least a couple of hours until dawn. "What was that about looking down, anyway?" Suck it up, Renshaw.
Rosen?
Ah, hell. Whatever her name was.
Securing her grip on the pine, she looked down again. A trio of wolves remained in sight, one nuzzling the limp carcass of the impaled beast. Blood stained the white perfection of fur and snow.
She swallowed hard, scanned the other animals busy prowling, circling the base of the tree. All but one.
A lone wolf stared up with the survival radio clamped firmly in its jaws, bits of torn snow pants hanging from his teeth.
No wonder Josh had wanted her to look down.
"Ah, hell." She sagged back against the sturdy trunk that still swayed under the force of the stormy winds.
Arctic Survival School was definitely over. Time to put their teaching to the test for real.
"De-e-eck the halls with boughs of holly..."
Alicia's warbly carol drifted around the tree, working better than a mega-jolt of caffeine to keep Josh awake.
His wife couldn't sing for crap. Her voice—a questionable contralto—carried on the tearing night wind.
He figured any safety benefits to shushing her were outweighed by the need to keep her awake.
Keep him awake as well.
Luckily the storm that had sent them into the cave in the first place was likely keeping the bad guys away for now. He and Alicia sat with backs against the trunk, legs stretched out on the limb to evenly distribute weight.
The branches seemed sturdy enough. But too easily he could envision the effortless snap of breaking off frozen wood for the fire earlier outside the cave.
Only another hour till sunrise and he could scatter the wolves, climb down. Too risky in the dark, though, where the wolves could lurk behind a tree under the cover of darkness.
Brief flashes of the stars overhead helped him gain his bearings again after their off-course run. How he could see the North Star so clearly through the storm clouds, he didn't know. And he didn't intend to question.
A miracle? Maybe. All love of science aside, he would take help any way he could tonight. He would do anything to keep Alicia alive. No way in hell would he let her be the victim of a holiday siege.
Like before.
He'd only been fifteen years old, that growth spurt no-damned-where in sight. With the gunman waving his AK-47 and extra ammo around, Josh couldn't do a thing but sit at his desk with a half-completed final exam for Advanced Incompressible Aerodynamics in front of him.
After twelve hours of tense negotiations, the masked gunman had opened fire. Josh had thrown himself across the aisle, toward his classmate who had a houseful of kids at home. His chin still ached from
cracking on the floor.
Seven students had died before the gunman turned his weapon on himself. Still Josh had sprawled over the silent woman who'd been dead before she hit the ground. Memories focused in on only the blood dripping off desks and splattered on the wall, crimson against white like the dead wolf in the snow below.
The next day, he'd marched into the ROTC office to discuss joining up once he was old enough. His goal had shifted. Working for NASA after graduation had become his intermediary job until flight training.
Red as a holiday color carried a whole different meaning for him.
"Fa-la-la-la-la," Alicia rounded off the holiday classic, "La-la-la-laaa."
"Bravo." He clapped his gloved hands together in the bitter cold. Even his damned nose hairs were frozen together. "You should take your show on the road."
"Sure hope Carnegie Hall leaves a message on my voice mail. Oh, or what about a USO tour? My sister could haul me around in her cargo plane to perform for the troops. Ah, but there's just that matter of my job. Got my own plane to fly. Too bad we can't harness those hounds like reindeer and pilot us out on Santa's sleigh. And oh, man, am I getting loopy."
"You're doing great. Just hang on and keep singing if you need to."