It wasn't long after that the lights went out, leaving the mine pitch-black. Maddie heard the electronic gate hum shut and Ben's ATV start up. Even so, she stayed under the tarp a while longer, too petrified to make herself move. There was a dead body in the boxcar, not thirty feet from where she hid and she had no idea who it was.
Maddie forced herself toward the boxcar, her legs trembling. Maybe it was better if she didn't know, she thought. Maybe she could just run back to her cave and forget it ever happened. But something urged her forward and she found herself climbing onto the boxcar, peering over the top at the blue bundle. In the dark, the shape looked ominous. Maddie fumbled with the light on her cap and suddenly the tarp was in full view. She tentatively reached out and tugged at the top of the tarp, careful not to touch the blood that had leaked onto it. She heard herself gasp as she uncovered the blood-matted hair, daring herself to pull the tarp down past the bloodied face. In disbelief, she stared at the open eyes of her favorite teacher, Miss Sisson. And then she stifled a scream. The very eyes she was staring into, blinked.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jo fetched the horses just after midnight when the last light had twinkled off in the ranch hands' cabins. I was nervous, waiting, watching the dark for movement of any kind. But it seemed we were the only two still up. Except I knew Gracie was somewhere watching in the dark, ready to intervene if someone spotted us and tried to follow.
I handed Jo the leather saddle bag, which we'd rigged for her to wear like a backpack, then climbed onto my horse, my own rope-filled nylon pack heavy on my back. We took off at a leisurely pace, hoping that to anyone watching, we appeared as two new lovers, off for a midnight ride.
It wasn't until we let ourselves through the outer gate that we picked up the pace. We were traveling without the aid of the flashlight but the moon was bright and the stars filled the night sky with a dazzling display. For some reason, the horses seemed nervous. Perhaps they sensed danger. Jo talked to them, soothing their fears, but I had to admit, I was nervous, too. The bulge of the .45 nestling against my rib cage was some comfort.
As we neared the gorge, the sound of waterfalls grew louder and the horses grew even more skittish. Jo explained that we were almost there. The sledge heap was straight down a ravine at the edge of the forest where the tracks ended. I could see the gleam of the tracks in the moonlight, cutting a straight path along the base of the mountain toward the ravine. It was down that ravine that we needed to climb.
"We can tether the horses, here," Jo said, sliding out of her saddle. We hefted our bags to the edge of the ravine and I aimed a flashlight down the steep embankment. Gnarled tree roots jutted out of the cliff face here and there, which would give us something to tie onto and help our footing, but there were also nasty chunks of debris from the mine and machine shop that had caught on some of them when they'd been dumped from the boxcar into the gorge a hundred feet below.
"Maybe you should wait here," I said. "I think I can get down on my own. With the tree roots, I may not even need the stakes."
"I'm coming with you, Cass."
It was clear she wasn't budging on the issue, so while we adjusted the backpacks and pulled on our leather gloves, we talked over our strategy.
I tied the first rope around a stump along the ledge and eased myself over the cliff while Jo shined her light from above so that I could locate foot holds as I climbed down. Once I reached a good landing spot, I shined my light up for her and she followed. Then we repeated the maneuver, using a second rope, then a third and fourth as we painstakingly let ourselves down into the giant refuse pile.
The descent became more difficult as we went because there were more obstacles in our way, some of them razor sharp and rusted. On the last leg, Jo bounced against the metal edge of something jutting out from behind a twisted branch and sliced open her arm. By the time she joined me, a red blotch had soaked through her shirt sleeve.
"Let me look at that," I said.
"It's nothing. We'll look at it when we get back up. Let's just find what we came for." I noticed she couldn't quite bring herself to say the body.
We stood at the foot of the gorge and shined our lights at the heap of twisted metal and greasy debris. "How often do they dump?" I asked.
"I've never really paid that much attention. Seems like just about every morning. Whenever the boxcar gets full, I guess."
"Then it shouldn't take too long, if she's here. Let's start over here where the mound's the highest."
We cautiously climbed onto the highest pile where most of the junk had come to rest and slowly cast our lights over the area. Jo bent over and carefully hefted a large chunk of metal, setting it to the side. I followed suit and soon we were both sweating with the effort.
"Hey," Jo said. "Check this out, Cass."
I aimed my light in the direction she indicated and saw the corner of a blue plastic tarp.
"Kinda out of place," she said.
I picked my way over to her and together we uncovered the tarp, one heavy chunk at a time. We were both breathing heavily, and it wasn't just from the exertion. I felt sure the tarp had something to do with Annie Sisson. We finally pulled the tarp free, half-expecting to find a body beneath it, but there was just more junk and metal. And a couple of green woolen blankets which immediately seemed out of place.
"Look at this," I said, pointing my flashlight at a dark stain on the tarp.
"What do you think?" she asked.
I sniffed at the stain, then took off my leather glove and used my fingernail to scratch off a fleck.
"It's definitely blood. But is it hers? Damn it! She's got to be here somewhere. She couldn't have fallen too far from the tarp if she was wrapped in it." I checked the blankets but neither appeared to be stained or even soiled.
We both began to dig again but soon had to stop to catch our breath. I looked at Jo's arm and noticed it was still bleeding steadily. I stared at the massive heap surrounding us, knowing that our chances of finding a body beneath the rubble in the dark were not getting any better. We should've found her by now if she'd been wrapped in the tarp, I thought. And Jo and I still had to get back up the cliff.
"Let's take the tarp, at least," I said. "Maybe with this and the printout of the gun assembly, we can get the police out here. Maybe in the daylight, they'll find her."
Jo didn't argue. We'd done the best we could under the circumstances. We'd used all but one of the ropes and my backpack was nearly empty. Jo helped me stow the tarp inside it, careful not to smudge the stain, then followed me to the bottom rope. Neither of us was looking forward to the long climb up.
When I reached the top of the cliff and hauled myself over, I saw a horse galloping toward us at full speed in the dark. By the time Jo pulled herself up, the horse was nearly upon us. I held the Colt .45 at my side, my pulse racing.
"It's Grade," Jo said, catching her breath beside me.
"You sure?"
"It's her horse."
Sure enough, Gracie Apodaca swung down off the horse as it came to a halt in front of us. "Maddie's run again," she said, breathless herself.
"What?" I asked. "How do you know?"
"I've been waiting in the shadows, watching out. About a half-hour ago, I saw Coach come around the bend on his ATV He woke Clutch who came out to see what the problem was and I got closer so I could hear them talking. Coach told Clutch that he was off after Maddie again. She's run off.
"Ah, shit," I said.
"That's not all," Grade said. "After Clutch went back inside, I heard Coach's walkie-talkie. I think it was Doc's voice but I haven't heard him that much. He said Ben had the shop entrance covered and he was going to bed unless Coach thought he'd need help handling them."
"Them?"
"Exactly. What do you think?"
"I think Annie Sisson may still be alive," I said. I told Grade about the bloody tarp but no body.
"If she is alive, she may not be for long," Grade said. "But I'm not sure what we can do
about it. I came by the mine entrance just now and the gate's shut. Coach's ATV is parked right outside."
Whatever hope I'd been holding onto dissolved completely. One way or the other, we were going to have to go inside the mine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Madeline
"You're doing fine, Maddie. When you saw her blink, you must have been terribly upset. What happened next?" Doc's voice was soothing. Maddie's eyes were still closed but she could see it like it was happening right then and there. She took a deep breath and continued her story.
Miss Sisson was alive! Maddie could tell she was badly hurt and her eyes were glazed over but she was breathing! She rushed over to the wooden chest and pulled out a bottle of water, then held it to Miss Sisson's lips, begging her to drink a little. The water dribbled down Miss Sisson's face, but her eyes became a little more focused which gave Maddie hope. Maddie pulled the tarp off of her teacher's body and her eyes grew wide at the spreading blood stain near her midsection.
"You've got to get up so I can help you get to safety," she said over and over. Finally, Annie Sisson seemed to hear her, and struggled to a sitting position.
"What happened?" she asked.
There was no time to explain. "You're hurt. We've got to get you out of here. Can you stand?"
Annie looked down at the blood on her shirt and her eyes glazed over again. She swayed, but Maddie held her up. "You've got to try," she pleaded. Something in her voice must have gotten through to Annie because she suddenly focused her eyes and forced herself to a kneeling position. Maddie helped her over the side of the boxcar. Annie collapsed on the ground.
"We need to make it look like you're still in there," Maddie said, though she wasn't sure Annie could hear her. She ran to the trunk and grabbed two green woolen blankets, rolling them into tight cylinders. She wrapped the bloody tarp around the blankets and tried to arrange it the way it had looked wrapped around Annie. She gave a last hurried look around the room, then bent and struggled to pull Annie to her feet, draping Annie's arm around her shoulder, practically dragging her into the tunnel toward her cave.
It had taken forever to get there. Annie had needed to rest, sometimes crumpling onto the tracks, unable to get up. But Maddie had been persistent and now as Annie lay on the blanket in a deep sleep in the back cave, Maddie tended her wounds.
The head wound, it seemed, was much worse than the gunshot in the side which had cut right through a layer of fat and bled a lot, but didn't seem to have hit any organs as it passed through. But her head, which she'd hit on the tracks when she fell, was bleeding profusely and Maddie gingerly poked at the matted hair thinking she should clean the wound before it got infected. She used the little scissors on her Army knife and snipped away at Miss Sisson's pretty blond hair so that she could get to the wound. Then, using the antiseptic hand wipes, she dabbed at the open gash, causing it to bleed anew.
There was nothing to stitch her up with, but she carefully folded a thick wad of toilet paper into a square and held it to the open gash, then fetched her ace bandage and cut off a strip large enough to wrap around Annie's head, holding the bandage in place.
That Miss Sisson could sleep through this, worried Maddie, and she frequently checked to make sure her teacher was still breathing. Once she'd done what she could for the head wound, she tended her fire, stoking it up so that it would burn for several hours, then retrieved the tuna can and filled it with clean, bottled water. This she set on two rocks right on top of the fire and waited for the water to boil.
The wound in Annie's side made Maddie nervous because she'd never seen a bullet hole except in the movies. But she knew wounds should be kept clean and so, once the boiled water had cooled enough, she poured some right into the open wound. Annie Sisson sat straight up and screamed.
"Sorry," Maddie mumbled, trying to dab at the wound with an antiseptic hand-wipe.
Annie looked around her, utterly confused. She seemed to be seeing the little cave for the first time, as if she hadn't seen it at all when Maddie had half-carried her in. Her eyes were more focused now, Maddie noticed. She did her best to explain while Annie Sisson listened. She told how she'd found the cave when Coach had put her in Isolation and how she'd used the Army knife to uncuff herself. She told how she'd stockpiled goods and hidden them in her mattress. She showed Annie the provisions, explaining how she could make them last for a week if she was careful, and how she could save matches by keeping the coals going. She explained where the toilet was and about the boxcar that came by every morning on its way to the dump before going back to the machine shop. She told of her plan to wait in the mine for three or four days, if she could stand it that long, until they'd given up looking for her, then sneak back into camp through the tunnel and somehow make it through the woods to the road.
Annie was looking at her, dumbstruck, as Maddie described her escape and subsequent trip to the mine entrance. In a voice as calm as she could muster, she told Annie what she'd heard and seen and what Doc and Ben had planned to do with Annie.
Annie nodded slowly as if the motion hurt her, and took another small sip of water from the bottle. She began to speak in an almost trance-like whisper. "A boy in my class told me he was afraid that the girl he liked was seeing Coach. He said he thought she was going to meet Coach tonight. I promised him I'd do what I could and when I saw the girl leave her cabin, I decided to intervene." She paused and caught her breath. Talking was clearly wearing her out, but she seemed determined to go on.
"I thought if I could talk to Coach first, I could talk some sense into him. When I saw the light on in the mine I thought he'd gone there. I tied my horse and walked the last on foot, afraid that it was too late — that somehow the girl had beat me there." She took another sip of water, her eyes focused now on Maddie's.
"Then I saw the ATVs and realized it wasn't Coach after all, and then the truck came." She closed her eyes for a moment and Maddie was afraid that the talking had worn her out completely, but Annie grimaced and continued.
"I stepped into the shadows and watched from a distance. Pretty soon, I'd crept right up to the entrance and could see Ben putting something together. Then I saw what it was. I started to leave, but was afraid they'd see me, so I ducked back down and hid. I never even heard anyone come up behind me. The next thing I knew, you were pulling me down a tunnel."
She tentatively touched her bandaged head, then leaned back against the cave wall, her brow furrowed, what little strength she'd had, depleted.
"We've got to get you out of here," Maddie said.
Annie shook her head. "Not strong enough. You go." Her face had gone pale and her voice weak.
Maddie shook her head. "I can help you!"
Annie forced herself to sit up again and opened her eyes, speaking with great care. "You've done a good job patching me up, Maddie, but I've lost a lot of blood. I need to rest." She took another swallow of water, mustering her strength. "But you need to get back to camp tonight. If you're back in camp, this place should be safe for a while."
Maddie's heart sank, but she knew Miss Sisson was right. This was no longer about Maddie running away. This was about someone trying to murder her teacher. Maybe things happened for a reason, she thought, trying to look brave. If she hadn't found this cave and stockpiled enough food for a week, and run away and been in the mine entrance when she was, then Miss Sisson might be dead by now. Or if not now, by tomorrow morning when they dumped the boxcar. As it was, Miss Sisson could rest here until she got her strength back, and then they could both make their get-away together. In the meantime, Maddie had to act as if nothing had happened. She would tell them she got scared in the woods and came back, her lesson learned once and for all. She wouldn't tell a soul what she'd seen. She explained all this to Miss Sisson, who nodded, though her eyes were closed and Maddie wasn't sure she was getting everything.
"Can't trust anyone," Miss Sisson mumbled.
"What if I e-mail my dad, tell him we need help?"
; Annie shook her head once, wincing at the pain. "They monitor the e-mail. It isn't safe. We'll just have to wait until I'm strong enough."
"But how will I know? How will I know you're all right?"
Annie tried to look around the small cave, thinking. It was obvious her head throbbed by the way she moved it. She closed her eyes again, unable to concentrate. Maddie felt the panic rise in her throat, but she hid it, trying to sound calm and authoritative for her teacher.
"Listen. I'm working in the machine shop now. Ben loads the boxcar at the end of the workday and sends it off every morning. It comes back empty during the morning shift. It wouldn't be that hard for me to peek inside the boxcar each day. All I have to do is get clean-up duty during the breaks. The kids all go outside and Ben sneaks off for a cigarette. I could look then."
Annie looked confused.
"See those reddish rocks in the corner?" Maddie asked, waiting until her teacher looked. "If you toss one into the boxcar each day I'll know everything's okay. If I don't see one, I'll know you're in trouble. You just have to stand at the door and toss them in. It moves pretty slow. Are you following this?" Miss Sisson was looking at her with big eyes. She nodded, though, and Maddie felt better.
"See the big rock? The speckled one? When you're ready to travel, throw that one. I'll come for you that night."
"How'd you get so smart?" Annie asked, a weak smile gracing her face. Maddie felt her chest fill with pride, but it was short lived.
"There's only enough food for a week," she said.
"I understand. If you haven't seen the big rock by then, go without me."
"No," Maddie said firmly. "If you haven't signaled me by the eighth day, I'm coming for you anyway." Her voice was as strong as she could make it. She didn't want Miss Sisson talking her out of it. "Okay?" she finally had to ask.
"Okay, Maddie. If you don't see the big rock before, come for me on the eighth day." She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Maddie spent a few more minutes arranging the cave, making sure Miss Sisson had everything she needed within easy reach. Finally, she forced herself out of the cave, into the black depths of the mine, and headed back to camp.
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