Dangerous Ground

by Grant, Rachel

  “Yes. Definitely a burial cave,” she said as she approached the remains in the center of the room. “As I mentioned before, there are known mummy caves on other islands. It makes sense that they placed remains here after they found an entrance—which we knew they did, because they had pieces of the meteorite in their homes.”

  “If they found a way in, it means there’s a way out.”

  She nodded. “Assuming it wasn’t covered up by the eruption fifteen hundred years ago.”

  “Even if it was, we might be able to break through, like I did when I threw the cobble at the crack in the wall.”

  She nodded as she kept her gaze fixed on the remains and their funerary objects. “The tools are made with hammered metal. Like the harpoon head. We’re certain now the metal is from a meteorite, so this confirms they were shaping meteoric iron into tools just like the Inuit did in Greenland.” She stared in awe at the tool assemblage. “Can you photograph the tools? Just the tools. Not the remains. That would be disrespectful. But I do think the Unangas would like to see the tools their ancestors made.”

  She scanned the walls of the room, and again, there were silver streaks. Had the Unangas found a larger piece of the meteorite in this very room? The size and number of metal tools—what looked like a knife, plus an ax and more harpoons with metal tips—indicated a good supply of meteoric iron, similar to what the Inuit had thirteen hundred years ago in Greenland.

  She hurried back to grab her pack. “Wait! Let me get a scale and north arrow.” She grabbed the plastic north arrow, which had one-centimeter black-and-white checkers, and set it next to the tools with the arrow pointing north—or at least as north as they could guess, given that the compass was thrown off by the iron tools, and volcanic rocks could have their own magnetism. It was more for scale than direction anyway.

  While Dean photographed, she took notes in her yellow field book, describing everything with as much detail as possible without physically touching the remains or disturbing them in any way. The north arrow was never placed near a bone.

  For several minutes, she was so engrossed in her work that she forgot their situation, until Dean said, “If this is going to take a while, I’m going to check out the stream and boil water for coffee.”

  She let out a surprised laugh. “I’m sorry. I went into automatic work mode there. I . . . I can’t believe I did that.”

  “It was kind of adorable.”

  “I bet it was irritating as hell. We need to find a way out of here.”

  “Hey. I’m all for making lemonade when you can. This will be important to the Unangas. With this documented, the cave will be protected, won’t it?”

  She nodded. “This find makes further exploration of this area completely off-limits. It’s a protected burial site on land that belongs to the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association. In the unlikely event that this part of the island were to be granted to the US Navy, it would then be federal land and subject to NAGPRA protections. One way or another, no one will be allowed to disturb these remains.”

  “Well then, anyone who wanted to exploit the meteorite find is going to have a problem.”

  She grinned. “Yes. Yes, they will.”

  “Should I make coffee?”

  She tucked her notebook away. “Between your photos and my notes, I’ve got enough. We can make coffee if you want, or we can try to find how the Unangas got in here fifteen hundred plus years ago, so we can get out.”

  The stream ran in a deep groove near the far wall, seeping in from a large crack above. It was three feet wide and just as deep, rushing rapidly, making Dean wonder if a storm raged outside. But then, it could be fed by a surface lake, and the flow wouldn’t vary with rainfall or snowmelt.

  They refilled their water bottles, both taking long drinks, then refilling again. They didn’t bother with water purifying tablets. No time to wait the required thirty minutes or so for it to work. Plus, odds were this was clean, given the flow was filtered through cracks in the volcano.

  Topped off with water, they decided to splurge and finish off the open Sterno can and heat water for ramen noodles and more coffee.

  Fiona leaned against the cave wall, holding her bowl and making happy sounds as she slurped noodles and broth. “When we get back to civilization, I’m going to check into a spa and get three massages a day and eat room service while I lounge in bed. And I’ll take lots of hot baths in a giant tub. In fact, I think I’ll eat in the tub too.”

  Every word from her mouth was a turn-on as he imagined joining her, giving her those massages. Lounging and eating in bed and in the tub with her. His menu would include her, and he’d explore her body with his tongue.

  He was thankful the lighting was too dim to reveal his erection.

  He knew she was attracted to him, but was it anything like the lust he felt? He couldn’t help but wonder if the lust was just a mental escape from the moment. He needed some good fantasies to keep him going.

  Especially since he was finding it harder to imagine Dylan waited at the end of this quest.

  It felt horrible to even think it, but he was slowly allowing the thought to stab him infrequently. Perhaps with repeated cuts, if the worst news came, the hole in his heart wouldn’t kill him.

  Once Violet had reached a certain stage in her illness that it was clear there would be no miracle, she’d insisted he start visualizing life without her. To prepare him. She’d had him sit by her bed, and hold her hand, and talk about the trips he would take and the things he would see. And those conversations had gutted him, but at the same time, the memories included Violet, holding his hand, asking questions. So when he was in Kenya, photographing elephants, he could hear her voice, asking him to describe the moment, and he’d felt her with him.

  And the visualizations had helped him to accept that he would have a life that didn’t include her. But he didn’t know if he could do the same with the brother he’d known in utero.

  As always, thoughts of Dylan blocked out the sounds Fiona made and words she said, effectively squelching his libido, which was a necessary thing.

  He tucked away his empty noodle bowl and cradled his coffee in both hands. “Do you think Dylan is dead?”

  The words came out without forethought. He didn’t even know he’d been about to pose the question.

  She set down her mug. “Please don’t ask that.”

  “Because I won’t like your answer.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. I have my own reasons for not wanting to answer, but I can’t share them now.” She sighed and added, “I can tell you this, though: I don’t want to give you unnecessary hope, and I also don’t want to take away your hope. That’s not my role here.”

  Part of him thought her role was that of guide. She was Beatrice guiding him through heaven or Virgil leading him through the nine circles of hell. Either way, without her, he never would have been able to navigate this island. He might have died the first night after the explosion, looking for shelter. But he said nothing, wanting to hear her thoughts.

  She waved her hand toward the human remains in the center of the room. “This is probably going to sound . . . out there. I don’t even know if I can sort it out in my own mind, but I’ll try. This is a sacred place. It’s not my religion or belief system, and I’m going to venture to guess it’s not yours either, but even so, I respect and hold the beliefs sanctified here true and real for this place. Right now, you and I, sitting here in this sacred home of the dead, are in a kind of in-between, not on the earth but in it. At a meeting place between the living and the dead. And . . . I just don’t want to speak words in here that speculate on life and death.”

  Her answer was so far removed from anything he’d expected. He studied her in the dim light and said, “You’re a fascinating woman, Fiona Carver.”

  She gave a nervous laugh and said, “I think the word you mean is ridiculous.”

  He shook his head. “Learn to take a compliment. I think you’re fascinating. In a go
od way.”

  She held his gaze, then finally whispered, “I find you a little too interesting, myself.”

  “Is there such a thing as too interesting?”

  “When something becomes an obsession, yes.”

  He wanted to explore that line of thought, but her words about the sacred nature of the space they were in made him feel a tad superstitious. He took her hand and threaded his fingers between hers. He brought the back of her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on her cold skin. “Thank you for not taking away my hope, and for not building it either. And for respecting the beliefs represented here.”

  He released her hand and added, “Now, I would like to get out of this in-between place and join the land of the living. After all, I promised you sunlight.”

  She smiled her beautiful, alluring smile. “If anyone can give me sunlight, it’s you.”

  Damn if he didn’t wish he could be Apollo and drive a sun chariot across the sky just for her.

  Three tunnels extended from the room, one of which was wide and tall and easily explored. They chose that one first, but the tunnel came to an abrupt end after thirty meters. The second one was tiny and narrow and would require a scout first, so they opted to explore the third, which was the channel the stream flowed through. It was risky, though, because they would certainly get wet following it, which could kill them with hypothermia far faster than they’d die of starvation. And if at any point the channel was only big enough for the water to flow through, they couldn’t risk attempting to swim out, as there might not be any air pockets.

  “You up for this?” Dean asked.

  “I think it’s our best option.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Someone once told me I’m amazing and I can do it. So I shall.”

  “Whoever told you that was absolutely brilliant and obviously a hundred percent correct about everything, all the time.”

  “And hot. Don’t forget hot.”

  He laughed, and she felt a low, happy ache in her belly at the sound.

  “Let’s do this,” she said and cinched her pack like she was gearing up for battle.

  Crawling through an icy-cold volcanic underground stream proved to be . . . not fun. But thankfully, the passageway got wider, not smaller, at least for a while. Then it closed in again. By the time they reached the point where it was too narrow to crawl any farther, she was shivering from being soaked through from knees to feet and hands to elbows.

  Dean was ahead of her, on all fours. Their packs were being dragged through the stream at that point, but at least neither she nor Dean was fully belly down in the water. The rapid flow made dragging and pushing the packs a little easier, in her opinion.

  He stopped abruptly, and she accidentally pushed the packs forward, and they slid toward him. She grabbed them so they wouldn’t slam into his back, aided by water.

  “It curves a bit up ahead. And it gets very narrow. So narrow, we might have to submerge.”

  That was . . . utterly and completely terrifying. “We can’t do that.”

  “But . . . I think I see daylight on the other end.”

  THIRTY

  Dean dunked his waterproof camera in the tunnel and snapped several shots. He pulled it out and looked at the screen, examining the photos he’d just taken, and tried to estimate the length of the tunnel. Twenty feet to daylight?

  There was only one way to test it. “I’ll put the rope harness back on, in case the current’s so strong that I can’t fight it and it pulls me down. We’ve got enough rope left for this, and I’ll need your help to pull me back if I can’t swim through.”

  “You’ll have to decide fast. Once you’re under, you’ll have, what, a minute to get out?”

  “It’s not a long tunnel. I can do it.”

  “But you won’t have room to move your arms.”

  “Dolphin kick, baby. Have I mentioned that I was captain of the swim team, and butterfly was my stroke?”

  “Oh my. I never knew that sentence could be so hot.”

  He smiled. Impressing Fiona was his new favorite thing.

  “After I’m through, we’ll tie the bags on the paracord line, and I’ll pull them out. Then you’ll clip your harness to the rope, and I can pull you through. The current will be on our side.”

  “We’re really getting out of here?” she asked. Her voice was sweet, hopeful, and sounded about ten years younger than it had five minutes ago.

  “I promised you sunshine.”

  Her grin lit the dark chamber. “Then take me to the light.”

  He stripped down to his boxer briefs—there was no point in getting everything soaked—but it wasn’t an easy maneuver, given that they were both crouched in several inches of icy water with no room to stand.

  She helped him strip and rolled the dry items in his waterproof raincoat. Then he did the same for her, helping her undress down to sports bra and underwear. Both rolls of clothing went into the center of the large frame packs, where they had the best chance of staying dry.

  It was strange to undress each other now, after the other intimacies they’d shared and two nights with only one sleeping bag.

  “Damn,” she muttered. “I told myself I was delirious when you stripped down in the plane and you couldn’t really be that ripped.”

  He laughed and flexed, showing off for her avid gaze, then letting his travel over her rapidly goose-bumping skin. “All I had until now was my imagination. You have exceeded it.”

  If it were the right time or place, he’d ogle Fiona’s hourglass shape, but those goose bumps meant they needed to hurry.

  But still, he paused when he noticed her gaze on the violet tattoo. He took her hand and pressed her cold palm to the ink that covered his heart. Words weren’t necessary as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek, with her hand pressed to his rapidly beating heart.

  He kissed her forehead, then released her. It was time to get out of here.

  He donned the rope harness, this time placing his arms through the loops and using a carabiner to cinch it at the breastbone. The rope was snug around his shoulders, providing the necessary leverage should she need to reel him back.

  “I’ll swim straight through if I can. If you feel the line slack, like I’m struggling to swim backward, pull hard.”

  She nodded.

  He helped her with her harness; then he tied on their last length of rope to connect them. It was the line he’d use to pull her through after he’d been freed. Last, he tied on two long lines of paracord, which would be used to pull the packs through the water-filled chute.

  They were both quaking with cold by the time they were ready, so he didn’t waste a moment. He positioned himself in the center of the channel, told himself this was just another day at the waterslide park, took a deep breath, and dunked, hands in front of him, arms outstretched with palms pressed together, how he’d always met the water at the gun from the starting block.

  The water was a level of cold one didn’t find at swim meets, but he’d jumped in enough glacier-fed lakes to know what to expect. He shot through the tube, heading toward daylight like a torpedo.

  The current was swift, but his body offset the pressure in the tunnel just enough for the pressure to back up. He thrust with hips and knees, letting his whole body absorb the ripple, a rhythm with the water that was as natural as breathing. His lungs began to ache as he kicked his way through the tight space. He was in danger of being a cork that plugged the waterworks, and he straightened, his hips and knees moving in a shallower, gentler motion.

  His lungs burned, but daylight loomed. He was so damn close.

  He hit the opening, but it was small. His arms were before him, and his shoulders scraped against the sides. He got stuck, his arms projecting into the outside world while water rushed over his head and around, threatening to drown him.

  He hadn’t come this far to drown at the final moment, and he kicked with his hips and knees as the rocks scraped against his sh
oulders. His head cleared the water and he gasped a breath before the next surge of runoff came.

  He kicked and wriggled and was pretty sure his numb skin tore, but finally, his shoulders cleared and his upper body was pushed out of the small gap in the hillside like a cork popping free. All at once, he was birthed from the volcano.

  The noon sky was gray as wind whipped across the hillside. He shivered at the instant cold of the strong wind on wet skin as he took in his surroundings. The stream babbled down the hillside in joyous freedom on the cold—frigid, really—late-summer day. He’d landed on a hillside on the North Pacific side of Mount Katin. A few feet away from where he’d popped out, the slope came to an abrupt stop, and the stream fell into a sharp, hundred-foot waterfall that poured directly into the icy North Pacific.

  If ever Fiona had taken a leap of faith, it was this. There was no way to communicate with Dean except for the pull of the ropes. When his harness rope went slack but then he’d tugged on it, she’d followed their agreed-upon instructions and tied on the packs for him to pull through. If he’d made it, he was naked but for boxer briefs on the side of a volcano, and she internally laughed and cried at the idea of him freezing his ass off.

  In daylight. Free of their volcano prison.

  She’d yanked the cord when the packs were tied and watched them disappear in the tunnel. Minutes later, the rope on her harness nudged her toward the dangerous stream.

  She wasn’t the swimmer Dean was. She didn’t know how long she could hold her breath, didn’t have faith her strength would hold up in icy water.

  She closed her eyes and remembered his face as she’d stood by that archway bridge a lifetime ago, and he’d told her she was amazing and could face her fear and quite literally cross the bridge she’d come to.

  Now she had to face a fear she didn’t even know she had. Drowning in an arctic tunnel trying to escape an Aleutian volcano. Really, was that on anyone’s bingo card?

  This game better have a stellar prize at the end. Like, it better be epic.

  She jerked the rope to signal she was ready, then counted to three and plunged into the icy stream.