Houses of Stone by KATHY (booksvooks .TXT) 📕

"No, ma'am, no chance," called Bucky or Jimmy Joe. "We made sure it would fall thataway. The back wall's solid rock, not cut stones."

"What? Let me see."

"He's right," said Bill, posing picturesquely atop a tree stump. "That's limestone, not earth—a good-sized outcropping. The builder of the house must have smoothed off a section and used it for one of the walls."

Curiosity, and the absence of anything unusual, had overcome Karen's fear of going too close to the house. Following Peggy, she looked over the top of the cleared wall.

The interior was still knee-deep in dirt, from which a few corners of fallen stone protruded, along with the stubs of the trees. The far wall was far from smooth, but it had unquestionably formed the fourth side of the structure. Just above the uneven surface of the earth Karen thought she saw a darker shadow, like a break in the stone. It might have been the top of a narrow opening.

Involuntarily she fell back a step. There had been no cry, no sudden wave of cold; only a sudden memory that carried a chill of quite a different kind. "Could that be the entrance to a cave or a tunnel?" she asked.

"There's no mention of such a thing in the book," Peggy answered.

Karen saw Bill's ears prick, but for once she didn't care what he overheard. "It might have been blocked up. But earlier ..."

Peggy gave her a curious look. "Well, we can find out. Boys, I want the whole interior cleared, but there isn't time to do much more today; concentrate on that side and see if there is an opening in the rock."

The boys were losing their enthusiasm. Karen could hardly blame them; they had been hard at it for over six hours and the air was stifling, without the slightest hint of a breeze. They had all removed their shirts, against Peggy's advice; their movements increasingly slow, their bodies streaked with muddy sweat, they kept at it until the irregular top of a narrow opening could be seen by the watchers.

"Could be a tunnel," Jimmy Joe or Bucky reported, his voice hoarse with fatigue. "Or just a kind of hollow place. Can't tell. It's filled up with dirt. Want we should go on?"

"No, that's enough for today. It's after five, and you guys must be exhausted. You're really hard workers. I hope you're not too worn out to come back tomorrow."

Shoulders straightened and chests expanded. The spokesman, whoever he was, cleared his throat. "Hell, no, ma'am, we're not tired. We'll be partyin' tonight and back on the job first thing tomorrow."

Still showing off, they bounded up the path ahead of the others, who trailed wearily behind. "Rotten little bastards," Bill wheezed.

"Don't be so pompous. I'll bet you flexed your youthful muscles at the old folks when you were eighteen," Peggy retorted.

"Huh. Well, ladies, I'll be on the job tomorrow but I sure as hell ain't partyin' tonight."

"Me neither," Karen admitted. "I'm about to die, and I didn't work the way you did, Bill. If you don't feel like coming tomorrow I wouldn't blame you."

Bill was too far gone to straighten his shoulders or any other part of his body, but his face relaxed into a smile. "Wild horses ... I said that before, didn't I? See you in the morning. Sleep well."

"So, you've decided to be nicer," Peggy said, as they followed his car along the drive. "Was that calculated, or are you willing to admit he's not such a bad guy?"

"He's not such a bad guy. I wonder what happened to Cameron. If he hasn't shown up by this time he probably isn't coming back today. Should we close the gate, do you think?"

Peggy considered the suggestion, and then shook her head decisively. "He's made it clear that he thinks we're a pair of nosy busybodies; in his present mood he'd probably interpret anything we did as unwarranted interference."

Bill's car was already out of sight when they reached the road. Peggy put her foot down. "We'll have a quiet evening," she said, with a glance at her companion. "You do look tired."

"Not really. It's mostly the heat—and the tension."

"I kept expecting it too," Peggy confessed. "Nothing happened, though. Or did it? Something was bothering you—something about that tunnel. I didn't want to press the point in front of the others; is it mentioned in the manuscript?"

"No." The air-conditioning was having its effect; Karen was beginning to feel chilly as perspiration evaporated. "It had nothing to do with Ismene. I was remembering what Mrs. Madison said, about the slaves being shut up in there, and then I happened to recall a grisly story Simon read to me once, called 'The Torture of Hope.' The Grand Inquisitor let the poor guy think he had escaped from the dungeon; after he had crawled through the dark on his hands and knees, he finally reached the garden— and they were waiting for him."

"My God," Peggy breathed, "I never realized you had such a morbid imagination! That's sick, Karen. And," she added firmly, "far too subtle for an eighteenth-century slave owner. Forget it."

"I wish I could. Oh, you're right, the tunnel is only a morbid fancy of mine—if it's there at all. But I can't get that story of Mrs. Madison's out of my mind. Burial alive; a long, slow, agonizing death from hunger and thirst, in the dark, all alone ..."

She shivered. Peggy reached across and switched off the air-conditioning. "That's enough of that. We'll dig out the damned thing tomorrow and find it is only a natural hollow, as Bucky said. Or was it Jimmy Joe? Damned if I can tell those kids apart."

"Neither can I." Karen was glad to accept the change of subject. "We ought to be ashamed, though; we sound like those supercilious bigots who swear the 'natives' all look alike."

"Have you got energy enough to go out for dinner?" Peggy asked, after they had reached their room. "I'm getting awfully tired of the menu