Nevada Barr: Blind Descent

This entry to Lechuguilla, originally called Old Misery Pit, had been known for years. Like many other caves in the area it was merely a deep hole melted into the limestone, valuable only as a source of fertilizer for the California citrus crops. But there had been tantalizing drifts of air coming from the rubble. The cave was "blowing." Following these ephemeral leads, cavers dug repeatedly in attempts to search out the bigger cavern promised by the passage of air. In 1986 they finally broke through to what was arguably one of the most important discoveries ever made by the caving community. They'd pushed into a system that not only promised to break records for length and depth but housed an unusual number of stunning decorations and cave formations.

Her knowledge of Lechuguilla's history exhausted, Anna turned her headlamp on Oscar, looking for distraction from that quarter.

"Over there," he said, indicating a darker slit in the floor. "You can hear the cave breathe."

Anna didn't tell him the last thing she needed was to hear the damn thing breathing.

In a tangle of beams from three headlamps, Holden disengaged from the rope. The entire descent had taken so little time, neither Anna nor Oscar had bothered to take off their packs.

"Onward and downward," Oscar said, and walking to an unpromising looking hole dug into the bottom of the shaft, picked up a nylon rope Anna'd not noticed before and wove it deftly through the metal ladder of his rack. "A nuisance drop-maybe ten feet. On-rope." And he was gone. "Off-rope" floated up seconds later.

The hole was hand-dug and dirt-walled. To Anna it looked as unstable as the caves the children used to dig in the sand pit behind the local airport in the neighborhood where she grew up; caves the airport operator was always dynamiting for fear some hapless little gene would get itself culled from the pool before its time.

Anna went second. The bottom of this drop was more rank and evil than the first. From a landing barely long enough to lay a coffin down, a ragged hole cut through to another chamber. Beyond this uninviting aperture, Anna could see a spill of light from Iverson's lamp. Then that was snuffed, and she felt terribly alone.

A blinding eye winked over the lip above. "You off-rope?" Holden asked.

"I guess." Anna couldn't move. A creeping numbness was flowing in from her fingertips. As it passed through her insides she felt her bowels loosen and bile rise in her throat. "I don't think I can do this," she said.

Holden landed beside her as lightly as a feather and flipped open the rack to free the rope. "Were you talking to me?"

"No." Anna didn't trust herself to elaborate.

Holden dropped to his knees and skittered out of sight through the crevice. "We having fun yet?" she heard him say.

Mechanically, she got on hands and knees and followed. From the look of the tiny room she entered, things were going to get worse before they got better. Hacked from native soil, the space was too low to stand upright in. The far side was higher but partially blocked by a slide of dirt and rock. Nowhere could she see anything that even obliquely promised the wonders she'd heard spoken of in connection with Lechuguilla. Oscar and Holden crouched with their backs to her, their helmet lights pointed toward the floor, where they groveled before some god hidden from the eyes of unbelievers.

Light swung in a dizzying arc and struck her in the face. "Ta da," she heard Holden say.

"Down the rabbit hole," said Iverson.

Vision cleared, and Anna saw the altar at which the men worshipped. Sunk into the floor was a heavy metal manhole cover with a T-shaped handle welded to its center.

"Cover your eyes," Iverson said, but Anna couldn't. She was transfixed. Grasping the handle he pulled the hinged trapdoor open, swinging it on a counterweight. Corrugated metal drainpipe set vertically in the ground was exposed. A ladder welded to one side led down. Wind gusted from below, blowing dirt into Anna's eyes.

"It blows. Hoo-ee, does it blow," Holden said. "By the air coming out of here it's been estimated Lechuguilla might go three hundred miles or more."

"From where?" Anna asked, and was embarrassed when the words came out in a wail.

"Air pressure," Iverson said. "When it gets low outside, the cave exhales; high outside, it inhales. Pressure equalization is all it is. You last, me first?" he said to Holden. The other man nodded, and Anna wondered if they consistently put her in the middle so she couldn't escape. Iverson slid easily into the pipe and pulled the trapdoor closed behind him. The sudden stillness was a boon for Anna's nerves.

"How long is that?" She pointed to the culvert.

"Twenty feet maybe. It was installed to stabilize the entrance. You can see the soil up here shifts when we get rain."

"Clear," reverberated through the metal conduit. Holden laughed. "Oscar goes down in record time. The pipe's so small he can't use the steps. He's too long from hip to knee. Coming out is what really gets to him." He pulled open the trapdoor, releasing an angry blast of warm, wet air, warmer than the air above ground. Lechuguilla maintained a temperature of about sixty-eight degrees with close to a hundred percent humidity year round. In this case it was a blessing. In a colder cave Frieda would have been at risk from hypothermia in addition to her other ills.

"M'dam." Tillman gestured toward the culvert with the pride of a maitre d' indicating a coveted window seat.

Down the drain.

In that instant Anna knew she had to confess her shortcomings, admit her fears, and get out of the hole with as much speed and grace as she could muster. Most people would be understanding. Even cavers would see that it was better to bow out than to fall apart once inside and, at best, provide the rescuers with a second casualty to evacuate or, at worst, endanger other members of the team. Not going would, in a way, be the more courageous choice. Facing up to one's failure. All this went through her mind in a calm and orderly fashion as she watched her body, possessed by demons, crab-walk over to the open culvert and begin the climb down.

Holden dropped the trapdoor. Anna felt the tremors through the palms of her hands, but she didn't hear the clang of finality. Her mind had shut down. She had no thought but of her next step, her booted toe reaching for the rung beneath, the catch of her pack on the pipe above, the circle of light inches in front of her eyes.

The culvert emptied out into a crawl space much the same as the one she'd just left. Anna chose not to think about it. Having hollered back up the culvert to let Holden know she was clear, she turned her back on the escape hatch and crawled after the faint glow of Iverson's lamp. The air in her lungs compressed until she breathed in short gasping sips. Perspiration, born cold and feeling like ice water, drenched her armpits. She wanted to weep for herself.

Then the passage opened up. Not gradually but with a suddenness that must have shattered the composure of the first men digging into the cave. Jules Verne time, Anna thought, breathing a bit easier, and pushed herself to her feet.

A tunnel big enough for a locomotive led away to the southwest. "Tunnel," with its connotations of smooth walls and unhampered passage, was not the right word. The space Anna stared down was more a fantastical corridor, walls and floor and ceiling merging, growing together in rock outcrops and smooth pale beards of liquid stone, separating again, leaving behind delicate towers to reemerge into recesses maybe six feet deep, maybe going into the shadowed heart of the world for a thousand miles.

A path had been worn down through this cluttered basement of the desert. Orange plastic surveyor's tape marked both sides, the dirt between pounded and tracked. This surprising touch of humanity gave Anna back a morsel of control, and she felt the grip of muscles on the scruff of her neck loosen somewhat.