The Messenger of Magnolia Street (21 page)

Monday, 7:44 P.M
.

"Blister, I orta knock you down.” Billy jumps back with a bloody imprint left on his shirt. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

“I done been knocked down.” Blister puts his hands on his knees, takes a deep breath. “And rolled over and over and over, I believe. You know,” he looks up at Billy with the scar side raised up and looking angry. “You know, I think I've had enough of this foolishness.”

“Blister, I've got to go,” Billy is still pushing glass out of the seat of Old Blue. Then he turns back to Blister and says again, “I've got to go.”

“Where's Trice?”

“In the cave. And in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

The ground beneath them shakes and rolls, threatening to cave in beneath their feet.

“Just pick your poison today, Blister. We got all kinds of trouble going on.”

“She lost down in the cave?”

“Can't say that she's lost. Yet. She's with Nehemiah, and they both know that cave.” He looks over his shoulder and in the distance back toward the opening in the ground. “Or they used to.” Then he pulls out their map, which is looking more worn and vulnerable by the minute, “But they dropped the map, so now they're going by memory.”

“It's gonna take more'n that to get them out again.” Blister looks at the back of his hand and then wipes it on his jeans. “My memory's not been working too good today, Billy. Kinda comes and goes in a scary way.” Blister looks up at a buzzard sitting on the lowest branch of an oak tree. He cocks his head sideways, trying to figure out the buzzard. Buzzards usually travel in packs or pairs. This one is alone. He turns his head and looks sideways at the buzzard with his better eye. The buzzard turns his head and looks sideways at Blister. Billy follows his stare.

“Don't worry, Blister. He's not gonna eat us while we're still standing.”

Blister doesn't take his eyes away from the bird. “I wouldn't be so sure of that. Now listen here, Billy,” he keeps his eyes locked in a dead stare with the buzzard, “we got to go get Trice. I got to tell her something before it's too late.”

“Blister, I know you mean well, but I ain't got time to fool around.” Billy's thinking Blister has never been one to run in a straight line. To cross from A to B without a delay. Or disaster.

“Listen here.” He grabs Billy's arm and hangs on tight. “You think you know that cave? You don't know nothing, Billy. Ain't nobody spent more time down there than me.”

“Oh really?” The ground swells and swallows again underneath their feet. “Since when is that?” They ride the ground like they are standing in a boat.

“Never mind all that. The truth is the truth.” From nowhere a gust of wind whips the trees into a frenzy. The buzzard's feathers rise and fall. His wings flap once, twice, and are down again. The wind dies as suddenly as it came. But it leaves an old, dead smell clinging to the trees. The buzzard keeps his eyes on Blister and Billy, lifts his feet and moves a few steps down the branch closer to them.

“I grew up plundering in that cave. Never saw you around.”

“Maybe it was before your time, boy. Did you ever think of that? Now come on.” He starts off walking through the woods toward the southern entrance.

“I can't, Blister.” Billy doesn't even have time to be modest. “I don't fit. I got to drive around and go in the other side.”

“Well, what are we standing around here for?” He walks to the passenger side of the truck, pushing glass from the seat while saying, “Get in, then, and let's ride.”

Billy pulls at his shirt collar. He is remembering the first night he and Nehemiah were down here. Remembers that awful feeling of choking. He looks at the buzzard one last time before he climbs into the truck. He cranks Old Blue, and the unlikely pair of Billy and Blister leave a trail of dry dust as Billy floors the pedal. They back out of the woods, take off down the road, passing by Blister's overturned truck in the process.

The long night will become one of the shortest of their lives if they don‘t pick up their pace. Their night will fall into an eternal darkness.

I lean forward and breathe on the back of the truck for good measure. Just a tiny breath. The buzzard is taken by surprise. Is blown sideways out of the tree, lands on the ground, staggering around shaking his head. A dazed predator not expecting a divine interruption.

Billy and Blister are stirring up a storm of their own as Old Blue leaves a dust trail a mile behind them. It will take them exactly twelve minutes thirty-one seconds to circumvent the roads and make their way back to the western edge of the springs. With Blister's limping it will take them seven minutes five seconds to cross through the woods to the cave's entrance. But they reach the entrance with dust in their mouths and determination in their eyes. Billy straps on his helmet, turns on the light. He hands the flashlight to Blister, who turns it on and then pulls Billy aside, makes him stop. “Listen here, if anything happens to me, anything peculiar, don't even slow down or turn back. You just keep on going. You understand?”

“Don't know what you're talking about, Blister.” Billy turns his helmet forward in the darkness, takes off at a pace faster than he likes to walk. Normally. Right now he would like to run, but this is not a place for running. This is a place of surprising drop-offs. Of twists and turns and optical illusions in the limited light. Where the darkness can go on ahead of a man for a thousand feet. Or suddenly drop perilously thirty feet down into a cavernous room of rock. Billy knows just such a room. And, unknown to him, so does Blister. It is a room that requires a person to walk slowly on the backbone of the dragon to reach the bottom. And another room, like a cathedral full of sparkling light, light like angels' wings covering the ceiling. It is a place of mystery that goes on forever. Full of surprises. But there is only one surprise that Billy wants to find right now. That is Nehemiah and Trice, safe and in the treasure room of Time.

There is an animal groan that pulls Billy and Blister up short. “Did you hear that?” Blister shines the light up into Billy's face. “Blister, aim that thing down out of my eyes. Of course I heard it.”

“What do you think it was?” He shines the light to the left and in front of them, but the sound seems to have no direction. It came from all around. “I think it is the whole earth complaining, Blister. I think it's saying it's thirsty. Parched to death.” Billy pulls at his collar again. Tries to swallow. Wishes he'd thought to bring a canteen.

Monday, 7:58 P.M
.

Nehemiah and Trice stop and listen to the sound as well. “Wind songs?” Trice asks.

“Can't be. No water. Wind songs come from the echoes of the water.” He shines his helmet back and forth before them. “No water,” he says again. And wishes he'd thought to fill the canteens before they left the house. The corridor before them is growing narrower and narrower, a throat closing them up inside. Nehemiah is trying his best, but he doesn't quite remember this part. He is trying to remember being seven. And seventeen. Trying to look with a different view, through an old pair of eyes. A different air hits Nehemiah's nose. An old, old but familiar smell.

“To the right, Trice.” And they turn their headlamps to the right. There, just ahead of them, six feet wide, four feet high, is their crawl space.

“It's the Tiger's Mouth.” Trice smiles in the dark. It's the first thing they've recognized. It belongs to them. It's the first thing that they had named. Named it for the way it curved up. For the cracks
in the rocks that looked like whiskers on both sides. They had named every tunnel and curve. Every cavern and rain room. They all belong to them. At least once upon a time in their world. And hopefully, one more time, they will tonight.

They crawl in side by side, elbowing their way along. “Don't jump out too fast,” Nehemiah warns her.

“It's okay. I remember.”

They crawl over, and carefully, very carefully, slide their feet around to the edge. It's another reason Billy didn't need to come this way. The rock floor runs narrowly around the wall and immediately beyond their feet is a blackness that drops farther than they can measure. Nehemiah is wishing he had remembered to tie Trice to him, but it's too late. They edge their way along, holding onto the rock to their right. Carefully working their way deeper and deeper into the cave. They don't speak. Now they are counting steps. It will take fifty-seven steps to reach the first rain room. A rain room rains in all seasons. But not this one. Not now.

Monday, 8:01 P.M
.

Billy and Blister have maneuvered their way through three tunnels and argued over which way to go on their fourth turn, with Billy finally relenting to Blister. Crawling for ten feet through a small, twisting, turning, cavernous tunnel that Billy could barely fit through. Now he is wishing he had brought some type of marker to help him find his way out again. That is if they would be a-getting out.

“You know, Blister, it's a wonder we didn't die in here when we were kids.”

“Well, it still ain't too late for that.” He keeps crawling but looks over his shoulder at the sound of Billy's breathing, “I know somebody that died in this cave.”

“Who?” Billy has never heard this story. Is not sure that he would believe a story from Blister. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't want to hear it. He continues behind Blister, breathing heavily.

“Nobody you would know.” Blister stops and turns to look back at Billy, shining the light in his direction. “And there is another person still in here, but I don't know who it is. Must have been before my time. But his bones are still stuck down in one of the crevices. Or they was last time I looked.”

“Are you pulling my leg?”

“Not a piece of it.”

They start crawling again. And speculating. “Could have been a Yankee soldier that got separated and tried to get out. Then got lost forever,” Blister says, his voice taking on a singsong quality.

“Or a Reb that was sick and tired of fighting. Just decided to sit the war out,” Billy offers. “Or an Indian.”

They are occupying themselves. Distracting themselves from the unknown task ahead of them. Trying not to think about how Nehemiah and Trice are doing from the other side. Or how far they have to go.

Blister stops again, but only for a moment, then starts crawling again. “I don't think an Indian would have gotten stuck. Think he would have eaten the blind fish and stayed alive till he found his way out.”

“Well, you couldn't pay me to eat those blind fish.”

“I'd do it,” Blister says with a certainty.

“You'd have to eat them raw unless you brought firewood and matches in with you.”

“I'd eat 'em raw.” Blister grins in the dark. “And lick my fingers.”

“Some of 'em don't even have eyes.”

“Then they won't see what's happening, will they?” Then Blister's voice grows dark, whispery, and serious. “Only to survive, Billy. Only to survive.”

Monday, 8:12 P.M
.

Kate, Magnus, and Butch have cleaned the glass up. The shock wave has left the windows wide open, as if they were sitting in a large covered patio. Normally the moon would be rising, but Pastor Brown was right. There is no moon. No stars. No natural dark. Only the dark red shadow of the sky, relentless in its suffocating gravity.

“Where do you think they are, Kate?” Magnus is sitting at the table. When she isn't talking, she is doing addition and multiplication problems in her head. She is trying to make her mind work.

“There, down there where it all started.” She turns a coffee cup in circles, like Nehemiah. “But at least we know that they are together.” She looks up and through the open space where the windows used to be. “Whatever happens.”

“I was thinking, you and me could take your car and go out there.” Magnus looks up at Kate.

“Go out where? To the springs? Right now?”

Magnus nods. She has a feeling. That's the only way she could describe it. One that she should be doing something besides just sitting here waiting. One that maybe, just maybe, there is something that she can do.

“We got about as much business being out there in those springs or down in that cave as a bat does in the noonday sun.”
Kate waves her hand in front of her face, removing Magnus's eyes and the idea from in front of her face.

Then Magnus, seeing how she cannot drive, pulls out her secret weapon.

She looks nonchalantly out the window, takes a sip of her coffee, and says, “I bet they took off out there in such a hurry not a one of them took a bite to eat.” She pauses, turns the coffee cup a revolution. “Probably not a thing to drink either.”

Now, how long do you think it took this tiny tidbit of information to filter its way to Kate's weak spot? About as long as Magnus expected it would.

Kate pulls herself up tiredly from the table. She is so tired in her body. More so in her mind. She is still trying very hard to filter out the differences of what day it is. Trying to remember from moment to moment where they are traveling and why they are going there. And this is just in their conversations. The thought of driving off into this tangible evil presence, away from the place that gives her the greatest earthly comfort, is not one of her choice. It is one that overrides all her other instincts. And she's not sure that she can drive. She is feeling that unstable in her mind.

“I don't know, Magnus, what in the world you think we'll do when we get there.” She pulls her glasses down to the edge of her nose. “But I am willing to try to do what I can.” She turns and heads for the kitchen, whipping a dishrag over her shoulder. “You make a fresh pot of coffee, Magnus, and I'll pack up some food.” She looks over at the table where Butch is sitting alone, contemplating his impossible circumstances. “I would be packing some mixed berry pie, but that won't be the case tonight.”