Kelly's Man (2 page)

The trail began to climb the side of a mountain. The going was not always easy, for the ground was slippery as George had warned. Now and then it wound uncomfortably close to the edge of a cliff, and often the long veld grass obscured its direction for quite some distance. Clearly it was a trail that only experienced hikers would take on their own. As she followed George's wide back, Kelly was glad that they were not attempting the excursion without a guide.

After a while they entered a canyon. Kelly sensed Gary's mounting excitement. The overhanging rock could not be far away. Now the mountains were tall and dark and very close on all sides. Kelly had not realised quite how high they had climbed until she looked down and saw the floor of the canyon far below. Trees, spindly and leafless, stuck out from the cliff-side at odd angles, their roots sprawling like gaunt octopus tentacles over the bare rocks, and a stream, like a thin silver thread, snaked its way between the canyon walls.

It was almost midday when they came at last to the rock. Kelly drew in her breath at sight of it. It was flat and long, protruding quite some way beyond the sheer edge of the cliff, with nothing but space for thousands of feet beneath it.

The path was very near the edge of the cliff, and Kelly felt a sudden wave of dizziness. Her legs went weak, and the colour drained from her face. In his excitement at having reached the rock, Gary did not notice her distress, but George did. He put a quick arm around her waist to support her, then he propelled her backwards to a point where she could lean against the slope of a sandy bank.

With exclamations of boyish glee Gary and Alex walked on to the rock. Kelly wanted to call out a warning, to beg them to remain where they were, but she stifled the words. She knew her fiance well enough to know that he had not come so far just to stay on the path. She was relieved when George joined them on the rock. He would keep the two young men from doing anything foolish.

Gary took his camera from his shoulder and began to take pictures, and watching him, Kelly began to relax. Even without George beside him she could see that he was steady and unafraid. They had come all this way without incident. When Gary had his pictures they would go back the way they had come. Tomorrow they would be leaving the Drakensberg. Gary would have the completed spool in his suitcase and would be elated at the prospect of winning his bet. She wondered now why she had been quite so tense.

The men left the rock and came back to the path. George was chuckling quietly in response to something Alex had said, while Gary was flushed with achievement.

'Glad you came?' Kelly smiled up at her fiancé.

'It was great up there.' His eyes shone with excitement. 'You should have come—Sheila too. It was a fantastic experience!'

Kelly laughed as she shook her head. 'I don't have your courage. But I'm glad you have all your pictures.'

'All but one.' Gary shot a swift glance at George who was still talking to Alex, and then without a word he left the edge of the path and made to climb a little way down the slope. Evidently he wanted a picture of the rock from a different angle.

'Gary! Don't!' The protest burst tautly from Kelly's throat.

George spun round, caught by the horror in her voice.

'Get back immediately!' The command rang out, sharp and angry.

'Don't panic.' Gary's voice floated up to them, cool and amused. 'Just this one picture and then....'

The words slid into a scream of terror. Then came the appalling sound of a fall.

Kelly opened her mouth, but her mouth was so dry that no words came. Her eyes were closed and she was shuddering violently, sick with horror and shock at the thought of the handsome young body lying broken on the floor of the canyon.

'Kelly!' Dimly, through the thudding in her temples, she heard George's voice, felt his hand on her arm. 'Gary's okay.' And then, more impatiently, 'Look after her, Sheila. She looks as if she could faint and I don't want another casualty on my hands* I'm going after Gary.'

'You mean...' She was still shivering as she opened her eyes and tried to focus. 'Gary ... he isn't...?'

'He fell on to a ledge.' Alex sounded subdued and frightened. 'But he can't get back. George is going down to get him.'

It was quite still on the path at the edge of the cliff. Not a word was exchanged between the three people who stood watching, waiting. There was only the fierceness of the sun, almost at its zenith in the vastness of the African sky, and the closeness of the mountains, a closeness that was suddenly menacing. The only sounds came from below them, where a drama of life and death was being played out on a narrow strip of rock; there was the snapping of a branch, the nerve-rendering skitter of a stone, a groan.

It soon became evident that Gary had lost his nerve, and that George was having to manipulate him back up the slope. There was a simultaneous expelling of breath as a fair head showed above the level of the path. Even then Gary could not manage the remaining few feet on his own. Alex reached him a hand and pulled him on to the path, where he sank down, exhausted.

Kelly was about to kneel at his side when it happened. A rock was dislodged by Gary's foot. George dodged its fall. It missed his head, but struck his leg. An exclamation of pain, and then George had slipped back on to the ledge.

The next hours were a nightmare Kelly would never forget. Kelly and Sheila remained on the cliff path by the overhanging rock while Gary and Alex went back to the hotel to seek help. The two girls were unable to go down to George. There was the danger that in their inexperience they too would slip, and this time the ledge might not stop a fall. They could only stay where they were, and call words of encouragement down the slope. After a while George ceased to answer. They knew already that his leg had been injured by the falling rock, and that he was in great pain. They did not know the extent of the injury, and when he lapsed into silence they could only guess he was unconscious. There was nothing they could do but pray that he would lie still until help came.

There was little communication between the two girls. Kelly had been aware of Sheila's antagonism from the start; an antagonism that stemmed— judging by her comments—from envy of Kelly's money. Till now the antagonism had been veiled with a kind of joking asperity. Once Kelly had mentioned it to Gary, but he had said she was oversensitive, imagining something that did not exist. Although she did not agree with him, Kelly had not mentioned the matter again. She had in fact tried to get on with the other girl, because if she had allowed an argument to flare up between them, it would have become impossible for them to share a room. At times Kelly suspected that this was just what Sheila wanted, for she had made it quite clear that she had expected to sleep with Alex. So Kelly, to whom the status quo was important, had done her best to keep the relationship harmonious, at least on the surface.

New, with George unconscious beneath them, there was silence on the cliff path. For once Kelly made no attempt to be friendly. It was as if the starkness of the accident had shown the futility of sham smiles and small-talk, had stripped away the differences between reality and pretence. It was a starkness which demanded honesty, which defied any effort at pushing unpleasant thoughts to the further reaches of the mind.

Sitting on the rough scrub, with only a stunted acacia for shade, Kelly was forced to assess what had happened. In particular she was forced to think of her fiancé as he had revealed himself in the last twenty-four hours. She was forced to admit that the recklessness and impetuousness which had appealed to her were in fact parts of a personality in which selfishness yielded to nothing.

For she had seen Gary's face when he had left the overhanging rock with Alex. For a short while after he had reached the sanctuary of the path he had been confused, uncertain, glad to have firm ground beneath his feet. There had been a look in his eyes which revealed that there had been a few moments when the threat of death had been very real.

It was a look which lasted no more than minutes. By the time he left with Alex to go back along the way they had come, the old expression was in his eyes—the wildness, the daring. And something more—a stormy defiance, the resentment of one who was being made, against his will, to pay the price for his misdeeds.

In vain Kelly had searched his face for a hint of remorse.

Was this the real Gary? she wondered now, as the long slumbrous afternoon hours merged one into another. All the qualities which had once seemed so attractive, were they no more than the trappings of a man who was wilful and stubborn to the exclusion of anyone but himself? Thoughtfully she looked at the ring which sparked blue fire on the third finger of her left hand. Was it only the accident which made her so introspective, so that she felt she was engaged to a stranger whom she knew hardly at all?-

It came to her quite suddenly that she loved Gary. Loving a person meant accepting his good points along with the bad. She had her own imperfections. How would she feel if Gary stopped loving her merely because her behaviour did not meet his expectations? Besides, she was engaged to him; she had made a commitment. And having made a commitment Kelly did not easily retreat.

The afternoon moved on. Shadows formed, lengthened. Now and then Kelly walked a little way back along the path to a point where she could see some distance out of the mountain cleft and into the valley where the hotel was situated, but nothing stirred. Anxiously she looked down the slope. George was still motionless. She hoped he would remain so, for a returning consciousness would bring pain and the dreadful danger that he would move and fall from the ledge.

But there was danger also in his unconsciousness. As hot as it had been during the day, Kelly knew that once the sun set it would grow cold very quickly. She and Sheila had their cardigans; they could even huddle together if it grew really cold. But George wore only shorts and a cotton shirt. He could die of exposure. If only they could find a way of keeping him warm...

She glanced at Sheila, who was leaning back on her elbows, her expression remote. 'I hope the men reached the hotel safely.'

'Alex will certainly hear from me if they dawdled.'

'Do you think...' It was hard to say the words, when the implications of the question were so serious. 'Do you think the rescue party will find its way in the dark?'

'They'd better.' Sheila's voice was hard. 'I have no intention of spending the night in this Godforsaken spot.'

'You don't care about George, do you?' The words were out before Kelly could stop them, her dislike of the other girl so intense that she forgot her resolve to be tactful. 'He could die of exposure.'

'He knew the risks when he took your money.' There was no mistaking the malice in Sheila's tone, nor the emphasis on the word 'your'. She went on before Kelly could speak, 'And don't pretend to be so shocked. You knew what you were doing when you bribed him.'

Kelly bit back the retort which sprang to her lips. It was futile to argue. Sickened, she looked away into the growing darkness.

It was dark when the rescue party arrived, an eerie darkness, with just a narrow wedge of star- studded sky visible in the cleft between the mountains rising high on both sides of the canyon. Kelly breathed with relief at the first sight of flickering torchlight.

It was another half hour before the rescuers finally came to the rock. Gary and Alex were with the party, but it was the man called Nicholas who claimed Kelly's startled attention. He did not speak to the girls, except to ask them a few necessary questions. Then he began to direct the rescue operations. As Kelly watched him, she was caught by his air of authority and a decisiveness that was sure without being over-confident. She did not know who the men were who comprised the rescue party, but she saw that they worked as a team, looking to Nicholas as their leader, accepting his orders without question.

Though the operation was fraught with danger, there was no sense of panic. It was as if the team knew that the man who led them would make the wisest decisions possible in the circumstances, that he would do what had to be done without creating unnecessary hazards. Kelly knew how they felt because she felt the same way, though she could not have explained the reason.

Nicholas was more than a man who gave directives. Kelly watched him climb down the slope to the ledge where George lay. She was not consciously aware that she was holding her breath, that his safety was in some peculiar way important to her. But when George was hauled at last to safety, and when Nicholas reached the cliff path once more she was filled with relief—also an inexplicable pride.

Gedrge was laid gently on a stretcher and covered with blankets. He stirred once and groaned, and Kelly wondered if he was coming round. Then he lay still again and she was glad. The way down the mountain would be bumpy. Better for George to be unconscious than to suffer extra pain.

A
S THE RESCUE PARTY STARTED ON ITS WAY
N
ICHOLAS LOOKED AT
K
ELLY
.
T
HERE WAS NOTHING CASUAL IN THE GLANCE
.
I
T EXCLUDED
S
HEILA, EVEN
G
ARY AND
A
LEX WHO HAD WATCHED THE ENTIRE PROCEEDINGS SILENTLY AND WITHOUT ANY OFFER OF HELP
.
I
T WAS A HARD LOOK, LOADED WITH UNSPOKEN CONTEMPT
.
I
T WAS AN EFFORT TO MEET THAT LOOK, BUT SOMEHOW
K
ELLY MANAGED IT
.
T
HE SILENT INTERCHANGE LASTED NO MORE THAN A FEW SECONDS
.
B
UT INSIDE
K
ELLY, AS SHE BEGAN TO FOLLOW THE SWAYING STRETCHER WITH HER FIANCÉ AND HIS FRIENDS TENSION FORMED A TIGHT KNOT OF PAIN
.

W
HEN
Kelly awoke the next morning she dressed quickly and went to the office. She learned that George had been taken to hospital and that Mary, his wife, was with him. Nothing was known yet of his condition, except that it seemed likely that his leg was broken. It seemed there was nothing she could do except to ask the desk clerk to convey her regrets for the accident as well as her best wishes. She would have liked to remain at the hotel a while longer, at least until there was more definite news of George, but even last night, as they had walked wearily back to the hotel through the darkness, Gary had been adamant about leaving. Nothing would induce him to change his mind. Alex and Sheila felt the same way.