I’ve gotta ride this ugly snake ’til she’s winded. This bullshit can’t go on forever . . .
The message dimmed, then vanished as Tomlinson’s brain went black.
What seemed like hours later but in fact was only seconds later, Tomlinson regained consciousness. He was aware of a globe of gray light above him. It wasn’t the late-afternoon sky he was seeing. He was looking up into yet another rock chamber.
Water sloshed at ear level, his mask was gone and his face was pressed tight into what felt like muck. It was a viscous substance that had an odor unlike anything he had ever smelled before.
Will Chaser was holding him, Tomlinson realized, the boy’s fist wrapped in his ponytail. Will had Tomlinson’s face pressed hard against the ceiling of the snow globe so tight that Tomlinson couldn’t turn his head. He could shift his eyes, though, but when he did he saw nothing.
Where had his face mask gone? Where was the boy’s pony canister?
Tomlinson tried to speak but gagged, then he vomited. When he vomited, he thrust his hands out and broke Will’s grip. An instant later, he was underwater and floating, encased in darkness again.
Where the hell am I?
Tomlinson felt the boy’s hand pull him up by the collar of his wet suit. Will found Tomlinson’s ponytail once more and thrust his face tight against the ceiling, where, Tomlinson was slow to realize, there was a small hole that exited above water level.
It was a breathing hole! Will had chopped his way through the roots. The kid had found a way to survive!
Tomlinson coughed until his lungs were clear enough and finally took a good long breath. The breath filled his lungs but the air tasted horrible.
Tomlinson spoke without a regulator in his mouth for the first time since they had entered the lake. “Goddamn, man,” he muttered. “It smells like something crawled in here and died. What stinks?”
He turned his head. Will was beside him, but his head was submerged. Tomlinson could see the boy’s left hand next to his ear. Will’s fingers were wrapped in tree roots, anchoring them close to the roof of the snow globe.
Every few seconds, air bubbles exploded around Tomlinson’s nose. It took a moment for his brain to translate the data—the emergency canister was empty and now the boy was using the last of the air in Tomlinson’s tank to save them both.
Tomlinson reached out and used his fingers, digging, to make the hole around his mouth and nose wider, but the ceiling was an amalgam of roots, rock and muck. Bare hands wouldn’t do the job, and the hole was too small for two people to breathe from at the same time.
He thought, If I ever do another dive, I’m carrying a knife! I’m a dunce!
Tomlinson felt around until he found a good handhold, then ducked underwater as he pulled Will toward the hole, hoping that the kid understood. It took some pulling and pushing, but Will finally got the message. They would share the breathing space, and the last of the air, so that Will could continue using the knife to widen the hole.
Over the next few minutes, they developed a workable system. Tomlinson would take several breaths of the foul air, then it was Will’s turn. While Will was at the hole, Tomlinson waited in darkness, eyes closed, body relaxed, listening to the kid’s methodical digging. They rarely used the tank now—only when Will got tired or when Tomlinson felt the need to cleanse the stink from his lungs. He was getting into the challenge of holding his breath, sometimes glancing at the firefly dots of his watch and counting off the seconds as if they were a mantra.
Think of this as meditation. Only difference is, this is the real deal. I have to breathe through my belly and focus on the hara center. Do it right and I can extract air from the water—it’s there to use! So what if the Serene Prince tried to screw me? The Buddha has been laughing at fools for a thousand years.
Once into Tomlinson’s mind came the image of Will swinging the knife too hard, the stainless blade ricocheting off a rock, and he felt a welling terror. What would happen if the boy dropped the knife?
Lose the knife and they were goners. They would never escape from this hellish place with its unholy odor. They would be doomed to share the breathing hole—like two incompetent Arctic seals—until hypothermia or insanity put their reins into God’s hands.
Negative vibes, man. I gotta stop thinking this vicious crap. Find a positive wavelength, that’s what I have to do. I must allow the good vibes to multiply.
After half an hour of digging, and sharing the airhole, Tomlinson nudged Will away long enough to shout out several calls for help. It wasn’t the first time that he and the boy had tried, and he didn’t expect results. That’s when a better idea came into Tomlinson’s mind. He thrust two fingers into his mouth and tortured his own eardrums by blowing a rhythmic series of piercing notes.
Shave-and-a-haircut . . . two bits.
Three times Tomlinson whistled for help, but then he felt a structural tremor in the limestone beneath them and thought, Oh, no . . . not this bullshit again.
That was the end of that—for a while, anyway. It was better to dig their way to safety, Tomlinson decided, than to risk another catastrophe.
As Will continued to dig, Tomlinson made an effort to move his consciousness on to a brighter plane of thought. One of the basic exercises in Vipassana meditation was to perceive air flowing through the body as if the veins and capillaries were a river. Considering the situation, how much more positive could he get?
When the river moves—watch it! When the river stops—feel it!
Tomlinson’s focus shifted to an imaginary breathing port in his belly. His eyes monitored the sweep hand on his watch, timing himself. Every ninety seconds or so, he would take a breath or two from the octopus hose and then return to his meditation while Will hacked away.
Because of the watch, Tomlinson was able to mark to the second when it happened. They had been using the tank sparingly, but this time when he placed the regulator in his mouth and attempted to inhale he got nothing. There wasn’t enough pressure inside the thing to open the demand lever in his mouthpiece.
Beside him, he felt Will’s body jolt—the boy had attempted to grab a breath from the primary hose and his regulator had gone dead at the same instant.
It was almost sunset, 5:45 p.m.
They were out of air.
EIGHTEEN
ONE HOUR AFTER SUNSET, AT 7:12 P.M., KING SAID TO me, “Well, Jock-o, the ball’s in your corner now. Come back with a big fat sack of coins and we’ll say adios to you and Grandpa and be on our merry way. But if it turns out you’ve been lying”—King laughed as if he was sure I had been lying—“you can’t blame us for being seriously pissed off. Understand what I’m saying?”
He hurled a net bag at me. They had cut me loose, and because the truck was running, lights on, I was able to duck before the bag hit me in the face.
I had resumed the tactic of ignoring King, and was speaking only to Perry. As I Velcroed a spare bottle to a harness, then added a clip-on weight, I said to him, “You can push all you want, but I still need someone in the water to help me with the jet dredge.”
Perry replied, “That’s something we’ll have to talk about.” Sending a private signal to me, possibly. Since King would be the one going in the water, maybe he didn’t want to discuss it in front of his partner. I took it as a good sign.