attached to the sheath. His heart leaped with hope as he touched the knife’s handle. He forced his hand into one of the pockets of his jeans, searching, searching…
It was there. The piece of flint that he habitually carried was still in his pocket. He fished it out, fumbling with it, then held it tightly in one hand while he used the other to scrape up a mound of pine needles. They had been falling here for centuries, slowly decaying into a fine, powdery carpet. When he had a nice little mound, he drew the knife.
Flint and steel…an ancient solution to the age-old problem of being cold and wet. He struck the flint against the blade and sent a few tiny sparks flying into the air. They fell on the heap of pine needles and duff, but no flames resulted. Frank struck flint and steel together again and again and again…
He lost track of how many tries it took before a tiny, almost invisible thread of smoke climbed into the air from the pile. Frank leaned closer, saw the spark still glowing faintly, blew on it gently. The glow became brighter. Frank blew on it again.
A little tongue of flame licked up.
Frank sent up a prayer of thanksgiving to El Senor Dios. A couple more pine needles caught fire and curled as they burned, spreading the flame to the others around them. Frank held his hands over the little fire and winced at the unfamiliar heat it gave off. It seemed like a thousand years since he had been anything except frozen.
“Pete! Pete, warm your hands. We got to get the blood flowing again so we won’t get frostbite.”
Conway didn’t respond. Frank glanced over at the young man and saw that he was leaning against a tree trunk with his eyes closed. Again, Frank thought for a second that Conway was dead, but then he saw the cheechako’s massive chest rising and falling shallowly.
He reached over with a hand that was tingling painfully now and shook Conway. “Pete!” he said again. “Wake up, damn it! You go to sleep and you’ll die!”
Conway muttered something; then his eyelids flickered open as Frank continued to shake him. “Wha…wha…” He saw the fire and his eyes widened. He moved closer and extended his shaking hands over the flames.
“Don’t leave them there for very long,” Frank warned him. “We’ve got to warm the flesh gradually.”
Conway groaned. “It hurts like hell.”
“Good,” Frank said with a note of savage triumph in his voice.
“G-good?”
“Damn right. Hurting means we’re still alive.”
During the next hour, Frank kept feeding pine needles into the fire, building it bigger and bigger. His clothes started to dry, and the chill that had gripped him all the way to his core began to ease. Conway was recovering, too.
But they were still a long way from being out of the woods, both literally and figuratively. They had some supplies of some sort, although they didn’t know what was in either crate that had washed up on the beach. Not the guns, though, Frank was sure of that. That particular crate had been so heavy it must have gone straight to the bottom.
“It’s not sleeting anymore,” he told Conway as they huddled under the trees next to the fire, “and the wind’s not blowing near as hard. The worst of the storm must have moved on.”
“Too late to save the
“We don’t know that,” Frank said. “Their boat could have made it to shore safely.”
“Through those rocks?” Conway shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“We won’t know until we have a look around. That’s what I intend to do as soon as I thaw out a little more.”
Conway shrugged. “I’ll go with you. No reason to stay here.”
They stayed by the fire for a while longer; then Frank stood up and waved his arms around to get the circulation going even more. He stomped his feet on the pine-needle-covered ground. So did Conway. Then Frank said, “Let’s go.”
They stomped out the fire, then stumbled out of the trees onto the edge of the long, curving beach. “North or south?” Conway asked. “Do you even know which way is which?”
Frank pointed. “That way is south. We’ll head that way. The women’s lifeboat left the ship first, so they should have reached shore first.”
“You can’t know that, as crazy as that storm was.”
Frank grinned. “No, but that direction’s as good as any, I reckon.”
“I suppose you’re right about that,” Conway said with a grim laugh.
They set off, following the treeline. The wind had died down to a breeze, but even that was cold. Frank continued waving his arms to keep as warm as possible.
He couldn’t even begin to estimate the distance they had covered when he spotted something on the beach up ahead. Conway saw it at the same time and said, “That’s part of our lifeboat!”
The young man was right. A large chunk of the boat had washed ashore intact. Even more important, a couple of crates were still in it. Frank and Conway broke into a stumbling run toward it.
As they approached, Frank dared to hope that one of the crates contained the guns. He fell to his knees in the sand beside the wreckage and wrestled one of the crates around. Conway leaned in to help him.
Relief flooded through Frank as he recognized the crate. Considering the bad luck that had befallen them so far, they were overdue for a stroke of good fortune, and they had just gotten it. This was the crate with the guns and ammunition. Their chances for survival had just gone up.
