Well in Time (28 page)

A muffled sob reached her, stifled by stone, but poignantly alive.

“Push, mijo,” she called. “Push with your toes. Wiggle your hips. You’re almost through, mijo, trust me.”

She listened with all her being and heard faint scraping sounds.

“That’s right. Keep moving. Keep pushing, mijo.”

The sobs were more distinct now. She moved forward, so that the pack would not impede his progress. And thus, slithering and calling encouraging endearments, Calypso forgot her own terror, and saved the sanity of her bitterest foe.

§

When she reached the cavern, Calypso, still moved by compassion, reached to pull El Lobo out of the tube and help him stand. Behind him, shivering and whining, came the wolf. She kept a steadying hand on El Lobo’s arm as she reached down to comfort the frightened animal. El Lobo tottered forward and leaned against a boulder, his headlamp sending arcs of yellowed light across the chaos of the cavern floor, in time to his wrenching sobs.

Calypso knelt and put her arms around the wolf, pulling its thin, shivering shoulders into her breast and soothing over and over, “It’s okay. It’s okay now. What a fine creature you are. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

The animal leaned into her, almost toppling her, because her own legs were rubbery from exertion.

She rose and went to El Lobo, saying gently, “You did well. You were very brave.”

“My mother,” he said brokenly. “She came. Why would she come?”

“Because she loves you.”

He shook his head and doubled over in a renewed fit of weeping. Hands braced on knees, he sobbed in bitter, wrenching groans, his face glazed in tears and runnels of mucus. He tried to speak, but his words were twisted and tormented by explosive sobs and hiccups.

Calypso bent close to his face. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t understand that.”

“I did it,” he managed to gasp. “I killed her. I killed my mother.”

Calypso’s eyes shut in horror, and it took all her resolve to say calmly and with assurance, “Then obviously she forgives you.”

§

They proceeded through the cave, ascending the cliff at the back of the cavern and twisting through labyrinthian tunnels, but the mood of their expedition was not healthy. Calypso was grim and focused, harboring her energy to make the technical aspects work, including hoisting the wolf in a makeshift harness.

El Lobo was ominously quiet and haggard, refusing to talk even when Calypso addressed him directly. She began to suspect that the passage through the tube had unhinged him. For a man like him, being reduced to groveling terror was a humiliation that would demand extirpation.

Fearing that his homicidal instincts had been resurrected, she kept a wary eye on all his movements. She wondered how she would ever get him to go back through the tube, once he had proof that the cave was a complete passage between river canyons.

“You know”—she said, as they stopped for a rest, leaning against the walls of a small chamber—“we don’t have to go all the way through. It should be obvious to you by now that this cave extends between canyons, just like I said.”

El Lobo glared at her through narrowed eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we could just turn back now and save our strength.”

“And go back through the tube again?” His voice teetered on a knife-edge of hysteria.

“Yes. We’d have to go back through the tube. There’s no other way.”

“Then we go forward. There’s no way in hell I’m going back through that tube.”

Calypso stared at him, perplexed.

“But once we get to the other side, we won’t be able to get off the cliff. It comes out on a ledge almost four thousand feet above the river. We’ll have to turn back eventually anyway.”

“How did you get down to the ledge?”

“I rappelled. But there’s a big bulge of rock between the ledge and the top of the cliff. You can’t get back up that way.”

“You said under Scopolamine that you and your husband had done it.”

“My partner.”

“You called him your husband under the drugs. They don’t lie.”

“If that were the case,” she retorted acidly, “you should have believed me about the cave in the first place.”

He lowered his eyes and nodded.

“Yes, I should have.”

They sat for several moments in detente, each lost in private ruminations.

Finally, El Lobo burst out, “No. I’m not going back through that tube. We have to find a way off the ledge. How did you and your husband—partner—do it?”

“There’s a climbing route set up with pitons. But I’ve never climbed lead before. I always followed Javier. There’s no way I can do it. I’m not strong enough or a good enough climber.”

“Well, you’re about to become better at it,” he growled. “You’re going to lead us off that ledge.”

Calypso shook her head despairingly. “You have no idea what you’re saying. It’s suicide.”

“I’d rather commit suicide than go back through that tube.” It was a flat statement of his truth. She could tell he was immovable.

El Lobo scrambled to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go. I want out of this place. It creeps me out.”

The wolf stood, too, shaking its thin shoulders and staring at Calypso with its expressionless hunter’s eyes.

“What about Lobo,” she objected. “We won’t be able to drag him up.”

El Lobo looked at the animal with a down-curling of his lips.

“Then let him stay behind.”

“But he’ll starve to death!”

El Lobo shrugged. “Let him starve.”

§

Calypso led the way forward, her mind frantically gauging the chances of surviving either the devil behind her or the deep blue sea of air in the Urique Canyon. Images of trying to climb the cliff, of slipping, falling and hurtling into the abyss filled her mind.

Thoughts of turning back brought equally disastrous images of confronting an enraged and unbalanced man. For good measure, her legs were starting to shake from exhaustion. She knew she didn’t have much reserve left.

Dimly now she could hear the rush of water as they approached the great siphon and its whirlpool. The wolf stopped and pricked his ears. El Lobo gave him a vicious prod with his knee.

“Get going!”

Calypso missed seeing the blow but heard the yelp of pain and saw the wolf cringe. El Lobo was rearing his foot back to give the animal a kick when Calypso yelled, “No! Stop!”

El Lobo lowered his foot and glared at her without a word.

“He hears the water rushing,” she explained. “Don’t you hear it? It means we’re getting close to the end.”

El Lobo threw his chin toward the sound.

“Well, let’s do it.”

“I need to warn you—there’s a dangerous spot up ahead. The rock is very slick, so move carefully. Secure every step before you transfer your weight.”

El Lobo tossed his head with impatience and snarled, “Just get the fuck on with it.”

Calypso shrugged and continued on. The roar became louder, so that their voices could no longer be heard above the clamor of water, as it rushed around its stone basin in a sucking vortex. Calypso turned again and signaled El Lobo to be cautious, then began her move onto rock slick with spray from the raging water.

The water was higher than when she and Hill had passed this way. The heavy rains on the surface must have fed the deluge. She was forced to climb higher on the sloping rock, where the roof slanted down onto walls only three or four feet high.

Bent almost double, she put her hand out to steady herself as she ducked under the lowest part. Immediately, she felt the rock become less dangerous, where the surface was shielded from spray by a small protrusion of the wall. She braced herself to catch her breath and turned to watch El Lobo’s progress.

He was moving too fast, not stopping to place his feet firmly. His method was to skim across the slippery stone as fast as possible. Behind him, the wolf padded carefully, its yellow eyes flashing metallically in the light of the headlamps.

Suddenly, with a shout, El Lobo’s feet went out from under him and he hit the rock on his hip, hard. In a flash, he was sliding toward the water, clawing helplessly at the impervious stone. Before Calypso could think to react, he slid into the water and was whipped halfway around the pool on the outer fringes of the terrible vortex.

He swept past her, floundering, trying to swim, his face a rictus of terror. As he continued on toward the spot where he had fallen, the wolf crouched, as if offering itself as a handhold.

El Lobo threw himself toward the animal, grabbed a fistful of its silky ruff, and hung on. The wolf dug all four paws into the stone, its body straining.

For a moment, it looked as if it could stabilize the situation, but then, with terrible slowness, it skidded across the wet surface, its toes splayed, its claws extended, until it too lost its grip and was pulled into the maelstrom.

El Lobo threw his arms around the wolf’s neck, trying to keep his face above water as the whirlpool’s energy pulled them both in. Around and around they whirled, in ever smaller circles as they fought to escape.

Finally, with a terrible scream, they plunged into the heart of the spinning water. The wolf was sucked down first. El Lobo’s horrified eyes stared at a ceiling illuminated by the mad gyrations of his headlamp’s beam.

Then he was gone.

§

Calypso leaned panting against the cave wall, overwhelmed with horror. Digging her fingers into tiny holds, she leaned her forehead against the damp stone and wailed.

It took many minutes to recover self-control. Then, not daring to look at the water again, she inched forward until her feet met dry rock. She sank to her knees, fell forward onto the stone, and then lay gasping for many minutes more.

At last, she was able to collect herself. She sat up, took a deep breath and reviewed her options.

If she went back, even should she summon the strength to do so, she would have to pass again through the tube, and then explain to The Ghosts why El Lobo was no longer with her. Surely they would accuse her of murdering him.

If she went forward, she would come to the ledge and the technical climb to the top of the cliff. Either way, the options were impossible.

“Give me a third option,” she muttered but received no answer.

In the end, the same motivation impelled her that had moved El Lobo: the cave was beginning to creep her out. She longed for the light of the entrance that she knew was just beyond the waterfall.

She pushed herself from the rock and trudged onward, remembering how, almost gaily, she and Hill had passed this way so recently. How quickly their lives had changed! Was Hill still alive? Was Javier? She touched the cool orb of the locket beneath her sweater.

“You’re useless,” she muttered. “How about some answers?”

She came to the supply room. She and Hill had devoured all the stores, but she had food in her pack and stopped to eat. Her legs were trembling with fatigue, and her hands fumbled with the wrapping of the emergency food bar that The Ghosts had provided. She sat, her back against the wall, chewing mechanically, too exhausted even to cry.

As she ate, she allowed herself a few sips of hope. She was just a couple of hours away from the cave entrance. What if, freed from El Lobo’s menace, she could find the courage to climb the cliff? The ledge was only a hundred feet below the top. If she allowed herself to rest, surely she could do it. She had done it before.

She blotted out the image of Javier hauling her the final ten feet like a sack of potatoes. She felt sure she could do it, and as she lay down to nap she clung to that slender red thread of hope, the way she had clung to his climbing rope.

She awoke to the roar of the waterfall, too tired and sore to move. She had to talk herself through every move: sitting up, opening her pack, replacing the batteries of her headlamp. Standing was the hardest. Her legs didn’t want to accept responsibility for the rest of her. Then the straps of her pack became twisted as she slung it on her back and she fumbled with the buckle. Finally, she was ready to proceed.

She took one last look around the little room, at all the comforts she and Javier had provided for their enjoyment and sustenance in days when all this was just a rumor in their minds, like clouds far away on the horizon. Then, with a sigh, she hitched her pack on her hips and began the last leg of the cave transit.

§

The entrance to the cave glowed at the end of the long tunnel. Calypso toiled up the last grade toward the square of light as if it were the radiance of the Holy Grail. She had barked her knuckles in the narrow part of the final passage and was sucking on them, wondering if the light was dawn, daylight, or the last rays of evening.

She had lost all track of time but knew it was not possible to traverse the cave in fewer than a full twenty-four hours. She couldn’t imagine that she had gone so fast. Because it was afternoon when she had parted company with The Ghosts, she reasoned that the glow ahead must be morning.

She stepped from the cave entrance and from behind its sheltering slab of stone, with a sense of profound gratitude for the simple facts of light and fresh, moving air. As the gulf of the Urique Canyon spread before her, she was gratified to see that the sun was barely above the eastern horizon. It cast long, indigo shadows among the spires and blocks of the far canyon walls. A chill morning wind played along the stone ramparts and swallows dipped and shrilled in boundless air.

Dropping her pack, she flicked off her headlamp, pulled it from her head and threw it in the top compartment of the pack. Leaving the pack behind, she walked to the far end of the ledge, and with scraped and weary fingers fitted and buckled the climbing harness, uncoiled the climbing rope under the iron ring, and clipped it to her harness.

From her vantage point at the farthest end of the ledge, the bulge of stone above her flattened where it joined the cliff face. All along the edge of the swell, she could pick out the pitons Javier had hammered into the stone, by the long, blue shadows they threw.