Eternity

by Jude Deveraux

  Josh knelt before his daughter. “Where would the prince get the rattlesnake?”

  “On Starbuck’s Mountain,” the child said. “Tem—I mean the prince—saw some up there. He saw a whole bunch of rattlesnakes on the mountain.”

  Another streak of lightning and clap of thunder made Dallas leap into her father’s arms.

  “Get her some warm clothes,” Josh said as he carried Dallas to the bedroom. “I want her wrapped up against the storm.”

  Carrie caught his arm. “What are you going to do?”

  It was obvious that he hadn’t much interest in Carrie at the moment. “I’m going to take Dallas to my brother’s house and I’m going to get my horse, then I’m going to find my son.” He started walking again.

  Carrie put herself in front of him. “I want to go with you.”

  Another flash of lightning that lit the house allowed Carrie to see the look of contempt on Josh’s face.

  Carrie put her hands on both his arms, her fingers digging into his muscles. “It’s my fault that he’s alone on the mountain. If I hadn’t come here—”

  “It’s too late to think of that now.” Pushing past her into the bedroom, he stood Dallas on the bed.

  Carrie moved to his side. “I may be helpless in the kitchen, but I’m not helpless in the rest of my life. You may think you know all there is to know about me, but you really don’t know anything. I come from a family of sailors and I know about survival, and I can ride anything on four legs.” She handed him a woolen shirt, and he wrapped Dallas in it.

  Picking Dallas up again, he started for the front door, but Carrie placed herself in front of the door. “Whether you ‘allow’ me to go or not, I’m going to search for Tem. Whether I go with you or by myself, I’m going.”

  Josh looked at her for a second. He didn’t have time to argue with her, nor did he have time to spend with a frightened woman. Now his only concern was his son. “Go or stay, I don’t care. But if you can’t keep up with me, don’t expect me to bring you back.”

  “You won’t have to bring me back. Can you get me a proper horse? Something other than those nags of yours?”

  He nodded once, then he was out the door. When he was gone, Carrie grabbed bread and bacon and put them into an oiled sack, then she began gathering equipment for a rescue mission. Having lived all her life by the sea, she knew a great deal about rescue. She went to the shed, rummaged in her trunks until she found her large knife, then took a long, heavy rope from the wall. When she went back to the house, she had to fight the rising wind. She put matches in the bag, then tore up a petticoat for bandages and stuffed heavy waxed canvas in a bag.

  When her equipment was ready, she took off her skirt, petticoats, and hoops and put on a pair of Josh’s heavy canvas pants, tying them at the waist with a wide leather belt.

  She had just finished when Josh returned. He looked her up and down, but didn’t say anything as he took the bags, looked inside them, seemed to be satisfied with what she’d put in them, then took the rope from her.

  “My brother has sent to town for help. In a few hours the mountain will be full of searchers. You should stay—”

  She handed him a thick slice of buttered bread. “Shut up and eat it on the way. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

  Taking the bread, he gave her a curt nod, and after that he stopped treating her like a woman who should have been left behind. Standing outside were two of the finest horses Carrie had ever seen; one was an enormous black stallion with a white blaze on his nose and the other, a dark brown mare that looked proud and fast.

  “Get on her,” Josh shouted, for the wind was now quite loud. “And stay with me. If you can’t keep up, come back here and wait for me. Understand?”

  Nodding, Carrie easily vaulted into the saddle, then reined the animal away behind Josh’s big stallion.

  He can ride, Carrie thought. He can ride as well as anyone I’ve ever seen, she thought, as she watched him take off at breakneck speed down the rutted path that led from the house, Carrie right behind him. When he reached the foot of the mountain, he didn’t so much as hesitate, but began moving straight up. After taking a deep breath for courage, Carrie followed him. He must have eyes like a cat’s, she thought, for she couldn’t see anything. Thank heaven there was a white spot on the stallion’s back hoof, for at times that was all she could see.

  Twice the mare she was riding wanted to give up and go back down the mountain, but Carrie wouldn’t let her stop. Up and up they went, over hard rock surfaces that made the horses’ feet slide, then through scrub oak groves that scratched at Carrie’s face and tore at her clothes.

  Carrie realized that Josh was going up no path, but was taking the fastest, most direct route to the top of the mountain. He didn’t seem to be aware of her, his only thought being that he was going after his son and there was nothing or no one else on his mind. Once Carrie and the mare came to a hard, rocky surface, and the animal’s foot slipped. The mare screamed, and Carrie had to use every muscle in her body to keep the big animal from turning and going back down the mountain. Applying her crop to the animal’s rump, she pulled hard on the reins, knowing that if she lost control of the animal now, she’d never regain it. To help relieve the fear that was inside her, she began to curse as only a sailor knows how to curse. The words she knew were in at least six languages, all from places her brothers had been. Her brothers thought she wouldn’t know they were cursing if they used a foreign language, but Carrie had heard and remembered the words, and right now she used them all on the mare.

  When she thought her wrist was going to break, the mare stopped fighting and started back up the mountain. As Carrie began to move, there was a flash of lightning, and she looked up to see Josh on his horse, standing on a ridge and watching her. For all his avowals that he wouldn’t wait for her, he was doing just that. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he gave her a nod of approval before moving on.

  The rain started as they reached the top of the mountain, coming down in a fury, as cold as only rain at a high altitude can be. Carrie was wet through within minutes. At the top of the mountain, Josh was waiting for her—or actually, he was looking about him, as though trying to decide which way to go.

  “Where are the rattlesnakes?” Carrie shouted. “Did you see them with Tem?” It was a question she should have asked before.

  He glanced at her long enough to nod once, then he flicked the reins and took off to the west. Carrie followed him closely, the mare giving her no trouble now. Within minutes, Josh halted and dismounted, looking at what appeared to be an enormous hill of rock in front of them. Down the center of the rock was a crack that widened at the bottom. Josh was walking toward the rock, and she knew that this must be where he and Tem had seen the snakes.

  With the rain lashing in their faces, Josh came to Carrie, and when her horse skittered, he put his hand on her leg. “If anything happens to me, find Tem,” he shouted.

  Carrie nodded to him as the rain dripped down her face, then, silently, she watched as he moved toward the crack in the rock. Just as he touched the rock, he lit a match, shielding the flame from the rain and wind with his hat, then leaned into the crack.

  Even over the rain, Carrie could hear the hiss of the snakes. She could see in the flame of the match the writhing bodies of the snakes inside the rock, and she held her breath as Josh took a step forward, closer to the snakes, only releasing it when he stepped back to safety.

  “He’s not in there,” Josh shouted up at her. “I’m going to search the area. Stay here.”

  Carrie wasn’t about to remain where she was. She wasn’t going to be a useless woman sitting on top of a horse and waiting. Josh’s beautiful stallion was standing untied where he was in spite of the lightning and the nearby snakes, but Carrie knew that her mare wouldn’t stay put. Riding back the way they had come for a bit until the sound of the snakes was too distant to hear, she tied the horse firmly to a big pine tree.

  Fighting the wind, her eyes sh
ielded by her hand from the rain, she went back to Josh.

  He grabbed her shoulders. “I told you—”

  “NO!” seemed to be the most appropriate answer to what he was saying, and she shouted it into his face.

  He didn’t spend precious time arguing with her. “There,” he shouted back. “Search those trees.”

  Carrie moved away from him and into the trees, starting to walk in an ever-widening circle as she searched and with every step knowing how futile their search was. Tem could be lying on the ground not ten feet from them, and with this rain and wind they’d never see or hear him. And how could two people search the entire mountain? Even when the people of Eternity showed up, they wouldn’t be able to search every rock and tree. And it would be hours before the townspeople arrived, for she didn’t think they would come up the way she and Josh had. No one in their right minds would come up that way.

  She screamed when Josh put his hand on his shoulder. When she turned, she saw in a flash of lightning that he was thinking exactly what she had been thinking, that it was no use, that the only way they’d find Tem was by accident.

  “I’m going above,” he yelled, pointing to above the boulder that contained the snakes.

  Carrie nodded at him, then returned to her search, but a moment later came a piercing whistle that she knew was from Josh. She went running toward it, scrambling up rocks, scraping her hands, her feet slipping.

  Josh was standing on the side of a ledge, and when she reached him, he held out his hand. In it was a piece of blue cloth, and she knew it was from Tem’s shirt.

  Turning away, he started climbing again, Carrie right behind him.

  At the top of the rock was a ridge, a ridge that was on the side of nothing. For many, many feet down they could see nothing but darkness.

  “The river,” Josh shouted, pointing down into the black nothingness.

  For the first time Carrie felt cold. The piece of cloth proved that Tem had come this way, but if he’d fallen, he would have fallen down into that ravine.

  Josh was moving ahead, leaving Carrie standing and looking down into the blackness. When a flash of lightning came, she turned, then screamed at what she saw.

  Josh was beside her in seconds. “What is it?” he shouted.

  Carrie pointed into the darkness.

  Lightning came again, and then Josh saw her too. For a moment Carrie had thought the child she’d seen was a figment of her imagination, for she was just a bit of a thing, no more than six or seven years old, but she looked more like some unusual breed of animal than a child. In spite of the hard, driving rain, her hair was standing out from her head in a wild, tangled mass, and she wore torn, primitive leather clothing, her feet bare.

  Stepping in front of Carrie, Josh began to walk toward the child, but when the lightning came again, she was gone. “Where is he?” Josh shouted into the darkness, the rain lashing him in the face. “Where is he?”

  Moving toward Josh, Carrie put her hands on his shoulders and her head against his back.

  When more lightning came, the child was there again. This time Josh practically ran after her, but she was too elusive to catch.

  “She knows where Tem is,” Josh shouted. “I know she does.”

  At the next lightning streak, the child showed herself again, this time standing on the very edge of the ridge, so close that Carrie held her breath in fear. As the light highlighted the girl, she pointed—and she was pointing straight down the side of the ridge.

  “Is it Tem?” Josh shouted, and the girl nodded once before the dark again hid her.

  “I’m going down,” Josh said as he turned to Carrie. “Stay here and wait for me. I’ll get the rope. Don’t leave this place.”

  Seconds later Josh was half-running, half-sliding down the rocky slope to the horses and equipment below.

  Carrie stayed in exactly the same spot, afraid to move even a step for fear of losing the place where the girl had pointed. Every time there was a flash of lightning, she looked for the girl, but she didn’t see her. Yet, she knew as well as she’d ever known anything that the child was nearby and watching them.

  Josh came back up the rock with the rope coiled about his arm, but when he went to a tree to tie it, Carrie yelled at him, “No!”

  “I’m going!” Josh shouted back at her.

  It took Carrie a moment to make him understand that she wasn’t protesting his going, that her objection was to the knot he was using to tie the rope around the tree. Taking the thick rope from him, she expertly and quickly tied it to the tree in one knot, then looped the rope and tied another. It was so difficult talking that she didn’t try but made motions to tell Josh that she would help pull on the rope when he came back up, when he returned carrying Tem, that is.

  When Josh realized what she was doing, he looked at her in a way that he’d never looked at her before: with admiration and thanks.

  Holding on to the rope, Josh walked to the edge of the ridge and began to lower himself. He did it as though he’d done it many times before and knew exactly what he was doing.

  Carrie stood at the top, her eyes straining to see him, listening should he whistle.

  Within minutes Josh came back up the rope, climbing hand over hand with the agility of the very best deckhands, and Carrie wondered if he’d ever spent time on a ship.

  There was joy on his face, such joy as Carrie had never seen before, and she knew then that Tem was all right. Tears mixed with the rain on her face.

  “He’s there and he’s alive, but he’s unconscious. I have to get him up,” Josh said, shouting into her face. “I need to make a sling of sorts.”

  Carrie knew instantly that he was asking her advice, that he was asking for her help. Frantically, she began searching her mind for what they had brought. Please, they couldn’t have to go back down the mountain to get something to make a sling to carry an unconscious child in. The canvas bags they had brought weren’t strong enough to hold a sturdy little boy, and they didn’t have enough rope.

  Suddenly, Josh reached out and put his hand on Carrie’s waist, his fingers moving around her stomach as though feeling for something.

  It took her moments to understand, and when she did, she smiled. Yes, her corset. Immediately, with Josh’s nimble-fingered help, she unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it out of the trousers she wore, and Josh deftly helped her with the corset strings. When Josh had it in his hands, he opened the corset, frowning at its small size, not sure if it was going to be big enough to go around him and the child.

  Unbuckling her trousers, Carrie gave Josh the belt, then slipped out of the trousers and held them up to him, demonstrating that he could tie the legs around Tem’s inert body.

  Josh nodded at her, then, with most of her clothing tied about him, he took the rope and walked to the edge of the ridge, Carrie right beside him. “When I have him, I’ll whistle and you pull. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Carrie shouted back.

  When he was on the brink of the ridge, he paused. Carrie knew what was in his mind, knew what he felt, because she felt the same way.

  As though they had been friends and lovers forever, she leaned forward and kissed him. “Good luck,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Break a leg,” he said, then he was over the ridge.

  Carrie couldn’t see a thing, and she was sure that the time that Josh spent down below was the longest of her life. Hanging over the side, she strained to see or hear anything. She lay down on the sodden ground, oblivious to the fact that now she wore only her boots, knee-length drawers, and chemise. The thin cotton was no protection against the cold and the wet, but she didn’t feel the storm, for she was too intent on what was going on below to worry about herself.

  At long, long last, a whistle came and she gave a little prayer of thanks as she ran to the tree and grabbed the rope. She was young and she was strong and she was determined. At another time, she might not have had the strength to pull on the rope as she did now, but knowing that
Tem and Josh were at the end of it gave her a great deal of strength.

  At one point she thought there was someone helping her pull, but when she looked back, she saw no one. Then, lightning flashed, and she nearly screamed at the sight of an old man, a man who wore patched leather clothes and was dirty even in the rain, standing behind her and pulling on the rope. Swallowing the scream that came to her throat, she nodded thanks to him, then kept on pulling.

  At long last she saw Josh’s head appear. She held her breath. Then, as he came over the ridge, she saw Tem harnessed to the front of him by the means of a corset, a pair of men’s trousers, and Josh’s shirt sleeves.

  Dropping the rope, she ran to them, grabbing at Tem frantically. From what she could see of him, he didn’t look to be alive.

  Turning into the darkness, where she could see no one, but knew that the old man and the little girl were there, she shouted, “Where can we go? Help us, please.”

  They had to wait for the next flash of lightning, then they saw the little girl again and she was pointing east. Neither Josh nor Carrie hesitated, but began scrambling down the rock face toward the horses, Josh holding his son to him as though he were fragile and precious—as he was.

  When they reached the horses, Josh handed Tem to Carrie. She struggled under the weight of the child who was almost as tall as she was while Josh mounted and reached down for his son, easily taking him onto the saddle in front of him. Carrie ran to her mare, pulled on the reins and freed the knot, then mounted.

  The little girl appeared to them twice more before they found the cave. When Josh had dismounted with Tem in his arms, Carrie pulled both of the horses into the mouth of the cave.

  The cave had a sandy bottom, and there was dry firewood stacked along one wall. In the back she could see a stack of what looked like blankets. There was also an ancient coffeepot and half a dozen mugs. For all that it was a cave, it looked as though it were used as a guest house.

  “Get him out of his wet clothes and wrap him up while I build a fire,” Josh said.

  Carrie lost no time in obeying. She had Tem out of his sodden clothes in seconds, but before she wrapped him in a dry blanket, she inspected him to see how badly he was injured. No bones were broken. There were bruises all over him, and there was a cut on the side of his head, but for the most part he just seemed to be cold.