They could hear the voice of Theodora Adams again, a matter more of tones echoing than of words. Leaphorn was suddenly aware that he was exhausted. His hip throbbed steadily now, his burn stung, his cut hand hurt. He felt sick and frightened and humiliated.
And all this merged into anger.
God damn it, he said. You say you’re a priest? What were you doing with a woman anyway?
Tso limped along silently. Leaphorn instantly regretted the question.
There are good priests and bad ones, Tso said. You get into it because you tell yourself somebody needs help . . .
Look, Leaphorn said. Its none of my business. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have No, Father Tso said. That’s fair enough. First you kid yourself somebody needs you which is easy to kid yourself about, because that’s why you thought you had the vocation to start with. That’s what the fathers tell you at St. Anthony’s Mission, you know: Somebody needs you. And then its all reversed: a woman comes along who needs help. And then she’s an antidote for loneliness. And then she’s most of everything you’re giving up. And what if you’re wrong? What if there’s no God? If there’s not, you’re letting your life tick away for nothing. It gets complicated. So you get your faith back. . . . He stopped, glanced at Leaphorn in the brief glow of the flash. You do get it if you want it, you know. And so you try to get out of it. You run away. Father Tso stopped. Then he began again. But by then, she really does need you. So what are you running away from? Even whispered, the question was angry.
So that’s why you came trying to get away from her? Leaphorn asked.
I don’t know, Father Tso said. The old man asked me to come. But mostly I was running, I guess.
And you got tangled with your brother?
Were the Hero Twins. Father Tso made a sound a little like laughing. Maybe were both saving the People from the Monsters. Different approaches, but about equal success.
Now the voice of Theodora Adams was close enough so that they could understand an occasional word. The cavern narrowed again, and Leaphorn stood against the wall, one hand holding the priests elbow, and stared toward reflected light. The light was harsh and its source was low probably a lantern of some sort placed on the calcite floor. Here a hodgepodge of stalagmites rose in crooked lines from the level floor and curtains of stalactites hung down toward them. The light cast them in relief black against the dim yellow.
The cage is just back around that corner, Tso whispered. That lights from a butane lamp sitting outside.
Does the guard have to come past this way?
I don’t know, Tso said. Its confusing in here.
Lets get closer, then, Leaphorn said softly. But keep it absolutely quiet. He might be there already.
They edged through the darkness, keeping in the cover of a wall of stalagmites. Leaphorn could see part of the cage now, and the butane lantern, and the head and shoulders of Theodora Adams sitting in its corner. Close enough, he thought. Somewhere near here he would stage his ambush.
I wonder why they took me out of there, Father Tso whispered.
Leaphorn didn’t answer. He was thinking that maybe with Father Tso subtracted, the cage held the symbolic number eleven children and three adults. Father Tso would have spoiled the symmetry of revenge. But there must be more reason than that.
In the darkness, time seemed to take on another dimension. After three exhausting days and nights virtually without sleep, Leaphorn was finding it took much of his concentration simply to stay awake. He shifted, moving his weight from his left side to his right. In this new position, he could see most of Theodora Adams. The lantern light gave her face a sculptured effect and left her eye sockets dark. He could see two other hostages of the Buffalo Society. A man who must be one of the Scout leaders lay on his side, his head cushioned on his folded coat, apparently asleep. He was a small man, perhaps forty-five years old, with dark hair and a delicate doll-like face. There was a dark smudge on his forehead, rubbed into a brown streak across his cheek. Dried blood from a head cut, Leaphorn guessed. The mans hands lay relaxed and limp against the floor. The other person was a boy, perhaps thirteen, who slept fitfully. Theodora Adams spoke to someone out of Leaphorns vision.
Is he feeling any better?
And a precise, boyish voice said, I think he’s almost asleep.
After that, no one said anything. Leaphorn longed for a conversation to overhear. For anything to help him fight off the dizzying assault of sleep. He forced his mind to consider the furious activity this kidnapping must be creating. The rescue of this many children would have total, absolute priority. Every man, every resource, would be made available for finding them. The reservation would be a swarm with FBI agents, and every variety of state, federal, military and Indian cop. Leaphorn caught himself slipping into a dream of the bedlam that must be going on now at Window Rock, and shook his head furiously. He couldn’t allow himself to sleep. He forced his mind to retrace what must have been the sequence of this affair. Why this cave was so important was clear to him now. On the surface of the earth, there was no way an operation like this could remain undetected. But this cave was not only a hiding hole under the earth; it was one whose existence was hidden behind a century of time and the promises made to a holy mans ghost. Old Man Tso must have learned that the sacred cave was being used and desecrated when he came to take care of the medicine bundles left by Standing Medicine. That seemed now to be what was implied in the story Tso had told Listening Woman. And the Buffalo Society either knew he had found them, or had learned he used the cave. And that meant he could not be left alive. A dream of the murder of Hosteen Tso began merging with reality in Leaphorns mind. He ground his chin deliberately against the stone, driving away sleep with pain.
And the police would never find this cave. They would ask the People. The People would know nothing. The cave would have been entered only by water on which no tracks can be followed. From outside, the cave mouth would seem only one of a hundred thousand dark cliff overhangs into which the water lapped. They would ask Old Man McGinnis, who usually knew everything, and McGinnis would know nothing. Leaphorn fought back sleep by diverting his thoughts into another channel. The same fade-away tactics employed in the Santa Fe robbery were probably being used here. Those who seized and delivered the hostages would have run for cover. They would have gone safely away long before the crime was discovered. Only enough men would have been left here to handle the hostages and collect the ransom. Probably only three men. But how would they get away?
Everyone had escaped, except three. Tull and Jackie and Goldrims. They would have set up a way to relay and rebroadcast the radio message that kept the police away. Easy enough to rig, Leaphorn guessed. It wouldn’t take much if the transmissions were kept brief to confuse radio directional finders. But how did the Society plan to extricate the final three when the ransom arrived? How could they be given time to escape? No one except the hostages would have seen them. If the hostages were killed, there would be no witnesses. Still, Goldrims would need running time an hour or two to get far enough away from here to become just another Navajo. How could he provide himself with that time?
Leaphorn thought of the dynamite, and the timing device, and of John Tull, who believed himself to be immortal.
Leaphorn caught himself dozing again and shook his head angrily. If he hoped to leave this cave alive, he must stay awake until Goldrims, or Tull, or Jackie came alone to check on the hostages, or ask the ritual questions of one of the Scouts. He must be awake and alert for an opportunity at ambush, at overpowering the guard, at getting a gun and changing the odds. To accomplish this he had to stay awake. To go to sleep would be to wake up dead. Thinking that, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn fell asleep.