Consciousness ebbed and flowed as Rory Casso chipped at the ice with his Bowie. Three inches of winter ice lay between Rory and water. And food. And life. If he could not traverse these mere inches of frozen liquid, life would be short.
But an even uglier deliberation than death bedeviled Casso’s thoughts for even as he grappled with the ice, Rory recounted the contingents of outlaws and Indians, face thick with the paint of war, that were stalking his beloved Bronwyn as she negotiated the wilds of these western reaches.
Bloodied, battered and bruised, Rory Casso continued chip-chipping at the ice with the Bowie knife until the demands of the concussion’s cataleptic grip squeezed consciousness from his flayed body.
