I kept repeating the words over and over to myself as I rushed outside and began scanning the woods in front of the cabin. But there was no sign of Oz or Boo. I was about to hurry to the back of the cabin when something caught my eye.
Footprints.
Partially buried footprints.
The fear was crushing as I tried to process everything, desperate to come to a conclusion besides the obvious one. But I knew there was only one explanation. The footprints were most definitely Oz’s, and at the rate they’d filled in with fresh snow, he had to have made them at least fifteen to twenty minutes earlier, probably even more than that.
There was no way he’d taken Boo for an extended walk in this weather.
Which could only mean one thing.
Oz was lost.
Terror clawed at my insides as I frantically scanned the horizon for Oz’s bright red coat and called out for him. When I didn’t hear a sound and all I saw was white, I raced to my cabin to get what I needed. If Oz truly was alone in the wilderness during this storm, I was going to need to use my head.
And the clock was ticking.
After grabbing my emergency pack and GPS unit, I quickly called Xander and Bennett. Someone else needed to know we were out there in case I got lost or hurt trying to find them. There was no answer, so I left a message and quickly texted all three of their cellphones that I was heading out to find Oz in the woods around our cabins. I assured them I had my GPS and radio but might need transportation if it took too long to find him. If he’d been within shouting distance, I wouldn’t have been nearly so panicked. But at most he had a total of thirty minutes before frostbite became a worry in this weather, and I had no idea how many of those minutes had already been lost.
I stomped into my heaviest boots and clipped them into my snowshoes as quickly as I could before donning the rest of my gear and remembering at the last minute to grab my spare pair of snowshoes. I sent up a quick prayer of thanks that I’d taken a refresher mountain rescue course a couple of winters before with Xander and two other local guides. The four of us had become Haven’s unofficial rescue volunteers whenever hikers and cross-country skiers were lost in the area.
As I began my search, I stopped to throw bright orange markers down every so often to mark my trail. I hoped like hell it was overkill, but with the snow coming down as fast as it was, any footprints would be destroyed quickly. The ones Oz had left behind weren’t gone completely, but they were getting harder and harder to discern in the weak, flat light.
The snow was deep this far into the forest and came down in freezing clumps as I made my way as quickly as possible through the trees.
“Oz!” I shouted again and again. “Can you hear me?”
The silence of the forest was an eerie hush around me, and I tried not to let it twist my stomach in nervous knots even more.
My voice started to sound rough, and I worried it would give out before I heard the sweet sound of his response.
“Baby, please,” I whispered into the vast expanse of tree trunks ahead of me. “Where are you?”
The footprints I’d been following had gotten faint enough that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining them at this point.
I turned a complete circle, focusing as hard as I could to see any sign of the direction he’d gone.
“Oz! Answer me, dammit!”
“Jake?” It was muffled and weak, but I heard it.
“I’m here! Keep talking, okay? I’m coming to get you.” My heart was in my throat with a mixture of relief and dread at the condition I’d find him in. It had to have been at least a half hour since I’d started the search for him.
“Over here. I’m trying… trying to come…” His voice sounded tired and I was sure he was exhausted from the cold.
I moved in the direction of his voice until I saw it. A flash of red behind a stand of trees off to my right.
“I see you,” I shouted, throwing down another marker just to be on the safe side.
After covering the distance between us as quickly as I could in the snowshoes, I threw myself at him.
“Fuck,” I sobbed into his shoulder. “Oh god. Thank god I found you.”
“You came,” he said slowly. “That’s nice. Don’t get mad at Boo,” he mumbled, sounding confused. “Was watching her out the window… she saw something and ran off. Was worried she’d get lost.” He paused and said, “Where’s Boo, Jake?”
I pulled back to look at him, and through the gaps in the scarf he’d wrapped around his face, I saw the familiar signs of lethargy–an early stage of hypothermia.