The Descent

'You're inventing,' a woman said. They  didn't want it to be true.

'I wish I were,' said Cleo. 'But there  is this, too.'

Ike  had to squint at the faint lettering where  she was pointing. Corvée , it said.

'What's that?'

'More  of  the  same,'  she  answered.  'Subjugation.  Maybe  he  was  a  prisoner  of  the

Japanese. It  sounds like The  Bridge on the  River Kwai or something.'

'Except I never  heard of the Japanese putting nose rings in their prisoners,' Ike  said.

'The history of domination is complex.'

'But nose rings?'

'All kinds of unspeakable things have  been done.' Ike  made it more emphatic. 'Gold nose rings?'

'Gold?' She blinked as he played his light on the dull gleam.

'You said it yourself. A favored  lamb. And  you  asked  the  question,  Who  favored  this lamb?'

'You know?'

'Put it this way.  He thought he did. See this?' Ike  pushed at one ice-cold leg.  It  was  a single word almost hidden on the left quadricep.

'Satan,' she lip-read to herself.

'There's  more,' he said, and gently  rotated  the skin.

Exists, it said.

'This is part  of it, too.' He showed her. It  was assembled on the  flesh  like  a  prayer  or a poem. Bone  of  my  bones  /  flesh  of  my  flesh.  'From  Genesis,  right?  The  Garden  of Eden.'

He  could  sense  Kora  struggling  to  orchestrate  some  sort  of  rebuttal.  'He  was  a prisoner,'  she  tried.  'He  was  writing  about  evil.  In  general.  It's  nothing.  He  hated  his captors. He called them Satan. The  worst name he knew.'

'You're doing what I did,' Ike  said. 'You're fighting the evidence.'

'I don't think so.'

'What happened to him was evil. But he didn't hate it.'

'Of course he did.'

'And yet  there's  something here,' Ike  said.

'I'm not so sure,' Kora said.

'It's in between  the words. A tone. Don't you feel it?'

Kora did – her  frown  was  clear  –  but  she  refused  to  admit  it.  Her  wariness  seemed more than academic.

'There  are no warnings here,' Ike  said. 'No "Beware."  No "Keep  Out."'

'What's your  point?'

'Doesn't  it  bother  you  that  he  quotes  Romeo  and  Juliet?  And  talks  about  Satan  the way  Adam talked about Eve?'

Kora winced.

'He didn't mind the slavery.'

'How can you say  that?' she whispered.

'Kora.'  She  looked  at  him.  A  tear  was  starting  in  one  eye.  'He  was  grateful.  It  was written all over  his body.'

She shook her head in denial.

'You know it's true.'

'No, I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Yes, you do,' Ike  said. 'He was in love.'

Cabin fever  set  in.

On  the  second  morning,  Ike  found  that  the  snow  had  drifted  to  basketball-rim heights outside the cave's  entry-way.  By then the tattooed corpse had  lost  its  novelty, and the group was getting dangerous in its boredom. One by  one, the batteries  of their Walkmans winked out, leaving them bereft  of the music and  words  of  angels,  dragons, earth  drums,  and  spiritual  surgeons.  Then  the  gas  stove  ran  out  of  fuel,  meaning several  addicts went into caffeine withdrawal. It  did not help matters  when the  supply of toilet paper ran out.

Ike  did  what  he  could.  As  possibly  the  only  kid  in  Wyoming  to  take  classical  flute

lessons,  he'd  scorned  his  mother's  assurances  that  someday  it  would  come  in  handy. Now  she  was  proved  right.  He  had  a  plastic  recorder,  and  the  notes  were  quite beautiful  in  the  cave.  At  the  end  of  some  Mozart  snatches,  they  applauded,  then petered  off into their earlier moroseness.

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day,  Owen  went  missing.  Ike  was  not  surprised.  He'd seen  mountain  expeditions  get  high-centered  on  storms  just  like  this,  and  knew  how twisted  the  dynamics  could  get.  Chances  were  Owen  had  wandered  off  to  get  exactly this kind of attention. Kora thought so, too.

'He's  faking  it,'  she  said.  She  was  lying  in  his  arms,  their  sleeping  bags   zipped together.  Even  the  weeks  of  sweat  had  not  worn  away  the  smell  of  her  coconut shampoo. At his recommendation, most of the others had buddied up  for  warmth,  too, even  Bernard. Owen was the one who had apparently  gotten left out in the cold.

'He  must  have  been  heading  for  the  front  door,'  Ike  said.  'I'll  go  take   a  look.' Reluctantly  he  unzipped  his  and  Kora's  paired  bags  and  felt  their  body  heat  vanish into the chill air.

He  looked  around  the  cave's  chamber.  It  was  dark  and  freezing.  The  naked  corpse towering  above  them  made  the  cave  feel  like  a  crypt.  On  his  feet  now,  blood  moving again,  Ike  didn't  like  the  look  of  their  entropy.  It  was  too  soon  to  be  lying  around dying.

'I'll come with you,' Kora said.

It  took them three  minutes to reach the entranceway.

'I don't hear the wind anymore,' Kora said. 'Maybe  the storm's stopped.'