Sweet Boundless (20 page)

He whistled. “Well, we’re both right.”

“Oh?” She leaned over just enough to make out the ledge that had saved her falling down forever.

“That ledge is the floor of the shaft, as far as this Wolf blasted on his own. From there, he must have broken through to some subterranean cave or it gave way on its own.”

“You’re saying there’s a cave beneath the shaft?”

“Listen.”

She got very still and heard the faint dripping that had sounded so clear when she was in the shaft. She also heard a soft moaning like the wind over the strings of a guitar.

“Water probably means a limestone cave. The wind signals an outside opening somewhere. I don’t think it’s this shaft. See how still the candle flame is?” Mr. Makepeace leaned closer to the opening, studying the yawning darkness.

Carina tried to see over his shoulder, but the candlelight was swallowed too soon.

“Wish I had a lantern.” He looked up hopefully, but Carina shook her head.

“Well, I do have a rope.” He stood up.

“You don’t mean to go down there.”

He shrugged. “To the ledge at least. I want to see from there.”

“Mr. Makepeace . . .”

“Don’t worry. I’ve been down holes two thousand feet deep.”

She looked skeptical.

“Oh yes. The shafts in Cornwall are something to see.”

“But you don’t know what’s down there.” She swung her hand over the shaft.

“But I’d like to. Mrs. Shepard, a cave like that is just asking to be explored.”

“It’s not asking me.”

He laughed. “Well, it’s calling my name with every sigh and moan. Here, hold these.” He handed her the three candles bunched together. The wax was dripping freely now, and she tipped them forward to keep from burning her hand.

Alex Makepeace went out to their horses and returned a moment later with the length of rope from his saddle. “Now then, I’ll just make it fast . . .” He searched about and located the spikes Quillan had driven into the post to climb down to Carina.

She watched him tie a double hitch to make the rope fast around the spikes. He tugged once, then again harder. Seemingly satisfied, he took the candles and extinguished them with a strong puff. The drift was plunged into darkness that seemed darker than before. Carina strained to make out his movements at the edge of the shaft.

“Well, here goes.”

Her eyes adjusted enough to observe him lower himself over the edge. Watching him, Carina felt a flicker of her old fear, but she supposed some reluctance regarding heights was normal. She dropped to her knees beside the shaft, listening to the efforts of his climb. Then she heard him land with a muffled grunt. She waited, and a minute later the snick of a match broke the quiet, and its tiny flame ignited the candlewicks one by one.

From her vantage, it was Mr. Makepeace illuminated, but from his? What did he see? She leaned farther, curious in spite of herself. His rope extended beyond the ledge, into the shaft and the darkness. With one hand gripping the rope, Mr. Makepeace stretched onto his stomach and lowered the candles into the gap.

“Seems to be a subterranean well almost directly beneath, but I can see a surface to the right, and a chamber of some sort. Rather large, I’d guess. Substantial speleothem formation, from what I can make out.”

His voice had hollowed when he dropped low, and Carina caught a faint echo of his words. The cave must be sizeable. “Please be careful, Mr. Makepeace. I’m not up to carrying you out.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry. Think I’ll let myself down a ways, see what it feels like inside.”

“Maybe you should wait for a lantern. We can come again next week.” Carina felt a sudden chill as Mr. Makepeace made a series of knots in the rope.

“What are you doing?”

“Won’t have a wall to brace against. Giving myself some footholds.”

“Mr. Makepeace . . .” Another shiver climbed her spine. “Please come up now.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Shepard. I’ll just be a minute.” As he spoke he extinguished the candles again and disappeared.

Carina strained her eyes but could make out nothing but the gaping darkness.
Dio. Signore. Il Padre Eterno
. The words throbbed in her mind, but she didn’t break the silence with them. The only sound was the straining below and the scrape of the rope.

“Some slight air movement.” Mr. Makepeace’s voice sounded unnatural wafting up the shaft. It echoed hugely, and she guessed the space he’d entered must be large indeed. She didn’t care. She just wanted him to climb back out. Her back felt tense, and she gripped her hands together.

“Can’t reach the floor.” His voice sounded hollow and too far away.

“Come back now, Mr. Makepeace.” Her own voice sounded foreign thrown down the shaft that way. It seemed to wander off, then echo back uncertainly. It increased her discomfort. Was she reliving her fear from being trapped in the shaft?

“Per piacere,” she murmured. And then she heard him climbing back, the grunts of his effort music to her ears. She heard him on the ledge; then once again the rope went taut as he scaled the side of the shaft and pulled himself to the floor where she crouched. In the dimness, she saw him untie the rope and coil it without speaking.

“Are you satisfied, Mr. Makepeace?”

He seemed to only then realize she was there still. He turned. “Mrs. Shepard, I would very much like to come back with more rope and light.”

“Why? What did you see?”

“I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. It felt vast, but the senses are easily put off when sight is obliterated. Still, this could be a wonderful geological find.” With the rope flung over his shoulder, he took her elbow and led her out. “I’d like to come tomorrow.”

The sunlight was blinding, and Carina winced. “But don’t you think we should leave it alone? My husband—”

“Isn’t here to say one way or the other.”

She could hardly explain Quillan’s feelings about the Rose Legacy. Was he burdened by the dark presence of painful memories?

“Mrs. Shepard, as a geological engineer, I simply can’t ignore a treasure like this. I’ll tell no one, if that’s your concern. I know your husband is a private man.”

Private to the point of secretive. Did anyone really know him? She looked at Alex Makepeace’s earnest face.

In his subdued way, he was beseeching her. “I give you my word that no one shall know about this but us two. Come with me tomorrow, and we’ll see what’s inside that cavern. Think of it, Mrs. Shepard. You could lay eyes on something no human has seen before.”

Her throat went dry. “You mean go down the shaft myself?”

“Of course. I’ll rig you a harness. You won’t have to climb.”

“But, Mr. Makepeace—”

He laughed suddenly. “Don’t look as though you’ve seen a ghost. It’s only a suggestion. I’ll go alone if you prefer.”

She saw that he had somehow traversed the point of whether they would go or not. “I don’t know what I prefer.”

“Then allow me to show you one of nature’s wonders.”

Carina was shaking her head, but his smile was so convincing that she nodded instead. It was silly in the sunlight to think of ghosts and forces of darkness, things imagined in the recesses of the mine. Surely Quillan would want to know what lay beneath Wolf’s shaft. And a flicker of her own curiosity stirred. “All right, Mr. Makepeace. If you insist. But we must go early so I’ll have time to prepare my menu for the night.”

“As soon as there’s light to ride by. Inside it won’t matter how bright the day.”

She wished he hadn’t reminded her.

Quillan felt the rope dig into his back, but against his chest was Carina’s softness. She whimpered as he strained against the rope, hoisting them up with muscles already pushed beyond their strength. The shaft wouldn’t end, and his arms throbbed and bunched, cramping and shaking, and all the while Mrs. Shepard was laughing.

“You’ ll never be anything but a savage like your father.”
And the laugh. The diabolical laugh.

One hand slipped, the flesh of his palm burning. Carina whimpered again, and suddenly the rope that bound them snapped. He lurched, grasping for her, but she slipped away and fell down the shaft, into the darkness, like a small white bird with raven hair.

“Carina!” His muscles cramped and he fell, the air rushing by bitter cold, freezing him stiff, rendering him mute. The darkness was complete.

“Quillan.” Light streamed in, and Quillan opened his eyes to Horace Tabor.

“What are you trying to do? Freeze to death?” Tabor’s breath made a cloud when he spoke.

Quillan sat up, teeth chattering. He was stiff and sore with cold and shaking from the dream. He bunched his blankets against his chest and stared at Horace Tabor as he might an apparition from beyond the grave.

“Great scott, man! This isn’t weather for a beast to sleep out in.” He patted Sam’s head when he whined his agreement.

Quillan allowed Tabor to help him stand. The temperature must have plummeted in the night, and he was weak with cold. Stupid. He could have frozen in his tent, with no one the wiser.

“Come on. Augusta can warm your insides with coffee and I’ll make a fire to blaze the chill from your bones.”

Quillan walked stiffly beside him with Sam at his heels. Why Horace Tabor should have concerned himself with one stupid freighter too stubborn to sleep in the hotel, where some meager warmth would have kept his body temperature at a functioning level, was beyond him.

“Come on, my boy. Not much farther.”

Quillan wondered if he’d ever been called “my boy.” Alan, of course, had designated him “boyo,” and Cain on occasion had called him son. Each time it had sent a liquid warmth through Quillan. This wasn’t like that, but it eased something frozen inside. Tabor cared about him. Horace Tabor, silver baron, Leadville king.

Quillan shook his head. His mind was wandering. Soon he’d be muttering like a fool. He looked at Horace Tabor, who was half supporting him. “Temperature must have dropped.”

Tabor spoke around his stump of cigar. “What clued you in?”

Quillan hadn’t noticed the cigar. Now the whiff of it reached his brain. One sense functioning. No, three; he could see and hear as well. Now if he could just feel. They reached Tabor’s store and Augusta met them at the door.

“Bring him this way.”

With Sam at his feet, the Tabors bundled Quillan with blankets and sat him on a bench before the iron potbelly stove. Augusta appeared again with a cup of steaming coffee. “Easy, now. It’s hot enough to burn.”

Quillan sipped carefully, then held the cup where the steam could thaw his face. It was only October, but sometimes a freeze like this came early. Might mean a long, hard winter. He sipped again, feeling the coffee’s heat all the way to his stomach.

Tabor eased down on the bench beside him. “Better now?”

Quillan nodded.

“These mountains do take a man by surprise. But I’d thought you’d been around awhile.”

Quillan scowled into his cup. “I knew the season was getting chancy. Just didn’t act in time.” He drank. “Thanks.”

Tabor rested his elbows on his thighs. “Maybe it’s time you went home to your house and your wife.”

Sound advice, and if anything about his situation had been as normal as Tabor made it seem, he would do just that. Actually, he had to go. He knew it. He couldn’t leave Carina through the winter without seeing to her needs at least once more.

The thought brought a pain between his temples, and he closed his eyes, breathing the steam from his cup. The dream was still fresh enough to bring her image clearly to mind. She’d felt so soft and helpless, exactly as she’d felt when he really had climbed the shaft with her tied against him.

His muscles had truly ached after first fighting the floodwaters. But he had drawn her safely out. He hadn’t dropped her, hadn’t lost her to the darkness. The mocking laugh receded to a vague corner of his mind, but the headache remained. What should he do? What could he do?

“I suppose you’re right.” He glanced at Horace Tabor.

“There’s a time for getting rich and a season for enjoying it. I don’t doubt you’ve amassed enough to see you through the snows.”

Quillan shrugged.

Tabor laughed. “What I’ve paid you alone should make your little lady cozy enough to make it worth staying home.” He nudged Quillan in the ribs.

Quillan looked out the store window at the snow falling like fat, lumpy chickens settling down to roost. “Can’t head home in this.” And it was just as well, because he felt a chill starting inside. His head sounded like rushing water and his throat burned, but not with the coffee. He’d been sick only once that he could recall; then sheer terror had kept him hale ever since.

The symptoms had been similar to what he felt now. But Mrs. Shepard had convinced him that it was no more than he deserved, and as soon as he succumbed he would burn. He’d lain for days with fever and believed every word. If he once gave up the fight, his flesh would burn black just like Wolf’s and Rose’s, and he’d burn for all eternity.

Quillan started to shiver, even though he’d warmed himself adequately. Under the blankets he began to sweat, though the chill passed up his spine. He felt Augusta’s hand on his forehead, thought he saw her nod to Horace before everything got swimmy, and he coughed a raw, chesty cough.