On the Wings of the Blizzard (Blizzard Part I)

It was all quiet when I opened my eyes. I rolled out of bed with a smile. The howling blizzard that had raged for four days had finally passed. Now I could get back to work. When I opened the window to the cabin, I saw that sunrise was a few minutes yet, her red sunbeams cutting through the fleeing body of the storm.

All around the world was white. The boughs of the evergreens were laden with snow nearly to their breaking point, with lagged scars on several trees where the boughs had already given up the fight. My eyes tracked to one great pine in particular. The snow was just below the blue ring I’d painted on it. That meant the snow was all of five feet deep.

I laughed to myself. It was well that I had made for the valley cabin when I’d first felt the bite in the air. I’d only just beat the storm by a few hours.

From across the clearing I heard a whinny. Frost must also be awake and ready to get out. I quickly put on my winter clothes and trekked over to the barn. I fed Frost and then took some wood from the pile back into the cabin. The embers of last night’s fire caught quickly, and after a quick trip to the underground storeroom, I had a meal of bacon and potatoes cooking on the stove.

This would be the routine for the coming months, especially if the storms were anything like last year. I’d been caught up high during the first storm and had lived out of the mountain cabin in a miserable state. On the one hand, the thirty feet of snow had insulated the cabin quite nicely once I’d made a hole for the chimney, and I was pleased to learn that I had built the cabin quite strong indeed. On the other hand, getting anything had been a challenge I’d rather not try again.

“This would be the fourth winter, wouldn’t it?” I asked myself, making sure that I could in fact still talk clearly. I’d found after a winter of having no one to speak to that I tended to develop quite the enunciation issue once the snows cleared and the mountain men descended back to civilization.

It was indeed the fourth winter I’d settled in for since I’d arrived in the Ruby Mountains, and the fifth since my arrival in this world. I had no understanding of what forces conspired to send me here nor how to get back, and while most everyone did speak my language in one accent or another, the maps were not of Earth, nor was the history. It was a riddle I’d given up on when I’d come west, though I still thought of home often enough. I’d come over towards the tail end of 2020, but what had happened to the world since then?

I laughed to myself again as I took the sizzling meal off the stove. Home was a road frozen in time, and I had no idea of where the road started.

I prayed over my food, then planned my day as I ate. It would be wise to see if the lake had frozen thick in the storm or not, as ice fishing would supplement my stores. Thin ice would mean I’d likely wait for the next storm to be confident of not slipping through. It’d also be good to check on the condition of the passes, though if there were five feet here then Walker Pass was surely closed up.

“Maybe I should check on Ol’ Walk.” I vocalized. “See how the beavers are doing this year.”

James Walker had been my mentor the first year I’d been in the Rubies. Walk, as he let his friends call him, was an expert trapper that specialized in the beaver trade, but could catch anything you were willing to pay him for. One could say that he was the master of the mountain men in these parts, and aside from Red Chapman or Julius Grant you’d likely get no argument. Those two were indeed masters in their own right, and if there was a fight I’d rather have them with me rather than against me, be it with fists or with guns, but they lacked Walk’s natural charisma. Red and Julius were the type of mountain men an Easterner would avoid; Walk was the type they loved to romanticize about in their dime novels.

Walk had taught me the trapper’s trade well enough. Even now I had a stack of furs from the mountain cabin that I’d hoped to get into town before the winter fell, but my coin purse and my storeroom were full enough as it was and the furs would still be good when the snows cleared. In the back of my mind I wished to get to the stock exchange in Newhaven to check on those mining shares I’d purchased, but that was a relatively small position and I’d left instructions with Mr. Abbot about how to handle the shares. He was about as honest a bookkeeper as one could hope for. If nothing else, both Walk and Red swore by him.

With the food devoured, I gathered some jerked meat and filled my canteen to put in my pack, then loaded my rifle and revolver, holstering the latter next to my hunting knife. Back in the barn I saddled Frost, making sure to add two blankets and some firewood in case the mountains decided to storm unexpectedly. Once she was saddled and my rifle was secured in its saddle scabbard, we started off into the snowbound woods.

A couple hours later I was nearing the lake when I spotted tracks to my left. I thought little of them at first and let Frost keep on her course. Then they turned towards us and crossed ahead of us. Only when we were about to go over them did they truly seize my attention. The hair on my neck stood up as I dismounted and studied them. They were human, and by the snow infill they were made last night. That meant only one thing. Someone had been out in that blizzard, and they likely needed help. I quickly got back on Frost and began to follow the footprints.

Three mile further I spotted a second trail merging with the first. This one had no infill, making the snow tiger’s prints clearly. I urged Frost to go as fast as she could in the thick snow. Now it was a race not only against the elements but also against nature’s predators.

As Frost’s hooves crunched through the snow, I pulled out my rifle. Snow tigers were as ornery as any cougar back on Earth, and as vicious as a mad mama grizzly. Even Walk took special care to avoid them if he saw their tracks. If I were to shoot, I wanted to do so at a fair range, and if I didn’t drop it with the first shot and it dipped out of sight, the entire ride home would be a paranoid one.

The problem was that fair range. My effective range was barely four hundred and fifty yards if I were shooting at a buck. Red once said that he hit a snow tiger at two hundred yards with the same model of rifle and the cat still got away. Knowing this, I’d likely need to get within one hundred yards to land a disabling shot. If the rifle misfired, the pistol’s effective range was closer still. Another problem was accuracy. While between the two guns I had thirteen shots loaded, I was not very accustomed to firing from horseback, and Frost had a  tendency to jump at the sound of gunfire. Most likely I would get one good shot, then it’d be a scramble to see if whoever I was following was still alive and then ride off.

Then again, a snow tiger was faster than Frost even in an open field. I’d seen a snow tiger run down an elk once, two harvests back. It was the only time I’d ever seen the beast alive, and I’d viewed it with the mixture of wonder and terror one has when they see an apex predator in its natural environment. If I kept riding to a rescue, this could end up being a situation of kill or be killed.

I saw the stripes from around the dead pine a moment before I heard the roar. It was several hundred yards off, but my veins froze. Walk had told me that the roar meant one of two things; either the cat was protecting his territory, or it was signaling the kill. The snow tiger was turned away from me, and beyond him I saw a huddled form beside a tree.

I fired, making sure I wouldn’t hit the person. Frost jumped as expected and the bullet missed, but the shot got the tiger’s attention. It turned and glared with yellow eyes, and as I aimed and fired a second shot off at it the cat slipped behind the trees, though I swore that I saw the hide at the base of its tail jump. If that bullet had hit, the cat made no acknowledgement of it. I urged Frost to loop towards the person, keeping my eyes trained for the cat. Frost was a good horse, and she went along the most open path she could find. I’d glance forward every so often to see where she was going, then turn back hoping to spot the stripes.

For now, it remained hidden, which terrified me to no end.

Even so, the cat let us reach the young lady we all were tracking. I immediately took her as a city girl, though she was dressed like a cattle hand. Her leather jacket had some tears in it, as did her denims that were wholly unsuited for the snowy weather she’d been in. There was no fade from the sun present on her hat, and her belt buckle was too shiny. At least she had a good pair of riding boots on. They were in fact the only things she had that appeared to be worn in. “You alright, miss.”

“Better than I could be.” she said hoarsely as I dismounted. “If you hadn’t come, I -”

I cut her off. “Don’t thank me yet. Snow tigers aren’t known to give up easily. We need to get away from here.”

She looked at me with wide eyes. I couldn’t decide if confusion or fear was the dominant force behind them. She started to say something, then bit her tongue and dropped her eyes.

“I assume you can ride?” I asked as I pulled my blanket from my pack and put it around her.

She nodded. “I can.”

“Good.” I extended my hand and helped her to her feet. Her movements were pained. She needed a fire and a good meal in her, but we were several hours from that at any rate. “You’ll ride while I walk.”

Her eyes went wide again. “What about the cat?”

“I want both hands free to use my rifle.” I drew my pistol and handed it to her. “Keep your eyes open for it. It won’t do much against the cat’s hide, but the noise will disorient it.”

“And what will you do?” She asked as I helped her onto Frost.

I didn’t answer immediately as I tried to decide whether to reload a new tube of ammo or stick with the remaining five shots. I finally chose to just go, as reloading would give the cat a golden opportunity and if it attacked I likely wouldn’t get to fire more than five times. Next time I’m in Newhaven, I’ll go to the armory and demand someone invent the box magazine. “I’ll lead the horse. We’ll follow my trail back to the cabin and hope that the cat decides on some easier prey.”

After a moment to scan for the cat, I led Frost back towards home. It dawned that I hadn’t asked her name, but that could wait until we were safe.

We reached the convergence point in a half hour, then the place where her tracks first crossed mine an hour and a half later. At this rate we might reach the cabin by nightfall with the ever shortening winter days. There was still no sign of the cat, but I had that sixth sense of being watched. It was paranoid, but not yet giving warnings.

The lady was quiet the entire time, and the times I looked back I was encouraged to see that she did hold the pistol properly, her trigger finger not on the trigger but near enough to fire quickly. Her eyes were alert, if also terrified, and the few times we had heard something or Frost had sounded a warning, she was ready.

I’d just opened my mouth to speak with her when Frost whinnied and reared back. The lady managed to stay in the saddle and trained her gun to my left. I turned to see the yellow eyes leaping from its ambush, no more than twenty yards downwind from us. The snow tiger roared as I raised to fire. The pistol barked once. I saw the shot impact on the snow tiger’s shoulder, then I fired at the cat’s head as quickly as I could. The first shot went low and hit the cat’s chest, the second seared its cheek as the tiger seemed to evade, and the third hit right as it lunged.

I dove to the side, but the cat still caught my shoulder and spun me. Dropping the rifle, I tried to draw my hunting knife as I hit the ground. It wasn’t a clean draw, but I came up with the knife in hand.

The cat lay still on the ground. I slowly reached down to pick up the rifle, and even though it didn’t move I fired another round into it, saving the last in case it came up. A few seconds later I inched closer.

My third bullet had caught it between the eyes. With a sigh, I sheathed my knife and told the lady, “It’s dead.”

“Good.” she replied, though I still heard terror in her voice. She looked at me apologetically. “Sorry I only fired once. I wasn’t expecting a single action.”

“No worries, miss.” I told her, though the remark piqued my interest. I hadn’t yet heard of a dual action gun being produced. “Frost doesn’t like gunfire, so you probably only had a single shot.”

She smiled sheepishly, and I turned back to the snow tiger. It was easily ten feet from nose to the base of its tail, and the tail was at least three feet more. Upon further examination, I decided that I wanted the hide, if for nothing more than a bit of a brag when the snows melted. The lady dismounted to watch me tie up the tiger, and even helped me pick up the tiger to slide the rope under, though her arms trembled at the weight. Once this was done, I secured the rope to Frost’s saddle, then took some of the jerky and the canteen and handed it to her. She thanked me, and after she’d eaten we mounted and rode off.

The snow tiger’s corpse glided over snow as we headed home, now in an awkward sort of silence. I’d never been the best at smalltalk, especially with women, and she was understandably still in some state of shock.

She broke the silence when she sighted my cabin. “Is that yours?”

“Built it myself.” I said proudly. “Chimney’s still smoking, so we should be warm.”

She sighed. “That sounds great.”

We rode up to the barn, and after dismounting I helped her down. I’d helped enough women down from the wagon trains that this at least was natural. Once I’d stabled Frost, I led her inside.

Her… “Pardon me, but I never asked you for your name.”

She had already started assessing every detail of the cabin, so when she turned with a smile I figured I'd kept the place well enough. “Sierra. Sierra Kipling. What’s your name.”

“Jean Daniel Tremblay.” I replied, pronouncing ‘Jean’ as ‘zhon’. My mother’s heritage made my name unique, especially here. But now that we were on a first name basis, my inquisitive side had questions. “What brings you out here without proper clothing? That blizzard was raging for a good four days before today.”

Sierra’s brow furrowed. “It had only just started snowing last night.”

Now I was confused, but I returned the first question hoping that it would clear up a few things. “Those aren’t proper clothes for snow regardless.”

“I hadn’t expected the mustang to slide off the road and need to walk.” she replied. “I’d thought that town was only a few miles away.”

Why were you riding in this weather? I thought, but I pressed on. “Sorry to hear that, Miss Sierra, but the nearest town is ten miles through a pass that’s likely closed off due to the blizzard.”

Her jaw dropped. “I can’t be that far into the woods. I hadn’t driven that far.”

“What way did you take?” I asked.

“Highway 26.” Sierra replied. My head tilted involuntarily in response. Numbered roads were a city thing; out here everything were trails and passes. Numbered highways..!

Suddenly it clicked what her Mustang really was. Sierra had to be from Earth like I was!

I leaned forward, and hesitated. What if she wasn’t and I was about to sound like a lune again? But what if she said yes? What if we could find the way home? Did that frozen road exist nearby? Was meeting her the first step towards going back?

You might never get another opportunity to take that step. “You’re from Earth, aren’t you?”