Running Scared (11 page)

Dr. Rhodes took over, “The toxic smoke from the burning rubber chokes the bats, and they die. The problem is, our Mexican free-tailed bats from here at Carlsbad fly across the border into Mexico and often roost there in the same caves as the vampire bats. So they're being killed, too, by toxic vapors from the burning tires.”

“And you think that adds to the decline of the bat population here at Carlsbad?” Olivia asked.

“It's one of the reasons. Of course, a bigger reason is the pesticides. Especially DDT. As you know, the bats fly back and forth across the border to Mexico. In the United States, DDT is illegal, but Mexico still uses it to control mosquitoes that spread malaria. Here in this country ranchers can't buy DDT even if they want to.”

Jack sat up straight. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Last night we heard that man, Stoney, talk about bringing DDT into the U.S. from Mexico. Does that mean he's smuggling it in so ranchers can get it here?”

“You heard him say that?” Boomer asked. “You heard this guy Stoney admit he's sneaking DDT across the border? Wow! This is important. We need to find him.”

Quietly, Ashley said, “If you want to find him, just ask Ryan. He'd probably tell you where Stoney is, because he feels so bad that Stoney almost pushed him into stealing the cave balloons. Ryan's really sorry about that, he told me.”

“Seems you learned a lot about Ryan, Ashley,” Boomer commented.

Ashley murmured, “He…talked. He tried to explain.”

Looking intently at Ashley, Boomer asked slowly, “Do you know how we could contact Ryan? I mean, I saw him for a minute when he brought you to us, but he disappeared pretty fast.”

Ashley dug a small piece of paper out of the pocket of her jeans, but kept it in her hand while she murmured, “He gave me his telephone number. He made me promise I'd call him after the rescue to let him know that Sam was all right, because he was scared that Sam might fall into the pit. And I did. After we went back to the motel in Carlsbad last night, I called Ryan. I just didn't tell anybody.”

In the silence that followed, no one reached to take the piece of paper. Then Dr. Rhodes leaned forward to ask gently, “Do you feel you'd be betraying your rescuer if you let us contact Ryan, Ashley? It may save a lot of lives—lives of bats, I mean. If ranchers in this area are using DDT that Stoney's bringing across the border, that could be why some of our bats are vanishing.”

Hesitant, Ashley held out the paper, but only partway. “As long as Ryan won't get into trouble,” she answered. “After all, he saved our lives.”

“I think I can guarantee he won't be arrested and charged with anything,” Boomer assured her. “Ryan didn't commit any major offense last night. He just went into the cavern after hours, which would be considered trespassing. We would overlook that if he'd help us nail Stoney, because Stoney might lead us to other DDT smugglers.”

With her eyes cast down, Ashley thought it over. Then, almost reluctantly, she gave the paper to Boomer.

Suddenly, loudly, Sammy declared, “Ryan didn't s-save my life. It was B-Boomer who saved my l-l-life!”

That broke the tension, and everyone relaxed. “You're right, Sammy. That added one more rescue to Boomer's long list of amazing heroics,” Dr. Rhodes told them. “You should hear what else this man has done!” As she went on to describe Boomer's exploits, the Landons' eyes grew wide and their jaws dropped in astonishment.

Boomer, it turned out, was so small because in the seventh grade, he'd been stricken with a kind of rheumatoid arthritis that eventually fused his spine and took all the cartilage from his shoulders. He'd had two hip replacement operations and a heart valve repaired. Yet Boomer had earned an airplane pilot's license, he taught rappelling to cavers and climbers, he'd performed dozens of heroic rescues that were far more dangerous than his rescue of Sam, and not only that, he was famous for discovering and exploring new caves in Carlsbad Cavern.

“Tell them about the cave they named after you,” Consuela urged him. “Bemis Chamber.”

Grinning modestly, Boomer said, “I got to explore that cave because I was the only one small enough to fit. There was this really tight passage about eight feet long, and it went straight down. I had to inch through it, with one arm stretched forward and the other arm tight against my side, to minimize my diameter. It wasn't so bad getting into the cave, because the passage was downhill, so it took me only about 20 minutes to go the eight feet. Getting back out, it was uphill, and that took me 45 minutes. Inch and wedge. Squeeze forward an inch, wedge yourself and try to breathe. It can feel kind of claustrophobic.”

Grimacing at the memory, he continued, “I had to take off my shirt and belt to fit back up the hole. I was working so hard that the people outside the hole could hear my heart beat. When I got out, I could hardly stand up, I was so wet and cold.”

“Ooooh!” Ashley looked at Boomer in wonder. Sounding a little breathless herself, she asked, “What was it like when you saw the cave for the first time?”

“Pure beauty!” Boomer exclaimed. “The chamber is about 35 feet long, 5 or 6 feet wide, and 20 feet high. The place where my feet first touched it was the only dry spot; everything else stood three feet deep in water. It's a ‘living' cave. That means the formations are still growing. They look all wet and glossy, like marble carvings in a fountain. Whenever you see a cave with water dripping, that means it's still growing, and it's called a living cave.”

“And they named that one after you?” Jack could only stare at this man who'd accomplished so much by sheer courage. What a guy! Then he glanced at Sam.

Sam seemed awestruck. He sat looking up at Boomer with intense admiration, but even more, with hope in his eyes.

Right away, Jack knew that he'd been replaced as Sam's idol. Sam had found a new hero in Boomer, and that was a good thing. Jack couldn't think of a more outstanding hero than this small man called Boomer, who possessed the heart of a giant.

I
t's like a m-m-magic world down h-h-here,” Sam told them.

“So it is,” Consuela answered, ruffing his hair until it stood up in soft tufts. “I'm glad I can see it with you.”

“You ate your lunch th-this time?” Sam asked. “You're not s-s-ick?”

Consuela smiled and shook her head. “I finished my lunch, and I'm fine today. I'm really sorry I frightened you, Sammy, and caused all that trouble. The thing is, I'm what's called a brittle diabetic. That means these insulin reactions can hit me really fast, without warning—I'm never even aware that they're happening. But from now on I'll be much more careful.”

Sam nodded hard. “G-Good.”

The Landons, Boomer, and Consuela were touring the Big Room in Carlsbad Cavern, a mile-and-a-half pathway that wound them through the most spectacular scenery Jack had ever experienced in his life. The Giant Chandelier, a huge formation made of ribbon stalactites, hung from the ceiling like sugar frosting. Popcorn-covered stalagmites, soda straws, and huge columns filled the vast space, which, according to Boomer, was the largest natural limestone chamber in the United States. “The Big Room is shaped like a cross, with the long part being around 1,800 feet and the T part 1,100 feet at the widest point. It covers 8.2 acres, with the ceiling 255 feet high at its greatest point,” he'd told them as he led them onto the winding pathway. “It's a natural wonder.”

“It's so beautiful,” Ashley breathed as they looked out over glittering gypsum. “I feel like we're walking into a giant wedding cake. That's what they should call it: ‘Place of the Wedding Cake'.”

“Nah, that sounds way too girly. How about we call it ‘Goblins of the Underworld',” Jack countered.

Ashley wrinkled her nose. “No way,” she told him. “The Bride's Chamber.”

Unfolding a brochure as they walked, Jack pointed and said, “Look, the map says up ahead we'll be in the Hall of Giants. That's a good name.”

“But I see ice-cream cones and crystals and cave roses and all kinds of pretty things,” Ashley murmured whimsically.

“And I see gargoyles and orcs and gremlins,” Jack shot back.

“I'd say you're both right,” Boomer told them. “Up ahead is a place called Fairyland. And there's another spot called Doll's Theater.”

“See!” Ashley said triumphantly. “Nice names.”

“But then there's other formations in here called the Witch's Finger and the Devil's Easy Chair. So there's something for everyone. Bet you'd like to see the Witch's Finger, wouldn't you, Sam?” Boomer asked him.

“You b-bet!” Sam answered happily. “I w-want to s-s-see everything!”

Sam shadowed Boomer, his face upturned toward Boomer like a flower to the sun. To their right walked Consuela. Olivia and Steven, dressed in gray sweatshirts emblazoned with the name Carlsbad Caverns, followed behind, while Ashley and Jack tagged along in the rear.

“You want to see a witch's finger?” Steven asked Sam. “Boy, it doesn't seem like you get scared of anything anymore!”

“Nope. Boomer's not s-scared, and I'm l-like him.”

“Now, I didn't say I never get scared,” Boomer corrected. He stopped and leaned against the metal railing, his hands dangling over the side. “There's plenty in these caves to frighten a person. You have to respect a place like this. Sometimes being afraid means you're just plain old smart.”

Nodding again, Sam said, “Boomer and m-me, we're b-both smart. That's 'cause we're l-l-lefties. Did you know, Jack, that lefties are s-smarter than other p-p-people?”

“No, I didn't know that,” Jack answered. He seriously doubted there were any hard facts to support that theory, but he might as well let Sam believe it if he wanted to. Sometimes it was tactful just to keep quiet.

Other times it was more difficult to decide when to speak up. After a lot of wrestling with her own conscience, Ashley had handed over Ryan's telephone number. Later she'd whispered to Jack that if Ryan got into trouble she'd feel terrible, but she was trying to save some bats' lives.

“Ryan will be fine,” Jack had assured her. And he believed that.

Maybe Ashley was connecting to his thoughts again, as she did so often, because she said, “If I were a bat, I'd love to live in this incredibly beautiful Big Room. But you know, when I think of Carlsbad, I'll always remember Left Hand Tunnel. When we were lost in the dark there, I didn't get too panicked, but the one thing that really freaked me out was those lights on the bats. They looked like glowing eyes, and for a minute I thought they were flying goblins or something.”

Consuela explained, “Those lights you saw were little tags that had been glued to the fur between the bats' shoulder blades.” Dressed in blue jeans and a crisp, white shirt, Consuela looked healthy and strong, and her words sounded perfectly clear. “The bats you found in the right fork of Left Hand Tunnel are not Mexican free-tailed bats,” she continued. “We knew we had small colonies of fringed myotis and cave myotis, but we didn't know exactly where in the cave they lived.”

“People glue light tags on the bats?” Ashley asked incredulously. “Why?”

“It's an experiment to discover which route the bats are taking when they fly out of the caverns at night,” Consuela answered. “The naturalists capture them in the cave, stick the light tags on, and then wait outside the different cave entrances to track the path of the bats.”

“But won't those tag things hurt the bats?”

Olivia answered that one. “No, sweetheart, the light tags are just fluorescent markers like the light sticks you kids get at parties sometimes. Glow-in-the-dark stuff. They're real small, and they fall off after a couple of days.”

Boomer added, “Light tags also let the naturalists see where the bats go to drink. We had no idea any of those rare bats were living in the right fork of Left Hand Tunnel—we just knew about the ones in the main part of the tunnel. When you kids told us that, you helped solve a bat riddle—and feed a Hodag at the same time.”

“Hodag?” Jack asked.

“Hodag?” Ashley echoed.

“What's a Ho-d-dag?” Sam wanted to know.

Dropping his voice mysteriously, Boomer told them, “Hodags live in these caves. Now, I want you all to look up at the Spirit World.” He pointed to a place high in the ceiling, so far away Jack could almost believe it stretched into another dimension. “We've got a family of Hodags living up there, but they won't hurt you. Much. Especially if you're real careful.”

Sam frowned, but Jack could see the merriment in Boomer's eyes. “Oh yes, they're up there. In fact, they're all around us, hiding in the shadows. This cavern is the home of the original Hodag. Down at Lake of the Clouds, sitting out on a little peninsula, a Hodag waited for thousands of years, wondering is this all there is to existence? Then finally, man came. An Indian looked down into the entrance and saw the deep, dark cave. Then he slipped. As he screamed and fell into the entrance of the cave, adrenaline shot into his bloodstream, and the scent of the adrenaline came wafting down the slope, eventually reaching the nose of the Hodag. The Hodag sniffed”—Boomer made a large, snuffling sound, wiggling his nose—“and then he said, ‘Something's changed, what is that smell? I think I'll call it…food.'”

“Ohhh, B-B-Boomer. That's just a st-story,” Sam said, laughing. “Since then, a Hodag's sole source of food is adrenaline,” Boomer went on. “Hodags will do their best to scare the daylights out of cavers and get them to pump out that adrenaline into their bloodstreams. Hodags feed on people's fear.”

“If they're r-real, then wh-what do they look like?”

“Well, it just so happens we've done a lot of research, so I can answer that question. The male Hodag has a red eyeball right in the middle of his forehead, and the female has a green eyeball. The Hodag colonies live way high up in the ceiling, and they stay warm by gathering the cloak of darkness around them. See those up there?” Boomer waved a thin hand toward the Spirit World. “Hodags are the dark spots in the ceiling.”

Sam grinned. “Then why d-d-don't you go and catch one?”

“Can't. Hodags are an endangered species.”

“Yeah. R-r-right.”

“But I'm telling you, they're out there. All cavers know it.” Boomer lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “If you're going through a chimney passage and get halfway up and that one solitary drop of water comes down and goes
pfft
and puts out the candle in your lantern, a Hodag did it. If you're going through a cave and no one else is around you and a rock comes rattling down from above, it's the Hodag that shoved the rock down. Oh yes, cavers have a healthy respect for Hodags.”

“I still want to be a c-c-caver. 'Cause the Hodags—they're just m-m-make-believe. Like Goatsuckers.”

“Good for you, Sam,” Consuela told him. “You're absolutely right.”

Boomer smiled so deeply that his cheeks looked as though they had pleats. “Sam, you're a very cool kid.

You figured out that it was make-believe. And you know, if you don't let made-up stories like that scare you, then you'll learn to be brave all the time, even when bad things that are real happen to you.”

The three of them—Sam, Boomer, and Consuela—drifted to another luminous formation. Olivia lingered behind, turning so that the small of her back rested against the railing, her hands clutching the cool metal. Steven draped his arm around Olivia's shoulders. Jack and Ashley huddled close.

“Does Boomer know about Sam's life?” Ashley asked. “He's so nice to Sam, it's kind of like he knows.”

“Some,” Steven told her. “He understands that Sam's had a pretty rough time of it. Boomer told me he's going to keep in touch with Sam. He said he'll teach him to explore caves next summer. Sam will be old enough then. Boomer told me he taught his oldest daughter to climb with ropes when she was only five.”

After a moment, Olivia mentioned, “You two kids should know that Sam's not going back to live with his mother.”

“He's not?” Jack exclaimed.

“Not right away. When we return to Jackson Hole, Sam's going to be placed in a long-term foster home while his mother's in rehab. If she can recover, she'll be required to take some parenting classes, and only after that will she get Sam back.” Jack's face must have shown his feelings, because Olivia added quickly, “Ms. Lopez will make sure Sam is properly looked after. She's even lined up a speech therapist for him. Sam's going to be OK.”

Well, Jack thought, all in all, it had turned out to be a pretty good trip. The problem of the bat decline might soon be worked out, the cave balloons were safe for now, and Sam had begun to believe he was a winner, not a loser.

“I know what we should call this cavern,” Ashley declared softly. “We'll call it The Room of Dreams Coming True.”

Jack nodded. Ashley had gotten it right this time.