Mclntyre braked gently. The rear offside wheel rose over a rock and settled. A momentary glimpse of the shining lake, the headlights staring out into empty air, then the trees again.
"Sure. But I'll keep you alive if you tell me. We can cut a deal. I want the name of the guy who hired you. Gant wants you doing hard time for what you did to him and Vance. Think about it—" They were over halfway down the mountainside now, had to be. The headlights gleamed back from the tree trunks. Then there was maybe a forty-minute drive on good roads to Redmond. He had to decide what flight plan should be filed, call the pilot. Fear of pursuit fell away. The lake was closer, the lights of Squaw Camp brighter. Strickland had no other real choice. He'd come to see it that way, in a while. But as yet, the guy didn't seem about to fold up. The Preacherman would still take a lot of persuading to give Mclntyre the name. He wasn't even grateful he was still alive, for Christ's sake!
Mclntyre loosened his grip on the steering wheel. It would come out right. He had Strickland, the man belonged to him, not to Gant or the mysterious employer-wheels ping He righted the sliding car confidently, almost relaxed. The headlights gleamed out through another brief gap in the trees. Bonner Lake was bigger, even closer, shining in the moonlight. It was coming out just right-The car's headlights glared out through the trees far below him, then became muted again. He could not catch his breath, could not admit that it might be too late.
From the outcrop where he had paused, he plunged into the trees again, catching foggy glimpses of the Three Sisters, other whitened mountains, the moon gleaming on Bonner Lake. All the time trying to ignore the weariness of his body, the strange, thudding fragility of his heartbeat.
They were much too near the lake already… The realisation, pounding in his ears like the noise of his blood, could not be admitted. Thin branches whipped at his face and hands and the ground seemed to snag and pull like mud at his boots and ankles. He swerved and dodged through the trees, the slope steepening ahead of him, dropping blindly downwards. There was no trail, just the sense of his descent to guide him.
He blundered out of the trees on to the scratch of the hiking trail.
Vaguely saw tyre marks, the signs of a skid. The trail wound away down the mountainside, marking the way that Mclntyre had gone. He'd crossed the first of the tracks just the first and the car was already nearing Squaw Camp. He plunged into the trees, his blood pounding more loudly than ever… then he heard something else. A wall of sound He cannoned away from a narrow tree hole, winded. He forced himself on, his hand touching a chain set in rock as the trees parted suddenly like a curtain being drawn. There was something ahead of him, blocking his path… The waterfall arched out over the descending slope which led around the outcrop.
It confronted him like a high, impenetrable wall, gleaming in the moonlight as if it was an enormous steel shutter. The chain was slippery to his touch, moss-covered.
Ferns decorated the rock face. The din of water and the visual assault threatened to engulf him. The clock in his head ticked on, measuring the distance between himself and Mclntyre as it increased, became hopeless. His breath came in exhausted, heaving gulps. Too late The main hiking trail avoided the outcrop and the waterfall, but the mountain had thrown it like a barrier across his line of descent. He edged forward, unnerved, the noise intensifying, his moon shadow creeping beside him, enlarged and more fearful. The chain clinked against the rock each time he shifted his grip. Spray dashed into his face, daunting him, like the sense of time slipping away. The cascade arched out over the trail he had to be able to pass behind it, otherwise the chain wouldn't be there… His shirt and jacket were sodden, his ears deafened by the sound. The waterfall seemed no more than twenty or thirty feet across. The knife-scratch of the trail had to continue on the other side.
Trail—? A ledge of rock along which he and his shadow moved with a helpless, unnerved caution. He was blinded by the spray. The sense of his feet and their shuffling movement forward seemed remote, not to be trusted.
The moon and his shadow disappeared… as did the chain. The water banged on his head and shoulders, trying to knock him to his knees in surrender. He was chilled to the bone. The water was silvered with moonlight. The cave behind the cascade seemed immense, featureless. He moved on fearfully, his foot slipping on a wet rock. He slid one foot carefully in front of the other, unseeing, deafened by the noise. His hands were stretched out in front of him to balance his body, to be ready to adjust-foot slipped again. He fell to his knees as if the noise and darkness had beaten him down. He wanted to scream. The noise that now enveloped him intimidated, appalled… He struggled to his feet and moved on. First step, second, third-behind him, suddenly.
The world no longer entirely composed of water and noise. Moonlight.
His shadow rejoined him on the ledge of rock as he grabbed at the reappearing chain.
He staggered away from the cascade, around the outcrop until the trees closed around him again and he could hear his heartbeat above the noise of the waterfall.
The mountainside dropped away steeply once more. He hesitated. The lake was a faint sheen of light through the trees, but his bleary, clearing vision could not locate headlights.
Then he saw them.
The headlights of Mclntyre's car were swivelling round, hundreds of yards below him, as they emerged from the trees. They were no longer bobbing with the undulations of the hiking trail but shone out clearly towards the lake. Mclntyre had reached the highway, was turning on to it. Gant had been beaten. The Calico weighed heavily on his chest, the rifle hanging limply from his left arm. Yes… The headlights had steadied, like a poised runner, then they accelerated below him, confident, shining out along the strip of the blacktop as it threaded itself beside the shore.
Too late… He could not stop them now, Mclntyre was clean away, Strickland with him. He had the only proof… Gant was shivering with rage, with the sense of being beaten. He wanted to raise his head and howl at the moon like an animal in his desperate frustration, raise his head-raised the Ruger, flipping up the waterproof lens cover of the thermal-imaging sight. Through the eyepiece, the headlights of Mclntyre's car seemed like grey strips of rolled steel on the tiny video screen. The car, enlarged as it was, was at the extreme range of the rifle. But it was his only chance. The car was a rectangular box behind the headlights, its windscreen another tiny TV screen on which there were two shadows, escaping him, as he moved the rifle, tracking them-squeezed the trigger, again and again. The windscreen shattered.
The headlights of the car wobbled like torches held in drunken hands…
Gant felt a fierce elation fill him. He raised his arms in a salute as the car below him visibly slowed, lurching from side to side on the highway, the headlights glancing off trees, off the water's edge.
Slowing all the time… Then it left the road, the headlights nose-diving towards the water, slipping into it, so that they gleamed out feebly as they began to drown. He could hear the protest of the car's engine, its revs far too high even though it hardly seemed to be moving. He watched it slip into the water eagerly, directionlessly.
He'd stopped them… only to drown He was running, wildly. Heard himself growling through his teeth as he crossed the hiking trail. Then trees again, and darkness, after a brief glimpse of the headlights becoming more faint, bleary. The roof of the car was still above water.
Black desperation prodded him on, taunting him with the sense that it was too late to save Strickland, that he was already dead in the car that was slipping beneath the lake. He cannoned off the hole of a lodgepole pine and blundered on, a deer startled out of his path, alarmed by his noise and flailing arms.