Ronnie’s heart began to tap-dance inside his chest. He knew, too, that his mouth was open as wide as it would go and that he couldn’t do a thing to close it.
Caldwell stepped inside, holding the gun loosely in his hand. He brought a flashlight from his pocket.
“Take your light out of my eyes!” Caldwell commanded Bill.
“Y—yes, sir,” Bill managed to say. The light clicked off. Caldwell’s took its place. It was focused, not on the boys, but on the pile of crates left in the middle of the room.
“Now wasn’t that nice of you boys to find this stuff for me and to lug it up, too. Of course you had a slight advantage over me, in that you had the book longer than me. But I figured it out, too—and just in time, it appears.”
Ronnie was looking at a different Caldwell now as the man stood framed in the light from the rear trap door. This wasn’t the Caldwell he had known during the past days. This was a cool, deliberate, scheming Caldwell. This was the man he had tangled with on the path earlier in the day.
Caldwell backed around toward the crates, keeping thegun and light trained on the boys. With the gun in his right hand, and the flashlight tucked under his left arm, he threw back the cover to the metal box.
“Well, now,” he said, “this is just what I need! This will cover my traveling expenses very nicely—with plenty left over besides.” He picked up the bills and pushed them into his pocket, and then came back to scoop up the coins. “You boys have been very helpful. Very helpful. And since you’ve gone to all the trouble of carting this heavy stuff upstairs for me, I might as well take it along, too. There’s always some sucker antique dealer along the road who will give me a few bucks for it.”
Bill took a step forward, but stopped when Caldwell’s gun came up. “You sure have had us fooled, Mr. Caldwell,” Bill said. “And we sure were fools to have trusted you.”
“Yea, sure, kid.” Caldwell seemed a little puzzled by what Bill had said. “Well, enough of this. It’ll take me an hour to get loaded and hit the road.” He swung the light around, searching for something. It stopped when he found the open trap door leading down to the culvert.
“O.K., you kids,” he ordered. “Supposing you climb back down into the cellar.”
Ronnie’s eyes widened as he gathered the full intent of the order. “You—you’re not going to lock us up down there?” he gasped.
“I sure am, kid. You don’t think I’m going to turn you loose so you can bring the whole neighborhood after me, do you? I need plenty of time to get this stuff out of here and to hit the road. Now get moving—all of you.”
Ronnie stood his ground. “I won’t go,” he said stubbornly.“Why, we’d never get out of there. Nobody would ever find us,” he added.
“Well, now, isn’t that too bad!” Caldwell sneered. “Now move before I push you down—if that’s the way you want it.”
“We’d better go,” Bill said.
They filed dejectedly toward the opening in the floor. Bill went first and Ronnie followed. Before taking his turn, Phil turned to Caldwell. “How about paying us for bringing the stuff up anyway, huh?” he asked.
“Don’t get funny, kid.”
“My name’s Phil—or don’t you remember?”
“Look, kid, I don’t care one hoot what your name is. Now shake it up before I help you.”
When Phil’s head was below the level of the floor, Caldwell dropped the trap door into place. Ronnie and Bill stood together below the opening watching Phil descend, Bill holding the light for Phil to see by. Above, they heard Caldwell driving several nails into the trap door. Each blow echoed down the long lengths of the tunnel with a hollow boom. Then suddenly it was silent again, a deep silence that told them how far away from escape they really were.
Ronnie shivered. Behind him he heard the steady, rhythmic dripping of water against the culvert floor. He thought he heard Bill’s heart beating too. Or was it his own?
“Anybody got a deck of cards?” Phil asked suddenly and Bill and Ronnie laughed. For the first time in his life Ronnie appreciated his brother’s wisecracking.
They decided then that the first thing they should do was to explore the entire culvert in hopes that there might be some other way out beside the trap door. Before they left,however, Ronnie climbed to test the strength of the trap door, hoping that perhaps Caldwell’s nails had not been well placed. It was an idle hope. The trap door was as solid as the rest of the floor.
Their explorations revealed that one end of the culvert ended in a cave-in. The other end, sloping rapidly, ran to the river and was flooded. “And that water’s rising, too,” Bill said to Ronnie as they made their way back. “All this rain is flooding the river. And the higher the river gets, the higher the water backs up in here.”
Ronnie was almost afraid to ask the question that had come to his mind. “Do you suppose—could the whole culvert get flooded?”
Bill took Ronnie and Phil over to the wall and showed them several lines of dried slime which had impregnated the brick. “Each one of those lines,” he told them, “I’d guess was a water level mark. That means the water has risen pretty high. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that the water has never reached to the top of the archway—notyetanyway.”
“How come you know that?” Phil asked.
“Because if it had, Caldwell wouldn’t be walking off with that roll of money. It would have fallen apart.”
“I wish itwasfalling apart,” Phil grumbled.
They reached that section of the culvert below the building. Here they selected a drier area of floor and sat down with their backs against the wall. Bill turned off the flashlight to save the batteries. “O.K.,” he said to the others. “So here we are—trapped. The only way of escape is nailed shut. The water’s rising. How far we don’t know yet. Now, what do we do?”
Phil’s voice came out of the blackness. “Just go to sleep and wait until somebody finds us.”
“You’ll sleep until doomsday,” Ronnie told his brother. “Because nobody’s ever going to find us here. Except for us, the only one who knows about this—this dungeon is Mr. Caldwell and it doesn’t look as if he’s going to tell anyone.”
“That’s right, Ronnie,” Bill agreed. “And with the padlock still on the door, who’s going to think of looking inside?”
“And nobody’ll hear us shouting unless theydocome inside,” Phil added. “I—Yipes!”
“What’s the matter?” Bill demanded and switched on his flashlight. He picked Phil out of the darkness. Phil was rubbing at the back of his neck.
“A—a drop of cold water went down my back.”
“Isthatall?” Bill grumbled disgustedly. “Well for pity’s sake, put up your raincoat collar so you don’t scare me like that again. And don’t yell out again unless it’s something serious.”
“That’s serious. I could catch pneumonia—or something.”
“Cut it out, Phil,” Ronnie protested. “We’ve got tothink. Can’t you get it through your thick skull that we’re in serious trouble?”
“Sure I can. I just want to die smiling. I think Jacob’s skeleton was smiling.”
Ronnie was tired of Phil’s chatter, and he was tired of staring into the blackness and seeing nothing, too. So he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the hard, uneven brick. He wanted to think. But he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was all alone, a thousand miles down in the bowels of the earth. He put his hand out andfound Bill’s shoulder and left it there because he felt some comfort in knowing that his friend was so close. Bill shifted his position closer to Ronnie. “Keep your chin up, Ronnie,” he heard Bill whisper. “I’ve got an idea. It might just work.”
Bill leaned over closer to Ronnie so his mouth was only a few inches from his friend’s ear. “Here’s the pitch,” he said. “Remember the first end of the culvert we visited—not the one by the river?”
Ronnie nodded. “Yea,” he said, remembering Bill couldn’t see him.
“And remember how it was all cave-in, just a big mess of broken brick and dirt that had fallen in with it?”
“Yea,” Ronnie said again.
“Well, when I was flashing the light about, I noticed one place big enough to crawl up into. It looked as if it went quite a way toward the surface. Now, I was thinking maybe we could dig through to the surface from there.”
“Hey, Bill, that’s a cool idea! Let’s try it! But what’ll we dig with?”
“I can jab away with my penknife. The dirt’ll keep falling down into the culvert.”
“Let’s go!” Ronnie exclaimed. He was tired of sitting. He wanted to do something to help them escape—anything.
Bill turned on his light. Phil was stretched out on the floor with his eyes closed. “Come on,” Ronnie nudged him. “We’ve got things to do.”
Bill explained his plan to Phil as they moved down the culvert. Phil agreed that it was worth the try.
They reached the end of the culvert. Bill played the beam of his flashlight about among the giant slabs of concrete and brick that had tumbled to the floor of theculvert. Inky black crevices ran upward between the pieces of rubble, and as Bill moved the flashlight about looking for the crevice he had in mind, the jutting ends of the masonry cast weird shadows upon the walls and floor.
“There it is!” Bill said suddenly, holding his light steady. “That’s the one. See how far up it goes?”
Ronnie saw a twisting passage, which gradually grew smaller toward the top. Halfway up, a giant slab almost sealed the crevice into two parts, but Ronnie judged that there would possibly be room for Bill to squeeze past.
Bill removed his raingear and handed Ronnie the flashlight. “Keep the light where I need it,” he instructed. Then he boosted himself into the opening and began to worm his way upward. Protruding edges of brick and mortar gave him support for his feet or a hold for his hands. Soon Ronnie saw him enter the narrow aperture.
Bill continued to edge forward, forcing his shoulders and arms between the two giant slabs. Then he stopped and began to struggle. Ronnie could see that he was wedged tightly between the two slabs.
“H—help! I—I’m caught,” Ronnie heard Bill’s muffled voice.
Ronnie slipped out of his raincoat and boots and handed the light to Phil. Then he grasped the ledge of the lowest block of masonry and pulled himself up into the mouth of the crevice. From here he worked his way upward until his outstretched hands found Bill’s shoes. He took a firm grip about his friend’s ankles—and pulled. Bill’s body did not budge. Ronnie might just as well have tried to move the rubble.
“It’s no use, Ronnie,” Bill said in a whimper.
“Keep your chin up, pal,” Ronnie answered. “I’ll think of a way. Just don’t struggle or you’ll swell up and then it’ll be even harder to get you free.”
Ronnie lay back against the cold stone and tried to catch his breath—andthink. Hehadto find a way to free Bill. With help so far away it was up to him to save his friend.
A section of brick was jabbing into his back just under the shoulder blades. He shifted his position to ease the discomfort. His shoulders rubbed against a section of smooth, slimy moss—and an idea came to him. He’d read stories of how the bodies of trapped men had been greased, and then had slipped out quite easily. The nearest grease bucket was in the barn, but wouldn’t wet slime do just as well?
He twisted his body about so he could call down to Phil. “Get me a good, big handful of that slime down at the other end of the culvert. And hurry.”
Phil nodded that he understood. He turned quickly and started for the river end of the culvert, leaving Ronnie in the pitch-black. Ronnie lay back against the rock and rested. Above him he heard Bill’s forced breathing and an occasional groan. He heard the gentle dripping of water, too, and felt something crawling down the back of his shirt.
It seemed an eternity before Phil returned with both hands loaded with slime, the flashlight tucked under his arm.
Ronnie had to come down a way before the slime could be transferred to his own hands. And now he’d have to work his way up again to where Bill was caught, and he’d have to do it without the use of his hands. It wasn’t going to be easy. With both hands cupping the precious stuff, he had no way of holding on.
He managed it, however, using only his feet and elbows. Now his head was alongside Bill’s knees and he could reach up and force the slime between the rubble and his friend’s shoulders. Bill understood what Ronnie was attempting to do, for he worked his body about to spread the application. Inch by inch Bill squirmed his way backward—and suddenly he was free.
Then something happened thatRonniehadn’t foreseen. Bill’s shoulders came free so unexpectedly that before either Bill or Ronnie could check the momentum, Bill had lost his balance. His body slipped backward, struck the side of a concrete slab and landed on the culvert floor with one leg doubled under him.
Phil was already kneeling beside Bill’s body by the time Ronnie had climbed down. The light from the flashlight was on Bill’s face. “My leg. Oh, Ronnie, my leg!” Bill groaned and grimaced from the pain. Sweat broke out on his forehead in large drops. His lips were purple-blue and his face was as white as the sweat shirt he was wearing.
“Ronnie,” Bill whispered, “Ronnie,please. Do something for me. Please,dosomething.”