Seven Silent Men by Noel; Behn Page B

Central College and their second his first year of law school. He passed his bar exams and spent twenty-one months working for a Springfield, Illinois, attorney in an office across the street from a parking lot reputed to be the location of a building in which young Abe Lincoln had once practiced law. Just before a scheduled move to Chicago to take a position with a distinguished criminal law firm on Michigan Avenue, he accidentally got Elsie pregnant. There was no consideration of abortion. Both parents loved and wanted their unborn child. But Elsie was frugal and Martin was practical. They had barely managed to get by on what Martin earned from the Springfield law job. The Chicago position, being more prestigious, paid less than Springfield, was, more than anything, a career move. Sustaining themselves in Chicago would be costlier than in Springfield. Nor would Martin entertain going ahead alone, separating the family for even a short period. Martin and Elsie were fiercely self-reliant. Borrowing money from their parents, even though they could, was out of the question. Every month since taking his Springfield job, Martin had paid back a small amount of what he owed his father for financing his education. Another mouth to feed simply meant that Martin must forgo both Springfield and Chicago and find a better-paying law job. Elsie grew larger. Martin shopped vigorously for a position in criminal law. Elsie gave birth to twin girls. Martin joined the FBI, had another son and served with the Bureau in three other cities before being assigned to the resident office in Prairie Port. In the six months since arriving home, Brewmeister had had little interest in, and less time for, spelunking.
    â€¦ Now, listening as construction engineers for the River Rise project tried to assure skeptical police welders that the concrete floor in the vault room was absolutely safe, that there was sheer rock underneath the crack, Martin Brewmeister was reminded of boyhood legends of certain palisades in this area being beehived by passageways and caves. Caves used by the underground railroaders of Civil War repute and favored by the bootleggers of Prohibition days.
    When a compromise was reached whereby an acetylene torch and its police operator would be suspended over the vault in a harness attached to the walls and ceilings, Brewmeister got Jessup’s permission to scout about a bit. He went to the clifftop cul-de-sac in front of the bank, looked over the edge, saw that the rock below slanted outward, that certain ledges existed far below … that segments of an age-old, rusted metal ladder hung to the cliff. Despite the sharp angle below, Brewmeister was tempted to rig a climbing line and descend to the ladder segment and ledges. He thought better of the idea and gazed off along the sharp wall of cliffs running upstream. He spotted what he thought to be a crease in the rock front. The crease seemed to have a gentler slope and be filled with slag and overgrowth. Staring at it, he noticed something else. Segments of another decaying metal ladder trailed down the rock front some thirty yards beyond the crease. The lowest segment of ladder ended beside a dark spot in the cliff. A spot whose general shape could be that of a small, roughly hewn opening. A door or tunnel mouth cut into the rock face five feet above water level.
    Brewmeister had to drive through the construction site of Prairie Farmer Industrial Park to reach the stretch of clifftop above the dark spot. Peering over the edge, he could not find the metal ladder. But he did see rusted iron rungs, climbing rungs, like those used by the utility company, protruding from the rock face right on down to what appeared to be river level. Brewmeister tested the uppermost rung with his hand, then his foot. It held. He pressed on the rung below with a length of plaster-splattered two-by-four. It too seemed firm. He backed down over the edge of the cliff, with one foot felt for the first