A Boy Called Duct Tape (13 page)

“Harder!” Kiki screamed.

Seated on the floor, legs extended, my feet were planted on either side of the opening. I leaned back and pulled the rope with all my strength, the muscles in my arms and legs burning with pain. Monroe was on his knees behind me tugging with powerful grunts.

But there was no give in the rope.

“Again!” Kiki screamed. “I’m in the tunnel, but the bear has my foot!”

In my mind’s eye I could see Kiki being dragged in two directions. Hands pulling her one way, jaws pulling her another. The pain in my chest got worse.

“Again!” Kiki cried.

With a sudden jerk, the rope became slack, and Monroe and I tugged until the rope was again stretched tight.

“I’m free!” Kiki yelled.

I couldn’t ever remember anyone’s voice sounding so joyful.

I went to work, digging out my first-aid kit. I removed Kiki’s sock and applied ointment to the teeth marks in the sole and arch of her foot. Panic still held Kiki in its grasp, and she sat on the cold cave floor shivering with fright. Pia hovered over Kiki like a mother hen, consoling her with light pats on her shoulder.

“You’re okay now,
primo
,” Pia said in a warm, comforting tone.

I wondered if Kiki was in shock. I decided she wasn’t. Just scared. Very scared.

“Close call, Kiki Flores,” Monroe observed, standing over her and smiling a little. “Darn lucky.”

Her face as pale as death, Kiki acknowledged Monroe’s comment with a stiff nod, her body continuing to tremble uncontrollably. “Bears … they eat more … more than berries, don’t they … Monroe?” Kiki asked, her eyes watering.

It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, Kiki. They do.”

“I’m glad I didn’t know that,” she said in a whisper-soft voice. Kiki opened her mouth, lowered her head and let loose a gagging dry heave. For a moment I thought the dry heave might develop into something a little wetter. But it didn’t. Two more noisy dry heaves and it was over, and Kiki leaned back against the wall, drew her knees up to her chest, and closed her eyes.

The
clitter
-
clatter
of Kiki’s headlamp being slapped around by the angry bear resounded through the hole. Every minute or so, the bear would poke its head into the tunnel and bellow in frustration—it was way too big to fit into the hole—and after a few minutes it became quiet. Monroe squirmed back through the hole to the other side.

With me towing all the way, Monroe emerged from the tunnel a few minutes later with Kiki’s hiking boot and headlamp. It was hard to say which had suffered more—both were badly mangled.

Kiki said the boot was okay to wear, and after Monroe replaced the bulb in the lamp and straightened the bracket that held the bulb in place, it worked fine.

Kiki slipped on her headlamp and looked at me. In a quiet voice, she said, “I just have one thing to say.” She blew out a big breath. “Whew!” Kiki’s eyes confirmed her fear.

“Ditto,” I said, the pain in my chest fading.

I unfolded the treasure map on the cave floor in the white glare of my headlamp. Everyone gathered around it and studied the cave’s intricate network of tunnels and rocky lairs. The map did not show a fork in the corridor leading from the Hotel Lobby to the next site, the Boulevard of Chandeliers. And it didn’t show the burrow we had just crawled through—it showed one continuous line with two dead-end spurs, one to the right, the next to the left.

It was confusing, and each of us tried to explain it.

“A mapmaker’s error,” Monroe said. “Perhaps in his haste to chart the honeycomb of caves and tunnels, Jesse James or one of his gang members, had simply made a mistake.”

It was the first time Monroe had said Jesse James
and
the map in the same breath, and I was stoked by his idea that the two were connected.

Monroe went on to say that he had charted caves in the past, and had gone back a second time only to find his first map was wrong.

“Maybe one of the tunnels wasn’t around way back when they made the map,” Pia guessed.

“Not bad thinking,” Monroe said. “But that theory overlooks the fact that the formation of caves and tunnels takes thousands of years.”

“Oh, sure,” Pia said.

“Well, I think the mapmaker knew what he was doing,” Kiki said. “Did you ever think that it’s not a mistake, that he did this on purpose, to be sure no one found the treasure?”

“Why make a map at all, then?” I asked. “Why even mention the treasure?” Kiki seemed to think about that, but Monroe let out a dismissive
harrumph
.

I went on to say that I believed both tunnels led to the Boulevard of Chandeliers. “Why map two corridors leading to the same place?” I wondered aloud.

“We should separate into pairs and explore each tunnel,” Monroe suggested.

I didn’t like the idea of Monroe pairing up with either Pia or Kiki. But I didn’t like the idea of the girls going off on their own either. I guess the reluctance showed on my face.

“What’s the problem, Pablo?” Monroe asked.

“I, uh … it’s just …”

“You don’t trust me, do you, Pablo?” Monroe said.

It took all my willpower, but I said, “Sorry, Monroe, but, no … not completely.”

“That’s too bad,” Monroe said. “Your life is in my hands and you don’t trust me. Sad—very sad.” Monroe shook his head like a man who had just been told there was a death in the family.

“I trust you, Mr. Huff,” Pia said, “even if Pablo doesn’t.”

“Thank you, Pia,” Monroe sighed.

A heavy silence fell over us.

Finally, Monroe looked at me in the spotty darkness and said, “What is it about me that you do not trust? Perish the thought, but is it my looks? Do I appear to you like some abnormal creature from a carnival freak show?”

I quietly thought about Monroe’s question. I hadn’t stopped to think much about why I had a funny feeling about him, but maybe Monroe was right. Maybe I didn’t trust him because of the way he looked. That was pretty shallow. Not much different from that and not liking someone because they wore duct-taped sneakers.

“Nobody trusts a face like mine,” Monroe said. “It’s a burden I have carried all my life.”

Somewhere in the network of caves came the gentle dripping of water.

Kiki broke the chilly deadlock. “Monroe and I will take the tunnel to the left,” she said. “Pablo, you and Pia go to the right. Let’s synchronize watches.” Kiki’s head bent forward, the shaft of light from her headlamp shone on her wristwatch. “I have 3:34.”

My eight-dollar Walmart watch was off a couple of minutes and I reset it.

The plan called for each pair to hike down their respective tunnel until 4:30 p.m.—or until one pair found the Boulevard of Chandeliers—returning no later than 5:30.

“That’s a good plan, Kiki,” Monroe said. “We’ll leave our backpacks here, but first let’s see if either of these tunnels is a dead-end.” He glanced at me. “Are you in agreement, Pablo?”

I said that I was.

Monroe stepped into the first tunnel and lit a match. It bent slightly. “There’s an exit down this one,” he said, dousing the match and stepping into the mouth of the other tunnel where he fired up a second match.

I could see the flame. It remained pointed toward the ceiling.

“Dead-end,” Monroe noted.

“What does that mean?” Pia asked.

“Actually, not much,” Monroe said. “There’s no guarantee that this so-called treasure is hidden in a chamber with an exit. Pablo’s toy map shows the treasure in the Cathedral. Maybe that place is a dead-end. Besides, my match experiments aren’t foolproof.”

We split up and entered the two tunnels.

“Pablo, why don’t you trust Mr. Huff?” Pia asked. “I think he’s nice.”

We were making our way down the gloomy tunnel, shoving the darkness aside.

“Yeah, he
is
nice.” I took a quick sip of chilly air. “I’m not sure why I don’t trust him.”

“You should trust him.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll
try
.”

I tilted my head and turned my headlamp toward the ceiling. It was decorated with a layer of coral-like formations. The wall to our right was dappled with tiny white stones that looked like hen’s eggs, the left wall with sheet-like scaffolding that reminded me of window curtains. It was almost like we were walking through a museum of natural history.

Continuing on, we entered a tunnel whose ceiling rose to a height of 40 feet. Water seeped through the ceiling to form clusters of stalactites.

“This must be the Boulevard of Chandeliers,” I said, my light bouncing from stalactite to stalactite. “The map’s right again.”

“They’re awesome,” Pia said, craning her neck toward the high ceiling, the beam from her headlamp skipping from one formation to the next.

Even though they looked cool, I had the feeling that one of the stone clusters might break loose at any moment and come crashing down on us. Some of the heavier formations
had
pulled away from the ceiling at some point in time—
Maybe during that tremor a few
days ago
, I thought—and now lay in scattered pieces on the tunnel floor. Pia and I stepped over and around the remains of some of the larger stalactites.

“Should we go back now?” Pia asked, her light stabbing the gloom before us.

I checked my watch. Still plenty of time. “Five more minutes, then we’ll go back.”

Pia turned her head toward me. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Pools of water had formed on the smooth belly of the tunnel, and we stepped around those as well. Thin shelves had been shaped along the walls by some long-ago underground river, and bunches of tiny stalactites had sprouted from the shelves. The place had an eerie look to it, and there was a sharp odor that burned our nostrils.

“What’s that smell, Pablo?” Pia asked, pinching her nose. “It smells like that stuff Mom uses to clean the bathroom.”

“Ammonia, I think.”

I checked my watch: 3:55.

“How’s the leg, Pia?” I asked.

“It’s okay. Doesn’t hurt much.”

“Much?”

“It felt better when we were on the river.”

“It was the heat,” I said. “Heat’s good for bad bones and muscles. Cold isn’t so good.”

“Oh.”

“When it starts hurting too much we’ll stop and rest.”

“Okay, but I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“What will we do with all the money after we find the treasure?”

I grinned. “A house for Mom and us, and we’ll get your leg fixed.”

“And maybe cell phones?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t they fix my leg after the accident?”

“Don’t know, Pia. Something about insurance.”

“After we find the treasure the first thing I’m going—” Pia interrupted herself with a tiny screech. “What was that?” She jerked her head left, then right, her headlamp sketching the walls and ceiling.

“What was—?” Something swished past my head. It darted in and out of the beam from my light. “Bats!” I cried.

“Bats?” Pia howled. “Gross!”

The bats filled the air around us, passing overhead and rustling in the darkness. It reminded me of a scene from a horror movie. Only this wasn’t make-believe.

“Up there!” I said. “They’re coming out of that crack!”

Pia’s headlamp beam merged with mine to reveal a wide crack high on the wall. “Where are they going?” Bats were pouring out of the wall like water from a hose.

“Must be supper time,” I said.

The bats soon disappeared and the cavern silence returned.

Pressing forward, we saw something that brought Pia and me to a sudden stop. Nuzzling close, Pia grabbed my hand.

My eyes bulging with fear, my feet rooted to the cave floor, I stared at the thing.

And the thing stared back.

“Pablo, I can feel my heart beating,” Pia said, squeezing my hand.

I wanted to say something comforting to my sister, but my tongue was paralyzed. My instinct was to grab Pia and run, but my legs were glued to the tunnel floor.

Before us in the Boulevard of Chandeliers, perched on a thin ledge a few feet off the cave floor, sat a dead body. It wasn’t a skeleton, but it wasn’t a person either. It was something in between. Most of the nose had been eaten away, and both eyes—which looked like rotting grapes—hung from empty sockets by stringy tendons. The body wore ragged bits of a gray suit, a white tie around its neck. Arms folded in its lap, the corpse’s legs were crossed like some celebrity on a talk show. A full set of teeth scrunched a fat cigar, or what was left of one.

The skeleton seemed to be smiling. It seemed to be alive.

Taking baby steps, and hand in hand, Pia and I approached.

The skeleton’s forehead was stamped with a small opening about the size of a quarter.

A bullet hole
, I guessed.

Suspended from a thin wire, a strip of wood hung from the skeleton’s neck. A message had been written in pencil on the wood:

Here sits Woodrow Botine, a Pinkerton detective slow on the draw. He were the first and last to have a go at Jesse’s gold.

My fear was smothered by a surge of wild excitement. “Totally awesome!” I cheered, my joy echoing down the black tunnel. I picked up Pia under her arms and whirled her around in one great circle. “Totally awesome!” I cried out again, twirling her around and around.

“Pablo! You’re scaring me!” Pia squawked. “Put me down!”

“Oh! Sorry!” I placed her back on the cave floor.

“Why are you so … so happy?” Pia gasped, looking at me like I’d gone mental.

“Don’t you see? The treasure really exists!” I clapped my hands. “It really exists!” Throwing my head back I shouted, “The treasure is real!”

My yell came back as an echo.

I gave Pia a crushing embrace.

“Pablo … I … can’t breathe,” Pia groaned.

“We heard yelling,” Kiki said.

“That was me,” I said, a grin frozen onto my lips.

It was a few minutes after 5:30 p.m., and the four of us had reassembled at the point where the two tunnels originated.

“Run into another possum, Pablo?” Monroe snickered.

“No!” Pia exclaimed. “We found—”

I clamped a hand over my sister’s mouth. “We’d rather show you than tell you,” I said, that Christmas-morning grin still stretching my lips.