“We’ll find him.” I was already heading for the door. “Jet, come.”
Jet’s ears perked up. He knew that tone. Work time.
We’d strung a guide rope earlier that day, running from the barn to the guesthouse—a precaution against exactly this kind of situation. People died in whiteouts, lost in their own yards, unable to find their way back to shelter twenty feet away. The rope was our lifeline.
I grabbed the blizzard kit from inside the barn door. Carabiners, harnesses, extra rope. We clipped ourselves to the guide rope with runners that would slide along with us—no one who knew anything about Montana winters wandered into a whiteout untethered.
“Al Pacacino!” Audra’s voice was swallowed by the wind almost immediately once we got outside. “Al!”
I felt ridiculous, calling for an alpaca in the middle of a blizzard. But I called anyway. “Al Pacacino! Come on, you stubborn bastard!”
We moved along the rope, Jet pressed between us, leashed to me, the wind tearing at our clothes. Visibility was maybe two feet. Maybe less. The rope was the only thing keeping us oriented—without it, we could walk in circles until we froze.
Nothing. Just wind and white and the growing certainty that we were going to lose that damned alpaca.
Then Jet’s body went rigid. His nose worked the air, and he strained against the blizzard, pulling toward something beyond the reach of our rope.
“He’s got something,” Audra said.
I followed Jet’s gaze into the white. Couldn’t see a damn thing. But I trusted the dog. He’d proven himself a hero more than once.
“How far?” Audra asked.
“Too far to reach without unclipping.” The guide rope didn’t extend in that direction. If I unclipped and walked into that white, I might never find my way back.
Audra was already pulling the extra coil of rope from the kit. “Fifty feet. It’s not much.”
“It’s enough. Has to be.” I took the rope, clipped one end to my harness. Handed the other end to her. “You stay anchored to the guide rope. I’ll follow Jet. When I tug three times, I’m coming back so try to keep tension on the rope by pulling it toward you so I know what direction to go.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t unclip for any reason.”
She nodded. “Be careful. I love you.”
I squeezed her shoulder, although I wasn’t sure she could feel it under all her layers, then unclipped from the guide rope. The moment I did, the world became nothing but white chaos. No direction, no orientation, just wind and snow and the rope attached to my waist connecting me to Audra. To safety.
Jet pushed forward and I followed, counting steps. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The rope played out behind me, my only connection to anything real.
“Al Pacacino!” The wind ripped the words from my mouth.
Thirty steps. Thirty-five. Fuck. The rope was running out.
Then Jet barked—sharp, urgent—and lunged forward. I stumbled after him, felt the rope go taut, knew I was at the end of my reach.
There just a few more feet away. A shape against the fence line, lighter than the snow around it. Cream-colored and absolutely still.
“Al!”
He was huddled against a fence post, half-buried in a drift, shaking so hard I could see it even through the blowing snow. His eyes were half-closed. Not good.
I tugged the rope once—I found him—and closed the distance.
“Come on, you stupid alpaca. Move.”
Al Pacacino did not want to move. He was scared, cold, and had apparently decided this fence post was where he planned to die.
This was the most stubborn creature in the whole sanctuary. Everybody knew it. But not today. Today,Iwas the most fucking stubborn.
