Silas's tunnel saved them nearly a mile.
It did not make the journey easy.
The passage was so narrow in places that Jo had to turn sideways. Rotten supports groaned under the weight of snow above. Meltwater had frozen into jagged ridges across the floor.
Gideon led with a lantern.
Clayton followed.
Jo came behind.
Twenty minutes into the tunnel, they reached the fork Silas had warned them about.
“Left,” Gideon said.
Clayton stared down the right branch.
“What’s that way?”
“Old mine workings.”
“Could be supplies.”
“Could be a grave.”
Clayton nodded.
For once he did not argue.
They continued.
At the eastern opening, Gideon shoved against a wooden hatch.
It did not move.
Snow buried the other side.
“Back up.”
He rammed it with his shoulder.
Nothing.
Jo moved beside him.
“Together.”
Clayton raised an eyebrow.
Gideon almost smiled.
“All right.”
The three hit the hatch.
Once.
Twice.
On the third blow, it burst outward.
Snow poured into the tunnel.
They climbed into a silent landscape.
The world had been remade.
Trees looked like hunched giants beneath layers of ice.
The creek had vanished beneath white drifts.
No trail remained.
Jo checked the sky.
“How long since the wind stopped?”
“Maybe forty minutes,” Gideon said.
“Then we're already spending borrowed time.”
They tied themselves together.
Gideon first.
Clayton middle.
Jo last.
Silas had described a line of dead cottonwoods that led toward the old shack.
Most were barely visible.
Gideon found the first.
Then another.
After an hour, the snow became waist deep.
Clayton began struggling.
“Slow down.”
Jo watched his face.
Pale.
His breaths were too fast.
“You all right?”
“Fine.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“I said I'm fine.”
He took three more steps and collapsed.
Gideon turned.
“Clayton!”
They pulled him upright.
His boot had torn.
Snow packed inside.
Jo cursed.
“What?”
“His foot is wet.”
Clayton tried to stand.
“I can walk.”
“You can lose toes too.”
She dragged him behind the lee side of a fallen cottonwood.
Gideon crouched.
“We don't have time.”
“We'll have less if we carry him back.”
Jo removed Clayton's boot.
His sock was soaked.
She pulled a dry wool strip from inside her coat.
Clayton stared.
“You carry spare socks inside your dress?”
“I carry useful things.”
She dried his foot as quickly as possible and wrapped it.
Then she cut a piece from a flour sack she had brought and bound the boot.
Clayton looked ashamed.
“You don't have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“After how I treated you?”
Jo tightened the knot.
“This isn't about whether I like you.”
His face tightened.
“Maybe it'd be easier if you hated me.”
Jo looked at him.
“Would it?”
He had no answer.
They continued.
The line shack appeared through the trees at the end of the second hour.
Its roof sagged but remained intact.
The door was frozen shut.
Gideon kicked it open.
Inside smelled of dust, mouse droppings, and cold stone.
A stove stood in one corner.
Bunks lined the wall.
Jo searched shelves.
Nothing.
Clayton found a small crate.
“Empty.”
Gideon opened cupboards.
“Nothing here.”
Jo's heart sank.
Silas had said medical chest.
She inspected the floor.
A narrow bunk stood against the north wall.
Its legs had scratch marks beneath them.
“Move this.”
Gideon helped.
Underneath was a trapdoor.
Clayton gave a breathless laugh.
“That old miner wasn't lying.”
They opened it.
A shallow cellar.
Inside stood three crates.
One held cartridges.
One held canned food.
The third had a red cross painted on its lid.
Jo nearly cried.
Inside she found bandages, carbolic solution, quinine, laudanum, clean needles, surgical thread, and several bottles whose labels had partly peeled away.
She took everything she trusted.
Gideon loaded food.
Clayton found two heavy buffalo robes.
Then Gideon stopped.
“Listen.”
Jo heard nothing.
That was the problem.
Then a distant hiss moved through the pines.
Wind.
“Time.”
They strapped the crates to a crude sled made from a bunk board.
Outside, clouds had darkened.
The first gust lifted loose snow.
Gideon looked west.
“We won't make the dugout before it hits.”
“We will.”
“Josephine.”
“We have Amos's medicine.”
“We're not helping Amos if we're buried out here.”
Clayton looked toward the shack.
“We wait here?”
Jo shook her head.
“If the full storm comes back, we could be separated for days. Amos doesn't have days.”
They started.
The return trip became a race.
Within thirty minutes, the wind was strong enough to erase their tracks.
Snow streaked sideways.
Clayton pulled the sled.
Gideon broke trail.
Jo navigated using cottonwoods.
At the second tree line, they heard the wolves again.
Closer.
Clayton gripped his rifle.
“Think they're following us?”
“They're hungry,” Gideon said.
“So are we.”
“Difference is we have guns.”
Jo looked at him.
“Don't fire unless they're on us. Sound can start slides along the creek bank.”
Clayton stared.
“How do you know all this?”
“My husband trapped in Colorado.”
“Samuel?”
She glanced at him.
“How'd you know his name?”
“I heard you talking to Cross.”
Jo said nothing.
The wind increased.
An hour from the tunnel, the sled snagged against a buried branch.
Clayton yanked it.
The rope snapped.
The medical crate slid downhill.
“No!”
Jo lunged.
The crate vanished into a drift.
She went after it.
Gideon grabbed her rope.
“Jo!”
“It has the medicine!”
“So do you if you stay alive!”
She tore loose.
The crate had lodged ten yards below.
Jo crawled toward it.
Snow gave way beneath her.
Suddenly she dropped waist deep into a hidden creek channel.
“Josephine!”
Gideon and Clayton pulled the rope.
Jo fought for footing.
Ice broke beneath one boot.
Water flooded inside.
She gasped.
Cold like knives shot up her leg.
She grabbed the crate.
“Pull!”
They hauled her out.
Gideon dragged her against him.
“What were you thinking?”
“That Amos needs this.”
“You nearly disappeared!”
“But I didn't.”
His face was inches from hers.
Snow coated his beard.
Fear burned in his eyes.
Not anger.
Fear.
“Don't do that to me.”
Jo went still.
Clayton looked away.
The moment lasted only a second.
Then Jo stood.
“We move.”
Her right boot was wet.
She knew what that meant.
They reached the tunnel with less than an hour before the storm returned at full strength.
Inside, Gideon blocked her path.
“Boot.”
“Later.”
“Now.”
She almost argued.
Then she saw his expression.
Jo sat.
Gideon removed her boot and wrapped her foot with one of the buffalo robes.
Clayton took the medical crate.
“I'll carry it.”
Jo looked at him.
He shifted awkwardly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then quit staring.”
For the first time since joining the Lazy K, Jo laughed with Clayton Barnes instead of at him.
The sound surprised all three.
They reached the dugout as darkness settled.
Levi opened the door.
“Thank God.”
Amos was barely conscious.
Jo went straight to him.
The wound smelled wrong.
She cleaned it with carbolic solution diluted in boiled water.
She drained the infected area.
Amos screamed until his voice failed.
Jo worked for nearly an hour.
When she finished, she gave him a measured dose of quinine for his fever and a little laudanum for pain.
Then she sat beside him.
And waited.
By morning, his fever had dropped.
Not much.
But enough.
The men noticed.
So did Clayton.
He stood near the stove, turning his hat in his hands.
“Jo.”
She looked up.
He struggled.
“About the things I said.”
The room became very quiet.
He glanced at the others, embarrassed.
Then back at her.
“I was cruel because it made men laugh.”
Jo waited.
“I kept thinking if everybody was laughing at someone else, they weren't looking at me.”
There it was.
The truth was usually smaller than the damage it caused.
“Why were you worried they'd look at you?”
Clayton stared at the floor.
“My pa used to say I was worthless.”
Nobody spoke.
“He'd say it in front of the hired hands. Brothers. Anybody.”
Clayton swallowed.
“I suppose I learned the easiest way to keep from being somebody's joke was to choose somebody else first.”
Jo leaned back.
“You chose me.”
“Yes.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Yes.”
“You hurt me.”
His head lifted.
He had probably expected her to say it had never mattered.
That she was too strong.
Too tough.
Too indifferent.
But strength did not mean pain disappeared.
“I know,” he said.
“No. You know now.”
He nodded slowly.
“I'm sorry.”
Jo studied him.
“Then be different.”
“That's it?”
“Apologies are cheap. Change costs something.”
Clayton looked toward Amos.
Then toward the ration bundles.
“I can do that.”
“We'll see.”
And they did.
For the next two days, Clayton worked without being asked.
He reinforced the mine supports.
Gave up half his coffee ration to Tommy when the younger man began coughing.
Took the coldest watch.
Nobody praised him.
Jo suspected that was good for him.
On the eighth day, the storm weakened.
Silas crawled from his blankets and checked the sky through the door.
“It's breaking.”
The men crowded behind him.
Clouds were still thick.
But for the first time, pale light appeared in the west.
The snow stopped.
Silence returned.
Not the false silence before another assault.
Real silence.
Gideon stepped outside.
He stared toward Devil's Basin.
Then looked at Jo.
“We need meat.”
She nodded.
“And the cattle?”
“If enough survived, Amos still has an outfit.”
From his blanket, Amos rasped, “Jo.”
She knelt.
His face was gaunt but clear-eyed.
“You're in charge.”
“Until you can stand.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
She frowned.
Amos looked around the room.
“I spent my whole life thinking leadership meant being the man out front.”
He coughed.
“Turns out it means knowing when somebody else knows better.”
His gaze settled on Jo.
“Get my boys home.”
Jo felt something tighten in her throat.
Then she stood.
“All right.”
She faced the cowboys.
“We go to Devil's Basin at first light.”
Clayton grinned faintly.
“What if the cows don't want to come?”
Jo picked up her coat.
“Then we'll explain who's in charge.”
Several men laughed.
The sound filled the dugout.
But outside, high on the ridge above them, a figure watched through a field glass.
He wore a black coat.
A rifle rested across his saddle.
Behind him waited four armed riders.
The stranger lowered the glass.
“That's Tucker's outfit.”
One rider asked, “Alive?”
“Enough of them.”
“And the cattle?”
The man smiled.
“If they're in Devil's Basin, they're trapped.”
He turned his horse.
“Which means by tomorrow they'll belong to us.”