The Empty Trap Read Free Page A

peaks. He was thirsty and his body had stiffened. He moved gingerly, painfully, trying to make himself more comfortable. If this was the place to wait for death on this night, then be comfortable, if you can. When the blackness came again, it was not like sleep.
    He awoke and stars were high and he felt he was on fire. In the night he babbled and yelled and had strange bright visions. The yells echoed faintly from the far mountain wall of the deep valley. At dawn the visions were gone and he was cold. In the morning there was rain, another heavy rain. He held his face in the rain, and though he did not have enough feeling in his face to know if his mouth was opened or closed, he felt the coolness trickle into his throat and he was able to swallow after a fashion. He pulled his shirt up with his right hand and squeezed the rain moisture from it into his mouth. The water brought him back from the dulled wait for death.
    When he was able to look around, he saw that his ledge went narrowly around a shoulder of the cliff, and slanted down slightly. He worked himself over onto his belly. He could use his left elbow, his right hand and arm, his right leg. The left leg dangled. He inched himself along. He did not know how long it took to reach the shoulder of the cliff, one hour or six. There he could seethe rest of the ledge. It opened out, almost as wide as a road, and went down steeply. After two hundred yards it reached a place where the mountain side was a different texture. There was a long sand slide, studded with róund rocks and boulders. He followed it down with his eyes and saw that it ended at the valley floor where tropic growth was more luxuriant, where a rain-fed stream wound between the great stones that had tumbled down the flanks of the mountains.
    The sun baked him, drying the moisture out of him. From the height of the sun he guessed it was early afternoon when he reached the long sand slide. He looked down at the water far below and knew he had to reach it. He looked back the way he had come and he felt pride. He laughed aloud and it was a curious croaking sound. He tried to say Harry Danton’s name, but he could not articulate. He sensed the bright edge of delirium again, and fought back to logic and precarious sanity.
    If he got onto the sand, he would go down. That was evident. But he could not go feet first. The left leg would crumple under him and turn him and he might roll. If that started, he would roll and bound among the hard stones. There had to be stability in the slide. The left arm had only limited usefulness. He would have to be able to see, and he would need some slightly effective method of steering himself. He thought about it a long time. Finally, with great effort, he tore a strip from his shirt. He crossed his ankles, left ankle across the right, and bound them clumsily. That way the left would not flop loose and dig into the sand. He eased himself out onto the sand slope. He moved slowly at first, head raised, elbows digging in. As he picked up speed he began to move directly toward a large boulder. The top inches of sand slid along with him. He dug the right elbow deeper and it swung him to the right. He almost lost control. He passed the rock so closely it gave his left elbow a sharp painful crack. This was the steering method the bobsledders used. He went faster. He was taking more sand along. The sand flowed over the smaller stones. He yelled in crazy triumph. Then there were morerocks ahead, and these were jagged ones. It was harder to steer. He clawed with his right hand, trying to dig himself sideways. He missed the rocks but he had lost stability. He had turned and began to roll. He rolled violently down the last of the slope, across hard ground, finally came to rest in the heart of a clump of dense shrubbery, unconscious.
    In the blue of dusk, in the odd reflected light of the last of the sun on the mountains to the east, he crawled to the brook. He drank until his belly felt tight.