Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (Ss) (1999)

by L'amour, Louis

  I cannot move. You must all go first.

  Thank you. Dyea looked at a fat man who clutched a briefcase and was near the door. You, sir, will begin.

  Rise carefully and cross to the door. Bring your blanket with you. Be sure the blanket will catch on nothing.

  As if hypnotized, the man rose from his seat. Patiently, he gathered the blanket, and with extreme economy of movement, he folded it; then, with the blanket under his arm, he moved to the door. As he stepped to the snow, Dyea pointed. Walk ten steps forward, then three to the left. There is a rock there that will protect us from the wind.

  The man moved away, and Dyea turned to the next person. Only when the five who were capable of moving had been removed from the plane did Dyea look to the hostess. Miss Taylor, get to your feet, he said, move carefully and gather all the remaining blankets and pass them tome.

  What about this man? She indicated the seat from which the voice had come.

  He must wait. All our lives are in danger. Free of the plane, they may still die of cold and exposure. We must think first of the greatest number. Furthermore, he added, the gentleman's courage has already been demonstrated.

  When you've given me all the blankets and coats, get your first aid kit and as much food as you can. Move very carefully and slowly. The ship is resting upon the very lip of a cliff that looks to be more than six hundred feet high.

  As the stewardess began her collecting of blankets, Dyea looked toward the seat back where the remaining occupant sat. My friend, moving you is going to be extremely dangerous. Do not suggest that we shouldn't attempt it, for we shall. However, I'll move you myself.

  Miss Taylor will be out of the ship at the time. We may both die. Therefore, think of any message you may want to send to anyone who survives you. Also, if there is any identification, pass it to the stewardess.

  And you? The voice from the seat was calm, yet seemed tightly held against some pain, or fear. What of you?

  There is no one, Dyea said quietly, I am a man alone.

  Steadily, the stewardess made her trips; a dozen blankets, food, then medicine. One of the men appeared out of the darkness and accepted an armful of blankets.

  One per person, Dyea said to him, then a second as far as they go. The same for the coats. Then move this food and the medicine kit into the shelter.

  May I help? the man asked, nodding toward the plane.

  Thank you, no. The added weight and movement would only increase the risk. He turned toward the stewardess. Are any others alive?

  She looked into several of the seats, then stopped at one where he saw only a thin hand. Yes, this girl is alive!

  Good. We will proceed as planned. Come out.

  Miss Taylor tiptoed carefully to the door and stepped out into the snow. Dyea turned to her, and she saw his strong, harshly cut face in the glow of the moon.

  If the plane carries us away, he advised, you will keep these people huddled together until daylight. He glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It is now three o'clock in the morning. It will begin to grow light shortly after six, possibly a little before. When it has become gray, make a stretcher of a couple of coats, load anyone who may not be able to walk, and move eastward along the ridge.

  When you've gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, away from this precipice, angle down the mountain toward the trees. Once there, build a fire and build a shelter. You have matches?

  Yes. She hesitated. Good luck.

  Thanks. I'll move the injured man first.

  I'll wait.

  No. Please don't. Dyea's voice was flat. Now, he lifted his voice to the man in the plane, your name and address, please? And any message for the stewardess?

  There was a moment of silence. I am Victor Barclay, of Barclay and Paden, attorneys. My wife and children are living in Brentwood, California. He hesitated.

  Only my love to them.

  Miss Taylor turned her dark, serious eyes to the big man beside her. And you, sir?

  No message, Dyea said.

  Your name?

  It does not matter.

  But isn't there someone?

  No.

  I would like to know.

  He smiled. She saw it clearly in the moonlight. The dark seriousness of his face changed. My name is Dyea.

  Spelled D-Y-E-A. My family pronounced it dee-ah, the accent on the first syllable.

  He hunched his shoulders against the cold. Go now. Stay clear of the plane. I believe the wings are both gone, but some part might be under the snow and might drag you over. The rock will give you shelter.

  When the woman was gone, Dyea stepped into the ship. With the decrease of weight, the situation was even more precarious. He walked carefully to the seated man.

  A blanket was over his legs, but obviously, both were broken. No other injuries were apparent. All right, Barclay, Dyea said, I'm going to pick you up. It may hurt like the devil. Despite that, you must hold yourself very still. If you move, you'll overbalance me on this incline and I'll fall. A fall would start the plane sliding.

  Very well. I'm ready.

  Dyea's eyes flickered for the first time. He looked down the plane toward the tail, then at the door. He touched his lips with his tongue and, setting his feet carefully, stooped and picked up the injured man. As he straightened, he felt a sickening sensation of movement beneath him. He stood stock-still, holding the lawyer as if he were a child. The movement stopped with a faint grating sound; turning, Dyea took his first step. As he put down his foot with the combined weight of nearly four hundred pounds, he felt the ship shift beneath him.

  A queer sensation went up his spine, such a feeling as he had known but once before, when ice cracked beneath his feet out on a lake, a half mile from shore.

  He took another step. There was no further movement, and he climbed down into the snow and walked over to the dark huddle of figures waiting in the lee of the rock.

  Placing the lawyer on a coat spread out for him, Dyea straightened. I think both thighs are fractured. I did not examine him. Possibly the lower part of the left leg, also. Keep him very warm and set the legs if you can.

  Barclay looked up through the sifting flakes. His eyes were large with pain. Don't go back, he said, that little girl may not be alive by now.

  She was unconscious, Miss Taylor said.

  It's no matter. I'm going back.

  Don't be a fool, man! Barclay burst out. That plane almost went with us. It won't stand any more moving around. You know it and I know it. There's no use losing two lives when the one may go anyway.

  Dyea did not reply. He turned, chafing his hands together.

  Then he walked quietly and stopped beside the plane. He looked around him, feeling the bitter cold for the first time. Then he glanced back to where the survivors were gathered, obscured by the swirling snow.

  The wind was rising. It would be a bitter night and a miserable tomorrow. Rescue parties might be days in coming but, with luck, the group could survive.

  He balked at the door, and the thought that the girl must be dead by now flashed through his mind. Maybe, but probably not. He knew that was his fear of returning to the plane sneaking up on him. He shook his head and chuckled. The sound of it revived him, and he put a hand on each side of the plane door, a foot on the edge.

  He stepped inside the plane and moved, gently as possible, to the girl's seat. As he bent to look at her, she opened her eyes and looked right into his.

  Don't move, he said, there has been an accident.

  She looked at him very carefully, at his eyes, his face, and his hair. In the plane, the moonlight shone through the windows, bright between scudding clouds. I know, she said. Who are you?

  It does not matter. Think of this. Several of the passengers were killed, but six have been removed and are safe. If you and I can get out, we will be safe, too, and we're the last.

  Her eyes were wide and gray. They bothered him, somehow. They reminded him of other eyes. Where are we?

  On a v
ery high mountain. It is very cold and the wind is blowing hard. We're on the edge of a high cliff.

  When I pick you up, the plane may slip. It did with the last person I carried, but he was very heavy. So you must hold very still.

  Maybe I can walk. Let me try.

  No. If you stumbled or fell, the shock would start us moving. I must carry you.

  You're very brave.

  No, I'm not. Right now I'm scared. My stomach feels empty and my mouth is dry. I'll bet yours is, too, isn't it?

  You're risking your life for me.

  You're a romantic child. And believe me, the risk is much less than you might suppose.

  He had been on one knee, talking to her. Now he slid an arm beneath her legs and another around her body, under her arms. An arm slid trustfully around his neck and he got carefully to his feet. After Barclay's weight, she seemed very light. He stood still, looking toward the door. It was seven steps, every step an increasing danger.

  She looked toward the door, too, then at him. Isn't it strange? I'm not afraid anymore.

  I wish I could say I wasn't.

  He took his first step, placing his foot down carefully, then, shifting his weight, he swung the other leg.

  Then the right and again the left. Nothing happened. He took a deep breath, looked at the black rectangle of the door, then took another step. As if moved by the added weight, the ship quivered slightly. The movement was only a tremor, but Dyea immediately stepped again, and then again.

  Under his feet the plane started to move, and he knew that this time it was going all the way. He lunged at the door and shoved the girl out into the snow. He saw her land, sprawling. The nose of the plane was sliding down while the tail held almost still, the body rotating.

  Fortunately, it was swinging in an arc opposite from where the girl had fallen. Then the whole plane slid in one section over the edge of the cliff. As it fell free, Dyea, with one agonized, fear-driven snap of his muscles, sprang upward and outward into the blackness and swirling snow.

  There was one awful instant when, hands spread high and wide, he seemed to be hanging in space. He hit a steep slope partially covered with snow. He slid, then felt his lower body going over ... he clutched, grabbing a finger hold just as he began to fall. His arms gave a frightful jerk but he held himself, swinging in black, swirling snow over a vast, cold emptiness.

  The moon emerged from under a cloud, and he started upward. He was no more than four feet below the edge, the cliff before him not as sheer as he'd thought. The brow sloped steeply back, and on the very edge was the girl, peering over at him.

  I'll get help, she said.

  No. He knew his fingers would not retain their hold. Can you brace yourself against something? Can your heels dig in?

  She glanced around, then nodded. Then slip out of your coat and lower the end toward me. Hang on tight, but if you feel yourself going, just let go.

  His fingers were slipping in their icy crack, already so numb he could scarcely feel them. Snow swirled in his face and the wind whipped at his mouth, stealing his breath away. He gasped, then the coat slapped him in the face. He let go with one hand and swung it around and up, grasping the suede coat. He felt the weight hit her, but she held it. Carefully, he drew himself up, hand over hand. When his feet were in the crack where his fingers had been, he climbed over and lay beside her in the snow.

  I never was an Army officer, he whispered. I never was anything.

  His arm was stretched out and his cuff pulled back.

  He could see the dial on his watch. It was just eleven minutes past three.

  *

  UNDER THE HANGING WALL

  The bus bumped and jolted over the broken, heat ribbed pavement, and I fought my way out of a sodden sleep and stared at the road ahead. My face felt sticky and my head ached from the gas fumes and heat. Twisting and turning in my sleep had wound my clothes around me, so I straightened up and tried to pull them back into place again.

  We were climbing a steep, winding road that looked as if it had been graded exclusively for mountain goats. I ran my ringers through my hair and tried pulling my pants around to where they would be comfortable. In the process, my coat fell open and revealed the butt of my gun in its shoulder holster.

  The fat man stared across the aisle at me. Better not let 'em catch you with that rod, he advised, or you'll wind up in jail.

  Thanks, I said.

  Insurance is my line, he said, Harbater's the name. Ernie Harbater. Do a lot of business up this way.

  It was hot. The air in the bus was like the air over a furnace, and when I looked off across the desert that fell away to my left, the horizon was lost to dancing heat waves.

  There were five people on the bus. Harbater, who wore a gray gabardine suit, the trousers stretched tight over fat thighs, his once white shirt bulging ominously over his belt, was the only one who sat near me. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt, and lying beside him on the seat was a crumpled and dog-eared copy of a detective magazine with a corner Tom off the cover.

  Three seats ahead a girl with stringy and streaked blond hair, and lipstick that didn't conform to the shape of her mouth, sweltered in her own little world. Across the aisle from her was another girl, who wore a gray tailored suit. The coat lay over the back of the seat beside her.

  The fifth passenger was another man, with the rough physique and pale skin of a mining man. He squinted placidly out the window as the bus groaned unhappily and crept over the brow of the mountain. For a moment there was a breeze that was almost cool, and then we started down from the wide world in which we had existed, and into the oven of a tight little canyon.

  We rounded a curve finally, and Winrock lay ahead of us, a mining town. Most of the buildings were strewn along the hillsides, empty and in ruins, the one graded street lying along the very bottom of the canyon. The business buildings were all frame or sheet metal but two.

  One was the brick bank, a squat and ugly thing on a corner, the other an ancient adobe that had once been a saloon. One of the reasons that I had gotten this job was because I'd worked in places like this, but that didn't mean I was wild about coming back.

  Harbater had dozed off, so I shucked my gun from its holster and thrust it beneath my belt, under my shirt.

  Then I stowed the holster in my half-empty bag and slid gratefully out of my coat. My shirt was sweat-soaked.

  The bus ground to a halt and dust sifted over it.

  Groggily, I crawled to my feet. Coat over one arm, and my bag in the other hand, I started for the door. The girl with the stringy hair was gathering up some odds and ends, and she looked up at me with that red blotch that passed for a mouth. Her lips, normally not unattractive, were lipsticked into what passed for a cupid's bow, and it looked terrible.

  The other girl had awakened suddenly, and when I glanced down at her, I looked into a pair of wide, intelligent gray eyes. She sat up, pushing back a strand of hair.

  I swung down into the street, bag in hand.

  Several loafers sat on a bench against the wall of the Winrock Hotel. I glanced at the sign, then walked up on the porch and shoved the door open with my shoulder.

  A scrawny man in a green eyeshade got up from behind the desk and leaned on it. Got a room? I asked.

  Got fifty of 'em, the clerk said. He dug out a key and tossed it on the desktop. End of the hall, second floor, he said. Bath's next door.

  I picked up my bag.

  That'll be ten dollars, he said.

  I put the bag down again and fished for some bills. I pulled off two fives and handed them over, then went up the worn steps and down the creaky hall. If anybody ever dropped a match, the place would go up in one whopping blast of flame. It was old, and dry as tinder.

  You got yourself a lulu this time! I said disgustedly.

  What a guy will do for money!

  Tossing the bag on the old iron bed, I threw the coat over the back of a chair and peeled off my shirt. It was so wet it stuck to my back. Then
I took off my shoes and socks and had started on my pants when I recalled the bath was next door. Still disgusted, I picked up a towel and, barefoot, stuck my head into the hall. There was nobody in sight, so I came out and went into the bathroom.

  When I'd bathed and dressed, I put my gun back in my waistband and, taking my coat over my arm, walked downstairs.

  The wide, almost empty room that did duty for a lobby had a bar along one side, two worn leather chairs and an old-fashioned settee down the middle, and four brass cuspidors.

  Two men loafed at the bar. One of them was a big shouldered, brown-faced man with a powerful chest. He was handsome in a heavy, somewhat brutal fashion and had the look of a man it would be bad to tangle with.

  The other was a shorter man, evidently one of the oldest inhabitants. I put a foot on the rail and ordered a bourbon and soda.

  The brown-faced man looked at me. He had hard eyes, that guy. I turned to the bartender, who was an overstuffed party in a dirty shirt. He had a red fringe around a bald head, and red hair on his arms and the backs of his hands.

  Where do I find the law around here?

  He opened his heavy-lidded eyes, then jerked his head toward the brown-faced man. He's it, he said.

  You the deputy sheriff? I asked. Are you Soderman?

  He looked at me and nodded.

  I walked down the bar and flipped my badge at him.

  Bruce Blake, I'm a private detective, I said. I'm here to look over the Marshall case.

  It's closed. His hard eyes studied me like I was something dirty he'd found in his drink.

  His brother wanted it looked into. Just routine.

  He hesitated, tipping his glass and studying his drink carefully. Then he shrugged. All right. It's your time.

  I shrugged my own shoulders and grinned. Actually, it's Lew Marshall's time. I'm just going through the motions.

  You want to talk to Campbell? He's in jail, waitin' trial.

  Uh-huh. Might just as well.

  On the way to the jail, Soderman told me about the case.

  This Campbell owned the Dunhill mine. It had been rich once, then the vein petered out and they shut down.

  Campbell, he wouldn't believe the hole was finished.