Among the Lesser Gods

by Margo Catts

  Alan turned and stepped into the opening. The gas man followed, carrying something that looked like a tall lantern with a flame in it. Behind him walked the mapper, then the stretcher bearers, the medic, me and Leo, and finally the radio man. Narrow-gauge tracks appeared as rocks gave way to bare dirt. An arbor of timbers braced the rock overhead, holding the mountain above us.

  “Feel that?” Leo said. His voice was surprisingly clear through the mask. “That breeze on your neck. Fresh air coming in means fresh air ahead.”

  The walls narrowed quickly, and the ceiling barely cleared my head. I could see the taller of the two men carrying the stretcher start to stoop. I glanced over my shoulder at the diminishing opening behind me. Then the tunnel bent, and the opening disappeared.

  The medic, in front of me, stopped. The tromp of our feet and the clatter of equipment stilled. Until now, I’d never noticed how much noise normally surrounded me. The rustle of leaves, idle calls of birds, a car in the distance. In here—nothing.

  “Kevin? Sarah? My name’s Alan. We’re here to get you out.” The voice carried but was easy and kind. Calming. “Can you hear me? Just yell or bang on the wall.”

  We listened. I strained to hear the way I would stretch to reach a can on a top shelf, as if by force of will I could make myself hear something. I looked at the chiseled wall beside me, the jagged timbers holding a beam in the soil above me, the woven belt of the man in front of me and the way his metal clip winked back at my headlamp. But there was nothing.

  The line moved forward again. Alan rapped the walls as we walked with the butt of a wrench. The gas man raised and lowered the flame lantern. The mapper wrote on a rectangle of paper under his headlamp and called out coordinates and directions. Behind us, the wire unspooled and the radio operator reported whatever the mapper had just said. The backpack weighed on my shoulders.

  Something brushed my face, and I staggered backward. Leo put a hand to my back.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Just a cloth. See?”

  I looked where he pointed over my shoulder. Yes, a cloth. A tattered rag, one end stuffed into a bracing timber and the other dangling down. Why had it been put there? Who’d left it and when? How long had it been hanging, limp and forgotten, in the dark?

  Another stop. The bearers put the stretcher down. The gas man left the line and stood at a widening darkness, an intersection, waving his lamp. “All clear,” he said after a few moments.

  Alan nodded to the radio man as he pulled off his mask. “Okay, this is our fresh air base,” he said. “Call ’em.”

  I removed my mask as I saw everyone else doing the same. The air was dry and smelled of dust.

  “What’s going on?” I said. “Why are we stopping?”

  “The map says this is where things start branching off,” Alan said. “It takes a lot of people to cover the ground. Teams don’t split up, and nobody goes out of the line of sight of somebody else, so another team is coming in to explore that way.” He nodded toward the black. “Air is fresh to here, so the next group can just walk in. We’ve got three more teams to work out from here. Leo will stay here with you.”

  My lips touched to start arguing, but no, he was right. I could see already how everyone else knew what to do without speaking, and how ridiculous it was to imagine I could be any kind of help.

  And so I waited. Alan and the rest of his group walked away from us, following the rail lines, and long before their lamps were out of sight I could hear the next group coming. If Kevin and Sarah were anywhere nearby, and conscious, they would have heard us, as well. And yet, nothing. I sank down on my haunches, air tanks scraping against the wall, face in my hands.

  The second group arrived, greeted us with passing nods, then started down the side passage, their own radio wire unspooling behind them. Their lights leapfrogged around each other, then disappeared around a corner. A radio operator named Ted joined us, bringing with him the hiss and crackle of reports about air and coordinates and degrees. Another group appeared only a few minutes later, trudged down the side passage the second group had taken, and disappeared in a third direction. All around me, darkness filled with banging, rapping, echoed voices, radio static.

  Leo bent and said into my ear, “This is good news, you know.”

  “What?”

  “The air—they’re all finding moving air. Bad air is the big danger in mines, but when it’s moving, you know it’s fresh, that there’s enough oxygen.”

  I twisted my neck to look up at him. I hadn’t consciously listened to anything on the radio, letting everything wash past me as long as I didn’t hear boy or girl or found.

  “Everywhere? The air is good everywhere?”

  “Well, no, never everywhere. But the main—”

  “Oh, God.” I wrapped my arms around my head.

  A few minutes later I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Time to move,” Leo said. “There’s a new fresh air base ahead.”

  “What?”

  “Follow the wire. No need for the mask. The other teams are ahead of us. They connected back up with the drift—the main tunnel. They should be pretty close to where the kids came in now.”

  “They’re not even there yet?” I couldn’t pull the thread of panic out of my voice. My knees were locked and aching, the weight pulling me back down, and I staggered drunkenly trying to get to my feet.

  “Come on,” Leo said. He steadied me with a hand against my arm. “You’re doing great.”

  What did it matter anymore how I was doing? How long had we been in this catacomb? How could living children have not heard us, or we them? I fell into step behind him, our lights jittering against the chiseled walls. The radio man followed. With my knees so stiff, my first steps were awkward and I caught my toe on a railway tie, my foot making a whump in the dirt as I righted myself, but Leo kept walking. My mouth tasted like metal.

  Around one corner, over a mound of loose dirt. Walls narrowing, timbers closer to the top of my head. How long had they been in place, supporting the mountain over us? Another turn, and another. Gaping maws of darkness that interrupted the walls. Finally, another turn and light. A cluster of lamps turned toward us, blinding me. Just outside the glare I could see more lamps trained on a square of white encircled by men’s silhouettes, arms extended, pointing. Islands of light in the dark.

  “What is it?” I called. “Do you know anything?”

  “Hey, there.” I recognized Alan’s voice. Calming, at ease. “Just figuring out where to go next. We’re near the opening. Just waiting for you to get here so we can be quiet for a minute and listen.”

  “Oh—oh, sure.” I could do that. I could be quiet. I could listen harder than I’d ever listened.

  We stopped walking. The men at the map straightened. No one spoke. Alan rapped on the wall with a wrench. “Kevin! Sarah! Make a noise if you can hear me.”

  I closed my eyes. Reached, strained. Felt nausea pressing my stomach against my lungs. Did I hear something, something faint as a faraway cat, or was I only willing an apparition into existence?

  “Kevin! Sarah!” My cry was a sob, pulled up from the center of my chest, my heart, my ribs, my veins. “Kevin! Sarah! Please!”

  And then I heard it. I knew I did. A sound no louder than the breathing around me, yet not the breathing around me.

  “Lena.”

  25

  Kevin? Sarah?” I twisted in the dark, as if I could find the source of the voice somewhere in the rock.

  Alan held up his hand. “Shh, shh.”

  I caught my breath and held it.

  “I’m here.”

  It was Kevin. It had to be. Sarah wouldn’t have answered that way.

  “Lena?”

  Alan smiled and nodded at me.

  “Yes! I’m here!” My voice rang against the rock. “We’re coming!”

  One of the men at the map raised his hand above the heads of the others, signaled ahead, then to the right. Alan nodded.

  “Red team,” he said. Anot
her smile and nod to me. “You, too.”

  Leo and I followed Alan now, with the rest of the team in order behind us, walking along the line the map man had shown.

  “Kevin? Sarah?” Alan called. “We’re headed toward you. Keep talking to me.”

  But all I could hear was the fall of feet, the rustle of pant legs, the creak and clatter of equipment. Were we moving the right way?

  “Kevin? Sarah? We’re coming. Keep talking.”

  We were walking uphill. A curve. Then our lights widened to reveal a three-way intersection. Alan held up his hand. We all stilled.

  “Kevin? Sarah? Say something so we can find you.”

  “I’m here.”

  Quiet, but clear, from the passage to the right.

  “That’s Kevin!” I cried. Alan put out an arm to block me, and an extra pull on the backpack said Leo was holding me back as well. “Kevin!”

  “Lena.”

  Like a whisper. Ovals of light swung toward the sound.

  “Kevin?” Alan spoke as he walked toward the voice, with me close behind. “We’ll get you right out. Don’t move. We’re coming to you. I’ve got Elena here with me. You okay?”

  I heard something back. It might’ve been “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s good. My name’s Alan. I’ve got rope and shovels and anything you need. I got water. You thirsty?”

  Another sound back. Again, maybe “Uh-huh.”

  “How do you feel? Are you dizzy, or do you feel tingly or sick?”

  “No.”

  I understood. We were getting closer.

  “Are you stuck at all?”

  “No.”

  He was crying. I could hear it now. Choked and terrified, his throat knotted like a rope.

  “That’s good. Don’t move, though. We’re coming to you. Just stay right where you are.”

  “Ask about Sarah!” I whispered to Alan’s shoulder. He shook his head. The relief that had run through me turned, doubled back on itself, and rose as a fresh column of fear.

  “I’m Alan,” he repeated. “You’re Kevin, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, then we found the right kid. If you were Steve or Tim or John or Rex or something I’d probably have to just say never mind, sorry to bother you. Some folks like it just fine down here, especially in the summertime. But you’re Kevin. That’s the kid we’re looking for.”

  “O-o-o-kay.”

  I saw his foot first. A white sneaker, smudged and streaked but brighter than the ground beneath it. I shoved past Alan and ran. The rest of the form emerged in the light from my headlamp: a very small boy, seated on the ground, knees hugged to his chest, eyes wide, face grimy and streaked with tears. A boy who’d thought he was buried alive. I fell to my knees against the rocks and pulled his shoulders to my chest. My nostrils filled with the acrid tang of vomit and urine.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I repeated as I rocked back and forth. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

  I felt his arms close around my back. His knees tipped against my hips. His shoulders heaved with gasping sobs.

  “I’m s-sorry!” I started to hear as he’d catch a breath. His voice was gone, a raw whisper over gravel. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

  I put my hands on his shoulders to pull back and look at his face. I wiped the heel of my hand against his cheek. He clenched his fists to his chest, but not before I saw how scraped and bloody they were. His knees, pulled up against them, were bloody as well, the torn edges of his jeans framing the wounds.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  His face crumpled and his head dropped over his knees. “I-I-I don’t know!”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, steadying me, just as my own center collapsed.

  “What happened?” said Alan. Soothing. Calm.

  “I-I tried to find a way out, and th-then I couldn’t find her! I called, and she answered, and then she didn’t answer anymore!”

  She didn’t answer anymore.

  She didn’t answer anymore.

  My ears rang and I felt faint. I fell over my knees.

  “We’ll find her, just like we found you.” Alan’s voice cradled us both. “I promise. I promise. Now you need to tell me what happened so we can get going.”

  I felt an arm around my shoulders, heard Leo’s voice in my ear: “It’s going to be all right.”

  I couldn’t answer. I didn’t believe it.

  *

  The story unfolded clearly enough, broken into segments as Stan, the medic, checked Kevin’s wounds and examined his eyes, looked in his throat, checked his oxygen level and blood pressure. Kevin had come down on a dare, like Scott had said. Older boys had been down here the day before, helping each other in and out with a rope. Kevin had a flashlight the other boys had given him. He’d looked around and called back up what he’d seen to boys he thought were listening at the top. But no one answered. And the rope was gone. He tried to climb up, but the loose rocks kept sliding back underneath him.

  A short time later he heard Sarah calling to him. She’d seen the boys gathered, but they’d told her she was too little, and a girl, and what they were doing was none of her business. When the boys left, she told Cindy she was going home and made a detour to the hole to see what all the fuss had been about. She heard Kevin calling, but when he told her to go get help she said no, that she was big, too, and came sliding down on the rubble to meet him.

  The medic straightened, folding his blood pressure cuff, then nodded to Alan. Alan gave a quick nod back.

  “Stan here says you’re in great shape. We’ll get those scrapes fixed up outside.”

  But Kevin went on as if no one had spoken. “My—my dad always said if you get lost to just—just stay in one place. You’re—you’re supposed to just st-stay.” His voice was papery and raw. It was easy to tell why we hadn’t been able to hear him.

  “That’s right,” Alan said. “That’s exactly right. Your dad’s real smart.”

  “But we waited a long time, and it got dark, and then I thought—I thought maybe we could walk out. So I told Sarah to stay. I told her. I made her p-promise. And—and the flashlight was going out, so I thought I better hurry. She didn’t want me to go. She didn’t want me to. She was sc-scared of the dark!”

  The sobs took over. He sank into the blanket that had been wrapped around his shoulders and heaved great staggered breaths and couldn’t talk. I wanted to hold him, but my arms were numb. Alan, squatting in front of him, cupped his hands around the boy’s knees.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You were trying to do a real brave thing. Real brave. I’m proud of you. We’re gonna find her. Just like we found you. Did your light go out? Did you get lost?”

  Kevin nodded. He held up the lifeless flashlight, which might have been in his hand the whole time. Alan took it.

  “Did you keep trying to find her, even though it was dark?” he said.

  More nodding.

  “And you probably got even more lost, didn’t you?”

  Nodding.

  “You could hear her at first when you called, right?”

  “Uh-uh-huh. A-and she was calling me. She tried to follow me and I told her to go back.”

  “But then you couldn’t hear her anymore.”

  He shook his head. “She—she didn’t—she didn’t—answer—anymore.”

  “Okay.” Alan squeezed Kevin’s knees. “I’m proud of you. Now I want to ask you one more thing. I know you’ve been more scared than most people will ever be in their whole lives and you want to get out. But if you can handle it, I could use your help. Do you think you could do that? I’d like you to come with us while we look. Can you keep going? I think with light and all these people you can help us find your sister. Can you do that?”

  Kevin lifted his head. His round eyes fixed on the fireman’s face, and und
er the grime, I could see his father’s shadow in the set of his jaw.

  “Yes, s-sir,” he said, nodding.

  *

  According to the map, the passage continued to branch and rebranch within the surrounding web of tunnels, all connected by various routes to one another and to the one where we’d found Kevin. But the map was old. We couldn’t be sure. Alan radioed the nearest team to join us at the spot where we thought the children had come in so we could search outward from there. Here, he said, pointing at the map, and here, without waiting for confirmation or discussion. I sensed haste. Anxiety. Urgency.

  Alan walked in front, now with Kevin and me behind. The rest of the team trudged at my back. Though Ramon continued to raise and lower the gas lantern behind me, no one seemed concerned about wearing masks as we attempted to retrace the steps Kevin had already taken. Cracked timbers supported the roof over our heads, and the walls were pocked by small caverns and cutouts that led only a few feet. The passage quickly narrowed, then took a sharp bend. Around the corner I could faintly hear voices and a jangle of equipment that wasn’t ours, which meant we were getting closer to the other team. With a thud from inside my chest, I realized it also meant they had been through more passages without finding Sarah. I couldn’t separate the different threads of fear winding around each other.

  “That handle!” Kevin suddenly shouted. He pointed at what looked at first like a wooden stake leaning on a heap of dirt, but then I saw its curved shape. “That handle! It was sticking out of the dirt! I thought it was a shovel, maybe, but when I picked it up it didn’t have anything on the end. So I left it there.”

  “That’s good! And that was after you’d left Sarah?”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  Alan turned his face away from us. “Sarah? Answer us! Are you there? Kevin’s here! We’re trying to find you!”

  I only realized how large my hopes had swollen when the silence flattened them.

  “Okay. Keep going.”

  We made it only a few yards farther before Alan stopped again. A separate tunnel angled upward to the right. Another forked off to the left and was partially blocked with a pile of loose rock and dirt that looked as if it had been spat out by a sagging timber directly above it. What I guessed to be the main passage continued ahead of us.