Ghost Cave Read online

  “Oh yes. I used to look for things. Spears and …” The old man’s voice drifted off. He was back in the past.

  Marc waited patiently, but Mr. Clearwater began to hum. The tune was almost a chant. From past experience Marc knew when he did that, he would stay wherever he had retreated for longer than Marc had to visit. He got up and said good-bye. Mr. Clearwater didn’t hear it. He might not even remember Marc had been there. It made Marc sad, but maybe it was easier for him to live in the past. It had to be more interesting than the sanatorium.

  Marc liked the old Indian man. And Mr. Clearwater seemed to like Marc. He told Marc once that his wife and son had died a long time ago. So he had no close kin. Marc teased him that he’d be his kinfolk if he’d let Marc be Osage.

  Maybe he’d tell Mr. Clearwater what he and Hermie and Eddie found in the cave. Mr. Clearwater would never tell anyone, or if he did, they would think he was talking about days gone by. Their secret would be safe.

  Marc’s dad was extra quiet on the way home. Finally Marc broke the stillness. “Is Mama ever going to get well?”

  “Of course she is, boy. It’s only a matter of time.” His father seemed angry that Marc had asked such a thing. But Marc wanted to know. He didn’t want someone to lie to him or to tell him half-truths—or call him boy, for that matter. He had a name. Had his father forgotten it?

  Usually they ate lunch at the sanatorium with Mama, but today they had left early and gotten home just after one o’clock. Marc got his own lunch. Marc wondered if his father was going to eat anything, but he didn’t ask. If his dad wanted to ignore food or his son or anything else, Marc would try to ignore him, too. Especially now that he had a reason to sneak away from home quietly.

  He piled a slice of bread with bologna, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, and another slice of bologna for good measure. Then he spread mayonnaise on the top piece of bread, turned the sandwich over, and smeared mustard on the other slice. It was a real Dagwood Bumstead creation. He could hardly get it into his mouth to take a bite. Bluedog sat nearby hoping he’d drop half of it. He had gone out on the back step to eat. He liked being outside, and he didn’t want to be in the house with his dad right then.

  After topping off the sandwich with two glasses of milk and four cookies, Marc called Hermie.

  “I’m back already, Hermie. We might have time to look around in the cave if we hurry.”

  “I forgot I had to go to the dentist today, Marc. Mom is waving at me to hurry right now. She’s taking an hour off from work.”

  “You’ll do anything to get out of going into the cave, won’t you, Hermie? This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime—or at least of the summer.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. You and Eddie go on without me. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll try to get over it.”

  “I don’t want to go without you, Hermie. We’ll wait until tomorrow, as planned. Eight o’clock, with sack lunches and warm clothes. Promise? You won’t invent another excuse? A haircut? A date with Louanne Swartzberger?”

  Louanne Swartzberger was a girl in their class who was twice the size of Hermie and still growing, both up and out. She had chosen Hermie for a partner the day they had folk dance lessons in gym. Hermie suddenly had the worst appendicitis attack anyone in fifth grade had ever seen. Eddie and Marc secretly presented Hermie with an Academy Award for his performance, it had worked so well. Louanne was so mad she didn’t speak to Hermie the rest of the year.

  “I’ll think about it while the dentist fills my tooth. I might decide the cave is the worse of two evils.”

  Marc laughed and hung up. Then he thought of calling Eddie or going to the cave alone. But no one ever went spelunking without a partner. It just wasn’t safe; anything could happen. He’d have to wait. At least he didn’t have to worry about hurrying. The cave had remained hidden for years; no one else was going to find it by tomorrow.

  “Bluedog,” Marc called. She had given up on the sandwich and flopped in the shade of the huge oak tree in back of their house. “Want to go swimming?”

  Bluedog’s tail turned into a flag waving a Fourth of July salute. “Go” was her favorite word, and she loved water. She was ready.

  The swimming hole down by the river where kids hung out all summer would be jammed, but it would give Marc something to do. He knew he couldn’t just wait or even sit still enough to read. He was too excited about what the morning might bring.

  8

  THE CAVE’S SECRET

  The next day Marc pretended to be asleep until he knew his father had eaten breakfast and gone into his office. Then he scrambled out of bed and hurried to gather up his spelunking gear. Dad had put his personal stuff in the shed behind their house. On the way out Marc got his dad’s helmet and carbide lamp for Hermie. He had told Hermie to wear his oldest clothes and shoes. The cave might be muddy.

  Bluedog wanted to go. Marc debated, knowing it was foolish to take a dog on a caving expedition. If there was some climbing, even scrambling up and over rocks, Bluedog would be a nuisance. On the other hand, Marc made a habit of taking her everywhere except to school. He’d be gone all day. And she had discovered the cave. He could make her sit and stay if they got into territory too difficult for her. Fortunately she was very well behaved. Probably better behaved than I am, Marc thought with a smile. He felt guilty going off without telling his father where he would be, but he knew he could never stand it if his dad said he couldn’t go.

  He ate a bowl of cereal while he thought about taking the dog. By the time he tipped up the bowl and drained the rest of the milk, he had voted yes. Bluedog, the spelunking dog. He hoped he wouldn’t regret the decision. To his gear he added an old T-shirt for lowering her into the cave. It was still amazing to him that she had fallen into it while chasing the rabbit without getting hurt. She must have slid most of the way. And maybe her jumping ability had taught her to land safely. Yep, she’d be okay in the cave.

  Marc took the precaution of hiding all their gear in his backpack and a duffel bag. If they ran into Mooney again, their supplies wouldn’t give away where they were going. He’d say they were going to camp out.

  “Hi, Hermie.” Marc met Hermie at his back door. “Ready?”

  “I guess so.” Hermie sounded resigned to his fate. He was eating a banana and had a lunch sack big enough for two days’ worth of food.

  “Planning on staying underground overnight?” Marc asked, pointing to his sack and laughing.

  “Lordy, I hope not. But I might get hungry. Where’s Eddie?”

  “He said he’d meet us here.” Hermie and Marc sat on the back steps of Hermie’s house and waited. A half hour went by. Marc started to wiggle as much as Bluedog, who kept staring at him and smiling. Why aren’t we going someplace? she was asking.

  Eddie slid his bike to a stop in the driveway. “Sorry I’m late. Gramma made me go to the store for her.” He popped a comb out of his pocket and slipped it through both sides of his hair, as if riding over to Hermie’s had put it out of place. No way, with the Brylcream plastering it down.

  “Think you’ll meet Louanne in the cave?” Hermie often gave Eddie a bad time about having his hair so neat. Eddie just threw Hermie a dirty look and put his comb away.

  “I thought you might have had trouble slipping away.” Marc saw that Eddie had his gear hidden in an old backpack, too.

  “Nah. Pops was dozing on the front porch. No one cares where I am.”

  No one cares where I am either, Marc thought. Then he remembered to be glad about that, this time.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Marc slipped on his pack and called to Bluedog, who was napping under the steps.

  “Holy Cow! You taking that dog?” Eddie asked, with disbelief.

  “Sure. She found the cave. She deserves to go.”

  “That’s dumb, Marc. A dog in a cave? That’s a bunch of horse pucky.” Eddie pulled out and rode ahead of Marc and Hermie. It might be, Marc admitted again to himself, but he was determined to try Bluedog in
the cave. She looked up at him and smiled as he got on his bike. “You want to go, don’t you, Bluedog, don’t you girl?”

  She barked and bounced, eager to run.

  Their luck held, and they didn’t run into Mooney or anyone else who might ask where they were going. They did take the precaution, though, of hiding their bikes at the cutoff and looking in all directions before they disappeared into the brush and headed toward the cave entrance.

  Bluedog didn’t want to go back into the hole, but Marc went first and had Eddie and Hermie lower her down. She whined and leaned against Marc’s legs when he took her out of the sling. “Good girl, Blue, good girl.” He reassured the dog that he would be with her.

  “I don’t like this,” Hermie said, when he tumbled in a heap beside Marc, knocking his glasses off. He had walked his way down the slope like Marc had instructed, but he let go of the rope before he got his footing.

  “Everyone is scared at first,” Marc told him. “It’s normal. Even some good cavers admit to being claustrophobic in tight spots.”

  “We’re not in a tight spot and I’m already feeling it,” said Hermie, looking glum.

  “I was never afraid.” Eddie swung over beside them and untied the rope from his waist. They left it dangling there, tied to the rock above. They had used Eddie’s rope.

  “I’m going to leave my rope here,” Marc decided. He laid the heavy coil up against the wall of the cave where they had come down. “If we have to climb where we need a rope, I’ll come back and get it, or we’ll do the climb another day. I don’t want to carry that weight all over.”

  Marc had shown Hermie how to light his dad’s carbide lamp while they were in daylight, waiting for Eddie. Marc had cleaned both lamps after his swimming trip the day before. There was a satisfying pop as his lamp flared and burned brightly.

  “What if our lights burn out before we get back?” asked Hermie.

  Just the idea of being caught in any cave without light made Marc’s stomach do flip-flops. “Don’t worry, Hermie, I always carry a flashlight and a supply of candles. My matches are in an old Band-Aid can to keep them dry.”

  “I feel like a miner,” said Hermie, buckling on the helmet Marc had handed him after taping his lamp to the front.

  “As much as I like exploring underground,” Marc said, “working in a mine would be the last job I’d choose.”

  It took about twenty-five steps to lose the small amount of light coming from the entrance. “I don’t like this,” Hermie said again. His voice sounded funny bouncing off the rock walls.

  Their lights cast huge shadows around them. The passageway narrowed down, and there was a drop-off on the right.

  “Where does that go?” Hermie asked, peering downward.

  “I don’t think it goes anywhere.” Marc shined his light into it. “For my money, it’s just a hole.”

  “We could walk right into a hole like that,” said Hermie.

  “Stay with us,” Eddie said, “and watch for holes.”

  A shiver flew up Marc’s back. He didn’t want to tell Hermie that he was both scared and excited every time he entered a cave. If Hermie thought Marc was the least bit scared, he’d turn back.

  “Look at those big rocks just sitting up there.” Hermie pointed his light overhead. “Any of them could fall on us. I don’t like that idea at all.”

  “Hermie, would you stop worrying!” Eddie was disgusted.

  “Well they could, couldn’t they, Marc? I read about that Floyd Collins guy who was trapped in a cave by a falling rock. And he was an experienced caver.”

  “You read too much,” said Eddie. “If you’re going to whine the whole time we’re in here, go back and wait for us.”

  “Alone?” asked Hermie. He stopped worrying out loud, but one glance at his face told Marc he was really scared.

  “I still think it was stupid to bring Bluedog,” Eddie said, and took off in the lead. He stopped to scramble into the drop-off and confirm that it went nowhere. “How can she climb anything?”

  “She’s my dog.” Marc was more tired of Eddie’s remarks than of Hermie’s being scared. “I’ll be responsible for her. She might even find something we’d miss.”

  “Dogs have a great sense of smell.” Hermie stated the obvious, probably just to change the subject from caves.

  Eddie twisted his remark. “Yeah, especially when they’re wet.” He laughed and hurried on. Marc let him go. He planned to stay with Hermie and help him get over being afraid.

  “Think we’ll find gold?” Hermie was still thinking about mining, or trying to cheer himself up.

  “Something better,” Marc predicted. “I hope we’ll find evidence of Indians. I’ll bet the Osage knew every cave in this area. Sometimes they used them for storage or for hiding things.”

  Bluedog was acting strange. She didn’t run ahead or back and forth like she did when they were in the woods. In fact, she stayed so close to Marc that he had trouble walking.

  “I think Bluedog’s scared, too,” Marc told Hermie and laughed.

  “Smart dog.” Hermie walked almost as close as Bluedog. Marc felt like a human magnet.

  The cave was cold and damp. Marc shivered, even wearing his sweatshirt and denim jacket. Most caves are around fifty-five degrees inside, quite a change from the summer ninety-degree temperatures above ground. Marc knew he’d get used to the cold soon. He was probably sweaty from riding his bike.

  They had walked about a city block when they came to Eddie, who was stopped before them. He had squatted down and was nibbling on a Baby Ruth bar.

  “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” said Hermie. They shined their lights on the wall. Sheets of water had formed rippled and folded flowstone. A couple of stalactites had come all the way down to meet stalagmites on the floor, forming slender columns.

  “Not bad,” said Eddie, “but I’ve seen better. Which way do you want to go?” One pathway headed downhill, another continued straight ahead.

  “You choose, Hermie,” Marc suggested. “We’ll stay together.”

  “How will we know how to get back to the opening, if we wander around in here?” Hermie wanted to be sure they got out.

  “I’m making a map.” Eddie showed Hermie a scrap of paper and a stub of pencil he carried in his pocket. He had made a Y and sketched in the two columns and the flow-stone. “You need to remember to turn and look back occasionally, too. Things look different from the other side.”

  Marc had a good sense of direction. He hardly ever bothered writing anything down. But he did take careful note of everything he saw on the walls, weird rocks, bumps along the path, formations.

  “That way.” Hermie pointed straight ahead. “It’s bigger.”

  “Might be a pretty good cave,” Eddie said, before they went the way Hermie had chosen.

  “I can hear water dripping,” Marc said. “At least it’s a live cave.”

  “Are there dead caves?” Hermie asked, a funny hitch in his voice.

  Marc laughed. “A dead cave is dry. Live caves have water dripping or running into them, and formations are still growing.”

  “I got a book and read it after going to the dentist yesterday,” Hermie said. “I thought there’d be more stalactites and stalagmites. And some crystals and those neat soda straw things.”

  “They only put the best caves in books, Hermie.” Eddie stuffed his candy wrapper back into his pack. “You probably won’t see all that fancy stuff down here. That flowstone may be the best formation in here.”

  The cave had more piled rock than Marc had ever seen. There were loads of huge boulders stacked on each other. The path Hermie had chosen came to a dead end almost immediately. There wasn’t even the promise of a crawl space. The ceiling lowered. Eddie got down and waddled to the end of the passageway.

  “Nothing,” he reported when he wiggled out.

  They retraced their steps and took the other tunnel. Soon it slid steeply downhill, narrowed, and the ceiling lowered again.

  “Horse puck
y,” Eddie complained. “Two paths leading to zero.”

  “Then we have to go back home,” said Hermie, his voice hopeful.

  “Let’s be sure.” Marc shined his light up and down both walls while Eddie belly flopped and scrambled into the end of the tunnel they were in.

  Eddie never hesitated to crawl into the narrow spaces. Marc envied his daring; he was always nervous when he had to crawl into or through a tight spot. He’d been spelunking long enough to know he probably would never get over that tiny fear. So he forced himself to push it back and keep going. He trusted his dad, though, and that helped. Now he was with Hermie, who had never been caving before, and Eddie, who seemed to have no fear. From other times they’d gone together, Marc knew Eddie was sometimes reckless. He felt it paid to be cautious underground.

  “Look, Marc! Up there.” Eddie pointed to a spot near the ceiling of the cave. “Boost me up. I think there’s an opening behind that huge boulder.”

  Marc’s heart pounded. He could see what Eddie had spotted. He shined his light and examined the ledge, but he couldn’t tell from the ground if it was a tunnel. Giving Eddie a leg up, he watched him grab hold of an outcropping of rock, pull himself level, then disappear. His legs dangled for a couple of seconds, sneakers scraping the hole, sending pebbles down the wall. The rocks bounced and echoed through the underground passageway.

  “That’s a creepy sound.” Hermie sat down to dig in his pack. He pulled out half a bologna sandwich to give him strength. “I don’t like this.”

  “You already said that.” Marc laughed and sat beside him. “Three times.”

  “I’ll probably say it again—in fact, right now. I still don’t like this.” Hermie bit into the sandwich. It was so quiet Marc could hear Hermie chewing.

  “This is more like it.” Eddie’s head appeared above them. “There’s a big room over here, and tunnels go off in all directions. One heads downhill.”

  “You guys go on,” Hermie decided, giving Bluedog the rest of his sandwich. “I’ll wait here with Bluedog. She can’t get up there.”