Over the Edge (32 page)

“Get up.” Jasper’s toe prodded harder, but Callie had been kicked by a mama longhorn a few times and this didn’t even get her attention.

She did cry louder, though. “I c-can’t. I hurt my . . .” She tried to think of something a weakling might complain about. Honestly she didn’t know any weaklings. The West tended to kill them off or drive them back East. “I hurt my ankle. I think it’s broken.”

“Untie her.” Bracing herself for the kick to come harder, she didn’t expect the woman to speak. She’d only slipped and spoken once up until now.

“Quiet,” Jasper said.

“No, I won’t be quiet.”

Callie wanted to get a look at the woman for the purpose of identifying her to the nearest lawman, but for now she lay facedown trying to act defeated.

“Untie her right now. There’s no reason to have her hands bound down here. She can’t find her way out if she runs away from the light. She’s not going anywhere.”

Much as Callie appreciated the compassion, the woman was dead wrong. The first chance she got, Callie was definitely going somewhere. She’d run off into the dark. Find a place to hide and wait until the coast was clear. Yet she wasn’t about to overload the woman with all that truth.

“M-m-my hands are numb. I can’t f-feel my fingers. And I can’t w-walk.” The crying was real annoying and a little humiliating. But Callie knew a softhearted criminal when she was in the presence of one—even though, truth be told, she’d never been in the presence of one before, nor believed such a critter existed—so she wept some more.

“She’s not hurt. She fell against a stone and now she’s acting like—”

“Untie her or I will.”

Jasper grumbled as he crouched beside Callie and rolled her over. She felt the cold edge of a blade. With a couple of tugs her hands were free. He yanked the blindfold away, too. “No sense worrying about her identifying us, I guess.”

Turned out her hands really were numb. She’d have grabbed the knife out of her boot if her fingers worked.

Before she could begin to make them obey her, Jasper hauled her to her feet. Her ankle really was sore. Not something that would slow her down much, but the cry of pain was easy enough to come by.

She collapsed and only his iron grip kept her upright. And that grip hurt, so she cried out again.

“Jasper, let her down.” The woman was beautiful in a faded way. Kindness and strength shone from her eyes. “Get the lantern over here. I’ll take a look at her ankle.”

“Thank you.” Callie sniffled as she sank to the floor and offered the ankle that
didn’t
hurt, since there wasn’t a knife in that boot.

She pulled her knee up close to her chin. The man stood over her with the lantern. The woman knelt at her feet. Callie tried to think of something that’d distract them and at that instant she remembered something else really important. She knew exactly where the diamonds were.

She could just hand them over and hope these folks would leave. But Callie wasn’t real trusting of kidnappers. Instead, she moved her hand closer to her knife.

Rafe loved it when Julia was happy, and right now she was ecstatic. She’d gotten her first contract for an article, and cash money had been included in the letter they’d fetched home from town. Rafe had agreed to ride in with her, knowing he had a few hours before his brothers showed up with the cattle.

He heard pounding hoofbeats, not what he expected. There was no herd, just one man riding alone.

Steele came charging down the slope from the entrance to the caldera with reckless speed. The foreman didn’t push his horse like that without trouble on his heels.

“Seth left a note at the line shack saying Callie’s been kidnapped and taken into the cavern!” shouted Steele as he rode up and swung down off his winded horse. Rafe noticed with shock that the man had Connor strapped on his back. “Ethan went after them, heading into the cavern from there. He wants you to go in through the entrance here.”

Rafe was still on horseback and he turned to Julia. “We’ve gotta go.”

Then Rafe had a vision of bad men getting past him in that cavern and threatening Julia. “Nope, not we. Just me. Steele, you stay here and stay on guard.”

Julia was busy getting Connor into her own hands.

Rafe took off at a full gallop for the cavern entrance. Just minutes later he was running into the cave mouth with a lit torch in his hand, down into that awful hole that had tried to swallow Seth alive.

Swept back by the river of fire into the past, Seth beat at the flames and in doing so must’ve knocked some sense into his head. Getting a tenuous grip on reality, he saw his lit torch on the floor. That was the only fire. No river. No burning stone. Shaking, he thought of Callie. She needed him. He didn’t have time for anything but her.

He separated himself from the madness. He breathed in and it was dank air, no fiery smoke. No burning flesh.

Once he corralled the madness that sometimes overtook him, he had Callie back in the front of his thoughts. A new beat of panic rushed along his spine—but being scared for her was reasonable when some desperado had kidnapped her.

“Find her. Think. Use your head. Stay in control,” he told himself.

He picked up the torch and went to the spot where the tunnel split off. Hunkering down, he studied the floor. Close to the tunnel wall he found a footprint. Not a clear one, but someone had definitely been down this way very recently.

They’d gone straight rather than turn off toward the tunnel that led to Rafe’s caldera. He marked the wall for Ethan and Rafe. Then, even knowing it was dangerous, he kept the torch burning. Speed outweighed caution. As he thought that, he realized it was the kind of reckless choice he’d made a thousand times in his life. The kind of reckless choice that had ended with him falling through a stone floor, burning himself. Upsetting his brothers until they couldn’t love him anymore. Driving his father away. Killing his mother. His eyes went to the torch and it seemed to grow, flow, run like a river.

Fighting down the image, he tore his eyes away from it and hung on when he wanted to hurl it away from him.

“I’m not thinking right because I’m scared for Callie.” Saying her name out loud helped. “I just need to find her.” His words became a prayer. “Find her, and once I know she’s all right, I’ll be fine.”

He clung to the light and hurried down the tunnel. Listening with every bit of strength for any sound, however faint, watching the floor carefully for tracks when a tunnel divided. Marking the walls to show which way he’d turned.

He was confident he was on the right track, but where was she? Who had her? Seth rushed on, his stomach twisting to think maybe that footprint was an old one and he was going the wrong way.

What if she wasn’t even down here?

The fear for her grew.

The torch flared up. It seemed to billow smoke.

Who had her? The fire in his hand crackled so loud he couldn’t hear anything else.

Was she still alive? Fire seemed to crawl toward his arm, and he shook the torch and watched it even as he kept walking.

Would she be lost down here, dragged even deeper than Seth had ever gone? The fear was so strong it was like a wall of fire in front of him that he had to push through. Each step was harder than the last.

He thought of the place he’d fallen through. There was a ledge at the bottom of that hole. He wondered how deep it was. For all his hunting around, he’d never explored what was over that ledge. Thinking of it pushed away the fear for Callie.

Why hadn’t he ever tried to reach the bottom of that hole? Maybe he’d find beautiful things down there. Maybe he’d find the part of himself he’d left behind.

He heard someone call out.

Callie? Shaking his head to dislodge thoughts of that black hole and the wall of fire, he heard it again. It sounded like a child’s voice. His own. But he hadn’t called out and his voice was deep. It was as if the child from so long ago called to him. Or maybe not the child, maybe the part of himself he’d left behind. Maybe today he’d finally find his soul.

He stepped into a large room, lifted the torch high, and saw those stunning pillars of white. The steady quiet drip of water soothed him. The fear receded and the fire was more comfort than threat now. This was where he always wanted to be when things were bad. And now he was here. He found calm and serenity.

His shoulders squared and he breathed in the cool air and listened to the echo of his footsteps and the aloneness of his cavern.

He’d come here, in his head, during the war. He’d done so much scouting and it had taken him to lonely places where he had to lie silently for hours.

And when the tension was too much or the fear started to swallow him whole, and fires seemed to blaze all around him, he’d come—inside his head—down into his cavern. It was the only place in the world that was truly his own.

He’d been able to wait for anything in complete silence and utter stillness if he could just come here.

Seeing a favorite spot to view these towers, he pushed all his terrors away and let the peace of the cavern ease into his bones.

“I hate this stupid cavern.” Ethan slid down the ladder so recklessly he felt like Seth for a second. Then he hit the ledge. Heath was right behind him.

“Be careful here. This ledge is about a foot wide. Follow me; we can’t climb down here.”

Heath came along quickly and was beside Ethan by the time he had a torch lit. He found a second one for Heath, and then Ethan charged for the tunnel, cutting time, trying to close the gap and catch Seth so he wouldn’t have to face the kidnappers alone.

He rushed past the tunnel that led to Rafe’s, but there was no sign of his big brother. Ethan had to be ahead of him, and there was no time to waste waiting. He knew Rafe would come, sure as the sunrise.

“Seth left a trail.” Ethan, with the torch held high, pointed at Seth’s marking, which he could tell was new. “Hurry! We can get to Seth before he catches up to trouble.”

And this time Ethan promised himself, when he caught up with his little brother, they’d fight side by side. Ethan wouldn’t taunt him. Instead he’d be the kind of big brother that helped a kid in danger.

Then a split in the cavern stopped Ethan. “Do you see a marking?”

Heath studied the wall, shaking his head. “Nuthin’.”

Ethan knelt to check the ground. A thin layer of dirt on stone didn’t make a great surface for tracking. If Ethan picked wrong, he’d leave his little brother on his own down in this pit. He’d be failing Seth one more time, only this time it might cost Seth his life.