Day 20

Mandy looked at the caption. It said nothing about what they symbols meant, only where they were located: Southwest Colorado. “Well, that’s not very helpful,” said Mandy.
“This one,” Mrs. McGregor pointed at a different symbol, “is in Hugo’s book.”
Mandy stared at the photo, then Mrs. McGregor. “You read Hugo’s book?” She asked. She started to wonder why Mrs. McGregor surprised her still: it seemed that everyt ime she said something new, it was like a revelation to her.
“Of course I did, dear,” said Mrs. McGregor. “Didn’t you?”
“Well, I…I looked through it, of course,” said Mandy. “But that isn’t my sort of thing. He seemed to do his research well, though.”
“Most of it is pure hogwash, but don’t tell Hugo that I said so. Some, though, showed that he really does have the stuff. Possibly.” Mrs. McGregor made her way back down the row of exhibits. She stopped at the geology explanations. Mandy watched her for a moment, then turned back to the symbols and tried to make sense of any of them. One looked like water, or possibly a snake. Another looked like the moon, that made sense. Some parts seemed to be tick marks, as though someone were counting something. One looked like a club.
Mandy moved on. She thought about Hugo and wondered where he and Dr. Bonanza had gone off to. And why Mrs. McGregor wouldn’t tell her. She made a mental commitment to pick up Hugo’s book and try to read it again. She glanced at the rest of the dioramas and then walked to the gift area. The door opened and the ranger with whom they had spoken earlier came in.
He smiled and nodded to Mandy as he stepped behind the counter. “Now,” he said. “My name’s Tom; what can I do for you ladies this fine Sunday morning?”
Mrs. McGregor bristled at the term “lady”, but the ranger took no notice. Mandy, however had been called lady many times in her profession and no longer took notice of it.
“Well, Tom,” Mandy began, “I was one of the people who stumbled upon the deer up on Black Rock Ridge.”
“Yes, that was quite a thing, was it not?”
“Well,” Mandy continued, “I was wondering if you could give me --us-- any more information about that?”
“I’m really not allowed to say,” said Tom. “For some reason, the head ranger has wanted this kept quiet. At least until we know more. But, seeing as you are one of the people who found the carcass, I suppose that you have some right to know.” He glanced at Mrs. McGregor, then continued. “The ODFG came right in, we are under their jurisdiction, as I understand it, and hauled the carcass off the forensics lab. They haven’t released any official word yet, but the gossip is that it, the deer, was killed by an animal.” He let the statement hang. Mandy didn’t grasp the implication right away.
“Who took out the brain?” asked Mrs. McGregor.
“That’s the sticky part, is it not,” said Tom.
“You mean, that either someone --some person-- removed the brain after this animal killed it,” said Mrs. McGregor, “or else the animal removed it.”
Tom nodded.
“And the ‘sticky’ point,” she continued, “is how precisely it was removed.”
Tom nodded again, turning slightly green.
“What’s out there, Tom,” asked Mrs. McGregor. “What killed that deer and that horse, and quite a few other animals that no one is saying much about?”
Tom looked to Mandy for help, but she stared at Mrs. McGregor…again. “Um,” she said. “Thank you for your help, Tom.” Mandy took Mrs. McGregor by the elbow and escorted her to the door.
As Mandy pulled open the door Mrs. McGregor turned back. Tom stared after them. “Lock your doors tonight, Tom,” she said.
Tom nodded and whispered, “Don’t worry, I will.”
When the door had closed behind them, Mandy turned to Mrs. McGregor and stood akimbo, blocking the way forward. “What was that all about?” she asked.
Mrs. McGregor smiled an innocent smile. “I just wanted him to be careful tonight, there are strange things afoot,” she said.
Mandy couldn’t help but to think that maybe one of the strangest stood right in front of her. She shook her head and walked to the car. They got in. Mandy said, “What do you know about all of this Eseme?”
They sat silent for a few seconds. Mrs. McGregor said, “Things have been set in motion, evil tidings have reached my ear: I just hope that we are choosing the right path.”


Chapter 25

Hugo held the lantern up as high as he could and looked down the tunnel ahead of him. He tried not to look back the way he had come, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned and held the lantern up to light the passageway through which he had just walked. At the other end: only blackness. He wondered that he had gone so far so quickly.
He steeled himself once again, and continued on. The floor had gone from solid rock to compacted dirt and back again. The walls had darkened to black basalt, and had become eer rougher. Every now and then he could hear dripping as from a long ways away. Never, however, did he see where the drip might be coming from. In all his days of spelunking, he had never encountered a cave such as this. It must be man made, he thought. Though in so many ways it feels natural. Unnaturally natural.
He rounded a corner and the ceiling lowered until he had to squat down to see ahead. He crawled for twenty feet. The floor of the cave became merciless jagged bumps under his hands and knees. He wished that he had knee pads and gloves. He mentally shrugged and thought, I tried to pack for everything that we might encounter today, but, as usual, failed miserably. He laughed a bit and continued on. The ceiling lowered more and he had to crawl on his belly, scooting with his toes and elbows. At the same time, he could see that the walls narrowed. He wondered at his choice of tunnels. The floor became filled in with compacted mud, and started to incline. This cave has its own logic, he thought. He pushed the lantern ahead of himself; the rocky drips from when the ceiling melted under the heat of the magma river flowing underneath it caught at this shirt, and pants.
He looked ahead as best he could. He sweated, though the rock was cool to the touch. The stood still. He felt that he had been crawling for hours, when the sides abruptly closed in on him, becoming smooth. He felt a sudden rush of panic. He pictured the ceiling closing as well. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He thought of how hard it would be to crawl backward out of the tight tunnel and the panic started again. He whimpered, and the sound of his voice startled him into a sort of calm limbo: he felt resigned that the rock would crush him to death, and that he would survive just the same.
The space became so tight that he had to put one arm up above his head, and drag the other at his side. He pushed the lantern an inch, then wriggled his body an inch. He pushed the lantern ahead two inches, then wriggled two inches. He had to stop often to catch his breath. Sweat poured off his brow and stun his eyes, but he could do nothing about it. Once he caught the pocket of his jeans on an unseen nubbin on the ceiling. He started to panic again when he couldn’t move, but calmed himself, more quickly this time, and inched his way back to unhook himself. He carefully resumed forward motion, picturing where the nubbin hung down so that he could carefully avoid it this time.
He squirmed his way to a tiny room. The tunnel in which he had been crawling, continued in the same direction that it had been going. The room, barely wide enough to stand up in, reached up into the rock farther than he could reach: a smooth chimney.
The lantern lay at his feet. He could see about three feet above his hands. He tried to pick up the lantern, but he couldn’t get it past his knees. He wriggled, changing position, pressing himself against the rock, but only succeeded in burning a line in his thigh where the hood of the lantern touched it. He felt fortunate when he held on to the bail, even though he jumped from the shock of the pain and bumped his head on the rock wall. He set the lantern back down and felt around as high as he could reach. He tried to shimmy up the chimney, but couldn’t get any purchase on the walls because he couldn’t bend his knee far enough to engage his feet.
By this time he had decided that he needed to go back to the lower tunnel and continue crawling. That seemed to him to be the proper way. He reached up one more time as high as he could, turning all the way around this time. He felt a crack, then a small shelf. The shelf angled up and he had to stretch to even stay in contact with it.
He touched something, and it clattered back away from the wall, into a hollow. He couldn’t reach any higher and the thing, whatever it was, was out of reach now. He dropped his hands and silently cursed himself. He squatted down, a wave of exhaustion overwhelming him. He hungered for a beer. Even a glass of water sounded good. He put his hands on the rock in front of himself as he squatted and rested his head against the rock. His forehead fit into a tiny depression. He looked up, but couldn’t actually see the depression. He felt it with his hands, and had an idea.
He stood up carefully and blindly searched the wall for more depressions. He found a very small ledge above the tunnel from which he had come. He reached up to the crack above his head, and at the same time twisted his torso and lower body so that his foot could reach the ledge. He pressed his back and side against the wall and slowly, painfully pulled up. His calf tightened almost immediately so he pulled harder with his fingertips. He straightened out his leg with his head just below the ledge. He started to reach up onto the ledge, but stopped as he feared not being able to see where he put his hand. He laughed at himself, for even if his head had been level with the ledge he wouldn’t have been able to see anything in the darkness.
He reached up and felt for the object. He located it, and put his hand around a thin cylinder of what felt like wood.
Quickly he pulled his hand back. As he drew his closed fist away, he felt a shard of rock slice the backs of his fingers below the second knuckles. He lost his footing and fell two feet to the floor.
Clutching his bleeding hand to his chest, he bent down and looked at the object. The cylinder --a shaft about two inches in diameter-- that he held had a small disk on one end, and ball on the other, glowed yellow in the lamplight. On the equator of the ball, many symbols had been carved. They had been painted blue. On the top of the ball, opposite the shaft a series of red dots formed a larger circle with a dot in the middle. Hugo peered at the symbols, unable to recognize any.
He saw the blood on his knuckles and realized that they needed attention. He pulled a bandana from his pocket and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding.
Hugo looked at the object, he thought of it as a club, though a rather short one, and felt an overwhelming sense of wellbeing and awe. I’ve accomplished my task, he thought. He looked at the tunnel from which he had come, and the one that extended from where he squatted and sighed, the sense of wellbeing gone. He pushed his legs out behind him, and pushed the lantern and the club in front forward down the passage.