A Boy Called Duct Tape (7 page)

Then in a slow, spooky voice Monroe said, “Go home, children. Ask yourselves this question: Will traveling deep inside the womb of Mother Cave bring you closer to the one true God? Do that, and then come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked, disappointed.

“Tomorrow.”

Cradling the cat in his arms, Monroe got up from the rocking chair and went to the door. He pulled his sunglasses down, opened the door, and looked up into the afternoon sky. “I see a bad moon rising, children,” he said. He motioned us to leave. “Tomorrow.”

We decided that Monroe Huff was not the guide of our dreams—he was way too creepy—and early the next morning Kiki did a quick Internet search on her Smart Phone. She found a single listing for JAMESVILLE SPELUNKERS—GUIDES
.
The service operated out of Miller’s Sporting Goods on the northwest corner of the square.

We biked the short distance into town.

The manager of Miller’s Sporting Goods was a man in his early 30s named Barry Short. Although Barry’s aftershave lotion was strong enough to bring tears to your eyes, he did seem to know the business of spelunking, and he got right to the point.

“My rates are $40 an hour, or 300 a day, whichever is greater,” Barry said as he bent to restock a shelf with fishing lures. “I assume no liability for accidents, and I furnish none of your gear. The group cannot exceed five, counting myself, and I don’t do overnighters.”

Overnighters?
It suddenly occurred to me that we might be in the cave—if we ever found the cave—overnight. That changed everything.

Barry dropped to one knee and paused to read the bar code on a new carton of JAKE’S LURES. He stuffed the box onto a shelf with other fishing products, then looked up at me and picked up where he’d left off.

“The length of the hike cannot exceed 4,000 yards horizontally or 200 yards vertically. And I never guide during a rainstorm or during the 24-hour period following a rainstorm.” He looked at me like I was the dumbest person in the world. “Caves flood.”

“Yeah, caves flood,” I agreed, glancing at Kiki, who stood next to me giving impatient, too-much-data sighs. Pia was poking around in the camping equipment on the other side of the store.

“One other thing,” Barry said. “I guide only in caves that have been charted by the state.”

Kiki and I exchanged another telling glance. We seemed to be thinking the same thing—Barry Short was too finicky.

“There are a couple of other guides in the area, but we all work pretty much the same,” Barry said. “Except for Sam Rozard. He’s cheaper, but he’s also been lost twice in the past year—once in Crystal Cave and another time in Wildcat Cave.” Barry snorted. “He’s a real amateur, if you want my opinion, but he is cheaper.”

“Ever heard of a man named Monroe Huff?” Kiki asked.

Barry got to his feet. The whites in his eyes grew wide and he turned pale. “Yeah, I heard of him,” he said, grimace in his voice. “He’s like a, uh, like a freaking
animal
.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He lived in Bluff Dwellers Cave for two years,” Barry said. “People say he ate frogs—live ones.” Barry’s face scrunched up into a frown. “Can you imagine that?”

“No, thanks,” Kiki said with a small smile.

I grinned inwardly. Having met Monroe, the story didn’t surprise me.

The three of us left the store and went outside.

I was worried about how I would pay for a cave guide—it hadn’t occurred to me until now—but Kiki made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, as the saying goes.

“Don’t sweat the money,” Kiki said, almost like she was reading my mind. “I’ve got all my summer money—$200—and it’s my treat.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

“You and Pia can pay me back after we find a treasure.” Kiki’s face was shining like a new penny. “Consider it a loan.”

“What if we
don’t
find the treasure?” I asked.

“Hmmm, then I guess I’ll have to sue you,” Kiki said, her eyes twinkling.

I nodded. “Deal.”

“But I vote against Barry Short.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said. “Monroe Huff is looking better all the time.”

“Despite a few character flaws.”

“What’s a character flaw?” Pia asked. She had spent her last dime on a piece of rock candy, and she was talking through the clatter against her teeth.

“It’s a personality trait you overlook if you want something bad enough,” I said.

Kiki laughed. “Good one,
primo
!”

“When you enter a hotel,” I said, “you’re in the hotel lobby. That’s the first thing you come to.” I laid a finger on the map’s designation called the Hotel Lobby. It was a short distance from the Cave Entrance.

“That makes sense,” Kiki said, her eyes trained on the map
.
“So the first thing you come to in the Jesse James cave is—”

“—the Hotel Lobby,” I finished.

We were seated in our customary booth at Lyda’s Café, the one-dollar treasure map stretched out on the table before us. We were trying to make sense of the old drawing. We had established one fact: The long journey inside the cave started at the Hotel Lobby.

“What about the …?” Pia was verbally in over her head, and she looked at me, her finger resting on the map’s next stop.

“Boulevard of Chandeliers,” I said, pronouncing each word distinctly.

“Yeah, what you just said,” Pia said.

“I have an idea about that,” Kiki said, looking up from the map. “You know those rock formations that hang down from cave ceilings? I’ll bet that’s what the mapmaker meant by Boulevard of Chandeliers. I can’t remember if they’re called stalactites or stalagmites.”

“I remember this from science,” I said. “Stalactites are fastened
tight
to the ceiling. Stalagmites
might
grow to the ceiling. It couldn’t be anything else. It’s a long tunnel or cavern filled with stalactites hanging from the ceiling like chandeliers.”

“But it’s this Death Cake thing that has me confused,” Kiki said, pointing to the words written longhand on the map. Death Cake was the next stop after the Boulevard of Chandeliers on the curving, twisting route to the treasure. “Confused and a little scared. What the heck could that possibly be? How could a cake kill you? Unless you ate it.”

“Maybe some sort of trap,” I speculated.

Pia’s eyes grew wide and she uttered a soft moan.

“It’s okay, Pia,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if it was true. “The person who drew this map probably wanted to scare people away from searching for the treasure.” I took a sip of my drink.

“Oh.” Pia didn’t seem convinced.

“The only thing I can imagine is a rock formation shaped like a big cake,” Kiki offered, “but that doesn’t seem possible and besides, how could that kill a person?”

“This location is a little easier to understand,” I said, gazing at the next designation: Lake With Dam. “It’s probably some sort of underground lake or pond with a—what else?—dam.”

“What could have made the dam?” Pia asked.

I shook my head. “Don’t know.”

“Maybe beavers.” Pia beamed. “They’re good at making dams.”

I gave a gentle laugh. “No beavers in caves, Pia. In fact, no animals of any kind.” I looked at Kiki. “Are there?”

“I sure hope not.”

My eyes moved from Lake With Dam to the next stop: Church Organ. “I can’t even guess what Church Organ might be.” I looked at Kiki. “You?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe Jesse James carried a big old church organ into the cave,” Pia said. “Maybe he liked to play the organ.”

I shrugged. It made as much sense as anything I could come up with.

Kiki moved her finger to the next spot on the map: Room of Ghosts. She seemed at a loss to explain it. “I’m not sure …” was as far as Kiki could get. She seemed uneasy.

“Is it a room full of ghosts, Pablo?” Pia asked, her eyes fixed on mine.

I was quick to answer. “No such thing as ghosts.” I could offer no more of an explanation because I was also clueless about the name.

“Then why did someone write Room of Ghosts?” Pia continued, her dark eyes filled with uncertainty.

“I agree with Pablo. The mapmaker wanted to scare people away from searching for the treasure,” Kiki said.

“They’re doing a good job of it,” I said with an anxious grin. It quickly melted away.

“Uh, if there are ghosts in that room,” Pia said, “then there must be ghosts everywhere. Ghosts don’t just stay in one place.” She removed her straw from her drink and sucked it dry.

“I’ll bet the words are like some sort of symbol for something else,” I said, trying my best to recover the grin.

“What kind of
something
else
?” Pia urged.

“Maybe they’re rock formations or something that looks like ghosts,” I said. “But there is no such thing as ghosts.”

“You’re only 12, Pablo,” Pia reminded me. “You don’t know everything about ghosts.”

Pia was right, and I shrugged. “I guess we’ll know when we get there.”

“Mother Nature must have created something that looks like pictures on the walls,” Kiki added. “Some sort of—like Pablo said—natural formations.”

“Or somebody drew them,” I suggested. I didn’t know if I believed that or not. Room of Ghosts. That was way too weird.

“Right. Or somebody drew them,” Kiki agreed.

“Maybe somebody lives down there,” Pia said, her voice solemn.

I started to laugh, but stopped myself at the last moment. Maybe Pia was right.

Total silence.

“Somebody had to make that dam,” Pia said. “And somebody had to carry that church organ down there.”

“If somebody lives down there,” Kiki said, her eyes blinking anxiously, “I don’t
even
want to know about it. Count me out.”

“I don’t think anyone lives down there,” I said. “What the heck would they eat?”

More silence.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Kiki said. She moved her finger along the map until it came to rest on the Graveyard. “More creepiness. A graveyard can only mean one thing.”

“What?” Pia asked.

“Well, uh, like dead bodies,” Kiki said, her brow knitted.

“Maybe an animal graveyard,” I said. “I’ve heard of pet cemeteries. Maybe it’s something like that.”

Kiki shuddered, and moved on to the next point on the map: Magic Rock
.
“What’s so magical about a rock?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t even guess.

“I think I know what the maker of this map meant by the Cathedral,” Kiki said, tapping the final location on the drawing. “My guess is that it’s a really big cavern, sort of like a church cathedral.”

“I agree,” I said. I’d made the same observation the first time I’d looked at the map.

“That’s where the treasure is, right?” Pia asked, noting the X near the word
Cathedral
.

“Yeah, if there
is
a treasure,” Kiki said.

“You mean if there’s even a cave,” I noted.

We settled in with our own thoughts.

Kiki looked up with a wide grin. “Wouldn’t it be cool if this map
was
authentic, and it had been in plain sight all these years?”

My eyes lit up. “Very cool.”

“So are we ready to do this?” Kiki asked, looking at me and then Pia.

“You bet!” I exclaimed.

“Pablo, are you sure?” Pia asked, squirming a little in her seat.

“Sure about exploring the cave? Yeah, I’m sure.”

She shook her head. “No, not that.”

I could hear the hesitation in my sister’s voice. I said, “Sure about what?”

“Are you sure nobody lives down there?”

We laid our bikes in the tall grass in front of Monroe Huff’s cabin and stared wide-eyed at the bloody carcass. The hunk of raw meat was suspended by a rope from the rocky overhang that protected Monroe’s log home. It was the size of a deer. Monroe had skinned the animal, and now stood beside it, his knife poised above the deer’s belly.

The big black crow we’d seen the day before was still perched on the same lower branch of a towering oak tree. The bird studied our every move.

Monroe was barefoot. He was wearing knee-length, plaid shorts, and a blood-splattered T-shirt that read:
A Spelunker’s Prayer
.
The prayer itself was spotted with bloodstains. Monroe’s strange, side-shield sunglasses protected his eyes from the bright afternoon sunlight.

“Gross!” Pia moaned. “What’s that?”

“A deer,” I said, my eyes tracing the bloody animal corpse.

“Or what’s left of one,” Kiki observed, wincing.

The muscles in his neck bulging, Monroe’s knife slid down the pink belly of the carcass, opening up the stomach. He stepped back, and blood, intestines, and a bunch of organs I couldn’t identify splashed onto the ground.

“Double gross!” Pia groaned, turning away.

“Pablo, is this the man we want to entrust with our lives?” Kiki asked in a hushed voice.

Monroe inserted his hand into the stomach and scooped more stuff out.

“I would rate his survival skills high,” I said, trying to put a positive spin on the gruesome scene. “Isn’t that the kind of guide we want?” I could picture Monroe living on the frontier two hundred years ago with a coonskin hat and a flintlock rifle.

“I suppose so,” Kiki admitted. “But we don’t even know if he’ll agree to be our guide.”