Abandon

SIXTY-SEVEN

L

ana Hartman had gone without food and water for two full days. She lay against the cold rock floor, watching the sole light source burn in the middle of the cavern—a miner’s friend too weak to reach the gaunt and hollowed faces that lined the walls.

That first night locked in the mountain, the noise had been maddening—miners trying to beat the door down, quarreling, guns firing, children wailing. But most of the miners had left in search of water, and with the cavern quieted down, she now strained to hear the hushed voices—crying, prayers for deliverance, some praising God, others cursing Him, a pair of longhairs debating philosophy, theories concerning the soul after death.

Lana closed her eyes.

Sleep came in intermittent bursts of nightmare and fever dream. When she awoke, the thunder in her head had increased twofold, and Joss Maddox knelt beside her, stroking her hair. It took her a moment to latch onto Joss’s voice.

“. . . the worst of it. Wish Cole hadn’t met with a skull cracker. Love to hear him defend the behavior of his lovin God. He cares so much for us, this is one antigodlin fuckin way a showin it. You’re hurtin, and you ain’t done shit to deserve this hard fuckin deal. If I could do somethin for you, Lana, swear to holy Christ I would.

“I come to ask if you’d go with me. I’m leavin this fuckin tomb, goin on into the cave, see if I can’t find water, some way out.”

Lana cut her eyes at Joss, the barkeep’s face distended and malformed in the lantern light.

“That a nod?”

Lana moved her head again.

“All right. Here, let me help you up. Hope you ain’t too weak to walk, ’cause I’m too damn weak to carry you.”

Joss lifted the shadowgee she’d stashed with Al’s body, lighted the candle, and set out with Lana into the cave. They progressed slowly, guided by candlelight, soon leaving the man-made tunnels and passing into karst terrain, traveling from room to room, Joss holding the shadowgee at head level to avoid walking into stalactites.

An hour out from the main cavern, they entered a small grotto. Water seethed out of the floor into a rimstone pool, and Lana ran to it, already on her knees and bringing a cupped handful to her mouth.

“Think you might regret that.”

Lana stared down at the spring, tiny bubbles streaming up from cracks in the bottom, the surface appearing to boil. She touched her tongue to it, the water bitter and caustic, heavily alkalied.

“Poisoned them, don’t you bet?”

Still, Lana almost drank it.

She watched the water slip through her fingers as Joss swiped extra candles from the two dead miners.

The hall echoed with the noise of the waterfall, the light too gentle to show its vast dimensions. They stood on the shore of a subterranean lake, its bed of white crystals shining under the rays of firelight that shot out through the perforated can.

The shadowgee clanged against the rock, and the women fell to their knees, bent down, put their faces into the water. Lana coughed up the first two swallows, but when she finally got some down, it was so cold and good, it made her head ache.

They sat on the bank, drinking until their stomachs bulged and Joss had to loosen the button on her canvas trousers.

She said, “Lana, you don’t wanna know what I’d do to have one cigarette left in my dream book and some Mexican common doins—few hot rocks, menudo, bottle a mescal. Keep thinkin I hear someone bangin the angle iron. Tell you what—I’d swear off whiskey for a meal.”

They wandered on inside the mountain, nothing but rock and shadows and firelight, Lana feeling certain that days must be passing for all their time in this underworld.

She was halfway through one of Haydn’s concertos when Joss stopped, turned around, and said, “I think we better try to go back.” The way her voice carried, Lana pictured them standing in a large cavern. “I don’t have clue fuckin one as to our coordinates, but maybe Stephen came back after all or they got the door open. Hate for us to miss that blowout.”

Lana shook her head.

“What?”

She reached down, touched her feet, grimaced.

“Oh, you’re tired? Well, hell, I am, too. Maybe we should catch forty winks first. Let’s find a decent spot.”

They went a little ways farther, until they found a room where the rock was level.

“Your suite, Miss Hartman,” Joss said. “Hope you find everthin to your likin. Here, we have some rock. Over here, some more rock. Oh, and here’s some more fuckin rock. I hope you like rock.”

Lana smiled.

“Ain’t seen many a those.”