Crisscross Moon - 31. Chapter 31

31.

We slowly moved forward. It's a lot easier to explore in hiking boots and dry clothes than in wet suits and booties, but at least we were warm. I would have liked dry hair and more batteries, but one flashlight would do. Cory and I walked side-by-side, while I scanned my beam around the cave.

"Will we have trouble finding our way back?" he asked after a while.

"If we don't go any further than we can with this light, we can use yours to get back."

"We can't get lost?"

"We can always get lost, but I think this is one big room... I haven't seen anything that says otherwise. There are no dark holes that look like side passages, and we don't have to go in them anyway. I think this is like my family cave... a lot of caves are. Let's just walk till we hit the end." I shined my beam ahead of us.

"Nothing," he said.

I shined my beam left. There was still a wall, maybe 20 feet away. I turned the beam right. There was the other wall, a little further than the first. I pointed my beam ahead again. Infinity.

"There are patterns to caves," I told him. "This is probably a long, narrow one. Look where the ceiling is." I pointed my beam up. "Pretty close. Again, like my family cave."

"You think they're part of the same one?"

I considered that. "I don't see how they can be. We never found an opening."

"Could they be connected?"

"Same problem."

"Then do you think there's an outside opening to this one, like the one to your family cave? Is this possibly where the cave dwellers really hid?"

I hesitated, trying to figure out how to say gently what I was beginning to think. But Cory was ahead of me.

"You think this cave is gonna be sealed, don't you?" he asked. "And we're gonna find bodies..."

"Not bodies..."

"Well, skeletons... bones..."

I had to admit there was a chance.

Cory was silent when I told him that, and we kind of stopped moving.

"I really don't think I can take that," he finally said. "I mean it's one thing to hear a story as a kid and then slowly begin to think it's actually history... But it's another to find the remains of a massacre..."

"There probably won't be a lot to see."

"But there's no reason why the bones would be buried... If the cliff dwellers couldn't get out... and if they were slowly dying... they couldn't bury the first people who died because of the stone floor... And it's cold enough here to preserve bones..."

I couldn't disagree.

"Maybe we should sleep," he suggested. "At least, for a while..."

I still wasn't sure that either of us could. But I said, "Whatever you want."

"No." He suddenly changed his mind. "I've got to know."

So we moved forward again. And I figured, Cory was a doctor. A scientist. He'd be able to take whatever we found.

Still, with only one beam, we couldn't move quickly and couldn't see a lot. I kept wanting to tell him to turn on his flashlight, but he just carried it. He almost held it like a club, as if he'd need it to protect himself.

From what, I wondered. Bears? Spirits? I would have loved to know what he was thinking.

The uneven floor continued to slow us. Sometimes, cave floors were naturally flat, but not this one. I had a better sense of where to step than Cory seemed to. But we were both limited by our wetsuits.

"What time is it now?" he finally asked. We still hadn't seen the far wall. And I couldn't guess the time without looking.

"Close to 3."

"It seems longer."

"It's the dark... And the fact we're both tired..."

"I still can't sleep... But if you want to try..."

I shined my light straight ahead of us. Still nothing. "Let's walk till we find the wall," I said.

"Are you sure we're going to?"

"We have to... All caves end."

"Is there anything particular I should be looking for? Other than the obvious?"

"Tell me the story again," I suggested, not entirely to distract him. I partly needed to remind myself. "What was the cave used for?"

"Hiding," he said.

"And what do you do if you have to hide for a long time?"

"Store food?"

"Yeah." But I hesitated. "Though there's still that 'Leave no sign.' There's a chance they got rid of everything."

"How... if they couldn't get out? And even if they did and came back and emptied the cave, afraid to ever use it again... you can't get rid of everything. There's always going to be some trace..."

"That's what I'm thinking... But at least we know one thing. They didn't need to store water."

"Do you think they could build a fire?"

"I don't know. I think there's fresh air... the cave smells that way. Or maybe it's like my family cave. There's some access but not enough."

"Your cave doesn't smell."

"And either does this one."

"I wish I had a match."

"What would you light?"

"Well, if we found wood..."

"If we found wood, there'd be no reason to light it... Because we'd know why it was here."

Cory laughed. "You're much better at this than I am."

"I've spent more time in caves."

He hesitated. "You picked up scuba fast enough."

"In a stream... I'd probably drown in the ocean."

"And you're keeping me calm."

"Because you're not the kind who panics... If you were, the bears'd be having a picnic."

He said nothing to that, and I didn't add that - if he'd panicked, and I'd come out of the water unwarned - the bears might have gotten me, too. We walked a while longer, and then my beam finally hit the end wall.

"Now we know where we are," I said. "I don't think we're really that far from the water... And I think that'd be more obvious if we could've moved faster and could see better... Now if we could just find something they carried the water in..."

But we couldn't.

"We're gonna wear out these batteries," Cory soon warned me, and he was right. My beam was already dimming.

"We can come back with more batteries... And stronger lights..."

"You think I'm coming back?"

I knew he was joking. "I think you're this close to an answer, and you're not giving up."

He laughed again. "I told you that last night."

"Yesterday..."

"I've completely lost track..."

"It's Monday..."

"...sometime after 3... About time to knock off..."

"You want to?"

"Yeah... though this time without cozy sleeping bags."

"We have deluxe wet suits..."

"Oh, yuck."

(continued)