The Secret of the Dark (10 page)

“Don't say that.” I turned my face up to scold him and he brushed my lips with his.

“Rick, you're impossible.”

“But you like it, don't you?”

Neal slid out in time to keep me from having to answer Rick's question. This might prove to be an interesting day, aside from the cave trip. My wet and muddy knees reminded me that this was all real, not a dream. I was in a cave with two guys who were both attracted to me. When it came right down to it, my dad might not approve if he knew. But
I knew
they were nice guys, even if Rick was a bit forward.

I'd write Pam tonight. I giggled to think of her reaction. Everyday, ordinary Valerie, having all these adventures.

After the crawl space we entered an open area and since we couldn't see the other side, I knew it was huge. We would walk a ledge, Rick said and pointed to where the ledge dropped down into a large room.

“Wow, look at those flowstones.” Neal shined his light on long columns of smooth rock, brown and caramel with reddish splotches trickling down them. “I guess you wish you could get tourists in here, don't you, Biddleman?”

“We sure could charge more than three dollars.” Rick's voice held anger, I thought. “This ledge is as wide as a road, but stay on the left.”

Rows of massive stalagmites lined the path as we started downward. Some were almost white, some pale orange. As our lights hit them I felt as if I were in some underground fantasy land. Rick shined his light on a clump of stone that looked like a sleeping bear, then on a curtain of white that looked like a fairy's wing.

“Oh, how beautiful. What's holding it up there?” The formation looked so delicate, almost suspended in space.

“From here it looks small and delicate, but it's really about ten feet high and probably has been there for centuries.”

“I don't understand how all this happened under here.”

Rick and Neal took turns explaining how caves were formed. Both were very knowledgeable about the subject.

“Most caves are formed by running water. The water cuts through the limestone leaving the caverns,” said Neal.

“Then rain water seeps through the ground, leeching out minerals. As the water drips, it leaves some minerals behind. The curtain is made of calcite,” Rick added.

“It takes thousands of years for this to happen.”

Rick started walking again. “Up ahead are some calcite soda straws. You can see them forming, because this is a live cave.”

“What's a dead cave?” I knew it was probably a dumb question, but I wanted to know.

“One where everything has stopped forming. It would be dried out,” Neal answered.

“Look, it's a waterfall.” My light hit a formation that looked like a frozen Niagara Falls.

“That's calcite too.” Rick turned his lamp to a stalagtite that was very orangy. “This orange strain is iron salts.”

“Does anything live here?”
I'd
probably be sorry I asked.

Before anyone could answer, the path started up. We brushed close to the side, but had to bend over because of an overhead ledge. My headlamp bumped the rock, making a screeching noise.

Thousands — it seemed — of birds or something flew close to us, wings flapping. One brushed my arm and I screamed.

“There's your answer. Bats,” said Neal.

“Bats, ugh.” I shivered and backed up into Neal whose arms went around me quickly.

“Your hat hitting the wall startled them. They usually fly only at night,” Rick explained. “They hang on the ceiling to sleep. One of them bumped you because they fly by memory and it didn't remember you were there.”

“Because I wasn't there when it last flew.” I I tried to laugh and get over my fright, but I hoped the bats remembered now, since I didn't want them touching me. I knew it wasn't fair, but I had this tendency to associate bats with evil and vampires. Too many horror movies.

“Occasionally a pack rat will live in a cave. And of course there are cave crickets and daddy longlegs,” Neal continued.

Bats and spiders and crickets and darkness. Worse and worse. I was glad to have both guys along. “I'd sure never explore a place like this alone. Have you ever been in here alone, Rick?”

“Sure. I keep hoping I'll find another entrance, a bigger one that we can develop for tourists. And there's one other possibility —”

Neal interrupted him. “You'd sell your soul to the devil for a handful of gold, wouldn't you, Biddleman? It's not safe to cave alone. And why don't you leave this natural? You could bring in serious spelunkers. Charge them if you feel this is yours.”

“That's fine for you to say, Gallagher. Your daddy's loaded. Doctors make all the money they need.”

“Not in this little town. Half the people are desperately poor.”

I didn't get into the argument the guys had going. Part of me said lots of people should be able to enjoy the cave if they didn't destroy it, and part of me liked this scary exploring. I wouldn't know what side to take if I wanted to. I changed the subject “Are there any other rooms as big as that one?”

“I haven't found one. There are lots of dead ends, I know. A couple of fairly dangerous places. We'd fence those, of course, before we would let people in. There'd be a guided walk, like we do in the small cave.”

“And you'd turn off the lights.”

“Sure. That's a big thrill, plus the experience of total darkness.”

I could have done without that experience.

“The Ozark Mountains are riddled with limestone caves, Valerie,” Neal said. “Caves throughout this area may connect. And we're sure there are incredible rooms and galleries we haven't found yet. That's the fun of exploring. A tiny crawl space, similar to the one we came through, may open into a Carlsbad Caverns.”

“That could earn millions.” Rick's mind was still on money.

I teased him. “And I'll win a lottery, and Neal—”

“Will settle for tramping over the hills, finding a new folk song, or an old man with wonderful stories,” said Neal.

I laughed. “Can we get down onto the floor of this big room?”

“If you've got the guts.” Rick started walking again. “Come on.”

What was I in for now? I had very little guts, and underground like this, almost none. We walked up to where the path narrowed and became smooth and rounded. Rick put out his hand to stop me. He squatted down. Neal and I did the same.

Rick took a piece of loose rock he had in his pocket. He dropped it over the edge of the trail so that it rolled off. Then we waited and waited and waited for it to hit bottom. The silence was awesome with only the three splashes of light playing off the space before us.

“Not quite a bottomless pit.” Rick laughed loudly, his voice echoing off the cave walls eerily. “Long fall, though.”

Jumping up, he scrambled across the narrow, sloping ledge with only darkness below on the right

“Rick, come back!” I screamed.

Again his laughter echoed, mixing with my scream. “Next”

“I'm not doing that,” I said.

“You wanted to go down to the floor, didn't you?”

“Not if I have to cross that close to your bottomless pit.”

“Chicken. All you have to do is walk across. It's not slick. Just don't lean to the right.”

“You don't have to go, Valerie.” Neal breathed the word on my neck. “We can go back.”

“City girl,” Rick taunted. “I dare you.”

I don't know what made me do it. As I said before, I'm no daredevil. But maybe I wanted to show Rick I could keep up with him. We hadn't come far. Maybe I just hated to go back.

“Momentum. Keep coming after you start,” Rick advised. “Your boots are rubber. They'll grip.”

I took a deep breath, leaned to the left slightly, as if I were skiing and making a turn.
My legs are strong
, I told myself.
My balance is good
. My feet gripped as Rick had promised.

I was halfway across when my lamp went off.

CHAPTER

10

I
PROBABLY
hesitated only for a split second. But in that time I lived a nightmare of falling, falling, falling. Into the darkness. Into the cold, damp space of the drop-off. Finally bouncing on the bottom like the rock whose rattle, rattle, splat could hardly be heard.

“Keep going, Valerie,” Neal called. “Don't stop.” He pointed his light at me to give me some confidence.

Rick shined his lamp from his side of the drop-off. I kept going.

“Why'd you stop?” Rick asked, catching me as I fell forward into his arms.

“My light went out. It scared me.”

We stepped back from the smooth, rounded ledge so Neal could follow. Rick pulled my headlamp from its bracket. “You scared me. The tip must be clogged.”

“Didn't you ream it out before we started, Biddleman?” Neal was angry.

“I'm not the boy scout you are, Gallagher.”

“Well, do it now. Valerie could have fallen.” Neal took my arm. “
Are
you all right?”

“Yeah. I just froze for a minute. Let's go on. I don't want to think about it.” I couldn't think about it and keep going.

Rick took out a tiny wire, ran it through the tip of my lamp, then lit my lamp from the flame of his lamp. He placed it back on my hat and winked at me. I guess what had happened didn't worry him, but it sure scared me.

We wandered till we reached the gallery floor. It was sandy and dry. Rick led us up one branch off the large area to show us a delicate formation he called calcite soda straws. From the ceiling hung hollow white tubes.

“See the drop of water right there on the end?” Rick pointed to one straw. A crystal droplet paused, got larger, longer, then dropped to the floor. “Each drop leaves a minute bit of calcite. It builds up over the formation after thousands of years.”

We sat by the calcite straws to eat our lunch and leaned against the cave wall where it was dry and had no formation to destroy. I wished I'd brought more food since the walking had made me hungry. I dusted dried mud from my hands and then gobbled the cheese and crackers.

“How deep do you think the drop-off is?” Neal asked.

“I can stand below and look up and my light won't reach the ledge. Maybe sixty feet or better, I'd guess.”

I shivered, not wanting to think about the drop-off, my near accident. I liked the big room. After we finished eating, we walked more, our lights revealing igloos, more mushrooms, polar bears, lots of shapes your imagination could identify.

“I like it here where it's flat. Being underground is scary, but I could get used to it if there weren't cliffs and drop-offs.”

“Lots of caving is like mountaineering,” Neal said. “We should have had a rope for that crossing up there.”

“Too much weight to carry for one bad place,” Rick disagreed.

“Not if it keeps you from falling.”

A thought hit me as we talked about the crossing. “Do we have to go back the way we came or is there another way out of here?”

“We'll go back the same way,” Rick said.

I tried not to think about it, but if I had to do it, I wanted to get it over with. “Let's go now. I'd better get back. Fleecy wanted to leave about four.”

“It's two-thirty now.” Neal's watch lighted up when he hit a button on it. “I always lose track of time underground. I could explore a cave like this for days.”

It was too bad that Neal and Rick weren't friends. Different as they were, they had the caving sport in common. You would think in a small town they'd have gotten acquainted and found they had common interests.

While Neal crossed the ledge over the bottomless pit, Rick held me close and whispered, “Why do you bother with that lightweight, Valerie?”

Anger made me scramble across the sloping path without thinking or stopping this time. I had to make the crossing or stay in the cave forever. So I just walked across, glad for my anger. Maybe Rick wasn't Neal's friend, but he didn't have to make fun of him.

The small tourist cave seemed tame after our visit to the big cavern. I'd wiggled through the squeeze quickly, not thinking, just as I'd crossed the smooth rock traverse. It helped to know how it went and what was on the other side this time.

“How about a movie, Valerie?” Rick asked when Neal was out of hearing distance.

There was one movie in Catalpa Ridge. One grocery, one drugstore, one taxi. But two cute guys, and right now I wanted to divide my time equally, and not have to choose. “Call me, Rick. I'll see when I can get away.”

“Don't play hard to get.” He grinned.

“I'm not Granny is my responsibility. She comes first.”

He shook his head as if he didn't understand. I guess he'd had few responsibilities, living alone with his dad who seemed to ignore him. He had more or less raised himself. I shouldn't make judgments. I hadn't met his dad. But it did seem that way.

The sunshine was delicious. I turned up my face and drank it in. I didn't even mind the heat for a few minutes, yet I quickly shed my sweatshirt and rolled up my shirt sleeves. Then I started to sweat, and perspiration mixed with the dirt on my face. I felt gritty all over. I hated to have Neal see me looking such a mess, but he looked the same way, so I made light of it.

“I think we must both look like coal miners.”

“You do.” He laughed. “I'll bet you've never been so dirty in your life.”

“You know, I think you're right. I even missed the mud pie stage, with only sidewalks and a bit of park for ingredients.”

“I can't imagine growing up living in an apartment.”

“It wasn't too bad. And I didn't know anything else. Now that I see all this open space — out of doors — I think being a kid here must have been fun.” We walked along in silence for a minute. I continued breathing the clean, fresh air and celebrated being above ground. “Neal, why haven't you ever been friends with Rick Biddleman?”