M.C. Higgins, the Great (16 page)

The children watched her.

“What’s he doing down there?” she asked them.

They said nothing.

“I don’t think he’s coming up, you’d better do something.”

Macie broke their silence with a giggle. “He’s not even down there,” she said. “Just over and behind these rocks.” She led the way around the edge of the rocks. Harper and Lennie went, too, and cautiously the girl followed.

On the other side lay a surprise. It was an opening in the rocks. No one who didn’t know would suspect it was there. The rocks fell back in a small clearing where there was a silent pool with grassy banks.

The children stopped at the edge. Macie turned brightly to the girl and smiled.

M.C. surged up from the center of the pool in a great splash. He sucked in air as though he would never again get enough of it, as the girl covered her mouth to stifle a scream.

The kids laughed at her. “It’s a water tunnel,” Harper told her in his soft, urgent voice. He told how the tunnel went under the rocks beneath the water at the edge of the lake and ended at the pool.

“Only M.C. can travel it,” Macie said. “We ain’t allowed. The kids from town don’t even know there’s a tunnel.”

“You wouldn’t know it, either, if you hadn’t caught me doing it once,” M.C. said. “Better keep the sense never to try it, too.”

“How do you hold your breath so long?” The girl, talking to M.C. as though he were older, showing respect for him now.

He pulled himself up on the grassy bank and wiped water out of his eyes. He had to smile. She kneeled next to him, her fear of him and the children gone.

Proud he’d done something she never expected he could do. And she had come from somewhere by herself in a car. But he could be by himself, too. He could travel through water like nobody. First he thought of lying, to tell her he could hold his breath longer than anyone. The kids would know.

Finally he said, “It’s not so long. I came up before you all ever got here. Hear you coming, and I just went under and waited. Then I splash up like I was out of breath.”

She didn’t seem to mind he had played a trick. “It’s dark in the tunnel?” she asked him. Her face so close, he could see tiny bumps he hadn’t noticed before.

Shyly, he looked at his feet hanging in the water. “It’s gray light, kind of,” he said. “This pool is at the end of the tunnel. Sunlight drifts in and gets faded, I guess. But I see, a little. It’s ghosty, though, when fishes slide over your skin.”

She cringed with the picture of it. Watching her, Macie shivered with delight.

His eyes on the pool, M.C. sensed the girl watching him. Felt himself reaching out for her, the way he often reached out when he sat next to Jones. His skin itched and came alive with little things he seemed to know about her. She might travel alone, but every minute she was scared being by herself. The impression came to him, swift and certain.

Already he felt attuned to the girl, less self-conscious at having her so near.

He rubbed his arms and neck until the itching went away. Tiredness settled in the knot on his forehead in a dull ache that came and went. He wasn’t feeling quite himself this morning. Yet he didn’t want to go and leave her.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She shrugged. “No use of saying names.”

“I told you our names,” he said.

“I could tell you a name and you wouldn’t know if it was really mine.”

“Where do you come from then?”

“Same thing,” she said. “You wouldn’t know if I came from where I said.”

“Then why not tell?”

She said nothing. She looked at him and quickly away, as if she wanted to speak out, but couldn’t. Soon she was looking from the pool to the rocks and back to the pool.

She did this several times before it came to M.C. what was on her mind.

“A water tunnel won’t be like a pool,” he told her, “or even a lake.”

She nodded, staring at the rocks.

“A pool or even a lake is simple. Water will lift you,” he said.

She sat still, with just her head turning to look at him and then away.

“But tunnel is a bottleneck. No place to take off the pressure; or maybe pressure’s not the trouble. It’s just a tight place without a top, and you can get sick to your stomach.”

A long silence in which she said nothing.

“How long can you hold your breath?” M.C. asked her.

“What?”

“If you travel that tunnel,” he said. “How long can you go with no breathing?”

Wide-eyed, she stared at him. “As long as anybody.” All at once she breathed hugely, holding the air in.

Macie and the boys scrambled close to see. Everything was still. The girl’s eyes began to pop and tear. She held out while none of them moved, until at last her breath burst through her teeth. She fell back, panting.

“That was long!” Harper said.

“Maybe forty-five seconds,” M.C. said. “Not long enough.”

The girl sat up again.

“Try it once more,” M.C. said.

“You don’t think I can do it,” she said.

“I’m not thinking a thing. It just has to be longer,” he said. “Long enough to reach the pool.”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said, her voice edgy. She searched M.C.’s face.

“If you’re worried, don’t try it,” he said.

Then she was smirking at him. “Sure think you’re something, don’t you?” she said. “I saw you on that pole. Not just with the fire, but in the daylight. Sitting up there with nothing to do and no place to do it!”

Her anger shot through him. It hurt him and he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t meant anything bad by what he said.

“The tunnel is fun,” he said quietly, “but you have to have the lungs to hold out.”

The girl sucked in her breath again. M.C. kept his eyes on the pool. He didn’t want to be watching her if this time she failed. He tried just to feel when the time was long enough. But in spite of himself, he began counting in his head.

When he knew she would have to breathe, he turned to her. Still she held out. Tendons and veins stood out on her neck. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her cheeks and mouth were twisted in an awful face.

She exploded, bursting with air and squirming on the ground, trying to breathe again. Uncomfortably, M.C. turned his face away.

“You did it!” Macie yelled. Lennie Pool grinned and Harper clapped his hands.

“M.C., she did it!” Macie screeched. “Didn’t she?”

He nodded at Macie to let all of them know. But he was wondering if he had forgotten something he should have remembered to ask.

Never taken someone through that tunnel, he thought. Maybe I shouldn’t.

“Are you going to swim it right now?” Macie asked the girl.

But she couldn’t answer. She seemed to be having that cold, sickening feeling that came from holding your breath too long. M.C. knew this. Drying sweat caused his skin to itch again.

“We maybe can swim it later on,” he said. “Give you plenty of time . . .”

The girl shot up from the ground. Even though she looked weak, she stood with her hands firmly on her hips. “You think I can’t do it.” Her eyes snapped at him.

M.C. couldn’t get himself loose from those eyes, they were so pretty. Slowly he got to his feet.

There grew a silence between them that separated them from the children. They stood close together, watching each other.

“You have to do just as I say,” M.C. told her.

“Why?”

“’Cause I know how to get through.”

She thought a moment. “Okay,” she said.

They were in a world all their own, where she was older but he was the leader. He knew why she had to try the tunnel.

Not because I’ve done it. ’Cause I’m the only one.

He turned and led the way over the rocks to the lake. The girl followed close on his heels.

The lake lay as serene and peaceful as when they had left it. Way down at the other end was the ridge. In between the ridge and the rocky end where now he and the girl crouched was the tent, like an intruder in the sun. All around them were pines, undergrowth, greens and browns closing in the magical shimmer of the lake.

He and the girl hung onto rocks just above the water line. The children were clinging a foot above them.

“The tunnel’s right down there,” M.C. told her. “About eight to ten feet down. Maybe twelve feet long and that’s a couple of body lengths.” He paused, looking out over the lake. “Now I lead,” he told her. “I lead and we hold together like this.” With his right hand, he took hold of her left arm, forcing her to balance herself with her back against the rocks. “Hold on to my arm just above the wrist.”

“Like this?” She grabbed his arm with fingers stronger than he’d expected. So close to her, he felt shy but calm.

“We jump here, we get more power,” he told her. “We get down faster but it has to be done just right.”

“How?” she said.

M.C. didn’t know how. He was figuring it all out as he went along, working fast in his head the best way to jump and the quickest way to get through the tunnel.

“Best way is . . . if I jump backward and you jump frontward.” He spoke carefully. “See, I hit and go in facing the tunnel. I have your left arm and you are pulled over. You follow in just in back of me. Now. In the tunnel, you have your right arm free and I have my left.” They would use their free arms to push them through if they had to, and they could kick with their feet.

“Tunnel sides are moss,” he said. “Push off from them when you bump them. It’ll feel slimy but it won’t hurt.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Pay no mind to fishes,” he went on. “Most times, they’re but just a few. They don’t do nothing but get out of your way.”

She nodded. M.C. could feel her tension through her arm.

“You all ready?” Macie asked from above them.

M.C. looked at the girl. “I’m ready,” she said.

“You have to hold out for most of a minute.”

“I can do it,” she said.

“If you lose air, just stay calm,” M.C. said. “I can get us out.”

“I said I can do it!”

Her anger cut through him again, making him ashamed, he didn’t know why.

“Macie, you count it off,” he said grimly.

“She always get to do something,” Harper said.

“He told
me,
now shut,” Macie said.

“Stay out of the water. Wait for us at the pool. Now,” M.C. said.

“Ready!” Macie yelled. “Get yourself set. . . .”

The girl grew rigid.

“You have to stay calm,” M.C. told her. He held her arm as tightly as he could without hurting her. Her fingers dug into his wrist.

“Watch your nails!” he warned. They both sucked in air.

“Go, y’all!”

They leaped out and plunged. They hit the water at the same time but M.C. went under first because he was heavier. The girl turned facing him before her head went under. That was good, but pulling her after him slowed M.C. It seemed to take forever to get down to the tunnel level. Water closed in on them. Sounds became muffled and then no sound at all. They were alone as never before. And there was nothing for M.C. to do but get it over with.

9

M.C. LIKED NOTHING
better than being in the deep, with sunlight breaking into rays of green and gold. Water was a pressure of delicious weight as he passed through it, down and down. It was as if feeling no longer belonged to him. The water possessed it and touched along every inch of him.

He pulled out of his downward fall at the sight of the gaping tunnel opening. He no longer felt the girl next to him. He knew she was there with him by the impression she made on the deep. And he would remember her presence, her imprint, on this day for weeks.

Bending her wrist forward, he stretched her arm out straight as he kicked hard into the tunnel. Here the water was cooler and cast a gray shimmer that was ghostly. Pressure grew like a ball and chain hanging on his right shoulder. It was the girl like a dead weight.

Kick with your feet!

With a powerful scissoring of his legs, he tried to swim midway between the ceiling and bottom of the tunnel.

Push off with your hand!

Her dead pressure dragged him down. His knees banged hard against the bottom. His back hit the tunnel side as he realized she was struggling to get away. Fractions of seconds were lost as he tried twisting her arm to pull her body into line. Fishes slid over his skin, tickling and sending shivers to his toes. They must have touched the girl. For he had no moment to brace himself as she shot up on her back toward the ceiling.

Won’t make it.

Horror, outrage stunned him. He had taken for granted the one thing he should have asked her. For the want of a question, the tunnel would be a grave for both of them.

She kicked futilely against the tunnel side and rose above him, twisting his arm straight up.

Yank, like Macie will pull down on a balloon.

If he could get the girl turned over, they might have a chance. But his breath seemed to be gone.

Not a grave, it’s a tunnel.

In his lungs, emptiness was pain. But the will not to fail was there in his burning chest, in his free arm pushing hard against the deep. His legs were still loose and working. Then a sudden surge of strength, like a second wind.

Be M.C. Higgins, the Great.

He yanked the balloon down—he mustn’t break the string. At the same time he propelled himself forward, knowing she would follow as she turned over.

An awful pounding in his head snapped his brain open. M.C. shot out of the tunnel like a cork from a jug of cider. And arching his back, he swung mightily with his right arm.

Dark balloon to the light above.

He hadn’t the strength to hurl her to the surface. But he was right behind her. Before she could struggle down again, he was there, pulling at her. She opened her mouth in a pitiful attempt to breathe. He pounded her back, hoping to dislodge water. And held her close a split second to calm her. She was rigid.

Girl, don’t drown.

Swiftly he caught her ankles and tossed her up over his head. She broke the surface. He was there, feeling sweet air just when he would have to open his mouth or have his lungs collapse.

M.C. fought against dizziness, aware he had his hand on her neck in a bruising clasp to hold her up. He had to let go or break it.