Alexander C. Irvine

by A Scattering of Jades

  “I found the excursion marvelously informative,” Tattersfield continued. “The cave is extraordinary and Stephen himself deserves every accolade.” He stopped in the middle of the trail. “I believe I’ll stay another day or so, have a look at that River Styx if I may. After breakfast?” Stephen nodded, thinking he would have to make sure Nick and his brother Mat had brought the boat back from the far beach on Lake Lethe.

  “Splendid.” Tattersfield touched the brim of his crumpled hat, nodded to Croghan, and went on up to the hotel.

  “Well done, Stephen, although I hardly need to tell you that, do I?” Croghan dropped a fatherly hand over Stephen’s shoulder. Stephen tried not to stiffen. His stature—four inches over five feet—and wiry build were perfect for navigating tight seams and turns in the cave, but the drawback to his size was that it seemed to encourage Croghan to treat him like a boy—or like a gifted and loyal dog.

  “Are you done for the day?” Croghan said. “Any more tours?”

  “I thought I might head back to Gorin’s Dome,” Stephen said. “I saw a little hole on the way I’d like to look into.”

  “Think it goes to the bottom, do you? Well, if it does, you take Professor Tattersfield there tomorrow, show him somerhing he can tell his friends in England about.”

  You know you don’t have to tell me that. At least you should. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well then, all right, get another lamp and have a look around. Come and tell me what you’ve found in the morning.” Croghan slapped Stephen on the back and strode on up the path.

  I do think it goes to the bottom, Stephen thought as he stood in River Hall, about on a level with where he imagined the bottom of Bottomless Pit to be. A narrow L-shaped seam opened in front of him, at the base of the wall across from the pool called Lake Lethe. He’d noticed the crack weeks before, but this was the first chance he’d had to look into it.

  But he didn’t think it meandered its way to the bottom of Gorin’s Dome, and if for some reason Croghan went looking for him there, Stephen would have to pretend he’d gotten lost. The crack in front of him, if his hunch was right, backtracked and snaked right to the floor of Bottomless Pit. Gorin’s Dome could wait; tonight Stephen was after bigger game.

  He shifted the scuffed leather satchel on his shoulder and, out of habit, tapped the flask in his hip pocket. The trip was likely to be strenuous, and he’d replenished his supplies before reentering the cave. Apples and cheese, water and a nip of good cheer; that was food for exploring.

  Stephen stood still for a moment, listening to the workings of his own mind and the bately audible echoes of the ghosts. The cave was full of them, thoughts and impressions left behind by every man and woman who had ever died there. Mat and Nick heard them too sometimes, but the voices scared the Bransford boys. Stephen found them reassuring, knowing that the ghosts trusted him, that they felt as he did. The cave was awesome and magnificent because of its vastness and its age; it had seen people come and go since long before old Farmer Houchins had chased a bear into it fifty years before, an there were parts of it, Stephenwas sure, that no man would ever see.

  Croghan was deaf to the ghosts. All he saw in the cave was prestige and money. He admired it while he sucked out its marrow, blasting new entrances, bankrolling schemes like the tuberculosis sanatorium that took up part of the main hall. The man did nothing for the love of it, and his grand plans were turning the cave into just another sideshow attraction.

  Stephen listened to the ghosts chuckle and plead. Then he shook off the reverie and squatted in front of the crooked crevice, pushing the satchel in ahead of him.

  Just as he’d thought, it turned around a bit before rising gently away from River Hall. He belly-crawled for the first hundred feet or so, pushing the satchel ahead, careful not to knock the lamp against the knobby walls as he pulled himself forward. Then the passage opened enough that he could bearwalk, clambering ahead on his hands and the balls of his feet, ducking his head to avoid spines and ledges projecting from the ceiling. He scanned the walls and ceiling of the tunnel as he moved, seeing no smudges of soot, no charred bits of reed torch that would indicate that someone had been there before him. Most of the cave Stephen had been given credit for discovering had been traveled centuries before by barefoot Indians with cane torches; but there were no footprints here, no seeds, no bits of clay. Nothing but water-smoothed limestone and the occasional outcropping of calcite, gleaming milky in the lamplight. Virgin cave, he thought, his pulse quickening.

  The passage broadened even more, to the point where Stephen could stand upright, then ended abruptly in a ledge thrust out into a huge dome. A breakdown slide sloped from his right down to his left, fading beyond the range of his finger-ring lamp.

  Climbing breakdown was tricky work. Until you found a good path, it slipped a lot, and a long tumble was always a possibility. Stephen had already led two long tours since dawn, and now he at least knew that the branch from River Hall came out in a big dome. Why wasn’t that enough to take back for one day?

  Because, he answered himself, you know it goes. You know it drops to the floor of Bottomless Pit, just like you knew what was on the other side of Giant’s Coffin when you dug it out two summers ago.

  Stephen shut his eyes. That was the ghosts talking. He thought of the Allegory of the Cave, one of the first Greek things he’d read, when he was a boy overwhelmed by the dark musty promise of Franklin Gorin’s library. People chained in darkness, seeing only shadows of what was outside and thinking that what they saw was all there was; it was an idea he’d never been able to get out of his head. But down this far, the shadows had substance. There was no outside, and when they spoke, that was all there was.

  He opened his eyes and looked out into the dome again. From here, it sure looked like Bottomless Pit.

  “Dammit,” he said aloud. He tried to figure how far he’d come. More than a quarter-mile, less than a half. That would put him right in the neighborhood of the pit.

  “Too close not to find out,” he said, and swung his legs out into the dome.

  The light from the handheld lamp was only good for twenty feet or so, and Stephen kept track of how far he’d come by counting twenty feet when the ceiling of the shaft faded beyond range of the light and marking a discoloration on the wall at his level. When the stain was swallowed by darkness, he added another twenty feet, and so on. After four marks, he could see open ground below him, but it seemed like he’d climbed down farther than he should have. Had he found something else, another pit that dropped parallel to Bottomless? If this passage didn’t connect—

  He pushed the thought away. It did connect. He knew it and the ghosts knew it, they were loud in his head, some begging him to find them and others jeering at him, muttering that he’d taken the wrong way. He had to be close; they had never been this loud before.

  But close to what?

  He finished the climb down, dropping off a ledge formed by a fallen rock the size of one of the rooms in Croghan’s hotel. His knees nearly buckled when he landed, and Stephen realized he didn’t have much caving left in him today. But there was nearly level ground under his feet, and walls winding around him in a rough kidney shape and rising unbroken out of sight. His heart beating fast, Stephen raised the lamp and turned a complete circle.

  Something clinked on the floor. Lowering the lamp, he saw Dr. Tattersfield’s gold piece winking up at him, not three inches from his right foot.

  Bottomless Pit has a bottom, Stephen thought. And I found it.

  He sat on the floor and basked in the glow of new discovery for a few minutes, digging an apple and a wedge of cheese out of the satchel and chasing them down with a long drink of water. Then the flask came out: he stood, holding it up like a communion cup, and toasted the ghosts.

  “Always something new to discover.”

  And may I always be the one to do it, he added to himself, taking a long swallow and reveling in the liquor’s clear burn.

  Putting the flask away, Stephe
n held his watch up to the lamp. It was just after nine o’clock. He’d spent nights in the cave before, but it was not something he enjoyed; besides, Tattersfield would be ready to go at the crack of dawn. Just a quick look around, Stephen thought, and then I can head back before it gets too late.

  He walked around the floor of the pit, poking his light into crevices to see if there were any other ways out of the pit. When he got to the narrow end, directly across from the River Hall branch and below the place where the lip of the pit above faded back into the wall, the smoothly grooved walls gave way to a jumble of rocks and gravel. It looked as if part of the ceiling had collapsed sometime after the pit was hollowed out. At the bottom of the deadfall, two huge oblong stones had fallen against each other, leaving a triangular opening between them easily big enough to crawl into. Squatting in front of it, Stephen shone the lamp in. The ghosts, who had been muted since he came out of the chimney, began shrieking and gibbering again, their noise nearly loud enough to drown his thoughts.

  It goes, he thought. I know it goes.

  John Croghan took in a deep lungful of the sharp, rich September air. Fall was a beautiful season in Kentucky, all the better when the people touring the cave were as effusive as Professor Tattersfield had been at supper that night. The Englishman had talked incessantly, paying scant attention to his meal, telling Croghan repeatedly what a marvel the cave was and how excellently Stephen performed his function. Croghan had paid ten thousand dollars for the cave, the hotel, the slaves, everything. In three years he’d made it back five times over.

  He tamped tobacco into his pipe and stood at the railing of the hotel porch, thinking of all he had done to make Mammoth Cave the attraction it was. The hotel itself had been little more than a blockhouse when he’d purchased it; now it had been improved and refined into a facility that, if not luxurious, was— notwithstanding the reputation of Bell’s Tavern—certainly the best between Louisville and Bowling Green. A fine dining hall, private rooms, a covered wraparound porch, all had been added at his expense. He’d even hired a seasonal orchestra.

  Croghan struck a match, careful to avoid singeing his drooping musrache, and savored the smell of good tobacco mingling with the forest air.

  The clop and creak of a horse-drawn wagon came from around the corner of the hotel, where the road (another thing Croghan had built himself) led out to the state highway. Croghan checked his watch, replaced it in his vest pocket. It was after nine; where was Stephen? Gone straight home and to bed after his excursion, Croghan decided. He wouldn’t have had to pass the hotel to reach the slave quarters overlooking the cave trail.

  The wagon clattered into view, and Croghan cocked an eyebrow in mild surprise. He’d seen itinerant tinkers and traveling salesmen, country doctors, carnival wagons, and even wandering dentists, but never had he seen a drummer-wagon that proclaimed its driver to be all of those, RILEY STEEN, read the banners draped along the sideboards, EXTRAORDINARY ELIXIRS FOR EVERY MALADY, PAINLESS DENTISTRY. Below this ran PUPPET SHOWS—

  HOUSEHOLD GOODS BOUGHT, SOLD, REPAIRED, and a third line said MEDICINES FOR LIFE, LOVE, PROSPERITY. OTHER SERVICES AVAILABLE —INQUIRE!

  Croghan squinted at a line of smaller script running along the bottom of the banner nearest him, but the oil lamps hung from the posts of the porch flickered, distracting him as the wagon creaked to a stop. The driver appeared to be peering in the direction of the cave mouth, one hand coveting the tight side of his face. He i;runted in satisfaction, dropped the reins, and faced Croghan. And ibis must be Mr. Steen, Croghan thought. He was glad he didn’t have a toothache.

  Steen wore a broad-brimmed black hat of indeterminate fabric, pulled down nearly to the bridge of his nose. In the failing light of the lamps, Croghan decided he looked like a man with a toadstool for a head. His topcoat was black as well, and bore a single rose in its left lapel. Croghan caught the odor of myrth on the breeze, dimly remembered from childhood funerals. He glanced at his pipe. It had gone out.

  Steen dropped the reins and pushed his hat up an inch. Croghan noted a squashed cauliflower of a nose and three silver finger rings, set with stones of bright blue and smoky green. For no reason at all, the rings disconcerted Croghan. Nervously he rumaged for a match.

  “Dr. John Croghan, if I am not mistaken?” Steen’s voice carried the depth and richness one would expect of a salesman, the self-assurance of a actor or medical man, but something else was there i, as well, a quiet smirk that went well beyond self-assurance. It was the unnspoken assertion that if I am not mistaken had been a formality, nothing more. This man very rarely found himself mistaken, if that tone was any indication.

  Croghan found himself irritated, again for no good reason. What had the man done but offer him a greeting? He was not exactly anonymous in this part of the state.

  “I am,” he said, more brusquely than he’d intended.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Steen said smoothly. Croghan never doubted that the man had noticed the shortness of his response and chosen to ignore it.

  “Likewise,” he replied, recovering his civility. “If you’ve come to see the cave, there’s certainly room at the hotel. Professor Tattersfield of Westfield College was through today, and I’m sure he would be happy to share some of his experiences with you if he hasn’t retired.”

  Croghan indicated the hotel’s front door with the stem of his pipe. “If you would like to go inside and register … ?”

  Steen cocked his head suddenly, as if he’d heard a voice he couldn’t quite place. He slid out of the wagon seat and bent over. When he stood again, Croghan saw that he had plucked a tuft of grass from the narrow lawn bordering the hotel. Covering one half of his face again, he studied the grass, murmuring under his breath, and Croghan looked up at the night sky. It was clear, but for a moment he could have sworn he’d smelled rain. And the damned lamps were flickering out; someone obviously hadn’t filled them properly.

  When he looked back to Steen, the salesman was brushing the grass off his hands. “Perhaps I will,” he said.

  “Pardon me?” Croghan was distracted again. Narrow lines of ants were working their way methodically up the railing. They crawled in sinuous curves around the support posts and onto the lamp fixtures, where they circled the glass rims. Those who fell into the floating wicks were immediately replaced by others from below.

  “Perhaps I will. Register.” Steen’s eyes narrowed as he took note of the ants. He looked again at the clear autumn sky. “Would itn be too late to first have a word with your man Stephen?”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard of Stephen,” Croghan said expansively. Hi stowed his pipe again. “No, I’m afraid Stephen has already retired for the evening,” he added, wondering if it was true. “He has a tour scheduled for early tomorrow morning, but when he returns I’ll certainly see that you get to speak to him. We offer quite a variety of tours—”

  “I suppose I will stay the night then,” Steen said. “Could someone see to my horses?”

  “Of course,” Croghan said, escaping with relief into the hotel to roust a stable hand. That man Steen certainly threw him off balance.

  Tepeilhuitl, 4–Deer — September 9, 1842

  Croghan rose promptly at six the next morning, as was his custom whether at his estate in Louisville or in the room kept for him at the hotel. He was dressing for breakfast when someone knocked on his door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Mat, Dr. Croghan.” Even without seeing him, Croghan could tell that the boy was upset. “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened and the skinny slave rushed in, twisting his cap between long-fingered hands. Croghan saw the expression on Mat’s face and stopped fiddling with his cravat. “Well, boy? Out with it.”

  “It’s Stephen, sir,” Mat began, the words coming in a trembling rush, “he ain’t come out of the cave near as anyone can tell. We was wondering if he talked to you, since Charlotte ain’t seen him, nobody seen him, he musta had an accident in the cave since h
e didn’t say nothing about staying the night and he hates—”

  “Get Nick and Alfred!” Croghan snapped, flinging the cravat onto his bed. “Right now. He was supposed to be near Gorin’s Dome. Hurry!” Mat dashed off to the slaves’ quarters near the river.

  By the time he returned with Nick and Alfred, Croghan was fully dressed and waiting at the head of the trail that led to the cave mouth. He looked them over quickly. Three young Negroes, eighteen, twenty, and thirty-one years of age; healthy, capable guidess, worth perhaps a thousand dollars apiece. Stephen’s reputation alone, to say nothing of his skills, was worth more than all three together.

  “As soon as you find him,” Croghan said as they reached the entrance, heavily shadowed in the thick purple predawn darkness, “send Nick out to tell me.” Nick was the least experienced caver of the three, but he was also the fastest. “Do you have rope? Bandages and splints?” They nodded, their faces harshly lit by the glaring lamps.

  “Won’t need them,” called a voice from just under the looming overhang.

  Mat, Nick, and Alfred dropped their packs simultaneously and ran into the cave. Croghan started to follow, then remembered his position. A man of his stature couldn’t be running around like a schoolboy simply because a slave had gotten himself lost, but still, he barely checked himself. Stephen represented a lot of money and no little prestige.

  An excited jumble of voices rolled from the cave, so riddled with echoes that they might have been speaking any language in the world. Dignity be damned, what was going on? He took a step under the overhang and nearly collided with Nick. “Mr. Croghan—”

  Croghan cut him off. “Stephen is there? He’s uninjured?”

  “He look like somethin’ the cat drug in, but he okay,” Nick panted. He was lighter than Croghan’s other slaves—even Stephen, whose father had been white—and a flush was visible under his caramel skin. The phenomenon piqued Croghan’s medical interests, but he shoved the thought away.