CHAPTER 34
Time meant nothing in a situation like this. Denny had no idea how long it had been since her father had left in search of help, trailing the makeshift lifeline behind him. It seemed as if hours had passed since then when she crawled out of the lean-to and stood up next to Salty. The old-timer waited next to the coach with his right hand on the rope.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nope. But that’s a good thing, I reckon. I told Smoke to tug on the rope three times if he got into trouble, and there ain’t been no tugs at all. The rope’s as steady as a rock and has been for a good long while.”
Denny thought about that and frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense,” she said. “If he was still moving around out there, wouldn’t you be able to feel it through the rope?”
Salty didn’t reply for a long moment. Denny could tell that he was considering the idea, too. Finally he exclaimed, “Dadgummit! You’re right. It shouldn’t be this still. Grab hold of it yourself and see if you feel anything.”
Salty let go of the rope. Denny wrapped her fingers around it and waited for several minutes. Every now and then, she felt a tiny shiver, but she thought that might have been caused by the wind. As worry welled up inside her, she looked over at Salty and said, “I don’t think he has hold of it anymore.”
“But he’s gotta. It didn’t go slack.”
“Maybe he tied the other end to something,” Denny suggested.
“Why in blazes would he do that?”
“So he could keep searching for the hotel without you knowing that he’d let go.”
The more Denny thought about it, the more that sounded to her exactly like something Smoke might do. He had complete confidence in his ability to get himself out of whatever predicament he might get into . . . and so far in his life, that confidence had been completely justified.
“Smoke ain’t that loco,” Salty insisted. But even he didn’t sound convinced.
“I’m going out there to have a look.”
“Blast it, no!” Salty said. “I ain’t gonna have two Jensens disappearin’ while I’m supposed to be in charge.”
“I’m not going to disappear,” Denny said. “I’ll just go out to the end of the lifeline and then back. I promise.”
Salty grunted as if he would believe that when he saw it, but he seemed to understand the futility of arguing with Denny once she had her mind made up. That was one quality she shared with her father.
“All right,” the jehu said reluctantly. “But you be mighty careful out there.”
“There’s one thing I want to do before I leave.”
Denny went to the rear of the coach and rummaged in the snow-covered bags stored there. She found a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt among the range clothes she had brought along, as well as her Stetson and a pair of high-topped boots. She kept the coach between her and Salty as she changed clothes.
That was one of the most bone-chilling experiences she’d ever had, but the range garb was much more suited to trudging through snow than the traveling outfit she’d had on.
She tromped back around the coach to where Salty was standing. He nodded in approval when he saw how she was dressed.
“Got your gun?” he asked.
She moved the thick coat aside so he could see the holstered .38 on her hip. She had put that on, too, as well as changed clothes.
“If I run into any trouble, I’ll be ready.”
“Yeah, but there could be anything out there in that blizzard. You hang on tight to that rope and don’t LET LOOSE.”
Denny nodded, crammed her hat down tighter on her head, and pulled up the chin strap. She didn’t want the wind blowing it off. If that happened, she would never find it again.
She grasped the rope in her left hand and started out. By now, Louis was probably wondering why she hadn’t crawled back into the lean-to, but she hadn’t wanted to tell him what she was doing because she knew he would argue about it. If he got curious enough to stick his head out, Salty could tell him what was going on.
Denny ducked her head against the wind as she plodded forward. The deep snow made every step an effort. She couldn’t help but move the rope as she clung to it and trudged along, but there was no response from the other end, which made her more convinced than ever that Smoke no longer had hold of it.
When Denny reached the end of the rope section and slid her hand onto the first piece of harness, she stopped to listen. Nothing but the wind blowing. She lifted her voice and called, “Pa! Pa!” There was no response to that, either.
Well, that wasn’t surprising, she told herself. With that howling wind, nobody could hear anything for more than a few yards. She and Salty had had to talk pretty loudly when they were standing only a few feet from each other.
Denny resumed the frozen trek and didn’t stop until she came to a large rock jutting up from the ground. It was a couple of feet in diameter, and the lifeline was wrapped around it and tied in a hard knot.
When Denny saw that, she felt a hollow in the pit of her stomach that was even colder than the air whipping the snow through the air around her. Smoke wasn’t here at the end of the lifeline, where he should have been. She looked desperately for tracks in the snow, but in this blizzard, even a few minutes would be enough to obliterate any sign of where someone had gone.
Denny’s heart pounded hard as she called again, “Pa! Smoke! Where are you? Can you hear me?”
The wind mocked her.
Terrible indecision filled Denny as she stood there. She wanted to let go of the lifeline and search for her father, but she knew how hopeless that idea was. Stumbling over him would be sheer luck . . . and stumbling was the right word, Denny thought bleakly, because she knew there was a good chance he was lying out there somewhere, covered up with snow that would keep his body preserved until the spring thaw.
No! That was exactly the sort of thinking she had been raised to avoid. Smoke Jensen was a practical man, but he wasn’t the sort who ever gave up, no matter what the odds against him. He was alive, Denny told herself. He was alive, and he was out there trying to get help for all of them, to save them from the danger into which Frank Colbert had led them.
And he was counting on her to keep the others safe, she recalled, so if she did anything else, no matter how strong the impulse was, she would be letting him down.
She went around the rock so she could continue holding the lifeline with her left hand and started back toward the stagecoach.
By the time she got there, she was chilled to the bone and ready to warm herself beside the fire. As she came in sight of the stagecoach, Salty came out to meet her, holding on to the rope himself.
“You didn’t find him, did you?” the old-timer asked.
“No. He had tied the last section of harness around a rock.”
“Damn it!” Salty burst out, then said, “Pardon my French, Miss Denny—”
“Don’t worry about it, Salty. I promise you, what I was thinking when I saw that was worse.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Salty asked, then answered his own question by continuing, “He wasn’t willin’ to admit defeat, was he?”
“You’ve known my father for longer than I have, and honestly, I was never around him that much when I was growing up. What do you think?”
“I reckon that’s exactly what Smoke Jensen’d do. He knew it was dangerous, but he figured he could keep looking for a while and still find his way back.”
Denny nodded. “That’s what I think, too. The question is, what do we do now?”
Salty didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he said, “We can’t go lookin’ for him in this blizzard. He wouldn’t want any of us to risk that.”
“We should send Colbert to look for him,” Denny said with a bitter edge in her voice. “It would serve him right.”
“Smoke wouldn’t even want that. He’d put a bullet in a fella quicker’n he’d send him out to freeze to death in a blizzard.”
Denny sighed, which made a cloud of condensed breath appear in front of her for a second before the wind carried it away, then said, “You’re right about that.”
“We’ll stay here and keep warm as best we can,” Salty said. “And keep hopin’ that Smoke finds his way back here and brings some help.”
Denny nodded. “I don’t like the idea of telling Louis that Pa has disappeared, but I reckon it’s got to be done.”
* * *
Louis was understandably upset.
“Why would Father have done such a thing?” he demanded. “He was supposed to go out there looking for help and then come back if he didn’t find any.”
“He didn’t find any,” Denny said, “and he didn’t want to give up. You know how he is.”
“Yes. Stubborn as a mule.”
Denny held out her hands toward the small fire burning under the lean-to and flexed her fingers. They had been almost numb when she got back, but the warmth and the movement restored feeling to them. She looked across the fire at her brother and said, “Pa is determined. He doesn’t know what it’s like to give up.” She paused, then added, “And he’s never been wrong yet, has he?”
Louis shrugged. “His continued survival speaks volumes, that’s true. But you can’t gun down a blizzard, no matter how fast on the draw you are.”
“We’re doomed.” The words came from Jerome Kellerman, who stared morosely into the small, leaping flames. “We’ll never get out of here alive.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Denny snapped at him. “When the blizzard stops, we’ll find that hotel, and then everything will be fine.”
Melanie said, “Do you really think so, Denny?” Her arm was tight around Brad’s shoulders, holding him against her so he would be warmer.
Over the past couple of days, Melanie had become Denny’s friend. She tended to be too protective where Brad was concerned, and she went to pieces easily, but Denny liked her anyway and knew she was the way she was because she’d had to survive plenty of hardships and make sure her son survived them, too. Denny didn’t like lying to her.
But despite that, she said, “I’m absolutely sure of it. I don’t blame anybody for being worried or upset, but you have to have faith.”
Peter Stansfield said, “You’ll have to pardon me, Miss Jensen, but I’m a reporter. That means I’m naturally cynical. I think you know our odds of survival are just about nonexistent, but you don’t want to say that. Am I right?”
“If you were, I wouldn’t admit it, would I? Just keep your mouth shut, save your energy, and try to stay warm.” Denny looked around at the circle of anxious faces. “That last part is good advice for all of us.”
She tried not to glare at Frank Colbert, but judging by the smirk on his face, he knew she was blaming him for what had happened and didn’t give a damn. Alma Lewiston huddled against the outlaw’s side as they tried to share what little body heat they had left.
Salty hunkered next to the fire and fed a small branch into the flames. “I hate to say it, Miss Denny, but we’re gonna have to have some more firewood pretty soon.”
Denny grimaced. She had just gotten warm . . . well, a little less cold, anyway . . . and now she would have to go back out and search for firewood. But she could tell that the others were all looking to her for leadership with Smoke gone, and with that came responsibility.
The worst part was, she had looked around outside while she was gathering the first pile of broken branches, and she didn’t think there were many more to be found nearby. When the wagon road and then the railroad had come through Donner Pass, most of the trees had been cleared away.
“I’ll go see what I can find,” she said.
Brad sat up right away and said, “I’ll come with you and help.”
Melanie’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “No! I mean . . .” She looked embarrassed. “I mean, Denny will have enough to do without keeping up with you, too, Brad.”
“I can take care of myself,” the boy insisted. “Nobody has to keep up with me.”
Louis said, “You know that’s not how it works. Denny, I can help you.”
“There’s no need for anybody to help me,” she said sharply. “All of you just stay in here and keep as warm as you can. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Don’t go out of sight o’ the coach,” Salty warned.
“I don’t intend to.”
Denny crawled out of the lean-to, stood up, and brushed off the snow she had gotten on her. She looked around. No trees were in sight, but she thought she remembered where she had found most of the branches earlier. She headed for that spot and began rooting around in the snow.
She found half a dozen small branches and knocked the snow off of them. That was all she came up with. Those would help for a while but wouldn’t last the night, when the temperature would drop even more . . . to killing levels of cold.
She took the branches back to the shelter and handed them in to Salty. “I’m going to look around some more,” she told the old-timer through chattering teeth.
“Dadgum it, you come on back in here and warm up,” Salty said. “We can hunt more firewood later.”
Denny wanted to argue but was too cold to do so. Also, she was having to fight off an insistent feeling of despair. She knew Smoke wouldn’t want her to ever give up hope, but sometimes maintaining it took a real effort.
As she settled down at the fire, sitting cross-legged on the ground between Brad and Salty, she said, “We may have to find other things to burn. The coach is blocking the wind, so I don’t want to destroy it, but there might be parts of it we could break off and burn. We might find some things in our bags that would work as fuel, too.” She gestured toward the case in Kellerman’s lap. “All those business papers you’re carrying around would make good tinder, Mr. Kellerman.”
The man’s eyes widened as he held the case to his chest. “These . . . these papers are irreplaceable, young lady. You can’t burn them!”
“If it comes down to a choice between doing that and freezing to death, we dang sure will,” Denny replied in a firm voice. Salty felt like he had been left in charge, but Denny knew that Smoke was actually counting on her to get them all through this ordeal safely. If that meant giving orders and imposing her will on the others, she was prepared to do it.
Kellerman just glared at her and clutched the case. Denny noticed how intently Frank Colbert was looking at the banker. Colbert was suspicious, and that made Denny suspicious.
Maybe what Kellerman had in the case that he considered so precious wasn’t just a bunch of bank documents. Maybe it was something more valuable.
Although trapped out here in the middle of nowhere, in a blizzard, nothing had much value unless it could be burned for warmth to keep them alive.
Denny hoped help would arrive in time, and they wouldn’t need to open Kellerman’s case and use whatever was inside for fuel.
But if that time came, she would be mighty glad that she had a Colt on her hip and knew how to use it.