Breaking Free: A Colorado High Country Crossover Novel, Pamela Clare [i can read book club .TXT] 📗

buy us time to pursue. But if we don’t make visual contact within an hour, we’re going back to the original plan. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Winona was genuinely grateful. “Thank you.”

They trudged on, stopping once for water and a snack. Then the wind picked up, clouds moving in from the west.

Henriksen reached for his hand mic, asked dispatch for a weather update, got no answer. “I’ve lost radio contact.”

Winona checked her cell phone. “No service.”

Owoooo!

Another plaintive howl.

“We’re getting closer.”

They hiked on, leaving behind a meadow for a thick stand of lodgepole pines.

Jason stopped. “He was just here. He rested.”

There at the base of a tree was a depression in the snow. Winona could see not only paw marks, but also dark fur that had been rubbed off by the bark. There were fresh tracks in the snow heading due west now.

Then Winona spotted the animal. “Stop. He’s still here.”

She dropped her backpack, took out a block of frozen beef, cut off a piece. Then she walked between the trees to get a clear line of sight to toss the meat and—

“Win, stop!”

Click. CRACK!

Agony.

Winona screamed, collapsed to the ground, pain shattering her left leg, the shock of it driving her to the brink of unconsciousness.

“Jesus!” Jason was there beside her, but he sounded far away. “It’s an old, steel bear trap. Help me get it off her—now!”

“I’ll open it. You pull her leg out.” That was the ranger.

Fresh pain brought her back as they moved her. “Stop!”

“We have to get this off you.” Jason caught her beneath her arms. “You ready?”

Winona heard Henriksen grunt with effort, opened her eyes, saw blood.

“It’s stuck!”

“We have to break her free, or she’ll bleed out. You can do it, Henriksen.”

The ranger tried again. “Got it!”

Jason dragged her backward, pulling her free, the pain of having her leg dragged over the snowy ground making Winona cry out, driving her once more toward darkness.

The trap closed with a sharp snap.

Hands touched her leg, the pain terrible.

“She probably has a tib-fib fracture.” Henriksen sounded afraid. “She’s bleeding pretty badly. I think it severed an artery.”

“Do you have a medkit? She needs a tourniquet.” That was Jason again.

“Just basic first aid, but there is a tourniquet. No pain meds.”

Something landed in the snow beside her. She willed her eyes to open, saw an orange bag with a white cross on it.

“You go for help. I’ll do what I can for her.”

“I’m going to head back toward the campsite and try to get a radio signal. I’ll have to wait there and lead rescuers to you.”

“Do it. Go!”

Boots in snow, moving fast.

A zipper being ripped open.

“Win, can you hear me?”

“Ja… son.”

“I’m going to tie a tourniquet below your knee. I’m sure it will hurt like hell, but I have to stop the bleeding. You’re going into shock.”

“My kit.” It was so hard to think and harder to speak, her body shaking now. “Ketamine. Seventy-five mgs. My quadriceps.”

But her kit was beneath her in her backpack.

“I’ll tie the tourniquet first and then get you pain meds.” He cut off her pant leg below the knee and then got the tourniquet ready. “I’m so sorry, Win. I saw the chain around the tree the second before you took that last step.”

“Not … your … fault.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her hands clutching at her thigh, Winona gritted her teeth against the pain as he tied the tourniquet. Then she slipped into blessed darkness.

Heart slamming, his mouth dry from fear, Jason worked quickly. He secured the tourniquet and checked for a distal pulse to make sure it was tight enough. Then he removed Winona’s backpack and took out everything he thought he’d need. Her medical kit. A warm woolen hat. An emergency blanket. An IV kit. A bag of lactated Ringer’s. Bandages. Then he spread the emergency blanket on the snow and settled Winona in the middle of it, taking advantage of her unconsciousness to move her. He used his pack to elevate her injured leg, then searched for the ketamine and a syringe.

Seventy-five milligrams.

He jammed the needle into her quadriceps and injected her with the medication, fears rushing through his mind. What if, in her semi-conscious state, she’d gotten the dosage wrong and he killed her? What if help didn’t get here fast enough and she lost her leg? What if she bled out?

Damn it! Fuck!

He’d seen it—the big chain tied around the tree—but she’d been beyond his reach, and his shout of warning had come too late.

Shit!

He drew a deep breath and fell back on his training. Because they spent so much time in remote locations, all Shadow Wolves had medic training. He had practiced starting IVs. He willed himself to focus on that and not let his thoughts drift.

He drew one of her arms out of her parka, pushed up her sleeve, found a good vein. In under a minute, he had fluids opened wide. Then he wrapped her in the space blanket, put the hat on her head, and tucked her backpack beneath her head as a pillow.

But there was one more thing he wanted to do while she was unconscious. He found a couple of dead branches close to the ground on some nearby trees and kicked them free from the trunks. Then he used a bandage from Henriksen’s medkit to build a kind of splint—just something to hold her leg steady and give it some support.

This was Graham’s fault. The bastard!

Jason had seen traps just like this one—illegal thirty-pound steel bear traps with teeth—in the asshole’s tent. The son of a bitch had probably strung illegal traplines through the forest, and the wolf had followed them, looking for its master. The animal knew where the traps were hidden—Winona had said wolves were notorious for their ability to avoid traps—and had rested next to one.

Winona moaned as he handled her injured leg, but he steeled himself against his emotions, focused only on the task at hand.

Then he heard it—licking and gnawing.

The wolf.

It was no more than ten feet