Being an actor who suffered from such a condition usually invited numerous obvious jokes from his peers, but for once none of the others indulged in them. During the day there had been a hint of spring in the air, but now with each mile the sky grew darker and the air a lot colder. They huddled together in their coats, with blankets tucked all around.

Outside, wide patches of unmelted snow still covered the ground under the trees, and the scent of it was in the rising wind.

"I think we're in for it, children," said Bianca, staring out as the first fat flakes of a new storm spattered wet against the windshield.

Charles kept driving, peering hard through the clacking and inadequate wipers. He turned on the headlights and tried to ignore a cramp twisting his guts. No one noticed the grim cast to his face; they all looked grim. He had to slow as the snowfall got heavier, and he couldn't see to avoid the more obvious potholes. The overloaded car lurched and swayed along, and after an hour of it they'd barely covered twenty miles.

"This is ridiculous," Bianca stated. "I'm getting seasick."

"Freezing and seasick," said Cornelius, next to her in the front seat. "It's a freak blizzard," added Stan Parmley, whose looks had earned him young romantic leads.

"This late in the season?" asked Bianca.

"That's why it's freak. We may have to pull over."

"Then we'll freeze to death," said Cornelius.

Until Bianca ordered otherwise, Charles would continue, though by now his cramping was uppermost in his concerns. He knew he'd have to stop before very long, and that it was likely to be unpleasant and embarra.s.sing.

The wind vigorously buffeted the car, and he had to fight to keep it on the road-which was rapidly disappearing under the fresh layer of snow. After half an hour he could only discern its surface from the rest of the murky landscape because it was somewhat less b.u.mpy.

"Slow down," said Bianca. "I see a signpost."

Charles slowed, easy enough to do, but because it was full dark and the headlights were thwarted by thick flurries, he was compelled to get out and walk to the sign to read it. The needle-sharp wind was painful on his exposed face, and the sting did not go away when he returned to the car.

"It said thirty-seven miles to the next town along this stretch," he told them, raising a disappointed groan. "That's two, perhaps even three more hours of travel. If I recall correctly, the hamlet of Moose Welts consists of a postal office and a small dry-goods store-both in the same building."

"No hotels?" asked Raymond Yorke, who had signed with the company only a month before, supplanting Charles as youngest member. Like Stan, he was handsome, but in a rugged American way despite his English-sounding name.

He was always in a relentless good humor even in the worst of times. Now he looked soberly apprehensive.

Bianca shook her head, sighing. "We've been on this road more than once and have often pa.s.sed Moose Welts. If you could see it you'd understand why we kept going."

"I fear our two courses of action," said Charles, "are to continue all night in this, or turn back. The wind would then be behind us. There's also a chance the snow might thin out the farther south we retreat from this storm. We can stay at the last village and try again in the morning."

"I vote we go back," Cornelius muttered.

"We can't," said Bianca. "We have to be at the playhouse or lose our contract."

"The contract has an 'act of G.o.d' clause, doesn't it? This would seem to qualify. No one's going to come see us because they'll all be snowed in."

Bianca still had more argument left and made use of it while the others shivered. Charles leaned against the door in nauseated misery until woken from it by a sharp rapping from outside. He cranked the window down. Clarence Coldfield, the only colored man in the company, peered in.

"What's the holdup, Bianca?" he asked.

"It's under discussion."

"Well, discuss it fast because I'm turning the truck around."

"You can't do that!"

"It's not exactly my decision. Everyone's cold, tired, and in a bad mood. Henry got out and saw how far to the next stop and started a mutiny. They're all going back to Elkfoot Flats whether you want it or not, and I might as well be driving them as freeze out here. Your sister's going along with the rest." That the other owner of the company was joining the impromptu exodus lent a certain legitimacy to it.

"Just let me talk to them a minute." Cornelius put a hand on Bianca's arm. "Now is not the time for debate. A vote has already been taken."

This resulted in more animated discussion initiated by Bianca. Clarence frowned at Charles, who was his best friend in the group. "You all right? You look awful."

"Bit of a bad stomach, is all."

"It must have spread to the rest of you, then. Listen, don't wait for Queen Bianca to make up her mind, just turn and follow us out. Henry was already bringing his buggy around." Charles nodded and rolled the window back up. A mile later Bianca was still obliviously arguing with Cornelius.

The blizzard seemed to ease with the wind behind them, and Charles could better see out the windshield since the snow was no longer hitting them head on. Countless flakes sailed ahead of them, their swift dance in the headlights mocking the car's snail pace. Charles followed in the tracks left by Henry's car, and could see nothing at all of the properties truck.

Bianca finally noticed their change of direction, pursed her lips, and sat back in the seat, her body rigid with anger.

She was not one to fast forgive when she lost a fight, particularly when she was in the wrong. Everyone else was relieved, though the laughter was somewhat forced when Raymond launched into one of his funny stories. Since he was still new, the others hadn't yet heard them all. Charles didn't care about any of it. He would soon have to give in to his cramps by making a short trip to the woods long before they reached Elkfoot Flats.

Then the brake lights of Henry's car flashed, and Charles had to stop.

"Now what?" asked Stan. They were surrounded by threatening trees swaying in the wind like drunken giants. He was a child of the city and most things to do with the forces of nature made him nervous.

Henry himself came to deliver the bad news. "I lost the truck."

"What do you mean? Did it break down, too?"

"I mean I lost its trail. Clarence got too far ahead of me, and the snow filled in the wheel ruts I was following. I thought I was still on the road, but we're on another road and have been for a while."

The language inspired by this announcement was much less than polite, for when it came to cursing, no ship full of sailors could surpa.s.s a company of highly annoyed actors. Charles abstained, having excused himself from the car while the opportunity was available. He knew Bianca was good for at least ten minutes' worth of recrimination.

Going far enough into the thin woods for some privacy, he was surprised-and highly thankful-to find a looming shape in his path that proved to be an outhouse, complete with a copy of last year's Sears catalog. He made hasty use of both, and, upon emerging, looked around for any other buildings he reasoned might be nearby.

He returned to the others to report that not all was hopeless. The road Henry had mistakenly taken for the main route actually led someplace, halting at a small, but st.u.r.dy hunting cabin. No one occupied it, but there was a store of wood stacked by the door and a substantial fireplace within.

"You broke inside?" asked Bianca, aghast.

"It wasn't locked. There's nothing of value there, but it is shelter, and this is an emergency. I suggest we take advantage of it before frostbite sets in."

His suggestion was universally accepted, for by now even Bianca was too cold for further argument. The two cars plowed through another hundred feet of snow and came to stop in the yard before the cabin.

"How rustic," Bianca commented, walking in. It was constructed of logs and looked old, but the cracks were well c.h.i.n.ked up and the roof was sound.

s.p.a.ce was short in the small structure; there was barely room for the fourteen of them to lie down on its bare plank floor, but that made it faster to heat once a fire was started. After that, everyone's humor improved, except for Charles, who could now well and truly succ.u.mb to his case of food poisoning.

Someone noticed, of course. Like any other family the members of the company were sensitive to each other's moods. Several of the more lively girls volunteered to play nursemaid, but Bianca shooed them away and administered a practical bicarbonate of soda in melted snow. She told Charles to stay close to the door so he could escape to the outhouse when necessary. He rolled himself under a borrowed blanket, shivering in a cold sweat but counting his blessings.

He'd been nineteen, recently demobilized from the army, when he'd walked into a London theatrical agency six years earlier looking for work. Times were bad and there were a lot of other young men with the same problem; the chances of an inexperienced hopeful getting a job were nearly zero.

Bianca Hamilton, then a forceful woman of thirty, had just formed The Hamilton Players acting company with her sister Katherine, and both were determined to see it succeed. They were looking to hire a man who was smart, self- possessed, willing to work for a percentage of ticket receipts, and travel to Canada. Their chances were also nearly zero.

Charles had been the only one to come in that day who seemed qualified and able. He was told to pack and be ready to sail by evening. Whether he could act or not was a side issue, for the sisters were of the opinion that it was a teachable skill.

On the voyage over he got to know the people who would become his new family, and they him. Working and training with them, he soon discovered he was clever with props and character makeup, had a gift for memorizing dialogue, and an excellent mind for solving whatever problems arose. In the world of the theater, things went wrong all the time, so he soon became their miracle man.

The membership of the troupe was not a constant thing. Some came and went, depending on their fortunes, others were fixtures for year after year. Charles had become one of the latter. For all the irregularities, mishaps, poor pay, and often dismal living conditions, he loved his work and the people who worked with him. He could not imagine himself doing anything else with his life.

Now he lay curled on the floor of the log cabin with most of those people, listening to their laughter and talk, and was thankful not to have to be alone.

A resourceful lot, some of them had brought extra food supplies, mostly tea, biscuits, and an occasional discreet flask of spirits. The Hamilton sisters were not against drinking, but they forbade it prior to a performance and abhorred drunkenness.

A search of the cupboards turned up a large cooking pot, suitable for stews and soups. They had no makings for either on hand, but one bright soul had bought a remarkable quant.i.ty of beans. When asked why, Raymond Yorke said they represented a fortnight's worth of eating and had been cheap. As the youngest and newest member of the group, he was often the b.u.t.t of much ribbing, but was now hailed as the hero of the hour. The pot was scrubbed clean of dust and hung on a convenient fireplace hook. People took turns fetching snow to melt in it. The evening meal would be rather plain, without any salt pork for flavoring, but no one would go hungry.

In honor of his genius and foresight, Raymond was given the first plateful when the beans were ready. He p.r.o.nounced them edible and took it upon himself to play server to the others. Plates and utensils were short, but no one minded sharing.

Charles, still in the thrall of food poisoning, could not bring himself to join them. Raymond noticed and insisted he at least have a cup of tea.

"You're very kind, but I shan't be able to keep it down," said Charles.

"You need to flush out your pipe works," Raymond told him with a grin. "Even if you can't keep it down, you'll still get some cleaning done."

That had a certain logic to it, and Charles wanted to be rid of the bland taste of the bicarbonate of soda he'd taken.

He drank the strong, too sugary tea and resumed his fetal position, quietly alert to the least internal change that would signal the tea's reappearance.

About ten minutes later his patience was rewarded-so to speak. He slipped out the door and found a spot away from where the other actors had been digging snow. At the conclusion of his business he felt worse than before, dizzy and heavy of limb, and his head hurt. He dragged back inside the warm cabin, resuming his spot by the door. The drone of his friends' talk lulled him into a dull doze.

Though the necessity of roughing it lent an almost festive air to their gathering, the day had been long and hard.

Soon after dinner they all fell one by one into slumber. Some snored, but the noise did not disturb the others. Raymond alone sat up, tending the fireplace. Charles woke slightly to see him adding more wood to the blaze, then finally dozed off.

He woke again some while later, with the groggy feeling that he'd heard something but surfaced too late to identify it. After a moment's thought he was fairly certain someone had merely pa.s.sed him going out the door. Another wakeful soul in search of the facilities, no doubt. He noticed the fire was very low, being composed more of deep red embers than flame. Raymond had probably retired long since and was one of the many lumps crowding the floor.

Charles suppressed a groan as he once again felt the need to hurry outside. He'd hoped to sleep through his nausea, but it was back and decidedly stronger than before. His head pounded as he stood, and he nearly fell over from a sudden swoop of dizziness, only catching himself just in time. He found he had to break every movement down into a single separate action in order to accomplish anything. It was like an acting exercise Katherine Hamilton had taught him. She was elsewhere at the moment, having been in the properties truck with Clarence and the others. They'd be wondering what had happened to the cars by now, worried sick...

Bad word, that. Carefully, bracing against the door frame with one hand, he lifted the simple wooden latch. Opened the door.

Stepped out. Closed the door. Looked around. Where was that d.a.m.ned outhouse? There. Just follow the beaten trail the others had left earlier.

Now-walk toward it and try not to fall down.

The snow had stopped; the wind had died to nothing. His boots crunching through the white drifts made the only sound except for his ragged breathing. His breath hung on the air, almost solid enough to cut. He knocked on the outhouse door, but got no response from within. Perhaps he'd been mistaken about someone preceding him.

No matter. The nausea was bubbling up in him again along with another cramp. He grabbed at the door handle and hurried in-and only just in time. As the door-which was balanced to swing back into place-shut, he thought he heard yet another sound coming from the direction of the cars. He's seen that they'd been shrouded with snow, but not badly. The digging out in the morning would not be too arduous. The person who had gone before him must have forgotten some necessary bit of luggage. Charles couldn't think what anyone would need at such an hour.

He sat in the cold little house, leaning against its cold wooden side, but strangely unmindful of the chill. He sat and sat and tried very, very hard to think of something anyone would need from the cars. This seemed to take him a terribly long time, but it distracted him from his internal wretchedness.

What was the time, anyway? Charles fumbled with his coat, trying to find the pocket where he kept his watch. He kept working at it until he realized he was trying to find a pocket that was not there. This struck him as very amusing, and he wanted to tell someone about it... but of course he was alone. It would have to wait.

He stubbornly continued his search, finally opening his outer coat. It was important that he do that so he could...

find...

... his watch. Yes, he wanted his pocket watch.

When he did draw it free he had to stare at it awhile, trying to remember how to open the thing. He knew he'd done just that thousands of times, but then he'd not had to pause and think about the action. Everything was so much more difficult when you had to think about it.

He was ready to give up when he recalled the matter of the tiny catch on one side and pressed it. That was much better. He angled the timepiece to catch a stray slice of outside light and got a fleeting glimpse of the watch face. It was either ten after midnight or two in the morning. He couldn't be sure about the minute and hour hands; his eyes weren't focusing too terribly well.

That accomplished, he wondered why it had been so important to know the time. In retrospect, it had been singularly unimportant. He snorted in disgust and spent several minutes putting his watch away.

Through it all, a small part of him was aware that something was quite wrong. It knew that sitting out in such cold for so long was dangerous, and he most likely had a fever. It told him-over and over and with growing alarm- to wake up and go back to the cabin before he froze to death.

But he was still sick, and couldn't bring himself to move just yet. He dozed off, a very light doze, because his eyes were still open. He was cold, but still did not really feel it. The danger, the frantic voice inside said, was when he started to feel warm. Well, that hadn't happened yet, so he was all right. Quite all right, thank you very much.

Raymond Yorke finished his work on the older of the two cars, making sure it would take some hours before any members of the company could bring it back to running order again. He wasn't stranding them forever, just long enough to prevent their being a nuisance.

He wiped grease from his hands with a rag and quickly pulled on his gloves. It was d.a.m.ned cold, but that would also help him. Since the company was twenty miles out in the middle of nowhere and uncertain where they'd left the main road, no one would be too anxious to try walking to find help. Besides, if the properties truck ever reached Elkfoot Flats, Katherine Hamilton would raise a royal stink about coming back to find her sister and the others. A minor hardship for them and too bad, so long as things worked out in his favor.

Still, he knew he faced a h.e.l.lish risk, trying this stunt with all the snow. Farther down the road it could be drifted up too high for the car to get through, but such a golden opportunity might never present itself again. He was willing to take advantage of it. He'd been waiting and waiting for the right moment to come, and now that it was here he would not pa.s.s it up. Raymond walked back to the cabin, easing quietly inside, though it was unlikely any of them would wake at this point. The dose of morphine he'd stirred into the pot just before serving had them all ready to audition for the part of Rip Van Winkle tonight. All he had to do afterward was tend the fire and wait. It hadn't taken long; he'd been very generous with his portions and the drug.

The only hard part had been to keep a straight face as he watched them dropping into dreamland one by one.

He stepped carefully over their sleeping forms to get to the fireplace, and built it up to have light to work by. That done, he started at the far end of the small cabin, going to each man and woman, emptying the contents of their grouch bags into his own. Worn around the neck and under one's clothing, the old theatrical tradition was an excellent way of keeping your valuables intact-so long as you were conscious to defend them.

This job's haul was especially large. The receipts from the Toronto performances had been their best since he'd joined the company, and tonight he had the luck to snag most of their earnings before they could spend it.

And that didn't even count the watches and jewelry.

Once he got back to the States and sold the stuff to connections he'd made in New York, he'd have more than enough to keep him in fine style for the next year or so. By then, the hue and cry would have cooled down and he could plan for his next little party.

Happy almost to the point of humming, Raymond collected it all, from Mr. I'm-such-a-great-artist Cornelius Werner, to Miss I-invented-Shakespeare-myself Bianca Hamilton, and all the rest in between. He did not forget to take the car keys from the snoring Henry.

"Raymond?"

He froze. Absolutely, completely froze at the sleepy, inquiring voice. It was Bianca's.

"Raymond? What are you doing?"

"Just making sure everyone's tucked in." Christ on a stick, was that the best he could think up? He turned slowly, wearing a guileless smile.

Bianca sat up, rubbing her face. "What's wrong?"

"Everything's all right, go back to sleep." For some people morphine was unpredictable. They could hold a lucid conversation, eyes wide open, and still be asleep, not remembering anything when they woke later. He hoped that held true for Bianca.

She did not take the suggestion, and struggled to her feet, shedding her blanket. "No... you're doing something.

What are you-"