“What the hell do you think, Sam?”
“I think you know about caves,” Sam said in a timid voice.
Cutbirth looked at Emily through the vague shadows. “Want to know what I like about caves, kid?”
“What?” Emily was nestled beside her mother.
“It’s not the silence, although silence is divine,” Cutbirth began, his voice taking on the dramatic tone of some Shakespearean storyteller. “Not a word, nor a whisper, only the music of monotonous dripping water, the hollow gurgle and splash of a flowing stream, the roar of a waterfall, the voices of bats in the blackness,” Cutbirth said. “No, it’s none of these things. It’s the smell.”
“The smell?” Emily asked in a small voice.
“Yeah, kid, the smell.” Cutbirth opened his wide nostrils and breathed deeply again. “The odor of Mother Cave is magnificent. Wet earth. Dry dust. Water. The ammonia smell of bat urine. The stench of guano. The decay of spiders and beetles and cave crickets. Tiny carcasses radiating that wonderful smell of death.”
Somewhere in the darkness a coyote delivered a long, cheerless howl, one that rose into the black gloom of night, and Adriana crowded in closer to Diego. He draped an arm over her shoulder. Her body felt stiff.
Cutbirth continued his melodramatic sermon.
“Stalagmites rising from the floor like giant swords. Stalactites hanging from the ceiling like jeweled chandeliers. Towering domes, some as high as a ten-story building. Immense chambers that would dwarf any of the world’s great Superdomes. Spacious hallways the likes of which have not been seen since the pharaohs. Tunnels blocked by the weight of their own ceiling, and tiny crawl spaces so tight that a man inflicted with the disease of claustrophobia finds himself screaming forgiveness for some long-ago sin.”
Mention of claustrophobia caused Diego’s head to swim.
“So!” Cutbirth grunted, his reverie at an end. “Are we ready for this grand adventure? This trip across—or as the case might be—under latitude 38? Are we ready to traipse through fresh bat guano, to wade in icy, waist-deep water, to crawl belly-down through mud in a place where the sun never shines, the moon never rises?”
The question was met with tentative nods and a cautious “Uh-huh” or two.
A rush of wind passed over the campsite, rustling in the trees like some wilderness phantom, and Diego turned and looked into the dark forest surrounding them, an icy saw blade gnawing at his spine. Somewhere in the shadowy murkiness were two bounty hunters—at least two, maybe more. And the National Police. The rules of the game were simple: Dead or alive.
“Is anyone claustrophobic?” Cutbirth asked, his deep-set eyes sweeping over them.
There was that word again, and Diego and Adriana locked eyes.
Diego said, “Yeah, Cutbirth, I once had a mild case of claustrophobia.”
“Mild? There is no such thing as a mild. It’s like being pregnant,” Cutbirth chided. “You either are or you’re aren’t.”
Diego said, “And you know this because you earned your medical degree in psychiatric medicine from what college? Beaver Creek University?”
That got a laugh from everyone. It helped break the tension they were all feeling. Sam actually slapped his knee.
Cutbirth smiled slyly at each of them. “I’ll remember those spiteful laughs when things start going south inside Mother Cave. You might regret laughing at my expense.”
“Lighten up, Cutbirth,” Yong said.
Cutbirth said, “If no one else has claustrophobia, except Ad Man here, who claimed it is only mild, how about nyctophobia?”
“Pray tell what is nyctophobia, Mr. Cutbirth?” Sam asked.
He replied with a barbarous grin. “A fear of the dark.”
Silence.
Henry offered a scornful little laugh and lit a cigarette.
Cutbirth got up and worked the stiffness out of his back, his caveman eyes gleaming with quiet excitement. “It’s the lure of the abyss, my friends.”
“Abyss. What’s that?” Emily said, her nose wrinkled.
“A bottomless hole, kid. You fall in, you don’t come out.”
Emily clutched her mother’s arm.
Sissy said, “That’s enough, Mr. Cutbirth. You’re scaring Emily.”
“Sissy’s right,” Yong complained. “No more poetic prattle. Give us something with a little more meat on it.”
“How about a weather forecast?” Cutbirth said.
“What good is a weather forecast if we’re going underground?” Diego said.
Cutbirth barked a What-a-stupid-question laugh. “Because caves flood, Ad Man.” Cutbirth said rain and the flooding it often brings underground were nothing to worry about, however, because he had checked the three-day forecast early that morning before they had made their hushed exit from the Winnebago, and clear skies were predicted. Cutbirth said he didn’t mind a lethal fall from a subterranean cliff or dying of starvation after becoming hopelessly lost, but he didn’t relish the thought of drowning in a cave. “I have an unnatural fear of that,” he confessed. Then Cutbirth said they had a big day ahead of them tomorrow, and that he was turning in for the night.
“Shouldn’t someone stand guard?” Henry asked, glancing anxiously in the direction of the river.
“What about those bounty hunters?” Rosie asked. She fiddled with the crucifix hanging around her neck.
“Posting a guard is a good idea,” Cutbirth said. “I’ll take the last two-hour watch. Someone wake me. We leave at dawn.”
Cutbirth took his lifejacket, space blanket, and black moneybag, and went over to one of the canoes, which was lying on its side beneath the camouflage of limbs. He pushed a few of the limbs aside, spread the blanket under the canoe, and then crawled in with his gym bag. He used the lifejacket for a pillow.
Casting a nervous glance into the forest, Sam said, “I’ll volunteer to take the first two-hour watch.”
“Wake me, Sam,” Yong said. “I’ll take the second.” He looked at Diego. “You in?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not,” Henry declared, exhaling a billowy cloud of tar and nicotine and othercarcinogens. “I need my rest.”
“You need more than that,” Yong muttered.
***
Diego was awakened by Yong four hours later. Diego had fallen asleep stretched out near a canoe next to Adriana, a lifejacket under his head, his space blanket covering the ground beneath him. He sat up and looked around. Adriana was in the midst of a restless sleep, her breathing ragged and uneven. A lifejacket cradled her head as well.
“I’m turning in,” Yong said in a quiet voice. “If there’s trouble, wake me.”
“You can be sure of that,” Diego said, climbing to his feet and removing his waterproof flashlight from his backpack.
Yong disappeared into the shadows.
The pearly half-moon had fallen out of the sky, and the chatter of locusts and frogs had been silenced. The soft gurgle of the Meramec River floated gently through the damp, nighttime stillness.
Diego took note of the inky shapes of the others sleeping nearby. A couple of his rabbit companions had followed Cutbirth’s lead and claimed spots beneath the canoes. Diego couldn’t tell who was who.
Sleeping on the ground had made Diego’s joints as stiff as rusty door hinges; he arched his back, stretched his arms, and peered into the blackness surrounding their campsite. He clicked on his flashlight and followed the cone of light to the edge of the forest. He sat beneath a tree. The tree felt good at his back. He clicked off his flashlight.
Diego was drifting to sleep an hour later when he was startled by the sound of a human voice. He sat up straight and looked around. He heard the human voice again, and every fiber in his body went ramrod stiff.
When a muttering of words came a third time, he recognized the voice. It was Arnold Cutbirth. The caveman was talking in his sleep. Still stretched out beneath the canoe, Cutbirth’s words were slurred badly and Diego couldn’t make them out. But it wasn’t im
portant, and Diego uttered a jittery sigh. It was only Cutbirth talking in his sleep.
Easy, fellow, Diego told himself. The only ghouls are the ones inside your—
Diego turned abruptly toward a rustling of leaves. He squinted into the darkness. The vague light from the stars cast sinister shadows through the growth of sycamore trees, which stood like sentries along one end of the campsite.
There it was again—dry leaves crackling underfoot.
Diego recalled Cutbirth’s earlier comment to Rosie: “If a bear’s hungry enough, he’ll eat just about anything.” The skin on the back of Diego’s neck drew taut and a chill knifed up his backbone. He flipped on his flashlight and aimed the light toward the sound, the bright shaft of light creating ghastly shapes on the trees and bushes.
When the rustling came again—this time much louder—Diego flipped off his flashlight and moved quickly into the sycamore trees, his footfalls quiet, his nerves frayed. He crouched and listened, his body tense, his mind spinning a sequence of lurid scenes. The ugly crackling sound continued—there was a frightening cadence to it. Footsteps in the night. Footsteps drawing nearer.
Dead or alive!
If a bear’s hungry enough….
Diego felt another twitch of fear race through his body. But oddly, the fear aroused him. He liked the sense of it. He had never been much of an outdoors man—indeed, he had never hunted or fished a day in his life, and Field & Stream Magazine was certainly not at the top of his reading list—but somehow, strangely, he savored the fear that was streaming unfettered through his veins.
He clicked on his flashlight again, training the luminous beam at the sound. As he did, the shaft of light illuminated a pair of shimmering eyes, and a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder.
Diego had been crouching. He jumped straight into the air with a startled cry.
“Easy, Ad Man!” It was Cutbirth. “What the hell you doing?”
Diego’s legs trembled and his breathing came in hurried spurts. “Cutbirth! You son of a…you scared...scared the shit out of me!”
“Appears so. I say again, what the hell you doing?”
“I heard something.” Diego gasped for air.
“Heard something? ’Course you heard something. You always hear something in the woods at night. That’s when animals feed.”
“I thought it might be...might be the bounty hunters.”
“Those bounty hunters are in another county.” Cutbirth snatched the flashlight out of Diego’s hand and scanned the brush. The beam of light came to rest on a hideous gray opossum. Three babies clung stubbornly to their mother’s back. Alerted by the gleam of light in her eyes, the mother opossum stopped, raised her head and hissed, then turned on her heels and retreated quickly into the heavy undergrowth.
Diego felt like a fool and expected Cutbirth to find great amusement in the episode. But Cutbirth said simply, “Be dawn in another hour. Might as well stay up.”
16
Although the news was received with moans, Cutbirth informed everyone over an early breakfast of dried figs that they would hike the remaining seven or eight miles to the entrance of the cave, which, Cutbirth claimed, snaked its way under the 38th latitude.
“It’s not safe on the river,” he cautioned. “We’ll stick to the forest.”
“Will we have to ford the river?” Diego asked.
“No,” Cutbirth replied.
“Cutbirth, it’s too damn hot to hike,” Henry complained, his colorless face already slick with sweat. “Let’s stay on the river where it’s cooler.” He had removed the bandage from around his skull. A ghastly four-inch scab now marked the spot where the Chinese soldier’s baton had cracked open his head.
“Listen, Henry,” Cutbirth began, zipping his backpack closed. “We got lucky yesterday. I expected to see the sky swarming with National Police helicopters. We only saw one. Not only are we kidnappers, but we’re also murderers, my gaunt little friend. Do I have to remind you that they believe we killed that National Police officer in Oklahoma? They won’t stop until they’ve captured us…or killed us.”
Emily was seated on the ground pulling on her pint-sized hiking boots. Frowning, she said, “Please stop talking about dying, Mr. Cutbirth. It…it scares me.” Her eyes pooling, she began to cry.
Sissy leveled an angry gaze at Cutbirth. “You’re an insensitive jug head, Cutbirth!”
“I told you kids were trouble, Hummingbird,” Cutbirth retorted. “Kids are a pain in the ass. I should never have agreed to bring her.”
Emily buried her face in her hands and continued to sob.
“But she’s here, so get used to it,” Diego said.
“Okay, from now on I’ll candy-coat everything,” Cutbirth said. “I’ll use more civilized words for kill…words like purge or expunge.”
“Okay, you’ve made your point, Mr. Cutbirth,” Adriana said.
Sissy pulled Emily to her feet, wiped her tears, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Mr. Cutbirth is a pain in the ass, Emily, not you.”
“We’re all a bit jumpy this morning,” Diego said. “Let’s everyone take a few deep breaths and relax. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
“I know what!” Henry rejoiced. “Let’s stand in a circle and sing hiking songs.” He coughed up a disgusting mass of smoker’s phlegm, turned his head and spit, and then chuckled at his own lame humor.
Cutbirth looked at Yong. “What was I talking about?”
“You were trying to convince Einstein here”—he shot Henry a look—“why it was safer to stick to the forest,” Yong said, folding his space blanket and stuffing it into his backpack.
“Yeah, right. We’ve got to keep to the forest. The National Police will spot us in an instant on the river. And lest we forget, the bounty hunters are still very much a part of this equation.”
“I agree with Cutbirth,” Yong said. “Let’s not push our luck. Let’s stick to the forest.”
In a childlike voice, Henry mocked Yong. “I agree with Cutbirth. Let’s not push our luck. Let’s stick to the forest.”
“Keep it up, Henry,” Yong warned. “And if I were you, I’d keep an eye on that backpack.”
Henry responded with an uneasy snicker.
“If we hear the sound of choppers,” Cutbirth advised, “find cover. Immediately. I will make each of you a final offer,” he said, slipping into his backpack. “If you want to go back, do it now. Indeed, this will be the last time I will mention it.” His unsympathetic gaze swept over each of them. “Once we leave camp, there’s no turning back.”
As Cutbirth and his troupe of rabbits prepared for a long hike through the forest, Adriana summoned Diego. She was digging through her backpack. “I’m missing two patches,” she said, trying hard to maintain control of her voice.
Diego immediately dumped the contents of Adriana’s backpack onto the ground. Two Z patches were missing.
Adriana’s head jerked up and in a loud, angry voice she said, “Who took my Z patches? Someone stole them from my backpack! There were three in the side pocket! Now there’s only one!” She was huffing and puffing like an angry bull.
Diego turned and eyed each of them. “Okay, who took Adriana’s pain patches?”
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