They found a sheltered place in an angle of rock and the men gathered bits of dead pine for a fire. The woman took off her mittens and worked with her swift, brown hands, slicing meat from a skin pouch that hung at her side and stirring cornmeal into the can.
When they finished eating, the woman scraped the can clean, rinsed it and heated more water. She sprinkled in tan-colored crystals of sugar to make a kind of cambric tea. “I’d lace it with liquor from your little flask but you’d best keep that for future needs.”
The snow was falling more slowly now. The woman motioned toward the west. “The hills we saw a while ago,” she said. “Nate told me some are jus’ as high as this one, though they don’t look so big from here. I reckon they’re jus’ as windy and jus’ as cold.”
As they packed up their things the snow stopped falling and the air was like crystal again. The sun burst free from the clouds and made the ground a burning white blanket.
The woman pointed west. “You see that distant pass? Knoxville’s through that way. Old Buck told Nate. Old Buck went there many a time. If I’d asked him, Buck would have showed you the way. That’s jus’ the trouble. Buck is old and kinda tired. He should keep himself warm in wintertime.”
The smoldering fire sent a thin signal into the air. The woman kicked at the sticks and smoke twisted lightly against the sky. The woman looked at the men with steady eyes, and when she saw that Red was about to speak she turned without a word, and walking slowly the way they had come, slanted down the hill with the sure step of a mountain creature. She turned back once and stood a few seconds against the whiteness. A gust of wind riffled her hair like the mane of a coal-black mare. She raised her hand and turned away and disappeared.
Tim was just about to reach for the compass to find the direction in case the snow closed in again when he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs against the shoulder of rock and voices raised.
Red brought out the Colt revolver and held it at his side. The jingle came clear, and grunting and talking—rough as grit—somewhere beyond the rock. One voice broke clear. “I think they’re jus’ behind that rock.”
A shot sang out from the other side of the ridge. Red moved fast and quiet around the rock, with Tim just behind. They heard a man say “God amighty!” An answering shot split the air.
Tim and Red rose slowly, so that they could see beyond the rock. Two men had dismounted. They were bending over a fallen third. A short grisled man, built like a gorilla, held a rifle at the ready, and the other—a young, dark-haired man—clutched a shotgun in his hand. Red took aim and caught the short man square in the head. The man’s body slumped to the ground and two of the horses rose on their hind legs, whinnied and bolted in terror. As the third man grabbed at the bridle of his horse Red straightened up, holding the revolver. Suddenly he lost his footing on a slick of snow and sprawled on his face, the pistol spurting out from under him.