by Dave Norem
He did not die immediately but did not regain consciousness either. I placed him in the sheltered cave from whence he was emerging and stayed with him until his death the following day. From what little personal effects I could find on him, he was from, or had family in Lafayette, Tennessee. Why he was wearing a Federal uniform is beyond me. From the papers I found on him, his name was John Luther.
I am truly sorry for this
A. Bierce 1861
John Luther recoiled in shock from what he had just read. This could not be! A sense of panic set in and he wanted to bolt from the cave. Banging his head on the entranceway jolted him from his panicked flight. Still, he felt a great tightening in his chest and had to fight down nausea. He recovered his flashlight with shaking hands, and found the paper he had dropped. Reading it from where it lay, it was the same.
Carefully, he placed it back between the layers and laid it beside the corpse, weighting it down with a stone.
He played the light over the face once more and again noticed the chipped tooth. His eyes filmed over and he nearly fell. With labored breathing, he reached the narrowing and dropped to his hands and knees for his exit. He could no longer stay there—in the crypt.
Telling himself that he would sort it out in the light of day, he turned around and began his backward egress, remembering that he could only exit feet first. ‘Like a breech birth’, he thought with a short panic-laugh. He kept the lighted flashlight pointing back into the cavern as if to keep the face of death from pulling him back into its own Hell.
It was just before dark and the face of the rock wall was in shadow when he retraced his route back to the D shaped opening and began backing out feet first: downward from the hole in the wall.
Clayton Thigpin, bear hunter, could not believe his luck. After several fruitless days, and now on the last day of the season, he saw a bear crawling out of a cave. Trudging along in despair on his way back to his truck, he almost missed seeing it in the gloom of the narrow-canyon, twilight shadows. Shaking with excitement, he had to steady his rifle against a tree to make the hurried shot.
John Luther never heard that fatal shot!
Many thanks for moral support:
‘Daddy’ Dave Grimmett, Author, Professor, PE
Frank Allan Rogers, Author, Traveler, Entrepreneur
BadBob Johnson USMC Ret, RIP
Jerry Smith US Army Ret, RIP
Nashville Writers Meetup Group
Clarksville Writers Meetup Group
My apologies to anyone deserving whom my addled brain went blank on!
Dave Norem is a retired manufacturing engineer and jack-of-all trades. He has ridden alone over most of the Continental US on a motorcycle, walked alone in strange cities at night - in ethnic areas of large cities - in forests at night - and in foreign lands. His stories have been published in magazines and anthologies.