Dead Secret

walkie-talkie.
    “I’m going to follow this tunnel.”
    “Should you be doing that alone?” said Neva.
    Diane had drilled into Neva never to cave alone or go off alone, at least not for any great distance.
    “I’m only going to the end of the tunnel. Not any farther. You stay in the chamber. Don’t go anywhere until Mike and MacGregor get back. And keep in touch.”
    “Will do.”
    She shined her light on the curve of another bend just ahead. She pointed her distometer and measured the distance—16.3 feet. It was indeed promising to be a long, sinuous tunnel.
    On the floor of the winding passage she found no objects that might have been dropped by Caver Doe. Nothing. Not even footprints. That seemed odd. Even with the years of dust settling in the cave, there should be some ghost of a footprint left. Perhaps all traces of his passing had been covered by the breakdown. In many spots it was like gravel. She looked back where she had just come. Her footprints on the silt were actually very light, and in some places where the bedrock showed through the silt floor, there were none. Okay, maybe the absence of evidence of his passing was not odd, but interesting.
    What was it Mike had told her about meanders? Flowing water left a greater amount of silt on the inside of bends where it slowed down. She squatted down at the turn in the bend and examined the heavy layer of silt. No footprints, but there were wavy smears and striations, as if someone had dragged or wiped something over the surface. The markings in the silt were so slight that they might have simply been products of her imagination—seeing evidence where there was none. She took her camera from a pocket on her pack and snapped a picture of it anyway.
    She stood up and was about to continue on when her light caught the reflection of something in a slit between two large rocks. She squatted to examine the sparkle. It was silver, tiny, and had the smooth, rounded, shiny look of something man-made. She moved some of the silt from around it, revealing a thick wire loop-looking object. She grasped it between her thumb and index finger. It shifted slightly, but was stuck. Must be attached to something bigger and held in place by the rocks, she thought.
    Diane dug between the rocks with her finger and felt a rounded edge. A button? Caught between the rocks when someone was wiping footprints from the surface of the silt? Or was her imagination making a mystery out of a simple caving accident?
    Her digging had partially freed it. If she could just turn the object sideways she could get it out. Her fingernail caught it and swiveled it around on its edge. Diane grasped it and pulled it out, trying not to touch anything but the edges.
    It was a button. Metallic—silver with the letters A.S.C. over an eagle with spread wings. Military button? On the reverse side was a thick wire shank—the part that Diane had first caught sight of. She laid the button on top of a rock near its original location, photographed it, made notations in her notebook of the spot where she had found it, and stuffed the camera and notebook back in her pack.
    Diane searched her pockets for something suitable to put the button in and came up with a Ziploc bag. She sealed it so that enough air remained inside to reduce contact with the button, though it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. The passage of time and the conditions had most likely resulted in the destruction of anything that might have been clinging to the surface of the button. But you never knew. She put it in the backpack and proceeded down the tunnel.
    She stopped at the next bend and examined the silt and found no other marks in the dirt.
    “Dr. Fallon.” The radio squawked a string of static syllables.
    “Neva?”
    “Just checking in. I found a railroad spike.” Even with the static, Diane could hear the puzzlement in Neva’s voice.
    “That’s great. Mark the place where you found it.”
    “Sure thing. Out.”
    Diane followed the tunnel, watching the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was like a gently waving avenue, not too cluttered, big enough to drive a car through with room to spare. The light shining off the uneven, rippling walls, and the distant outline of the oval cross-section, made the passage look like a vortex funneling her to some mysterious destination. It was a close call, but at this moment the mysteries of the cave held more allure to her than the remains back in the chamber. She wished that her caving