by Jane Toombs
"Are you afraid to be alone with me?" he asked softly.
"Of course not!"
"Then you must follow wherever I lead." He urged Cossack into a trot.
Samara trailed after him, tingling with a mixture of fear and anticipation.
When they dismounted near the cave, Mark led the horses into a stand of oaks and tied them. Then he strode up the incline, pulling her with him. They slid down to the cave mouth.
"You remembered every turn," she said admiringly.
"I cannot afford to get lost," he told her.
She glazed into the gloom of the cave, darker inside than the gathering dusk. "If I'd known we were coming here I'd have brought a flashlight."
"We need none," he told her, pulling her with him inside the first chamber and wrapping his arms around her.
Samara surrendered to his embrace, but his kisses were so savage and demanding, she tried to pull away.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Well, you're so--so ruthless tonight."
"Are you coming with me when I go?"
"Go? I don't understand."
"You must know I have to leave the valley. I can count on your silence, but Rosita has seen me, too. I never trust anyone who takes money for silence."
"But why would she tell? I'll talk to her and--"
"No!"
How strangely he was acting, she thought. "Where would you go?"
"Will you come with me?"
Her heart leaped. "You mean--elope?"
She thought he shrugged. "You may think of it that way if you wish."
"But I'd like to get married at Hallow House. Once everyone knew we were to be married they'd feel differently."
"What do you mean? How do they feel now?"
Somehow she'd upset him. Samara wondered how to begin. "You must know my Uncle Vince doesn't like you," she ventured.
"I think he suspects. Are you sure you have not told anyone?" He gripped her shoulders.
"You're hurting me again," she complained.
He paid no attention. "I know how women are, they cannot keep secrets. Have you dared to hint of my equipment to anyone?"
She swallowed, beginning to be frightened as well as confused. "I didn't say a word."
"Even a hint to that uncle of yours would have him breaking down the door. He would like nothing better to confirm his suspicion that I am a German patriot."
"But--" she stammered, "but you're an American now."
He let her go. "Always a German first." Pride tinged his voice.
She got as far as, "I don't under--" when the rest of the word stuck in her throat as various fragments came together, creating a picture she didn't want to see.
"Don't play coy with me," he said. "You must have known the minute you walked into that room behind the black door. Even the code book was there. I was so certain I had the only key. I cannot afford such a mistake again."
"I don't have a key." Samara could hardly speak. "I saw you come out of the room and I thought you were like Sergei. In that room my brother called up the forces of evil. He--" Her voice broke and she couldn't go on.
An ominous silence fell.
"Will you still come with me, knowing?" Mark said at last.
"Knowing you're a--a spy?"
He caught her to him and began kissing her. Her only reaction was one of suffocation. She pushed at him and squirmed in his arms until he released her.
"Is that my answer?" he asked.
"I can't go," she cried. "How can I go when you've ruined everything?" She started for the cave entrance.
He grabbed her arm. Thoroughly frightened now, she screamed and struggled to get away. He slapped her face once, twice, so hard she was stunned by the blows.
"You will stay here and you will keep quiet." He shook her. "Understand?"
"You can't make me go with you," she muttered defiantly.
"You will go with--at least as far as the skull chamber," he said. Terror overwhelmed her. "No," she begged, "not in there, please no." Desperate, she fought to free herself. His hands came around her throat choking her, she couldn't pry them free, she couldn't breathe, all was a blackness....
Samara felt someone dragging her, holding her by the feet and pulling her along over a hard, uneven surface. She could see nothing. Where was she? In a nightmare? How it hurt her head to bump along. She moaned.
We have arrived in the burial chamber." Mark's voice. In a burst of horror she knew what was happening, but was helpless to resist as he jerked her to her feet and shoved her so that she staggered into the darkness, stumbling and falling full length. With the breath knocked out of her she couldn't gather her wits for long minutes.
"Mark!" she screamed when her voice returned.
o answer other than an obscene echo off the rock walls. Or maybe the skulls were mocking her. She knew they were above her, staring down with their empty eye sockets. "No," she whispered, dreading to hear another echo. Stumbling to her feet, arms outstretched, she blundered about, searching for the opening to the tunnel that led to the outer chamber. She banged her arms and her head until, dazed, she sank onto the floor and sobbed.
After a time, she raised her head. Silence. Fighting off panic, she told herself all she had to do was to crawl until she came up against a wall. Then she could work her way around the cave until she found the tunnel opening. Eventually she encountered space knew she'd found the way out. Staying on her hands and knees in the tunnel she crawled along until suddenly she came up against unyielding rock. No matter how frantically she felt around her, there was no opening to be found. At last she understood there was no way to go but back.
he lost all reason, screaming and crying until she lay curled exhausted in the tunnel. When her mind began to function once more, she tried to interpret what had happened. She asked herself if there could have been another opening in the cave with the skulls, one leading deep inside the earth. When she stopped shuddering over this possibility, she told herself firmly that she'd flashed her light all over the cave when she was in here before and had seen only the one opening. She refused to believe she could have missed it.
But, if she was in the right tunnel, the only tunnel, why couldn't she get through it. Remembering all the loose boulders outside the outer chamber, she thought of how she'd idealized Mark's handsomeness, his strong body. A body that was capable of rolling one of those boulders inside and jamming it so tightly into the mouth of the tunnel that she wouldn't be able to dislodge it.
e meant her to die here. Why hadn't he strangled her as he'd started out to do? Had he preferred not to kill her himself, to let time do it for him?
Tat made him a coward, she told herself, but it was no consolation. Nobody knew where she was. She was going to die here.
Whimpering, she curled into a ball on the tunnel floor, closing her eyes. After a time she drifted into semi-consciousness.
"Samara!" a voice cried.
he must be dreaming, there was no light in the cave and yet light shone on her. She cringed away. If it wasn't a dream, Mark must have come back to finish the job.
"Here, take my hand," the voice said. Not Mark's. Sal's voice.
"Can you take my hand?" Sal asked. "There's no room for me to get in there but I can pull you out."
he reached, he grasped her hand and yanked her free, out of the tunnel and into the outer chamber. She saw it was still dark, his flashlight the only illumination.
e helped her to her feet and she clung to him so tightly he dropped the flashlight and it went out, leaving her once again in the dark. She began to cry.
You'll be all right." Sal's words soothed her while he patted her back with gentle hands.
Finally she was able to let go of him and he led her to where Tsar waited, then held her in front of him while the horse headed for Hallow House.
"Oh, Sal, I was so sacred," she said.
"It's over. You're safe."
"Is Mark--?"
I've been to Skull Cave before--
there was never any rock jamming the tunnel. He trapped you there. What the hell's wrong with him?"
"He--he's a spy."
"A German spy?" Sal's voice was incredulous.
In--in the room Rosita saw him come out of there's radio equipment." Samara shivered.
"I'll be damned."
"How did you know where to find me?" she asked.
The mare came back. He must've tied her--guess he didn't know Anna K.'s an escape artist. I'm bunking in with Jose right now so I heard her pass his cabin. When I got to the stables to take care of her, I saw Cossack was gone. It didn't make sense to me. I was going to rouse the house, but then I wondered if you two might be eloping or some crazy thing. But that didn't mesh with Anna K. coming back riderless, so I finally saddled Tsar and rode to look for you."
"You came to the cave."
Yeah, well, I knew you hated it. Something about that guy Mark made me want to deck him, even before Rosita told me about him. I figured being what he was, that's where he'd take you."
Everyone had Mark pegged right except her, Samara thought. And Daddy. The two of them had trusted him when no one else did. Her father had also trusted Delores. And Sergei. Poor Daddy, no better judge than she was. She giggled, began to laugh.
"Stop that!" Sal warned.
Samara struggled to control herself so she wouldn't collapse into hysteria.
"If I find Mark I'll kill him," Sal said grimly.
Oh, no!" The words burst from Samara. "No more killing. Not like Sergei, please, Sal, no more."
"You could've died. He's a monster."
I didn't die, thanks to you." Samara breathed deeply of the night air scented with orange blossoms as they neared the house, realizing how lucky she was to be alive.
She'd done it again, she realized, allowed herself to be manipulated. First by Sergei, then by Mark. As though she had no will of her own.
As Sal pulled up to the stables she made a vow never to trust another man, never allow one to influence her. Not even her father.
Samara was kept wrapped in a cocoon of solicitousness for two days. She stayed in bed much of the time, Frances and Vera taking turns looking after her. Meals were brought on trays, the children kept from her room. By the afternoon of the second day, she rebelled.
"I'll go downstairs for dinner," she told Vera.
"If you're certain you feel up to it." Vera eyed her dubiously.
Samara dreaded having to face everyone, but at the same time she'd had enough of her own company and the dark circling of her thoughts.
"I blame myself," Vera said. "If Sal hadn't known where to look for you..." Tears shone in her eyes. "I love you very much, Samara. We're too close in age for me to pretend I could be your mother, but in my heart I am." She bent to hug Samara.
Samara hugged her back. "There's no one at fault except me. You mustn't blame yourself."
"I've always thought I might have saved Sergei if I'd been more observant," Vera said. "And now I feel I've failed you."
"You did warn me. I didn't listen--not to you or to anyone. Please don't brood about it."
Vera sighed. "At least Mark's gone."
"They--the police haven't found him?"
"Not only the police are involved. An Army Air Corps colonel from the base up near Merced, plus the FBI have visited us. The radio equipment has been confiscated. Do you really want to hear all this? We haven't discussed it with you because we weren't sure how you felt."
Samara wasn't about to tell anyone how her stomach knotted every time she heard Mark's name. "I need to know what's happening," she said.
"I seems he was part of an espionage network operating out of Mexico--that's apparently where he received the radio messages from. They think he was supposed he pass along information about the army installation at Merced."
Samara remembered how Mark vanished every weekend. To Merced? "Uncle Vince was right," she said. "He never trusted Mark." Talking about him made her sick to her stomach, but she knew she had to face the worst.
"Your father is terribly upset. He was as taken in...." Vera broke off abruptly.
"As I was?" Samara asked bitterly.
"As the rest of us. The FBI agent told us there's more espionage than people in this country realize. It's frightening--we're not even at war."
A vision of Mark saying, "Always a German first," flashed across Samara's mind. Well, she was an American first. She took a deep breath, vowing to somehow make up to her country for what Mark had done.
In September she returned to Stanford University because she'd learned she had to wait until she was twenty-one to enlist in any branch of the Armed Services. Though she begrudged the year of waiting, she involved herself with speech therapy, helping those with problems more acute than her own. She totally ignored the young men who tried to attract her attention and made no real friends among the women.
"They call you the Ice Princess--did you know?" Shirley, one of her casual female acquaintances, told her one day over lunch.
A thrill of pain shot through Samara as she remembered Mark had called her Princess.
"Don't you like men?" Shirley went on.
"I don't trust men," Samara said. "And I don't need them. I don't need anyone."
One of her professors found her a summer job as a speech therapy assistant in a Palo Alto clinic so Samara didn't go back to Hallow House at all, despite Vera's pleas. The Christmas holidays she'd spent there had been almost more than she could bear.
In the fall, she was offered an extension of her job and stayed on to work and attend Stanford part time.
On Saturday, December 6, Samara sat in her apartment rereading Vera's last letter: "We miss you so. I do hope you'll be able to come to us for Christmas. You know your father doesn't say much, but he was disappointed not to see you last summer. He still talks of the visit you had when he stopped by Palo Alto two months ago. He says you're prettier than ever. Yes, really--from your father!"
Samara sighed. Her father had also told her why Vera hadn't come with him. She'd had a miscarriage and been quite ill. Just like Vera to keep that from her, not wanting her to worry. Then there'd been Johanna's note, printed in large letters: "Why don't you like me anymore. I still like you." Going to Hallow House for Christmas seemed inevitable. She couldn't bear to disappoint those she loved, even though she was convinced the only way she could keep the past behind barriers was to stay away.
1941 was almost gone. She'd been twenty-one since August--what about her plan to enlist in the service? Was it her fear of leaving the safe, the familiar?
Sunday she rose late, turned on the radio to listen to music while she ate and was confused to hear a news announcer gabbling hysterically about Pearl Harbor. She switched to another station only to hear the same thing, more coherently said. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. American ships had been sunk, airfields bombed. War? she thought incredulously.
By the time Samara returned home for Christmas she'd enlisted in the Navy.
Vera, thinner, but enthusiastic as ever, hugged her, tears in her eyes. Her father kissed her, the twins clung to her, but Johanna stood a little apart, watching.
When she could, Samara went to her sister. "I still love you, Johanna," she said. "I always will. "I'm sorry I let my own problems prevent me from coming home more often."
Johanna only stared at her with wide gray eyes.
Samara, suddenly seeing the tiny baby she'd once been, helpless and unwanted, began to cry. She hugged the little girl, saying. "Jo-Jo, I did miss you--I'm sorry I made you feel bad."
Johanna relaxed, hugging her back. "I was afraid. Mama's been sick and Daddy likes the twins best so I didn't have anyone at all if you forgot about me."
"I'll never do that," Samara promised.
Vincent presented his surprise at dinner that night. "I've been accepted into the Army Air Corps," he told them all. "The notice came today. So we have two patriots at the table." He smiled at Samara.
"Oh, Vincent!" Vera ex
claimed. "The Air Corps."
"Knowing how to fly got me in. As a captain, no less."
John looked at his brother. "I wish I was younger," he said longingly.
"I'm glad you're not," Vera said. "Two Gregorys off to war is quite enough."
"When I get to be twenty-one, I'm going to join the Navy, too," Johanna announced.
"Let's hope the war is over by then," Vera said.