CHAPTER VII

A lone figure struggled, one precarious step at a time, up the slippery slope heading from the cavernous ravine below to the snow-filled fire trail above.

More often than not, it seemed to him, it took two steps backwards to regain one firm step forward.

The flakes were coming down rapidly now, large, soft and wet. They soon covered the lightly-clad climber’s hair, and he was forced repeatedly to brush the wet blobs back from his eyes in order to see.

Glancing back, he could barely make out the wreck of the car. Soon it would be covered completely, and invisible from the road above.

The faint tracks of his footsteps in the snow would also be obliterated, he realized, leaving no hint that anyone had been here recently.

He stopped to rest at one point, and nearly fell to the ground, when a sudden muscle spasm gripped his chest.

A heart attack? No! he shouted to himself. He wouldn’t succumb to it. He had to get up to the road and find shelter. He had to stay alive in order to inform the authorities what had happened.

And what had happened? An intense rush of grief overwhelmed him. What was the point? What did any of it matter now? Would it make any difference at all, now…in the grand scheme of things…for him to somehow remain alive in order to testify as to the truth of what had happened?

But the realist in him prevailed.

Yes, it mattered.

Resolutely, he began plodding upward again. It was cold, so cold. He had come away with his feet shod in the old comfortable loafers and wearing nothing but a jogging suit. No hat or top coat. Unthinkable garb for this time of year, with storms threatening like this.

But he had had no choice, of course. Once that devil had overtaken him in the foyer, after he had stepped out on the porch for a brief moment to check the weather, everything that followed had been quick and to the point.

He rubbed the back of his head where he had been struck. Not hard enough to knock him out, but enough to convince him he had to comply with the instructions he was given.

Now he wished he had fought back harder. It wouldn’t have mattered if he died in the effort, if his actions might have changed the final outcome.

Fighting back the sobs, tears trailing down his face and leaving tracks in the bits of snow flake clinging there, he struggled onward and upward in desperation and with purpose. If he didn’t make it up to the road, he knew he would surely die here on this cursed slope.

And that he was not prepared to do just yet. He must survive in order to tell his story. He must make sure that justice would be done.

Hal Watson, after many fits and starts, finally pulled himself up and over the berm at the top of the cliff separating the narrow fire road from the chasm below.

He rubbed his upper left arm. There was a dull ache spreading across his collarbone area, and he tried to shake it off. Must have pulled a muscle extricating himself from the car, he thought, trying to convince himself.

He peered through the blinding snow, still falling steadily from the darkened sky. He could see nothing, as he looked first one way, then the other along the narrow, half overgrown road.

He tried to think rationally. He knew they had come up here from the left and had passed no sign of habitation at all. What was it his captor said? Something about “It’s not far now?”

The devil must have had some nearby destination in mind, so he suspected there was some sort of building or shelter further along this road—although he could not be sure if it was on the road itself, or down a drive or smaller pathway leading off the road. If the latter, he would certainly be out of luck, since visibility was almost zero now.

He could barely make out the edges of the roadway, and the only thing that actually delineated it was the lack of trees in its path.

Resolutely, he struck out to the right and trudged along through the deepening drifts. He was freezing, and his smooth-soled shoes slipped in the icy slush. Still, he tried to set a regular pace, force all thought from his mind save moving forward, and glance frequently around for some sign of habitation.