadow.

Liz sat in the holding cell that afternoon reading the copy of America Today that contained the second half of the story about Einar. As the Sheriff and his deputies had been quite busy, the paper had been delayed by several days in reaching her. Farewell to the Last Mountain Man Part Two Juniper Melton Exclusive to America Today Sitting around the fugitives little fire in the long-abandoned mine that gave him--and, that night, us--shelter, we listened as Asmundson told the story of his life on the run, frequent questions from us being necessary to keep the conversation going, as it was clear that he preferred silence. At one point, I asked him about his past, about life before going on the run, but he seemed very reluctant to talk about it, almost as if in doing so he feared that he might inadvertently give away some bit of information that could be used against him, though I could not ascertain whether he was concerned about this in a legal sense--it seemed not, as he made it very clear several times that he had no intention of ever surrendering and facing the charges against him--or from the perspective of not wanting the enemy, as he sometimes referred to his pursuers, to know more about him than they already did. He did open up just a bit in this regard when he related a story from several winters ago, when three days of heavy snow led to avalanches that completely blocked the narrow, winding road that led up to his mountainside cabin, while he was away from home. Asmundson described a night-long ordeal in which he snowshoed up the back side of the mountain to his cabin, arriving exhausted and half frozen as the sun rose the next morning, having never been more glad to see his home. It was clear from his description

of the place, which he built himself from timber on his land over the course of two years, that Einar loved his cabin and his life there, but after telling that one story, he would say no more about it. Speaking of cabins, I changed the subject, tell me about the explosion at the mining cabin. Nine men lost their lives that night. Federal officials are calling it an ambush. How do you respond to that? For a long moment Asmundson did not respond at all, staring past me out into the blackness beyond the crackling flames, his face dark with memories that it seemed he would rather not have revisited. When he spoke, it was quietly but firmly. Found that cabin the day after they shot me. Was worn out, real dehydrated, needed a place to hole up. Leg was infected, I had a bad fever, just crawled in there and lay on a pile of spruce needles for a long time. Dont even know how long. Couple days, maybe. Almost died, I think, before I finally got my wits about me enough to realize that I had to try and clean out that wound. Had been too long, it was dirty and I knew Id end up with gangrene and blood poisoning if I didnt do something. Didnt really want to die that way, if I could help it. Thought about trying to use maggots to clean out the rotting flesh, considered just digging it out with the dull old pocket knife I had with me, went back and forth on what would be best, but knew I had to do something pretty quick. Finally made a little fire, boiled some water in an old iron pot Id found in the cabin, cut a piece off my shirt and scrubbed all the dead stuff out. First time I tried it I kinda passed out from the pain as soon as I got it bandaged back up, but I did a little better the next time. Had to do it several times. Pretty rough. Worked, though, especially when I started washing it with hounds tongue and Oregon grape afterwards. Chewed so much Oregon grape--its an antibiotic--that I got jaundice or something, and had to stop for awhile, but I guess it had some effect, or I know Id have ended up with gangrene. Leg still aches some, now, but Im getting around OK. He was silent then for a few minutes, rubbing his leg and seeming to be contemplating how much he wanted to tell me about what had happened after that. Those first few days after starting to tend to the wound I was still real sick, managed to drag myself out to this little spring a few yards from the cabin once in a while to get a drink, but could do no more. One day I was crawling around in the cabin, found a wooden crate with a bunch of dynamite and caps in it. Real old, and that stuff gets unstable when its that old, you start seeing these white crystals all over it where the nitro has sweated out, and its real bad news to try and do anything with it, touch it, even, when it gets like that. So I left it alone. Well, in a few days, after the fever started going down some and I realized again how hungry I was, I started hobbling out of the cabin each day to try and round up some food. Caught a few chipmunks in a gallon glass jug I found around the place, dug some grubs out of a log, but I was starving, knew I needed more if I wanted to live, let alone heal from being shot. Went up on this little mesa above the place and snared a couple rabbits, found a pretty good deer trail and set up a snare for one of them, too. One evening I was up there checking it when they came for me. I heard them,

hurried as well as I could back down to the cabin to round up what little gear I had, got out ahead just of them. All I know about the rest is that I heard a big blast a while later from down in the gully I was using to try and get out of there before they could find me and shoot me again. Figured they must have messed with that dynamite. Real bad idea to mess with old dynamite. But you know, they were almost certainly planning to kill me if they had found me there at that cabin. And I knew it. Became real clear to me what their rules of engagement were when they shot me in the back that night as I was trying to get away. Shoot on sight, or something like that. So even if I had somehow rigged that cabin--which, as I said, I did not do--it could have been looked at as self defense. You mention using herbs to help heal your leg. And earlier, before we came up here, you put some leaves in your tea and breathed the steam to help when you were having trouble breathing. It really seemed to work. How did you learn all of that? Yes, put mullein in the tea. Opens up your breathing passages, helps dry out the lungs. It, and a few others, really helped me last winter when I had pneumonia. Picked up the knowledge here and there over the years, I guess. Some of it casually, some when I found myself in a situation where I really had to rely on the land for awhile, though it was in a very different place and the knowledge I picked up there is only partially relevant to what I'm doing now. But for years after that, I also made a real concentrated effort to learn plant medicine. Spent some time with this old couple that lived way back up on an inholding in the National Forest. She was half Woodland Cree, originally from Northern Alberta, and they ended up coming down here to live on his uncles place after he died sometime in the 50s. They had made their living up North for years through trapping, did the same around here, until the laws changed and the fur market went down a while ago. They were in their late seventies when I met them, and not getting around so well anymore. Well, I used to go up there and cut a few cords of firewood for them every fall, and wed sit out on the porch and shed tell me what she knew of the local plants--which are pretty similar to the ones up where she was raised--stories shed heard of how her people used to use them, what she had experience with, herself. They both taught me a good bit about trapping, how to snare a rabbit with nettle cordage, things like that. Seemed to appreciate that I was interested in hearing about what they knew, hearing their old stories. That was years ago. Theyre both gone now, but what I learned from them has probably saved my life more than once, out here. Had something like this--running, being on my own--in mind when I put so much effort into learning the plants; always knew it was a real distinct possibility. But also just wanted to be able to do for myself, in day to day life. Never understood why so many people who were into freedom and self sufficiency in all other areas of their lives seemed to think nothing of giving complete and total control of something as basic as their health over to a bunch of professionals with a financial interest in seeing everyone become dependant on synthetic drugs. Always kinda saw my health as my own responsibility, so it was real important that I be set up to deal with any problems that might come up, myself. Real glad I looked at it that way, or Id have been at a complete loss this last year. Even still, been several times when I was pretty sure I wasnt going to make it. Including a couple nights ago when I couldnt breathe, felt like I was drowning.

If somebodyd shown up right then with oxygen and antibiotics and such, I sure wouldnt have refused their help. But Im well aware that theres no help for me out here, not of that variety, anyway. Im on my own. I know theres a real good chance living like this that my life may not end up being as long as it could have been, otherwise. Heh! For all I know, I might not have more than a couple of days left. Sure feel like it, sometimes. But even if I knew that to be true, Id gladly take those two days, and knowing where Im going afterwards, over a long life in the cement box my pursuers no doubt have lined up for me, if they somehow manage to take me alive. You mentioned where youre going afterwards. Were you referring to an afterlife, of some sort? Is your faith an important aspect of your continued survival? Yes. It is. As far as an afterlife, if you mean spending the rest of eternity in the presence of my Creator, then yes. Thats what I was referring to. Einar, I certainly do not mean this next question to be offensive, so I hope you dont take it that way. But youre clearly a very intelligent man, good with words and quite persuasive on the topics that you choose to address in depth. Have you ever wished that you had focused on those talents to make a difference in the world--you could have ended up as a college professor, writer, something along those lines--instead of taking the path that led you here into the middle of this manhunt, constantly fighting starvation and with no prospect of returning to a normal life? You have mentioned several times that you knew youractivitiescould result in your ending up in a situation like this. Dont you ever wish you had found a different way to live your convictions? He looked at me oddly after that question, and I could see that, rather than being offended, he was struggling to suppress a grin. The next second, his usually-serious demeanor returned. No maam, I do not. Never had any interest in doing a thing halfway. Anything. Hows a man supposed to live with himself if he knows hes living his life as a hypocrite? Would have been a harder path for me than this rocky old trail Im on right now. I wanted to question him further about his answer, but could see from his demeanor that the matter was closed. If there was one thing you could have had with you out here, something that would have made your life easier, what would it have been? A little peace and quiet, he answered unequivocally, and without even seeming to contemplate his answer before giving it. Can provide for my own needs out here, no problem. Was never much interested in luxuries and all. If theyd just leave me alone, Id be doing great. But, he poked at the coals of the fire with what appeared to be a well-controlled fury, I know thats not gonna happen. So here I am. The interview continued long into the night, Einar adding a few dry sticks to the fire

whenever it began dying down, and refusing to respond to a number of my questions that pertained directly to the charges against him or to the things he has done to avoid the detection of his pursuers, but answering others in great detail, providing surprising and sometimes very personal insights into the skills, knowledge and determination that are required by the life he lives. Our host had insisted that we take his bed, a carefully arranged pile of evergreen needles and branches near the back of the tunnel, so, the interview finally finished and the fire dying down, I joined my companion there, hearing the wind howl outside finding myself very grateful for a dry place to sleep. As the fire died down I watched Asmundson, who sat unmoving and apparently wide awake against the tunnel wall near the fire, its flames flickering weirdly across hollow cheeks and worn, craggy features that spoke more clearly than words of the hardships brought by the life he has chosen--a solitary figure, lonely, perhaps, though one would not guess it in speaking with him, determined to live to the letter the old and often repeated motto: Live Free or Die. Remaining motionless as the evening wore on, he almost appeared to become part of the stone wall, himself, the fires glow becoming increasingly dim and finally dying out, leaving only darkness and the sound of the weather outside. When the cold woke us early the next morning he was gone, having disappeared into the night like the shadow that three federal agencies have been pursuing without success for nearly a year through this vast and rugged wilderness of cliffs, canyons and wild, snow covered peaks. We ate the breakfast he had left for us, a hearty stew of deer jerky, spring beauty roots and serviceberries kept warm down in the coals, feeling a bit guilty at cutting into his meager supply of food, and departed the mine, having missed our chance to say farewell to the last real mountain man. _________________________________ The full text of Juniper Meltons exclusive interview with Einar Asmundson will be printed in a special edition of next Sundays America Today Just as Liz finished reading the article, she was startled by the sound of screeching tires in the parking lot behind the Sheriffs Office, the hasty slamming of vehicle doors.

Einar did not look back at the light, neither scrambled for the brush nor charged at his discoverer. He remained where he was, appearing frozen but in reality having made a very deliberate split-second decision that he hoped might allow him to make it out of the situation with the least harm done, and perhaps, if all went well, even manage to retrieve his cache. Very casually, sleepily, he rolled over onto his left side to conceal his backpack and face the man with the light, closing one eye to help preserve his night vision and tossing his arm over his head, both to disguise his identity and to hide the grimace that twisted his face as he lay on his injured shoulder.

Terry, is that you? The man with the light asked. Heard some coughing. Altitude getting to you, or what? Einar grunted, mumbled something as agreeable-sounding as he could manage through the grating pain in his shoulder, and did his best to curl up into a sleeping position. Well, OK Terry. might at least want your sleeping bag though. It gets pretty chilly up this high. He grunted again, hoped the man had not seen him shivering, started coughing again, despite his best efforts. Here. Try some water. He heard the bottle thud into the grass near him, grabbed it and twisted off the lid. Thanks. The light left him, flickered back off towards the far end of the meadow, and Einar, dazzled and quite blind from the glare, had begun to very slowly and quietly low-crawl in the direction of the thicket when he heard another, closer tent unzip, froze and listened as someone stepped out of it. Somebody looking for me? The tents occupant shouted in the direction of the receding flashlight beam. Oops. Must be the real Terry. In trouble now The light began its bobbing, weaving return trip, and Einar hurried off through the tall grass, reaching the thicket and hiding himself in its tangled blackness. The student and the man who had initially discovered Einar--Einar took him to be the instructor--were conversing in the general area where he had been discovered, and he saw them inspecting the ground in the beam of the flashlight. More tents were opening up, students emerging to see what was happening, and Einar decided to take advantage of the chaos to cover the sound of his movements as he worked his way towards his cache and removed the branches that covered it. May be able to get out of here with some of my stuff, yet. It seemed like a feasible plan, until a little clump of students with flashlights and headlamps began following the mashed down trail he had left through the high grass as he crawled away. He heard them talking, gleaned from their hushed, excited conversation that all of them had been accounted for, that they knew a stranger had been in the camp. And of course, they guessed it had been him. For a moment he thought of continuing with his plan, working his way around to the cache and hoping he could get there and remove it before they figured out his trail, but knew the chances of that were very slim. The ground between himself and the cache consisted of an aspen forest, heavily grown with grasses and leafy green plants that he could not help but mash down to some degree as he walked, leaving a trail of damaged vegetation that would gleam white in the beam of the flashlight, proving perhaps easier to follow than it would have been in the daytime. Well. There goes my plan. And all of my warm clothes, too, so looks like Id better get another deer pretty soon. He wormed his way through the brush, rose stiff and chilled from an evening spent lying on the ground to walk through the area of low hummocks, bristling

swamp grass and water-filled depressions that lay behind the thicket. In the dark and in his hurry he found himself entirely unable to avoid the soft, watery areas between grass hummocks, nearly spraining his ankle in one of them as his foot went in and he sunk up to his knee in the cold black muck. He supposed it was black, anyway. Certainly couldnt see in that darkness and with his eyes still somewhat dazzled from the flashlight, but the stuff certainly was sticky. Lacking the strength in his left leg to break the mucks grasp on him, he grabbed the nearby brush to help haul himself up out of it. Standing there on the grassy hummock once again, badly winded and almost afraid to take another step lest he sink again and lose more time but knowing that he must, Einar took another gulp of the water to hold back a cough that he felt coming. Leaving sign that these kids will be able to follow in the dark, Einar, let alone the trackers thatll show up as soon as that instructor radios his base and reports this. Which hes probably already done. Better get up into the woods quick. Theyre bound to be moving a lot faster than you are, and what are you gonna do if they come and surround you and try to pin you down until the feds get here, or something? Shoot a couple of them so the rest know youre serious about being left alone? Dont think so. Get out of here. Finally he pulled himself, wet, cold and exhausted up out of the last water filled, reedtangled trench and staggered up into the timber, knowing that he would inevitably leave a bit of sign at first as the clumps of stinking black muck fell from his boots and lower legs, and stopping to plaster spruce needles against the mud in an effort to keep it in place. Climbing the hill as quickly as he was able, as much in an effort to get warm as to put distance behind him, Einar chewed spruce needles against the return of his cough and worked his way around to a spot where he could look down at the camp, searching his pack until he came up with the binoculars and trying to get some sense of what was happening behind him.

On their way to the Sheriffs Office, Cheryl Watts and Susan stopped by the house of one of Cheryls nieces, a woman who had been hired to do occasional cleaning work out at the FBI compound. She seldom said much about the goings on in the compound, having been required to sign a non-disclosure form before accepting the job, which had come with the promise of criminal charges if she were to talk about anything she saw or heard in the building. When Cheryl questioned her about a warrant, though, asking whether she had heard anything and impressing upon her the importance of the information, the woman told her that yes, she had overheard a conversation that morning to the effect that the injured Director wanted a warrant served on some local woman--she had not got a name--and that it must be done quickly. There was not much more information, nothing the woman remembered, anyway, other than that the agents had said something about holding the subject of the warrant as a material witness. That was all Cheryl needed. She knew from what she had heard from her husband that the feds often used material witness warrants to arrest and hold people who they wanted to keep in their custody, but for whom they had no charges prepared, sometimes holding them for a very long time without so much as a court hearing and, since the Patriot Act, occasionally without any

access to an attorney or the ability to contact family and let them know they were in custody, even. And now they planned to take Liz, that way. Not if Jim has anything to do with it And, filling Susan in on the details as they she drove, she sped across town to the Sheriffs Office. Cheryl Watts made it in the back door of the Lakemont Sheriffs Office just before the two black Suburbans pulled into the front parking lot, shouting at Liz to get her boots on as she hurried through the building in search of her husband. She could have contacted him on the radio on the way there, but did not want to risk tipping off anyone who might be listening in with an unusual call. Watts was not in, was, according to the dispatcher, on his way up to a recent accident on the Limestone Quarry Road, where a semi had jackknifed, leaving the cab hanging down over a steep embankment. The quarry, Cheryl knew, was at least forty miles from town. The Sheriff would never make it back in time. One deputy, a young man the Department had hired just the year before, was the only one in the Office aside from the dispatcher--the deputy who had escorted them from Susans house had stayed behind at the Diner for some coffee--and Cheryl quickly informed Deputy Robbins that a vanload of hooligans had just pulled up out front, and that he had better go and see what they were up to. Robbins went, wondering what on earth the Sheriffs wife could mean by hooligans, but taking his shotgun for good measure. Wasting no time, Cheryl Watts grabbed her husbands extra set of keys from the drawer in his desk, hurrying to the holding cell and telling Liz to grab her things, because the feds were there and they had to go. She had left Susan in the car with a radio, instructing her to alert them if anyone came around back, but no one had. Before a minute had passed they were all three in Cheryls car and easing their way through the bumpy little alley that ran between the Sheriffs Department and the post office, then out onto the highway. In the mean time Deputy Robbins had been informed rather sternly by the hooligans that they had a warrant to serve, and that he would be facing federal obstruction of justice charges if he stood in their way. The dispatcher reached a deputy at the accident scene, but it seemed that Watts himself was actively involved in the rescue of the trapped truck driver at the moment, and by the time someone got him on the radio, the agents had already found the holding cell empty, made a thorough search of the building and gone screeching off down the highway in hot pursuit, on the off chance that Liz had just recently been whisked away by vehicle. Cheryl had expected this, and the three of them watched from behind the brush at a little pull-off by the river as one of the Suburbans whizzed by, the other, they supposed, having gone off in the other direction. Waiting a few minutes to make sure no more vehicles were coming, they continued on their way. Liz, Mrs. Watts glanced at her in the mirror, I have a cousin lives out on a ranch about halfway to Clear Springs. Would you be agreeable to helping him and his wife with the ranch chores for a week or two, until this all gets straightened out? Of course. Thank you. Anything but go with the feds. Well, I really dont think they could get away with doing anything to you, after all this recent publicity, but that doesnt sound like a good chance to take. They seem to know

how to make people disappear, and the arrogance of trying to arrest you, when theyre the ones that stalked and attacked you up on that trail! Well, were not going to stand for that! The car slowed, and Liz craned her neck to see what Cheryl had seen. A roadblock. Two Suburbans and a State Patrol cruiser sat crossways in the road on the next rise. Cheryl did not stop, not wanting to gain their immediate suspicion. The road dipped between the high point from which they had seen the roadblock and the one it sat on, and Liz immediately knew what must be done. Down at the bottom here, stop and let me out. Ill be real quick, get across the river where all those trees are, you two can go on and say you never saw me. Cheryl and Susan nodded in agreement; no one had a better idea, as it would be very obvious if they turned around, having already been spotted. No one was coming; they pulled over. Susan handed Liz her own jacket and a bag of groceries she had picked up in town, all she had to give. Wait a day or two Liz. Camp out somewhere. Then head up to the house. We can help you. Or, she spoke quietly, looked directly at Liz, tears welling up as she spoke, go to him, if you know how. It might be best, at this point, and I know Liz smiled at her, glanced at Cheryl. Thank you, Susan. Ill see you again. Take care. And she took off down the brushy river bank.

Liz quickly crossed the river and, once on its far side, doubled back towards town so as not to be near the area where she had been let out, should anyone come looking for her. She was not exactly certain what a material witness was, but did know that it was on a similar warrant that Susan was being held when she was brutalized by the rogue agents at the Clear Springs Field Office, and she had no desire to go through that, or to be questioned further about Einar, in the absence of the Sheriffs protection. Liz doubted she actually knew anything that could hurt him, even if they did somehow make her talk, but she did not want to risk it. Another consideration was Allans disappearance in federal custody. From what Susan had told her in their brief visits, no one had been able to receive any word on where he was, whether he had been arrested or not, anything. For all Liz knew, he had decided or been coerced into becoming a material witness himself, against Einar, or her, or both of them. She just didnt know, but did not fully trust Allan after his odd behavior over the two weeks prior to the attack in the meadow, and did not trust that he had noting to do with the appearance of that warrant. Also, as Liz knew that the material witness designation on her warrant likely meant either that the feds were working frantically to come up with charges they could pin on her or that they intended to hold her as a future witness in the trial they hoped to hold for Einar someday--years in the future, considering the cases high profile , even if they already had their hands on him--she could see no way that surrendering herself to their custody could turn out well for her, or for Einar. And though she appreciated Susans

offer of assistance and knew that it was given entirely freely and sincerely, she had no intention of putting her friend at further risk by showing up at her house under such circumstances. And, though Cheryl Watts had been the one responsible for seeing her to safety that afternoon, Liz did not know the Sheriffs wife well enough to be certain what she might do or say if her family or her husbands career was at stake. And Cheryl had heard Susan offer Liz the assistance. So, I cant really go up there. Which leaves me stuck out here, I guess. I wish I could talk with you about all of this, Einar. This is all pretty new to me. What she really wished was that she had some way to find him, some idea, even, of where to begin looking, but she did not. Thinking back over all of their conversations as she climbed the ridge above the river, she searched for anything that would give her a clue, any tidbit of information that he might have inadvertently let slip, but could think of none. Im pretty sure he never does anything inadvertently, and it was pretty clear that he did not want me knowing where he was headed, if I wasnt going to be with him when he went there. Which makes sense, I guess, especially seeing that I actually did end up being questioned by the feds, and was able to tell them the truth on that part, at least. Approaching the ridges crest she stopped just below it as Einar had repeatedly impressed upon her--dont ever, ever let yourself become part of the skyline!--it had come as an admonition the first time, a rebuke the second, and the thirdwell, he really hadnt needed to tell her at all the third time, as she had remembered and taken great precautions to keep herself from being silhouetted against the light. He had reminded her over and over on that one, though, and while she had found the repetition a bit tiresome after a while, she had put up with it at the time because he had been injured and feverish and not, she had supposed, entirely himself. Now, though, she was grateful for the repeated lesson, as it had become so automatic that she did not even have to think about it, leaving more room for other thoughts, of which she found she had plenty, at the moment. Thanks, Einar. Guess some of this stuff really is best formed into habits, long before you ever need to use it. Sure hope I picked up enough from you that I can make this work Lizs immediate plan, which she was quick to admit was not much of one, was to stay within view of the river long enough to make sure that no one started up after her, using that time to try and think of a way to find Einar, and, when she was certain that she was not being followed, to begin her search. Hed had a cabin, she knew, somewhere in the area, though she had no idea where, and doubted that he would have risked going there, anyway. One man, she knew, would be able to tell her the location of that cabin, as she knew he had been there, and that was the former outfitter Jeff Jackson, who had occasionally employed Einar during elk season. But Jeff, of course, was in a situation similar to her own, though probably better, because I know the group helped him get somewhere safe, get set up. Well, Ill just have to think about this for a while. In the mean time she crawled out to the edge of a craggy dropoff that afforded her a view of the valley, river and a short section of road, wanting to watch for any sign of unusual activity before moving on.

There was a great stir of activity down at the camp, students with flashlights and headlamps wandering all over the area, including, it appeared to Einar as he leaned on a tree to steady the binoculars, a few who were working their way through the swampy area he had just crossed, pausing frequently to study the ground until an excited shout told him that they had picked up his tracks once again. Einar did not quite know what to make of this, as it seemed to him that if they really knew whose trail they were on, they might not be making such a game of pursuing it. Which he would have taken as good news, except that they seemed to be gaining on him rather quickly, having nearly reached the spot where the swamp petered out and the timber began. OK, Einar, gonna need to pick up the pace here, find some rocks where you can be sure of losing them, because right now theyre moving an awful lot faster than you can. Or this may end up going places you really dont want it to go. Crazy kids. Why doesnt the instructor stop them?

The FBI Director had, while Jimson was in the hospital undergoing surgery for three fractured vertebra and a partially compressed spinal cord, taken it upon himself to become entwined in managing and directing the smallest details of the search, refocusing it on the river where, to the best of his knowledge, Asmundson had last been sighted when he stole the canoe and disappeared. By that evening, he had searchers and trackers covering both sides of the river for a distance of two miles downstream of where the overturned canoe had been found, looking for any remaining sign of where the fugitive might have left the water. The Director feared that Jimson, in refusing to order such a search immediately upon learning of the stolen canoe and the testimony of the kidnapped local woman, might have seriously compromised the investigation, allowing any potential sign to weather and deteriorate, and Asmundson to slip away once again. The intensive river search yielded few clues, aside from a few deer trails and a very promising spot in some half-dried mud in a river inlet where a group of searchers were certain that something large and heavy had been dragged out of the water. Wising to make a good show of being personally involved in the investigation and meaning to demonstrate to his hospitalized friend that he was serious about tending to things in his absence, the Director hurried out to the site, even allowing a reporter and cameraman from one of the local networks--appropriately outfitted with body armor, of course, to highlight the dangers of the ongoing manhunt--to tag along so there would be a record of the latest breakthrough in the case. Which, much to the Directors chagrin, was determined by a tracker to be nothing more than the skid marks left by beavers dragging recently cut trees down into the water, a fact which would have been immediately obvious to anyone from the area, or almost any other rural area, for that matter. Another good half-day of searching down the drain, muttered the Director as he turned to go, curtly motioning the cameraman to stop. Toland Jimson had not been out of surgery for two hours before he was on the phone with the Director, repeating the story of Asmundsons attack on him and insisting that the fugitive had to have been responsible in some yet-to-be determined way for the helicopter crash. Angry that the Director had seen fit to redirect the focus of his search and frustrated that his doctors told him he would not be doing much walking for several weeks, he railed on and on about the absolute essentiality of getting some trackers up to

the basin where the choppers had landed, about the serious need for additional talent in the tracking department, and just to calm him down, the Director promised to get right on it. Agreeing wholeheartedly that the manhunt could benefit from the infusion of fresh tracking talent, the Director made a personal call to an old acquaintance of his, renowned and semi-retired tracker Rufus Bud Kilgore. Kilgore reluctantly agreed to provide the Bureau with his services--he had deliberately avoided the entire mess, up until that point--but demanded that he be allowed to set the terms of his involvement. The Director quickly consented, promising to give him free rein and access to whatever resources he might require to finish the job. All Bud Kilgore asked for was that he be allowed--against current protocol--to work unaccompanied at all times, and that a consultation be arranged between himself and local wildlife officials, as soon as his flight arrived in Culver Falls. The Director, pleased both that the notoriously reticent tracker had agreed to help and that he seemed to have a plan, happily agreed, though somewhat puzzled at the requested meeting.

The little clump of light-bearing students had reached and passed the edge of the marshy area, and were still coming. Einar stuck the binoculars in his pocket, paused to scrape off more of the wet swamp muck that clung to his boots and lower legs, knowing that he must quickly begin obscuring his trail to the point that it would be impossible for them to follow, and, he hoped, at least a serious challenge for the inevitable searchers and trackers that would be choppered in as soon as that instructor was able to contact the authorities. Sure hope it rains between now and then. Or theyll bring dogs, and thisll get bad very quickly. The sky showed some promise of potential rain, the stars increasingly being blotted out by an incoming cloud bank as the night went on and occasional lightening flickering against the distant peaks. He hoped it might reach the area in time to do him some good. Might just drive those kids back into their tents, too! At least theyre using lights, so I can see where they are. Nice of them Pausing in his steep climb and glancing back, he could make out a glow and occasional flashes some distance below him in the timber. His departure from the swamp had slowed them considerably, but had not, it appeared, stopped them. Well. At least Im moving faster than they are, now. The passage of an hour found Einar several miles from the cache site, his pace having picked up as he loosened up some from his long evening spent lying on the ground, his last sighting of the pursuing lights having been some time ago. He supposed they must finally have either lost his trail, or simply lost interest and gone back to bed. There had as yet been no sign of any helicopter, and he wondered if the group was perhaps too far out, or too closed in between ridges, to make radio contact with anyone. Either way, he needed the distance, kept up the climbing until he was able to drop down the backside of the ridge which, to his relief, was cut by a number of rockslides which he knew would help him conceal his trail. Stopping near a little seep of water that he had located by smell even before he heard the faint sound of water trickling over moss-covered rock, Einar cupped his hands beneath

the drip of water and drank, before setting his bottle to fill. Sure glad that instructor threw this bottle of water at me. Would have been one rough climb, without it. Not that it had been especially easy, even with the water, but the knowledge that there were people directly behind him, even if unarmed and not as official as he had come to expect, had kept him going at a good pace. Beginning to cool down from the climb, he found himself hungry, dug out the container of coconut oil and ate a few pieces, solid and waxy in the cold. Speaking of hungry, Guess I better real quick head back to the first cache and load up with as many pounds of split peas as I can carry while still being able to move forwardwhich isnt gonna be that much. He was, in fact, struggling some with his present load, unable to distribute the weight across both shoulders due to the injury and worn out from fighting the tendency of the thus-unbalanced pack to pull him to the right and cause him to lose his footing. But even a few pounds of those peas would be helpful. Fact that Ive not heard a chopper yet may mean that those guys have no way to contact anyone, but Ive got to expect that they will when they head down. Or that word will get around about the extra student who was in their camp and disappeared into a swamp, and somebody will eventually come up here to take a look at the trail. So Id better get back there while I still can, then clear out of the area real good. By the time he began moving again the rain had begun, welcome even as it slowed his travel through across the suddenly slick granite slabs and chunks of the rockslide.

Bud Kilgore had spent the flight studying maps and aerial photographs of the search area, and by the time his plane touched down late that afternoon in Culver Falls, he had a very good image of the land in his mind, one which matched well with the landscape of dark, wrinkled, timber covered ridges and high grey-rock peaks, some still with good sized patches of snow near their tops, that met him as his small plane crossed the mountains and made the narrow, circling approach to the landing strip. Kilgore liked the place, from the air, at least, was confident as he watched it unfold beneath him that he could make his way in that rough land of ridges and valleys, could finish a job that so many had been unable to. And Bud Kilgore had reason to be confident. He had returned from his fourth tour in Vietnam in 1974, coming home to a country that he hardly recognized and did not much like, as far as he could tell, and, after working at odd jobs here and there and seeing his father through the last few months of a life cut short by cancer, he had promptly turned around and volunteered for the Rhodesian Light Infantry. There, he had served for nearly five years until the victory of the Marxist guerillas that had ended the existence of Rhodesia and ushered in the economic decline, conflict and ultimate genocide that were to mark Robert Mugabes Zimbabwe. During his time in Rhodesia Kilgore had on several occasions trained with members of the Selous Scouts, widely recognized as some of the best trackers in the world, returning home a second time to make a name for himself over the years as one of the most successful trackers in the Continental U.S. Semi-retired now, he had been following news of the manhunt, knew what he was up against in agreeing to track down and capture the FBIs man, and had no intention of following in the footsteps of so many of the agents who had gone after him, only to end up dead, maimed for life or at the very best severely humiliated. He planned to take it

slow, do the job right, and come out of it alive, too. And was reasonably certain that he could do so. First, to see those wildlife guys. After exchanging formalities and introducing him to a number of the agents at the compound , a process that Kilgore would have just as well skipped, the Director personally escorted him into town, where, at the trackers request, a meeting had been arranged with three Division of Wildlife employees. After chatting with the three men for a few minutes about what sorts of wildlife he might expect to encounter in the mountains, Bud asked them what they did about problem bears that insisted on coming into town and might prove dangerous to approach too closely. Continuing with occasional questions to guide and direct the discussion, he was treated to a lengthy explanation of the various tranquilizers--and their delivery systems--that were used to subdue the creatures so they could be transported out of the area. Kilgore didnt take notes but it was clear from the look of focused concentration on his face that he might as well have been, waiting until the men had finished talking before making his request. He wanted to borrow one of those tranquilizer guns, a few darts and a vial of the drug they used on problem bears, just in case he ran into any trouble while out performing his duties for the Bureau. The DOW men glanced at each other, not sure at first how to respond to his request, one of them trying hard to suppress laughter. They finally declined, suggesting pepper spray instead and explaining that it was fairly rare for people to experience any serious trouble with wild, not human-acclimated black bears, such as he might be running across in the mountains around Culver Falls. Kilgore insisted, though, saying hed heard there may be some unusually problematic bears in these parts, and after a call by the Director himself to the State Office requesting assistance in a manhunt, the DOW men consented, giving Kilgore a quick lesson in the devices use, and finally printing off a chart that gave estimated drug dosages that would be necessary to bring down bears of different weights and ages, before providing him with a vial of the drug--Telazol, a proprietary combination that included an anesthetic and a sedative-which they regularly used to immobilize bears and render them safe to approach and move. This chart only applies to bears, now. One of the men felt a need to explain. Every species is different, and this stuff is not even approved for use onwell, non-wildlife subjects. Kilgore shot him a cold glance, took the chart. I say bears, I mean bears. At least officially. Correct, Mr. Director? The Director, briefly exasperated at Kilgores stepping in and calling all the shots, wishing the tracker had just come to him or one of the other agents with his request instead of involving locals, nodded his assent, addressing the wildlife officials. As a matter of national security, the things discussed here must not leave this room. Understood? The three young men nodded, having certainly never expected their jobs to involve matters of national security.

Next on Kilgores agenda had been to meet with Toland Jimson in the hospital, to hear in person his story of the attack up near the helicopters, and to question him in as much detail as he remembered about the precise location where Asmundson had left him. Kilgore believed the story if the Director did not--the bit about the canoe did not fit with what he had been able to learn of the character of the man he sought--and he intended to begin his scouting work up in that basin, hoping to pick up the fugitives trail. This intended meeting was delayed, however, when an agent stopped them at the gate with news of a reported sighting of Asmundson, just the previous night, by a group of students who had been doing field research not five miles from the site of the fugitives old cabin.

Einar stopped for another short break as morning approached, the rain-heavy sky responding to the climbing sun by slowly brightening from black to a flat, sullen shade of grey that did little to lift his drooping eyelids or speed up his badly lagging pace. He was incredibly weary, slowing down and getting cold, running out of energy, supposed he needed to eat, though he was almost too tired to feel hunger. Do it anyway. Cant keep this up. Here. Flop down under a tree--well, it was not so much a flop as a slow, creaking collapse to the ground, followed by a groan and a hasty roll to his right side when the injured shoulder came into contact with a protruding tree root--fumble with the waist belt of the pack and get the thing off, use it as a pillow while you close your eyes for a minute Or ten. Or more. Looking a lot lighter than when you got here. Wake up! Food. And dry pants, a dry hat, youre freezing, you got them in the pack. I hope. Get into that pack. A struggle with the wet clothes, relief when he found the contents of the pack to have remained largely dry, a minute spent sitting in exhausted silence as he enjoyed no longer being soaking wet. Wring out the wet clothes, attach them to the pack so you dont walk off and leave them in a few minutes. OK. Done. Stand up, take a minute to look and listen. Nothing? Good. Back on the ground, rest a bit. Eat. Einar took a small scoop of coconut oil, this time accompanied by a can of sardines, which he gobbled, cleaning out the container with his finger and finding it a bit easier to stay awake, afterwards. He sat up. Hungry. Wanted to eat three or four more cans of sardines, felt bad for having devoured even the one. The sardines he had intended to save, all of them, setting them aside with the pemmican as an emergency supply, but with all that had happened over the past several days it had been a while since he had snared anything; the sardines he had eaten that evening at The Bulwarks before making the neardisastrous climb to his main cache, and the ones the day afterwards in the water-worn hollow had been his only real meals in recent days, and he had covered many, many miles in that time. Getting behind again. Way behind. Persons got to have either food or sleep, now and then. Cant keep doing this. But he had to, knew it, had to get over to the food cache in a hurry and see how much he could carry, before they activated the air search again, starting from the site of the students camp. When that happened, he would need to leave the area entirely, and he very much wanted to do it with at least a few pounds of split peas on his back. Then, to The Bulwarks. The decision surprised him a bit, as he did not remember making it. But there it was.

And it made sense. The place, with its towering rock spires and numerous overhangs and cracks, would provide him numerous opportunities for safe fires over which he could cook up some of the split peas, make as big a batch of the soup as his limited cooking gear would allow him, lay low for a few days and eat off of it, get some strength back and let his blood begin rebuilding. There would be good hunting in the vast timbered hills that lay between the spires and the nearest high ridge, deer and elk in the protected meadow behind The Bulwarks, and plentiful small critters--rabbits squirrels, grouse, marmots--to snare or take with the atlatl, both in the meadow and among the rocky crags up behind it. These crags, and the spires themselves, would offer a good deal of protection against anyone who might come for him, numerous avenues of escape and, if all else failed, would, he was certain, provide a superb location for a final stand. Especially if he had the time to set up some protective measures using the two items he had managed to retrieve from his cache before having to leave. Perhaps he would stay for a few days and move on, or perhaps--it was a possibility, at least--he would manage to take a deer or an elk, and decide to hole up there for the winter. At eight miles from his big (former) cache and just over eighteen from his old cabin, it was a bit too close for comfort, perhaps, but he was beginning to wonder if its benefits outweighed that potential fault. Not sure. Have to do some thinking on that. Either way, all that stood between him and being able to take advantage of such an opportunity for rest, food, and hope for the winter was the possibility that he was being followed, or would be, as soon as those students reported his presence. Rain will have helped, was hard enough that I doubt theyll even try dogs, and those rockslides I crossed should not have held sign that many could follow. Got to be extremely careful from here on, though. And the amount of alertness that such travel would require would, he knew, be a good deal more possible if he allowed himself a bit of sleep, first. Before allowing himself to sleep, Einar knew there were several things he knew he must tend to, if he wanted to avoid big problems in the near future. It had been nearly a day since he had changed the dressing on the row of frostbite blisters that covered his lower left forearm where it had been trapped against the ice as he escaped from his cache, and they were hurting, throbbing, and he feared infection if they remained un-tended to. Taking the last gauze roll from Lizs medical kit, unwrapping it and setting it next to the tube of aloe gel, he unwound and removed the old dressing, finding the affected area to be swollen and blistered and not looking especially good. But he knew from experience that frostbite often looked worse than it was, and always tended to look more serious in the days after the injury than it did the day of. Itll be alright, if I can just keep it clean. Not real deep, I dont think. Sure hurts, though. Wish I had some Balm of Gilead, but this aloe stuff should do alright. Finding that exposure to the air, and especially the wind, greatly increased the discomfort of the injured area, he quickly applied a fresh layer of aloe and wrapped it up, slipping the arm back into Lizs rain jacket with difficulty, due to the shoulder. OK. He took a big gulp of water. Done. Now, the feet. He pulled off his boots and socks, knowing that the constant dampness and chill had taken their toll on his feet and wanting to change socks and give them a chance to dry out, at the least. The sight of his feet, red and blotchy and cracked between the toes, told him that he must do more than simply allow them to dry out. And, that he must made a great effort to do that more often. The best thing he could think to do for the feet was to apply antibiotic

ointment between the toes and on one heel where the cracks were, and (yeah, if I had some) use a good bit of foot powder before putting on fresh socks. Looking around, he noticed a nearby stand of aspens and realized that he did have foot powder, of sorts. The white powder that clung to the bark of the aspens had many times provided him an improvised sunscreen that was quite effective even at very high altitudes--he would just rub his hands along the trunks as he climbed, coating exposed skin thoroughly before reaching treeline--and though he had never tried it on his feet, supposed it ought to be helpful. Hobbling over to the nearest clump of aspens, he turned his dry socks inside-out and rubbed them on several of the aspen trunks, dry and protected from the bulk of intermittent rain by the thickness of the grove, continuing until the wool of the socks went from green to white. OK. Good enough. Might help, some. Chewing a bit of willow bark--just a small shred, as he was very leery of using too much of the blood thinning aspirin-like bark, since the stabbing and his repeated bouts with internal bleeding--from the pouch around his neck as he waited for the pain of treating his injuries to subside a bit, Einar got everything organized, closed up and loaded back into the pack, knowing that he must be remain ready to move at a moments notice. Ten minutes later he was feeling a bit better, his weariness surging back as a more powerful force than the pain. Now, sleep. Which, struggling back into his boots and setting the atlatl and darts within easy reach at his side, he was about to do, when the rumble of rotors, distant, faint, distorted by the wind and the steep terrain but nonetheless unmistakable, reached him. Einar stood, listened, twisted his head this way and that in an attempt to hear through the wind. There it was again. Behind him, far behind, and, as he listened, not seeming to approach. A minute later the sound was gone, Einar again contemplating a longer rest, but deciding against it. There was, he knew, a chance that he had just heard agents being choppered into the students camp site to begin searching for his trail, and that possibility convinced him to keep going, get some more distance behind him. Alertness was no longer a problem. That distant rumble, long gone but still echoing in Einars head, was more than enough to return him to full alertness and give the world around him that sharp-edged, crackling appearance that he had come to look for as a sign that all of his senses were fully engaged and ready to warn him of any approaching danger. He would not, he knew, be leaving much sign in that condition. Move. Can sleep later. This winter, maybe. He grinned, shook his head--yeah, one way or another-and hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the screaming complaint sent out by his shoulder as he moved it wrong in wrestling the pack up onto his back, and limping off into the timber. Time to go get those peas, head for a place where I can hole up for a while. And he let himself slip into a vivid daydream as he walked, seeing a big pot of freshly cooked split pea soup, steaming and bubbling on the stove and filling the room with a magnificent odor so real that he could taste it as he leaned over and breathed the steam. Just as Einar, rounding the shoulder of the ridge and starting down its back side as a renewed rain squall swept the area, sat down to his feast of split pea soup, Liz beside him and the little cabin warm and secure against the storm that raged outside, Bud Kilgore made his way quickly through the swamp above the students camp , knowing that he did not need to really slow down and begin watching for tricks and traps until he had passed the point where the students had turned back.

Sheriff Watts made it back to Culver falls just under an hour after the agents showed up with their warrant for Liz, and, standing behind his desk as he spoke to the men and noticing that the drawer where he kept his spare keys--which only his wife knew about-was slightly askew as if it had been closed in a hurry, he informed them that Liz had been temporarily released form protective custody that morning to attend to a seriously ill relative, and that he could provide them with no further information. Then, he asked to see the warrant for her arrest, which one of the four agents informed him would be impossible, due to provisions of the Patriot Act. The Sheriff was not, they informed him, even to mention the warrant to anyone. Under penalty of law. Watts was not amused, asked two of his deputies to escort the men out of the building.

Hopeful that he might be able to reach the food cache well before dark, retrieve whatever he could carry and conceal the rest for later use, Einar kept up a good pace that day, stopping occasionally in aspen groves to refresh the aspen bark foot powder in his socks, exchanging them for a dry pair whenever they became too damp. It seemed to be helping a good bit, preventing the condition of his feet from further deteriorating, at least, but he did once or twice get a creepy feeling that in regularly stopping to rub his socks on the aspens, he was leaving sign that could mar a trail that he had otherwise been very careful to conceal. He shook his head, dismissed the concern as the product of his overcautious mind and continued stopping tend to his feet every half mile or so, telling himself that while there was some small chance that the scuff marks on the trees might give a clue to one of his pursuers, the man would have to be very good, indeed, for such random and indistinct marks to mean anything to him. And without your feet, youre not getting very far, anyway. You should remember. Youve had to crawl before. Leaves a mighty noticeable trail, especially compared to the occasional mark on an aspen tree. Now get going. Several times when he stopped to tend to his feet and take a few breaths before continuing, Einar made a point of collecting dandelion seeds--removing the fuzz and storing the seeds in the zippered inner pocket of Lizs rain jacket--as Liz had mentioned to him in his dream as he had waited for the students to go to sleep. It would not be a bad idea, he figured, to have a way to provide himself with fresh greens during the winter, and the idea of sprouting dandelion, milkweed and perhaps other seeds whose young shoots were edible, seemed like a reasonable way to accomplish it. Now, lets just hope I have some meat and fat to go with the greens, come winter! Early that afternoon, the prospect of a renewed search behind him having kept him going at a steady pace and a faster one than he had expected himself able to maintain, Einar found himself topping out on the ridge that overlooked the site of his food cache. The place looked quiet, felt quiet, and after a good half hour spent in observation, he hurried down and once again removed the layers of duff and rock that covered the bucket, stashing the honey, salt and candles in his pack and loading five or six pounds of the split peas--all he thought he could reasonably carry, without offloading a number of other

things from the pack--into a plastic bag for transport. Re-concealing the bucket, he paused to eat a little scoop of honey for energy before setting off again, discovering almost immediately his mistake in doing so. The unaccustomed rush of sugar made him feel giddy, unsteady, and he had to sit back down and pull out the bottle of olive oil for a quick sip to help counter its effects before he could again trust himself on his feet. OK. Little bit less next time. Or mix it with something. Been way too long since you had anything like that. Now, to The Bulwarks, and in a couple of days maybe I can have a little fire and cook up some of these peas! As good as it sounded to finally make his way to a safe spot and stay for a while, Einar felt a shadow of doubt, of fear, almost, pass over him when he thought of The Bulwarks. This had been happening all day, and he had dismissed it at first as a byproduct of the weary and sleep-deprived condition of his brain, but the closer he got the stronger it became, until, not eight miles from the destination by his reckoning and hoping to make at least half that distance by sundown, the thought of the place brought him a dread that he could find no good reason for, but which made him wish to head anyplace other than there. Stop, Einar. Now you know better than to ignore this sort of thing, even if you cant explain it. Think. What are you missing? Seen something? Heard something? Whats going on? He could think of nothing, asked for an answer, asked to be shown the source of the dread that had come over him, but all he got in answer was a very strong feeling that something, some maddeningly indefinable thing, was wrong. OK. I will wait. It was late afternoon by the time he made that decision, late in the long afternoon of a long summer day, and rather than continue towards his original destination he took off at a right angle from his course of the past hours, beginning a climb that would take him up a high, ragged-edged ridge of shale and timber, a creek that was nearly large enough to be called a river running through the deep ravine below its jaggedly broken, badly eroded edge. From the heights of that ridge, which he had climbed once before in the dim and distant past before he had men chasing him with the intention of ending his life, he hoped to get a good look at his back trail, hoped he might be able to tell whether the source of his jumpiness was perhaps a pursuit that had originated from the students camp. He doubted it, had been careful, had traveled in the rain and over acres of rock and soft, springy spruce duff that held little if any sign to the eyes of most, but could think of no other reason for the warning he was feeling. The last thing he wanted to do just then was to risk inadvertently leading his pursuers into what he was increasingly coming to see as a safe place, a refuge, perhaps even his final one. The day may come when I must meet them there and make an accounting of myself, and when it comes I will not flee it, but to invite that day needlessly would be foolish. Up this ridge, then. And he began the climb, heavily burdened by a pack that had increasingly as the afternoon went on become more difficult for him to bear, the exposed shale and black timber that loomed above him looking impossibly high and steep. He gritted his teeth, leaned into the pack, took another step. Good. Should look the same way, or worse, to any flatlander who may be trying to follow me.

Scanning the valley from her perch on the ledge high above the river and wishing she had

binoculars, Liz was able to make out the ant-sized black Suburbans at the federal roadblock, the Highway Patrol cruiser sitting somewhat off to the side much as she remembered the scene from the brief glance she had got before losing sight of it as the road dipped down. The fact that all of the original vehicles remained and Mrs. Watts car was not sitting there with them told her that she and Susan had probably been allowed to pass, had likely not been suspected of absconding with her. Thats got to be a good thing. They should have no idea where I went, then! Now, where should I go? Wanting to find Einar and not sure where to start, the best plan she could come up with was to head up to the last place anyone knew him to have been, which while not being officially reported that way in the TV news reports she had seen that morning at the Sherriffs Office, she believed to be the area just above the helicopter crash. The media was still reporting the crashs cause as under investigation, but it sounded like Einars work to her, especially after hearing on the report that the crash had happened after a blast at a spot believed to have been one of the fugitives caches. Guess that means you made it out of there before that blast, then. Though I do wish you could manage to avoid those situations all together for a while! They had displayed a map on the TV report, and she had fixed it in her head as well as she could, well enough, she hoped, to find her way up there. What would come then she did not know; she knew she would have to be very careful to avoid the actual crash site, where she supposed the investigation might be ongoing for many days. Hopefully something will become clear to me once Im up there, something that will show me where to go to find him again. If not, well, at least I will be keeping away from the folks who want to give me the treatment they gave Susan, or worse, so it should work out either way.

Working his way up the ridge, Einar paused periodically to look behind him, studying the slopes and valleys with the binoculars but never seeing or hearing anything. Some time after sunset as the still-cloudy world began growing dim around him he stopped in a grove of trees beside a small meadow, suspending his pack from a high branch against hungry bears and carrying the tin of coconut oil over to the sharp, ragged spot where the shale dropped away into the darkening depths of the ravine, sitting on the edge and studying his trail once again before enjoying a few scoops of the white, semi-solid oil. Should sleep pretty warm tonight. Darkness deepening he waited, silent, still, watching the world below out of the corners of his eyes for any hint of a light that might indicate the presence of pursuers, once sure that he saw a distant and faint flash, tiny, momentary, too ephemeral to be a certain thing at all, and it did not come a second time. Again Einar felt a shadow pass over him as when he had thought of heading for The Bulwarks, and he stood, listened as a small piece of shale, dislodged by his toe, tumbled away down the steep slope below him to splash into the creek, the sound lost to his ears in the distant roaring of the water, the sound lost to his ears in the distant roaring of the water, and made his way back to his bed beneath the trees. Einar slept fitfully that night, his boots on and his hand on the Glock in its holster, his mind working through the darkness, and without success, to find a name for the danger he felt closing in on him.

When the Director called Toland Jimson to tell him about the deployment of the Bureaus latest weapon in the search for Einar--expert tracker Bud Kilgore--he expected the hospitalized agent to receive the news quite well, glad to see that things were being taken care of in his absence. The Director had been sadly mistaken. Jimson was livid that the tracker had been called in without his authorization, without him being able to first personally conduct a background check on the man, and he insisted that Kilgores file be brought to him right away for his review. Which it was. Jimson, while impressed with Kilgores record of tracking success, did not fully trust the man after going through his record with a fine-toothed comb, and insisted that a Predator UAV be sent up to monitor the trackers progress and provide backup--yes, I mean it needs to be armed--should he manage to catch up to the fugitive. The Director tried to talk Jimson out of his insistence on such a measure, mentioning that they had, despite Kilgores flat-out refusal to wear any sort of tracking device, concealed several such among his gear and clothing. Jimson, lying in his hospital bed and rolling the .40 round that he had saved for Einar back and forth between his thumb and index finger (he had asked that it be brought to him shortly after waking from his surgery, and had not let it out of his sight since; one of the nurses had even overheard him talking to it, muttering something dark and sinister sounding that he had quickly silenced when she made her presence known,) was not satisfied. Man like him will think to check for that, Jimson growled. Hell dump those things first chance he gets, if he doesnt want them. I dont want to leave any possibility of this thing going irretrievably wrong, especially if this tracker is as good as it sounds like he is. Dont want to lose track of him. Get that Predator in the air, and I want it armed with Hellfires, like before. If your tracker finds Asmundson, I want to be there in the control trailer to push the button! The Director rolled his eyes, sighed and told Jimson hed work on it, before reminding him to get some rest and hanging up the phone. While the idea of using a missile on the fugitive was not something he was interested in authorizing or even considering, careerwise, the Predator did seem like a good idea, and he put in the call. After the stillunsolved beheadings of Agent Day and two of his cohorts at the compound outside of Culver Falls, with the perpetrators promising more of the same if the UAVs were not removed from the area, all search-related UAV flights had been based out of the larger and more secure airport in Clear Springs, the control trailer there on airport grounds, inside the fences.

High and silent and armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Predator monitored Bud Kilgore as he picked up Einars trail where the students had left off, working with difficulty to follow it up across the springy duff of the timber but finding the occasional tiny clump of drying mud, looking almost white in contrast with the damp spruce needle ground cover, to tell him he was still on the trail. That, and, despite what he had to admit was an admirable job at stealth on the part of the fugitive, an occasional scuff where the mans left foot appeared to have dragged or caught slightly on an irregularity in the

ground, confirming to Kilgore the information in Asmundsons file which suggested he had suffered some injury to his left leg that gave him a persistent limp. Struggling a bit in the thin air--he had not really been given time to properly acclimatize himself to the higher elevation before the call came about the strange sighting at the nature students camp--Bud found himself glad that his own place of residence was up near eight thousand feet above sea level in the foothills bordering the Kachina Peaks Wilderness Area in Northern Arizona, and that he hiked those hills nearly every day. He was not too far out of his element, nor too far out of shape, either. Figured he would have to be moving a good bit faster than his injured, half-starved quarry, ought to be able to catch up to him sometime the following morning, assuming the man stopped for the night. Then, he hit the rocks. Wet, slick and having been washed with a good bit of rain since his quarry presumably passed over, the rockslides gave Bud Kilgore pause. Carefully, slowly, he balanced from one slick, lichen-speckled angled surface to the next, got down on his hands and knees and even lay flat on his stomach, turning his head this way and that in search of sign, but finding nothing. He stood, scanned the terrain beyond the series of slides, and had his answer. The man he trailed was not, he was quickly coming to learn, one who kept to the easy paths of the valleys and half-open sparsely timbered slopes, as had most of the other men he had trailed through the wilderness. He was like a mountain goat, seeking solitude and safety in the most difficult and rugged of terrain. And only one route in the many potential ones he saw on the far side of the rocks fit that description. Crossing the rocks to what appeared to be a natural and likely starting point for someone climbing up the rocky path he guessed the fugitive to have chosen, Kilgore inspected the rocks where they met the sandy, sparsely vegetated ground beyond, saw nothing at first--this guy is good, no wonder they havent been able to get their hands on him--but finally noticed a dinner-plate sized flake of granite whose position seemed to have shifted slightly in the recent past, a smaller rock that had been leaning on it having been flipped over to expose its whiter, less weathered and lichen-grown underbelly. Studying the larger flake, Bud saw where the fugitives boot had scuffed the lichen slightly as he apparently leapt from it to an area of rockier ground as he sought to avoid leaving sign in the soft sand. Gotcha! Looks like you were going just the way Id figured you would. Were going to be getting to know each other very well, you and I, over the next few days, Asmundson. Which, Bud thought to himself, really was too bad. The more he saw the more he was beginning to admit a grudging admiration for the man, for his strength and persistence and the absurdly unshakable dedication he seemed to possess, even in what the tracker had to assume was his starved and injured state. Hed found blood more than once, just a spot or a smear here or there where the fugitive had sat to rest, and as he continued picking his way along the dim and sometimes nonexistent trail, the signs at his quarrys rest-spots spoke to him of a man who was growing increasingly exhausted, no longer sitting when he stopped but lying down, lying on his side and using tree branches, which remained slightly bent afterwards, to help him back to his feet after each increasingly frequent rest. Doesnt know Im onto him, or he wouldnt be stopping like this, every quarter mile or so. Pretty sure hed run himself to death and die on his feet, first, if he knew I was back here. Well. This is what Im here for, better finish it. But Bud was beginning to enjoy the hunt less and less as he came to know his quarry, his habits, his character, a bit of his soul,

even, through the story the man told him in the tiny marks he left on the earth, knowing what he was expected to do at the end of the trail and not liking it With afternoon--an overcast afternoon, following a day of partial sun--Kilgore went from studying and searching for the next sign of the fugitives passage to following his trail with relative ease, guessing at his course and skipping ahead by many yards to look for confirming sign, almost always finding it. The man was tiring badly, getting careless, and did not even seem to know it, his sign much fresher and Kilgore more confident than ever that he would have him sometime the next morning. Evening found Bud standing in a narrow valley, staring up at a high, craggy ridge of shale and black timber. A fine place, he thought, for a hunted man to spend the night. Sleep, Asmundson, because I do believe we meet in the morning. And Kilgore, not wanting to lose the trail in the dark nor give away his presence by the use of light, settled in for a few hours of sleep, setting his watch for moonrise--a nearly full moon, it would be--and meaning to see what he could do by its light, if the clouds cleared out.

Morning came clear and cool and, from the chill that had seeped into his bones as he slept, Einar supposed that the cloud cover must have moved out sometime fairly early in the night. He had not noticed when, had been too busy sleeping, though his sleep had been light and restless, punctuated by vague, terrible dreams whose meaning he had not been able to grasp and whose details eluded him as he sat up, rubbed his cold-stiffened legs for a minute, took a gulp of water and creakily dragged himself to his feet to take a look around and retrieve his pack. Finding the pack as he had left it, undisturbed, he ate, alternating scoops of coconut oil with tiny tastes of the honey and finishing up with a piece of elk jerky and one of the vitamins from his cache, sitting on his perch of the previous night and surveying the ridges and valleys below him as he partook of the meal. By daylight, the steep shale ravine below his position looked a good bit less menacing, less black and not quite as deep as it had appeared when filled with shadow, though he did see that he had underestimated the size of the creek. It was practically a river, tumbling white and roiling over sections of half exposed rock above him before calming down and opening out to flow wider and more serene some fifty feet beneath his feet. From where he sat, he could smell the fresh, cool mist that rose up from the steep portion of the creek, hanging white and gleaming in the morning sun and partially obscuring the bottom of the ravine. Mornings passing me by. Better get moving. Wanting to tend to his arm before starting out for the day, he pulled out the medical kit he changed the dressing on his frostbite, using mullein leaves to replace the gauze that he had used the last of the day before and seeing that, for the most part, the affected area appeared to have begun healing. Have to watch it real carefully over the next few days, especially this blistered spot down near the wrist where it still looks pretty black. That could turn bad. One last look with the binoculars revealed no obvious sign of danger down below, and though his sense of foreboding had not eased any overnight, he told himself that there was almost certainly nothing behind it, that it was probably just the result of being so tired for so long and of his near miss with the students, was something he would have to

live with for a while until his mind decided to let it go. Sounded reasonable enough. OK. To The Bulwarks, then. Enough of this dragging yourself up ridges late in the day and shivering under trees all night in damp clothes. For a while, at least. Time to quit running from ghosts. They can take care of themselves. You got a shelter to set up, deer to kill, winter to get ready for. But first, he headed out to the edge of the meadow, where he had earlier spotted a few raspberry canes. Still hungry, the red, ripe delicious-looking berries were too good to pass up, and he stepped out into the meadow to gather a handful of them, pushing aside the warning that he felt and kneeling beside the brambles. His mouth full of berries, Einar thought he heard something, rose and took a step back into the aspens. Another small rustle, then a whisper of sound on the far side of the meadow, and he felt a sharp burning sting as something bit him hard in the left hip. Dropping to the ground beside a large rock Einar twisted around and saw the tuft of orange-red fuzz on the end of the dart that had stung him, grabbed the thing and jerked it out of his hip, threw it to the ground and got the Glock into his hand all in under a second. Rising to a crouch beside the rock and looking for a target, he let off three quick shots at a shadow under a spruce on the far side of the clearing that seemed out of place. His aim had been good, he knew it, yet there was no grunt or cry, no sudden movement of the surrounding branches to tell him his opponent had been hit, and Einar, supposing that he must have misjudged the position of his adversary and feeling the dart begin to take effect, took a few low, crouching steps into the brush away from the rock, heading for the dropoff, and escape, hoping as he went that he had managed to remove the offending dart in time to keep the full dose from being administered, but knowing that this was unlikely. Fighting the sedative-paralytic drug mixture that was spreading throughout his body with every heartbeat, he took deep breaths and managed to keep on his feet through a potent mix of anger and outrage and the horror of possibly being immobilized by the dart and captured, alive but helpless to fight back.

There had been two men in that meadow, two men clearly visible both as smudges of heat on the infrared sensor and visually, on the camera images sent from the Predator, and Jimson, wearing a back brace and sitting in the wheelchair with which his doctors had reluctantly provided him when he signed out--just for the day-- against medical advice that morning, watched intently, wondering where the second man had gone. The one that remained, walking out into the open ground of the meadow, showed the characteristic limp of the fugitive, left leg half lame from some old injury, and Jimson knew he had the right man, knew the tracker must have hidden himself somewhere. His finger was on the button, so to speak, as he waited for the right moment. The Director, busy with coordinating other aspects of the search from the compound near Culver Falls that morning, did not even know that his friend had left the hospital.

Kilgore, surprised to see his quarry still on his feet and concerned that the fugitive might, despite the solid hit he was sure hed made with the dart, have the wherewithal to set up

an ambush on a rock somewhere above the trail or attempt throw himself over the shale embankment to get away, loaded another dart and got himself to his feet. He had followed the chart the wildlife men gave him, studying the recent photo of Asmundson that had appeared in the newspaper and estimating his weight as well as he could, (somewhere just over a hundred pounds, he was pretty sure) adjusting his estimate slightly based on the few clear tracks the fugitive had left, and preparing the doses accordingly. Perhaps he had been incorrect. Or maybe theres just a bit of a difference between surprised bears and angry, determined human-critters who have some idea of whats going on Glad I have more than one dart ready to go. Ignoring for the moment the pain of the through-and-through gunshot wound to his left calf--one of Einars shots had, indeed, hit the odd looking shadow,--Bud took a few limping steps out into the meadow and aimed the rifle a second time despite knowing that a double dose might well impair his targets breathing, hitting Einar in the right shoulder as he fled. Einar could not reach the dart, his left arm lacking full range of motion after the repeated shoulder injuries, and he took a few staggering steps into the timber, scraped his back against a tree and finally managed to dislodge the dart, but he was losing his legs, losing control, the muscles failing him, and before he was halfway through the band of trees he was dragging himself desperately forward, half on his knees. Footsteps not fifteen yards behind him in the dry grass of the meadow, he heard them, loud, limping, and knew that he must have hit his pursuer after all, knew the man was following, waiting for him to become completely incapacitated, and he tried to raise the pistol but couldnt get his hand to close around the grip, couldnt seem to maintain his hold on it at all, actually, and quickly dropped it into the holster to avoid losing it altogether. There. The edge. He had reached the edge, hastily dragged himself over the last few feet of rocky, timber-sheltered ground, scrambled over it without hesitation and sent himself tumbling down the steep shaley slope. He fell, hearing as he went a sudden hiss and then a blast that seemed to split the mountainside, sending shattered tree limbs and rock fragments spewing into the air as his useless limbs flopped limp and increasingly numb down fifty feet of steep shale, down towards the waiting creek below. The shock of the water revived Einar a bit, just enough to allow him to be aware of the debris that was falling all around him, aware that he needed to try and keep his head above the water, but he found himself unable to swim, to move, the river carrying him at its whim. Lizs jacket had trapped a bit of air and created a large bubble around his neck, above his shoulders, and it was the only thing keeping him from going under. He knew it wouldnt last forever, knew the material would become saturated and the air escape, and he willed himself to swim, to head for the nearby rocky bank, but he couldnt move, couldnt even seem to keep his eyes open, or his mouth closed

Bud Kilgore was mad. Spitting, fighting mad. Done it again. They done it again. Double crossed me, the filthy slime! Used me to do what they couldnt do themselves and then threw me away. Collateral damage. Well, he tried to rise, they can think again about that one. Cause here I am. Couldnt get up, found his leg pinned beneath the remains of an aspen trunk, a large splinter impaling his thigh. Aw, great. Break that

thing shorter, do something for the bleeding. What else? Well, his hat was gone, for one thing, which really irritated him. Beyond singed eyebrows and some sharp fragments of the rock hed dived behind, which had partially embedded themselves in his cheek--and the wound to his other leg, which he had previously bandaged--he seemed basically alright. Alright enough, at least, to begin digging at the ground around his trapped leg, wanting to free it so he could get up. The air was full of smoke, smoldering remains of aspens and spruces lying all around him in the meadow, several spruces just up the hill fully engulfed in flame, and Kilgore wanted to get out of the immediate area in case the fire should spread, but also knew that he needed to find his target without delay. The man had two darts in him, a risky proposal to begin with, from what Kilgore knew, and now he was likely injured from the blast and the fire, on top of that. The ground under his trapped leg was rocky, rocks slowing his progress as he used a sharply broken branch to dig and pry at the meadow-dirt to give himself a way out, and Kilgore rested for a minute, looking for his radio but finding it gone, an apparent casualty of themissile strike, it must have been. The dart gun was gone also, lost in the wreckage, but his 1911 was right where it ought to have been, and of that Bud was glad. He knew there was always a chance that the sedative darts might not have fully incapacitated the fugitive, that the man might even then be hunting him, thinking he had called in the strike and ready to finish him off. Wouldnt blame him much if he did. And he took the plastic cuffs from his belt, with which he had meant to restrain his target until the agents arrived to collect him, and tossed them into the smoldering brush, no longer interested in that particular aspect of his mission. Nope. They changed the terms just now. They can get him themselves, if theyre able. Not me. Kinda like to find him though, make sure hes all in one piece, see what I can do for him, before they show up. Though hes likely to be pretty ornery, after all this. Know I am. Bud Kilgore had nearly succeeded in freeing his trapped leg by the time he heard the chopper, leaning back and letting out a sigh, knowing that rescue was near and glad to let them finish extracting him in order to avoid further damage to his leg. No way theyll miss this spot. Dont even need smoke, already got the smoke. Several minutes later they were on the ground, he heard men walking among the ruined trees and smoldering brush, and was about to call out to them when he overheard a few words that made him change his mind in a hurry. Something about the tracker being the only one who could say it didnt happen that way, followed by a distinctive series of metallic clicks that told him he was very likely being hunted, rather than rescued. Bud did not even wait around to find out what way it was supposed to have happened--one that did not involve the unauthorized use of military ordnance on a mountainside above a small American town, for one thing, he expected--before twisting his leg and pulling it out from under the tree and quickly slithering off under the debris to wait for the approach of the two men. He wished he still had the dart gun. Darts, followed by some quick work with his knife, would have been quieter.

Einar was awake, or something like it, aware of vague sensations of wet and cold, of the sharp rock that was digging into his cheek and of the fact that his lower half was still in

the water, numb and half-paralyzed from the cold and the lingering effects of he could not figure out what, but he felt rather like he was observing these things in someone else-was sure he was, in fact--and not experiencing them himself. Which was good. He would have really hated to find himself--if there was such a creature; he was not sure--in a situation like that, stared at the bedraggled figure on the riverbank, mostly concealed by the undercut bank he had apparently been deposited beneath by the water as the creek took a sharp bend, and wondered if he should try to do something to help. He supposed it would be the right thing to do, as the stranger appeared to be in rather a bad way, but doubted he could reach the man. He seemed far away, very far and growing farther all the time, and Einars eyes began drifting closed again It was the arrival of a helicopter that next brought him to some form of awareness, and he heard it come in, watched the rock above him turn to glass--or ice, how is one to know which unless you can touch it, and he had no hands to touch it with--so he could see through it, the image of the hovering beast distorted but quite visible through its immensity, the roots of the trees above growing down towards him, reaching for him, and he hoped the men on top could not see him through the rock-glass-ice, as he could see them. It seemed certain that he would be discovered the first time one of them looked down. They were talking, or someone was, and despite the apparent distance the voices seemed quite close, right beside him, almost, and they were discussing the man he had seen lying on the rocks, reminding each other that they did not even need to find him anymore, that he was done, would soon be dead, and the voices grew strange and high and broke into occasional cackling laughter as they spoke of poisoning the mans food, his entire supply, of finding a stash in a bucket and stirring poison into everything-except, they said, the split peas, because peas are dry and the poison-powder would not stick, but it did not matter, because he could not have a fire and so had no way to cook the peas, and then the voices faded away, the ice-earth--he knew it was ice, now, because it was melting, dripping on him, and he held his breath in an attempt to keep it from melting any further--again growing opaque and obscuring his view of the helicopter belly and men above him, and he was falling, down, down into the depths of the earth, spinning and tumbling and plummeting an impossible distance until he landed on a little ledge and was still, the earth closing in above him and leaving him in total darkness. For years. Hundreds of years, it seemed, as he lay there listening to the tree roots grow down, down around him, over and through him, pinning him in place. It did not matter. He was pretty sure none of it was real, anyway, past or present, that his memories of the world, dim and distant and nearly impossible to grasp, were of no consequence, that he had never really existed. Perhaps the world had not, either, perhaps he had merely imagined the entire thing. Darkness. Nothingness. And he did not care. But as he lay there words came to him, slow and seeming to have to ooze and trickle their way down through the unimaginably enormous mass of earth above his head, around the roots and through blind, convoluted mazes of rock, slowly seeping through the fathoms of ground that covered him before reaching him, damp, dripping, alive neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God and he

couldnt quite grasp what the words meant but knew they were true, and as he came to that recognition his mind fixed on Liz--lovepatient, unconditional, undeserved, given freely and at great cost to the giver, enduring all things and she, herself, the thought of her, seemed irrefutable proof at that moment that such a thing must exist, and struggling to open his eyes he thought he could just make out the dim and distorted image of trees, a bit of spruce-smell, sun-drenched, real, and the sound of water. The blackness soon returned, though, the empty, crushing blackness, the ledge crumbled from beneath him and he began moving again, falling, looked up and could see no light, but even as he plummeted sickeningly into the depths he could feel Liz thinking about him, was sure he could hear her thoughts, and she his, though not in the form of words, sought her in a desperate attempt to connect again with reality lest he lose it for good, as she seemed the only thing that was real, the only thing he could remember, even his memories of the trees and mountains seemed strange, terrifying, totally unfamiliar and incomprehensible. He was still not sure that he was real, that he existed or ever had, but he knew with certainty that she did, reached for her, or would have, if he could have found his hands. Lacking hands he grabbed onto her with his mind, held fast with all his might and finally, slowly, the falling ceased, he found his hands and grasped hers, and everything was still. He rested for a minute, opened his eyes and looked around, found that the man on the riverbank was indeed him, that he did exist, could even raise his head and move his arms a little, though trying left him drifting sideways at an alarming rate and fearing that he was about to begin falling into those unfathomable depths once again. Thank you, Liz But she did not answer; he was alone.

Yet not alone. Liz was, at that moment, on the ridge adjacent to the high shale and timber escarpment where Einar had spent the previous night, the one that rose high and craggy above the creek on whose bank he lay. She had heard the blast, knew by the clear blue sky that it was not thunder, knew just as certainly that it had something to do with Einar, and that she must go to him. Doubtful of the exact location of the blast, the smoke soon told her where she was headed, and she kept it in view, watching as a helicopter came in just over half an hour later. Crouching under a tree as she watched the chopper circle the area once, hover and finally descend into what she assumed must be a small alpine meadow up near the smoke, she had a sudden strong feeling that Einar was in some sort of trouble, that he was lost, was afraid, which seemed ridiculous to her--Lost? Einar doesnt get lost, and I cant really imagine him caring, if he did--but the impression was so strong, so immediate, that she stayed there under the tree for a few minutes, prayed for him, reached out for him, spoke to him. I am here, Einar. I am coming. Though how she was to find him, and avoid being seen herself in the attempt, she had no idea, and she asked for guidance as she began descending the ridge, heading for the mass of shale and dark timber near whose summit the smoke rose black and thick into a late morning sky that was otherwise clear and nearly purple.

The world began moving around Einar again, or he through it--is there a difference?--

upon the discovery that Liz was not really there, but instead of acquiescing to it he grew rather sharp with himself, now that he knew for sure that he had a self Come out of it, Einar. This is real, this is you, wake up. Opened his eyes again. Desperate to keep himself in the present and reestablish some connection with reality he raised his head as far as the lingering sedative in his system would allow, finding it immensely heavy and cumbersome, letting it drop back down to the rocks he was lying on. Hurts a little. Thats good. Thats real. Do it again. Again. Fortunately Einar came to his senses-what was left of them--before doing himself too much harm on the rocks, lying there with his hand pressed to his forehead--hey! I have hands-- where he had opened up an inch long gash just above his right eye, feeling terribly sick--nauseous, weak, heavy and confused--but finally part of the real world again. He hoped. Fighting to raise his head he vomited, felt slightly better afterwards. And remembered. Hunting me. Theyre out there hunting me. Probably looking right now for a way down that bank, if they havent found one already. Einar knew he had to get out of there, but was not sure he could, knew that if he had hands, he ought to be able to use the pistol, at least, in case his pursuers came, if I still have it, do I have it? He did, it was there, but it seemed awfully heavy, his hands awkward, foreign things over which he had little control, so he propped it on a rock and hoped he would have the strength to aim true if he needed to. Certainly couldnt work the slide or drop the magazine, but somehow was sure that he had only used three rounds, out of a full magazine. Good to know. He struggled to get his fuzzy brain to stop dancing around all over the place and settle on one thing, tell him what to do. It seemed he ought to move, ought at least to see if he was able to move, but he didnt really want to. Thought it sounded like way too much trouble. No. Do it. Now. You must. Slamming his head repeatedly into the rock for emphasis, he fought to overcome the pervasive, malignant thing that held both his mind and body in the awful, iron grasp of inertia--he would have killed it without hesitation if he knew where it was, how to get at it without destroying himself in the process, but he didnt--willing his will to begin functioning once again, willing himself to want to move. Attempting to move Einar grew terribly dizzy, vomited once more, fumbled at the tremendously complicated-seeming black plastic buckle by which his waterlogged pack was held firmly around his waist, finally freeing himself from its weight. Slowly, feeling as if he was trying to swim through half-dried mud, he got himself turned around so his front half faced the river, slipping and mysteriously ending up on his side in the rocks in the process, collapsing by the water and gulping a few mouthfuls, hoping the water might help to flush out the remainder of the awful poison that had turned him into something he hardly even recognized. The water was good, cold, real, and he plunged his face into it, his ears, scalp, until his entire head was submerged, somehow certain that in doing so he could cleanse himself of the remaining poison, let the water flow through him and wash it all out. Opening his eyes, a bit puzzled that the icy water did not burn or hurt at all as it closed over his head, he watched the water go by, white bubbles on the surface, studied the little rocks on the bottom of the creek, smoothed, rounded loaves of red sandstone, irregular spheres of black-speckled granite and flat, grey shale shards from the slope above, and Einar got to thinking that he rather liked that underwater world, that he would like to swim away under the current like a trout and forever avoid detection living in the

cool shadows beside the river-boulders. Then everything began going black, and Einar, who was not a fish and could not extract oxygen from the water despite his thoughts to the contrary, managed to haul his head up out of the water and flop over onto his back in the rocks, gasping for air, lungs burning, a bit alarmed that he had not felt even the slightest impulse to breathe while under that water--he had forgotten that it was even a need he had, and had nearly done himself in. Well. Its got to be good that I realize that. Right? Maybe the water did help. He was starting to shiver as the drug that had temporarily paralyzed him began to wear off. It seemed that he must be pretty cold, come to think of it--hands were blue-purple, arms, even, though he couldnt really feel the cold, or much of anything else. Being summer and still fairly early in the day, he guessed it wouldnt be too much of a problem. Couldnt have been in the water that long, or Id have certainly drowned. Hed be able to pull himself out of it. A little movement would help. So would dry clothes, he knew, but he doubted anything in the pack had remained dry, and the very thought of attempting to search the pack, let alone change clothes, was sufficiently exhausting to convince him not to try. Youll live. Been cold before. Might even have time for these clothes to dry before it gets dark again. Now, sit up. Which he did, though not without leaning heavily on a nearby boulder for support. Though he felt like some connection with reality had finally been established, and a bit of control over his wayward body, Einar still found himself terribly dizzy, confused, sick, and he hated it, knew that something awful had been done to him, but could not quite remember what. He was going to kill whoever had done it, though. Had to, in fact, because the man--he was starting to remember--would surely be coming for him, would try to do it again, would most likely end up capturing him, if that happened. His shoulder was beginning to ache just a bit, his right shoulder, which was unusual, and then he remembered the dart, shoved aside the feeling of panic that came welling up as he remembered floundering around on the ground, his legs useless, knowing that he was about to be captured, that there would be nothing he could do to prevent it. OK. Good. Know what happened now. Dont know what kind of poison that would have been, exactly, but probably the stuff they use to knock out bears and such. (Poor bears, wonder if it does this to them?) Which means Im probably doing pretty well to still be breathing after getting hit with two of those things--hey, remembering something else! Were two darts--let alone thinking straight. Would rather get shot, blown up and then left half alive for the maggots to eat than go through anything like this again though. Can not let it happen again. He was about to attempt the climb back up the shale slope to seek out his attacker when he remembered the blastsupposed the man who had got the darts into him must have died in thatwondered for a minute if the blast had been caused by one of the items in his pack--the packno, dont think so, still have the pack--but did not see how that could be, as he knew he should be quite dead, himself, if it had been. Then he remembered. The helicopter. Guess it was real. Guess they sent in help. What? Were the trackers carrying explosives to plant on me once they captured me, and they went off prematurely? Thats about all that makes sense. Well. Better get moving. Can I stand? His legs were shaky, weak, unsteady, the dizziness almost overwhelming at times, but he

was pretty sure he could get along alright. Though it was clearly going to be slow. A few uncertain steps, a hard fall in the rocks that strangely did not seem to hurt at all, then another try that brought slightly better results, and he was ready to put on the pack and make his escape. First, though, he struggled out of Lizs jacket, wet and heavy from the river, noticing as he did that the right sleeve was badly torn and nearly missing, and checking his elbow found that it, too, was pretty torn up. Huh. Well, guess I did fall all the way downthat. Staring up at the drop on the far side of the creek he marveled that he had not been injured more seriously in the fall, supposed that he might have been, actually, but it seemed he would have to wait a while to find out. His left shoulder didnt hurt as badly as he thought it should have, nothing hurt much, really, leaving him free to use the arm and shoulder as he had not for months, knowing that he would pay for it later, but only if I live, and if I want to live, I need to get out of here before whoever is up there decides there is no body and comes looking for me. Up into the trees, grabbing branches to steady himself and struggling to understand the picture his eyes, blurry and uncooperative, were giving him as he worked his way up the steep slope and onto the more level ground high above the creek. He stopped, looked back and saw the smoke behind him on the opposite ridge, heard a helicopter and pressed himself up against a rock that stood half covered by the sweeping branches of another evergreen as it neared, hovered and finally landed somewhere in the vicinity of the smoke. Leaning into the rock and working to make himself as small as possible, Einar made the mistake of closing his eyes for a second, jerking them back open and scrubbing his face against the rough bark of the spruce as soon as he realized that the effects of the bear-capturing concoction, while diminished, were by no means gone. Not good. Sure dont want to go back there. Ever. The chopper finally disappeared behind the treetops and Einar, once again fighting the premise that inertia was best, had to be best, got heavily to his feet and went on. Where he was going he was not at all sure; for the moment it was quite enough that he was heading away from the search, the fire, the man who had the rest of those darts. For the first while after becoming once again aware of his existence Einar had been rather nauseous, unable to even think about food without going into a fit of dry heaves, but after walking for a time he began to grown hungry, needed to eat, wanted to eat, finally reached the point where he doubted his ability to keep going if he did not get some nourishment, but he had a problem. All of his food had been poisoned. That much, he definitely remembered.

The Director was in the middle of an interview with a major television news magazine, set to be broadcast the following Sunday, when word came that tracker Bud Kilgore, his long-time friend and the most recent addition to the search effort urgently needed to speak with him. Having been in the interview for the past hour and a half, he had no knowledge of the fact that Toland Jimson had left the hospital and had not only begun giving orders to the searchers, but had himself taken a very active role in attempting to bring the search to a rather drastic and final close. Over the objections of the agents who had come to give him the message, he invited the interviewer and camera man into the communications room, seriously doubting Kilgore would use the radio for other any

purpose than reporting a capture, putting the radio on speaker and wanting someone to be present to record his moment of glory. Mr. Director--Jimmy--that you? They kept telling me you werent there. You call in this missile strike? Little too close for comfort, Jimmy, I almost had him, and your boys ruined it. And Ill tell you what else. If you thought you could keep this little unauthorized use of military ordnance thing off the books by sending a couple of your boys to take me out, well think again. Im still here, Jimmy, got a Bud, now just slow down, (as the Director hastily took the radio off speaker, and gestured frantically to another agent to remove the reporter and cameraman from the room, finding that he--all of them--seemed rather too preoccupied with what was happening up on the mountain and with working to coordinate those activities to pay him, or the reporters, any mind.) Theres been nomissile strike of any kind, and I certainly did not send anybody after you. Now what is all of this about? Wheres Asmundson? Yep, missile strike. And Asmundsons probably in a million little pieces all over the woods, like I just about was, Kilgore continued. What were you thinking, anyway? You turning on me, here? Throwing me out with the garbage? What is this? And the thugs you sent to take me out--heard em talking how I was the only witness-- well, one of thems dead and I got the other here on the ground with my .45 to his head, so if you still want to deny their existence, I guess you wont care if I finish the job, cause Ive got part of a tree through one leg and a bullet in the other, and I just got no time for prisoners. No, dont do anything youre going to regret, Bud. Just hang on a second, let me get this sorted out. Were gonna get you out of there. As he spoke the Director had been handed a hastily scrawled message by one of the other agents in the room: Talk to Jimson. Missile confirmed, Asmundson believed dead. Glancing over his shoulder, the Director saw that the cameraman was zooming in on the note. Hungry, digging in his pack for anything that might not have been contaminated, Einar came across several still-sealed packets of pemmican, hands shaking and stomach growling painfully as he pulled one out and inspected it, turning it over and over and smelling it, the slightly gamy smell of deer fat and powdered jerky setting his mouth to watering. Dont do it. Odorless, colorless, Im sure they wouldnt use something that can be easily detected, if they were bent on poisoning you. He put the pemmican back, crossing his arms to keep himself from grabbing and tearing into it as his stomach was urgently telling him to do. Butthe pemmican was never in the cache. Was with me all the time. How could they have poisoned it? When? He shook his head, laughed a bitter little laugh. Clever trick, that one. Almost had me convinced there for a minute. I know when they did it. Was while I was asleep, or whatever I was, down under the ledge back there. When I heard them talking. Had to be pretty close for me to have heard them like

that, and they probably mentioned the powdered poison to fool me, make me think the pemmican was still safe. Bet they injected it with somethingyep. Here. These little marks in the casing. Must be where they did it. Einars glee at having outsmarted his would-be captors who had wanted to trick him into eating the poisoned pemmican departed suddenly as he spied his remaining tins of sardines and realized that they could not possibly be safe, either. If the agents had been in his pack to contaminate the pemmican, they could have done the same with the sardines. Or, more likely, just exchanged them for their own pre-poisoned tins. He rested his forehead on his knees, tired and hungry and feeling rather near despair. Something was still not right with his thinking, he could feel it, the fog in his brain, but could not seem to get it to leave. Time. Perhaps in time it would, and then he might come up with another idea. Until thenwell, youve kept going before when you didnt think you had the energy. So, do it again. Maybe the movement will help clear your head. But, it did not. He needed food. Sat down again not ten yards from where he had sat the first time, searched the pack again and could hardly restrain himself from opening the bottle of olive oil and taking a gulp. So. Poison. I may die, but it sure feels like I could, anyway, if I dont eat something soon. Odds are about the same either way, right? He was not sure, and his head hurt from trying to puzzle through it. Then the thought occurred to him that he had been eating the oil, and bits of the honey, ever since retrieving them two days prior, and had certainly noticed no adverse effects at the time, aside from his reaction to the sugar when he had at first consumed too large a portion of the honey on a very empty stomach. But, he supposed that whatever poison they had used could be cumulative, could have been building up in him with everything he ate, and might have played a role in the terrible effects the darts had on him. Might have been part of their overall strategy, in fact. Which gave him what seemed like rock-solid confirmation that he must not trust any of the food. Whatever came of it, Einar knew that he must not let himself end up with another dart in him. The peas are OK, though. I heard them say it. Said they didnt bother with the peas since I cant have a fire. Ha! Well, Ill eat them anyway. Theyre already soft from the water, and I can just He nearly gagged trying to get down a mouthful of the waterlogged but still quite hard peas, choked them down with a gulp of water and sat hunched over for a minute, his chin on his knees and his stomach tied in knots at the introduction of such a quantity of harsh, uncooked food. Well. Better try to grind them first with a rock next time, maybe soak them overnight so they dont have so many hard edges, going down. He knew that in their uncooked state, he would not be able to extract an awful lot of nutrition from the peas, but they were all he had, and he had to eat. Loading everything back into the pack and pressing on his aching stomach, Einar briefly considered leaving the contaminated food where it sat on the ground beneath the tree, but knew the honey, oil and pemmican would be very useful as bait for a number of creatures that he might be able to eat, including bears. The poison in the cached items was clearly not powerful enough to kill immediately, as he had eaten it several times and not died, and he hoped that by baiting traps with very small amounts of it, he might be able to safely eat the meat of the animals he might obtain. Well good. Bear bait. Could sure use a bear. Which reminded him of the coming winter, of how woefully behind he had fallen

in his preparations for it, and he again began feeling an overwhelming sense of futility, of despair, almost, before getting quickly to his feet and donning the pack in an attempt to shake it off. Get moving, Einar. Must still have some of that stuff in your system. That is not how you usually think. Go on to The Bulwarks, get set up and trap that bear. Your head will clear, in time. Its got to. They think they got you beat, but youre still here. Keep it that way. And he started off again in the direction of The Bulwarks, soon having to stop and reposition his pack, freeing his left shoulder from weight-bearing duty, as the numbing effects of the dart wore off and the pain of his injuries returned, magnified in some cases by his tumble down the steep shale and by the fact that he had lost all sense of caution in how he moved and used his injured areas, since being struck with the dart. While he took the return of feeling to be a positive thing--it was, after all, real-- it certainly slowed his movements and left him wishing for a big wad of willow bark to chew. Climbing steadily if slowly, Einar let his mind drift back to Liz, to the way the thought of her had helped pull him out of the horrid dark place he had sunk into under the influence of the dart, and how it was kind of a shame that he would never get to tell her of the things he had discovered then, about her, about the two of them, about how ungrateful and unseeing he had been, that he would never really get to thank her.

Liz heard a single gunshot, muffled but unmistakable through the timber from high up on the ridge near the smoke, and her heart sank at the thought that someone might have found Einar. She just hoped that it had been him who had done the shooting, prayed that he might still be alive and have a way to slip out of the grasp of his pursuers, suddenly had a strong feeling that he was still alive, though greatly in need of help. She had nearly reached the bottom of the ridge when she heard the shot, studied the steep, shaley creek and the ridges that rose on both sides of it from a well concealed position beneath a creek side willow thicket, and finally decided to make her way up the ridge that adjoined the one on which the smoke still rose black and thick into the sky, seeing that there was too much activity on it for a single unarmed person to wisely venture into the action. The ridges connected up high, up above where the creek began as a series of smaller rivulets that plummeted white and foaming down the exposed rock of the mountain, and supposed that she could cross over there, descending onto the one where she believed Einar to be, and hopefully find him.

Einar walked for the rest of the day, staring at the ground under his feet with dull, half open eyes, remembering to stop and drink only when his tongue began sticking to the roof of his mouth and occasionally squinting up at the landscape for clues about his direction. He saw a rabbit once, another time a grouse, and knew that he should be making some effort to take game, as most of his food was unsafe and what could be eaten contained no fat and very little nutrition at all, in its uncooked state. As the day went on, though, he found himself seemingly unable to muster up the motivation to translate those

thoughts into action, plodding along past first one opportunity and then the next without giving the potential food more than a passing glance, though he knew the atlatl and the one dart that had not been broken or lost in the fall were just behind him, sticking out the top of his pack. Each time he told himself, next time. You can stop next time. Keep moving. You stop now, thats where youre staying. And he was genuinely convinced that it was true, that he might forget to start moving again, or worse, might lack the motivation to make himself get up and do so. Hunger. It hit him hardest during his infrequent water stops, twisting and wrenching his insides as he crouched to refill his bottle at a creek or a little seep that he found beneath the timber, making his hands shake and his eyes blur until he had to rub them to clear his vision sufficiently that he could go on without running into things. As long as he was moving it was not so bad, could be pushed a bit more into the background, but he knew it had to be addressed, and soon, if he wanted to keep moving. Darkness came, and Einar, knowing that he had to be getting close, wanted to keep moving, wanted to be someplace familiar for the night. His night vision, though, as well as his innate sense of balance, seemed to have been completely obliterated by the lingering effects of the darts, and as the light faded he found himself tripping on exposed roots, bruising his lower legs on fallen aspens, turning his ankles in holes and occasionally actually walking straight into trees. It seemed that with darkness, he had entirely lost his ability to judge the position or aspect of the ground, and he shuffled along, feet wide apart for stability, attempting to feel his way, if he could not sense it. Einar felt the loss of his night travel abilities rather sharply; the night had always been his ally, his ability to keep going through the darkness and fairly reliably stay on course and steer himself around natural obstacles proving a major advantage in a number of the situations he had faced over his lifetime, and particularly during the past year. But it was gone, he was blind, his night-sense dulled to the point of non-existence. Einar hoped very much that the loss would be a temporary one. In the meantime, he just kept hurting himself with his insistence on continuing to move. A hard forehead strike by a low-sweeping spruce branch proved to be the last straw. He stopped, sank to the ground and pulled out his water bottle for a sip to help ease his sandy-dry throat, but found it empty. Well. Dont hear any water right around here, and Im getting awful tired of stumbling around whacking my shins on fallen trees. He rubbed his aching and battered legs, eased the pack to the ground and lay his head down on it. Find water in the morning Einar had not long been at rest before he began growing badly chilled in clothes that had not managed to dry entirely during the day, dragging his reluctant body into something like a sitting position and feeling around in the pack until he came up with Lizs jacket, which he had carried attached to the back of the pack through the day, allowing it to end up mostly dry. Struggling with his injured left shoulder, he got himself into the jacket, zipped it up and tried to draw his knees inside for warmth as he had done before, only to find his right one a bit swollen and too stiff to bend that far. It had been bothering him some as he walked, especially on the downhill portions of his travel, and he supposed it must have got banged up in the tumble down the shale bank. Not bad, I guess. If that--oh, and the elbow--is all that happened in that fall, I can hardly complain. Could have broken something real bad in a fall like that. And he

closed his eyes, asleep within moments. But only for a moment. No sooner had Einar closed his eyes than the dreams started, vivid, terrifying and reminding him of the way he had felt that morning after waking up from the darts, and he was wide awake again, sitting upright and rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wipe away the memory. The night was dark, quiet but for the wind in the evergreens, and Einar leaned back against his pack, letting his breath out, taking comfort in the quiet and the feeling of the spruce needles, rough and crunchy and prickly, beneath his hands. The real world was still there, still real, and he a part of it, and for many minutes he sat there, eyes wide open and staring into the darkness, just breathing the spruce-scented forest air, relieved. Time passed and Einar finally realized that he was cold, awfully cold, teeth chattering in the breeze as it whispered over his damp clothes and in through the shale-tears in the jacket, but he welcomed the cold, embraced it, wished for it to deepen, wished for the wind to gust and blast and tear at him, for he knew the chill would help him stay awake. He was hungry, knew a few calories would be tremendously helpful in keeping the cold, much as he welcomed it that night, from endangering him as he sat there motionless waiting for daylight, but he seriously doubted his ability to get any of the half-dry split peas down without a good amount of water to assist him. It did not much matter. The hunger pains had eased significantly that evening, the inner turmoil that had been his body screaming at him for sustenance quieted to a whisper, and though he knew from past history that this was an ominous sign, he welcomed the lessening of the discomfort. There was plenty to go around that night, from other sources. Propping himself more upright against the trunk of his shelter-tree he wrapped his arms around his knees--well, knee, as the right would by that time barely bend at all--and prepared to spend a long night keeping vigil and, he hoped, keeping himself awake. In sleep he feared the return of the altered existence that had gripped him after waking beside the river, feared what he might do if he again found himself in that state, and sat there for many hours listening to the night, to the wind in the treetops, blowing down in audible waves from the mountains above, the occasional whistling and puffing of his breath and the clicking of his teeth as a gust sent a chill through him, the small scurryings and scufflings of the mice and ermines and other forest creatures as they went about their lives, and it was not an altogether disagreeable time for him as he prayed, planned for the winter and thought back on the happenings of recent months, very much at home in the night even if unable to move through it in his accustomed manner. Despite his determination to remain awake Einar finally drifted into sleep sometime in the dark early morning hours, weary enough that not even his shivering or the occasional white-hot waves of pain it set off in his shoulder could keep him awake any longer. He dreamt vague and unsettling dreams that morning, woke some hours later to a paling sky, limbs stiff with the night chill and with the effects of the previous days tumble, feeling that he had spent several dark hours trapped in some very unpleasant place, but immensely relieved to find that the dream-images left him upon opening his eyes, the memory of them fading mercifully into the background as he studied his surroundings, real, familiar, good. Perhaps, he allowed himself to hope, this means the strangeness will leave me, bit by bit. Perhaps I will again someday be myself. It is good to know at least that I can sleep, and wake no worse off for it. Not sure how many days I could have lasted this time without any sleep. He rose, stretched, stumbled and caught himself against the tree and

slowly worked to get his legs flexible enough to carry him, knowing that he must go and find water to ease the sandy, cracked dryness of his throat that kept him from swallowing and nearly prevented him opening his mouth, even. Soon. Water was not far off; he found it in the form of a small creek in the bottom of the gulch on whose side he had passed the night, letting its living goodness trickle down his throat in tiny rivulets until he was again able to swallow. As the parched dryness eased away, he gulped and slurped and consumed as much as his shrunken stomach would hold, shivering again as his body struggled to warm the large volume of icy liquid, the water sloshing about as he rose and started up the ridge that he knew was one of the last that separated him from his destination. Even with his walking slow and at times painful due to his injured and increasingly swollen tight knee, it was well before noon by the partially cloud-obscured sun when Einar topped out on the final ridge and looked down to see the grey-rock spires of The Bulwarks rising distant but welcoming from their sea of surrounding timber. Resting for a brief moment against a lichen spotted boulder just below the ridge crest--orange and green lichen with the occasional splash of impossibly bright yellow-green florescence that he knew indicated the location of a pikas outhouse, OK Einar, interesting but not particularly relevant right now, get moving--he started down the slope towards them, awash in relief and hoping that upon reaching the refuge, his travels would, for a time, be over.

Liz moved cautiously but quickly as she climbed the ridge opposite the one where the smoke still rose faint but blackish into the sky, her goal being to reach the spot near their crests where the two ridges met, up above the deep shale-walled draw that held the creek. Some distance up, traveling near the dropoff to the creek but not so near as to risk being seen by men on the other side, she came across a series of odd markings on the ground, the scuffling, scrabbling sign of someone or something that had worked clumsily and somewhat desperately, it appeared, to haul itself up over the edge of the steep bank and onto the timber above it, lying, from the way the ground looked, in the duff for a while before continuing. She looked for tracks, for anything that would tell her whether the creature had been a deer, perhaps, or an elk--it certainly was not anything much smaller-but found nothing. She knelt and felt the depression in the ground where whatever it was had lay down to rest, leaving a large area of disturbed duff as it had apparently struggled to rise. Einar? Was this you? She did not know, wished she had more tracking experience, but certainly had a strong feeling that it might have been him. And the scuff marks leading away from the area looked too broad to be deer or elk, but she could not be sure. That is not enough, not this time. She knew that if she took the time to follow the scattered trail of irregular marks that led away from the disturbed area, and they ended up not leading her to Einar, that she would have wasted a good bit of time and in doing do, perhaps passed up her only opportunity to help him. Id better keep climbing, cross to the other ridge and go down near where that smoke is. Some time later, nearing the still-smoking evergreens, Liz began to hear voices and concealed herself behind a thick hedge of ground-hugging young sub alpine firs, crawling

on her stomach until she could see the speakers. Eight heavily armed men, some of them in woodland camouflage BDUs and others in the dark blue FBI letter jackets that were commonly seen around the compound, surrounded a man who lay on the ground, clearly injured, a ninth crouching beside him, apparently giving medical attention. Liz, thinking the man must be Einar and wondering how she was to help him out of what appeared to be a pretty hopeless predicament, edged closer, eyeing the closest agent, who stood somewhat back from the knot gathered around the downed man, apparently providing security for the group. She wondered. What were her chances of getting ahold of the mans rifle, and what could she do if she did? Die, she was sure, in the end, but perhaps Einar could get away in the confusion? How badly was he injured? Could he even walk? Crawl? If not, even if they both ended up perishing in the struggle, she was certain that Einar would prefer that to the alternative, that he would rather things end almost any other way than being loaded onto that chopper, patched up and thrown into a cement box. OK, Einar. Im doing it. No way Im leaving you like this. Then she heard the fallen man speak. Not Einars voice. Who is he? And wheres Einar? Inching closer, she struggled to hear the mans words. Then he began shouting, trying to sit up despite the medics attempts to keep him still. Which one of you authorized that missile, I want to know? Got the guts to own up to it? Who? And whatever happened to the fair trial before a jury of your peers deal? Did they abolish that one night when I was sleeping and replace it with rocket in the back when you least expect it? That was not the deal, that was not what I signed up for, and this--two bum legs and a bunch of rocks stuck in my face--sure as heck isnt, either! The man was quiet then, breathing hard, and she heard one of the agents speaking to him in a calm, even tone, trying to quiet him but not addressing any of his questions. Then the man was speaking again, sounding tired but still addressing the agents with a commanding voice. I had him, you know. Got two of those bear tranquilizers into him and was just waiting for him to go to ground when you idiots splattered him all over the county. Was about to make the call for you all to come pick him up, and now look at this mess! Youll be picking up the pieces for weeks. Liz bit her lip to keep from crying out at that statement, burying her head in the good, earth-smelling ground litter and trying to talk herself out of jumping up and doing something very foolish. Breathing, trying to get ahold of her whirling thoughts, she realized that she did not believe the man, did not believe that Einar was gone. I would know, if he was. Im sure I would know, would feel it. And I dont. That rocket--rocket? What are they thinking?--must have missed. Hes still out there. Those were his tracks over there on the other side, I know they were. I felt it when I was over there, but ignored the clues. That was a mistake. Liz knew that there was a good chance that she was wrong, that she was telling herself what she wanted to hear, but she knew also that the only way to find out for sure was to return to the other ridge and follow that trail, must go to him if he was still out there, must climb back up to the point where the ridges connected, find that track and follow until she hopefully found him. Bear tranquilizers? Boy, is he going to be mad! If hes OKwhen hes OK. If those things are meant for

bears, and the injured guy hit him with two of them She shook her head, pushed aside all of the terrible scenarios that popped into her mind. You hold on, Einar. Wherever you are. Im coming. Just as she rose to go, cautiously, slowly, careful of the little sticks beneath her elbows and knees, backing away, she heard the sound of footsteps behind her, glanced up to see three men--the tops of their hats anyway--approaching from uphill, sweeping the brush apparently as part of the search for the body, or whatever was left of it. Hurriedly scooting backwards until her legs were completely concealed beneath a nearby rock slap, she carefully covered her head with leaves, peering out and realizing to her horror that she had left the grocery bag Susan had sent with her, left it sitting out in the open beside one of the little firs not four feet from her head.

Descending the slope that would take him down into the vast sea of timber that he knew he must cross to reach The Bulwarks, Einar found that it seemed to stretch on interminably, acre after acre of trees, riddled with deadfall that he had to step over, climb over, haul himself and his pack and his stiff, swollen right knee over and through, further exhausting what little strength he had left and leaving him sweating and trembling, panting for air, stopping frequently to sit, droop-headed and with his eyes half closed, on one or another of the waist-high horizontal trunks that blocked his path, the victims of some long-ago windstorm. There will be an end to this, he told himself. Everything has an end. The day, this nightmare-slope of downed, tangled trees, your life Wearily, he wondered which of the three ends would come first, in this case. One way to find out. Get up. Keep moving. The deadfall eventually thinned, the slope angle changed, and Einar found himself traveling along on more level ground, the reprieve from continually lifting his bruised, shaking legs up and over one waist-high obstacle after another a most welcome change indeed. He rested for a minute, took a sip of water and looked around-trees, and more treeswhat else did I expect?--hoping that he was still on course for his destination, that his sense of direction had not entirely fled him as so many other things seemed to have since the incident with the darts. With the thinning of the deadfall, bear sign began appearing, first a punky, torn-up log in which he found (and quickly ate) a single fat white grub that the hungry bear had overlooked, then a while later, a freshlooking bear pile. Einar crouched down beside the heap, purple-black and appearing to be composed almost entirely of serviceberry remains, and realized that it was looking and even smelling an awful lot like food to him, found himself disturbingly tempted to try a bit and see if there was any nourishment left in the used berries. He expected there might be, but did not wish to risk the violent illness that he supposed could result from such a repast. Forget that, Einar. Real bad idea. Youd be better off chewing up and eating your deerskin vest, before trying this. Wrapping his arms around his middle, and the vest, in protest at the thought, he shook his head. No way, no, youre not eating this vest. Remember how cold it was last night? Gonna freeze if you eat the vest. Do not touch the vest! Although the wolverine hide ought to be about dry by now, so maybe you can use it, tonight He eyed the soft braintan of the vest hungrily, tested a corner of it between his teeth, wondered how long it would take to soften a piece of it to the point that he could swallow itthen shook his head violently, muttering something unintelligible but threatening-sounding to himself under his breath. Whats wrong with

you? Its summer, and theres no reason you ought to have to resort to eating your clothes to avoid starvation. Plenty of food around, if you can just get the rest of this dartpoison out of you, start thinking straight and make some effort to grab ahold of it. This is getting ridiculous, Einar. Now, if the bear found berries, you can find berries. So get your nose out of this bear pile, and use it to find those berries. Rising, he saw no berries, did not immediately smell any, either, but headed for the nearby sound of trickling water, expecting that if any serviceberries were to be found still fruiting that late in the season, they would need a good source of continuous moisture. Smelling the berries before he saw them, Einar approached carefully, well aware that he might meet the bear that had left the piles, as it worked to fatten up for the winter. No bear, though there was certainly plenty of sign of recent bear activity, but the creature had left him some berries, and he struggled to bend down the high branches where they clung, purple and juicy and just our of reach. Effectively limited to the use of one arm by his injury, he hung on the branch with his right arm, grabbing the berries in his mouth--just like a bear--boy, are these good! If I could do this all day for a couple weeks, maybe Id finally start to fatten up for the winter, too--and devouring as many as he could reach before letting the branch spring back to something like its original position. Several more branches Einar cleaned of their remaining berries in this way, tottering around the berry patch with purple-stained lips, grinning and half in a daze as he searched for more, his starved body working on the newly-introduced energy source. It would not last, he knew, the dizzying rush of energy and life that he was feeling, would soon pass and leave him right where he had been, and fighting the urge to simply sink to the ground and let himself absorb the wonderful sweet berries, he put his pack back on and started walking, moving a good bit more quickly than he had been capable of before finding the food, in what he hoped was the direction of The Bulwarks. The sugary berries carried Einar across the many acres of timbered hills that separated him from his place of refuge, allowing him to reach the small protected meadow up behind the rock spires shortly before the sun did that morning. Seeking out a sheltered cove between two of the towers of rock, a spot in which he had previously taken refuge more than once in the Time Before--thats how he thought of it, of the time before he became a hunted, transitory creature, almost as if it was another age or epoch in history, something ancient, distant, to be remembered, but never returned to--he dumped his pack, stretched out on the ground and stared up at the sky for a few minutes, thankful, relieved, glad that the movement had ceased. Here I am, and I do believe this is as far as Im going. May be a bit closer than Id prefer to all the action, but Im gonna be dead within weeks or even days, anyway, if things keep going like they have been. Worn out. And if I want a chance this winter, I got to stop moving so much, got to build some strength and some fat and get some things set aside. At least I can defend this place pretty well, can set it up so nobody who comes for me will leave alive. I probably wouldnt, either, if it came to that, cause they got all the heavy artillery, or most of it--he patted the backpack, remembering the items he had retrieved from his compromised main cache, and knowing that the enemy would not be counting on him having any such thing--but this is a fine place to make an end of things,

if that time comes. And if not, its a real fine place to spend the winter. Got shelter, water, game, a tremendous view if I climb a little and any number of concealed escape routes. All surrounded by hundreds of acres of timber where I can get a trap line of sorts going, after things quiet down. A good place. And, beyond exhausted, he slept, waking when the climbing sun reached in through the narrow opening between the rock fins and touched his face. Einar jumped to his feet, or attempted to, when he realized how late it had grown, knowing how much he had to do before sunset. Removing the rolled-up wolverine hide, still damp from its soaking in the river, from its place strapped to the outside of his pack, he carried it out to the mixed aspen and fir woods on the far side of the long, narrow meadow that stood between the spires and the high, rocky promontory that jutted up behind them, choosing a small aspen and rubbing the flesh side of the hide back and forth, back and forth across its smooth trunk. He knew that, unsmoked as it was, it would dry rigid and only somewhat useful for warmth if he did not work it as it dried. The rubbing and stretching was hard work, especially as he had to keep his left arm pinned securely against his side because of the shoulder, but he got it done, finding the hide to be in decent shape when it reached full dryness, supple enough to wrap around his shoulders, at least, as he slept. It was certainly in better shape than he was, he could not help but think, as dead wolverines did not need to eat, and live humanswell, they tended to do better with a few bites, now and then. Which was one of the other tasks he saw before him before the daylight faded. Need to grind up some of those peas, soak them so dinner will not so closely resemble a mouthful of small pebbles. Digging through his pack for the peas, he had to move the honey, oil and pemmican, and felt his stomach knot up and his eyes moisten--goofy guy, crying over a couple jars of oil and some honey. Youre really losing it--at the sight of the forbidden food. Before he could stop himself he had the lid off of the coconut oil and was holding the tin in both hands, his nose buried in it, inhaling the rich, wonderful odor and all but drooling over it. Fat. He needed fat, knew he couldnt get it from the peas, or even from the rabbits that he hoped to begin snaring over the next few days, yet knew just as surely that the food he held was inedible. It was fixed, settled, undisputable fact, and there was no going over it again. He could not, must not allow himself to come under the influence of one of those darts again, and was convinced beyond any doubt that the poisoned rations had played some role in the first incident. In a world that had over the past two days been horribly, frighteningly fuzzy and confusing to him as the chemical haze of the darts continued slowing and clouding his thoughts, Einar took great comfort in finding at least one thing that was completely black and white, even if it did mean he was not to eat anything especially nourishing that day. Yet, he feared. Knew what it was like to be desperately hungry, knew the sorts of things one could be driven to do if pushed to those extremes, and knew that he was not at the moment especially far from reaching that point. Though he still believed it wise to keep the ruined food around for animal bait, he did not entirely trust himself with it, should his hunger persist much longer. Better do something to protect myself, now, while Im still thinking clearly. Need to keep the stuff around, but it cant be within easy reach, not for the next couple days anyway, until I get some more food in my stomach and the temptation is not so great. Looking up at the high rock spire above him and seeing a small, protected ledge, some thirty feet out of reach of bears and

cats and just about every other sizeable creature aside from human climbers, he knew what he had to do.

Einar was in no shape for climbing, and he knew it. But as he could think of no better way to ensure that he would not end up eating what he believed to be contaminated food, without totally destroying it and making it unavailable as use for bait, he supposed he had to attempt the climb. Dumping everything but the food out of his pack, he took one of the pouches of pemmican and set it aside for use as bait, loading the rest of the food back into the pack. He tightened his bootlaces, stretched his left arm and shoulder to get them as flexible as possible (not very) and started up the rock face, hoping that his balance had returned to something like normal so that he would not lose his way on the rock, become dizzy and fall. Though he had lost a lot, physically, through all of his injuries and his prolonged lack of adequate food, Einars instinctive feel for how to move on rock had not entirely departed him, and he was soon balancing on a narrow lip of brittle granite some fifteen feet up from the ground, searching for his next move. Which, limited to the use of one arm and still unable to bend his right knee very far, was not immediately obvious. And how did you think you were going to get back down? That thought didnt last long, as he quickly shoved it someplace very dark and distant. It was for later. Would be no going down, if he lost his concentration and fell on the way up. Searching again the face above him, looking for a feature that might allow passage to a beat up, half-crippled human-critter, he found it in a narrow crack, just over arm-width, that he was able to jam his right arm into, twist it so that the elbow locked firmly against one side and the heel of his hand against the other, and slowly haul himself up by the eight or twelve inches he needed to allow his feet to reach the next spot where they could find purchase. In this way, slowly, his limbs at times shaking and threatening to betray him, he made his way up the thirty feet of rock face to the little ledge he had seen from below, small, less than a foot between floor and ceiling, but providing plenty of room to stash the poisoned food. Which he did, carefully easing the pack around to where he could reach it, retrieving the food items one by one--bottle of olive oil and tin of coconut, bottle of honey, tins of sardines--setting them in a neat row at the back of the protected space, confident that no creature large enough to carry them away would be able to reach them. Including, perhaps, himself. Feeling the strain of the effort and beginning to tremble all over with it, Einar doubted that he would be making any such climb again in the near future. Which had, after all, been the intention, though he found himself a bit despondent at leaving the food, feeling on some level that he was making a serious mistake, though his mind still told him that it was the best thing to do. Well. The rest of this haziness will go away over the next few days, I hope, and then I expect Ill be real glad I did it. Now, to get down Realizing that an attempt to descend by the same path he had climbed would likely result in a nasty case of rapid deceleration, he chose a different route, inching sideways until he could get his toes into a wider vertical crack in the rock, using it to give himself a bit of security as his picked his way back to the bottom.

Even with the advantage given him by the crack, and the blocky, fractured rock to either side of it that provided ample handholds for the one hand that was of much use to him, it was all Einar could do to keep himself attached to the wall until he was within a few feet of the bottom. Dropping to the ground and landing rather unceremoniously in a currant bush, he lay for some time as he had fallen, beat, glad and more than a bit surprised to find himself safely back on the ground. No more of that for a while, I think. He tried to rise, couldnt, and discovered that he was being held fast by the thorns of the currant. Well. At least its edible. He tasted a berry, bright red and covered with fine, spikylooking hairs. Then another. Not ripe, yet. He knew what would happen if he stuffed himself with those under-ripe berries, knew it would be worse than not eating at all, made himself stop. And, glad that the berries would bet there for later, he worked to free himself from the barbs, careful not to unduly tear his clothing as he did so, the knowledge of the effort that it would take to replace any one item of clothing giving him pause when, hearing the distant drone of a small plane and beginning to feel trapped, he wanted to pull himself loose and go dashing for the shelter of the cliff-shadows. Finally freeing himself and crawling out of the brambles, he took refuge against the cliff as the plane passed overhead, flying low over the timbered ridges but not, it seemed, with any particular focus. Good. They may think I died in that blast back there, whatever it was. At the very least, it seems theyre not on my trail. Now. Get ready for night. The thought of people possibly being on his trail led Einar to wonder how he had been tracked down in the first place, by the man or men who had shot him with the tranquilizer darts. He knew he had been very careful upon leaving the students camp, was pretty sure of it, anyway. Vaguely he seemed to remember a certain dread, a caution that he had felt the day before the darts, but could not pin down its source. Perhaps he had seen something, heard something that told him that he was being followed? He did not know, could not remember, the hours just before the incident appearing hazy, shimmering, just out of his grasp, his memory failing him when he sought to recall the details. Shaking his head, he kicked in frustration at a freshly broken granite chip at his feet, shrugged and slung his pack over one shoulder. Deciding on a location to set up housekeeping did not even require much exploration, as Einar knew nearly every bend and fold and outcropping of that place by heart, having spent so many days there in the Time Before. Gathering up the pile of gear and damp, half-dried clothing that he had dumped out of the pack before the climb he picked his way up a narrow, rocky chute between two of the grey-rock spires that made up The Bulwarks, stopping when the space between the two walls widened out to provide nearly enough room for a man to lie down long-ways between them. Overhead, the walls came together until only a small ribbon of sky could be seen. It was a place that reminded him very much of his shelter up on the high mesa over near the lake, where he had dried the deer meet, tanned the hide and done battle with the wolverine. The spot was perhaps not quite as good as that one had been, for the simple reason that the rock chimney overhead lacked the twists and turns that had helped to trap and hold heat in his other shelter, as well as keeping out nearly all of the rain. But it would be a fine place for as long as he was there--unless he managed to stay for the winter, in which case he might find himself wishing for some better shelter--and came all set up with a good heap of dry spruce needles and old branches, shoved up under a protective ledge, that he had used as

a bed on one or two rainy nights back in his climbing days when he had not wished to simply stretch out beneath the stars in the meadow. Stuffing his pack under the ledge, he fluffed up the pile of bedding, spread it out a bit and lay down, looking up at the sky and, some fifteen feet above his head, at one of the features that had made the spot such a favorite of his. High in the rock wall above him, a roughly triangular patch of blue showed just above a narrow granite ledge, a window, of sorts, that looked out on the valley below. By chimneying up to the ledge, a person was able to sit and look out across acre after timbered acre, surveying the deadfall-riddled ridge he had descended that day to reach the place, distant peaks still capped with slivers of snow in the shadows--what seemed from that perspective a rather vast section of the world. The knowledge that he could have that vantage without himself being seen had always give Einar a sense of safety when in the place, and had led him to climb often up to the thin ledge just to have a look at things. Not that day, though. Hed had all the climbing he cared to attempt already, but hoped to be able to make it up to the window in a day or two when his knee, at least, hopefully would have returned to a more normal state. Alright. Got a place to spend the night, got all the bad food put up where I wont get into it, now I need to go hang out the rest of my wet clothes in the sun so they have time to dry before it gets dark. And use some of this wire I got off the agent back in the meadow after he attacked Liz to get a few snares--got a couple of trigger set ups here in the pack still--put out. Because I really, really need to eat something other than raw split peas. Which peas, he was reminded, he needed to get into some water and soaking without delay so they would be in a somewhat edible state before he went to sleep for the night. They were something, anyway, raw or not. And, though he did not dare have a fire just then, he did have the three candles from his food cache, and supposed he could at least heat the water the peas were in, to make his soup more palatable, and when he was through, could heat some more water and soak the next days portion in it overnight, perhaps ending up with something that was at least partially cooked. Oh, good. A plan. Though he hardly seemed to have the energy to rise from the pile of spruce needles, let alone accomplish all of those things with what remained of the day, Einar made himself get up and start on the tasks, knowing that he was still fighting a bit of the lingering inertia of the darts--in his mind if not his body--and finding himself angered enough by that fact that he was able to keep moving despite his exhaustion. Three snares and nearly an hour later Einar returned to the meadow, his hat nearly full of partially dried serviceberries he had found in a clearing near a damp, marshy area, took a long drink at the little spring above the meadow and filled his water bottle and cooking pot. The day was nearly over, sun slipping behind the dark row of trees that rose stark and sentry-like on the western horizon-ridge, and Einar was content. Though still not feeling entirely clear-headed (you wont, until you get something more to eat) he was glad at least to have apparently escaped the immediate attention of his pursuers, reached a place he knew and which would, given some effort on his part, sustain him for as long as he was able to remain there. The challenge now, he knew, would be seeing that he put forth that effort, got ahold of some serious food before his hunger again caught up with him--its not got far to go, Einar, with the kind of margins youre living on. Almost there right now--and rendered him unable to do the work. It would be close, but not, he hoped, and impossible thing to manage. At least he had those peas. And the atlatl. And one

dart. There would be deer in the meadow, deer drinking at the spring, and perhaps His head jerked up from its position on his knees, ending a half-wakeful dream in which he and Liz had been dressing a deer just inside the aspens that bordered the meadow, realizing with disappointment that he was not about to feast on venison. It was almost dark, and he was cold. Fell asleep. Cant even trust yourself to sit down for a minute, huh? Rising slowly he collected his water containers, dry clothes and the wolverine hide, and headed up to the crevice that was to shelter him for the night, falling asleep on the pile of spruce needles before he had time to deal with that night's portion of soaked peas.

Liz kept perfectly still as the two agents approached from behind, bending bushes and looking at bases of trees, splitting when they reached the rock that--she hoped--hid her, one taking either side in what she supposed must be their search for Einar, or what was left of him. The nearest man had passed her, passed within feet of her rock without seeing her, when the other man said something to him and he paused, the toe of his left boot not five inches from the brown plastic City Market bag that Susan had given her. The bags red lettering was down, its handles up, giving it an uneven appearance which she very much hoped might, in its place half-hidden by the shadow of a fallen and decaying spruce, conceal it from the view of the agents. But not if he steps on it! Please dont let him step on it. Which the man almost certainly would have, had his companion not distracted him from the somewhat straight line he had been walking, causing him to veer over in front of Liz and miss the bag entirely. As the crunching of the agents boots slowly faded away, Liz let her breath out in a silent sigh, knowing that she had narrowly escaped disaster. Had they found the bag, they would certainly have made a more thorough investigation of the area, probably finding her, in the end. Even if she had managed to escape detection, Liz knew they would have found her fingerprints on the bag, and Susans also, which they surely had on file by that point. And, I would have lost my only food, and Im not sure that Im as good as Einar at trapping--and certainly not as experienced at going without, and knowing where my limits are. Most of the food in the bag, though, she had been determined to save for Einar, as she had eaten quite well on the meals provided by Mrs. Watts while in protective custody. So far she had done quite well in her intention of saving the bulk of the food, taking occasional slivers off of halfpound block of cheddar cheese, but leaving the rest of the food intact. Not that there was all that much. Susan grew, canned and raised so much of her own food that she seldom did large grocery runs, normally only leaving the store with the few luxury items that she was unable to produce herself, and enjoyed having around. In this case, that meant the cheese, a jar of sesame tahini, some whole cloves and a box of Minute Tapioca that she sometimes used as a thickener in fruit pies. That, and a jar of Nutella, which Liz had been excitedly saving to present to Einar. She was very glad to still have the groceries. While the thought had crossed her mind before, it really hit Liz as she lay there hiding that she was on her own out there, without so much as a pocket knife, first aid kit or a box of matches. At least she had her boots, and the jacket that Susan had handed her as she hurried out of the car. Which reminded her. She had not taken the time to look in the jackets pockets. Might be something useful in there.

The sound of the two agents footsteps had receded and merged with the general bustle of activity around the injured man, and she could hear a helicopter in the distance, approaching, she supposed, to evacuate him. Louder and louder the rumbling grew as the chopper neared, and Liz knew that she must take advantage of the noise and distraction to make her escape. Carefully moving the leaves and other debris from on top of her head she dragged herself forward by an inch, then another, until she could reach the grocery bag, waiting to grab it until she was certain that the thunder of the rotors would conceal its crinkling from the ears of the nearby agents. Bag in hand, she hurried away into the firs behind what she could now see was a blackened, smoldering crater in the mountainside where the missile must have hit, away into the trees as the helicopter set down in a nearby meadow.

Einar woke slowly that morning, feeling dull and heavy and not much like moving but remembering that he had eaten nothing the evening before, and knowing that he had better remedy the situation. The berries he had collected while setting his snares sat in a contained space between three large rocks--hed got cold in the night and emptied them out of his hat so he could wear it--and he collected a small handful of them, lying there and chewing them until he felt himself able to get up. His bashed knee seemed slightly better that morning, just a bit more willing to bend, but the elbow that had been skinned and torn up some in the fall had decidedly not improved, and upon pulling up his sleeve to check--as far as he could, anyway, as parts of it seemed to have stuck fast to the wound--he found it to be red and inflamed, beginning to ooze. Should take care of this, wash off the knee, too, and suppose Id better change the mullein leaves on that frostbit arm, again. The tattered elbow area of his shirt, he could see, would have to be soaked loose in places, and while he had both a full water bottle and the small pot that he had planned on soaking the peas in, he found himself rather strenuously objecting to the idea of getting any portion of his clothing soaking wet in the early morning chill. Hed barely been able to get warm all night, even with the wolverine hide and the extra set of dry polypro over his base layer, and knew that he would not likely begin to warm up that morning until he either got moving, or crept out to sit in the sun for awhile. Like a doggone reptile again, Einar. You do know that this is not gonna work when winter comes, right? Probably wont make it through the first week of really cold weather. He sat there for a minute, staring glumly at the ground and growing increasingly irritated at himself for entertaining such thoughts, finally rising, kicking at a nearby rock flake and retrieving his pack from beneath the ledge. From one of the small external pouches on his pack, Einar retrieved the bagged candles from his food cache--wonder if they poisoned these, too? Dont know how youd poison a candle. Unless somehow it could be made to give off toxic fumes. Dont suppose Im gonna worry too much about that one, not here where there is good airflow anyway-- and set one of them on a flat rock, balancing his water-filled cooking pot on the edges of two other rocks, placed to form a crude angular stove. Thirsty and knowing that it would take rather a long time for the single little candle flame to warm the entire quart of water he

took a few gulps off the top, lit the candle with a match, and hovered over the warmth of its flame as he waited for it to take the chill off the water. From the pouch around his neck he took a length of soggy Oregon grape root, breaking it up and tossing it into the water so that it would have at least mild antiseptic properties when he used it to cleanse the crusty cuts and scrapes he had received in the fall and afterwards, bumbling through the timber in his dart-induced haze. The candle, apparently, had not been infused with any poisonous smoke-causing chemicals, as Einar, huddling over its warmth, noticed no ill effects aside from the fact that he had begun to shiver, which he took to be a pretty normal reaction to the introduction of heat after a rather chilly night. The water was warming, turning a mild yellow, the pot beginning to develop the tiny, clinging bubbles along its bottom and sides that told him boiling was not too fat off, and, wanting to save the candle, he blew it out, hurriedly replacing the pots lid to help keep the water warm. Before washing with the water he drank another gulp of it, warm and good though bitter with berberine from the roots. Pouring a bit of the heated water on his elbow and another small amount on his injured knee where the lacerations had bled and oozed and stuck the cloth fast, he gave the moisture a minute to work before gingerly getting out of his clothes, the damaged shoulder, further aggravated by his untimely climb of the past day, making the entire process painfully awkward. He finally managed it though, pulling loose the stuck portions of the clothing and using a sleeve, dipped into the water, to wash the injured areas. Shivering in the morning breeze as it wound its way through the passages of cold rock and flowed over him, Einar hurried back into his buckskin vest before doing what he could for the cleansed scrapes and lacerations, applying antibiotic ointment from the medical kit and wishing he still had some gauze, particularly for the elbow. Mullein leaves would have to do; he could gather them later, when he checked his snares. Not wanting to waste any of the warm water, he went ahead and bathed the rest of his body, feeling a good bit better when he had managed to remove most of what turned out to be a rather thick layer of grime from his face and arms. Better, but awfully chilly, and he hurried into the dry polypropylene tops and bottoms that he had worn as an outer layer overnight, very glad that, for once, he actually had two sets. Not bad! Pouring the remains of the wash water over the shirt that he had used for a washrag, he wrung it out and draped it over a protruding rock, knowing that, barring an unexpected rainstorm, it would be dry before evening. Dressed again and seeing that the sun was climbing higher outside, beginning to show golden and warm-looking through the narrow entrance to his crevice-shelter, Einar knew it was time to go and check his snares, hoping for a rabbit or two to eat with his split peas that night. Fresh liver, stew from the meat and broth from the bones he jumped, shook the glazed, daydreamy look out of his eyes and gathered his atlatl and darts, preparing to leave. First, though, the idea of a nice rabbit-split pea stew foremost in his brain, he decided to take a few minutes to dig a firepit that he could use later, perhaps even that evening if the near-complete lack of air traffic continued. Though there was no danger, sheltering as he was in the narrow confines of the crevice, of the light of his fire being seen by anyone on the outside, he wanted to do everything possible to minimize the amount of smoke that any future fire would produce, smoke that might potentially be smelled, even if not seen. Scraping at the hard, dry soil with a sharp rock he worked to

create the small, foot-deep pit that he had used so often, using the end of his atlatl dart to dig the separate, angled air tunnel that admitted air and led to hotter, more smoke free fires. That task done and Einar feeling that he was making good progress in setting up his new home, he set out to check the snares. Einars snares were empty. All of them. Not too unusual, he knew, as he had only set them out the night before, but certainly disappointing. He found and ate a few more halfdried serviceberries, saw, gladly, that the chokecherries would be coming ripe in a few weeks. But they were not, yet. Which was good, in a way, because shortly after their ripening, he knew he could expect to be seeing the first frost. Worn out from the half mile walk and having increasing trouble with his balance as his body searched for energy that simply was not there, he stopped at the spring for water, opting to fill his stomach with the achingly cold liquid as an alternative to near-complete emptiness. Back to the shelter. Better get started grinding up some of those peas, so theyre a little more digestible. Looking up at the ledge where his food sat he thought hungrily of coconut oil, sardines, tasting sardines, almost, very much wishing that the food was still down where he could get at it, because he knew he was ready to eat it, take his chances with the poison and deal with whatever the consequences might be, just to gain relief for a time from the sharp talons that starvation had in him, sunk into his back, his ribs, squeezing the life out of him and making his heart beat oddly, irregularly. Staring up at the rocks like that made him dizzy, so he stopped, brought his gaze back down to the ground and gave thanks for the ledge, for having the foresight to secure the contaminated food while he still had the will to do so. More peas, then. More raw peas. Sure would like a mouse or a chipmunk to go with them, though. And, taking the dart but leaving the atlatl because of the narrowness of the crevice, he made his way up in between two dark, looming fins of rock, the space barely wider than he was, knowing that rodents often liked such sheltered places to build their nests and hoping that he might be blessed with a mouse or even a packrat to corner and spear for his dinner. Working his way deeper and deeper into the winding, twisting crevice, Einar caught a glimpse of something on a small, jutting shelf of rock some ten feet in front of him, something oddly out of place in the rocks, a flash of dull red, mostly covered in talus rock, that looked like fabric of some sort. He stopped, his heart in his throat, glanced around, up at the sky, thinking for a moment that he had stumbled upon some sort of monitoring device placed by his pursuers, listened intently for the approach of helicopters, but heard nothing.

The object appeared to have been there for a long time, fallen rock nearly covering it and the exposed portions, which, squinting into the dimness, he now saw included a metal buckle of some sort, coated in a heavy layer of long-undisturbed dust, but Einar knew that such a look could have been intentionally created, had the item been placed there by his pursuers. Swaying, growing dizzy, he pressed his hands against the cool rock wall of the crevice, closed his eyes and rested. I know your thinkings not been the clearest since those doggone darts, Einar, but seriouslyif they were gonna put something here for

you, to trap or track or poison you or whatever it is youre worried about, do you really think theyd hide it down here in a place like this, where youd likely as not never even find it? Right. Didnt think so. Look at this place. No way youd have even made it back here, if youd had anything much to eat lately. Would have got stuck way back there near the entrance. Now go on look at that thing, see what it is. Blowing at the dust and one by one moving the rock chips and slabs that covered the mystery pile of what appeared to be red nylon, Einar worked until he was able to move the item, which turned out to be a small alpine summit pack, a good number of years old, judging by the style and the condition of the nylon, consisting of one main pouch, closed with a drawstring instead of zipper and a smaller zippered accessory pouch on the front. Dragging the pack out to a slightly wider, and brighter area of the crevice--he seemed unable to lift its weight, at the moment, should have been alarmed at the fact and might have been, had he not been so overcome with curiosity--and sat down to explore it. Starting with the small pouch he pulled out its contents, which amounted to a pair of badly broken sunglasses, in addition to a small notebook which was protected in a zippered freezer bag, cracked and split with age. He took out the notebook and looked through it, page edges yellowed from years of being thumbed through. Einar knew that writing, or thought he did, squinted in the dimness to read the name, perfectly centered on the small books worn and creased cardboard cover, but badly faded. Willis Amell. He stared in disbelief for a moment, then nodded. It made sense. Willis Amell had emigrated from Germany as a young man in the late 40s, already a noted ski mountaineer at the time, and had been instrumental in developing two of the first major commercial ski areas in Western United States. Leaving the ski industry a decade later, he had gone on to become one of the best-known mountaineers and technical climbers in the country, leading expeditions in the Himalayas and the Andes and the remote Karakoram region of India, Pakistan and China, though he never did return to his native Germany. Einar had first met him some twenty years before while trying a new route on a massive, soaring wall of orange and white mineral-stained limestone, overhanging in places by as much as forty five degrees, most of its potential routes unclimbed for good reason. The more experienced climber had taken Einar under his wing after observing the single-minded relentlessness with which the younger man had patched up his battered and bloody hands and started over each time he failed at making it over the crux of his chosen route. They had occasionally climbed together after that, meeting whenever Amell was in the country between expeditions, and Einar had gained a great deal of knowledge and technique from observing Amells climbing and hearing his stories of daring deeds in distant lands. Several times, impressed with his unshakable determination and the exacting precision with which he carried out every task he decided worth doing, Amell had offered Einar a position as a guide in his successful Soaring Summits Expeditions business, a job which would, of course, have included expensespaid travel to some of the worlds highest and, to a mountaineer like Einar, most fascinating places, as he guided Amells clients on their climbs. Einar had already been to the far places of the world, though--far, if very different from Amells alpine haunts-and had little desire to again wander that far from his home in the little cabin on the mountainside, from the vast but familiar wilderness that surrounded it. Willis Amell, a

man who had no home to return to, though disappointed, had understood. It had been Amell, a number of years later, who had first introduced Einar to a wonderfully remote and endlessly fascinating world of granite crags and spires that the mountaineer had called The Bulwarks--he was, as far as Einar knew, the only other person who knew of and climbed in the area. An intensely private individual himself, Willis Amell had liked Einars quiet demeanor and appreciated that he could know with certainty that the man would not reveal any information told him in confidence, whether about new climbing routes he was working on, difficulties related to his guiding business, or his youth before coming to the States. There were very few individuals who Amell had taken into his confidence to that degree; he was a man of numerous acquaintances, but few friends, and Einar had been one of them. When Amell had vanished without a trace one day some ten years prior at the age of seventy three, his house unlocked and his climbing bag missing, Einar had spent several days searching among the spires and pillars of The Bulwarks, thinking that perhaps his friend--one of the few men he had ever called friend--might have met with some accident while attempting once again to solo one of the routes he had pioneered on the brittle granite. He knew that the area was one where the mountaineer had often sought refuge when he needed time alone, time to think, and knew also that his friend had, of late, had more than usual on his mind. Age was beginning to catch up with him, finally, his steps slowing and the number of expeditions he led less each year of necessity, yet he was entirely uninterested in giving up that life, telling Einar more than once that he would keep at it until he was no longer able to climb. A time, it seemed, that had been rapidly approaching, hastened by an old injury that had flared up that spring and caused him to cancel a planned expedition for the first time in his life. At their last meeting, Willis had once again sought to convince Einar to sign on as a guide, had even offered him half interest in the still-thriving business, if he would do so, but as usual, Einar had politely declined. After the mountaineer went missing just over a week later, neither Einar, Mountain Rescue nor the Sheriff and his deputies had found any sign of him, and Amells disappearance had remained a mystery, passing after a time, along with the enigmatic and shadowy story of his life before coming to the States, into the stuff of legend. Carefully, almost reverently Einar again opened the little notebook, recognizing it as Amells climbing journal that he had taken with him to all of the worlds highest places, each worn page filled front and back with the small, concise handwriting of a man who had a love of precision, the bare-bones details of so many adventures recorded through the years to help spur his memory upon returning home, the ink in places faded with age. As Einar flipped through the little book, he realized that all of its pages were filled, all but one. The last page, the nearly-blank one, bore at its top a date that Einar recognized as being in the general time frame during which Amell had gone missing--the date, and then nothing. That was it, then, Will? The last page? Squinting up at the spire high above--the highest in the formation, actually--barely visible from the dark and narrow confines of the crevice, he could see the aging mountaineer sitting up there--had to be up there at the top, he must have reached the top, for the pack to end up down here; no other way--pen

in hand, marking the date on the last page of his log book and preparing to record the details of the days successful climb. Then Then somehow the log book had ended up back in the pack, its last page left unwritten, secured against probable human discovery in the depths of a crevice too narrow in places to allow most men admittance. Einar supposed it was best that the last chapter would forever remain a thing of mystery. Amell, he knew, would have preferred it that way. Good bye, friend. Not a bad place, this one, for a final climb. He said it aloud, the saying seeming appropriate to mark his friends passing, but his own voice sounding terribly hollow and strange there between the rocks. He hoped it was mostly the effect of the rocks, anyway, but supposed the odd hoarseness and hollowness might be yet another indication of what he already knew. He was about done, physically. Awful tired. Einar, leaning back on the faded red nylon of the departed mountaineers pack and staring up at the thin ribbon of blue far above him, sharp and crystal clear despite the increasing problems his vision had been giving him that day, could not help but think that, if the time had come or was soon to, the place would be a fine and fitting one for his last moments on earth, as well. He felt entirely at peace, ready. A wind came up then, swept powerfully through the crevice and chilled him to the bone as he lay there, whispering weirdly among the rocks, and carried along on its gusting, clear as anything, he heard the words, firm but quietnot yet. As he heard he accepted, nodded, tried to rise but could not. WellYoure gonna have to help me some if Im supposed to keep at this, because I just dont know that I have it in me, anymore. And the wind-voice, assenting, said, eat. At which Einar smiled, closed his eyes. Yes. That is the thing And, about to ask if he was expected to eat rocks, because thats all there was, he stopped, rebuked himself. There are the peas. Get yourself back up there, even if you have to crawl, and eat. They are something. Will give you some strength. Thats all you need. More food will come. Rabbit. Deer. Move. He tried, got himself turned over onto his stomach so he could begin the long and tiresome process of working his way up to his feet, but could seem to get no further. Forehead on the faded red fabric of the pack and the rest of his body in an awkward half crouch as if still struggling to stand, he dreamed, half awake, his mind returning to some of the climbs he had done with Will, to sitting atop one of the spires after a difficult ascent, staring out across what had looked at the time like half the known world and sharing a tin of kippered herring to celebrate the successful climb. Will always had kippered herring with him, it seemed, always ate it after a climb, always carried a couple of the long, flattish tins in his climbing pack Einar jerked awake, lifted his head, got himself into something like a sitting position, the pack in front of him, hoping but barely daring to put his plea into words. After some fumbling with clumsy hands at the toggle-tie that held the drawstring at the top of the main pouch he got it open, reached into the darkness and felt coiled rope--Will, your descent line Never came down that day, did you?--met a mass of mouse-eaten cloth that he took to be a jacket of some kind, pulled it out and heard the clinking of carabiners, felt chalk between his fingers. There. At the bottom. Smooth, flat, his hand closed around it and he drew it out, the look of hope dying in his eyes and on his lined, sunken

face as he saw the state of the can, battered, swelled, damaged, he supposed, in the drop, its contents rendered inedible by the action of time and bacteria. Three more tins he pulled out and found to be in the same condition, but the fourth--he felt his eyes well up with tears of gratitude to his friend who had, even in death, in his final act before death, perhaps, allowed his own life to go on, and to the One who had directed his steps to that place in his time of need, roughly brushed his sleeve across his face--was in perfect shape. Einar ate, drank the wonderful, life-giving oil that the fish had been packed in, polished the inside of the can with his finger until it shone and all traces of the oil were gone, sank back to the ground with a sigh as his starved body began working on its new infusion of fuel. He slept, then, Wills mouse-eaten jacket over him and the pack insulating his head and upper torso from the cold ground, the wind, joyful, jubilant, singing through the rock and over him as he rested.

Liz was not a tracker. She had know this before, or would have, had she been presented with much reason to contemplate the matter, but now, searching for a trail gone cold on the springy spruce duff of the ridge, she could have no doubt. Einar was gone, all sign of his passage having vanished, the sick, stumbling scufflings of a man clearly not doing well replaced after a mile or so withnothingness. Blank, unreadable ground. To her, at least. Evasion, the pursuit of invisibility, had become such a habit with him, she guessed, that he was able to fall back on it even when suffering from a double dose of what the injured man up on the mountain had described as bear tranquilizer. After hearing that, and then seeing the awful mess Einar had made for the first mile or so up on the adjacent ridge after--she had figured that much out--crossing the creek and climbing up its opposite bank, steep and slick with shale, she had been half expecting to see him collapsed in a heap on the ground somewhere nearby. Glad when she did not--he would have hated to be found that way, she knew, and besides, if she could find him, his pursuers clearly could, if they knew to look--she was beginning to become concerned that she might have lost his trail for good. Where would he go? He usually headed for high ground when he felt himself in danger, which he surely must, with bear tranquilizers in him, but oddly enough, he had seemed to be traveling along and even down the ridge before she lost his trail. She wondered if, perhaps, he was still having trouble with the altitude. Following the ridge at an angle similar to the one he had been traveling before she lost him. Evening came and still she had seen nothing that gave her certain confirmation that she was on the right path--the occasional trampled clump of fireweed or disturbed bit of ground continued to give her some hope, but she simply could not be sure. That night, knowing that she had no chance of keeping on Einars trail in the dark, Liz found shelter under a tree as she had done before, the night chilly but not, between Susans jacket, a small dinner of cheese and the thin layer of insulating duff beneath the tree she had chosen, excessively so, and, very tired, she slept. Drifting off to sleep with the sound of the spruces whispering above her head, she recounted the short list of items that were in her possession--oh, still havent checked the jacket pockets; do that in the morning--thinking it a very good thing indeed that Einar had, over her objections, taken

the time to teach her how to make a friction fire, and insisted she give it a try, even though he had at the time been badly in need of some immediate warmth. That evening, she had taken his insistence as nothing more than another sign of his sometimes absurd stubbornness--the bad side if it, the side that she often feared would get him killed--but she now saw that he had simply been taking advantage of every opportunity that came up to make sure she had the resources she needed, should she end up on her own in a situationlike this one. Though that doesnt mean youre any less of a stubborn old fool, Einar! Lizs night was not an especially peaceful one, though, as she woke several times with a very distinct feeling that Einar was still in some sort of trouble, wasthe closest she could come was to say lost, though she knew that could not quite be it, and she had the impression that he was terribly hungry, as well. Which seemed odd, as last she had known, hed been in possession of a bunch of Pemmican, jerky and dried berries, which surely he had not entirely consumed by that point. You are worrying too much, Liz. Just go to sleep. But she lay wide awake much of the night, thinking of him andwishing she could let him know she was there, was coming

The oily fish, posthumous gift from his departed friend, had helped Einar greatly with the immediate and fairly dire situation he had found himself in that morning, but did not, as he learned when waking ravenously hungry and still having a good bit of trouble with his balance when he attempted to stand, have much impact on the fact that he had been without enough for way too long, had a deep hole to climb out of. Well. Now I will go grind up some of the peas, pound on them with a rock or something, put them in some water over a candle for a little while, and bury the pot in the ground to take best advantage of the heat. It was, by the look of things, just after twilight--long nap there, Einar, but at least its not all the way dark yet--and while the peas would not be ready for an evening meal, he supposed he could swallow a handful raw but ground up that evening to help ease the aching hole in his stomach, then count on a fine breakfast. The fat he had consumed would, he knew, go a long way towards allowing him to metabolize the starch and protein of the peas, at least for a day or so. Better take advantage of that day and eat as many of the peas as I can, then get out and do some more snares so I can start catching up, food-wise. Maybe have a fire after another day or so, cook these peas up right! Einar found himself almost cheerful, feeling a bit better physically, but, most significantly of all, encouraged by the fact that he had been able to sleep for a number of hours, uninterrupted and without even a hint of the terrifying confusion and lostness of the dart-poison making a return. His sleep had been quiet, deep and, as far as he could remember, dreamless. A rare thing at the best of times, and an incredible gift, at the moment. Perhaps, he hoped, it might continue, perhaps the awful poison had finally worked its way out of his system. He hoped so. Got winter to prepare for, and I think Im gonna do it right here. However it may turn out, this is as fine a place as I could

hope for, whether to leave my bones or to scratch out a good little life for myself. The prospect of not making it through the winter held, at the moment, no fear for him; the vague dread, even, that he had often felt in recent weeks when thinking ahead to the turning of the leaves, was gone. Perhaps the change could be attributed to the discovery of his friends belongings, to the partial solution of the mystery that had surrounded his disappearance and the feeling that, in leaving, the mountaineer had left a gift for Einar. He did not know. Maybe its just that Im not feeling so awfully weird anymore, from the darts. Whatever the reason, he accepted the change gladly, thankfully, glanced up at the rock spire far above him, crimson with the last bit of fading alpenglow, and bid one last farewell to Willis Amell, before beginning the process of worming his way between the close walls of rock and leaving the crevice. By the time Einar had exited the crevice, checked his snares--empty, again--and made his way back up into his shelter for the evening, it was very nearly dark. Making a brief detour into the evergreen woods near the meadow on the return trip, he had collected a good pile of Usnea lichen from the trees, needing it for bandaging his frostbit arm, damaged knee and torn up elbow, anyway, and supposing that he might as well eat a bit of it, too. He had done that before, and though he knew that, like the peas, its nutritional value was rather limited in its raw state, it was something, at least, with which to fill his stomach in the absence of other options. Lighting the candle under the ledge in his shelter, he set a small amount of water over it to heat, measuring out a small handful of peas, just enough to cover the bottom of his cupped palm, and setting them aside before closing the bag back up.. Using the light of the candle he searched for an appropriate rock--one with a depression in its center--that he could use as the bottom half of an improvised mortar and pestle, for grinding or pounding the peas up into more digestible and quicker-cooking fragments. Finding something that looked suitable and only slightly dismayed that it was part of a much larger boulder and thus could not be moved to a more convenient location, he blew the bits of dust and dirt from the depression and poured in the peas, searching about for a smoothish rock to use as a pestle, but finding nothing that looked like it would work especially well. Even when he did get the operation working smoothly, he knew that some caution would be necessary in using the end results, as they would be certain to contain a good quantity of rock dust that would be highly abrasive to his teeth, if he insisted on chewing the stuff. Better to just use some water and swallow it without chewing, most of the time, at least. He remembered hearing of the troubles brought on for some of the Southwestern tribes who had often used sandstone mortar and pestle setups to grind their corn and other grains. Before the age of thirty, their teeth had often been worn down terribly by the constant inclusion of the rock dust in their diets. That was not, he was quite certain, a problem he wanted to deal with, if avoidable. Finally settling on a slightly less jaggedly broken piece of granite, knowing that he could find something better the next day in the ground outside his shelter, he attempted to grind the peas, finally ending up pounding carefully when that seemed not to be working. A number of the peas, of course, went jumping out of the shallow depression when he tried

the pounding, initiating a frantic search across the dim, candle-flickering floor of the shelter, Einar crawling around on hands and knees until he was reasonably sure all of the peas had been retrieved. By that time the water was, though not yet boiling, well on its way, and he scraped up the little pile of broken peas that he had managed to end up with, dumping them in the water and returning to break up more, while those began heating. Most of his trouble with the mortar and pestle was, he expected, attributable to his own clumsiness and to the fact that he lacked a smooth rock to use as a pestle. The second problem he would remedy in the morning, and the firstwell, hopefully it would improve as well, the more he was able to eat. Finally, pulling the pot off of the improvised candle-stove, he set it down in the fire hole he had dug previously, packing duff from his bed all around it to create a thermos-like effect that he hoped would leave him with somewhat softened, more edible peas, come morning. Morning, though, was rather a long time in coming, Einar tossing and turning for what felt like hours, cold, hungry and seemingly unable to settle in and sleep despite his weariness, until finally he dragged himself out from under the wolverine hide and over to his pack where the remaining split peas were stashed, shoving a handful of them in his mouth and swallowing them with a gulp of water, doing this several times until his hunger seemed a bit lessened. Crawling back to his bed, already beginning to feel terribly bloated and heavy, he knew that he would probably come to regret the ill-timed meal of uncooked legumes, but had not really known what else to do. Most legumes, he knew, contained levels of proteins known as lectins--which tended to bind up carbohydrates and keep nutrients from being absorbed--that were generally considered to be toxic, even potentially damaging the lining of the gut if consumed over too long a period of time. Well, I dont have enough of these peas to get into that situation, I dont believe, and should be able to have a fire and start cooking them in a day or two. This is a temporary thing. Should be fine as a temporary thing. His stomach strongly disagreed, however, the deep breaths he was taking in an attempt to hold back a growing nausea becoming less and less effective, and finally Einar had to admit defeat, if a temporary one--still got those cooking peas for morning, they should work better, has got to work better--managing to creep some distance from his bed before his body violently expelled the offending meal. Lying there wide awake in the darkness after dragging himself back to his bed, Einar thought back to the perhaps unwarranted cheerfulness that had possessed him earlier, after eating the fish and resting, thinking that while the plan he had developed there in the crevice--eat the peas, grow a bit stronger, begin taking game for the winter-- had sounded fine at the time, the chances of it actually working out that way were probably pretty slim. Dont know that you could even take a deer right now if one walked right in front of you, unless maybe with a snare. And if you did, then what? Really think youd be able to dress it out, take care of the meat? When you cant even walk straight, see straight, half the time these last couple of days? It was a sobering question, and he was fairly certain of the answer. Staring glumly into the darkness for a minute, drawing the wolverine hide closer around his shoulders against a night breeze that suddenly seemed very keen, chill, he finally grinned, shook his head. Aw, itd turn out alright. Id just cut it open and eat as much as I could, then curl up next to the carcass and sleep like any other half-starved

wolf, wake up in a few hours and eat some more. Do that for a week or so, and Id be able to do my usual work again, get serious about winter. Sounds like a good plan. If Im able to take the critter, in the first place Eventually sleeping, arms crossed on his stomach to help ease a dull and increasingly constant ache, Einar dreamt that night of coconut oil, of pemmican and honey and the wonderful tangy translucent yellow-gold of olive oil, and in his sleep his mind dared to challenge a belief that had become to him established fact, firm and unshakable, asking how bad the poison in that food could possibly be, whether there was any way that it could really be worse than the quickly progressing weakness and starvation he was then experiencing. Maybe if he cooked the foods very well, boiled them over the firesurely the poison, or some of it, would boil off? Einar was wide awake as soon as the sky began paling and graying with morning, rolling stiffly out of his bed and crawling the three feet to the edge of the firepit, lying on his stomach and digging down expectantly through the spruce needles and pulling out the small cooking pot which was, to his delight, still somewhat warm. The peas inside, in various states of powderedness after his semi-successful mortar and pestle experiment, he found to be greatly softened after their night sitting in the lukewarm water. Deciding that the food smelled awfully appetizing despite the unfortunate incident of the previous night, Einar ate, holding the slightly warm pot between his knees and scooping and slurping and thinking that, one of those days, he really ought to get around to making a spoon so he could eat a bit more like a human and less like a wild critter, finishing off the meal by enjoying the starchy water the peas had soaked in, tasting more of raw legumes than split pea soup, but still warm and, to him, tremendously good. The bottom of the pot contained a thin layer of greenish sludge, the result, he supposed of the bits of dust that had been created as he pounded the peas, and he scraped it out, polishing the pot clean. OK. That worked a lot better than just swallowing the raw peas. Better go ahead and grind up another batch here, so I can let them soak all day and see if they end up cooked even a little more. Hoping that his breakfast would stick with him longer than his illadvised midnight snack had, he decided to keep still for a while, theoretically giving it time to digest before beginning his activities for the day. Digging around in his pack he took out some of the lengths of deer leg bone he had saved, choosing one and beginning work on a new atlatl dart head, wanting to have more than one available should the opportunity arise to take some game. Until that happened, he was pretty sure, he could expect to see little improvement in his condition. Half an hour later, the dart head project well under way and his breakfast showing a strong inclination towards staying where he had put it, he took a minute to neaten up the interior of the shelter, before leaving for the morning. Time to go check those snares, put out a few more.

When Einar found all of his snares--placed in the aspens on the far side of the meadow, along what had appeared to be a well-used rabbit trail--empty for a second day in a row, he started looking for answers, started wondering what he might have done wrong, but could see nothing in the placement or construction of the devices that indicated the failure was his doing. Which was rather disappointing, because it meant there was little he could

do to correct the situation, other than perhaps to move some or all of the existing snares and put more out, both of which he did. Having carried with him two of the figure four trap triggers that he had previously made and used, as well as the small portion of pemmican that he had saved for use as bait, he wanted to climb up into the rockfields and slides that covered the lower flanks of the rugged peak opposite the spires of The Bulwarks, and try for a marmot or two. Wanting and doing were two different things that day, though, as he discovered shortly after beginning the climb, making it no more than a few yards up the first slope before finding himself badly winded, dizzy, close to blacking out. Water. Must need water. Havent had any this morning, except for what those peas were soaked in. Back down, then, over to the spring for a drink, a series of gulps and swallows from the icy, moss-encrusted little pool, lying on his stomach, still, for some time after, as his body absorbed the liquid. That is better. Got behind again, I guess. Easy to do, he had learned, when one is not in the habit of eating regular meals. The feelings of thirst become dulled, and one must make a conscious and concerted effort to get enough to drink. Realizing that he had somehow forgotten to fill his water bottle on the way past the spring that morning, he took a minute then to do so, knowing that he might be needing more before again passing that way. Einar again attempted the climb up to the rockfields, made it, finally, though not without cost, and as he sat on a big flattish granite slab setting up the trigger and carefully lowering the weight of a smaller slab onto it to create the deadfall, he just hoped the energy gained from eating the hopedfor marmot would prove to be more than he would be expending on the climbs to set up and check the traps. Ought to be, he supposed. Assuming there ended up being a marmot. He had their sharp warning squeal as he neared the rocks, so knew they were at least in the area. Whether or not they would fall for one of his two traps, only time would tell. In the meantime, he had seen a few salsify plants on his way up, their yellow flowers already having gone fluffy and white with seed and looking like giant dandelions, and he headed back in their direction, knowing that their roots, often compared to parsnips, should provide him with at least a few bites of food. Einar, finding it increasingly difficult to keep on his feet as he descended the slope beneath the rockfield, the ground seeming to shift and buckle most inconsiderately beneath him at times, finally located the little cluster of salsify plants, dug around them with a sharp rock until the top inch or two of the tan roots were exposed, and pulled them up, wiping the dirt off on his pants and chewing on one of them right away, frustrated but not surprised to discover them dry and very fibrous, that late in the season. He had eaten them before and found them to be quite good, but had always had the benefit of cooking them first, and also had usually harvested them earlier in the season, before the flowers went to seed and the summer grew warmer and dryer. Well. I taste starch, maybe a little sugar. It is something. Which was true, and his body believed it if his mind was a bit skeptical, and he felt a bit of new energy as he swallowed the slightly sweet juice produced by chewing the roots. Just enough energy, as it turned out, to allow him to scramble quickly to his feet and dive beneath a nearby clump of evergreens for shelter as a helicopter, low and approaching quickly, came within earshot. Had he tried anything like that before the meal, tiny as it had been, he was reasonably certain he would have ended up sprawled out on the ground, or smashed headlong into one of the trees, in his dizziness. Head at ground level as he lay curled around one of the trees in his effort to

stay our of the helicopters view, Einar began to notice ants, a good steady stream of them, traveling up and over a log several feet from his shelter-tree. The chopper soon passed, fading off into the distance without circling or doubling back to make another pass over The Bulwarks--a great relief, though such a flyover after several quiet days did concern him some--and he rose, crawling over to the ant-log, curious. Einar was met there by the sight of one of the most massive anthills he had ever encountered in those mountains, some four or five feet in diameter and heaped several feet high in the center, alive with activity as the small black ants went about their business. Experimentally grabbing a few of the creatures he ate them, liking their distinct tangy black licorice taste and aware from his bodys reaction that they contained enough sugar to provide him, like the salsify roots, with a bit of energy. Huh. Talk about living moment to moment. But now, if I had a way to collect a bunch of these critters, and even better, if I could get ahold of a bunch of the eggs or larvae with all the fat they contain, that might be a real help! He knew that, because of their formic acid content, it would be unwise to eat any great quantity of the ants raw, and with the appearance of the helicopter doubted he would deem it wise to have a fire that night, but did have a good idea as to how to obtain a significant enough quantity of the critters that he might be able to call the result a meal. He would--having tried this method before and found it successful--get his cooking pot, fill it about halfway with water, and, using a rock, dig down into the anthill, creating a hole as deep as the pot was tall. Then, careful not to knock too much dirt into the pot, he would lower it into the hole, watching as the angry and swarming ants ran all over the place, hundreds of them ending up in the pot of water, unable to climb out. When things settled down he would remove the pot, carry it up to his fire and boil the ants for a few minutes to neutralize the formic acid, before enjoying a fine stew that would contain useful amounts of protein and sugar and, if he was able to round up a good number of the oblong white ant eggs and add them, even some fat. Alright. Havent got the pot with me right now or any way to cook them when I get back, but--using a rock to flip over a section of dirt in the side of the mound--maybe I can find a few eggs to snack on, at least. Which he did, collecting a small handful and chewing them well before swallowing the tiny snack with some water. OK. Be able to at least make it back up to the shelter on this, maybe. It was a close thing, but he did make it, finding frequent rests necessary and wondering just how many more days of that he could take without either coming up with more to eat or finding himself at some point entirely incapable of useful movement, but telling himself that he ought not be too anxious to find out the answer to that one. Nearing the slot in the rock that marked the entrance to his shelter, his eyes wandered up, up to the high, protected ledge where he had stashed the poisoned food, and he sat down heavily on the ground, leaning his head back on a nearby wall and staring up at the spot, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes in a bid to clear them and end the maddening dancing and jerking and swirling of the rock as he tried to study the route he had taken to reach the ledge. There. I see it. I know its poisoned, butthe poison didnt seem to have any effect until they got the darts in me, a two-part thing of some sort, I guess, and if they were going to find me here, surely they already would have. So the darts arent a big threat right now. He rested then, eyes closed, trying to collect his thoughts and

determine whether his line of reasoning made any sense, made enough sense to act on, to stake his life on. He thought so. Even if it does slowly poison me, well, not doing so great as it is, and the peasreally, theyre poison of sorts, too, the way Im eating them. Mostly raw. Have to risk it. Probably ought to go up to the shelter and get Wills descent line first, in case I need some help getting down. He had some doubt, however, the way he had been feeling that day, that he would be able to haul the extra weight of that rope up the wall. Better just do a little test run, first. Rising, approaching the rock, he stuck a foot into the vertical crack he had used the last time as a starting point, reached up for the first handhold and found it with his fingertips, hanging there for a minute with his arm and leg shaking, unable to lift himself more than a few inches, before letting go and dropping back to the ground. Aw, come on, Einar. You managed this a couple days ago, and your knee is some better, since then. You can do it. Got to do it. He had a thought, then, pulled out the partial packet of pemmican that he had been saving for bait, dug out a finger full stared at it, turning it this way and that. It was poison, he knew that, but knew also that it would not kill immediately, and would give him the strength he needed to climb that wall. And why not? Makes perfect sense to eat poison to give yourself the strength to climb up there and retrieve more poison to eatright? He laughed, shuddered as a little breeze came up, and let the pemmican melt in his mouth, sure that he had never, ever tasted better poison in his life. Dont think youre making a lot of sense here, Einar. But then, you knew that already. OK. Better give this another try. Following his previous route as well as he could remember, Einar made it up a good ten or twelve feet that time before stopping, the pemmican having given him a bit of renewed energy but doing little for the fact that he simply lacked the arm strength to carry out move after move on that steep rock, his legs on the verge of cramping up also and very nearly refusing to cooperate. He realized, also, that the route he had chosen was slightly different than the one he had worked out on his last climb, steeper, more difficult, and, looking for guidance, he had the strong impression that he must simply let go right then and drop to the ground, if he wanted to avoid disaster. The ground was rocky, uneven. I know its only ten feet or so, but right now that would probably be disasterno. Keep going. Get that stuff, then you can find your old route, descend on that. Got to do this. Up another foot, five, ten, and the overhanging rock that marked the food-ledge was nearing, beginning to look doable. Einars head was swimming, his heart pounding loud and fast in his ears and his limbs shaking terribly, and he paused, jamming his hand into a crack and closing his fist to hold himself in place, resting his head on the cool rock. The poison, its got to be the poison in that pemmican I ate thats making me feel this way. Gonna fall if this doesnt clear up. Cant really seebut Im pretty sure Im up too high for a fall to end well And, fist still jammed in the crack, the world went black around him.

Waking once again and seeing that the morning had finally come, Liz treated herself to a breakfast of cheese from Susans grocery bag, thinking that she had better be looking for

some serviceberries or other local edibles through the day to go along with the cheese, so that she would not become overly tempted to dip into the remaining groceries, which she remained determined to save for Einar. Walking for some distance further that morning along the ridge, she finally reached an area where it tapered off, began a gentle downward slope that soon gave way to a heavily timbered steepness, littered and cluttered with deadfall spruces and aspens where a long-ago wind had taken its toll, and she wondered if he could have possibly chosen that as his route. It seemed to her that any sensible person, and especially one who was struggling with the effects of those darts, would do their best to avoid the area. Which means it was probably his first choice Better go have a look. Struggling over and through the downed timber of the slope, Liz did see from time to time clear signs that a man had passed that way--broken branches at about hand-height, scraped bark on the upward-facing surfaces of the fallen trees, and once, clear as anything in the mud beside a little spring, a partial boot track that she recognized as Einars. Stopping in a rare clearing which offered her a largely unobstructed look at the land below and beyond the ridge, Liz quickly caught sight of a series of high, flattopped granite spires, appearing backed up to a wild and rugged peak, some miles in the distance and separated from her vantage by an unbroken sea of black timber. Einar! That looks like a place that was just made for you! If I happen to lose your trail, Ill head there, and see if you thought the same. She kept on, following the sporadic sign to the bottom of the ridge where the dead timber thinned out and the forest opened up, acre upon acre of hilly, gently rolling sameness stretching before her and soon leaving her befuddled as to which direction Einar had gone, as his trail had once again vanished. It was alright. She had a plan, meant to head for those rock spires she had seen from up on the ridge. But, which way were they? She was not sure, was not , after wandering for nearly an hour in search of Einars trail, even certain in which direction the ridge lay, that she had just descended. So climbing back up it for another look was not an option, either. Finally, picking a direction and praying that it was the correct one, she began walking, stopping from time to time to get a drink at a small spring or pick a few raspberries or half dried serviceberries here and there. With the coming of dusk, the terrain around her looking the same as that through which she had spent the day wandering, Liz had to admit she was lost, had no idea in which direction the rock spires lay.

Einar was out for less than a second, pivoting sideways during that time with his right fist and toes in the crack, waking when his right side slammed into a rocky protrusion in the wall, scrambling to maintain his hold and very thankful that his fist had slipped lower when he passed out, trapping his hand where the crack became too narrow to allow it to slip through. It hurt, though, and he struggled to get a better hold with his toes, swinging himself back so that he faced the wall and freeing his trapped hand, the wrist a bit bloody and his hand tingling but not, he hoped, too badly damaged. Have to get out of here before than can happen again. But how? He had been heading up, still thought it made most sense to reach and retrieve the food before descending his old, easier route, especially in light of his sudden difficulty with staying awake, but as soon as he looked

up and began exploring for the next hold, the blood again began rushing in his ears, the rock grew strange and distant and he felt himself about to lose consciousness once again. No. Stay with it, or youre gonna die. Leaning his body out away from the rock for better balance and stability, he lowered his head as far as he could and rested it on the rock, breathing slowly, evenly, trying to, at least, and waiting for the crackling and hissing in his ears to diminish so he could again look up. Not working so well. This happens again, I could easily lose my place and fall. Not sure whats going on, but until it stops, have to find a better way to keep myself on the rock. He thought for a minute, glanced around, carefully raised his head and explored the face immediately above him. OK. Got it. The pack Carefully removing the empty backpack in which he was to have hauled down the food, making sure to keep one hand jammed in the crack at all times, he got it off his shoulders, around to his stomach and slowly, cautiously, got one arm, then his head and other arm through one of the shoulder straps, reaching up and hooking the other securely over the spiky protrusion in the wall just above him. Leaning back, he tested it. The setup held, held him firmly under the arms and kept him from falling. He jammed the toe of his boot further into the crack, kicked the heel with other boot to drive it in further still, tested it by going limp and putting his entire weight on it. A bit of slipping but he basically stayed where he was, twisted his right arm once through the strap for extra security. Alright. Done what I can. Between the jammed boot and the backpack sling, he knew that he could survive a momentary lapse of consciousness without plummeting to his death, though if it went on for too long, he did suppose that his arms would relax to the degree that he might eventually slide down and out through the shoulder strap, arms over his head, and fall, anyway. But it was better than nothing. And, as it turned out, was to be needed, and tested, right away, as the swirling, billowing blackness returned as soon as his concentration eased just a bit, the pack-sling taking his weight until he once again woke and got his head into an upright position once again, tried to pull his body back in closer to the rock so that he could once again get a handhold, but found himself unable to do it. Hanging in the sling, he looked out across the narrow little meadow, saw that the sun was soon to leave the rock face; already he could see the spiky tips of a row of horizon-trees highlighted in its dying brilliance, and he knew he would start getting cold as soon as it dipped behind the black mass of that ridge. Cold and, if such was possible, even less able to climb down than he found himself at present. For a moment he wondered about simply hanging there until morning, making sure he was secured to the rock and letting himself sleep, counting on the sleep to leave him somewhat refreshed and better able to manage the descent, waiting for the rays of the morning sun to soak into him and limber him up once again for the climb. Einar knew that such thoughts were merely his way of attempting to delay the inevitable, knew a night spent out on the wall would be a very likely way to end up getting seen by anyone who happened to pass overhead in an IR-equipped aircraft, or, at best, to succumb to hypothermia as the night chill crept into his immobile and barely protected body. He was wearing the buckskin vest, but had neither the polypro top nor his stocking cap on him, had nothing to drink or eat and the poisoned food, even, was decidedly out of reach for the time. Still, he might have risked it, had not the thought of being discovered by a search crew in a helicopter been foremost in his mind. That, especially if he happened not to wake up for it, was a prospect nearly as horrible to contemplate as being taken while under the influence of the dart had been. Even if he woke before they got to him

and launched himself off the wall, there was a good chance that he might survive the fall, if barely, just long enough for them to scrape him up and get him medical help so they could go ahead and lock him in that cement box they had waiting for him. That was enough to decide it for him, more than enough, really, and, carefully leaning out further from the rock he looked down, trying to make out a path that would give him his best chance at a successful descent. Nothing--nothing that he could hope to reach, anyway--looked better than the way he had ascended in the first place, and he knew he must try it, must do it before the next dizzy spell came, must get himself to a secure spot before then. Unhooking the pack and squirming it back onto his shoulders he started down, shaking his right hand in an attempt to restore some of the feeling it seemed to lack since catching his fall. He was slow, uncertain, his vision seeming hazy and unreliable, but he made progress, measured in inches and with the knowledge that each step could well be his last. He wished to reach the ground safely, but really had only one thing to ask, and, pausing, asked it: If I fall, if its badpleaselet it finish me. Sure dont want to end up lying there in the open at the base of this thing until they see me and come scrape me up, or something. Einar did not afterwards remember exactly how he had managed it, but finally reached the bottom shortly after sunset, dropping the last three or four feet and landing somewhat stunned but without further injury on all fours, feeling like curling up right there in the rocks--the friendly, welcoming rocks--and sleeping, made himself rise, stand, take a few steps. He was not really aware of being in much pain, though his shoulder, knee and the large area where he had slammed into the wall and scraped up his side felt odd and somehow disconnected from the rest of his body, and he knew the hurt would come later. For the moment he was just too tired to give much notice to any of it. Cant sleep out here in the open thoughgot to somehow get up into that shelter. Sinking down beside the gear he had offloaded before the climb, he took it piece by piece and stowed it back in his pack, numb, slow, moving as if in a dream, but finishing the task. Goodnowon your feet. Around the rock, up the chute, into your shelter, and then Then, rest. Walking slowly, finding his way by the last of the evenings light, he passed along the length of the meadow, mind set on reaching the shelter before he found himself able to go no further, no room no time no strength for wondering about the snares, for making the short detour that would have allowed him to see the trapped rabbit before the coyote did, jumped up, took it, fed her half-grown pups on it that night. Einar, dead-asleep on his bed of spruce needles, was to know none of this. Sometime in the night, whether wakened by the coyote chorus outside or by his sandy dry mouth and the fact that he could no longer swallow, he was not sure, but he listened for a minute, looked up at the nearly full moon, an indistinct, shimmering blur of silver in the sky-ribbon above him, and reached a tentative hand out from under the wolverine hide, the rest of his unwilling body somehow following, feeling for the fire hole. Found it, found the pot of soaking peas and drank, draining them dry and creeping back to his bed for the sleep that had very nearly overtaken him in the rocks right there by the cold firepit. Morning came but Einar was not aware of its arrival, noticed the change only in a lessening of the chill that had plagued him through the night--would not have been so bad

if hed been able to find the wolverine hide that evening before dropping into his exhausted sleep, but he had not--and it was well into midmorning before he stirred, opened an eye and squinted up at the light. Cold. Saw the wolverine hide, grabbed it and got himself under it, face and all, curling up as well as he could for warmth with his knee and shoulder aggravated and nearly inflexible after the climb, the short fall at the end of the descent. His stomach ached, head ached, and he knew he needed to eat. Peas. They should be ready, been soaking all night And he found them, discovered that they were, indeed, fairly soft, was about to scoop up a hungry handful when he decided that he must drink, first, lest the food stick in his dry throat and gag him on the way down. But his water was gone, the bottle empty, the cook pot empty, and he dimly remembered gulping its contents during the night. Well. Need more water. Meaning to go get more, he fell asleep again, eventually just returning the soaked peas to their spot in the fire hole and forgoing his meal altogether, because if youre not drinking, you shouldnt eat. First rule ofwell, its a rule, anyway, so do it. The day was long, but not long, Einar only half aware of its passage, or that of the following night, except that partway through it he began feeling awfully, terribly cold again, rolled and crept and dragged himself over to the pack to hunt for one of the polypro tops to pull on over his buckskin vest in an attempt to keep his arms from aching so terribly with the chill. Everything ached, it seemed, movement, stillness, and he was glad when sleep, or something like it, proved to be easy in returning. Through the quiet night hours he dreamed, eyes wide open half the time, staring up at the fuzzy, whirling stars as they came and went across his little ribbon of sky. Alone, he wanted to wish Liz there with him, but knew that it would be selfish to do so, knew she had gone back down, down to the canoe place that day, down where she would be safe, he hoped, living her life, whatever it was to hold for her He missed her some, missed her awfully bad, actually, but supposed it would not last for long. More time passed. Another day, he was pretty sure, maybe a night, too, judging by the ice in his bones, though it was all blending together just a bit, and when he next opened his eyes to see light it was to the realization that the pain was gone, the gnawing hunger, the dull ache that had seemed to possess his entire being since the climb. It had left sometime in the night, and he felt quiet, calm, still, and quite content to remain so. Which he did, as morning quickened and the ribbon of sky above him became bluer, brighter, a hawk passing overhead, playing on the warming, rising air but never glancing down into the darkness where he lay. Einar heard a deer walking out in the meadow below his shelter, heard it cropping and chewing the grass, stopping at irregular but predictable intervals to lift its head and prick its ears to listen for danger, and he knew it was ridiculous to believe that he could hear those things, but at the same time felt strongly compelled to go and check. He did not know why the sudden compulsion, the unreasonable interest in things that no longer concerned him, knew he was beyond the need to eat, beyond the ability to eat, even, he supposed, as those peas had sat untouched in the pit beside his bed for so many hours daysuntouchedgo! Creeping, moving slowly and feeling that this must be the only way he had ever moved, he took the atlatl and the single completed dart and went, quietly, softly, out the to open air, to the meadow, emerged from behind a small fir and saw the deer, close. Looking away so as not to alarm the creature with his presence,

Einar got his elbows up onto a flat-topped boulder, slow-motion, necessity not choice, pulled himself to his feet, his head still concealed by the branches of the little fir, fitted the dart into its notch at the back of the atlatl and drew it back, concentrating on keeping it steady, on hefting its enormous weight. One chance.

Once he had the dart aimed at that doe, Einars focus sharpened, his clouded vision, even, seemed to clear some as the creature, its closeness, aliveness, the subtle movements of its head and neck as it ate, filled his world. It did not see him, smell him, did not yet sense his presence, and he knew there was some hope, even though there would almost certainly be little force behind his throw. The animal was close, ten yards, he guessed, and briefly he considered dropping the atlatl and going with the Glock, instead. But no. He was ready, the dart in place, and he could not risk alarming the deer by changing anything, possibly missing his chance. Almost without realizing when the moment came, the dart flew, hit, solid, if a bit high, looks good, and he was amazed, sagged against the rock and rested his chin on it, on its rough lichen-covered coolness, as he watched the wounded deer cross the narrow meadow in three bounds and take off into the mixed aspens and evergreens on its far side, on the lower flanks of the peak on whose rockslides he previously set the deadfalls. Dont go farnot too far. Ill give you some timelie downrest. And though he had been speaking to the deer, he lay down himself, the wait for the creature to tire itself and stop moving proving no problem for him, as it took him well over an hour of lying flat on his face beside the boulder before he was able to scrape together the energy to rise again, and when he did, it was to the memory of a fading dream, a wonderful dream, in which he had somehow managed to take a deer and was about to begin trailing it so he could eat! Einar smiled. It had been a good dream, but it was over, and he supposed he had better get back up to the shelter--or attempt to; his limbs seemed awfully heavy that morning, uncooperative--and try to choke down some more of those raw peas so he might later find himself able to make the rounds of his snares. What was he doing down there, anyway, he wondered, face buried in the warming, mole-dig softened earth, surrounded by spent, seeding lupine and the rusty red of still-blooming Indian paintbrush, slightly past its prime in the waning days of summer? It was a nice spot, pleasant, the sun having finally warmed several days worth of ice out of his bones and left his battered muscles a bit more flexible, but he did not really remember the walk down from his shelter. Had he been sleepwalking, dream-walking, following the dream to the meadow in search of the dream-deer? Well, dream-venison would certainly not keep him going, would not nourish his starving body, but it would have made a pleasant diversion for his mind, that feast, and he was sorry to have wakened before partaking in it. Time to go now, before a chopper comes along, or you fall asleep again and a couple of coyotes decide you look like a tasty snackwhich I rather doubt you do at this point, but, wellyou know coyotes! Not the most discriminating of critters. He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, slumped over against the boulder, tried again and kept at it until he managed to stand, leaning, laughing, silly creature, I see that you even brought along the atlatl for your dream deernow whatever can you have done

with the dart? Searching, he saw no sign of it, wondered if he might have actually let it fly at some point, certainly remembered doing so in the dream, and supposed he must have. Well. Too tired to go looking for it right now, and it does not much matter, anyway. Not very likely that you have the strength to use the thing right now, or again will, before this is over. Its almost overyou do know that? Nodding his ascent, Einar lay back down to gather the energy for what he guessed might be one final trip back up to his shelter. Lying there, staring out at the spire-shadows in the meadow before him, black and green stripes on the wind-rippled grass, on the lupine, he wished he might be able to make one final climb as Willis Amell had done, see once more the world spread before him, meet his end-beginning up there on one of those crags, as his friend hadbut he knew it was not a possibility for him. And Will, you never had all these choppers after you, either, keeping you from having a fire, threatening to disturb your final rest by snatching you off the mountainnono final climb for me, I guess. Did not much matter, anyway, the place where it happened, whenever it happened. He knew that, knew that the destination was the same, either way, and that was really all that mattered OK, Einar, enough of that. Hope you dont think youre getting off this easy. Seems youre still breathing, moving, thinking, sort ofdidnt hear anybody tell you it was time to stop fighting. Now, get up to that shelter. Still got some life in you. After a while he rose again, struggled to his feet and got himself turned back towards the shelter of the crevice, but something was troubling him, he was missing something, and knew it was the dart. He wanted the dart, wanted, if not needed, and walked back around the boulder to the meadow to make a search for it, fairly certain that he had let it fly in his deer-dream. Doubt it can be far But he could not find it, crossed and criss-crossed the meadow but saw no sign of the dart, but he did see deer tracks, the wide, skidding tracks of alarm and flight there in the soft dirt beneath the meadow grass More rest. In the sun, in the sweet, fragrant vegetation beside those tracks, fingers in the tracks, feeling the splayed, pointed toes and the rounded bowls of the heels, dreaming of deer, food, lifenot for long, cant stay long in the open or theyll see you, but he slept, the sun warm, good, until his thirst woke him, head baking in the sun, mouth dry, eyes sandy dry when he tried to move them, open them, aching. Find shade, water, get out of this sun, and he crept, crawled, dragged himself towards the nearest shade he saw, that of the aspens, cool, whispering of water, cool water softly flowing over rocks, over on the far side of the meadow. Stop. Wait. He turned back, followed the slug-trail of mashed vegetation where he had slithered through the grass, returned to the deer tracks and again traced them with a finger. Fresh. Real. Not part of any dream, and there on a leaf beside the tracks was a splash of blood. The deer then, the memory of hitting the deer with the dartmust have been real, too, and he began following the trail, but he had a problem. His vision seemed to have grown so blurry, indistinct and blotchy and unreliable, that he was having a very difficult time picking up on the blood trail the creature had left. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. What is this? Eyes were bad after the dart, seemed to be getting better. Need more water? What? Reduced to crawling in order to pick up on the drops of blood, the mashed vegetation and the occasional hoof impressions of the fleeing creature, he paused occasionally to lick at the blood on the leaves in a desperate search for enough energy to keep going, the blood-leaves salty, tangy, their substance too little to lend him any strength but just enough to keep him focused on the trail. A sharp

rap to his banged-up knee from an overlooked spur of protruding granite producing a brief moment of lucidity, he found himself thinking that it would be ironic almost to the point of hilarity--someone elses, he supposed, more than his own--if he ended up breathing his last while trailing that deer, just tenths of a mile, yards, feet, even, from the feast that could have saved him. Slipping back into his glazed-eyed, trancelike state as the pain faded, he laughed, finding the thought hilarious, indeed. The aspens. He had reached them, was still seeing occasional blood on their fallen leaves and white trunks and the forest-plants that grew beneath them, stopped for minute, body draped loosely over a low, rounded, ground-embedded boulder on the theory that it ought to be easier to get himself going again if he did not have to pick himself all the way up off the ground, and listened. Water in the leaves, the sound but not the reality of water, trickling, seeping, overflowing, lovely and cool and all around him, above him, dry mouth, burning throat, no relief. Be still, leaves. Stop tormenting me. But they went on doing what aspen leaves do, unheeding, and Einar did the same. Crawling. Dragging. More blood. Follow it. All trails end. Must end. At least it was cooler there under the aspens, cold, even, it seemed, as he was soon shivering in the little breeze that set the leaves to flowing and trickling like the water he so badly needed, and he supposed he must simply be growing especially sensitive to temperature changes, as his body became less and less able to regulate itself. Well. Certainly not monotonous, at least. Should feel the thirst less, here in this cool shade. The deer had begun climbing, it seemed, up into the rocks above the meadow, and Einar squinted, stared, wished to see it lying there within sight, but knew that he would not. And did not. No water up there where the creature had headed, he knew it, had been all over those slopes, and he doubted his ability to go much farther without water. The spring lay behind him, yards, two or three hundred yards, at best, and Einar knew that he ought to return to it, drink--should have thought of that before; where was my brain?-soak up the water for a few minutes before continuing on the trail, but he was afraid of losing the deers path, of his vision dimming further so that he might not be able to again find it, weighed the options, and pressed on. He must not lose that deer. Perhaps he would find a seep up there, up in the timber.

The trees all looked the same, the little tree-covered hills, sameness stretching on acre after acre, and Liz knew she needed to slow down, take time to think and look and figure something out, knew they were not all the same, despite immediate appearances. It was nearly dark, though, and she doubted she would be able to accomplish any more that night by traveling further than to get herself further befuddled, so began looking for a place to spend the night. For several hours she slept, having eaten another slice of cheese and a small handful of serviceberries for her supper, filled out with half a dozen small slugs that she had found crawling on the damp underside of a mossy log near her last water stop, slimy and not especially tasty but not, shed found, too bad when swallowed with gulps of water. She had felt a bit silly--and slightly queasy, also--eating the slugs when she still had an entire bag full of groceries, but knew that Einar would probably be needing them more urgently than herself, especially after being hit with those bear

tranquilizers, which she expected would have had to impede his ability to get ahold of enough food, even if for only a day or so. Sometime in the early morning hours the moon came out, huge and silver and nearly full, and Liz left her hastily improvised bed of duff and branches (this idea really does work well; I dont remember being any more comfortable camping with a sleeping bag and tent, at least not in the summer. Except for the mosquitoes) and went on, looking for high ground from which she might get a view that would tell her where she had gone wrong and finally finding it, reaching the high, rocky promontory just after dawn. The world that greeted Liz when she stepped out past the final evergreen and out onto the exposed rock at the edge of the precipice was at first entirely unfamiliar, timbered hills stretching out into the distance, ending in a rugged backbone of high, rocky peaks which she was quite certain she had never seen before. Sitting down on the rock ledge she studies the landscape, looking for anything familiar, praying that she might see something, anything she recognized, waiting as the sun rose and spilled golden and warm into the bowl of timber and highlighted the far peaks, lending depth and perspective to the formerly grey world. There! Those spires! Having blended with the peak that backed them in the lackluster predawn world, they now practically jumped out at her in the sharp shadow and light of the newly risen sun, and the feeling of relief was immense. Probably unwarranted, too, she knew, as she had no real reason to assume that Einars trail led in that direction, nothing but his past history of seeking out high, rugged places when in trouble, and her own intuition through which those spires pulled her, called to her, told her joyfully to come! Studying them, seeing that she must have, in her befuddledness, worked her way nearly halfway around them until she was looking at them from the front rather than the side as she had been before, she marveled at the distance she had covered without even realizing it. All right, Liz. You messed up bad before, losing your way like that. So go slow, pick out some landmarks, and stay on course this time. It looks like a clear day, so you should be able to use the position of the sun to help if you start getting confused down there in the trees.

Despite his resolve to stick to the deers trail and return later to the meadow for water, Einar found himself having increasing trouble continuing to move forward, the black, billowing shapes before his eyes growing in size and frequency until he could hardly see to keep himself from crawling headlong into trees, his heart skipping beats, hurting with the strain and leaving him terribly dizzy, feeling that he must pass out if it tried to beat any faster than it was. He knew he must have water if he was going to make that climb, could feel it, rested for a minute against the cool grey of a boulder before turning around, still debating with himself. Dont lose this trail. Got to have the deer, and she cant be all that far. You find her, get a few bites of liver in you, some meat, and itll be easy enough to stand up and walk down to where the water is. No more of this dragging around like you been reduced to. This is ridiculous, Einar. Nodding, glad the voice had taken the time to dissuade him from the unnecessary and perhaps even unmanageable trip down the hill, he circled around until once again staring up at the rocky path above him. Then came the other voice, harsh, cynical, but quite familiar, and it would not leave him

alone, demanded his attention. Yeah, you could do that, sounds great, but you know youre not gonna stop with any few bites of deer, leave the rest and walk down there for water. As starved as you are, youre likely to gorge yourself on as much as you can hold, go right to sleep and wake up hours later to eat more. Except that as short as you are on water, all that rich meat will be as good as poison to you, and youll die right there--with a full belly, but dead, just the same. Which would be absurd. Go down. Drink first. Deer will still be there when you get back. If I get back He buried his head in the lupines, clapped his hands over his ears and wished badly for both of the competing voices to go away, wished to be left in silence, left to rest, to No. Not to die. Not with everything you need so close, sopossible. Now, pick one, and do it. Second one made more sense, I think. Need to drink, thatll get you before the hunger will. He saw the sense in it, in that second voice--the fact that the voices existed, in the first place, disturbed him a bit, left him to wonder whether the weirdness he had experienced after the darts was staging something of a return--hey, at least there are only the twomore would be worse, right?--reluctantly got his head pointed downhill again, bitterly hating the voice that had bid him wait on catching up to his food, turn his back on it, risk losing it altogether, all for a little sip of water, but knowing that it was right and must be heeded. First, though, he must somehow mark the deers trail, must leave himself some sign so he could find it once again upon returning, here at the edge of the rocks would be a good place, a fine place, I can find this by sight, pick it up and follow it again from here, and he picked out a rock, rolled it out into a semi-open area just in front of the rockslide where a skidding track and a slight smear of blood on a bent grass blade marked his quarrys passage, set the rock upright, piled others around it, slowly, painfully making his cramping arms work in concert to stack the rocks, marker, monument, signpost, hope. Last hope. Be back. Downhill. A bit easier, though he hardly noticed. Movement of any sort was becoming excruciatingly difficult. Sometime on the way down he fell asleep again, or lost consciousness--both had become rather frequent occurrences, and he really could not tell the difference, on waking--his dreams this time only of water, the hoped-for deer feast all but forgotten in his need for fluid. Returning again to awareness he crept on, down past the last of the rocks, through the aspens, the terrible, cool aspens with their rustling water-leaves that mocked him mercilessly, unceasingly; he had never imagined that a man could hate those serene, whispering beings, resent them so and wish as he did at that moment for their utter and complete destruction. Ashamed of his purposeless rage, swollen-tongued and sunken eyed he lay flat on the ground in the cathedral of the forest, begged forgiveness of the keeper of the trees for thinking such thoughts of His creation, received it and was calm, still, lay with his head back, mouth open to receive the drops of water when they fell, living water, surely they would fall, all he asked was a few drops Blackness. That was good. A fine substitute, and he breathed his thanks, enjoyed the temporary unawareness of thirst, exhaustion, the need to keep moving beyond his

capability and, increasingly, beyond his desire as well. Rest. Then move, arms forward, dig in with elbows, pull. Again. Something furry, fuzzy under his hand, and he opened his eyes--had been keeping them closed against the days brightness, painful and glaring--and saw purple, a fuzzy, blurred image of something purple and roundwaterleaf! With purple blossoms, reddish stems and the distinctive grey-green ladder like leaves, he had eaten their roots before, starchy, nearly tasteless, and full ofwater! He knew that breaking the roots, let alone chewing them, would bring it oozing and dribbling out, a few drops only, but do much more than he had, at the moment, and he dug, cheek on the dirt, scratching, scrabbling, scraping with his fingers, knowing that to pull on the stems or leaves before digging down somewhat past the base of the rootstock would result in breaking it off, possibly losing the root altogether, and as he did not see more than that solitary plant in the area, he was most unwilling to risk it. Finally, the root. He pulled, twisted, gently and steadily, held it in his hand. Thank you! And he chewed it, the precious drops of liquid running down his cracked throat, allowing him to swallow, smile, eyes stinging with tears that could not comelife. Now. To that seep! The ooze of moisture in the four thin root-tubers of the waterleaf plant had not been enough to make a significant dent of any sort in Einars dehydration, but had moistened his mouth, at least, and had done wonders for his spirits and for what had been his seriously lagging level of hope. The newfound encouragement allowed him to drag himself down through the remainder of the trees, across the sunfilled clearing that lay near the meadow, actually pulling himself to his feet and taking a few unsteady steps to hasten his departure from the sun, hot, baking him and quickly raising his body temperature to dangerous levels as he struggled across the open ground. Back into the shade, under the evergreens, and he was sure he could smell water, was nearing the seep. There. He saw the ferns that marked it, feet from the meadow beneath a scanty covering of aspens, and he pulled himself through the ferns, under them, tunneling through passages of soft, enveloping greenness, face in the water, drink

Liz, now that she had some idea of where she was going, moved quickly that morning, covering well over half of the timbered miles in the first few hours of the morning and finally, as the sun began climbing high, reaching a low spot that held a creek, wide, rough, booming and rippling even that late in the summer, and she paused on its banks to search for the best spot in which to cross. She settled, finally, on a slightly wider and calmer stretch some distance upstream where a number of rocky bars broke the surface, dividing the waters up into several channels, none of which looked too great a challenge to cross. Still, she knew it would be foolish not to give the creek its due respect, and before tying her bootlaces together, stuffing her socks down in the toes and slinging them over her shoulder for the crossing, she hunted through the tangle of downed timber on the creek bank for a staff, settling on a six foot section of spruce that looked to be the entire trunk of a young tree, stripped bare of branches and bark by the fury of that springs snowmelt flow and deposited with everything else in the tangle there on the creek bank. Balancing carefully, facing always upstream for balance, she inched her way across, the water swift but at no point rising far above mid-thigh, and she completed the crossing

without incident. Sitting down to get back into her boots, she realized that she had still not taken the time to go through Susans jacket pockets, and decided to do so. The jacket, an inexpensive fleece-lined rain resistant windbreaker-type, mercifully a color that could best be described as forest green, rather than some shade of magenta or orange or the bright, almost florescent yellow-green that seemed mysteriously popular at the moment, had four pockets, all of them zippered, and Liz started her survey with the outer pair. She supposed that the jackets color was neither a function of accident, nor simply Susans preference, which she had noticed tended more towards lavender, anyway, but was the result of the deliberate effort she and Bill had always seemed to be making to be as prepared as possible for any eventuality. Bill had even mentioned to her a time or two that they deliberately wore earth tones, plaids, muted colors at all times, wanting to be able to step out of their vehicles and melt into the woods at any time, and figuring that it could never hurt to have a bit of a head start. You just cant plan for everything, he had told her, and it makes no sense to go around dressed like a doggone billboard all the time. Real bad habit thats likely to come back and bite a person, at some point. The concept had made sense to Liz at the time and she had begun practicing it herself, and now, when remaining hidden had become a sudden priority, she was very grateful to Susan for thinking ahead in her gear purchases. In the outer pockets, she found a small packet of facial tissue, some chapstick and, to her bemusement, a little button compass on a string. Well. I should have looked through here sooner! Climbing up the little rise behind the creek until she could see the crag she had picked out as her next landmark, she took a rough compass reading on it--doesnt have to be exact. Im just trying to hit the side of a quarter-mile long barn, after all--in case she should become turned around in the dark timber, and the day grown too cloudy for her to get a good idea of the position of the sun. Thanks, Susan! Contained in the inner pockets she found a pair of thin leather gardening gloves, some orange marking tape and, in the second, a small Old and New Testament, no larger than an index card and less than an inch thick, contained in a quart-sized freezer bag. It looked quite old and smelled of old leather, and though she could not find a date inside, did recognize the name of Susans mother inscribed on the inside of the cover. A family heirloom, and she felt bad about taking it, but at the same time it seemed that Susan had given her quite a gift. There. It is good to know just what I have. And she continued, occasionally checking the compass and making for the rock spires, a feeling of renewed urgency coming over her whenever she thought of Einar, anxious to find out whether or not he had found his way to the strange rock feature she had been seeking since the day before.

Einar, sleeping as his body absorbed the gallon of water that he had been able to consume as the tiny sips he had at first been constrained to gave way to thirsty gulps, spent the next several hours there beside the seep before waking, feeling a bit better but still terribly dry, rolling over so that his face was back in the seep and drinking again. He remembered the deer once, vaguely, as one remembers a dream and with no more certainty that it had been real, drank some more to fill his achingly empty stomach, emptied his bladder for the first time in two days and went back to sleep. Evening came

and the mosquitoes settled thickly on the exposed patches of his skin, which were few-hands, lower arms, one side of his face--but he was not aware of their high pitched whining or the slight stings of the dozens of probing bites as the creatures sought to dine on his blood, the bulk of them soon giving up and moving on to more promising targets.

Reaching the high granite spires at last, Liz found the front of the formation to present an impenetrable-looking fortress, unclimbable, by her at least, and providing no shelter where she thought it likely a wanted man, injured and perhaps still ill from the bear tranquilizers, would choose to take refuge. Working her way around to the back side of the spires she discovered the meadow, many times as long as it was wide, a beautiful, protected refuge. Are you here, Einar? She felt that he was, somewhere, began her search and eventually began seeing signs of human presence--a bit of trampled meadow grass, scuffed rock, and finally a clear trail in the dust where it appeared that something had been dragged repeatedly back and forth from the meadow to the rock face. Exploring the face, she found the opening, narrow, tight, and doubted she could pull herself through it, nearly gave up but tried again, knowing that he probably could have, and thinking that he might be lying in there, somewhere in the dark, cold recesses of that rock, in trouble and unable to answer her when she called to him, soft but persistent through the echoing twists and turns and folds of stone. He was not there, but had been, Liz finally squeezing past the tight spot and making her way back to what was clearly a bed of sorts, firepit dug but never used, a pot of soaked, and swelled split peas sitting there drained of water and dry once again, and she tried to piece together the story, searched but could not find anything to tell her where he had gone. His pack was there, though, a good bit of his gear in it, slung carelessly on the ground in a manner that seemed to her entirely unlike him, and she worried. Sometime in the night, the long, chilly night that descended over that high place and gripped it in teeth that promised the near approach of the falls first frost, Liz, who had camped in the dry leaves just outside Einars shelter-crevice, hoping to hear him if he came near in the night, heard the snarling of coyotes, the high pitched yipping and hollering of half-grown young finding food, play-fighting, eating, she supposed. She lay there staring up at the silver moon as it wheeled overhead and finally dipped down behind the spires, hearing the coyotes off and on through the night, nearer, farther, but always seeming to return to the approximate spot where she had first heard them, snarling and yelping and carrying on, wild, weird, where are you, Einar? Why arent you here, with your bed and your pack and your food? Sure hope youre safe, out there.

Morning came and Einar drifted slowly back to awareness, chilled from his night spent on the damp ground beside the seep, battling the cold as well as the hunger-induced inertia that had gripped him for the past few days. Stirring, opening his eyes, he remembered little of the night--it was a blur in his mind of dark shadows and silver moonlight on the water, the icy, oozing water that had seeped into his bones as he lay

there and left him freezing, shaking, wishing for shelter and someplace dry to sleep. He had stayed, though, knowing that the water meant life, that he had nearly lost his for lack of it and still needed more, drank more every time he woke, unwilling to leave as the cold silver moon climbed, hung for what seemed an interminable length of time and finally began its descent down to the far horizon, the wild chorus of some nearby coyotes providing him with music that seemed most appropriate to the night. They had been after his deer, his food, and he woke knowing it, though in the night he had not been sure, had doubted the existence of the deer altogether, as, when he attempted to reason through it, he found it highly unlikely that he would have possessed the strength to get a fatal dart into any such creature. In the morning light, though, his mind was clear, his memory sure, he knew that he must get up there and see what the coyotes had left him. Something, surely. He began, once again, the climb up to where he had left the deers trail--look for the cairn, dont think I dreamed the cairn--but found that, even with the good quantity of water he had drunk and absorbed since the previous day, it was all he could do to make progress at all, let along maintain a good pace. He supposed that the water, while it had been tremendously important, had only served to further aggravate some of the problems he had been experiencing over the past days, diluting his blood and creating even greater electrolyte imbalances. Well. Few bites of deer should fix that But first, he had to get there. The sun rose, finally, Einar having covered something over half the distance up to his little trail-marker cairn, reaching the aspens and traveling under them, no longer tormented by their water-noises, movement slow, labored, but constant. He would make it. Before another evening comes, hopefully There beneath the aspens, further slowed by their fallen trunks and beginning to lose hope just a bit, beginning to wonder once again whether the deer had been merely the stuff of dream, he found the dart, broken, just over half of it remaining, and knew that he was on the right path. Wondering, he inspected the dart, could not understand how he had overlooked it on his previous days travels, but saw that he must have. Lacking anything in which to carry the dart--what were you thinking, leaving your pack?--he kept it in his hand, using the broken shaft to help himself gain purchase on the rough and increasingly rocky ground. There. The cairn. He sat down next to it, leaned on it, searched for just enough strength to get him going again, to convince himself that it was worth the continued effort. The day was warming, which was good, as he had not been able to move quickly enough yet to warm up from the night, and Einar dozed a bit in the sun beside the cairn, the monotonous hum of the bees in the Indian paintbrush and lupine lulling him to sleep, urging him to cease his effort and rest. He was thirsty again, his head pounding, mouth dry, and he wished he had possessed a way to carry some water with him. Sleep. Wont notice any of it, if you just sleep Then he heard something else. Footsteps down below him, on his path, or close to it, human footsteps in the aspen leaves, and he rolled down behind the cairn, hand on the Glock, squinting and shaking his head in an attempt to clear his cloudy vision. Theyd done it again, it seemed, tracked him down, and he was beset by a sudden terror that they might be meaning to get another one of those awful darts into him. No. Not happening, this time. He had a nearly full magazine, had the advantage of being on the uphill side and of having heard his opponent first, had a bit of cover in the rock cairn, and meant to use all of these things to his advantage. There. His pursuer was approaching, the brush swaying, and the pistol was in

his hand, heavy, Einar seeming to lack the strength to hold it properly but bracing his hands on one of the cairn-rocks, ready. Liz. He saw her there, just emerging from a stand of spruces, and it seemed she had seen him, as well, was coming. In a moment of turmoil, he was not sure whether to lower the gun, or fire, sure that Lizs appearance was a trick, some clever ruse on the part of his pursuers, intended to get him to lower his guard so he could be taken, but it was definitely her, and he knew she would not betray him like that. Hoped he was right. Most unlikely that she could find me up here on her own, or would try, though and he supposed he must be dreaming again, hallucinating, something, but she certainly looked real, he was reasonably sure he was awake, and he stuck the Glock back in his belt, the death-fire in his sunken eyes dimming, fading to something more like confused, halfbelieving relief. He struggled to stand, hauled himself shakily to his feet, not wanting Liz, if it was indeed her, to see him crawling and dragging himself along like the weak, pitiful creature he feared he had become. Leaning heavily on an aspen, he waited for her. Liz could see right away that Einar was in trouble, was having a difficult time remaining standing, could see in his rigid, determined stance and in the way that he seemed unable to quite look at her, dull eyes focused vaguely on the nearby trees, that he was trying very hard to conceal just how bad off he was, but she knew. It was difficult to miss--she was worried, had never seen his face look quite like that--but she pretended not to notice, wanting to preserve his dignity, knowing he would prefer it that way. EinarIve been looking for you, she blurted out as casually as she could manage, took his hand, helped him sit down beneath a nearby spruce where he would be out of the sun, as she was fairly certain that at least part of his problem was related to lack of water. He tried to speak, coughed, couldnt get his vocal cords to cooperate. You need water. I have a little, here. She handed him the plastic bag that had contained Susans Bible and which she had appropriated as a water container, helped him sip tiny amounts of it until he could swallow, at which he gulped the remainder of the water thirstily, thanked her. Let myself get behind, too far behind, water, food, all of it. Thanks. Lizwhat are you doing here? What happened? Things go wrong at the canoe rental place? No, that worked. They believed that you had been there, believed my kidnapping story, but then they went up and looked at that cache, and their choppers started falling out of the skyseems helicopters are allergic to you, or something. The Sheriff put me in protective custody to keep the feds away, but then he found out there was a federal warrant for me, something they wanted to keep quiet, some Patriot Act thing, and some folks helped me get away, just in time. And here I am. I heard about the bear darts they got you withare you alright? Doesnt really look like youve been eating Ah, been eating some, but Liz, they poisoned my food, heard them talking while I was out from the dartswas laying there under the rock, and they must not have realized I could hear them. Said they got to everything except some split peas I had from a cache,

and Ive been trying to eat them, but theyre raw, and I just keep getting further behind. Got some snares out butnothing. Nothing, yet. Finally decided to go ahead and eat the poisoned food, but couldnt make the climb up to where I had stashed it. Holed up for a few days in a crack in the rock after that, was getting pretty weak, but then I heard a deer in the grass outside, got it with the atlatl. Trying to trail it right now, been trying for two days, but Im awful slow, and I think the coyotes got some of it, last night. Been real sick from those darts, Liz. Couldnt think straight for awhile, didnt know where I was, what I was, even. Never been so lost in my lifestill kind of am, I guess. Sure glad youre here. Im glad too! She squeezed his hand, saw that he was shivering in the coolness of the shade and draped Susans jacket over him. Here. I brought food! This will help. She handed him the jar of Nutella which she had, as she had resolved to do, left untouched to present to him. Einar grinned--though it looked rather more like a grimace, to Liz-thanked her, couldnt seem to get the lid off the jar, and she helped him, handed him a stick to dig it out with. Eat. You just stay here and finish as much of that as you feel like eating, OK? Now, this deer. How would I go about finding her? This is her blood here on the rock, I suppose? Yes. Doubt she got real far, judging from looks of this trail. Up there in the rocks somewhere. Let me have a bite of this stuff, and Ill come with you. Oh, its OK. You just rest. Ill go up there and get a quarter or something, whatever the coyotes didnt get, and bring it back down to your shelter. I found the shelter last night, when I first got here. Then, we can eat! He nodded, knowing he would just slow her down if he insisted on going along, but insisting she take the pistol, in case some larger creature had staked its claim to the deer and was still in the area. Einar meant to eat for a minute, gather a bit of strength and then follow Liz so he could help her dress out the deer, but he fell asleep before managing to consume more than two bites of the rich, wonderful chocolatey hazelnut goo, waking a few minutes later to the deep rumble of a large helicopter and the terrible thought that Liz had, after all, been working with his pursuers, had alerted them to his position and disappeared. With the Glock. Should have known.

Despite Einars concern, the helicopter passed overhead without pausing, circling or even giving the area a second look, carrying out one of the occasional routine search runs that had been taking place since search crews had failed to find a body, or even pieces of one, at the missile strike site. Its rumbling fading off into the distance, Einar crawled out from beneath the tree he had sheltered under, listening for more activity, hearing none, and feeling a bit foolish for having assumed that Liz had given him away. He knew better. And knew that the flight, alarming as it had been, the way it was timed, was likely just part of whatever routine search they were still carrying on over the wider area. It had

certainly not been the only such, in recent days. Taking another scoop of the Nutella, Einar wanted to curl up under a tree and finish the entire jar, but knew that this would be most unwise, in his present condition. Better go help Liz, anyway. And he followed the blood trail, movement still painfully slow and awkward, but finding himself finally able to stand and shuffle along at something that approached a walk. He had not gone five hundred yards up the rocky, tree-dotted slope before he heard shouting and picked up his pace, fearing that Liz might have met with some trouble up at the deer carcass when some large predator proved unwilling to leave its find. Badly winded after the first few running steps he crouched beside a rock for a few seconds, squeezing his eyes shut against the welling blackness and pulling his knife--the only weapon he carried, aside from the broken dart--forcing himself up after a brief rest to hurry again towards the sounds of Lizs shouting. He wondered, as he pushed himself up the slope, lungs burning and legs feeling as if they were on the verge of giving out, why she did not use the pistol, if the danger was so great. Surely she had not forgotten that he gave it to her? Einar neared the little clearing where the deer had apparently breathed its last, heard something rather sizeable go crashing off through the brush, at which the shouting stopped. He stumbled into the clearing, knife still in hand, vision blurring as he glanced around for Liz, hoping she was alright and ready to do battle, such as it would be, with whatever unseen menace lurked out there in the bushes. She saw him, hurried to him, seeming a bit alarmed about something, but he was not immediately sure whether it was the object of her shouting that had her all upset, or the fact that he found himself suddenly unable to remain upright, keeling over and landing rather hard, face down in the rocks. Hands on his arms, she was lifting him, trying to help him sit up, pressing the sleeve of the jacket to a rock-gash on his cheek. Einar, what Im sorry! I didnt think youd be able to hear me. Sure didnt mean to get you running up here like this. There was a big old hungry black bear on the deer, and she didnt scare very easily, so I just had to keep yelling at her and throwing rocks, and jabbing at her with this hiking stick that Ive had with me since crossing a creek a while back. Shes gone now. I could have used the pistol, but didnt want to startle you with the sound, and I didnt want to waste any bullets, either. Since theyre all weve got, I thought wed better save them. Einar nodded, let his breath out and gave a wry little smile, letting his head rest on his knees, still close to passing out from the effort of the climb. OK. Thats good. You did good. He put away the knife, took a few breaths before he could speak again. Bearsgone now. Heard it crashing around in the brush down there. Mustve scared it real good. Oh, I did! But Im afraid between the bear and those coyotes last night, theres not too much of the deer left for us. I was hoping the liver would still be there for you, but its gonealmost everythings gone. They did leave the stomach Very nearly too weary to care at the moment whether he ever ate again or not, Einar shrugged and tried to reassure her. Doesnt matter. Liverwould have been rotten by

now, anyway, as sunny and warm as its been. Best that the critters get it. Im sure theres something left. And, seeing that Liz appeared not especially inclined to go deal with the deer while he was sitting there, appearing, he supposed, near death from exhaustion, he got himself to his feet, rubbing his hip where he had landed in the rocks and hoping there was enough meat left on that deer, at least, to allow him to begin putting a bit of padding back on his frame. Falling, sitting, sleeping, even, sure would hurt less, if I could do that Inspecting the creatures remains he saw that, really, there hardly was enough meat to make two or three decent meals. The coyotes had torn into the deers stomach and eaten away a good portion of the meat thus made accessible to them, including, not surprisingly, most of the internal organs. And then the bear had flipped the creature over, chowing down on the other side. The hide was a mess, both hind quarters nearly devoid of meat, and Einar crouched down beside the carcass, which was in the sun and beginning to smell a bit in the afternoon warmth, and began removing the largest portion of intact hide that was left, for use as a carrying container. Then with Lizs help he cut away some of the remaining meat, slivers and chunks here and there, piling them in the center of the hide. The deer had not been an especially fat one, but there were sections of white fat layer left where the coyotes and bear had not devoured it entirely, and Einar focused on these, even though he knew that they would be somewhat rancidtasting from sitting in the air and sun for so long. He did not care, and whenever he thought Liz wasnt looking, hurried to sneak pieces of the melty fat into his mouth. Eventually she caught him at it, suggested he wait until they could cook it but did not seem overly hopeful that he would follow her suggestion. Which he did not, so she went on pretending not to notice as he snuck the occasional bite here and there. Filling the hide-bag with as much meat as they could salvage, Einar separating and adding one of the deers lower leg portions so he could extract the marrow and have the bone for making more dart heads, Liz lifted the roughly improvised container onto her shoulder. Einar tried to object, tried to get her to allow him to carry the bag, but as he could hardly keep on his feet as it was, found himself in rather a bad spot for winning any such argument, and finally took the grocery bag, instead. I know you probably have uses for the rest of the bones, the sinew, all of that, Liz spoke up, seeing that Einar was eying the carved up carcass ruefully, appraising it and trying to decide if he could get it up on his back and carry it. How about if we come back for it, right after getting this meat somewhere safe. I can make a return trip and drag it down to your shelter, and we can hang it up in the back or something, until youre ready to use it. I saw some rope in your pack. He nodded. Yeah. Have uses for all of it. Some will be bait--we can build a bear trap did it once before, but then I had to move on before I really got a chance to use it. Need to find four trees that are spaced just right as the framework for it, then pick out a big heavy aspen for the deadfall, lift it, get a trigger under it and bait the thing with some of these deer bones and scraps. Right around here somewhere might be a good idea, since the bear already knows theres food to be had, here. Only thing isdont know if I could lift that log today, so maybe we better take the carcass back with us, hide it away in the rocks like you said, come back in a day or two. Got to take it with us now, though, cause if we leave it, bearll probably come back as soon as were out of sight and sound, and

drag it off somewhere. If you can help me get it situated--that one remaining back leg over my right shoulder so I can grab it--I can drag it back down this hill. Liz helped him and they started the descent, Einar having to stop more often than he would have wished for rest and Liz repeatedly asking him if she could help, if he would leave the carcass and let her come back for it in a few minutes, but she could see that as he was determined to do it, her repeated offers of aid could only be making things more difficult for him, so she eventually stopped bringing it up, silently helping him over obstacles and pulling him back to his feet after each increasingly frequent rest. Reaching the rock crevice at last, they got the meat and carcass inside, Liz chimneying up in the back of the crevice and jamming a horizontal stick in place at Einars direction, helping him tie up the remains of the deer--little more than bones, really--and suspend them from the stick, using Willis climbing rope. After that Einar found himself totally beat, unable to hold his head up any longer, and with profuse but mumbled apologies to Liz, he flopped down on the bed of spruce needles, and slept. Which was, despite his apologies, much to Lizs relief, as she had been striving to get him to do just that, ever since they reached the crevice. She had begun to think that he really would simply keep going and going until he finally fell over dead, and considered sleep a most desirable alternative. Sleeping for a good while, Einar was only dimly aware of Lizs comings and goings as she went down to the seep--which he had shown her on the way down-- and filled his cooking pot and water bottle, organized all of the groceries she got from Susan, and the meager amount of food she found in Einars pack--what? No rabbit bones or half eaten weasel carcasses? Silly guy must have meant it when he said he has been trying to live on raw split peas. Looks like its been going pretty badly--shaking her head sadly and draping the wolverine hide over Einar where he slept, having curled up into a ball for warmth as the chill settled into his bones. Youre going to have a good dinner tonight, Einar, she said softly. How about split pea soup with venison, extra deer fat added-rancid, but stillfatty--and for dessert, tapioca with Nutella stirred in? How does that sound? Einar did not answer, did not open his eyes, but stirred in his sleep, suddenly immersed in a wonderful dream, a feasting dream, waking just after dusk to the smell of wood smoke and cooking venison, ravenously hungry.

Scrambling to his feet in the half light of evening, Einar hurried over to the fire, momentarily abandoned while Liz gathered more wood outside, ready to quickly cover it with dirt to stop the offending smoke he expected to see billowing out of the pit. Stopping himself with both cupped hands full of dry dusty dirt, he realized that there was no need. Liz had gone ahead with the fire without asking, had perhaps unwisely put them at risk in doing do, but at least she had done it correctly. Only the faintest wisp of smoke curled on occasion from the hole, and in looking at the scattering of broken-up branches that lay on one side of the firepit--Wow. Guess I slept through her breaking all of that. Not a good thing--he saw that she was using dry aspen in the fire, dry branches brittle and grey with age, completely free of bark, the best possible option, considering the limited types of wood to be found in their immediate area. While the dry aspen burned quickly

and without releasing as much heat as would the more resinous pine and spruce varieties that also surrounded the meadow, it did so without producing much smoke at all. Liz was learning. Glancing at the fire again, Einars attention was held by the sight of a pot of simmering stew, thick and rich and with visible blobs of fat on its bubbling surface, inhaling its steam and very nearly drooling. Split peas it looked like, cooked, for once, peppered with shreds and chunks of meat from the decimated deer carcass, perhaps slightly past fresh, but smelling awfully good to him, nonetheless. Liz had suspended the pot down in the fire hole by passing its wire bale over a green stick and setting the stick across the opening, so that the top of the pot was just slightly below the top of the hole. A very efficient way to cook, and just the way Einar normally used such fire holes. When he had a pot to cook in, in the first place. Liz returned, ducking in under an especially narrow spot between the two walls of rock and entering the shelter, a bundle of dry aspen branches under her arm. She looked at him apprehensively, clearly unsure how he would react to having woken to find the fire. I wanted to ask you first about this, but I saw that you already had the firepit all set up, and it was almost darkthat deer was starting to smell a little old. It really needed to be cooked before you ate it, and I didnt want you waking up hungry, with nothing ready, and Liz. He stopped her. Its OK. Thanks. You did just like I would have done--dry wood, stay away from anything that ever had needles, instead of leaves, the stuff that has a lot of pitch in it. This is good. If you hear a chopper, though, a low plane, better slide this flat rock over the pit to cool things down. Hopefully that wont happen too soon, though, because whatever youve got in that potwell, thats got to be about the best stuff Ive ever smelled! She dumped her load of firewood beside the pit, stirred the stew with a stick. Oh, youre just hungry. Nothing too fancy, but it ought to do the job. I found some wild onions down in the meadow by the seep. Thats probably why it smells so good. It should be almost ready. Liz tasted the stew, lifted the pot off of the fire and slid the flat rock most of the way over the pit to keep the coals smoldering while consuming the least possible amount of wood, setting the steaming pot on the rock to stay warm. I dont suppose youve got any spoons around here? No, Ikinda thought about making one a time or two, but never really got around to it. I usually just use a stick, or my knife if its more solid. Sorry. She laughed. I was just kidding, anyway. This stew is pretty thick. Those split peas looked like they must have been soaking for days. Sticks ought to work just fine, and Im sure spoons have never had the chance to work themselves anywhere near the top of your priority list. Go easy on this stuff, though. Remember what happened the last time you were this hungry, when you were at my house and ate all that bread and then got into the situation where you had low phosphorus--couldnt hardly breathe, remember? Or swallow. That was pretty bad. We dont want a repeat of that!

Aw, Ive been eating, here and there. Just not quite enough. Im not nearly as bad off now as I was that time. Quiet for a minute, Liz sat down next to him. Yeah, Einar, I think you are. I think maybe the effects of those darts somehow kept you from realizing what was happening, how serious it was, but OK. Ill take it slow. Now, you gonna let me have some of that stuff, or not? They gave thanks--Einar for his life, as well as the food, knowing full well, despite his stubborn assertions to the contrary, how close he had been to losing it--ate in silence for a while, Einar aiming for the chunks of venison in the stew, knowing that the protein-rich meat would be better for him than the starchier peas, and, somewhat to Lizs dismay, supplementing the meal with chunks and slivers of half-rancid, uncooked deer fat from the carcass that hung at the back of the shelter. She did not question him, at least not out loud, supposing that he surely knew how and what he needed to eat, and knowing that fat had to be a large part of what he was short on. Finally, as an alternative, she offered him the jar of tahini--sesame seed butter--which in addition to being quite fatty, was full of a variety of vitamins and minerals that she knew ought to help him get back to normal after being without, or nearly so, for so long. This looks like a pretty good spot you found--the shelter, that meadow and water seep, all these rock spires. Are you planning on spending the winter here? Thoughtfully chewing his mouthful of stew and staring at the glowing remains of the fire, Einar considered his answer. He wanted to come right out and say, wellnot anymore. Was gonna be the end of the trail for me for a while, but now that you know where it is, Ill have to find another spot just as soon as you move on, because youve got a federal warrant out for you, and whats to say they may not get ahold of you at some point, and make you talk? Cant have that. Cant stay, now. Einar said none of that, of course, instead nodding and allowing that yes, it had better be. Winters coming pretty quick now, and Im way behind when it comes to getting ready. Especially since they got to my food, my pemmican, everything. I can help. Put out snares, traps, help you make jerky with some of the meat, or whatever you plan on doing to get readyI dont really understand about this poisoning of your food, though. You said it happened after they got you with those darts? From the look on his face at the mention of the darts, Liz thought for a moment that she might have made a mistake in bringing them up, but the momentary shadow passed, Einar returning to the present and glancing up at her. Yeah. Some of it. Some I had cached, and they got to it before I found it, poisoned everything but the peas--some oil, salt, a big jar of honey--but then after the dartsI dont know exactly how it happened, but they got to my pemmican, injected something into it. I saw the little holes in the casing. Kept the stuff for bear bait, all of it, but I got

so awfully hungry a few days ago that I had to stash it way up high in the cliffs to keep myself from eating it. His voice grew very low, quiet, until Liz had to lean closer to make out his words. Was ready to eat it, a couple days ago. Was beyond caring about the poison, just wanted to eat. But I couldnt make the climb. Pretty glad about that, now Im confused about this poison, Einar. The pemmicanwhere was it when they poisoned it? Because it sounded from what you said like you had it with you, but that couldnt be. It was in my pack. After they got those darts in me He shuddered, and Liz could see that the darts, and their aftermath, were a topic that he would rather have avoided. I dont even know how long I was laying there by that creek, but it seemed like it could have been days. Anyway, they came, I guessfound me, the rocks turneduhbetter not mention that part, Einar. Dont think that was real, the rocks turning to glass-ice Anyway, I heard them talking very near me, just feet away, and that must have been when they did it. Wait. No. Youre saying the backpack was with you at all times? And that they found it, and poisoned the pemmican while you were wearing it? Einar nodded, beginning to feel a bit too confused to trust himself with speech. Einar, I dont know what happened up there, but theres no way they would have found you, poisoned your pemmican and let you go! They would have captured you, killed you, something. Anything but let you go again, poisoned pemmican, or not. Could you have been hallucinating or something? From the darts? Think about it! And he did, staring at her like she had slapped him in the face and feeling rather as if she had, as if she had just shattered his world around him and left him unsure that any of it was, or had been, real. Finally he grinned, shook his head sadly but could not meet her eye. Ithink there is a very good possibility that youre right. I was so sure. Saw a lot of things, heard things, went places after those darts, but after it was over, I knew it hadnt been real. Any of it. This was differentseemed different, anyway. Just dont know. Einar did not feel much like eating after that, figured hed had about as much as he should consume at one time, anyway, helping Liz put out the fire and feeling his way to the pad of spruce needles that served as a bed. Liz was asking him something, something about a candle, and he told her sure, it was fine if she wanted to light it, light but not much heat, pretty safe. Carrying the lit candle she found her way over to the bed, set it on a flat rock and sat down next to Einar. Im sorry if I shouldnt have brought that up about the food. I can see that youre upset. I just thought, if the food is safeyou could really use that pemmican, and the oil and honey. Einar nodded, sat up. You were right to say it. After the darts, I wasnt sure for a while what was real and what wasnt, but I thought Id got it all figured out by now. Thought I was back to normal. Finding out that I was wrong, and wrong in such a big way

It scared you? He looked away, nodded. I got to be sure of whats real. How am I gonna live out here if I cant even be sure of whats real? Youll get it all straightened out. And until then, Ill help you. I am real, you dont need to doubt that. I know you are. That was one I never questioned. You were there after the darts, I was sure of you when I doubted even my own existence. Sure. He took her hand, and they sat for a long time in silence, watching the last of the evenings light fade and the stars appear one by one in the thin ribbon of sky overhead. Einar, finally able to stay awake no longer, curled up on the edge of the spruce-bed, careful to leave plenty of room for Liz, who had lit the candle again and was doing something with the leftover food. Eventually finishing with her tasks and ready for bed herself, Liz, seeing that Einar was having trouble with the evening chill, curled up against his back for warmth, wrapping her arms around him and tucking the wolverine hide in around the two of them. Einar, still wide awake despite his weariness and wracking his brain trying to remember just how he had become so certain about the (apparently fictitious) poison, felt like jumping up and seeking refuge in the far corners of the shelter when Liz lay down with him, but he was awfully cold and she was not, knew he would not begin to warm up for many hours, on his own, so he stayed, finally relaxing, sleeping, warm Outside the shelter a bear, probably the same two year old sow that Liz had caught feeding on the deer, shuffled along near the narrow crack between the rock walls, sniffing and snorting and swatting at the rock, lamenting her inability to fit through the crack to get at the remains of the deer, which she could smell, obscured but not obliterated by the human scent. Feeding for nearly twenty hours out of each day in preparation for the swiftly approaching arrival of cooler weather, the bear would be back.

Toland Jimson was on his way to Washington, having been called to testify before a specially convened Congressional Investigative Committee regarding his unauthorized and rather unorthodox use of one of the Predators Hellfire missiles in an attempt to bring an end to the Asmundson manhunt, and as the day of his scheduled appearance neared, he began to grow a bit nervous. He had only been up and walking for two days, carefully, steps at a time, when, forbidden by his doctors to fly, he made the long drive--ride, really, as he did not do any of the driving--to DC, wearing a back brace and moving rather slowly after his injuries and the surgery that had saved him from a lifetime of partial paralysis. His condition frustrated him, angered him, even, for Toland Jimson had never been a patient man, but he supposed the brace and the other visible signs of his injury might at least play well before Congress, might give him a chance to tell his side of the story before they started demanding his resignation and arrest. It would not buy him much time, he knew, before a hearing room full of restless Congressmen who were

already irritated at the delay in their summer recess, not much time, but perhaps just enough. Toland Jimson did have the gift of persuasion, of rhetoric, and he planned to use it to full advantage in what he knew would be a desperate fight for not only his future with the Bureau, but his future as anything other than a federal felon. As he rode in the back of the wheelchair van hour after hour down the Interstate, Kansas, Missouri, on and on, endlessly, he rolled the .40 caliber round back and forth between his fingers, planning not only the testimony that he hoped would salvage his career and leave him in charge of the search, something of a hero for being wounded in the line of duty, but also planning his next move in the hunt for Asmundson, a hunt that would, he was increasingly determined, end with that particular bullet in the fugitives brain. Mile after mile, Jimson recited his speech, refined it, answered with growing confidence and ease the series of questions that he had written out and given to one of he agents escorting him on the journey, questions he believed he would face when called before Congress. Bud Kilgore, bearing his own share of scratches and scrapes, a cast on his right leg and a heaping share of righteous indignation, was also on his was to Washington, scheduled to testify immediately after Toland Jimson.

Sometime in the night a helicopter came over, thundering low between rocky ridges in a routine night surveillance run, routine for the searchers, perhaps, but not for Einar, who quickly freed himself from Lizs grasp and rolled out of the bed, plastering himself against the far wall of the shelter and listening as the echoes died out down in the timbered valley below the Bulwarks, weird and muted through the narrow, twisting passages of rock. Trembling, listening, all of his senses on full alert as the sound grew fainter and faded altogether, Einar was not the least bit ready to go back to bed. Instead he made his way, unsteady, relying on the rock walls at times for support, out to the open air where he sat staring up at the sky and listening to the night noises of the meadow, the soft sounds of a deer cropping grass, an infrequent lazy chirp as a cricket, nearly too sluggish to sing in the night chill, let out the occasional sound, the tiny scufflings and squeakings of a mouse in the rocks over to his left. He could even, he was sure, hear the gentle dripping and oozing of the seep, water slowly overflowing, crackling and bubbling as it was accepted by the nearly saturated earth. It was cold, the approaching bite of fall present in the air, crisp and undeniable, and Einar inhaled deeply of the night breeze that whispered across the meadow, the tang of nearly ripe chokecherries mingling with the scent of dew-damp aspen leaves, last years leaves, spicy and wonderful as they decomposed to nourish the forest. They were, he knew, soon to be joined by the leaves of the current year, which, he had noticed over the past several days, were already beginning to lose the brilliance of their summer green. Soon the trees would transform into the flaming torches of yellow-gold that he had always loved, golden light cascading through their airy boughs to give the ground a golden iridescence that had always quickened his step and lightened his heart. His favorite time of year, normally, the impending change brought him dread and little else at the moment, the cool breeze blowing right through him and whispering a warning of very hard times to come.

Liz came looking for him eventually, approaching softly, speaking to him in a hushed tone so as not to startle him with her presence and draping the wolverine hide over his shoulders where he sat on a low rock in the shadow of the spire, carefully avoiding the silver splashes of moonlight that lay cold and stark on the ground, freezing, but for the moment unwilling to accompany Liz back up to the shelter. She sat with him, silent, sensing that he did not want to talk, until finally after some minutes he broke the silence. Got a lot to do before the snow flies. A month, three weeks, maybe, is all we have. Better get going on that bear trap tomorrow. These clothes weve got, well, theyre not adequate for a winter spent up here above ten thousand feet. Ive done it with no more-less, for parts of it--but its awful rough, and wed need a lot less food if we werent having to use so much energy just staying warm enough to keep alive. Need a bear hide, couple of deer, elk would be good. Ive got to make some more darts for the atlatl so I got something to take bigger game with. Be a while before I can use a bow, again. But I better get started on one, so its ready when I am. Ever done any bow hunting? No. Bill was going to teach me, before he died I want to learn. And I can help you set up that bear trap, help with the meat, hides, everything. I learn fast. Einar grunted his assent. That certainly seemed to be a fact. And a good thing, too, if youre planning on giving this life a try, Liz. No second chances, on some of this, and those you do get, usually end up costing pretty dearly. He wanted to say all of that, wanted to say a lot of things, but kept quiet, knowing that he had better think of just the right way to word all of his thoughts before giving it a try, lest they come across in a way he did not intend. Sure not any good at this talking to people business. Theres a real good reason--several of them in fact--why I was always alone, even before, but I cant seem to get her to see it. Fool girl. Sure could use your help with that trap, then, he finally responded, figuring he had better give the rest some more thought before trying to talk about it, and finding himself suddenly too weary to form a coherent sentence more than a few words long. Better get back to bed, I guess. Sorry for waking you. Its alright. I heard that helicopter, too, but it didnt sound like it knew we were in the area. Liz was up early the next morning, quietly leaving the shelter, and Einar, who lay curled up on the spruce needles fast asleep, having finally managed to return to slumber sometime just before dawn. Having studied his face and watched his breathing for a while before leaving, Liz had concluded that Einar was still badly in need of water, had probably been shorting himself for days, and would take a while to catch up, longer still when it came to food. The drawn, pinched appearance of his features concerned her, as did the fact that he had seemed to lose interest in the dinner before having eaten more than a few bites. She wanted to cook him something for breakfast, but knew a daytime fire was not an option he would likely consider wise, so settled for making a trip down to the seep for water, knowing that he would be likely to drink more if it was more readily available. In the are of dense underbrush and scattered aspens just up behind the seep she

found a number of thimbleberry bushes, their wide, almost maple-shaped leaves and large but somewhat dry pinkish-red berries setting them apart from raspberries, to which they were somewhat closely related. Tasting one of the berries, which came lose with the slightest touch to fall into her hands or, more frequently, onto the ground below, she found it to be sweet, full of seeds and drier than a blackberry or raspberry, but quite good to eat. Collecting several hands full and stopping only when she ran out of pockets to put them in, she filled the water bottle and the bag she had used on her journey as a water container, heading back up to the shelter. The sun was just reaching the meadow floor as she made her way up the short rock field below the base of the spires and the entrance to the shelter, and in the stark morning sunlight she saw the clear impression of wide, almost humanlike feet there in the dust outside the shelter. Bear! Maybe we wont have to go very far to set that trap! Sitting on the rocks outside the shelter, hesitating to wake Einar as long as he was able to continue getting some good rest, she mashed up most of the thimbleberries and mixed them into a bottle of water, quietly sneaking into the shelter and retrieving two of the multivitamin tablets from the bottle she had discovered in his pack. Carefully crushing up the tablets between two smooth rocks, Liz stirred the vitamin dust into Einars water with the berries, shaking the bottle to help everything dissolve further and setting it on a flat rock beside the bed before going back out. The sweetened, vitamin rich water ought, she knew, to at least give him a bit of energy and some of the electrolytes that he was probably still short on, so hopefully he wont see that bottle, decide Im trying to poison him, and flee for his life Which reminded her. She needed to find out where exactly he had stashed the poisoned food, so she could retrieve it for their use. With winter coming fast and an enormous amount of work to be done to make ready for it, an easy supply of energy-dense food like Einar had described could, she knew, probably mean the difference between life and death.

Einar scrambled to his feet, waking when he heard Liz leave the shelter after setting the mix of berries and vitamin powder near the bed and realizing that he had slept longer than he had intended. Already the sun had climbed high enough to begin shining in through the opening between the sheltering walls of rock, the day well under way. Suspiciously eying the bottle of pinkish liquid sitting on the rock bedside his bed Einar smelled it, held it up so he could get a closer look at the lumps and chunks of what appeared to be berries bobbing and floating in the water, and had the brief thought that someone must have sneaked into the shelter while he slept, taken Liz, and left him the poison-water so he would drink it and be incapacitated by the time they returned for him. Hed almost convinced himself of it, started looking for alternate ways out of the shelter so he could go find Liz and attempt to free her from her captors, when he remembered their conversation the evening before. No poison. There never was any poison. The foods all safe, this water is bound to be safe, Liz probably left it for you, and youre awful thirsty. Just drink it. He couldnt, though. Just wasnt sure. Put the lid back on the bottle and set it aside, chose the narrowest section where the walls swooped close together and began chimneying, or trying to, determined to escape from the trap and rescue Liz before his

pursuers returned for him. Liz found him some ten minutes later, no more than twelve feet off the ground and unable to go further, back on one wall and knees jammed against the other, hanging there, resting, looking for a bit more strength so he could go on, but finding none. Where are you going, Einar? Is that where you hid all the food? He squinted down at her, went limp with relief on seeing that she had not, after all, been captured, and slid down to the ground where he sat with his back to the wall, knowing that he lacked the strength to remain sitting, otherwise. No. Not the food. Just checking on something. Is everythingOK out there this morning? Just checking on? She shook her head, exasperated. Youre determined to do yourself in, arent you, you stubborn old fool? What if you had fallen? Yes, everythings just fine outside. I found some fresh-looking bear tracks just outside the crevice, so it looks like that bear is still in the area. Maybe later we can do that bear trap you were talking about. For now, though, why dont you check on the bed for a while, rest, and drink up this breakfast I made for you. You made that? What is it? Well, yes, I made it. How else would it have got there? Its thimbleberries and some crushed-up vitamins from your pack. Give it a try. Einar did, finding the mixture easy to swallow and very refreshing, thanking Liz and draining the bottle. Well! That was very good. Now Im ready to go work on the trap. Lets have a look at those tracks. Einar pulled himself to his feet, taking his pack and heading down the narrow hallway of rock, Liz pursuing him with the jar of Nutella and insisting that he have a bit more breakfast before getting to work. Choosing an area of close-growing aspens just across the meadow from the shelter, knowing that the less distance they would have to move the bear, assuming they got one, the better, Einar searched for the four close-growing trees that would form the rectangular framework for the trap, finding them, glad to see a wind-felled aspen not too far from them that could be used for the deadfall portion of he trap. They would need two trees, one for the deadfall and one to place on the ground beneath it to ensure that the bear would remain firmly trapped, and Einar let Liz know what he was looking for, each of them going their separate ways in search of it. Before long Liz came hurrying back into the little clearing where Einar had, in her absence, begun dragging the downed aspen over towards the four trees that were to hold it steady, wanting to scold him for starting to drag it without waiting for her, but instead simply showing him what she had found. Milkweed! Theres a giant patch of it over there in that sunny spot to one side of the seep, and it looks like it just recently got done blooming. She held out her hand, sticky with the white latex-sap of the milkweed and containing four immature pods, just over two inches in length. Susan used to cook these up and eat them. Should I get more?

Oh. And I found another downed aspen, too. Great. And sure, you can get more. They look just about right for eating, though we will have to boil them first, so theyll be for tonight, when we can have a fire. That white sap is awful bitter if you try to eat it raw, and pretty nauseating. I guess its considered mildly toxic. But boiling them neutralizes it, and if you change the water once in the middle of the process, you can get almost all of the bitterness out, too. Theyre good food. Before, when I had my cabin, I used to can up a bunch of them in vinegar and garlic, to have for the winter. A lot like pickled okra. You canned things? Wellyeah. Havent you? Milkweed pods arent much good dried, as it turns out, so why not? And then theres the chokecherry jam, the Oregon grapes It just surprises me a little. Its hard to picture you living any way other than this, and spending the day in the kitchen canning pickled milkweed pods would have been one of the last things Id have suspected you of! He laughed a bit at that, shrugged. Full of surprises, I guess Now, if you found a big patch of milkweed, we can also use the stalks for cordage, later in the year when they dry. Can collect a bunch of them so we can work on the cordage this winter. Got to have something to do during three day blizzards He grinned, grabbed the stub of a branch he had been using to drag the fallen aspen, and she helped him move it towards the trap. Yes, I guess so! What did you do last winter during blizzards like that? The levity left his eyes as she asked, his face growing dark and serious. Uhmade some cordage. Made myself a hat and a boot out of twined aspen bark to replace the one Id lost. Coated them with pitch to waterproof them. Spent an awful lot of time trying to dry out my clothes afterwell, after crawling through the snow to check my snares. Hip was hurt, couldnt walk for over a month, one time. Finally made a crutch, but it was awful hard to use it in the snow, so a lot of times I gave up and crawled instead. Mostly just sat around and froze though, really. Dreamed about food. Tried to stay out of the weather and not burn any more calories than I had to. Last winter was not a good time This one will be better, she insisted, putting her hand on his arm and quickly looking away to keep him from seeing that her eyes were brimming with tears as she thought of him crawling through the snow, starved and freezing. Itll be a lot better. Einar, suddenly finding himself a bit self-conscious at having been so open with Liz regarding the conditions he had faced during the winter and supposing that he must have said too much, hurried to get back to moving the tree. The aspen trunk finally in place as the bottom log in the trap, Einar, who had throughout the second half of the job been fighting a welling blackness that wanted to claim him, sat down on the log, breathing hard and badly in need of some rest. The world was tipping around him, blurring, spinning, and

rather than waiting to fall over, he rolled onto his side, pressed himself up against the aspen trunk, disappearing into the shadows beside it. Just gonna rest for a second, Liz. Be there to help you with the other tree in a minute. She brought him water, insisted that he drink before resting, wanted him to eat, too, but he fell asleep before she could talk him into it. Liz, expecting that he might sleep for a good while and hoping that he would, went to collect more of the milkweed pods, checking on Einar before heading up to the shelter to stash them in the shade of the rocks until evening, as the day had become quite warm. Emptying the remainder of the previous evenings dinner of split pea-venison stew onto a clean, curved section of aspen bark, she used a bit of water, some charcoal from the fire and a short section of spruce branch to scrub out the pot, pouring in some tapioca when she was finished and covering it with water. Covering the pot to keep out dirt and bugs (huh! I bet Einar would tell me to leave it uncovered, go ahead and let the bugs drown in the water, then cook them up for extra protein) she set the tapioca down in the fire hole to soak, knowing that the longer it soaked, the less cooking it would require. Finished with her chores, Liz returned to the trap with the leftover stew, hoping that Einar would pause for some lunch before resuming the trap building. He was not there.

Einar had grown chilly sleeping there in the shadow of the aspen log, finally rising to crawl out into the sunlight for warmth, lying back down in the fragrant aspen leaf litter and quickly drifting to sleep again, dreaming of winter, of storms, of long hours warm by the fire making cordage, snowshoes, talking with Liz, content in the knowledge that they had plenty of jerky and pemmican and half a bear frozen in the snow bank outside Sleeping, Einar was aware of the world no more until he was roused by a rustling and snapping in the brush that in his half-awake state he assumed must mark Lizs return. Pulling himself drowsily to his feet, feeling heavy and confused from lying so long in the sun but not wishing her to discover him still sleeping when there was so much work to do, he glanced over in the direction of the noises. Hello, bear. Youre a little early

The bear, a large cinnamon male, stood not ten feet from Einar, sniffing curiously at him and backing off by only a few feet at the sound of his voice. Einar grabbed a branch from the ground beside him, drew himself up to his full height and waved the stick above his head, shouting at the bear and gesturing with his other arm. The bear stood its ground, whuffing at him and going up on its hind legs, still sniffing the air, not overly aggressive but not nearly as shy and skittish as he was used to seeing from black bears. Einar advanced by a step, shouted louder, but the bear maintained its position, and he realized with a sudden chill that the creature must be looking at him as food. Rare for a black bear, but he had heard occasional accounts of bears dragging a human from a sleeping bag, apparently intent on dining, before said snack began kicking and screaming and fighting back, and realized that in his condition, he might have been singled out as a sick or wounded animal, reasonable prey for the large omnivorous creature as it frantically

worked to put on fat ahead of the coming cold if winter. Knowing that firing the Glock, though the .40 round would likely be incapable of fatally wounding the creature, would almost certainly be enough to frighten it off, Einar hesitated, not wanting to waste the round and hoping that by putting on a vigorous enough show, he might be able to convince the bear that he was not quite as weak as it had apparently decided, was not worth the trouble as a meal. The creature appeared largely unimpressed, dropping back to all fours and taking an experimental swat at him, Einar responding by dropping the stick and quickly pulling the Glock, hitting the side of the animals head just below the ear with his first shot, the stunned bear standing there and shaking his head for a fraction of a second before letting out an enraged growl and charging at Einar, who was ready, calmly took aim at the bears left eye socket just as it reared over him, knew he had it, knew the shot would be a success, only to have the gun jam. No time, no time to drop the magazine and attempt to clear the jam, and he ducked, diving out of the way but, not as quick as he had once been, not quite making it. The angry bear caught him in the chest with its large paw, flipped and tossed him seven or eight feet to slam into an aspen, the force with which he hit knocking his breath out and also freeing a recently dead, leaning tree that had become entangled in the branches above when it originally fell, dropping it on him and securely pinning his legs and lower body. Einar somehow got the knife into his hand--the pistol was gone--grasped tightly, waiting, ready to do battle with the bear when it reached him. But, it never did. Deciding that the easy meal it had anticipated enjoying was far too noisy and painful to mess with and further spooked by the falling tree, the creature, having swatted him out of its way, shuffled off into the bushes after easier, more cooperative food. Like berries. And already-dead things. Einar was pinned, the dead weight of the still-green aspen trapping him securely against the ground, and he struggled, pulled, drove his knife into the ground and used it in an attempt to get some leverage, but lacked the strength to drag himself free. OK, find something to pry and prop with--real sturdy branch, stack of rocks, even, to get some of this weight off me. The only branches within his reach, though, were from the aspen, flimsy and brittle and nowhere near adequate, but he tried them anyway, breaking one after another in a failed effort to raise the tree by even an inch or two. Exhausted, hurting, he rested. Minutes later Liz came, he could hear her trampling around it the brush, and knew it was her, rather than the bear--speaking of the bear, wheres that Glock? Cant see it. Guess it went flying when the critter swatted me--because he heard her speaking, searching for him and he tried to call for her but couldnt get a decent lungful of air. Before he could manage anything louder than a croak, she had moved off in the direction of the seep, quietly calling for him, apparently thinking he had gone that way. Not enough air, need more air, gonna pass out here before long Consciously working to slow his heart rate--it was difficult, there was a good deal of pain in his legs, pelvis, everything that was trapped beneath the tree, but a growing numbness, too--he breathed, five seconds in, fill your lungs as far as you can, hold it, five outthats better, do it again, waited, heard nothing that indicated Liz was returning, and he looked around, surveying the situation with as much calm detachment as he could muster,

considering that he could not really breathe. No way he was moving the tree, so he knew that he must focus on getting himself out from under it. What can I move? These little rocks, maybe. One by one he pried at the rocks, chips of granite and mica-rich schist that lay embedded in the aspen duff beneath him, freeing first one and then another, tossing them aside. Blackness, It was coming, and he fought it, fought with his breath and his will and all that he had to fight it with. Please, give me strength, breath, just another breath, another More rocks, painstakingly pried from the ground and moved, but still he was held fast, tried using a sharp granite flake to dig himself free, but the ground was too rocky, too solid, and he could do little more than scratch at its surface. He was tiring, his breaths coming with more difficulty, the weight of the tree seeming greater all the time. Grabbing two nearby rocks he banged them together, one, two, three, over and over, ended by throwing them against a nearby dead tree, barkless and weathered to a soft grey, where their impact echoed loudly. Liz. Please. Do you hear me? A hissing in his ears, blackness again, this time overwhelming his efforts to resist it, and when next he was aware of his surroundings, he realizedno. She does not hear you, is not coming. On your own, for now, so get out from under this thing before it all goes black again, because as hard as it is to breathe, your body might just forget to do it, if youre unconscious for too long. Knowing that he had to stay awake, continuing to look for a way out and hoping Liz would come along before he found himself unable to keep it up, as he knew he eventually would, Einar did his best to keep his breathing slow and regular, occasionally working with the sharp rock to scratch away at the hard soil beneath him, his mind from time to time trying to drift onto the subject of his probable injuries, of what awaited him if and when he did manage to free himself, but he very deliberately shoved those thoughts aside. Later, Einar. Later. You just keep breathing, working away at that dirt.

Liz, after searching the immediate area of the trap, the milkweed patch and the seep and finding no sign of Einar, decided to head on up the rugged, rocky slope opposite the spires, where he had told her he had previously set several marmot deadfalls. More meat for the stewpot was always a good thing, and besides, she knew, if they did not get the meat, the coyotes would. Einars disappearance puzzled her, but she supposed he must simply be attempting to make up for the time he had lost while sleeping, was probably off scouting for a second tree for the trap, or who knew what else? She was beginning to realize that attempts to figure him out were largely futile, that he must simply be given a lot of space to go his own way, though she would have liked to drag him up to the shelter, seal off its entrance with rocks and tie him to the bed for a week or two so he didnt try to climb out, to give him at least some chance to rest, eat and recover. But that would be a very bad idea, indeed! All right then, Einar. Ill be back in a while, wherever you are. I see you left the water bottle, though, and your pack. Strange, strange man. Morning became afternoon, and Liz returned to the area of the half-constructed trap after nearly an hour of scouting during which she had found the deadfalls, one untouched and the other appearing to have been tripped, and, from the dark stain beneath it, successfully,

but the deadfall rock was flipped over, the quarry gone. She reset the traps, seeking out fresh greens to bait them and hoping the remaining marmots would not be too skittish to give them a try. On her way down, she filled her pockets with serviceberries, past their prime and half dried on the bushes, but still sweet and good to eat, noticing also that the chokecherries, which hung in plentiful clusters all around the area of the seep, were trading their deep red summer hue for a glossy black, indicating that they would soon be ready for harvest. I guess we will have to dry a bunch of themon rocks in the sun, maybe? Have to ask Einar, but that would be my guess. Either that, or cut whole clusters, make some kind of rack and dry the clusters in the sun like raisins. She knew that the pits of the small wild cherries, like their leaves, roots and bark, contained some cyanide, but was pretty sure she remembered hearing that it was destroyed by drying or roasting and that some of the local tribes has dried the cherries, pits and all, and ground them up for additions to soups, stews and, less commonly, pemmican. Making note of the locations of the best bushes, she finished the descent to the meadow and the bear trap at its edge, hoping Einar might have returned so they could share some lunch. Still no sign of Einar down near the bear trap, his pack and water were as she had left them, and Liz began for the first time to feel a bit of apprehension, thinking perhaps he had wandered off somewhere and passed out, or run out of the energy to get back. Surely in all this time he would have at least come back and taken a drink, if he could She shouted for him, got no reply and decided to make a trip up to the shelter to see if he had returned there for food or rest.

Finding no sign of Einar at the shelter, Liz hurried back to the bear trap and started looking for tracks. Something, she was sure by that point, must have gone wrong for him to be gone for so long, especially while they had been in the middle of an unfinished project. Starting at the spot where he had been sleeping beside the trap she studied the ground, seeing nothing at first but, on closer examination, finding a series of masheddown areas in the vegetation, leading away from the trap. Following them, something caught her eye, an odd splash of black in a nearby serviceberry bush. Einars pistol. What happened? She picked it up, saw that it had jammed and cleared it, wondering what Einar had been shooting at, why he had apparently thrown the weapon into the brush, and getting a partial answer the next moment when she saw the back half of a fresh bear track clearly imprinted in the loose soil of a large anthill. The pistol ready and every sense alert for the slightest sound that might give her some indication of approaching danger, Liz followed the path of damaged, trampled vegetation, clear to her, now, finding one partial boot print, then nothing but bear tracks as the creature had apparently shuffled off into the bushes. No sign of Einar, no second trail through the brush taking off in another direction, but no real indication of a struggle, either. What did you do? Climb a tree? She doubted it, doubted he could have, but looked up anyway, found all of the nearby trees to be empty, and began calling for him. Einar heard Lizs shouting, had thought he heard something crashing around in the brush a few minutes before, but had not been sure, his hearing obscured somewhat by the

rushing of the blood in his head as he increasingly struggled with the weight of the tree on him, pressing him into the ground and causing his breaths to come with increasing difficulty. Her voice, though, he was sure of, and he knew he must not allow her again to pass him by, must get out from under that tree. Again he tried shouting, speaking, calling for her, but his throat was too dry to manage it, and he instead began throwing rock chips and chunks at nearby trees, eventually striking one of them repeatedly, praying that she would hear, come. Which she did, pistol pointed at the source of the sound, finally seeing the fallen tree, and Einar, hurrying to him. Liz did not even say anything at first, looking at the tree, at Einar, trying to see how best to move it without hurting him further. Einar, pretty desperate by that time for water and wanting to be able to tell Liz a few things before she went prying at the tree, asked for some, whispering, but she understood and helped him take a drink. Bearmight come back. Careful. Was hungry, hard to scare. A bear did this to you? Well, explain later, Ive got to figure out a way to get the tree off. Can youget a branch or something under it, here beside me? Pile of rocks? Lift it just a couple inches. Cant breathe. Yes, yes, here. She found a stout section of branch from higher up on the tree, quickly broke off the splintered section to achieve the right height, and got her back under the tree, lifting, straining, struggling to raise it by the inch or two that Einar needed to ease his breathing. She was making progress, slowly, with difficulty, ready to slide the branch into place when he cried out for her to stop. My leg! Put it back down. Crushing my leg Liz, seeing the problem, eased the tree back to its original position. It had shifted, though, just enough to put a bit more weight on Einars back, making breathing next to impossible. She could see right away that there was no time for careful planning; the tree had to come off, in a hurry. Listen Einar. I know this is going to hurt, but I have to slide it off of you. Pivot it at the wide end and slide it off. I cant lift it off; its too heavy, and youve got to be able to breathe. Just hang on. This wont take long, OK? Einar nodded, rested his forehead on the ground, the tiny, shallow breaths his position allowed him barely adequate to keep him conscious. Liz got herself under the tree just in front of him, lifted and shoved with her shoulders, sliding the tree just far enough to free his trapped legs. Quickly rolling onto his back away from the tree, Einar filled his lungs with a great gasp of air, another, his face regaining a bit of color after a few such breaths, tried but failed to sit up, and Liz was beside him, striving to keep him still so she could assess the extent of his injuries, but he kept struggling, pushing her away. Im alright, can breathe now, so Im fine. Help me up? Got to know if I can stand

please! Einar. She grabbed his shoulders, held him down. Be still. There was something in her voice that he had never heard before, something that demanded his attention, and he stopped struggling, looked up at her. Why? What do you see? Tell me. Got an open fracture, dont I? Bones sticking out? And he struggled again to sit up, wanting to see his legs. NoI dont think so, dont know, yet. Now lie down before you do yourself more harm. Youve got to let me look you over before you do any more moving. Just be still for a minute. Einar finally still, Liz hurried to examine him, not knowing how long she might be able to keep him that way. He was showing no signs of serious internal bleeding, at least, his pulse strong and not overly fast, considering that he hed just been trapped under a fallen tree for an unknown stretch of time. Still, she was seriously concerned that the tree might have hurt his legs, broken ribs, possibly broken his pelvis, even, the way it had landed on him. She knew that under those circumstances, movement could aggravate his injuries or might even very well kill him, if jagged bone fragments sliced through arteries or injured internal organs. When she gently examined his ribs and pelvis, though, there did not seem to be any undue pain or movement of the bones, and the way he was breathing--deep, fairly slow breaths as he worked to manage the pain-told her that his ribs were very likely not involved. Legs were a different story. His left was badly bruised where the tree had come to rest across it, but he was able to flex his toes and even his ankle without too much trouble, could push against her hand with his foot quite strongly, and did not react when she felt along the length of his lower leg. She knew, though, as soon as she began removing his right boot, that the situation was worse on that side. Any flexing of his ankle brought an immediate response, and though he remained silent, she could see his knuckles go white as he gripped a nearby branch. Ok, Ok, Ill be more careful. We have to get the boot off, though, in case your foot ends up swelling later. Finally freeing his foot of the boot, she carefully rolled up his pants leg, seeing that his shin, in addition to being bruised and purple, was seriously deformed, the leg bent at an angle that left her no doubt that it was broken. Einar sat up at that point and she did not try to stop him, having done what she could to see that he did not have other serious injuries. Well, thats not the way its supposed to look, is it? Gonna need your help with this one, Liz. Doggone tree. He lowered his head, scrunched his eyes closed for a second, working to get control of the pain again, to get ahold of himself so he would continue to be of some use. Why dont yougo find a couple of real straight branches, sticks, something we can use to splint this. Have toget it back in place before it swells up too much, and we cant. Liz gave him another drink, squeezed his shoulder and went in search of the sticks, somewhat reassured at the matter-or-fact way in which he seemed to be handling the whole situation, pushing aside what had been her own growing panic at the prospect of

having to figure out what to do for a rather serious injury. As soon as Liz was out of sight, Einar leaned forward, took firm hold of his lower leg below the break, and began pulling away from his body in the direction that the bones were skewed in, hoping to get the muscles to relax enough that he could get the leg back into its natural position, but finding himself unable to exert enough pressure, as the leg was already somewhat swollen. He rested briefly, tried again with no more success. Well, could figure out a way to do this, would if I was by myself, for sure, but shes here, so I might as well let her help. Just gonna hurt myself if I keep trying it this way. And he lay back down, dizzy, hurting, waiting for Liz to return with the splint-sticks. The rustling and stomping he heard in the brush over to his left a few minutes later, though, did not sound at all like Liz.

Quickly sitting up when he realized that it was not Liz he heard trampling around in the nearby vegetation, Einar grabbed a branch and his knife and prepared to fight for his life, using the stick to struggle to his feet, holding his injured leg up and hobbling over to two aspens that stood near him, not wanting to be flat on his back when the bear reached him. Standing on one foot, wedged between the two close-growing trees to keep himself from toppling over, Einar shouted at the bear, which was advancing on him steadily, apparently intent on obtaining the meal it had earlier been denied. Hearing Einars shouts, Liz, a good distance above him on the aspen-covered hill, glanced up and saw the creature heading for Einar, focused, determined, and she ran at it, screaming, knowing she was too far away to be sure of hitting it with the handgun, that there were too many trees in the way, and seeing that she must not wait until she was within range to begin making noise and attempting to get the animals attention. It appeared that the bear was already close to him, approaching, and she knew that with his bad leg and no weapon beyond the knife, he was basically defenseless should it decide to make a meal of him. The bear, seeing the wild-haired, screaming human female charging at him, wheeled around and took off at a rolling lope into the trees, having discovered that, however obnoxious the noisy, stinging creature might have been, the one that he had earlier tried to make a snack of and had now returned to finish off, the female of the species was a greater terror still, and certainly nothing to be messed with. On to other, safer food, then. Liz ran to Einar only to find that, to her dismay, he had got himself to his feet--or foot-wedging himself securely between two close-growing aspens for support and preparing to face the bear, knife in hand. She shuddered, knowing that he would have died there had the bear gone ahead with his apparent intentions, picturing his body mauled and bloody, hanging limply between the two trees. Did he hurt you? Im so sorry. I should have left you this. She handed him the Glock, afterwards grabbing both of his arms and easing him out from between the trees, lowering him back to the ground as he explained that the bear had not got close enough to take a swipe at him before she started hollering. I guess wed better fix up your leg so we can get you to the shelter. That bear was acting

pretty weird, and it might come back. Yeah. Same one that came before while I was sleeping, wouldnt scare when I yelled at him, tossed me against this tree when I shot him, and thats when the other tree fell on me. He seemed convinced I was good to eat, but I dont think hell be back, now. You can be positively fearsome, when you need to! He tried to grin, but it came out as a pained grimace, instead. The unavoidable movement of getting up off the ground ahead of the approach of the bear had certainly not done his leg any good. Liz ran back up and retrieved the splint-sticks she had found, dashing back down to Einar and showing him the sticks. Between these, my jacket and your polypro shirt, we ought to be able to make something that will work temporarily, I think, and tie it all up with that paracord youve always got in your pocket. Will you be warm enough in just the vest, until we get up to the shelter? Uhthats the least of my worries right now. But sure. He took off the shirt, putting the vest back on in its place. Lets go ahead and get this done. The more the leg swells, the harder itll be to set it. NowIm gonna grab my leg up here above the break, and I need you to pullpull on the foot, pull it in the direction the messed-up bone is pointing in, just enough to relax the muscles, then move it into the right position, real slow. Stop if it feels like youre having to force it or anything, shouldnt have to force it. Its gonna hurt me some while youre moving it and I may carry on a little or tell you to stop, but dont, unless you feel it hang up. Ill tell you when its good, though youll probably know, because I will have quit hollering. You with me? Yes, Im ready when you are, she answered as steadily as she could, sitting down in front of him and rolling up his pants leg again, but thinking all the while that I dont want to hurt you, Einar, I dont want to do this, Ive never done this before and Im afraid I might mess it up, this is so much harder than helping Bill and Allan with the folks during SAR missions, folks Id never met beforeI dont now if I can do it Liz was scared half to death, but knew that she must not allow Einar to see it, must present him an air of calm confidence, even if it was, for the moment, all put-on. She swallowed her fear, grabbed his foot firmly, felt for the pulse in his ankle and checked it so that it could be compared, before and after the reduction, and asked if he was ready. Yep, lets get it done, he answered, folding the sleeve of the polypro top and sticking it between his teeth, not wishing to lose any. Once Liz got started working on his leg she did so steadily, without hesitation, backing off once when she heard a sickening grating and felt a bit of resistance, but taking Einars silence as a sign that her actions were not causing him too much pain, encouraged by that fact, gently pulling on his foot until she felt the muscles give, carefully continuing to pull while manipulating the broken section so that it lined up with the rest of his leg. At that point, Einar spit out the sleeve that he had been clamping between his teeth, let out a huge sigh and told her to stop. Good. Thats real good. Big improvement, and he closed his eyes for a minute, taking big, slow breaths, Liz seeing that his forehead was all beaded with sweat, cheeks wet with

tears. Liz wiped his face, offered him some water, which he sipped. That hurt pretty bad, I think. Im sorry. Ohno way to avoid that. You did real good. Its better, now. Lets get that splint on. Before starting on the splint, Liz checked the pulse at his ankle on the injured side, compared it to that on the uninjured, had him move his toes--painful, but possible--and probed his toes with a spruce needle to check for sensation, satisfied that, for the moment at least, circulation in the injured leg was fairly normal. After that, she helped him carefully wrap the jacket around his leg, rolling up a sleeve and putting it behind his knee to keep it slightly bent and leaving the actual area of the break, bruised and purple and beginning to swell, exposed, placing the two sticks along the sides of his legs outside the wrapped jacket and binding them in place with the polypro shirt and paracord. The splint was a roughly improvised thing, but functional, his ankle not completely immobilized for the moment, but the pain greatly reduced, nonetheless. Trying to decide on the best way to get Einar back to the shelter, Liz offered to try and carry him on her back, or even build a travois and drag him, but he did not think much of either of those ideas. The travois sounded awfully painful, likely jarring his injured leg badly, and, he knew, would take a good while to build. As for Liz carrying himwell, he just didnt much like the idea, and as he guessed that she barely weighed over a hundred pounds herself and was a good nine or ten inches shorter in stature than he was, it seemed too much to ask of her. Which leaves one option Ill walk. If you can help me, I can do that short little walk. Liz did not want him walking, but could not come up with a better idea. All right. Let me help you up, and you can lean your right arm on my shoulder, if that would work, to keep all the weight off that leg. They started off, moving very slowly to accommodate for Einars injury, Liz guiding him over to fallen logs or rocks and helping him sit down for a rest whenever she began to feel him sagging, drifting towards the ground, wearing out, which happened fairly frequently. Einar did not speak the entire time, the effort of moving while attempting to spare his leg from too much jarring requiring all of his attention, remaining conscious and working through the pain almost more than he was able to manage, at times. Liz had more confidence in him than he had in himself at that point, sure that he would make it, his jaw set, face pale and dripping with sweat, but bearing a look of determination that left her no doubt that he would keep it up all day, if he had to. Which, thankfully, he did not have to do, as he arrived grim and exhausted at the shelter just over two hours later, Liz helping him through the narrow rock corridor and lowering him onto the bed of spruce needles. Gathering a few rocks and padding them with a large clump of needles, she helped him prop up the injured leg and get into the position that gave him the most relief, though, she could see, the relief was minimal. The walk had been pretty rough on him, and he was clearly in a lot of pain. Liz covered him with the wolverine hide, gave him some water

and said something about being sorry he was having to deal with all of the difficulty the day had brought. Einar, wiping his face and shaking his head to clear his blurry vision before looking up at Liz, responded without missing a beat, Well, Ive had better days but hey, could be worse. Could have been the femur! Liz, wondering how on earth he could manage to joke at a time like that and feeling rather unreceptive to humor herself, at the moment, laughed anyway, figuring it was just his way of handling things. Well, Im sure glad it wasnt the femur, because then I would have had to keep you in traction for a month or so, probably would have had to sit on you whenever you werent sleeping, just to keep you still, and you almost certainly would have ended up killing me, before it was all over. Nah, but I would have probably cut the webbing, or whatever you used, after a week or two when you were away getting water, crawled off into the bushes and hid out like a hurt critter, just taken whatever came. Dont much care for confinement. Liz shared a laugh with him, allowed that yes, she expected he would have done just that, then looked him in the eye, her face suddenly dead serious. Einar, Im really glad it wasnt the femur, but you do know that even still, youre going to need to stay in bed for a couple of weeks, if you want this to heal, keep weight off the leg for a few more after that She saw his face harden, that familiar look of distance and detachment creep back into his eyes, and wished she hadnt said anything. Einar shook his head. Cant do that, Liz. It could snow in two weeks, certainly will have a time or two before four are over, and I got an awful lot to do, before then. But Ill give it a few days, anyway. That trip up here just now was certainly enough to get me out of the mood to try walking, for a while. Think Ill be real content to lie around for a day or two, but after thatwell, Im thinking about it. Got to figure something out, some way to make a more permanent cast that will let me get around, some. She nodded, asked if he would be alright for a few minutes, and headed down to the seep to fill all of their water containers, first giving him the two ibuprofen tablets from the first aid kit--the only two--telling him to go ahead and take them, which he did, knowing that it would be a good idea to do everything possible to minimize the swelling. Liz knew that it was likely to be a long night for Einar, doubted that he would be able to sleep much--though she hoped he could--and wanted at least to have plenty of water for him to drink, to fix food and to use for cold compresses to ice the fracture, and enough wood to keep the fire going and the space heated for a few hours. More than that, though, she wanted a few minutes alone so that she could do some thinking of her own, try and figure out a way to talk Einar out of his determination to be back up on his feet in a day or two, doubting very much that such an attempt could have any outcome other than further injuring him and badly slowing his recovery. Hopefully hell come to that conclusion himself, and maybe I can reassure him that things will be alright even if he had to rest for awhile, if Im really diligent about the trap lines, finish up that bear trap and start working to get the shelter ready for the winter. Of course now if that bear trap actually workswell, I guess Ill be learning how to skin a bear!

Returning with the water--three bottles carried in the backpack and Einars cooking pot, which she carried by hand to avoid spilling it--Liz checked on Einar, who was asleep or close to it, eyes dull and glazed with pain, barely open. She did not want to disturb him, but did need to check the pulse at his ankle to make sure circulation in the lower leg and foot was not being compromised by swelling or by the improvised splint, and she did so as carefully as possible, but he was wide awake as soon as she touched his foot. Much swelling yet? Feels like there must be. Some, but really not too bad. Your foots doing fine, circulation seems fine. How are you doing? Doing? Uhstill here, I guess. Was better when I had to think about getting up here, had that to focus on. Kinda hurts, now that Im just lying still. Could you eat something? Some of last nights stew, or one of the things I brought from Susan? He grunted, turned face to the wall, swallowed the nausea that he felt rising at the mention of food. Doubt it. But thanks. Better wait a while. Water would be good. Liz helped him take a drink from one of the freshly filled bottles, left it where he could easily reach it, and went back out for firewood, evening quickly approaching. As soon as Liz had gone, Einar, badly needing something to take his mind off of the agonizing pain in his leg and knowing that the scratches left on his chest by the bear would be needing attention, sat up as well as he could, took the medical kit out of the backpack and shoved the pack under his neck and head to keep him propped up. In the effort to tend to the leg, both he and Liz had forgotten about the gouges left by the creatures claws, but his sternum was beginning to ache badly where it had swatted him, reminding him of the encounter, and when he pulled up his vest it was to discover that the series of ugly gashes still oozed blood. Well, good. Not scabbed over, yet. Can clean them out, then, hopefully keep them from getting infected. Tending to the wounds did manage to get Einars mind off the leg for a time, especially when he made the (admittedly poor) decision to wipe them down with an iodine pad from the medical kit after cleaning them out with a bit of water. He had to clamp his teeth together to keep from crying out, after that, and was glad Liz was not there to see him slamming rocks against the nearby walls and bashing them on the floor until the stinging subsided a bit. One of the gashes, in particular, troubled him more than the others, as it seemed a good bit deeper and, moving the vest out of the way to get a better look at it, he realized that it had cut deeply enough that he was seeing bone. Not that the critter needed to go very deep to reach bone, there In his emaciated condition, the bones in that area were protected by a paper-thin layer of skin and little more. Pretty ridiculous, Einar. Better start wearing a padded vest, or something, until you manage to put on a little weight, so

it goes better the next time a bear decides to use you as a Frisbee. Even as he joked about it, though, Einar realized how very fortunate he was that the fractured bone in his leg had not torn right through the skin. Would have been dead, then, almost for sure. And it wouldve taken days, too. Bone infection, sepsis, lousy way to go. He shook his head, drew together and taped the worst of the gashes on his chest with some Steri-strips from the medical kit, and covered the area with one of the mullein leaves he had taken to keeping in the kit, since using up the last of the gauze, feeling immensely thankful, immensely blessed, despite his injuries. Having seen no further sign of the bear while getting water, Liz kept a sharp eye out for it as she searched for wood in the growing dusk, aware that the creature, unlike most black bears that lived far from human habitation and had not been thus acclimatized to the presence of humans, seemed to have little fear, at least when it came to approaching Einar. The way it had taken off when she ran at it, waving her arms and screaming, gave Liz a bit of confidence that the animal took her somewhat more seriously, but still, she was cautious. Arms full of the driest dead wood she could find, and dragging behind her a fifteen foot standing dead aspen she had been able to knock down--a small tree, but long dead and devoid of all bark--Liz returned to the shelter, having to drop her load of firewood at the entrance in order to be able to squeeze through, tossing the lengths one by one over and past the narrowest point before collecting them again and proceeding to the wider area that held the bed. Struggling with the firewood, she wondered if Einar intended to spend the winter in the narrow crevice of rock, or if it was merely a temporary stopping place where he had holed up until he had the time and strength to come up with something better. The place is certainly difficult to access, and a real pain to haul things into, but I guess maybe he only sees that as an advantage. No bears will be getting in here, and it would be pretty difficult for a human any bigger than myself to squeeze past that tight spot, unless they were half starved like he is. Even as she contemplated the positives and negatives of the shelter, though, Liz knew that whatever Einar had been planning, those plans would have to be put on hold, at least temporarily, as he recovered from the broken leg. The protection the crevice-shelter offered him in his immobile state was priceless, and meant that he could rest and sleep while she was away, without having to worry about being interrupted by large predators or wandering humans, if any happened to wander through. She doubted any would. The place was so remote, and surrounded by such a vast and bewildering sea of timbered hills, that she highly doubted it saw much traffic. Except maybe during hunting seasonthe first of which is coming up in just a few weeks! Her blood ran cold at that thought, as she realized that they would have to be extremely careful during that time, probably avoiding fire altogether and going out only with great care, lest they be discovered. And people could be out scouting, even now. Better start thinking about ways to make it less likely that well get found. I wish I had a way to know just what day of the month it is, and had a copy of the schedule for the different seasons. Ill sit down later and figure out the date--pretty sure I can work backwards and manage that--and maybe between Einar and me, we can come up with a good idea of what the schedule might be.

Having heard the clatter as Liz wrestled the firewood through the narrow passages of rock, Einar was sitting up when she finally wormed her way out into the wider area of the shelter, frustrated and on edge because he could not get up and help her. It was going to be a long few weeks. The pain was a little better, though, seemed to be coming in waves, for whatever reason, and low tide had arrived. Liz, glad to see him looking a bit more alert and seemingly not suffering as badly, lit a candle to see by in the dusky gloom and built a fire, lighting it, pleased to be able to show Einar that she had, once again, chosen well when it came to firewood. There was almost no smoke. The small space was soon filled with the odor of heating food as she cooked the tapioca that had been soaking all day and reheated the previous nights stew, setting it, for lack of a second pot, on the flat rock that partially covered the firepit and forming the thick, starchy stuff into rough patties that she scraped up with the pocket knife Einar had given her and flipped over from time to time, as they cooked. The food smells, in addition to making the place feel a bit more homey as the fire took off the evening chill, served to cover up the increasingly sour odor of the deer carcass that hung at the back of the crevice. Einar, though, much to his dismay, found the cooking smells mildly repulsive at best, and knew he would be doing well to get down a few bites of the stew. At Lizs encouragement he tried anyway, nearly gagged on the first bite of split pea-venison patty, and had to stop. Liz, ravenous, herself, after the work and strain of the day, gobbled three of them as the tapioca came to a gentle boil and filled the space with yet another fragrance. One that, Liz could see by the way he kept staring at the pot, Einar found a good bit more appetizing, especially when she stirred in three big spoonfulls of Nutella when the stuff was nearly ready. Finding the starchy pudding a bit easier to eat, Einar put away a good quantity of it, Liz a little concerned, when he started cleaning out the pot, that the rush of carbohydrates might be difficult for his system to handle after going for so long on so little, but hoped the fat and protein of the Nutella would serve to counteract any ill effects, and prevent the situation that had come up when he ate up an entire loaf of bread that time at her house, and got so sick. Dinner finished, Liz scrubbed the pot and set another batch of tapioca to soak for the next day, again checking the circulation in Einars leg and finding it to be decent, though the swelling did seem to have increased significantly, and she loosened the ties that bound the splints, carefully adjusting them while avoiding jarring his leg at all. Throughout the supper and the tasks immediately following, they had been quiet, hardly saying three words to each other, but it had been an easy silence, comfortable, somehow seeming appropriate, and Liz hated to break it, but needed to get Einars OK to do something for his leg. The swelling is going up a little, now. I brought extra water, and I think it might be a good idea to soak some rags in it--we dont have ice, of course, but it would be the same idea--and see if we can get the swelling down, some. Is that alright? He nodded. Sure. Would probably feel good. Where are you gonna get the rags, though? WellI was actually going to use socks. The wool ones wouldnt work very well, since

wool feels warm even when wet, and all, but I was wearing cotton ones when the Sheriffs wife broke me out of jail, so if you dont mind using my dirty socks for cold compresses, then we can give it a try. Oh, theyre bound to be a good bit cleaner than mine. Laundry hasnt exactly worked its way near the top of the priority list too often around here latelysorry about that. Yeah, lets give it a try. Soaking one of the cotton socks in cold water she had brought from the seep and kept behind a pile of rocks to prevent the fire beginning to warm it, Liz wrung it out just enough to keep water from trickling down Einars propped-up leg, placing it over the break where she had left an exposed area when constructing the splint. Einar grimaced, held his breath for a few seconds, but shortly the stinging was replaced with a feeling of relief, and he leaned back on his spruce needle pillow, thanking Liz for the idea. She soaked another sock, taking it to hang from a tree outside, where the temperature would drop more quickly, so it would be iced by the time the first had warmed and needed to be replaced. The wet, cold compress, while it was helping the swelling in his leg, was also chilling Einar quite badly even with the fire, a fresh wave of hurt unleashed in his leg every time he shivered, and Liz, seeing that he was already wearing all the extra clothing they had between them, sat behind him and draped the wolverine hide over the two of them, trying to help him stay warm. The setup worked to some extent, in that he finally managed to stop trembling, but Liz could see that they would need to be coming up with some warmer clothing, and soon, if Einar was to make it through the approaching cold months. That, or he needs to start eating more--a lot more. Ill work on that, too. It was clear that Einar was nowhere near being able to go to sleep, so they talked for a while, Liz finally asking him about the bear attack. Sowhen I found the gun, it looked like it had jammed. What happened? Yeah, jammed. After the first shot. Bear was coming at me, didnt think I had time to do anything about the jamprobably did, really, if I hadnt been moving so awful slow, should have tried it but I didnt. Justdidnt, he snarled, clearly disgusted with himself. Could hardly hold the pistol up in the first place, felt like it weighed a ton. No wonder that bear figured I looked like an easy meal. Not that bears know how to properly handle a firearm, but I guarantee you they can tell when a critters near the end of its rope and wont be able to put up much of a fight if they decide to turn it into a picnic lunch. He could see it, smell it, sense it somehow, and he was coming for me. That one shot must have been enough to convince him, for a while anyway, that I wasnt worth the trouble. Just tossed me out of his way and left. Guess youdidnt hear that shot? No, I think I must have been up in the shelter then. When I couldnt find you at first, I came up here to put away some milkweed pods Id found, and I was here for a while scraping the leftover step out of the pot and getting the tapioca soaking. Way back in here in the rock, I doubt Id have heard a thing. I sure wish I had.

Yeah, the way these walls twist and turn, no way youd have heard it. Its alright. Harm was already done by that point, anyway, and I didnt get turned into bear food, so I guess it all worked out OK. Kinda glad you showed up when you did, though. It was getting pretty hard to breathe. Einar slept some after that, fitfully and never for long at a stretch, and during his wakeful periods Liz took the opportunity to change the cold compress for a fresh one, sometimes pouring small amounts of water on the drying sock in between changes to refresh its effectiveness. Towards morning, making her way out through the winding corridors of rock to retrieve the sock from its spot hanging in the spruce, she found it to be stiff with frost, the air stinging her nose with chill as she inhaled and sending her hurrying back into the shelter, her cotton shirt and jeans suddenly feeling quite inadequate. Fall was coming.

First thing that morning, Liz got up and pulled back the flat rock that she had, at Einars instruction, slid over the pit as the sky began graying, using two sticks to fish out the three rocks that Einar always kept in the bottom of the pit under the wood, warming. She slid the rocks into two separate socks, giving them to Einar and tucking the wolverine hide in around him. His face was haggard, eyes red and mouth a thin white line after a long night of little sleep and a good bit of squirming and adjusting and seeking for a slightly more comfortable position, struggling to warm up after each of Lizs trips outside for a freshly chilled sock to ice his leg. The swelling, when she checked it, was somewhat worse than the evening before, the entire area of the break a mass of purple bruises and what she supposed must be blood blisters from where the tree had pinned him, but when she checked his pulse, it was still similar to the one in his uninjured leg, so she supposed the swelling was not doing too much harm. Still, she wished she had a way to reduce it further, but aside from continuing to ice the leg throughout the day, she had few ideas. Its cold this morning. These rocks should help you stay warm while Im gone. Theres some more of that tapioca in the pot over here, Nutella and water in the pack, and Ill be back as soon as I can. Is there anything else you need, before I go? Einar propped himself up on his elbows under the wolverine hide, a hint of a crooked smile lighting his pale face and his eyes appearing more animated than she had seen them since the accident, a bit of the dullness leaving them for the moment. Well, Ill take a new leg, new hip and shoulder, and three barrels of lard, while youre at it, how about? Think you can manage that? Liz rolled her eyes, playfully swatted at him with a piece of firewood, and tucked the wolverine pelt back around him where it had slipped down, seeing that he was shivering, already. Well, Ill see what I can do. I dont know about those barrels of lard, but maybe Ill at least come back with a fat marmot or two, for lunch. As for the body partsI guess

were just going to have to get ahold of a bear, and do a transplant. Several of them, it sounds like. Then, you can have the bears fat for lard. Oh Now Im almost sorry I asked. But, as long as were doing the leg and the hip and shoulder, maybe we can transplant the critters layer of fat, too, kinda like the opposite of liposuction, cause thats what I really need, and then I can just sleep all winter! Yep, could curl up and hibernate the winter away! Ahhnow that would be just fine! Einaryoure a mighty goofy guy this morning. Are you OK? Ah, LizIm afraid you havent even seen me goofy, yet. Shoulda been there when I was singing Ole Slewfoot as I leapt off one snowy cliff after another in the middle of a big old blizzard one night last winter. And I thought the whole time that you were with me, kept apologizing to you for the quality of my singing, though in the end you turned out to be a dream or a hallucination or something. Now that was goofy. This is just a little bit of sleep deprivation and a major sense of relief because the pains a little less, for the moment. Dont worry. Im sure it wont last. Which it didnt, the merriment fading from his eyes the next minute, replaced by furrowed brows and a clenched jaw, eyes hard and distant with a look of fixed concentration as the injured leg bombarded him with a fresh wave of pain. When he could speak again, he looked up at Liz, who had kept her distance during the worst of it, having learned that he greatly preferred not to be touched or approached too closely at those times. You seen any willows around here, Liz? Would be a good idea for me to have some willow tea every day while Im not moving my leg, so I dont end up with a clot in there. That would be one we couldnt fix out here, if it happened to break loose and end up in my lung, or something. Andwell, I dont like to say it, but I guess I could really use the willow for the pain, too. Dont know that Im gonna be able to eat much while Im hurting like this, sleep much, either. Pretty sure itd heal faster if I was able to do a little of each, now and then. Should be some willow--little alpine stuff, I expect, but willow is willow, for my purposes--over near that seep, but I havent really had much chance to explore since I got here. I havent noticed any right around here, but Ill see what I can come up with. Hounds tongue would be good, too, if you can find any. Purple blooms, soft hairy leaves, nasty little round burrs in the fall--do you know it? Oh, yes. That one I know! My uncle hates that stuff, and was always having me cut it down and pull it up when I was staying with him and my Aunt. And remember, I found some of it for you before, after you got stabbed. I did see some of it when I went up to check the deadfalls yesterday, andyep! Heres one of the burrs, still stuck in my sock. Ill go get you some. Thanks. Its a lot like comfrey--has a compound called allantoin, that speeds up cell

growth and might really help my leg, if I can make a poultice. Bring a bunch of it, if you can. An old name for comfrey was knit bone, because it was so effective in helping broken bones to heal, and the hounds tongue is just as good. And they call it a noxious weed! Well, the burrs certainly are noxious and I guess its very toxic to cows and other livestock--toxic to their livers, if they eat too much of it--but right now, Im really glad it grows around here. Liz, seeing the improvement in Einars disposition as he explained the benefits of the hounds tongue to her, wished she could stay and continue to engage him in conversation, but knew that there was a great deal of work she needed to get done, that day. Including, if she could persuade him to tell her its location, retrieving the food that Einar had stashed up in the cliffs. They would soon be running short on Nutella and tahini, after which they would have nothing but the odd shred of rancid deer tallow here and there to add fat to their meals of split pea soup and tapioca, and she knew that starch and a bit of protein, alone, would not be enough to start getting Einar turned in the right direction and might well be downright dangerous, if he managed to eat enough of it. Marmots would help, if the traps held one or two, but the coconut and olive oils he had described as being in the food cache would provide a ready source of fat to add to their food, and which Einar he could simply eat right out of the jars, if need be. Not on this trip, though. Ive already got plenty to do on this trip. Ill ask him about the food when I get back. Making sure everything Einar might need was within reach, she left to check the deadfalls and collect herbs, Einar listening to her footsteps fade down the rock corridor before sitting up, determined not to simply lie around like a roadkill coon! while she was gone.

Movement was very difficult for Einar, but he found that by dragging himself backwards using his arms, he was able to make some good progress, reaching the back of the shelter where the deer hung and retrieving a bit of fat that he could just reach by scooting up onto a rock--though he could see that turning around was going to be another matter-without aggravating the leg too much. Itll work, but sure would be a miserable way to get around, if I had any significant distance to cover. Which I dont, unless they somehow find me here. Any such discovery seemed, at that point, highly unlikely, unless one or the other of them managed to make a major mistake that gave away their position. It had happened before--the ill-timed fire when an infrared-equipped aircraft happened to be flying over, a chance meeting with hikers or climbers or cavers that necessitated leaving what would otherwise have been a perfectly good long term shelter--and Einar knew that he would be foolish to assume that a similar set of circumstances could not again arise, just because he needed so badly for it not to. Have to find a way to get mobile, to know I can move under my own power, in case it becomes necessary. He needed a better cast, something more permanent, and he needed crutches. Both of which required raw materials that he highly doubted he had the wherewithal to scrounge up, at the moment, but he hated having to ask Liz for everything, and she was gone for the time, anyway. And expecting me to stay right here, too, Im pretty sure, until she gets back.

Which, thinking about it, he really knew he ought to do, fully aware that, about this at least, Liz was probably correct. The leg needed some time to begin healing, and he, much as his whole being screamed out in protest at the idea, badly needed the rest. All right, then. Rest. At least Ive got this old deer leg bone I had saved from before, so I can start working on some more atlatl dart points. Only got the one dart right now, and its broken, so Ill have to find another willow shaft for it. Sure would like to have a spear again, too, so maybe I can start on a spearhead, in a little while. Need to get Liz practicing with the atlatl, and Id better have a few more darts ready and waiting for when shes ready to try it out on some game, or for when Im able to use it again. Whichever comes first. And, he thought glumly as he began roughing out the shapes of three pointy dart heads in the curved surface of the leg bone, Ive got a pretty good idea of which will come first. Although he almost smiled at the absurd picture the thought generated, I might be able to handle the atlatl if I could wedge myself in between two trees so I could avoid putting any weight on the bad leg, and keep myself from falling forwards when I let the dart fly. Because I sure cant see it working too well while Im on crutches. While puzzling through the possibilities of hunting while living with a broken leg--finally coming to the conclusion that he was far more likely to be successful at trapping and snaring, so that his prey would stay put once it was caught and not potentially require extensive tracking, which he did not yet know if Liz was capable of, but was fairly certain that he was not, at the moment--Einar had made a decent impact on the deer bone, etching into its surface the rough shapes of three dart heads and working to wear down the bone that held them together, so he could begin to shape and refine the blanks. The work was necessary, satisfying, helped to occupy his hands and free his mind to contemplate things beyond the rather discouraging set of circumstances by which he found himself trapped in the crevice, and he kept it up for some time. After a while, though, he began growing so very cold sitting there immobile in the dark shade between the close-pressing masses of stone, freezing as the hot rocks Liz had retrieved for him from the ashes of the firepit released the last of their heat, and he finally became convinced that his uncontrollable shivering must be doing more damage to his leg, and certainly causing him more pain, than would the movement required to drag himself out into the sun where he could warm up. Just about cant grip this rock anymore to do the work, anyway, with my hands so doggone numb and clumsy. What am I, some sort of reptile? Seems I cant maintain a decent temperature without some external heat source, even wearing all these clothes. Wouldnt mind so much if it werent for that leg, but it needs to be kept still, and how am I supposed to keep it still, shaking like this? Better do something about it. Knowing that a large portion of his problem could be attributed to his need for food, he tried eating a bit of the Nutella that Liz had left for him, managing a spoonful but, still rather nauseated from the leg pain, no more. Sitting up and carefully probing the area of the break, he could not help but wonder if they had got things quite lined up, the day before. He had certainly felt relief, a sense of rightness, when Liz had finally got the broken ends into a position where the leg was more or less straight, but the ongoing pain--it seemed to be worsening, even--made him wonder. Well. Not too much I can do about it, right now. He was so stiff and sore that day from being thrown around by the bear and pinned under the tree that he could barely sit up far enough to reach the

break, let alone attempt to manipulate the leg. Turn around, then, pivoting the good leg to the side, grabbing the splinted one and lifting, swinging it along behind, until finally, after fifteen or more such painstaking movements, he got himself turned with his back facing the entrance of the shelter so he could begin the slow process of dragging himself outside. Well over an hour later, having nearly given up several times and returned to his bed in exhaustion, Einar finally made it past the last narrow portion of the corridor, which, being too narrow to pull himself through in the sitting position that had worked fairly well for him, had necessitated him dragging himself to his feet and traveling at a shuffling hop, hands braced against the walls, right hip cramping with the ongoing strain of keeping his foot from contacting the ground. It was hard work but very slow, and he was still terribly cold when finally he squeezed past that last narrow pinched spot in the rock and was out, blinking in the sunlight, sinking to the ground on the warm rocks just outside the crevice. It was, he was pretty sure, late morning, and warm in the sun, though the air had a bite to it that told him autumn was not far off, and Einar squinted into the brightness, searching the rocks immediately below the shelter, the patches of green meadow grass that showed below, brilliant through the trees, but beginning to dull with the progressing year, the grasses heavy with seed, and browning. No sign of the bear, but he knew it might well come back, drawn by the smell of the deer carcass and, perhaps, even by his own scent, now that it apparently viewed him as something possibly worth eating. Silly creature. Pretty sure it would be sorely disappointed. Not that the disappointment would do me a bit of good, if Id already been turned into bear chow, but I guess Id get the last laugh, anyhow. The point of all that beingyou better not fall asleep out here, Einar. You got a pretty good view from here and nothing can sneak up on you, if you just keep half an eye open and pay attention. If the critter comes, you can just step back inside the crevice, where it cant get at you. Staying awake was, he could already tell, going to be easier said than done, as the wonderful warmth of the late morning sunlight eased some of the chill from his bones, the broken ones, even, gradually allowing him to stop shivering and relax for the first time in several hours. Repeatedly catching his head nodding, eyes closed in near-sleep as he dropped the section of deer bone he was working on, Einar knew he must either do something to keep himself awake, or return to the dark chill of the shelter. Just below the rocks stood a small cluster of stunted aspens, surrounded and nearly choked out by a healthy growth of evergreens, and among those trees Einar hoped to be able to find to materials for the crutches that would allow him a bit more freedom of movement, after the bones in his leg had begun healing a bit. Inches at a time, scooting backwards as he had been doing in the shelter, he made his way across the rocks and down into the trees, lying flat on his back for a rest as soon as he had hauled himself beneath their sheltering branches, sweating and shaking and knowing that he had probably made a mistake in attempting to go so far, so soon after his injury. The leg was a problem, aching fiercely and occasionally assailing him with a stabbing pain that took his breath, but nearly as troublesome was the growing stiffness that he supposed must be the belated results of having the tree land on him. Probably good that Im moving around some, then. Need to loosen up. The words sounded a good bit more confident than he felt, however, barely able to push himself back up to something that resembled a sitting position after his brief rest. Well. Itll get better. Should have

brought some water down here with me, though. The next minute, dragging himself through some low-growing bushes and into the aspen grove, Einar was presented with a partial solution to the water problem, when he (quite literally) ran into a cluster of thorn bushes. Working to free himself from the clutching thorns, he smelled berries, turned himself around so that he faced the bushes, and saw numerous small clusters of berries, translucent green with whitish stripes and resembling currants but slightly larger. Gooseberries! A definite treat, and not nearly as common as the red or black currants that he was used to seeing in the high country, he tested the cluster nearest him, finding that the berries came off fairly easily, and tasted sweet and ripe. Eating until his thirst was lessened to a tolerable degree, his need for water overcoming the aversion to food that had been troubling him all morning and the mildly sweet berries actually working to settle his stomach a bit, Einar continued gathering the berries, stowing them in Lizs grocery bag, which he had rolled up and brought with him in his pants pocket, should such an opportunity arise. Unable to stand, the berry picking process was a bit tricky, Einar working his way in almost beneath the bushes at times in his quest to reach the berries, and he had to stop numerous times to free himself from their thorns. Unable to lift his left arm high enough to find it very useful in picking berries from beneath, as he was, he ended up leaning on it, picking with his right hand and finally, the bag nearly half full of berries, forced to stop when his left arm tired to the extent that it was no longer reliably able to support his weight. Time to head back. Guess Id make excellent bear bait, sitting out here crippled and worn out like this, easy pickings for a hungry bear, with a side of gooseberry jam. Better wait on those crutch-sticks, because its gonna be hard enough, just getting the berries back up there. Carrying the bag in his teeth, Einar began the slow drag up the slope to the crevice, progress awfully slow and his leg hurting worse each time he inevitably jarred and jostled it on the rocks. Despite the difficulties, he was feeling better, mentally, than he had since the accident, a sense of accomplishment at having made the trip and harvested the berries going a long way towards dispelling the dark mood that had settled over him at the realization that he had been basically immobilized by the injury, and would be so for some time, the pain of his leg, while definitely still there, a good bit easier to accept. The day was looking pretty good. Until Liz came, that is, emerging from the trees at the meadows edge with a fat marmot slung over her shoulder, the hem of her shirt held up in the other hand to form a basket that seemed good and full of some sort of probably-edible item that she had found in her wanderings, appearing to him a beautiful sight, until she came near enough for him to make out the expression on her face.

Einar sat there as Liz approached--it was too late to hurry behind the rocks and conceal himself, even if he had been interested in doing so--seeing the look of righteous fury on her face and expecting that he was about to get a good lashing for wandering around as he had, but, his weariness having caught up to him some as soon as he had stopped moving, he was nearly too worn out to care. Anyway, he supposed she had the right, or

very nearly so, to be upset with him--she had, after all, gone to the trouble to pull that fallen tree off him and patch up his busted leg. Liz, hurrying across the rockslide to join Einar, was certainly of half a mind to go ahead and drop the biggest rock she could lift on his other leg, haul him into the shelter and seal him in there for a week or two with a bunch of water and food, angry as she was about him dragging himself all over the known world and likely doing further damage to his leg, and unable to stop thinking about the bloody mess that she might have returned to had the bear decided to come back and finish its meal. Einar was such a sight, though--knit cap pulled down almost to his eyebrows, hair sticking out from beneath it at all angles and brambles caught haphazardly in his beard as he sat half propped up in the rocks, his damaged leg awkwardly resting on a granite slab and that grocery bag full of berries held in his mouth--that Liz almost started laughing instead of shouting, in the end doing neither, simply shaking her head and sitting down beside him. Reaching into the basket she had made of the front of her shirt, she pulled out a handful of thimbleberries. What have you got there? Trade you. Einar, unable to speak with the handles of the grocery bag clamped in his mouth, spit them out so that the bag dropped into his lap, accepting the berries. Sure. Gooseberries. Have some. Theyre pretty good. Pretty good, huh? Well they must be! How far did you have to go to find them, anyway? He glanced over at her, a bit surprised that she was not chiding him for his little excursion and finding himself suddenly aware of an awful, overpowering weariness, almost to the point of not being able to answer, his words coming thick and slow and a bit muddled. Ohjust down in the trees, there. Well, these rocks are pretty rough. Must have hurt. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a bundle of small willow branch tips, handing it to him. I brought your willows. There are more in the other pockets, and I was thinking we could boil up some strong tea tonight. Einar thanked her, took the willows, folding up several of the branch tips and chewing them. Need some help getting back up there? I can do it. Well good, because Ive got this marmot to clean! She gave him a drink from her water bottle, rose and grabbed the marmot. See you in the shelter. Liz, having no intention of abandoning Einar to possible danger from the return of the bear, watched his progress from just inside the darkness of the crevice, realizing that he

was tiring badly but sticking to her resolve to not interfere while he finished the job himself--maybe if he wears himself out really bad hell actually lie still and sleep for a while--what a concept!--finally going to his aid only when he had reached the entrance to the long rock corridor, helping him through the narrow section so that he did not have to do all twenty feet using the painful-looking hop-shuffle sequence that seemed to be his only way to get through. Back in the shelter Einar lay down quite willingly on the bed, closing his eyes for a minute and nearly falling asleep before a nearby clatter of rock startled him to full wakefulness again and he opened his eyes, seeing that Liz had moved aside the granite slab and was skinning the marmot over the firepit. The creature was large and plump, having already put on a good bit of fat for the coming winter, and he supposed Liz must have found it in one of the deadfalls. Good. She is learning. Can take care of herself, if she needs to, pretty soon here. Thats a real good thing. Weary, struggling, he sat up, leaned back against the rock wall, and Liz offered him the marmots liver and a pile of thimbleberries on a slab of aspen bark, and he thanked her but set the plate beside him on the bed, too tired to think about eating and nauseated once again from the pain--a good deal more significant than he had let on in his earlier conversation with Liz--of hauling his broken leg up and over all that rock. Chewing on another of the willow shoots, he stared up at the thin ribbon of blue that ran above him, sun on rock high above his head, out of his reach, already chilled there in the shadows of the shelter. Liz watched him, worried, sat down on the bed beside him and picked up the aspen bark plate. Your legs pretty bad? He nodded. Guess so. Could be jarring it like that was not the best idea. Probably not. Whyd you do it? Waiting for his answer, she checked the pulse at his ankle, asked him to move his toes. Got cold. Awful cold here in the shade. I thought you liked the cold. Uhusually. But not like this. Got no fat left on me, things just arent working right. Have nothing left to fight it with, my temperature starts going down pretty quick without some outside source of heat. Meant to just sit out there in the sun for a while, but He shrugged, was quiet. What? You smelled berries? Yeahonce I got down there I did. Mostly though, I was just after some good sturdy sticks so I could make crutches. Andwell, I just had to know that I could do it, get down there and back. Well, you did it. And I guess I can see why it was important to you, but what is it costing you to keep testing those limits? Especially now, when your leg needs so badly

to be kept still, and you need rest, a lot of food and rest, if youre going to get any better. What do you have against rest? You do want to live, dont you? Because right now what I see is a man who just keeps pushing and pushing, wont stop, and Im afraid youre going to go right on pushing until finally theres nothing left and youre dead. Youre almost there right now, whether you want to believe it or not. I can see it. Im telling you. Is that what youre trying to do? I cant imagine it is, after how hard youve fought to stay alive. Cant you just let me help for a while? Take it easy for a week or two so you can live? Liz, who had sat down in front of him and taken hold of both of his hands as she spoke released them, moved back by a foot or two, a bit embarrassed by her outburst but knowing that what she had said needed saying. Einar was quiet, not exactly sure how to respond and wishing he had a way to avoid the conversation altogether, at least until a time when he wasnt so awfully tired, but knowing that this was one he really had no way out of. Liz, Ireally dont understand why you care so much what happens to me. Youre doing great with the traps, snares, youve turned into a real decent tracker and youve got a level head and a lot of sense, for sure, and friends who can help you, if you decide to go back. You dont need me, to make it out here. Sowhat? Youre giving up? Letting them beat you? Sitting up a bit straighter at that, Einar leaned forward, looked her in the eyes with an intensity that she had noticed only a time or two in the past. Did I say that? No. Im still breathing, and Ill do what I can to keep it that way. Its just that Id expect you might have better things to do with your life than to spend so much of it out here with an ornery old fool like me who doesnt have the sense to listen to what youre trying to tell him, and probably never will. And I cant understand why you choose to stay. But since you do, if you still do, Ill try and explain this to you. Im not going anywhere, Einar. And Id like to hear your explanation. First though, do you think you can eat a little? You had almost nothing this morning. She held out the improvised plate with the marmot liver and berries, seeing that he was swaying, dizzy, having a difficult time remaining upright. Kinda sick from the leg, I guess. But Ill try. Marmot looks good. Good fat one. Did you reset the deadfall? Yes, I did.

Einar managed to eat some of the marmot liver at Lizs insistence, telling her between bites that its a delicacy in Mongolia, you know, raw marmot liver is. Marmots make up a pretty significant part of their diet, at times. They cook them by leaving the hides on, putting hot rocks in the body cavity, sewing them shut overnight and letting the meat cook. Ive done that a time or two with small critters, and it works real well. They cook

goats that way, too. Real cold in Mongolia, so those folks eat a lot of fat when they can, even the grain they eat, mostly millet because it grows in that dry, cold climate, is fried in sheep fat, and they drink their tea with sheep fat or butter in it, most of the time. Sensible folks. Liz, thinking that he certainly does like talking about foodif he could spend half as much time eating as he does thinking about, discussing and describing all these different foods, we might be able to get somewhere remembered having heard that fermented mares milk, known as airag, was also regarded as a delicacy in Mongolia, and was about to tell Einar about it but refrained, fairly certain that he would say it sounded awful good, or something to that effect, likely thereafter spending the rest of his day enthusiastically working to devise ways to capture elk or mountain goats so the two of them could become nomadic herdsfolk. She certainly did not want to give him any such idea, at least not until he could walk again, so simply answered that she was sure the Mongols must have figured out pretty well over the centuries what sort of diet worked in a climate that forbidding, and when, after Einars repeated offers, she tried a bite of the raw liver, she had to admit that it was not bad at all. A bit warmer and noticeably less drained and exhausted-feeling after managing to get some of the liver and a few berries down, Einar was ready to again attempt explaining to Liz why he had believed it necessary for him to get out and move around that day, why maintaining such mobility and independence was not simply a matter of pride as he supposed she must think but was, the way he saw it, absolutely fundamental to his continued survival, even though he was well aware of her willingness and ability to give him all the help he might need. Heh! Now, if I could just say it like that, maybe it would make some sense to her. But, Ill probably mess this up real bad when I try and put it into words and shell end up whacking me over the head with a piece of firewood, out of frustration or because she took something the wrong way. Well. Just have to give it a try, I guess. Seeing that Liz was offering him the last bite of the liver and feeling less nauseous than he had much of the day, the willow finally beginning to take a bit of the sharp edge off of the fierce ache and frequent shooting pains in his leg, he accepted, finishing it and draining the bottle of water she handed him. Lizabout what you said earlier, wanting me to rest and let you help out, and all that it made a lot of sense, and I know youre right, but see, for the past year or so, Ive had no choice but to keep going, just ignore the pain or hunger or tiredness or whatever it was trying to stop me, and get things done, cover distance, shake my pursuers and do what needed doing. A lot of those times, if Id let that discipline slip at all, I would have been dead, or worse, and very quickly. I really have no idea how I kept it up, physically, at times--it was some sort of determination or stubbornness or will--dont really know what to call it--keeping me going when I just couldnt anymore, that, and Providence, and not a whole lot else, because I didnt have much else, most times. So now, even though the situation may have changed a little, maybe a lot, even, with you here to helpwell, I guess Im afraid to let go of that discipline, of whatever it is thats kept me going. I feel

like if I relax it at all, everything may just come apart--physically, mentally even, maybe--and Ill be done, finished, dead, or worse. Maybe Im wrong, but I dont really want to find out So when I went dragging myself around after berries and things today, it was more about making sure I still have what it takes to keep going, making sure my body and mind understand good and clear that it isnt time to relax, yet, to let go, that I still need everything to hold together and be ready for action. Pretty crazy that the same thing thats killing a person could be the only one thats keeping them hanging onto life, all at the same time, but thats the way it is, the way it seems, to me, anyhow. I just want you to knowthis has nothing to do with me thinking you arent willing or able to help, that you cant do everything that needs to be done, probably better than I can--youve proven that more times than a person should ever have to, andwell, Ive been acting awful ungrateful, I guess. OK, Ill stop talking now, because I doubt Im making much sense. No good at this stuff. You can go ahead and whack me over the head with a rock or a log, or whatever youre wanting to do, nowItd probably do us both some good. And he sat, head bowed and arms crossed, feeling exhausted and terribly uncomfortable at having let her in on his thought processes like that, waiting for her judgment. Or to be clobbered in the head with a stick, which he really would have preferred. The entire time Einar was talking, Liz had been working on the marmot, separating the meat from the plentiful globs of yellow-white fat, putting the meat in a plastic bag and setting the fat aside in the cooking pot, and when he stopped talking she slid the pot out from between her knees, set it beside the firepit and sat down next to him, embracing him, silent, her tears dampening his hair and eventually running down his neck. She did not really know what to say, remained silent, but Einar heard, and was terribly grateful. Returning finally to her preparations for what was to be that nights marmot stew, the discussion between them over for the time if not with the matter entirely resolved, Liz handed Einar a large pile of half-wilted hounds tongue plants she had collected while retrieving the marmot. Maybe you can separate the leaves from the stems and mash them up a little between a couple of rocks, so we can make that poultice for your leg. And I was thinking we could use some of this marmot fat, too, simmer some of the leaves in it and have a salve to rub on the area of the break a few times every day. I know marmot fat was used as a folk remedy for arthritis in Europe for centuries, so who knows? Maybe it will even help a little with the pain. Einar, thinking that a fine idea and one he might not have come up with, himself, began working on the pile of wilted plants, the afternoon sunlight slanting in through the window in the rock at the back of the shelter and giving everything a warm orange glow, watching Liz as she prepared the stew, each of them silent, but content. More or less. Liz, he could see, was growing increasingly frustrated with something, removing her hat and using her elbow and arm to scratch her head so as not to smear her hair with marmot fat, and when he finally asked her what was wrong, she looked a bit

chagrinned, shook her head and smiled. Oh, nothing really, nothing that matters much. But, I havent washed my hair for a while and its starting to get a little itchy, so Im thinking maybe Ill take a few minutes to go down to the seep and see what I can do about it, this afternoon. Einar nodded. OK. Sorry I dont have any soap or anything. If we had yucca around here you could use the root, but were up too high. Try mullein root, maybe. I know it has some saponins in it, you might get it to lather up a little, if you chop it real fine and mix it with some water. No need. The water will be fine, for now. Hey, I know! Ill bring back some extra water, we can heat it on the fire tonight and wash your hair, too, if youd like. It might feel good. Uh he clapped a hand over the top of his head protectively, as if to ward her off, pretty sure it would all fall out if it got washed right now, and Id kinda like to avoid that. Need all the insulation I can get! See? And with very little effort he pulled out an alarmingly large fistful of hair from the back of his head and held it out to her to demonstrate the problem. Oh! Dont do that! Doesnt it hurt? No, not a bit. Had this happen before, last winter when I was hungry for so long. Lost most of my hair then, looked like a mangy old dog for a while, but it came back when I started getting ahold of more to eat. Just glad my teeth arent coming out the same way. They dont grow back, and thatd be a big problem. I guess it would! Your teeth seem to be doing really well. Ive seen you chewing on little sticks and things, and pine needles. Is that how you keep them clean? Yeah, I clean between the gums a couple times a day with a spruce needle, kinda using it like floss, and chew on willow sticks or something similar until the ends gets fuzzy, then brush with them. I dont know for sure, but suspect at least some of my lack of tooth problems is because I have had to use Oregon grape roots so often, for other problems, and theyre antibacterial. Often as not I wasnt able to make tea and just had to chew on them, so I guess that was good for my teeth and gums. Well, Id better start doing the same thing. Since Ive been out here, Ive just been wiping my teeth down with gauze from the first aid kit every evening and rinsing out my mouth, but I was starting to wonder what I could use for toothpaste, out here. Ive heard of people using charcoal or ashes or something, I think. Yes, I know it was used, and Ive tried it a time or two. Works real well as an abrasive, but it seemed like the fuzz sticks were doing well enough, so I just stuck with them. Short as Ive been on food, I didnt especially want to be using something real abrasive like that every day, thinking that the enamel on my teeth might be getting thin, and that I

could possibly damage it. I dont know if thats a real concern, or not. As far as toothpastewell, even when I was back at my cabin, I just used a mixture of baking soda and salt, three parts baking soda to one part salt, usually with some calcium-magnesium powder in mixed in, if I had it. Salt kills the bacteria, soda is abrasive and cleans, and the vitamins help keep the enamel healthy. Always worked for me. Out here, I guess ground up charcoal could be used for the abrasive, maybe egg shells for the calcium, and for the anti-bacterial, some dried and powdered Oregon grape root. Or, salt. Theres a good sized bag of salt that I retrieved from one of those caches, butI thought it had been poisoned, along with everything else, so its up there on the cliff I need to go get that food down. Will you tell me where it is? Think Ill have to show you. Would hate to have you climb up to the wrong little shelf in the rock, and miss it. Its quite a climb, have you done much rock climbing? A little, mostly training with Mountain Rescue. And, the climb with you on the canyon wall, that night after you got stabbed. Oh. Yeah. That was one interesting climb! Seems you did just great, on that one. But, you can get some more practice in here, Ill show you a few things, and maybe after a few days you can go for that food. For now weve got that marmot, some deer shreds, the peas and all that stuff you brought with you, and Im still gonna be doing pretty small portions for a few days, it feels like, between the hurt from this leg and just getting used to eating again. Should work out just fine. The sun beginning to sink low outside, the patch of orange fading from the interior wall of the shelter, Liz set out for the seep to get the evenings water, wanting also to find some more wild onions to add to the marmot stew and finding herself far less worried than she had been in the past about the prospect of Einar wandering off while she was away. Not that she had any doubt that he would do it again at some point, but she supposed she would just have to get used to it, work to help him grow stronger, in the meantime.

As soon as Liz had left for the seep, Einar finished preparing the hounds tongue, dragging himself over to the smooth granite boulder he had been using for the bottom part of his mortar and pestle when he had been grinding up the split peas, pounding and scraping until he had reduced a good sized pile of leaves to a bright green pulp, adding a small amount of water from one of the bottles to aid in turning the pulp into a paste. Normally he would have preferred to heat the poultice a bit before applying it, but he did not want to wait for dark before getting started with it, and supposed that with the persistent swelling, the cold application would likely be better, anyway. Carefully probing the leg--it would have been easy to feel the bone ends, as little flesh covered them, had the swelling not still been so significant--Einar wondered once again if they had got things aligned quite right, in setting it. He could not tell, but hoped they were

close enough, at least, to allow him to walk fairly normally again after the bones knit back together. The probing and poking, careful as he had been, had aggravated the leg again and it was throbbing, screaming, nauseating him and threatening to send him sliding into the oblivion of unconsciousness, a trend which he fought effectively with the slow, deep breaths and focused concentration that had become so much a part of his life over the past two days, finally reaching a point where he could begin to think of other things again. The first of which was locating the good-sized bundle of willow tips that Liz had brought him, which he did, chewing on a good mouthful of them and swallowing the bitter juice with some water. Not so good for his already-upset stomach, but it did help with the leg, or he thought it did, though he knew the slight lessening in the hurt could be due simply to the fact that he had stopped tampering with it. Either way, thats betterdont really care why. Now come on, back to that poultice. Finish the job. The hounds tongue paste would, he knew, stick better to the leg if he had a bit of starch to mix with it--at home he would have used flour or corn starch, but cattail starch would have been a fine substitute--but lacking any such thing, he simply smeared the paste onto the leg, a good handful of it, and covered it with two mullein leaves from his pack to help keep it moist longer. This poultice he would leave in place until it dried, replacing it then with a fresh one. The concoction provided no immediate relief from the pain, and he had not expected it to, as that was not its purpose, but he hoped it might speed the healing of the bones, hasten the day when he could again walk, and knew that, with its ability to speed up cell growth, it ought to do just that. Now, I just hope the bone ends are positioned right, or something close to it Plenty of hounds tongue, as yet unprocessed into paste, remained when Einar had finished with the leg and he wondered whether a second poultice for his shoulder might be a good idea. He had re-injured it so many times since first tearing the ligament, or whatever hed done, tumbling down the snow and rock chute the winter before that he could not even keep track, the latest episode being in the climb up to stash his poisoned food, and while he doubted it would ever be normal again, he did wonder if it might be possible to improve it, somewhat. Well, have to give that a try. But I think Ill wait until we have a fire, later, for that one. Cant stop shivering as it is, and the last thing I need is to have a cold wet plaster on my shoulder right now. All of this shaking is either gonna keep the leg from mending altogether, or make it heal up real good and strong, though probably slow, because Im thinking this is probably going to keep continually rebreaking the new bone that is starting to grow, and forcing it to start mending all over again. Guess I better try to get a lot more calcium in my diet, if I want this to work out. That, or find a way to stay warmer. Either way, more food would help out. Would be a good idea to crush up some of those smaller deer bones, ribs, maybe, and boil them down for broth. Lot of calcium in a broth like that, maybe we can make some tonight. Butfor nowsleep Suddenly unable to keep his eyes open he scooted backwards onto the bed and lay down, just getting the wolverine hide pulled up over his torso before everything went dark. Returning from the seep Liz found Einar sprawled out on the spruce needles with a halfchewed willow stick in his hand, appearing very cold but seemingly too tired, or perhaps

just too accustomed to it, to care. At least hes sleeping. I dont think he has had much real sleep since breaking his leg. She wished it was evening already so she could start the fire and heat the place up a little, quietly knelt down beside him to tuck in the wolverine hide, but Einar startled awake, somehow got the knife into his hand and sat up all in one quick motion. Realizing very quickly that it was Liz who had wakened him, that there was no danger, he tried to hide the knife, apologized, face twisted up at the pain of moving his leg so suddenly, but at the same time greatly satisfied that he had been able to respond somewhat more quickly than had been possible in recent days. Sorry, I didnt mean to wake you. Brought some more willows. She handed him another, larger bundle of willow branch tips. Thanks! Was time to wake up, anyway. All that tapioca and liver and Nutella and stuff youve been giving me sure is helping. Couple days ago, Id have slept right through that. Well, I was really hoping you would sleep through it, but now that youre awake, how about some more to eat? Let me work on some of these willows for a while, and then Ill give that a try. Get your hair washed? Yep, it worked just fine. I followed the little creek that goes down the gulled behind the seep, so I wouldnt contaminate our water, and found a little swampy area. Look what was in it! She pulled a cattail root, large and starchy, from her backpack. And I brought the stalk along, too, because I know you can eat part of it, right? And I also found an aspen that was down, and had all this shreddy bark hanging off of it. I know youve said you use this for cordage, and thought maybe you could teach me. Good finds. Yeah, Ill show you how to do cordage. And you can eat the bottom few inches of that cattail stalk kinda like celery, and he took it from her, peeled off the outer leaves and showed her the slimy gel that clung to their inner surfaces, this stuff is great for burns, cuts, anything youd use antibiotic ointment on. Lifting up his shirt, he pulled back the mullein and smeared the gel on the gashes the bear had left on his upper chest when it threw him against the tree, which, though a bit red and inflamed, appeared to be scabbing over fairly well, all but the deep one where the creatures claw had gone down to the bone. The steri-strips he had used to draw its edges together with had held well, though, and he was confident that it would eventually heal without becoming infected, but figured the cattail gel could only help. Liz, who had not been aware of the damage done him by the bear but seeing that he appeared to have done a fine job of caring for it, himself, resisted her urge to step in and fuss over the injury, instead scraping the gel from another of the cattail leaves with a small section of clean inner leaf she had pulled off, and handing it to him. It looks like that bear got you pretty good. Anywhere else, or just there?

Just here. Id about forgotten about it, really, till I sat up just now kinda got a twinge in my ribs here where the critter swatted me. No big deal, as long as I can keep it pretty clean until these scab over. No broken ribs, I hope? What about your sternum? Theres a lot of bruising. Could it be broken? Nah, think Id know by now if that had happened. Doesnt hurt too much to breathe, for once, and I dont hear any crunching when I moveso its just these gouges, I guess. No problem. Not crunching is good! Still, can I take a look at it? He shrugged, held the vest out of the way, and she gently felt along the injured area, Einar grunting and turning away from her when she pressed gently on the purple, slightly swollen area just above one of the bear gouges and several inches below his collarbone. Better not push too hard right there, Im thinking. And maybe I should do another poultice there, tonight. That kinda felt like crunching, to me, how about you? Maybe. Why dont you just lie down for a while, Einar? Could you do that? And you can tell me how to make this poultice, so we can get it on there and get it working. Sorry I hurt you. Its alright, he growled, lowering himself to the bed and closing his eyes. Got my mind off the leg for a second, so I ought to thank you. He opened his eyes, gave her a weird, wild-eyed snarling grin. Thanks! Liz shook her head, strange, strange guy! Not sure what Im gonna do with him, when he starts recovering from all this. Going to be interesting retrieved the leftover pile of hounds tongue leaves and stems from the rock where Einar had set them, and began mashing them with a smooth rock as she could see by the green smears that he had done with the others. Evening came, darkness, and Liz lit the candle and got the fire ready, Einar having spent the last hour propped up on the bed with the hounds tongue poultice on his chest, working on a length of cordage to keep himself occupied, but freezing nonetheless with the damp leaves plastered all over him, uncharacteristically anxious for the warmth of the fire, which soon filled the small cavern, its orange glow flickering on the walls. Lizs marmot stew, rich, fatty, flavored with wild onion and thickened with cattail starch from a root she had roasted in the pit as the supper bubbled, went a long way towards warming Einar up, (Guess I better make us a couple of spoons here pretty soon, if youre gonna keep cooking up tasty stuff like this. Those onions were a real good idea,) though he was still not able to eat a very large portion despite Lizs urging, leaving well over half of it for her and mostly contenting himself with breathing the steam whenever she handed him the pot.

Throughout that evening as Liz sat by the fire and Einar lay near it, he kept adding cold water to the comfrey compress on his leg, having noticed an increase in swelling that had him concerned that the pressure in the tissue surrounding the break could be rising to dangerous levels, compressing nerves and blood vessels and reducing blood flow, a condition which, he knew, could lead to tissue death and loss of the leg, if nothing was done about it. And as he knew that the common treatment in this situation was for a surgeon to make a many-inches long lengthwise incision in the thin connective tissue between the muscles of the leg to relieve pressure and leaving the resulting wound partially open sometimes for days after that--a procedure that likely as not would lead to a deadly infection under current conditions--he very much wanted to avoid reaching that point. In addition to using frequent cold compresses on the leg--he wished he had snow or ice, but without sending Liz a thousand feet or more up the adjacent peak to carry it down, there was none--Einar knew that the salicin in a good strong infusion of willow bark might help a good bit with reducing the inflammation and swelling in the leg, and, chopping the remaining bundle of willow branch tips Liz had brought him into inch long sections, using the emptied soup pot to simmer up some willow solution. Liz stayed up late turning the marmot fat that she had not included in the supper and the remaining hounds tongue leaves into a salve for Einars leg, simmering, stirring and finally straining the stuff, a good brilliant green, into a curved section of aspen bark that she had brought back from one of her wanderings, knowing that the few remaining bits of inner bark that she had not been able to peel out of it would get into the salve, but, as the salve was for use on the unbroken skin above the fracture site, she supposed there was no need for the salve to be free of contaminants as there would be if it was for use on open wounds. Which is a good thing, because were all out of containers. Im sure hoping some of this food that Einar stashed is in useable containers. Otherwise, Im going to have to start looking for other options. Like rawhide, or clay. I wonder if there are any clay deposits around here that we could make pottery from? Doubt it. This seems like the wrong type of soil to expect to find something like that in. I will have to ask Einar, though. In the morning. Having gulped a strong solution of willow bark that he had simmered down over the fire until it was scaldingly bitter and nearly black just before bed--Itll help with the swelling, hed said, but she could see he was in a lot of pain and guessed that, though unwilling to admit it, he probably wanted the willow as much for its limited capacity to ease the hurt, as he did for the swelling--Einar was asleep, the pain apparently lessened, though as she allowed to fire to die back to a mass of glowing coals in the bottom of the pit, Liz could see that he was quickly becoming chilled, even with the wolverine hide. The constant shivering, she knew, would aggravate the leg all over again, probably interrupting his sleep before long. Poor guy. He better put on a little fat before winter comes, or I dont know how hes going to make it. Though I guess he did, last winter Watching him, Liz considered staying awake through the night to continue feeding the small fire, but knew she needed at least a bit of sleep, also, if she was to be of much use the next day. Finished with the salve and ready to sleep, Liz fished out the three hot rocks from the bottom of the pit and set them aside to cool just a bit while she slid the flat rock over the fire to extinguish it, first setting the pot she had made the salve in, cleaned out and filled

with water and tapioca for the next mornings breakfast, down in the dying coals to absorb their heat and, hopefully, gently cook through the night and be ready in time for breakfast. Sliding the hot rocks into socks she placed two of them along Einars right side near his kidney and one near his right armpit, knowing that between his leg and the injury to his chest, he would be sleeping on his back for a while, and would have an increasingly difficult time staying warm as the night went on. Einar did not even stir when Liz placed the rocks and covered his legs with as much duff as she could scrape up to help keep the heat in, curling up against his left side and tucking the wolverine hide around them. The effects of the willow wore off sometime in the night, and that, combined with the trouble he was having with the cold as the night chill crept in and the hot rocks cooled, led to Einar having a rather restless night, Liz awakened first by the chattering of his teeth--she piled more duff around him, tucked the wolverine hide back in and he seemed to do better, for a while--and later when he sat up to loosen the ties on his leg splint, the swelling having worsened further. She could tell from the sound of his irregular breathing that he was having more trouble with the pain than usual, lit the candle and brought him the remainder of the willow solution, which she had poured into one of the water bottles before using the pot to prepare the next mornings tapioca. Einar, reluctant at first to take any more of it, ended up emptying the bottle before they were done adjusting the ties on the splint. Do you want some more cold water for the poultice? Or I could soak the cotton socks again and take them outside to chill. Im pretty sure theyd get some frost on them, as chilly as it is tonight, and that might help. Yeah. Please. Both. Better leave the hounds tongue on for now, but I could switch it out with the sock in a while. Sorry for waking you again. I can go outside for the rest of the night so you can sleep, if youll haul me to my feet and give me a good shove to get me going. Liz glanced up from finding the socks, shook her head and smiled when she saw that he was entirely serious about his offer. Oh, youre not getting rid of me that easy, Einar. Here. Let me see that poultice, Ill put some more water on it. Adding water to the poultice Liz saw that at least a bit of Einars trouble with the cold that night probably stemmed from the fact that the jacket and polypro shirt that padded his improvised cast and helped hold it in place had become drenched with his repeated and somewhat clumsy applications of water, and despite being synthetic material and somewhat warmer when wet than cotton would have been, were a cold, squishy mess. Liz was at a loss, could think of nothing with which to replace the jacket that made up a good portion of the padding, other than Einars BDU pants or her own jeans, both of which were in use at the time, and were, besides, cotton themselves and would only chill him further if they became damp. Between that, and the additional pain and perhaps even damage that would be caused by replacing the splint at that point, she supposed that it was probably best to leave well enough alone. While out hanging the soaked socks in a tree to chill, she gathered a double armload of firewood, and, returning to the shelter, blew the coals back to life and helped Einar move over closer to the fire.

She slid in behind him, held and supported him so that he could take advantage of the fires warmth while still getting some rest, herself leaning back on the rock wall of the shelter and dozing from time to time, waking to add wood to the fire whenever it began burning itself out. Einar, still unable to sleep, worked on the aspen bark cordage he had started the previous day, the rhythmic twisting motions of cording the pile of shreddy bark serving to keep his mind occupied and off the pain somewhat, and by the time he finally drifted into a restless sleep, he had produced nearly forty feet of the stuff, precise work, regular and very neat for aspen bark, the clear product of extreme concentration. Dreaming, Einars mind worked on a number of different possibilities for a cast that would allow him to walk, with the aid of crutches, as soon as the swelling went down some. The aspen bark cordage, once he had enough of it, was one possibility that he had considered, picturing a cast that was made much as his improvised snowboot and hat had been the previous winter--shaped from coiled-up cordage, sewn together as for a basket, and stiffened with repeated applications of evergreen pitch. Morning came sharp and clear, Liz having slept for a solid three hour period as the fire finally went out and Einar, sandwiched between her and the wolverine hide, managed to stay warm enough to get a bit of sleep, himself, and she carefully took her leave, glad but amazed when he remained asleep. Rising, Liz could see her breath in the still air of the shelter, yet another reminder that fall was definitely on the way. Stretching, rubbing her sandy eyes and greeting the day, she stared up at the sky far above, dark with overcast, a restless wind moving the branches of the scraggly little limber pine that somehow clung to life on the rock at the top of the crevice, and a sudden plan occurred to her. Einar had, the previous day when the evening sun had shone golden through the window in the rock, told her of the ledge that sat directly beneath the window and from which, he had said, one was presented with an all-encompassing view of the surrounding country. If, she thought, I can climb up to that ledge, then if its going well, up to the top of the crevice and back, maybe hell be confident about letting me go for that stashed food. Because we--he, especially--really need that stuff, and Id like to go ahead and get it down today, so he has access to all that oil. Liz had no doubt that she could make the climb to the ledge, and little more that she would be able to complete the climb to the food cache, wherever it was, thinking that if Einar had been able to manage it in his injured and near starved condition, she, despite her relative lack of experience, ought to be able to repeat it and retrieve the food. Holding her hands, already a bit stiff in the morning chill, over the lingering warmth in the bottom of the firepit, she started up, reaching the ledge a good fifteen minutes later, balancing precariously on the six inch wide lip of rock and stretching up to get a look out the window, hooking her fingers over its sill and doing a partial pull-up after finding herself too short to see out. She was, looking out at the world beyond The Bulwarks, first amazed at the beauty of the vista that spread before her, then progressively more alarmed as her eyes focused on the distant horizon, and she realized just what she was seeing.

Pete Jackson still walked with a limp but was mostly recovered from the serious injuries he had received after swerving over an embankment and into the river while trying to

make his way home, inebriated, in the wee hours of the morning after his brother Jeffs house had been raided and Jeff arrested on federal weapons charges, a raid that had directly resulted from Petes actions when he stole the arrow from his brothers shop and went to the FBI in an attempt to claim the reward on Einar. There had been no reward, as there had been no capture, but the feds had, while Pete was giving them a tour of the location where the arrow had been found, discovered his brother Jeff and business partner Rob in the same area, had quickly discovered a pack loaded with clothing and supplies that they had presumably left for the fugitive, and had ended up raiding his brothers shop and house, after that, arresting Jeff on charges that Pete knew as well as anyone in town were absolutely not true. Pete had gone back to the FBI after that, had pleaded with the agent to whom he had first shown the arrow, had tried his best to convince them that they were mistaken about his brother, that the things they said they had found in his house could not possibly belong to him, but the agents had not been interested, had escorted him unceremoniously to the gate and informed him that his services were no longer needed, that unless he wanted to end up like his brother, he had better drop the matter, altogether. Which he had, knowing that he had betrayed his brother, that while he had only been in search of the monetary gain of the reward for Einars capture, he had allowed his greed to blind him, had dealt with the enemy and in doing so, had probably cost his brother his freedom. Feeling like Judas and seeing no way to remedy the situation, Pete had very nearly ended up like him, as well, when he left the bar that morning and shortly after left the highway, his truck ending up twisted around a cottonwood tree some thirty feet below, nearly in the river. He stirred his coffee, stared at the paper without much interest, turned it over and folded it so that he could more easily see the weather forecast. Three sunny days, followed by two of probable rain--will be snow up in the high country, at these temperatures--not that he much cared. Would have, if he still ran the outfitting business, even if he still hunted, himself, but he did not. His wife was gone--she had stayed with him until he was back on his feet after the accident, but not a week longer--Jeff was gone, in hiding somewhere, near as he could figure, better than prison, probably, but surely not how his brother had hoped to live his life, his former business partner Rob was dead at the hands of the feds, and nobody in town wanted to talk to him, no one would hire him. Except for the grocery store, where he had bagged groceries for awhile before losing that job, too, after failing to show up on time, one time too many. The drinking that had nearly cost his life that night out on the State Highway had become a daily habit, after that, and while Pete did make a meager living do the mowing and upkeep for town property in Culver Falls, mostly he just sat at home and brooded, or sat in Rosies and worked on a cup of coffee and a paper, doing the same. He was in Rosies that morning, corner table, facing the wall as always so he didnt have to see the faces of the other patrons, which always looked disapproving to him, even if they actually were not, when the Sheriff and two of his deputies came in and took a table near him. They were carrying on an animated discussion of the ongoing Congressional hearings into the Asmundson search, the second set of such hearings, if he remembered correctly, and Pete listened, mildly interested, as they went back and forth about the report in the paper. The Sentinel had been printing daily coverage of the hearings as a matter of local interest, and though Pete had not bothered to read many of them, he had picked up on the fact that some man named Bud Kilgore had been creating

quite a stir in Washington over the past few days.

Snow. It covered the high peaks that rose jagged and tooth-like on the far horizon, leaving them stark and white and sharply defined against the darkly overcast morning sky, frosted the timbered ridges and crept halfway down into the wide valley that lay to the North of The Bulwarks, beautiful, clean, terrifying. It was the first week in September, and Liz had expected that they would have more time. She glanced down at Einar where he lay on his bed of spruce duff, pale, immobile, trembling again in the cold and appearing almost skeletal in the sharp morning light, his breath rising in a gentle cloud in the crisp air, and she felt a chill pass up her back, a near-terror clutching at her throat as she thought of the direness of their situation, of how ill-prepared they were for the coming of the snow, of winter, knowing that it would be weeks before Einar was up on his feet, a month or two more, at best, before there would be a possibility of him getting around without crutches. Help us. I dont want to lose him, and Im afraid Watching Einar and seeing how even in his sleep he appeared to be fighting, unwilling, unable to quit, even with all that was against him, she found herself suddenly ashamed of her fear, drew strength from him--he had, after all, made it through another such winter largely on his own, and, by his account, with less opportunity to prepare than they still had left them, and injuries nearly as serious as the one he now faced. Again she raised herself by the few inches necessary to get a look out the window, saw that the sun had come up and was piercing through the heavy layer of overcast, prying under it where it met the horizon and glinting with an almost blinding whiteness off the distant peaks, adding to their contrast with the blackness that backed them. It will melt. We still have time. But I had better get busy! Einar was stirring; she started down. Hearing a series of scrapings scufflings in the rock chimney above him Einar came quickly to full wakefulness, looked up and saw a dark shape against the daylight outside, grabbed the pistol that sat beside the wall within easy reach and scooted back so that he was more thoroughly protected by the overhanging ledge of rock above their camp spot, searching for the rope that might tell him he was dealing with a federal assault team and prepared to start shooting. It snowed last night, the figure declared in a voice that sounded like an odd mix of scared and cheerful, and he realized that it was Liz, lowered the pistol and waited for her to finish her descent. Startled me, Liz. I can certainly believe that about the snow, though. It was cold that morning, awfully cold, or felt so to him, and he grabbed the wolverine hide, got it around his shoulders. I see you found the window. Yes. I was getting ready for that climb up to the food by practicing in here, and got up to where I could see out. The peaks are white, and the snow comes about halfway down to where we are. She was down by that time, sat down next to Einar and checked his leg. The swelling had gone down noticeably in the night; perhaps the large quantities of

willow bark, the hounds tongue poultice and the cold compresses had helped, after all. When she checked the pulse at his ankle it was strong, not much different from the one on his uninjured left side, but his foot, protected by a wool sock and nothing else, was freezing. She took off the sock and pressed his foot against her bare stomach to warm it, thinking that they really had to come up with an insulated slipper of some sort to protect the foot as the weather got colder. She wondered about simply stuffing his sock with cattail down, or perhaps making an outer sock of marmot hides, and stuffing the space between the two with insulation of some sort. That, she supposed, would work. Einar objected to her care of the foot, would have scooted back to get away from her, but already had his back against the wall. Oh, you dont have to do that. Its not frostbit, or anything. Not that cold yet. No, not frostbitten, but it was looking pretty purple. With you unable to move that leg, youre going to have to be really careful, you know, or you could end up with frostbitten toes, or even freeze your foot, later. I seem to remember the right foot being the one you had trouble with last winter since thats the boot you lost, and you know that once youve had frostbite on a foot, its more susceptible to getting it again, in the future. Now sit still and let me finish. He nodded, grimaced as the circulation began returning to the foot, burning, telling him that she was, indeed, correct about it needing attention, and he had not even realized it. Have to pay more attention here, Einar. What if she wasnt babysitting you like this? Would you have just gone ahead and lost the foot, or what? He shook his head, disgusted with himself. Yeah, youd be losing a lot more than the foot here pretty soon, I do believe. But then, you knew that. Youre right. Thanks. Waiting for the foot to warm, Einar gathered up a few straightish sticks that lay scattered around the firepit, and began breaking them to certain lengths, sticking four of them at upright angles in the dusty soil of the shelter floor, replicating on a tiny scale the four trees that formed the frame of the half-completed bear trap. Liz looked on curiously as he worked on the trap model. What are you building, there? Its what youre building, if youre willing to give it a try. We need that bear real bad, need him before he holes up for the winter, and right now I cant think of a better way to get ahold of him than by finishing up that trap and baiting it with some of this deer carcass. Hes been wandering around here for days, smelling this thing but unable to get at it, and hes obviously very hungry, if he was considering me as food, so he ought to be good and ready to fall for the trap. Weve got the atlatl and I have some new darts almost ready, but you have no practice with it yet and I seem to have this little problem of not being able to stand up Might manage a successful shot or two with the pistol, but theres too much at stake there, using up all the rounds we have left and maybe getting you hurt, too, if things didnt go just right, so looks like that leaves only the trap, or a spear. Got any preferences? She thought on the matter, tried to picture herself going at a big bear with a spear, bracing

it on something, trying to drive it into the creatures stomach or mouth or whatever you were supposed to do, and was about to let Einar know that she would be willing to do it, if he thought it best and would give her some training first, when she looked up and saw the mischievous glint in his eye. You werent serious? Youd really go after it with a spear? Well, Ive never done anything like that before, and Im not sure how it would turn out, butIm not going to see you go through the winter without a better jacket of some kind, and we do have to eat! A bear would be just the thing. Id sure give it my best effort. Einar smiled approvingly, shook his head. Huh. And you call me stubborn? No, I think well just stick with the trap this time. Though if you want to start learning the atlatl, Ill show you what I know, and you can start practicing. Might be able to take a deer, before long. Show me! Ill work on it. Now, how is this trap supposed to go? He demonstrated it to her, showing how one end of the upper log would raised and balanced on the vertical support stick, a long, sturdy spruce or pine trunk, preferably, since aspen tended to be brittle and might not reliably support the weight, whose bottom end would be shaved down to something of a point so that it could rest on the trigger stick, to which they would attach the bait. The idea, he told her, was that when the animal grabbed the bait, the delicately balanced support stick would come down, dropping the heavy top tree on the bears head or, more likely, on its neck. This wont always kill the critter right away, which I would prefer, but it will hold him good and firm, and if it lands on his neck, he wont last long, anyway. Now, the hard part about this is raising that top tree, raising that one end of it, because its gotta be a real big heavy tree, when youre dealing with a bear. Ive always just lifted the thing, but then, I do have a good deal more bull-headedness than I do smarts sometimes, and there are probably easier ways to do this. You know, tie a rope around the end youre trying to raise, sling it up over a branch, attach it to something else heavy down below, and create some sort of a pulley system, something like thatIve got a bag of climbing gear stashed back there under those rocks, indicating the very deliberate pile of granite chips beneath which he had concealed Willis Ammels climbing bag and we should look through it later. Theres a rope and, Im sure, some carabiners and other things that might turn out to be useful in helping you lift that log. First, though, I was thinkingif its as cold out there this morning as it feels in here, the chokecherries should be more than ready to harvest, and wed better get to it, before the bears do. Real significant source of calories--sugar and even a little fat--if we process them with the pits in. OK. Ive seen a lot of them here and there around the edges of the meadow. You dry them, I guess?

Yes. I wont be especially useful when it comes to picking them, because Im essentially only a few feet tall, right now, since I cant seem to stand up, but if you pick, I can process, and we should be able to get a good many dried chokecherry patties set aside, in a pretty short amount of time. I pound them, pits and all, and dry them like that. Liz thought that sounded like a fine plan, told him so and set about collecting containers--plastic grocery bag, garbage bag from Einars pack, her summer hat as a small container to carry with her when picking--in which to collect the berries, not suspecting that Einar intended to take a rather more active role in the collecting process than he had implied.

After readjusting his splint to allow for the reduction in swelling, Einar ate what he could of the breakfast Liz offered him--a few bites of left-over marmot stew and the tapioca that she had cooked in the coals overnight--which was not much, as his stomach was still tied in knots from the perhaps unwise quantities of strong willow solution that he had consumed during the night. He needed mint of some sort to go with the willow, knew from experience that the stomach-soothing properties of the mint would go a long way towards reducing the nausea that the stuff was causing him, perhaps allow him to eat a bit more normally while he was taking it. The stuff seemed to have done its job, though, as the swelling was looking far less worrisome. He was ready, it seemed, for a more permanent cast. After the chokecherries. Theyve got to come first, and I can just add to this splint to make it a bit more stable, for now, hobble along with a couple of sticks or makeshift crutches of some sort. Wish this thing didnt have to come above the knee like it does, because walking would be a lot easier if I could bend my knee, Im thinking. Gonna be interesting trying to lift this leg over fallen trees and things. Maybe after a while--weeks, I guess, not days--I will be able to do a shorter cast, and thatll make movement easier. Except by then the snow will be here, and it will be another sort of challenge, trying to stomp around out here on crutches and snowshoes He shook his head, startled and looked up at Liz, realizing that she had asked him something, and was waiting for his answer, but that, to his chagrin, he had no idea what it was he was supposed to be answering. Seeing his confusion, she repeated the question. Want me to help you out into the sun so you dont have to sit here in this chilly shelter all day? I think it ought to be shining on those rocks just outside, by now. It will, yes. Entrance faces basically East, that little window in the rock, West to let in the afternoon sun. And, yes. Please. Cold in here. Though I was kinda thinking of coming with you. Where are you headed, anyway, for these chokecherries? Just over to thewhat do you mean, coming with me? See, I know Im not all that useful right now, but if you could pull a branch down for me every now and then, just down to where I can reach it, Ill hang onto it, sit there and strip the berries off, and itll mean we get at least a little more done Its what Id have to do if I was still out here by myself, except that Id also have to come up with some sort of

hooked stick or staff to grab the branches with so I could pull them down, and Id probably end up getting eaten by a bear about halfway through the day after Id filled a couple baskets of berries. Scrawny, stringy old humans are always better with a good berry sauce, or so say the bears, and it saves on work if you let em gather up the berries, for you, which is why its best to save this particular delicacy for afternoon, so theyve had plenty of time to do the picking first, and then Einar. Stop. I get it. And youre right that wed get more done, but you need to give the leg a few more days, get a more stable cast of some sort on it before you do that much walking, or youre going to end up crippled for good, and how long do you really think youd last out here, like that? Well, Id certainly give it my best shot, and it would be kinda interesting to see what I could come up with. Im pretty adaptable, you know, and Ive got to stay in practice. Exasperated, she swatted him with one of the berry-collecting bags. Stay. Rest. Ill help you out into the sun so you dont have to freeze again today, but no further. And I do hope youll have the sense to refrain from dragging yourself all the way across the meadow after those berries, just to prove that you can. You already know you can, I know that you can and certainly would, so give it a rest, for once. Just give me an hour or so, and Ill bring a big bag of chokecherries for you to start pounding up and drying. Einar nodded, reluctant but consenting. You just make too doggone much sense sometimes, you know? Hardly fair, but what can I do about it? Bringing his three halfcompleted atlatl heads and the remaining pile of uncorded aspen bark so that he would have plenty to do, Einar scooted and hobbled, with Lizs assistance, out to the sunny rocks immediately in front of the shelter, sitting with his back against a sun-warmed slab of granite and resuming work on the bone atlatl heads as she left in search of chokecherries. The day was warming fast, Einars hands limbering up as it did and his work with the dart heads going more smoothly as his fingers regained some flexibility, and after some time he set the first one aside, satisfied, having given it a final shaping and grinding with a rough chunk of granite--brittle, but sufficient for his purposes, holding it up and eyeing it from different angles to see that it was balanced, even, ready for use. All right, time for another, I guess. But he was--despite a terrible weariness and heaviness that he had found himself unable to shake for many days and which had been further aggravated by the trauma to his leg--growing increasingly restless, more and more anxious to obtain something that he could use for a crutch, theoretically, that is, if he had to move, and though Liz had promised to keep her eye out for such a branch or branches, she was not back yet from her morning berry picking session, and Einar thought he saw just the thing, in a long dead young spruce, broken and leaning in the rocks not ten yards from the crevice entrance. Moving very slowly, carefully, conscious of the leg and of what he did with it--Einar did, despite the casual attitude he had taken when challenged about it by Liz, very much want to walk again, as soon as possible, and greatly hoped that the leg might heal up fairly normally and without too much lasting damage, especially as his left hip clearly was not going to do the same--he inched his way down to the small fallen tree, working to free it from the rocks that held its base firmly entrapped. Prying

with another stick, he finally got the last of the rocks pried loose and moved out of the way, freeing the tree. The young spruce was taller than he had estimated from a distance, too tall for his purposes, but also too think near the top to support his weight, and pinning the tree firmly to the ground with a couple of strategically placed rock slabs, he slid himself over to sit beside it, lifting the heaviest rock he could manage and slamming it down on the spot above which he wanted the tree to break, having to turn the tree and hit it on the other side before the desired results were achieved. Then, lying flat on his back for the simple reason that it was an awful lot more possible than standing unaided, he measured the height from his armpit to the ground, delighted to find that the stub of a branch stuck out at the approximate spot where his hand would end up, when the wide top of the tree was in his armpit. The branch was slightly low, a difference that could, he knew, be made up by the padding that would be necessary on the top end of the device, in order to render it something other than intolerably painful to use. Padding that he intended, for the moment at least, to construct from some of the remaining aspen bark, soft and shreddy, that sat in a pile waiting to be make into cordage. Further flattening the wide end of the tree by repeatedly working it with a rough rock, he rolled a good double handful of bark strips up into a thick pad, set them on the wide, flat surface he had achieved, and wrapped other strips down over the pad, taking them down well over six inches on each side and wrapping a number of other strips around and around the tree just below the pad, tying and tucking their ends. The result of his work was bulky, ugly and not the least bit graceful, but it certainly looked functional, if only he had a way to drag himself to his feet and find out. Easier said than done, when confined in an above-the-knee splint setup as he was, sitting out in the middle of a rock field with nothing nearby for support. Well, I got some other sticks here, branches, why not use one of them to help me up? Which he did, struggling, twice returning to the ground to rethink the matter when he saw that his approach was flawed, and finally finding something that worked. He stood, trembling, weak from two days of sitting but delighted to be on his feet, the crutch under his right arm and a stout stick clutched firmly in his left hand, hardly prepared to walk across the rock field with such an unstable arrangement and doubting he had the strength to do it at the moment, anyway, but confident that with the construction of another crutch and a better, hopefully lighter! cast, he would be on his feet again and somewhat mobile. Now, get yourself back on the ground--carefully-- and scoot right back up there to the shelter before Liz comes along and discovers you, or you fall and twist this leg sideways, or something. One fall like that, and the bone will very likely come right through the skin, and itll all be over but the slow, horrible death from gangrene and sepsis. Which was sufficient motivation, even for Einar, and he eased himself back to the rocks, lying flat on his back for a good while as he caught his breath. The leg hurt, ached terribly with occasional sharp pains, did not feel too much worse than it had before he started moving for the day, and he was hopeful that no additional harm had been done. Having rested a bit, he was about to begin the long slow drag back up to the crevice when he heard something that had him sitting up in a hurry, mouth watering despite his still-aching stomach, scrambling to get back to his feet and knowing that he was going to be trying out that crutch a good bit sooner than he had intended.

The creature was distressed, apparently having trouble getting over a particularly steep little ridge of rock there in the boulder field, and was crying the weird, almost humanlike cry of an aggravated porcupine. It seemed not to have noticed Einar yet, and, standing there swaying on his crutch and leaning heavily on the shorter stick for additional support, Einar saw food. Good, rich fatty meat, enough for several days, and all those quills, too, for various projects. Looking at what he had with him--several nearly finished atlatl dart points with out shafts or the atlatl, which he had left back at the shelter, his knife, the crutch, and no more--he quickly concluded that if he wanted the critter, he was going to have to get close, then brain it with a rock. The pistol would have been quite well suited to taking the slow-moving, closely approachable spiny beast had he been carrying it, but he had sent it with Liz in her quest for berries. The creature had made it over the object of its frustration, was moving away towards the trees and Einar, knowing that his chances of taking it would decrease dramatically once it started up a tree, got the crutch firmly situated under his shoulder and took an experimental step, awkward, painful, swinging his good leg out in front by a few inches, getting the foot planted firmly on one of the less-then-stable rocks before dragging the splinted leg along behind, feeling the entire time as if he was about to pitch forward or topple over onto his backside in the rocks. Which he knew he must not do, because any such fall would likely lead to further injury, as well as destroying his chances of catching up to the departing porcupine. It very briefly occurred to Einar just then to question the wisdom of going after the porcupine, at all, considering the very real risk of further injuring his leg, but he dismissed the thought as useless, dangerous, even, bordering on complacency and something to be dispensed of as quickly as possible. If you were here by yourself, a starving man with a broken leg and winter just around the corner, youd sure enough have to go after the critter. You cant pass up on an opportunity like this just because Liz is here. Now theres two of you whove got to eat, only one whos much use for hunting or even running a trap line, and with that snow last night, looks like winter isnt as far off as youd hoped. Now come on, move. You got to be faster than a porkie, Einar, even if you do have a busted leg. Only thing slower than a porcupine is a dead critter, and Im pretty sure youre still breathing, at the moment. Thus challenged, he swung along on the crutches, listing perilously with each step and badly exhausted before he neared the animal, but glad that he was, at least, capable of some sort of movement once again. There it was, the porcupine, Einar approaching within three feet of the slow moving animal, and he was ready to lift the rock that would end its life and provide he and Liz with several good meals, but he had a problem. To pick up a rock of sufficient size, he would both have to crouch down on the ground and turn loose of either the crutch or the stick for a while, neither of which, he knew quite well, he was capable of doing without a certain fall. Mildly disgruntled by his presence, the creature had resumed its shuffling walk, was getting away again, and Einar, shaking all over and knowing he was too tired to pursue the porcupine much further, did the only thing he could think to do, leaning heavily on the stick in his left hand while raising the crutch, getting it turned around so that the heavy side pointed out. In the time it took him to get the crutch flipped around, the animal had covered several more feet and Einar, seeing it was mere yards from the

trees, hobbled forward on the stick without the aid of the crutch, a very difficult task that left him nearly crying out in pain when the foot of his damaged leg several times struck rocks and jarred the leg, but he remained standing, covered the distance and gave the porcupine a quick whack on the skull with his crutch. The creature, stunned if not dead, slumped to the ground and Einar, triumphant but unsteadied by the effort, pitched backwards, scrambled desperately to catch himself with the stick, the crutch, failed, toppled over in the rocks.

Liz heard nothing of the commotion, it being fairly subdued, as commotions go, and she finding herself fully immersed in the chokecherry harvest, which was going remarkably well, the recent cold nights and several light frosts having turned the cherries from their slightly underripe deep red to the glossy black that signaled their achievement of full sweetness. The bears had seen the signal and had redoubled their efforts at consuming the fruit, and the birds, even, had noted the change, though they had been picking for weeks, nearly stripping some of the higher branches of their bounty. Liz did not mind, as she could not reach those, anyway, listening to the raucous calls of Stellars jays and the softer murmering of the chickadees as she stripped the long clusters of fruit into the grocery sack, emptying it into one of the garbage bags as soon as it became heavy. She had intended to take a bag of cherries to Einar as soon as she had filled one, but in the rhythmic work of the harvest, her mind freed to wander and work on a number of different problems and puzzles--like gloves. What am I going to do for winter gloves? Make them out of marmot hides, I guess. Ill have to ask Einar what he did, last winter though she seemed to remember him showing up at her house with frostbitten fingers and some bits of cloth tied around his hands, so she supposed he might not have had anything, at all--she quite lost track of the passage of time. When she switched to the second garbage bag simply to keep the first from becoming too heavy--it held nearly thirty pounds of chokecherries, she estimated--Liz realized with a start that she had been away for some time, well over two hours, by the position of the sun, leaving Einar waiting. Lifting the heavy berry bags and slinging them over her shoulders, she wound her way through the trees towards the meadow, feeling bad about her lapse but not overly concerned about Einar, hoping, actually, that he might have fallen asleep, had he tired of working on the partially completed atlatl points he had brought along.

Einar lay on his back, his rear end down in a hole between boulders, legs and one arm up in the air, the other arm pinned beneath him. When the splinters of light and the ringing in his ears from the pain of jarring the fractured leg so badly subsided to a manageable level, he freed the arm, glanced up at the splint and breathed a prayer of thanks that it appeared to be intact, knowing that he had not bent the leg at an angle, at least, where the bone would have broken the skin and probably had not got himself into a situation where the bone would have to be set again, either, though the way it felt, he was less certain about the second part. Leaning his head back on the lichen-covered boulder behind him he took a few breaths, realized that he could see quills up there above him in the sunlight,

could see they were not moving. Good. Maybe the critters dead, maybe itll stay put while I get myself out of this. Which I do hope I can manage, before some other critter comes along and steals my porcupine. Not that he had a good way to carry it back with him, once he did get out--supposed he would find a way to tie it to his good foot and drag it, bootlace, maybe, assuming that he was not going to attempt the walk back on the crutch. Where is the crutch, speaking of which? It wasnt down there in the hole with him, neither was the stick, and when he attempted to lift himself, Einar realized that this was to be something of a problem.

It was the plane that finally got Einar, exhausted, terribly thirsty and having to rest longer and longer between attempts, up out of the hole. Flying low, skimming the wide timbered valley on the far side of the spires, he heard it change direction, circle back, and knew that it would soon be on top of him. Had he been able to bend his right knee he might have simply tried slipping a bit lower into the dark shadow between the boulders and curling up, disappearing, but he could not, supposed that the leg, sticking up at an odd angle and wrapped in the green jacket, might be visible against the mottled grey of the rock field, especially if the plane was as low as it sounded. Grabbing a protruding spur of rock with his right hand, shoving at the angled granite slab beneath him with his left, he found a bit of strength that had not been accessible to him before, used it to inch himself up out of the hole, legs and then hips, grabbing another rock and flipping himself over away from the depression, as soon as he had raised himself sufficiently to do so. The plane was coming, humming in his ears, the mad scramble for cover going a long way towards getting his mind off the blinding pain of twisting the damaged leg, and a massive slab of overhanging granite providing him the dark shadowy refuge he sought. Lying there in the shelter of the rock Einar listened as the plane made a pass through the low spot between the spires and the peak behind them, paralleling the long, narrow meadow before doubling back and doing it again, circling twice and departing. Watching the little white and yellow Super Cub, banking sharply as it disappeared behind row of spires, Einar wondered where Liz was, hoped she had managed to conceal herself in time. The plane, he believed, had not been equipped with an infrared sensor, and while it had been quite low, he was confident that he had not been seen, that Liz should not have been either, if she had been fairly quick about taking cover, but he wondered about the nature of the flight, his first assumption being that it must be related to the ongoing search, but thinking at the same time that it seemed not to fit the pattern that had been used in the past. Well. Could be hunters scouting the area, for that matter. It is that time of year. Sure hope they didnt see anything they liked The pain in his leg had subsided some as he lay there still beneath the rock, and Einar looked around, saw the porcupine still lying over near the crevice he had fallen into--the creature had not moved, he supposed he must have whacked it hard enough, before himself toppling over--and knew that he must get it up to the shelter before that bear came along again and got curious, either about the large, spiny rodent, or himself. Bears, he knew, did not prey on porcupines--few creatures did, with the exception of the occasional mountain lion, fisher or, more rarely, an adventurous coyote or two, but he had little doubt that it would

consider an already-dead porky suitable fare, and worth the trouble of negotiating around the quills to get at the soft, unprotected stomach and the rich meat inside. Meat which would, he knew, taste a good bit less piney than had the last porcupine he had taken the winter before, as the creatures tended to have a far more varied diet during the summer months, enjoying the bark of the little alpine willows, various greens, berries, flowers and aspen bark in addition to their winter fare of evergreen bark. Not that itll matter much if the bear gets to it first, not even entirely sure you could fight off a fisher or marten if one came for it right now. So come on, find a way to drag the critter. Working on attaching the porcupine, which he estimated must weigh somewhere between twenty five and thirty pounds with its layer of fall fat, to his shorter walking stick so he could drag it back without sticking himself on the quills, Einars thoughts returned to the plane. He needed to find Liz, needed to talk with her and get some idea of whether she might have been seen, because if she had, they clearly could not remain where they were. She cant, anyway. You sure arent going very far or fast with this busted leg, Einar, but she could. Has to, if theres any chance that theyre gonna come down and take a closer look at this place. Just because the searchers havent used too many little planes like that in the past, doesnt mean that somebodys not out doing some contract work for them, or who knows what? Been a lot less aircraft these last few days, so something had obviously changed. Maybe they ran themselves right out of fundingthatd be good! Winter is going to beinteresting enough, without having to listen for planes and choppers all the time, and limit fires to the night time hours. Having wrapped and tied his boot lace around the porcupines tail--carefully avoiding getting any quills lodged in his hand and wrist, thatd be just what I need right now, an arm full of quills--Einar secured the other end of the lace to the walking stick, retrieved his crutch and began the exhausting work of scooting backwards up the rocky slope to wards the spires, and safety, pressing on steadily but having a very difficult time with his increasingly dry, sandy mouth and throat as he struggled up over the boulder field under the early afternoon sun and hoping very much that the plane would not return while he was out in the open. Which it did not, but neither did Liz, as she had stopped on the meadows edge to collect a the handful of ripe purple Oregon grape berries that she found there in the dappled sun at the edge of the aspen grove. Many of them did not appear ripe yet, still bearing a tinge of pink-red beneath their whitish waxy coating, and those she left alone, having tried one and found it incredibly sour, but she collected a large handful of the purple ones, discovering them to be quite palatable, despite a definite vinegary bite that she knew would not leave them, no matter how ripe they became. Lacking anything to carry the berries in, she wrapped them up in a couple of nearby mullein leaves, large and soft and flexible, and tucked them into her pocket. Wiping her scarlet-purple stained hands on the nearby grass--she had already stopped at the seep on her way past to clean off the thick coating of sticky red chokecherry grime, as well as to fill the water bottles-she again shouldered the heavily loaded chokecherry bags, and quickly crossed the meadow, skirting around to its narrowest part so that she only had to be out in the open for the space of four quick steps. Up through the second band of aspens, then, out across the boulder field and She found him there, feet from the shelter-crevice--having been unable to haul the porcupine through the narrow passage of rock while hopping on one

foot and dragging his leg, he had waited there with it, wishing to be able to go inside and retrieve the one still-full water bottle that remained, but unwilling to abandon the meat-lying flat on his back with his head in the cool shade of an overhanging little ledge of rock, cheeks hollow with thirst and eyes scrunched tightly shut against the pain of his battered leg. Einar heard her coming across the rocks, sat up, tried to say something about the bags of berries that he saw her carrying, but couldnt manage anything beyond a hoarse whisper. Liz hurriedly took off her pack to get him one of the freshly-filled bottles, but he heard the plane returning, pointed to the sky and she heard it too, concealing the berry bags and porcupine in the deep shadows beside the crevice and quickly helping him inside. Waiting in the shade of the passage for the plane to depart, Einar sank towards the ground, his one good leg cramping and unable to support him, and Liz eased him to the sandy floor of the passage, gave him a drink and offered him the Oregon grapes. Grateful, thanking her, Einar ate one of the berries, mashing a number of the others between his fingers and dropping them into the water, shaking it until it turned a light shade of red-purple, taking a swallow. The water, tart and refreshing, revived him a bit, and he turned to look back at Liz, behind him in the passage. That plane. Think they saw you? The first time? No, Einar, I dont think so. I heard it and got under a spruce, didnt come out until I couldnt hear it anymore. You? I wasunder a rock. No problem. She had been watching him, could tell he was in rather worse shape than when she had left him that morning and must have not spent the day resting in the sun outside the shelter and working on atlatl points, but hardly dared ask what he had been up to. I see you got a porcupine Yes. Couldnt seem to get him past this narrow part, and I didnt want to clean him out there and have to fight off the coyotes and such and He let his voice trail off, seeing the way she was looking at him and sensing trouble. What? Where did you get the porcupine? He just walked right past you here while you were working on the atlatl points, and you dropped a rock on him? He grinned at her, or tried to, through the agony in his leg. No. Finished the points, saw a stick down there in the rocks, an old dead spruce that looked like itd make a fine crutch, and it wasnt very far, so I scooted down there, butthen I heard the porcupine, tried out the crutches and caught up to him, but then I kinda had a little balance problem, and ended up backside-down between a couple of boulders for a whilehey, have you ever tasted porcupine?

Liz shook her head, said nothing for a minute until she could trust herself not to shout at him and hit him over the head with said crutch, offered him some more water, which he accepted. Soyoure telling me you risked re-breaking your leg and causing yourself to be permanently crippledto go crawling around after a porcupine? Einar stared at the ground for a minute. Knew youd get after me for this one. But, yes. I did that. Just like you said. For the next meal, though, for sustenance. For another few days of life. Porkys about the only critter Im capable of taking, at the moment, and I heard him, he was right therecouldnt pass it up. She nodded, wanting to say a few things, but unable for the moment to think of a productive way to word them. Your leg? Its bad, kinda swelled up again, twisted it a little when I fell in that hole, but the splint stayed on, so I doubt much harm was done. I brought you more willows, and a few stems of some sort of mint that I found near the seep. Guess youll be needing them. He did not answer. Well, lets get you back there into the shelter, and Ill go clean the porcupine before the heat gets to it. And no, I never have tried one, but I certainly will, tonight. I hope it goes alright with stewed chokecherries, because I sure did get a lot of them! And there are lots more where these came from, she said, holding up the heavily laden bags for Einar to admire. They were nearly to the back of the crevice where the spruce bed and fire pit waited, well concealed by the close-pressing walls of rock, when they heard the plane return for a third time.

Liz hurriedly squeezed herself through the passage to the shelter entrance, watched from the shadows as the plane again explored the meadow, their meadow, low, circling, before again banking sharply and disappearing, this time not behind the spires but around the shoulder of the rugged peak that lay in back of them, behind the meadow. She waited, listening, watching, expecting it to return again but hearing only the subdued sounds of the small aircraft humming up and down the adjoining valley, somewhat surprised when after a time Einar had not joined her there at the entrance and hoping he had finally come to his senses about staying off of the bad leg. Finally she abandoned her watch, convinced that the plane was through with their immediate area, at least for the time, and concerned that she had heard nothing from Einar in the fifteen minutes during which she had watched for the planes return. Worming her way back to the end of the passage, she found him stretched out on the bed, a half-chewed willow stick in his hand, pale and sweating and clearly in a good bit of distress. He heard her, started to sit up but she put a hand on his shoulder, gently held him down, spread the wolverine pelt over him, seeing that he was cold. Its alright. Keep resting, if you can. The planes gone over into the next valley, so I guess they must not have seen anything to make them especially interested in this spot. Do you think theyre part of the search? Einar used his teeth to rip off another strip of bark from the willow stick, shoved it into

his mouth and chewed, answering only when he had swallowed the mouthful of bitter juice thus obtained, his words curt, clipped, spit out from between clenched teeth. Dont know. Not a plane Ive seen them use before. Could be though. But its probably hunters. Elk hunters. He was quiet for a minute, catching his breath, tearing off more of the willow bark and shuddering at its acrid bitterness. Be pretty funny if they decided to set up camp right out there in the meadow, and we couldnt leave here for a week, wouldnt it? Guess wed just have to hope it rained, and lie with our heads out in the open to catch the rain drops for water. And he laughed a weird little humorless laugh, closed his eyes again, Liz thinking that he seemed not quite himself and wondering if the pain of moving the leg was finally getting to him just a bit. She was ready to ask him about it, but he was talking again, fast, his words not quite clear, tripping over each other, and she sat down beside him to better hear them. Maybe you better get out of here, Liz. Before they show up, whoever they are. Im slow, real slow right now, cant hardly walk, cant outrun them and you sure dont want to be here when the shooting starts, do you? I hope not, I dont want you here cause theres only one way this ones gonna end, and theres no point you ending that way, too, when youre still able to get around and get out from under themjust take the stuff, pack, berries, whatever you can use, some of that porcupine, and clear out of here. Please. Before they get people out on the ground and its too late. I should be able to hold them here in these rocks for a good while. By the time its all over they wont even remember to look for your tracks, if they ever had that idea in the first placeplease go! Einar, whoa, wait a minute. She wiped the sweat from his face and gave him a drink of water. Theres no reason to think theyre coming, right now. Theyve moved on, gone over to the other valley. And you just said yourself that theyre most likely elk hunters scouting for good spots. Its already bow season right now if Im remembering the dates right, and rifle season is coming up in just a few weeks. Theyre probably scouting for that. Ill watch every day, make sure nobody sets up a camp anywhere too close to here, and if were really careful with fire and everything while hunting season is going on, we should be alright. Now you just chew some more willow bark and some of this mint, here, so it doesnt tear up your stomach so bad, and Im going to take a look at your leg. He made no move either to strip off more willow bark or to accept the mint she held out to him, so Liz gently removed the stick from his clenched hand, pulled off a long thin strip of bark and rolled it around a wad of mint leaves, repeatedly offering him the result until finally, seeming to return with a start to the present, he accepted. Yeah. Youre right. Hunters. More likely than searchers, for sure. Sorry about the weirdness just now. Legs giving me a little trouble. He glanced up at her, caught her eye, looked away again, unsure just what to say. If she hadnt been here to remind me of all that, Id have either been looking for a way to haul myself up one of these cliffs so Id have more of an advantage when they came, or dragging myself into the woods out there trying to clear out before they got hereeither way, Id not have lasted long, most likely. Anyhow, thanks for theuhreality. Relieved that he seemed to be reconsidering things, she peeled off another strip of willow

bark for him, before checking his leg. The leg had swollen again, though not quite to the proportions of that past night, and when she checked the pulse at his ankle, it was still strong, the feeling in his toes still intact, but she could see that the ties on the splint had loosened and shifted as he moved around, and it appeared that his leg was slightly deformed, not quite straight. Einar was not surprised when she told him about the alignment concerns; he had suspected the same, but with the appearance of the plane, had not found an opportunity to check it. Have to set it again, Liz. Thats why it hurts so much right now. It may be harder than the first time because of the swellingwill you help me with it? She nodded, carefully worked to remove the splint-sticks and wrappings, asked him if he was ready and, at his signal, began slowly and steadily pulling and twisting in an attempt to get the re-disturbed bone ends back into their proper alignment. It took several tries, Einar once thinking he was going to black out but managing to hang onto consciousness, finally feeling a sudden relief as the fractured ends more or less lined up, and telling her it was done. Einar lay back on the bed catching his breath after that, the leg hurting less than it had since he fell on the crutches that morning, Liz asking him if she had better try and rebuild the splint. Weak and feeling completely drained of energy but glad that with the lessening of the hurt his head was finally a good bit clearer, he sat up. Speaking, which had been taking all the effort he could muster, before, was suddenly much easier, his breathing easier, and he found himself relaxing just a bit for the first time in hours. Yes. Wed better do that. Better keep it in the splints tonight in case theres more swelling, then tomorrow I have to come up with a better cast, something that wont shift and change and let the doggone thing move around every time I have to move the leg. Right now Ive got enough aspen cordage to wrap a good bit of the leg, and if you happen to see some more shreddy bark, I can get that ready for morning. Then Im thinking we can coat it with pitch once its all wrapped to make it more rigid, almost like a plaster cast, put the polypro shirt in there next to my leg before wrapping it, and call it good for now. Something removable would be even better--front half and back half held together by wrapping cordage--so I could let the leg air out now and then, especially when I get it wet in the rain as Im sure will happen before Im out of it, but that can come later. May be able to use some of those sour deer hide shreds to make that one. For now though, I just need something thatll keep it stable, keep it from breaking again. That sounds good. I know where there are several fallen aspens that have the sort of bark you like to use for the cordage, and some porcupine-damaged spruces that are oozing tons of pitch, too, so Ill go get all of that this evening. Will youpleasesit still for a while now, though? Or youre just going to keep hurting it and having to start all over with the healing, and I dont want to be out there snowshoeing and skiing alone all winter, you understand? Einar looked at her strangely--just what makes her so sure shes spending the winter up here, anyway? Fool girl--nodded, agreeing. Oh, Ill keep still for a while, alright, or mostly still, anyway. Sure dont want to have to go through setting this thing again any

time soon, and I know that every time I move its got to be tearing things up in there. Still cant quite let go of the idea that Ive got to constantly make sure I still can do everything that needs doing, even if I dont have to, though. Been out here alone for so long with no choice but to just do, go, keep myself alive, regardless of the immediate costhabit like that is awful hard to set aside, but Im gonna try. Good. Thats real good. Is it OK if I remind you now and then, if you seem to be forgetting? Promise I wont nag about it, but Yeah. Im kinda dense about things like this, so just give me a good kick in the ribs if I start forgetting, and maybe Ill catch on after a while. Uhwell, thats not exactly what I had in mind, but Ill think of something! Now, Id better go out and get that aspen bark and pitch before the afternoon gets away from us, and maybe some more berries too, if theres time. Want me to help you get set up to start pounding the berries, or whatever you plan on doing with them, before I go? I guess you need to be out in the sun to do it? Would be bestgonna freeze pretty bad sitting in here. I can real carefully scoot out to the entrance if you help a little, sit there and work on the berries. Liz helped him out and got him propped against a smooth, angled granite slab, the bags of berries beside him and another slab laid flat at his side as a surface for pounding the berries and breaking up their pits in preparation for drying. At his request she also brought him the cooking pot, so that it could be used to catch and save the extra juice produced by the process. She wanted to leave him the Glock, but Einar insisted that she take it, saying that he would just step inside the crevice, if anything dangerous came along. No way Im going more than a few feet from this crack right now with that plane in the area so recently, because then I very well might not be able to get myself to shelter soon enough, if it comes back. And if it sees either of us well have to clear out of here right away, which would be kinda challenging with this busted legthough I guess itd be interesting to see just how far I could get Liz threw a rock at him, deliberately missing but somewhat aggravated at his making light of so serious a subject. You would find that interesting, wouldnt you? I believe you would probably get some entertainment out of thatbefore you fell over dead! Now, are you sure you dont want to keep the pistol? Nah, you take it. If a bear comes along, Ive always got this knife, here, which is a lot more than I had when I wrestled that wolverine this spring, so I cant go wrong! Rolling her eyes and hoping that he was not serious, but expecting that he might well be, Liz left to resume her berry collecting and gather aspen bark for Einars cast.

For nearly an hour Liz gathered chokecherries, taking breaks now and then to make short side trips to gather long strips of inner bark from several of the previous years fallen aspens, fining and collecting on one of her forays a good quantity of hounds tongue to make another poultice for Einars leg that night before he encased it in the more permanent cast, if he wished. Also for the cast she gathered nearly two quarts of spruce and fir pitch, mostly in the form of hard, shiny lumps, some of them with a whitish, crumbly coating, that had oozed out of porcupine wounds in some of the nearby trees. The cast, she knew, would need to be adequately padded and insulated, and to that end she began stuffing her shirt with the long, stringy clumps of Usnea lichen that Einar had shown her once before and which she noticed a good quantity of in the evergreens on the lower slopes of the peak, just above the area where she was picking berries. Inspecting a handful of the lichen, soft, clean and, according to Einar, fairly strongly antiseptic, she kept collecting even after she had what she believed would be enough to help pad his cast, thinking that it might be useful for her monthly needs, as well, and glad to have found a solution to that soon-to-be problem without asking Einar about it, which she got the feeling would have embarrassed him a bit. Pushing her way through a matted tangle of chokecherry bushes to get at the clusters of berries on its other side, Liz discovered a cluster of nettle plants when her elbow brushed one of them, raising a series of tiny red welts on which she quickly smeared mud from a nearby spot of damp ground, remembering when Einar had told her about the effectiveness of mud on nettle stings. More carefully, the mud having done its job, she approached the nettles, tall and spindly, nodding under the weight of developing seeds, past their prime as greens and, she was sure, fairly tough, but still full of potassium, iron and magnesium that would not only help Einar begin to rebuild some strength after his extended starvation--as pale and cold as he always seemed to be, she knew that he must still be anemic from his earlier blood loss and continued poor diet, badly needed the iron--but, along with the high-calcium broth she planned to make for him from some of the deer bones, would also allow his broken bones to start healing more quickly. Using one of the berry-collecting bags as a glove she stripped a good pile of leaves from the stems, rolling them up in the bag and stashing them in Einars pack to add to that nights dinner.

Working on the chokecherries, Einar pounded them with a smooth rock that he had found, crushing the pits so that they could dry along with fruit that covered them. The pits, he knew, contained a good bit of prussic acid, a cyanide compound that was mildly poisonous if consumed in sufficient quantities, but knew also that the pits with their oil content almost certainly offered more calories than the fruit itself. As either drying or cooking was sufficient to destroy the prussic acid, he knew that the fruit patties or fruit leather that resulted from pulverizing and sun-drying the whole berries ought to be a safe and nutritious addition to their winter food supply. He had dried chokecherries numerous times before, though most often without the pits, back in more plentiful times, easier times when he had not thought twice about throwing several pounds of pits out into the aspens behind his cabin after pressing the fruit through a strainer or fruit leather. The

memory of such waste--though he had not considered it such at the time--was difficult for Einar to think about, at the moment, and he was suddenly aware of being very hungry, his need for food finally overwhelming the persistent nausea that had been brought on by the pain in his leg and aggravated by the willow bark he had been continuously chewing in a barely successful search for a bit of relief and to reduce the swelling. Consuming a large mouthful of cherries, spitting out the pits as he went and adding them back into the pile of partially pounded fruit to be split and dried (better not mention this part to Liz) he found the hunger pains slightly reduced, enjoying the sweet taste of the cherries despite the mouth-puckering astringency that never quite left the fruit, even at its ripest. Finishing his second mouthful of cherries and knowing that to indulge in more meant a certain worsening of the rather unpleasant and, with his splinted leg, difficult to manage digestive upset and loose bowels that had been plaguing him for the past week, he wished for a bit of porcupine liver to go with the fruit, something more substantial to ease the cramping emptiness in his stomach. He wanted to drag himself back to the shelter where Liz had left the porkies liver and heart in a bag full of cold seep water to keep them fresh for dinnertime and secure himself a few bites raw, but he knew that leaving the halffinished chokecherry project spread out all over the rocks would be an open invitation to all the birds and even bears in the area to come along and clean it up for him. Additional food would have to wait. No problem. At least its warm here in the sun and youre not having to shiver, for once. Keep working to get your mind off of it, roll a couple of those pits around in your mouth and thatll help you feel less hungry. Which helped, slightly, though despite his best intentions he kept sneaking small handfulls of fruit here and there until finally his face and beard became nearly as smeared with sticky scarlet juice as his hands, working steadily at processing the berries and daydreaming of a supper of fatty porcupine boiled up in the excess cherry juice that he had been catching in the cooking pot as it ran off of the slightly angled rock slab on which he worked. A feast, by any standard that he was familiar with As he worked on the cherries, Einar heard an occasional rustling and crashing in the brush over beyond the rockfield, and while it sounded an awful lot like a bear he never did see sign of it, wondered if it might be the same one that had tossed him against the tree and supposed that, whether or not it was the same bear, the one that had apparently regarded him as a suitable target for its early autumn foraging, there were certainly plenty of smells in and around the shelter to attract bruins. Between the sour deer carcass at the back of the crevice, the freshly butchered porcupine and the mass of pulverized chokecherries (guess I have to add myself to the list, based on the way that one bear was acting, though Im pretty certain that I must smell even less appetizing than that old deer carcass by now, even to a bear) Einar figured the place must seem a veritable smorgasbord-in-waiting to the nose of a hungry bear. He was not too concerned. As close as he was to the crevice entrance, the only way a creature of that size could approach him unawares and before he could get himself and the berries inside was if he fell asleep, which he had no intention of doing. On with the work. The plane surprised Einar, who had managed to lose himself in the steady, repetitive hammering of rock on rock, the bright crimson of the juicy berries as they were turned into pulp, squeezed of some of their juice and set aside on another rock to begin drying,

the work taking his mind off the terrible ache in his leg and freeing it to contemplate other things, like what he--and Liz, if she could not be persuaded to come to her senses and leave to seek shelter with her friends in the valley--would wear when the snow came, how they would stay warm and keep themselves fed sufficiently to make it through the long cold months at an elevation where few creatures stirred after the snow began drifting high, and the only edible plants that were accessible, for the most part, were the barely-nutritious bark of evergreens, and the Usnea lichen that hung wispy and moss like from their branches. His plans, prior to the broken leg, had involved making several forays to the lower slopes to harvest many pounds of acorns and possibly, if it was a good year for them, even a good quantity of pinyon nuts. That bounty, once the acorns had been ground into a course meal and leached in a creek to remove some of the bitter tannins, would have gone a long towards adding some necessary protein and a good bit of fat to his winter diet, should big game become scarce. But now It was nearly on top of him by the time he heard it, popping out from behind the steep-shouldered peak opposite the spires, and he got a glimpse of yellow as he dove for a vaulted slab of granite, for the dark space beneath, dragged himself beneath it and pressed his frame into the few inches of darkness that would conceal him, the crevice being too far, with so little warning. He watched from the shadows as the small plane hummed up the meadow again, low between the spires and the peak, disappeared behind the spires, and he raised his head slightly, glancing out at the purple smear of his berry-processing station on the granite beside the shelter, wondered how visible it would have been from the air and decided that, dappled with shade as the afternoon sun slanted down through the aspens up behind it on the slope, the mess ought to have blended right in. Good. Then he happened to look down at the lower edge of the rockfield, saw the bear loping up the boulders with its nose in the air, heading for his berries, saw what it had in mind and pulled the knife from his boot; the only weapon accessible to him at the moment. The plane was returning, heading back down the meadow from whence it came, and the bear, hearing it and growing alarmed, doubled its pace.

Pete Jackson was always looking for work, especially with the lawn mowing and property maintenance season winding down and snow plowing and shoveling not to begin down in town for another month or two, and when he was offered the job of going in with a string of horses and one other guide to set up the high elk camp for a group of clients a local outfitter had coming in when muzzleloader season started in just under a week, he jumped at the chance. The outfitter and a pilot friend of his whom he promised to take along on the hunt in return for the flight time had made several passes over a series of remote valleys earlier that day, had seen several spots that looked promising, and had returned to Culver Falls to consult topo maps before making the final decision as to the location of the camp. Pete and the guide were to set out for the day and a half-long journey, the following morning. The bear, seeming unsure whether he ought to be focused more on getting away from the low, angry buzzing thing in the sky or on gobbling up the bounty of pre-chewed berries

that were spread all over the nearby rocks, ran at the berries, and Einar, faster and faster in an attempt to get away from the plane, and Einar lay there under the rock with the knife in his hand, seeing that the creature was on course to leap right over the rock he hid beneath, if, that was, it did not stop for the berries. Einar, seeing in the plump, loping creature an incredible bounty of food, fat, a good warm hide, had a brief thought that he just might be able to grab on as the bear passed over him, twist his hand into that thick coat and get the knife into its neck as it dragged him, too distracted by the plane to give him much notice until it was too late And he might have tried it, in fact, growing increasingly desperate about the upcoming winter and the need for food and warmth, had it not been for the plane. Einar must not leave the cover of the rock, knew it, could not risk being seen by whoever was up there paying so much attention to the little meadow and the area around the spires. The bear had, in that time, covered the distance that separated him from Einar, and he gave a passing sniff to the berries, appearing regretful that he could not stop and feast, but wishing for cover, himself, from the menace flying overhead, one hind foot coming within inches of Einars face as he jumped up onto the slab that sheltered him, shifting it slightly with his weight but leaving Einar unhurt as he passed, ambling quickly off into the waiting trees. The plane had gone, disappeared again behind the rugged rock and scattered timber of the lower slopes of the peak, and Einar lay there catching his breath, shaking with silent laughter at the weird and unlikely series of events that had just taken place around him and half wishing that he had gone ahead and attempted to take the bear--would have been a grand way to end this thing, anyway, if it hadnt worked outhe laughed some more at the mental picture of himself riding on a big old black bear, clinging onto its furry back for dear life with his knife in hand and the plane mere hundreds of feet overhead, riding off into the timber where the creature would have promptly scraped him off against a tree and almost certainly ended his life with reasonable expediency, though whoever was in the plane would never have known that, and would have returned to civilization with fantastic tales of a wild-haired, knife-wielding madman who hunted bears by leaping on them from trees and lived in a crevice in the rockWell. Interesting story, and at least youd have probably been in the bears stomach long before whoever it was in that plane came for you, or told the searchers and they came for you, but really, the way it turned out is probably a lot better! Listening carefully for the planes return and hearing nothing, he carefully dragged himself out from beneath the rock, over to the cherries and, one by one, began moving the partially-full berry bags, cooking pot two thirds full of juice, and some of the smaller granite flakes that contained drying chokecherry patties into the shaded protection of the narrow rock corridor where they would be out of reach of the bear, should some variation of the recent situation repeat itself, and the bear, bolder after seeing that the plane did it no harm, decide to take advantage of his absence to gobble up the berries. He knew that one hungry bear could demolish what had for he and Liz been many hours of work, in less than five minutes of eating. The cherries would certainly dry faster out in the sun and breeze, but at the moment, leaving them there seemed an unreasonable risk. Perhaps Liz would be back soon, and could help him watch them while they dried and get them inside quickly if danger returned. For the moment, though, he found himself entirely unable to move the last of the drying racks, a large heavy slab of flat rock that held eight drying berry patties and had also served as the

surface on which he had been pulverizing the berries, pushing and shoving and lifting but making little headway in moving the rock. Well, Einar, youre pretty useless, looks like. He shook his head, wiped the sweat from his face and rested for a minute, waiting for the blood to stop so pounding so loudly in in his ears and for a sudden wave of nausea to begin subsiding. Shouldnt be any problem for you to drag that thing in there, even if you cant pick it up because of the leg. Try again. No success, though, the thing might as well have weighed a ton, and while terribly frustrated, Einar knew he ought not be surprised. With the continued lack of adequate food, his body had for some time been burning muscle for energy in an attempt to keep him hanging onto life, and he supposed there could not be much left. Got to turn this around. Speaking of whichhe delved into the one remaining berry bag that he had yet to take into the crevice and ate another handful of the red-black fruit, tempted to swallow the pits just to help fill his stomach, but resisting, reluctantly spitting them out and depositing them back in the berry bag. Yeah. Cyanide poisoning would be one of the last things you need right now, so better wait and eat these dry, with the rest of them. Gonna have porcupine tonight, anyway, so just be patient and wait for that. Continuing with the chokecherry processing, Einar pulverized enough for several more patties, pressing them onto small rocks and setting them as near as he could to the crevice while still keeping them in the sun to allow the drying process to begin, working until he had turned all of the berries into a pulp. Done with the berries Einar started on yet another length of aspen bark cordage, intending to have enough to create a cast for his leg the following day and completing a good thirty five feet of it to add to the coils he had previously set aside. During that time he heard the plane occasionally in the distance, scrambling to get himself and as many of the drying rocks as he could carry into the shelter, but it had never come close, staying in an adjoining valley and finally leaving the area altogether, much to his relief. Shortly after the departure of the plane Liz returned, relieved to see Einar approximately where she had left him but wondering why he had been, apparently, carrying the berry patties into the shade of the crevice as soon as he had formed them. Setting down her burdens, she asked him about it. Oh, well I had a bunch of cherries out here drying in the sun when the plane came, didnt have time to get inside so I dove under that rock over there, and the plane startled up a bear that had been watching me--Id heard him over there in the brush--and he came running up over the rocks like he was gonna gulp down a bunch of the fruit on his way pastwell, I was there under the rock watching him run right at me, had the knife in my hand and I had this real brief thought that I ought to lunge at the critter, grab hold and get the knife in him, get us a good fat bear and that nice thick hide to keep us warmalmost did it, too, but didnt want the plane to see me. Liz had jumped to her feet at that and was staring at him with her hands--purple-stained from the berry harvest--on her hips and fire in her eyes, Einar thinking for a moment that he might have really made a mistake in relating that particular line of thought to her, and he caught her eye and grinned, wanting to dispel the situation before she decided to take whatever drastic action she appeared to be contemplating. Just said I thought about it. Cant a fellow think, now and then? Wouldnt have actually tried a thing like thatnot

with this bum leg, anyway. Well thank goodness for the leg, then! Einar she shook her head, kicked at a nearby rock, thought better of saying any more. He had, after all, basically stayed put and rested his leg as she had hoped he would, even if the rest had been interrupted by a bear, a plane, and a near miss with an extremely ill-advised bear huntwith a knife. I certainly never heard of there being a knife season for bears, and theres probably a very good reason for it! Here, Ill help you get the rest of these inside, maybe they can dry some by the fire tonight. Everything dragged into the safety of the crevice at last, Liz showed Einar the results of her foraging, berries, hounds tongue, nettles, and the aspen bark and pitch for his cast, in addition to a good quantity of Usnea and some more wild onions for that nights stew, and he busied himself with making another length of cordage while she worked on supper, chopping up the porcupines liver and heart and some of the meat, and adding them, along with some additional water, the onions and a small handful of previously soaked split peas, to the pot with the salvaged cherry juice. It was going to be quite a feast, indeed, and as soon as dusk came they got a fire going and set it to simmer. By the light of the fire Liz checked Einars leg again--swollen but not as badly as the first time they had set it--all the willow bark he had been chewing seemed to be helping--and applied another hounds tongue poultice to help the bones begin knitting back together, in advance of the cast that Einar intended to apply the next day. By the time the poultice was finished the stew was ready, and Liz helped Einar sit up against the rock wall near the fire, joining him and pulling the pot off of the cooking rock where it had sat, staying warm. Instead of digging right in and eating Einar held the pot, breathing the steam and watching as it rose white and dissipating into the darkening ribbon of sky above, his silent prayer of thanks rising with it. Quietly he spoke, Liz leaning close to hear his words. Had a porcupine once before, last winter. Id been short on food for a long time, hip was hurt and I couldnt walk, had been living on little shavings of bear fat for weeks, a rabbit now and then, but had stopped checking my snares a few days before because as wet and cold as I got crawling through the snow to do it, I figured I was using up more energy than the rabbits gave me, anyway. Had been burning tiny bits of the bear fat in a hollowed out rock for a little heat, piece of cordage for a wick, just trying to keep the mine I was staying in a little warmer, because I could only have a fire when it snowed, lots of choppers then, low planes. Fat was almost gone, I wasnt even eating it any more, just feeding it bit by bit to my little lamp, and I somehow had the idea that when it all got used upwell, I would be, too. Dont know if it was true, but I was real sure of it, at the time. Was lying there at dusk one evening, knowing Id run out of the fat sometime that night, when I heard this scream. Sounded human, and I thought I was hallucinating, just losing touch with things, but I finally crawled out there to the rock ledge outside the mine and lookedwas a porcupine down there below the ledge in the snow. He was stuck, sliding, trying to climb up to get to a tree, and I pushed a rock off that ledge onto him-couldnt lift it, but I could push it--sent a couple more down there to make sure the job

was doneand I ate, lived. Have never looked at a porcupine the same way, since He took a sip of the stew, a few chunks of meat, handed the pot to Liz. Silent they sat together and shared the meal, passing the pot back and forth until it was empty, sharing a spoonful of Nutella afterwards as a batch of spruce needle tea heated over the flames, warm, full, more than content, for the moment, though each knew--Einar perhaps with more urgency than Liz but with less ability to do anything about it--that their situation was rather serious and soon to grow more so as the fall colors faded and snows began piling and drifting in the high basins. For the moment though, temperatures plunging rapidly outside with the growing darkness and the sharp chill creeping down between the walls of rock, they sat close together beside the fire, watching the flickering of the flames and sipping spruce needle tea. Less than a mile away, but a good fifteen hundred feet lower in elevation in a nearby basin, Pete Jackson and the guide who he had accompanied up to the chosen elk camp location sat around a fire also, the horses relieved of their burdens and tethered in a nearby clearing, piles of folded canvas and aluminum poles for the wall tent, propane lamps and cylinders, cots, kitchen gear and other equipment awaiting their attention as soon as daylight returned.

A weather front was moving in, temperatures falling and the wind picking up, and Einar could hear its restless whistling and sighing through the rocks as he lay there staring up at the pinpricks of light in the sky, distant, cold, brilliant, the brighter band that was the Milky Way just visible near the rear of the opening if he tilted his head back a bit. It was cold. He was trying hard not to shiver so as not to disturb Liz, who lay snuggled against his side, a most welcome source of warmth without which he was not sure how he would have made it through the night, unable as he was to venture out and get firewood at anything but the slowest creeping pace, but he could feel the icy chill getting the better of him, seeping into his bones, and he wished very much that he was able to get up and exercise to warm up. But, he was not, was not able to suppress his shivering anymore, either, nor did he especially want to, needing the heat it would produce, so he carefully inched away from Liz to minimize the disturbance to her, lay there freezing and thinking that in the morning they had better try and haul a few big armloads of additional duff into the shelter, if the nights were going to be as frigid as the current one felt. He had really hoped to have better clothing--elk or deer skin pants and jacket lined with rabbit or marmot fur, bearskin blanket or at least a sleeping robe of sewn-together rabbit hides but it looked like their time was about up, snow could be coming any day and the cold-he rubbed his aching legs, wrapped his arms more tightly around his torso and tucked his nose beneath the wolverine hide--well, the cold had come, already, it seemed. There would be frost on the ground come morning, he had no doubt. And, if he did not keep on top of it, probably frostbitten toes to deal with, also. Wiggling his toes--already numb, it seemed--he tried to get his other leg in contact with them to warm them, but unable to bend his knee in the splints, it was impossible. No

matter. The leg hurt too much for him to sleep, anyway. He would just go on wiggling his toes all night to keep the blood flowing. Which he did for quite some time, but after a while he could not feel his feet anymore, so was no longer sure whether he was wiggling the toes, or not. Time passed, he grew colder and wanted to sit up, change position, try to do something about it, but dreaded letting out the meager amount of heat that had accumulated beneath the hide by moving too much, and still did not want to disturb Liz, who seemed to be sleeping. Staring up at the stars, he tried to pass the time by picking out constellations, or fragments of constellations in the ribbon of black above him, but the stars, it seemed, must be nearly as cold as he was, for they were shaking, too, dancing and jumping in their river of blackness until he could hardly tell one from another, and he closed his eyes, weary, the leg still hurting but seeming like far less of a problem, as none of his limbs really felt as though they belonged to him anymore. Einar knew he was in trouble, or quickly getting there, but the relief was too great for him to care at the moment, and he slept. Just for a minute Liz was not asleep. She had been, but after a time the cold had awakened her, also, as she had given Einar the bulk of the wolverine hide when they settled in for the night, and had been more lightly clad than he, to begin with. Noticing that he was no longer close beside her she reached for him, found him a foot away, half off the bed of duff, his arm, which she found first, very cold, trembling. She spoke to him, got no response, edged over closer and shook him gently, at which he startled and turned towards her. Einar, you feel like ice. Are you alright? Uhyeah, Im fine. His voice, thick and slow and mumbling, told her otherwise and she sat up. No. No, I dont think so. Here. You take the wolverine hide, and Ill go get the fire started again. Should be some coals left. Adding several sticks from the good sized pile that she had amassed in a corner of the shelter, Liz easily blew the fire back to life, remembering to find the three rocks, cool by then, and set them in the bottom of the pit to heat for later. By the growing orange glow of the flames she returned to Einar, helped him roll onto his right side so he could face the fire and curled up against his back to help warm him, wrapping the wolverine hide around them and wishing that it was longer so it could cover their legs. A good part of Einars problem, she knew, in addition to lacking the body fat he needed to maintain a normal core temperature or the clothing that would have helped him cool more slowly, was that with his leg is a splint, he really could not curl up for warmth as she had seen him do in the past. His shivering had grown harder in the warmth of the fire, his breathing strange and erratic because of it, and she held him close, feeding the fire, until he was breathing more normally, if still shaking. Hoping the fat and sugar might help him get warm and stay that way she offered him a spoonful of Nutella from the nearly empty jar, which, terribly hungry again, Einar gladly accepted. Why didnt you tell me you were getting so cold? I could have kept the fire going, or at

least built it back up sooner so you didnt have to go through this She felt him shrug. Kindaused to it I guess. Lot of nights like this...last winter. And I didnt want to bother you. Bother me? You dont think it would have bothered me to wake up in the morning and find you lying here frozen solid? Wellyeahcan see where that might have been kind of a hassle. M-might have had to saw off my arms and legs like that guy did for old Bill McKie in the Robert Service poem--you know, the one that goes, Have you ever stood in an Arctic hutin the shadow of the Pole/With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can't control?/Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin/And that seems to say: "You may try all day, but you'll never jam me in?" Anyway, the guy finally got him in, and you can guess howmight have to do that to me just toto get me out of here so I didnt start stinking. Worse than I do now, that is. So Ido see your point. But, I really doubt its cold enoughfor me to freeze solidjust yet. Liz, finding little humor in Einars sudden poeticizing but supposing she would have to try, as all of his humor seemed of a rather dark and grim sort, lately, responded by tucking the wolverine hide in closer around his neck. That was definitely not my point, and I hope you know it. Just tell me next time, OK? And Ill help you stay warm. He nodded. OK. Maybe. Needmore duff in here for the ground andand those cattails you found below the seep--were there many of thefuzzy brown heads with them? Yes, quite a few. You want to burn them? No. Insulation. Stuffed in our shirts, for night. Itches after a while, butits better than this. Than nothing. Andmilkweed. Been a few days since you brought back those pods to eat, could probably find some that are near the fluff stage now. Easier to collect the fluff if you get to them before they start opening up, when the stuff is still damp and the seeds are white and not attached too firmly. You just open up the pods, scrape off the seeds and let the fluff dry, and youll be amazed how much it expands. If you wait too long to collect the fluff, it flies all over the place when youre trying to get the seeds off. Great insulation, you can compress it over and over again without it losing any of its ability to insulate. And, it doesnt absorb water! Can save the seeds to try and sprout for some greens, this winter. Well, Ill go see how many of those pods I can find tomorrow, and you can work on getting some of that insulation ready. And if we take enough rabbits, or a deer, Ill make you a quilted vest with milkweed down for insulation. How does that sound? Warm. Real good She felt him relax, his words trailed off and he was asleep again, Liz feeding the fire for another hour or so and then fishing out the hot rocks to put next to

Einar for additional warmth, morning finding them both still fast asleep. Early that morning, brushing the heavy frost from his sleeping bag and hanging it in a nearaby tree to await the sun, Pete set off alone for a brief climb up the ridge behind the camp site, knowing that there was a very full day of work awaiting him as soon as the guide awoke, and wishing to explore a bit, first. He had missed the backcountry, hadnt realized just how much until that morning, but had the urge to climb, explore, discover though he knew that, on this trip at least, he would have very limited time with which to do so.

The wind that had subsided overnight, allowing for a heavy rime of frost to coat the lichen-dotted rocks, the browning meadow grass and the increasingly golden leaves of the aspens returned with daybreak, gusting sharp and persistent through the high basins, whistling among The Bulwarks and leaving Liz, as she hurried down to the seep for water, wishing for another layer or two of clothing to stem its icy bite. Instead, lacking any such, she quickened her pace, hopping lightly from rock to rock under the aspens where the trees had prevented the scree from becoming slick with frost, choosing a meandering course that led her over fallen logs and up a small knoll behind the seep, taking most of it at a run to get the blood flowing and warm her up. It worked well, and she arrived at the water thirsty but quite warm enough to sit comfortably for the ten minutes that it took her to pump enough water to fill the three bottles through the filter from Einars pack. From what she observed, it seemed that he did not always take the time to filter the water--just lacked the energy to do it, at times, she supposed--but as long as she had the filter and was able to do it she intended to, until, or course, snow came and they were getting all of their water from melted snow as she guessed they would. Einar had described his prior bout with Giardia and it was not especially something she wanted to go through out there, much less to see him contract it again, in his present condition. The water bottles filled she stowed everything in the pack and hurried back up to the shelter, hoping to get there before Einar woke but not surprised to find him sitting up, back against the wall and a tangle of damp aspen bark strips spread out across his legs, working to get his cold hands flexible enough to begin another length of cordage. Frost out there? He greeted her, setting aside his work and scooting over to the firepit, pulling back the lid-rock and lifting out the pot, which she had set down in the coals with some tapioca early that morning when she finally let the fire go out. Clasping the lukewarm pot in his hands to warm them and holding it close to his body for heat, Liz could see that he was still badly chilled from the night, but seemed to be handling it a good bit better, now that he was up and busying around, even if all from a sitting position. Yes, pretty heavy frost. Its cold out there this morning--I guess you already knew that-windy again, clear sky but it smells like somethings blowing in. Hungry, she sat down beside him and passed her face through the steam that gently rose from the contents of

the pot, inhaling deeply but pulling her head back and wrinkling up her nose at an odor that was definitely not reminiscent of any tapioca she had encountered in the past. What is this? What did you do to it? Einar, looking a bit chagrined, fumbled for an answer, stirring the concoction and staring into the pot, instead of at Liz. Ifortified it. Yeah, thats it. Fortified tapioca. Havent tried it yet, waited for you, but I think its gonna be good! Discovered it was still warm enough to melt some deer fat, just enough so some of it could be stirred in, so I shaved a little of it in there, that, and some porcupine lung Just right for a cold morning. Wanting to be a bit cross at Einar for ruining her tapioca, Liz thought about it for a second, decided that the meal he had come up with was probably better suited to their situation than had been the tapioca alone, even if her version would have tasted better. Porcupine lung and sour deer fat, is it? Whydidnt I think of that? Well, Im hungry, and I know youve got to be, so lets give it a try. After finishing their breakfast--Einar enjoyed it, and while Liz did eat her share, she decided that his cooking would certainly take some getting used to--Liz set off to collect more chokecherries, first helping Einar out into the sun with his cordage-making supplies, the drying cherries remaining safely in the shelter of the crevice, lest Einar end up in another near miss with the bear. Before she left, he asked her to be on the lookout for another crutch-stick similar to the one he had made from the small fallen aspen, as he was quite sure he would be needing two of them for a good while, if he was to move at anything faster than an incredibly awkward, lopsided creep. With Liz gone, Einar, sitting in the sun, got very serious about working on the cordage for his cast, determined to get it assembled that evening when they could have a fire to melt the pitch. While filling one of her bags with chokecherries, noticeably sweeter for the frost, Liz noticed that the little patch of hounds tongue she had been gathering from had been wilted by the frost, gathered a number of the damaged plants and went looking for more, finding some that had been protected by the trees and collecting a number of them, as well. Their seed stalks, covered with the dozens of small, incredibly clingy burs for which the plants were infamous, were brown and dry, but whorls of healthy new leaves remained nearby, plants that had not that year sent up seed stalks. In addition to hounds tongues usefulness as a poultice for broken bones, sprains and other injuries, Liz remembered that Einar had consumed the leaves in an attempt to slow the internal bleeding that had nearly taken his life after being stabbed by the agent, and thought he had also mentioned using it to help heal the infection that had resulted from being shot in the leg, several months before. The thought of internal bleeding reminded her of yarrow--that one, she had learned about from Susan and used, herself, a number of times--and she decided to keep an eye out for it, as well. Once the snow flew, there would be no getting at the bounty of plants that were now available to them, and that had been so important to Einar in treating his injuries and ills. Have to ask him what else he wants. Oregon grape, surely, and probably mullein, since he mentioned using it for a variety of breathing troubles last winter.

The frost had, it seemed, greatly accelerated the yellowing of the aspens; what had the previous day been a swath of green with the occasional splash of yellow was, as the sun rose, tending a lot more towards golden. The leaves, she knew, would keep their color for a week or two, depending on conditions, before they began falling to carpet the ground with gold. Normally a her favorite time of year for hiking and climbing, with the risk of lightening storms down, the heat of summer mostly past and the sun angle, already changing for the winter, highlighting everything with a sharpness and clarity that was unlike that seen at any other time of year. This year, though, the yellowing of the trees held a certain menace, brought with it an urgency and a warning, and she moved quickly as she gathered the plants, first hounds tongue and then nettles, cutting them, stems and all and binding them for the walk back to the crevice. She intended to hang the plants upside-down, leaves left on stems, for drying, and knew that Einar had mentioned using nettle stalks for cordage, anyway, so supposed he would welcome those. On her way back up to the crevice with her collection of plants, Liz stopped by the halffinished bear trap, remembering the model trigger Einar had made to demonstrate the technique and wondering if she would be capable of lifting the tree that would serve as the deadfall. I have to. We must have something other than that wolverine pelt to sleep in. Einar just about didnt make it through last night, and it wasnt even seriously cold, yet. And the bears, she knew, would be heading off to hibernate as soon as the first serious snow hit, which really could be any day. Studying the trap and recalling in her mind the trigger model Einar had made, she hung the bag of berries in a tree, having decided to give it a try.

Pete, wandering, enjoying as he climbed perhaps a bit too much breakfast from the hip flask he had taken to carrying, reached the ridge top near sunrise, knowing that he ought to turn around and head back for the camp to see if the guide was awake yet, but finding it more important at the moment to traverse the ridge crest for a while, wanting to get a better view of a unique and fascinating land feature he had caught a glimpse of. The spires, stark, high and, he could see when he had made his way to a more open area of the ridge, quite near, held his attention, called to a sense of adventure that he had thought nearly dead after his accident and the long stretch of blackness that had engulfed him after he recovered enough to realize what his greed and rashness had done to his brother, and he went, descending the backside of the ridge and telling himself that as long as he was back in camp within an hour or so, he could explain away his absence by telling his employer that he had been scouting, especially if he happened to see a few grazing elk or perhaps even some bighorns that he could report back about. Pete wanted a better look at those spires, wanted to stand at the base of them and simply enjoy for a few minutes the feeling of standing in a wild place where few men had stood, at least in recent times.

Liz was on the aspen covered hillside just above the location of the half-constructed bear

trap, searching for a fallen tree to form its deadfall portion, when she heard something in the brush over on the lower slopes of the peak that stood opposite to the spires, and, thinking that it was probably the bear, she moved her bag of berries up higher in the tree, suspending it from a high branch with a length of paracord before carefully and quietly slinking closer to the source of the noise to have a look. The rustling and crashing continued as she made her way through the trees and out to the edge of the meadow, a vague and not quite definable feeling of wrongness warning her not to step out into the open, and she remained hidden, watching, seeing nothing but the waving and jerking of the flexible chokecherry and willow brush as the creature passed through it. Then, a flash of tan. Too light to be an elk and to high off the ground for a deer, she wondered at first if she might be looking at a very light colored cinnamon bear. She had seen cinnamons before, and though they always been a deeper brown, she had heard talk of the occasional blond bear. Curious, she edged closer, a good hundred yards still lying between her position in the aspens and the crashing and trampling of the bear. Or, not bear, for the next second she saw the hat, dived to the ground and concealed herself behind a fallen aspen, praying that she had not been seen but quite confident that she would not have been heard, the way the not-bear was crashing and stumbling and generally making a terrible racket over there in the brush. Moving quickly, quietly over the damp ground of the aspen grove, keeping low, she edged closer still to the rustling, flailing man--not very stealthy, are you?--concealing herself beneath a wide, spreading mat of ground-hugging evergreen growth, waiting for the intruder to reveal himself. Which he did several minutes later, stepping out into the meadow and staring up at the spires in apparent wonder, clad in Realtree camouflage pants, Carhart jacket--Liz really wished she could get ahold of that jacket for Einar--and a cowboy hat, not looking like any federal searcher she had ever seen. He could, she supposed, be a bounty hunter of some sort. Or a local scout hired by the feds. He was too far away for her to get a good look at his face, but she did notice that he walked with a slight limp, almost thought she should be able to recognize him from somewhere, but could not quite place him. The intruder, unaware that he was being watched, stood apparently absorbed in the sight of the spires, acting, she thought, rather more like a sightseer than a searcher, for a good two minutes before glancing at his watch, appearing alarmed and taking off down the meadow, heading for the low ridge that rose above it just beyond the foot of the peak. Liz, urgently needing to know if the man was alone, or part of a wider search, hesitated for a moment, not sure whether she should carefully follow him and attempt to find out, or hurry back to Einar and inform him that they were not alone. It did not take her long to decide. As soon as Einar heard that they had company, she imagined, he would be determined to leave the area without delay, something that might become necessary if the man was indeed a scout for a larger search party that was, for some reason, heading their way, but she really wanted to delay telling Einar until she knew for sure. No sense in having him unnecessarily embark on a terribly-timed journey that would, in his present condition, probably leave him badly crippled and likely even kill him. Eventually. She shuddered. Please, please let this man be alone. Let him go away. Thinking about Einar, his absurdly stubborn resilience in contrast with his desperate need, at the moment,

to remain still for a while to allow himself to rest and heal, an anger grew in Liz, a cold fury such as she had felt only once before, when Einar and the agent had been fighting, the agent appearing about to finish Einar off with his knife, just before she had grabbed the agents pistol and ended the struggle Liz followed the man, keeping her distance as he hurried across the meadow and up the ridge, watching as he quickly traversed it for a distance and started down the other side. Cautious, listening for anything that would tell her of the presence of others, praying that Einar was doing nothing back at the shelter that would give away his presence if there were, indeed, others prowling the area and knowing that he would be very unlikely to do anything of the sort, as he rarely seemed to let his guard down, at all, from what she had observed. The man had reached the bottom of the ridge, and Liz smelled smoke. Edging out onto a well-concealed ledge of rock she lay flat on her stomach and peered down, down through the trees, catching a glimpse of white, a bit of smoke filtering through the evergreens and the smell of food. Sausage, bacon or something similar. Working her was a bit lower and finding another vantage from which to observe, she found herself looking straight down at a hunting camp in the making, wall tent half up and four horses tethered in a grassy clearing nearby. There appeared to be only one other man in addition to the one she had followed--the additional two horses, she supposed, would be pack horses-and while she knew the camp could have something to do with the search, everything about it said hunting camp. Well. It is the first week of muzzle loader season, if Ive got the dates right. Better go tell Einar about this. And she started up the ridge, quietly, glad the horses had given no sign of noticing her presence. A storm was coming, she could smell it in the air, see it in the restless tossing and waving of the spruce tops, their long, flexible trunks swaying and creaking as the wind gusted bitter and biting from the North, the flat grey, heavy-bottomed clouds that massed on the horizon speaking of snow, and she climbed quickly, the shadow of the coming winter looming larger than ever in her mind, as she knew they would not be able to have a fire that night, would not, until the hunters had moved on, nor would it be wise for her to complete the bear trap, with the good possibility existing that the man, or someone else from his party, might return to the meadow.

Einar, two hours into Lizs absence, began to wonder if something had gone wrong during her berry collecting--confrontation with a bear, injury of some other sort--but he kept hoping that she had simply lost herself in the rhythm of harvesting the chokecherries, letting her mind wander as she filled several bags with the ripe black fruit. It was something he had himself done many times, completely understandable. The changing weather had him increasingly concerned, though, and when, the sky darkening and the smell of snow in the air, she had still not returned after the passage of what he estimated to be another hour, Einar was beginning to consider his options. Which were rather limited. At some point if she did not return, he would have to go looking for her, have to hope and pray that he would be capable of doing whatever needed to be done to remedy the situation, if something had gone seriously wrong. Hope it doesnt involve

moving or carrying her anywhere, cause that would be pretty interesting, right now guess Id have to do a travois-type setup, sit down facing it and start scooting backwards. OK. I can do that. Better take Willis rope, a few of the biners from his pack and the paracord I have left herebetter go eat something, too, because this is gonna take more energy that Ive got, right now. Dragging himself through the rock passage, Einar scarfed down a mouthful of the split peas that Liz had set to soak for their supper, swallowing it with a gulp of water and carving off a strip of sour deer fat to go with it. Unarmed aside from the knife, he took the atlatl and three darts that he had finished, slung Willis coiled climbing rope over his shoulder and tied the atlatl and darts onto it in a position where they could be quickly accessed with his right hand. Should have been practicing with this thing, from a sitting position. Gonna be way different than when Im standing, but it still ought to work. OK, Liz, Im coming. Sure hope you havent got yourself in too much trouble out there Cold. Einar was feeling the cold acutely as he slowly edged his way back out through the narrow, windy, echoing hallway of rock, had been freezing since the clouds obscured the sun some time ago, and when he finally reached the open air and hauled himself the last few inches out of the crevice, the icy wind nearly took his breath. Shivering, he pulled the stocking cap down almost to his eyes, considered wrapping and tying the wolverine hide around his shoulders but thought better of it, left it rolled and tied to the end of the coiled rope on his back. Such a cloak, while warm, would have been terribly cumbersome as he scooted along the ground, and he knew that the effort of dragging himself down across all those rocks, over fallen trees and through the tangle of chokecherries in search of Liz ought to go a long way towards warming him up. Would have to. He had no additional clothing to put on aside from the wolverine pelt, nothing more, at the moment, to eat for energy that his body could turn into heat, and his thoughts turned to the poisoned coconut oil in the crevice high above him on the wall of the spire, and he found himself wishing for it, briefly, intensely, before shoving the thought aside. Work to do, Einar. Go find Liz.

Liz, returning to the meadow and quickly skirting around it to avoid being exposed, should anyone happen to be watching, hurried back to the bear trap and retrieved her bag of berries, kicking a bit of duff and a few fallen aspen leaves over the bottom tree to make it appear that it had been there a while, covering up as well as she could the trampled ground it where she and, before the accident, Einar had stood while working on the trap. She knew they would have left sign all around the meadow and spires, especially near the seep, and, not wanting the hunters to discover their presence through obvious clues that she could do something about. The ground around the seep was fairly heavily trampled, the vegetation mashed down where she normally sat to filter the water, and there was nothing she could think of to do about that, hoped anyone who happened to see it might think the disturbance had been caused by elk or deer in search of water. The creatures did water there, she had seen tracks, saw some at the moment, actually, and noticed no obvious human tracks, though she expected a tracker or hunting guide would likely be able to look at the pattern of trampled ground and see that it had not been created by

hoofed animals, alone. Perhaps they would think a bear had been at work. Which, of course, he had, in addition to the elk and deer; several large, chokecherry-pit containing bear piles attested to his frequent presence. Having done what she could to cover the sign she had left around the seep, Liz headed down below it, into the tangle of willow and chokecherry bushes where she doubted hunters would have reason to venture, anyway, remembering Einars request for milkweed pods and knowing that she had seen a good sized patch of the plant in a sunny spot down there. Really, while she knew he could certainly use the extra insulation that the silky down would provide, Liz was delaying, dreading the time when she must tell Einar about the hunting camp and face the possibility that he would insist upon immediately leaving the area. He would do it, she knew, if he was determined, broken leg or not, and likely do himself in, in the process. Finally, having filled a bag with milkweed pods, she finished skirting around the meadow through the trees and headed quickly up to the shelter. By that time the gathering clouds had spread, low and heavy, to cover the sky, the sharp wind tearing at the meadow grass and bending the spruces, and she was chilled, anxious to be in the shelter of the crevice and out of the wind. Emerging from the trees below the shelter entrance she saw Einar, looking over his shoulder at her as he scooted backwards down over the rocks, a coil of dusty-looking rope slung over his shoulder, atlatl and darts somehow attached, his water bottle, mostly empty, stuck in the waistband of his pants. He had covered well over half of the rockslide and was nearing the trees when she saw him, grim and exhausted looking but with the determined air of a man who had a definite mission and knew he was not stopping until he had fulfilled it. Einar greeted her with a wide grin, relieved, but it soon faded as he saw the grave look on her face. What happened? Did the bear? No, Einar, not the bear. Ive got two bags of chokecherries here and one of milkweed pods for that insulation you need, but I need to tell you something. There was a man over there, over in the meadow and I followed him, carefullytheyre setting up a tent camp down there on the valley behind the ridge there just past the peak, a hunting camp, two men Hunting camp, you say? Were they armed? Did they have radios? Are you sure they didnt see you? She answered negative to all, explaining that the men had appeared to be typical hunting guides setting up a camp. Einar had risen as she talked, getting himself to his feet more quickly than either he or Liz would have guessed him capable and leaning heavily on a boulder. Help me. Have to get back up there faster than I got down here. Leaning on Liz, keeping the weight off of his injured leg with difficulty--he barely had the strength to hold it up clear of the ground--Einar reached the shelter and dragged

himself inside, carrying one of the bags of fruit Liz had harvested, the thigh of his injured leg cramping terribly from the strain of holding the foot up off the ground. He sat there on the bed as Liz hauled in the rest of the chokecherries, staring at the ground, deep in thought, scrambling for a solution to the sudden dilemma he found himself in. He wanted to leave, wanted, knowing that it would be near impossible for him to get very far or fast in his present condition, to send Liz away, to convince her to flee while she still had the chance, head down to the valley ahead of the snowstorm and seek refuge with her friends, before the two of them were discovered and ultimately destroyed. But, knowing that Liz would not go for such a plan, he supposed they would just have to lie low and hope the coming storm--he felt strongly that it was going to be a big one--would drive the hunters back down out of the high country before they had a chance to return to the spires and discover signs of their presence. She had returned, was asking him something, and Einar shook his head and looked up at her. I was sayingI better hurry out there and get the food that you stashed, in case this storm lasts a while. I dont want us to get snowed in and starve, and I guess the bear trap is out for now, in case they come back up here. We dont want them seeing it So, I need you to show me where the food is. Before the snow starts and everything gets slippery. Bear trap should be OK. The place where we set it upno real reason for anyone to be going there. We need a bear before the snow sends them all underground. Need it bad, Liz. The fur, fatthisll be real rough, without it. Ill try and help you with the trap, got some ideas on lifting the second tree, and yeah, Ill show you where the food is. But our first priority right now for tonight has got to be shelter. Was awful cold last night and I can feel it getting colder already this afternoon, and were gonna freeze without some more insulation. So before the food--doggone it, I hate asking you to do things when I cant help!--if you could take one of these big trash bags that Ive emptied the berries out of and fill it with some good dry duff, a time or two, well be able to stay a lot warmer at night. Can kinda burrow down in it, keep more of the heat in. If we were a little lower we could use scrub oak leaves. Theyre better insulation and a lot less scratchy, too, but we got nothing like that up here. Aspen leaves havent really started falling yet, and they usually end up wet from early snows when they do fall, but maybe we can get some later, if the timing works out right Liz, seeing the sense in that, had been rolling up the trash bag as he spoke, and nodded in agreement. Yes, Ill go do that. I saw a few big old firs and one spruce with deep piles of duff underneath, and some spots where the squirrels have left big mounds of torn up pinecones, too. Ill bring a bunch of that stuff, then go back for firewood, in case this storm really turns serious. Watching her depart, Einar set to work on the bag full of milkweed pods, opening each one at the natural vertical split in its middle, removing the seed and down bundles by grabbing them at their tops to keep any loose down from flying away, and scraping off the white seeds with his thumbnail, collecting them on a rock to dry. He hoped they might be able to sprout them later, for some winter greens. The fluff, once dried, would

provide an excellent soft insulation with very good loft--almost as efficient as goose down--that they could use to stuff their socks for additional warmth, stuff between layers of clothing and even fill vests and quilts with, if they gathered enough and came up with the other raw materials to complete the projects. As Liz hurried down to the evergreens to collect insulation, the first flakes of snow, tossed and harried on the restless wind, began swirling down from the leaden sky.

By the time Liz returned with her first bag of duff for the shelter--far too bulky to squeeze through the passage; she had to divide it up and make several trips--Einar had finished separating the milkweed seeds from the down, setting the down to dry on a flat rock in a protected corner of the shelter. The down, he knew, would take a day or so to dry thoroughly and be ready for use as insulation, a process that could perhaps be speeded up if and when they were next able to have a fire. Which, he hoped, would be that night. Already an icy chill had descended as afternoon wore into evening and the skies continued to darken, and, staring up through the chimney of rock as he worked, he could see the occasional snowflake swept along on the wind. He shivered. Had been most of the afternoon, actually, but hed been managing alright as long as he could keep his hands busy, stopping occasionally to eat a few bites of rancid deer fat and once, unable to stay warm and his hunger getting the better of him, a few bites of raw porcupine. They had eaten nearly half of the porcupine meat in the previous nights stew and, roasted the night before, for breakfast, and Einar, after those few bites of the raw meat, managed to restrain himself, knowing that Liz would be wanting to cook up the remainder of the critter in that nights stew pot. If they could have a fire, at all. He had not yet decided, knew they would be needing it but at the same time did not want to risk the smoke being smelled by the hunters, if they by chance did not have a fire of their own to mask its scent. The weather systems associated with storms such has the one that was coming on tended to keep scents closer to the ground, to keep smoke hanging below the treetops instead of dissipating as it normally would, and he wanted to give the men in the neighboring valley no cause for curiosity. Well. Maybe theyd just think it was some other folks out scoutingthough that might lead to them coming to have a look! Anyhow, as windy as it is I doubt any smoke out little fire produces would be sticking around for very long, anyway, and last I checked the wind was blowing away from their camp. We should be OK with a fire. Hope so, because I really need to get that better cast made and coated with pitch, especially if we may have to be moving in a hurry Depositing the last of her three broken-down loads of duff on the bed behind Einar, Liz helped him move to the side where he could help her arrange it on the bed, and he was glad to see that it was quite dry and would be warm. Liz was not looking very dry or warm, though, after her time out in the blowing snow, and Einar offered her the loan of his buckskin vest for protection from the biting wind, but she refused, knowing that the work of collecting and bagging up the duff would keep her warmer, even out in the storm, than he was able to stay, sitting immobile and half starved in the shelter. He insisted though, and not wanting to appear ungrateful, Liz took the vest. She left moments later

for a second load, moving quickly and barely saying a word to him except to thank him for the vest, clearly feeling hurried by the coming storm. As was he, the frenzied urge to gather and stash wood and insulation and food making it terribly difficult for him to sit still, but the leg leaving little choice. Its not, he thought to himself, only the wild critters who can feel a storm coming on and get all hyper and busy ahead of it. Humans have the same instinct, it seems, but it must get dulled by disuse living down there in civilization where most folks are so out of touch with the world around them and where things really come from, and know they can just casually run down to the store for whatever they need, whenever they need it. As long as the system keeps functioning, that is Wow! What a concept. Shelf after shelf of food just waiting to be boughtpeanut butter, lard, canned chili, butter, oil by the gallon--a winters worth of fat just sitting there in front of you, and nobody really has any idea of the incredible value of what they walk past every day, or how absolutely amazing it is that there is such variety there at their fingertips. They seem to take it all for granted. Huh. Well, I could cure em of that, for sure. Just a month or two of this, and theyd be cured for life! Grocery store would seem like one of the seven wonders of the world to them, after that. The stuff of legends. Sure would to me. Not that Ill ever see one again He shook his head. Whats with all the philosophizing, Einar? Enough of that. And quit thinking about all that food, no point to it. He crossed his arms and pressed hard on his shriveled stomach to ease the sharp hunger pains that had developed as his mind perused the endlessly, unbelievably bountiful aisles of some mythical grocery store, a bit disgusted at himself for the lapse in discipline. Back to work. Starting to get awful cold again sitting still. On her second trip back with duff for the bed, Liz also brought a sizeable bundle of willow shoots, telling him that she wanted to work on a basket to make the chokecherry picking easier, if we get to pick any more. Its starting to snow pretty hard out there. Do you think this is it, as far as fall? It seems early, but the way the snows coming down Nah, I doubt it. This may drift up pretty good in places but itll probably melt off in a few days and well have another week or two of Indian summer before winter really sets in, he answered with more confidence than he felt, knowing that on occasion, winter really could set in for good as early as September, as high up as they were. And we can dig down through the snow and get the chokecherries out from under it, if we have to. Did a little of that last winter. Do you think this will be enough to drive the bears into hibernation? He sighed, nodded. Probably, if it drops enough on us. Maybe if it stops soon one or two of them will decide they need to put on a few more pounds, and wait I should hurry and climb up there for that food on the spire, before it gets any more slippery out there. In case the storm lasts a while. I was thinking about that, about how were gonna have to clear out of here in a big hurry if those hunters end up seeing one of us, but no. He stared up at the dimming sky, the

white flakes that curled ever more heavily down from the sea of grey above. Will already be real slick, plastered with snow the way this winds gusting. Give it a couple days, let the sun come out and melt it off, then Ill show you. If were still here. Hope were still here. If we keep real quiet, watch what kind of sign we leave, we ought to be alright. Well, Id better go get one more load of this duff, and a bunch of wood before it gets dark, then. Can you arrange this last pile that I brought in? Sure can. Gonna be a lot warmer tonight, with this stuff to burrow in. First though, I want to go outside for a minute and listen, kinda get a feel for things and make sure nobodys around. Pretty closed in here between the rocks, cant hear a thing and cant feel much about whether were alone, or not. But from out there, I might be able to With Lizs help he dragged himself once again through the rock passage and stood, leaning heavily on the wall in the entrance, the wind blowing through him, plastering one side of his face and beard with snow and leaving him terribly grateful for the shelter of the rocks, but also assured that few creatures and even fewer would-be hunters were likely to be wandering around on an evening like that. He was confident that they were alone in that high basin; the place was quiet save for the howling wind, safe, for the moment, if they chose to ignore the very present threat of the oncoming winter. Later that night, supper having been cooked and eaten and a good sized stack of broken up branches and a few still-intact aspens, small, dead, barkless, sitting against one wall, Liz and Einar sat watching the snowflakes, large and compound and clinging to each other as they filterd down through the ribbon of sky, down into the firelight between the walls of rock, many of them turning clearish and slushy in the rising heat before ever reaching the ground. Liz had gathered enough duff for them to be able to pile some of it against the rock wall behind them, sitting with their backs against a thick cushion of spruce needles instead of the cold rock, a great improvement especially considering the worsening weather. They sat close together, buried up to their waists in duff and sharing the wolverine hide for extra warmth as they passed a pot of chokecherry juice-sweetened spruce needle tea back and forth, both warmer than they had been all day and rather enjoying it, Einar included, though he told himself most emphatically that it was only because he had finally been able to stop shivering, and the shivering hurt his leg at the moment. You know, Einar finally broke the silence, if we had a couple deer hides to sew together, or an elk hide, we could secure them to this one wall, take them down towards the ground at an angle and make a flap of sorts that would keep all the heat from going right up this chimney and away. Had a shelter once where a series of rock ledges did that for me. Was very cozy. Of course, just being out of the wind makes a huge difference, and the fact that we have this ledge right above us so the snow doesnt fall on our heads. Good bit of heat reflects off these walls. And this duff helps an awful lot. Thanks! It sure does! She edged closer to him, tucked the wolverine hide in behind his shoulder. This little fire really does a great job. Of course, we have to watch that it

doesnt throw any embers and set all this duff on fire. Ive been watching it, and keeping this rock handy to stamp out any that may land, but none have, yet. This aspen wood doesnt seem to crack or spit too much. You know, this place seems almost like a nest now, or a den, all cozy for the winter. Too bad we cant just curl up and hibernate until spring comes Einar laughed. Oh, youve got no idea how many times Ive wished that was possible. But unfortunately we humans just dont have the mechanism for it, and if a bear went into hibernation in the shape were in--well, the shape Im in, anyway--hed be dead long before spring. Die in his sleep or wake up hungry and go wandering around in the snow looking for something to eat, and very likely die then, when he couldnt find enough and the cold finally got him. We have the benefit of just getting to wander around in the snow from the start, no illusions of being able to sleep the winter away But not tonight, I hope! Rather not wander around in the snow tonight, if we can help it. And they were quiet for a time, Liz feeding the fire, Einars eyes drooping with weariness, his head nodding. Reluctant to move now that he had finally managed to get warm, Einar knew that he needed to work on the cast, must get started before he became too sleepy to focus on the task, needed to know that he was a bit more prepared to move at something better than a slow scoot on his backside if danger should come, if they were discovered. He shook his head, sat up a bit straighter and looked over at Liz, seeing that she, also, had been near sleep, a chunk of firewood in one hand and the mostly empty pot of tea in the other. Want to finish up that tea? I got to start melting down the pitch for my cast, as long as you dont mind the next couple of meals tasting a little like pine pitch. No, I dont mind. How can I help? Lets fill this pot about a third of the way with those pitch lumps, slide the flat rock partway over the fire as a heating surface, and maybe you could watch the stuff as it melts, stir it with a stick and slowly add more lumps as others melt. Main thing is that we dont want it getting hot enough to burn While you do that, Ill wrap the leg. While Liz got started on the pitch, he eased himself over to the edge of the bed of duff, propped his foot on a rock so that the leg was up off the ground and carefully began removing the splints. The process hurt, he was finding it difficult to lean far enough forward to reach his toes and Liz, seeing his distress, helped with that part, suggesting that he scoot forward so that the leg would be resting flat on the rock for more support and assisting him in a pad of Usnea lichen behind his knee to keep it slightly flexed, carefully wrapping Susans jacket around the leg for padding and warmth before placing the splint sticks on either side of the leg for support, before Einar began wrapping the cordage. He protested at the continued use of the jacket, saying that she ought to have it to wear as the cold deepened, but Liz, knowing that Einars immobile leg was in danger of sustaining serious frostbite or even freezing without proper protection, insisted that the jacket remain as padding in the cast. Starting at the toe, creating a boot for his ankle and

moving up the leg, Einar wrapped the thick aspen bark cordage, Liz helping by gently lifting and supporting the leg every time he passed the cordage beneath it, keeping an eye on the melting pitch at the same time. Periodically Einar stopped to weave a separate strand of cordage vertically along the length of the leg through the horizontal wraps, over four or five wraps, then under the same number, helping to hold them in place. Finished with the wrapping some time later he took a break and gladly accepted the hot rock, wrapped in a wool sock, that Liz handed him, chilled and beginning to shake again without the protection of the piles of spruce needles. Warmed up a bit he took the pitch pot--it had all been melted long ago and nearly filled the pot--and began brushing it on, with a clump of aspen bark shreds, the pitch quickly hardening to a smooth, glossy sheen in the cold air. He knew that, without any ash or egg shell or finely rubbed dry grass added, the pitch coating would become a bit soft and sticky in warm weather, but as some of those additives could lead to brittleness and he lacked time to perform adequate experiments, he supposed that the straight pitch would have to do. Doubted he would be encountering too much really warm weather for a while, anyway, though the cast would prevent him from standing directly over a fire Much to his dismay, Einar ran out of pitch before he was two thirds of the way done with the coating, above the break but well below the knee. The knee, he knew, needed to be immobilized for a time for the break to properly heal. Liz saw what was wrong. I can find more pitch in the morning, and you can finish the cast tomorrow night. There are bound to be plenty of other porcupine trees around. Einar considered it, shook his head. No, need to finish it up tonight. Got to be ready in case those hunters come back around and we need to get out of here in a hurry. Not hurrying anywhere unless I can walk, and walking on it without the knee immobilized is just gonna do more harm, at this point. Got an idea, though. See those strips and shreds of hide that are hanging off the deer carcass back there? Well, maybe you could cut me a few of the longest ones She brought him the rawhide strips, mostly dried and partially frozen, and Einar heated some water in the pot, bending and submerging the strips in the lukewarm water and working them until they became soft and limp. Some of the hair had come off of the sour smelling rawhide while he worked it, but what remained he left in place, figuring he should be quite glad of the additional insulation. Wringing out as much water as he could he wrapped the strips around the aspen bark of the cast that remained above the pitch, pressing them tightly into place and, when finished, wrapping and tying extra strips of aspen bark around them to hold them in place until they dried. The rawhide would, he knew, dry quite rigid and serve at least as well as the pitch to help immobilize his leg. The cast finished, Einar dragged himself up onto the bed, weary and very cold, and burrowed down in the duff, Liz joining him and getting the wolverine hide tucked in around the two of them, heaping duff on top of it. The fire died, darkness closed in around them and they lay listening to the shrieking and sighing of the wind as it tore through the spires above them, protected and relatively

warm, considering the conditions. It was somewhat of a difficult night for Einar, his leg aching terribly after his trip down across the rocks earlier in the day and the inevitable manipulation that had been necessary in removing the old splints and applying the cast, occasional sharp pains waking him to lie rigid beneath the layers of insulation, cold but trying not to shiver because of the additional agony it brought his leg, staring up at the slightly less black smear of sky between the two rock walls and chewing on a wad of willow bark, the sharp, cold scent of snow stinging his nostrils until he tucked his nose under the wolverine hide, and slept, Liz pressed up against his back, aware of his struggle and wishing to give him whatever additional warmth she could. Einar dreamed that night, his restless sleep punctuated by images of a bear, of two bears, as it turned out, a mother and a yearling cub who padded across the fresh fallen snow on their soft bear-feet, searching for a last meal or two before entering hibernation, the young one separated from the mother, crying for her, and to Einar the cry said food fata few more weeks of life, and he knew that he must somehow take that yearling.

Morning came and Liz, reaching for the water bottle that she had brought beneath the insulation to prevent it freezing overnight, found it empty. She did not remember finishing it so supposed Einar must have. He seemed still to be sleeping, so she eased out of the bed and stood stretching on the snowy floor of the shelter, seeing that several inches had managed to filter down through the chimney to accumulate on the rocks. She shivered, looked back at the bed, glad that the ledge immediately above it had kept the piles of duff dry. Loading all of their water bottles into the backpack she headed down the rock passage, blinking as she stepped out into a world turned white, the sharp features of the rockslide covered and softened by a blanket of snow, trees heavy with it, the air damp with the still-falling whiteness. Einar stirred, sat up, awakened by Lizs departure and finding himself far too cold to go on lying still if there was any possible alternative. The damp and drying rawhide on the thigh portion of his cast had certainly not made it any easier for him to stay warm that past night, and upon checking, he found it to be rigid as it needed to be to help immobilize the leg, but he really was not sure whether it had dried, or simply frozen in the night. Felt like it must have frozen. Well. Interesting. Was almost certainly a better way to do that Curious to see how much snow had accumulated in the night he began the slow and rather awkward process of hauling himself, burdened by the new cast--more stable than the splints but also far more cumbersome--through the passage of rock. Finally, weary of scooting painfully across the damp and icy floor he used the narrowing walls for support as he got to his feet, taking care to avoid touching the foot on the injured side to the ground. This was very difficult even with the crutch, as the thickness of the cast materials resulted in the injured leg being just a bit longer than the uninjured, and he found it very tiring to keep it suspended off the ground. Need to attach something to the bottom of my boot, I guess. Add an inch or two of height to it so this isnt such a struggle. Several more long minutes of awkward hobbling, and there it was, the outside world, stark and white with the occasional burst of yellow where the still-clinging aspen

leaves had shaken off their burden of snow. Scraping at the ground with his crutch, Einar saw that the snows depth was somewhere between four and five inches, more where it had drifted in the wind, and with the close heaviness of the sky and the way the large flakes were still curling and spinning down from it, he supposed that the depth might well double before noon that day. Lizs tracks, picking their way carefully across the snowslick scree, were already partially filled with new snow, and Einar was glad, knowing that, despite the storm, they must be careful about leaving sign. If the weather suddenly cleared--unlikely, but always possible, in those mountains--and a small plane should come over low, as the yellow Super Cub had done several days prior, it would not do to have obvious sets of human tracks winding their way across the meadow and up the rockslide to the spires! After filling the water bottles and checking the snares--empty, all of them, one having sprung when the gusty wind blew a small tree down near it, its wire loop hanging slack and useless from the high branch--Liz was more than ready to head for the shelter. The wind driven snow was moving almost horizontally at times, plastering her inadequate clothing and leaving her breathless with cold, wishing that she had borrowed Einars wolverine hide before venturing out that morning, and she moved quickly around the meadow and into the band of aspens below the rockslide, stopping short at an unfamiliar sound that seemed to be coming from somewhere over on her right. Waiting for a break between gusts she listened, tilting her head to the side and cupping her hand around her ear to block out some of the wind noise. There it was again, closer this time--a strange grunting wail, the call of an animal in distress, and she was pretty sure she knew what kind. Scrambling up onto a slick wet rock, slipping once and slamming her knee into the rough lichen covered surface before gaining its top she squinted into the snow, searching, finally seeing the source of the sound in a small black bear, a yearling, she guessed, that wandered through the trees less than fifty yards from her rock. Lost, it seemed, calling forshe knew that black bear cubs often stayed with the mothers for several years, supposed this one had become separated in the storm and knew the wisest course of action probably involved quickly leaving the area, but they needed food, needed, perhaps more than anything, the warm fur of that bear if they were to have any chance of making it through the winter. If she had ever doubted that fact, her freezing excursion down to the seep that morning had convinced her beyond any question. Jumping lightly down from the rock--and promptly sprawling out on her stomach in the snow, having underestimated her clumsiness after nearly half an hour in the numbing wind--Liz hurried to her feet and started towards the confused yearling, aiming to get down below it and herd it up towards the spires, where she hoped to be able to corner and shoot it somewhere among those convolutions and twistings of granite, where the mass of rock would muffle the sound of the shot and conceal it from possible detection by the hunters in the nearby valley, if they were still there. Which she doubted, but still The bear had heard her by that point, had caught a glimpse of her and was afraid, fleeing, if you could call it that, moving at a quick shuffle and stopping now and then to let out is cry of distress. Up across the rocks she pursued it, hitting two sticks together to keep its attention and direct its steps, and it had seen the dark shelter of the spires, was heading for them as she had hoped, but then it stopped, nose in the air, rising up on its hind legs and sniffing the wind warily before dropping back to the ground and changing direction,

apparently having caught wind of the human scent in the rocks around the shelter. Liz saw what the bear was doing, wanted to go ahead and shoot it where it stood but hesitated to do so out in the open like that, knowing that it would almost certainly take more than one shot with the .40 to finish the creature off and fearing that the hunters might hear. Einar stood just inside the shelter entrance, hearing the bear also, listening and waiting. He had been in the middle of the laborious process of getting himself turned around to head back for the warmth and refuge of the duff bed when he first heard it, and as the sounds neared, the distressed calling of the young bear and the rhythmic, intentional knocking of sticks, he realized what Liz must be trying to do. He had the atlatl, always had it with him, now, and seeing that the bear was starting to make for the trees with Liz appearing uncertain about taking the shot he stepped out into the snow, crutch balanced awkwardly under his left arm, and fitted a dart to the atlatl, using all the strength he could muster and letting it fly without hesitation at the young bear. Einars dart took the creature just behind the left shoulder, sinking deep. Unsteadied by the force he put into throwing the dart and unable to reverse the momentum in time, Einar pitched forward and fell to the ground as the bear let out a startled yelp-growl and took off running through the snow, quickly circling around the rockfield and narrowly missing running right into Liz, who had the Glock out but did not fire, as the bear wheeled around at the last minute to avoid her, stopping to spin around in a blind attempt to grab the dart with its teeth but not succeeding, making another crazy loop around the rockfield before heading for the trees. Einar, after painfully hauling himself back to his feet and re-situating the crutch, considered loosing a second dart at the erratically running bear, but he was confident of his first shot, knew the creature was not going very far even if it did reach the trees. The climb finished it off, the yearling making it thirty feet up into an aspen near the edge of the boulder field before stopping, its head pitching limply backwards and its grip on the white trunk of the aspen failing as it tumbled back to the snow, apparently dead. Liz, excited, took off in the fallen bears direction, pistol in hand, but Einar, from his higher vantage up by the crevice, could look down the slope and see what she was not able to, and the sight made his blood run cold. He shouted to her, but she had gone too far, and his voice was snatched away on the wind and scattered among the rocks. Barreling up the slope over the snow-covered rocks, the large sow was headed straight for Liz, or the cub, or both, it didnt really matter, as she would reach Liz first, and Einar knew he must divert the animals attention. Quickly fitting another dart into the notch at the back of the atlatl he took a limping step out into the snow, leaning heavily on the crutch, bracing himself against the wind and flinging the dart at the bounding bear, striking her in the hip. The strike was not especially solid and the dart did not hit where Einar had intended it to, a gust throwing it off course, but the bear stopped, whirled around and began chasing her own tail in a furious and frantic attempt to connect with her attacker. Einar, knowing what to expect this time after throwing the dart, had managed to keep his feet, barely, and stood squinting through the near-blizzard of wind driven flakes, searching for Liz, trying to see if she was aware of the sow, but he could not find her, hurriedly began limping toward the trees where she had disappeared after the wounded yearling, wishing he had a second stick to go with the crutch and knowing he was putting

more weight on the injured leg than he should be, but seeing little alternative. He had one dart left, fitted it in the atlatl as he walked, shouting at the sow, who had, despite the dart in her hip, refocused her attention on the grove of trees that held Liz and the yearling. Just as he was ready to loose the dart in a last-ditch attempt to divert the bears attention away from Liz--he doubted hed be able to kill it quickly enough with the dart to prevent it doing him in before it died, but had to try something--the sow turned once more to bite at the burning pain in her hip, saw him and headed his way, nose in the air, eyes alert, and Einar got himself turned around as quickly as he could and hobbled up towards the fins and crags of the spires, crutch under his right arm, somehow running and reaching the rocks shortly before the enraged bear reached him, hauling himself up into a narrow, steep little rocky chute between two fins where she could not get at himhe hoped. Continuing with his shouting, throwing the occasional rock back down the chute in an effort to keep the sows attention and give Liz a chance to escape with the yearling, Einar laboriously got himself flipped over onto his back, moving slowly lest he end up sliding out of the chute and into the bears waiting claws. He wanted to use the atlatl and finish the creature off, but doubted he could manage a decent throw there in that tight spot. He had her attention, though, evident in the way she had rushed over to the opening and was pawing at him, angry, stopping now and then to tear at the dart in her backside, which seemed not to have seriously wounded her, but was definitely a major annoyance. Several minutes later Einar saw Lizs dim form through the blowing snow behind the sow, looking down around her as she stood reared up in an attempt to get at him, watched Liz pass by in the direction of the shelter, dragging the yearling by one of its front feet and moving as quickly as she could with her burden, and he kept throwing rocks at the sow, keeping her attention to give Liz time to pass. He wished he had his spear, knew he just might be able to drive it into the creatures mouth deliver a fatal wound, decided to try with the three foot long atlatl dart, but could find no foothold solid enough to brace his good foot against without scooting down so that his legs were within reach of her claws, which he had little interest in doing, so he sat up, atlatl in hand, and gave his best effort to a throw, the confined space notwithstanding. The bear, struck in the chest, reared up and grabbed at the dart with both front paws, swatting and dislodging it fairly easily, much to Einars disappointment. The throw had not done the job, had lacked the force necessary, apparently, to penetrate the sows thick layer of fat and do any serious harm. After letting out an enraged growl and swatting at him with her paws for another minute the bear backed off, and Einar, soaked and freezing from the wet snow, edged down out of the spot between the fins, wanting the shelter of the crevice, leaning on the rock as he searched for his crutch. He saw it, half buried in the snow that had fallen in the time since he had sought refuge in the chute, got down on his hands and one knee and hauled himself towards it, but an angry woof told him that the bear was still in the area. The sow had been waiting, apparently, charged him as soon as she got a glimpse of him and Einar covered the distance quickly, scrambling back up into the slot between rock fins, barely making it, his hands too numb to feel the rock protrusions that he grabbed for leverage. Heart pounding painfully with the exertion, he felt the animals claws rake the cast on his bad leg, twisting the leg and leaving him crying out in pain but very, very glad

of the cast, and then he was up beyond the bears reach, pressing against the increasingly icy walls of rock with his left hand and right elbow to keep himself from sliding backwards, freezing, tiring quickly and praying that the animal might soon find reason to leave. Hoping to encourage it to do so, he kept kicking rocks down at it with his good leg--the chute was full of loose chunks and flakes of the brittle granite--and the creature finally tired of being pummeled in the head, retreating by a few steps but certainly not far enough to safely allow a half crippled man time to drag himself the fifty or more yards back to the shelter. Waiting, wracking his chilled brain for some idea, some way to get the sow to leave, Einar could find nothing, put all of his focus into maintaining his hold on the slippery rock, fighting the growing inertia brought on by the cold as the bitter wind swept down the chute and over his snow-soaked clothing and praying for the strength to go on fighting it until the beast went on its way and he could go down, hoping that he might be able to remain conscious long enough. A few minutes dragged by slowly, Einar fighting sleep, losing the fight and jerking back to awareness when his grip relaxed and he slid down several inches, jarring his injured leg on a rock and stopping his slide with a frantic scrambling for handholds, the tears squeezed out of him by the awful pangs in his leg freezing in his beard, soon accompanied by tears of laughter as the thought occurred to him--seeming terribly funny, for some reason--that if he finally ended up losing consciousness because of the cold and sliding out of the chute into the bears waiting jaws, at least hed be too cold by that point for it to hurt much, when he got eaten The silent laughter finally subsided, fading, as everything seemed to be, into the background and disappearing into the growing darkness. Einar shook his head. No. You been through worse. Push it away, this darkness. Which he did, raising his damaged leg by the several inches his limited strength would allow him and slamming his toes down on the rock, the white hot waves of pain warming him, keeping him tethered loosely to reality until he finally stopped, blood hissing in his ears, certain that he would be staying awake for a while. Liz had seen Einar throw the first dart at the sow, but had neither heard nor seen any sign of him since, assuming that he had returned to the safety of the crevice after distracting the mother bear with that dart. When she got the yearling back to the shelter and found him gone, she began looking for tracks, found and followed them, saw the sow pacing back and forth in front of a dark chute between rock fins, rearing up against the base of the chute from time to time and stopping occasionally to tear at the dart in her hip, snarling and crying in frustration at not being able to reach it. Liz quickly realized that Einar must be trapped in that chute, glanced around at the terrain and formed a hasty plan before shouting at the bear, running at her and throwing a rock to get her attention. The sow swung around, saw Liz, smelled her, the scent of the yearlings blood mixed with the human scent, and charged at her in anger. Hearing Lizs shouting and seeing the bear moving quickly away from the chute, Einar loosed his death-grip on the rock and allowed himself to slide out, crumpling in the snow and raising himself on his elbows to watch as Liz taunted and harassed the bear into continuing to follow her, and he realized what she was doing, knew he must act quickly

to reach the shelter. Dont fall, Liz, please, I hope youre fast enough and dont fall Crawling, the crutch hopelessly lost in the snow and his hands too numb to grasp it, anyway, Einar dragged himself to the safety of the crevice and collapsed on his back in the passage, lying there trembling for a moment, exhausted and near passing out from the pain in his leg but managing to get himself back to his feet the next second, knowing Liz was still out there with the angry bear. The sow had loped off into the timber, though, having finally had enough of the humans, calling for the yearling as she went, and Liz appeared seconds later in the hazy white rectangle of snow-light that marked the entrance to the crevice in Einars fading vision. She grabbed Einar, who appeared near collapse, and they clung to each other for a minute, soaked, freezing and shivering uncontrollably but each relieved beyond words to find the other safe and in one piece. Yet still in rather great danger, Einar, especially, fading fast in his icy clothes, Liz doing a good bit better after the hard work of wrestling the yearling through the narrow rock passage and dashing through the snow as the sow followed her, but she knew that they both badly needed to warm up, to get dry. Einar had sunk to the rocky ground beside the bed as soon as they reached the back of the shelter and Liz spoke to him insistently, sharply, finally piercing through his growing hypothermic haze when she asked him where to cut first, in cleaning the bear. Right down the middle of the stomach here, right? Like with a deer? He nodded numbly, fumbled for his knife and finally succeeded in getting it into his hand, offering it to her. Sharper. Use this. Yeahs-stomach. Like deer. Just do like deer. Several minutes later Einar and Liz sat beside the steaming gut pile in their wet clothes, half frozen fingers wrapped around chunks of warm fresh bear liver, eating, knowing they needed the energy before anything else could be done and having wanting to get the animal cleaned and opened up to begin cooling before they changed into dry clothes, their only remaining dry clothes, so as not to get them wet and sticky with its blood. Liz knew that they needed to get out of their wet clothes as soon as possible, but just as important, she thought, was having dry ones to put on afterwards and it would not have done to change, only to end up soaked in bear blood with nothing dry to wear. Seeing Einar sitting there in a daze, staring at the liver and shaking as his warming hands prickled and stung with the return of circulation, Liz urged him to eat, but he found himself able to manage only a bite or two around the renewed agony in his leg. The chunk of liver beginning to cool he set it aside, breathed on his fingers, pounded them against his leg, against the rock of the floor, oblivious to the bleeding scrapes that he opened up on his knuckles, and jammed them into his armpits. Liz could see that he was slipping again, his eyes getting that distant, unfocused look and his body sagging, and she cut off small chunks of the warm, rich food and handed them to him one by one, insisting that he must eat them, and knowing that she was right he gave it his best effort, got a few more bites down. Feeling much warmer inside after the meal, Liz wanted to go ahead and hang the bear

there in the back of the shelter before changing clothes, taking down the remains of the deer carcass--bones and a few shreds of sour fat and hide, mostly, and hauling it out into the passage to make room for the bear. Einar tried to do his part in skinning the bear when Liz began the process, wanting to thaw his hands in working with the still-warm carcass, wishing to run his freezing arms between the animals thick hide and still-warm flesh and fat, to crawl into its empty body cavity and curl up there until the ice had been melted from his bones, as he had heard of people doing in stories, with buffalo, or elk he couldnt remember. And doubted the veracity of those stories, anyway--interesting, but unlikely He had gone to sleep, knife in hand, forearms resting on the yearlings thick black coat, dreaming of warmth and sleep inside the bear, smiling, feeling the chill begin to leave his body, but the dream turned to horror the next moment as he woke hopelessly trapped by the night-cooled carcass as it froze around him, his clothing frozen to his body and to the icy inside of the dead creature, trapped, dying, left to scratch and scrape and gnaw futilely at the hard-frozen rib meat, the only thing he could reach, and hard as rock, in the hopes of obtaining a bit of energy, warmth, strength to free himself. He really wanted to get out, wanted to see the sky one last time, to lie under the sky Liz woke him with a gentle shake and a question, something about the bear Relieved, confused, he looked at her, meant to speak, thought he was speaking, even Yes. Bear. Skin the bear. And for goodness sake, dont ever crawl inside it, because that does not end well! In his clumsiness, attempting to help with the skinning, Einar managed not only to nick the hide in several places but to cut his own finger fairly badly, and when Liz pressed a clump of Usnea against the wound and tired to relieve him of the knife he gladly gave it up, allowing her to finish the task. Einar was not able to be of much assistance in raising the bear, either, but Liz managed it without too much difficulty, the yearling weighing well under fifty pounds, once relieved of its hide and innards. Liz cleaned her bloody hands on her pants, inspected the dangling carcass, ribcage held open with a sideways stick to allow for faster cooling, satisfied with her work. Then she glanced at Einar, who had slumped over against the wall, face pale, lips and nose an unhealthy shade of purple, teeth rattling as he struggled with uncooperative hands to remove his drenched shirt and vest, and she knew she had waited too long, must act without further delay. Einar, she spoke to him, grabbing his shoulders and squeezing to get his attention, we need a fire. Its snowing pretty hard stillyou think its safe? He looked up at her, blinking slowly, trying to understand the question before mumbling his reply. Yeah. Got to havefiresnow like thisbet those huntershead down already. Warming her hands against her stomach to restore some flexibility, Liz got the fire made, lit, shuddered over the intense warmth of its flames for a moment before helping Einar move a bit closer to it and pulling off his wet shirt, getting him into a dry one and wrapping him up in the wolverine hide, setting a pot of water, mixed with chokecherry juice for a bit of sugar, to heat over the fire. Einar, having great difficulty removing his soaked pants with the bulky cast in the way, pushed Liz aside when she tried to help him,

mumbling something to the effect that he wanted to do it himself, and Liz left him alone, seeing that he was still far too cold to be reasoned with, on top of his standard level of stubbornness. Stepping out into the passage to change out of her own wet clothes she wrung the melting ice and bear blood out of them, dressed and returned to the shelter, hanging her wet clothes on protrusions in the rock to begin drying, along with Einars shirt and vest. Seeing that Einar had finally managed to remove his wet BDU pants and realizing that he seemed rather uncomfortable with her being there as he fought to get the dry pair on she crouched by the fire with her back to him, studying their firewood supply and deciding that it ought to be plenty, for that day at least. Einar soon realized that there was no way he was going to get the leg of the polypro pants over his cast, knew that he would have to cut or tear that leg up to the point where it was wide enough to stretch and slide over the bulky mess of cordage, sticks and pitch. Grabbing the cuff of the offending pants leg between the heel of his hands and his teeth--his grip still wasnt strong enough nor his hands near flexible enough to use them normally--he began tearing the cloth, Liz jumping up and whirling around at the sound of the destruction. Wait! What are you Then she saw, helped him tear the pants at the seam so they could be more easily repaired later, using the knife to remove some of the stitching. Finally, wet clothes and socks hung on the rocks around the fire, boots opened up to begin drying and the pot of chokecherry water beginning to simmer on the flat rock above the fire, they sat together under the bear hide, absorbing the fires warmth. Einar stayed at a respectful distance from the flames despite Lizs repeated attempts to move him closer, remembering his previous nearly fatal experience with warming himself too quickly after having been in the river--the cold blood from his legs and arms rushing to his core as the heat rapidly dilated their blood vessels, causing overwhelming dizziness and an erratic heartbeat that he was pretty sure had nearly killed him, before it settled down--and wishing very much not to repeat the incident. He wanted to explain all of this to Liz so she would stop trying to drag him over closer to the fire, (which, thinking his resistance was entirely a result of cold-induced confusion, she was literally attempting to do) but could not seem to find the words, and knew his teeth were chattering too hard for his speech to be understood, even if he had been able to formulate a coherent sentence or two. Liz finally gave up trying to get Einar to switch places with her, knowing that the close-pressing rock walls would soon be throwing off enough heat that it would little matter where he sat. Except that then, the stubborn old fool will probably insist on sitting out on the snow just to get away from the heat She shook her head, helped him drink some of the heated chokecherry water, its sugar doing perhaps more, even, than the dry clothes and the warmth of the fire to revive him. After a good fifteen minutes of sipping the sweet juice and huddling together by the fire with the wolverine hide around them and the bears thick coat over that, warm rocks stuck in a sock and pressed against the small of Einars back, Liz could tell that he was finally beginning to move in the right direction, was going to be OK, and she left him to continue with her tasks. Sorting through the gut pile, Liz chopped up and prepared for cooking the yearlings heart, part of one of the lungs and one kidney, Einar watching approvingly from beneath the thick black fur of the creatures hide where he sat still very cold and immensely weary, his shivering finally subsiding to the point where he thought he ought to be able to

speak, but he was not entirely certain that he ought to trust his words to come out the way he meant them. Well. Better try, I guess. Need toempty out the stomach, wash it inside with some water or snowstash the rest of the organs--the ones were gonna eat right away--in it. Later we can use it for cooking, for rendering down some the fat, even. Kind of a messy job, and Ive done it before so if youll help me outside, Ill No! She jumped up, getting herself between Einar and the passage as if to block his exit. I meanI need to learn. Just show me what to do, and Ill go get it done. Because if you get those clothes wet right now, we dont have anything to replace them with. Einar was unhappy about it, but finally nodded, conceding her point. Been there, last winter. One set of clothes, crawling around in the snow to check my snares... He shivered at the memory. Alright. Ill show you. See, just slit it here across the top to open it up, empty everything out, scrub some snow around in it. Better might be to just turn it inside out and scrub it on the snow. Well scratch a depression into the ground here beside the fire hole, line it with mullein leaves to keep the thing from getting too dirty, and use rocks to hold the sides down so it stays open. Then we can cook in it with hot rocks, can cook bigger batches of soup, can even use it to render some of the bear fat, probably. And depending on whats in the stomach, you might want to save whatever you find for Einar! Thats not my idea of a good source for stew ingredients, especially when we have a whole bear sitting here! But the Inuits I know, the Inuits ate fish heads buried in the moss and left to ripen until they turned purple, but I dont think Now, thats not what I was going to say, exactly, though I always did want to try that stuff. Was gonna tell you how the Inuits, not really having a good source of edible greens much of the year, would sometimes eat the stomach contents of the caribou they killed-partially digested moss, willows, things like that Well, Ive dried us a good bunch of nettles in that protected spot back behind where the bear is hung, and we have all those milkweed seeds to sprout, too, so I think well be doing alright on greens without resorting to something like that. Although if whatevers in here looks particularly good Carefully cradling the bear stomach, from which Einar had scraped and cleaned most of the fat to prevent it going rancid, she left the shelter. Outside, crouched in the lee of the rocks to stay out of the bitter wind while she worked, Liz realized that the storm was nearly over, was moving out, nearly half the sky a pale evening blue where the heavy storm clouds had already departed. It was still snowing at the shelter but would not, it appeared, be doing so for very much longer.

Empting the contents of the bears stomach out into the snow--chokecherries, it seemed, five or six pounds of partially digested chokecherries--Liz told herself that I should probably keep this mess. Hed want me to keep it. And if we boil it really good She shrugged, had to admit that the pile did not smell especially objectionable, retrieved two large flat rocks form the passage and scraped the jam onto them, setting them well within the safety of the passage where they would be out of reach to any other bear that might happen by. Which reminded her. She must be on the lookout for that mother bear, who might return at any time in search of the yearling, whose scent was undoubtedly all around the shelter. Quickly surveying the snow-smoothed rockslide, she saw no recent bear sign, squinted through the still falling snow and realized that all sign of the bears tracks, and of theirs, had been wiped out by the continuing storm. Which was quickly blowing itself out, it seemed. Returning to the shelter with the cleaned stomach and an armful of additional firewood, she wondered about the hunters, whether they had got enough snow down there in the valley to force them to pull out with the horses. She doubted it. There was less than a foot on the ground even there at the base of the spires, and she expected that the men would have stayed, wondered if she should go and check before darkness came. With the snow and wind ending, she doubted Einar would let them have a fire that night, if he had reason to believe that the hunters were still in the area.

Returning to the shelter with the cleaned bear stomach, Liz found Einar sitting near the fire, removing the soaked rawhide strips that had been wrapped around the upper portion of his cast. The strips had been soaked by his time out in the wet snow, it seemed, and had become useless as a rigid outer coating for the cordage cast. Snows almost over, I see blue sky out there. Problems with the cast? This didnt work so well, removable cast of some kind would have been a lot better, Einar replied dryly, squeezing excess water out of the rawhide strips and rolling them up, setting them on a rock away from the fire. Guess Ill re-wrap them, dont have anything else right now and theyll dry back out eventually, or freeze, but first I got to try and dry this cordage out some. Soaked, I think, at least partway down, by the looks of it. Cant tell for sure, still too cold to feel it. Liz checked the cordage. Yes, its pretty wet. Do you think the water soaked all the way down into the cast, or is it just this top part? Hoping its just the top part, but as long as I was out there He shook his head. Cordage is probably all waterlogged, jacket too, all that moss. Not good. Could take forever to dry, and I cant even get the cast near the fire to try and hurry it up, because of the pitch. Sure dont want to get trench leg, under the cast, if there is such a thing, and I know with this leg soaking wet all night Im going to have an awful time keeping the toes from freezing. So, gonna use a hot rock he lifted a heated granite chunk out of the firepit with two sticks, set it on the wet cordage a few inches above his knee, to try and

drive off some of the water. The rock steamed as it contacted the cordage wraps, and Einar grabbed it, using a pad of Usnea to keep from burning himself, shivering as the steams heat reached his chilled leg. Huh. Looks like thisll work. No way to get a rock down in the rest of the cast, but this should make some difference. Einar knew that every little bit of drying should help, but knew also that he had to be in for an awfully uncomfortable night with his injured leg wet, freezing and weighing half a ton. Well. Doubt Ill notice any of that very much. Doggone thing hurts so much from all that scrambling I did today Aw, who needs sleep, anyway? Wondering how, in the absence of rain pants or a ski bib or some such, he might manage to prevent the inside of the cast being soaked in the future, he wondered about coating the exposed cordage at each end with heavy layers of bear grease. Should keep the moisture out, if I could manage to avoid scraping it off on things as I traveled, and might even help keep my toes from freezing, as the winter goes on. Lots of far Northern folks have used grease--bear, seal, whale--spread heavily on exposed skin to help prevent frostbite, and we might as well try that out this winter, if we have enough grease. I sure never did last winter, but hopefully this one will be a bit different. Theres still some hope of that Though not much, he knew, not much real hope of living through it for you, and probably not for her, either, unless you can somehow talk her into leaving and heading down to a sensible elevation here in the next week or two before the serious snow sets in and feeling himself beginning to sink into a dark, miry place where everything would start to look hopelessly futile and despair, he knew, would soon be breathing down his neck, watching for any sign of weakness and waiting to crush him beneath its immense weight, obliterate him-no, you dont. No time for you. Out of here!--he quickly changed the subject. Well have to start working that hide pretty soon before it dries out, scrape it, get all the fat off--set it aside before it has a chance to get warm and start souring, or the meatll all taste like sour bear fat. We got a few days though, at these temperatures. We can render it down over the fire as we get the chance, and then itll last real well--hopefully brain tan it so itll stay flexible instead of getting all crunchy and rigid like the one I had last winter. No way to wrap up in it, after a while. Awful frustrating and not real warm. But for today, tonightcan just use it as is. Flesh sidell freeze instead of dry in this weather, we can thaw it later and scrape it. With half our clothes soaking wet and not available to wear as a second layerwed probably freeze without it tonight, anyway Yes, its going to be cold tonight with the storm moving out. The storm? He looked up at the sky, saw that the clouds were thinning. Yeah, I see. You mentioned that when you came in, didnt you? Sure is gonna get cold, in that case, and with the weather clearingwell, Id hate for those hunters to smell our smoke and get curious, if theyre still down there. I was thinking about that. How about I go check real quickly, see if theyre gone. I wouldnt have to go anywhere near the camp, just look down at it from the ledges way up above, in the trees Einar was shaking his head, and she was not surprised. We just got to assume theyre still there, give it a few days. If you go and they end up

seeing your tracks I wouldnt have to go anywhere close to the camp. There are some ledges high on the ridge above it, I could stick to the trees and look down at the camp to see if anybodys still around. We could really, really use a fire tonight, if theres any way. Ill be careful. It shouldnt take me more than an hour. Einar nodded, reluctantly, seeing that Liz seemed quite determined to go check on the status of the hunting camp and knowing that it was probably what he would have done, had he been able. He did not like the thought of sending her into such potential danger, the chance that she might do something to give away their existence, but unable to travel himself and knowing she was correct about the need for fire, he supposed at some point, he would simply have to trust her to use caution, to get the information and come back without revealing their presence. Unwrapping the wolverine hide from its place around his shoulders, he handed it to her. Take this. You absolutely sure you can find your way there and back without any trouble? Things can look real different once the snow falls Yes. Its just over the ridge down there, and Ive done it once before. Ill be back very soon. He nodded, grabbed her hand as she rose to leave. Liz, if they see you, or your tracks, we are dead. Understand? And same goes for leaving tracks that can be seen from the air. Keep to the evergreens. Liz squeezed his hand, piled more duff around him, and left before he could change his mind. Moving quickly through the snowy world around the spires, heading for the ridge and choosing her steps carefully in the wan light of an evening sun that was just beginning to peek out from beneath the receding storm clouds, Liz reached the ridge, wound her way to its summit, and started the descent to the ledges from which she had previously watched the camp. As she went she tested the air, paused frequently to listen for any sound that would indicate human presence, but smelled only the sharp-sweet scents of snow on the evergreens, of the melt-water soaked forest floor, the odor--more a feeling as her moist breath froze on the hairs in her nose than a smell, really--of the deepening cold, heard only the wind in the trees and the occasional soft thud as a breeze-tossed branch released its burden of snow to go plummeting to the earth. Reaching the ledges, she found the camp abandoned, no fire, no sign of fresh tracks in the snow, a single white wall tent having been erected and left beneath the dark shelter of a thick stand of lodge pole pines. All right. Found what I came to find. We can have a fire tonight! Now, turn around and start back up that ridge! But she was curious, wondered what the guides might have left behind in that tent--not food, probably, because of the bears, but sleeping bags? Tarps? All sorts of things that would make our lives tremendously easier, maybe even things, like a good sleeping bag, that could end up saving Einars It was a

dilemma, and one about which she was certain what Einar would have told her, but this time, she was not sure he would have been right.

The slope between Liz and the tent camp was heavily timbered, the snow far less deep there than it had been in the basin with the trees having offered a large measure of protection to the ground beneath, and she carefully edged her way down its steepness, stepping close to the trunks of trees where the shallow impressions she was leaving in the snow would be invisible to passing aircraft and trying hard not to slip on the steeper sections, knowing that if she got her present clothes wet, there would be nothing dry to change into when she returned to the shelter for the night. We really do need some snow pants, deer skin pants, something, for this winter! I wont have to worry about getting my clothes wet for long, though. Turning really cold as these clouds move out, so I expect soon that snow ought to start freezing into a hard crust that would not readily soak into clothing. Which reminded that she needed to hurry up and head back to the spires pretty soon, to let Einar know about the hunters absence so he could have a fire before he started freezing again. First, though, just a little closer She wanted to see if, without actually tampering with the setup, she might be able to see just what sorts of supplies the guides had left, so she would have a better idea of whether or not it might be worth the risk to raid the camp for a thing or two. At the edge of the clearing that surrounded the tent-grove, she stopped. No way across, not that didnt involve leaving a string of tracks out across the snowy clearing, at least. Warily she circled the camp, keeping to the trees and discovering that, as she had thought, the clearing extended all the way around, the tent set up amidst a little island of evergreens in its center, and though the open area did narrow down to a space of no more than ten feet in one spot, she could see no way to get across it without leaving tracks that would show from the air. Then, of course, there are the ones Im leaving here on the ground Which would, she hoped, either get drifted over by wind-blown snow or melted out, before the hunters returned, on the small chance that they might otherwise be discovered by one of the men as they wandered around the camp. From her hidden spot in the dark timber Liz could tell little of the camp, except to see that it consisted of a large white wall tent which had been given a bit of extra protection from the weather with an enormous blue tarp, suspended on a line a foot or so above its roof and angled to shed snow. Liz wanted that tarp, imagined how much warmer their little shelter would suddenly become with it to block the icy drafts and keep in some of the fires heat, and she wondered if it might be possible for her to go in and cut it down, making the lines that held it appear to have been torn loose by the wind. Not very likely they would fall for that! Especially with my tracks all over that smooth snow all around the tent. But what if I cut a bunch of spruce branches and tied them to the bottoms of my boots like snowshoes? I remember Einar telling me that he tried that last winter when the snow got deep, and while I would still leave tracks, maybe they would not be very clear, and would blend in with the melting snow much sooner than boot tracks She liked the idea, was seriously considering it but realized that with the sun long gone behind the ridge, dusk coming and a bitter cold descending on the mountains, she had

better not attempt it that night, leaving Einar waiting without a fire and possibly dangerously cold again as dark came and she did not return. Tomorrow then, Ill come back for the tarp. As she was turning to retrace her steps back up to the base of the ridge Liz noticed something that caught her attention, stopped and pondered. A long-dead lodge pole pine, tall and straight and leaning badly--right in the direction of the tent--stood at the edge of the timber, and measuring its height with her eyes she was almost certain that if she was able to knock it the rest of the way down, it ought to be long enough to give her a bridge over the to tent, so she could peek inside and see what might be stored there, and do a bit more scouting for her planned tarp requisition. Shoving gently near the base of the tree she found its roots completely rotted out, its trunk held up at an angle only by another, smaller dead tree against which it rested. Pushing, putting all of her strength into the effort and rocking the tree violently, Liz jumped back when it finally fell, its spindly top narrowly missing the near corner of the tent. Success! She broke two bristly branches off of a nearby evergreen and set off without hesitation across her bridge, throwing the boughs on the ground directly in front of the tent and kneeling on them, raising the bottom of the fabric just enough to get a look inside. In the dim light that filtered I through the walls she saw, when her eyes adjusted, a number of bags and containers piled near the center of the tent, but the thing that really caught her eye was the stack of four sleeping bags that sat off to one side. Quickly smoothing out the canvas that she had disturbed in prying up the small section of the side wall, she took her seat-boughs and retreated across the bridge, anxious to return to Einar before it grew much darker or colder, but determined that she must return to the camp.

Einar worked on the bear hide while Liz was gone, spreading it over a large rock and using a small granite flake whose sharp edge he had ground away against another rock to begin scraping at the thin layer of fat and membrane that remained, knowing he needed to get it off in preparation for eventually tanning the bear. The work went slowly and he had to stop frequently, attempting to warm his stiff hands by pressing them against his stomach but finally giving up when he realized that there seemed not to be an especially large temperature difference between his hands and stomach, in the first place. Which concerned him some; he was definitely not yet thoroughly warmed up, and knew that between the soaked cast lining that covered most of his right leg and the fact that he lacked any outside source of warmth, he had probably started losing heat again as soon as Liz left and he allowed the fire to go out. After doing all he could on the bear hide, he huddled under the creatures thick black coat, watching the last rays of sun disappear from the wall high above him through the chimney and hoping to begin warming again but finding that the situation did not seem to be improving much. The shivering had started up again while he scraped the hide and it continued as he sat there, stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows and the bear hide draped up over his head for extra warmth, but he was tired, awfully, terribly tired, and did not know how much longer his body would be able to keep it up. He needed energy, knew that he needed to eat. Sure wish I had that poisoned honey, about now. Couple good scoops of that stuff and I could just

lie here and shiver for the rest of the day if I had to, and not worry about giving out for lack of energy. Well. I got chokecherries, theyll have to do. Before dragging himself across the shelter in search of the fruit, though, he poked around in the nearly cold firepit, finding under a pile of ash the last of the hot rocks, barely warm by that point, but better than nothing, and holding it against his chest for a minute, his hands a good bit more useful afterwards. Retrieving a handful of berries he curled up around the warm rock as well as the cumbersome cast would allow, munching on a few of the half frozen chokecherries--couldnt manage many without feeling awfully sick, the way his leg was hurting--and hoping that Liz was on her way back, would return safely and without leaving any sign where the guides would find it. His mind wandering as he lay there, Einar thought of the days ahead and what needed to be done, assuming they could have fire, to preserve the bear. The meat, if temperatures were going to stay cold enough, could simply be left to freeze, chunks carved off when they were needed and cooked, but he doubted the cold had come to stay, just yet. So, need to dry a good bit of it. Can make racks and do it over the fire to speed things up. Shouldnt eat it dry like jerky since bears can carry trichinosis--heard of a couple folks in Canada coming down with it that way--but we can cook up the dry meat in stew, later. While he knew that freezing pork would kill off the larva that led to the parasitic infection, bear meat, as far as he knew, could not be rendered safe that way. It was too fatty, and the fat protected the larvae. Speaking of fat, they would need to begin rendering it down if they wanted it to last through any spells of warm weather that might still be coming, a process that Einar hoped to begin on that evening, if the situation down at the hunting camp permitted. That gets the bear taken care of, then, and a good thing we got it, or wed both be looking at starvation pretty quick, here. That, or being forced to move to a spot where therell be more game during the winter, a basin or valley just a bit lower down. Which I sure cant do right now, but Liz can. And should. And I think I know now to convince her With that, his mind at peace and his body terribly weary, finally exhausted enough to allow him a bit of rest despite the fierce ache in his injured leg he fell asleep, staring up at the sky as it slowly faded from a soft winter blue to grey, darkening to black. Also watching the sky that evening was Pete Jackson, having just received a call from the hunting who had employed him that his clients, a party of four from back East somewhere, were due in the following morning, and were delighted to hear of the early snow that would have driven the elk into some of the lower basins and valley floors where the grass and leaves were still more available. The guide wanted Pete to accompany them again up to the camp, wanted to hire him to tend the camp and do the cooking, and while Pete, remembering his former duties with the outfitting business he hand his brother Jeff had run together, would much rather have gone along on the hunts, he certainly needed the money and also greatly looked forward to the opportunity to spend several more days back up in the high country. He had eagerly accepted the offer, and the evening breeze, sweeping down chill and tangy with the mixed scents of snow and spruce from the peaks that surrounded Culver Falls, brought with it the promise of good days ahead, better days, he was sure, than hed had since the arrest and

disappearance of his brother. He went to bed early that night, having been asked to be out at the trailhead before dawn the next day.

The following morning dawned crystal clear and cold, the guides and their clients on the trail early, the hooves of their horses crunching in the frost-stiffened meadow grasses and breaking the thin rime of ice that frosted the puddles and stream-edges, even down low. Up in the spires the night had brought bitter a chill that hardened the wet snow to an icy crust, the trees snapping and popping as the sap in their outer layers froze for the first time that season. Liz woke slowly, poking her nose out from beneath the bear hide and blinking up at the crisp, day-lit blue of the sky far above, having been up much of the night tending the fire after returning from her scouting trip to find Einar dangerously cold again, shivering weakly under the bear hide, barely responsive when she tried to wake him. Feeling badly for having left him for so long when she knew he had hardly been back to normal after his time trapped out in the storm, she had built up the fire, given him warmed chokecherry water and set several rocks down in the coals to heat, but she could see that he needed some immediate warmth, did not want to wait for the rocks to heat and knew that she could warm him by curling up with him, but could not do that while also preparing supper and tending the fire, and she had and idea. Out of the gut pile she took the bears bladder, tied it off before freeing it and emptied it outside, filling it with warm water from the pot and tying it off again, essentially creating a hot water bottle which she tested carefully against her cheek to make sure it was not too hot before placing it directly against his skin--shed learned in SAR training that it was surprisingly easy to cause burns to someone who was hypothermic by placing even moderately hot items in direct contact with their skin, since there was not enough blood near the skin surface to dissipate heat adequately, as there would be in someone with a normal body temperature--knowing that it should begin to warm him and free her up to make dinner. Einar, while grateful for the warmth and rather admiring Lizs skill at improvising, was terribly frustrated that he could not seem to wake up properly and talk with her, really believing that he had finally come up with a way to convince her to leave him and head down to a lower elevation, if not back to civilization and her friends, giving her a much better chance of making it through the winter. Well. It would have to wait. He could barely make sense of his own thoughts at the moment, and knew that attempts to communicate them to her would go rather poorly. Supper was a wonderful smelling stew--bear lung, kidney, fat and nettles, thickened with cattail root starch and seasoned with wild onion--which Einar tried but found himself unable to eat. Liz could tell the leg was hurting him terribly, though he wouldnt say anything about it, and when she boiled up a strong batch of willow bark tea with a few dried mint leaves thrown in to make it easier on his stomach he accepted it gladly, drifting back to sleep after finishing it. After that, the night had consisted of a seemingly endless series of repetitions for Liz--heat rocks in the fire, wrap them in dry socks and place them strategically against Einars kidneys, upper legs, armpits, wrapping them against him with the wolverine hide, banking the fire and crawling in beside him for a

few minutes rest before starting all over again. About halfway through the long night some of their clothes had finally dried and she helped Einar into a second polypro shirt, after which he seemed to be having a considerably easier time staying warm, and she was able to go a bit longer between changes of the hot rocks, a most welcome change, as she was by that time badly in need of sleep, herself. Einar had been resting quietly for some time when he suddenly sat up and struggled to reach his foot, having realized that he had some time ago lost the ability to wiggle the toes, and could not feel his lower leg or foot at all. Wish I couldnt feel the broken part, either, but I guess Id better be glad I still can. Sure would be bad if the whole leg frozenow, the toes. The bulky cast made it difficult for him to reach his toes and Liz saw the problem, warmed them for him again her stomach until she could tell from his grimace that the circulation was returning. Tomorrow that milkweed down should be dry, and Ill work on making you a slipper. Maybe I could use a piece of bear hide from one of the legs, sew it up fur side in and stuff it with milkweed down. That should keep your foot warm I would think, even on these cold nights. Einar nodded. Thanks. Problem islegs wet. Cools the blood. Probably whycant stay warm tonight. He sank back to the bed as he finished speaking, too weary to hold himself upright anymore, which concerned Liz greatly but did not surprise her. I dont know what to do about the leg, short of removing the cast and starting over, but for the foot, I have an idea. Searching around in the rubble on the shelter floor until she found a flat rock the approximate size of Einars foot, she set it down in the fire hole, giving it time to warm thoroughly before pressing it against the sole of his foot--covered thinly with wrapped cordage and pitch--and binding it in place with some cordage. Which proved unnecessary, as the pitch it contacted soon melted and oozed around it, holding it firmly in place. Liz knew that her improvised foot warmer would damage the pitch coating on that surface, but was not sure what else to do, unless she was to sit all night with the foot pressed against her stomach for warmth. After dealing with the foot they were both able to sleep for the hour or so that remained of the night, Liz behind Einar with her arms around him and one ear pressed up against his back just to make sure that he continued breathing. Liz, awakened by the daylight, was certainly in no hurry to leave the warmth of the bear hide after her near-sleepless night, so she lay there staring at the sky, thinking. She had wanted to go back to the camp during the night or early morning for the tarp and a sleeping bag, but had not been able to leave Einar, and that morning knew her priority had to be fixing up the shelter so that he could stay a bit warmer at night. That, and trying to get Einar to eat. She knew the leg must be hurting him quite a bit, but knew also that the occasional bite or two of stew that he seemed able to choke down would not go very far towards sustaining life, let alone keeping him warm or allowing his body to begin healing. She wondered about simply making a broth by boiling up some bear meat and nettles and enriching it with a bit of fat, straining off the solid bits and eating hem herself and giving him the broth to drink. It would not be enough, but would certainly be better than the occasional bite or two that he seemed able to get down at the moment. All

right, I will try that. But for now hes pretty warm, sleeping, and if I can go gather a bunch of cattails and other things, dry them in the sun today and use them to add insulation to the bed, maybe Ill be able to get away for a few hours tonight to go back down to that camp and get hold of one of those sleeping bags! Waking when Liz left, Einar dragged himself into a sitting position and got the bear hide around him in such a way that his hands were available for use, dragging over a section of bear haunch that Liz had been cutting slices out of the previous evening and continuing the process, hanging the long thin strips, as he cut them, on one of several sticks that Liz had braced across the shelter just above the firepit, so the meat could begin drying. Gonna freeze before it starts drying, on a morning like this. No problem though. Itll lose water, even frozen, and we can get a fire under it tonight to speed things up. Thirsty, he found the water bottle that Liz had kept under the blankets through the night to prevent it freezing, taking a drink and, to his chagrin, beginning to remember parts of the previous night, Liz having to help him with his freezing toes and, he was pretty sure, not getting a whole lot of sleep herself, between keeping the fire going and supplying him with a steady stream of warm rocks. Not the way it should be, Einar. Got to find your own sleeping quarters and keep her out of em, so that doesnt happen anymore. He shook his head, irritated at himself for not doing something of the sort sooner. Yeah, but where would you have been, really, without a little help these last few nights? Frozen on the ground like any other unwell critter--rabbit, deer, cat--when the cold comes, thats where. Dead. What you really need to do is eat, so you can hope to have enough energy to keep yourself warm at night, not have to rely on her so much. Thats the whole problem here. Leg hurts, sure, but you got to do this, so come on. I see some of that stews still left Determined to eat despite the knot in his stomach, he managed quite a few mouths full of the stew, cold and beginning to from ice crystals after the night but still very tasty, and all was well until he scooted closer to the fire hole to replace the nearempty pot where Liz had left it, slightly wrenching his leg as he dragged it sideways. He was, despite his best efforts, sick after that, managing to get everything into the firepit and covering it with the flat rock to keep the stench in the shelter to a minimum, flopping back down on the bed and dragging the bear hide up over his head. After a time Einar sat up again and resumed working on the bear, having to turn away from time to time when the smell of the meat--fresh and, he knew, certainly appetizing had he not been so nauseous--brought a fresh wave of queasiness to his empty stomach. Wish I knew where Liz is keeping that dried mint. Chewing a little might help with this. When Liz returned some time later, she came bearing two large bundles of recently dead cattail stalks, having remembered Einars description of the mattress he had made from them at one of his old shelters and thinking that, while their thick duff mattress was more than adequate to keep them from feeling the chill of the rocks beneath, perhaps the stalks could be bound together in rows of small bundles and turned into curtains or baffles to help keep the drafts out of the shelter, and perhaps even placed overhead--though not directly above the fire, of course--to trap some of the heat nearer the ground. Einar thought this an excellent idea, and got right to work helping Liz tie smaller bundles together--the stalks had remained almost entirely dry during the storm, as they were hardly wide enough to accumulate much snow, and did not have to be entirely dry,

anyway, as they were not going to be sat on or slept beneath--knowing nothing of Lizs plans for that night or her real motive in making sure it was possible to keep the shelter warmer that night.

Pete, going about his camp duties as the guides and their clients took the horses and scouted the nearby ridges and basins late that morning, began gathering firewood, finding a fallen tree behind the tent that looked convenient and working to reduce it to burnable lengths. The tree was newly fallen, he knew it had not been there when they set up the tent, and he looked curiously at the chips and flakes of bark that lay in the sparse and patchy snow beside it, as if some creature had been scurrying along its trunk. Wondering if perhaps a fox had used the tree as a highway--he knew they often did--he followed it to the spot where its rotten roots had come out of the ground, looking for tracks. And finding them. Kicking and scuffing at the Vibram-soled boot tracks, guessing at their meaning and hoping to get a few minutes later when he could wander off and investigate further, Pete returned to his work, his mind occupied with the possibilities

Liz made several more trips down to the cattail marsh that day, returning each time with huge bundles of brown stalks which Einar separated and tied into smaller bundles, weaving cordage through the bundles to create mats and curtains to block drafts and insulate the shelter. While Einar worked diligently on the mats and was glad to have the task to do, Liz could see from his face that he was really struggling with the pain of his injured leg, still couldnt eat any significant amount when she offered him breakfast, and generally seemed to be feeling somewhat discouraged about everything, wouldnt meet her eyes when she spoke to him. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but as that seemed rather an absurd question considering the circumstances, she simply sat with him for a minute each time she dropped off a load of stalks, made sure he was getting enough to drink and offered him some willow bark to chew. Einar appreciated her efforts, wished he could find the words to tell her so, but wished most of all that he was alone so that his problems did not have to be hers. He was feeling terribly useless that morning, not especially hopeful about being able to walk anytime soon, and though the stubborn thing inside him that had kept him going for so long kept telling him to forget it. Just do what you can, things will get better, and what do you mean, useless? You took a bear yesterdayhe was having a difficult time believing any of it at the moment, was struggling with whether or not to make another effort to convince Liz to leave and head down where she, at least, would stand an improved chance of seeing the coming spring. Liz sensed his struggle but did not know how to help, took a detour on one of her insulation-gathering trips and found his lost crutch there beneath the chute where he had taken refuge after distracting the bear, and brought it to him, along with a similar splittopped branch that she thought he might be able to use in completing the pair. Einar, immensely grateful and telling her so, took a few minutes here and there to work on the crutches between cattail stalk mats, the day looking a good deal brighter to him as he crafted them and planned for their use, for the return of his mobility.

When he had a few of the mats finished, Liz brought several sticks and jammed them between the walls several feet above the bed, spreading two of the large, thick cattail stalk-roll mats out between them to create a roof of sorts. It would not, she knew, stand up to any significant amount of snow, but should help keep a bit of heat in, for the time. Others were placed behind the bed, between it and the hanging bear so as not to unnecessarily heat the meat and shorten its life, and to finish everything off, Liz stood an especially large mat in the passage just beyond the fire, to act as a door As thick as the bundles of stalks were, the mats easily stood up on end. This left the area of the bed and the wide section of the shelter around it almost completely surrounded with the thick insulating mats, a gap left above the fire. Einar was impressed. This will help an awful lot! Already is, already feeling a lot warmer without the wind blowing through here all the time. I tried something like this last winter, piling snow up in the entrance to a mine I was staying in and heating the back with a candle, but this will be so much better! Got to make sure none of it catches on fire, though! Oh, that would be bad! This dry aspen wood weve been using doesnt seem to throw many sparks though, and Ill watch it really carefully. Finishing the insulation project just before sunset, Liz spent the last remaining hour of daylight bringing snow--what had not melted during the day--into the shaded, protected passage of rock that led to their shelter, forming it into flat slabs with large depressions in their centers and carefully pouring in small amounts of water, creating ice-lined troughs into which she intended to pour rendered bear fat, so it could solidify. Einar had told her about using a similar procedure before with elk fat, and it sounded quite reasonable to her. As soon as darkness came they began the rendering process, filling the elk stomach halfway with water and keeping the water near boiling with a series of hot rocks, dropping in chunk after chunk of the raw fat and skimming the purified bear lard off the top as it rose, Liz depositing it in the snow molds to harden. At the same time they had the pot going with more fat--no water involved, just the fat itself--on the flat rock pushed partway over the fire, Einar tending it and removing the cracklings as the fat separated from them. The newly insulated shelter warmed quickly with the small fire, Liz soon in a single layer as she worked and Einar finally able emerge from the bear hide and sit on the bed to do his work without shivering. Night came, the rendering of the bear fat continued as the finished, solidified patties of the rich white stuff piled up on a rock in the cool back of the shelter beneath where the meat hung, and Einar, almost warm and growing increasingly drowsy as he worked, allowed himself to entertain the slimmest glimmer of hope--more than hed really had before, as he had for some time been keeping on more out of sheer stubbornness and an inability to give up than because he had any real expectation of living through the winter--that things might just be starting to turn around. With that thought he drifted off to sleep, slumping over against the wall where Liz found him when she returned from yet another trip out to the passageway to fill the snowy lard-trays, easing him into a more comfortable looking position and covering him up with the thick warm bear hide.

Finishing the batch that Einar had started before falling asleep, she prepared to lie down with him for a time, intending to make sure he was thoroughly warm and fast asleep before leaving for the hunting camp. Liz was weary, though, so weary that she fell asleep very quickly and did not wake for hours, she and Einar staying much warmer than they had on recent nights, helped by the new draft shields and by the fact that the temperature was a good twenty degrees warmer than it had been, the night before. Liz woke with a start in the grey hour before dawn, having a great deal of trouble shaking the drowsiness out of her eyes after her first full night of sleep in many days. Checking to make sure Einar was doing alright she hastily left the bed, felt around for the backpack, which she had emptied the evening before, and slipped out of the shelter. The morning air was crisp but not bitterly cold, the evergreens having sometime in the night shaken off their heavy loads of snow and the aspens once more showing golden--if missing a few branches here and there from the unseasonably early weight of the snow on their still-clinging leaves-in bands and pockets around the spires. Moving quickly, hoping to be back before Einar woke, she reached the top of the ridge just before sunrise and hurried down the slope that led to the tent-clearing, neglecting in her haste to spend a few quiet minutes listening and observing the camp. There it was, the tent, white walls and blue tarp--our blue tarp!--over its roof, and she kept to the trees, approaching from the area where the timber swooped closest to the tent, heading for her bridge-tree. Stopping briefly just before stepping out onto the tree she thought she heard something, a faint rustling and stomping out in the meadow on the other side of the tent, but she dismissed it as the morning wanderings of an elk or deer, and started out onto the tree. Something wrong, stirrings inside the tent, the soft whinny of a horse, the crunch of a boot on the snow and she froze, let her eyes wander to the side and saw him. Pete. She knew that face, remembered him from before and knew what he had tried to do to Einar, how he had attempted to cash him in for the reward, and she feared. Hello, Liz. Where is he? Liz warily took a step back, wondering whether Pete was alone at the tent and thinking it very likely he was, that late into the morning. Easing her hand down towards the Glock, a sharp sound to her left caught her attention and she glanced over to see two men stepping out from behind the tent, dressed in matching woodland camouflage jackets, looking rather more official than hunting guides, weapons drawn and aimed at her, shouting at her to put her hands up, which she barely had time to do before they were on her, identifying themselves as being with the FBI and pinning her to the ground, cuffing her hands roughly behind her back. Pete must have seen my tracks from before, must have somehow figured it out and called in these agentsEinar, Im so sorry! Four more agents appeared from inside the tent, surrounding her. For the next hour--perhaps two, as she lost track of time after a while--they interrogated her about Einars whereabouts as she steadfastly denied knowing anything about him, the two agents cordial at first as they presented argument after argument as to why it would be best for everyone if she gave Einar up, told her they knew she had been with him and could lead them to him, offered her full immunity and even a share of the reward if she would cooperate. There was no point in protecting him, they told her, as they could simply follow her back trail and find

him, as soon as they were done questioning her. Liz did not entirely believe them on that, though, supposing that they would have already started up the ridge, if that had been the case. The snow was mostly gone by that point, and she knew her trail would not be especially easy to follow. The longer she maintained her assertion of ignorance as to his location, however, the more vigorous the interrogation became, the snow drift in front of her soon showing red flecks from her bloodied nose and lip. When the interrogators took a break at one point to drink coffee from thermoses and discuss things among themselves, Liz felt the presence of someone else nearby, raised her eyes and saw Einar standing there just inside the trees, apparently as yet unseen by the agents, having got himself to his feet and jammed himself in between the trunks of two close growing aspens to keep himself upright. She saw that the atlatl was in his hand, drawn back, dart in place, and as their eyes met briefly she realized that he was about to let go with the dart, wanted to tell him to leave, to save himself, but could not, without alerting her interrogators to his presence, silently pleaded with him to turn around and disappear into the woods but could see from his eyes that he had no such intention. One of the agents returned and began questioning Liz once again, a hard kick to her ribs sealing his death warrant as Einar let the dart fly, taking the man through the neck and sending him sprawling on the snow, gurgling his last few breaths of foamy blood and air and quickly expiring. Liz whirled around and jumped to her feet just after the man fell, hoping to be able to do something to distract the others and give Einar some time to escape, but the journey down to the tent camp had taken everything he had, more, really, and he could hardly remain standing, let alone flee. The next moment his buckskin vest showed six or seven spreading stains of red, his left ear and part of his cheek blown off by a final shot that sent him sagging, falling backwards and crumpling in a snow drift, a pink stain growing around him in the previously pristine whiteness but his eyes open, their piercing blue staring up through the pines at the morning sky, unyielding even then. Liz broke away from her keepers, ran to him, but he was gone, the light gone from his eyes, and she knelt beside him, gently closed them, took his hand and lay there with him in the snow, head on his chest, silently sobbing. Through her tears she saw the atlatl and the remaining dart there beside him, concealed behind his body, reached out, her hand closing around the weapons, preparing to stand.

Liz woke with a start, shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks, Einar right there beside her where he had been when she fell asleep, her arms around him and his own shivering ended, warm, resting, alive. His face was just visible in the gentle early morning light when she raised her head to look, appearing alarmingly gaunt and drawn, his skin almost transparent, but not, as in the dream, missing his left ear and cheek. Relieved, her silent tears coming unchecked, she laid her face on his shoulder, the horror of the dream slowly draining away. Einar had been awakened by her stirring, turned to face her. Youre crying She reached out, touched his face where the agents bullet had left a path of destruction in

the dream. Youre alive. Im so glad youre alive He narrowed his eyes, gave her a lopsided grin. Well, Im doing my best. What? You figured Id have died of shock in the night because your cattail insulation was so effective that I didnt have to shiver the whole time like Im used to? Nah, think Im a little sturdier than that, even now. Would take more than one nice comfortable night to do me in. Two, maybe threebetter sleep out in a snow bank tonight, just to be safe. She managed a weak little half smile at that--he must be doing a lot better this morning, if hes able to joke like that again--her face going dark and serious again the next second. EinarI almost did something really awful. Im so sorry. Last nightI was planning to go back down there to that tent camp, take a sleeping bag for you and a tarp but I fell asleep before I could leave, and had a dream just now, they caught me and shot you when you tried to helpI wont do it, I wont go, just wanted you not to have to freeze so bad every night Nearly sobbing as she spoke she stopped, was silent, reached for his hand, but he pulled it away, fist clenched. Ah, Liz A convoluted mix of anger and relief passed over his face as he fought back a sudden impulse to growl something about how hed be a lot better off alone. Youd probably be dead out here alone with that legand, she didnt do it. He took her hand. Im glad you didnt go. Real bad idea. Thanks for wanting to get me that sleeping bag butwould have been a real good way to get caught. Were doing OK right now, but we sure wouldnt be if the search came down on us again and we had to try and run I know. I thought if I was careful, didnt leave tracks, didnt take too much Not worth it. Never worth it. Having to run, never sleep in the same place twice, well, its one thing in the summer, but Ive done it in the winter and Ill tell you its a mighty rough life, and one that I certainly wouldnt last long at, right now. You might, and Id sure give it a try, but Well, I wont be going anywhere near that camp, but Einar, Its Pete down there, Pete Jackson who tried to claim the reward on you last winter by giving the FBI your arrow that his brother pulled out of a deer. I didnt recognize him the other day when I saw him in the meadow, but I saw him clearly in the dream, and I know its him. What if hes up here looking for you? Einar propped himself up on his elbow. Youre sure it was Pete? No doubt. Well, Pete was an outfitter, so hes probably just up here with some clients at that tent, but Einar shook his head. Doggone it, if it wasnt for this leg Id be clearing out of here today. Guy like that comes poking around here again, hes bound to see something that says human, and if he doesnt know of anyone else hunting the area, he may figure who it is, and really scour the place. Liz, Petes a dangerous one. Got plenty of time in

the hills, knows what hes looking at, and never did have the integrity I saw in his brother Jeff. Not a bad guy, I guess, but always seemed like one of those you could never quite trust, and that was before he tried so hard to get me captured! Were gonna have to be awful careful, with him hanging around. No more fires, no shooting, any snares we set out have got to be in the heavy brush where he wont just casually run across them while scouting for elkand I, he reached for the nearly-finished pair of crutches, arm rests and hand holds thickly padded with Usnea lichen, am gonna start walking today. Liz wanted to tell him no, that he must rest the leg for another week or so before attempting to walk and risking re-breaking the bone, but considering the circumstances, knew she could ask no such thing of him. All right. And I need to get down the food that you stashed up there, so if youre going to walk, you can walk over there and show me right where it is. Now, is there anything else you need to finish those crutches, or are they about ready to use? I kinda sharpened the tips on both of them so Ill have something to give me a little traction on slippery bits, but it would eventually be a good idea to tip them with antler tines, I think, so Ill have some hope of staying on my feet on crusty snow and ice. Powders gonna be another thingbut Im really hoping we got a few weeks before we have to deal with fresh snow again. Would sure help. Another thingthat flat hot rock you glued to the bottom of my cast the other night to keep my toes from freezing got me to thinking. I need something like that, but on my good foot. A platform for my boot, something to raise it by a couple inches so the bad foot doesnt touch the ground every time I take a step. Gonna be exhausting trying to hold it up off the ground all the time, and things would be a lot easier if I could just let the leg dangle. Thats a great idea! I guess were going to have to lash something to the sole of your boot with paracord or something, for now, since we cant have a fire to melt pitch and glue it on. A rock will be awfully heavy. How about a slab of aspen wood? Great! Real lightweight. If you can find me one, Ill get to work shaping it and tying it on, and see how this crutch business works. And then, yes. Ill show you where that food is. Having that honey around would be a real good thing right now, couldve really helped keep me going, some of these real cold nights and even days when Ive just about shivered myself to death, run out of energy to keep it up and started fading. What you need then in sugar, more than anything. And I bet you might enjoy having some of that salt to add to your stews, too. Did I ever mention that you make great stew? Liz smiled. Thanks! But I wish you would eat more of it. You havent eaten more than a few bites in the last four days, and its been so coldI know your leg must hurt terribly, but youve got to keep trying. He nodded, knew she was right, knew he had managed to wander way out beyond what he had learned were his safe limits again, especially in the sort of cold they had been seeing, badly needed to start putting on some weight if he could. The warm night and

good sleep had helped; his leg, though aching bitterly, was tolerable that morning, no longer causing him the constant nausea of the past few days, and he was hopeful about his prospects for a good breakfast. Well, Im hungry. Got any of that stew left from last night? She got it for him from its place in the coals, and they shared some breakfast before she headed out to get water and find a slab of wood for his boot, Einar again working to slice up a quantity of bear meat for drying. Heading down to the seep just before sunrise, Liz heard two rifle shots, sounding not terribly distant, from somewhere over in the direction of the tent camp.

Returning with several full bottles of water, more cattail stalks a and a slab of wood, broken from a wind-split aspen that she had found on the meadows edge, Liz found Einar standing outside in the rocks, looking precariously balanced and rather uncomfortable but triumphant on his crutches, laboriously holding his casted leg up out of contact with the ground. Well, they work, he grunted through gritted teeth, his forehead beaded with sweat, gladly accepting Lizs hands when she offered them and allowing her to ease him to the ground, lying back on the rocks with a sigh, still for a moment before sitting back up. But isnt there some rule about your leg cast not being more than a third of your body weight for optimum hiking performance, or something? Well, Im pretty sure were violating that rule, here. This thing must weigh thirty or forty pounds. Or maybe that rule only applies to backpacks Oh, I doubt it could weigh quite that much. She gave him some water. But if you like, I can load thirty or forty pounds of rocks into the backpack and you can wear that, too, when youre walking, to help take your mind off the cast Einar looked at her strangely for a second, a big grin briefly erasing the strain and exhaustion from his face. That just might do the trick. Fine idea. Sounds like one Id have come up with though, one youd get after me for. But I doubt it weighs that much, either. Just feels like it. Seems I mustve lost a lot of muscle just lying around most of the week, and there wasnt too much there to lose. If I can spend a little time on these crutches every day, start eating more, should be able to do a lot better in a few days. Please be careful. Your leg hasnt had much time to start healing, and you know that it may take longer than normal for it to mend, right, since youve been short on food for so long? Ill start boiling down some of the bear bones for broth, and if you can drink a lot of it, maybe the extra calcium will help it heal faster. Yeah, I know its gonna take a while. That broth would be great, as soon as the hunters

go so we can have a fire again. Maybe theyll be headed down soon. I heard a couple of shots while I was down at the seep. Hopefully they got something. Hope so. Though Im a little concerned that if they like that spot down there, they may bring clients here for the other seasons. Well need to lie pretty low until this place gets cut off by some serious snow, enough to keep horses out of that basin. Good thing is, with that bear we wont have to starve while were doing it. I want to keep working at drying the meat though, as much of it as we can, in case something happens and we have to clear out of here in a hurry Ill help with that. And I need to go get that food off the cliff, today. Do you think youre up to the walk? Sure! At least this time I got two crutches, and a bear wont be chasing me! Pretty sure mama bear holed up for the winter after this last storm. Seen no sign of her around the crevice, have you? No. No tracks down at the seep, or anywhere else. You said you got a dart into her. Was she hurt very badly, do you think? Doubt it. The thing just stuck into her hip, probably didnt even go down through the fat layer. Infection might be a problem, but more likely a cyst will just grow around it, and shell have a pretty normal life. Wish it had been a better hit, we could sure use the extra meat. He shook his head, stared at the ground. Sorry I messed that one up so bad Einar! What are you talking about? You managed to take the young bear, distract the enraged mother and lead her away from me long enough to let me get the yearling back to the shelter, all with a broken leg and one crutch, while soaked and freezing in a blizzard! Id call that pretty amazing. And I thought we worked awfully well together that day. He shrugged, prodded at a granite flake with his crutch and sent it skittering off across a larger slab. Guess it came out OK. Were still here. Now. You ready to go after that food? Because I got some stuff to show you, some climbing gear that my friend Willis left for us. Back in the shelter Einar emptied Willis Amells climbing bag onto the rocky floor, sorting through the selection of carabiners, slings, chocks and assorted lengths of webbing that his friend had left, glad to see that Liz had at least a basic understanding of what everything was for. He showed her how to make a basic diaper seat climbing harness with a tied loop of webbing, telling her that she could use Willis rope for protection on the way up, go ahead and climb the extra ten or twelve feet up to the flat top of the spire after retrieving the food, take a little rest and use one of the rock spurs up there and a length of webbing to build an anchor so she could rappel down. Liz wanted

to go ahead and free climb the wall--if you were able to do it with your hip and shoulder injured and mostly starved, I should be able to do it, now--but Einar said no, told her he had been desperate and a bit weird still from the bear tranquilizers at the time, that looking back he was very surprised hed made it down alive, at all. And what if you did fall and ended up breaking a leg, or something? Wed make quite a pair then, thats for sure. One of us would probably have to end up eating the other before the winter was over, you know, like the Donner Party, and Im afraid since Id likely be the first to succumb to the cold, youd be the one whod have to turn cannibal. And thatd be one lousy deal, cause there wouldnt be much left of me at all by that point, hardly enough to make a good broth, even, and youd have to For goodness sake, stop it! She jumped up and clapped her hands over her ears, kicking at him before taking a step back. Ill let you belay me, or whatever it is youre wanting to do, though Im sure I could make the climb with no trouble. You do come up with some of the worst scenarios! You are not normal, you know? He grinned. Thanks! Ready to get started? She was, and they headed over to the appropriate spire, Liz carrying Ammels pack and Einar hobbling along on his crutches, struggling to keep the fractured leg from jarring against protruding rocks as they moved over the uneven ground, wishing very much that he had taken a few extra minutes to tie that slab of wood to the bottom of the boot on his good foot, so it was not such an awful struggle to keep the bad one up off the ground. They reached the spot, finally, and Einar pointed out to Liz the little shelf where she would find the food. The walk had taken more out of him than he was willing to let on to Liz, and as she studied the wall, he leaned back on a boulder with his eyes closed, trying to slow his breathing and push aside the blackness that wanted to creep over him, whispering of sleep, demanding that he sleep. Certain that the awful, gnawing ache of his injured leg was the only thing keeping him from slipping away into the quiet, comforting oblivion that beckoned him, Einar found himself for the first time almost grateful for the injury. Got to stay awake right now, got to help Liz. Really just wish I could walk though, make this climb myself and then clear out of here. She was ready, had tied the loop for the improvised harness and was putting it on, bringing the loop behind her as if to sit on it, one side up near her waist and the other hanging low, the loops two ends meeting at the front of her waist and the low section of the loop brought up between her legs to meet the ends, everything attached with a single carabiner to form a good snug seat as he had showed her back at the shelter. Einar inspected the improvised harness, told her it looked good and took the free end of the webbing--they had not wanted to cut it, knowing they might need its full length, later-and wrapped it twice around her waist, tying it off and hooking those loops, also, into the carabiner for extra security. Making a double figure eight knot in the end of Willis rope he clipped it, too, into the carabiner at Lizs waist. This belt will help you not come out of the seat if you end up flipping upside-down for some reason. But, please dont do that. Not a great idea with this sort of setup

Oh, I have no intention of flipping upside down, but if I do come off the wall, youll catch me, right? Thats what Im here for. Ill give you just enough slack to let you climb, and you put these chocks in that crack every five or six feet if you can, clip the rope into them. Ill catch you if you fall. What if I drag you partway up the wall, or something, when I fall? He laughed at the mental image of Liz dangling from one end of the rope, he from the other, neither able to reach the ground Youre not gonna fall. And I seriously doubt that would happen, anyway. Dont think you weigh that much more than me. Sure hope not. But Ill brace myself behind this boulder just to be sure. With that Liz began the climb, ascending reasonably quickly and pausing when the crack offered good placements to put in chocks, realizing that, while she had certainly not had as much sleep over the last few weeks as she could have used, she did seem to be managing to get enough to eat, or close to it. The bear had helped tremendously. Her energy was good, and she was enjoying the climb. Reaching the ledge she saw the food, carefully retrieved one item at a time and stowed them in the pack, shaking her head in dismay at the realization that Einar could have been eating it all along, and would have been in much better shape, had he been. The task finished, she signaled him that she was ready to begin climbing again, heading for the top so she could rappel down. Reaching the flattish summit of the spire, an area approximately ten feet by eight of slabs and flakes of granite, she hauled herself up over the rim and stood, staring, wondering just what she was looking at.

It did not take Liz long to realize that she was looking at human remains, the badly tattered, faded knit cap still clinging to the skull, locks of grey hair sticking out from beneath. The body--skeleton, really, as very little of the desiccated flesh remained, having apparently long ago served as an aerial feast for vultures and ravens--sat in a position of repose among the rocks, back against an angled granite slab, arms and ankles crossed, face, what was left of it, looking up at the sky, giving Liz a very strong sense that the death, whatever had caused it, had been a peaceful one. Beside the remains sat the departed mans jacket, folded neatly and held down by a granite slab, as if he had wished to keep it from blowing away. The material of the jacket was badly decayed by what she guessed must have been the passage of many seasons, so faded that she could get no hint of its former color, even, until she picked it up and unfolded it. The inner folds, protected as they had been from the weather, still retained their original coloring--a green and black plaid--though it looked like mice had been at the cloth, chewing and raveling it to use for their nests. She tucked the jacket into the pack, too worn to be used as a jacket but, she thought, still useful as insulation or padding. The body showed no other signs of having been disturbed, and Liz supposed that the spot must be quite inaccessible to anything

other than birds and small rodents. Who were you? She silently asked the man. And how did you happen to meet your end up in a place like this? A magnificent place, she had to admit, raising her eyes for the first time since reaching the summit and taking in the vista that opened before her--the vast timber-filled valley on the far side of the spires, ridge after ridge beyond it, piled higher and higher before finally ending in peaks, jagged, snow-capped, speaking of the rapidly approaching winter. Turning, she peered down at the little meadow that stretched brown and snow-flecked in front of their shelter, the rugged slope above it, the ridge that separated them from the hunting camp, and suddenly she crouched, flattened herself against the rock, struck by the realization that if the hunters or guides were up scouting on that ridge, there was a very real possibility that she could be spotted. She smelled smoke, could see a faint haze, even, hanging over the valley that held the tent camp, hoped everyone was in camp instead of out scanning distant land features with their binoculars. Have to get down off of here! Before searching for the best spot to set up her anchor, pulling up the rope and beginning the rappel, however, Liz crawled back over to the desiccated remains, keeping low so as not to risk discovery, and checked the pockets of the mans weather-rotted pants, finding nothing other than an equally decayed handkercheif, the remains of a piece of folded paper, too faded to read, if it had ever held any text, and the folded wrapper from a chocolate bar, quite empty. What is your story? She wanted to ask him. Around his neck, concealed at first by the remaining tatters of cloth from his shirt, she discovered a small leather pouch, split and weathered but still basically intact, whose cord had cracked and broken in a spot or two. Gently removing the pouch she looked inside, finding a number of small rocks, fragments of granite-looking stone, a grey, river-smoothed quartz oval, several others that she could not immediately identify. Feeling a bit bad about doing so, she tucked the pouch into her pocket, hoping it might help Einar identify the man. Seeing nothing else that would be of particular use to them--the stocking cap was in fairly useable condition, but it seemed wrong, somehow, to remove it, but the rest of the clothing was little more than shreds of brittle cloth, the boots, even, brittle and crumbly--Liz set up her anchor, tested it, found it to be secure. Lying on her side on the rocks to avoid being seen, should anyone be looking, she rigged her descender, an old figure eight that Einar had found in his friends climbing pack, clipped in, tightened the straps on her pack, checked her harness and began the descent, stopping periodically to remove the protection she had placed on the way up. The rappel went without incident, aside from a moment when one of the strands of her rope hung up badly on a rocky protrusion and she had to walk sideways across the face until she reached an angle at which she could free it, and several minutes later she stepped down onto the pile of granite flakes at the bottom of the descent. Einar, having watched with relief as she easily made the descent after thinking something must have gone wrong up on top, as long as she had been up there, was on his feet to meet her when she pulled down the rope and walked over to him to begin coiling it back up. Great! That was somereal fine climbing you just did. Wish Id been up there with you. You can climb with me any time! Once Im back at it, that is Liz thanked him, set down her food-laden pack and helped ease him back to the ground. She could see that he was, despite his cheerful demeanor, swaying and dizzy, barely able to remain standing,

shaking and very cold after sitting immobile for so long in the morning chill. Her own hands were a bit stiff with cold after handling the rope and the prolonged contact with the rock, but his looked almost purple. She took them in hers, wrapped the wolverine hide around their shoulders, sat close for a minute to help warm him and then dug in the pack, thinking a boost of energy from some of that honey might really help warm him up, give him the strength to make it back to the shelter. The first thing she found in the pack, though, was the faded, mouse eaten jacket, had to take it out to get at the food, and Einar saw it, put his hand on it. Where did you get that? On top. With this. She handed him the little leather bag full of rocks, seeing a familiar look of distance creep into his eyes as he cradled it in his hand, seeming to weigh it, deep in thought. You found Willis Your friend? Are these his? I didnt know thats who it wasI would have found a different way to tell you. Einar, Im sorry. No need. I knew. You knew he was up there? Not for sure, not which of the spires, but when I found his pack a few weeks backI knew. Will always did say Einar stared up at the rocky heights, their tops golden with the ascending sun in contrast to the black shadows beneath, that hed climb until the day he died. Never doubted him on that. This, he held up the leather pouch, should be up there with him, but Ill take it back, when I can. He used totake a rock, just a little pebble or chunk from every big peak he climbed, or from base camp, if there was too much snow on top, and at night in camp hed empty out this little bag and choose one, tell its story Einar was looking a bit shaky, his voice quiet and husky, but he quickly regained his composure, tucked the bag into his pocket and smiled at Liz. Better head back to the shelter, I guess, get to work. But your friendshouldnt we bury him? Do something for him? Ah, he shook his head, struggled to his feet and got the crutches under his arms. Its already done. Just like he wanted it, Im sure. He did lookvery peaceful. Like the end was peaceful. She wanted to ask Einar more about his friend, ask what he thought had happened, as he seemed to know, or think he knew, but he was already hobbling off quickly across the rocks, and Liz had to hurry to sling the coiled rope across her shoulder and catch up. Einar was not able to maintain his pace for long, tiring, getting clumsy, almost falling

once when his crutch tip caught under a flake of rock, and Liz helped him sit on a granite slab in the shadow of one of the spires for a rest, a bit of concealment. He was asleep almost instantly, head on his good knee and the crutches still in his hands, casted leg and crutches sprawled out at angles that would have struck Liz as quite comical, had she not been so concerned for him. She knew he would freeze sleeping there, appeared to be freezing already and she spoke to him, tried to wake him but to no avail. You need to eat, Einar. Im going to get you some of this honey, it should help. That got his attention, woke him up in a hurry and sent him scrambling for the backpack, nearly falling off the rock as he grabbed it. No! Letsuhsave this stuff. Im OK. He dragged himself back to his feet--foot, anyway--to demonstrate the fact, hanging limply between the crutches, head down, wishing he could think of a way to convince Liz to go on ahead so he could take his time hobbling back to the shelter without her worrying about him or trying to force-feed him poisoned honey Poisoned? No. Stuffs fine, remember? Just fine. And he wanted to believe it, had come to believe it intellectually, over time, but found himself questioning his memory again now that the food was once more accessible, right in front of him. What if he had remembered correctly the first time, and the stuff was poisoned? And he ate it, or worse, both he and Liz ate it, and the feds came The horror and confusion of the dart-poison seized him again as he thought about it, and for a moment he was again lying beneath the riverbank where he had sought refuge while under the effect of the darts, a helicopter hovering above him and the mass of rock he had been counting on for concealment turned to ice-glass, transparent, leaving him entirely exposed and with nowhere to go. Liz could see that something was terribly wrong but was afraid to go to him, as he had got the knife into his hand and was staring at her like he had never seen her before, glancing up at the sky and around at the rock walls as if looking for a way out. The moment soon passed and Einar sat down heavily on the granite slab, putting away the knife and apologizing to Liz, still not entirely certain that the food was safe to eat but knowing that he had to be the one to try it first and find out, so as to spare her from the poisons effects, if there was indeed poison He wiped the sweat from his face, looked up at her. Sure could use some of that honey!

Einar noticed no ill effects from the honey, the concentrated sugar instead giving him a great surge of unaccustomed energy and warmth that had him fairly skipping along on his crutches, giddy and feeling like he could keep going foreverfor a few steps. Then reality began setting in, a vicious cramp in his uninjured leg reduced him once more to the slow, ungainly hobble of a man with one leg broken and the other half-crippled from a poorly healed hip injury. It was rather discouraging after his initial burst of energy and optimism, but Einar kept moving, covering ground as well as he could and not stopping again until he ducked into the dark confines of the crevice. Back at the shelter he lay down as Liz sorted through the newly recovered food, delighting at the discovery that the

coconut oil was contained in a good sized stainless steel container with a lid, which could be used as a cooking pot as soon as they found another way to contain the oil. Seeing that the cramp was still plaguing Einar, Liz mixed two spoonfuls of honey and some salt into one of the bottles of water, shaking to mix and dissolve them before adding a bit of chokecherry juice for flavoring, and handing it to him. Here. This might help a little with the cramping. He drained the bottle, leaning back and relaxing a bit. Helps. Thanks. Thats real good. Maybe that little slab of aspen wood were going to put on the bottom of your boot will help make it easier to walk with the crutches. I can tell its awfully tiring--do you think it may just be too soon? No, its the cramp had returned, and he was silent for a minute. Its the hip and shoulder on my left side. Hurt them both pretty good, neither is back to normal. Was really relying on my right leg to bear a good bit of my weight before I went and broke it, and nowI dont know if this crutch business is gonna get much easier. Real hard on the shoulder to use it this way, and the left leg keeps wanting to go out from under me. Dont know. Just have to keep trying things. Have to find something thatll let me go a pretty good distance at a reasonable speed, if I need to. He was quiet then, pondering, and Liz, thinking him asleep, let him be. Einar was not still for long, though, stirring as the cold began getting to him, finding the bear hide and dragging it over himself before lying back on the bed of duff, drifting near sleep. Got to tan this thing, its thawed and starting to dry, gonna get real hard to use at night if we let it dry Whats this in these little pouches, Einar? Theyre heavy. He shook his head, opened his eyes, propped himself up on his elbow. Pemmican. Made it a while back when I was in a shelter a lot like this one, the one where this wolverine and I had our little disagreement. He stroked the brown and gold wolverine fur thoughtfully. Deer jerky and rendered deer fat, poured into lengths of cleaned out intestine and sealed up. Should last a long, long time, if we can manage to save it! Well, weve got the bear, so I guess that should last us a while. I havent seen any sign lately of the mama. Do you think shes hibernating, or did you hit her badly enough that she may not make it, may still be wandering around out there? Doubt it. She should be fine. May not be hibernating quite yet, though. Looks like its really warming up out there today. He looked up at the sunlight on the rocks far above, shivered, didnt feel very warm, but then he never did anymore, knew he would not, until he managed to get some of his internal insulation back, and he was thankful that he had never really minded the cold, or being cold, except when it affected him to the extent that it put his life in danger. This whole thing would be an awful lot rougher if on top of everything I just hated the cold, feared it, resented it like Ive seen that some folks do

sure, thats all a choice, to some extent, the attitude youre gonna have about that, but I do feel blessed that my natural tendencies and preferences sorta line up with the conditions up here. Id be having a fine time, if not for these injuries! Yeah. And the choppers and search teams and the price on your head, and all that He laughed a little, at the thought. Well. Take what you can get. Glancing up, he realized that Liz had been watching him, apparently waiting for an answerOh, yes. The bear. If the weather stays like this for a few days, mama bear will probably wait to go to sleep, keep eating, and in that case we may not be done with her, yet. May still have an opportunity to let her feed us for part of the winter, but until either that happens or the snow comes for good, we got to be real careful. Shes bound to be awful ornery, between her cub missing and that dart in her hip. Better keep carrying that pistol with you whenever you go for water and such, andwhat do you think? Time for you to learn to use the atlatl? Liz nodded eagerly. Yes! Teach me. But first we need to make some more darts, dont we? Yep. Bear took two of my last three. Ive got a couple extra heads here in the pack that are mostly finished, so if you want to cut a few long flexible willow shoots like the ones I was using before, we can get these put together. Itd be good for you to have a good bundle of plain willow shoots to practice with, too, so you dont bust the good dart heads hitting rocks and things as youre learning. As Liz went to gather willow shoots Einar crawled out from beneath the bear hide, feeling the flesh side and discovering that, to his relief, it had begun to dry and was still tacky, but not yet rigid, having just thawed thoroughly for the first time since Liz had skinned the creature. With a lack of running water nearby and an even greater lack of any vessel large enough to soak the hide in, he did not look forward to having to find a way to soak and soften it for tanning, if it should manage to dry out before he was able to start. Spreading the hide out on the bed with a piece of firewood under the little bears neck area, Einar took the ground-edged granite flake he had previously used to flesh the hide and began scraping at the thick skin around the neck, knowing that he would need to thin it somewhat if he wanted the brain solution to be able to penetrate all the way into the skin and avoid having a rigid area there, when the hide was finished. Thinning the areas that needed thinning, Einar next took a rock, rough but not so rough that it would tear or badly abrade the hide and rubbed it over all of the surfaces to rough things up a bit and prepare the hide to receive the brain solution. Next, were gonna need a frame to stretch this thing onand that will mean two nights when were not able to use the hide for warmth. As much trouble as hed been having with the cold in recent days Einar rather dreaded losing the protection of the hide even for a short time, but knew that he must take advantage of what was appearing to be a bit of Indian Summer to get the fur tanned so they would have it to use when the real cold descended. Also convincing him that he must not delay was the knowledge that hunters--among them a man who had already once proven how anxious he was to work with the feds in securing Einars capture--were camped just down in the next valley and would likely be back, even if their current hunt

was over or nearly so. Cant wait. Must have this thing ready to travel and use if we have to clear out of here. Rolling up a stiff, dry bear hide so it can be packed would be quite a challenge, and leaving or losing it might well mean we both end up freezing, if we have to be on the move in the snow. The day continued warming as Liz cut willow stalks and went after more chokecherries, a bit blacker and sweeter after the snow but not harmed, the boughs that held them bent gently towards the ground by its departed weight. Returning with a full bag of berries, she deposited them, and the willows, inside the rock passage before carrying those already pounded up and pressed onto flat rocks out into the sun so they could resume drying. The cold weather, while it had not helped any with the drying process, had at least prevented the processed berries from beginning to ferment. Perhaps they would have a day or two of sunshine so they could finish drying. Ready to sit for a minute and share a snack with Einar after her work she made her way back to the shelter, discovering that Einar had, in her absence, seen fit to take three of the small aspens she had dragged in for firewood and lash them together to form a triangular frame, to which he appeared ready to begin securing the bear hide. Except that he had fallen asleep sometime during the process of punching the holes around the edges of the hide through which he was to run the cordage to lash it to the frame. He lay sprawled out on the bed, the bearskin beside him and a deer-bone awl in one hand, the piece of split wood he had been using to back it up in the other, hearing her as she entered the shelter and sitting up, wide awake once again. You brought berries! Liz nodded, bit her tongue, trying hard not to speak her mind and say, well, it looks like in addition to arranging it so we wont be able to use the bear hide tonight, youve gone and allocated all our firewood to building a stretching frame, you goofy, goofy guy! Not that you were going to let us have a fire tonight anyway, with those hunters around and the weather clear and still Wow! She contented herself with exclaiming. It looks like youve been very busy. Need some help lashing that hide to the frame?

Pete had little time that day to sneak away and pursue the partially melted out tracks he had seen around the camp, tracks which he had decided could only reasonably belong to one person. One of the clients had taken an elk and it was Petes job to help dress it out, preparing the meat and head for transport on the pack horse horses. Finished with this task, the rest of the hunting party enjoying some lunch in camp, he did manage to slip away for a few minutes, following the intruders trail as it wound up around the camp and started up the ridge behind it, and when he realized that it passed within yards of the open slope where the client had taken the elk, an idea occurred to him. Believing the tracks to belong to the fugitive, surely hungry and perhaps even getting desperate with winter staring him in the face, Pete knew that the elks gut pile, lower legs and the rib cage and

neck would likely prove an irresistible target, when next the man prowled around the area of the camp as he had apparently done the night before. Returning to camp and quickly entering the tent without being seen by the men who sat around the fire, he retrieved a motion activated trail camera from one of the packs and hastily climbed up the ridge again to the elks remains, concealing the camera in a location that would give him a series of shots of whatever creatures--man or beast--showed up to feed on the carcass. Pete returned to camp after that and joined the little group at the fire, feeling that things were, for the first time in a long time, starting to go his way again. The talk was leaning towards staying one more night, trying for another elk, and he might not be able to follow through on his discovery on this trip, but he would definitely be back, and he would be ready. That reward was going to be his.

As they worked to lace up the bear hide and stretch it on the frame Einar had constructed, Liz asked him how long it would need to be out of commission as a blanket, for the tanning process to be completed. Well, we need to make the brain paste, spread about half of it on tonight--gonna mean making a little fire but Ill be real careful with that, no smoke, hardly any smell--spread that stuff on and let it dry overnight and maybe part of the day, then we can scrape it off and add the second layer tomorrow evening when we can have another little fire. Let that dry some, scrape it off, spend most of the next day stretching and softening it and well be done. Nice soft flexible bear hide. Be good to smoke it too, else one good rain or a bunch of melted snow will have us starting all over on softening it. But well have to wait to do a good smoky fire like that until were sure the hunters are gone, or maybe if we get another big storm. Sono blanket for at least two nights? Yep. Figure we better go ahead and do it now while we got this break in the weather. Snow comes back, were really not going to want to be without this thing. And if we have to move, I want it to be ready. She nodded. OK. Ill go get more duff, see if I can find any thats still dry. And Id like to go up on the ridge above that hunting camp and see if it looks like theyve left. It would be good to know, and if I could find the place where they shot the elk--I assume it was an elk--this morning, maybe they left us something we could useand if we were sure they were gone, we could have a fire tonight for extra warmth, if we end up needing it. Not this evening. Give it a day. They could still be around, could be out scouting or hunting around duskdont do it. He had fixed her with his gaze as he spoke, eyes as grave and serious as she had seen them in a long time, and Liz quickly assured him that she would wait. She left after that to gather additional insulation for their bed, Einar having no doubt that she had meant it when she said she would not venture up onto the

ridge that evening. Dusk came cold and breezy, the sky clear and temperatures, though not falling as quickly as they had the evening immediately after the storm, certainly approaching that drop by the time it was fully dark. After dark they lit the small fire of dry aspen sticks that Einar had carefully chosen so as to put off minimal smoke smell, and they hastily boiled down some of the brain solution--mashed bear brain, water and a bit of bear fat to help stretch it a bit further--in the cooking pot, dumping the rest into the bear stomach and using hot rocks to bring it to a boil. After that Einar quickly put out the fire, giving Liz time first to light the candle so they would be able to see to brain the bear hide. Rolling up their sleeves and striving their best to keep their clothes dry they smeared the thick, greasy brain solution all over the stretched hide, inevitably ending up splattered and flecked with the material, a fact which did not bother Einar--clothes are basically dry, gonna be a good night--but left Liz wishing she had a way to wash up and determined to do something to improve the sanitary conditions there at the shelter, hopefully starting the following day. The braining done and the shelter cooling quickly as the heat of the fire dissipated into the chilly evening air, Einar and Liz quickly dried off their hands and scooped out a sleeping spot in the duff bed, anxious to seek its shelter before becoming too badly chilled. The milkweed down that had been drying and expanding in a rough willow basket not too far from the fire hole was finally thoroughly dry, silky soft and wonderfully insulating, and Liz stuffed Einars socks with it as they prepared for bed, making sure the sock that got put over Einars toes below the cast had an extra portion of the warm, springy fuzz packed into it. It looks like the padding in your cast has mostly dried, at least down here by your toes. That should help Yes, pretty sure its all just about dry. Probing with his fingers, he realized that he could get his hand down in a good distance between his leg and the cast, which had been impossible only days before. Well. Either there was still a good bit of swelling that has started to go down now--would be a good thing--or I really just need to start eating a lot more. Suspecting the latter, he got himself a good sized chunk of rendered bear fat and brought it to bed to chew on, knowing that he was in for a long cold night and would probably be needing all the help he could get before it was over. The night should, he knew, go a good bit better if his body had something to work on while he--hopefully-slept. Finding that it had cooled down enough to keep from burning them, Liz retrieved the flat rock from atop the fire hole, slid it beneath a thin layer of duff where they were settling down to sleep, and fished out the four hot rocks that had been sitting in the coals to retain their warmth, the two of them settling in for the night. Very weary and almost warm, for the moment at least, they slept, Einar praying that he had been correct about the food from the ledge being safe to eat, hoping he was not falling asleep only to come under the influence of the poison but too exhausted to stay awake in an attempt to prevent it. He drifted off wishing he had remembered to tell Liz to stay out of the stuff that night, give it a day and make sure he didnt start showing any signs of poisoning, but she was

already asleep, herself, dreaming of the steaming gut pile--well, it wouldnt be steaming any more in the morning when she went to look for it--that she hoped to find, perhaps the elk hide, eventan itwarm coat for Einarshe smiled in her sleep.

Sleep did not last long that night for Einar or Liz, Einar waking first as the cold crept in and lying rigid under the layer of duff, striving to avoid waking her. Liz was soon shaken to wakefulness herself by the chill, though, trying for a while to get back to sleep but knowing that if she was feeling it to that extent, Einar must be freezing. Not that he would tell me. I'm pretty sure he could freeze solid before he would think to mention that there was a bit of a problem... Poking around in the fire she hoped to find a warm rock or two remaining, but without the granite slab to protect the pit, everything had gone cold. Einar was stirring, having curled up as well as he could and buried his face in the duff to conserve the warmth of his breath when Lizs movements allowed a surge of icy air to flow in under the wolverine hide. She touched his shoulder and he jumped, turning over and sitting up, knife in hand, thinking that perhaps Liz had heard some small noise in the night that he had been unable to pick up on, something, even, that warned of the approach of the hunters or other danger. For a moment he listened, clamping his teeth to silence their rattling, but hearing nothing. He scooted over closer to her where she sat by the firepit, speaking softly. What is it? Whatdid you hear? Hear? Nothing. Im just trying to find a way to keep us a little warmer. That bear hide was making a big difference, and we keep losing the duff I put overtop of us. Sorry. Cant stopshaking. Makes duffcome off. Ill go sleep somewhere else. And he hauled himself with difficulty to his feet, clinging to the one crutch he had been able to find in the dark and heading for the passage that led out of the shelter. Liz saw him silhouetted in the slight glow of the moonlight from outside, realized that he was serious and grabbed him. Hey! Thats not what I meant! Anyway, I have an idea. Lie back down, alright? Which he did, taking a bite from the slab of rendered, cooled bear fat that he had set on a rock beside the bed before falling asleep and holding it in his mouth, waiting for it to begin melting. Shouldnt take this long to meltreally need to warm up some. Liz was doing something with the mats of cattail-stalk bundles that sat propped on their horizontal stick supports several feet above the bed, and he heard the rustling and sliding sounds of one of them being pulled down, felt its weight on him as Liz slid it onto the bed. This should help, I think. She crawled back in beneath the mat, dragging another over top. Should keep the duff from scattering, and keep some of the heat in. Einar nodded, a response which Liz felt rather than saw in the darkness of the shelter. Here. He found her hand, pressed into it a chunk of bear fat, which had not been

melting in his hand but quickly began to in hers. Eat this. The fatgives your body something to work onsleep warmer. She took it, ate, wanted to keep him talking for a while until she was sure he was starting to warm and could safely sleep again, and had an idea. You know what would really be good? Biscuits made with some of this bear lard, baked in a little stone oven that we could build here in the back of the shelter, and eaten hot with more bear fat and some of that honey on top. Do you think we could make flour of sorts from cattail root starch? Reluctant to talk, wishing only to be left alone and to sleep, Einar lay there silent for a good while, still waiting for the lard to begin melting in his mouth, finally tiring of waiting, chewing it up and swallowing. Supposing it would be rude to delay his answer much longer--she had, after all, just left the meager shelter of the bed and wolverine hide to try and improve their sleeping situation, for which he was grateful if too weary and chilled to adequately express the fact--he spoke, working hard to avoid slurring his words as he was not especially interested in Liz knowing just how badly the cold was affecting him, that night. If she hasnt already figured it out. Uhyeah. Could do that. Bannock, it was called, cooked over fire or he stopped, pressed his stomach which was growling painfully at the thought, fried in the bear grease, even. Inuits fried it, added dried berries to the dough. Cattail starch works. Tried it. So does acorn flour. Wish we could make a trip down lowerget some acorns. Rock oven soundsgood. Could useaspen bark, the white powdery stuff on aspen bark, for leavening, make sourdough and keep it going. Why youbring that up? Making me awful hungry! Me too! I shouldnt even tell you what Ive been thinking about all eveningcant seem to get fresh-baked cinnamon rolls off my mind for some reason. A while ago, I was even sure I could smell them... I didnt know that about using the powder on aspen bark as sourdough leavening. Thats interesting. Well have to try it. Tell meabout these cinnamon rolls. Well, I used to make them with potato roll dough--just a yeast dough with mashed potatoes in it to help it rise and help keep the bread moist--let the dough rise and then roll it out, spread it with melted butter and sprinkle on brown sugar and cinnamon. If I had them I would usually add some chopped up pecans and grated orange peel, too And then? First you tell me more about the aspen-bark sourdough. Why does it work? Einar sighed, shook the cinnamon roll images from his head and tried to get his sluggish brain to form a cohesive thought or two about wild sourdough cultures, but all he could think about was the smell of cinnamon rolls, the way fresh baked bread stretches and tears, the taste of Yeah. Sourdough. Shes asking me about sourdough.

That powder hasyeast in it. Wild yeast. You scrape some of it off, add it to a mix of flour and water, put it someplace warm. Works fasterif you got some sugar to add, anything sweet, tree sap, even, from a box elder or aspen. Stuff starts bubbling after a few days, getting all foamy, then its ready to use. Makes pretty good pancakes, bread now. Cinnamon rolls. What comes next, after youadd the orange peel? Well, you melt butter in the bottom of the pan--but Im sure bear grease would work-and stir in some brown sugar and cinnamon, pour in some maple syrup, too, and add more pecans or walnuts. Roll up the dough, slice it and put the rolls in the pan, bake them. They come out all caramely and sticky on the bottom, a little crispy with that half burnt brown sugar goo along the edges where they touch the pan, and the centers always stay just a bit doughy While theyre in the oven, the whole house gets filled with the smell of cinnamon and maple and that wonderful soft alive smell of baking bread Einar groaned, crossed his arms on his cramping stomach. You know, you can be pretty doggone cruel when you put your mind to it Liz. Im sorry. I thought you wanted to hear about it. I did! Tell me more Tomorrow. Wed better try and get some sleep, now. They slept, warmer for the thick cattail mats and all the talk of fresh baked bread, but each dreaming of food and waking ravenous and very cold once again when the sky began paling with morning. Einar rose first, sitting up and rubbing his numb toes, very glad for the milkweed down stuffed sock and knowing that he might well have ended up suffering some serious frostbite, without it. The water in the bottles that they had not kept in the bed had a thick layer of ice on it, and his breath rose in billows and clouds there between the walls of rock. Hungry. The leg still hurt, ached nauseatingly whenever he moved and only slightly less so when he kept still, but with the continual cold and very little to eat since the injury, hunger had finally become the more powerful force and he was ready to eat. But what? Starting with a finger full of the honey--not poisoned, nothing happened during the night so it must not be poisoned--to give him some instant energy and make it a bit easier to deal with the bitter chill of the morning, he moved on to the rendered bear fat, breaking off a good sized piece--almost brittle in the cold--and consuming it. Eying the partially processed bear carcass that hung at the back of the shelter, he wished for a bit chunk of roasted bear, sizzling and dripping, or some of Lizs stew that had smelled so very good but which he had hardly been able to manage a taste of, the last time she had made it. But fire was not an option, so those delicacies were out. The bear looked awfully good anyway, and Einar had never had qualms about eating raw meat, but hesitated with the bear, knowing that the possibility existed of ending up with a serious parasitic infection. There had not, as far as he knew, been any cases of trichinosis reported from people eating undercooked bear meat in the central Rockies, but had been a fair number further north in Canada and even Minnesota. Not worth it, if there are other options. So, pemmican. Liz woke when he left the bed to retrieve one of

the pemmican packets from their rock in a corner of the shelter, sitting up. Well, he addressed her, you ready to get going on those cinnamon rolls? Can hardly wait to try them. Oh! Dont start with that! I dreamed about those things all night long after our little conversation, woke up smelling them, and I cant seem to think about anything else, this morning. Einar was silent for a minute, solemn, but his eyes showed a hint of humor and she wondered what about their situation he could possibly be finding the least bit funny. Welcome to my world, Liz. Having fun yet, or are you ready to go home? Cant even tell you how many hungry nights last winter I spent just thinking about the oddest things--raisins, I remember, all the ways I had ever eaten raisins just running through my head for no apparent reason. Sometimes Id be going about my daily tasks and out of nowhere would come the thought of cheesecottage cheese, cream cheese, cheddar cheese melted on top of chicken casserole, sizzling and bubbling, so real I could smell it Quit it, Einar! I need some breakfast. He handed her the pemmican he had been working on and she sniffed at it, took a tentative taste and made a bit of a face, but finished her portion. Thatsvery filling. And I bet it lasts forever, doesnt it? That is the idea. You know, he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to bring up a rather difficult subject but one that he felt only right about addressing once again, I was serious when I asked if you were ready to go home. I know you cant exactly go home, but youve said you have friends down there, people who would hide youits not even winter yet, and youve seen how rough this can be. I dont suppose I need to tell you that it gets worse, but it doescan, anyway. This is a pretty crazy place to be trying to spend a winter, too high, even the elk and deer know that, head down Well, Im not an elk, she dismissed his question. I will make snowshoes. While that was the end of the conversation, for the moment, they both knew that it would come up again, would have to be addressed, and neither of them looked forward to it, each for different reasons. After sharing the packet of pemmican and some of the drying chokecherries for their breakfast, Liz left to dig cattail roots, Einar having promised to show her how to extract and dry their starch for flour that they could use later. Getting painfully to his feet and limping over to the bear hide, Einar got to work scraping the previous days dried layer of brain solution off of it and preparing it for the second application, very anxious to finish up with the process so that they could take advantage of the hides warmth once again, at night. As he began work on the hide, Liz was already on her way up the ridge that separated the spires from the hunting camp, anxious to see if she could find the spot where the hunters had cleaned the elk, see if the coyotes had left her anything.

The area around the hunting camp was quiet, no odor of smoke filtering up through the evergreens to betray the presence of humans, but the wall tent remained, blue tarp visible through the branches far below as Liz lay watching from a ledge, flattened on he stomach on the rock, studying the place and trying to decide whether it had been abandoned and where, if there was any sign to tell her, the hunters might have taken and gutted their elk. The answer to her second question came with a fair certainty before that of her first, as a raven passed low over her head, giving its hoarse cry and lazily circling a fairly open area just down the slope and to the right of where she lay, descending, disappearing into the evergreens and soon joined by another. They must, she supposed, be feeding on the remains of the elk, whatever the hunters--and coyotes and other nocturnal scavengers-might have left, and she was anxious to reach the spot before they could decimate it too much further. She really hoped to find some of the innards, if anything was left, in useable shape after the cold night, and more than anything hoped that the hunters might have left them the hide. An elk hide would, she knew, go a long way towards offering them badly needed protection for the coming winter. Approaching the area carefully--some two or three hundred yards up from the camp; they had not needed to transport the animal very far--she watched carefully for a minute, observing the behavior of the ravens, crows and a small silver fox, coat already looking luxuriously thick against the cold, who were feasting on the remains of the gut pile. Remains, she saw, that were comprised of little more than the paunch, torn open but largely left alone, and some assorted shreds and scatterings that looked hardly worth collecting, unless one were literally starving. Entering the clearing and scattering the cleanup crew with her advance, Liz was certain that Einar could and almost certainly would have made a fine stew of the fragments that lay trampled on the ground but she, knowing they had the bear and not yet having experienced the extremes of hunger and want that Einar had undergone and which leave a person forever changed in their attitude towards food, saw nothing that looked especially useful. The stomach, even, had been torn to the degree that she was not sure it would be especially useful as a cooking vessel, but wanting to get something out of the journey, she went ahead and emptied out its load of stinking, half digested grasses and leaves, cleaning the stomach as well as she could on a bit of snow that remained in the shadows nearby and rolling it up, half-dry side out, for transport back to the shelter. She left then, disappointed about having missed the chance to acquire an elk hide and tempted for a moment to prowl around the seemingly abandoned camp to see if it, or other useful treasures, might have been left down there, but the horror of her dream was still strong in her memory--her capture and beating, Einars blood on her hands, the way his lifeless eyes had still stared up at the sky after he fell--and she turned away with a shudder, starting the climb up the ridge, never having noticed the camouflage-painted camera strapped to the trunk of a nearby fir and half concealed by a bough. Depositing the elk stomach back at the shelter, setting it just outside the passage beneath a scraggly little sub alpine fir and pinning it down with several rocks to keep scavengers

from tearing at it, she did not even go into the shelter, not wanting to disturb Einar should he be sleeping. All but one of their water bottles in her backpack, she stopped at the seep to fill them, first having to break through the film of ice that covered nearly the entire surface of the water, not yet very thick but certainly a warning of what was to come. Before too many weeks, she supposed, they would be melting snow for all of their water. I need to get serious about gathering and breaking up a bunch of firewood, storing it in the shelter and even under other nearby overhangs where itll be accessible to us, in case we get snowed in for a few days by a blizzard or--not a good thought--something happens to me where I cant walk any better than Einar, for a while. That prospect really did frighten her, and she wondered how he had ever managed, the winter before, with a broken hip and no way to move through the snow after water and food and firewood other than crawling. In his only pair of jeans. That must have been one long winter, and only sheer determination--and grace--that saw him through. Hopefully this one will not be as difficult. Ill get started on the firewood this afternoon, after digging cattail roots. Finished with filtering the water, she opened up the blue plastic housing on the filter and removed the ceramic filter element, gently drying it on her sleeve and shaking as much of the water as she could from the housing before reassembling it. The ceramic, she knew, could end up cracking if allowed to freeze with too much water still in the filter, and she had been taking great care to prevent this since the weather turned cold, drying it out every chance she got, setting it near the fire for a time each evening and even taking it into the bed with her on the last three very cold nights. When carrying it wet in the pack, she was always careful to nestle it in the very back of the pack where her body heat would reach it and help prevent it freezing. Once temperatures dipped low enough, she supposed this would become all but impossible, but by then, they would be drinking snow water anyway, which was far less likely to be dangerously contaminated than the seep from which a number of different animal species regularly drank.

After scraping the bear hide of all the dried brain solution from the previous day, Einar smeared it with the new batch, which had been heated briefly the night before while the coals of their short-lived fire were still warm. The stuff had grown quite solid again overnight, difficult to work with, the bear grease that Einar had mixed with the brain hardening to the degree that he had to use a rock to scrape and scoop it up out of the pot to begin softening in his hand. It was a slow, frustrating process, his chilled hands taking a good while to impart enough hear to the gelid lumps of bear brain and fat that they began melting and softening and becoming ready for him to smear onto the hide, and wishing to get a head start on the warming, he placed the pot under his shirt as he worked, pressed against his stomach to absorb whatever warmth his body was managing to produce. Not all that much, but should be enough to start softening this stuff. Which it was, Einar soon able to set aside the scraping rock and use his hands to dig out the softening greasy goo, warm it a bit more and smear in into the hide, but he could feel the cold metal pulling the heat out of him, his hands growing clumsier as he worked, and he had to stop after a while to swing his arms and pound them against his sides in an effort to generate a bit of warmth, balancing precariously on one crutch. The effort helped, but left Einar wishing very strongly that he was able to get outside and scramble up a slope or

jump around for a few minutes to thoroughly warm himself. Finally finished with the second braining of the bear hide, he tossed a handful of ashes from the firepit into the pot, made his way through the rock passage and lowered himself to the ground beside the remains of a snow bank, where he used a small spruce branch and a bit of snow to scrub the greasy remains of the brain solution from the cooking vessel. While a quick wipe with a handful of spruce needles would have satisfied him as far as cleaning the pot, he knew Liz might prefer something more. Looking at the congealing mixture of wood ash and grease on the snow, Einar wondered about the possibility of making a small batch of soap with a bit of the bear fat. Shouldnt be too difficult. Guess I ought to give it a try, one of these days. Shed probably appreciate it. The day was sunny, and Einar remained sitting there on the ground for a few minutes to absorb its warmth, studying the rockslide and what he could see of the meadow below. Autumn, definitely. Already some of the leaves, yellow-gold and rustling at the slightest breeze, had begun falling from the aspens. He lingered, reluctant to return to freezing in the darkness of the shelter and attempting to justify his laziness by reminding himself that adequate levels of vitamin D were absolutely essential to the healing of his broken bones, as well as giving his immune system a chance of maintaining its normal function. In that case He leaned back on an angled boulder, took off his hat and rolled up his sleeves, relaxing a bit as the sun eased some of the stiffness from his weary muscles, nearly falling asleep before startling to full alertness again, sure the he had heard something down in the rocks. Liz. He saw her there emerging from the trees, something bulky but apparently not especially heavy slung over her shoulder, and as she approached he saw that it was one of the black garbage bags, rather heavily loaded. Slowly, somewhat dizzy and fuzzy feeling from sitting so long in the warmth of the sun, he got to his feet, greeted her. Cattail roots? Yes! The ground was soft and I found a good digging stick so now we have a ton of them, and you can show me how to make that flour! We dont exactly have any cinnamon or pecans, but I can at least make us some biscuits, if not cinnamon rolls! And, she lowered the bag to the ground, stretched her back with her hands on her hips, I found this. Retrieving the elk stomach from beneath the tree she showed it to Einar, who glanced at her, alarmed, the peaceful calm of his rest in the sun departing suddenly. You went down to the camp? No. I saw some ravens, found where they had cleaned the elk. It was a good ways from the camp. But I was able to look down at the camp, and it seems that theyve gone. Einars face was grim, stony, his jaw clenched, and he inspected the stomach in silence, unwilling to meet Lizs eye. OK. As long as it wasnt close to the camp. Wish you hadnt gone over there at all, but I guess what you did should be alright. This was all that was left?

Yes. The birds, coyotes, even a fox had been at the gut pile. I thought we might be able to use this Oh, yes. We can use it. Looks like you already cleaned it. Thats good. We can use it right now, to get started making some of that cattail flour. And he turned, limping into the passage and beginning the slow process of getting himself back to the shelter, Liz following with the bag of cattail roots and the stomach.

Einar set about peeling the cattail roots--not essential to peel them, he had told her, but it does help the fibers to separate and makes the roots a lot easier to break up--Liz soon joining him and adding to the growing heap of whitish tubers that they were stacking on a clean rock nearby. Taking a break from the peeling, Einar scratched a depression into the dirt, lined it with shreds of aspen bark and spread the elk stomach in it, holding its ends in place with a ring of smallish rocks and emptying in the contents of two of their water bottles. Scooting back over onto the bed, he resumed the peeling, tossing the already prepared roots into the water. For some time they worked together in silence, Einar unable to shake a vague but pressing sense of imminent danger that had been plaguing him since learning of Lizs foray over to the ridge above the camp. He told himself that as long as she had not gone too near, as long as she had not been seen--which clearly she had not, or someone would probably be out there poking around, by then--everything ought to be alright, but he had a very strong feeling to the contrary, so strong, in fact, that he would have acted on it without delay, putting some distance between himself and the shelter and finding a high vantage from which to watch for a while, had he been capable of traveling more than a few feet without becoming exhausted and dizzy and risking further injury to his leg. The fact that he could not do so left him rather glum and not especially interested in talking, which Liz took to mean that he was angry with her. Einar finally spoke up. Well need a bunch of water for this next part. Want to go get some more while I finish peeling? Liz took the bottles and left in a hurry, curious to see what the next step would be in separating out the cattail starch and relieved to be out of the shelter for a time, leaving the somewhat strained silence that had developed between the two of them since his discovery of the elk stomach. Einar had said no more about it--hadnt said anything, actually--but she could tell that he wished she had not gone back over near the camp, in the first place. Returning with the water she emptied it into the elk stomach, seeing that it was enough to fully submerge the roots they had so far peeled. Einar did not even look up when she came in, sitting slouched against the wall, staring at the work in his hands but not really seeing it. Are you hungry? She sat down next to him. I sure am. He shrugged, kept peeling cattail roots, supposed he must be hungry but did not much feel like eating. Well, I have an idea for lunch. Remember when you told me about how some of the Northern tribes

would make soup out of dried berries and deer fat? Well, what if I soften some of this bear fat out in the sun, add a little honey and stir in some chokecherry mush? Doesnt that sound good? Einar nodded, kept working. Finely chopping a portion of the rendered bear fat Liz took it out into the sun and set the pot on a warmed rock, adding a bit of honey and stirring in some of the mashed, partially dry chokecherries, avoiding the pit fragments as she knew they would not be entirely freed of their cyanide contents until thoroughly dried. Curious to experiment, she stirred in a bit of clean snow from the wind drift in the shade near the shelter. The resulting mixture came out a cheery orange-pink, and Liz thought to herself that all we need now are some fresh-baked cattail flour biscuits to go with it! The stuff tasted awfully good to her, and anxious to share it with Einar, she hurried back inside. Einar heard her coming, scrubbed his sleeve across his face and struggled to throw off the increasingly heavy gloom that was weighing him down as he sat there wishing he was better able to walk, move, get things done, angry that he was stuck sitting there crippled and freezing in a little crack in the rock, in clothes that, despite his best efforts at daily hygiene, inevitably reeked a bit of his own filth, allowing himself to depend on someone whose intentions he knew he could trust but for whose judgment he could not always say the sameand it isnt fair to her, any of it, but I cant seem to do anything about that, either, cant seem to convince her that she would be an awful lot better off elsewhere, anywhere but here And he sat with his head on his knee, slumped against the wall and wondering if it would not be better for everyone if he would just sneak off some night and disappear into the timbershe might look for a while but if I was careful shed lose my trail pretty quick, would surely head down after that and go back to her friends, stay alive, see spring He shook his head, sat up. OK. Enough. This is not useful. Slowing you down, and you got work to do. So, you cant move around real well right now... Thats just the way it is, and moping about it sure isnt gonna help any. You dont have time to mope, and sure dont have the energy to spare. Now quit it, and eat something. Looking up from his work, he smiled when Liz showed him the improvised ice cream, tasted some and pronounced it very good. Makes good ice cream, and I expect it would turn into a fine stew, too, if you heated it. Guess we better start working on these cattail roots so the starch can settle. I think your bread-baking idea is a fine one. Using his hands, Einar began breaking up the cattail roots, pulling at the fibers to loosen them and skimming them off the surface of the water when finally they floated free. Liz helped, the work going fairly quickly, adding new roots as soon as there was room so that they, too could be broken up and the fibers floated free. Before long the entire elkstomach vessel was full of the white milky looking starch-water, most of the fibers skimmed out and set aside on a nearby rock. Some of these strings will stay. Hard to get them all out, but once the stuff is dry, you can sift it to get out the rest of the strings. Also helps to kinda stir things up again, he ran his hand along the bottom of the vessel, turning the water all white and murky again, to free up some of the left-over fibers. OK. All we got to do now is let it settle for a

while so the starch separates out from the water, drain off the extra water and wait for it to dry. Itll do that on its own eventually, or we could hang this thing a ways above the fire to speed it up. Then, youll have your flour! Could just use it wet like this, too. Warm it up a little, mix some fat into it and bake on a hot rock. Did you know that this stuff even has some gluten in it? I didnt know that. Id always heard of people making cattail root flour, but had never tried it. I had no idea how easy it was to make! How come you know about it? Did you make some last year? He laughed. No time last year, no chance. Spent the fall running, literally, and by the time snow came and things slowed down some for mewell, the cattail marshes were all frozen solid and covered in anywhere from three to eight feet of snow. Now Ive heard people talk about how cattails are one of those few plants you can rely on for food yearround, but they must either not live in these mountains, or they must be pretty handy with a pick and shovel, and have lots of energy to spare to dig out the snow and then chip through the ice! No, didnt get to make any cattail flour last year. Ate the roasted roots a few times over the summer. But the flour was something I had tried before this mess started, just one of those things Id been curious about and wanted to have some experience with, just in case. Well, Im glad you did. There would have been a lot to learn just starting from scratch, out here. Einars face was solemn, but there was laughter in his eyes. Would have been quite an adventure, that way. But I think I prefer this. We got plenty to figure out, as it is.

That evening Pete got the call he had been waiting for, as his recent employer let him know that he had a couple of clients coming in for a guided elk hunt the following evening, and hoped to get up there ahead of a major weather system that was predicted for that weekend. Sorting through his gear that night and preparing for the trip, Pete packed a few items that he had not taken with him, before. Things were, unless he had been mistaken about the meaning of those tracks, about to start going his way, and he would be ready.

That night was much warmer for Einar and Liz than the previous had been, the bear hide still out of commission until the next day but the fire heating the place nicely and the cattail bundles keeping the heat from dissipating up the chimney long enough for the rock walls to warm so they could put out a gentle heat most of the night. Einar slept poorly because of his aching leg--the strong willow bark solution he had boiled down over that evenings fire helped some, and he was awake frequently to take sips of it--but at least the

leg was not in danger of freezing, as it had seemed to be for the past two nights. Finding himself--because of the excessive amounts of harsh willow solution that he was having to consume in order to experience any relief at all in his leg--too nauseous to think about eating during the night to help keep warm, Einar was glad that he had been able to partake of the supper Liz had fixed, a wonderful rich stew of bear and nettles, served with her first attempt at cattail starch bannock, which while a bit burnt on the outside by the time the wet slurry began drying and baking on the inside, had been a wonderful treat. They had eaten the ash cakes spread thick with bear fat, which melted in like butter, sprinkled with bits of salt, and Einar had thought the supper a fine feast, indeed. When Liz left to go fill the water bottles that morning, Einar spent some time scraping the second application of brain solution from the still damp bear hide, knowing that he needed to go about the process of stretching and softening it so that it would dry useable, but at a bit of a loss as to how he was to do this. The hide was heavy, and, freeing it from the stretching frame, it was all he could do to hold the rolled up fur without toppling forward on his crutches. Well Einar, youre in rather a bad spot, arent you? Need to get this thing hung from a tree so you can start pulling on it--never be able to pull it back and forth over a taut-stretched piece of wire or paracord, in your condition--but how ever are you going to manage that? The easy answer, or course, was wait for Liz, who he knew ought to be returning before the hour was out, as she had said that she meant to come right back as soon as she had got water and dug a few more cattail roots, but Einar was not accustomed to accepting to easy answer as a viable option. What if she wasnt here? How would you do it? Because youd have to do it A question that he was tempted to dismiss by saying that you probably wouldnt have the bear, in the first place, if she hadnt been here to haul it back to the shelter for you and then distract mama bear while you dragged yourself to safetymama would have caught up with you in two big bounds and mashed your skinny carcass into the ground. That was not a particularly useful answer though, and he knew it. Well then. Guess Im doing this, and find out. Rolling the bear hide up as well as he could and tying it with a bit of cordage, he slung it over his shoulder--his right, as the left was still rather painful--striving to get it to rest near the center of his back so as not to put any undue weight on his right side where he would not be allowing the leg to contact the ground. Wrapping the end of the tie-cord that held the rolled up bear hide around and around the hand grip of his right crutch he began the slow process of working his way through the rocky passage, stepping out into the sunlight several minutes later, shaking and exhausted but fairly laughing in delight at having found a way to accomplish the simple task. Now, he lowered himself to the ground and relaxed for a minute in the sunlight, to figure out how Im gonna hang this from a tree, and just how I intend to pull and stretch and soften it without taking a fall in these rocks and bashing my head in. Getting the bear hide suspended from a branch was not terribly difficult. He chose a nearby spruce, tied a rock to one end of the length of paracord and slung it up over the branch, dragging at the rope and eventually sitting on it to raise the hide, wrapping the end of the cord around the broken stub of a branch and tying it off when he had it up high enough. Stretching the hide was another matter. Einar found that he simply could not do it while on the crutches; as soon as he grabbed onto the hide and started stretching, his

weight would come off of the crutches and they would go clattering to the ground, leaving him the difficult task of lowering himself to the ground and crawling painfully about in the rocks to retrieve them. After the third time this happened he gave up on the crutches altogether, leaning them on the tree and keeping his injured leg up off the ground simply by hanging from the bear hide, gripping handfulls of its thick fur and swinging back and forth as he stretched and worked the drying pelt. The method was working but was also leaving him terribly exhausted, arms burning and lungs aching as he gulped air, but he kept at it, telling himself that he was not even working all that hard, that he must at some point make a concerted effort to begin regaining some strength and muscle, and when will there be a better time to start. He was breathing so hard, focused so intently on maintaining his grip on his handful of bear hide, that Lizs approach caught him off guard, and when her boot dislodged a granite flake not ten feet over to his left and sent it skittering down into a fissure between two boulders, Einar jumped, let go of the pelt, and went tumbling to the ground, lying there crumpled at the base of the tree as Liz dropped her bag of cattail roots and ran over to see just what he had done to himself, this time. He had fallen fairly well, had jarred the leg a bit but had not, thankfully, landed directly on it, and as soon as the flashes of light began clearing from before his eyes and he was again able to see Liz clearly he shook his head, grinned at her as she knelt over him and sat up. Could really usea little warning next timelet me know youre coming. You know, from a distance! I didnt see you here under the tree, or I would have said something! What are you doing, besides trying really hard to ruin your chances of ever walking normally again? Bear hide needed stretching. So, I was stretching it. You She stopped, shook her head, thought better of what she had been about to say. You might as well take a break, let me do some of this stretching. Ive never done it before, and could use the practice. Einar did not argue, leaned back against a rock and closed his eyes for a second, struggling to get ahold of the pain in his leg, which was an awful lot worse at the moment than he had let on to Liz. She saw, though, sat down next to him and offered him some water. Should I get that willow stuff for you? He nodded. Yeah. Would be good. After taking a gulp of the minty-smelling willow solution and sitting still for a minute, just concentrating on his breathing until the pain began to subside a bit, he was able to once again sit up straight and talk with Liz. If you want to do some stretchingthe point is to soften up the hide while it dries, so itll stay flexible. Just pull on it, one direction then another, for a while. Even better would be to take it down pretty soon and start pulling it back and forth across a little tree. See that little aspen over there? He pointed out a young aspen, smooth-trunked and

approximately four inches in diameter. That one would be about perfect. Just put the hide around it, flesh side in, and start pulling, lean back pretty hard and stretch and rub the hide against the tree. Working for a time with the hide suspended from the spruce branch, Liz pulled and stretched it, eventually taking it down and working it on the tree as Einar had described. He remained sitting in the rocks as she worked, watching and answering her occasional questions, but after a wile sitting on the rocks began to hurt awfully bad. It always hurt sitting on hard surfaces, ever since he had lost all the padding on his seat, and he had over time worked out a fairly effective routine of shifting his weight frequently from one side to the other to ease the pressure of sitting, but the heavy cast entirely prevented him doing this, and finally, warm in the sun, he resorted to taking off his stocking cap and sliding it under him for a bit of padding. It helped, and before he knew it he was dozing, Liz not disturbing him as she worked on the hide. He was aware of no more until she came and sat next to him for a break, retrieving one of the water bottles from the pack, at which he stirred, opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. The sun had gone, obscured behind a gathering bank of clouds, grey and heavy and looking like snow. He was cold. Aw, sorry, fell asleep. Bet it was my turn with that hide a long time ago. No, its been going just fine. She brought the hide to him, draped it over his knees. What do you think? Einar unfolded it, bent and felt it, smooth and supple and soft. Wow! I dont know how long Ive been sleeping, here, but youve sure done a great job with this. And faster than I could have. Its finished! It is? Great! Looks like we may have snow tonight, doesnt it? He squinted up at the sky, sniffed the breeze that blew down sharp and increasingly chilly from the peaks, shivered. Yes. Tonight, I think. Will be very good to have this hide to keep us warm. All it needs now is to be smoked, so it doesnt get all stiff again if it ends up getting wet. Id like to give it at least a few hours of smoking tonight, while we have the fire to keep us warm. Needs a couple days worth to really get the smoke down into all the fibers of the skin, but well have to spread that out over many nights, and even a few hours would help quite a bit if we end up having to get it wet. Little concerned about that camp down there, though. Gonna need a pretty good smoky, stinky fire to do this hide any good, and wouldnt want to chance having them smell it. How about if I go up to the top of the ridge, no farther, just to a place where I can look down on the area of the camp and listen and look for a while to make sure nobodys there. Einar squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of Liz going anywhere near that camp, thought about it for a minute, weighed the options. He would have, had he been capable, made the scouting trip himself, needing to know the state of the camp and seeing little risk in standing atop the ridge in the timber for a few minutes of observation. The

coming storm, he felt in his bones, was to be a big one, and they would need fire, if they could have it, would need to smoke the bear hide and even, very likely, would need to be able to melt snow for water in case the weather was too bad to allow for trips to the seep, which would soon be freezing solid, in any case. He nodded, reluctantly. To the top, and no further. No side trips down to look at the tent, no more hunting for gut piles, nothingalright? Liz quickly agreed, helping Einar inside and getting him situated under the newly softened bear hide. She was anxious to set off, feeling an increasing urgency in the wind, knowing that snow was coming, and soon. Grabbing a quick snack of last nights leftover stew before leaving, she listened to Einars idea for the removable cast he had been wanting to create, ever since the two nights he had spent freezing with wet cast insulation after being soaked in the last snowstorm. All I can really think of right now is to use some aspen bark, the curved outer bark from a small, fallen tree--or cottonwood, if we were down a little lower--for the back part of the cast, maybe just some sticks for the front, and wrap itthe knee and ankle would not be immobilized, but it would be better than nothing and might keep my foot from freezing, next time we have a storm. So if you see a tree thats a likely prospect, fallen, bark still intactmaybe you could bring me some? Liz agreed, tucked the bear hide around him, and left. Einar watched her go, a chill wind whistling and howling through the rocks above and a sense of desolation and dread creeping over him as the minutes passed. Something did not seem right, had not seemed right since Liz had returned with the elk stomach the day before, and the feelings that he had been able to push aside the in the bustle and hurry of the days activities rushed in on him again there in the dim, quiet rock shelter, the sense of impending danger so strong that he nearly got up to go after Liz, call her back, urge her not to go, but he knew she would already be out of sight, remained still. Its the weather, Einar. Just the weather front coming in. Got you feeling all weird and jumpy. Nothing more. Now get busy with something, occupy that goofy brain of yours Reaching the ridges crest and determined to go no further, Liz stopped, sat down to listen and smell for smoke and hopefully determine whether or not the camp was inhabited. Seeing a rock outcropping some distance further along the ridge and remembering that it lay along the path she had previously used the time she had visited the camp, she started for it, hoping to get a better view. She had just stepped out of the timber, heading across the aspen-dotted rockslide in front of the outcropping when she heard the distinctive snap and shuffle of human footsteps in the trees ahead of her, froze and dropped to the ground. Too late.

With Liz gone, Einar worked for a while on slicing up more bear meat for drying--the previously sliced and hung strips were largely dry after the fire the previous night, and the ones that had reached the point of brittleness, he packed away to make room for

hanging the new ones. Many of the chokecherry patties, also, were dry, and he packed them away as well, wrapping each in a strip of plastic from one of the garbage sacks that had finally become to damaged and torn to be of much use, as a bag or rain shelter. Having packed away all the food that was thoroughly dry and wishing he could do more-the sense of dread and urgency he had earlier felt had not dulled any as time went on, and he found himself sorting through the backpack, rearranging things and experimenting with the best way to tie on the bear and wolverine hides for transport--he contented himself with finding a better way to package the solidified bricks of bear fat. Wrapping and stacking the bricks in the pack, he wished he had taken the initiative to clean out and save the bears intestines, so that the liquefied fat could have been sealed up in tied off sections of it for transport. Hed barely been able to maintain consciousness during the cleaning and skinning of the bear, however, let alone possessed of the energy to hobble down to the seep to wash out bear guts, or even to make the suggestion that Liz do it. Well. Would have been a more secure way to carry the stuff for sure, but as cold as it is, as late in the year as it is, theres not too much danger of these lumps melting while were carrying them, and none, as long as theyre stored here in the shelter. Should be fine. Finished rearranging the pack and wrapping up the dried food, he broke up some firewood and carefully placed it in the fire hole, ready for the coming of darkness, chopped up some bear meat and crumbled a handful of dried nettles into the pot with them, setting it on the flat cooking rock, wanting to get a head start on supper in case Liz did not get back until near dark. Which looked like it could come very soon, as dark and low as the cloud cover had become. He knew, though, that it could not be too many hours past midday. Resting for a minute, flat on his back on the bed of spruce needles, he wiggled and flexed his toes, something he had been trying to do on a very regular basis since applying the cast, knowing that the exercise would help his circulation as well as keep the toes from getting so awfully cold. The hip, he knew, also needed to be exercised and stretched as much as possible with the heavy cast in place, and lying on the bed he raised his leg as far as he could, lowered it, repeated the motion until he was exhausted and starting to cramp up. It had not taken long. Well. Better than nothing. Ill just have to keep at it, start on the knee as soon as Im able to go to a shorter castwhenever that will be. Sitting up, he searched around until he found the boot-sole sized slab of aspen wood, approximately two inches thick, that Liz had found for him, and set to work on it with his knife--one of the folders he had retrieved from the FBI agents after the altercation in the meadow, as he had taken to sending the larger boot knife with Liz, when she went out--and whittling away some of the unnecessary portions that stuck out beyond his boot and which, he knew, would only contribute to his clumsiness. Sure dont need to be any clumsier right now! Finished with the modifications, he experimentally lashed the slab to the bottom of his left boot with some paracord, crisscrossing it several times across the bottom and tying it on top. The cord, he knew, would fairly quickly wear through with any serious amount of walking over rocky terrain, but would do just fine as a temporary solution to let him know if the idea was workable. If it turned out to be helpful, he intended to cement the slab in place with spruce pitch and wrap it more firmly against his boot with strips of rawhide, soaked, placed and left to dry and harden. With the help of the crutches he stood--sure would be easier to get up and down if I had some sort of rope tied to a

stick up there in the chimney, for me to grab. May have to try that--taking a minute to stand still and get the feel of his newly raised boot, not wanting to take a spill the first time he tried walking with it. Shuffling and struggling his way through the passage he stood on the rocks outside, trying a few experimental steps and greatly pleased at the improvement. Movement was far easier with the constant need to hold his injured leg out of contact with the ground eliminated, his steps less painful and somewhat less exhausting. Einar grinned, covered a few yards and turned back, knowing that if he kept at it and practiced every day, got more to eat and rested whenever he could, he would before too long be able to have a bit of his mobility back.

The series of photos of a young woman raiding the elk gut pile and making off with the stomach after washing it in the snow were not at all what Pete had expected when he found a few spare moments that day around lunchtime and snuck off to check his trail cam, and he did not at first know just what to make of the sight. Studying the images, which mostly showed the womans back and side but did include one clear shot of her face where she had apparently been startled by some noise and looked up, it did not take Pete long to reach a conclusion. Only one person she could be. What casual hiker chases off the ravens to get at an elk stomach, washes it in the snow and carries it away? Not a chance! Find her, and I find him. And, leaving the camera, he had begun his search, picking up her trail fairly easily in the damp ground around the clearing, losing it for a time in the timber and discovering it again as it wound its way up a steep, soft slope of mixed aspen and fir, appearing to have been used more than once and displaying clear toe marks here and there where she had swung her foot hard and kicked into the soft soil for a bit of traction.

Liz crouched there in the rocks as the man stepped out of the grove of nearly leafless aspens not fifteen feet from her. Pete. She recognized him, wondered if he recognized her, also, let her hand creep down to the pistol in her waistband but hesitated, knowing that if he was there, others were surely in the camp also, would hear the shot. Yet she could not run, either, knowing that he would be able to follow her trail, if not keep up with her, knowing also that her back trail, if he found it, would lead him directly to Einar. She waited, hoping to be able somehow to talk her way out of the situation, to convince him, at least, that she was up there alone so he did not go back and report Einars presence. Pete had edged a number of feet closer, was watching her suspiciously. Liz, right? I think we met a time or two down at my brothers place. Im Pete Jackson. Now I see you reaching for that pistol there, and Id hate for you to do anything youd regret. Better give me that, OK? Im not here to do you any harm. It was not OK, any of it, Liz saw her options shrinking with Petes demand for the pistol and started backing up, slowly, keeping her eyes on him but Pete saw her intentions, lunged at her just as she dove for a clump of currant bushes and caught her by the ankle,

spilling her rather suddenly onto the ground where she struck her forehead and face hard on the edge of a granite block. Pinning her down, Pete grabbed the pistol and quickly stuck it in his belt, Liz struggling the whole time and getting in a few solid kicks and a good bite to his forearm that drew blood and sent him yelping to his feet. Hey! Now Im not trying to hurt you, but I sure dont want to get shot, either, and it looked to me like that might have been what you had in mind. You alright? He offered her his hand, helped her up. A deep gash ran through Lizs left eyebrow and up several inches to terminate near the center of her forehead, bleeding profusely, one side of her lip puffy where her face had struck the rock. Pressing her sleeve to the gash she glared at Pete, glanced around for a way out and saw nothing that gave her any immediate ideas. I just want to talk to you, Liz. Theres a snowstorm coming, going to get pretty cold tonight, and its no place to be out running around dressed the way you are. You knew Rob, right? Well, Im up here working for his friend Andy, I think he goes to your church, evenwe got a couple of folks out on an elk hunt, and theyre all down there eating lunch right now, so how about you come down there with me, get cleaned up, have something to eat and talk about this? She shook her head. No. I know they have a warrant out for me. You may be trying to help, but I cant go down there. Even after knowing what happened to me, the kidnapping, the risk I took escapingthe feds still want to arrest me. I dont know who to trust, dont know what to do She was almost crying, hoping Pete was falling for her ruse. If you want to helpI sure could use your jacket and anything you could spare from the camp down there. Maybe a sleeping bagsomething to eat. Pete was trying to keep calm, to keep his anger in check, but in her masquerade--he knew that was what it had to be, knew she could not possibly be way up there so many miles from anything, by herself, doubted someone of her experience would have any idea what to do with an elk stomach, any reason to take one as he had seen her do in the photos on his trail cam--he saw his chances at that reward starting to slip away, pulled out his flask and took a long swallow. Come on, we all know why youre up here. Where is he, Liz, wheres he hiding? Holed up under a rock somewhere? Hurt pretty bad? I saw the pictures of you taking that elk stomach, and Ill tell you, folks would have to be pretty desperate before theyd have a use for an old stinking elk paunch like that. Bet hes not able to hunt right now, is he? Bet neither of you are getting very much to eat. That starts to get awful rough when the cold sets in, doesnt it? Awful scary when you start to wonder each evening whether youll make it through the nightthink of spending the whole winter like that. Thats no way to live! Liz said nothing, Pete taking another swig in the misguided hope of improving his powers of persuasion, tried again. Hes not going to last long up here, you know, especially if hes hurt. Neither of you will last long, when winter sets in for good. Starvation is a mighty rough way to go. Youd be doing both of you a big favor just to end this, now, so you can both live. Really,

is there much choice? Especially if you care about him? Which you must, or why on earth would you be out here living like this? She stood, met his gaze with the one eye that was not nearly swollen shut from her impact with the rock. I dont know where he is. Why would I want to have anything to do with him, after the way he kidnapped me? Im by myself, and would like to stay that way, so She began backing away again, but Pete was having none of it, roughly grabbing her shoulder and kicking at her legs, knocking her to the ground. Now we both know, he took another swallow from the flask, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and coming at her, that youre just trying to cover for him. Liz rolled to the side, kicked him hard in the knee but he was stronger than she, grabbed her arms and, after much struggling and a hard blow to the side of her head, succeeded in getting the cuffs on her, hands in front. And that makes you an accessory, so you can call this a citizens arrest. Now wheres Asmundson? You tell me where he is and I take these cuffs off, never say a word about you to anybody. Its him I want, not you. Look at me. Lost my business, my house, my wife, probably never see my brother again, got six pins in my leg, a permanent limp, nobody in townll look me in the eye anymore, let alone give me a steady job, and why? Asmundson. He spat the name out with such venom that Liz was left with no doubt of his intentions, and little doubt, either, that he would go to whatever lengths necessary to carry them out. When she did not answer him Pete lost his temper again, kicked and swung at her and held the pistol on her, threatening to use it if she did not tell him where to find Einar. Which they both knew he was very unlikely to actually do. For several minutes they sat staring at each other, Liz dabbing at the continuing ooze of blood from her forehead and hoping that Pete might keep drinking, might get clumsy enough for her to be able to take back the pistol But he did not, had put the flask away, sat there looking at her, suddenly remorseful, ashamed, wishing he had never hit her in the first place and realizing that there was no way he was going to get any information out of her, not by any means he was interested in using, anyway. It was too late to remedy the situation, too late to take back what hed done, far too late to change the fact that he had seriously messed up his own life as well as his brothers in his frenzy for that reward, but he supposed perhaps he could at least attempt to make things right for Liz. He knew she didnt trust him, had absolutely no reason to trust him, and when he met her eye he saw a strange look there, took it to be hurt and anger brought about by the way he had treated her. And that is where Pete made his first big mistake that day, failing to see behind the bruised face and welling tears the look of steely determination and almost predatory concentration with which she watched him, and which, had he recognized it, might have reminded him a good deal more of a cornered wolverine than of the hurt, scared-looking girl he saw before him. Im sorryreal sorry. I dont do this sort of thing, I just Youre pretty cold, arent you. Here. He took off his jacket--not, to her dismay, the heavy tan Carhart she had seen him in the other day--and draped it over her shoulders, Liz still pretending to be preoccupied with stopping the bleeding above her eye. Listen, I know youre not going

to tell me where to find him, but I was serious about that storm coming. Its supposed to be a big one. Come down to the camp with me, Andy and the clientsll still be there. They can get you down out of here before that snow comes. She held out her hands. Take the cuffs off. Pete hesitated, looked at her and shook his head, knew she would take off as soon as he did so and was very determined to give her the help he believed she needed so as not to kill herself running around alone and illequipped on the side of a mountain with winter coming on. Ive got to do this, got to get this one thing right And--second mistake; one only gets so many--he reached for his two way radio, meaning to contact his employer and let Liz speak with him, to reassure her that she was safe in following him down to the camp.

Reaching for the radio while trying to keep an eye on Liz Pete fumbled, clumsy, dropped it in the rocks where it went rolling and clattering two feet down an angled granite slab, coming up short against a mound of moss. Turning away from Liz for an instant to grab for the radio, Pete had no warning when she, knowing that allowing him to make that radio call would probably directly result in Einars death, made her move. Liz did not hesitate for a moment in getting Einars knife into her hands, crouching and lunging at Petes exposed back, taking him just under the ribs, driving the knife in at an upward angle under his ribcage with both hands and knocking him to the ground with the fury of her lunge, where he hit his head on a rock and lay still for a moment, stunned and bleeding profusely as Liz, who had come down on top of him, twisted the knife in its path, pulled it out and drove it in again nearby, jamming its entire length in between his ribs with a fury that would later surprise her a bit, when she thought about it. She sat on him, held him down as he came to and began struggling; she didnt know what she was doing, had no training of any sort but knew she had to have done some serious damage, but apparently needed to do more. Pete let out a startled grunt when the knife plunged in for the second time, turning to look at her, glancing back over his shoulder at the rapidly growing blot of red on his tan and blue plaid flannel shirt, his eyes meeting Lizs, full of the shock and horror of his impending death and something that she was pretty sure she recognized as remorse. Too late. Time only for a last thought or two--stabbed in the backfigures, I guess--and it was over, Liz watching as the light faded from his eyes and he went limp, slumped down on the cold rocks, her hands and arms smeared with his blood. She hastily checked for a pulse at his neck and found none, cleaned off the knife, wiping it on a dry patch of flannel and sliding it back into its sheath. Scrambling to her feet and taking a reeling step backwards, Liz was starting to shake as the reality of what she had just done hit her full force. Soaked and splattered with Petes blood, she picked up hands full of crusty snow from a sheltered spot beside a nearby rock, scrubbed frantically at her hands and arms and the front of her shirt in an attempt to remove some of the congealing red stickiness, but she couldnt, there was too much, the cuffs interfered with her movement, and she felt like running, couldnt seem to get her breath, suddenly doubled over in the rocks and vomited. All right. Get ahold of yourself, Liz. What are you going to do now? She didnt know, had not exactly had a plan, had

known only that she must stop Pete from contacting whoever was at the other end of the radio, be they hunters or feds, that if she did not, searchers would quickly be crawling all over the basin and Einar would be as good as dead. OK, sotheyll miss him eventually, come looking, have to hide the body Which she seriously doubted she could do an adequate job of, especially considering that they were hunters who surely knew quite well how to follow a blood trail and would, if they did not find him quickly enough, call in SAR with their dogs and trackers and then it would all be over in very short order. So I wonder about just hiding him in plain sight, leaving him right here and letting them believe he fell? Wish Einar was here, hed have some idea, it seems that he knows about these sorts of things for whatever reason but I She shook her head. The wound on Petes head from where she had slammed him into the rock might lend some credibility, she supposed, to the theory that he had fallen, and, breaking a forked stick from a nearby dead spruce and jamming the forks into the two wound tracks, she thought perhaps she could arrange him in a way that would make everything appear to be an accident, at least to his hunting companions, who in their efforts to save him would surely mess up the scene so badly that when and if investigators were called in and an autopsy done on Petes body, things would be badly confused and it would take them quite a while to sort it all out. It might buy us some time, anyway. Otherwise, if I hide the body too well and they dont find him within a day or so, I just know that theyll call in SAR, a chopper, everything, and then well get seen, my trails back and forth from the seep, something It seemed her best option, and she set to work. Liz wanted to take Petes boots, clothes, everything, but knew that the body would probably be found, eventually, and something as obvious as missing boots would certainly be noticed even if the remains had been torn at a bit by scavengers, in the meantime. The jacket and whatever might be in its pockets she would take, must take--it would be clear to anyone who looked that Pete had not been wearing it when he fell-she saw it there sitting in the scree where it had fallen when she lunged at Pete, and she quickly retrieved her pistol from his belt, took his knife also, took the belt, while she was at it, knowing that Einar did not have one and could certainly use it, but left everything else, wishing that Pete had been carrying a small daypack, even, or a sidearm, but he had not, had apparently not intended on venturing too far from camp or being gone very long, at all. So hurry! They could be missing him already, wondering where he is A thought that was confirmed the next moment when the radio, still lying on the rock where it had fallen, crackled to life. Pete was, apparently, already late, his boss chiding him for his absence, seeming more than a little irked when he did not respond to repeated efforts to contact him. Glancing one more time over the scene--Petes body would be hidden from the air, she knew, by the cluster of low, scraggly evergreens trees he lay beneath, but should be readily visible to anyone on the ground--making sure she had left no bloody boot prints on the rocks and heading out, stopping at the last minute to check the flask in Petes pocket, finding that it still sloshed just a bit when she shook it. The flask she knew she must leave--might help explain his fall, and it might be an item that everyone knew he carried and whose absence would be noted--but its contents she hurriedly poured into one of her empty water bottles, no more than an inch or two in the bottom of the bottle, but certainly enough to have a number of uses.

Starting down the backside of the ridge towards the basin, dreading having to face Einar and tell him what had happened but knowing that she must, and without delay, Liz moved quickly, struggling to keep her balance on some of the more difficult terrain with one eye swollen shut, blood from the laceration on her forehead still oozing and occasionally trickling into it as she traveled, her hands cuffed tightly in front. The wind swept down icy and sharp and increasingly restless from the surrounding peaks as she went, leaving her to wonder seriously whether the blood that soaked large areas of her clothing would dry first, or freeze, the sky behind her dark and suddenly immensely bleak looking. By the time she reached the meadow below the shelter all the emotion had gone, the trembling, the feelings of near panic that had almost overwhelmed her up there in the rocks; it would all be back later, she expected, but she was calm as she went to Einar, found him sleeping beneath the bear hide in the evening gloom of the shelter, resting peacefully but appearing badly chilled already, despite the warm pelt. She woke him, pressed a chunk of bear fat into his hand. Einar, eat this. Youre going to need the energy. Shuffling along the ridge in search of a last meal or two before curling up in her den for the night--and perhaps, depending on the severity and duration of the storm that she sensed was coming, for the winter--the large sow scented something, whuffed softly and paused, rearing up on her hind feet and testing the air. The human scent; she knew it, had come to hate and, after one painful encounter too many, the result of which still lingered as a nagging ache in her hip, to fear it, but this was somehow different, less threatening, the human presence seeming less pervasive if the scent just as strong, and, curious, she advanced cautiously, nose in the air as she topped out on the ridge and crossed an area of lichen-covered rock, heading for a thick grove of stunted spruces near its center.

The sow, her frenzy for a few final meals before hibernation driven by the growing gloom of the sky and a breeze that sighed down sharp and thin and smelling of snow from the peaks above, finally overcame her fear of the human scent, pawed at the lifeless form that lay in a congealing pool of its own blood on the cold granite beneath wind-bent firs, flipped it over and began her meal, teeth tearing at flesh that had not yet grown entirely cold in the evening chill.

Hearing the urgency in Lizs voice Einar shook the sleep from his eyes and sat up, took the food she held out to him, and saw her face, the black eye, broken lip, the deep gash that ran through her eyebrowand the handcuffs. He was about to stand, but she sat down beside him, Einar quickly pressing a wad of usnea to her still-bleeding forehead and looking her over for other injuries. What happened to you? The cuffsare they coming, following you?

No. Not following me. Pete. He was up there, aloneI was up on the ridge and he saw me, got the pistol before I could do anything to stop himhad a bunch of questions for me and when I wouldnt answer Einar was on his feet, atlatl in hand and cold fury in his eyes, his own injuries for the moment all but forgotten, moving with a purposefulness that she had not seen in him since the accident. He was nearly halfway down the passage by the time Liz caught up with him, stopped him. Let me go, Liz. Ill kill him, he growled, shaking her off and continuing his limping progress towards the daylight outside. Einar, I already did. He stopped, looked at her in the stronger light of the passage, saw that her arms and chest were sticky and caked with half-dried blood, and far more than could have come from her relatively minor forehead wound. He was going for his radio, was on my trail, he would have led them here even if Id been able to get away, so I took the knife Youre sure hes dead? I held him down as he died. Hehe was looking at me the whole time like he wanted to say somethingchecked for a pulse when he stopped moving. Im sure. She was shaking again, almost in tears, and Einar put his hand on her shoulder in an awkward attempt to comfort her, his own mind racing as he tried to decide on their course of action. There it was, the nameless terror and apprehension of the past two days made clear to him now, real and present and probably coming for them very shortly, in the form of a Search and Rescue team looking for Pete, almost certainly stumbling across the spires, situated as they were less than a mile from where he had gone missing. Even if they dont find the shelter, theyre bound to see some sign of our presence--boot prints down at the seep, places where shes broken off dead branches for firewood. We stay here, were done. Got to move on, hope the storm covers for us. He shook his head, tried to silence the mocking voice that laughed in his face, told him ha! You try to move now, youre gonna be dead anyway, before too long. You can hardly make it six steps on these crutches before youre totally exhausted and starting to get dangerously clumsy, and how well do you really think thats going to work out there on the steep, snow covered rockfields and timber slopes? He looked at Liz, stared up at the sky, heavy with cloud and darkening as a flat grey afternoon faded into evening, the wind whistling through the rocks and promising snow before morning. Wellguess were gonna find out. Liz had stopped crying and was watching him as he debated with himself, but Einar could see from the look in her eyes that she was close to coming apart again, kept wiping at the blood on her arms and seeming terribly distressed that she could not get it all off, and he knew he had to give her something to do, keep her busy to get her mind off of it. Might also help if I could get the cuffs off.

Listen. I need your help right now. You said he went for a radio. Did he talk to anybody? Do the others know about you? Trying to figure out how much time we have right now. No. He never got to that radio. They were trying to call him though, after It seemed like he wasnt really supposed to have left camp then, and they were upset with him for being gone. So I guess theyll be out looking pretty soonI tried to make it look like an accident, like he had fallen on a forked stick and been impaled. It may fool them for a while, at least, and they should have no way to know Im here. Except Her face went white at the memory. He said something about seeing pictures of me taking the elk stomach, said he had a camera up there. What if the others know about the camera? Theyll find those pictures He nodded, weary, knowing what it meant. May not have as much time as I had thought. Which wasnt very much to start with, especially considering how slow Im bound to be. Well. Just have to find a way. Lets get rid of those cuffs. You have the key? She didnt know, fumbled with the pockets of Petes jacket, a camouflaged sweatshirt with a hood and two zippered pockets, coming up with a key ring. Among other things it contained a cuff key, very newly added, from the looks of it, and Einar wondered how and when Pete had decided that he needed to begin carrying cuffs when scouting the hills. Guess she--or we--must have left some sign around here, got him to thinking. Removing the cuffs, he stashed them, and Petes keys, in the backpack, quickly going through the jacket pockets and finding a lighter, the remains of a small bag of sunflower seeds, about half eaten, and, in the other pocket a handful of large pellet-shaped horse treats, smelling of molasses and apple. He tasted one--not bad!--tucked it into his own pocket for later and zipped the rest back into the jacket. Einar began sorting through the pack again, grim, silent, knowing that he was in for perhaps the most difficult several days he had experienced in a long time, but somehow almost glad, at the same time, that he had something pressing to do, something that must be attended to without delay or hesitation. The need had certainly shaken him free of the inertia that had increasingly been coming to posses him over the past days and which he knew from experience could prove just as dangerous as any winter storm or active pursuit, but listening to the wind howl outside, he doubted he was going to like the price very much. The shelter in the rock was--had been--a good spot, one that they had fixed up reasonably comfortably and which had begun seeming rather like home, and he would have very much liked another few weeks there to rest his leg and give it some time to heal properly, if that was even possible after the way he had re injured it. Liz seemed to have heard his thoughts, paused in her work of slicing nearly frozen bear meat from the hanging carcass and wrapping it in shreds of plastic from the torn up trash bag, spoke. With the snow coming, is there any chance we could stay here, just hole up in the shelter and not go out, not leave any trackssurely this place would not be easy for them to find.

No. They would find it, eventually. Especially if they find Pete and somebody gets suspicious, they see those photos, call in the fedstheyll find it. We cant be here then. Have to let this storm cover our tracks, if it will. She stared at the ground for a minute, glanced up at Einar, already tired and shaking as he stood there balancing himself precariously between the crutches. Im so sorry. I did this. Was just trying to help, and now Shrugging, he hoisted the rolled up bear hide onto his back and started for the passage. Take one more look around to make sure weve got everything we can carry, give me a few minutes to work on something here in the passage that should delay anybody that comes for us, and then lets go. I know a place. Its only a few miles. Though for me, he added silently, it might as well be a hundred

Not knowing how soon the hunters and, eventually, possibly SAR or even federal search crews might make it over into the area of the spires and discover their place of shelter, Einar wanted to do everything possible to delay the pursuit that he supposed would be the inevitable next step. Everything, that was, short of using the contents of the packet that had been the sole item he had managed to retrieve from his large cache before the search teams arrived and blew themselves up rushing in after a dead deer, tripping the--slightly modified, yes--trap they had left with the intention of ending his life. Those items he knew he must save, must keep as a reserve against some unforeseen set of circumstances that could come together in the future, and require their use. And, knowing that there was a good possibility that the outfitters or local SAR volunteers might discover and explore the shelter before the feds even reached the area, he had no desire to leave an active trap. But he needed it to appear that he had, needed to give pause to whoever might happen along and delay their efforts to track the erstwhile occupants of the shelter. Once Liz had finished lashing everything they could reasonably carry--this meant, unfortunately, leaving portions of the young bear behind--to the backpack and taken it outside, Einar gathered a few sticks from beside the firepit and began carefully arranging them in a narrow, dark portion of the passage, concealing them poorly with evergreen boughs in a way that would ensure that they were seen, but not make it too obvious that he had wanted it to be noticed. He then ran a strand of paracord--one of the thinner cords from inside the sheath, actually--down from the partially concealed platform of sticks, passed it around a vertical branch section that he had driven into the ground, tied the free end to a rock and concealed it behind a pile of rock chips against the far wall of the passage. OK. This ought to give them pause, for sure. Probably have to wait for EOD, or whatever the FBI calls their bomb disposal folks, to come in and have a look at this before they go any further into the shelter. Which theyll have to do, before looking for our trail. We could still be inside there, after all. They know to be pretty careful about this sort of thing, by now!

Finished with the delay mechanism in the passage, he joined Liz out under the spruce where she was again rearranging the packs. Einar had initially divided their gear roughly in half, distributing the weight between Willis Ammels pack and Steve and Junis smaller daypack, but he saw that Liz had concentrated all the heavy items in Willis larger bag, leaving him only the spare clothing and some of the dried bear meat to carry. About to protest, he thought better of it, knowing that he would be hard pressed to keep on his feet and keep moving for more than a few minutes at a time, let alone haul even the twenty five pounds of assorted gear and food that he had initially allotted himself. He just nodded when she asked if the packs looked alright. Theres something I should tell you about that green plastic case with the two latches on the side, though Think we need to open it up, divide whats in there so neither of us is carrying both parts, together. One good hard fall with it like that Id carry the whole thing myself, but realistically, I think youre an awful lot less likely to take a serious fall than I am. Both parts? What are you talking about? She gingerly lowered the pack from her back--guess I shouldnt have been tossing this thing around the way I have. This man and his special ingredients! Did not expect he had anything like that with him, anymore--and set it down in front of Einar, who quickly opened the hard plastic case.

Petes repeated failures to respond when the outfitter attempted to contact him over the radio were not at first a cause for alarm at the camp, though his employer was greatly displeased at the long absence, assuming Pete had snuck off to spend some time with the flask that he thought he had kept hidden from everyone. When an hour had gone by without hearing anything from him and still unable to rouse a response over the radio, the guide began to suspect that something might have happened, and went looking, struggling to get his horse up the steep, evergreen needle-slick ridge where he believed Pete to have been going. The weather was closing in, one of the other guides had taken the clients up to a nearby series of small basins for the evening, and the outfitter grew increasingly frustrated as he failed to find any sign of Pete, thinking that his less-thanreliable employee was probably passed out under a tree somewhere, wholly unaware of the distress his absence was causing, back at camp. Last time I ever ask him to come along Reaching the spot where they had cleaned their previous kill, he stopped and looked the area over, finding a camera--well, theres the one that I was missing! Wonder why he wanted to get shots of a bunch of ravens and foxes eating this gut pile?--and deciding to take a minute to look at the images it had captured, in case they might provide some clue about Petes absence. He clearly had a project of some sort going, something that required him to excuse himself from his camp duties at random times and do weird things with trail cameras, and his employer meant to find out just what it involved. The photos of the shabbily dressed young woman raiding the gut pile served only to further deepen the mystery, but it did not take him long to put the pieces together, realizing that there was really only one person the woman in the photos was likely to be.

Great! Just what I neednot only did I inadvertently bring clients up into what is apparently some very dangerous territory, but now one of my guides has decided to go off and play bounty hunter for the evening. Hope its just the girl, and not Asmundson, too. What a mess! Disgusted with Pete and satisfied that he knew with some certainty why the man was taking so long to return from his foray, the outfitter finished the climb up onto the ridge crest, traversing it in an attempt to find a gentler and less slippery decline for his horse to descend. The horse sensed trouble long before he did, stopping and shying back towards the trees when he tried to urge her to cross an open, rocky cut that ran up and over the summit of the ridge, and the outfitter studied the timber on the far side of the cut, seeing nothing and wondering if perhaps the buckskin might have smelled a lion or other large predator. The horse finally started out across the rocks, reluctant, and as they neared the evergreens, the cause of at least part of her unease became apparent as a large black bear, plump and slow and appearing very nearly ready for her winter sleep, emerged from the trees, saw the intruders and quickly turned and lumbered off into the timber. She had, for the most part, timely repast, and was ready to sleep. By the time the outfitter got the horse calmed down--something beyond the presence of the bear seemed to be spooking her--and went over to investigate the bears chosen fare, little was left of Pete, from the waist down. Just bones and boots, mostly, and the odd shred of cloth here and there. The outfitter doubted that the bear, which had not acted the least bit aggressive towards him, was Petes killer, expecting instead that the man, a bit too fond of that flask he carried, must have fallen in the rocks, hit his head, a large blue goose-egg on his forehead seeming to confirm the possibility. Hope for his sake he was still unconscious, when the critter showed up. Not wanting the bear to return and finish its feast, the outfitter stayed near Petes body, using his cell phone to contact the Division of Wildlife and the Sheriffs Department, telling them he could go ahead and track down the bear and take care of it, as soon as someone else got there to keep the body from being further scavenged. Once the word got out--which it did very quickly after an off-hand comment by the outfitter to one of the Deputies he spoke with--about the sighting of Liz on Petes trail camera, the local SAR volunteers were not the only ones anxious to get a chopper in the air before that storm closed in. Toland Jimson, freshly returned to Clear Springs from the hearings in DC and still stinging from the censure he had received at the hands of Congress and anxious to redeem his reputation smiled when he received the call, quickly made the arrangements drive up to the nearly inactive FBI compound at Culver Falls, later that evening. If the new lead developed into anything significant he wanted to be there, wanted to direct things, to get out on the ground himself, wanted Smiling, his face contorted oddly in a mix of rage and gleeful expectancy, he pulled the .40 round out of its place in his pocket, rolled it between his fingers and spoke to it as he had taken to doing of late, when he thought no one was watching, recounting to himself exactly how he, personally, meant to end this manhunt.

Taking something out of the green plastic case--Liz was not quite able to make out what it was and did not want to delay things by asking, but she saw what looked like a small

cardboard box, a pair of strangely shaped pliers and a coil of something that was sealed up in doubled or tripled plastic bags--Einar carefully wrapped the items in his spare shirt and tucked them into the pack, closing up the green case and giving it back to Liz. OK. You can go ahead and tumble down a mountain now if you need to, no danger. At least not from whats in the case. What about you, though? Is your half still dangerous? We could switch He gave her a lopsided grin, zipped up the backpack before she could insist on switching items. Well, you might not want to stand under me if I take a big fallbut otherwise, no problem. Real well protected, all wrapped up like this. One of the water bottles was nearly halfway full of the willow solution that Liz had boiled down the last time they had a fire, and Einar took a good swallow of it before leaving, knowing that the trip would be very hard on his leg and hoping to get ahead of the swelling so he would not be faced with the prospect of cutting the cast off to relieve it, just when he most needed to keep going. He also changed into the BDU pants, finally dry, wanting to save the warmer polypro ones to wear, after what he was traveling in inevitably got wet from the snow that he expected would soon begin falling. No more to do, then, Liz was clearly ready, pack on her back and she helped situate Einars much lighter pack, buckling it for him as he clung grimly to the handholds of his crutches, asking him again if she couldnt take some more of the items from it and further lighten his load. Which he refused, explaining that if he couldnt carry five pounds of extra clothing on his back, he probably wasnt getting very far anyway, which I must do, must get some distance between us and this place before they get people out on the ground, so Ill just have to find a way. Or try, at least, give it all he had, which wasnt much and he knew it, prayed for strength as he started out--just strength for the journey, just to be able to do what I must, to keep doing itplease--leading the way up into the timber that would take them around the spires and down into the immense treed bowl on their far side. The sky was dimming, evening coming in with a raw and restless wind as they started out, and while Einars thoughts were on the path ahead, on keeping to his feet and covering some distance, Lizs were occupied with what they were leaving behind--the secure, dry shelter, ready access to water and a good supply of food and firewood, warmth, life, the chance for Einar to heal Topping out on a low timbered rise above the meadow and to the side of the spires, she glanced back just before they started down its other side, the bitter wind stabbing through her, driving her, them, from the place that had begun to seem like home, like a refuge, and she wished more than ever that she had never gone down to that hunting camp. Einar kept himself moving fairly well as long as they traveled on reasonably level ground, the aspen slab on the bottom of his left boot helping greatly when it came to keeping the foot of his injured leg from slamming into the ground, but their path soon led through a band of mixed aspens and spruces, fallen aspens littering the ground in places, sometimes low enough to step over but many of then suspended two or three feet off the ground, and things quickly got more difficult for Einar. After trying to go around the

first few trees--a task that proved far too slow and nearly impossible because of the sheer number of deadfall trees--he was reduced to walking up to each trunk, sitting on it and lifting his bad leg over, balancing with the crutches to prevent himself being pulled over to the other side and dumped on his face on the ground by the weight of the cast. It was slow, exhausting work, and by the time he reached an area where the aspens gave way to spruces and the going became a bit less difficult, he was struggling for breath, his good leg trembling and his arms feeling as though they were about to give out from using the crutches. One final fallen tree before what appeared in the growing gloom to be a long clear stretch, and he lowered himself onto it, braced the crutches and grabbed the cast in both hands, lifting it up and over, but did not rise immediately to continue. Liz sat down beside him and offered water. She didnt speak, seeing that Einar needed to save his breath, but took his hand as he sat nearly doubled over, waiting for a serious cramp that gripped his good leg to subside to the point that he could again trust himself on his feet. His hand was warm and Liz was glad that the effort of climbing at least seemed for the time to be staving off the chill of the wind. Einar did not look too good though, head on his knee, breathing hard, and she got into her pack, adding a bit of honey and some salt to one of the water bottles and shaking it until everything began dissolving, urging him to drink some of the mix. It helped, gave him the strength to haul himself back to his feet and begin limping up through the spruces. His pace was slow and growing slower with each step, but was soon to pick up significantly. They had not been traveling for an hour, even--so said Liz and Einar could neither concur nor dispute the matter, as he had thoroughly lost all concept of time after the first few hundred yards of dragging himself along on the crutches--when they began hearing the distant rumble of a helicopter, Einar suddenly wide awake and looking around for shelter. SAR, do you think? Looking for Pete? Liz asked, at his side and assisting him as he hurried towards an outcropping that loomed black and rugged beneath the trees Could be. Could befeds, too, if those pictures got seen and reported. Here. Under these rocks, get the bear hide over us and we should be OK. The chopper, making its appearance less than a minute later up over the shoulder of the peak that stood above the small spire-meadow, seemed focused on the ridge between their shelter and the hunting camp, its nearness reminding Einar how very little ground he had actually managed to cover since leaving the spires. Not good. What was good, though, at least in terms of the air search, was the increasingly gusty wind and the flakes, storm driven and swirling, that began obscuring the distant landscape just after the chopper made its third pass over the area. As Einar had expected, this meant the end of the air search for the time, at least, and despite Lizs urgings that they stay there under the rocks and let him get some rest before moving on, he rolled up the bear hide, struggled to rise and finally managed to do so with her help, and prepared to move again. Got to take advantage of this storm, let it cover our tracks, get some distance behind us. This has been building for a while, looks like itll be a big storm, and if we can get to the place Im thinking of before it stops, well be doing pretty well, can ride out whatever search they bring.

Before long, traveling into the wind on the far side of the ridge as they descended into the timbered bowl, they were both plastered with wet snow as the fury of the storm grew, Liz insisting that Einar take Petes hooded sweatshirt, which was a help at first, but soon soaked through like everything else. The bear and wolverine hides they kept rolled up and stowed in the packs for a good while, hoping to keep them dry for later use and, in the case of the bear, to prevent it getting wet and stiffening, in its un-smoked state. One more night, Einar ruefully reminded himself, shaking the water from his hair and wringing out his hat during one of their many breaks, and I could have had that thing smoked, or well on its way, at least. Too bad. As the storm continued, they were forced to pull out the wolverine hide, taking turns draping it up over heads and shoulders against the numbing wind as they walked. The terrain on that slope was far steeper than the climb had been, crisscrossed with deadfall and slick as the snow began accumulating, and it was all Einar could do to keep his feet under him, twice falling and sliding in the darkness to come up short, tangled in a clump of gooseberries or crumpled against a tree. Once he managed to lose a crutch, it being jerked from his grasp as he slid and rolled down a steep, fairly open section of the slope, and Liz had to go back after it as he lay there struggling to hang onto consciousness, to push the pain back a bit and see through splinters of light that spread across the nearly dark sky like neon snowflakes, swirling, tumbling, blowing in the wind and obscuring his vision as he felt himself descending into a soft, velvety blackness that seemed most welcoming, comforting, warm Liz pulled him up out of it though, returning with the lost crutch and lifting him to his feet, getting the crutches under his arms and holding a bottle to his lips, pouring something scaldingly bitter and nauseating into his mouth, willow, she said--yeahwillowswallow it. Tastes awful but maybe itll help a little--insisting that he keep moving, and he came close to hating her in that instant, resenting her pulling him up out of his rest, though knowing that she was right. The moment passed quickly and he continued, grateful, Liz walking just in front of him and steadying him from time to time when he began losing his footing on the snow-covered spruce slope, and finally after what seemed like hours of painstakingly slow descent they reached a spot where the angle of the slope eased some, and walking became a bit less difficult.. Finally, sometime in the night, Einar reached the point where he could go no further, and while he did not recognize it, Liz did, gently insisting that they stop and finding a sheltering tree beneath which to take refuge. He was all for continuing, thought so, anyway, as the exhaustion and pain had long ago--it seemed long, anyway, seemed as though he had been traveling for weeks--become constants, unchanging except in intensity, and he had not even realized that he had been falling asleep on his feet, frequently stopping and sagging towards the ground so that he would have fallen had Liz not stood in front of him and supported his weight until he came to and began moving again. Wishing to keep going only because he feared not being able to start up again once he allowed himself to sit down and rest, Einar protested feebly at Lizs insistence that they stop, but when she took the crutches and eased him to the dry duff beneath the tree, he gave in and allowed himself to be helped out of his drenched clothes and into the set that had, mercifully, remained dry in the pack. Liz was by that point rather badly chilled herself, and hurried into dry clothes as well, wringing the water out of the wet ones and hanging them from protected inner branches of the spruce, but hardly expecting

them to do much drying in the damp, icy wind that gusted and tore at the mountainside that was their world that night.

Hurrying, as she could see that Einar was dangerously cold and knowing that she was not doing too well, herself, Liz got out the bear hide and threw it over him, scraping up some of the dry duff from beneath the tree and heaping it on the windward side of their shelter to help break the force of the icy gusts that drove occasional flurries of snow in under the branches and cut mercilessly through their inadequate clothing. The hasty windbreak finished, she joined him, bringing along a packet of pemmican, a water bottle and the bottle of willow solution to keep them from freezing. They curled up together under the bear hide then for what Liz knew would be a scant few hours of rest that he might allow them that night, Einar periodically tossing and groaning at the agony in his leg, feverish at times, Liz thought, and shivering uncontrollably despite the dry clothes and bear hide. When things seemed to be getting especially bad for him she would offer sips from the bottle of willow solution, wondering at one point whether the salvaged swallow or two of whiskey from Petes flask might help him feel the pain a bit less, but hesitating to offer it, knowing that it would only increase his chances of becoming dangerously hypothermic--acting to increase blood flow to the extremities rather than keeping it in the core where it needed to be to conserve heat--if he was not already. It would, she supposed, be better saved for use as a disinfectant. Einar could not seem to get warm no matter how long he lay there and shivered, and eventually, worried about him, Liz sliced off slivers of frozen pemmican, warming and softening them between her hands and giving them to him with bits of the coldcrystallized honey, and at first he made an effort to eat, forced himself to swallow a few tastes as he knew that he must, or soon find himself entirely unable to stay warm, let alone get up and go on. He had no appetite, though, was terribly nauseous from the hurt in his leg and from the quantity of willow solution he had drunk in an attempt to lessen it, and had to end the meal after two or three bites so as not to risk wasting their valuable food as his stomach knotted up. Every time she offered water he took it, though, asking between shivers that she keep reminding him to drink, knowing that he was somewhat dehydrated already and would only have more trouble handling the cold, the further he want in that direction. Liz ate, if Einar could not, the fatty food giving her body something to work on as she huddled close to Einar, hoping the shared warmth would be enough to keep him from slipping too much farther into the dangerous end of hypothermia as they lay there shivering together under the bear hide, the wolverine pelt tucked around their middles for additional warmth, listening to the wind in the trees and wondering if they might not be better off getting back up and moving again, to generate a bit of heat. Knowing, though, that venturing back out into the weather meant drenching their only remaining dry clothes, with no way to dry anything and the prospect of the storm continuing for some time, they were reluctant to leave the shelter of the tree immediately, badly needing rest and attempting to get some, despite the conditions.

Both found themselves rather too cold to sleep, Einars leg hurting terribly, besides, and Liz unable to stop thinking about Pete, and finally, growing increasingly concerned that he was not warming adequately and wanting to see how he was doing, Liz mentioned something about Pete, hoping Einar might be lucid enough to respond. Which he was, if rather slow and clumsy at speaking in his chilled state. You want totell me what happened? I dont know. I dont know that I want to talk about it. I knew him, Einar. It was Pete. And I stuck a knife in his back and held him down while he bled to deathI cant get the blood off, its all over me still, even after all that snowhe was staring at me, staring into my eyes as he she shuddered, and Einar could feel her silently sobbing. Didwhat you had to do, Liz. Dont supposewould help any if I told yougets easier. Does, though. I dont want it to get easier, Einar! I dont ever, ever want to have to do anything like that again. But I would. If I had to, I would. I know that now. And it scares me. Good. It should. But thatsbeen my life out here. They come for me, dont leave me much choicecant see it changing too much. Not much of a way to live. Thats why you got to go down, go to your friendsyou stay, there will be another Pete. Just a matter of time. This was not a conversation Liz wanted to have just then, one in which Einar again tried to persuade her to leave, but the talking seemed to be helping get his mind off his pain just a bit, was keeping him awake as he gradually warmed and was letting her keep track of his condition so she would know if he was getting into serious trouble, so she knew she needed to continue, like it or not. Besides, there were things that needed to be said, that had needed saying for a long time, and who knew when the next chance might come? I know there will be. And Im willing to accept that. It is your life, and Im willing for it to be mine. Einar twisted away from her, but not very far, still badly needing the warmth. I can never go back, understand? Never. But that doesnt mean you cant. Your friends could hide you, or you could get a lawyer, fight it in court. They dont have anything on you this is my life, but it doesnt have to be yours. Surely you have parents, friends, somebody you want to see againsometimedown there. Got to be things you wanted to do with your life besides spend it up here freezing and starving with an ornery, stubborn, crippled old fool of a mountain-critter like me There may have been, once. But I choose this. You. Liz, nowouldnt be fair to you. If you want to spend a winter in the backcountry, find somebody else to do it with, some other time. Preferably somebody who doesnt have a

price on his head. I understand that youre willing to put up with the hardships of this life, and I see that youve got the skills to do it, too, but not with me. Its too dangerous and besides, Im notlike I was before. Ill never be the same Come on, I dont care that you limp. Theres that, sure, theres the physical stuff, and plenty of it, but I meantUh...this is not something I really know how to talk about, and Im awful cold and worn out right now so maybe youll excuse me if it doesnt make much sense See, Ive never been all that good withpeople, always preferred my own company, and all this time on the run, the way I had to live last winterits changed me in a lot of ways I became what I had to to go on living, to stay free, and it worked, Im still here, but Im afraid Ill never be very good company. Youve seen--I dont even sleep through the night most times without jumping up to check on one thing or another, and whenever I hear a plane or something in the distancewell, you sure dont want to be between me and the nearest cover. And thats just a couple examples. Thats not gonna change. I dont see it changing, even if the search ends and things get back to normal. He shook his head, lay silent for a few minutes, staring off into the wind-tossed darkness, and Liz hesitated to disturb him. And you know, he went on, maybe I could change, couldgo back, someday when things settle down but to be honest Id be afraid to try, to give up any of thatuhextra wariness, afraid Ill need it again someday and not be able to get it back in time if I ever once let my guard downLiz, Im not fit company for anyone, never will be. Ireally think I need to be alone. And youif you want to be with somebody, well, surely you deserve better than this. He was quiet after that, exhausted, abashed at his unaccustomed straightforwardness with Liz on topics that he seldom chose to think about, let alone address with her. She was silent for a moment, thoughtful, drawing the bear hide in closer around his shoulders, as he had begun shivering again with the end of his tirade. Einar, I like your company, she said quietly, putting her hand on his cheek. And I dont want to be with somebody. I want to be with you. Besides, I dont think it would be quite as easy as you seem to think for me to go back, now. They have that warrant out for me, and I would always be wondering if and when they might be coming to serve itand even if they dropped the charges and I didnt have that to worry about, you do you realize, dont you, that every time I would hear a helicopter or a little plane go over, Id worry about you, wonder if youre OK, if youre alive, even, wonder if they were looking for you again. Last winter and this spring when I didnt know where you were and the search was going on, it was all I could think about. Really, it would be way easier for me just to be here with you, quirks and all You are truly a strange person, Liz. Like youre not

He smiled a little at that, took her hand. Idont really understand what youre saying, why you care so much what happens to me, butI thank you. Thing is, Im not somebody who can ever have a home, a family, the sort of life you must surely want. Probably wasnt even before all this, and nowIll be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, moving from one place to another, wondering if the plane that just flew over is the one that might have seen something that will bring them down on me again. Ive accepted it for myself, but I sure cant ask you to do the same. Its not that I dont want those things, that I dont wantyoubut I cant You see? She saw, but was not willing to give up so easily. It was plain from his voice though that Einar was growing terribly weary, worn out nearly as much from having to discuss such subjects as he had been by the exertion of the evenings hike and the continued pain from his leg, so Liz dropped the whole thing, for the moment. As it turned out, though, Einar was to settle the matter with his next question, as he tried to change the subject. Tell mehow it happened. With Pete. Knife inback, you say? Think you hit a rib? A rib? I dontyes, I guess so, the second time You are left handed, arent you? Yes. Why? Im right handed. They know that. When they findbody, will know I didnt leave those knife marks on his ribs, and theyve got your photo

The storm prevented the continuation of any air search that evening and night, and Toland Jimson paced around the newly reactivated FBI compound, still using a cane after his recent injury, reviewing in his mind all the new information that had come in about the promising new lead in the case--photos on a hunters trail camera of a known associate and suspected accomplice of the fugitive, robbing the remains of an elk kill for, of all things, the stomach, and then the discovery of the mutilated body of one of the hunting guides, up on a nearby ridge. A bear had been feasting on the mans remains, so the story went, but everyone Jimson had spoken to told him that it was highly unlikely that a black bear, fat and well fed as this one had proven to be, when it was tracked down and shot, would have attacked and killed a healthy adult human for food. Something else was involved, and Jimson expected that it might have a lot to do with their fugitive. The fact that he could not mount an immediate air search--beyond the few cursory passes of a FLIR-equipped chopper that they had managed to get in before the storm broke-infuriated him, and he muttered to himself as he walked the length of the warehouse, one way and then the other, the hand that was not braced on his cane in his pants pocket, gripping the .40 round that seemed to be his only company lately, as his men were rather

inclined to give him a wide berth since he returned to work after the accident, and after testifying at the Congressional hearings. The hearings had gone his way, more or less, but he still stung from the rebuke of some of the Senators, and from the fact that the tracker Bud Kilgore had received far more positive press from the whole incident than he had. Bud Kilgore had become a very recognizable face during the widely publicized Congressional hearings into the rocket incident, in the hills above Culver Falls, testifying from his wheelchair--recovering from the badly broken leg that had resulted from part of an aspen trunk landing on him during the rocket strike--before the Senate Judiciary Committee and answering questions about how he had been hired to track down fugitive Einar Asmundson, how he had successfully completed the task and was about to make a capture when a rocket, fired, he had later learned, form an unmanned but not unarmed Reaper UAV that flew overhead at the behest of Special Agent Toland Jimson. Things were not looking good for Jimson at the end of Kilgores testimony, but then came Jimsons turn. In a wheelchair himself after his back injury and surgery, he gave a compelling account of Einars attack on him after the explosion at the cache, of witnessing the helicopter crash and knowing that eight or ten of his men had probably just died because of the fugitives sabotage of the aircraft, but being unable to reach the area or help because of his own injuries, his two day struggle to reach the searchers down on the rockslide as they picked up the pieces from the crash, and by the time they got around to asking him about the unauthorized use of the rocket, Jimson had made a rather persuasive case regarding the extreme danger posed by the fugitive and the need to take special measures to ensure that he did not murder any more of his agents or the civilian tracker who had him cornered, had made himself out to be a selfless leader who sacrificed for his men by personally going into the field to ensure their safety, and had a clear majority of the Judiciary Committee members following along with rapt attention as he described his heroic role in the search. I realize that my actions were inappropriate and unauthorized, and for this I apologize. And to you, Mr. Kilgore, Jimson sought him out, looked him in the eye without blinking as he lied outright, I offer the Bureaus sincerest apology and my own personal apology as well. Had we known how near you were to the Asmundsons position, we certainly would have found another way to ensure his capture. Jimson had been, in the end, censured, but retained his post, being told by the head of the Judiciary Committee that we believe you to be the best man to head up this investigation and bring this killer to justice, so I will personally recommend to the Director that you remain in command of the search operations. But I warn you, Mr. Jimson, there must be no more unauthorized use of military hardware in or around Culver Falls or any other American town, or you will have me, personally, to answer to. Do you understand? Jimson had understood, had humbly thanked the Senator, eyes gleaming and hand going to his coat pocket where the bullet sat, waiting Bud Kilgore was rather charismatic in a gruff, unpolished sort of way, had a tandancy to always say things exactly as he saw them and soon became a favorite on the conservative

radio talk show circuit, being called on to comment not only on developments with the manhunt and the investigation into Jimsons misdeeds, but other topics as well, political and military related. He also appeared on numerous TV news magazines and talk shows, several times being interviewed by a rising journalistic star Juni Melton--nose ring and dreadlocks gone, faded plaid shirt, bandana and torn jeans replaced with neat, subdued pants suit but her assertiveness and piercing curiosity the same as ever--who had made her big break several months back with the publication of a two part series on an interview she had conducted with Einar Asmundson, after a chance encounter while out taking nature photographs with a friend. The paper that had published the interview had taken great pains, at first, to protect the student journalist that had brought them such notoriety, even going to court at one point to ensure that they would not have to give up the location where they were temporarily lodging her, but after her story became widespread and requests for TV interviews began coming in, Juni had come out of hiding, believing the danger of her disappearing had passed, and wanting to take advantage of some of those opportunities. The FBI had contacted Juni after her reappearance in public, had brought her in for questioning, but with a lawyer for the big media conglomeration that had offered her a contract present every step of the way, she had neither disappeared nor been questioned in anything other than the most civil and respectful manner, the Bureau badly needing to avoid any further bad press in connection to the manhunt at that time. Juni had in response to their questions reiterated the things Einar had told her in the interview, described to the best of her ability what she had observed of his condition and demeanor, and shown them, as well as her rather faulty memory--I never was any good with maps--would allow where his shelter in the mine had been located. Not that it especially mattered by that point, anyway, as Einar was far from that location and the feds knew it, having seen the photographic evidence, presented by Junis hiking companion and well known nature photographer Steve--who had quickly grown tired of the intense publicity surrounding the case and had refused to go on the interview circuit with Juni, returning instead to his quiet life as a nature photographer and Associate Professor of Photography at the community college in Clear Springs --showing Einar stepping in with his atlatl and darts to apparently rescue a young woman who was being accosted and rather aggressively questioned by three federal agents on a remote mountain trail. Juni had very much wanted to interview that woman, Elizabeth Riddle, she had found her name to be, had gone to Culver Falls in search of her only to find out that she was, by that time, in the protective custody of the Sheriff. Shortly after that Liz had disappeared, amidst a swirl of rumors about secret Patriot Act warrants and various other under the table dealings, and Juni had continued to seek news of her whereabouts, but in vain. Jimson, thinking of all of this as he paced the floor that evening, got out the local phone book and, closed in his office out of the hearing of the other agents, he began making calls to local outfitters, seeing who might be best able to get him, quietly, up into the search area with a horse and give him some space. This time, Asmundson, I will have you, and nobody is getting in my way.

Liz lay there silent as she absorbed the implications of what Einar had just said about Petes knife wounds, not entirely certain whether to be more distressed at the finality with which her former life had just ended, or relieved that she would no longer need to put so much effort into convincing Einar to let her stay. No going back for me, now. I know it and he knows it But there was to be no more discussion of the matter for the moment, either, because Einar had finally fallen asleep, and she sought to join him in getting a bit of rest. The cold woke both of them not long after, and Einar decided that they must move on. Outside the shelter of the tree the snow continued unabated, and while both Liz and Einar had been seriously considering changing back into their wet clothes to avoid ending up with two drenched sets and no way to dry them, the temperature seemed to have fallen a good bit as they rested, and the wet clothes had begun freezing where they hung from the tree. Liz showed them to Einar, asked what he thought they should do. Beat the ice off those, stick them in the pack. Well wear what we got on. Cold as it is, the snow shouldnt be as wet, now. Well hope it doesnt soak in as bad. Einar had, in falling earlier that evening, wrenched his leg, perhaps his hip, even, on the broken side, and moving was far more difficult than it had been before the rest. He soon found himself traveling in a haze of pain and exhaustion in which he quickly became convinced that he was alone once more, that Liz was a hallucination, an illusion, must be, that she probably always had been, but he did not care, because she spoke to him from time to time, offered him a hand when he fell and lay tangled in his crutches, head down the slope and feelingly hopelessly heavy and sluggish, unable to rise, and he decided that she was a most helpful illusion, and could stay

Local outfitters in the Culver Falls area were quite busy that time of year with scheduled hunts and out of town clients, but Toland Jimson finally found someone who would agree to set him up with a horse and guide him up into the area of the spires, but only with the agreement that he was, himself, to play no active role in any search that might be taking place, being unwilling to risk spoiling his business by gaining a reputation as a collaborator. The man, of course, did not say this to Jimson in so many words, but he got the message. It was for the best. He did not mean for this journey to become public knowledge, and the fact that the outfitter had a powerful motivation to keep it quiet suited him just fine. Jimson arranged a meeting the following morning, and spent the remainder of that night poring over maps, reviewing all of the recent intelligence that had come in regarding the case, and quietly collecting gear to take with him on a mission that he very much hoped to keep from his men, from local law enforcement and from the other agencies that were working with the FBI on the manhunt, at least, that was, until he had managed to complete the task he had set for himself. With morning the storm began moving out, the solid cover of low, slate-grey cloud thinning, beginning to show weak spots, letting in some light, though the snowfall still

continued. Einar barely noticed the change, limping along grimly on his crutches, hands numb with cold despite the pair of dry wool socks that Liz had insisted he wear on them as the night went on. They were damp now with melting snow and freezing to the handholds on his crutches, but still provided some protection. Liz stopped him periodically--he had several hours before ceased responding to her voice, but would pause if she stepped directly in front of him--and took off the socks, warming his hands against her stomach and switching out the damp and freezing wool for a pair that she had been keeping inside her shirt, drying. She tried to get him to drink whenever they stopped, to take a bite or two of pemmican, but he just shook his head and turned away, scooping up snow off of nearby evergreen boughs and eating it, instead, thoroughly convinced that Liz was a product of his chilled and failing brain, there to torment him with promises of food and drink and warmth which could not be fulfilled and keep him from partaking in the only sustenance that was actually available to him. Liz could see that his connection to reality was less than solid at the moment, did not blame him at all considering the circumstances, really wished she could convince him to take some of the willow solution to help with his leg, but knew that insisting too vigorously could prove disastrous, leading to him rejecting all of her offers of help and wasting his energy trying to get away from her. They had been traveling like this for hours, Einar knowing that he must not again rest until he had reached what he hoped would be a safe distance, and a secure hiding place, from which to wait out the search that would surely resume with the ending of the storm, Liz doing her best to keep him going, since that was what he seemed determined to do, hoping that in his confused state he had not forgotten where he was heading, had not missed some turning point or taken them out onto the wrong ridge in the storm. Dark as it was, she knew she would have been hard pressed to keep oriented without having a good image of her route set in her mind, and regularly consulting a compass, let alone managing the route-finding while half out of her mind with pain and dangerously chilled as Einar appeared to be. But he pressed on and she stayed close, helping as she could, knowing they had a limited amount of time before the weather cleared and the air search went active again and praying that they could reach shelter before that happened. As the sky began graying Einar knew he was in trouble, knew the foot of his broken leg was in danger of receiving some serious damage from the cold, that he would be faced with the major problem, once he stopped, of having no dry clothes to change into--got the bear hide though, should still be dry, itll do--and no way to get warm, but he kept thinking that if he could only reach the shelter he had in mind, an old mine tunnel that he had discovered one summer while exploring the area after a climbing trip to the spires, things would be alright. He could hole up in there, rest, leave no further tracks for his pursuers to spot from the air, live off of the bear meat in the pack--what pack? Its not in your pack. Illusion-girl has it, remember, and shes not real, so I guess that must mean you lost it somewhere, maybe never had it in the first place, sure dont remember eating much of it so that must be ittoo bad--and in effect disappear off the face of the earth until the search moved on. He could even, he supposed, use one of the two remaining candle stubs for a bit of warmth in the back of the tunnel, perhaps make a lamp or two and burn bear fat for heat and light and even to do a bit of cooking over, if it turned out that the bear had been real--sure hope that bear was real, please let it have been real,

cant do much hunting like this and Im getting awful hungry in this cold--but if the bear had been something more substantial, more tangible than the desperate hope-creations of his cold mind and starving body then he supposed there was a chance that Liz had been, as well, that she really had been there and might still be, seemed reasonable enough, as he certainly saw her plain as day there in the half-light of the stormy morning, looking very nearly as cold and worn out as he felt, and he wanted to tell her of his plan just in case, of the shelter and rest and the chance to keep going, to keep alive, that awaited them at the mine and he tried, thought he was speaking aloud to her but apparently no words were coming, because she did not react, except to take him by the shoulders and steady him, looking into his eyes and asking him some question whose meaning he could not quite make out. Well. Either Im a good bit colder than I think and not making any sense to her, or shes not really here. Either wayjust keep moving. Which he did. Endlessly, so it seemed, through a landscape that appeared to change little, consisting of an endless repetition of impossibly steep slopes that took his breath and left him shaking with exhaustion on their uphill sides, pulled mercilessly at him and threatened to send him careening down through the deepening snow to bash his brains out against a tree when he finally struggled over their summits and started down. Having a sense of where he was going he let it guide him, his instinct, the residue of his dimming memory, hoping it was correct and knowing that if daylight and the ending of the storm--with which he would have to stop traveling, lest he leave tracks that would be obvious from the air--left him trapped somewhere without adequate shelter, it would surely be only a matter of time, and not much of it, until he succumbed to the cold. He found relief, at least, in the fact that if it came to that, he would most likely be gone long before his pursuers could ever locate him. Would have liked to have something more to hope for, to work towards, but for the moment took immense comfort in that assurance. Not gonna come to that, though, because youre almost to the mine. Keep moving, Einar. Time passed, the sky grew bright with morning and with the ending of the storm, and he saw it there, the mine, the dark smear of its entrance just visible on the slope above, protected from aerial observation by a snow-heavy stand of timber, headed for it with a bit of renewed energy in his dragging step and a glimmer of hope in his heart where there had before been only the cold, steely determination to go until he could do it no more. The snow was falling more sparsely all the time as day brightened and the need to end his travels, to hole up and stop leaving tracks that might not be thoroughly filled was becoming more pressing all the time as he crossed the fairly level ground before the slope and began to climb, the angle too steep to allow for the use of the crutches. Clumsily getting them out from under his arms he hung onto the handholds and used them to drag himself up over the snowy spruce needles, trailing his injured leg and resting frequently, face down in the snow, heedless of its stinging bite on his exposed flesh, Liz lifting and pulling at him each time, encouraging him to keep moving. Finally reaching the level of the mine entrance, more than ready to crawl inside and rest, get out of the biting wind and take refuge from the air search that was sure to be coming before long, Einar stared in near disbelief at a chaotic scene of tumbled rock and caved

in, snow-covered dirt that lay where the gaping entrance had stood the last time he had been in the area. The mine was gone, finally after the passage of more than a hundred summers and winters crushed under the weight of the mountain and returned to its original state. Balancing on the crutches Einar dragged himself upright, stood, kicked at the rubble with his good foot and collapsed on the snowy ground in front of the ruined shelter, laughing.

Einar finally stopped laughing when he passed out, thinking as the light faded that he must get up and move on, find other shelter quickly before the choppers started showing up, must get up out of the snowin a minute, give me a minute Liz, trying to wake him and seeing that he was either unwilling or unable to respond, to get back to his feet, dragged him out of the deepest of the snow and over beneath an evergreen, behind it where its trunk would keep him from rolling down the hill and its scant carpet of largely snow-free needles would shield him somewhat from the cold ground. Speaking to him rather sternly and attempting to wake him--he would stir and twist away in response to her demands, but little else--she tried in vain to get him to eat, drink, anything and finally settled for simply getting him out of his wet clothes and into the bear hide, only there was nothing simple about it when she made the attempt. Einar fought her, crossing his arms and rolling away from her when she tired to get his soaked polypro shirt and buckskin vest off, mumbling something about being cold, needing his clothes, and after several minutes of trying to no avail to talk some sense into him, she gave up for the moment, concerned that his struggling might eventually send him tumbling down the steep slope below, and rolled him up in the bear hide, wet clothes and all. Einar protected for the moment from the worst of the wind, Liz hurried back over to the tumbled down rubble of the mine, taking a stick and prying at dirt and rock in an attempt to clear the debris and allow them passage into what Einar had apparently thought would make a good shelter. The work warmed her, a most welcome change, as she had grown terrible cold traveling at the crawl that had been Einars pace, clothes damp and partially frozen in the wind and storm, but she was able to make little headway, prying as she was at massive chunks of mountain-rock, tumbled and jumbled and frozen into the saturated and icy soil. Pausing at one point for breath, sweat trickling down her back and further chilling her as soon as she stopped working, Liz thought she heard Einar say something, went to him and found him to be awake again, or something like it, though not especially rationalseeming or responsive when she spoke to him. He was mumbling something about the mine, kept repeating it, and Liz eventually got the gist of what he was trying to tell her. The mine, he was saying, had only gone back a few yards, ten or fifteen feet at most, just an exploration tunnel, and from the way the hillside looked, he was sure that the entire thing must have caved in, that there was nothing left for her to find by digging. Which was a major disappointment for Liz, who had just put a good bit of effort into loosening and moving one of the offending rock slabs that lay foremost in the pile of debris, but she supposed that if the mine offered them no hope of concealment, they had better be looking for something else. The sky was clearing quickly, and surely the appearance of aircraft would soon become a problem. Looking around, she saw that there was, over to

the left of the mine, a steep little gully that cut the mountainside, the tans and greys of exposed, water-stained rock giving her some hope that they might be able to find a small ledge or overhang to shelter beneath. Tucking the bear hide back in around Einar, she hurried over to investigate. There against one wall of the steep little gully was a massive flake of rock, broken at the top, calved off from the main wall and leaning precariously-looking out into the open space of the ravine, its slow topple having been arrested by an equally massive block of broken rock that lay beneath it, obstructing the gully and forcing the water that at times flowed down its rugged course to divert, most of it finding ways around the block, but some trickling under. On the downhill side lay a rubble pile of smaller rock flakes and chunks that would serve as a stop to keep them from rolling down the steep slope and bounding off the rocks beneath. Not a comfortable situation, but the place would, Liz knew, go a long way towards shielding them from overhead detection, and while the spot beneath the leaning flake was steep and rocky and not entirely dry, she knew it would have to do. Now, if I can just get Einar down that bank and under here without him falling again Glancing back, she was most surprised to see Einar already standing at the top of the steep bank, hanging wearily between his crutches and glancing around in a state of near panic for a way down. Hurrying to him, she got behind him, hands under his arms, and helped ease him down the ten feet of nearly vertical loose rock and dirt of the bank, getting on the downhill side of him once they reached bottom to keep him from toppling over and taking a spill down the steep, snow-slick rock of the gully, pointing out to him the shelter she had found. He was trying to speak, finally managed to get a few words out. Chopper. Hear itcoming. And while she heard nothing at the moment, Liz did not doubt him at all, getting his arm over her shoulder on the injured side and helping him, limping and stumbling, beneath the leaning slab of rock. There was, beneath it, barely height enough for them to sit up, so they lay pressed against the pile of rock debris on its downhill side, Liz taking the spot against the rubble pile to keep Einar from being further chilled by having cold rock pressed up against his body on two sides. It was bad enough, she knew, that they were lying in direct contact with the icy stone floor of the place; she could feel the rock drawing the heat out of her body at an alarming rate through her wet clothes, and knew that it must be doing even worse by Einar, as little body fat as he had left. Must get the bear hide! Who knows how long we could end up stuck here? And she rose, inched forward to get out from under the slab, but Einar grabbed her arm, stopped her. Wait. Too close. She supposed he must mean the helicopter but could not hear it, herself, thought she probably had time to make it up the bank and grab the bear hide before the aircraft appeared, but Einar was adamant that she wait, so she did, very glad she had the next moment when a distinctive thumping rumble announced the approach of the airborne menace.

Toland Jimson left early that morning for the high country above Culver Falls, taking along some of his own gear and other things he borrowed from his guide, planning to stay out for several days, if necessary. The guide could see right away that he was not much of a horseman and was reluctant to allow him to go off on his own, at all, but finally after much convincing, a bit of threatening and a re-negotiation of the financial end of the agreement, he grudgingly consented to wait for Jimson up at the high camp where they were to part company. There was, the guide emphasized, another storm due in two or three days, and Jimson must be back before it hit, so they could get themselves and the horses down out of the high country before the snow became deep enough to impede their travel. Jimson agreed, eagerly leaving to begin his quest, and the guide set up camp, preparing to spend what he guessed might be more like one day than three, waiting for the return of his eccentric client. The man did not strike him as especially proficient with anything that had to do with traveling or living in the hills, and the guide expected that one chilly night alone up in the back country would probably have him hurrying back to camp, ready to head down and come up with another strategy or two for bringing in his man. Chuckling, the guide got a fire going and settled in for a cup of coffee. He had not, as Jimsons request--well, demand was more like it-- not informed the other men he worked within the outfitting business just where he was going or what sort of hunt he was guiding, which suited him just fine, as he did not wish to mar his reputation by having it become common knowledge that he dealt with such individuals. Toland Jimson was not a tracker, and knew it, was not that familiar with operating in the mountains, even, but was, fully and beyond any shadow of a doubt, convinced that he, and he alone was at this point capable of bringing Einar in, or bringing him down, only he, Toland Jimson, had a dedication and determination to bring a successful end to the manhunt that could perhaps match the fugitives determination to avoid seeing such an end, and he was equally convinced that no small matters of terrain or weather could keep him from his goal. The arrogant streak was nothing new in Jimson--his confidence had many times proven an asset in his career--but he had always kept it tightly in check and had possessed the sharp wit and mental quickness to keep it from dominating his personality to the degree that it became dangerous and began tripping him up. That had been before. The accident--attack! Asmundson attacked me, left me for dead, left me with this cane--had changed him, had left him with an all-consuming passion and obsession with the idea that he must exact his revenge, an obsession which, in combination with a number of other oversights and miscalculations, was to prove his undoing.

The morning was cold and clearing as Jimson made his way up the slope above the hunting camp near where Petes body--and the trail cam images of Liz--had been found, and he kept the horse to the dark timber, wanting to avoid detection by his own crews who were on the ground searching the snowy forest for any sign of Liz or of Einar, who they expected would be found in the same general area. In his mind Jimson had an image

of the country, developed and refined from hours spent poring over topo maps and interviewing his guide and others familiar with the area, and marked on the image were several spots he meant to investigate, places which seemed to him to offer the reasonable possibility of concealment and sustenance for the man he sought. Topping out on the ridge and following it for some distance, his breath hanging in a white cloud and mingling with that of the horse in the frigid morning air, Jimson surveyed the country below him, brushed with white, a frozen land and appearing most inhospitable. Give him to me, he spoke to the forest, to the jagged white tooth-spikes of the snow crusted spruces, the ramparts of rock that stood bleak and un-answering in the face of his demand. He is mine. No answer; the trees stood proud and silent, rock faces dumb and frozen and unreachable, impervious to his threats, uncaring. No matter. Jimson knew it would not be long. Removing his glove, he reached into his pocket, found the bullet, dropped his pistol magazine and loaded it there on top, breathing deeply of the pricklycold evergreen scented air, thin and crisp with elevation. Ready. And circled around behind an area of weird, jutting, ominous looking rock spires, shuddering at their menacing presence and started down into a wide, gently timbered bowl, pleased with the fact that he was finally beginning to feel a bit more comfortable on the horseuntil, overconfident as usual, he urged the animal down a slope far too steep for even its surefooted mountain upbringing.

For several minutes they listened as the helicopter approached and began scouring the nearby ridges and valleys, Liz counting the seconds and praying that it would soon move on so she could go and retrieve the bear hide, Einar staring with dull eyes at the rock beneath him, black, lichen-spotted, icy little rivulets of half frozen snowmelt tracing down over its rough surface, just glad that they were not still out in the open and hoping none of their tracks were visible from the air. Lying there, he tried to think ahead, to come up with a plan of some sort, but he couldnt seem to get past the present moment, past the simple yet excruciatingly difficult task of hanging on and keeping himself awake. Not gonna do, Einar. Youre both going to end up dead real quick, at this rate. Have tofind a way to stop losing heat, get warm if we canmay be stuck here a while, and this rock is killing us. Need insulation. Insulation would have to wait, though, everything would have to wait until the helicopter finished its rounds and moved on, which it seemed in no special hurry to do, just then, so he focused on the rock in front of him, studying its intricacies, the structure of its crystals and the patterns made by its population of orange and green lichen-spots, some of them darkened with ice water, struggling to keep himself in the present. Liz was saying something, asking him, it seemed, if he wanted her to try and get the hooded sweatshirt, damp and mostly frozen but surely warmer than the brutal mass of stone on which they lay, beneath his head, and he told her no, dont bother, raised his head just to show her that he could, that he was alright, youre not alrightbut she doesnt need to know that, nothing to do about it right now anyway, and Im sure shes already got plenty to worry aboutwent on staring at the lichen, trying to count the roundish patches of color, but never quite able to make it past four. The chopper left, eventually, Einar aware of its absence only when Liz pried herself out from between him and the pile of rocky rubble, scrambling up the slope after

the bear hide. Needles, he called after her, the word coming out all fuzzy and slurred sounding, but Liz understood. You want me to get pine needles for the ground? He nodded. Ground andclothes. Put in our clothes. In-insulation. OK, Ill get some. Lots. Ill be right back, have to hurry in case another chopper is coming. Dont hear it. Gotfew minutes. As hard as he tried to stay awake in Lizs absence, Einar ended up passing out a minute or two after she left, coming to when a drop, two, and then a thin stream of melting snow began trickling down the interior of the angled slab, dripping and falling not three inches from his face, splashing and splattering and eventually rousing him to push himself back a few inches, spluttering and puffing and swatting at the icy dampness on his face, so as to be out of its reach. Fully awake after that he felt in the distance the approach of another helicopter, dragged himself forward and looked for Liz, but could not see her. Please let her hear it, too! Which she must have done, because the next moment she came bounding down over the lip of the bank, barely touching the ground on the ten foot descent and tumbling beneath the slab, just as the growing intensity and depth of the rumble announced the choppers arrival in dangerous proximity to their little shelter, dragging the hastily rolled up bear hide and a large trash bag that he supposed must contain the needles in behind her. Warmed by the hurried excursion up the hill and functioning a good bit better than she had been before, Liz got the bear hide unrolled, fur side in, and helped Einar roll over onto it, joining him and tucking it in around them to form a rough, open ended sleeping bag. The hide, being as it was from a half grown bear, was not long enough to cover them from head to toe thus rolled up, and while Liz could curl up to take full advantage of its protection, Einar could not, because of the leg cast. His foot, she knew, would be in need of some serious attention after the night-long forced march through the snow and sub-freezing temperatures, and she had the spruce needles, wanted to get them down on the ground beneath the hide, but could see that she had better try and warm Einar a bit, before tending to anything else. Huddling there in the hide, his hands aching and burning fiercely as, pressed against Liz, the circulation began returning to them, Einar did his best to explain to her his intentions when it came to the use of the spruce needles, but the whole thing seemed a good bit clearer in his mind than it did when he tried to put it into words, slippery, elusive words that squirmed from his grasp before he could string them together and went slithering off down the icy rock face below, shattering and scattering on the ground, gone. She got it, though, got the idea of what he was attempting to express, and helped him stuff his clothing with the dry needles, adding some to her own and finding that though they were scratchy and at first immensely unpleasant against her cold skin, the warmth they soon trapped more than made up for and discomfort, providing a layer of protected air and heat-trapping insulation between their bodies and

the damp clothes that were all they had to wear, at the moment. Liz did notice, though, that the layer of duff tended to bunch up and collect at the lowest point with any amount of movement, and Einar tried once again to tell her something, frustrated when the words just wouldnt come. He resorted instead to showing her, taking a length of paracord from the pack and, clumsy, unable to entirely close his hands or grip with any amount of force, wrapping the cord loosely around her arm in a spiral, turning back at the top and heading back down for her hand, crisscrossing the cord and creating a quilt-like pattern that held the duff in place and prevented it from all collecting in one spot. Not too tight. Dont want toget in way ofcirculation. Just hold the stuff in place. Quickly getting the idea, Liz did the same for him, wrapping his arms and chest but running out of cord before reaching his legs. The improvised down coats made a huge difference, Liz soon tolerably warm and beginning to think about food, about what else could be done to improve their temporary shelter, though Einar seemed unable to warm much even with all that insulation. He seemed, in fact, to be drifting towards unconsciousness once more, lips purple and eyes barely open, and Liz supposed that he must simply not be able to generate enough heat to warm himself, even with the added insulation of the duff and bear hide. What he really needed, she knew, was a fire, half a dozen strategically placed warm rocks and the steam from a big mug of bear broth to breathe, but as those things were not options, she settled for retrieving the bottle of honey from the backpack and digging some--crystallized and near solid with the cold, out of the container with a stick. Einar showed no interest at all in the food, but she finally got the stick in between his chattering teeth and scraped the honey into his mouth. Im sorry, but youve got to have this. No, dont spit it out. Itll help you The honey revived Einar enough to bring him back to some sort of awareness, giving his exhausted body the fuel it needed to continue shivering and producing useful amounts of warmth, and Liz gave him more, keeping close to him and sharing her own warmth as his core temperature gradually began returning to something a bit closer to normal. Liz was hungry and growing more so in the freezing weather, did not want to use up their dwindling supply of pemmican and intended to save most of the honey for Einar, but knew she must eat to keep her strength up. Einar, I have to eat, and I dont want to use up all of the pemmican in case we need it even more later. You said its not a good idea to eat the bear meat raw, but how dangerous do you really think it is? Should I give it a try? Itsless dangerous than going on starving like this. Problem istrichinosis, but havent really been any cases of it this far South any time recently. Just Canada, Minnesota. Not my first choice of things to eat raw, butgo for it. Ill try too. Slicing off and softening a few thin strips of the meat, Liz ate, giving some to Einar who tried it, got a bite or two down but gagged on the third, seeming to have trouble with his swallowing and stopping lest he choke. It was a situation Einar had experienced before, meant, he knew, that he was on seriously dangerous ground when it came to lack of

nutrition. Well. Just have to keep trying the bear fat, honey, things I can swallow The chopper had moved on once again, and Liz crawled out of the bear hide to go for another load of spruce needles. It was looking like they would be there for the night, at least.

Jimsons horse, confident in its footing despite the slope, regained its balance quickly and managed to remain upright, and the two of them were doing fine until Jimson lost his concentration when word came over the radio that one of the search teams had found the fugitives hideout among a cluster of spectacular rock spires--I passed those a while back--apparently rigged with explosives. In his haste to get the horse turned and headed back in the right direction he forced the creature once again to do something it was not comfortable with, urging it up a sharply angled slope of snow and loose, shaley rock, the horse again losing its footing, spilling Jimson onto the ground and rolling over him as it fell. Toland Jimson lay where he had fallen against the tree that had stopped his tumble, his horse some distance down the slope, back on its feet and apparently uninjured but badly spooked and unwilling to come to him. Jimson found himself unable to move to go to it, something in his barely-healed back having let go, so he lay there, blinking hard to see through the white hot splinters of pain that cascaded across his vision, fumbling for his radio, his only connection to possible help, only to find it gone. Returning with another bag of spruce needles to put beneath the bear hide as insulation from the cold rock of the ground and to keep the un-smoked hide from direct contact with the increasingly wet rock, Liz again ducked beneath the shelter of the rock shortly before the appearance of yet another helicopter--or the same one, making a return pass, she could not tell--and dragged the bag in behind her. Einar had propped himself up on the backpack and had been struggling to reach the drenched and partially frozen sock that covered his toes where they stuck out of the cast, but seemed to have fallen asleep or drifted into a daze of some sort along the way, and Liz helped him lie back on the bear hide, took off the sock and checked the toes, which showed a few small white patches on their tips, some of the toes cracked around the nails and oozing blood, but not yet appearing to have been too badly damaged. She warmed the toes between her hands, Einar awake again and glad that the feeling seemed quick in returning. Looks like a little bit of frostbite, she told him, but not too bad. We need to find a better way to protect your foot, though. Yeah. Froze a couple of those toes last winter. Cant let it happen again. Need some sort of boot thatll fit over the castbut for now, better get some bear grease on there. Itll protect the toes some, help heal the damage thats already been done. She saw that he had a chunk of the cold-solidified bear fat in his hand, un-melting despite his efforts, took it from him and began softening it in her warmer hands, had an idea. Searching the pack for the hounds tongue leaves they had earlier dried and stored away, she chewed a couple of them to mash and warm them before softening the bear grease

further and mixing the two ingredients, applying the finished salve to Einars cracked and bleeding toes and fingers, using some on her lips, which had suffered similar damage from the cold and wind and which hurt and bled whenever she spoke or smiled, offering Einar some for the same purpose. Now thats improvising, Liz! Real good idea. I would not have thought of that, right now. He was not, in fact, thinking of much of anything that morning, was having a very difficult time staying awake and knew that he must do something to improve his situation if he wanted to have any chance of making it through the coming night, which, with the clearing skies, was almost certain to be bitterly cold, especially trapped as they were likely to be beneath the rock slab, due to the ongoing air search. Frustrated at his inability to do the things that needed doing, to help Liz, even, Einar tried to content himself by getting out some of the nettle stalks Liz had earlier harvested and carried along, beginning to prepare them for making cordage. His hands were not working properly though, were terribly clumsy and claw-like, the awful, burning ache in his leg was making it hard to focus on anything, and he soon found himself abandoning the cordage effort in favor of lying wrapped in the bear hide with his hands in his armpits, just trying to avoid losing too much more body heat and praying that the air search might soon move on so they could, too, could warm themselves with movement and find a better spot in which to shelter. Liz watched his struggle and could see his frustration, joined him in the bear hide, lying on her stomach and working with the extra pairs of dry socks they had left--two, between them--finding the bag of carefully collected and dried milkweed down, placing two of the wool socks one inside the other and stuffing them, focusing especially on the toe area, with the down. Next she retrieved a long thin strand of sinew and a bone needle from the rawhide pouch in which Einar kept his sewing supplies, working in a diagonal pattern as she quilted the two socks together to hold the down in place. Einar watched her, nodded gratefully when she explained what she was doing, but was rather too weak and cold to carry on the conversation she tried to engage him in. The leg was bothering him terribly, she could see it, and she offered him the last of the willow solution, which he accepted, swallowing it ice crystals and all and wondering if they had any willow bark left, fairly certain that he still had a good sized coil of it in his pocket. The quilted sock proved to be tedious work for Liz and took a good while, and she stopped periodically to check on Einar and urge him to eat bits of honey, fat and bear meat, also offering him water enriched with cattail starch and honey and warmed slightly by keeping the bottle close to her as she worked, but he was sick, had no appetite, his eyes alternately bright with a fever that she supposed must be brought on by the hurt in his leg and dull, half closed as the fever left him and he froze again, further chilled by his own sweat. His mind wandering as he went quickly back and forth from sweating to freezing--literally, almost--Einar found himself back in the early days of the manhunt, pressed into the ground in the woods above his hastily concealed truck as a Forest Service vehicle pulled up and stopped not fifteen feet from the embankment he had rolled it over, men getting out and seeming to see the tracks--as carefully as he had gone back and tried to conceal them--where he had plowed it through the brush, and Einar tossed

and groaned in his sleep, distressed that he needed to be hurrying up the slope before his presence was detected, but could not because his leg was pinned beneath an immense weight that was crushing it, twisting the bone and threatening to splinter it in two. Thats what it felt like, anyway, but he was confused because he certainly could not remember any such thing happening that early on it the chase, and at that moment he realized that he had only been dreaming, must have been, the fever again diminishing and the present reality returning to him in fragments and bits and icy little splinters that crept up his spine and drove themselves in between his ribs, through his limbs and into his bones, freezing him, pinning him to the icy rock even as they mercilessly shook his exhausted body in their frigid grasp. Another helicopter. He heard it, low, approaching, supposed its rumble must have been what woke him. Liz looked up from her work, recognized a spark of wakefulness, awareness in his eyes where there had been none for some time, offered him water. He accepted, turned so that he could see what she had done with the sock project, admiring her work and noticing Susans small Bible, which Liz had been reading during hand-warming breaks in her sewing work, sitting there open on the rock. Didnt know...had that. Yes. It was in Susans jacket pocket. Ive been keeping it in my pack. Should I read you something? Please She had been reading from the Book of Ruth, but decided to find something else for Einar, paged forward and began reading aloud: The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me To eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, In this I will be confident. (Psalm 27:1-3) She had nearly finished the stitching on the doubled up, insulated slipper-sock, paused to stuff yet more milkweed down into the series of long tubes that had been created spiralwise around the sock, tamping the silky stuff down with a stick to allow more to fit before beginning the second set of spiral stitches that would turn the tubes into rows of diamonds, holding the insulation in place and preventing it from bunching up. One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD. (Psalm 27:4-6) Done with the stitching she paused in her reading, got out her knife and chose the lower

section of one of the bears back legs, measured and cut it, hoping Einar would not mind but knowing he was going to end up losing toes or worse if they did not come up with some way to protect his foot. Making a few more cuts on the separated section she began sewing it, too, with sinew, creating an over-boot for the insulated sock that she knew would get stiff and hard once it got wet a few times, but which she also believed would offer a tremendous amount of warmth and protection to the foot in the cast. Sewing so that the over boot would end up fur-side out for traction, she used the knife to punch a series of holes near the top of the boot, so a cord could be run through it and the thing cinched tight around his cast, somewhere several inches above the ankle. Pausing in her work to glance over at Einar she saw that he had fallen asleep, read silently to herself the next few verses of the Psalm, then read the last two, her favorites, aloud: I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psalm 27:13-14) Einar slept then for some time as Liz finished the bearskin over boot and carefully tried it on for fit, his face peaceful and the pain apparently somewhat less, though the chill remained a source of constant struggle, even in his sleep. With evening nearing, Liz took advantage of a break in air traffic to leave the shelter for a few minutes and fill two of the water bottles in a nearby spot in the gulley where, sun-warmed on the rocks above, some of the snow had been melting to trickle down the rocks and collect in a little water-worn pocket, etched, she supposed, over thousands of years into the granite. The cold became a palpable force that evening as the sun left the slopes and the warmth of the day quickly drained away into the wide open expanse of the clear, high altitude sky, menacing, and it frightened her, had never frightened her before when she had adequate clothing and enough to eat, but nowpreparing for the coming of the night, clear, frigid, she had to remind herself rather forcefully of the words of the Psalm she had earlier read to Einar. As the evening progressed and temperatures in the little gully plummeted, Liz would go outside and exercise whenever she began growing too cold, scrambling up over the rocks between helicopters or jumping and dancing and swinging her arms, and after five or ten minutes of that she always found herself a good bit warmer, hands flexible once again and her single layer of leaf and duff-stuffed clothing feeling closer to being adequate, but it was a lot of work on her short rations, tiring, and she doubted Einar would have been able to manage it, even if his leg had not been all but useless. Which it was, so he lay there, freezing. She gave him more cattail-starch water, warmed frozen slivers of bear meat for him, tried to get him to eat them with bits of honey and bear fat, but he seemed to be having increasing difficulty swallowing, and stopped trying the meat after nearly choking once again. Returning from yet another of her exercise forays just before dark, Liz found Einar dangerously hypothermic again, his color poor, barely responsive, his temperature down to ninety three degrees when she took the time to check it with the thermometer from the medical kit, and she lay down with him to begin the slow process of bringing his temperature back up by a few degrees, realizing that she had better remain

with him in the bear hide for the rest of that night, providing a heat source. Liz slept-what little sleep she managed to get that night--with her arms around him, head against his back just to make sure he kept breathing, knowing that in the morning, even if it meant traveling in ten foot increments because of the air search and Einars injuries, they must seek better shelter.

Jimson spent a rather chilly afternoon lying under the tree not far from where he had fallen when he and his horse had parted. After trying numerous times and without any success to persuade the horse to approach him, he rolled painfully onto his side, checked the contents of his pocket in the hopes of being able to make a fire, both for warmth and in an attempt to get the attention of one of the passing helicopters, a task, he knew, which might in the heavy timber where he had ended up and seeing that he was not directly beneath their path, prove more difficult than remaining undetected would have. I cant spend the night out here and shouldnt have to. If the fire doesnt work out, Ill just crawl around until I find the radio. There it was, his lighter, he felt it, pulled it out, tried to work it with hands already grown chilled and stiff, as he had shortly before falling removed his gloves to facilitate working the radio, and had lost them in the fall. It took him many tries before he was able to get flame, and when he did he realized that he had not prepared any wood, could not immediately see anything that looked burnable, all the spruce needles within his reach being quite damp with snow. He was afraid to let go of the lighter, though, afraid to let the flame go out, unsure whether he would be able to get it back, so he lay there gripping the device in one hand, fumbling frantically in his pocket with the other until he found a crumpled tissue, only slightly damp from use, and pulled it out, quickly lighting it and holding his hands over the spreading flame. Which did not last long at all, leaving Jimson sorting through his pockets once again for flammable materials. Nothing. Hastily collecting the small scraps of paper that had not been burnt up, he tore off his hat and stashed them in it, searching around for anything else that he might use to get a fire going. High above him in the spruce he had come to rest beneath here were a number of dead branches, and he knew that if he could reach them, one of them, even, he ought to be able to get a fire going, though a knife certainly would have helped in shaving off the fine slivers that would make such a task much easier, and he had unfortunately left his only knife in one of the saddlebags. Not that it mattered much. He doubted he would be able to stand to reach those branches, anyway. Before another hour went by, Jimson knew that he must try. The snow had soaked through his pants in places, and though his coat was quite adequate for his top half, he doubted it would remain so come sunset. Rolling onto his stomach he tried to get his knees under him, tried to rise but was sent sprawling back to the ground by the pain. He had hurt his back again falling like that before it had been given the chance to fully heal, knew he probably shouldnt have been out on a horse at all so soon--shouldnt have been on a horse at all, dont know anything about horses--and was not particularly surprised that he could not feel his left leg at all. Done it this time, havent you? Now get this fire going so they can pull you out of here. Youve got a job to finish. Speaking of which nearly frantic at the thought of possibly having lost it, his hand went to his side, searching

for his pistol. Still there, right where he had left it in its shoulder holster, and Jimson was immensely relieved, paused in his fire starting efforts to drop the magazine and take a look at the bullet, Einars bullet, Im coming, Asmundson. This is not going to stop me. In the distance he heard another helicopter--their search seemed centered somewhere several miles behind him in the direction of those rock spires that had been mentioned over the radio, and he wondered whether they had managed to safely diffuse the explosive device yet that had he had heard them talking about, or if they were still waiting for qualified teams to arrive for that task, suspected the latter--and hoped this one might make it over to his location, might see something they though worth further investigation. A helicopter came over, then, passing directly over his position, fairly low though he could just catch the barest glimpse of it through the trees as it thundered over. Irrational as he knew it was, Jimson shouted at the chopper, waving his arms and trying to get his voice to carry across the immensity of the sky, pushing it to escape the massive damping sink of the forest, all to no avail, of course. As the thundering died away into the distance, Jimson began for the first time growing seriously frightened, beginning to think about the prospect of dying out there, freezing. He had not had anything to drink since that morning and, terribly dry after all that shouting, began to eat snow. A few minutes later the Huey returned for another pass, and Jimson, still unseen beneath the heavy cover of timber that covered him and feeling deliberately slighted, railed against the incompetent bumbling fools who could not find him, who must not be looking at anything but the scenery as they cruised over the mountains and it was no wonder they could not find Asmundson, the idiots, heads were going to roll when he got back, they could expect a monumental shakeup, yes, indeed! The chopper, having made a wide slow circle over the timbered basin was moving on, its rumble beginning to fade into the distance. Come back! Look at me! See me! Why dont you see me, d*mn it? He was screaming again, pounding the ground, finally realizing that he had bloodied his fist, skinning his knuckles without ever feeling a thing, and he stopped, scared, silent. Toland Jimson, like many who feel a need to throw their weight around and constantly assert themselves over others, was not an especially courageous man, could not stand the thought that he might end up perishing alone in the cold on some forsaken mountainside ten miles outside of Nowhere, USA, that he might--he felt a bit of welcome warmth creep up his neck at the thought, his rage kicking in once again--be outlived by Asmundson! No. Forget that! Im starting that fire, and Im doing it now. Gritting his teeth and whimpering in pain he pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the tree and reaching for the nearest dead dry branch, pulling it and finally succeeding in breaking it off, tumbling with it back to the ground where he lay face down for a good minute before he could bring himself to try moving again, shouting in anger at the horse when he finally managed to get himself rolled over, ordering the animal to come to him, demanding that it come, knowing that the pain pills he was taking for his back were in one of those saddle bags, cursing himself for not keeping them in his pocket and the horse for being so stubborn in staying away from him. The horse, glancing up at the madly raving human critter on the hillside, just snorted and went back to pawing at the ground to reveal the still-green clumps of alpine grass that it had been dining on. Brushing off the wet snow from where it had lain on the ground while he railed at the

horse, Jimson got the spruce branch broken into shorter lengths, built them up into a pyramid--it had been a very long time since he had started a fire on anything but a barbecue grill, but he remembered that much--and carefully placed the fragments of halfburned tissue beneath it, getting out the lighter and with much difficulty, as his hands were even stiffer and less useless than before, struck flame. The tissue went right away, flashed and burned and was gone, black fragments floating away on the breeze, his pyramid on dry wood entirely untouched. Angry and impatient but seeing his mistake, Jimson chose one of the sticks that had split in the middle when he broke the branch from the tree, began working it with his fingers until he was able to split off and free a number of thinner splinters, carefully placing them up under the pyramid of larger wood, continuing until he had quite a stack of them but stopping several times to wipe his hands on his pants in frustration, muttering invectives against the glob of pitch that stuck to his hand when he brushed it up against the tree trunk, smearing as it warmed and causing the little wood splinters to stick as well, making his job more difficult. He finally got the sap to stop being sticky by pressing his hand into the snow for a minute, chilling the pitch. Another problem. He had no tinder, having burnt up all the tissue, and not wanting to risk losing the fire again to his careless haste, he again searched his pockets, growling angrily when his pitch-coated hand momentarily stuck to the fabric, but coming up with nothing that seemed useful as tinder. Then, he had a though. Gunpowder! He seemed to remember hearing that it could be used, seeing a demonstration on some cable TV survival show or another, and quickly pulled out his pistol and retrieved a round--not Einars round, but the one beneath it in the magazine. OK. Now I just need to pull the bullet, I guess, dump this stuff in a pile--here, I can put it on this little piece of bark--and light it off, and I should be in business! Youve got nothing on me, Asmundson! See? I can get along just fine, out here. Get this thing going, throw on some green branches to make smoke, and rescue should be on the way in minutes. Nowas I remembered, the guy on that show used the primer to light off the powder, hit it with a pointy rock or something, but I cant really see any reason to do that, since I have the lighter. He did, though, not wanting to risk failure yet again with the sun beginning to slip behind the ridge, take the time to pull out another round, work the bullet free and dump its powder also onto the growing pile on the little bark slab. In doing so, hands cold and clumsy, he nearly managed to knock down the little pyramid of finely split wood that he had painstakingly pulled and stripped from one of the branches, precariously balanced as it way on one of the leaning sticks of the larger pyramid. Rearranging a few things, he again got out the lighter and struggled to get it lit, held it to the slab of bark and touched off the powder. The good sized pile of fast burning pistol powder went up in a cloud of flame and smoke scattering his meticulously prepared kindling pile and even a few of the larger sticks out into the snow, Jimson reeling back, coughing. When he managed to stop coughing and open his stinging eyes, he found himself looking at smoking bits of kindling lying forlornly in the snow, none of them glowing and all by then thoroughly wet. Too much powder. Furious, he gathered up the few pieces of wood that had remained reasonably dry, rearranged them and held the lighter under them, determined to have his fire and supposing that, eventually, even the larger sticks that were left would have to go up in flame. Which they would havebut not on the amount of fuel Jimson had left in that lighter. The lowest stick had just begun

to show a reddish, smoldering patch in its yellow wood when the lighter died, Jimson shaking it and trying again to get it lit, realizing but at first not accepting that it was empty. By the time he tossed it aside in disgust into the snow, the smoldering patch had gone dark, smoking gently but showing only the faintest hint of red near its center when lay on his stomach in the snow and blew on it. Not that it mattered. He had no tinder, anyway, to add to catch a spark from the dying ember. Jimson, angry, scared, his back hurting terribly, facing the prospect of a freezing night out in the open with no way to summon help and no hope of improving his situation, let his hand stray inside his coat, close around his pistol, thought quite seriously for a moment about using it and probably would have, but for the realization that Einars bullet was on top. That thought gave him pause, a bit of time to think before acting. His rage at Einar and his determination to exact revenge upon the fugitive proving more powerful, at the moment, than the unspeakable terror that came over him at the prospect of dying a slow and agonizing death in the winter woods, he left the pistol in its place, pulled his hand out of the jacket and sat quietly, thinking. You need fire. Now, the flint on that lighter is still good, and if it makes sparks that ignite the gas, surely you can ignite something else with them, right? Butwhat good are sparks going to do me if I couldnt even get this stuff to light with the lighter flame? Not a chance. Wracking his brain for any idea, Jimson thought about trying a bow and drill, having seen it demonstrated once in the dim and distant past and thinking he could perhaps remember enough of the specifics to succeed, but it was nearly dark by that point, and, wet enough from lying in the snow, he decided not to become more so by crawling all over the hillside scrounging for materials to try a method of fire starting that likely as not he would not be able to manage, anyway, and he huddled down on the slightly drier duff just beneath the spruce, preparing for the worst night of his life.

Einar and Liz, just over two miles away beneath their leaning slab of rock, prepared for night also as the light faded and the cold set in, wishing also for a fire, for warmth and a better chance of surviving the long dark hours that they knew were coming, but no more able to access its benefits than Toland Jimson, though for very different reasons.

The bear was asleep, the deep, peaceful sleep of early winter hibernation, a heavy blanket of snow carpeting the steep North facing slope where it had chosen to take refuge for the winter, digging in and enlarging an already existing cavity in the soft soil beneath a jutting ledge of schist that overhung the den entrance by a good four or five feet, providing a bit of extra protection. Einar could hear the animals breathing as he crouched there on the small flattish area of rock and dirt outside the den, its cover of snow thin and spotty because of the protection of the ledge and of the trees above, his head just inside the opening, himself barely daring to breathe. In his hand his spear waited, bone tip gleaming white, backlit by the dim glow of evening light on snow, light filtered through the thick, entangled branches of acres and acres of spruces, standing as

an unbroken mass on the high slope, neat and regular as the hairs on a horses flank, concealing a steeply angled world of boulders and gullies and half frozen little springs and creeks beneath their cover. A gently breeze sighed up the slope as evening breezes tended to do in that area, past Einar and into the den; it was time. Once more fluffing up the wad of finely rubbed aspen inner bark that sat beneath a low cone of finely split spruce wood he struck sparks, the breeze eliminating any need for him to lie down and blow the little flames to life. Quickly adding two small green branches as the dry wood crackled to life, he scrambled out from beneath the ledge, pausing to make sure the smoke was being blown into the den and climbed atop it, crouching there with the spear poised, ready. Just as the bear, sluggish, reluctant, woke and lumbered grumbling and confused out to the entrance in search of breathable air Einar lunged, thrusting the spear Liz woke him with a sharp jerk to the collar of his shirt that sent him toppling over backwards onto the cold, ice-slick floor of their little shelter, spine and shoulder blades stinging from the sharp contact despite the layer of padding in his shirt, pulled back from the brink of the dropoff below just as he had appeared poised to launch himself into its blackness from the rubble pile against which they had been sleeping. She had not stopped him when, an hour or two into the night and shortly after he had finally managed to warm enough to begin catching a bit of restless sleep, he had sat up, crawled over her and sat on two foot high rubble pile, his casted leg dangling precariously out over the precipice and appearing as though it could unbalance him and pull him down, an atlatl dart in his hand, but she had, watching him in the gleaming light of the half moon that bathed the snow covered world in a harsh brilliance that night, eventually realized that he was not quite awake, was sitting there freezing and unaware, appearing about to do something whose results could be nothing short of disastrous. Einar lay on the shelter floor, struggling as Liz pinned down the arm that held the dart, trying not to hurt him but realizing that to let him go at the moment probably meant to die. She supposed she would be dead already, trying a thing like that, had not the past days journey and the short rations of the preceding few so weakened him. As it was, she found herself easily able to restrain him. Liz had not been incorrect in her concern for her life, as Einar was convinced beyond doubt at that moment that something had gone terribly wrong and the bear ended up on top of him, and fully intended to drive his spear into its stomach. He finally stopped struggling when she spoke to him, lying there exhausted and shaking as the dream slowly faded, trying to form words to ask Liz just what she thought she was doing. Einar, if I let you up now, can I be sure you wont run me through with that dart? You really had me worried there for a minute. Uhyeah. He let go of the dart, allowing it to clatter to the ground. Youre safe. Bears gone? Guess the bears gone. Wheres my spear? You told me it broke, a long time agoremember? You made a new spearhead but

havent put it together yet. He nodded, rolled over, with her help, back onto the bear hide, freezing again. That must have been some dream you were having. Was it the bear that came after you just before you broke your leg, or the one whose cub we got? Ohneither. Wasnt that sort of dream. Was actually kind of a good one, for a change, till you tackled me His voice was serious, strained in the cold, but in the moonlight she could see him grinning, trying unsuccessfully to keep his teeth from chattering as he huddled there in the bear hide. Did I ever tell youhow the Kutchin tribe in Alaska used to hunt black bears in the winter? She shook her head, drew the bear hide closer around them, seeking to begin trapping some warmth again and wishing Einar had not found it necessary to disturb the bed and go sit out on the icy rocks just when he had seemed to be returning to some semblance of normal and she had begun hoping they might make it through the night without coming too close to death Oh, well. That would have been too much to ask, I guess. And he seemed to be doing fairly well, better, in fact, than she had seen him since they arrived at the shelter, but she supposed it was probably due in large part to the adrenalin of waking up thinking he was fighting off an angry bear. She could tell he was still awfully cold, though she was, herself, doing a good bit better with the thick padding of quilted spruce needles in her clothes. They were certainly insulating, if rather scratchy. Well, Einar continued with the story, bears are fattest just aftergoing into hibernation so the Kutchin would go out, look forden, then when they found it would either dig in from above and spear the bear or in more recent times shoot it, or if they couldnt do that, would make a little fire in the entrance, smoke the critter out. One of them would be waiting just above the den entrance to spear it or, sometimes, just jump on it with a knife. Though I dont think Id much like to try that last method, with a broken leg! Wow. I hope youre not thinking of trying any of the methods, right now! Thats a pretty interesting way to hunt bears, though. Yes. And I was thinkinggonna need more meat than what we got right now, especially if this search goes on for a while and were not able to get out as much as we would be otherwise to run a trap line. With cold weather here we dont need to worry about preserving the meat, no need to have a fire to keep flies away. And weve really got to have more hides so we dont have to repeat this every time we go out in the snow. This spending the night freezing half to death in wet clothes because we got nothing to change into and no way to dry anything out. Did a lot of that last winter and it obviously worked, but came awful close to not working, a few times. And I had been eating better then, had a little more fat on me. Dont know that I can do it again right now, and sure dont want you to have to. We need another bear. We need to get through the night, first, Liz wanted to tell him, need to find a way to move

you to some better shelter and wait for this search to die down, need to let you rest so your leg can heal up and you wont be in too much pain to eat, half the time, because this sure isnt working. Cant you see that? But, expecting that he was already acutely aware of those facts, she kept silent, and they eventually slept.

It did not take Toland Jimson, freezing in his damp clothes beneath the tree, many hours to figure out that he would not be making it through the night if he remained still and without a source of heat. He needed a fire, knew he had to have one, tried the lighter over and over, shaking it, holding it upside-down in the hopes of finding some last remaining drop or two of unspent fuel, warming it--and his half frozen hands--against his skin and trying again, thinking he remembered hearing something once about lighters not working as well in the cold, but no matter how many times he tried, the lighter remained empty, no flame appearing. Enraged and increasingly scared, unable to find his hat after having thrown it in frustration earlier, Jimson dragged himself to his feet, took a few lurching steps towards a dark blotch in the snow that he hoped might be the hat, collapsed beside it, his hands closing aroundrock. A cold, partially snow-covered rock, nothing more, and he crawled forward, investigating several other similar dark spots, disappointed each time. Jimson finally gave up, frustrated and exhausted and damp with sweat from dragging himself up and down the hillside, huddling under the tree with his jacket up over his head in a desperate but rather belated attempt to conserve heat. Many times during the night he heard the helicopters off in the distance as they crisscrossed the ridges and valleys, but they never did seem to get close enough to spot him.

Jimson could see light through his eyelids, had the impression that the sun was out but couldnt open his eyes, his rising breath having frozen on the lids there under his coat in the night, and, close to panic, he pulled his head up out of his jacket, swatted at his face with unfeeling hands. Finally, a crack of light, and he was able to open his eyes after rubbing them on his sleeve to free up the ice. Not that there was much to see. Steep, patchy snow, trees, more trees, his whole dismal world was full of those horrid, spikytopped trees, each looking to him exactly like the next, black and hostile and menacing against a sky of flat grey. Be back in two days, the outfitter had said, because snow is coming. He supposed the grey sky, the icy, restless wind of the morning must mean the snow was on its way. He was cold. Had stopped feeling the aching chill in his feet sometime in the night, couldnt really feel his legs either, for that matter, and they responded by flopping to the side like dead fish when he asked them to move, nerveless, useless, and he hoped they might improve as he warmed, but suspected that their condition might be due as much to his re-injured back as to the cold. Or some combination. I have to get out of here, have to get help, soon. Why arent they looking for me? Why havent they seen me? Wheres the outfitter? He should have realized by now that something is wrong But even as he asked the questions the answers were plain to him. His plight was of his own making; he had told his secretary before leaving the compound that morning that he had a bit of local business to attend to before flying

back to Washington for three days, and the outfitterwell, the outfitter had been given strict instructions to wait for him at camp, no matter how long he was gone, though the man had strongly urged him to be back by the second night, because of the predicted arrival of a major weather front. Realistically, Jimson knew that no one should even begin suspecting anything had gone wrong until he failed to show up at the outfitters camp that night, and then the man might just chalk up his absence to an intention to spend an additional day searching, despite the weather. That means at least one more night out here probably, if I cant get a fire going. The prospect of which left Jimson even more glum than before--not only had he missed his dinner the previous night, something he was not at all accustomed to doing, and frozen all night sitting on a pile of damp pine needles, but there was no coffee to be had that morning, none at all--as he seriously doubted that he could make it through another night, and was not even sure he wanted to. He had, in fact, been a bit surprised to discover that he had survived the night at all, supposed it must be due to a combination of factors, probably including the big hearty meal the outfitter had prepared for him the morning before, the fact that he had slept with his head tucked inside his jacket to keep the warmth of his breath from escaping, and the reasonably generous spare tire that several years of desk work and little time to get out and do much else had given him. Having always bothered him before, he expected the insulating ring of blubber had probably helped quite a bit in keeping him warm enough to stay alive that night. But that wont last for long, out here with nothing to eat. Im starving! I wish that horse, he glanced down the slope, saw the animal standing placidly in the little clearing, cropping at the grass its pawing had exposed, wish that horse would come up here and let me get at the saddle bags. But it wont. No matter how I yell, how I talk to itmaybe its afraid of the slope. Or of me. Ill just have to go down there to it, I guess, hope it wont take off running. And if it doeswell, Ill just have to shoot it. A threat that he spoke aloud the next moment, addressing the horse far down the hill below him and ending with a weird, harsh little laugh, half at the thought of blasting the obstinate animals brains all over the snow covered woods--he had never liked horses, had never liked large animals of any sort, for that matter, not even dogs, could not imagine how anyone could come to trust them, let alone enjoy their company--and half at himself for thinking he would be capable of getting down there close enough to do so, if the creature had any desire to keep away from him, as it certainly appeared to have. Movement had been slow for him the previous evening, but that morning, when he tried it, was near impossible. But not entirely impossible, as he was to find out when, several minutes later, he spotted the radio in the snow some thirty feet above him and to the right on the slope, having fallen and become trapped by a protruding rock when he took his tumble from the horse. There! His salvation awaited him, he could and would save himself by reaching that radio and calling for help, would be in the air on the way to Clear Springs within the hour, pulled out of there way ahead of the storm, warm, eating, would get his back patched up again and would soon be back to the work of hunting down and killing the fugitivejust have to reach it, first. Easier said than done. He couldnt stand that morning, couldnt seem to do much with his legs, at all, got himself flipped over onto his stomach and tried to crawl, but wasnt able to do that, either, so began dragging himself,

grabbing onto gooseberry bushes and chokecherry shoots and whatever he could get his numb, nearly immobile hands on, wanting to keep his face and chest up out of the snow as well as he could, but nearly overwhelmed with pain when he tried lifting his front half too far, bending his back. Soon reduced to dragging himself forward with his hands and elbows, head turned to the side and his cheek resting on the snow most of the time, Jimson was oblivious to the fact that his coat was scooping up snow as he dragged himself along, packing it in around his neck and soaking his shirt and the inside of the jacket. Neither did he realize that his hands, already numbed after the long night and beyond feeling pain, were turning almost as white as the snow he was clawing and scrabbling at with them as he strove desperately towards his goal. A goal which seemed to be growing further away with each foot he climbed, the slope steepening sharply and Jimson twice losing his hold on the mountainside and slipping backwards, requiring him to start all over again, once from lower down than he had been when he first saw the radio. Finally, exhausted and near passing out from wrenching and twisting his injured back, he reached the rock behind which the radio was trapped, grabbed it and hauled himself up, resting his forehead on the snow and wheezing for breath for a good three minutes before could manage to do anything about the radio. Pinching the device between the heels of his bloodless hands, he used his teeth to turn the power knob. Nothing. Again, he tried it again, shook the radio and tapped it against the rock, hoping to reestablish whatever lost connection was keeping it from powering up, but still, nothing. Beginning to get a bit frantic he again shook the radio, just a bit too vigorously this time, losing his tenuous grip on it and sending it careening off down the slope, but not, to his relief, very far. Hurriedly glancing behind him at the fallen log that had stopped the radios slide, Jimson immediately saw the problem, saw why there was no power and would not be. The back cover was gone, empty battery compartment packed with snow. Releasing his hold on the rock he slid down beside it, flat on his face in the snow. The plunging temperatures that night were checked by an incoming overcast that crept in, driven by a restless breeze and soon obscuring the moonlight, and by the time Einar and Liz woke, Einar first, startled to alertness by a low-flying plane that hummed its way up the flank of the timber bowl, banked and disappeared around the shoulder of the ridge beyond it, the clouds were hanging low and heavy in a flat, leaden sky, the air smelling of snow. Badly chilled, muscles stiff and aching and his leg not feeling much better than it had the night before but alive and glad to see daylight once again, Einar got himself into something like a sitting position there in the cramped confines of the space beneath the slab, fearing for his casted foot and anxious to check the toes for any additional frostbite that might have occurred during the night. He was surprised to find the foot well protected by Lizs three layer slipper boot--two wool socks stuffed with a good quantity of milkweed down, encased in the bear hide over-boot--as he had no memory of her putting it on his foot and only a dim recollection of seeing her working on it the previous evening. Inside, his toes, though cold and hurting, could be moved, had feeling, and not wanting that to change, he left the boot in place. Liz was stirring, sat up also and set about preparing a cold breakfast of bear fat, honey and thinly sliced frozen bear meat. Snows coming. Tonight, tomorrow, maybe. Serious enough storm, and well be able to

have a fire. Oh, that would be good! How are your feet? Mostly OK, I think. Wouldnt have been, without this boot. Thanks. I can add more stuffing between the outer sock and the bear hide, if you need it. Maybe you should try walking, first. I didnt want to make the boot so bulky that it will catch on the ground. He nodded. You alright? I think so. The spruce needles helped a lot. I was feeling almost warm by the time morning came, all except for my legs and feet. Einar nodded again, looked away as his face twisted up at the pain of moving his injured leg, and Liz could see that he was trying terribly hard to keep her from seeing just how great a toll the night had taken on him. Wanting to make things easier for him, she again busied herself with the breakfast, handing him some half frozen bear lunch meat smeared with crystallized honey and rolled up, and Einar ate it despite the nausea it brought him, knowing that he must either do so or find himself unable to travel. Checking to make certain that they were leaving nothing behind, they crawled out from beneath the slab, Liz helping Einar up the steep bank and helping him get settled on the crutches. The air search--the helicopter portion, anyway--seemed centered some distance from their location that morning, the focus having shifted sometime in the night to an are up in back of the spires, and Einar wished he knew just what that meant, but was encouraged by the fact that it at least seemed to indicate that no one had managed to get on their trail, no one was too close, yet. Good. Means we can cover some more distance before this next storm breaks, find a spot to hole up and let it all go on around us while we eat and sleep Speaking of sleeping, he had nearly fallen asleep on his feet just then, kicked at a rock with his bad foot to keep himself alert and took off on his crutches, keeping to the heavy timber where any tracks they left would be less obvious and reminding Liz to do the same. Hopeful as Einar had been in starting out that morning, the reality of his condition soon caught up with him, and as one slow hour passed and another began, Liz had to keep waking him, catching when he began toppling forward on the crutches and giving him tastes of honey to keep him going, rubbing snow in his face to return him to alertness when that stopped working. Several times she suggested stopping--he thought she did, anyway; afterwards he was to have little memory of that days travels--but he insisted that they must keep moving, must take advantage of the clear spot between storms and cover some distance, kept telling her that he could do it, and he did, taking occasional refuge beneath heavy stands of timber or, better, overhanging rocks whenever the drone of a small plane began approaching. That, and the deeper rumble of the choppers, was a noise that seemed able to pierce through even his deepest exhaustion and get his attention, for which he was grateful.

When after some time Liz asked him if it would be alright for her to go on ahead and look for a place for them to shelter, returning for him when she had found it, Einar, half asleep, understood her to mean that she saw a likely looking spot and wanted to go and investigate it before they made the climb, and, nodding, he gladly sank to the ground beneath a spruce for what he expected to be a brief rest, Liz tucking the bear hide in around him and leaving. Einar, asleep almost instantly after Lizs departure, was to review that conversation many, many times over the following days, wracking his brain as he tried to piece together what had happened, what she had said, just what he had agreed to, where she had gone

With the absence of Toland Jimson at the FBI compound outside Culver Falls, his second in command, determined to ingratiate himself to his boss, made certain that extra diligence was used in reviewing the steady stream of information and images that came in from search teams out in the field and in the air, very much hoping to have a body--dead or alive--to present Jimson when he returned. Things on the ground were not looking especially promising. The bomb disposal team had the day before finally cleared the rock crack in which had been found what appeared to be an improvised explosive device of some type, determining it to be harmless and sweeping the remainder of the space before allowing investigators inside. The spot had, it appeared, served as a shelter for the fugitive for some time, looked like it and smelled like it, and the half-butchered bear carcass hanging in the back of the space indicated to them that their target had left in a hurry and probably carrying a heavy load, but due to the intervening storm that had come through between the time the dead outfitter, Pete Jackson, had been found and when searchers had found and finally cleared the shelter, they had been entirely unable to find or follow his trail. That afternoon, though, the choppers picked up on two promising signatures not five miles from the fugitives lair in the rocks, one appearing far more interesting than the other. Quickly reviewing the information, Jimsons second in command saw his opportunity, made a quick decision to leave nothing to chance.

Einar woke to gently falling snow and near darkness in the deep woods around him, realizing after a moment of confusion that he must have slept through most of the day and wondering why Liz had not woke him, supposing she had perhaps liked whatever shelter she had left to go investigate, and must have spent the day getting settled in it, while leaving him to sleep. He was a bit irritated at her for not waking him so he could help, but knew, realistically, that he would have been of little help anyway, and hardly blamed her for leaving him be so she could have some peace and quiet while she worked on the shelter. Dont think Ive been very good company, lately. Terribly cold and barely able to move after lying still for so long he slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position and drew the bear hide in closer about his shoulders, rubbing his stiff arms to get some blood

flowing and sniffing the air, which smelled of snow and damp evergreen needles. Alright, where is this shelter of hers? Better get myself moving and head up there before it starts snowing any harder and I end up with wet clothes again. If the storm keeps up, snows a little harder so we can be pretty sure theyll keep the air search grounded for the night, we should be able to have a fire in he stared up at the sky, trying to gauge the time left until dark, in an hour or so, looks like. Good thing, too. Slept way too long, kept still too long, gonna end up freezing if I keep doing this. Some bear stew and a few hot rocks will do me a lot of good, tonight. Finding his crutches and hoisting himself to his feet, Einar searched the dimming landscape for any sign of Liz or of the shelter she had apparently seen, but saw nothing. There were tracks, a few partially obscured scuff marks in the duff beneath a nearby tree, and, folding up the bear hide and stashing it beneath the shelter of the spruce he had slept under, he followed them, seeing that they did not appear at all fresh and finally losing the trail when it crossed an open area where a bit more new snow had accumulated, still no likely shelter in sight. Well, Liz. Where did you go? He knew he could find and follow her trail--at least until his strength gave out --if he abandoned the crutches and crawled or, more realistically, dragged himself along the ground in the dimming light, but this would, he knew, leave him cold and exhausted, with soaked clothes and numbed hands just as darkness and the oncoming storm converged. Not a good plan. Gonna need fire tonight, and if I let myself get all frozen and worn out like that, may not be able to start one. Which, he realized, meant the he was already assuming she was not coming back that night, and that probably isnt true, bet shell show up in a couple minutes to tell me shes got dinner almost ready and a nice thick bed of spruce needles dragged into whatever cozy spot shes foundbut I cant count on that. Probably end up dead if I let myself count on that. So. What about tonight? Too windy here where I am, too much snowll get in if the storm turns serious, and I cant really have a fire here. Need some rocks, a steep bank, something Studying the dimming woods the only area that held any promise--it must be near, whatever he chose, since Liz would probably be back very soon and he did not want her wondering where he had gone and wandering around for another hour in the storm searching for him--was a nearby section of large, moss and duff covered boulders that rose in a confusion of irregular, lumpish shapes some hundred yards from his current location. Looks alright. Bound to be something over therenow. Sure hope Im able to lug this bear hide over there. Got to have it. Rolling and tying the bear hide, fumbling and taking longer than he would have liked with his barely flexible hands, he got it lashed to his backpack and stood, head low and eyes fixed on the ground as he fought to remain upright under its weight. Wow. You got to start eating more or something, Einar. This is pretty bad. You been letting her do everything, not even realizing how bad off you are. Taking a few experimental steps he managed to remain on his feet, though sagging a bit between the crutches and struggling to get enough air as his heart rate rose precipitously at the movemtent, leaving him terribly dizzy and faint feeling. Another step, a few deep breaths and the blackness began clearing from in front of his eyes, and he was able to see again. Ha! What are you talking about, bad off? Not so bad. Can walk, can move, now get over there and find a spot for this fire. Getting kinda chilly. Which was an understatement, as usual, and he hurried to cover the uneven ground that separated him from what he hoped would be some decent shelter, very anxious to be out of the

increasingly harsh wind. Not halfway there he realized that he ought to leave some sign for Liz, something at the tree to let her know he was still in the area and would be coming back, in case his tracks had all been snowed over by the time she returned. Removing one of the wolverine claws from the string around his neck, he wrapped and tied it to a bit of cordage, hanging it under the tree near where she had left him. A sign, he hoped, that would go unnoticed by any who might pass by outside, but would reassure Liz, when she returned, that she did indeed have the correct tree, and that he would be back. The last fifty yards over to the rocks were some of the slowest Einar had ever covered, his unbroken leg cramping up and refusing to support his weight for more than a few seconds at a time, and he lost count of how many times he had to pick himself back up out of the snow and try again. Among the rocks Einar found the shelter he sought, after taking a good fifteen minutes to recover, lying in a heap on the snow until his heart slowed a bit and he could move again. One of the boulders overhung just enough to provide a narrow dry space beneath it, and into this he unfolded the bear hide, grateful that the jumble of rocks blocked out at least some of the wind but finding himself wishing it was already dark so he might be able to take advantage of the warmth of a fire. Piling up great heaps of duff and sticks along the outside of the overhang to further block the wind, he wondered about Liz, worried that she might have got into some sort of trouble out there, fallen and hurt herself, met with some searchers, even, and been taken, tried to remember the exact wording of their last conversation--she had said something about going on ahead--but could not bring them to mind. Maybe this is what she intendedmaybe shes not even late in returning, yet, but I sure wouldnt have agreed to it if I had realizedshes got most of the food, medical kit, almost everything, the fool girl! And he stormed about as he finished creating the meager shelter that he would need to get him through what was looking like a rather stormy night, knowing that the anger he felt was largely just his attempt to cover for the fact that he was terribly worried about her and feeling bad about not going out to search for her. Partway through preparing the camp, Einar realized that it must be earlier than he had initially thought, as it seemed to be growing no darker, supposed the heavy cloud cover must have fooled him. No fire yet. Have to wait. And he lay down for a rest, curling up in the bear hide and hoping to warm enough that he would have a chance of being dexterous enough to start a fire when the time came.

Some four hours earlier, Liz, well over a mile from the spot where she had left Einar and badly turned around as she attempted to navigate the acres of dark timber that had seemingly swallowed her up as she searched for a place to shelter and prevented her from returning to him, had climbed a low ridge in the hopes of getting her bearings. Stepping out into the small clearing on its crest, she had barely been left with time to dive for the base of the nearest tree, a thin and stunted fir, before the helicopter was on her, popping up from behind the ridge and hanging there in the increasingly storm-black sky, low, menacing, seeming to have detected something interesting, hovering not two hundred feet above her.

The batteries. He must find them, knew he must, and get that radio working, or he would be dead, and probably soon, too. Much as he hurt at that point, back a knotted mass of white hot pain, hands and feet aching fiercely in places and dead numb in others, he almost wanted it, welcomed it, the end that he knew was near, but his mind kept returning to that bullet, Einars bullet, to the fact that his death just then, merciful and welcome as it might be, would mean that the fugitive would likely outlive him, and that prospect pained his bitter, twisted mind far more his broken back and frostbitten appendages did his body. So, once more, he made the decision: live. You will live. The mountains, though, seemed to have other ideas, were doing their level best to take his life--he could feel it in the paralyzing chill that gripped him as he lay there face down on the snowy slope, in the difficulty which with his breath came at that altitude, drawn in through lips dry and cracked and bleeding from dehydration and from the biting, relentless wind, and he knew he would have to fight, and hard, if he was to have any chance against their cold, uncaring reality. Raising his head up out of the snow and struggling to clear away the stinging white stuff where it had frozen against his eyelashes as he lay there in despair, he carefully pushed the radio further behind the log to prevent it sliding any further, and began his search. He was going to find those batteries. They were light, small, cylindrical, and he guessed that they might well have traveled further down the slope than the radio, might not have hung up as easily on protruding rocks and vegetation, but they were also heavy, and could have dived beneath the snow in their rolling, bouncing journey down the mountain, in which case he would almost certainly not be finding them. Starting down at the level of the log, knowing the batteries could have tumbled further but doubting he had the strength to haul himself up much further than he had already slid from the point where he had initially discovered the radio, Jimson dragged himself out across the steep snow, beginning his search, his jacket becoming increasingly soaked as the snow melted in from the outside and out from the inside, where it accumulated as he hauled himself along. There! A hole in the snow, and he scrabbled his way up to it, the right shape, right size, stuck a finger into its depths but could not feel a thing. Which didnt mean much, as he had not been able to feel a thing with his fingers all morning. Widen the hole, peer inyes! Only one, but it was one, one of four Over the next two hours, as the daylight strengthened slightly but showed no sign at all of thinning or driving away the heavy cloud cover, Jimson pawed about in the snow in search of the remaining batteries, finally finding a second, a third, fumbling them into a pocket of his sodden coat, knowing that to lose even one of them again could seal his death. Stopping frequently to blow on his fingers but seeing no real improvement when he did so--many of them were dead white, the frightening, waxy white of frostbite gone too far, already blackening in some cases at the tips--and finally gave up trying, simply using his hands as tools to claw at the snow and dig through it in an increasingly desperate search for the ever elusive last battery, the last link that separated him from contact, from rescue, from a continuation of life. And, he found it. Finally, nearly ready to give up hope and lie down in the snow to wait for the end, he found the battery where it had come to rest near a spruce trunk, the very trunk, as it turned out, beneath which he

had spent the night, the little black cylinder standing on end against a protruding root, not two feet from the impression his left boot had made as he shivered through the impossibly long night. Jubilant, relieved, reckless, he got all four batteries into his hand, smashed the radio against the tree to knock loose the snow that packed the battery compartmentand in doing so, lost his grip on the handful of slippery, snow-wet batteries in his nerveless hand. Concerned about reports he had been hearing over the radio regarding the oncoming storm and having heard nothing from his client--the man had refused to take the FRS radio offered him, and while the outfitter had seen that he carried an FBI radio, he had no idea of the frequency and doubted it was one covered by the limited frequency range of what he carried--he decided that morning to begin tracking him, wishing to warn him of what was predicted to be quite a blizzard, and set to arrive early, by all accounts. Following the agents trail with relative ease, the outfitter arrived after some time at a high little meadow, partially snowcovered and much trampled and cropped by Jimsons horse, who appeared to have been left there for some time. Quickly checking the horse over and seeing that she was basically alright, if a bit skittish, and giving her a handful of grain, he left his horse to keep her company, and started climbing, seeing where the horse had come down the steep slope above, but not seeing any human tracks and wondering just what might have happened. Jimson, sitting with his forehead leaned against the spruce trunk for what he told himself must be only a few minutes respite before again beginning the tortuous task of retrieving the four batteries from the scattered locations where they had come to rest on the slope below him, heard something that set his heart to pounding. Footsteps. And it wasnt his horse. They were human, he was positive, and, filled with a sudden terror, he found himself every bit as positive that they were Einars, that the fugitive had been hunting him, stalking him, that he was about to die at Asmundsons hand as had so many of his men. Struggling, he got his half frozen, clawlike hands around the pistol grip, knowing that this was one that he absolutely could not afford to mess up, finger onto the trigger, slowly, laboriously, waiting, doubting that he could aim with any accuracy, but hoping that perhaps if the man got close enoughthere he was, movement in the evergreens just down slope, the fugitives hat appearingwhy was he wearing a cowboy hat? Where did he get it? Who had been helping him, supplying him? Irrelevant, concentratedie Asmundson, you filthy scum! And the bullet flew, the one he had been saving, the one with the fugitives name written on it by the countless hours he had spent polishing it between his fingers, stewing, fuming, planning this moment, living this moment, and nowhere it was! Despite his injured, exhausted, hypothermic state, Jimsons bullet went true, true enough, at least, to hit his target somewhere in the midsection, a good distance below the head, which was where he had been aiming, and when he tried to get off a quick second shot Jimson realized to his dismay that he had dropped the pistol, his unfeeling hands unable to keep their grasp as the weapon recoiled, and, scrambling for it but finding it lost in the snow, he glanced up and saw his target staggering down the slope, struggling to keep to his feet and heading for the horses, and in an instant of horror, Jimson realized that the man was not Einar at all, but the guide he had hired to bring him

up into the mountains, and he called to him, to the horses, to anyone that would listen and begged forgiveness with voice hoarse and cracked for want of water, begged, in the absence of forgiveness, for mercy at least, begged the man to return and shoot him, tie him up and take him in to town and give him to the sheriff, anything but leave him to die there in the snowbut the outfitter, bleeding badly and certainly not out of danger himself, answered with one cold backwards glance--the last human face Toland Jimson was to see on this earth--slowly turned away and limped over to his horse, retrieved some gauze and pressed it to the bullet wound, mounted, after two failed attempts, and rode away down the snowy slope, never even looking back. Jimsons horse, glad to be back with familiar company, followed the departing pair.

Liz lay huddled beneath the spruce as the helicopter hovered overhead, praying that she might be mistaken for a sleeping deer or some other forest creature that would not merit a second look. She remembered Einar mentioning once that he had taken refuge near an elk herd and thus avoided drawing attention to himself during the height of an air search once, and she prayed that the same might be possible for her. The helicopter moved on after a time and, much to Lizs relief and surprise, did not make a second pass over her ridge, and after a number of long minutes of straining to hear over the growing wind that gusted thin and cold over the rocks of the ridge top, she scrambled to her feet and started down the back side of the ridge into the heavy timber, wishing to find better shelter should the aircraft return. And, hopefully, better shelter from the storm that seemed about to engulf the high country that afternoon. She knew that she had had lost her way in the cloud-dimmed woods, got turned around among the wind-tossed trees and must have wandered a good bit further from Einar than she had meant to, wanted to go and attempt to find her way back to him, knowing that she had most of the food and other supplies and aware that he had been relying rather heavily on her for warmth those last few nights. She could, she supposed, retrace her steps by following her own tracks until she saw something she recognized--except that she had done her best not to leave tracks--but feared lest she potentially lead the search to him, feared becoming further lost in the growing gloom and discover herself, when daylight came, entirely unable to find her way back to him. The snow was starting, wet flakes plastering the tree trunks and lashing Lizs face, and when she found a recently fallen spruce she crawled beneath the shelter of its still green boughs, curling up with the wolverine hide around her shoulders and realizing that she would likely be there for the night and perhaps longer, depending on how the storm progressed.

Pried out of his sleep by the icy wind and cold as night settled over the increasingly snowy mountainside, Einar sat up in the bear hide, dragged the piles of duff he had earlier gathered in closer to him, hauling some of them over to the other side so they lay between him and the cold rock of the wall, until he lay in a cocoon of spruce duff, bear hide wrapped around him and just enough room left beneath the overhang for a little fire, just in front of him. Huddling that way for a minute, breathing on his clasped hands to warm

them, he crept stiffly from his almost warm cocoon, reluctantly removed his dry polypro shirt and stowed it in the bear hide where it would stay dry during what he could tell by the pitch of the wind and the occasional wet flake that found its way in under the overhang to brush against his face was going to be a rather chilly and damp foray into the darkness. Hastily donning the buckskin vest--he had no intention of going out there in the storm with nothing on his top half, if he could help it--he crossed his arms and warmed his hands one final time, reminding himself that he would soon be back in the shelter of the overhang, marginal as it was, rolled up once again in the thick dry bear hide and certainly even more appreciative of its warmth than he had been, before. Alright, quit delaying and get out there. Got to check and see if shes back; shes most likely over there waiting for you under the spruce where she left you, stomping and fuming and ready to whack you over the head with something for wandering off againhe smiled at the thought, got his crutches under him and set off into the darkness, having fixed in his mind just where the particular spruce was where he had last seen Liz, where he had left her the wolverine claw as a sign that he was returning. The journey to the spruce, short as it was, posed a number of difficulties for Einar, the most notable being that he was no steadier on his feet than he had been that morning, and kept lurching forward and having to pick himself up off the ground with the help of his crutches--dont lose the crutches, better tie the crutches to my wrists or something would, if I could feel my fingers at all--and ending up wet and half frozen by the time he reached the spruce, recognizing it by the looming bulk of a broken, half-rotted stump that stood eight feet high--the victim of some long ago lightening strike--just in front of it and showed black and jagged against a slightly less black sky. He had been aware of the landmarks presence even before seeing it, had known he was in the right spot by the pungent odor of fire blackened wood, old, time-dulled and mingled with the softer, more alive smell of the punky, decaying portions of the tree. The combination of scents had spoken to him, had created a picture in his mind from a good ten feet further back than he had been able to make out the shape with his eyes, and Einar would have been very appreciative at the moment for his hunger-heightened sense of smell, had it not led him to be constantly reminded of the gaping hole in his stomach and the fact that he had little that night with which to fill it. Which he certainly did not, as Liz was not under the tree, and had not been, nobody had been there since he left the place some hours earlier, of that, he was certain. He was also freezing, literally, in the wet and the wind, and while he had a lot of thinking to do, he had sense enough left to realize that he had better do it in the shelter of the little overhang and with a fire going, if he wanted much chance of living to act on any of it. Returning to his shelter, Einar struggled out of the icy buckskin vest and back into his polypro shirt, cramming himself into the bear hide and spruce needle cocoon and lying there for a few seconds on his stomach, freezing and exhausted, his mind in a turmoil about Lizs continued absence, but at the same time relieved and thankful beyond words to be out of the wind and the wet, driven snow. Before he had flopped down to rest earlier in the evening, Einar had stacked up a number of loose rock chunks and slabs that he had shoved out from beneath the overhang to make room for him to lie, creating a semi-circular windbreak around the area where he intended to have his small fire, scratching a shallow depression into the rocky, mostly

frozen soil and breaking up a number of small spruce sticks to use for wood. Feeling around in the darkness he found the wood pile--should have set up the fire while there was still some daylightgot to do it all by feel now, and I cant feel all that much with my hands half frozen like this--and hastily arranged the little sticks in a rough pyramid, propping a heavier stick across two rocks to give himself something to lean the smaller wood on and once knocking the entire mess over with his shaking, having to start all over. Finally, the fire ready to go--he hoped--he fumbled open the rawhide pouch around his neck and pulled out a good sized wad of finely rubbed and shredded aspen inner bark and some milkweed down, placing them beneath the arranged sticks and adding a couple of small pitch lumps from the bottom of the pouch. He always tried to keep some dry tinder on him, knowing that often times when one most needed a fire, dry tinder could be difficult and time consuming to come up with. And if this ends up not being enough Ive always got the milkweed stuffing in the slipper Liz made me! Feels like its still quite dry, with the bear hide sleeve to protect it. He very much hoped, though, not to have to rob any of the slipper insulation to get his fire going, as it was doing an admirable job of keeping his foot from freezing, at the moment, and he very much wanted to allow it to continue doing that job. Which he was able to do, as, after warming his hands against his stomach and concentrating hard to temporarily halt their shaking, his fire took on the third try, the shower of sparks he threw from the little ferro rod on its string around his neck finding its way into the milkweed down, flaming to life and quickly spreading into the dry spruce sticks above it, the pitch lumps sizzling and bubbling and helping sustain the little flames long enough to become well established in the larger wood. Lying on his stomach in the bear hide, Einar carefully fed more sticks into the little blaze, knowing that he must keep it small and be very careful to avoid setting his cocoon of spruce duff alight. Using a stick, he pushed several granite chunks into the flames so they could begin heating and, along with the heat that would be absorbed and later radiated by the rock wall beside him and the slab over his head, help keep him warm through what was sure to be a rather chilly night. Nowgot some light, some warmth what about dinner? It was a subject he had rather scrupulously been avoiding, as Liz had almost all of the food with her, and prior to his journey over to the spruce to check, he had been very much hoping that she would return before dark and get a nice pot of bear meat and cattail starch stew going--his stomach cramped up hungrily at the thought, and he directed his mind elsewhere--but with full darkness pressing in on him from outside the shelter and the storm seemingly in full swing, he knew he must accept the fact that Liz, for whatever reason, was almost certainly not returning that night. Hopefully she already was holed up somewhere safe and dry and out of the wind for the night, and could start finding her way back in the morningif she was coming back. Staring into the flames and shaking as the shelter--and his chilled body--slowly began to warm, Einar again went over the possibilities in his mind, starting with what he knew was at least a chance that she had been injured and had failed to return because she was unable--a thought which was quite difficult for him to bear, knowing that he was all but useless when it came to searching for and helping her if she had been involved in an accident-and he prayed that this was not the case, again seriously considered wandering out in the storm to hunt for her but, once again, knowing that the weather and his own weakness would almost certainly kill him before he was able to mount any sort of serious search,

let alone find and assist her, he opted to stay where he was. The other possibilities, as he saw them, involved Liz simply getting lost while out looking for shelter, in which case, as long she had found a good spot to ride out the storm, she ought to be fine--she did, after all, have almost all of the food, bear meat and fat, honey, pemmican, split peas and cattail roots, the cooking pot--and would hopefully be returning as soon as the storm let up and she was able to orient herself once again. Which left only two other options that he could think of--that she had either been captured, or that she had decided, frightened by the renewed search and the coming storm, to leave him, to head down for lower ground and her friends, as he had for so long been urging her to do. Capture he doubted, doubted anyone was that close on their trail, and the other optionwell, Id sure hate to think that she would have deliberately left with all the food and gear, if she was planning on not coming back. That did not fit with what he knew of her, with any of her prior actions or apparent intentions, but Einar knew that fear and desperation could lead people to do some pretty odd and unexpected things, so he was not, for the time, willing to entirely dismiss any of the possibilities. Searching through the contents of his backpack by the flickering light of the fire, Einar quickly saw--he had known it all along, but had held out hope that his memory was perhaps faulty--that its entire contents consisted of his damp pair BDUs, Lizs polypro bottoms, equally damp--darn, that means shes out there in this storm in her jeansnot good--two pair of socks, a dozen or so feet of coiled paracord, and a spare knit wool cap. Besides the clothing, he had two quart sized plastic freezer bags--appropriate, isnt it, considering the weather?--full of thinly sliced and dried bear meat, and an empty water bottle whose contents he did not remember drinking but supposed he must have. Well. At least this means Liz does have plenty of gear and foodsure hope itll be enough to get her through whatever shes into, out there. Please, he prayed, watch over her, get her through this storm. While not nearly as concerned for himself, Einar did realize that if he was to avoid succumbing to the cold sometime in the night he had better eat, broke up a piece of the dried bear meat and put a piece in his mouth along with a bit of snow to help soften it, reaching out of the shelter and scooping up a large handful of snow and packing it tightly into a rough ball. Got to have some liquid, and I sure dont want to keep using up so much of my body heat melting snow. Takes an awful lot of snow to equal a swallow of water, anyway. Jamming the snowball onto the end of one of the sticks from his firewood pile, Einar stuck the other end of the stick into the ground near the little fire, emptying one of the bags of its bear jerky and opening up the bag, folding its top down so it would stay open and placing it under the rapidly melting snowball, hoping to be able to collect a fair amount of drinking water. He had considered filling the plastic bag with loose snow and attempting to melt it with warm rocks, but knew that any such attempt was very likely to leave him with a bag that would no longer hold water, and he very soon began to see drip after drip ooze from the softening snowball and fall into the bag, anyway, so decided not to bother trying anything else, for the moment. Having eaten a few more bites of bear jerky and melted and drunk somewhat over half a cup of water--not enough, but better than nothing--Einar, barely able to keep his eyes open anymore, put out the fire and retrieved the four rocks that had grown warm in its coals, huddling with them in the bear hide and tucking his nose into the cocoon for

additional warmth, listening to the whistling of the wind in the rocks and the knocking of the trees as they bent and slammed together under its force. Sometime in the night Einar woke thinking of Liz, felt her hand there just below his shoulder, her gentle warmth against his back, and drifted once more towards sleep, smiling, relieved, realizing that the nightmare of her having disappeared into the storm and leaving him with no idea of where she had gone or why, must have been just that. He reached for her hand, could not find it, rolled with difficulty onto his back and searched for her, sought her, fully awake once again beneath the scanty cover of the overhang, hair damp and freezing with flakes of snow that had been driven into his shelter despite the piles of rock and duff with which he had sought to shield himself, quite alone once again.

Jimson, exhausted, his voice a dry croak, finally stopped screaming at the departing outfitter and horses when they had been out of his sight for several minutes, lying there in the snow and struggling for breath, staring up at the grey, glowering sky as it seemed to close in on him, hemming him in, crushing him, preventing his escape. His would-be rescuer was gone, batteries that would have allowed him to summon more help gone, the bulletit was gone too, and that thought sent Jimson into a near panic, clawing reflexively at his pocket in search of it even though he knew it had been in the top of that magazine. It was gone and Asmundson was, as far as he knew, still alive and well out there somewhere, still hunting him, possibly, lurking behind the dark, sinister, windtossed forms of the evergreens that bowed and swayed above him and seemed to be whispering and conspiring in his destruction. Terrified, he scooted and dragged himself beneath the refuge of the spruce where he had spent the night, but its tossing, sighing boughs gave him no comfort, seemed to be reaching for him as were the other trees, just waiting to squeeze the life out of him. Fire. Fire was his only chance for rescue now, now that the radio was useless and the outfitter would, it seemed, be bleeding out before he reached help, and might not be feeling especially hospitable towards Jimson if he did make it, a good roaring inferno his only defense against the virulent hostility that he felt all around him, almost as if the mountain itself wished him ill, held him in its icy grasp like an animate being and laughed at his death struggle, the dagger-sharp stormwind an intelligent and malevolent force that cut and slashed and mocked him as it howled and gusted over the rocks. Fire. The lighter was dead, but could still produce sparks, and while he had before thrown it away in disgust at the mere thought of attempting to spin the little wheel and generate a spark with his frozen fingers, he had become desperate enough to try. To try anything. Now where is it? More crawling, the frantic, scrabbling struggle of a half-dead beetle or cockroach, slipping backwards, flipping over, arms clawing at the sky as he sought to right himself, legs motionless, useless, finally making it and keeping lower lest it happen again, dragging himself across the snow in search of the little chunk of blue plastic that represented life, or a chance at it. His only chance. There. Found it. Cant pick it up, cant close my handtry the mouth. Good. Now. Back to the tree. He made it back to the spruce, slipping, sliding, slamming against its trunk and lying rigid with his eyes closed until the pain in his back subsided some, spitting out the lighter and

slamming his hands against his thighs in an attempt to regain some feeling in them, some function, just enough to work the lighter and get a spark. To catch it, he tore at his coat with his teeth, in his desperation finally managing to rip off a section of the inner lining, allowing him access to the fluffy synthetic insulation inside. Most of which was no longer dry, after all of the snow that had been scooped down the front of his neck while dragging himself along, but he finally found some that was, testing it against his cheek to be certain and carefully setting it on the rock that had served as the base for his other failed fire starting experiments. Next came the sticks, painstakingly gathered and arranged over the little billow of synthetic down, some of them dry, some not so much, but he hoped they would be enough. Which they might have been, but it did not matter, because he found himself, no matter how many times he tried, unable to flick the little flint wheel fast enough to get anything but the weakest of sparks, never even enough to melt or char a single one of the curly synthetic fibers. Flinging the lighter from him in frustration, Jimson broke down in tears of anger and frustration, arms upflung to shield his head from the menace of the trees as they cackled and carried on in delight at his failings. Angry and unwilling to let the mountains beat him, which would be, in his mind, tantamount to allowing Einar to defeat him, Jimson once more managed to collect his wits, regain a bit of his focus and think. Fire. Had to have it. No matches, no lighter, he no longer had the batteries, even, to attempt to short out and produce a spark with, wondered briefly if there might be a capacitor in the radio with stored power that he could access for a sparkbut knew that he lacked the dexterity to do anything of the sort. So. People made fire with friction for thousands of yearshow hard can it possibly be? Knowing that he would need a bow, and that it probably did not matter whether it was of dry wood or not, he glanced around, seeing a fallen aspen, crawling over to it and taking from it a small branch with a slight curve that he supposed ought to act as a bow. After much struggling with his numb hands and wishing very much that he was still flexible enough to reach his boot laces with his teeth, which he had not been for many, many years, he was able to remove a bootlace and attach it--more wrapping than tying, at that point--to the two ends of the curved branch, searching for some dry wood to use for the spindle and fire board, and finding it in a dead branch that hung not two feet up off the ground on his spruce. It split when he broke it off the tree, saving him the trouble of having to figure out how to split it without a knife, and he chose the thinner half of the split branch to use for his fireboard, seeming to remember something about needing to carve a notch for the hot embers to fall out of, and rubbing the stick back and forth on a sharp granite edge until something resembling a notch began to appear. All he needed after that, as far as he could remember, was a spindle, just a straight stick of some sort that would be spun back and forth with the bow to create the friction. An unsplit piece he had broken off of the fireboard branch was chosen for this purpose, and thinking he had seen something about sharpening the ends of the drill, he proceeded to do so, painstakingly, clasping the thing between the heels of his hands and abrading its ends against a rough granite boulder until they were somewhat pointy, though one a good bit more than the other. Alright, ready. I have to make this work. Only to realize that he had entirely forgottenwhatever it is you call the piece that was supposed to go at the topdidnt matter, he couldnt feel anything with his hands,

anyway, so it could hardly make much difference if he ended up burning his palm just a bit. But he supposed he had better use the duller end of the spindle up there just to be safe, and the pointier one looked more like a drill, anyway Tearing out more of the liner from the inside of his coat he wadded it up as a cushion for his hand, did his best to get into some sort of a crouch--not at all easy, with his injured back, and wrapped the string around the spindle, slowly drawing the bow back and forth as he applied some pressure at the top. Surprised and pleased when, after several failed tries where the spindle jumped out and went rolling off into the snow, he was able to keep it in place and even began to smell a little smoke, Jimson kept at it, going until he was quite worn out before stopping to check whether he had a coal that looked useful. Which he did not. A small pile of loose, light brown sawdust had collected on the little slab of bark beneath the notch, smelling charred but blowing away like dandelion fuzz when he gently attempted to fan it to flame. Frustrated but hopeful, Jimson tried again, applying more downward pressure on the spindle and working the bow as quickly as he could, alarmed when the wood began giving off a horrible high-pitched squeal as the spruce spindle rubbed against the fireboard of spruce, its sharp end digging in and then polishing the hole it created, but never heating up enough to create a viable coal. Nor would it. But this Jimson did not know, and, desperate, kept working, choking on the smoke that rose occasionally from the fireboard, so promising yet yielding nothing. Then he smelled something else. Burnt flesh. He knew that smell, recognized it from the cloud of black smoke that had blown his way the last time he had been trapped up in a high basin, after the chopper went down; it is a smell that does not easily leave ones mind. Dropping the spindle, flinging it from him, he looked at his right hand, horrified to see the mess of melted nylon jacket lining hanging in shreds from his mangled palm, a spot the size of a quarter oozing and charred and worn down nearly to the bone. Hed never felt a thing. Pressing his palm into the snow he stared in horror as it hissed and steamed. There was, apparently, a good reason people used that top part when trying this method--bearing block, thats what you call it, he remembered rather irrelevantly--should have had one. The hand still did not hurt, he expected that it would, later, hastily wrapped the weeping wound with the remains of the nylon lining, tore off another strip of it--the insulation was beginning to fall out of his jacket, but it hardly seemed to matter, in the midst of everything else--and tied it around the damaged hand. After that Toland Jimson sat under the tree, head down, death staring him in the eye, thinking only of Einar, of the revenge that he must live to see visited upon the fugitive, and, out of other ideas, he began the slow creep down the slope in search of the lost batteries, once more, stuffing snow into his mouth as he went, lest dehydration render him incapacitated before the cold managed to do the job. Being a very determined man at the moment, Jimson managed once more to collect all of the batteries, stowing each carefully in his pocket as he located it, knowing that he must not again lose them. Getting them all back up to where the radio waited, he took off his coat and set the radio in its center, very slowly and painstakingly and with the help of a stick grasped firmly between his teeth managed to work each of the slippery little ungraspable cylinders into its place, wishing he had the radio back to put back on to secure them and finally, terrified of losing the batteries again now that he was so close, tearing more of the liner out of his jacket and tying it around the radio to prevent them

slipping out. The time had come, and Jimson, nearly giddy with excitement, turned the knob and waited, not daring to breathethe device lived! It worked, had power, and he held down the talk button, mumbling a stream of speech that even in his half lucid state he realized sounded terribly incoherent, waited for a response, eating more snow to wet his painfully dry throat and hopefully better his chances of being understood. But there was no response. No one had heard. Must not have heard, or they would have responded right away, surely, it being his frequency Must be too low. Its these rocks, these rock walls, signal cant get out. The Bureau had struggled with issues of terrain and radio propagation throughout the search, had even put up two repeaters on ridge tops in the area but none, it seemed, quite close enough. Must climb. And he did, forty excruciatingly painful feet up through the snow to a rocky outcropping from which he was certain his transmission would get out, must get out, it was his last hope, the only thing he could think of, the last thing to try before lying down to wait There it was, the outcropping, and he dragged himself up onto it, hands raw but not oozing blood, frozen, it seemed, or close to it, and he used his teeth to turn the little knob, once more held down the talk button and spewed forth a cacophony of hoarse sounds that he believed to be speechbut which did not strike the agent on the other end back at the compound outside Culver Falls quite the same way. Repeat that? Stunned into silence for a moment, tears of joy welling up in his eyes, Jimson repeated his mumbling, louder, more insistently, sounding more than ever like the crazed rantings of a lunatic. Or, like a prank. Which is exactly what the agent believed he was dealing with, but he could not be certain right away, as the call was coming in over the Mountain Task Force frequency, had the proper encryption and appeared to be legitimateexcept that when the agent checked, no one was unaccounted for, no member of the search team missing, leading him to believe that someone had hacked into their system, was using the frequency without authorization. This frequency is for official use only, kid. Get off and stay off, or youll be looking at charges of obstructing a federal investigation. Jimson, outraged, attempted to reply, went on and on about who he was and where he was and what had happened and how he needed helponly to realize that somewhere in the middle of his screed, the radio had died. No! Must be the coldbatteries dying in the cold. And he stuck the radio in his jacket, up against his stomach, hoping desperately that the batteries would warm enough to function again, that they would work long enough for him to make the agent--arrogant idiot, doesnt he know who hes talking to? Theres one more wholl be out of a job, as soon as I get back--understand where to find him. Several minutes later he tried again, triumphant when the little green light appeared in response to his turning of the power knob, held down the button and repeated, as clearly as he could manage, his story. Not clearly enough. Officialuseonly! Shouted the man at the other end, and the batteries died again, for the final time.

The batteries were dead. No amount of pressing them against his stomach or attempting to warm them with his breath was able to bring them back sufficiently even to produce a slight glow in the power light on the radio, and Toland Jimson knew that his last, best chance for rescue had just slipped through his fingers, and he found himself staring into the abyss, terrified. He was not ready. Had not even seriously considered the possibility that help would not eventually come, and the thought that he could be near the end, the uncertainty that this brought, was more than he could bear. And, he was angry, still had no intention of allowing himself, Special Agent Toland Jimson, Director of the Mountain Task Force and possibly in line to be appointed Director, when the slot opened up, to be bested by some crazy, starved hillbilly bum--well, to be fair, theres a lot more to it than that, but thats the way the public will see it--running around the woods sleeping in hollow logs and cracks in the cliffs and living off of rabbits and snails and who knew what else. And to add motivation, he now had that clown back at the command center to deal with upon his return, the man who had ignored his pleas for help and treated him as if he were some teenage prankster. It was evening by that time, or close to it, and he could see that a storm was coming in, the storm that the outfitter had warned him about, and from the looks of it, the air search could well end up being grounded for a time. If he was to summon help before that, the only possibility lay in building a big, smoky fire before that storm became serious. Which means that bow and drill again. I almost had it. Just know I did. Rolling off the outcropping and sliding and skidding back down to the spruce, he rested for a minute before raising himself up on his elbows and eating some snow, his dry throat having sent him into a spasm of coughing. Seeking the sticks where he had tossed them upon discovering the burn to his hand, Jimson found the fireboard and spindle to be soaked with melted snow, the bow broken but dry, as it had come to rest hanging by its string from a low branch of the spruce. Retrieving it, he removed the paracord string in disgust, almost tossing aside the two broken pieces of the bow before stopping himself, staring at them, thinking. The aspen wood was dry, brittle, had a split in it already from the force of the low where the had thrown it against the tree, and, working his numb fingers into the split he easily widened it, ending up with two short, dry pieces of wood. The aspen was, he realized, a good bit softer than the spruce he had previously tried, as well as seeming a good bit drier and, hurriedly glancing up the slope, he saw that there were several straightish small branches still clinging to the fallen tree from which he had removed the bow stick, crawled up and got one, breaking it to a workable length and working to sharpen the ends. Stopping, inspecting the old fireboard and seeing how the sharpened tip had bit deeply into the wood, polishing it and hardly even turning it black, he dulled the tip, leaving the surface nearly flat. All right. The notch seemed like a good thing, the charred wood did fall down through it like I think its supposed to, so Id better make one here, too. Which he did, having more trouble than he had the first time with the whole process of preparing the bow and drill, as his damp clothes were causing him to shake badly in the icy wind, the shivering sending fresh waves of agony through his injured back and leaving his hands even more useless than before, but he eventually got everything done, wrenched his body into a semi-crouch, back to the wind to shield his

hoped-for coal, and got started. Knowing that he must not further injure his hand by using it as a bearing block, he opted instead to use the old fireboard, finding that the spruce spindle had bit deeply enough into it that the new spindle would stay in the hole fairly well without jumping out, despite the deeply-carved notch. Jimson was a good deal clumsier than the first time he had tried starting a fire in this way, but the climb up to the outcropping had warmed him some, and with the grim tenacity of a man who knows that he is literally fighting for his life, too exhausted to display his usual rashness and quick temper, he kept working away with the bow, stopping to cough and gasp for breath when the smoke threatened to overwhelm him and checking frequently--too frequently--for a living coal, finally giving it a longer time to build up, and, to his unspeakable relief, finding a glow of orange awaiting the wheezing stream of air he directed at the little pile of charred wood dust. Careful not to drop the living thing--his life, his only chance, as he saw it, at life--he dumped it into the prepared bundle of tinder, blew, again, again, almost gave up and then jumped, startled, when the whole thing burst into flame just as he had been about to throw it away in disgust. He shoved it, singing his fingertips, but what did it really matter at that point, beneath the carefully arranged pyramid of sticks, not even needing to blow to fan it to flames, as the gusting wind did the job for him, piling on more wood and crouching, shivering, nearly on top of the little fire, holding his frozen hands close to the flames, almost in them. For several minutes he sat that way, adding sticks and then larger chunks that he had previously collected, hopeful of making a fire, eventually, shaking harder as his badly chilled body reacted to the sudden introduction of such a powerful source of heat. The need to summon rescue was foremost in his mind, a need which would, he supposed, be best fulfilled by tossing green spruce branches on the flames to create a billow of black smoke, but, terrified of putting the fire out if he added the moist branches too soon--they were all covered with a heavy layer of snow from the last storm--he waited, adding dry wood and huddling over the blaze. His hands, thawing rapidly in a heat whose strength he was too numbed to accurately gauge and respond to, soon began aching and burning terribly, felt as if they were, themselves, on fire, and unable to bear the pain, Jimson removed them from their place above the flames, blew on them, rubbed snow between them, but the pain only worsened, soon becoming unbearable and leaving him to plunge them into the snow, howling with misery and vomiting all over his coat as he failed to lean forward in time to miss it, the need to create smoke quite forgotten, for the moment. The snow seemed to ease the agony some, so he left his hands in it, shoving sticks into the fire with his foot and staying as close to its blazing heat as possible, his shivering increasing and his heart seeming to beat weirdly, irregularly, leaving him dizzy and, before long, unable to remain upright. Fearing lest he pitch forward and fall into the fire, he lay down beside it, removing his coat--it was already soaked, anyway and could not be doing him much good--and setting it on the ground to lie on, wishing to keep his hatless head out of contact with the snow. Lying down seemed to help a bit with the dizziness, at least for the moment, and Jimson, hands buried in the snow, managed to shove another stick into the fire before temporarily passing out, the mass of chilled blood that had rushed to his core upon exposing his arms and legs to the flames having been less than healthy for his already strained heart.

The roaring fire, along with the increasingly gusty winds on which rode the coming storm, did its work on the heavily laden branches of the spruce directly above Jimson, two of the lower ones before long dropping their loads of snow simultaneously, shaking the tree and causing the entire thing to release its burden in one massive cascade of white, covering Jimsons torso, his headand the fire, with several inches of wet, heavy snow that fell in a series of soft thuds and splats, hissing in the hot coals and sending out a cloud of steam as they died. Overhead the sky, grey and heavy and seemingly oblivious to Jimsons plight, opened up, releasing the first few soft, feathery flakes, large and clinging one to another, of what was to prove to be a rather major early season storm, the cottony orbs drifting quietly down to replace the ones that had just fallen en masse from the tree.

Liz had, partway down the ridge, taken refuge beneath the sweeping boughs of a recently fallen fir, hoping to keep dry and out of the snow when the storm came, working to turn the place into a good shelter for the night. Partway through her preparations, the forest around her dimming with evening, she caught a whiff of smoke, and, thinking that Einar must have a fire going, went towards it, searched for its source, losing the scent in a shallow gulley and climbing the ridge beyond in an attempt to recover it. Topping out on the ridge, realizing by the terrain that she was nowhere near where she had left Einar, she removed her pack and left it under a tree, cautiously creeping out onto a ledge of rock from which she hoped to be able to see the source of the smoke. Which, as it turned out, was rising from a small fire that blinked orange in the fading light, some two hundred feet below her at the edge of a small meadow.

Einar woke before daylight to the distinct smell of baking cinnamon rolls and the gentle orange glow of hot coals, variegated, moving, alive, their warmth reaching him across the still-dark room and Lizs face momentarily silhouetted against their brightness as she opened the firebox to toss another chunk of wood into the cook stove. A smile crept across his face--and quickly faded, as it made his cracked lips stretch and bleed--at the thought that such circumstances must mean not only that she had returned, clearly, but that they had certainly found a better spot to spend the winter, and somehow got ahold of plenty to eat, too. Wanting to speak to her, seeking to reassure himself that he was not once again merely dreaming--he did not remember finding a cook stove anywhere, and certainly was not aware of having come across any cinnamon, though she supposed she might have her ways--he found his mouth too dry to form words, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and throat parched and dry when he attempted to swallow. Yeahanother dream, Einar. Bound to have been a dream. Now get it together and wake up, because I got a feeling realitys not so nice, this morning, and probably needs dealing with. Still somewhere between sleep and wakefulness he blinked his eyes open, puffed air out of his nose to clear the layer of flakes that had accumulated against his face in the night and lay staring out at the softly lit world of new fallen snow around his little shelter, not able to

see especially far because of the continuing storm. It was windy, swirls and torrents of flakes blown almost sideways at times, finding their way under his ledge and causing him, after filling his mouth with snow and letting it melt and trickle down his parched throat until he could swallow again, to draw his head in further under the bear hide to escape their icy touch. He was not warm, his right shoulder and hip were freezing and numb where they had been in contact with the ground, despite the bear hide, and when he pressed his hands--not much warmer, themselves--to the areas in an attempt to regain some feeling, he realized that there were raw, painful spots on each and guessed that he would have been better off not remaining in one position all night, seeing that the bones were so near the surface in those places. Despite the discomfort he had, he supposed, come through the night alright, could still feel his toes, wiggle them when he tried, though with difficulty, and he figured he had better take off his boot and slipper in a while and take a look at them to make sure he was not missing any danger signs that needed attention. Would be a lot better if I had a way to get this cast off and dry out the insulation down in there. Cant really feel it, but I expect it must be soaked again from wandering around in the snow yesterday. Have to come up with a better idea, if I dont want to spend the winter with one leg constantly wet and freezing and putting me in danger. And I really, really dont, if there are other options He wished he had some more bear fat to smear on the toes, fingers, too, for the minimal protection it would offer from cold damage and, even more, to help ease the painful drying and cracking that seemed to be increasingly plaguing him that fall, leaving fingertips and toes swollen and oozing blood in places. Not good. Gonna get infected if I dont do something. Gloves would be real helpfulso would that hounds tongue salve that Liz made, the other day. The remains of which, of course, were still in her pack but he did have a couple of badly crumbled dried hounds tongue leaves in the rawhide pouch around his neck, fished one out and softened it in his mouth before tearing and pressing it to the worst of the cracks in his fingers, wrapping the green pulp in place with some bits of aspen inner bark that he found, also, in the pouch. That done, he rolled laboriously onto his back, sat up and reached for the pack, which he had shoved into the low, sheltered spot up against the rock wall, wanting a piece of bear jerky to chew on before heading down to the landmark tree to see if Liz had returned in the night. It seemed that the fierce, gnawing pain in his leg was aggravating every bump and bruise and injury hed ever received, so that when he moved, he ached all over in the damp chill of the morning, tense with the cold and wishing just then for nothing quite so much as he wished for a few minutes warmth so he could relax. OK. More than enough whining for one morning, Einar. Better have some breakfast and then get chewing on some willow bark if youve got any left--sure hope you got some left--because you have things to do. Need to go check for Liz, and youd better get some snares set out for rabbits and squirrels, because this dry bear meat sure isnt going to last you very long. Inspecting the dim, snowy world outside the shelter, he did not at all look forward to soaking his only dry clothes in what appeared to be a good six or seven inches of new snow, with more accumulating all the time. Had to do it, though, had to see if she had come back and really needed to get those snares out, so he took a little swallow of water from the bottle that he had filled loosely with snow before settling in for the night, seeing that very little of it had melted, and reluctantly traded the dry polypro shirt for his damp and ice-

stiffened buckskin vest, beating it against the rock to remove what he could of the ice. He had begun drying it the night before over his fire, but it had not, of course, had time to dry thoroughly. Grimacing at the touch of the icy deer hide, he dragged himself out of his cocoon, moving some of the rocks that had shielded his fire to allow himself passage. The cast, cumbersome and heavy and leaving himself unable to bend his knee, made this a difficult task, and left him with no option but to sit in the snow outside as he pulled his crutches out of the shelter and struggled to his feet. Determined to keep upright and avoid falling face-first in the wet snow if at all possible, Einar moved slowly, sinking into the snow with every step, his foot sinking, crutches sinking and slipping on the saturated and half frozen forest floor beneath, his injured leg, jarring painfully against it every time he moved. Stopping to rest partway through his zigzagging course down the slope, Einar stood with his head leaning against the trunk of a tree, hanging between the crutches and trying to work up the courage to complete the journey, knowing that every step was going to jar the leg. Need snowshoesa snowshoe, at least, and powder baskets for these crutches and maybe a short ski or something to put on the bottom of the cast, so I can just drag the leg along. He stood still thinking for a minute, knowing in doing so he was just delaying his inevitable return to slogging through the snow, and rapidly becoming too chilled to stay in one place. Probably wouldnt work, anyway, in this terrain. Too uneven, too steep, and if any of my weight happened to end up on the bad leg with the ski at some point--he laughed a bit at the image this brought to mind--well, Id go sliding and tumbling and probably wind up slamming into a tree or something at the bottom. But, a snowshoe would sure be worth a try, especially for when things get deeper. Maybe I can find some willows later, work on it while Im holed up in the storm. Finally reaching the tree, he was not surprised to see that no fresh tracks led to or from it, no sign anywhere in the area that Liz had returned. His hopes had not been especially high, considering the storm--really hope shes found herself a good cozy spot to crawl into, and wait it out--but the discovery was still a heavy blow to Einar, who was feeling Lizs absence more keenly than he would have admitted to himself, and knew that he must now make the return journey up to his shelter, alone and aware that it would be no easier on his leg than the descent had been. Well. Do it. The storm seemed to be lifting just a bit, clouds growing less heavy and visibility improving just a bit as the snow slacked off, and Einar was half inclined to huddle down under the spruce and wait for a while, see if Liz might show up as the weather improved. Would save me a trip back down here later to check, and the break would be good. Real good. Legs pretty doggone bad right now And he very nearly convinced himself to do it, sinking down onto the snowy ground and sitting, head down, exhausted, bent forward with arms crossed and hands on his shoulders, barely covered by the buckskin vest, in an attempt to shield himself from a bitter wind that was barely broken by the swaying boughs of the tree. Too cold. Too cold to wait for long, to remain still there in the damp wind without more protection, and he knew he must move, must return to the shelter of the bear hide, could already feel the iron fingers of inertia wrapping themselves around him, squeezing, draining his will to act, a soft voice whispering to him to lie down and rest, seek solace in the softness of the snow and find relief from his pain and the terrible, gnawing hunger

that assailed him as his body fought feebly to produce adequate heat. He knew that voice, had conversed and contended with it before through the dark sleepless hours of many a hungry, freezing night, knew that its promises were false ones, the only rest it offered being the rest of death. Fight it. He was not sure why, though, was even less certain that that he wanted to go on doing it, dragged himself to his feet anyway and started limping back up the slope. Because you are alive, that is why. It is enough. For now. Go. Uphill travel through the snow, though exhausting, proved slightly less rough on his leg, as it involved less slipping and stumbling and jarring than had the descent, but by the time he had covered what he believed to be something less than half the distance, it was all he could do to balance on his one good leg while seeking the next secure placement for the crutches, let alone haul himself up the slope when he did find it. Turning to the side, he began seeking a less steep path, making a series of switch-backing turns as he slowly climbed up towards the rocks that held his shelter. Detouring to go around a large fallen spruce in preference to hauling himself over it, Einar saw something that caught his attention. There where the enormous tree had pulled loose from the soil, roots up flung and a large area of the steep slope disturbed, he notice an odd frost formation on some of the smaller hanging roots that had remained behind in the ground, ice crystals covering them in one area but not in others. Curious, he stepped closer for a look, and that is when he saw the opening. Largely shielded from view by the mat of small roots that had been left behind when the tree toppled and further obscured by the drifted snow, a wide, low crevice was visible in the bank of dirt left behind when the trees roots were pulled from the slope, an opening that proved to be nearly three feet wide and two high, when he got close enough to tell. Freezing and nearly toppling over, himself, with exhaustion, Einar might have walked right past this interesting land feature in his haste to reach his waiting cocoon of bear hide and spruce needles, had he not noticed the rime of ice on the roots just above it. Something--and he had a very good idea of what--was in there, in that bank, its warm breath exiting to form frost outside.

Realizing that he was looking at the winter home of a black bear, Einar was vividly reminded of his recent dream, thinking that the spot, while not in every detail resembling the one in the dream, was awfully close. North-facing slope, steep, treed and snowcovered, similar even down to the slightly overhanging ledge of rock on the bank above where the tree had pulled out of the ground, on which he had crouched waiting for the bear with his spear, and he felt a prickle of excitement at the prospect that he had perhaps been meant to find this place. Except I dont have a spear, and I cant exactly crouch with this leg, nor go leaping on top of any bear, either. Didnt have a bad leg, in the dream. ButI do in real life, and unlike in dreams, I really do have to eat, so maybe I better be thinking of a way to make this happen. Not just then, though, because he was freezing and badly worn out from the climb, was finding himself all too frequently standing there staring off into the snowy woods without a thought in his head, returning to awareness only when he began losing his balance and pitching forward, and had no weapon on him, anyway, aside from the knife. Back up to the shelter, rest, get warm, or as close as you

can come to it, think about this for a while. Finally making it back up to the shelter, Einar struggled out of his wet buckskin vest and snow-caked boot, brushing the snow from the bear hide slipper that protected his right foot and struggling into the cocoon, lacking the energy to even think about getting back into the dry shirt he had left there protected in the bear hide, closing his eyes in exhaustion and doing his best, with the leg cast, to curl up in a ball for warmth. Einar had very much looked forward to having a fire upon his return to the shelter, had collected bits of dry wood here and there from the undersides of trees as he walked, stashing them in his pack, but with the temporary break in the storm, he knew he must wait, was too tired to care much at all. He wanted sleep, knew it was very near, and he fought it, wanting to stay awake for a few minutes until he was sure he was headed in the right direction, beginning to warm, before he gave in to his exhaustion. Too tired to form coherent thoughts, the image of food kept drifting through his head, bear fat, meat, but especially that jar of honey that was now with Liz, and he knew that a spoon or two of it would have gone a long way towards reviving him. Didnt matter though, because it was beyond his reach, but he did have the bear jerky, reached for the backpack, finally got his hand to close around it and dragged it to him, forgot why he had wanted to do any such thing and lay there staring into the open backpack with a blank look on his face until finally the smell of the jerky reached him, reminded him. Yeah. Eat. A bit of hard, dry bear jerky beginning to soften in his mouth, Einar lay there trying to think about the implications of his discovery, picturing how the hunt might go if he tried to roust that bear from its hibernation to provide himself with food, supposed that it would be a very good idea to wait for Lizs return before he attempted anything of the sort, seeing as she had the pistol with her, and nearly everything else, besides But what if she doesnt end up coming back? If I wait too many days, run out of food again, gonna get too weak to go after any bear (like youre not, alreadywho do you think youre fooling?) and then itll be too late. Better do it real soon here, so it doesnt come to that. Soon, perhaps, but not immediately, as he had no spear, though he did think he rememberedyes! Thought so! Got that spear head I had been working on, right here in the side pocket of the pack. All I need now is a good stout willow or something for the shaft--could use some willow bark for the leg, anyway, specially if Im really doing this-and Ill have everything I need to make a new spear. Between that, and the knifewell guess I got at least some chance of coming out of this alive and breathing, and all set for food. Ill get started assembling that spearlatersee if any of this still makes sense after Ive had some rest. And he was asleep. Liz kept very still as she watched the camp, listening, hearing nothing to indicate to her that it was occupied but having the distinct feeling that someone was around, stealthy, hidden, wishing not to be seen. But who? She didnt like it at all, had no intention of finding out who the camp might belong to--search teams or bounty hunters or some such, most likely, she supposed, out to put their best effort into tracking Einar down before the storm came in and made travel in the high country far more challenging--by revealing her presence to them. She was, in fact, too close already, knew it, very quietly returned to her pack and retreated up the ridge, keeping the camp in sight and sliding herself beneath a

slab of granite in the rockfield just below the ridges crest, wrapping the wolverine hide around her shoulders and settling in to watch, for a while. She wanted, at least, to be able to report to Einar what sort of company they had up there, so he could perhaps determine just how concerned and cautious they needed to be. Though whoever it was, she hoped, would be headed out later that night or in the morning, because the storm that was building certainly looked as if it could end up being a big one. Carefully feeling around in her pack until her hand contacted the soft case that held the little pair of binoculars that Einar had got from the reporter who had interviewed him, she crept forward so that her head was still beneath the overhanging rock, not three inches above her when she raised herself slightly on her elbows, but she was able to look down at the camp with its fire. There. She saw a person, two, it looked like, sitting not far from the fire, opposite each other, wearing coats and stocking hats against the cold, and, thinking that their clothing did not look especially official, she worked to steady the cold-induced tremor in her hands, hoping for a better look. Something was wrong down there in the camp, something seemed a bit off, and she studied the area in the fading light, trying to figure out just what it was. The people werent moving, had not moved since she began watching, were not people, at all as it turned out; she could see that their heads were simply squares of some material--looked like metal--over which had been pulled hats, and Liz knew that something was seriously wrong. The place was a trap, clearly, but she did not understand its purpose, as whoever had constructed it, be they feds or bounty hunters, could have hardly have expected that either she or Einar would deliberately approach any camp whose occupants were clearly visible like that, but whatever the purpose of the mysterious decoys, she knew that she needed to get out of there, knew that surely someone must be around to watch the camp, and probably even had it under electronic surveillance. Darkness was coming quickly under the heavy cloud cover, and Liz hoped to be able to slip away in it, but worried, knowing that whoever was out there watching the camp would almost certainly be equipped with night vision equipment. The darkness would not necessarily shield her. But, she thought, perhaps a heavy snowstorm would. She could wait, would wait, make her retreat once the blizzard that the sharp gustings and howlings of the wind were surely bringing got underway. Chilled, she drew the wolverine hide in closer around her head and shoulders, and waited. Sometime later, the light fading and a few random snowflakes beginning to fall, Liz was startled out of her rest by the sudden appearance of a flash of fire high in the sky above the tree tops, its brilliance diffused by the falling snow, followed by a sound not quite like thunder and flaming bits ofsomethingplummeting towards the earth, some distance from her position there on the ridge. Liz had no idea what she had just witnessed, wondered if it could have something to do with the search, a problem with one of the aircraft they were using, perhaps, but doubted it, as she had not been aware of the presence of anything nearby. Minutes later she thought she heard something, raised her head and kept still, waited. The sound came again from somewhere down the rocky draw that lay below the meadow, and in an instant the quiet sigh and rustle of the wind tossed woods was split by a chaos of gunfire and shouting, Liz pressing herself flat against the rock, turning her head sideways and trying to get a look when the shooting stopped, terribly confused. It was almost dark, but by getting the binoculars back up in front of her face and squinting to make out the dim shapes, she was able to see

as a group of men in what she was pretty sure were BDUs--accompanied by one who was clearly wearing a distinctive yellow-lettered black FBI jacket--cautiously moved about the ruined camp, picking up the now-undressed metal silhouettes that they had apparently mistaken for people, as had she. A chill went down Lizs spine, all the blood draining from her face as she realized that the agents must have believed those two figures to be herself and Einar. We never would have had a chance. Godlet him be safe out there! Dont let them find him. Or me. Or my back trail The thought occurred to her the next moment that Einar never would have built a fire out in the open like that, or nearly in the open, and then just sat there waiting, wondering almost simultaneously who ever could have placed those decoys, if it had not been the feds. Bounty hunters, must be. And they clearly werent communicating with the FBI! Boy, is somebody going to be in trouble. And she took her first full breath since before the shooting had started, feeling that she finally had reasonable explanations for the whole thing. But Liz was trapped, and knew it. No way could she move from her hiding place beneath the rocks as long as those agents were down investigating the camp, and who knew how long that might be. Through the night, at least, she expected, but hoped they might hurry a bit, with the storm worsening as it was. Not two minutes later the night was again split by a thunderous explosion, and a massive ball of fire, this one far closer and on the ground, somewhere down there near the camp, and while Liz was not able to make out much of what was going on, through the smoke and flying debris and darkness, and with snow curling down from the sky with growing intensity, she could not imagine that it had gone well for the agents there in the camp. Within seconds the acrid smell reached her, a wave of heat that traveled up from the meadow below and would have been quite a welcome relief from the bitter chill of the night, under other circumstances. And then, before she even had time to think about what she had just seen and try and make some sense of it, she heard the helicopter--a strange sound, not like the ones she had become so familiar with hearing during the searches, yet definitely rotors of some sort--making its way quickly up the low spot between her ridge and the one on the far side of the camp.

Waking after nearly an hour of exhausted sleep, Einars thoughts returned immediately to the bear, the idea of rousting it from its den and taking it for food still seeming a good one, but not, when he really thought about it, quite as simple as it had seemed to him while standing in front of the little cave entrance earlier that morning. It had been some time since he had used a spear, some time, in fact since he had wielded anything but crutches, and he had some doubts as the accuracy with which he would be able to throw, and even more when it came to his prospects of being able to put enough force behind the throw to deliver the creature a fatal blow. And even if I manage to do that, and somehow escape being injured, the critters likely to have enough life left in it to take off down that slope and end up five or six hundred feet lower by the time it stops, and that would mean Im moving down there, cause theres no way Im hauling a full-grown adult bear up this slope, even in pieces. Can barely haul myself, right now. So. Need to find a way to make sure it wont take off like that. He pictured a corral of heavy branches, lashed

together and driven into the ground in places, forming a small enclosed space around the den entrance that would give him time to aim a couple of well placed spear thrusts before the bear managed to break it down and escape, supposed that might work, although the bear would be very likely to retreat back into the den where he, perhaps not knowing for certain whether he had delivered a fatal wound, would eventually have to follow it to check and possibly to finish the job, putting himself at great peril. How about a deadfall? Something that is triggered by the bear coming out of the den, or even just something I could release from above when I saw it coming out? Rocks, a log, log with a couple big rocks lashed to it, maybe, and suspended up here He looked around, saw that there was no such log nearby in the area above the den, put the idea aside, for the moment. No way youre dragging a log big enough to do any good up that steep bank, or even down it, for that matter. Just not happening now with that leg, with you barely able to hold your head up for more than a few minutes or lift that nearly-empty little backpack up onto your back Hey! Watch it, there. Im getting along alright. Made it back up to the shelter, didnt I? Now, Ill do what needs doing, and if a deadfall is the best way to make sure I get this bear, then a deadfall it will be. Maybe I can find a fallen log somewhere uphill of the den, roll and shove it down the hill a ways, get behind it and push with my good leg if I have to, to keep it going, roll it over there to the ledge on top of the den, and then he sighed, drew the bear hide in closer around his shoulders. Yeah, then it gets really difficult, and I probably end up hurting myself trying to get the thing raised, re-break the leg or something, or get trapped under the log because Im so clumsy and freeze to death within an hour, get covered with snow as this storm goes on, and the bear finds me and has a ready-made snack waiting for it in the spring when I start melting out of the snow bank. Laughing and shaking his head at the image though he knew that such an outcome was not especially unlikely, he searched for other options, wracked his brain trying to remember what he had read and been told of the way such den hunts had been carried out before firearms were available, and wound up no more encouraged about his prospects for success than he had been, before. I seem to remember that those hunts usually involved several strong and able men, all armed with spears and waiting to back up the one on top of the den if anything went wrong. It was not, and probably still isnt, a practical means of hunting for a lone, halfcrippled, mostly starved old fool whos just got a particular hankering for some fresh bear liver and fixingsno. Best stick to squirrels and rabbits for now, Einar, hope to come up with enough of them so you can start getting some strength back, go down lower and take an elk in a few weeks. Bad idea, bringing up the concept of what might happen in a few weeks, he had known it but had allowed it to creep into the conversation anyway--lousy discipline, must be tired or something--and he tried to turn his thoughts in another direction, but too late. There it was, the whole winter stretching out before him, snowy and bleak and, clothed and fed as he was, crushingly cold, month after month of struggling through the deep snow on his crutches, freezing, never having enough to eat, of wondering each evening if he was going to see daylight again, if he would have all of his toes and fingers when it came, his entertainment consisting of speculating on how many days it would take for a fatal infection to set in if he did not remember to stop often

enough to warm the white stiffness of approaching frostbite from fingers and toes, night after sleepless night of wondering where Liz was, how she had died, if that was indeed what had happened to her, whether he could have saved her had he forced himself, despite his weakness and near inability to move, to go out searching for her the first night of her absence, and at the moment, it was all just too much. An hour of that he could do, a day, he supposed, but the winter Burying his face in the thick dark fur of the yearling bear, soft and smelling of smoke from his fire the previous night, he fought to swallow the nameless terror that he felt rising in him, not, he knew, a fear of the pain and hardship and the strength-sapping, mind-numbing hunger that he saw in store for him over the coming months--they were familiar as old friends by that point and he knew, more or less, how to live in their presence--nor of the keen, aching emptiness that assailed him every time he thought of Liz--never expected that--nor even of the death that he supposed would likely be the cumulative result of day after day lived in such way, but of losing the will to live those days the way he had striven to live his entire life, the courage, when his time came, to die well. He feareddespair. There, I have named you, you evil, vile beast. I hear you out there stalking me, circling, waiting, looking for a way in. You think youve found it, do you? Come then, show me! Sink your teeth into me and we will fight this out between us and you may kill me but at least I will go down as I should, fighting. Come on! Where are you, you filthy coward? But it was gone, the insidious, shadowy creature whose breath he had felt on his neck and whose presence had been the moment before threatening to choke him with fear, and Einar shook his head and wiped his face with his arm, feeling better for having named and challenged what he knew to be one of his greatest adversaries, but at the same time ashamed at what he took to be a display of weakness. You need to chew a bunch of pine needles, Einar, or go sit in the sun or something. Must be getting short on vitamins. What is this nonsense? There was no sun at all to sit in, though, as it was snowing again, hard, wind lashing the trees and driving flakes in beneath his rock slab, whitening the outside of the bear hide, sifting in and covering the banks of duff he had gathered with a thin skiff of white, so he settled for reaching one arm out of the cover of the bear hide and pulling off a short length of spruce branch, chewing its bitter, tangy needles and swallowing the juice. Hungry, the acidic, almost citrus sting of the needles burning as it hit his empty stomach, he partook of the small sip of water that had managed to melt in the bottom of his snow-filled water bottle, took out a thin strip of bear jerky and ate, giving thanks for the food, for the protection of the rocks over his head, for Your hand strong against the danger that just tried to destroy me, fending it off when I did not have the strength. Cause I sure didnt, and I know it, and I thank You. Now. He smiled, lifting his head and taking in a great lungful of the crisp, cold, snowscented air. About that bear

Just before the storm had started in earnest the night before, the outfitter, wounded and bleeding and having done what he could to slow his blood loss by pressing several rolls

of gauze to the entry wound--there didnt seem to be an exit, and he supposed his heavy coat and the distance must have slowed the round significantly--and wrapping his middle with an Ace bandage to hold it in place, had begun making his way down towards the trailhead where he had parked the horse trailer, managing to remain lucid most of the time and relying on the judgment of his horse during the times when, weak from blood loss, he was forced to lower his head and close his eyes for a few minutes. Back at camp, he did his best to pack things up, loading down the third horse and finally abandoning some of his gear, wrapping it in tarp and stowing it beneath a tree, still losing blood and fearing losing consciousness on the way down if he tried to do too much, lift too much, in cleaning up the camp. Reaching the trailer sometime that afternoon he slid down from the horse, collapsing on the ground and rising again only with difficulty, fumbling with his truck key and finally getting the door open, starting the vehicle and sitting there with his head on the steering wheel as the vehicle warmed, heat blasting and his shivering slowly subsiding. Checking the improvised bandage he saw that it had soaked through, retrieved some more gauze from the trucks first aid kit and wrapped it on top of the first batch, not wanting to release the pressure of the wrapped elastic bandage to change out the saturated rolls. This was not the first time he had suffered such a wound--the first time, almost forty years prior and far away in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the injury had been to his arm and had probably been less serious, but conditions certainly had been more dire than the drive down snow-slick Forest Service roads that now lay between him and help. So, there was a very good chance, in his mind, that he might be making it out of the present situation alive, but on the chance that he might now, he retrieved a small notebook and pen from the trucks glove compartment and hurried to scrawl a three-line note, the writing skewed and untidy and the little paper smeared with blood by the time he was done, describing how he had come to have a federal agents bullet in his gut, and where his client/shooter could be found. With a safety pin he attached the note to the front of his shirt, wanting to make certain it was found by whoever found him, should he pass out or expire before reaching help. Weary and increasingly dizzied by blood loss, he wished to stay right where he was, resting, waiting with the hope that perhaps another hunter or a ranger would come along, help him, get him out of there and spare him the danger of negotiating the increasingly slick, muddy road in his condition, but he knew that with the storm intensifying, there was little chance that anyone would be heading up there that afternoon. Nope. This is one youve got to get yourself out of, and these horses, too, and youd better do it before this snow starts coming down much harder, or itll be an awfully difficult drive. Leaving the warmth of the truck cab he tried to tend to the horses, got the pack saddle off and the pack horse loaded, found himself unable to lift the saddle to get it up into the truck or even the trailer, left it under a tree and loaded the remaining two horses, saddles and all. Not the way he liked to treat his animals, but he was in serious trouble and knew it, started down the steep, slick switchbacks of the Forest Service road in the dimming light of the stormy evening, determined to reach the highway, and live.

With snow falling heavily outside once again, Einar lay curled up in the bear hide,

working with a sharp piece of granite to finish the mostly-completed spear point he had found in the backpack, undecided as yet on whether he would be using it to go after the bear, but needing something to keep his hands busy, anyway, and wishing for a weapon with a bit of a longer reach than the knife. His ability to effectively use it, as with the atlatl, was in question as long as he must rely on the crutches to keep standing, but it gave him one more option, and should, he knew, prove useful in dispatching animals that he might take in his snares, if he did not end up using it on the bear. Pausing in his work to warm his hands and seek a sip of water he found that little more of the snow in his bottle had melted, knew that he needed to drink, wondered if it would be safe, yet, to have a fire. He supposed so, the way the wind howled outside, driving the snow sideways and plastering it thick and white and heavy against the trunks of nearby trees, doubted anyone would be out flying in that, no matter how badly they wanted to find him. He didnt have much wood left, just the small pile of dry branches that he had collected and broken up and stowed in his pack on his foray down to the spruce to check for Liz, but it would, he hoped, be enough to melt some water, perhaps to drive some of the deep, aching chill from his bones and allow him to relax a bit. For a minute or two, anyway. He got the fire going, a bit of milkweed down and some dry, shredded aspen inner bark serving to catch a spark and a glob of spruce pitch holding the flame long enough to allow it to creep up into the slightly snow-damp kindling, Einar lying on his stomach and blowing until it seemed sure to live and holding his shaking hands out to the wonderful warmth of the little blaze, careful not to get the m too close, as he knew that, numb as they were, he could end up damaging them before he even realized it. Suspending a tightly packed ball of snow near the flames on a leaning stick, plastic bag beneath to catch the drips, he turned his attention to his feet, struggling to reach them in the confined space of the shelter without disturbing the high walls of duff and sticks and other debris that he had piled up until they nearly reached the level of the overhang, pressing the toes between his hands until he felt the deep stinging ache of returning circulation. Gonna have to do this more often, it looks like. Pretty hard to remember, right now, but the socks and this one bear skin slipper just arent quite doing it. Would be better if I could get up and move, if I could sit up and get my feet a little closer to that fire, but this rock ledge is too close above my head. Not happening. Guess I should really just be mighty glad Im in here out of the wind and snow. He wished, though, that he still had the large bag of extra milkweed down that Liz had collected and he removed the seeds from and dried, as he would have liked to stuff his other sock with it and perhaps, when he managed to get them dry, do the same with the spare pair of socks, using them as improvised gloves to help keep some feeling in his hands when he had to use the crutches and while he slept. Well. Hope shes making good use of it, out there. Rather she have it, anyway, I guess, because shes got less practice at all of this, may need it more than I do. Beginning to feel terribly anxious for Liz once more, wondering how she had come through the night--if she had come through it--and what she was doing to stay warm as the storm continued engulfing the mountains in a smothering blanket of white and wind and bitter cold, he tried to push the thoughts of her aside, couldnt, shook his head in frustration. I cant reach her. This is one I cant do anything about, but You can, so if Youre willingwell, just keep her safe out there, please And, staring out into the bleak world outside, he had a very strong impression of Liz curled up under the

thick, encircling boughs of a fallen tree, warm and dry and protected from the wind as the storm raged around her, sleeping securely like a fox in its den. He didnt know whether the pleasant vision had some connection to reality or if it was merely the creation of his own mind, seeking to justify his lack of action when it came to attempting to find and help Liz, but he clung to it, finding that his own situation was a good deal more bearable as long as he was able to hope that she might be somewhere dry and warm and out of danger as the snow piled up and the wind knocked the trees together in a series of odd, hollow-sounding reports that rang through the increasingly white woods like gunshots. OK. Back to the task at hand, here. The spearhead was finished, ready to be attached to a split-topped staff of willow and lashed in place withwell, sinew would be best but I dont have any, so paracord it will be. Trouble was, he had seen no willow in the immediate area, and with the storm raging outside and the little fire burning in its shallow depression there in the front of his shelter having so far barley done a thing to thaw the ice in his bones, he was not especially looking forward to venturing out to push and stumble through thigh-deep snow as he searched the gullies for stands of willow from which to take a spear shaft and returning soaked and half frozen to begin again the process of thawing himself out and restoring the blood flow to fingers and feet. Have to be careful how I use whatever energy I can manage to scrape together, here. Need to go back down to the spruce this evening to check for Liz, anyway, take a look at those snares (ha! Not gonna see anything in the snares on a day like this. No critter with a lick of sense would be out and about in this storm) so I better wait and look for the willow, then. Sure not going after that bear today, so I got time. Time, perhaps, but not wood enough to keep his little fire going for much longer, so Einar, emulating the deer and rabbits and other woodland creatures who were all at that moment holed up in their burrows or dens or curled up in the lee of big, sheltering trees to escape the storms fury and conserve energy, drew his head down beneath the thick fur of the hide, pulling in after him the rocks that had sat heating in the fire and curling his battered and emaciated frame around them for warmth, sleeping, alive and, for the moment, at least marginally warm. Sleeping, Einar dreamt, and his dreams, as had become routine of late, were of food; bear liver eaten fresh and steaming in the frigid air, warming first his fingers as he held it and then imparting life and strength and a wonderful, spreading warmth to the rest of his body, thankful tears squeezing from between his eyelids as he slept and freezing in his beard and in the fur of the yearling beneath his head and Einar, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, saw a creature curled up in a dark and close space, warm, sheltering enough to see it through the worst weather that might come, and knew that he was looking at the den of the bear that he had discovered down there near the fallen tree, but was unsure whether the creature he saw was himself, or the bear. Must have been the bear, for the next moment he woke to find himself still curled up beneath the overhang, shaking hard as the warmth of the rocks dissipated and his own body lacked the resources to keep itself warm, even with the ample insulation he had packed in around himself. It was a familiar situation, and one which he knew must not be allowed to progress unchecked. He must eat. Was out of dried bear meat, had softened and swallowed the last shred of it before his nap, and he knew that the time had come to check the snares,

though it was little hope, indeed, that he had of finding anything in them on a day like that. The good news was that he had finally managed to carefully finish drying the spare polypropylene shirt over the little fire he had allowed himself prior to sleeping, would have it to change into upon returning from his journey, and need not remove and save the one he was currently wearing and venture out into the teeth of the storm with bare and freezing arms, as he had the last time, with only the soaked and frozen buckskin vest to protect him. Should make for a much better walk! And theres always a chance Liz came back, may be waiting for me down at that tree Which she was not, but by the time he had got himself down to the tree to check, Einar found himself far too physically exhausted and numb of mind to feel even a pang of disappointment at her ongoing absence, staring dully at the trackless snow around the spruce for a minute before getting himself turned around on his crutches and starting back up the hill, wishing only to be out of the wind but knowing that if he wanted to go on living he must make a detour and check his snares, cut a willow staff if he found one and was able. The snares, as expected, were empty, abandoned, not a track marring the fresh, wind-drifted snow around them, and he limped along, zigzagging up the slope and praying that he did not drop a crutch and lose it in the snow, knowing that the loss of even one of them could well mean the end of him, as he would never be able to make the long, freezing crawl back up to his meager shelter that its loss would necessitate. By the time he reached the area where he had placed his fifth and final snare, Einar was hardly even bothering to check them, knowing that he was to find nothing, and it was much to his surprise when, half blinded by the storm and near collapsing with exhaustion, he discovered in it the snow-covered body of a small ermine, already cold but not entirely frozen.

Liz lay there under the rocks, pressed into the ground as the heat from the explosion and fire in the valley rose and met her, listening to the quick approach of the odd-sounding helicopter from down valley. Just as it drew up parallel to where the camp had been, hovering, Liz saw a tiny flash of fire, heard a sudden change in the pitch of the pattering rotors, almost as if the thing had lost an engine and the next moment realized that it must have, because the aircraft--she never did get a good look at it, but could see from the glow of a few still-burning trees below that it appeared to be an odd mix between helicopter and plane--pitched to the side and slammed into the tree-covered side of the ridge opposite her, tearing itself up on the exposed granite and leaving Liz barely time to get her head down behind a rock before the hot blast wave from its exploding fuel reached her. Trees were burning, the ground, even seemed to be on fire down where the camp had been, and Liz kept her head low, staring out through a crack between two boulders at a flaming spruce top not fifty feet below her, knowing that she had to get out of there in a hurry, but reluctant to move lestwhatever was going on out theremight not yet be over. Which it was not, and a good thing she had remained still, because the next minute she heard another chopper--no! Two! It sounds like two!--coming up over a distant ridge, approaching the burning mess on the ground and circling it, staying high and appearing after a minute to be headed out of the area. Then something on the ground

seemed to attract their attention, because they doubled back and, lower this time, headed straight up the valley for the burning camp, and Liz pressed herself into the cold rock floor below and hoped that the ledge above her head would be enough to conceal her, but highly doubted she was the focus of any of their attention, at that point. As they neared the area, slowly approaching along the ridgeline opposite her, Liz saw out of the corner of her eye as one of the choppers exploded in flame, the other taking on a strange sound and, apparently, impacting the ridge seconds later. For a space of time that covered no more than three seconds but seemed to Liz like half an eternity she lay there shaking as the heat of the furiously burning fuel and the spruce torches it had ignited reached her, but her hesitation lasted no longer than that. Whatever was going on--is that you, Einar? Cant be, because Ive got half of your mysterious package here with me, and if you were able to make helicopters fall out of the sky like this, Im pretty sure you would have done it, long before now!--she was pretty sure she did not want to be in the area when the next wave of it arrived. She was far too close, would probably be captured and questioned andwell, she did not even want to think about the possibility that under the sort of interrogation that they were likely to use after such an incident she might let slip some bit of that would lead them to Einars location. Not that I really know where he is right now, or Id be there with him, but just in case cant be around when they get here, whoever comes to clean this up. Snow is starting to really come down now, so it should at least help to cover my tracks. With that she grabbed the pack and wormed her way up through the rocks, emerging into the soft glow of the burning forest, diffused by the snow and soon to be extinguished by it, she expected, at a point near the ridge crest, quickly dropping down its other side and making time through the dark timber. Liz felt a strange sense of elation as she walked, running, almost, to quickly put some distance behind her, wondering exactly what she had just witnessed but realizing that, whatever it had been, it seemed that somebody out there had intervened when search teams, shooting to kill before even so much as confirming their targets, had swept down on what they had apparently believed to be herself and Einar, and that those same somebodies were seemingly shooting down federal helicopters as they came to investigate the aftermath of that failed raid. Liz could not imagine who the somebodies might be. The little group that had met weekly up at Bill and Susans house for training and discussion had not seemed to possess the ability to do the sorts of things she had just witnessed, but she did wonder about the gruff, shadowy fellow who had shown up unannounced at Bill and Susans back door shortly before the accident that had killed Bill and injured herself and Susan. His name had been Bill, also, Bill Foreman, she thought she remembered, and she had got the impression that he and Susans husband Bill had seen some rather interesting times together, years ago in some far away corners of the world, though Liz had seldom heard Bill speak of his service. Just days after the appearance of the other Bill, the heads of Agent Day and the two others who had beaten Susan and killed Bill after forcing them off the road had ended up on pikes outside the FBI compound, and Liz had always believed that Bill Foreman must have been responsible, though she had neither seen nor heard from him since that night up at Bill and Susans house. Who knows? Maybe someone who is capable of making sure the head of the Agent in Charge ends up on a pike, would also have the means and

desire to carry to carry out the attack I just saw Still, though, it seemed like an awful lot for one man to have managed. Either way, she found a good deal of comfort in the knowledge that, for whatever reason, it seemed they had an ally out therefore once. Reassuring as that was, she was pretty sure that she would rather have had less activity in the area, period, hoped Einar was far enough away that he had not heard the goings on, as she knew that he would be feeling a pressing need to get further from the area, if he had. Which is exactly what I need to be doing, right now.

Einar, who had, hunkered down in his shelter and deafened by distance and the howling wind, been completely unaware of the drama that had unfolded around the dummy camp the night before, hurried as well as he could back up to the shelter with the little ermine that afternoon, needing to eat but needing even more urgently to be out of the wet and the wind, collecting bits of firewood as he went and wriggling his casted leg with difficulty down into the cocoon, shoving the rest of his body in after it and quickly changing into his dry shirt, terribly grateful for its existence. And for that of the ermine. Tearing into the little weasel like a starved fox, he ate the heart and liver raw, drank the small amount of blood that remained unfrozen near the creatures core, lying there with his eyes closed as his body absorbed their nutrients, thawing his hands against his stomach and finally getting them flexible enough to have some hope of starting a fire. Striking sparks with a bit of difficulty, he warmed his hands further near the flames and set the ermines skinny little body, freed of its sleek white fur and skewered open with two sharp sticks stuck horizontally in through the ribcage, to heat and cook on an angled rock beside the fire, next to the stick that held the ubiquitous melting snowball. Watching with rapt attention and painfully dry throat as the snowball began to soften, one drip and then another creeping down to a low point, turning the snow briefly translucent and falling, he knew he was not getting enough to drink, but the occasional sips of snow melt had to be helping, so he diligently kept at obtaining them every time he had a fire, sometimes pressing a lump of snow between his hands until it was almost ice and eating that, when his thirst got the better of him and he found himself no longer able to wait for the slow, steady drip, drip of the snowball to produce him a decent-sized sip of water. Having stripped the warm and half-cooked meat from the small frame of the ermine and eaten it, cracking several of the bones for their marrow and setting a bit of meat aside for later, forcing himself, with great difficulty, to leave it alone for the time, Einar lay down again, drawing his head in under the shelter of the bear hide and resting there as his meal began digesting, staring out at the storm and listening to the water as it dripped, one drop at a time, terribly slow and reluctant-seeming, from the suspended snowball. The storm showed no sign of letting up; it was, he expected, to be one of the occasional several-day blizzards which were rare but certainly not unheard of in those mountains, and he doubted that his snares would produce much--the presence of the ermine really had surprised him--until it ended. And when the blizzard did end, he knew that he could likely expect it to leave in its wake anywhere from one--ha! More than that, already--to four feet on the steep ground that surrounded his little shelter, making even the short walk to check his snares an incredibly difficult and tiring task for a man on crutches, and a

potentially deadly one if that man was also lacking in adequate cold weather gear and nearly starved, as he was. With that in mind Einars thoughts again turned to the bear in its den, to the foolishness that would be him, a lone, injured man armed only with a spear and a few atlatl darts, deliberately provoking and taking on a full grown bear, even if it was groggy from having just been wakened from its hibernation, and he lay there going through a number of different scenarios in his head, feeding the last few tiny sticks into the fire and then watching as it died, drifting into something like sleep, still uncertain as to the best course of action in regards to the bear. When nearly an hour later he found himself, despite the sustenance gained from the ermine, very nearly unable to summon the strength to drag himself to his knees and creep out of the cocoon to relieve himself in the snow, it was suddenly rather clear to him what he must do. He had to eat, was getting weaker fast and just couldnt handle the cold anymore, couldnt keep waiting, or it would be too late, he could feel it, sense it, knew that without some change, he would soon reach a point where he would be physically capable of doing little besides lying there in his shelter and waiting to die. He must take that bear, must do it successfully and cleanly. If he failed to kill the creature or was further injured in the attempt, successful or not, he doubted he could manage to keep body and soul together much longer. Not in this cold, and practically immobile as I am. Not happening. Stark, brutal realities for one to be faced with, but they were his, and his choice was to live, if possible. And if notbetter to have it end out there on the mountainside with me on my feet and giving it my best shot, rather than just lying here waiting, anyway. All that remained was to decide on the best means of attack, how best to make use of the few resources he had available to him, and go get started.

While the heavy layer of cloud-cover prevented him from figuring out the time, Einar did, thinking back on the day, expect that he had at least a few hours of light left, and he worked with his knife to split the top of the stout willow stick he had cut on while out checking his snares, sliding the finished spear head down into the crack and wrapping the shaft tightly with paracord to secure it. Wished he had some sinew to wrap it with, but, testing the weapon, believed it would hold. Had better hold Right. So get down there before evening comes and you find some reason to put this off for another day. He crept out of the shelter, struggling to his feet, spear lashed to his back and carrying the small pack with his dry shirt and hat, atlatl and dart sticking up out of the top of it. Everything else--not that there was much--he left up under the rock awaiting his return, or, just as likely, awaiting discovery by some hunter or hiker who might find himself wandering the area in thirty or so years, stumbling upon the badly aged and animal-chewed bear hide, the carefully wrapped blasting caps and two well-used socks, thus solving in part the ongoing mystery that would be created when the bear crunched his bones and added a few pounds--ha! Only a few--to his hibernation weight, returning to his den for a winter of peaceful sleep and leaving only a few shreds of old brown polypropylene cloth and a shattered bone spearhead on the slope outside to tell the story. Einar shook his head and laughed at the thought, the deadly serious task before him somehow taking on a hint of levity as he pushed his way down through the drifts and billows of snow, wet underneath

but powdery and drier near the top--getting colder-- working his way down towards the bear den. The levity left him, in large part, the first time he fell, catching his good leg on a sharply broken, uphill-facing spike of a spruce branch that was buried and hidden beneath the snow, wrenching his injured leg fairly badly as he pitched forward and ending up head down on his stomach on a steep portion of the slope, flailing about in the snow in an attempt to get his face up out of the powder so he could breathe. Brushing the snow out of his eyes and lying there with them squeezed tightly shut against the searing pain in his leg--will this thing ever get a chance to heal?--Einar suddenly raised his head, flipped over and sat up, a slow smile spreading across his face as he brushed the snow away from the spruce spike that had caused his fall. He knew how he was going to take that bear. Finally managing to stand again, both crutches found and retrieved from the concealing grasp of the snow, he hung there between the crutches, breath coming hard and his clothing, inevitably, soaked through, Einar made a quick decision, sat back down and began pushing himself forward through the snow, propelling himself with the crutches. The still-falling snow, heavy and showing no sign of letup, would fill in the trench he was leaving, he hoped, the wind drift over it and leave it unrecognizable by the time the clouds began clearing. Einars unorthodox method of travel only worked as long as the slope was angled sharply enough, and he feared reaching a small cliff, being unable to stop his slide and going over, but at the moment, almost anything seemed better than a continued series of short, hobbling steps interspersed with frequent falls such as the one he had just experienced. Which, he knew, was what a descent on foot would almost certainly have entailed. Sliding was not an option for too long as the slope angle changed and he soon found himself bogging down in the snow, unable to make any forward progress without once again regaining his feet. Finally he saw the dead snag of a fir that stood atop the den-ledge and marked it, headed for it, soon reached the fallen tree at its base and swept the snow from a section of the rough bark and sat down, wanting to begin right away in implementing his plan but needing a few minutes respite, first. Seconds were all he had, though, as the chill wind soon had him shaking hard in his wet clothes, and he struggled back to his feet, bracing his good knee against the tree trunk and beating his arms against his sides, knowing that if his plan was to succeed, he must somehow manage to keep a bit of flexibility in his hands. Below the den and the small, almost level area outside it, the slope dropped away steeply and Einars greatest concern, aside from himself being further injured or killed by the bear, was that the creature, wounded and, he hoped, dying, might manage to hurdle itself down that slope for a good distance before stopping. An easy track, for sure, in that snow, but carrying the meat back up that slope, either to the den or to his shelter, might well be more than he could manage, and he knew it. But I got a solution for that, now. Gonna build a couple of rough panels to set along the sides here to discourage him from running to the side, kinda funnel him to the center, in here along this fallen tree where it gets steep. Ill go at him from one side with the spear and if I get a good solid hitwell, great. Maybe that can be the end of it. But if not, and he takes off running to get away from me and from the smoky den behind him, hell be charging right into the row of spikes that Ill have waiting for him just here where it starts to get steep! If hes moving fast enough hell get hung up on them just like I did on the slope up there, maybe impaled, even, and if not, hopefully theyll at least

slow him down long enough for me to hurry in and finish him off. Sounded feasible enough, and seemed a good bit more likely to succeed than some of the other plans he had been pondering which involved the use of deadfalls whose weight he knew, realistically, he would be unlikely to manage lifting, and far less likely to result in his death than would simply smoking the bear out and meeting it at the entrance with his spear, which was his first inclination and the way he would really have preferred to go about it. Working with his hands and the knife he freed several of the largest branches from the fallen tree, driving them into the snow-covered ground on either side of the den entrance, leaning on them with all of his weight to coax them into the half frozen dirt beneath the snow and stopping when he had ten or twelve uprights stuck in the ground on one side, starting to add cross-pieces which he wove in and occasionally lashed with a bit of paracord. The panels, he knew, would be nothing that a bear could not destroy with one good swipe of a paw if it so desired, but he hoped that the animal, groggy with sleep, blinded and choking on the smoke that would have filled the den, would not realize that. Resting, taking a bite of the nearly frozen ermine meat he had saved, he rose again with difficulty and began on the second panel, this one on the left side of the entrance. He used less sticks on it than he had on the first, intending to stand on that side with his spear and wanting to leave himself plenty of access to get in a good thrust at the creature as it emerged. With the panels in place and secured as well as possible, Einar turned his attention to making the spikes, or tried to. He had been growing awfully cold and sluggish for the past while, movements becoming slower and less coordinated, and he had just pushed himself harder, using every bit of focus he could muster up to keep himself on task and hoping the activity might warm him, had not even realized just how far he was slipping as the relentless wind took the heat out of him and quickly exhausted his meager resources. Several minutes passed, Einar staring without seeing at the snowobscured den entrance, before he noticed that while he had been thinking about the spikes he had not acted, remaining there leaning against the icy branches of the panel with his upper arms pasted to his sides for warmth and his shoulders hunched against the wet wind that had continued to plaster him with snow the entire time he had been working. Shaking himself, wringing the water out of his hat, he stood, blinked slowly at the snowy world around him and at the strange structures he had just built, trying to figure out why on earth he had gone to the trouble, as they did not look especially useful for shelter, which was what he really, really needed at the moment, and why somebody--Liz? Thought youd gone back down to town for the winter, or something. What are you doing up here in this storm?--kept kicking at his bad leg and shouting at him to get busy and make those spikes. What would I want withspikes? Just want to lie down right now, but I cant do it here, so guess I better start crawling up to my shelter. But Liz did not seem interested in helping him with that, wouldnt leave him alone, kept kicking and shouting and finally knocked him down in the snow where he barely saved himself from tumbling right down the steep slope in front of the den. The den. Yes. He remembered. Now, I sure hope she didnt wake that bear with all her shouting, cause Im not ready yet. Shaking his head, he picked himself up out of the snow, got the crutches under him. What was that, Einar? Cant be doing that out here in this storm, cant let yourself go.

Daydreamings for sunny afternoons and such. You got to stay on top of things or this storms gonna be the end of you, and youll make a nice frozen treat for the bear when he wakes up in the spring. Laughing a hollow little laugh when somebody (Liz, he would have said, but remembered at that moment that it couldnt be her, because she was gone) responded that hey! At least then you wouldnt go to waste, bears got to eat, you know he picked himself up out of the snow. Returning to the tree, propping the crutches against the exposed roots and leaning on the trunk for support as he hopped along, he began the search for sturdy branches to break and sharpen for the spikes, fighting a strong desire to crawl into that cave and curl up beside the bear to sleep, just hoping the creature did not notice and seeing if he couldnt stay in there, if not for the winter then at least long enough to dry out and get a little warmer Having collected a number of stout sticks and, with many breaks to thaw his hands and restore some mobility to them, sharpened them to thick, sturdy points, Einar sat and stared at his work, trying to decide what came next. He had created eight of the spikes in all, had found and saved a long, heavy crosspiece that he meant to lash horizontally across them for support, and he dragged it over to the two trees, some six feet apart, that stood just below the small flattish platform outside the den. Securely lashing the crosspiece between the two trees at a height of about two feet off the ground, he returned for the spikes, angling them into the ground in front of the crosspiece so that their bottom ends were behind it on the downhill side, the sharpened tips sticking out a good foot beyond the horizontal log in the front, angled up-slope at the den. Carefully lashing each of the spikes to the crosspiece where they met, using a single length of paracord and determined not to cut it if he could keep it whole, he finished the trap, tested the spikes and found that they would hold. Against him, anyway. An angry bear might well be a different matter, but all I need is a little time. Should be good for a little time. Adding a few branches forward of the panels to complete the funnel effect, he stood to the side and looked at his work, nodded, retrieved some milkweed down and a big bundle of dry, shreddy aspen bark from his pack and climbed into the space just in front of the den, into the funnel. The light was dimming, evening coming, the wind sweeping upslope at him, and Einar felt his heart begin to beat a bit faster, a tingle of adrenalin coursing through him and temporarily halting the constant, cold-induced tremor that had so badly interfered with his construction of the trap. He rubbed his hands together, grinned. Time to build that fire

Shredding the aspen bark to further separate its fibers, Einar curled it around the milkweed down, set the bundle on a slab of bark from the fallen spruce and arranged a number of small, dry sticks around it, careful to keep his preparations up under the narrow ledge above the den lest the still-falling snow dampen everything and prevent him from lighting the fire. Finishing with the sticks, he broke off and added the blue-green green tips from a few live spruce branches, needing something to generate smoke, once the fire got going, and gently shoved the fire-slab further into the den opening, narrowed by the days snow to a mere slit, which he had to enlarge slightly in order for the prepared fire to fit. Ready to strike sparks, having got painfully down into the closest thing his

casted leg would allow him to a crouch, Einar planted the shaft of his spear firmly in the snow for support, leaning on it and praying as his ancestors--though the thought certainly did not cross his mind at the moment--had done for centuries on the eve of conflict, asking only for the strength to fight his battle well, the will to endure until the end, whenever and however it might come. The little tinder pile lit with ease, flames growing and climbing and soon lapping at the pitchy green branches, producing a healthy amount of smoke that began filtering into the den, pushed by the same stiff upslope wind that had been plastering Einars back with snow as he worked, but most of it, from all appearances, was being snatched away and sent up the hill instead of into the blackness of the den, and Einar, afraid to shove the slab of bark further in lest he knock over and extinguish the little fire, shielded the entrance with his body, getting down on his side and blowing to direct the smoke in where it needed to be. After about a minute of this the wind shifted suddenly, gusting straight up the slope instead of at its previous upward diagonal, sending all of the now-copious black smoke into the den. Einar, lying there, heard a stirring inside, rolled away from the entrance and got himself to his feet. Thinking fast, he considered staying right where he was and meeting the creature with the spear when it inevitably burst out of its snowy cocoon, but knew that, unsteady as he was on his feet, he would be rather likely to end up trampled on the ground or backed up into his own spear-trap by the charging animal, if he tried that. No time for hesitation, then, no time for anything, as he heard the creature coming, saw the great burst of powder as it broke through the plug of snow that had nearly stoppered the den, black shape bulking dimly through the smoke, a big boar, it looked like, and he scrambled to haul himself through a gap in the panel of sticks and branches to the left of the den opening, unsure later how he had managed the maneuver so quickly with that broken leg. Bracing himself against a boulder, right hip leaning on it to keep the weight off his leg and allow him to stand without the crutches and have use of both of his hands, he waited, suddenly very steady, to thrust the spear when the creature appeared. Which it soon did, confused, raging and swatting at the smoke that stung its eyes and caught in its lungs and obliterated its sense of smell, and it reared up on its hind legs out in the open air there in the rough corral Einar had built, seeking a clean breath, casting about for the source of its torment. Einar threw the spear then, squinting through the smoke and the steam of the dying fire and the swirling, hard-driven snow, ignoring the white-hot pain that tore through his poorly healed left shoulder as he demanded that it move and flex beyond where it had seemed capable since the injury, his entire world narrowing and closing in around him until nothing existed other than that bear, the spear, and the space between. The weapon went true, taking the bear in the neck--he noticed, just before loosing it, an odd streak of white fur beneath the creatures snout, wondered if it was a scar from some previous injury--and sending it reeling backwards into one of the panels he had built, crying in anger and distress as it pawed at the willow stick in its neck, quickly snapping it off and charging at him, demolishing the flimsy panel of sticks he had erected and getting in one good swat at him with its paw before hustling to leave the area, hurrying straight down the funnel he had built. Einar, behind the bear now and struggling back up out of the snow where he had been sent sprawling and breathless by the blow, gave a great shout

to speed its retreat. Right into the row of spears, he hoped, or the whole thing could still fail. The bear, instead of continuing its retreat as he had expected, wheeled around and charged him again, surprising him with an aggression that he was not used to seeing in black bears, knocking down the remains of the lashed branch panel and pinning him beneath it where he struggled to get the knife into his hand, finally managing but unable to get in a good jab at the creature with his arms stuck at his sides as the bear rocked and ground the ruined panel against him. Blood was oozing from the heavy black fur around the bears neck where a piece of the spear was still lodged, blood dripping from its mouth and he knew that he had seriously wounded it, but with the woven, tangled mass of branches pressing him into the snow and his breath coming with increasing difficulty, the animals weight mashing down the powder under him, driving him down to the solid ground beneath and compressing his chest, he began to wonder if the bears demise would come in time to prevent his own. Managing at last to free his right arm he wriggled it through the mess of branches, slashing at the bears muzzle as it attempted to grab his hand, taking off a slice of its nose and sending it hurtling back away from him to impact the opposite panel which had, to his surprise, so far held its ground. Wasting no time, Einar dragged himself from beneath the branches and rolled to the side, gasping for air, glancing over at the bear where it sat howling and pawing at its bleeding nose. Einar, resisting a brief urge to scramble for the den and build up the fire to drive the creature away, knew that everything was at stake just then, knew that that a partial victory in this particular struggle would lead to his death as surely as if the bear had succeeded in squeezing the breath out of him under those branches--merely surviving the encounter would not be enough; he was starved, his body broken and freezing and he had to eat, had to have shelter, and soon--and he rose, dragging his broken leg as he frantically searched the snow for the atlatl and dart that had been knocked from their place attached to his pack as he fell. The weapons were nowhere to be seen, he knew that the bear would eventually tire of nursing its wounded snout and either charge him again or leave the area, and he redoubled his efforts, kicking and pawing at the powder and, diving at what appeared to be the buckskin hand-strap on the end of the atlatl, emerging from the pile of powder with it in one hand, a dart in the other. Taking a quick breath to steady his wildly shaking hands he stood, good knee braced against the sticks of the ruined panel, fitted a dart into the atlatl and let it fly.

Stung from behind by yet another invisible assailant as Einars atlatl dart hit it in the right shoulder--his aim was a bit off--the wounded bear again wheeled around on him, charging and swiping and nearly catching him across the face with its claws before he dealt it a solid blow on the snout with a chunk of granite that he had seen sticking up out of the snow and managed to snatch up as he saw the creature coming at him, throwing it as he ducked to avoid the slashing claws. With that the bear, half stunned by the solid hit to its nose, its aggression somewhat cooled by the repeated assaults, took off in a hurry for the dark woods below, running and bounding and coming down hard on the waiting spear-trap as it left the level ground outside the den and started blindly down the slope

away from the lingering smoke and the angry, shouting human creature behind it, several of the spikes penetrating its soft underside, puncturing a lung and nearly coming out its back. Struggling, pulled further into the spikes by the steepness of the slope and his own weight, the bear was making an awful racket, breaking the spruce crosspiece that held the spikes in his struggle, and Einar, unable to see what was happening, hurried to regain his feet, having fallen on his face after tossing the rock. He didnt know where his crutches were, had lost them in the snow down under the ruined wall of sticks and branches, and did not expect that he had time to go searching, knew he must not lose that bear and scrambled down the slope just outside what was left of the corral, dragging his bad leg, knife in one hand and the atlatl in the other for a bit of stability on the steep snow, blinking furiously against the welling blackness before his eyes and fighting to hear the bear through a tremendous hissing and pounding in his head. Not yet. No. Not done yet. You stay awake. Einar never even had to use the knife that he held raised as he limped, lopsided and stumbling in the snow, down towards the trap. The creature was dead before he got there, slumped forward over the spikes and the broken crosspiece, head down in the snow, a half circle of pinkish foam oozing and growing on the whiteness of the ground around its mouth. Einar, carefully checking to be certain that it was dead, felt a momentary pang of regret that his need had led him to disturb the bears sleep and bring it to such an end, followed by an overwhelming rush of relief and gratitude and exhaustion that left his one good leg wobbly and unable to support him. Collapsing over the neck of the dead bear, he lay there for a minute with his face buried in its heavy black winter coat, his breath coming hard and ragged, chest aching where the bear had mashed the branches into it, waiting for the pounding of his heart to slow some and the dizziness to subside enough that he could raise his head without feeling as though he was about to go tumbling down the mountain. That point finally came, the hissing quieting in his ears and the cold, dimming world around him starting to look like itself again, and he pushed himself back to his knees, forearms arms resting on the bears shaggy shoulders, head drooping, looking over the scene and trying to figure out what was to come next. With the struggle over and the threat of imminent death by angry, awakened bear past, Einar found himself feeling immensely weak and drained of energy, freezing in the wind once more, barely able to hold his head up, let alone begin the task of turning the bear into the food and fur that he so badly needed. But you must, someone insisted, and he shrugged numbly, accepting, unable to come up with grounds for disputing the assertion. First things first, though, and he got himself turned over, sat in the snow and leaned back against his quarry, knowing that he must check himself over for injuries before starting in on the bear. It would not do to successfully get the bear cleaned and skinned out, only to keel over before he got to enjoy the first bite of liver because he had, all the time, been unknowingly bleeding from some wound he had not taken the time to discover. Searching, though, he thankfully found no such thing, the worst of his visible injuries appearing to be a series of three matching gouges on his right side where the creatures claws had made contact through the tangle of sticks, red and ugly but barely oozing blood, and a matching soreness that felt as if he had been kicked in the side by a mule. Or stomped by a bear. But he didnt think anything was broken--aside from the leg, which was definitely still broken and feeling a good bit worse for the wear, swelling again, he thought, but that would have to wait--he was breathing alright and without too

much pain, and he washed out the scratches with a handful of snow before wringing what he could of the snowmelt water out of his shirt, and pulling it back down, its lower hem and parts of the sleeves already stiff and icy in the wind. Gonna freeze, Einar, and then you and this bearll both be coyote food. Get busy. Which he did, finding the spot where his broken spear protruded from the animals neck and pulling it free, cupping his hands and catching the trickle of blood that followed it, drinking, a bit of life returning to his trembling body as he did. Stripping the bark from the foot and a half of willow shaft that remained attached to the spearhead--the real reason he had retrieved it, just then--he stuffed a wad of it in his mouth and chewed, the signals from his abused leg becoming more and more difficult to ignore every time he moved, knowing that he must do what he could to prevent that pain from becoming too overwhelming or incapacitating, at least for the time. He had a lot of work to do. The bear had ended up on its side when traps crosspiece broke, the spikes snapping off when it fell and three of them still protruding from its belly, and he struggled to pull them out, one after the other, seeing that they would make the job of cleaning the creature rather difficult, if left in place. With the removal of each spike a fresh stream of blood was released--he supposed the trap must have done rather extensive internal damage-quickly soaking into the animals heavy coat after the removal of the first. Careful after that, Einar pulled more gently on the second spike, removing it most of the way and leaving it in at a downward angle, catching the blood it released in his hands and once again drinking, coughing and nearly gagging at the richness of the warm liquid in his shriveled stomach, but certain at the moment that he had never tasted anything better, nor very many times partaken of a meal more desperately needed. Before removing the third spike he retrieved from his pack the plastic bag he had been using to collect drips of melting snow for water, allowing blood to pool in it and sealing it up for later use. Now, if I can grip the knife, time to clean the critter Hands battered and half frozen from the earlier struggle and from scrabbling about in the snow after his dropped crutches and weapons and rocks to throw at the bear, he found the knife rather difficult to hang onto, beginning the cut to open up the bear and stopping several inches into it to thaw his fingers inside the creature, rolling up his sleeves and doing the same for his arms, grimacing at the sting and ache of returning circulation and finding his task far easier after nearly a full minute of that. Sliding the bears entrails out onto the snow and propping the body cavity open with one oft the spikes to allow it to begin cooling, he felt the heat streaming from the recently-living bears body, thought briefly about the stories he had heard in which freezing men had crawled into freshly slaughtered cattle or elk or bears and been saved by the warmth they were able to absorb, and he was almost tempted to try it, until he remembered a previous nightmare in which he had done just that, and ended up trapped and freezing with no way out when the animals carcass froze solid overnight. He shuddered, continued with his work. No thanks! Got thatgood cozy den to crawl into, just as soon as Im done here, dry shirt to put onmaybe I can even have a little fire. Hard parts gonna bestaying on top of things so I dont get too cold sitting here working and end up just staring off into space while I turn into a popsicle. Could sure happen, the way I feel right now. Better eat, that would help Retrieving the liver from the gut pile, a corner of it damaged by one of the spikes, he took

off a slice with his knife, shaking his ice-encrusted hair out from in front of his face and eating, tears of gratitude tracing down his cheeks to freeze in his beard, cutting off slice after slice of the warm, rich food until he could hold no more. Though a good deal warmer on the inside, his body finally having something to work with in its struggle to produce heat, the wind and snow continued without letup and Einar, thinking somewhat more clearly now that he had some food in his stomach, knew that he must not stay out in the weather long enough to get the bear all dressed out and quartered and hung from trees as he might have wished. Hed be dead, or on an irreversible path that lead that way, before he was halfway through it. Get the liver, kidneys, heart and stuff packaged up in the stomach and get up there to the den, make a fire if you can, get dry and sleep for a while. Bear will keep. Skinnings gonna be a little harder tomorrow than if you did it now, but its almost dark, anyway, and youre going to end up mangling this hide, and probably your hands, too, if you insist on doing it tonight. All fairly convincing, but, stubborn as he was, feeling a bit elated at the infusion of nutrients the liver and blood had brought him and not thinking entirely rationally in his badly chilled state, he still held out a silent determination that he could complete the task before resting.

By the time he got the bears stomach cleaned out--not too difficult a task, empty as it was with hibernation--and stuffed with the remainder of the liver, the kidneys, heart, one lung and several good sized chunks and slivers of meat and fat which he wanted to take up with him immediately to the den and not let out of his sight, it was clear to Einar that he was not going to be able to manage the skinning without having a bit of rest first, getting out of the weather for a while and warming up. His hands just didnt work anymore, despite repeated warmings in the steaming carcass of the bear, couldnt seem to grip hard enough to hang onto the knife, and he increasingly found himself sitting there staring at nothing in particular and wondering just what he was supposed to be doing, and why. Not good. Think Ibetter finish this up later. He wanted that hide to drag into the den and curl up in, since it seemed he would not be able to get up to his shelter and retrieve the other hide that night, wanted it bad, but it was not to be, as he recognized that he had long ago gone passed his safe limits--ha! What are those?--when it came to the cold and his ability to recover from it, to keep it from affecting his judgment to a dangerous degree, even if he did have plenty to eat. The sudden influx of food, while tremendously helpful and likely one of the only things that was allowing him to keep going at all, as frozen and exhausted as he had become, was actually part of the problem at the moment, too, leaving him with an overwhelming sleepiness that was the familiar result of a good sized meal after many days of little to nothing. He fought it, knew that to lie down and sleep there in the snow was surely to lose fingers and toes, if not to die, regardless of how much he had just eaten, finally, sensing that he must soon lose the battle, made the decision to call it an evening. Storm should mostly keep the critters off of the meat. Ill come back out here in the morning, finish getting the hide off, cut up some of the meat and hang it. Hauling the heavily loaded stomach-bag and using the broken foot and a half that remained of his spear for leverage, he dragged himself over the remains of the ruined trap

and up through the snow to the den, surprised to find that the tracks and gouges the bears struggle had left inside the corral were largely drifted over by new snow already; must be quite a storm, I guess. Which it was, blowing fiercely and blanketing a large swath of the mountains in snow that fell at a rate upwards of three inches an hour, welcomed by the majority of the folks down in Culver Falls as a rather auspicious start to the approaching ski season which, directly or indirectly, provided winter livelihoods for many of them, cursed by the federal search and recovery teams because it kept their air assets grounded and threatened to prevent further immediate access to the back country on the ground as well, and viewed rather impassively by Einar, who would have appreciated the storm and its predictable effect on the search had he not been too cold and wet and worn out at the moment to think about anything more complicated than reaching shelter and dragging himself in out of the wind. That accomplished, he lay on his side in the protected space of the den, eyes closed, enjoying the absence of the wind, too exhausted even to breathe for a good half minute, let alone explore his surroundings or attempt anything to improve his situation. Finally, he stirred. Better get this icy shirt offsee if the dry ones still dry. Mercifully his spare polypro top had remained un-dampened by the snow, protected inside the backpack, as he discovered when after much fumbling and struggling and the use of his teeth in place of fingers too numb to complete the task, he managed to get the snow-caked zipper open, setting the pack aside and working to get out of the half frozen and blood stained garment he had been wearing during the hunt and while cleaning the bear. Some of the animals warmth remained trapped in the mass of insulating moss and dry grass that it had dragged in to shelter it during hibernation, he could feel it against his face if not his numbed torso and dragged himself a bit further into the den, finding the ground soft and insulated with a thick pad of dry litter. Resting first his head and then all of him on the pile of soft dry insulation he curled up in it but remembered, near sleep, the shirt that he had meant to put on, felt around in the darkness until his hand encountered the pack and got himself into the shirt, stuffing dry grass into it and lying there trembling, asking whether or not he ought to attempt a fire in the entrance to warm himself and heat a few rocks for the night, but falling asleep before he could make much sense of the question. Minutes later Einar woke still terribly cold to a screaming agony in his injured leg, realized that he had gone to sleep with it skewed to the side in a way that slightly twisted the broken bone, despite the cast, straightened it and lay there looking outside at the bit of grey twilight still remained, brightened by the new-fallen snow. Searching his pockets for a shred of willow bark to chew, he shook his head to clear it of the lingering remnants of the dream that had assailed him shortly after he had closed his eyes in sleep, but it would not leave, the image of Liz sitting down there under the spruce waiting for him, clothes soaked and hair hanging down in front of her face in wet, icy strings, missing her hat for some reason, having make it back with great difficulty through the storm, chilled and just as plastered with snow as he had been and with no more protection, near despair at finding the tree abandoned. He had, before engaging the bear, fully intended to make another trip that evening down to the spruce to check for her, but the thought had been pushed from his mind by rather more pressing problems of his own. The den, though not terribly large, was dry and out of the wind, and Einar, having barely begun to warm from his hours out in the storm, did not want to leave it again that night, much less contemplate

that trek down through the snow. He lay there listening to the wind as it tore through the treetops outside, sang in the rocks and went sweeping off down the mountainside ahead of the next gust, trying to come up with a way to talk himself out of going. Very hungry again, he reached out and found the stomach-bag of food, cut off a chunk of liver, ice crystals around its edges, and ate. See, this is starting to freeze, already. It is too cold out there. You are too cold. Try to get down to that tree and back tonight, and youll probably die. Or lose your way and stumble around all night and freeze your toes off. Whats the sense in that? And anyhow, I thought you had decided that she must have gone down to town, got out of here? Swallowing his mouthful of liver, he took another, chewed slowly, eyes narrow slits as he watched the wind-tossed snow outside. No. I dont think she left. Wish she hadah, I wish shed gone down a long time ago and got herself out of this mess, but I dont believe it. And the sense in it, he answered his earlier question, is that this storm will have wiped out your tracks from earlier. If she came, if shes down there, she wont know how to find you. Feeling around until he found one of the kidneys, he cut off a glob of the rich yellow fat that clung to it, ate it, too, once more immensely grateful for the food, for the warmth and the feeling of renewed aliveness it brought him. Good to be alive. Would be kinda good to stay that way for awhile, after all this trouble. You have no real reason to believe shell be down there. Stay. Sleep. Check in the morning. More liver, another little bite of that wonderful, rich fatthe idea of staying right where he was for the night, making a small fire and getting warm, eating some more, sleeping, dry and warm and fullwell, it was sounding awfully good to him. He shook his head, rolled over forcefully, moving his injured leg and quickly dispelling the pleasant half-dreams of warmth and sleep that had begun creeping over him as his body worked on the fresh food. No. Got to do it, Einar. Sure, youre pretty cold still and kinda banged up after that bear stomped you--gingerly he felt his side, where it seemed that a massive bruise was developing--but what if she is down there? Whats to say that she might not be in even worse shape than you are, and needing shelter if shes going to make it through the night? Not much choice here. Have to go check. Youll make it back. Just follow the trench you leave as you plow down there through the snow, and youll make it That was it, then, the matter settled in his mind, and he used the remaining half light of evening to prepare a spot for a fire, halfway out of the den in the hopes that he would not smoke himself out as he had the bear, but still under the ledge to prevent it being dusted with too much snow, stacking a few flat rocks as a windbreak and choosing by feel a large clump of dry grass from inside the den, twisting and rubbing the bundle to further break up the fibers and ensure that he had something which would readily hold flames when he struck sparks into a bit of milkweed down that he intended to place at its center. Next he took a long-dead spruce branch that had somehow found its way into the den-pulled in by the bear, for some reason, he supposed--and broke off a handful of small dry twigs, arranging them over his tinder, sliding a generous sliver of bear fat in beside the tinder bundle and topping the entire thing with a large flat slab of rock he found just under the protection of the ledge, hoping to keep his fire materials dry and ready to go as soon as he got back, knowing realistically that he would probably be in pretty bad shape by the time he returned, needing a fire in a hurry. Slicing off a few more pieces of liver he ate one, stashing the others in the pack and donning it. Some meager measure of

protection, at least, from the wind. No reason to delay it any further, and he hurried back into his icy shirt before he could change his mind, left the shelter of the den and began the search for his crutches, missing since the bear had pinned him beneath the fence. One of the crutches he found fairly quickly, tangled in the ruined corral panel, and he freed it, stood, searched for the other but without success. One will be plenty. Gonna be doing a lot more sliding than walking, anyway, at least on the way down. And, using the crutch almost like a rudder, he took off sliding down the first steep section of the slope, immediately below the den.

He had the correct tree, knew it because he could feel the wolverine claw hanging there from the branch on its leather thong, but there was no sign of Liz, no disturbance on the ground around the spruce--its snowy smoothness seen very dimly in the last light of evening--to indicate that she had been there at any point that day, and he could not understand it. Had convinced himself pretty thoroughly on the way down that he was going to find her there, had, by the time he finally reached more level ground and was able stop the seemingly endless series of falls and stumbling that so terribly jarred and twisted his broken leg, been so sure of itcouldnt even remember his reasoning now, had forgotten that the story was one hed concocted out of the thin, cold air to keep himself going, moving, dragging his exhausted body and that awful, useless leg--worse than useless, much worse--down the mountainside. He had several times felt himself dangerously close to giving in to the siren call of the soft snow, to accepting the rest it offered and lying down. It had worked, his little story, here he was, but she, apparently, was not, and he stared up at the sky, snow filtering down silently, ceaselessly, through upflung boughs. Lizwhere are you? He cried silently into the storm, the thought snatched away and shattered, frozen, against a dozed snow-encrusted spruces as he knew his voice would have been had he spoken aloud. Pounding his fist against the rough trunk of the tree and pressing his forehead into it for a moment, he shivered there behind the meager protection it afforded as he sought some respite from the wind, fighting to catch his breath. It had been a mistake to come, a big mistake and he knew it, had known before leaving the den that it would push him perhaps beyond the limits of his endurance, in his present condition, but it had been something he believed he must do, had a duty to do, as he supposed he was in large part responsible for the fact that Liz was out there wandering in the storm. If that was what she was doing. She had, after all, been going to find him shelter when she disappeared, trying to help him, near as he could figure really wish I could remember just what she said to me before she left. Still holding out hope that Liz might be in the area, might have returned and huddled down beneath the wrong tree, he spoke, called for her--tried to; his throat was far too dry for speech until he moistened it with a lump of snow--shouted her name over and over, a bit alarmed at the hoarse hollowness of his own voice, the way the wind snatched it away and scattered it down the mountain. No answer. He had not expected one, but waited anyway there under the tree, hoping. Freezing. Move. Go. Now. And he did it, starting slowly, all too slowly with his single crutch through the deep, steep snow, riddled as it was with buried deadfall and rock that refused his one good foot purchase when he

contacted it beneath the snow, sending him more than once sprawling onto his back, head down the slope and hands clawing at the ground to stop his slide, lacking the strength to rise. Yet he did, each time flipping himself over, leveraging himself with the crutch in the deep powder and finally getting his head on the uphill side once again, standing and continuing the climb with a relentlessness that came more of long-established habit than from any conscious intention, as he was rather beyond the point of being able to form such, by then. It was dark, completely dark there under the trees. He smelled something. Picking himself up from what might have marked the last of several dozen falls--or could have been only his second or third--what use were numbers, in a blizzard of such magnitude and with the cold pressing in so hard all around a person, squeezing around the middle, wringing out the life?--he wondered at the scent, was reminded vaguely by it of dark, shadowy shapes that burst out of snow banks and rushed at you and mashed your ribs with their huge, heavy feet, pressing out all the air and thenthen you must get away somehow, because you get to eat! I remember that you get to eat. The food-smell, the sharp iron tang of still-warm blood mixed with a bit of sour stink from where he had cleaned out the stomach, somehow managed to penetrate the icy fog that had settled on Einars brain, and he knew where he was, struggled over the broken crosspiece of the trap, felt for the body of the bear and found it, digging down through the snow and burying his hands in the thick fur, grinning through his chattering teeth and floundering up the remaining ten feet of snowy slope to the den. There. He felt the exposed rock just beneath the ledge where the snow had not quite managed to drift them over, bumped into something and recognized it as his little fire ring there in the small protected spot just outside the den, the flat rock over it which he hoped had kept his firewood and tinder dry, and he collapsed there on the rocks, swatting feebly at his clothes in an attempt to brush off as much of the snow as he could before hauling himself inside. Silence. Stillness. The wind was gone, the violence with which it had for what seemed like half an eternity buffeted and blasted him ended, and he lay face down in the dry grass of the den, the hoarse panting of his breath suddenly seeming incredibly loud as he listened to its gradual change, slowing, easing a bit as he rested, amazed, more than content to remain as he was but knowing that he must act, move, fight the inertia that seemed so terribly, unbelievably good at the moment, such a relief. Fire. Knew he must have it, doubted himself capable of striking sparks, the way his hands shook. Another reason to go on lying there as he was No. Try. Shrugging out of the pack, he discovered the location of the zipper pull by sliding his face along the cold metal until he felt a protrusion, grabbed it in he teeth and dragged it open. Why? Firesteels around your neck. Dont need the pack. Not that the discovery did him much good; his hands were little more than claws at that point, stiff and unfeeling from the wet and wind and the frequent contact with the snow, and he pressed them against his stomach, praying that they were not frozen and doubting it, didnt think it was that cold, quite, stuck them under his arms, breathed on them and beat them against the ground, all to no avail. Well. Could do thishave done itone handed, but with no hands? Dont think so. Keep trying. Seemed that his stomach was not all that much warmer than his hands, but he knew that it had to be, at least a bit, or hed already be dead, kept his hands pressed there

until finally they began burning and aching with the return of blood--good, not frozen, not all the way, at least, can deal with this--keeping them there until he could begin to flex them again. Carefully removing the rock slab that protected the fire he had earlier set up, he felt for the tinder bundle, glad that he had left it in such a way that it could be removed from beneath the pyramid of sticks without collapsing the whole thing, as he knew that he would destroy the fire if he attempted to strike sparks with the bundle in place. Too clumsy. On the first try he dropped the striker before ever contacting the fire steel, glad that it was kept from loss in the jumble of rocks on the ground by the cord that bound it to the steel, tried again. And got sparks, before losing his grip on everything once again, hearing the tools clatter away into the rocks and carefully holding in check the panic that he felt waiting to well up in him at the realization that they might be lost. What had he heard? Reviewing the sound made by the falling metal objects he reached forward, felt around on the ground in front of himand found them! Try again, come on, not gonnado you any good if you sit here and freeze because youre afraid of dropping them again. Here. Pull the slab over here so itll be under you if they fall. Sparks! Brilliant and white in the darkness, and, bracing his left hand with the steel on the rock, milkweed down and aspen bark just in front of it, he struck again, nearly singed his eyebrows as the stuff took and flared up, hurried to get the flaming bundle beneath his little tent of dry sticks. Fire. He stared at it, cold brain mesmerized by the flickering tongues of orange that shot out intensely from the tight little cluster of small sticks at the center, fueled by the globs of pitch that he had carefully placed in them and soon further enlivened as the bit of bear fat took off, adding its energy to the blaze. He added a few sticks, reaching back into the den to make sure that he still had a good pile of them and relieved to find that to be the case. OK. Put a couple of rocks in here to heat, and then food is next. Didnt eat that liver you took along, did you? No? Did not remember about it Pulling from the stomach-bag one of the slabs of meat he had hauled up earlier that evening, he set it to begin cooking on a slab of rock, angled to catch a good bit of the fires heat, stuffing a slice of liver in his mouth to eat while he waited. Not until he was able to absorb a bit of strength from the liver and begin thinking slightly more clearly did he even think to get out of his wet clothes, numb as he was and unable to feel their presence. Dry at last--his top half, at least--and beginning to thaw slightly, he lay on his side curled around the fire, removing his boot and bear skin slipper to check for damage to his feet and change into the pair of dry socks that he thankfully still had left. Cant keep doing this, going down to that tree. Legs never going to get any better if you keep treating it like that, and neither is the rest of you. Think this about did you in, tonight. Got to be the last time for a while. Lying there staring into the flames and waiting for the slab of bear meat to cook--he would rather have boiled it so as not to lose the nutrients in the juices that cooked off, but did not have a pot. Will make a wood-burned container later, for boiling--Einar again went over what he remembered of his last conversation with Liz. What exactly had she said? Was there any possibility that she had told him shed had enough, wanted to go down, back to Susans house or something, and that he had insisted that she take the pack and everything in it incase it took her a while to get down? He

doubted it. Surely he would have kept some of the food, and even if hed been too out of it at the time to ask for some, she certainly would have insisted that he keep a portion of it. And he was pretty sure that, even half-conscious as he had been, he would have remembered her saying that she was going away. If she had said it. Drop it, Einar. You wont figure it out, cant, do not have enough information are not capable right now of making a thorough search for her, when you dont even know what direction to start in, and there are a bunch of other things you got to be focusing on right now. She is gone. Thats it. And, lowering his head and swallowing the lump he felt rising in his throat-shes beyond my reach but not beyond Yours. Guard her steps, keep herkeep her free, please--he very deliberately turned his thoughts towards the bear, the work the morning held for him, the modifications he intended to make to the den in order to turn it into what he hoped would be his winter home.

His mind occupied once again with his own immediate future and the things he could and must do to help ensure that it lasted more than a few hours, Einar worked by the light of the fire, scraping together much of the bedding material that the bear had dragged into the den for hibernation and making himself what basically amounted to a sleeping nest, afterwards stuffing dry grass into his shirt and tying it off at the waist with a length of paracord to help keep the stuff in place, fingers finally flexible enough for such a task and the terrible clumsiness that had frustrated his initial efforts at starting the fire seeming to lessen some as he warmed and ate slice after slice of the juicy, sizzling bear steak whose remains sat there on the angled rock, staying warm. Warmer than he was for sure, even after a good half hour spent curled around the little blaze, thawing out and eating, taking chunks of softening slush from the snowball he had stuck on a branch near the fire and swallowing them, thirsty and lacking anything in which to easily catch drips of water. He had been, he knew, pretty hypothermic; it didnt take much anymore to put him into such a state, as little body fat as he had left, and the long slow slog down the slope through the wind and storm, already dangerously cold before he started out, had been perhaps the last thing he had needed, that evening. Sitting there staring at the flames as he finished stuffing his sleeves with dry grass, almost warm, finally, and half asleep, he could not seem to bring to mind many details of the journey, doubted he would be able to later, either, knew he was probably going to have to be content simply with knowing that he had done it, had somehow managed the return trip, was awfully fortunate to still be breathing, and could now rest. But not before he handled the difficult task of getting into the dry pair of pants, and took care of his feet. The toes on his bootless right foot were, like some of his fingers, already beginning to show the first signs of frostbite, the little patches of white at several of their tips blistering up and darkening as he warmed. The bearskin and milkweed-down slipper that Liz had made him performed admirably at its intended task--keeping his foot from freezing when he lay immobile in a shelter--but it had not been made for traveling hour after hour through the deep snow, and had proven less than adequate for doing so. Even more of a problem was the fact that the insulation in his cast had become thoroughly soaked again during his struggle with the bear, inevitably turning the entire length of his right leg into a

radiator that worked to chill the blood that passed through it and further lower his core temperature, as well as compromising circulation to the poorly-protected right foot. Well. Got to do something about the cast, but not tonight. The toes, though Grunting as his hands contacted the increasingly painful blistered spots on the ends of several toes, he warmed them between his palms, leaning forward and reaching with difficulty because of the cast and his inability to bend his knee. He could, actually have bent it a bit had he tried, as the rawhide strips that wrapped the top four or five inches of the cast were soft and flexible with the moisture of the snow as they thawed, leaving them a good bit less than the rigid support that would have been needed to immobilize the knee, as he supposed it still ought to be. Also, he saw that a good bit of extra room existed between the leg and the rigid outer shell of the cast than had even a few days prior--Huh. He cut off another slice of roast bear, added a glob of fat from the pack, chewed them. Better get real serious about eating this bear, or theres not gonna be anything left of you before long, here--allowing the leg to flex and twist far more freely than it ought to have been able, inside the cast. No wonder the thing hurts like it does. Cast isnt doing much, beyond keeping it from getting so skewed that the bone comes through the skin, I guess. Which is somethingbut not enough to let it heal. And its gonna be awful hard to keep warm, keep on top of the toes and avoid losing them, if my legs soaking wet all the time. Need a removable cast so I can take it off for a little while each evening and dry out the insulation. For now though, itll have to be enough just to warm these toes, smear on some bear grease and try to keep them dry. Which he did, chewing on a strip of willow bark from the splintered spear shaft as he worked and finding that, even if it barely cut into the pain of handling the damaged toes and the inevitable manipulation of his leg as he did so, the scaldingly bitter juice at least gave him something else on which to focus a bit of his attention. The toes treated as well as he could and his bear steak finished, the rock scraped and licked for any trace of remaining grease, Einar found himself unable to keep his eyes open any longer, putting out the fire and curling up in the nest of dry grass and moss with the rocks he had been heating, out almost instantly despite continued and rather serious complaints from his battered leg. He slept for hours, aware from time to time of the hurt in his leg and stirring just enough each time to shift position slightly until he found one in which it was less troublesome before falling once more into an exhausted sleep. Just after dawn he woke, shivering, dragged the stomach-bag of bear entrails closer and had a snack of mostly frozen liver and kidney fat before pulling the grass insulation closer around him and passing out again, upper arms pressed reflexively to his sides and hands clasped beneath his chin for warmth, the vague thought that he needed to get up and tend to something fading before it ever reached the surface where he could have possibly roused himself and acted on it. Tired as he was--after the exertion of the past few days, he probably could have gone on sleeping well into the next week, all else being equal--Einars hunger woke him again before another hour had passed, his starved body having processed his last snack and urgently demanding more. Which he provided it, taking more of the liver--glad it was a black bear and not a polar bear, not that they live around here anyway, because Id end up getting pretty sick eating this much polar bear liver, with all the extra vitamin A it stores--and lying there huddled in the den as he enjoyed his morning snack, knowing that he must soon leave its shelter and begin work on the bear. Outside, the snow still fell

heavily, and, stiff with cold despite the grass insulation and dreadfully thirsty, he wished for a small fire so he might warm himself and melt a bit of snow, but had used up his meager supply of firewood the previous night, and saw that he would have to wait. Contenting himself with another generous helping of liver and rubbing his chilled limbs to help restore some circulation, he nearly cried out when he attempted to move his left arm, wondering for a moment just what he could have managed to do to it that would bring about the white hot splinters of pain that went through his shoulder and down his side at the movement, before remembering the way he had been forced to use it in throwing the spear the day before. He had, he supposed, re-aggravated the old shoulder injury that had plagued him for so long and prevented him from raising his left hand much above his head, something, he remembered, that he had definitely done when throwing that spear; a movement he had not believed himself capable of making, until the desperate circumstances of the bear hunt had left him no choice. He wondered. Carefully raising the arm, clenching his teeth at the pain but pushing through it, he was, to his amazement, able to slowly reach up and press his hand against the ceiling of the den, nearly a foot and a half above his head where he sat propped on his pack. It hurt, badly enough, in fact, to leave him curled up in a ball the next moment on the ground, clutching the shoulder and fighting the horde of black spots that welled up in front of his eyes, but he was grinning at the same time, delighted at the discovery that he might, it seemed, actually be able to regain full use of the shoulder someday. Guess all I needed ah, this hurts!was a fight with a bear tobust things loose againundo whatever happened the first time when it must have healed up wrong. Got to make sureto keep it moving this time, keep using it some so it doesnt get stuck like that again. Which he supposed he was going to be doing, by default, as he really could not see himself skinning that bear and dealing with the meat with his left arm in a sling and his right leg in a cast, if there was any alternative at all! Still pressing the shoulder, he had ended up sprawled out flat on the den floor, chewing a wad of willow bark and waiting for some of the dizziness to subside so he could sit up again, thinking that, glad as he was to have discovered that the shoulder could be moved beyond what he thought it capable, perhaps he ought to take things a bit slower as he worked to restore it to usefulness. Finally he sat up, still badly chilled from the night but hardly feeling it, his senses rather overwhelmed by the aftermath of flexing the shoulder to reach for the ceiling. Whew! Ha! Not coldanymorebetter have some more willow bark, press some snow into ice so I can have a little moisture this morning, and thenget started on that bear! Water was a real problem that morning, as he had, in his haze of cold and exhaustion upon returning from the spruce, entirely forgotten to melt any extra water to keep in his bottle for later, and could not seem to remember when hed last had an adequate drink of water. Scooping up a double handful of snow and pressing it hard between his palms to compress and heat it, he kept it there until it hardened and became a bit clearish around the edges, on its way to becoming ice. Biting off a corner of the icy glob, he set the rest of it down on a rock, chewing it and pressing his white hands against his stomach to warm them. While still cold and just about the last thing he wanted to be eating at the moment, the ice chunks were at least more compact and water-dense than equally sized globs of snow would have been, and would be, he knew, easier and quicker for his body to turn into usable water. Must melt a bunch of snow next time I have a fire. Getting too

far behind on water, especially with all Ive been eating. Outside, Einar found that his tracks from the previous day had been nearly obliterated by the overnight snowfall, the bear covered over by many inches of fluffy new powder, and he worked to dig it back out again, discovering that the layer of snow had kept it from freezing, but had not, as he knew sometimes happened, retained enough heat to begin souring the meat. Had he not gutted it, he expected this would have been the case. Halfway through with skinning the bear he stopped for a break, needing to thaw his hands--need gloves, mittens, something, have to start working on that soon--and have another small meal of liver and fat, sitting under the protection of the den-ledge and staring out at the bear carcass, wondering how he was to get that meat hung and out of the reach of scavengers. Guess Ill have to use spruce roots for cordage--done that before--and get the pieces small enough that I can raise them. Can keep them in these trees here above the den, and not have far to go when I need food! And he sat there, eating, watching the snow blow and swirl outside, cold and wet and in a good deal of pain from his leg, and the shoulder, but knowing that he had the ability to warm up as soon as he was done for the day, or sooner, if it became imperative, had plenty of food, for once, was holed up in a good secure shelter with plans to better it. Would all be just about right ifno. Dont go there. It is good. It is enough. Back to work.

It was odd to see a horse standing there in the wide, gravelly pull-off by the side of the road, stranger still that the animal, seemingly unattended, was saddled, the saddle slouching off at an odd angle as if the horse had been scraping against a tree in an attempt to remove it. The snowplow driver, making his first run of the fall as he worked to clear the rapidly accumulating show on the State Highway outside of Culver Falls, pulled over and stopped, approaching the badly spooked animal and speaking to it, attempting to calm it. The horse, he could see, was injured, favoring its right front leg, a nasty abrasion on its right shoulder oozing blood and as he neared the dropoff that led down some thirty rocky feet to the river below, he saw why. The truck had come to rest nose-down in a thicket of willows at the bottom of the incline, front tires nearly in the water, hood caved in and the trailer skewed off at an odd angle in the rocks on its side. The truck was covered in snow, windshield covered, trailer mounded up with fresh powder, and he knew that it had to have been there at least overnight, perhaps longer. Not good news for whoever is inside Scrambling down the slick, snow covered rocks of the bank, he reached the trailer first, saw one horse inside that appeared to be dead and another--he looked away, momentarily queasy at the sight--halfway out, its flank impaled on a twisted piece of metal from the broken gate. The animal was still alive, but barely, and, not wanting to see it suffer any further, he scrambled back up to the plow and retrieved the .22 pistol that he carried for the badly injured deer and elk he sometimes encountered along the highway--putting in a quick radio call while up at the plow, reporting the wreck and calling for an ambulance--briefly laying his hand on the creatures nose before ending its suffering. Hanging onto the trailer for balance, the plow driver descended further down the steep slope, approached the cab of the truck, shouting but getting no response, brushing the

snow from the windshield and discovering that he could not see in, as it was fogged over. Somebody must be alive in there, breathing. He tried the door but it was jammed, stuck firmly against one of the boulders on which the truck had finally come to rest, crawled over the ruined hood to the passenger door and managed to get it opened, lowering himself into the dimness of the cab, where the driver lay slumped forward in his seat belt, his head between the steering wheel and the door. Checking for a pulse and finding the man to be alive, but unconscious and apparently very cold, the plow driver carefully began checking him over for injuries, seeing blood all over his coat but unable to figure out what could have caused the injury, as the cab seemed to have remained basically intact. In attempting to determine the source of the blood, he found a note, scrawled in a half legible hand, blood smeared and crumpled, pinned to the mans shirt. SHERIFF: shot by FBI agent Toland Jimson. Hired to guide in search for Asmundson and he shot me when went late coming back to camp and I went looking for him. Left him up Cutters Gulch near treeline, his horse followed me out. Please find him and arrest, if I die. Just dig out bullet if you need evidence. The note, growing more difficult to read with each line as if the man had been near losing consciousness when he penned it, was signed, Edgar Jim Benjamin Bonneville, and the plow driver recognized the name as that of a well known local outfitter. Jim Bonneville was known as a rather colorful character, brash and loud and rather difficult to get along with for most, but was also known as a man of his word. If Jim said the Agent in Charge had shot him, then thats how it had gone down; the plow driver had no doubt and knew that Sheriff Watts would have none, either. Dig out the bullet? Well, if hes been shot, that would certainly explain all the blood, and why he seems to be worse off than I might expect, from the looks of the inside of the truck. What does he mean though that he left the agent up near treeline? If the guys still up there, and without a horse well, hes got be getting pretty chilly by now. Better get this note to the Sheriff. The ambulance had arrived by then, paramedics making their way down the steep rocks of the bank and preparing to extract Bonneville from his wrecked truck, and as the plow driver climbed out through the passenger door to shout to them, he saw the outfitters eyes open, the man grabbing his sleeve and staring at him as if he had something to say. Which the plough driver had no doubt that he did; Jim Bonneville always had something to say

The flickering orange glow of the flaming valley behind her lighting her steps, Liz hurried up through the timber just below the ridges crest, wanting to put some distance behind her before more helicopters and men inevitably showed up. Though she had no idea what she had just witnessed, what, exactly, had caused first one helicopter to go down in flames and then the two that responded to the initial crash to meet similar fates, she did expect that the conflagration would surely bring a swarm of activity down on the area that could well leave her trapped and unable to move if not captured, and she had no intention of allowing that to happen. She had all of the food, the ropes, Einars cooking pot, everything. I have everything but the bear hide, a few spare clothes and whatever hes got on him, so Ive got to find him again, and soon. Cant risk getting stuck here.

She wished she knew where Einar was, how to get back to him, wondered if she ought to try, even if she did know--having thought back on her course while lying there listening to the approach of the first helicopter, she was fairly certain that she at least had an idea of the direction from which she had come--or whether she ought to avoid heading towards his position at all costs, whether she might perhaps instead need to head in the opposite direction, in case the snow that was beginning turned out not to be much of a storm, and someone who responded to the fiery mess down below ended up finding her tracks, and following. The mere prospect of possibly leading the search to Einar was enough to convince her that she must not make any attempt to return to him, not that night, not until she knew what was going on in the valley, or knew, at least, that she had escaped the area without notice, and she turned, began climbing, reaching the crest of the ridge and dropping down its steep, South facing back side, wanting to get some soil and rock between herself and the activity in the valley, and hoping that the sunnier slope would have held less of the last snow, might allow her to leave less sign as she passed. A reasonable idea, and one which proved to be true, Liz able to discern even in the darkness that the ground beneath her was largely rock, the occasional small patch of snow it held easily avoided, and she kept up a good pace, climbing away from the fading orange glow behind her. Pausing to catch her breath after ten or fifteen minutes she crouched beneath a tree, a cramp in her leg reminding her to pull out one of the water bottles and take a gulp. Listening, she could hear the rumble of helicopters in the distance, supposed they must be coming from the Culver Falls area, and tried to fix the direction in her mind in case it might later prove useful. She had gained a lot of elevation since leaving her hiding place in the rocks, could barely make out the smear of orange that marked the crash sites far below, and that only when she averted her eyes slightly, focusing on the dark slopes to the side of it. It was snowing harder, blowing and stinging her face when she turned towards the rising wind, and Liz was thankful, hoping all evidence of her presence might well become lost in the storm and the chaos of the burning aircraft wreckage below. Likely, it seemed, though as she crouched there she felt a growing uneasiness that at first she attributed to the fact that she was sitting out there in a blizzard with no solid idea of where to go or whether she was going to be able to find adequate shelter or have time to stop and take advantage of it, if and when she did--she pulled out the wolverine hide and drew it around her shoulders to help with the growing chill and keep some of the snow from melting into her clothes--but as one quiet minute passed, another, the gusting and sighing of the wind nearly drowning out the distant rumble of propellers, she realized that something else was bothering her. Standing, straining her ears and squinting into the darkness, she was beset by a sudden feeling of danger, close, imminent, and she crouched, silently undoing the waist belt on her pack and easing it to the ground, getting the pistol into her hand.

Liz waited there for several minutes, pistol in hand, listening, but never heard anything beyond the wind and the very distant rumble of yet another helicopter that she supposed must be responding the fiery mess in the valley. Getting back into her pack but keeping

the pistol out, she climbed back up towards the crest of the ridge, rocky, open, once more dropping the pack and crawling on her stomach until she was able to look down between two great boulders that sat at the crest, and observe her back trail, at least as well as she was able in the darkness. Standing out white and softly glowing in the gloom she saw the patches of snow that she had wormed her way between, picked out a black snag of a hollow tree stump that she remembered passing and looked at it, letting her eyes go unfocused in the hopes of picking up on any movement in the area, but seeing nothing. Still she had that familiar pressing, prickling feeling that not only was something not quite right, but was about to demand attention, but it had lessened somewhat as she lay there, and, needing to get moving as the cold of the night deepened and the snowfall increased, she slithered back down from the crest of the ridge, standing again only when she was well below it--Einar had impressed upon her often enough the necessity of never silhouetting oneself against the skyline that it had become automatic for her--and starting down the backside of the ridge instead of up along it as she had been doing, just wanting to quickly put more distance between herself and whatever unseen threat she felt lurking back there behind her. Nearing the bottom of the slope, Liz began to hear water, headed for it, wanting to refill her water bottles and knowing that she would have to cross it in order to start up the next ridge, which she intended to do. Reaching the water and studying it in the darkness, picking out the occasional white flash of water moving over rock near its far side, she realized that it was much larger than the typical little alpine stream that she was used to seeing in the area; it was very nearly a river. Drinking, filling the bottles, she considered simply following the water upwards, not looking forward to getting her boots--or any other part of her--wet in that cold and wind, but the thought that someone might be following her, might have seen her tracks back there near the crashes and might be on her trail, waiting to pin her between the creek and the steepening rock of the ridge opposite it was enough to keep her searching for a good way across. Which she found, some fifty yards downstream, in a fallen spruce that appeared in the darkness to go all the way across and, with numerous branches still remaining, gave her a lot to hold onto as she made her way across. All went well with the crossing, until she reached a large boulder that protruded from the water, stepped out onto it and realized that she was still somewhere near the middle of the creek. The boulder, its cover of snow hard and crusty and slick with the freezing of the constant fine spray of water on rock, offered little purchase for her feet, and, unsteadied by the weight of the pack, she found her self slipping, flailed her arms in a reflexive attempt to regain her balance and pitched backwards when one boot broke through the icy crust on the foot and a half of snow on the rock, ending up in the water up to her waist, hanging onto a branch near the tip of the broken tree and struggling without avail to pull herself back up onto the rock. It was too slick, everything was too slick and she was weighed down by the heavy pack, so after several minutes of struggling she clung there, still, terrified to let go of the tree lest she fall and soak the pack, ruining all the dried meat and perhaps finding herself forced to ditch it in order to save herself. No! That must not happen. This is Einars food, and Ive already taken it from him by getting lostno way Im going back without it! But she could not stay there in the water, either, could feel

herself growing weaker in the icy water, legs beginning to cramp, and she tried once more to haul herself back up onto the rock, onto the fallen tree, tried hanging onto its trunk and walking back the way she had some, but its mass of prickly, protruding branches, invisible in the darkness, kept ditching her across the face and the chest and legs and threatening to knock her off balance, and when one of the branches she was clinging to for balance came off in her hand, she turned around and began walking for the other bank, closer, anyway, facing upstream and bracing herself against the current. She made it, finally, keeping herself on her feet and repeating over and over that she must not fall, must not fall, Einar needed the food in that pack, needed the gear, she must not lose itand she did not, stayed on her feet, kept the pack dry, saw at last the snow beneath her feet, slipped on an icy rock and collapsed onto it, legs numb and cramping from the icy water, exhausted. Liz did not lie there long, kept thinking she heard something behind her, over on the other bank but could not be certain because of the constant lapping and gurgling of the water, got to her knees and crawled over beneath a fir, knowing that she must somehow get warm, dry, but aware that it was going to be quite a challenge, as Einar had all of the extra clothes--what few they had--with him, the socks, everything, and she supposed she must just get moving and hope it would be enough. She heard something though, an odd splash that did not quite fit with the pattern of the creek sounds, reached for the Glock, which had been in her waistband, and found it gone Frantically, Liz searched the ground around her, squinted at the snow where she had collapsed on emerging from the water but could see no sign of it, heard another sound, the faint snap of a stick but could see nothing, no one, felt around on the ground under the tree until her hand contacted a chunk of granite and picked it up, ready. Something, someone, grabbed her by the ankle and Liz reacted quickly, flipping over and glancing up, seeing a black silhouette against the snowy ground, aiming for where she thought the neck would be but catching the man on the shoulder, instead. He grunted, grabbed her, pinned her arms at her sides before she could get in another solid hit and was on top of her, her breath caught in her throat in terror as she thrashed and fought him, but he held her, growling something into her ear, something about how he couldnt understand why she was out there all alone, how she had better not keep fighting and make him smack her, because he really didnt want to hurt her, but she did not believe a word of it, kept fightingthen abruptly stopped. She knew that voice, relaxed a bit at the realization, spoke to him. Bill? Bill Foreman? He seemed surprised, released his hold on her and let her up. What? What did you just say? You are Bill Foreman, she spoke through teeth chattering furiously from her icy immersion in the creek, arent you? Susans husband Bills Army buddy, right? Im Liz. Briefly she explained to him how she had been crossing the creek, had slipped on the rock and fallen in, trying all the time to conceal from him how much trouble she was having with the cold but pretty sure that she was not succeeding, and when he indicated a spot beneath three close-growing, dense-boughed spruces, she followed them there and

accepted the MRE he offered from his pack, supposing that if Susans husband Bill had trusted him and allowed him into his confidence, she probably could, too. At least to some extent. Bill scraped the snow away from an area beneath the trees with his boot and indicated to Liz to sit down, draping his poncho liner and poncho around her shoulders and stepping away to begin collecting dry twigs from a nearby tree, leaning his rifle up against the tree nearest her. She saw, noticed its shape in the near darkness and got ahold of it as soon as she could hear him a several feet away snapping branches, quickly dropping the magazine and finding it, and the chamber, to be empty. Ha! I guess hes not taking any chances with me, and its a good thing for him, too and she concealed the rifle up in the boughs of the tree on the side opposite of the trunk from where she sat, settling back into the poncho tent and returning to the most welcome meal of chicken with noodles, crackers and cheese spread, wishing she had a way to get some of it to Einar and stashing the chocolate bar, hot cocoa mix and peanut butter candy in her pocket to take to him. Bill returned shortly, got the fire lit and began leaning live spruce branches up against a hastily placed cross piece that consisted of a small dead aspen. So, youre out here all by yourself, huh? They had a warrant out for me. Yeahand thats every girls first thought when she has a little legal trouble--lets run to the mountains and spend the winter wandering around in the snow. Uh-huh. Sounds likely. Wouldnt have anything to do with this Asmundson character, now would it? He around here somewhere? Am I about to get a dart in the back, or something? I dont know where he is. Guess you killed that wolverine yourself, then, he asked, running a hand over the pelt that she wore around her shoulders. Cause it looks an awful lot like the one I saw in that picture in the paper a month or so ago, only Einar had it, then Liz ignored the question, focusing on her meal and turning the questioning around on Bill. Was that you back there in the valley--the dummy camp with the metal silhouettes and the helicopter crashes and all? That was quite impressivedo you have missiles in that backpack, or something? Bill narrowed his eyes, grunted something unintelligible and rose creakily to his feet, brushing the snow from his knees. So. There was a witness, after all. Looks like we both got some things that are best kept to ourselves, alright? Liz nodded in agreement, glad that she could, it seemed, expect no further questions about Einars whereabouts. Alright you, Bill growled at her, indicating the finished

lean-to, get in there, and strip to your skivvies and get those pants near the fire so they can dry. Im gonna get us some more wood. It was a suggestion which Liz rather strongly objected to, and told him so. He assured her--in language that she found not especially reassuring and a tone she did not care for--that he had nothing but honorable intentions towards her at the moment, and would keep his distance while she dried off, chuckling under his breath as he stomped off through the snow after more branches for the fire. Scrambling quickly to her feet as soon as she heard his footsteps fade, Liz shrugged back into her pack, hovered over the fire for a moment--she really was terribly cold, even after having eaten--and prepared to make her exit, Bills open pack catching her eye at the last moment, where it sat propped against the fir.

Einar worked on the bear, finally finishing with the task of skinning it--no easy feat for a one-legged man, as he was required to roll the creature once so he could get at its back, bracing himself on the downhill side and pulling on one front paw and a bit of still-stuck hide in the rib area and after much struggling finally getting it to roll down hill a bit, nearly trapping himself in the process. He laughed, digging and dragging himself up out of the snow, thawing his hands and resuming the skinning project, thinking that it would have been awfully ironic had he been pinned beneath the bear and frozen there in the snow, all within reach of a mass of good food and a dry, warm shelter. Would sure have made for an interesting puzzle later, when some hunter came across the bones and tried to figure out just what had happenedor, the merriment left his eyes, when Liz did. Well. Didnt happen. Back to work. Speaking of bones, though, those in his leg were bothering him terribly that morning, a grating, wrenching agony that tore through the leg and all the way up his right side every time he moved the thing or jarred it in the slightest as he worked, and it was becoming more and more difficult for him to concentrate on the task at hand. Einar was really beginning to despise the awful, heavy, cumbersome cast that weighed him down and, wet and half frozen inside, chilled him badly no matter how active he managed to be throughout the day. None of which is especially relevant, because you know whats happened in there, know what youre gonna have to do, so whats the point in putting it off any longer? There was a point, though, and, reminding himself of it, he gritted his teeth and doggedly continuing with the bear, freeing the hide, rolling it up and setting it aside, starting in on the meat. He knew he needed to get the meat cut up into manageable chunks, meaning those small enough that he would be able to raise them into the branches of nearby trees to keep them from the scavengers that would surely appear with the waning of the storm, and he needed to do it before working to remove the cast and set the leg again--because you know youre gonna have to do that, can feel it--in case he found himself unable to move around for a while after fixing the leg. Also need to get this hide fleshed out before it can start drying much, or thats going to be a lot harder to do, later, and Id sure like to have it to curl up in after taking care of the leg. What he was going to do for a replacement cast after getting the current one off and setting the leg again was one problem Einar had not been able to work out in his mind; best he could come up with was a splint of several branches, cushioned with the coat that

was in his current cast and wrapped and tied with paracord to hold it in place, and he knew that this plan lacked any sort of permanence and would probably be inadequate to the task but it would, at least, allow him to remove the thing daily if need be and dry it, and the leg, out. Which might well end up making the difference between keeping the toes on his right foot, or losing them, and perhaps his life, to the deepening winter. All of which made sense when he thought it through, but did little to inspire in him any eagerness for the task. He didnt even know how he was supposed to remove the cast, with its mass of pitch-soaked aspen cordage several layers thick and hard as stone in the cold. Wished he had a way to cut it off, neatly and cleanly in two vertical lines along the sides of his leg, because he could then have some hope of being able to re-use it, binding the two halves together with paracord and removing them to dry the leg, but he could not think of a good way to do that, with the limited tools available to him. Too bad this knife isnt serratedguess between it and all those granite flakes under the ledge by the den, I ought to at least give it a try, try to saw the thing off. First though, get this bear hung. Sitting here in the snow is sure not accomplishing anything, and Im getting awful cold already. Having carved the carcass up into chunks that he believed himself capable of lifting, Einar went in search of spruce roots to use for cordage, as the few feet of paracord that he had with him were not adequate to the task. There was more, he knew, in the snares that he had scattered up and down the slope, but he doubted his ability just then to make the journey that would be required to collect them--he was, in addition to the increasingly alarming grating in his leg and the almost incapacitating waves of hurt it frequently sent through his entire right side, terribly weary from the previous days exertion--and, remembering as one remembers a dream how very soft and inviting the snowy ground had appeared near the end of that climb, how very near he had come to gratefully accepting its offer of rest, he was even less sure of the wisdom of any such attempt. He hoped to get up to his old shelter, at least, to retrieve the yearling bear hide and the other things he had left there, but even that task, he expected, would likely have to be put off until the next day. So, spruce roots The snow had continued, several feet now blanketing the more open areas of the slope and the duff in the denser timber covered too, though less thickly, and he squinted through the swirling whiteness, searching for a likely spot from which to pull the roots and hoping very strongly that the snow cover had so far prevented the ground from freezing. Up the slope behind the den there stood thick grouping of trees, a dark smear beneath them telling him that the snow was far less deep there, the ground showing through in places, and, eating a slice of liver that he had brought with him from the den and following it with a mouthful of snow, partially melted in his hands, he began the slow climb up to the trees, keeping as much as he could beneath the timber as he traveled, not knowing when the snowstorm might stop for good and wishing to keep his sign to a minimum. In making so many repeated trips down to the spruce to check for Liz he had, he realized, already beaten down a trench in the snow that would probably show in places for days, despite the snow which the gusting wind would in places cause to obliterate all sign of it, and while he hoped that its remains might blend into the surrounding forest and not give him away if seen from the air, he knew that he must work hard to prevent a repeat of that situation. The snow was, indeed, far less deep in the spot Einar had picked and he found in clearing it away with his hands that he was able to dig down into the still-

soft litter and soil of the forest floor with relative ease, loosening and pulling out a good number of the thin, flexible roots of the nearby spruces and coiling them up for the walk back down to the bear. Knowing that he would be sitting for a while as he split and spliced the roots and wishing to be out of the wind while doing so, Einar crawled into the den, lying still for a minute just to catch his breath, after which he changed quickly into his dry shirt, beating his arms--the left included; his shoulder continued to ache terribly that day after his experiments at stretching and moving it the night before, but he was determined to keep it moving, to keep using it--against his sides in an attempt to warm up a bit. Working out in the wind in his wet clothes, put back on that morning before getting started (talk about waking up in a hurry!) in the knowledge that he would need something dry to wear when he was through, would not be able to keep his clothes dry while working in the snow and might not be able to have a fire, was taking its toll on him, and though he was managing to stave off serious hypothermia by stopping every fifteen or twenty minutes to gobble another quick snack of bear liver and fat, he found himself more than ready to be dry for a while. Brushing the snow off of the rolled up hide, Einar dragged it into the den and wrapped up in it, gradually warming, finding a bit of irony in the fact that not only was he sheltering in the bears den, but was wearing his coat and staying warm by eating the fat he had worked hard to put on for the winter, and he was pretty sure that he had never before felt quite so grateful to a bear as he did at that moment. His hands finally flexible enough once more to manage the task, he sharpened his knife on a chunk of sandstone and began splitting the larger of the spruce roots, leaving the narrower ones whole and splicing the lengths together until he had several ropes which he hoped would be long enough to attach to the bear quarters, (well, theyre not exactly quarterschunks would be more like it) throw over spruce branches and raise the meat out of the reach of coyotes, foxes, bobcats and anything else that might smell it and wish to take advantage. And I better get some more snares set up under those trees, bait them with bits of the bear, and I could end up with a few good bobcat and fox hides here in the next few weeks. Could insulate my vest, make mittens, a better hat, all kinds of things that could end up really improving life this winter. Ha! Later. Better just see if you can get this meat secured, first. Not wanting to leave the shelter of the den just yet, he spread out the hide, flesh side up, on the rocks just outside the opening and began working to remove the fat and membrane that had been left behind by the skinning process, spending a good hour scraping and cleaning it before stashing the hide in the den, changing reluctantly back into his icy clothes and struggling down through the deepening snow to the bear carcass. Einars spruce root ropes worked well, allowing him, one by one, to raise the chunks of by then partially frozen bear meat up into the branches of several nearby trees, one of the ropes breaking at a splice and sending him scurrying down the slope to retrieve it--well, he meant to scurry, hoping to stop the meat before its slide took it too far, but his movements were slow, cumbersome, his senses dulled by the cold and the constant battering of the wind, and, despite his best efforts to ignore it and do what he must to take care of the bear, his leg demanding an increasing portion of his concentration. By the time he had dragged and pushed the rather large chunk of runaway bear back up to the

tree where he had been hanging things, the meat, and himself, covered and packed with snow, Einar was more than ready to quit. But knew he must not, not yet. Forcing himself up from the spot where he had collapsed on his back in the powder and balancing precariously on his one crutch, he fixed the splice on the spruce rope, attached a fist-sized granite chunk to one end and tossed it over the chosen branch, leaning into the rope and hauling the meat up to hang out of the reach of hungry animals, quickly securing the tail end of the rope around a lower branch. There. That was it. Most of it, anyway, and the rest, mostly bones and the head, would simply have to wait. Dragging the crutch and a few pounds of meat that he had set aside for the next few meals, he crawled up into the den, got back into his dry clothes and started a small fire, having collected wood throughout the day as he worked. Only when the fire was well established, a snowball propped on a stick to melt and a bear steak cut and pressed against an angled rock to begin cooking did Einar allow himself to roll up in the thick warm hide of the bear and lie down, exhausted, listening sleepily as the wind tore through the trees outside and his supper began to heat and sizzle. OK. Rest a while, eat, and thengot to deal with the cast.

By the soft, uncertain light of the fire Liz quickly inspected the contents of Bills pack, discovering two additional MREs, a good bit of coiled and tied paracord and a few other items, among them, to her surprise, two jars of Nutella. That discovery seemed a bit too odd to believe, and she was at first very excited at the prospect of taking them--one, at least; Im sure he could spare one--back to Einar but pausing as she reached for them, seeing again the awful mix of surprise and betrayal and half-angry disappointment that had crossed Einars face when she had told him how she had been planning to go back down to the hunters tent camp and obtain a sleeping bag for him before thinking twice about the mission, and she drew her hand back out of the pack, rolled up the poncho and liner and set them on top of it. No. Not worth it. All kinds of trouble could come from taking this stuff, not the least of which could be that Bill might decide to come after me to get his gear back. Retrieving his rifle from its hiding place up in the tree, she leaned it back in the snow beside the tree where Bill had left it, hoping that Bill, who was clearly up there on his own business, would decide to pursue it rather than her. Hovering one more time over the warmth of the fire, she tore herself away from it with difficulty, pausing to listen for any sign of Bills return and hearing none, before heading back out into the storm. It was going to be a long night, but she was, for once, very confident in the decision she had just made.

Working experimentally with the knife and a few sharply broken rocks in the hopes of being able to remove his cast in a way that might allow it to be used again, it quickly became clear to Einar that short of using the equivalent of a hammer and chisel to break up the pitch-soaked cordage, he was unlikely to get the thing off anytime soon trying it the way he was. The aspen bark cordage had, it seemed, grown tremendously sturdy and turned into some sort of a weird structural material as the hot pitch soaked into it and

solidified, and every time he scraped or pounded at it in an attempt to begin working his way through, it jarred his leg terribly and set off a sickening wave of fresh hurt that soon had him wondering why he had ever wanted the cast off, in the first place. You know why. Got to fix the leg. Somethings out of place again, and its not gonna stop hurting like this until you get it set again, and sure isnt going to start healing. Do it. Find a way. Going at the cast with renewed fury and doing his best to work through the pain and keep focused, he managed to put a dent into the pitch on one side of his leg, a small chunk of the freed cordage and pitch mixture flying into the fire where it sizzled and flared up with a lively orange flame. Which gave him an idea. He had, since first making the cast, found himself needing to be very careful not to stand too long over a fire or allow the cast to sit for too long beside one, since the pitch would inevitable begin softening and the cast deforming. Which is exactly what I want, right now! Better not do it by standing over the fire though, cause if this thing catches on fire He shuddered. Hot rocks should work. Warm rocks, like these I have here at the edge of the fire. Gathering up the rocks he had planned to wrap up in the bear hide with him that night for warmth, he experimentally set one beneath his cast near the top, another against its side, periodically testing the hardness of the pitch and prying at it with his knife as it began softening, elated when he managed to get the knife under one of the coils of cordage and lift it, softening and pulling and raising the cast until he had unwound several feet of cordage from the top of the cast. The movement hurt terribly, but the excitement of his success kept him going, finally propping his foot up on a rock so he did not have to continually raise and lower the leg as he worked, reheating the rocks as necessary and placing additional rocks under his thigh to support it and hopefully keep the leg from flexing too much as he slowly softened and undid the cast from the knee down. Setting aside the sticky, pitch-soaked aspen ropes as he removed them, Einar saw that they hardened again almost instantly, and was hopeful that he might be able to use them again. He had, before beginning to remove the cast, assumed that he would for the time simply have to secure the leg with branches and paracord, had chosen a couple of straight branches for the purpose, but had not looked forward to attempting to move around in the snowy world outside with the leg secured no better than that. Maybe I can think of something, some way that I can make a two-part cast thats removable. The process of softening and removing loop after loop of the thick, pitchy cordage, two wraps thick in places, proved to be a rather lengthy and tiring one, and near the end Einar, tired of dealing with the strain of working slowly and deliberately at the task while all the time enduring what seemed to be a steadily worsening stream of complaints from the leg, scooted it closer to the fire in the hopes that what remained of the pitch boot might soften more quickly. A big mistake, as he discovered only when he looked up from prying at an especially stubborn loop of cordage on the non-fire side of the cast to see that a palmsized portion of the pitchy bark on the side of his leg had caught fire from the heat and proximity of the flames and perhaps from a flying ember that had landed just right. Quickly rolling his leg to the side to smother the flames and scooping up a handful of snow from just beyond the fire pit to finish the job, Einar sat staring in dismay at the steaming black wreckage on the side of his cast, breathing a prayer of thanks that he seemed not to have been burned by it. Scraping at the crusty remains of the pitch, he discovered that only the top layer had burned off, melting what was beneath but not

igniting the jacket that served as insulation between his leg and the cast. He shook his head. Fool. Too close, move back some. Whats your hurry, anyway. Not like you have anywhere to go. He was more careful after that, working slowly to soften and remove the coils and ending up with hands impossibly sticky with pitch residue, brushing them frequently through the dusty dirt on the den floor so that they would not stick to everything he touched. Inadequate as his improvised cast had proven for the level of activity he had been demanding of himself, Einar did not realize until he finally got it off just how much it had been helping. Carefully rubbing the white, wrinkled skin of the leg while avoiding the ugly deformity that distorted his calf several inches below the knee, he hurried to roll up part of the bear hide and get it under the leg, wanting to keep it still and end the awful cramping that had started in his calf upon first attempting to flex his newly freed ankle, one hand on his shin to help stabilize it and pulling back his toes with the other, just hanging on and hoping the cramping would end. Not gonna be able to set this thing unless I can get it to relax some Which it eventually did, Einar stripping more willow bark from his ruined spear and chewing it, bear blood and all, wishing he had thought to do so before ever starting the project. Beginning to be chilled as he sat there with one leg uncovered, he added a few sticks to the fire, and pressed his warmed cooking rock up against the small of his back, glad that the combination of darkness and the continued heavy snowfall allowed him to have a fire without too many worries about smoke or heat signature. Unless theyre using one of those high-flying drones againpossible, of course, but lets not worry about that right now. Not until you get this leg patched up again. Youre never gonna be able to move very fast again, unless you can get this thing to heal. Setting the leg, or attempting to--he never was sure that night that he got it entirely right-proved far more difficult than it had the two prior times he had been required to do the rather unsavory task, and Einar was not sure whether this was largely because he had been able to avail himself of Lizs assistance those times, or because things were more messed up inside than they had been before, a result of the use and abuse to which he had subjected the leg since last setting it. He suspected the latter, but did catch himself once briefly wishing that Liz was there to give some traction (and maybe, though he would not have admitted even to himself desiring any such thing, the occasional kind word or touch) while he struggled to get the bone ends--probably splinters, by now--to line up and come together in a way that would reduce the agony, but on the other hand he was glad she was not there to see him like that. Not that these things were foremost in his mind as he doggedly pulled, twisted and manipulated the leg back into something like its old shape, the muscles several times seizing up around the break and becoming intractable but finally getting it into a position where things felt a bit more right, upon which Einar sank back onto the bear hide, resting. After a minute he shakily retrieving another length of willow bark and wadded it into his mouth with a bit of snow to make up for the saliva that he seemed too dry to produce at the moment (got to start drinking more, somehow) Finally sitting back up, he inspected the leg. Fairly straight looking, but awfully red and inflamed around the break, and when he laid his hand on it, thinking that some gentle rubbing might help, he found that his entire lower leg was for some reason incredibly

painful and sensitive, the slightest touch feeling like searing flame and leaving him to jerk his hand back and stare at it, wondering what was going on. Just a reaction to the twisting and bending and stuff, I guess. OK. Wont touch it for a while. The burning was growing worse, though, the leg beginning to swell, and he grabbed a handful of snow and pressed it to the red, inflamed area over the break, hoping to get the swelling down a bit before it became a serious problem. The skin of the damaged leg was especially sensitive after having been in the cast for the past two weeks, and the bite of the snow nearly brought tears to his eyes, but the stinging was nothing compared to the deep, wrenching ache of the damaged bones, and the cold of the snow did seem to be easing the inflammation some, so he kept it there, scraping up another handful when the first melted away and pressing it against the leg until it, also, had vanished, leaning forward with his eyes closed, mind working on ideas for a replacement cast that could be easily removed when needed. It was the snow, icy rivulets tracing their way down his leg as it melted, that finally gave him the idea he had sought, in regards to the cast. Retrieving his wet and icy pair of pants from the place where they hung drying near the fire, he began stuffing one of the legs with snow, tying it off at the end and packing it full of snow up to a point just above the knee. The leg model finished, he set it outside, piling snow under it to keep the knee bent at the approximate angle he wanted to see in the cast, knowing that a cast built over such a form would be rather too large in diameter for his wasted leg, but supposing that by the time he wrapped the leg with the coat-insulation, it ought to be just about right. Softening the old cast material near the fire, he molded it over the front of the leg form, zigzagging and stacking the rope horizontally across the front of the form and smoothing and pressing it into place as he worked down the front of the leg, keeping the front piece of the cast fairly narrow so he would hopefully have enough material left to do the backside, as well. The warmed pitch-ropes hardened quickly when pressed against the snow-filled pants leg, and Einar was able to carefully remove the front piece of the cast shortly after completing it, setting it aside far from the fire to retain its shape while he carefully turned the leg over, checked its shape against the finished cast piece, and started on the back section. To his surprise he did end up having enough material to complete the thing, even forming a small shelf at the bottom for his foot to sit on, supposing that he could bind his slippered foot to it in order to keep his ankle basically still while traveling, for as long as that continued to seem necessary. By the time he had finished the cast he was all out of fresh willow bark to chew, and had begun retrieving the old wads that he had cast aside, thawing them in his mouth and chewing them again in search of any relief they might offer. Which, if it existed, was not noticeable, but he went on trying. He felt feverish, not quite himself, the leg seeming at the moment to hurt worse than before he had set it, and what he really wanted was to sleep, to be unconscious for a while as the leg swelled and ached and did whatever else it must do before settling down, which he certainly hoped it would have, by morning, so he could try out the new cast. Before lying down and attempting rest, though, he checked the hastily applied splints that he had tied on, loosening them to compensate for the swelling that had occurred and hoping that the pressure would wake him in the night if they needed to be loosened again. Drawing the bear hide around his chilled limbs, Einar finally allowed himself to lie down in the hopes of sleeping through the next few hours,

thinking, despite his best efforts, of Liz, wondering where she was, mercifully unaware that his rest was to be rather short lived.

In the night Einar woke, sweating and shaking and in terrible pain, near delirium and hoping desperately that the rumbling he heard was only in his head, but sure that it was real, the helicopter just above him, and the sheltering mass of earth above him threatening to turn translucent as the undercut bank had the time he had huddled there out of sight of his pursuers, under the influence of the bear-darts. Terrified, the feeling of that moment returning in full force, he fought to get up so he could seek better cover before the soil finished going clear and glassy, but he couldnt move, his leg pinned under a tree or perhaps a rock that had fallen from the ceiling above him, didnt matter which because he could not move, but the next second, when he thought it couldnt get much worse, the chopper touched down and two men stepped out, in suits, strangely, considering the terrain and location, and he was about to begin laughing at how out of place they appeared, when a third suit emerged, roughly shoving a bedraggled figure out of the helicopter ahead of him, and Einar realized even before she managed to get back to her feet that it was Liz, hands cuffed tightly behind her back and blood running down her cheek from a cut just above her left eyebrow. As soon as she stood one of the men struck her, knocking her back to the snowy ground where they took turns hitting her and shouting questions as Einar struggled frantically to free his trapped leg, which grated and screamed and sickened him with the effort, but would not budge. He could hear them now, see everything in crystal clear, merciless detail as the transformation of the earth above into a lucid, crystalline substance reached completion, and he watched as Liz knelt there, staring straight ahead, proud and silent and unwavering as they kicked and struck her and threatened worse, informing her that it could all end if she would just tell them where to find him, just a few words, a location, direction and distance, and Einar let out a choked bellow of rage and frustration, here I am! Here! See me! Come, take me! but they did not, kept interrogating her, and he twisted and struggled until finally he heard his trapped leg snap, going at it with his knife until he was freed and quickly tying a tight loop of paracord around the stump with blood-slick hands before beginning to dig and grapple his way up through the translucent ice-earth above his head, fingers digging like the claws of a wolverine, knife between his teeth, going to her though he knew that was their intention, the men up there beside the chopper, knew the whole thing was a trap, could see them waiting for him up there with weapons drawn but it did not matter, he must do what he must Einar woke to the good dark earth above his head, darkness and the gentle smell of a dying fire all around him, the mass of soil cradling and comforting him, only the sound of the wind outside, and he lay there trembling for some minutes, cold, the bear hide having been tossed open in his struggle, eyes fixed on the blackness above him lest he miss some sign that the mountain was beginning to turn, to go translucent and betray him again, give away his hiding spot, terrified of the prospect yet wishing fervently at the same time that it would happen, cheeks wet with tears of helpless rage for Liz as he wondered what had happened to her, how he had ended up back down in the unwelcome safety of the den

instead of emerging out there under those spinning rotors to confront those men and free her and demand a reckoning of them before he died a death that would have been more honorable than continued life under those circumstances, not again, let me go back, I need to be up there! and it took him a good while to realize that it had not, perhaps, been real. Any of it. The cold was definitely real, though, against his sweat-dampened clothing and the knife was real, clasped in a death-grip in his right hand, and he became increasingly concerned, as reality returned to him, or he to it, is there a difference? that he might in his delirium have actually done some harm to his leg; it certainly felt as if someone had been hacking at it with a dull knife, but he supposed that whatever he had done, he must not have actually succeeded in amputating it, as in that case he would surely have bled out by then. Unless of course that bit about the paracord tourniquet was true, toosome habits die hard. Alarmed at the possibility and wanting to know where he stood (ha! Funny) he blew the still-glowing embers of the fire to life, feeling around for a few sticks to add and fearing the worst when he saw by its flickering glow a spreading stain of blood where the splints and wrapped jacket ended just above his knee. Pulling back the pants leg that was bunched up around the top of the splints he discovered to his relief only a small slice on his leg, fairly deep but less than an inch long, the bleeding easily controlled when he pressed the wad of cloth against it with the heel of his hand. Further down on the splints, though, near where the break was, the sticks were chipped and full of deep knife-gouges, as if he really had been attempting to free his trapped leg. He shook his head, tied a strip of cloth around the superficial wound on his leg, its bleeding nearly ended by the pressure of his hand. Well. Good thing for the splints. Shivering, he rolled back up in the bear hide, feeding the fire and attempting to direct his mind somewhere, anywhere but back to the dream-images that seemed seared into his retinas with a harsh green light that only appeared more vivid when he closed his eyes, rubbed them, familiar, and he cleaned the knife of his blood, inspecting its blade in the glow of the fire and sharpening it, carefully, fastidiously, testing it on a rough end of cordage that protruded from one of the cast-pieces he had earlier created, and finding it good. For some time he stared at it, studied it, balancing it in his hand and then gripping it until his knuckles went white and bloodless as a fresh wave of agony swept over him from the swollen and inflamed leg, strangely welcome as it served to somewhat soften the other pain, which had been of a rather keener sort, less tangible and much harder for him to grasp, to grapple and reach an understanding with. The leg he could manage, could live with, had come to know well over the weeks since the accident and he lay there, eyes glazed with fever, staring at the glint of the fire on the newly sharpened blade until the grating, gripping pain eased some and allowed him to have his breath back, resting his forehead on the cool ground before laying his cheek on the snow and scooping a bit of it into his mouth to ease its dryness. Finally, recovering a bit, he propped himself up on his pack, inspected the knife one final time, running his finger lightly over the blade and staring as if in contemplation, shaking his head and smiling strangely before using it to cut a slice out of the frozen chunk of bear liver that sat just out of reach of the fires heat near the back of the den, eating. Live. The meal done, small, swallowed with difficulty through the lingering hurt but seeming somehow like a sacrament, tangible sign of an invisible grace, and I thank You, he put the weapon away, lay his head down and

slept, finally at peace, or something like it. Silence, stillnesshe woke to them some hours later, we know each other quite well by now, dont we, Silence, my friend? woke to a muted light coming in from the entrance, the den-opening almost entirely snowed over in the night, and he did not want to move, to disturb the warmth that had accumulated around him in the bear hide, the quiet of lying there cradled in the earth, in the depths, in a place where none could find him, taking great solace in all of those things, but he knew he must. A lot of work to do, today.

Climbing, Liz watched as the fire-glow behind her went from a smear across the night, diffused but bright through the blowing snow, to a vague pinprick dot that she had to avert her gaze to be able to make out, sighing with relief when finally it was swallowed up entirely into the night and the storm. Her greatest regret--much as she had wanted, on a very basic level, to stay in that camp for an hour or so and warm up by the fire and perhaps talk with Bill, though he did not really seem the talking sort and she had rather doubted his intentions with her--was that she had, in leaving, been unable to find and retrieve the Glock, hastily searching beneath the tree where she had collapsed upon exiting the creek, finding nothing and finally concluding that she must have lost it in the water. She hated to think of returning to Einar and having to tell him of its loss, hated being without it, herself, not knowing what she might encounter that night and afterwards, but knew she could spare no more time to search for it, not if she intended to be gone before Bill returned. Which she certainly did. She had, in the ten or so minutes since leaving the camp, heard nothing, seen nothing to indicate that she was being followed but knew that Bill could very well be behind her and closing, had he chosen to give chase, waiting for the right moment to make his move, and the thought kept her moving quickly into the teeth of the storm, wolverine hide wrapped like a wide, furry scarf around her head and neck against the biting wind and the snow, hard and pellet-like, at the moment, that it drove before it, regretting her wet clothes and wishing that she might have been able to dry then a bit more thoroughly down at the fire. It did not matter for long, not with the jeans, anyway, as their fronts were soon stiffened with ice, thin, rigid armor that flexed at the knees, and though it was certainly no warmer than the wet cloth had been, it did serve as a barrier against the wind and, she was sure, actually helped some. Her feet were another matter, socks and boots soaked from the creek and her with nothing to change into, and while she was able to maintain feeling in her toes as long as she was climbing steeply, struggling upwards through knee-deep drifts, but as soon as the angle became less steep and the effort it required of her less, they began going numb, and she stomped, kicked them against one another and against trees that she passed but nothing seemed to be helping, and she was soon forced to stop and warm them for fear of freezing her toes. Sitting for a brief time in the semi-sheltered space beneath an evergreen, she pressed first one foot and then the other against her inner thigh to warm them, wringing out the socks--well, at least theyre not actually frozen, yet--and putting them back on, not

wanting to stop for too long with the possibility existing that she was being pursued. Careful as she knew she had to be, Liz doubted that Bill was following her. Surely if he had been that intent on keeping track of her, he would never have walked off and left her unattended in camp, would not have left his gear within easy reach that wayunless he was trying to get me to let my guard down, think I was safeand lead him straight to Einar! Which she doubted, as he had seemed to be someone Susans husband Bill had trusted implicitly, even as the search activity had been in full swing, but I dont really know him, and its hard to say just what you can count on a person for, in times like these. It seems there have been a number of well meaning people whove thought capture would be the best thing for Einar, or if not that, have been convinced that his capture would be the best thing for the town, the county, on and onor--she thought of Allan--the best thing for me. Cant take anything for granted about Bill, or anyone else, I guess. Have to lead him further away from Einar, or from where I think Einar may be, because Im still not entirely sure, myself, where to find him. But it is looking like I had better not even try to find him for a day or two, not until I can be sure that no one is on my trail. And she attacked the ridge above her with renewed fury, driving herself up its steep flank and swinging her arms for warmth, the wolverine hide flapping and billowing in the wind and once being snatched away from her in its fury, leaving her to dash after it in a near panic as it whirled away down the slope below her, a dark shape against the faintly luminescent freshness of the snow. The hide, thankfully, hung up against a dead and broken fir, its splintered, barkless branches jutting out at all angles and proving a perfect trap for the windblown hide, Liz sliding through the snow after it and coming up short against the tree, disentangling the hide and shaking the snow from it, huddling in it, weary and numb from fighting the wind. She needed to do more, must do more to protect herself from the elements, she knew could feel that the single layer of polypropylene that covered her torso, dampened by the driven snow and freezing in places, was not going to be enough, and she fumbled around in the pack, pulled out one of the large black plastic trash bags and, reluctant to damage it but knowing that she must, took her knife and cut in its sealed bottom a hole for her head, arm holes in its sides and bound it around her waist with a length of paracord, draping the wolverine hide up over her head and tucking it down into the neck hole, amazed at the nearly instant increase in warmth brought by the bags protection from the wind. Covering her down well below the knees--there are a few definite advantages to being short!--the bag more closely resembled a trench coat on her than a vest, and the only thing Liz did not like about it was the awful rustling and crinkling given off by the cold plastic as she moved. She did not, in that wind, worry so much about others hearing her, but did not like the way the constant noise left her deafened against the approach of danger, cut off from her surroundings in a manner almost as serious as if she had been wearing a blindfold. But she saw little choice, getting the pack back on her back and resuming her climb, knowing that, clothes wet and a fire highly inadvisable, she would be in major trouble when she had to stop, but had no intention of doing so, anytime in the immediate future. Not that we always have the benefit of making such decisions for ourselves

Watching the daylight strengthen through the small gap that the accumulating snow had left at the den entrance, Einar, bleary eyed and a bit hollow feeling inside from the nights disquiet and dreams, slid himself over to it, finally, reluctantly, carefully enlarging the hole and looking out. The snow had, for the time, ended, the sky clearing and temperatures dropping sharply, and he hastily pulled himself back into the den and rolled up in the bear hide, tremendously glad to have it and wishing that he had managed to make the trip up the hill the day before to retrieve the other hide so he could use both. Need to get up there, but probably not today. Plenty to do down here today, and Id sure like to keep that leg still for a day, let some of the swelling go down, before I try to go anywhere at all on it. Better would be holing up here for a couple weeks and just letting it rest, but I doubt thatll be happening Pulling the two cast-pieces in under the bear hide with him, he carefully unwrapped the cordage that held the splints in place, easing the back piece under his leg and setting the front on top of the coat-insulation that wrapped his leg. Looks good, looks like it may work. Did not feel especially good, though, as the leg remained swollen and inflamed, the slightest pressure registering as agony and leaving him wishing he might just leave the leg as it was, for that day. Cant do that, though, unless Im just gonna lie completely still here on my back the whole time, because one wrong move, and Ill probably have this thing popping out of place again, and then Im starting all over on what I had to do last night, all that pulling and twisting and trying to get it set The mere thought nauseated him nearly to the point of vomiting--which I must not do, dont do it! Cause youre awful short on liquids as it is, getting awful dehydrated, I think--and he gritted his teeth and cinched down the two halves of the cast, relieved to see that they did hold his leg securely in the correct position. Or what he hoped was the correct position, as he was still not positive that the bone ends were in exactly the right places, as it seemed to him that if they were, the pain perhaps ought to be a bit less, some eight or nine hours after setting it. But what do I know? Never really done this before, so I guess Ill just have to hope its right or close to it, close enough so I can walk when it knits back together. Gonna have a limp Im pretty sure, but hey, already had one from the hip, so whats new. Maybe itll all balance out, even, being on opposite sides! Which he doubted, shaking his head at his rather lackluster attempts at humor and tying a final knot in the cord that held the cast in place, having started the paracord wrap at the foot and gone up the leg using a crisscross pattern that allowed for a very secure hold and prevented the two cast-pieces from slipping at all, side to side. OK, thats that and Ill give it a try for today, hope it works. Now. Got to do something about this shortage of water, because Im just not getting enough, collecting the drips from those snowballs and sucking on the occasional mouthful of icy snow, and Im gonna be in a heap of trouble if I let myself get any further behind, waterwise. Would be good to be able to cook things, too, boil things, make stew and such. And, lacking a pot, he had several ideas of how to give himself this ability.

The coming of daylight and weather which, for the moment at least, was a good bit clearer than he had seen for the past two days (has it been two, or three, since the snow started? Cant say I know for sure) precluded the building of a fire that morning,

though Einar certainly could have used one and his gaze strayed a bit wistfully to the nice dry stack of broken sticks in the corner of the den as he prepared a cold breakfast of sliced liver, a few solid yellow globs of kidney fat, and some scrapings of frozen bear blood--odd sort of ice cream, this is--pulling his hat down to his eyebrows and giving thanks for the existence of his good dry, windproof shelter--sure hope you have the same, Liz, if youre out there and not down in your friends kitchen eating scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls, or something--the bear hides and piles of grass and duff insulation the bear had dragged in, and for the bear itself, whose meat and fat were ensuring that, unlike many previous days, his body at least had something to burn for energy. It was all making a huge difference, but, as he pressed another lump of snow between his palms to turn it icy before slowly chewing it for a bit of water, he knew it the food and shelter, helpful as they were and certainly responsible in part for seeing him through the storm alive, were not enough, not if he continued to short himself on water as he had been. Should have paid more attention to this last night, made sure and used that fire to get at least a bottles worth of snow melted and set aside in the bear hide with me to stay thawed out. Too distracted by the leg, I guess. Often in the past he had kept a bottle or bag of snow near him or even pressed directly against his stomach to melt at times when he had been short on water and unable to have a fire, but he had, up until that night when wrapped up in the bear hide and enjoying the benefits of dry clothes, been too cold to seriously contemplate intentionally bringing a bottle full of snow into contact with any part of his body--except, perhaps, for his swollen leg, should have thought of that, might have helped, yesterday--and his reluctance had, he knew, been a big mistake. While the bottle of snow would have chilled him, its effects would not have been nearly as serious a factor in his becoming dangerously hypothermic as his current dehydration was proving. Spending no more than a minute or two out from under the protection of the bear hide was leaving him stiff and shaking that morning, his movements slow and his mind fuzzy, and he knew he must drink, struggled to press lumps of snow in through the narrow mouth of the bottle and stuck it in the waistband of his pants, shuddering and taking another slice of liver as the icy chill of the bottle seemed to go right through him. Well. See if I ever forget to take advantage of a fire again when Im short on water, broken leg or not. This should certainly help me remember. It was also helping to take his mind off the leg, a very good thing, as it seemed little improved over the past night, and the longer he was awake, the more difficult it was becoming to prevent it becoming his sole focus. Cant have that, and Im all out of willow bark, so I guess my only option is just to keep real busy, see if the swelling will start to go down today. If I actually got the busted leg put back into anything like the right position, it should start hurting less, when the swelling goes down. Keeping busy, he knew, was not going to be too much of a problem, as there were any number of things he intended to do to improve the den and turn it into more of a permanent shelter where he could hopefully over-winter, if the search or other factors did not step in and make that impossible. The space was small, confined, barely high enough for him to sit up if he bent forwards, and though he knew this was good when it came to heating the space and keeping warm, he did wish for a bit more room, if the den was to be more than a temporary spot to hole up. Be good to have some room to work, in here,

room to store some things. Need to start digging it out a little, hauling the dirt over under evergreens so it doesnt show from the air and dumping it. That sort of work ought to be good for the shoulder too, I would think. Lying on my back and taking turns scraping and digging at this ceiling with first one arm and then the other. Keep it flexible, maybe give it a chance of healing right, this time. Something needs to work right when I finally come through all of this. If I do First things first, though, and he knew that far more urgent than enlarging the den was preparing the bear stomach for use as a cooking and snow melting vessel, so it would be ready and waiting as soon as either the storm returned or darkness came. From the looks of things, snow would come before darkness, as the ragged scraps of blue that had begun showing through the treetops above him were growing smaller, streamers and tails of cloud scudding across them with increasing speed as the winds picked up.

It was not long before Liz, regardless of how hard she pushed herself up the ridge, found herself unable to keep up with the cumulative effects of the cold and snow on her wet boots and soaked feet, and she stopped, kicked the snow from her footwear and again sought to return some feeling to her feet by pressing them against her thighs, but it was feeling more and more as though it was a losing battle. She needed shelter, needed to stop but did not dare do so, with the possibility that Bill could still be somewhere back behind her, following her tracks through the rapidly accumulating snow and waiting for her to falter so he could catch up. But what if he does? All he did back there was give me something to eat and try to get me warmmaybe Id be better off just stopping and letting him catch up, if thats what he wants to do. She had left his camp in such haste largely because she knew that was what Einar would have done, would have wanted her to do, and to a much lesser degree because she had not cared for Bills tone and was uncertain whether she ought to be trusting his immediate intentions towards her, but as the night went on and the storm showed no sign of letup, she began to doubt her ability to continue contending successfully with the conditions, was growing increasingly exhausted struggling through the deep drifts with her heavy pack, and began to wish she had remained back there at the camp at least long enough to dry her boots and socks and see what Bill had in mind. This is Einars world, not mine. I dont even know where I am, where Im supposed to be going or how long this storm may keep up And she stood there, leaning on a tree trunk and facing the biting wind, the tears that she had held back so many times finally streaming down her cheeks, afraid and no longer sure what the purpose could be in continuing as she had been. Weary and weighed down by the pack, she sank to her knees, wept. Stop it. You stop it. Now you have all of Einars things here, and if there is no other reason to keep at this, you have to do it for him. And you have to keep moving right now, moving away from him in case theyre following you. Have to find a spot where you can hide for a day or two until youre sure they are gone, and then find him. He has nothing to eat, and you saw how hard it was for him to stay awake just before you left, let alone move and do things for himself. At which she started crying again, silently sobbing in the knowledge that he was probably already gone, frozen and dead under that spruce where

she had left him, covered, by now, in a foot or two of snow, and she very deliberately stopped herself, roughly brushed her sleeve across her face and pulling herself to her feet. You dont know that, dont know hes gone. Hes been through some awfully rough stuff before this, and it would be a big mistake to assume that he cantget through this, too. Now you stop this blubbering, and keep moving, keep leading them away from him, if theyre out there and following, find a place to hide for a while. Climbing, trudging along near the edge of the sharply defined ridge-slope, where the shaley ground dropped away sharply--the snow seemed slightly less deep, there--Liz suddenly had the feeling that her left boot, punching through the wind-packed snow, was dangling down into thin air with no way to get traction, and she leaned to the right, struggling to pull it back up, but then the ground went out from under her and she was falling, face whipped by a multitude of flexible evergreen branches that dumped their loads of snow as she tumbled through them, grabbing frantically at them to stop her tumble, but unable to grab them. Liz finally came to rest at the bottom of the dropoff, face driven into the snow by the weight of her pack, arms pinned beneath her, shoving and struggling to get her hands in front of her face where she could clear a space for breathing. She was not entirely certain what had just happened, doubted it had been an avalanche but certainly felt as though she had ended up beneath a great deal of snow, and knew that she must free herself as quickly as possible, lest she run out of air. The snow, thankfully, did not seem to be hard and compacted as it would have been after a true avalanche, and she was able, very slowly, to worm her hands forward, pressing and pushing and getting her fingers in front of her face, clearing the snow out of her mouth and from in front of her nose and taking a few small breaths, shoving at the ground in an attempt to raise herself but finding the pack too heavy, the powder beneath her too soft and indefinite to provide much resistance. She had to get out of the pack, could tell she would be getting nowhere as long as it was there to weight her down, and finally, with great difficulty, managed to undo the snow-packed waist belt buckle and squirm her arms out of the shoulder straps, kicking and scrambling until she was out from beneath it and sitting up. It was dark, she could see nothing, but from the near absence of the wind and the sharp angle at which she had to crane her neck to see the slightly less black darkness of the sky, it seemed that she had tumbled a good distance, had ended up on the leeward side of the ridge--that much was a blessing, at least--and she got shakily to her feet, attempting to determine whether she had been injured and deciding that, despite what felt like a few fairly serious abrasions to her face and arms, she was basically alright. Her feet were not, though, were completely numb again, and she sat down right where she was, took out her knife and cut off two rough triangles from the wolverine hide--sorry, Einar, but I think Im losing my feet-- warming her feet as well as she could and wrapping the hide pieces around them, fur side in, before shoving them back into her boots. The warm, soft fur ought to be a good bit more effective than her soaked socks, she expected. Now, Get moving again. It is definitely too cold to go on sitting here. And she did, taking off up what she expected must be the flank of the ridge, very nearly walking right off into space before sensing the void beneath her, grabbing the trunk of a small fir that clung to the rocks at the edge of the precipice, breaking off a stick and tossing it down, hearing it contact rock some two seconds later. Breaking off a longer stick she carefully

walked around the perimeter of what was increasingly appearing to be a rather small plateau where she had come to rest after her fall, finding no sign of a way up, or down, in the darkness. Trapped.

Liz did not want to stay there on the little plateau, did not like the idea of being trapped and unable to move on while possibly still being pursued, but the more she explored the area, treading very carefully lest she find herself slipping near one of the edges and falling again, probing the sharply fractured rocks with a stick and looking for any path, up or down, that might prove less steep than the vertical dropoffs that seemed to surround her, the more firmly she became convinced that she must wait until daylight to continue her travels. She wanted to keep moving, was worried that Bill, if he was back there, and possibly others who might be tracking and following him, could catch up to her as she waited, trapped, for daylight, but when she thought about it--huddling up against the rock face to get out of the snow--the likelihood of anyone finding her tracks up on that ridge in the dark, unless he had been right behind her the entire time, seemed quite small. The way the wind had been blasting up there, she expected that they were already drifted over in places or were soon to be, and perhaps the slide that had sent her tumbling would be attributed to a natural accumulation of more snow than the slope could handle, should anyone even see it. She hoped so. Her clothes were all wet and freezing, shirt soaked and dripping beneath the shelter of the contractors bag and pants crunchy with ice, and Liz knew that she could not sit that way all night, maybe Einar could, or would think he could, but she definitely doubted that she could, knew that she must do something. It was dark there beside the rock face, too dark for her to get a look at the contents of her pack so, warming her hands against her stomach, she explored the pack by feel, finding in one of the side pouches the stub of a candle that had remained after they used it for light in their last shelter, and she set it carefully on a little shelf of rock that lay behind her, sheltered from the snow by the slight overhang of the rock above and shielded from the majority of the wind by the mass of the ridge, fumbling in her pocket until she found the magnesium firestarter--obtained, according to Einar, from the reporters pack in trade for the interview he gave her--which she had taken to keeping on her at all times after having seen that there were certain things that Einar always insisted on having on his person. Liz had started fires with the little device before, seldom even shaving off any of the magnesium but simply striking sparks from the attached fire steel into a waiting bundle of tinder, but she had never lighted a candle with it, and was a bit puzzled as to how to go about doing so. Sending several showers of sparks down on the wick with no result, she had an idea, shaved off a little pile of magnesium filings into the area around the wick, and tried again. Flaring up white and brilliant, the magnesium, when its energy had died down sufficiently for her get a good look, had indeed left the wick flaming, and Liz hurried to shield it with a few stacked rocks from any random wind gust that might find its way into the little shelf and try to extinguish the flame. Yeah! Light! Now, to get warm and dry off a little, because all the dry clothes are in Einars pack and I dont have anything to change into. She wanted a fire, knew she ought to be safe from discovery from the air due to the intensity

of the storm--it had been a good while since she had heard a helicopter off in the distance, and she doubted that they could or would be flying in such a storm, but hesitated to have a fire, wondering if the smell of its smoke might give Bill or other possible pursuers a clue as to her location. I doubt it. Not in this wind. Theyd have no idea which direction the smell was coming from, would they? And theres no way Im going to be able to dry my clothes, unless I actually have a fire. She just wasnt sure, though, knew she must not risk giving herself away to whoever might be out there, and decided to give the candle a try, see if she could make do with it. Bracing the pack against the rock face behind her, she crouched so that her knees were on her chest, drew the bag over her knees and carefully moved the candle beneath the tent this created, setting it on a flat rock from which she had scraped the snow. Pulling her arms into the tent and allowing the excess heat to escape through the arm holes and around her neck, Liz huddled there as the warmth rose around her, inflating the bag a bit and leaving her trembling furiously as she began to warm. It was all rather a new experience for Liz--she had not even realized how badly chilled she had become, until she started thawing. Better...eat something. Seems like Einar is always trying to eat something when he gets like this, says it gives him energy so he can stay warm. She pulled out a piece of bear jerky and broke off a chunk of the rendered fat that they had so carefully packed away, eating, finishing up with a large scoop of crystallized honey from the jar. Oh, EinarI wish you had this right now, because you surely need it more than I do, and I can feel it helping me already. Starting to feel like I could keep this up all night, if I had to. Which I guess I probably do I should have made some little packets of food for you to carry, some jerky, fat and honey--they wouldnt have weighed much, and might have made a big difference. And she sat there, her clothes thawing and steaming in the warmth of the candle-flame as it accumulated in the bag, staring out into the darkness and trying unsuccessfully to think of something, anything besides Einar lying there in the snow starved and frozen and beyond help, even if any could manage to show up. I would if I could. I would be there with you. Lord, youre there with him, I know. Please let him find some shelter, something to eat, let him live And, though she supposed it was probably the creation of her own tormented imagination rather than anything that had to do with reality, a brief image passed through Lizs mind, and she saw Einar curled up in a bear hide--looked larger, strangely, than the one they had got from that yearling--in a hole in the ground somewhere, cavelike yet not quite a cave, dry, sleeping, alive, and she smiled. One can hope Returned from her musings quite suddenly by the pungent smell of burning plastic, Liz looked down to see that the bottom of the bag had sagged inwards, a ragged two inch diameter hole melting in it where it contacted the candle flame, and she hastily billowed it back out away from the fire, realizing to her dismay that she had allowed herself to become lost in thought, sleepy, even, knew that she would have to pay more attention. The heat of the little flame had served to thaw most of the ice in her clothing, leaving it to soak the cloth and drip off here and there, creating the beginnings of a puddle on the rock beneath her and running in icy little rivulets down into her boots, and, though feeling a bit warmer protected as she was from the wind, surrounded by its heat and having eaten, she was beginning to doubt that the little flame would be enough. There was no way, she was

seeing, that she could hope to dry her clothes in that little tent, not before the stub of a candle burned out, anyway, and with no way off of the plateau in the darkness so she could keep moving and generate some heatsuddenly overcome by a feeling of near panic she wanted to jump up and search again for a way off of the ledge, wanted to take her chances and simply start down the least steep chute that she could find, or whichever one seemed least steep, in the darkness, but she forced herself to remain still, knowing that nothing good was likely to come from anything done in such a panic. Youre alright. Youll probably need a fire later, and ought to think about starting it before this candle burns out, but for now, youre OK. Which reminded her of something she had heard once, about how women could often survive just a bit longer under hypothermic conditions than could men, something about the blood supply being quicker to concentrate in the core where it would stay warm, a mechanism that was supposed to have something to do with protecting a potential unborn child, and she wondered if this was true, decided she would go ahead and assume it was, because she found he thought somewhat encouraging. If that is the case then I ought to be just fine if I can warm up a little, because Ive certainly seen Einar a lot worse off than I am right now, and hes still hereor was The candle was burning dangerously low, and Liz rose, carefully moving it back to the protected shelf of rock and feeling around until she came to a small spruce, breaking off the driest and smallest branches that she could find beneath its snow-laden boughs, rubbing and twisting at the thin layer of bark still left on some of them until it loosened and could be removed, having decided that she could have a fire, as long as she was careful to use very dry wood so as to minimize the amount of smoke that would escape for people to smell, if anyone was out there. Choosing a spot very close to the rocky wall, she began arranging the sticks on a rock that she had flipped over to expose its dry side, glad to discover that a small grove of tightly grouped firs lay not four feet beyond it, between the wall and the precipice below. She had been concerned that the fires glow, reflecting on the rock wall, might be seen as a diffused light that would attract the attention of anyone who might happen to be on the opposite ridges, but knew the trees would help hide the light. As eager flames climbed up through the pile of sticks she had gathered, Liz huddled almost on top of the tiny blaze, the bag-jacket set aside and her clothes slowly beginning to dry. Maybe it wasnt such a bad thing after all that I fell down here. Almost no wind, shelter from the snow and the chance to have a little fire, and hopefully that fall broke my trail in a way that they will not be able to figure out. Now, I just hope theres a way down off of here, when I see it by the morning light

Having finished scraping a depression into the soft floor of the den and getting the bear stomach--one half of it, anyway--set up to melt snow and boil water in as soon as the storm returned, Einar turned his attention to the little stack of firewood that sat along one wall of the den, well out of the reach of stray snowflakes. Not gonna last too long, so you better take advantage of this lull in the storm to get out there and come up with some more. Youll be able to keep a lot drier if you can avoid being out when that winds driving the snow sideways. He did not especially want to move the leg, though, did not

wish to risk jarring it and popping things out of place again, necessitating another struggle such as the one he had gone through the night before in setting it, concerned more than anything that he might see a repeat of what he supposed must have been the pain-induced delirium that had very nearly led him to cut off his own leg in order to free himself so he could go rescue Liz. The incident had really spooked him, once he was awake and aware enough to realize what he had nearly done. Best to keep that from happening again, if I can, cause Im sure not gonna hide the knife from myself before I go to sleep, or anything like that. Cant sleep, anyway, without a weapon of some sort real handy, so thered be no point. Willow bark might help keep the swelling down, take the edge off just enough so I didnt end up like that againI dont really know. And dont have any, besides. Best of all is just to avoid having to set the doggone thing again. Stuff must be splintered up pretty bad in there by now, and theres got to be a point past which it just wont heal up right, will leave me unable to get around very well at all. So. Firewood can wait. Made it through the night alright with just the bear hide, and Ive got enough wood here to heat up a couple batches of rocks, get myself a good amount of drinking water. Maybe Ill break off a few branches later if I go out to dump some dirt under a tree, after Ive done some digging at this ceiling. Sensing that it would be a big mistake to stop work long enough just then for the pain of his leg to become overwhelming again--it was close enough, even with all the distractions he was attempting to create for himself, and he wondered once again whether he had got it set properly, at all--he hurried to get started, lying on his back and using the diffused daylight reflecting in from the snow outside to pick out rocks on the low den ceiling and pry at them with the remains of his spear shaft, loosening first one and then another, rolling to the side to avoid them when they finally fell and concentrating on using his left shoulder some without (hopefully) further injuring it. Setting the rocks aside--he hoped to be able to use them later in constructing the little stove that he wanted to build, yeah, keep dreaming, what makes you think youll be here that long?--he continued to scrape and pry and loosen clods of dirt which rained down on him, each one getting shoved aside to make room for more. The ground above him was fairly soft--a lot softer than the ice in that dream, and he quickly shoved the memory aside--and he was able to make good progress, soon adding several inches to the height of the ceiling immediately above him and starting to run out of space to shove the dirt that he was freeing. Thinking, planning as he worked, the image came to him of a sleeping shelf built at the back of the den, a little stone stove in one corner with a chimney-hole dug out to the surface where it would emerge under one of the big spruces on top of the den, helping to disperse and conceal any smoke that might be produced. Gonna be a fine spot to spend the winter, by the time I get done with it! Before starting on the project he had first shoved as much as he could of the bears dry grass and duff insulation over to the side, so as to keep it from becoming littered with dirt clods and having its heat-retaining value reduced, but a good bit of dirt was scattering and falling in it anyway, damp and cold and not especially something Einar wanted as part of his bedding. He had an idea, knew that a nice large slab of spruce bark, loosened and removed from a dead tree and placed beneath the area he was working on, would serve to protect the bedding and also make the job of hauling the dirt out of the den far easier, but

the thought of venturing out to acquire one was less than appealing, just then. The leg was, though he did not want to admit it to himself, hurting badly enough that anything beyond simply lying there curled up with his cheek pressed against the cold dirt floor, breathing, was beginning to appear impossibly complicated, beyond his reach. Do it, Einar. Go get that bark, pick up some firewood while youre out there. Looks like the snow is about to start up again, and itll mean coming back all wet and half frozen if you wait to go out until the storm comes back. Getting kinda soft, here, arent you, thinking you can lie around like this all day? Yeah, the thing hurts like heck and its probably gonna keep hurting for a while, but theres stuff you got to do, in the meantime. Which sounded fine, and he fully intended to act on it, but several minutes later he realized that he had not moved, was lying there staring at the little flakes of black mica in a slab of granite that sat not far from his face, nearly crossing his eyes to focus on them and attempting to find some pattern, to count them, but inexplicably unable to get past twelve. Move. Somewhere between making the decision--the second time--to move and hauling himself with difficulty up into something like a sitting position, it became absolutely imperative to Einar, in his mind, that he complete the tasks he had just set for himself, and without delay, push on and go until they were done, lest he simply lie there and sink deeper into whatever it was that he could feel dragging at him, pulling him down, waiting to claim him. Probably just sleep. Would be a good idea to sleep, if you can, sure didnt get very much last night, but instead youre gonna insist on tramping around out there in the snow, arent you? He nodded, grabbed his one remaining crutch and began scooting backwards towards the den entrance, shoving with it to help himself along. Yep, thats right. Maybe if Liz was here, maybe then you could just lie still and rest, give in a little andcount spots on granite rocks until you pass out, or whatever it is your goofy brain wants to do right now, but shes not, and if youre gonna have a fire tonight--which you had better do, or youre going to be finding yourself too dehydrated to think straight, here before long--well, guess whos building it? So you need some wood, need to move around a little just so you dont forget that you can. Knocking some of the accumulated snow away from the entrance with his crutch so as not to dislodge it in crawling through and have several cubic feet of the fluffy white stuff on him, Einar dragged himself out into the incredibly white world outside the den, blindingly bright in contrast to his former surroundings, despite the fact that the sun was mostly obscured by what appeared to be the rapidly coalescing second wave on the storm. Blinking in awe at its brilliance and marveling at the amount of snow that had fallen--close to four feet, from the looks of things--he stood there still for a moment, squinting as his eyes slowly adjusted and scanning the nearby trees for a likely prospect for the bark-sled that he needed for hauling out the results of his mining, and for dry looking firewood. Both of his needs, Einar was pleased to see, were provided for in a mostly dead spruce that stood some twenty yards up the slope from the den, bark peeling on one side, hanging in great rafts from its trunk, just what he needed for catching and hauling the dirt, and a multitude of dry, dead branches visible on its lower half, having been largely protected from the storm by several still-living boughs above them. Getting there was another matter altogether, as it required pushing through the deep snow, a task which proved nearly impossible for Einar, effectively one-legged and trying very hard not to jar the cast as he moved through it.

Finally settling on a method--fall forwards onto his good knee to compress the snow a bit, rake two small steps forward, do it all again--he began tracing a zigzagging path up the slope, arriving at the tree out of breath and dry-mouthed from the exertion, eating a small lump of snow and leaning against the rough bark of the tree until the screaming, splintering white of the pain in his leg settled down enough that he was able to focus again on the task at hand. Using the crutch to pry at and free a long strip of the bark, four feet long and well over a foot and a half wide, curved and quite sturdy, he set it on the ground, careful to knock a somewhat level spot into the snow first to prevent it sliding away down the slope, beginning to break branches for firewood. When he had filled the sled nearly past capacity with branches of varying sizes, most of them barkless, yellow and a bit shiny with age, he warmed his hands, fished around in his pockets for a length of paracord and bound the load to the bark strip for the trip back down to the den, leaving a few feet of it hanging off of one end for him to hang onto so as not to lose control of the wood. By the time he made it back to the den--nearly an hour later and after enduring several falls--he was sick and dizzy with the pain of the leg, seeming once again to affect his entire right side every time he jarred the limb in the slightest, barely able any more to stifle the muted groans and grunts that wanted to push themselves out through his gritted teeth, vision dull and blurry with tears that struggled to form in eyes dry and sandy from lack of water. Finally dragging himself into the semi-protected spot just before the blackness of the den, he collapsed onto the ground and got himself turned around, the snow knocked off of his feet and pants and his legs shoved inside the shelter before he rolled over onto his stomach and vomiting, relieved, telling himself that the movement could finally cease. This isnt workingisnt working at all. And he sprawled there half in, half out of the den, face pressed down into the snow, its icy whiteness biting into his forehead and nose and cheeks, the initial stinging passing to a deeper ache and finally numbness as he lay motionless, hardly even seeming to breathe. Finally he lifted his head, took in a deep breath and blew the snow out of his nostrils. Yes, it is working. You are still here. Just keep doingthis. All except the part just now where you probably frostbit your nose, that is Now get inside and set up that fire. Its starting to snow again.

Liz kept her little fire going for several hours that night as the storm, from what she could hear of the wind ripping through the trees on the adjacent ridge, continued unabated, her clothes slowly drying. Once she had warmed a bit she took out the cooking pot and melted some snow, chopped up a few chunks of bear meat and waited for them to boil, breathing the steam as she had seen Einar do. The steam, he had once told her, helped to warm your core, and she had seen it work for him a time or two when he had been having particular trouble warming up. The meat cooked, she stabbed the chunks with her knife and ate them one by one--gobbled them, really, being quite hungry by that time--adding a small slab of fat to melt and crouching there sipping the resulting greasy broth. Well, Einar, I see now where your rather plain cooking habits come from. No time or energy to

make a fancy meal or even a good stew with more than an ingredient or two, when youre out here all by yourself, running and hiding and trying to find a way to get out of the wind for a few minutes. Just getting some food down is quite enough, under these circumstances! I guess I wont get after you anymore for just throwing some things in a pot and delightedly devouring the results, whether they be bear stew or some concoction that involved grubs or maggots or ant larvae, all of which I believe Ive heard you talk about She felt a bit silly talking to Einar like that, as if he was right there sitting beside her, but it seemed to help some with the loneliness she was feeling there on the ledge that night, helped to push back the darkness and the huge, stormy world around her so she kept at it, hoping that it might somehow help him, too, though doubting that he would have any way to be aware of the conversation. She had many times since unintentionally parting ways with him caught herself starting to say something to him, wanting to ask him a question or show him something she had discovered, and continued the one-sided dialog as she began drying out her boots and socks with warm rocks. I know Ive seen you do this, and I guess its a lot more effective than just opening up the boots and setting them by the fire to dry, though Ive also seen you lean over and breathe the steam from the drying boots, which after all these miles Ive walked in the same pair of socks, Im definitely not interested in doing, though I guess I would if I was dangerously hypothermic, still, and had no better way to warm up I know, I know. Youd probably say to do it anyway, just because a person in this situation cant afford to pass up on any opportunity to use all the resources available to them, and steam coming out of boots is definitely a resource, but stillno thanks! With her socks drying fairly quickly between the warm rocks and the radiant heat of the flames, Liz took an extra rock and inserted it into one of them, leaning on the pack with it at the small of her back--wow, this really does warm you up--but the rock pressed against her spine and left her sore after a short time, causing her to shift it over to the area just between her hips and ribs where there were not so many bones so near the surface, reminding her of how much weight she had lost--not that shed had much extra to begin with--since leaving town for the last time. (The last time. That sure does sound final. It really may have been the last) She now understood--having previously assumed it a quirk of his somewhat other than normal personality--why Einar would almost never sit still in one position for long without shifting a bit, leaving him in almost constant motion. It hurt! Hurt to have your bones pressing on the skin of your seat that way, particularly if sitting on rock or hard ground, and she now fully appreciated his reasoning in almost always scraping up a small pile of leaves or spruce needles to sit on, every time they took a break from their travels. Liz knew she was, though, still doing an awful lot better than he was, nutrition-wise, as she had only been out a few weeks, had gone into the thing well-nourished and healthy, and had actually been eating fairly well, for the most part, especially since they took the yearling bear. She wished Einar had been able to consume as much of her stews and soups as she had, but it seemed that he had often been either too weary or in too much pain to eat more than a bite or two. And now he doesnt have it to eat, if he is ablesure hope youve been able to get some snares set, Einar. Hope youve got ahold of a rabbit or a squirrel or something and somehow managed to boil it up in a hollow log and are sitting out there under a tree right now enjoying some hot soup and watching the snow drift down into the light of your fire

Sitting there staring into the flames and feeding her own little fire, Lizs thoughts returned to her life before, to her family, to the plans she had for her life before everything had changed so drastically that morning a year and a month ago when shed discovered an injured, bedraggled, half dead man in handcuffs freezing in the shallow water of the rocky riverbank at her Aunt and Uncles ranch, and had made the fateful decision to help, or try to She wondered, still, if it had been the right decision at all, if perhaps everyone would have been better off in the long run had she simply got the cuffs off, given him some food and dry clothes--hed have been in awfully bad shape without that much, at least, and she would not have left anyone in such a situation without trying to do something, not even a very strange and perhaps dangerous sort of fellow as he had seemed to her, at that first meeting--and sent him on his way. How might things have been different, had she hidden him in the truck the morning after finding him and driven him out of the area as he had requested, instead of suggesting that they wait a day so she could go to the store for supplies, a course of action that had led to his having to run again with them in hot pursuit when they finally showed up to search the house? Who knows? It might have worked, or we might have got stopped at one of those checkpoints they had set up, and he could have been captured or killed right then and there. No point in second guessing any of this, now. It did seem, though, that many of the times since then when shed had contact with him--though it had as often been his choice, as hers, after that first meeting--disaster had resulted, the search being brought on with renewed fury. If I hadnt told Bill and Susan and the group about finding him there below the waterfall that time, Rob never would have gone looking for him, Rob would still alive and Einar wouldnt be missing a chunk of his leg where those agents shot himand I guess if I hadnt left him that radio and insisted on trying to talk with him and see him again, he wouldnt have been stabbed trying to save me from being interrogated, I wouldnt have shot a federal agentor ended up having toshe shuddered at the memory, buried her face against her knees and tried to get the image out of her head, rubbing her arms as if to remove the lingering stain of blood, wouldnt have hadto end Petes life like that. I could be in Susans kitchen right now, cleaning up after getting one last batch of apple butter canned before bed, thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my lifewell. Even though I cant see where this is all leading, cant see what is in store for my future--future? Heh! Cant even guess what may be coming over the next day or two--I know you can, Lord, and I ask that you guide my steps, and his. She shook her head, moved a bit closer to the fire, knew that speculating so much on the past just then was pointless and perhaps even dangerous, if it ended up taking too much of her focus from the present, from the things she must do to keep herself alive, and to find him again! Because whatever came before, that is what I want, now. There had been a before time for Einar, too, she knew; he had hinted at it a time or two, at his life in the cabin and what he had done before that, even, but from what she could tell, it did not cross his mind much. He doesnt seem to think about that at all, certainly not to brood on it or spend too much time missing it--its like this is all he has ever knownwhich it cant possibly behow does he do that? She wondered if he had ever struggled with the loss of his former life, if there had been a time, early on in the manhunt, when he might have been just a bit resentful, felt sorry for himself and been burdened by the loneliness and

apprehension that had at times nearly overwhelmed herbut she doubted it. He was probably too busy running at first to think about anything like that, and now Well, it seems that he must have had past experiences that prepared him for this in some way, made it easy for him to get into the mindset hes in now--maybe he never really got out of it--though he doesnt seem interested in talking about them. Another thing that probably gave Einar an advantage in adapting to the life he was now living, she supposed, was a certain differentness about him that she had noticed but could not quite quantify--perhaps some of it was a result of whatever he had experienced in his earlier life, perhaps he had been born like that, or perhaps (seeming most likely) a bit of each-- which seemed to have made him feel more than a bit out of place in and around society, a definite contentedness with and even preference for silence and solitude that had surely made the long days and months of his ordeal easier for him to live with than they might have been for many other more typical folks, and less of a strain for him, in many ways, than attempting to fit in with the world must have been. Hes always said that he would be quite happy and doing well with things just as they are, if only they would stop sending people after him and give him time to live, and I believe him. I guess in an earlier time he might have been a mountain man-trapper or a scout who went far ahead of the settlers and learned the country, mapped it, studied the movements of the game and the patterns of the weather as the seasons changed and reported back now and then, crouching in a corner, gobbling some food and hoping he wouldnt be paid too much attention before he could get out away from people again. Yep, I think that would have been you, Einar. Liz could not remember exactly when or how she had come to care so much for him, this strange and seemingly half-wild man who had briefly taken refuge at the house and thereafter only reluctantly accepted her assistance, remaining for the most part aloof, distant, unreachable, aside from a few brief moments of levity when he had seemed to breach whatever wall he had built around himself and make some connection with her. She had come to care for him, though, toyes, to love him, even, and I dont know why Ive been afraid to admit it in so many words. Thinking about it, she supposed that she had from the start admired his quiet, resolute strength, the determination and singlemindedness that he always managed to hold onto even when he appeared to be literally dying, or close to it, the focused intensity with which he seemed to look right through her when he met her eyes--which had been a most infrequent event at first and remained so; it seemed for whatever reason not to be his custom--and she guessed she even grudgingly admired that absurd bullheaded stubbornness of his that had irked her time and again while she had been working so hard to keep him still so he could heal. The very things she admired most in him though, she realized, were also the ones constantly threatening to take him from her, to end a life that he seemed not to value as much as his freedom or even as his ability to keep going, no matter what, to know that he had it in him to do so Goofy guy. But I guess Im starting to understand where hes coming from, with some of that. She smiled, shook her head. Missed him. Knew that, even with all of the hardships and uncertainties of her current situation, she preferred it--well, maybe not being stuck here on a little ledge in a snowstorm with possibly pursuers on my trail, but in general, yes--to the time she had spent up with Bill and Susan that past year, uncertain where

Einar was, how he was, whether he was even still alivenot that I know for sure right now, either. But I will find him, will find my way back. Not tonight, though. Her simple supper of boiled bear meat and melted fat finished, Liz cleaned out the pot with a bit of snow, some ash from the fire and several inches broken off of the end of a spruce branch--once things settle down so I can stay in one place for more than a few days, I really must think about getting some soap made--working until all of the solidifying traces of bear fat were gone before starting some snow melting for spruce needle tea, the task of cleaning giving her an idea. Her hair, which she had been keeping back out of her face in a loose braid, had become matted and tangled over the past days of running and travel, as she had hardly found time to tend to it, and was greasy and itching after so many days without being washed. Untying the bit of cordage that held it she tried to take out the braid, only to find everything too matted together to get it apart, spending the next several minutes crouching by the fire raking her fingers through her hair in an attempt to smooth it out, ending up pulling big tangled masses of it loose as she worked, and she took out her knife, seriously considering hacking it all off quite short. She changed her mind at the last minute, though, supposing that the hair probably did have some value in keeping her warm, covering her neck and upper shoulders as it did. And besides, rolling her eyes, as Einar would surely say, you can always use it for cordage, if you need to. She had laughed at him when he gave that as one reason for being reluctant to have his own hair trimmed, but was really beginning to see the sense in it. Finally, most of the mats and tangles out and her hair cleaned and dried near the fire, she finished off her spruce tea, and, her mind nearly as worn out as her body after all of that speculating and philosophizing, she lay down to sleep. Curling up with a couple of warm rocks as she had seen Einar do and wrapping the wolverine hide around as much of her as it would cover, she fed another branch into the fire and drifted for a while near sleep, wishing she was with Einar so she could bring up some of things she had been thinking about that night, discuss them with him, hope youre warm and dry, too, wherever you areand she was asleep. Sleep that she would be very grateful for having managed to get, when she saw by daylight the scene that awaited her beyond the sheltering spruces of her little refuge. Jim Bonneville, hoisted up the riverbank by responding paramedics and rushed by ambulance to the hospital in Clear Springs, insisted on making a statement to the Sheriff before allowing himself to be put under for the surgery he needed to assess and repair the damage caused by Jimsons bullet. Fearing for the outfitters life if he went on refusing necessary procedures--everyone was amazed that he had made it through those two days stuck in his truck on the riverbank, as much blood as he had lost--medical staff hurried to get Sheriff Watts on the phone. Watts, hearing Bonnevilles story and getting from him a detailed description of where he had parted ways with Jimson, decided to go out and make the arrest himself--if there was anyone left alive to arrest after two days of blizzard, which he doubted--rather than notifying the FBI. They were, he knew, looking for Jimson, wondering where he was; the rumors had been flying since the as yet unexplained incident in a high valley the evening

before the storm set in, in which the feds had lost several aircraft and, according to what Watts had overheard, had also lost several men just before the crash, in some sort of explosion at a camp they had gone up to investigate. Jimson, thought to have made a quick trip to Washington, DC, had apparently been incommunicado since leaving Culver Falls two days before the incident, and after talking with Jim Bonneville, Watts believed he knew why. Scoundrel decided to go off on his own and settle this thing, did he? Well, everybody had been saying that he was not quite himself since Asmundson broke his back up there by that cache a while ago--pacing around talking to himself, talking to a bullet, even, the rumors have it--so I guess it was just a matter of time until he snapped. Who knows why that loon shot Bonneville, but on the slim chance hes still alive up there, I want our guys to be the ones to find him, because hes getting charged with attempted homicide here in Lakemont County, and will have to face a local jury for it, too. Watts, four deputies and two Mountain Rescue volunteers started out early that afternoon, taking snowmobiles up as far as they could and then skiing and snowshoeing in the rest of the way over several feet of fresh powder, reaching the area where Bonneville had described leaving the horses when he climbed the rockslide in search of Jimson, all evidence of his path buried beneath the snow. There were no tracks, no sign on the fresh snow to indicate that anyone had been moving around in the area since the storm, no response to their shouts, but the men moved with caution, doubting that Jimson was still living but not wishing to get shot, if he happened to be. Nothing. They found nothing, it was all covered by the white blanket of snow, blotting out all stains, obliterating defects, leaving the entire mountainside a smooth, sparkling sameness of white, with the exception of the spruces that had already shaken loose their burdens of snow, standing black and straight like sentinels as the men combed the slope for any sign of life. Or remains. Then, finally in the sheltered spot beneath one of those spruces, lying there sole-up and barely dusted with snow beneath the protection of the trees boughs, one of the deputies found a boot. Odd, he thought, picking it up and seeing that it was still tied, wondering at the story that must lie behind such a discovery. A story whose final chapter, though the deputy was not to know it for several more minutes, had been written not two days prior, late in the evening as the storm settled in over the mountains Toland Jimson lay there beside his dead fire, spitting, spluttering, cursing himself for the idiocy of having built it directly beneath a tree whose branches had been so heavily laden with snow, finally clearing his mouth so he could breathe, rolling over and staring at what was left of his fire. It was dead, hopeless, he was sure, but in his desperation he clawed and swatted at the snow that lay in melting ruins over its remains, seeking anything that still lived, glowed, anything at all that might allow him to salvage the fire and have some hope of continuing to live, plunging unfeeling hands into the coals, oblivious to the burns that he was sustaining until the stench of cooking flesh reached him, followed quickly by a deep pain as the searing heat of the few still-living coals penetrated deeply enough to reach the unfrozen portions of his hands. Jimson, howling, withdrew the hands, plunged them into the snow where they steamed and sizzled, whimpering at the sight and casting about frantically in the near darkness for the pistol, which he had lost in the snow after shooting his would-be rescuer, wanting only for the whole thing to be over. He did not see it, crawled on knees and elbows--not wanting to touch anything with the hands--over

to the spot where he believed himself to have lost it, and began sifting through the snow. Some time later, having stopped several times in his work to lie in the snow, head raised, staring at nothing, he finally found the pistol, having lost in the meantime some of his the firm resolve he had at first possessed to use it, nothing being especially solid or sure in his hypothermic brain, by that point. He grabbed it, then, only because he remembered that it was an important thing to do--why did not matter, he could figure that out later, knew that he must get ahold of the thing before the snow covered it up again, before the darkness became complete and he could no longer see its shape in the snow. Which reminded him of his reason for wanting it, brought back in a rush the somewhat irrational terror he had of being left to die a slow death of thirst and cold and the awful pain of his burnt and dying limbs there beneath the pitiless trees, peaks rising like teeth in the distance, waiting to devour him, and he got the pistol into his hands--it took both, and he couldnt grip it normally at all, just pressing it between the heels of his two hands, burnt, half frozen and nearly useless. Very carefully, Jimson set the weapon on a flattish, snow-covered rock there in the boulder field and struggled to warm his hands, beating them against his legs, blowing on them, even sticking his singed fingers into his mouth in an attempt to restore some feeling, some usefulness, gnawing on them in frustration at the screaming agony this produced but getting no useful results. Welljusthave to try itanyway. And he reached for the pistol, clumsy, shaking, accidentally knocking it to the side as he went for it and watching in half-dazed dismay as it spun and slid and disappeared down into the narrow black crack between two large boulders, knowing he ought to act but unable to do so quickly enough. Howling again in rage and frustration, Jimson made a dive for the spot where he had seen the pistol disappear, jamming his arm down into the darkness between the two rocks and reaching for it, feeling for it, thinking his hand had bumped up against something but unsure, unable to feel anything or close the hand, near panic--past panic, actually--as he fumbled and swatted at the darkness, unable in the dimming light to see anything of what he was doing. Exhausted, confused, Jimson lay there for a time with his face in the snow, resting, before making another effort, having forgotten somewhere along the line just what it was that he needed so badly down there, but remembering that it was a matter of life and death--in one sense or another--and that he must keep at it until he succeeded. He was getting hot, though, awfully hot, and pulling his arm out of the crevice he squirmed it out of his jacket, then the other, still feeling a frantic need to cool down, strange, he thought, considering the fact that it was beginning to snow rather heavily. His boots were next to go, fingers too far gone to undo the laces, struggling them off by stepping on each one with his opposite foot and pulling, kicking them down the slope below him, soon followed by his pants. It was in this state that one of Watts deputies finally found him, seeing something unusual, something just a bit out of place on a little high spot in the rockfield just above the tree where the boot had been found, a spot where the wind had swept away much of the snow as it fell. Investigating, the unfortunate deputy discovered that the illustrious Agent Jimsons ample backside was the only thing showing through the snow drifts where the deceased had leaned over one last and final time in a futile and, as it turned out, rather unnecessary effort to reach the pistol and end his suffering, defeated even in his

last misguided effort. It was, the Mountain Rescue folks said, a classic case of paradoxical undressing, an odd behavior that was sometimes seen when in the later stages of hypothermia a combination of factors led the victim to believe he was too hot, causing him to begin removing clothing in a frantic effort to cool down, hastening his death. Rescuers and deputies alike managed with great difficulty to keep straight faces as they dug Jimson out of the snow--it was, after all, a Solemn Situation of the first order, as several of them had to keep reminding themselves rather sternly in order to hold back the wisecracks--but the stories and jokes that would inevitably make the rounds in the County offices later would be quite enough to ensure that, while Jimson might rest in peace--who knew, after all, what had gone on in his mind and heart during his final moments--he would definitely not be doing so with his dignity intact. Finally getting the snow dug out from around the dead agent, they began the task of prying his remains up off of the boulder where the last of his escaping body heat had melted some snow beneath him and afterwards frozen his chest firmly to the granite, seeing, when finally they succeeded in freeing him, the pistol lying there at the bottom of the crevice, having clearly been within his reach but not, apparently, within his ability to retrieve. Frozen and molded in a most odd configuration due to his position on the boulder--knees bent, head down and one arm forward where he had been making his final attempt at retrieving the pistol when he finally lost consciousness, the rescuers had rather a difficult time getting Toland Jimson packaged up for transport. Waiting until he was certain that the latest storm was planning on staying around for a while, Einar got his fire going, changed into dry clothes and began heating rocks to melt snow, sipping as he waited on the small amount of water that had managed to accumulate in the bottom of his water bottle as he made the journey up to the tree for bark and firewood--no more than a small swallow, as it turned out--and setting the bottle on a rock near the fire to continue warming. He was thirsty, the slushy sip from the bottle serving only to moisten his cracked throat but doing little to ease the parched dryness that had left his head throbbing, lower back aching dully and his eyes clicking in their sockets as he looked to one side or another. It had sneaked up on him this time, the lack of water and its consequences, and he supposed that he had simply been too focused on dealing with the bear and keeping himself warm, too distracted by the pain of the leg to make sure he was getting the needed amount of water. Which, with the dramatic increase in food that was available to him, was surely a greater quantity than he had been managing to get by on, for the past few weeks. Well. Rocks should be hot soon, and I see that the snow in the bear stomach is already starting to soften just from being in here where its a little warmer, so before long Ill have as much as I can drink. And, waiting, he got out of his wet clothes, set them to dry not far from the fire and lay down in the bear hide, exhausted and cold from his struggle through the snow. Watching the fire through half-open eyes he added a stick now and then, knowing that he ought to be setting a slab of bear meat to cook but not feeling the least bit hungry, wanting only to drink. Might as well drink broth, though, instead of plain water. Rolling over, he chopped a pile of small chunks from the frozen meat he had brought in with him--a rib section that he remembered removing with great difficulty from the bear-dumping them into the stomach and pounding on the rib bone he had cut them from until

it broke open, scraping out the bits of marrow--a treat that he could usually bring himself to consume even when circumstances conspired to leave him feeling ambivalent about food--and tossing the split rib into the stomach-pot to add richness to the broth. The marrow he had not been able to reach would, he knew, loosen up and turn slightly gelatinous with cooking, making it easier to fish out with a long narrow stick. Now this is irony. Being cooked in and then eaten out of ones own stomach, while the critter that did you in takes refuge in the den you had prepared for winter.. Not that bears can be expected to especially appreciate irony. Let alone dead, frozen ones But Einar, being neither dead nor, at the moment, entirely frozen, could appreciate it, grinned, caught himself wishing Liz was there to share the thought with. Thus reminded of her the laughter left his eyes, face grim, jaw clenched, staring at the fire and wishing once again-dont. Find something else to think about--that he had been able to go looking for her when first she had disappeared, that hed had the ability, at least, to continue with the twice-daily trips down to the spruce to see if she had returned and let her know where he was. You did have the ability, still do. Youre alive, right? Can walksort of. Should have gone that night, should have justdone it, looked for tracks, went until you found some. Way too late for that, now, but you could still be going down to that tree in case she made it back there. Youve got your cozy little den here, a bunch of meat, nice bear hide and youve just gone and put her out of your mind, havent you? Or tried to Told yourself that you didnt have the ability to help her, that she was beyond your reach, that you needed to have faith and just pray that she was alright out thereand thats great, but actions got to go along with faith, and Im not seeing a whole lot of action, here. Angry, frustrated, he grabbed his pack and began loading things into it--not that he had much to load--in preparation for a trip down to the tree. Stop. You need to quit this, get that snow melted and drink a bunch of water, think about things before you take off like that. You wouldnt make it halfway down the slope the way you are now, and you know it. Now. Warm rocks into the bear stomach--no, dont just pick them up, use sticks, you fool--so that snow can start melting, check the water bottle andyeah, most of that slush has turned to waterdrink whats in there, then get this cast off so you can dry out the padding and keep from freezing your leg, tonight. One thing at a time. Come on. Get lost in the details. Which he soon did, the pain of unwrapping the ties that bound his cast, careful as he was, soon taking his mind off of Liz and his supposed duties towards her, his entire focus consumed with moving the leg very carefully to avoid jarring or twisting anything, as he worked. The cast sections off and the sodden padding draped over a rock near the fire to dry, he inspected the leg, seeing that it was still pretty swollen--probably as much from the firewood-gathering trip as from his messing with it the previous evening--but relieved to see that it looked reasonably straight, despite his dragging it all over the mountain. Good. Let it dry some, try to keep from moving it too much or using it to kick rocks out of your way while you have the cast off and breaking it again (uhdont think Ill be trying that!) and maybe it still has some chance of coming out all right. OK. The water. Time to add more hot rocks, yet? Which it was, and he did, using two sticks as tongs to remove them from the fire and placing the first set back in the coals to reheat, where they sizzled and hissed and steamed. Knowing that, while the bear

stomach would certainly work as a cooking vessel, a thick-walled wooden one would certainly hold the heat longer and bring the liquid to a boil more quickly and make most efficient use of the hot rocks, he began to think about starting a coal-burned pot of some type. Einar had made such things before, splitting an aspen or cottonwood log, flattening the bottom so the dish would sit level and hollowing out the half-log by placing a few hot coals from the fire on the split side, blowing on them as they ate into the wood, scraping out the charred bits and starting again, until he had created a sizeable bowl. One had to go slowly when doing this sort of work, as the wood tended to split if, impatient, you added too many coals and overheated it, and a split-sided bowl was not nearly as useful as an intact one All right! A project, and one that I will start tomorrow, just as soon as I can figure out a way to saw a section out of that fallen aspen down here below the den.

The night was a cold one for Liz as the fire died out and occasional fingers of wind found their way in through the spruces to pry at her as she slept. There had not been much available duff or other insulation beneath the small trees on the ledge for her to scrape together for a bed, and she had not slept much, frequently waking to reposition the wolverine hide or draw a numbed arm further beneath her body for protection, scraping around in the remains of the fire once for any warm rock she might have previously neglected, but everything had gone cold. Briefly she considered building another fire, but being very weary opted instead to lie curled up beside the pack, using it for an additional windbreak, attempting to sleep. Once during an especially violent fit of shivering--the noise this produced while sheltering in the modified contractors bag, its plastic stiff and crinkly with cold, was deafening--the thought crossed her mind that she might be able to keep her lower half a good bit warmer by dumping out the contents of the pack and sticking her feet and lower legs down into it almost like a very short sleeping bag, but she feared misplacing and losing things in the snowy darkness, and remained as she was. Morning came, a pale, diffused light finding its way in around the edges of the storm to softly illuminate the sagging branches of the spruce grove that concealed Lizs sleeping spot, and she stretched, drew the wolverine hide closer around her shoulders and tucked her nose down into the neck-slit of her plastic sleeping bag, not yet quite ready to get up. The snow continued, heavy, swirling, nearly obscuring vision beyond a few yards, and Liz remained beneath the shelter of the meager overhang of the cliff above her--she saw, by daylight, that it truly was a cliff, the slope she had fallen down, at least the last twenty or so feet of it, and she marveled at her lack of injuries--glad that it was still blocking most of the wind. The site of her little fire was covered with an inch or two of finely sifted snow that had made its way in through the hedge of young spruces, her improvised plastic sleeping bag covered in a similar find dusting. Growing colder as she lay there, Liz finally stirred enough to get into the backpack and find some breakfast, a meal which consisted for her that morning of a piece of bear jerky, a small taste of honey from the bottle and a bite or two of bear fat, solid and waxy in the cold, which while it would not have appeared even remotely appetizing to her in her former existence, was quickly becoming a favorite snack as the cold deepened. The snow was slacking off, a brief respite, from the looks of things, but she took advantage of it to rise, stretch and

rub her stiff limbs, pushing aside the branches of several small spruces to allow her self passage and standing in open-mouthed wonder at the sight that met her beyond. Vast and still partially obscured by the temporarily lifting storm, the snowy world spreading out around her like a raised map, the vastness of a drop well over a thousand deep feet separating her from the twisted black ribbon of a creek that ran along between growing banks of snow on the valley floor below, the ledge that had halted her fall hanging well over a hundred feet down on the steep, mixed timber and rock slope that led to the dropoff. Liz knew that place, knew the valley floor, had hiked it early in the summer with Allan and one of the other Mountain Rescue folks, remembered that they had spent half the day looking unsuccessfully for a way up out of it that did not involve a good bit of technical climbing. Well. If anyone is following or looking for me, they will certainly not expect me to be here! Craning her neck to see the ridge crest far above, a sharply fractured spine of rock during the summer months, she saw clearly the broken remains of a wind-packed cornice where she had fallen through, first one boot and then, unbalanced, the rest of her following. A bit shaken at realizing how close she had come to disaster--a few feet to one direction or the other, and there would have been no soft, snow-laden ledge to catch her--she inspected the drop below, the sheer twenty foot cliff above and the steep, intractable-looking slope above that, searching for any land feature that might give her purchase, allow her off the ledge. I do have the rope from Einars friend Willis if I end up having to do a series of short rappelsbut should I be trying to go down, or up, I wonder? A quandary which was not to concern her, for long.

Lingering fragments of cloud and streamers of blowing snow partially obscuring Lizs view of the valley, it took her a few minutes to realize just what she was seeing. It was the movement that had caught her eye, something walking down there among the bogs of leafless willow and red osier dogwood, following the convoluted windings of the black creek-ribbon as it traced its way through the new snow, and she lowered herself into the snow, flattening herself there on the edge of the precipice and staring, squinting, trying to get a good enough look at the four black specks to be sure of what she was seeing, but it was too far. A fifth appeared, a sixth, and they were not moving like elk or deer, had a very humanlike look to them, even at that distance. Slithering backwards through the snow, Liz stood only when she was far enough from the edge that she was certain to be out of their line of sight, whoever or whatever was down there in the valley, hurrying to the pack where she retrieved Einars binoculars. Back to the edge, then, creeping, careful, found them again, trained the binoculars on the small, spread out group on the valley floor. Humans, yes, definitely, and, from the looks of them, not casual hikers or skiers or other backcountry recreationists, but men with a definite purpose in being there. Dressed in what appeared to be woodland camouflage--she was a bit surprised they were not wearing white, if they were attempting to blend into the snowy woods that morning-five of the men, all apparently carrying slung rifles, reminded her of the times she had seen FBI or other federal search teams out in the area, while the sixth, out front and apparently setting the course for the others, wore the clearly recognizable orange vest of a Mountain Rescue volunteer. What, Liz wondered, is he doing leading what looks like a

federal search party around up in here? And where are they headed? Surely by now people have been all over the site of those crashes back in that valley, have probably been flown in, even, during a break in the storm. The thought occurred to her that perhaps they had found Einar, or thought they had, that they might be responding to some favorable thermal signature picked up during the one or two flights that they might have been able to squeeze in between waves of weather, and her first thought was that she must try and distract them, must draw their attention and do something that demanded a response in the hopes that he might have time enough to put some distance behind him, wherever he was. No. He would have hidden better than that, would have been so careful when he had a fire, would have checked to be sure the storm was keeping everything grounded before even thinking about lighting onebut, she realized with a start, maybe I was not so careful. It had been snowing hard enough the night before when she had started her fire, for sure, but she had not intentionally kept a close eye on the weather the entire time she had sat there--hours, she was sure--eating and drying herself and her clothes, sleeping by the fire, even, before it used up its final batch of fuel and went out, and she wondered if the wind and storm might have slacked off enough sometime during those hours for a flight or two to go over, to see heat where none should beshe did not know. Which, trapped and unsure as yet how she was to get off the little ledge, terrified her, left her momentarily near panic, ready to attack the rock above her in search of a quick way out, until she quickly got ahold of herself. Be still. Watch them. Maybe youll be able to tell what theyre up to. Which she might have, indeed, had her elbow, braced on the windswept, barely snow-covered ground at the brink of the dropoff to steady the binoculars, not at that moment dislodged a rock. It was a small thing, that chunk of lichen-spotted granite, no larger than her fist, plastered with wind-compacted snow and tenuous in its hold there on the edge of the precipice even before she contacted it, sending it clattering, plummeting, down, down the vertical drop below, hurtling towards the valley and bouncing off of snowy outcroppings, starting a dozen tiny avalanches as it went. A moment of stillness, silence followed, in which she almost dared hope that the entire thing might have escaped the notice of the men below then they looked up. All of them. Crouching, half a dozen rifles pointing her general direction, men reaching into packs for binoculars and grabbing under their coats for radios or pistols or who knew what, and Liz pressed herself into the snow, flat, digging, burrowing, hands on the frozen dirt beneath as she strove to make herself invisible, unseen, careful not to disturb the dry, airy powder and send it billowing up into the sky to be whisked away by the wind as a streamer that would point to her location, further giving her away, shoving with hands and prying with booted toes to slowly slide herself back from the edge, out of their sight. Finally squirming backwards through the little grove of spruces, slow, careful not to disturb them enough to dump their loads of snow and create a powder plume, she reached the rock wall once again she crouched, pressing herself up against it lest in the storm-lull a helicopter pop up over one of those ridges and catch her out in the open. Huddling, forcing her racing mind to slow down and think things through, she wondered how she was to avoid being trapped there on that tiny ledge until the searchers who were

inevitably up on the ridge rappelled down and left her with no avenue of escape, nothing aside from the sheer cliffs below which, even if she somehow managed to avoid in her haste, would deliver her directly into the path of the armed men in the valley. She had to do something, could not simply crouch there and wait for capture--though in thinking back on the whole thing later she was to wonder whether she might have been better off concealing herself as well as she could against the wall and waiting--and all she could think to do was to search for a way up, try to make the climb and do her best to avoid whoever they had posted above waiting for her. Perhaps no one was up there at all, but she had to assume they were; it was only logical, she supposed. Had they seen her fires heat signature, it would have made no sense to send people up the canyon floor, while neglecting the ridge that comprised its rim. She did not know if the climb she had decided on would be possible, knew she must not even look, must not move at all from the little alcove beneath the wall until and unless the snow picked up just a bit more to conceal her from the men in the valley below, which it appeared set to do any moment, the clouds darkening once again and a sharp breeze sweeping down from the peaks at the head of the canyon, and she waited, praying for snow, for guidance, for a way out, until the flakes once again began swirling down, winddriven, biting, the most welcome sight she could have hoped to see. Tightening her pack straps and glancing around to make certain she was not leaving anything there at the camp she stood, squirmed her way through the spruces and squinted up through the snow at the cliff face, studying it for any weakness, any irregularity that might allow her passage and seeing nothing, casting about from one side to the other before finally taking half a dozen steps over to the right, having noticed a few scraggly evergreen bushes-wind-twisted and stunted for lack of soil, they could hardly be considered trees--growing out of the nearly vertical slope that ran up beside the wall of rock, knowing that if they could grown there, at least some chance existed that she might be able to find purchase for her feet amongst them. Up further, some fifteen or twenty feet higher, a larger grove of half-sized sub alpine firs stood, dimly visible through the storm, and from what she could see, it appeared that if and when she reached them, she would be past the steepest section of the climb, and could scramble the rest of the way up the slope with relative ease and attain the ridge. She had to try it, could think of no other option and knew she must move before the storm once more slacked off and allowed her to be seen from the valley, as the first bit of the climb, the part below the firs, would be quite exposed, and she started up, toes balancing precariously on partially exposed, icy fragments of granite and later, as she made it past those first few nearly vertical feet, snow and frozen dirt, reaching the first little evergreen cluster and weaving a hand into and through its softneedled, flexible branches, hanging on and resting, leaning out away from the slope in order to keep her toes pressed more firmly against it, one hand on a nearby rock protrusion in case the tiny evergreen happened to come up by its roots in her hand, as she has seen happen before, more than once in such terrain. It did not, though, held, and she continued with the climb, reaching at last the second small outpost of life on that steep slope of white, breathing, continuing. There. The firs, she had nearly reached them, could not stop until she did, as there was little to hang onto there on the still terribly steep slope of broken rock and frozen,

treacherous dirt that caused her feet to roll and slip as they contacted it through the snow. The storm continued, snow still falling and obscuring the canyon floor but random patches of blue beginning to appear overhead when, within five steep, slow feet of the firs, she began hearing a distant hum, recognizing it as the engine of a small plane and doing her best to hurry, heading for the small stand of twisted, stunted trees on a small, nearly level bench that cut across the steepness of the slope, reaching it ahead of the plane, huddling among the trees but knowing that they would probably not be enough, which they werent, and the plane made a pass, circled back, came over again, lower, turning just above her and heading back down the canyon.

The snow melted and his stew bubbling after the addition of several rounds of hot rocks, Einar was faced with the question of how to get it from the bear-stomach cooking vessel to his mouth, lacking pot, cup and spoon alike, finally adding the remainder of the slushy snow in his water bottle to the stew, and filling the vessel with broth to drink. Cradling the bottle in shaking hands and breathing the steam--it seemed that he was never quite warm anymore, even with the fire and bear hide, and he looked forward to building a stove in the back of the den so most of the heat could stay in, rather than escaping out onto the mountainside, as it did presently--Einar began his scant supper of bear broth, hoping that the taste of it and the lessening of his dehydration might leave him interested in a more substantial meal. The sense of relief was amazing as he consumed the warm broth, sipping at first and then gulping as he became certain that his stomach was not going to violently reject the liquid, and he refilled the bottle, shaking his head at the foolishness of having allowed himself to get so far behind on fluids. Cant be doing this. Especially not in this cold. Your bloods gonna turn to sludge and freeze in your veins, or something pretty close, if you keep letting yourself get so dried out. Got to remember your priorities, here. Pretty basic stuff. Shelter, water, then food a real close third for somebody as scrawny as you are, right now, otherwise it wouldnt be such a big deal but I dont remember whining over a busted leg or worrying yourself sick about stuff thats way beyond your control even being on that list. Nope. Dont think theyre on the list. Inspecting the den by the light of the fire as he drank, he saw that he had made good progress with raising the ceiling, better even than he had thought, at the time, though these great big piles of fresh dirt all over the floor should have been a clue And he set down the bottle, scraping up hands full of the dirt and loading them into the bark sled he had brought back for that purpose, anxious to get back to work as soon as he finished his drink and gave his body a minute to absorb the infusion of liquid. Weary as he was after his firewood collecting venture, chilled and aching and bone-tired, ready for sleep, Einar felt an urgency to keep working, a compulsion, almost, to stay busy enough that his mind would not have time or opportunity to wander onto certain subjects, and he finished his bottle of broth, got into his dry clothes and turned over the wet ones to keep them drying, lying down on his back and resuming his digging and prying work at the den ceiling, working this time at the back, where he would be sure not to send too much dirt cascading down into his fire or the bear stomach cooking pot. Its padding still sodden

and steaming by the fire, he had left his cast off as he sat there in the bear hide, drying and carefully rubbing the leg in the hopes that it might help his circulation and speed healing, but decided against leaving the leg unprotected while he mined at the ceiling, spreading a good thick layer of dry grass and moss on the bottom piece of the cast, more on top of his leg, before again cinching it down. OK. Should be alright temporarily, he growled, wishing once again that he had a bit of willow bark left to chew before handling the leg again. Guess its gonna be a while before Im down near any willows again, though. From the high point where he had gathered his firewood, Einar had glimpsed through a lull in the storm what appeared to be a somewhat marshy clearing far down the evergreen-covered slope below the den, around the shoulder of the mountain from the spruce where he and Liz had parted, but he had not been able to see it well enough to tell whether or not it contained willows. Half tempted to go and check, he thought better of the idea, knowing that there was little point in obtaining relief for the aching leg if he further damaged it in the process and prolonged its healing. Got to be able to walk again. This bear isnt going to last forever, and more likely than not, if past history is any indication, Ill have to move on from this place eventually, and it could be a rather sudden thing, too, if they somehow figure out where I am. Which, he laughed a dry, humorless little laugh, ducked his head outside to make sure it was still snowing, which it was, and quite hard, and added another stick to the fire, Im gonna try real hard and prevent. So as long as I am here, why not work on improving this place? Scraping and prying at the dirt and rocks above him, Einar made good progress, the focus demanded by working his injured shoulder--at least it seemed to be staying somewhat flexible, if terribly sore, which he found tremendously encouraging--and the need to duck falling clods of dirt and rock so as not to be struck on the head too many times serving the desired purpose of keeping his mind occupied and off of other, more dangerous topics, and he continued with the work until, mouth dry and gritty with falling dirt, he finally stopped for a drink. Sitting up straight--well! Couldnt do that before in here, could you!--and inspecting his work by the blinking orange light of a flaming branch that he pulled out of the fire, he decided that the ceiling was, for the time, as high as it needed to be, various sizes of spruce roots that he had deliberately left in place crisscrossing it near the top and providing a network of cables to hang things from. He could, he supposed, always take a foot or two of soil from the floor, digging down if he wanted more head clearance at some point in the future, assuming he did not meet any boulders that halted his progress. Alright. Guess I need to get outside now and see if I can figure out just where I ought to put this stove, where the chimney might have the least amount of ground to go through, and also, hopefully, where theres a nice big evergreen to disperse any smoke that happens to get out. Now, I know this whole dens covered by a big old granite ledge, up there, but Im hoping if I kinda angle the chimney, I may be able to avoid it. Dont know. The whole thing may be a pointless effort, but Im interested in trying. Would sure improve things around here, especially later when these temperatures end up seeming pretty warm. High up as I am here, twenty, thirty below is not gonna be at all uncommon in a month or so, and right now most of the heats getting swept right out that entrance and up the hill by the wind, along with what little smoke Im making. Taking a minute to refill his water bottle from the bear stomach, which was by then

nearly a third of the way full of melted snow, an island of slush floating in the center and small pools of fat from the marrow congealing on its surface--better add another hot rock or two--Einar pulled his hat, dry and warm by then from the flames, down to his eyebrows and scooted backwards out of the den entrance. Outside, the snow was really piling up, wind whipping it into his eyes and leaving him to squint at his tracks from earlier, already filled with a good three to five inches of fresh powder. He shivered, pulled himself to his feet using the one crutch he had left and assisted by a long spruce stick that he had chosen from his firewood pile, grateful for the dryness of the snow and for the fact that he did not have far to go, just then. The way the wind went right through him, rendering his hands very quickly stiff and clumsy and his movements uncoordinated, he knew he had better eat something more substantial that the broth as soon as he went back in, something to give himself a bit more energy to produce heat, whether he felt like it, or not. The nausea was somewhat less since the rest and the broth; he expected that he would be able to keep something down. Einar could tell that he had definitely not warmed up thoroughly from the long slog up to the firewood-tree, knew he risked getting into serious trouble again that night if he could not manage to do so, in the meantime. OK. Soon. But right nowtake a look at the top of this den, here. And, moving to the side, careful not to jar his leg too badly, he studied the slope above the entrance, finally settling on the right-hand side--well, the side that was on his right when standing outside facing the den, anyway--as the most likely to angle the chimney out through . The angle of the slope seemed slightly steeper there, indicating that there ought to be somewhat less dirt to dig through to connect den with outside air, a number of small firs growing beneath a big, spreading spruce promising concealment for the fires smoke, a bit of dispersion for the heat that would escape, and he fixed the sight in his mind, hoping that he would be able to recall it fairly accurately later, when digging. For which he was definitely going to need a better tool than the three foot length of peeled willow wand that he had been using on the ceiling. A section of bear leg bone, he figured, ought to be just about the right tool for digging the chimney, broken and sharpened and somehow attached to a stout spruce branch to create a hollow-centered digging tool, and with this in mind and wanting something to keep his hands busy that evening, he carefully picked his way down to the snow-heaped bear carcass--little more than a few bones and the head, after he had got done hanging all the meat--in search of some raw materials. And promptly tripped over something, a rather solid object stuck beneath the snow that sent him sprawling on his face, trying hard but not quite succeeding to twist to the side and spare his right leg all of the impact, floundering about in search of a crutch that he feared lost in the powder, and coming up with a crutch, alright, realizing very quickly that it was the one he had lost during the fight with the bear, and that it was what had tripped him. Jubilant despite the screaming protests from his injured leg, he rolled over and sat up, grabbing the other crutch and hauling himself to his feet. All right! Ready to walk again! Now if only I had snowshoes, and a second small pair for these crutches so I wouldnt just get hopelessly bogged down, every time I try Shaking his head, he began working to dig out the part of the bear carcass where he guessed he might find a front leg bone, lamenting his lack of mittens but knowing that this, too, was a problem he could solve, and should, soon, if you want to keep your fingers!

The plane returned before Liz had a chance to decide whether to scramble for the ridge top or lie low there beneath the scanty and inadequate cover of the trees, making a big circle over the valley before disappearing again, climbing up and over the ridge that she was herself attempting to climb, appearing almost close enough to touch as it banked and headed for a low saddle that lay somewhat above her on the ridges crest, disappearing behind the tree-fringe of the ridge top, its humming quickly fading to nothingness as the wind once again slammed down the valley in full fury. She had been seen, knew it, guessed the men in the valley must have called the plane after she started the small avalanche of snow and rocks, alerting them to her presence. If they hadnt already know, before. She wondered what had brought them to that particular valley, why they were apparently being guided by someone from Mountain Rescue, and wondered in a moment of panic whether that man in the orange jacket might be Allan, who had been along when she hiked the valley that past summer, who knew that there was no good way up the rock wall but would also remember the ridge-saddle that they had climbed to, taking a precarious route up a narrow, steep chute of tumbled boulders and small, twisted evergreens, to finally climb up over the ridge and out of the valley. She did not know what had happened to him after that day in the meadow when he had followed her, returning to the scene of the three dead FBI agents shortly after she and Einar had made their escape, but she expected that he might be working with them, willingly or otherwise, in a continued attempt to bring Einar in, and find her. If it is Allan down there, and if he leads them to that saddle, they could easily be up there waiting for me when I reach the top, if theyre not, already, as long as it has taken me to climb this last bit here above the ledge. But, I cant go back down No hum audible to give her warning of the immediate return of the small plane, she continued her climb, focusing on placing her feet on that steep, slippery slope, avoiding loose rock and anything that looked like loose rock concealed beneath the thin layer of snow that the wind had allowed to accumulate on it, reaching, finally, the area just below where she had fallen through the cornice, jagged edges of wind-packed snow still visible in the rough shape of a sprawled out, backpack-wearing human figure. If you used your imagination. Which she did not at all need to do, clearly remembering the event and shaking her head at just how close she had come to disaster, to a worse disaster than she had become tangled up in, that is. Not that things were looking particularly good at the moment, with the team in the valley apparently aware of her presence and that pesky plane having made two passes over the area, and what was that sound? Wasnt the plane, but it was not the wind, either, which had diminished greatly as she finished the climb, noshe knew that sound, dived for the nearest clump of trees--Einar, Im never going to laugh at you again for doing this whenever you think you hear an aircraft--and pulled herself beneath their sheltering boughs just as a helicopter, small, blue and white and looking to her very much like the med-evac out of Clear Springs, burst up over the ridge. The chopper, much to her surprise, started up the ridge, paralleling it, quickly dropping out of sight and of hearing; no one leaned out of its door and started shooting, the craft did not even hover over her before moving on. Strange. But good. Very, very good!

Because they would have seen my tracks. I will have to stay in the evergreens, from now on, will have to skirt around below the saddle if I can, because Im pretty sure its a little meadow, where tracks would really show. And, pausing for a quick gulp from her water bottle after the exertion of the climb, she started up the ridge into the black timber, not realizing that in heading for the saddle, she was aiming directly for the only spot along the entire spruce-spiked spine of the ridge where a helicopter could be landed

When after much digging and shoving at the drifted snow Einar finally uncovered the bear carcass and found the front leg bone that he wanted for a digging tool, nearly devoid of meat after his earlier work on it, realizing that he had no way to break it. Guess Ill just have to separate it at the joint. Which he proceeded to work at, finally freeing the creatures lower leg, thinking this easier that retrieving a heavy rock from the den entrance, lugging it all the way down to the carcass and attempting to break the bone there in the soft, forgiving powder. Working, he was careful to spare the animals leg tendon from harm--he had intended to harvest the sinew bundles earlier when taking care of the meat, but had been too done in by the task and by the relentless, crushing chill of the wind to manage the task--knowing that they would serve multiple uses. He could, after pounding and separating the fibers, use the sinew for sewing the mittens he so badly needed, could wrap the tops of atlatl, spear and arrow shafts with it, and could, he supposed, even cord it for use as a bowstring. Polar bear sinew had, he knew, occasionally , and bear sinew bowstrings had been common in medieval China, though, as he remembered, such strings were traditionally used only by lower ranking archers. Hmm. Wonder if there was a good reason for that? Looks like Im gonna be finding out, unless I take an elk sometime soon Because I ought to be thinking about getting a bow made before too long here, now that its looking like this left shoulder will end up being usable again. Running his knife along the partially dried, cold-stiffened leg sinew he succeeded in freeing it, brushed and blew the snow away until he reached the spot were it attached near the shoulder and freed it, sticking it, along with the leg bone, down the back of his vest so he would still have both hands free to use the crutches, and returning to the den. Inside, he discovered that the fire had mostly gone out, lingering coals glowing red and putting off more smoke than he was comfortable with, even in that storm, and he added a few branches, blowing it back to life and hovering over the flames, feeling weak and half frozen after his brief foray into the snow and wind, more inclined to curl up right there and sleep than to take care of his immediate needs. No. Eat. You got to eat if this is gonna work, need to get into your dry clothes, tooassuming theyve managed to finish drying. Which they had not, damp and gently steaming when he turned them over to check. But at least he could eat, while he stoked the fire and waited. The remaining water in the bear stomach had cooled but had not frozen, and he fished out the broken pieces of the rib he had added to enrich the broth, fishing out the slightly slimy, gelatinous bits of marrow and swallowing them, his hunger finally becoming more powerful than the nausea that continued to plague him. Removing the floating bits of solidifying fat from the water and devouring those, too, he pulled the remains of the bear

liver--not much left--out of the corner where a rock had been shielding it from the fires heat, and sliced off several good portions, icy but not frozen solid, eating one as it was and sliding the others into the water, which was soon close to bubbling again with the addition of several more hot rocks. Having brought a small live spruce branch in with him, Einar stripped off a small handful of the needles, sticking the branch in some snow near the entrance to remain fresh before breaking them up and dumping them into the water bottle, which he then halfway filled with near-boiling water from the stomach. The extra vitamin C in the spruce needle tea, he expected, could only do him good, though he would have been getting some--enough, at least, to prevent scurvy--from the uncooked meat he had been eating. He liked the tea, though, knew the additional vitamin C had seemed to help him before, when he had been forced by the search to spend countless cold, hungry hours cooped up in the mine tunnel with a crippling injury to his hip, only an occasional fire and little to occupy his hands or mind, had seemed to improve his outlook on things just a bit--could have simply been the fact that the habit of melting snow to make the tea reminded me to get enough to drink--and he hoped it might do the same for him, now. The tea drunk and his meal of liver and more broth finished, Einar again checked his drying clothes and turned them again on their rocks near the fire, disappointed to find them still damp, as he fond himself terribly drowsy after the meal, wishing more than ever to curl up and sleep but knowing that he needed to wait until those clothes finished drying. Soon. And he sat staring at the fire, trying to make up his mind whether or not the cast padding was likely to have been dampened enough by his foray to need changing--too cold to tell, without taking everything apart to check--his mind going round and round in slow, sinking circles as he tried to reason through the question, head drooping, eyes closing, chin on his knee, asleep. For a moment, only, as he woke after less than a minute with a stifled growl of rage, knife in his hand, struggling to get to his feet, broken leg entirely forgotten until he put some weight on it and collapsed in a miserable heap on the floor, the wrenching pain bringing him quickly back to reality. Doggone dreams He rolled over and sat up, gritting his teeth and pounding the floor in frustration at having hurt the leg again--not too seriously, he hoped--wrapping up in the bear hide though he knew he was shaking more from the aftermath of the dream than the cold. It had been Liz again, captured as in the last such nightmare and being interrogated by a group of agents there in the snowy woods, only this time he had seen the surrounding land features, had known the place and knew it still, in his wakeful state, recognized it as a high saddle that lay on a ridge no more than four miles from the den, perched above a deep, sheer-walled canyon, and his first impulse was to leave everything but his water bottle, weapons and a bit of food, and go there, look for her, make sure the dream had no basis in reality. He shook his head, added a stick to the languishing fire. Forget it, Einar. Bad enough that you tried to stand on that leg just now. Gonna kill yourself if you go out there in the storm and try to find that place. It was just a dream. Youve had others. Now. Back to work. And, wanting to busy himself with something, anything that would get his mind off of those images and preclude his falling asleep again anytime soon, he started work on the bear leg bone, scoring it with his knife and pounding with a rock until it split in approximately the spot he had wished it to, breaking away the remaining splinters of bone, scraping out the marrow and sharpening it by

repeated rubbings on a sharp slab of granite into a rough spade-head shape, hollow interior sure to help in removing dirt as he started work on the chimney.

Hard as Sheriff Watts tried to keep the retrieval operation quiet when he called for a chopper after locating Toland Jimsons frozen remains--fearing that the storm could quickly close in again and make recovery impossible until the following spring--the news quickly reached the provisional Agent in Charge at Mountain Task Force headquarters outside Culver Falls, and he insisted that several of his men go in with the rescue chopper and be dropped off to investigate the scene of Jimsons demise, before the any more snow came and obliterated it, destroying what little evidence might still be left. Watts, deciding that he had already pushed things far enough by not informing the feds that he had received news of their top agent, instead heading up on his own with several deputies in the hopes of arresting the man on charges of attempted murder in the shooting of the guide, Jim Bonneville, did not make any objection to their demands, nor did he object when they requested that he allow one of his Mountain Rescue volunteers to guide a second team of investigators up to the area, on the ground. Watts, along with the local head of Mountain Rescue, warned the agents that with the large quantities of new snow and the high winds over the past several days, conditions would be prime for avalanches, suggested that they party being dropped off by the helicopter take along a local guide-one of his deputies, at least--who would be more familiar with how to avoid being trapped by sliding snow as they probed about the high country, but the agents refused his offer, insisting that the chopper pick up Jimsons remains, the deputies and the Mountain Rescue personnel who had assisted with the body recovery and leave, allowing them to conduct their own investigation.

The wind was strong, gusting, taking Lizs breath as it tore up the canyon wall and swept through the tops of the low, densely growing firs and spruces that fringed the ridge-top, carrying with it and increasing amount of snow and whipping the wolverine hide around Lizs face, flapping and snapping the bag she was using as an outer garment and nearly convincing her to take it off lest its noise mask that of approaching danger. She left it, though, feeling the biting wind rather keenly even with its presence and doubting she would have been able to hear anything over that wind, even without the bag. Shivering, wishing she could stop in the shelter of a rock and get warm, wishing she had a coat, another layer, at least, Liz was nonetheless glad of the storm, of the snow drifts which she expected would soon obscure her tracks and would, surely, prevent further flights for awhile, hopefully giving her time to take her self far from her pursuers, if in fact they were pursuing her at all. And they probably are now, even if they werent before, after I started that avalanche practically on top of them, and then probably got seen by whoever was in the plane. The timber was growing denser, difficult, even, to maneuver through at all with the backpack, narrow-trunked spruces crowded in mere feet from one another,

and Liz knew that she needed to get out where things opened up a bit more, if she wanted to continue at anything like a reasonable pace. Down to her right she could just make out a few aspens, their trunks barely visible through the swirling white but the black branchscars that crisscrossed them marking the trees location, and she headed for them, hoping that if she was able to parallel the grove, travel might be a bit easier and quicker without taking the unreasonable risk of leaving deep, wallowing tracks out in the open where passing aircraft could easily spot them should the fickle mountain weather make yet another shift and end the snow before they had time to be obscured. Or something like that. I dont know, just dont know, and I wish I could ask you about this right now Einar, because Ive never done this before, and Im guessing about it. All of it. In addition to the problem of the men in the valley who had almost certainly seen her and were now probably coming, she was dealing with boots and socks that were soaked once again from the snow--they were not snowboots, just light summer hikers without much insulation or waterproofing, and were not holding up especially well under current conditions--pants in the same condition and her top half only slightly better off, as the bag served to keep most of the snow out, but not all of it, especially whenever she happened to fall. Her hands were giving her a great deal of trouble, also, with no gloves to protect them, and she wanted to stop and retrieve one of the dry pairs of socks to use as improvised mittens, but did not think she had time, at the moment. Have to keep moving, have to get further from where those men saw me, where the plane probably saw me, and I have to do it now while theres some chance of the storm covering my tracks. Climbing for some time, following the band of aspens and finally heading back up into the black timber when they ran out, Liz felt a great sense of openness, space before her, stopped and squinted down as the ground sloped gently away below her, realizing that she had come to the saddle that she had observed from below the summer before when hiking the canyon floor. The saddle consisted of several acres of fairly level, open land, a large meadow which dropped off sharply on each side, cliffs and the canyon on one and a mass of broken, shaley dirt, nearly devoid of timber on the other, and Liz reached the edge of the black timber where the ridge swooped down and opened up, trees becoming sparser and the meadow opening before her, just as a fresh fury of snow was unleashed, blowing nearly sideways across the more level ground ahead. She wanted to walk straight across, wanted to take the quickest route back into the trees on the far side and once more shield herself from the wind, but the sky seemed once more to be brightening overhead, and still she feared leaving tracks, followed the line of black timber over to the left side of the meadow, the canyon side, hoping to be able to skirt around the meadow but quickly finding herself cliffed out on a sharp little treeless spur of rock, the world dropping away precipitously before her, nowhere to go but back. Which she did, again sticking to the timber as she hurried over to the other side of the meadow, hoping for a better way around but finding the situation to be much the same as on the canyon side, the dropoff not as sharp, but the steeply angled world of broken, snow-slick shale appearing hardly navigable in the storm. All right. The meadow, then. Do it quickly, very quickly so you wont be seen crossing it, even if it turns out that your tracks later are Hurrying, stumbling in the deep snow she started across, noticing as she went a lessening in the

storm, a bit of blue overhead, and she picked up her pace, thinking once or twice that she heard something odd through the wind, a hum or a whistle, something she could not quite place, then the wind slacked off, snow ending and she heard it, the helicopter, and very close, on the ground from the sound of it but about to take off, and she pressed herself up against a snow-plastered boulder that stood nearby, quickly heaping snow over herself and praying that she would not be seen. Which she was not, the small, huddled form entirely overlooked in the huge billows of snow kicked up by the choppers rotor wash, and as she listened to it gain a bit of elevation, but not much, before departing, following the canyon, Liz realized that she must have escaped detection. The storm-respite had been brief, the chopper pilot taking full advantage of it, and by the time the pounding of the propellers had faded away down the canyon, the snow had started up again--or maybe it was just the wind, but either way, Liz could hardly see ten feet in front of her face--and she rose, stiff, shaking, to complete the crossing of the saddle-meadow. She had not yet reached the low point of the saddle, could tell that she was still descending, if not steeply, and, visibility once again increasing just a bit, she stepped out from behind yet another boulder--the meadow seemed dotted with them--to see a group of five or six men sorting through a pile of gear at what appeared from the disturbed snow to have the helicopter landing site, not fifty yards down the hill from her, and she might have thought them Mountain Rescue had she not seen the rifles--it appeared that the chopper was making a delivery as well as a pickup--saw them, but not before they saw her.

Working as the snow continued falling outside, Einar completed his chimney-digging tool, chose a good straight section of dead spruce branch for a handle and whittled it down until he could get a fairly tight fit, carefully submerging the sharpened bone and the end of the branch in his melting snow water so the branch could swell and--he hoped--fit solidly enough into the leg bone to hold up to some digging. Better still, he knew, would be boring two small holes through the bone down near the end and inserting a pin of some sort, a task that he knew could be accomplished in one of several ways--the fastest of which would have involved a bow and drill such as he had occasionally used for starting fires, the drill tipped with a bit of quartz or other hard rock for boring through the bone and spruce branch. That would all take a good bit of extra work, though, and he thought it worth while to try the digging tool as it was, see if it was adequate to the task, before going the effort of pinning the head in place. Need to make sure the things going to be sturdy enough to stand up to taking chunks out of this mountainside, before I go making it any more elaborate. Now. Where, exactly, do I want this stove? Studying the side of the den that he had settled on for the chimney after his outside inspection, he saw that the area of the den nearest the entrance was clearly quite rocky, little chunks and shelves of granite jutting out from it here and there--well, I kinda wanted it near the back, anyway--and he settled on a spot several feet back from his current firepit, experimentally poking and prying at the soil with the willow stick that he had been using to remove dirt from the ceiling. Pretty hard, but doable, at least right here. Got to finish it before the ground freezes solid, unless I want to knap some sort of a chipping tool and work my way through three or four feet of frozen soil. Gonna be frozen a ways down already, but maybe I can start down from the top and meet it, when I get close. Ha! Not

sure Id know just where to start diggingprobably right under the spruce. Would be pretty funny, but not real surprising, if I spent a week digging this thing, only to find out that I had been digging up under a tree, all along He laughed, shook his head. Dont think youd find it so funny, Einar, if it actually happened. Probably not all that likely, anyway. Maybe when you start getting up close enough to the surface that the grounds frozen, you can just dig a smaller hole, bore a hole, basically, push a stick up through it so it shows above the snow, so you can find the spot and start digging down. Finding himself able to make a bit of slow progress with the sharpened, fire-hardened willow stick he kept at it, angling the hole slightly and making it nearly two up feet into the hillside above him, carving out the damp earth in a rough circle approximately six inches in diameter before hitting a rock large enough to seriously stall progress. Einar did not mind too much--though he seriously hoped he had not run up against a massive boulder that would mean the end of the project, at least in that particular location--as his ribs were aching terribly where the bear had mashed the remains of his branch and bough fence into the side of his chest, aggravated by the motions necessary to chip and carve away at the soil until he could hardly bear to continue, breathing, even bringing with it a growing hurt that stabbed and burned and left him taking shallower breaths than he would have preferred, and he added a few sticks to the fire before easing himself down onto the bear hide, grateful for the forced reprieve. His left shoulder was not caring much for the activity, either, but he had over the months become somewhat accustomed to the nagging pain that it brought him, relieved, more than anything, to see that the increased motion since the battle with the bear seemed to be remaining, improving, even, he was fairly certain, as he pushed to use it a bit more each day. Becoming chilled and quickly beginning to shiver as he cooled down from the effort of digging, he used the willow stick to roll a several hot rock out of the fire, adding one to his cooking pot and allowing two others to cool for a minute before wrapping them in dry grass from the floor and clamping them under his arms as he lay there rolled in the bear hide, sighing and closing his eyes as they warmed him. When he had finished absorbing a good bit of the warmth from the granite chunks, Einar, near sleep and not wishing to go any further in that direction, rolled over and hauled himself over to the bear stomach pot where his broth was steaming again with the addition of the fresh rock, filling his water bottle and taking a long drink of the warm liquid. Pulling out the digging tool--he didnt want the bone to heat enough in the water to begin softening--he checked the handle, found it firmly seated and set it aside near the fire, pouring a bit more water over it to further saturate the branch end and allow it to finish swelling. Should be ready to use by morning. Which reminded him. Night was coming, and he did not, as it was turning out, have enough dry branches stored there in the corner to keep the hungry little fire going all night long for warmth. He could, of course, venture out and collect more wood before darkness fell, and might, the task being a bit less daunting now that he had both crutches once again, but he was less than certain that such a trip would lead to a net gain, as it would probably mean returning badly chilled, wet and having to dry his clothes out once again. Well see. Got to eat something more so I can stay warm. Broth wont do it. Which

meant bear, of course, in this case a generous slice cut from the slab of meat he was storing in a pile of snow in the corner farthest from the fire, set on a hot, leaning rock near the fire where it soon began to sizzle and emit an odor which, for the first time that day, actually smelled appealing to Einar, left him feeling ravenously hungry rather than, as before, simply hoping he would be able to keep it down so he could receive the nourishment he needed to keep going. The leg still hurt, everything seemed to hurt, but it was slightly better, the hurt a bit duller and more manageable since he had given it the chance to dry out some and had taken a few minutes to rub it, and he supposed he ought to try and do that more often. Waiting for the food to cook, he once again scrutinized the interior of the shelter, picturing the little stone stove in one corner, a raised sleeping platform--huh? Raised sleeping platform? Now who do you think is supposed to build that?--in the other, the small bear hide hung over the entrance with a heavy log rolled against it to keep drafts and snow from blowing in, secure, comfortable, even, certainly a place where he could see himself spending a winter. Or longer. So, this platform. Not a bad idea. Heat rises, sleeping up near the ceiling makes a lot of sense. And rather than building anything, I think it make more sense to dig the floor lower, just leave a bed-sized area as it is and pile a bunch of grass and duff and stuff on it for a mattress. Cattails would be good, stalks, heads, maybe when this leg gets a little better I can go out and find some before theyre entirely buried by the snow, fix this place up real good. Could even have cattail stalk mats for the floor, like I did back in the rock crevice, if I find enough of them. The meat was sizzling, steaming, and he flipped it over so the other side could cook, taking the digging stick over into the corner where he has pictured the sleeping platform and scraping away the accumulated insulation, roughing in an outline for the platform that he could work on as he started to dig away and remove the surrounding dirt. Finishing, he moved back to look at it, realized that he had just created a platform wide enough for two, and was about to rub out the marks and start over, but couldnt seem to bring himself to do it. Snarling something under his breath and kicking savagely at the dry grass with his good leg to cover the outline, he dragged himself back over to the fire and sat staring glumly into the flames, no longer feeling especially hungry but eating anyway, knowing that he must, if he wanted to get through the deepening cold of the night. His meal done and finding his ribs and shoulder aching too fiercely to lend themselves to further digging at the moment unless it was absolutely essential, Einar lay wrapped in the bear hide, staring at the network of roots that crisscrossed the ceiling, watching them in the flickering, changing orange and black of the fire-shadows, the wind outside picking up once again and slamming fiercely through the treetops of the mountainside. His ribs hurt. Ached badly enough, in fact, to keep him from taking a full breath and he knew that similar situations had got him into serious trouble in the past, wanted to do something about it and once again wished he had a bit of willow bark--OK, a lot of it--to chew or, better, to boil down and drink. Curious, he picked up the willow digging stick, long since stripped of all bark, and tentatively chewed on the end of it, finding the taste, though gritty with embedded dirt, to be bitterly tangy much like the bark, and he wondered if the wood contained enough salicin to do him any good. Doubted it, but was willing to try. Shaving off the outer, grime-engrained layer to reveal the clean white wood inside, he chewed on a piece of it, another, swallowing the bitter juice and hoping it might be

enough to ease the bruising and inflammation of his ribs, if only slightly. Weary, he pulled a few more warm rocks from the edges of the fire and lay down again to rest, watching through the dying flames as the snowy world outside dimmed, went black, not sleeping and not especially wanting to, subconsciously afraid of what he might see in his dreams, of what might be demanded of him.

Staring through the swirling snow at the men in the meadow, realizing she had been seen, there was a split second in which, cold and exhausted and without a clear idea of what to do next, Liz felt like dropping to her knees right there in the snow and waiting for whatever was to come, and she probably would have, but for the thought of the certain interrogation that would follow, and the possibility that she might end up saying something that would hurt Einar. The wind was picking up again, creating a ground blizzard effect that left the men unsure for a moment what they were looking at, whether the strange figure before them, clad in wolverine fur and the torn, flapping remains of a plastic bag was something to be shot at, pursued, investigated or laughed at, and that moment of hesitation was all Liz needed, wheeling around and disappearing into the swirling snow, running for all she was worth.

Liz, upon turning to run from the agents in the meadow, was not immediately followed, though of course she had no way to know it. The ragged attire and animal-fur head covering of the strange figure that had appeared just uphill of the agents said one thing to them: Einar. And not one of them believed for a moment that their fugitive would have deliberately ventured out into that meadow, approaching the helicopter, staying around as it took off and allowing himself to be seen, unless he had some ulterior motive, some plan to lead them into a trap and end yet more of their lives. One of the agents, fresh out of Quantico and looking to make a reputation for himself, apparently, gave chase immediately, hurrying over to the side of the meadow and starting to look for tracks, his sprint momentarily halted by the shouts of the other agents, quick orders coming over the radio and calling him back, but over the wind he did not hear their words, or perhaps simply did not listen. One quick consultation among the agents on the ground and a hasty radio conference with the interim director of the Mountain Task Force back in Culver Falls, and it was decided that the six men were to remain where they were, secure the area and wait for reinforcements before taking any action, other than sending two of their number after the one who had disappeared on the fugitives trail.

The bag was loud, snapping, crinkling, take the bag off, get the bag off so they dont hear it, stuff it in the packno timeOK, wad it up and get it in your pocket, then, back pocket, there, now go! Lungs burning as she climbed the ridge, knowing the black timber was close, knowing her only chance lay in reaching it, Liz knew that chance was slim, indeed, knew there were bound to be several men in that group who were faster than she

was, knew they would be able to see the trench she left behind in the snow and track her with ease to the edge of the timber, into it, probably, and would have her within minutes, but she kept going, plowing through the powder and leaning doubled over for a second on the first tree she reached, a stunted fir just inside the lowest fringe of trees there on the ridge, trying to quiet her breath and listen for pursuit, but unable to hear much through the wind. Shouting. She did hear the shouting, hauled herself back upright and went on, knowing that she ought to drop the pack, would be able to move much more quickly without it and squeeze between the close growing tree trunks far more easily, but she could not, must not, had to get Einars things back to him and still had some wild, irrational hope that she might be able to do so, pulling herself through the tangled mess of tightly packed spruces and firs, using the trees for leverage on the steepening slope just above the saddle but at the same time trying not to knock loose their loads of snow by pushing or pulling too hard on them as she passed. She was leaving tracks in the fine snow that filtered down through the tangle of evergreen boughs, knew it, could see them, knew something must change, if she was to have a chance; behind her she was beginning to hear crashings and cracklings in the timber which were too regular, too dramatic to be the wind alone, and seeing an open area ahead and down to the right she ran for it, hoping to gain a bit of speed in crossing it, enough speed, hopefully, to give her time to think of something else, some plan, some hope Liz, emerging from the timber onto a gently angled slope of hard, wind packed snow, found that plan to be staring her straight in the eyes in the form of the canyon, the wooded slope giving way to steep, rocky dropoffs and the immensity of grey, snowswirled space below them just below the wind-pack. Hurrying along the hard, scoured snow of the rim, seeing that she was leaving no tracks and knowing that she must put some space between her last tracks in the timber and the spot where she went over, which, seeing the possibility, was what she had decided without hesitation to do, she managed to keep upright on the slightly icy snow pack, leaning into the slope, balancing, glancing down for a promising place to go over, one which might offer her a landing she could have some hope of surviving, and she had covered nearly thirty yards of the wind packed rim when the continuous chorus of stomping and branch-breaking behind her stopped, the agent emerged shouting, raising his rifle, and she took off at a run for the rim, sliding, jumping. The drop was not entirely vertical where Liz left the rim, not immediately, at least, a steep slope of broken limestone and hard, wind-scoured snow dropping away for several yards to the cliffs below, and Liz landed on her feet, skidding, rolling, grabbing hold of a small rock outcropping, as she searched frantically for a way to fall that would not involve going all the way over the cliffs to the waiting canyon below, hanging there briefly before gravity took hold and made the decision for her. The industrious agent had been in hot pursuit when he had emerged from the timber and seen Liz through the swirl of snow in the updraft from the canyon, had seen her but had not seen the void that lay below, and he was moving quickly, running when he hit the icy, angled snow just before the rim, his greater weight and momentum coupled with the slick nylon of his rain pants sending him sliding on his backside down across the slope,

shooting off its lower edge before the realization hit him that there was even an edge approaching, and Liz, lying stunned by the impact after landing on a small shelf, just the slightest two foot wide protrusion of rock some twenty feet below the end of the snow slope, watched as the agent impacted it as well, saw for a brief moment his look of stunned horror as their eyes met, and he was gone, Liz pressing herself in against the wall to avoid the clods of snow and rock that inevitably followed him in his plummeting, tumbling journey down to the willow-floored canyon below. The pack was gone. She had felt the wrenching pain in her shoulder as it was ripped from her, caught and held by the stubborn, iron-like remains of a long-dead bristlecone pine whose gnarled stump stuck out of a fissure in the rock, and she could see it there above her through the lessening haze of airborne snow and limestone chunks, held close and securely against the rock, out of reach except perhaps for someone who lay on his stomach at the rim and very carefully reached down, but hidden quite thoroughly from any such person, it appeared, by the angle of the rock. As was she. She hoped. Craning her neck to look up, it seemed to Liz that the same geological feature which had prevented her being swept from the outcropping by the falling snow and rock that followed the agent would also offer her concealment when his companions caught up and followed his tracks to the edge. If they even see where he went over. That snow was very icy, I dont think I was leaving much sign. Hopefully theyll see his tracks leave the woods, not find him, and go down below to start searching for him. Very carefully picking herself up out of the snow--there was not much room on the outcropping, and she could not tell through the snow how stable the rock that comprised it might be--Liz checked herself over for injuries, her breath having been knocked out by the hard landing and he shoulder burning terribly where the trapped pack had wrenched it before she slipped free, but finding no other immediately obvious problems that appeared life-threatening. Except, of course, for the fact that she was trapped without her gear in a snowstorm in a rather precarious position with no clear way up and--recoiling, pressing herself firmly against the wall at her back when she leaned forward and got a sense of the vast space beneath her--certainly no way down. As the shock of the impact wore off and the minutes passed with no sound from above, no sign of immediate pursuit, Liz began to realize that she was cold, the wind tearing at her as it whistled along the wall, driving snow before it. She still had the wolverine hide, wrapped and twisted around her neck, and she was amazed that it had not been pulled loose when the pack was, untwisted it and shook it free of snow, getting it up over her head and positioning herself so that it sheltered as much of her as possible. The wind, though certainly present, was not the malicious, blasting force that it had been up in the meadow, and she found herself largely shielded from it by the wall as she had been the night before, at her little camp on the ledge. From which, she guessed, she could not be too terribly far. Partially blocked by the wall or not, though, the wind was still a force to be reckoned with, and Liz, remembering suddenly that she had stuck the contractors bag in the back pocket of her jeans while running, was overjoyed to discover it still there. Huddled in the wolverine hide, the bag over her like a poncho, she studied the wall above her, remembering that she had at first believed her spot on the ledge the night before to be a trap, also, searched for a similar slope to scramble up, once the search had been given time to pass on by or decide to go down into the canyon or whatever they might choose to do, but seeing

nothing that looked at all promising. An hour passed, another, and still Liz had neither heard nor seen sign of the other agents, and she hoped this meant that they had gone on down to the canyon in search of the fallen agent, hoped the storm, which showed no sign of letting up, would not end anytime soon and allow them to get a helicopter down into the canyon, at which she point she would almost certainly be seen there on her little perch, hoped and prayed that she could find a way off of the outcropping, that she could hold out against the wind and cold long enough to think of something.

Einar could not sleep, did not want to sleep, especially, and while he knew the rest would do him good, regardless, he badly needed something to occupy his hands and, he hoped, at least part of his mind, as well, to get it off of Liz and of the pressing, choking sense of immediate danger he felt every time he thought of her. It was the dreams, he knew, the ones that had been plaguing him of late and whose lingering presence and memory always seemed to become stronger as the night hours approached and his activity slowed, until he was sure that he could almost see and hear the dream-images in his wakeful state, repeating themselves, drawing closer, becoming more real, and he could no longer manage to direct his mind elsewhere, try as he might. He sat up, grunting at the pain in his ribs, which had eased just a bit with the slivers of willow-stick that he had chewed, added a few sticks to the fire and breathed it to life. By the renewed light of the fire he looked over the den, trying to decide whether he ought to begin work on the sleeping platform, or return to digging out the chimney and finally, ribs and shoulder aching from his earlier efforts, deciding to start with the platform, perhaps doing a bit on the chimney after the work had warmed him some and loosened his muscles. Should be plenty of time for both. Looks like Im gonna have all night Shaking his head and rubbing his weary, red-rimmed eyes he got into the elk skin vest--dry, finally, after much careful drying and turning near the fire--and the bearhide slipper Liz had made for his foot on the broken side, took a drink of still-lukewarm broth from the stomach-pot and rounded up his digging tools. Dragging himself over to the spot where he had earlier marked out the boundaries of the sleeping platform, he scraped the grass and duff and moss once more out away from the area, sitting there in the center of the rectangle he had drawn and realizing that, while he might indeed end up needing to dig down some over the entire area of the den floor if he wanted more head clearance and was concerned about digging too near to the surface if he kept working at the ceiling, that he could also build the sleeping platform up, using some of the dirt that he had freed from the ceiling and had not yet hauled outside and concealed beneath trees. Can use rocks to shore up the sides--well, two sides, because the den walls will be the back and head sides--not that a den really has sides, anyway, isnt squareand pile the dirt here, pack it down real well and pad it with a bunch of this insulation and the bear hide. Whatever heats in this place should tend to collect up near the ceiling, so Ill be sleeping a lot warmer if I can manage to get a foot or so up off the floor, and thatll still give me room to kinda sit up a little bit on the bed, if Im careful not

to bump my head. I like it! Lets get started. For several hours Einar worked on the sleeping platform, building it up, pounding and packing the dirt with rock slabs and, as he added height, adding another layer of flattish granite slabs to its sides, until it was almost surrounded by a very low rock wall. He liked the work, liked the puzzle of fitting the slabs together and stacking them so they would stay, would hold, though his ribs and shoulder did not especially thank him for keeping at it so long, and he had to take occasional breaks to chew more of the willow wood, spitting out the pulp and carving off another sliver to begin softening. Whether it was really helping, or whether the effect was all in his mind he was not sure, but something seemed to be working, so he kept at it, finishing the platform and spending an hour or so digging away at the chimney, pleased to discover that the rock he had run up against before was small, and could be easily dug around and removed. The bone-tipped digging tool worked far better than the willow stick had, and Einar made good progress on the chimney, until, well over three feet into the hillside and beginning to feel the dirt harden as if he was nearing the frozen surface, he decided to call it quits for the night. The ribs and shoulder hurt awfully bad by that point, a hurt that, in his current state, was not entirely unwelcome as it kept his mind occupied in a way that prevented him focusing too much on the dream-images which kept wanting to intrude on his thoughts, but he was, having spent the past two hours lying basically immobile on the rock and dirt floor--wanting to prevent the bear hide from becoming too full of ground-in dirt--freezing, stiff and shaking and greatly wishing to lie down for a while by the fire with a few warm rocks so he could relax a little. That evening an hour or two past dark as Einar lay wide awake beside the coals of his little fire, several hot rocks wrapped up with him in the bear hide and his mind busy with plans for the following day, for finishing the chimney and building the stove beneath it, Einar heard the unmistakable rumble of a helicopter in the distance, and knew that the storm must, at least for the time, have ended. Shoving a rock slab and a heap of loose dirt over the remains of his fire he lay there in the darkness listening as it approached, passed and went on up the ridge above him, not slowing in the slightest or seeming to take any interest in his location, followed quickly by another, which did the same. Good. That is good. Pass right on by, nothing to see here. But where are the doggone vultures going, in such a hurry and still so low? That was not part of a search pattern, not what they normally do. Going too fast. And he shuddered, remembering without effort his recent dream, the helicopter landing and men capturing Liz, questioning her, beating her and he knew what he had to do. But first--he searched around until he found the spearhead, salvaged from the bear fight--I got to fix this spear. No willow, so I guess the shaft will be fire-hardened spruce, this time, and Ive got some sinew from the critters leg that I can use to hold everything in place.

Liz could hear the occasional sound of shouting from below, borne up to her on the wind, the searchers, she supposed, looking for her and for the lost agent down there in the snow, and the longer she sat there, growing colder and number and seeing nothing to offer her the slightest hope of being able to change things, the more frightened and desperate Liz began to feel, increasingly tempted to call to those men down there, start dropping things,

get their attention if she could, wait for rescue and for surrender. It would be bad, sure, there would be questioning and then, surely, jail, a trial, a sentence. Maybe she could get out if it, maybe not, probably not, they would have plenty of evidence to tie her to Einar and everything he had done by then, if they wanted to, but at least she would be alive, would continue to live, rather than needlessly freezing to death alone in a blizzard there on a miserable little rock outcropping in a ridiculous attempt to protect someone who was almost certainly already gone, frozen, cold and dead and purple under the snow. There. She had said it. Gone, and she was too numb even to cry at the admission, staring down at the vast snow-filled void below but certain that the one inside her was vaster still, and colder. Gone. Everything gone. How could he not be gone? She had seen him, had seen the extreme difficulty hed been having in maintaining some semblance of consciousness just before she had left to find them better shelter, and it seemed there was no way at all that he would have been able to move and stay warm and do the things necessary to keep himself hydrated and fed and alive, in that state. Face it. You killed him. And if he is still out there, if he somehow made itwell, maybe hes better off without you, anyway. It seems like you just keep bringing him more trouble. The agents would, she knew, try to get her to talk if she surrendered, and she had little doubt that they would be successful, too, if determined enough, but who says I have to tell them anything useful? I can make it all up, mislead them, maybe even end up helping Einar by sending the search off into another area, if they believe me She stared down through the snow, a lull in the wind leaving her able to clearly hear the chopping and digging and shouting as the men apparently moved the snow and rock that had slid down after the falling agent, and she opened her mouth to call to them, knowing that they would be able to hear her, too. But no sound came. Her tears came, though, finally, bitter, stinging, head on her knees as she sought shelter from the cold, heart opening in a desperate, wordless prayer, repeated, magnified, wrung out of her by her silent sobs until finally the words came, are You there? Why have You turned away from me? Why dont You hear me? But He did hear, she knew it, knew that if anyone had turned away, it was her, in her doubting, in allowing despair to creep in and convince her that there was no hope, that the only hope lay in surrendering, and she asked forgiveness, not for her weakness but for her doubt. From the canyon the sounds of the search still rose to meet her ears, but Liz turned away, turned to the wall. She had already studied and scrutinized and explored every facet of that face, had searched and pleaded for some way out but had seen nothing that offered even the slimmest hope, the barest chance of gaining purchase on the snowslick, near-vertical rock, but she looked at it now with new eyes, having nothing to lose and knowing it, ready to try something, anything, rather than continuing to sit on the little outcropping and wait to see what caught up to her first, the cold, or her pursuers. The slippery, icy wall no longer held fear for her. If she fell, yes, she would die, but if she stayed where she was, she would die, too, or be found when the storm cleared and they got an IR equipped chopper up there. Theyd come, then, would rappel down that face and have her, at which point she would be faced with the choice to either surrender, or jumpbetter that I should fall while climbing, while trying, if Im going to fall. And, maybe I wont. The wall, though steep, was not vertical just above Liz, and she stood,

cautiously, balancing on the loose rock of the outcropping, stretching cold arms and legs and preparing to begin the climb. The pack, not twenty feet above her, seemed to represent the most reasonable goal. She did not want, even if she found herself able, to climb all the way up to the rim just then, expecting it to be crawling with searchers by that time, or about to be. She just wanted to find a better hiding place, something that would offer her more shelter and some concealment, should the storm slack off and helicopters be brought in, once again. If she could find that, at least, then, could use the rope in the pack to rappel down even a few feet from the outcropping, move sideways a bit, perhaps, and hope to find such a refuge, she would be able to buy some time, to observe and think and plan, hopefully working out some way to get off the wall, and out from under the search. So. The pack. And she started climbing, hands cold and barely flexible, glad that the wall was of water-pitted, grippy limestone instead of something that would have been even slicker in the wintry weather, praying that she would not knock loose any rocks or snow slabs to alert the searchers to her presence, that the storm would hold out for as long as the climb took so that she would not be seen. Which it did, Liz precariously balancing some twenty minutes later with one foot on a sloped knob of rock, the other wedged in a narrow fissure, one hand wrapped around part of the bristlecone stump that had trapped the pack. It had been a difficult climb, would have been a challenge of her abilities even in clear weather, and was made doubly so by the accumulated snow, her own stiff and unwilling limbs and, especially, by the partial sprain to her shoulder that she had suffered in having the snagged pack ripped off suddenly without any notice, but she had made it, rested, warmer after the exertion and elated at having reached the pack, though somewhat at a loss as to what to do next. The narrow, almost imperceptible crack that she had been following and using for the occasional handhold when nothing else offered itself petered out just above the pine stump, and she saw nothing that offered a doable-looking route. Scanning, searching, beginning to think that she would simply have to make her best effort to retrieve the rope from the trapped pack and rappel back down to the outcropping, she noticed the ledge. A narrow little thing, snow covered, faint and littered with many years worth of trapped rock fall, the ledge nonetheless appeared possible, walkable, if only she could reach its start, some three or four feet to the right of the spot where she clung to the pack-tree, almost afraid to move lest by altering the amount of pressure she was putting on the tenuous limestone knob with her left foot, she might peel right off the wall and fall. Four feet. Not that far. I can find holds, there have to be holds, but with the pack? Yes, with the pack. She had to have the pack, must have the rope, at least, if she was to get down fromwherever that ledge led her, and had grown more and more determined as she climbed that she must return that pack and its contents--food, tools, medical kit, snare wire, cooking pot, everything--to Einar, some way or another, had come to seem to her that as long as she was striving to do so, she could hold onto the idea that he was still alive, still hanging on, himself, waiting for her to return it, and retrieving the pack had, in the course of the climb, come to loom as large in her mind as the climb itself, as escaping the area without falling to her death and without alerting the searchers. She had a mission once again, had a purpose, had not even realized--and did not, still, having no

time for such thoughts--how much her resolve had been suffering for lack of one. After much careful maneuvering she got the pack disentangled from the tree stump and onto her back, clinging to the stump and leaning her body out away from the wall to keep the added weight from unsteadying her, keep he foot pressed firmly into the rock, looking for the next hold, finding it and moving, a slow, fluid movement that would have surprised her had she not been so entirely focused on the task at hand, would have told her that, despite the situation and her own chilled and exhausted condition, she had managed to engage her mind completely in the climb, had begun to communicate with the rock and work with it. There. The ledge. She had reached it, stood on its narrow, snowy rockiness, feeling that she had reached a wide place, indeed, compared with the tenuous footing of the past half hour. Crouching, catching her breath, she glanced back at the canyon, its far wall and floor still thoroughly obscured by snowfall--good, there wont be any helicopters, just yet--beginning to carefully pick her way along the ledge in the knowledge that the storm could let up at any time, that she must be as far from the spot where the agent went over as possible, by the time that happened, soon to discover that she would not be going nearly as far as she had hoped.

The helicopters kept coming--two of them, from the varying sound, at least two different ones--making pass after pass, circling over some location distant from his own, up the ridge, but not so distant that their actions were outside his hearing when, cautious, gritting his teeth against the wind, Einar, finished securing the spear head to its new shaft, stuck his head out of the den entrance to listen. After a few such minutes, wind blowing already-fallen snow in his face, he pulled his head back in again, shaking the snow from his hair, withdrawing like a turtle into its shell, sheltered, shuddering with cold, rolling up once more in the bear hide. Warming, safe, hidden, and he wanted to stay, to sleep, to curl up like a bear and remain that way until he almost became part of the earth around him, sleep and eat and sleep in an endless cycle until the snow outside melted and the leaves again began emerging, himself emerging rested, fat, healthy, with a leg that worked once again, and some chance at life Yeah, great, he growled at himself, lying in the bear hide and shaking as another helicopter passed over, low but fairly fast, following the appointed route. Keep dreaming, you fool, but do it on your own time, or do it while you work, but you sure cant do it instead of working. You got places to be, right now, and no business talking about next spring like that till you do whatevers waiting for you, there. Then, if youre still breathing, well see about this next spring business. He took off the cast, once more rubbed his leg, replaced the damp grass insulation with the by-then dry remains of Susan's green sweatshirt-jacket, re-wrapping the ties that held the cast in place, cinching them down good and tight, glad to see that the swelling had gone down significantly since the last time he had checked, and with it, apparently, the worst of the pain. The leg still hurt, a deep, insistent ache punctuated occasionally by sharp stabs of agony if he bumped it on something as he worked, but it had, finally, reduced itself to a manageable level, one which allowed him to focus on other things other things, for a change. The leg, he supposed, was healing, or beginning to, and he

wanted nothing more than to stay right where he was, eat, rest, keep warm and allow the leg to go on improving, and his prospects for future life to continue brightening. But he could not, believed that the odd pattern of the helicopter traffic confirmed the dreams he had been having, and it made sense; the spot they appeared focused on was, it seemed, a likely distance for Liz to have covered before the storm became too intense to reasonably allow for travel. Not that she is necessarily reasonable...would she really be out here with you if she was reasonable? Maybe she kept going, got way out of the area, got...wherever she was trying to go. But he doubted, had to go, had to do what he could-duty is ours, he repeated to himself a fragment of a quote whose source he had long since forgotten, it seemed, but whose essence had stuck with him, become part of who and what he was, consequences...he threw up his hands, shrugged. Well, theyre Yours, and I'll just have to leave that part of it to You. That was it, then, the decision made, all that remained to get himself as ready as possible, and go. Which he supposed meant gathering up some food, and heading up to the crevice that served as his last shelter and retrieving the other bear hide, quickly turning it into an improvised coat which he hoped might help keep him warm enough to survive the journey. The night was clear, clearing, anyway, ragged streamers of storm-refuse racing across a sky backlit by a moon that appeared only a day or two past full, and Einar realized somewhat to his consternation that he had for the first time he could remember since going on the run lost track of the phase of the moon. Being as much a nocturnal creature as he was a diurnal one much of the time, he had over the weeks and months become acutely attuned to the night wanderings of the moon, the courses of the constellations and planets as they traced their way across the sky--he particularly enjoyed following Orion, even spoke to him sometimes, asked him if he had been successful in his latest hunt, if he was eating well up there, in the vast, star-filled blackness of space--but his main focus was always on the moon, on the light it provided for his own night time wanderings, the effect it might be having on his pursuers and also the effect its phase and position in the sky seemed to have on the game animals whose habits he was constantly attempting to keep track of. Well. Guess this leg business really has hit me pretty hard, to lose track of a thing like the moon Got to start paying more attention again. So. Near full moon. Thatll sure help me out tonight when it comes to finding my way and not running shinfirst into fallen, snow-covered aspens and tripping myself. Too often, anyway. Like to avoid that as much as possible, and I can sure use all the help I can get, with this entire thing. Moons a good thing. Now. Get moving, before you get all lazy and sleepy again and find a way to talk yourself out of this. The fire was already out, meat hung safely out of the reach of scavengers in the trees, and Einar had nearly finished the bits of rib meat and internal organs he had initially brought inside in the stomach bag, and he hurried to carve up what remained of the larger chunk of meat he had been keeping in cold storage behind the big rock in the shelter-corner, stashing the results in his backpack and adding some of the pitch globs he had been storing on a flat rock not too far from the fire--leftovers from making his new cast-zipping them into the outer pouch of the pack with the thought that I might as well have these along for when I need to get a fire going laterassuming I am able to have one when I really need it, which isnt too likely He also stuffed a good bit of dry grass and

moss insulation from the floor down into the pack, hoping it might afford him the chance, later, to change out the cast insulation if and when it became saturated from pushing through the snow. There was nothing else to do, then, nothing to keep him from leaving, and he went, pulling himself up out of the entrance and into the snowy world beyond, his breath making great clouds in the moonlight as he struggled to his feet on the crutches. The night was bright, the billows and blankets of new snow that covered the slope glistening and sparkling, striped and split with tree-shadows, straight, regular, lending an odd, striated look to the landscape, one which he knew could lend a bit of confusion to ones nighttime wanderings, an odd sameness that tended to mix up your sense of direction and alter your depth perception just enough to cause unwelcome falls, especially for a weary and chilled traveler as he expected himself shortly to be. Well, that is what it is, and at least you have some light. Now dont just stand here freezinggo. He started climbing, sinking immediately in the powder, floundering, struggling, keeping to his feet but exhausted after several yards of such travel. Need snowshoes. Sure would help if I wasnt having to push through three feet of snow like this, even if most of it is powder and pretty dry. He had made snowshoes before, tying a number of spreading spruce boughs to his boots and benefiting from the increased surface area and weight distribution as they had allowed him to sink far less into the powder--inches instead of feet. He doubted such contraptions would do anything but add to his misery that night, though, between the limits placed on him by the broken leg and the angle of the slope he was attempting to traverse, the closeness of the trees and the amount of deadfall he knew he would be contending with. Just push on through, Einar, try not to bust up this leg any worse than you already have. Its about all you can do. Which sounded fine, but by the time he neared his old shelter beneath the ledge, navigating slowly by moonlight, having been required to stop and conceal himself several times from passing helicopters-hopefully well enough; he would have doubted, had the choppers not seemed to be moving in too great a hurry to give his location much scrutiny--Einar was feeling so worn out, the ache in his ribs and his leg and his left shoulder, which protested fiercely at the use of the crutch, so overpowering that he was just about ready to creep under that rock slab, numb with cold already in the wind, wrap up in the yearlings hide and sleep for a while. Instead, fumbling with the pack and finally getting it off, he collected the few items he had previously stashed in the back of the crevice, invisible in the moonless darkness of the shelter but feeling undisturbed, exactly as he had left them, he nestled them down in the pack. Unrolling the bear hide, unspeakably grateful that it had remained dry, out of the snow, he huddled in it for a minute, hands in his armpits, rocking back and forth as the returning circulation in his hands added to the litany of aches and twinges that were finding their way through to his cold-numbed brain and vying for his attention. Should have made those mittens, huh? When his hands had returned to some semblance of usefulness, he took his knife and carefully felt the bear hide, folding it, choosing the best spot before working the blade through the tough leather, creating a slit and lengthening it, making a small cut at a right angle near its center and struggling it over his head, fur side it. A coat. Nowif I can get my fingers to do itthere. Good. Tie this paracord around my waist, get the pack back on, and go. Duty is ours

The little ledge was passable, barely, carefully, and Liz inched her way out along it in the still-swirling snow of the storm and the additional white spindrift kicked up by the winds that tore along the canyon walls, seeming to have shifted direction again, no longer largely blocked by the mass of stone that rose above her and dropped away into the impenetrable abyss below. She had seen from a distance--thought so, anyway; it was rather difficult to see anything with certainty in that blowing snow--a dark slash traveling vertically down the wall from above, seeming to end at the approximate elevation where the ledge ought to meet it, if the ledge went that farand she made for it, hands numb with the snow and elbows bending stiffly, unwillingly, knowing that she must seek and find refuge from the awful, killing wind if she was to go much longer. Everyone had their limits, and Liz, not knowing just where hers were, had no desire to find out there on that narrow little ledge with nowhere to go but down, should she become too clumsy to negotiate it. Einar probably knows, she whispered to herself through chattering teeth as she felt her way forward, carefully placing a foot on the wall side of an exposed, wind-cleared granite chunk, where his limits are, probably knew before he got into all of this. I remember him saying something--another step, slower than the last, less certain, the shelf sloping slightly outwards, downward, leaving a queasy, shaky feeling in the pit of her stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with the cold--about deliberately testing himself, putting himself in positions where he could learn where those limits were for him, stretching them, always working to stretch them. I remember him telling me about that way back when--she slipped, her right foot going out from under her, hands sweaty and a bit slick despite the bitter chill of the wind, regained her footing and continued--way back when he was at the house last winter, sitting out on the porch in the snow and trying to explain to me why he couldnt just come in and lie down and rest, like I wanted him to, and I guess I should have listened, should have paid more attention and worked on some of thatmaybe then some of this would be a little easier, right nowIll have to ask him--another little slip, near miss as a toe slid out over the abyss, small rock falling and she could not even hear its impact when it finally hit rock again, hundreds of feet below-ask him just what he meant, how, exactly, he trained himself for that. Einar! I hope it was enough, all that training you did, whatever you did! Are you OK out there? I sure hope youre alright. Thats a stupid question, I know, no way youre OK, but what am I supposed to say? If I ask whether youre alive that leaves open the possibility that you may not be, and You just hang on, wherever you are, because Ive got your food and stuff here, and Im going to get it back to you. Going to do it, you hear me? You listen to me, Einar, because Im coming and you better be there, OK? She was rambling, making less and less sense to herself, and she stopped, pried her eyes up off the rock beneath her feet for the first time since starting out across the shelf and squinted through the swirling, stinging snow, seeing no sign of the shadow-slash that had been her sole hope for obtaining shelter, barring, of course, a route off the wall that would allow her to climb up into the timber where she could hope to find not only real shelter, but, hopefully, a way out of the area, a hidden path that would take her far from her pursuers before the storm inevitably cleared and they spotted her from the air, shot her

from the air as they had more than once tried to do to Einar--who, I guess, they may think I am--or swooped in and captured her before she was able to come up with a plan for resistance or escape, and took all of Einars things. Well, theres no way youre going to live long enough to worry about any of that, if you dont find some shelter soon. Already she could feel that squeezing, pressing feeling in her stomach, the involuntary catching and halting of her breath that meant she was way too cold, and she picked her way forward by a few more steps, searching, seeking, knowing she had not been mistaken about that black slit in the rock, but finding herself near panic again at its seeming absence, at the strength of the wind and the increasing slickness of the narrow ribbon of rock beneath her boots, at the realization that the wind and storm would end up sucking the life out of her if it continued unabated, while if it stopped, nothing would be standing in the way of her enemy getting a chopper in the air and spotting her, trapped, pinned down on the rock to await their whimno. You stop this. It was there, that black opening in the rock, and you will find it. Keep moving, one step at a time, and youll find it. Will have to. It is there, you saw it. Another step, breathe, search, test, not slipping, thats good, step again. So. Einar. What do you think, find an old mine tunnel to spend the winter in? Good dry spot, out of the wind? A week or two ago Id have said that sounded like an awfully cold, damp and dark place to spend the winter, not something I would look forward to at all, but let me tell youanother step, her legs were shaking, calves threatening to cramp up in the cold, and she placed her foot carefully, easing her weight onto it, hand on the wall to steady herself, trying not to think about the hungry void beneatha tunnel like that sure does sound good, right now, so I sure hope youve found one, hope youre all bedded down in there wrapped in that bear hide, hope you found something to eat, Einar. You knowI really miss you, you goofy guy. Im sure you dont miss me, dont really think youre capable of it--not that I mean that as a criticism I doubt youd have done half as well out here as you have, if you were the sort that needed people around you all the time and missed them when they werent there, would you? He did not respond, of course, but the conversation, one-sided as it had been, had helped Liz, left her feeling a good bit steadier as she traversed the narrow ledge, and when she next looked up it was to be greeted by the sight of the black slash in the rock just ahead of her and a good ten feet above her head. Hoping at first that the ongoing snowfall might simply be distorting her view, Liz pressed herself in against the wall, found a handhold--the dry-rotted old brittle root of a longgone pine--to steady her and prevent serious vertigo as she looked up and studied the wall above her. There it was, narrow black gash that had appeared so promising, promising still, if only it was within reach. It has to be. I have to reach it. The ledge ended, she could see it, petered out mere feet beyond the gash, ending in a tumble of broken rock, shattered, clinging, appearing far too unstable to trust with even her own slight weight. Up. I have to go up, have to climb this thing, and hope theres some way out the top. Reaching, brushing snow out of her way with numbed fingers and feeling for anything that might give her a secure hold, Liz found a crevice, thin, too thin, almost, to accept the three fingers she was trying to jam into it, but not quite. And she went. Up one step, another, somehow found a spot for her boot, hauled herself, and the pack--heavy, dragging at her--up another few feet, knowing that to hesitate just then would probably mean to start doubting herself, perhaps even to lose the courage to continue. Twice she

slipped, nearly losing her footing and only maintaining her hold on the snow-slick rock only because, each time, her fingers were securely jammed into the little crack she was following. She started to question whether, assuming she was able to reach the black slash at all, it might turn out to have been nothing more than a discoloration in the rock, years worth of mineral-stain, nothing that would offer her rest or even purchase on the sheer wall. Nearing it, her doubt grew stronger, an urgent, crushing thing that unsteadied her and left her feeling her weakness, the cold, the shakiness in her limbs, and she clung there, uncertain, praying for the courage to go on and finding it, finding, several feet higher, a spot where the wall opened up and accepted her, allowed her refuge, and she crawled in, knees on the rock, a wide place indeed and a windless one after the exposure of the wall, and she collapsed, shaking and exhausted, fighting for breath, laughing, elated and relieved. Outside, the storm seemed to be slacking. It would pass, the storm, she knew it, had shelter, could wait. But the searchers, by then on the ground in the canyon, having recovered the fallen agents body and looking intently for the owner of the mysterious figure they had seen through the swirling snow, could not.

The semi-sheltered spot into which Liz had climbed was small, rocky, not at all level, and she backed slowly further up into it, away from the abyss below, wedging herself, back against one side and boot-toes pressing the other, lest she begin slipping once more. She was wet, jeans and top soaked in places with snow melted from the exertion of the climb, the cuffs of her pants and the lower portions of her sleeves stiff with ice, and she pulled and hit at them, freeing the larger of the snow chunks that had accumulated so they would not melt and further soak her as she warmed. If she warmed. It was not seeming especially likely, and she supposed she had better eat something to help the process along. Which meant bear. The ubiquitous raw bear that she had been living on, a frozen bite here and there, since leaving Einar, and she took another, thawed it in her mouth and chewed, wishing for the chance to cook it, wishing, most of all, that she could return the food to Einar, for whom she knew its presence or absence might literally be a matter of life and death at that moment, if it had not already been so Having eaten and feeling a bit warmer for the near total absence of the wind, Liz scrutinized the sheltering crevice in the rapidly fading light of the snowy evening, looking for anything that might offer her a route up through it to the canyon rim above, to the timber where she might manage to slip away and disappear as the search went on in the valley and, she was sure, in the air as well, just as soon as the weather permitted. Already with the lessening of the storm, the thinning veil of falling snow allowing her to roughly make the vague, rocky outline of the far wall, she feared that it might not be long at all before the searchers had air assets in the canyon. The crevice and the wall to either side of it was steep, wet and slippery with melted snow and, in places, black streamers of water ice where the snowmelt had traced its way down the dark interior of the crack and frozen in place, and up through this Liz knew she must climb, if she was to escape. It was dim, growing dimmer despite the breakup of the

storm, the lifting of the clouds, and she knew that she must not wait, would have little chance of making that climb in the dark and would probably be at greater risk of being spotted from below then, anyway, as her own body temperature would contrast to a greater and greater degree with her surroundings as the night grew colder, not to mention the ever-increasing likelihood of the appearance of helicopters. I have to go right now. And she did, squirming back into the pack and starting up the crevice, chimneying as well as she could in the cramped, slippery space, hindered terribly by the bulk and weight of the backpack. The crevice was narrowing. The pack had to go, or she did, no way both of them were going to squirm through that spot together, and she thought about retrieving the rope from the pack and hauling it up behind her, should have done so, but saw that the crevice grew less steep not too far above, less than vertical, certainly, and had an idea. Several trees, scraggly things, malnourished and impossibly sturdy to have survived any length of time at all with their roots sunk into narrow, soil-filled cracks on that wall, grew mere feet above her, a rough halfway point between her position and the rim, and, bracing herself between the two walls of rock, Liz grabbed the pack by the waist belt and swung, a daring move and a rash one, releasing the pack at the height of a swing and watching as it sailed up in a neat arc, too fast, too strong, landing above the first little tree--dont bounce, no, dont go bouncing down this wall and give me away!-and slowly rolling over, tumblingcatching! The pack hit the twisted, snow-bowed trunk of the small fir and snagged, much to Lizs relief, the force of its impact causing the tree to dump the bulk of its load of accumulated snow, nearly covering the dark colored nylon of the pack, but not quite. Down below, Liz, shaking her head to clear her eyes of the snow that had showered down on her, dared to breathe for the first time since loosing the pack. Well, at least I wont have to worry about them seeing the pack from the air, if I dont get up there to grab it before they come. Which she was not, the approaching rumble of a helicopter, low, sudden, startling her as she began chimneying and leaving her to lower herself cautiously back down, pressing herself into the narrowness of the back of the crevice, waiting, listening. The thing was hovering, not directly over her but not too far from it, and she knew it was up at the meadow in the saddle, was landing.

Einar climbed through the snow that night, stopping periodically to warm hands stiff and white in the cold and wet, prying them unfeeling and claw-like off of the crutch-handles and pressing them to his stomach, huddling there for a minute with his chin drawn down into the rough vest-coat of bear hide, trapping for a time his warm breath beneath the thick fur and, when he remembered, reaching into the pack for a bite of bear fat and a small strip of frozen meat to fuel his exertions, nourishment without which he knew he would have several hours before ended up lying inert in the snow, dazed and freezing and waiting for the end. It was a routine carried out in a seemingly endless series of repetitions--they must not end, he knew, or he risked losing his hands--as he pushed forward up the slope, zigzagging among the trees, mindful of the placement of his tracks, knowing that if his trail wandered out into country too open they would show come morning, if the storm did not return. The bear hide was heavy, burdensome to a man

already pushing the limits of his endurance by struggling up through the three feet of snow that had accumulated beneath the timber with only one useable leg and having had very little sleep in recent memory, and he many times thought of abandoning it, hanging it in a tree to be picked up on his way back, one time even going so far as to wrestle it up over his head and drape it over a likely-looking branch, taking a few limping steps away from it, less burdened in the absence of its weight but his breath soon coming ragged between his shivers as the wind pierced him, whistling through his bones and quickly turning his body into a bumbling, useless thing that reflexively drew together and curled up in an unconscious attempt to conserve warmth, keep the spark of life alive somewhere down inside. Not gonna work, Einar. You need that thing, heavy or not. Havent put on enough fat yet to do this sort of thing without a little more insulation, and cant move fast enough to stay warm in this wind, without it. Go back and find it. The world, stark and sharp-edged in the silver moonlight, split and striped with treeshadows, presented Einar with a bit of a confusing picture as he turned back in search of the hide, the wobbly trench he had plowed through the snow illuminating his back trail in unmistakable detail, but leading him to pass the hide by on the first attempt, realizing only when the slope dropped off more steeply below him that he had gone too far. He stood there for a good minute staring down the hill with his shoulders hunched against the wind, wondering how he had managed to wander away from the good warm shelter he was pretty sure hed found--or maybe I just dreamed it, sure is the sort of thing I could see myself dreaming up. May have been out here wandering around in the snow with this bum leg for weeks, for all I know--and end up standing there knee-deep in the powder, winded and freezing. It had something to do with Liz, he was pretty sure, but could not seem to remember what, or why it mattered, either, since she was, as far as he knew, purely a construct of his imagination at that point. The helicopter, traveling up along a nearby ridge and leaving him to drop the crutches in the snow as he dove for the base of the nearest evergreen, reminded him just what he was doing out there, jarring him back to reality and leaving him furious at himself at the time he had just wasted in his journey up the ridge. Waiting beneath the tree until it passed, he crawled out and searched for the crutches, found them, rose and got himself started up the slope again. Go find that thing, that bear hide, youre starting to get in some serious trouble here Einar. Got to stay on top of things if you want to cover the three or four miles to the top of that ridge, tonight. Not gonna do anybody any good if you end up frozen under a tree, out here. The hanging bear hide proved somehow easier to find when heading uphill, its lumpy, irregular shadow bulking black against the snow-light in front of him, and he clasped it against his body, shaking off the skiff of wind-drifted snow and hurrying it back over his head, huddling, wishing to curl up under a spruce and be warm, or something like it, for a time before continuing, but knowing that he might not rise again, if he tried that. Unable to get his fingers to cooperate well enough to again tie the paracord belt around the coat at his waist, Einar wrapped the stuff, pulled it tight and tucked in the ends, hoping it would hold for a while at least, hoping he would notice when it inevitably came loose and manage to grab it before it fell off and became lost in the snow. Cold. Even there in the timber, the wind gusted thin and bitter and piercing, continually finding its way in under the bear hide with every movement of the crutches and chilling

him to the core, and Einar, doggedly pushing himself up the snowy slope, realized just how much he had been depending on the protection of the den over the past few stormy days, recalled his last few forays up and down the wintry slope in vivid detail, and would have wondered, had he allowed himself the luxury, just what had possessed him to try a thing like the journey he was presently embarked upon. It seemed--as he had noticed happening many times in the past--that he had forgotten the details of those near-fatal treks, his memory somehow managing to underestimate the seriousness of those situations as he thought back on them, telling him only that he had made it through, and could do so again. Well. I remember them now, and it looks like Im about to get a firsthand refresher, then some. Got a little soft lying around in that cozy den, didnt you? Well. Thats done. You got work to do, just better hope and pray youre up to the task, whatever it ends up being, when you get there. Cause you are going to get there, right? To that ridge you keep seeing in the dreams, the one where all those choppers seem headed, tonight? He shook his head, shuddered against the wind and turned himself upslope once more, picking out a nearby cluster of evergreens, a swaying smear of black against the moon-silvered snow, as his immediate goal, teeth showing in a fierce, humorless grin as he accepted the challenge, swung himself laboriously forward on the crutches one more time--its always just one more time. You know you can manage that, no matter what--and squinted into the wild, gleaming world of the night woods, plotting his course, continuing.

Pressed against the cold rock at the back of the crevice Liz waited, hearing the helicopter as it hovered where she thought the meadow ought to be, but not hearing the change in pitch that would have told her it had landed. It had come, she supposed, for the agent who had fallen. Perhaps they had found him, managed to dig him out of the snow down there. She doubted he had lived. Do they, she wondered, think I fell too, or will they still be looking for me up here? Instead of landing, the helicopter seemed from the echoes that reached her to be descending into the canyon, and she wondered if there was anyplace wide enough down there for it to land. Her answer came shortly in a change in pitch that told her the craft had touched down, a steady decrease in volume, speed, and it was apparently staying. The snow had stopped entirely by that point, blue-grey streaks of evening sky showing where the sky had begun opening up, and Liz knew that the canyon floor would be visible to her, should she creep out to the wall-side of the crevice, and look down. Which she knew she must not do, as they would surely see her, too, if they happened to be looking. So began what she anticipated might be a rather long wait, one that must go on, she supposed, until the return of the snow--I do hope it plans on returning--again obscured the view of the searchers. That, or until they left. Theyre probably not going to leave, not without a body, whether alive or dead. They saw me right there in front of them, probably blame me for that agents death, assuming he didnt make it, and if the storm didnt let them get a really good look at me, they probably assume its Einar theyre after. They wont just give up and leave. It looks like Im here for a while. The daylight outside was dimming, and with evening and the continuing clearing of the

sky came the cold, creeping into the crevice to stiffen Lizs limbs and leave her huddling, arms around her knees, wishing badly for dry clothes or at least access to some food as the helicopter powered up, rose--she saw it, caught a glimpse of the fading light flashing off the tops of its rotors as it gained elevation--and left the canyon. More waiting. The weather remained clear, cold, and she could plainly hear the men down on the canyon floor as they continued probing and digging at the snow that had come down after the tumbling agent, looking, ostensibly for her, or for Einar, whoever they believed they had seen, as well as for the agent, if they had not already found him. Waiting, her legs cramping up after the climb, needing to move, Liz wondered how long it would be before they decided she was not down there, and turned their full attention to the wall. They probably will, eventually. In the meantime, though, she was growing terribly cold, and the pack, just out of her reach up there beneath the tree at the top of the crack and containing food and other items that would have gone a long way towards making her stay a good bit more tolerable, presented a tempting target as she sat freezing and waiting for a reprieve that she had little hope of seeing anytime soon, but she knew she must not go for it, must assume the wall was being watched. There was something she could do to help her situation though, she realized, remembering stuffing the contractors bag in her back pocket as she fled from the agents in the meadow, and checking to see if it was still there. Yes! Good! Carefully, quietly, she got it opened up, slipped it over her head, relishing the additional protection it gave her from the whispers and fingers of wind that were managing to find their way icy and probing in between the pressing walls of rock. This is good. Now I can wait And she did, sleeping, even, dozing off and on for several hours, exhausted from her climb and warmer than she had been since putting out her fire the night before, on the ledge. Something woke her, a change, subtle at first, in the pattern of the search-noises that were filtering up from below, and she stretched, silently in the crinkly bag, rubbed cold hands and eyes and squinted out of the crevice at the brightening world of the canyon--brighter than the moonlight had been, it was almost day--her breath catching in her throat the next second as she realized what she was hearing. They are coming.

Einar walked all night. He was too cold to stop, far too weary to trust himself with staying awake if he lowered himself, awkward, casted leg and all, to the ground for the few minutes respite he longed for, just a brief time during which he could cease to move, could sit doubled over, huddled in the bear skin, warming his icy hands and resting his head on his knee. No. Do that, and youll be there for a long time, Einar. Awful long time. Can feel it. So he kept on, watching the moon as it traced its way across the clear sky, sharp, white, silent, the only sounds in the world his footsteps as they squeaked and crunched in snow that increasingly took on the texture of Styrofoam as temperatures plunged with the clear skies, the sighing of the wind in the spruces and his own breath, ragged, halting, whistling and puffing through chattering teeth as he felt himself a number of times close to losing his ongoing battle with the elements. There is only so much I can do, so much I have to givelet it be enough. Enough. He had long ago forgotten to stop

and eat, to make some attempt to replenish the calories he was burning in what amounted in his current state to the monumental effort of hauling himself step by step up that slope, avoiding as well as he could putting any weight on his broken leg but knowing by the frequent twinges and splinters of pain that he was not entirely succeeding, food quickly dropping in priority until it hardly entered his chilled mind, unless as part of one of many elaborate visions--waking dreams, hallucinations, he did not know and did not care, as they helped him pass the time, helped him continue to take the next step and the one after, and they were most welcome--that accompanied him on his travels that night. Liz was not in them, though, these waking dreams, and he missed her, had grown somewhat accustomed to her being there, at least in his mind if not physically, when things grew especially difficult, and he wondered where she had gone, though he neednt have asked. He knew. The ridge. He had seen her there, seen her in the troubled dreams that had punctuated his sleep for the past two nights and had left him barely daring to sleep at all, knew where he was to find her, and was headed there, would not stop until he reached the place and discovered whether there had been any semblance of fact behind those dreams. Periodically, low over the adjacent ridge to his left, helicopters continued coming through the night, ferrying in men and equipment he expected, as they were traveling too quickly, their route too direct to be part of a search, but for what purpose? What had they seen up there that merited such an effort, what had they learned? And his mind traveled back to his first dream of Liz, the one in which she was being interrogated up by the helicopter on the bluff far above the den, to the way she had knelt there silent and unwavering as they had kicked and struck her and shouted threats, and he wondered with a growing feeling of sick dread--familiar, time-dimmed, nearly forgotten, and he wished it might have remained so--that twisted his stomach and left him shaking more with rage than with the cold, whether there might have been something to that dream. Such a scenario could certainly explain what appeared to be a very directed and focused search, the agents seeming to know just where to go and wasting no time in getting there. Though Liz had remained silent in the dream he was under no illusions that she would have been able to do so in reality, at least not indefinitely. If they had captured her and were determined to do whatever necessary to make her talk, she would say something, eventually, though it might not be anything factual, anything that would lead to his hiding place. Must not have been, if anything like that has happened, she must have given them misleading information, because theyre sure not focusing at all in even the general area where I was. Shes done well And he hung limply in the crutches for a minute, staring off into the snow-lit silver of the moon-bathed timber but seeing none of it, tears of outrage, of furious, helpless frustration--years worth, it seemed, some things ought not be brought to mind, ought to be left to lie, why are you doing this, and why now?-reminding him of the reason, the main one, anyway, he had for so many years steadfastly refused to allow himself to get close to anyone, to come to care for another human as he had, somewhat unwittingly, for Liz, especially someone who was likely to end up in the thick of things with him, as she had. But he had done it, and now No. Stop it. Youre getting way ahead of yourself here, Einar. No reason to think anything like that has happened, or is going to happenso. Back to the present. Get yourself up that ridge, and do it in a hurry, too. Althoughdoubt was speaking to him, trying to leave him uncertain, hesitant, and he knew he must fight it, but it made sense, so he listened, if they

already captured her, theres no reason they would keep her up there. They will have flown her to Clear Springs by now, and theres no sense in throwing everything away by walking right into the middle of a trap, looking for her where she wont be. Is there? He shook his head, struck savagely at a nearby snow drift with his crutch. Sure there is. Because if I find out theyve done anything like that, or are about to do it, or are anywhere near her for any reasonwell, I may not be coming down off this ridge alive tonight, but neither will a bunch of them. And he swung himself grimly forward on the crutches, struggling to silence the bitter, mocking voice that laughed at his resolve, asked him oh? And how do you plan to do that? Gonna use your tremendous four-legged stealth and agility to sneak up in there, strangle the sentry with a crutch and somehow disable their helicopters with your mostly frozen hands, a rock and the leg bone of a bear, before taking out the rest of the agents with his weapon and your spear, all while dashing and crawling and rolling from one snow drift to the next for concealmenton your crutches? He shook his head, grinned, opting to engage the voice, as he couldnt seem to silence it. Yeahsomething like that. Only I kinda intend not to get that close, in the first place

Down in the canyon that evening and into the night the accumulated snow and rock at the base of the cliff the agent had tumbled over had been probed without success, avalanche dogs brought in to aid in the search, finally, after much objection from a few agents who had been close associated of Jimson and had come to share his mistrust of all things local. The body of the fallen agent had finally been found sometime after dark, the search aided by lights and generators choppered in when the winds finally calmed down enough to allow for the difficult and hazardous landing in the one spot on the canyon floor that was wide enough to be considered, hastily cleared of willow brush and evergreen scrub to form a rough landing zone. This area, secured by a number of agents and quickly expanded to hold a wall tent and makeshift cooking area, served as the base for what was turning into a rather extensive search for the fugitive, after his sighting up on the ridge and subsequent disappearance in the dark timber of the rim. They had been fully convinced, at first, that he had gone over with the agent, had, as soon as the storm allowed, made a few passes along the rim in search of anything that looked like a human heat signature and had seen nothing, but as the hours went by with no second body being found in the debris at the base of the wall, the agents on the ground become more and more convinced that their subject must have once again slipped away, and shifted the focus of their efforts to the rim, and even, knowing of Asmundsons past climbing exploits and keenly aware of the disaster that had occasionally resulted from underestimating him in the past, to the wall itself in search of any sign of him. The new Agent in Charge at the mountain Task Force, a methodical, stolid man who had a longstanding reputation for plodding away and getting the job done, if not as quickly as

some might have, had been personally visited by Sheriff Watts and two local Mountain Rescue leaders when they had heard about the helicopter activity in the canyon, had been warned of the avalanche danger that was a very real concern in that terrain--the canyon walls were, of course, too steep to hold enough snow for a significant slide to start, but the slope leading down to the walls were in places nearly ideal--after the three days of wind-packed snow that the area had seen. The Agent in Charge, not wishing to carry on what he saw as the reckless legacy the Toland Jimson had left behind, and having no reason to doubt local law enforcement when they told him that the snow pack was highly unstable and that slides could potentially be set off by the vibrations of the helicopter rotors, even, as they descended down into the canyon, was all for pulling the searchers up out of the canyon, at least for that night. Several of the senior agents at Mountain Task Force headquarters, however--Jimson cronies and admirers of his methods--assured the new AIC that there was no need to go to such extremes, that the locals were likely exaggerating the danger in an effort to undermine the search, and he authorized the continuation of the canyon-based search efforts. The next step, in in which search, in addition to continuing to scour the rim and surrounding slopes for any sign of human presence, involved a meticulous survey of the canyon wall below the spot where the agent, apparently in pursuit of the subject, had fallen, on the chance that the fugitive might have either managed to conceal himself among the numerous ledges and crevices that made up the broken rock of the wall, or that he could potentially have fallen along with the agent, his body coming to rest on one of those rocky protrusions. The new AIC, being deliberate and methodical by nature, heartily approved of this plan, allowing a few of the more capable of his agents to begin the slow ascent of the lower portion of the wall--broken, angled, but in few places entirely vertical--looking for clues. Listening to the weather reports out of Clear Springs he was well aware of the time pressure the changeable mountain weather was putting on the present search effort; another major cold front was predicted to arrive the following evening, and with it a storm that was expected to drop somewhere upwards of two feet of additional snow on the mountains. Whatever tracks or sign the fugitive had left behind would, he knew, vanish with that storm, and with those clues would go their latest chance of apprehending Asmundson, their last chance, perhaps, of the winter, if the fugitive insisted on staying up high where the increasingly deep snow and unpredictable weather made searching tremendously difficult.

It was beginning to look, as the night wore on, as though Einar might not be getting particularly close, at all, to the spot along the ridge that he had chosen as his destination. He was slow, dragging, growing increasingly concerned, with the end of the storm, about the trail he was leaving as he wound his way up through the trees, keeping to the densest timber he could find which, inevitably, slowed his progress even further. The bear hide was warm but terribly heavy for a man already near the limits of his endurance, and Einar was finding crutch travel through the steep, snowy, deadfall-riddled woods to be every bit as difficult as he had anticipated, and more, especially as his good leg tired and his left shoulder, already strained from the use he had given it in digging the chimney back at the den, increasingly protested at the use of the crutch. He kept going, though, glancing up

now and then and finding the ridgeline when the surrounding trees would allow him, a distant, pale silver line in the moonlight, checking to see that he was still on course before putting his head down and grinding out a few more yards of climbing--swing, hop, press his way through the snow in front of him, balance precariously on the crutches as he kicked at a stubborn patch of icy, wind-hardened drift that blocked his path, repeat the process, fall over an unseen deadfall aspen that blocked his way, scoot uphill on his seat for a few feet, backwards, before realizing that he needed to get back to his feet, breathe, dont forget to breathe, yeah, the leg hurts, but holding your breath isnt gonna make this any easier, in the long run As this cycle went on for what seemed an interminable length of time, repeating itself, varying, but never enough to give him much relief, Einar hung onto his connection with the world around him and fought to keep his mind in the present with the same dogged determination that he used to force his body, broken and chilled and unwilling, onward up the ridge. The cold, deepening through the night and robbing his hands--clad in snow-soaked and frozen wool socks in lieu of mittens--of feeling and finally of function, too, eventually forced him to stop and attempt to do something about it, as he had started more and more often losing his grip on the crutch handles, resulting in more than one fall as he negotiated the dark forest. Picking himself up from the tumble that finally convinced him to take the brief break, Einar got his legs disentangled from the gnarly, clawing remains of a fallen spruce that had sent him sprawling, using the crutches to help lift himself up onto it where he could sit for a minute without so much snow soaking into his clothing, huddling there with hands pressed to his stomach for warmth before creakily wrestling the pack off of his back and digging around inside until he found the carefully wrapped packet of bear fat he had brought along for energy, prying at the frozen slab of meat that sat on top of it and finally, giving up on the notion of freeing it, gnawing at the icy stuff with his molars and finally succeeding in freeing a bite, which sat hard and icy in his mouth for some time before his dangerously reduced body heat began softening it, melting it, allowing him to swallow. Fat. More energy in the fat, and he bit off a piece of that, too, again struggling to warm his hands as the stuff softened in his mouth. The softening fat gave him an idea, and he let a bit of it dribble out of the corner of his mouth and into his palm, rubbing it into his hands. Yeah, think itll help, but Ill need a good bit more, to make much difference. Einar spent the next several minutes softening lumps of bear fat in his mouth and rubbing the results on his hands, fronts and backs, on the fingers and between them, the cold air and the low temperature of his extremities allowing it to solidify fairly quickly into a waxy coating that he hoped might help his hands retain a bit of warmth as he traveled, perhaps allowing him to keep a grip on the crutches at least, and hopefully avoid serious frostbite. The Inuits and others, he knew, had similarly used whale and seal blubber as a protective coating on the skin when venturing out in extreme cold, rubbing it on their hands when ice fishing and coating ears, noses and cheeks with it, even, to help stave off frostbite. Well. Not that cold tonight, but something to remember for later this winter, for sure. And now you better get moving again, or its not gonna matter that you have warmer hands for a while, because youre going to end up sitting here until you forget what you were doing, and youll probably be dead within an hour or so, or unconscious and heading that direction, at best... Anxious as he was to continue, to get some blood moving again, Einar felt the distant and growing rumble that

announced the approach of yet another helicopter, and he sought the shelter of a dense stand of evergreens, wishing for a rock to drag himself beneath for additional concealment, relieved to see the chopper following the pattern of all of the previous flights that night, keeping quite close to the canyon, never straying over onto his slope at all. Daylight. It came, finally, slowly, creeping in over the row of evergreen-spikes that lined the Eastern horizon, creeping into Einars dulled consciousness and reminding him to once more stop, reassess his position and see if he needed to correct his course. It was not until he scanned the brightening horizon, squinting, eyes dry and stinging from the nights exertion, that he realized his destination was in sight. Nearing the canyon rim, realizing that it had taken him the entire night to cover what he hardly believed could be much more than four miles of the great, soaring timbered slope, Einars pace slowed further, the morning breeze carrying up to him from the canyon sounds too distant to be defined but which certainly did not seem part of the natural order of things. Cautiously, edging his way out onto a narrow, tree-covered spur which he knew would overlook the canyon, he worked his way out to a spot where the floor was visible, and found himself looking down nearly fifteen hundred feet at the cleared, trampled ground of the LZ, the sound of the generator and the occasional shouts of the men in the adjacent camp greeting him, smoke rising from the remains of a big bonfire they had made of all the cleared willow. All right, whats the idea here? Why this spot, what have you seen, whats the plan? Watching them, the men down in the canyon, Einar realized that he was looking at the remains of a little snowslide down there at the base of the wall, some distance from his current position at a spot where the soaring rock curved around, leaving him to stare nearly directly across at it. The debris pile appeared to have seen quite a bit of trampling and tampering, and he wondered--in a moment of shock that somehow managed to stab its way through the exhausted but unshakable veil of calm that had descended on him as he climbed through the latter part of the night--if Liz might have fallen, might have somehow ended up going over the rim there, maybe to get away from them, if she might even then be buried under that mass of broken rock and cement like snow, or, worse, if she could have been rescued by the agents, taken to the tent for interrogation Lying there for several more seconds until the calm returned and he was sure he could trust himself not to do anything rash--ha! And what do you call this whole climb, this business of following the helicopters and walking right up on the enemy camp?-- he backed carefully away from the edge and retreated back into the trees, stopping once more at a high point to study the wall above the slide debris in the growing daylight. A black smear, reminiscent of the stain that developed on grey rock of that sort when bathed by years worth of iron-rich runoff but appearing to him to possess more depth caught his eye, and he squinted at it, wishing for binoculars, wondering, knowing that he needed to get over closer to the rim where the slide appeared to have started from, to get a better look and see if he might be able to discern what had happened up there, what might have become of Liz, had she ever really been there, in the first place. The agents down below certainly appeared to think she--or someone--had been there on the wall, seemed to think they might be there still, as he could see a few of them, their red helmets visible as

pinpoints of color in a stark world of white and grey, climbing and probing the chutes and crevices near the base of the wall, methodically working their way upwards, and he could see that they would, if possessed of the skill, eventually reach the dark smear that had caught his attention. The wall below it was broken, not vertical, clearly climbable. Keeping to the trees, he worked his way over along the rim until he believed he was overtop that dark smear, or close to it, crawling out to the edge of the timbered area and seeing that he was looking down nearly straight at the camp. Below the escarpment where he lay, the land sloped down away from him in a smooth, sweeping, snow-covered shoulder to the canyon rim a good distance below, a chute or sorts, having gathered and accumulated a good bit more snow than the surrounding area had held, and he could almost taste the tension in that snow pack, the tenuous bond between the earlier snow layers, icy and hard from the fall temperatures, and the great burden of new-fallen whiteness. Watching the agents down below, he felt rather like kicking at the snow, throwing a rock or a tree branch or even--oh, hey! Bad idea, but I guess it would be pretty exciting, for about a minute or so!--perhaps himself into the snow of that chute in the hopes of starting a slide that would wipe out that camp, the chopper, all of it. No. Wait. Dont know enough about the situation, yet. And he knew, besides, that throwing anything into the chute--short of himself or an object of similar size, perhaps--would likely result in only a small slide or perhaps none at all, alerting the entire camp to his presence while accomplishing nothing. Scrutinizing the wall, studying several small clusters of stunted evergreens that stood just to the side of the chute, his eyes rested on something that appeared out of place, a little square of black beneath a tree, its color and texture too regular to be that of a rock. Straining his eyes, shielding them from the light and adding a bit of sharpness to his blurring vision by making a tiny triangle with his thumb and two fingers and looking through it, hands bending with great difficulty in the cold, he focused on the spot, and saw what was clearly a strap, buckle on the end, sticking up out of the snow beside the square of black nylon. Lizs Pack!

That morning as the search continued down in the canyon and on the wall, a two man team headed up the hill to the meadow where the original sighting of the subject had been made, tasked with sweeping the rim itself for clues as to where he might have gone, hoping to find something that had initially been overlooked, after the agents fall the evening before.

Studying the area immediately around the pack, Einar saw that there was no way Liz could be there under that tree without him seeing her, some sign of her presence, at least, from his perspective, and he saw none. Below the tree the slope appeared to drop away sharply to the rim, and he called up a mental picture of what he had seen from his first vantage point when looking over at the dark smear on the wall, remembering the scraggly trees and recalling with a fair certainty that the smear began just below them. So. Guess she dropped the pack when she went over. Not much chance that she found anything to

hang onto I guess, althoughseems from what I saw from the other side over there that the little depression just below those trees dumps right into that crevice, so theres always a chance that she was able to hang up in that thing, a pretty good chance that shes still there, since it doesnt really look like theyve found her, down below. The pack, perched there under the tree near the edge of the precipice, was not entirely out of his reach, he knew, though its retrieval would not be and easy task and would bring with it a fairly good chance that he would lose his footing and fall into an irreversible slide that would almost certainly take him over that edge. Well. Best get started, before another chopper comes and you got to scurry back to these trees. One good thing is that this wind pack on the slope here between me and the tree doesnt look like it will take tracks very well, looks pretty hard. And slick. Leaning back on the tree behind him for balance, Einar struggled his knife into his hand, numb, barely flexible, focused hard on gripping it so as not to slip and hurt himself or drop and lose it in the snow, and one by one sharpened the tips of his crutches to give him some hope of keeping his footing on the slick windscoured snow-ice that lay between him and the pack tree. The snowy slope proved as slippery as it had looked, and Einar, lurching forward downhill on the crutches and near falling with each step, quickly resorted to sitting down and scooting, crutches out in front of him to act as brakes, reaching the higher group of trees without incident and staring down at the little square of black nylon and the buckle that stuck up out of the snow, now clearly visible. There was no sign, at the edge of the slope where the land went from steeply angled to vertical, of a struggle, no disturbed ground or scraped snow as he would have expected from a person fighting for their life there on the brink, and even if she had done it willinglyjumpedthere would be more sign, some skid marks or something. Even if the wind had scrubbed them all away, a track or two would show under that lower tree where the pack is, and theres nothing. Whatd you do, Liz? Climb up from below? Scooting down to the pack, digging and pulling it up out of the snow, it was looking more and more likely to him that she had somehow done just that, and he opened up the pack, found Willis Ammels climbing rope and was about to tie it--and himself--off to the tree and lower it to see if anything might happen, when he remembered the men he had seen down there, climbing, probing, knew that if Liz was indeed down there somewhere and tired to climb out, she would be seen. The rope, even, had a very good chance of being spotted, and Einar backed up a foot or two, hoping he had not himself been noticed as he sat there near the edge, but doubted it, as he had not been able to quite see down over the cliff from his position. Need a diversion, If this is gonna work, something to keep them from looking up here for a while. Storm would be perfect, and I cant exactly arrange that, but Staring at the pack contents and realizing that Liz had kept everything in there just as he had left it, Einar figured he knew just the thing. Time for a littleuhcreative avalanche mitigation work, I do believe. Not wanting to be trapped there beneath the tree by the approach of a helicopter, should on come--definitely not a favorable location from which to create his chosen diversion-Einar hurried to get the pack zipped up and on his back, momentarily collapsing into the snow under its weight before forcing himself back up and starting the climb. By the time he reached the timber at the top of the slope, having paused briefly at the uppermost stand

of scraggly, wind-battered evergreens to catch his breath, Einar was feeling as though the heavier pack was pressing him into the ground, cutting off his breathing and making it terribly difficult for him to keep his injured leg out of contact with the ground, and he rolled onto the ground beneath the timber, freeing himself from the pack and lying there in the snow with his eyes closed until some of the dizziness had passed and he could feel his heart slowing just a bit. Well. Youre not good for much, are you? What does that thing weigh, thirty-five, maybe forty pounds? He shook his head, dragged himself painfully up into a sitting position, nauseous, heart still pounding like it wanted to leap out of his chest. The availability of food since taking the bear had strengthened him, had helped, for sure--he knew that there was no way he would have made the past nights climb, had he not been eating better over the past several days--but the long slog through the snow that past night seemed to have wiped out any benefit those days of rest and food had given him, and had he taken the time to ponder the matter, he would have found himself seriously doubting his ability to make the return trip back down to the den, if and when he finished what he had come up there to do. Einar was not thinking about any of that at the moment, though, his attention being wholly absorbed by the contents of the green case he had pulled out of Lizs pack, and the smaller bag that he had been carrying in his own. OK. Time to make me a couple avalanche mitigation devices. Its a public service, dont you know? Taking a small roll of flexible yellow plastic-coated tubing out of its plastic bag in his pack, Einar carefully cut off a short length of it--less than a foot--and set it back in the bag, cutting off a few inches from a second, narrower diameter coil in the same bag--green, twisted, lacquer-coated stuff--and discarding the scrap. Stuff can absorb moisture, and even though Ive kept it packaged up real well, I probably shouldnt use these first few inches, when it really counts. Ill keep them for starting a fire or something, later. Tearing off a length of duct tape from a small, flattened roll that had also been in the bag, he securely taped the section of green coil to the end of the yellow tubing where he had cut it at an angle, exposing its core. Onto the end of the two foot long section of green fuse--Twenty four seconds, huh? Not leaving yourself all that much time here, are you Einar? Gonna have to throw this thing, I guess, cause you sure cant move that fast at the moment--he then taped a folded-over, plastic-wrapped paper matchbook, modified to serve as an improvised igniter when the outer part was quickly pulled free of the inner. Alright. Now for the fun part. Out of the green case he pulled a whitish lump of a substance whose texture was somewhere between clay and Silly Putty, twisted off a wad about half the size of his fist, shaped it into a rough square and set it on top of the closed case, pressing a hole into the short side of it with a spruce stick and inserting the end of the yellow tube, pressing the puttylike explosive in around it to hold it in place. Finished, he put together a second device, stowing it back in the pack, but leaving the first out. There was still a good bit of material left in the green case, and as cold as he was, Einar seriously considered igniting a small bit of the stuff--worked almost like Trioxane, though a good bit more energetic, and could be cooked over or used for heat, as long as you were careful not to breathe too many of the fumes; hed done it before--and huddling over its flame for a minute to get warm before proceeding, but knew that was not an option, at the moment, with the

possibility that helicopters could show at any time. Get moving. The chute Einar had chosen for his avalanche mitigation work ran parallel to the slope above the dark gash in the wall where he believed--hoped, anyway--Liz might be hiding, angling slightly and dumping out on the wall just a few hundred feet above the federal camp and LZ in the valley. Perfect. Edging his way down towards the chute, he chose a rocky little outcropping, populated with a number of thin, scraggly firs, that stood sentry just to the side of the chute, knowing that he could safely sit there and place--well, drop--the device, Ill try and drop it down there so it comes to rest right where that bit drift is sitting; that ought to get things moving! Nearly two full minutes later, after much scrambling and sliding and a near-miss with an especially icy patch of slope where he was pretty sure he was going to end up going down the chute himself, like it or not, to do the honors, Einar reached the outcropping, dragged himself up onto it and collapsed against the trunk of one of the little trees, the bitter, acrid taste of the explosives reaching him and reminding him that he had better get the thing out of his mouth, as it probably wouldnt take too much if it to make him awfully sick, in his condition. Setting the device down beside him, between him and the little cliff that dropped down some four feet to the chute, he rested for a second, catching his breath and again inspecting the chute for the best spot to drop the charge. The wind was rising again, sending swirls and streamers up off of the surrounding slopes, the air at times full of flying snow, and glancing up at the sky he saw that clouds, heavy, snow-promising, were once again closing in on the peaks; another storm was coming. Good. Create this distraction, get her out of thereif shes down thereand get out of here so that storm can cover our tracks. Simple, right? He narrowed his eyes, a silent, humorless laugh splitting his drawn face. Yeah. Simple. From down below a distinctive rising whine reached him, the sound of a chopper powering up, and the mission took on a sudden sense of additional urgency as Einar realized that he would almost certainly be seen if that chopper was allowed to became airborne. No time to retreat to the timber, not enough trees on the little outcropping for him to hope to remain hidden, there. OK, time to do this. Hope youre in real good and close against that wall, Liz, if youre down there. I was sure wanting another minute or two to think this out, make sure this slides not gonna come too close to you, but I just dont have that time, with the chopper. Hang on. And he was about to pop the igniter, but something caught his eye, a flash of movement some twenty yards away at the edge of the timber on the far side of the chute, and suddenly a man was charging out at him across the snow near the top of the chute, level with his position, rifle raised, shouting over the growing drone of the engine from below. Hands up, Asmundson! Let me see your hands! Leaning back against the tree, crutches just out of reach behind it, Einar slowly raised his hands.

The agent, focused entirely on Einar as he rushed in to make the capture, did not see the small item that fell, pulled from behind the fugitives back and dropped over the little jutting spur of rock just before he raised his hands, landing in the snow of the drift immediately below the outcropping. Einar sat there with his hands up as the agent approached, slowly, cautiously, looking even more alarmed than Einar felt as he leaned on the tree, keeping himself still against every impulse in his body, counting, waiting, 21...22...he lifted his right hand a bit higher in a taunting, sardonic little half-wave, half salute, gave the agent a weird, wolfish grin--the man paused, apprehensive, wishing he was not alone, the fugitives odd demeanor and cold, steady eyes telling him something must be terribly, dreadfully amiss--as Einar said, silently24... A great cloud of snow went airborne with the blast, the unstable layers of slab cracking, separating, the blinded, confused agent firing a burst on full auto in Einars general direction as he fell, tumbling, sliding, swimming, buried, down the chute and out the end of it over a thousand feet lower, along with many tons of solidifying, cement-like snow, roaring out with mere seconds warning into the camp, obliterating it, raining down on the chopper as it tried to lift off, pounding it back down, crushing and mashing it into the ground, burying its rubble beneath a good twenty feet of icy, compacted snow. Whiteness. The camp was gone. Einar, momentarily deafened by the blast, covered in clods of chewed up snow and clinging to the tree behind him as the ground shook and rumbled with the passage of the sliding snow, watched the billowing white cloud as it rose massive and roiling from the canyon, elated at the success of his plan and the fact that he had for the time avoided what had looked like his imminent capture, but at the same time fearing for Liz as he begin to see the massive scope of the slide, wondering if had perhaps just witnessed her last moments, swept her to her death at the bottom of the wall, burying her beneath tons of intractable rubble. Struggling to his feet he took off up the undisturbed crust of snow above the outcropping, retreating to the trees and following them quickly back to the point where he had believed Liz to be, or to have been, at least, seeing to his dismay that part of the slide had jumped up and over the little spine of rock that lay between the chute and the rim-slope just above Lizs presumed hiding place, wiping out the lower tree, the one the pack had been beneath, before spilling over the rim and down the wall. Scurrying down the slide-path to the higher group of trees, expecting that another chopper could potentially be in the area within minutes, depending on whether some survivor down in the camp, or perhaps even the agent who had discovered him, had alerted headquarters to the trouble, Einar got the pack off, hurriedly fumbled for the rope and pulled it out, looping and tying it securely around the stoutest of the trees and preparing to lower the free end. Remembering at the last minute that the sling Liz had used as an improvised climbing harness when retrieving his food from the ledge back at the Bulwarks ought to still be in the pack, he located it, tied a figure eight in the free end of the rope and clipped the sling in with a carabiner, taking out a second sling and looping it around his legs and waist, clipping himself in to the loop of rope around the tree lest he lose his footing and end up plummeting down into the wrecked camp. An interesting end and perhaps even a fitting one, he told himself, but it certainly would not do to risk dislodging Liz from the wall as she climbed, so he supposed he had better do what he could to avoid it.

Ready to lower the rope, hoping desperately that he might feel a tug on the end of it, Einar realized that Liz, if she was down there, would have no way to know just who had got ahold of her backpack and lowered her a rope. Could be anyone. She would be as likely to ignore it and go on hiding, as to respond. Hardly being in possession of a way to write a note to pin to the sling, Einar cast about for an idea, finally removing the string of wolverine claws that he always kept around his neck and clipping it into the carabiner, lowering, down, down, fifteen feet and then twenty, ten more, waiting, knowing the black streak did not reach down much further than that, but letting out more rope, just in case. A minute passed, another, and the snow kicked up by the avalanche was beginning to settle; there was, clearly, a limited amount of time remaining during which the wall would be concealed from anyone down at the camp who might have made it through the slide. Einar insistently flicked the rope from side to side, wanting to make certain that it had not hung up on anything just below the rim and trying to decide whether he ought to try rappelling down to investigate the crevice, and if sohow? Guess I can do it. No reason a person needs both legs to rappel; I can and have done it one-armed, but Im not so sure about this left shoulder when it comes down to it, and a one-legged, one armed rappel sounds mighty doggone sketchy. Even by my recent standards. Hmm. Got to try it though, because I dont know just how the rock is shaped down there, and theres a possibility she could be in that crevice, but not able to reach the rope. OK. No time to wait around. Here goes. Straddling the rope, bringing it up across his chest and over his right shoulder for a body rappel, Einar, hopping on one foot and leaning back heavily into the rope for support, had eased himself down below the last tree, down almost to the spot where the slope dropped off to the crevice below, when he felt a tug at the rope below him, then another, more pressure the second time, and, feeling a third, he scrambled to disentangle himself from the rope and get back up to the tree, once more clipping in and preparing to belay Lizs climb, responding to her signal with three quick tugs on the rope. Shes down there! And coming up, too, Einar keeping some tension on the rope to aid her, expecting things to be pretty slippery, icy and damp down there in the crevice, but less than a minute into her climb something caught his attention, some small movement or sound over on the far side of the slide path, and he looked up just in time to see another man emerging from the woods, dressed as the first had been, and carrying a rifle. The second agent, a bit slower and more out of shape than the first and consequently a good distance behind him on the climb, had heard the avalanche, seen the billowing cloud of snow rising up from the canyon and had hurried to complete his climb up through the timber-choked gully that the pair had chosen for their ascent, finding himself to his great dismay unable to rouse his partner over the radio, nor anyone else at the base camp, either. Emerging from the woods and staring out across the slide path, the agent saw, just below a small group of stunted firs, a red rope dangling down over the rim, and started out carefully across the debris field, picking his way towards the little stand of trees to investigate. Einar saw the agent, realized that he had not himself been seen because of the trees, and hastily tied off the rope--sorry Liz, but I got to take care of this. You just hang on, stay hid--unclipping himself and giving the rope three sharp tugs before starting off into the

trees, hoping she would get the message and glad when she responded in kind. Carefully, quietly, he made his way up into the few trees that remained above him, carrying his spear and the remaining explosive charge, eyes snapping with cold fury as he watched the agent, saw him focusing on the rope, moving towards it, mere yards from discovering Liz. By the time Einar had reached the topmost tree, the man had crossed most of the snow slope and was entering an area of steep snow that bordered the little fir grove and had not slid with the mass of snow that had let go earlier, and Einar considered dropping the remaining charge on him, but did not especially want to risk attracting further attention from anyone who might remain alive below, if there were other alternatives. Which there were, and he crouched, bad leg over the edge of the small rock outcropping, balancing the spear in a hand surprisingly steady considering how wet and chilled he was, how badly he had been shivering while sitting there belaying Liz up the wall, and he threw the weapon, knowing the man would be wearing a vest, aiming for the head. Striking true. That might have been the end of it, but the man, bone spear tip lodged in his skull just above the left ear, still somehow possessed the wherewithal to grab for his radio, and Einar saw, launched himself off of the low outcropping, dropping four or five feet, landing beside the wounded, surprised agent and tackling him, wrestling the radio from his hand and pressing him into the ground, leaning on the spear, but the ground was moving, the whole world moving in a baffling, sickening uproar as the little strip of snow let go in a much smaller secondary slide, Liz watching in horror from her position on the rope near the rim as Einar tumbled and slid and disappeared beneath the thundering, sliding mass of white

The slide set off by Einar and the agent as they struggled was a small one, a narrow band only of snow having remained alongside the trees after the first, and Liz watched as the cloud of powder died down, scanning the solidifying rubble in the chute for any sign of Einar, a boot, a scrap of clothing, anything that might tell her where to start digging, anything that might give her some hope that he had not been carried down, crushed and spit out to tumble down the remaining wall to the canyon floor, but she saw nothing, had not especially expected to see anything, especially. The force of that snow, the speed at which it had taken off down the mountainshe shook her head. He was gone. For a moment she hung there unsure what to do, finally started climbing, realizing that Einar had tied off the rope before he left and using it to aid the remaining few feet of her ascent. Reaching the top she followed the rope up over the slick, scoured slope where the packtree had stood prior to the first slide, sitting under the fir in the higher group of trees where Einar had anchored the rope, quickly pulling it up. There was Einars string of wolverine claws, clipped into the figure eight knot at the ropes end, and she removed it, slid it over her head, staring down the chute with its lingering powder that hung in the still, silent air, the beginnings of tears in her eyes and a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Einar being carried away and swept under that awful, crushing mass of snow, wishing desperately that he had never

come for her, never found her. She hoped it had been quick, the end, prayed that he was not under there somewhere pinned and suffocating, unreachable and unable to free himselfI have to look, have to do something, have to make sure hes not still up here somewhere, and she freed herself from the improvised harness, looked around for a sharp-ended stick to use for balance and traction out on the steep slickness of the avalanche chute, finding Einars crutches behind the tree and taking one of them, seeing that he had sharpened their tips. Something lay beside the crutches there under the tree, a furry black bundle, and unrolling it she saw it to be the yearlings hide, modified to create a rough vest that, though somewhat encrusted with snow, looked very warm, and she wondered why Einar had left it there, wished he had it with him, but he didnt and she was freezing, the climb having warmed her a bit but not nearly enough to stop her shaking or allow her to feel her toes after the long, immobile night there in the crevice. She shook the snow out of the bear hide, put it on, feeling a bit of Einars lingering warmth trapped in its fibers and knowing that he could not possibly have any warmth to spare--Ive got to find him!--took the crutch and climbed down onto the icy snow of the chute. Liz nearly fell with her first step, recovered her balance and focused on placing her feet in the rougher-looking areas where the snow had solidified into a sandstone-like texture and offered more grip for her boots. The rope. She thought about going back for the rope, still tied to the tree and long enough to allow her to range out across the entire width of the chute, as long as she did not go down too far, but there seemed little reason to do so. The snow up there near the top of the chute was shallow, scoured, she could in places see rock through the layer that remained; it was not deep enough to have trapped and be concealing a humanbody. Just say it. He had gone down. Down there where, some fifty yards further, the chute became even steeper and had been, it appeared, been scoured more completely than the upper portion, the avalanche no doubt carrying a good bit of rock along with it as it sped down to the canyon floor. Liz carefully picked her way back across the chute and stood with her head bowed as she faced its scoured steepness, knowing that she must gather her things and be away from the rim before the rescue and recovery operation began for the camp in the canyon, but not quite able to tear herself away. Ransom, and the price was too greatwhy did you do it, Einar? The storm was coming, sky darkening nearly to black as she stood there, a thin, persistent wind sweeping down from the heights, and she turned to go. And heard something. Just a small sound, a scraping and grating somewhere down there in the chute and she squinted into the wind, wiping stinging eyes on her sleeve, staring through the swirling spindrift that the wind was kicking up from the adjoining slope, and she saw. There some distance below, just before the chute got really steep there was a slight protrusion of exposed rock over against the side of the gully, a feature she had overlooked before, as it hardly seemed prominent enough to warrant any notice, but she saw it now, saw the hand on the rock, and it was moving. Darkness. Crushing, suffocating darkness all around him, but he had succeeded, knew it, had managed to grab hold of that little sharp-edged spur of rock and hang on, had squirmed and wriggled and worked himself around to its uphill side and wedged himself

in as the sliding snow poured over him, battered and tore at him, didnt know just where his body was at the moment but assumed it must still be attached to the hand with which he somehow still gripped that rock, knew that it needed air, and badly. He was face down, it seemed, though one cannot be at all sure of ones position when the world has been so recently moving and tumbling and thundering around you as it had been, thought it was worth a try, though, and shoved with his elbows, or tried to, but nothing happened. No big surprise, the lack of movement; for all he knew, he might be buried beneath twenty feet of solidifying, compacted snow, felt like it for sure, was dark enough to be oh. Opening ones eyes helped significantly with the darkness, and the light, dim but not seeming terribly distant, told him that he must not be buried too deeply, at all. Try again, shove with the elbows, lift the head, hey, things are moving I think, just a little, keep goingair! Head emerging from the thin but rather dense shell of snow that had encased him after the slide, Einar filled his burning lungs with a great wheezing gasp of air, another, alive, glancing around for any sign of the enemy before freeing the rest of his body--well, cast is still on, looks like everythings still attached, thats got to be a good thing--and beginning to claw his way up the steep, slippery debris field, eyes fixed on the little stand of trees and his breaths shallow, coming with difficulty, feeling rather like he had been run over by awell, a couple dozen tons of snow, I guess. Youre breathing, its enough. But it wasnt enough, apparently, not quite, as his field of vision seemed to be rapidly narrowing, the world growing dimmer than its previous cloud-dimmed self, and he rested his head on the ice, concentrating on getting a few full breaths in the hopes of driving back the darkness, which did not happen, but it seemed not to be getting any worse, either, so he started moving again, slowly--nothing was working quite normally, and things were beginning to hurt as the shock wore off, things that had, before, and some that hadnt, too, but he supposed he could sort all of that out, later--dragging himself, have to get to those trees. Liz, having watched in amazement, almost unbelieving as Einar emerged from beneath the snow wasted no time in tossing him the rope, seeing that he was not moving quickly at all or particularly well, and afraid that the might end up sliding further down the steep, slick debris slope, but he seemed to be ignoring the rope, or perhaps had not seen it, and she quickly went to him, pulling sideways on the rope and wrapping it once around each of her arms, walking parallel to it as she slid along in a hasty arm rappel so as not to slip, herself, and go tumbling. She reached him, spoke to him, quickly got the rope tied around his waist and gave him the crutch, but he could not seem to stand even with her assistance and she helped him inch forward across the icy chute on his hands and one knee, ended up dragging him a bit when, within feet of the trees, he rested his head on the ice and seemed unable to lift it. Seeing the trees Einar rallied, managed to crawl back up onto the little outcropping on his own, where he collapsed face down on the snow under the fir in relief, just breathing. Liz was concerned about his ability to go on breathing with his face pressed into the snow like that, and she carefully rolled him over after a few seconds, trying unsuccessfully to keep him still while she assessed his condition. His face was grey, serious, drawn, lips purple and she thought he looked scared, or as close to it as shed ever seen him, his eyes dull and perhaps just a bit desperate, and he didnt seem to be breathing well at all. She wondered if he might have broken a rib or two in the slide, but when she asked him about it he just shook his head, insisted on sitting up

and grinned at her, breaking out in a weird little laugh that was cut short by a hoarse, painful-sounding cough, after which he sank back down in the snow, gasping for air. That wasqu-quite a ride Lizglad forlittle ledge to hang onto Einar. She grabbed his shoulders, held him. You dont need to talk right now. Just breathe for a minute, OK? He nodded, eyes closed, Liz working to warm his hands, which had gone a dangerous shade of white as he dug himself out and crawled across the chute, knowing that she had to do something about his wet, icy clothes and wondering what further harm he might have done to his leg in that tumble, seeing that the bearskin slipper that protected his foot had come off and been lost. Let me help you sit up a little and get this bear hide on you, alright? He looked up at her, saw that she appeared at least as cold as he felt--looked to have aged a good bit since hed last seen her, too, her face hollow and shadowed, and he wondered rather irrelevantly if he looked the same way--ha! Not a chance you look half that good, Einar. Ever seen a skeleton? Well, just stretch some skin over it, add a little bit of scraggly, ice-crusted hair and a goofy grin, and thats you, Im afraid--shook his head. Nah, keep it, Im fine. Cantstay here though. Help me up? Your legdid you? Its still attached. Its starting to storm, Einar. She glanced worriedly at the blackening sky, the wind bitterly cold and growing in intensity. We need to find some shelter No. He grinned again, looking a bit more like himself despite his ashen face, some of the characteristic fire returning to his eyes, Storm is good. We need to move.

Move they did, as the snow began falling from a leaden morning sky, the wind slanting it sideways and picking up enough loose powder from among the trees of the ridge, freeing it from their heavily burdened branches and sending it airborne, to create a fairly significant ground blizzard even before the storm hit with full force. The climb that past night had required all the strength Einar could muster and then some, had exhausted all of his meager reserves, and that had been before wrestling the agent and being pounded by the slide as he tumbled nearly a hundred feet down the avalanche chute. He was beat. Legs--well, leg--didnt work right at all, arms shook and threatened to give out as he tried to swing himself forward on the crutches, he couldnt feel his hands or feet at all, and it felt as though all of his bones had been replaced with putty. No matter how determined a person may be, it is awfully difficult to make forward progress while attempting to walk

on a single, putty-filled leg. Might actually do better right now if I had a cast on the other leg, too, sorry to say He managed it for a while though, somehow kept himself upright and moving until they were well away from the open slope above the rim, knowing that he would pay for it later, but just as certain that he must get them back to the den before collapsing, or they would likely both end up dead in the storm, or captured. Moving steadily across the open ground above the rim, Einar got them up into the timber and onto his back trail before finally resting his forehead against an aspen trunk and hanging there in the crutches for a minute, not sure just how he was supposed to go about taking another step, but knowing that he must. Liz tried to get him moving again, offered him food and water--what little she had of it; melting snow for water had hardly been a priority for her that past night, but she had managed to accumulate an inch or so of snowmelt in the bottom of one of her water bottles by keeping it constantly pressed against her stomach through the night--but he just shook his head, not even sure what she was saying and unable to find the energy to puzzle it out, swinging forward on the crutches and continuing down the trail because he knew he must. She finally convinced him to sit down for a minute beneath a spruce, warmed his hands and gave him honey and bear fat from her pack, talked him into drinking some of the water, which he refused to do until he had seen her take half of it. The food helped, the honey, especially, giving him a desperately needed boost of energy that left him thinking a bit more clearly and feeling steadier, too, looking at Liz and realizing that she did not have a hat, fumbling in his pack for the spare that he had, knowing that, though not entirely dry, it would have to be better than nothing. Quickly shaking the accumulated snow from her hair and pulling the hat down to her eyebrows, Liz again offered him the yearling bear hide, which was doing a fine job of keeping the snow and wind away from her torso and helping her to warm as they moved, but he refused. No. Keep it. I-Im OK, and I hadall the spare clothes, all this time.your turn now. Real sorry. Should have split them up. No, it was alright, I did alright. I had that big garbage bag to keep most of the snow off of me. And I had all the food, so that more than made up for it. Youre right. We should have split things up more so we each had a little of everything, but I never meant for us to get separated like thatI was just trying to find us some shelter, and I got turned around, and then the feds came and I was afraid to try to find you. Here. Let me get you some more to eat. She retrieved a chunk of meat from the yearling, pressed it into his hand and got him another scoop from the honey jar, seeing that he had nearly fallen asleep while she spoke, eyes drifting closed, slumping over against the tree. Have you had anything at all to eat, since I left? He didnt answer and she moved closer to him, brushed the snow from his shoulders and took off the bear hide vest, got it wrapped as well as it could be around the two of them for a bit of shared warmth, seeing that Einar was not doing nearly as well as he claimed, and worried that he might not be able to go on, if he did not warm some. He stirred, ate the food she had given him.

Yeah, Ive eaten. Got awhole bear hanging from a tree down where were headed right now. A bear? How did you? The additional food had revived Einar significantly, and he sat up, huddling close to Liz and helping to hold the bear hide closed at the front against the bitter, prying wind. Found his den. Icouldnt get around very well with the leg, was hurting awful bad and I was just about doing myself in every time I made a trip to check the snares, coming back to my little shelter all frozen and so worn out that Id just lie there in my icy clothesnot good. So when I found that denwell, it wasnt a real hard decision. Smoked him out, got him with a spear. And the atlatl. And a spear trap Id made from some sharpened spruce branches, that he ran into when he tried to charge me. I wasnt throwing too good, wasnt moving too good either, so it kinda took all three Liz shook her head, swallowed the terror and outrage she felt at the thought of Einar, in the state she had left him, intentionally and single-handedly taking on a bear. Well. Im sure glad youve had something to eat, in this cold. Been staying in that bears den, Liz. Pretty good shelter in these storms, critter had a bunch of old dry grass and duff and stuff in there, and Ive dug the ceiling out a little to make it higher, made a sleeping platform. Was digging a chimney for a stove when I left to come up herewe better get moving. Theyre bound to know about that slide by now, and theyll be crawling all over this place, as soon as they can get here. Trouble was, he could not seem to get to his feet--awful tired, nothings working. Done what I came up here to do, didnt I? Sure want to rest, now--shoved with the crutches and struggled to get his one good leg under him, but succeeded only in pitching forward and hitting the snow face-first, Liz getting under him and helping him to his feet. Einar, spluttering and spitting to clear the snow from his face, took off down his back trail, knowing that if he allowed himself the opportunity, he would end up right back in that snow on his face, with Liz either having to try and drag him through the deep powder, or leave him there in the snow and hurry down the trail alone, to save herself. Neither one a great option, and though he was more than weary enough to find a long nap in the soft, welcoming whiteness of one of those drifts an incredibly appealing idea, he sure couldnt abide the idea of Liz having to haul him through that deep snow--delaying her own departure and putting herself at greatly increased risk of discovery and capture or of succumbing to the wet and the icy wind--which he supposed was what she would insist on trying, so he concentrated hard on keeping his feet under him, making no objection when Liz offered to walk in front and break trail for a while. Not done yet, Einar. Got to make sure she gets safely back down to that den where theres shelter, food, the big dry bear hide and a bunch of firewoodand then I guess you can lie down in a snow drift and never move again, if thats what you really want. But not before. So you just keep moving. For a long time they traveled that way, talking off and on, Liz concerned that he was slipping, getting way too cold, wanting to keep him talking, but eventually the

conversation began requiring too much effort of him, both mentally and breath-wise, and it became clear to Liz that he could either talk or travel, but not both. Travel being the definite priority--he had told her that it was only four or five miles down to the bear den, but she knew they were moving terribly slowly--she stopped trying to engage him in conversation. The storm continued, howling between the peaks and racing through valleys, dumping snow at a rate of several inches per hour, plastering trees, rock, and the pair of tired, half frozen travelers who picked their way down the long sweep of the ridge, Liz in front breaking trail through the new snow that had accumulated in Einars earlier, lopsided trench-path. Einar had for a long time insisted that they take turns, dutifully reminding her when his turn came to switch places, but there had come a time when, dragging, his leg aching and stabbing and beginning to send hot waves of agony up through his entire right side every time he jarred it against the snow he stopped insisting that he be allowed his time in front, knowing that he was going to be doing well to reach the den at all, not at all liking the concession, but accepting it, grateful for Lizs willingness to do the heart-breaking work of pushing through those billows and drifts of new snow, step after step, mile after seemingly endless mile. Mile after mile Einar fought to keep his hold on reality, to stay awake, on his feet, counting the distance in increments of ten steps at first, then when that became too much, five, glancing up after each set to make sure he could still see Liz through the relentlessly blowing snow, and she was always there, often looking back to see how he was getting along, and he was unspeakably grateful. The sight of her gave him something to hold onto, some connection to a world that was otherwise a confusing sameness of white and cold and endless, life-sapping wind, but between his extreme weariness, the cold and the growing pain of continuing to move on his injured leg, battered muscles stiffening from his encounter with the avalanche, he had occasional periods of delirium during which he seemed to see things that Liz could not, talking about them, one time going on and on about the moose he saw down in the willows--pointing out a section of forest that looked to Liz rather more like a tangle of wind-felled spruces than any willows she had ever seen--how a moose would give them a whole bunch of meat and a good heavy hide for making the mukluks they would need that winter when their boots wore out, after which he launched into a long-winded and mostly lucid description of how one could make mukluks from caribou hide, the kind tanned with the fur on for warmth, though, he elaborated, mukluk was really a Siberian word, Yupik, to be exact; the Inuits had called such boots kamiks. Liz could not see how anything he was saying had the least bit of bearing on their immediate situation, as they were certainly rather less likely to encounter any caribou in the area than they were a moose--which existed but were not yet common, having only been reintroduced some ten years prior--but she did not try to stop him, as the one-sided conversation seemed to be helping him keep going, and gave her a way to monitor how he was doing, also, which was none too well, at the moment. Einar had let the conversation trail off for a time before he stopped, turned off the trail, which was dimming as the new snow accumulated in it, saying something about how this is sure fine shelter, lets stay herereal good place to spend the winter at which he promptly sat down on a snow-covered log right there in the dark timber, tossing his crutches aside,

shaking, mumbling incoherently and staring at the ground until she hauled him back to his feet, gave him a scoop of crystallized honey from the jar and got the crutches under his arms, starting down the trail. He saw her, got the idea and followed. While stopped, Liz had tried again to return Einars bear hide vest-coat to him--she had made the attempt many times, as it was keeping her reasonably warm, and she knew he must need it worse than she--but as before he refused, and when she attempted to slip it over his head anyway, the stridency with which he resisted her efforts discouraged any further attempts, Liz knowing that he certainly did not have any energy to waste in fighting her, of all things. Finally, many hours later and with the wan light of the stormy day fading further in the approach of evening, they reached a spot where Einar began recognizing things, recognized, he was pretty sure, the large dead spruce snag that stood atop the den, down below them at a distance, and, having gone out in front to get a better view, he turned to look back at Liz, reaching for words, searching his chilled brain for the proper ones and struggling to form them with a face numb and wind-stung. Almost home, Liz.

Many miles from the ridge where Einar and Liz struggled through the storm that day, Susan, nearly fully recovered from the forced wreck and the beating by Agent Day and his men that had killed her husband and very nearly ended her own life, went about the days tasks, taking a brief break after canning a big batch of applesauce to sit down with a cup of tea, watching the snow fall outside the window and listening to the wind before heading outside to tend to the animals and make sure the little woodstove in the greenhouse was doing an adequate job. Her grandsons were coming over later that afternoon; her son, daughter in law and family were living in the house just up the hill, and, still struggling some with Bills absence, she was glad for the company. Pulling on a hat and wrapping her hand-knitted scarf around her neck--the storm was sounding fierce, out there--she braced herself against the wind and headed out the door. And stopped in her tracks. The boonie hat, faded, rim tattered, hung in the box elder tree just outside the kitchen door, its cord looped and tied around a branch against the wind. Susan recognized that hat. Bill Foreman. Glancing around, a bit alarmed that someone had got that close to the house without her knowing--the dogs, apparently, had not even been aware of his presence--Susan saw no sign of him. His tracks, even, were gone, covered by the windblown snow. He had, as was his habit, come as a ghost in the storm and left the same way. She took the hat, freed it from the branch, and noticed the plastic bag pinned inside. Returning to the shelter of the covered porch, she took off her gloves and opened the bag, pulling out a single photo, studying it in the light from the kitchen. Liz! There had been no word of the young woman who Susan had come to love as a daughter, no sign or even rumor of her whereabouts since that day on the road when she and the Sheriffs wife had helped her escape ahead of the arrival of the feds, and not a

day had gone by when Susan had not missed her, worried for her, prayed for her safety. Studying the photo, Susan saw that Liz was standing in the snow in front of a shelter of spruce boughs, apparently unaware that she was being photographed, a distinctive brown and gold wolverine hide wrapped around her shoulders. Susan had seen that wolverine hide before. Well, Liz, I see that youve found him. Looking out through the storm in the direction where she knew the peaks lay, white-topped and rugged, snowbound for the winter, especially after the current storm, she smiled a bit wistfully, wrapped the tattered hat around the photo. Gods speed, you two

It was snowing harder than ever by the time they reached the spot just in front of the den, the small, narrow area of less steep ground where Einar had fought the bear, wind blowing the small flakes nearly sideways across the slope in great gusts, and Einar indicated the low entrance that gaped black and inviting there beneath the sheltering little ledge, told Liz in a voice hollow, ragged, but triumphant, that well, I guess we made it, his sagging, cold-stiffened posture betraying his exhaustion even as he beamed at her through the blowing snow. Turning away from the entrance, he took two halting crutchsteps back to where Liz stood and held out both of his hands to take hers, the first time she could remember him making any such gesture towards her, and Liz thought something must be seriously wrong, something beyond the obvious fact that they were both covered in ice and snow, freezing in the wind, Einar worse off than herself, as the bear hide had proven rather warm and protective. She wondered if he might be slipping once again into the delirium that had plagued him off and on throughout the descent--it had been quite a while since he had shown any sign of it--but she could see from the steadiness of his eyes that no such was the case. He did, though, seem uncharacteristically nervous about something. She took his hands. Wellwhatever it is you need to do, I wish youd go ahead and get it done, before you freeze and die right here at your own front door, you goofy guy! Einar looked up as if he had heard her thoughts, glanced away and took another hopping step towards her, dropping the crutches and standing there balancing precariously on his good leg, catching her eye and holding her gaze. Will youstay with me, Liz? Stay with you? Well its storming pretty bad in case you hadnt noticed, she had been nearly shouting to make herself heard above the wind, but it died down as she spoke, a momentary lull in what was shaping up to be a storm even more serious than the last, and youve got all the blankets and the dry shelter, so where else Asmy wife? She squeezed his hands, drew them to her and kissed them. I will stay with you, Einar. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people,

and I dont have any people, Liz, aside from the ones out there trying to track me down and take my sorry hide, and probably never will, never can. This is a mighty rough life out here. I think you know that now, if you had any doubts before. Till death do us part, and all thatwellit may not be real long, you know, and we may have folks on our trail as soon as this storm breaks... There are no guarantees, in this sort of life. There are never guarantees, Einar, not of that kind, anyway. People down there in the valley with their comfortable little lives fool themselves into thinking so sometimes, for a while, butno. At least up here the risks are simple, straightforward, right in front of your eyes with no way to deny them, no doubt about it. I think I prefer it that way. I will stay with you! She grabbed him and embraced him, alarmed at how very cold he was, at the obvious effort he was making in holding himself rigid to keep from breaking out in a fit of violent shivering, and without much success. Now, youre near frozen and Im not doing a whole lot better myself, so how about we stay inside, for a while? And she retrieved Einars crutches for him, heading for the den entrance. They crawled in through the low opening, Liz feeling around in the front pocket of her pack for the remains of her candle and her magnesium fire starter, working to warm her hands to get them flexible enough to grasp the starter and trying to understand what Einar was saying, through the rattling of his teeth. Something about firewood, and needing to finish digging a chimney before they built a fire. She got the candle lit, finally, only to see Einar crawling for the entrance with some sort of bone-tipped digging stick in his hand, head down, dragging himself, exhausted. Youre not going back out there Chimneyneeds finishing. Thenfirein here. Real warm. With a hand on his shoulder she stopped him just before he pulled himself through the entrance. Tell me what needs to be done out there, and Ill go finish it. You need to stay out of the wind. Only takeminute or two. Need you tot-take a long stick, he indicated the pile of branches that sat near the area where he had been digging the chimney, rested his head on the ground for a few seconds, trying to get ahold of his shivering so he could make himself understood. When I get up thereuhjust give me a few minutes to get up there, thenneed you to pound ontop of this here where I stopped digging from inside. Will let me know where to dig. Inch or two of dirtall thats left. Then chimney! Liz nodded, hurriedly took off the bear hide coat and helped him into it, and this time he did not object, but the weight of the icy hide was too much for him, and he collapsed onto the rocky floor, tried to lift himself with his arms, but could not. Wriggling back out of the coat, Einar got himself to his hands and knee, struggling for breath.

Tooheavy. Ill be OK. Take mefew minutes to get up there. You canget fire ready. Dry clothesbehind that rock. She helped him through the entrance, praying that she would know in time to go and help him if he collapsed out there in the snow, thinking he was utterly crazy for insisting on going back out there in his condition, scared for him, but hardly able to tell him so, after the journey he had just made, on her behalf. As Einar dragged himself up onto the snowy ground above the den, looking for the stick he had stuck in the snow to mark the spot where he believed he needed to dig down to meet the chimney-hole, Liz found the dry clothes he had mentioned--her polypro bottoms and his BDUs--and quickly exchanged her icy jeans for the dry polypro pants, her legs red and completely numb at the moment, hoping very much to never, ever again spend three days wandering around in the snow in jeans. Her top was soaked and icy also, but as there was nothing to change into, she supposed it would just have to dry when they got the fire going. Setting the candle over near Einars wood pile and once again warming her hands--the temperature in the den was not much higher than that outside, and though the absence of the wind was tremendously helpful, she was still having a very hard time keeping any feeling in her hands--Liz broke up a number of the branches, splitting some with her knife to prepare them for kindling. Thinking Einar might have had time to reach the top of the den, she began tapping on the closed top of the chimney with a long branch, stopping when she heard the sound of scraping from above. It took several minutes--Einar was having a terrible time staying awake and focused on the task at hand, let alone wielding the digging tool with any strength or accuracy--but he worked through the remaining inches of dirt, Liz jumping aside to avoid the shower of ice and dirt that rattled down into the den when he finally broke through. Enlarging the hole at the top so that it matched the three or four inch diameter of the chimney, Einar got down on his stomach and peered into the blackness below, seeing Liz crouched there in the flickering glow of the candle. Hey down therel-looks like I found shelter. Got anyroom in there for afrozen traveler? Yes, plenty of room. Come on down, and Ill make a fire! Dont thinkIll fit through this tunnel. B-but if I sit herecouple more daysshould beskinny enough to do it. Liz shook her head, get down here right now, you goofy guy, before you freeze to death in that wind. Therell be plenty of time to joke around, later, if you live No, you dont! Come on down, and Ill make you some stew. Do you need help? Can do it. And he disappeared from the chimney, starting down the slope, crawling and finally rolling a bit in the deep, steep powder because he could not seem to stand up at all, seriously doubting, despite his jovial bantering with Liz upon completing the chimney, his ability to make it back to the den. He smiled. It didnt matter. He was done. She could have her fire now, could get warm, had plenty of meat hanging in the treehe was all done, could rest. The snow was soft, wonderful. Right here, and he let his head rest

on the drift beneath him, sleepy, satisfied, hardly even feeling the cold anymore. Done. There was the dark smear of the den entrance, though, he could see it just in front of him through the slanting snow, beginning to glow faintly as Liz got the fire going, and it vaguely reminded him of something, a dream, distant, foggy in his dimming brain, a familiar thing on the edge of memory, Liz standing in the door of a little cabin, her form silhouetted in the firelightand then there she was, crouching, not standing, as the den opening was low, calling to him, grabbing under his shoulders with firm hands and pulling him out of the snow, helping him into the firelit brightness of the den. Einar thanked her, tried to sit but flopped down on the floor in his icy clothes, totally spent. The little fire that Liz had built beneath the chimney was already beginning to warm the place, starting out a bit smoky until the chimney began drawing, after which the air cleared, and Liz helped Einar over closer to it, getting him into his dry BDUs and assisting as he struggled out of his icy shirt, pulling over the heavy bear hide, frozen but still slightly flexible if she really worked at it, and getting it up around his shoulders. Seeing that he was apparently unable to remain sitting, she scraped up great piles of the dry grass and duff nesting material with which the bear had lined its den, heaping them behind his back for a cushion and propping him up so that he would be up off of the cold floor, and better able to take advantage of the fires warmth. She huddled there with him in the hide for a time, feeding the fire, herself beginning to warm, melting snow for spruce needle tea and helping Einar to drink some, with a generous scoop of honey stirred in. They were beginning to run a bit low on the honey, but she could see that he desperately needed the energy it would provide him, if he was to go on shivering like that and produce enough heat to warm himself and begin to recover, with the help of the fire. As her own shivering slacked off and she was better able to use her hands, Liz began sorting through the backpack, pulling things out and setting them on flat rocks near the den walls, taking inventory and chopping up a few chunks of bear meat to begin boiling. Einar watched her preparations through a haze, feeling terribly heavy, immobile, not especially attached to his body, wanting to move and do something to help, trying several times to talk to her but knowing that no words were coming out, finally settling for merely keeping his eyes open and occasionally leaning forward with the clumsy, jerky motions that seemed all he was capable of at the moment, and pushing another stick into the fire. Something was starting to smell awfully good, must be that stew she mentioned, and he watched as Liz stirred the bubbling mixture in the pot with a stick, her drying hair held back with a bit of paracord to keep it from trailing in the fire as she worked, stirring a handful of cattail root starch into the stew, along with some of the dried serviceberries that she had also found in the pack. Einars stomach was starting to twist painfully at the smell of the food, and he shifted position, sitting a bit more upright and watching as Liz softened a lump of bear fat on a flat stone by the fire, mixing it right there on the rock with another handful of cattail flour, sprinkling in some water and kneading the mixture before flattening the dough into cakes and angling the rock towards the fire to allow them to bake, appearing to him as if she had been doing that sort of thing all her life. Finally finding himself a bit more able to move when he made the attempt, the shivering still present--it would be with him for hours, he knew--but down to a slightly more manageable level, Einar supposed he had better try and do something useful, saw that a

bit of softened bear fat remained near the edge of the baking rock, and scraped it up with his finger, knowing that his feet and hands, frostbitten, cracked and bleeding in places, were in serious need of attention. That effort seemed to take all the strength and focus available to him for the time, though, and before he could rub the softened fat into his feet, bare and facing the fire for warmth, he was reduced to sitting there in a daze, staring at the softening bear fat in his hand with no idea whatsoever of how he had planned to use it. Liz sat down beside him, taking a break from her cooking to help him with his feet, carefully rubbing the fat between his toes and doing the same for her own which, boots wet after the first few hours of travel through the snow, had suffered similar damage. She had an idea, took another small lump of fat and softened it, retrieving the small rawhide pouch of dried hounds tongue leaves from her pack and rubbing some of them into a fine powder between her palms, mixing them with the softening fat until it turned a shade of green and again treating the frostbitten areas on Einars feet, carefully removing his cast, replacing the sodden insulation with a layer of dry grass and rubbing his leg for a minute before helping him secure the two pieces of the cast back in place. After that it was time to flip over the cattail cakes, and, after doing so--moving the rock back a few more inches from the fire to prevent them burning before they had finished baking in the center--and stirring the stew, Liz pulled out a dried chokecherry cake from its pouch in her pack, broke it up into the pot they had been using for tea, some water still remaining, and stirred in some honey, a bit of bear fat and a scoop of cattail starch, thinking that a good rich pudding would be just the way to finish up the meal she was fixing. Einar, reviving some as he warmed, though still immensely weary and beginning to be in serious pain as the numbness left him, scooted over to the entrance, shuddering at the icy air that was streaming in through it, taking the yearling hide and draping it over a root that ran parallel to the opening and just above it, creating a door flap which would have entirely covered the hole, had he allowed it. But, knowing that the fire needed some air circulation, he allowed an inch or so of open space at between the floor and the bottom of the hide, pinning it in place with large angled rocks on either side of the entrance and looking with satisfaction at the door he had created. The den began warming very nicely with the yearling hide in place as a door flap, the chimney drawing well after the initial smokiness, and both of them were soon sitting there in the warmth without their hats; Liz was comfortably warm and Einar would have been, had not his body temperature been so dangerously lowered in the first place. He knew from experience that it would take a good while to return to anything approaching normal after an extended chilling of that sort, especially as his reduced weight and almost nonexistent body fat had rather noticeably impaired his bodys ability to produce and retain adequate heat. Well. Sure looks and smells like this dinner ought to start helping with that particular problem! The meal was not yet quite ready, though, and he saw that Liz had melted snow in the metal container that had originally held the coconut oil, heating the resulting water until it was steaming. Taking one of her wet socks she poured a bit of water over it to clean it, wrung it out and proceeded to use the hot water in the pot to wash days worth of accumulated grime from her hands, face and arms. Finishing, she sat down next to Einar and started to do the same for him, and to her surprise he actually kept still and let her, marveling at the long-forgotten feel of warm water on his skin, even allowing her to work some of the

clumps of frozen snow and ice loose from his hair where it had hung down below his hat, finishing by cleaning and treating several of the partially healed bear-claw gouges on his ribs, which had broken open and bled again in the avalanche. Neither of them had said a word nor felt a need to the entire time the food was cooking, content with each others company, with the warmth and the absence of the wind, but when Liz brought the rich, steaming pot of stew, browned bread and pudding to Einar and sat down with him to begin their meal, they found each others hands and, heads bowed, gave thanks. That evening, sitting in front of the fire with his back against a thick cushion of insulating dried grass, wrapped in the bear hide with his arm around Liz and several recently-hot rocks near the small of his back, warm, or something approaching it, for the first time in days and tremendously drowsy after a dinner of bear stew, cattail flat bread spread with honey and bear fat and a dessert of chokecherry pudding, listening to the wind plaster snow against the ice-encrusted yearling hide he had tacked up as a door and thinking how incredibly, unbelievably blessed he was at the moment, living the life he was living, Einar thought, his mind drifting a bit, of the times he had heard people say they would not want to survive the end of their world, their society, he supposed they meant, and whatever they saw as their place in it, would not want to go on living at all if it meant giving up certain material things, as if they thought death would be preferable to a reduced standard of living...whatever exactly that was supposed to mean. He smiled slightly, shook his head and nestled closer to Liz, figured such people wouldnt have thought his life over the past year worth much at all, by that standard. Well, if I could talk to those folks, not that theyd want to listen to meId have to tell them that sometimes just continuing to live, to breathe, to existwell it sure can be a good start. Nothing says you got to stop there. Can always build on that, or hope toas long as youre aliveand free. He felt Liz watching him, pulled his eyes away from the flickering, dancing orange of the fire, and turned to face her THE END* (*Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning--Winston Churchill, 10 Nov 1942)

It would be a number of days before, the storm ended and all off the bodies finally recovered from the avalanche debris that had obliterated the federal camp, a bone spear point, simply but expertly fashioned, was found deeply embedded in the skull of one of the dead agents, the official cause of the slide being revised from natural, to domestic terrorism, and military assets once more devoted to the search.