Crisscross Moon - 10. Chapter 10

10.

We stayed in the cave till after 7:00, and it was nearly 8:00 when we got back to my house. I asked Cory where he wanted to sleep that night.

"Well, I was planning to stay in the park."

"Why do that when you can have a bed? Besides, you can't just eat tuna and peaches."

He thought for a moment. "Can I return them?"

I laughed. "They'll be lunch tomorrow."

"You really don't mind my staying here?"

"It's not a problem."

I showed him upstairs to Sallie's room. Then I showered upstairs while he showered in the basement. After that, we went out to eat. The best restaurant in town is also a bar and has pretty good bands on Friday and Saturday nights. So it was fairly busy. Cory was surprised at how good the music was, and I explained that the town was kind of known for that.

"What kind of music?" he asked.

"Little bit of everything. Mainly country-rock. Nashville-Austin sound."

"Neat."

Typical guy answer, maybe, but I was surprised at how well Cory danced. The guys I usually date are minimalists. Tiny steps. Maybe a shoulder shrug here and there. Still, it's not like I was dancing with Cory. The town's not that open. He was dancing with women, and I mainly watched.

Though people in the bar seemed surprised to see me. They saw me at the station and around town, but I hadn't been out a lot lately. There was no real reason, or not one I chose to explain. But I'd never planned to be living at home again and running the kind of dead-end family business. So maybe I was a little shy.

Cory and I didn't talk much. Partly because the music was pretty loud. More because we'd talked in the cave, and we'd talked in the car, and there was only so much we had to say to each other.

We got back to the house around 1:00. We'd both had a couple of beers, but the bar wasn't that far away, so driving wasn't dangerous. Cory already knew where he was sleeping, and my room was just across the hall. But I usually slept in my folks' bigger bed.

"'Night," he said as I headed upstairs.

"Want me to set an alarm?"

"Nah, I'm not gonna sleep late. What time do you want to leave?"

"Whenever."

"Fine."

I was on the landing when Cory added, "I'm gonna stay up for a while if you don't mind. There's some stuff I want to get on paper."

"Sure."

Just saying "Good night" might have seemed rude, but I was tired and figured I'd be out pretty fast. And I was. I slept for a couple of hours then woke a little before 3:00. I was surprised to see lights still on downstairs.

I thought about going down and turning them off. I expected to find Cory asleep on the couch - one of Sallie's old habits. "Dullest book in the world," she'd say when I woke her, but she said that about all her texts.

"Well, they are," she'd insist when I objected.

And I couldn't really argue. Occasionally, I'd look at the things she had to read and memorize, and it was all dry medical stuff. I admired Sallie for wanting to be a doctor. But I admired her more for being able to understand her texts. Mine were all easier, about poets and poetry.

I was still standing in the upstairs hall, thinking about checking on Cory, when I heard him move around.

"You OK?" I called.

"Yeah... Fine... Just about giving up."

"It's 3 o'clock," I added.

"I know, Dad."

By then, I was on the stairs. They open on the living room, so I could see Cory's books spread on the couch.

"I made myself coffee," he said. "Hope you don't mind."

I'd offered before, so I didn't mind. "That why you can't sleep?" I asked.

"Nah, coffee doesn't keep me up. I can drink a potful and still be out in seconds. It's more that I'm wound up about the caves."

I didn't understand. "Is this something you're doing for school?"

He hesitated. "Not really," he allowed. "It's more of a... Well, it's more personal than..." And then he stopped.

I waited. He looked at me. "I was sure it was for school," I said.

"Well, it's something I can turn into a paper," he began. "Maybe. It depends on what I find. Still, it's mostly... It's just something... I don't know... I can't easily explain..."

Or he wouldn't. By that point, I'd come further down the stairs. Cory was standing near the dining room. I guess he'd come back from the kitchen after dumping his coffee. We stared at each other for maybe a half-minute, then he said, "I need some sleep."

"What are all the papers?" I asked instead. I didn't mean to keep him awake, but I was curious. There were handwritten pages all over the coffee table.

"Just notes," he said. Not defensive, but just a little casual. He started to gather them, so I came down to help. For a second, he resisted. Then it seemed he'd make more of a fuss if he did.

"They're mostly impressions," he explained, I guess in case I happened to read anything. "About the layout of the cave... And how I felt about it... How I felt about possibly being in a place I'd been thinking about all these years."

"Years?" I asked, and Cory seemed to grow more guarded.

"I didn't mean to make it sound like that," he told me. "Actually, I didn't mean to say that at all. Guess I'm more tired than I thought..."

"Doesn't sound like you're obsessed," I joked. When he didn't react, I let it go, because he clearly wanted me to. But it confused me a little, because all afternoon I thought he'd been interested in burials and medicine. It seemed safe to ask if that was true..

"Some," he admitted. "But I'm always interested in those things 'cause they may end up being part of my work."

"But they're not why you're here?"

He shook his head but didn't go on. And I knew not to push

"It's no big thing," he soon explained, maybe sensing he'd been rude. By then, he'd put his papers away, so maybe he felt safer. "The cave's just part of a story... one I've heard since I was a kid... So seeing it for the first time... if it's really the right place... and trying to match what I saw to what I've pictured in my dreams..."

"Dreams?"

He laughed. "There I go again... making this sound too important. You'd think it was haunting me or something..." He hesitated, then slowly went on. "But I've heard about the caves all my life... I've been told about them... This afternoon, I was trying to put all the images together."

"Caves?" I asked. "There's more than one?"

Cory was silent for a moment, again like he'd said something he hadn't meant to. "There might be," he continued. "I think this one's too... small. What I kept looking for today... in all those cracks and crevices... was the entrance to a larger one."

I had to think about that. I'd been all over the cave for almost 20 years. My family had explored it far longer. But there'd never been any mention of a second one.

"There is no entrance," I said. "There's only one cave."

Cory considered that.

"Then maybe it's the wrong place."

"What are you looking for?" I asked. "What's the story?" I knew I was being too direct. But I really wanted to know.

Again, he hesitated, and it seemed he really didn't want to tell me. "It's kind of bad," he hedged.

"The sort of thing you dream about? You already told me that."

"Some," he admitted. "A little... But not terrible dreams. It's more the sort of story that... well, if it happened today... there'd be trials and lawsuits."

"Lawsuits?"

He nodded. "You know how customs change."

I did. But I still couldn't picture the cliff dwellers in a courtroom.

(continued)