“You’d hate it. You’d try and stand on your own.”
Nodding, Ethan said, “I’d light out and wander the world. I’d try to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I could run my own life. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for me to encourage a woman who’s most of the way toward having a baby and who seems to be threatening to rush that baby into the world, to take it a little easy on herself. It doesn’t mean I think you’re a weakling.”
“Really?” Audra whispered the words.
“Yeah, really.” Their eyes met. Their arms stayed entwined.
Julia felt like she was intruding.
Ethan was a kind man.
“Julia, get in here.”
Unlike his brother.
“Hurry up.” Rafe’s voice echoed in all its tyranny from the cave. Then his head popped out. “It goes back a long way. We need lanterns. Ethan, you fetch the lanterns from the supplies and bring me a lasso. Audra, stay put and try to take it easy on yourself, and tend the baby. Ethan, once you get those lanterns, bring ’em in to me and Julia. The tunnel splits a few yards in. Stay to the higher path. Then you get back out here and look out for Audra. She needs to get some rest, and someone has to stand guard. Hurry up with those lanterns. We can’t go deeper without light.”
Ethan and Audra exchanged a look that spoke volumes as he eased his hands free of holding Maggie. Then he rose. “I’ll get those lanterns right quick, boss.” He gave Rafe a short, hard salute, and that smile was back. A smile that almost concealed the angry glint in Ethan’s eyes.
He headed for the horses.
They’d brought a lot of lanterns. Julia had already noticed the Kincaid men liked a lot of light. They’d all learned that lesson the hard way.
She eagerly climbed behind the aspen trees, where she and Rafe stepped back into the cave. Her eyes went to that fossil she’d seen last time, but Rafe caught her wrist and dragged her past it. Rafe’s broad shoulders almost brushed the sides of the cave, his head skimming just under the roof.
“There’s light up here.” Rafe kept moving. Julia knew they should have left all light behind by now, yet she could still see.
“There’s a hole overhead. See that tunnel, the one that goes down?” Rafe pointed.
“Yes.”
“I went that way last time because I heard running. But in this direction, there’s a good-sized hole overhead. It acts like a window in the cave roof.” Rafe turned another corner, and Julia saw him stand straighter. The tunnel was lighter and wider. He stopped. Julia came up and stood beside him. Once there, she saw a beam of light shining down on the stone floor. And on the floor were the remains of a fire.
She gasped. “Someone’s living in here.”
“A buffalo robe and a bedroll.”
“No saddle.” Julia realized what else was missing. “No horse. He’d have kept it in the meadow. How did he get so far from town?”
“There’s more. At the cave entrance I saw fresh footprints overtop of the ones we left.”
Julia looked back toward the tunnel. “So he’s still here.”
“Yep. Which means you can’t come in here. And, Jules, I’ve thought it through. This just isn’t safe to have this cave here. We need to . . .”
“Oh, Rafe, look.” Julia turned to study the wall. “On the wall here.”
“ . . . close it off.”
“It might be another fossil. These caves are a wonder. I could explore for—”
“To be safe, I think I should get some dynamite.”
“What!” Julia turned from the rock. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Nope, pretty sure I’m not. I’m wondering about you though.”
Julia abandoned her latest find. She battled with the idea of just yelling at Rafe until he saw reason. But considering his complete lack of respect for fossils, she doubted she’d live long enough, even if she died an old, old woman. She would try to use honey instead of vinegar. Though she’d never had much use for that approach—nor success with it.
“Rafe, that would be a sacrilege.”
“Now, Jules, I heard what you said about Noah’s Ark before, but—”
“Don’t you see?” She stepped close and rested a hand flat on his chest. “I could write a book about this. We might have, right here in this cavern, scientific proof of the Bible. Of a sort never found before.” As she spoke, she gained enthusiasm for her project. “I could bring people to a better understanding of God. I could lead lost souls to the Lord with my work. It’s not just about my interest in fossils. It’s about God allowing me to see a . . . a miracle.”
Rafe looked around the dingy cave. “God isn’t here, Jules.”
“Of course He is. He’s everywhere.” She clutched the front of his brown broadcloth shirt, her thoughts rabbiting around, trying to think how she could stop him from the travesty of sealing this cavern.
“No, I don’t mean that. Of course He’s everywhere.” Rafe rested his strong, deeply tanned hand on hers, where she held him. “There are people in the Bible who witnessed a miracle and still didn’t believe. There were people who received a miracle and didn’t believe. You think if you write a book about Noah’s Ark, that you found evidence of water in the high-up mountains, people will read it and be forced to admit there is a God and they should worship Him?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Rafe’s arms came around her.
She felt his strength. She knew he was a good man. But he just didn’t understand. “I can change the world with the knowledge to be found in this cave. I can help open people’s minds to God. I can—”
“This is not about God.”
She stared straight forward into his chest and felt a stubbornness welling up in her. “Yes it is.”
“No.” Rafe caught her chin and lifted until she had to look him in the eye. “It’s about you being alone.”
“What does that mean?” Julia tugged at his grip, but she realized his hand on her face was warm. She liked it. More quietly she said, “I’m not alone.”
“You’ve always been alone.”
“I’ve got Audra and the baby.”
“Now maybe, but you’ve spent your life trying to fill empty hours. And you’ve found something that is meaningful to you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“This is about you wanting to be—” Rafe swallowed hard—“wanting to be worthy of your father’s love.”
Julia felt like she was being forced toward something she wanted to avoid.
“I know because I spent my whole life doing the same thing.”
Their eyes met, and Julia realized she was being held in the arms of a man who might understand her better than she understood herself.
Rafe went on. “All my life I tried to get my father and mother to love me. Now, even with them both gone for years, I think I’m still trying. I’m still trying to be good enough, smart enough, hardworking enough to make them love me.”
“And you think I’m doing the same thing,” Julia asked, “by searching for . . . for . . .”
“For God in a cave?”
Shaking her head, Julia said, “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Searching for proof written in stone that there’s really a God, when you already know in your heart He exists?”
“But it’s not proof for me. It’s proof for the world.”
“The world’s got all the proof it needs. All that’s left is for them to accept it or reject it.”
Julia let her eyes fall shut. Silence stretched between them. At last she said, “You think I’ve wasted my life.”
“No.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead. “I think you’ve found a way to fill the empty hours. But you don’t have to do that anymore. A ranch wife has all the work she can handle. And there are people around who care about you and depend on you. And love you.”
She waited for him to include himself.
She waited in vain.
He was asking her to give up her life’s work and was offering nothing in return. At least her father had given her freedom . . . even if it was freedom rooted in neglect.
Without his pledge of love, she couldn’t abandon her fossils and geology. “I’ll make you a deal, Rafe.”
“A deal? About fossil hunting?”
“Yes, I want you to see what I’ve seen. I want you to go with me just once to look at the fossils I found in Seth’s Cavern. I want you to listen to my theories and see the fish and other evidence of water at the top of a mountain.”
“Julia, honey, I—”
“Rafe, I’ve got the lanterns.”
Julia thought her husband-to-be looked relieved.
“Bring ’em on in, Eth.”
Ethan emerged with three lanterns, one of them lit, and a lasso over his shoulder. His teeth were clenched and he was breathing hard as he delivered the gear needed to explore the tunnel.
Julia took a lantern, happy to turn her attention to something she was better at than inspiring love.
CHAPTER
15
“Ethan, you go back and keep an eye on Audra.” Rafe judged from Ethan’s expression and the speed when he headed out that he was only too happy to go. Rafe looped the lasso over his neck and under one arm and led Julia back to that steep downward tunnel.
He needed to explore all these caverns.
He needed to catch whomever was lurking around here.
He needed to get a cabin up.
He really needed to get the wedding over and done.
Then he had to make sure Ethan was handling things right at the Kincaid Ranch.
And to drive a herd into this meadow.
But first— He’d given this some thought. A lot of thought. Haunting, nightmarish thought. He wondered if that sloping tunnel would lead to the place Rafe suspected.
He’d stopped at that pit the last time. This time he’d go on if he could. Rafe started slowly, carefully descending, mindful of stone floors as thin as an eggshell.
“I’ve got no idea how far back this goes, but do you feel the breeze?” he asked. “And I’m smelling fresh air. I think this leads to a way out.”
Julia nodded. “Which means someone living down here will be hard to trap if he knows the cavern and has a dependable back door.”
Rafe smiled at Julia. She was a smart woman and she was his. He considered taking a break from all his planning to kiss her. But he turned back to the job at hand. “Let’s go.”
With the way that floor had broken under Seth all those years ago vividly in his mind, Rafe inched forward. The tunnel sloped downward so quickly the footing wasn’t great. “If it gets any steeper, we may need to tie a rope off. We’ve got to be able to climb back up.”
“It must be okay—there are still footprints.”
Then Rafe found something else. Torches. Unlit, rigged in the walls in a way that reminded Rafe of the way he’d done it when he was a kid.
“Let’s light these.” Rafe lifted the glass chimney of his lantern with a scratch of metal on glass and lit the first torch.
“Look.” Julia pointed at the flow of smoke gliding back the direction they’d come. A breeze was coming up from the depths.
“There’s definitely cross ventilation. That means this leads outside somewhere.” His voice echoed with every word.
The tunnel kept going down. Rafe lit any torches he found. The light helped, but still the roof seemed like a weight hanging over his head. Julia’s quiet steps echoed behind him, her little boots scraping on the floor, and he wondered if he shouldn’t go back. Get her out of here. What was he doing leading her down here? She was in danger. He should have—
“Do you hear dripping?”
He looked back at Julia. Then he listened. “Water?” The cavern seemed to press against him. He fought to stay calm.
“Could we have possibly . . . ?” Julia came up beside him and lifted her lantern to a spot in the low ceiling that glistened. She reached up to touch it and pulled her hand away wet.
She sniffed it. “It’s just water.”
“What else could it be?” Rafe had a sudden image of blood dripping down. He remembered how Julia had been bleeding when he’d pulled her out of the cavern. He remembered how he’d bled from the cut on his head so many years ago. Touching his scar, he forced the memory away. “Of course it’s water.”
“I wondered if it could be water heavy with calcium or limestone, dripping down, the same thing that forms stalactites and stalagmites. But there’s nothing on the floor to show it’s building up.”
“Well, it could be a spring.” The water formed a tiny trickling rivulet on the side of the tunnel, and ran downward out of sight in the dark. “But considering how far we’ve walked, mostly east, I wonder if we could be walking under that stream that runs between your cabin and Kincaid property.”
“You really think we might be under it?” She looked up and Rafe saw fear. He hoped his fear didn’t show.
“And if we’re under it, we’re not far from the cavern where I found you.”
She straightened and turned to look ahead. “This might be a back door into it. I’ve never been able to find one.”
Her fear had vanished. Rafe sure wished he could scare her good enough to keep her out of this place. Instead—
“Do you know what this means?”
Rafe knew.
“I can walk from a cabin built in that caldera straight into the cavern. Exploring will be simpler than ever.” She smiled, and the excitement flashing in her eyes caught the flickering lantern light and made her look just the littlest bit like a raving lunatic.
And he was planning to marry her. He couldn’t wait, which probably meant he was a raving lunatic, too.
“Let’s go.” She strode off, leaving him behind.
The little fanatic headed down the slope fast.
Like any good soon-to-be husband, Rafe had made his woman very happy.
He would have stopped and bashed his head against the rock wall if he wasn’t afraid she’d get ahead of him and maybe fall through the floor in some spot that was eggshell thin. Or better yet, find a place where a stream came gushing down from overhead to sweep her into the bowels of the earth.
“Look at this.” Julia pointed to a break in the tunnel wall. “There might be dozens of trails in here. Who knows how long it will take to explore all of them.”
Rafe raised his lantern and managed to light up a few feet of this side tunnel, but he couldn’t tell if it ended or just went beyond the reach of the light.
Rafe hurried to catch up to her, and together they went on downward.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the man went on and eased his gun back in his holster.
She’d come.
Moving in the darkness like a shadow, he slid his hand to his holster and knew he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers again. Maybe watching the man die would help loosen her tongue.
Rubbing his scars, he felt how wet his palms were and wiped them on his pants. He shifted his eyes between the light of the man’s lantern and the dark of this passageway. It wasn’t fear. His hands didn’t sweat because of fear. Down here he feared nothing.
Excitement—that’s what it was.
A tiny laugh escaped his lips, and he immediately stifled it. As soon as the man and woman went around the corner, he went back and doused the torches. He wanted pitch-darkness. He didn’t like them getting ahead of him, but it was necessary. When he made his move, they’d be left in utter darkness and that would put him in control.
He returned to the crevice where he’d almost been found and followed its winding trail to get ahead of them.
Maybe it was time to be done with his friend, too. He no longer served a purpose.
Now. Finally. It was time.
“It’s time to go back. Ethan might be worrying.” That sounded good. Make it about Ethan, or better yet . . . “And who knows if Audra might be getting nervous. We
don’t want her fretting when she’s so delicate.”
Julia just kept on going. Rafe ran his hand up and down the lasso Ethan had brought. He could rope her, hog-tie her, toss her over his shoulder, and be back outside in about five minutes.
She stopped so suddenly, Rafe ran into her back. Julia squeaked and stumbled. Rafe grabbed her and pulled her against himself just as he saw the hole in the floor right ahead of them. He backed away, dragging her along, wondering if the floor was going to collapse like it had under Seth. Then, as soon as that thought occurred to him, he pushed Julia behind him and dropped to his knees. Leaning forward with the lantern, he crept slowly forward until he could see down into the pit. The bottom wasn’t that far away. He rested his hand on an outcropping of rock beside him where a rope had been tied and someone had been climbing down.
Or up.
He thought of how, when he was here before, he’d kicked that rock and it had bounced and bounced as it fell. He looked at the bottom of this hole and saw a corner that was pure black. That rock he kicked could have gone on down.
As he studied the pit, Rafe saw something that made him feel like he was a boy again. “There’s a broken lantern down there.” He knew instantly that it had to be the lantern Ethan had dropped on Seth all those years ago. Well, it didn’t have to be. But it was. Rafe was sure. He saw charred remnants of the hemp rope he’d used to hang the lantern around his neck.
“Where?” Julia asked from behind.
He leaned down far enough to see the edge of the hole and nearly shuddered with relief to see solid rock under them.
“The floor isn’t going to break off. It’s safe.” As safe as this place ever got. “Come and look. Get down here.”
He wanted her beside him. He needed her here, to see what he’d done, what he’d survived. Julia knelt, and he held the lantern as far forward as he could reach, casting light in the pit. “See that metal down there?”
“Yes, it’s the base of a lantern just like this one.”
“It’s mine.” Rafe looked away from the pit. Julia turned to him. They were only inches apart.
“Yours? It’s all rusted. It’s been down there for years.”
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