Latitude 38

by Ron Hutchison

  “Mom!” Emily shrieked.

  When the spin of water brought Emily back past the ledge, Adriana reacted instinctively, pulling away from Diego and throwing herself into the thundering flood.

  “Adriana! No!”

  Diego plunged into the torrent after his wife, losing his headlamp and choking on the foul-tasting water, which was trying to twist him into a pretzel. Diego heard Adriana call out to him, but in the next moment, she and Emily were gone.

  ***

  Diego was swept out of the chamber on his back, his waterproof pack at his chest. To complicate matters—after making a dizzying 360 around the chamber and past Cutbirth, whose extended hand he hadn’t reached—Diego had been pulled out of the chamber backward. He was a turtle on its back, totally defenseless. His headlamp was gone and he fumbled with his backpack in the blackness, searching for his waterproof flashlight. He found it in a side pocket and hurriedly flipped it on, holding it above the surface of the fast-moving water.

  He tried to turn himself in the direction he had last seen Adriana, but the power of the water was too strong, and he continued to wash down the tunnel on his back, his flashlight aimed uselessly at the ceiling.

  “Adriana!”

  No, it is not going to end this way! Diego thought, the anger swelling in him. I will not allow it to end this way!

  Diego wondered how Arnold Cutbirth could have made such a careless mistake. How could he have allowed a thunderstorm to sneak up on them? Diego added Cutbirth’s name to the growing list of people he had silently cursed in the past week.

  Mother Cave was suddenly beneath Diego, snapping at his boots. He gained enough leverage to turn himself over, and the beam from his flashlight brightened the churning waters ahead for 30 yards. He was painfully surprised. He saw no one. Not Adriana. Not Emily. Not Sissy. Yong Kim had also vanished.

  “Adriana!”

  No answer.

  “Emily!”

  Diego was alone in the inky morass, which continued to rush wildly through the dark moat. The only sound was the unnerving swish-gurgle of the water. He aimed his flashlight down the rocky shaft. Twenty yards ahead, the tunnel forked—the frigid water spilled into two separate passageways. The fickle current spit Diego down the left fork.

  He had little choice in the matter.

  27

  The unruly floodwaters held Diego prisoner for nearly 15 minutes before delivering him into a huge teepee-like chamber. The roof angled in from all sides and converged at a point high above, much like a huge circus tent. The current had slowed to a crawl. He stood up, draped his backpack over his shoulder, shined his flashlight at his new surroundings, and then waded out of the chest-deep water and onto a stone beach. One end of the beach featured an awning-like overhang.

  He stood on the shore, shaking from the cold and watching the slow-moving water pass through the belly of the cave. His teeth were chattering and his muscles were caught up in one continuous tremor. Bone weary, each movement, each step, required superhuman strength.

  Diego knew he had to warm himself before hypothermia set in. He was certainly no outdoorsman—far from it, as Adriana would attest—but he knew about hypothermia. It was a killer. He had to get out of his wet clothes. Somehow, he had to warm his body. A mass of driftwood had collected beneath the overhang—some of the limbs were the size of baseball bats—but Diego knew the waterlogged debris would never burn.

  Diego stepped beneath the rocky overhang and opened his backpack. Working in the beam from his flashlight, he found the three emergency candles and the waterproof container of matches. In his first-aid kit was a roll of adhesive tape. His fingers trembling from the cold, he placed the flashlight on the cave floor and worked in the bright cone of light, taping the candles together and twining the wicks into one. Next he lit the single wick, and then held the candles at an angle. The flames licked the candles, and hot wax dripped onto the chamber floor to form a small pool. He had watched Cutbirth go through the same exercise the night before at the Birthday Cake.

  The cold had found a home in Diego’s body and it was difficult to concentrate on the task at hand, but he managed somehow to secure the tripod of candles in the pool of hot wax, which congealed almost immediately. The flame flagged in the light underground breeze, and Diego warmed his hands over the pitiful dagger of fire.

  Adriana, where are you?

  After his hands had warmed (they weren’t really warm, just not as cold) he removed his hiking boots, wrung out his socks and gloves, and hung them on the snagged teeth of the wall. When he removed the final article of clothing—his long johns—wide swatches of goose bumps bubbled up on his cold, bluish skin. Diego wondered how his predecessor of 30,000 years ago would have managed in a similar situation. The person who had drawn the cave bear. He or she probably had survival tricks Diego couldn’t even dream of.

  The cold was closing over him like cellar doors and Diego blew into his hands and started doing jumping jacks. He needed to get his blood flowing and his heart rate up. After 50 jumping jacks, he wrapped his body in the water-repellent space blanket, taping it snugly around his naked body with adhesive tape, leaving his arms and legs free.

  He next wrung out his clothes—coveralls, shirt, long johns—and hung them from the rocky barbs on the back wall of the overhang. He knew his clothes would never dry completely, but the subtle breeze tiptoeing through the cave might take out some of the sop.

  He forced himself through another set of jumping jacks.

  What a sight I must be, he thought. A 43-year-old man doing calisthenics in a cave, all wrapped up in what looks like aluminum foil. King Tut back from the dead.

  But it was working. He could feel his heart pumping hard, and in a few minutes a blush of warmth entered his body.

  He fished around in his backpack and found two energy bars, ate them quickly, then did a hasty inventory of his food: He had enough dried fruit for one small snack. He checked his canteen. Nearly empty. But he had plenty of purification tablets.

  The dim light from the candles lit the dark flood as it coursed slowly through the chamber like a black water python. Diego noticed the water line. It had not dropped. He stared into the blade of fire and wondered again about Adriana, his stomach turning, his eyes pooling.

  Frustrated by his own human frailty—he wanted to make the water go away—Diego tried to accelerate time. To make seconds minutes, minutes hours. But time, like the flood, was indifferent to him.

  Adriana, where are you? Have I told you today how much I love you? I do, you know! Wildly, crazily, madly!

  “ADRIANA!” he screamed, dislodging the sob in his throat.

  His echo came back.

  Diego found his whistle in a side pocket of his backpack, and he stepped to the edge of the floodwater and blew it loudly. At first he thought someone had responded—he heard an answering whistle blast—but he realized it was only the echo of his own shrill plea. He blew the whistle at ten-second intervals for nearly five minutes, but his own echo was all that the cave would give him.

  Diego freed his mind to wonder once again. Was Adriana alive? Had she been able to save Emily? A hot flash of pain gripped his heart at the thought of his wife lying face down in the water in some black corner of the cave. If she was alive, how was she coping? Had she the presence of mind to light her candles? Was she warm? Or was she close to death from hypothermia? Adriana had been on many archaeological digs in all types of inclement weather—She’s a survivalist, he reminded himself—and Diego was convinced she was alive. But she had no Z patch. Her pain must be— He didn’t want to think about her pain.

  “ADRIANA, WHERE ARE YOU?” he screamed again, his face strained with anger.

  His own voice came back at him a second time.

  Diego stepped over to his cherished little fire and passed his hands over the flames. “Don’t panic,” he mumbled. “You can find Adriana. Think.”

  But how would he ever find her in the vast network of tunnels and chambers that ran th
roughout the bowels of this Ozark mountain? It was like every carnival fun house in the world laid end to end. The flood had taken him down at least a dozen forks. Right. Left. Left. Right. The odds were staggering that Adriana had been swept down the same tunnels. Finding her seemed impossible.

  Think, damnit!

  He sat with his back against the cave wall, his space blanket wrapped around his naked body and secured with adhesive tape. The flame from the bundle of candles projected frolicking images against the cavern walls. He had made an uneasy peace with the cold; his only complaint was his toes. They had a numb, wooden feel about them, and every few minutes he’d put them through a short set of calisthenics.

  Diego wondered how far the flood had carried him and he did some quick math. He had been in the water for about 15 minutes. Although it seemed faster at the time, he probably wasn’t traveling much more than 15 miles per hour. The flood had taken him about three and a half miles.

  Although Diego tried to fight the regret that washed over him, it kept pulling him under. He should have insisted they remain in San Francisco. He should have admitted Adriana to UCSF Medical Center and prepared himself to watch his wife wither away in her hospital bed with the ward chaplain reading scripture. That scenario seemed okay now. Oh, hell yes. That scenario seemed far, far better than this craziness they had bought into. (Diego saw himself bribing the head nurse thousands of dollars to exchange the placebos for some real pain medications. Demerol would work fine, thank you.)

  “GODDAMNIT!” he screamed, the frustration spewing out.

  Diego began to weep.

  “Goddamnit,” he sobbed, the tears leaking down his face.

  Diego had never begged for special treatment from God for either himself or his wife, even after Adriana contracted cancer. He had allowed God’s wisdom in such things to prevail. But now he prayed for this special treatment. He silently asked God to please find it in His noble plans to keep Adriana safe. And if it isn’t asking too much, Emily and the others, too.

  His mind drifted in and out of sleep as he waited for the floodwaters to recede.

  “Adriana!” a voice cried out.

  Diego sat up with a lurch at the sound of the voice. He clicked on his flashlight and searched the dreary cavern for the person who had spoken his wife’s name. But he saw no one. Only a few gruesome stalactites inhabited the cave. Then it came to him: He had been the one calling Adriana’s name. He clicked off his flashlight and dropped his head against his chest, another sob lodged deep inside his throat.

  Then he saw something strange. At his feet, illuminated by the dim light from the candles, was a tiny pool of water no larger than a dinner plate. At first Diego thought it must be his imagination playing tricks on him, and he leaned down for a closer look, squinting, his eyes focused on the water. No, he was right the first time. The pool of water was rippling. The tiny waves began in its middle and moved out to the rim in a steady circular pattern like the miniature shockwaves of an atomic blast.

  Diego stared at the pool of water for the longest time. He put his hand to the cave floor, but strangely, felt no vibration. And yet the puddle continued to cavort as if responding to the footsteps of some giant underground beast that was lurking nearby.

  He blew out his candles—he knew the value of conserving them. Exhausted, he was asleep in a few short moments.

  ***

  When Diego awoke to the darkness a half-hour later there was a smell in the air that made him think Arnold Cutbirth was near. But he quickly realized it was only the cave he smelled. The cave was dark and silent, and there were no sounds, except for the dim and distant splatter of dripping water.

  God Almighty, where are you, Adriana?

  The inky darkness scared Diego. It was darkness unlike any he had ever known, and it pressed in on him like some living thing, stealing his breath.

  “Relax, Diego,” he mumbled.

  He had never thought about it before, but now, there in a total absence of light, Diego realized that sounds made in absolute darkness, those few precious sounds of dripping water, had a different texture. They were far more important. Far more meaningful. Sounds meant something in the dark. They were to be listened to. Studied. Even obeyed, if necessary.

  Diego stirred himself from his own thoughts because the sounds in the darkness were also unnerving, and he fumbled for the matches. He located them and lit the intertwining wicks of the candles. The bright, dancing flame was like seeing an old friend again. Glancing at the slow-moving water, he could see that it was shallow enough to navigate. It was less than thigh deep. His spirits renewed at the thought of finding Adriana, Diego hurriedly stripped the clothes from the wall and dressed. The clothes were still soaked, but it didn’t matter. He sat on the cold floor and pulled on his socks and boots.

  Then he heard something.

  Splashing.

  It was faint, but it was definitely splashing.

  Diego laced his boots and jumped to his feet. His first instinct was to cry out in a joyful welcome—“In here! I’m in here!”—and he almost did just that. But he was reminded that the splashing could easily be that of the bounty hunters. Uno and Big Bertha might be headed his way, and he stowed his happy shout.

  Placing his backpack at the base of the wall that formed the overhang, Diego quietly dislodged a crooked, baseball-bat-sized limb from the adjacent mound of debris, and then blew out his candles. The slimy, heavy limb hanging from his hand, he stepped to the wall and stood motionless, his back flat against the knobby limestone panel, a yard from the corner of the tunnel leading into the cavern.

  The gentle splashing drew closer. Someone was pushing through the water.

  Diego raised the limb above his head. If it was Uno—How the hell did she get across the pit? he wondered—he was prepared to use the slick, warped limb. Oh, yeah, he would damn sure use it. Uno wouldn’t show him any mercy, and he was determined not to show her any.

  Dead or alive!

  The cone of light drew closer—it seemed as bright as a car headlight—and the splashing grew louder.

  If he remained motionless, his back pressed against the wall, the person would most likely not see him. He tightened his grip on the slippery limb.

  The brilliant cone of light entered the cavern and the splashing stopped. Diego leaned to his left quietly and peeked around the corner of the rock wall hoping to glimpse the person, but they were still too deep inside the tunnel. Diego pulled his head back. The intense glowing cone of light bobbing up and down, the splashing resumed and in a few seconds the person entered the chamber.

  Enough of the light spilled onto a face. It was Uno. She had managed to not only cross the pit, but survive the flood. Daring not to breathe, Diego held the thick limb high above his head.

  Dressed in coveralls and wearing a headlamp—Rosie’s coveralls and headlamp, Diego was reminded—Uno paused at the entrance to the tent-like cave and surveyed it with the dazzling cylinder of light. Her sawed-off 12-gauge pump shotgun hung from one shoulder and a knapsack from her other. Her pouty lips were drawn back in a stalker’s grin.

  A laundry list of thoughts rushed through Diego’s mind. One, however, stood head and shoulders above the others: He had not hidden the candles. They were still rooted to the floor a few yards away. If Uno saw his candles, the jig was up.

  Blown to pieces by a shotgun blast.

  Diego held his breath and prayed.