Holland Suggestions (22 page)

“Okay, we’re in good shape,” he said between puffs; “now we’d better wait for sunrise.”

That came about an hour later, and for most of the time we sat in silence. With the first light Max got out for another foot inspection of the area. He returned fifteen minutes later, saying that he had found the road; we had come too far. Max turned the jeep around and backed around a small growth of trees. We started up the mountain. I still did not see any road, but five minutes later I saw two faint ruts ahead: we were
on
the road. The weeds fell away and the trees became stunted and gnarled. Higher we went; soon sunlight flowed into the purple cracks below and lighted the world. I saw Taylor’s Gulch as a shabby gathering of rotted wood far below. We went still higher. The road disappeared again as the ghost town slipped behind the mountain. We were riding along a flat grassy area; the grass was grubby-looking and there were huge patches of snow all around us. We reached the top; the mountain sheared away and became a glacier, dipping into the valley like a great white sliding board. Max drove along the rim until I got nervous.

“Can we get away from the edge?”

“Not much,” he said, but he tried. He turned the wheel left and the jeep moved away from the edge but tilted at a sickening angle.

“It was better the other way,” I said.

He dropped back into the ruts. “Your cave is probably over that next mountain range,” he said, pointing.

I looked into the valley. We had come almost full circle around the mountain; far below I could see the trail where I had blundered into the snowstorm.

“I’m not sure; as you said, it was quite a hike.”

“That
is
quite a hike,” Max said. “I’ve walked up there many times myself. I’ve done some cave exploring around here too a few seasons back. I might have even been in your cave, at one time or another.”

“You know that place called Mission rocks?”

“I know it well.”

“The cave is up past that.”

He nodded and we dipped toward a white canyon that brought us within five hundred yards of the footpath; then he turned upward again and we drove along the face of the next mountain. It was easy going even though we had completely lost the road, and we rattled along in good time. At the far side of the mountain we came to another dropoff.

“I guess we don’t go any farther this way,” Max said. “But I don’t think we ought to try to climb down from here either. I know I remember the road almost meeting the trail at one point, but this doesn’t seem to be it.”

He had to back the jeep along the mountain for two hundred yards before we came to another grassy area where he could turn around. From there it was a sharp climb along the mountain’s face to another level, where again we found the ruts of the old road. The climb was very steep and I took it with my eyes closed. At the top the road completely circled the mountain and dropped behind the Mission rocks.

“This is it,” I said; “it’s not far from here.”

“Can we drive up close to it?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it.”

But I was wrong. Max handled the jeep with ability that went beyond expertise; we clattered down an incline so steep that my stomach heaved and my gut shifted. At the bottom I directed him along the footpath, around the mountain to the rushing stream. We bumped over rocks for thirty minutes before I saw the gushing water, and Max stopped less than thirty feet from the crack in the mountain wall.

We climbed along the trail and under the waterfall, and Max made a quick examination of the lower chamber first. He played his light along the walls and ceiling while I pointed out the rock ledge where the cave stretched upward.

“We’d better unload the jeep and hide it somewhere,” he said.

That took twenty minutes. I waited alone in the cave while Max camouflaged the jeep. When he returned he was breathing fire and ready to begin.

“I’m going on up,” he said; “I guess you want to stay here.”

“I think I will, yes.”

“Whatever you like. Let’s get the equipment up first.”

He made a long loop in the rope and in one throw had it over the projecting rock. He climbed it effortlessly. At the top he dropped the rope to me and said, “First dig out one of those miner’s helmets—in the green bag, yes. There’s one in there for you too. Don’t go anywhere in this cave without it.”

I tied the helmet by its strap and he pulled it up. For a few minutes he disappeared into the cave, then he was back, lowering the rope. I tied each bundle securely and Max pulled them up. He struggled in the confinement of the ledge, pushing the equipment ahead of him into the cave. When there was no more room he packed the bundles up to the higher chamber. That took him an hour, and there was nothing for me to do but wait. He was breathing hard when he came down the last time.

“I’m going on through the cave to the ledge,” he said; “I’ll be back as soon as I know what’s there.”

He climbed out of sight. I replaced my hat with the miner’s helmet and crawled out to the cave’s mouth. I waited there for a long time, watching the trail. Satisfied that no one was coming, I went into the chamber. That old uneasy feeling, that insistent restlessness, came over me again. I fought against it for a time, but at last I gave up the struggle and began to climb the rope.

The climb was just as difficult as it had been the first time, but now I moved quickly through the cave, pausing only at the spot where the wall broke away in a sheer drop. As I pushed my head carefully through the opening to the ledge, I saw Max standing at the edge about twenty feet away. He was smiling.

“I thought you’d be along,” he said.

“I
T’S AN OLD MINER’S
trail, actually,” Max said. He was standing with unshakable confidence at the edge of the cliff, looking into the canyon. “You can see what happened to it farther along, at this end. There must have been a landslide and the trail was buried from there on down, but at one time it probably went all the way to the canyon floor.”

“How old is it?”

“I have no idea. But it’s quite wide once you get used to it.”

“It doesn’t look so wide.”

“That’s because you’re afraid of it. Stand up and hold on to the rocks until you get your courage up.”

“No…not just yet.”

He smiled patiently. “It’s almost wide enough to push a wagon through; it was probably even wider when it was first cut through, but parts of it have crumbled off since then. See how uneven the rim is?”

“Yeah, I see. Christ, how can you stand so close? Get back, will you? You make me nervous as hell.” I looked away from him when he did not move. “So what are you going to do next?”

“Check it out; see what’s at the other end. That’s what we came for, isn’t it? You want to wait here?”

“Yes.” But I shook my head no.

“You can’t have it both ways. You think about it; I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Wait…just give me a few minutes. If I can make it I want to come with you.” I eased my body out of the hole until I was sitting on the ledge, my back against the wall.

“Try not to look down, at least not at first,” Max said. “If you can get comfortable without forgetting where you are, you’ll be fine.” He fidgeted while I struggled to overcome my jitters. Finally he said, “Look, why not let me check it out? I’ll only be a few minutes and then we’ll know if there’s anything worthwhile.”

“No!” My voice was sharp and I apologized for it. “I’ve got to be there, see it for myself.” I got to my hands and knees, but that didn’t help because I was facing the edge, looking straight over the sheer drop. I had to sit down again. After another short pause I tried again; I rolled the other way, facing the wall, gripped a rock, and pulled myself up.

“Just turn around slowly,” Max said.

I did turn and a flush of confidence came over me.

“There’s really nothing to it,” Max said; “but we won’t go on till you feel comfortable with it.”

“I’ll never feel comfortable with it, but I think I’m better now.”

“The thing you’ve got to watch out for is loose rock under your feet. Watch every step.”

We took it slowly. Max walked with ease in the center of the trail while I inched along, hugging the wall. My confidence came and went with the dips of the ledge. Max paused occasionally to wait until I caught up. The trail dipped out of sight around the mountain and he waited for me there. It climbed slightly to another point, where it curved inward again. I was moving faster now, more out of eagerness to be done with it than any newly found courage, and we reached that final turn together. And there it was, the scene of the photograph, exactly as I remembered it. The trail ended in a small flat spot at the base of the mountain, and the cave was there among the rocks. The only difference was that, since the time of the pictures, a large part of the trail had broken away, leaving only two feet of ledge for a ten-yard stretch.

“That’s a bitch,” Max said. “We’ll have to use a rope to get across.” He tied us together and positioned me in a sitting position well back from the break. “If anything breaks loose, all you have to do is hold my weight for a minute till I can climb out.”

He walked across to the other side. “Looks good,” he said. “You’re a bit heavier than I am, but it shouldn’t give you any trouble. Keep the rope tied to you, just to be sure.”

Starting across was the hardest part. Once out on the broken rock, it was easier to go forward than back. I walked side-step, my back against the wall, but watching each step and unable to resist glancing beyond my feet into the yawning canyon beneath them. Max was waiting for me at the other side, his hand outstretched. I took the hand and pulled myself clear.

Max untied the rope and turned eagerly to the trail. It widened gradually from here; I felt better just looking at it. We walked together to the cave and I saw familiar objects just inside the mouth: a coil of rope, a backpack, a shovel. These things were in the pictures; they had been here undisturbed since the pictures were taken. Max knelt over the backpack and examined it with his fingers.

“It’s falling apart; it’s been here a long time.”

“Any telling how long?”

“Years.” He loosened the buckles. “I can’t say for sure, but they weren’t left here yesterday.” He opened the backpack and took out a faded blanket and a canteen bearing the initials KB.

“Kenneth Barcotti.”

Max looked at me. “Do you know him?”

“He was Robert Holland’s best friend. Remember I told you about Robert; well, Kenneth Barcotti disappeared sometime in the mid-fifties. He was exploring…somewhere…in Colorado.”

Max met my eyes and nodded. He turned on his headlamp and looked deeper into the cave. We were in that cove of rocks that protected the cave from sunlight and made the pictures so underexposed. The mouth opened between the rocks, and easily visible in the flattest part of the rock was the Maltese cross.

“There it is, Willy.” I felt very close to him then and I wanted him to share what I was feeling, though I knew he never could. He was going through a range of emotions that had nothing to do with Robert Holland or Kenneth Barcotti. “I wonder,” he said at last, “if those old tales Harry tells are maybe true after all. Did you ever get him to tell you about Caverna del Oro?”

“Yes, he told me.”

He arched his head toward the cross. “Let’s look a little closer.”

The rock around the cross was damp; it had worn away in years of erosion. A slight hollow appeared in the face of the rock where the water flow was heaviest; it washed directly across the lower arm of the cross and had all but obliterated it

“I think we’ll find your Mr. Barcotti,” Max said, “in there.”

I felt a chill as he moved into the cave. Inside we found more supplies; another canvas bag, tools, and a box of canned goods. Emptied cans and their tops were scattered around, and in the center of the cave Max found the ashes of an old fire. We moved around the fire, and now the light from my headlamp joined his.

“Jesus,” I said, “this could go on forever.”

“Yes, it really could,” Max said; “some caves run for ten, twenty miles. Some of the really big ones go three or four times that. This probably joins the other cave somewhere along the line. It sure would be easy to get discouraged if you stop and think about it.”

He went deeper and I followed a few steps behind. The passageway turned and dropped sharply. “Careful,” he called. He sat and wormed his way forward. About fifty yards in we came to a vast hole which consumed the entire width of the cave in a sheer drop. Max could not keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Everything fits,” he said, as if to himself; “it’s all here.”

He slid on his belly to the edge of the hole. He dropped a stone; several seconds later we heard the clatter far below. He dropped another, timing the fall with the second hand of his watch.

“Six seconds—Christ, that’s deep; five hundred feet, maybe more.”

“Look at this.” I had crawled up close to him and was examining the remains of an old rope. It had been fastened to a sturdy rock column and dangled over the edge. Max felt it and found it limp. He pulled it up, counting off about two hundred feet to the end.

“There’s your answer,” he said; “that’s what happened to your Mr. Barcotti.”

“You think so?”

“I’ll bet on it. We’ll find his body at the bottom.”

There was a long pause while we reflected soberly on the dangerous journey to the bottom. “I’ll have to go back along the ledge and get the equipment,” Max said at last. “That might take a couple of hours.”

“What about me?”

“Just sit tight and wait.”

“Can’t I help?”

“I doubt it; no, you’d just be in the way.”

“At least I can carry the stuff from where the trail breaks off.”

“Yes, you can do that. Let’s get started, eh?”

The sun was high when we finished. Max rigged a pulley of sorts over the crumbled section of the trail; from there he attached the packs and I pulled them over and carried them to the cave. With the work behind us, we sat at the mouth of the cave thinking about the work ahead. Max suggested that we eat something. “We probably won’t have much time for lunch once we’re in there; it’s almost noon anyway.”