by Ann Charles
Ruby shrugged. “My pop didn’t raise a quitter.”
“Back to this picture.” Claire grabbed the frame. “You’ve never seen any other pictures of this guy?” The passport photos couldn’t be the only other evidence of Joe’s cousin.
“Nope. What did Willis say his name was?”
“He couldn’t remember.”
Ruby snapped her fingers. “Maybe that’s whose name and number—”
Claire shook her head. “I thought the same thing, but Willis said the cousin used to come and go a lot, heading home to L.A. in between visits. The guy I tried calling is from Florida, his mother is the treasurer of the Key Largo Estates Association.”
Ruby whistled. “Sounds fancy.”
“It’s a trailer park.”
“So, we know the cousin is from L.A. Anything else?”
Claire wasn’t ready to tell Ruby about the three passports. If the truth turned out to be ugly, it could make Ruby’s life even more complicated.
“That’s it,” she lied, hoping she didn’t sound like she was up to her ears in bullshit.
Ruby seemed to believe her. “What are you gonna do next?”
“I don’t know. I figured I’d talk to Mac about it and see if he had any ideas.” That, at least, was the truth. “I saw his pickup out front. Is he around here somewhere?”
Ruby pointed overhead. “Still sleeping. He must have got home late last night. I didn’t even hear him pull up.”
“Well, he’d better be up and moving when I finish mowing.” Soda in hand, Claire walked backwards toward the curtain. The image of Mac, all skin and no clothes, lying on white cotton sheets, made her throat dry. “Because we have a date this afternoon, and if he’s running late, I’m going bone hunting on my own.”
* * *
Down in the dark, hand-burrowed caverns under the desert hardpan, Mac stared at the mine map. With his lamplight no brighter than a jar of fireflies, the scribed measurements and numbers melted together, the ruled lines crisscrossed.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his palm over his face. Dirt, sweat, and salt coated his skin, making it slick and gritty at the same time.
His bad luck was multiplying; his batteries were dying. The light on his hard hat had faded a few hours ago, and as soon as his lamplight battery died, he’d be left with two green glow lights, his lighter, a book of matches, and the candle he carried in place of a canary to test for poisonous gases.
He smiled in spite of the gloom, remembering Claire’s reaction when he explained candles didn’t react to gases the way canaries did, but they burned slower with less squawking.
Blinking, he shook his head, trying to focus on finding a way out of this tomb. Life was too interesting these days for him to rot away underneath this mountain.
The main exit was a bust. With the tons of rock and timbers blocking the path, there’d be no digging through the rubble. He’d tried that already, and wasted several hours and precious sips of canteen water only to have more of the ceiling crash around him.
That left two of the unmapped tunnels as his only chance of escape. The third, which was closest to the front, he’d ruled out after spending two hours exploring the labyrinth of side tunnels and false starts. The two shafts he’d found within it were filled with thick shadows his light scarcely pierced. His hundred-foot stretch of nylon rope probably would leave him dangling in them like a worm on a hook in a deep pool of blackness.
The other two unmapped tunnels forked off the main adit further back in the mine—where he stood at the moment.
After a game of eenie-meenie-mynie-mo, he stared down the tunnel on the left. “Looks like you win.” His voice sounded crusty, the back of his mouth coated with a layer of mine dust. The dull thud of his boots on the rock floor comforted him in a way only someone who’d spent the last eighteen hours alone in the stomach of a mountain would understand.
Every few steps, the floor dipped in elevation, how much he wasn’t sure. The mine’s musty scents had become commonplace, expected. The sight of a rat would have been welcome, another beating heart in the shadows. But not even rats strayed this far from sun and food.
He tramped deeper into the network of channels branching off from the main tunnel, pausing with every twist and turn to spray a directional mark in case he needed to backtrack. As he walked, the walls drew close around him until his shoulder brushed the rocks on either side and he had to bend over to keep his hat from knocking against the ceiling. Much too soon, his back started to groan in protest at being hunched.
Five minutes after that, the floor turned to water.
At the water’s edge, Mac lifted his lamp, searching for the opposite coastline. He found none. The only way across was to slosh through. But without any idea of the depth or distance of the pool, he hesitated. For all he knew, a hundred-foot-deep shaft could be the drain in this tub of water.
He stuck his fingertip in the glass-smooth liquid and sighed. Freezing—that figured. Not that he’d been expecting hot tub temperatures, but something an ice cube would melt in quickly would have been nice. The mine was root-cellar cold already. Add wet clothes to the mix, and hypothermia would surely follow.
Mac didn’t want to think about how many hours he had yet to play around in these passageways. Maybe he should go back and check out the last tunnel.
Toenails clicked on the stone floor in the darkness ahead.
What was that? Mac leaned out as far as he could without falling face-first into the water, his lamp dangling at arm’s length, and squinted into the shadows. Something glittered in the narrow band of darkness between the water and the ceiling.
Pebbles clattered up ahead, the sound echoing off the walls and water. Holding his breath for several seconds, he waited for a splashing sound to follow. It didn’t come. There was an end to the pool, but how far to the other side he didn’t know.
Mac sniffed. Over the smell of stale earth, he picked up a tinge of foulness and stepped back. The urge to get the hell out of there made his muscles burn, but logic held him still. It was a long way back in the mine for anything to be making a nest—except for bats, but that hadn’t sounded like a bat.
The clack of stone hitting stone echoed past him again.
Mac stared at the black water. The fact that there was something moving up ahead meant there might be another way out. If he ever wanted to see the sun again, he was going to have to get wet.
He grabbed a green glow stick in case his lamp died mid-pool, then shucked his clothes, except for his boots, and stuffed them in his pack. Now was as good a time as any to test if the bag was waterproof like the salesman had claimed.
Crouched, with his pack held above the water’s reach, Mac stepped into the dark pool. His breath caught as the cold liquid sloshed against his kneecaps. As he moved deeper, the water lapped at his thighs and the ceiling dropped, crunching him even lower.
He turned up the wattage on his lamp and searched for the opposite shore. The sight before him made him groan.
He should have brought his scuba gear.
* * *
“Where’s Mac?” Claire asked Ruby. She walked toward the cooler in the back of the General Store. “We have a date with a dog and a bone.”
She stood in front of the open cooler door while cold air chilled her arms, shoulders, and face. After spending the last several hours mowing, her sinuses felt stuffed full of wheat-grass and dirt.
Claire grabbed a can of Diet Coke and shut the cooler door, then snatched a bag of Bugles and a pack of Twinkies from a shelf on her way to the counter. The concern etched in Ruby’s brow made Claire pause. “What?”
“I thought he was with you,” Ruby said.
“With me?” Claire threw a five-dollar bill down for her goodies. “His truck is still sitting outside.”
“I know. I thought you two headed out looking for more bones in Harley’s car.” Ruby rubbed the back of her neck. “I haven’t heard a single floor board creak all morning. Then again, Jess has been he
re more than I have.”
Fear tickled Claire’s chest. She headed for the backroom. “Maybe he’s still in bed,” she said over her shoulder.
Jess pushed through the curtain before Claire reached it. “If you’re looking for Mac, he’s not here.” Either the kid had been eavesdropping from the other side of the curtain, or she had the hearing of a fox.
“Where is he?” Ruby asked.
Jess shrugged. She grabbed a Snicker’s bar from the shelf and tore it open. “How should I know? I’m just a kid, remember?”
Ruby and Claire stared at each other across the room. Ruby’s gaze mirrored the worry clenching Claire’s gut. The clock in the rec room cuckooed.
“His pickup didn’t just drive here on its own,” Ruby said.
“Maybe somebody drove it home for him,” Jess piped in, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrent of fear rippling through the room.
Her skin suddenly clammy, Claire chewed on her lower lip. That would mean Mac was still at the mine.
Best case scenario, he was sitting in the shade, waiting for someone to come pick him up.
Worst case scenario ... she gulped, wincing. “Give me the keys to the old Ford,” she told Ruby.
“No.” Ruby burst into action, racing from behind the counter. “Come on, I’m driving. Cover the store, Jess,” she yelled and rushed out the screen door.
Claire followed, tight on Ruby’s heels.
* * *
Lips quivering from the cold sinking into his bones, Mac forced his breath out slowly, evenly.
Water lapped at his neck as he squeezed through the narrow walls. The ceiling scraped the top of his hat. He felt like Alice in Wonderland, chasing that damned white rabbit through a doorway that kept shrinking.
Five crouched steps later, the ceiling dropped another two inches. Water rimmed his lower lip.
Six more inches and he’d be swimming underwater through a narrow pipeline of rock, a thought as relishing as a solid kick in the balls.
He lifted the green glow stick. The water level was too high to use the lamp, which was probably toast now that water had likely seeped into every crack in its casing.
His heart stuttered as the sound of more pebbles clattering rippled over the water, much louder this time. He was close. Not close enough to see anything in the dim, pale green glow, but close enough to know the stench blanketing him was from something that had once lived and breathed and was now slowly decomposing.
Swallowing the bile that kept creeping up his throat, Mac took another step.
But his foot didn’t connect with rock.
Surprise robbed him of breath as he slid completely under the water.
The glow stick slipped from his grip as he struggled to swim back to the surface of the shaft. The weight of his bag dragged him down deeper. He kicked hard, his hiking boots heavy as anchors, the inky blackness swallowing him whole.
His hand slammed against one of the shaft walls, the pain dull in his near-panicked state. Grabbing onto a ledge and pushing off from it, Mac propelled upwards with every ounce of strength in his bones. He broke the surface fast—too fast—and crashed into the ceiling.
“Oww!” He cursed in the pitch black, rubbing the new lump on his head. His hat must have floated off during his struggles.
Coughing out inhaled water, heavy with the taste of minerals, he paused long enough to hear the sound of whatever waited ahead for him and to get his bearings, then swam forward until his knee scraped against the mine floor. His heart hammering, he pulled himself out of the pit.
After his pulse returned to normal, he moved forward blindly, still crouched, not wanting to open his pack to grab the other glow stick until he could keep the water from seeping into the bag. His matches were waterproof, but his clothes and equipment weren’t.
Ten steps later, the water level dropped as the ceiling lifted.
Eight more steps and standing up straight was an option again. His bare knees shivered in the cool air. He breathed through his mouth to keep from gagging on the smell of rotting flesh.
The sound of wet chewing was noisy—too noisy. Whatever he was sharing the tunnel with didn’t seem to mind company.
As his soaked boots connected with dry floor, Mac unzipped his bag and pulled out his last glow stick, leaving the matches and candle stub as his backups. If this tunnel didn’t lead out of this hellhole, he was in some deep shit.
He cracked the stick and shook it. A rat the size of a Chihuahua, sitting not six feet in front of him, paused with its snout half-buried in the entrails of a maggot-covered porcupine.
Two beady eyes stared up at Mac for several seconds, then the rat hissed and returned to its lunch. It kept a close eye on him as it chewed.
Stomach lurching, Mac reached for the wall. His palm landed on a hard, sharp point. “Shit!” He yanked his hand away, rubbing it on his leg, and held the pale green light up to the wall.
“I’ll be damned,” he whispered, smiling at the sight before him.
* * *
Ruby and Claire bumped along the dirt road toward Two Jakes mine. The shocks on the old Ford squeaked in protest while dust filled the cab of the pickup, coating Claire in a gritty veneer.
Ruby slid to a stop on the shoulder and cut the engine. She turned to Claire, her face pale. “You ready?”
Claire didn’t waste time on an answer. She shoved out the door and was halfway up the hill before she remembered her blood was full of Ho-Ho deposits, and that there was an easier trail around the side that led up to the mine.
Lungs burning, she continued onward and upward, pushed by her need to see Mac again, alive and smiling.
Ruby was waiting for her at the top. Claire shielded her eyes from the sun. “You took ... the lazy ... way up,” she said between gasps.
A quick smile flitted across Ruby’s mouth as she caught Claire’s arm and pulled her up the last few feet. “Nice climbing, Rocky Balboa. You fixin’ to train for another fight?”
Gramps must have spilled the beans to Ruby about Claire sparring with Sophy on the bar floor. It was too hard to talk between ragged breaths, so she gave Ruby the finger instead.
Ruby patted Claire on the back and then stepped into the mine. Claire stumbled in behind her, but both of them stopped just inside the shadows. Claire’s limbs grew ice-cold at the sight of the rock and rubble piled high before them, plugging the mine.
“Oh, my God,” Ruby said, her voice weak, her usual spark missing.
Claire leaned against the wall, still working on catching her breath. “Now what?”
“I have to get him out.” Ruby grabbed a football-sized rock from the pile and threw it behind her. “It’s my fault. He’s in there because of me.”
“It’s not your fault. Mac’s a big boy. He can take care of himself, even in dark places.” At least Claire hoped so.
She watched Ruby pull another rock from the pile. “Ruby, stop. We don’t even know if he’s in there.” She glanced around, searching for some clue that would prove Mac wasn’t on the other side of God knew how many tons of rock.
“What do you want me to do?” Ruby rolled another rock from the pile. Her panic showed in her wide eyes and quick breaths.
“I’d suggest trying Morse code,” Mac said from behind them.
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday, April 22nd
The windshield of Harley’s Winnebago gleamed like a sheet of chrome in the midmorning sunshine. Mac pushed his sunglasses higher on the bridge of his nose. After spending the last fourteen hours passed out on Ruby’s spare bed, he was suffering from a post-hibernation hangover.
As he rounded the R.V.’s bug-splattered front bumper, a warm breeze smelling of cigar smoke wallpapered his T-shirt to his chest. A full-fledged sweat welled just below the surface of his skin, making him wish he’d thrown on shorts instead of jeans.
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Harley said as Mac paused in the shade of the R.V.’s awning. The aluminum lawn chair creaked as Harley le
aned back and squinted up at Mac.
“It looks like good ol’ Sweet Buns has risen from the dead.” Chester spoke around his cigar as he dealt cards across the plastic patio table.
Jess sat across the table from Harley with her back to Mac with Manny and Chester bordering her on either side.
Claire was nowhere to be seen. A pang of disappointment flitted through him.
“Howdy, Mac,” Jess said, turning around in her chair to smile at him, her cheeks dimpled.
Mac smiled in return. “Is Claire inside?”
Manny fanned his cards and shot Mac a conspiratorial wink. “Romeo is searching for his Juliet, I see.”
“Why are you looking for Claire? What kind of trouble has she stuck her nose in now?” Harley’s tone held suspicion.
“They’re going bone hunting,” Jess supplied in a sing-song voice while rearranging the cards in her hand.
Mac winced at her choice of words in front of this crowd of hecklers.
Gramps glared at Mac, while Manny snickered and Chester wheezed. Seemingly oblivious to the elbow jabs and choked laughter, Jess hummed under her breath as she adjusted the straps of her pink Hello Kitty tank top. Her ponytail swished over her freckle-spattered shoulders as she bee-bopped to whatever bubble-gum tune played in her head.
“A little early to be hitting the cards, isn’t it boys?” Mac hoped to change the subject before the old sparkplugs added several raunchy phrases to Jess’s vocabulary.
Jess laid her cards face-down on the table. “They’re teaching me how to play.” Her eyes twinkled like Ruby’s used to before Joe’s death.
“Aren’t you supposed to have your nose buried in an Algebra book right now?” Mac asked, and then regretted his question when a cloud shadowed her face.
“Ruby kicked me out until eleven. Some guy from the bank is coming over.” Jess pushed back her chair. “Watch these,” she told Mac, pointing at her cards. “I have to use the Ladies room.”