“You can go see. But it is.”

Jack nodded. “Okay.”

They looked at the snowmobile tracks. A thin layer of smooth snow lay over the deeper notches. Rectangular in shape. Ava stood frowning at them. Faint wisp of her breath: “He’s dragging something.”

“What do you think?”

She shook her head. “Let’s go.”

They tracked Bardem’s path into the forest of pines. Between the draws fog rose off the ground in white vapor. Stands of thin needled trees on the slopes, and beyond, the stark alpine peaks stretching upward. Wind from the east. The snow drifting sideways and the conifers swaying. Stopping. Swaying again. The dying light, the cold. The two of them trudging side by side.

Hard going. The briefcase heavy. Throb of his shoulder. If he hurried, he only grew light-headed. They ate two of the powdered doughnuts and drank the water. It had started to freeze in the plastic. The snow came down in a curtain about them. There was no way to see anything far ahead. They climbed a ridge and stood at the summit and watched slow darkness fall over everything. The silent trees glowing. No tracks except for the long ribbon of the sled. The steel building lost behind them. He was coughing again, and she was shivering. He looked at her.

“We have to keep going,” she said.

“I know.”

“Do you want to rest?”

“No.”

“We can rest.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“We just have to get there.”

“I know.”

They went on, night dropping fast. The wind arctic. He kept falling behind, and she waited for him. What they came to was a wood of subalpine firs. Their underbranches stiff and dark. The ragged light of the moon cast their thin shadows onto the snow. Rock and scrub lay beneath. Finally he stopped. Labored heaves of his breath. The air raw in his chest. He’d no notion of how far the cabin might be. He was floundering on his feet. You have to keep going, he told himself. Hang on. For just a while longer.

He dropped the briefcase.

He bent over with his hands on his knees and coughed.

The snow. The wind and the long, dry crack of cold limbs.

When he looked, the deer was little more than five yards away. Standing in the dark of the trees. It was a buck with its head up, looking at him. It was huge, gaunt as a trellis and laced with scars from endured battles. Winter coat battered and a long white head that showed its age. The beams of its antlers were heavy.

The next moment, he was gone.

The snow drifted into Jack’s eyes. He straightened up and looked at Ava. She stood in the snow, looking back at him, her hair blowing out from under her hood. She was calling to him: “Stay with me.”