Chapter 59
Agony surged through Cash as she swam back into consciousness.
Opening her eyes, she was blinded by swirling dust and sand and closed them again.
Her ears were ringing. She inhaled a mouthful of choking dust. The air smelled burnt.
All around her, there was a pattering sound, a hard rain of gravel and debris.
What the hell had happened? The events of the past few moments returned in force—-the suffocation, the shot, the explosion.
Her eyes felt gritty and were watering like crazy.
She tried to raise her head and was felled by a blinding headache.
She lay there, trying to gather her thoughts.
And now she felt a cool eddy of air drifting over her, clearing the dust. She breathed deeply, hungrily.
Her vision began to clear. She raised her head again.
The air was clearing, and she saw a dim glow of light, faint, hovering in the distance above.
Cash breathed again, and again, her mind finally sharpening. “Colcord?” she was able to whisper hoarsely. Then louder: “Colcord?” She could hardly hear herself, with the ringing in her ears.
She thought she heard a pained groan coming from her right.
She reached out in the direction of the sound and encountered the fabric of his uniform. She grasped at it with shaking fingers. “Colcord!” She jerked on the fabric.
He mumbled something again.
“What … happened?” she asked.
His voice brought a wave of relief to her. “I got the monk”—-he gasped—-“to fire his rifle. It … lit up that methane like a bomb … blew them to kingdom come.”
“It blew us up too.”
“We’re alive, aren’t we?”
Cash tried to sit up, her head swimming with the effort and forcing her to lie down again.
Her arm was useless, and she’d lost a lot of blood.
She could still hear gravel and rocks falling around them.
They were not out of trouble. Her flashlight, now dead, lay half buried in the sand some distance away.
Strangely, however, there was a fresh, steady river of cool air carrying the scent of the forest flowing past her.
A dim gray light now filled the tunnel. Where the monk and priest had been, the ceiling had caved in, creating a gaping hole, which was where the light was now coming from.
Colcord looked a fright—-lying on his side, entirely covered with dust, pale as a ghost, only his blinking bloodshot eyes gleaming from the powdery coat.
Some of it was mixed with blood from his head. The wound had opened up again.
“You look like shit,” she said. “Are you able to walk?”
“Gee, thanks.” He tried to stand up, winced as he struggled to get to his knees, and sank back. “Give me a moment,” he said, breathing hard while lying on his back.
The falling of debris from the ceiling continued, and she wondered if they even had a moment.
She peered into the murk, trying to see what had happened to their two pursuers.
To her horror, through the dust and falling pebbles, a figure began to emerge, holding a light.
Colcord saw it too. It was too small to be the monk.
Had the priest survived? Cash felt a wrenching twist in her gut—-the priest had somehow survived and was coming to finish them off.
She struggled to rise, but again, her head went to spinning so much she couldn’t get up.
“Bastard,” said Colcord to the figure as it loomed over them.
“Good heavens,” the man said in a sonorous voice. “Sheriff Colcord, Agent Cash! Thank God you’re alive!”
Cash stared in disbelief: It was Father Moore. Was he also a member of Devotio?
The priest rushed over and knelt beside her, gently lifting her into a sitting position.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed to gasp.
“I’m so terribly sorry this has happened. I had no idea what Brother Gregory was up to.” He looked into her face, his eyes full of concern, “I’m here to help. We need to get out of here—-the tunnel could collapse at any moment.”
“Are you with them?” Colcord asked.
“Heavens, no!” said Moore. “Hurry, we need to get moving. I’ll be happy to answer all your questions as soon as you’re both safe.”
Cash’s head began to clear somewhat, and Moore helped her to her feet, supporting her as she swayed.
As if on cue, a large rock detached from the gaping hole in the roof and fell with a crash and shudder, along with a shower of cobbles. The grinding sound of shifting rock was almost continuous.
Colcord staggered to his feet, breathing hard, before groaning and sinking back down on one knee.
“You need to help him,” said Cash. “His foot is crushed.”
Moore rushed over and raised Colcord to his feet.
“Both of you, lean on me and we’ll make it out of here together.”
Clinging to Father Moore, who, although short, was as sturdy as a fireplug, they staggered down the tunnel, only to be blocked by an unstable heap of fallen rocks.
As Moore shone his light ahead of them, it illuminated a gruesome sight—-the monk’s dismembered arm, still enrobed in tattered black cloth, plastered against the tunnel wall, bony fingers splayed out like a white spider.
Farther on, the light glinted off a shoe sticking out from under a heap of boulders.
Moore looked on the remains without comment, then turned and played his light over the heap of rocks. “We’re going to have to climb over that. All together now. Hang on to me.”
Slowly and painfully, they worked their way up the unstable surface, the rocks shifting and grinding against one another as they climbed. At times, the priest hauled them along. As they reached the top, Cash heard a sudden cracking noise from above. But Father Moore remained calm.
“One step at a time,” he said.
He helped her down the shifting rock pile, leaving her at the bottom and going back for Colcord.
A few minutes later, he reappeared, bracing Colcord, even as a frightening sequence of cracks, like gunshots, came from above.
A huge rock fell with a shuddering crash—-and then another and another—-barely missing them.
What remained of the ceiling began to crumble and rain down upon them.
“Run, my friends!” Moore cried. The priest practically dragged them along with fierce energy as rocks peeled from the roof and crashed down around them. A rock fell in front of Cash and she tumbled over it, Moore hauling her back up, and they loped and staggered to keep ahead of the collapse.
Eventually, they reached the canoes, as well as the rowboat that had evidently delivered Moore to their rescue.
One canoe was now half -sunk, but the other was good.
Cash grabbed the dirty yellow dry bag that had been stuffed into the hole in the bottom of the sunken canoe and tossed it in the other, then scrambled in herself.
Moore followed and helped Colcord in. They could hear continuous cave--ins behind, the thunder drowning out the sound of the waterfall.
Huge clouds of choking dust billowed past them.
“Paddle!” cried Moore, sitting cross--legged in the center of the canoe.
He had grabbed a paddle from the other canoe and now started flailing uselessly at the water.
Cash and Colcord began paddling in unison, Cash almost fainting from the pain of using both arms, but adrenaline kept her going.
They propelled the canoe forward and around the bend in the tunnel.
The waterfall came into view and they shot through it, once again drenching them in freezing water.
They emerged out into the lake to find that the storm had subsided and the rain and wind had ceased.
They glided across the still water and were well away from the mine entrance when a thunderous final roar came from the tunnel, along with a dirty cloud billowing out of the side of the hill from the hole left by the cave--in.
The canoe glided along. Cash breathed deeply, again and again, sucking in the good air.
The cold shower from the waterfall had done wonders, jolting her mind and washing off the dust. She could feel her strength returning, despite the throbbing pain in her arm.
It was a miracle they had made it out. The priest, who didn’t seem quite so spiteful anymore, sat in the middle of the canoe, swiping at the water with a paddle, having no idea what he was doing, but trying nonetheless.
“Hey, look over there,” said Cash, pointing to Colcord’s Stetson floating in the water, waterlogged and half -sunk.
“I want it,” Colcord said.
They paddled toward the center of the lake where he could snag it. He shook it out and secured it on his head once more. He looked a fright.
“That’s a sad sight,” said Cash.
Colcord tried to smile. “It ain’t just felt and leather—-it’s my badge.”
As they continued paddling, Colcord asked, “What’s this?” nudging the dry sack with his foot.
Cash hesitated. “Willy’s artifact.”
A silence. “The alien artifact?” he asked.
“You said it, not me.”
Just then, the cabin, its windows still aglow, came into view in the distance.
“Let’s have a look at it,” Colcord said. He laid down his paddle and pulled the dry bag toward him.
“What are you doing?” asked Moore. “We really should try to keep going. You both need to get to the hospital.”
“Give me a moment,” said Colcord as he hefted the bag, unlatched the fasteners, and unrolled the top.
Then he tipped the bag over, and an object fell out, landing in the water in the bottom of the canoe.
Colcord stared at it and then began to laugh.
“Old Willy,” he said. “Crazy old bastard to the end. There’s Willy’s alien artifact for you. ”
Cash and Moore stared at the thing wallowing about in the bottom of the canoe: a cue ball. A ridiculous dirty white cue ball.
Colcord laughed. “Like I said right from the beginning, total madness. That’s just something Old Willy found in some junkyard with the rest of his stuff.” He picked up his paddle and dug it into the water, the canoe skimming forward.