“Yep,” he said. He had that smug, quizzical look on his face that Peggy found simultaneously annoying and endearing. “Have that brandy warmed by the time I come in, woman.”
“I’ll warm you,” Peggy answered.
Steve stepped out into the storm and walked over to the corner of the house. He checked a few wires, pulled the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and lit up.
He smoked contentedly, thinking about his big surprise.
“Jory, it’s your father! I’m coming in!”
Hansen lay on his stomach in the mouth of the cave.
No answer came back.
“Jory?”
Nothing.
Hansen shrugged at Carter, who was squatting beside him. The other two men stood just below the cave, waiting with rifles ready.
Carter yelled into the cave, “Jory! Is the boy with you?”
No answer.
“Is the boy alive?”
Silence.
Carter continued, “Jory! You’ve done a great thing! You’ve done Yahweh’s will! Now do it again! Bring us the child!”
“Carey must be holding him,” Hansen said. “I’m going in.”
He pulled his revolver from his belt and slithered into the cave opening.
Jory crouched inside the tunnel. Coiled like a spring, he held Shoshoko’s pointed stick in front of him and waited. As soon as Carter got in range he would finish him.
Hansen saw the stick just as it came stabbing toward his face. He dropped his head behind his arm and pulled the trigger four times. Then he waited for a few seconds and pushed the dead weight of the body in front of him until he felt it drop into the cave chamber.
“Come on in!” he yelled behind him. “I got him!”
He jumped down, shined his flashlight, and saw his son’s body lying on the cave floor.
Cal Strekker reached the top of the cliff. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings. Then he caught a faint whiff of smoke. He followed it to the flat top of a small table of rock. A stream of smoke was rising from the hole and he thought he heard footsteps.
He backed off a few feet from the hole, unslung his rifle, and sat down.
Neal heard the shots and the yelling. Then he felt a sharp blast of cold and the scent of fresh air directly above him. The old man stopped just in front of him and pulled him ahead. He pointed up again, and Neal could feel a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes falling on his head.
Cody started to cry again.
The old man pointed urgently.
It was dark and Neal couldn’t see the cave walls. All he could see-ten, maybe fifteen feet up-were white flecks of snow. “I can’t see,” he whispered to the old man.
The old man started to push Neal toward the rock wall.
But I can’t do it, Neal thought. He felt the rock. It was icy and slick. He couldn’t see to get handholds or footing. He would certainly fall and hurt the boy beneath him. He could hear more yelling and footsteps behind them in the first chamber.
Neal planted a foot on the slick rock and tried to find a grip on the rock.
Cody tried to turn around and grab the old man. The old man held him for a brief moment and then turned to go back. Cody screamed in the pain of abandonment, cried his heartbreak out in a repeated shriek of a single word. For the second time in his young life, he had lost his father.
Neal dug his hands into the ice and started to climb.
“My God, my God, my God,” Carter murmured as he looked at the cave paintings. “Yahweh be thanked that I have lived to see this.”
Vetter called from the back of the chamber, “They’ve gone this way, Reverend! The smoke is drafting out the back!”
Carter stood in the center of the cave chamber, twirling around with his arms open.
“This is the place of our ancestors! This is our home!”
Craig yelled, “Reverend! Come on! We’re going to lose them!”
Then Carter saw the painting of the blond child holding his hand up to a god. “Look! Look! It’s the Son of God! It’s the expected child! He’s holding his arms up to Yahweh!”
Cody’s shrieks echoed back through the cave.
Carter ran to Hansen. “Let’s go! We have to rescue him from the dragon! We must save him from the Jew!”
But Bob Hansen was absorbed in wrapping the body of his dead son up in his coat.
Carter ran to the back of the chamber, pushed Vetter aside, and jammed himself into the fissure that led to the next chamber.
Craig could hear him yelling up ahead.
“The child of God! The child of God! The child of-”
Then the yelling stopped.
Craig eased himself into the crack.
Cal heard the crying right below him.
I’ll be damned, he thought, the little bastard is alive. Crazy little Jory had it tucked away. But who the hell has been taking care of it?
He listened carefully and heard what sounded like feet kicking at the icy wall. He heard someone panting with exertion.
I could just fire down this hole, he thought. But if I hit the kid my ass will really be grass. He slung the rifle over his back and pulled his combat knife.
It might be Jory or it might be Neal, he thought. Dear God above, let it be Neal.
Neal was spread-eagled on the rock wall. He took three more gasps of air and then gingerly reached up with his right hand. His fingers felt along the smooth rock. Nothing… nothing… then a tiny outcrop. He gripped it with sore fingers and pulled himself up. His right foot slipped off the rock and he kicked with it desperately until he felt a small crack in the rock surface. He planted his toe, held on for another second, and then reached up with his left hand. He ran it along the rock until he felt a root. He grabbed it and pulled himself up again. He looked up and snow fell on his face.
Thank God, he thought.
Ed pitched forward face-first into the snow.
The impact sent a bolt of agony searing through Joe Graham’s legs. He bit down on his artificial arm to stifle the scream as the headlights of the truck slowly passed them.
Flashlight beams swept the ground around them, and Graham heard the truck engine and voices yelling, “See anything?”
“No!”
Graham could feel Ed’s labored breathing underneath him. As the snow froze on the back of his neck and his lungs burned with the cold, he tried to remember a prayer from his childhood. He remembered the nuns telling him about a “sincere act of contrition,” and from somewhere the first words came to him. He said them to himself: Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I do detest all my sins…
The flashlight shone right on him.
Craig held the flashlight out in front of him as he trotted through the cave. Finally he saw Carter’s form. The reverend was on his knees, bent in prayer. Craig ran up to him and took him by the shoulder.
“Reverend Carter, what-”
Carter fell backward into his arms. Dave shined his light into Carter’s face. His eyes were wide open and his mouth agape. He was panting for air in small, rapid gulps. A tiny arrow was lodged inside his mouth, its point just sticking out the back of his neck.
Craig flicked off the flashlight, pulled Carter down, and laid his rifle barrel on the reverend’s body. He ducked as another arrow whistled over his head. Then he shouldered the rifle, fired three rounds into the darkness, and started to crawl backward, using the reverend’s body as a shield. Two more arrows thunked into Carter’s chest.
As he shimmied out of the long, narrow passage he yelled, “Get out! Get out! It’s an ambush!”
He pulled Carter back until they were back in the fissure. As Craig worked his way out the other side, he jammed Carter’s body into the crack, then left it there.
Neal’s muscles trembled with strain. He could see the sky now and the top of the hole, but it was a long reach to the next handhold. His legs were quivering too, and he didn’t think he could summon the strength to make the final haul.
He clenched the root with his left hand, dug his feet in again, and reached his right hand up, trying to find something, anything, to hold on to. His hand grabbed at the air, found nothing, and grabbed again. Then his left leg gave out and slipped off the icy rock. The weight of the child on his shoulders pulled him backward and he started to fall. His right hand flailed in the air, the momentum took his left foot off the rock, and he slipped.