Winter Prey

couldn’t breathe. She pulled off her gloves, pried open his jaws, and pushed one of the gloves into the corner of his mouth to keep him from snapping his teeth on her fingers. With his mouth wedged open, she probed his throat with her fingers, found the blockage, a chunk of soft tissue where there shouldn’t have been anything.
    Her mind went cold, analytical.
    “Knife,” she said to Lacey.
    “What?” Lacey shouted down at her, shocked. She realized that he had a gun in his hand.
    “Give me your fuckin’ knife—your knife!”
    “Here, here.” Climpt thrust a red jackknife at her, a Swiss Army knife, and she scratched open the larger of the two blades.
    “Hold his head down,” she said to Climpt. Lacey dropped to his knees to help as she straddled Lucas’ chest. “Put your hand on his forehead. Push down.”
    She pushed the point of the blade into Lucas’ throat below the Adam’s apple and twisted it, prying . . . and there was a sudden frightening croak as air rushed into his lungs. “Keep his head down—keep his head down.”
    She thrust her index finger into the incision and crimped it, keeping the hole open.
    “Let’s get him out—let’s get him out,” she shouted, slipping off his chest. Lucas seemed to levitate, men at each thigh and two more at either shoulder. “Keep his head down.”
    They rushed him out of the woods, up to the sheriff’s Suburban.
    With each awkward, bloody breath, Lucas, eyes closed now, said, “Awwwk . . . awk” like a dying crow.

    A siren screamed away down the road just above him. Helper was lying in the ditch below the road, he realized. All he had to do was crawl to the top, and when the cops were gone, flag a car.
    A small piece of rationality bit back at him: the cops wouldn’t be going. Not now. They knew he was here, now.
    The Iceman laughed. They’d find him, they were coming.
    He tried to roll, get up; he would crawl to the top, flag the cops. Quit. After he healed, he could try again. There was always the possibility of breaking out of jail, always possibilities.
    But he couldn’t get up. Couldn’t move. His mind was still clear, working wonderfully. He analyzed the problem. He was stiff from the wound, he thought. Not a bad wound, not a killer, but he was stiffening up like a wounded deer.
    When you shot a deer and failed to knock it down, you waited a half hour or so and invariably found it lying close by, unable to move.
    If he was going to live, he had to get up.
    But he couldn’t.
    Tried. Couldn’t.
    They’d come, he thought. Come and get him. The trail was only a couple of hundred yards long. They’d track him, they’d find him. All he had to do was wait.

    “If he’s not hit, then going in there’d be suicide. If he is hit, he’s dead. Just set up the cordon and let it go until daylight,” Carr said. Lacey nodded, stepped to another deputy to relay the word.
    “I want three or four men together everywhere,” Carr called after him. “I don’t want anyone out there alone, okay? Just in case.”

    They found him lying in the ditch beside the road. Still alive, still alert.
    The Iceman sensed them coming; not so much heard them, but simply knew. Cocked his head up; that was as far as he could move now. But still: if they got him right into town, they could save him. They could still save him.
    “Help me,” he groaned.
    Something skittered away, then returned.
    “Help.”
    Something touched his face; something colder than he was. He moved and they fell away. And came back. Nipped at him; there was a snarl, then a twisting flight, then they were back.
    Coyotes. Brought by the scent of blood and the protection of the dark.
    Hungry this year.
    Hungry with the deep snow. Most of the deer dead and gone.
    They came closer; he tried to move; failed. Tried to lifthis hand, tried to roll, tried to cover his face. Failed.
    Mind clear as water. Sharper teeth at his face, snapping, ripping, pulling him apart. He opened his mouth to scream; teeth at his lips.

    Nine deputies were at the scene, four of them as pickets, guarding against the return of Helper. The rest worked over the scene, searching for blood sign and shells, or simply watched. The yellow-haired girl was a bump under a blue plastic tarp. Lacey and Carr stood to one side, Carr talking into the radio. When he signed off, Lacey was looking into the dark. “I still think if we went slow . . .”
    “Forget it,” Carr said. “If he’s laying up, he’d just take out