Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

“I’ll be going,” she said. “Call if you need me for anything.”

“Will do.” He grinned. “By the way, one of the things Paloma wanted was a copy of our research design for her mother. Seems Marcella is very excited about it. I never knew we had so many people around who are data wonks like I am.”

“Yes, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?” she said. “Who would have imagined-”

Diane was cut short by a loud cry coming out of the darkness.

David and Diane jerked around and stared into the dark in the direction the cry came from.

“David! Help me! It’s Hector, help! Oh jeez, help!”

Scott was perhaps two hundred feet from them. The lighting hadn’t quite illuminated that far and all that was visible of him was a dim reflection of light from his lab suit and his face. He was kneeling on the ground in heavy undergrowth.

Diane hadn’t heard a gunshot. That’s what she’d feared. She and David ran toward Scott, jumping and skipping over piles of rocks and broken concrete, trying not to get tangled in the string, or trip over the stakes. Out of the corner of her eye Diane saw the bobbing flashlight of one of the policemen running through the woods in their direction.

“He’s hurt,” said Scott as they drew near.

“How?” asked Diane, breathing hard from the obstacle course she had just run.

“Hector was standing here. There was a noise, and he suddenly threw up his hands and just disappeared,” he said.

“Scott, what do you mean?” asked David.

“Hector, can you hear me?” yelled Scott.

Diane heard a groan. She looked down at her feet and saw that she was standing on the edge of a wide, dark cylindrical hole in the ground, maybe six feet in diameter. Hector was somewhere below in deep shadow.

She knelt beside Scott, feeling in her pockets for a flashlight.

“Anyone have a light?” she asked.

“No,” said David. “Damn. I don’t. One of the policemen is coming. He has one.”

“Oh jeez, Hector, say something,” said Scott.

Diane put a hand on Scott’s arm. “Stay calm. We’ll get him out.”

“What is this? Some kind of animal trap?” said Scott. “Who would do this?”

“It’s an abandoned well,” said Diane.

The patrolman had arrived and shined his light down into the opening.

“Well, hell,” he said.

The bad news was Hector was lying at the bottom of the well. One leg was bent under him. Rotten boards and dirt half covered him. The good news was he was not far down-about ten, maybe twelve feet. Not far at all. But Diane worried about the walls of the well.

She took the flashlight from the policeman and handed him her keys.

“Go to my SUV. In the back is a bag with a rope in it and a backpack. Bring them. Hurry. And call the paramedics.”

He nodded and headed off immediately through the dark in the direction of the driveway. Diane shined the light down the hole at Hector.

“Hector, can you hear me?” she said.

He moved. “Yeah. What the shit is this?” he said. His voice had a pissed-off, whiney tone, but it sounded strong.

“You fell down an old well,” said Diane. “We’re going to get you out. I need to know how you are. Are you hurt?”

He moved and yelped. “I think my leg is broken,” he said.

“Just one?” Diane asked.

“Isn’t that enough?” he yelled back.

Diane and David briefly smiled at each other.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.

“It’s kind of hard to tell. I’ll try to stand,” he said.

“Not yet. Stay still,” she said, a little too sharply.

“Why? What else is down here-snakes?”

“Hector’s afraid of snakes,” whispered Scott.

“I heard that,” yelled Hector.

“It’s a little too late for snakes. It’s too cold for them,” said David. “I think,” he added, under his breath.

“Okay,” Hector said. Then after a moment he asked, “Where do they hibernate?”

“Rock outcrops,” said David. “In the cracks. Not here.”

Diane suspected David was spinning Hector a yarn. She didn’t think he knew anything about snakes.

As David spoke to Hector, Diane examined the well with the flashlight. The debris piled around and on top of Hector indicated the well had been capped with a wooden platform that was covered in dirt and leaves with grass and briars growing over it. The rotten wood had collapsed under Hector’s weight when he inadvertently stepped on top of it, not knowing it was there.

The sides of the well were lined with varied sizes of chis eled stone blocks held in place with very old mortar. The mortar had cracks and looked weathered. Sections had already crumbled and other blocks looked ready to fall. There was no way to know what kind of stress might make the walls collapse. But they had to do something.

Besides Diane, there were David, Scott, and two policemen. Enough to pull Hector out. More than enough. She guessed it would take only three of them for a vertical pull-maybe four, depending on Hector’s weight.

“How much does Hector weigh?” Diane asked Scott.

“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.”

Compound fracture , thought Diane. Damn. That means he’s bleeding .

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.”