The Way Of The Wilderking Part 8

The echoing roar was deafening in the main chamber, where the waterfall from the surface pounded against the ground and splattered mud in every direction. Aidan's ears were ringing as he struggled to climb into the tunnel that led to the Errolsons' sleeping chamber. The tunnel was a slippery slope, but at least there was no current to contend with after they left the main chamber.

When Aidan and Dobro reached their chamber, there was much rejoicing. Errol, Brennus, Jasper, and Percy were all safe and all greatly relieved to see Aidan and Dobro unhurt. On the other side of the tunnel, Marvin and his gang were safe and sound, though bedraggled.

The storm continued through the night. It was a night of much anxiety, for even if all fifteen people in the Errolsons' tunnel were accounted for, they had no way of knowing how things stood in the other tunnels. Then there was always the possibility the water could rise high enough to close the tunnel entrance and seal off their supply of air. It seemed unlikely, and if it happened, it was more unlikely they would consume all the air in the tunnel before the waters receded. Even so, the possibility, however remote, of suffocating in the company of Marvin and his boys made Aidan feel queasy.

"We've done all we can do," Errol said. "We are in the hands of the living G.o.d." Then he lay down on his pallet and went to sleep. His sons and Dobro, on the other hand, were unable to sleep and didn't even try.

Meanwhile, Marvin and the boys were having a prayer meeting out in the tunnel, where the water continued to creep higher and higher. No one had ever known them to pray before, even at mealtimes, but there they were, praying loudly and earnestly, making deals with G.o.d, promising to behave themselves if only G.o.d would deliver them. Their prayers grew louder and more desperate the higher the waters rose. Marvin stood at the very edge of the water and commanded it in the name of the living G.o.d to come no farther. But by the time he opened his eyes after his lengthy prayer, his toes were under water.

Aidan tapped Marvin on the shoulder. "Um, Marvin," he began, "I think you boys have the right idea, of course, but do you think you could pray a little more quietly? Father is trying to sleep."

Marvin's eyes burned with righteous indignation. "I thought your pap was a man of faith. Why ain't he out here praying with us instead of sleeping?"

Aidan smiled. "Father is a man of faith. That's why he can sleep on a night like this. He prayed for an hour or more this morning, just like every morning, while you were still snoring. He prayed for you by name, in fact, Marvin. I heard him. Father's been praying all day. And now he's resting in the mercy of the living G.o.d."

Marvin looked back at the rising water. "Aw, forget it," he said and stalked back toward his sleeping quarters, his followers right behind him.

"I don't mean to discourage your praying," Aidan called behind him.

Marvin waved a hand behind him. "It ain't working anyway."

In the morning a gray light filtered up the tunnels, but the roar of the waterfall in the main chamber continued as strong as ever. The water had climbed farther up the tunnel in the dark hours of the morning. Were it to rise another foot, it would flood the sleeping chambers and spoil the foodstuffs in the storage room.

The men were restacking bags of flour against that possibility when they noticed the waterfall's roar had lessened. The rain had stopped, and it was only a matter of minutes before most of the surface water funneling into the crevice had run its course. The water in the tunnel began to recede and the waterfall, while still much stronger than a trickle, was nothing like the torrent that had thundered all night long.

In less than an hour, the water was gone from the tunnels. By the time another half hour had pa.s.sed, the water coursing along the crevice floor had subsided enough for the men to step out into the sunshine that flooded the floor of the main chamber. Everyone was safe. All thirteen miners, nine hunters, twelve soldiers, six field hands, seven n.o.blemen, and, of course, the fifteen men in the Errolsons' tunnel were accounted for. The men offered up prayers of praise and thanksgiving.

The stream in the main canyon was still raging-a muddy, milky, reddish torrent. From the markings on the canyon walls, it was obvious the water had already fallen several feet.

"If the rain don't come back-and it don't look like it will-this creek'll be within a foot of normal by this afternoon," Gustus observed. "And we can start work on the main chamber."

The pounding water had dug a broad bowl in the soft dirt of the crevice floor. Even when the last of the surface water had flowed through and out to the main channel, a little pond, a foot and a half deep, would remain in the chamber to grow stagnant and breed mosquitoes if the men didn't do something about it.

The miners fell to the work with great enthusiasm-digging and grading, filling and sc.r.a.ping. They were proud of their work, proud of their expertise, proud when their comrades said they didn't know what they would do without them, because they knew it was true. That feeling of being indispensable wasn't one they got very often when they were toiling in the mines at Greasy Cave. In their workaday world, amid the dangers they faced daily in the mines, they felt very dispensable. The fact that they mostly looked alike-short, stocky, bearded-only added to the sense of interchangeability. Everybody in Greasy Cave could swing a pickax, and if a miner didn't show up at the mines one day, the boss would surely find somebody else who would, and he would never miss a lick.

But here in Sinking Canyons, the Greasy Cave boys were heroes, just as they had been at Bonifay. Their tunnels had saved the lives of their comrades. Now they were in charge of the cleanup, organizing the others (civilians, as they had come to think of non-miners) into bucket brigades and telling them what to do and how to do it.

The others were happy to follow the miners' leadership-most of them anyway. Marvin and his gang grumbled all afternoon and dropped their buckets on every other pa.s.s and sometimes wandered off from the work a half hour at a time.

After a cold and early supper, Gustus announced, "Boys, we still got a couple hours' daylight left. What say we finish up this job so we don't have to fool with it tomorrow?"

Everyone's back was aching from the day's work. But the men did like the idea of not having to return to the work a second day, so they stood, stretched, and prepared to go back to the bucket brigade.

They all stopped, however, at the booming voice of Marvin echoing on the canyon walls. "Some band of outlaws this is!" He threw his head back and laughed. "Toting buckets of sand! Getting bossed by a bunch of miners!" He pointed a finger at the miners gathered around Gustus. "I've took all the orders I aim to take from a bunch of stoop-backed gravel scratchers."

Ernest gave it back to Marvin. "I didn't hear no complaints about gravel scratchers when you was safe and dry last night in the tunnels we dug!"

Marvin waved at the air as if swatting away a bothersome fly. The rest of the miners now stepped up beside Ernest, across from Marvin's gang, who fanned out to face them. The miners gripped their pickaxes and shovels. From the looks on their faces, it appeared they were ready to use them.

But Errol and his four sons stepped into the corridor between the two lines of men. The old man stood mere inches away from Marvin. The purple vein had appeared on his forehead. He spoke calmly but with unquestionable authority. "No one is keeping you here, Marvin. Leave anytime you wish. But if you mean to use our shelter and eat our food, you will join us in our work."

Marvin snorted. "It'll be dark in an hour. The water's still high. We can't leave now."

Errol grabbed a bucket from one of the miners and shoved it into Marvin's belly. "Then get to work," he ordered, stalking off to join the bucket brigade himself.

Chapter Thirteen.

A Discovery Aidan lay awake most of that night, half-expecting trouble from Marvin and his boys. He finally fell asleep a couple of hours before dawn, and when he awoke, Marvin's gang was gone. Cooky had seen the group leave while he was trying to light the breakfast fire in the predawn darkness.

Never had a day seemed fresher. Marvin's departure was like a shadow lifting. The morning sun glistened off the stream, now only a little higher than normal. The birds that had spent the previous day drying out sang joyously in celebration of the new day.

After breakfast Aidan joined Jasper on a walk down the canyon. "The canyon changes after every rainstorm," Jasper explained. "And the storm we just had was the biggest one we've had since we've been here. Look, this is what I'm talking about." He pointed at a spot where the water flowed over flat sand.

"Looks like any other spot on the canyon floor," Aidan said, not sure what point Jasper was making.

"But it didn't two days ago," Jasper said. "This was the wash hole. Remember those two willow trees right there? The ones where we always hang clothes to dry?"

"You're right," Aidan said, looking at the two big trees, then back down at the stream. "But that was a pretty big pool."

"Took the miners most of a week to dig it," Jasper agreed. "But it probably took only a few minutes for the flood to fill it back in." He pointed up the canyon. "The sand and clay that washed down the stream and probably some from up there at the canyon rim got dumped into the pool here until it filled up."

Jasper pointed at a smooth mound across the way. "Remember the tower that used to stand there? It must have crumbled away and washed downstream."

"Amazing," Aidan said. "So the storm tears down the high spots and fills in the low spots?"

"Sort of," Jasper answered, "Sometimes it makes low spots lower, digging a little furrow into a big trench. Sometimes part of a wall crumbles away and leaves a new tower or chimney that wasn't there before. The only thing you can be sure of is that dirt is going to move around. After a rain like this one, some spots get buried in sand and clay, and some spots get unburied. No rhyme or reason to it, as far as I can make out."

Aidan pointed up at a pine tree on the very edge of the canyon. It was the one he had noticed when he first came here, with its roots reaching out into the air. "I remember that tree," he said. "It used to have a neighbor. Do you remember? It hung upside down by the roots, just a few feet from that tree."

"It's gone now," Jasper observed. "The storm must have been too much for it."

"Wonder where it is now," said Aidan. "Maybe floating down the Eechihoolee by now, on its way to the ocean."

"Or it might be out here somewhere. Likely it's buried in the sand," said Jasper.

Aidan walked toward the canyon wall where the tree had hung, curious to see if it was on the canyon floor. He saw no sign of the tree, but he did see something else that caught his eye. "Hey, Jasper," he called. "Come over here. What does this look like to you?"

Jasper knelt beside him in the wet sand and examined the flat, brittle piece of wood Aidan handed him. It was a little bigger than a man's hand. A whole row of identical pieces peeked out of the sand like a row of teeth.

"It looks like a shingle to me," Jasper said.

"That's what I thought," Aidan agreed. From his side pouch he pulled out a flat digging rock, a leftover from his Feechiefen days, and began digging around the shingles. They were attached to a wide plank, a piece of roof decking, no doubt. There was a second row of shingles nailed just below the first.

"Do you suppose a piece of roof from an old barn washed down here from a nearby farm?" Aidan asked.

Jasper gazed up at the canyon rim. "The nearest farm I know of is almost ten leagues away. That was a powerful storm, but I don't see how surface water-or really anything less than a river-could carry something this big for ten leagues." He thought on it a little more. "And besides, when was the last time you saw a shingled roof in this part of Corenwald? All the roofs around here are reed thatch or palmetto thatch."

"You're right," Aidan said. "This is like a roof you might see in the Hill Country."

"Or the old country." Jasper's brow crinkled. "So how did it get here?"

Aidan dug again with his rock. But even in the wet sand he couldn't make enough progress to suit Jasper, who was growing more perplexed and more excited about their discovery. "I'm going to get the miners," he announced. "They'll have it dug out in no time."

An hour's digging by the miners produced impressive results. They dug out the decking plank within ten minutes of arriving on the scene. Then they found two more shingled planks and a pair of ma.s.sive roof timbers, almost as big as squared-off trees.

Except for those on sentry duty, every man in the camp came to watch the digging and debate about the findings. Everyone agreed the planks and timbers hadn't been washed down by the flood of two days earlier. They were buried too deeply for that. This flood must have just washed away the sand that had buried the planks and timbers many years earlier. But that didn't explain how they got there in the first place.

One of the soldiers proposed that pirates or criminals had built a house in the canyon for a hideout and a flood had destroyed it. But in a canyon full of natural hideouts, it seemed unlikely that anyone would actually build a house to hide in.

Someone else suggested that the house may have overhung the canyon at one time and fallen into the canyon just as the pine tree had fallen during the storm. But again, who would be fool enough to build a house overlooking Sinking Canyons? The place got its very name from the rim constantly sinking down to the canyon floor.

While the debate continued, the miners continued digging. Soon they made another discovery. Digging out the deeper end of one of the roof timbers, Clayton's shovel clanged against something metal. Soon he had uncovered a thickly corroded plate of curved iron. The field hands were the first to recognize it as a plow blade.

"Oh, Mama," Dobro moaned. "Oh, Mama, if you only knew what your boy been messing up with!"

Everyone stopped to stare at the feechie, who wrung his hands in genuine distress.

"What is the matter with you, Dobro?" Aidan asked.

Dobro was breathing fast, trying to regain his composure. "Ain't but three things my mama especially tolt me was bad luck to mess up with-three things ain't no feechie supposed to mess up with-and here I am messing up with all three at the same time."

"What in the world are you talking about?" asked Arliss.

Dobro held up his index finger. "One, civilizers. I don't mean to hurt n.o.body's feelings, but you folks is bad luck." He held up two fingers. "Two, Sinking Canyons. Feechiefolks go wherever they want to go on this island, 'cept Sinking Canyons and places that got civilizers. Here I stand in the middle of Sinking Canyons with a crowd of civilizers. And now the next thing to turn up is the very worst luck in the round world: a cold-shiny plow!" He looked as if he might start crying. "Any cold-shiny's bad luck for feechiefolks, of course, but a cold-shiny plow's the worst bad luck of all."

"What's so awful about a cold-shiny plow?" Percy asked.

Dobro didn't seem to have heard the question. But he closed his eyes and launched into a feechie sadballad: Oh, Veezo, you is ruint, Covered by the clay.

With choppin' and plowin'

You tore up the ground

And now it's washed away.

Oh, Veezo, you is ruint,

Buried in the sand.

The world caved in,

And you and your kin

Was swallowed by the land.

Oh, Veezo, you is ruint,

And all your folks is gone.