passed.
He didn’t fancy himself a Samaritan, but he couldn’t abandon whoever had tumbled down the slope. Carefully he swung himself back around to the track and trotted forward, alone in darkness seven thousand feet above sea level. Some clouds, like gauze veils, parted and revealed the stars and a few last snowflakes settled. The night remained absolutely still. The starlight helped him find the spot where the stowaway had disturbed the snow in jumping from the train. From there, Mack started working his way down the slope. The snow was three to four feet deep and the footing beneath uncertain. He felt the snow soaking his trousers again; he’d spent most of the winter either soaked or drying out. At the bottom, among some boulders, he found more disturbed snow, but no human being. Eyeing the track the man’s body had left and where it stopped, he knelt and began to dig with his fringed gauntlets.
He felt something firm in the drift, and sucked in breath. It was an arm, and it was limp. He dug faster.
Mack broke into the utility shed and found a lantern with oil in it. After lighting it, he moved shovels and picks to clear a section of wall, then dragged the man inside, propped him up, shut the door, and turned up the lamp to see him more clearly.
The traveler was about Mack’s age, with a delicate, pale face reddened by the weather, and he was clearly emaciated. Yet there was a vigorous and flamboyant handsomeness about him, heightened by thick black eyebrows and shaggy, shiny hair. Light stubble indicated he had shaved not too long ago. He wore a ragged army overcoat, trousers with a large black check on a gray background, and calf-high laced boots.
He groaned and leaned his head back, bumping it on the wall.
“You ought to rest,” Mack said. He picked up the man’s left wrist. “Anything broken?”
The traveler’s eyes flew open; they were blue, innocent and disarming as a child’s. He felt Mack’s hand on his wrist and, struggling to get upright, he swung a fist at Mack’s head.
Mack rocked back on his heels, ducking the punch, then grabbed the man’s right arm before he could deliver another. The man’s eyes caught the beam of the lantern and changed from blue to an opal blaze, like a cat’s reflecting light. For a moment he looked not quite human.
“Listen,” Mack said quickly. “I’m not a railroad man. I’m a traveler like you.”
“You’re—?” Mack felt the tension leave the stranger’s arm. He opened his fist and Mack let go.
“I dug you out of the snowdrift down there,” Mack went on. He noticed some tiny ruby droplets hiding in the man’s snow-dampened hair. “Looks like you’ve got a cut. Let me see.”
Warily, the man bowed his head, while Mack parted his hair. The cut was about two inches long, not deep, but leaching blood and full of dirt.
“I’ll wash it out.” Mack fetched a handful of snow from outside. Far away, something wild bayed, an angry sound. A wildcat up this high? Or a trick of the wind?
Mack removed the roll of extra shirts from his back. He’d been reducing one shirt piece by piece for rags and bandages, and now he ripped off another section, wet it with snow, and washed the cut. “I don’t have anything to clean it better.”
“I do.” The man fished under his army coat; he seemed surprisingly alert. Handing Mack a small brown bottle, he said, “Don’t use too much.”
Mack poured a few drops of the strong-smelling whiskey into the cut. The man clenched his teeth but made no sound. He had perfect white teeth to go with his perfect features. Mack had no hope of ever being so handsome.
He opened his bandanna to find a knuckle-sized hunk of goat cheese peppered with blue-green mold spots. “Eat this, you’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to take a man’s last food.” But he snatched the cheese and bit it in half, chewing hard.
Mack chuckled. The man shot him a fiery look. Mack waved. “Go on, finish it. I’ve been walking for