Ferryman

by Jonathon Wise

  He turned his attention back to the traffic and tightened his grip on the wheel of the ’78 Chevy step-side. “I don’t know if I’d call this driving…we’ll be home in fifteen minutes.” But even though he maintained a hard stare at the on-coming traffic, her statement struck a chord. He did remember when they used to pack up and go driving for a day. There was no schedule to maintain, no destination that they were aiming for. It was just an excuse to get away and spend a little quality time together.

  An opening came but instead of pulling out, Chuck just sat there. The memories were good, but at the same time they were like a swift kick to the groin. They brought up the anguish he went to sleep with each night on the living room couch.

  Then Becky really caught him off-guard. She slid across the worn vinyl bench seat, took his right hand off the wheel and draped it over her shoulder as she pressed against his side. His breath snagged halfway up his throat as he turned back toward the windshield. What happened next came before he even had a chance to think about it - he pulled his arm off her and grabbed the wheel. “I can’t drive like that.”

  “You could when we were younger.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the on-coming eastbound traffic. A second later an opening came and the truck shot off the side street and veered sharply onto the highway. Like a chain of falling dominos, the momentum pressed him against the door and her against his side, but as soon as the truck straightened out, she slid back across the seat to her side of the truck. In a matter of seconds, the isolation that was far too routine in their marriage once again set in.

  Chuck glanced at her as he struggled to find focus through the different emotions bubbling up inside him. By the time he turned his attention back to the task of driving, they were coming up on the flashing light where State Road 62 split off of 56. 56 continued on down the bluff to the historic part of Madison along the bank of the Ohio River. 62 veered off and followed the crest of the bluff through the commercial part of town—fast food, Wal-Mart and the like. He was hoping to turn on 62 before she said anything, but it was too late. She pointed and said, “56! Take me through town.”

  To him, the diversion was nothing more than a waste of time and gas, but not a big enough deal to argue. He kept the wheel straight as they began the winding descent that ran past the two great smokestacks of the power plant. At the bottom, State Road 56 became Main Street. It wasn’t that he didn’t like downtown. It was quaint with its antique shops, old Victorian homes and picturesque wrought iron street posts. But he spent every day down there at work, and besides, they lived up the hill across from the golf course. Not that he was a golfer. Twenty-three years ago they had just gotten married and needed something that they could afford. They bought the house because it was a fixer-upper and a bargain, not because of its proximity to the golf course.

  Besides, he was all too familiar with the drive behind Becky’s desire. It was coming up on the right side of the street. It was an old, turn of the century brick Queen Anne. His wife was obsessed with it. Every time they drove by it, she would stare out the window as if seeing it for the first time. Today was no exception. “That house is so beautiful,” she stated in a wishful tone only slightly louder than a whisper.

  “Why do you always insist on driving by that house? You know it’ll never be for sale, and even if it did, there’s no way we could ever afford it.”

  She ignored him and kept staring out the window.

  For some reason he felt the need to stress his point. He slowed the pickup to a crawl and looked at the house with her. “I bet the damn thing is a rat trap. The inside probably needs all kinds of work and there’s no way I’m going to spend all my free time fixing up some old piece of shit.”

  “Don’t worry…I couldn’t imagine that you would.”

  Chuck reared back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Becky didn’t respond immediately, instead she slowly turned toward him and said, “It’s not a rat trap…its nice…it’s a home.” She longingly turned back for one last look as he started accelerating. “The only thing it’s missing is a nice flower garden. That’s it, nothing else. Then it would be perfect.”

  He shook his head. “Life isn’t always perfect.” Without thinking he glanced her way and added, “You don’t always get everything you want.” As soon as the words left his lips he began to question what he meant by it. He wasn’t sure if he said it to be mean, or if it was how he actually felt deep down. But in any case he felt the tension return in his jaws and shoulders.

  Becky turned back toward the front as the Victorian disappeared from sight behind the truck. Neither said another word as he turned on Michigan at the light and headed back up the bluff that overlooked the river.

  Chapter 3

  Clay kept rolling the words over in his mind ‘I can do it!’ as he held the steel line with both hands and waited for his body to stop swinging.

  “We lower you now—you good to go?” Stein asked over the headset.

  Clay tried to swallow and breathe at the same time. Neither came easily. His heart was racing as he finally forced down a hard gulp and opened his eyes. “Oh shit!” He was slowly spinning like the proverbial worm on the hook as he dangled in the hot sun over the bottomless pit of darkness below.

  “You okay?”

  Clay clutched the line for dear life and huffed as streams of sweat trickled down his face. “I’m alright!” The limestone layered around the mouth of the sinkhole passed in front of him. Stein and the rest of the team slowly swung into view and he saw Aliston clenching her hands together in front of her chest. He eased the tension in his jaws enough to gasp, “I’m good to go.”

  “Good. Remember lighter.”

  Clay didn’t get the chance to acknowledge the transmission before he suddenly started descending into the pit. Except for the occasional glance below, he kept his eyes closed for the better part of the first minute of the descent.

  “Watch for clearance.”

  Whether it was the sound of Stein’s voice or simply that he was beginning to realize that the line wasn’t going to snap, Clay found the courage to open his eyes. He let go of the line clutched in his right hand just long enough to flick on the lights mounted to his spelunking helmet. Then with both hands back on the line, he checked to see if his descent was clear of obstacles. The sunlight above was fading rapidly as he looked down past his chest, over each shoulder, and behind as he slowly spun in a circle. “I can’t see anything yet. No signs of the walls or bottom.”

  “Passing 150 meters. Breathing okay?”

  Clay was inhaling deeply, but it wasn’t due to a drop in the oxygen level. “Still okay.” The only thing of notice so far was the drop in temperature. Top side around the winch it was close to forty degrees centigrade. It felt at least 10 degrees cooler already and he was still descending. He looked at the faint circle of light where the hole punched through the surface. “How deep now?”

  Stein’s voice came back across the headset. “Approaching 275 meters. Still good?”

  Clay was beginning to feel a burning sensation in his lungs. He relaxed the grip of his right hand and quickly snatched one of the Bic lighters out of his shirt pocket. He wrapped his right arm around the line and flicked the lighter. The flame lit okay but was burning a bluish tint with an orange tip. “Starting to lose oxygen.”

  “Keep watch of flame. Passing 300 meters”

  Clay kept the Bic burning but couldn’t pull his eyes from the fading circle of light high above. He watched as the darkness slowly overtook the only reference he had to the mouth of the shaft and snuffed it out. By the time he looked at the flame it was burning more than a centimeter above the jet. He glanced below and to the sides. There was no light, no sound, or any sign of life. The one comforting thought in that endless descent was how this would make up for all the times his father had told him that he needed to step up and be a man. He looked at the lighter and saw the flame burning close to two centimeters over the jet. “I�
��m going to oxygen.”

  Stein’s voice crackled over the headset. “Mark time. Twenty minutes and counting. Passing 350 meters.”

  Clay took his thumb off the lighter and pulled the mask up over his mouth and nose. As soon as it was fitted, he opened the valve on the oxygen tank draped over his stomach. He tried the lighter again, but it only flashed and wouldn’t stay lit. He clicked the mike as Stein had told him to do once he had the mask on.

  There was a pop and crackle on his headset. “Pas…425…ters.”

  Clay slipped the lighter back in his pocket and wrapped both arms around the steel line as he glanced below. But this time he saw something. The lights from his helmet were reflecting off of something. Solid ground never looked so good! He keyed his mike two short dots and then held the button down. His speed slowed to half a meter per second as the cave floor came up to greet him. An iridescent display of colors followed the path of his helmet lights along the floor as he swung around to get a better view of where he was landing. He bent his knees and prepared for landing. Three meters, two, one…he let go of the mike switch as his hiking boots touched the slimy bottom between several giant cracked slabs of bedrock from the collapsed ceiling. His knees flexed and caught his weight as the steel line came to a stop.

  Piles of rubble spotted the floor like celestial formations on the moon. Every exhale produced a white puff of mist that quickly dissipated. He spun around and watched the iridescent display light up the walls around him. The surface area of the floor was at least a hundred times larger than the opening above. The cave wall closest to him was probably a good thirty meters away. The cave wall opposite was closer to a hundred meters away. He looked down and saw the same rainbow of color displayed across a patch of slime on the floor.

  The steel line snagged him when he tried to bend down. So he keyed the mike three times and then held the button down as Stein reeled out enough slack in the line to allow him to move around. He swiped his finger through the patch of slime on the cave floor. As he stood back up and watched the colors reflect off his finger, he exhaled and a cloud of mist swallowed up his hand. During that brief moment of obscurity, a brilliant orange glow radiated from the tip of his finger. When the fog cleared, the slime on his finger had completely dried to a silvery powder that flaked off when he rubbed his fingers together.

  Clay bent down, pulled his mask off, and blew across the puddle. The white mist swept across the surface as the slime lit into a brilliant fire-orange. Even though the glow didn’t produce any heat, it smoked like it was on fire. The glow lasted about a second as the small area dried into a silver powder. Clay stood back up and watched the rainbow of colors dance across the floor and walls. He was wrong when he thought there was nothing alive down here. Something in the slime was alive. It was reacting to the oxygen.

  Before long it would all be trampled under the adventurous feet of spelunkers and base jumpers. If only the rest of the team could see it before it’s ruined. If only Aliston could see it.

  “Thirteen minu…ounting.”

  Clay listened to the time on the headset and smiled. Stein was right. This was something that he would never forget. He was the first to go where no man had ever been before. His spirits were soaring as he stepped around a limestone boulder the size of car and saw a large patch of slime that had to be at least twenty meters across.

  For a reason he couldn’t quite understand, he was drawn to it. Before he knew it he was kneeling at the edge, but this time he wasn’t going to exhale on it. As if he was compelled to do so, he knew what had to be done. His skin started tingling as his consciousness slowly seeped out of his body and collected overhead. From there he watched himself reach up and take his mask off. For the briefest of moments, he was taken back to his childhood when he found a rabbit that his Beagle had caught. He remembered standing over it with a shovel and the horrible feeling of knowing that he had to put the poor creature out of its misery. He felt that same guilt now as he held his mask down to the edge of the patch. The mixture straight from the tank lit the slime like a match to gasoline. The orange glow started at the edge and shot across the thirty meters like a wildfire. But it didn’t stop there. It jumped across dry areas and lit other patches. It ran all the way over to the far wall. Clay swung his head up as the orange glow ran up the wall about ten meters as it spread all around the bottom of the cave. “Holy shit!” For nearly ten seconds the entire bottom of the cave was lit up. In the middle of the visual spectacle exploding all around him, Clay thought about the old Indian and remembered the words mouthed to him. ‘The last day is coming’.

  “Ev…okay…ts…happening?”

  Clay quickly braced himself as the orange glow died and the residual powder covered the cave floor like a fresh snow. He keyed the mike one long dash followed immediately by three quick dots. A second later the slack in the line was gone and he whipped up into the air.

  As nervous as he had been going down, Clay was just the opposite coming up. It was like the cave emptied his emotions and drained him of any further purpose in life. The only feeling that remained, one that was growing stronger with each meter of ascent, was the overwhelming sensation that he never should have gone down.

  Stein was tethered to a safety line and waiting for him when he got back to the top. “I swing you back over,” Stein said as he signaled Alejandro to stop the winch. Then he pushed the opposite end of the cantilevered tripod and caught Clay as he swung back over solid ground. “It was good time―yes?”

  Clay mustered a nod and the lowered his eyes to the ground as Stein switched out the winch line for a safety line. Stein walked him back over to where the others were eagerly waiting to congratulate him. Peter ran up and slapped on the back.

  John grabbed Clay’s hand and said, “Way to go!”

  Hands came forward to congratulate him as did questions about what it was like, but Clay didn’t have the energy for celebrating.

  Aliston pushed between the brother and sister from San Paulo. “I’m glad you’re back. Everyone was so worried.”

  “Worried about what?” Clay asked lethargically.

  “We saw smoke, like there was a fire or something.”

  Any hope that it was nothing more than a nightmare, died with that comment. There was no denying what the others had seen. The smoke or whatever it was—came from the slime he ignited with his oxygen mask. Clay began to wrestle with his thoughts as the continued bombardment of questions slowly blended into an indistinguishable drone.

  Aliston leaned closer and put her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t really hear her question, but nodded just the same. The simple gesture sent her running over to the group’s gear in search for a canteen. While she did that, a sense of urgency took over and he frantically scanned the area for the Indian. He didn’t need a drink any more than he needed another slap on the back. What he needed was the strength he felt from the Indian the first time they stared at each other.

  He needed to know that he was forgiven.

  Chapter 4

  Chuck barely took his foot off the gas before he jerked the wheel in a hard turn to the right. The old Chevy swerved onto the gravel at the foot of their drive and sprayed a cloud of white dust across the weeds in the ditch. He and Becky bounced up as the tires cleared the cement rise at the foot of the driveway. At the last second he slammed on the brakes. The front end of the truck dipped and by the time it settled back, the bumper was less than three feet from the peeling paint of their garage door.

  Neither made a move until Chuck finally straightened up, pushed his back firmly into the seat and stared straight ahead. “I’m going to go get a beer.”

  “Fine,” Becky replied in a flat, defeated tone.

  He heard the door open and Becky slip out. As he watched her walk up to their front door with her face lowered, it was like he was right there with her. He could feel the weight of each lumbering step and the quick shallow breaths that come when decisions have to be made. He leaned forward as he watched her walk
up the porch steps and then he fell back against the seat and closed his eyes as the front door closed behind her. She’s going to leave me if I don’t give her some reason not to.

  He threw the truck in park, let his head fall back over his shoulders and began to rub his face. By the time he realized that he was staring at the closed drapes, both hands were pressed palm-to-palm over his mouth as if he were praying. That’s when impulse nearly took over. In a knee-jerk reaction, he slapped his hand over the keys in the ignition. The sinew in his forearm grew taunt, poised to take the next action. But the rough idle of the truck never ceased. There’d be no run in to the house. No taking Becky up into his arms. Pride has a nasty way of winning out in the worst of times. “Damn-it!” he swore as he twisted around to check out the back window of the cab. Then in one violent release, he threw the transmission in reverse and gunned the truck back out onto the street.

  The best place in town for a cold beer was the Broadway Tavern. But first he would pick up his buddy Stan Jenkins. He met Stan a year before he met Becky. Their first encounter had been when they tried to beat the crap out of each other in the fifth grade. Somehow out of that fight, a friendship began that had stood the test of time. The only break in their friendship was when Chuck headed off for college. Stan wasn’t the kind of guy who ever considered college an option. Instead he joined his older brother at the power plant the very week after he, Chuck and Becky graduated high school.

  Chuck on the other hand was different. He had his long-term goals all planned out when he was young. He intended to get a degree in business at the university in Bloomington, marry Becky and then the two of them would get out of Madison once and for all. But those plans changed when his dad died in late February during Chuck’s freshmen year. His dad was a good man, but a good businessman he was not. The little antique store he ran was in the red. All intentions were that Chuck would only take it over long enough to pay off the creditors. Once they were even, he’d sell the store to pay for his tuition the following year. But like so many aspects of life, things didn’t always go as planned. He and Becky got married that summer and before he knew it, college was little more than a distant dream and he was the full time proprietor of the Pleasant Memories antique store on Main.