Lion Head Mesa pull up the intruder by the root of the weed

Are you dying down there?

He did not know what the words were, nor was he cognizant of the sentiment they carried; only that there were sounds, and there was a presence. The boy suffered; he had come here out of curiosity and now lay wasting away in a pit, and for all of his blundering he still believed himself capable of freedom.

The urging of the voice, the movement of thin wrists over the stone ledge, both brought his attention up. His eyes rolled in their sockets. Joli..nik, he begged, ...indelat eveth.