Night of the Condor by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page B

village turned out again to watch her leave. By their looks and gestures, it was clear they thought she was mad.
    And perhaps I am, she told herself ruefully.
    She walked steadily, thanking her stars that the track was clearly marked and the going easier than she had anticipated, but when the sun began to sink behind the towering, snow-capped peaks, she was glad to halt. Her muscles were beginning to ache with coaxing the recalcitrant Rosita, and her elegant boots were pinching too.
    She collected kindling, lit her fire, and heated coffee and tinned beans as she watched the sunset turn the high snows scarlet, crimson and violet before fading into opalescent pallor. She watched entranced, isolation and nervousness forgotten, wondering what dawn would be like, and as if to reassure her that she was not entirely alone after all, a great bird appeared high above her, like some dark spirit of the snows, its vast wings stark and black against the fading light.
    The breath caught in Leigh's throat. A condor, she thought, between disbelief and jubilation. She was actually seeing a condor!
    It was one of the things her fellow tourists in Cuzco had asked eagerly about, but the guide's response had been dampening. Sightings were rare, they had been told, although the great vulture of the Andes was now a protected species.
    Leigh grabbed her field glasses from the small tent she had struggled to erect, and focused them as the huge bird wheeled and swooped in a display for her alone. When it eventually dwindled to a faraway speck, she sat back with a sigh.
    The wind had risen as the sun went down, and in spite of her weatherproof clothes, she shivered as she hurried through her remaining chores and crawled into the tent. She was glad of the security of her sleeping-bag, but at the same time sleep eluded her. It was the first time, she realised, she had ever lain down for the night without someone else within call, or at least on the end of a telephone. She tried to think of Evan, to reach through the darkness and the sighing wind for him with her spirit, telling herself that he was alone too, and probably afraid. But there was no answering comfort, no sense of oneness in the thin air of the night.
    She slept at last through sheer exhaustion, but there were tears on her face before she closed her eyes, and her dreams were confused and troublous, where she ran in endless pursuit of Evan through a vast maze of mountains, her lungs labouring for breath, only to have her way blocked at every turn by a tall man with skin like teak, and tiger's eyes, who told her, 'This is no place for you. Go back…' While above her, the vast wings of the condor blotted out the sun as it descended to seize her in cruel claws, and carry her away.

CHAPTER FOUR

     
    Leigh awoke with a cry, and sat up, her heart thudding hollowly against her rib cage. She swallowed, trying to steady her breathing.
    Oh, get a grip on yourself, she adjured herself impatiently. You're not a little girl any more to be upset by nightmares. Wait until you really have a problem before you start going to pieces.
    She felt like the prophet of her own doom when she emerged from the tent and found that Rosita and the hobble had gone, and so, one frantic all-encompassing glance revealed, had the tack, all her spare gear and the provisions.
    Leigh fell to her knees beside the grey embers of the little fire, wrapping her arms protectively around her body. All the time she had felt so alone, someone must have been tracking her, watching her, waiting for the right moment to rob her. Her head throbbed, and she felt sick at the very thought, although some stark logical corner of her mind told her that she had probably escaped lightly.
    She could only be thankful that she had used her shoulder-bag as a makeshift pillow, so that she still had her passport and what remained of her money. But even when added to the tent, and the clothes she stood up in, it didn't amount to a great deal.
    She tried to