A Treasure Deep (36 page)

Perry turned and gave a little wave to his
friends above. “Here goes,” he said softly and stepped into the
room, placing his right foot just over the threshold marked off by
the remaining two courses of rock. Slowly he brought his left foot
in.

Perry stood in a room that had not seen the
light of day for twenty centuries. The ceiling hovered just a foot
above Perry’s head. He raised a hand and touched the thick timbers.
They were still covered in bark.

“If you like the place,” Jack said, “we can
make an offer and drop a down payment on it.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t have much of a view.”
Now that he was inside, Perry could see that the opposite wall was
much too close to the still-buried back wall of the chamber. There
were two chambers; he was standing in the anteroom. What he was
after was behind another stone wall eight feet away. He took a step
forward.

“Room in there for one more?” Jack asked. “I
promise not to break anything.”

Perry took another step toward the center of
the room. “That’ll be the day—”

There was a faint grating noise, and Perry
froze in place. He turned to face Jack. “Did you hear that?”

“No, I didn’t hear anything.”

There was a crack.

Perry’s heart began to race. “I know you
heard that—”

The stone floor gave way beneath Perry, the
sound of it crashing off the hard walls.

Things went dark.

ANNE WATCHED AS Perry waved her direction. She waved
back. Then she held her breath as he cautiously stepped through the
opening in the stone wall. She also watched as Jack stepped forward
and poked his head in. All she could see of him was his back and
legs. A moment passed, then another, and Anne allowed herself to
breathe.

She saw it before she heard it. Brown dust
suddenly poured out of the opening, billowing into the still
morning air. Anne blinked, waiting for her mind to believe what she
was seeing. The trench in front of the stone wall disappeared into
the fog of airborne dirt. A slight rumble coursed under her
feet.

“What . . . what happened?” She turned to
Gleason, but he wasn’t there. Neither were the others. She spotted
them a second later running down the compounded ramps that led to
the wide trench. Gleason was in the lead followed by Brent and Dr.
Curtis, who struggled to keep up.

The dust settled quickly, and Anne could see
the opening once again. Projecting from it like two logs were
Jack’s legs. They weren’t moving.

“Perry!” Anne shouted. “Oh, Lord, no. Perry.
Perry!” Anne found herself running after the men, oblivious to any
danger that might await her.

PERRY SHOOK HIS head and tried to focus his thoughts.
It seemed like minutes had passed, but only seconds had. He came
fully conscious in a moment. He was suspended in air, his feet
kicking, probing for some purchase but finding none. Fiery pain
pierced his side, his head throbbed, and his left wrist felt like
it was being crushed in a vise.

“Stop wiggling,” a voice above him said.
Jack? Jack!

“What . . . where? . . .”

“Stop moving, Perry. You’re killing me.”

Perry looked up and saw the face of his
friend less than six feet away. His entire mind began to work, and
events came back to him in instant replay. He had heard a grinding
sound followed by a crack, then a rumble. The next sensation was
one of falling. As the floor gave way he had jumped toward the
opening, but with little to push off from he fell short. He hit
something head first, and things went dark.

“I’ve got you, buddy,” Jack said. “But . . .
stop . . . moving.”

That explained the crushing sensation on his
wrist. The big man was holding him in both of his spade-sized
hands. Perry looked down into the stygian abyss and saw nothing. He
could, however, hear something: water—running water.

“Um,” Perry said, forcing himself to be calm,
belying the freezing terror he felt. “I’m not real comfortable with
this situation.”

“Ya think?” Jack’s voice was strained. “Okay,
now. Can you find a foothold?”

Perry spread his legs out hoping to touch
something. His right foot found a vertical surface directly beneath
the opening, but nothing that he could put his weight on. “No. I’m
afraid not.”

“Hold on, Jack,” a new voice said. Perry
recognized it as Gleason’s. “Don’t let him slip in.”

“How?” It was Brent.

“Sit on him,” Gleason ordered. “Doc, you grab
Jack’s legs.”

Perry looked back into the opening and saw
Gleason’s face appear. He could see his eyes darting back and forth
as he took in the situation. The face disappeared. “Doc, you take
one of Jack’s legs and hold it. Brent, you do the same. Hang on,
Jack, I’m going to have to get a little close and personal.”

All conversation stopped: The only sound to
be heard was that of the water running far below Perry’s feet. His
shoulder felt as if it was coming out of the socket, and his hand
was deprived of circulation by Jack’s adrenaline-laced grip.
Forcing himself to think instead of feel, he willed himself to be
as still as possible. His life was literally in the hands of his
friend.

“Perry,” Gleason said loudly, “here’s what’s
going to happen. My arms aren’t as long as Jack’s, and there’s not
enough room for both of us in the opening. I’m going to lie down on
top of Jack and reach over him with my arm. I have my belt in a
loop and wrapped about my wrist. If Jack can pull you up a few
inches and if you can stretch out your free hand, you should be
able to reach. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

A second later the light in the chamber
dimmed as another head came through the opening. In the dim
illumination, Perry saw Gleason’s face, then his arm, then the
belt. He felt himself being pulled up. His vertical distance
changed by only a few inches, but it was enough for Perry to grab
the looped belt and twist it around his wrist.

“Got it!” Perry shouted. Immediately he felt
a pull on the belt. “Now what?”

“Now the . . . hard part,” Gleason said,
grunting each word. “Jack is lying over the last two rows of stones
. . . he won’t have leverage to lift you. I’m straddling him. He .
. . needs to reposition, which means . . .”

“He has to let go of me,” Perry said,
completing Gleason’s sentence. “Swell.” He thought for a moment.
“Do it.”

Gleason gave more orders. “Brent, Curtis.
Take Jack by the legs and when . . . I say . . . pull him away from
the opening. Jack . . .”

“I got it, buddy. As soon as I’m clear of
your legs, I’ll be back.”

“Don’t take too long,” Gleason pleaded. “I
don’t know how long my back will hold out. Perry weighs more than I
do. I could get pulled in.”

“Lovely,” Perry remarked.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Gleason said. “Three .
. . two . . . one . . . now.”

Perry felt two things. First he felt the
release of the one thing that kept him from falling to his death:
Jack’s grip. Second, he felt himself inching lower. Gleason
couldn’t hold him. He was about to release the belt rather than
drag his friend in when he noticed that he was no longer slipping
down. The large black hand of Jack came back in view. The angle was
different, and Perry knew why. Jack was no longer prone; he had
repositioned himself to better reach him. The hand came down, and
Perry reached for it, grabbing it at the wrist.

There was a loud grunt, a powerful scream,
and Perry felt himself traveling up as if he were seated on a
rocket. Before he could do anything else, Jack and Gleason dragged
him across the rough rock threshold. The dark of the chamber had
been replaced with the blue of the morning sky. It was the most
beautiful blue he had ever seen.

He lay on the ground, as did Jack. Neither
man moved at first. Perry was filled with pain as if someone had
released a bag of hornets inside his body. Everything hurt, and he
was thankful for it. If he hurt, it meant he was alive.

“You know,” Jack said, finally pushing
himself into a seated position on the ground, “I’m never going to
let you forget this.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Perry said with a
weak laugh. “I suppose that now I owe you a burger.”

“I was thinking a new car,” Jack said.

Perry sat up and moved his arms, trying to
work out the pain. “Thanks, guys. You’re the best.”

“We know that,” Gleason said, “but you need
to thank someone else. The mayor helped save your bacon.”

“Anne?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gleason said. “I was losing you.
I knew I was going to be following you down that hole before Jack
could move into position. I slipped forward, and Anne grabbed me by
the collar. She held me until Jack and I pulled you out.”

Perry looked at Anne, who seemed embarrassed
by the whole thing. “Thank you, Madam Mayor.”

She smiled and looked at her hands. “I think
I broke a nail.”

IS IT JUST ME, or does anyone else get the idea that
these people didn’t want this place disturbed?” Brent asked.

“I don’t know how they did it,” Gleason
added, “but someone had a devious mind.”

They were standing in the pit. Perry was now
using Jack’s flashlight to study the inside of the floorless
chamber. Perry’s light had taken the trip to the bottom of the
pit.

“I can’t give you the details,” Perry said,
“but I can see wood along the sides of the pit. It must have been
what they used to support the stone floor. Unlike the timbers in
the ceiling, these look small. More like branches. They strung
these dowel-sized branches from wall to wall, covered in thin
stone, then dirt. I thought I was walking on something solid before
it gave way.”

“And the water?” Brent asked. “Why do I hear
running water?”

“Aquifer,” Perry said.

“Aqua . . . what?” Brent asked.

“Water-bearing rock,” Perry explained.
“Groundwater that runs in underground streams. Many rural towns get
their water from aquifers. If memory serves, the Edwards Aquifer
meets the water needs of about two million people.”

“So the builders placed this over an
aquifer,” Gleason said. “How would they know where an underground
stream was?”

Perry turned to the others. “There’s no way
to know. Maybe they didn’t plan it that way.”

“There was some planning going on,” Curtis
said. “Whether they built here because of the aquifer or they
stumbled upon it by accident doesn’t matter. They made good use of
it.”

“I’m the last guy on the planet to argue that
point,” Perry said. “The presence of underground water would
explain the sinkhole. Sinkholes are often associated with
underground springs.”

Perry took a deep breath. “Well, if everyone
is rested, it’s time to get back to work.”

“I’m calling the union,” Jack said. “These
working conditions are brutal.”

“You don’t belong to a union,” Perry shot
back.

“In that case, I guess I’d better hustle.”
Jack rose from his seat on the ground. Perry saw him grimace and
knew that the big man was feeling soreness all over. He wanted to
order him away but knew Jack would never obey. He was in for the
duration, and Perry was glad for it.

“We need a bridge,” Gleason said.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t think to bring one of those along.”

“Then we’ll have to make one,” Perry said.
“There’s a small ledge at the base of the far wall. I imagine it’s
made from foundation stones used to support the partition. The span
is about eight feet. We need something to cross that distance,
something a man could stand on.”

“A ladder,” Brent suggested.

“We don’t know if that little edge will hold
the other side of the ladder,” Gleason said.

“We could rig it to work as a cantilevered
support,” Jack said. “We would have to weight this side, though.
Rule of thumb is, for every foot of cantilever there should be two
feet this side of the fulcrum point. Otherwise the moment arm
becomes too high, and that’s just inviting disaster.”

“Can someone translate what the big guy is
saying?” Brent asked. “He’s hurting my brain.”

Perry smiled. “A cantilever is any projection
that is supported on one end while the other end hangs unsupported.
Think of a diving board. It’s fixed on one end but projects over
the pool. Jack’s rule of thumb is correct. An architect would like
to see a two-to-one ratio as well as having the supported end
anchored. Since we have to bridge about eight feet, we would need
about sixteen feet on this side of the opening, or a very strong
way of tying the end down. Otherwise our cantilever bridge becomes
a seesaw.”

“Oh, well, why didn’t he just say so?”

“I’d be worried about deflection,” Gleason
said. “Once we’re on the far end and the ledge doesn’t hold, the
ladder might bend and even fold—especially an aluminum ladder, and
that’s all we brought with us.”

“But we have two of them,” Perry said. “We
can defeat the deflection problem easy enough. We just set the
ladders on their sides, tie the right rungs together so the
extensions don’t slip, set them thirty or so inches apart, and span
the distance with the left-over two-by-fours from the shoring you
built.”

“Trusses,” Jack said. “You’re thinking of
turning the ladders into the equivalent of floor trusses.”

“Exactly,” Perry said. “I think it’ll
work.”

“I agree,” Jack said, “but I don’t think we
should trust that little ledge. For all we know our weight might
bring the whole wall down. Nothing would surprise me now.”

“Then let’s get to work,” Perry said with a
clap of his hands. “Just to be safe, let’s build our truss bridge
someplace other than this trench. I’m getting claustrophobic.”

The work went smoothly and intensely. Every
setback increased the danger to the captive Claire and Joseph.
While Jack cut two-by-fours into thirty-inch lengths, Gleason
retrieved a box of carriage bolts from the supply truck. In the
time it took them to make their way to the surface, the plan had
been refined even more. Engineering minds began to percolate with
ideas.