Dust to Dust

Scott. “You are scaring us.”
    “No. I’m not being funny. I’ve got good news. I’ve found the buried bodies we’re looking for.”

Chapter 34
    “What?” said Scott. “There’s a body down there with you?”
    “Not exactly—well, I guess, yes, exactly. But it’s all bones,” Hector said.
    Diane heard Hector rustling around at the bottom of the well.
    “Hector,” said Diane, “don’t move around so much.”
    Using her flashlight she examined the walls of the well and the area around the surface again. There were several trees nearby and one fairly close to the well, not a large tree, its trunk perhaps as big around as her leg. No large roots had worked their way through the cracks between the stones forming the wall, but smaller roots had, and the chances were good that tree root systems were pressing the wall in the direction of collapse. Where was the policeman with her rope?
    Diane heard the rustling of someone walking through the leaves and brush and saw the play of a light. She looked up, expecting the policeman. It was Neva, and she had Mike Seger with her. Mike had Diane’s rope bag and backpack.
    Mike, the museum’s geologist, was one of the best caving partners Diane had ever had. She was glad to see him there with Neva, another caving partner. Neva wasn’t as experienced as Mike, but she was a reliable and skilled caver. Mike put the bag and backpack down on the ground.
    His short brown hair was longer than when she last saw him. His lean features had developed a weathered look since he’d taken on his job visiting the world’s most extreme environments. He usually had a serious look on his face. Here in the dim light his face looked to be carved out of stone.
    “Hi, Doc. Good to see you.” Mike’s stern expression broke into a smile.
    Diane grinned back. “Just the right people at the right time. We need to get Hector out of this well,” she said. “I take it you saw the policeman?” She gestured at her caving gear.
    Neva nodded. “Two of them. They stayed to direct the paramedics,” said Neva.
    She and Mike squatted down and looked into the well.
    “What do we have here?” said Mike. “Hector, buddy, what the hell you doing down there?”
    “Falling down a well seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hector said.
    Mike felt the ground around the top of the well. “Pretty firm,” he commented. “But some collapse at the edge.”
    Diane explained the situation and the dangers and what she wanted to do.
    “Let’s get to it, then,” said Mike.
    David and Scott moved one of the battery-powered lights closer so they could see what they were doing. Diane and Mike opened the rope bag, basically a large tarp with grommets. It held Diane’s caving rope. Diane took good care of her rope because it was literally a lifeline. She kept it clean and always took out any knots she had tied while caving. It was good rope and a lot of it.
    “Do you think we can use that tree over there, the one closest to the well?” she asked Mike.
    “Yeh, it looks good,” said Mike. “We only have a what, ten-foot drop? It’ll be over in a few seconds.”
    Neva took off her suede and faux fur jacket and hung it over a bush. She began rolling up her designer jeans.
    “You warm enough?” asked Diane, looking at the thin sleeves of Neva’s silk blouse.
    “I’ll be fine. You know, I’m like you. I don’t know why I bother to dress up,” she said. “Our lives are always on call for some death-defying adventure or another.”
    “At least you don’t have on sequins,” said Diane.
    Diane began tying the handholds and a foothold in the rescue rope. Neva took the tarp and laid it over the edge of the well to reduce the crumbling of the edge when they pulled Hector out. Mike wrapped and tied off one end of a length of rope to the nearby tree at a height a couple of feet off the ground. The other end he tied into a half-hitch knot at a distance that allowed the rope to reach to the center of the well opening when the rope was fully extended from the tree. He took a rescue pulley from Diane’s backpack, laid the long rescue rope in the pulley, and attached the pulley to the end of the shorter rope by means of a metal alloy snaplink. This arrangement would suspend the pulley and rescue rope midair over the center of the well as they lifted Hector out.
    Mike, David, and Scott were going to do the pulling. Mike gave them instructions as they took up their places six feet or so back from the