he realized it too late. The shifting of his weight had been all that was needed to jar the tablet free. With a loud snap, it broke and tumbled away.
His legs kicked out, then scraped against the wall. He heard a crash as the tablet struck something. His feet searched for a foothold, but the wall was nearly smooth. The torch holder bent downward, the prongs slowly work ing their way free.
"Oh, shit."
This was it. He gritted his teeth; his heart pounded in his ears as the prongs pulled out of the wall.
He fell. Again.
He was moving through a tunnel, toward a light. It was growing brighter and brighter. This is death.
Indy. Indy.
The sound echoed around him.
He blinked his eyes against the light. So bright. Like a ball of flames. So close now. What would happen when he reached the light? Where would he go?
His eyes slid sideways and in the light he saw his fedora and the pack he'd dropped, and pieces of the shattered tablet. It all came back to him. He'd fallen into the abyss. His thighs had jammed against his chest.
He'd felt searing pain.
Then nothing.
Now his ribs ached. His right hand throbbed; it was wet with blood. His throat was choked with dust, and one thigh felt as if it had been struck by a hammer. Was death this painful? Did you wake up feeling all the pain you missed when you lost consciousness? He tried to lift himself up, but couldn't. He was still moving toward the flaming light; it hurt his eyes.
Then he realized it was a torch. It was attached to a rope, and coming toward him. He was alive and still in the goddamn hole.
He cringed as he sat up. Why was he still alive? The torch was swinging several feet above him now and he could see that he was on an overhang that loomed from the wall. He squinted up into the light. He couldn't tell where the tablet had been, but he was sure now that he hadn't fallen far. Maybe only fifteen, twenty feet. He felt bits of rubble from the shattered tablet underneath him. If he hadn't been wearing his leather jacket, he would have been hurt much worse.
He watched as the torch continued down past him, and the brightness faded until it was just a glimmer below him. I'm supposed to stop it. But I didn't. "Indy. Can you hear me?"
"Dorian, we've gone well past the depth of the tablet," another voice said. "He's gone. Face it." The voice wasn't as loud as Dorian's, but the chasm was like a megaphone and it carried easily to him. Doumas.
The bastard was giving up on him.
It was getting bright again. The torch was rising. He understood exactly what was happening. He was being abandoned. But he was in a stupor, and couldn't coordi nate his thoughts with actions. He had to do something. He cleared his throat. With an effort, he yelled: "Dorian." But it came out as a whisper. His throat was dry and felt like it was caked with dirt. He tried again. Louder this time, a gravely sound. But not loud enough.
The torch swung at his knees, his waist, his chest. He reached out; snared it. He felt a tug, and pulled back. Then the rope slackened, and wriggled like a snake.
"It must have caught on something," Doumas said. The snake rose until he felt the torch being pulled from his hand. He jerked on it.
For a moment there was no reaction, then he felt another tug on the rope, and he was pulled to his feet.
He felt as if he were fishing, only he was the fish. "What is it?" Dorian asked.
"I don't know."
"Give it to me. Indy. . . Indy."
He bent over to pick up his hat, and realized he was standing a half step from the brink of the prominence.
"Indy. Please answer."
He edged backward. He saw a cone-shaped rock pro truding from the wall and grabbed hold of it. He pulled on the rope, and tugged again, and a third time.
"It's him. I felt it. He's down there. Indy, pull again if you can hear me."
He did. Quickly, they worked out a simplistic way of communicating. One tug, yes. Two, no. Was he badly hurt? No. Could he tie the rope around himself? Yes. Did he need more rope? Yes.
Another several feet coiled in front of him. He sat down to figure out the best way of attaching the rope.
He didn't want it around his waist or his chest. He had at least one cracked or bruised rib on each side.
Maybe more. He fumbled with the rope; his hand throbbed. He pressed his bloody palm against his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding. Finally, he tied a loop, threaded the rope through it, then stepped inside the large loop. He would sit in it like a swing.
He was about to signal Dorian that he was ready when he took another look at the rock he'd been grasping. It was black, shaped like a cone, and still partially buried in the wall. He held the torchlight over it.
Its surface was thatched as if it had once been encased in a rope sheath and the strands had petrified.
"What is this?" he whispered hoarsely.
He grabbed the pack and took out the hard-bristle brush. He scraped away some of the dirt encrusted on it and ran his fingertips over the rough surface. He lowered the torch until it was almost touching the cone.
It looked like obsidian, or iron, and the thatching, he was con vinced, was not natural, but man-made.
"Indy, are you all right?" Dorian called down to him.
He glanced up, then tugged once on the rope.
"Ready?" Dorian called.
This time he jerked twice. "Not quite." He'd lost the tablet, but maybe he could salvage the cone. He didn't know why, but he sensed it was something important, something he shouldn't leave behind.
He wrapped his arms around the cone to see if he could loosen it. He pulled, and he thought it moved. He took in a deep breath and pulled again. There. It moved. He was sure of it. He laid his chest against the cone to catch his breath. He was exhausted, dizzy.
Then he saw the eagle.
It was winging skyward. He watched it.
The eagle. His eagle.
Here to help.
The eagle. His guardian, his protector.
But where have you been? I needed you. Indy heard his thoughts as if he were talking, but he was sure his lips weren't moving. The eagle continued soaring higher and higher. His skin tingled. He was neither asleep nor awake.
His thoughts drifted back to when he was fourteen and had met an old Navajo named Changing Man while on a desert hike with his father. The Indian had taken a liking to young Indy, and said he would see him again. It hardly seemed likely, because a few months later Indy had moved to Chicago. The summer after he graduated from high school he returned to the Southwest to work on his uncle's ranch, but by then his encounter with the old Indian was only a distant memory.
However, one day he stopped at a trading post to buy supplies, and there was Changing Man. He not only remembered Indy, but acted as though he'd been expecting him. Was he ready for his vision quest? he asked. Indy didn't know what he meant, but he was curious about the old Indian and his ways and said yes, he was ready. The
following day, he met Changing Man at daybreak outside the trading post and they hiked up a mesa. By nightfall Indy found himself alone and without food on the windswept surface. Changing Man had told him he must wait there until an animal approached him, and from that time on it would be his protector and spiritual guide.
After two days he was delirious from hunger and his canteen was nearly empty. It was a mistake, a big mistake. Maybe vision quests worked for Indians, but no animals were interested in him, unless it was to pick at his bones after he was dead. He walked away from the stone shelter he'd built, hoping he had enough strength for the trek down. He would find water and food, go back to the ranch, and in another few weeks he would be home in Chicago again where he would start college. As he reached the edge of the mesa, he heard a voice behind him. The voice of Changing Man. Where are you going? Startled, he turned around. No one was there. He was hallucinat ing. But he hesitated. The trail was too steep. The sun was low.