I kept pushing on.
I specifically avoided going up to the top of the slope where I thought Lelia and the others might have exited the woods. I didn’t want Weaver seeing their tracks.
I only wanted him to follow mine.
I snowshoed another ten minutes past my old valley. Then I found several pieces of dead wood that I knew would burn well, and stuffed them in my backpack. The extra weight sucked, but they were necessary for my final plan.
Finally I went up past the tree line to the beginning of the mountainside, and followed the bare rock until I reached the ravine.
The one up to the cliff above my cave.
Now I was at the ten-yard-line. One minute left on the clock.
Well, actually, more like a fucking hour to get up the ravine.
This was the longest football game on record, ever.
“Weaver!” I shouted from the base of the ravine.
It took a few seconds, but he shouted back, “You ready to give in, Jackie boy?”
From the way his voice echoed through the canyons, I was pretty sure he was no more than a quarter mile away.
“I’ll make a deal with you!” I shouted.
“Oh, NOW you wanna deal, huh?” he shouted gleefully. “When I got you AND your bitches, NOW you wanna deal?”
That line about ‘your bitches’ worried me a little, but I just assumed it was bravado.
“Go back to your fort,” I shouted, “and I’ll forget this ever happened. Otherwise I’m gonna kill your ass.”
Of course, I never would have cut any such deal. If I did, I would have to worry about Weaver forever afterwards – and there was no way I would turn him loose on other unsuspecting females of this world.
I just wanted to goad the motherfucker into following me, that’s all.
Weaver’s sinister laughter echoed through the mountains. “Go fuck yourself, Jack!”
“You were warned,” I shouted, then started up through the ravine.
It was slow going. I had pushed myself right up to the point of exhaustion, so I stumbled more than usual. I had to focus even more on every foot I placed, otherwise I might slip and break an ankle. That really would be ‘game over.’
The one bright spot was that I could hear the roars of the skiris echoing behind me through the ravine. I was absolutely, 100% positive that they had followed me.
I reached the top of the plateau – the one above my old cave – and stumbled over to the edge.
Two things immediately stood out.
Number one: I could see a long trail of snowshoe tracks across the virgin snow between the trees and the cliff beneath me. Along with the tracks was a single, deep furrow in the snow, carved by a small tree that had been dragged from the forest.
Number two: I could see the women directly below me, struggling to prop a fallen fir tree up against the cliffside.
My heart filled with joy and relief.
“Lelia!” I shouted down from the edge of the cliff.
All the women down beneath me looked up. Six of them wore headwraps – but not the six I was expecting. I could make out Lelia, Oona, and Feria’s faces. Apparently they had given up their wraps and capes to their three rescued friends.
“JACK!” Lelia screamed joyfully.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life – and simultaneously one of the most frightening. They weren’t safe yet, and I needed them to be safe.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes! We are tired, but we are alright!”
“Can you climb the tree to get in the cave?”
“I think so! What about you?”
“I’ll be fine – just get in the cave and get ready!”
“I love you, Jack!”
“I love you, too, babe! It’s gonna be okay! Just get in the cave!”
I pulled back away from the edge, shucked off my backpack, and emptied out the contents.
I took out the wood and leftover birds’ nests tinder, and set out to find exactly the right spot to build a fire. After digging around in the snow, I uncovered the perfect place: a flat rock with a three-foot-tall boulder between it and the cliff.
For my purposes, it couldn’t have been better.
I scraped away as much snow as possible, put down the wood, kindling, and tinder, and pulled out my watertight cannister of matches.
Thank God I hadn’t used them all up yet.
I lit a match and had the tinder ablaze within seconds. I lightly fanned the flames until the kindling caught fire, then kept at it until the wood logs were burning.
Then I went back to the edge of the cliff to check on the women’s progress.
They had leaned the tree up against the cliff, and Lelia was crawling up the trunk as the other women braced the tree so it wouldn’t move.
Not wanting to disturb her concentration as she climbed, I went back to my own preparations.
I drove an anchor into the rocks, made sure it was good and stable, then fastened my longest piece of rope to it. Then to the end of that rope, I tied the knotted rope attached to the stone.
Would it be enough?
It should be. The long rope was 100 feet, and the knotted rope was 30. Together they made 130 feet, give or take.
The cliff face was 150 feet tall, roughly. The cave was 40 feet up.
So I had to cover 110 feet down to the cave, and I had 130 feet of rope.
Given that there was some extra distance in the equation, like the five feet to the anchor, it was probably more like 120-125 feet of rope, not 130.
Still, it should be more than enough for my purposes.
Last time I’d gone down this cliff, I’d belayed Lelia because I didn’t want to risk her rappelling down and something going wrong. We could have rappelled, though.
Which was what I was going to do in about five minutes.
But last time, I hadn’t been under the gun.
Today, timing was everything. A matter of life and death.
Literally.
I decided to test it out before
