Chapter 3

When she opened her eyes again, it was completely dark. "Uh…Vincent?"

No answer. She lay still for a moment, waiting for her head to clear a little. "Vincent?? Vincent!!" She heard echoes of her voice rebounding faintly from the cavern walls, but no familiar soft baritone answered. She sat up slowly, her head pounding. As she put her hand to her aching forehead, she found a trickle of warm wetness. Further searching discovered a large lump and a cut just above the hairline, which was still bleeding slightly.

Unable to see, bleeding, lost, alone….she stopped abruptly. That line of thinking would only lead to panic. Catherine, get a hold on yourself. It’s up to you, girl. Vincent is here somewhere, he must be unconscious, or…No! That’s only going to get you crazy. He’s here, and he’s unconscious. Find him.

She sat up straighter. OK, where are you? The ledge is about six feet wide, so within six feet of you is a way to orient yourself. The rock wall is one way, the drop-off is the other. Then there’s the path ahead, and the path behind, which must be covered with rocks, and where Vincent is…. That thought nearly made her panic again. Vincent! Oh God, be all right, Vincent, please! Tears welled up and began to slide down her cheeks.

She raised herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl very cautiously. "One…two…three.." before she got to four her sliding hand found the edge of the drop-off. Ok, now I know where I am. She felt cautiously to make sure that it was indeed the lip of the ledge. Satisfied, she sat up to think. Her head still throbbed, making her slow to decide what to do next.

If she was facing out toward the cavern, then Vincent must be on her left. Slowly, using caution with every movement in the complete darkness, she turned to her left and began to crawl, feeling with one hand for the edge of the ledge as she went so she wouldn’t get turned off course. Within a few feet she came upon the first of the rocks. She turned to her left again and began to feel along the edge of the rocks. "One…two…three…four… five…six…" The wall! Panic struck. Where was he? He should have been among the rocks! "Vincent! Vincent! Answer me!" She swung around toward the rock slide again. "Please..please…answer me?…" Her voice trailed away into a sob, and she began to cry in earnest, but only for a minute or so. She raised her head then, gulped, and swallowed her tears. I can’t do this, I have to find him, maybe he’s bleeding! Now what else can I do? She sat still for a moment, thinking. I went along the edge of the rocks, maybe he’s farther back toward the rock slide. How can I crawl farther back among the rocks, it’ll kill my knees. ---Oh for Pete’s sake, so what! Sniffing, and wiping her nose on her sleeve, she began the crawl through the rocks.

It took only a moment; she must have missed him by just inches the first time. His clawed fingers were cold, and she scrambled to his head, her heart in her mouth. He was lying on his back. She bent over to listen for his breathing, but her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t hear. She felt then for the artery in his neck, and when she felt the slow steady beat she began to cry again, but she didn’t stop moving. While the tears slid down her face, she began to lift rocks off him and toss them over her shoulder. There were none so big she couldn’t lift them, and soon she had his body cleared to his knees. There she came upon what felt like a timber, lying over his shins. She found it impossible to budge, however much she strained, so she turned her attention back to Vincent.

He didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere, but he also had a lump on his head, which she hoped accounted for his unconsciousness. She was most worried about shock, since he seemed so cold. She unslung her pack, still on her back, and got out the bedrolls. She spread one over him, but she was afraid to move him enough to get the other one under him. Instead, she moved more rocks to make a place beside him, and put it down next to him. She lay down beside him, snuggling close to him to share her body heat, and pulling the edge of the bedroll over her.

As soon as she was settled quietly, her body’s activity was replaced by racing thoughts. Have I done everything I can? Should I have tried to put a blanket under him, or tried to wake him, or… what else? Is he going to be all right? Oh God, is he going to wake up? Is he ever going to wake up? Vincent… oh Vincent, oh my love…. Tears started then, and she cried with grief and fear until exhaustion claimed her and she finally sobbed herself to sleep.

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Vincent woke her. "Catherine? What…." She opened her eyes to find his face very close to hers, and her body pressed against his for its whole length down to her knees, which were uncomfortably bent. She was utterly confused for a moment, and from the look on his face, so was Vincent.

As the past few hours came back to her, she realized that she could see him. Looking up, she saw daylight streaming in from an opening far above, the sunlight glowing on the heaped up stones of the cavern floor. Even the shadowed ledge on which they lay had plenty of reflected light for her to see Vincent’s face plainly.

"Oh! Daylight, that’s wonderful!" she exclaimed. Then she turned back to him. "Are you all right, Vincent? Are you hurt anywhere? Bleeding anywhere? I couldn’t tell in the dark. All I could do was get the rocks off of you." As she spoke she moved away from him and sat up.

He raised himself on his elbow and looked around them. "I remember…there was a rock slide. I did get you out of the way of it, didn’t I? You have blood on your face, Catherine. Are you badly hurt?"

"No, no, not badly. It’s nothing. I think a flying rock hit me. It’s you I’m worried about." She turned to look at his legs. "Oh! I knew that there was something over your legs, but…but not that it was so big." She was horrified to find that the timber over his legs stretched back at least eight feet, disappearing under the rockslide. It was a foot square; she knew at once that she’d never be able to lift it.

Vincent studied the problem with his usual calm. "Yes. You won’t be able to lift that." He moved his legs as much as he could. "And I’m solidly pinned. Only one leg is caught, the right one, bit I’m unable to pull the other out until the pinned one is freed."

"Is your leg injured very much? Can you tell?"

He thought about that for a moment. "No. I can’t really tell. I don’t think it’s bleeding, though, I don’t feel any of the symptoms of blood loss. However, it’s numb, I’m afraid the circulation may be at least partially cut off. We’ll need to get it free as quickly as we can."

Catherine slumped down, terrified. "How? How are we going to do it, Vincent? How?" As she spoke tears again began to run down her cheeks. She turned her head quickly, ashamed of them, but he saw them.

He sat up, wincing a little as bruised limbs and body objected. "You must have been very frightened when I was unconscious."

She put her hands up to cover her face, her voice coming out from behind them throaty with tears. "Oh, Vincent, I was so scared… it was dark…I couldn’t see anything, you didn’t answer… I was so scared…" Her head dropped further, and she sobbed once or twice, but her tears stopped after a moment. She sniffled, raised her head, and smiled at him. "But I found you. I’m so glad you’re awake and OK, so you can tell me what to do. I haven’t any idea what to do next."

"Of course you don’t. This isn’t exactly your home environment, is it? But it is mine, and I do know what to do. Unfortunately, it looks like the doing of it will be up to you. I’m rather…tied by the leg." He smiled his small smile.

Catherine returned the smile rather shakily. "OK. Tell me."

"What we need to do is to rig a lever, to lift the beam far enough for me to slide my leg out. It doesn’t have to go up far. An inch will probably do it." He looked speculatively at their surroundings. "The fulcrum will need to be there," he indicated where with a pointing finger, "and you will need a strong lever about six feet long. Any longer, and you’ll be off the edge of the path because of the angle of the beam." He thought in silence for a moment more. "If you can move as much rock as possible off the beam, it will help. And if you can get the rocks under the beam away from my left leg, I might be able to get that leg out. It will give me more freedom to turn, and I might be able to help with the lever."

"What needs to be done first then, is for me to move rock. Is that right?" Catherine was in control of herself once more, and anxious to start with the job. She got up.

"That’s right."

As she moved to the rock pile to begin her task, Vincent held up a hand. "Wait. We should think about what will be the safest and most labor-saving way to do this. I believe if you could get the rocks out to free my left leg, I might be of more help to you. And there should be a pair of gloves in my pack. They will save your hands any more damage."

Catherine looked down at her hands, hands that had been pampered for most of her life. They were in bad shape. Her blind battle of the night before to get Vincent uncovered had been made without regard for pain or damage, but daylight showed that there had been plenty of both. Nails were broken to the quick and bleeding, as were many gouges and scrapes. She raised her eyes and smiled wryly. "Not exactly in shape for the senior prom, are they?"

He looked down at her hands. "Not exactly. Come here, let me see."

She knelt beside him and held them out.

"Oh, Catherine." He took her hands carefully in his. "I’m so sorry." His voice throbbed with his care and love for her.

She was surprised at his tone, at the warmth in his voice. Was it only yesterday that he had refused to talk to her at all?

He looked up, caught the look on her face and understood at once what she was thinking. "I know. But we’re in a serious situation here, Catherine. I don’t have leisure or energy now to soul search, I only know that you…you are all that is important to me in the world." His gaze held hers for a moment, then he turned his head away. "Let’s begin on the rocks by my leg."

She put her hand on his arm. "Wait…wait a minute." He turned his face back to hers. "How serious is the situation, Vincent? Please be honest with me about this. I want to be prepared for whatever may happen."

His gaze dwelt on her face for a moment before he spoke, measuring her ability to accept the hard truth, then a short nod of his head signaled his decision to be frank. "All right, this is what I think. It is possible that you will have to leave me here." She shook her head violently, and began to speak, but he raised a hand. "Wait, wait, Catherine. Let me finish. It is possible that you will have to go for help, and leave me here. We’re not talking about my dying. We’re talking about my making it through several days alone. I can do that."

"Several days? You can’t be here for several days! What about food? Water? Vincent, we have to get you out of this! We have to! It…" Catherine stopped as he held up a hand again.

"Let’s think about it. First, we’ll need some time here before you can leave, to prepare. Several hours at least. You’re right about water. That I will need, and that you can get for me, but it will take time. Then you must traverse some miles of caves, where there is a possibility of taking wrong turns and having to backtrack. When you arrive at the nearest pipes, you must get a message to Pascal that he can understand." Vincent smiled a little here. "Pascal is very clever. You’ll be able to make him understand. The rescue party must prepare, and get to you, and then you must all get back to me. At the very best, five days."

He smiled a little. "Food is not so important. It’s not as though I’ll be working hard…but that’s all only if we’re not able to free me, and I think we can, so let’s leave that eventuality in the future where it belongs. All right?"

She had to realize that he was right. She sighed and agreed. "All right. Let’s work on getting you out of here. Where did you say those gloves were?"

In half an hour they had freed his left leg, Catherine rolling the rocks to within Vincent’s reach, and he heaving them over the edge of the path.

Sitting back on her haunches after moving the last rock, Catherine pulled her gloves off. "That wasn’t so bad."

"And it will make me more able to help, although I’m afraid the bulk of the work will be yours." He was sitting up more comfortably now, able to raise his left knee and rest his elbow on it.

"OK, what’s next?"

"A lever. We’ll need a timber five or six feet long. Hopefully there will be some more timbers back in the rock slide somewhere. You should try to locate something while we still have daylight. Then in the morning we’ll be ready to try to move this thing." He looked ruefully at the heavy timber still pinning his right leg. "I believe that there is about an hour of usable daylight left. Because of the way the opening is structured, with a deep overhang on the west side, the morning sunlight is able to light up the cavern more than the afternoon light. We awoke late this morning, so we’ve shortened our useful daylight hours.."

Catherine got up. "Well, I’d better get at it then."

"I know you will be careful." His anxiety for her showed in his normally controlled face.

She smiled brightly at him. "Don’t worry about me, I’ll be OK." She pulled on her gloves and turned to her task, skirting the edge of the rockslide until she came to the place where it spilled over the edge of the shelf.

She looked back at Vincent for a moment, surveyed the pile of rocks before her, and started the climb over them. She found the going to be very rough. Thank heaven for the gloves! she thought, as she heaved a rock over the edge to clear her way. As she moved along she saw other timbers, but all were the same foot-square size as the one over Vincent’s leg. Before very long she came to the other edge of the slide, and there she found a timber that had splintered. Among the broken pieces was a piece that she thought was about right, and that she could possibly move. It was perhaps six inches by twelve inches in the cross section at the large end, tapering after about 8 feet to three inches square at the other.

I can do this, it looks perfect! she thought. However, it appeared she had overestimated her strength or underestimated its weight. She could lift one end, but not carry it. How she was going to get it over that pile of rocks she did not know; she was already exhausted. She sat down heavily, wondering if she’d ever get up again. A little rest was essential before starting the next phase of her task, but the waning light pressed her to work quickly. As she rested, she planned her tactics. I could try dragging it over, or I could get rid of the rocks. Which? Well it makes sense to try dragging it first. If I can’t, I’ll move rocks.

In the end she had to do both. Dragging it worked for about a third of the distance she needed to cover, then she came to a place where she had to start heaving rocks. As she removed one particularly large rock it started a mini-slide that scared the life out of her.

"Oh hell!" She jumped back, but there was no need. The slide had done her a favor, removing most of the remaining rocks. When her heart had steadied a little she called, "I’m all right, Vincent. Small rockslide did some of my work for me."

She heard his answering "Good!" while she took advantage of the extra time saved to sit for a moment, until her breathing slowed to a more normal pace. She returned then to her dragging strategy, and with the last of her strength she pulled the beam over the remaining rocks and dragged it to Vincent’s side.

"I’m glad to see you in one piece. I was worried when I heard the rock slide, but I also heard you…ah…telling the rocks where to go…so I knew you were all right." Vincent smiled his almost imperceptible smile as she collapsed gratefully to the floor. "You’ve done exactly right, Catherine. This beam looks perfect for our purposes. You’re exhausted, I know. But you should eat something before we sleep."

He also had been busy, to the limit of his capabilities. He had fixed a pile of rocks to hold a torch, since the light was nearly gone, and he had laid out the contents of his pack to consider what they might need of his supplies. "I brought everything I had stored …where I was. I didn’t know whether you were alone, or whether you had any supplies at all. I only knew that you were coming." He shook his head regretfully. "I don’t have a lot of food. I had only the emergency supply I keep in my pack, and I don’t keep any…there. But William sent a great deal of food with you. Ordinarily I’d say it was too much, but in our present situation, it is very welcome."

Catherine got up stiffly. "Let’s eat; then we’ll figure out how to get some bedding under you tonight. I know you’re cold on that stone floor."

When they had finished Catherine was very ready for sleep, but there was a difference of opinion about sleeping arrangements. A large difference of opinion.