The Devil's Cauldron (13 page)

“I could run back for the forty footer,” he said. It was too heavy to schlep about the caves, so they’d left it at the bottom of the second landing.

“We do that, we lose an hour,” Kaitlyn said. “Maybe more.”

“Anyway, we’re trying to get up from here, not down,” Meggie said. “I don’t think this is the way.”

“You think you can do better?” Kaitlyn snapped.

Meggie blinked. “That’s not what I’m saying. Just that, now that we’re here, it’s obvious this isn’t the way.”

Kaitlyn was still scowling from the perceived challenge to her authority. She turned on her heel, back toward the previous chamber. They followed. When they got back, Kaitlyn ordered them into the second tunnel they’d identified as leading in the right direction.

It also led to a chimney, but going up this time. The shaft was neither too narrow, nor too wide, and offered plenty of boulders and other protruding rocks to help maintain three points of contact at all times. But the chimney was at least thirty feet long and at a steep angle, and they were exhausted by the time they climbed to the next horizontal stretch. They took another breather.

“Got the time?” Meggie asked.

Benjamin’s watch lit up with an indigo glow. “Two-thirty. We’ve been down six hours already.”

It was hard to believe, but that was cave time for you. In all, they’d only traveled half a mile, if that, but between tying ropes, mapping, and rests, the hours dripped relentlessly away.

“We should start thinking about a return,” Meggie said.

“What, are you the trip leader now?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Just trying to be safe. What time did it get dark last night?”

“Not until 9:30,” Kaitlyn said.

“Yeah, but we’ve still got to hike back down the hill. I don’t want to do that with flashlights. Also, those guys have been waiting all day.”

“Not our fault. Anyway, they knew we’d be gone until late. We have until midnight before they go back for help.”

Probably, Meggie was being overly cautious. Without stopping to map, but taking usual precautions, the return would be quicker than the initial exploration. Until they got to the two ropes leading to the surface. Then it would be a slow, exhausting climb via the vertical ascenders. Using a pulley system attached to the shoes, climbing the rope would be like working out on a high-tension StairMaster, as they ascended inch by excruciating inch back to the surface.

“We’ve come too far to go back now,” Kaitlyn added.

“How about another half-hour?” Meggie said. “And if we don’t find it, we’ll turn around.”

Benjamin shrugged and turned to Kaitlyn, who scowled.

“An hour,” she said. “If we don’t find it by then, we can turn around. We’ll still have plenty of time to get back to the surface and down to the truck.”

Then, without waiting to see how the others would respond, she rose to her feet, hoisted her pack, and continued up the passageway. The other two followed. Meggie struggled to fight down her misgivings.

#

They found the chamber about forty minutes later. It took another chimney, a lucky guess at a fork, and then some more belly crawling through a passageway maybe three feet high. It wasn’t the tightest squeeze, except that it seemed to go on forever. In reality, probably less than fifty feet. But if time was different down here in the dark, then so were distances. More so when you found yourself pinched between two slabs of rock, each hundreds of feet thick. Get wedged down here and you’d die. No rescue team in the world could do a thing.

Then she came out the other side to find Benjamin and Kaitlyn standing upright and staring slack-jawed. They’d found it.  

The room was a wonderland of speleothems. Stalactites glistened from the ceiling by the hundreds, looking like so many milky icicles. Stalagmites squatted on the ground, some white, others streaked brown or glittering. Waves of mineralized formations smeared across the walls, looking alternatively like frosting, or popcorn, or even strange, glistening faces. Cascading waves of flowstone formed frozen waterfalls. The cavern amplified and echoed the drip of water, which fell into a clear, bluish pool in the center of the room.

For several seconds nobody said anything, they simply gawked, turning on their spare flashlights and flashing them around the chamber. Then they set about mapping the room. Benjamin wrote everything down, while the two women moved carefully around the room with their flashlights, calling out excitedly whenever they discovered a new formation.

Meggie forgot the time. They were squatting in the middle of the room, gobbling up their sandwiches and talking about what to call the room when she remembered. She grabbed Benjamin’s wrist and turned on the light.

“Crap, it’s 3:52,” she said. “We have to go.”

Kaitlyn groaned. “Who was supposed to be watching the time? Benjamin, what were you thinking?”

“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly.

“You’re the trip leader,” Meggie said. “That’s your job.”

“I didn’t see
you
taking charge, so why don’t you shut up?”
 

“Come on, guys,” Benjamin said. “It’s my fault. I was supposed to be watching.”

They scooped up their stuff, repacking their bags and strapping helmets into place. As incredible as this room was, Meggie was relieved to be turning around at last. All her worries were for nothing. She could stress about the embezzling later—now was the time to get back to the surface without goading the other woman any more.

“You know what comes next, right?” Kaitlyn said.

Benjamin turned. “Huh?”

“There’s no time to retrace our steps. That will take hours.”

“You should have thought—” Meggie began, then stopped herself. “I mean, if we were going to make that call, it should have been last time we had this discussion. But we pressed on. So now we’ve got to go back as quickly as we can, while still staying safe.”

“Too late for that. Those guys are expecting us at the truck. What happens when we don’t get back in time? They’ll drive off to find help. Then we’ll be stranded until they return. Not to mention having search and rescue show up.”

Meggie stared. “Are you serious? What about what you said before? You said we had plenty of time, that those guys would wait until midnight.”

“I said an hour. It’s now been an hour and a half, nearly.”

“Oh my God. I give up.”

“Stop fighting,” Benjamin cut in. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. We don’t have a choice—we have to turn around.”

“Not necessarily.” Kaitlyn shone her light across the room. There, like a deeper shade of shadows, was the hole they’d spotted from the other side. The squeeze they’d ruled out after their initial descent. “We take the last squeeze.”

Meggie shook her head. “No.”

“We cut hours off our return, get back to the surface by seven. Collect our gear and we reach the truck by eight.”

“We didn’t like the squeeze then,” Meggie said, “so what makes it better now? We’re tired, impatient to get back. That’s the time people make mistakes.”

“Who’s the trip leader here, you or me?”

“A good trip leader doesn’t push when others are uncomfortable.”

“Bullshit. That’s
exactly
what a good leader does. She gets people out of their comfort zone.”
 

“Kaitlyn,” Benjamin said, sounding tentative. “Maybe Meggie has a point.”

Kaitlyn turned on him. “Strap on your balls for once.”

“Oh, come on!” Meggie said. “It’s a question of common sense. Let’s go back the other way. Really, it’s not worth it.”

But Kaitlyn was strolling across the room. Without waiting for the others, she shoved her pack into the hole. She leaned in until her entire head and shoulders were through, then pulled back again.

“See, plenty big.” Her tone was triumphant. “And my pack is through anyway. I’m committed. Now you babies can stay behind if you want. I’m going through. And then I’m going back to the surface—with or without you.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Meggie said.

She made her way to the crawl space that had brought them into the cavern. Compared to the stone birth canal Kaitlyn wanted to squirm through, it was a spacious, airy chasm. Before dropping to her belly and squirming inside, she looked back across the room. Kaitlyn had gone ahead and entered. She was already through past her hips, her legs disappearing into the hole like an animal sliding down the throat of a giant snake.

Damn you!

“Meggie,” Benjamin cried. “What do we do?”

“Come on. She made her choice. We’ll make ours.”

“But she’s the trip leader!”

“I’m not going in there. So help me God, I won’t.” She crossed back to him, then put her hands on his shoulders. “Come on, wake up. We have to go the other way. You know it.”

Grunting and scrapes came from the tunnel. Benjamin leaned down and shone his light in.

Was she stuck? Holy crap, what would they do then? And Meggie realized with a sick feeling in her stomach, that part of her
wanted
the other woman to get wedged. That would show her.
 

No, stop it. That’s wrong.

“Through!” Kaitlyn called, her voice echoing through the tunnel. Her light flashed through from the other side.

“Come on, let’s give it a shot,” Benjamin urged.

A bitter laugh came up. “A shot? There’s no, ‘oops, guess it didn’t work.’ If you get stuck, that’s it. You’ll never get out.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She grabbed his wrist. “We’re going back the other way. I mean it.”

“Come on, guys,” Kaitlyn coaxed from the other side. “You can do it.”

She sounded perfectly reasonable. Sure, now that she’d forced them into this awful situation. Waste hours going back around, or trust her against their own misgivings. Serious, deadly misgivings.

Benjamin pulled away. “I’m going for it.”

“I’m warning you,” Meggie said.

“What?”

She stopped what she was about to say. No ultimatums. The situation was too high stress. Whatever she said, she’d regret.

But in that moment he apparently decided. He shoved his pack in, took off his helmet and squirmed up into the hole.

“Benjamin!”

He didn’t listen, but kept moving forward. More slowly than Kaitlyn, and with a good deal of grunting, but little by little he disappeared into the hole. While Meggie looked in after him, his boots continued forward. He groaned and made straining noises, while Kaitlyn shouted at him to keep going. She was tugging on him. Then, a cry of satisfaction from the other side. He was through. His face looked back and squinted against Meggie’s flashlight.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “A little tight at the end.”

“Seriously?”

“You can do it.”

You’ve got those wide hips,
Kaitlyn had said,
but maybe you’ll make it through.
 

This was nuts. She wasn’t going into that hole. It wasn’t simply a claustrophobic nightmare, there was real danger.

“What a coward,” Kaitlyn said. She’d pushed Benjamin out of the way to speak through the tunnel.

“No way. I’m going back. I don’t care if I’m alone or not.”

“You idiot, how are you going to do that? You don’t have the map.”

Full-blown terror blossomed in Meggie’s chest. “Benjamin!”

“He can’t hear you.”

“Benjamin!”

“Sorry, Megs. I sent him ahead to get started on the ropes. Give him a head start. He’s a slower climber than we are.”

He left? Didn’t even bother to encourage her through? What a jerk.

“Please, for God’s sake. I need the map.”

Kaitlyn laughed. “Oh, this is great. You’re stuck over there.”

“Don’t do this to me.”

“You’ll probably be okay. We took our time coming through. There were only a half-dozen different choices to make. You get them all right, you’ll find your way back around to here. We’ll wait for you on the surface.”

“Benjamin!” she screamed.

Meggie staggered back, gasping for air. The light blinked out on the other side. She screamed for Kaitlyn this time, but there was no answer. She heard the woman’s voice, calling ahead. The woman sounded calm, like she was shouting to Benjamin to assure him that everything was fine.
Keep on climbing up, we’re right behind you.
 

“Stay calm,” Meggie told herself. “Don’t panic. Think.”

Going back alone and without the map was out of the question. Maybe she’d make it. Probably, even. But if she got lost, that could be fatal. Who knew how big these caves were? They might stretch for miles. There would be dead ends, chimneys, even underground pools. She’d wander around, tired, cold, frightened. Then the batteries would die on her lights. Then the spare batteries. She might stay alive for days, or even a week or two. Eventually, she’d curl into a shivering, starving ball in some black corner to die.

“Two choices. You wait for help, or you squeeze through.”

Waiting sucked. The other two would climb to the surface, wait for her there, then what? Kaitlyn might talk Benjamin into leaving her behind, ostensibly to get help, but those two guys at the truck wouldn’t buy it. They’d come back for her. Duperre would take charge, grab the map, while cursing the other two for being idiots, then lead a rescue himself.

“Unless he’s still puking up his guts.”

Say Duperre
was
sick. He still wouldn’t abandon her. He’d go fetch search and rescue. That would take time. Maybe twenty-four hours until they returned. She’d be cold, hungry, and thirsty, but alive.
 

“Or you could suck it up and crawl through there.”

It was the only sane choice. Those two assholes left her behind—and yes, she was fully including Benjamin when she thought that. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that they were done. The first thing she’d do when she got back to the surface was call off the wedding. Break up with him.

He’d sputter and whine, while Kaitlyn got in her aggressive little digs, but none of that mattered. Benjamin had shown exactly what kind of a man he was. The kind who would go ahead and not return. The kind who would leave her stuck in a cave. And that was not the kind of man Meggie wanted to spend her life with.