It had been a very long night. Even if Xavier had been in any shape to
travel, it had been too late in the day to make any worthwhile distance. Drift
had thus settled on excavating a decent campsite from the snow, using
broken-off pine boughs and the lower branches of Xavier's tree to make a
sheltering roof just like he'd been instructed in patrol training. While the
samoyed taur was working on that, Cloud Walker had managed to recover a few of
Xavier's supplies, including his sword and another blanket, but shortly after
that the young wolf had come racing back to camp in a fright and had adamantly
refused to leave again. Another avalanche had rumbled down the far side of the
valley, and Drift initially guessed that Cloud Walker was still fearful from
the previous one. This was not welcome news, but not unexpected nor really
that surprising. Getting swept off a cliff by an avalanche was definitely one
way to develop new phobias, Drift reasoned.
That assumption had lasted until Drift started trying to light a fire. He
had been trying to figure out a way to strike flint and steel together
one-handed ever since they'd gotten Xavier out of the tree, and thought he
finally had a workable plan, when Cloud Walker yipped in alarm and stepped on
the tinder before Drift could light it. He then growled and snapped at the
samoyed when Drift tried to push him out of the way. A long and significant
stare out into the surrounding forest finally got the message across: something
was out there, and it might not be wise to draw attention.
Without a fire, the night had been long and bitterly cold, and Drift had
slept very little of it. His back still ached from the wrenching it had
received during the fall from the clifftop and, with nothing to distract him
from it, his shoulder nearly brought him to tears. It burned like a limb gone
to sleep, mixed with the stabbing pain of cramping muscles. Having already
claimed his left arm and the left side of his chest, back, and belly, the pain
was starting to spread into the right side as well. Even if his back had
allowed him a comfortable sleeping position, his shoulder guaranteed that any
sleep that he did manage to get would not be restful.
Long before the full moon had risen to its height, Drift rearranged the
recovered blanket over Xavier and Cloud Walker and started walking, spending
the rest of the night pacing round and round the campsite trying to keep his
mind busy. He recounted from memory the stories and folklore of all the
constellations he could pick out in the late autumn sky. He unbuckled his
dagger from his injured arm and moved it to his upper foreleg in case he needed
it. He scrubbed the blood from his muzzle with snow. He mentally designed a
tool for lighting tinder with one hand, and made a plan for how he could
produce it in large lots to sell to the Long Scouts and to the army
quartermasters. He pondered the springy aspen tree on the rock he'd
encountered earlier in the day, beginning to metamorphose it into a possible
way to smooth out wagon travel over bumpy roads. In short, he did everything
he could think of to keep from thinking about his shoulder. This was, after
all, not the
first time he had used such a tactic, and he was rather good at it. Finally,
he came up with a way to carry his friend if Xavier was still not well enough
to travel without assistance, and then spent the rest of the night working on
finding and preparing the needed materials by the light of the moon. By
morning, he had almost everything ready, at the cost of a badly dulled dagger.
He was watching the sun rise, framed in the distant canyon mouth, and was
actually finding it rather pretty, when he heard Xavier wake up.
"Get. Off. Me."
Drift couldn't help it, and broke into a smile: sometime in the night, Cloud
Walker had piled overtop across Xavier and now the leopard was nearly buried in
wolf and blanket. Without looking, he said, "Be nice to him, Xavier. He kept
you warm all night."
"Fine. I'll give him some jerky when I can reach my pack. Now- ow, dammit,
that hurts! Get him off me!"
"You might find that a bit hard to do: your pack's contents are likely
scattered halfway across the canyon and buried in snow. Still, I'm sure he
appreciates the offer." Drift prodded Cloud Walker with a forefoot. "Come on,
Walker, I know you're awake. I saw your eyes open."
The young dire wolf opened one eye and gave an exaggerated yawn, and then
got up, stole the blanket, and curled up in it a few feet away.
"How are you feeling, Xavier?" Drift asked.
"Horrid," Xavier replied. "My heard hurts, my ribs ache, and my stomach is
advising me to make no sudden moves." Squinting as if the dawn light was too
bright for him, he groped for the blanket to steal it back. His hand kept
missing, clumsy and uncoordinated in spite of Xavier turning his head to focus
his full attention on it. Only with a visible effort of concentration did he
find his mark. "Everything's blurry," he added with a frustrated frown, and
just a hint of a petulant grumble. As he pulled on the blanket, trying to get
it back from Cloud Walker (who promptly tugged it from his fingers), he asked,
"Why is it so quiet? Where is everyone?"
That wiped the smile from Drift's face. "You still don't remember?" he
asked with a sigh, certain by now that Xavier was not in any shape to be
walking. "Well, at least you're coherent today… that's a step up from last
night." He settled his taur body down on the snow next to his friend, folded
over him for warmth the other blanket that Xavier had been lying on, and
explained the previous day's events.
"An actual whirlwind?" Xavier asked once Drift was finished. He lay back,
folding his hands across his chest and looking up at the sky while he tried to
imagine the scene. "Huh," he said at last. "I would like to have seen that.
Or rather," he corrected himself a moment later, "I would like to be able to
remember having seen it. It must have been impressive."
"It was," Drift replied, with a wry smile for Xavier's benefit. "Had it
happened at any other time, I probably would have needed new trousers."
Xavier snorted in amusement, and then put his arm across his chest with a
grimace of pain. "Ow. Don't make me laugh… it hurts." After a few moments,
he opened one eye and fixed it on Drift. "Don't think, though, that I haven't
noticed you left out what caused that snow slide. If you didn't know what it
was, or if it had been someone who isn't here, you would have said so. If you
had caused it, you would have stumbled all over yourself apologizing. That
leaves-"
"Xavier," Drift interrupted, "between your messed-up head and my busted arm,
do you really think we have the time to waste hunting blame right now?"
"Good point," Xavier replied, acknowledging the canny remark. "All right,
then. If time is at a premium, then I assume you've taken some of it to
consider our next move?"
For a reply, Drift lifted the contraption he'd built during the night out of
the snow, a trio of thick aspen boughs tied into the shape of a capitol 'A'.
"As a matter of fact, I have." Drawing it close to the leopard, he reclaimed
the stolen blanket from Cloud Walker and started to tie it onto the
contraption. "I'm going to need your help, though."
-----
Up on the clifftops, Laura scoured the river valley with her spyglass,
searching for any sign that Drift, Xavier and Cloud Walker had made it through
the night. "Any sign of a fire?" she asked Padraic, who had stood the last
watch of the night.
"Not even a glimmer," the rabbit replied, shading his eyes against the
rising sun. "With the cold air spilling off the mountains last night, I bet it
got pretty cold down there. Lightning Boy must be freezing his tail off."
Motion on the far side of the valley floor drew his attention for a moment, but
it was only a bull moose browsing along the edge of the clearing, bringing down
small showers of snow while it stripped twigs and bark from a small aspen.
"Not a peep from Cloud Walker, either, according to Ralls and Merideth."
Laura frowned. It did not sit well with her that the two civilians and that
scatterbrained yearling were on their own, and she wanted to kick herself for
letting Drift carry almost all of the team's rope. There was no way she could
have used it to lower the entirety of the party, but she could have at least
lowered one person, most likely Padraic, to a ledge on the cliff, where that
person could have tied the rope and climbed the rest of the way down. At least
that would have gotten one experienced scout down to them…
She shook her head in annoyance, banishing the useless 'what-if', and then
refocused her attention on the valley below. The question was not what she
would have done if things had gone differently; the question was what she would
do now. The answer to that question depended greatly upon the condition of the
trio below. "Come on, you three," she murmured, her breath pluming in the
frosty mountain air. "Do something. Something visible."
Padraic spotted them first. Or, to be more accurate, he was the first to
notice that the moose had stopped feeding and was now looking across the valley
floor at the forest edge near them. "There," he said, pointing as a white
shape emerged from the pines. "And there's Cloud Walker, too. And-"
Laura focused her spyglass and, after a moment, smiled in approval. "Look
at that. Very clever, Mr. Snow. It's no wonder Misha thinks you're a good
investment."
The rabbit scout squinted, but was unable to make out exactly what was
happening. "What's clever? I can't tell from this distance. He's like a big
walking snowdrift: he blends right in."
Laura made a mental note of the unintentional pun and handed over her
spyglass. "Here. Take a look."
"Huh," Padraic grunted once he'd focused in. "That -is- clever. A travois
cut from aspen limbs and a harness made from rope. Though how he got the limbs
down without an axe… With just that little dagger of his, he'd have been up all
night carving and hacking. Maybe he found them blown down from the avalanche.
But what's he hauling on it, and where's…" Padraic leaned forward slightly and
twisted the sections of the spyglass, carefully adjusting the focus. "Oh,
hells. I think that bundle of blankets on the travois is Xavier," he said,
lowering the glass, his mouth tightening into a concerned frown. "Do you think
the cat might have bought it?"
Laura took the glass back and studied the trio for a few moments while they
left the wood's edge and approached the stream. "No, I don't think so," she
finally replied. "He's moving around a bit under that blanket and-" Xavier's
head popped out of the blankets so he could argue something with the samoyed.
"Ah, there he is. He looks pretty beat up. Judging by that bandage around his
head, he might have gotten concussed during the slide. Drift's not in good
shape, either; he's got his arm in a sling. Damn, I wish we had more rope, and
no, you are not going to try to climb down without it. I know you've done
ropeless cliff climbs before, but not here and not with ice and snow waiting to
add you to the casualty list."
Padraic, his mouth open to protest, clicked it shut again.
Down below, the moose eyed the young dire wolf and the strange wolf-thing
approaching. While neither matched him in size, he still decided that
discretion was the better part of valor and ambled off toward the lake in
search of solitude.
Drift watched it go, and then stooped gingerly to fill his waterskin from
the stream. Watching above, Laura frowned. "Only one waterskin… Maybe they
lost the other? Padraic, see if you can round up a blanket, any rope we have
left, three days of carnivore trail rations for each of them (pemmican, if
we've got any left), and a spare waterskin." After a moment's thought, she
added, "Get my signaling mirror, too. It's in-"
"It's in your pack, third pocket on the side. I know." Padraic winked as
he started back toward the camp. "Would you like breakfast in bed with that,
too?"
"Yes, actually," Laura called after him, "but that can wait until after
you've got everything else rounded up. If we've got a spare box of tinder and
flint, bring that as well; they might have lost theirs."
When Padraic returned with the requested items, he brought with him Arla and
Crooked Jaw. "These two followed me home," he quipped. "Can I keep them?"
When Laura didn't respond after a moment of awkward silence, he prodded,
"What's wrong?"
"I think Drift's left shoulder is out of joint," Laura replied, collapsing
her spyglass and putting it away. "He tried spearing some fish with that crazy
staff-javelin of his, and he nearly crumpled over."
"Ouch. Here's your mirror." He handed it over, a small, polished square of
metal.
"Cloud Walker didn't have much luck, either, and now they've started
upstream." She shook her head slightly. "Though why they aren't heading back
to the treeline for cover and shallower snow, I don't-"
Crooked Jaw interrupted her with a howl, loud and imperious, echoing once
off the mountains before it was joined by the voices of the rest of the pack,
and then finally by Cloud Walker down in the valley. Arla looked on, startled,
and then flipped her ears back in alarm as Cloud Walker's reply reached her.
"Oh, my…"
"What was that?" Laura asked.
Arla explained. "Crooked Jaw demanded that all the wolves 'speak their
place'. It would be like you ordering everyone to report in. The wolves up
here with us replied that all was well, but Cloud Walker replied, 'Standclaw
sign, leap and leap high. Silent now.'"
Padraic paused in the middle of tying the blanket and supplies in a bundle
and looked up. "What does that mean?"
She told them, and her tail curled down with worry.
Laura cursed. "Oh, hell. And Drift and Xavier don't know it. I don't
suppose either of you brought parchment and a pencil… Dammit." She pondered
for a few moments, and then started giving orders in rapid-fire succession.
"Arla, get back to camp and tell everybody that we're going to be moving light
and fast. Anything that isn't absolutely necessary gets cached. We'll pick it
up on the way back. Crooked Jaw, you too, please. You ready with that bundle
yet, Padraic?" she asked while the two canines hurried back to camp.
"Just about," he replied, tying the end of about two arms' length of rope
just under the knot holding the bundle closed. Lifting it up by the untied
rope end, he swung it gently to test the weight and the knots. "Okay. I'm
ready. Just give me a target."
"First things first." Laura held up her left hand, framing Drift in the
L-shape between her thumb and forefinger. With her right, she lined up the
mirror so that reflected sunlight fell on her fingers, and then twitched it
across to her thumb and back again. "Come on, Mr. Snow," she murmured as she
repeated the motion. "Pay attention to the blinking light…"
After a few more blinks with the mirror, she saw Drift stop and raise his
hand as if to shield his eyes. "Excellent," she said, lowering the mirror.
"Toss it, Padraic. Out there in the deeper snow if you can; I don't want
anything getting smashed."
"If I can?" Padraic echoed as he started whirling the bag-on-a-rope, faster
and faster to build up the momentum it would need to get out to the trio below.
"Is that a challenge?" Before Laura could snap at him not to damage the bag,
he slung it away out into the canyon, away and down and down some more, to land
in a puff of deep snow right where Laura had asked him to put it. The rabbit
smirked. "Ask me something difficult next time."
"Save the bragging for later," Laura replied, not in a mood to banter. She
turned and hurried toward camp. "We've got to hurry if we're going to save
their lives." To herself, she added, "Damn it, we scouted this area for over a
year- how in the hells did we miss this?"
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