Unless, of course, the passage opened up a little to the left or to the right. It could be just ten feet away, and he wouldn’t know.
His mouth was dry and his pulse hammered. He tried to calm himself with the reminder that he had no other choice but to keep trying. He was warmer when he was moving too, and that was important. That was critical. He could envision his mother in the snow of that Montana prairie, the blue tint seeming to come from within her flesh. Yes, it was important to keep moving.
He moved backward just as he’d come, but the going was slower because his feet weren’t as dexterous as his hands and made poor guides in the dark. When he finally found the wall, he felt a sense of triumph. He’d achieved what he’d set out to do. Never mind that it hadn’t actually taken him anywhere or changed his situation — he’d proved that he could move away from this spot and make it back again.
Now he was back to the old question: Right or left? He decided that right felt more natural, simply because he was right-handed. When he began to crawl again, he found that he preferred this path because he could keep the wall against his side. As he worked along the wall, he thought he heard sounds that weren’t of his own making. He stopped and listened and what he would once have called silence now seemed filled with soft murmurs. Whispers of motion.
Snakes.
His brain treated that just as it had the opening and closing of his hand; because he could visualize snakes, it was almost as if he’d actually seen them. He crept backward, banging his knees painfully on the stone, and had gone about five feet before he stopped himself. He listened again, and now he wasn’t sure there was anything. Sweat ran down his face despite the cold. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths and tried to clear the image of the snakes from his mind.
Doesn’t matter if the place is crawling with snakes. If it is, they already know you’re here, and they’ll come for you if they want. Moving will make you more threatening, scare them off.
Sure. The mental commandments were easy to make, harder to obey.
Go forward, damn it. Go!
He began to crawl again, faster now, ignoring the pain in his knees, and the amount of distance he’d covered from his starting position was encouraging, seemed to suggest this passage led somewhere.
When his right hand reached forward and didn’t make contact with rock, he wasn’t immediately scared. There had been small dips and drops here and there, and he assumed this was just another one, worthy of added caution but not cause for true alarm. Then he reached farther and still found nothing. He moved his left hand forward, and his left hand didn’t come down on stone either. He was sitting on his knees, waving his hands in the air like a mime in a box. Where in the hell did the passage go? What was he missing? He reached down, trying to find out how far the floor dipped, and his hands kept extending through air. He was leaning so far forward that his balance was precarious, and the pressure caused a fresh ache in his knees. He swore, edged backward, stretched out flat on his stomach, then reached again, determined to figure out which way the floor was curling away from him.
His hands found nothing. He reached until sharp rock bit into his armpits, and he still couldn’t find the floor. The drop ahead was a decent height. He fumbled around until he found a loose stone and then he pushed it over the edge, hoping he’d hear an immediate smack of contact that would tell him it was just a short step down.
Instead, he had enough time to be aware of the sound of his own breath — several breaths — before the rock landed with a crack on the floor below and broke into pieces.
Only then did he understand what was directly in front of him: a cliff.
16
Ridley had been in his workshop all day, never once venturing outdoors, but he looked snow covered nevertheless, his shirt and hair coated with fine flakes of sawdust, when the sheriff’s car pulled into the yard. He knew just from the height of the driver that it was the sheriff himself. It had been a long time since Ridley had dealt with Blankenship.
He went to the door, opened it, and said, “Everything okay, Sheriff?” working hard on his I’m-just-another-good-citizen voice. He needed more practice with that one. Never sounded right, not even to his ear.
Blankenship looked him up and down without saying a word, and then he reached out and brushed Ridley’s shoulder with the palm of his hand, making a show of dusting him off. Ridley kept his hand tight around the doorknob, knowing the sheriff had touched him just to rattle him. Ridley was sensitive about personal space, something that Blankenship had learned during their interviews. Maybe the only thing he had learned.
“Been woodcutting?”
“Damn, you must be some sort of detective.”
“One of those boards bite you back?”
“What’s that?”
“Your face looks a little busted up.”
“Caving,” Ridley said. “Rough hobby.”
“Must be. I’ve seen men lose fights and come out looking better than that.”
“Those men probably should stay aboveground.”
“I’ve always figured we all should, for as long as we can. You got an idea what brings me to your door?”
“I asked Novak to town,” Ridley said, “but I didn’t put on a wig and a dress and tell him I was Sarah Martin’s mother. So you don’t need to linger. If anyone has a right to press charges, it’s me, and I’m not doing that. Storm like this, I imagine people need you on the roads, not wasting your time with me. Go help the innocent.”
“What would you be pressing charges for?”
“Like I said, I’m not.”
“But you think you could be.” Blankenship studied Ridley’s face. “Did you not get along with the fellow from Florida, Ridley?”
Ridley didn’t answer.
“Oh boy, we are already there, huh?” Blankenship said. “I ask a question, and you stare at me like you’re a mental defective, and we go round and round.”
A trace of a smile slipped onto Ridley’s face then. He controlled it, but not before Blankenship saw it and lights of anger went on in his eyes.
“Entertaining shit to you, is it, old boy? Glad to know that it pleases you. Not a lot of happy people working down in that cave right now, so I’m glad you’re pleased.”
Ridley lost the smile. “Working in what cave?”
Blankenship didn’t respond.
“What in the hell are you talking about, working in a cave?” Ridley hated the interest in his own voice, the need, but he couldn’t help it.
Blankenship was silent, watching him.
“All right, I get it,” Ridley said. “You want to play my game while you’ve got the chance. Enjoy it, Sheriff. I don’t need to let the heat out.” He started to push the door shut, but Blankenship got his foot wedged in.
“Cecil Buckner found Mark Novak’s clothes inside the entrance of Trapdoor. You don’t know anything about that, I’m sure.”
Ridley opened the door and stared Blankenship full in the eyes.
“Who let him into Trapdoor? Cecil?”
Blankenship shook his head. “Cecil didn’t so much as crack that door once he saw the clothes. He waited for a deputy.”
“Then how in the hell did Novak get inside?”
“Someone spent time and muscle working on that gate with a crowbar.” Blankenship gave him an appraising look. “You’re pretty handy, aren’t you? Good with tools, stronger than you look.”
“Nice line, Sheriff. But what you should have said was that I understand leverage. You’ve experienced that, haven’t you?”