Excavation

She did not withdraw from him but neither did she respond to his touch. She gazed without blinking toward the darkness, lost in a familiar nightmare. “But Patrick was still alive. As I hid under him, he moaned, too low for others to hear. He begged me to help him. He cried for his mama. But I just hid there, using his body as a shield, his blood soaking through my clothes.” She turned to Sam, her voice catching. “It was warm, safe. Nothin’ could make me move from my hiding place. God forgive me, I forced my ears not to hear Patrick’s moans for help.” A sob escaped her throat.

“Maggie, you were only a child.”

“I could have done something.”

“And you could’ve been killed just as well. What good would that have done Patrick Dugan?”

“I’ll never know,” she said with the heat of self-loathing tears on her cheek. She struggled away from Sam’s arm and turned angry, hurt eyes toward him. “Will I?”

Sam had no answer. “I’m sorry,” he offered feebly.

She wiped brusquely at her face. “Ever since then, the goddamn attacks occur. Years of pills and therapy did nothing. So I stopped them all.” She swallowed hard. “It’s my problem, something I must live with…alone. It’s my burden.”

And your self-imposed punishment for Patrick’s death, Sam thought, but he kept silent. Who was he to judge? Images of his parents’ crumpled forms being yanked like sides of beef from the smashed car while he sat strapped in the backseat, watching it all, tumbled through his mind. Survivor’s guilt. It was a feeling with which he was well acquainted. He still often woke with his bedsheets clinging to his damp skin, cold sweat soaking his body.

Maggie’s next words drew him back to the black cavern. “In the future, Sam, don’t risk yourself for me. Okay?”

“I…I can’t promise that.”

She stared angrily at him, tears brightening her eyes.

“Maggie-?”

They were interrupted by the appearance of Norman. “Sorry, folks, but I must talk to a man about a horse,” the photographer grumbled, hair sticking up in all directions. He crossed over the gold path and headed for a nearby boulder, seemingly oblivious to the tension between the pair.

Sam turned to Maggie, but she would not meet his eyes. She pushed to her feet. “Just…just don’t risk your life…” As she stepped away, Sam heard her mumble something else. The words had been meant only for herself but the cavern acoustics carried the words to him. “I don’t want another death on my hands.”

Leaning forward, ready to follow and console her, Sam paused, then relaxed back down to his seat. There was nothing he could say. He himself had heard all the platitudes before, after his parents had died. Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could do. Accidents happen. No words had helped him then either. But at least Sam had had his Uncle Henry. Having just lost his own wife, Uncle Hank had seemed to sense that some things had to be faced alone, worked out in silence, rather than probed and prodded for an answer. It was this silence more than grief that had bound nephew to uncle, like two raw-edged wounds healing and scarring together.

Sam watched Maggie walk away, shoulders slumped. She had been right. It was her burden. Still, Sam could not suppress the urge to rush over to her, to take her in his arms and protect her.

Before he could act, a shriek drew him around. He flew to his feet, pulling out the dagger. He stepped to where his grandfather’s Winchester leaned against a rock.

Norman came running around the boulder’s edge, zipping up his fly, and glancing in panic behind him.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked as Norman stumbled to his side.

The photographer could not catch his breath for a moment. One arm kept gesturing back at the boulder as he gasped and choked. “B…Behind…”

Ralph drew beside them, bleary from his sudden awakening. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, Gil’s lever-action rifle held in his other hand. “Goddammit, Norman. You scream like a girl.”

Norman ignored Ralph’s jibe, too panicked to care. “I…I thought they were just…just patches of lichen or spots of lighter rock. But something moved out there!”

“Who? What are you talking about?” Sam asked.

Norman shuddered, then finally seemed to collect himself. He waved them all back toward the boulder. By then, Maggie and Denal hovered a few steps away. “I’m not sure.” He led them back, but this time stayed well away from the rock and whatever lurked behind it.

Sam remained at the photographer’s side. The dark stone on the far side of the rock lay in shadows. Streaks of quartz or white gypsum ran in streams up the nearby cavern wall. “I don’t see anything.”

Norman reached a hand back toward the others. “Gimme one of the lights.”

Denal moved up and passed the second flashlight to the photographer. Norman clicked it on; light speared the inky gloom.