“Hush,” he said.
He rolled his window down and we were blasted by the wind. I bounced Jenna on my knee to try and calm her. It took me a moment, but then I heard the buzzing.
“Shit,” I said. “Is that them?”
Portis leapt from the truck and told me to grab Jenna’s things. I threw the bag over my shoulder and pushed the door open as Jenna’s crying reached full throat.
“They’re close,” he said.
I nearly fell forward when I hit the ground but I plunged a hand into the snow to keep from going over. The drift was to my shins and I stumbled again when I tried to step forward. Then I felt Portis behind me, grabbing me by the hood to pull me free.
He pointed at a stand of jack pines and said there was a deer blind at the top of the rise just beyond them. The whole hillside was a dull, gray blur to me, but Portis knew every inch and read that little spread of trees like a neon sign. He took off with his own rucksack and the rifle and I followed with both hands cupped beneath Jenna to keep her head from bouncing.
I could hear the sleds nearing but I was afraid to turn around and look. I ran hard and straight and nearly slammed into the blind before Portis swung the door open and guided me in. I’d been looking in the trees and never thought he meant a ground blind.
It was a small square of old, weather-beaten wood and there were openings cut in on two sides for shooting. The ground was dirt and snow-dusted grass, and I fell back on my butt and looked to Portis. He told me to fix Jenna a bottle.
“Keep her quiet,” he said. “Cover her mouth if you have to.”
I dug through the backpack but could not find the formula. Jenna was shrieking and Portis turned to me as he pulled a box of bullets from the ruck and loaded the rifle.
“Cover her up,” he said.
I put my hand over Jenna’s mouth and forced myself to squeeze. I could feel her lips quivering and trailing spit along my palm and when she began to kick I pulled back and her cries spilled out.
Portis squatted beneath the window and pointed at the corner of the blind directly across from him. I slid over with Jenna and backed myself against the wall while he eased up to look through the window.
“They seen us,” he said.
“Shelton?”
“No,” he said. “It looks like Arrow and Krebs.”
“Is it just the two?”
“Yeah. Looks like. They don’t see the blind yet, but they seen the truck. Probably heard us too.”
I jostled Jenna in my arms.
“I’m not running,” I whispered.
“You run if I tell you run.”
“We’ll see if I do,” I said.
Portis aimed the rifle through the window and steadied it on his shoulder. He asked me if I could see out, and I sat up into a squat so that I could.
“On the right is Arrow,” he said. “The other is Krebs.”
They were both moving in a slow crouch. Krebs had a handgun drawn in the center of the hill, while Arrow carried a pack strapped to his shoulders and moved up the tree line.
“I got a sight on either one of you,” Portis called. “And I don’t mind shooting. Just so we’re all on the same page.”
Krebs froze and then dropped into the snow while Arrow stooped lower, came a few more yards up the hill, and took cover in the pines.
“Here comes the warning,” Portis said, and fired off into the trees.
The men ducked low and Jenna nearly leapt out of my lap. She cried out again and I whispered to her that it was okay. That everything was going to be fine.
It was Krebs that hollered up the hill.
“Who you got in that blind with you, Portis?”
“That is not your concern.”
“I think you got a little baby up there with you. And Arrow said he seen a girl.”
“Well, Arrow can’t see for shit.”
“Baby don’t sound too happy,” said Arrow. “From the way it’s crying.”
“She senses your presence and it does not agree with her.”
“What’s funny,” Krebs said, “is we had a baby go missing last night. Down at the farmhouse. And Rick put out a reward. Five thousand dollars to whoever brings her back.”
“Five thousand,” Portis said. “That ain’t much for a baby. Is it white?”
“Far as I know,” said Krebs.
“If it’s white it should be worth ten. Old Rick’s playing you for suckers, boys. A white baby is worth its weight in gold. Did you know that all around the world, people prefer the white baby to other races? Were you aware of that, Krebs? People will take a white baby over a member of their own tribe. I think that’s sad, don’t you?”
“You know,” Krebs said. “It turns out I don’t have time for your bullshit.”
“Is that right?” Portis said. “Then why you still out there in the snow?”
“Because we intend to take this baby back to its rightful mother.”
“You don’t know nothing about it,” Portis said. “This baby was in a state of neglect.”