Well in Time

by SUZAN STILL

  Calypso bent close to his face. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t understand that.”

  “I did it,” he managed to gasp. “I killed her. I killed my mother.”

  Calypso’s eyes shut in horror, and it took all her resolve to say calmly and with assurance, “Then obviously she forgives you.”

  §

  They proceeded through the cave, ascending the cliff at the back of the cavern and twisting through labyrinthian tunnels, but the mood of their expedition was not healthy. Calypso was grim and focused, harboring her energy to make the technical aspects work, including hoisting the wolf in a makeshift harness.

  El Lobo was ominously quiet and haggard, refusing to talk even when Calypso addressed him directly. She began to suspect that the passage through the tube had unhinged him. For a man like him, being reduced to groveling terror was a humiliation that would demand extirpation.

  Fearing that his homicidal instincts had been resurrected, she kept a wary eye on all his movements. She wondered how she would ever get him to go back through the tube, once he had proof that the cave was a complete passage between river canyons.

  “You know”—she said, as they stopped for a rest, leaning against the walls of a small chamber—“we don’t have to go all the way through. It should be obvious to you by now that this cave extends between canyons, just like I said.”

  El Lobo glared at her through narrowed eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we could just turn back now and save our strength.”

  “And go back through the tube again?” His voice teetered on a knife-edge of hysteria.

  “Yes. We’d have to go back through the tube. There’s no other way.”

  “Then we go forward. There’s no way in hell I’m going back through that tube.”

  Calypso stared at him, perplexed.

  “But once we get to the other side, we won’t be able to get off the cliff. It comes out on a ledge almost four thousand feet above the river. We’ll have to turn back eventually anyway.”

  “How did you get down to the ledge?”

  “I rappelled. But there’s a big bulge of rock between the ledge and the top of the cliff. You can’t get back up that way.”

  “You said under Scopolamine that you and your husband had done it.”

  “My partner.”

  “You called him your husband under the drugs. They don’t lie.”

  “If that were the case,” she retorted acidly, “you should have believed me about the cave in the first place.”

  He lowered his eyes and nodded.

  “Yes, I should have.”

  They sat for several moments in detente, each lost in private ruminations.

  Finally, El Lobo burst out, “No. I’m not going back through that tube. We have to find a way off the ledge. How did you and your husband—partner—do it?”

  “There’s a climbing route set up with pitons. But I’ve never climbed lead before. I always followed Javier. There’s no way I can do it. I’m not strong enough or a good enough climber.”

  “Well, you’re about to become better at it,” he growled. “You’re going to lead us off that ledge.”

  Calypso shook her head despairingly. “You have no idea what you’re saying. It’s suicide.”

  “I’d rather commit suicide than go back through that tube.” It was a flat statement of his truth. She could tell he was immovable.

  El Lobo scrambled to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go. I want out of this place. It creeps me out.”

  The wolf stood, too, shaking its thin shoulders and staring at Calypso with its expressionless hunter’s eyes.

  “What about Lobo,” she objected. “We won’t be able to drag him up.”

  El Lobo looked at the animal with a down-curling of his lips.

  “Then let him stay behind.”

  “But he’ll starve to death!”

  El Lobo shrugged. “Let him starve.”

  §

  Calypso led the way forward, her mind frantically gauging the chances of surviving either the devil behind her or the deep blue sea of air in the Urique Canyon. Images of trying to climb the cliff, of slipping, falling and hurtling into the abyss filled her mind.

  Thoughts of turning back brought equally disastrous images of confronting an enraged and unbalanced man. For good measure, her legs were starting to shake from exhaustion. She knew she didn’t have much reserve left.

  Dimly now she could hear the rush of water as they approached the great siphon and its whirlpool. The wolf stopped and pricked his ears. El Lobo gave him a vicious prod with his knee.

  “Get going!”

  Calypso missed seeing the blow but heard the yelp of pain and saw the wolf cringe. El Lobo was rearing his foot back to give the animal a kick when Calypso yelled, “No! Stop!”

  El Lobo lowered his foot and glared at her without a word.

  “He hears the water rushing,” she explained. “Don’t you hear it? It means we’re getting close to the end.”

  El Lobo threw his chin toward the sound.

  “Well, let’s do it.”

  “I need to warn you—there’s a dangerous spot up ahead. The rock is very slick, so move carefully. Secure every step before you transfer your weight.”

  El Lobo tossed his head with impatience and snarled, “Just get the fuck on with it.”

  Calypso shrugged and continued on. The roar became louder, so that their voices could no longer be heard above the clamor of water, as it rushed around its stone basin in a sucking vortex. Calypso turned again and signaled El Lobo to be cautious, then began her move onto rock slick with spray from the raging water.

  The water was higher than when she and Hill had passed this way. The heavy rains on the surface must have fed the deluge. She was forced to climb higher on the sloping rock, where the roof slanted down onto walls only three or four feet high.

  Bent almost double, she put her hand out to steady herself as she ducked under the lowest part. Immediately, she felt the rock become less dangerous, where the surface was shielded from spray by a small protrusion of the wall. She braced herself to catch her breath and turned to watch El Lobo’s progress.

  He was moving too fast, not stopping to place his feet firmly. His method was to skim across the slippery stone as fast as possible. Behind him, the wolf padded carefully, its yellow eyes flashing metallically in the light of the headlamps.

  Suddenly, with a shout, El Lobo’s feet went out from under him and he hit the rock on his hip, hard. In a flash, he was sliding toward the water, clawing helplessly at the impervious stone. Before Calypso could think to react, he slid into the water and was whipped halfway around the pool on the outer fringes of the terrible vortex.

  He swept past her, floundering, trying to swim, his face a rictus of terror. As he continued on toward the spot where he had fallen, the wolf crouched, as if offering itself as a handhold.

  El Lobo threw himself toward the animal, grabbed a fistful of its silky ruff, and hung on. The wolf dug all four paws into the stone, its body straining.

  For a moment, it looked as if it could stabilize the situation, but then, with terrible slowness, it skidded across the wet surface, its toes splayed, its claws extended, until it too lost its grip and was pulled into the maelstrom.

  El Lobo threw his arms around the wolf’s neck, trying to keep his face above water as the whirlpool’s energy pulled them both in. Around and around they whirled, in ever smaller circles as they fought to escape.

  Finally, with a terrible scream, they plunged into the heart of the spinning water. The wolf was sucked down first. El Lobo’s horrified eyes stared at a ceiling illuminated by the mad gyrations of his headlamp’s beam.

  Then he was gone.

  §

  Calypso leaned panting against the cave wall, overwhelmed with horror. Digging her fingers into tiny holds, she leaned her forehead against the damp stone and wailed.

  It took many minutes to recover self-control
. Then, not daring to look at the water again, she inched forward until her feet met dry rock. She sank to her knees, fell forward onto the stone, and then lay gasping for many minutes more.

  At last, she was able to collect herself. She sat up, took a deep breath and reviewed her options.

  If she went back, even should she summon the strength to do so, she would have to pass again through the tube, and then explain to The Ghosts why El Lobo was no longer with her. Surely they would accuse her of murdering him.

  If she went forward, she would come to the ledge and the technical climb to the top of the cliff. Either way, the options were impossible.

  “Give me a third option,” she muttered but received no answer.

  In the end, the same motivation impelled her that had moved El Lobo: the cave was beginning to creep her out. She longed for the light of the entrance that she knew was just beyond the waterfall.

  She pushed herself from the rock and trudged onward, remembering how, almost gaily, she and Hill had passed this way so recently. How quickly their lives had changed! Was Hill still alive? Was Javier? She touched the cool orb of the locket beneath her sweater.

  “You’re useless,” she muttered. “How about some answers?”

  She came to the supply room. She and Hill had devoured all the stores, but she had food in her pack and stopped to eat. Her legs were trembling with fatigue, and her hands fumbled with the wrapping of the emergency food bar that The Ghosts had provided. She sat, her back against the wall, chewing mechanically, too exhausted even to cry.

  As she ate, she allowed herself a few sips of hope. She was just a couple of hours away from the cave entrance. What if, freed from El Lobo’s menace, she could find the courage to climb the cliff? The ledge was only a hundred feet below the top. If she allowed herself to rest, surely she could do it. She had done it before.

  She blotted out the image of Javier hauling her the final ten feet like a sack of potatoes. She felt sure she could do it, and as she lay down to nap she clung to that slender red thread of hope, the way she had clung to his climbing rope.

  She awoke to the roar of the waterfall, too tired and sore to move. She had to talk herself through every move: sitting up, opening her pack, replacing the batteries of her headlamp. Standing was the hardest. Her legs didn’t want to accept responsibility for the rest of her. Then the straps of her pack became twisted as she slung it on her back and she fumbled with the buckle. Finally, she was ready to proceed.

  She took one last look around the little room, at all the comforts she and Javier had provided for their enjoyment and sustenance in days when all this was just a rumor in their minds, like clouds far away on the horizon. Then, with a sigh, she hitched her pack on her hips and began the last leg of the cave transit.

  §

  The entrance to the cave glowed at the end of the long tunnel. Calypso toiled up the last grade toward the square of light as if it were the radiance of the Holy Grail. She had barked her knuckles in the narrow part of the final passage and was sucking on them, wondering if the light was dawn, daylight, or the last rays of evening.

  She had lost all track of time but knew it was not possible to traverse the cave in fewer than a full twenty-four hours. She couldn’t imagine that she had gone so fast. Because it was afternoon when she had parted company with The Ghosts, she reasoned that the glow ahead must be morning.

  She stepped from the cave entrance and from behind its sheltering slab of stone, with a sense of profound gratitude for the simple facts of light and fresh, moving air. As the gulf of the Urique Canyon spread before her, she was gratified to see that the sun was barely above the eastern horizon. It cast long, indigo shadows among the spires and blocks of the far canyon walls. A chill morning wind played along the stone ramparts and swallows dipped and shrilled in boundless air.

  Dropping her pack, she flicked off her headlamp, pulled it from her head and threw it in the top compartment of the pack. Leaving the pack behind, she walked to the far end of the ledge, and with scraped and weary fingers fitted and buckled the climbing harness, uncoiled the climbing rope under the iron ring, and clipped it to her harness.

  From her vantage point at the farthest end of the ledge, the bulge of stone above her flattened where it joined the cliff face. All along the edge of the swell, she could pick out the pitons Javier had hammered into the stone, by the long, blue shadows they threw.

  Like blue spikes bent by enormous force, the shadows were driven by dawn light across the rock face and then curved along the swelling belly of stone. They reminded her of nothing so much as the Crown of Thorns.

  Sighing, she clipped her rope to the iron ring where she had not so long ago secured herself to catch Hill. This time, it would catch her, if she were to fall. Facing the cliff, she scanned for handholds. Then, saying a prayer, she reached her foot out from the edge of the ledge, placed in on a small knob of rock, and launched herself onto the cliff face.

  §

  Calypso was climbing well, despite the morning chill and the weariness of her limbs. Javier’s pitons were closely placed, no more than five or six feet apart, because of the complete verticality of the pitch and the minimum of hand and foot holds. She stopped at each to install a carabiner from the climbing harness, securing her rope at successively higher levels.

  She was probably fifty feet above the ledge, and twenty feet to the right of it, when she heard a slight grating sound. Before she could think, the piton on which her weight depended ripped from the stone with a spoing.

  Suddenly, she was plummeting through space. Her weight hit the end of the rope, which tightened on the next piton down. The force of her fall was tremendous and after a moment’s hesitation, that piton, too, ripped from the wall. She tore through still another piton, before one held.

  She dangled, stunned, bruised, and scraped, over the canyon’s emptiness, on her nylon thread. Half-conscious, swinging over the gulf of air, she experienced the liberating sensation of flight. The river, a faint thread of deep green at the bottom of the gorge, flashed in and out of view as her pendulum swung.

  She hung, slack and addled, long after the swinging ceased, hearing the faint creak of the rope, and sensing the air’s play across her scalp, as if her hair were wind-ruffled feathers. A seductive temptation urged her to let go, to fly down into the chasm, like a swallow dipping toward the river.

  It was her own shadow against the red stone of the cliff face, like an indigo silhouette of the condemned on a gallows, that shocked her back to consciousness. Groggily she realized that she had hit her head.

  Her brains felt scrambled. When she shook her head to clear it, blood flew past her eyes. Dazed, she moved her limbs one at a time, making sure no bones were broken. Wiping blood from her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, she forced her mind to concentrate.

  She was several feet below the piton that was holding her and had lost almost a third of her upward progress. As her mind cleared, she began scanning the rock to find a purchase on the stone. To her right, the cliff bellied outward and she thought she could climb back up to the piton along this less than vertical slope, if she could just find a hand- and toehold.

  She spotted a small knob of rock, but it was just beyond her reach. Kicking her legs, she swung toward the slant of stone. On the backward swing, she pumped with her legs, gaining momentum, praying that the piton above her would hold.

  Her feet connected with the cliff, and she pushed off again with real force, increasing the arc of her swing. This time, her feet hit the slanted part of the rock and her hands caught and held the knob. Her hips swung into the rock face and then backward, the momentum almost pulling her off as she clawed the rock with all her strength.

  She was perched on tiptoes, her hands around the knob, when the giddy swaying ceased. She took a moment to orient herself and then began to clamber upward.

  A strange phenomenon took command. She was highly energized, her limbs were strong and sure, and her eyes were keen to find the smallest hold
. Adrenaline taking hold she surmised and then dismissed it, as her entire concentration was exerted on the climb.

  She came to the piton that had sustained her and then passed it. She kept on climbing, past the sites of the failed pitons, moving up the vertical rock like a fly.

  She remembered Javier’s story, years ago, of having fallen from this very cliff as a child and of the Rarámuri shaman who had pulled him up again on an imaginary rope. She held that image as she climbed. Somewhere up there was a man with long black hair blowing in the morning wind, his loincloth flapping as he hauled her up, hand over hand.

  She came to the still intact pitons, snapped the rope on with carabiners and kept climbing, stopping periodically to wipe blood from her forehead with the sleeve of her sweater.

  At last she came to the final ten feet, the portion Javier had always hauled her over because it was so difficult. She knew, however, that Javier had been able to navigate this almost smooth stretch of rock. A determination grew in her. If he could do it then, by God, so could she.

  Moving cautiously out onto the last pitch, she called up the picture of Javier climbing it—how he had stretched, where he had directed his reach, and his feet. The holds were there if she could bring them to mind. Her concentration was total, and she experienced the cliff not as vertical but as a horizontal plane over which she was crawling, free from the downward tug of gravity.

  Finally, with a final grunt of exertion, Calypso pulled herself over the edge of the cliff. She wriggled on her belly until all of her was lying, exhausted and shaking, behind the wall that demarcated the cliff edge from the courtyard of Rancho Cielo. With a final effort she snapped the rope into the iron ring for safety and then lay with breath singing in and out of her lungs, too spent to move or even to rejoice in her accomplishment.

  At last, a queer, smoky smell jarred her consciousness. What could it be? It was too strong for the fire pit. She got onto her knees and crawled the few feet to the wall, put her hands on top and pulled herself up.