Someone knelt beside her and took her arm. “Please forgive me. I didn’t see you. Are you all right?”
Gasping, she forced her bleary eyes to focus. And when they did, she gave a start. The person who’d knocked her down was the same man who’d plagued her thoughts and dreams since the day he found her counting money at the stream. She wheezed, “It’s you.”
Devlin
Devlin gripped the girl by the upper arms and helped her to her feet. “Are you all right? We collided pretty hard.”
She touched her forehead and grimaced. “That hurt.”
He fingered his chin and chuckled. “I agree. I think your head dislocated my jaw.” She blinked at him, her round green-blue eyes appearing a bit glassy. Maybe the bump had done more damage than he’d realized. He reached for her arm.
She skittered backward, her movements clumsy. “I gotta go home, mister. Gotta talk to my daddy.” She spun and took off.
Devlin, watching after her, shook his head. He’d never seen a flightier child. He hoped she made it home without any further mishaps. He continued on to the barn, fingering his sore chin and situating the sextant he’d slipped under his jacket before setting it more securely in the waistband of his trousers. She’d jammed the bronze instrument against his ribs. If they both didn’t sport bruises by morning, he’d be surprised.
He located the stable manager, Alvis Vance, in a small room in the far corner of the barn, sitting in a rickety chair tipped back on two legs and sipping from a thick ceramic mug. He looked so relaxed Devlin hated to disturb him, but he couldn’t take a horse without permission.
“Excuse me?”
The man thumped the chair on all four legs and slapped the mug onto the nearby desk. “Yes, sir. Mr. Bale, ain’t it? What can I do for ya?”
“I wondered if I might borrow Marey for a few hours this evening.” She’d proven herself a gentle, cooperative beast during yesterday’s long excursion with Rebekah and her little sister. The ride wouldn’t be as enjoyable alone, but he needed to do some private exploration today.
Alvis frowned. “I could have Junior or Elton saddle her for you, but to be truthful, Mr. Bale, I don’t think it’s wise to go off this late in the day. Sun sets mighty early in the hills an’, well…it just ain’t wise.”
The remembrance of something Rebekah had said yesterday writhed within him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d satisfied his curiosity. “I took careful note of the roads yesterday. I’m confident I won’t become lost.”
The man’s frown didn’t fade. “You bein’ a map drawer an’ all, I’m not denyin’ you’ve got some know-how the average stranger in these parts don’t, but when dark falls a person can lose his bearings right fast. An’ dark is when the critters start prowlin’. I’d be shirkin’ my duties if I sent you off at this time o’ day without givin’ you a firm warnin’.”
They were wasting time arguing. He wished he’d come earlier in the afternoon and written the letter to Mother and Father during the evening hours instead.
“Tell you what.” Alvis perched on the edge of his creaky desk and folded his beefy arms over the straining buttons of his dirty shirt. “I’ll send Junior Berry with you. He grew up not two miles from Mammoth Cave, an’ he knows these hills inside an’ out. He could bring you back here safe even if you put a blindfold on him.”
Devlin chuckled. “I wouldn’t test him in that manner.”
Finally Alvis smiled. “You wait here. I’ll fetch Junior, an’ you an’ him can be on your way real quick.”
Devlin’s definition of “real quick” and Alvis Vance’s were quite different. By the time Devlin and Junior set off—Devlin on Marey and Junior riding a plodding, gray-muzzled horse named, ignominiously, Lightning—the shadows lay long across the ground and a sliver of moon glowed against the pale sky. When Devlin told Junior where he wanted to go, the younger man offered a silent nod and nudged Lightning into motion. Devlin urged Marey to follow.
Junior balanced a rifle, the barrel pointing skyward, on his thigh and led them through trees and up a rise. Devlin ducked away from branches, unwilling to receive a second smack on the face that evening. The farther into the woods they rode, the cooler the air became and the deeper the shadows. Devlin’s frame involuntarily shuddered. Maybe Alvis had been right about choosing this time of day for a ride.
“Purty sure the cave you was talkin’ about is right close in here.” Junior’s voice took on an eerie quality drifting from the cool gloaming. “I’ll show you the openin’, but ain’t no way I’m takin’ you in it. Not without a lantern.”
Devlin didn’t necessarily want to go in, but he needed to judge its entrance in relation to the tunnels he’d thus far explored in Mammoth Cave. “That’s fine. Thank you.”
Still pointing the rifle skyward, Junior brought Lightning to a stop and slid down from the horse’s back. “Come on over here.”
Devlin swung to the ground and, keeping a tight grip on Marey’s reins, followed Junior through a very narrow gap in the trees. A small, sloping patch of thickly grassed ground, deeply shadowed, waited on the other side of the gap. A crooked opening with rocks and brush at its base appeared black against the hillside.
Junior pointed. “There it is.”
Devlin moved directly to the crevice and then removed his sextant from beneath his jacket. Generally used by sea captains, it had proved useful in providing information about general locations on land, as well. He located the North Star through the peephole, adjusted the plumb line, tightened it to preserve its position, and then returned the instrument to his waistband. He turned to find Junior gaping at him.
Devlin smiled and patted the bump beneath his jacket. “If my measurement proves accurate, I won’t need your help finding the cave next time.”
The youth closed his mouth and shook his head. “That’s about the strangest thing I ever seen somebody do. You sure you ain’t a bootlegger lookin’ for a likely place to put a still?”
Devlin burst out laughing. He would remember to share Junior’s comment with Father. “I’m very sure.”
“So you all done?”
Devlin squelched his amusement and nodded.
Junior gave a lithe leap onto Lightning’s back. “Let’s get back then. Time for bears an’ cougars to start prowlin’.”
Devlin didn’t need a second prompting. Back in his cottage he returned the sextant to its wood carrying case and then used the case as a lap desk to add to the letter he’d begun earlier.
I recorded the location of a small cave in the hills roughly three-quarters of a mile north of Mammoth Cave. According to locals—namely, Rebekah and Jessie—there are dozens of small caves in the hills.
Excitement stirred within him. He placed the pen’s nib on the paper again.
If each of them is somehow linked to Mammoth Cave, the possibilities for exploration are endless; the possibilities for furthering the tourism of this estate are infinite.
Dollar signs danced in front of his eyes. He closed the letter, sealed it inside an envelope, and set it aside for posting in the morning. He hoped the summer weeks would provide adequate time to discover every potential benefit of securing Mammoth Cave and the surrounding acreage for the fine state of Kentucky.
Devlin ducked low and eased sideways through the most narrow, winding, low-ceilinged passage he’d traversed since his first day in the cave. Rebekah, candle in hand, followed him. She and Tolly had deposited their torches, as well as their packs and his waywiser, nearly a quarter of a mile back in a small igloo-shaped cavern. The candle’s dancing flame did little to provide guidance, and he’d bumped his head on outcroppings twice so far.
Bumps didn’t bother him, though. At least not much. His greater concern was unwittingly encountering a bat or a spider. Given his inability to escape, trapped within such close quarters, he’d be at the creature’s mercy.
Somewhere ahead Tolly waited with Devlin’s tape-measure case in hand. When Devlin caught up to him—assuming
he didn’t get wedged in somewhere and spend the rest of his life trapped in a crevice in Mammoth Cave—he’d mark the one hundred feet in his book and then hold the end of the metal ribbon and let Tolly move ahead again, releasing the ribbon until it reached its full length.
They’d repeated the process nearly a dozen times in the past hours, progressing at a snail’s pace. Devlin’s stomach growled, and his impatience to be finished with the tunnel grew. When would it end?
“Ouch!” Rebekah cried out sharply and then darkness descended like a curtain falling.
Devlin froze in place, his heart thudding into his chest. “What happened?”
“The candle burned my thumb. I dropped it.”
“Well, light another one,” he snapped. The darkness, the tightness, the inability to discern where he was raised a wave of panic.
“Give me a minute. It’s hard to reach in my pocket when I can hardly bend my arm.” Her words held a bite, too.
He counted the seconds, waiting with his jaw clamped so hard his teeth ached, expecting a bat to swoop in and tangle in his hair any minute. He heard the strike of flint, and light flared behind his shoulder. Startled, he bounced his temple against the close rock wall. He winced.
A soft glow flowed over his shoulder. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Are you all right?”
He wasn’t. His head throbbed. His shoulders ached. His stomach was full of knots. But he said, “I’m fine. Are you ready to move on?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
Devlin swallowed against his dry throat—what he wouldn’t give for a sip of water—and forced himself forward a few inches.
Tolly’s voice carried from somewhere ahead. “Hold up. I’m comin’ yo’ way.”
Rebekah called, “Is something wrong, Tolly?”
“Jus’ at the end, an’ it’s plenty tight. Dunno why I di’n’t think of it befo’, but there ain’t no need fo’ you to come all the way to the end, too.” He sounded as if he spoke from the inside of a barrel.
Devlin frowned. “What about the measurement, Tolly?”
“Pulled the tape as far as seventy-two feet. Write that down, Devlin, an’ stay put.”
Rebekah thrust the candle forward, and Devlin wriggled until he connected the stub of pencil with his notebook. He checked the list of numbers and determined they’d gone 1,472 feet into a tunnel Stephen Bishop hadn’t included on his map. Despite the morning’s tension, he couldn’t stop a smile from growing. What an accomplishment.
Scuffling sounds sifted through the tunnel, and then a timid flicker of light let them know Tolly was near. His smile gleamed in his candle’s light as he squeezed next to Devlin. “Dunno ’bout you, but I’s ready to get outta this pinchin’ spot an’ have some san’wiches. I worked up a powerful hunguh wigglin’ my way through here.” He pressed the measuring tape into Devlin’s hand.
“That sounds good to me, too.” By twisting himself like a contortionist, Devlin managed to slip the tape into his jacket pocket and reverse his direction. He found himself nose to nose with Rebekah and her candle. The tiny flame ignited the gold flecks in her brown eyes. For the first time since they entered this sliver of a passageway, he didn’t rue the small space.
Tolly cleared his throat. “Um, you two wanna get movin’? Gonna take a while to get back out, an’ my belly’s grumblin’.”
Rebekah laughed softly, her expulsion of breath making the candle flame dance. “Devlin, would you take the candle, please?”
He worked his arm upward and tightly pinched the length of beeswax. Her hand slipped away, and she squirmed sideways, giggling, until she faced the opposite direction. Devlin leaned back as far as he could to prevent scorching her braid.
“Well, boy, you got that candle now. Prob’ly gonna hafta keep it until we get to a spot big enough to stretch yo’ arm full out. Reb, can you see good enough to go?”
“I can’t see a thing in front of me, Tolly, but with the walls so tight, I can’t possibly go off course. Follow me.”
Devlin gripped a handful of Rebekah’s jacket and held the candle as high as possible. Slowly they inched their way back up the tunnel, the scuff of their clothes against the walls and the hollow thuds of their boots creating an inharmonious melody. Devlin strained to capture the music of the cave, but it remained elusive. Maybe it couldn’t reach so deep into the crevices. He missed its presence.
The candle burned down and they stopped to light a new one. This time Rebekah kept it, and Devlin focused on the little glow of light beyond her shoulder and hat, choosing to see it as a beacon rather than a mere flicker. At last they emerged into the domed cavern where the waywiser and packs awaited them.
Devlin staggered to the center of the area and stretched, extending his arms straight up and arching his back. He groaned as his muscles released. When he lowered his arms, lightheadedness attacked, and he grabbed the wall to support himself. His palm descended inches above the waywiser.
He stared at the wheeled instrument, confusion striking hard. He’d leaned the waywiser against the wall beside the crevice’s opening before going in. So what was it doing opposite the crevice? And why was it showing a distance of twelve feet instead of being on zero, the way he’d reset it after reaching the dome?
He turned a slow circle, frowning through the shadows. Rebekah stood near Tolly, candle held aloft, while Tolly bent over the packs. The man was muttering, and Rebekah’s lips were set in a grim line.
Devlin joined them. “What’s the matter?”
She turned a worried look on him. “Some of our torches are missing.”
“Four of ’em.” Tolly rummaged through the second pack. “An’ somebody’s done took off wit’ my extra canteen, half our san’wiches, an’ the applesauce cake Coopuh baked up special jus’ fo’ me.” He rose slowly, his dark eyes searching the space.
Devlin looked from the pair of guides to the packs and then to the waywiser. Chills broke out across every inch of his flesh. “Do you suppose one of the tour groups came through and helped themselves to your supplies?”
Tolly snorted. “None o’ the daily paid tours take these passages. Too hard to get through. An’ too dangerous. We’s gone way deepuh than any tour group ’cept the all-day-long explorin’ ones that don’t start ’til midsummuh. Even then, the people’d be with a pair o’ our guides, an’ they’d have they own supplies. No need for none o’ them to bother things left by anothuh guide. No, suh, this ain’t the work of no guide, I can tell you that.”
“Who do you suppose was here, Tolly?” Rebekah sounded as unnerved as Devlin felt.
“I dunno. Mr. Janin’ll have a fit when he finds out somebody ’sides us’s been this far in.” Tolly’s black face glistened in the flickering candlelight. “Whoevuh it be, no good’s comin’ of them bein’ here, that’s fo’ sure.”
Tolly
Tolly wadded the empty napkin and threw it into his gaping pack. That sandwich had tasted awful good, and he wanted another one, except there wasn’t another one. He hoped their thief enjoyed the ham-and-cheese-on-rye-bread sandwiches.
He glanced at the two young people sitting on the other side of the candle. Both Devlin and Rebekah held empty napkins in their laps, so they were done, too. “Now that we got our bellies filled”—as best they could with only a sandwich apiece—“we’d best be skedaddlin’ outta here. We can’t be stayin’ in the cave the rest o’ the day like we’d planned.”
Devlin frowned. “I don’t mind skipping our afternoon snack.”
Tolly shook his head. “Gots nothin’ to do wit’ not havin’ a snack. Gotta have enough torches to get ourselves back out. Whoever pilfuhed Reb’s pack left us only three. We go in any fu’thuh, we ain’t gonna be able to see to get out. ’Cept with candles, an’ them’s s’posed to be for ’mergencies, not all-the-time usin’.”
Besides, he needed to talk to the estate trustee. The sooner he did it, the better. He buckled the strap on his pack, slung it on his back, and scooped up his coil of rope. “Reb, get one o�
� those torches lit an’ then we’ll go on out to daylight.”
Tolly raised the flaming torch and set off with Devlin and Rebekah trailing him. He didn’t talk as he went. Too many worries nibbled at him. Reb and Devlin stayed quiet, too, and he sensed their unease. Tolly gritted his teeth, stifling a growl. First rule of being a good guide, his pappy’d told him, was keeping his charges safe. The second was easing their fears. He wasn’t being a good guide today.
The rock corridor widened, space for two good-sized men to walk side by side. So Tolly stopped and waited for Devlin to ease up beside him. Pasting on a big smile, he said brightly, “How’d yo’ travelin’ through the hills on Satuhday go? You get to meet lotsa folks?”
Surprise showed on the college boy’s face for a moment. But then he nodded. “Yes, I did. The country around here is beautiful. I understand why folks want to live in the hills. But…” He shot a puzzled look over his shoulder at Rebekah. “I noticed something.”
“What’s ’at?”
“The people have their own unique dialect.”
Tolly scratched his cheek. “They’s own what?”
Devlin chuckled softly. “Dialect—manner of speaking. But Reb’s doesn’t quite match.” He sent another quick look behind him. “Why is it, Reb, that you don’t speak like your family and those who live around you?”
Tolly was interested in the answer, too. Youngsters in these parts went to the same school, same churches. The black folks in the area had one way of speaking, the white hills folks another. But Devlin was right—Reb spoke different from them all.
“I speak English, same as my family.”
Devlin shook his head. “You speak English, but not the same. Your English is more…refined. As if you were raised in an educated family.”
Rebekah’s snort carried plainly to Tolly’s ears. He whistled and nudged Devlin with his elbow. “Careful there, boy. I think you might be gettin’ her danduh up.”
Guide Me Home Page 17
