Chapter 23
Buck stood with reins trailing, crusted in ice from mane to tail. The animal tossed his head when he saw them, blowing clouds of steam.
Calvin’s expression softened with something close to affection. “Good boy.”
Henrietta stared at him. “You have spoken more tenderly to that horse in two words than to me in two months.”
Buck flicked his ears.
Calvin grimaced. “This may not be the ideal moment to answer.”
“It is precisely the ideal moment. Your mobility is limited.”
Despite himself, Calvin smiled.
Henrietta crawled toward the reins. She had almost reached them when a sound rolled beneath the snow.
Not thunder.
Deeper.
Closer.
Calvin’s smile vanished. “Henrietta.”
The slope shifted.
A long seam opened in the snow above them with a muffled crack. Buck reared, eyes rolling white. Henrietta lunged for the reins, but the leather snapped beyond her fingertips as the horse wheeled.
“Buck!”
The animal plunged downslope between the pines.
Henrietta tried to rise.
Her knee buckled.
She fell hard into the snow while hoofbeats faded into the storm.
“No,” she gasped. “No, no—”
Calvin dragged himself forward. “Leave him.”
“That horse was our way home.”
“The slope is moving.”
“Then I will catch him below.”
“With what legs?”
Henrietta turned on him. “Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Become sensible now. I cannot bear it.”
Another low crack sounded farther uphill.
That ended the argument.
Henrietta seized the rope, hooked an arm beneath Calvin’s shoulders, and together they dragged themselves behind a cluster of exposed rocks. A shallow sheet of snow slid past where they had been lying, not enough to bury a man but enough to sweep an injured one farther down the mountain.
They crouched behind the rocks, breathing hard.
Calvin looked toward the vanished horse. “He’ll make for the ranch if he gets his bearings.”
“If.”
“Yes.”
Henrietta pressed both hands against her knee. It throbbed so fiercely she could feel each heartbeat inside the joint. “And if he does not?”
Calvin did not answer.
The silence gave her the answer anyway.
They could not return to the overhang without climbing. They could not descend safely without the horse. The snow had erased most of Henrietta’s trail from the previous day. The cold was deepening again despite the morning light.
Calvin touched her sleeve.
“I am sorry,” he said.
Henrietta closed her eyes. “Stop apologizing as though you are dying. It is irritating.”