They made their way slowly and carefully down the ledge. Ruth asked Chappy, “The chamber this passage opens into, do you remember how big it is?”
“Good-sized, maybe forty feet across, maybe five, ten feet more the long way. But there’s this weirdly shaped limestone niche inset deeply into the back wall that makes it seem even bigger.”
“I don’t suppose you found anything in that niche?”
Chappy gave her a sharp look. “I remember as a kid thinking there should be Indian relics set in there, but I didn’t find any.” He shook Dix’s sleeve. “Okay, you’re going to twist more to the right, I think, and then this passage drops off again—pretty steep so be careful—and dumps you right out into the big chamber.”
When they’d all stepped down into the chamber after Dix, Chappy asked, “Was this the chamber you were in, Ruth?”
“I don’t know yet, Chappy. I don’t remember much.”
“Let’s head in, see if we can find out,” Savich said.
Dix stepped farther into the cavern, his Coleman lantern casting misshapen shadows on the walls ahead of them.
CHAPTER 13
IT WAS LIKE a large vault, the ceiling soaring upward, with myriad groups of stalactites of incredible shapes hanging like chandeliers above their heads. But many of those within reach weren’t whole, more like jagged, broken spears, scattered chunks tossed about on the cavern floor. “What a shame,” Ruth said. “Men did this.”
It was odd, but when she turned her head lamp away from the formations, reflecting light at her, the chamber seemed dark, too dark, and quiet, her voice alien in the dead air. She realized she was afraid.
“You okay, Ruth?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said a little too brightly to Sherlock. “Look at that weird formation. It looks like a casket.”
“Thanks for pointing that out,” Chappy said. “Makes me feel all warm inside. Beautiful, though, isn’t it?
Too bad some people can’t leave beautiful things alone.”
It was odd, Ruth thought, but she had to struggle with herself to walk forward, afraid to find out what had happened to her here, if this was indeed the chamber. But of course it was since someone had gone to all the trouble of sealing up the entrance.
“It’s longer than you thought, Chappy,” Dix said as he walked farther into the cavern, his head lamp lighting up the shadowy walls near him. “Ruth, you think the arch might be over to your right? You want to take a look?”
No, she didn’t even want to move. She felt like she was buried alive and the air was running out and she would suffocate. She wanted to run back out of this airless black chamber with its secrets, wanted to run along that long ledge until she could climb back out into the daylight. She schooled herself not to breathe too hard. She stood very quietly, surrounded by the weaving splashes of light from all the head lamps, and made herself draw in air, slowly, and slower still. She felt a hitch in her throat and she shivered. It was cold in there, colder than it should be.
She drew in another deep breath. Good, she could do that. She was being ridiculous. She made herself turn and walk along the right-hand wall of the cavern. The arch would be there, and she would know once and for all if this was the place where—What? There was still a black hole in her brain, as black as the hole in which she stood. She focused her head lamp on the wall but couldn’t see any opening. She remembered taking steps before, too many steps that didn’t lead anywhere. Circles, she’d probably taken steps in circles, gone round and round, faster and faster. She shook her head again. She remembered the steps ending, but how was that possible?
She stumbled, went down on her hands and knees, and felt a jab of pain in her palm. She’d hit a sharp piece of fallen limestone. She looked at her hand, shook it. It wasn’t bad, she hadn’t cut through her glove. Other than the scattered limestone, the floor was surprisingly smooth. There was something, a small round object, on the floor at the edge of her head lamp light. She crawled over it to get a better look.
It was her compass.
A vivid memory seared through her. Her compass. She’d thrown it away in a moment of what? Anger?
Frustration? She’d thrown it away because it had lied to her, given her directions that were impossible. She’d thrown it away because she was afraid.
She called out in a voice that didn’t sound like hers, “I found my compass. I remember I dropped it here. This is the chamber all right.”
They surrounded her in a moment. Dix took her hand and pulled her up. He took the compass from her, laid it flat on his palm, studied it. “It still seems to be working.”
She swallowed. “When I was in here, it was all squirrelly.” She was shaking her head. “No, I didn’t drop it, I threw it as far away from me as I could.”
Dix slipped the compass into his jacket pocket. He heard her harsh breathing, stepped over to her, and rubbed his hands over her arms. “Listen to me, it’s okay. Whatever happened in this chamber, you survived it. It won’t happen again, all right?”
She wanted to throw herself against him, let him protect her from the monster in this place, just for a while, but she knew she shouldn’t. She held herself back. He sensed she was on the edge and pulled her against him for a moment. He said, “Savich, maybe you and Sherlock should look for the arch.”
Chappy stood beside them, staring at Ruth. “What arch? I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s going on here?”
“Later, Chappy,” Dix said.
“Here it is!”
Dix said, “Shall we all go see the arch?”
Ruth nodded her head against his shoulder. “Yes, okay. I’ll be all right. Stupid, really, falling apart like this.”
“Even a hard-ass can take a beating now and then,” Dix said.
They watched as Savich and Sherlock crawled carefully through the archway. There were jagged pieces of limestone around it. After a moment, Savich called out, “Not six feet up the passage is where they set the charge for the blast. It’s a mess in here.”
Sherlock said, “There really is only one way out again.”
Ruth said suddenly, “I smell jasmine. It’s really faint, but it’s there. I remember now I smelled the same thing on Friday.”
“Fresh air I can understand,” Savich said, “but jasmine? Like perfume?”
Ruth nodded. “But that doesn’t make any sense, does it? I wasn’t wearing any perfume. What could it be?”
Chappy said, “Yeah, I caught a vague whiff of something, too. I didn’t know it was jasmine, just something sort of sweet.”
Ruth said, “Chappy, could you show me the niche?”
He led her over to the far wall of the chamber as Savich and Sherlock began to walk the perimeter.
“Thanks, Chappy. Can I have a minute?”
Ruth ran her flashlight carefully along the walls of the irregular, deeply indented space cut in the limestone by water over thousands of years. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed for a millennium. She knew the gold bars had been left there. Her map read Beneath the niche, but there was nothing there now. Who had found them, and how long ago? She wanted to cry. She’d been so excited, so hopeful, and it was all for nothing. “It’s empty all right, Chappy, you were right.”
She turned away and walked along the back wall of the cavern, away from the others. She smelled jasmine again, stronger now, and there was something else she smelled in the air, something nasty, unwholesome. She kept walking, leaning over when the cavern ceiling dipped a bit. The smells intensified.
She heard a noise, a sort of whispering sound, maybe the soft flap of a bat’s wings. Maybe bats had flown at her when she was there before, maybe they knocked her down and she hit her head. Her eyes flew up and she panned the ceiling with her head lamp. She saw nothing, only the gleam of lacy limestone. She took another step forward and stumbled over something. She went to her knees, threw out her hands to save herself. Her fingers fell on something oddly pulpy and cold. In the deepest part of her, she knew what she’d touched. She screamed, fell back, her head lamp scattering light all around her.