Snow. Mike Bond

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      Steve slid a slender spruce trunk down over the cliff. It was just long enough, sticky with resin where Steve had cut off the branches. It was impossibly hard to climb. With each lunge he feared pulling Steve off the cliff.

      When he slithered over the top to safety he lay breathing hard into the snow, unable to speak. Steve sat beside him saying nothing, his hand on Zack’s shoulder.

      STUMBLING BLINDLY downhill through the new drifts and dark timber Zack tripped over a low branch and fell face-first into something soft and snow-covered. He couldn’t believe it, didn’t dare. His tent. In the flailing snow he’d walked into camp and tripped over a guy line.

      They were home.

      He brushed ice from his face and clothes and crawled into his sleeping bag and slept.

      He woke. For a few seconds he wasn’t sure where he was, what he was. Coffee odor on the biting cold air, the tang of bacon and scrub oak smoke. There’d be pancakes with maple syrup, and fried eggs, and Jack Daniels for the coffee.

      What life had been like just a few hours ago, before he’d learned his money was gone and they’d stolen the coke. Then he remembered the cliff, the wandering in the snowstorm, the wicked cold, the burning plane, the cocaine hidden where it could be easily found.

      His stomach clenched. How did this happen so fast?

      He crawled out of his bag and unzipped his tent and a wall of snow fell in on him.

      “You should whack the tent wall first.” Curt called from the fire pit, laying bacon on a cast iron griddle on the coals.

      Zack felt an instant of anger, dismissed it. He stretched to full height, arcing his back. Felt all the muscles pull, tired but lithe.

      “Where were you two?” Curt said.

      Zack stretched more, tightened his coat round his shoulders. “I couldn’t sleep. When the moon came out I decided to hike up the ridge, see the view. Then Steve got up to piss, saw my tracks and followed them, make sure I was okay. We’ve always been like that, watching each other’s backs.”

      “Is that so?”

      “It was beautiful, till it started snowing. Then we heard a shot so we came back. Was that you?”

      “Your damn grizzly got in the horses. I shot to scare him, lost my gun in the snow.”

      “He’s gone?”

      “He’ll be back. So one of us has to stay here. With the horses.”

      “After yesterday and last night,” Zack said, “I don’t need to go anywhere.”

      “Yep,” Curt said, “you had quite a time.”

      “You can’t imagine.”

      Curt smiled. “Maybe I can.”

      Zack woke Steve, told him what he’d said to Curt about last night.

      “Good, that was smart.” Steve rubbed his face, his words muffled.

      “And when we heard his shot we started back, but got lost in the snowstorm.”

      “Why’d he shoot?”

      “Grizzly.”

      “He’s back?”

      “He’s back. Curt wants us to stay with the horses. He’s leaving after breakfast to go down and call about the plane. He’ll wait for the cops to come, then show them the way to the plane. They’ll be on snowmobiles …”

      Steve slid into his trousers. “Fuck.”

      “If they trace it to the cave –”

      “YOU COULD’VE DIED up there,” Curt snapped as they wolfed down bacon, eggs, coffee and Jack Daniels. “What the Hell got into you guys?”

      “Nah,” Zack smiled. “It was beautiful.”

      Curt stared at him. “This isn’t New York City.” He turned to Zack. “This isn’t Lost Angeles. You guys can’t wander off at two a.m. and thirty below and expect to live.”

      “It’s probably safer here,” Steve chuckled, “than New York.”

      “You ever been to LA at two a.m.?” Zack said, backing him up.

      “No and I don’t want to. But if you boys want to hunt with me you got to be reasonable. If you die it’s bad for my reputation.”

      Zack laughed, stood and slapped Curt’s shoulder, tossed his coffee dregs on the snow. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

      “Not to worry,” Steve added. “We won’t die on you.”

      “WE HAVE TO MOVE FAST!” Steve said to Zack when Curt had saddled Kiwa and started down the mountain.

      “Let’s find that Ruger.” Zack started tromping the snow on the way to the corral.

      “Fuck the Ruger! Once Curt calls this in, it’s on the cop radio, and the folks who owned that plane will come after us. The cops’ll come too, they’ll be all over the place.” Steve made a helpless gesture with his hands. “They’re not going to be fooled by a burned plane.”

      “You said they would.”

      “I said it was the best option. At the time. Now we got to move it.”

      “Move what?”

      “The coke, you idiot.”

      Zack felt a hard shape in the snow underfoot. Reached down. The Ruger.

      He wiped snow from the barrel and grip. It felt cold and solid in his palm. He looked up at Steve. “Did you really call me an idiot?”

      “Sometimes you are.” Steve smiled grandly. “Me too. But you’re still my friend.” He shrugged, raised his hands: maybe.

      Zack slipped the Ruger into his coat pocket. “You said the burnt plane would stop them.”

      “So should we sit on our ass hoping for the best?” Steve gave him a questioning look. “Or shall we be proactive?”

      “Your being proactive is how I lost my money.”

      “The Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve lost your money. Them and S&P and Moody’s – the rating agencies. They’re all bankers. They do what’s best for the banks and big bondholders. Notice how every time the Fed raises rates the bank stocks go up? With higher rates the banks make more money for doing the same thing. Their job, all these guys, is protecting the rich, not the average American.”

      “I don’t care about that.” Zack took a breath, tried to think. “So you want to move the coke down the mountain then rent a truck? How we going to get to Bozeman to do that?”

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