He gestured to me to help him, and began taking parts of the telecon from our packs. In his shaking hands the tubes seemed to join themselves. The skeleton was assembled in a couple of minutes, while I did nothing but sit and watch.
Last of all, Enderton lifted the twin eyepieces. He peered into them, out across the lake. And then he gave a whistling groan, as though all the air had gone from his lungs at once.
“It happened,” he said. “Happened already. I’m a dead man.”
He leaned back against the bulk of the water tank and laid the eyepieces on the balcony. I grabbed them and lifted them to my own eyes, their metal rims freezing cold against my unprotected face.
Muldoon Port was clearly visible, all the way to the ground as I had suggested. From the despairing tone in Enderton’s voice I had almost expected the two-half-man to spring into view, a man without arms carrying a legless one on his back. But there was nothing unusual about Muldoon Port. It was quiet and peaceful, with only a handful of people walking between the buildings. Then I realized that was unusual. When I had last been there the port had hummed with life; now it was almost empty.
Winterfall. It had been and gone.
I was still staring when Enderton grabbed the viewing tubes from me again and rotated the assembly. From the direction that he pointed I knew what he must be doing. He was following the shore line, tracking the road leading out of Muldoon Port around the southern end of the lake toward Toltoona.
“Nothing to see,” he muttered after a few seconds. “But nothing means nothing. They’ll know how to follow. They’ll be on the way. It could be any time.”
Again the eyepieces were laid on the balcony, while Enderton stood up and leaned dangerously over the rail. He stared, first south to Toltoona, then away in the opposite direction along the line of the lake.
“The shore road,” he said abruptly. “How does it run north of here? Does it carry on right around?”
“Not close to the lake. It goes off west, then curves round to the Tullamore bridge. I’ve never been there, but it’s on Doctor Eileen’s rounds. She says it gets just about impossible in deep snow.”
Enderton said not another word, but he grabbed the telecon, took it apart, and stuffed all the pieces that we had both struggled to carry up into one backpack. I didn’t see any way that a single person could manage the whole thing. It was only when he set his foot on the first step of the ladder that I realized we weren’t going to.
“The telecon!” I said.
“Safe enough up here.” He was already three rungs down. “It’s yours. You can get it any time you fancy. Come on.”
I had no idea what he was doing, but I didn’t want to stay on top of that water tower a second longer than necessary. The sun was low in the sky, a north wind was rising, and the air was becoming colder and colder. I took a last look at the precious telecon, sitting wedged on the balcony, then hefted my empty backpack and followed him. I didn’t look at anything, and especially I didn’t look down. But I could hear Enderton below me, wheezing and muttering.
“Can’t be north, and can’t be Toltoona. They’ll have the roads covered. Water, then. It has to be water.”
I was counting the rungs as we went down. After seventy-eight we were again at the ledge. Enderton did not stop this time to rest on it, and nor did I. At the hundred and thirtieth rung I paused and finally risked a glance down. He was almost at the bottom, his face purple-red and his every breath a groan.
I kept going, and soon my boots were crunching into deep snow. I felt a giddy sense of relief and safety. Within a moment it was gone, because Paddy Enderton had me by the arm. He was leaning against me for support, but at the same time he was dragging me down the hill—away from the house.
“You’re going the wrong way,” I protested, and tried to pull free.
“No. The only way.” His fingers tightened around my biceps, hard enough to hurt. “We’re sailing across the lake, Jay.”
“We can’t. In another half hour it will be dark.” And then, when he ignored that, “What about your things back at the house?”
“I have all I need.” He patted his pocket. “No more talk. You take me. Tonight.”
“Mother doesn’t know where I am. I can’t do it.”
“If you want to live, you can. Or do you think Molly Hara would prefer a dead son? It’s your choice.” He reached with his free hand into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a thin-bladed knife. “You sail me to Muldoon Port, Jay Hara. Tonight. Or I cut your throat here and now, and take my chances sailing across by myself.”
Chapter 6
I thought I would describe what it felt like to be out on Lake Sheelin at night, in winter, with a blustery wind rolling and pitching the little sailboat, and a murderous man holding a naked knife blade just a couple of feet away from me.
I can’t do it. I think that terror must be like an earache or a stomachache. After it’s over you know that you had it and you know that it hurt bad, but you can’t feel it or even imagine it, once it has gone away.
I know it must have been freezing cold in the boat; but I have no memory of being cold. I must have set the sail, too, and used the distant lights of Muldoon Port to guide our course, but I don’t remember that, either. What I do remember is the insane sense of relief, when we were a quarter of a mile offshore and Paddy Enderton put away his knife and pulled out of his pocket the same little wafer of black plastic that he had fiddled with back in the house, what seemed like weeks ago but was really only the previous day.
This time he must have done something different with it, because suddenly the plastic card disappeared. The volume around it became a three-dimensional pattern of colored points of light, moving in complicated spirals past each other. Enderton stared at them for a long time, then his hand reached out into the center of the display. The lights vanished. Once again he was gripping a plain black oblong.
It was the fascination of watching those lights that made me miss the other change, the one in Enderton himself. When we had first descended the water tower and floundered through deep snow down to the pier and the sailboat, my captor’s breath had groaned and wheezed in his throat. Once seated in the boat, however, I had been too busy to take notice of it.
Now I heard his breathing change again, to a loud, painful grunt. Enderton’s hand suddenly jerked up to paw at his throat. I could see his face only as a pale oval in the darkness, and I leaned forward to peer at it more closely. As I did so he gasped, shuddered, and flopped forward. His head met my knee, then slipped sideways to hit the wooden seat with a solid thud.
At first I thought he was doing it on purpose, and for a few seconds I was too scared to react. Then I reached out and shook his shoulder.
“Mr. Enderton!”
He lay face down, his legs caught under the seat. If it had not been for that, I think he would have toppled sideways and gone right overboard. As it was, the boat was too narrow for me to turn him over and I was not strong enough to lift him.
I crouched forward myself, my head down close to his. He was breathing, but in shallow, rasping breaths like troubled snoring.
I peered ahead of us, across the lake. We were less than a quarter of the way to Muldoon Port. The wind was with us, the lights of the port were plainly visible, and we could certainly keep going as we were. But what would I do when we arrived? I felt sure that Paddy Enderton had made his plans, but I had no idea what they were. With Muldoon Port almost deserted, it was not even certain that there would be anyone around to lift him out of the boat.
On the other hand, what would he do if I turned back, and then he recovered consciousness and learned that I had disobeyed his orders?