Crisscross Moon - 20. Chapter 20

20.

In the morning, we packed up and crawled out of the cave. The light was good to see. The sun was good to feel. And Cory almost instantly had his shirt off.

"I really need a shower," he said.

"I'll go for that."

"And some food, and some coffee, and then we can look at the maps."

"I don't really need a map," I reminded him.

"You know what we're looking for?"

I nodded. "Yeah... streams."

"Ones that're close by."

We still weren't far from the cave.

"Even if we just stuck to the nearby streams," I said, "we'd have plenty to explore."

"How many are there?"

I didn't know, and I wasn't sure anyone had ever counted them. "There are streams all over the park," I told him, "and who knows where one starts and ends? They all kind of connect."

"Do some go underground?"

"I'm sure a lot of them do. Again, it's not something I've checked. Maybe most of them do... Eventually."

"Are there some that connect to the caves? Not just your family cave... Any?"

I'd never traced that out, either. I knew a number of caves had water in them, and a number of caves connected to others. Most of the deeper ones seemed to, and that's where many of the streams appeared. But I'd never mapped out which streams started on the surface, went underground, flowed from one cave to another, and then came back to the surface. That possibly happened in the deepest caves, which were also the most dangerous, and the ones I'd been in least. My family cave wasn't deep. It was pretty much right on the surface, safely inside a hill. That was another reason I didn't think there was ever water in it.

I told all this to Cory, and he seemed to absorb it. "Then let's just start with the streams near your cave. We'll see where that takes us."

First, we went back to the house and cleaned up. That was partly useless because we were just going to get dirty again. But it felt good. Then we went out to eat.

Over breakfast, I asked, "How did you feel about sleeping in the cave?"

Cory hesitated. "It was different than I thought."

"How?"

Again, he needed to think. "It wasn't claustrophobic... That was a surprise... 'Cause I was sure that... once I knew we couldn't get out till morning... I'd feel trapped."

"It's not like we were sealed in." I'm sure he knew what I was thinking,

"Not sealed... But if we needed to get out quickly... Well, I'm sure it's a lot easier to hike the trails during the day... Just being able to see them..."

"There's no reason we'd need to get out..."

"If I got bitten by a snake... If you did..."

"Most of the snakes are harmless. Besides, they like the sun. And the trail back to the car is easy to follow, even at night."

"You've done it before?"

"A couple of times."

"Why?"

I hesitated, not wanting him to think I was talking about him. "Well... people I was with panicked..."

He smiled. "So people do that?"

"Sometimes... 'Specially if they've had too much to drink."

"Or something else that makes them paranoid." He said that while laughing.

"I'd never say that in a national park."

"But we're not in the park... We're in a restaurant... And not the classiest one, either."

"Best we have to offer."

Cory again laughed. But he seemed just a little relieved. "At least, I didn't cause trouble for you. I'm glad about that."

"Nah... it was fun." I didn't tell him that I couldn't imagine him panicking because that might be too personal a compliment. I was about to add something else but also had to think before I asked. "Did you dream?" I finally said.

He looked at me then needed time to consider. "A little," he admitted. "But not about the cliff dwellers." He didn't go on.

"About spirits?"

"About cars." He grinned. "Is that too weird?"

I laughed. "Were they haunted?"

"No... just newer than mine." He looked down at the table as if to buy time. Then he looked at me. "I don't obsess about anything... Not caves... or spirits... or guys..." He smiled when he mentioned the last. "At least not as much as I do about cars... I've been wanting a new one for years."

"Why? That one's great."

"And it was when I was 16."

We both laughed.

"It's not like we're 65..." He was my age - 24. I knew that from his driver's license, too.

"But the car was old when I was 16... And, yeah, it's a classic... But still..."

He seemed embarrassed, so I headed somewhere else. "Maybe you were more comfortable than you thought last night... That you didn't really dream..."

He shrugged. "It's weird that I even had to think to answer. I should've known right off."

"Maybe you needed sleep more than anything. We didn't get a lot on Friday night."

"That's probably it." Though the mention of Friday seemed to bother him. "I forgot it's already Sunday. We've used up two days..."

"More like a day-and-a-half...."

"But I can't stay here forever... I've got classes..."

"How soon?"

He considered. "I've got a couple more days..."

"Then maybe we'll find something this morning."

(continued)