The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls Read Online Free Page B

wheels roaring over rough stone, and it is all I can do to keep my legs beneath me. Beyond the door, the reins whip in the wind, trailing from the horse’s harness.
    “Here I go.” I press down on the door handle. The door swings wide, smashes into a boulder, and crashes back into me. I kick the door out again and slide through the frame. Half out of the compartment, I hang with the door battering my back. The reins are just out of reach, flipping against the cliff wall. “There’s nothing for it.”
    I hook my splinted arm through the door, ignoring the screaming pain, and reach outward with my other hand. Rocks hurtle by, and the mare bolts erratically between the cliff wall and the precipice.
    “Hurry!” Anna calls from within. “I’m losing hold!”
    With a growl of agony, I lunge out on my tormented arm. My fingers claw at empty air. The reins are just out of reach. Suddenly, the carriage bounds up over a rock. I topple, hanging beside the door. The jolt, however, flips the reins into my hand. My fist tightens. Inch by inch, I slide myself back into the compartment until I am sitting on the floor, the reins in my fingers.
    “You got it!” Anna exults.
    “Can’t steer from here,” I reply breathlessly, “unless we want to head into the cliff wall.”
    “Well, then, get up there,” Anna suggests.
    “Yes, lass, yes.” Taking a deep breath, I clamber to my feet and slide back out the carriage door. While the rugged cliff spins past, I inch my way along the side of the carriage, heading for the driver’s seat. My good arm does the double duty of hanging on to the carriage and gripping the reins. It’s now or never. I scramble up beside Thomas, brace my feet, and haul hard on the reins.
    The horse fights me, bucking against the leather thongs. With steady pressure, however, I rein in its panic and my own agony. The beast slows from a gallop to a trot to a canter. Only then do I dare look up behind us.
    On the cliff top, farther back but still distinct, stands the man who threw me from the top of the falls, the man who shot Thomas—the man who wants to kill us, still. He squeezes off another shot, and I cringe down as it sails by overhead. He’s too far back for accuracy. He breaks into a run.
    “Yah, there,” I say to the mare, giving her some rein. The beast begins to trot, ears pricked high for the next gunshot.
    Anna looks up through the hatch, her eyes wide. “What are you doing, Silence?”
    “Fleeing,” I say tightly.
    The man above us still runs in pursuit.
    “Simply fleeing.”

3
    DESPERATION
    I ’d been desperate plenty of times during my travels. In fact, the morning’s negotiations with the rat had been one of those times. But I’d never been this desperate—never been shot.
    My left shoulder was a mass of blood and muscle and bullet.
    I clung to the rattling top of the rattling coach, clung with my good arm while my bad one seeped a red puddle out across the bonnet. Silence crouched beside me, alternately whipping the poor mad horse and reaching over to save me from tumbling off. Intermittently, Anna’s terrified face appeared in the hatch of the carriage, and she advised us to “slow down!” or “watch that rock!” or “duck!”
    Again a bullet whistled by. Again came the report of the rifle, rankling among the canyon walls.
    “Damn,” Silence growled. The reins leaped in his grip, and the horse’s hooves leaped as well. We descended into a trough in the road and then climbed a hill on the other side. The carriage fairly vaulted over the ridge, and the road dropped out beneath us. My heart lodged in my throat. The wheels came down all aclatter.
    Silence glanced back. “He’s lost behind the ridge!”
    “Look out!” Anna cried.
    Silence turned to see a great boulder dead ahead: a fork in the road.
    “Hold on!” he shouted, hauling the horse away from the rock. The beast screamed as it narrowly missed the stone, and the fenders of the carriage screamed as they narrowly