Аврам Дэвидсон - Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

McVey gave him an almost angelic smile. “Entirely up to Uncle George, Dad. Entirely up to him,” he said.

Hector told Janet Graves to get a roll of clothesline — they sell everything in drug stores nowadays. Uncle George picked up the camp roll and slipped his arms through the straps so that he carried it on his shoulders like a knapsack. He handed the water canteen to Stack.

“You better carry this, Mister,” he said, “and carry it real good. We may need it bad before we’re through.”

McVey took the coil of clothesline Janet brought and slipped it into the brief case. “One last word before we go,” he said. “For you, Dad, and Miss Janet here. You may get the idea of running out and telling the sheriff the whole story once we’re gone. I advise against it. Because I’m telling you, Dad. We see any signs of being followed, or we suddenly walk into anything looks like a trap, and we take care of Junior before we bother to ask any questions. Clear?”

“Clear,” Uncle George said — it was a word he was forced to keep repeating. He stood by the door, his face like stone but his hands moving restlessly as though he were now impatient to be off. Janet Graves stared at him, disbelief in her wide eyes.

McVey took Joey by the shoulder and gave him a little shove toward Ray Stack. “You walk along with Ray, Junior. You and Uncle’ll ride in front with him. I’ll walk right behind you to the car, and I’ll sit in the back seat behind the two of you, and all the time this gun’ll be aimed right at the back of your head. Now — march!”

Joey gave Hector and Janet a confident little smile, and then he went out into the night with the two men and Uncle George. The big Imperial had been moved through the blockade of cars and was headed south. Sheriff Egan stood by the driver’s side, rain lashing against his leathery face. He squinted at Uncle George.

“You still figure on going south to Hyland Brook and over the west ridge into New York State?” he asked.

“You got a better idea?” Uncle George asked.

“Nope,” Egan said laconically. “I still think you’re all nuts. You won’t be able to follow any trail in the dark, George. Trees down, brooks runnin’ out of their courses. You’re just wastin’ time to start before daylight.”

“The gain of an hour or two might mean everything to our business deal,” McVey said pleasantly. He stood close to Joey. “I understand Mr. Crowder knows these woods inside out.”

“He’s the best,” the sheriff said. “But sometimes even the best can’t do the impossible.”

“I think we ought to get started,” McVey said with an apologetic smile.

Stack got in behind the wheel. Joey, Uncle George, and McVey walked around to the other side of the car. The old man and the boy got in front and McVey climbed into the rear seat The doors were closed. The motor hummed.

“Good luck!” Egan called out above the noise of the storm.

“So far so good,” McVey said, looking out the rear window. “You played that nice and casual, Uncle.”

Uncle George sat wedged in a corner of the seat, his gnarled fingers clenching and unclenching in his lap. In the faint light from the instrument panel Joey stared at his uncle, as though hoping for some magic trick to emerge from behind the scowling forehead.

“You may not be able to go more’n a mile or so down this road before we hit pretty deep water,” Uncle George said. “But I figured all the walking we could save—” His voice faded off.

A few moments later the car slowed down. “Looks like a lake up ahead,” Stack said, peering ahead through the space in the windshield cut by the lashing wiper blade.

“I guess this is about it,” Uncle George said. “That’ll be the overflow of Hyland Brook. Better pull up over to the side here, Mister.”

The car stopped. McVey’s orders were precise. He and Joey and Uncle George would move out and stand in front of the car in the headlight glow. Stack would keep them covered while McVey tied the clothesline to Joey and himself.

Presently, each of them equipped with a flashlight, they started off across a muddy field, following the side of the flooded brook. Uncle George led the way, with Joey behind him. The imprisoning rope trailed back to where it was lashed around McVey’s pudgy midsection. Stack brought up the rear.

The violence of Nature against Man in these periodic eruptions is terrifying and costly beyond an accountant’s ability to totalize. But Man, hiding in the securest place he can find, is seldom a witness to the awful damage that Nature inflicts upon herself in these moments of convulsion. Three men and a boy struggled slowly up the first gradual rise of the west ridge, and they saw trees uprooted, boulders laid bare, great jagged ditches dug in the earth by angry waters.

With only the flashlights to see by, they came suddenly to an impasse and had to scout blindly, through the wind and rain-swept darkness, for a way around. They fell, scrambled up, fell again — the drive for escape still strong in McVey and Stack. Uncle George, like a gaunt, bent tree, moved steadily and slowly, always up. Occasionally he would reach back to help Joey.

The noise of the storm seemed to grow louder. McVey yanked on the rope and signaled Joey that he wanted to talk to Uncle George. The four of them huddled together. McVey had Joey by the arm, the gun held firmly against his ribs.

“Sounds like a waterfall!” he shouted at Uncle George.

The older man nodded. “Called the Devil’s Slide. We want to stay as close to the edge of the stream as we can here. Otherwise we’ll have to take a big circle around. Cost us a lot of time. Once we get above the falls the going should be easier. But stay right behind me. You don’t want to lose your footing in this next bit.” He looked down at Joey. “Getting tired, old timer?”

“I’m fine,” Joey said, a little breathless.

They started up again. The stream to their left was an angry torrent, and straight ahead of them the water thundered over the Devil’s Slide. The climb was steep now. McVey kept turning his flashlight from the boy to Uncle George ahead of him.

They were halfway up the side of the foam-lashed falls when Uncle George seemed to lose his footing. Even over the noise of wind and water they could hear him shout. He staggered to the left, arms flung out to save himself, then pitched headfirst into the boiling falls.

McVey, gasping for breath, scrambled up beside Joey, who crouched on the edge of the falls, shining his flashlight down into the murderous water, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Uncle George! Uncle George!”

The two men were silent, shaken by the suddenness of it. Stack turned his flash around. “We better move,” he said, licking his lips. “You can see where the bank’s undermined here in spots. It gave way with the old guy right here.”

“Come on, let’s get away from the edge,” McVey said. He yanked on the rope that was attached to Joey, pulling the dazed boy away from the falls.

“We gotta try to find him!” Joey wailed.

“You crazy?” Stack said. “Nobody could live through that. He’s already pounded to death on the rocks.” He looked at McVey. “So now what?”

McVey shone his flashlight on Joey’s white, fear-struck face. “It looks like it’s up to you, Junior,” he said grimly. “You know these woods, don’t you? Been out here with the old boy before, haven’t you?”

Joey nodded, as though he only half heard.

“Your uncle said there was a way around the falls. Longer, he said, but it’s probably a damn sight safer. You know the way?”

“There’s an old logging road,” Joey said. “I... I think I could find it from here.”

“You better,” McVey growled. “I’m warning you, sonny-boy, you try to pull one on us and I go back after your old man and your old woman, and that pretty teacher—”