With no time to savor her environment, Lani kept moving until she’d reached the end of the spill of rock and gravel. Some long ago cave-in had likely closed the entrance behind her. The solid rock beneath her feet and the surrounding formations that glistened like ghostly pillars where her light touched were very different from the debris around the mouth of the cave.
The walls of the cavern to her left and right were curtained with calcified rock that rippled like drapery. Stalactites hung like icicles, and curved pedestals of rock on the cavern floor reached toward the ceiling.
She continued forward, filing her observations, already planning return trips to this underground wonderland. But for now, she had a boy to find.
The shuffle of rock behind her reminded her she wasn’t alone. Another step and she stood poised on a ledge that overlooked a deep, black abyss. Needing a stronger light, she unclipped a flashlight from the side of her pack and shined it downward. The light barely penetrated the gloom, like it was sucked into a celestial black hole.
“Matt!” she shouted, but her voice didn’t echo back. The sounds of her feet scraping rock, even of her breath, hung in the air next to her.
“Lani!” Randy called.
She turned, surprised again by how close he stood.
He dropped the Stokes on the ground. “I was shouting at you. Didn’t you hear me?” The sound of his voice was muffled as if her ears were stuffed with cotton.
She shook her head. “Sound doesn’t seem to carry in this place.”
Randy’s forehead scrunched. “Weird place. Have you heard of anything like this before?”
Lani shrugged, puzzled herself. “No. It’s like the cave is…super-insulated.”
He stepped to the edge of the drop-off. “Man, I can’t see the bottom.”
Lani’s gaze slipped beyond Randy’s shoulder to the sheriff. His swarthy skin was sickly pale. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m fine.” He nodded to the pit. “That’s where you’re going?”
“Looks like it.”
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.