She pushed aside the memories and collected water for breakfast. Hudson thought the refugees were ill-equipped for this journey, and they were. But they wouldn’t give up. Everyone here had a story of hardship and loss. A lifetime of diaspora. They were all seasoned warriors, the same as him.
She visited the women’s tent, which was crammed with six females sleeping head to toe. Two were her cousins’ wives. Although Layah felt uneasy about sharing a tent with Hudson, she couldn’t fit here. She also suspected he would try to leave the group if given the opportunity. She needed to keep him close, but not too close. He was a virile, attractive man. If she wasn’t careful, she might find herself in a compromising position. Again.
They shared a breakfast of hot tea and dehydrated eggs. Hudson finished his rations quickly. She knew it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. She hoped they could hunt at some point, because the food wouldn’t last. They had milk powder, bouillon cubes, dates and several handfuls of dried meat. In three or four days, they’d have nothing.
She approached him for a consultation while her cousins broke down the tents. “How far will we go today?”
He glanced toward the snowy mountaintop. “How far do you want to go?”
“I want to reach the summit.”
“The summit is the high point. We want to cross at the lowest elevation.”
“I want to reach the crossing place, then.”
“We can’t get there in one day.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a bunch of amateurs, and I’m still recovering. We’ll be lucky to cover half that distance.”
“Will we get there tomorrow?”
“I doubt it.”
“When?”
“Let me see the map.”
She retrieved the map from her pack and presented it to him. It showed natural topography and nothing else. No roads, borders or towns. She’d marked a dotted red line along the route she wanted to take.
“What the hell is this?”
“It is a suggested path.”
“You don’t have the other maps?”
“No.” She’d left them behind on purpose, because she thought he might try to take them from her and use them to aide an escape.
He stared at her in disbelief.
“I think we are here,” she said, pointing to a spot.
“You think?”
His reaction didn’t surprise her. She’d anticipated this argument yesterday. She folded the map and put it away.
“How am I supposed to be your guide without GPS or a real map?”
She gestured toward the peak. “What more information do you need? We are climbing this mountain in front of us.”
“We’re traveling through a conflict zone,” he said in a low voice. “I need to know which side of the goddamned border we’re on.”
“We will cross in an area too remote for fighting.”
“Then what?”
“Then we will all be free.”
He narrowed his eyes at this claim. When she touched his arm imploringly, he shook off her hand and walked away. She told herself it didn’t matter what he thought of her as long as he cooperated, but that was a lie. She wanted him to like her for personal reasons. She wanted him to like her because she liked him. The spark he carried within him had caught inside her. She found him thrilling, from every angle.
She had to smother this feeling, of course. It was an insult to her husband’s memory, and it made their journey all the more difficult.
They left camp just after sunrise. Her sore muscles warmed and became loose again. Ashur didn’t complain about the hike, which concerned her. She remembered his silence during the long walk from Syria. They’d traveled over a hundred miles together, hardly speaking.
When they reached the snow line an hour later, Layah paused. Hudson didn’t. He kept right on going.
“Do we need the crampons?” she asked.
“Not for this.”
“Why not?”
“They’re for ice or hard-packed snow.”
She followed him across the thin white layer. The powder crunched beneath the soles of her boots and the hard ground. It was cooler here than in the village, but not cold. Sunshine sparkled on the snowdrifts in the distance. Soon she was perspiring beneath her wool poncho. Hudson started to pull ahead. His stride was longer than hers, his natural pace swift and steady. She couldn’t catch him.
He glanced over his shoulder to watch her struggle. A muscle in his jaw flexed with impatience. He shrugged out of his pack and removed his fleece pullover. “Take off a layer,” he said, when she joined him. “You don’t want to sweat up here. Damp clothes will lower your body temperature.”
She removed her pack and shed her poncho, instructing the others to do the same. They drank sips of water and started hiking again. Ashur took the second position instead of Layah. She lingered behind to make sure everyone was okay. Hanna smiled and nodded. This was a grand adventure for her. The Yazidi girl had probably never left her village before.
At midmorning, they reached the base of a snow-covered slope. Hudson paused to test it with a long stick.
“Now do we use crampons?” Layah asked.
“It’s still too soft,” Hudson said. “I’ll have to kick steps.”
“Kick steps?”
“It’s like making a set of stairs in the snow. You follow my footprints.”
She studied the slope warily. “What if someone falls? Do we need ropes?”
“No ropes,” he said, sounding confident. “On snow, being tied together is more of a hindrance than a help. This slope isn’t steep enough to bother with a fixed line. If someone falls, they’ll slide down a few feet and get back up.”
She nodded and put on her gloves. He was the expert.
He took out his ice ax and sank the point into the slope to anchor himself. Then he kicked two steps in the snow, repositioned his ax and moved up. It was a methodical process that he seemed comfortable with. When he’d formed about ten steps, he gestured for her to start climbing after him.
She began the ascent, her pulse racing. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. Even though
