THE FROZEN LADY

Georgie, the Jack Russell Terrier, peered over the Bronco’s hood as it climbed the snow-clad mountain. He let out a long, low growl. Heather glanced at the young pup, stretched between the seat and dash, fighting to hold his balance over truck springs grappling the wild.

     “It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll be running all around here in just a second.”

     The trail looked like merengue atop pie, each pine tree a frosted cake decoration. Heather felt fortunate to spend a week every winter in this mountain’s embrace. Her grandfather left her the simple cabin in the peaks, fixed up a bit by her husband. It offered little more than a fireplace and a spot to eat, yet its true gifts lay in views of the mountain range. And the sheer distance from society.

     Georgie quieted when the SUV climbed onto the yard, unveiling the slightly crooked retreat dressed in weathered boards and a sunken roof. The nearby foliage reminded Heather to gather samples of the Green Ash tree; the lab she worked for needed some.

     Dry, thin mountain air bit her face as she hopped from the truck, boots dropping into crusted snow with a crunch. As she carried two suitcases toward the cabin door, the wind ushered flurries of snowflakes, engulfing her in a blearing fog. Ears already stinging, lighting the fireplace came quickly to mind. 

Georgie struggled, plopping under the snow with each leap, yapping as he dove and bound by. He drew her eyes to dark patches on a snowdrift, feet from the door. The dog circled them, barked, then dashed backward only to repeat the cycle. Heather passed it with her suitcases, seeing a partly buried tarp.

     The dog would not calm. She set her luggage at the door, tracing her previous footprints for easier walking. She found the corner of the tarp and tugged it. The snow lifted and the other end pulled away, unveiling curly, icy black hair. Another yank uncovered a crinkled human forehead. Heather’s heart thumped. Jerking the vinyl again, a woman’s pale face flashed to light, caked in frost. Ice locked her foggy eyes on the grayed overcast, beneath eyebrows framed with thin lines of snow.

     Heather clutched her chest and crawled back. The lady’s body, frozen solid, was maybe thirty-five or forty years old. She wore a stylish trench coat as if she just left a shopping mall. A small golden cross hung from the woman’s neck that perhaps she prayed on before this.

     Many people met torturous ends at the lifeless hands of mountains. Heather heard the cases since she was a child. People spoke of it every summer spent in Wyoming or Colorado, but she never met it face to face or knew someone it happened to.

     Looking back, thousands of snow-packed pines carpeted the mountain slope, poked by distant peaks. It usually looked grander than a painting of forests and rocky vistas, runs of gray and white clouds blotching the sky. Now, a dreadful place to freeze to death.

     The cabin was the last place
this woman saw, its gray warped and gnarled boards now ominous on the mountainside. The bright snow and sky made the four-pane window by the door look pitch black beyond its embroidered drapes. Anyone who accompanied this woman, or killed her, could stand in the window without a hint...