"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 279 - The Freak Show Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

trying
to corner him somewhere between gates.
All Steve wanted was to find that fence. He didn't want a gate, because
he
was sure somebody would be there. Judging by the lights, Treft's men were
sufficient to replenish a regiment, unless Steve had been spotting the same
searchers six times over. But if Steve found the fence, he'd be willing to
scale
it, pickets or no pickets.
 Steve didn't find the fence.
Out of the range of lights, plunging between trees that he could see in
the
struggling moonlight, stumbling across rocks that the glow didn't show, Steve
was still wondering where the fence was when his flight ended as suddenly as
it
had begun.
It ended when the ground gave under him.
There was horror in that plunge. It began with a black void that would
have
warned any other fugitive, but to Steve, whose fear was registered in terms of
light, blackness was welcome and the deeper the better.
This blackness was really deep.
Steve was right out in it when the ground gave. In a sense, what happened
was that Steve jumped clear of the ground and it came along to catch him. Next
he was spilling downward at a sharp angle that he recognized as Carolina clay,
because he had seen huge banks of it while driving along roads that bore signs
reading: "Danger. Slides."
This was a slide and Steve was part of it. He was going over the
equivalent
of a waterfall in terms of soft, flowing earth. Already picturing himself as
trapped, Steve felt like an insect sliding into one of those curious sand
funnels provided by a more conniving species to receive unwary prey. All about
the earth was stifling, for more of it was overtaking Steve, much like a
torrent. Madly he was struggling to climb out of it and going down a dozen
times
as fast as he could climb.
Out of a rush that sounded like padded thunder, Steve heard a mournful
blare from far away, approaching like a horn of judgment. In the midst of a
repeated shriek, his plunge ended, much more happily than he had hoped.
Steve stopped with a jolt that at least was softened by the mass of clay
that had preceded him. As he caught his breath, he was flung forward by the
increasing mass that followed him and he landed harder, headlong. This time
the
jolt produced a terrific, clattering shock, that jarred Steve's nerves more
than
his body. Wiping clay from his mouth, he came to his hands and knees, then
sagged back as the clang was repeated almost overhead.
Something really shocked him that time, something that caused him to
recoil
as if he had clasped a slimy snake. It was something that he did clasp, as