Throwaway by Heather Huffman Page B

head and she
threw herself at Gabe.
    “That was an Eastern Pipistrelle,” he smiled,
wrapping his arms around her waist. “Missouri’s smallest bat. You
might see one or two males roosting alone in here, but we won’t
disrupt the big nest at the back of the cave.”
    “That sounds like a good plan,” she was torn
between trying to salvage her dignity and snuggling closer to Gabe.
The heat of his embrace stood in stark contrast to the coolness of
the cave. Everything in her wanted to tuck her head under his chin
and just soak in the pleasure of his touch.
    But that didn’t seem conducive to a sex-free
week, so she reluctantly pulled herself away and forged ahead.
Offshoots promising other caverns to be explored dotted the way on
either side of them. But they also looked small and dark and dirty
and that was more dedication than Jessie felt at the moment.
    The next room they came to was dominated by a
large white cross set in a natural clay shelf on the right. It felt
huge and imposing in the enclosed space. Jessie couldn’t explain
the emotions that washed over her at the sight of it, except maybe
she’d spent a little too much time listening to the soundtrack of
Jesus Christ Superstar. She couldn’t resist reaching up to
reverently touch the white wood, feeling silly even as she did.
    “The KKK used to meet in this room. It’s part
of the cave’s history most people aren’t so proud of.”
    “So this is a clan cross?” Jesse jumped back
as if flames now lapped at the wood.
    “Most likely,” he admitted. “Sorry.”
    “How sad,” she frowned at the cross,
off-handedly wondering how one symbol could mean so many different
things to so many different people.
    “Is this the end of the cave?” Jessie pointed
to what seemed to be a dead-end.
    “For most. There’s actually a shelf there
that, if you were willing to crawl on your belly through the bats’
nest, would loop you back around to a waterfall on the other end of
the property.”
    “Good to know,” she nodded, not sure what
else to say.
    “Look over here… this is the crown jewel of
the cave.”
    “What’s that?” she obligingly turned and
followed the direction he was pointing. The inscription was simple,
but it leapt out at her just the same. “Jesse James 1868” was
carved into an overhang. She reached her fingers up warily to touch
it. She knew little of the outlaw’s life, but it was cool to think
he’d once stood exactly where she did now.
    “His actual signature is the big carbide one
that sprawls over the entire overhang. A historian scrawled this in
after she’d verified it.”
    Jessie stood back a little and shined her
light on the area. The real signature was hard to make out—other
than swirls of black carbide covered by dozens of other
signatures.
    “I like this place,” Jessie wrapped her arms
around herself for warmth, surveying the room they now stood in.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
    “Jesse James was always my hero,” Gabe
admitted. “This cave is one of my favorite places in this world.
It’s so… removed from it all.”
    “You know Jesse James was a bad guy, right? I
mean, I wasn’t exactly a straight-A student, but I do remember that
much.”
    “I prefer to think of him as a victim of
circumstance,” Gabe moved to stand behind her, wrapping her up in
his warmth as he spoke.
    “How’s that?” She asked absentmindedly,
sinking back into him as she did.
    “He was just a country boy with the
misfortune of living in a border state during the Civil War.”
    “So you subscribe to the Robin Hood theory?”
Jessie seemed to recall there was a great debate over whether James
was a hero of his time or just a thug.
    “No, he kept the money for himself. But I
don’t think he would have been an outlaw if his family farm hadn’t
been attacked by a Union militia when he was sixteen. They killed
his brother, maimed his mama and beat Jesse. I think something
inside him snapped that day.”
    “That’s so