Hannah Alexander - A Killing Frost

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I worked odd jobs when I needed cash. I washed dishes at a restaurant for a week, and I was a file clerk in a temporary position.”

This took some time for him to contemplate. “Where did you live?” His voice was different. More somber.

“In my car. In Amy’s old tent. I hiked and camped. I stayed in Canyonlands National Park and along the Colorado and Green rivers for nearly four months. I was in The Maze for two. I ate a lot of beans and rice, dried fruit, nuts.”

She felt his attention riveting on her instead of the task at hand.

“Watch what you’re doing,” she said. “We’re looking for Doriann, remember.”

For several long moments, they searched in silence, found more signs of footprints, continued forward.

“You lived in the wild?” he asked at last.

“I didn’t live in the wild, I lived in a tent and a car.”

“I remember the tent. I got it for Amy as a college graduation gift. I got you a down comforter, because it was more your style.”

“Well, I guess you don’t know everything, then. The tent was just big enough for two, lightweight and strong. Amy and I took it when we hiked the Grand Canyon that summer before we started med school.”

“You borrowed my car for the trip.”

“We discovered in med school that we probably should have been studying and working, not hiking, but I’m so glad now that we did it that way.”

“It was Amy who loved to camp out. You hated it,” Tyrell said.

That used to be true. “I remember those nights in the Canyon. We had nothing but our sleeping bags and the tent floor between us and the hard ground.”

“So you did it for Amy.”

“She was always teaching me to try new things,” Jama said. “Camping was one. I came to like it.”

“Enough to do it for months? By yourself? Alone in the wilderness?”

She didn’t answer.

He stopped walking. “You camped out all those months to punish yourself for your best friend’s death.”

Jama looked toward his dark form. Why had he brought up the subject tonight of all nights, after all these years of avoidance?

“But there’s more to it than that,” he said. “Isn’t there?”

Time for a safer subject. “Amy taught me to see camping out as an opportunity to be surrounded by God’s sanctuary, instead of buildings erected by human hands. The Canyon was a good school, but I didn’t learn the deepest truth until I was alone in the silence of Utah.”

They searched the circumference of the area where they found the last track, then picked up the trail again.

“What was the deepest truth?” he asked.

“That I will never have all the answers, no matter how much I study and learn, and no matter how long I live. That I will always fail if I try to do the right thing in my own power. That God is bigger than I ever imagined. It took the trip to Utah, all that time alone, to show me that I need God in my life.”

Jama slowed at a pile of last year’s leaves that had most likely washed across the field during last fall’s flood. No form of an eleven-year-old.

The stillness of the night was intensified because the cold had silenced the spring peepers-the frogs Jama loved to listen to in the evenings when she was growing up.

Tyrell’s flashlight flickered, and he jiggled it. The battery was getting low. Jama knew he carried spares in his backpack.

“For the past four and a half years,” he said, “everything connected to Amy’s death has been a forbidden subject between us, and I don’t feel comfortable with forbidden subjects.”

“Meaning you have to knock down any wall that gets in your way.”

“It’s a caveman thing. I wouldn’t expect you to understand it.”

“Forbidden subjects are a Jama Keith thing, and you obviously don’t understand that.”

“Believe me, I’ve been trying. Tell me, Jama, is it just me, or do you push everyone away like this?”

The tone of his voice stung more than his question. How badly had she hurt him by trying to not hurt him worse…or herself…or the friendship they had shared for so long?

“We weren’t going to do this,” she said softly.

“I never promised that.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She turned just in time to see the muzzle of a rifle planted in front of her face, heard the metallic cocking of the gun. She looked at Tyrell and froze.

Teeth chattering…icicles forming in her brain…frost must be settling down from the sky. Snuffling…movement…rustling…

Doriann jerked awake, cried out, braced herself. He’d found her!

Something touched her face-something cold. She swallowed a scream and scrambled away, tried to stand and run, hit her head on the roof of the cave and fell back into the smelly leaves.

She heard a whimper and grew still. That wasn’t Clancy. It wasn’t Deb. Something soft and fuzzy touched her nose. And then something warm and slimy rubbed over her chin, flicking her lower lip with a familiar smell. Dog breath.

Dog breath!

A loud hound howl filled the cave.

Doriann gasped, choked on the smell. “Humphrey?”

Another howl.

Doriann reached out and felt his long, floppy-soft ears, his long snout, and even smiled when he licked her face again and again. “It’s you, Humphrey!”

She started to cry, and buried her face against his soft fur, and held his warm, wriggling body in her arms. She felt as if she could almost reach out and touch God’s hand, it was that close. He really was watching over her!

She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “It was you I saw on the road, wasn’t it, Humphrey? And it was your howling that scared Clancy.” More answers to prayer she didn’t know to pray.

She realized that if she hadn’t grabbed the steering wheel when she did, Humphrey would be injured or dead now, and not warming her up in this cave.

Of course, she also realized that she probably wouldn’t be here, either.

Or maybe she would.

He nudged against her arm, his way of asking to be petted. She flung her arms around him again and cried harder. Jesus had sent a piece of home to her here in the forest in the dark, in the middle of danger.

Humphrey nestled closer, nuzzling under her arm, panting dog breath all around her. He lay down beside her. She wiped tears away again so they wouldn’t freeze on her face.

This was why Humphrey was a wandering dog. Because God knew that someday, this dog would need to wander here and find a freezing kid in the middle of a killing frost. His warmth seeped through her, and comfort surrounded her. She let herself drift. This time she could fall asleep without being afraid that she’d freeze to death.

Agent Sydloski’s face was gold-and-black granite in the glow from the dashboard lights of his agency car. “This won’t happen again.”

Jama looked at Tyrell’s silhouette from her position in the middle of the backseat. His face was carefully expressionless.

The agent looked at Tyrell, jaw protruding. “Right?”

“You think we want to risk jail time?” Tyrell asked, and Jama wondered if the agent realized Tyrell was avoiding a direct answer.

The agent turned in his seat, making eye contact with Jama. “You do realize, don’t you, that there are armed and dangerous killers in the vicinity? You two may be the best marksmen in the state, but there’s a man out there who’s already proven he’s not only capable of killing, but is happy to do so. You two have strict orders to get into your vehicle and remove yourselves from the blockaded area. I will receive a call when you have passed the eastern roadblock, and if I do not receive that call within the next ten minutes, we will come looking for you, and you will be taken into protective custody.”