Guide Me Home (21 page)

Scuffling sounds sifted through the tunnel, and then a timid flicker of light let them know Tolly was near. His smile gleamed in his candle's light as he squeezed next to Devlin. “Dunno 'bout you, but I's ready to get outta this pinchin' spot an' have some san'wiches. I worked up a powerful hunguh wigglin' my way through here.” He pressed the measuring tape into Devlin's hand.

“That sounds good to me, too.” By twisting himself like a contortionist, Devlin managed to slip the tape into his jacket pocket and reverse his direction. He found himself nose to nose with Rebekah and her candle. The tiny flame ignited the gold flecks in her brown eyes. For the first time since they entered this sliver of a passageway, he didn't rue the small space.

Tolly cleared his throat. “Um, you two wanna get movin'? Gonna take a while to get back out, an' my belly's grumblin'.”

Rebekah laughed softly, her expulsion of breath making the candle flame dance. “Devlin, would you take the candle, please?”

He worked his arm upward and tightly pinched the length of beeswax. Her hand slipped away, and she squirmed sideways, giggling, until she faced the opposite direction. Devlin leaned back as far as he could to prevent scorching her braid.

“Well, boy, you got that candle now. Prob'ly gonna hafta keep it until we get to a spot big enough to stretch yo' arm full out. Reb, can you see good enough to go?”

“I can't see a thing in front of me, Tolly, but with the walls so tight, I can't possibly go off course. Follow me.”

Devlin gripped a handful of Rebekah's jacket and held the candle as high as possible. Slowly they inched their way back up the tunnel, the scuff of their clothes against the walls and the hollow thuds of their boots creating an inharmonious melody. Devlin strained to capture the music of the cave, but it remained elusive. Maybe it couldn't reach so deep into the crevices. He missed its presence.

The candle burned down and they stopped to light a new one. This time Rebekah kept it, and Devlin focused on the little glow of light beyond her shoulder and hat, choosing to see it as a beacon rather than a mere flicker. At last they emerged into the domed cavern where the waywiser and packs awaited them.

Devlin staggered to the center of the area and stretched, extending his arms straight up and arching his back. He groaned as his muscles released. When he lowered his arms, lightheadedness attacked, and he grabbed the wall to support himself. His palm descended inches above the waywiser.

He stared at the wheeled instrument, confusion striking hard. He'd leaned the waywiser against the wall beside the crevice's opening before going in. So what was it doing opposite the crevice? And why was it showing a distance of twelve feet instead of being on zero, the way he'd reset it after reaching the dome?

He turned a slow circle, frowning through the shadows. Rebekah stood near Tolly, candle held aloft, while Tolly bent over the packs. The man was muttering, and Rebekah's lips were set in a grim line.

Devlin joined them. “What's the matter?”

She turned a worried look on him. “Some of our torches are missing.”

“Four of 'em.” Tolly rummaged through the second pack. “An' somebody's done took off wit' my extra canteen, half our san'wiches, an' the applesauce cake Coopuh baked up special jus' fo' me.” He rose slowly, his dark eyes searching the space.

Devlin looked from the pair of guides to the packs and then to the waywiser. Chills broke out across every inch of his flesh. “Do you suppose one of the tour groups came through and helped themselves to your supplies?”

Tolly snorted. “None o' the daily paid tours take these passages. Too hard to get through. An' too dangerous. We's gone way deepuh than any tour group 'cept the all-day-long explorin' ones that don't start 'til midsummuh. Even then, the people'd be with a pair o' our guides, an' they'd have they own supplies. No need for none o' them to bother things left by anothuh guide. No, suh, this ain't the work of no guide, I can tell you that.”

“Who do you suppose was here, Tolly?” Rebekah sounded as unnerved as Devlin felt.

“I dunno. Mr. Janin'll have a fit when he finds out somebody 'sides us's been this far in.” Tolly's black face glistened in the flickering candlelight. “Whoevuh it be, no good's comin' of them bein' here, that's fo' sure.”

Tolly

T
olly wadded the empty napkin and threw it into his gaping pack. That sandwich had tasted awful good, and he wanted another one, except there wasn't another one. He hoped their thief enjoyed the ham-and-cheese-on-rye-bread sandwiches.

He glanced at the two young people sitting on the other side of the candle. Both Devlin and Rebekah held empty napkins in their laps, so they were done, too. “Now that we got our bellies filled”—as best they could with only a sandwich apiece—“we'd best be skedaddlin' outta here. We can't be stayin' in the cave the rest o' the day like we'd planned.”

Devlin frowned. “I don't mind skipping our afternoon snack.”

Tolly shook his head. “Gots nothin' to do wit' not havin' a snack. Gotta have enough torches to get ourselves back out. Whoever pilfuhed Reb's pack left us only three. We go in any fu'thuh, we ain't gonna be able to see to get out. 'Cept with candles, an' them's s'posed to be for 'mergencies, not all-the-time usin'.”

Besides, he needed to talk to the estate trustee. The sooner he did it, the better. He buckled the strap on his pack, slung it on his back, and scooped up his coil of rope. “Reb, get one o' those torches lit an' then we'll go on out to daylight.”

Tolly raised the flaming torch and set off with Devlin and Rebekah trailing him. He didn't talk as he went. Too many worries nibbled at him. Reb and Devlin stayed quiet, too, and he sensed their unease. Tolly gritted his teeth, stifling a growl. First rule of being a good guide, his pappy'd told him, was keeping his charges safe. The second was easing their fears. He wasn't being a good guide today.

The rock corridor widened, space for two good-sized men to walk side by side. So Tolly stopped and waited for Devlin to ease up beside him. Pasting on a big smile, he said brightly, “How'd yo' travelin' through the hills on Satuhday go? You get to meet lotsa folks?”

Surprise showed on the college boy's face for a moment. But then he nodded. “Yes, I did. The country around here is beautiful. I understand why folks want to live in the hills. But…” He shot a puzzled look over his shoulder at Rebekah. “I noticed something.”

“What's 'at?”

“The people have their own unique dialect.”

Tolly scratched his cheek. “They's own what?”

Devlin chuckled softly. “Dialect—manner of speaking. But Reb's doesn't quite match.” He sent another quick look behind him. “Why is it, Reb, that you don't speak like your family and those who live around you?”

Tolly was interested in the answer, too. Youngsters in these parts went to the same school, same churches. The black folks in the area had one way of speaking, the white hills folks another. But Devlin was right—Reb spoke different from them all.

“I speak English, same as my family.”

Devlin shook his head. “You speak English, but not the same. Your English is more…refined. As if you were raised in an educated family.”

Rebekah's snort carried plainly to Tolly's ears. He whistled and nudged Devlin with his elbow. “Careful there, boy. I think you might be gettin' her danduh up.”

Devlin made a face. “I didn't intend to insult you. Or your family.
Educated
and
intelligent
aren't necessarily synonymous. But after spending the afternoon with you and your sister, the differences in your speech became quite evident. Why do you have a more pronounced speech pattern, Reb? Have you done some traveling, perhaps attended school outside of the hills?”

They trudged onward, the torchlight bouncing off the walls and painting a circle for them to follow. After several seconds of silence, Reb finally sighed. “I've never been farther from home than I am now at the estate. But…I used to read.”

Tolly's chest clenched. Reading was a touchy subject for folks of his color. Having been born into slavery, he didn't get the chance for schooling until after the war. But even then, the school open to black children didn't have the same books and such as the white children's schools. And the teacher didn't seem to think the dark-faced children sitting on the benches had sense enough to learn. What he picked up in the way of education mostly came from watching and doing and studying on his own.

But he could read some. And he could write his full name instead of making a mark. His pappy'd been right proud of him for learning to spell out his full name—Tolliver Moses Sandford. But he'd never in his fifty-four years of life read a book from its beginning to its end. Not even his grandpappy's Bible. Someday he sure hoped to.

Devlin's eyebrows shot up. “There's a library around here?”

“No. But a woman started coming around with a book wagon nine or ten years ago. She rides through twice a month, and folks borrow whatever they want and then give it back when she returns. I've borrowed dozens of books from her.”

Why hadn't the woman ever come to the estate? He'd have borrowed a book or two.

Devlin said, “Who is your favorite author, Reb?”

“I'm particularly fond of Hawthorne and Dumas, and my sisters like me to read Alcott's works to them at bedtime.”

The two of them chatted about
The Count of Monte Cristo,
talk beyond Tolly's understanding, but he stayed quiet and let them jabber on. They didn't sound scared or worried anymore, and with them talking to each other, he could give some thought to who might have come along and poked around in their packs.

During the summer months families with youngsters old enough to be running around on their own but not grown up enough to develop good sense yet spent weeks at the estate. And every summer they'd had to watch to make sure none of them sneaked into parts of the cave not open to guests. It was still early—school still going—so he didn't think he could blame the theft of the torches and food on visiting school-age boys. But maybe some local youths, too old for school but not staying busy in their daddies' fields, had come in without invitation. Maybe a thief or some other kind of criminal was using the caverns as a hiding spot from the law. The cave's entrance was unblocked all day even though the guides came and went for only three different tours. Somebody could go in easy enough.

The passage narrowed, and Tolly moved into the lead again. The tire on the waywiser
squeak-squeaked
along behind him, and Devlin and Reb started talking about some poor woman who'd been forced to wear a red letter on her dress so everybody would know she'd sinned. As aggravated as Tolly was with whoever'd come along and taken those turnovers—his mouth watered just thinking about the moist cake spiced with cinnamon—he wouldn't publicly shame the thief. He'd give him a good talking-to, though, about being foolish.

He might not have been educated in a schoolhouse, but he knew this cave inside and out. His pappy'd pounded into him the importance of never going in alone, of always taking emergency gear, of marking his way and counting his steps and always—always—watching where he put his feet. Children looking for adventure didn't have safety in their heads. That's how come they ran into trouble, like Reb's brother had done. Finding one boy dead in the cave was too many for Tolly's heart. He couldn't take it if somebody else came up lost and dead in his cave.

The passage curved gently, bringing them to the final leg of the Grand Crossing. Up ahead the Corkscrew waited—a taxing climb to Broadway, the large tunnel that led to the outside. He'd light a new torch when they reached the Corkscrew, make sure they had good light for the climb, and as soon as they made it back to the hotel, he'd tell the trustee it was time to post guards outside the entrance day and night. The man claimed he appreciated Tolly's knowledge of the cave, but he didn't always act like he appreciated getting advice from a white-bearded black man. And he didn't always take the advice, either.

Well, if Mr. Janin didn't see fit to follow Tolly's suggestion, then he would put the guides on a watch-keeping schedule himself. Maybe, if he was real lucky, one of them would catch his thief coming out of the cave and he'd be able to give the reckless person a dose of sense.

Rebekah

Rebekah's hands trembled as she battled hickory bark into a tight bundle around the ball of pitch at the end of the river-cane handle. She sat on her stoop alone. Tolly had gone to the main building to talk to the cave's trustee. With him gone and Devlin at work at the table in her cabin, it seemed as if she and Devlin sat side by side.

She listened to the
scritch-scritch
of his pen on the paper, the occasional creak of the chair as he shifted positions, the soft clearing of his throat. How could such insignificant noises affect her so deeply? It was as though her entire being was connected to him somehow. A disconcerting feeling. And she needed to break the spell.

Without conscious thought she began singing one of the ballads Mama used to sing at night as the fire began to die in the hearth. “ ‘It was in and about the Martinmas time, when the green leaves were a-falling, that Sir John Graeme, in the West Country, fell in love with Barbara Allen…' ” She held back, not singing so loudly she would attract the attention of the other guides who'd left their doors open to invite in the evening breeze but loudly enough to cover the sounds proving Devlin's presence.

On she sang from verse to verse, almost mindlessly, while continuing to fashion the torches. The gentle breeze teased her hair. She pushed the waving strands behind her ears, never missing a beat of the ballad. She reached the final verse and finished as breathily as if she'd been running a footrace. “ ‘Since my love died for me today, I'll die for him tomorrow.' ”

“It's a lovely song, but the words are somewhat depressing, don't you think?”

She jolted. The torch slipped from her hands and bounced on the grass, the bark coming loose. She shot a look over her shoulder. Devlin leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed negligently over his chest and one toe planted against the floor. Oh, what a pose of relaxation and confidence he painted.