Part 31 (2/2)

twisted devotion for a father he had hardly known. ”Your mother played with him, led him on! He had to kill your father in self-defense. He picked up that extra deringer you'd loaded and used it-as he had to. I found that gun in his things at my mother's house after he died, and I brought it out here with me. I wish I could have seen your face, Laurie, when you discovered the two guns back in their case. I hunted for your spent bullet too, but I never found it.”

”Does your mother know all of this?”

He brushed my words aside carelessly. ”We were never close. And she let him down too. Oh, I'd have told you some of it after we were married, Laurie. I wouldn't have let you go on thinking what you did about yourself. But now I know you're one of the cheaters too-running out on me for this cowboy! And for what you did to my father-just by loading those guns! You and your grandmother were to blame.”

I held onto Jon's arm, weak with horror. Hillary would see only what he chose to see, what he chose to believe, and he had clearly idealized his father out of all resemblance to the real man.

”It's time now,” he said, picking up the lantern. You're going down the shaft-both of you. There's an old ladder there, though it's broken in places. If you fall, it's a pretty long drop. Like the one my father had to take. You won't have to stay forever, but it will give Gail and me time to get away. And at least we have that jewelry of your grandmother's to take along.”

Jon said, ”We're not going down that shaft. Just shut us in here, if you must, and get yourself away.”

Hillary had picked up Jon's revolver, setting the rifle aside. ”You'll do what I tell you to.”

”No,” Jon said.

The gun was pointed at Jon, and Hillary's nervous finger was on the trigger. There was one chance, and I had to take it. I flung myself against Hillary's arm, knocking it up, so that the I.

I I.

344.

shot went wild, roaring and reverberating through the tunnels, making the very walls tremble. Jon threw himself to the side into darkness, and Hillary fired again and again, wildly, so that the roaring increased and I could hear bullets striking rock, ricocheting, bringing down slabbing over our heads. He wasn't aiming at anything now-just firing wildly, out of control.

It didn't stop until the gun was empty. The lantern had fallen on its side, and I couldn't see Jon, couldn't tell if he had been hurt. I wasn't even sure about myself. All the roaring had confused and frightened me.

When the echoes s.h.i.+vered away, the sounds didn't die out with them. There was a new cracking and creaking all about us, as though ceilings and walls might crumble in and crush us. Jon was on his feet, catching me by the arm, pulling me along, l” he shouted.

Hillary had seen what was happening too, and he was ahead of us. Already rock was crumbling into the doorway. The overhead beam had cracked, and timbers and rock were corning down. The crash sent up a great roar of its own, and even as we stared in dim lantern light, the mountain seemed to move. For an instant Hillary stood silhouetted against the moonlight. Then he was gone.

The entire wall, the ceiling, the beams over the doorway-all crashed in, filling the s.p.a.ce that had made an opening into the mountain. For what seemed a long time afterward, chunks of rock fell. We could hear some of them rolling down the slope outside.

Finally it was quiet again-almost quiet. I stood very still in my terrible fright, while Jon picked up the lantern, still burning, and held it high. The opening had been blocked with rock. And Hillary was in there. What was left of Hillary.

When there was nothing more to fall, Jon went to the mound of broken timbers and crumbled rock. But there was nothing that could be done. Hillary could never have escaped 345.

alive. So much rock had crashed in that a small mountain closed the door and not even a crack of moonlight shone through.

”There's nothing to do but wait,” Jon said. ”There may be a long night ahead until someone from the house comes looking for us.”

”There's Gail,” I said. ”Maybe she'll have heard.”

”If we can expect anything from her. She's going to sa e her own skin first.”

”But we've got to do something . . .” My teeth had begun to chatter from the reaction, from the shock of Hillary's death -the shock of everything he had told us that was now beginning to come through to rne. Even Belle's tragic, pointless death.

I must have sagged against the wall, for Jon reached out to steady me. ”Hang on, Laurie. We'll wait for a while and see what happens. If no one comes, we'll try the tunnel I sealed up, to see if there's any way of digging past the cement. I saw an old shovel back there. In the meantime let's see if we can get some rest. It may be morning before they come for us.”

In the lantern light I looked at my watch. It was already the morning of a new day, but it would be hours until dawn. Jon drew me down and we sat together against a rock wall. The floor was infinitely cold and hard, and so was the wall at our backs, but we held each other for warmth and I took comfort in his arms. He smoothed the tangle of my hair, and his touch was tender, as it had been so long ago.

It was something to have the lantern for as long as it burned. It would be worse when total darkness carne. As it had come for Noah Armand down in that shaft, and for Mark Ingram, who had tried to rescue his friend, losing his leg in the effort, then somehow blaming my grandmother all these years for sending them both into disaster.

I pressed my head against Jon's shoulder.

”It's nearly over, Laurie,” he said. ”Just a little while more.”

For all those early morning hours we huddled together, and time went by. I tried not to think of Hillary. I tried not to think of the Glory Hole out there-where all those men had died. I thought about the future. There had to be one-with Jon. If ever we got out of here, I would make it happen.

I must have slept a little in Jon's arms. But when I woke with a start, I found myself lying on the rock floor while he moved toward the blocked entrance, lantern in hand.

”There's someone out there,” he said.

I could hear the voices now, the shouting. One voice seemed to be giving orders, sharply and clearly.

”That's Mark Ingram!” I cried, and Jon shouted back to him.

”We'll get you out!” Ingram called, and I heard the vigor and determination in his voice. ”I've got some of my men here to start the digging. So just hold on.”

XXI.

It took what seemed forever to accomplish, but the rock had fallen in a limited area around the doorway and it was still loose enough to move when there were many hands with shovels. We knew when Hillary's body was found and carried away.

The task was done at last, and welcome daylight poured into the mouth of the tunnel, where we waited. When Jon pushed me out ahead of him, a cheer went up from the men standing around with shovels and pickaxes. Then Jon was out beside me, and what we saw was more heartening than anything we could have imagined.

Beyond the workmen, yet close enough to be in command if necessary, Persis Morgan sat proudly in the front seat of a Land Rover. She was dressed as I had never seen her, in Levi's and jacket, and Caleb Hawes sat glumly beside her, behind the wheel.

I ran toward them and hung onto the door next to her, unable to find words.

”Don't sputter, Laurie,” she said. ”I can't get up on a horse t yet, but they couldn't stop me from coming. I thought I'd better supervise this job.”

Her words were jaunty, but her eyes told me how worried she had been. I hugged whatever I could reach of her.

Mark Ingram, astride his horse, regarded us ruefully, but with a reluctant gleam of respect for my grandmother. He wasn't the same man I remembered. Loss and pain had shaken and beaten him, dispelling the c.o.c.ky benevolence. This was a grim but far less driven man. More than ever I knew that he had loved Belle Durant.

We weren't able to put together all the details of what had happened until some time after when we were back at Morgan House.

Gail had indeed heard the crash and rumble of falling rock. She had ridden her horse up the trail and seen that the door to the mine had been closed by the mountain itself. She was already afraid of Hillary, not knowing how to escape what she had started. I remembered her weeping that night in the church. When she saw the rockfall, she rode straight back to Morgan House, roused my grandmother, and returned her jewels. Persis had then phoned Ingram for help, and he'd gathered his men and headed for Domino, with Persis insisting that she must come too.

Gail had not gone with them. She didn't want to see Hillary again, alive or dead, and was going home to her family for a while. If anyone wanted her, that was where she would be.

On the way to the Old Desolate, Ingram rode along beside Persis in the Land Rover, and he had admitted without shame the bluff he'd tried to pull when it came to those bones in the mine. The buckle, for instance.

All those years before, when he had tried to get Noah out of the shaft, he had used Noah's belt in a futile effort to pull him up the ladder. But he had fallen himself, injuring his leg so badly that it had been removed later. When Tully had rescued 349.

him, before they took Noah out, Ingram still had that belt in his hands, and he'd kept the buckle all this time. To remind him of a debt of vengeance he meant to pay. But since Belle's death he wanted that no longer. All he wanted now was to get away from this cursed place. After what had happened to Belle, he couldn't stay on.

As I listened to all this, I thought again of human complexity and marveled at the old mingling of good and evil-in all of us.

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