The Hollow Crown Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 19

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* * *

He'd always fancied himself on a horse, and Napoleon sat tall in the saddle as he wandered out onto the trails. They were clearly marked, and the horse knew his way home, the groom said—adding that the fluorescent jackets made guests easier to find when they got lost.

A couple of hours after this cheering piece of data, Napoleon Solo was walking his horse slowly along the Blue Trail. The paths were half-obliterated by fallen leaves from last night's storm, but rills ran down the edges and from time to time they passed larger freshets bounding down the mountainside, sometimes under the trail and sometimes across it. The air was cold and wet, and full of the sharp brown smell of rain-washed woods. Faded yellow and orange leaves cluttered the ground and stuck in bunches to the horse's hooves as he kicked through them, and blood-red and scarlet scattered before him.

Then the trees drew apart on either side of the trail, and they came out into a wide clearing carpeted with ankle deep grass a hundred yards to either side. Above and to his left, Big Jay Peak rose against the sky, dappled with shifting patterns of light and shade as the puffy clouds drew their shadows across the autumnal motley of red and yellow with startling patches still deep green. His mind at peace, Napoleon Solo felt at one with the silence of the mountains.

He and his horse, man and beast, away from the restraints of civilization, free of the last reminders...except for this windbreaker, he thought, glancing at the brilliant jacket. I think it's brighter than any of the others I saw. Even as he dismissed the matter, something was nagging at the back of his mind while his eyes refocussed on the mountainside beyond the meadow to his left.

The first thing he noticed was the way a few green trees stood out so against the yellow and orange. At the same time his memory held the picture of all the other nylon windbreakers around the lodge—and none of them had been orange. Two trains of thought meshed, and a highly developed paranoiac reflex set in.

I am pretty obvious, he thought as he prodded his stable-fed horse into a walk. I not only stand out from the woods, I stand out from all the other guests. Oh help!

He headed her around towards the edge of trees still close behind, and then heard something like a distant rumble of galloping hooves. He rose in his saddle and looked in both directions. There was a very large horse with a reasonably large man astride him lumbering directly towards him at a respectable rate of speed. The man wore a red lumberjack shirt and seemed to have something long and sharp resting in the crook of his arm with its business end pointed straight at the center of the nearest fluorescent orange nylon windbreaker. Napoleon yelled and kicked frantically at his horse.

In an unexpected fit of strength it kicked back and shook his left leg loose from the stirrup. Then it bolted for the woods after all as Napoleon locked his fingers on the reins and fought an urge to grab for the saddle-horn. He pulled up sharply to check the runaway and overdid it a little; the horse reared with a snort and writhed. Napoleon clamped his knees to the saddle and felt his loose left leg slip backwards; he leaned to grab the shaking neck and dropped the reins as he did so. As his horse twisted, Napoleon saw in a blurred moment the approaching horse shying away, and then his own mount hit the ground with all four feet and jolted the breath from his body. He clutched frantically for the reins, dangling just out of reach.

The horse kicked again and Napoleon felt his other foot slip from its stirrup. He had hardly time to kick twice in the hope of catching it again before the whole world came apart around him. There was a moment of utter weightlessness, and then a mountain hit him in the back.

His head cleared to a view of the sky. The horse was still snorting and stamping five feet away, and he tried to roll. Just as he started to wonder why he couldn't, the traitorous beast turned and galloped barebacked into the woods.

Napoleon looked down at his legs. They were still clamped to the saddle, with a partially unfolded blanket wrapped around his ankles. It began to look more and more like a conspiracy.

Hooves rumbled in the distance again as he sat up, and his head rang. Here he comes again, he thought with an odd resignation, and tried to unwrap his tangled legs.

He staggered to his feet facing the approaching horseman and pulled up the heavy horse blanket. The charging horse didn't swerve as the canter picked up to a gallop and the long solidly-couched lance never swerved off point. Napoleon's head ached fiercely as he stood, knees bent, with the blanket draped loosely from one arm like a useless shield.

He knew he had at least a couple of chances before the nut with his spear figured out what he was trying to do—unless his foot slipped and he got trampled or he misjudged something and got ripped in half before he managed to do it...But the horse was heading straight for him, looking as determined as a tank and just about as fast. He focused on the top of the lance, just ahead of the little pennon that fluttered there, and flexed his aching knees.

He feinted to the spear side just a moment early and the point followed. Then he leaped to the other side, throwing the rough woollen blanket out over the end of the spear and jerking frantically back as the horse's heaving flank brushed past his chest and knocked him away. Over the thunderous passage, he heard a SPRUUNNNGGG!!! and a vague cry.

Solo staggered to his feet and looked. The horse was galloping on, riderless. Eight feet away, a quivering aluminum pole beside him, lay a bulky man in a red flannel lumberjack shirt—a man who owed him at least a few civil answers.

The man was getting to his feet as Napoleon approached, in a half-crouched defensive posture, forearms crossed, that shows practice in La Savat. Napoleon paused and re-evaluated. He didn't seem to be ready to give civil answers, and Napoleon was becoming increasingly certain he knew most of them already. As he hesitated, the man charged, breaking his defense and grappling. Napoleon dodged from his grasp and grabbed an arm as it went by. Redshirt spun once endways and once sideways, and went slithering across the wet grass.

Napoleon jumped for him and caught a heavy boot just about the top of his left shoulder. He flopped heavily and rolled to his feet, facing his opponent, who dropped into his defensive position again, gripping his elbows, and sent a leather missile speeding at his face. Napoleon flinched back, and found himself falling as his legs were hooked from under him by a second kick. This time his attacker jumped for him. Solo, flat on his back, got his legs up in time and levered him right on over to land on his head a few feet further on.

Some moments passed, and silence descended again over the woods. Napoleon slowly and painfully gathered his feet under his center of gravity and pushed them down. When he was erect, he looked over to where the other guy lay in a pile of arms and legs, just beginning to pull itself together.

"Now," he said, panting slightly, "will you answer a few simple questions or do I have to do it again?"

Something took him by both shoulders and turned him around. He found himself staring into the same face he had just dropped a man on, and the surprise slowed him down.

"You hurt my brother," said the face definitely.

Oh, Napoleon thought. Twins.

He was lifted and spun once, he thought later, but at the time a sort of fatalism overwhelmed him. He had just time to think irrationally, I hope he's not triplets, before a large portion of the state of Vermont hit him all over at once and everything else faded.

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