‘’Echo Cave State Park’ is most likely not a state park at all. It is not listed on any official website, for instance, and the advertising it has done seems only to exist in a 10 mile radius around the park itself, taking cues from children’s lemonade stands in regards to both spelling and sporadic placement. Down a dirt road and past several abandoned houses, you will find yourself questioning the validity of the site long before you reach it, a feeling the tour, at no point, attempts to alleviate.’
The weather has become mild: soft breezes, cool air, and sun. In the back of a pick-up I am almost cold.
Almost, but not quite.
Sprawled in the back with a clear sky overhead and the smooth length of the interstate unwinding behind me I almost feel like it could be a year ago, two years ago, when I was whole and healthy of body and mind. When I had my own truck and a place behind the wheel. Autumn by the Wayside flips wildly through its pages at my feet and it threatens to skitter away, to lift into the wind and scatter itself on the road. Despite the theatrics, it remains anchored to the truck.
It is a heavy book.
We pass a mile marker and I tap on the cab. The truck slows and finds a place to pull over. I say my thanks and my goodbye. I assure the driver that this is my stop, even though it doesn’t seem to be much of a place at all. I wave and begin to walk away.
“Don’t forget your book!” he calls out.
Right.
I heft it out of the back, flexing my bad arm. The pages curl around my fingers as I drop it to my side to wave again.
A heavy book.
The road to ‘Echo Cave’ isn’t terribly long and the weather is pleasant enough. Several plywood signs encourage me along the wooded drive, ticking down a mile and a half or so before pointing me to the right at a fork. There are only the ruins of houses along the way, piles of wood and stone that have collapsed under countless seasons of snowfall. When was the author here? Past a few trees the road widens and terminates into a dirt parking lot, half-populated. Beyond that is a small check-in booth.
Beyond that, the gaping entrance to ‘Echo Cave.’
It does not occur to me until I see it that there are no hills or reliefs friendly to a proper cave. ‘Echo’ simply opens into the ground, a paid-entry pit about 20’ across and surrounded by waiting families. A woman dressed in uniform blue is listing safety precautions to be taken upon entry. Looks like I’m just in time for a tour.
The woman and the crowd have already begun to descend when I join them with my ticket.
“Echo Cave was discovered by Beatrice Echo in the early 1800’s while she as she lead her horses to the river. I bet you thought it was named after the acoustics!”
There is a polite smattering of laughter, made ghostly by the stone walls. Our guide narrates the history of the Echoes as we pick our way down grated metal stairs, wet with the breath of the earth and shrouded in its shadows. Now I hear the concerned murmurs between partners, between parents and children. It’s one thing to stand at the mouth of a cave and another to enter it. There are whispered consolations, assurances that a place like this, no matter how scary, is safe. It’s a business, after all.
It’s a state park.
The stairs drop us at the bottom of the pit and our guide reiterates the differences between stalagmites and stalactites, reminding us not to touch either. We loosen as a group, staking out our own portion of the smoothed out hollow. Above us, far, far above, the bright day has been reduced to a small, white circle-
“Like a damn eye,” someone says, seeing me look up.
“Hm,” I reply, though I had been thinking the same thing.
“You don’t recognize me.”
It’s difficult to recognize anyone in the shadows, let alone this man who towers a full head over me. It’s not until I see his smile, which is the nearest facial feature, that I remember the missing teeth and the general posture of a man used to fighting. I step back and crush a baby stalactite under my boot.
Or, was it a stalagmite?
“You didn’t call.”
“I didn’t have a reason to,” I tell him.
“You look… bad.”
“What’s that-”
“You two?” the guide calls, “Please follow me and stay with the group.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, waving cheerfully, “Caught up looking at these beautiful rock formations.”
The guide appears briefly confused by his unabashed sarcasm, but she lets it slide as we follow.
“Are you going to burn this place down too?” I whisper as we tail the group.
“Not everything burns.”
“Would you?”
“No,” he says, “This all seems… ingenuine at worst.”
“Then why are you here?”
“The book doesn’t exactly give everything away in the descriptions. I needed to make sure it wasn’t one of the contagious ones. Contagious like that plant of yours.”
“It died,” I tell him.
“Condolences.”
We squeeze our way down several halls, the stranger and I bringing up the rear. He folds his bulk gracefully, his shoulders barely brushing the cramped cavern walls. I follow his lead, keeping an eye to the back. Eventually we descend another staircase and gather in a small chamber.
“This section of the cavern is affectionately called the ‘Shoe Closet,’ any guesses why?”
Several people guess as the stranger skirts the group. I follow him, bumping into the others and apologizing under my breath. Occasionally his arm sneaks out to tap a wall but he never pauses long enough to listen. I catch up to him once he stops.
The guide has started some sort of countdown.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
“This place is marked by the eye. You saw it yourself.”
“Four, three…”
“I saw the entrance to the cave.”
“Hold my hand,” he says, “I don’t much like the dark.”
“One…”
The lights turn off and the darkness of ‘Echo Cave’ becomes absolute. There are little frightened noises all around us, the startle of a crowd expecting the surprise. Rough fingers snake between my own as the guide’s voice cuts through the murmuring:
“This may be the darkest dark you’ve ever seen. No light from above is able to penetrate this far into the earth.”
“Why are you afraid of the dark?” I ask, thinking of the thing at the rest stop.
The stranger tickles my palm and says nothing.
“Try waving your hand in front of your face,” the guide continues, “Careful not to hit anyone! Some of you may think you can make it out, maybe you see a little movement, but that’s only your mind. Your head knows there should be something there and it’s fooling your eyes.”
“You and I know better,” the stranger says, his lips very close to my ear, “Folks like us put a lot of stock into eyes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He tickles my palm again.
The lights flash back on and I yank my arm away reflexively. The stranger does not appear particularly affected, though he cuts ahead of me as the group is syphoned down another narrow path.
“We’ll have to walk a ways to the ‘Sitting Room,’ named by Ms. Echo herself…”
My leg starts to ache as we descend further, the combined wear of the cold and the stairs on the weakened bone. I struggle to keep sight of the stranger ahead but cannot politely push past the people between us. I wonder if it really matters that I stay near him.
“Here we are!” the guide says, her voice excited as we enter a massive chamber.
I make my way toward the stranger, expecting he’ll avoid me, but see he’s gone back to tapping cave walls when the guide’s back is turned. The tour group as a whole has spread about and seems determined to ignore the continued narration.
“Find what you’re looking for?” I ask.
“Have you?”
“I’m not looking for anything,” I tell him, “If I can get through this tour it’s another place to tick off in the book.”
“Remind me why it’s important you see them all?” he asks, but we’re interrupted before I can reply.
“Sir, please don’t touch the cave walls. The oil from your skin is detrimental to crystal growth.”
“Sorry,” the stranger says, and he makes a show of stepping away while the guide still watches.
When the coast is clear he starts again.
“Is inhibiting crystal growth what you planned all along?”
“This place is just shitty, like I said.”
“So?”
“So I’m just looking for a faster way out,” he says, leaning close in to an alcove, “Stand here and look at the wall.”
I step closer and he grips me by the shoulders, taking care to position me just so. Up close he smells like gasoline- like a lit match.
“Now shine your cellphone light ahead.”
I turn on my phone and shine it at the wall. There are cracks there, some minor and some that stretch from the floor up into the darkness above.
“Watch,” he says, and he steps forward into the alcove.
He steps again, and again, moving impossibly far into wall. His body is hunched, his frame stunted, but only as though he were passing through a cramped passage. Each step he takes seems to push the far wall back, an optical illusion unfolding in jolts. The stranger smiles and the shadows emphasize the gaps in his broken mouth. By all accounts the man could be twenty feet down the impossible corridor.
“What are you doing?” the guide’s voice again. I turn and my light turns with me.
“Just getting a closer look,” I tell her, showing both my hands in mock surrender.
Squinting at my light, she nods and turns back to the others, satisfied that I haven’t taken cues from the stranger’s poor behavior.
The man and the corridor have disappeared in the absence of light. I look about the room, carefully checking the faces of every man, woman, and child present. I peer into the corners and discretely tap the walls but, when the tour moves forward, it becomes clear the stranger is no longer with us.
I think of him during our ascent, the eye of the cave widening to accept our exit. It would be fruitless to worry about a vanishing man but I wonder, as they draw a metal gate over the cave, if he will be all right down there in the dark.
I certainly wouldn’t be.
I call the number scrawled across my palm, the stranger’s inked tickling brought to light in the sun.
It rings once, twice…
-traveler
