The path had ended, but he edged around the perimeter of the atrium until he found the right angle. Studying the view-finder critically for his final shot, he made one impulsive movea step backward.
Immediately his feet shot out from under him and sprawled on his backhe started to slide slowly but inexorably toward the abyss. Twisting his body in panic, he clutched at wet rocks and grabbed handfuls of shallow-rooted weeds. Nothing stopped his slide down the muddy slope. His bellowing shouts were drowned by the pounding waters . . . and now he was enveloped in fog . . . and now he was slipping into the black hole. He grabbed for the rim, but it crumbled. Grasping wildly at the nearly vertical walls of the chasm, he managed to slow his descent and find a ledge for his toe. It bore his weight. It was a wisp of hope.
He clung to his perch and tried to think. Spread-eagled against the face of the rock he ran bleeding hands over its surface in search of a projection. Behind him the shaft of water was thundering, and he was drenched like a drowning man. Something flashed into his mind then: mountain climbers in Switzerland . . . scaling the flat face of a peak . . . with infinite patience. Patience! he told himself. The mist stung his face and blinded him, but he fought his panic. Running his hands painstakingly over the flat surface in search of crevices, testing craggy ledges for strength, he inched upward. Time lost its meaning. He spent an eternity clinging and creeping, never knowing how much farther he had to climb. Patience! When the darkness lessened he knew he was approaching the rim, although he was still enveloped in mist.
Eventually one exploring hand felt level ground. It was the rim of the pit, but the trial by mud was not over. He had to hoist himself out of the hole, and one misstep or one miscalculation could send him plunging back into the depths. The terrain above him was slimy, but it was blessedly horizontal. After several tries he found something growing from a crevice, something tough and fibrous that he could grab as he clambered out. Facedown in the mud he crawled and squirmed out of the mist and away from the pit until he felt safe enough to collapse and hug the earth. No matter that he was muddied from head to foot, his clothing in shreds, his hands and knees bloodied, his watch smashed, his camera lost; he was on terra firma.
Only then did he pay attention to a shooting pain in his ankle. It had been torturing him throughout the ordeal, but the life-or-death struggle had superseded all else. When he turned over and tried to sit up, he yelped with pain and shock; his ankle was swollen as big as a grapefruit. Rashly he tried to stand up and fell back with a cry of anguish. For a moment he lay flat on the ground and considered the problem. A little rest, he thought, would reduce the swelling.
He was wrong. His ankle continued to throb relentlessly, responding to every move with agonizing spasms. How do I get out of here? he asked himself. At the bakery they had said no one went to the waterfall on a Tuesday afternoon. Having great lung power, he tried a shout for help, but it was drowned out by the roar of the falls. Suppose he had to stay in the woods all night! Beechum had predicted more rain. The nights turned cold in the mountains, and his lightweight clothing was wet and tattered.
With a burst of determination he proposed to drag himself along the trail, an inch at a time if necessary. Fortunately it was all downhill; unfortunately the path was studded with sharp rocks, and his hands, elbows, and knees were already lacerated. Even so, he squirmed downhill a few yards, trying to save his ankle, but the pain was non-stop and the swelling had reached the size of a melon. Defeated, he dragged himself to a boulder and leaned against it in a sitting position.
For a while he sat there thinking, or trying to think. Vance would wonder why he hadn't called for his car; Yates would wonder why he hadn't picked up his baked goods.
Now that he had inched his way out of the atrium, the crashing noise of Purgatory was somewhat muffled. "HELP!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the rocky ravine. There was no answering cry. The sky, glimpsed between the lofty treetops, was now overcast. The rain was coming. If he had to spend the night in the woods, wearing cold, wet clothing and lying on the drenched ground, covering himself with wet leaves like a woodland animal, he would be ready for an oxygen tent in the morning . . . that is, if anyone found him in the morning. They might not find him until the weekend.
"HELP!"
Then a chilling thought occurred to him. The Taters may have intended him to disappear in the Purgatory abyss. If so, they could have only one motive; they suspected his purpose in visiting their precious mountain. They may have mistaken him for a federal agent. What were they growing in the hidden coves and hollows? What was stockpiled in those caves? Beechum's banter about bears and bats and poisonous snakes may have been something more than mountain humor.
"HELP!"
Did he hear a reply, or was it an echo?
He tried again. "HELP!"
"Hallo," came a distant cry.
"HELP!"
"Coming! Coming!" The voices were getting closer. "Hold on!" Soon he could see movement in the woods, screened by the underbrush, then heads bobbing along the trail. Two men were coming up the slope, and they broke into a run when he waved an arm in a wide arc.
"For God's sake! What happened?" the baker shouted, seeing the tattered, mud-caked figure leaning against a boulder. "What happened to your ankle?"
"You look like you been through a cement mixer!'rthe blacksmith said.
"I sprained my ankle, and I was trying to drag myself back to the cove," Qwilleran said shortly. He was in no mood to describe his ordeal or confess to the careless misstep that sent him sliding ignominiously into the pit.
They hoisted him to a standing position, with his weight on his right foot, and made a human crutch, unmindful of the mud being smeared on their own clothes. Then slowly they started down the precarious slope to Potato Cove. Qwilleran was in too much pain to talk, and his rescuers were aware of it.
At the end of the trail a group of concerned Taters waited with comments and advice:
"Never see'd nobody in such a mess!" said one.
"Better hose him down, Yates." That was the baker's wife.
"Give 'im a slug o' corn,-Vance. Looks like he needs it."
"Somebody send for Maw Beechum! She's got healin' hands."
Qwilleran's rescuers stripped off his rags behind the bakery and turned the hose on the caked blood and dirt, the icy water from a local well acting like a local anesthetic. Then, draped in a couple of bakery towels, he was assisted into a backroom and placed on a cot among cartons of wheatberries and yeast. Kate, serving hot coffee and another Danish, explained that Mrs. Beechum had gone home to get some of her homemade medicines.
When the silent woman arrived, she went to work with downcast eyes, making an icepack for the ankle and tearing up an old sheet for bandages. Then she poured antiseptic from a jelly jar onto the wounds and larded them with ointment.
Yates said, "With that stuff you'll never get an infection, that's for sure. When you feel up to it, we'll fix you up with pants and a coat and drive you home. You can say goodbye to those shoes, too. What size do you take? . . . Hey, Vance, get some sandals from the leather shop, size twelve." He appraised the bandaging. "Man, you look like a mummy!"
The wrappings on Qwilleran's hands, elbows, and knees restricted his movement considerably, but the ankle torture was somewhat relieved after the icepack and tight bandaging. He wanted to thank Mrs. Beechum, but she had slipped away from the bakery without so much as a nod in his direction, leaving him a jar of liniment.
Kate said, "You should use ice again tonight and keep your foot up, Mr. ..."