behind a hummock. A woodchuck dived for its burrow while a snowshoe hare bounded through the gooseberry bushes. Forcing his feet faster along the steep, well-trod trail, he redoubled his effort to reach his partner. And friend.
Jackson was family, the father he’d never had. Twenty years ago when Sean had been a lost and lonely eight-year-old brat, he’d run away from the very thought of a foster home, and the old prospector had taken him in. At first he’d been afraid of the miner, but he soon learned Jackson’s gruff exterior hid a heart of melted gold nuggets. He’d taken in a hungry and defiant boy, fed him and educated him, given him the tools to make a living.
An eagle wheeled in the sky with a cacophony of cries. With a primal caution, Sean rounded the last bend in the trail, his boots pounding the hard-packed dirt. A bone-chilling gust pummeled him, but as he dashed into the mine past Jackson’s bivouac site, the sheer rock pinnacle cut the wind. An eerie stillness made the hairs on the back of Sean’s hands stand on end.
“Jackson! Get out! You hear me, there’s an—”
Sean skidded to a halt. In the dim light of the mine, two bodies lay in the dirt. He had no trouble spotting Jackson’s yellow Arctic parka.
“Jackson? You okay?”
Heart jackhammering, Sean reached out and touched the old prospector’s neck, searching for a pulse. His body still warm, Jackson didn’t let out so much as a moan. Sean couldn’t find any reassuring evidence of a heartbeat.
No!
He leaned over Jackson, desperate for a sign that he still lived, straining for the slightest whisper of a breath.
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
Gently Sean turned the man over. Blood drenched the yellow jacket, soaked into the dirt. And now he knew what had spooked the game.
Death.
No! Not Jackson. Not the man who meant the world to him. It couldn’t be true.
A gaping wound and fresh blood on Jackson’s chest indicated that the old prospector had been stabbed just minutes ago. Sean’s vision clouded with a red rage. Spinning on his heel, he slammed his fist into the wall, welcoming the pain in his knuckles, wishing it took his mind off the agony of his loss.
Sean barely glanced at the second body. That Jackson had killed his attacker didn’t satisfy him.
Jackson was the only father Sean had ever known. Unrelated by blood yet bonded by their love of this wild land, the willful boy and the crotchety old prospector had made a family. And now he was gone.
Murdered.
Murdered in the mine he loved.
Jackson’s open eyes were frozen in surprise, horror and pain. The look of a man betrayed.
Sean ached to take out his grief and frustration with his fists. Instead, he ruthlessly quashed his anger, sank onto the floor and cradled his adoptive father’s head on his lap. Rocking, Sean smoothed back Jackson’s hair, gently closed his eyes.
He couldn’t be dead.
But Sean couldn’t deny the truth of the cooling body in his arms.
“I’m sorry, old man. I should have been here sooner. I should have been here when you needed me most.” His eyes filled with tears. He could say no more. Just sat in the cold, rocking Jackson, feeling his warmth slip away and his body grow cold.
Finally, Sean stood on legs grown numb and floated a blanket over the body. Authorities needed to be notified. He pushed his choking grief deep inside and reached for the walkie-talkie clipped onto his belt.
He pressed the talk button, cleared his throat to make the words come out. “Sean to base.”
“Marvin here,” answered the radio operator.
“I’m at the Dog Mush. Jackson’s dead.”
“Come again. Did you say dead?”
“Murdered.” The word tasted bitter in Sean’s mouth.
“I’m sorry. Real sorry. I liked that old man.”
Jackson and Marvin had played poker every Friday night for years. Was Sean imagining the voice choked with tears coming over the radio or did they have poor reception?
“Any sign of who killed him?”
“Looks like Jackson took out the other guy before he died. Send up a couple of men with sleds for the bodies.”
“Roger that. Anything else?”
“Notify the authorities in Fairbanks.”
“Will do. Base out.”
Sean’s attention turned from Jackson to the smaller man who lay unmoving on his back in the dirt, the bloody knife still in his hand. Who was he? He faced away from Sean and a hood partially covered his face, and Sean didn’t recognize the pea-green jacket or the barely broken-in boots. Perhaps his pockets held identification.
Sean knelt beside the murderer, wishing he was still alive—so he could slam a fist into his face, close his hands around his throat and kill him again. If his thoughts were vicious and primitive, at least they were honest. He’d spent eight years in the civilized east, learning that an Italian suit and tie could hide men as vicious and deadly as grizzlies. He preferred the uncrowded mountains, the unpolluted air and the sweat equity of his rough-hewn log cabin to the greedy and callous life in the big cities.
He liked to think of these mountains as pristine and uncontaminated by humanity’s cruelties, a place where man could coexist with nature, not destroy it. Now murder had come to his own neck of the woods, staining the land with a good man’s blood.
And he could do no more than take Jackson’s murderer to the authorities. While leaving the killer’s body on the mountain for carrion to feed on held a certain appeal, Sean knew the police would need to identify the attacker. But with snow coming, it might be days before anyone in an official capacity could reach the town. Once the weather socked in the remote mountain town of Kesky, the only transportation in or out was by dogsled.
Before he changed his mind and left the body to rot, Sean snaked out his hand toward the murderer’s front pocket. What he’d assumed was a corpse snapped to a sitting position, yelled and swiped the knife at his gut.
Sean cursed and with a hunter’s reflexes jerked aside, tumbling away from the weapon. While shock and grief had dulled Sean’s senses, Jackson’s murderer must have been gathering strength and waiting for the opportunity to attack. Sean had broken up enough fights among the miners to know this man was skilled in how to wield a knife or he would stab the weapon—not slice it. Off balance, Sean took a moment longer than he would have liked to recover and scramble upright.
Prepared and agile but unsteady on his feet, his opponent stood and shifted the knife to his right hand. In the dim light, the bloody weapon appeared almost black. The sneaky little bastard was threatening him with the same weapon he had used to murder Jackson.
Relishing his jacked-up senses, Sean felt his adrenaline pump. Without hesitation, he lunged forward, grasping for the attacker’s
