A red glow rises around me to the black branches above. Except for the hissing of snow against hot metal and a steady, bomblike ticking, the engine of the Yamaha has gone quiet. The air tastes of burned plastic and hot petroleum.

I seem to have bit my tongue. With a great effort, I roll onto my side to spit blood. My wrists are still tied, but the rope lies in a loose S on the forest floor. I feel like a medieval prisoner removed from the rack.

Then I hear the whine of a returning snowmobile.

The approaching sled pushes me to try harder, and I end up on my knees with my bloody wrists limp before me. The left one is sprained. Maybe even broken.

I have trouble assessing the scene because, among other things, the headlights of Tiff’s sled have been smashed. The only illumination comes from the two red taillights perpendicular to the ground. The machine has come to rest on its side.

One of my jobs, as a warden, is to reconstruct snowmobile crashes. Every winter I am called out to a dozen or more sites like this in the woods. Many of them are death scenes. I have seen this before.

When Tiff left the road, she must have caught one of her upturned skis under a log hidden beneath the snow. The jolt caused the sled to tumble as it broke apart. The spindle connecting the skeg to the chassis snapped. The shock-absorbing spring came loose. The front end crumpled while the machine, still moving forward, tilted onto its side, then came to an abrupt stop when it collided with an ancient birch tree. Birches will bend very far before they break, but the sudden impact caused this one to snap like a pencil.

I don’t see Tiff beyond the faint glow of the dying machine. I don’t hear anything at all except the engine of the sled speeding toward us.

You’ve got to get up.

But I can’t. My body is too bruised, too battered. It needs time to recover from the damage done.

The snow is coming down lightly now, a few lazy flakes. The storm might have stopped in fact, and what I am seeing isn’t falling snow but windblown bits dislodged from the boughs and branches above.

The returning snowmobile slides to a stop with its headlights trained on the wreckage. The rider leaps clear of the machine and throws aside her helmet and goggles. It is Tori, and I notice she has “my” shotgun slung over her shoulder again.

Her gaze is fixed on something beyond my field of vision, beyond the crashed sled.

She takes a step forward, then stumbles. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out. No words, no screams, not even a moan.

She drops to her knees and disappears from view.

Now is my chance.

Move, God damn it.