CAVE ANGEL

By J. L. Kerry

 

The call came at breakfast. I put my grandfather Thornton's eggs and toast in a pan and tried to keep them warm. From what I could pick out of the one-sided conversation, I knew there was serious trouble.

He stood by the kitchen table in his spacious cabin in the hills of southern Missouri and spoke into the wall-mounted phone, shaking his head. "Just one? How long ago?"

Silence. My grandfather nodded. One what? I wondered.

"Won't starve. Exposure's the danger, then water, unless he made it to the end where there is some." He turned momentarily and looked at me as he bit his lip and listened to the distant voice say something back.

"Yes. Falling is a real possibility if he panics." Thornton looked through the kitchen window as if he were checking the weather, then turned back to the phone. "No! We're closer and it'd be wrong to delay if there's a chance he's injured -- if he's there at all."

We? I wondered.

"Right. We'll call you as soon as we make a thorough sweep," he added, nodding at the phone, then hung up and turned toward me.

"Alene..."

I looked at him and waited. He didn't seem to know what to say, but I had a feeling that breakfast had been wasted. His expression was thoughtful, and the lines in his forehead suggested he was carefully searching for the words he wanted. Then he found them.

"Alene, that was officer Noonan in Potosi. We go back aways... Anyway, there's a kid with a set of worried parents. Didn't come home from school yesterday at all. After a bunch of phone calls, his parents think he mighta gone into Scott by himself."

I looked blankly at my grandfather. "Scott?"

"That's the cave I've been wantin' to show you."

"Oh. You're going... or rather it sounds like we're going to look for him?" I tried to smile as I said it. I had earlier feigned willingness, if not delight, about a cave exploration; but I was an English major, not a geologist -- and certainly not a spelunker. I tried to keep my faint smile from wilting; it was the last full day of my visit, but I was not going to escape. I made up my mind to be a good sport about it.

He spread his hands apologetically. "Don't know what else to do. If he's in there, he's outta light by now. Unless he's at the end, he won't have water to drink. If he panics and tries to make it out in total darkness, falls, breaks something..." He looked appraisingly at my expression and added, "I assumed you'd want to go along, but I guess there's really no need..."

"I'd rather go with you than wait here and worry," I said, cutting him off. "Besides, I'm trained in CPR." I was determined not to disappoint him. But darkness was for sleeping and I did not enjoy it at other times. I imagined flashlights growing dim or going out completely. I pushed the thought aside.

A proud grin formed on his tanned and weathered face, the worry lines changing into what I was more used to seeing. "I'll round up the essentials." He looked at his watch, then met my eyes. "We better get goin' as soon as we can."

I nodded encouragingly. What else could I do?

* * *

We both wore jeans and boots. Thornton parked as far to the side of the road as possible, and we put on long-sleeve flannel shirts to complete our cave-crawling wardrobe.

The air was already warm and humid, making my long black hair curl into tangles. Clouds were low and puffy, their bottoms beginning to darken as if contemplating battle. Squirrels stopped their chatter and went into threat-assessment mode as we picked our way through the surrounding pine, dogwood, oak and scrub that penetrated the rocky hillside and kept it from eroding away.

We made no attempt to be subtle as we trudged downward from the gravel road where we had left my grandfather's worn and dust-coated Blazer. It was a deliberate strategy and probably a good one: Missouri was home to poisonous snakes, notably the copperhead, and it seemed unlikely that we would see one in time to avoid it; better they should hear and avoid us, and I dearly hoped they would. I glanced back and estimated we had traveled a hundred yards down the ragged slope. I tried to make even more noise as I walked.

We were eight miles west of Shirley, a tiny town west of Potosi in the lead-mining region of Missouri, sixty-five bird miles southeast of downtown St. Louis, and -- despite our mission -- I found myself enjoying the fresh air and wooded beauty of Mark Twain National Forest. I pushed away thoughts of books and papers and classroom schedules that would soon close around me after this end-of-summer visit when I began my senior year at Drury College in Springfield. I hoped to teach.

Since my grandfather had lost his wife a year ago, I had tried to visit more frequently, but the demands of education had made that difficult. Thornton had made much progress, it seemed, but I sensed he was still struggling with acceptance, and he sometimes forgot and called me by her name: Eileen. Eileen, Alene. Our names were close enough that the mistake could easily be passed off as a slip of the tongue instead of a momentary outpouring of his innermost thoughts.

We moved on and I was fully into the spirit of the mission now, apprehensive, but no longer regretful. If there were someone lost in darkness, my heart went out to him, and I would not wish such a fate on anyone. And it was good to see Grandfather with a sense of purpose again, a task for which he was well suited. Just what he needed, I thought, and felt guilty about thinking it.