by John Dunning
Maybe, but I couldn’t quite buy it. I lay back against the propped-up pillow and tried to watch some TV. The only clear station was showing five-year-old Bonanza reruns, so I turned it off and turned off my lights and lay in the darkness. What the hell? More than anything, at that moment, I was bored; wanting something to happen and at the same time fearing it. I closed my eyes, but my entire sleep cycle was off and I knew I would not rest easy this night. I thought wild thoughts: of sneaking back to Gold Creek and prowling the house again, to get some line on Vivian and what she was doing. But I had a hunch I wouldn’t find much there; just a dark, empty house and an empty garage. Possibly she was in another state by now. In that case she would dump the black Oldsmobile and disappear and that would be the end of it. But I couldn’t buy that either. It was inconsistent with her character, as I remembered it. Vivian was here for a reason, and her purpose hadn’t yet been fulfilled. I could never write her off.
I heard a noise just outside my door, then a gentle tapping. It startled me; I jumped up from the bed and knocked my empty coffee cup to the floor. I waited. The rapping came again, louder.
“Jim?”
It was Max. I opened the door a crack.
He was alone. “For Christ’s sake, open up.”
I opened the door and went back to my place on the bed.
“Can we have some lights?”
“Sure.”
He turned them on and sat on a chair across from the bed. ‘What’s the matter with you?”
“Is something the matter with me?”
“We’re just going caving, not scouting behind enemy lines. I thought you were going to ask me for a password before you let me in.”
“Sorry; I’m just jumpy. Coffee?”
“Is it any good?”
“Not much. It’s instant. All I’ve got, though.”
“I’ll take it.” He poured as I stretched out on the bed. “You act like you’ve been cooped up here all day.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you’re so jumpy. You look like a man who’s been waiting for a reprieve from the governor.”
“I came over here too early, I guess. The inn was getting on my nerves too. When I got up this morning there wasn’t anybody around.”
“I know. Miss Sargent was leaving just as I got up. We just passed a few words and she was gone, just like that. Strange girl.”
“I couldn’t find Gould either.”
“Harry’s often up before dawn. Sometimes he likes to drive up in the hills and watch the sun come up. So if you got the feeling that you were alone, you were probably right.”
“Well, I didn’t like it.”
He looked at me curiously. “Jesus, you really are jumpy, aren’t you? You been having second thoughts about our expedition?”
I thought about that. “A few, I guess. I’m having second thoughts about what the hell I’m doing here anyway. I don’t relish the thought of tackling that goddamn ledge again.”
“You won’t have to; just point me to it.” There was a long pause, then he said, “Listen, it’s up to you, you know. If you’ve changed your mind we can forget it here and now with no hard feelings.”
“What about all the equipment you bought?”
“That was a drag, but I can use it sometime. You call the shots and let me worry about the equipment.”
I ended the pause that followed with more stalling: “I don’t know; let’s sleep on it and see how it looks in the morning.”
“All right.” He looked around the room. “I guess I’d better get a room for myself.”
He went out and I turned off the lights. Soon I heard him unloading some things into the room next door. The walls between the rooms were very thin and I could hear most of his movements; I heard it when he dropped a glass and when he sat on his bed and later when he showered. It was after nine when he came again to my room.
“Let’s get an early start, either way,” he said; “I’ve got a lot to do if I’m going to ship this stuff back to Philly, and if we do go I’d like to be in the high country by sunup.”
“What time?”
“Leave here at four.”
I nodded and he left me. I heard the cracking of ice and the tinkle of a bottle against a glass. The springs of his bed squeaked as he got in. For a long time he watched TV; he turned it off at ten and there were no more sounds from his room until his alarm clock went off at three-thirty. By then I was awake anyway. I had slept intermittently, for no more than an hour at a time, and now I dressed as though the place had caught fire. At three forty-five Max came to my room, fully dressed for the climb.
That was the curious manner in which my decision was made for me. Max took charge of the day from the beginning, and he ran it like a gentle taskmaster. “You better eat something,” he said; “it’s going to be a long day and we’re not going to find any open restaurants this time of morning. You’ll find some milk in an ice chest in my room and I bought some corn flakes last night. It’s not much, but you’ll be glad later you had it.”
I was glad now. There was no sugar, but I ate three bowls of the corn flakes anyway. I was washing the bowl when he came in again. We exchanged almost no conversation on my indecision of the night before; he brushed it aside as though he had never taken it seriously and neither had I. “I assume that crud last night was just a mood talking,” he said once; “to tell the truth, you’d surprise the hell out of me if you backed out of this now.”
I looked at him. “Why?”
“No reason, except I’ve got you pegged differently. Your curiosity is a lot like mine; it would never let you rest till you satisfied it.”
We got out quickly after that. I took my boots and parka and locked my car; Max put out the lights of both rooms and we were off. We took a jeep parked near my car behind the motel, and I had to squeeze in among the equipment piled everywhere. The morning was cold though the snow had stopped. Max worried that the weather in the high country might be bad, and I remembered all too well how bad it could be. We passed the turnoff to Gold Creek and some of my tension dissolved. It settled in again as we turned into the graveled road to Taylor’s Gulch.
“It could be a bitch,” Max said; “if it’s snowing we’ll have to come back some other day.”
Clearly I did not want to spend another day in that motel. I shook my head and Max caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Even if it’s not snowing, the road over the top might be snowed in.”
“What road?”
“There used to be an old road over the top. It was used by forest rangers and lumber men about twenty years ago. Now it’s used only by explorers. It can be hairy in places, but I’ve driven it. I was counting on it to get in close with the equipment; otherwise we’ll have to pack it in from Taylor’s Gulch. And from what you tell me that’s quite a hike.”
I did not say anything. Soon we turned off the gravel road and started up the jeep trail. As we climbed higher the moon broke through the clouds and the cold, pale light spread across the bald mountains ahead. Max stopped the jeep and got out. I waited there while he walked along the trail and looked for his lumber road. The wind came up suddenly, and Max was clutching his hat when he came back.
“I think maybe we’re in luck,” he said; “it doesn’t look like there was any more snow up here than we had in town. I think there’ll just be a light crust on the road.”
“Did you find it?”
“Not yet; I think it’s up ahead somewhere.”
We went through that long stand of timber at the base of the Taylor’s Gulch plateau, and on the other side Max found what remained of the lumber road. It wound behind the plateau, running along the foot of the mountain.
“The trail is on the other side,” I said.
“I know it; I told you, this road goes over the top. I’m hoping we’ll come down somewhere near your cave without too much of a hike.”
I had my doubts, but I didn’t burden Max with th
em. Trees closed in around us and cut off the road ahead. Max used his low gear and pushed through them. In one place the six-foot pines were so thick that they blotted out all windows and the windshield. Max crushed them under the wheels and emerged at a stream. We splashed through it, and for perhaps five hundred yards on the other side there was no road at all. At the base of the mountain Max parked the jeep, sat back, and lighted his pipe.
“Okay, we’re in good shape,” he said between puffs; “now we’d better wait for sunrise.”
That came about an hour later, and for most of the time we sat in silence. With the first light Max got out for another foot inspection of the area. He returned fifteen minutes later, saying that he had found the road; we had come too far. Max turned the jeep around and backed around a small growth of trees. We started up the mountain. I still did not see any road, but five minutes later I saw two faint ruts ahead: we were on the road. The weeds fell away and the trees became stunted and gnarled. Higher we went; soon sunlight flowed into the purple cracks below and lighted the world. I saw Taylor’s Gulch as a shabby gathering of rotted wood far below. We went still higher. The road disappeared again as the ghost town slipped behind the mountain. We were riding along a flat grassy area; the grass was grubby-looking and there were huge patches of snow all around us. We reached the top; the mountain sheared away and became a glacier, dipping into the valley like a great white sliding board. Max drove along the rim until I got nervous.
“Can we get away from the edge?”
“Not much,” he said, but he tried. He turned the wheel left and the jeep moved away from the edge but tilted at a sickening angle.
“It was better the other way,” I said.
He dropped back into the ruts. “Your cave is probably over that next mountain range,” he said, pointing.
I looked into the valley. We had come almost full circle around the mountain; far below I could see the trail where I had blundered into the snowstorm.
“I’m not sure; as you said, it was quite a hike.”
“That is quite a hike,” Max said. “I’ve walked up there many times myself. I’ve done some cave exploring around here too a few seasons back. I might have even been in your cave, at one time or another.”
“You know that place called Mission rocks?”
“I know it well.”
“The cave is up past that.”
He nodded and we dipped toward a white canyon that brought us within five hundred yards of the footpath; then he turned upward again and we drove along the face of the next mountain. It was easy going even though we had completely lost the road, and we rattled along in good time. At the far side of the mountain we came to another dropoff.
“I guess we don’t go any farther this way,” Max said. “But I don’t think we ought to try to climb down from here either. I know I remember the road almost meeting the trail at one point, but this doesn’t seem to be it.”
He had to back the jeep along the mountain for two hundred yards before we came to another grassy area where he could turn around. From there it was a sharp climb along the mountain’s face to another level, where again we found the ruts of the old road. The climb was very steep and I took it with my eyes closed. At the top the road completely circled the mountain and dropped behind the Mission rocks.
“This is it,” I said; “it’s not far from here.”
“Can we drive up close to it?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it.”
But I was wrong. Max handled the jeep with ability that went beyond expertise; we clattered down an incline so steep that my stomach heaved and my gut shifted. At the bottom I directed him along the footpath, around the mountain to the rushing stream. We bumped over rocks for thirty minutes before I saw the gushing water, and Max stopped less than thirty feet from the crack in the mountain wall.
We climbed along the trail and under the waterfall, and Max made a quick examination of the lower chamber first. He played his light along the walls and ceiling while I pointed out the rock ledge where the cave stretched upward.
“We’d better unload the jeep and hide it somewhere,” he said.
That took twenty minutes. I waited alone in the cave while Max camouflaged the jeep. When he returned he was breathing fire and ready to begin.
“I’m going on up,” he said; “I guess you want to stay here.”
“I think I will, yes.”
“Whatever you like. Let’s get the equipment up first.”
He made a long loop in the rope and in one throw had it over the projecting rock. He climbed it effortlessly. At the top he dropped the rope to me and said, “First dig out one of those miner’s helmets—in the green bag, yes. There’s one in there for you too. Don’t go anywhere in this cave without it.”
I tied the helmet by its strap and he pulled it up. For a few minutes he disappeared into the cave, then he was back, lowering the rope. I tied each bundle securely and Max pulled them up. He struggled in the confinement of the ledge, pushing the equipment ahead of him into the cave. When there was no more room he packed the bundles up to the higher chamber. That took him an hour, and there was nothing for me to do but wait. He was breathing hard when he came down the last time.
“I’m going on through the cave to the ledge,” he said; “I’ll be back as soon as I know what’s there.”
He climbed out of sight. I replaced my hat with the miner’s helmet and crawled out to the cave’s mouth. I waited there for a long time, watching the trail. Satisfied that no one was coming, I went into the chamber. That old uneasy feeling, that insistent restlessness, came over me again. I fought against it for a time, but at last I gave up the struggle and began to climb the rope.
The climb was just as difficult as it had been the first time, but now I moved quickly through the cave, pausing only at the spot where the wall broke away in a sheer drop. As I pushed my head carefully through the opening to the ledge, I saw Max standing at the edge about twenty feet away. He was smiling.
“I thought you’d be along,” he said.
16
“IT’S AN OLD MINER’S trail, actually,” Max said. He was standing with unshakable confidence at the edge of the cliff, looking into the canyon. “You can see what happened to it farther along, at this end. There must have been a landslide and the trail was buried from there on down, but at one time it probably went all the way to the canyon floor.”
“How old is it?”
“I have no idea. But it’s quite wide once you get used to it.”
“It doesn’t look so wide.”
“That’s because you’re afraid of it. Stand up and hold on to the rocks until you get your courage up.”
“No…not just yet.”
He smiled patiently. “It’s almost wide enough to push a wagon through; it was probably even wider when it was first cut through, but parts of it have crumbled off since then. See how uneven the rim is?”
“Yeah, I see. Christ, how can you stand so close? Get back, will you? You make me nervous as hell.” I looked away from him when he did not move. “So what are you going to do next?”
“Check it out; see what’s at the other end. That’s what we came for, isn’t it? You want to wait here?”
“Yes.” But I shook my head no.
“You can’t have it both ways. You think about it; I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Wait…just give me a few minutes. If I can make it I want to come with you.” I eased my body out of the hole until I was sitting on the ledge, my back against the wall.
“Try not to look down, at least not at first,” Max said. “If you can get comfortable without forgetting where you are, you’ll be fine.” He fidgeted while I struggled to overcome my jitters. Finally he said, “Look, why not let me check it out? I’ll only be a few minutes and then we’ll know if there’s anything worthwhile.”
“No!” My voice was sharp and I apologized for it. “I’ve got to be there, see it for myself.” I got to my hands and knees, but that
didn’t help because I was facing the edge, looking straight over the sheer drop. I had to sit down again. After another short pause I tried again; I rolled the other way, facing the wall, gripped a rock, and pulled myself up.
“Just turn around slowly,” Max said.
I did turn and a flush of confidence came over me.
“There’s really nothing to it,” Max said; “but we won’t go on till you feel comfortable with it.”
“I’ll never feel comfortable with it, but I think I’m better now.”
“The thing you’ve got to watch out for is loose rock under your feet. Watch every step.”
We took it slowly. Max walked with ease in the center of the trail while I inched along, hugging the wall. My confidence came and went with the dips of the ledge. Max paused occasionally to wait until I caught up. The trail dipped out of sight around the mountain and he waited for me there. It climbed slightly to another point, where it curved inward again. I was moving faster now, more out of eagerness to be done with it than any newly found courage, and we reached that final turn together. And there it was, the scene of the photograph, exactly as I remembered it. The trail ended in a small flat spot at the base of the mountain, and the cave was there among the rocks. The only difference was that, since the time of the pictures, a large part of the trail had broken away, leaving only two feet of ledge for a ten-yard stretch.
“That’s a bitch,” Max said. “We’ll have to use a rope to get across.” He tied us together and positioned me in a sitting position well back from the break. “If anything breaks loose, all you have to do is hold my weight for a minute till I can climb out.”
He walked across to the other side. “Looks good,” he said. “You’re a bit heavier than I am, but it shouldn’t give you any trouble. Keep the rope tied to you, just to be sure.”
Starting across was the hardest part. Once out on the broken rock, it was easier to go forward than back. I walked side-step, my back against the wall, but watching each step and unable to resist glancing beyond my feet into the yawning canyon beneath them. Max was waiting for me at the other side, his hand outstretched. I took the hand and pulled myself clear.
