Still Life With Crows p-4 Page 37

  He was going to bolt.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Hazen said quickly. “The dogs have probably cornered McFelty. I think they’ve left this cavern and gone down some side tunnel. Come on, we’ve got to find them. Larssen!” he bawled out in a louder voice. “Cole! Brast! We’re over here!”

  The distorted screeching and gibbering continued. It was hard for Hazen to think straight. He wasn’t worried for the dogs anymore: he was worried for McFelty.

  “Raskovich, it’s okay.”

  The man stumbled backward, face slack, clutching his shotgun. Hazen recognized the danger of the situation now: Raskovich was about to lose it, and he had a loaded weapon in his hand.

  The terrible screams became mixed with a guttural choking, punctuated by gasps and coughs.

  “Raskovich, it’s all right, just take it easy, just lay the gun down—”

  The gun went off with a deafening blast, and a shower of pebbles came down, tinkling and bouncing among the pillars of stone before landing in the shallow water.

  The distant shrieking of the dogs . . . the slack, panicked face of Raskovich . . . Hazen realized that the operation was rapidly spinning out of control. “Larssen!” he bawled out. “On the double!”

  Now Raskovich turned and ran, the gun lying where he’d dropped it, still smoking from the shot.

  “Raskovich!”Hazen took off after him, yelling at the top of his lungs: “Hey! Wrong fucking way!”

  And as he ran, the terrible threnody of both dog and man went on and on behind him—and then, silence: sudden, unnerving silence.

  Sixty-Two

  Pendergast paused, listening. He heard the sounds echoing through the galleries of stone, distorted beyond recognition. He waited, straining to hear, but it was impossible to make out anything beside a whisper of sound, so altered by the acoustical properties of the caverns that it seemed almost like distant surf, or wind among trees.

  He redoubled his pace in what seemed the right direction, dodging over and between enormous toppled stalactites. At the end of the cavern, where the trails divided, he stopped again, listening.

  The sounds continued.

  Now he consulted his map, found his approximate location. He was in the middle of a particularly labyrinthine section of the cave system, riddled with multilevel cracks, passageways, and blind holes. Locating the sound within such a fiendish maze would be difficult. And yet he knew that in caves such as this, sound usually followed the flow of air. Pulling a slim gold lighter from his pocket, Pendergast lit it and held it at arm’s length, carefully scrutinizing the direction in which the flame bent. Then he pocketed the lighter again and continued on, upwind, toward the sound.

  But now, the sounds had ceased. The cave had returned to dripping silence.

  Pendergast went on, through galleries and tunnels. With the absence of sound, he went back to following the map toward what appeared to be the central part of the cave system. At the end of a particularly narrow gallery he stopped, shining his light upon a far wall. There was one narrow vertical crack here, not on the map, that looked like it might give way onto another cavern on the far side. If so, it would cut off a considerable distance. He went to the crack and listened.

  Once again, he heard faint sounds. The rush of water, overlaid by a human voice. At least, it appeared to be human, and yet it was so distorted that it was impossible to make out any words—if indeed there were any.

  Shining his light on the ground before his feet, he noticed that he was not the first person to have taken this shortcut.

  He edged into the crack, which soon widened enough for him to walk normally. Gradually the bottom of the crack dropped away and a crevasse opened below; yet the walls remained narrow enough that he could continue forward, one foot on either side of the crevasse, squeezing his torso through a narrow slot. It was a position that gave, strangely, the sensations of both claustrophobia and acrophobia at the same time.

  Ahead, the crack opened into the blackness of space. He was standing on a narrow ledge almost a hundred feet up the wall of a domelike cavity. A stream of water plunged from above and feathered down toward the base far beneath his feet, filling the cavern with the echoing splash of water. A billion winking lights—reflections of feathery gypsum crystals—filled the cavern like fireflies.

  Pendergast’s flashlight beam could only barely reach the bottom.

  There had been footprints at the entrance to the crack: that meant there must be a way down.

  Below the lip of rock on which he stood, his light caught a series of hand- and footholds. Intermittent sounds came from below, clearer now.

  Had Hazen and the troopers reached the killer and Corrie? The thought was almost too unpleasant to contemplate.

  Pendergast crouched on the narrow ledge, shining his light into the blackness below. He could see nothing but a massive jumble of fallen stalactites, torn from the ceiling by some long-ago earthquake.

  He took off his shoes and socks, tied the laces together, and draped them around his neck. He turned off his flashlight and slipped it into a pocket: it would be of no help now. Then, reaching down into the darkness, he grabbed the first handhold again and swung out into space, his bare feet finding slippery purchase. Five minutes of cautious climbing brought him to the bottom. He put on his shoes in complete darkness, listening.

  The noise was coming from the blackness at the far end of the cavern. Whoever was making that sound had no light. It rose and fell in a strange, babbling way, but there could be no mistake: it was a man, and he sounded injured.

  Turning on the flashlight again and pulling out his handgun, Pendergast moved forward swiftly.

  A flash of color, and something flickered across the dim cone of light; he swung the beam around and saw something yellow on the ground, behind a fractured boulder.

  He leapt catlike onto the rock, gun and light pointing downward together. He peered into the cavity beneath the boulder. And then, after staring for a moment, he holstered the gun, dropped down the far side, and laid a hand on the man who was curled in a fetal position in the lee of the rock. He was a small man, soaking wet, gibbering to himself. Lying next to him was a regulation-issue set of night-vision goggles and a helmet with an infrared spotter.

  At the touch of Pendergast’s hand the man crouched farther, covered his head, and squealed.

  “FBI,” said Pendergast quietly. “Where are you hurt?”

  The man shivered at the sound of his voice, then looked up. Two red eyes peered uncomprehendingly out of a face completely covered with blood. The man’s black jacket sported the yellow insignia of the Kansas State Police K-9 squad. His lips trembled above a wispy goatee, but the only sound that emerged was more incoherent sobbing. His pale eyelashes trembled.

  Pendergast performed a quick examination. “It seems you’re unhurt,” he said.

  The stammering reply did not succeed in reaching the level of intelligibility.

  They were wasting time. Pendergast grabbed the man by the collar of his K-9 suit and hauled him to his feet. “Get a grip on yourself, Officer. What’s your name?”

  The sharp tone seemed to stun the man into sensibility.

  “Weeks. Lefty Weeks. Robert Weeks.” His teeth chattered.

  Pendergast released his hold; Weeks staggered but managed to stay upright.

  “Where did the blood come from, Officer Weeks?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Officer,” Pendergast said, “I don’t have a lot of time. There’s a killer in here who’s kidnapped a girl. It is vital that I find her—before your friends get her killed.”

  “Right,” said Weeks, swallowing.

  Pendergast retrieved the night-vision goggles, found them broken and inoperative, dropped them again. “You’re coming with me.”

  “No! No, please—”

  Pendergast grabbed his shoulders and gave him a shake. “Mr. Weeks, youwill conduct yourself like a police officer. Is that clear?”

  Weeks swallowed again, stru
ggled to master himself. “Yes, sir.”

  “Stay behind, follow my lead, and keep quiet.”

  “My God, no! No, don’t go that way . . . please, sir.It’s there.”

  Pendergast turned and looked carefully into the man’s face. He looked traumatized, ruined. “It?”

  “It. That, thatman. ”

  “Describe him.”

  “I can’t, Ican’t! ” Weeks buried his face in his hands as if to blot out the image. “White. Huge. All bunched up, like. Cloudy, cloudy eyes. Big feet and hands—And . . .and the face! ”

  “What about the face?”

  “Oh, lord Jesus, the face—”

  Pendergast slapped the man. “What about the face?”

  “The face of a . . . oh, God, of ababy, so . . . so—”

  Pendergast cut him off. “Let’s go.”

  “No!Please, not that way—!”

  “Suit yourself.” Pendergast turned and strode off. With a yelp, the man scrambled to follow.

  Leaving the tumult of broken columns, Pendergast moved into a broad limestone tunnel littered with huge yellow mounds of dripstone. Weeks stayed behind, cringing and whimpering to himself, afraid to follow Pendergast, but still more afraid to remain alone. Pendergast’s light roamed from dripstone to dripstone, once again following a trail.

  And then he stopped. His light remained fixed on one mound that looked strikingly different from the others. Its deep yellow was heavily streaked with red, and at its base lay a pool of bright red water. Something was floating in the water: about the size of a human, but the shape was all wrong.

  Weeks had fallen silent.

  Pendergast played his light around the cavern wall that rose behind the dripstone mound. The dark rock was decorated in arcs of crimson, and gobbets of white, red, and yellow hung dripping here and there. His light finally came to rest on the giant forelimb of what could only be a dog, lodged in a crack about halfway up the wall. A piece of a lower jaw was wedged nearby, and something that might have been part of a muzzle had struck the sloping wall with enough violence to stick.

  “One of yours?” Pendergast asked.

  The man nodded dumbly.

  “Did you see this happen?”

  The man nodded again.

  Pendergast turned, raising his light to the man’s face. “What, precisely, did you see?”

  Officer Weeks choked, stammered, and finally got the words out. “Hedid it.” He paused, swallowed. And then his voice broke.“He did it with his bare hands!”

  Sixty-Three

  At a nexus of branching tunnels, Hazen waited for the state troopers and Larssen to catch up. Five minutes passed, then ten, as his labored breathing returned to normal. It seemed that either they hadn’t followed the sound of his voice, or they’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.

  Hazen swore, spat. Raskovich was gone, bolted like a rabbit. Although Hazen had briefly given chase, he’d been unable to find the guy. The way the man had been running, he was probably halfway back to KSU already.

  Hell.If he couldn’t regroup with Larssen and the troopers, he’d have to go after Lefty and the dogs alone. And that meant returning to the limestone forest, for a start.

  But now, as Hazen looked back the way he had come, he wasn’t sure just which of the branching tunnels he’d come out of. He thought it was the one on the right. But he wasn’t sure.

  Hazen swallowed, cleared his throat. “Lefty?”

  Silence.

  “Larssen?”

  He cupped his hands in the direction of his backtrail and bellowed, “Hey! Anybody! If you can hear me, sing out!”

  Silence.

  “Anybody there? Respond!”

  Despite the chilly air and the incessant wetness, Hazen felt a prickly sensation along his spine. He looked back the way he had come; looked around; looked ahead. The night-vision goggles gave everything a pale, reddish, unreal look, like he was on Mars. He checked his belt and confirmed what he already feared: he’d lost his flashlight during the chase.

  The whole operation was fucked up. They’d gotten separated. Raskovich was lost, the whereabouts of Larssen unknown, the condition of Lefty and the dogs uncertain. At the very least, McFelty knew they were there. If he was dead, or injured . . . Hazen figured he had enough to deal with without dreaming up a lot of hypotheticals.

  The thing to do was to get everyone back together, get a situation report, take stock.

  Shit, it was hard to remember which of those holes he had come outof. . .

  He examined the cave floor for footprints or marks, but it seemed as if each of the tunnels had been heavily trafficked. And that alone was very strange.

  He ran over what had happened in his mind, trying to recall landmarks. It was all vague; he’d been concentrating on catching the fleeing Raskovich. Still, on balance it seemed to him that he’d most likely come from that passage on the right.

  He walked down it about fifty feet. There were some broken stalactite pieces scattered here, like teeth. He didn’t remember those. Had he just run past them too fast?

  Son of a bitch.

  He went farther, but still nothing looked familiar. With a curse he returned to the pillared cave and took one of the other tunnels. He proceeded slowly, straining to remember, feeling his heart starting to beat a little fast. Nothing looked familiar. The dripping rocks, the feathery crystals, the banded, glossy humps—it all looked strange.

  And then he heard a sound. Someone up ahead, humming.

  “Hey!” He broke into a trot, turned a corner, paused at a fork in the passage.

  The humming had stopped.

  Hazen spun around, calling out. “Larssen? Cole?”

  Still no sound.

  “Answer me, goddamn it!”

  He waited. Couldn’t they hear him? He’d heard the sound as clear as a bell; why couldn’t they hear him?

  More humming, high-pitched and farther away, coming out of the left tunnel.

  “Larssen?” He unshouldered his shotgun and walked down the left tunnel. The sound was louder, higher, closer. He moved more cautiously now, his senses on alert, trying to control his heart, which seemed to be pounding way too hard in his chest.

  There was a flash of something at the periphery of his vision and he stopped and spun around. “Hey!”

  He got just the briefest look before it darted away into the blackness. Brief as the glance was, it was enough to leave no doubt at all that it wasn’t one of his team.

  And it sure as hell wasn’t McFelty.

  Sixty-Four

  Chester Raskovich turned a corner and stopped, the grotesque sight before him arresting his headlong flight. He stared, his mind reeling. Crouching in front of him, blocking his path, was a ragged, wispy-haired figure, staring up at him with hollow eyes, mouth yawning open as if to bite, teeth drawn back.

  Raskovich leaned back with a neigh of terror, wanting to run and yet unable to do so, waiting for the thing to leap up and pounce on him. It was like a nightmare: his feet frozen to the ground, paralyzed, unable to flee.

  He gulped in air—again, and then again—and, gradually, paralysis and fright ebbed and reason began to return. He leaned closer. It was nothing more than the mummified body of an Indian, sitting on the floor, bony knees drawn up, mouth open, shriveled lips drawn back from an enormous row of brown teeth. Placed around him was a semicircle of pots, each with a stone arrowhead in it. The mummy was wrapped in stringy rags that at one time might have been buckskin.

  He looked away, swallowed, looked back again, and let his breathing slow to a semblance of normality. What he was looking at was a prehistoric Indian burial. He could see the remains of beaded moccasins on the twisted feet, next to a painted parfleche and some tattered feathers.

  “Fuck,” said Raskovich out loud, ashamed at his panic, just now realizing what he’d done. He’d blown it. His first job as a real cop and he’d lost it completely, right in front of Sheriff Hazen. Running like a rabbit. And now here he was, lost in a cave, with a killer
on the loose, and no idea which way to go. He felt a wave of shame and despair: he should’ve stayed at KSU, keeping kids off the water tower and giving out parking tickets.

  Suddenly, he lashed out in rage and frustration, aiming a savage kick at the mummy. His foot connected with a hollowthock and the top of the head exploded in a ball of brown dust. A boiling stream of white insects came skittering out—they looked like albino roaches—and the mummy toppled sideways, the jaw coming loose and rolling a few turns across the ground before coming to a halt among broken pieces of skull. An ivory snake, hidden beneath the rags, uncoiled with a flash and shot off into the darkness like a thin ghost.

  “Oh,shit! ” Raskovich shouted, skipping back. “Goddamn it!”

  He stood there, breathing hard, hearing the sound of air rattling in his throat. He had no idea where he was, how far he had run, where he should go.

  Think.

  He looked around, shining his infrared lamp around the damp surfaces of rock. He had been running through a narrow, tall crack with a sandy floor. The crack was so high he could not even make out the top. He could see his own footprints in the sand. He listened: no sound, not even water.

  Retrace your steps.

  Giving one last glance at the now-desecrated burial, Raskovich turned and walked back along the crack, keeping his eyes on the ground. Now he noticed what had been ignored in his headlong flight: almost every niche and shelf on both sides of the crack was piled with bones and other objects: painted pots, quivers full of arrows, hollow skulls rustling with cave life. It was a mausoleum, an Indian catacomb.

  He shivered.

  To his relief, he soon left the burials behind. The crack widened and the ceiling came down, and he could make out cruel-looking stalactites overhead. The sandy bottom gave way to shallow terraces of water, layered in strange accretions like rice paddies. As the sand fell behind, so did the trace of his footsteps.

  Ahead were two openings, one tall and partly blocked with fallen limestone blocks, the other open. Which way now?

  Think, asshole. Remember.

  But for the life of him Raskovich could not remember which way he had come.