Winter Kill

Chapter 13

The fall tried to suck all the breath out of Frank’s body. He managed to drag a little air into his lungs just before he hit the water. It slammed against him like a frozen fist, and as he went under, its frigid grip closed around him and threatened to squeeze the very life out of him. Fighting against the panic that welled up inside him, he kicked hard in an effort to propel himself back to the surface.

Something struck a heavy blow against his shoulder. He spun around and grabbed at it. His hand came out of the water. Someone grabbed it and hauled hard, lifting him. Frank’s head broke the surface. He gasped for air through teeth that began to chatter involuntarily as the wind hit his soaked body.

His rescuer wrapped brawny arms around him and hauled him up, into one of the lifeboats. The small part of Frank’s brain that was still functioning in spite of the cold told him that the boat was what he had rammed with his shoulder.

“Gather around him! Get him out of the wind!” That was Pete Conway’s voice bellowing orders. Obviously, the boat containing Conway and some of the supplies had made it into the water. Frank felt bodies crowding around him, and it was a blessed relief as they cut the wind. He still felt like he was frozen through and through. The water had sapped every bit of warmth out of his body.

Frank couldn’t see anything. His eyes seemed to be frozen shut. He lifted a hand and pawed clumsily at them, finally forcing them open.

His sight returned in time for him to see the Montclair break up on the jagged rocks. The waves threw spume and broken boards high in the air as the ship splintered apart into sections. Frank didn’t know if anyone was left on board, but if they were, he didn’t see how they could survive such devastation. It was one of the most terrible things he had ever seen.

He looked around, hoping to see the other lifeboats or maybe even Stormy or Goldy swimming for shore, but there was too much fog, too many crashing waves. As far as he could tell, the narrow boat containing him, Conway, half a dozen other cheechakos, and some crates of supplies was alone on the vast, storm-tossed sea.

“Look out!” one of the men yelled. A rock loomed up in front of them. The lifeboat seemed to be headed straight for it, but somehow the current carried it past.

They weren’t as lucky the next time. A man screamed as a wave lifted the boat and brought it crashing down against a rock. The boat broke in half, dumping men and crates into the water. Frank grabbed one of the crates as he fell, and this time he didn’t go all the way under. As the crate bobbed up, carrying him with it, he looked around, hoping to spot Conway.

Someone was thrashing around nearby. Frank held on to the crate with one arm and used the other to paddle toward the man. His muscles didn’t want to work very well because of the cold, but he managed to make enough headway that he could reach out and grab the man’s coat. He pulled the man closer and yelled, “Grab the crate! Grab the crate!”

Pete Conway’s head broke the surface. His blond hair was plastered to his skull. He flailed around for a second before he got one arm wrapped around the crate. With both Frank’s and Conway’s weight on it, the crate rode low in the water. It might not be enough to keep them both afloat. Frank looked around, spotted another crate floating nearby, and kicked them toward it. Once the second crate was within reach, he let go of the first one and grabbed it instead.

It was a struggle to think. His brain seemed to be slowing down more and more in the cold. But Frank could feel the current and remembered what Hoffman said about it carrying them to shore. He yelled, “Pete! Pete!” until he got Conway’s attention, then pointed in that direction. “Kick, Pete! Kick!”

Hanging on to the crates, they began trying to swim, helping the current carry them in. Frank’s muscles were really stiffening up, though, and he knew that Conway had to be experiencing the same thing.

“Hold on! Kick!”

They would freeze to death in just a few more minutes, Frank knew. The blood would thicken in their veins and cease to flow. Their stiff, brittle fingers would slip off the crates. They would sink below the surface as the cold, briny water filled their lungs, and their lives would be over.

“No!”

Frank didn’t know if he yelled the word out loud, or if the defiant shout was only in his head. But he knew he wasn’t going to give up and allow death to claim him without a fight. As long as there was breath in his body, he would continue to struggle against fate.

“Kick, Pete! Hang on and kick, damn it!”

Slowly, foot by foot, the two men struggled on, borne ceaselessly toward an unknown destiny.

Later, Frank didn’t know if he lost consciousness somewhere along the way, or if he simply blocked out the incredible torment his body suffered on the way to shore. All he knew for sure was that he lying on solid ground again, and his mouth was filled with sand.

He lifted his head, sputtering and choking as he spit out the sand. As he looked around, he saw pine trees nearby, with strands of fog twined around their branches. The trees bordered a narrow beach that disappeared in the fog in both directions.

A few yards away, Pete Conway lay facedown on the sand as well. The crates he and Frank had been clinging to sat there with water swirling in and out around them. Frank forced his frozen muscles to work and crawled over to Conway.

“Pete!” he called as he fumbled to take hold of the young man’s shoulder with stiff fingers. “Pete, wake up!”

For a moment, Frank thought Conway was dead. But then the cheechako let out a groan, then coughed and choked on the sand that filled his mouth, too. He managed to roll onto his side and rasped, “Mister…Morgan?”

Frank tugged at Conway’s sodden coat. “Come on.” Through chattering teeth, he added, “L-let’s g-get into the trees.”

On hands and knees at first, then forcing themselves upright into a stumbling walk, the two men made it to the trees and sank down among them. The thick trunks blocked the wind, and the canopy of interwoven branches was solid enough so that the carpet of fallen needles was somewhat dry.

“A f-fire,” Frank said. “We need a fire.”

He didn’t know if any of the other lifeboats had made it to shore, didn’t know about Fiona or the young women, Dog or Stormy or Goldy. But at this moment there was only room in his stunned brain for one thing: survival.

And survival meant a fire.

“How…how can we build a fire?” Conway asked. “We’re…we’re soaked…we don’t have…any matches…”

Frank’s hands felt twice their normal size. If he had to make a fast draw right now, he would have been out of luck.

He couldn’t have pulled an iron anyway, he realized, since his holster was empty. His Colt was gone.

But the bowie knife that was sheathed on his left hip was still there, held in place by the rawhide thong attached to the sheath. His heart leaped with hope as he touched the knife’s handle. He forced his hand into one of the pockets of his jeans, searching, searching…

It was there. The piece of flint that he habitually carried was still in his pocket. He fished it out, fumbling with it, then held it tightly in one hand while he used the other to scrape up a mound of pine needles. They had been falling here for centuries, slowly decaying into a fine, powdery carpet. When he had a nice little mound, he drew the knife.

Flint and steel…an ancient solution to the age-old problem of being cold and wet. He struck the flint against the blade and sent a few tiny sparks flying into the air. They fell on the heap of pine needles and duff, but no flames resulted. Frank struck flint and steel together again and again and again…

He lost track of how many tries it took before a tiny, almost invisible thread of smoke climbed into the air from the pile. Frank leaned closer, saw the spark still glowing faintly, blew on it gently. The glow became brighter. Frank blew on it again.

A little tongue of flame licked up.

Frank sent up a prayer of thanksgiving to El Señor Dios. A couple more pine needles caught fire and curled as they burned, spreading the flame to the others around them. Frank held his hands over the little fire and winced at the unfamiliar heat it gave off. It seemed like a thousand years since he had been anything except frozen.

“Pete! Pete, warm your hands. We got to get the blood flowing again so we won’t get frostbite.”

Conway didn’t respond. Frank glanced over at the young man and saw that he was leaning against a tree trunk with his eyes closed. Again, Frank thought for a second that Conway was dead, but then he saw the cheechako’s massive chest rising and falling shallowly.

He reached over with a hand that was tingling painfully now and shook Conway. “Pete!” he said again. “Wake up, damn it! You go to sleep and you’ll die!”

Conway muttered something; then his eyelids flickered open as Frank continued to shake him. “Wha…wha…” He saw the fire and his eyes widened. He moved closer and extended his shaking hands over the flames.

“Don’t leave them there for very long,” Frank warned him. “We’ve got to warm the flesh gradually.”

Conway groaned. “It hurts like hell.”

“Good,” Frank said with a note of savage triumph in his voice.

“G-good?”

“Damn right. Hurting means we’re still alive.”

During the next hour, Frank kept feeding pine needles into the fire, building it bigger and bigger. His clothes started to dry, and the chill that had gripped him all the way to his core began to ease. Conway was recovering, too.

But they were still a long way from being out of the woods, both literally and figuratively. They had some supplies of some sort, although they didn’t know what was in either crate that had washed up on the beach. Not the guns, though, Frank was sure of that. That particular crate had been so heavy it must have gone straight to the bottom.

“It’s not sleeting anymore,” he told Conway as they huddled under the trees next to the fire, “and the wind’s not blowing near as hard. The worst of the storm must have moved on.”

“Too late to save the Montclair.” Conway’s voice caught in his throat for a second. “Or those women.”

“We don’t know that,” Frank said. “Their boat could have made it to shore safely.”

“Through those rocks?” Conway shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“We won’t know until we have a look around. That’s what I intend to do as soon as I thaw out a little more.”

Conway shrugged. “I’ll go with you. No reason to stay here.”

They stayed by the fire for a while longer; then Frank stood up and waved his arms around to get the circulation going even more. He stomped his feet on the pine-needle-covered ground. So did Conway. Then Frank said, “Let’s go.”

They stomped out the fire, then stumbled out of the trees onto the edge of the long, curving beach. “North or south?” Conway asked. “Do you even know which way is which?”

Frank pointed. “That way is south. We’ll head that way. The women’s lifeboat left the ship first, so they should have reached shore first.”

“You can’t know that, as crazy as that storm was.”

Frank grinned. “No, but that direction’s as good as any, I reckon.”

“I suppose you’re right about that,” Conway said with a grim laugh.

They set off, following the treeline. The wind had died down to a breeze, but even that was cold. Frank continued waving his arms to keep as warm as possible.

He couldn’t even begin to estimate the distance they had covered when he spotted something on the beach up ahead. Conway saw it at the same time and said, “That’s part of our lifeboat!”

The young man was right. A large chunk of the boat had washed ashore intact. Even more important, a couple of crates were still in it. Frank and Conway broke into a stumbling run toward it.

As they approached, Frank dared to hope that one of the crates contained the guns. He fell to his knees in the sand beside the wreckage and wrestled one of the crates around. Conway leaned in to help him.

Relief flooded through Frank as he recognized the crate. Considering the bad luck that had befallen them so far, they were overdue for a stroke of good fortune, and they had just gotten it. This was the crate with the guns and ammunition. Their chances for survival had just gone up.

But then, with a sudden growl, fate smashed those chances down again. The noise made Frank and Conway look toward the woods, where a massive brown bear stood on its hind legs, glaring at them.