Fool's Bluff

Kicked - Chapter 1

Samantha Shepherd checked over her shoulder. She suspected that she had escaped without being spotted, but she couldn't be sure. She leaned forward and increased her pace. As she climbed higher up the mountain, her legs grew heavier and her breath shorter. Her calves burned like they had been set on fire. Still, she pressed on. Grabbing a low-hanging branch, she leaned against a tree for a few seconds, sucking in deep lungfuls of cold, damp air, while her heart thudded inside her chest. With the heavy snowfall, it would be difficult to navigate in this weather, but Sam knew exactly where she was going. Away. It didn't matter where, yet.

No time for rest, she thought. This was a matter of life and death where every second counted. Her boot fell through a soft patch and she sank down into the snow to her knees. She knew that anyone chasing her could simply follow her footprints, but it looked like conditions could escalate to a total whiteout. Any tracks would be wiped out immediately and she would be impossible to find.

Sam made a sudden turn and hid behind a large tree. Breathing heavily, she peeked around the trunk. Despite the strong winds howling around her, she stood motionless and scanned the hill below her for any movement. Was that something over there to the left? She watched closely. Her peripheral vision caught something to the right instead and her heart jumped. A large branch rocked on the ground where it had fallen from above. The trees could get extremely dangerous in this weather, she noted.

Satisfied that she was alone, Sam pulled out her GPS and oriented herself. A muffled ring came from her backpack. She rushed to silence it, pulling a phone from her bag. It was Lorne from Glacier Rescue where, because of her parents' long commitment to the group, Sam had volunteered since she could crawl. She double-checked that the tracking capabilities were disabled, turned off the phone without answering the call and dropped it into her backpack. Better hurry now.

Sam hiked north, returning to the location of the last sighting. Their campsite. Her gut twisted. How could she have let a member of her group go missing? She had been their leader and they had trusted her. She bit the side of her lip as she felt an intense burst of guilt, of self-loathing. It was all her fault. Again.

Sam braced herself against the trunk of a giant fir tree as the winds suddenly picked up. Gusts of snow flurried through the beam of light from her headlamp, which was surrounded by endless darkness. Undeterred, she veered west and approached the spot where everything had started less than 48 hours earlier. An avalanche hazard area. How had her plans to hang out with her dad morphed into this nightmare? She walked faster. She couldn't bear to be responsible for another death.

Two Days Earlier

Sam's eyes welled up as she peered out from her viewpoint on Black Mountain. Glacier Village with all its charm and bustle lay below her to the left, the ski slopes of Mount Blue loomed above the valley on the other side, and an endless view of white-capped peaks spread out before her. She struggled with her choice. Every location her eyes rested on was full of rich, wonderful memories, making her decision almost impossible. A lump formed in her throat as warm tears rolled down her wind-chilled cheeks.

She had been avoiding the task for months. As a consequence, her mom's urn sat next to the battered lounge chair by the fireplace collecting dust — Elaine Shepherd's favorite spot. Sam insisted that the place where her mom's ashes were to be spread would be her decision alone, that she would have to bear the responsibility of ensuring that her mom's final resting place was perfect. Because it was Sam's fault that her mom was dead. But spreading her ashes would be an acknowledgement that her mom was gone. Forever. And that she was still alive, even though Sam knew deep in her heart that on that day, that bullet had been meant for her.