Running Scared (2 page)

“I want to g-go in there. T-t-tomorrow. You're g-going to t-take me, right?”

“To the Big Room? Sure. That's the most famous room in the cavern. You'll really like it.”

“No. Not th-there.”

“Why not?” Jack protested. “Sammy, come on, the Big Room's really cool!”

Sam shook his head slowly, stubbornly, and said, “No. The tunnel.”

What was it about the tunnel? What made Sam want to crawl into a narrow, dark place beneath the earth? As more bats whizzed overhead, Jack thought back over the few facts his parents had shared about Sam's life. He lived in a rough neighborhood an hour's drive from Jackson Hole. His father was a mystery—the Landons didn't know what had happened to him, except that he was gone from Sammy's life. His mother had overdosed on drugs and was now in jail, and Sam had no other relative to take him.

The kid had faced a lot and asked for little. Jack had a lot and asked for more. When he thought about it, he knew there was no way he could turn down Sammy's request. Anyway, Jack was Sammy's hero, and a hero shouldn't look like a wimp.

No longer hesitating, Jack answered, “OK, Mini-Me, let's do it. Tomorrow. If it's OK with Mom and Dad and Ashley.”

Sam didn't say a word. In the dim light, Jack could see him smile.

C
ome on, kids,” Steven said. “Get moving, or we'll be late for our appointment with the bat woman.”

“B-b-bat woman?” Sam asked. “Like in the movies?” When Jack burst out laughing, Ashley gave a sharp yank on his arm and pulled him back to whisper in his ear, “Stop that! Sammy will think you're laughing at his stammer.”

“I'm not!” Jack protested, but Ashley only hissed at him, “Show some sensitivity!”

“OK.” Making sure his expression was serious, Jack leaned down to tell Sam, “There's no Bat Woman in the movies. There's Batman and Batgirl and Catwoman, but no Bat Woman. What my dad meant was that we're going to see a naturalist who knows everything about bats, and she happens to be a woman.”

“That's right,” Olivia added, “and you kids are really lucky to get to meet Dr. Rhodes. She's a world-renowned expert on bats.”

Ashley sighed and said, “I know we're lucky, and I really want to hear all about bats, but when do we get to go inside the cavern? I thought we were supposed to do that this morning.”

They'd reached the bottom of some stairs that led to the door of a building made of limestone blocks. Peering through the window glass in the front door, Olivia answered, “Your dad will take you there after we see the bat woman—whoops!” Blushing, she said, “Now you've got me doing it, Sammy. I hope I don't call her that by mistake—it would be an embarrassing way to meet her. Anyway, after you kids and your dad leave Dr. Rhodes's office, I'll stay with her to learn more about the bats.”

“So let's get started,” Steven suggested, leaning across Olivia to push the door wide. While he held it open, the three short ones—Olivia, Ashley, and Sam walked under Steven's extended arm into the corridor. Jack was now too tall to fit under his father's arm, and he liked that. With every inch he grew, he felt a bit more grown-up. He figured that one of these years he might actually outgrow his father, who was nearly six feet four.

“Come in, come in!” Dr. Rhodes welcomed them. For a world expert, she had a small office, Jack thought, and only three chairs.

“The kids can sit on the floor,” Steven quickly offered. “These two are our kids—Jack and Ashley—and Sam Sexton is our guest.”

Guest. That was the word the Landons liked to use for the short-term foster kids who stayed with them from time to time, kids who needed a safe place to live until their problems could be solved.

“Pleased to m-meet you,” Sam said, hardly stuttering as he took the hand Dr. Rhodes held out to him.

“How are you, Sam?” Smiling warmly, Dr. Rhodes told him, “You sit here, closest to my chair, so you'll have the best look at the pictures I'm going to show everyone.” Jack wondered whether his mother had clued Dr. Rhodes in on Sam's background. Or maybe Dr. Rhodes was just naturally nice to small kids.

“Well,” she said, “let's start. Your mom said you wanted to hear about bats. The first things I'm going to tell you are what bats are not!” She laughed a little, then went on, “They're not birds, and they're not blind, although they are color-blind. They don't get tangled in people's hair, and they don't suck blood—well, actually, three species do drink blood, but those species don't live anywhere near here.”

Ashley's hand flew to her neck. “Where do they live?” she asked quickly.

“In our hemisphere, they're in Mexico, Central America, and South America. But less than one percent of the world's bats are vampire bats, and two of the vampire bat species feed only on birds. The third species prefers mammals, but Ashley, you don't have to worry about your neck. They're more likely to go after your toes.”

Sammy's eyes had grown wide.

“Nothing to be afraid of, Sam,” Dr. Rhodes told him. “The Mexican free-tailed bats, the kind we mostly have around here, eat only bugs.” She held up a picture of a brown, fuzzy bat with hooded eyes, rounded ears, and wings folded like fans. “They're wonderful animals. To me, they look like little gnomes. They're mammals, you know, which means the mothers nurse their pups—that's what the babies are called. Pups. Did you know that?”

All three kids shook their heads. “So now there are three animals I know of that have pups,” Ashley announced. “Dogs, wolves, and bats. I learned about the wolves in Yellowstone National Park.”

Jack got a mental image of a gnomelike mamma bat with her wings wrapped around a little gnome-faced pup. “How do the mothers hold them?” he asked. “I mean, they hang upside down, don't they? How do they keep from dropping the pups?”

Dr. Rhodes answered, “It's the babies that hold on to the mother, with their feet and their thumbs and their tiny teeth. Like you kids, little bats lose their baby teeth after a while and get grown-up teeth. When the mothers leave to get their nightly meal of insects, the baby bats hang by their toes on the walls and ceilings of the caves, packed so tightly together that there can be 400 of them in a one-square-foot area. Think of that.” Dr. Rhodes opened her desk drawer and took out a ruler. “Twelve inches on each side of a square, and 400 bat babies all squeezed together into that little space. That closeness keeps them warm, because a cave is kind of cold.” She threw the ruler back into the drawer, then held up another photo that showed bats clustered together so tightly they looked like ink blots on a gray cave ceiling.

“Wow!” Ashley exclaimed. “How do the mothers ever find their babies in all that crowd?”

“Good question, Ashley. By smell and by sound. Even though a hundred thousand pups get born in the spring, a mother can pick out her own infant—she has only one baby a year. Both mother and pup make these high-pitched sounds that people can't hear but the bats can. It guides them to each other. That same high-frequency echolocation guides them when they go outside the cave, too. It tells them where the insects are.”

Dr. Rhodes winced a little, then reached down to pick up an empty wastebasket. After she turned it upside down, she carefully placed her left foot on top of it. An elastic bandage had been wrapped around her ankle. “A sprain,” she explained when she saw the Landons looking at it. “I tried to take a shortcut down a slippery slope, and I twisted my ankle.”

“Does it hurt?” Olivia asked. “Yes, of course it must hurt. The kids shouldn't be taking up any more of your time, Dr. Rhodes.”

“Oh, it doesn't hurt me that much,” she answered. “It's fun to talk to kids; I enjoy it. Anyway, I'll just end this little session with a few more bat facts. Like this one—bats' knees bend backward, not forward like yours.” She pointed to Sam, whose knees were tucked under his chin. Ashley looked thoughtfully at her own knees, probably wondering how it would feel if they bent backward.

“And bats have been around for 50 million years,” Dr. Rhodes went on. “We know that from finding fossils that old. But most of all, I want you to remember that bats are intelligent creatures and tremendously useful ecologically. If there are 400,000 bats flying out of Carlsbad Cavern every night eating bugs, can you imagine how many tons of bugs that makes in a month? In a year?

That's a tremendous help to farmers.”

“How much can each bat eat?” Jack asked.

“Considering the size of a bat, quite a lot. A nursing female will leave her baby tucked nice and warm with the other pups in the ‘bat nursery,' then fly out into the night to eat her entire body weight—about 12 or 13 grams—in insects. Then she'll return to her baby, nurse it again, and maybe fly out a second time in a single night to eat that many bugs all over again. Then back to her baby. She never leaves her baby for long. She's a gentle, caring mother.”

Sam, who'd seemed fascinated by Dr. Rhodes's lesson, suddenly looked as though he were about to cry. Maybe it was the mention of “a gentle, caring mother,” which Sam didn't have. Steven must have noticed Sam's sad expression too, because he stood up and said, “I guess we'd better get going. I told the kids I'd take them into the cavern. Sammy's really anxious to see Left Hand Tunnel.”

“Left Hand Tunnel? Two different species of bats live there,” Dr. Rhodes said, “the cave myotis and the fringed myotis. Both species are quite rare. We've counted only 354 of the cave myotis and only 12 of the fringed myotis.”

Well, Jack thought, at least that particular tunnel wouldn't be teeming with countless thousands of bats. He felt a little relieved.

“I hope I get to see those rare bats,” Steven told her. “I'm really anxious to shoot some pictures like the ones you just showed us.”

“Steven is a photographer,” Olivia explained.

“Oh.” Dr. Rhodes hesitated, then said, “Well, you understand, Mr. Landon, that you'll have to use infrared film in the caves.”

“Uh…no! I knew I couldn't use the flash attachment when the bats were flying out of the cavern because it interferes with their echolocation system—their sonar.

But I figured that when they weren't flying, when they're just hanging in the caves, I could use my regular flash attachment with fast film.”

“Uh-uh.” Dr. Rhodes shook her head. “The light from a flash attachment, or any kind of light at all, really bothers the bats. That's why we keep the lighting in the Big Room quite low, and in Left Hand Tunnel there's no light at all. You'll have to use infrared film and an infrared filter on your flash.”

Steven looked crestfallen. “I don't have any of that with me. But—do you think I can buy these things in the city of Carlsbad? Would a photo store carry them?”

“I'm sure it would.”

“Then I'll just have to drive back to Carlsbad,” Steven said. “Right now.”

“Da-ad!” Ashley complained, drawing it out into two syllables. “I thought you were going to take us through the cavern.”

“Left Hand T-T-Tunnel,” Sammy agreed, nodding.

Carefully, favoring her sore ankle, Dr. Rhodes got to her feet before she told them, “Your dad couldn't take you through Left Hand Tunnel by himself—you have to sign up to be part of a tour group. Let's see, what time is it? You might be able to hook up with a tour, but you'll need an adult with you. Kids under 16 aren't allowed to tour the cavern without a parent or guardian.”

All their plans seemed to be falling apart, Jack realized. Their dad wanted to make the long drive back to the city of Carlsbad. It would take him at least two hours to get there, find a store, buy the film and filter—if the store had them—and drive back. Their mother needed to stay with Dr. Rhodes. Ashley and Sam and Jack couldn't tour the cavern without an adult. So what were they supposed to do?

“I have an idea,” Dr. Rhodes said. “I can take you kids down into the cavern and see if there's still room in the next tour to Left Hand Tunnel. I know the ranger who's guiding the tour, so even if it's pretty full, she might bend the rules a little bit and let you join the group as her responsibility.”

“Dr. Rhodes, I can't let you make that trip down into the cavern,” Olivia objected. “I can see that you're in pain from that swollen ankle.”

Wavering between hope and disappointment, Sam's big eyes kept traveling from one adult to another. Ashley, too, seemed to be holding her breath, waiting to see how it would all turn out.

“Here's another thought,” Dr. Rhodes said. “I'll ask one of the office assistants to take the kids down. We'll pull a little rank and get them into that tour.”

Ashley clapped her hands, which made her look like she was as young as Sam. Was Jack the only one who wasn't all hot to go through those narrow, dark tunnels? He'd better not show it, or Ashley would make some smart-faced remark.

When they exited Dr. Rhodes's office, they found only one woman seated at a desk, typing fast on a computer.

“Hello, Consuela. Where are the others?” Dr. Rhodes asked her. “They've all gone to lunch. I wanted to finish this report, so I told them to go ahead without me.” Consuela was a pretty woman, round and soft with big brown eyes and black hair pulled into a ponytail. “Can I help you?” she asked.

After Dr. Rhodes introduced them all and explained the situation, Consuela said, “I can take the kids down to the cavern. I'm just finishing this report now.”

“Great!” Steven exclaimed, pulling out his wallet. “This is to pay for the tour. And there's a lunchroom down in the cavern, right? Here's some extra money so the kids can buy themselves lunch, and you, too, Ms…uh….”

“Sandoval. Consuela Sandoval. But call me Consuela. Thanks, Mr. Landon. I'll get everybody fed before the tour departs. It's a great tour. My grandson loves it.”

“You have grandkids?” Olivia blurted. “You look way too young.”

Consuela grinned and said, “I was married at 16, and I have two grown sons plus a 9-year-old grandson, but thanks for the compliment.” Turning to the three kids, she said, “We'd better get started. Do you all have something warm to wear? Most of the caves are just 56 degrees, although parts of Left Hand Tunnel are warmer than that. Still, it can feel pretty chilly when you're there for a while.”

Jack and Ashley opened their backpacks and took out fleecy hooded sweatshirts; Jack's was blue, Ashley's gray. Sam had a mustard-colored fake-leather zippered jacket.

It was too small, but at least it would keep him warm.

“We're good to go,” Ashley announced. “See you later, Mom and Dad.”