by Joanna Sims
Once the gate was unlocked, he sat down on the ground, braced his feet on the rock face, and used the strength of his arms and the leverage created by his legs to wrench the door open. At first, the steel door wouldn’t budge.
“It’s frozen, but good.” Logan took a short break and used the back of his forearm to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
“Do you want me to help?”
“Maybe.” He wrapped his fingers around the bars and repositioned his feet. “Let me give it one more try.”
He didn’t need a third go at the gate. Logan lowered his head, closed his eyes, and grunted from the force he was exerting to force the gate from its frozen position. The muscles in his arms, the biceps and triceps, hardened and bulged beneath his skin; the veins in his neck popped to the surface and she was about to tell him just to forget it. But then, she heard a loud cracking sound, followed by a long, low creak.
“You did it!” she exclaimed. “That’s amazing!”
Logan yanked the door all the way open before he stopped. The look on Josephine’s face made him smile. Her face, such a pretty face, was transformed. Her cheeks were flushed and her sweet lips were smiling. The fact that he was able to make her smile the way she was smiling now made him feel like he’d accomplished something pretty major.
“Sorry that was so hard.” She saw him flexing his fingers, undoubtedly to work out the stiffness from gripping the steel bars.
He stood up and brushed the dirt and gravel from his cutoff khaki shorts. “No need to apologize. I consider stuff like that to be fun.”
The look of a younger Logan flashed across his face in his excitement. That’s how he must have looked when he was a boy.
“If you thought that was fun, you’re going to love this next part.” Her smile grew. She was starting to feel the excitement, the anticipation, of going down into the cave. Like the chapel, it had been years.
“I’m ready, if you’re ready.”
After a short discussion, they opted to leave Logan’s backpack behind. The opening to the cave became smaller and narrower as it descended quickly into the massive main chamber. Josephine led the way with Logan following behind. At the beginning of the cave, the tunnel was large enough for them to walk crouched over. When it became too tight to stand, they both sat down and used their feet to propel themselves forward.
“It’s much tighter than I remember,” Josephine said. Her legs were already covered with a fine coating of dust and she knew that the sharp-edged shards of rock had scraped the skin of the backs of her thighs. It would have been wise to wear long pants.
She paused for a moment to switch the flashlight to her left hand, so she could use her right hand to help push her body forward.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked her.
She couldn’t turn her head around to look at him. The tunnel had become very narrow and cramped. They were nearly lying on their backs, unable to sit upright, surrounded by walls of sediment and granite. The light from the flashlights was the only light available.
“I’m okay. We’re coming up to the slide. It’s a really sharp drop, FYI.”
The “slide,” as her family had dubbed it, was the reason why it was inadvisable to crawl on your hands and knees into the cave. It was a drastic drop that could send a person tumbling headfirst into the jagged boulders down below.
“I’ll hang back so we have some leeway between us.”
The flashlight she kept on her key chain was small enough to clench between her teeth. With both hands free, Josephine cautiously scooted forward to the entrance of the slide. Her feet pushed loose rocks down the incline and she could hear them rolling and rolling and rolling.
She closed her eyes, for just a minute, and then took a deep, calming breath. This was always the only part of the tunnel that made her nervous. Luckily, the tunnel widened at the opening of the slide and she was able to sit up without hitting her head. Bracing her feet on either side of the tunnel wall, she used her hands to push herself slowly onto the slide. The sharp incline of the tunnel was pulling her body forward, and she had to use the strength of her arms and her legs to slow her descent.
“How’re you doing?” she called back to him.
“This is awesome!” he said. “How are you doing?”
“So far, so good—the main chamber is at the end of this section of the tunnel.”
“Roger that.”
The closer they got to the main chamber, the cooler the temperature felt. It would be at least thirty degrees colder in the main chamber than it was aboveground. Her bare legs and arms were covered with goose bumps as she negotiated the last section of the tunnel into the cave. Able to stand upright, she stepped off the side, careful of her footing, while Logan finished his climb down the slide.
Some loose rocks, and the light from his flashlight, preceded Logan as he made his final descent into the chamber. Soon he was standing next to her, his body throwing off heat in contrast to the frigid air of the cave.
“This is frickin’ unbelievable.” He moved the beam of his flashlight to different spots around the cave.
She was already starting to feel uncomfortable in the cold. She should have thought to bring a lightweight jacket, but she wasn’t really herself this morning. She crossed one arm over her body so she could still maneuver her flashlight.
“This main chamber is the size of two Olympic swimming pools.” Her words echoed back to them from the other side of the cave. “And if you look up there...” She shined a light to a ledge on the cave wall. “That’s one of the places that the archaeologists believe the prehistoric Americans made their home.”
“Incredible,” he said in a reverent voice.
She loved the cave and it always made her feel good to find someone else who shared that love and appreciation. It was awesome, and humbling, to stand in the presence of a place that had been home to ancient Native Americans two thousand years before.
“Is there a way to get to the other side?” he asked.
“There is. But it’s too dark to be safe today. If you want, we can ask Tyler to help us set up the right equipment.” She added, “And there’s another tunnel on the other side that leads to several smaller chambers. Archaeologists found a cache of arrowheads there—I’ll have to ask Dad if he still has some of them for you to see.”
Even though Logan couldn’t cross the cave today, he could at least survey the cave landscape for a future exploration. And Josephine didn’t seem to be in a hurry. She perched herself on a small natural rock ledge nearby and seemed content to spend some time shining her flashlight at various spots along the far wall. The floor of the main chamber was packed solid with enormous, jagged boulders that didn’t appear to be as dangerous as Logan knew them to be from his rock climbing experience. The boulders were uneven and could be very slippery, and the crevasses between the individual boulders could be deadly. Before he would dare cross to the other side, he would have to figure out a way to bring the proper equipment through the narrow tunnel.
“Shoot,” he heard Josephine say. “My battery is dying.”
“Do you want to use mine?”
“No. My phone has a flashlight. Thanks, though.”
He saw the light on her phone turn on and he heard her make a childlike sound of pleasure when her phone flashlight worked, which meant she was back in business. She stood up and walked to over to a flat, elongated boulder nearby. He wasn’t expecting her to walk onto the boulder, but that’s what she did.
“Where’re you heading?” He worked to keep his question light—she didn’t seem like the type of woman who appreciated a man even sounding like he was trying to boss her around.
“Over to that spot right there. I can’t see the right side of the cave from here.”
He wanted to tell her to wait. He wanted to tell her to be careful. But, inst
ead, he only said, “Do you mind if I join you?”
“You’re welcome to join me. There’s enough room. And you get a 180-degree view of the space.”
He shined the light from his flashlight directly in front of his next footstep, and occasionally moved the light ahead to mark out his path. Josephine, quickly and with less caution than he would have liked, walked across the first boulder and then made the small jump onto the next boulder beside it. Once he made it to the second long, flat boulder, Logan made it a point to stand close enough to Josephine to catch her if she lost her balance. The darkness and the enormity of the space threw off his equilibrium. He had to imagine that it was doing the same to her.
He heard her sigh, he imagined from contentment of being back in the cave. And he understood why she wanted to risk venturing out onto these flat boulders. Standing there next to Josephine, surrounded by a sea of boulders, Logan was awestruck by the majesty of this dark, cool, underground world. This was a special moment he was sharing with Josephine, a moment that he didn’t believe either of them would soon forget.
“Oh! No!”
His reverie was interrupted by Josephine’s exclamation. His eyes naturally followed the light of her phone as it slipped out of her fingers and falling toward a deep, black crevice. Before he could react, she lunged for the phone and slipped off the side of the boulder. He heard a cracking sound, the sound of bone hitting granite, and he heard her cry out in pain.
His law enforcement training and rock climbing instincts kicked in. Something had thankfully stopped her from falling all the way down into the crevice. With the light of the flashlight, he could see that her position was temporarily stabilized. Her arms were hugging the top of the boulder near where he was crouching.
“What’s hurt?” he asked.
He had seen the pinched, pain-stricken expression on her face when he moved the light past her torso to examine her position in the crevice.
“My knee.” He heard the distress in her voice. “I hit it on a rock on the way down.”
“Does anything feel broken?”
Her thigh was scraped and bloody; from his angle, he couldn’t see her knees or her feet.
“No. I don’t think so.” She gasped. “But I can’t move my foot, Logan. It’s stuck under this rock.”
That was the last thing he wanted to hear. Getting a limb trapped was always a concern for a rock climber. Once trapped, it could be extremely tricky to free a person’s limb. If her foot wasn’t broken, he could break it while trying to move the rock. And, after assessing the situation, moving the heavy rock was the only choice. Her right foot was pinned beneath it, and there wasn’t any wiggle room.
He made certain her position was still secure before he began to execute his plan to move the rock. He silently cursed his decision to leave his backpack full of supplies behind, and knew that he may be making the trip up the tunnel to retrieve it if his first plan wasn’t successful.
Three attempts at budging the rock and Logan knew that he needed more leverage than the strength of his arms and legs alone. He knelt down beside Josephine to deliver the news.
“I need my backpack.”
“I know.” Her voice had a weak quality that put him on alert for shock.
“I’m going to leave you the flashlight, but I need you to shine the light on my path back to the tunnel. Can you do that?”
Josephine took the flashlight and nodded.
It worked in both of their favors that Josephine had managed to remain calm. How long that calm would last—Logan couldn’t be certain.
He used a quick and steady approach to climbing through the tunnel to the surface to get his supplies. He used the same approach to get back to Josephine. He knew he needed to remain calm for her sake, but he wasn’t completely confident that he could free her without hurting her. The moment he cleared the tunnel, he called out to her, his voice echoing loudly in the chamber.
“Josephine! Shine the light on the path for me!”
He grabbed the tools he intended to use in an attempt to dislodge the large rock and left his backpack near the tunnel entrance. Sure, steady, cautious steps brought him back to Josephine. Once by her side, he knelt down beside her.
“I need your help, Josephine. Are you still with me?”
In the low light, he saw her nod her head.
“Reach down and feel around the side of the rock. Look for a place where I can thread the rope through.”
“I...I think there’s a place—but it’s too small. I can’t even put my finger through past my knuckle.”
“That’s okay,” Logan reassured her. “That’s okay. We can work with that.”
While she held the flashlight, he started the chore of digging around the rock. It was a tedious, laborious task and it had to work in a tight space without causing Josephine further harm.
“I think I got it,” he said to her.
He grabbed his strong climbing rope and threaded it through the space he had just created.
“Talk to me,” he commanded gently. Her breathing sounded shallow.
“I’m okay.”
“Hang in there with me just a little bit longer, Jo.” Logan quickly wrapped the rope around his waist several times, climbed down between the boulders, and found a spot where he could brace his legs and feet.
“I’m going to count to three, Jo. When you hear me say ‘three,’ you need to push the rock. Let me know you can hear me.”
“I hear you.”
Logan wound the rope around his hands and prepared himself to pull. “This may hurt, Jo.”
“Just do it!” she yelled at him.
“One. Two. Three!”
It took all of his strength to pull the rock forward. He groaned loudly from exertion and he heard her scream when the rock moved.
“It’s off!” The two words he was waiting to hear pinged around the cold cave walls.
“Can you get your foot free?” He didn’t release the tension on the rope. They still weren’t out of the woods yet.
“No!” she yelled back. “No!”
Her ability to stay calm was deteriorating. He needed to get her out, and he need to get her out now. He needed to make sure that the rock couldn’t roll back onto her foot. He closed his eyes, mustered all of his strength, and with a loud battle cry, he pulled on the rope to move the rock farther away from Josephine. Once he was sure the rock wasn’t a threat to her, he crawled back onto the boulder and went back to her side.
“My boot won’t budge!”
On his stomach, he leaned down and loosened her shoelaces so she could work her foot free. Then he slipped his arms under her armpits and around her chest and hauled her up onto the boulder.
“I can’t feel my foot.” Josephine reached down to touch her right foot. “I can’t feel my foot!”
Logan squatted down next to her. “Put your arms around my neck, Jo.”
This was a no-nonsense command that she followed without question. Once her arms were around his neck, Logan used his strong thigh muscles to pick her up carefully. With Josephine in his arms, and the flashlight in his hand to light his way, Logan took one cautious step after another until he had brought them both to safety.
Chapter Seven
Josephine held on to Logan’s neck as tightly as she could. All of her bravery, all of her stoicism, had evaporated. In their place now were anxiety and pain. Her foot, which she hadn’t been able to feel moments ago, was starting to throb. She was starting to notice, for the first time, that her knees hurt and her upper thighs felt raw. She had banged her body up nicely and she was lucky that Logan could remain calm in a crisis.
“I’m going to put you down right here, okay?” he told her.
“Okay.” She looked down where he was planning on setting her, straining in the dark to see.<
br />
Gently, slowly, he set her down on the cold floor. He opened his backpack to find what he needed. First, he helped her into a lightweight jacket. She had been cold since they entered the main chamber, and had been shivering for a while. The jacket felt like much-needed relief.
“I’m going to wrap your foot over the sock to help protect it, alright?”
He was using a very calm, soothing voice to keep her in the loop. And she found that she liked the sound of his voice—it was quiet, which limited the echo, and confident.
But the minute he touched her foot, her pain level intensified and she jerked her leg back instinctively.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, her teeth grit hard together. “I can’t do that. It hurts too much.”
“I have to wrap it, Jo. If I don’t, you’re going to be one hurting puppy going through the tunnel.”
She had been in such distress that she hadn’t given much thought to the trip up the tunnel. Now, after she couldn’t have Logan touch her foot, a suffocating feeling of dread swept over her body. How was she going to get back up to the surface? How?
Logan must have noticed that her breathing had changed. She was starting to hyperventilate. Her foot was throbbing and felt like someone had smashed it with a meat cleaver. She could not go up that tunnel. She just couldn’t do it.
“Jo, what do you do when you need to calm down?”
In a choppy, breathy voice, she said, “Listen—to—music.”
“Well, I don’t have a radio. But I can sing for you.”
“Are—you—any—good?”
Logan’s laugh—a deep, rich laugh—sounded good to her ears; Logan’s steadying hand on her calf, a warm, strong hand, felt good on her skin.
“Karaoke champion two years in a row.”
“That’s...impressive.”
He laughed again. “Do you have any requests, madam?”
“Surprise—me.”
“Okay. I’ll sing you one of my favorites,” he said. “Now, Jo, when I start wrapping your foot, focus on my voice. Don’t think about anything but my voice. Okay? Are you with me?”