The sleet had lasted for less than an hour; then, the world had fallen mostly silent, save for the gusting of the wind.  The sub-freezing temperatures were tough, but the little tent did a wonderful job of retaining heat; between their thick sleeping bag and the hiking blanket they spread on top of it, Tina and Nick made it through the night well enough.  At one point, Nick got warm enough to peel the outer blanket mostly off of himself, though his wife kept her body molded to his for his warmth.

When morning came, the Bryants were in for a surprise.  It had indeed snowed during the night – apparently, when the sleet had stopped, it had given way to snow.  Clearly, the weatherman had been a little wrong – the Bryants couldn’t find anywhere around their campsite with less than three inches of snow, with deeper sections showing as many as six inches of accumulation. 

“So much for the ground being too warm,” Nick observed dryly as he started warming water in their little pot.  “I guess that the sleet helped to cool things off pretty quickly.”  As he worked, Nick silently was grateful that he’d had the sense to bring their filter bags into the tent overnight; otherwise, they would have frozen solid, and he’d have had to melt snow for breakfast.

The scene was absolutely gorgeous, like something out of a postcard.  The Bryants were southerners, not used to anything approaching real snow; the white blanket that stretched as far as the eye could see was incredibly picturesque.  As they sat, shivering, they waited for their oatmeal and considered the day.

“It’s beautiful,” Tina offered.  “But I wonder… should we go back?  That’s a lot of miles ahead of us, and we aren’t really equipped for winter weather.”

Nick frowned as he spooned the hot food into their little bowls.  “I’ve been wondering about that, too,” he admitted.  “It would be nine plus miles back to the east trailhead, but cell service has been basically nonexistent since well before we got out of the car.  Who knows how far we’d have to hike up the road before we’d get a signal to call Sam to come get us?”

He took a bit and stared into the distance.  “It’s supposed to warm up today.  The snow will melt, and we ought to be fine.  We won’t make as good of time as we would without it, and there may be some icy spots thanks to the sleet.  But going slow and steady, we should be okay.  We always pack extra food, so worst case, we spend an extra night.  We will live… and we will have a fun story to tell out of this.”

At his words, Tina brightened considerably.  She clearly hadn’t wanted to abandon their adventure, but she trusted Nick’s judgment to keep her grounded and safe.  “You know, you really are the best,” she offered with a twinkle in her eye.

Nick grinned.  “I know, I know.  It’s my burden to bear, but…”

His silliness was interrupted with a small snowball to the face.

--------------------------------------------------------

Nick had correctly predicted that they wouldn’t make as good of time as they normally did.  What he didn’t predict was just how tough things would be.

Naturally, the tent was wet, the chairs were wet, anything that touched… well, anything ended up wet.  The Bryants had backpacked with rain before, but they weren’t prepared for dealing with snow when it came to moisture.

At least the backpacks themselves – situated up off the ground on the chair frames, and protected with waterproof covers – were still dry, as were their contents.  Even so, packing up was tricky, and the moisture from the tent and other items unavoidably got into the inside of the couple’s largest backpack compartments, which in turn made everything else inside those compartments damp.  It couldn’t be helped.  At least the spare socks and such were in different compartments.

Their boots were waterproof, and the wool socks did a fantastic job of wicking moisture away from their feet, so the couple was still doing okay in that one critical area.  Even so, the hiking was very slow going; the trail itself had many sections that were not well traveled, which meant that the snowfall tended to totally obscure the correct path many times. 

Time and time again, Nick had to rely entirely on the map on the phone to help locate the trail, as it would simply disappear thanks to the snow.  So not only was the walking itself slow and sometimes treacherous – the worry of ice had proven to be prescient – but the pair had to wander back and forth to regain the trail multiple times. 

It didn’t help that the sun never really seemed to make an appearance.  The sky was a dull, lifeless gray, with a very low cloud ceiling that seemed to block so much light out; the only indication that the sun existed at all was a slightly brighter area behind the cloud cover.  The wind decided to gust in fits and spurts, but more often than not, it seemed to want to blow nonstop.  The temperature clearly never hit the promised mid forties; Nick was fairly certain that it barely got above freezing at all.  And of course, most of the area was wooded, meaning that the snow would have been protected even from brighter sun – let alone the current conditions.

As a result, the snow did not, in fact, melt – at least not in any meaningful way.  Travel never really got any easier.  By three PM, the Bryants had barely made it to five miles for the day, when their initial goal had been eleven.

And then, the snow began to fall again. 

At first, it was pretty.  Soon, however, the wind began to pick up, propelling massive snowflakes with velocity that stung uncovered skin.  Visibility began to drop to a level that neither Nick nor Tina had ever experienced outside of the heavy fog that burns away when the morning sun comes out.  While neither of them knew much about real winter weather, it seemed very likely that this was the beginning of a storm that would last for a while.

Tina leaned in close to Nick, her face a mask of serious concern beneath her mauve jacket hood.  “I think that we need to make camp,” she spoke to her husband with a voice raised to be heard above the storm. 

“We do,” Nick agreed in a similarly loud volume, “but I’m worried that we won’t be able to get the tent up and safe to use in this.”  He shook his head.  “We will never keep the inside dry, which means we will be really cold.”

Tina frowned.  “Okay, but what choice do we have?  We can’t just walk in the snow all night!”

Nick nodded.  “You’re right.  But look here,” he said, gesturing to the phone.  “There’s a shelter on the map here, it’s only about a half mile away.  If it’s even three walls, that will help so much.”

His wife’s expression was dubious.  “Isn’t that off the trail?” she asked.  “Is that smart?”

“It’s on another trail, see?” Nick indicated a tiny path that barely registered on the map.  “And it’s not like we can see the regular trail as is.”  He pointed to a thin, squiggly blue line.  “There’s a little creek between here and there, but if it’s like the ones we’ve seen so far, it should be shallow and narrow.” 

He then indicated the snow all around them.  “We can’t pitch a tent here,” he declared.  “I’m honestly worried that we might be looking at frostbite or worse.  A shelter would make all the difference.”

The brunette thought on it for a long moment.  “Okay,” she replied.  “It seems like a good plan.  I trust you… let’s do it!”

--------------------------------------------------------

In the driving snow, the going became even harder than they had expected.  The pair had to stay very close together, as it was frighteningly possible to disappear from sight if they drifted even a few feet apart.  Nick shivered beneath his layers; despite wearing a water-resistant outer shell, the cold was getting to him.  Inwardly, he began to seriously worry about Tina’s well-being; she would get cold even on some spring evenings.  How would she tolerate this?

Despite his concerns, however, Nick found his wife to be a trooper.  She moved steadily, never lagging, never complaining – even though the swirling snow and near zero visibility meant that he had to rely almost entirely on the phone map to keep them headed in the right direction.  Their progress was extremely slow and tedious.

Suddenly, Nick held up a gloved hand.  “Creek!” he exclaimed.  When he did so, the wind seemed to die down a bit.  Even though the snow continued to fall in huge, sticky clumps, visibility improved quite a bit.

Tina kept her head down to protect her neck from the cold as she scanned up and down the bank in the process of looking for a suitable crossing spot.  It looked like the creek had carved itself into the forest floor; the water surface was a good three feet down from the bank that the Bryants currently stood on.  Fortunately, there were several places where there was plenty of flat shoulder around the water; experience told them that you could almost always find a good spot to get across like creeks like this. 

The lanky man pointed.  “There,” he called out.  “It seems a little more shallow over there, with some rocks we can use to cross; we’ll just have to be careful about any ice on them.”  As he started to make his way carefully towards the intended crossing, he spoke with a note of cheer in his voice.  “Once we make it over, we are more than halfway to the shelter.  A fire is probably out of the question, but at least we will get a break from the wind, and we will be able to set our tent up off the ground itself.  We’re going to be oka…”

Then, suddenly, Nick was gone. 

One moment he was moving slowly towards the creek bed, the next instant, he was no longer visible.  With a cry, Tina nearly lept towards the spot her husband had last occupied, but a moment of clarity hit her and she slowed herself to taking carefully measured steps.

The Bryants, being woefully unfamiliar with real snow, had thought that they were treating the edges of the creek bank with sufficient caution.  In reality, they were far too close to the edge; what had appeared to be snow-covered earth was actually nothing but accumulated powder resting on a frozen crust.  When Nick stepped down, the snow gave way, and he dropped three feet into the frigid, rushing water below.

Fortunately, the water wasn’t much more than a foot deep.  However, it was swiftly moving, with slick rocks and a treacherous bottom to the creek bed.  When Nick hit forcefully, his feet flew out from under him; he fell back hard, with his side smacking a large rock in the process.  Fortunately, the backpack prevented his head from similarly impacting the rock; this stroke of fortune saved him from serious injury or loss of consciousness as he struggled against the shock of the frigid water now soaking his body and the air being driven from his lungs in the impact.

Through some sweet fusion of reflex and dumb luck, Nick had thrust the phone up over his head and held it high as he fell; somehow, he held on, ensuring that he and Tina would not be lost in the snowy landscape.  Unfortunately, the swiftly flowing water grabbed him, pulling him irresistibly downstream – at least, it did so for about twenty feet until he impacted more rocks.  Suddenly, a jolt of white hot pain shot up Nick’s left leg where it had been forced into a crack between two large rocks.  Try as he might, Nick realized in a rush of fear that he was unable to free his foot.

Thanks to a sharp bend and a natural funnel to the water’s course, the current had pulled Nick mostly across the creek, which itself was less than ten feet wide.  As Tina made her way down into the creek bed, she immediately spotted her husband’s blue jacket and ascertained that the water had pulled him along.  She saw him struggling, and terror gripped her heart; Nick wasn’t drowning, but he was obviously trapped in the freezing water.  This would have been a dangerous, scary situation in the summer… but here in the snow and freezing cold, it was a legitimate emergency.

The brunette moved as quickly as she dared, picking her way across the creek.  As soon as she was on the other side of the water, she raced down to Nick’s side. 

Nick felt his body weakening with shocking speed; the frigid water was sapping his strength more rapidly than he would have ever believed possible.  As he struggled, he realized that there was no one for miles around, no cell service, no one to offer any help even if the weather hadn’t been so bad.  The terrifying thought hit him like a ton of bricks – he was going to die here in this cold water.   

Hearing his wife’s voice pierce the fog that was settling around his brain, Nick looked to the side.  He tossed the phone to the ground a couple of feet past Tina.  “Foot stuck… rocks…” he gasped.  “Can’t… get up… go… use map…”

Tina’s green eyes flashed fire at her husband’s words.  “Fuck that!” she exclaimed, acid dripping from her tone. 

Rapidly, the woman dropped her pack, opened a side pouch, and retrieved the roll of orange nylon rescue webbing that she had insisted they buy months ago.  This was one of those items that the ultra-light backpacking aficionados loved to criticize as unnecessary weight; she had never been so glad to have spent thirty “extra” dollars and carried around a few “extra” ounces.  As she swiftly tied a loop into the end of the webbing, she shouted at Nick, trying to keep his attention; she recognized that her husband’s head and arms were beginning to sag with fatigue.

“Nicholas James Bryant!” she barked out in her best mom voice, “you will NOT die in a foot of water in the middle of these woods, do you hear me?”

His head was foggy, but Nick managed to focus on his wife’s voice and offer her a weak smile.  “Yes, dear.  I hear you.”

Tina was terrified by how gray Nick’s face had already gotten, but she strode into the current, heedless of the icy water rushing over the tops of her boots to chill her feet, and hooked the webbing loop over Nick’s shoulders. 

He gave a feeble protest.  “No… your feet… water… too cold…”

Angrily, the brunette fired a retort.  “Damn it, my feet will be fine, Nick!  Hold on to the webbing, use your other foot to push back off of the boulder when I pull.  On three, got it?”

Tina waded out of the water and set herself with as good of footing as she could muster, then wrapped the webbing around both of her hands.  “One… two... THREE!” she screamed, pulling with all her might.

It was all that Nick could do to even get his right foot up to brace against the rock while resisting the power of the current and the chill in his body.  But damn it, his wife, his boys deserved for him to fight with every ounce of life that he had left.  And so… fight, he did.  Somehow, he found strength that he thought was gone, and between that burst of adrenaline and his wife’s heroic efforts, the left foot came free.  Suddenly, he was bouncing off of another rock as the water pulled him further downstream, but he struggled to his knees at the edge of the water.  Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to stand.

Momentarily, Tina reached him, grabbing his backpack and hauling him up to his feet with a strength he had no idea she possessed.  With his wife’s help, he staggered out of the creek and onto the bank.  Somehow, she helped push and prod, and he was up and over the lip of earth and up into the snow.

He stood there numbly, unaware of exactly where he was or what was happening.  His ankle had hurt, but now, it was mostly numb.  He was mostly numb.  Momentarily, Tina reappeared in front of him, her face close to his.  “Nick, we can’t pitch the tent right now even if we wanted to,” she explained urgently as the snowfall began to pick up again.  “It looks like you lost the poles when you fell into the creek, and we don’t have time to search for them – not that we’d probably ever see them under the water.  We have got to get you to shelter so we can warm you up.”

Nick struggled to comprehend his wife’s words.  He felt a distant twinge of guilt for allowing the tent poles to slip off where they had been lashed to the outside of his pack, not that he could have prevented the loss… nor could he have pitched the tent right now, even had they still had the poles.  But really, it seemed to take a lot of effort to focus on that.  To focus on anything.  He was so tired, so numb…

“Not feeling as cold now,” he offered with a slur in his voice.

Tina examined his eyes and hands, and her expression grew darker.  “You’re not shivering anymore,” she observed.  “This is bad hypothermia, Nick.  We have to move NOW or you’ll die.”

The lanky man knew that what his wife was saying had to be important, but he was having extreme difficulty deciding just why it was.  Instead, he nodded dumbly and started trudging along after her.

A grueling half hour passed.  Tina’s feet were burning with cold, and her own body was shaking uncontrollably.  The wind was driving the snow in what had to be an actual blizzard; she could barely see a few feet ahead.  She checked back on Nick regularly, realizing that his steps were devolving more and more into sluggish shuffling.  She continued to verbally poke and prod at him, alternating between encouragement and insults in a desperate attempt to keep his mind engaged.  Despite her best efforts, his eyes barely seemed open. 

A sick feeling was growing stronger and stronger in the pit of her stomach, to the point that Tina wanted to throw up.  She knew that Nick wouldn’t be able to push on much longer, no matter how she prodded him; if he lost consciousness, her husband would certainly die.  She wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it.

Where was the fucking shelter?  Tina chided herself; she had never been amazing at following maps, and this app seemed more finicky than most.  They seemed to be on top of the icon that indicated the presence of the shelter, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

A terrifying thought crossed her mind – what if the shelter didn’t actually exist?  What if it was some ruin or something?

If that was the case, then she and Nick would both die, she realized.  The realization brought a wave of panic with it, and it was all that Tina could do to choke it down.  Panic, she knew, would be fatal – their odds might be poor now, but if she panicked, they would have no chance at all.

Nick stumbled and fell to his knees.  When he didn’t immediately try to get back up, Tina knew that this was the end. 

Fuck that.

She dropped to the snow beside him.  “Baby, you have GOT to get up!” she pleaded. 

She begged. She cajoled.  He didn’t seem to even register the words. 

Finally, she slapped him. 

Nick turned his head and fixed her with a weak grin.  “Damn, baby,” he muttered.  “You don’t have to be so pushy.  I’m coming.  Will you help me up?”

Tina grinned and slid under his arm to help him to his feet.  When they made it back to a standing position, she let out a sob.

Off to their left was a light.

--------------------------------------------------------

Somehow, Tina managed to help bear Nick’s weight to the source of the light.  She had expected a typical trail shelter; most of them were open on one side but still provided a roof and floor.  A few had four walls and were something akin to cabins. 

This was an actual cabin.  As they drew closer, she could make out a porch, a door – not just an open doorway like trail shelters had, but a door – and a lit lantern hanging next to the door.  A brief break in the wind revealed a metal chimney pipe extending from the roof, with a small ribbon of smoke slowly exiting it. 

Tina was unaware of the tears now flowing down her face as she helped lift and drag Nick up the single step onto the porch.  She began pounding on the door frantically.

“Help!  Please, help us!” she cried as she continued banging.

When there was no immediate answer, Tina considered taking her shoulder to the door.  It might anger the owner of the cabin, but this was literally a life-and-death situation.

“Damn it!” she shouted, her voice cracking.  “Open up!  We need help!”

There was a noise of the door being unlatched from the inside, and another sob escaped Tina.  They were going to survive.

“Hold ya hosses, Jeremiah!” came a deep rumbling voice from inside as the door began to open.  “I tol’ ya it was snowin’ too hard ta leave.  But ya ain’t hardly gonna freeze afore I get da door open…”

As the door swung inward, it revealed a massive, coal-black figure with a grin on a broad face that would be politely described as less than attractive.  Clearly, he was not expecting a frantic white woman at his door; as he took in the situation, his expression changed to one of surprise.

“Please help us,” Tina pleaded.  “My husband is suffering from severe hypothermia, I…”

Without hesitation, the huge man stepped out onto the snowy porch in his bare feet to slip an arm under Nick’s shoulder.  “Uh course, missy,” he replied.  “Let me get ‘im inside.  We gots ta warm ‘im up right away.  Come in, come in!”

The interior of the cabin was one shared space.  A wooden bunk was against one wall, and a potbellied stove fashioned with a cook top sat in the middle of the room, with a metal pipe leading up through the roof.  There was a small table, three chairs, and a counter for food preparation.  The interior of the cabin was lit with another lantern, as well as a few candles, and a smaller door stood on the other side of the room.

The large black man stripped Nick’s backpack off before simply picking up the smaller man and carrying him to a chair, which he pushed across the wooden floor to a spot in front of the stove.  “I’ma start getting’ deese wet clothes off ‘im, missy,” he spoke in a deep, slow drawl.  “I ain’t got no runnin’ water, so you grab dat bucket and washbowl, go fill ‘em up with snow so we can melt it for ‘is feet.” 

Tina hesitated; the adrenaline running out of her system, combined with her own ignored hypothermia, were starting to make themselves felt.

The big man’s voice rang out – firm, though not unkind.  “Missy, he’s in a bad way.  We gots ta get ‘im warmed up, an’ yo man needs you right now.  C’mon, get dat snow!”

Nodding dumbly, Tina grabbed the metal bucket and large metal basin and forced herself back out into the cold.  She filled them quickly with snow and came back inside the blessedly warm cabin to find the huge stranger peeling Nick’s soaking wet pants off.

“We’ll hang deese up ona line ta dry,” the man explained, “but fa now, we gots ta get him nekkid, dry him off, den we’ll get blankets on ‘im.”  He gestured to the stove top.  “Put dem up dere to melt, missy.”  

In a daze, Tina helped with the water heating and with her husband’s clothes.  Nick was barely conscious; his pupils were dilated, his skin was very pale – in fact, it was nearly blue around his lips and fingers.  The big man briskly worked Nick over with towels, then emptied a kettle into the basin, which melted the rest of the snow. 

The big man stuck his pinky – far larger than any of Tina’s digits – into the basin.  “It’s a little cool, but it’ll be warm ta him,” he explained.  “We’ll add more hot water as he warms up.”  He frowned at  Nick’s left foot.  “He bruised up pretty good dere,” the older black man observed.  “Foot’s a little swollen, too.  Prolly be okay, but I bet it hurts some when he gets ‘is senses back.”

With that, the big man slid the basin over and gently placed Nick’s feet in it.  “Grab dem blankets over dere, missy,” he instructed as he got Nick situated. 

Teeth chattering, Tina complied.  “Tina,” she spoke.  “My name is Tina Bryant.  This is my husband, Nick.  Thank you, sir – you saved his life.”

The hulking man grinned as he wrapped a blanket around Nick.  “Ezekiel is me, ma’am.  Ezekiel Brown, but mos’ folks call me Zeke.  I’s just happy to help y’all, ma’am.  Folks ought ta help one ‘nother out if’n dey can.”  He cast the brunette an appraising gaze.  “And you’s shiverin’ somethin’ fierce, too, missy… er, Miss Tina.  Dem boots is soakin’ wet.  We gon’ haf ta get you warmed up, too.”

Zeke drug another chair near the stove, and maneuvered a flagging Tina into it.  “I’ma grab some more snow ta melt,” he explained as she began removing her own boots and socks to reveal blueish feet.

When he returned, he checked the bucket and judged the melted snow within to be warm enough.  “Here Miss Tina, put ya feet in dat.  Dey’s cold an’ blue, we gots ta warm dem up, too, less’n you get frostbite.”

The big man busied himself with multiple tasks – adding wood to the fire, checking the heating water, tending to Nick with surprising tenderness.  As he moved, Tina finally had an opportunity to allow her brain to process their host.

Ezekiel – Zeke – had to be six and a half feet tall, or right at it; his posture was a little hunched, so it was a bit more difficult to specify his height.  His shoulders were massively broad; for that matter, his entire body was wide.  He wasn’t fat, per se, but neither did he boast some physique carved from granite; there was clearly some softness there.  Overall, he just seemed… immense, with thick limbs and huge hands.

The large man’s hairline was receding, and his short trimmed dark hair was heavily dusted with gray.  His face was clean shaven, but featured a large domed forehead, a wide, bulbous nose with a flat front, thick lips, and a wide chin.  His eyes seemed a little larger than typical, and the whites of his eyes stood out starkly against his extremely dark skin.  Tina estimated him to be in his mid to late sixties.  While his expression was kind, the man would clearly never be called anything close to “attractive”.

Seemingly unaware of Tina’s attention, Zeke frowned at the brunette.  “I don’ mean ta sound… questionable, ma’am, but dem britches o’ yours is mighty wet.  I’ll grab ya another blanket, but cold as you is, dem britches really need ta come off and get dried, or you ain’t gonna warm up.”

Tina hesitated for a moment, then laughed out loud at the absurdity of her immediate reaction.  This man might be a stranger, but he had undoubtedly saved Nick’s life, probably saved both of them.  Furthermore, as large as the man was, if he meant any violence towards his guests, there was little they could do – especially with Nick barely clinging to consciousness.  On top of it all, his words made perfect sense; Tina hadn’t stopped shivering.  With wet pants on, she probably wouldn’t.  

So, the brunette nodded, stood, and unceremoniously peeled the saturated clothing off, leaving only a simple pair of pink cotton panties in place.  Realizing that her shirt was likewise damp up past her belly button, she went ahead pulled it up and over her head as well, though she did retain the gray sports bra beneath.  Her cheeks burned a bit at the idea of this stranger seeing her exposed like this, but Zeke was studiously avoiding looking at her while she wrapped herself in the offered blanket and sat back into the chair.  Slowly, Tina eased her feet into the bucket; the immediate sensation was burning, with pins and needles being shoved all through her flesh.  She sucked in air loudly, locked her face in a grimace, but did not withdraw from the water.

“I’s sorry dat hurts, Miss Tina,” Zeke offered.  “But it’s da best way to get you all warmed up.  Just sit here an’ enjoy da stove, okay?  I’ma warm some soup for y’all.”

In his chair beside Tina, Nick murmured something unintelligible as Zeke added a little more hot water to her husband’s basin; it was the first noise he had made since they entered the cabin.  Presently, she realized that Nick was shivering – which Tina knew to be a damned good sign.

--------------------------------------------------------

The next few hours were slow and surreal.  The big black man clucked over Nick and Tina like a mother hen.  He kept snow melting on the stove, frequently changing out the water to keep the warming value at full effect for their feet.  He procured a couple of hot water bottles, then placed them under Nick’s arms to further help the man to warm up. 

Zeke then grabbed a hammer and some twine, creating makeshift laundry lines inside the cabin.  On these he hung the Bryant’s wet clothes and sleeping bag, carefully turning the latter inside out to speed the drying.  Their boots were placed on the ground on the other side of the stove. 

As the massive man moved around the cabin with surprising grace for his ponderous size, Tina found herself recounting the tale of how they had arrived at his cabin.  Zeke shook his head as she wrapped up the story.

“Somebody’s lookin’ out for y’all, I’d say,” he offered.  He gestured towards Nick.  “Yo man dere wouldn’a made it twenty mo’ minutes, if dat.”  The big man shook his head.  “He’s damn lucky to have a woman like you, ma’am,” he then declared.  “You pull ‘im out like dat, make him keep goin’ when he couldn’t?  You some kinda woman, Miss Tina.  Some kinda woman.”

Tina felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment.  Somehow, sitting in this strange man’s cabin, wearing nothing but underwear, while he paid her such heartfelt compliments?  It felt like it should be wrong, but for the life of her, Tina couldn’t identify what exactly there was to object to. 

Once Nick began to recover from his stupor, Zeke served the Bryants chicken noodle soup and coffee in tin bowls and cups.  At first, Nick was very slow, but the combination of the warming liquids with the warm cabin interior, the hot water, and the blankets helped him to come around before long.  Eventually, his own shivering stopped, but now that his skin was a healthy color, that fact no longer worried Tina.

Eventually, Nick started feeling up to conversation.  He made it a huge point to thank Zeke for his hospitality, and for saving his life.  The older black man chuckled.

“Shucks, mister,” Zeke chuckled, “all I done was give y’all some blankets and hot water, maybe a little soup.  Dis woman heah,” he gestured at Tina, wrapped in her blanket, “she’s da one ya need to be thankin’.  She hauled yo ass outta dat water, then drug you heah through a damn blizzard!”  He shook his head.  “You don’ find a woman like dat everywhere, mister.  Dat’s somethin’ else.

Tina found herself blushing at the big man’s words.  Nick nodded gravely.  “There’s no doubt about that, Zeke.  There aren’t many women who could pull a man out of the water like that, let alone get me through that snow – she’s a badass, to be sure.  She saved my life.” 

Despite herself, Tina found herself grinning.

Nick smiled.  “But sir, don’t sell yourself short with talk of blankets and soup.  We were wet and lost in a blizzard, with no way to make a fire or get out of the cold.  Tina saved my life first, but there’s no doubt that you saved it as well – and you saved hers, too.  Thank you, Zeke, for saving us.  Thank you for not letting my incredible wife die from my stupid accident.”

It was difficult to judge on such dark skin, but if Tina didn’t know better, she would swear that it was Zeke’s turn to blush. 

Eventually, Nick felt good enough to stand, and he walked a slow circuit around the cabin’s interior with the blanket wrapped around his body for decency.  “Listen to that wind,” he mused. 

“Been stormin’ all day,” Zeke agreed.  “Don’t got no ‘lectricity up heah, but I gots a weather radio.  We can give it a listen if y’all like.”

At Nick’s indicted interest, the older man rummaged through a box and drew out a beat-up old radio.  It squelched and squawked as he fiddled with it, but soon, a crackling broadcast – interspersed with a fair bit of static – could be heard.

“…unprecedented overnight accumulation of ten to twelve inches… expected to last well into tomorrow… lows in the mid teens…”

Nick shook his head.  “I think we are going to have to intrude on your hospitality for a while, Zeke.”

--------------------------------------------------------

Both of the Bryants were ready to sleep quite early that evening.  Tina found herself tired from the ordeal of the day, and Nick obviously was still dealing with the exhaustion which went hand in hand with hypothermia. 

Zeke would not hear of his guests sleeping anywhere but on the bunk.  While the couple reassembled their now-dry sleeping bag, the older man set up the cot he insisted on using in the only floor space that would easily accommodate it – which happened to be very close to the bunk itself. 

“Dis cot’s plenty good enough fo’ Jeremiah when he sleeps heah.  Ain’t no reason it ain’t good enough fo me, too,” Zeke declared when they tried to talk him out of giving his bed to the Bryants.  “Y’all done been through a lot today, de cot ain’t big enough for the two o’ yahs, an’ it’ll be good for y’all to share body heat, anyhow.  I’ma sleep right heah, and dat is dat.”

The large man loaded the stove down with wood, then adjusted the airflow to allow for a slower – if cooler – burn for the night.  Soon, the lantern and candles were blown out, with the only light coming from the flames in the stove. 

As Tina lay there in the near darkness, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of Zeke’s heavy breathing and the howling of the storm outside, she found herself struggling to fall asleep in spite of her fatigue.  The day’s events kept racing through her mind on a repeating loop, and her emotions came flooding back over her as she recalled each item; the worry over the weather, the terror she had faced when her husband had fallen into the water, the determination to not allow Nick to die, the fear that her efforts were in vain and they would both freeze to death, the jubilation and relief when she had found the cabin.  While Tina was never really one to toot her own horn, she felt extremely proud of herself, and the words from the two men really resonated with her.  She had made a difference today, no one could doubt that.  Not many would have done what she had done.   

As she lay on her side breathing deeply, it hit her with a jolt that she had another issue preventing her from sleeping.  Regardless of the stressful events of the day, regardless of the cramped environment, regardless of the extreme proximity of a complete stranger, she realized that she was aroused… almost painfully so.  Surely, it was a reaction to the intensity of her emotions, one of those “crossed wires in the brain” situations.  Then again, she and Nick had a pretty active sex life, and on backpacking trips, they seemed to have even more sex thanks to how much being outside and with her husband seemed to put her in the mood.  Surely, it didn’t help that she was in the middle of her cycle, either.

She and Nick had made love last night, but nothing had happened today.  Her body obviously missed the stimulation it had grown accustomed to, and she missed that connection.  It would have been really nice to “complete the loop” with him, to reconnect after the stress and trauma of the day’s events, but it had not been possible to do so.

Obviously, there was nothing to be done for it.  Nick was hardly in the physical condition for sex; he needed rest above anything else right now.  She briefly toyed with the idea of masturbating – something she almost never did – but the bunk was far too cramped for her to do such a thing without disturbing Nick… not to mention, Zeke’s own cot was extremely close by, and the idea of a strange man being aware of her doing such a thing was simply beyond the pale.

Instead, the brunette stared at the faint glow of the stove’s fire in the dark, listening to the fury of the storm while trying her best to ignore the heat and dampness between her legs.  Sleep eventually took her, but not before she squirmed and fidgeted for some time, her body unconsciously seeking fulfillment that she simply could not have.