Chapter 66
Chapter 66
I pulled my mask down, turned on my headlamp, and, for the second time in my life, fell into the bosom of a beautiful Spanish afternoon. I swam down only two feet, then horizontal some eight feet, then up. Easy peasy. I poked my head into the dark cavern and found myself again in an underground lake of sorts. Roughly the size of an Olympic pool. The cavern roof hung some twenty feet above my head. I swam to a smooth rock that led up out of the water and climbed out. Last time I was here, I’d buckled Gunner into his vest and then attached to it various supplies that either Bones or I would need once we found him. This time, I had no vest because I had no Gunner. I had a backpack, and rather than carry my CZ 75, which I’d come to like, I’d brought the Sig Bones had given me. The venerable 220. Was I going to need it? Probably not. But it was a comfort. And sometimes comfort is hard to come by.
In ancient days long ago, an underground river cut these tunnels. Tall enough for a man to stand in and level enough for walking. Modern machinery could not have done better. Bones’s map had given detailed, step-by-step instructions. Twenty-seven steps to a Y-intersection. Don’t take the left. Turn right. Take 214 steps to a T. Turn left. Then take 407 steps up the serpentine path, which exited to another lake.
I knew the words by heart, so I walked them by memory. Then, as now, the fact that Bones had discovered this as a boy, and in the dark, was the eighth wonder of the world and final proof that he was and always had been tougher than me. Distance underground was difficult to measure, but my best guess was that I’d wound nearly a quarter mile into the heart of this rock when the tunnel emptied into a second lake. This one bigger. The ceiling was covered in stalactites that hovered some forty feet above my head. There was one difference between this water and the water I just swam through: This was fresh. That was salt. I swam the long lake, about a hundred yards, exiting the water into another tunnel, this one narrower. Just wide enough for my shoulders but requiring me to stand in knee-deep water. Flowing water. I ran my fingers through the grooves on the wall, grooves cut by iron implement. This tunnel had been dug by hand a long time ago. Why? I wasn’t sure. That secret had been lost with many others.
At this point on my last trip in here, I had switched both Gunner’s and my headlamp to a dim red. Red light, while visible to the human eye, was less noticeable than bright white—and given that I had no idea what I was getting into, we needed stealth. This time, I had no need of stealth, so I kept my headlamp on high and lit up the world around me. The flowing water pressed against me in a current pouring from a spring. The water was cold and tasted sweet. I wound through the rock walls, encountering a small shelf every thirty yards or so just large enough for two men to sit on. I had thought then and maintained now that the shelf served two purposes: to give whoever was carving this both a reprieve from the water and someplace dry to put their candle. Working down here in the dark or by candlelight would not have been my first choice. This world was not just dark; it was devoid of light. My eyes would never adjust because there was nothing to adjust to.
Two hours after I left the Zodiac, the narrow tunnel ended in another cave. This one mostly dry. Stalactites dripping minerals from above. Stalagmites rising up from the deposits raining down. The current of water I’d been walking up flowed from a spring pouring out of the rock in front of me. The volumetric flow had held steady. Thousands of gallons a minute. The underground river caused by the spring flowed along the left side of the cave, allowing me to walk on dry land on the right.
I followed the water until it disappeared, then followed the path through the rock. It was here, upon our first visit, that Gunner had jerked to a sudden stop and sniffed the air. At the time, I didn’t know it, but he had caught a whiff of Bones. I followed the tunnel another fifty or sixty feet until it ended at the headwaters of the spring, where the water rose like a fountain out of the rock with such force that swimming against it would prove difficult. Then, ten yards away, just as quickly as it appeared, the water ducked below a shelf and disappeared again in another ancient shaft that apparently turned into the flow I’d been walking through. The world in which I found myself was a wonder, and it was also a wonder some opportunistic entrepreneur hadn’t set up shop outside, sold tickets, and turned this into a vacation destination.
For my part, I was glad it had not been discovered. Bones had been buried here. It was hallowed ground. I wanted to keep it that way. Bones’s map had ended with a specific detail: Once you reach the headwaters of the spring, look up. So, as I had once before, I did again.
Doing so confirmed I was standing at the bottom of the circular shaft of a well just wide enough for a man to touch both sides. Maybe six feet in diameter. I pulled off my pack, tied one end of the 120-foot, eight-millimeter rope to my pack, and tied the other end to me. My pack contained stuff to help me if I got lost or hurt or cold, and while it wasn’t heavy I had no desire to climb with it. I slid my foot into the first carved hole on my right and was about to step into the second when a wet, furry, slobbery dog latched hold of my pant leg and pulled gently.