Sam grinned. “Then why d-d-don’t you go and catch one?”
“Can’t. Hodags are an endangered species.”
“Yeah. R-r-right.”
“But I’m telling you, they’re out there. All cavers know it.” Boomer lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “If you’re going through a chimney passage and get halfway up and that one solitary drop of water comes down and goes pfft and puts out the candle in your lantern, a Hodag did it. If you’re going through a cave and no one else is around you and a rock comes rattling down from above, it’s the Hodag that shoved the rock down. Oh yes, cavers have a healthy respect for Hodags.”
“I still want to be a c-c-caver. ’Cause the Hodags—they’re just m-m-make-believe. Like Goatsuckers.”
“Good for you, Sam,” Consuela told him. “You’re absolutely right.”
Boomer smiled so deeply that his cheeks looked as though they had pleats. “Sam, you’re a very cool kid.
You figured out that it was make-believe. And you know, if you don’t let made-up stories like that scare you, then you’ll learn to be brave all the time, even when bad things that are real happen to you.”
The three of them—Sam, Boomer, and Consuela—drifted to another luminous formation. Olivia lingered behind, turning so that the small of her back rested against the railing, her hands clutching the cool metal. Steven draped his arm around Olivia’s shoulders. Jack and Ashley huddled close.
“Does Boomer know about Sam’s life?” Ashley asked. “He’s so nice to Sam, it’s kind of like he knows.”
“Some,” Steven told her. “He understands that Sam’s had a pretty rough time of it. Boomer told me he’s going to keep in touch with Sam. He said he’ll teach him to explore caves next summer. Sam will be old enough then. Boomer told me he taught his oldest daughter to climb with ropes when she was only five.”
After a moment, Olivia mentioned, “You two kids should know that Sam’s not going back to live with his mother.”
“He’s not?” Jack exclaimed.
“Not right away. When we return to Jackson Hole, Sam’s going to be placed in a long-term foster home while his mother’s in rehab. If she can recover, she’ll be required to take some parenting classes, and only after that will she get Sam back.” Jack’s face must have shown his feelings, because Olivia added quickly, “Ms. Lopez will make sure Sam is properly looked after. She’s even lined up a speech therapist for him. Sam’s going to be OK.”
Well, Jack thought, all in all, it had turned out to be a pretty good trip. The problem of the bat decline might soon be worked out, the cave balloons were safe for now, and Sam had begun to believe he was a winner, not a loser.
“I know what we should call this cavern,” Ashley declared softly. “We’ll call it The Room of Dreams Coming True.”
Jack nodded. Ashley had gotten it right this time.
AFTERWORD
In 1898, a 16-year-old named Jim White, who was just a couple of years older than Jack Landon, began exploring Carlsbad’s hidden limestone caves. What drew him to the spot where he would make this amazing discovery? Bats! They caught the young Jim’s attention as he was mending a fence—millions of Mexican free-tailed bats, swirling into the air like a black funnel cloud. It was that explosion of bats that led him across the desert landscape to the natural cave entrance, which Jim described as “the great hole under long slabs of yellow and gray stone.” After making a ladder of sticks, rope, and wire, Jim entered the cave with only a lantern for light. What he saw, and what he later introduced to others, has become one of the true wonders of the world.
For 17 years after Jim’s discovery, Carlsbad Cavern went mostly unnoticed. Although Jim was fascinated by his “Bat Cave,” as he called it, records show that he wasn’t much of a talker, and he had a hard time convincing others of the amazing underground world he had discovered. It didn’t help that it was difficult to experience the cavern. Visitors had to be lowered 170 feet in buckets onto trails that were treacherous to walk, and it could take more than an hour to lower 20 people. Dedicated to luring visitors into the cave, Jim decided the Bat Cave needed better trails, so he began to level pathways and to string wire for handholds. Then, in 1915, Jim guided a Kansas-born photographer named Ray V. Davis into the cavern. Davis’s amazing photographs of dazzling cave scenes began to arouse public interest, and visitors began appearing almost daily.
By 1923, the U.S. General Land Office sent an expedition to survey the cave’s measurements. The leader of this expedition, Robert Holley, expected to be done with his assignment in a day. It took more than a month to finish the job. Holley, awed by glistening soda straws, delicate lily pads, mind-boggling spaces, and chandeliers made of ribbon stalactites, strongly recommended that Carlsbad Caverns be established as a national monument.
Several months later, a geologist named Dr. Willis T. Lee wrote an article for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine, enchanting readers with descriptions of Carlsbad’s natural wonders. On October 25, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge placed the caverns in the National Park System.
Since 1924, the first full year of operation, more than 37 million people have visited Carlsbad Caverns. And most of them, like Sam and Jack and Ashley and the rest of the Landon family, have made the decision to help protect the caves and their formations, the bats and other animals, the plants and landscape, and the historical artifacts that have made Carlsbad Caverns a world heritage site. Many people come to Carlsbad Caverns to refresh their spirits, to learn more about nature and history, to broaden their horizons, or to share with their own children what their parents shared with them. Visitors like the Landons make it possible for us to preserve areas like Carlsbad Caverns for generations to come.
The portal to the vast wonderland of Carlsbad Caverns was known to prehistoric Native Americans 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Although there is no evidence of any humans probing the depths of the cavern until Jim White’s turn-of-the-century exploration, the early natives did leave behind a pictograph of a hand high up on the cavern’s Natural Entrance wall, a lasting reminder of their spiritual connection to this mystical place.
May you one day explore the mystery and magic of Carlsbad Caverns for yourself.
Bob Hoff
Park Historian
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
An award-winning mystery writer and an award-winning science writer—who are also mother and daughter—are working together on Mysteries in Our National Parks!
ALANE (LANIE) FERGUSON’S first mystery, Show Me the Evidence, won the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America.
GLORIA SKURZYNSKI’S Almost the Real Thing won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.
Lanie lives in Elizabeth, Colorado. Gloria lives in Boise, Idaho. To work together on a novel, they connect by phone, fax, and e-mail and “often forget which one of us wrote a particular line.”
Gloria’s e-mail: [email protected]
Her Web site: www.gloriabooks.com
Lanie’s e-mail: [email protected]
Her Web site: www.alaneferguson.com
One of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations, the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 “for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge.” Fulfilling this mission, the Society educates and inspires millions every day through its magazines, books, television programs, videos, maps and atlases, research grants, the National Geographic Bee, teacher workshops, and innovative classroom materials.
The Society is supported through membership dues, charitable gifts, and income from the sale of its educational products.
This support is vital to National Geographic’s mission to increase global understanding and promote conservation of our planet through exploration, research, and education. For more information, please call 1-800-NGS LINE (647-5463) or write to the following address:
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
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Visit the Society’s Web site: www.nationalgeographic.com
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