The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(74)

“Come on, girl,” I whispered. “Take me to Laurel.”

I mounted up.

“I’ll be back,” I called to Simon.

“I’ll be here,” he said.


*

The climb began in earnest as Tse—the reins slack, no guidance from me—picked her own path up the Mountain. There were moments when, just as Simon had said, I could barely see my hand in front of my face. But Tse seemed to move as if she were on a mission.

As the way grew steeper, the trees began to thin out. They were mostly pine by then, and aspens with their slim white trunks and quavering yellow leaves. A half hour or more we climbed, till I was standing almost steadily in the stirrups and Tse was grunting from the effort. Soon her hooves began to slide out from under her.

I dismounted and led her to a young aspen, knotting the reins about its banded, chalky trunk. I patted her neck.

“I’ll take it from here, old girl,” I said.

Before I left, I took the signal pistol from the saddlebag and slipped it into my pocket. I had no idea where I was headed, only that Tse had tried to get me to some fixed point on the Mountain. She hadn’t tacked back and forth to make the way easier. She hadn’t turned and headed for the warm barn. She’d plowed on with what looked like purpose. And so would I.

The snowpack didn’t start till much higher on the peak, but the air already felt glacial. I was panting from the climb, and my lungs felt chilled, too. The effect wasn’t debilitating, but oddly bracing. On the ground, thin patches of snow glistened almost preternaturally bright in the moonlight.

What had felt before, from far below in the valley, like the magnetic tug of the Mountain had become at this altitude not just a pull, but also a push. As if now there were also a wind at my back, like an unseen hand.

But this time, I wasn’t resisting. Not a whit. Not if it might get me closer to Laurel.

Suddenly I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Something small and nimble darting through the trees. I turned toward the movement, and it was gone.

I held my breath and listened, and heard nothing but the rasp of aspen leaves.

Still, I’d seen something. I was sure of it.

I changed direction, heading toward the movement. It hadn’t looked big enough to be a seven-year-old child, but then again, I hadn’t caught a good, full-on look. And if it was a wild nocturnal creature, I expected to either flush it out or make it scurry off.

“Laurel?” I called tentatively, scanning the woods as I moved.

No response.

“Laurel!” I shouted, then paused, listening harder.

Snap.

I swiveled at the sound, and there it was again to my right, vanishing behind a giant ponderosa pine—a flash of what looked like fur. Four legs. A tail. It might have been a large raccoon, but for what looked like patches of white on its body. White fur, maybe. Or snow crusted to the animal’s hide.

Either way, I could feel the hair bristle on the back of my neck.

As I stepped toward the pine, I stripped off my gloves and felt for the signal pistol in my pocket. I drew it out and switched off the safety.

The pine trunk was so big it would have taken two of me to wrap my arms around it. Its scaly bark was the color of oxblood in the dark and had that familiar faint scent of vanilla.

I rounded it carefully, eyes pitched toward the ground.

But there was nothing on the other side of the tree trunk. Nothing but a thin, crusty patch of snow. I knelt and looked closer. The snow was unbroken. No paw prints.

I glanced around. I had the uncanny sensation I was being led somewhere. Lured.

A copse of aspen trees, white and reedy as ghosts in the moonlight, lay up ahead, snow gleaming at their deep roots.

And there it was again among the trunks. A flash. White and dark together, in a quick, sylphlike movement.

Then it was gone.

My heart began to race, and it had nothing to do with the altitude or the thin air or the cold. Even under my wool sweater and my warm coat, the skin on my forearms was contracting painfully. My palms were so slippery with sweat, I had to rub my gun hand against my jeans to get a dry grip.

I knew—somehow I knew—there was something in those trees that I didn’t want to see.

Just as I knew I had no choice but to see it.

This time the Mountain was no help. It neither pulled nor propelled me. It waited for me to choose to walk the thirty feet, then twenty, then ten to the stand of aspens, which clumped together almost protectively in a rough circle.