In Too Deep

by Mary Connealy

  Ethan knew Rafe was worried about Seth and so hurried to keep close to his big brother. It occurred to Ethan that if no one else in the world knew about this place, then what if something happened? What if the rope they’d climbed down on broke? No one would ever look for them down here. The torches would burn out. The kerosene would burn away, and the three of them would starve to death in the pitch-dark.

  Yeah, he had no trouble at all thinking of terrible things that could happen in this pit.

  “I think maybe this hole reaches all the way down to where the devil lives. We’ve found the entrance to hell, Rafe.” That thought gave him more than a chill. It terrified him. Which was the whole fun of it.

  Rafe shoved him.

  Ethan laughed and swung the lantern at Rafe to get him to back off.

  “Let’s get on with letting Seth scare us. We can light the rest of the torches later.” The torches were just sticks wrapped with oil-soaked rags and dried brush. They lit the place up good. Ethan made new ones all the time so they’d always have plenty. Being trapped down here in the dark was his worst nightmare.

  Something snapped in the darkness ahead.

  A shout stopped Ethan in his tracks.

  “Rafe, help!” Seth’s frightened cry was something Ethan had never heard before.

  Falling rocks nearly drowned out another scream. “Ethan!”

  Seth wasn’t afraid of anything.

  “Let’s go!” Rafe ran.

  Ethan had to force himself to move.

  Seth shouted again. The noise echoed toward them. The sound of stones striking each other like an avalanche rumbled, drowning out Seth’s sharp cries for help. Then a terrible scream stopped Rafe. Ethan stumbled into him.

  Ethan’s hand shook as he pointed at a side tunnel. “He’s down there.” Ethan forced himself to rush in. What he really wanted to do was curl up and cry like a frightened baby.

  “Be careful,” Seth yelled. “There’s a hole!” Ethan saw it and skidded to a stop. For a second he teetered on the brink of life and death. He could see himself going over the edge and falling all the way to the lake of fire. Burning for all eternity.

  Rafe yanked him backward, and Ethan shook off the image of that horror.

  Ethan dropped to his knees and yelled down, “Seth!”

  “Back up.” Seth sounded terrified. “You’re on ground that won’t hold.”

  “Won’t hold what?” Ethan stretched his lantern forward to light the hole. Seth sounded fine. Strong. Scared but not hurt bad.

  Rafe dropped beside Ethan and leaned forward, then suddenly was gone. “Back up, Eth. The ground is cracking.” He grabbed Ethan’s shirt and pulled, raising his voice. “We’ll get you out, Seth!”

  Ethan still didn’t get what Rafe meant, but he started back, crawling on his knees. One hand busy with the lantern. The rock under him broke and his arm fell through all the way to his shoulder. He smashed his face on stone as he landed flat on his belly.

  Ethan yelled and jerked his arm loose as the edge crumbled away from his face.

  “Get your weight off this thin rock.” Rafe was moving back fast.

  Ethan heard his own cry of terror and hated himself for it. The floor cracked again. He slid backward on his belly. The ground seemed to chase him, crumbling under him.

  Every solid thing collapsed. He plunged forward.

  And stopped.

  The lantern slipped from his hand and it fell and shattered.

  Ethan dangled in midair. Flames shot up nearly to his face. The heat and the smell made him lurch back. He saw kerosene flow over stone. The fire chased the fuel.

  “I’ve got you,” Rafe shouted from behind him. Ethan realized he was hanging from his rope belt. Rafe had caught him.

  “Fire!” Seth shrieked from below them. Ethan looked down into the pit. Seth was on fire!

  “Rafe, help me!”

  One hard yank on his belt and Ethan popped up out of the mouth of Hades, flew backward and hit his head so hard, stars exploded. He was barely aware of an ugly crack from Rafe hitting the other side of the tunnel headfirst.

  Ethan tried to surge forward to help Seth, but he couldn’t. His vision wasn’t right. It was narrow and kept getting worse. He saw blood streaming from a cut on Rafe’s head.

  “I’m on fire!” Seth’s screams grew louder.

  Ethan couldn’t move. His arms and legs wouldn’t work. It was as if he’d been burned onto that spot. Doing nothing while his brother died in a fire Ethan had caused.

  Rafe threw himself forward. All Ethan could do was sit there, worthless, stopped by fear. He prayed no more rock would break. He prayed desperately that God would save Seth and protect Rafe.

  “Get your shirt off, Seth!” Rafe leaned forward and shouted over the crackling flames. “Get it off, throw it away.”

  Ethan couldn’t even help. He felt something warm wash down his neck and was able to tip his head forward and see blood trickle down his neck and disappear into his shirt, flowing down his chest.

  “I’m burning!” Seth screamed.

  “Your hair’s on fire, slap at your hair!” Rafe was screaming now too, but still thinking, still in control.

  Ethan could only listen. He tried to lift a hand and it wouldn’t move.

  “You got it, Seth. You’re all right. The fire’s off you. We’ll get you out.”

  “My arm is burned, Rafe. My head. My shoulders hurt.”

  Ethan could still see flames dancing up from the hole.

  “Just be careful of the fire. Stay back.”

  “I hurt. I don’t think I can climb up, even if there is a way.”

  Rafe turned to Ethan and ordered, “Go get one of the torches.”

  Ethan couldn’t respond. His mouth didn’t work any better than the rest of him. He saw blood pouring down Rafe’s forehead, coating the whole side of his face. The dancing flames lit up the crimson stain and it seemed as if life was flowing out of his brother. He was hurt worse that Ethan, but Rafe kept working, kept trying, kept facing the danger.

  “Ethan!” Rafe lunged at him and grabbed his arm and shook him. Ethan could see it, but he didn’t feel a thing. Rafe shook his head in disgust. “All right. I’ll go for a torch.”

  “What?” It was all Ethan could manage. He knew what Rafe was saying. He was leaving them.

  “We’re going to be down here in the pitch-dark in a couple of minutes. I’m going for a torch while the fire from down there can still give me a little light. Talk to Seth. Make sure he knows we haven’t left him.”

  Another of those muffled sobs sounded from below. Seth was tough. Ethan couldn’t imagine what would make his little brother cry. Only agony.

  The light diminished. Rafe shouted right into Ethan’s face. “Talk to him!”

  Ethan shuddered to think of being left alone down here in the dark. With only tormented cries and fiery flames from the deep.

  “Talk to him, Ethan. Do something.”

  Ethan still couldn’t move. A blow knocked Ethan sideways and he realized Rafe had punched him in the face.

  “Hey!” The blow unlocked whatever had pinned him down. Suddenly he could lift his hands, move his legs.

  “Talk to him. Talk to Seth. I’ll be right back.”

  “No, don’t leave us!” Ethan grabbed at Rafe.

  Rafe shook his head and dodged Ethan’s hands. “I’ll be right back. Talk to Seth.” Rafe jumped to his feet and ran into the dark.

  Ethan sat and trembled like a coward while one brother worked to save them all and another sobbed in pain. He felt such overwhelming worthlessness, it was unbearable. For a few awful seconds, tears burned his eyes.

  Seth sobbed. Ethan fought his own weakness, grabbed ahold of that sound, and used it to force himself to move. As he tried to stand, his cowardice knocked him on his face. He grabbed the edge of that pit as if he held on to life itself.

  Dear God, it’s too much. I swear to you I will never come down here again.

  Seth cried, “Don’t l
eave me, Rafe!”

  Ethan focused and saw his little brother. Burned. One arm blackened. Horrible, ugly burns.

  The damage broke off Ethan’s prayers, and instead he felt something that was more like an oath. He made a vow to never let himself be terrified like this again. And that vow went so deep, it ripped his soul wide open. What he’d done to Seth was unbearable, and like all unbearable things, it broke him inside. He found a crazy sort of calm and he could function again.

  All his fear died—along with every other thing a boy could feel.

  He leaned forward. Seth was twenty feet down, curled up on his right side, sobbing. There were ugly burns on his left. Ethan could see them in the dying kerosene light. The flames dropped lower by the second. Soon they’d be in total darkness.

  Ethan wanted to apologize and beg Seth to forgive him. But that would mean Ethan would have to feel something and he didn’t dare. He pulled himself to his hands and knees in the dim light, let go of all his fretting and said, “Quit your cryin’. Rafe’ll be right back. He’s going to get you out of there.”

  “He’s . . . gone.” The word barely got out between the moans of pain and the tears. Seth crossed his arms on his chest. He bent his head and drew up his knees until he’d nearly rolled into a ball.

  Those words gave Ethan a terrible jolt. Rafe was gone. The only rope they had was for climbing out. He couldn’t use that because they’d be trapped down here.

  Right then, footsteps pounded behind Ethan. He looked back to see Rafe running toward him with a burning torch and two unlit ones.

  Ethan had a jolt of relief so strong he was glad he was on his belly.

  “Hang on, Seth. I’ll be back.” Rafe dropped the two unlit torches and thrust the burning one into Ethan’s hands, then turned and raced away.

  “No! Rafe, wait!” Seth’s cry was for nothing. Rafe was already gone.

  Ethan only kept from begging Rafe to stay because of the strange calm that had him in its grip, and even that might not have held if Rafe hadn’t dashed off again. Ethan looked at the two unlit torches. These torches burned for a long time. An hour or more. Did Rafe think he’d be gone that long? Ethan let the fear slide off him. He could stand this if he didn’t feel. And if he could keep from feeling, then he could help Seth.

  “Hey, little brother, can you sit up and talk to me?” Ethan knew it must hurt Seth terribly to move.

  Well, that was just too bad for Seth.

  Seth’s eyes blinked open and he turned his head and looked up at Ethan. Slowly, Seth sat up. Ethan saw the blackened burns on Seth’s arm and neck, part of his back.

  Ethan studied the pit. There was a dark corner that looked as if it might go on down forever. But where Seth was, there was jagged stone and it sloped up. It looked like something a boy might climb. He considered climbing down and raised up on his hands and knees only to have his head swirl around and his vision start to go black. He lay back down on his belly before he passed out.

  “You know what’d be great?” Ethan said calmly.

  “Wh-what?” It seemed as though Seth was trying to match Ethan’s light tone. Maybe Ethan could teach his little brother not to feel anything either. Like pain.

  “You oughta try and climb out of there. I mean you haven’t really tried, have you? It’s not that deep, and we climb that far lotsa times down here.” Ethan looked at the rock wall under him and had enough control of his arms to point. “Look at this wall. Now that the fire is dying down, it’s easy to see the handholds. You could climb without much trouble if you weren’t so busy crying.”

  Seth’s head came up. Something flashed in his eyes, set off by the fading fire. Seth was always reckless, but for the first time he looked more than reckless. There was a flicker of madness in his eyes. Seth rose to his feet, his teeth gritted.

  “Maybe I oughta come down there and help the little crying baby.” But Ethan knew he couldn’t. He knew his grip was shaky and he might pass out and fall.

  “I’m not a baby.” Seth’s voice carried a load of pain and fear. And something else, something nearly loco.

  “You just stay down there and cry, baby brother.” Seth hated being youngest. Ethan knew it.

  “I’m not crying.” Seth pressed the flat of his palm against one eye with his right hand. He moved his left to do the same, and Ethan saw—in the ugly, dying fire—the blackened skin on Seth’s arm, split and bleeding.

  Seth cried out and grabbed at his arm, then stopped, afraid to touch it.

  Ethan refused to voice his horror of seeing crimson pouring out of the burn. “No sense trying to save yourself, baby. You just wait for Rafe. Even though he’ll be hours huntin’ up a rope.” Ethan had a terrible thought then, and said it out loud. “If he comes back at all.”

  “No, I-I’ll try and climb up.” Seth began moving, his left arm held against his stomach.

  “Go around the fire this time, baby brother.”

  Seth looked up and glared, then started forward, one unsteady step at a time, climbing over the uneven rubble-strewn floor, skirting the fire. The crying had stopped. Normally, Seth could climb right out without a bit of trouble. Now, though, the pain made it a chancy thing. Ethan should go down. He should help, get behind Seth and catch him if he fell.

  Instead, Ethan remained lying on his belly in the dirt.

  Seth whimpered a few times, and each time Ethan called him a baby.

  Seth kept climbing.

  When Seth finally reached the top of that busted-up hole, he looked straight into Ethan’s eyes and Ethan saw crazy.

  “I saw his mind break. I saw my words drive him mad. And I didn’t even care.”

  “No, you got him out.” Audra hugged him so hard that it drew him out of the ugly memories.

  He noticed she hugged him low on his back, mindful of his burns.

  “He got out and we started walking to the entrance. We met Rafe coming back. He’d had a rope on his horse. I’d forgotten about that. I could have kept my mouth shut, or just been kind, even crawled down there and stayed beside Seth. None of what I said to him was necessary. Rafe was coming. Rafe would have saved him without hurting him the way I did.”

  Audra touched his face.

  “We all had to live with how terribly he was hurt and the nightmares he had after that.” Ethan ran his hands deeply into his hair. “Rafe and I had a few too, but ours faded away. It destroyed our family. Ma just turned into a ghost in our house, a quiet, weeping ghost. She never had much to do with us anymore. And Pa took off. He couldn’t stand the nightmares. Finally one night when Seth started screaming, Pa slammed out of the house and didn’t come back for months.”

  “While Seth was still so badly hurt?”

  “Yep. I still thought he’d die. Those burns were so ugly. If you’d seen them, Audra, you’d know what I got today are nuthin’.” Ethan shuddered to think of it.

  “You didn’t drive Seth out of his mind, Ethan. You saved him.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Audra slid her hand up into Ethan’s hair and stopped to touch the scar no one could see. “You got hit so hard in the head, you’re lucky you were awake. Not being able to move like that, it sounds like maybe it hit your backbone, or maybe you got knocked unconscious for a while.”

  “I wasn’t knocked out. I remember everything.”

  Audra moved out of Ethan’s arms, and he wondered if this was it. If she was sickened. If she’d leave and sleep in Julia’s room or with the babies.

  She took his hand, and tugging at it, she led him over to the bed. He sat down and Audra sat right down on his lap.

  “You were a hero that day.”

  “I was a coward, a cruel coward.” He couldn’t let her believe what wasn’t true. He’d finally spoken the truth and now he demanded that she admit he’d done all the ugly things he was confessing. “And I quit caring about him, about everyone. I’ve never really cared about anyone again.”

  “You saved Seth. He was hurt. Rafe was gone. You kept thinking.
You were thinking, weren’t you? Why didn’t Rafe think of just climbing down? Why did he run off to get a rope? You were thinking more clearly than your bossy big brother.”

  Ethan shrugged. “Once I stopped caring, I got real calm. I could think clearly again.”

  “You knew you were too badly hurt to climb down there. That’s not cowardice; that’s good sense. Besides, if you had gone down, you couldn’t have carried Seth up, and neither could Rafe. Even if Rafe had found a rope, Seth would’ve climbed out of there mostly by himself.”

  “But I didn’t have to mock him the way I did. Taunt him, call him names when he was already knocked down so hard.”

  “You needed Seth to help. You needed to clear his head. You didn’t taunt and mock and bully. You goaded him into helping himself when there was no one else to do it. And you didn’t drive him crazy because he’s not crazy.”

  Ethan arched a brow at her.

  She smiled. “Well, not all the time. And we’ll take good care of him and the crazy days will come less and less, you’ll see. The war and the laudanum that awful Tracker Breach gave him deserve most of the blame for the way Seth’s acting. He’s had a hard time of it. Poor guy.”

  Ethan suddenly didn’t want to hear his wife talking with quite so much sympathy about his brother. Not while she was cuddled up to him. He caught her chin and turned her to him and kissed her.

  “And you do care about people.” She spoke against his lips. “You care until it’s almost too much to bear.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m . . . I’m selfish.” How could she still want to be close to him?

  Audra pulled back, her hands resting on his face. Her light blue eyes shining in the dusk of a Colorado evening. “You care about your brothers. I could see how hard you worked to keep them from being upset tonight.”

  “That just means I get sick of them always fighting.”

  “And you’re wonderful with the girls. Maggie adores you.”

  With a sheepish shrug of a shoulder he said, “I’m just takin’ care of ’em like a pa had oughta.”

  “Their father didn’t. I know what it feels like to be with a man who doesn’t take care of his children or me. And this feels nothing like that.”