‘Only they weren’t too small for the twins,’ Ralph guessed.
‘That’s the nail, sir, and you hit it on the head. Carl and Calvin Jamieson. Couple of pint-sizers lookin for trouble, and they sure found it. They were with the party that went into Snake’s Belly, right behind their ma and pa at the end of the line, but not with em when they came out. The parents … well, I don’t have to tell you how they took on, do I? My brother-in-law wasn’t the one leadin the group the Jamieson family was a part of, but he was in the search party that went after em. Headed it up would be my guess, although I have no way of knowin.’
‘His sons were also part of it?’ Howie asked. ‘Claude’s cousins?’
‘Yessir. The boys worked part-time at the Hole themselves, and came on the run as soon as they heard. Lots of folks came, because the news spread like wildfire. At first it looked like it wasn’t going to be no problem. They could hear the boys callin from all the openins leadin off from the Snake’s Belly, and they knew exactly which one they went into, because when one of the guides shone his flashlight, they could see a little plastic Chief Ahiga Mr Jamieson bought one of the boys in the gift shop. Musta fallen out of his pocket while he was crawlin. As I say, they could hear em yellin, but couldn’t none of the grown-ups fit in that hole. Couldn’t even reach the toy. They hollered for the boys to come to the sound of their voices, and if there wasn’t room to turn around to just back up. They shone their lights in and waved em around, and at first it sounded like the kids were gettin closer, but then their voices started to fade, and faded some more, until finally they were gone. You ask me, they were never close to begin with.’
‘Tricky acoustics,’ Yune said.
‘Sí, se?or. So then Roger said they should go around to the Ahiga side, which he knew pretty well from his explorin, what they call spee-lunkin. Once they got there, they heard those boys again, clear as day, cryin and yellin, so they got rope and lights from the equipment buildin and went in to fetch em out. Seemed like the right thing, but it was the end of em, instead.’
‘What happened?’ Yune asked. ‘Do you know? Does anybody?’
‘Well, like I told you, that place is a goddam maze. They left one man behind to pay out rope and tie on more in case they needed it. That was Ev Brinkley. He left town shortly after. Went to Austin. Brokenhearted, he was … but at least alive, and able to walk in the sunlight. Those others …’ Lovie sighed. ‘No more sunlight for them.’
Ralph thought about that – the horror of it – and saw what he felt on the faces of the others.
‘Ev was down to his last hundred feet of free-rope when he heard somethin he said sounded like a cherry-bomb a kid set off in a tawlit bowl with the lid shut. What musta happened is some goddam fool fired a pistol, hopin to lead the boys to the rescue party, and there was a cave-in. It wasn’t Roger done that, I’d bet a thousand dollars it wasn’t. Old Rog was a fool about many things, especially those dogs, but never fool enough to fire a gun in a cave, where the ricochet could go anywhere.’
‘Or where the sound could bring down a piece of ceiling,’ Alec said. ‘It must have been like firing a shotgun to start an avalanche up in the high country.’
‘So they were crushed,’ Ralph said.
Lovie sighed and resettled her cannula, which had come askew. ‘Nawp. Might’ve been better if they were. At least it woulda been quick. But people in the big cavern – the Chamber of Sound – could hear em callin for help, just like those lost lads. By then there were sixty or seventy men and women out there, eager to do whatever they could. My George had to be there – his brother and his nephews were among those trapped, after all – and finally I gave up on keepin him home. I went with him, to make sure he didn’t try to do some damn fool thing like tryin to pitch in. That would’ve killed him for sure.’
‘And when this accident happened,’ Ralph said, ‘Claude was in the reformatory?’
‘Gatesville Trainin School is what I believe they called it, but yes, a reformatory’s what it was.’
Holly had produced a yellow legal pad from her carry-bag, and was bent over it, taking notes.
‘By the time I got to the Hole with George, it was dark. The parkin lot’s a good size, but it was damn near full. They’d set up big lights on posts, and with all the trucks and people scurryin around, it was like they were makin a Hollywood movie. They went in through the Ahiga entrance carryin ten-cell flashlights, wearin hardhats and puffy coats like flak jackets. They followed the rope to the cave-in. A long way, some of it through standin water. The rockfall was pretty bad. Took em all that night and half the next morning to clear it enough to get past. By then, people in the big cave couldn’t hear the lost ones callin no more.’
‘Your brother-in-law’s bunch wasn’t waiting for rescue on the other side, I take it,’ Yune said.
‘No, they were gone. Roger or one of the others might have thought he knew a way back to the big cave, or they might’ve been afraid more of the ceiling was gonna cave in. No way to tell. But they left a trail, at least to start with; marks on the walls and litter on the floor, coins and screws of paper. One man even left his bowling card from the Tippit Lanes. One more punch and he’d’ve got himself a free string. That was in the paper.’
‘Like Hansel and Gretel, leaving behind breadcrumbs,’ Alec mused.
‘Then everything just stopped,’ Lovie said. ‘Right in the middle of a gallery. The marks, the dropped coins, the balls of paper. Just stopped.’
Like the footprints in Bill Samuels’s story, Ralph thought.
‘The second rescue party kept goin for awhile, callin and wavin their flashlights, but no one called back. The fella who wrote it up for the Austin paper interviewed a bunch of those guys from the second rescue party later on, and they all said the same thing – there were just too many paths to choose from, all of em goin down, some leadin to dead ends and some to chimneys as dark as wells. They weren’t supposed to holler for fear of starting another cave-in, but then one of them yelled anyway, and sure enough, a piece of the roof come down. That’s when they decided they better get the hell out.’
‘Surely they didn’t abandon the search after one try,’ Howie said.
‘No, course not.’ She fished another Coke out of the cooler, cracked it, and swallowed half at a go. ‘Not used to talkin s’much, and I’m parched.’ She checked her oxygen bottle. ‘Almost out of this stuff, too, but there’s another one in the bathroom there, with the rest of my goddam medical supplies, if someone wants to fetch it.’
Alec Pelley took charge of this task, and Ralph was relieved when the woman didn’t attempt to light up as he swapped them out. Once the oxygen was flowing again, she resumed her story.
‘There was a dozen search parties went in there over the years, right up until the ground-shaker in ’07. After that it was considered too dangerous. It was only a three or four on the Richter, but caves are fragile, you know. The Chamber of Sound stood up to it pretty well, although a bunch of the stalactites fell off the ceilin. Some of the other passages, though, collapsed. I know the one they called the Art Gallery did. Since the shaker, Marysville Hole has been closed. The main entrance is stopped up, and I believe Ahiga is, too.’
For a moment no one spoke. Ralph didn’t know about the others, but he was thinking of what it must have been like to die a slow death deep underground, in the dark. He didn’t want to think about it and couldn’t help it.
Lovie said, ‘You know what Roger said to me once? Couldn’t have been six months before he died. He said the Marysville Hole might go all the way down to hell. And that makes it a place where this outsider of yours would feel right at home, don’t you think?’