Day 24

Chapter 33

Hugo sat on the pile of breakdown, six feet below the hole that led to freedom and a reunion with Maya. What a strange coincidence, Hugo thought.
Maya reappeared at the hole. “I have some rope. I’ll tie it off up here and you can climb up,” she said. She showed him the rope, then went to tie it. She found a juniper, smaller than she felt secure with, but the lower slope didn’t give her much choice. She tied it off with a degree of skill, then walked it back to the hole, and the waiting Hugo.
“Here we go,” she said.
Hugo stepped out of the way as best as he could, and let the rope fall. He pulled the rope tight and tried to climb up it. She had thrown him a rope meant for climbing, but not like this, hand over hand. It slipped through his hands: he couldn’t grip it. He tried again, and shifted his hands a bit. He could pull his feet off the ground, but then he couldn’t move up the rope. He tried wrapping it around his legs, and around his torso, but nothing worked.
“It’s not working,” he said to Maya. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at him. “Isn’t there some one else up there with you?” he asked. “I thought I heard voices as I climbed up the breakdown.”
She shook her head slowly. He couldn’t see her expression, just her hair brushing her shoulders, back and forth. “No,” she said.
Hugo felt so tired of being in the cave. He wanted to get out and walk around among the plants and see the sky again. Frustrated, he bit at his lip. “Don’t you have a car or something up there?” He asked.
“I walked out here. My care is about two miles back [somehow in the earlier chapter, we should see here that she is lying to him]. I don’t know what to tell you. Can’t you pull yourself up?”
He felt that she knew that he couldn’t. What was she doing with a climbing rope out on a hike anyway? He thought. Reluctantly, he began to look around for another passageway that might lead to another exit. He looked up at Maya, still standing over the hole. “Are there anymore holes nearby?” he asked not very enthusiastically.
Her head disappeared from the hole for a second, then reappeared. “I don’t see anything,” she said. She shrugged her shoulders. “Is there any other ways that you might be able to go down there.
He had spotted another tunnel; he would be able to stand and walk easily. He pointed in the direction of the new passageway. “I will try that way, I guess.”
“I’ll see if I can find another exit over that way, and try to meet you there.” She started to pull up the rope.
Hugo felt suspicious, as though Maya had been hiding something, had not been helpful on purpose. As he walked into the darkness of the new tunnel, the wondered why she would have a rope out on a hike, again. And, he had been sure that he had heard someone else talking up there: he had been surprised when it had been a woman who peered over the edge and not a man. He felt sure that he had heard a man. He tried to shrug it off, but the suspicion lingered. Then he thought, I am just tired. What more could she have done. She couldn’t have pulled me up, that would be impossible…except that if she had a rope and had intended to do some climbing, then why hadn’t she had more gear, ascenders, pulleys or the like. I don’t even know of any climbing areas near here. Then he thought that he really had no idea where here might be. He had been in the cave for well over three hours, he was sure, and had gone in many different directions. He had assumed that he had stayed on or near Olaf’s property, but now he didn’t know for sure.
As he walked he didn’t pay much attention to where he walked. It seemed that the tunnely led in one general direction. He didn’t have to do a lot of work, mentally or physically. The passageway turned an the outside wall of the turn lowered and he bumped his head. It hut, but not too bad as the ceiling had been smooth. He walked with more care and tried to pay attention to what the passageway did, and if there were any branches off of it.


Chapter 34

“That was a strange coincidence,” said Maya.
The man nodded, thinking.
“I think that it was a god idea to leave him down there,” she continued when he said nothing. “Today is a crucial day for us.”
The man nodded again, but she could tell that maybe he thought otherwise.


Chapter 35

Mandy poured the last of the bottle into Mrs. McGregor’s cup. “I suppose that we should try to walk to the main road,” she said. “It doesn’t look like anyone is going to come out here and rescue us.”
Martin had fallen asleep in the back seat of the car. He snored quietly. Maya remembered something about not letting a head injury victim fall asleep, but he seemed fine, as he snored along peacefully.
“Why don’t you ride the bike,” said Mrs. McGregor. She hadn’t had this much to drink in a long time. Usually a nip during the holiday season tided her over for the rest of the year.
Mandy hopped down off the hood of the car and made her way to the other side of the road. It looked much the same as the side of the road that the car sat imbedded in. For the first time since they had gotten stuck, she thought about the coyote. She though it strange that it had been running across the road. Usually when you saw a coyote, it walked or loped. Hardly ever did you see it run. She shrugged and began looking for the bicycle. She walked straight out into the sage bushes, but found no sign of it. Then she walked parallel to the road for fifty or sixty yards in both directions, but found nothing.
The sky began to grow dark as the clouds moved in, more quickly now. Rain began to fall on the hills on the west side of the valley. She could see it moving down slope in sheets. Thoughts of being soaked to the bone entered her head. She looked up toward where she thought that the car should be, but couldn’t see it as she stood behind a clump of rather tall sagebrush. She walked toward where she though the road must be, but couldn’t fine it right away. She looked for the bicycle some more, then tried again to find the road. “It should be right over there,” she said aloud pointing. She stumbled onto another sinkhole; this one didn’t seem to have any cave entrances in it. A smell reached her nose. She shivered as the terrible realization reached her. A body lay at the bottom of the sinkhole.