第 22 页

"I figured you did. And just in case you wanted to know, she misses you, too."

"She does?" For a moment he felt an almost blinding joy. Then came the fall. He was acting like a fool, pretending there was something in his future besides a cold tent and a camera. If she'd told him once she'd told him a thousand times: she couldn't wait to leave the Yukon. He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted from her; but he was damn sure he wasn't going to get it. He shook his head. "Bear, old friend, I'm in a world of hurt."

"No, Cornelius, you're just in the world. Welcome back."

For the next few hours the two old friends sat at the table, drinking hot water. Not more than ten words passed between them, and neither felt a loss.

When the water ran out Stone Man stood, stretching his tired muscles. "Want more water?"

"Naw, I think I'll head on to bed," Bear answered, reaching under the table for his fur bedroll.

As Stone Man reached for his own sleeping bag, the tent flaps shuddered. He cocked his head toward the canvas door, listening intently. He heard the sounds of labored breathing and the unmistakable stomp of snow-laden boots.

He and Bear rose at the same time, intending to welcome the visitor in.

Before they could reach the flaps a young man burst through the opening. Stone Man could tell in a glance he was a cheechako, a newcomer to the Yukon. He looked tired, hungry, and lost.

"Here's the fire, kid. Come on over and-"

The boy whipped a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at Bear's chest. "Don't move!"

Bear lifted his hand into the air. "We ain't armed. This : the Yukon, young fella, not San Francisco. If you want thing, all you gotta do is ask."

Stone Man took a cautious step toward the cheechako "Look son, if you're hungry-"

"I'm hungry all right," he hissed, "but not for your left- over beans, old man. I'm hungry for gold."

The weapon wobbled in the kid's hands. Stone Man stared at the filthy skin curled around the firearm's handle. Thej finger hooked through the trigger was trembling.

They were in trouble.

"Come on, boy-" Bear started.

"Shut up! If I'da wanted to talk I'da gone to Skagway. Just give me your damn gold."

"We're not miners," Stone Man said. "We don't have a I speck of dust on us. If you don't believe me, go check our packs. They're outside."

The boy cast a nervous glance behind him. "N-No gold?"

"No gold." Bear took a step toward the boy. "If you'll-"

The earsplitting crack of gunfire shattered the sentence. A light spasmed in the darkness, and out of the corner of his eye Stone Man saw Bear stagger backward.

With a bellow of pure rage Stone Man charged the boy.

The light flashed again, and a volcano of pain erupted in I Stone Man's body. He blinked to get his bearings. He tried to localize the pain, but he couldn't. It was everywhere. He blinked again, and the boy was gone.

Everything slowed; the world around him spun. He tried to remain on his feet, but his body suddenly seemed twice its normal size, bloated and misshapen. His limbs felt leaden. He crumpled.

His knees hit the floor hard. Pain shot up his thighs. A I groan tore past his lips as he pitched, face-first, onto the cold floorboards.

"Bear..." he called hoarsely, sending his hand scouting across the rough wooden planks. His fingers slid through something warm and sticky and wet. Almost immediately the goo turned slick with ice. He wondered briefly what he was lying in, then forgot that train of thought.

"Bear..." His voice this time was weaker, scratchier. He licked his thick, dry lips, wishing, inanely, that he had a glass of lemonade. A buzzing ripped through his head, setting off a huge, throbbing headache.

He planted his slick palms on the floorboards and tried to push himself upward, but the strength in his arms evaporated and a wave of nausea consumed him.

He was already unconscious when he hit the floor.

Chapter Fifteen

Stone Man was wakened by a high-pitched buzzing in his ears. Damn bees. He shifted position, trying to get comfortable. His knee edged upward. At the movement a fire-hot pain shattered his thigh.

Everything came rushing back.

"Bear?" The word slipped through his swollen, cracked lips. He planted his palms on the floorboards and tried to get up. Something slick and frozen made his hands shoot out from underneath him. He crashed downward, landing in a frozen pool of his own blood.

A cold sweat crawled across his forehead. Panting, he tried to get to his knees.

The world lurched. Bile swelled in his throat, daring him to move again. He clamped his teeth together and concentrated on breathing. When the nausea subsided, he crept, inch by painful inch, across the floor. The fire had long since died, and the tent was a cold, dark tomb.

He hit the table and stopped. Curling his fingers around the rough-hewn spruce leg, he hauled himself to his knees An excruciating pain erupted in his upper thigh. The nausea came back, clawing at his stomach.

He clutched the table edge with whitened fingers. Sheer determination brought him to a stand.

"Bear?" he croaked again.

His fingers crept across the scarred tabletop for the box of matches. Finding it, he struck one.

Tenuous red-gold light flared in the tent's void, illuminating Bear's prone body.

Stone Man's blood ran cold. Lighting the lantern with shaking fingers, he moved laboriously across the tent. With each dragging step, pain gripped his leg. It seemed to take hours to reach Bear's body.

"Bear?"

No answer; not even the rustling of breath. The silence closed in on him. Dread curled in the pit of his stomach. He eased himself back down to the floor.

"Damn you, Bear, wake up."

He grabbed Bear's wrist, feeling desperately for a pulse. The flesh beneath his fingers was icy cold.

A crushing weight settled on Stone Man's lungs. The pain in his leg was momentarily smothered by the blinding pain in his heart.

He stared at his dead friend through achingly dry eyes. This isn 't the way it should have ended for you. Of all of us, you deserved better. He stopped himself. Don't start thinking about what he deserved... He staggered painfully to his feet. He'd think about his grief later, if ever. Now he had to concentrate on keeping himself alive. For himself. For Devon.

It flashed through his mind that he had changed. Up until a few months ago he might have laid down beside his old friend and gone to sleep. Until recently life hadn't meant enough to fight for it.

Now things were different. For the first time in his life he had something waiting for him at the end of the line.

All he had to do was get home before he bled to death. How far had Bear said they were from home? Two miles? He could make that. He had to.

He pulled his parka off the back of the chair and eased himself into its fur-lined warmth. Then he untied the bandanna at his throat and wrapped it around his upper thigh, tightening the makeshift tourniquet until his entire leg was throbbing.

Long ago, prison had taught him that pain didn't recede until it was ignored. Drawing a deep, rattling breath, he turned his bleary mind to the problem facing him. Or, rather, lying at his feet.

What was he going to do with Bear? The frozen ground, icy temperatures, and snow prevented burying, covering, or burning of the body.

A wave of dizziness almost brought Stone Man to his knees. He leaned heavily against the table, waiting for his equilibrium to return.

He had to make a decision. Now.

He could leave Bear in the tent, but if Stone Man did that his friend's body would be devoured by predators-either now or first thing in the spring.

Stone Man couldn't risk it. With his wounded leg there was a possibility he wouldn't make it back in the spring, and the thought of wolves eating Bear's body was too sickening to contemplate.

There was only one thing he could do. He'd have to lash Bear to the toboggan and drag him back to Dawson City.

He hobbled to the flaps, wincing as pain sluiced through his leg. He kept moving, step by excruciating step. When he bent to tie his snowshoes on, a wave of dizziness assailed him.

He staggered backward, coming down hard on his gunshot leg. The limb exploded with pain. A raspy howl shuddered past his lips. His body crumpled, landing in a heap alongside the toboggan.

He clung to consciousness with grasping, desperate fingers until it crumbled and fell away.

Blackness engulfed him.

A few minutes later he wakened with a start. Damn! Yanking his gloved hand out of the snow, he grabbed the toboggan's well-tied load and hauled himself to his feet.

By the time he'd laid Bear's big body on the toboggan, covered it with canvas, and lashed it down, Stone Man was exhausted. With trembling, uncooperative fingers, he tied the frozen rope around his waist, flipped up his warm hood, and tried to move.

The sled wouldn't budge. He gritted his teeth and tried again. This time the toboggan lurched forward. Dizzy and weak, he lifted his good leg to take a step. Pain exploded in his wound. He wobbled and fell.

The snow felt icy-hot on his face. Clenching his jaw, he staggered to his feet again. After a long, panting moment, he took one agonizing step forward. Then another. And another.

By dawn his breath was coming hard and fast. His ribs ached from the cold, and he couldn't feel his face at all. His leg felt frozen and on fire at the same time.

But he kept moving, knowing that if he lay down once it was all over. He'd never get up again.

Devon kept him going. In the last hours her visage had become his beacon. He didn't see the snow heaped all around him, nor the velvet sky blanketed with pinpricks of light, nor the trees lined along the bank like spectral wraiths. The image that filled his mind was her face as he'd last seen it-her eyes as bright as lichen moss lit by a summer sun, her mouth moist and waiting for his.

If he died, he'd never have the chance to kiss her again. And God in Heaven he wanted to kiss her.

Please God, he thought desperately, let me make it home. It's not asking so much-home can't be more than a mile away by now.

A soundless, mirthless laugh rattled his throat. The blood loss was affecting his mind. God had never answered one of his prayers. Not once. What made him think He'd answer now?

Devon poured herself a nice hot cup of tea and opened her book, The Portrait of a Lady. Without warning the tent door flew open, smacking hard against the support beam. The whole tent rattled, and a blast of icy air swirled through the opening, bringing with it a flutter of snow.

Devon snapped to her feet. "What in the-"

Stone Man staggered through the doorway.

Her breath caught in her throat as he stumbled toward her. He looked like death. The only color in his face was in his eyes, and the whiskey orbs were dull and unfocused. Snow clung to his bushy eyebrows and jawline stubble. His mustache was a solid block of gray ice.

The cup slipped through her fingers and clanged on the floor. The eerie sound reverberated through the silent tent.

Stone Man opened his mouth to speak. No words issued from his cracked, swollen lips.

Devon rushed to him. Wrapping her arm around his waist, she pulled off his gloves and flipped back his hood. His arms came around her body, and she could feel the tremble in his hands as they closed around her, drawing her close.

Dear God, she thought in a panic, he feels like a block of ice.

"Dev?" The word was whisper-soft, raspy.

She looked up. He looked down. His lips grazed hers in a butterfly-soft landing of pure ice. Then he stilled. His eyes slid shut.

She waited a moment then pulled back. "Stone Man?"

He crashed to the floor.

"Oh my God! Stone Man? Get up!" She dropped to her knees, feeling his wrist for a pulse.

Finding one, she drew a ragged, relieved breath.

She clamped hard on her rising panic, refusing to give in to it. With shaking, desperate fingers she tried to peel the frozen parka off his body. His lifeless body fought her at every turn, a deadweight she couldn't lift.

"God, Stone Man," she moaned, "help me..."

He didn't answer. She popped to her feet and raced to the cupboard, flinging a dozen knives to the floor in her search for the bowie knife. Finding it, she cut the parka off his body and threw it across the room.

"Okay, Stone Man," she wheezed, "we're going to stand up now." She burrowed underneath him, using her body as a lever to push him upward. He felt like'a frozen sack of potatoes against her back.

"Okay, on the count of three..." She counted to three then dug her palms into the floorboards and shoved upward.

A groan escaped his lips.

"Help... me," she wheezed, lurching upward again. , "Oh, God, I can't do it. Oh, God..."

His hand crept slowly to the leg of the bed and grabbed hold. Then he took a deep, rattling breath. "Now."

She threw herself backward, jarring him to his knees. Clutching the bedpost, he staggered upright and threw his body across the bed. He landed at an angle, his head pressed close to the canvas wall, his feet hanging over the opposite edge.

Devon put her hand to his brow. He was burning up. She clambered onto the bed beside him. It took her endless minutes to get him on his back. When she'd finally done it, she unbuttoned his wool flannel shirt and tossed it on the floor. Then she unbuttoned his pants and peeled the thick black wool downward. At his thighs the material stuck.

She glanced at his thighs and frowned. Something black had marred the red wool of his long underwear. The discoloration spread nearly to his groin. She tugged harder on the pants.

They wouldn't budge.

"Oh, for goodness' sake." She wiggled backward until she was sitting next to his knees. Taking a firm hold on the waistband, she yanked. The pants, a patch of his long Johns, and a layer of bloodied skin ripped away from his body.

A shiver rippled through him, but he didn't move.

Devon stared at his leg in horror. It was one solid mass of dried blood from the inside of his knee to about four inches below his groin. There was something, she thought maybe it was a scarf, tied loosely around his upper thigh, but it was black with blood and as hard as a rock. She used the bowie knife to cut it off.