Plan, plan, plan, I needed a plan. The weather and terrain were all against me. If I trod in the patches of snow, all he had to do was follow my tracks. And it was very precarious, trying to hurry and also trying to avoid stepping in the snow. At least there were a few other tracks around; people had ridden their four-wheelers through here, and I could see another set of tracks, vague ones, a few yards away. I leaped between the snow patches, hoping that the ground would not show every print I made simply because it was wet. Maybe he wasn’t any more of a woodsman than I was.

I felt the buzz of bones, very close. Instinctively I began tracking the buzz. The dead could not rise up and protect me, which would only have been right…but could they hide me? I couldn’t have told you exactly what I was thinking, but I was comfortable with the dead.

The sky was darkening and visibility was getting worse even as I ran, bashing into trees and staggering to keep to my feet. I headed for the dead man. If no one had found him, maybe no one would find me. The feeling of him was fairly fresh, and I was so tired. But I kept on scampering, fast as a panicked squirrel.

The dead man was in the thicket right before me, an overgrown patch of short tree saplings, vines, and myrtle. The thicket was surrounded by pines, and there were pinecones littering the ground. I crouched to grab up a couple.

The live man trying to kill me was just a few yards behind me, though I couldn’t see him. I could hear him, snorting and pushing through the growth. Half-standing, I threw one pinecone, then another. I threw them as hard as I could with my bound hands, and they made just a bit of noise a few yards away, when they hit the soggy ground. I didn’t think Barney Simpson was any Daniel Boone. Maybe he would think he was hearing footsteps. There was a rocky outcropping close, and he might think my next steps had been on the rock surface. The dead man was waiting.

I hunkered down and tried to slow down my breathing. I sounded like a faulty bellows. Please, Dead Guy, I begged, please be a hunter.