Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  “Is there room for me?”

  “I think,” she said. “I’m on a nice lip here, but there is a zigzag of ledges to the left, and believe it or not, they look man-made.” Her light started moving again and stopped before arcing back behind and above her. “Jesus, partner, somebody carved little ledges down here, like rock scaffolding—maybe so they could work? C’mon,” she said.

  Service moved cautiously, got to the opening, could feel moving air, felt the wall to his right, stood straight up. Wildingfelz’s light illuminated his boots. He blinked to get his eyes adjusted, and when he saw the side of the cave he gasped. Deer, buffalo, elk, and stick-figure people with horns, some of the figures prone, and some with small single straight lines sticking up from the bodies. Arrows? One of the lines was much longer than the others. Spear? Arrows and spears. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  “Major cave art,” his partner said. Her light beam lit the dream-like glyphs on the wall, showing bright reds, whites, yellows, and even blues. The colors were intense and looked like they had just been painted. How much humidity was in here? No light to degrade them, he thought. His mind ticked through technical observations, but his eyes were riveted on the paintings. Damn creepy, yet somehow comforting, men thousands of years ago, drawing pictures, trying to figure things out, just like us who walked on the moon and left evidence.

  Wildingfelz said, “Look at the zoomorphs over there, and anthropomorphs over here, separated. Jesus! I think they’re two different things, like separate canvases?”

  “There’s a picture of Jesus?” he said.

  She laughed. “No, you cretin, that’s a cry of astonishment.”

  “Glyphs, zoomorphs, anthropomorphs, how do you know about all this stuff?”

  “I got a teensy bit in college, when I took some summer classes in France and Spain. I love caves, always have. I didn’t know the Mosquito had caves!”

  “Nobody is supposed to know,” he said.

  She was silent for a long moment. “Uh, partner, isn’t it our job to protect natural resources, not hide them from the public?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said, knowing that his instinct was always to hide things until he could figure out the right thing to do. If he could.

  “You knew there were caves here?”

  “I only knew about the upper one until Limpy told me about this place. I probably should have known because when you’ve got limestone, you often have caves and sinkholes. It’s not automatic, but there’s a correlation. There’re limestone caves over in Mackinac County, and more I think near Millersburg, near Alpena, and maybe one more in southwest Michigan.” He was truly impressed by what was on the wall, and even more impressed when he began to imagine what it had taken to paint the images in such an unlikely place. Had artists died?

  “Let’s get photos,” he said.

  “Switch your headlamp to full beam to help me. I don’t want my flash to go off.”

  He did as he was asked. She moved next to him and brushed so closely he could smell her skin. She whispered, “Partner, this is potentially a huge deal for science and art and history.” He heard her camera whispering and then, “Good god, there are at least five rectiforms here.”

  “English, Harmony, English.”

  “Comb-shaped glyphs,” she answered.

  “Meaning?”

  “Nobody knows, but people are studying this stuff other places and aggressively protecting it. This find alone is priceless. Academics think they are the key to understanding who put this stuff in these caves.”

  “Like aliens?”

  She guffawed. “No, people, but when and what do these rectiforms mean? They’re not everywhere, but they’re fairly widespread.”

  The smell in the cave was dry, yet dank. “There has to be a reason people crawled all the way down here to make these things.”

  “And build ledges,” she said. “That’s maybe as amazing as the art. Man, you’d have to be one of the Fratellini Brothers to make these pictures?”

  “Who?” Service asked. She seemed overflowing with information he knew nothing about.

  “Italian clowns.They were the first trapeze artists.”

  My partner’s brain is very different than mine, Service thought. But her enthusiasm reminds me of me.

  She said, “These pictures may suggest hunting and some kind of war.”

  “They teach you to read caveman in college?”

  “Why does it have to be cavemen who made these? Why not women?”

  `“I got nothing,” he said. “It was just a word.”

  She touched his arm. “No problem. Archaeologists, paleontologists, most of them assume men controlled almost everything in such societies. Until forty thousand years back, Neanderthals were the ruling hominids on earth, but we Homo sapiens nudged them aside in pretty short order, and there’s evidence in Europe and Turkey that cave art took a huge leap forward at that time.”

  “As in how much was being created?”

  “Probably that too, but more in the sophistication of the art itself. Academics say they can see more creative and experienced brains at work, and greater abilities to manipulate pigment.”

  “The Neanderthals, them and us, did we . . .”

  “Did they dot-dot-dot?” she said. “Yah, for sure. You are such a guy. Academics think they dot-dot-dotted a whole lot, so much that there are people walking around today with Neanderthal genes. Hell, maybe you’re carrying them. It might explain a lot.”

  Her closeness and voice made him feel uncomfortable, something about the honeyed softness in the sounds she made. “Let’s move, we’re on the clock here.”

  “Since when, B’wana? The way I hear it, there’s no time clock for you when it concerns the Mosquito.”

  ******

  Forty more minutes brought them to what he assumed was the lowest level of the cave. It was still dry, without seeps, but he could hear water moving somewhere beneath them. “You hearing the water?” he asked her.

  “Roger, I think it’s below us yet.”

  “Does this whole system terminate here?”

  “I got nothing,” she said.

  Both turned on their lights and flashed them around. They were at the bottom of a crude and steep cylinder. The walls had to reach up fifty feet at least. Six feet in front of him was a stone pedestal, a sort of stalagmite that was sheared off. All around it were bones and skulls.

  “Human,” Wildingfelz said, squatting to look. “Definitely.”

  He took off his pack, dug out the skull from Limpy and carefully placed it on the pedestal.

  “Thought you didn’t know about this place,” she said.

  “Limpy gave this thing to me to help me get rid of headaches.”

  “No shit. Did it work?”

  “Hell no,” he said sharply. “That’s when I learned about this place. You think these are Ojibwa remains? They usually put their dead in spirit houses, with a hole in one end so the spirit can escape to make the walk to wherever they travel.”

  “I’m guessing these are much older,” she said. “A lot older. You realize that stalagmite where you put the skull means it was wet in here at some point?”

  “Only one, and only here?”

  “So far,” she said. “Geologists will have to deal with that issue, but could it be this being the only one made this a special place?”

  Good thinking on her part. Ergo the bones, a natural ossuary. “Could be. Can we count skulls, estimate the number of remains here?”

  Her light danced again. “Seven, eight, nine, some smaller than others. Kids maybe.”

  Shit. “Any sign that there are cultural artifacts?”

  “Like burial stuff?”

  “Right.”

  She looked around for a few minutes. “Don’t see anything that jumps out at me, but everyt
hing could be in tiny shards if they dropped bodies from above, hey?”

  He looked up at the place where they had come down from the level above. “This is way outside my competence. Listen, did you guys learn about NAGPRA in the academy?”

  “It was mentioned, but we didn’t get anything of depth.”

  “Did they tell you that COs are responsible for sites like this as well as historical sites?”

  “Mentioned only in passing. Are we?”

  “Yes, under the light of NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. Any site that gives evidence of cultural burial has to be reported to the Feds.”

  “You have some actual experience with that?”

  “Some, not much.”

  “I’ll follow your lead, partner.”

  Wildingfelz gasped and pointed with her light. “Jesus, Grady, look up there!”

  He looked up. There were many more cave paintings, not as fancy as those on the level above, but the same curious mix of human, abstract, and animal.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked her. “This is over my head.”

  “Me?” she said, and laughed. “Not a damn thing. This stuff needs the attention of experts.”

  Alarm bells. “Whoa.”

  “We can’t keep this secret, Grady.”

  “It’s been secret a long time.” Even from me, he thought. “It can’t harm anything keeping it that way a bit longer.” Damn the old man. Why had he not shown me this?

  Wildingfelz’s light was moving again. “Check out the far wall,” she said. “Looks like bank swallow holes.”

  This deep? Not very likely. He checked his watch. “Let’s get out of here,” he told her. “They’re waiting topside.”

  “Partner, there’s a lot of interest in how and when this continent got peopled. All this stuff combined, painting, carving, symbols, I don’t know if this variety of stuff has ever been seen before anywhere in the United States. This is better than, or equal to, the stuff in Spain and France. We can’t sit on this, Grady. It would be unethical.”

  “We need to climb out, Harmony. I hear you. We’ll talk it through later.”

  “But,” she said.

  “Academics can’t keep secrets,” he told her.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Like hell I don’t. You wave something like this at them and they’ll claw each other to get at it, and some will steal the site blind and lie about it later.”

  “But we are also under land that belongs to every citizen of the state,” she said. “This is a treasure, Grady. It’s priceless.”

  He felt his sphincter tighten. Is this what Bozian and Kalleskevich are after? How the hell could they know this is down here? I thought it was the diamonds they’re after, but my partner says this stuff is priceless.

  “Harmony, this place does not belong to everyone except theoretically. This place truly belongs to my old man and me. We’ve protected it since long before wilderness designation and there’s a lot about this place you don’t yet know.”

  “Things you do know?”

  “And damn few others.”

  “Does the chief know these things?”

  “Some, not all.” He told her about the diamonds and the ex-governor and Kalleskevich, and let it all sink in.

  “No way,” she said after a long while.

  “Get my concern now?”

  “God yes. You think they’re after the diamonds?”

  “I did until I saw this. Now I wonder. We need to evaluate all of this calmly when we’re well rested.”

  “And fed,” she said. “Fed is always important. What if it is all this and not diamonds? They wouldn’t try to claim mineral rights to get hold of all this. Do mineral rights even address this sort of thing?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t know, but they’re willing to gamble fake ownership documentation to get control, and if they win, we can’t rule out that they could completely clean out this place and still have reasonable access to the diamonds.”

  “You have a twisted mind,” she said.

  “You will too,” he assured her. “Let’s climb out.”

  Just short of two and a half hours later, they crawled onto the entry shelf and breathed in the air and sighed. “Do you carry a flask?” she asked him.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “And here I was led to believe you were a hairy-legged knuckle-dragging male.”

  “You can’t trust testaments.”

  “Warnings, not testaments,” she said. “Grady, I think there’s another chamber below where we were. I almost took a flier off a drop-off. My light wouldn’t even hit the far wall.”

  “This just gets worse,” he said.

  “More remains are on a small ledge in there too,” she said. “Weird placement, separated from the others.”

  Treebone said from behind them. “You two got a serious case of the heebies. I’ve got a flask if you’re interested.”

  Wildingfelz said, “Ah, one real man in the crowd.”

  Service said, “Did you find a way to block this?”

  “For now.” Tree explained, “Trail cam, infrared, small, and damn near invisible.”

  “You put devices in place?”

  “Hell no, those things go for a thou a pop. You’ll have to req them through channels.”

  “Earth to Tree, we have no channels. I’m suspended. Over. We need to do this fast, get cameras in place. Soon as.”

  “What about your partner? She’s official.”

  “She’s mostly a rookie and rookies get what’s given to them, mostly leftovers and hand-me-downs. They don’t rate high-end specialized gear.”

  “Aye, aye. Too bad.”

  “A grand a pop is peanuts compared to what’s underground here,” Service said. “We think there’s a major cave system starting here. We have no idea how far or deep it goes.”

  “Shit,” Treebone said.

  “Get Dotz aside somewhere. Don’t tell him anything, I need to talk to Limpy.Where is he?”

  “With the kid.”

  Treebone led Dotz away and Service sat beside Allerdyce. “You saw everything down there?” he asked the violator.

  “T’ink so, mebbe. Bones, pots, wall pitchers, junk all over place.”

  “Pots?”

  “Pieces, ugly.”

  “What’s below the level where all the skulls are?”

  “Din’t know dere’s anyth’ing below dat.”

  “Who showed you this place?”

  “Youse’s daddy.”

  “Who showed him?”

  “He never said.”

  “You tell others?”

  “He swore me keep zip. I did. Dis a big deal?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How did the old man find that second cave?”

  “Yore old man he never get nuffa dis place, hey, down here an’ pokin’ around all time.”

  “But he showed you.”

  “Partners.”

  “I’m his son and he didn’t show me. Did he leave instructions of who to tell if he died?”

  “Said hold it for youse ’til youse old enough. Said wait ’til youse game warden.”

  “I didn’t even know I wanted to be a game warden.”

  “Gibby knew. Raise youse to it, hey.”

  “And if I didn’t become a game warden?”

  “He tell me blow it shut.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Dere’s dynamite down below and blast caps too. We blast it now?”

  “Not yet.”

  Chapter 27

  North of the Mosquito Wilderness Tract

  Treebone had gone to Ford River on a mission, leaving Service and Aller-dyce for the day. Service’s cell phone buzzed, and he saw it was T
uesday and flipped it open. “Molly Cloud’s gone missing,” she said in her cop voice. “Disappeared yesterday, last seen in the afternoon. There’s a BOL with all agencies. No official Missing Persons Report yet, but Linsenmann was just here asking if you could jump in on this—unofficially. It’s not been twenty-four hours yet. Grady, Ms. Cloud’s been diagnosed with Alzheimers.”

  Marquette Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Weasel Linsenmann was an old friend and longtime colleague. He’d dragged Linsensmann into all kinds of weird situations, knowing the man would always have his back. Now his friend needed his professional help. No hestitation: “Of course,” he told Friday. “He knows my number.”

  “Wake up, Grady, there can’t be a paper trail. Unofficial means invisible. He says you’ve had special training and a lot of experience, more than almost anyone else he can pull forward.”

  He had indeed been through all sorts of training and had many, many practical experiences finding people. “Why is Miss Molly out there alone if she’s been diagnosed with Alzheimers?”

  “There’s no time for questions, Grady. Find her, then you can ask your questions.”

  “Anybody else on this?”

  “Just you for now. Linsenmann wanted to leave the path and site clear for you.”

  Tuesday Friday was calm, as she always was, making her way through a mental checklist that would ensure everything she needed to do would get done. “Okay,” he said. “Bump you later.”

  “One can only hope,” she said, ending the call.

  Allerdyce was staring at him. “Miss Molly Cloud’s missing.”

  “She been tooken?”

  “Alzheimers. She’s a walk-away.”

  “Holy moley, geez oh Pete,” the reformed violator said. “Dat gunk’s nasty.”

  Service focused on the problem as they raced to the woman’s camp, which was five miles north of the northern Mosquito Wilderness border. He felt a burning in his gut. Molly had been in this camp for several years. She had taught high school English downstate. As soon as she retired, she moved across the bridge to the semi-remote camp, which had a handle-pump well, an outhouse, and a generator for emergencies. Mostly the woman used propane lights and generally went to bed and got up with the sun. It was a helluva way for a retiree to live after spending most of her life in more civilized circumstances, and he admired her grit. In recent years she had begun spending winters downstate with a son, but he couldn’t remember his name, or where. He’d met her when she first moved in, liked her immensely, and made it a personal matter to check on her as regularly as his schedule permitted, but it had been what, weeks? No, damn, it’s been longer than that. It had been before last deer season, just before she headed south for the winter. Usually she didn’t come back until late April, so if she was here now, she was a little early.