Brynn’s jaw was set. She’d probably prefer to use the stick to beat a little sense into Ryan.

“Hey,” the sick man croaked. They all looked in his direction. He’d moved farther away from the group to the top of the rocks. He was pointing down the slope, south from their view. “Plane.”

They scrambled up to Ryan’s view. White-faced and weak, Ryan braced his hands on his thighs as he stared down the slope. Sure enough. Alex squinted and saw white metal with some orange striping at the edge of a small clearing. Several hundred yards down in almost the same direction they’d come from. They’d probably passed within a hundred feet of it, but hadn’t seen it for the density of the forest between their path and the clearing. If Ryan hadn’t puked, they would have continued southeast, away from the wreckage.

Jim slapped the sick man on the back. “Nice work. Let’s get down there.”

Thomas and Jim turned to go grab their packs, but Brynn didn’t move. Alex followed her gaze to the puddle of vomit between Ryan’s feet.

It was red with fresh blood.

How sick is Ryan? Brynn’s heart had nearly stopped when she’d spotted blood in his vomit. Ryan was actively bleeding somewhere in his digestive tract. The possibility of an ulcer popped into her mind first, but Ryan had never mentioned an ulcer before. From what she’d seen, he ate whatever the hell he wanted and how much he wanted. He didn’t have the eating habits of someone babying an ulcer. And he was the picture of health; he easily burned off every calorie with his good exercise regimen. He didn’t smoke or drink. She didn’t think he had a daily ibuprofen or similar habit that could mess with the lining of his stomach.

She’d have to ask him about an ulcer. Another differential diagnosis for the blood was something he’d eaten. Maybe something poisonous or incredibly sharp. Where would he get something poisonous? And surely he would have noticed swallowing something sharp enough to cause that much damage.

Ryan had been fighting a cough, and his forehead had been unbearably hot as she’d held his head when he’d vomited. His health problem was probably systemic, like the flu or some sort of gastrointestinal virus or bacteria.

But those shouldn’t cause the bleeding.

Some ulcers were caused by bacteria. Weren’t they?

She snorted. Some nurse she was. It’d been too many years since nursing school. Most of those years she’d dealt with dead people, not living people and their various ailments. Her continuing education requirements were fulfilled in the classroom or online. A nurse learned a lot more when she worked with ill people day in and day out. An experienced ER nurse could probably look at Ryan, ask three questions, and have him accurately diagnosed before the doctor entered the room.

But could that nurse take the liver temperature on a corpse?

Before they’d taken a single step down the steep slope to the plane, Jim had looked up the mountain behind them and waved a hand at the wide expanse of snow. “Heavy snow. A lot of wet snow has fallen up here. I want everyone to follow the edge of the woods. Stick to the trees and out of the clearing as much as possible. This place is ripe for an avalanche.”

Brynn took one look at the tall slope behind them, dotted with rocky outcroppings where the slope was nearly vertical, and agreed. She’d come across avalanches after the fact. She’d never been around one when it occurred, and she wanted to keep it that way. She knew Jim had lost a good friend to a Canadian avalanche.

Ryan waved them on. “I’ll come down once I feel a little better. Leave your cell phones. Maybe someone’s will work up here. I’ll try to get a hold of base camp since we’ve got some clear views.”

“Take a look at all the GPS units too.” Jim handed over his unit, frowning. “One of them has got to be right. We need to let Collins know where we are. At least the radios seem to work among the five of us. I’ll let you know what we find down there.”

They’d left Ryan resting with a couple of thousand dollars of technology in the snow beside him and a low-tech compass in his hand.

Brynn glanced over her shoulder. They’d descended a good distance. Ryan was becoming a red spot against the snow. At least he could keep the group in sight all the way down to the plane. She’d examine him more closely after they checked the plane, and she wouldn’t take any more flak from him. He’d insisted he was fine and brushed her off earlier. She hadn’t pushed the issue.

Her objective was to get to the plane and see if medical help was needed. Ryan could wait.

The slope was steep, and they moved slowly. It took a good forty minutes to get within fifty feet of the plane. Kiana had bounded down, leaping from side to side like a skier working his way down a steep slope of powder, and was already nosing about the wreckage.

“Hellooo!” Jim’s subdued shout was met with silence. Brynn cast back a nervous glance at the mountain of snow. It was doubtful Jim’s level of volume would dislodge the snow. But she couldn’t stop herself from checking.

Dread was quickly replacing the energizing thrill from spotting the plane.

Could someone survive that?

The wreckage was bad. As they drew closer and saw the damage, her chest felt like it’d been hollowed out with a dull spoon. The plane had been ripped into two ragged pieces, the rear two-thirds had ended up against a stand of firs, and the cockpit had landed several hundred feet down the slope. Looking at the tall firs on the far side of the clearing, she could see where the plane had blown through the forest, leaving a swath of broken treetops and shattered limbs in its wake. Brynn shuddered. How had the cockpit ended up so far away from the body of the plane?