Holland Suggestions

by John Dunning

  I was looking for a different approach when I saw a large oblong rock near the embers of the old fireplace. I tied the end of the rope around the rock and propped the flashlight upward on the floor, fixing the beam directly on the overhang. I threw the rock at the ceiling, letting the rope stream out behind. It hit the wall and bounced back. A dozen throws also went that way before, on the thirteenth try, the rope looped the overhang and dropped on the other side. I lowered the rock into my hands, made a slipknot, and pulled the rope tight. It felt solid. I snapped the flashlight to my belt and started to climb.

  Nothing in this project was easy, but that climb was hell. After five minutes of intense struggle I hauled myself over the top of the rock and lay there, exhausted, in a flat space just large enough for a man’s body. Ahead of me, through a tiny hole, the ceiling opened into another cave.

  12

  I CRAWLED TOWARD THE hole, holding my light out ahead of my body. The tunnel curved up from the ledge, and for a time all I could see was a curving wall of rock. I eased my body into the hole and, using both legs and my free arm, pulled myself slowly upright, sliding over loose rock and filling the narrow passageway with dust. When I was standing erect I clipped the flash to my belt, beam pointed upward, and began to climb. I was climbing straight up, using deep notches in the rock for footholds. On both sides of the hole the notches continued at regular intervals, spaced perfectly for my hands and feet. I had no doubt that they had been cut there. The rise was about twelve feet, curving gradually all the time, and at the top I crawled out into another large room.

  It was almost a duplicate of the cylindrical room below, but this time the passage continued at floor level. It continued as a narrow crack, widening slightly, then narrowing and widening again. I heard water running beyond one of the walls, but I could not tell which one even by pressing my head against the rock. I moved deeper into the cave, along a low passageway where the floor was very rough. Tiny stalagmites peppered the place, and once I came to a huge column of rock that extended from ceiling to floor. There was just enough room for me to squeeze past, and again I saw that there had been some cutting of rock; someone had been through here and had notched out the rock column so that he could pass. I stopped and played my light across the floor. The cuttings were still there; large chunks of rock obviously battered down by an ax. I picked up the pieces and looked at them, but there was no way of knowing how long they had been here. With the rock column behind me, the passageway started up again, gradually at first, then sharply. Soon it was another climb. I found some more broken rock, and about halfway up I picked up six old flashlight batteries. The ends were rusted out and I guessed that they had been here at least several years. I dropped them where I found them and moved ahead. The passageway turned abruptly and climbed even higher, but there at the turn the left wall was broken away and an immense cavern opened before me. My light was lost in it; there was no floor or ceiling or walls that I could see, just an endless pit of black space. The sound of falling water was very strong and at the same time distant, and a spray came up from the black depths. I cringed back against the one wall and edged past it, breathing hard as solid rock rose up around me again. I came to a crest and started down, and the walls pinched tighter around me. Twice I had to squeeze through very narrow cracks, and once I tore a layer of skin off my right arm getting through. But the cave squeezed itself off and at the next turn came to a dead end.

  But there was no stopping me now. I found the crack that I knew was there, again a very small hole opening in the ceiling, and I pulled myself into a small tunnel of crawling room only. I was worming my way forward in a near frenzy, my sense of danger almost totally replaced by my urgent need to get to the end of it. The tunnel went like that for about twenty yards and ended at a wall of packed snow.

  A great excitement came over me, much as I had known yesterday with my first discovery of the cave. I pushed against the snowpack, but it had frozen on this side, and it held fast to the rock. I bent my head and got my shoulder into it, heaving upward with my legs until it broke away and sent me sprawling into the raw sunlight

  And there, not five inches from my face, was a sheer drop, hundreds of feet down. I had fallen out onto a ledge and was so close to pitching over the edge that I screamed out in terror. My voice came back at me as a hideous echo. The canyon yawned up at me; far below I saw a stream and rocks and trees blending together in a sickening, reeling blur. I was frozen to that spot; I literally could not move. Only gradually did my eyes focus, and then I saw a waterfall and another rushing stream. I could see too where the mountain turned and blocked the canyon from the trail to Taylor’s Gulch. I saw all those things encompassed in that sheer drop, and I reacted instinctively, pushing myself back from the edge. But my hands pushed against air. I knew then that I had been stunned by the fall; my hands had missed the edge completely and I had hit the rock ledge squarely on my face. I felt my mouth; it was sticky with blood. The blood ran from my nose and from another cut somewhere on my forehead; I took out a handkerchief and tried to stop it. With my eyes closed I lay that way until the bleeding seemed to stop. I turned my head then, without moving my body, and opened my eyes. A second shock spread through me. Without doubt, I was looking down the trail of the photographs.

  This was it, but it was the end of it for me. Somehow I eased backward from the cliff and squeezed my body into the hole. The cave swallowed the sunlight quickly, and I used the flashlight to guide my feet down the tunnel to the larger cave below me. Once I almost dropped the flash; it slipped from my fingers and banged against the wall. In near panic I rescued it before it could roll down to the lower level. I was a fool, a goddamn amateur fool, to come here alone with only one light. On the lower level I rested until I could stand without holding the walls. Then I scrambled down to the ground and got the hell out of there.

  Another dusk over Taylor’s Gulch, and the gloom of early evening had settled into my soul as well. During the long trek back I consciously weighed it and made my decision: to leave Gold Creek in the morning. Enough was enough. They, whoever they were, could fight it out, whatever it was, without my help. Coming along the trail above the town, I saw Jill’s jeep parked in the same spot below the cabin. A light bobbed behind the cabin, and in a moment she came around and looked in through the broken window. She saw me as I started down, and she came down to meet me. At the jeep she waited for me to come to her. She had changed her clothes and tied back her hair; she was fresh and lovely, and angry.

  “Just don’t speak to me, okay?” She hurled that at me across the valley floor. Softly she said, “I’m not talking to you.”

  I came close to the jeep; she opened the door for me and I fell into the passenger’s seat “Thanks for coming,” I said; “I couldn’t have gone much farther.”

  “You deserve to get lost. What happened to your face?”

  “I took a spill; nothing serious. What I need now is a bath and something to eat.”

  She was still quite indignant, but she closed the door gently and got in on the driver’s side. “There are some sandwiches and a thermos of soup in that bag; you eat while I drive.” With that we left the ghost town for the last time. By the time I thought to look back, the last light of day had gone and there was nothing to see. She drove the jeep with skill, following her own tracks into the long forest at the bottom of the mountain. There the snow had partly melted off and the potholes gave way to a heavy growth of weeds which threatened in places to choke off the road completely. A stream ran across the road and she plowed through that without hesitating. Then the road straightened and smoothed slightly and she used her bright lights.

  “I guess you’re not going to tell me about it,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “Please don’t play stupid. It doesn’t become you and I don’t like it.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Then I guess I don’t have anything to say right now,” I said.

  “At least that’s honest.”


  “Say, are you mad at me?”

  “I’m a little upset yes. I guess it never occurred to you that I might worry when you didn’t come down.”

  I was surprised. “No,” I said; “it never did.”

  The road twisted for another five miles and we took the rest of the drive without speaking. The jeep road dropped sharply and joined a graveled automobile road, which in turn hit State 96 just west of the Gold Creek turnoff. As she figured it, the total drive was just over an hour; it was after eight when we arrived at the inn. Jill got out of the car and walked briskly to the door, waving to me as I went quickly past her, through the lobby, and up the stairs. There was nobody around, and for that I was thankful. A shower took off the caked blood, but the nosebleed started again. I rested with my head down until it stopped. My head injury was a small but deep cut at the hairline; it too began to bleed and I covered it with a bandage.

  Soon Jill came to the door, carrying a tray of food and apologizing for the sandwiches. She sat with me while I ate; an uncomfortable silence fell between us. I took my meal slowly because I wanted her with me and I couldn’t think of any other reason to keep her here. The events of the day had washed out the effectiveness of the night before. In my mind we had regressed; we had not slept together, and now that first-line communication had to be done again, the words said over, without the stimulations of a snowstorm and a bottle of bourbon. The bourbon was still in my backpack, but now it seemed so inappropriate that I did not mention it. That was just as well, for Jill did not share my need for communication. She took the dishes away when I had finished, but fifteen minutes later she returned, put out the light, and slipped into bed beside me.

  The contrast between this and our first time was remarkable. Now she just lay beside me until I fell asleep, and it was warm and good in an asexual way. She did not even undress. Sometime during the early evening she left me; she was gone when I awoke, and I could see by my clock that hardly two hours had passed. The hands stood squarely at ten-fifteen. I went to the doorway, looked out into the hall, and listened. Downstairs I heard voices; someone laughed. I moved to the head of the stairs, where I could hear them clearly. The three of them were there, having a nightcap in the den. I resisted the temptation to join them and returned to my room. I got out the telescope and for a time tried to scan the valley, but even the full moon helped little in this place and I gave it up. Bored with that but still restless, I thought of the balcony. I got the flashlight from my backpack, opened the window, and sat on the sill. Again, for a long time I contemplated the walk across the shaky boards to Jill’s room, and this time I decided to try it. The balcony creaked under my weight but held fast. Once committed to it, I walked the thirty feet to her window quickly, keeping to the inner edge and watching my step. I found the window cracked open slightly; I lifted it, parted the curtains, and stepped inside.

  The room was completely dark. I debated risking lights, decided against it, and brought out the flash. A quick look around showed that her bed was made and the room was in generally a neater state than mine. The layout, other than the fact that I had two windows, was identical to my room. I moved to the dresser and played the light across the top. There were a few bottled cosmetics, a lipstick, and a hand mirror; nothing else. I eased open the top drawer and saw a variety of undergarments. The other drawers contained clothes, and I felt them without disturbing their arrangement, to be sure that nothing was hidden beneath them. Then I moved to the closet. It contained her hiking boots and some photographic equipment, an extra pair of shoes and a dress coat that I had never seen her wear. I closed the door softly and felt my way around the bed. I was kneeling on the floor when I heard the footsteps. They came so quickly that trying for the window was impossible. I ducked under the bed, pushing aside a large suitcase, and waited for her to enter. The steps stopped outside and I held my breath. A key turned in the latch and I realized that it was Max, going into his room across the hall. He was there for less than a minute, then he came out and returned to the lower part of the inn. I pulled myself from beneath the bed and dragged the suitcase out with my free hand. It was not heavy; I guessed that the clothes it bore were stored in the dresser. Still, it was locked, and that fact was enough to send me searching for the key. I felt under the dresser doily and along the closet shelving but finally found it in her purse in a drawer of her night table. The main storage compartment of the suitcase was empty, but in a slip pocket I found some papers and a little leatherbound book. The book was so familiar that I put it aside habitually, as though I had read it many times before. I looked through the papers, letters addressed to Jill either at her Bridgeport home or at some New York firm called Smith and Lorenzen. All of them had been slit open, and I was about to examine them when I heard another noise on the stairs. Quickly I put them in order and placed them in the suitcase pocket. Again, for an indecisive second I held the book in my hands. It was so familiar…and then I had to know. I could tell by the creaking boards that she had reached the top of the stairs, but I flipped open the book and scanned the first page from the bottom up. In the upper right-hand corner I saw the handwritten name Robert Holland.

  The fourth Holland journal.

  Her footsteps passed the door and continued down the hall to my room. I knew she would return at once, but the Holland book worked a momentary paralysis on me and I was slow to react. At last I dropped it in with the letters, locked the suitcase, and pushed it under the bed. I heard Jill’s muffled voice call my name, then she came back up the hall toward her room. I tiptoed around the bed and replaced the key, then the purse, closed the table drawer, and hurried across the room to the window. I must have closed the window just as she opened the door, and I flattened myself against the outer wall as she turned on the light There was a moment of indecisive silence; she was absolutely quiet, and I wondered if I had left everything in order. Then I heard a bottle drop; she said, “Damn it,” and a few minutes later the light went out and she sat on the bed. There was a dragging noise, as though she had pulled the suitcase out from under the bed, then more quiet, for what seemed an interminable time. It was broken only when the front door of the inn opened, directly under my feet, and Gould and Max came out on the boardwalk.

  They stood there for a moment without speaking, and I held my breath. Finally Gould breathed deeply and said, “Well, it’s your decision, Mr. Max, and I know I can’t influence it. But you won’t find nights like this back in Philadelphia.”

  “I know it,” Max said.

  From inside I heard the sound of the bedsprings. She came to the window and I pressed my body as flat against the wall as I could get. I saw her fingers on the sill, then touching the bottom of the window frame, as though she intended to raise it. I braced myself for a confrontation, but instead she moved back into the room.

  Softly I let out my breath.

  “My time here always goes too fast, Harry,” Max was saying. “I wish I could have got to know your other guests better. Especially Miss Sargent.”

  “She’s lovely,” Gould said.

  “Ryan too,” Max said. “I’m afraid I put him off that first night with all my talk of extraordinary achievement. Now that I look back on it, that all sounds stuffy and pretentious.”

  Gould laughed. “Always a student of people, aren’t you?”

  There was another short silence, then Gould excused himself, with more regret at Max’s planned departure. For a time Max stood alone on the boardwalk; when he did move, it was not back into the inn but out along the street. He stopped at the old corral, still sipping his drink. His back was turned to me and I took advantage of the break, quietly crossing the balcony to my window.

  My mind was so full of the discovery of the Holland journal that I hardly thought of my narrow escape. I flopped into bed, but an all-consuming restlessness forced me to the window again. Max was gone, but that hardly mattered now. The Holland journal was the most startling break I had had; it dominated my thinking. And yet my mind could not
settle on any single aspect of it or on any possible answers. My thoughts just churned around it and gave me no rest. At last, still feeling miserable from the long day, I went downstairs and rifled the refrigerator. Before I could settle on anything Max came in.

  “Jim,” he said from the doorway, “I’m glad you’re here. I have to leave tomorrow and I was hoping you’d join me for a nightcap.”

  I could not refuse him, though I did not feel at all like making small talk. A quick one, then, and I would beg off and try to somehow get some rest. I mixed myself a very light drink, not really wanting that, and Max adjusted the den lights at a very low level. That suited me perfectly. We sat facing each other in the same chairs Jill and I had used two nights ago, and I waited for him to say something.

  “You got a bit banged up.”

  I brushed that off.

  “Climbing can be like that. I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more. I’m afraid I make a poor first impression.”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Be that as it may, I wanted you to know that I’m not really the stuffed shirt I sometimes seem to be. You asked what I do for a living—I’m an architect.”