"Brandon?"
Hearing my name being called from the back door of my Mom's house, loud enough to be heard over the garden tiller, I shut it off.
"Yea Mom?" I answer after wiping sweat from my face. Walking towards the backdoor a little I can see her better.
"Brand, your Auntie Willow just called. What she was trying to tell me I have no idea! She was in an absolute panic and I couldn't understand a word she was saying really, through all those tears. The most I caught was she needs you and it has something to do with Melody." I see my mom drying her hands on a dishtowel. "Would you run over there and see what's got her in such a twist?"
"Sure I'll head over."
Going over to the fence I grab up my shirt but don't put it on just yet. I'm soaked in sweat from running that damn tiller for the last two hours. Damn it, I was almost done though.
Wonder what the hell Melody needs.
Hopping into my truck I crank it up and take off the four miles to my Aunt and Uncles place.
As I pass the new shopping mall and Wal-Mart that going up I shake my head again at my families stupidity.
Looking out the windshield at all the farmland going by me. It should all be still in the family, just like the land the new Wal-Mart is sitting on should have been.
You see my family owned this whole valley about a hundred years ago. It's even called Thrasher Valley.
My great grand father came here back in the eighteen hundreds and bought this place for a song. The civil war was over and he had the money from somewhere. It's not told where he got it from but he had enough to buy up this whole valley.
Over the years it's been sold off piece by piece.
Now only four little farms, hardly big enough to be called that, remain in the family.
The cold air through the open window of my truck soon has me dried off. Even a little chilled.
Turning my truck off what was once the family road between fields I turn onto the long gravel driveway up to my uncle's house.
When I pull up outside the door opens before I can even get the truck shut down.
My auntie Willow comes running out the house and jumps into my arms before I'm half out my truck. Crying her head off her hands clutch at my bare skin.
I pat at her shoulder till I get her to calm down a little.
"You've got to calm down enough to tell me what's happened." I tell her getting a little nervous now.
She thrusts a piece of paper into my hands.
I open it to Melody's flowing writing.
"I've gone to Lyric caves. I'll show them I'm just as good as they are."
Looking up at my aunt I can see the worry in her face.
"When did she leave?'
"Sometime this morning! I thought she was going shopping with her friends." My Aunt is wringing her hands. "Oh god Brandon what if something happened to her?"
I look at the setting sun. Maybe an hour till dark.
"Easy now. I'll go get my stuff and go see if I can find her. Where are Todd and Jason?"
"They drove down to the game!" she claws at my bare back again. "They won't be home for hours."
"It's okay. I'll find her. Now call sheriff Tompson and tell him what's happening. If I don't show back up by midnight he needs to get someone out there with some caving experience. When my two cousins get their asses back from the football game send them up to the caves."
When I finally manage to get her off me and I pull on my shirt and head back to the house.
"What's that fool girl thinking!" I say to myself as I drive.
I know the answer.
I have a grand total of thirteen cousins. If you include my brothers and me there are sixteen boys and one girl.
Want to guess who keeps constantly feeling like she has to prove she's as good as the others?
Mom about has a come apart when I get home and tell her what's happening.
"We...! That girl! Eighteen years old and still wild as the day she was born!" Mom follows me about the house as I grab up what I need.
I'm double checking my caving gear and tossing it into the back of the truck when she drops a bombshell.
"It's all your fault"
Turning to my mom with a bag in mid lift my jaw drops a bit...
"My fault? How the hell is it my fault?"
"You got all your fool cousins interested in those caves. If you hadn't taken that stupid job. If you had just gone to work with Mr. Farsen like I wanted you to none of this would be happening."
I just look at my mom for a second then slowly nod.
"Right." I say drawing the word out into a long breath. "Yea it's all on me. None of the others ever get into any trouble without me doing it first. Although how that works since I'm the second youngest I'll never know."
"Stop being a smart ass and go find your cousin."
I hop into the truck.
"Brandon?"
"Yea mom?"
"Be careful. Find Melody but you be careful as well."
"I will. I know those caves better than anyone in this county does. I'll find her."
I can see where she cut through the chain with a set of bolt cutters. The metal grill that covers the top of the entrance is still resting back against the side of the dogwood tree next to it.
"Melody!" I stand back from the entrance and yell. I know better than to be yelling inside the cave. That was one of the first things I was told when I took the job as a tour guide at a large cave, tourist trap, not far from the college I attended.
The job, like the college hadn't really worked out.
Slipping my coveralls on over my underwear, I leave my clothes in the car next to the change of clothes I grabbed for her to wear. Old stuff of mine, a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, but it will do her till I get her home. There is no way she's getting into my truck in what she wore into the cave.
Grabbing a roll of duct tape I tape my pants legs to my boots.
My headlight flickers on then goes very bright. I adjust the sweat bandana and tighten the cap.
"Okay. Here we go." I say softly to myself as I walk into the opening.
Descending into the cave the wet smell of mud is almost instantly there. Then the cold chill of the draft starts to wash past me.
My headlight illuminated the walls where people have brought cans of spray paint and painted their names and shit. Those end after about the first thirty feet.
At that point the cave takes a sharp turn and the little sliver of light that's the outside world fades out of sight.
The paint happy fools don't ever come this far. Hells other than a few guys like me who love these dark places I imagine only a few have. I know one kid got lost in here about five years ago. That's when they put up the metal grating across the door.
Hearing a squeak I look up. In my light I see one of the little dark furred bats clinging to the walls about ten feet over head.
It's because of him and his ten thousand kinfolk's that the sheriff didn't just back a concrete truck up and cement in the opening. The opening in the metal grating is big enough for the bats to get out but not for people to get in.
Right.... And no one owns bolt cutters in this county.
Sixty feet in and the walls fall away to either side. My little light struggles to light, Song cave, as it's called. My brother and I, when he was still home and not overseas playing in the sand, brought a generator out here and ran power cords down too here once. We had one hell of a beer party that night with about thirty people we led in here.
I was one of the more than a few that tested out the acoustics of Song cave with a girl in one of the little shadowy side pockets.
Because of that I know this cave is safe to make noise in.
"Melody!"
My voice echoes back to me from a dozen different directions.
I wait five minutes in the silence then I call out again.
Nothing.
"Damn it, if you got me down here and this is all a hoax I'm so gonna beat your ass. Girl or no girl!" I say mostly to myself in frustration.
As I turn towards the largest of the passages out my light shows me a boot print in the mud.
I find another about ten feet in.
I know that this way links up with a second cave. The entrance to it is about four miles away from Lyric's entrance and you would have to be smaller than a dog to use it.
While it's the biggest cave out of Song, I have almost never have gone that way.
Those caves can be dangerous.
A lot of tight spots you can get into before you know you're there. A lot of places where the tunnels you're following ends but when you turn around you'll see a second passage that was behind a rock. It's easy to get turned around in.
Unbuttoning my pocket I pull out the piece of yellow chalk I was taught to always carry when underground. Under the lamp light it glows like a street sign. I make a large arrow on the wall and checking my watch note the time under it. I put my B.R.T. initials next to it.
"Be right there." I say softly to myself. The old joke was never funny but it brings me a bit of a lift to sagging spirits as I head into the twisted labyrinth of passages.
About four hundred feet or so in I find where someone other than Melody has been through here since I was here last.
Some fool took a hammer to one of the passages and chipped it a bit wider!
"Damn cave has been here millions of years, some jackass thinks it need to be improved upon." Settling the small pack on my back I watch the floor for more of her footprints.
About twenty minutes later I find a Snickers wrapper that's not at all muddy.
Look up at the ceiling above me I decide to risk a bit of noise.
"Melody." I say in a loud call that's not quite a yell.
Ahead of me I hear a reply. It's very faint but I catch the word "help"
I move forwards with a bit more speed through the mud-smeared passages. I slip at one point and tweak my ankle good between two large rocks.
Looking up I see the guy with the hammer came at least this far.
"Melody!"
Again comes back the faint reply for help.
Pushing my way through a narrow passage; sharp rocks the fool chiseled tug at my coveralls. I slide through, the slick mud a cold wet against the palms of my hands.
Lifting my head I see a pair of boots stuck out the end of a tunnel.
