The passage was about as wide as a hallway, and I stepped off at a lopsided jog, turning the corner at the end of the thoroughfare just in time to see his torch in the distance. I went around an abutment and found myself in a spacious passage with a smooth floor made out of compacted dirt.

I looked to the right and could see that the path was at least as large as the one I’d just been in, whereas the one to my left was narrow. Picking the one of least resistance, I headed right, figuring that if I didn’t see Enic in a straightaway or hit a turn pretty quick, he must’ve gone to the left.

I continued on, even though I was aware that my shoulders were scraping both walls. I was pleased to see another opening ahead and figured that he must be in there, but he wasn’t. The chamber was the size of a one-stall garage with a couple of other tunnels leading in opposite directions but nothing that looked, on closer inspection, promising.

With just a little panic setting in, I retraced my steps back into the original tunnel and struck out back to the area where I’d been. Looking up at the rock ceiling and having faith that it was sturdy, and still hoping that Enic was on the level and that it was only his familiarity with the cave that had caused him to accidentally escape me, I started allowing my thoughts to grow dark. What if he’d turned the corner and then doused his torch, leaving me, well, in the dark?

There was another opening to my right, this one even bigger than the first, but it separated into two tunnels also angling off in opposite directions. I chose the larger one and switched the torch to my left hand so that I could hold my .45—better safe than sorry.

Setting off, I suddenly felt my boots splashing in water and held the torch so that I could see the shiny surface and the image of myself looking back up at me.

Great.

With retreat being my only other recourse, I started wading forward, figuring that if the water got thigh deep, I was turning back, no matter what.

There was a series of bulb sockets overhead in this passage, strung together with old, cloth-insulated wiring, which led me to believe that the place had been electrified back in the dirty thirties or possibly the forties. “Too bad there aren’t any bulbs or a switch.”

I continued to study the ceiling and as I did could see that my torch was making black marks on the roof of the cave. Stunned that I hadn’t thought of it before, I stood there looking at marks on the rock when I noticed that some were darker. This one time in the cave I was thankful for my size; I reached up and rubbed a finger on the ceiling and withdrew with a completely fresh, black fingertip.

Sighing a breath of relief and trusting my black smudge technique to at least show me where the most recent occupants of the cave had passed, I waded ahead, ignoring the other passageways.

To my right was what I was pretty sure was a handmade ladder. As I got closer, I could see that the thing was constructed of lodgepole pine, and I was just as glad not to have been responsible for carrying those into the narrow passageways.

I ran a finger over the rung closest to my face and noticed it was wet; Enic, or somebody, had climbed this way.

The treads were roped on, and the rails of the thing shot up through a break in the rocks above. I slipped my sidearm back into its holster and decided to climb. Placing my boot, dripping with water, on the first rung, I shifted my weight and listened to the loud crack as it spilt in two.

I stood there in the semidark muttering, which had no effect on the broken step whatsoever. Lifting my leg a little higher, I rested my boot on the next rung, this time gently applying my weight until the majority was on the ladder.

Sighing, I lifted myself up, holding the torch in my right hand a little away from the ropes so that I wouldn’t set them on fire.

The rung held, and I listened to the wood squeal as I placed my other boot on the next and slowly climbed up with my hip still aching. There was a trapdoor with hinges and a handle at the top of the ladder. From the distance I’d climbed, I calculated that I must be pretty close to the surface.

I thought about pulling my sidearm again, but I was sure that if I made some sort of dramatic entrance, the ladder was likely to buckle and dump me, the torch, and my .45 back in the cave.

Carefully taking the handle, I raised the trapdoor an inch or two so that I could see the interior of what looked to be an old lineman’s shack, a small, rough-cut, wooden structure. The portion I could see had an empty bunk against a wall, a closed door, and Enic Lone Elk sitting in a chair in my slicker, a single-barrel shotgun pointed at the opening. “Hi, Sheriff.”

“Mind if I climb the rest of the way out?”

“You better—I’m not sure if that ladder will hold you for too much longer.”

Lifting the hatch the rest of the way with my right hand, I climbed out and sat on the floor with the torch still in my left, and commented on the small potbellied stove crackling with a few burning logs. “You had time to make a fire?”

He kept the shotgun on me. “Took you a while.”

“There were moments when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it at all.”

He nodded. “Lot of caves down there—we cleared a bunch, but there are a bunch more.” He gestured with the single barrel. “Stuff that torch in the fire there.”

I did as he said and watched as the flames leapt a little at the introduction of the extra fuel. “You and Danny?”

“We were redoing the floor in this place and found the trap. Pulled it up and discovered the cave down below. Figure they must’ve used it to get away or store stuff.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know—found empty bottles of hooch from the twenties, so it might’ve been used by bootleggers, and who knows before that—maybe Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for all I know.” He gestured with the shotgun again. “Wanna close that thing? Causes a draft.”

I closed the door in the floor and reached out to warm my hands near the fire, noticing a pot of coffee on the stove and a few tin cups. “You know, if I hadn’t found my way up here, you’d have had a lot of explaining to do.”

“You would’ve just disappeared; people disappear in this country.”

“Like Jennifer Watt?” He said nothing, and I poured myself a cup of coffee and set the pot back on the stove under his careful eye. “And Taylor.” I studied him. “What’s going on, Enic?”

He unsnapped a few of the clasps on my slicker and pulled a drenched hat from his head, ignoring bad luck and throwing it on the bunk. “You’re a smart fella—you tell me.”

I sipped the coffee, and it tasted wonderful. “I was just about convincing myself that you didn’t have anything to do with the death of your brother.”

“I didn’t.”

I gestured with the cup toward the shotgun. “Then why is one of us having this conversation at gunpoint?”

“Just slowing you down so that the young ones can get away.” He didn’t move, but his eyes drifted from me toward the fire. “Danny was hard on Randy, and now Randy’s hard on that boy. So, I’m putting a stop to it.”

“Danny was hard on Randy?”

The older man nodded. “Danny was drinking and worked Randy like a mule but it made him tough, made him capable. Randy’s been tough on Taylor, but all it’s done is wear the boy down. I knew both Eva and Randy wouldn’t want that boy running off with a white girl, so I took a hand.”

I nodded. “Where are they headed?”

“None of your business.”

“Actually, it is my business. Someone murdered your brother.”

“They didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Then who did?”

He didn’t answer—just sat there with the shotgun pointed at me. I noticed the hammer wasn’t pulled back. “Enic, I’m having a hard time believing that you would shoot me.”

“Don’t want to, but I need you to stay put for a while.”