Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2) - Marc Cameron Page 0,110

up there?” he asked, taking his spot on the runners.

Birdie pointed north then waved her mitten from east to west. “There’s a band of spruce less than a mile in front of us. It’s maybe a quarter mile wide. Beyond that it’s just more braided rivers and open tundra for a good ten miles.”

“She’s close then,” Cutter said.

“Very close.”

“Okay, guys!” Birdie said, whistling up the dogs. “Let’s go.”

The dogs threw themselves into their tug-lines and the sled began to pick up speed.

“Let’s go!” Birdie said again. “Good dogs. Good Smu—”

She went quiet, leaning forward over her handlebar to get a better view. Cutter saw it too.

A lone dog caked in snow and ice limped out of the darkness, head down, tail tucked. Smudge went crazy, arching at the end of his tug-line, trying to escape and go greet his sister.

“It’s Smoke!” Cutter said, stomping on his footbrake. He didn’t have to look to know Birdie would do the same.

She set the snow hook and they stumbled off the trail to the injured dog.

“That bitch just left this dog to die!” Birdie said. “Still in harness.”

Cutter unzipped his parka and scooped the shivering dog in his arms. He had on a lot of layers, but was hopefully sharing some of his body heat. The dog whined and looked up at his eyes. He’d never been one to attribute human traits and emotions to animals. To believe, for instance, that this dog was thanking him was absurd—but she sure looked grateful to be inside his coat.

Birdie moved close, pulling her own parka open so the two of them made a nest for Smoke, out of the wind. It was like dancing, with a dog between them.

“The poor thing is soaking wet,” Birdie said, not bothering to hide her contempt for Donna Taylor. “She’s been in water. If we hadn’t come along she would have frozen to death.”

“She may still,” Cutter said.

Birdie nodded. “Glad to see your propensity to save wounded things extends to dogs.”

“Of course.” Cutter got the bibs out of the basket, wrapping Smoke inside the thick material. “We have to put her in the sled and keep moving.”

“I know,” Birdie said. “You stopped though. A lot of men I know would have just gone on by.”

Cutter was struck by a sudden thought as he made the little dog as comfortable as possible. “She’s covered with more ice than snow. You think she fell in the river?”

“I do,” Birdie said. “Probably some overflow up ahead. Easy place to get into a jam if you’re not careful.”

She took her position on the runners and retrieved the snow hook.

“If she went into overflow,” Birdie said, “there’s probably bad spots all along the river. If we press her, then there’s a good chance we’ll catch her before she gets to the trees.”

“Press her then,” Cutter yelled.

A familiar tickle crept down the back of his neck, not unlike the feeling he got when he was about to kick down a door with a fugitive on the other side. Smudge picked up the pace, hurling himself and the rest of the team into the teeth of the storm. They were closing in. The dogs could feel it too.

CHAPTER 40

“I’m going after her,” One-Eyed Rick said, using his finger nails to scrape away the frost from the tiny window. “I’ll take care of these two first, then I’m leaving.” He looked up at his friend, turning his head farther than normal so his one eye would come into play. “Unless you want to do it.”

Morgan Kilgore looked up from where he was reading the back of a pilot-bread box he’d gotten from wherever he got the coffee and his new hat. He held up the dark blue box. “These things are tasty for just water and flour.”

Sarah pushed her back flat against logs, getting as far as possible from these two insane men. Rick had been glaring at her with his single eye for the past half hour. All the while, Morgan did nothing but make idiotic observations about trivial things—a red-backed vole that kept poking its little head out from under the eaves over the stove, the way the pitch and timbre of the wind sounded like a bad orchestra, and now the stupid Sailor Boy crackers.

She couldn’t take this inane banter anymore. Knowing she was about to die imparted a certain freedom that she’d never felt before.

She sneered at One-Eyed Rick. “You’re so tough.” The pain in her jaw and teeth still gave her trouble