“What’s your name?
“Dejah.”
“Dejah. That’s a pretty name. Dejah, my friends and I are soldiers. We have guns…”
“Are you the Border Patrol?”
Hunter laughed at the idea.
Taylor continued. “No, Dejah, we’re soldiers. Now we’re gonna turn on our flashlight so you can see us and we can better see you.”
Dejah started shaking in fear and anticipation.
She was scared.
And scared of what was to come.
Taylor turned on his flashlight and the others followed.
Dejah looked at the faces of the men and one woman and watched them as they held their distance.
They weren’t scary at all.
45.
The team assembled around Dejah and gave her food and water. They gave her a glow stick that shined neon green once it was snapped and shaken and she wore it around her neck on a necklace made of cord and tied into a loop by Taylor. Nickerson looked at Dejah’s ankle and the scrapes, cuts, and bruises that covered most of her body and declared, “She’ll live.”
“Christ, you’re worse with kids then I am,” Drake scoffed.
“What?!” Nickerson countered. “Told her she’ll live. That’s nice.”
The team listened to Dejah as she answered questions of how she came to be where she was and of how she got even more lost when she went for water. Dejah explained that she spoke English as well as she did because her mother was a school teacher and had been teaching her English all her life in anticipation of them moving to the United States. Dejah said that the journey thus far had been long and difficult but that she never thought it would end up as it had. She detailed how the earth had given way underneath her and how she had fallen through it and how she’d heard screams from above after she had come to be in the cavern. She told about the blood and fingers that rained down on her and how it had scared her like nothing had ever scared her before. The team nodded in understanding and complimented her on her English and how well she spoke and how brave she had been.
Hunter and Nickerson left the team in the glow of the flashlights to look for the hole that Dejah had entered the cavern through.
“Hole can’t be that high above us,” Hunter mused. “If all she did was hurt her ankle on the way down, it couldn’t have been that much of a fall.”
Taylor agreed and watched him and Nickerson leave then returned his attention back to Dejah.
“So other than the hole you fell through, have you seen any other light?” Taylor asked. “Lanterns or flashlights? Matches? Sunlight maybe?”
Dejah nodded in the affirmative. “I saw some light. I guess from holes above me. That’s how I found the water. There was light shining down on it.”
“A lot of light?”
Dejah shook her head. “No. Just a little. Smaller than your flashlight.”
“The beam? You mean smaller than the beam it puts out?”
“Yes, smaller than the flashlight beam.”
Taylor nodded and smiled. He continued, “Before I called to you, had you heard from anyone else? Heard anyone talking or yelling way off in the distance maybe?”
“No. The only thing I heard from way off was those dogs.”
“Dogs?” Drake interrupted.
“Yes. Dogs,” Dejah reiterated.
“Did you see them?” Taylor began anew.
“No. I only heard them.”
“What did they sound like?” Taylor continued.
“They were far away,” Dejah recounted. “But they sounded angry. Like they were mean dogs. They growled and had really loud barks.”
“What did you do when you heard them?”
“I got scared,” Dejah admitted. “So, I got real quiet. I didn’t want them to hear me.”
For the first time since his daughter’s death, Taylor reached out and touched another person with fatherly compassion. His gently placing his hand on Dejah’s shoulder was a sign of care and understanding, of the need and the desire to offer protection and safety, and of parental feelings and guidance.
“That kid is lucky to be alive,” Hunter exclaimed from a short distance away. “She must’ve dropped 18 to 20 feet.”
“Can we get out that way?” Taylor asked, standing to meet his friend.
“No. That crack she fell through is too small for any of us to get through. Kinda surprised she fit.”
“Then we will just have to find another way out,” Taylor promised.
Dejah looked up at Taylor and smiled.
46.
Jared and others in his research party sat in a circle around the remains of the previous night’s fire. The group drank beer or plastic cups of wine, joking and laughing as they enjoyed the cooler temperatures that evening brought and gazing in wonderment at the stars. The group discussed their day in the cave, their findings, and what it would mean to the area and to the university they were each associated with. Dr. Cooke offered praise to all those involved in the day’s dig and that they were working so well together. He also commented on speculation about what would be found in the sinkhole in the weeks to come.
Jared interrupted the praise to belch loudly. Most in the group laughed while others feigned shock or disappointment.
“Sorry,” Jared apologized. “Warm beer does that to me. Speaking of, is anyone making a supply run tomorrow ‘cause I’m in serious need of some ice.”
“Why don’t you ask your monkeys to fetch you some?” Angie joked across the stone-cold fire pit.
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Jared both said and belched. “I said that it smelled like monkey shit down there. I didn’t say there were any monkeys down there.”
“The idea that you even considered it, monkeys in a cave, let alone in Texas is crazy,” Angie continued goading.
“No. It’s not,” Jared countered. “Monkeys in Texas is actually a thing and they do quite well.”
The group stared across the twilight to Jared in disbelief.
Jared saw this, exhaled a heavy sigh, and explained. “So, this married couple over in Dilley, near San Antonio, put 150 Japanese snow monkeys on their ranch back in the early nineties…”
“Why?!” Aubrey scoffed.
“Because they liked monkeys, I guess,” Jared speculated. “Anyway, monkeys being monkeys, they started going at it and soon there was over 600 of these nasty red-faced and skank-assed vermin running around the property.”
“Skank-assed vermin,” Angie mocked. “And you’re a scientist?”
“Oh yeah. Hell yeah I’m a scientist,” Jared exclaimed. He killed his beer, dropped the bottle, and edged forward in his camp chair. “So, there’s over 600 monkeys at this ranch and then the owners of the ranch get divorced and while they’re hashing it out in court, the ranch goes abandoned and the electric fence went down, and the monkeys went bye-bye. But the thing is that their numbers actually increased outside of the enclosure. They did that well in the south Texas scrublands.”
“Then how come south Texas isn’t overrun with monkeys?” Angie asked.
“Deer hunters mostly,” Jared replied.
“Deer hunters what?” Angie followed.
“Deer hunters shot ‘em,” Jared explained.
“That’s terrible,” Angie almost sobbed. “Why? Why would they do such a thing?”
“I dunno. They’re out there in the wilds. Have a rifle. See a monkey. Bam!”
Angie started to openly weep and Tom took her place in the question and answer session with Jared. “So, you think some of these monkeys went down in the hole. They defecated in it and that’s why it smells like monkey shit? Is that right?”
“I never said that,” Jared clarified. “I just said it smelled like monkey shit down there. I don’t know if any of those Dilley, Texas monkeys made it down there or if another group of monkeys was down there or if any monkeys were ever down there at all. But it does smell like monkey shit down there.”