Jack and Susan in 1933 (33 page)

“You might visit the mine and see if you can find out what MacIsaac was doing in there.”

“Of course,” said Jack. “I should have thought of that. Why did you hesitate to suggest it?”

“Because I hate the place. I hate places that are dark and enclosed and where I might get stuck and—”

“I hate high places,” said Jack. “That's why my father made me learn to fly a plane. But dark places don't bother me. I used to love exploring caves.”

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.”

H
E 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.