Ever Onward (41 page)

Sloan’s anger threatened to choke him.
No-one spoke to him like that! No-one! Not since his father years
ago. He’d been fourteen at the time. The old man had gotten drunk
and beat the living shit out of him. A baseball bat alongside the
old bastard’s head had put an end to that. Sloan hadn’t taken any
lip since. Now, here was this sack of country shit standing there
attracting flies and telling HIM how it was going to be! Well, he’d
soon fix that! But not now. Now he needed this pompous hillbilly.
But later! Ol’ Hayseed Hector was going to get a lasting lesson in
manners. Count on it!

“I want them!”, Sloan managed to
croak.

Hec nodded. “Me too. For
different reasons, but me too.”

Flame stood on the lip of the narrow,
open trail, her green eyes wide with wonder. Before her stretched a
view that took her breath away. An arm length in front of her the
world fell away in a dizzying spiral of blue. A thousand feet below
lay the glacial waters of Avalanche Lake. Three miles long and so
deep as to be practically bottomless, the cold, azure waters filled
the wide gap between two sheer cliffs. In the windblown gulf
between, fluffy white clouds floated. Soaring on the thermal
updrafts, a hawk, wild and fierce, cried out its boundless joy.
Flame’s heart answered in kind.

Twice before she had felt thus. The
first time had been with Snake and his gang, chasing Josh’s group
along the Franconia Ridge. The second time was when Josh himself
had taken her to the top of Mount Washington. Both times above
treeline she had felt her pulse racing, her eyes drinking in the
beauty all around her.

Now, halfway up the sheer wall of
Mount Avalanche, the thrill was the same; the sweeping vistas, the
endless sky, the feeling that you could reach out and touch the
very centre of the Creation.

“It’s something, isn’t it?”, Trina
said, climbing up to stand beside her. The taller red-head grinned
and pointed to the hawk. Together they stood watching the feathered
creature soar through the heavens.

Josh and Eddy, a dozen yards further
back down the trail, were kneeling by a narrow catwalk. The dog,
Princess, watched them with her head cocked to one side. A graying,
weathered plank spanned a narrow but deep crevasse. They’d been
traversing a giant talus heap of large boulders and monolithic
slabs for over an hour now, and this was the third wooden catwalk
they’d crossed. Using the rock-hammer he’d brought from the
Ranger’s cabin, Josh had smashed the bolts holding the wood to the
rock on all three. Anyone following was going to have a hell of a
surprise once they attempted to cross.

Watching the last rusted pin snap
under the blow from the two pound hammer, Eddy had an idea. “What
if we dump this one down the crevasse? If they get this far,
they’ll already know we’ve buggered the pins. They’ll simply have
someone hold it steady while the others cross. But if there is no
bridge ---”

Josh beamed back at his curly headed
friend. Together they heaved the heavy plank into the yawning gap.
It was a long time hitting the water.

“What are you two grinning about?”,
Trina asked as the men joined them. “Or is it one of those ‘male
things’?” The three pain pills she’d taken back at the Ranger
station had worn down the pain in her arm and left her a little
giddy.

Josh winked at Eddy, then reached down
to scratch Princess behind her neck. “Oh, just that two heads are
better than one, and that four are even better. Who’s
hungry?”

They sat together quietly, making a
quick meal out of cold tortillas, cheese, pepperoni, washed down
with peach juice. Princess had a whole pepperoni to herself. As
they sat, the shadows lengthened, while across the narrow lake, the
sheer granite cliff-face burned in the westering sun.

Flame leaned back against Josh, her
red hair a strangely heady mixture of sweat and pine. “You think
they’re still coming, don’t you?”

Josh was silent for several moments.
Just before climbing into The Pass, he had caught a glimpse of six
men winding their way up the trail. They were a good hour behind
them, but still coming. The false trails he had left and the two
traps he’d set had gained them a little time, but that was all.
Whoever was leading them seemed to know his business.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “They’re still
coming.”

“And you don’t think fooling with the
catwalks will stop them?”

He shook his head.

Flame sighed. “Then we should make a
stand here in the rocks and take them when they’re in the
open.”

“No.” His tone was final, not open to
negotiation.

She stiffened, turning to face him.
“Why the hell not? I know you’re not afraid!”

Josh placed an arm around her and
pulled her to him. “Damned right I’m afraid! There’s six of them,
most with automatic weapons!”

Flame fixed him with her sea-green
eyes. “You faced them back at the van.”

“And nearly got us killed!”, he
added.

“Well, what then? We can’t outrun them
and we can’t lose them. What’s left?”

Josh pulled over the pack from the
Ranger station. Coils of braided climber’s rope stuck out of the
top. “We outsmart them.”

He called Eddy and Trina
and began to tell them his plan.

Sloan felt like screaming. If he
wasn’t so bloody tired he would have. As it was, he sank to his
knees, his heart pounding, his lungs on fire. Tiny and Nuts Wilson
were in equally bad shape. Even the kid, Donny the Geek, was
winded. Only Hec seemed normal. Sitting casually on the lip of the
twisting goat’s path, the scruffy woodsman was calmly rolling a
smoke.

‘Bastard!’, Sloan cursed inwardly,
wishing he had the strength to shove the arrogant sack-of-shit off
the cliff. That made him think of Tim Shingle, which brought the
rage full circle. ‘Who the hell would have thought they would have
knocked out the fucking pins?!’ Sloan’s mind replayed the man’s
fall over and over again. The sudden flailing of arms; the
desperate, panic-stricken look; the ear-piercing, blood-curdling
scream as Tim fell into the dark crevasse.

‘Our fucking guide should have, that’s
who!’

They’d crossed the second catwalk on
their hands and knees. Crawling like a bunch of shit-pants kids!
All but Hec. That bastard had sauntered across!

And now this! The third catwalk wasn’t
even there! They’d tossed the fucking thing down! Down like Tim had
gone. End over end. Screaming all the way!

Something touched his shoulder and
Sloan jumped, his hand scrambling for the Rugger P-85 at his hip.
Tiny’s slanted eyes swam into view.

“Chill out, Sloan. It’s
me!”

“I know its you, Butt-Head! What the
fuck do you want!?”

“To get off this fucking mountain!”,
Tiny growled. “I feel like a god-damned fly crawling across the
nose of a skull! Christ! A fucking goat couldn’t live up
here!”

“Hec can.” Sloan’s words promised a
symphony of pain.

“Ya!”, the large Asian grunted. “But
not once we get back down.” The two men grinned like crows
contemplating a corpse.

Hec, as though sensing
their mood, glanced over at the pair, then up the steep slope. The
sun, now far to the west, left this eastern side of the mountain in
deep shadow. The crevasse that split the narrow trail was about a
dozen feet across but only went back as far as the sheer wall.
Several yards up the slope a large, dead pine hung over the trail.
An idea began to form in Hec’s crafty mind. If they could get up
there and push it down, they might be able to get across the gap.
He called Donny the Geek over. The kid was crazy enough to try
anything. Together they both scrambled up the
slope.

Josh and his group were now high above
the southern end of Lake Colden, over a mile further along from the
last catwalk. The trail had dipped down several hundred feet, then
climbed even higher. The lake, now far below them, looked like a
giant, kidney-shaped pool. A multicolored rope ran through a pulley
hammered into the rock wall behind them.

Josh, pointing to the map, showed
where a steep trail at the southern end of the lake led up the
eastern cliff to a place called Lake Tear of the Clouds. From there
a multitude of trails branched off in all directions, several of
them ending up at The Garden. The trail they were on now wound
slowly around and down to the same place, but if they could use the
ropes to get down the steep cliff, they’d be hours ahead of those
following them. All but Eddy jumped at the idea.

“What about Trina? With that arm...”
Eddy left the rest unsaid.

Josh dug out a contraption made from
nylon straps. “A Climber’s Sling. Flame goes down first, then we
lower Trina in the sling.”

“Ya. A real piece of cake,” Eddy said,
unable to hide his apprehension.

“I’ll be fine, Eddy,” Trina put in.
“I’ve taken a lot of climbing courses in Ranger School.”

“Ya? With a broken arm?”

She held up the aluminum Climb-Along,
a hand-grip that allowed the rope to slide through but gripped
tight when squeezed. “Like you said, its ‘a piece of
cake’!”

Eddy shook his head. “You’re both
bloody crazy. It must be four or five hundrd feet straight down,
and we’ve only got a couple of hundred feet of rope!”

“No sweat,” Flame put in. We’ve got a
bag of pullies and shit, plus there’s plenty of ledges on the way
down. We’ll just leap-frog it down.”

“Swell!”, Eddy said, nodding towards
Princess. “How about the pouch? I suppose she goes down in the
sling as well?”

Flame, already in a harness and hooked
to one end of the rope, winked at the worried carpenter. “Hey Eddy,
do you want to live forever?”

It was a game they had played since
leaving Mount Hawthorn. ‘Corny Quotes’. Someone said a famous line
from a movie and the rest tried to guess which one. Eddy was good
on the John Wayne ones, but not so hot with the rest.

“’
Conon the Slayer’!”,
Trina beamed. “What’s-her-name, ah... Valaria!, said that to him
just before they climbed the Serpent Temple!”

Flame gave her a thumbs-up sign, then
swung over the side. Princess barked and Eddy groaned, feeling his
stomach heave. Josh belayed the rope through the pulley the way
Trina had told him. Several minutes later the rope went slack and
Flames distant voice floated up to them.

“Send down the packs. Then the
dog!”

Eddy gave another little
groan.

“They WHAT?!” A vein in Sloan’s neck
looked as though it was going to burst. He drew his semi-automatic
and pointed it at Hec. “I should blow your bloody head
off!”

Hec fingered the pulley hammered into
the rock-wall, then turned to face Sloan. A sly smile creased his
stubbled features. “Go ahead. But without me none of you’ll get out
of here alive, let alone catch those bastards.”

Tiny shoved his bulk forward, in his
anger coming dangerously close to the edge. Over a thousand feet
below, Lake Colden waited patiently in the shadows. “You think
you’re so god-damned smart! All we have to do is turn around and
follow the trail back!”

Hec’s grin became a broad smile. “You
want to try crossing those crevices in the dark? There aint no
streetlights out here, boys. Once the suns gone its blacker than a
Nigger’s asshole.”

While this little tidbit sank in, Hec
glanced up at the sky. The shadows were lengthening, and the light
had dimmed in the valley. Hec decided to drive home his point. “Be
dark soon, and cold. Any of you boys bring supper? I thought not.”
He leaned towards Sloan, ignoring the gun in the man’s hand.
“There’s a lean-to beside a trout stream not far from here. In less
than an hour we can be safe and warn and stuffing ourselves with
fresh caught fish.”

“What about them?!”, Sloan demanded,
pointing down to Lake Colden.

Hec began to roll a cigarette. “I know
where their headed. They’ll have to camp soon. Come morning they’ll
head up over Mount Colden and on to Tear Lake Shelter. At dawn I’ll
take us up a side-trail not marked on any map. Its harder to climb
that a Nun’s thigh, but it’ll get us where we want to go in half
the time.”

“Oh?”, Tiny sneered. “And just where
the fuck is that?”

“
Tear Lake Shelter,” Hec
beamed. “There’s a trail from there that leads down to The Garden.
With any luck, we should get to the shelter ahead of them.” Hec
struck a wooden match with the end of his thumbnail and lit his
cigarette. “Should have them in the bag by tomorrow
night.”

Chapter 32
: ‘TEAR LAKE’

The Adirondacks

New York August
18

Josh called a halt beside a rushing
stream. Tossing down his pack, he thrust his head into the foaming
water, the cold helping to wash away his fatigue. The other three
gladly did the same. Princess was already up to her belly, noisily
drinking her fill. Flame, kicking off her boots, shorts and
tank-top, joined the hound, laying down and letting the icy water
flow over her. The others were too hot and tired to notice.
Besides, Flame was after all, Flame. Mindful of her sling, Trina
bathed her face with a wet bandana. The second lot of pills Eddy
had given her since breakfast were already wearing off, leaving her
features drawn and pale.