Well in Time

by SUZAN STILL

  She looked into the courtyard, blinked, and then looked again.

  There was nothing there.

  The house was gone. In its place was a pile of still-smoking timbers.

  She gave a cry of anguish and horror and was about to throw herself over the wall, when two men came through the shattered courtyard gate on the side nearest the road. They were dressed all in black, with protective vests and helmets, and carried assault rifles. One raised his head and pointed, then came sauntering toward her.

  §

  The man jumped over the wall and looked along its length but there was no one there. He gave a cursory glance over the edge at the cliff face and then feeling the magnetic pull of empty space, turned dizzily away from the edge.

  “What is it?” his companion called.

  The first man clambered back over the wall.

  “It was nothing. I thought I saw a woman but it must have been a bird or a ground squirrel.”

  His friend laughed.

  “You’re always seeing women, amigo. In the clouds, in the trees, in the whorehouse. Now you’re seeing them in squirrels!”

  He laughed uproariously at his own joke and his friend joined in.

  “Still,” he said, shaking his head, “I swear I saw a woman. But there was nothing there.”

  §

  Flattened against the cliff face, hanging from the iron ring, Calypso listened as the men’s voices moved away. There was just enough length left in the rope for her to continue her rappel on the single strand. Feeling hopeless, she began the perilous descent back to the ledge.

  Once down, she huddled against the wall, convulsed in sobs. She threw herself down with her back to the cliff, the climbing rope still attached to the harness around her hips, her entire body wracked with terrible grief.

  Complete desolation encompassed her. It was not the first time in her life that terror and loss had overcome her. She remembered the night she had spent in the forest in Chiapas with the old shaman woman Atl, while their village was burned and its people murdered, and the paralyzing fear that Javier was dead that had overwhelmed her then.

  Today was far worse. Her home was burned to the ground and she could only imagine that Javier had died defending it. She was alone, stranded on a ledge almost a mile in the air, and the only way out was through the exhausting traverse of the cave and the horror of the tube, only to face a band of executioners. For the first time in her life, she was tempted to simply give up, to take the few steps to the edge and jump.

  The utter aloneness of her situation was the most terrible part. Even El Lobo’s company was preferable to this desolate solitude.

  “If only I had someone,” she whispered. “Anyone, God.”

  She wiped her face on her sleeve and with shaking fingers undid the buckle of the climbing harness. She pulled it from her body and then slumped against the stone again, staring out into the void of the canyon.

  The far walls fell away in massive blocks of standing stone, shadowed blue beneath a fleet of clouds. Swallows dipped and dove only a few feet from the edge, and a pair of peregrine falcons flirted through the air and then came together in instantaneous mating. The day held all the elements she loved about living in Copper Canyon—except her home and the man without whom life was meaningless.

  §

  She knew how easy it would be to die here—of exposure first or of injury or starvation. That she had survived the climb to the top seemed superhuman and the frantic rappel back down miraculous. She needed to make a decision about her fate but grief clouded all judgment. Finally, it was pure animal hunger that awakened her to her immediate plight. She dug in her pack for another emergency food bar and sat chewing it as slow, heavy tears coursed soundlessly down her face.

  Repugnant as it was, she knew that her only hope for survival lay in yet another transit of the cave. In her mind, she traced the way through, but when she came to the entrance to the tube, her imagination balked. Did she have enough energy left, to make the day long trek through darkness and danger? Did she have the courage to face the tube again?

  She had no answers but knew that if she didn’t try, she would sit here on the ledge until she sickened and died. With a ragged sigh, she delved again into her pack, pulled out her headlamp, and fitted the band on her head. Then, struggling to her feet on wavering legs, she shouldered her pack and turned with a leaden heart to the entrance of the cave.

  10

  The Cave

  Calypso was too exhausted and too distracted to be fully in control of her body. She cracked her head in low places, scraped her arms where it was narrow. The blackness of the cave surrounded her as intentionally as a succubus. And with every step, her grief for Javier pressed on her heart like a gravestone. She felt mythic, like some unhappy soul who would wander forever beneath the earth, lost and grieving like the Piper of Keil.

  She came to the waterfall and stopped to fill her water bottle from its chilly waters, then staggered into the little chamber that housed supplies, too spent to go further. Dropping her pack, she rummaged in one of canisters for an old, moth-eaten alpaca serape she remembered stuffing into the bottom and found it along with a wool shirt of Javier’s.

  Burying her face in the shirt, she caught the faintest whiff of his scent, and it nearly devastated her. Throwing the serape on the ground she collapsed onto it, rolled herself into fetal posture, and clutching the shirt under her cheek, fell instantly into exhausted sleep.

  §

  Hours later, she awoke with a start, sure that some anomalous sound had awakened her. Heart hammering, she lay perfectly still, ears straining.

  Was it possible that the men from the courtyard had followed her? It seemed impossible—unless of course they had forced either Pedro or Javier to give up the secret of the cave and how to access it. She scarcely breathed as she allowed her ears to hunt the darkness for clues.

  There it was again! Definitely a sound she had never before heard in the cave. Not a human noise, however, but an animal one—a small moan, followed by a high, sharp yip. Calypso sat up, scrabbling for the switch on her headlamp. Rising unsteadily, she ventured into the main cavern and cast the light over the water of the pool.

  Nothing.

  She listened acutely but heard nothing more. She was about to go back to her bed when she heard it again, above the roar of the waterfall, coming from further down the cavern toward the whirlpool. She went back to her pack and retrieved her flashlight, glad of its extra light, and its possibilities as a defensive weapon.

  Inching down the cavern, she heard the noise again, louder this time. She shone the flashlight around, searching for the source, but saw only damp stone dancing with grotesque shadows.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Who’s there?”

  She was answered by another sharp yip. Flashing her light toward the sound, she saw the fearsome vortex of the siphon’s pool and shuddered, remembering. Then, at the edge of the light, she glimpsed something silvery. She shone the beam onto it and gasped in dismay.

  Lying on the very edge of the whirlpool, its hindquarters still immersed in the black water, was the wolf! And what was more, it had its head raised and was looking at her, its eyes flashing yellow in the light.

  “Lobo!” she shrieked. “Oh, my God!”

  She ran forward and only stopped when she felt the slippery give of wet rock beneath her feet. The wolf lay only a few feet away, but the rock sloped perilously into the water and she didn’t dare approach any closer.

  The wolf regarded her steadily, then lifted his head higher and gave another yip. Lifting his sodden tail from the water, he waved it momentarily, and then it subsided, as if it were too heavy to bear. Lobo’s head dropped, too, lying on the wet stone in obvious exhaustion.

  Calypso set down her flashlight and lay on her stomach. Reaching out her arms as far as she could she called, “I’m right here, Lobo. Can you reach for me?”

  The animal whined and stretched a paw toward her, but a yard of slick st
one still separated them. Calypso did not want the animal to strain, for fear that he would dislodge himself and slip again into the horrible sucking maelstrom. She stared at him in perplexity and the animal stared back.

  On sudden inspiration, she pushed to her feet saying, “Wait! Don’t move! I’ll be right back.”

  Picking up her flashlight, she turned and wove her way as quickly as possible back to the supply room. She dug in one of the canisters for the spare climbing rope stored there and dashed back to the whirlpool, terrified that the wolf would no longer be there but would have been swept away in the intervening minutes.

  With relief she saw the bedraggled silvery mound at the water’s edge. Kneeling, she fashioned a small loop in the end of the rope using a slipknot, lay again on her stomach, and tossed the loop toward the wolf. Jiggling and snaking, she inched the rope closer and closer to the wolf’s paw.

  “Help me, Lobo,” she urged. “Raise your paw.”

  The wolf’s eyes, that had been focused steadily on hers, shifted to watch the wriggling approach of the rope loop. When the rope was almost touching, the animal lifted its paw a few inches.

  Calypso flicked the rope and the loop struck the wolf’s foot but fell back, empty. Undeterred, Calypso tried again and then again, until finally, on the fourth attempt, the loop flopped onto the wolf’s foot, and with a slight forward shove of Calypso’s hand, settled around its leg, six inches beyond the ankle.

  Calypso rolled to her left to get a sideways pull on the knot, to avoid pulling it off the wolf’s leg. Gently at first, and then more vigorously as she felt the knot tighten, she tugged on the rope.

  When the knot was tightly set, she and the wolf locked eyes, both apparently aware that this was an all or nothing endeavor. Calypso knew all too well that if the loop were to slide off while she was in the act of hauling the wolf to safety, he would slip irretrievably back into the water.

  “Don’t struggle, Lobo,” she said softly. “Just let me pull you now.”

  She wrapped two coils of rope around her wrist, aware that it was a dangerous thing to do given the dead weight of the half-drowned creature but not caring. She would rather be pulled into the water and die with the wolf than endure another heartbreaking loss.

  She gave a tentative tug, watching the knot, praying it would hold. Feeling the tension on the rope, she began to haul on it, one hand over the other. The wolf’s leg stretched out and still the loop held tight. Calypso put her full strength into the rope now and felt a slight give as Lobo’s body inched forward on the rock. She scrambled to her feet and stepped back to take up the slack, lest the animal slip backwards.

  With agonizing slowness, the sodden body of the wolf slid away from the seething water. The steep incline of the rock, however, exerted tremendous oppositional force. Calypso braced her feet, steeled her arms, and kept pulling.

  Just when the wolf was almost within reach, the loop suddenly slipped upward toward the paw. Calypso groaned in despair and gathered in the slack before the animal could backslide. She held the tension but was afraid to pull again, for fear of losing him altogether.

  Then the wolf, exhibiting the intelligence for which his kind was known, bent his paw back, forming a hook to catch the loop. Calypso jerked the rope to set the loop in the crook, and began slowly and carefully to pull again.

  Finally, she felt the wolf was within reach. Reeling in the rope, she lay on her stomach and reached her free hand toward the animal. Her hand met the damp fur of his paw and she set her fingers like a steel trap, into the sinew of his leg. She reached to take hold with her other hand too.

  “Don’t move!” she cautioned.

  The animal lay perfectly still as she shimmied her hips backward, raising him imperceptibly up the slope. A few inches more and she was able to grab the animal’s other front leg.

  With this increased leverage, she dragged him almost to the limit of the slick rock. She scooted back again and with one final heave, pulled the wolf’s shoulders free of the slope and onto dry stone.

  Now, she could embrace him around his torso and pull his hindquarters up, too. Finally, the entire beast rested on dry rock. They both lay panting and exhausted. The wolf lifted his tail and brought it down with a slosh, in one sodden gesture of gratitude. Then it closed its eyes and appeared to sleep.

  Judging that it was safe to leave him for a few minutes, Calypso hurried back to the supply room to retrieve an emergency space blanket. Returning to the wolf, she rolled the sodden creature onto the blanket and then dragged him back to the supply room.

  Using Javier’s shirt, she dried the animal as best she could. His limbs were ice cold. She wrapped the space blanket around his body and pulling her own makeshift bed next to him, she pulled the wolf to her to give him her warmth.

  How had the animal survived? She tried to imagine how the waters might have swallowed El Lobo but not his companion. She recalled in vivid detail those last moments, when El Lobo had clutched the wolf in terror.

  Somehow, in the throat of the vortex, El Lobo must have released his grip, and the wolf had caught an upward swirl of water, to be spat out. And it had lain there, half-dead, too exhausted to pull itself to safety, or perhaps aware that the stone was too slick to traverse, all the while she was climbing the cliff, grieving on the ledge, and finally, sleeping.

  She feared that the creature, although rescued, might still die from hypothermia. Curling herself around him, pulling him closer, she nestled the back of his head under her chin. Spooned about him like a lover, with a final, fleeting thought that her prayer for companionship was answered, she fell into exhausted and oblivious sleep.

  §

  She awoke to pitch blackness and the squirming animal heat of the wolf. Groping for her flashlight, she illuminated the creature, trussed in its silvery mylar blanket like a Christmas turkey.

  Lobo reared his head and whined as he kicked his legs to free himself. Calypso freed the trapped end of his blanket and he unwound himself, scrambled to his feet, and shook himself mightily.

  “Well, good morning!” Calypso laughed at his gyrations and sat up. “How about some breakfast?”

  She dug in her pack and came up with a food bar, the last but one.

  “I’ll split this with you.”

  She opened the wrapper, broke off a piece, and offered it on the palm of her hand. The wolf sat and with gentle lips bent to receive the tidbit. Calypso broke off a piece for herself. In this fashion, they shared out the bar, which was gone far too soon.

  As she was stowing the wrapper, Calypso reflected that it would be no contest,if the wolf had decided to eat her, and that his failure to do so might constitute a tacit kind of bonding. She reached a tentative hand to the animal’s head.

  “Good boy, Lobo. Bon appétit.”

  §

  The traversing of the cave now took on a dreamlike quality. The fantastic shapes of the rocks and their dancing shadows, the boulder-littered passages, the hoisting of the wolf down cliff faces, all passed in a sort of fugue state.

  The blunt force mental trauma of her burned home and of Javier’s death was in abeyance, as was her sense of fatigue. She and Lobo swam through the depths of darkness in slow motion, as mindless as archaic fishes suspended in the black deeps of the sea.

  When they came at last to the low hole that was the entrance to the tube, Calypso sat and shared the final energy bar with the wolf.

  “Will you follow me?” she asked, resting a weary arm on the creature’s silky neck. “Goose me, if I stop?”

  She fumbled the batteries from her headlamp, inserted the last fresh ones, and tossed her pack aside.

  “No need for this,” she said vaguely. How good it felt to have the wolf’s intelligent eyes watching her lips, as if he understood every word!

  “Are you ready?” She gave the wolf’s face a last caress and sank to her knees. Crawling, she ducked into the opening to the tube.

  “I can’t help you once we’re in here,” she called back to him,
“but I know you can do it.”

  She turned her head and saw the wolf sitting at the opening, his ears pricked, watching her. He whined but did not move.

  “Come on, boy,” she called. “Let’s go!”

  She shuffled forward on hands and knees and was relieved to hear the wolf scrabbling along behind her.

  §

  The narrows of the tube were no less terrible for having passed successfully through them a number of times. As the stone pressed inward, constricting her movements and forcing her to wriggle along like a worm, Calypso kept her thoughts on the wolf and how dreadful this place must be for a free-running creature.

  Only when she got to the tightest part, as she was inserting her turned head through the oppressive stone, did thoughts of Javier finally break through.

  Oh God! Not now, she thought frantically, as she pushed with her toes and wiggled her hips. But it was too late.

  Javier’s absence broke in on her in a mighty wave of desolation. Caught with her head through the narrows but her shoulders still on the other side, she was guillotined by grief. She collapsed, unable to summon the strength or volition to proceed. Sobs wracked her and with each heave of her chest, the terrible stone compressed it again like a cruel trap.

  She saw again the smoking rubble of her home. Smelled its terrible stench. Saw the armed attackers, vigilant, predatory, and triumphant. She imagined the people of the ranch, trapped inside and burned in the inferno, Javier among them. Saw a burning beam fall, trapping him. His fruitless struggles to lift it off, as his clothing caught fire, and his lungs singed from smoke and heat. Witnessed her sweet life vaporizing—her paintings, her collection of Rarámuri basketry, the ancient Egyptian locket box. Her clothing. His.

  At each small holocaust, she wept anew. Her rosebushes took flame. Her beds of herbs. The benches tucked into shady nooks near the house. The birdhouses Javier had built for her.

  All, all.

  It was the darkest moment of her life. If she died there in the stone’s embrace, she would not care. She thought bitterly of some spelunker of the future, worming his way to this spot, only to be met with her grinning skull, and the thought pleased her.