“This is the cavern?” Ashley asked. “It looks like Disneyland, only darker.”
Consuela just smiled. “This is only the starting point,” she said. “The cavern and caves and tunnels snake out for 30 miles beyond here—at least that’s how much has been discovered so far. Let’s go! We need to eat quickly if you’re going to make that two o’clock tour.”
Jack and Ashley ordered slices of pizza; Consuela ordered chicken strips; and Sam said all he wanted was one of the big soft pretzels. “That’s not enough,” Jack told him. “Do you want to keep on being a Mini-Me, or do you want to grow up nice and tall like I am?” At that, Sam agreed to order a hot dog.
“And milk,” Jack told him. “Milk will help you grow.”
“G-g-get some for Ashley, then,” Sam said, which made Jack laugh loudly until Ashley stuck her tongue out at him.
They found an empty picnic table littered with crumpled napkins and discarded cups. Consuela quickly swept them up and deposited the trash into a nearby garbage bin, clucking, “Honestly, people should be more careful. This is a national park, after all!”
When they finally settled in, the smooth plastic benches felt cold beneath Jack’s jeans. He was just taking a bite of pizza when Consuela asked, “Kids, would you mind getting some utensils? I could never eat chicken with just my fingers, even if most people do. I’ll need a plastic knife and fork.”
“Sure,” Jack agreed, getting up.
“Ashley, you and Sam go, too,” Consuela said.
“Huh?” Ashley’s pizza stopped in midair, just inches from her lips.
“You all go. And get me some”—Consuela’s dark eyes seemed to search the kiosk—“some napkins. And an extra cup. And some salt and pepper, too. And honey if they have some. Please.”
“But Jack can—” Ashley began.
“Don’t leave your brother to do it all. Go on, now,” Consuela told them, making a shooing gesture with her hands. “Take Sam with you.”
Giving Jack a look, Ashley shrugged and said, “OK. Let’s go, Sam.”
Without a word, Sam slid out from the bench and trotted after Jack and Ashley.
The whole thing struck Jack as odd. The kiosk was only 40 feet away, yet Consuela was asking three kids to do the work of one. Whatever! he told himself as he began to gather up the plastic supplies she’d requested. The extra cup would take a little longer, since they’d have to wait in line for that. Ashley had unfolded a paper napkin to hold the various packages of condiments.
“I’ll t-t-take the f-f-fork,” Sam offered. “She c-c-can start eating.”
“You do that, Mini-Me,” Jack answered. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“Jeez, I hope my pizza won’t be stone cold,” Ashley murmured as she dropped three packets of salt into the makeshift bag. “I still don’t know why all three of us had to get this stuff.”
“Who knows? Maybe Consuela believes in teamwork or something,” Jack guessed.
When they finally set the napkin full of condiments in front of Consuela, her skin had flushed to the color of copper. “Thanks a lot, kids. Now, you’d better hurry up and eat. Sam here says he’s not hungry, but I’ve never met a boy who couldn’t pack in enough for three adults. Maybe you can get him to take a bite. He’s just been fiddling with that pretzel.”
Right away, Jack noticed there was something wrong with Sam. It was as if in their absence the air had been sucked out of him. His eyes were glued to the tabletop, and he had shrunk into himself the way he’d done when he’d first arrived at the Landon home. Only the pretzel moved, swinging back and forth between his fingers like the pendulum on a clock.
“Hey, what’s wrong, guy?” Jack asked, sliding next to him.
Pressing his lips together, Sam quickly dropped the pretzel onto the tabletop and turned away, his shoulder blades protruding like knives.
“I think I know what may have upset him,” Consuela began, but just then a man at an adjoining table said something to her in Spanish.
“Que es?” she answered. Since she was wearing a park uniform, the man must have thought she was a park ranger rather than an office worker. He spoke rapidly to her, interrupted by his wife, who kept breaking in with comments of her own, all in Spanish. Every time Consuela tried to take a bite of her food, they stopped her with another question, which she politely answered. Both the husband and wife took turns speaking excitedly in a stream of nonstop Spanish, which kept up the whole time Ashley, Jack, and Sam were eating their lunches. Poor Consuela never got a mouthful.
Whatever she had been about to say about Sam and his strange behavior seemed to get lost as she focused on the man, who gestured wildly at the cave ceiling as if he could punch it with his fists. Although Jack didn’t understand Spanish, there was one word he could make out—“no.” Whatever the man was saying, Consuela was arguing against.
For some reason, Sam had shrunk to the end of the bench, pressing himself close to Jack as though he were trying to get as far away as possible from Consuela.
“Hey, move over,” Jack told him. “You’re crowding me.”
Sam moved about an inch, then slid down on the bench until his chin almost touched the tabletop. What is with this kid? Jack wondered impatiently. He was about to ask when Consuela tapped the face of her wristwatch, apparently telling the Hispanic couple that she had to go, because at the same time she got up and gestured to the kids. She looked regretfully at her uneaten chicken strips, then took them over to the trash bin with all the rest of the debris from the table, saying, “We have to move or you’ll miss the tour. The last one of the day will start in ten minutes.”
“You know, if we miss it, we don’t have to tour Left Hand Tunnel,” Ashley suggested. “We could just walk through the Big Room. That’s a self-guided tour, isn’t it?”
“Nuh-uh!” Sam insisted. “L-Left Hand Tunnel.”
“Why?” Ashley demanded. “That’s all you’ve talked about ever since we got here. What is so important about Left Hand Tunnel?”
“B-because.” Sam took a deep breath and managed to get the whole sentence out without stammering. “It’s about people like me.”
“You mean stutterers?” Ashley asked uncertainly.
“No.” Sam looked disdainful as he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers. “L-l-lefties. Southpaws.” He pretended to throw an imaginary baseball with his left hand.
Consuela, Jack, and Ashley were so surprised that for a moment none of them could think of anything to say. Then Consuela murmured, “That’s a great reason to visit Left Hand Tunnel. I’ll go check with the ranger.”
Should Jack explain to Sam that the tunnel wasn’t named for left-handed people? Or just let him go on thinking that it had been? Sometimes Sam seemed a whole lot younger than his eight years. Like now, when once more he kept clinging to Jack’s arm.
“Hey, what’s with you?” Jack asked him. “Why are you hanging on me like a leech? Are you afraid of this place because it’s dark?”
Sam shook his head, and motioned for Jack to lean down so he could whisper. When Jack did, Sam muttered, “She’s on d-d-drugs.”
“Your mother?” Jack answered. “Yes, I know that, and I’m sorry.”
But Sammy shook his head. “No. C-C-C—” Unable to finish the word, he just pointed to Consuela’s retreating figure.
“Consuela?” Jack exclaimed. “Don’t be crazy.”
“I saw!” Sam insisted. Finding it easier to pantomime than speak, he went through the motions of injecting his arm with a needle, then pointed again to Consuela.
“What’s he saying?” Ashley asked.
“He’s trying to tell us he saw Consuela shooting up with heroin or something.”
“Oh, Sammy, that’s insane,” Ashley declared, also bending down to his eye level. “Consuela’s a nice lady with a grandson about your age. She’s no druggie. I’m sure it must be hard on you to know that your mother takes drugs, but you can’t go around thinking that every other woman you meet does the same t
hing. Consuela’s really sweet. Didn’t you notice how nice she was to those Hispanic people who wouldn’t even let her eat her lunch?”
“She did it b-b-before that. When you were getting the s-s-stuff. I saw!”
“Well, I didn’t see anything.” Jack said.
“Neither did I. You’re just plain wrong, Sammy,” Ashley insisted, and to Jack, “Don’t say anything about this to Consuela. Can you imagine how she’d feel? That would be so insulting.”
“Do you think I’d say anything? No way. Anyhow, she’s coming back right now.”
“I’m so sorry,” Consuela apologized. “My watch was slow, and we missed the start of the tour. We’re about five minutes late. They’re going to let us in anyway, but we’ll have to wait for another one of the rangers to come down from the visitor center and unlock the door to Left Hand Tunnel. It’s kept locked at all times except to let the tour groups in and out.”
“It was those people who made us late,” Ashley complained. “The ones who kept talking and talking to you and wouldn’t even let you eat your chicken strips. What was all that about?”
“Oh, they just wanted to tell me the latest news about the Chupacabras.”
“The Chew—pa—” Ashley tried unsuccessfully to repeat it, mangling the word worse than Sam would have. “What’re they?”
“Also known as the Goatsuckers. They’re monsters that are supposed to be three feet tall with big ears and wide, folded wings like bats, with fangs and claws and spikes down their backs. And they suck blood. At least that’s what the rumors say. People from Puerto Rico to Tijuana to Texas and even as far as Oregon claim to have seen them.”
Dr. Rhodes’s words came back to Jack. “Are you talking about vampire bats?” he asked, incredulous.
Consuela shook her head. “My boss, Dr. Rhodes, would get upset if she heard me even repeat what those people said. But lots of people say they’ve seen Chupacabras. They call them vampire bats, but you know, actual vampire bats are quite small. Tiny, even. The people who believe in Chupacabras describe them as huge. Some think they might be genetic experiments that escaped from a laboratory. Or even creatures from outer space. Aliens.”
“But you don’t believe anything like that, do you?” Ashley pressed.
“Of course not.” But for a few seconds, Consuela hesitated. “Still…my cousin in Juarez, Mexico, wrote to me that three of her goats were killed one night, with puncture wounds in their necks and all the blood sucked out of them. And those people talking to me at lunch—they were from Arecibo in Puerto Rico—they said at a village near Arecibo, 34 hogs were killed by a Chupacabra in just one night.”
When Consuela saw the concern growing in Sam’s eyes, she quickly added, “But it’s all just fairy tales. People will believe in all kinds of imaginary things, like Bigfoot or the aliens that were supposed to have landed at Roswell, New Mexico. Did you know that Roswell is not all that far from here?”
Jack had begun to worry about Sam. First the boy had thought he’d seen Consuela taking drugs. Now he was hearing stories about the Chupacabras, the Goatsuckers who supposedly sucked the blood out of farm animals.
No wonder Sammy was clinging so tightly to Jack’s arm that it hurt. Even Ashley looked a little nervous.
“I’m going to call upstairs again to make sure the ranger’s coming to unlock the door for us,” Consuela was saying. “You kids wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“Wow!” Ashley breathed. “You know, Jack, those people who were talking to Consuela about the Chupacabras didn’t look like weirdos or anything. They looked like perfectly normal people. What if they were telling the truth? Vampire bats—oooh—yuck!”
“Don’t be silly,” Jack told her, moving a little behind Sammy and pointing down at him with his free hand, trying to give Ashley the message that she shouldn’t scare Sam over a fairy tale. “People make up all kinds of stories all the time. They see movies or television shows about monsters and they start to think they’re real. But they’re not real! There’s no such thing as vampire bats three feet tall with spikes down their backs.”
“Oh, sure, you’re right,” Ashley agreed, getting the message. “No such thing as aliens, either. But, Jack—did you realize Roswell was near Carlsbad? I mean—I saw it on TV about aliens landing in Roswell. But I know that isn’t true,” she added hastily.
Consuela came toward them, carrying two old-fashioned looking lanterns, one in each hand. Ten inches tall, they were made of wooden posts with glass panels between the posts, and handles above. Inside each lantern was a thick, white candle, unlit.
“What’s with the lanterns?” Ashley asked.
“Oh, there’s no light in Left Hand Tunnel. It’s completely dark. Everyone is supposed to carry a lantern, but there were only two left, so Jack can have one and I’ll carry the other.”
“You’re going with us?” Jack asked her.
“Just until we catch up with the tour group. Then I’ll go back. Come on, we’ll wait at the door until the ranger arrives to let us in.”
CHAPTER FOUR
And if you look closely at the door you’ll see bullet holes,” Consuela was telling them, pointing to the top of the rounded wooden door that separated the lunchroom from the entrance to Left Hand Tunnel. “I bet you didn’t know that Carlsbad was the setting for a siege that happened many years ago.”
“Bullet holes?” Ashley breathed. “Are you serious?”
They all looked at the gouge marks, small and round and darkened with grime. When Sam hung back, Consuela told him, “Four young men who were, how do I put this—under the influence—stormed the lunchroom here to make a political statement about the plight of Native Americans. They demanded a million dollars and a flight to Brazil.”
She shook her head and said, “No one was hurt, thank heavens, but it just goes to show that people say and do the stupidest things.”
That was true. People got all kinds of crazy ideas in their heads. Jack suddenly wondered if Consuela knew what Sam had said about her, but when he looked at Consuela’s warm, unflinching gaze, he realized she didn’t have a clue that Sam had accused her of being a drug addict. A drug addict with a needle jammed into her arm—how insane was that? People like Consuela didn’t get high! The whole idea would have made him angry if he hadn’t remembered that in Sam’s life, all kinds of unimaginable things had happened to him every day. Ms. Lopez told them that Sam had been left to get his own food and take care of himself since he was small, and that he’d spent most of his time staring at a television set, hungry and dirty and alone. No wonder the kid was so afraid. No wonder he acted so much younger than he was. If Jack had been raised the same way, how might he have turned out? Sighing, he rubbed the top of Sam’s round head. Later, when they were done with the tour of Left Hand Tunnel, he’d have to think of a way to make Sam understand that regular people were good. The people that worked for the Park Service, especially, were the best folks in the world. He’d have to straighten Sam out when they were alone, just the two of them.
“You OK, Jack?” Ashley asked, her dark eyes serious. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. How about you, Sam? You OK?”
Sam’s voice was barely above a whisper when he said, “I d-d-don’t want to g-g-get shot.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have told that story. I didn’t mean for it to upset him.” Crouching down, Consuela tried to take Sam’s hand, but he pulled it away and clasped his hands together behind his back. If it bothered Consuela, she didn’t let it show. “No one is going to hurt you, Sam. You’re going to see a wonderful place, a cave full of amazing stalactites and crystals and all kinds of great things. I’ll take you to the tour guide, and he’ll tell you some first-rate stories. Would you like that?”
“I w-want,” Sam said, struggling to get his mouth around the words.
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“I w-w-want you t-t-to,” he swallowed, twisting his lips into a tiny knot, “l-l
-leave me alone.”
It took a moment for the words to register on Consuela’s face. Her smile froze at the corners of her mouth.
“Sam!” Ashley exploded. “That’s not nice—that’s rude!”
“No, it’s all right. Don’t bother him,” Consuela said, straightening. She brushed gray dust off one knee and then the other, trying, it seemed to Jack, to keep her face even. “Well, I think I see the ranger coming who’s going to unlock the door for us. You kids wait here. I’ll be right back.”
As Consuela walked away, Ashley turned on Sam, her braids whirring around like blades. “Sam! What are you doing? You can’t talk to Consuela that way! And don’t try to hide behind Jack—he’s not going to protect you! I can’t believe you said that!”
Sam’s large eyes got even bigger as he grabbed Jack’s hand. “She t-t-took d-d-drugs. W-w-with a n-n-needle—”
“Stop it, Sam. She did not! And you’d better be nice to her from now on, and maybe she’ll forget the rotten thing you just did.” Wagging her finger just inches from his face, Ashley snapped, “You better start smiling, Sammy, or—” the words died in her throat as Consuela came toward them with the ranger.
A very tall man wearing his Smoky Bear hat, he offered Consuela a book of matches for the lanterns. Smoke curled around her face as she lit the candles, and when she blew the match out, Jack noticed her nails had been enameled with silver nail polish. The ranger unlocked the door with a key and swung it open. “The group is only about ten minutes in front of you now—you should have no trouble catching up. How old is that little boy?” he asked, eyeing Sam.
Sam held up both hands with four fingers extended on each.
“OK,” the ranger said. “Just checking. Six is the youngest age permitted on this tour, and 16 is the youngest without an adult. You’re planning on staying with them, aren’t you, Consuela? Policy says minors must have an adult escort.”
Running Scared Page 3
