Free Over the Edge by Mary Connealy

worrying about his brother, she’d just drag him toward the cave and hope he was distracted enough to not think up one of his endless excuses.
    “He’s been gone too long this time.” Rafe’s feet were moving.
    Julia remained silent, not sure if this was cooperation . . . and not wanting to remind him if it wasn’t.
    “You were away more than a week once when Seth was still laid up with his broken leg. Ethan was gone almost that long. And two other times you left for three days.”
    “There’s a trail from Rawhide to Denver, but it’s a sidewinder, and not well marked. There’s another one that angles west that some mule skinners use, and if she was determined to ride to Rawhide, she’d be coming on a freight wagon unless she’s riding horseback. And probably she’d be on the most likely one to Colorado City. She could take a train to Denver, then a stagecoach to Colorado City, then find a wagon coming from there to Rawhide. But if she got to Colorado City and asked after the Kincaids, there are plenty of folks there who know us. They’d send her straight to Ethan’s house.”
    “Seth’s only been gone a week. It’s too early to start worrying.”
    “It’s never too early to start worrying about my little brother.” Rafe quit walking and spun Julia around to face him. “And I’ve noticed you’re walking toward the cavern.”
    She smiled.
    He kissed her. When he was done, she was almost as distracted as Rafe.
    “Let’s go.” He surprised her by walking on toward the cave entrance. “I’ve put it off long enough, and you’ve been a mighty nice wife not to nag at me.”
    Which Julia was pretty sure wasn’t true. She’d been nagging real steadily. So it might mean Rafe wasn’t listening to her at all when she talked about the cavern, which was annoying.
    Rafe paused to look up at the sun. “The day’s gettin’ on. I don’t think we can get to that room Seth was leading us to, but we can go to the one you’re always talking about, with the fish on the wall.”
    “Really, Rafe?” She was so surprised she threw her arms around him.
    “Yes, I’ve been dragging my heels because I just plain flat out don’t like that cavern.”
    “You’ve been busy, too.”
    “I have for a fact. But I could have taken a few hours to go in there. I promised you. Today I start keeping that promise.”
    Julia had lanterns just inside the cave. She had rope and a stack of torches and paper and pencils to take notes. When the day finally came that Rafe would go down with her, she didn’t want to give him time to change his mind.
    Rafe had matches on hand as always. Julia did, too. They’d learned the hard way to plan ahead so they never got stuck in the dark. They set out and turned to go down the steeply sloped tunnel toward the hole Seth had fallen through so many years before.
    “Can you believe this?” Rafe asked.
    “Believe what?” Julia got a little shiver up her spine when her voice echoed.
    “We’ve been in here, what? Five whole minutes? And no one has shot at us. No one has kidnapped you. No one has even jumped out of the dark tunnel to surprise us. It just don’t seem natural.”
    Julia couldn’t deny that the tunnel had given them a lot of trouble.
    The tunnel was a tight one, and Rafe walked with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched to pass through.
    They emerged into a big room. “Where’s this fish?”
    She pointed at the first one, high on the stone wall.
    He walked to the fossil. “And the layers in these rocks. What do you think caused that?”
    “Something else to study and write about.” Which she found thrilling. “I think the fossil is some kind of shark.”
    The fossil was at eye level. She ran her hand over the clearly outlined jawbones. “I’ve studied fish fossils. The bone structure and the shape of the teeth are similar to a shark’s. Look at the curved jaw and the triangular teeth. I can’t be sure without more study, but if it’s a shark, then what’s