Gone to Ground (30 page)

“We can’t wait too long. It makes me nervous having those men so close to the main entrance. It may take them awhile to get up this high in the caves, but I must have time to get the rock across the entrance, wipe out signs of it being moved, and make it to the side cave. If I wait too long I’ll get trapped and caught for sure.”

“No, we agreed to wait until we knew for sure that the caves were going to be found.”

“I don’t think we have that sort of time. It’ll be okay. I won’t leave the caves. I’ll hide in that small niche just as we agreed. If they don’t find the caves, no harm, no foul. I’m just uncomfortable with those men already up at the northern end of the meadow, poking around.”

Maggie’s shoulders slumped as she gave into the inevitable. “You’re right,” she sighed. “I know it’s the smart thing to do. I just don’t like splitting up like this.”

“Don’t worry,” O’Reilly said with a grin. “I have no intention of becoming lion poop.”

The sound of a slamming door drew their attention. Four men emerged into view from below the opening in the cliff face. The leader, a tall muscular man, paused for a moment, the others waiting behind him for a signal of some type. From Maggie’s bird’s eye perspective, it was impossible to see any of the men’s faces.

At the sound of the door, one of the dogs at the back of the cave let out a soft bark, followed by a growl.

Without turning from the opening, Maggie whispered back over her shoulder, “Mark, I need you to quiet the dogs.”

When there was no answer, Maggie turned from the opening. “Mark, I asked...”

Mark was nowhere to be seen.

38

Rickards threw open the last door and stepped into the
room.

Again, nothing. The fourth door hid a small pantry, shelves built into the rock wall. Several metal garbage cans sat on the floor. Inspecting them, it was obvious they’d held flour, rice and other staples at some time in the past. Now nothing but white dust covered the bottoms. O’Reilly and the children were not here. He’d failed and O’Reilly won. Again.

Rickards turned and stormed from the room and the house, coming to a stop outside the front door. He stood there, head bowed, breathing deeply. He was aware of Donner, Johnson and Peters approaching from behind, but didn’t turn to acknowledge them.

Minutes stretched out until finally Rickards raised his head and looked forward into the gradually increasing morning light. Taking a final deep breath, he turned and looked at Gomez. “How’s the leg?”

“It’s just a flesh wound. Bled like hell, but I’ll live. It’s a long way from the heart.” Gomez grinned up at Rickards from where he was sitting on a large rock on the edge of the flat area in front of the house.

“Guess we’ll have to get Donner to work on his aim. At that distance he should have scored a better hit.”

A snort of laughter from behind Rickards indicated appreciation for the comment from someone. Probably not Donner.

Rickards turned to look out into the valley again for a moment, then said, “Okay, it’s obvious that someone has been here recently. There were cattle and horses here only a few days ago, and they’re not here now. Someone had to be taking care of the chickens. So, we’re going to search this entire valley to see if we can find where they’ve gone. Look for tracks, trails, anything that might give us a direction.

He turned again to Gomez. “Can you walk?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Good, I want you to head back out of the canyon.”

“I’m fine,” Gomez protested. “I can join the search.”

“I need someone to get back to the rim and radio the vans to get seekers into the air as soon as possible. North and south of here. We need to determine if O’Reilly made a run for it on horseback, and get men up in front to capture him if he did.”

“On it, Captain.” Gomez struggled to his feet and began to make his way toward the southern entrance to the valley.

“Gomez,” Rickards called after him.

Gomez turned.

“Send Larson here when you pass.”

“Yes, sir.” Gomez continued making his way out of the canyon.

Rickards touched the send button on the radio at his ear. “Harlan, you, Stevens and Martinez begin sweeping the area at that end of the canyon for hiding spots, tracks or any other indication where the fugitives might be.”

The radio in his ear crackled to life with a “yes, sir.”

“We’ll be moving down from this end of the canyon and we’ll meet you there. Let us know immediately if you find anything.”

“Yes, sir,” came Harlan’s reply.

Where are they?
Rickards thought again as he and the other three men worked their way through the barns and corrals, heading for the northern end of the canyon.
Where the hell did they go
?

There was no sign of the fugitives in the barn or pens, though the amount and condition of the manure present made it obvious that livestock had been kept there only a short time before. There were no saddles in the tack room, which seemed to indicate that they’d made a run for it on horseback. Still, Rickards was unwilling to trust the obvious. He knew too much of O’Reilly by now to make that mistake.

The only excitement came when Donner entered the chicken yard to check in the hen house. Out of nowhere a rooster, probably the same one that had been in the window, came rushing out, beating Donner in the shins. Donner tried to club him with the butt of his rifle with no luck. Finally, admitting defeat, Donner made for the door of the chicken coop as quickly as his feathered assailant would allow. He dashed through, slamming it behind him, only to find that the rooster knew how to get out of the chicken yard nearly as quickly as Donner did. The confrontation ended in a rout, with the damned rooster crowing his victory from the top of a fence rail.

The sun was well over the horizon when the radio in Rickards’ ear snapped to life. “Sir, Harlan here. We’ve found what seems to be the entrance to some caves. There’s no sign of footprints at the entry, but there are some prints further inside, through an opening into a second chamber.”

“We’re on our way, Harlan,” Rickards answered. “Stand out and wave your arm so we can see what direction to head.” Looking toward the far end of the valley, Rickards could see Harlan coming down a small slope from behind a tree and some rocks. At the base of the slope he stopped and began to wave.

“Johnson, Peters, Donner, with me. They’ve found something.” Rickards and the other three began to jog toward the end of the canyon.

39

O’Reilly heard Maggie talking to Mark, then suddenly stopping in mid sentence. Then he heard her calling Mark’s name, a rising note of panic in her
voice. Realizing that something was wrong, he turned from the scene outside.

Mark was no longer sitting with the dogs. Maggie had moved to the center of the room and was agitatedly turning around and around as she scanned the cave, trying to determine where he’d gone.

Christina and Alysa looked up at Maggie’s quick movement, a startled expression on their faces.

“Christina, have you seen Mark?” Maggie asked, fear in her voice.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to him. I didn’t see him go anywhere.” Christina looked around the cave from her position near the wall of the cave as if expecting Mark to materialize out of thin air.

“Maggie, what is it?” O’Reilly came up behind her.

“Mark. He’s not here.”

“Where would he have gone?”

“There’s only one place he could go.” Maggie went to Lindy where she was playing at the back of the cave. “Lindy, where’s Mark? Where did Mark go?”

Lindy stopped pulling on Gypsy’s ruff for a moment and looked up at Maggie. Pointing at the passageway, Lindy said, “Mawk go there.” Then she turned her attention back to the dogs.

The look on Maggie’s face at Lindy’s words twisted O’Reilly’s gut. She headed for the passageway but O’Reilly’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Let me go, Maggie. I’ll bring him back. Don’t worry.”

“Why would he go?”

“I don’t know, Maggie, but you can grill him over it in a few minutes when I bring him back.”

O’Reilly moved past Maggie, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, and crawled into the narrow passageway. He wriggled his way up the tight tunnel only to be brought to a halt by a wall of stone.

What the... Mark, he must have moved the stone over the entrance. Why would he...
A chilling thought flashed through O’Reilly’s mind. Yesterday, when he’d approached Maggie with the plan, he’d thought all the children were busy finishing the provisioning of the cave. What if Mark had overheard their plans? He’d been feeling responsible for bringing the Enforcers to the canyon. Was it possible that he’d decided to put himself in O’Reilly’s position, throwing off pursuit? No. No matter how guilty Mark was feeling, there was no way he’d try and do something so foolish. He had to know O’Reilly would come after him, and the plan had ensured that Maggie could still get out of the cave. The rock wasn’t that heavy.

O’Reilly moved closer to the rock, braced his feet against the side of the tunnel and pushed.

Nothing happened.

He brought his knees up further in an attempt to gain greater leverage and again pushed at the rock, trying to lift it off the opening, straining his muscles until he thought they’d explode. He was rewarded by only a slight shifting in its position.

O’Reilly couldn’t understand what was happening. When Maggie and he’d chosen this rock, they’d made sure that Maggie could move it from inside the passageway. They’d practiced several times to ensure that she would not be trapped. Not to belittle Maggie’s strength, but if she’d been able to move the damned rock, he should certainly be able to slide it aside with no problem.

O’Reilly slithered backward the ten feet into the cave, turning to find Maggie watching him. She was in control of herself, but he could see the tension in her movements.

“What’s going on? Where’s Mark?” Maggie asked.

“He’s moved the rock over the entrance.”

“Why would he do that?” Maggie asked, confusion clouding her eyes.

O”Reilly moved closer to Maggie, aware of the other children sitting on the far side of the cave listening to them. “Is it possible that he heard us talking about the plan yesterday?”

“No, he couldn’t ... I... maybe, I don’t know. I mean, we didn’t exactly look outside the barn to make sure no one was there. All the kids were carrying stuff to the cave.” Maggie stopped, head down, thinking. Finally, she raised her face and looked back at O’Reilly,

“What would it matter if he did hear. You don’t think he’s trying to take your place, do you?” New fear lit Maggie’s eyes.

“I don’t know, but he’s put something extra on the rock. I can’t get it to move much. I need something I can use as a lever. I’ve managed to get a small crack, but I can’t get the leverage I need to move the stone the rest of the way.”

Maggie looked around the cave and O’Reilly could see her mentally cataloging the items they’d hauled up. After only a few moments she turned back to him and shook her head.

“There’s nothing here. I’m sorry. I didn’t get the memo saying I needed to be prepared to stage a prison break.”

O’Reilly could tell she was fighting hard to keep her fear under control and the weak joke was further evidence of her attempts to keep her emotions reined in.

“What are we going to do, O’Reilly?” Maggie looked at him desperately.

O’Reilly suddenly grabbed her arm. “Come with me,” he turned and pulled her toward the passageway.

“O’Reilly, what are you...”

“Maybe if we’re both pushing on the rock, we can get it to move.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! There’s no way we’re both fitting in there.” Maggie gave him a look that clearly said she thought he was out of his mind.

“Yes, we will. It’ll be tight, but it’s just wide enough. The extra muscle power may be just what we need to get the rock shifted. I’ll go first. When we get to the end, I’ll push myself back against the wall. You crawl up alongside me, then we’ll both push.”

O’Reilly began to climb into the opening. Turning his head, he beckoned to Maggie. “Come on.”

Maggie turned and looked at the children where they were sitting on the far side of the cave, watching O’Reilly and her.

“Guys, I’ve got to go with O’Reilly for a moment. Christina, would you keep an eye out and let us know if something changes out in the valley?”

“Sure, Maggie.” Christina got up and moved to the opening in the outer wall of the cave.

Maggie turned back to the tunnel and climbed in after O’Reilly.

After crawling the short distance to the entrance, O’Reilly turned on his right side, pushing his back against the rock wall of the tunnel. In the glow of the flashlight, he could see Maggie resting on her elbows, peering up toward him through the narrow space between his body and the left side of the passageway, a doubtful look on her face.

“Roll onto your right side, Maggie. Then slide up here in front of me.”

He could hear Maggie muttering something to herself, but couldn’t tell what. In spite of his sense of urgency, he couldn’t help a small laugh. Whatever it was she was saying, he was sure it wasn’t a compliment on his brilliant idea. Once again he had to admire her strength. He wasn’t at all sure that he would be able to think clearly, let alone act, if it was his child who was missing.

Maggie rolled onto her right, and began a sideways wriggle up the sand floor of the tunnel, the narrowness of the passageway forcing her to press herself back against his knees and thighs. O’Reilly took a deep breath as she slithered further up his body. While his mind was occupied with finding Mark and getting him back to safety, other parts of his anatomy had separate interests. He was fairly certain that, considering the situation, Maggie would not appreciate any attention that was not focused strictly on retrieving her son.

An unfortunate blow from an elbow wrung a deep grunt from O’Reilly, and quickly refocused his attention on the task at hand.

“Sorry,” Maggie gasped as she came to rest in front of him. “Now what?”

O’Reilly took several deep breaths before he trusted himself to speak with a steady voice.

“Uh... Okay. I’m going to get my hands through this crack.” He indicated the small opening he’d managed to create on the right side of the rock. “You are going to brace your legs and push up on the left side of the stone as hard as you can while I try and move the it further in that direction. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to get past whatever it is Mark has wedged up there.”

Maggie squirmed around, trying to get her arms above her head, and in the process endangering O’Reilly’s newly regained focus.

“Got it,” she panted. “Tell me when.”

O’Reilly managed to get his arms above his head, and slid his hands through the small crack. Bracing his legs against the tunnel wall and floor, he counted, “One, two, three, push!”

O’Reilly’s muscles bunched as he strained to move the rock. He could feel Maggie in front of him pushing upward on the left edge of the stone. With a grinding noise, the rock shifted several more inches to the left, and Maggie’s side remained suspended a half an inch off the ground.

They both relaxed for a moment, breathing heavily.

“Okay, Maggie, one more time,” said O’Reilly as he got ready to push again. Another count down, another muscle bursting assault on the blockage, and suddenly the stone at Maggie’s end lifted into the air and O’Reilly’s end shifted to the left a little over a foot.

Then refused to budge another inch.

“Again,” O’Reilly said. Still the rock refused to move.

O’Reilly and Maggie collapsed together on the floor of the tunnel, muscles slack. The tang of sweat filled the air.

“What now?” Maggie asked.

O’Reilly was silent for a moment, thinking about the options. Taking the flashlight, he illuminated the blockage, and the crack they’d been able to open.

“Do you think you could make it out through that crack?” he asked Maggie, thoughtfully.

Maggie craned her head around, trying to get a good look. “I don’t know. I might be able to. It would be a tight fit.”

“Let’s try. Switch places with me.”

Maggie straightened her head, and O’Reilly could hear her muttering under her breath, “just switch places with me, he says. Crawling around in tunnels like a pair of snakes!” and he had to bite back a laugh.

They quickly determined that the first move was to have Maggie roll onto her left side, so that she was facing O’Reilly. Once that was accomplished, amid much grunting, and a few old fashioned, Anglo-Saxon verbs that had very little to do with the situation, O’Reilly began his move by sliding down onto his back, shrugging his shoulders as he inched his way over.

As his body took up more and more of the floor space, Maggie was forced to move herself up onto O’Reilly’s chest, pressing her back into the roof of the passageway. O’Reilly found himself nose to nose with a flustered Maggie, and once again thoughts totally unrelated to Mark’s rescue came unbidden into his mind. This time, however, it was an elbow to the solar plexus that brought him back to the here and now.

“Omph!”

“Sorry,” Maggie said, obviously preoccupied with getting over to the other side of the tunnel.

“Maggie! For god’s sake!” O’Reilly yelped as a knee descended on defenseless tissue.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean... there!” Maggie exclaimed as she finally rolled off of O’Reilly’s chest and onto her right side as O’Reilly slithered over to the left. Both lay on their sides, facing each other once again.

“Okay, now see if you can make it through the crack,” O’Reilly said, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his assaulted body parts. He gave her the flashlight and watched as she wriggled and squirmed her way through the narrow opening.

Several times it appeared she wasn’t going to make it, and once he worried that she was going to stick in the hole as tightly as a cork in a champagne bottle. Finally, however he saw her legs disappear into the pale glow the flashlight cast in the cave above.

Moments after her feet disappeared through the opening, her face came into view. “Mark’s wedged some smaller stones around the main one. Just a moment and I’ll move them.”

Maggie’s face vanished and O’Reilly could hear her moving rocks. Then, the flat stone covering the entrance was pulled back leaving him free to crawl into the cavern.

Maggie was standing in the middle of the cave, looking in the direction of the main entrance. As O’Reilly emerged from the passageway, she turned to face him.

“Mark’s not here. If he overheard us talking about our plan, he must have headed for the small cave, planning on hiding there like you were. Let’s go!”

“Wait, Maggie,” O’Reilly reached out and grabbed her arm as she started to head for the main entrance. “You need to stay here. I’ll go after Mark.”

“Please, don’t ask me...”

“You need to stay here. If we both go, it doubles the chance that someone will get caught. I’ll bring him back. You need to wait here. If he shows up without me, get him into the cave. Try and get the rock back over the entrance. Wait there.”

“They’ll see the disturbance around the rock. They’ll know where we are.” O’Reilly could see Maggie’s eyes wide with fear in the yellow light of the flashlight.

“Only if they make it this far. I’ll do whatever I can to lead them off.” He said soothingly.