Trouble At Lone Spur (23 page)

Rusty reined in beside her. “You callin’ Dad? Don’tcha remember? He broke his phone the night he went in the ditch. It’s not fixed yet. That’s another reason Dusty figured Dad wouldn’t send us home.”

Her heart sank. “Maybe your dad’s already back at the ranch.” Crossing her fingers, Liz keyed in that number. But it rang and rang. She listened to the bleat long after she should have clicked off. The sound was like a link to the Lone Spur, and Liz hated to sever it. She finally did when they topped the next rise and started down into a grassy field littered with rotted ore boxes and rusty mine cages. Good heavens, had Dustin fallen into an abandoned mine? Funny, Gil never mentioned trying his hand at mining.

“We’ve crossed over to the Drag M,” Rusty said as if reading her mind. “We’re not ‘spose ta be here. Dad would skin us alive if he knew.”

“The Drag M runs cattle. I wonder what they were mining up here. Do you know, Rusty?”

He shook his head. “Nope. But we ain’t ever ‘spose to come up here.” He jerked a thumb west. “We ain’t ‘spose ta go there, neither.”

Liz felt a wave of nausea.

Melody’s pony trotted as fast as his short legs would go. Liz waited until she drew abreast of them. “How much farther?” she asked, eyeing the Welsh pony’s sweat-stained coat. What if they’d come too far already?

“Over there.” Melody pointed to a circle of matted grass.

Not a mine. At least Liz didn’t think it was. Her apprehension grew more pronounced the closer they got to the field. “Stay back,” she warned Rusty when they rode close enough to see rotting planks that appeared to have been broken through. Liz slid off the gelding and slowly approached the spot.
A well.
“Dear God,” she whispered, falling to her knees. Not an abandoned mine, with an opening big enough to crawl through, but a well.

“Dustin!” she called, thrusting her face near the dark opening. His name echoed back eerily. She felt faint as her own claustrophobia set dark spots dancing before her eyes. The children must be wrong—it was all a joke, she thought frantically. Then from far away, deep in the bowels of the earth, Liz heard a faint mewling cry. “My God, he’s not fooling.” First pinpricks of heat, then icy swells of terror swept over her. Liz fought to keep from throwing up.

Gil had trusted her with the two most precious things in his life, and she’d failed his trust. Just like she’d failed Corbett. Here she was, alone except for two kids, miles from help. What on earth should she do?
Think, Lizbeth!
She pressed unsteady hands hard against her quivering
lips.
Think, darn it. What would you do if it was Melody in that hole?
But all she could recall was how—if she’d yelled—she might have saved Corbett. And how she’d frozen. Just like now.

A
FTER A WHILE
Liz became aware of two small warm bodies pressed tightly to hers. Aware, too, of muffled sobs. Her fingernails bit into her palms. This had nothing to do with Corbett. It was a different time, a different place. Anyway, no one in the arena that day believed she could’ve saved Corbett.

But she could save Dustin Spencer. She had her phone and she had her wits. And she had two other children to calm and be brave for.

“Listen, you guys.” Liz gently dislodged them and put on a false smile. “Crying won’t help Dustin. I want you to tether the horses, take this blanket and sit right there.” She indicated a solid plot of ground adjacent to the well. “Talk to Dusty. Happy talk. Yell if you have to. He needs our strength right now.”

“I want my daddy,” Rusty sniffed. “I’m scared.”

She hugged him, then Melody, who’d grown deathly still, her eyes huge and fearful. “I’ll keep trying the bunkhouse. The minute one of the hands gets in, we’ll send him after your dad. Meanwhile, I’m going to contact the police and fire departments. Agreed?”

They didn’t seem at all sure. But they obeyed her and already seemed more composed. Liz hoped they didn’t see her shaking fingers as she dialed the local authorities. She wanted Gil, too. Oh, how she wanted him here.
But thank God Gil had had the foresight to program emergency numbers into her phone.

In the next hour he was never far from her mind. She was overwhelmed with relief when she tried the bunkhouse for about the fortieth time and Clayton Smith answered. Tranquil reliable Clayton. Liz believed him when he promised to have Gil out there before dark.
Dark.
She shivered. She wanted Dustin out of that hole
long
before dark. A wave of nausea threatened again.

Unwilling to do nothing while she waited for the police, Liz called Nan Littlefield and got the number of the nearest drilling outfit. Nan put up a good front, but Liz knew how worried she was. She promised to gather Morris and the other ranchers and organize the women in town to provide food, tents, blankets and coffee for the rescue team that would soon assemble. She had no illusions that they’d get Dusty out any time soon.

The man at the drilling company asked Liz a lot of questions she couldn’t answer. He wanted to know the type of well. The depth. The size bore, and if she’d tried to pull Dustin out with a rope. “What difference does any of that make?” Liz demanded. “Time is the enemy. Come, and bring everything you’ve got to reach him. Hear what I’m saying—he’s a long way down.” Apparently taken aback by her vehemence, the man, Jarvis, agreed to bring a crew by helicopter. His questions left Liz wringing her hands and feeling terribly inadequate. She had ropes back in her truck, of course. But now that she was here, she hated to leave Dusty alone to go get them. Nor did she feel comfortable sending Rusty and Mel. Was it so wrong of her to want to keep them close?

The three of them were hoarse from shouting down the well, and Liz’s nerves were frayed by the time the first group of rescuers pulled in. Hot on their heels was a
horde of reporters. Liz detected a coolness in their attitudes when they discovered she wasn’t Dustin’s mother, but merely an employee who was supposed to watch him.
Someone who hadn’t done a very good job of watching him.
Was that how Gil would see her when he finally arrived?

If only she’d been on better terms with Dusty. Liz was swamped by if-onlys as more men—rough-hewn strangers—started rolling in. The policemen and firemen were solicitous of Liz and the kids; they just didn’t have any experience with well rescues. Liz’s stomach began to churn acid. Jarvis was a different story. Big and barrelchested with iron-gray hair, he’d been in oil drilling forty years. Liz wanted to kiss his solid-looking backhoe and the derrick affair he called a rat-hole rig. But she still wanted Gil. She wore bare patches in the prairie grass, pacing and eyeing the descent of the sun.

It had fallen behind the distant foothills by the time a very dirty, very tired Gil Spencer climbed out of a chartered helicopter. Rusty flew into his arms, leaving Liz and Melody behind like so much excess baggage. After that, Gil was involved in conversations with Jarvis and the police. Liz couldn’t fault him for wanting to get reports from all the authorities first. She just felt so sick and helpless—and responsible.

Or maybe she needed him to rail and accuse her of being negligent. Anything but ignore her.

He sought her out when she least expected it. When she was at her lowest ebb. Not to accuse, but simply to hold her and bury his face in her fragrant hair. “Lizbeth.” He said her name three times, his breath a ragged sigh against her ear. “Rusty told me what happened. I can’t believe Dustin would be so…so foolish. He knows damn well this area is off-limits.”

“It’s me,” she sobbed into the front of his shirt. “He wouldn’t be in this mess if Ben had come back on time.”

Gil lifted her off the ground and cradled her cheek to his. “I won’t have you condemning yourself, Lizbeth. It’s an accident. No one’s at fault. Or if anyone’s to blame, it’s the fool oil driller who pulled out without filling in that shaft. Kyle Mason thought he had. Now he’s trying to take the blame, too.”

Her toes dangling, Liz slumped into his arms. “Will they get him out, Gil?” It was a question she’d been afraid to ask even Jarvis.

“They will.
We will.
Just like we got that old cat today—spitting, but in one piece.” He planted a hard determined kiss on her lips. “Thanks to your quick action, they have a generator in place, lights on, and oxygen being pumped to Dusty. They’ve already started digging a rescue shaft about ten or twelve feet from the well—to avoid a cave-in. Jarvis said the way you barked at him over the phone, he expected you to be ten feet tall, instead of a scrawny lightweight.” He tapped her chin with his lucky spur key ring that had somehow found its way into his hand.

Gil’s lopsided smile was exactly what Liz needed to boost her spirits, which had dwindled in the chaos developing around the site. She shivered as he pocketed his talisman and left. Luck. They needed all they could get. Liz wished she could be as certain as he that everything would turn out.

Darkness brought a chill to the high desert, and renewed desperation to the drillers. The optimism that had risen and beaten back fears earlier slipped away.

“Mrs. Robbins, is the boy wearing a jacket?” asked a man with a miner’s light on his cap. “He’s probably cold and damp, although we’re mighty grateful this is a dry oil
shaft and not an old water well. The boy’s lodged about forty feet down.”

“That far?” Liz swallowed the bitter taste of bile and wrapped her arms more tightly around the two children, who’d come again to seek her comfort.

“He had on his red Western shirt and a jacket like this,” Rusty piped up. “He’s my twin, you know.”

“I know, son.” The man patted Rusty’s head. “Hey, there’s a woman over there in the blue tent who says she brought you kids sleeping bags and stuffed toys. It’s gonna be a long night. You might want to grab some shut-eye.”

“That’d be Nan.” Liz directed the children to a small tent someone had recently hoisted. “Get something to eat, too. And tell her I’ll be along shortly.”

“Where’s Mr. Spencer?” she asked after the children left. “What’s taking so long to get Dustin out?”

“Spencer’s down in the pit. It’s frustrating work, ma’am. We’ve hit rock. Nasty rock. She’s breakin’ our tungsten bits like they were Popsicle sticks, and there’s evidence the kid’s slipped a few inches in the last hour.”

Liz stood there blinking as he walked back toward the other men. Old fears mingled with new. Gil was in a pit, Dustin in a black void. She wanted to scream, to run, to hide. Visions swirled behind Liz’s eyes, shooting terror to her heart. Her only solace came from the solid wham, wham, wham of the drill. Each time it stopped, Liz held her breath and prayed until it started again.

New helpers arrived every hour. Liz forced herself to stay busy; she handed out sandwiches, losing count of the number of pots of coffee she brewed. Cups and plates appeared like magic as more people heard and local ranchers rallied round.

Sometime after midnight, Gil found her and led her into a quiet corner. His shirt was ripped, his pants filthy. Dried blood arced in a half-moon across one stubbled cheek. Liz saw that his bravado had disappeared. This time she offered him relief in her arms. “Gil, you should rest. Yancy called to see how it’s going. He said you were up all night tracking the cat.”

“Could you rest if it was Melody down there?”

“No.” She smoothed a hand over the tense lines on either side of his mouth. “I can’t rest knowing it’s Dusty, either. Knowing I should have guessed he was up to something. There are things I didn’t tell you, Gil.” She turned aside and crossed her arms, cradling both elbows. One incident after another tumbled out.

“Hush, Lizbeth. I should have taken a firmer hand with him.” Gil spun her around and kissed her quiet. Drawing away, he gazed into her bleak eyes. “What’s done is done. Sweetheart, I’m sorry you suffered through Dustin and Buddy’s antics. You did what you thought was right. I wish I’d known so I could help, but—”

“I love you, Gil,” she said solemnly. “I want your sons to love me. I thought if you ever saw they ne-nee-needed m-me…” she stammered. Tears glazed her eyes and she closed them against the confusion that suddenly darkened the hazel eyes staring back at her.

“You pick a helluva time to tell a guy you love him, Lizbeth.” He gripped her so tightly to his chest he almost smothered her in the smoky flannel of his shirt.

Her heartbeat picked up speed to match the tempo of his. “Are you saying you…you c-care for me?”

“I passed caring before Fort Worth, Lizbeth. And after…well…” He flushed and broke off when a man stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Mr. Spencer, Jarvis hit an impasse. He says we need a large-bore, multihead cone and a good diamond bit. Wonders if you know any ore miners? All we got here are oil rigs with small bores.”

Gil shook his head and Liz felt his despair. “Kyle had an outfit in here looking for precious metals. Far as I know, they took all their equipment when they left.”

Suddenly the area around them blossomed with light and two men holding video cameras dashed up to flank Gil. “Mr. Jarvis said the quickest way to get what we want is for you to go on TV and ask for help. Here, he wrote down the particulars. Start out by saying who you are. Tell what’s happened to Dusty, then read this list. I’ll wind down with a shot of the well and a phone number folks can call. He also said setting up and taking down a multihead rig is expensive. Can you handle it or should we ask for donations?”

“Money is no object,” Gil snapped. “But I don’t know about going on TV.” He reached for Liz’s hand. She felt the sweat on his palm and knew—private man that he was—he wanted to bolt. Clamping her fingers around his wrist, she held him fast. “For Dustin,” she whispered.

Taking his cue from her, drawing strength from her, Gil stumbled through the ordeal. His nervousness made his plea more poignant.

The production drew a crowd of gawkers. The minute Gil read the last word, he disentangled his hand from Lizbeth’s and left her to field questions from reporters. The media swarmed out of the darkness like locusts. By the time they got what they wanted from her and departed, Liz felt sucked dry of all emotion.

But something positive happened as a result of Gil’s ordeal. Not ten minutes after his plea went out on live
TV, a mining company out of Denver called to say they could meet his requirements. Not only would they fly in equipment free of charge, but the owner volunteered his safety inspector, as well. A big hurrah went up when the word spread. Liz dabbed at the corners of her eyes. Too often there was nothing in the news but disasters and reports of misery. Looking around her now, she was seeing good news. An outpouring of love from grown men who teared up each time someone coaxed a sound out of Dusty. And the women who worked quietly in the background to fill the bellies of exhausted workers with warm food or to tend scrapes and cuts of men whose names they didn’t know. Friends and strangers linked by a silent vigil for a small boy many had never seen before.

The men used jackhammers while they awaited the larger bore. The rock was so hard—a hundred times harder than granite—that ten to fifteen minutes was the most a man could take in the hole. Normally a burly driller managed four hours before taking a break. Watching them crawl out of the pit after fifteen minutes, their muscles turned to mush, sent a pall of gloom over everyone at the site.

Liz and Gil took refuge together whenever their breaks coincided. A touch seemed to shore up wilted energy faster than words. Gil’s knees buckled and he leaned heavily on Liz when two doctors came to discuss their fears of dehydration and hypothermia. Her fingers bit into Gil’s waist as one physician suggested cutting back on the amount of oxygen they pumped to Dusty. “Oxygen dries the air,” he said.

“I can’t—Won’t that slow his breathing? Liz?” Anguished, Gil turned to her.

“These men are experts in their field, Gil.” But her stomach quaked as she said it. What if they’d misjudged his weight? They were going by school records.

Gil kissed her anxious upturned face. “Okay, do it,” he instructed, a tremor in his voice. “How long has he been down? Does anybody know?”

“It’s been sixteen hours since Mrs. Robbins arrived on the scene,” said the younger of the two men.

Liz expelled a sharp breath. “It feels like a hundred.”

“I’m sure it does,” said the older doctor. “Why don’t you two hit the sack for a while?” Because both Gil and Liz looked at one another and turned red, the flustered speaker cleared his throat and scurried off.

Gil crooked his index finger under Liz’s chin. “So much for our reputations,” he murmured. “Once this is over, remind me to make an honest woman of you.”

His kiss sent a tingle all the way to Lizbeth’s toes. His words dashed heat all the way up her spine. Before she could ask if he was teasing or if he meant it as a proposal, he was called away by yet another dust-covered volunteer.