After a few minutes, he stopped moving and listened. He could hear Molly scraping along behind him. He didn’t say anything. He just moved on.
It wasn’t long before he lost all track of time. All he knew was that there was rock above him and rock below him and darkness all around him. It was like being buried alive. Now and then something like that happened to people, if you were to believe the stories that you heard around the campfire.
He could hear Molly’s breathing now. It was too fast, and too shallow. She was getting close to panicking, Fargo thought, and he didn’t much blame her. They were too far into the tunnel to go back.
The floor of the tunnel seemed to be sloping downward, and Fargo didn’t know if that was good or bad. Bad, he guessed. The way out seemed more likely to be up than down. On the other hand, there probably weren’t any bats down there on the lower levels. He kept moving forward, pulling himself with his elbows and pushing with his toes.
After another couple of minutes, he thought that something seemed different, and he raised up carefully. Sure enough, the roof of the tunnel was higher. He could get on his hands and knees and crawl. Better yet, if he slouched over, he could even sit up.
“We have a little more room,” he told Molly. “Time for a rest.”
Molly didn’t say anything. She was panting. She sounded like a dog after a long run.
“We’ll be fine,” Fargo said, not knowing if he was lying. He put out a hand and touched Molly’s arm. “We have some room to move around in now.”
“It’s . . . so dark. Can’t see . . . anything. We can’t . . . get out.”
She was right about not being able to see. Fargo could have held his hand an inch from his nose, and he wouldn’t have seen it at all. Molly wasn’t worried about the bats anymore, though, and that was good.
“We’ll get out,” Fargo said. “It’s no worse in here than having your eyes closed on a dark night.”
“It’s . . . worse.”
Fargo moved closer to Molly and put his arms around her. He didn’t talk. He just sat there and held her until her breathing returned to normal. It was eerie to have a woman in your arms and not be able to see her. It was almost like holding a ghost, but ghosts weren’t solid, or so Fargo had heard tell.
After a while Molly’s breathing slowed and then became normal again.
“If we do get out of here,” Molly said, “are you sure you don’t want to settle down and be a farmer? I think I can make a go of it on Tally’s place.”
Fargo grinned in the darkness. “I’m no farmer. And we aren’t out of here yet.”
“You said we’d get out. I’m almost starting to believe you.”
Fargo wished he believed it himself. He said, “We’d better start moving again. Try not to skin your hands and knees too bad.”
“When can we stand up?”
“Later,” Fargo said. “When we get out of this tunnel.”
It seemed like a long time. It seemed almost like forever. But finally they did come out of the tunnel. They practically fell out of it, in fact, which proved that Fargo had been right. They were going downward.
They found themselves in another room. Fargo stood up and breathed deeply. It was good to be out of the tunnel, though he still couldn’t see anything, and he stretched to loosen his cramped limbs.
“How big is this place?” Molly asked.
Fargo said that he didn’t know. He called out and tried to judge by the echo. The sound of his voice reverberated hollowly around them.
“Pretty big, I’d guess,” Molly said. “What do we do now?”
“Find a way out,” Fargo said. “Just like before.”
“I hope it’s not as small as the last way out. I don’t think I could take much more of that.”
“We’ll have to take what we find. Unless you want to go back.”
“It’s a good thing I can’t see you, Fargo. I’d hit you if I could.”
“I’ll try to stay out of your way. Let’s see if we can find a way out of here.”
They started working their way around the wall. The rocks were rough under Fargo’s hands and irritated the cuts from the knife. He ignored the stinging pain and felt carefully, looking for fissure, a wide gap, anything.
After a while he started to wonder if there was any opening at all. Or what if it was above his head? This room of the cave was huge. It was more than a room; it was a cavern, and the ceiling was quite high. There was plenty of room on the high walls above him for an exit that he could easily miss. He told himself not to worry. If they didn’t find anything, they could always go back the way they’d come. It would be difficult, but they knew it could be done. If they could locate the tunnel again.
Fargo was tired, and he was thirsty. The throbbing in his head had settled down to a steady ache, which was some improvement, but not much. He remembered a time when he’d been trapped underground in a mine in Virginia City. He’d gotten out of there, and he’d get out of the cave. No matter how bad things seemed, there was always a way.
He was still telling himself that when he heard a surprised scream from Molly.
The scream lasted for only a couple of seconds, and then it was abruptly cut off by the sound of a body hitting the ground.
Fargo didn’t move. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but he guessed that Molly had somehow fallen. She hadn’t fallen far, but Fargo had no way of knowing how badly she might have been hurt.
“Molly,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
There was no answer, and Fargo started moving back the way he had come, careful to keep a hand on the wall all the time. He moved faster than he should have, and he stumbled a couple of times, once almost falling himself. It wouldn’t do to have both of them unconscious, so he slowed down and tried to be more careful.
When he came to the tunnel they had entered from, he slowed down even more. He didn’t want to fall into the same hole that Molly had. He went on for a couple of yards and then stopped. The silence in the cavern was almost overwhelming. It seemed to close in around him and press on him like the darkness.
He called Molly’s name again. This time she answered.
“I’m all right, Fargo. Just had the wind knocked out of me.”
“Where are you?”
“How the hell should I know? I was moving along, and all of a sudden there wasn’t anything under my feet. So I fell and landed wherever it is that I am. The ground is different here, I can tell you that much. It’s sandy.”
That explained why she hadn’t been hurt any worse than she had. Fargo said, “I’m going to see if I can get to you. Wait for me.”
“Just where is it you think I’d go? Off to the nearest saloon for a drink?”
Fargo ignored that and moved very slowly in her direction, putting out his foot and feeling for the floor before every step. When he came to a spot where there was nothing under his leading foot but air, he stopped. He seemed to be standing on the verge of some kind of ledge, and he took a few seconds to consider what he could do next.
“Are you still down there?” he said after he’d thought things over.
“That’s right. I haven’t found the saloon yet.”
“Have you looked for a way back up?”
“Looked? Has that bump on your head made you loco, Fargo? I couldn’t look if I wanted to. No, that’s not right. I can look all I want to, but I can’t see a damn thing. Not unless you want to light a lantern for me.”
Molly was getting a little touchy, not that Fargo blamed her.
“I meant had you tried to feel for a way back up.”
“Yeah, I tried that. But there’s no handhold that I can find. The wall is too slick. You can either come down here or go back to Murray. Or keep looking for a way out.”