Burrows

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “They found a tunnel into all that trash you’re talking about. The deputy crawled partway inside and apparently triggered a booby trap.”

  Baker nodded, shaken. He absently tugged his ear. “That’s part of the delusion. They often feel they need to protect their possessions from intruders. If the building is as full as it seems from here, there may well be trails through the ‘collection’ and those trails may be protected by deadfalls.”

  “Great,” Cody said in disgust. “I think we’re way past the ‘may be’ stage when it comes to booby traps and deadfalls.”

  “Can you stay with us for a while?” Griffin put his hand on Baker’s shoulder to let him know they needed to get moving. “We may need you later.”

  “Of course. Do you plan to enter the building?”

  “Thinkin’ about it. How did they do it in New York again?”

  “Simple, they used a crane to remove the roof and ceiling, and excavated from above. But then again, they didn’t have…” he gestured with his hand, “a victim to deal with.”

  “We can’t do that tonight.” Cody thought back to his military days, trying to come up with an alternative plan. “When someone discovered a tunnel in Nam we tried to force smoke into them to find entrances and exits. Once we identified an entry point and it was secured, we used tear gas to flush out any enemy troops. Then we destroyed the entrances with explosives.”

  “We don’t have any smoke grenades on hand, and I’m afraid we might set fire to the place,” Griffin reminded him. “This isn’t war, Cody.”

  “Not yet.”

  Blair spat. “I know a guy who keeps bees.”

  “There ain’t enough beekeeper smoke in the county to find out what’s going on in there.” O.C. waved at an annoying fly in front of his face.

  “None of that matters right now.” Cody’s thumb absently rubbed the safety on his pistol. “I’ll go in and see if I can get to Andrews. If it doesn’t work, I’ll come out and you can push the place over with a bulldozer if you want, or pull it apart with a crane.”

  “You’ll need to hurry. We don’t have much more good weather.” Ned pointed upward. There wasn’t a breath of wind. “That norther will be here in a few minutes and it’s gonna get ass-chillin’ cold. And me without a coat.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Piles of tin cans, broken desks, stacks of surveyor’s stakes, thousands of moldering books…

  ***

  Police Chief Mayhew picked up a brand new three-channel Realistic radio from the card table and held it out to Cody. “Here. Take this in with you.”

  “A walkie talkie? I’ve never see one like this before. You sure it ain’t a kid’s toy?”

  “Nope, it’s a radio. It’s the newest thing out there and we only have two of them on the force. When you talk in it, I’ll hear on this one, along with everyone from dispatch to our car radios. We can keep in touch while you’re inside.”

  Cody held the heavy radio in his hand, thinking it probably wouldn’t work. “I can give it a shot. I really wish I had one of them wrist telephones they draw in the Dick Tracy cartoons.”

  “They aren’t likely to come up with a telephone you can put in your pocket before tomorrow morning, so forget about the funny papers,” Ned said.

  Griffin met Cody’s eyes. “You ready?”

  A shiver ran down Cody’s spine and he stared at the old building with a heavy sense of dread, knowing if he didn’t start right at that moment, he wasn’t going.

  Memories washed over him like ocean waves as he finally trotted across the brightly lit street, dodging around a dented washing machine. He jumped lightly onto the sidewalk, moving past a rusting refrigerator and a rotting kitchen cabinet like the one in Miss Becky’s kitchen. The entire time he expected to feel the impact of a bullet or the blast from an explosion.

  He stepped past a watering trough full of bald tires and arrived at the hole in the foundation. The entrance was so narrow he found it hard to imagine it was intended for people at all.

  In Vietnam, entering a tunnel system was a very risky, and potentially deadly, business. Usually armed only with a pistol or a knife and a flashlight, Cody Parker spent uncounted hours in the pitch black, suffocating hell, playing a deadly game of hide and seek with a usually unseen enemy.

  In one fluid movement Parker crouched and wriggled inside. His body blocked most of the illumination from the spotlights. He flicked on the flashlight and aimed it into the darkness ahead.

  Brows knit, Cody searched for potential dangers. In Nam, the Viet Cong sometimes mined tunnel entrances or concealed firing positions within the first few yards.

  Back then, carefully probing the subterranean passageways was second nature to Cody and his fellow tunnel rats as they gently inched their way along. Any number of indicators would cause him to hesitate or even back out; wires, unusual tree roots, or a glimpse of something that simply wasn’t right. Anything that could detonate a booby trap had to be rendered harmless.

  The same triggers might be hidden in the drain-size burrow around Cody. Like the rest of the building, the thirty inch crawlspace was packed to the joists only inches above his head. Bundles of magazines and cardboard boxes pressed in from all sides. One of the rotting boxes had split, spilling bushels of musty-smelling walnuts still in the hulls. The cramped, littered aisle led directly toward the center of the building.

  Growing up in an old pier-and-beam house, Cody was confident the passageway ended under a trap door, probably located somewhere deep inside the Exchange. Unlike most of the houses in the northern part of the country, very few homes in Lamar County had basements. Poor soil conditions and shifting clay required support structures designed to move and breathe with the ground’s expansion and contraction during wet or dry seasons. The open foundations allowed air to circulate beneath the southern structures while at the same time making electrical and plumbing repairs much easier.

  Cody was confident that large buildings were constructed in a similar fashion and he’d find the same underpinnings, only made of larger and more substantial materials.

  Grunting, Cody slowly dragged himself along on his elbows while used and stained paper plates gathered around his body. Each time he pushed with a knee, garbage rustled underneath. It smelled like an animal burrow, musky and humid. He constantly moved the flashlight and peered into darkened crevices, searching for anything suspicious.

  His combat instincts returned without thought. Every movement came with natural ease, as if crawling through trash was an everyday act.

  The tunnel made a left turn…a secure move for the builder. If there had been any doubt about why the tunnel was created, it was eliminated by predictable engineering. The passage angled, weaving around a variety of obstacles such as support pillars, stacks of building materials, and an unimaginable collection of refuse. The layout made shooting in a straight line impossible and helped deflect explosive blasts from grenades.

  Common sense said he should heed Griffin’s warning and back out when he encountered the curve, but like Andrews, Cody simply wanted to see around the corner.

  Progress was slow. Crawling through what he came to think of as a narrow burrow, and knowing an armed enemy wanted to kill him, was a stressful, nerve-racking job, pushing his mental state to its limits.

  Pressure plates would be the obvious triggers to booby traps and it dismayed Cody as he turned the corner to see that someone had covered the tunnel floor with slick cardboard to make crawling easier. Unfortunately, it also hid any number of tripping devices. His sweaty right hand full of pistol, Cody searched for hidden tripwires. He knew pressure-sensitive panels would be undetectable until it was too late. Cold sweat gathered on his forehead at the thought of explosives. Had someone been able to get their hands on dynamite or grenades?

  Besides explosives, he also worried about other, equally nasty surprises. In the Viet Cong tunnels, living booby traps ranging from scorpions to snakes were a constant threat.

  The frighten
ed deputy stopped to rest. Already his neck ached from the awkward angle, another reminder of the past he longed to forget.

  I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this. All because Andrews opened a door that should have stayed shut.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Antiquated farming equipment, dozens of plowshares and hames; nuts, bolts, and screws in every conceivable container; tube radios, boxes of 78 rpm records beside a windup gramophone were only a few items filling one entire story all the way to the ceiling….

  ***

  “John.” O.C. Rains waved his deputy over.

  “Yessir?”

  “I don’t like him in there by himself and he’s already gone past where he should have stopped.”

  “I’s thinking the same thing myself Judge.”

  Ned joined the two. “What are y’all whispering about?”

  John picked at his shirt buttons. “I don’t like Mr. Cody in there alone, Mr. Ned.”

  “Well, you’re too damn big to go in after him.”

  “Y’all keep telling me that. But I believe I’ll strip down and join him anyways.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Wouldn’t-a said it if it wasn’t.” John finally reached a decision and unbuttoned his shirt.

  Griffin finally overheard their conversation. “It’d be bad to put two men in danger.”

  “One can help the other’n,” Ned said.

  Griffin picked up the walkie talkie and weighed it in his hand. His indecision was obvious. “Y’all think that’s what we ought to do?”

  Chief Mayhew shrugged. He was through making suggestions that no one listened to.

  John peeled off his shirt and draped it over a hood.

  Griffin keyed the button. “Cody, can you hear me?”

  Inside the tunnel, the disembodied voice caused the agitated young man to nearly fire off a shot in the darkness. He’d carefully worked his way around the corner and was faced with a slightly wider but very similar tunnel. He fumbled with his walkie talkie and pushed the transmit button.

  “Goddamn it!” he hissed into the speaker. “Who is this? You do that again and I’ll crawl out of here and shoot your ass off, understand?”

  Down to his sleeveless undershirt shirt, Big John grinned at Sheriff Griffin’s shocked expression. The angry outburst was heard by everyone within earshot of a radio. Griffin quickly realized the open channels would be a potential problem when he heard Cody’s voice from every direction. The crowd around him chuckled at the young man’s raw comments.

  Shamed by his thoughtlessness, Griffin keyed the mike. “All right. Sorry. We weren’t thinking.”

  “I contact you!” Cody snapped. “It doesn’t work the other way around. What do you want?”

  “I wanted to tell you John Washington is coming in with you. If you get into trouble he can help.”

  Cody closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his forearm. He didn’t need someone outside to think for him. “No way. This tunnel is too small and he doesn’t have any experience. If I get into trouble, he won’t know what to do. He’ll be in the way.”

  John overhead the conversation and quickly stepped around the patrol car. He unbuckled his belt and removed his holster. Glancing back over his shoulder, John thumbed the safety strap and drew his .38.

  “Let me borrow that for a second, Leon.” Before the surprised deputy could respond, John grabbed the flashlight from his hand and hurried toward the burrow’s entrance.

  Blair frowned. “I’d listen to him sir…”

  His sentence was cut short when Sheriff Griffin saw John running toward the Cotton Exchange. “Hey! John! Stop! Wait a minute, Cody don’t want you in there!”

  Without a backward glance, John knelt at the foundation, flicked his hat off with a finger, and entered the burrow behind Cody.

  “Somebody stop him!”

  O.C. Rains held up a hand. “They ain’t none of y’all man enough to stop that deputy.”

  “Cody!”

  Deep inside the tunnel, still another unexpected voice only yards away nearly gave Cody’s a heart attack. He’d carefully worked his way around the corner into a slightly wider, but very similar tunnel. He jerked at a sudden sound behind him. Because the burrow was so narrow, he was unable to turn around.

  “Goddamn it!”

  “It’s only me!” John crawled quickly through the burrow to catch up with Cody.

  “Shhhh. Talk lower. What are you doing in here?”

  “They was fixing to send somebody in.” John’s deep voice, though soft, still filled the stale air of the tunnel. “I figured you’d rather have kinfolk helping.”

  Cody almost grinned at the reference. “No way. This tunnel is too small and you don’t know what to do.”

  “Too late. I’m already inside.”

  Cody thought for a long moment. “Kinfolk?”

  “Yeah, you know how it is. Woodpiles and all.”

  Thinking, Cody lightly tapped his flashlight against a bundle of yellowed newspapers beneath his hand before he realized what he’d done. “Great. Now I can blow two of us away.” Once he was forced to stop and think about his situation, the horrific mass filling the structure raised goose bumps on his arms. “Get out of here.”

  “They’ll send somebody else.”

  “Tell them I don’t want anyone in here with me.”

  “Listen Mr. Hard-head, let’s you and me get through this mess and get it over with, or go back out right now.”

  The hairs on the back of Cody’s neck tickled. It wasn’t John’s uncharacteristically forceful comment. It was that sixth sense people often have in strange or stressful situations. “John, don’t move.”

  “What is it?” John whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Cody’s voice was so low John could barely hear him. “But I got a bad feeling. We need to get out of here and not after a while, either. We’ve got to get shut of this place right now.”

  “Just ’cause I’m in here…”

  “No!” Cody said sharply, louder. “We have to get out now. Back out right now!”

  They heard a slithering noise. Cody couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but it sounded like someone else was crawling through the mess with them, mere feet away, through the other side of the stacked and piled junk wall.

  Hearing the terror in his voice, John knew something bad was about to happen. He began to worm backward, knowing instinctively that it would be a slow, painful process.

  A soft, muffled giggle came through the boxes above and to the right, followed by a quick rustle and sudden silence. Cody mimicked John’s actions and scooted backwards until John’s left foot hung on a piece of junk that momentarily refused to yield. When it did, a small thunk made Cody’s stomach drop.

  A frantic scrabbling not far away was drowned as a hidden release triggered a deadfall behind them, dropping nearly a ton of debris into place over the burrow’s entrance, effectively blocking their escape.

  The very real horror of being buried alive almost overwhelmed them. Choking dust rolled through the burrow like a tidal wave, dimming their flashlight beams and showering the two men with debris. John yelled into his folded arms and ducked, expecting to be crushed under tons of common, everyday junk.

  The resulting cave-in sounded as if the Exchange was falling in. Timbers creaked deep inside the structure like those of a wooden sailing ship as they accepted and adjusted to changing stresses far overhead.

  They were sealed inside.

  Chapter Thirty

  Empty cans that once contained a variety of foods, worn out hand tools, bedsteads, china cabinets; rolls of use chicken, hog, and barbed wire…

  ***

  Chisum’s local Channel 12 claimed the prime location when they first arrived, and the Sherman station was setting up across the street. The radio station’s reporter crept as close as possible with his recorder to the knot of lawmen surrounding the folding table. Reporters from The Chisum News, The Sherma
n Democrat, and the Greenville Herald-Banner interviewed the neighborhood’s residents, crowding the perimeter held by Chisum police.

  The calm weather ended. A hard wall of jarringly cold wind suddenly blasted through town. A Texas blue norther can drop the temperature fifty degrees in an hour. One minute the night was still and comfortable, then with a rustle of leaves the wind howled out of the north, chilling everyone.

  It snatched up everything not held down and carried it off in seconds. Voices shouted in shock. Cursing, men quickly rolled down their sleeves. Those prepared for the weather hurried to their cars for coats and jackets.

  Despite the chaos around them, the sheriff’s department and Chisum’s police force worked calmly toward a solution. Sheriff Griffin and Judge Rains huddled against the arctic air behind a fire truck and were deep in conversation when a muffled explosion came from inside the Exchange.

  Dust and debris poured through the heavily guarded entrance to the crawlspace as if shot from a cannon. The silence outside was deafening for a full five seconds. The stunningly cold wind forgotten for a moment, everyone stood stock still and stared at the Exchange colored by flashing lights from police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.

  Someone screamed. A searchlight found the blocked opening and the dust cloud that was quickly snatched away. A cacophony arose from the spectators and news people when wind swept the huge cloud of dust over the crowd as they squinted to protect their eyes.

  Already chilled to the bone, Griffin examined the foundation through his binoculars. “It’s completely blocked.” He motioned at one of his deputies. “Get me a couple of engineers on site. I want to find out how long it’ll take to clear that entrance. And somebody get me a damned coat.”

  Hands in his pants pockets, Ned stared in shock at the Exchange. “I hope those boys have air, if they lived through that.”

  O.C. shivered, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or unease. “My lord.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Lard tins carefully saved in pasteboard boxes, wormy candy decades out of date, a free-standing kitchen cabinet, a wooden icebox, broken dishes, crockery, panes of dusty and streaked glass. The plan had been to draw Cody inside all along, and Kendal was ecstatic to find him there after all.