The B Girls (21 page)

Lucy managed a half-hearted chuckle at that.
"Fine but if I die down here I'll never forgive you."

"You can haunt me forever," Jane said.

"We're gonna have to push our packs in ahead
of us," Mae said. "I'll go first. We should be able to get the packs
back on as soon as we get to the taller part of the tunnel."

Lucy watched, still a little horrified, as Mae
pulled her pack in front of her, shoved it into the hole and slid in after it.

"I'll go next," Jane said.

"No," Lucy said as she peeled the straps
of her pack off her shoulders. "I'm afraid I'll chicken out if I go
last."

Jane made a
go
ahead
gesture. "Be my guest. I'm in no hurry."

"You all coming?" Mae called from the
tunnel.

"Keep your pants on," Jane called back.

Lucy dropped her pack in front of the crack, took a
deep breath and went down after it. She pushed the pack into the hole and
looked back at Jane.

"Go," Jane said. "I'll be right
behind you."

Lucy gave her pack another shove and low-crawled
into the hole. Head, shoulders, torso. Another shove of the pack. Hips. Spots
danced across her line of sight. She reached out and pushed at her pack again.
It disappeared as Mae pulled it out of the tiny tunnel. More light bloomed once
the pack was free and Lucy could see the end. She crawled toward the opening
and her head popped out before her feet were all the way in the tunnel.
Yess!

The section of the tunnel she emerged into was wide
enough for her to move up next to Mae and out of the way of Jane coming in
behind her. She had to hunch over but at least she was on her feet and she
didn't feel like she was being smothered, at least not right away.

Jane popped out behind her pack. "Okay that
was a little scary."

Lucy looked ahead at what she could see of the
tunnel as she put her pack back on. It narrowed back down a little but
maintained its height as it curved away to the left.

"Ready?" Mae said once Jane had her pack
back on.

"No, but let's go anyway," Lucy said.
"You first." Now that they weren't faced with vertical challenges,
Mae seemed to be comfortable. Lucy wished she felt the same and kept telling
herself the walls weren't actually closing in around her. That first bit had
been tricky but it was over almost before it started. She refused to think
about having to crawl on her belly for any distance more than five feet.

Jane didn't look too happy either but she didn't
look like she was going to scream any time soon.

They trudged along for what seemed like hours but
when Lucy checked her watch was actually more like ten minutes. Her neck,
shoulders and back were screaming at the hunched over shuffle they had to do to
keep from banging their heads on the ceiling.

Lucy saw Mae duck her head to go under a ceiling
that suddenly dropped two feet.

"Oh." Mae said as her backpack brought
her up short. She backed up a step and dropped to her hands and knees looking
ahead into the smaller tunnel.

"Tell me it's only a couple feet," Lucy
said.

"Longer than that but I can't tell how
much." She crawled in a few feet then backed out and stood up. "I
don't think it gets any smaller and I don't think it goes like this for very
long."

"Do we have to crawl?" Jane asked looking
at the smaller opening.

Mae leaned down again. "Maybe not but it would
be a lot easier." She looked a Lucy. "What do you think?"

"That I'd really like to go home. But, we
don't have a choice. I think I'll be okay if it doesn't get smaller." She
wasn't even a little sure she'd be okay but as long as she kept telling herself
Belle was in danger she could at least try.

"Okay then." Mae dropped back down to her
knees and crawled into the lower tunnel.

Lucy closed her eyes and took several deep breaths
before following. She kept her thoughts focused on the pain in her knees and
off the tons of rock over head. The extra layer of the coveralls added a little
padding but the rock was still as hard as . . . a rock. She repeated
"ouch" in her head like a mantra every time a knee came down. How far
had they crawled? Twenty-five yards? Fifty? It felt like a mile. Even though
the tunnel was smaller, there was room above and to both sides so that she
didn't feel like she was being squeezed. Still . . . "How much
farther?" She was starting to feel like it was harder to breathe.

"I think we're close. The light is doing
something different up ahead."

Jane groaned behind Lucy. "Please. I think my
kneecaps are about done."

They shuffled on few more yards. "I see it.
We're almost there. It opens up again. I think it's another room."

The ceiling rose abruptly to what seemed cathedral height
after the Wes Craven horror show of the crack. In reality the ceiling rose to
ten feet above the floor.

Lucy scrambled to her feet, gulping in huge
draughts of air, and giving her whole body a shivering shake like a dog waking
from a nap.

"I've already scouted ahead," Mae said.
"The next part looks pretty easy. We have to climb down over there."
She pointed to the far right corner. "I don't think we'll have to use the
ropes. Lot's of easy holds."

Jane went off to check out the next hole in the
floor and Mae turned her attention back to Lucy. "Why don't you sit down,
catch your breath and have some water," she suggested.

Lucy found a convenient rock and sat down to pull
herself back together. The good new was she hadn't completely lost it. The bad
news was she had no idea what was still waiting in this awful place.

Jane came back before she could conjure up much of
a mental horror show.

"What about that next hole?" she asked.

"You're right," Jane said. "We
probably don't need the gear but I'm going to rig a rope anyway to be
safe." She unclipped her pack from the rope, unclipped the rope from
Lucy's harness and started to coil it back up.

"By all means let's be safe," Lucy said.
At this point she didn't think anything about this adventure was safe but pretending
to believe seemed the best course of action. At least it was better than
imagining her way into another panic attack.

Jane rigged a rope and each of them in turn clipped
on and made the climb down a corkscrew passage. It was a fairly easy climb with
foot and handholds in easy reach all the way down but it was nice to know the
rope was there in case any of them did something stupid.

Lucy stepped down into the next room and unclipped
from the rope trying not to think about the fact that the two climbs had taken
them some fifty feet deeper under the mountain. Another fifty feet must
translate into many tons of additional rock and dirt overhead.

This room was about half the size of the one at the
bottom of the first shaft. Lucy could only hope the exit wasn't similar. Most
of the floor was covered by a spreading pool of water fed by a small
underground stream flowing from the far side of the room.

Lucy hadn't thought much about the small water
puddles they'd slogged through earlier, but now she couldn't help wondering
where the water came from and what happened down here when it rained. Afternoon
thunderstorms were a frequent occurrence this time of year.

Better not to think about it. Why add another layer
to the fear?

"Is it deep?" Mae asked.

Jane was standing at the edge of the pool staring
down into the perfectly clear water. "I don't think so. But I don't see a
way around it and we're going to get our feet wet."

"Maybe we should think about going back and
getting more supplies, warmer clothes," Mae said. "How long have we
been down here?"

"Only about an hour and a half," Jane
said. "It's barely noon."

Only an hour and a half, she says. It was an
eternity to Lucy, but, "We don't have the luxury of going back and
starting again. Not to mention, there's no way I'm ever coming back down here
once I'm out. If I ever get out. Now I know why you can fit all the serious
cavers in the U.S. into a high school football stadium."

"Well how much further do we have to go?"
Mae asked.

Lucy took the map out and studied it. She wasn't
sure why she bothered, she already had it memorized and that whole "not to
scale" thing was more than true. "If Paul Morris drew this map
according to time instead of distance we're about a third of the way through."

"Another three hours?" Mae said.
"And then we have to get out. Another four hours. Even if we don't have
any problems it'll be dark by the time we get back to the van."

"We don't have a choice," Jane said.
"We have to have the Declaration tonight when Belle's kidnapper
calls."

"Fine. I'm just glad we packed those extra
protein bars and water bottles."

Jane started to edge around the pool.

Lucy could see they would indeed have to get wet
but if they were careful it looked like they'd only have to cross through a
small section on the left edge of the pool. Still, they'd have wet feet at the
very least, more if the pool was deeper than it looked.

Lucy didn't think getting wet was a good idea. She
was back to thinking about the hypothermia again. "Wait," she said.

Jane turned back to her with a questioning look.

"I think we should strip down, keep everything
dry and then get dressed on the other side. Being down here for another seven
or eight hours in wet boots or more . . ."

"Might kill us," Jane finished.

Lucy shrugged. "I don't know. I'm afraid I'm
pretty ignorant about how easy or hard it is to freeze to death but we know
it's somewhere around sixty degrees in here and if we're wet we might have
trouble."

"Makes sense," Mae said. "Being cold
for a few minutes instead of being wet and cold for hours."

Jane moved away from the edge of the pool and
started to strip off her clothes and stuff them in her pack. Mae and Lucy did
the same.

"Skinny dipping in a cave," Jane said.
"This is definitely one for my list of things I never dreamed I'd do in my
lifetime."

"I don't think we need to get completely
naked," Mae said she stuffed a sock in her boot. "Bra and panties
should do it."

"You sure know how to suck the fun out of
things," Jane said.

Mae shot her a look. "Get naked if you want. I
certainly don't care. I just don't think it's necessary."

"I bet you were one of those girls who kept a
towel wrapped around you at all times in the locker room."

"So? What's wrong with being modest?"

Jane snorted. "Nothing if you're a nun."

Lucy scowled at the two of them. "Ladies, now
is not the time for arguing."

"We're not arguing. We're sparring," Jane
said.

"And now you're arguing with me," Lucy
said. She stuffed her jeans into her pack. "Let's go."

Jane shouldered her pack and took the lead with a
lot of muttered "ouches" she edged around to the spot where the pool
met the wall.

Lucy couldn't blame Jane for muttering, her feet
weren't exactly happy to be tiptoeing over tiny pebbles and gritty, uneven rock
without protection either.

"Here goes," Jane said and dipped a toe
in the water. "Yow! That's cold."

"Just get it over with," Mae said from
behind Lucy. "It's easier if you just plunge right in."

Jane took a deep breath and stepped into the pool.
"There's a little pull," she said. "But it's not too bad."

"All that water is going somewhere," Lucy
said. "There must be a hole in the bottom somewhere."

"I hope it's not big enough to suck one of us
in," Mae said.

Jane continued to move through the water, steadying
herself on the wall as she went. "Don't worry it isn't as strong as a good
Gulf tide around your ankles. And I don't think it's going to get much
deeper."

She made it across the eight feet or so of the
pool, the water never rising above mid-calf.

When she stepped up on the other side, Lucy went
next. She hadn't been kidding about the cold. The water was icy on her bare
skin. Goosebumps rose over her entire body and she shivered her way across very
glad she would have dry clothes and boots on the other side. Well, except for
the still-damp seat of her coveralls.

Lucy slogged her way across and out. Mae followed
behind and had a few shockingly graphic words for the cold water.

They used bandanas from their packs to dry off the
best they could and hurried to get their clothes back on.

Dressed and relatively dry, Lucy looked around for
the next passage in caving hell. This time it was easy to spot in the smooth
wall of the room. She groaned. "I can't believe we went through all that
and we're going to get wet any way."