The Servants of Twilight (56 page)
“I don’t see any sign of them,” Charlie said.
“They must be near,” she said. “Do you need help getting up?”
“I can make it,” he said.
She lifted Joey. The boy didn’t hold on to her. His arms hung down, limp. She glanced at Charlie.
Charlie sighed, gripped the tree, and got laboriously to his feet, quite surprised when he made it all the way up.
But he was even more surprised when, a second later, Chewbacca appeared, cloaked in snow and ice, head hung low, a walking definition of misery. When he had last seen the dog, out in the meadow, Charlie had been sure the animal would collapse and die in the storm.
“My God,” Christine said when she saw the dog, and she looked as startled as Charlie was.
It’s important, Charlie thought. The dog pulling through—that means we’re
all
going to survive.
all
going to survive.
He wanted very much to believe it. He tried hard to convince himself. But they were a long way from home.
The way things
had been going for them, Christine figured they would be unable to find the caves and would simply wander through the forest until they dropped from exhaustion and exposure to the cold. But fate finally had a bit of luck in store for them, and they found what they were looking for in less than ten minutes.
had been going for them, Christine figured they would be unable to find the caves and would simply wander through the forest until they dropped from exhaustion and exposure to the cold. But fate finally had a bit of luck in store for them, and they found what they were looking for in less than ten minutes.
The trees thinned out in the neighborhood of the caves because the land became extremely rocky. It sloped up in uneven steps of stone, in humps and knobs and ledges and setbacks. Because there were fewer trees, more snow found its way in here, and there were some formidable drifts at the base of the slope and at many points higher up, where a setback or a narrower ledge provided accommodation. But there was more wind, too, whistling down from the tops of the surrounding trees, and large areas of rock were swept bare of snow. She could see the dark mouths of three caves in the lower formations, where she and Charlie might be able to climb, and there were half a dozen others visible in the upper formations, but those were out of reach. There might be more openings, now drifted shut and hidden, because this portion of the valley wall appeared to be a honeycomb of tunnels, caves, and caverns.
She carried Joey to a jumble of boulders at the bottom of the slope and put him down, out of the wind.
Chewbacca limped after them and slumped wearily beside his master. It was astonishing that the dog had made it all this way, but it was clear he would not be able to go much farther.
With a grateful sigh and a gasp of pain, Charlie lowered himself to the ground beside Joey and the dog.
The look of him scared Christine as much as Joey’s tortured face. His bloodshot eyes were fevered, two hot coals in his burnt-out face. She was afraid she was going to wind up alone out here with the bodies of the only two people she loved, caretaker of a wilderness graveyard that would eventually become her own final resting place.
“I’ll look in these caves,” she told Charlie, shouting to be heard now that they were more or less in the open again. “I’ll see which is the best for us.”
He nodded, and Joey didn’t react, and she turned away from them, clambered over the rocky terrain toward the first dark gap in the face of the slope.
She wasn’t sure if this part of the valley wall was limestone or granite, but it didn’t matter because, not being a spelunker, she didn’t know which kind of rock made for the safest caves, anyway. Besides, even if these were unsafe, she would have to make use of them; she had nowhere else to go.
The first cave had a low, narrow entrance. She took the flashlight out of her backpack and went into that hole in the ground. She was forced to crawl on her hands and knees, and in some places the passage was tight enough to require some agile squirming. After ten or twelve feet, the tunnel opened into a room about fifteen feet on a side, with a low ceiling barely high enough to allow her to stand up. It was big enough to house them, but far from ideal. Other passages led off the room, deeper into the hillside, perhaps to larger chambers, but none of them was of sufficient diameter to let her through. She went out into the wind and snow again.
The second cave wasn’t suitable, either, but the third was as close to ideal as she could expect to find. The initial passageway was high enough so she didn’t have to crawl to enter, wide enough so she didn’t have to squeeze. There was a small drift at the opening, but she stamped through it with no difficulty. Five feet into the hillside, the passage turned sharply to the right, and in another six feet it turned just as sharply back to the left, a double baffle that kept the wind out. The first chamber was about twenty feet wide and thirty or thirty-five feet long, as much as twelve to fifteen feet high at the near end, with a smooth floor, walls that were fractured and jagged in some places and water-smoothed in others.
To her right, another chamber opened off this one. It was smaller, with a lower ceiling. There were several stalactites and stalagmites that looked as if they had been formed from melted gray wax, and in a few places they met at the middle of the room to form wasp-waisted pillars. She shone the flashlight beam around, saw a passage at the far end of the second room and guessed it led to yet a third cavern, but that was all she needed to know.
The first room had everything they required. Toward the back, the floor rose and the ceiling dropped down, and in the last five feet the floor shelved up abruptly, forming a ledge five feet deep and twenty feet wide, only four feet below the ceiling. Exploring this raised niche with her flashlight, Christine discovered a two-foot-wide hole in the rock above it, boring up into darkness, and she realized she had found a huge, natural fireplace with its own flue. The hole must lead into another cave farther up the hillside, and either that chamber or another beyond it would eventually vent to the outside; smoke would rise naturally toward the distant promise of open air.
Having a fire was important. They hadn’t brought their sleeping bags with them because such bulky items would have slowed them down and because they had expected to reach the lake before nightfall, in which case they wouldn’t have required bedrolls. The blizzard and the bullet hole in Charlie’s shoulder had changed their plans drastically, and now without sleeping bags to ward off the night chill and help conserve body heat, a fire was essential.
She wasn’t worried about the smoke giving away their position. The forest would conceal it, and once it rose above the trees, it would be lost in the white whirling skirts of the storm. Besides, Spivey’s fanatics would almost certainly be searching southwest, toward the end of the valley that led to civilization.
The chamber boasted one other feature that, at first, added to its appeal. One wall was decorated with a seven-foot-tall drawing, an Indian totem of a bear, perhaps a grizzly. It had been etched into the rock with a corrosive yellow dye of some sort. It was either crude or highly stylized; Christine didn’t know enough about Indian totems to make the fine distinction. All she knew for sure was that drawings like this were usually meant to bring good luck to the occupants of the cave; the image of the bear supposedly embodied a real spirit that would provide protection. Initially, that seemed like a good thing. She and Charlie and Joey needed all the protection they could get. But as she paused a moment to study the sulfur-yellow bear, she got the feeling there was something threatening about it. That was ridiculous, of course, an indication of her shaky state of mind, for it was nothing but a drawing on stone. Nevertheless, on reappraisal, she decided she would have preferred another drab gray wall in place of the totem.
But she wasn’t going to look for another cave just because she didn’t like the decor of this one. The natural fireplace more than outweighed the previous occupants’ taste in art. With a fire for heat and light, the cave would provide almost as much shelter as the cabin they had left behind. It would not be as comfortable, of course, but at the moment, she wasn’t as concerned about comfort as she was worried about keeping her son, Charlie, and herself alive.
In spite of
the stone floor that served as chair and bed, Charlie was delighted with the cave, and at the moment it seemed as luxurious as any hotel suite he’d ever occupied. Just being out of the wind and snow was an incomparable blessing.
the stone floor that served as chair and bed, Charlie was delighted with the cave, and at the moment it seemed as luxurious as any hotel suite he’d ever occupied. Just being out of the wind and snow was an incomparable blessing.
For more than an hour, Christine gathered dead wood and crisp dry evergreen branches with which to make a fire and keep it going until morning. She returned to the cave again and again with armloads of fuel, making one stack for the logs and larger pieces of wood, another for the small stuff that would serve as tinder.
Charlie marveled at her energy. Could such stamina spring entirely from a mother’s instinct to preserve her offspring’s life? There seemed no other explanation. She should have collapsed long ago.
He knew he should switch the flashlight off each time she went outside, turn it on again only so she would be able to see when she came in with more wood, for he was concerned the batteries would go dead. But he left it burning, anyway, because he was afraid Joey would react badly to being plunged into total darkness.
The boy was in bad shape. His breathing was labored. He lay motionless, silent, beside the equally depleted dog.
As he listened to Joey’s ragged breathing, Charlie told himself that finding the cave was another good sign, an indication their luck was improving, that they would recover their strength in a day or two and then head down toward the lake. But another, grimmer voice within him wondered if the cave was, instead, a tomb, and although he didn’t want to consider that depressing possibility, he couldn’t tune it out.
He listened, as well, to the drip-drip-drip of water in an adjacent chamber. The cold stone walls and hollow spaces amplified the humble sound and made it seem both portentous and strange, like a mechanical heartbeat or, perhaps, the tapping of one clawed finger on a sheet of glass.
The fire cast
flickering orange light on the yellow bear totem, making it shimmer, and on drab stone walls. Welcome heat poured from the blazing pile of wood. The natural flue worked as Christine had hoped, drawing the smoke up into higher caverns, leaving their air untainted. In fact, the drying action of the fire took some of the dampness out of the air and eliminated most of the vaguely unpleasant, musty odor that had been in the dank chamber since she had first entered.
flickering orange light on the yellow bear totem, making it shimmer, and on drab stone walls. Welcome heat poured from the blazing pile of wood. The natural flue worked as Christine had hoped, drawing the smoke up into higher caverns, leaving their air untainted. In fact, the drying action of the fire took some of the dampness out of the air and eliminated most of the vaguely unpleasant, musty odor that had been in the dank chamber since she had first entered.
For a while they just basked in the warmth, doing nothing, saying nothing, even trying not to think.
In time Christine took off her gloves, lowered the hood of her jacket, then finally took off the jacket itself. The cave wasn’t exactly toasty, and drafts circulated through it from adjacent caverns, but her flannel shirt and long insulated underwear were now sufficient. She helped Charlie and Joey out of their jackets, too.
She gave Charlie more Tylenol. She lifted his bandage, dusted in more powdered antibiotics and more of the anaesthetic as well.
He said he wasn’t in much pain.
She knew he was lying.
The hives that afflicted Joey began, at last, to recede. The swelling subsided, and his misshapen face slowly regained its proper proportions. His nostrils opened, and he no longer needed to breathe through his mouth, although he continued to wheeze slightly, as if there was some congestion in his lungs.
Please, God, not pneumonia, Christine thought.
His eyes opened wider, but they were still frighteningly empty. She smiled at him, made a couple of funny faces, trying to get a reaction out of him, all to no avail. As far as she could tell he didn’t even see her.
Charlie didn’t think
he was hungry until Christine began to heat beans and Vienna sausages in the aluminum pot that was part of their compact mess kit. The aroma made his mouth water and his stomach growl, and suddenly he was shaking with hunger.
he was hungry until Christine began to heat beans and Vienna sausages in the aluminum pot that was part of their compact mess kit. The aroma made his mouth water and his stomach growl, and suddenly he was shaking with hunger.
Once he began to eat, however, he filled up fast. His stomach bloated, and he found it increasingly difficult to swallow. The very act of chewing exacerbated the pain in his head, which doubled back along the lines of pain in his neck and all the way into the shoulder wound, making that ache worse, too. Finally the food lost its flavor, then seemed bitter. He ate about a fourth of what he first thought he could put away, and even the meager meal didn’t rest well in his belly.
“You can’t get more of it down?” Christine asked.
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