Dream Man (15 page)

She blinked in the sudden brightness, and the smile on her face was one of pure relief. He wished he didn't have to conserve the batteries, but he really had no idea how long it was going to take to get them out.
Why in hell didn't I get one of those hand-cranked emergency flashlights? Sheer negligence, is why. The irresponsible belief I'd never need one.

“Here,” he said, handing her the flashlight. “Find a place where this will shine on the rock fall and then get yourself in position to take the junk I pass back to you.” Carefully, slowly, he lifted out the boulder that had come close to crushing her shoulder when she had first begun to dig. A small clatter of pebbles came from the walls by his head. One by one, he removed other rocks, some large, some small, and either passed or rolled them back for her where she disposed of them in a small depression in the wall. An hour passed, and yet another; the small depression was filled, and she had begun to stack rocks and rubble wherever it looked as if it wouldn't be in their way.

Max soon suffered from bloody torn fingers and nails. Jeanie's knees ached from kneeling and crawling. Her sides burned from lifting and shoving rocks. But in her leather ski gloves, her hands were more protected that his. She wished the gloves would fit him, but his hands were much too large. She could almost feel his pain each time he lifted another piece of rock and though they had worked without ceasing for what seemed like days, they were no closer to clearing a passage than when they had begun. What had happened, she wondered, to her original estimate of two hours to freedom?

They stopped finally at Max's insistence. She washed his bleeding hands and both their filthy faces in the cold water of the stream, used Max's knife to open Jason's can of beans, and fed both of them. They each had one cookie after the meal.

“Put my other socks on your hands,” Jeanie suggested, looking at Max's tattered and bleeding fingers. He was doing the most of the work, taking the brunt of the punishment. The more protection he could get, the easier it would be on him. “It can't hurt, and it might help.” But within twenty minutes of their starting again, her socks were as full of gashes as his skin and simply got in the way.

“Max … what time is it?” Jeanie slumped back in exhaustion, staring at his back in the now dimming light. She knew many more hours had passed and that her flashlight was almost as spent as they were.

Wearily, he scrunched himself around and held his watch before the flashlight. He blinked, looked again, and said, “Two twenty-eight.”

“In the morning?”

“I think it must be.”

“Then we stop for the night,” she said with as much decisiveness as her weariness permitted. “And Max, we may be digging for nothing, you know. When we don't show up, they're going to be looking for us. And when they find that tape you put on the cedar tree, with no trail leading away from it, they'll do what we did and look under the branches. They'll follow the rest of the trail, see the rock fall, and be digging from the other side. But that won't happen till daylight.”

“You're right,” he said, crawling to the stream and cleaning himself up as best he could. Glancing sideways at Jeanie, he wondered if he should tell her that the chances of anyone's finding the rock fall were remote. No, he decided, opening up the sleeping bag to its full width.

“Lie down, Jeanie.” When she had done so, he pulled his blanket over them.

There may never be a need for her to know that I didn't have a tape to tie to that cedar bough
.

In the inky blackness of the cavern, he felt her shivers of fear, her raspy, panicky breaths. He stroked her back with long, rhythmic massages, whispering to her all the comforting words he could find in his vocabulary. Presently, she slept, and Max relaxed, allowing sleep to overcome him. The next day was going to be just as hard.

“This isn't going to be the piece of cake we thought it was, is it?” Jeanie asked sometime during the next day. They had both been wide awake after only five hours sleep and were on their third rest-and-cookie break. The first time Max had called it that she had giggled so much, he'd feared he might have to actually smack her to snap her out of hysteria, but she'd sobered when he clamped her arms in his large, dirty hands.

“You sounded—like—like a kindergarten teacher,” she chortled. After allowing her a couple more sobbing laughs, he drew her against his chest, stroking her filthy, tangled hair back from her face.

Her flashlight had lost its last bit of power a few minutes before. They sat sipping water, he from the thermos cup, she from her water bottle, and munching their cookies in the dark. “I wonder if they've found our cedar tree yet? Would we be able to hear them digging if they were out there?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” he said, because he doubted anyone was out there digging.

“I bet they've found Jason by now, though.” she said, and he murmured agreement because he knew she needed to believe that. “Poor Sharon. This is a rotten thing to do to her, isn't it? She's relied on me so much these past few years, and now I've gone and pulled a lousy, stupid stunt like this.” He rocked her slightly, careful not to slop her water. They had no more dry clothing to change into.

“Max?”

“I'm right here,” he said.

“Mmm-hmm. I know. And I'm glad. But I've been wondering why you dove into the fissure after me when it started to collapse. I know you could have gotten out. You could have led them to me. You didn't have to put yourself in this position along with me.”

He was silent for several moments, then she felt him shrug. “I couldn't let you get sealed into a cave all by yourself. I saw what just being in a lighted elevator had done to you.” And he hadn't known whether she might actually have discovered her nephew, injured… or worse.

“Oh.” She swallowed hard and rested her head against his chest for a moment. She loved him so much and wished she could tell him so. “Max… you are such a dear man. When I first started dreaming about you, I knew you were a hero.”

He tilted her face up and kissed her mouth with unerring aim even in the blackness that surrounded them like a heavy blanket. “And when was it that you started dreaming about me, Ms. Leslie?”

“Long before I met you,” she said, and embarked on the story of how he had come into her dreams when her sister had told her that she wanted a new husband, a father for her children. “I conjured you up for Sharon, or maybe my Gypsy multiple-great-grandmother did, and I ran that ad for a week, for my sister's sake. But when you appeared long after I'd come to the conclusion that I was out of my skull for even thinking about trying to find a mate for her that way, I knew I wanted you for myself.”

“You've got me, sweet. All you have to do is reach out and take me.”

Instead, she shifted away from him, turned on his flashlight and slowly led the way back to the rock fall.

“Jeanie …” She knew by the soft gentleness of his tone that Max was about to impart bad news. She turned from rolling a rock into the ever-enlarging pile she'd been building now for two and a half long days. At least she thought that was how long it had been. Max's watch had been smashed when a rock had rolled over it. His face, in the dim glow cast by his dying flashlight, was pale under the dirt and lined with exhaustion. His eyes, usually so intense a blue that she could focus on them and believe she was seeing sky again, were dull with defeat.

“There's a rock here, honey. It must be a slab from the ceiling. I can't dig my way around it. I've been trying for hours. The only way through it would be with blasting powder or a rock drill, and I'm fresh out of both. I'm sorry, Jeanie. I tried.”

She crawled to him, and, for the first time, turned off the flashlight voluntarily. In the dark, she held him. “I know you did, Max. I know. Oh, you tried so hard! No one could have done more than you. But don't forget. There's the other passage we haven't worked on yet. You rest. I'll get started on it. It's only little stuff. I can move it by myself.” She felt him shake his head in protest and gave him a hard squeeze.

“This time, McKenzie, you are going to do what I tell you! Got it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, chuckling, and she felt better at once. By now they knew the cave well enough to crawl to the higher part without the light. She got him settled on a shelf above the creek, then pulled the sleeping bag out of her way, turned on the light briefly to place their food supplies in a safer location, and washed her hands. Her gloves had long since been tattered beyond being any use. That done, she fetched both of them drinks of water and small handfuls of almonds.

After a brief stop to drink and munch the nuts, she began a careful excavation of the second rock fall, finding it just as slow going as Max had the first. For each rock she pulled out, three more rolled down to take its place. For each handful of rubble she scooped onto Max's slicker, which they had been using as a sled for the smaller stuff, more slid in, but she kept on. When Max insisted on spelling her, she continued to work, hauling the debris out of the way. Then it was her turn again to work in the cramped confines of the tiny hole they were digging.

When her hand poked through and met nothing but air on the other side, at first she didn't recognize the significance of what had happened. But when she saw a faint glimmer of pale, washed-out light, she let out a cry so full of hoarse triumph that Max whirled around and staggered to where she crouched.

“Look!” she cried, backing out to let him in. “We're through! I can see light out there, Max! Oh, Lord, dig, Max! Dig!”

He didn't need her encouragement, but scrabbled at the rock, lifting out one crumbling piece after another, rolling them down toward her where she caught them and tumbled them anywhere; it no longer mattered, in minutes they'd be free! When the hole was large enough for him to fit his head and shoulders through, he squirmed in, and she heard him groan.

“It's just another cave,” he said, worming his way back out to where she crouched, her face alight with hope. “As far as I can see, it's a little bigger around than this, but with no side-passages leading anywhere.”

The hope refused to die in her eyes. “But the light?” she demanded. “Max, I could see daylight!”

“Yes, honey, I know. There's a small hole in the roof.” He rubbed a hand over the long stubble on his face then looked at her again as he slumped against the rough wall, exhausted and disheartened. “But the roof is at least forty feet overhead.”

I
T WAS A DISASTER
, but somehow less of a disaster than the immovable slab that blocked the way to the outside. At least, to Jeanie's relief, her feelings of claustrophobia lessened when she could see that tiny, unreachable slit of daylight, even now beginning to fade as yet another night fell. They moved their equipment into the larger cavern, finding a wider, more level ledge there for their sleeping bag and another where they stored their dwindling supply of food. The stream that trickled through was larger in the new cave, with a deeper pool. And just before the water disappeared into a subterranean crack, there was an outcrop that permitted Jeanie to feel more private straddling the stream to take care of the call of nature.

Standing with their heads back, facing the tiny slit of sky overhead, they took turns shouting, but no one responded, no face appeared to block the light.

“I'm going to have a bath,” Jeanie said, fighting despair. “I'm dirty and I smell bad and I not going to spend one more night like this.”

“Jeanie, you'll freeze! That water's cold.”

“I'll be quick, but I'm going to do it. Go sit on the other side of the cave and don't watch me.”

“I'd like nothing better than to watch you have a bath,” he said. “Well, almost nothing. A hot fudge sundae would beat even that. But how can I watch you? It's dark in here, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“I mean, don't turn the light on me.”

“I promise, not unless it sounds as if the sharks have you by the feet.”

No kidding. It was frigid water, but when she stepped out and rubbed herself with her least grimy extra T- shirt, she knew it had been worth it. “Max,” she said excitedly, zipping up her jeans as she stumbled to where he sat. He turned the flash on briefly to light her way. “We can build a fire! I saw matches in your pack. It'll help keep us warm, and the smoke coming out of the ground will tell someone we're here!”

He pulled her down beside him on the sleeping bag. “I don't think five comic books will make much smoke, Jeanie. Even if we added our backpacks and all our clothes and could get them to burn, this is a good-size cavern and it would take an awful lot of smoke to fill it enough and get it going out that little-bitty hole way up there.”

“Max, you're not thinking! Where are we?”

He stared at her before he flicked off the light. “In a cave.”

“What kind of a cave? Why are we both so dirty all the time? What turns our hands and faces so black, we look like Vaudeville performers? What about all those rocks we've been moving? Max, they are coal! Coal burns! We can build a fire. Coal make lots of dirty, black smoke. Surely, it will be seen!”

He shook his head. “Jeanie, honey, you're the one not thinking. Where is the draft coming from?” He looked up at where the slit of daylight had once been visible. “Up there, right? And that's the only place it's coming from. If we lit a coal fire, the fumes and gases would be driven down into the cave, and they'd kill us as surely as if the entire roof collapsed on us. That's just one of the many ways coal miners used to die—from gases in the mines if a fire started. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but remember, with that little hole up there, and people out looking for us, we have a better chance of being found tomorrow than we ever had today. Tomorrow, we can holler ourselves hoarse, but not if we're dead from coal gases.”