Susan digested this a moment, then said, “Maybe I don’t love you after all.”
Jack looked stricken, and then realized she was joking. “If that worm MacIsaac can go down into the Dirt Hole Mine, so can I. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“You have to be,” said Susan. “Because if you get into trouble, I can’t be the one who’s going to come after you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
HE DIDN’T WANT her to leave, but she insisted, appealing to his lawyerliness. “You know I have to go. It’s what’s best for us.”
She left at a little past four in the morning. Jack got to sleep at a little before eight in the morning. He got up at a little past nine, thinking he’d wasted half the day.
He made a hasty breakfast, more for Scotty and Zelda than for himself. He searched through the cabin, gathering up everything he thought might be of use in an exploration of the mine.
A candle and matches.
A compass.
A ball of twine.
A length of rope.
Some hard cheese and crackers.
He changed into corduroy trousers, cotton shirt, and sweater, and pulled on his hiking boots.
To his supplies he added a pen and some folded scraps of paper—just in the unlikely event he had to send a message.
This suggested that he ought to take Scotty and Zelda along on the journey, too. “Because if a message needs to be gotten somewhere, there has to be someone to take it,” he said to the terriers. “Am I not right?”
He didn’t need to use the map Susan had given him. The dogs apparently understood their destination, for they led the way without hesitation. The morning was bright and hot and it made Jack dim and sluggish, but he plowed on behind Scotty and Zelda, thinking, These are not desert dogs. I’m not a desert man. But if this is what we can do for Susan and myself, then we will do it.
Then he plowed on with renewed vigor, not quite so dim or sluggish as before.
At last he reached the entrance of the mine, which was exactly as Susan had described it.
The ground was too hard for footprints, but Zelda led him to a discarded cigarette. It was a Lucky, only half smoked, with cerise lipstick on the end.
He would have staked his soul that Barbara had been there first.
He peered through the entrance and saw nothing but blackness.
He stood still and listened. He heard nothing.
He called. “Hello! Hello!”
No one answered.
He ventured a couple of feet inside, motioning for the dogs to follow.
The dogs remained outside the entrance. Jack disappeared into the darkness.
Scotty and Zelda looked at each other.
“Come on!” Jack’s voice called. “This isn’t for me, this is for Susan!”
The dogs reluctantly trotted in.
“Dreadful,” exclaimed Barbara. “It’s the only word for the way you look.”
“I didn’t get much sleep,” Susan admitted.
“But you have to get better. For Harmon’s sake. For my sake,” said Barbara.
“For your sake?”
“I’ve treated you dreadfully. Abysmally. My back is positively criss-crossed with flagellation marks, all self-inflicted. I’ve worlds to make up to you, and I want to start on it this very minute.”
“Let it wait a bit,” said Susan. “Whatever it is.”
“It can’t, though. Harmon and I are going to pile the back of his car with every blanket and pillow on this ranch, and we are going to drive you to Reno, and put you in a hospital. We’ll drive around till we find the most expensive one. No expense will be spared to make you well.”
For some reason, it was apparent, Barbara or Harmon—or Barbara and Harmon—wanted her off the Excelsior Ranch.
“I don’t want to leave,” said Susan. “The doctor saw me yesterday and he said the best thing for me would be bed rest and fresh air.”
“Quack,” cried Barbara. “Quack, quack, quack!”
“I’m staying here, Barbara.”
“No,” said Harmon, slipping into the room. How long he’d remained unheard outside the door Susan had no idea. “You have to go, Susan. I insist.”
“We insist,” said Barbara. “Jack would insist, too, if he were here.”
Susan shook her head. “The ride would be bad for me. I can feel that, in my bruised bones. I stay here. Of course, if you two are bored, there’s no reason you can’t go on to Reno. I’m afraid I’m not much company just now.”
“I wouldn’t think of leaving you,” said Harmon.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
“I wouldn’t either,” said Barbara. “Harmon, you don’t know it, but Susan and I are new best friends. I’d trust her with my life.”
Susan sighed a sort of invalid sigh. “In my state right now, Barbara, that might not be a very good idea…”
Barbara was about to say something else, but at that moment Blossom hurried in, out of breath.
“Please, Mrs. Beaumont, Mr. Dodge—Susan needs her rest.”
“Susan needs bright spirits around her,” Barbara snapped. “Bright spirits who adore her and will tell her amusing stories of fashionable people. That’s what Susan needs. At every minute. Until she’s well and we can get her out of this hole in the ground you call a ranch.”
“I also need a little sleep,” said Susan weakly, and closed her eyes, the way Little Eva closed them so that she could see the angels better. Without further argument, Blossom shoved Barbara and Harmon out the door again.
I adore you! cried Harmon from outside the door.
Adieu! Barbara shrieked.
Blossom locked the door. “You have another guest,” she said quietly.
“Who is it?”
Blossom glanced at a bit of pasteboard in her hand. “A Mr. Ramey. Lawrence Ramey.”
“I never heard of him. Who is he?”
“He works for the government.”
Susan dropped back on the pillow. “I wonder what crime I’m being charged with today. Kidnapping, you suppose? Treason?”
“He wouldn’t say why he came.”
Susan sighed. “I think I’d rather be with Jack right now. No matter how far he goes down in the Dirt Hole Mine.”
Down in the Dirt Hole Mine, Jack simply followed the path of the rail. Even when dust and clods of earth fallen from the walls and ceiling obscured the tracks, he could follow them by dragging his foot along one of the rails. He hardly needed to look at it at all.
Scotty and Zelda followed cautiously in his wake.
The mine was in better shape than Susan’s dire description had suggested. Many of the openings and beams were bowed, but even when they’d split, the walls hadn’t collapsed, and the ceiling hadn’t fallen in.
This principal corridor wound at random and only very gradually sank itself into the bowels of Mt. Bright. Off it were numerous smaller passages. Some had been dug experimentally, in hope of catching a meandering vein of silver or gold. Others seemed to be naturally collapsed openings into hollow chambers in the mountain.
Jack ducked into one of the latter and found himself in a large, naturally formed room. There was nothing here of interest, neither grotesque rock formations, nor bottomless pools of black water, nor vampire bats swooping down from the high and blackly invisible ceiling. Just a hollow in the mountain with walls of crumbling dirt, and a floor of dirt and dust.
Jack sneezed, and the dogs yelped in fright.
He continued his way along the principal corridor.
More dark passages going off to the right or to the left. A gradual descent which showed him only dust, and dirt, and crumbling earth, and never a sign that there had been anything else. It was no wonder the place had been named Dirt Hole. Susan’s uncle must have been the richest and most sanguine of wealthy conceited idiots if he had spent the money it took to dig this far into Mt. Bright or to lay track for the little hopper cars that would never bring out anything but dirt and dust.
He calculated he’d gone about three-quarters of a mile into the mountain, when the tracks ended abruptly.
Jack kicked up the earth farther along, for the corridor itself did not end quite yet, but he found no trace of the rails.
Good and well, then.
He’d gone as deeply into Mt. Bright as it was possible to go, and he’d seen no evidence of recent incursion.
No new excavations.
No tools or supplies to excavate with.
No use of the tracks whatever.
No footprints or human detritus.
Jack didn’t doubt that Susan had indeed seen Malcolm MacIsaac coming from somewhere deeper in the mine than she’d dared to venture, but perhaps the man was only as curious as Jack himself about holes in the earth.
Though from this vantage point of curiosity, the Dirt Hole Mine was the least interesting of all scapes. For there was nothing here but dust, and crumbling rock, and sterile earth, and—and something that went click click click.
The sound came from farther on, beyond where the tracks ended. A kind of quiet mechanical cricket.
Jack turned around and glanced at Scotty and Zelda, still the same two feet behind him.
They evidently heard it, too.
“You stay here,” said Jack.
The dogs immediately collapsed on all fours, as if to indicate it would take a great deal to go against that particular command.
Jack went forward, following the click click click.
Two supports and a beam framed the final extension of the Dirt Hole excavation, and it was into this dark space that Jack ducked and moved forward, holding the candle before him. This allowed him to see that the walls on either side were growing narrower, and the ceiling was getting lower.
The click click click was louder now, and echoing.
Jack dropped to his haunches and eased forward as far as he could go. His head pressed against the dirt ceiling. Sand and dirt pressed into his scalp, crumbled, and spilled down his neck.
His arms were lodged between his body and the narrow walls of the corridor. He twisted so as to release the arm holding the lighted candle and pushed it forward as far as possible.
Something gleamed up ahead, close to the ground.
Some sort of machine, but that was all Jack could tell.
He continued to squeeze forward, like a finger pushing through a curious ring.
That was an unfortunate analogy for Jack to consider. For sometimes, when you did succeed in getting a ring past a troublesome knuckle, you never got it off again.
Jack squeezed through somehow.
When he reached forward with the candle to see what went click click click however, the walls were so close and tight that the burning wick brushed against a clod of earth and was extinguished.
Darkness is absolute three-quarters of a mile deep into a mountain.
Jack tried to reach into his pocket for a match, but discovered he couldn’t move his other arm. It was wedged tight between his body and the wall.
His other hand held the candle. He tried to lower it to the ground, but he couldn’t maneuver in that space and dropped the candle and its holder. They were of no use to him now anyway. They fell against whatever it was that went click click click.
He tried to move his right hand into his left-hand pocket. That was impossible, too.
He tried to back up through the narrow opening he had just entered.
This maneuver precipitated a shower of dust and dirt from the ceiling onto his head.
He was growing tired of squatting, so with one energetic move he kicked his legs out from under him, and fell on his bottom. His feet struck the opposite wall jarringly.
He began to understand Susan’s dislike of the dark, enclosed spaces in which you might get trapped forever.
His legs were bent at the knees. His left arm was crushed between his body and the wall. His right arm was free, and he flailed it about, but it didn’t hit anything but the ceiling and the right-hand wall. His back was blocking all but an inch or so of the hole he’d pushed through, and he had to bend his head forward so that air could get through to him in this tiny space.
In the blackness Scotty and Zelda whimpered again.
Using the opposite wall as a brace, Jack tried to push himself out through the hole by main force.
He succeeded only in pressing two three-inch footprints into the opposite wall.
Between his feet, the click click click went on. Regular, and exquisitely annoying.
He’d heard stories, as a boy, of greedy men who’d been trapped in mines by the lure of diamonds or gold or hidden treasure. He’d been trapped by something that went click, click, click.
Perhaps he could get out sideways.
He tried to turn over, twisting his legs first, throwing his right leg over his left, and attempting to turn the rest of his body after that.
This ill-advised plan dislodged a large portion of the right wall, which collapsed over the thing that went click click click as well as Jack’s legs, his hips, his right arm, and most of his torso, with the result that all that remained unburied of Jack was his head and the collar of his sweater.
The only piece of good luck he’d had in the past quarter hour was that the dogs had not ventured into this space ahead of him. They remained unburied and quiet behind him.
“Scotty,” he called softly. Softly, not because he thought he might frighten the dogs away otherwise, but because it was not possible to draw more than a few sips of air into his lungs.
“Zelda?”
The dogs came forward.
“I think you’d better go get help,” said Jack.
The dogs scampered away. They might arrive at the ranch in a few hours, and perhaps someone would notice them and maybe mention having seen them to Susan. Then it was possible she would figure out that something was wrong and that he needed help.
Someone might show up in a few days.
If he was very lucky, he’d get a decent burial.
His predicament constituted interment, but in no way a decent burial.
His left arm, caught underneath him, was numb. So were his legs, beneath a weight of loose rock and dirt.
He could no longer hear the machine that went click, click, click, for the layer of earth over it. His left foot, however, was pressed against the device, and he could feel each clicking pulse.
He succeeded, with some difficulty, in freeing his right arm. He took a fistful of dirt, and with some greater difficulty, tried to toss it over his shoulder. Perhaps he could dig himself out.
He succeeded only in dropping a fistful of dirt into his face, clogging his nostrils, and stopping the passages of his throat.
He worked for some minutes staving off suffocation, and then decided he should wait for help, and do nothing at all.
The best way to pass the time was to sleep. He’d gotten very little the night before, and it would be fairly welcome at this point. Also, under the circumstances, sleep was the most painless way of passing through hours of discomfort and rather sullen hopes. He’d have to trust his body not to allow himself to be suffocated, and to wake in the event of another small landslide.
He fell asleep instantly.
He did not dream.
Later, he awakened instantly to full consciousness. Not because there had been another landslide. Not because help had arrived. But merely because he’d figured out the nature of the machine that shared his tomb.
It was a Geiger counter.
And that meant that the Dirt Hole Mine was—a uranium mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“A URANIUM MINE!” Susan exclaimed.
Mr. Ramey nodded. He was short and spare, and wore a dark blue wool suit entirely inappropriate for Nevada.
“I thought there was only dirt in that mine,” said Susan, wondering.
“The uranium is in the dirt,” Mr. Ramey explained, “and it has to be processed for extraction.”
“I see,” said Susan, and di
dn’t particularly see at all. “What is it good for?”
“I’m—I’m not exactly sure of that bit,” said Mr. Ramey evasively. “But I do assure you that the government has every interest in helping you to reestablish operations in the mine.”
Susan blinked. “You actually want to help?”
“In any way that I can,” said Mr. Ramey. He added a little self-deprecating cough. “You must understand that already, however, as I have gone to great lengths to find you. After I spoke to Mr. Dodge in New York—”
“Harmon knows about this?”
“Of course,” said Mr. Ramey. “From what I understand, he’s been accepting bids from mining companies already established in Nevada. This should prove a great boon to the area, I don’t need to tell you.”
“You do need to tell me,” said Susan. “For I know nothing of this, and still don’t know what to think of it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Ramey, “I’m sure if you’d just telephone your husband in New York—”
“My husband is here,” said Susan.
“Well then,” said Mr. Ramey, “I’m sure there won’t be any difficulties then. We’re only interested in having the mining operation set up as quickly as possible so that—”
“I understand, Mr. Ramey. I understand perfectly now,” Susan said, sitting up in bed with a radiant smile. “Now, would you be so kind as to do a favor for a temporary invalid?”
“Of course,” returned Mr. Ramey, confused.
“Go to the window there…”
Mr. Ramey did so.
“Open it as wide as it will go…”
Mr. Ramey complied.
“Now lean out and yell ‘Blossom’ as loudly as you can.”
Mr. Ramey stared at Susan for a moment. “‘Blossom’?”
“It’s my cousin’s name,” said Susan.
Mr. Ramey leaned out the window and yelled, “Blossom!”
Blossom appeared in the doorway. “I was listening outside the door,” she said unapologetically.
“Good,” said Susan. “Now, did Harmon see Mr. Ramey come in?”
Blossom shook her head. “They were in here with you when Mr. Ramey came, and I brought him in the back way—just in case.”