“Sorry, Daddy. I won’t ever leave without asking p’mission again.” She crossed her chest from shoulders to stomach with the forefinger of her right hand.
She obviously hadn’t the slightest idea that she had been in any danger. Jeff promised that he’d let her off lightly for any future misbehavior. What could she do that would make his heart stop again as it had the instant he had thought her dead?
“I’m going to take you to Grandpa, honey. Then me and a couple of other men are going to join Edith and Mr. Sullivan.”
As he stood up, his daughter still in his arms, he looked around for the hound. “Grouchy?”
He heard a woof, the same happy sound the dog made when hunting rabbits through the pastures. “Come on, boy,” he called, and whistled.
The tan dog came running out of the darkness, his paws scrambling on the loose surface. He held something in his jaws. Coming to a stop before his master, he laid the slobbery circle on Jeff’s boot. Then Grouchy slunk back, his belly to the ground but his tail thumping with barely suppressed delight.
Balancing Maribel on one hip, Jeff slowly lowered himself to pick up the brown circle. It smushed in his fingers but gave out the smell of allspice and nutmeg.
With a giggle, Maribel said, “It’s a cookie. Daddy. Grouchy brought me a cookie.”
“Hot damn! Lemonade and gingersnaps!”
“Daddy! You swore!”
A few minutes later, Maribel stood in danger of being smothered by the joyful ladies of Richey. She stood it only so long before saying in an widely audible whisper, “Louise? Let’s go see Orpheus.”
There was some laughter, and then the ladies went to start cooking for the menfolk. No one could tell how long the searchers might have to remain here, except that they’d stay as long as it took one way or the other.
Putting Maribel down, Sam said, “We’ll go see that bird all right, darlin’. But then we’re going to go home.”
A woman’s voice cut through the children’s automatic complaints. “Sam?” Vera Albans stood a few feet away, as though afraid to approach.
With the swiftness of instinct, Sam held out his hand to her. A hesitant smile curving her lips, she took the steps that brought her to his side and gratefully slipped her hand into his. “I was afraid you’d hate me. This is all my fault.”
Keeping a careful eye on the girls, but letting them get out of earshot, Sam said, “Like hell it is. You didn’t tell me to go thrash the sonofabitch. Pardon my language.”
“It’s all right. I’ve heard worse.” She also looked ahead to the children. It felt so right to be walking hand in hand with this man. If only there wasn’t such a cloud over them.
“Maribel seemed unscathed by her experience,” she said.
“To her, this is just another part of the fair. At least, Sullivan didn’t scare her. That’s the only thing that’ll keep me from ripping him apart when they find him. I just hope none of the boys get so riled they hang the bastard before he can tell us where Edith is.”
“Surely they wouldn’t do that!”
“You better believe they would. You see, they all remember the last time somebody got lost down there.”
“I never heard . . .”
“Well, you wouldn’t. Nobody likes talking about it. It was fifteen years ago. There was this kid ... He was one of those boys nobody seems to take to much. Always on the outside, you know? He seemed to think if he explored the cave everybody’d look up to him as some kind of hero.”
“I take it that he didn’t.”
“We looked for three days and nights. The whole town turned out. Jeff and Paul led a lot of the searches, because they’d spent so much time in the place. They never went back much after the two of ‘em brought that kid out on a plank. He’d been crushed by falling stone. Nobody knew if he was killed outright or not.”
Vera looked away. “Do you think they’ll find Edith?”
“They’ll find her. But in what condition . . .”
About an hour and a half after Jeff found Maribel, the girls’ elation at the new fair had faded. The day had become hot enough to bake bread, and not a breeze moved.
Mrs. Armstrong came up to Sam, pacing at the entrance of the livestock tent. “Why don’t you send the girls home with us? You know my daughters would love to keep them, as long as need be.”
“Thanks, Millie. I appreciate that. This isn’t good for 'em.” He called them. As they went off with the preacher’s wife, who was promising them pie and new games, he said bitterly to Vera, “Even if they were both of ‘em lost up there, I wouldn’t be able to stand going in after ‘em. I can’t even bear to be up there at the hub of things.”
“That’s all right,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. What else could she say?
“I’ve always been afraid of places like that. I won’t even go in my own blasted root cellar. And there’s no
reason
for it.”
“There doesn’t have to be a reason. I’m scared of bees. Actually, it isn’t bees. It’s the noise they make. That buzz!” She shivered.
“Let’s get away from here then. The flies make enough noise to drive you crazy,”
As they walked away, Gary came running up. He was marked with clay and candle wax. “Oh, there you are, Mr. Dane. Jeff sent me back.”
“Have they found her?”
“No, sir. Grouchy lost the trail. There’s this place where the water runs down. They’re casting around for a new trail now.”
“You go take a rest, son. You look worn to a nub.”
Gary passed his arm over his forehead and looked surprised at the amount of dirt and sweat that came off. “It’s not so bad in there. Mr. Tyler said it’s about fifty degrees inside. It’s coming out to this heat that knocks you down.”
Vera said, “I’ll get you a drink, Gary.”
She came back at a run, holding her skirt high out of the way. “I saw him.” she gasped out.
“Who? Sullivan?” Sam demanded.
“Yes. He’s . . . he’s down by the flower-show tent.”
“Come on!” Sam shouted to Gary. The two men raced away, Sam’s limp not slowing him down a hair. The gaudy silk sling fluttered to the ground behind him. Heads turned as they shot past, and in a moment, twenty or thirty people were following.
Vera arrived just in time to see Sam’s left fist slam into Victor’s face. His head rocked back but already his fist was coming up. It began as a slugfest but after the first blood showed, dotting Victor’s clay-streaked shirt, they fell into a clinch, hammering at each with short, punishing blows.
They rocked and reeled between the tent and the spectators. Not a man stepped forward to stop the fight, the crowd stood by in a horseshoe. Looking at their faces, Vera saw stalwart resolve and knew that if by some chance Sam should go down, half a hundred men stood ready to take his place.
The two combatants staggered back and forth before they broke apart. Sullivan brought in a roundhouse punch that sent Sam tottering back into the crowd. The younger man turned to flee and ran into the tent.
The crowd surged forward as Sam broke free of the supporting arms of his friends. He chased Sullivan, nearly falling but pursuing like a Fury. Catching hold of his shoulder, Sam spun him around, connecting with a bone-crunching right to the jaw.
As Sam hollered aloud in pain, Sullivan slid slowly down, his eyes rolling up in his head. As he fell, he caught the edge of a table, in a last-ditch effort to stay upright. The table, unbalanced, tipped up. The entire display—vases, roses and all—came crashing down on Sullivan’s unconscious form.
As Sam stood swaying above his vanquished opponent, Vera rushed to his side. “Are you hurt?” she cried.
“Course. But I feel fine.” He prodded Sullivan with his toe, tenderly kicking aside a dark red rose. “At least Fred Grant can’t win first prize either. That’s his prize bouquet right there on top of this louse. Only time he’s ever smelled this good, I’ll . . .”
Still with a smile on his face, Sam dropped to his knees. Vera cradled his head against her bosom. “Somebody get some water! And get Doc Butler. Sam, darling, you’re going to be all right. I’m so proud of you.”
* * * *
Grouchy tugged against the rope through his collar and whined. To him, being underground was the same as hunting in the light, though the smells were all long dead. All except one, the scent he sought, snuffling along the shale and limestone.
He could sense his master’s impatience and excitement flowing down the rope. Grouchy wanted to please him. Once more he snuffed and sniffed along the dry side of a slight rise where the water ran down. Then Grouchy caught the faintest, shivery whiff of the smell he sought. He dragged forward, his big paws digging into the ground so that he staggered like a fur-bearing iguana. The smell was a bright light reaching through to the back of his head, calling him forward.
“I think he’s found it!” Jeff shouted over his shoulder to the searchers behind him. They’d all sat down after Grouchy searched fruitlessly for half an hour. There had been no grumbling, however.
Jeff found himself being towed along behind the dog so quickly that he had to duck to pass under low overhangs almost before he saw them. He didn’t care how many bumps or bruises he had to take out of here, so long as he found Edith. Besides, compared to what he intended doing to Sullivan . . .
He tripped and went down. The rope slipped from his nerveless fingers. Free of the dragging weight of his master, Grouchy ran ahead. “No, dammit!” Jeff yelled, scrambling up.
Someone from behind caught his arm when he would have gone running into the darkness. “Slow down, Jeff.” Paul’s voice came out of the dark as it had when they were boys, reassuring and calm. “We don’t want to be lookin’ for two of you.”
“But without Grouchy ...”
“He’ll come back.”
They were struck into silence by the deep baying of a hound on the scent. It came rolling and echoing back like the roar of some creature from the distant past. Suddenly changing into a higher pitch, it cut off abruptly.
Someone said, “You reckon he fell in?” Everyone had the same picture in his head. They all knew there were pits in the caves too deep for a man to measure.
“Come on,” Jeff said. “We can go a little farther. Grouchy was heading straight as an arrow when I saw him last.”
“Okay.” Paul looked back over the other men’s head. “Mike, you stay put. And the rest of you, go careful.” Once they’d gotten beyond the knowledge of any man there, they’d left men at every crossroads or fork they came down. Mr. Armstrong sweated impotently on the far side of Fat Man’s Nightmare, a passage no more than three feet wide.
Jeff began walking ahead. Though he knew Edith had only been down here perhaps two hours, he hated to think of her alone with Sullivan. His mind obligingly coughed up a dozen scenes of lurid melodrama, and he fought to keep sane. If he’s hurt one hair on her head . . . , he thought, in but the latest of futile vows he’d made with God or himself.
“Grouchy,” he called. “Here, boy!”
He whistled, but the echoes were too shrill to bear. Straining his eyes, he peered past the darkness until he saw sparkling lights when he blinked. The others held the lanterns, high and low, the yellow circles only making the dark that much more intense beyond the light.
Jeff tried to fix his mind on anything but his greatest fear. If she were unable to answer when they called, they might pass within feet of her and never know she was there.
He whistled again for Grouchy, patting his thighs and calling in mock excitement, “Come on, boy. Come on!” Silence was his only answer. Even the echoes failed.
The letter in his pocket crinkled. Jeff touched it. If there were truth in such things, if he had faith in the unknowable, then . . .
“Wait there a minute!” he called to the men following him.
“You see something?” Paul called.
“Just wait.”
Jeff walked ahead until he was out of range of the lanterns. He could tell that the roof was too low for him to stand upright. He closed his eyes and counted slowly to thirty, thinking, wishing and praying that when he opened them, he’d see something.
When he reached thirty, he pried his eyes open reluctantly, unwilling to be disenchanted, sure he’d see nothing but the appalling dark. In wonderment, he saw a glow, very faint and flickering, like a lantern strangling for want of oil.
With a glad cry, Jeff ran forward. The fissure in the rock lead to a wide chamber, filled with loose stones and slabs of rock. Jeff skidded to a stop, his eyes amazed.
Yet there was nothing there to make him stare in surprised amazement. Only a lovely girl sitting on a rock, a panting dog by her side. She looked up from Grouchy and smiled. “Hello, Jeff. I knew you’d find me.”
Then she slid off the rock boneless in relief.
The other men crowded into the opening behind him, swinging their lanterns and gabbling a mile a minute. Jeff picked up Edith’s limp, chilled form. Grouchy dancing around him, shivering from doggy happiness.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Jeff said, gazing at her pale face, the lashes thick on her cheeks.
“Say,” said Ozzie, picking up an unlit lantern from the floor. “How long do you reckon she’s been sitting in the dark?”
“Dark?” Jeff asked as he moved toward the exit. “One of you must have knocked it over.”
“Couldn’t be—this lantern’s cold.”
Jeff looked down at her, a question in his mind that would never be asked. But he could have sworn he’d seen . . .
“Wake up, now, Edith. Come on.” He patted her cheek with the back of his hand. She was chilled through.
Her eye lids fluttered and lifted. “And they lived happily ever after,” she muttered.
“That’s right.” Over his shoulder, he said, “Whiskey.”
“No,” Edith said, pushing away the flask that appeared. “Don’t want to sing now.”
“Have a little sip to warm you up. You’ve gotten kind of cold sitting down here and we need you to be able to walk.”
“I can walk.” She pushed again at his hand, though lying against his chest was a blissful comfort after the cold rock. “I don’t need liquor, Jeff. Just the sunlight. It
is
still sunny somewhere, isn’t it?”
Eager voices assured her that it was only about one o’clock in the afternoon. “Oh, good, just time for lunch,” Edith said. “I’m so hungry the rocks were starting to look tasty.”