by David Wood
Unlike his pursuers, Bones actually could move in silence and his long legs allowed him to move at a cautious pace and still close the distance in an instant. He didn’t need his flashlight—the men were silhouetted in the glow of their own lights, and it was child’s play to make his attack.
The man on the left was bigger, more muscled, and strode forward confidently, while the fellow on the right continually looked around, his nerves on edge. Bones judged him the less dangerous of the two, so he went after the bigger man first.
Clutching his rock in both hands, Bones clubbed the man across the back of the head. His knees turned to rubber, and he collapsed in a heap. His partner could only manage a “What...?” before Bones cracked him across the forehead.
With both men down, Bones bound them with their own shoelaces, stuffed their socks in their mouths, and gagged them with strips torn from their shirts. He then dragged them into the same place he had hidden only moments before. When this was over, he would call in an anonymous tip to make sure the two men were found. But for now, they’d remain here, where they couldn’t interfere.
He took a deep breath. Time to find out if he and the others were right.
Chapter 38
The others were still waiting when Bones returned. He gave a small nod and a thumbs-up in answer to their unasked questions and smiles spread across their faces.
“Jessie and I will go on down,” Bones said. He would’ve liked to take Padilla with him as well, but the rancher was needed to look out for the others in his absence. Besides, Jessie was the most athletic of the group, and would be better able to navigate her way through the caverns below. After a quick look around to make sure no one was watching, the two of them vaulted the rail and began their descent.
The path immediately fell into a smooth, steep decline, but there was no time to set a rope. They skidded down to the bottom, then regained their feet and moved on. After only a few steps inky blackness enveloped them, and they paused to strap on their headlamps before continuing.
They worked their way down to a series of ladders. Bones went first. The metal rungs were cold in his hands and slick with condensation, but they were sturdy. He descended quickly, with Jessie right behind him. As expected, she had no problem making the climb down. She moved so nimbly that Bones wondered if he should caution her against overconfidence, but decided against it. The girl’s doing fine.
By the time his feet touched solid ground he found himself on high alert. A noise had caught his attention—a scuffing of boots on stone. Someone was coming.
Jessie hadn’t heard. “What’s wrong?” she whispered
One finger held to his lips was his only reply. They moved to the nearest wall and pressed themselves into the deepest shadows. Soon, the beam of a headlamp appeared far above them, and then another and another. Bones relaxed when he recognized the person in the lead.
“Padilla,” he said
“What are they doing?” Jessie asked.
“I can tell you what they’re not doing: following orders.”
He waited, foot tapping impatiently, as the others hurried down the ladders.
“Don’t bother,” Amanda said before Bones could chastise them. “You didn’t actually think we would be left behind, did you?”
Bones grimaced. “I suppose not. Let’s get on with it.”
Matthew moved quickly through the meandering clusters of gawking tourists. He gritted his teeth, exhaled impatiently. His first inclination was to force his way through. After all, he had something important to do. They didn’t. But, he knew it wouldn’t do to draw unnecessary attention to himself. The Indian and his friends were somewhere up ahead. He’d seen the man’s truck in the parking lot. Matthew needed to find them, and be discreet about it.
It didn’t take him long to realize he would need help if he was to find his quarry before they got away. He looked around and spotted a man in a National Parks Services uniform.
“Excuse me,” he began. “I’m looking for a friend of mine and I wondered if you might have seen him.”
The man smiled. “I see thousands of people every day, so unless your friend really stands out in a crowd...”
“Oh he does, believe me. He’s about six-and-a-half feet tall.” Matthew held a hand slightly above his own head to indicate his quarry’s height. It galled him. He hated being shorter than anyone. “Indian fellow. Can’t miss him,” he added.
The man furrowed his brown, and he scratched his chin. “An Indian that big? Are you putting me on?”
Matthew forced a laugh. “He’s a big fellow, no doubt.” Matthew was finding it harder and harder to keep his grin in place.
“What kind of Indian?”
Matthew hesitated for a moment then understood the man’s question. “Oh! Our kind of Indian. Not the other kind. You know,” he pressed a finger to his forehand, “A feather, not a dot.”
That was the wrong thing to say. The man’s expression soured like milk left out in the sun. “Haven’t seen him,” he snapped.
“Hey I didn’t mean anything by that,” Matthew said, but the man was already walking away. “Dammit.”
“You’re looking for the big Indian guy?” a voice behind him asked. He turned to see two attractive young women smiling at him. Their black hair, almond eyes, and cocoa butter skin marked them as some kind of Chinese; Korean maybe. Matthew flashed an easy smile. He’d always wanted to hook up with a Chinese girl. Maybe this was his chance.
“Yeah, I am.”
“He’s a friend of yours?” one of them asked. Matthew looked her up and down before replying. She had a trim, athletic figure and straight white teeth. Her friend was equally cute. In fact, if it weren’t for the speaker’s ponytail, he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Were they twins, or was that just the Chinese thing? He wasn’t sure. “Yeah, he’s a friend of mine. Have you seen him?”
“Oh, we definitely saw him.” The girls giggled.
“He kind of stands out in a crowd, you know?” The second girl said.
“He’s pretty tall, isn’t he?” Matthew kept his grin locked in place.
“Yeah,” Ponytail said. “That too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you kidding? He’s so hot.”
“Scorching,” her friend added.
Matthew felt his grin freeze into a grimace. “Do you know where he went? We got separated.”
The girls nodded like twin bobbleheads. Ponytail pointed toward a nondescript stretch of railing. “He was standing there, and then when I looked again he was gone.” She made a pouting face that sent a shiver down Matthew’s spine. Man, she was cute.
“Don’t be sad,” he said. “Tell you what, give me your number and he and I will take you out for dinner later. How’s that sound?”
The girls exchanged glances.
“Come on. Dinner’s on me. Do you know of any good Chinese places around here?”
The twin tightening of the girls’ mouths told him he’d said the wrong thing again.
“We’re Korean,” Ponytail said.
“I know! I mean, that’s what I thought... I mean that’s what I said.”
She folded her arms. “Let me give you a tip. There’s nothing funny about casual racism.”
“I’m not racist. My girlfriend’s Mexican.” He didn’t need their exasperated sighs to know where he had stepped in it that time. The girls turned in lockstep, hooked their arms, and strode away.
Matthew only spared them a wistful glance before putting them out of his mind. He had gotten what he wanted. He knew where the Indian had gone.
Chapter 39
Padilla took the lead while Bones brought up the rear. They moved swiftly, the marvels of this, the Lower Cave, flashing by too quickly for them to admire. Padilla, who seemed to know everything about Carlsbad, pointed out some of the sites. In the Rookery, marble shaped formations called cave pearls covered many of the surfaces and seemed to glow with an ethereal light under the beams of their headlamp
s. Among the many stalactites and stalagmites were hollow tubes called soda straws.
“Tourists used to snap these off and take them as souvenirs,” Padilla grumbled. “Morons.”
They squeezed through narrow passages barely wide enough for Bones to fit through, crawled through low tunnels, and slid down steep inclines. Finally, they came to a halt. Bones felt rather than saw a large open space in front of them.
“This is the largest chamber of the lower cave,” Padilla said. “We’re going to have to be careful on this next stretch.”
“Why?” Jessie asked. “We are far below ground in total darkness.”
“True, but right up there,” Padilla pointed to a spot hundreds of feet above them, “is a place where people can look down into this cave from up in the main chamber.”
All eyes moved to the opening far above, where a faint yellow light shone. As they watched, a pair of tourists, at least Bones assumed they were tourists, moved to the rail and looked down into the chamber. They stayed for only a moment, unable to see anything in the darkness below, and moved on.
“What do we do?” Amanda asked. “We can’t cover that much space in the dark. We’d get lost.”
“We’ll use one light,” Bones said. “I’ll go first. We’ll make a chain. If anyone sees someone up above, just say ‘freeze.’ We’ll all stop, and I’ll turn out the light until they’re gone.”
“Sounds like a game you play at a slumber party,” Jessie said.
“You got a better idea?”
“Touchy, touchy. I wasn’t criticizing, just saying.”
“Fine. Let’s get a move on.” Instead of turning on his headlamp, Bones took out his Maglite with the red filter. It would not afford nearly as much light, but neither was it likely to be seen from a distance. “Everybody stay together and take small steps. I’ll warn you of any obstructions.”
Feeling like a mother goose trying to herd her goslings across a street, he led the group out into the cavern.
They moved slowly and steadily, periodically halting when they saw movement above. It was an odd feeling, standing frozen in place in the pitch black. Bones found his already-sharp sense of hearing heightened. At least, it seemed that way. He heard the out-of-shape Krueger panting, Padilla’s stomach rumbling, and Amanda muttering about how much time they were losing. Jessie remained silent, standing close to him and squeezing his hand tightly in hers. She was so close he even caught a whiff of her shampoo — coconut. Perhaps his sense of smell had grown stronger in the darkness too.
Along the way, they examined formations that were noted in the Book of Bones. These, of course, did not bear the modern names, but those assigned to them by Native Americans so long ago. The spot where twin stalactites and stalactites met, known today as Colonel Bowles formation, was called the Fangs of the Viper. The large, rounded formation was the Great Turtle. They went on like that, slowly finding landmarks, and picking their way across the cold, slick rock. Finally, they came to a halt on the far side of the chamber, where a mass of bat skeletons were embedded in the stone.
“If these are the stone bats,” Amanda began, “the last clue is the mouth of the demon.”
“I think we’re going to have to turn on our headlamps and hope we aren’t spotted,” Krueger said.
“Let me.” Bones took another look up at the opening to the main cave, scarcely visible at this angle. He thought someone up above would be hard-pressed to see them unless they were hanging out of the opening. Nonetheless, he would only take a quick look. He switched on his headlamp and looked up.
“That’s it!” Padilla pounded him on the back.
Directly above the mound of bat skeletons, a curtain of stalactites hung across a low, wide opening. Still higher on the wall, a bulbous outcropping formed the nose, and two shallow caves, perfectly spaced, the eyes.
“Do you think there’s anything back there?” Jessie asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Bones laced his fingers together, and Jessie stepped into his hand. He lifted her with ease, and she hoisted herself up and over the ledge and squeezed her lithe form into the largest of the openings.
“What do you see?” Bones asked.
“Come on up,” her voice answered. “You’ve got to see this.”
Chapter 40
Matthew froze and switched off his headlamp. There was that sound again. A dull scrape like someone or something moving through the passageway behind him. Bonebrake and his group were somewhere up ahead, but what could be following him? The lower cave tour only ran once a day, so there should be no one coming in behind him. Probably it was his imagination. Echoes of his own footsteps, maybe. Still, he quickened his pace.
He stumbled along, occasionally barking his shin and just barely managing to suppress a curse as pain shot up his leg. He was tempted to turn back. This place was colder than a hooker’s heart. The dampness soaked into him, and the oppressive feel of stone all around him set his nerves on edge.
More than once he told himself Bonebrake was on the wrong track. Carlsbad was such a popular tourist destination, he reasoned, that anything of interest down here would have already been found. But that wasn’t true. Certain sections were still being explored, and many were off-limits to the public. A man could spend a lifetime exploring the caverns and never learn all its secrets. It was the thought of Bonebrake uncovering one of those secrets, a secret Matthew had worked so hard to unlock, that kept him going.
A large cavern loomed up ahead, and he quickly covered his headlamp, allowing only enough glow for him to see a few steps ahead. He paused at the mouth of the passageway and peered in. He saw little in the blackness, save for a dim light on the far side of the cavern. As he watched, a large figure silhouetted in dull, red light, clambered a few feet up the cave wall and then disappeared from sight.
Bonebrake! He must have found a passageway of some sort.
Matthew smiled. He was on the right track after all.
“Is that your son up there?” Gilmour whispered. “I don’t want him getting in the way.”
“He won’t.” Jameson tried to hide the frustration that welled up inside him. He was fed up with Matthew. The boy’s antics had caused nothing but problems for the sheriff. As a youth, he’d been the town bully, and kept it up into young adulthood. That alone had kept Jameson scrambling to keep his job and deal with the aftermath of Matthew’s shenanigans. And now he was a grown-ass man, and he’d turned into the sort of person Jameson despised—an abuser and a cripplingly insecure narcissist. To top it all off, he’d run afoul of ICE, and put Jameson at risk too.
Hell, the boy wasn’t even his, though Matthew didn’t know it. He was the product of his mother’s affair, back when Jameson was drinking too much and paying too little attention to his home life. He’d raised Matthew as his own, done his best, and he’d failed.
“I’m sorry, Luce,” he whispered to the soul of his deceased wife, just in case there really was a heaven, and she’d made it in.
Gilmour stared at Jameson. The beam of his headlamp made it impossible to read the expression on the ICE agent’s face, but Jameson thought he knew what the man was thinking. Jameson had failed to keep Matthew in check, and he was now a liability.
“What do you think happened to your two?” Jameson asked, deflecting the focus away from his own failings. The two ICE agents Gilmour had sent ahead of them had neither been seen nor heard from.
“They’re morons.” Gilmour pressed his lips together in a tight frown. That was, apparently, the end of that.
They watched as Matthew stole across the cavern, stopped on the other side for a moment, and began to climb. A few moments later, the darkness swallowed him whole.
“Looks like there’s a passageway over there,” Gilmour said. “Let’s go.”
Jameson swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He dreaded what was about to happen, but it was the way it had to be.
Chapter 41
Jessie led them on hands and knees through a veritable for
est of stalagmites, their condensation-slicked surfaces dancing under the beams of their headlamps. A carpet of cave pearls set up a luminescent glow beneath them. It was like an alien world. Bones hoped that was a good omen.
Finally, the passageway came to an end.
“This can’t be it,” Amanda said. “I’m battered, soaked, and filthy. If it’s all been for nothing...”
“It hasn’t been.” Jessie turned and looked back at them. “Everyone scoot back a little. I need some room.” The young woman nimbly shifted to a seated position and, bracing herself against a rock formation, raised her feet and drove them into the wall in front of her.
The surface of the wall cracked. A few more kicks and she’d opened a hole just large enough for them to crawl through. She lay flat on her stomach and wriggled through. An instant later they heard her call out to them.
“You can stand up in here. Come on through!”
When they were all on the other side, they paused for a moment to enjoy the feeling of standing on their feet again.
“I don’t mind telling you that just about did me in,” Padilla said.
“It was like the world’s longest planking session,” Amanda agreed, wincing and rubbing her abdomen.
“So,” Bones said, turning to Jessie, “how did you know the passageway was here?”
“I knew it had to be somewhere. I mean, all the clues up to this point had been reliable. I noticed that the other side of the wall was covered with guano. When I took a closer look, I realized that the base of the wall wasn’t stone, but dried guano that had built up over the years.”
“That’s a bunch of crap.” Bones winked at her.
“That would explain why no one has found this passageway,” Krueger offered. “Explorers assumed they’d reached the end of the line.”