Instinct pulled at him, drawing him closer to the edge of the canyon, urging him to investigate. He rarely ignored his instinct, following his gut no matter how foolhardy it seemed. His army buddies called it uncanny, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion in Afghanistan.
No matter how cold and dangerous the weather got, if he didn’t go down and investigate, curiosity and worry would eat away at him. He might not get the opportunity to return to investigate for days, maybe months, depending on the depth of the snow and how long the ground remained frozen.
With gloved fingers, Maddox tugged the zipper on his parka up higher, arranging the fur-lined collar around his face to block out the stinging snow now blowing in sideways.
He nudged Bear toward the edge of the plateau.
As they neared the dropoff, Bear danced backward, rearing and turning.
Maddox smoothed a hand along Bear’s neck, speaking to him in a soothing tone, soft and steady over the roar of the prairie wind. “Easy, Mato cikala.” Little Bear.
Bear reared up and whinnied, his frightened call whipped away in the increasing wind. Then he dropped to all four hooves and let Maddox guide him down the steep slope into the valley below. With the wind and snow limiting his vision, Maddox eased the horse past boulders and rocky outcroppings devoid of vegetation until the ground leveled out on the narrow valley floor. He urged the horse into a canter, eager to check out the mysterious red object and get the heck back to the ranch and the warm fire sure to be blazing in the stone fireplace.
His gaze fixed on the lump on the ground, Maddox pulled Bear to a halt and slipped out of the saddle. His boots landed a foot deep in fresh powder, stirring the white stuff up into the air to swirl around his eyes.
As he neared the snowdrift, the red object took shape. It was the corner of a scarf.
His heart skipped a couple beats and then slammed into action, pumping blood and adrenalin through his veins, warming his body like nothing else could.
He bent to brush away the snow from the lump on the ground, his fingers coming into contact with denim and a parka. His hands worked faster, a wash of unbidden panic threatening his ability to breathe. The more snow he brushed away, the more he realized that what had created the snowdrift was, in fact, a woman, wrapped in a fur-lined parka, denim jeans and snow boots. Her face, protected somewhat from the wind had a light dusting of snowflakes across deathly pale cheeks, sooty brows and lashes.
Maddox grabbed his glove between his teeth and pulled it off, digging beneath the parka’s collar to find the woman’s neck. He prayed to the Great Spirit for a pulse.
An image of Susan lying in his arms, hunkered beneath a flimsy tarp, while gale-force winds pounded the life out of the Badlands, flashed through his mind. This woman couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let her die. Not again. Not like Susan.
With wind lashing at his back and the snow growing so thick he could barely see, he didn’t feel a pulse. He moved his fingers along her neck and bent his cheek to her nose. At last, a faint pulse brushed against his fingertips and a shallow breath warmed his cheek.
Relief overwhelmed him, bringing moisture to his stinging eyes. He blinked several times as he tightened the parka’s hood around the woman’s face and lifted her into his arms.
Too late to make it back to the ranch, he had to find a place to hole up until the storm passed. Being out in the open during a blizzard was a recipe for certain death. As he carried the woman toward his horse, he made a mental list of what he’d packed in his saddlebag.
This far into the winter season, he’d come prepared for the worst. Sleeping bag, tarp, two days of rations and a canteen. Trying to get the woman back to the ranch wasn’t an option. Just getting out of the canyon would take well over an hour. Two people on one horse climbing the steep slopes was risky enough in clear weather. He couldn’t expose the unconscious woman to the freezing wind. He had to get her warmed up soon or she’d die of exposure.
Maddox remembered playing along this riverbank one summer with his father and brothers. They swam in the icy water and explored the rock formations along the banks. If his memory served him well, there was a cave along the east bank in the river bend. He remembered because of the drawings of buffalo painted along the walls. He carried the woman along the river’s edge, clucking his tongue for Bear to follow.
The stallion didn’t look too pleased, tossing his head toward home as if to say he was ready to go back now.
The wind pushed Maddox from behind and for the most part he shielded the woman with his body. He crossed the river at a shallow spot, careful to step on the rocks and not into the frigid water. He couldn’t get wet, couldn’t afford to succumb to the cold.
The blizzard increased in intensity until he trudged through a foot and a half of snow in near-whiteout conditions. Maddox stuck close to the rocky bluffs rising upward to the east, afraid if he stepped too far from the painted cliffs, he’d lose his way. Bear occasionally nudged him from behind, reassuring him that the stallion was still there.
After several minutes stumbling around in the snow, Maddox thought he’d gone too far and might have missed the narrow slit in the wall of the bluff. A lull in the wind settled the snow around him, revealing a dark slash in the otherwise solid rock wall.
The entry gaped just wide enough for him to carry the woman through. Once the ceiling opened up and he could hear his breathing echo off the cavern walls, he inched forward into the darkness until he found the far wall. There he scuffed his boot across the floor to clear any rocks or debris before he laid her down in the cavern.
With little time to spare, he hurried back out into the storm to lead Bear out of the growing fury of the blizzard. As darkness surrounded them, Bear tugged against the reins, at first unwilling to enter the tight confines, his big body bumping against the crevice walls. When the cave opened up inside, the horse stopped struggling.
Running his hand along the horse’s neck and saddle, Maddox focused his attention on survival—both his and the stranger’s. If the woman had a chance of living, she had to be warmed up quickly. Although protected from the blizzard’s fury, the cold would still kill them if he didn’t do something fast. Once he came to the lump behind the saddle, he stripped off his gloves, blowing warm air onto his numb fingers.
Leaving the saddle on the horse for warmth, Maddox worked the leather straps holding the sleeping bag in place. Once free, he laid it at his feet on the cave floor. Next, he loosened the saddlebag straps and pulled it over the horse’s back. Inside the left pouch, he kept a flashlight. His chilled fingers shook as he fumbled to switch it on.
Light filled the small cavern. The walls crowded in on him more so than he remembered from when he was a child. About half the size of the Medora amphitheater, the cave would serve its purpose—to shield them from the biting wind and bitter cold of the storm.
Without wood to build a roaring fire, they would have to rely on the sleeping bag and each other’s body warmth—hers being questionable at the moment.
Maddox set the flashlight on a rock outcropping, untied the strings around the sleeping bag and unzipped the zipper. He placed the open sleeping bag next to the woman. He had to get her out of the bulky winter clothing and boots and inside the sleeping bag.
Time wasn’t on his side. He didn’t know how long the woman had been unconscious or whether she had frostbite. Maddox stripped his coat off and the heavy sweatshirt beneath, wadding it up to form a pillow. Then he tugged his jeans off and the long underwear until he stood naked, regretting his lack of boxer shorts. The frigid air bit his skin, raising gooseflesh everywhere.
He went to work undressing the stranger, removing layer after layer. When he tugged off her jeans, she moaned.