Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

It was true, from boyhood to manhood, twenty-eight years’ worth of friendship lay between them. Compared to their lifetime relationship, Vanda was a recent addition. Paul had met and fallen in love with her his senior year of college, and they had married the following year. Five years of marriage. Seen in a certain light, she was almost an interloper, and considering the recent events that had brought Paul to this lonely place in the mountains, a poisonous one, not unlike the hibernating snakes that lay waiting at Josh’s feet.

In keeping with his nature, Josh had been a most pliant victim; never questioning Paul’s story of prehistoric pictographs inadvertently discovered while on a winter day’s ramble in the mountains. Paul had found it almost distressingly easy to convince the easygoing Josh that today’s trek was simply to be a “sneak preview” in preparation for a detailed exploration of the cavern when the weather warmed, hence, there was no need of rappel racks or ascenders — Josh had only to relax and play tourist as Paul lowered him into the pothole for a quick peek at their discovery.

Of course, there were no cave paintings that Paul knew of, even though the story of his chancing upon the vertical cave was entirely true. He had only just missed falling through the flush opening the day before. No one could have been more surprised, as this was an area of mountains well known to Josh and Paul... Vanda, too. When he had lowered a flashlight down to have a look, he had at first thought he was looking at a floor of boiling mud. Once his eyes had adjusted, however, he had understood what he was seeing and contemplated for several moments flinging himself down amongst them.

The rope began to swing violently from side to side and Paul guessed that Josh was attempting to climb back up under his own steam. Without ascenders, this would be a formidable task, even for someone as strong as Josh. Suddenly, he was aware of the tremendous strain on his own arms, shoulders, and the great muscles between his shoulder blades. His gloves were staining with the moisture squeezed from his palms as he struggled to maintain stasis against Josh’s exertions.

From below came a strangled cry; silence; then the rope snapped taut, nearly snatching Paul off his feet. Josh had lost his grip and fallen back to the end of the rope, gaining nothing for all his effort. From deep within the earth, Paul could hear his friend groan. It was impossible to tell whether it was from pain or despair. The line that suspended Josh swayed gently from side to side, and after a few moments there came the unmistakable sound of weeping.

“You’re a bastard, Paul,” Josh called up. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but it’s wrong! She’s just messed up your mind... mine too, for that matter.” Paul could hear the tears of self-pity in his friend’s voice. He had always been the weaker of the two, even if he was the larger and stronger. “But it’s not like you think, if that’s what this is all about. Not at all, man. Is that what you think? Paul? I know you can hear me up there. Answer me, damn it... please.” Paul could hear him crying again.

Paul tried to think of the answer he could give that would adequately explain why he was killing his best friend — a succinct indictment of a friend’s betrayal and a wife’s infidelity. But the words remained bound up in a heart seething with hurt and anger, and oddly, with the loss of a companion that was yet to come. A great wave of aloneness washed over him and rendered him mute with future bereavement.

Big, athletic, handsome, not-too-bright Josh. Always the bachelor; the perennial third wheel at Paul and Vanda’s dinner table. Six years after college and he still opened cans for dinner. Hapless, helpless Josh, and the women loved him for it. Ever the affable “catch” to whom married women loved to introduce their single friends, and who remained their friend long after the affair was over and marriage never proffered. The high-school star athlete who simply grew into the game-winning coach. The friend Paul had tutored through every grade, including college, and shared more meals, beer, and adventures with than he could possibly recall; the near constant companion of countless camping trips, hiking excursions, rafting expeditions, mountain-climbing forays, and caving adventures. The steady, strong arm that had shielded Paul from harm on numerous occasions and had probably saved his life more than once. The same friend that gravity and exhaustion would soon snatch from his grasp whether he willed it or no.

The rope began to swing wildly and Paul knew that Josh was attempting to save himself once more. He could discern his steady, exhausted huffs as he pulled himself hand-over-hand up the rope. Paul wondered if Josh had thought to divest himself of the heavy backpack he wore. The pulley swayed from side to side as Josh attacked the rope and, alarmingly, the motion began to be mirrored by the metal tripod that it hung from and that straddled the hole in the earth that he had been lowered into. The stakes that anchored the frame to the stony soil began to work themselves loose and the violent motion transferred itself to Paul as well, causing him to rock from foot to foot. He understood instantly that he would not be able to hold on much longer if this was allowed to continue, and the choice of saving or killing Josh would no longer be his.

“Josh! Stop climbing! You’re going to rock the whole frame over if you keep it up!” The rope continued to switch back and forth like a windshield wiper as Paul struggled for purchase. “Josh, stop it! Do you hear me?”

Slowly, the rope’s movements began to subside and Paul was able to relax somewhat, in spite of the fire that was spreading through his muscles. From below he could hear that Josh had started to cry once more and detected within the sobs that note of despair that denotes extreme exhaustion. The line shuddered once, twice, and then a third time. Josh had dropped back to the end of the rope by degrees.

“Help! Help me, somebody, please!” Josh’s tired voice echoed up from the cavern.

Paul could stand it no longer. “Josh, I’m gonna pull you up! Shed the pack and I’ll pull you back up!”

There was a pause, and then through the blood singing in his ears, Paul heard a distant thump. “The snakes didn’t like that,” Josh called out. “Not even a little bit!” Josh began to laugh as if it was the funniest thing in the world, and Paul pictured the riled serpents striking the rucksack again and again in their impotent fury, and found nothing funny about it.

“Hold on, Josh, here goes!” And with that, Paul began to back away from the hole, digging the heels of his boots into the flinty soil with each wrenching step, red-faced and panting with exertion, and inch by gut-straining inch began to reverse the unequal tug-of-war with Josh’s two hundred pounds and unrelenting gravity.

Then the pulley gave way.

In an instant gravity regained the upper hand and Paul was being pulled rapidly toward the lip of the hole. Even as he registered that the eyebolt that had connected the pulley to the tripod had snapped, sending the heavy pulley sliding down the rope towards the helpless Josh, he also saw the hole yawn wider to receive him as well. Freed from the fulcrum provided by the frame and pulley, the rope snapped against the lip of the aperture and began to hum and smoke against the rough edges, dropping Josh ever closer to the angry, waiting snakes, even as it effortlessly dragged Paul to the same fate. From beneath the earth, Paul heard a sharp cry of pain as the pulley struck Josh’s hands where they clasped the lifeline.

Without conscious thought, Paul sat suddenly and spread his legs, at once lowering his center of gravity and allowing the dirt and stones gathered painfully between them in his headlong rush to further slow him with additional weight and drag. The now useless tripod appeared to rush forward and he lined up the soles of his boots with its legs. With a jolt of agony to his knee joints, he impacted, and held, even as the line went slack and a low wail drifted up from the snake pit, punctuated by almost comical hoots of unrestrained terror. Josh was in amongst the snakes.