After retrieving the Horn and axe, she walked down the slope, leaning back now. Occasionally her shoes would slip on the grass, and she’d sit down hard and slide for a few feet before she was able to brake to a stop. Once a mass of the dark greasy earth, grass blades sticking from it, thumped by her. If it had hit her, it would have crushed her.
Near the bottom she had to hurry up her descent. More great masses were rolling down the slope. One missed her only because it struck a swelling and leaped into the air over her head.
Reaching the base, she ran across the valley until she was sure she was beyond the place where the masses would roll. By then “night” had come. She was so thirsty she thought she’d die if she didn’t get water in the next half hour. She was also very tired.
There was nothing else to do but to turn back. She had to have water. Fortunately, in this light, she couldn’t be seen by anybody a thousand feet from her. Maybe five hundred. So she could sneak back to the channel without being detected. It was true that the two men might have figured out she’d try it and be waiting on the other side of the mountain. But she’d force herself to take an indirect route to the channel.
She headed along the valley, skirting the foot of the mountain beyond that which she’d climbed. There were housesized masses here also, these having fallen off the second mountain, too. Passing one, she scared something out which had been hiding under an overhang. She shrieked. Then, in swift reaction, she snatched out her axe and threw it at the long low scuttler.
The axehead struck it, rolling it over and over. It got to its short bowed legs, and, hissing, ran off. The blow had hurt it, though; it didn’t move as quickly as before. She ran to her axe, picked it up, set herself, and hurled it again. This time the weapon broke the thing’s back.
She snatched out her knife, ran to the creature-a lizardlike reptile two feet long-and she cut its throat. While it bled to death she held it up by its tail and drank the precious fluid pouring from it. It ran over her chin and throat and breasts, but she got most of it.
She skinned it and cut off portions and ate the still quivering meat. She felt much stronger afterward. Though still thirsty, she felt she could endure it. And she was in better shape than the two men-unless they had also managed to kill something.
As she headed toward the plain, she was enshrouded in deeper darkness. Rainclouds had come swiftly with a cooling wind. Before she had gone ten paces onto the flatland, she was deluged. The only illumination was lightning, which struck again and again around her. For a moment she thought about retreating. But she was always one to take a chance if the situation demanded it. She walked steadily onward, blind between the bolts, deaf because of the thunder. Now and then she looked behind her. She could see only animals running madly, attempting to get away from the deadly strokes but with no place to hide.
By the time she’d reached the channel, she was knee-deep in water. This increased the danger of being electrocuted, since a bolt did not now have to hit her directly. There was no turning back.
The side of the channel nearer her had lowered a few inches. The stream, flooding with the torrential downpour, was gushing water onto the plain. Four-legged fish and some creatures with tentacles-not large-were sliding down the slope. She speared two of the smaller amphibians with her knife and skinned and ate one. After cutting the other’s head off and gutting it, she carried it by its tail. It could provide breakfast or lunch or both.
By then the storm was over, and within twenty minutes the clouds had rushed off. Ankle-deep in water, she stood on the ridge and pondered. Should she walk toward the other end of the channel and look for Kickaha? Or should she go toward the sea?