Page 3 of Keeper of Talon Mountain
Present Day
The wind tears through the pines with a sound like something dying.
I pull my hood tighter and squint through the sideways snow, each step deliberate as I follow the barely visible trail toward Grotto Falls. I shouldn't be out here—any sensible person would be inside by the fire, waiting for the storm to pass. But the walls of the lodge felt like they were closing in tonight, and I needed to move, to feel like I was doing something instead of just waiting for whatever the mountain decided to throw at us. The kind of days where a broken heating system or low fuel supplies can turn dangerous fast.
My breath forms crystals on my scarf as I trudge through knee-deep drifts, the cold so sharp it makes my teeth ache. The Northern Lights Lodge sits behind me somewhere in the white void, its warm lights already swallowed by distance and weather. I've built that sanctuary piece by piece over three years, turning my grandmother's old hunting cabin into something that can weather Alaska's worst. New insulation, backup generators, reinforced windows that can take the kind of wind that bends trees horizontally. Tonight will test every improvement I've made.
The compass pendant at my throat grows cold against my skin through my layers—a talisman from my grandmother, worn smooth by decades of handling. I've walked this trail in every season, in every kind of weather, and I know it well enough to navigate even in a blizzard. My boots find purchase on ice-slicked rocks, muscle memory guiding me when visibility drops to mere feet. It's not logical, what I'm doing—some would even call it reckless—but I need to move, to feel like I have some control over something.
The storm has come in faster than predicted. What the meteorologist called "moderate snow with gusty winds" is turning into something that will strand anyone caught unprepared. I've learned not to trust forecasts up here—the mountain makes its own weather.
My headlamp carves a narrow tunnel through the darkness, snowflakes dancing like moths in the beam. The trail markers I've installed are already buried, but I can feel the slight depression under my feet that marks the path. I'm heading toward Grotto Falls, drawn by some restless need to check on the area before the storm gets worse—a habit born of too many years of needing to know my surroundings.
A dark shape materializes ahead—something that doesn't belong.
I stop, heart hammering against my ribs. The shape is too large, too still. As I creep closer, details emerge through the swirling snow: a man's body, face-down in a drift that's already claiming him.
I should turn around. Walk away. Call Sheriff MacAllister when I get back to the lodge and let trained people handle whatever this is. Every survival instinct I've honed during my escape from Derek three years ago screams warnings about strangers, about danger wearing a human face. I've learned the hard way that men who appear helpless can be the most dangerous of all.
But even as my mind catalogs the risks, my feet carry me forward. I've spent too many nights wondering if someone would have helped me if they'd found me broken and bleeding in that parking lot outside Phoenix. If someone with more courage than caution had been willing to take a chance.
I drop to my knees beside him.
No blood in the snow around his head, but his dark hair is matted with ice crystals. I tug off one glove with my teeth and press my fingers against his neck, searching for a pulse. There—thready but present, the rhythm uneven but determined. His skin feels like marble left out in winter, cold enough to burn.
"Hey." I shake his shoulder, noting the military-grade winter gear even as relief floods through me. The jacket is quality—the kind that costs serious money and is built for serious conditions. "Can you hear me?"
Nothing. But when I manage to roll him partially onto his side, dog tags spill from beneath his jacket, the chain tangled with something else—a small leather pouch that looks hand-made. The metal is so cold it sticks to my fingertips as I angle the tags toward my headlamp.
Gabriel Andrews. Blood type O-negative. Some kind of service number that means nothing to me, and what looks like a date from six years ago. The rest is too worn to read clearly, the metal scratched and dented like it's seen hard use.
Gabriel. Gabe.
The name feels familiar in a way that makes no sense, like something half-remembered from a dream or a song I heard years ago. I study his face in the harsh LED light—strong jaw darkened with several days of stubble, skin pale with cold but not yet the gray-blue of severe hypothermia. High cheekbones and dark brows that give his unconscious face an almost aristocratic cast. There's something about the set of his features, even relaxed in unconsciousness, that suggests discipline. Control.
I have maybe twenty minutes to get him somewhere warm before that changes.
But first, I need to understand what I'm dealing with. My fingers find the pulse point on his throat—stronger there, more regular. Good. I run my hands down his arms and legs, checking for obvious breaks or injuries through the thick clothing. His breathing is shallow but steady, and when I lift his eyelids, his pupils contract properly in the light.
The leather pouch that fell with his dog tags is simple, well-worn. Against my better judgment, I open it. Inside: a small photograph of a woman with gentle eyes and graying hair, and what looks like a pressed flower wrapped in tissue paper. The kind of keepsakes that speak of someone worth remembering.
The wind gusts harder, driving snow horizontally across my vision. Whatever Gabriel Andrews' story is, it will have to wait. The storm is getting worse by the minute.
Grotto Falls is another quarter-mile through the storm. The lodge is a half-mile back through terrain that's nearly swallowed my tracks already, the trail disappearing under fresh snow even as I watch. Neither is a good option with an unconscious man who probably outweighs me by seventy pounds.
But leaving him means watching him die, and I've built the last three years of my life around the principle that sanctuary means something. That safe places exist because someone chooses to create them, to defend them, to extend them to others who need shelter from the storm.
I unclip the emergency sled from my pack—designed for hauling supplies, but it will have to do. The lightweight aluminum frame and waterproof tarp have saved me more than once when I've needed to transport equipment too heavy to carry. Getting Gabe onto it requires physics more than strength: rolling him onto the tarp, using my body weight as leverage, positioning his limbs so the sled will pull evenly. His body is deadweight, which makes everything harder, but also means his muscles are relaxed instead of fighting me.
I tuck the dog tags and leather pouch into my jacket pocket, then wrap the tarp around him as best I can. The wind tries to tear everything from my hands as I work, and by the time I have him secured, my face is numb and my fingers cramp with cold despite my gloves.
The first few yards are the worst, my body protesting the sudden strain as I find my rhythm. The makeshift harness pulls across my shoulders and chest, but even so, my back muscles begin screaming almost immediately. I fall twice in the first hundred yards, the sled's weight pulling me off balance when my boots hit unexpected ice, but I manage to keep Gabe's head protected each time.
My headlamp beam bounces wildly as I struggle through the drifts, and I have to stop every few minutes to clear snow from my goggles. The trail that was barely visible on the way out is completely gone now, erased by wind and fresh snowfall. I navigate by instinct and stubbornness, following the slight downward slope that will eventually lead me back toward town.
Time becomes elastic, measured in the burn of my muscles and the rasp of my breathing. At some point, I start talking to Gabe even though he can't hear me, a steady stream of encouragement and promise. "Almost there. Few more minutes. Got a good fire waiting, and soup. You're going to be fine."
My grandmother's voice echoes in my memory:When the mountain tests you, you don't give up. You put one foot in front of the other until you're home.
