Page 2 of Deathmarch

About a hundred feet behind it, on the opposite side of the road, stood another gem.

HOPE YOU HAVE A FUN DAY.

She snorted. Or tried to. There were icicles in her nostrils.

Let’s not do that again.

The same went for hope. She hadn’t believed in wishing and hoping since…ever. She believed infightingfor what she wanted. So, as the squall reported back to work after its two-second coffee break, Allie marched forward despite the skin-peeling chill, despite the headache that pounded her as if she owed it money.

A mile down this miserable road, a warm room waited for her at the Broslin Bed-and-Breakfast. One flipping mile. Calamity Jane would be able to do it. And if Jane could do it, so could Allie.

Her feet were dry, a considerable advantage. She usually drove in sneakers, but when a snowbank had claimed her car, she switched to the cowboy boots that she had as part of her costume. The deep snow called for tall boots. No help for the spurs; she’d had those fixed on permanently. She’d lost several pairs over the years, and authentic Wild West spurs weren’t easy or cheap to replace.

While her toes were safe, her face was freezing off. She had wrapped her scarf around her head so she wouldn’t lose her hat to the wind, but she had to leave room to see and breathe, which led to a frozen nose and frozen cheeks.

As for the areas between her toes and her nose… Thank God for the replica buffalo coat she’d picked up online. Wild Bill Hickok’s, she always told the kids when they asked, a good segue into Jane’s Wild Bill years.

Keep going, or there’ll be no more shows, no more wide-eyed kids.

One foot in front of the other. The simple task should have been easy, but it wasn’t. For one thing, the giant purse that dangled off her elbow threw her off-balance. She hadn’t been willing to leave it in the car, and the coat was too large to wear anything over it cross-body, the snowy fur too slippery for the strap to stay on her shoulder. If Allie wasn’t worried about losing her fingers to frostbite, she would have pulled her hands from her pockets and dragged the damn purse in the snow behind her.

She’d left her gloves at her last performance, dagnabbit. Had put them down on top of the toilet paper holder in the teachers’ bathroom where she’d changed, and forgotten them. She would have to pick up another pair in Broslin.

She struggled forward, then stopped for a second to catch her breath again. She looked back—snow and more snow, no way to tell how much distance she’d covered.

She’d been walking for about an hour, every step feeling like a mile.A death march.The thought made her start back up and push ahead.

Ice coated her eyelashes by the time the next sign appeared in the distance, rattling in the wind.

Dear God, let it be the welcome sign promising the edge of town.But no. Another stupid billboard sponsored by the local tourist board.

HOPE YOU’RE SMILING.

Her lips were frozen to her teeth.

She muttered a string of words she could never use in the classroom. Then again, screw muttering. She would not go out with a whimper.

“I refuse to die here!” she shouted into the wind.

Even Calamity Jane had made it to fifty-one, despite all her hard living.

Allie staggered on for another half an hour, leaning into the wind, before her exhausted body stumbled to a halt in the middle of a snowdrift. The wind howled around her, whipping ice crystals into her eyes. The temperature had dipped to well below freezing.

She forced herself to take another step, but no longer had the strength to lift her feet enough to clear the knee-high snow. She shuffled forward, progressed another yard or so before the snowdrift irrevocably trapped her boots in its unyielding grip.

The tears in Allie’s eyes didn’t spring of self-pity. They sprang of anger. Shehatedto admit defeat. She refused to let those tears roll and freeze on her face.

“I will not give up!”

The squall responded with a howl that sounded suspiciously like laughter, but then…a scraping sound cut through the wind.

Allie stilled. She peered through the blowing snow, holding her breath, her eyes narrowed to slits.Let it be the giant township plow. Please, please, please.

All she saw when the wind shifted direction for a second was another damn billboard. LIVE YOUR BEST HOPE.

What did that even mean?

The sign disappeared in the next gust of snow, then nothing.