The Onyx Cave Adventure
Cave guru Myles Overton was well suited to his work. An eccentric bachelor, only 5 feet 4,
bearded and wiry, he‟d explored caves in the Missouri Ozarks since Boy Scouts. He was 40 and claimed 3
decades of experience on his company letterhead, decorated with cave stalactites and bat wings. He liked
the dark, the silence, he had knees of iron, he liked the 55 degree chill, he didn‟t care what people thought
of his strange job.
Myles lived in a cave, it was the HQ of his firm Ozark Underground Labs. He paid 400 a month to
the farmer who owned the surface, who let him park his old pickup and use an old cool shed for storage.
Myles had moved the shed over a sinkhole - which the farmer had used as a trash dump. After removing the
trash and some dirt, a natural entrance to the cave was found. Myles could climb down an extension ladder
every morning to the office, that was his commute. Most Ozark caves had several entrances. Myles‟ cave
also popped out at an ancient Indian bluff dwelling 2 miles away, this entrance was used by bats. Water in
the cave emptied out at a spring 2 miles in the other direction, Myles couldn‟t get out this way, the passage
was narrow and the last half mile was under water. Myles had taken surveying tools and mapped the cave
in 3 dimensional detail, he knew how the water level varied with the seasons and when the bats would return
from their winter vacation in Mexico. He had done hydrologic mapping with blue dye powder, dumping it
in sinkholes and old out houses then watching for it in the spring that drained his cave. He got local heath
authorities after farmers who dumped used motor oil in sinkholes or refused to dig or repair septic tanks.
Sometimes local teenagers visited the Indian Bluffs, crawled and duck walked the 2 miles and
dropped in on Myles, sipping tea in his underground living room or watching a little TV. They had heard of
this strange guy who lived underground, bats flying around his simple army cot, cooking on a gas hot plate.
Myles‟ living room was a good 20 feet tall, decorated with tan and amber colored calcite deposits, no longer
wet, the water table was now 100 feet or so below him. Myles sometimes invited friends to come out and
watch the bats leave the bluff entrance at night fall. A photographer friend, Randy Kamm, also a caver, got
some great shots of bits frozen in midair, maneuvering around obstacles on their way out. They discovered
feral cats were staking out the entrance, leaping in the air to catch bats. They authored a paper together
entitled “ Do Cats Eat Bats?” shamelessly lifted from Alice and Wonderland. They also discovered owls
were swooping down and grabbing bats in mid - air, the first to document owl predation of bat colonies.
Myles got Federal Grant money to protect bat colonies in old barns and under bridges, and he stopped
farmers from sealing up cave entrances used by bats. He consulted for the highway dept. when sinkholes
suddenly opened up in parking lots or under roads and testified in court cases.
Students came for cave tours, Myles was an enthusiastic teacher. “An Ozark cave is like 3 - d
chess. The cave covers an area and it goes up and down, this one‟s 800 vertical feet from the uppermost dry
rooms to the spring outlet. On top of that you‟ve got the terrain, the hills and valleys of the Ozarks. When
the topography comes down and intersects the cave, you have an entrance or a spring, some you don‟t even
notice when you‟re walking around in the woods. Here, for example,” he said on a tour, pointing upward to
reddish dirt with roots hanging down. “A stream is cutting down toward us and maybe in a few years this
will collapse and make an entrance, we‟re just 10 feet from the surface here. Continuing South the cave is
level but a big old hill of flintlock climbs above us. Down here,” he said pausing a few minutes later,
“We‟re 200 feet underground.
The group worked its way deeper, duckwalking down muddy slopes, the students in dirty blue
jeans and sweatshirts. “Think of it as three levels relative to the water table,” Myles said as they paused by
a rushing underground stream. Several got a drink, bats whizzed between the students like tiny stealth
fighters, brushing them with faint air currents. “The upper level, the dry rooms, that‟s the oldest, created
when the water table was high and the climate was wet after the last ice age. It‟s been airfilled a while and
is nicely decorated, the cave decorations mostly form in air. Then we have a transition zone, like this spot,
that floods in wet years. Then the submerged portion, starting here at the stream and extending North to the
springs. Nobody has ever been through that portion of the cave,” he said.
“Why not, Mr. Overton?” a girl asked.
“Well, because it requires a scuba - using caver to squeeze through tiny narrow passages in pitch
black and cold water, fast moving water to boot. There aren‟t many cave divers and they often die young,
their air runs out, they get lost or chilled. It‟s a rare breed and I‟m not one of „em, I like being alive,” he
said with a laugh, the group chuckling. “It‟s much easier to just dump some dye like this in the water, then
drive around to the spring and take a sample. That‟s how we show the two are connected.” He opened a
small foil packet and poured something like detergent into the stream. “Same thing is done in septic tanks
and drains, we pour the dye and check springs and creeks. Some of the old timers still use an outhouse,
thats a problem for caves, causes pollution. Now, let‟s walk around and look at the spring, you guys can be
young pollution fighters,” Myles said, the students following. His cave tours and strange lifestyle were
always intriguing.
A half hour later they arrived at a clear, cold creek in doppled sunshine and walked down an path,
Myles pointing out different tree species. They found the spring, gushing out of a small bluff on a creek
bend.
“Let‟s pause a minute. Any of you guys go to parties where they have black lights? You notice it
makes white clothing like T - shirts glow? This is stuff in detergent called optical brightness, makes
clothes look extra white, so folks like it. But it ends up in the water here and our tests show those
chemicals, We‟ll test for it back at the lab plus look for our dye. One of you climb up there and get us a
sample,” he said, tossing a sample bottle to a tall kid. Then they went back to the cave office for cold
sodas.
On the way back to town the students laughed at the bearded eccentric. “He reminds me of the
miners on Snow White,” one girl remarked and everyone agreed. Myles didn‟t care what people thought,
obviously. He was king of the blind salamanders and albino crickets, the shy cave crawfish and the freetail
bat. And he had a new consulting contract for a cave in Arkansas run by the feds. That‟s where he met
Tom Owen.
Braden Cave was two counties south of Myles lavatory and everything was larger scale. The cave
- bearing limestone units were thicker here, the hills more rugged. Braden spring had been known since
ancient times and was surrounded by Indian bluff dwellings, moonshiners had set up shop next to it in the
1920‟s. During droughts one could explore into the spring mouth 100 yards or so before it became water
filled. Two miles away in a steep little valley, at the bottom, was the sorange natural entrance. It was a
circular shaft 10 feet across, 30 feet deep, overgrown with mosses and ferns, exhaling moist air and creating
a jungle - like microclimate in the remote, almost inaccessible valley. The cave air was 55 degrees year
around so the Flora around the entrance was unique, protected from both heat and frost. Looking down the
hole one could see the cave stream, a fast flowing brook on brown and gray gravel, on its way to the spring.
Local men with a taste for adventure lowered themselves on ropes into the entrance and looked around. In
the 1950‟s two amateur explorers squeezed through a passage far above the natural entrance and discovered
a vast decorated room, the size of an opera house, tucked inside an adjacent hill. It was on federal land so
Uncle Sam was considering how to open the cave to visitors. Experts like Myles made the orduous crawl
through the narrow muddy gap and were astonished. It was the most impressive cave in the midwest, in the
same league as Mammoth or Carlsbad. But developing the cave would be difficult. It was in rural Izard
county, population 2000, with no hotels or decent restaurants. There was no entrance into the spectacular
upper rooms and the natural entrance was too far away with numerous endangered or rare plants. The Feds
would have to build a visitor center on the hill above the big room and sink elevator shafts 220 feet down,
plus build roads, even electric power was a problem.
There were also neighbors to consider. To keep Braden Cave clean a buffer zone of land would
have to be purchased, the people moved out, the houses bulldozed. The biggest landowner was Mrs Cleo
Mc Bride, the proud owner of Onyx Cave, the “finest cave in the midwest” she liked to say. Mabel Mc
Bride and her late husband Cleo had operated Onyx for a decade, taking groups of tourists through. Onyx
was rather ordinary as caves went but she‟d jazzed it up with lights and music, a snack bar, scary tours at
Halloween, plus her own colorful if rather unscientific tours. An old Indian bluff dwelling marked the
entrance to Onyx cave and it had been mined for batguano during the Civil War, guano had potassium
nitrate, a component of gun powder. Cleo had drilled and blasted out a second entrance near his house and
it had provided a modest living for them, this was in the days when you could do anything you wanted on
your own land.
Gun wrappers and other litter that drifted by the Braden Cave underground stream was evidence of
a connection between Onyx and Braden Caves. If the two were connected the forest service would have to
buck up its courage and try to buy Onyx cave and the Mc Bride farm, or if they wouldn‟t sell condemn it via
eminent domain, an unpopular move in fiercely independent Izard County. Since it would probably go to
court someone needed to find a route between the two and map it, photograph it, providing more
compelling evidence than dye tracing or a few candy wrappers. This was Myles‟ and Randy‟s job when
they arrived at Braden Cave HQ, just a trailer set up in the woods, and were met by summer geologist Tom
Owen. Ray Hughes, a forest Service engineer, was in charge, working on how to drill and blast their way
down through the mountain without breaking stalactites, polluting streams or killing endangered species.
Tom and Ray had just met and were having coffee in the trailer when Myles and Randy drove up.
Ray‟s people had drilled a number or core samples through the mountain and mapped it with
centimeter precision. They were planning to pour concrete underground, cohich they would mix on the
surface and then pump down to the cave through drilled holes, then workers would pour side walks and
stairs. The four men met in the trailer where Ray had detailed maps laid out on plywood tables, Ray went
through the development plan.
Ray was on loan from the Corps of engineers and used lots of action verbs lie “Drill,” “Blast” and
“Excavate.” He had met bearded Myles and tall, skinny Randy before and had just met Tom the day before.
“Last week I went to see Mrs Mc Bride about a map of Onyx Cave, she said it was all in her
husband‟s noggin and he‟s been dead 6 years. There are some unexplored passageways going off in our
direction but she‟s not inclined to let us explore them,” Ray said, indicating an area east of Braden Cave
and shallower. He was medium height and balding, a veteran of Mississippi River levee projects.
“So I guess we need to walk upstream from the Natural entrance and then try to make our way
eastward, climb if we can. Didn‟t you do a dye test?” Myles asked, taking out his own maps and sketches.
He had a surface topographic map with a dashed outline of Braden Cave and a guesstimate of where Onyx
lay, lots of question marks. “Sure. I went on one of her tours and put dye in the water, it showed up at our
spring just as we expected. We still need to find a connection between the two, if it‟s bigger than a mouse -
hole. That‟s why we called in you experts. Tom here will go with you, he‟s working on a master‟s thesis on
this area, he‟s a serious rock hound. I assume you have your own gear?” Ray asked.
“Yeah, we brought everything. Is Onyx open today? We might go over and take a tour,” Myles
said.
“Yeah, think so. Tom, you go along and get a look at it, might give you some ideas. See you
later,” Ray concluded.
After lunch at Brenda‟s Cafe, the county‟s only restaurant, the three drove down the dirt road and
stopped at the shabby concrete block building next door to Onyx Cave. Two carloads of tourists were there
finishing a picnic under a walnut tree, several colorful peacocks strutting around the attractive hillside farm.
Mabel instantly recognized them as “Feds” her term for forest service and Braden Cave types.
“You boys here on one of your secret missions?” she asked when they bought tickets. Myles
introduced his friends. She‟s heard of the cave - dwelling Myles from a newspaper article.
“Nice place you have here,” Myles said, petting a friendly setter that came by.
“Well, we ain‟t gettin rich. Cave pays the electric bill, that‟s about it. If the Feds want to buy it
I‟m ready, maybe get a trailer in Florida. You folks ready? Let‟s go,” she said, 50ish and energetic,
smoking a Benson and Hedges extra - long. She led them down some steep metal stairs like a fire escape to
the cave and walked them trough, stopping at several formations of tan and rust - colored calcite. She had
pet names for several, such as Casper the Ghost and the Ice Cream cone, Myles stopping every few minutes
to take notes and snapping a few pictures. The cave wasn‟t much and was dirty and over - visited, with
candy and gum wrappers along the narrow walkway, some formations discolored by oil from visitor‟s
hands, very little wildlife. It was dehydrated as well, too much dry air from outside was being allowed in.
They finished the tour and asked Mabel a few questions about passages going west. Either she didn‟t know
much or wasn‟t inclined to be helpful, maybe both. Myles leaned on the truck hood and sketched on the
topo map, looking at the terrain around him and trying to imagine where any connection between the caves
could be. Tom looked over his shoulder while he sketched.
“I‟m starting to wonder if the underwater portions of both caves are connected but the upper parts,
the parts we can see and visit, are separated, tucked under separate hills. It would explain why nobody has
ever entered one cave and popped out into the other. It also explains why this cave is dried out but Braden
is still wet, there‟s no air to air communication. OK, lets go back,” he concluded.
Myles was talkative on the way back. “I‟d say the main fauna left in that place is the dust bunny.
You‟d be amazed how much human hair and crud accumulates in one of these small caves. I‟ve done
surveys of a few and the hair and dirt just make you sick, bat guano is a lot more sanitary. It‟s like a
swimming pool that never gets cleaned. Best thing would be if the feds shut it and let it recover a few
hundred years,” he said as they bumped along the narrow dirt road to the state highway.
Back at the Braden HQ trailer they updated Ray and looked over their gear. Myles was a serious
caver and these guys always have 3 independent source of light, which he would demonstrate on student
tours.
“Main source is the carbide lantern, on my helmet. It runs on there carbide granules here,” he said,
showing some gray pellets like gravel. “It mixes with water and makes flammable gas, burns with a nice
clean flame, absolutely idiot proof. Of course in cool mines you might set off methane gas with one, but we
don‟t have that ion caves except for farts,” he continued, the students laughing.
“Now if that fails I have a waterproof divers flashlight 2 cell model,” he said, showing the yellow
plastic unit. “The final back up is these guys, tallow candles and waterproof matches. They‟re made from
beef fat so you can eat them if you have to, regular candles are from petroleum and not edible. They‟re in a
waterproof pouch, never had to use „em but I always carry „em,” he concluded, passing the items to the
students.
“How do you find your way?” a student once asked.
“Same as you do on the surface. Compasses work fine underground and you travel in a series of
bearings and distance, 50 yards north, 100 yards east and so on. You can never really be lost if you use
your compass and take notes for distance I use this spool of heavy fishing line, with an orange tag spliced in
every 10 yards. For rises and falls I use this 6 foot marked stick called a Jacob‟s staff, it‟s good enough for
reckon type work. For precise work I use modified surveyor‟s tools, everything‟s just smaller and designed
to go underground. Most time when folks get lost in caves it‟s a combination of panic and hypothermia -
you get scarred and go the wrong way, then you‟re so chilled you can‟t think clearly. About the only close
calls I‟ve ever had have been from hypothermia,” he said the students fascinated.
“So tell us about the worst one,” a girl said.
“Well, it‟s a little embarrassing but I once took all my clothes off and nearly froze to death. I was
with a group and got separated, big mistake, and had to wade through some deep pools of 50 degree water.
Hypothermia set in and I suddenly felt hot and started undressing, dropping clothes as I blundered along the
wrong way. Hypothermic victims often feel hot, even if they‟re walking through blizzard. So my friends
found me naked and close to death, they brought me out. They‟ve been on my Xmas card list ever since,”
he concluded, chuckling, stroking his beard. The kids laughed.
Tom had an electric miner‟s light run from a belt - mounted rechargeable battery and listened as
Myles demonstrated the carbide lamp.
“That‟s really cool,” he said, adjusting the small blue flame. Tom loaned Randy an electric lamp
and hard-hat, they had a pack loaded with snacks, emergency blankets, first aid kit, climbing rope, pitons
and hammer, enough stuff for 2 days underground. They agreed to meet at HQ the next morning.
The three caves took a short drive the next morning and parked near the natural entrance, it was an
early June day, clear and perfect. A path had been marked with yellow type through the dense woods and
they descended, clanking along heavily loaded in jeans and windbreakers. The trail was steep, the forest
floor covered with ferns and mosses as they approached the cave entrance, the humidity noticeable.
Looking down into the open mouth they saw the stream running in the near darkness, the entrance
resembling a large hand - dug well, the side covered with thick ferns, cool humid air pouring out. Ray had
installed a stainless steel fireman‟s ladder to the side on heavy pitons driven into the rock and down they
went, Myles first since he was in charge. He dropped the last foot, splashing in the clear stream and looked
up as Tom and Randy came down, equipment hanging from both men. They got to the stream and splashed
onto a clay bank still in twilight, the faint surface light showing a cave passageway the size of a 2 car garage
door, walls of smooth gray limestone. Myles wrote down the time in his caving notebook, waterproof with
bats on the cover, and they began walking upstream, the light from the surface vanishing behind them, the
fast flowing stream the only sound.
“This section goes NE. As we go, look off to the right for any crevasses or useable passageway,”
Myles said to the others. Tom adjusted his miner‟s lamp and splashed after Myles, his leather boots already
soaked at least there was headroom here, 10 feet or so. Several bats swooped past them, the cave had a
small summer colony.
“You know about stream gradient Tom? What‟s the gradient of our stream here?” he asked,
pausing. Tom considered.
“Maybe 40 feet per mile drop? Faster than your average canoeing river,” Tom guessed.
“I would guess 30, you‟re close. Keep an eye on it, see if it goes up or down, could indicate it‟s
branching off toward Onyx,” Myles said.
The ceiling rose and fell, the walls narrowed in place, always smooth gray limestone as if
smoothed with mortar. Minutes later they faced a choice, the cave veered off to the left, the stream
continuing straight under a low limestone ceiling. Myles took notes, a surveyor‟s stake was here with a
number, other numbers were spray painted on the walls.
“OK, of to the left we climb up into Braden‟s main rooms, that can‟t be the way. I say we follow
the stream and see if it trends off eastward. Try to keep your gear dry and watch your footing,” Myles said.
They walked into the cold stream, there was just room for Myles to stand up, Randy was hunched over, gear
clanking. Compass check descended ominously, soon they were shuffling forward bent over in almost waist
deep water, scraping their helmets against the rough limestone ceiling, the air gap was only 2 feet. The
ceiling rose at a small room and they paused and stood up, Myles lit a cigarette, letting the smoke curl up.
A faint breeze disturbed the smoke column, coming against them. He put it out.
“See that/ Air‟s coming in somehow, could be Babel left the front door open. This could be the
way to Onyx or some other entrance nobody‟s found yet. This is good,” Myles said. They went another 100
yards or so and rested on a rocky shelf, glad to be out of the cold water.
Randy didn‟t talk much but he was an award winning cave photographer. He had Tom and Myles
sit and set up a 35 mm on a tripod. When it was ready, he simply opened the shutter in the pitch black
room, and using only a small red light walked around with a large flash unit, illuminating the various
features of interest, all on one long exposure.
“OK, that‟s it. Let‟s go,” he said, closing the shutter.
Back into the stream they went, the passageway narrowing to a few feet, the ceiling low and
uncomfortable, then lower, then still lower, they had to duck walk through the icy water, getting wet and
chilled.
Finally it became so cramped they had to stop. The stream vanished under a low rock ledge, they
couldn‟t follow. But just at that spot a passage was seen a few feet above, a gap between was and ceiling, a
man could squeeze through.
“Shall we try it?” Myles asked. He scrambled up and took a peek.
“Looks useable. Let‟s try it,” he said. He made a few notes and they scrambled up into the narrow
gap, a few feet wide, maybe 18 inches tall but dry. They went on hands and knees an few minutes, then
could crouch and continue on, walking on sticky red clay, the ceiling smooth limestone. The crawlspace
climbed above the stream level and trended east, the men were encouraged. Then it began to descend,
getting damper, the sound of water getting louder, until they were back in the stream, or another stream,
they weren‟t sure. It was painful, duckwalking through the rushing water, the ceiling rough with coral - like
formations dug into their backs. This continued a few minutes, they splashed along, breathing hard,
knuckles scraped against the rough ceiling. Then the ceiling rose abruptly in a series of steps, the walls
flared out, they were in a large room with a vaulted ceiling above a clear pool.
“Gotta get a shot here,” Randy said and they paused on a mud bank, the opposite wall perfectly
reflected in the mirror - like water.
“I‟ll bet we‟re the first to see this room. It‟s not on Ray‟s map. Cool, eh?” Myles said, looking
around as Randy set up. “We‟ll call it Randy‟s Reflecting pool. Sound OK?” he asked, updating his
waterproof note book. Tom shivered, he was good and cold.
“Let‟s get going, there‟s more ahead. This is virgin cave guys, National Geographic type stuff,”
Myles said, leading the way on the clay bank around the clear pool. “Where the hand of man has never set
foot,” he said, Tom chuckling in agreement. Randy had heard it a few times.
They climbed a stone shelf decorated with rough brown calcite like chocolate then entered a
spectacular room dominated by three enormous pillars, the size of the great columns at Karnak in Egypt.
The three walked around amazed between them, they were brown with pink or white streaks, huge and squat
like giant sequoias.
“Wow, look at these babies. Look how they‟re detached from the ceiling. The floor is mostly clay
and it settles as these heavy mothers grow. These are huge,” Myles said, the others agreeing.
“The Titans, maybe. The three Titans,” Randy suggested. Myles nodded and made a sketch. “See
any footprints around here?” Myles asked. There were none, just smooth red clay, no sign of previous
visitors.
“Hard to believe guys like Ray haven‟t come up here,” Tom said.
“Ray and his crew are engineers, they know how to pour concrete and drill holes. Takes folks like
us to find the new stuff, to boldly go etc, etc,” Miles said, helping Randy set up. Randy set up his tripod
and opened the shutter, the others hiding out of sight while he stroke - lit each massive column.
“The artist at work,” Myles said as they watched. “This is like those long exposures of stars
you‟ve seen, where everything‟s in circles around the North pole. Randy‟s one of the experts,” Myles tore a
page from his waterproof notebook and dated it, everyone signed it. He wrote “Welcome to the room of the
Titans” and pounded it into the wall with a small steel piton.
They had some beef jerky and moved on, excited about being the first humans to visit. Taking a
compass bearing they continued east, climbing upward through a small passage, feeling a faint breeze in
their faces. They continued to climb and after a while were able to walk again and entered a room where
the floor was cratered with several deep pits, all water filled. Myles shone his light into one and exclaimed
in amazement.
“Hey look guys. Dog - tooth calcite, huge spar crystals! Look at these!” he said. The pits were
man size, and banana - shaped crystals of perfect clear calcite spar grew into the interior from all sides, like
the interior of a giant geode.
“Check this one Myles. It‟s drained,” Randy said, pointing to the largest pit, phone booth sized,
knife - like crystals poking into the interior.
“Wow - awesome. That‟s the best sparry calcite I‟ve ever seen, get a shot of it. Look at the size of
them,” Myles said as Randy got out gear. Myles made some sketches while Tom helped Randy with the
strobe.
It was time to stop, the men were tired and cold. Myles lay out a plastic tarp and unpacked dry
clothes, the others likewise. Undressing in the meager light they changed into dry clothes and put on dry
tennies, wrung out their filthy were clothes. Myles had packed some hot chocolate on a Sterno stove. Soon
it was ready and they had dinner and napped, it had been quite a day.
They slept about 6 hours, waking at 3 AM, ready to continue. Myles got out freeze - dried eggs
and dried soup, they made a good breakfast in the silent, dark chamber, the only sound dripping water. A
new drip had started over their tent, making a loud pat, pat sound.
“Wonder where that drip came from. Think it could be raining?” Myles asked.
“Wasn‟t in the forecast. TV said high pressure the next few days,” Randy replied, pouring more
hot chocolate.
“I‟ve got a barometer, let‟s check it,” Myles replied. He took it out and shook it. “Indicates were
in a low, guys. Must be storming up top, either that or this damn things stuck again,” he said, examining it.
It was a small metallic type, like an oven thermometer.
“We should watch this creek then,” Tom suggested.
“Yeah. Let‟s get moving. Randy you ready?” Myles asked.
“Yep,” silent Randy replied. They broke camp and tidied up, not wanting to leave food or litter in
vigin cave. They left the pits of sparry calcite behind, scrambling up over some rocky benches and then into
a tall, narrow crack, barely a foot wide. They squeezed through, taking off their packs to do it. The passage
widened and the ceiling came down, soon they were crawling on hands and knees, pulling their packs
behind them. They paused, cold and filthy, to rest a minute and update notebooks.
“Uh oh. Check this out,” Myles said as they approached a red clay bank blocking the passageway.
Clay was blocking the path except for a 6 inch gap on one side. Myles examined it, a steady breeze was
blowing through the gap.
“Where does this clay come from?” Tom asked.
“It‟s a result of dissolving limestone, the leftover crud. Looks like it‟s accumulated here. I wonder
how much of the passageway is blocked, might just be a few feet. Guess we better back up, try another
route. The breeze suggests were going the right way but there‟s no getting through this,” Myles said.
They backed up toward the crystal room, looking for an alternate route east and hopefully upward,
toward the shallow Onyx cave. They tried a couple of low passages, Myles checking them on his belly, no
luck. Finally they retreated to the room with the crystal pits and paused, looking over notes. The drip over
their tent site was now a steady stream, there were other drips. Myles checked the barometer again, 29.8
inches, ominous.
“Why do you carry that, Myles?” Tom asked.
“It‟s a crude elevation guide, assuming weather up top is stable. It could be raining like hell up
there guys. We better abort and get back to the stream,” Myles said. The got up and soldiered on.
Descending a walking passage they crawled along, following their obvious tracks. Finally they came to the
Titans again, all glistening wet from fresh drips, clear sounds of the creek just beyond.
Leaving the Titains they approached the reflecting pool, only it wasn‟t a pool anymore. It was in
motion, a clear current flowing, drips all over the room like underground rain. Beyond the pool the water
lapped against the rough, coral - covered ceiling, the air gap was gone. They were trapped. Myles sat down
and checked his notes.
“Well, shit. Can‟t say I‟m suprised, wouldn‟t take much rain to close a one foot air gap, guess
that‟s one reason nobody‟s ever come this way,” he said wearily.
“Could we swim it?” Randy asked.
“Maybe. I‟ve gone 20, 30 yards before with boots and gear but it‟s hard as hell swimming
underwater in the dark with all this gear. And we need the gear, there could be another blockage further
down. If we strip off and leave everything we might freeze waiting for the water to fall. It‟s not an
emergency, we‟ve got enough food for a couple of days, nobody‟s got hypothermia,” Myles observed. He
marked the water level in the clay bank and noted the time. “Let‟s watch this thing and see if it rises or
falls,” he said.
They moved back to the Titans, put down their gear and brewed some tea, it tasted delicious.
“I suggest we rest, maybe nap a little, then check the water again. It might have already peaked,”
he said. They set up the tent and snuggled together under reflecting space blankets, sipping tea.
“This isn‟t bad,” Tom observed, trying not to worry.
“It isn‟t bad. People have died trying to swim through flooded caves, all they needed to do was
chill out and wait a day, they could have walked out. Right Randy?” he said.
“Right boss,” Randy said. They dozed several hours, lulled to sleep by the dripping ceiling and
gurgling underground stream.
They were awakened by water next to the tent, the cave was flooding.
“Jesus! I never expected the water to get up here,” Myles exclaimed as they moved the tent away
from the stream, the Titans were now rising out of a foot of slowly moving water, waist deep in a few spots.
They kept going, squeezed through the narrow crack, also flooded. They climbed up from the flooded area
toward the clay bank that stopped before them, finally arriving and put their gear down, glad to be a few
feet above the water.
“What if this area floods?” Tom asked.
“Then it‟s been good to know ya time. I doubt we‟d drown, hypothermia kills you just as dead, it
just takes longer. It would have to rise several more feet, seems pretty unlikely,” Myles said. They put up
the tent again and huddled inside, Tom making tea.
“How much fuel we got?” Randy asked.
Enough for another day or two. Got enough tea, unlimited water of course,” Myles said. “Not to
worry, we‟ll get out of this,” he said.
Myles curled up under his space blanket with a Tom Clancy novel, the others napping. Tom woke
up, the others were playing cards.
“What time is it?” Tom asked.
“6 PM. You took quite a nap,” Myles said.
Tom got out of the tent and looked around.
“Hey, guys. There‟s water down here, about 10 feet from the tent. Looks like it‟s moving,” Tom
said. The others came out. They scrambled up and took another look at the air gap between the wet
limestone wall and the red clay bank, the breeze chilling them.
“If we had tools we could try digging aways,” Myles said. He shone his flashlight into the gap.
“It might just be a few feet but God knows what‟s on the other side, maybe more water. We‟re in a
fix, guys,” Myles said. They marked the water‟s edge and noted more water. We‟re in a fix, guys,” Myles
said. They marked the water‟s edge and noted the time, then sat down to watch it. Myles made instant
oatmeal for them and they squeezed water out of their clothes, nothing would dry of course.
“Let‟s check the water each hour, see what it‟s doing. Maybe it‟s peaked, who knows,” Myles
said. The water climbed for the next three hours, they were running out of room. Then it paused an hour,
there was hope, then it resumed its relentless climb, it was nearly on the clay bank. The men carved seats
for themselves in the soft red clay and sat and watched the water at their feet, it was grim.
“We can tolerate another foot or two, after that it gets uncomfortable,” Myles commented, his head
near the limestone ceiling, feet resting in the footrests dug in the clay. It was cold, their clothes were wet
and muddy, they had no dry ones. Myles scrambled up once more to look at the gap, the width of a hand.
“I‟ll be damned. I smell cigarette smoke! It‟s old Mabel and her smokes. Hey! Mabel! Mrs. Mc
Bride! Hello! Hello!,” he shouted, the others climbing up and shouting, they smelled it too. They shone
their lights in the gap and shouted their lungs out. Pausing they listened.
“I hear somebody, conversation. You hear it?” Randy asked. They shouted again and again, the
cold water at their feet a strong motivator. They heard Mabel‟s distant voice.
“Hey, you boys OK?” she called.
“Yeah, Mabel, thanks. Send us a shovel and get some men to dig on your side, were in a tight
spot. Water‟s right at our feet,” Myles yelled.
“OK. OK, give me a minute. Ray‟s here and some other guys, they know how to move dirt. I‟ll
get you a shovel,” she said. The three sat down, relieved. Good old Mabel, they thought. Soon there was
noise and a bamboo fishing pole poked through the gap. Tom pulled it, it was attached to a rope, the rope
to a shovel. There were sounds of digging on the other side, Maybel sounded like she was giving orders.
The three trapped men dug with frenzied energy, the water was still climbing and there might be yards of
earth to move. They heard Ray calling to them, and could see lights on the other side.
Finally the gap was enlarged enough to crawl into and continue digging, work that resembled
digging out of prison. Finally Tom‟s shovel clanged against Ray‟s, they were close. Tom pulled out and
Randy took a turn. He came back with a thermos of hot coffee and some homemade cookies, eager thanks
came from the trapped men.
Finally the way was clear. Myles crawled into the small, muddy tunnel they‟d made, pushing his
gear ahead of him and was received by eager hands, Ray had recruited some help. Then Tom and Randy
came, Randy‟s precious film secure in a water proof pouch. Myles hugged the crusty Mabel, he was filthy
and she recoiled a little. Ray shook their hands and listened eagerly to their descriptions. He was
impressed.
“My husband Cleo did some digging in this spot years ago. He always told me there was more
cave beyond this clay plug, I just figured he was dreaming. Guess he was right,” Mabel said as Myles and
company began the walk back to the surface, old Cleo‟s shovel work had saved them.
Maybel called the local “56 Motel” and told them to expect three tired, very dirty guests. After
long, hot showers the three had burgers from Brendas cafe. And then warm beds - the three slept a long,
long time.
The End.