Ambush of the Mountain Man

What would it take for a man to have the courage to escape on foot into a blizzard like this with no weapons and no warm clothes?

Smoke moved through the night as fast as he could, considering the snowstorm made the darkness almost absolute and he was running through snow that was getting deeper by the minute. It was only his excellent night vision that kept him from breaking an ankle or impaling himself on a tree limb in the heavy forest.

Knowing the storm was coming almost directly out of the north, he realized all he had to do to keep on track was to keep the wind directly in his face. That way he avoided traveling in circles as most inexperienced men did when moving in unfamiliar territory.

Smoke knew the mountain ranges all around them were closest directly to the north, and getting up into the High Lonesome was his only chance to avoid the men who would surely be on his trail no later than daybreak. The closest mountain was about seven miles away, and he had absolutely no chance to make it before daylight, not on foot traveling through darkness in snow that was rapidly getting up to his mid-calves.

His only weapon was a five-inch clasp knife, and he was completely without any other supplies or food. He laughed out loud into the freezing north wind. Only a mountain man, and a crazy one at that, would think that he had any chance at all against more than a dozen well-armed men on horseback on his trail under these conditions.

Well, this crazy old mountain man still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and if he could keep from freezing to death long enough, he’d show them a thing or two. Then, it would be time to pay them back.