Only then did he pay attention to a shooting pain in his ankle. It had been torturing him throughout the ordeal, but the life-or-death struggle had superseded all else. When he turned over and tried to sit up, he yelped with pain and shock; his ankle was swollen as big as a grapefruit. Rashly he tried to stand up and fell back with a cry of anguish. For a moment he lay flat on the ground and considered the problem. A little rest, he thought, would reduce the swelling.
He was wrong. His ankle continued to throb relentlessly, responding to every move with agonizing spasms. How do I get out of here? he asked himself. At the bakery they had said no one went to the waterfall on a Tuesday afternoon. Having great lung power, he tried a shout for help, but it was drowned out by the roar of the falls. Suppose he had to stay in the woods all night! Beechum had predicted more rain. The nights turned cold in the mountains, and his lightweight clothing was wet and tattered.
With a burst of determination he proposed to drag himself along the trail, an inch at a time if necessary. Fortunately it was all downhill; unfortunately the path was studded with sharp rocks, and his hands, elbows, and knees were already lacerated. Even so, he squirmed downhill a few yards, trying to save his ankle, but the pain was non-stop and the swelling had reached the size of a melon. Defeated, he dragged himself to a boulder and leaned against it in a sitting position.
For a while he sat there thinking, or trying to think. Vance would wonder why he hadn't called for his car; Yates would wonder why he hadn't picked up his baked goods.
Now that he had inched his way out of the atrium, the crashing noise of Purgatory was somewhat muffled. "HELP!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the rocky ravine. There was no answering cry. The sky, glimpsed between the lofty treetops, was now overcast. The rain was coming. If he had to spend the night in the woods, wearing cold, wet clothing and lying on the drenched ground, covering himself with wet leaves like a woodland animal, he would be ready for an oxygen tent in the morning . . . that is, if anyone found him in the morning. They might not find him until the weekend.
"HELP!"
Then a chilling thought occurred to him. The Taters may have intended him to disappear in the Purgatory abyss. If so, they could have only one motive; they suspected his purpose in visiting their precious mountain. They may have mistaken him for a federal agent. What were they growing in the hidden coves and hollows? What was stockpiled in those caves? Beechum's banter about bears and bats and poisonous snakes may have been something more than mountain humor.
"HELP!"
Did he hear a reply, or was it an echo?
He tried again. "HELP!"
"Hallo," came a distant cry.
"HELP!"
"Coming! Coming!" The voices were getting closer. "Hold on!" Soon he could see movement in the woods, screened by the underbrush, then heads bobbing along the trail. Two men were coming up the slope, and they broke into a run when he waved an arm in a wide arc.
"For God's sake! What happened?" the baker shouted, seeing the tattered, mud-caked figure leaning against a boulder. "What happened to your ankle?"
"You look like you been through a cement mixer!'rthe blacksmith said.
"I sprained my ankle, and I was trying to drag myself back to the cove," Qwilleran said shortly. He was in no mood to describe his ordeal or confess to the careless misstep that sent him sliding ignominiously into the pit.
They hoisted him to a standing position, with his weight on his right foot, and made a human crutch, unmindful of the mud being smeared on their own clothes. Then slowly they started down the precarious slope to Potato Cove. Qwilleran was in too much pain to talk, and his rescuers were aware of it.
At the end of the trail a group of concerned Taters waited with comments and advice:
"Never see'd nobody in such a mess!" said one.
"Better hose him down, Yates." That was the baker's wife.
"Give 'im a slug o' corn,-Vance. Looks like he needs it."
"Somebody send for Maw Beechum! She's got healin' hands."
Qwilleran's rescuers stripped off his rags behind the bakery and turned the hose on the caked blood and dirt, the icy water from a local well acting like a local anesthetic. Then, draped in a couple of bakery towels, he was assisted into a backroom and placed on a cot among cartons of wheatberries and yeast. Kate, serving hot coffee and another Danish, explained that Mrs. Beechum had gone home to get some of her homemade medicines.
When the silent woman arrived, she went to work with downcast eyes, making an icepack for the ankle and tearing up an old sheet for bandages. Then she poured antiseptic from a jelly jar onto the wounds and larded them with ointment.
