第60节

ly whilst crossing a sharp-edged

patch of scree.

Two-thirds of the way up the slope, Steve realised that he was running

out of steam and wasn't going to make it. Once again his formidable

self-discipline came into play, driving him on. Looking up, he saw, to

his right, a feathery plume of water cascading over a ledge of rock.

The idea of running through it, letting it splash over his burning

face, catching some of it in his mouth to relieve the raw dryness in

his throat became irresistible. He altered his rig-zag path towards

the water course, his earlier nimble step becoming more leaden with

each stride. His thigh and calf muscles were shot through with rods of

pain - as if every vein was on fire. Every ounce of his willpower was

now concentrated on reaching the pencil-slim waterfall. His heart

slammed itself against his ribs like an angry caged animal, the

pounding inside his head blotted out the thud of his feet against the

rocky path; the air he gulped down burned and ripped through his gullet

like red hot sand. With a desperate weariness, Steve realised that

even if he reached the plume of falling water, the top of the slope was

another hundred yards away. It might as well have been a hundred

miles.

Stumbling across the rocks, he sank to his knees under the spray, fell

forward onto his hands then rolled over and gave up, content to let the

cool mountain water cascade over him.

Twenty to thirty minutes later, when his heartbeat had slowed and the

band of fever heat had been washed from his brow, Steve crawled

stiff-legged out of the waterfall and peeled off his sodden clothes:

red, black and brown camouflaged trousers, combat boots and flight blue

T-shirt and underpants. He twisted the garments into tight rolls to

wring out the bulk of the water then beat them, Mute-fashion, against a

flat rock to get rid of the remainder. The afte.rnoon sun had sunk

towards the western hills, throwing the slope into shadow. Steve

rubbed himself vigorously with his damp T-shirt then gathered up the

rest of his clothes and clambered barefoot up the steep rockface that

flanked the slim waterfall. Not the easiest way to the top of the

slope but certainly the shortest.

Stepping into the warm autumn sunshine he spread out his clothes to dry

then sat down in a nearby patch of long yellow-pink grass. Behind him,

the ground rose in a series of undulating rocky ledges, carpeted with a

profusion of grasses, ferns and moss, until it met a wide bank of tall

red trees. Concealed within it was the head of the stream that

trickled past the spot where he lay before plunging over the smooth

tongue of rock onto the slope some fifty feet below.

Lulled by the murmuring passage of the stream and the warm earth at his

back, Steve fell asleep.

When he woke, the sun was setting behind the mountain, its last rays

turning the edges of the gathering clouds into liquid gold. The Mutes

had a quaint idea that the sun went through a door in the sky which,

when closed, left the world in darkness until it entered again through

a similar door set below the eastern horizon. Seized by a sudden

chill, Steve hauled on his blue underpants, reached for his T-shirt and

stopped, hand outstretched. Eight small black-skinned ovoid fruit that

Steve now knew to be wild plums were piled neatly on a red leaf that

someone had placed on the chest of his T-shirt.

Steve scanned the high ground quickly, then walked over to the edge of

the slope. Nothing. No sign of movement. No dust trail. Nobody. He

walked back, laid the leaf and its gift of-plums carefully aside and

finished dressing. His clothes were still clammy but would soon dry

offwith his body heat.

He tightened the laces in his combat boots, strapped the knife scabbard

Cadillac had given him through the trouser loops around his right calf,

picked up the plums then - on a sudden impulse - set off cautiously

along the line of the stream, eating them as he went.

As he bit into the juicy flesh, he speculated on the identity and