“He won’t say,” said Scott, “but I weigh a hundred and sixty-four.”
She did the math again. Three ought to do it. They only had to pull him up close enough to grab him once his arms and shoulders were within reach.
“Hector, you are not that far down,” said Diane. “So, don’t worry.”
“Okay. I won’t worry.”
Hector groaned. Diane could see him struggling to move.
“What are you doing?” she asked, with some alarm.
“I’m trying to get my leg out from under me,” he said. “I need to see how bad it is. And to do that, I need to move some of these damn rotten boards and crap on top of me.”
“Be careful,” said Diane.
“I will, but you need to tell me what you are worried about if it isn’t snakes,” he said. “So I can be careful with some effectiveness.”
Diane hadn’t wanted to panic him, but she didn’t want him bumping against the precarious wall and causing the heavy stones and earth to collapse on top of him. If that happened, he would suffer truly serious injury and could die from the trauma or suffocation before they could get him out.
“I don’t know how stable the wall is,” she said. “It’s very old.”
“Oh. Oh jeez.”
Diane could hear him breathing harder.
“You need to fight the panic,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ve pulled people out of holes before. Piece of cake. We just need to be careful.”
“Okay. No worry. Eat cake. Got it,” he said.
“Are you all right?” asked Diane.
“He’s okay. He thinks he’s funny,” said Scott. “I’ve tried to tell him he’s not.”
They heard another yelp.
“It’s okay,” he yelled. “I have my leg uncovered now. I need to see what kind of-” Hector screamed. “My leg, my leg! I can see the bone. Oh God. Oh God.”
She refocused the light, trying to avoid his eyes. Hector was sitting with his back to the wall with both legs now straight out in front of him. A piece of wood fell from above onto his legs and he yelped again.
“Move the wood out of the way,” said Diane, gently. “Let me see your leg.”
“You need to get him out of there,” said Scott.
“I need to see how badly he’s hurt,” said Diane. “It will affect how we get him out.”
“Oh God, my leg bone came out!” he screamed.
David and Diane looked at each other, a mixture of alarm and bewilderment.
“I’ve never heard-,” began David.
“Wait a minute. False alarm,” yelled Hector.
“Hector, this isn’t funny,” yelled Scott. “You are scaring us.”
“No. I’m not being funny. I’ve got good news. I’ve found the buried bodies we’re looking for.”
Chapter 34
“What?” said Scott. “There’s a body down there with you?”
“Not exactly-well, I guess, yes, exactly. But it’s all bones,” Hector said.
Diane heard Hector rustling around at the bottom of the well.
“Hector,” said Diane, “don’t move around so much.”
Using her flashlight she examined the walls of the well and the area around the surface again. There were several trees nearby and one fairly close to the well, not a large tree, its trunk perhaps as big around as her leg. No large roots had worked their way through the cracks between the stones forming the wall, but smaller roots had, and the chances were good that tree root systems were pressing the wall in the direction of collapse. Where was the policeman with her rope?
Diane heard the rustling of someone walking through the leaves and brush and saw the play of a light. She looked up, expecting the policeman. It was Neva, and she had Mike Seger with her. Mike had Diane’s rope bag and backpack.
Mike, the museum’s geologist, was one of the best caving partners Diane had ever had. She was glad to see him there with Neva, another caving partner. Neva wasn’t as experienced as Mike, but she was a reliable and skilled caver. Mike put the bag and backpack down on the ground.
His short brown hair was longer than when she last saw him. His lean features had developed a weathered look since he’d taken on his job visiting the world’s most extreme environments. He usually had a serious look on his face. Here in the dim light his face looked to be carved out of stone.
“Hi, Doc. Good to see you.” Mike’s stern expression broke into a smile.
Diane grinned back. “Just the right people at the right time. We need to get Hector out of this well,” she said. “I take it you saw the policeman?” She gestured at her caving gear.
Neva nodded. “Two of them. They stayed to direct the paramedics,” said Neva.
She and Mike squatted down and looked into the well.
“What do we have here?” said Mike. “Hector, buddy, what the hell you doing down there?”
“Falling down a well seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hector said.
Mike felt the ground around the top of the well. “Pretty firm,” he commented. “But some collapse at the edge.”
Diane explained the situation and the dangers and what she wanted to do.
“Let’s get to it, then,” said Mike.
David and Scott moved one of the battery-powered lights closer so they could see what they were doing. Diane and Mike opened the rope bag, basically a large tarp with grommets. It held Diane’s caving rope. Diane took good care of her rope because it was literally a lifeline. She kept it clean and always took out any knots she had tied while caving. It was good rope and a lot of it.
“Do you think we can use that tree over there, the one closest to the well?” she asked Mike.
“Yeh, it looks good,” said Mike. “We only have a what, ten-foot drop? It’ll be over in a few seconds.”
Neva took off her suede and faux fur jacket and hung it over a bush. She began rolling up her designer jeans.
“You warm enough?” asked Diane, looking at the thin sleeves of Neva’s silk blouse.
“I’ll be fine. You know, I’m like you. I don’t know why I bother to dress up,” she said. “Our lives are always on call for some death-defying adventure or another.”
“At least you don’t have on sequins,” said Diane.
Diane began tying the handholds and a foothold in the rescue rope. Neva took the tarp and laid it over the edge of the well to reduce the crumbling of the edge when they pulled Hector out. Mike wrapped and tied off one end of a length of rope to the nearby tree at a height a couple of feet off the ground. The other end he tied into a half-hitch knot at a distance that allowed the rope to reach to the center of the well opening when the rope was fully extended from the tree. He took a rescue pulley from Diane’s backpack, laid the long rescue rope in the pulley, and attached the pulley to the end of the shorter rope by means of a metal alloy snaplink. This arrangement would suspend the pulley and rescue rope midair over the center of the well as they lifted Hector out.
Mike, David, and Scott were going to do the pulling. Mike gave them instructions as they took up their places six feet or so back from the well on the side opposite the tree. The three of them gripped the rope firmly. Diane dropped the other end of the rope down the well to Hector.
“Hector, I want you to listen to me,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“Put your good foot in the loop nearest the end of the rope. Use the other loops as handholds. Don’t try to help us by putting your hands on the wall; it’s much too unstable. Just hold on to the rope. Your leg is probably
