Justine’s discussions with the local police had been unsatisfactory. They said until something actually happened, some kind of illegal offense, she had little basis for charges. Déjà vu! When she was followed in Egypt no one would take it seriously either. Until she was kidnapped. She shivered at the memory. While she was not afraid of these boys, since she didn’t think they intended her any real harm, she also knew it wasn’t wise to underestimate threats.
She sped up and slowed down, turning north from the Pueblo road, then left again onto Camino del a Placita, taking the less traveled road running parallel to downtown. Justine wanted to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. Now on the side street, the Chevy sped up and bumped into her rear bumper several times. Now, that makes me really angry! She decided to pull up in front of the police station on Civic Drive.
When it appeared that no one was in the station—where are they? Out chasing heroin peddlers? She had another thought: The Red Cat. She circled onto Bent Street, crossed Placita on to Dona Luz, and spun into the parking lot in front of the Middle Eastern café next to the Red Cat Melissiana and Antiques. The same parking lot, she had heard, that was built over the location of the original Catholic Church and cemetery. The pickup parked less that thirty yards away and three menacing boys scrambled out of the cab.
For a moment, the boys and Justine stood their ground, staring at one another. She examined each young man in turn. I assume that’s Ricardo, she thought, he being taller and more self-assured than the others. His eyes didn’t waver as they sustained contact with Justine; the others looked down and away, clearly unsure of their mission. Two shorter Anglo boys looked to be brothers. The fourth, a classic Taos multi-ethnic mix. Spanish? Mexican? Indian? Each wore ragged jeans, tee shirts, sweat jackets, as though they had consulted each other about wardrobe. Standoff at OK corral, she mused. Then, Ricardo yelled at her, “You stay away from her, you Anglo bitch!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Sorry.” Justine said softly, turned and walked into the Red Cat. She struggled to appear casual. Stepping into the shop was like stepping back in time—a twenties collection of antiques and novelties in a cacophony of colors animated by stuffed, ceramic, and crocheted cats in all shapes and designs. She wandered aimlessly for several minutes, watching the boys in her peripheral vision.
They still stood in the parking lot, as though waiting for a signal. Then, they began to run toward the Cat. As though someone had given the order, they broke rank, and followed the taller boy.
Her breath quickening, Justine turned and walked the twenty feet to the woman at the desk at the rear of the shop. “Hello, Melissa,” she said, sounding as relaxed as she could manage. “Our mutual friend, Maria, tells me you have a tunnel in your basement that stretches under the plaza. I’m Justine, by the way.” She recognized the shop owner from Maria’s description: a glamorous woman in her mid-fifties, dressed in layers of woven lavender chamois adorned with bangles of estate jewelry. Her striking ebony hair was highlighted with a broad platinum streak folding back from her forehead above porcelain skin and extremely large black eyes.
Melissa gave Justine a blank stare at first, then seeming to put the puzzle together, a smile curved onto her coral lips, her eyes becoming animated in recognition, as though she had met Justine before. “I’m Melissa . . . and yes, I do have a tunnel. Would you like to see it? Kit, keep an eye on those boys,” she said to her assistant.
“That would be most generous of you,” said Justine, surprised to find fear gripping the muscles of her stomach. The boys had been slowed by cars crossing Doña Luz, but now stood inside the shop, pretending to examine a few lovely ceramic dishes in vivid shades of red and yellow. Handling them roughly. Three of the boys looked quite lost. Confused. “Why are we here?” was written all over their faces.
While slightly amused, Justine had begun to fear for her own safety, that of Melissa, and particularly, the condition of the shop stuffed with delicate artifacts and glass treasures. What damage they could do if they chose to, she thought, turning to follow Melissa down the narrow stairwell into the cellar. Two short flights, a landing decorated with cryptic icons for the Day of the Dead: a bleached steer’s skull and horns in a cowboy hat sitting in an ancient wooden window frame, a makeshift shadow box. Pumpkins sat on either side of the display.
At the bottom of the stairs, Justine was amazed at the size of the fireplace, large enough to adorn a banquet room—just as Maria had described. Throughout this main low-ceilinged room, worn wood slats provided support, while three smaller rooms sprung off to the side. Clearly, this had been one big meeting room at one time. Walls were hand-plastered, serving as a backdrop for ancient, rusted tools and window frames.
“This is it,” said Melissa, pointing to a door near the fireplace that could have qbeen the covering for a Midwestern tornado cellar, wood slats battened down with cross hatches. She glanced furtively back up the stairs. A padlock hung from the metal latch.
“Could I see inside?” asked Justine casually, hearing the heels of heavy boots on the wooden floor above them as the boys approached the stairs leading into the cellar.
“There’s really nothing to see,” said Melissa. “I use it for storage, keep a few boxes near the entrance . . . but if you’d like . . .” She drew a set of keys from her pocket, searched through them and chose the smallest to insert into the brass padlock.
Justine noticed how similar the key was to the one she had in her pocket, realizing that it could fit into thousands of padlocks. What secret strongholds are there for Lawrence’s unknown treasures. What could she possibly find? But then, Lawrence never returned to Taos after he met Isabella, so anything found couldn’t tell her much about the relationship.
Melissa pulled open the little-used door to the tunnel, now stuffed with numerous cardboard boxes and stepped back. “As you see, I just use it for storage. But I’ve been assured that this is the infamous tunnel. Many don’t believe it ever existed.”
“Have you been in there?” asked Justine. “Explored it?”
“Actually, no. It’s small for me, and there’s water seepage, a little muddy. It’s probably collapsed in places. Not very inviting.” She turned to confront the young men as they clomped into the room. “Can I help you boys?” Melissa asked with trepidation as well as authority. She was fully aware of a sense of urgency and confusion on the boys’ faces—young men rarely found her shop of interest.
“Ma’am,” mumbled the tallest of the four boys. “Just looking around. Thank you, Ma’am.” Ricardo’s eyes darted around the room, then rested on Justine who was quickly clearing boxes from the tunnel. The other boys gazed intently at the toes of their own boots, as though they expected to decipher some secret message written in the leather.
“Ma’am,” Ricardo said for the third time, pushing Melissa aside and racing toward the tunnel entrance.
Melissa turned just in time to see Justine disappear. “Stop! Justine! Don’t go in there—it’s not safe!” She ran toward the tunnel, colliding with Ricardo and veering into the stone fireplace, scrapping her shoulder.
Ricardo reached the opening and grabbed for Justine’s boot, grasping the heel. She kicked hard against his skull. Momentarily stunned, his forehead beginning to bleed, he yelled out, “Cunt! Stay away from Taya. You get me?”
Melissa stood dazed, her face grimaced, eyes wide, shocked by the young man’s actions and words, but even more by Justine’s disappearance into the tunnel.
A faint, echoing voice called back, “Afraid I can’t do that, Ricardo.” Shakened and alarmed that she had used Melissa, Justine turned her full attention to the tunnel ahead of her. Giant iron pipes and a plastered wall towered in front of her. She had a choice: to the right or left. She took a right turn. For now the tunnel was as tall as she was, but it didn’t last. The walls looked as though they had been dug out with an ice cream scoop. Muddy water dripped from the top and sides, making the going wet and slippery.
No more than twenty feet
into the dark tunnel, Justine came to another fork; one path leading straight ahead toward Antonio’s, the original “cat house,” the other turned east toward the plaza. She sat down next to a collected pool of drainage, curled her feet under her, and fished out her small flashlight, wondering if Melissa would wait for her.
The light flickered on and she turned east, determined to get to the plaza and the probable location of the bank. It was almost easier to crawl than to bend her five foot eight frame into dwarf size. An odor of sewer drifted into her nostrils; she gagged. By now, she thought she must be under Doña Luz—the street running in front of the Red Cat—as she could feel the vibration of cars passing above. Ahead, three splintered wooden corners protruded into the passageway. Caskets! she exclaimed to herself, assuming that all of the bodies had been removed from the old cemetery. The thought of decomposing bodies sent shivers down her spine. She sat down to consider the path ahead. Is this worth it?? Could the tunnel collapse with me buried alive? After a few hundred years, it’s not likely to collapse now, she concluded, unless I do something stupid, like knock out a critical brace. She shivered again.
Justine rose to her muddy knees again, holding the flashlight in her teeth as she crawled, occasionally slipping and sinking into the soft soil, cutting her finger on a pottery sherd. Damn! Ignoring the cut rather than sticking the muddy finger in her mouth, she was now more watchful for broken glass, sherds, bottles.
I’ll have to burn these clothes when I get out . . . If I get out. Further ahead still, the passageway became a puzzle, running right alongside a remaining section of the stone foundation of the old Our Lady of Guadalupe church.
She could hear rumbling from Placitas Road above, after which the floor of the passageway began to rise slightly, moving closer to the surface. New odors—old bacon grease, garbage—coming from the kitchen in the corner gallery. From here to the plaza is still several hundred feet. Can I make it?
And, then, that most grateful of sights—light. She saw a few rays of meager light. Her lungs sniffed a small burst of air. A rusting metal stairwell protruded three feet into the passageway, apparently leading up into the back of the gallery on the southwest corner of the plaza. And, the owner had told her there was no tunnel under Taos. Why did so many consider the tunnels a myth? What do they have to lose—after all, a credible rumor of tunnels would only heighten the mysteries of Taos. Like the Taos Hum. Good for tourism.
Abruptly, a large tawny cat appeared in the stairwell, reminding Justine of the mountain lion, but more menacing. “Hello there,” she said, slowly moving her arm through the metal rungs toward the tabby feline. She drew her hand back quickly, scraping her knuckles, when she realized the cat had a large rat in its mouth. She hadn’t bargained for vermin, shuddering as she recalled the plague—the Black Death—contracted by a man in the Northwest when he tried to take a rat from the throat of a strangling cat. She sat back, pressing her lithe frame against the tunnel wall, bleeding with crimson earth, watching the cat tease and then finally devour the struggling varmit. She wanted to turn around and crawl as fast as she could back in the opposite direction.
‘Self talk’ was usually helpful in a situation like this. Justine mulled over this action, deciding to give it a try. She had talked herself down before. All right, Justine, there is no real danger here. You’re in control of the situation. If you slow down your breathing, relax your muscles, your brain will follow. She felt her body relaxing, stomach muscles loosening, her mind slowing. She allowed herself to remain seated until her breathing was regular, deep, slow.
Another junction appeared and she took the right fork, aiming toward the west side of the plaza where the hotel was located. Justine had a fairly good sense of space now, her visceral sensitivities fully tuned in. At the next juncture there was no choice, for the tunnel turned to the left. As she had heard, it was built to circle the plaza.
The next two hundred feet seemed like a thousand, her knees aching with each crawl. Slow. She was tired, short on oxygen; her brain demanded that she turn around. Her mind began to swim. She was sitting at their kitchen table in Berkeley, talking to her father—where was mom?—at an art class? Dad was describing his days at the university in Santa Cruz with Gregory Bateson. In the ‘70’s. Their walks on the beach… conversations over coffee. Connectedness, relationships, that is what he’d learned. Ideas, even truth, reside in the spaces among us, the patterns of culture. No one is complete; rather we are a part of everything else. What did he say?? We exist in relationships. I saw this up close among the Hopis: no one exists independent of culture. Her mind felt muddled, unclear. Just as she felt as though she was passing out, she grinned at the influence of those very thoughts on her emerging spirituality. Notions of community. Is this part of what Lawrence found too?
Finally, Justine could see the tunnel ahead widening, the ceiling rising, like a vast cavern opening into a grotto. Another sniff of oxygen lightly brushed her face; her pulse quickened with excitement, bringing her brain back into consciousness. She was almost there. Twenty more feet and she could stand up. And breathe.
Once there, she saw an old battened down door of darkened wood. Thank God! I can get out without crawling back through the tunnel! She moved faster now, so consumed with reaching the looming door that she forgot about her search for a bank. She was foggy, near unconsciousness.
Reaching the door, she first tried the simplest of acts: grasping the iron handle, and pushing it downward, intent on opening it. No luck. Come on, Justine, what did you expect? The proprietor with a hot cappuccino in hand? She stepped back and examined the entire structure. Greek lettering flashed across the top of the frame; she couldn’t read it. She didn’t read Greek, after all. Not about to give up, she tried to unlatch the lock, loosen the frame—then she started to pound on the door. “Hey! Anyone there! Help me! Get me out of here.”
She pounded until she was spent and slid to the ground. Not moving for several minutes, she breathed deeply again, letting the strength seep back into her arms and legs. There was more air coming through into this enlarged cavity than in the tunnel itself, probably around the door jam. She sat back on the soggy soil and looped circles on the cobweb embroidered wall with the flashlight, searching for another outlet, looking for bats—and bugs, rats, snakes. Finding none, she began to bring her breathing back to normal, relax into her thoughts, as she continued to project the light around the cavern. She wondered why her Dad couldn’t apply his knowledge of relationships and culture to his marriage with her mother. After all, in regard to women, Nebraska and Egypt are not all that different.
Abruptly, unexpectedly, the light of her flashlight came to rest on a smooth silver surface to the south, to her right. This time, she held her breath as her imagination gave way to mindfulness. She could physically feel her mind calculating the options. A silver wall? Mine? Sculpture? Machine of some kind? Aha . . . .
There it was. A safe the height of the crevasse, taller even. She could see the markings and the round compass-like dial on the vault door. She rose and walked toward the mammoth silver hulk. It appeared in pristine shape. Just filthy and worn. Certainly the Greek owner of the hotel knew it was here. She reached up and wiped the dirt off the indentations above the door. “Bank of Jaramillo.” She smiled and ran her arm across her sweating brow.
It was well after dark when Justine stepped out of the tunnel, back onto the wooden plank floor of the Red Cat cellar. She hoped that Melissa would be waiting for her. No doubt, she would be angry. Not about to take a chance of passing out again from lack of oxygen, she had assumed an awkward bent position and nearly ran back out of the tunnel, tripping and falling into the mud several times. Her tawny hair was brown and stringy with moist dirt. In spite of the ordeal, she was grinning with the mischievous, guilty expression of an errant child.
Several candles and one electric lamp reflected on the figure of Melissa curled up on the blue velvet couch facing the unlit fireplace. “Justine! I thought you were probably dead
by now,” she exclaimed. “Maybe the tunnel had collapsed, or you’d gotten lost, or, Lord, who knows. I was giving you until 11:00 and then I was going to call the fire department. What in the hell is this about?”
“I’m glad you didn’t!” Justine collapsed on the floor, aching all over from being bent over for nearly four hours. Melissa stared at her in amazement. “Were you running away from those boys?? What did you find? What did you do for light??”
“Thanks for waiting for me, Melissa. Actually, no, I wasn’t just running away from those boys. I needed to get into the tunnel and this seemed like an opportune time. I had a flashlight.” Justine slowly, painfully pulled off her boots, then leaned back against the white adobe fireplace, breathing deeply. “Not much oxygen in there,” she said, still gasping.
“Hold on a minute,” said Melissa. She ran upstairs to her apartment in the back of the store and returned with a wet towel and a couple of bottles of Evian. “Here, first drink—then wash your face so I can see who I’m talking to.”
Justine laughed in appreciation, accepted the towel and proceeded to wash her face, hands, and forearms. “I’m sorry, Melissa. Sorry for barging in on you, sorry for going into the tunnel without your permission.”
Melissa waved off the apology. “Well, did you find what you were looking for—whatever that is??” asked Melissa, settling back into the blue divan and drawing her feet up under her.
Justine didn’t look as comfortable. “Yes and no.”
“Okay. Shoot. I think I deserve the full story, don’t you?”
Justine grinned and nodded as she finished off the Evian. Melissa handed her another, as she began to weave the narrative leading up to her actions today. Her host joined the circle of close friends who knew Justine’s story. Nearly all of it: Egypt, Italy, D. H. Lawrence and her reason for coming to Taos. Even her love for Amir. Melissa dug out a bottle of red table wine, but couldn’t find the opener, so Justine used the method she’d learned from a felucca helmsman in Cairo: pound the bottom steadily with the heel of your shoe until the cork pops out. It works every time.
A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy) Page 15