“This here broke clean through the ‘bone long ways back,” she whispered, pointing into a narrow defile, which was in total darkness. “They’s water runnin’ through it, comin’ down off ‘n them sides. Foller it through to t’other side, go down to yer right hand, mebbe twenty rod, to the cave hole.”
“Thanks, Laurie May. I’ll try to come back out after dark tomorrow. If by any chance Carrie contacts you, tell her where I am. If she comes to your place, try to keep her there until I get back.”
She nodded in the darkness, squeezed my hand, and started back into the pines. I approached the passageway through the ridge. Her description of it breaking clean through was accurate. I stepped into the crack and looked up. Sheer rock walls rose on either side of me, no more than six feet between them where I stood but getting wider toward the top, which had to be two or even three hundred feet straight up. The ground underfoot was loose stone and mud, and I could see thin dark streaks of moisture weeping down the sides of the defile. I’m not one to feel claustrophobic, but this passage through the heart of the ridge got me close to it. I tried to imagine what titanic forces could split and then open the whole ridge like this. I had to resist the temptation to keep one hand on the walls to make sure they weren’t closing together on me. The shepherds followed nervously, stopping when I did and picking their footing carefully.
The path through the crack led straight across for about a hundred yards and then slightly downhill, and the water took on some depth as I neared the other end. The air was dank and cold, and the looming rock walls seemed to amplify my every footstep, no matter how careful I tried to be. At the other end the crack narrowed down to no more than four feet, and it took all my willpower not to bolt the last fifty feet.
Finally I reached the other end and stopped just short of stepping out onto clear ground. The hollow containing Grinny Creigh’s place opened in front of me, and I had a good view down the slope and overlooking the buildings and pens around her cabin. My vantage point was a good three hundred or more feet above the cabin in elevation. There was no cover on this side of the ridge except one lonesome pine tree, which was tapping the water seeping out of the crack. I hesitated to just step out there; there were dim lights on inside the main cabin, but all the outbuildings were dark. I was facing the south end of the cabin, so I couldn’t see anything on the front porch where she’d been enthroned the night I’d been there. And might be tonight.
I stepped just out of the crack and sat down to watch for a while, mostly to get my night vision acclimated to the moonlight. Now that I was out of that sheer-walled split in the mountain, I could see much better. The tiny weep spilling out of the crack went straight downhill and disappeared into a brush-covered gully. I used the telescope to scan the compound, looking for any signs of humans or dogs, but there was nothing moving down there. There was a slight breeze blowing across the face of the ridge as cooler air from the upper back ridge poured downhill toward the road and creek way down to my right. Otherwise there wasn’t a sound coming from the hollow.
The shepherds lay down on either side of me, and their warm, furry hides were comforting. I settled back against the rock, and my shirt collar reminded me of the rifleman who’d damn near laid me down on the other side. Which further reminded me of the cell phone. I took it out, turned it on, and checked for a signal. One lonely bar, and it wasn’t entirely persistent. I switched it back off since I had no way to recharge it.
After a half hour my back was getting cold, so I decided to find the cave. Having no idea of how long a rod was, I elected to simply go sideways down the ridge, moving slowly and feeling along the rock wall for a cave entrance. I’d gone maybe fifty feet when I heard and then saw the headlights of a pickup truck coming up from the river road toward Grinny’s cabin. I was well above their line of sight but decided to freeze in place and sit down again, trying to make myself small. On a full-moon night they might have seen me, but I figured I was pretty inconspicuous against the gray rock wall of the backbone ridge.
The truck stopped in front of the cabin and shut down its engine and lights. I halfway expected someone to get out and haul yet another chained body out of the truck’s bed. Instead I watched Nathan get out of the passenger side and go into the cabin. Even at this distance he was unmistakable, his stooped figure moving awkwardly up the steps and into the shadow of the porch. I saw a match flare on the driver’s side. That was good-the match would destroy the man’s night vision should he happen to look up in my direction. I was still pretty exposed and considered moving on down the hill. Then I remembered that motion wasn’t the best idea if perchance someone was actively scanning the ridgeline.
Ten minutes later Nathan appeared out of nowhere at the back of the pickup truck. He had two large dogs with him, which he proceeded to heave up into the bed of the truck. I could hear their claws scrabbling for footing. One of them started barking, and I heard a rough voice yell “Shut up” at him. Nathan got back in and the truck started up. The driver turned on his headlights, and now it was my turn to lose all night vision as his brights swept across my position on the hillside. All I could do was hope like hell they weren’t looking up here, because there wasn’t a stitch of cover anywhere. In the event, the truck kept going and soon was out of sight and sound down the hill. I stayed put until I could see again and then continued my way down the ridge in search of the cave.
About three hundred feet from the crack, I felt the rock wall give way to a narrow opening. I had a penlight on my field belt, but decided not to take any chances. I sent the two dogs into the cave instead. Hopefully there wasn’t a six-foot-long rattlesnake denned up in there for the night, because if there was, we were in for some noise. Both shepherds popped out of the cave a minute later, so I decided it was reasonably safe for me to try it out. The opening was only four feet high and perhaps eighteen inches wide, so I had to duckwalk sideways into the cave. The actual cave curled to the right from the entrance. Once inside, I turned on the penlight and checked the ground for snakes and the ceiling for bats. Nobody home.
The cave wasn’t much of a cave-it was just a hole in the rock. It had a sandy floor and went back about ten feet, ending in a crack in the rock that was perhaps a foot wide. The ceiling started out at six feet but rapidly sloped down to no more than four at the back. I shone the light into the crack but couldn’t see anything that resembled a passageway, just more gray rock. Fortunately the cave was dry as a bone. I switched off the penlight.
“Okay, mutts,” I announced quietly. “We’re officially here.”
I shucked my bedroll and the field belt and then moved back to the entrance to see what kind of view I had. It wasn’t terrific. Because of the way the cave entrance made that initial turn, I couldn’t see much of the Creigh place without coming back outside. Fine for the nighttime but dangerous during the day. I went outside and sat down with my back against the rock again. The cave would be okay for holing up, but I needed a watching point that would conceal me and the dogs while giving me a clear view.
There was another problem. Nathan had come back to the cabin to get some dogs. If they were trackers, and if he went to Laurie May’s, they might track me up to and through the crack. After the shooting earlier, somebody knew I was in the area, and probably where I’d come from. In which case, I didn’t want to be holed up in any dead-end cave. They could just stick their shotguns into the entrance and leave the resulting gore to compost.
The cell phone slipped out of my pocket. I picked it up, switched on, and checked for a signal. This time there were two whole bars. I fished around for Carrie’s number and called her. She answered on the third ring, and I moved back into the cave’s entrance.