The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine (14 page)

She closed her eyes for a quick moment, drew two deep breaths, then tried to push herself up from his shoulders. Her legs would not straighten.
Oh, Dio
. She drew up her chest and balanced her fingertips on Quillan’s head, then pressed again with her legs, wobbling as her hands left their rest. Under her skirts, Quillan’s hands came up her calves, strong and steady as she straightened her legs, then unbent at the waist.

Arms stretched upward, her fingers found the jut in the ceiling, enough to balance with, if not hold on to. Quillan swayed slightly, and she gasped. “Don’t move!”

“I’m trying not to.” He slid his hands behind her knees and tightened his grip. “Give her the poles, Father.”

Father Antoine lifted them, thinner end first. Wobbling a little, she reached with one hand and grabbed the poles. They were heavy and awkward. She gripped them tightly, trying not to hit Quillan in the head.

“Now get them through the shaft, Carina.”

Oh sì. Throw them in the shaft
. She’d be lucky if she held on to them at all. She raised the poles, but the angle would not allow them in. She was too low.
Signore, why did you make me so short?
She tried raising the poles over her head as high as she could stretch, but it wasn’t enough. “I can’t get them in. We’re not high enough.”

“On your knees, Father.” Quillan’s voice was tight, and she realized he was straining worse than she. Physically, he had the worst of it, though it was no picnic balancing. But he thought Father’s prayers would raise them two more feet?

Glancing down, she stopped her breath completely as Father Antoine dropped not only to his knees, but to all fours. They couldn’t mean to . . . But they did!

She gripped the jut with all the strength in her fingers. Quillan raised one foot, leg shaking as he lodged it onto the priest’s back. She couldn’t watch, focused only on clinging to the rough ceiling. With a rush, she rose a couple feet higher and the poles swung at her side.

“Ow.”

The thump told her she had done as she feared and bumped the ends into Quillan’s head. What did he expect? Her own head was bent against the top of the cave now. She could see through the shaft to the snow. But how deep was the snow?

She drew the poles up nearly parallel to the ceiling. Her arms shook. So did her legs. Quillan shifted his hold, and Father Antoine gasped, “Quickly, Carina.”

She gathered herself. With all her might, she thrust the poles into the shaft. The motion threw her forward to the edge of the shaft. She caught it and held on.

The poles had lodged in the snow. What if it were too deep? “Can you move one step forward, Father?” What was she saying? Move? They would fall!

But, uncomplaining, he slowly inched forward, and she clung to the edge of the shaft. She pulled the poles back, then reaching deeper, shoved the poles as hard as she could. Daylight. She saw blue sky. “They’re through! The poles broke through the snow!”

“Can you get them all the way through?” Quillan’s strain was evident in his breathless tone.

“I can’t reach them again. They’re in too far.”

“But they’re not through? Not all the way to hook over the shaft?”

She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see her. “No. They’re still lengthwise in the shaft.”

“We need them all the way through. Father?”

Oh, Dio?
He couldn’t be thinking . . . Carina clung to the opening as Quillan moved again beneath her. Slowly he began to rise, and she knew Father Antoine now had Quillan’s feet on his shoulders. He couldn’t manage more than that, but it was enough to raise her halfway into the shaft.

She gripped the poles and shoved. They flew out the end of the shaft, and snow fluttered in around her face. She blew it from her mouth. “They’re out.”

Catching her legs in a new grip, Quillan grunted with the strain. “Now’s the tricky part.”

Now? What did he call the rest of it?

Quillan said, “Pull on the rope. Slowly. Don’t let the end of the poles come back in. They have to catch sideways.”

And how was she to manage that? He wobbled underneath her as she reached for the rope.
Per piacere, Signore . . .
She pulled more rope. So far no ends of the poles. She pulled again and it caught fast. The poles must have turned on their own. She gave it a tug to be sure. “The rope is tight.”

“Great! Good. Now come on down.”

“Down?” Carina’s legs watered at the thought. “You think I’m pazzo?” She took hold of the rope and drew her knee up into the opening. “Push.”

Quillan shoved her into the shaft, cushioned with leaves and debris. She was only thankful the freezing temperatures would have killed any insect or other life. The chimney wasn’t long, and it slanted so to require little strength. If it had been straight up, she could not have done it. But as it was, she braced herself and crawled the last couple feet, then pushed her head through the snow, chilling her neck with frosted crystals. She shook it free, blinking in the brightness. The air was keen and brittle. She pushed with her elbows, brought one knee out and then the other, and crawled onto the mountainside.

Her breath came in one exultant puff.
Grazie, Dio!
Her muscles shook from strain and relief, but she didn’t hurt more than she might have pulling that stunt at any time. She figured she was healed. And she was out! Then she noticed she had no boots. She called down the chimney, “Send up my boots, if you don’t mind.”

Their cheers sounded below. After a moment, the rope wobbled and she pulled. It was heavier than she expected, and she saw that the bundle of blankets, as well as her boots, had been attached. Well, why waste effort? She pulled the rope until the bundle came free, then unfastened it and her boots and sent the rope back down.

She shook her boots free of snow and debris and pulled them on, lacing them tightly. Her hands burned across her palms from the rope. She pulled her gloves from the pockets of her coat, the soft kidskin gloves Quillan had bought her, and put them on.

“Take her up again, Carina,” Quillan called.

She reached for the rope. This time it was his pack she brought up. Once again she untied it and tossed the rope back down the chimney. She looked out at the periwinkle sky, the sun~shine brilliant on the snow. Upward to her right would be the entrance to Wolf ’s mine, but it was nothing but a white wave now, the entire mountainside changed.

She rubbed her arms against the cold, then heard a grunt as Father Antoine pushed up through the opening, his shoulders curved and angled to fit out. She moved aside to give him room. “God’s handiwork looks fine today.” She waved her arm over the vista.

He laughed, pulled himself the rest of the way free, and sank down beside her. “Indeed it does.” He drew in a deep, satisfied breath.

In a short time Quillan came through the hole in the mountainside, an even tighter fit for his muscled shoulders, but thankfully it was just wide enough. He pulled himself up and stood. With hardly a glance about him, he rocked his neck and rubbed it with one hand. Then he stooped, lifted the poles, and untied the rope around them. He stood them upright in the snow and reached for the tarp bundle.

Carina raised her brows. “Can’t you stop for one minute? Look around you. See what you’ve been given.” She couldn’t get enough of the scene—white-flocked trees and jagged granite faces as far as she could see. To the west a mackerel sky . . . It was mostly the sky she reveled in. Spacious, bright, colorful. Everything she’d been deprived of in the dark cavernous hollow. Her soul sang.

He worked the bundle free and shook the tarp out. “We have a long walk home.”

And then she remembered . . . the horses. Of course he was upset. She got to her feet as Quillan reattached the tarp to the poles. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, just kept wrapping and tying. He was making the litter again? Didn’t he see she was healed? And what good would it do without Jack and Jock? Oh no. She brought her hands to her hips. “What do you think you’re doing with that?”

“Father and I can—”

“Oh no, you can’t. I’ll not be carried about like an Egyptian princess. I can walk.”

Again he ignored her. She turned to the priest. “Father, talk sense to him. Didn’t I climb through a shaft just now? Didn’t I balance like an acrobat? Does he think me an invalid still?”

Father Antoine raised his hands. “I make it a point never to interfere between husband and wife.”

With smaller twine, Quillan was now attaching the woolly mat. Carina fumed. Hadn’t she just proved her strength? Were they all pazzo—the doctor, the priest, and her stubborn husband? He thought she would lie there and let Father Antoine and him carry her down the mountain?

Quillan shrugged into his pack. Father Antoine scooped up the blankets. Carina’s hands fisted at her sides. Quillan motioned with one hand toward the litter lying between them. She shook her head. His jaw tightened.

“Carina, I have enough on my mind already. Lie down and stop being foolish.”

Hah! Foolish? That was what she would look on the litter.

“I am perfectly capable of walking.”

“And one slip could set you back.”

She crossed her arms at her chest. “You didn’t worry about that when I stood on your shoulders.”

“I knew I could hold you. You’re nowhere near Father Antoine’s weight.”

“That’s not the point.”

With an exasperated sigh, Quillan bent and scooped her into his arms. Blood rushed to her face and words to her mouth. “Omaccio! Put me down!”

And he did. On the litter. With a pirate face he told her, “I have more rope.”

Oh! He would tie her down? She squirmed, but he caught her wrists and stared so intently, she knew he would stop at nothing. He was a tyrant, her husband, when he felt strongly about something. She felt the strength of his feelings now. He would not let her walk. She slumped down with a huff. Bene. If they wanted to carry her, let them. She had put on enough of a show for Father Antoine.

Quillan nodded to the priest and they lifted her. “Stay to the edge here.” He started down. “Avalanche only came this far. We should have tried this exit yesterday.”

“We didn’t think of it yesterday.” The obviousness of her statement made no difference to him. He kept on like a man possessed.

Since Quillan went down first, Father Antoine carried the end of the litter near her head. That gave her a view of Quillan’s back, and she watched his head turning side to side. What did he search for? The horses? She hoped they would not find the corpses. She’d seen enough during the flood. But Quillan searched the slope all the way. The new piled snow must be twenty feet deep, and much of it was chunks and slabs. Were his blacks under there somewhere?

Then she heard it. A snort. A terrified snort and whinny. She froze, but Quillan lowered the poles to the ground and bolted through the frozen terrain toward the black head just showing above the surface. He fell, floundered up, and thrashed through to the horse. Carina couldn’t tell if it was Jack or Jock. Whichever one, it was alive.

She stood up from the tilted litter, and Father Antoine dropped his end and went to help. With his arms, Quillan flung the snow away from the beast, freeing its neck by the time Father Antoine reached him. In her skirts, Carina didn’t cross the snow. She would only get in their way. She folded her arms and waited.
Oh, Signore, let it be all right
. If the horse were injured, if a leg were broken . . . It would kill Quillan to have to shoot it after finding it like that.

She sat down on Quillan’s pack and waited. The men worked methodically now, careful to free the horse in a way that would not allow it to panic and injure itself further. They had to be careful not to sink in over their own heads. At one point they lay prone to work the snow away from the beast. It must be powder underneath.

The horse heaved and lunged. Quillan caught its head. Part of the bridle and reins remained, and he gripped them and subdued the animal. Then carefully, rising now to his knees in the snow, Quillan backed and pulled the horse forward. It lunged. Quillan fell back, and Carina shot to her feet. Would he be trampled in his effort?

But Father Antoine caught the horse around the neck and held it back while Quillan recovered his position. Together they worked the horse—she thought it was Jock—over the broken surface. Slowly they plowed through in leaping lunges, cleared a path, then another lunge and another.

Jock didn’t seem to be injured. Certainly its legs worked. Carina clasped her hands when they plowed the last distance through waist-high drifts. Jock looked fine, if a little frightened.
Grazie, Signore!
What an unlooked-for boon.

She turned to Quillan. “Should we look for Jack?”

Quillan’s expression changed. “I already found him.”

She searched his face. “Found him? Where?”

“Under Jock. His warmth must have kept Jock from freezing.”

Carina stood a moment, absorbing that. So they’d fallen together, but one, though trapped, wasn’t buried alive. The other was not so lucky. Had Jock known Jack was dying beneath him? Did animals think that way? She reached out to pat the horse. He shied.

Quillan stroked Jock’s shoulder. “There, Jock. There now.” He soothed the horse with his hands.

Her stomach growled, and she realized that with all the excitement of trying to escape the cave, they had eaten nothing. Surely they could rest and let the horse calm down. She reached for Quillan’s pack and tugged it open. The remainder of the lunch was on top as well as the canteen. She took both out and Quillan nodded.

“Good idea, Carina.” He gave her a softened look. Repentant? He should be. Tie her down, indeed.

Jock stood quivering as they ate the crumbling bread and beef. Quillan palmed the dried plums and apples and held them out to the horse, who lipped them noisily out of his hand. Carina could almost feel the love pass between them, and a surge of her own love for Quillan washed over her. That, and the food soothing the lion in her belly, made her almost cheerful until Quillan stood, brushed the crumbs from his thighs, and eyed the litter.

“I’m not riding it again, Quillan. It’s mostly level here, and only a gentle slope into town. I can walk.”