Out footsteps on the stone floor echo oddly through the stalagmite garden. It sounds like there are more than just two of us walking here in the dark; at times I hear the distinct sound of other feet.
“Emily, can you hear—”
A blast hits my ears. Stalactites shatter, the splinters of ice falling on our heads like hail. Instantly, unmistakeably, I recognise the sound.
It’s a gunshot.
“Down, Emily. Get down!”
I see her shocked eyes as I pull her down to the floor. A second passes. Then another shot rings out. I whisper.
“Put out your flashlight.”
We switch off our lights: the cave is plunged into total blackness. Our enemy has nothing to aim at, and we crawl, as silently as we can, into the furthest corner of the stalagmite forest. I can hear my own breathing: to me, it sounds as loud as an express train.
Neither of us dare speak. But in the stunned silence and darkness, we both know what will happen now. Our attacker will come along the pathway toward us.
I can hear his tread, heavy like a giant. As there is no light from us any more, he switches on his own flashlight. I see the beam, glaring, vanishing and glaring again as it swings methodically between the icy columns, probing every crevice. In a few seconds, he will find us.
My hand closes on cold, broken fragments of a fallen ice stalactite. They are rounded, like tiny pellets.
As gently as if I’m touching a baby, I silently swish my hand, flinging the ice out into the pathway, like a scatter of ball bearings. One second later, the flashlight beam swings wildly up to the ceiling: we hear a heavy crash and brutal cursing as our pursuer slips and falls.
“Go now, Emily!” I switch on my flashlight. Putting on the light is horribly risky, but it’s the only way to see our way out of here. Even with the flashlight, we blunder and slither among the slimy stalagmites. But behind us, the cave is pitch-dark; our assailant has lost his flashlight in his fall, and must be groping for it among the ice.
Slipping and sliding, we half-trip, half-clamber through the stalagmite stumps towards a black slit. It’s the thin cleft that leads back to the lake. As we squeeze through it, I look behind me: I can see nothing. Ahead, our flashlights illuminate each stone slab of the path back to the ladder.
I hold Emily’s hand to slow her pace, as we step hastily along the slabs of the lakeside path. The stones are treacherously icy, and we have to be carefuclass="underline" we can’t afford a trip here. Every footstep must be precisely placed, despite the deathly thumping of my heart.
At last, we reach the foot of the ladder. But glancing back, I see a flicker of light. It’s taken us several agonizing minutes to get along the lake shore, but in fact our pursuer, now squeezing through the cleft and stepping out onto the shore of the lake, looks only a hundred yards away or so. His beam comes closer with every breath I take.
Emily is above me: I climb, rung after rung, my fingers gripping for dear life, my feet pushing up and up. I risk another look back, and see that the man is holding a heavy black revolver, readying himself for another shot. But them he thinks again, and runs forward. He’s now at the foot of the ladder, and his arms straighten, gripping the gun: I can see right down the barrel. The man has a clear, vertical line of sight straight up to my swishing skirts on the ladder. He can’t miss me.
I take one half-second to aim. I drop my flashlight, with the beam shining down at him. Then I grip the final rungs, one after another, another and another…
I clamber out. The falling flashlight spoilt his aim.
“Agnes, help me pull the ladder up!”
We tug at the top rung, but it’s a long, heavy ladder. It doesn’t move.
“Can’t do it, Agnes – push it over, instead!”
“It’s tied. Look there.”
“Not a problem.” Emily opens her handbag; inside I’m surprised to see a six-inch butcher’s knife. She mutters to me “It’s for protection. I stole it from the kitchen at Yermak, and I carry it everywhere”. I see her thin, white hands, sawing at the rope that secures the ladder.
The ladder begins to shake, with the impact of heavy feet: our attacker is on the bottom rungs. But Emily cuts the rope: we push the ladder; it shifts and wobbles – and tips over. We see its falling shape, sihouetted palely against the black hole below, before it vanishes into the darkness.
“Shut the hatch, Agnes! That man will have the ladder back in place within the minute.” She looks around wildly. “Can you see anything heavy, to put on top of the hatch and hold it down?”
“No. And there’s no time to look for anything. Let’s get back to the troika.”
In moments we’re out of the grove of trees, blinking stupidly in the searing white light of sun and snow. Ahead of us we see the horses and our sleigh. But I gasp in dismay. Our driver is nowhere to be seen.
“Get in the back, Agnes.”
Emily is already up on the driver’s bench. She grins grimly. “Two years travelling round alone in the Rockies means that I spent a lot of time driving a wagon. This can’t be that different. I know a lot about driving horses, and I couldn’t help notice the way our driver handled these three beauties.”
She shakes the reins, and the stallion begins his usual rapid trot. But the sleigh is facing away from our route of escape. Emily has to turn us around towards the track through the woods. A pull on one rein seems to do the trick; the right-hand mare quickens her pace to a canter, and we start to slew round, turning back onto the tracks in the snow that the sleigh made when we arrived. Emily is skilled and confident; the troika slides easily, quickly along, like a waltzing skater. We’re going to get away from here.
As our pace starts to quicken, I can’t help looking behind me. Near the cave entrance, I see a huge man emerge from the shadows and coming out of the little grove of pines. The gun is still in his hand. But our sleigh is now moving fast along the track, up and away into the snowy depths of the forest.
Emily gasps with relief. “Thank God. Even if he could see us among the trees, we’re out of shooting range… I think we’re safe now.”
From the back of the sleigh, I reply. “Thank you, Emily: you’ve saved both our lives. But – are we safe now? That cave is miles from anywhere. We got there by sleigh; in this deep snow, walking to it would have been impossible.”
She gives the reins another shake before replying. “Your point is?…”
“How did he get to the cave?”
This time, we both glance back. Far away through the tree-trunks, we see something moving swiftly and silently. It’s a sled, pulled by a powerful, galloping horse.
19
A reluctant secret agent
Emily has seen the other sleigh too. Her face is pale with fear, but her voice is clear.
“Agnes, I have to drive fast: I can’t look back. So I need you to tell me some things. Is that horse much bigger than these?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the sleigh like?”
“Small and light, just a little sled really.”
“Okay. Although we have three horses, in terms of speed, that sled will outrun us on the flat. Our only hope is an uphill track. One horse pulling a sled uphill will tire quicker than three horses sharing the load.”
As she speaks, she jerks the reins and we turn right, so suddenly that I’m flung sideways. We’ve turned off the track we came here on. We’re now on a narrow trail, only just wide enough for our three horses. It climbs steeply up through the trees like a white staircase.
The snow on this track is different: formed into huge lumps and dips, like an array of giant pillows. Our horses are struggling, plunging deep into the drifts – but, when I look back, the single-horse sled is struggling more than us. Their huge black horse is swimming in a sea of white. But I also see, with a shock, that the sled has two men aboard. One is the huge man we saw in the cave, but he has a companion. The giant drives: the other man holds a gun. Both sleighs are dipping and bouncing, half-submerged at times, in the snow. Thankfully, there is no way the gunman can try a shot at us.