My concealed vest is rated Level IIIA, heavy-duty, but not specced to stop a .223 round fired from twenty yards.

There’s only one crazy thing I can think to do.

I accelerate as if preparing to ram the chain.

Tiff hesitates, the red light jerks upward as she dives for cover.

Seconds before impact I bring my good leg over the center of the machine and leap to the side into a cluster of baby pines. The steel chain scrapes the hood of the sled, pulls the windscreen off, catches the handlebars, and causes the Arctic Cat to complete a somersault.

I land on my right arm and shoulder in the saplings. Fortunately there are no big stones or stumps lurking beneath them.

The smashed sled provides a spectacular diversion. From my back, in the flattened conifers, I squeeze the shotgun trigger and blast a random hole in the night. I am not aiming at anything or anyone. I just want them all to duck and cover.

Panicked, Tiff lets off her own unaimed burst of semi-automatic fire.

Behind me on the hillside, Tori shouts at her sister to stop.

I push myself to my knees and grab a sapling with my gloved left hand to regain my footing. I expect to be shot before I can take a step toward the broken chain, the smoking, demolished sled.

But there are no more shots—not from above at least. Someone, behind me, down the hill, is trying to send bullets my way in vain. It sounds like a handgun. Pop, pop, pop.

I stagger around one of the steel posts to which the limp chain is hooked, looking for Tiff.

I don’t want to shoot her, but I am prepared to do so.

The breeze has swirled the exhaust from her idling snowmobile into its headlights. The effect is eerie: a glowing blue vapor of snow and smoke. The air tastes of spilled gasoline.

I see Tiff Dillon siting on her ass in the road, fiddling with her gun.

She’s thrown off her helmet to deal with her malfunctioning rifle. She aims it at me, pulls the trigger, and nothing happens.

She keeps trying the trigger. Even the best guns are subject to misuse and misfires.

Has she bent the barrel?

Has she mistakenly engaged the safety?

Somehow ejected the magazine?

I don’t have time to wait for her to figure out the problem. She is desperate, terrified, and under the mistaken belief that I am going to gun her down.

It must blow her mind when, instead, I steal her ride.

30

Outside Grambo’s trailer, the dog with the curled tail was barking at my Jeep. He must have scented the wolf. I was half-tempted to open the kennel to see what would happen. Shadow was overdue for lunch.

“Hey!”

The yapper laid his ears flat against his skull and snarled at me. Then he recommenced his leaping attacks on my rear bumper.