The Tenth Chamber by Glenn Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

time was precious so he left his camera hanging around his neck and moved a little further downstream to get the lay of the land beyond.
    Then he caught sight of something that made him let out an involuntary throaty sound of surprise.
    Just below him on a broad ledge was a solitary large juniper tree growing out of the scrub. Its enormous dry and rough twisted trunk the colour of charcoal ash fanned out and gave way to a jumble of corkscrew branches that jutted out in every conceivable direction. Its greenery was minimal, a few coniferous tufts here and there, like an old dog with mange.
    Luc scrambled down the slope as quickly as he safely could and ran to it. When he was close enough to touch it, he pulled the map out again, looked up into its impossible jumble of branches and nodded his head. The match was uncanny – even after six hundred years! If any tree was going to live for centuries in this kind of barren terrain it would be the indomitable juniper, the ultimate survivor, with the odd specimen living for two millennia or more.
    At that moment Luc decided they wouldn’t be turning back.
    He knew Hugo would complain bitterly, but it didn’t matter. They were going to be camping tonight. If there wasn’t a good spot further on, they could always come back and sleep under the protection of this ancient tree.
    Hugo did complain.
    It was certainly a tree, he agreed, but he thought it was an article of extreme faith that it was the tree. He was sceptical to the point of being obnoxious. Finally Luc told him flatly that he was carrying on and if Hugo wanted, he could go back, take the Land Rover and find a hotel.
    Hugo had no appetite for either course of action. He groused equally about sleeping rough and finding his way back to the car on his own. In the end he gave in and meekly followed Luc along the new ledge in search of, as he put it ‘mythical waterfalls and unicorns.’
    They were running out of daylight. The temperature was dropping and the sky had turned a dusky, rose-like pink. Hugo, resigned to spending an uncomfortable night under the stars, demanded a break for his aching shoulders. They stopped on a secure shelf and guzzled water. Then Hugo unzipped his fly and urinated over the edge. ‘There’s your waterfall,’ he said without a trace of humour.
    Luc had his rucksack off too. He leaned back and rested his head against the cliff, about to make a schoolboy comment in reply, when instead he said, ‘Hey!’ He felt the dampness on his scalp. He wheeled around and laid both hands on the rocks. They were wet. Stepping back as far as he could without going over the edge, he looked up and pointed at a wide dark stripe. ‘Look! It goes all the way up. It’s our waterfall!’
    Hugo looked up too, unimpressed. ‘If that’s a waterfall, I’m the Pope.’
    ‘It’s been a dry summer. After a rainy spring, I’ll bet it turns into a proper waterfall. Come on before we lose the light. If there’s a second one, I’ll buy dinner.’
    They walked into the fading light for the better part of another hour. Now, instead of looking, Luc constantly touched the rock face to feel for moisture.
    Dusk was overtaking them. Luc was about to call a halt when they both heard it at the same time: a trickle, like a running tap. A few paces ahead, the rocks were soaking wet and water was seeping onto the ledge, puddling and flowing down towards the river. It was more a water dribble than a waterfall, but as far as Luc was concerned they were on the right track. Even Hugo perked up and agreed to push on until the sun completely set.
    Luc pulled out the map one more time and pointed to the two waterfalls and the X that marked the cave. ‘If this part of the map is to scale then the cave is nearby, but it’s impossible to know if it’s below us or above us. I think we have about fifteen minutes of light before it’s going to be pointless.’
    They consumed the entire quarter of an hour, using Luc’s small powerful LED