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Fire in the Night
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The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey Blood on the Snow
BLOOD ON THE SNOWIRuben knew it was a desperate move, but alternatives were scarce. He had to do something.To Ruben, everything slowed to a crawl. He leaned down to put his hand into the snow and curled his fist tight. When he came up, he ran, footsteps firing across the snow, and Javier turned the rifle on him.Ruben hurled the ball of snow and ice. Fire sprang from the barrel of Javier’s rifle and the snowball exploded into his face. Ruben dove, but not quickly enough.The blast clipped him and red erupted through his vision. Warm wetness flooded the side of his face.Carried by his momentum, Ruben crashed into Javier’s legs. The rifle jerked. Javier slipped, flailing down the precarious slant and over the edge.Ruben sprawled facedown into the snow. It reddened with his blood.Keller stood in shock. He stood gaping at the white mountain ledge, at Ruben and the red snow around his head.Keller made a crooked path toward the ice cave’s opening. Outside it, he slumped again
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey Awakening
AWAKENINGIIn a momentof blurred consciousness, Ruben seized the pain and discomfort, awful as it was, and pushed against the beckoning sleep.He raised his head from the snow and saw his own blood. He pressed a cold, shaking hand to his head, and felt wetness. He trembled when his fingers met the wound, rough and tender, and pain coursed through his senses.He was lucky, in a manner. Although the injury was bloody, the shot had shaved away skin and nothing else.He probed the site with his fingers. It made him gasp, but he had to verify his assessment of the injury.It ran from the top of his cheek to his temple. It still bled. He pressed his hand against the open flesh to seal the wound. It burned with the pressure of skin against raw exposed meat. He winced. It hurt—a lot. He did his best to shake away his daze and tried to pull himself up.He slid and struggled for traction. After almost a minute, he managed to climb to his feet. He backed away from the sharp slant th
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey The Ice Cave
THE ICE CAVEIThe climb wasagonizing. It required every bit of Ruben’s strength and attention to keep Anne from falling. As for Ruben, he felt faint again, a likely combination of his head wound, the rigors of their ordeal, and nature’s frigid indifference.He almost lost his grip several times and came dangerously close to tumbling down from the wall, taking Anne with him. Throughout the climb, Ruben kept her near to make certain that, if anything disastrous did happen, he could make a last-ditch effort to save her.The climb was as torturous as both of them had imagined it might be and then some. It seemed endless.Ruben supported Anne with one arm when she needed to stop, but it put a horrible strain on him. It left him with one arm to cling to the ice, doing his best to hold on while digging in his feet and hoping the supporting ice wouldn’t break apart.Anne’s mind swirled. What little strength she retained ebbed, and weakness threatened to take her down. She was slow
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey Upward
UPWARDIAnne soon discoveredshe hadn’t regained as much strength as she thought. Pushing herself up the powdery incline was an awful affair. She fought to cling to the sharply-slanted surface of the mountain while the snow kept giving away beneath her feet. She saw solid ground not far below, but as she climbed, this changed. The ground became more distant and deadly. She kept her eyes in front of her and above, where Ruben climbed ahead.“Take your time,” Ruben had said to Anne before beginning this newest ascent. “Don’t take any chances. We need to take it slow and steady. Just be careful. If you fall behind, I can wait.”True to Ruben’s indication, it hadn’t taken long for Anne to fall behind. Ruben strained to maintain his hold on the mountainside. He knew Anne must be struggling all the more.Anne forced herself upward. Ruben, watching her below, pushed himself to do the same. Throughout the slow, hard climb, distractions peppered their thoughts.Ruben remembered that
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey The Mountain Mystery
THE MOUNTAIN MYSTERYIAnne didn’t thinkshe would ever get used to the soreness. Her body wasn’t used to this. Regardless, she forced herself out of the makeshift shelter. Ruben didn’t stir. She put a hand on his shoulder and gave it an easy, but firm, shove.“Ruben, wake up,” she said. “We have to start climbing again.” The wind had worsened. She had to lean near his ear so he could hear her.“We have to keep moving, or we’ll freeze to death.”Ruben’s eyes opened. He blinked, gave her a single nod, and made a sluggish effort to climb out. Anne waited for minutes until he stood on uncertain feet in the snow.“Are you all right to climb?” she asked. He nodded again and walked toward the upward-slanting face. She started to ask if he was sure, but stopped herself. He could decide for himself, couldn’t he?Ruben, as if hearing the passing thought in her mind, turned to her. “I’ll be all right, Anne.”Anne looked up at the mountain. “I don’t think we have much higher to climb
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey Into Darkness
INTO DARKNESSIAnne flung herarms out to grab anything she could, but found nothing in the open darkness. She screamed. There was nothing else she could do. When she hit the ground, she would die a quick death at best, or else she would break both of her legs and suffer until she perished.She threw her arms out again and, to her surprise, caught something with one hand, but her descent was too rapid to be halted by this mere action. Her hands ripped free from the rough, rocky surface with a sharp sting.She grabbed out again in that general direction with both hands, and her hands slapped against a solid surface. A wall? An unexpected moment later, her fingers caught onto some indented portion of the surface, almost by accident, but she latched on and fought to better secure the handhold she had gained.Her body swung and her hands slipped away. A new wave of panic hurled through her mind. When her feet hit the ground, her mind was quick, firing a command to her body to ro
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey The Pit of Bones
THE PIT OF BONESKeller’s life drained across the cavern floor. His final wet choking sounds faded away. Anne had cut deep. It didn’t take long.She waited for the peace to wash through her now that this man, the one who had made it his life’s mission to ruin her husband’s life, who had tried to kill Ruben and her, died at last. The peace didn’t come, but silence did.She stood and looked over the blood-tipped bone in her hand. She tossed it aside. Looking up, she saw a point of light.The tunnel that she, and presumably Keller, had fallen through appeared to be a twisting one. It seemed unusual that she could have fallen straight downward without striking solid rock at some point, but here she was at the bottom of the deep pit, injured, but still standing.Shining the flashlight around, she spotted a supply pack against one wall and knew it had to be Keller’s. She walked over to it.At least he had brought his supplies. She had nothing.Would Ruben come for her? Surely he would
The Mourner's Cradle: A Widow’s Journey Into White
INTO WHITEIRuben opened hiseyes. He thought he might have heard something. A heavy sleep weighed on him. He struggled feebly to hold it at bay.Who was there? Was it Anne?He drew a slow breath. He waited for Anne to come into view. She never did.Maybe he had only been hearing things, deceiving murmurs of the wind. He had a strange feeling then, a feeling that Anne hadn’t returned coupled with the feeling that he might never see her again.He hoped she was all right. He had no way of knowing.Ruben’s thoughts meandered, and he stared into white.IIThe passing of time was impossible for Anne to gauge in the darkness of the hole. She waited there at its bottom, alone with her thoughts in the surrounding blackness. She could hardly bear it. She had to get out of this place. Anne searched for some sense of direction through the dark pit, and almost lost her footing several times on the bones covering the ground.The flashlight flickered on and off. She shook it until th
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