Read Online God's Highlander by E. V. Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

returning to the mountains after being driven away by the storm…. Then Wyatt heard the sound again and knew it had been made by no bird. It was a child’s cry for help!
    Mairi had heard it, too, and already she was scrambling and sliding down the steep wet hillside towards the swollen stream.
    Wyatt shouted a warning, but if she heard she chose to ignore it. He did not catch up with her until she had reached the water’s edge, close to an awesome waterfall. Hundreds of tons of water thundered down from about forty feet above them, throwing up a curtain of spray that made it almost impossible to see anything. It was equally unlikely they would have heard any cries for help emanating from this spot.
    Wyatt tried to explain all this to Mairi. Before he could make himself heard he needed to take her arm and lead her fifty yards away, to a spot where the rocky uneven ground split the fast-running water into a hundred interlinked channels.
    Even as he was speaking they both heard the sound again – and this time Wyatt was certain. It was a child. Then Mairi gripped Wyatt’s arm and pointed ahead.

    â€˜There … look!’
    He saw a movement on one of the tiny islands that had been formed by the floodwater. Suddenly a small girl rose to a standing position from among the debris strewn about her. In her arms she held a baby.
    â€˜It’s Kirstie … with Barbie!’
    The child saw Wyatt and Mairie at the same time and became so excited it seemed she was about to plunge into the river and make for them.
    Waving his arms frantically, Wyatt shouted: ‘Stay there. Stay where you are. We’ll come to you. Don’t move!’
    â€˜How are you going to reach her?’
    There was a wide and fast-flowing expanse of water separating them from the children, and Wyatt had no answer to Mairi’s question.
    â€˜There must be a way. There has to be.’
    Wyatt’s words were more hopeful than accurate. The island was situated more than three-quarters of the way to the far side of the swollen torrent.
    â€˜We might reach them from the other side, but I can see no way of crossing….’
    Fed by a whole network of swollen brooks pouring from the surrounding peaks, the river gained in strength as it poured down the mountainside.
    â€˜I know a way across. Come,’ said Mairi.
    She shouted for Kirstie Munro to remain where she was with her young charge, then began to make her way up the slope, heading back towards the great waterfall she and Wyatt had passed a short time before. By the time Wyatt caught up with her the thunder of the water made it impossible for him to ask what she thought she was doing. Then she took his hand and headed straight for the waterfall, taking a seemingly suicidal course.
    Seeing the anxiety on his face, Mairi shouted an explanation that was lost in the noise of the water. She tugged at his hand determinedly and he followed, but with increasing anxiety.
    Mairi never faltered. Keeping close to the cliff-face, she walked behind the wall of water crashing down only feet away from them.
    The noise here was deafening, and spray leaped all about them, preventing them from seeing what lay ahead. Soon they began wading through knee-deep water. Then it was waist-high, swirling back from
the falls. It was cold, too, cold enough to have Wyatt gasping for breath. Suddenly the water became shallower. Moments later they were clear of the waterfall, wading through the floodwater that swirled all about them.
    Stumbling clear of the water, Wyatt found he was shivering, as much with realisation of what they had just accomplished as with cold, while his head felt as though it had been resting against an anvil in a busy blacksmith’s shop.
    Mairi was shivering, too, but she did not release his hand. Instead she began awkwardly running over the sodden slippery ground, dragging him after her.
    They located the island on which the two children were stranded, but reaching it