Kiss of Hot Sun

by Nancy Buckingham

  “It could be...” said Philip in a voice of quiet foreboding. “It could well be that they’ve got something to be desperate about."

  “What are you trying to say?”

  He shook his head. “I was just pointing out that if people take desperate measures, it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ve got good cause.”

  I couldn’t get him to say any more. I guessed the antagonism and suspicion between us these last few days had bitten too deep. Philip still wasn’t ready to trust me completely.

  For some distance the valley had been steadily narrowing. Now it looked as if we were coming up against a blank wall of stark brown mountain. But as we got nearer I saw that the road began a crazy zigzag ascent, a narrow twisting ribbon that was the only man-made thing in all this brutal landscape.

  For a while we drove through a deep channel hewn into bare rock. Then suddenly, on our left, the ground fell away steeply. The road ahead curved to the right, following round the hillside. Philip edged back the throttle slightly, and we coasted into the bend.

  The drop to our left wasn’t quite as sheer as I’d first thought. But even so it was steep enough, sliding away down for what looked like hundreds of feet of rocky savagery.

  “It would be awkward,” Philip observed mildly, “if we met something coming down the road.”

  There wasn’t really much danger of that. For miles we hadn’t seen another car, even another human being. Giles had certainly chosen well for a meeting he wanted to keep absolutely secret.

  Smoothly Philip eased the car round the long curve, careful to avoid any harsh braking. The loose surface looked wickedly dangerous.

  And then with a sharp crack we were out of control. The car lurched into the rockface on our right, scraping violently against it. The rear tyres lost their grip, and we were slithering sideways across the width of the road.

  There was nothing I could do but hold on. It seemed inevitable that we should be flung over the cliff edge to an absolutely certain death.

  Somehow Philip held the car on that narrow ledge of road. By a miracle of driving he countered every terrifying skid and came to a stop only inches from the edge. He pulled on the handbrake and cut the ignition.

  But the mountain had the last word. There was a curious protesting noise and very slowly I felt the car heel over. It was only a slight movement but so amplified by my frightened mind that it seemed the whole mountainside was on the move.

  Then with a thud we hit firm ground again. We were poised on the very edge, one wheel right over. In the stillness we could hear dislodged chunks of rock scrambling away down the steep slope.

  “Quick,” said Philip, clutching my arm. “Get out before some more gives way.”

  I didn’t argue. With the car leaning at such an angle it wasn’t so easy, but Philip gave me a hard shove. Then he climbed out himself.

  Together, we backed to the safety of the rock wall behind us.

  “What... what happened?” I asked shakily.

  “God knows! I think a tyre must have burst.” He laid a protective arm around my shoulder, and oddly his gesture made me tremble more violently than ever. I’d managed to keep a grip on myself so far. Now I felt like breaking down and crying.

  Philip sensed my weak knees and his arm tightened. “Sit down for a bit,” he said gently. “You’ll feel better in a minute.”

  We sat there on the hot dusty surface of the road and stared at one another in silence. We were grateful to be alive at all. For the moment we didn’t think beyond that. We weren’t worrying about what to do next.

  The car didn’t shift again. Presumably it had found the one weak spot on the rocky verge and was settled down now. But even if it wasn’t going to topple over, neither could Philip and I hope to get it back on the road. That job would need a lot of help—a tractor maybe, or several men and a strong rope.

  Already, in those few minutes out of the car, the sun had become our enemy. It pulsed above us, filling the entire sky with its stridency, seeming to reach out vicious claws.

  The air all around vibrated with the metallic resonance of thrusting insect life. Close by, a tiny lizard darted out, a quick startled scurry. With a flick of the tail it was gone again, back to its crevice in the rocks. Maybe it had seen us, or maybe the vindictive sun was too much even for a lizard.

  I wished we could find some shade so easily.

  Philip got to his feet. “The map’s in the glovebox. It’ll help fix just exactly where we are.”

  “You mustn’t go near the car!” I jumped up quickly, afraid for him. Any small movement might upset such a precarious balance.

  Philip turned back to me. “Don’t worry, Kerry. She’s well bedded down now.”

  “Please...!”

  He waved aside my protests. “But we need that map. I’ll just open the door and reach inside. Then if the car does start sliding, all I have to do is let go.”

  He pretended it was as simple as that, but I felt petrified.

  The map wasn’t very encouraging. It was too small a scale for us to pinpoint where we were to within a mile or two. But clearly, unless we were lucky enough to get a lift, we had a long walk ahead of us. The place Giles had asked us to meet him was about nine miles further on.

  We decided to go back. The thought of tramping that long dusty road in the ever-mounting heat appalled me. But staying here was senseless. It was probable that no other vehicle would come this way for ages.

  There was a flask of coffee in the car, but I wouldn’t allow Philip to get it. I wasn’t going to let him take the risk a second time.

  “After all,” I said decidedly, “it’s not as if we were in a desert. At the very worst two or three hours’ walking will get us somewhere.”

  Philip looked at me strangely, as if he had a foreboding that our escape was not going to be so easy. Then he switched mood, smiling cheerfully and taking my arm.

  “Let’s get going, then.”

  But we weren’t to get very far. As we started round the bend, back the way we had come, a spurt of dust jumped in the road by Philip’s feet. A sharp crack came almost simultaneously.

  We stopped dead. The crack was repeated, echoing at us from the opposite side of the valley. And then silence.

  Even the insects were quiet.

  Philip sprang alive. He dragged me down, hard against the rock wall.

  “That was a bullet,” he yelled, “Somebody’s shooting at us.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  There were no more shots.

  Philip and I were crouched in the minimal shelter of a small rock projection. It offered no shade; just a shield between us and anybody looking down from the hillside above.

  We waited for minutes on end for a sign of life, a movement. But nothing happened. The myriad insects started their strumming again; maybe they had never really stopped, and it was only my shocked brain that had registered silence. Now their noise was irksome, because we had to strain to hear the possible sound of a footfall.

  The heat was almost beyond bearing. The hot rock was scorching my bare arm where I pressed against it. There was no air to breathe. I had to check myself from fainting, fighting off attacking waves of nausea.

  At last Philip muttered: “We’ve got to get out of this. We certainly can’t stay here.”

  “But... who is it?” I whispered. “Why shoot at us?”

  His voice was grim. “God knows! It could be bandits, I suppose.”

  I’d read about the lawless men of Sicily who took to the hills. I had thought they were legend, but now I was faced with the reality. I shivered violently.

  “Or it might be Giles...” Philip said under his breath.

  “Giles!”

  “It could be. That letter—maybe it was a trap to get us out here.”

  I felt stunned. “But why...?”

  “He is one of the gang, after all. Maybe he thinks we know too much already. It might even have been Giles who did for Carlo.”

  “Oh no! I can’t believ
e it. Not Giles...”

  Philip said quietly: “Well somebody’s after us, Kerry, that’s for sure. And we’ve got to get away somehow.”

  “What can we do?” I asked hopelessly.

  “We’ll have to make a run for it.”

  “But the minute we stand up we’ll be an easy target.”

  Still crouching, Philip turned his head, looking back along the curving road. “No, I don’t think so. I reckon that gunman’s working his way round so as to take us by surprise. If we run hell for leather down the road, we should stand a fair chance of getting away.”

  It sounded horribly risky. But then so was staying where we were. I decided I’d rather be shot taking some sort of action, than be picked off like a sitting rabbit.

  “All right, Philip.”

  “That’s my girl!” His hand gripped mine. “When I give the okay, we’ll stand up together and belt off as hard as we can go.”

  For a hundred yards we ran like mad. Nothing happened; no more shots; no sound of running feet in pursuit. I began to think that maybe we were going to get clear away, after all. And we might have done, too, if I hadn’t caught the heel of my left sandal on a big stone and ripped it clean off.

  The heel had only been about an inch high, but without it I was crippled, cut to half speed. And I wouldn’t last a dozen steps barefoot on this stony surface.

  “Oh Philip, I’m terribly sorry...!” I felt as if I were criminally responsible. This might cost us our slender chance of safety.

  He wasted no time on reproaches. “Never mind that. Give me the other shoe, quickly.”

  Wondering, I watched him hitch the heel over a sharp edge of rock and rip it off with a single pull.

  He thrust the shoe back at me. “At least they match now.”

  I was able to run again. Not so well as before. But stumbling, I got along at a fair pace.

  The delay had been too long, though. Maybe half a minute—thirty agonising seconds. The gunman had caught up with us.

  I felt a swift searing pain in my right calf. The crack of the gun came after.

  The bullet ricocheted, whining on its way. But Philip didn’t realise it had struck me first. Though I yelled pretty sharply, he must have put that down to the state of my nerves.

  He didn’t waver an instant. Without a word he plunged straight over the edge, taking me with him. For horrible seconds it was like jumping into space without a parachute. Then we hit ground.

  I don’t know how I managed to bottle up shouts of pain as Philip dragged me down the terrifying slope that swept all the way to the valley far below us.

  The surface was rough, pitted with tricky crevices, strewn with boulders. The scrubby, heathery growth caught at our feet.

  I followed Philip’s lead, twisting with him, jumping with him. I gave up wondering if I would fall, abandoning myself to the mad scramble.

  We had to go on, because there was terror behind us; a man with a gun. And we had to go on anyway because we couldn’t stop. Our momentum was too great, the slope too steep.

  How far it was I don’t know. I was numb with pain and fear and exhaustion long before there came a sudden levelling out. It was only a shelf really, but wide enough to bring our headlong rush to a halt.

  I tumbled to the ground, flat out. Sharp thorns needled through the thin cotton of my slacks, but that was nothing to the pain from my injured leg. I hid my face in my hands and fought off the agony. It subsided slowly, the bouncing throbs getting mercifully smaller each time.

  Philip still had no idea I’d been hit, and how could I tell him now? I’d been liability enough already. He’d have got away easily by himself. I was just a drag.

  The heat was terrible. The ringing sun was king, the warm-soup air cowed into utter stillness.

  Standing above me taking stock, Philip grunted. “At least we shall hear him if he tries to come down after us.”

  “He won’t need to come down here,” I said tonelessly. “He could just pick us off from where he is.”

  “I don’t think so.” Philip shook his head. “There’s a bit of a hump in the ground. You can’t actually see the road from this spot.”

  “So what are we going to do?” I hardly cared any more, though. Left to myself, I would just have allowed things to happen to me, because I no longer had the will or the strength to make an effort. Despite the gravity of our position, despite my pain, I knew I could easily have put down my head and slept. I gave an enormous yawn.

  Luckily, Philip didn’t notice. “We’d better get moving again,” he said doubtfully. “We’ll try following this ledge around the hillside, and see where it leads us.”

  “Okay.”

  What did it matter, one way or another? Staying put or pressing on to... where?

  Philip reached out a hand to give me a lift up. I bent my right leg and took my weight on it.

  The pain nearly knocked me out. Starting at the wound in my calf it seemed to be splitting me open, right through my leg, all the way up the side of my body.

  I fell back to the ground with a sharp yelp. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t wanted Philip to know I’d been hurt, and the damage seemed so slight—scarcely more than a graze. How was it possible for a mere scratch to cause so much trouble?

  Now there was no hiding it. Philip had seen that I’d nearly passed out.

  “What’s the matter, Kerry?” He crouched down, looking at me anxiously.

  I tried to laugh it off. “Sorry to be so silly. My leg’s gone a bit stiff...”

  “Let me see.”

  It looked so small. A slight tear in my slacks, the frayed edges stained dark with blood. Philip enlarged the tear a bit, enough to see through to the wound.

  “That’s nasty. How did it happen?”

  I had to tell him. “It could barely have touched me,” I added lightly.

  He looked serious. “You’re not going to be able to walk far on that, my girl. And we need some water to clean it up.”

  Water! In this desert! The very shape of the word made me long for a drink. I’d not realised how ragingly thirsty I was.

  I pushed the tantalising thought towards the fringe of my mind. “I’ll be able to manage,” I told Philip, “once I’m up on my feet.”

  He looked dubious, but gave me a hand up. He must have realised there was simply nothing else for it.

  We started off with his arm tight around my waist, and me clutching his neck. I did a sort of hop with my bad leg and after a few yards the pain began to ease off slightly.

  But only slightly. Obviously it had been a great mistake to rest, even for those few minutes. I should have kept straight on going.

  We staggered over the rough ground. Every step was a big effort, every few yards a triumph. We followed the flat ledge in the mountainside for maybe five hundred yards. But then it petered out, lost in the general fall of the terrain.

  We’d have to go all that way back! Trek those five hundred yards in reverse and try the opposite direction.

  But even this daunting prospect would get us nowhere. “It’s worse still round there,” Philip explained. “That’s why I chose this way.”

  So I just stood and waited for him to decide what to do. This time I dared not sit down. I tried to put all my weight on the uninjured leg.

  Suddenly Philip exclaimed. “Look! There’s a stream.”

  “Where?” I cried excitedly.

  He pointed down the hillside. Far below us I caught a glint of silver, like a tiny thread in the drab brownness.

  It was a bitter disappointment. The thought of that distant river, water within sight and yet so mockingly out of reach, was almost more than I could bear right then.

  “It’s hopeless,” I said in a flat voice. “We’ll never get down there.”

  An insidious idea began to grow in my mind. It offered more than a vain hope of water; it offered me a chance to rest. Selfishly, I wanted rest above anything else.

  “You go down,” I suggested eagerly. “Then you could brin
g me...”

  I didn’t get any further. Philip shook his head decisively. “And leave you here alone? What would I fetch water in, anyway?”

  He had me there.

  Philip was already working out how to get me down that killing slope. “I’ll have to go in a sitting position, feet first. Then if you get behind me with your legs round my waist, you can walk on your hands and do a sort of waddle.” He glanced at me anxiously. “I’m afraid it’ll be grim for you, Kerry. But I just can’t see any other way. I couldn’t possibly carry you, because it’s too steep.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, trying to sound stoical.

  Slowly, laboriously, we made our way down. We must have looked absurd; in other circumstances we would have felt absurd. It took us all of half an hour to reach the bottom. My hands, revolting against such abuse, were raw and bleeding. My clothes were filthy and dark with sweat. I felt a hole gaping in the seat of my blue stretch pants.

  I was past caring about trifles. Reaching the water made up for everything. It was no more than a stream, barely three feet across, though the dried up mud on either side showed it could be a massive river in the rainy season.

  Sweet and clean, the water tasted delicious. I filled my cupped hands three times over before Philip stopped me.

  “Go easy! We must see to that leg now. You can drink all you want in a minute.”

  Tenderly, he eased up the slacks so that my calf was exposed. The damage was certainly much more than a graze; I marvelled it had bled so little. The flesh looked ugly, with bluish-black bruising over a wide area.

  Philip shook out his handkerchief and dipped it into the stream. At first touch the water was too shockingly cold, but soon the coolness of it soothed the pain. Philip bathed the wound with matter-of-fact thoroughness. He stood up suddenly and ripped off his white shirt. Before I could say a word to stop him, he had started tearing it up into strips.

  “But you shouldn’t have...” I protested.

  “That leg’s got to be covered,” he said shortly. Then he grinned. “Anyway a white shirt makes us too conspicuous. Come along now—rest it up here, and I’ll bandage it for you.”