by Josh Lanyon
But then Kevin wrapped his arms around me, and his mood seemed less fraternal than mine.
“Er ... Kevin,” I began, trying to pry him loose.
And then with the timing of a French farce, Jake opened the door. He stood stock-still. I could hear the clock ticking on the mantel. I hadn’t heard him drive up. I hadn’t heard the front door. And I hadn’t, off the top of my head, anything to say.
Jake did though. Right on cue he drawled, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...”
Chapter Eleven
“Kevin was just leaving,” I said, managing to detach myself from Kevin.
“Did he mistake you for the door?”
“It’s not what you think,” Kevin chimed in. Not really a helpful remark.
Jake said, still cool but suddenly dangerous, “How would you know what I think?”
Now that I had Kevin on his feet, I steered him toward the doorway. He and Jake sidled past each other like tomcats from rival gangs. Jake was wearing the sort of sneer that begs someone to take a swipe at it.
“Does that asshole bully you?” Kevin demanded as I slid him across the polished floor.
I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” Handing Kevin his jacket, I thrust him out onto the porch.
“We have to talk,” he protested.
“Later.” I closed the door in his face.
“Kevin’s worried about being arrested,” I informed Jake finding him in the kitchen chugalugging from a milk carton -- a habit I hate.
Jake slam-dunked the empty carton into the trash bin with what I’d call a controlled use of force.
I rattled on to fill the silence, “The body in our barn was Livingston’s. The cops are checking everyone’s guns at the site for a ballistics match. Livingston was shot with a .22 caliber, and Kevin owns a .22.”
“Maybe Kevin shot him.”
I shook my head.
“I see, Mr. Pinkerton. And you base this deduction on the fact the kid has a nice ass and a freckled nose?”
“I base it on the fact that I don’t think he did it. What motive would he have?”
“Maybe he didn’t like the guy. Maybe Livingston was failing him in class or kicking him off the dig. Maybe the good doctor found out the kid was buying and selling pot from Ted Harvey. Maybe the professor tried to put a move on the kid; sexual favors for GPA points. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the world.”
I felt my jaw drop. “Where are you getting this from?”
“Hey,” said Jake, “I’m just throwing out possibilities. One thing about a homicide investigation: you can always find a motive. If the rest of the case fits -- opportunity, means -- go with it. The motive will show eventually.”
I chewed this over. Jake was the expert here, but I didn’t peg Kevin for a killer. Not that I was dumb enough to say so.
I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve got an idea or two of my own.”
“I knew that was coming.”
“But I need your help.”
Jake raised his eyes as though seeking divine intervention. “Hell, I live to serve,” he assured me, closing the fridge door with a little bang.
No doubt he was waxing sarcastic, but two hours later there we were, Mr. Pinkerton and Inspector Bull hot on the trail. Or, to be precise, off the trail and on the cliff overlooking Spaniard’s Hollow.
“That’s about a two hundred foot drop,” Jake was saying, evidently triangulating in his head like a well-trained Eagle Scout. His nose was pink with cold or allergies. He wiped it on his sleeve.
“It’s pretty steep,” I agreed, squinting down at a dizzying panorama of treetops, grass, and the tarn shining like a mirror in the late afternoon sun. “There must be a path.”
Keeping hold of the branch of the scrub oak growing over the drop at a gravity-defying angle, I leaned further out. Pebbles shifted under my boots and bounced down the mountainside, clacking off boulders.
“Watch it, for Chrissake!” His fist fastened in my collar and hair, dragging me back. I landed sprawled in his lap -- which in other circumstances I might have relished.
“Easy! Take it easy.” I freed myself, yanking my shirt collar back into place. “I know what I’m doing.”
“My mistake, Sir Edmund Hilary.” Jake took my place at the edge and cautiously peered down. “There’s no path.”
“Well maybe not a path as you and I would recognize the word.”
The edge, apparently only held together by the tree roots and tiny wild flowers, began to crumble beneath Jake. I yelled a warning.
Jake did a kind of reverse salamander as I grabbed for his legs and hauled, lying all the way back in the grass and pine needles. His boot heel grazed my jaw as he kicked around trying to save himself, and I had to let go of his shins.
With amazing agility in one so large, Jake rolled over and snapped into a crouch like a kung fu fighter.
“This is a lousy idea!” he snarled. His face had a mal-de-merish tinge.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No!”
Uh huh.
I thought it over. “I can do it.”
His mouth worked but nothing came out. “You are fucking nuts,” he managed at last, glaring at me.
“I’m also about fifty pounds lighter than you.”
“What does that have to do with it? You can’t fly. Not to mention you’ve got a bad heart.”
I wished he hadn’t brought that up because, despite the stress and strain of the past week, I was feeling healthier and stronger than I had in years. Maybe it was all that fresh air and exercise. Or maybe I was kidding myself. Whatever, I didn’t want Jake thinking I was less of a man than he was.
“Forget about my heart. We can tie the rope to that tree.” I pointed to a sturdy looking pine. “If it comes down to it, you can pull me up a hell of a lot more easily than I can pull you up.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No way, Adrien. Absolutely not.”
“I can do this, Jake. Don’t -- I don’t have trouble with normal physical exertion.”
“Scaling cliffs is not normal physical exertion!”
“I’m not planning to climb up. I’ll follow the trail to the bottom.” The more he argued against it, the more important it was to me to do it. I urged, “Come on, Jake, we’re going to lose the light.”
He wasn’t budging.
I cajoled, “I’m just going to walk down this trail. How much of a strain could that be? Look, you spent how the hell many hours hunting for tire tracks and spent bullets and shell casings? And we’ve got nada to show for it.”
Temper turned his eyes almost yellow. “So we start exploring Indian caves? Adrien, no secret Indian sect is hunting us. No ghostly Kuksu shot at us last night.”
“You can’t say that these things are unconnected. Kevin said that only last night someone dumped all the shovels and tools at the site into the lake.”
He raked a hand through his crisp hair in a barely restrained movement. “Listen to yourself.”
“It would be nice if someone would! I’m not saying I expect to find a ghostly assassin lurking in the cave. Although, you know, no one has ever seen a subconscious yet scientists believe in the subconscious. No one has seen the id, but Freud and plenty of psychiatrists believe in the id. Why is it so hard --?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Jake interrupted. “I don’t believe in extraterrestrials. You can find people who do believe in these things, you probably believe in these things.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“God is different.”
“Why is God different? Nobody has ever seen Him. Her. It.”
Jake yelled, “I’m not going to sit on a mountaintop arguing theology, psychology, what-the-hell-ology with you! I don’t think we have probable cause to risk our necks exploring this cave.”
“I disagree.”
“Then you can risk your neck.”
I shrugged and turned back to the cliff edge. Jake grabbed my arm.
“Now wait a goddam
n minute.” His fingers dug in.
“Ow ... what for?”
“You can’t do this on your own!”
“Watch me.” I tried to stare him down.
Jake held my gaze for a long moment and then his mouth twitched. He gave my arm a shake and then released me. “You’re supposed to give up now.”
“We’re wasting daylight.”
“Shit!” Swearing under his breath, he tossed me one end of the line we had lugged up the mountain, and fastened the other end around the stalwart-looking pine.
I knotted my end around my waist. Tested it. I might not have been a boy scout but I did know how to tie a decent knot.
“This is a bad idea,” Jake growled.
“You said that.”
His scowl was my parting gift as I stepped carefully over the edge.
The rope was only a precaution; I figured I could find a way down the slope finding footholds among the rocks, and hanging on to the branches and wayward roots of hardy shrubs. But the first thing I discovered was that the incline was sharper than it looked; more suitable for repelling than strolling. Leech-like I clung to the mountainside and considered Plan B.
Sweat prickled along my hairline, trickled between my shoulder blades and dried in the crisp forest air.
A rock gave beneath my boot heel and I dropped down. It was only a few inches, maybe a foot, but my heart didn’t seem to travel with the rest of my body, and for a few seconds I had a scared taste of what it would feel like to really fall. The rope scraped painfully over my ribs, nipples, and caught under my underarms.
I kicked around till my foot found a place to lodge; my clawing fingers dug in, and I was steady once again with the entrance of the cave just below me.
I looked up. Jake was about fifty feet above, still lowering. I gave him the thumbs up. If he responded I couldn’t tell. Untying the rope, I jumped down to the cave ledge, landing in an awkward crouch. Picking myself up, I stood, brushed my hands off on my Levi’s.
There was a yellow jacket nest right outside the cave; bees buzzed around my head in angry bullets.
Ducking a couple of dive-bombers, I switched on my flashlight, turning toward the heart of darkness. A mere few footsteps in, I realized I needed a stronger flashlight.
The feeble beam played over the walls. Faintly, I could make out paintings, figures scrawled in rusty brown like dried blood: wavy lines and circles which could have signified spacemen as easily as anything else. Nothing conclusive, mind you, no stick figures with fangs.
I walked further into the cave. It tunneled deeply into the hillside. Instead of the expected shallow recess, I had found a real cavern.
Follow the bouncing ball. The white circle of the flashlight beam danced along. Several yards in, my flashlight picked out a small skeleton. I stopped, nudging it with my foot. Too big for a rabbit, too small for a dog. A fox?
“Feet start moving,” I said under-breath and was startled when my whisper came back to me in an eerie echo.
I went on for what felt like a mile or two.
The cave was as chilly as a cellar, and it stank with the decay of animal nests and animal droppings. I began to wonder why it had been so important to me to make this trek. The darkness seemed to press in from all sides.
After another dozen yards I decided that I had gone far enough; that there was no need to track the cave all the way to the end. I was losing my nerve, no doubt about it, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I tried to distract myself by analyzing it. It didn’t help.
Though I’ve never been claustrophobic, I began to feel trapped. The darkness was heavy, smothering.
I told myself to get a grip.
One more reluctant footstep. Then another shuffle forward. And right as I decided to call it quits, psych or no psych, the flashlight ray lit on something that at first glance I took to be a log. I stopped dead. It was not a log. It was a body, filthy, covered with yellow jackets and insects.
I recognized the bedraggled plaid shirt. That was all that was recognizable by now.
“Jesus.”
“Jeeeeeesuuuuuuus,” a whisper echoed.
I started backing up, stepped on something round and hard, and lost my balance. I hit the floor of the cave, and the light went out.
Feverishly I groped for the flashlight. My fingers closed on something round, not quite smooth, which crumbled in my hand. I knew what that had to be, and I swore, tossing it away.
More fumbling before I found the flashlight again. I shook it hard into life, my relief disproportionate to that watery light -- which picked out the pieces of a small animal skull.
Scrambling to my feet, I ran for the mouth of the cave.
My boots pounded the hard-packed dirt as I chased the little white moon of my flashlight beam.
It seemed to take a long time to find the entrance. Too long. I stopped and tried to calm myself as the darkness closed in. That’s all it was: darkness. An absence of light. But it seemed to stand beside me like a hostile physical presence. Beside me and all around me, looming, menacing ...
There were no branch tunnels. There was only the one way; so I was either running toward the opening or I was running deeper into the cave.
My pulse skipped a beat. Had I got turned around somehow? Was I running deeper into the bowels of the mountain? Why wasn’t it getting lighter?
I stood there, huffing and puffing, my heart shaking with fright.
No damn way, I argued against my rising panic. No damn way did I lose my bearings so much that I ran further into this fucking cave.
When I had my breath back, I resumed walking, but slowly, fighting the conviction that with each step I was moving further from safety. Commonsense told me to keep going, to trust my instincts.
The longest journey begins with the first step, so the philosophers say, and so I said to myself over and over. Me and the Energizer Bunny, I thought. We keep going and going and going ...
To my everlasting relief I saw that the blackness was thinning, giving way to milky gloom. I had been deceived by the simple fact that daylight was fading. It was dusk.
Reaching the cave entrance, I ducked back as something stung my hand. An irritable yellow jacket. I swore, sucked the back of my hand, and reconnoitered.
There had to be a trail leading up from the glen below. It would be too risky, not to mention difficult, to have lowered that dead weight over the cliffside. Working from this premise made it easier. The path was there; I just had to find it. I sat on my haunches, catching my breath and scanning the pine-studded mountainside. Finally, I spotted a dirt path trickling down through the trees.
“Jake!”
With gratifying promptness Jake leaned over the edge at my shout. I gestured that I was heading on down, not coming back up. He made some kind of complicated hand gestures and withdrew.
I started down the path, taking it as quickly as I could without breaking my neck. It took about twenty minutes. Loose rocks and pine needles slowed my progress, and required my full attention. If I’d been carrying a dead weight uphill it would have taken even longer.
At long last I found myself on terra firma. This was an improvement but not as much as I had hoped. The surrounding trees effectively blocked the remaining light. It was very quiet. Too quiet? There’s nothing like finding a decayed body to throw the old radar out of whack.
Reassuringly, a cricket chirped.
Shaking off the jitters, I got moving. I knew it would take Jake at least half an hour to get back to the ranch, grab one of the vehicles and drive around to pick me up. Half an hour in Creepsville would be plenty. I booked.
It grew darker. I trudged on. The birds in the trees stopped sympathizing and fell silent. I heard a crack behind me like a twig snapping under foot.
I stopped. Tried to figure out where the noise came from.
The sound came again, closer. And with it came a scent I can’t quite describe. A musky odor, heavy and oily, animal.
It was hard for me to pinpoint my location
since I was not familiar with this part of the woods. I took a moment to locate Saddleback Mountain and make sure I was heading east, toward the archeologists’ camp.
I paced myself, not wanting to risk a sprain on the uneven track.
Whatever followed me, moving through the bushes, could be heard plainly now. And I knew that if it was an animal, a bear or a big cat, running was liable to trigger an attack. When was the last time anyone in these parts had been attacked by a bear or a mountain lion? It was possible, but not probable, right? Maybe it was something harmless. A deer or a stray cow. Or a really big rabbit.
Reason told me to walk; I picked up speed, breaking into a lope.
My muscles burned, sweat soaking my shirt. I started worrying about pushing myself too hard. Hard not to, after sixteen years of hearing Lisa warn me to be careful, take things slowly, remember that I wasn’t strong. Kind of a drag if the last words I heard on earth were Jake’s “I told you so.”
Surely the camp couldn’t be much further? Ahead I spotted the markers that staked out the location of the Red Rover mine. Maybe another mile? I ran faster, listening to the scared but steady thump of blood in my ears.
Jogging around a bend, I nearly got creamed by Jake who was tearing up the road in the Bronco.
I jumped left; Jake swerved right and braked.
I rolled out of the bank of leaves, picked myself up and clambered into the Bronco.
“For Chrissake, Adrien!” He swiped off the reflective sunglasses.
“There’s something out there!” I gasped, double-checking that I had locked the door. My heart was going like a trip-hammer. I shut up and listened to its beat.
Jake’s face fell into hard dangerous lines. Pulling his gun out of his shoulder holster, he reached for the door handle.
I forgot about my heart and grabbed for him. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think is out there?”
“I don’t know. A bear maybe?”
I must not have sounded convincing. “That’s what I thought.” He gave me a long, level look. “Wait here.” Shaking my hand off, he climbed out.
He just didn’t get it.
I climbed out too, none too happy about it, watching tensely as Jake strode back up the road. He looked ready for trouble, though he clearly believed I was a victim of my own imagination. I trailed behind, wanting to keep the Bronco in sprinting distance, but not wanting to lose sight of Jake.
