“Don’t move,” Lynn hissed.
The dog, hearing her voice, barked once and kept coming. Judging by the size of that bark, it had to be a pretty big dog, and Janet could feel its presence when it launched into the chamber, accelerating down the path as it hunted the sound of Lynn’s voice and their fresh scent. Then there was an instant of complete silence, followed by a plaintive yelp as the dog sailed over the smooth edge of the pit and fell away into nothingness.
Janet heard a scratching sound, and then Lynn had a match going, relighting the lantern. She realized she had been holding her breath and now let it out in a small sob, and then Lynn was moving again, duck walking across the remainder of the ledge into a small antechamber beyond.
Janet followed, her knees and hips hurting. Her mouth was dry as dust and her heart was pounding.
When they got to the other side, Lynn stood up and grinned at her.
“Pretty good, huh?” she said, her eyes alight. Christ on a crutch, Janet thought as she carefully stood up, she’s enjoying this. But there was no getting around it: Lynn had done the one thing that eliminated the pursuing dog problem. There were two passages leading out of the chamber, and Lynn consulted the map.
“Left,” she said.
“We’re going on trail three.”
“Any more pits on that trail?” Janet asked in a strained voice. But Lynn was already moving into the smaller of the two passages, ducking
her head to get through. Janet took one last look at the pit chamber as Lynn’s lantern bobbed away: she shivered, then followed.
They tried to keep quiet as they pressed into the narrowing passage. It went level for a while, then dipped precipitously. The footing was now slippery clay, and they really had to slow down to keep from pitching headlong down the passage. Janet banged her lantern against the rock wall and thought she heard the glass crack. Lynn, six feet ahead of her, kept going for another fifteen minutes and then stopped and swore.
“What?” Janet asked, dreading another pit.
“No trail,” Lynn said, consulting the map.
“But I don’t see any other way to go.”
Janet came up alongside her. Lynn lifted her lantern. The passage had opened onto the edge of what looked like a very steep slope that disappeared down into the darkness. There was a faint movement of cold, wet air against her face, and then she realized they had come into a very large cavern, whose vaulted ceiling rose up out of the range of the lantern light.
“Jesus, this is huge,” Janet said. Her voice echoed out into space. They stood there for a minute, taking it all in, when they again heard sounds behind them, men’s voices and the excited yelping of dogs. They weren’t close, but they were certainly back there.
“That pit will slow them down,” Lynn said softly.
“But I don’t see any other way to do this.”
Janet looked down. They had forgotten to bring the sticks. The surface of the slope was loose rock and what looked like shale.
“You mean slide?”
“Yeah. This has to be the way. It’s been a straight shot so far. So it’s probably safe. I’ll go first. Hold this.”
She gave the lantern to Janet, turned around, and let herself out onto the slope. Her feet precipitated a small avalanche of stones and dirt, but she was able to maintain position on the slope. She reached for the lantern.
“You got matches?” she asked.
“Yes,” Janet said.
“Okay, light your lantern. I’m going to put this one out while I go down.”
Janet lit her lantern, and she saw that she had indeed cracked the glass.
The flame burned unevenly until she adjusted the wick. Lynn doused her own lantern, then started down the slope, moving carefully to keep from starting a big slide and going with it. Janet held her lantern out as far as she could, while listening for sounds of pursuit. She could
just barely hear the men back there, but the cave distorted the sounds and she had no idea of how far back they were. She was more worried about dogs ranging ahead of the men. Then she heard a noise below her. Lynn swore as she lost control of her climb down the slope and began to slide. Janet leaned way out but could no longer see her down the slope. Based on all the noise, Lynn was going for a ride. After a minute or so, the raiding noise of falling stones died out.
“Lynn?” Janet called, trying not to make too much noise.
“Yeah, I’m all right. Lemme get this lantern going. Then you come down. Douse yours before you try it.”
There was a flare of light below, and Janet could see that the slope ended about two hundred feet down. There was a glint of water at the base of the cliff. She could see Lynn’s light but not Lynn. She doused her own lantern and then listened again. The men’s voices were getting louder, but she still had no idea of how close they were. It sounded as if there were lots of them back there. Then she heard a dog barking eagerly, and the dog sounded a whole lot closer. She went backward over the edge and started down, getting into the rhythm of a controlled slide while she protected the lantern. Lynn must have taken the loose stuff with her, because Janet got down to the bottom without going into an uncontrolled slide. She dusted off her hands and knees and got up. She stepped away from the slope and then turned around. In front of her was a vast lake, whose size she could only feel. The lantern light reflected only about fifty feet out onto its surface. She could get no sense of walls or the ceiling.
“Man, look at that,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s huge,” Lynn said.
“We go this way.”
She turned to their left and began picking her way along the shore of the lake, which was made up of small round stones, some larger boulders, and loose gravel. The mass of the shale cliff rose into total darkness to their left. The shoreline curved around slowly to the right, and they had to go slowly to keep from slipping into the water. Janet listened for sounds of pursuit, but now she heard nothing. They climbed over the treacherous footing for five minutes before arriving at a sheer rock face.
The gravel beach disappeared at the foot of the cliff. The water stretched out into darkness on their right, and the shale cliff rose on their left.
“Now what?” Janet asked.
Lynn studied the map.
“I think this must be the submerged ledge Micah was talking about.”
Suddenly, from way above and behind them, a dog barked once and then again, excitedly. Lynn took Janet’s lantern and raised it as high as she could to see how far across it was, but there was only the black water and the glimmering reflection of the lantern. The cavern wall rose on their left, black and sheer. The dog kept barking, and Janet realized there was no echo down here. This cavern must be really huge.
“Shouldn’t we douse the light?” Janet whispered urgently.
“We have to find the ledge,” Lynn said.
“We’ll find that with our feet. Douse the light. They can’t see us without it, not until they come down the slope. We need time to get across this thing and out of range of any guns.”
Lynn complied, and the dog stopped barking. Janet led the way, stepping down into the icy water, her left hand held out on the rock wall. Her feet found the ledge, which was about a foot underwater. She explored with her toe to see how wide it was; not very, she decided. She was wearing sneakers with a hiking tread, which gave her pretty good traction. She started forward, keeping her hand on the wall, leaning into it actually, while trying not to think of what a full-body plunge into that water would feel like. She sensed Lynn was behind her, but she did not turn around.
She slid her feet forward, rather than taking steps, to make sure the ledge didn’t end suddenly.
The dog barked once more from the top of the slope, tentatively now that there was nothing to see. Then Janet heard a familiar sound, that of a tactical radio. The sound seemed to be coming from ahead of them, and she hoped that it was just the tricky acoustics of the cavern. If their pursuers had managed to get ahead of them here, they were screwed. She heard Lynn’s lantern tap the rock wall.
