Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  His eyes flashed angrily in the moonlight as he swung his glance toward me. “This is coming from someone who has admitted to wanting to blow two people away?”

  “I had good reason. Besides, as you told me, what counts is that I didn’t.”

  For a moment he didn’t speak. Then, “Oh, hell. We’ll get them off of there. Come on.” He started toward the steps.

  “You go.”

  “What?”

  “I suspect they’ll listen to you better than they would to both of us. If they have a communications setup, you can notify the authorities about Ong. If not, have one of them go to town and do it.”

  “And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

  “Trying to locate the entrance to that tunnel. You can catch up—”

  “No, McCone.”

  “Yes, Ripinsky.”

  We matched glares.

  Hy said, “Not twice in one lifetime.”

  “What?”

  “You are the same goddamned stubborn annoying kind of person as my late wife, and one man doesn’t deserve this kind of grief twice.” He threw his arms out in exasperation. “You win—I’ll go get them off of there and catch up with you. But I warn you—fuck up and get yourself killed, and it’ll be doubly your loss.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, McCone, then you’ll never get to find out how good we could be together.”

  Without giving me the chance to reply, he went down the steps and moved away toward the access road.

  Twenty-eight

  When I could no longer see Hy, I started down the porch steps, but the way the moonlight bleached my already pale tan jacket made me pause. Under it I had on a burgundy sweater, dark enough to be unobtrusive, but too lightweight to keep out the cold.

  I set down the torch and rope I carried and went into Nickles’s house to see if she’d left any clothing that I could wear in place of the jacket. The rooms were pretty much stripped bare, but on a hook behind the kitchen door, where she’d probably forgotten it, hung a heavy black wool shirt. I traded the pea jacket for it.

  I’d put Hy’s .38 in the deep pocket of the jacket, but the shirt had none large enough to accommodate it. Since I’d need both hands free, I shoved it through my belt on the right side, fax enough toward the rear so it was out of the way but still within easy reach—not an arrangement that pleased me, but the best I could come up with. Then I went outside, draped the rope around my shoulders, picked up the light, and set out for the north side of the mesa.

  As I walked I became increasingly uneasy. The overwhelming silence, the moonshot darkness, the stark landscape that afforded little cover: all were serious handicaps. Add to them the fact that I didn’t know the terrain and had little clue to where the entrance to the tunnel might be; the presence of a deranged man with a hostage and a good quantity of dynamite; the uncertainty of the armed guards’ reaction to Hy’s arrival—it all made a grim picture. I decided not to think about it, to concentrate on the immediate, practical details.

  Be careful where you step. Watch for figures in the shadows. Use all your senses—plus your intuition.

  I reached the end of the twisted iron skeleton of the stamp mill. Skirted it and began climbing.

  Focused as I was, disturbing emotions intruded: at first a tug of home, a longing for familiar places and people. Then a flood of yearning for George and the pleasant existence we normally shared. My last words to him replayed in my mind: “We’ll talk.” What if I didn’t survive this and that talk never took place? How would he reassemble the fragments of a life that less than a year before had been badly shattered?

  Yearning turned to guilt, not only toward my lover but toward the others I cared for. And guilt turned to fear. Only normal to be afraid, I told myself.

  But under these feelings I was aware of others not nearly as acceptable. At first they were manifested as physical sensations: my skin tingled; subtle odors smelled sharper; faint sounds were amplified; my sight was honed fine. Then I felt excitement rising and flowing through me, a stronger rush than that from any drug. Its effect was as close to euphoria as any I’d experienced.

  Danger, I now realized, was the thing that brought me fully alive. Conquering it and my own fear was what gave me a reason for going on in the face of an increasing sense of futility. That was the real truth that I kept from George and the others, who would have found it a shameful addiction. And that was what Hy had intuited and accepted.

  I pushed these thoughts down and allowed the rush to fuel my climb up the mesa.

  The night was so still that I could hear voices up where the guard shack was. Voices shouting, but nothing more. Did that mean Hy had persuaded the Transpacific crew to abandon their posts? Or were they shouting at him to get off there?

  After a few minutes the voices became fainter. I looked up, realized I could no longer see the security beacons, judged I’d reached the far north side. The mesa here was bounded by a boulder field, its rocks larger and more sharply fractured than those by the stream. The granite underfoot was worn smooth. I shone the light down, saw signs of a trail, and began to follow it.

  It climbed steadily upward, then looped toward the east and disappeared. I retraced my steps, looking for marks in the dust. There were some—made by my feet. And then there was an overlapping of the tracks, more than I’d made.

  I trained the torch’s beam on the upward slope. No opening there, nothing but sheer granite and a cairn of tumbled rocks. I moved closer, examined the placement of the stones. Somehow they looked too artfully arranged.

  Going even closer, I shifted the light to my left hand and slipped the Colt from my belt. Edged around the cairn. It didn’t actually touch the wall; there was a space behind it about two feet wide. And beyond that a ragged A-shaped hole perhaps a yard high.

  Quickly I flicked off the torch and moved into the small space. Listened. Heard nothing. After a moment I crouched down and peered into the hole. Total darkness. I felt around on the ground and found a pebble, tossed it through the opening. It skittered noisily off what I supposed were rock walls and floors. I waited until the sound died away into silence.

  Finally I turned the light on again and shone it through the opening. Inside lay a low, narrow tunnel. The gashes in the rock were fresh and raw. The tunnel extended perhaps eight feet, then opened into a larger space, where the torch’s beam fanned out on more rock.

  I bit my lip. Straightened and considered. By now Hy would have those men off the mesa—if they had agreed to leave. How long before he caught up with me?

  A long time. Maybe not at all.

  “Dammit,” I whispered.

  I have few phobias. I used to be afraid of birds, but I’ve mellowed to the point of being able to go inside the aviary at the zoo. Spiders, heights, wide open spaces—they’re fine with me. Lock me in a closet and I’ll amuse myself for hours. But the one thing that I can’t abide is the thought of crawling through a constricted space. Like that tunnel.

  Well, I told myself, that’s just too bad. What you’ve got here is a tunnel that needs crawling through.

  I replaced the gun in my belt, pushing it farther back so there would be no pressure on it. Went back around the cairn and arranged some rocks as a marker for Hy. Then I got down on my hands and knees and pushed the torch into the opening. Took a deep breath and wriggled in after it.

  The tunnel slanted downward. I inched along, pushing the torch, trying not to think of the walls that pressed in on me. A couple of times the rope caught; I yanked it free. The last few feet were so sharply canted that I all but fell into the larger chamber. The torch rolled away from me, its beam hopping in a chaotic dance across the gouged and scoured rock walls. I righted myself, grabbed it, shone it around.

  The level I’d reached was a good seven feet high and almost as wide. Its walls were interrupted by deep excavations— stopes, Hy had called them—that showed where the ore had been removed from a vein. The floor was worn smooth by feet and time, and the lig
ht reflected off it as if it were wet. Seven hundred yards ahead, the level curved into blackness.

  I took the rope from my shoulders and made a loop at one end. Fastened it around a jagged projection at the foot of the farthest stope. Then I wrapped the rest of it over my arm and moved close to the wall. Turned off the torch and felt along, uncoiling the rope as I went. When I reached the place where the wall curved, I stopped to listen.

  No sound at all. Merely a deep dead silence that must have extended to the earth’s core.

  But there was something ...No, just my own breathing. I held my breath, became acutely aware of the beat of my heart, and then started around the curve. Stopped again, thinking I detected motion. And then I heard a sigh.

  It came from ahead and to the right. I let out some more of the rope and edged along. The floor slanted, leveled out again. The sigh was not repeated.

  I wanted to use the torch, but I was afraid of who might be waiting in the darkness. The dark was my handicap, but also my protection. I kept going, realizing I was about to run out of rope. My sense of distance was lost. Time had become elastic. Reality was a memory.

  One sliding step. Another. A few more yards of rope left. Another step, hand on the icy rock. When the rope ran out I’d have to turn on the light to avoid losing my bearings here in the black bowels of the mesa….

  My foot bumped against something soft. Another sound came: this time a recognizable moan of protest.

  I switched on the torch. Lionel Ong lay almost at my feet, swaddled in layers of gray blanket.

  At first I thought he must be semiconscious, but as I bent to check, his eyes flew open, glazed with terror. I moved the blankets, saw he was tied in a fetal position, wrists lashed to ankles. A dirty gag bit into his mouth; blood had caked around its edges. He jerked his head toward me, and I heard the bones of his neck pop from tension.

  Earlier I’d taken my Swiss Army knife from my bag and stuffed it in the pocket of my jeans. Now I dug it out and cut Ong’s bonds. He remained still as I sawed through the knot in the gag. Remained silent after I removed it.

  I motioned for him to keep quiet and helped him to a sitting position. He began to flex his fingers. Holding the torch aloft, I examined the chamber around us. It appeared to be a crosscut between the level I’d come along and a parallel one. On the wall was a single candle in a crude metal holder, wax dried in multicolored rivulets on the rock below it. That was all, besides Ong and his cocoon of blankets.

  Ong had begun to massage his wrists and ankles. His mouth worked as he passed his dry tongue over his cracked and bleeding lips. I crouched close to him, put my mouth to his ear. “What has he got planned?”

  Ong’s reply came out a croak. He shook his head and grimaced as he tried to work up some saliva. It was a minute before he could speak. “Blow it up. Charges down here. On top, too.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Checking them. Then intends to move me closer.”

  My skin prickled, and I straightened. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Can’t walk—numb.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll help you.”

  I grasped him under his arms and pulled, got him upright, and then he sagged against me.

  “You have to help,” I told him.

  He nodded, gritting his teeth as he tried to put one foot in front of the other.

  Sound in the parallel level: footsteps, and no attempt to conceal them.

  Ong flinched. “Him!”

  I began to drag him toward the other level. He lurched sideways, and we both crashed against the wall.

  As I pushed Ong off me, light blossomed in the far level. A man appeared at its entrance.

  He bore only the most superficial resemblance to the photograph of Earl Hopwood. His gray hair straggled wildly about his head; flesh fell in turkey wattles from his neck; the furrows of his face were like the striae of the rock around us. The eyes were how I identified him: black and burning with spits and flares of colors that seemed part of an alien spectrum. Colors of another world, where the sea and sky became as blood, the moon black as sackcloth.

  I shoved Ong away from me and reached for the Colt. But by the time my fingers touched its butt, I saw Hopwood had a weapon leveled at us. I let my hand fall to my side where he could see it.

  For a few seconds none of us moved. Then Hopwood looked from me to Ong and said, “The whore and the deceiver.”

  “Mr. Hopwood.” My voice sounded weak and tinny. “I’ve just come from your daughter. Margot is waiting for you at Willow Grove Lodge. She wants to see you.”

  “I have no daughter named Margot.”

  “Peggy, then.”

  “Margaret, like her mother.”

  “Yes, Margaret. She’s waiting. Won’t you come with me?”

  The gun in Hopwood’s hand wavered. I glanced at Ong, saw he was crouched on the ground. Would he be of any help?

  Hopwood steadied the gun. “She will come here in time. To be cleansed of her deception. All things will be made new.”

  Christ, I thought, he’s really flipped out. I can’t reason with him.

  I glanced at Ong again. He hunched lower now, arms wrapped around his midsection. No help from that quarter.

  The Colt weighed reassuringly against my right hip. I said, “How will all things be made new?” and brought my arms behind me, like an attentive Sunday school pupil.

  Hopwood’s mad eyes seemed distracted. Again his gun wavered. I calculated the distance I would have to spring to get hold of it.

  But he steadied it once more. “First the mountains and rocks must fall.”

  My fingers touched the Colt’s butt.

  “And the star that is called Wormwood.”

  I began to slip it from my belt.

  “Many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”

  The revolver’s cylinder caught on my waistband. I couldn’t free it unobtrusively.

  I shrugged, using the motion to pull the gun free and said, “The waters of Tufa Lake have always been bitter.”

  “Be still, mother of harlots!”

  I held the Colt behind me—ready, seeking my opportunity. Watched Hopwood, who watched me, strange eyes flashing their alien colors—

  And then Ong decided to be brave after all. He sprang upward and leapt at Hopwood, hands reaching for his gun. I brought the Colt up. Saw a blinding flash. Felt rock fragments pepper my skin. As I dived to the ground, the sound of the shot echoed and reechoed.

  Ong was down, too. I rolled, grasped the Colt in both hands, squeezed off a shot at Hopwood without aiming carefully. It missed, and he pivoted and dashed into the level behind him. I heard his footsteps, running away deeper into the earth. Running toward his dynamite charges.

  Ong pushed up from the ground; he hadn’t been hit. I grabbed his arm, dragged him toward the parallel level. He stumbled. I yanked him harder.

  “Come on, dammit! He’s going to detonate—”

  Ong got his legs under him and ran with me.

  I’d left the torch on the floor of the crosscut, and when I searched for my guide rope, I couldn’t find it. Ong was blundering through the darkness in front of me now, breath sobbing. I followed, stumbling and going down on one knee, caroming off the wall and slamming into his back. He fell. I pulled him up and dragged him some more.

  Ahead then I saw a pinpoint of light. Heard voices. The pinpoint enlarged: the access tunnel. People outside to help us.

  I shoved Ong into the small space. He balked, so I shoved him harder. Ong scrabbled forward, momentarily blocking the light. I crouched and dived in after him. Rock scraped my skin. Ong’s foot kicked out and grazed my forehead. And then a rush of fresh air and Hy’s voice, louder than the others: “Easy, easy.”

  I clutched the lifting arm. “The dynamite’s about to blow!”

  “Christ!” It was Hy’s arm. He pulled me to my feet, grabbed my hand. “Come on!”

  I ran with him, stumbling and panting. Around us were t
he sounds of other running feet and figures blurred by the darkness. My breath came hard; pain seared my side. The beams of flashlights bounced off fractured granite; rocks clattered and rolled; a man’s voice cursed furiously.

  I stumbled again, lost my grip on Hy’s hand, pitched headlong. He caught me, rolled with me. We came to rest on hard, level ground. Nearby I heard the sound of water.

  I lay still, panting. Hy leaned over me. Between gasps he said, “You damn near doubled your loss, McCone.”

  I looked up at him. His face was grim; wild curls hung over his sweat-slicked forehead. I sat up, smacking my own forehead against his chin.

  Hy pulled back. I saw we were on the lower slope, not far from the stream. The mesa loomed above us, security lights ablaze.

  “Hopwood,” I said. “He’s in there. We’ve got to stop him!”

  “Nothing we can do. We’ll have to let him blow it up.”

  I tried to get to my feet. Hy yanked me down.

  I said, “We can—”

  “No way.”

  “I could—”

  “You go back there and you’ve got even more of a death wish than I do.”

  I looked into his eyes, then back toward the mesa.

  Death wish.

  It takes many forms: the needle and the bottle; mountain climbing in avalanche time; games of chance when you know the deck’s stacked against you; wild car rides at night. For whatever reasons, the private hell that Hy described his late wife as saving him from had probably embodied a death wish. As did my own addiction to danger….

  Many forms, but this wasn’t one of them. “No,” I said, “it’s not that strong in either of us.”

  I looked away from the mesa. Allowed him to help me up. When standing, I noticed Ong several yards away, being supported by two other Asians.

  I thought, I hope he gives you a fat bonus for this, you poor bastards.

  Slowly we moved down the slope, a ragged and wounded little army, following the streambed toward the town where so many dreams had died. As we reached the first building, I heard a helicopter overhead, glanced up at it and then at Hy.

  “Sheriff’s department,” he said. “The guards found one of Hopwood’s dynamite charges up top and radioed Bridgeport before they evacuated.”