by Julie Weston
CHAPTER 28
When Nellie felt the rope loosen and herself falling, she covered her head, seeking to protect it from more lava scrapes. The chute was narrow, and, instead of her face, her elbows suffered. Maybe she would fall to the center of the earth or to burning lava and die in fire. But she didn’t. Her legs crumpled under her with a searing pain, and she fell mostly sideways on hard rock. Her automatic thrust of her arms saved her face, but her teeth slammed into her tongue, and blood filled her mouth. Nell could feel her head give way, losing consciousness, but she shook it and spat the blood out. It was not dark like in the cave. When she looked up, she could see the open hole of the spatter cone and light from what might be the rising sun. It seemed so far away.
For a moment, she thought she had died—she couldn’t get a breath, and, when she did, her chest screamed. Her moans echoed up the steep rock walls. She tried to cover her mouth so Peter Banks, if he were still there, wouldn’t hear her. Let him think she had died. And, maybe she still would. Her arms, torso, head, face, hands, and legs hurt in varied degrees of pain, seven circles of hell. All she could do was lie still and breathe in short breaths, each one a stab. Tears seeped down her face. Gradually, her heart slowed, and she could close her eyes. She slept in snatches, awaking thirsty, falling asleep, moving and jerked awake again by spasms of agony.
After a while, Nellie didn’t know how long, she inched up to a sitting position. Her hands were still tied but almost loose. She used her teeth to wrest the rope away, then held her ribs, for surely she had broken several. She felt her legs and found her ankle had swollen to three times its normal size—the ankle with no boot on it. A break there, too, or a terrible wrench. Her arms and hands worked, but her elbows were scraped almost clean of skin. Blood dripped from each; she could feel the liquid on her arms. Her tongue was swollen like her ankle. Talking would hardly be possible. She tried. “Help, help, help.” It came out “heph, heph, heph.” No one to hear her anyway. With care, she swept the ground around her. The lava felt like pahoehoe, not a’a, although there were big scratchy slabs. The rope was still tied around her chest and lay in a jumble next to her. She was sure rope burns covered her front under her shirt. She hoped her jacket had protected her back.
First, she thought. What was first? She could hardly think for all the needles and knives throbbing inside. First, get the rope off of her. Easier thought than done, she found. Lifting her arms moved her ribs, and she shrieked. Then she looked up. No face appeared in the hole. The man—the monster—must have left. Mouthing the hurt in short cries helped, and, at last, she was able to pull the rope over her head.
Second, stand up, she ordered herself. She rolled to her knees, her cries growing shriller, and then pulled herself up by grabbing a rough handhold on the wall. The hole above didn’t look any closer. Her ankle would not hold her, so she stood one-legged. She and Charlie—a pair to draw to. She wished he were looking down at her. He would figure out how to get her out. The sun had circled higher, and more light poured into the hole, enough to see that the walls of her prison were anything but smooth. Nor were they dark. Brilliant red ridges and ledges and chunky pieces of lava shone in the sunlight, but the light only reached perhaps the top third of the cone in which she found herself. Below the line, all looked a desolate gray.
Nellie let herself back down in slow increments. Although her chest hurt as much as before, she figured her mind was getting used to the other pains, for they seemed not so piercing. Still, tears dripped down her face. She felt abandoned. She leaned against the rock behind her. This must be how Effie had felt in the cave. She remembered the night she and Charlie talked and his story. No one hurt him physically, but Lily’s father had threatened him and forced him to leave all he had ever known. He, too, must have felt abandoned and alone, but he had recovered and gained in strength. She should have been more sympathetic to a man she surely loved. “Stop crying,” she said out loud. Charlie had called her a strong woman. She must live up to that description.
Nellie took the rope and formed a ring in one end, tying a slip knot taught to her by Charlie. Once again, she crawled to a standing position. Her perch was too narrow to swing the rope around; only an up and down motion would work, and that not well. Nevertheless, she persisted and, with one giant heave and a sharp scream, threw the ring toward the hole and hoped it would catch on something, anything. She had to ignore the needles in her chest, or she wouldn’t accomplish anything. On the third try, the ring caught. She pulled down on the rope, and it stayed on whatever it had caught. And then she realized she should have left the loop around her chest. If she climbed up, that could be her safety line, in case she slipped or something gave way. Over her head or up from her feet. Which would hurt the least? She played the rope out through her hands and decided the loop to go around her chest was too distant from the rope end, so she tied it close to the middle and slipped it down over her head, gritting her teeth to absorb the pangs rising up.
One foot was useless, but Nell found she could use the other foot and then her knee to clamber up the rocky wall, a slow step at a time. When she reached where the rope had caught on a lava knob, she searched for a level spot to stand. She forced herself to rest. Eventually, she could swing the lasso up and down again and flung it upward. Four tries and she was out of breath and losing her balance. On the fifth try, the ring caught. When she pulled on it, it slid but then stopped and stayed. As she slowly rose in the chute, she noticed the light from the hole was waning, but it was closer. In addition to her other aches, her one good foot began to tremble, tripping up and down like a sewing machine needle. She stopped to rest and stretch it out. The rock area where she had lain below had disappeared in her second climb. The distance to the top loomed in her head— maybe two more lengths or perhaps a total of forty feet from beginning to end. She must have dropped twenty, she realized, and was lucky to be alive. Keep going.
When she neared the surface, Nell realized escaping the cone hole presented a major hurdle. She needed to circle the rope around the lip. To do so, she must get herself almost up to the top and then lasso the lip. Every muscle in her body ached and throbbed. Her ribs hurt so much, she cried. The pant wool around her knee had shredded, and her skin was rough and bloody. Her foot had settled down, then tripped again, then calmed when she rested. Her hands were scraped and torn. She was too close to give up but so tired. She formed a large circle in the rope, took a deep breath, twirled the rope—and let go. Even in the shadowy afternoon, she could see the loop surround the lip and drop.
Outside, at last, Nellie assessed her injuries. Most of all, she was thirsty. If she lay still, only her ankle and the various scratches and bruises on her skin hurt. Her tongue had assumed its normal size, not that she needed to call out. No one was around. Someone must have discovered that she was not in her room. Her camera and pack were there, so Goldie or Charlie would know something was wrong. And Moonshine. Nellie had regretted not letting him out when she left the house, but he might not have survived Peter’s machinations. At the very least, the man was guilty of attempted murder—hers.
The afternoon had cooled and darkened, and an evening breeze chilled the air. As Nellie pondered her next moves, she saw a dark shape move in and out of the trees in the distance. Oh, no. That was all she needed—a bear or a mountain lion. Maybe the smell of her blood might attract one or the other like a shark to prey in water. She searched around where she sat for a weapon—plenty of lava chunks and a lava bomb or two. The gun she had carried was still in her pack. She grabbed a piece of lava. The animal would have to be close enough to hit. Her aim was good, she knew, when she was standing. She gathered up two more chunks in case she missed. The animal moved with its nose to the ground. Strange. And then she knew. “Moonshine! Moonie!” Her dog lifted its nose and ran up the incline toward her. “Oh, Moonie!” He almost leaped on her, but she had to hold him off. Her ribs couldn’t take his weight. She grabbed him around the neck and hugged him as close as possible. His sm
ell, his fur, his hefty chest—all were so dear to her.
“Moonshine!” Rosy’s voice floated to her. “Where did that damn dog go?”
“Rosy! Rosy!” Nell called. “He’s here. I’m here!”
“Girl! We had about given up on finding you.” Rosy stooped down to hug her, but she held her arms out to keep him away. “Are you all right?”
“No. Yes.” Nell couldn’t stop herself. She wept with loud, gasping sobs—each one hurting her. “Peter Banks stuffed me down that cone, but I am better now that you’re here.” Nell grabbed his leg and hugged it. “Oh Rosy.”
He patted her head awkwardly. “We knew Moonshine could find you, if anybody could.” He pulled a canteen over his head and opened it. “Here. You’re pro’bly dyin’ of thirst. Out here for hours.”
Nellie grabbed the canteen and drank and drank. When she stopped, she said, “I’m sorry. I may have taken all of it.” She handed it back. “How long have you been looking?”
“Hours.” Rosy squatted. “Where are you hurt? I’ll try to fix you up. We need to get you back to the road. The boys are missin’, too.”
“Oh, no! Did Peter take them, too?” Nellie tried to stand but fell back. She had forgotten about her ankle in the joy of seeing both Moonshine and Rosy. “Where’s Charlie?”
“Take it easy. Lemme see where you’re hurt and what to do.”
“Where don’t I hurt?”
Rosy dropped his pack from his shoulders. “Now, just sit there, and tell me what happened. Charlie and Jacob are goin’ after the boys. Goldie’s at home, waiting for a telephone call about all of you.”
“Jacob? How did he get involved?”
“We needed to see your photos, and he had some to show us. He motored up as soon as we telephoned. Got to Ketchum ’bout noon.” He poked around in his pack and fished out a blanket. “Here, let’s wrap this around you. Don’t want you gettin’ pneumonia.”
“But the boys? Who took them?”
“That damned Peter Banks. Right out of the hot springs. He wanted money for ’em. The same money ever’one’s been fightin’ over.” Rosy studied Nell from her head to her toes. “Now, where do you hurt? Then, I’ll answer your questions.”
Nell had ceased crying, but she felt weak. “First, my ankle. It might be broken.” She pulled the blanket off the unbooted foot, its stocking just strings of cotton. “Did you see my boot anywhere?”
“Yeah, we did. Moonie did. That’s how we knew to come this way. He carried it a long ways but dropped it.” Rosy searched in his pack again and pulled out her boot. “Lemme look.” With gentle hands, Rosy felt around Nellie’s ankle.
She tried not to cry out but didn’t succeed. Talking might help. “Peter Banks and Effie lured me out of the boarding house. Like a fool, I came downstairs. Peter chloroformed me, I think. It smelled awful. I woke up just before we stopped at the lava fields. He slung me over a horse. I tried to persuade Effie to leave. I don’t know if she did, but she didn’t come out with us.” Nellie rubbed her forehead, trying to remember the sequence of events. “When we reached the spatter cones, he wrapped a rope around me and held me over this one. He wanted to know where the money was. I think he searched my room after he drugged me.” She patted the rocks beside her. “He lowered me, and then he dropped me. I fell quite a ways. That’s when I hurt my ankle. My chest hurts, too. I think I broke some ribs. The rest of my—my—”
Rosy put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re safe now, Nellie.” He sounded like he might be crying.
Moonie snuggled up to both of them, as if to say, “These are mine.”
Nellie accepted Rosy’s and her dog’s warmth but after several minutes knew they needed to keep moving. “Tell me about the boys. I am so sorry.”
“Goldie telephoned from Guyer and said they were gone, and Peter Banks had taken them. I motored along to pick her up. By then Jacob Levine was at the house, and he and the sheriff were cozy with the photos you took. He’d set up in the bathroom, just like you did. ’Course, he identified O’Donnell, and he had one of him, too, along with a wife and kids.”
“Kids? Wasn’t he a little old to have children?”
“They was grown up women. Two of them. There wasn’t no Ben in there either.” Rosy sat up and stirred around in his pack again. “Here it is. Charlie said you’d want to see it.”
The edges of the photo were scraped, but Nellie could see the figures. “Ah. This explains a lot.”
“That’s what he said.” He put the photograph back in his pack. “We made Goldie stay at the boarding house, even though she wanted to come along. Someone had to be there to get telephone messages and call out. Jacob and Charlie headed for Arco and Mayor Tom. They think Tom might have had something to do with all this, because he was the one who told Charlie where to leave the money for Banks. Charlie said he had no choice but to leave it at the cave where you found the first body. Tom said Banks gave him the instructions, and he complied, because he could see Banks had the boys. Moonie and I came this way ’cause Effie said you was left out here somewheres.”
“Effie helped? How? Did she telephone? Come by?”
“Yep. Guess she got dropped off at Esther’s. My sister told Effie and Banks the boys had gone swimming at the hot springs. After Peter left, Effie telephoned us. She was afraid for the boys. Nice woman, that.”
“When did she tell you about me?”
Either Rosy didn’t hear the question, or he was too busy cleaning off her scrapes. Nellie left unsaid some of the nasty thoughts she had suffered down in the hole and tried to think of how Effie, too, had been abandoned. “Do you think I can walk on my leg?”
“Not a good idea. Let me find a stick and then maybe we can figure out how to get you back.” Rosy found his flashlight and left her in the gloom. Moonshine stuck with Nell, keeping her company.
After a space of time, when Nellie began to tremble again, she heard Rosy’s steps. He crouched down to her and asked for the blanket. She handed it over and could see he was folding it on top of what looked like a branch broken from a tree—a makeshift crutch. Rosy helped her up, and, once she was situated with the crutch under one arm and Rosy on her other side, they began to hobble and walk, slowly at first, but then with more assurance. Nell’s efforts kept her warm enough even without the blanket.
“Look over there, Rosy,” Nell said. “Is that a fire?” An orange glow appeared to radiate from the lava in an easterly direction. Nell stopped to get a better sense of where a fire might be. There wasn’t much that could burn on its own in the lava fields, but someone could light a fire as she and Charlie had done near the spatter cones.
“Sure looks like it. How do you feel about headin’ over that-away? Maybe it’s a signal fire from the sheriff. Maybe he found the boys.” Rosy had already taken several steps in that direction.
“If you could leave me your flashlight, I could make my own way there. Go ahead. It’s important to find Matt and Campbell. Maybe the sheriff needs your help!” As tender as she felt, Nellie didn’t want to hold Rosy back. She took the light and pointed out that the stars were beginning to sparkle and could help illuminate both his way and hers. Rosy left after a brief hesitation. “Yeah, Matt and Campbell.”
“Take Moonshine!” She urged her dog to follow Rosy, and he did.
Alone in the dark and surrounded by cool air, Nellie hobbled along the path that Rosy had taken. As she crutched over and around rocks, she was beginning to feel as if she were part of the night sky and the dark lava fields. The smell of dried grass, the rustlings of small animals, the brilliance of the Milky Way, and the harsh moonscape of the Craters had become integral to her knowledge of self. The horror of the deaths that had taken place there began to recede and be replaced by a trust and calm she rarely felt. There were evil actions in this Idaho back country, but good and caring people would overcome them, perhaps not at first, but in the end. The boys would be all right.
Even if all the bad people surrounded the fire, she hoped Char
lie had them tied up and that he didn’t need Rosy’s help. But why else would he start a fire? Or maybe Peter Banks had lit a match to the dry pine needles and shrubs. Maybe he planned to burn out the sheriff and Jacob. There was nothing she could do to help, as banged up as she was. Maybe it would be better to stay away and just await the outcome, whatever it was. Still, the thought of the two boys in trouble galvanized her to keep gimping along, as slow and sometimes painful as it was. She could throw rocks.
Another glow diverted her attention. A round moon, at first pink and then blood red, rose behind the orange radiance that was the fire she aimed toward. As the moon rose higher, the stars began to fade, and the night orb lost its carmen sheen. It would soon be bright enough to help Nellie stick to the path, probably an Indian trail in olden times. Before long, she could see that the fire had been built. It wasn’t growing as a wildfire would. Bulky shapes hovered nearby, the flames making them dance like monsters. But no, they were two horses—one to carry the sheriff—and who else? Peter! Nellie decided to stay back until she could figure out who was who and what was what. She didn’t see two boys or even their shadows. Rosy must have done the same thing, as she didn’t see him or her dog either.
“Whoooo-ooo.” Was that an owl, or Rosy, or the sheriff? Nellie hadn’t heard an owl the whole time she had been in the lava fields.
CHAPTER 29
Nellie waited. And waited and then decided it was an owl. She limped toward the fire and saw Matt and Campbell poking at it with sticks. The wavering light shone on the faces of Mayor Tom, Effie, Ben, and Pearl all sitting on the edges like a campfire party. A brown bottle made its way around the circle. A surprise and a relief. No Peter Banks. But Rosy and the sheriff were nowhere in sight.
Effie jumped up as Nellie neared and helped her with an arm around her waist. “Rosy said you were on your way.”
“No thanks to you,” Nell said and removed Effie’s arm. Don’t touch me, she thought, but forebore from saying it.
