He squelched a chuckle. “Dog? That’s his name?”
She turned her head away as the dog tried to lick her face. “He’s not mine. He was abandoned and Whisper found him on the side of the Carefree Highway. She was on her way to Vegas, so she told me to take care of him until she comes back. He doesn’t have a real name.”
He nodded as if that all made perfect sense. He supposed for Last Chance Ranch it did, he simply hadn’t worked there long enough to know.
Her gaze moved past him, and she stiffened as if seeing the cave-in for the first time in the present. “We’re trapped.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe, maybe not.” He brought the light down and focused it on the ground, taking the steps to the cave-in. Slowly, he moved the light across the newly blocked tunnel. “It can’t be that bad. We are very close to the exit.” He finished his examination then turned to face Riley when the silence lengthened.
She stood there staring at the wall of earth behind him, the faraway look back in her gaze. “Riley.”
“They won’t leave right away.”
He strode right up to her, breaking her view. “We’re in an old copper mine outside Phoenix, Arizona. No one is out there except your horse.”
At the mention of her ride, she blinked. “Domino?”
“Yes. Now why don’t you take Dog and sit over here.” He led her twenty yards farther down the rails to where the walls turned to solid rock to take her mind off the blocked exit, scooping up his cowboy hat on the way.
She sat on the ground with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up and the dog settled against her chest. It made him think of his niece and her blanket. She wouldn’t go anywhere without it. Riley’s hand absently stroked the dog’s back.
Not sure how long her mind would stay in the present, he looked around for anything to dig with. It may be a mine, but from the looks of it, it was well over a hundred years old. Mining copper and other precious metals in Arizona had changed significantly in the early 1900’s. This was definitely 1800’s.
He scoured the ground. Finding her dropped phone, he handed it to her before continuing to search the immediate area. He didn’t want to go too far from her in case she reverted back into the past again.
A rotten rail tie was the best he could do. Pulling it from the dirt, he moved to the bottom of the cave-in and set his phone on the ground with the light shining up and started to dig.
“Stop!”
At the sudden shout, he stilled. Looking over his shoulder, he found Riley staring at him hard. “Why? Don’t you want to get out? I need to see how thick this pile is.”
She shook her head. “You don’t dig at the bottom. You dig at the top, as high up as you can go. Digging on the bottom will just cause the new earth to fall on top of you.”
That made a certain amount of sense. “How do you know that?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she shifted her gaze to the dog and remained silent.
Letting her rudeness slide, he rose and started to pull loose gravel from the top, but the more he pulled the more seemed to take its place. “Damn.” Frustrated, he threw the wood aside and looked around the dimly lit area. At least they had some light thanks to his phone.
His phone! They could call. “Well, hell.” Picking it up, he looked for a signal.
“It won’t work.”
He shined the light above her head. “What won’t work?”
“Your phone. There’s no signal here.”
Did she have an answer for everything? “You don’t know that. I might get one if I move to the right spot.” He started to walk around the area, watching for the signal. Maybe he’d get lucky.
“The closest base is over an hour’s drive. Can’t expect help from them even if I could reach them. It was just a routine trip. No one was supposed to die.”
He stilled at her words. She’d slipped back into the past, and his gut said that wasn’t a good place for her. Maybe all she needed was some hope. “I’m sure someone will come looking for us. It will be pretty obvious we aren’t there with our vehicles parked outside.”
“No.” Her tone made it sound like she’d given up. “They took them. Valuable assets. Good for an ambush. It worked on us.”
A chill ran across his skin, very similar to when he called for his men to move back from a fire line, but was it due to a present threat or from her past experience…or was it her?
He didn’t respond to her, more determined than ever to find a signal. After fifteen minutes of trying every possible place, he finally admitted defeat. “There must be too much earth around us.”
