Day 21

Chapter 26

Mandy looked at her watch. 10:45. They drove back to the turnoff for Skeleton Cave and Torture rock. Mandy couldn’t make out any new tire tracks, but she couldn’t be sure. Mrs. McGregor looked out the window, humming quietly to herself. She thought about the times that she had spent here, in her youth, and into middle age. She started to think about her age, but banished the thoughts, just as she always did when they cropped up. “It’s not how old you are, it’s how old you feel.” She would say. She noted the infrequent juniper, and the ever present sage brush. She had the urge to go up and see the mountain mahogany, but she knew that they would have to go far out of their way, down south and then to the very edge of the refuge before they climbed high enough to find any. As a girl, her father would make them toys out of mountain mahogany. It was so hard that they could write their names in other wood, but it was brittle too, and if they dropped a doll in just the wrong way, it would break into ten pieces. She smiled just a bit.
A raven flew at them, following the road. Mrs. McGregor scowled at it and it veered off, choosing to turn south rather than test her ire. She nodded her head approvingly, feeling in fine form. She turned to Mandy, “What do you expect to find up at the cave, dear?”
Mandy considered for a moment. Why had they come to the refuge today? “I really don’t know,” she said. “I suppose that I just wanted to prove to myself that there really wasn’t anything in the sinkhole last night. At least nothing like what I pictured.”
“What did you picture?”
Mandy drove in silence for a moment, trying to put into words the images that she had conjured in the dark. She didn’t want to sound melodramatic or juvenile. “Really,” she began, but didn’t have time to finish. A coyote ran out in front of the car at speed. It came at an angle, from their right. Mandy slammed on the brakes, and the car swerved off the road to the left. They came to a stop with one wheel in the ditch beside the road. The front bumper sat buried in red-orange dirt.
Mandy sat up, shaken. Mrs. McGregor sat slumped in her seat, the belt holding her up, for a moment. Mandy turned to put a hand on her shoulder, expecting the worst. Before Mandy touched her, Mrs. McGregor shook for half a second, and then lifted her head.
“My,” she said. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?”
Mandy breathed a sigh of relief. Her mind had flashed what she would have to do with a dead Mrs. McGregor. She felt guilty for thinking so selfishly, and so said, “Are you alright?”
Mrs. McGregor touched her head and felt her neck. She looked down at the seat belt, sticking a thumb under it to loosten it. She wiggled her toes. “Yes,” she said. “I think that I am fine.” She looked up at Mandy. “You, however, are bleeding.” She touched her own forehead where the blood on Mandy’s stood ready to drip.
Mandy felt her head, then turned the rear view mirror to have a look. “It’s not too bad,” she said. The place felt tender, and she knew that it would get worse before it got better, but all in all, not to bad.
“A good thing we were wearing our seatbelts,” said Mrs. McGregor [Hemingway would never have written such a line].
Mandy started the car again, and put it in reverse. The tires spun. Dust flew up in the rear, but the car didn’t even budge. She tried forward, hoping to rock the car free, like she had been taught when she became stuck in snow. The car lurched forward a few feet and stalled again. Mandy lay her head on the steering wheel. Immediately her head snapped back as pain shot through her head. She wiped the blood off the wheel, and on to her jeans.
“Maybe we should get out and have a look,” Mrs. McGregor suggested.
They opened the doors. Mandy had to jump down into the ditch, her door stood about a two feet higher than usual. Mrs. McGregor walked to the back and took a look. Mandy walked to the front. The wondered at how they had gotten into such a mess. She regretted that she had come, and that she had brought Mrs. McGregor. She really didn’t want to take care of an old woman out in the middle of the refuge. She calculated how far away the visitor center must be. Then she thought about how far they were from the road.
She sunk into the soft soil about an inch with each step while she surveyed the damage. Both tires had left the road. The left one, resting across the ditch half buried in the soil. She couldn’t seem most of the bumper. The right wheel hung over the ditch, slowly spinning to a stop. She turned and kicked a rock. It disapeard over a ledge. Mandy walked to the ledge. She had found a small sinkhole. She started to climb carefully down. She thought about Mrs. McGregor, but left her behind all the same.
The path she chose had been frequented by someone in the recent past. A single juniper grew near the bottom of the hole. The fallen roof lay jumbled at her fee. It would have been hard to travel if not for the well worn path. It almost looked as though someone had moved some dirt to make the path through the broken down basalt. She could see ahead a cave entrance. It opened its mouth, but only a little, barely a crack. She moved closer and peered in the crack. It looked like it went, but it grew dark very quickly; she couldn’t see far.
She turned and saw Mrs. McGregor staning on the rim of the sinkhole. “Does it go?” She called.
Mandy considered, “Yes. I think so.” Mrs. McGregor turned and disappeared. Mandy walked back out the path and climbed back to the rim. As she reached the top, Mrs. McGregor returned with Mandy’s backpack, and their flashlights.
“We really should try to get help,” said Mandy, taking her pack.
“Somehow, I think that we should have a look at the cave. But first, we should have something to eat and a little water. Mrs. McGregor wanted to climb down and have their lunch in the sinkhole but Mandy convinced them that they should sit on the rim just in case anyone happened by and could help them out with their stuck car.
As they sat, they chatted a little, but not about anything important. Mandy worried about her car, and not getting to Skeleton Cave, but resigned herself to having a look in this new cave. She tried to adopt Mrs. McGregor’s fatalist attitude. Maybe they were meant to find this cave and have an explore.
The food tasted good and Mandy seemed particularly thirsty. As they ate, she noticed the clouds starting to move in from the west. They gathered around the foothills to the east as well. When she said what strange weather they seemed to be having, Mrs. McGregor frowned at the clouds and replied with only a brooding “yes”. They said little else for the rest of the meal.
No one came up the road or passed them on the way out, so the packed up and walked back to the cave entrance. Mandy tried to note any footprints near the mouth of the cave. She found some, but couldn’t tell how old they might be. She wished that Hugo were there with them, as he could do a good job of estimating. She hadn’t seen any on the rim of the sinkhole, at any rate, and no cars could be seen nearby. She retrieved a flashlight from her back, turned it on and shone it into the darkness. Much breakdown littered the floor. So much, in fact, that they would have to crawl over it for quite a ways, it looked like, before they might be able to stand up.
“Are you sure that you are up to this?” She asked Mrs. McGregor.
“I’m not the one who is injured,” said Mrs. McGregor, rather tartly.
Mandy turned and crawled into the cave.


Chapter 27

[Need to have more passages like this earlier in the book so that we can see a development]
Somewhere deep in the earth, something stirred. The creature stirred. He had heard the voices, calling, calling to it. It had responded by breaking free of its bonds, the frozen crust of rock that had entombed it for these many years. It had heard the voices and came looking for a meal.
Slowly, languidly, it had stretched its atrophied muscles. As blood pumped once again through its veins, filling the muscles with that life giving fluid, it opened its eyes, to pure and utter darkness. It looked around, but could see nothing, nor did anything make a sound. It cocked its head and tentatively moved forward, as a new born deer might after birth. It bumped into a wall, and sniffed it. Then it caught a scent and followed it, followed it toward the surface. Its mind, razor sharp, thought of only one thing, something to eat. Something to eat. Something to eat. Hunger pulsed with each heartbeat.
Long idle claws scrabbled on the loose rock on the floor as it climbed toward darkness, through darkness, from darkness. With each step it became stronger. With each heartbeat more awake, more alive. More hungry.
Still, it followed the scent of the surface, a scent full of possibilities of choices, of creeping and crawling things. Of slithering things. Of running things. Its pace quickened. Saliva began to drip from its mouth. The scent of the surface became stronger, closer. Toward darkness it almost ran, now remembering the way. Sensing the twists and turns, sensing the loose rocks and the boulders that had to be skirted. Again the voices called and again its pace quickened.
The voices became more urgent. It resented the voices, wanted to kill the voices. A meal. Hunger burned in its belly. Faster now, almost a run, it came toward the surface. Faster toward the darkness, toward the voices. Toward the prey.


Chapter 28

Hugo felt sweat run into the scrapes on his arms and kneed. He felt soaked to the bone. Any sense of well being that the club had given him earlier, had evaporated. He thought that maybe he had made a mistake continuing on. Maybe I should have gone back, he thought. Maybe I was only supposed to retrieve the club. But no. Bonanza had implied that he should continue on, he was almost sure of it.
The passageway had opened up slightly to the left and right. Now, instead of being just large enough for him to fit through, it allowed him to put both arms forward and scoot along an his belly and elbows. The floor of the passageway, however, had become rougher: the compacted mud previous to the chimney, had vanished. He clawed his way along, determined and fatalistic at the same time. What else can I do but continue on? He thought. It has to come out somewhere, right? Bonanza wouldn’t have sent me down here to retrieve a club, then crawl on my belly until I died, right?
Twice, openings tempted him to his left, but he could not squeeze into them, they simply had been too small. He shined his lantern through them, but could only see blackness. He continued on doggedly. He continuted to check for chimneys overhead, but the ceiling had turned smooth as the floor had turned rough: he did not see even so much as a crack.
The passage becan to decline slightly. It began to close in again, as well. Hugo felt an anger toward the passage way rise in he mind, but tried to shut it out. It turned into anger toward Bonanza, and resentmet toward Mandy. A flood of emotions overwhelmed him as he crawled along. “What the hell is up with Mandy,” he said aloud. He was statled by the sound of his voice. How long have I been down here? He thought. He estimated two or two and a half hours, but he couldn’t be sure. And where is this damn tunnel going? “I’m tired of crawling on my belly,” he said.
As he moved along, his progress again slowed as the tunnel closed in tightly. He had to wriggle with one hand in front again, pushing the club and lantern ahead. He had to stop many times. He was becoming tired.
After the fourth or fifth rest, he had almost lost hope. Be began to think about trying to go backwards, but knew that that was hopless. With the floor as rough as it was, his pant leg cuffs would catch everytime he moved. He felt himself breathe against the rock. It pressed in on him. He tried to take a deep breath, but the rock sat against his back and chest. He felt the panic, but instead pushed through, making himself move forward again. He pushed the club ahead again, and it disappeared into space. He felt with his hand. He had found a hole in the floor of the passageway! He grabbed the bail of the lantern so that it would not fall. He lamented losing the club, but hopfully it would only be a short ways from the hole that he swung the lantern through.
He looked around, the lantern dangling in space followed by his head, his right arm still pressed against his side, pinned in the hole.