Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [115]
They are gathered and wrapped in purple cloth. I reach in and lift away a corner until I see them, yellow and white and brown. I release the cloth and, after a pause as my hand hangs in the air above, I touch them with the tips of my fingers. And while there’s no static, no transfer of divine power from them to me, I am still satisfied. I wish I had a cigar with which to mark the moment, but the last Cuban went to ash in Lalibela.
Replacing the cloth, I pull the bones out of their nest. I turn to Esperanza. “Do you have any tape left?” She shakes her head, so I secure the bones as well as I can in their own fabric.
Espy stands back, allowing me to savor the moment awhile longer before bringing me back to the matter at hand.
“How are we going to get out of here?”
Instead of answering, I set our precious cargo to the side, crouch down, and place my shoulder against the ossuary.
“Care to give me a hand?”
The two of us strain against the weight of the box and it seems like forever before it moves, just a hair at first, but then a few inches, then a few more. Finally we push the ossuary from its dais, revealing a two-foot-wide hole with a depth of less than four feet.
“Tomb building 101,” I say. “Always have two exits.”
My back hurts as I straighten, and I’m breathing heavily as I scoop up the bones.
“Ladies first?”
“Not on your life.”
The flashlight is worthless, most of its glass parts smashing to pieces on the floor of the larger chamber when I threw myself onto Espy. I hate the thought of entering this exit passage without a light, but this is one of those occasions when complaining accomplishes nothing.
I sit on the edge and then lower myself down, and my head and shoulders are still in the room when my feet touch bottom. It’s cold in here, but at least it’s dry. I crouch and step deeper into the tunnel so that Espy can join me. As we start moving, it doesn’t take long before the light is lost behind us. I feel my way along with one hand, the other holding the treasure we’ve crossed the world to find and are now ferrying with what is probably an inappropriate lack of ceremony.
While shuffling forward, bent at the waist, my foot hits a rough spot and I’m forced to slow down. This far into the tunnel, the darkness is as complete as it’s going to be, and Espy, unaware that I’ve slowed my pace, walks into me just hard enough to send me to my knees.
“Watch where you’re going,” I say.
“Funny.”
Deeper into the tunnel the air is stale and still and I feel sweat beading on the back of my neck, making my shirt stick to my body.
It goes unnoticed at first, but when I recognize that the tunnel is constricting I realize it’s been happening for some time. It’s not much, maybe six inches, yet enough to slow us down.
Stopping, I say, “Keep your hands on the wall.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I start off again, content that I’ve not really told a lie because it could very well be the truth. By my foot count, we’ve traveled about fifty yards, and since this passage almost certainly comes up somewhere within the house, it has to reach an end soon. At the rate the tunnel is narrowing, we should be out before it becomes impassable.
A moment later I’m sitting on the tunnel floor and my face feels as if George Foreman hit me, then held me down and rubbed the tender spots with a scouring pad. White dots dance in front of me and I try to blink them away, but they hang tauntingly out of reach. I touch my forehead and wince as fire spreads out from my fingers. It’s sticky, but it doesn’t feel deep. Similar sensations run along my nose and right cheek.
“What happened?” Espy asks.
“I hit something.”
“What?”
What, indeed. I put my legs under me and feel along the ground until I find the bones, still wrapped securely in the cloth. Once I have them I stand and, with my hand straight out in front and at head level, I take a tentative step forward until I’m stopped by solid rock. Like a