Point Blank

Think of your reputation. I’d prefer it if you’d let me go in first. I’ll be careful, I’ll keep pressed to the right.”
    “I hate it when a snot-nosed kid plays sheriff.”
    Dix laughed. “I’m paid to push you out, old man, if it means keeping you safe.” Dix lifted his flashlight to shine it down into the opening. It sloped down but the ceiling was more or less level, so it was well over six feet high very quickly. And it looked narrow, but not so much that he couldn’t get through. He eased through the opening, climbed down five steps to the right, and called back, “It’s seems okay down here so far.”
    They followed him in, Savich bringing up the rear. Dix stopped when the space widened enough for them to all stand together. They shone their head lamps around them in the small space, and realized they’d been walking along a limestone ledge.
    “Well, that’ll make your blood pump a bit,” Ruth said. She walked over to the edge and panned her head lamp upward. She saw glistening stalactites spearing down from a ceiling that was another twenty feet above them. She couldn’t see the bottom. “The limestone is stained. Look, it’s been gouged out in places. I wonder why.”
    “It smells nice and fresh in here,” Savich said, “which means all that rock and dirt wasn’t piled in that opening for very long, not long enough for the air to go stale. Since someone went to all the trouble of hiding the entrance, this must be the place we’re looking for.”
    They made their way slowly and carefully down the ledge. Ruth asked Chappy, “The chamber this passage opens into, do you remember how big it is?”
    “Good-sized, maybe forty feet across, maybe five, ten feet more the long way. But there’s this weirdly shaped limestone niche inset deeply into the back wall that makes it seem even bigger.”
    “I don’t suppose you found anything in that niche?”
    Chappy gave her a sharp look. “I remember as a kid thinking there should be Indian relics set in there, but I didn’t find any.” He shook Dix’s sleeve. “Okay, you’re going to twist more to the right, I think, and then this passage drops off again—pretty steep so be careful—and dumps you right out into the big chamber.”
    When they’d all stepped down into the chamber after Dix, Chappy asked, “Was this the chamber you were in, Ruth?”
    “I don’t know yet, Chappy. I don’t remember much.”
    “Let’s head in, see if we can find out,” Savich said.
    Dix stepped farther into the cavern, his Coleman lantern casting misshapen shadows on the walls ahead of them.

CHAPTER 13
    IT WAS LIKE a large vault, the ceiling soaring upward, with myriad groups of stalactites of incredible shapes hanging like chandeliers above their heads. But many of those within reach weren’t whole, more like jagged, broken spears, scattered chunks tossed about on the cavern floor. “What a shame,” Ruth said. “Men did this.”
    It was odd, but when she turned her head lamp away from the formations, reflecting light at her, the chamber seemed dark, too dark, and quiet, her voice alien in the dead air. She realized she was afraid.
    “You okay, Ruth?”
    “Yeah, sure,” she said a little too brightly to Sherlock. “Look at that weird formation. It looks like a casket.”
    “Thanks for pointing that out,” Chappy said. “Makes me feel all warm inside. Beautiful, though, isn’t it?
    Too bad some people can’t leave beautiful things alone.”
    It was odd, Ruth thought, but she had to struggle with herself to walk forward, afraid to find out what had happened to her here, if this was indeed the chamber. But of course it was since someone had gone to all the trouble of sealing up the entrance.
    “It’s longer than you thought, Chappy,” Dix said as he walked farther into the cavern, his head lamp lighting up the shadowy walls near him. “Ruth, you think the arch might be over to your right? You want to take a look?”
    No, she didn’t even want to move. She felt like she was buried alive and the air was running out and she would suffocate. She wanted to run back out of this airless black chamber with its secrets, wanted to run along that long ledge until she could climb back out into the daylight. She schooled herself not to breathe too hard. She stood very quietly, surrounded by the weaving splashes of light from all the head lamps, and made herself draw in air, slowly, and slower still. She felt a hitch in her throat and she