They managed to climb out of the big room, up the side of the rock, and Sara wished she hadn’t been so adamant when R.J. put his arms around her, for his attitude had changed. Instead of laughing and teasing, flirting, he was now cool and distant, formal and polite. He held out his hand when she needed help, but he withdrew it quickly.
She followed him across the top of a ridge of rock and when she tripped, he stopped and looked back at her, but he didn’t offer to help her up.
The first time they stopped to rest and drink water, she asked if she could see the map that Gideon had drawn. She studied it and saw that the trail Gideon had marked was below them. They were heading in the right direction, but they weren’t on the trail that Gideon had marked.
“You don’t trust him, do you?”
“I don’t trust anyone on this island.” R.J. took a deep drink of water. “I’m beginning to think that if I get out of here, I’ll tell Charley to buy every inch of land and evict all these people. My gut feeling is that there are some very ugly things going on around here.”
“Or we’re being lied to,” Sara said idly.
“Nezbit’s dead body wasn’t a lie.”
“No, but in a way, murder is sort of normal, isn’t it? Shipwrecks and children being brought home like puppies in a blanket are not normal.”
R.J. was looking at her with his head cocked to one side. “Do you think we were sent up here to get rid of us? Get us out of the way until the hearing on Monday? Maybe the goal is to keep us quiet for a few days and what better way than to send us up to have a look at the old hot springs?”
Sara moved away from the rock she was leaning on and looked around her. It was afternoon now and she was hungry. “How about if we get to the hot springs, look at them,
then get ourselves back to town as fast as possible?”
“I think you’re right,” R.J. said. “Or we could skip the hot springs altogether.”
At that moment they heard a shot. It was a long way off, but it still echoed until it sounded as though there were a thousand people firing rifles. “Let’s go,” R.J. said, shoving the plastic water bottle in his pack and putting it on his back.
In the next second they felt the first warm drops of rain. Two seconds later a storm erupted. Fierce thunder and lightning split a downpour so thick that Sara could hardly see R.J. in front of her. Bending over, his head down, he was running along the narrow, steep trail.
“You okay?” he yelled back at her. She shouted yes, but she wasn’t sure he heard her. They had ponchos in their packs, but there was nowhere to stop to put them on.
Around them were tall trees, and the lightning seemed to be cracking right above them. In one particularly loud flash, with the thunder coming instantly and so loud that it was deafening, Sara screamed. In the next second, R.J. was beside her, his arm across her shoulders protectively.
“I think I saw shelter,” he yelled. “Come with me.”
She kept her head down, hiding under his arm, trying to keep the rain from lashing at her face. Twice, she tried to look up, but R.J. pushed her face back down. Around them the lightning came fast and brilliant, and she heard what sounded like trees breaking. “Can we go back?” she yelled up at him and thought she heard the word “no.”
She twisted around to look at the trail behind them. A flash of lightning exposed a blurry image. Had a tree fallen across the trail?
As she looked out from under his protective arm, a flash of lightning came and for a split second she saw Gideon standing about a hundred yards behind them. He was clearly outlined in the light, a pack on his back, a rifle in his hands. For all that the rain was coming down hard, he had his head up, his eyes straight ahead, watching them. He looked like a mountain man of old, as though he belonged there on that rocky surface, with the trees all around him. And he looked as though he was hunting bear—but his eyes were on them.
Twisting around again, Sara got as close to R.J.’s ear as she could and said, “I saw Gideon. He’s behind us.”
“Yes,” R.J. said, then he started walking faster.
When she tripped over the rough ground, his grip on her tightened until he was nearly carrying her. She wanted to ask where they were going, but she was sure he didn’t know. Or did he? Had he asked Gideon for a map to test him? R.J. said he’d studied King’s Isle for weeks before they came here. Had he studied maps also? For all she knew, R.J. had called in engineers to report on the place. Had R.J. seen that Gideon’s map wasn’t correct and he’d gone the way that he knew to be correct? But correct to get them where?
“Here!” R.J. shouted, then he turned left abruptly. Again, she looked under his arm and waited for the lightning to flash. She saw no one, just an empty trail and the hard-driving rain. When a second flash came, she saw what looked to be a pile of stones where R.J. had turned left.
In the next second, everything happened at once. Lighting flashed beside them, a huge tree cracked, R.J. tightened his grip on Sara and made a leap. When they hit the ground, Sara started to take another step, but R.J. pulled her back.
There was no other step. They were on the edge of a precipice.
With the tree crashing down above them, they dropped to the ground, clinging to each other tightly, R.J.’s arms over Sara’s head. The tree came down all around them, but none of the heavy branches hit them. When the tree stopped coming down, and the earth stopped vibrating, they looked at each other and smiled. They had made it!
But then the ground under them broke away and they fell down. Wrapped into one being, they fell down and down, to land hard on the floor below.
“Sara?” R.J. whispered after the dirt settled. His arms were still around her. He’d managed to twist so he came down on the bottom. “Are you all right?”
When she didn’t answer, he disentangled their bodies and tried to look at her. There was little light. About fifty feet above them he could see the hole that they’d come through. The branches of the fallen tree covered the opening, blocking out the dim light that got through the storm.