Nevada Barr - Blind Descent

Suggesting he rest his broken ankle got Anna nowhere. To slow him down enough so she could tell her story, she had to appeal to his gallantry. She didn't need to feign fatigue, merely to capitalize on it. Sitting on the bridge, feet dangling over the abyss, she told him everything. Reproach pulled down his mouth and her heart, but she refused to justify herself for keeping silent about their suspicions. The decision had been Frieda's. Had the situation been reversed, she would have wanted her wishes respected.

"You think the doctor's wife might have started the slide?" he asked after she'd finished.

"It crossed my mind."

"How do you figure she did it?"

"Pried out a key rock," Anna suggested. "A rock other rocks hinged on."

Holden thought about that for a while, then shook his head. "Pried with what? We didn't come equipped with shovels or crowbars. A spoon handle is about the biggest lever she could have gotten her hands on."

Anna didn't say anything. She hadn't thought of that. "Maybe she started it from above the entrance to the Distributor Cap, at the apex of the slide area. Pushed something."

"I don't see how she could have started it, then gotten below it to safety in the Cap."

"Maybe she's buried underneath."

Holden nodded slowly. He was too generous to admit that murder, the disintegration of a marriage, were more appealing than the idea that he'd screwed up and lost a patient, but Anna could see the concept growing on him.

"Well, you know, I could have sworn that anchor was bombproof," he said finally.

She waited.

"Okay. You check it out. With this bum ankle I'm likely to stir up too much trouble. Be careful. Test every step before you trust it. I'll keep folks clear till you get back. Then we dig."

Anna left before he could change his mind.

The slide was comprised of loam as fine as ash, and rocks with unblunted edges. For each step up she slid half a step back. Dust boiled from under her boots and hands, and she could hear the steady rain of dirt and debris from below. The slide had wiped clean all trace of human passage. Orange tape, footprints, everything was buried. Anna crawled on, wondering just what it was she hoped to find. Instead of cluttering her mind with what-ifs, she opened her eyes to let any and all information register.

The slide narrowed near the top in an abbreviated cone of loose rubble about twenty feet across. If anything remained to indicate cause, it would be here. Anna stopped, turned, and planted her rump in the soft soil to slow her heart and still her mind before she began tainting the scene with her presence.

"Got something?" Holden called.

"Just catching my breath." From her vantage point she could see the length of the Pigtail. Dust had been carried away on Lechuguilla's air currents, and the helmet lights of the cavers working on the body recovery moved and winked like fireflies. In a different context Anna might have found it beautiful. At present it served only to remind her how much she'd give for one more glimpse of a summer's night.

The last few feet of the climb were the hardest. The way grew increasingly steep and the cushion of soil thinner at each step. Bracing toes and knees in the dirt, she shined her light along the uneven curtain of new-fallen silt. The dirt was uniformly smooth, packed down slightly at one place where it ran the thinnest. No scars indicated rock had been scratched or pried.

"Anything?"

"Looking," she hollered.

"Come on down. From the sound of things we're going to have company real soon." Holden's voice had gone utterly flat. The small spark that hope of a reprieve had ignited within him had gone out.

"In a minute." Anna was determined to find something.

"Make it short."

Anna moved her light across the wall again, but nothing new was revealed. The pitter-patter of earthen rain grew louder.

"Anna. Now."

Loath to give up, she pushed her luck for half a minute more but was none the wiser for it. Before Holden had to embarrass them both by yelling at her a third time, she turned to skitter down. Her light fell on the spot where she'd sat admiring Lucifer's fireflies. In the soft loam was a smooth-packed place, a perfect butt-print in the silt.

"Got it," Anna shouted. "Ten seconds more." Forgetting she could start another slide, she crawled quickly back up the slope. It was there; the slightly smooth, lightly packed place near the center. Knowing she was onto something she risked the slide potential of the last few feet and pushed herself up near the top of the fall. A butt-print remained where someone had sat, braced their back against the wall, and shoved with their feet. In the fragile drift of fine sand she could make out wrinkles in the fabric and the line of a seam on a rear pocket.

"Anna!" Below her the dirt was beginning to shift, she was being pulled down. She knew if she fought it she would start another slide that would take her and Lord knew how many pounds of dirt down onto the heads of their saviors.

Before her eyes the print was vanishing, eaten away as a footprint on the beach is drawn into the sea by the waves.

"Coming," she hollered, and turned to slide down on fanny and heels, oblivious to the sharp-edged fragments of limestone that tore at her trousers and arms.

Someone had been up there, probably had started the slide. Anna must cling to that. With the dark and the dust, the evidence drained into dirt, it could so easily seem a figment of her imagination.

She would keep it real for herself, for Holden, for Frieda. And she would find who'd made the mark if she had to examine every posterior in New Mexico.

The next seven hours passed like a fever dream. With Frieda dead, Anna felt no compunction about rotating out. She climbed, crawled, and crept, a zombie clawing her way from the grave. Under protest but accepting the inevitable, Holden went out with her. Brent, too, took the opportunity to escape. Oscar, Peter, Curt, and Zeddie chose to remain with the new team and continue the body recovery.

The closer they got to the entrance of Lechuguilla the more desperate Anna became to get out. Emotions, long held in tight rein, began to break their bonds. Claustrophobia returned in force, and she chafed and sweated at each delay. Only the ominous threat of appearing a fool or a blackguard kept her from abandoning Holden and the others to bolt for the surface. By the time they reached the culvert that would release them into the confines of Old Misery Pit, waiting her turn to ascend she had to count in Spanish and recite poems to hold on to the ragged edge of patience. At last the iron trapdoor was closed behind her, and she could smell the world, cold and dry with a faint perfume of desert plants. Ascending the last sixty feet to the surface, she forgot the steady ache from her shoulder in unadulterated joy. Even the dirt smelled alive. Gone was the dank sepulchral odor of soil unblessed by life or light. When she saw her first stars, she croaked out her delight from tired lungs. Night, real honest-to-God night, with planets and dead suns, clouds and breezes. After so long a sojourn underground, even the moonless sky appeared bright and welcoming.

The glare and hubbub that awaited as she climbed into the narrow oak-filled gap protecting the cave's entrance was overwhelming. In anticipation of a heartwarming celebration of heroism and perseverance, a great crowd had gathered. News media from all over the country were there with harsh lights and makeup to herald the triumphant return. The news that Frieda died had surfaced only moments before Anna, and the party was in a confusion of changing gears, rewriting copy.

Nobody wanted to be left out of the limelight; all the NPS brass was in attendance: CACA's superintendent, the head of resource management, the chief ranger, a sprinkling of bigwigs from Guadalupe Mountains, an hour to the west. A tent had been set up for the rescuers, both those going and those returning. Beer and pizza had been hauled out onto the desert hillside.