Deep Shadow

TWENTY

BY 6:20 P.M., IN THE LAST ANGLING RAYS OF DAYLIGHT, Will had hacked away enough roots and stone with his knife for Tomlinson to pull his face up to the airhole, look into the small chamber above them and say, “You know why the place stinks so bad? Something lives here.”

“What?”

“An animal lives in here,” Tomlinson repeated. “Something big. And it’s definitely not a vegetarian. At least the place is above water level, but, whew, what a stench.”

The airhole was finally large enough for them both to breathe at the same time, but only if they pressed their heads together in a way that reminded Will of two desperate carp he’d once seen trapped in a puddle at the bottom of a drying lake bed, north of the Rez and south of Oklahoma City.

To talk, he and Tomlinson had to pull themselves close to the roof of the cave and turn mouth to ear, then ear to mouth, the air pocket was that small.

“Let me look,” Will said. To get leverage with the knife, he’d had to submerge and extend his arm, so he had spent most of the last hour bobbing up and down and hadn’t checked what lay beyond the airhole for a while.

Tomlinson said, “There’s a bunch of bones and crap. So maybe it’s an alligator den. Or coyotes, could be. Jesus, I’ve never smelled anything so foul in my life. On the bright side, brother William, we’re almost out! Can you picture the look on Doc’s face when we come strolling back to the truck? I bet he’s called in the cavalry by now. Helicopters, cops—you name it. I’m surprised we can’t hear all the racket they must be making.”

“It took me an hour to get the hole as wide as it is,” Will replied. “It’s all roots and rock. It’ll take another hour, maybe two, to make it wide enough to crawl through.”

“Are you getting tired?”

“Naw. I’m just telling you. I think you ought to try whistling again. It’s really loud—I want to learn how to do that.”

Tomlinson said, “Maybe . . . Once or twice, but that’s all. We’re close enough to being out now, I don’t want to risk another cave-in.”

“Oh yeah, play it safe,” Will said. “I guess that’s smart.”

Tomlinson said, “Yeah, man. There’s no rush now.” After thinking about it, though, he added, “The only thing I’m worried about is Doc and Arlis. They’re probably freaking out, looking for us—and I wouldn’t want Doc to do anything risky. Like trying to search one of those damn tunnels we crawled through.”

“Then you’d better do it,” Will said, meaning Tomlinson should try to signal. “A couple of times at least.”

Tomlinson touched two fingers to his tongue, produced several shrill notes, alert for the sound of collapsing limestone. When it didn’t happen, he settled back, his face showing a private, weary smile. He felt as good as he’d ever felt, coming so close to dying, now to be looking up into the late-winter sunlight. It was a giddy sensation, almost like he’d gulped a couple of sunset rums. It made him talkative.

“I bet your hands are blistered, huh? I’ll do the rest of the digging, I don’t care if it takes five hours. I don’t care about the smell, either. Man, what a beautiful sight to see!”

Will expected Tomlinson to move, but instead the man kept his face to the hole and continued talking. “Oh, wow! You won’t believe this one! On the far wall, I can see a petroglyph—you know, a cave drawing. But it’s not really a drawing. It’s more like someone carved a picture into the rock. It sort of resembles a cow standing on two legs—no, a buffalo. Maybe you can figure it out.”

Will was getting impatient. “Unless I see it, I can’t figure out anything.”

Tomlinson didn’t take the hint. “When de Soto landed in Florida back in the fifteen hundreds, he mentioned a buffalo in his ship’s log. But some people don’t believe it’s true.” There was a pause. “This is definitely an animal den of some type. Gators and crocs don’t nest underground, so now I’m thinking coyotes for sure—the population’s making a comeback in Florida.”

Will gave the hippie a push—the man was a talker, which Will found irritating. He said, “If I want a history lesson, I’ll read a book. Move your bony ass so I can see.” He locked both hands in the tree roots and fitted his face into the hole.

Above them was another rock chamber, smaller than the chamber they were in, but at least it wasn’t filled with water. Will didn’t own a watch, but he saw that it was late, close to sunset, because the chamber had an opening of some type that faced west. He couldn’t see the opening, but he knew it was there because a tube of dusty light angled into the space, showing the far limestone wall of the cave, where there were rough etchings cut into the rock. The petroglyph Tomlinson had mentioned resembled the silhouette of a man with horns. It didn’t look like any buffalo Will had ever seen and he’d seen more buffalo than most people, having worked on ranches and ridden rodeo all over the Panhandle State.

The drawings were lichen covered—very old, no doubt about that—and they had the random scrawled look of graffiti.

“Do you see the petroglyph?”

Will responded, “Hold your horses. Give me time for my eyes to adjust.” It was strange after all that time in darkness to see daylight.

“There’s something very weird and powerful about this journey we’re on, man. Feel it, Will-Joseph? Which tells me there’s something powerful about you. Your ancestors are keeping close tabs on your whereabouts for some reason. I think I’m just along for the ride.”

Will turned his face away from the hole. “How am I supposed to think with you talking all the time?”

Tomlinson kept right on talking, anyway. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but I’m convinced you’re on a very special mission, man. The real deal. I think you’re what we Buddhists call a Tulku. You’ve got all the qualities—the whole transcendent-spirit thing going on. Do you know what I mean?”

Will replied, “I don’t think that thing’s a buffalo. It’s a drawing of a guy wearing horns, that’s all. Another hour or so, I can dig enough, we’ll be out of here. Maybe archaeologists will want to come back and take a look.”

Tomlinson said, “What I’m saying is, people like you don’t dissolve at death. That’s what I meant by calling you a Tulku. I’m not bragging, but I’m the same way. It’s the way we’re born. People like us don’t dissolve at death—I might as well put the cards on the table after all the kimchee we’ve just been through, huh?”

That struck Will as a compliment. He didn’t respond, but he listened more carefully.

“From one incarnation to another, Tulkus add layers of consciousness every trip around the horn—skandhas, we call them. I sensed it in you the first day we met. And I bet you sensed it in me, too. Am I right? Man, I can walk into a concert hall, even if the place is jammed, and spot one of us from twenty rows away. It’s a sort of glow. Like an aura, only with less glow but more light. You know what I’m talking about?”

Will was thinking, Colors, that’s what he means when he says “glow.”

He didn’t say it, but Will had experienced it many times, seeing certain people who glowed—even in a crowded space—just as Tomlinson had said. It was something he had never discussed with anyone, and now wasn’t the time to start. Will said, “There’s a root here, one really big, pain-in-the-ass root. If I cut out a chunk big enough, maybe I can wiggle through.”

“If that’s what your instincts tell you, it’ll happen,” Tomlinson said.

“From here on out, I’m following your lead. We’re riding a very heavy spiritual wave and it’s pulling both of us along like a tractor beam. The tip-off was swimming into the cave with the pottery and the spear points. Now the petroglyphs! This whole trip has been a weird, wild gift, dude, and I’m honored to be sharing the journey. We’re being allowed to see things that other people don’t even know exist.”

Will was tempted to say, What do you mean “we,” white man?, like the old joke he’d once heard, but he didn’t want to encourage the hippie to keep talking.

“That’s an ancient space you’re looking at,” Tomlinson told him.

Will replied, “It’s not the only thing getting old,” and concentrated on what he was seeing.

The cavern above them was about the size of a horse stall, but it had a low ceiling that angled downward, narrowing just as the band of sunlight narrowed. Joining the ceiling to the floor were more tree roots that at first Will thought were stalactites or stalagmites. The roots were clustered as tightly in some spots as the bars on a jailhouse door. At the center of the chamber, roots had been ripped away by something, though, to form a clearing where there were bones and the scattered remains of animals.

Will was at eye level with what looked like a chunk of cow skull. It was some variety of Brahma, judging from the lone remaining horn—the other horn had been chewed to the nub—and the skull wasn’t very old because there was still a flap of hide attached to the forehead.

Will thought, What kind of animal eats the horns off a bull? Jesus, even coyotes don’t bother eating horns.

He wondered about that for a moment, then let his eyes move around the room. He saw more cattle bones, a couple of pig jaws—those pointed tusks were familiar—and what might have been a primitive nest hollowed out in the muck. Will guessed it was a nest because of the rubbery-looking egg casings that lay scattered around the thing. The eggs were big, about half the size of an ostrich’s.

He lowered himself enough to turn his mouth close to Tomlinson’s ear. “You see those egg casings? Something just hatched in here. Not recent, but not so long ago, either.”

“Yeah,” Tomlinson said, “that’s why I thought a gator at first, but—”

“Coyotes don’t lay eggs,” Will interrupted. “Not back in Oklahoma, anyway. Not in Minnesota, either, but maybe they’re different in Florida.”

Seeing the ray of sunlight had affected Will, too. The light moved through his eyes, through his body, replacing the desperation and the fear he had felt with fresh energy. Even Tomlinson’s constant talking wasn’t so irritating now. The sunlight had refired his sense of humor, too, and Will was struck by the oddness of being so close to death one moment and, the next moment, cracking a smart-ass remark about coyotes laying eggs.

It was like there were two people inside him, one who focused on nothing but survival when it was required but otherwise lay dormant, while the second person—William Joseph Chaser—talked and laughed, living life as if danger and darkness didn’t exist, so it was sort of like living behind a mask.

Will lowered himself from the hole and checked the knife scabbard on his BC, which had become a habit. They weren’t out yet but soon would be—as long as he still had the knife and the blade didn’t break.

Tomlinson sounded cheerful when he replied, “Minnesota, huh?”

Will didn’t respond, but it caused him to think about a nice lady named Ruth Gutterson and her pisser of a husband, Otto, who had been on the pro wrestling circuit when he was younger, so almost everyone called him by his ring name, which was “Bull Gutter.” The Guttersons had a house in Minneapolis, and Will had lived with the couple for a year. They were nice people who would’ve adopted him by now if it weren’t for the damn court system. But they would—even though he turned eighteen in only a couple of years.

“I sometimes forget you lived up north,” Tomlinson said to him, which caused Will to realize that the man was being conversational for a reason. For the first time in hours, it was safe for them to take a little rest. Maybe it was a smart thing to do. His hands were blistered and his right bicep had begun to cramp.

Will dropped back, letting the water support his weight, and listened to Tomlinson add, “It’s because you’re such a western sort of kid. All rodeo and attitude. Did you miss it—rodeo—when you were living in Minnesota?”

Will didn’t like being called a kid, but he ignored it. “Sometimes,” he said.

“The Land of a Thousand Lakes. Or is it Ten Thousand? You say there are coyotes in Minnesota? I knew there were wolves.”

Will allowed himself to smile as he replied, “Everything that grows fur—or can buy fur—lives up there. That includes a ton of Lutherans. A lot of pretty blondes, though, too.”

“Lutherans,” Tomlinson replied, chuckling.

Will said, “You wouldn’t believe how good-looking the girls are.”

The hippie seemed to get the joke because he laughed, but then Will wasn’t so sure when Tomlinson said, “Prairie Home Companion, man. I love that show. Garrison Keillor.”

Will said, “Garrison who?,” becoming impatient again, and so he let his attention return to the cave overhead. He pulled himself up, took another look, then lay back and let his BC float him as his brain sorted out impressions.

The space, he now realized, gave him a bad feeling. It wasn’t just because of the bones or the petroglyphs or the stench. Truth was, the place smelled bad but not that bad. It was sort of musty, like old roadkill, but it didn’t strike Will as being foul like Tomlinson kept saying. Maybe Tomlinson was confusing atmosphere with odor. In Will’s experience, people often perceived such things differently than he.

The boy reached his hand through the airhole, touched his fingers to the sandy muck above, then sniffed his fingers.

Darkness, that’s what the muck communicated. Darkness was what Tomlinson was smelling, not the stench of bones, although that odor was there, too. The space had the scent of blackness, like peering over a cliff into an abyss.

Will allowed his mind to probe the area and soon the gloom that he sensed was replaced by a brighter odor. The odor was waxy green, like jungle suspended in a cloud of gray. It reminded him of a leaf flickering on the screen of an old black-and-white TV.

Gradually, the sensation changed, but the odors of the changing colors didn’t flood into Will’s mind. They flowed through a crevice of his brain like a creature with scales—something hunting.

“People with synesthesia sometimes experience exaggerated impressions of the world around them,” an Oklahoma shrink had once told him. “It can be exhausting dealing with so much outside stimuli. It can cause panic attacks—even paranoia.”

Paranoia, Will thought. Like now?

He hoped he was wrong about what he was feeling and decided to bounce it off Tomlinson. The man was a flake, no doubt about that, but he was also smart, and he possessed the ability to perceive things normal people could not. Tomlinson had been right when he’d guessed that Will had sensed his abilities. He’d known about Tomlinson since the first time they had been alone together, talking.

Will said, “There’s something about those egg casings that gives me the creeps.”

Tomlinson said, “There’s no reason why they should,” then spent a minute talking about the nesting habits of gators and crocs, still sounding cheerful, but then he became suddenly quiet. After several seconds, he said, “Sorry, I missed the implications. The whole heavy vibe went sailing right over my head. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Will said, “It’s a feeling I have.”

“A premonition, you mean?”

“Just a feeling. A bad feeling.”

Tomlinson gave it some thought—maybe with his eyes closed, Will couldn’t be sure, there wasn’t enough light to see detail. The man seemed to understand because after several seconds he said, “A predator lives up there. A killer. That’s what you’re feeling. And you’re right—that’s what I’ve been smelling. It’s not an actual scent. It’s death that I smell.”

Will said, “That cow skull’s pretty fresh. Whatever it is, I think she’ll find her way back here. Soon, I think.” In Will’s mind, the animal that lived here was female—definitely female—and she lived alone.

Tomlinson asked him, “Because this is where she hatched her eggs?”

“Not exactly.”

“It makes sense that whatever lives in the cave is bound to return to the nest—tonight, tomorrow or next week—is that what you mean?” There was enough room for Tomlinson to twist a strand of his ponytail, then begin to chew on it, his long fingers showing that he was nervous.

Will decided to come right out and say it. “No. I mean I think she’s coming back today. Sometime after dark, maybe, but soon. It could be that she knows we’re here. It could be that she’s on her way now.”

Tomlinson went silent, and into Will’s mind came the image of a snake—a huge snake—its belly wider than a man’s chest.

Will said, “Doc told me there’s a big population of escaped pythons in Florida. Last night, before I went to bed, I checked the Internet. Less than a week ago, state biologists caught a ball python that was eighteen feet long. Did you read about that? It was near Miami, I think.”

Tomlinson whispered, “Snakes. Sometimes you’ve got to ride the snake,” his voice sounding far away.

Will said, “It was living under someone’s house. They got suspicious because the neighborhood dogs kept disappearing. The snake was close to four hundred pounds. There was a picture.”

Tomlinson’s voice returned to normal as he said, “I saw the photo. That’s exactly what I was thinking about. A really big boa or python. The egg casings, the bones. It all fits.”

Will said, “I don’t think it’s a snake.”

“No?”

“I’d be surprised.”

“Then what?”

Will said, “I can’t say for sure. But I have a strong feeling that thing’s headed this direction. It’s sunset now, so maybe we have some time. But she’s on her way back. Probably soon she’ll be here.”

Tomlinson sighed, and whispered, “Shit.”

Will said, “Yeah. After going through all this crap. But maybe I’m wrong.”

After several seconds, Tomlinson said, “A snake, huh?”

“It’s not a snake,” Will said again.

Tomlinson replied softly, “I know, I know. Metaphorically, I’m saying, it’s always a snake.”

Will listened.

Tomlinson said, “Sometimes the bastard assumes different forms. Cops, crazy women, right-wing loonies. Don’t get me started.” He looked at his watch. Will could see the green numerals of the face glowing as Tomlinson added, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Will replied, “What do you think I’ve been saying?”

“The sun sets in exactly five minutes. I don’t like the idea of having a meat eater poking her head in here hungry for flesh.”

Will pulled his knife from the scabbard. “I wish you would have brought one. Doc kept telling you.”

Tomlinson said, “Don’t remind me.”

Will said, “No point talking about it,” then tried to nudge Tomlinson away to give himself some room. “I’m going to work on this main root. Maybe if I just cut it in the middle, we can bend it down—”

Tomlinson interrupted. “My turn to dig. You rest for a while.”

Too late. Will was already sawing at the root.