Page 79 of In Too Deep
He pulled back from the edge and reached for the pitons in his pack.She was right.A single anchor in this degraded limestone was asking for failure.“Good call.”
He worked quickly and drove the first piton into a more solid-looking crack ten feet from the shaft.The metallic ring echoed across the plateau with each hammer blow.Ping.Ping.Ping.Then a second piton.A third.He created a web of anchor points and threaded the rope through the natural crack, then clipped it to each piton and tested each connection with his full weight.
“Four anchors set.Load distributed.”
“Better.”Eden’s tone softened slightly.“I still think you should wait for Liam.”
Teague pulled out the portable relay transverter and set it up near the opening.It would allow him to communicate with Eden while he descended.He then clipped his descender to the rope, the figure-eight device smooth and familiar in his hands.He checked his Petzl ascender—the cam mechanism moved smoothly when he squeezed it.Everything looked good.Equipment squared away.Mind focused.
“I’m going down.I’ve switched to the VLF radio and set up the relay.Keep the line open.If I’m wrong, I’ll climb back up and try the next one.”
“If you’re wrong, you might not get the chance to climb back up.”
Something in her voice—not just professional concern but something deeper.More personal.Teague had noticed it before, the way she worried about his climbs more than seemed strictly necessary.He’d started to wonder what she wasn’t telling him about her past.
“I’ll be fine.I’ve climbed worse than this.”He began his descent, feeding rope through the figure-eight descender.“Talk to me.What else do those maps show?”
Eden’s papers shuffled.“The shaft you’re in should intersect with the main cave system at around sixty feet if it’s one of the original mining shafts.But Teague, some of those shafts were never properly shored up.The rock could be unstable after the seismic activity two weeks ago or?—”
“Or explosions set by a madman.”His voice flattened.“Yeah, I’m aware.”
Maybe he didn’t know for sure who had set the explosion, but the description Liam had gotten from the kids on the hike out?Sounded a lot like that Jeremy kid from their first rescue in the caves.
The shaft narrowed as he descended, forcing him to angle his body with his shoulders scraping rock.His jacket caught on protrusions—probably tearing, but he couldn’t spare the attention to care.His headlamp illuminated walls scarred with old pick marks—definitely a mining shaft, hand carved over a century ago.
Thirty feet.
Forty.
The air grew colder and damper.His breath came out in visible puffs now.
Fifty feet, and the shaft kinked slightly to the left.Teague adjusted his position, feeding the rope through the descender at a controlled pace.He was good at this—had been climbing since he was fourteen.
Sixty feet.
Seventy.
The shaft should be opening up soon.But the walls stayed narrow and constrictive.His instincts, usually reliable, started whispering warnings.
Eighty feet.
His boots hit something solid—not cave floor but a wall of collapsed rock and debris.Limestone chunks ranging from pebbles to boulders.
Dead end.
“Dang.”Teague played his light over the rubble and looked for any gap, any opening that might lead through.
Nothing.
Just tons of fallen rock, probably collapsed decades ago.
Wrong shaft.
His radio crackled.“Teague?Status?”
“Wrong hole.It’s collapsed at about eighty feet.”Time to climb back up and try the next promising shaft.At least he hadn’t wasted too much time.Just twenty minutes.“Coming back up.”
He tugged the rope and signaled his ascender to engage.
