His jaw tightened. “We need more men down here.”
“Probably, but first I need to find the boy and assess what equipment we’ll need.”
Lani didn’t like the look of the sweat beading on his forehead. He looked ready to puke or pass out. “You better sit.”
“It’s so damn…close in here,” he said, tugging at his collar.
“Dammit, Rafe,” she said. “Just sit down.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile.
Did he think her saying his name was some kind of endearment? She stared, feeling as though her heart were lodged in her throat. Hell, she did care. But she couldn’t love him. He deserved better than her.
Lani turned away and removed her pack. Time to get to work.
Randy, under her direction, formed a loop at the end of the rope and knotted it, and then clipped on a carabiner.
Lani pulled out the other rope with the brake bar rack, attached it to the carabiner clip, and tossed the end over the ledge. Then she removed extra rigging from her pack, attached it to her seat harness, and clipped it to the rope. She stuffed an ascender device into a side pocket of her pants. “Randy, drape a blanket over the edge beneath the rope.”
“Sure you don’t want me to belay you down?” Randy asked.
Lani didn’t want to wait to attach the extra hitches and pulleys. Besides, she preferred to control her own descent. “You go ahead and prepare the hitches we’ll need for the belay when I take the basket down. I’ll be faster making this trip on my own.”
Randy shrugged. “You’re in charge. Got your whistle?”
Lani tugged the cord from beneath her shirt. “Yeah, I’ve got it.” Backing up to the edge, she leaned against the rope to test for any give in her equipment. She took another step backward, gave the two men a nod, and leaned back into the air. Then she bent her knees and simultaneously pushed off the edge, releasing the lock on her descending device to glide slowly downward into the darkness.
Once over the lip of rock, the wall receded, and she lost the advantage of a solid surface against her feet to control the direction of her descent. She twisted in a slow circle, her helmet lamp touching pale, limestone wall, a series of slanting ledges, a cavern so deep radiance found no boundary, then back again to the wall.
Deeper she descended, directing her light downward. She wondered whether she had enough rope to reach the bottom and despaired for the fate of the boy. She doubted there was any way in hell he’d survived the long fall.
Around and around she slowly spun, when suddenly her lamp caught the glitter of something shining from a rock ledge. She braked on the rope and waited another turn, until the light glanced upon a figure perched at the edge. When she spun away, she blinked, sure she’d only imagined what she’d seen.
One more full turn, and her breath stopped. Hunkered on all fours stood a large golden mountain lion, dark eyes gleaming like mirrors reflecting the lamplight. Beside him lay the still body of the boy.