Three

But no. It was a winding defile that a few yards later opened up into an even bigger cavern. This one had some stalagmites in it---blotchy-colored, barrel-like columns, some of which tapered into delicate white fingers reaching up and up. As though trying to find a way out of their rocky prison. He remembered from school that stalagmites grew out of the ground, and you could tell them from stalacmites because of the “g” hiding in the middle of the word. Stalacmites came down from the ceiling and had a “c” for ceiling hiding in the middle. This cave also had a long, narrow pool that wound into the shadows at the far end.

  Then came another magical moment. As he watched, shining the flashlight around the place, he saw a bat fly abruptly down from somewhere, skim along the surface of the pool, as though it were unzipping it, and disappear into darkness. Briefly there were ripples on the surface, and, then, they were gone. My God, thought Joel, that little guy’s having a drink. He thought about having one himself. I wonder if it’s safe, he asked himself, but he couldn’t resist reaching his hand into the pool to taste it. It was fresh and cold.

  It occurred to him that if he went much further, he would never be able to find his way back. If only he had some chalk or white rice or even torn bits of paper, anything that would show him where he’d been. He wondered how Bryan had marked his path or did he just know the way?

  The flashlight was getting fainter. What he truly needed was a caver’s light like an LED head lamp. He remembered his brother said it stood for “light emitting diode,” whatever that meant. All cavers had one—Bryan, too.

  Then, he saw it. His heart began to beat so fast he felt he was going to faint. Right on the cave wall about even with his head was a mark---one made by a rock being rubbed on another rock. It was roughly drawn but unmistakably a “B”. He walked over to it in wonder and reached up and touched the “B”. It could have been made a few minutes ago, but he realized it could have been there for all five days.

  “Damn, Bryan,” he whispered. “You must be in here. You must be alive, guy. I’m going to find you.”

  He began walking as quickly as he could across the jumble of broken rocks on the cave’s floor. Except now he had a new concern. He was beginning to get over his initial feelings of suffocating claustrophobia, but what was replacing them was another worry: he realized he was becoming more and more lost. How was he ever going to get out of here? He turned around again and again to try to keep track of the way back, but everything always looked different. The near side of a stalagmite never looked the same as the far side. There seemed no way for him to recognize the way back. Meanwhile, Amos’ flashlight was growing dimmer and dimmer.

  Suddenly, he slipped and fell, and the flashlight jumped from his hand and rolled away. It also went out. The cave around him was now a black nothing. He had no clue where to go next. If his brother had left more “B” signs around, he was never going to see them.

  He felt a creeping panic. He started to call out Bryan’s name, at first softly, then, louder and louder. All that came back was a mocking echo of “Bryan.” His old fear of caving and tight places came back with a vengeance. What on earth could he do? He was also struck by the absurdity of it all. He had come in here to find Bryan, and at this rate he might be the one they would have to find.

  He had stepped into a pool of water. It seemed like a pool at first, but then in the dark he realized it wasn’t a pool. It was a small, slowly flowing stream. He decided to follow its course on the chance that it might lead to somewhere—perhaps, an exit from the cavern he was in. Splashing along it in his sneakers, he followed it through a squeezed defile and could feel the water speeding up. What’s that mean? he asked himself. It’s like the water’s being pulled along.

  The stream came out at a place where he heard the echoing sound of falling water. A cascade? he wondered. A small one probably. He felt the rocky edge of the waterfall through the bottom of his sneakers. It came to him that this might be the lip of a pothole. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the water from the stream falling noisily straight down into it.

  The next moment he had lost his balance and was sliding down the pothole’s slippery sides and landing in a small basin at the bottom of it. He had bruised one knee. He was sure it was bleeding because it felt wet and warm, but he wasn’t hurt, just embarrassed and mad at himself for letting it happen.

  He tried to stand up and fell again. It was really slithery. He felt an impulse to laugh but not for long as he quickly discovered that he was not going to get out of this hole that easily. Its sides rose smoothly upwards all around him to what seemed like a point above his head where the water from the stream slid off the pothole’s upper edge. At the pothole’s bottom was a pool that drained out to somewhere.

  At first he couldn’t believe he was actually stuck in this thing. It was as though he thought that in a few minutes the pothole would sprout some handy stone steps leading up out of it. It didn’t. It was what it was, minus any hand or foot holds, and he was trapped in it in pitch darkness. How was he going to get out of it? It was obviously only a few feet deep, but he had no tools to help him escape. Cell phones, he remembered, were useless in caves though he’d brought one. There was no reception.

  This was crazy. Was he going to starve and perish here at the very start of his search? He could only think of how embarrassing it would be to be found here by a caver or Bryan, especially Bryan. But he couldn’t just sit and do nothing.

  He began to shout. “Help me! Help me!” It sounded sissyish and totally useless. The shout seemed to get swallowed up in the windings of the cave. How could anyone possibly hear it? The hopeless nature of his predicament began to overwhelm him. It bloomed in his mind like a fire, racing through him and devouring him. He realized in one cataclysmic moment that he was doomed. He was going to die here in this idiotic pitch-black pothole.

  Instinctively he felt a need for something tied to hard reality. He reached into his pocket for one of the candy bars he’d bought at the tavern. The taste of chocolate mixed with peanuts felt reassuring; the definitive crunch of it seemed to steady him.

  “You gonna eat all of that?” The voice was quiet and confidential like it was coming from someone standing right next to him. “Down here we share everything.”

  Joel felt elated and frightened both at once. This was another human being---someone who could rescue him! But the voice was also profoundly scary—deep and somehow threatening. “Take it easy, mister,” he said, his voice wavering as he tried to tamp down his fear. “I’ve got another one.” He pulled out another candy bar and held it up. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Such language,” said the voice. “If your mother could hear you. Toss it up.”

  He no longer had Amos’ flashlight, but he remembered that his cell phone had a tiny light on it. He fished it out of the waterproof bag he had taken from Bryan’s apartment and played it around above his head. He made out the vague shadow of a huge man with a headlamp peering over the edge of the waterfall. He threw the candy bar up at him. It bounced off him, and he leaned down to pick it up.

  After a moment, the man mumbled: “Mmm, Mars Bar. Love ‘em.”

  Bryan quickly said: “Please, can you get me out of here?” He realized he probably sounded pretty scared. After hearing no reply, he added. “I’ve got more of these.” All he could hear was the man’s mouth munching away. A minute went by.

  “Trying to make a deal?” the guy asked.

  “Well, yeah,” said Joel. There was something in the guy’s voice that made him realize this was not just talk but banter. He decided he better play along. “One more Mars Bar in return for rescuing me---and one more for loaning me some caving gear.”

  The voice laughed loudly. “I like that,” it said. “How do you know I’m not the devil. I may want your soul.”

  “Done deal,” said Joel. He tossed up another candy bar.
r />   The voice laughed again. “I like you,” it said. “You’ve got a sense of humor. Not all cavers do. Except I can see you’re no caver. Where’s your gear?”

  “I need a light and a helmet and a jacket,” said Joel. There was dead silence.

  “No light, no helmet, no jacket?”

  “Nope.”

  “You know you’re in Davy Jones’ Locker down there. You know what that is?”

  “I’ve sailed,” said Joel. “He collects dead sailors.”

  I guess you’re not an imbecile,” said the man. “Just a lunatic. Here, grab this line.”

  He flung over a short length of rope, and Joel went up it hand over hand and over the edge of the pothole while the man held the other end. He could hardly believe that one minute he was trapped and doomed and the next he was free.

  “Great to be alive, uh?” said the stranger. He was huge all right---and really tall. In the faint light, Joel made out ragtag, mud-splattered clothes and a head and face covered with every-which-way black hair. It was hard to guess his age--in his thirties maybe. He had teeth the color of butternut squash. Joel imagined they had never been touched by a tooth brush.

  “Thanks,” said Joel, but this guy was no stranger. It was pretty clear he could only be Roquefort. He fit