And Lance hadn’t been careful.
He was lucky that Holden had found him so quickly that fateful day. For as frustrated as he often got regarding the ongoing situation with his knee, he remained acutely aware that the outcome could have been far more catastrophic.
Hearing Holden speak the words “tree well” just now did something to him. Lance never truly grasped the meaning of the phrase “blood running cold,” but the sensation welling up within him now had to be the definition. He trembled within his jacket in a full body shiver that he couldn’t contain, nor control.
With each zigzag pass down the mountain, he scanned the area, looking for a disruption in the snowpack or a change in the landscape. He knew from experience that sometimes all you could see of someone trapped in a tree well was the tip of a ski pole or a missing glove or goggles. Scattered indicators of something amiss.
But Holden had been on a snowmobile today. Was it even possible for the entire thing to disappear below the surface?
If he had been more prepared, Lance might have considered bringing Scout, Lance’s golden retriever, along. The dog remained back at the shop, lounging on her favorite fleece blanket behind the register.
Just a week ago, she’d had an unfortunate encounter with a skunk, and her thick coat of fur still carried the lingering odor. This was precisely why Holden hadn’t allowed the dog on the back of his snowmobile for the outing. She needed a few more days to air out before any tandem rides. Right now, though, Lance didn’t mind any of that. He’d not only tolerate it, but he’d welcome the pungent scent if it meant having the assistance of the trained pup.
“Holden!” Lance’s throat strained from the effort to shout loud enough for his voice to carry throughout the wooded area. “Holden, where are you?”
He slowed his machine and tried his luck with the walkie talkie again. “Holden, can you hear me?”
With a pop, Holden’s voice came through the small speaker. “I can hear you. Are you on your way?”
The connection was much clearer this time, and that gave Lance hope that they were now closer, the signal stronger. “I can hear you. Where are you?”
“Just south of the tree well where I found you.”
Relief surged through Lance, washing away his initial panic. Holden wasn’t trapped in a tree well. He was using the marker from all those years ago as a location to guide Lance to his current spot. This would have all made sense had the entirety of Holden’s communication come through the walkies, not been chopped up like a scrambled word puzzle.
“I’ll be right over,” Lance assured. “Hold tight, buddy.”
He gripped the snowmobile’s handles and with white-knuckled intensity, yanked to execute a hard left that propelled him over the landscape at twice his earlier speed. The trees hemming him in became a water-colored blur of greens, smudged with white. Heart racing, he deftly maneuvered around a fallen tree, narrowly evading most of it but unable to avoid rolling over a branch that had snapped off the trunk and landed several feet away. The snowmobile lurched, bounding over the rogue branch. The machine had good shocks, but Lance still felt the abrupt jolt shoot up his leg to his knee. Dr. Franklin would not approve of this sort of activity, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much Lance could do about that now.
In the distance, he spotted Holden’s snowmobile first, then glimpsed his friend standing upright beside it, waving his arm back and forth in big sweeping motions in an effort to flag Lance down. “Over here!”
Slowing, Lance curved to a stop, careful to keep a wide berth to avoid spraying his friend with the slushy kickback.
Lance had his helmet off and was on his feet instantly, rushing across the deep snowpack toward Holden, still not entirely sure what he might discover.
But the big smile splashed across his friend’s face wasn’t what he’d expected. Nor was the little bundle of fluff tucked inside Holden’s half-unzipped jacket.
“What is that?” The black and white fur instantly made Lance fear another smelly run-in with a woodland creature. “Please don’t tell me…”
“Not a skunk.” Holden pulled his coat to the side to reveal a completely sodden, yet utterly adorable pup. “It’s a dog. Husky, I think. I saw it shivering over by that ponderosa when I came by to do the rounds. He’s friendly, but skinny and scared. Probably a stray. He let me approach him and pick him up, but when I tried to start up the snowmobile again to head back, it wouldn’t go,” Holden explained. “And then I remembered that I forgot to charge it last night.”
Holden had been pushing big time to introduce electric snowmobiles into their lineup of rentals, but the guys hadn’t all been onboard. While better for the environment, it was still so much more convenient to just gas up the machines and go.
“You two can hop on my ride. We’ll come back with the truck later to haul your snowmobile back to the shop,” Lance said. He moved closer to take a look at the sweet, shivering pup. Two piercing blue eyes blinked up at him with the most trusting look. “What a cutie. Man, those eyes are almost as blue as Lake Tahoe itself.”
“That’s a great name, dude.Tahoe.” Holden held the puppy firmly within his coat as he straddled the snowmobile right after Lance had taken his seat at the helm.
“We’re not naming him.” Lance slammed the visor on his helmet and revved the engine. “And we’re not keeping him.”
“But Tahoe suits him.”
Lance couldn’t argue with that. Still, it was a cardinal rule that you didn’t name stray animals because that instantly turned them from strays to keepers. Not going to happen. “He must belong to somebody.”
“He might.” Holden shrugged. “But until we find his owner, he’s going to need someone to look after him.”
Pointing the snowmobile back up the hill, Lance set out for the shop. With the wind and thready whir of the engine, he had to shout over his shoulder to be heard above the noise. “He’s lucky he found you since you’ve already got experience raising a puppy.”
“I was thinking you’d be the one to keep him,” Holden hollered back.
