Michael Koryta - Last Words

“What did Cecil tell you to do?”

“We went back and searched together. Didn’t find them. He told me to call the police but to keep my dad out of it and said that he would do the same and he’d find my father and get it settled. Basically, he told me he’d fix it. Then as soon as I got away from the police, he came to me and said that they were figuring it out. That Sarah was fine, my father was just waiting for the chance to take her back to a place where they could find her, toward Pershing’s entrance. Because it couldn’t be this place, you know. The whole fucking dream would have died then. Even while Cecil was telling me that, though, he was seeing the angles. He knew that Sarah meant something to Pershing. My father didn’t.”

“You think your father would have brought her back out?”

“I honestly do. Maybe that’s ignorant. But he listened to Cecil. Always. He trusted Cecil, because Cecil had earned it as far as my father was concerned. Cecil didn’t give up the cave while my father was in prison. He kept quiet. My father considered Cecil a partner. More than that, he considered him a boss. You got in trouble, you asked Cecil how to get out of it. Well, we both did that summer. And you can see how well that worked for us.”

Mark turned from him and stared into the unimpressive crack in the earth.

“This was the point of it all?” Mark said. “People died because of this?”

“People died because Cecil and my father wanted their dreams back. But don’t write this off until you’ve seen it, brother. What’s down there is special, and somebody will pay one hell of a lot of money for it. Wait and see on that. You can add a few more zeros to whatever number is in your mind. You can roll your eyes and shrug right now like everybody else, but trust me, by the time it’s done, a lot of money will have traded hands over this place.”

Mark believed him. The story wasn’t a new one. People had been doing two things with the earth for centuries upon centuries: digging for their fortunes beneath it, and burying their dead within it. In Trapdoor, the two had collided.

“Pershing’s land has the best entrance chamber,” Evan said, “but he never had a clue what kind of cave was there. That’s what Cecil kept telling my father. ‘Be patient, be patient. This guy, Pershing, he’ll get bored and sell his interest. Because it really isn’t that special of a cave over there. Dozens like it have opened and closed already.’ Problem was, Pershing wanted to keep exploring it. He was pecking on the borders. Still, you had to work to get through it from over there. Nobody but Ridley Bats in the Belfry Barnes could’ve done it. If what he says is true? If he actually brought Sarah out of there in the dark? ” Evan shook his head. “If he managed that, they should build a statue of him and put it on the courthouse lawn. Because that is some heroic work, I’m not kidding you. That’s flat-out miraculous. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I suppose nobody ever will.”

He fell silent and joined Mark in looking into the dark stones for a time.

“I understand why Pershing was willing to deal with Ridley,” Mark said finally, “but what value did Cecil have? He was your father’s partner, not Ridley’s. Why include him in the trust?”

“Because Cecil kept Pershing clean. Kept his secrets, same as he kept mine. Cecil, he’s damn good at tending secrets. Only man better is Ridley Barnes. Except that son of a bitch apparently just can’t remember his.” Evan shook his head. “When Ridley brought her body out... I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t. My father was feeding her, he was giving her water, he was keeping her alive and he’d never let her see him. He was always in the dark. She didn’t know who he was, that’s what he said. She didn’t know it was him. So he was going to wait for the right opportunity and he was going to take her back. Was supposed to be within a day. That was the promise they made me. She’d be out by the end of the day. I didn’t know he was writing ransom notes then. I’ll tell you who did know: Cecil.”

Evan wiped at his face and left streaks of dirt under his eyes.

“End of the day turned into a second day, and then a third, and she stayed in, and I was too scared to talk. I mean, if it had just been me going to jail, maybe. Thing was, that was my father who had her. And as damn foolish as it sounds — and it would sound even more foolish if you’d known the nasty son of a bitch — I couldn’t tell the police it was my father. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. He’d done seven years in prison waiting to come back to this. It was family land, had been for a hundred and thirty years, and he was going to take it back. Besides, everything was going to be fine, right? Everything was going to work out fine. If everybody just stayed silent, it’d work out. Cecil told me that plenty of times.

“Then Ridley came out with her body, and Dad was gone. I figured she’d died from the cold, and he’d taken off when he realized what he’d let happen. Once he saw he was looking at murder, he bailed fast, and bailed for good. Cecil thought the same. It wouldn’t have been unlike him. But then it began to feel like Ridley had killed her because he was so damn strange about it, saying he couldn’t remember what had happened. Meanwhile the old man’s gone. I was scared to come here; hell, scared to go anywhere. There was no trace of him, though. I told myself that was good, but you know what? You can’t walk away from your family. You all walk together, whether you can see them there beside you or not.”

“How long was it before you found him?”

“More than a year. I told Cecil, and he said to leave him where he lay. Said the facts of the situation hadn’t changed — I brought Sarah in, my dad grabbed her, I lied to the police about it, and she died. I’d still go to prison. He was telling the truth about that much. I would have gone then, and I will go now. I’m an accessory, always have been. Didn’t have to be, but I made the wrong choice and trusted the wrong people. I thought she’d come back out safe. I was promised that she would. I had the chance to be something different, and I didn’t take it.”

He fell silent. The two of them lay there in the wet earth under the decaying trailer and Evan Borders stared into the cave entrance as if willing it to turn into something else. A door to the past. A second chance.

“You think Ridley’s still down there?” Mark asked eventually.

“If he’s still alive, he’s still down there. We’ll let you go take a look.”

Mark had no desire to venture down that flimsy ladder into the narrowing walls and the blackness.

“We’ll go together,” he said. “Show me how to get to him.”

Evan laughed. “Sure. I have no idea how to get to him. And I don’t want to. It’s time for me to roll. They probably won’t let me get far now, but I’ll give ’er hell, right? Make the run I should’ve made ten years ago.” He offered Mark the flashlight. “Go on.”

“Just drive,” Mark said. “I’ll give you some lead time. But give me the chance to get the right people here.”

Evan shook his head. “Let’s not make it complicated. You make it to the bottom of that ladder, and you’re on your own. I’ll leave it for you. You can climb right on back up if you want. But you’re going to start at the bottom whether you choose to take the ladder or not. I’d be careful walking up on Ridley Barnes down there, though. It usually goes bad.”

Mark made it only three steps down before he hesitated. The ladder swayed with every step and each rung flexed as if it were about to break.

“It ain’t so bad,” Evan said. “But if I were you, I’d put the flashlight in my teeth so I could use both hands, at least.”