Wrapped in Rain(28)
The quarry was a world within a world. Miss Ella used to say that heaven had gold streets, and all the walls and houses were covered in rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. Even the front porch rockers. Down in the quarry, when the sun cleared the pine trees and hit the busted granite at just the right angle, it lit up all that cut rock like ten million diamonds. For just a few minutes every day, it was a brilliant, glistening hole in the earth, protecting us from everything up above.
We never told anybody about all the glistening. If we did, Rex would find out, figure out a way to make money off it, dig it up, package it, and sell it. We decided there were some things you just didn't sell. So the four of usme, Mutt, Katie, and Miss Ella-made a pact and sealed it with a spit handshake.
Aside from no quit, Mutt also had no fear. Never had. When Mutt reached the water level, the zip wheels were spinning so fast that he lifted his heels like a skier and started skimming across the water. Midway across, he let go and spun three hundred and sixty degrees on his back.
About the time he dunked his head into the clear spring water and smiled, Katie ran her hands through both loops on the second zip line, planted her foot on the platform, and jumped. Katie's fifty-five pounds were slowed by the wings, so she "flew" into the quarry with a bit more grace than Mutt. She looked like an angel wearing a tank top and cutoff jeans whose frayed edges fluttered like her wings. When she reached the water, she lifted her feet and skimmed all the way to the ledge, where she dipped her feet in like a brake and slowed to a stop.
I stood at the ledge, barely breathing and half-smirking as the two of them sat dripping on the sun-warmed rocks below. Katie pointed to the water and then slapped it with her foot. "Okay, fancy pants, right here." I winched the handles of the zip line back up, grabbed it with both hands, and swung off hard. The free fall was always the best. After the fall, the slide caught and sent me slicing down into the quarry where the water came rising up at a fantastic rate of speed. I weighed a little more than them, so my speed was usually a bit faster. Descending into the quarry, the temperature dropped due to colder water and the rocks that contained it. Goose bumps traveled up my arms as I watched the water coming up to meet me. When the slide leveled, I pulled up, swung my legs forward, curled up, and spun myself into a forward flip. Just before I touched down, I opened up and hit the water belly first.
Smack!
Down here, beneath the ledge of the earth floor, was our whole world. There were no beatings, no liquor, no cussing, no punishment, and most important, no Rex. Down here, Peter Pan fought Captain Hook atop the mast of the jolly Roger, the Three Musketeers swore sword-allegiance to one another, and the brave cowboy always rescued the girl and warned the stagecoach that the bridge was out. Down here, we found buried treasure under every rock. The trick was knowing where to look. To the grown-ups above, this was nothing but a granite hole, one more scar from Rex Mason's lust. But to us, it was the happiest place we had ever known. Down here, Katie flew like Tinkerbell, Mutt said the voices didn't follow him, and I dropped below Rex's radar.
The laughter from the rock was worth every shade of lobster red on my stinging stomach. We spent the morning flying off the rocks, engaged in a full-fledged Pan and Hook battle and swimming below for buried treasure while keeping one eye peeled for the tick-tocking crocodile. Katie played a mermaid, Mutt played Since, and I played one of the lost boys. We alternated who was Peter Pan.
At noon, our stomachs brought its up the rock ladder, back to Waverly, and into more trouble. When we reached the barn, I spied Rex's twelve-foot johnboat leaning against the door and motioned to Mutt. "You think we can get that thing down to the quarry?"
Mutt stuck his hands in his pockets and eyed the situation. Tilting his head, he looked up to the house, back to the barn, and then down to the quarry-a distance of little over a half mile. "Not without a little help."
Even at the age of nine, Mutt could build more than most forty-year-olds. Just a year prior, he had built Miss Ella a twenty-holed martin house out of balsam wood. He painted it white and green and then sunk a fifteen-foot pole just outside her bedroom window. Thinking of her back, he engineered a cable and winch system to raise and lower the house for spring-cleaning. She walked outside, bent down, grabbed both his hands, and said, "Matthew, you've got a gift. I thank you."
Katie and I flipped the boat over, brushed the ants off, and checked for snakes. Once clear, Mutt reappeared with two skateboards in his hands. Borrowing a few of Rex's lead ropes from the barn, we tied a skateboard to each end of the boat and started sliding her toward the quarry. We never ate lunch. That boat curbed our appetite completely. The gentle slope of the hill made the work rather easy, and at one point we actually had to hold the boat back rather than push it. When we started pulling rather than pushing, Katie hopped in and crossed her suntanned and scuffed legs that, like all three of us, were covered with sun-bleached blond fuzz. I grabbed a golf umbrella and handed it to Katie, and she played the part of a Southern belle. Katie's gift was grace, and she had lots of it.
The work was easy until we reached the rock ledge. We looked sixty feet down into the water and realized there was only one way to get the boat into the water below. Push it and let gravity have its day. The anticipation was delicious. Katie hopped out, Mutt untied the skateboards and pitched them aside, and then we started inching the boat forward while Katie watched and waited with wide and anxious eyes. The boat tipped over the ledge and balanced on its midpoint. Mutt smiled, pushed it with one finger, and the boat fell forward. It scraped across hard granite and tumbled silently into the crystal blue below. The fall, the noise, and the splash were a concert of glory.