Bitter Recoil

Chapter 30

Stubby Begay arrived about six-thirty-a short, scrawny man with badly bowed legs, a narrow, hawk-nosed face, and stone-black eyes. He had two teeth left, one snaggled right in front of his tongue so that he lisped. He talked so softly that in order to hear him I had to hunker down with him, his face no more than a foot from mine as he drew pictures in the dust.

According to Begay the vertical shaft of Floyd’s Number Two sank 785 feet below the headframe. We tested the depth with dinner.

Earlier Finn had agreed that we could send food down for the little girl. We considered spiking the food to put them both out, but I knew damn well that Finn wouldn’t fall for something that simple. And we had no way of knowing who might eat what…a dose necessary to knock out Finn would kill Daisy. So we played it straight. The small plastic cooler of sandwiches, fruit, and milk sank out of sight. The hundred yards of chalk line that we knotted to the cooler’s handle ran out and was tied to another ball of brown twine, and that reeled off for what seemed forever. Every inch of that 785 feet paid out before the cooler touched bottom.

We waited several minutes and then we heard Finn shout, “Pull…it…out!” We did so. There was no way we could touch the son of a bitch.

Begay enlarged his drawing in the dirt. “You got a drift on that side at 300 feet,” Begay said. “It’s an old pump station. And here, at 430, and another here, at 785. Right on the bottom.”

“Side tunnels, you mean?”

“They call ’em drifts.” His eyes twinkled.

“That’s where he must be then,” I said, tapping the bottom.

“I’d be right here,” Begay said and gouged his stick into the sand where he’d sketched the first side tunnel, or drift, 300 feet down.

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause the ladder goes right by it. No need to go to the bottom.”

“The food went all the way down.”

Stubby Begay grinned. His gums looked like plastic. “So you think he’s on the bottom.” He grinned even wider. “He takes the string and…” He made hand-over-hand motions as if he were pulling a bundle up. “He fake you out good that way.”

I frowned. “What about the other drifts? The deeper ones?”

He shrugged.

“There’s no way to reach them other than the ladder?”

Begay shook his head. “If it ain’t come loose.”

I looked up at Tate and Sterns. “Maybe that explains why we can hear him so well when he shouts,” I said. “If he’s only a hundred yards down in that first drift.”

“Only,” Tate said. He turned and watched two of the deputies unloading gear from the trunk of one of the patrol cars.

“So, Stubby, how about this. If I was lowered down in a sling seat, right along the ladder, I’d fetch up at this drift.” I tapped the dirt. “Where you say he’s got to be.”

“That’s what I say.”

“There’s nowhere else he might be?” Begay shrugged. “I mean except maybe the other side tunnels.” He shook his head.

I looked over at the climbing harness that one of the deputies was shaking loose. “There’s enough rope there?”

“Plenty,” Sterns said. He sounded confident. It wasn’t his ass in the sling.

As we made final preparations, the sun set. Spotlights from three cars converged on the shaft entrance, bathing it in harsh white light. Two big four-wheel-drive pickups had been recruited and parked thirty feet away, facing the shaft. Their floodlights added to the artificial daylight. The deputies attached the ropes to both front axles. They knew their job and took their time. When everything was finally ready, it was dark outside the circle of spotlights.

I looked down into the shaft, skeptical. The rope had to let me down right along the ladder so I could keep my feet planted and be able to use my one good arm. Otherwise, I’d just dangle and spin in the shaft, nothing more than a target on a string. The two deputies repositioned one of the trucks and were confident. I wasn’t.

“Sir?” The deputy, Gareth Burns, gestured for me. “Can you step into this?” He held up a bright blue nylon harness that looked like a big athletic supporter.

With several sets of hands assisting, I was trussed up tight enough to choke. Then two big steel rings were clipped into the nylon loops in front.

“Can you work these with one hand?” the deputy asked. He gave me a demonstration of how the carabiner worked and then watched me diddle with the lock ring. I pressed in the release and the ring came off. “Good. Although you might just want to leave it hooked up. We can pay out all the rope you’ll need.”

“Terrific.”

He nodded, mistaking my grimace for enthusiasm. “And I’ll just clip these two other harnesses to the belt here, so when it comes time to bring everybody up, we can do it right.” He had different plans than I did.

They pushed a plastic hard hat with a miner’s light on my head and pulled the chinstrap tight.

At one point during the preparations, Pat Tate handed me a tiny Colt.380 automatic. The silencer looked like a six-ounce juice can. I handed it back to him. “Put a round in the chamber.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” After he did so, I pointed the muzzle of the gun off into the desert. The tiny safety catch was awkward to use with my left hand. I practiced snapping it on and off, then slid the little pistol inside my shirt, sticking its snout under the bandages that bound my right shoulder, arm, and ribs.

“Is that going to work?” Pat Tate asked.

“It’s going to have to,” I said. Pat didn’t ask what my plans were. The deputy snapped another large flashlight to my belt. It hung from a nylon loop.

“Slide this in your hip pocket,” Tate said and held out a slender black penlight.

The deputy saw my expression at the third light. “Rule of threes,” he said. “It’s dark down there.” I didn’t argue. Tate adjusted the hand-held radio in its holster and made sure the microphone cord was free. The mike was clipped to my collar. I felt like a goddamned hardware store, but we were as ready as we could be.

Sterns jerked a thumb in the direction of the crowd. “The television station sure would like to be able to bring their cameras on over,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. He looked hopeful. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you be the one to go down there.”

He didn’t like that much, but he didn’t mention the news hounds again.

I picked up the hailer. “Finn! I coming down now.”

“Take…your…time.”

I handed the hailer to Tate. “Polite bastard, isn’t he?”

The deputies handled me like glass. The iron mesh and its frame had been pulled completely off the shaft opening, and the hole gaped ominously. I stood with my back to the hole, the ladder’s top rung behind me.

“Now just lean a little against the rope so your weight is diggin’ in your heels,” the deputy said. “And remember with this Z-haul, you’re goin’ down in five- or six-foot bites. We’ll keep ’er just as smooth as we can. Now just edge on back until you got your feet on the ladder.”

The deputy had his hand on my left elbow while another adjusted a set of heavy edge rollers to guide the rope. I waited patiently, my pulse pounding in my ears.

“Just trust the rope,” Burns said.

“Do I have a choice?” I replied.

“Really, it works easy as can be. Now, just step down. Real easy. Leave it up to the rope.” I did so while he orchestrated. The ladder flexed and I stopped. “Go on down until you can hang onto the top rung,” he said.

One awkward step at a time, I backed down the ladder. After four rungs, I grabbed the ancient rust of the top rung in my hand.

“Now just relax for a minute and sit in the sling.”

He switched his light back and forth, checking ropes. The weight was off my feet, and with a twitch of the hand I could have spun around like a kid on one of those swings made out of an old tire. I kept my feet on the ladder rungs and my hand in place.

I twisted my head and looked down. The pencil beam from my helmet light shot down into the darkness. I looked up and squinted against the glare of the spotlights. Pat Tate was standing close by, as was Sterns. Both of them had that look on their faces that said, “Better you than me, kid.”

I took a deep breath. “All right,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”