Running Scared

by Gloria Skurzynski

  Still whispering, Ashley said, “They must be scientists. They’ll help us out. Let’s—”

  “No! Weren’t you listening? They’re a couple of thieves.”

  Ashley had begun to move forward when Jack grabbed her to stop her, just as the younger man was saying, “If my dad knew that I was lifting these cave balloons, he’d kill me.”

  “Yeah, but I figured you’d face death for some big bucks, Ryan,” Stoney said. “Look at me—I’m willing to risk going back to the slammer for that kind of action. Five thousand greenbacks, split between you and me for a couple of cave specimens. That’s what I call easy money.”

  “It’s only easy if we don’t get caught.”

  “Who’s gonna tell on us—the stinkin’ bats?” Another harsh laugh. “This is the same as robbing a cemetery—no one down in this big ol’ grave can talk. It’s perfect. And you’re the perfect guy to do this.”

  Another pause, and then, “You know, I wanted to ask you, why me? How did you even think to call me?”

  “Put two and two together. When I heard that collector talking about them balloon things at Tequila Joe’s, I thought of you, ’cause I knew you work at that rock climbing place where all the cavers go. Word had gotten around that your dad’d fallen on hard times—”

  “You heard about my dad losing his job?”

  “People talk, Ryan. Especially in bars. So I figured you was just the type to need some extra cash. And—no surprise—I was right.”

  “But I’ve never done anything like this before,” Ryan protested.

  “There’s always a first time, kid.”

  “The point is, I don’t make enough in my summer job to pay for my car, let alone tuition. I need to go to school fall quarter. Sometimes the end has to justify the means, you know?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I want you to know that this is the first, last, and only time—”

  “Aw, quit blabbering. What’s it matter if you steal a couple little rocks?”

  “They’re not just rocks. Collectors don’t pay $5,000 for rocks! Take a look at them in the light.”

  Keeping a hand on Sam’s shoulder to make sure he’d stay quiet, Jack tried to figure out what to do. If he went forward and interrupted two men in an act of theft, he could be in greater danger than just waiting in a cave until rescue came.

  The younger one, Ryan, was saying, “A hydromagnesite surface is only about a tenth of a millimeter thick. Inside, these little balloons are filled with a kind of gas. If you didn’t know they were hollow, you’d think they were pearls. That’s what they look like, sort of—about the same size as large pearls.”

  “They’re worth a lot more than pearls, my man.”

  “That’s exactly why I have to be real careful cutting them loose. One bad move, and they could be crushed.”

  Ashley whispered. “What should we do? Wait here till they’re done, and then follow them out?”

  “Do nothing. Just keep quiet,” Jack whispered back. “They’re crooks. They could have guns.”

  The man with the deeper voice asked, “So how do you know about these caves and rocks and stuff?”

  The answer drifted back, “I’ve been a caver since I was six. My dad started me out here, exploring Carlsbad, then all the other caves here in the Guadalupe Mountains. That’s why my dad would kill me if he knew what…. Hey, you know what? I’m feeling pretty bad about it, too.”

  “Don’t go all soft on me.”

  Ryan answered, “I can’t talk anymore. I gotta concentrate on what I’m doing.”

  So, Jack thought, they had stumbled onto criminals. First he’d gotten them lost, and now he’d brought Sam and Ashley face-to-face with a new and different danger. His breath caught as he realized the trouble they could be in.

  Ashley grabbed Jack’s arm and whispered, “This is great. Now we’ll be able to get out of here. We can follow these guys out.”

  Jack considered this. It was true Ryan said he was familiar with Carlsbad and the Guadalupe Mountains. But would it be safe to try to trail after two cave robbers? The one with the deep voice had even been in prison!

  “Come on, Jack, it’s the only way. I think we ought to sneak up a little closer to them,” Ashley went on softly. “Why?”

  “What if they start to leave and we don’t know it—then we’d miss our chance to follow them. Jack, you know we can’t stay here. Look at the candle.”

  When Jack saw there was hardly more than a quarter inch of wax left, he realized she was right. They needed to get close enough to the robbers to know when they were about to leave the cave, yet keep out of their sight in case they turned out to be dangerous.

  “OK,” he whispered. “But we gotta be really careful.” Bending down so that his lips were next to Sam’s ear, he asked, “Do you understand what’s happening? Those are bad guys, but when they get ready to leave, we can follow them. As long as they don’t see us.”

  Though Sammy nodded, Jack could feel him trembling.

  “So we’ll stay real, real quiet. I’ll go first, then you, then Ashley.”

  The three of them crept forward. As soon as they reached the point where Jack noticed dim illumination farther ahead, he blew out the sputtering candle, both to save the little bit of it that was left and to keep the men from noticing it. Sam clutched his hand in a painful grip, digging his fingernails into Jack’s palm. When Jack pulled his hand away, Sam clutched the back of Jack’s sweatshirt instead.

  Each step was a conscious decision, a careful lifting of the foot and an even more careful placing of it on the cave floor. Jack knew that Ashley was moving as cautiously as he was. But Sam, clinging to Jack’s belt now, shuffled along behind him, terrified of the dark. Then, one of them—it must have been Sam—kicked a stone.

  “What the crud was that?” the deep-voiced man demanded.

  “Sounds like something fell,” Ryan answered.

  “Nothin’s gonna fall in this cave by itself. Someone’s gotta be back there.”

  “There’s no one in this cave, Stoney. That’s impossible. It’s after hours. No one could get in unless they jimmied open the locked door like we did.”

  “Nothin’s impossible. We need to check it out.”

  In the blackness, Jack, Sam, and Ashley froze, not even breathing.

  They heard footsteps coming toward them. Suddenly two brilliant, luminous eyes, 12 inches apart on what looked like an enormous head, drilled into them from no more than 20 feet away.

  “The Chupa—!” Sam screamed. “Ch-chupa—G-g-g-goat….”

  “Sam—no!” Jack cried.

  But Sam had bolted, running crazily away from them, his feet churning in the soft cave dirt until he disappeared into darkness.

  A voice said, “It’s kids. I saw them. Three kids.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Over there—on your right!”

  The two stabbing lights were not eyes, but two individual headlamps, one on each of the men. Since the men were about the same height, when they stood side by side, the lights looked enough like a pair of eyes to scare Sammy out of his wits, making him think the Chupacabra had come after him. In the confusion, Ashley screamed, “Catch him! Catch Sammy! We can’t lose him again.”

  Moving fast, the man named Stoney reached them, yelling, “What did you kids see?” as he grabbed Ashley’s sore arm.

  “Ouch! That hurts! Let me go! We didn’t see anything. It doesn’t matter. We have to get Sammy before he gets lost again.”

  It was then that they heard a wild wailing, not too far away in the tunnel, about as far as a terrified eight-year-old might be able to run in little more than a minute.

  “Come on, Stoney, let her go!” Ryan said. “It sounds like one of them’s in trouble.”

  “Hey, you and me will be in trouble if these brats saw anything, and they go blabbing about it. I’m not going after some dumb kid and spoil what we got goin’ here.”

  “You don’t know this cave, and
I do. It’s dangerous,” Ryan said as he pushed past Jack and Ashley to follow the sound of Sam’s shrieks. “I’m not letting any little kiddie in here.”

  “Hey, get back here, you!”

  But Ryan was already moving rapidly along the tunnel, with Jack and Ashley running after him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Stoney stayed behind, yelling, “Don’t blow this job, man! Think of the money!” But Ryan pushed ahead, following the light of his headlamp as he unfastened a flashlight from his belt. When he turned that on, brightness flooded the cave as though a small sun had risen, and the sudden brilliance burned Jack’s eyes, nearly blinding him. Jack still hadn’t gotten a good look at either of the men, but he could tell that Ryan was thinner and younger than Stoney, and he wore a thick leather belt that all kinds of tools dangled from, like a repairman’s. Ryan moved swiftly. The tunnel seemed to be as familiar to him as his own backyard.

  “H-h-help! J-Jack!” Sam wailed.

  “Hold on, Sam—we’re coming!” Jack called out to the boy. Now that there was light to mark the path ahead, neither Jack nor Ashley had trouble keeping up with Ryan. They hurried behind his retreating figure.

  Ryan stopped suddenly and turned to Jack, and this time, Jack could make him out clearly. He had pale blue eyes, the kind that looked almost colorless, and long orange-red hair pulled back into a ponytail. His skin was marked by a constellation of blemishes that reached all the way to his helmet.

  “Is that the kid’s name—Sam?” Ryan demanded. Jack nodded, while Stoney’s rough voice barked, “Get back here. This is not our problem!”

  Ignoring Stoney, Ryan turned once again down the narrow tunnel, his light sweeping in front of him in a brilliant arc. They hadn’t gone too far when Ryan dropped to his knees, muttering, “I was afraid of this!” He shone the flashlight beam straight down into a hole that was about a yard long and less than two feet wide. Jack rushed to see, with Ashley crowding behind him.

  “Stay back!” Ryan warned them. “One kid down in that pit is bad enough. I don’t need another one falling on top of him.”

  It was Sammy down there! The strong flashlight beam lit his blond hair like a halo—but so far beneath them that Jack’s jaw clenched. Earlier, Sam had lost his lantern in a pit alongside the tunnel path. Now Sam himself had fallen into yet another hole in the ground.

  “Sam, this is Ryan speaking. Listen to me—I need to know if you are hurt.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you move your arms or your legs?”

  There was a pause, and then, “Th-there’s a r-r-rock p-pressing into my m-middle. It’s hurting me.”

  “OK, I don’t want you to move anymore. I want you to stay right where you are. Just hold on.” Ryan sprawled on his stomach and held the flashlight into the hole as far as he could reach. After a moment, he pulled himself up, rocked back onto his thick boots and rested his flashlight across his knees. “Oh, man,” he said softly, “this is bad.”

  “How far down is he?” Jack asked.

  Ryan looked at him sharply. “About eight feet, I’d judge. He’s probably got some scrapes and bruises, but it sounds like he’s OK otherwise. I’ve fallen a lot farther than that without getting hurt too much. But that’s not the problem.”

  “J-J-Jack—g-g-get me out of h-h-here,” Sam wailed. “Hurry!”

  “I will,” Jack assured him. “I promise. It’ll just be a minute.” Then, to Ryan, “Do you have a rope or something? We’ve got to pull him up.”

  “We’ll need more than a rope. He’s jammed fairly tight—I could see it when I looked down. That’s good.”

  “How is that good?” Jack demanded.

  “Because that pit goes down another 75 feet, and if he hadn’t gotten wedged, he’d be at the bottom right now.”

  It took a moment for Ryan’s words to register. Ashley’s eyes grew wide as she cried, “Are you saying he could fall the rest of the way?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Ryan hissed. “I don’t want the kid to panic. His one foot’s on a ledge that isn’t very wide, so if he moves too much…. You two will have to go and get a rescue team and bring them here. There’s no other way. You need a professional team to save him.”

  “Great plan, except how can we do that?” Ashley threw her hands into the air. “We don’t even know where we are! We’ve been trying to find our way out of this place for hours and hours!”

  “J-J-Jack!” Sam called desperately. “My sh-shoe just fell off! It fell r-really f-f-far. I heard it wh-when it hit b-b-bottom.”

  “It’s all right, Sam. We’re working on a plan to get you out right now.”

  Coming up behind them, a deep voice rumbled, “I’m not doing squat for some brat, and you’re not either!” Stoney had reached them. He was a pig-shaped person with a coarse beard and small eyes set back in his fleshy face. To Ryan, he snarled, “Man, get back there and do the job we came to do.”

  “Are you insane, or just stupid?” Ryan asked, incredulous. He was on his feet now, only inches from where Stoney stood. Stoney’s thick legs planted into the cave floor like stalagmites, and his raised fists were clenched next to his barrel chest.

  Stoney answered, “If the kids die here, so much the better, because if they get out and tell the cops about me, they’re gonna die anyway. I’ll come after them and kill them myself.”

  A chill of fear stabbed Jack’s gut. Stoney’s words were probably no more than empty threats intended to scare them, and yet this guy looked mean enough to follow through on anything he said. Jack fought the urge to grab Ashley and run, to get out of there, to save himself by hiding somewhere in the tunnel. But there was Sam to think of. No, they couldn’t leave. He just hoped he didn’t look as scared as he felt.

  “Shut up, Stoney,” Ryan said. Although he was of slighter build than Stoney, Ryan seemed supple and athletic. Stoney backed up a step as Ryan told him, “You’re a jerk, you know that? You don’t care about anything except money.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Starting right now, the deal’s off, you hear me? I’m not gonna get those cave balloons for you to sell to your buyer. I never felt right about it from the beginning.” Stabbing a finger into Stoney’s chest, he said, “And if you try to get them yourself, you’ll smash them like so many soap bubbles, so don’t even try, because you don’t have a clue how to do it. I’m telling you again just so you know I mean it—the deal’s off. Finished. Over.”

  “You stupid—” Stoney began. “You know what? I was gonna cut you in on my DDT runs from Mexico—you’re such a good talker, I figured you could do a snow job on the border police. But I ain’t usin’ no mush-hearted wimp. So Ryan, you just cut yourself out of not one but two sweet deals, you—college boy!” Stoney spat out the last two words.

  “Get out of here,” Ryan ordered. “You know the way.”

  Still snarling, Stoney answered, “You wanna be a bleeding heart? Go ahead, be a stupid bleeding heart.

  But how you gonna keep these brats from squealing on us when we get up to the top? I might go back to jail, but you’ll pay a price. You’ll get kicked out of school. You really want that?”

  Too quickly, Ashley said, “We didn’t hear anything. We don’t know anything. We’d never squeal.”

  Stoney looked down at her, menace on his face. Moving as fast as a striking snake, he grabbed Ashley’s sore arm and twisted it behind her back. “You’d better keep it that way. You turn me in and—”

  “Let her go!” Jack yelled when Ashley turned pale with pain.

  “Let her go!” Ryan repeated, his voice steely. “I’m gonna take these kids up to the surface. I don’t give a rip what you do.”

  “J-J-J-Jack!” Sam shrieked from below them. “It’s d-d-dark!”

  “It’s OK, Sammy,” Jack cried. “We’re going to get help. Just hold on!” Screwing up his courage, speaking in a voice that he tried to keep calm, Jack told Stoney, “Get us to the top, and we won’t say anything to the rangers about you. You can trust
me on that. Just let Ashley go.”

  “You can trust him,” Ashley repeated through clenched teeth, “because he’s a Scout.”

  At that, Stoney burst out in a guttural laugh. “Oh, Boy Scout. I think my man Ryan here—he was a Boy Scout, too. Look how he turned out.”

  Ryan stood silent.

  “You just remember, kid, I can find anybody if I want to. Think about that when you go talking to the rangers.” He released Ashley’s arm, giving her such a shove that she fell right into Ryan. Then Stoney turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness. “Five thousand smackers down the tube,” he shouted, the words echoing off the cave ceiling. “That’s the last time I work a deal with a college kid. You might be getting educated, but you ain’t got no smarts.”

  Ashley shrank back from Ryan and stood next to Jack. You all right? Jack mouthed. His sister nodded in reply.

  Suddenly, Ryan seemed uncertain. Jack noticed how the flashlight in his hand trembled, and how his face flushed in fist-size blotches. He must have been more afraid of Stoney than he let on.

  “Look…about the cave balloons…,” Ryan stammered, “I….” He shook his head as if to clear his own thoughts. “No, we don’t have time for this. We’ve got to go for help.”

  “Right! Let’s go!” Jack said eagerly, ready to agree to anything that would get them out of this nightmare.

  But a voice wailed from the pit, “J-J-Jack—d-d-don’t g-g-go!”

  “Jack, we can’t go off and leave him,” Ashley told him. “Both of us can’t.”

  Jack gave Ryan a quick glance. “Ryan, could you—” but Ryan held up his hands. “Sorry, I’ll get you out of here and up to the top, but that’s all I can do. One of you will have to bring the rangers back to your friend. I can’t afford to get busted. So which one of you is it going to be?”

  “Me. I’ll go with you,” Ashley said coolly. “Jack, you stay with Sam. He likes you more, anyway. I’ll bring the rangers back.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Ryan said. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute!” Jack cried. Was he just going to stand there and let his sister go off with Ryan, a total stranger? And Stoney was still somewhere in the cave, a convicted criminal mean enough to twist his sister’s arm. What had he been in jail for? Theft? Assault? Murder? And how did Jack know that Ryan would really help them? After all, he’d come down here to steal cave specimens.