by Helen Wells
“Come back safe!” Val’s father called. He waved goodbye from the chateau’s doorway as they climbed into a neighbor’s car.
By full daybreak the neighbor had driven them across the valley, to the base of Le Solitaire Mountain. Here an old cable lift was still in use. They said goodbye and thanks to the neighbor. Joe, Val, and Toni fastened their packs of gear and supplies on their backs; Joe hung an ice ax onto his belt, and an iron hook for clutching ice in case they had to climb.
Up they went in the cable car, creaking and swinging, looking down on Eagle’s Peak easternmost houses, until the car rose above cloud level. Now they could look southeast and see the icy, glittering peak of Spirit Mountain. It rose high above the other great snowy peaks.
They crossed the snowy top of Le Solitaire Mountain on skis, pushing lightly with their poles in order to keep gliding ahead. Their skis whispered against the snow. Now they were schussing downhill, steeply, and over low, small, rocky ridges. Getting over meant making small jumps. Both Val and Toni glided nearer to assist Cherry. Was Toni trying to do his part? To prove himself? Val called:
“Approach the dip, then crouch down, tuck in your knees, then up. Insert the poles in the snow the instant before you jump. Now! Jump!”
Cherry tucked in her knees on the down motion, pushed out with her poles, and allowed herself to be carried in the air with her body stretched out, as if flying. She came down gently into running position.
“Bravo, Cherry!” Val called, soaring himself.
“Watch for crevasses!” Joe shouted back from his lead position. “Cherry, that means watch for gray, sagging snow—it stretches over an open pit—don’t fall into it!”
Joe Wardi picked the snow and the piste, or trail—a more or less straight, steep, downhill course. Once they passed a small, bare lodge that Cherry knew was sparsely furnished with bunks, chairs, table, fireplace, and a crude stove for emergency use by stranded skiers. Joe guided them past treacherous rock areas masked by a thin snow cover, then past some stunted trees.
Skiing down the southeastern slope of Le Solitaire Mountain to the bottom, they landed in a silent snow valley. Just ahead Spirit Mountain reared up, untracked, enormous.
Cherry stared up at the forbidding mountain. What a terrible place to hold the kidnapped man!
Joe Wardi was leading them across the snowfield, placing willow wands upright here and there as markers to help them find their way back. He stopped and gave them chocolate bars and oranges out of a rucksack, before making a start up Spirit Mountain. Taking a coil of rope from his shoulder, he said:
“You will be on one end, Toni. Cherry will be between Val and me.”
They took off their skis and stood in that order while the mountaineer tied the long rope from waist to waist, and finally tied the other end around himself. A distance of about twenty to thirty feet of slack rope separated each one of the party. Cherry realized that she, an amateur, could be included only because Joe, Val, and Toni were experienced climbers.
Val came over to her, bringing sealskins. “Hold still while I fasten these on your skis. The sealskins will let you all but walk right up the mountain.” He had enough for all their skis. “Give me your medical kit,” Val said. “I’d forgotten you had it strapped across your shoulder.”
She handed over the small, well-equipped kit that Dr. Portman had given her. As Val knelt to put the sealskins on her skis, his jacket fell open a little. Cherry saw he was wearing a piece of equipment slung over his shoulder.
“What’s that, Val? A radio? A walkie-talkie?” Cherry asked.
“A walkie-talkie so the police can hear what’s happening,” Val said. He looked closely at her. “Cherry, anything you want? If you need help, call me. Understood?” Val returned to his place in the rope line, and waved to her. “Ready!”
Cherry in turn swung around and waved to Toni. “Ready!” For the first time she noticed Toni was not wearing his red ski sweater, which resembled the jackets of certified ski instructors. As if chastened, or shrewd, Toni wore an old blue jacket. “Ready,” he called back. “Better put on your sunglasses.” The snow threw off a blinding glare as the sun rose higher.
They started up Spirit Mountain’s slope of snow and ice. The going was slow. Joe Wardi and Val, though, considered this fast climbing, almost 2,000 feet per hour. Spirit Mountain was about 5,900 feet above sea level, but fortunately they would not have to climb all the way to the summit. Toni said the hut was halfway up, at a small plateau. Joe Wardi led them, looking for settled snow that would not slide down and bury them, picking his way, keeping the rope belayed about the shaft of his ice ax.
Cherry, in this isolated world of ice and snow, was moved by the majestic, immense peaks and by the silence. Ahead of her, ahead of Val, she saw Joe Wardi cutting steps, one at a time, out of the snow and ice—steps to carry them up the slope.
“Cherry! Look higher up the mountain!” Val shouted over the whistling wind. Looming above them stood the round base and tumbled stones of an ancient tower. “Blue Castle! They say ghosts wafted the firewatcher away—”
Cherry nodded. Blue Castle was on the way, so they must be near the prisoner now. She was less interested in ghosts than in a flesh-and-blood racketeer and his captive. They climbed for a while, with difficulty. When they came to a protected hollow among some rocks, they rested.
Torn fragments of cloud drifted across them, obscuring, then revealing their faces. Toni’s face had lost its cocky air. Even his voice had grown small.
“Listen, I want to say something before we go in that hut. We’re almost there. Up behind that ledge, that’s where. Well, I—I—” Toni shook his head.
“Say it and be quick,” the mountaineer ordered him.
Toni looked Val straight in the eyes. “I’m no good. I’m sorry. I learned about decent people, living in your house. That’s all I have to say.”
They unroped. A trail of a few rocky yards brought them near a herdsman’s stone hut. A mud path led to its heavy wooden door. The few tiny windows were steamy. Toni motioned to them to keep out of sight among some stunted trees that sheltered the rear of the house.
Toni whispered that the hut was divided into three small rooms—a room entered by the front door; a kitchen entered by the back door; and a middle room. “They keep the prisoner in the middle room.”
As they silently circled the hut, hiding in the trees, Toni pointed out that the kitchen door was locked and barred from the outside. “To lock the sick man in. And the front door—the only one Otto uses—is locked from the inside. Don’t worry. Once I’m in, I’ll unlock the front door for you.”
“Wait for your best chance,” Val muttered to Toni.
They silently circled the hut, emerging on the south side of Spirit Mountain. Toni motioned; they ran and hid behind a woodshed. From there, they discovered that the hut stood on and commanded a broad, rolling snow pasture, looking southeast. The farmer would have seen them had they come that way instead of from the north.
On the mountain’s south face a river, now choked with snow, had cut downward so that the mountain sloped away—“to the Swiss-Italian border,” Val whispered to Cherry. “This is a strategic location for any illegal across-the-border operations.”
Joe Wardi used his binoculars. “I estimate we are less than five miles from Lake Lugano.” The lake lay far below, half in Switzerland, half in Italy.
Cherry eyed the hut. According to plan, Toni boldly went to the door and knocked. Val and Joe waited behind the small woodshed.
Only Cherry was to enter the hut when Toni did—not as a nurse. Because, Toni had warned, the farmer would not knowingly admit a nurse. He, like Toni, must have been instructed to give the sick man absolutely no medical aid.
A pretense of fatigue would get her into the hut. Then Val and Joe Wardi were to rush in while the door was still open, or Toni would unlock it for them.
Cherry did not know what the next move then would be. Her single purpose was to treat the sick man, w
hether or not a fight broke out.
Toni knocked again. A face appeared murkily at a window. Then the door opened and the farmer, a rawboned, sharp-faced man, scolded:
“What do you mean by coming here, Toni? You are not supposed to be here today.”
Toni rubbed his cold cheeks. “I didn’t come up here to see you. Or your wife or that poor joker, either. I’m around here skiing with my girl, see, and she’s got a chill, and tired. You know what a nuisance girls are. So just let us in to get warm.”
Cherry came limping into the farmer’s view, carrying her skis over her shoulder. She made her teeth chatter, and huddled near Toni, shivering. The farmer stared at her.
“All right, five, ten minutes,” the farmer said grudgingly. “Then out you go.”
“Don’t let anybody in, that’s what the boss said!” a woman grumbled. Over the farmer’s shoulder peered his wife’s squinting face.
A third voice, weak and frightened, called, “Who’s there? Somebody, help me!”
CHAPTER X
The Secret of Spirit Mountain
“ONLY FIVE, TEN MINUTES, THEN OUT!” THE FARMER’S cruel face bent close to Cherry’s as Toni slowly helped her through the door. “I warn you!”
Toni stalled in the open doorway. He looked inside the hut and asked the farmer, “Where’s the guest?”
“Where do you think he is? In the middle room—and don’t go in there!” The farmer roughly shoved Toni. “Move! So I can close the door. Or we’ll all freeze to death.”
Cherry, pretending faintness, leaned heavily on Toni’s arm and delayed a minute longer.
“Help me! Help!” came the faint voice.
“Shut up!” the farmer shouted back. “And you two young dunces—in or out? Out.” He grabbed the door to close it on them. Toni jumped inside the hut, pulling Cherry with him.
The farmer slammed the door shut and locked it. Cherry saw the farmer’s wife staring at her. She was a slovenly woman, her hair unwashed, her clothes old and drab. She seemed intimidated by the sight of Cherry, and walked to one of the two cots in the room.
Toni, meanwhile, had walked into the middle room, ignoring the farmer’s yells and blustering.
“Oh, shut up, Otto,” Toni said good-naturedly. “Can’t I even go in and say hello to the guest?” Then Cherry heard Toni saying in a gentle voice, “How’s my friend? How’s His Highness today?”
In a cramped room where Cherry followed Toni, a man sat weakly on a cot. Cherry stared at him. Although thinner now, this middle-aged, heavyset man with brown hair and mustache seemed to be the man she and Marie had seen in Lugano—Jacob Lenk. So all the things she had surmised since Monday were pretty close to the truth!
“Why, Toni!” Jacob Lenk’s face lighted. “Have you come to help me? Today this wretched Otto and Martha took away my insulin! And I have not had a decent meal in days.”
Cherry stared again, this time at Toni. He had put his arm around the man. Jacob seemed to be pale and a little light-headed. “Strange,” she thought, “those are signs of low blood sugar—from too much insulin—the patient may act intoxicated.”
“I’ve seen this girl before,” Jacob Lenk told Toni. “Somewhere…Is she a friend of yours?”
“Yes. Yes. Don’t talk. Just rest.”
Cherry had not dared bring in the medical kit. She had an insulin ampule, a sterile plastic syringe, sterile cotton swabs, a small bottle of alcohol in her parka pocket, and a tiny bottle of brandy—whichever this neglected diabetic patient might need. But the farmer stood glowering in the first room, policing them. She whispered to Jacob Lenk:
“Why did they take away your insulin today?”
“What? What’s that?” the farmer asked suspiciously.
“Because he came here today,” Jacob Lenk whispered to Cherry.
Toni poked his head into the kitchen and looked around. Then he shrugged and gestured: “No one there. Are you sure, Your Highness?”
Jacob Lenk, afraid, began to sweat. Cherry asked him in a whisper when he last had had insulin. He whispered vaguely:
“Day before yesterday.”
“Did you test for sugar today?” Cherry asked.
He nodded. “Positive—but just a trace of sugar.”
Cherry was puzzled. If sugar was present, then Jacob Lenk was not suffering from low blood sugar. And if it was only a trace of sugar, then what was making him so sick and weak? Could it be an imbalanced diet? He needed lean meat, eggs, milk, leafy green vegetables, and the proper amount of carbohydrates.
On the floor beside his cot, Cherry saw with alarm a tin cup with some condensed milk in it, and a half-consumed chocolate bar. Too much sugar for a diabetic was in both these foods!
Dr. Portman’s voice came back to her prescribing the treatment: “Lots of fluids—hot tea, water—and stimulants. Administer the usual dosage of insulin if the test shows that sugar is present, or if the patient is in a state of coma.”
Thank goodness Jacob Lenk was not in a coma. Cherry asked him if he had any infection of the feet, or anywhere else on his body. She knew that gangrene could follow an infection or injury, especially to the feet.
Jacob shook his head. “No…but I don’t feel well. My insulin. I must—”
The farmer mumbled, “You got to go in a minute,” and walked away.
“And how do you think His Highness is looking today?” a man’s strong, sarcastic voice came from the kitchen.
Toni stiffened in alarm. He put his hand on the sick man’s arm and said, “Come on out, Jack. Join the party.”
The other man sauntered in from the kitchen. Hendrix was slimmer, tougher, younger than the mousy kidnapped man, Cherry realized, now that she saw them together. Toni said:
“Where did you hide yourself in there?”
“You’re careless, Toni. You should’ve stepped in and searched for me. I’ve been here since yesterday. You, Otto!” he said loudly to the farmer in the front room. “You call this being on the job? I said don’t let anybody in! So here’s this poor, poor girl who needs to get warm—”
“I was just now throwing her and him out,” the farmer whined. “Anyhow, it’s only Toni and his girl.”
“Some guard!” Hendrix turned to Cherry. “Hello, Nurse, what do you think you’re going to do here?”
Hendrix glanced coldly at her, then at the man whose name and appearance he had stolen. He was a close replica of his victim, heavy suit, wig, mustache. The cut on his left hand had healed by now, only a scar remained.
“Now I remember you,” the prisoner weakly said to Cherry, with a look of hope. “You’re the nurse who helped me in Lugano—one of the two young ladies—Nurse, I need—”
“You keep quiet!” Hendrix snapped. He waved away the farmer, who was listening with a nasty curiosity. “Get inside, Otto. If I want you, I’ll let you know. Toni! Who else came with you?”
“Nobody else, Boss,” Toni said.
Hendrix stared at him. “Huh! Well, you’d better not bring anyone else, or it’ll be too bad for you!” He said softly, “Toni, I ought to kill you! Bringing that nurse here when I told you nothing more for Jacob Lenk—”
Hendrix suddenly shifted his tactics. “Now look, Nurse. Don’t get any wrong ideas about what’s going on here. My friend Jacob Lenk came up here for a rest. Otto and Martha treated him good—good meals, a radio of his own. Right, Jacob? And Toni brought you insulin, regular. Fair enough?”
Jacob Lenk’s face wore a terrible, strained expression as if he wanted to cry out, “You lie!”
“All right, then,” Cherry took up Hendrix’s challenge, “you won’t mind if I give your sick guest some brandy, will you?” She took the tiny bottle out of her parka pocket and handed it to Jacob. “And I’ll just find an extra blanket to put on his bed—”
Hendrix sidestepped to block her, but Cherry streaked behind him into the front room. To distract the captors, she started tugging a blanket off one of the two cots. The farmer and his wife ran up, yelling objections. T
he wife yanked the blanket away from Cherry, and the farmer yelled:
“Boss! Boss!”
“Throw these kids out!” Hendrix ordered.
But Cherry was already unlocking the door. Otto, blustering, started to shove her through. Cherry clung as if glued to the opened door.
“Val!” she shouted. “Val! Joe!”
From behind the woodshed they raced past her and slammed into the farmer, sending him reeling to the floor. Joe Wardi pushed the wife away; she fell across one cot.
“Toni! Where are you?” Joe Wardi shouted.
Gasps answered. Cherry saw that Toni had come up in back and caught Hendrix’s neck in the crook of his arm. Hendrix’s back arched like a bow.
Suddenly Hendrix twisted hard to one side, ducked, and pulled free. He shoved Toni away, sprawling, and pulled a gun from his pocket. It was the same gun Cherry had held in her hand.
Toni leaped for the gun. Hendrix swung it, hitting Toni across the side of the head. The boy went down, dazed. Hendrix kicked him in the ribs. Jacob on the cot covered his face with shaky hands.
“Stop kicking him!” Val roared.
Hendrix pointed the gun at Val’s face. Val flushed with anger. Then he glanced at Cherry and his eyes asked, “Are you all right?” Satisfied that she was, he faced Hendrix.
“All right, you have the gun. But we are three, you are two.”
Hendrix said, “Two unarmed and one on the floor. Get up!”
Toni got up resentfully, rubbing himself.
Hendrix leveled his gun at the intruders in the front room—conveniently herded together for his purpose. He kicked Toni in the shins.
“Get in there with them.” Hendrix motioned with his gun. “It’s loaded,” he warned them. “Otto, close the door.”
Val coolly said, “What are you planning?”
Hendrix grinned. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
Out of nowhere—out of this moment’s nightmare excitement—Cherry heard her own voice lightly saying: