Nevada Barr - The Rope

Thin and small, the shout came again. A faint dying “Heeeeeeeeeelp.”

The eternal winds, breath of the canyons, sawed across the ears, and the voice sounded as if it emanated from the bottom of a well.

“Hello!” Steve Gluck shouted, hands around his mouth to form a megaphone.

Patterson pointed. “This way,” he said. He’d found the tracks. “Stay off to the side. Don’t foul the trail. It’s got a story to tell.”

Jenny was impressed with the display of woodsmanship until she topped the low rise where he stood. The trail wasn’t exactly as challenging as tracking ducks across a pond. It was more of a scrimmage line where several heavy-footed individuals had stampeded across the desert’s skin.

Anna started to trot. “Wait,” the chief ranger shouted.

Steve Gluck yelled, “Hold up there.”

Anna broke into a run.

“Damn the torpedoes,” Jenny muttered and ran with her.

Anna came to an abrupt stop. “There,” she said.

Jenny barreled into her and had to grab her lest the smaller woman fall to the ground. The feel of the bird-boned body and the clean smell of her sun-warmed hair robbed Jenny’s apology of much of its sincerity. She steadied Anna, in no rush to take her hands off her. Jenny would never, as the boys called it, “cop a feel,” or force her attentions where they were not invited, but a gift was a gift and she enjoyed it.

“That’s it.” Anna pointed to a black hole gaping at the sky from a flat stretch of ground. The slit in the earth was no more than two feet wide at the center and about five feet long, both ends tapering to a point like the lids of a half-closed eye. Beyond it were two sentinel boulders, taller than Jenny, and squared off as if machined that way. Their shadows fell across the opening. Coupled with low scrub brush and a scattering of rocks, the twin shadows effectively camouflaged the opening of the solution hole.

“That’s the mouth of my jar,” Anna said. She sounded proprietary. Had Jenny been stuck in a jar like strawberry preserves put up for winter, she’d have wanted sticks of dynamite tossed in and her name severed from the ruin evermore. Anna sounded almost fond.

“Are you there?” The frantic cry warbled up from the opening.

Footfalls were thumping up from behind as the men caught up. Anna stepped closer to the hole.

“Stay back,” Steve cautioned. He took hold of her arm. Anna shook him off.

“I hear you out there,” came the voice. “For God’s sake, get me out of here.”

Jenny looked from Anna to Steve. Neither seemed to know what to do next.

“Talk to me,” the voice begged.

Jenny walked past Anna, nearer the hole, and leaned down, hands on her knees.

“Regis?” she called down the stone throat of Anna’s jar. “Regis, is that you?”

Like great wings the sky flapped and the desert heaved beneath Anna’s feet. Abruptly she sat, her butt smacking the ground hard as her knees gave way. Darkness gathered, the ghosts of crows flocking at the edges of her vision, until she saw only a long tunnel, at the end of which was the mouth of the jar. Jenny, Steve, Jim, Andrew, the sheriff, entered and exited from this circular stage, four actors talking at once; none making sense.

The jar interacted with the human cast, chattering as if it were the star, its voice rising hollow from beneath the ground. A rope was thrown. Brown gnarled hands flashed into the spotlight, and Anna watched the hemp snake down into its lair.

“Okay,” the jar shouted. Anna heard scraping up the throat of sandstone, felt scratching in her own throat, a fishbone dragged up her gullet with a bit of thread as Sheriff Patterson pulled on the rope. Hooks of the boat ladder hobbled in jerks from the hole in the ground followed by bright blue line and plastic treads.

The hooks were whisked offstage; the ladder remained.

“We’re set,” Steve Gluck called and, “Come on up, Regis.”

Regis, the neighbor guy, the personnel guy, the guy with the plump wife, the guy who sat with the others in the evening and drank beer from long-necked bottles, the guy who’d tried to lure her out of her shell, Regis crawled out of the ellipses, a worm from the eye socket of a skull.

“Water,” he croaked like a desert rat in a cowboy film. Anna watched him gulp from a white plastic government-issue water bottle. The crows took flight; lights came up; the stage grew to encompass all the characters in this surrealist drama. A dun-colored set of Styrofoam rocks and artfully placed shrubs appeared against a scrim of deep blue sky.

Each and every one of the players was staring at her. It was opening night, and Anna didn’t know her lines. Why would she? She was the stage manager. Zach was the star.

“Why did you attack me?” Regis demanded. “I nearly died in that hole.”

Anna could not think of a single thing to say.

“Christ on a crutch, I should have you brought up on charges of attempted murder.”

“Easy, Reg,” Steve Gluck said.

“Leave her alone,” Jenny snarled.

The chief ranger and the sheriff had no more to say than Anna. Jim Levitt radiated unasked questions.

“I was trying to save you, God damn it!” Regis sputtered—sputtered because he kept pouring water down his throat even while he was trying to talk.

“You’re going to throw up.” Anna’s voice was flat and cold and sounded as if it came from some other place in time.

Like a good actor, Regis vomited on cue.

Behind him, Sheriff Patterson was backing into the mouth of the jar, using the plastic rungs on the slope to ease himself farther into the solution hole.

“Anna didn’t know it was you,” somebody said.

“I frigging told her it was me.” Regis was wiping his mouth on a red rag, the kind car mechanics buy by the bushel. Someone must have brought it from the truck.

“I fucking told her it was me,” Anna said. “‘Frigging’ is not a word.” She wondered why she said this, why the cold flat voice came out of her mouth. Anna, what have you done? She remembered that.

“Back off,” Jenny snapped at Regis. “Anna’s been through a lot. She was stuck down there a whole lot longer than you were.”

Regis blinked, seeming to consider her words. Anna watched him change: His shoulders relaxed, losing their proximity to his ears; his head rose up and settled on his spine.

“Yeah,” he said. He pinched his nose and squinted past Anna. “Yeah. Okay. It was dark as the inside of a cow, Jesus.” He shook his head and unclenched his hands from around the water bottle. “Sorry,” he said to Anna. She watched his lips form the word. He smiled ruefully. “The damsel in distress isn’t supposed to cold-conk and Mace the white knight.”

“Not Mace,” Anna said. “Buddy.”

Without invitation, Jenny came over and lifted Anna to her feet by the arm, one hand on the bicep, the other cupping her elbow. Lifted, not helped up; Anna was amazed a woman could be so strong. Since Anna didn’t care if she sat, stood, or was laid down on a slab in a butcher shop window, she didn’t fight her housemate.

Jenny put her arm around Anna’s shoulders and, still cupping her elbow, steered her away from the men, back in the direction they had come.

Walking away from a stage where the fourth wall had been summarily shattered and the make-believe world poured out into the real world, Anna began to gather herself together, reeling herself in as if she were a ball of string that had become unwound. At the pace of invalids, she let Jenny lead her over the broken ground. Mindful of tracks, they skirted the flagged area where Kay had fought for her life and lost.

Anna waited while Jenny opened the passenger door of the sheriff ’s truck and dumbly obeyed when she told her to get in. She watched Jenny walk around the hood of the truck and let herself in the driver’s door, lower the sun flap, catch the keys the sheriff had put there, start the engine, and crank the air conditioner to high.