the hills and valleys of its rib cage. Though emaciated, its belly hung low.
Dear God! I was trapped underground with a starving jackal! Probably a pregnant female!
Where was Jake? What to do?
My brain coughed up facts garnered from some nature documentary.
Jackals are nocturnal in areas inhabited by humans.
The jackal had been sleeping. Jake and I had startled her awake. Not good.
Jackals are territorial and scent-mark their turf.
The urine smell. The jackal viewed the tomb as her territory, and me as an invader. Not good.
Jackals live and hunt as monogamous pairs.
The jackal had a mate.
Sweet Jesus! The male could return at any time. He could be in the loculus with her!
I couldn’t wait for Jake. I had to make a move.
Now!
Waistbanding the light, I pivoted, and crawled toward the mouth of the tunnel.
Behind me I heard a snarl, then scratching. I sensed air movement. I braced and regripped the flashlight. Maybe I could jam it into the jackal’s mouth, prevent teeth sinking into my flesh. Maybe I could strike a blow to the head.
The jackal didn’t attack.
Get out before you’re one against two!
I resnugged the flashlight in my waistband, and gripped stones jutting from opposite sides of the tunnel. Thrusting with my legs and pulling with my hands, I heaved upward with all my strength.
After repositioning my feet, I reached for another handhold, and pulled and lunged upward again.
My right-foot support held. The left broke free.
Spinning, I fell back down the tunnel and hit the floor hard. A flash-fire of pain ripped my shoulder and cheek.
The tomb went black.
My heart went stratospheric.
I lay still, taking in sound.
Blood roaring in my ears.
Stones rattling down the tunnel.
Thetic-tic-tic of the rolling flashlight.
Theting of metal hitting rock.
Underlying it all, a low, rumbling growl.
Within seconds, the stones stopped falling and the flashlight lay silent.
Only my heart and the jackal played on.
The growling was no longer coming from the southeastern loculus. Or was it? The tomb was acting as an echo chamber, ricocheting sound from wall to wall. I couldn’t pinpoint the jackal’s location.
The darkness pressed in.
My options had tanked. The jackal now held an advantage. She could see, hear, and smell me in the dark. I had no idea where she was.
Weak as it was, my beam had confused the jackal, held her in place like a deer on a highway. It might work again.
Would my movement provoke the jackal? Would the batteries function? I took the double gamble.
Extending my left arm, I inched my hand across the tomb floor.
And found nothing.
My jacket swished, sounding like thunder in the small space.
The jackal growled louder, and then went still. I heard fast breathing. The panting was more terrible than the growling had been. Was she preparing to pounce?
I pictured eyes watching in the dark. My groping grew desperate. My hand swept right, front, left.
Finally, my fingers closed on a metal tube.
I drew the flashlight to me and hit the switch.
Sickly yellow lit my body. I almost wept with relief.
The growling kicked into high.
Heart thudding, I pushed to my elbows and played the light over the northern and eastern walls.
No jackal.
The southern wall.
No jackal.
Reorienting, I swept the beam over the western side of the tomb. Every recess was filled with dirt and rock, leaving no crevice in which a jackal could hide.
I was probing the loculus closest to me, when a trickle of dirt cascaded down the wall.
The batteries chose that moment to die.
I heard movement above my head.
Fighting back tears, I shook the flashlight. It kicked back on.
I raised the beam.
The loculi were stacked one above the other in the western wall. The jackal was crouched in one of the upper-level recesses.
When my beam hit her, the jackal drew back her lips and snarled. Her body tensed. Her limbs flexed.
Our eyes met. The jackal’s were round and shiny.
A sudden realization. The jackal, too, felt trapped. She wanted out. I was blocking the tunnel.
We stared at each other. I stared a split second longer.
Snarling, the jackal launched herself at me.
I reacted without thought, dropping to the floor, wrapping my hands around my head, and tucking into a fetal curl. The weight of the jackal hit my left hip and thigh. I heard a snarl, and felt the weight shift.
Levering an elbow, I tried dragging myself away from the tunnel mouth. Paws hit my chest and moved toward my throat. I tucked my chin and crossed my arms, expecting teeth to rip my flesh. Then, the press of weight against my torso, the brush of fur against my head, and sudden release. The jackal had bounded over me and upward.
I heard panting and claws scraping stone. I turned my light toward the tunnel. The jackal was slinking out of sight.
Amazingly, the flashlight continued to shine, though weakly. Quick assessment. I gave the jackal time to put mileage between us, then crawled toward the tunnel. There had been some collapse, but the stones were nothing I couldn’t handle.
I spent two minutes lifting and rolling rock, then positioned my feet as before and flexed to heave myself upward.
And realized my left hip had taken a hit. Great. All I needed was another tumble and I’d be down here for a very long time.
Dropping back, I tested my legs.
As I shifted from foot to foot, my light angled upward and caught a hollow from which rocks had been knocked free.
I let my beam sniff the scar.
It looked deep. Too deep.
I rose and wedged myself upward into the tunnel for a closer look.
The scar wasn’t a scar. It was a breach.
Angling the beam, I peered into the void beyond.
It took a moment for my eyes to pick it out.
It took another for my mind to comprehend.
Oh my God! I had to show Jake!
Injuries forgotten, I pulled myself upward.
Just below the tunnel mouth, I paused and peeked out, prairie-dog style.
