were no floodlights, only one media crew, and the brass had thinned out considerably. Not a single caver had left. Standing in rain rapidly turning to sleet, a dismal army dotted the stony hillside.
Anna had no task to occupy her; when Frieda no longer needed her, she'd become superfluous. Knowing she'd failed her friend, Anna felt a crushing self-consciousness. The eyes of the surviving cavers seemed to follow her like the vacant sockets of so many masks. With a visible shake of her head, she told herself it was grief and guilt deluding her. The cavers' eyes followed Holden, too. On crutches, lower leg in a cast, he'd hobbled the mile and a half over rain-slicked desert. Pain too deep to be accounted for by broken bones paralyzed his muscles as surely as if he'd suffered a stroke.
Darkness hid the faces of the watchers, but Anna had little doubt that they looked on with respect and sympathy. Because she was with Holden, she was allowed down into the boulder-choked mouth of Lechuguilla. Desirous of staying out of the way, she found a niche in the rock behind the stunted oak that served as an anchor.
Flanked by George Laymon and the superintendent, Mrs. Dierkz was below her, partially sheltered from the rain by scrawny branches. An attempt had been made to convince Dottie to wait in a warm dry car down in the parking area, but she'd been firm. She'd walked all over Europe and China, she told the superintendent. She would walk this last little ways. Her leather shoes were soaked and muddied, her hair flattened beneath a yellow so'wester-style rain bonnet, but she stood straight and, as near as Anna could tell in the rain, didn't weep.
One by one the recovery team crawled up from darkness, their progress robbed of grace by a need to navigate boulders and spiny plants while roped in at waist, knee, and ankle. Oscar Iverson was first, wide eyed with fatigue. McCarty was next, his features closed down, as stony as Holden Tillman's. Curt Schatz was third. His strength was wonderful to watch, the muscles fluid as they brought the Stokes to the surface. Frieda had been wrapped up in toto as befitted her new status as a corpse: a faceless, shapeless bundle lashed in the wire basket. Not a scrap of flesh or hair or clothing was left visible to remind them of the woman inside.
As it should be, Anna thought. The woman was gone, the husk itself become an empty casket, deserving of respect but not reverence.
Zeddie and Kelly Munk followed the Stokes. Zeddie had more life in her than the rest. Relief wasn't evident, or sorrow. Anger was fueling her. In one so young it was impossible to mistake. She'd not yet learned to hide her feelings from the world's freezing indifference.
The source of her aggravation wasn't hard to find. Kelly Munk, close on her heels, got a snarl in return for his offer to help her off with her gear. 'Anna,' she snapped, seeing her hunched vulturelike in the rocks. 'Make yourself useful.'
Anna jumped down to help her derig, happy to be of service and happy to share in the snubbing of Munk. The man was unchastened. His face worked overtime. 'Chewing up the scenery.' Anna dredged up a phrase from Zach's theatrical lexicon. Kelly Munk labored under the delusion that all dramatic incidents were centered around Kelly Munk. As he hauled himself up the rocks at Anna's shoulder, she could see him trying on expressions. He settled on a look of heroic exhaustion, affixing it firmly in place as he made a beeline for the media.
Zeddie shot an evil look after his retreating form. 'When I'm queen, different people are going to die,' she said.
Anna scavenged a raincoat for Zeddie and gave back the sweater she'd worn all day. After so much time underground, none of the recovery team was prepared for the winter weather. Zeddie paid her respects to Frieda's mother, then cleared out. Anna stayed till the litter, with fresh bearers and a frighteningly stoic Dottie Dierkz, started down the hill. A handful of cavers from among those keeping vigil amid the rocks came to take over the derigging. Anna fell in step beside Curt and went with him to the cavers' tent. No pizza this time but beer and coffee and a plate of sandwiches that Dottie had insisted on providing. Blessing the woman's graciousness, the team fell on them as if they'd not eaten in a week.
Brent, Holden, Oscar, and Anna stood at the edges of the tent, wallflowers at the dance. Feeling bereft, Anna took a cup of coffee to be companionable. The sensation wasn't unfamiliar. Twice before in her career she'd pushed-once eighteen hours and once nearly twenty-four-bringing victims out of the backcountry only to have them die on her within sight of modern medical facilities. Too much time had passed; they hadn't been strangers anymore. Too much hope had been invested, and ego and energy. A strange and cosmic coitus interruptus; perfect communion denied. From the way the team wolfed down their food, backs to one another, little left to say, Anna knew she wasn't the only one feeling isolated.
Kelly Munk was the exception. Beer in one hand, untouched sandwich in the other, he was holding court. Most of the older cavers ignored him, but he'd gathered a newsman and a coterie of the less-experienced cavers. With becoming modesty, he outlined how he'd taken over the medical care of Frieda, explained how his rigging could have saved her life, and, at risk of losing his audience, moved on to a tale of paranormal prowess implying he heard Frieda's spirit crying in the darkness of the Pigtail. Zeddie looked as if she might be contemplating a queenly prerogative, and Brent Roxbury was so pale Anna was afraid he was going to faint. 'I can't take this,' she heard him murmuring. Even Schatz, who normally would allow Munk to make as much of a fool of himself as he wished, had taken on a look of if not malevolence then peevish irritation.
The story was in the worst possible taste. Not because of the grandstanding, trading on tragedy for a moment in the spotlight, but because there were those, Anna among them, who would have dearly loved a last word with Frieda. That Munk could suggest her spirit would have frittered it away on an ass like himself was too much to bear on freeze-dried food and too little sleep.
Hands were bunching into fists, faces screwing up for harsh words. Oscar stepped in. Anna thought Holden would do the honors, but he was too wrapped up in his own misery. With little fuss, Oscar herded Munk toward the tent's exit. Kelly didn't thank Iverson, but he should have. The men might have maintained a veneer of civility but Zeddie was ready to punch somebody's lights out. Tempered by two years on rope and rock, her fists would carry quite a wallop. Anna was sorry to see the fracas averted. Abusing Kelly Munk would have proved a catharsis. But Oscar, older, wiser, not nearly so much fun, spirited Kelly Munk away before the newsman got anything interesting to train his camera on.
Beer and sandwiches buoyed the team up sufficiently to make the hike back to the waiting vehicles, trudging along without speaking. With the exception of Oscar, Holden, and Brent, the core group gathered at Zeddie's home. None of them had anywhere else to go, and, with the instinct of a flock of birds or a battalion that's seen action, they needed to stay together.
Zeddie pulled an answering machine from a drawer, hooked it up, unplugged the phone, and turned the volume on the machine down so they could sleep in. McCarty didn't call home to let his wife know he was out of the cave. He behaved as if he and Zeddie were an accepted couple. In this age of technology Anna doubted a thousand miles of real estate could have given him such a feeling of privacy. Gossip traveled faster than light, faster than e-mail. Sins in New Mexico could be news in Minnesota before they'd had time to be properly committed. It could be that he just didn't care anymore. It could be that he knew for one reason or another that Sondra was beyond the grapevine, her threats no longer viable.
Anna and Curt bunked on the couch, heads at opposite ends, limbs vying for space in the middle. Mrs. Dierkz slept on the single bed in the spare room. In keeping with Peter's suddenly single status, he and Zeddie retired to the double bed in the master bedroom. Under the circumstances adultery seemed, if not natural, then inevitable, and no one commented. Frontline morality, Anna thought as she felt Calcite stomp up her belly to lie on her chest. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. There was an attraction in that. The stuff of movies, the reason wars continued to delight in retrospect, if not in reality. To be so alive, so of the moment. No tedious consequences. No tawdry loose ends.
In this atmosphere of opportunistic hedonism, Anna noticed the warmth of Schatz's thigh pressed against hers. She could hear the hush of his breath and smell the soap he'd showered with. A lovely young man, she thought, and felt a pleasant tingle.
'Get thee behind me, Satan,' she whispered.
'Anna?' Schatz said, and she felt her already weak resolve vanish utterly.
'What?' Her voice was husky, cliche; it embarrassed her.
'Are you going to hog the cat?'
She would have laughed but for the fact it might have disturbed Calcite. 'She chose me. Get your own damn cat.' Disappointment was canceled by relief. This wasn't war. Tomorrow they would all still be alive, and there would be pipers demanding to be paid. Best not to run up too much of a tab.
