Hidden Motive

by Alexander, Hannah

  “I’m glad you remembered,” Sable told him. “This is a world all its own. It even breathes with the rise and fall of the barometer. That's why the air is so fresh instead of musty like you might expect.” She stepped over to a cranny where a whirlpool once flowed. “This is where one of my brothers tried to skin-dive and nearly drowned.”

  Craig laughed. “I remember that. Peter almost drowned me when I tried to get him out.”

  “Serves you right,” Sable said. “You and Randy and Peter played tricks on me all the time. Remember when Randy dressed up in that sheet like a ghost and jumped out in front of me down at the end of the soda straw passage?”

  “I remember he dropped his flashlight and broke it.”

  “What happened then?” Bryce asked.

  Sable grinned at Craig. “I turned off my own flashlight and found my way home in the dark.”

  “And left him down here,” Craig said. “He got lost and Sable got into big trouble, especially when she told her Grandpa she wasn't sorry.”

  “The boys had been picking on me all summer,” Sable said.

  Craig laughed. “You were spoiled.”

  “Why would you say that? Because I fought back and sometimes won?”

  “The rest of us would've had our hides tanned for pulling a trick like that. When you complained about the way we picked on you, your grandfather gave you lessons in street fighting.”

  “I never misused that knowledge,” Sable said.

  Murph turned to her with a grin. “Oh, really?”

  Sable smiled back. “I only use it when pestered, provoked, or detained in a dangerous situation.”

  “Happens to you a lot, huh?” Craig said.

  Sable and Murph shared a quick look of understanding.

  “Something good came of that incident,” Sable told Bryce. “My grandfather found another passage while they searched for my brother. He was ecstatic. He was always finding new passages and interesting formations.” And sinkholes. And…silver?

  She wished she had that map—and that she’d paid more attention when she saw the new marks on it. Unfortunately, it might be showing someone else where to look—if they knew what they were looking at.

  But how could anyone know? Only she and Murph were aware of the contents of her watch case.

  They entered the next cavern where the limestone ceiling had buckled, which revealed a gaping blackness above it.

  Sable stepped over a boulder and past a raised ledge where she and her brothers had often hidden from one another.

  The single passage split in two and a dry streambed angled downhill from the familiar limestone path.

  Craig stopped and aimed his light along the declining rocky bed into the darkness beneath a low ledge. “This looks like a new passage.” His baritone voice quickened with excitement. He turned to Sable. “Why don’t you let me check it out. May not go anywhere. If it doesn’t I’ll catch up with the rest of you.”

  “You’d miss a trip to the crystal cavern so you can crawl on your stomach over a bunch of rocks?” she teased.

  “Radical idea, I know.” He grinned at her.

  Craig and her brothers had always competed with her, and with each other, trying to be the first to explore a new passage, or to scale a formerly unscalable wall.

  “It could dead-end ten feet down,” she said. “If it goes anywhere, maybe you can show us later.”

  “Let me go with you, Craig,” Bryce said with teenage exuberance. “Please?”

  “If we’re late for lunch,” Sable said, “Audrey will—”

  “I’m going to check it out, Sable,” Craig said. “I’ll catch up with the rest of you.”

  “And me. I’m going with Craig,” Bryce said.

  “You may have to do a lot of crawling and scooting on the ground,” Sable warned Bryce. “You could get filthy.”

  “I'll wash these clothes myself when I get back to the house, okay?” Bryce pleaded.

  “Fine with me,” Craig said. “We can let Sable and Murph go on ahead, then we'll catch up with them if we can. If it gets too late—let’s say, after eleven—we’ll automatically head back toward the house. Sable, what time do you have?” He gestured to the pocket watch at her throat.

  “This doesn’t keep time. Murph, what—”

  “What do you mean? That thing’s always kept good time.” Craig raised his flashlight to peer at the antique.

  “Take my word for it,” she said dryly.

  He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m going to check this out.”

  She noticed Murph peering back the way they had come, the beam of his light poking into the shadows.

  Craig followed Murph's gaze. “Are you worried we’ve gotten you lost?”

  Murph inspected three more dark corners, then shrugged and joined them. “I thought I heard something. Simmons got up when I did this morning. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “He was in the family room before we came down,” Bryce said. “He played a game of checkers with me.”

  “He was still there when we came down here?”

  “He disappeared when I left to put my shoes on.”

  “I’m heading down.” Craig dropped to his knees and crawled beneath the rocky ledge.

  Bryce followed him.

  Sable watched them disappear into the narrow tunnel, listening to Bryce’s eager questions and Craig’s equally eager replies. Like a couple of kids. Craig was a grown man who could take care of himself. He would extend that care to Bryce.

  “So tell me where we’re going here,” Murph said.

  She aimed the beam of her light down the passage to their right. “This path wanders for about a half mile before it reaches the white room and the crystal cavern.”

  “The place Audrey mentioned to Bryce.”

  “Right.”

  “And you’re wondering why,” Murph guessed.

  “You bet I am.” As Sable led the way, Murph followed slowly, studying every shadow.

  After about fifteen minutes of walking at a turtle-like pace, Sable glared at Murph over her shoulder. “Hello? Are you sure you want to go on? You don’t seem—”

  “Come here and look at this.” He aimed his light on the clay trail. “Footprints.”

  “You heard us talk about all the times we came down here.”

  “But look where they lead.” He followed them with the light around a rust colored column and back out to the trail. “I think they're fresh.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Murph inhaled. “Take a whiff. Smell anything that doesn't belong in a cave?”

  Sable sniffed the air, watching Murph quizzically.

  “Cologne,” Murph said. “Simmons uses it instead of bathing. It reeks.”

  “You already know Simmons was down here, you saw him here yesterday.”

  “The scent wouldn’t linger that long.”

  “So maybe he came back down this morning,” Sable said. “Do you think someone really tried to attack him yesterday?”

  “No, I think he fell into the creek and his macho pride was hurt when a woman old enough to be his grandmother had to pull him out.”

  She stepped ahead of Murph. “Let's check out the crystal cavern before Craig and Bryce catch up with us.”

  “That’s the place that was salted back in the forties, right?” Murph asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  Sable led the way through a long narrow passage, the powerful glow of her light illuminating more formations, alien sights to most people but familiar to her. There was no path here but they traveled easily, except in a few places, where the clay was wet and sticky, or where they had to climb over a pile of rocks. Occasionally, the passage split, and Sable indicated the markers she used to find her way. At one intersection she showed Murph a whirlpool dome, and at another she pointed to a unique helectite formation.

  The passage widened at last. Sable hesitated before stepping into a broad cavern with a low ceiling and walls of
uninterrupted white. This white room had always seemed like a near-sacred place to her. The beams from their flashlights reflected from the smoothly undulating surfaces with a supernatural incandescence.

  Murph whistled softly. “No wonder you love this cave.”

  “This and the crystal cavern are my favorites.” She aimed her light to the left. “The crystal cavern is in there. See that ledge of rock above it? It's a natural bridge that leads from nowhere to nowhere. I used to hide there and jump down to scare my brothers.”

  Murph chuckled.

  The white flowstone passage opened into a larger cavern that angled upward to their right. Murph entered the domed room. Sable was about to follow when a soft sound arrested her attention—like the scuffing of a shoe on stone.

  As Murph disappeared from sight, she turned and listened. Had Craig and Bryce reached a dead end and decided to join her and Murph?

  She stepped along a dry streambed and around a curve in the passageway, then down a graduated shelf of water-sculpted stone. She circled another pure white column, then stopped and gazed down into the dark cavern where water had once splashed and swirled in wild agitation.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said softly.

  The cavern was almost dry. Stooping, she aimed her light into its mysterious depths. Sphalerite and galena glittered, shattering the brilliance of Sable's light into thousands of pinpoints, illuminating the cavern with the glow of a beam through a prism.

  She frowned. “Murph?”

  “Yes?” he called from the white room.

  “You might want to see this.”

  He rounded the corner quickly, his flashlight increasing the sparkle in the pit. “Did you find something?”

  “Look at the ore. There wasn't this much the last time I was down here.”

  “How can you be sure? When was the last time you saw this place without water?”

  “Two years ago. There wasn't this much ore.” She pointed to a chunk of galena about a quarter-inch wide. “Would you like to estimate about how long the water’s been depositing limestone over that ore?”

  Murph bent down to get a better view. “I don’t see any limestone over it.”

  “None,” she said. “I think this is recent. Within the past year—maybe even the past few months.”

  “Why would anyone salt this place?” Murph studied the ore, then turned and aimed his light on the quartz crystal along the sides of the limestone bridge above them. “Any theories?”

  “None.” She studied the flicker of her light against a white protrusion at the bottom of the pit. The protrusion was to the left of a stream of opaque mineral-rich buttermilk water. She thought of the analysis sheets they had found and wondered about the origins of that analyzed ore.

  She settled onto her stomach at the edge of a limestone ledge and aimed the beam of her light over the gleaming ore. “High grade silver would be black. Do you see anything that looks like it might be tarnished silver? Maybe a fine thread of black?”

  Murph knelt next to her and together they aimed their lights over the vertical sides of the cavern walls.

  Sable’s attention returned to the bottom of the cavern, where a set of matching indentations drew her attention a few feet from the stream. She aimed her beam directly on them with a frown.

  “Footprints,” she said.

  Murph peered over her shoulder. “Someone's been down here since it dried up.”

  “But Craig said he hadn't come this far.”

  “Can you trust his word?”

  She frowned. “Of course.”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “Peter and Randy both told me they’d been too busy to explore lately. Maybe Grandpa—”

  “Look, someone's been digging down there, too.” The ray of Murph’s light showed freshly disturbed earth and rocks.

  “Do you think—”

  The sound of scattering pebbles echoed from the darkness behind them.

  Murph swung around. “What was that?”

  There was scuffling and a movement of shadow from the natural bridge above and behind them. Rocks clattered down on them. Murph lunged forward to protect Sable from the rockslide and something—someone—shoved them from behind.

  Sable shifted to retain her balance and the ledge beneath her right foot crumbled. Her arms flew out automatically and she lost her grip on her flashlight. It bounced with a clatter against rock and earth and landed in the pit below.

  “Murph!” She fell hard on the edge of the pit and clawed at the limestone floor as she felt herself slip.

  Murph grabbed her shirt. “Sable!”

  She reached up and grasped his arm, arresting her slide. Then the ledge crumbled completely and she cried out as wet earth and loose rocks fell beneath her. She scrambled to get back onto solid ground but the earth continued to fall away beneath her feet. Sharp rocks dug into her legs.

  Something tugged at her shirt in the darkness.

  “Reach for me!” Murph said. “I’ve got—”

  The ledge gave way and her shirt ripped. Sable flung her free arm up to catch at Murph but her blouse tore loose from his grip. She plunged down into the darkness, fighting the mud, until she landed with a cry of pain at the bottom.

  Chapter 21

  Murph lay gasping at the edge of the pit, straining his eyes against the impenetrable darkness, his hands coated with mud. The distant echo of footsteps reached him. Whoever had pushed them was running away and stumbling over rocks as they went.

  “Sable, are you okay?” he shouted. “Sable, say something! Answer me!” Frantically, he felt around for his flashlight. “Sable!”

  He heard a rustle of movement several yards below him, and then a soft groan.

  “Sable?”

  No answer.

  He dug through the damp earth until he felt the end of his flashlight and discovered that it hadn't gone out, it had only been caked with clay. When he wiped it off the glow lit the cave once again and he pointed it at Sable. Her pale still face frightened him.

  “Sable!” he shouted. “You've got to wake up, sweetheart. You've got to hear me!”

  He searched for a rope, for handholds or footholds on the face of the cliff that had collapsed with her. Nothing. He studied the length of the ledge and beyond, to the bare rock face of the wall that circled the cavernous pit and rose above the ledge on which he stood. He saw nothing but slick limestone and fragments of the galena that had been scattered there.

  The pit was at least fifteen feet deep. He couldn't climb into it and back out without a rope and they couldn’t risk both of them getting stuck down there. Granted, someone would eventually come back and find them but what if Sable was badly injured? Murph might be forced to go for help. If only he could take her in his arms, hold her, make sure she was still breathing….

  Craig and Bryce might not even come this way if they found the other passage more interesting. He couldn't sit and wait. But he couldn't leave Sable.

  “Sable? Please say something.”

  He waited endless seconds, his flashlight still illuminating her deathly still features as her dark hair slithered like a living thing in the tiny stream of milky water beside her head. “Sable!”

  She moved.

  “Sable, wake up!”

  Her dark lashes fluttered and she winced.

  “Sable, look up at me!”

  * * *

  Sable's mind, foggy with pain, steadied at the sound of Murph's voice. She concentrated hard on his words, struggling against the dizziness that drew her down.

  “Murph,” she croaked. Her head throbbed with the effort to form her words. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine but I can’t come down there yet. Lie still until you’ve done an assessment. Did you hit your head on something?”

  Sable squinted up toward the sound of his voice and her blurred sight caught the ghostly shape of his head above the beam of his flashlight. “Did you see the person who hit us?” Her voice sounded louder to her
as the pounding in her head receded.

  “See him? I felt him.”

  “Was it a him?” Her voice drifted…

  “We'll deal with that later, I heard someone run away. It's you I'm worried about. Where are you hurt? Can you move your hands and feet? Come on, Sable, stay with me. You need to assess your injuries.”

  Sable became aware of the scratches on her arms, of the pain at the back of her head, of the water swirling close to her ears. She tentatively moved her legs and hips and then sighed with relief. “I don't think anything's broken. Except maybe my skull.” Her head throbbed. She wiped something sticky from her face. “That's…that's not blood, is it?”

  His light flashed across her face, momentarily blinding her. “Can you move without pain?”

  She noticed he didn’t reply directly to her question. “Blood, Murph. Is it blood?”

  “I can’t tell for sure but from here it looks like mud. Can you move without pain?”

  Sable groaned. “Have a heart. I can't even see with you shining that stupid light in my eyes.” The brightness eased. “Thanks.” She struggled to sit upright but the pain shot through her head with an unrelenting stab when she moved. She slumped sideways into the sticky clay and relished the comforting coolness against the side of her face.

  “Where are you hurt?” Murph demanded.

  “My head. I must've hit it on a rock in the water.”

  “Are you dizzy?”

  Darkness converged on her again. The cave whirled around her, scattering the beams of Murph's flashlight.

  “Talk to me! Now!”

  “Murph, I can’t seem to—”

  “You've got to try to stay conscious. Concentrate. Are you dizzy?”

  She lay still. “I think I'll be okay in a little while. I don't know where my flashlight went. Can you shine yours around and find it?”

  She closed her eyes as he searched, allowing the pain to wash over her.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I can't find it.”

  “Go get Craig and Bryce.”

  “And leave you here alone for the attacker to return?”

  “We need help now.”

  “If think you’re strong enough I could come down and boost you out.”