Blind Descent

A

Taking landmarks from earlier surveys and comparing those measurements with the measurements of the newly existing gout of debris, Holden was estimating the thickness of the slide. Ten hours had passed since the rock had fallen. From his calculations and the sounds from the far side, he predicted it would be less than an hour before the rescuers broke through. As soon as Frieda was retrieved from the bottom of the Pigtail, he would detail three people to dig toward them. More than three could become a danger to one another.

Suggesting he rest his broken ankle got A

"You think the doctor's wife might have started the slide?" he asked after she'd finished.

"It crossed my mind."

"How do you figure she did it?"

"Pried out a key rock," A

Holden thought about that for a while, then shook his head. "Pried with what? We didn't come equipped with shovels or crowbars. A spoon handle is about the biggest lever she could have gotten her hands on."

A

"I don't see how she could have started it, then gotten below it to safety in the Cap."

"Maybe she's buried underneath."

Holden nodded slowly. He was too generous to admit that murder, the disintegration of a marriage, were more appealing than the idea that he'd screwed up and lost a patient, but A

"Well, you know, I could have sworn that anchor was bombproof," he said finally.

She waited.

"Okay. You check it out. With this bum ankle I'm likely to stir up too much trouble. Be careful. Test every step before you trust it. I'll keep folks clear till you get back. Then we dig."

A

The slide was comprised of loam as fine as ash, and rocks with unblunted edges. For each step up she slid half a step back. Dust boiled from under her boots and hands, and she could hear the steady rain of dirt and debris from below. The slide had wiped clean all trace of human passage. Orange tape, footprints, everything was buried. A

The slide narrowed near the top in an abbreviated cone of loose rubble about twenty feet across. If anything remained to indicate cause, it would be here. A

"Got something?" Holden called.

"Just catching my breath." From her vantage point she could see the length of the Pigtail. Dust had been carried away on Lechuguilla's air currents, and the helmet lights of the cavers working on the body recovery moved and winked like fireflies. In a different context A

The last few feet of the climb were the hardest. The way grew increasingly steep and the cushion of soil thi

"Anything?"

"Looking," she hollered.

"Come on down. From the sound of things we're going to have company real soon." Holden's voice had gone utterly flat. The small spark that hope of a reprieve had ignited within him had gone out.

"In a minute." A

"Make it short."

A

"A

Loath to give up, she pushed her luck for half a minute more but was none the wiser for it. Before Holden had to embarrass them both by yelling at her a third time, she turned to skitter down. Her light fell on the spot where she'd sat admiring Lucifer's fireflies. In the soft loam was a smooth-packed place, a perfect butt-print in the silt.

"Got it," A

"A

Before her eyes the print was vanishing, eaten away as a footprint on the beach is drawn into the sea by the waves.

"Coming," she hollered, and turned to slide down on fa

Someone had been up there, probably had started the slide. A

She would keep it real for herself, for Holden, for Frieda. And she would find who'd made the mark if she had to examine every posterior in New Mexico.

10

The next seven hours passed like a fever dream. With Frieda dead, A

The closer they got to the entrance of Lechuguilla the more desperate A