“Easy, Carrie.”  Dan climbed to her side and joined her atop the pile.  “The last thing we need is for you to slip and sprain an ankle.  I have no idea how I’d get you back down.”

“Help me,” Carrie said, breathless with excitement.  “She’s just a few feet away.  We’re almost there!  I can feel it!”

Dan joined her in dislodging the uppermost rocks and letting them roll to the base.  The first were on the small side, cantaloupe sized and easy to move.  But they quickly graduated to watermelons.

Carrie groaned as she strained against one of the larger stones.  “I can’t budge this.  Give me a hand, will you?”

Dan got a grip on the edge of the rock and put his back into it and together they got it overbalanced to the point where it tumbled down the pile.

Dan saw even bigger stones below.

“We’re going to need help,” he said, panting and straightening up.  The sun was still actively baking the top of the tav rock and he was drenched.  “A lever of some sort.  We’ll never move those lower rocks by ourselves.  Maybe I can find a tree limb or something we can use to—”

“We’ve got to get in!”  Tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she looked up at him.  “We can’t stop now.  Not when we’re this close.  We can’t let a bunch of lousy rocks keep us out when we’re so close!”

With the last word she kicked at one of the larger stones directly below her—and cried out in alarm as it gave way beneath her.  Dan grabbed her outflung hand and almost lost his own footing as the entire pile shuddered and settled under them with a rumble and a gush of dust.

“You all right?” Dan said, pulling her closer.

She coughed.  “I think so.  What happened?”

“I’m not sure.”  The dust was settling, layering their skin, mixing with their sweat.  Even with mud on her face Carrie was beautiful.  Over her shoulder, down by Carrie’s feet, Dan saw a dark crescent in the mountain wall.  “Oh, Jesus.”

Carrie turned and gasped.  “The cave!”

Maybe, Dan thought.  Maybe not.  The only sure thing about it is it’s a hole in the wall.

But he knew it was the upper rim of a cave mouth.  Had to be.  Everything else in this elaborate scam had followed true to the forged scroll.  Why not the cave too?

But what sort of ugly surprise waited within?

Before he could stop her, Carrie had dropped prone and pushed her face into the opening.

“We left the flashlights in the car,” she was saying.  “And I can’t see a thing.”

Quickly he pulled her back.  “Are you nuts?”

“What’s the matter?”

“You don’t know what’s in there.”

“What could be in there?”

“How about snakes or scorpions?  Or how about bats?  It’s a cave, you know.”

“I know that, but—”

“But nothing.”  He pulled her to her feet.  “You keep your nose out of there while I go get the flashlights.”

“All right,” she said reluctantly as she allowed him to guide her down to the bottom of the pile.  “Can’t see anything anyway.”

“Precisely.  So you just wait here while I go back to the Explorer.”

“Okay, but hurry.”  She squeezed his hand.  “Don’t hurry so much you fall, but hurry.”

Dan made the round trip as quickly as he could, hugging the cliff wall all the way, concentrating on the path and not looking down.  He did spot another cave in the far wall of the canyon—probably where the fictional author of the scrolls supposedly had lived.  He reminded himself to check it out before they left.

The sun had continued its slide and the shadow of the canyon’s western wall had crawled three-quarters of the way up the tav by the time he returned to the top with the two flashlights.

He stood there a moment, panting, sweating from the climb, before he realized he was alone on the plateau.

“Carrie?”  He dashed toward the rock pile, shouting as he ran.  “Carrie!”

“What?”

Her head popped up atop the rock pile, smiling at him, and as he clambered up the boulders he saw her lying on her belly with her legs and pelvis inside the opening.  She looked like someone half-swallowed by a stony mouth.

“My God, Carrie, couldn’t you wait?  Get out of there!”

“I’m fine.”  She reached a hand out to him.  “Flashlight please.”

“I’ll go first.”

“No way.  You didn’t even want to come.”

Dan was tempted to withhold the flashlight, make her climb out of there and let him shine a beam around inside before she crawled in.  But the excitement, the child-like eagerness in her eyes weakened him.  And after all, this was her show.

He flicked one on to make sure it worked, then slapped the handle into her waiting palm.

“Be careful.  And wait right there.  Don’t go anywhere without me.”

“Okay.”

Another smile, so confident looking, but Dan noticed the flashlight shaking in her hand.  She pushed herself backward and slipped the rest of the way inside.

A chill of foreboding ran through him as he saw her disappear into that hole, swallowed by the darkness.  God knew what could be in there.

“Carrie?  You there?  You okay?”

Her face floated back into the light.  “Of course I’m okay.  Kind of cool in here, and dusty, and it looks...empty.”

I could have told you that, Dan thought, but kept it to himself.  He’d give anything to make this right for her, but that was impossible.  So the least he could do was be there when the hurt hit.

“Stand back a little.  I’m coming in.”

Dan slid down onto his back and entered the opening feet first.  A tight squeeze but he managed to wriggle through with only a few minor scrapes and scratches.

Carrie stood a few feet away, her back to him, playing her flashlight beam along the walls.

“You’re right,” he said, coughing as he brushed himself off.  “A lot cooler in here.  Almost cold.”

Quickly he flashed his own beam around.  Not a cave so much as a rocky alcove, maybe a dozen feet deep and fifteen wide, with rough, pocked walls.  And no doubt about its being empty.  Not even a spider.  Just dust—dry, powdered rock—layering the floor.  Only Carrie’s footprints and his own marred the silky surface.

What do I say? he wondered.  Do I say anything—or let Carrie say it first?

As he stepped toward her, Carrie suddenly moved away to the left.

“Look.  I think there’s a tunnel here.”

Dan caught up to her, joined his flash beam to hers, and realized that what he had thought to be a pocket recess near the floor of the cave was actually an opening into another chamber.

Carrie dropped to her hands and knees and shone her light through.

“See anything?” Dan said, hovering over her.

“Looks like more of the same.  Tunnel’s only a couple of feet long.  I’m going in for a look.”

Dan squatted behind her and gently patted her buttocks.  “Right behind you.”

Carrie began to crawl, then stopped, freezing like a deer who’s heard a twig break, then quickly scrambled the rest of the way through.

“Oh, Dan,” he heard her say in a hoarse, quavering  voice just above a whisper.  “Oh-Dan-oh-Dan-oh-Dan-oh-Dan!”

He belly-crawled through as fast as his elbows and knees could propel him and bumped his head on the ceiling as he regained his feet on the other side.

But he instantly forgot the pain when he saw what lay in the wavering beam of Carrie’s flashlight.

A woman.

An elderly woman lying supine in an oblong niche in the wall of the chamber.

“It’s...” Carrie’s voice choked off and she cleared her throat.  “It’s her, Dan.  It’s really her.”

“Well, it’s somebody.”

A jumble of emotions tumbled through Dan.  He was numb, he was exhausted, and he was angry.  He’d been preparing himself to comfort Carrie when she discovered she’d been played for a fool.  Entering the cave was supposed to be the last step in this trek.  Now he had one more thing to explain.

The scroll, the careful and clever descriptions of this area of the Wilderness were one thing, but this was going too far.  This was...ghoulish was the most appropriate word that came to mind.