Three

about all Roke was going to share with him.

  “Give it time,” said Roke. “I was scared once, too.”

  As they moved along, Joel looked back over his shoulder a couple of times to see where they had come. He figured it would be smart to memorize the route---so he could help them retrace their steps and make their way out later on. Especially now that he knew what he knew about Roke. But like the last time he had tried to do this when he first came into Slater’s, he was taken aback by what he saw. Nothing looked familiar at all. Every time he looked back, it seemed like a new and entirely different cave. And Roke wasn’t even trying to mark the way. He picked up a rock and started rubbing surreptitious marks on walls and rocks by the trail.

  “Don’t do that!” said Roke sharply. He could hear what Joel was doing. “You’re only messing up the place.”

  “But how are you going to find your way out? I’m lost already,” said Joel.

  “I know these caves front to back.” Roke lowered his voice. “Besides, we don’t want to point the way for Deeter.” After a moment he added: “How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise.”

  Joel gave him a probing look. “That poet you keep quoting. It’s Homer, right?” He remembered one of the cavers at the bar said Roke often did that.

  The big man scratched at his beard. “What that guy said three thousand years ago still works for me. And he was even blinder than me.” He yelled Bryan’s name several times in a row listening in vain for a reply. “Anyway, you’re not a caver. I am,” he said.

  Still, it was hard for Joel to believe that a blind man could maneuver this well in the darkness of the cave. And, then, he was going to run it all backwards without a single mistake? For that matter, how did Bryan find his way through this maze? At least he could see. Roke could barely see anything.

  Joel remembered the “B” he’d seen on the cave wall earlier. He mentioned it to Roke. “Probably was him. Must be more in here somewhere.”

  Just then, Joel saw another “B”—on the far side of a stalagmite. Roke brought his eyes up to the “B”, almost close enough to touch it and nodded. “Your brother’s smart. Putting the B’s where he’d see them coming back. He’s doing good so far. We’re in about seven miles.”

  Joel wondered if he dared ask him about his own long search for someone in the cave—what Bill had talked about in the tavern. “They said you’re looking for someone, too,” he said.

  “Who told you that?” He seemed annoyed that Joel knew this—as though it was none of his business to know it.

  “A caver at the bar. He didn’t know who you were looking for. He just said you’d been searching for years.”

  Roquefort didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said somberly: “Yeah, I been looking for my dad.”

  “Your dad? What was your dad doing down here?”

  What was almost as surprising was the idea that a wild guy like Roke ever had a dad. It was easy to imagine him as a gnarled stalagmite coming to life in a remote cavern.

  He became very pensive and quiet. “He was looking for me.” His voice got rather husky. “You see, I got lost in here when I was a little kid. He searched a long time. My mom had died so I was all the family he had---but he never found me.” He pinged a stone into a crevasse. “Instead, he got lost himself.”

  “Wow, that’s awful. So how did you get out of here, Roke? You were just a kid. Somebody else found you?”

  “Nope. I guess I just wandered out. This sweet lady said she saw me standing in her backyard. Picking some daisies. Not sure how I got there.”

  “But your dad never made it.” Joel was trying to imagine it all. “Did she take you in?”

  Roke nodded slowly. “Took me in and raised me. She didn’t have any kids of her own.” He stared down at the ground. “She was wonderful to me.”

  Joel gave him a questioning look.

  “Yeah, she’s gone now. That’s when I started looking for my dad.”

  “And you’ve been looking for him ever since,” whispered Joel. An obvious thought came to him. “But this was a long time ago. He can’t still be alive, Roke. Or can he?”

  “No, he’s gone, too. I know that.” He seemed to fall into a reverie. “I guess what I’ve been hoping is to find something of him he left behind. Maybe something he made for me to find.” Roke shook his head slowly. “No, I never found anything. The fact is I don’t know much about him. He was an artist, a sculptor, a great one, people say, but that’s about all I do know.”

  Sounds like me and Bryan,” said Joel. “We don’t know much about our dad either.”

  Roke yelled out Bryan’s name again but didn’t bother to listen for an answer.

  “Yeah, all I found was an old Indian who said he thought he’d seen him--but that was years ago.”

  “An Indian?”

  “This place used to be a hideout for Indians. The settlers weren’t interested in caves, so nobody cared if the Indians hung out in them.”

  Joel was afraid to ask him more questions. Roke didn’t like answering them—he could see that. Still, there were things he was dying to ask him, things that might help him locate Bryan.

  “Roke, you don’t have to answer this. Why the hell is Deeter so ticked off at us?”

  “Another question! Don’t you ever stop?” The big man sighed a huge sigh. “Okay, one more answer. That’s got to be it. Deeter believes the old settlers gave this cave to the Indians so it belongs to him and his stupid buddies. Now he believes the locals’re trying to take it back, bring in tourists and stuff. Besides, he thinks there’re too many cavers in here already.”

  “Well, I say let them have it,” said Joel. “I sure don’t need it.” He looked at Roke. “Except you do.”

  Roke smiled thinly. “I guess I’d miss it,” he said. He stopped to dip his cupped hand into a pool. He slurped up a mouthful. “Deeter’s also angry that word’s gotten out about the new cave system. Nobody was supposed to know about it.”

  “So what? It’s just more caves.”

  “Not these caves,” said Roke. “No indeed. Not these.”

  “What’s so great about them?”

  “I’ve never seen them,” said Roke. “But I’ve heard rumors. There’s like a big secret hidden in them.”

  “Bryan talked about a secret. He wouldn’t say what it was—but I think he was hoping to find it.”

  “I hope he did.”

  “Why are you whispering?” asked Joel.

  “I’m not whispering,” said Roke. But he was.

  “It’s because you think Deeter might be down here and overhear us.”

  “Always possible,” said Roke.

  “What can he do about it? He can’t keep people out.”

  “He can try,” said Roke ominously. “This is a very angry man who wants to get even. That’s what he’s all about. Wants to get even with me because I’m here. Wants to get even with you and your brother and all the other people he thinks don’t belong here.”

  Joel frowned. He thought about the darkly sneering face on the caver at the bar.

  “That’s why you need to worry about your brother,” said the big man.

  Joel felt a rising queasiness in his stomach. “Let’s get going,” he said. “I don’t care about their stupid caves. I’m here to find Bryan.”

  They had hiked into a large cavern with multiple entrances, and Roke was pulling at his beard, deciding which way they should go. “I’m trying to think like Bryan,” he said.

  “But you never met him,” said Joel. “How can you know how he thinks?”

  “I know his twin,” he said. “That’s enough.” He rolled his eyes upward. “More than enough. Besides, Bryan’s a real caver.”

  The big guy was at it again, taunting him for being a know-nothing. He decided to call him on it. “So which way do you think Bryan and I would choose in this cavern?”

&nb
sp; “It’s pretty obvious. That way,” Roke said pointing to a passageway on the other side of the cavern—even though he could barely see it.

  Joel was really surprised that he had picked exactly the passageway he would have picked—but he didn’t want to admit it.

  He wouldn’t let him one-up him this time. “Wrong,” he lied.

  Roke smiled slyly. “Okay, smartie, you tell me which way you and your mad twin would go.”

  Joel made a different, contrarian pick. “Hope you brought a bathing suit,” said Roke, and he took a few huge steps over to the cave portal Joel had picked.

  “You first, kid.” he said. Joel hesitated half a second, but he didn’t want to appear nervous. He ducked his head and plunged into the narrow passageway. Almost immediately it became very cramped and squeezed and impossible to stand up in. They had to move along on all fours. “Like apes,” said Roke. “Long as we don’t have to go on our hands and knees. That really slows you down.”

  The ceiling of the passage began to get lower and lower, and soon they were indeed creeping along in single file on their hands and knees. And now the ground was getting very wet and, then, more than wet and, then, just plain muddy. Soon the mud turned into several inches of water.

  “Told you,” said Roke. “Still think Bryan came this way? Want to turn back? While you can?”

  Looking back over his shoulder, Joel could see him grinning that impudent grin of his. He knew he was being goaded---the bumbling outsider, the stubborn non-caver who needed to be shown that caving took more than good eyes. He felt a surge of defiance rising in