Hunter examined it by using the strong flashlight beam to inspect the body up close. The skeleton was partially mummified, but something had eaten portions of the skin on the hands. Half of the khaki shirt had torn away, leaving mummified skin showing from the chest to the belt.
There was a dark spot on the cadaver’s pants thigh as well. A large, dried stain. Hunter pushed the cadaver to the side and looked at the back of the thigh. A bullet hole showed in the dried cloth. The area around where the man had sat was also dark where the blood soaked into the earth.
“He bled to death, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.” Hunter said. When she righted the skeleton again, she noticed something clutched in the left hand. She opened the stiff fingers and pulled out the portion of the torn shirt.
When she turned it over, she saw where the man had written something, and done it with his own blood. She spread the cloth and saw the date, twelve years ago this month, and the words written with a sliver of wood that had been dipped in his blood. It was his will:
My name is Vincent Hart, and a man named Ellis Carver has shot me and abandoned me in this mine. I am bleeding badly. If I die, I leave all my possessions to my wife, Alicia, and my son, Adan, who I have never seen. I was kidnapped and kept prisoner in Sinaloa for years by associates of Ellis. I escaped last week. Notify my father, Winston Hart, an… The message trailed off, unfinished.
Hunter looked at Adan and saw a shocked look, and a tear spilling out of one eye. “This was my father.”
“It seems so, Adan.”
A sudden rumbling crack sounded and several tons of rock dropped from the roof near the back wall. Dust and gravel continued to fall.
Hunter’s heart beat like a frightened rabbit as she looked for a way out of the mine, but only saw more trickles of dust and rock shards falling along the mine’s roof. Swallowing her fear, she said, “We have to keep looking, come on.”
Adan faltered, not wanting to leave his father’s remains. Hunter said, “We have to go back, this whole thing’s collapsing.”
Another loud rumble rolled through the bedrock and shook the floor and walls, sending showers of dust and gravel-like shards down on them. Hunter stepped to the skeleton and said, “give me the will.”
Adan handed it to her and she put it on the skeleton’s chest, spreading it so it could be read, then she stepped back and took three fast photos with the iPhone. She gave the crude will to Adan, then thought a second before moving away. The last thing she did was pull on a desiccated finger, and it came off with a dry snap. She put it in her pocket and said to Adan, “For DNA.” He nodded.
He fell in step with her as they searched for an exit as they walked toward the mine entrance. Two hundred yards later, they encountered another cave-in of car-sized slabs blocking their way.
“We’re going to die in here,” Adan said. His quavering voice sounded the boy’s growing panic.
Hunter pulled his arm, “Come on. I saw some daylight that way.” They hurried deeper into the mine, dodging melon-sized stones with quick steps, and detouring around the other, larger, partially collapsed areas.
Another rumbling shudder made Hunter stumble, but she caught herself with a hand on the mine wall. She looked ahead through the increasing dust in the air and said, “There it is.”
They walked through the dust and saw several boulders leaning against the wall under the light. Hunter recognized it as an airshaft, drilled into the mine to allow air to flow through to the tunnel mouth. She climbed up on the boulders and stood at the opening.
It was small, so small she wasn’t sure she could fit in there. Using her light, Hunter looked into the shaft and noticed the light was dim. She felt sure there was some partial obstruction in it, but at this point they had little choice.
Another cracking, splitting sound of breaking stone reached them just before the shaking cave-in and more portions of the roof fell, this time covering the skeleton and most of the floor.
They were trapped in a space as wide and deep as a kitchen refrigerator, and no assurance that it wouldn’t also collapse.
Adan’s teeth chattered, and Hunter’s hands shook. She climbed into the shaft and found she could only fit with her hands and arms straight over her head. Her shoulders scraped the rough stone enough to be painful, and her back and butt touched the top of the cold stone shaft, but she continued, calling to Adan to follow her and stay close.
Hunter’s claustrophobia climbed into her throat as the way narrowed even farther in the hole, but she pushed on even as tears came to her eyes and her panicked breathing hissed between clenched teeth.
Adan kept his hand on one of her ankles, scared to break contact. His breath shuddered and occasional faint whimpers issued from his mouth.
Moving like worms on their stomachs, pushing forward with their toes and occasionally pulling with their fingers, the two prisoners made slow progress, inches at a time.
Hunter craned her neck to look up the shaft and saw the sunlight dim from storm clouds, and something else. She thought it resembled large patches of hairy moss clinging to the walls, but wasn’t sure if that was what the dark masses were.
Another, stronger shift in the rock suddenly lowered the ceiling of the shaft by an inch and Adan yelled. Hunter had to stop to push down her fear so she could talk. “You all right?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good. Keep coming, and make sure you touch me. I don’t want to lose you.” She felt Adan grasp her ankle again, and they crawled forward and upward at a thirty-degree incline.
A quick flash of light showed in the shaft opening as lightning shot across the sky. A faint rumble came down the hole several seconds later. They crawled on for what seemed like an hour, but when Hunter checked her phone, it showed fifteen minutes had passed.