LC 02 - Questionable Remains (28 page)

The fit was too tight. She couldn't do it. But she could
almost do it. She pulled the pack back to her and examined
the wall of the opening again, trying to see if there were any
rocks she could move without dislodging everything. There
were none. This was the opening. She had to fit through it. She thought of the scene where Mammy was fitting Scarlett
into her corset to give her a seventeen-inch waist. That was
what she needed to be-just a little thinner. How do I get
thinner? She took off her shirt and pants and stuffed them in
her backpack. The light showed a cavern just beyond the
Squeeze. Damn, just a few inches. She pushed the backpack
through, and it went flying out the other side. She had forgotten to wrap the fishing line around her hand.

Lindsay had to get through or die here. She squeezed
into the hole, her arms in front of her. It was still too tight.
She curled up her legs and pushed. She was stuck. This was
it. This would be how it ended. She could barely breathe
because there was no room. Then she exhaled all her
breath, pushed with her legs, and clawed with her arms.
She inched forward. She was dying for a breath of air, but
she was in too tight. She couldn't expand her lungs to take
in a breath. She panicked. She pushed with her legs again
with all the strength she had left in her body and propelled
herself forward. Her chest was past the tight spot. She lay
still for a moment, gulping in air, trying to calm herself. She
could see the beam from the flashlight. Her head was out of
the tunnel.

Lindsay pulled with her arms and tumbled down a short
embankment in the dark to the hard cave floor. She shifted
to her hands and knees, breathing hard, raspy breaths. She
stayed there, on her hands and knees, unable to move, not
so much from pain as indecision. She was so tired, so tired.
She reached for her pack and the flashlight and got her
clothes. As she was putting on her jeans, she noticed that
she had no panties. She was too tired to see if she could
reach them in the cave. Someone would just have to find
them in later years and guess what they were doing there.

Lindsay picked up her things and started walking.
Several passages led off the cavern. She looked for one with
the markings. It was still there. The way was still marked.
She walked on, stopping once to take a drink and eat a nutri-bar. She continued, following the markings through
passages, breakdown rooms, and through other small
places, though none as tight as the Squeeze. As she reached
a large oval passage, her flashlight flickered and went out.
She shook it. Nothing. She turned it off and on. Nothing. It
was dead. "No!" she cried. "Why is this damn cave so big?"
She fumbled in her backpack for the candle and matches. It
was then that her dark-adapted eyes saw that the cave was
no longer pitch black, but gray. She rubbed her eyes and
looked around her. In the distance she saw the sun coming
over a rise. She seemed to be standing in a road lined with
rocks. Had she finally gone mad? Had she died in the
Squeeze? She stood there, shielding her eyes from the light
that was getting brighter. Then she heard voices. First
muted, then higher pitched.

"Look, over there, who is that?"

Lindsay slumped to the ground. She was too tired to be
relieved. She sat in the middle of the road and waited.

"How the heck did you get in here?" said a male voice.
"Don't you know this is off-limits except for tours?"

What? What kind of tour? thought Lindsay. Who would go
on a tour like this?

"Don't you know caves are dangerous?" said the voice.

Yes, I do know that, she thought.

"Just what are you doing here?"

"She's hurt." This was a female. She heard other voices.
Someone shone a light in her eyes. It hurt. She shielded
them. "Stop that," said the kind voice. "Can't you see her
eyes are photosensitive? She needs help. Can you walk? We
saw you standing a moment ago."

For some reason Lindsay was having trouble forming
answers. She thought she could walk. She tried to stand.
She had run out of adrenaline. She was cold.

"Hell, she ain't but a little bit of a thing. I'll carry her."
This was yet another voice. "It ain't that far to the entrance."

Lindsay felt herself lifted and conveyed. She didn't protest. She tried to say thanks, but the words didn't come.
Or perhaps they did, for the man said, "You're welcome, little lady."

The sunlight was painful. Someone handed Lindsay a
pair of sunglasses. "You're about as scraped up as anybody
I've ever seen," said the voice who carried her. She looked
toward the sound and saw a giant of a man in khaki shorts,
a yellow T-shirt, and a beard. He had two children and a
woman gathered around him. Lindsay assumed them to be
his family.

"Thank you," she said again. "Can I have a drink?"

"Someone give her some water." An order from someone.

"What you need is Gatorade, little lady. Rachael, give the
lady some of your drink."

Rachael dug into a bag as large as she was and came out
with a bottle of a green-colored drink and handed it to the
man. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Lindsay. She
drank half the bottle before she stopped.

"Now, we need answers to some questions." Lindsay
looked up at a thin young man in a T-shirt that said:
Cumberland Caverns. "Just how did you get into the
Caverns?"

"What time is it? What day?" Lindsay asked.

"Uh, it's 10:00, Tuesday morning."

"Ten A.M. Tuesday," she repeated. The math wasn't hard
to do. She had been in the cave about twenty-two hours.

"Now just what are you doing here and how did you get
in?"

"I came in through Hell Slide Cave."

"Now, that isn't true. You're mixed up. Cumberland
Caverns doesn't connect up to Hell Slide Cave."

"Why is it called Hell Slide Cave?" asked a child.

"Nevertheless. I am here. And that is where I entered."

"Maybe she found a route," said the man who carried
her.

"No. The only cave that connects to Cumberland Caverns is Henshaw Cave. None of the other caves connect. You
must have slipped through the Henshaw Cave entrance."

"No. I came through Hell Slide."

"Maybe she came through the Grand Serpentine." This
was from the kind woman who had helped her in the cave.
She handed Lindsay a cold paper towel to wipe her face. "It
is close to the caverns, and many people have thought that
there is a connection."

Lindsay shook her head.

"Why is it called the Grand Serpentine?" asked the kid,
who Lindsay now saw was a boy of about seven.

"Because the passages are all curvy like a snake crawling," his father said, making a serpentine motion with his
arm.

"It's not the Grand Serpentine," said Lindsay. "It's grande
serpiente." She had just had a flash of insight, of all things,
about the name of the cave.

"Is she delirious?" asked a woman whose voice she hadn't heard before. "Shouldn't we get her to a doctor?" It was
the wife of the man who had carried her, whose name she
thought was Rachael.

"It's Spanish for "large snake." The Spanish named it,
probably after something the Indians named it, and the
name became corrupted."

"How do you know?" asked the first kind woman, who
also wore a Cumberland Caverns T-shirt.

"I just know," she answered.

"Look, lady," said the angry young man, "whoever you
are. You can't just come into Cumberland Caverns and walk
around without a guide. What were you doing in there? You
didn't mess anything up, did you?"

Lindsay looked at him for a moment. He was younger
than she had first observed, perhaps twenty. He had blond
curly hair and blue eyes. Girls probably considered him
handsome. Lindsay thought him callow. She wondered if
that meant she was getting old.

"My name is Lindsay Chamberlain. Dr. Lindsay
Chamberlain. I am a forensic archaeologist, and I did not
willingly go into Hell Slide Cave, but was kidnapped and
left there to die. I am quite cross about it, as I have just spent
the last twenty-two hours trying to get out. I am very tired.
I must look like hell, and I want to talk to the police."

THE FIRST SHERIFF wasn't much help. Since Lindsay
claimed to have been deposited by her abductors in Hell
Slide Cave, it came under the jurisdiction of Ellis County,
where she was kidnapped. The sheriff of Ellis County wasn't in town, and Lindsay had to make her complaint to a
deputy.

"You can't tell us anything about the men?"

"Only what I have told you."

"And you don't think it is this Denny Ferguson or his
kin?" asked the deputy. "Now why is that?"

"Because of the way I was treated while kidnapped. It
was not vindictive. It was detached, almost professional."

"You think maybe you are just being nice. You know, you
may have gotten that Stockholm syndrome that some kidnap victims get."

"Deputy, I was in their hands all of about twenty minutes, and we had little interaction. Stockholm syndrome
takes a little longer. I'm attempting to describe to you my
observations, and I happen to be particularly good at observations. I'll write up a report, sign it, and give it to you. Do
with it what you will, according to how professionally you
see your job." She rose and left the office, stopping outside
to lean against the building, shaking with anger. She must
look like a homeless person, she thought. She had gone straight to the police. The tour guides had given her a
Cumberland Caverns T-shirt. That was the only thing clean
she had on.

"Are you going to be okay?" asked Laura, the female tour
guide who had driven her to the police and waited outside
for her.

"Yes. I'm fine. Would you take me to my motel?"

"Sure."

Her Rover was still parked in front of her motel. It was a
welcome sight, a piece of home, familiar. She had no keys,
however, to get into her room.

"Do you want me to stay and help?" asked Laura.

Lindsay smiled at her. "That's very kind, but no. I just
want to get some sleep."

Lindsay went to the desk. A cheery clerk was on duty, one
she hadn't seen before.

"Good Lord, what happened to you?" The girl looked at
Lindsay's T-shirt. "Oh, you've been to Cumberland
Caverns. You must have been on the wild tour."

"You could say that. I've lost my purse and can't get into
my room. My name is Lindsay Chamberlain."

"Oh. You're in luck. Someone turned this in last night."
She put Lindsay's purse on the desk.

"Did you see who left it?"

"I wasn't on duty then, but Gary was. He could tell you
this evening. He comes on duty at six."

"Thank you. Do you know if I had any calls?"

"Let me see-yes, a guy named Derrick Bellamy. He
called three times."

Lindsay smiled. "Thanks."

Derrick-she would call him. After a shower.

Lindsay checked her purse. Everything was there, her
motel key, her car keys, her billfold, her money. They hadn't
taken a thing, apparently, except her sense of peace. She
went back to her motel room with her purse, still dragging
her backpack behind her.

She was tired. The first thing she wanted to do was sleep.
She went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. An
absolute stranger looked back at her. Her face was swollen,
she had two black eyes and a fairly deep scrape on her forehead and cheek. Her hair did not look much different from
the five hundred-year-old head of hair she had seen in the
cave. It was dusty-the color was lost-and was disheveled
beyond belief. She had wanted the sheriff to see how she
looked coming out of the cave, so she had not cleaned up. A
look in a mirror would have changed her mind. Maybe they
would have taken her more seriously if she had cleaned up.
Lindsay shook her head. As tired as she was, she was going
to take a shower.

Lindsay started peeling off her clothes. Another shock.
She had scrapes, scratches, bruises, and dried blood all over
her body.

She grabbed a brush and brushed the tangles from her
hair and stepped into the warm shower. Her body stung
when the water hit the cuts and scrapes. She squeezed shampoo out into her hand and massaged it into her scalp. After
her hair was clean, she soaped up her hands and gently
washed her body. A washcloth would be entirely too painful.

She didn't look much better cleaned up. The wounds were
redder and the bruises more vivid. But she felt a little better.
She applied Neosporin to the wounds she could reach, put
on a fresh pair of panties, and was headed into the bedroom
for a nightgown when someone knocked at the door.

"Lindsay, it's me, Derrick."

"Derrick." She grabbed a towel and rushed to the door.

He stood in the doorway a moment looking at her face,
shocked, then came into her room, shutting the door behind
him.

"Lindsay." He put his arms around her and hugged her.
She flinched in pain.

"I'm sorry. Lindsay, what happened? Your face!" He
cupped her face in his hands. "I just came from the sheriff's office. They said you had made a complaint to the sheriff
about being kidnapped and in a cave. It didn't make much
sense. I got here late last night and have been looking everywhere for you." He hugged her again, more gently this time.

"I'll tell you the whole story when I'm rested. Right now,
I need you to put antiseptic on some of the cuts I couldn't
reach," she said.

"Cuts?" He followed her into the bathroom.

She took off the towel and Derrick gaped at her cut and
bruised body.

"Lindsay! My God." He put some of the antiseptic cream
on his fingertips and applied it to the scrapes on her back.
"Lindsay, I had no idea-have you seen a doctor? You need
a tetanus shot."

She shook her head. "I'm exhausted. Will you watch over
me while I sleep?"

"Yes, but do you expect someone will come back?"