Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow (18 page)

She tore out the nylon rope and grappling hook, swinging it up on to the same pillar she had lassoed once before.  The master sergeant on duty was the same one who had been with Dennis when he had been injured and he looked at Kathlyn as if she was crazy.

“Dr. Trent, I can’t let you go down there,” he said. “We’re bringing rope and men from the top. They’ll be down here in a moment.”

Kathlyn yanked on a pair of leather gloves and pulled the rope around behind her.  Getting a good grip on the rope, she looked at the sergeant. “A few minutes will be too late. That pit is full of scorpions and other venomous beasts. We have to remove her now or they’ll eat her alive.”

The sergeant was torn. “Then let me go. I’ll bring her up.”

Kathlyn shook her head. “No way. I’ll need you and your men to pull us up.”

He opened his mouth to argue but she was gone, leaping over the side of the pit and repelling down the wall. It was dark, dusty, and frightening. Kathlyn could hardly see where she was going and she shouted up to the Marines to throw her a light. The sergeant, totally against what she was doing, dropped a hand-held fluorescent light and nearly hit her in the face with it.  Kathlyn avoided getting smacked in the nose and caught it in one hand. It was difficult to keep steady with one hand on the rope, the other on the light.  But the bulb had a small strap which she put into her teeth and resumed her decent.

She could hear the woman moaning, louder now. The rustling sound from the bugs was also louder and Kathlyn had to swallow her phobia. She tried to flash the light down to see where the woman was and caught a glimpse of the woman's foot. That, and about fifty thousand scorpions, dung beetles, scarabs, and other assorted six legged creatures. It was almost enough to make her shoot right back up to the top of the pit, but her determination to help the injured woman stopped her.

About three feet from the bottom, she stopped. There were so many bugs that it would have been foolish for her to jump right down into the middle of it. She craned her neck back, looking up at the top of the pit.

“Sergeant?”

The voice that came back to her wasn’t the Marine’s. “Kathlyn, what in the hell are you doing?” Marcus shouted down to her. “You’re going to get yourself killed. Come back up here!”

She ignored him. “I’ve got a problem down here. There are too many insects for me to get at her. I need you guys to throw down some flaming torches so I can burn the bugs off.”

“Did you hear me?” Marcus shouted down to her.

He was beginning to tick her off. “Did you hear me?” she hollered back. “I need fire, Marcus. Lots of it or this woman is going to be eaten alive.”

Another rope thudded alongside her. She looked up to see Juliana hurling down the rope faster than she should have.  Marcus tried to stop her and Lynn actually got a piece of her shirt, but that didn’t stop Juliana. Kathlyn needed help and that’s where she was going. Had there been any more rope, Mark and the rest of her team would have come down too. They were used to this kind of thing.

Juliana came to an unsteady halt beside her, gazing down at all of the bugs. “God, what a place,” she hissed. “What can I do?”

“Nothing until they get those torches down here,” Kathlyn said. “Are they getting them?”

“Yes,” Juliana peered up into the light. “Marcus isn’t happy about you being down here but he’s got everyone moving.”

The woman moaned beneath them and started babbling something in Italian. “I wish I could speak Italian,” Kathlyn said. “We need to tell her not to move.”

Juliana shouted up to the faces high above. “Somebody translate to this woman and tell her she needs to stay still!”

They could hear some chatter going on and finally one of the other Italian conservationists called down something to the injured women, who began crying loudly.  Kathlyn felt her anxiety rise.

“Marcus, we need those torches!”

Two more ropes suddenly hit the wall on either side of them, anchored to the pillars far above. Looking up, they could see two figures with brightly burning torches in their hands descending.  It took Kathlyn a moment to recognize Marcus and Lynn. Marcus bumped up along side her, a big burning piece of wood in one hand.

“All right,” he growled. “I’ll get this woman out of here. You pull yourself back out of this hole.”

“All those Marines up there and you’re the one who comes down here?”

“Did you hear me?”

She didn’t like his tone. “Put the torch down near the woman so the bugs will scatter. We can get a foothold then.”

“Kathlyn, I’m not going to argue this with you. It’s not safe down here and I want you topside.”

“I came down here to help.”

“I’m here now. I’ll do it.”

She could have done one of two things at that moment; she could have done as he asked and said no more about it. Or she could have been stubborn and finished what she had started. She chose the latter.

Letting go of the rope, she jumped the last three feet and landed on a host of crunchy insects. Her big boots smashed them to bits. “Give me the torch,” she held up her hand to Marcus. “I’ll burn these little bastards away.”

She heard him growl as he let go of the rope and landed beside her. “Lynn,” he snapped. “Get down here and take this torch.”

High above, the Marines had a stretcher ready to send down. Several of them were already preparing to descend. As Lynn grabbed the torch from Marcus, Marcus grabbed Kathlyn around the waist and hooked himself onto one of the ropes.

“Pull us up!” he roared.

He had her at an angle where she could do very little damage against him. She struggled and cursed him about half way up, but then decided she didn’t want to fall twenty feet and ceased her fight. But the time the Marines pulled them out of the pit, Kathlyn was so angry she couldn’t even speak. Without saying a word to him or grabbing her pack, she stormed out of Chamber D and disappeared into the painted corridor. By the time she hit the tunnel shaft, she was sobbing.

***

“You just should have let her do her thing, Marcus. That’s the bottom line.”

“I wasn’t going to let her kill herself.”

Juliana faced Marcus, arms crossed and expression tight. They were in the tent she shared with Kathlyn and Debra Jo, only there was no Kathlyn. Debra Jo sat behind her portable desk, watching the critical exchange. She had been in the tent when Kathlyn had come from the tomb, as upset as she had ever seen her.  Debra Jo was trying very hard to see Marcus’ position, but so far, he didn’t have a very good argument.

“She wouldn’t have killed herself,” Juliana said. “She’s very good at what she does. You have to learn to trust her.”

              Marcus sighed and shook his head. “I’m not going to apologize from trying to keep her safe. And what she was doing just wasn’t safe. There were forty Marines in camp that we had at our disposal. She didn’t have to go down there.”

Juliana wasn’t sure she could explain this so he would understand. “Kathlyn is not someone to stand by and panic when something needs to be done. She’s a go-getter; she’ll jump right in without thinking about her own safety. She’s very giving that way.”

“And it’s going to get her killed,” Marcus growled. He eyed Juliana. “And you went in right after her. Are you all a bunch of lemmings? One jumps off the cliff and you all have to follow?”

“No,” Juliana replied evenly. “We just take care of each other. One goes and we all go.”

Marcus gazed at her, understanding somewhat. “She’s a risk taker. That’s hard for me to comprehend.”

“If you’re going to marry her, you’d better come to grips with it. That’s the way she is.”

Marcus scratched his head, sitting on the nearest available chair. Some of the wind had gone out of his sails as he struggled with the validity of Juliana’s statement.

“You’re all like that,” he said after a moment. “I can see this bond between all of you and it’s both amazing and frightening. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to watch the woman I love play with her life?”

“She doesn’t play with it,” Juliana said, somewhat gentler. “She’s very calculated and very analytical about the things she does. She may take risks but she doesn’t do anything stupid if she can avoid it. It’s all part of doing what she does in life, which is Biblical Archaeology on a grand scale. Sometimes risks are involved to achieve a greater good.”

“So why does she want to stay here with me, digging on a plain old Egyptian tomb?”

Juliana smiled. “This isn’t any tomb. This is the greatest mystery yet and Kat loves a good mystery. Besides, she madly in love with you and if you wanted to go back to the States and be a farmer, she’d be right by your side. She’s loyal like that.”

He sighed heavily. “Hell, if that’s the only way to keep her from leaping into scorpion-infested pits, I just might do it.” He looked between Juliana and Debra Jo. “I humiliated her today, didn’t I?”

Juliana slapped him lightly on his big shoulder. “You sure did, big guy. Instead of being scared to death every time she throws a grappling hook, maybe you should just be proud that she’s a strong, independent woman who can handle herself with the best of them.”

“I am proud,” he insisted quietly. “But I can’t just stand back and let her face danger by herself.”

“Then maybe you should just work with her instead of trying to stop her. Those kinds of strong-arm tactics aren’t going to win her over.”

“I just didn’t want her to get hurt.”

“I know,” Juliana said. “But you should have trusted her. Remember that it takes a very strong man to handle a strong woman, Marcus. I think you’re that strong.”

He thought on that a moment, hoping to God he was. “Where is she?”

Juliana glanced at Debra Jo. “With Dougray, I think,” Debra Jo answered. “Marcus, I won’t lie to you. She’s decided to go to Israel immediately. We’ve been directed to pack up our stuff and be ready to leave in a couple of days. I hate to say this, but I think you really set her off this time.”

He stood up so fast that the chair fell over.  “You must be joking.”

“No joke. You’d better go talk to her or we’re all shipping off to Israel by Tuesday.”

Juliana stepped in. "Don't panic. Mark's with her; he can usually calm her down. Maybe it's not that bad."

Marcus was visibly distressed. His expression hardened up as if he was facing the most serious situation in the world.

"He shouldn't have to calm her down,” he muttered as he headed for the door. “I've got to find her and straighten this mess out."

Marcus was a man on a mission. He went right to McGrath's tent but he only found McGrath there, working on a press release with Bardwell. Dougray was in the mess tent and Marcus stormed across the compound like a blood hound. When he entered the great canvas covering they liked to call their dining room, he found Kathlyn seated with Mark, Dougray and Abrahams. He tried to appear cool as he approached the table.

              "Excuse me for interrupting," he said, looking directly at Kathlyn. "I need to speak with Dr. Trent."

Kathlyn didn't look at him for a moment. When she did, there was such anger in her eyes that it took his breath away. "I'm busy now, Dr. Burton."

"It will just take a moment."

"I'm sorry, I can't spare it."

Short of carrying her out of the mess hall, he couldn't force her and he didn't want to argue in front of an audience. So he thanked her for her time and went outside. There, he sat and waited for her to come out.

She did wander out, eventually. Only Mark was with her. Marcus emerged from the shadows and approached the pair.

"Kathlyn, we need to talk,” he said quietly.

Mark wasn't going to get in the middle of it. He excused himself even though Kathlyn didn't want him to leave.  When he started to walk away, she turned on her heel and moved in the opposite direction. Marcus caught up to her.

"Are you going to ignore me for the rest of my life?" he demanded softly. "Kathlyn, I'm not going to apologize for what I did. I'm just going to apologize for how I did it."

She came to a halt and turned to him. "What in the hell does that mean?"

He was glad that he at least had her attention and chose his words carefully. "It means I should have trusted you. It means I shouldn't have manhandled you out of that pit. I'm very sorry about those things. But I'm not sorry I have very protective instincts where you are concerned."

She was hurt, annoyed, frustrated. "Marcus, you can't just go around doing things like that. I know what I'm doing."

"I know, sweetheart."

"You automatically assume that I'm going to get myself killed. Let me tell you something, buster; if I get killed, it's because you interfered trying to save me. It's your intrusions that are dangerous."

"You're absolutely right."

"Don't patronize me, damn it."

"I'm not. I'm agreeing with you."

She growled in frustration. "I'll tell you one thing; if we do get married, and right now I'm not so sure that's a good idea, I'm not taking you anywhere I go,” she jabbed a finger in his face. “You're going to stay here while I go off and do my thing. I can't have you jumping in to my operations every time you think I'm going to get a scratch."