Blood Wedding

After a while he started to wonder if there was any opening at all. Or what if it was above his head? This room of the cave was huge. It was more than a room; it was a cavern, and the ceiling was quite high. There was plenty of room on the high walls above him for an exit that he could easily miss. He told himself not to worry. If they didn’t find anything, they could always go back the way they’d come. It would be difficult, but they knew it could be done. If they could locate the tunnel again.

Fargo was tired, and he was thirsty. The throbbing in his head had settled down to a steady ache, which was some improvement, but not much. He remembered a time when he’d been trapped underground in a mine in Virginia City. He’d gotten out of there, and he’d get out of the cave. No matter how bad things seemed, there was always a way.

He was still telling himself that when he heard a surprised scream from Molly.

The scream lasted for only a couple of seconds, and then it was abruptly cut off by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

Fargo didn’t move. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but he guessed that Molly had somehow fallen. She hadn’t fallen far, but Fargo had no way of knowing how badly she might have been hurt.

“Molly,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

There was no answer, and Fargo started moving back the way he had come, careful to keep a hand on the wall all the time. He moved faster than he should have, and he stumbled a couple of times, once almost falling himself. It wouldn’t do to have both of them unconscious, so he slowed down and tried to be more careful.

When he came to the tunnel they had entered from, he slowed down even more. He didn’t want to fall into the same hole that Molly had. He went on for a couple of yards and then stopped. The silence in the cavern was almost overwhelming. It seemed to close in around him and press on him like the darkness.

He called Molly’s name again. This time she answered.

“I’m all right, Fargo. Just had the wind knocked out of me.”

“Where are you?”

“How the hell should I know? I was moving along, and all of a sudden there wasn’t anything under my feet. So I fell and landed wherever it is that I am. The ground is different here, I can tell you that much. It’s sandy.”

That explained why she hadn’t been hurt any worse than she had. Fargo said, “I’m going to see if I can get to you. Wait for me.”

“Just where is it you think I’d go? Off to the nearest saloon for a drink?”

Fargo ignored that and moved very slowly in her direction, putting out his foot and feeling for the floor before every step. When he came to a spot where there was nothing under his leading foot but air, he stopped. He seemed to be standing on the verge of some kind of ledge, and he took a few seconds to consider what he could do next.

“Are you still down there?” he said after he’d thought things over.

“That’s right. I haven’t found the saloon yet.”

“Have you looked for a way back up?”

“Looked? Has that bump on your head made you loco, Fargo? I couldn’t look if I wanted to. No, that’s not right. I can look all I want to, but I can’t see a damn thing. Not unless you want to light a lantern for me.”

Molly was getting a little touchy, not that Fargo blamed her.

“I meant had you tried to feel for a way back up.”

“Yeah, I tried that. But there’s no handhold that I can find. The wall is too slick. You can either come down here or go back to Murray. Or keep looking for a way out.”

Fargo thought it over. He wasn’t going back to Murray, and he wasn’t going to leave Molly alone down there below, so it wasn’t as if he really had a choice.

“I’m coming down,” he said. “Move away from the wall.”

“You be careful. I don’t want you breaking a leg. I’m big, but not big enough to carry you out of this place.”

Fargo planned to be careful. He sat down and scooted forward until his legs were dangling over the ledge.

“How far down is it?” he asked.

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Molly said. “Not far, I guess, or I’d be a lot more addled than I am.”

“Here I come, then.”

Fargo pushed himself to the lip of the ledge and went sliding over. He’d done a lot of scary things in his time, but launching himself into pitch-black dark to fall who knew how far had to be one of the worst.

His feet hit the ground before he expected them to and sent a jolt all the way up his body. It nearly blew the top of his head off, but he didn’t have time to think about that as he tumbled forward. He stuck out his hands to catch himself and somersaulted onto his back. When he landed, he put both hands on top of his head as if to hold it on. Then he lay still for a couple of seconds.

“You all right, Fargo?” Molly asked.

“I’d say that depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’ I’m alive, anyway.”

“You might be better off dead. This is a hell of a place.”

Fargo recalled his earlier notion about being in hell. “It’s not hot enough,” he said. “And if we were in hell, there’d at least be some light.”