by SUZAN STILL
Her smile was meager and it told Hill everything he needed to know. If even Calypso’s courage was daunted, then the party was about to get rough.
Calypso showed him how to tether his pack so that he could drag it behind him. Then, ducking to the low opening, she said, “Let’s get this over. We don’t have helmets, so watch your head.”
She inserted her head into the hole, then withdrew it and sat down, looking up at Hill.
“Two things, Walter. Be like water: flow, don’t fight. And remember that there really is enough room for you to get through. It’s not your body that will have the most trouble. It will be your mind.”
§
Calypso crawled into the tunnel, determined that this time she could do it calmly. No matter that she had done this passage more than a dozen times. It still made her heart race just to think about it.
“Best not to think about what’s ahead,” she called back to Hill. “Just take it one second at a time. It’s easier that way.”
Hill squatted and looked into the tunnel as far as he could see by the headlamp. At its furthest arc, he could just make out Calypso’s retreating form scuttling along on all fours, her pack trailing behind her, before she disappeared around a turn. He sat back and put his head on his knees. He hadn’t had the heart to tell Calypso the truth—he was a claustrophobe.
Already the day’s exertions in the dark and close confines of the cave had challenged him. His nerves were shot. He couldn’t imagine how he would accomplish what lay before him, but the thought of being left alone in the center of the mountain was even worse. With a ragged sigh, he inserted his head into the opening and began to crawl.
He made it round the first turn with no trouble, even though his pack hung up. He had to kick it loose because the tunnel already was too narrow to reach back for it. Ahead, his lamp showed that the ceiling sloped down to under two feet high. He caught a glimpse of Calypso’s retreating rear, as she wriggled out of sight.
Realizing that this was the juncture where he would have to decide on going face up or face down, he decided on face down, despite Javier’s preference for the former. Somehow, the thought of looking up at solid stone, right in his face, was more than he could bear.
He lowered himself onto the floor and squirmed forward on his forearms. The floor of the passage was fine sand and not abrasive. Raising his head to look forward, he cracked his skull on the ceiling.
“Ow!” His voice was muffled and he heard no response from Calypso. All he could do was crawl ahead, following the rut left by her pack in the sand.
The tunnel ran fairly straight, with occasional high and wide spots where he could draw his knees under him and crawl for a bit. All too soon, however, the ceiling would lower and he would find himself face down again. Resting in one of the wide spots, spread eagle in the sand, he tried to estimate how far he had come. He thought it might be about two hundred feet. A third of the way! Heartened, he dragged himself to his knees and crawled on.
When he estimated that he must be well over halfway, the tunnel began to constrict. He could lift his head a scant six inches and his elbows were hitting the sides. He could feel his heart rate rising and not just from exertion. Remembering Calypso’s promise that in coming to the worst spot he was almost through, he wriggled on.
The passage, however, became smaller still. This must be the place where Javier preferred to be on his back, pulling along with ceiling handholds. Hill tried to turn over but the space was too tight. The ceiling was now too low for him to lift his head.
Suddenly, panic swept over him. He tried to push outward with his arms, but they were pinioned to his sides. He had the sensation that all the air was being sucked from around him and he began to gasp. Cold sweat broke out all over his body. He could not control his mind. Panic galloped through him and every fear of a terrible death that he had ever imagined overtook him and then was superseded by his present predicament. He felt he was dying and it was terrible beyond comprehension.
He lay rigid, fighting for composure. Just kick with your feet, he reasoned with himself. Push forward a few more inches. He tried to do it, but his size fifteens caught on the ceiling. He leaned his feet sideways, and was able to push forward with his toes. He made a few more inches and realized that, unbelievably, the space was becoming smaller still. He thought his heart was about to burst and he lay gasping on the sand.
The weight of the stone above him was immense. The ceiling, a couple of inches above him, seemed to press down with living animosity. He could not control his breath. It sobbed through his lungs like hot wind. He knew that he had to get control of himself or he would pass out. Control, however, eluded him.
Scenes from his life began to flash through his mind. There was the time in Vietnam, when he was just new to the journalistic profession, when he went into the field with a Marine recon unit and they were hit with enemy fire. Flashes of gunfire erupted in his brain and he saw the jungle floor again as he dove toward it, heard the shouts of the men, and smelled, just as vividly as if it were flowing from his own body in present time, the metallic smell of blood.
Just as quickly, he was in Ethiopia with his Land Rover’s axle broken in a ditch and the ground temperature soaring past a hundred and twenty degrees. He was swigging the last drop of water from his canteen, when a ragtag group of local militia hove into view, Kalashnikov rifles bristling from the beds of a couple of battered Toyota pickups. He could feel, again, the steely, simian grip of those hands that pulled him into the truck, smell the reek of unwashed flesh, and hear the excited jabber of his captors.
Again, his mind skittered and he was in the cockpit of a bomber as it swooped low over a thatched village in the jungle. Mozambique! The CIA’s covert operation against the rebels there. The plane dove, strafed, took fire. Bullets ripped through the floor right next to his boot. The pilot’s feet both spouted blood, as he slumped on the stick and the plane slid crazily sideways.
Hill could not stop the progression of wild memories, nor quell the intensity of the visceral sensations they brought. His mind was fevered and he felt as if his skull might break open like a melon, spilling his brains into the sand. He lost all sense of where he was in time and space and felt himself spinning into oblivion.
§
Calypso slithered desperately forward, keeping her head tilted sideways beneath the crushing ceiling. Her elbows barked against the rough stone of the tube. She was in the lowest place, the one that always made her feel, no matter how many times she passed through it, as if her death were imminent. Only the thought of the freedom of movement that awaited her kept her from panic. Just a few more yards to go, she told herself. You can do it! You can do it!
Turning her head sideways, she slipped her skull under what she knew was the very tightest place of all. She dug her hands into the sand and swiveled her hips, worming her way through the obstructed passage. Just a couple of yards now. Then a few feet. Finally, her head broke through to open space, then her arms, and she was able to pull herself forward into the next cavern.
Just as she was pulling her legs from the tube, she heard it. The sound was muffled, but that did nothing to stifle the horror of it. It was so anguished, so tormented, that it turned her stomach.
Hill! The sheer abandon of the shriek was telling. He was losing it. Tears leapt to her eyes. “My God!” she gasped. “That poor man!”
She experienced an instant of pure revulsion at the thought of going back into the tube, then she unsnapped her pack from its tether and kicked it to the side. Diving onto the cavern floor, she lunged forward and, denying herself the right of protest, wriggled back into the tube.
§
When Hill came back to himself, his first sensation was of a cool breeze blowing onto his fevered face. He lay with his eyes closed and savored the freshness of the air, the sweetness of the scent of pine. He rolled his head to the side and glanced upward. A rend in the stone ceiling revealed a silvery night sky luminous with stars. Directly above him,
the thin sickle of a new moon rode the river of the Milky Way like a slender boat.
“Just push with your feet, Walter,” he heard Calypso’s voice say calmly. It echoed slightly, like a voice from another dimension. “Be like water. Wiggle your hips like a fish. Paddle with your feet. Keep your head turned to the side so it will slip through. You’re almost there. Just let yourself swim through.”
Her voice calmed him. He smiled up at the moon as he pushed his feet into the sand. The sensation of floating was marvelous. He wiggled his hips and moved forward. He felt the stone above him brush his cheek, then scrape across his shoulders and back, but he was oblivious, reassured by the sight of Calypso, standing free against the night sky. She bent her kind face toward him and smiled. Her hair wreathed on the night wind and her skirt arced and ruffled about her. “Just swim, Walter,” she said again. Gently, he wafted forward like a fish in dark water, drifting in the moonlight.
§
Hill lay on the rough floor of the cavern in fetal posture, his breathing coming in ragged gulps. The strange sensation of floating still bore him on illusory waters.
“It’s over, Walter. You made it. It’s all over now,” Calypso’s voice crooned.
Her hand on his shoulder gently rocked him. That was his first realization that he was sobbing. He registered this with distant amazement, while the fact-finding and -keeping part of his brain informed him that he had not cried since he was nine and broke his arm playing touch football. There must be a good deal pent up, given the intervening decades, his rational mind reasoned distantly.
While this internal dialogue proceeded and the sobbing continued unabated, some new and fresh place in his psyche was bathed in a delicious sense of peace and wellbeing. He lay beneath the confusion of voices like a big trout in the calm space beneath turbulent water. He felt absolved of every sin, shriven of all burdens, as innocent and vulnerable as a newborn babe.
Finally, Calypso was able to get him to his feet and, supporting his hobbling, half-delusional stagger, she guided him a short distance into a side room off the main cavern, where she leaned him against the wall while she lit a lantern. Hill promptly slid down into a heap and lay crooning and chuckling to himself, as Calypso went about setting up camp from the stored supplies. She lit a camp stove and put water on to boil, rolled out self-inflating mattresses, and spread sleeping bags on top. She brewed two tin cups of tea and handed one to Hill, who had propped himself against the wall and was now staring blankly at the shadows jiggling and dancing over the stone walls.
“What is this place?” His voice surprised her with its youthful lilt. The question might have been asked by a curious ten-year-old.
“After that horrible tube, Javier and I both felt we needed to provide some comfort for ourselves, so we prepared this room. We liked it because it’s about the size of our bedroom at home.” She smiled and glanced at the ceiling that stood a good four feet above her head. “Plenty of breathing space.”
“And how far are we from getting out of this place?”
“When we get up from sleeping, it will basically be a stroll and then we’ll be outside under the sky.”
Hill accepted the bowl of soup she handed him and tilted it eagerly to his lips. “I’m starving! How long has it been since we ate?”
“You’re the one with the wristwatch.”
Hill pulled back his cuff and squinted at his watch, did a double take, and stared at it in amazement. “It’s after eight o’clock! But it was almost nine, when we were having breakfast, so that means…But it can’t be. Can it? Have we really been in this cave almost twelve hours?”
Calypso smiled at him with mischief sparkling in her eyes.
“Twelve hours you think, huh?” She laughed. “Walter, it takes a full day to get through this cave. We’ve been spelunking for almost twenty-four hours!”
“You’re kidding.” His voice was deadpan.
“No, Walter. I’m completely serious. If you feel exhausted, now you know why.”
“I had no idea…”
“You lose all track of time in a cave, without natural light.” She collected his cup and refilled it with soup. “There’s really no way to anticipate whether it will be light or dark when we come out. I’m always surprised.” They drank their soup in silence while Hill contemplated this.
When they had drunk all the soup, Calypso rummaged in her pack, came up with two oranges and handed one to Hill.
“Dessert.”
“Every adventure I go on with you, I end up losing weight. It beats regular attendance at the gym.” Even Hill’s thumbs felt tired, as he peeled the orange. “After this, I’m going to need to lie down.”
“Me, too.” Calypso gathered their cups, scoured them with sand, and rinsed them in a meager stream of bottled water, then stored them again in the metal hamper.
“How’d you get that big thing through the tube?”
Calypso smiled. “We brought it in from this side. You think we’re crazy enough to try to wrestle it through there?”
“Crazy is what I think this entire place and your lifestyle in it is,” Hill muttered. He rolled onto his knees and crawled to the nearest sleeping bag. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I’m right behind you.” She switched on her headlamp, blew out the lantern, and came to sit on the bag next to Hill’s, busying herself untying her shoes and flexing her feet. “Oh but it feels good to get those off!”
In answer, there was only Hill’s soft breathing. Calypso dragged her pack over to serve as a pillow, crawled into her bag, and zipped herself in. When she turned off her light, the blackness that engulfed her was already part of her dreams.
Then softly, through the fog of sleep, she heard Hill’s whisper:
“You were wearing a skirt.”
“Um?”
“A skirt. Why did you pack a skirt?”
Calypso did, in fact, have a skirt at the bottom of her pack along with her lipstick, but she had not worn either.
“You’re dreaming, Walter.”
“No.” She heard him shift onto his side, facing her. “I’m not dreaming. I saw you, standing in that opening in the rock. The wind was blowing your skirt.”
“What opening in the rock?”
“The one right above the tightest part of the tube. If it hadn’t been for that—the sight of the stars, the fresh air flooding in, and you standing there talking to me—I think I would have lost my mind. You saved my life. Thank you.”
Calypso opened her eyes to the limitless blackness and stared. Memories of her own initiation into alternate consciousness filled her: Santa Rita prison, the steely grip of the guard’s hands, the rape, the overwhelming of her natural boundaries, the pinioning of her innate strength. And then the euphoria afterwards: the strength derived from having survived, the sense of expansion, of floating, of becoming one with all that is.
Finally, she sighed and murmured, “You’re entirely welcome, Walter. Now, go to sleep.”
§
Rancho Cielo
After the explosions and the firing of the howitzer, the battle raged on. Men advanced on the ground, only to be mown down by Javier’s gunners on the wall, who fought tenaciously, reloading and firing with trained rapidity and accuracy. The snipers managed to keep anyone from firing the howitzer again. Another of Pedro’s traps erupted from under the roadbed, lifting trucks and SUVs into the air, exploding them.
All the while, Javier’s home was burning. The heat of it became intense, then almost unbearable, for the men on the walls but they would not be dislodged. Scorched and exhausted, they kept cramming fresh clips into their rifles and firing, until there was no one left to kill.
A sudden, eerie silence fell. The only sound was the crackling of flames as they consumed the house. By the time the men were free to fight the fire, there was nothing left to save.
5
The Cave
Calypso awoke to pitch blackness and at first, in panic, could not remember where she was, altho
ugh she knew that wherever it was, she was with Hill. He must be having the same sensation, because she could hear him scrabbling for the switch on his headlamp. With a click, sudden illumination revealed the folded and veined wall and ceiling of the cave and remembrance flooded her.
“Good morning, Walter,” she muttered, still half asleep.
“Good morning to you! Just stay put. I’ll get the tea water going.” Hill pushed from the ground and rummaged for a match, then lit the camp lantern and stove. Calypso squeezed her eyes shut and turned on her side, away from the light.
“Still tired?”
“Um-hum.”
“Some of this glue that passes for instant oatmeal ought to fix you right up.” He ripped open a foil pouch, sounding positively chirrupy.
Calypso sat up, her hair wrapped about her shoulders like a shawl, and observed Hill more closely.
“My, we’re a merry little ball of sunshine this morning.”
“Never felt better in my life.” He began to whistle and the beam of his headlamp zigzagged about the space in time. “When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along…” he sang softly, as if his whistle were still accompanying him. “Dee dum, dee dum, dee dum da dum…cheer up, cheer up the sun is red. Live, love, laugh, and be happy-y-y-y-y…” The final words were sung in full-throttle bass, his arms spread wide.
Calypso turned on her stomach and pulled her pack over her head.
§
Two hours later, the gloom of the cave began to brighten to twilight as they clambered up a final bouldered incline and saw sky glimmering within the black template of the cave’s mouth. By Hill’s watch, it was close to six o’clock, but neither could say with assurance if it was six in the morning or six at night.
“It’s like being on one of those transpacific flights where you cross the international dateline and you don’t know even what day it is, let alone what time,” Hill said, pulling himself up the final incline. He stuck his head out of the cave and peered around like a groundhog assessing the weather. “The sun seems to be over there, behind a mountain,” he reported, pointing to his left as he clambered out into the light.