A cold treachery - Charles Todd [9]
By the time the frantic rescue party had dug down to him, the damage had been done.
He could no longer endure a place from which there was no escape. A shut door, a small room, a crowded train carriage, a throng of people pushing against him. But he hadn't anticipated—he hadn't been prepared for the sense of walls around him here. Blinding snow and darkness and that nearly invisible presence above his head cutting him off from retreat.
“Aye, there's only one way in,” Hamish reminded him mercilessly. “Ye saw the map for yourself.”
The urge to turn around, to go away while he could, swept over him.
Rutledge swore. He didn't need Hamish to remind him that he was a serving policeman. That there was duty to be done. God knew he'd done it in France. At what cost to himself and to others . . .
“I can't change it,” he said aloud. “I can't build new roads.” Swallowing hard against the panic, he told himself, Tomorrow when the sun is out, it will be different. Please God, I can carry on until then—
And then the rough roadbed demanded all his attention, wiping out every other thought.
He drove on, tense, watchful.
The fingerpost offering directions at the next turning had been shifted by the wind, leaning at an odd angle and pointing skyward. But instinct told him he'd found the right place. The track rose and fell with the land, forged by centuries of traffic: hooves of countless flocks, cart wheels, shod feet. He prayed the sheep had been penned up before the storm. Or were hunkered down among the rocks where they could find shelter, out of the cruel wind. They were allowed to roam freely, sometimes clogging the roads, and tonight they would be nearly invisible until he had driven straight into their midst. Even a single animal on these icy tracks could spell disaster for a motorcar.
Herdwicks were a sturdy breed, well suited to the fells, and could survive without fodder all winter, scratching for their own sustenance. Since the time of Edward I, a thriving weaving business had made the North famous. The coarse, wiry fleece yielded a variety of cloth.
There was nothing in his headlamps but the snow-rutted road, the occasional low-lying hump of a stone farmhouse hugging a curve, or the silhouette of an upright box of a house sitting on the slope above. And always trees that somehow seemed determined to thrive in spite of the harshness of Nature.
Ordinarily Rutledge liked the darkness, the isolation, the silence. But now he was fighting fatigue. And keeping himself alert with the image of a lost child huddled in the lee of a wall or crouched in a shallow crevice, terrified and alone.
Urskdale couldn't be much farther. . . .
The road narrowed again just as a heavier snow squall was passing over, obscuring everything.
Rutledge bit back his exasperation, concentrating on maintaining what speed he could, only to find himself defeated by the weather. Already the verge was hardly visible, and in the darkness to his right, there was a black void indicating a long drop and a nasty slide into grief.
He took his foot from the pedal, letting the motor slow his speed as he reached a curve, his eyes fixed on the bright swath of his headlamps. Then his wheels began to lose traction and he fought to accomodate the skid, finally bringing the heavy motorcar back to the crown of the road.
Hamish, behind him, scolded sharply, “It willna' help the lad, if you wreck the motorcar and kill yoursel'. It's no' the time to be sae foolish! There's no' a house in sight.”
There hadn't been for some time.
His shoulders ached now, and his face burned from the force of the wind sweeping through the motorcar. His wits were slower, his reactions not as fast. The engine's output of heat, hardly more than a breath of warmth, was losing the battle—his