Oh sì. Throw them in the shaft. She’d be lucky if she held on to them at all. She raised the poles, but the angle would not allow them in. She was too low. Signore, why did you make me so short? She tried raising the poles over her head as high as she could stretch, but it wasn’t enough. “I can’t get them in. We’re not high enough.”
“On your knees, Father.” Quillan’s voice was tight, and she realized he was straining worse than she. Physically, he had the worst of it, though it was no picnic balancing. But he thought Father’s prayers would raise them two more feet?
Glancing down, she stopped her breath completely as Father Antoine dropped not only to his knees, but to all fours. They couldn’t mean to . . . But they did!
She gripped the jut with all the strength in her fingers. Quillan raised one foot, leg shaking as he lodged it onto the priest’s back. She couldn’t watch, focused only on clinging to the rough ceiling. With a rush, she rose a couple feet higher and the poles swung at her side.
“Ow.”
The thump told her she had done as she feared and bumped the ends into Quillan’s head. What did he expect? Her own head was bent against the top of the cave now. She could see through the shaft to the snow. But how deep was the snow?
She drew the poles up nearly parallel to the ceiling. Her arms shook. So did her legs. Quillan shifted his hold, and Father Antoine gasped, “Quickly, Carina.”
She gathered herself. With all her might, she thrust the poles into the shaft. The motion threw her forward to the edge of the shaft. She caught it and held on.
The poles had lodged in the snow. What if it were too deep? “Can you move one step forward, Father?” What was she saying? Move? They would fall!
But, uncomplaining, he slowly inched forward, and she clung to the edge of the shaft. She pulled the poles back, then reaching deeper, shoved the poles as hard as she could. Daylight. She saw blue sky. “They’re through! The poles broke through the snow!”
“Can you get them all the way through?” Quillan’s strain was evident in his breathless tone.
“I can’t reach them again. They’re in too far.”
“But they’re not through? Not all the way to hook over the shaft?”
She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see her. “No. They’re still lengthwise in the shaft.”
“We need them all the way through. Father?”
Oh, Dio? He couldn’t be thinking . . . Carina clung to the opening as Quillan moved again beneath her. Slowly he began to rise, and she knew Father Antoine now had Quillan’s feet on his shoulders. He couldn’t manage more than that, but it was enough to raise her halfway into the shaft.
She gripped the poles and shoved. They flew out the end of the shaft, and snow fluttered in around her face. She blew it from her mouth. “They’re out.”
Catching her legs in a new grip, Quillan grunted with the strain. “Now’s the tricky part.”
Now? What did he call the rest of it?
Quillan said, “Pull on the rope. Slowly. Don’t let the end of the poles come back in. They have to catch sideways.”
And how was she to manage that? He wobbled underneath her as she reached for the rope. Per piacere, Signore . . . She pulled more rope. So far no ends of the poles. She pulled again and it caught fast. The poles must have turned on their own. She gave it a tug to be sure. “The rope is tight.”
“Great! Good. Now come on down.”
“Down?” Carina’s legs watered at the thought. “You think I’m pazzo?” She took hold of the rope and drew her knee up into the opening. “Push.”
Quillan shoved her into the shaft, cushioned with leaves and debris. She was only thankful the freezing temperatures would have killed any insect or other life. The chimney wasn’t long, and it slanted so to require little strength. If it had been straight up, she could not have done it. But as it was, she braced herself and crawled the last couple feet, then pushed her head through the snow, chilling her neck with frosted crystals. She shook it free, blinking in the brightness. The air was keen and brittle. She pushed with her elbows, brought one knee out and then the other, and crawled onto the mountainside.
Her breath came in one exultant puff. Grazie, Dio! Her muscles shook from strain and relief, but she didn’t hurt more than she might have pulling that stunt at any time. She figured she was healed. And she was out! Then she noticed she had no boots. She called down the chimney, “Send up my boots, if you don’t mind.”
Their cheers sounded below. After a moment, the rope wobbled and she pulled. It was heavier than she expected, and she saw that the bundle of blankets, as well as her boots, had been attached. Well, why waste effort? She pulled the rope until the bundle came free, then unfastened it and her boots and sent the rope back down.
She shook her boots free of snow and debris and pulled them on, lacing them tightly. Her hands burned across her palms from the rope. She pulled her gloves from the pockets of her coat, the soft kidskin gloves Quillan had bought her, and put them on.
“Take her up again, Carina,” Quillan called.
She reached for the rope. This time it was his pack she brought up. Once again she untied it and tossed the rope back down the chimney. She looked out at the periwinkle sky, the sun~shine brilliant on the snow. Upward to her right would be the entrance to Wolf ’s mine, but it was nothing but a white wave now, the entire mountainside changed.
She rubbed her arms against the cold, then heard a grunt as Father Antoine pushed up through the opening, his shoulders curved and angled to fit out. She moved aside to give him room. “God’s handiwork looks fine today.” She waved her arm over the vista.
He laughed, pulled himself the rest of the way free, and sank down beside her. “Indeed it does.” He drew in a deep, satisfied breath.
In a short time Quillan came through the hole in the mountainside, an even tighter fit for his muscled shoulders, but thankfully it was just wide enough. He pulled himself up and stood. With hardly a glance about him, he rocked his neck and rubbed it with one hand. Then he stooped, lifted the poles, and untied the rope around them. He stood them upright in the snow and reached for the tarp bundle.
Carina raised her brows. “Can’t you stop for one minute? Look around you. See what you’ve been given.” She couldn’t get enough of the scene—white-flocked trees and jagged granite faces as far as she could see. To the west a mackerel sky . . . It was mostly the sky she reveled in. Spacious, bright, colorful. Everything she’d been deprived of in the dark cavernous hollow. Her soul sang.
He worked the bundle free and shook the tarp out. “We have a long walk home.”
And then she remembered . . . the horses. Of course he was upset. She got to her feet as Quillan reattached the tarp to the poles. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, just kept wrapping and tying. He was making the litter again? Didn’t he see she was healed? And what good would it do without Jack and Jock? Oh no. She brought her hands to her hips. “What do you think you’re doing with that?”
“Father and I can—”