I stumbled to it, dragged the lockers aside, heaved the steel hatch open, and felt cooler air rise. Good. The fire hadn’t spread far enough yet.
Then I heard an engine outside.
I dropped the shovel, grabbed the rifle, and staggered through the smoke into the snow.
A pickup was reversing down from the clearing.
Not Voss. One of his men, probably. The taillights glowed red through the snowfall.
I fired once into the air.
The truck fishtailed, corrected, and vanished down the track.
I don’t know if the shot scared him or just hurried him. Didn’t matter. The fire still wanted the hut.
I spent the next twenty minutes fighting it with snow, slush, and panic. By the time the danger passed, the front frame was charred black, the door half-warped, and my lungs felt flayed.
I dropped to my knees in the snow, coughing hard enough to see stars.
That was when headlights came again.
I spun with the rifle up.
“Easy!” Russ bellowed from his truck. “Don’t shoot the cavalry.”
He and Nora piled out with blankets, extinguishers, and the kind of alarmed fury people wear when they realize something has shifted from ugly to criminal.
Nora looked at the burned doorway and swore with real artistry.
“You called them?” I rasped.
Russ snorted. “No, son. You set half the mountain glowing. Some of us can still see.”
