Going Where It's Dark (16 page)

He struggled to make the next turn, curving his body like a question mark, wriggling and pushing and pulling, and saw in the beam of the flashlight that the channel was narrowing, smaller and smaller still, until it was only as wide as his own body. Inch by inch, he made the turn on his belly. Trying to keep his head up so he could see, his legs completed the maneuver and he scanned the passage ahead.

There wasn't any. He was facing solid rock except for a football-size hole between boulders in which a strong draft of air chilled his face. He directed the light into the hole and saw only rock, but it was some distance away, meaning there was a larger cavity somewhere beyond. Buck knew what his aching muscles already told him, however—this was the end of the passage he had chosen, and his bumps and bruises were all for nothing.

Well, not quite. It was all part of exploring. He'd never know unless he tried, and he'd make notes when he got back home as he mapped out his underground maze.

And then he faced a second problem. There was no way to turn around.

H
e had to concentrate on getting out, but he couldn't even pull up a knee. No way in the world he could try to sit up and twist himself around so as to get his legs behind him and start the crawl back again.

Think,
he told himself. How far back was that space where he had stood up and climbed over the rock pile? Twenty minutes back? Forty minutes? An hour? How wide was his helmet? Nine inches…ten? Maybe…if he took his helmet off, just for now, he could edge himself sideways….

Just thinking about it made sweat trickle down his face. This was the way cavers died sometimes, getting wedged between rocks. And this was the worst place of all to be trapped because he was at a dead end. Rescuers, if anyone found his note at home, could only come from one direction—behind him. If he couldn't even bring a leg up past his body—well, perhaps they could drag him off by his feet, but what if his head got stuck?

No, he would have to crawl backward, which would probably take twice as long, and he hoped he wouldn't miss the arrows he had placed along the way.

His chin scraping the rock beneath him, Buck turned his head in the other direction and, with the hand that was holding the flashlight, took one final look around, as much as he could see beyond his backpack. Definitely a second rock slide here, jamming the passageway in front of him, but he knew for sure that there was more on the other side.

Now, instead of pulling himself forward on his forearms and elbows, he had no choice but to slowly, awkwardly, dig his arms, his hands, into the rock and clay beneath him and push himself backward, dragging his backpack in one hand, flashlight in the other. And rather than focusing on keeping his head and shoulders down to fit in the space before him, he had to concentrate on keeping his bottom low enough with each push that it wouldn't scrape the roof of the passage.

With no light to guide his way back, his blind feet had to kick out at each side to determine which direction the passage was winding, but a heavy boot could not detect each sharp angle of rock, and now and then in the slow progression, Buck felt a stab on his leg, a prick on his arm, a long scrape against his shoulder. What he did
not
want to do was to kick off a loose rock and block his way out.

The light was getting dimmer, and he quickly switched off the flashlight. No use studying the way he had come, but he didn't want to miss any arrows he might have left along the way, either.

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID,
David would tell him. Buck used to jokingly call David Mother sometimes, when he worried too much about safety. David even had one of those cheap survival blankets in his backpack that had been there unused for so long that once, when they were caught in a cold rainstorm, he pulled it out to cover themselves, and it tore along its middle fold. They had each wrapped themselves in half of the Mylar blanket, and Buck had joked that all they needed were a couple of pacifiers.

David didn't seem so foolish now, Buck was thinking. If he ever got out of here…His heart pounded again, and he stopped crawling and took several deep breaths.
When
he got out of here, he would never come back without a headlamp. He had almost nine dollars saved from the money his dad was paying him to hoe, and with the money Jacob was giving him, he could afford one of the best.

Crawling blind this way, Buck worried he may have missed a turn, and was taking a route he hadn't seen before. But when he turned the flashlight on again, the faint beam showed that he had just passed a slight indentation that he remembered in the rocky wall—not the little closet-size space he'd been in once before, but enough, he felt, to turn himself around.

Carefully, carefully, testing the rock around him to see if there was room enough for his helmet, his shoulders, his butt, his knees…he began the slow twist, inch by inch. And finally, finally…he was facing forward—his head and shoulders where his feet had been. He opened his backpack and took out fresh batteries.

Another thing he was doing wrong. David would really get on him about it. You should never enter a cave without three different sources of light. Not three batteries for the same flashlight, but three flashlights, in case you dropped one in a crevasse. Or one flashlight, one headlamp, and some glow sticks.

He changed the battery and put the old one in the bag. Then, after another drink of water, and after devouring the cheese crackers he'd brought along, he put the water bottle back and started off.

He looked at his watch. Two-forty-six. He still had a little time left.

When he reached the place the passage divided, the yellow arrows on the wall, he could see the welcoming faint light of the Hole's entrance far off in the distance. He decided to use the remaining time he had to explore the passage on his right. When the time was up, he promised himself, no matter what he found—even the skeleton of a Stone Age man!—he had to save the rest for another day, and start home.

He took out his tape and placed an X over the two arrows on the left so he wouldn't take that route again. And then he started his descent.

For a while the scrambling, though difficult, at least allowed him to wear his backpack, freeing his hands. But the path was up one rock and down the next, like a marine obstacle course, and he was dismayed at how soon his back ached miserably from being stooped, so that he almost welcomed crawling on his knees again.

From somewhere in the distance he heard a faint but steady
plip, plip…aplop. Plip, plip…aplop.
Fascinated, he paused and gave it his full attention.
Plip, plip…aplop. Plip, plip…aplop.
Maybe there was an underground spring. His mind raced with possibilities. Wherever it was, it was still a long way off. There seemed to be an echo along with it.

Now he was climbing again; the passage curved and was going up, not down. He was able to stand but desperately needed both hands to steady himself as he crawled over boulders. He paused once to place an arrow, then chose the direction of the dropping water, sensing that the cavern was opening up the farther he went. But then, around the next boulder, he faced it again: a solid wall of rock, as if to say,
End of the line, Buck. You shouldn't be here. How many times do we have to tell you?

He leaned one hand against the rocky surface on his left, panting, huffing out his disappointment. But he could hear…He could
feel…
Yes! The draft was stronger here, much stronger, so it must be coming from someplace!

He sank to his knees, giving his thighs a rest, and trained the flashlight on the wall to his left, foot by foot, inch by inch. Then the right. There was a ripple in the rock on this side, he discovered, so he began crawling forward, dragging one hand along the rock, looking for any hole large enough to channel the draft through.

And then, just beyond the ripple, the wall seemed to disappear. When Buck trained the flashlight on it, he discovered an opening the size of a closet door—a narrow, vertical drop-off, but how far down it led, he didn't know.

I knew there was more!
he told himself, even as the realization hit that if he had used up his last battery and been wandering here in the dark, he could have walked right off into the space.

His mouth dry, heart pounding, Buck lay down on his stomach and inched his way to the edge of the shaft. A rush of air met his cheek, and a musty scent assaulted his nostrils. Carefully, leaning over as far as he dared, he directed the beam of light straight down. Perhaps fifteen feet below, there was a shelf of rock, but beyond that, the channel went down even farther, and the
plip, plip…aplop
was loudest of all.

“Yes!” he said softly, as if his discovery might scare it away. He
had
to explore it. If only David could come down for a weekend and do it with him!

He felt something move in the breast pocket of the overalls, and suddenly he realized that the Skittles were falling out of the box and into the hole below.

Buck jerked himself upright, slapping one hand over the box to preserve what were left. He couldn't quite believe his carelessness. What if those had been batteries? What if they had been glow sticks, or an extra flashlight? Water? He couldn't afford mistakes like this when he came again. He just couldn't.

He took another look around him, then glanced at his watch.

Four-fifty-two.
No!
How could this be? It seemed only a half hour or so that he had started on this second journey. How could he possibly get home now before five-thirty? Six, even. He was filthy! He turned around and plunged back into the passageway.

WHONK!

Ouch! His head again. That one probably put a dent in his helmet. He had to pay attention now. If he was late, he was late. But he couldn't be lost.

It was almost five-fifteen when he came to the arrow he had placed on the rock. From here on, the passageway was familiar territory, and when he finally saw his first glimpse of daylight, and better yet, when he popped up out of the hole at ten of six, his eyes could not take the brightness. The sky was overcast, but still it took a while for his eyes to adjust.

He took a minute to see the world through his spread fingers, squinting, as the sweet smell of grass seemed to saturate the air.

Buck looked himself over. It wasn't just the overalls that were muddy; his legs and arms were streaked with dirt and clay. He took off the overalls and hid them in a plastic bag he had brought, tucked it under one of the rocks. Then he put on the clean T-shirt, headed back through the meadow to his bike, and stopped at a creek several miles away to wash off what he could. All the while he thought of the excuses he'd make. Nobody would want him at the table looking as he did.

He was right about that.

It was almost six-forty-five when he walked in the back door.

“Will ya look at
that
!” Gramps exclaimed, lowering the sparerib in his hand.

“What on God's green earth happened to
you
?” his mom said. “You look like you went down a mudslide.”

Buck tried smiling a little. “S…something like that,” he said.

“You find a good bike trail?” asked Katie.

“N…no, but I tried. Just t…took a mean s…s…skid.”

“Break any bones?” asked Dad.

“Don't think so….”

“Well, go shower, then,” his dad said, more gruffly this time. “You can't come to the table like that. You know what time it is, don't you?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry. Had to rescue my b…bike.”

“Why didn't you call? You've got yourself a cell phone now,” Mom said.

“Didn't think to t…take it,” Buck told her, and realized that from now on, he had to, even though the Hole was a no-service area, for sure.

Joel didn't say anything, just gave him a puzzled look, and Buck went on upstairs before anyone could think of something else to ask him.