Shadows of the Heart

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Would you ride with me?” Trish asked, turning to Edith.

  “Of course. I’d love to. I haven’t been up there in over a year.” Edith smiled, her tension obviously relaxing as she realized there was not going to be an unpleasant scene. “And we really should keep an eye on the old mountain, I suppose.”

  “Good! Let’s go this afternoon then!” Trish said.

  Armando laughed. “I’m afraid the mountain is deceptive in more ways than one. The summit is farther up than you might think. It takes all day to ride up and back.”

  “Tomorrow then?” Trish questioned Edith eagerly.

  Edith tilted her head thoughtfully. “Certainly. Why not? We’ll have the cook pack a lunch for us, though I haven’t ridden for so long that I probably won’t be able to walk for a week afterward!”

  “Me too,” Trish agreed. She went on to relate a tale of a childhood riding experience when she thought she would surely be bowlegged for life, and soon they were all laughing together. Armando seemed to have recovered completely from his earlier depression or anger about the coffee-quality problems at the processing plant.

  That afternoon, while Edith spent more time with her father, Trish located the stables and made friends with the horses. The stables were not as impressive as Marc’s breeding establishment, or the quality of the animals as high. A gleaming bay gelding stood out among the other horses, however, and Trish found his friendly manner preferable to Demonio’s high-headed contempt.

  Afterward Trish inquired of one of the servants about the trail up the mountain and hiked around a couple of its zigzagging curves. The trail appeared a bit overgrown from lack of use but navigable enough. Most of the conversation at dinner that evening centered around Edith’s and Trish’s plans for the next day. Trish was eagerly looking forward to the ride and hoped it might be an opportunity to develop a closer relationship with Edith. In spite of the length of time Trish had already been at the cafetal, she somehow felt she was not really getting to know her half-sister as well as she would like.

  That opportunity was not going to come this day, however, Trish realized in disappointment the next morning when she read a hurriedly written note a servant handed her at breakfast. Armando had received word late the previous night that a cousin of his had been involved in a serious auto accident and he and Edith were on their way to see him immediately. They did not want to ruin Trish’s riding plans, however, and Edith had ordered a saddled horse brought to the house immediately after breakfast.

  Trish was prepared to wait for another day, but then she glanced out the window and saw the trim bay gelding already saddled and waiting for her. The cook brought out a neatly packed lunch, and she decided to go ahead with her plans. She breakfasted quickly, eager to be on her way.

  Once outside, she paused. It would be a long day, riding in bright sun most of the time. She had better wear something to protect her fair skin from sunburn. She went back inside and dabbed on suntan lotion. Hurrying back through the courtyard, she impulsively picked up the floppy, bright red hat Edith frequently wore. The wide brim would shade her eyes as well as protect her face, and she knew Edith wouldn’t mind if she borrowed it.

  Trish mounted the alert gelding and as they started up the trail he seemed as interested and eager as she was. It was a glorious morning, bright, yet not uncomfortably warm. The trail first passed through an area of wild shrubbery, but then followed along the edge of the cultivated area.

  The coffee trees were laid out in a neat, uniform pattern. They were smaller than Trish had expected, not much more than bushes actually. They appeared to have been pruned to keep them to a standard height. Trish reined the gelding to a halt by one of them and reached out to touch a glossy leaf, dark green on the upper side, a lighter shade on the lower. This tree had already been stripped of its ripe coffee berries, but workers were still picking in the distance. As she watched, a loaded truck lumbered off toward the beneficio, and Trish marveled that each coffee berry in that big load had been individually picked by a human hand.

  She rode on then, the panorama of the cafetales spreading out below as she gained height on the mountain. Larger trees were scattered among the smaller coffee trees, evidently to offer shade during part of the day. They looked benevolently protective, like a mother hen stretching her wings over her little chicks.

  The voices of the workers carried a long distance in the clear mountain air, but eventually Trish climbed beyond hearing distance. The gelding worked up a light sweat and Trish rested him frequently. From here she could see both houses, with the beneficio perched on what appeared to be an approximate dividing line between the properties. A couple of vehicles moved near the buildings, but from here it was impossible to identify them.

  Was Marc in his office today? Did he ever think about the afternoon and dinner they had shared together? If he did, his viewpoint was probably considerably different from hers, Trish thought ruefully. To him it had probably been a waste of time, since she had been unable, or, from his viewpoint, perhaps unwilling, to tell him anything incriminating about Armando. And yet, when he kissed her, he had seemed as passionately involved in the moment as she had been.

  She shivered lightly. The sunshine was still incredibly bright, but at this altitude the air had chilled considerably. The perspiration under the band of the floppy red hat had dried, yet Trish knew that shiver had more to do with her memory of Marc’s kiss than the mountain temperature. She looked around, hungrily eyeing the lunch tied to the back of the saddle, but she decided to wait until she reached the summit to eat.

  She touched the horse with her heels. She had not brought riding boots to Costa Rica and she was wearing only soft-soled canvas shoes, but the gelding responded willingly to the light touch. Here the trail departed from its zigzag course and circled around to the far side of the mountain. A new panorama stretched before Trish’s eyes. She caught her breath as the sight of green mountains fading to blue in the distance, the familiar wisps of clouds caught on the peaks. She glanced upward and in surprise saw that a similar cloud was now caught on Monte Deception itself. Up close, the cloud looked considerably less wispy and ethereal and more like a chilling fogbank.

  She hesitated, undecided, as she looked at the grim, uninviting scene rising above her. She had kept her eyes mostly on what lay below, but now she noted that the vegetation along the trail had thinned to stunted shrubs. Above her the slopes were almost barren, the fog swirling and shifting in wraithlike shapes. Once she thought she saw something move, but then she realized it was only a trick of the fog, the mists curling around an angular rock perched precariously against the slope.

  Perhaps she should turn back, she thought uneasily. It looked as if it wouldn’t take much to start the loose jumble of volcanic rock along the trail hurtling off in a wild avalanche. If she lost her way or the horse accidentally stepped off the trail…

  That was ridiculous, she told herself firmly. The trail was plain enough under the horse’s feet, even though visibility was now down to only a few feet ahead of her. Edith and Armando would have warned her if there was any danger coming up here. It would be a shame to turn around now when the goal of the summit was so close. Obviously her decision to eat lunch at the summit was impractical, but she would ride on up to the top, just to be able to say she had been there, and then ride back down to the sunshine for lunch.

  That decision made, she urged the gelding on. He seemed a little less eager now, almost apprehensive, and his nostrils flared slightly. His shod feet crunched against the fine volcanic rock. There was no echo or other sound and yet Trish found herself glancing backward frequently, her ears listening nervously for some sound just out of hearing range. The trailing, shifting fog gave a peculiar sense of motion to the big rocks as they disappeared and reappeared in the white mist, a feeling of lurking shapes seen just out of the corner of her eye. Once she pulled the horse up sharply, half expecting to hear muffled hoofbeats or footsteps continue behind her, but there was nothing but the s
ound of the gelding’s hard breathing.

  She rode through an area of jagged, jumbled boulders, wondering apprehensively if just the thud of the horse’s hooves could send them into thundering motion. But she passed through without a rock moving so much as a fraction of an inch. They had probably been precariously perched just that way for years, maybe centuries, she told herself, trying to laugh at her imaginings.

  The trail ended abruptly, without warning, and Trish caught her breath as she reined the gelding up sharply.

  “Easy, boy,” she soothed, not wanting to convey her nervousness to him. She leaned forward, peering over his shoulder into the seemingly bottomless abyss only inches ahead of him.

  It probably wasn’t as deep as it appeared to be, she told herself shakily. She couldn’t actually see more than a few feet into the crater because of the fog. Perhaps the bottom was only a few feet away from her.

  But somehow she knew it wasn’t.

  “Hello, down there!” she called out, feeling foolish and yet needing the reassuring sound of a voice, even if it was only her own.

  There was no echo, no answer. The mist-filled pit seemed to swallow her voice whole. She looked a moment longer at the barren slope of the crater angling steeply away from her and abruptly reined the horse around. There was no view here, nothing to see, and she was anxious to get away from this chilling spot that gave her the sinking feeling of being on the edge of the world with some unknown hell waiting far below.

  The noise was so sharp, so unexpected, that for a moment it didn’t really register on Trish. She almost thought she had imagined it. Then it came again… and again. Gunshots. Gunshots so sharp and close, they split the air around her.

  The quiet horse went rigid beneath her. He flung his head into the air and the reins drooped slackly as his eyes rolled backward at Trish, the edges white with terror.

  “Easy, boy,” Trish soothed, dismayed at his strange reaction. She reached down to pat his trembling shoulder, but instinctively she knew he was beyond control of her voice or hands, that some internal terror shut out everything else.

  She shifted her weight in the saddle, preparing to ease to the ground and try to calm him from there. She had ridden horses that acted up playfully or shied when startled, but never one that reacted like this, with petrified terror. She could actually feel the beat of his powerful heart throbbing through his trembling body.

  Another gunshot cracked. The frozen muscles exploded. Trish had one foot out of the stirrup when the horse reared violently. She felt herself flung backward into nothingness, into that bottomless abyss. The sound of her own voice shrieked around her, and then she hit, falling, rolling…

  She came to slowly, her mind crawling up from some mist-shrouded emptiness. There was a sound, a strange, muffled roaring in her ears. She lay there, trying to identify it, trying to bring her eyes to focus on something, but there was only the swirling, changing mist, the smell of damp and cold. Her mind seemed as lacking in solidity as the wisps of white mist curling around her. She lay motionless, trying to orient herself, half expecting that this was all some nightmare that would fade as she wakened to find herself in bed.

  But it was no nightmare. At least not an imaginary one.

  Her eyes focused now. The swirling mist blotted out the crater depths below her and the rim above her, but she knew she was somewhere between them on the steep, barren slope. There were no sounds. The silence was so complete that it was the internal workings of her own body that roared in her ears.

  Something was poking her painfully in the back and she moved tentatively. Then she realized she had better not complain because the scraggly shrub was all that had stopped her tumbling roll to the bottom. Tentatively she moved again. She was sore all over, her clothing ripped and torn, but miraculously nothing seemed broken.

  Carefully she edged herself into a lengthwise position against the steep slope, one foot braced against the shrub as she worked her way upward, trying to keep her mind away from what would happen if she slipped. Her fingers clawed uselessly at the loose volcanic rock at first, but finally she found another clump of hardy vegetation to which to cling.

  She had no idea how far she was from the top, but gradually her eyes made out the line of jagged rocks that marked the rim. She couldn’t go straight up the slope, and had to work back and forth, following the growth of stunted shrubs. But finally, her fingernails broken to the quick, she crawled over the edge and rested, panting, her heart thundering with exertion.

  The horse was nowhere in sight, but something lay on the ground where he had been. Trish staggered to it. The hat. The floppy red hat, the brim shredded now by the horse’s flailing hooves.

  She leaned against one of the rocks, resting, holding her aching side. What had happened to the horse? It wasn’t surprising that the gunshots had frightened him, but he had been more than startled. He had gone crazy with terror. And why, she wondered, baffled for a moment, would anyone be hunting and shooting up here?

  Then it hit her at once and she started shaking uncontrollably. Gunshots! There was no game to hunt up here. The hunter had come in search of only one quarry—Trish herself!

  Were the shots meant to kill her outright or send the horse into a frenzy of terror? What did it matter? Someone had tried to kill her!

  Trish bit her lip, willing down the rising hysteria, and tried to think logically. Edith had spent all day yesterday with her father. Was he getting worse, harder to control? He could have known Trish would be riding up here today. Edith might even have told him of their plans, never dreaming he would try to take revenge in this way.

  But he was old and ill, Trish reminded herself, momentarily doubtful. He had the full-time care of a nurse. Surely he couldn’t have climbed all the way up here and hidden in wait for her… could he? And yet she knew he wasn’t bedridden, knew he got away from the nurse occasionally. She knew, too, how powerfully, how convulsively his hands had worked in hatred when he saw her. Perhaps this hatred had been further inflamed because she had escaped the first fiery death he’d planned for her. The phrase the strength of a madman stabbed into her mind and stayed there. Sometimes madness brought its own strength and made almost superhuman feats possible.

  Suddenly Trish jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain of quick movement. He might still be around, lurking in the mist to finish the job he had started.

  Then she calmed, though her breath still came in jerks as she glanced around. He was gone. Some inner instinct told her that.

  She rested a few minutes longer, then tossed the mangled hat aside and started walking, clutching her tattered blouse around her. When the horse ran into the stable riderless, someone would surely come looking for her, but she had no desire to wait here unprotected on the summit until that time.

  The trail led downhill all the way. Trish could, at least, be grateful for that much. She knew she could never have made it if she’d had to climb uphill. The thin soles of her canvas shoes were no match for the volcanic cinders of the trail, and soon it seemed she could feel each rock on her tender feet. But she doggedly struggled on, pausing to rest frequently, her eyes searching hopefully for help from below.

  On one of those pauses she looked down and saw something she had missed on the way up. She stared at the area curiously in spite of her weariness and the pain in her feet. It was a peculiar area, like a liquid, blistered hell turned solid, or a tangle of monstrous prehistoric snakes frozen motionless, with here and there some hellish monster rising out of their midst. This must be the area of volcanic tubes and tunnels that Edith had once mentioned. Trish shivered and turned back to the trail. It was not a place she would care to explore.

  She struggled on, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. She couldn’t understand why no one came looking for her. Surely the horse, even terror-stricken as he was, would head for home. And surely someone would notice he had returned without a rider.

  And yet no one came. She could see the houses and beneficio below. Th
ere was no sign of unusual activity, no frantic movement to indicate anyone was worried or looking for her. All was calm and normal.

  When she finally reached the cultivated area of coffee trees, she looked around hopefully for a truck, anyone to give her aid. She had not had anything to eat or drink since breakfast. Her mouth felt thick and cottony, her legs weak. But the pickers had moved on to some other area. No one was in sight.

  Damn Marc, she thought, suddenly angry. Why wasn’t he looking out his office window? Why didn’t he come for her? Somehow the fact that she knew her thoughts and anger were totally illogical did nothing to soothe her temper. He should be here to help her, he should know!

  She stumbled on, blinking as she approached the house from the side, hardly able to believe she had actually made it. Then she saw what she needed most— water! Water dripping from a faucet at the corner of the house.

  She turned the faucet on full blast, cupping her hands to drink from them, sloshing water over her sunburned face and dirt-streaked skin. No luxurious bubble bath, no streaming shower, had ever felt more glorious!

  She was running damp hands through tangled blond hair when she saw a pickup truck roaring up the road from the beneficio, a cloud of dust in its wake. She caught a glimpse of Marc’s set, angry face. She stepped back, trying to conceal herself against the shrubbery, suddenly conscious of her torn blouse and ragged appearance. Though she had earlier illogically raged at Marc for not knowing she needed help, suddenly she did not want him to see her in this bedraggled condition, especially not if he was angry about something. She felt in no condition to cope with him in that mood.

  She heard the sharp slam of the pickup door and a moment later Marc’s angry voice at the house door.

  “Where is Armando? I want to see him!” he stormed. “What the hell did he do to that horse?”

  The horse! Marc must mean the gelding that had come in without her. But what did he know about the horse? And why was he blaming Armando? Trish couldn’t make out the servant’s murmured reply, but evidently it did not assuage Marc’s anger. Then Trish heard him exclaim her own name.