I don’t want to go in there. And not just because of snakes. But because nothing good comes from exploring underground tombs. Everyone knows that.
My only other option is to fetch Bob and Martin. I already know Marty won’t come, and Bob . . . Well, the space isn’t that small, but neither is it that big.
No guts, no glory, I tell myself.
I turn around and scoot backward, feetfirst into the opening. Then I allow myself to fall into the abyss.
* * *
—
I hit the ground with a puff of dirt that promptly makes me cough. I wield my flashlight like a weapon, stabbing first that dark corner, then that one, that one, that one. A spinning circle of lighted jabs.
When nothing leaps, bites, or rattles, I finally release a shaky breath. I’m here. I’m alive. Fuck, how am I getting back up?
I stare at the opening overhead. Not five or six feet up; more like eight.
Another shaky breath. I’m here now. Might as well tend to the matters at hand.
Using my flashlight, I turn my attention to the space around me. The floor isn’t really flat, but a sandy mound of dirt and pebbles that have collected in the crevices between the jumbled rocks. It shifts beneath my feet, which makes it a challenge to walk.
This time, I check for boot impressions before taking a step. There’s a depression very close to me, then another and another. The soil is too loose to hold something as distinct as tread patterns, but from a layperson’s perspective, it certainly looks like someone has been moving around in here.
I take a first tentative step, sliding to one side, before I find a more solid base, probably a larger rock beneath the shifting sand. I make it to the wall, where I feel the craggy edge of a bus-sized boulder. Did it break free from the cliff face a millennium ago? Was it delivered here by glaciers? Tossed by a giant?
Bit by bit, I pick my way around the uneven perimeter. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, just evidence of human occupation.
Nothing immediately jumps out. And yet the space doesn’t feel abandoned to me.
Then I come across the first gap in the wall.
Two huge boulders toppled against each other, leaving a V of empty space between them. It’s tall enough for me to wedge myself through.
To where? Another void? Or a tighter and tighter space till my chest compresses and my lungs seize up, and I . . .
I can’t go there. At the thought alone, my hands are shaking so hard I’ve turned my flashlight into a disco ball. I’m breathing too shallowly, my heart starting to race. All at once, this space is too dark, too scary, too empty for me.
Forget snakes. I am already in a grave. If I can’t reach the opening above, claw my way out, Bob and Marty will never know. They’ll walk right over the top of me. Then they’ll be gone and it’s not Marty who will be joining his son forever in Devil’s Canyon.
Why did I come to Wyoming? Why do I keep doing this to myself? Paul is dead but I’m still chasing the bullet, waiting for it to finally punch into my gut, spill my own blood. All these searches, these strangers I help find and bury. It never changes anything.
Other people find closure, other people move on. Not me. Every place I arrive, I already see myself leave. Every door that opens, I already know will close.
I don’t want to be me anymore. I want to be the kind of person who falls in love and stays. Who has a job other people actually understand. Who returns night after night to a place I call home.
I want to build a time machine and go back to the night my father and I went camping. Except this time, I won’t be hungry. My father won’t have to head to the kitchen and pretend magic wood sprites are fixing us dinner. Instead, he and I will stay next to our adorably unstable tent. We’ll gaze up at the sky and watch the stars appear. We’ll share stories and he’ll know what he’s saying and who he’s saying it to.
He’ll remain himself with me.
Maybe I’ll lean my head against his shoulder. He’ll pat me on the top of my head. And then we’ll fall silent. We’ll just be.
My entire life, I have always wanted to just be.
I’m crying. I can feel the moisture on my cheeks. More salt tracks through the endless layers of grime. I don’t know why. There’s no point to my tears, no use in wishing for the lessons I never learned.
I’m a drunk who followed in her father’s footsteps.
Until one day he was dead. And I became sober.
Now I live every day, spinning and wanting and wishing. But sober. Each and every day.
Even when it hurts.
I look up at the opening above. It appears too high, too hard. But my panic is receding, my resolve returning. If I can go each and every minute without taking another drink, then I sure as hell can do this.