Cottage by the Sea (47 page)

   "We'll find him, Lucas. He's not the silly sort."

   But Luke didn't answer. Instead he gripped the steering wheel and then slowly leaned forward, resting his forehead against his gloved hand.

   "You're absolutely right, Blythe," he said in a low, ragged voice. "Every single, blasted thing you accused me of earlier is true."

   "Luke… please! I realize how hard the last two years have been for you both," Blythe replied softly, aching for him.

   "Valerie knows, don't you?" he said, his voice muffled by his sleeve. "I have kept my son at arm's length for two years. Oh, my God!" he added hoarsely. He raised his head and stared at Blythe with a haunted look. "If something's happened to Richard, I'll never—"

   "We shall find him, Luke!" Valerie said crisply. "But we can't accomplish that if we're sitting in this contraption. The constable's just turned left. Follow along, now."

After nearly an hour of tramping in the pouring rain along the cliffs and shouting Richard's name into the biting night wind, they arrived back at Barton Hall a little past two A.M. Mrs. Quiller had set up a tea bar in her expansive kitchen, and it soon became the headquarters for the search effort. In groups of two and three, the teams, refreshed, set off once again, fanning out in a systematic scheme to cover the nearby territory.

   Constable Seaton chatted briefly with Mrs. Quiller as she refilled his mug of tea. Then he sat down at the kitchen table where Blythe, Luke, Valerie, and Mr. Quiller were preparing to depart for another sweep along Hall Walk.

   "The housekeeper mentioned just now that the lad's a great admirer of yours, Mrs. Stowe," he noted.

   "He's a lovely boy," Blythe replied, and as she said the words, she felt as if she might burst into tears from the strain. "It makes me feel awful that I might have been asleep if he came by Painter's Cottage after his supper. Maybe I didn't hear him knock."

   "It's certainly possible he might have headed down there," Luke interjected quickly. "He knew Mrs. Stowe hadn't been feeling well yesterday and expressed concern."

   "He did?" Blythe said, touched. "But that entire area around the cottage has already been searched by one of your teams. Why haven't we found any sign of—?"

   She couldn't finish her sentence.

   "Y'know, Constable," Mr. Quiller mused, "the lad was always talkin' about that cave down there."

"What cave?" Seaton asked sharply.

   "It's small and narrow. Hard to find unless you know right where it be… and impossible, this time of year, if the tide's a-coming in. I showed it to Dicken and Mrs. Stowe here earlier this summer."

   Luke and Blythe exchanged glances. They both knew exactly where the cavern was located.

   "It's a natural cave near that snippet of beach right below Painter's Cottage," Luke volunteered soberly.

   "Some say 'twas connected—away back when—to a tunnel that went all the way up the cliff at an angle to Mrs. Stowe's place," Quiller explained for the constable's benefit. "In the time of the Free Traders, don'cha know."

   "That smuggler's tunnel collapsed a hundred years ago," Luke protested. "You know that."

   "But does Dicken know that?" Valerie asked quietly.

   "I think so…"

   "Did you ever go down there with him?" Valerie probed. "Show him where the cavern ended?"

   "We've been so busy," Luke explained. "He asked me to go a few times, but we just never got around to it."

   "But, sir," Quiller said with alarm, "Dicken was always pesterin' me to take 'im way to the back to explore—like he be a pirate, he'd say. But each time we went down there, either the tide be in, or we'd not the proper torch with us."

   "Didn't you say tonight that my large torch's gone missing?" Luke asked sharply.

   "That it did, sir. It were nowhere t'be found tonight, and that's a fact," the older man confessed, and Blythe could tell he was awash with guilt that he'd shown Richard where the cave entrance was.

   Just then the house phone emitted a peremptory series of pips and Luke jumped to answer it, immediately handing it over to the constable.

   "Right… right… all right, Henry. Any word from the lifeboat brigade? Right you are. What's the weather forecast? Damn! Call me if anyone reports in with something we can go on." He handed the receiver back to Luke and then announced quietly, "The lifeboat brigade's still concentrating on Hemmick Beach and Dodman Point. Perhaps the team missed the cave on that little stretch of sand below Painter's Cottage. Shall we have another look?"

Blythe and Luke watched in silence as several teams of orange-jacketed search-and-rescue workers led the way along the treacherous path that corkscrewed down to the narrow beach. Then, one by one, Constable Seaton, Luke, Valerie, and Blythe gingerly followed in their muddy footsteps. A stiff, icy wind lashed their faces and tore at their clothing while the beams from their flashlights performed a
danse macabre
on the side of the cliff.

   Blythe's rain-slicked stone cottage loomed above their heads as they slowly descended to the bottom of the onehundred-foot perpendicular drop. The solitary lamp that glowed in the window on the first floor winked at them through the continuing downpour. Blythe saw it as a beacon of hope they would find Richard before sunup.

   "Oh, Christ!" Luke exclaimed over his shoulder. "The tide's been in."

   He pointed at the stretch of sand that had been recently saturated with seawater up to the base of the cliffs. Strands of seaweed the color of dark amber lay marooned on the glistening rocks. Their coils, some severed by the boulders' jagged edges, released a pungent, vaguely fetid odor into the damp air. Fortunately the rain began to let up as the eastern horizon lightened with the promise of dawn. As soon as the entire search party reached the narrow stretch of beach, they instinctively formed a huddle.

   "I'd like to go in first, if you don't mind, Constable," Luke requested, his eyes riveted on the shadowed entrance to the cave.

   "Of course, sir," Seaton replied.

   Blythe seized Luke's gloved hand in hers and said, "Please… let me go in with you."

   Luke pulled his gaze away from the drenched escarpment and gave her his attention. For a moment she thought he would refuse her request. Then he gave a brief nod and headed for the cave, with Blythe following single file.

   The temperature inside the narrow cavern was a few degrees warmer than the rain-washed night air outside. The beam from Luke's flashlight cavorted eerily on the gray stone ceiling and bounced off the damp walls. They trudged through a few yards of seawater up to their ankles. Then, for some fifteen feet beyond the entrance, wet sand made a squishing sound under the soles of their rubber boots. As they proceeded deeper into the cave, Blythe sensed that the sand beneath her feet had become drier and more uneven. Within a few more yards she found it increasingly difficult to tramp through the mounds of finely granulated sandstone. To regain her balance, she reached out and steadied herself by bracing her right palm against the dank wall.

   Suddenly a rustling noise caught Blythe by surprise, and she involuntarily uttered a yelp as a creature zoomed overhead.

   "Bats," Luke announced, his voice echoing against the dome of the cave. "You don't have to come any farther, if you'd rather not."

   "Don't be ridiculous," she laughed shakily. "Bats are practically Wyoming's state bird. It startled me, that's all."

   Luke had halted abruptly, causing Blythe to bump against the back of his oilskin Barbour coat.

   "Oh, God," she heard him say. Her view, however, was completely blocked by his broad shoulders.

   "What?" she demanded. When he didn't respond, fear began to ball in her stomach like a curled wave poised to break thunderously on the shore. She suddenly thought of how quickly one's life can turn on a dime. One day her brother, Matt, was a vibrant seventeen-year-old, sassing everyone in sight—the next, he was lying prone in a rodeo arena, his neck broken in two places and his skull crushed.

   She ducked down and butted her head underneath Luke's right arm to see what had prompted his exclamation. The beam from his flashlight illuminated the cave where an ancient rockslide marked the crevice's termination. There, on a flat boulder five or six feet above the floor of the cavern and three feet below its rocky ceiling, lay Richard Teague resting on his right side, his eyes closed.

   The ten-year-old was holding Luke's giant-sized flashlight under his chin as if he were clutching a teddy bear. The electric torch had either been turned off, or its batteries were now dead. The child's clothes appeared damp, but Blythe saw that his hair was dry, not drenched in seawater. Suddenly, like an angel rising from a stone sarcophagus, Richard fluttered his eyelids and sat up.

   "Blythe!" he said joyfully, looking past his father. "You're feeling better!"

   "I'm fine, Dicken!" she quickly assured him. She was deeply touched that her well-being was the first concern of this lost child who obviously had been stranded by the incoming tide. "But are
you
all right?"

   "I think so," he said slowly. "I dreamed, just now, you'd find me!" he added. "And there you were!"

   Then he blinked slowly and stared at Luke, his gaze growing apprehensive. The boy's stricken expression made it appear as if he were about to cry. "Daddy… I-I'm sorry," he faltered. "I was playing pirate. I knew I oughtn't, but I thought I could find the hidden tunnel and surprise Blythe by coming up under the cottage floor."

   "Come here, son." Luke spoke in a choked voice so unlike his own, Blythe hardly recognized it.

   However, Richard remained where he was, adding in a rush, "I didn't realize the time passing. I looked and looked for the smugglers' passageway, but then the tide came in. I-I was frightened, and so I climbed up here and—"

   "Go back and tell them we've found him!" Luke commanded Blythe hoarsely. Then he spoke to his son. "Dicken, please give me your hand. I'll help you get down from there."

   Blythe swiftly made her way out of the cave, using her gloved hand against the damp walls as a guide.

   "He's alive!" she shouted to the huddled group. "He's in the back of the cave! Bring some blankets! He's wet and cold but seems okay, as far as I can tell."

   "Well done!" Valerie exclaimed as a cheer went up from the others.

   And then Blythe turned toward Luke's cousin and was enveloped in a hearty embrace. Valerie pressed Blythe's head against the pillow of her ample shoulder. Then, like a harp string stretched to the breaking point, Blythe felt her emotions snap and her shoulders begin to heave.

   "We've had quite a scare, haven't we?" the older woman soothed, patting Blythe's back as if she were the child who had just been rescued.

   "Thank God, Dicken's all right," Blythe moaned. Dr. Kent's empathy suddenly unleashed a floodgate of emotions. Blythe wept for the boy who had survived this ordeal and for her brother who hadn't. She sobbed aloud her own terror at the thought of the terrible tragedy that might have befallen young Richard Teague and his father—and cried silently for the sorrow that might lie ahead for herself and her own child.

   "Thank God…" she repeated between gulps. "I don't think I could have stood it if one more person—"

   "Thank God, indeed," Valerie sniffed, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping her eyes, then offering a clean corner to Blythe.

   Just at that moment Luke appeared at the mouth of the cave carrying Richard in his arms. His face was half-obscured by the folds of the psychedelic-orange blanket from the Lifeboat squad that enveloped his son.

   "Put him on the stretcher, sir," advised one of the volunteers. "John here and I will carry the lad up the cliff in a tick."

   "Shall we take him to hospital?" Constable Seaton inquired of Luke. "Or back to Painter's Cottage up there and call the doctor?"

   Luke glanced at Blythe. "What do you think?"

   "What do
you
think, Dicken?" she asked the boy with a watery smile. "Do you feel well enough to go straight home and pop right into a hot bath?"

   "Yes, ma'am." He nodded, his eyes very round. Then he added with a pleading look, "Will you come?"

   Blythe groaned inwardly. She was fatigued to her very marrow and desired nothing more than to fall into her bed in the cottage above them.

   "Oh, Dicken… I'm sure your dad will—"

   "Perhaps you'd drive the car," Luke suggested in a clipped tone, as if he were dealing with an intractable servant. Whatever emotion he had displayed upon rescuing his son was now strictly under control. However, it was obvious that Richard's preference for her company had disturbed his father. "I'll stay with Richard in the backseat, if you don't mind," he added firmly.

   Now Blythe felt genuine irritation. For three months the man had virtually ignored his son. Now he appeared determined to ward off any unwanted interlopers—and that most definitely included her. Before she could answer, Luke turned to address the Search and Rescue Team.

   "My deepest thanks to you all. I will never be able to express my gratitude—ever. Especially to you, Constable, for asking the right questions… and you, Quiller, for knowing the mind of this rapscallion as well as you do. He was playing pirates, everyone," he announced to the assembled crowd with an air of apology, "and was trapped by the incoming tide while he looked for the old smugglers' tunnel that used to lead to Painter's Cottage."