“Just a second,” he said.
He headed toward the opening grate and Cassie assumed he needed to go before they left. When he came back a few minutes later, he followed her as she made her way down the packrat tunnel into the mine. Again they used her headlight only, and Billy had to stay close enough to be able to see by her light.
Cassie moved quickly through the part of the tunnel they had traveled the day before and soon came to the area with the log supports and piled up stones along the wall.
Cassie was relieved to feel the breeze coming from the darkness of the tunnel ahead. She turned to Billy who had a blank expression upon his face. “Here’s to getting out today,” she said, went over next to him and gave him a quick hug.
At the hug, Billy smiled. She didn’t wait for him to talk. She turned and continued down the tunnel. She hadn’t gone sixty feet when an opening appeared in the floor ahead seemingly crossed by two, eight-inch-wide, old planks set two inches apart. Moving cautiously she examined the area with her headlight as she neared it.
When she reached the edge of the drop-off, she turned back to Billy. “What do you think?”
“I think we shouldn’t stand so close together,” he said, backing away from her. “The ledge could be undercut beneath the boards.”
Cassie looked down. Without getting dangerously close to the edge, she couldn't tell if she was on a cliff face with solid rock beneath her or an extended ledge. All she knew was that she had to go forward. Summoning up her courage, she put a foot on one of the two old boards that spanned the drop beneath her. Below, about twenty feet down, she saw the remains of an old ladder leaning against the sloping wall. Without thinking about it more, she willed her other foot to move along the board next to the one her foot was already on. As her weight came down on that board, the board gave up a loud creaking sound. The far side was only ten feet away. She sprinted, willing her feet to barely touch the wood. In seconds she stood hunched over on the far side gasping for breath.
Billy just stared at her. When she caught her breath, she pointed the headlight down at the two boards. “Now you,” she said.
As Billy moved toward the boards, Cassie could see the stone floor the far edge of the board rested on was only inches thick, and a wide and deep opening lay beneath it.
“Hurry,” she said, as she saw some dirt fall from the underside of the ledge as Billy crossed it. As if sensing the danger that she saw, Billy picked up his pace. In an instant, he was across, too.
“Look,” she said and pointed her headlight back at the undercut beneath the tunnel floor they had just left.
“Wow,” was all Billy could say.
They traveled slowly for more than an hour before they came to a large diamond-shaped archway beyond which were three openings spreading out like a three-fingered hand.
“Crap,” Cassie said.
“Which way do you want to go?” Billy asked.
Cassie thought for a moment then licked the index finger of her right hand.
She stepped over to the left-hand tunnel and held the finger up. “There’s air coming out here,” she said.
“So we go that way?” Billy asked.
“Let me check the other two,” Cassie said. She licked her finger again and checked the middle tunnel. “There’s air coming out of this one too,” Cassie said.
Billy said nothing.
As she moved toward the right-hand tunnel, her headlight revealed two reddish colored sticks on the floor by the opening.
“Are those flares?” she asked out loud walking toward them. To her surprise, Billy’s hand grabbed her shoulder hard and held her back.
“What are you doing?” she demanded angrily.
“Those aren’t flares, that’s dynamite!” Billy said. “I saw a whole box of it in the first area where the logs were holding up the ceiling.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“It’s dangerous. The nitroglycerin can leak out, and it can explode if you even touch it.”
“How do you know so much about mines?” Cassie asked just a hint of suspicion in her question.
“I got that from old westerns. Best to just stay away from it.”
Cassie nodded. “But I better check this tunnel for air.” She licked her finger and held it in front of the tunnel, and then she shook her head. “No air moving here. The way out has to be one of the other tunnels.”
“Good, there could be more dynamite in this one.”
They went back and stood between the left hand and center tunnel.
“Flip a coin?” Billy asked.
Cassie thought for a moment. “Why don’t you take the left one and I’ll take the center one. That way we can cover more ground quicker.”
“Separate?” Billy asked, his voice showing skepticism.
“I want to get out of here,” Cassie said, the fear and tension escaping into her voice giving away how insecure she really felt. She had been telling Billy what to do, taking charge because it gave her a sense of control. But she didn’t really have any control here at all.
Billy looked at her with a doubtful expression on his face. “Okay. We can do that.” He hesitated a moment then asked, “But why do you think splitting up will help us?”
“The breeze is about the same coming from both of them,” Cassie explained. “There could be two separate entrances, but if so I think it’s unlikely air would be blowing at the same rate from each. So I think it’s more likely the two tunnels join up. We need to figure out which one is the better way to go, and separating would be the fastest way to do that.”
Billy nodded his understanding. “How far do you think we should go before we check back with each other?”
Cassie had already thought about this. “Why don’t we each count five hundred paces. If you come to a place where the breeze stops, then just come back. If you come to a fork, always go left, unless there’s no breeze coming from the left-hand fork. When either of us gets to five hundred paces, head back. If either of us reaches a spot where there is a breeze, but for some reason, we can’t move forward, that person will come back and look for the other.”
“Okay,” Billy said.
“Put your pen-light on,” Cassie said.
“Oh, yeah,” Billy said with a laugh. He took his penlight from his pocket and turned it on. It cast a small bright circle on the floor of the archway.
“Good luck,” Cassie said turning and walked into the middle tunnel. She heard Billy moving off behind her.
Cassie had been walking slowly. The narrow walls of the tunnel she was following were beginning to get to her. A steady breeze still blew in her face, but it almost seemed as if the sides of the tunnel were very slowly closing in. She had just reached two hundred and thirty-four steps when she saw that the darkness in front of her light expanded in width about ten feet ahead. A steady drip of water could be heard ahead.
Carefully she moved forward approaching this wider darkness with caution. When she reached it, she saw a huge cavern open up on her left. The tunnel she had been following was now a ledge on the side of this cavern that extended both down below her and up above. Pointing her headlight upward revealed a rough stone ceiling forty feet above. When she pointed her headlight down, she could see stone outcroppings, but her headlight could not penetrate the darkness at the bottom. She had just turned and pointed her headlight ahead along the ledge she was following when she caught a glimpse of light at the corner of her left eye.
She turned her headlight off without even thinking about it and held her breath. The light was faint, but it danced on a stonewall across the cavern. Moments later, apparently on a ledge on the far side of the cavern similar to the one she was on, the source of the light appeared--someone holding a small flashlight.
Her first thought was that it was their captor. But the light was too feeble she realized. Their captor would be better prepared. Billy?
Without turning on her light, she sidled slowly to her right until she could feel the wall
on her right side. There she turned and keeping the wall in the darkness against her left fingertips, moved back until she sensed that she was back in the entryway to the tunnel she had just emerged from.
She turned and looked across the cavern. She watched the light play around going to the roof of the cavern, which it barely illuminated and then to the depths, which it barely penetrated at all. Ready to dart back into the tunnel she had come from if anyone else but Billy answered, she called out, “Billy! Is that you?”
She held her breath for what seemed like an eternity.
“Cassie?” Billy called back loudly. “Is that you?”
Cassie stepped out from the tunnel entrance took the headlight off her head, and pointed the beam towards her face. “Yes. Have you found any branches in the tunnel you’re following?” she called out.
“No,” Billy said.
“What count are you at in footsteps?”
“Two hundred and three,” Billy said.
That made sense to Cassie. Billy was taller and would have a longer stride.
“Do you have a way to go up ahead?” she asked.
Billy pointed his penlight down along the ledge he was following. A small opening was faintly visible on the far end. “Yes,” he replied.
“Let’s start our count over from where we are now,” Cassie called out. “And go to five hundred from here.”
“Okay,” Billy said after a few seconds. And began moving toward the opening ahead of him.
Cassie pointed her headlight to the floor of the ledge. The ledge stretched about four feet wide, but she still stayed close to the right-hand wall as she made her way to an opening at the far end. Just as Cassie reached the opening on her side of the cavern, she saw Billy bend and crawl into a much smaller hole across the way.
She hadn’t gone ten feet when she heard, echoing through the cavern, a blood-curdling scream.
She rushed back out the tunnel and, standing a foot back from the edge of the cavern focused her headlight on the hole she’d seen Billy climb into. A moment later she heard a muffled cry.
“Cassie! Help me!” She knew it was Billy, and he sounded terrified.
Falling in Darkness
October 30: 10:46 a.m.
Billy only glanced at Cassie as her light vanished into the tunnel on the other side of the chasm. He knelt down and glanced into the narrower tunnel in front of him. It would be tight, but he could make it. After a few feet of crawling the tunnel opened up. He had barely stood when his light revealed the floor of the tunnel ahead had caved in. Right in front of him, the floor slanted down to an opening into the chasm.
Billy could see an opening where the tunnel continued on about twenty feet ahead. By pointing the penlight at the collapsed floor, he also saw, about two feet down, a small ledge jutting about six inches out, that with just a few breaks extended to the tunnel on the far side.
Billy had been considering his options all morning. He did not believe there was any other way out of the mine but the grated opening. The least complicated thing he could do was go back the way they had come, let himself out of the mine via the grate, remove any evidence that he’d been here at all, and go home. If Nate Hanassey or his brother asked, he’d say he trapped the girl in the mine. If they didn’t believe she was dead, they could look for her themselves and take care of her themselves. Of course, if she somehow got out alive, things could go badly for him.
But the idea of escaping with Cassie and just letting her get away kept coming back to him. He knew it was an almost impossible idea. The reality that he’d probably end up in prison if he tried it kept rearing its ugly head. But almost involuntarily he found himself going along with the impossible plan.
What would he do if he were a prisoner just like Cassie? It was a question he’d been asking himself, and a question that had been modifying his actions. Now as he looked at the ledge he knew as a fellow prisoner he’d climb down to the ledge, work his way across to the tunnel, and see if the air he felt moving past him was coming from the tunnel or the chasm below. If it was not coming from the tunnel, the tunnel was a dead end, and he could go and rejoin Cassie.
He decided, since he'd be climbing, to take the makeshift boots off.
Putting the homemade boots in his jacket and the penlight in his mouth he lowered himself to the ledge. Then taking a handhold on the rough rock just above his eye level, he began to move sideways out along the six-inch ledge. He soon came to the first of the breaks in it. By stretching his leg out, he was able to secure is footing on the section past the break. It was as he tried to step across a second break that a number of unexpected things happened.
First, he was stretched out between the two sections of ledge when the ledge below his right foot gave way. The entire rest of the ledge from where his right foot had been to the opening he was heading for fell away. As he grabbed tighter with his hands, putting more weight on his right hand to offset the loss of balance caused by losing the support of his right leg, his body moved awkwardly, his face bumped into the wall and knocked the penlight out of his mouth.
Billy watched in horror as the light fell, illuminating the chasm for at least two hundred feet before landing with a splash, dimming for a moment, then winking out. The darkness crowded in around him.
“Cassie!” Billy cried as loudly as he could. “Cassie!”
He kept crying her name realizing that now she was his only hope.
His hands were growing numb. His left foot was growing numb. His right foot went from hanging in the air to trying to get purchase on the ledge where his left foot rested. But to actually get up on that ledge, he would need to move his hands. But without light to see where he needed to grab he could not. He had tried to find something to grip with his left hand. He had stretched that arm out, searching for purchase, until his right arm hurt so badly he was about lose his grip. He had, had to pull back.
He had no idea how much time had passed.
“Cassie,” he cried, but his voice was now hoarse from calling for so long. He caught a glimpse of her light just before he heard her moving toward him.
He turned his head. She stood at the opening of the tunnel with her flashlight on him.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, shaken.
“Just hold the light,” he said. With her light on the ledge, he could now see the one place he’d need to grab with his right hand in order to be able to move back in the direction of the tunnel. He swung himself sideways, getting a lift from his left foot and grabbed the protruding stone. A minute later he was at the edge of the tunnel with Cassie trying to catch his breath.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, surprised at the anger he felt. He had been terrified. Now, he felt angry and embarrassed.
“Maybe we should stick together from now on?” Cassie said.
“You think?” Billy said sarcastically. He didn't understand his emotions. She had saved him, and he suddenly hated her.
“Here,” she said, handing him the extra candle and tin of matches. “Just so you have it.”
Billy took the candle and match tin but said nothing. He sat down and began putting the makeshift boots back on.
“Didn’t your watch light work?” she asked.
“Shit,” Billy said. "I was holding on with both hands, so it didn't matter, but I didn't remember either.” A moment later his watch light glowed illuminating his face.
“You’ll remember next time,” she said.
She led the way out of the small hole Billy had crawled through when she last saw him, and along the path at the edge of the chasm where she'd seen his light.
It wasn’t until they had gone back to the area where the tunnels forked and started together into the middle one that it occurred to Billy he could have just pushed her into the chasm as they went past. She would never be able to testify against him that way. And they would be passing the same chasm again shortly on the other side.
But as they passed the ch
asm on the other side with the wall on their right this time, Billy did nothing. She had the headlight. He imagined himself taking it from her and then pushing her. And the idea that she would know he was doing that to her just made him feel sick.
Fatal Choice
October 30: 2:37 p.m.
They walked along following the tunnel for some time. There were times when the tunnel dipped a bit as if going deeper but for the most part the tunnel was level. The sound of running water could be heard, faint but steady, as they walked, but it seemed to always be far away.
They were rounding a curve in the tunnel when Cassie’s headlight suddenly blinked off.
“What’s the matter?” Billy asked, thinking she had turned it off for some reason.
“Batteries ran out. I’ll have to put in new ones.”
Billy felt in his pockets. He pulled out one of the candles and the tin of matches. As he struck the match, Cassie looked up in surprise.
“Thank you,” she said. “I was going to try and change the batteries in the dark.” As she said it, one of the new batteries in her hand fell to the floor and rolled. By the light of the candle, which Billy moved to better see the battery, she picked it up.
As she snapped the headlight shut and turned it on, Billy blew out the candle.
“We make a good team,” she said.
“Yeah,” Billy said.
“Look! There’s something ahead in the tunnel,” Cassie said.
Billy followed her headlight beam. The tunnel ahead appeared to widen, and something was built up in the center of the widened area. As they neared it, the sound of running water grew louder.
“It's some kind of wooden frame,” Cassie said. She rushed ahead leaving Billy behind.
Winslow- The Lost Hunters Page 21
