Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

Several inches above the spike she discovered a gash in the stone wall. She put a hand in the gouged-out place, poking around in the hole, feeling its shape. In the middle of the gash was a smaller hole. Interesting.

A new hypothesis formed in her mind. Caver Doe had set his railroad spike in the top hole, tied his rope to it, and started over the edge. The spike had pulled out of the wall when he put his full weight on it-causing him to fall. If they found a railroad spike on the floor of the cavern, that would support her idea.

But what of the spike that was set-his caving partner? Surely he hadn’t been caving alone. Then. . why wasn’t he rescued?

Diane pondered various hypotheses of how Caver Doe might have come to his end, turning the ideas over in her mind, trying them out in various scenarios. She knew it was pointless at the moment, since she had not examined the remains, but she couldn’t help herself.

She turned away from the chamber and faced the other end of the tunnel. The terminal height of the passage at the point it opened into the cavern measured fifteen feet, and the width was about twenty-five feet. The walls, a light tan streaked with many hues of brown, were patterned with large scallops, some nearly a foot in length, and dug into the stone with such repetition and consistency they looked almost man-made.

The limestone rock made of calcium derived from skeleta, shells, and the secretions of a host of marine life was literally the bones of the earth. She rubbed her fingers over the rock surface-a surface seemingly too hard to have dissolved in a little acidic groundwater. But it had, and that was the wonder of it. Slow-moving, slightly acidic water long ago in the time before man had dissolved this sinuous passage through the limestone. Diane raised a bare hand above her head and paused. There was no air movement.

She decided to follow the tunnel, even though she was without a caving companion for the moment. If she stayed on the main path, taking no detours, entering no mazes, it would be all right.

Adrenaline still electrified her body from her near fall. She was hyperalert as she walked, stepping over the rubble that littered the silt floor, examining the pathway, the ceiling.

At the first gentle curve in the tunnel she stopped and looked back, viewing where she had just traversed. It was a habit she’d developed so she could always recognize passages from any direction-a safeguard against becoming hopelessly lost and having to be rescued.

Diane knew she probably should go back while she could still see the glow from the chamber dimly illuminated by Neva’s light. When she rounded the bend the chamber would be out of sight. Was she going to be cautious or adventurous? She compromised and called Neva on the walkie-talkie.

“I’m going to follow this tunnel.”

“Should you be doing that alone?” said Neva.

Diane had drilled into Neva never to cave alone or go off alone, at least not for any great distance.

“I’m only going to the end of the tunnel. Not any farther. You stay in the chamber. Don’t go anywhere until Mike and MacGregor get back. And keep in touch.”

“Will do.”

She shined her light on the curve of another bend just ahead. She pointed her distometer and measured the distance-16.3 feet. It was indeed promising to be a long, sinuous tunnel.

On the floor of the winding passage she found no objects that might have been dropped by Caver Doe. Nothing. Not even footprints. That seemed odd. Even with the years of dust settling in the cave, there should be some ghost of a footprint left. Perhaps all traces of his passing had been covered by the breakdown. In many spots it was like gravel. She looked back where she had just come. Her footprints on the silt were actually very light, and in some places where the bedrock showed through the silt floor, there were none. Okay, maybe the absence of evidence of his passing was not odd, but interesting.

What was it Mike had told her about meanders? Flowing water left a greater amount of silt on the inside of bends where it slowed down. She squatted down at the turn in the bend and examined the heavy layer of silt. No footprints, but there were wavy smears and striations, as if someone had dragged or wiped something over the surface. The markings in the silt were so slight that they might have simply been products of her imagination-seeing evidence where there was none. She took her camera from a pocket on her pack and snapped a picture of it anyway.

She stood up and was about to continue on when her light caught the reflection of something in a slit between two large rocks. She squatted to examine the sparkle. It was silver, tiny, and had the smooth, rounded, shiny look of something man-made. She moved some of the silt from around it, revealing a thick wire loop-looking object. She grasped it between her thumb and index finger. It shifted slightly, but was stuck. Must be attached to something bigger and held in place by the rocks, she thought.

Diane dug between the rocks with her finger and felt a rounded edge. A button? Caught between the rocks when someone was wiping footprints from the surface of the silt? Or was her imagination making a mystery out of a simple caving accident?

Her digging had partially freed it. If she could just turn the object sideways she could get it out. Her fingernail caught it and swiveled it around on its edge. Diane grasped it and pulled it out, trying not to touch anything but the edges.

It was a button. Metallic-silver with the letters A.S.C. over an eagle with spread wings. Military button? On the reverse side was a thick wire shank-the part that Diane had first caught sight of. She laid the button on top of a rock near its original location, photographed it, made notations in her notebook of the spot where she had found it, and stuffed the camera and notebook back in her pack.

Diane searched her pockets for something suitable to put the button in and came up with a Ziploc bag. She sealed it so that enough air remained inside to reduce contact with the button, though it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. The passage of time and the conditions had most likely resulted in the destruction of anything that might have been clinging to the surface of the button. But you never knew. She put it in the backpack and proceeded down the tunnel.

She stopped at the next bend and examined the silt and found no other marks in the dirt.

“Dr. Fallon.” The radio squawked a string of static syllables.

“Neva?”

“Just checking in. I found a railroad spike.” Even with the static, Diane could hear the puzzlement in Neva’s voice.

“That’s great. Mark the place where you found it.”

“Sure thing. Out.”

Diane followed the tunnel, watching the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was like a gently waving avenue, not too cluttered, big enough to drive a car through with room to spare. The light shining off the uneven, rippling walls, and the distant outline of the oval cross-section, made the passage look like a vortex funneling her to some mysterious destination. It was a close call, but at this moment the mysteries of the cave held more allure to her than the remains back in the chamber. She wished that her caving partners were here so she wouldn’t have to stop when the tunnel ended.

Just ahead a pile of breakdown with rocks the size of boulders littered the way. Beside the pile she found another passage, a side branch. The entrance was small; she would have to duck to get through it. From her vantage she could see that it sloped steeply upward and the passageway was strewn with large boulders-negotiable, but they didn’t look stable. She scanned the walls around the entryway. Above the opening, almost at eye level, she saw a smudge. It was so faint she almost missed it, but it was definitely an X.