Huge white shapes appeared. Boulders as big as log cabins.
Fargo had no choice but to ride between them. As he came out the other side, he nearly collided with a rider coming the other way. Instantly, he drew rein. So did the other man.
Squinting against the lash of snow, Fargo could make out the dark outline of the man and the horse, but nothing else. His hand on his Colt, he kneed the Ovaro alongside.
It was an Indian.
An old warrior—his hair nearly as white as the snow, his craggy face a testament to a life lived long and hard—studied Fargo as Fargo was studying him. He, too, wore buckskins, only his had beads on them. His mount was a pinto. It had black and white markings, like the Ovaro, only the patterns were different.
Fargo stared at the old warrior and the old warrior stared at him, and neither said anything. Fargo didn’t see a weapon but no one, red or white, went anywhere unarmed.
The old man trembled. Not from fear, for there wasn’t a trace of it on his face, but from the bitter cold.
Fargo looked closer and realized the old man was gaunt from hunger and haggard from near exhaustion. The eyes, though, were filled with a sort of peaceful vitality. They were wise eyes. Kind eyes.
“Do you speak the white tongue?”
The old warrior simply sat there, a shivering stature.
“I reckon not,” Fargo said. Twisting, he fumbled with his cold fingers at a saddlebag and got it open. Rummaging inside, he found a small bundle of rabbit fur. Carefully opening it, he counted the pieces. He had six left. That was all. Without hesitation he took three out. He wrapped the rest and put the fur back in his saddlebag, then held out his hand to the old warrior.
“For you.”
The old man didn’t move.
“It’s pemmican.” Fargo motioned as if putting a piece in his mouth, and then exaggerated chewing. He held the pieces out again. “They’re yours if you want them.”
Caked with snow, flakes clinging to his hair and his seamed face, the old warrior stared at the pemmican and then at Fargo and then at the pemmican again. Slowly, as if wary of a trick, he extended his hand.
Fargo placed the pieces in the old man’s palm. He asked who the old warrior was in Crow and then in the Blackfoot tongue and then the Sioux language, which he knew perhaps best of all Indian tongues from the time he had lived with the Sioux. He tried a smattering of other Indian languages he knew.
The old warrior just sat there.
Fargo resorted to sign language. Fingers flowing, he made the sign for “friend” and asked the man’s name.
The old warrior never moved nor spoke.
“I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” Fargo told him. Not given how most whites treated Indians. “I’ll be on my way, then.” He didn’t want to. The warrior might know where to find shelter from the storm.
Touching his hat brim, Fargo rode on. He didn’t anticipate an arrow in the back, but he glanced over his shoulder to be safe and saw the old warrior staring after him. Then the snow closed in.
Fargo sighed. He had half a mind to turn around and follow the old man. He must know the mountains well. But it was plain the warrior didn’t want anything to do with him.
Suddenly the Ovaro slipped. It recovered almost instantly and stopped.
Fargo leaned to one side and then the other, bending low to examine the ground. He couldn’t be sure because of the snow but they appeared to be starting down a slope. The footing was bound to be treacherous and would become even more so if ice formed.
“Some days it doesn’t pay to wake up,” Fargo grumbled. He gigged the Ovaro.
The next hour was the worst. The snow never let up. Twice the Ovaro slipped, and each time Fargo feared he would hear the snap of a leg bone and a terrified squeal.
He was terribly cold. His skin was ice, and when he breathed, he would swear icicles formed in his lungs. His feet were numb, his hands slightly less so. He shivered a lot. His body temperature was dropping, and once it reached a certain point, he was as good as dead. There was a word for it, a word he couldn’t recollect. But the word didn’t matter. A person died no matter what the word was.
Fargo never thought he would end it like this. He’d always imagined going down with a bullet to his brain or his heart, or maybe an arrow or a lance. But not in the cold and the snow. Not by freezing to death.
The Ovaro slipped again, and this time it wasn’t able to regain its balance. Fargo felt it buckle and he instinctively threw himself clear of the saddle. Or tried to. For in pushing off, he slipped on the snow-slick cantle and pitched headlong to the ground. He figured the snow would cushion his fall but he didn’t land in snow; he came down hard on a snow-hidden boulder, his shoulder bearing the brunt, and pain shot clear through him.
The next moment he was tumbling and sliding.
Fargo envisioned sliding over a precipice and plummeting to his doom. He clawed at the ground but all he could grab were handfuls of snow.
A white mound loomed, another boulder, and he careened off it and hurtled lower.
Dazed and hurting, Fargo sought to focus. He thrust his hands into the snow but it had no effect. In fact, he was gaining speed, going faster every second.
Fargo swore. Sometimes a man did all he could and it wasn’t enough. Some folks gave up at that point. What was the use? they figured. But Fargo never gave up. So long as he had breath in body, he fought to go on breathing.
Rolling onto his stomach, he jammed both arms and both legs into the snow.
It didn’t work. The snow was too deep. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach the ground. He couldn’t find purchase. There was only snow and more snow.
Fargo had lost sight of the Ovaro. It could be lying above him with a broken leg. Or maybe it was sliding down the mountain, too. He vowed to go look for it. Provided he survived.
Another mound loomed. Frago threw himself to one side but the snow had other ideas. His other shoulder slammed hard. The pain was worse than the first time. Now both of his arms were numb. He had to struggle to move them even a little.
And he was still sliding.
His hat was gone, too. That made him mad. A hat was as necessary as footwear. It shielded a man from the heat of the sun and the wind-whipped dust and falling rain. He’d had that hat for a couple of years now, and he’d managed to keep it in fairly good shape.
Fargo peered ahead, seeking some sign he was near the bottom. He had the illusion he’d slid half a mile but it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet.
Suddenly he shot off into space. He looked down but saw only snow. Flakes got into his eyes, and his vision blurred. He tried to twist so he wouldn’t land on his head and neck, but he was only partway around when he smashed down with a bone-jarring impact. If he counted on the snow to cushion him, he was wrong. It felt like his chest caved in. He slid he knew not how many more feet and crashed against a boulder.
God, the pain! Fargo hurt all over. He thought half his bones must be broken. He marveled that he was still conscious, and tried to sit up. The attempt blacked him out. For how long, he couldn’t say, but when the stinging lash of falling snow revived him, the sky was darker.
Night was falling.
Fargo had to get up. He had to keep moving. If he stayed there he would freeze. His days of wanderlust, of roaming the frontier wherever his whims took him, would be done. He got his hands under and pushed but his strength had deserted him. He rose only as high as his elbows and then fell back.
“Not like this, damn it.”
Again Fargo sought to rise. Again his body betrayed him. He lay staring up into an ocean of falling flakes, his consciousness swirling like the eddies in a whirlpool. He felt himself being sucked into a black abyss and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Nothing at all.
2
