“Sniffing,” Sam explained, reaching for his coat. “I was thinking about what you said earlier, about trailing by scent. It’s true that horses aren’t bloodhounds. But I do have a pretty sharp sense of smell in my horse form. My partner’s a raccoon, and he scent trails suspects quite a bit. So I wanted to see if I could find out anything useful.”
“That’s a good idea. Did you?”
“Not at all, unfortunately. There are too many people around, too much snow, and absolutely no way to tell which person left those tracks we found this morning. Which are already covered up by other tracks, by the way. So I had a different idea.”
“What’s that?” She stretched her stride to keep up with him as they went into the lodge.
“While you were in the kitchen, I asked Mauro and Hester if they’d heard anything about someone maybe living in the woods. They haven’t, but they don’t like the idea that there might be an unknown person entering the lodge from the woods and taking things. Obviously, neither do I. They’re way too busy to look around, but we could. I figured we might borrow some skis or a snowmobile, and go looking for signs that someone might be squatting illegally in the woods behind the lodge.”
We, she noted. “Do you know how to ski?”
“I actually have done a little skiing in my time,” Sam said with another of those unfairly charming grins.
“How about using a snowmobile?”
“Ah, that I haven’t done. But how hard can it be?”
“I’m going to remind you that you said that if we end up stranded miles from civilization, stuck in a snowbank.”
They found Mauro out in the generator shed. “Oh yeah, we have one snowmobile that hasn’t been rented out,” he said cheerfully. “You’re welcome to take it. Wick and Doreen, the neighbors down the hill, were out this morning grooming the trails, so you won’t have any trouble finding your way around.”
“I understood all the words that you just said,” Maggie said. “Individually.”
Mauro laughed. “After a snowfall like the one we had last night, it’s helpful if someone who knows the area goes around to break trail on the snowmobile trails. That way you can see which way to go, and you won’t have to fight your way through any snowdrifts, which isn’t a beginner’s activity. I also have some trail maps.” He gave them both a quick look up-and-down. “You’ll need helmets, which we have, and you might want to borrow some heavier outdoor clothes. You’ll be getting a stiff breeze on the machine, so you might get cold.”
A few minutes later, bundled in borrowed winter wear, they listened to Mauro’s instructions through the slight muffling of the motorcycle-like helmets. The machine was very simple compared to a car. There was a hand-operated throttle lever, basically an accelerator, and a brake on the handlebars, again like a motorcycle or a bike. The only gears you really had to worry about, Mauro explained, were forward and reverse.
“It’s something like a motorcycle, if you’ve ever ridden one,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Except it’s more stable because it’s so much wider. Leaning helps when you turn. The thing that’s really different from any other vehicle you’ve probably driven is that what makes it go forward is the spinning track underneath your seat, and when you take your hand off the throttle lever, the track stops moving. So you’ll stop instantly. There’s no rolling.”
“But this is a brake?” Maggie asked, fingering the lever.
“Yes, you can slide in the snow. The brake will lock the track and help bring you to a faster stop. Keep in mind your stopping distance will be unpredictable, and watch for obstacles up ahead. There could easily be logs or rocks under the snow that’ll hang you up.” He nodded to the seat, which was padded and long enough for two people. “Who’s going to drive?”
Maggie immediately looked at Sam. “You said you don’t think it’s hard, so you can try first.”
Sam laughed and swung a leg over the seat. “Sure. Get on behind. We’ll switch later if you want a go.”
Although Maggie understood she would be riding behind Sam, she hadn’t thought this through until she put her leg over the seat behind him and found that she now had Sam clamped between her thighs. She tried to push herself back so that her crotch wasn’t pressed into him, but it was difficult. The seat seemed to want to snug them together. She could only go back so far, because her hips bumped into a raised seat back.
“You can hold gently to his waist, or hold this bar next to you,” Mauro suggested. “Your feet go on the running boards behind his. I think that’s everything. It’s a push button start, very easy.”
The engine started right up, and now Maggie had to deal with the vibration rumbling through the seat on top of everything else. She cautiously put her gloved hands on Sam’s waist. Even with layers of winter clothing between them, she was hyper aware of his muscular body whenever he moved.
“You can practice in the parking lot a little before you hit the trails,” Mauro suggested, pitching his voice to be heard above the engine. “Feather the gas lightly, like starting a car in low gear. Don’t just punch it down. These things can really move, believe it or not.”
Sam must have squeezed the throttle lever, because the engine suddenly escalated in pitch, and they lurched forward about ten feet before stopping abruptly. Maggie gasped and clutched at his waist.
“Okay, I believe it,” Sam said. “I feel like a teenager learning to drive stick.”
Mauro laughed. “Good luck. There’s not really too much out there to run into. Just stay on the trails and be alert for other drivers or skiers.”
Sam squeezed the throttle again, and this time they eased more slowly into motion, rather than jumping forward. He circled the parking lot in a gradual, start-and-stop loop, then angled the nose of the machine toward the trail they could both see curving away into the trees.
“When you drive this thing, it does take some effort to turn,” Sam said over his shoulder. “I can really feel it in my shoulders. Want to try it out?”
Maggie shook her head, then realized with the helmet, he couldn’t see her in his peripheral vision. “No, that’s fine. You start out, and I can drive it later.”
With that, they jolted into motion, forward into the winter woods.
