I glanced at him pondering his suggestion. Trent wanted to just cut across to the coast and bribe passage out, as opposed to a longer journey to the south. I still liked the longer journey option except for the fact that it appeared that winter had set in for good. Snowflakes were already beginning to fall from the storm I had sensed building up yesterday.
This gold could be a godsend or a trail best left untaken. Which was it?
Having gold would arouse suspicion, but traveling on without reliable shelter and food could be a death sentence all of its own. The enemy would be expecting us, after so long of a chase, to keep heading south. This fortuitous discovery could be just the curveball we needed to make it home or end us up back in prison with no Earthly exit.
The snow abruptly started falling heavier and all traces of the sun were blocked out. The tiger abruptly got up and moved off into the darkness of the forest beyond the small clearing. God had once used ravens to feed Elijah in the wilderness, when he was hiding from the king, now I could add tigers to the list of animal kingdom procurement agent sources.
After disposing of the two carcasses I closed the door of the warm dugout and prepared for a hot meal, as the snow started to fall heavier and heavier.
Chatta looked around at those gathered around the fire. It wasn't a fire ring filled with happy faces. The faces were vengeful. They had all been given the ultimatum of what each of them could expect for continued failure to capture the escapees.
Chatta had been sure that their queries would travel by way of the coastline and to that end he had concentrated his search efforts there. What kind of fool would head into the mountains and yet two days ago they had gotten a break. A scout had discovered a place where three fires had been made. That had wolf pack confrontation written all over it, which explained why someone would head into the mountains.
They'd used the tigers to throw off the wolves that had been hounding them. If the wolf pack hadn't diverted them he would have had them long since, but now it made sense why they'd chosen the mountains.
Chatta was well versed with the mysteries of the elusive Siberian tiger, as he had hunted them off and on throughout his life. He knew of only one possible place of shelter in the immediate region. With the amount of snowfall there had been, they were only waiting now by the fire, for a chopper to pick them up in the morning to take them there. Tomorrow, it would all be over tomorrow.