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At the top, the tunnel became wide and low, barely tall enough for Emerson to stand upright. They walked another quarter of a mile before it opened into a cavern with another cliff and plunge pool at its bottom. This one was thirty feet tall, and no one had left behind a rope or ladder.
Vernon looked up at the cliff. “Well, this is a real pickle,” he said.
Emerson started to unpack his rock-climbing gear from his pack. “Not a problem. I’ll climb to the top and throw down a rope.”
“Wait,” Wayan Bagus said. “There is a sound.”
Everyone listened. Somebody or something was coming their way, and the sounds were getting louder by the second. There was no place to hide. They were trapped between the cliff and whatever was approaching.
“It sounds big,” Alani said.
A family of wild pigs suddenly burst into the cavern and ran past Vernon.
“Holy bejeezus,” Vernon said, plastering himself back against the tunnel wall.
The pigs panicked at the sight of the humans. They ran in circles, squealing and grunting, flashing in and out of the headlamp beams, their eyes reflecting the light. And then just as suddenly as they came they disappeared back into the tunnel.
“Stupid pigs,” Vernon said. “They near gave me a heart attack.”
Alani grinned. “At least they weren’t Bigfoot.”
“I should never have told you about Bigfoot,” Vernon said. “Next you’re gonna be telling me it’s another thing that ruined a moment.”
“It did!” Alani said. “There was the camping trip at Keokea Bay. We were having a romantic moment, and you were sure you heard Bigfoot.”
“Hey,” Vernon said, “that Bigfoot encounter I had was traumatic. Anyways I’m not currently worried about Bigfoot because everybody knows Bigfoots lack the hand-eye coordination to climb ladders, and the only way they could get to us is by climbing that rickety three-story one back at Skylight Falls.”
Emerson looked at Vernon. “An excellent observation.”
“It is?” Vernon said. “I was just kind of winging it.”
“Bigfoots can’t climb ladders,” Emerson said. “And last I checked neither can pigs. So where did they come from and where did they go?”
Everyone nodded. They’d missed an offshoot tunnel. They retraced their steps back toward Skylight Falls. They went slowly, carefully examining each fold and crevice. A small pig darted across their path and disappeared.
“There,” Emerson said, shining his light at the tunnel wall.
There was a small hole in the north side. It was just wide enough for a large pig to squeeze through.
Emerson got down on his stomach and peered into the opening. “I think it’s big enough for us to crawl through, but I can’t see the end.”
“If it gets much narrower, we’ll be stuck,” Vernon said. “Just like Winnie-the-Pooh in Rabbit’s hole.”
“I am small,” Wayan Bagus said. “I will go first.” He wriggled into the hole. A minute later he called back to Emerson. “I am in another tunnel, and it seems to head in the direction we wanted to travel.”
Vernon stuck his head into the hole. “Can we fit?”
“It should not be a problem,” Wayan Bagus said from the other side. “As long as you make yourself as small as possible.”
Vernon looked himself over and sucked in his gut. “You didn’t use your special powers to go where thought takes you, did you?” Vernon asked. “?’Cause that’s not really an option for the rest of us.”
“The mind is everything. What you think you become,” the disembodied voice of Wayan Bagus echoed through the hole.
Emerson got into the hole and wriggled through, pushing his backpack in front of him. He was followed by Vernon and Alani. After about fifty feet, they emerged in a lava tube on the other side. It was slightly smaller than the first tube, and only Wayan Bagus could stand completely upright.
“This is good,” Emerson said. “I don’t know if it will connect to Tin Man’s compound, but at least we’re heading in the right direction according to Mr. Yakomura.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
