In Too Deep

by Mary Connealy

  “Stop!” Ethan’s hand landed hard on Seth’s upper arm.

  Seth straightened and the terror and madness was suddenly gone. He looked down at Ethan’s hand on his arm, then looked at Julia and smiled. “When are we going down into the cavern again? I really wanted to go today.”

  Audra saw the anguish on Ethan’s face at Seth’s slim grasp on sanity. Audra couldn’t stand it. Maggie was done eating, so Audra let her get down and slipped into the chair next to Seth and laid one hand on his shoulder, drawing his wild blue gaze to her.

  “Seth, honey, we can talk about the cavern if you want to, but not now. Ethan is worried about you. We all are.”

  “Why? I’m fine.” Seth smiled, but Audra saw a fine trembling in his body that was anything but fine.

  Unable to resist the urge, Audra drew Seth into her arms and hugged him.

  He froze. “What are you doing?” His head drew back, though he didn’t push her away from him.

  Audra met his eyes, then pulled him closer. “Just let me give you a hug. Did you know I have a little brother?”

  “You talked about wanting to bring him out West. I remember. You’ve got a little sister, too.” Seth’s hands hung at his sides. It was an awkward hug, but Audra held on.

  Audra looked over Seth’s shoulder at Ethan, who was watching them with one brow arched and his mouth twisted in what, for once, could not be considered a smile.

  “Yes. I have a little brother named Isaac. I have a sister, Carolyn. When I married Wendell, I got Julia as a daughter, and my sister Carolyn became Julia’s aunt, even though she is much younger than Julia. And when I married Ethan, I got two more brothers and Julia as a sister.” Audra pulled back so both hands were resting on Seth’s broad shoulders.

  Seth lifted one shoulder. “I like having a big sister. ’Cept you’re a puny thing. Not much big about you.”

  Audra smiled. “You’re part of my family now.” Then her smiled faded. “And I’m worried about my little brother . . . you. I hate that you’re having nightmares. I hate that you saw awful things in the war and were shot and imprisoned.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “You were starved half to death and it took you over a year to get home, a year you say you can’t remember. Then you went into that cavern instead of coming to the ranch, when you had to know how to get here. That sounds pretty bad to me.”

  “I guess it does.” Seth was really listening, she could tell.

  Seth needed a firm grasp on reality. Audra wasn’t sure if listing all that was wrong with him was a good idea or not, so she prayed silently for guidance, then followed her instincts and just spoke honestly.

  “We worry about you in that cavern, that it has some kind of . . . of unhealthy hold on you.”

  “Audra . . .” Julia wanted Seth to help her. Audra knew it.

  “Maybe facing the cavern is better than avoiding it. But face it clearheaded. You remember that Tracker Breach, the man who was down there with you, was feeding you laudanum.”

  “He was?”

  Audra sighed internally, wondering just how shaky a grip Seth really had on sanity. “Yes, so a lot of what happened, including the fact that you were in that cavern so long, can be blamed on the drugs he gave you. But now your head is clear and we ask you about the war and you drift into talk of the cavern and the accident you had when you were so young, falling into a pit, being on fire. Ethan’s injuries last night only make it worse for you. We love you, Seth, and we want you to be strong and . . . and healthy.”

  “You love me?” Seth’s voice held a note of wonder.

  Audra realized that it was true. She did love him, as a little brother and as a child of God. She loved Ethan too, but in a different, more wonderful way. Rafe, well, maybe, sort of, sure. He was scary, though. But he was a great husband for Julia. Perfect, in fact.

  “Of course I do.” Unable to stop herself, she pulled Seth back close. Strange to hold a grown man. One she wasn’t married to. She thought of the completely different feeling she got when Ethan held her in his arms.

  When Audra eased back again, she squared her shoulders and looked between Ethan, Rafe, and Julia. “For Seth to heal, we need a more peaceful life. So we need to find out who is after whatever fortune Wendell supposedly stole, and then settle with that man who’s after it.”

  Audra looked hard at Julia. “How are we going to do that?”

  “We’ve talked about it.” Julia leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. “We just can’t remember Father carrying anything that could have amounted to a fortune. But he must have.”

  “I think maybe, somehow, Wendell found that cavern and hid the money down there.” Audra looked at Seth. “Is that possible? How could he have found that place?”

  “The cavern wasn’t a secret really,” Ethan said with a shudder. “I’d never heard of that entrance in Rafe’s mountain valley, but the hole we used to climb down could have been known in town. Your pa could have heard of it.”

  “But does anyone really know the cavern except you Kincaid boys?”

  “I know it quite well,” Julia reminded her. “Of course I don’t know the depths of it. There is a lot more to explore.”

  “I don’t know it at all.” Ethan spoke too quickly.

  “You hate it, but that’s not the same as not knowing it,” Rafe said. “We hunted around down there for a few years before Seth’s accident. I kept going down, and Seth explored it more than anyone. But I’ll bet you know it better than Wendell could have in the short time he’d’ve had to explore.”

  “Which means, Ethan, you know it well enough to help with this.” Audra frowned. “In fact, I’m the only one here who doesn’t know the cavern well. I’ve never been in it except for that time Seth took Maggie down there.” She resisted the urge to slug him. It made her realize she was starting to think of him as a brother. “So, let’s pretend like I’m Wendell. I’m going down to a cavern I’ve heard a rumor about. We figure he went down that hole where Julia climbed in, because except for Seth, as far as we know, the other exit had never been discovered.”

  Audra was feeling very much in charge as everyone looked at her and, even more amazing, listened to her. “Tell me what I’d see if I climbed down there. Where would I go to hide my money? Are there crevices? Holes?”

  “What about the hole Seth fell down?” Ethan asked. “It isn’t very far in.”

  “That’s not really what I was thinking of.” Audra tried to imagine that awful, dark pit. It didn’t really terrify her so much as worry her because of the danger it presented. But going down, feeling like horror lurked in the depths—that didn’t seem to be an affliction she possessed. Something for which she fervently thanked God.

  “I was thinking more of a small hole, a place a man could stick a bag of money in and leave it. Someplace easily found if a man went down there for the first time.”

  There was silence as the four explorers mentally searched in that dark place.

  Finally, Audra said, “Just start talking. Tell me about it. Tell me how it struck each of you when you first went down.”

  The conversation that followed was lively. Seth’s obsession with the cavern, Julia’s passion for it, Rafe’s hardy respect, Ethan’s barely concealed loathing. They each described the cavern in a different way, but Audra got a mental picture.

  She interrupted their stories. “Now let me ask questions about the cavern.”

  “Why?” Julia asked.

  “Because I’m the one who knows nothing about it. My reaction to it might be similar to how Wendell would react. Maybe my very ignorance can give us some idea of where he might hide the money.” As Audra asked her questions, her interest in the beautiful cavern grew.

  “I’d love to go down there and see the rock formations and stalactites and fossils.”

  “I’ll take you sometime,” Seth said with a wild grin.

  “You’re not going down, Audra,” Ethan said with narrowed eyes. “It’s too dangerous.”r />
  With a sigh, Audra looked at Julia. “Before we turn our attention to the cavern, let’s do the simpler things. Wendell’s shop in town and the cabin we were living in when he died. Ethan and I searched that building in town thoroughly, but we didn’t do any digging. How closely did we really study the floor in that building?” She looked at Ethan.

  He shrugged. “We tore up floorboards, but we could probably stand to do some digging inside as well as out.”

  “If it really was a fortune, Wendell would have wanted it close.” Audra shook her head. “And if he dug a hole somewhere, surely he marked the spot somehow.”

  “I want to ride into town and talk to the sheriff again anyway,” Rafe said. “Julia and I can go tomorrow and search more carefully in there.”

  “Getting away from here might be a good idea, too.” Julia looked with a worried frown from Audra to the baby sleeping in her arms. “Why don’t we all ride out toward town in the morning? When we’re sure we’re not followed, Audra and Ethan can circle around and go to the cabin and hunt.”

  “Can you think of any possible places to hide the money inside?” Audra wracked her brain, but the house was just too small.

  “None I can imagine, yet we need to be sure. Check it closely and look around for spots on that rocky ground where there’s enough dirt to bury something. When we’ve done all that, then I think we have to turn our attention to searching in the cavern.”

  Ethan’s gasp was barely audible, but Audra knew he’d never volunteer for that. But it didn’t matter. Between Julia and Seth, there’d be no shortage of volunteers.

  “I think we should all ride to town together.” Ethan reached up to rub his shoulder and stopped. Audra wondered how much his burns hurt. “For the sake of safety, we should stick together.”

  “No.” Audra shook her head. “I want this over with. We’ve been attacked twice already. These men are deadly serious, and we’re in danger as long as someone’s hunting for that money. We have to split up.”

  Chapter

  20

  Ethan was fuming by the time he got Audra alone.

  He shut their bedroom door with a force that was just a bit too stern.

  Julia was sleeping in the spare bedroom. Rafe was standing watch with Steele. Seth, currently sleeping on a bedroll downstairs in front of the fireplace, would spell Rafe, then Ethan would take the last watch before sunrise.

  And at sunrise, they’d ride out, then split up.

  “Why did you say that?”

  Audra was running a brush through her hair. Her arm froze in midstroke and she turned to look at Ethan. “You’re upset with me.”

  Striding across the room, Ethan leaned down and spoke through gritted teeth, not wanting his sister-in-law to overhear. “Rafe came over here with Seth and Julia to help protect this ranch. We can’t do that if we’re riding all over the countryside.”

  Audra took a step back, her eyes wide with fear. Ethan felt like the biggest bully in the world. Then suddenly the shy, sweet woman he’d married did that strange thing he’d seen her do before. She faked having courage even when she didn’t.

  She slammed her brush down on the dresser behind her and lifted her pointy little chin up. “The way to protect this ranch is to get to the bottom of this mess. We need to find that money. We need to figure out who’s behind this and give his money back or have him arrested. He sent Tracker and we caught him. Now we’re in danger from somebody else. They’ll just keep coming.”

  “This is Colorado Territory. There are always outlaws. We fight the ones who bother us and we go on about running the ranch.”

  Audra studied him like she’d cornered a rat in the kitchen. Some women might be scared of a rat, but Audra looked like she was ready to go in for the kill. “This isn’t about us going off to search my old cabin, is it, Ethan?”

  Which made no sense. “Of course it is. And we do need to search, but we need to stick together.”

  “No, you started to get upset when I talked about the money being hidden in the cavern.”

  Ethan suddenly found it hard to swallow.

  The fire went out of Audra’s eyes. She reached for him, slid her arms around his neck, gently, he noticed, thinking about his burns. Always kind and gentle and thinking about him.

  “Is the cavern really that dangerous?”

  “Yes!” Ethan nearly shouted. He hadn’t meant to. He clenched his jaw so no more words would escape. Finally he felt able to whisper again. “It’s not about the cavern. It’s about us not taking risks, especially not with you or the children.”

  “So you think the outlaws will be at the cabin?”

  “We can’t be sure they won’t be searching the same as us. And these are pure yellow coyotes, who will shoot a man in the back or attack a woman. Remember, we’ll have the girls with us. We can’t be taking risks with them.”

  “If we stay with Julia and Rafe tomorrow, and search in town together, then we can go to the cabin the next day . . . and if the money still doesn’t turn up, we can all go hunt in the cavern after that.”

  “No!” He caught her around the waist and dragged her hard against him. “You’re not going down there. I won’t let you.”

  “What happened that makes you hate that place so much, Ethan? I mean, you said Seth fell. You said it’s dangerous, but we will be careful.”

  “No one can be that careful.”

  “It’s not just you, either. Rafe is so hostile to it. Seth is obsessed with it. What really happened down there that three young boys have grown into men with personalities shaped, maybe even twisted, by a simple cave?”

  “What happened is that I found out I was a coward.”

  “You’re the bravest man I know.” Audra kissed him as gently as a flitting butterfly. Somehow that kiss was like a lock turning. A lock that sprung open, and words pressed against his throat, trying to escape. Words that were a secret Ethan had carried inside him all these years.

  “I said things to Seth that . . . that . . . drove him mad.”

  “No, you didn’t. No one can do that.”

  “I was cruel. I taunted him. I saw him go crazy right in front of my eyes, and it was my fault.”

  “I don’t believe it.” She kissed him more intimately. “You’ve got a child’s memory of that day.”

  “I wasn’t a child. I was thirteen years old.”

  “You’ve never talked about it since, have you?”

  “There was nothing to talk about. My words broke his mind and it’s never really mended. Then the nightmares. He was terribly hurt, but we’d have survived it if it wasn’t for the nightmares.”

  “What does that mean? You all survived it.”

  “No, Ma didn’t. She died.” It had taken a couple of years, but she’d begun to decline from that day. And it wasn’t because of how badly Seth was hurt, though that was terrible. It was because of the nightmares that tormented the whole family, and those were Ethan’s fault.

  “You can’t believe that.”

  “It took her a while, but she was never the same. She as good as curled up and cried herself to death. And Pa ran off and left us for so long at a time, he might as well have died.” As Ethan said those words aloud, anger welled up inside him. He and Rafe had stayed while Ma and Pa had withdrawn. That was no way for parents to treat their children. He would never do that to his daughters. Then the look in Seth’s eyes when his mind broke swept away Ethan’s anger, or rather placed it where it belonged. On his own shoulders.

  “Tell me what happened—please, Ethan. Tell me all of it. I want to understand.”

  Ethan looked into her gentle eyes and wanted so much to be worthy of her kindness. “You’re right that I’ve never talked about it.”

  “Then isn’t it time?”

  His grip on her wrist softened and he caressed the underside of it with his thumb, marveling at how nice it was to have a woman’s hand to hold.

  “Seth ran off.” Ethan swallowed hard. He hated that day like he hated not
hing else on earth. “You’re always talking about wanting to be brave, but Audra, honey, you’ve already got more courage than I ever will.” He kissed her, drew courage from her.

  “Tell me.” She held him, almost cradled him, as if she could hold him away from the nightmare of that day.

  “We climbed down and Seth ran off. He liked to hide and jump out at us. I never liked it down there, but it was okay. We had fun.”

  Ethan remembered every ugly minute as if he were thirteen again.

  Seth laughed from up ahead. A spooky laugh that sent a shiver up Ethan’s spine. “We need to teach baby brother a lesson, Rafe.”

  Ethan’s voice broke, like it’d been doing ever since he turned thirteen. It was getting deeper and it embarrassed him when he sounded like a squeaky little girl. Hating this cavern only made it worse.

  “We oughta leave him.” Of course, Rafe kept going. Rafe would never go off and abandon one of them, no matter his tough talk.

  Ethan pulled one of the torches from a crack in the wall. “Gimme the lantern, Rafe.” Ethan lit it, then wedged it back into the crack. “You know Seth is hiding up ahead to jump out at us.”

  “Sounds like something he’d do.” Rafe used his lantern to light a torch they’d stuck in a different crack in the tunnel wall.

  Ethan loved the smell of kerosene and fire; it drove back the dank smell of the cavern. He always carried his own lantern, not trusting either of his brothers to stay close at hand.

  “Do you ever wonder if monsters live down here?” Ethan didn’t really believe in monsters, but if there were such things, this is right where they’d be. And he liked saying out loud the fears he had, only making it sound like he was trying to spook his brothers. “Or maybe outlaws, hiding behind these tall stones growing up from the floor.”

  Ethan definitely believed in outlaws.

  “There ain’t no outlaws, Eth. No one knows about this place but us. This is our own secret hideout.” Rafe picked up speed.