Collection 1999 - Beyond The Great Snow Mountains (v5.0) Read Free Page B

water frightened her. She had spent many months at sea, but never without her father. She took a deep breath and reached out for the switch that activated the pumps. Nothing happened. She tried again.
    But the moment she touched the console, she heard it. Off in the distance, but not distant enough, was the low
thot-thot
of an auxiliary engine. It could only belong to Kubelik’s schooner. She turned, and through the open hatchway could see a movement through the trees that blocked her view of the river.
    “Quick!” she said to Cuyu. “We must get off the boat and hide.” But the native was already headed across the deck. He jumped for a branch and pulled himself up. Julie, desperate to know the full extent of her troubles, flipped up the cover and glanced into the electrical console. The battery cable had been removed, and the deck boards were scarred where Kubelik had yanked it up through the narrow channel. He had made sure that no one was going to be taking the ketch out of the river, at least not without winching it out of the backwater and upriver against the current. She dropped the cover and ran.
    Back on deck, she saw Cuyu motioning frantically from the bank. She’d started for the branch when a shot rang out.
    The Yahgan fled. The schooner was drawing into the backwater, and standing in the bow, a rifle in his hands, was Pete Kubelik!
    “Cuyu!” Her cry seemed lost in the space between the trees.
“Look out!”
    She saw the Yahgan glance back, and then he left his feet and dove into the brush and in that instant the rifle barked. Did he stumble? Or was he already falling of his own volition?
    The rifle barked again, but she heard no whine of bullet nor was she hit. Cuyu must have still been alive then, and another shot had been sent to finish the job. She heard Kubelik shout, and turned back to the companionway. Dropping down the ladder, she ran for her father’s cabin. Just as she unlatched the door she both heard and felt Kubelik’s schooner bump up alongside the ketch.
    Hanging from leather loops attached to the side of the bunk was George Marrat’s old Mannlicher carbine. Julie jerked it free and grabbed up the leather cartridge wallet that hung with it. Footsteps pounded overhead. She had no time to load and barely time to think. Kubelik was coming down the ladder. As she ducked into the companionway she could see the back of his legs as he descended. She slid through the galley door and threw the lock, although that would hold him only an instant.
    Scrambling onto the mess table and pushing open the skylight, she tossed the rifle through and started to crawl out herself. Behind and beneath her, the door splintered open. She rolled through the hinged skylight as Kubelik roared, charging across the cabin.
    Julie grabbed the carbine and plunged overboard. The icy water hit her like a fist, a cold, solid hammer in her stomach. Down she went, striking out toward the shore but still sinking. Her clothes, heavy shoes, and seven pounds of rifle carried her to the muddy bottom. Her ears popped and she pushed off, hitting the surface and gulping air. She saw a vague shape to her left and grabbed out, her hand scraping along the side of Kubelik’s schooner. Her eyes cleared, and looking past the bow, she saw Kubelik stalking along the rail of the ketch, rifle in hand.
    Julie Marrat took a deep breath and sank away from the boat. A couple of strokes and she felt the bottom again, and then the dirt and roots making up the side of the backwater. A submerged branch hit her in the face, and she grabbed at it, pulling herself up and along a fallen log to the shore. She stumbled up and water poured from her clothes in a rush.
    There was a whip of air by her body and then the slam of a rifle shot. Pete Kubelik jacked another round into the chamber of his rifle, the spent case bouncing off the deck of the ketch. On the schooner, Rudy came running forward, shotgun in hand. She fell, rather than ran, into a dark space