Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller (36 page)

He shook his head. “You have to stay here with the children.”

“If I let Harry go without letting the board know,” Sophie said, “my life in this village is ended. They’ll never forgive me. And I could live with that, because I want to be with you. You’re my life now, Dennis. But if you go alone out there, you and Harry, you’ll die. You don’t know the mountains. I’ll take you. Lucy and Brian will come with us too. It’s not far to the hut we were at. We’ll get there and we’ll be all right.” A deep gasp broke from her throat, and she closed against him so that he took her full weight in his arms. “And I’ll never come back.”

Tucking Lucy and Brian into bed, he kissed them good night. “I’m going to wake you just before it gets light,” he said. “We’re going on a big adventure, a hike, to a cabin we know. Not far. You’ll be quiet like mice.”

At eleven o’clock he and Sophie turned out all the lights in the house. His stomach churned at the thought of taking Lucy and Brian, but Sophie was right: only dumb luck would allow him to find the hut on his own. All or none had to go—unless they were willing to surrender Harry. Was he risking the lives of his children to save the life of one old man? He dared not do that.

“Sophie, are you sure we’ll make it?”

“If the weather holds—yes.”

“How long will it take?”

“A couple of hours. Maybe three with the kids along.”

“Are those snow clouds?”

“I don’t think so. Just clouds.”

“This whole idea is crazy,” Harry said. “I know those huts. They’re real popular. You have to reserve them weeks in advance.” When no one laughed, he said more soberly, “The kids won’t be able to do it.”

“The kids are tougher than you.” Dennis watched the clouds, looking for any threat of snow. “If the weather holds, we’ll go. If not…”

No one slept. In their bedroom Dennis held his wife in his arms. She was crying softy. He understood what she was giving up to be with him, and he had never loved her more than now.

At four A.M. the night was still calm. The clouds were motionless above the mountain peaks. Dennis saw a handful of blurred stars.

“I’ll wake Brian and Lucy,” he said quietly.

Dennis and Sophie, with Harry and the two children, stood in the kitchen by the back door of the house looking like a quintet of moon walkers. All wore layers of polypropylene underwear, layers of Thinsulate sweaters, Gore-Tex parkas and hoods, pile-lined gauntlet gloves and liners, balaclavas, and ski goggles. Sophie had dug out every bit of winter equipment in the house; it was enough for a platoon. They had thick boots with Gore-Tex shell gaiters, snowshoes and poles, and each of the three adults carried a mountaineering backpack with food, flashlight, mummy bag, bivouac tent, and blanket. In his backpack Dennis had also stuffed a topographic map, compass, ice axe, snow shovel, Swiss Army knife, first-aid kit, and Primus stove. He reckoned they would be out in the mountains and in the hut for under twelve hours, but with the children along he wanted to take as few chances as possible.

Sophie gave the children apples and bananas and granola bars to eat. In the darkness, until they dressed, they were silent. Lucy clutched Dennis’s arm as he lashed the little snowshoes onto her boots.

“Daddy, why do we have to whisper?”

“We don’t want anyone to know we’re going, darling. There are people on the road watching us, but they can’t see us go out the kitchen door.”

“Where are we going?” Brian asked.

“To a cabin that Sophie knows.”

“The miner’s cabin? The one where Lucy’s as tall as I am?”

“No, Brian, not that one. A bigger one. Bigger and much better.”

The outside kitchen door, where he and Brian had faced the bear, opened up toward the mountains. The house itself blocked any view from the road and the vehicles parked there. Dennis had worked for nearly an hour fashioning a wide flowing roll made up of folded woolen blankets, weighted down with books laid flat in the bottom of the roll. He cut a hole in the narrow end of the roll, inserted a length of cord, and tied the two loose ends to the glove hooks on either side of his parka.

“What the hell is that for?” Harry asked.

“You’ll see.”

“This is no time for Boy Scout stuff, amigo.”

“We only have to get out there and hang on until it’s light enough to see. When you’re a hundred and fifty you can tell the story to your French grandchildren. They may not believe you, but at least you’ll be alive to tell it.”

Outside it was black and still, that moment before dawn when night borders on day. Sky, earth, and mountains waited in an expectant hush. Dennis eased the kitchen door open bit by bit. Don’t squeak, he begged. He stepped clumsily down the back steps, boots firmly strapped into snowshoes, the blanket roll bumping lightly and trailing behind him. Harry followed after him, then Lucy, Brian, and Sophie. Dennis whispered, “You lead, Harry, but not quickly. We can’t let the kids fall behind.” He pushed the painter forward, pointing toward the creek. “Go. Now, kids, you and Sophie.”

“Daddy—”

“Brian, do it
, please.
Go with Sophie, and be quiet as a mouse. I’ll be right behind you.”

On the flat field leading to the creek, their legs slid easily through the corn snow. With Harry leading they walked slowly, Dennis at the rear, the weighted blanket roll rolling across his wake and sweeping away most of the imprints left by their snowshoes.

In two minutes they reached the creek and were shielded by the swarthy shadows of the forest. There was no sound except their breathing, the purling water, the rustle of boughs in the wind. The cold wind stung Dennis’s cheeks, but he could see more stars now.

“We did it,” Sophie said. “They don’t know we’re gone.”

Dennis bent to one knee in the snow. “Kids, are you all right? Are you cold?”

“No, Daddy,” Lucy said. “But it’s dark. I can’t see anything.”

“You hang on to Sophie. Brian, walk ahead of me.” He turned to Harry. “Are you ready? Are you okay?”

“Sure.” The old man grinned. “I haven’t had this much fun since pussy was a cat. Which way?”

“Follow Sophie.”

Twenty minutes later they came to the gate in the barbed-wire fence and the padlock that led to the spring. Dennis moved his flashlight to within a few inches of the lock and flicked the switch. Once again Sophie twirled the dials and the lock sprang open.

Five minutes later they reached the narrow stream that flowed forth from the snowy hillside—the stream whose source had changed the lives of all in Springhill. Here was the chance for the realization of mankind’s oldest dream: the power to achieve immortality: the power for which some would pay fortunes; the power that others would kill to protect. Here, Dennis remembered, he and Sophie had made love. Here he had taken his first sip of immortality.

Dennis played the beam of his flashlight over the water. Sophie, looking down, hesitated for a moment. So did Harry.

“Let’s get moving,” Dennis said.

They trudged northeast toward the frozen shores of Indian Lake. Dennis walked slowly at the rear, planting his snowshoes to feel the laced leather sink and then grip the snowpack. Now and then he glanced behind to make sure the blanket roll was doing its job of erasing the evidence of their journey.

Brian was lagging. “How are you doing, son?” Dennis asked.

“I’m cold.”

“We all are. Otherwise you’re okay?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“It’ll warm up later. And when we reach the cabin we’ll make a big fire. Eat another granola bar. Eating keeps you warm.”

The terrain ahead sloped gently downward into the couloirs. The early morning was gray and shadowless. Wind blew wisps of snow along the surface of the earth. They began to angle off in a downhill traverse, snowshoes breaking through heavier crust. For the children’s sake they stopped to rest. Spruce trees were black in the gloom. Above them the twin white peaks of the Maroon Bells towered like unscalable pyramids.

They headed for Lead King Basin, avoiding as best they could the gullies under the steeper slopes that might avalanche. Dennis knew from the map that they would pass the frozen North Fork of the Crystal River, then Geneva Lake and Hagerman Peak. If they bore east over Trail Rider Pass they would be heading toward Aspen, but if they continued straight on they would reach Lead King Basin and the hut. Sophie halted, beckoning to him, and he plodded forward until he reached her side. She touched his face with her glove, raising his woolen balaclava with one thumb so that his ear was freed.

“Do you hear something?”

He had heard the distant sound for a while, but it had barely penetrated his thinking. He listened more carefully now to the low throb. Not a distant avalanche—he knew all too well what kind of noise an avalanche made. This was more persistent, more varied in pitch, and with what seemed to be an echo.

Harry had joined them. “Snowmobile,” he said.

Sophie shook her head firmly, so that snow cascaded on her shoulders. “A snowmobile couldn’t get through in this terrain. It has to be a Sno-Cat. They have that big one up at the quarry.”

Dennis shone his flashlight behind them on the slope they had traversed. Their tracks were not completely erased. A good tracker would find them. A Sno-Cat had heavy-duty tank treads and could access almost any terrain, although it had trouble climbing steeply on snow or ice. It could carry a dozen men.

“How did they figure it out?”

“Maybe they’ve split up into two or three search parties and this is just one of them. They may think we’re back here, but they don’t know where. We might just as well be trekking toward Aspen, not Lead King Basin.”

Harry looked at them glumly. “What the hell do we do?”

As if in answer, snowflakes began to drift down. The wind swirled up icy grits that stung their faces. Visibility was suddenly so poor they could make out nothing but the towering ridges on each side of the gully. The narrow band of early morning sky overhead took on a harder, darker sheen. Lucy clung to her father’s leg, while Brian put his mittens over his face to ward off the invisible violence of the wind.

Dennis brought his watch up to his face. It was a few minutes before eight A.M. The hut meant safety and security; the radio in it meant rescue. “How close are we?” he asked Sophie.

“An hour, if the weather doesn’t sock us in.”

As she spoke the falling snow cut off all sight of the sword-shaped couloir that lay ahead, and Dennis looked into an impenetrable white mist.

Chapter 29
The Maroon Bells

DARK ELEPHANTLIKE CLOUDS rumbled in swiftly from the north, blotting out first this mountain peak and then the next, reaching down almost to the level of Lead King Basin and hurling showers of wind-driven snow to pile against the Bells in massive drifts. The temperature dropped with alarming speed.

Dennis staggered through the drifts, planting his snowshoes, fighting for air to fill his lungs. Wet snow worked its way between his gaiters and boots, clamping an icy hold on his ankles. The tips of his toes ached from the cold. He held Brian in his arms. He made no more effort to blot out their tracks—the falling snow would cover them in minutes. Now and then from above he heard the telltale
crump
when fresh powder high on the peaks collapsed part of the fragile snowpack. Ahead of him he could barely make out the gray shape of Lucy’s little legs pumping and plunging forward between Sophie and Harry. She held tightly to both their arms.

“How are you, Brian?”

The boy said quietly, “I could walk if you let me, Dad.”

“I know you could, son. But I think we’ll go faster this way. We have to go fast. Fast as we can.”

Before Dennis had picked him up Brian had been stumbling and falling. Each time Dennis had been forced to stop, haul him out of the soft trap of the snow, and wipe it carefully from any part of the boy’s exposed face.

Now he saw Harry begin to slow his pace, then detach himself from Sophie and Lucy. He halted there in the gully, his head bowed.

Dennis reached him. “Harry, can you make it?”

Harry’s breathing was ragged, and he was shivering. “My hands and feet are goddam cold. This ain’t much fun anymore.”

“It’s the road to Paris, Harry. Never easy.” He tried to laugh, but when he opened his mouth wide the cold air and snow struck his back teeth, and it hurt.

When they set out again Dennis kept his face to leeward in his parka hood, only now and then taking a quick glance to windward toward Lead King Basin. The pack trail was obliterated by the snowfall. But Sophie moved doggedly forward, bearing left whenever she could, tugging Lucy with her.

Alone, Dennis thought, we would have been lost. Harry and I would have vanished into the wilderness. We would have died.

“That hut nearby?” Harry gasped.

“It should be,” Dennis said. “I’m telling you—trust Sophie.”

The clouds lifted for a moment, and he heard Sophie’s shout. He raised his head to see her pointing off to the left. Dennis peered between wisps of swirling white fog, and down a steep incline in a ravine among stands of snow-spattered spruce was the Tenth Mountain hut. If the cloud cover had not broken for that moment they might have passed it by. A sturdy pine log cabin, it had been cloaked with immense piles of snow heaped like whipped cream nearly to window level. Above it towered a slender radio antenna.

“We’re there, Brian. We’re safe. Sophie saved us.” With his son still in his arms, Dennis lurched down the incline after his wife and daughter.

The hut was for travelers and for the lost and the desperate. In winter the door was never locked. Sophie thrust it open and stepped inside, bent to unlash her snowshoes, then began stamping her boots on the floorboards. It was almost as frigid indoors as outside in the storm, but the double-paned windows blocked the wind. The five of them were coated with snow. Like snowmen on Connecticut lawns, Dennis thought. He enfolded Sophie in his arms.

There were beds and canned food and plates, a 110-volt generator, a propane stove activated by a photovoltaic system, utensils in open cupboards, a toboggan, spare skis in a rack, a padlocked closet labeled AVALANCHE CONTROL EQUIPMENT, DO NOT OPEN OR USE UNLESS AUTHORIZED, and a slabbed stone fireplace with a wicker basket full of pine logs. There was no water supply but in summer a stream flowed nearby and in winter the snow could be melted.