“You’re really going to enjoy this baby I’m your main man now.’
He removed his hand from her breast and he started to unbuckle his leather belt.
Kathy Santos leaned against a large pine tree and reached down and massaged her right foot. Sally Backlin looked back at her and said.
“Are you, are right? Did you hurt your foot? “I’ll be fine. I just stepped on a burr of some kind. I should have grabbed my shoes before I left my room but, all I could think about was getting out of there as fast as I could. I will just watch my step more carefully from now on.”
Bart the dog, looked back when Sally had spoken but continued to walk deeper into the woods. His nose had picked up the scent of something that normally wasn’t in that area. The normal squirrel and rabbit smells were overpowered by the smell of human beings and these were very fresh to his nose. He continued along the path he had taken the other day with the two females following directly behind him. He came to the hole he had seen the other day and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He wasn’t aware of what was happening but in his animal brain he sensed something was not to way it was supposed to be.
Sally looked at the small dog as it began to shiver and she tried to comfort him.
“What’s the matter boy? Does that hole scare you? It scares me too but, we have to find my brother and his friend. Let’s keep walking and we’ll get away from this nasty hole.”
Kathy Santos noticed the dog didn’t follow Sally when she started to walk away from the hole and said.
“Wait a minute Sally. Bart is still looking down in that hole. You don’t think your brother could be down there, do you?”
“They wouldn’t be stupid enough to climb in that hole, Kathy. Even my little brother isn’t that dumb.”
“But wait Sally. Maybe the hole got bigger like those other ones and they fell in. Bart seems to think there is something down there.”
“You might be right, Kathy but, I hope not. I can’t even see the bottom. Hey Jack are you down there. How about you Billy. Are you there?”
Only silence answered her question and she looked at Kathy with a saddened expression on her face.
“If they fell down there they could be badly hurt. Oh, what can we do Kathy?”
“Listen, keep calm Sally. We’ll work something out.”
Kathy looked around her and saw a fallen pine tree about eight inches in diameter. Bart began whining and scratching at the edge of the hole.
“Sally, I think they are down there, the way Bart is acting. Help me drag that fallen tree over here and I’ll see if I can climb down and look for the boys.”
Sally and Kathy dragged the fallen tree over to the edge of the hole and gently lowered it down into the blackness. They hit bottom with about two feet of the log sticking over the edge and Kathy began climbing down into the hole.
“Oh please be careful. Don’t fall. I don’t know what I would do.”
“I’ll be all right. I used to be a real tomboy when I was your age and tree climbing was one of my favorite things to do. Lucky I don’t have any shoes on, it makes climbing a lot easier.”
Kathy reached the bottom of the tree and brushed her hands off on her jeans. She looked around in the faint light coming from the top of the hole and saw a crumbled figure lying about five feet away and hurried over and knelt beside it.
“Can you hear me? Are you hurt badly?”
Sally hearing Kathy talking down in the hole yelled down to her.
“Kathy. Did you find my brother? What’s happening down there?”
“I found one of them Sally. It’s too dark to tell if it’s you’re brother or not but he is still breathing. I don’t know how badly he’s hurt but I think he might just be knocked unconscious. I’ll stay down here and look for the other one. Why don’t you see if you can find someone to help us get him out of this hole?”
“Okay Kathy, I’m on my way. Please find the other one. Please.”
Sally started running down the path leading out of the woods and Bart remained at the edge of the hole still sniffing the air coming out of the darkness. Sally ran past the boulder and looked down the driveway just as more ambulances and fire trucks began arriving. She ran toward the big crevice in the road and yelled across to the men climbing out of the first fire truck. “Oh please help us. My brother and his friend are down in this big hole and we can’t get them out.”
“Okay miss.” Yelled back the closest fireman. “We’ll be right there.”
The firemen began pulling an extension ladder off the top of their truck and laid it across the large crack in the pavement. The other fire trucks and ambulances began unloading their emergency equipment and began running toward the ditch in the direction of the front parking lot. The firemen from the first truck began crossing the ladder very carefully, their ropes, and other equipment strapped to their backs.
When three of the firemen had crossed the ladder, they ran up to Sally and asked her to show them the way to where the boys were. She began running toward the boulder with tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. The closest fireman looked over at Sally and said.
“It’s okay now. We’ll save them. Don’t worry.”
Kathy Santos, after brushing the dirt away from the fallen boy’s forehead and making sure he was still breathing, got up and began hunting around for the other boy. The hole was really dark away from the opening and she tripped over something as she searched around. She bent down and felt a warm arm laying across what felt like a small tree that had fallen into the hole. She ran her hands down the length of the arm and felt a pile of sand where the shoulder should be. Oh my God she thought to herself. He’s buried. She could feel the warmness from his flesh and knew he was still alive but didn’t know for how long since he was obviously buried. The arm suddenly gave a little jerk and she heard a slight moan come from under the small fallen tree.
“What’s happening?” Came a little boy’s very muffled voice “Is someone there, where am I and where is my friend Jack?”
“Your safe sweetheart.” Soothed Kathy Santos. “Your friend is right over there and you both will be okay.”
Kathy started digging in the sand around the small boy’s shoulder and realized the small tree had created an air pocket around his face when the sand had fallen over him. She quickly dug him out enough that his head and shoulders were free and he helped her pull himself out of the mound of sand. He groggily got to his feet with her help and they slowly walked over to where Jack was still laying unconscious. “Will he be all right lady? He just has to be.”
“I think he’ll be just fine.” She assured Billy. “I think he probably just got the wind knocked out of him when he fell. Help will be here for you in just a minute.”
Kathy Santos looked up and could see Bart looking down at them and a smile came to her face. What a great dog she thought. He knew those boys were down here even if we didn’t.
As she was looking at the dog a face peered over the side and she recognized the friendly hat of a fireman.
The firemen tied their ropes to the closest trees and lowered a canvas cradle down to the waiting arms of Kathy Santos. Two of the firemen quickly lowered themselves down into the hole and began helping Kathy load up the frightened Billy into the cradle. As they other fireman hauled Billy to the surface, one of the firemen shined his light into the face of Jack and he blinked open his eyes and a big smile came to his face.
“Are you guys really firemen?” He asked as soon as the flashlight beam was removed from his eyes. “Can I go for a ride in a fire truck?”
Tears of joy came to Kathy’s eyes as the fireman lifted Jack to the surface and began strapping the harness around her body.