Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [30]
Crowe’s horse was foaming at the mouth, he was pushing it so hard. Tiny flecks of foam were caught by the wind and carried backwards, into the distance.
The road veered right, and the carriage ahead took the curve without slackening speed. The two wheels on the outside of the curve left the road and the carriage itself looked as if it was going to topple over and be dragged along the ground by the horses, but the men inside must have thrown their weight towards the left because it suddenly lurched sideways, and the wheels dropped to the ground.
Sherlock, Crowe and Virginia took the curve as well, their horses leaning sideways so that their hoofs could get a purchase on the road. Ahead of them, as they straightened out, Sherlock suddenly caught sight of a cart heading towards the careering carriage, loaded with bundles of freshly cut hay. The driver was frantically gesturing to the carriage to get out of the way, but he must have known that it was too late, because he swerved his cart off the road and into a ditch. The carriage thundered past, missing the back end of the cart by a few inches. Moments later, Sherlock, Crowe and Virginia galloped past as well. Sherlock glanced sideways, to check that the driver was all right. He was standing up in the front of the cart, gesturing at them in rage. And then they were past and he was receding into the distance behind them like a fragment of memory.
Movement at the side of the cart caught Sherlock’s attention. A man was leaning out, holding a stick of some kind. Sherlock thought it was one of the men from the house in Godalming but he couldn’t be sure. The man pointed the stick backwards along the road, towards the three riders, and flame suddenly blossomed at the end of it. He was holding a rifle!
Sherlock couldn’t tell where the bullet went. The carriage was bouncing so much as it tore through the night that the gunman could have no way of accurately aiming the gun, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hit one of them, or one of the horses, by accident.
The man fired again, and this time Sherlock thought he could hear the sound of the bullet as it passed him by: a furious buzzing sound, like an angry wasp.
Crowe urged his horse to greater efforts, and for a moment he seemed to draw closer to the carriage. He was gripping the reins with one hand while the other was pulling at his belt. He withdrew a pistol, which he pointed at the man leaning out of the carriage. He fired, the recoil knocking his hand back and twisting his body in the saddle. The man with the rifle pulled himself back inside the carriage. Sherlock couldn’t tell whether he was injured, or just cautious.
They were racing along the side of a river now. Silvery light reflected from the surface of the water.
The man with the rifle appeared again, leaning out of the same side that he had before, but this time he was facing forward. He pointed the rifle ahead, and pulled the trigger. Again, flame burst like an exotic flower in the dusk. For a confused moment Sherlock thought he was shooting at the horses that were pulling the carriage, but he was firing over their heads! Sherlock realized immediately that he was trying to terrify them into galloping even faster than they already were, and it seemed to work. The gap between the carriage and the pursuing horses quickly widened as the carriage raced ahead. They couldn’t keep that speed up for long – the horses would quickly exhaust themselves – but he obviously had something else in mind.
The gunman disappeared inside the carriage again, but only for a moment. The door suddenly sprang open and the man dived out. He’d timed his dive perfectly and hit the mass of reeds and vegetation that lined the river bank. He vanished from sight, but Sherlock could track his path by the long ripped gap that appeared in the reeds as they slowed