by Cave, Hugh
About twenty feet in from the sinkhole the tunnel expanded and became an underwater chamber. In it he swam slowly upward until, had he been back in the sinkhole itself, he must have been fairly close to the surface.
Suddenly he was at the surface of this shaft, too, treading water and looking about himself in amazement, with his mask pushed up.
The cavern was the inside of the knoll, obviously—that same knoll where so much had happened. Where the figure in the mist had so mysteriously vanished after the attempt on his life with the fish net. The walls continued on up for another fifteen feet or so and formed a dome. Was he feeling currents of air from the cracks he could see in it? One such current definitely came from an opening just above the water—a tunnel similar to the one that had led him here, but dry.
Swimming to the tunnel, he clung to its lower edge and aimed his light beam into its depths. It was another passage, yes. Could it be part of something bigger?—an unknown but extensive underwater cave, say, like the known ones for which this part of Florida was famous? Pulling himself out of the water, he removed his flippers. With the mask still up and the flippers in one hand, he pushed on. The only sound was the whirring of the reel at his waist as the line unwound from it.
The tunnel became a snake, twisting its way deep into a world of limestone. Then it became two snakes, and he stopped. Which one should he follow?
The one that slanted upward toward the top of the knoll, he decided. But soon he had to make a second such choice, and a third, and found himself aiming his light into a small chamber on his left. Though it was otherwise empty, its floor bore some strange markings.
He went in to look at them and thought he knew what they were. They were the remnants of what had been voodoo vèvés, done with cornmeal and obviously drawn with care but partially rubbed out since, as if by someone who had wanted to defile them. Of course, at a voodoo service, once the vèvés had been used in the rituals, they were no longer sacrosanct. The houngan, hounsis, and other servitors walked and danced on them. But these appeared to have been deliberately smeared.
Still, there was nothing else here to indicate that this room had been used for a voodoo service. Without an altar and a poteau-mitan it was simply a small, bare room with the remains of a vèvé on its stone floor.
Was it, perhaps, a hounfor that had been abandoned? It certainly seemed so when he discovered, against the far wall, the remains of four crudely made black candles.
He went on for another few minutes and stopped again. From the right-hand wall of the passage a face peered out at him. A face? Well, part of one. There was something frighteningly familiar about it.
He took a step toward it and saw that it was not something separate from the wall. Imbedded in the stone, seemingly a part of the stone, it resembled a wolf's head. Or, rather, the skeleton of one. After another forward step, with the hair tingling at the nape of his neck, he realized he was looking at a fossil.
A fossilized wolf's head? Yes. The same kind of head, though not so large, as the one that had appeared fully fleshed and very much alive at his window.
What Verna wouldn't give to be here with him! Because even if she were not actually looking for fossils, she was a student of paleontology and the sister of a professor of that exciting science. And this, the almost perfectly preserved head of a prehistoric wolf, had to be a find as great as those unearthed at the Windover dig she talked about.
Should he go back and tell her? No, it was better to keep going, he decided. The wolf would still be here. His job was to solve the mystery of what was happening at the Everols'. And to learn why Earl Watson wanted people to believe the Drowning Pit was only a sinkhole when, obviously, he knew it was part of a complex cave system.
Suddenly Jeff came upon other fossilized remains, some imbedded in the wall as the wolf's head had been, others strewn about the tunnel floor. From the looks of them, these, too, were parts of animals. One group had surely been a huge bird, another a snake.
The vulture. . . the snake he had seen. . . But he did not know enough about such things. Picking up a piece of bone small enough to carry, he tucked it into his belt and went on.
The tunnel branched. Feeling he must be somewhere near the top of the knoll by now, he again chose the passage that slanted upward. Perhaps on the knoll there was an entrance to this eerie underworld. There had to be a second entrance somewhere if the Haitians were using the cave for their voodoo. And if so, the person who had dropped the net on him and then abruptly disappeared from sight might simply have stepped into it. But first, he had another chamber to investigate.
It was a second voodoo room, this one complete with a cloth-covered altar on which were more candles—white ones this time. On the floor were two vèvés, one to Erzulie, one to Legba, both newly drawn by someone who knew his business. He went forward to look at them more closely and found himself staring instead at a cocomacaque stick standing upright in an earthenware govi just in front of him.
A cocomacaque. One of the lesser known tools of a houngan, but a thing he had seen used in Haiti in the performance of some remarkable magic, if magic was the correct word. Here it was the source of silent but undeniable vibrations that made his whole body tingle as he gazed at it. As if—yes—it were warning him!
Sensing a threatening presence behind him, he swiftly turned his head.
It could not be real, the thing his light revealed. Yet after the vulture and the other horrors, how could he question it? According to Verna, Florida in those bygone days had been home to almost everything that walked, crawled, or flew; and from visits to museums of natural history he knew what the thing blocking the chamber's entrance must be. Not exactly, of course, because the family must have been large, but it was a saber-toothed cat of some kind.
His light showed it in a crouch, about to spring, with its awesome jaws agape and upper canines gleaming. Upper canines that looked like curved swords and were certainly capable of tearing him into bloody bits.
So why was he not paralyzed with terror? Why was he lurching around again and reaching for the cocomacaque?
He had seized the sacred voodoo stick without even thinking. When he turned with it to face the thing about to spring at him, he, too, was in a crouch, legs wide, the stick horizontal in both hands and thrust out in front of him.
The snarl that issued then from those gaping jaws seemed capable of bringing the ceiling down and shattering the cavern's walls.
Jeff took a step forward. Until now the scuba gear had been only an awkward burden limiting his freedom of movement; now it was a hazard that caused him to stagger. Still, like a house cat confronted by something it feared, the saber-tooth lowered its crouch and wriggled backward. Its haunches quivered. Its claws scraped the stone. Its jaws dripped froth.
Aware that the cocomacaque was making his hands tingle, Jeff dared to take another step forward. Then, straightening, he swung the stick like a cutlass as he stumbled forward.
The huge cat whipped itself about and was gone. Gone with such swiftness that he wondered if it had actually been there at all.
Had it been there? It had, of course. Why else would he have snatched the cocomacaque out of the govi and now be clutching it in both hands again while poised like a batter awaiting a pitch?
Motionless except for his trembling, he continued to wait. Then, when the silence seemed to indicate that the beast would not be coming back, he walked slowly forward to the tunnel and continued his journey through the cavern. After awhile, finding himself at a junction of passages again, he chose the one on his left because there seemed to be a draft of air flowing from it.
Again he found himself trudging up a slight incline, slowly now because his encounter with the thing in the chamber had left him drained of energy. With every step he took, the current of air became stronger. Then the passage ended at a wall in which his light revealed a vertical, man-high slit not wide enough for him to squeeze through.
It was through here, though, that the air was
entering—along with, now, the sound of rain. A very loud, ominous sound of rain.
Was the wall movable? If this was the answer to the disappearance of the person who had dropped the net on him, it had to be. He worked his way up to it and found he was right: It was a boulder that yielded when he put his strength to it. It rocked sideways, then ponderously rolled far enough to create an opening through which he might be able to squirm. Removing the tanks from his back would make the squeeze-through easier.
He took them off and laid them down. If he got out, he could reach in for them. The sound of rain was as deafening, now, as if he were standing behind a waterfall. Never mind. At least he would not have to retrace his route through the cave and the sinkhole.
Taking in a big breath, he stepped out into the downpour.
There was a new sound then, a more ominous one, as something whistled at his head. At the same instant he saw lurching toward him a blurred human shape whose upraised arms terminated in some sort of club. Instinctively he counter attacked with the only weapon he had: the cocomacaque.
The two sticks came together with a noise like a crack of thunder. His assailant's, apparently a dead tree limb, broke into fragments that flew in all directions, some into Jeff's face. The slashing stroke of his own weapon continued until the side of the man's rain-blurred head stopped it.
With a howl of pain, the fellow stumbled back off balance. But before the cocomacaque could finish the job, he had regained his footing, lurched about, and fled.
Recovering, Jeff wiped bits of pine bark from his eyes and looked around. Obviously the man had been waiting here for him to emerge from the cave, so he must have witnessed the dive. Who had it been? Everett? The Haitian, Lelio? But surely neither of those aging men could have swung that tree-limb club with such force. Earl Watson, then. Yes.
He looked at the cocomacaque. There was blood on it.
After retrieving the tank and rolling back the boulder he stepped away for a better look at the cave mouth. Had he not known it was there, he never would have suspected its existence. But of course Watson, using scuba gear, had brought the child's body up from the Drowning Pit and would have seen the underwater entrance at that time. No doubt he had explored the cave either then or later and found this outlet on the knoll.
And the Haitians, too, knew about the cave. Unless someone else had turned those two chambers into hounfors.
Who else might know?
He was standing there in the downpour like an idiot while trying to think, he suddenly realized. The rain that had hidden the identity of his assailant was pounding down now as though determined to drown him. With a shake of his head he turned and trudged down the side of the knoll to the sinkhole, where he found Verna pacing back and forth at the water's edge with her jacket held over her head. She had not seen him coming and was startled when he called her name. Then, obviously bewildered, she turned to peer at the water.
"Talk to you at the cars," he shouted. "Come on!"
It was a relief to reach his car and an even greater one to shed his scuba gear and wet suit and get them safely stowed in the trunk. Out of the rain at last, he sat with Verna on the front seat and told her what had happened to him. To be heard above the hammering of rain on the car's roof, he had to shout.
After telling her about the voodoo chambers, the saber-tooth, and the man who had tried to ambush him on the knoll, Jeff showed her the bone he had brought back. "And there are others in there. Lots of others. Is this something big, do you suppose?"
She studied the fossil in silence, then said excitedly, "This has to be from some bird or animal, but I can't even guess what kind. Can we go look at the others?"
"Later."
"But—"
"Love, we've got to get you out of that house first. Right now, this morning!"
"But where can I go?"
"There's a motel in the town where I rented the diving gear. I saw it. It's old, but it will do. You can't stay at the Watsons'."
"Jeff I—"
"Verna, he went to all that trouble to find out if you're really what you say you are. It's almost a sure thing that he's the one who tried to kill me just now." Jeff suddenly realized he was shouting even more than he had to, and lowered his voice a little. "I know you want to find out what happened to your sister, but can't you see your safety is important, too?"
She looked at him in an agony of indecision.
"We won't stop working on your sister," he promised. "All it will mean is that you'll have to drive a few miles more each day. But you'll be safe."
"Well—" She reached out to touch his hand. "If you're sure I ought to..."
"You ought to, love. You have to." Turning, Jeff put an arm around her and held her close. Her safety, he realized, was now number one on his list of priorities, topping even his determination to solve the Everol mystery.
"Come on," he said then. "Get in your car and head for the Watsons'. I'll be right behind you."
Chapter Eighteen
When she had finished applying a bandage to her husband's left ear, Marj Watson stepped back and scowled at him. He sat grimly silent on a straight-backed chair in their kitchen, fiercely glaring into space.
"There," Marj said with an explosion of pent-up breath. "That's the best I can do, and I still say you oughta see a doctor."
"To hell with a doctor," Earl growled. "It'll heal."
"I doubt it, without some stitches. A little more and you'd be minus an ear, if you ask me, not to mention you could have a broken bone or somethin' under that swellin'. Now are you gonna tell me what happened?"
Earl pushed himself to his feet and almost lost his balance, but caught himself by grabbing the stove. Dropping back onto his chair, he turned his glare on her. "I told you, didn't I, for Christ's sake?"
"You told me and I don't believe you. Not a word. You never got that bruise and that mashed-up ear by fallin' over a bait bucket on any pier. I don't believe you went near any pier. I don't believe you went fishin'."
"Go to hell, then," Earl growled.
With her arms folded, Marj leaned against the kitchen counter and studied him appraisingly. "You want me to tell you what really happened?" she challenged. "Okay, I will. When you heard that girl's car start up—same as I did—you jumped out of bed so quick you just about fell on your face, and you pulled your clothes on even quicker, and you ran downstairs. The next thing I knew, I heard you start up the pickup and go tearin' down the road after her. Now are you gonna tell me where you went?"
"I told you. Fishin'."
"Earl, that ain't the way a man goes fishin'. You think I'm stupid?"
He did, she knew. He thought she was stupid and always had. All he'd married her for was her cooking; she was a damned sight better cook than a lazy bastard like him deserved. And for sex, of course. For something handy to put it in that wouldn't give him an argument. Yes, he thought she was stupid.
But he was wrong. She was smart enough to know he was up to something. Smart enough to know he didn't have any real interest in getting work at painting anymore, yet still had money in his pocket. Where was the money coming from? Not from any fish he caught and sold, like he said. She knew better than that.
Oh, sure, he was out of the house a lot. Almost every day he climbed into the pickup and went somewhere without telling her where he was going or when he'd be back. But she'd been watching pretty close. He never took any paint or tools, and there was never a fish smell in the truck when he got back, either.
Now this.
He'd been real shook up when he got back an hour or so ago. He'd had one hand pressed to the side of his head and there'd been blood oozing out through his fingers and a real wild look in his eyes. A bait bucket on the pier, he'd said. He'd tripped over a bait bucket on the pier and hit his head on a piling. Ha. Oh, sure.
He'd been in a fight, more likely. Some kind of fight or brawl brought on by whatever he was up to with all the running around lately. Someone must have grabbed a piece of pipe or a bottl
e or something and caught him on the side of the head with it. He was lucky to—
The front door had just opened. With an angry glance at Earl, Marj went to see who had come in. It was the Clark girl and her boyfriend, Jeff Gordon, and they stopped on their way to the stairs when they saw her coming from the kitchen.
"Mrs. Watson, may I talk to you for a minute?" the girl said.
"Sure." Marj stopped a yard away and scowled at them. "What's goin' on?"
"I have to tell you I'm leaving."
"Leavin'? What for?" Both of them were soaked, as if they'd been out in the rain a long time. For the past hour or so it'd been raining so hard the house windows were all steamed up.
"I have to go home," the girl said. "Someone's ill and I'm needed."
"That's too bad." It was a lie, of course. There hadn't been any phone call, and she hadn't had any mail yesterday, and today's mail hadn't come yet, so how would she know if someone at home was sick? An outright lie. Had Earl been trying to make time with her? It would be just like him. "I can't give you no refund, if that's what you're lookin' for. Know you're paid up till the end of the week, but I don't have it."
"Miss Clark doesn't want a refund," Jeff Gordon said. "We just want to get her things."
"Oh. Well, all right. Go ahead."
"I'm sorry," the girl said.
"Yeah. It's okay."
"Can I say good-bye to Mr. Watson, do you suppose?"
"He's in the kitchen."
They both went down the hall to the kitchen, and Marj heard them talking there for a minute; then they returned and went on upstairs. She stood by the foot of the stairs, waiting, and when they came back down with the girl's two suitcases, she stuck out her hand to the girl and said, "Well, it's been nice havin' you, Miss Clark. Maybe we'll see you again sometime."
The girl said, "Yes," and 'Thank you," and the two of them went out into the rain again.
