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“No, I’m not okay,” she hissed. “I’ve been shot at, kidnapped, and now I’m hiding inside an old, unstable mine, that’s also a mass grave, waiting for a homicidal geriatric to try to kill me. Us.” She ran out of air and had to take in a deep breath. “So, no I’m not okay.”
He stared at her for a moment, then asked, “Do you want a hug?”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe when we’re out of here and safe.” She imagined that outcome and changed her mind. “No, on second thought, I don’t want a hug when we’re done. I want orgasms. Lots and lots of them.” She poked his chest with one finger. “And you’re going to give them to me.”
His eyebrows rose and he glanced down at her finger resting on him. “I love it when you give me orders,” he said as he snatched her close and kissed her like he was afraid it would be the last one they’d ever have.
She thrust her hand through his hair and hung on as he set her blood on fire and her soul flying.
He pulled back after a few seconds, breathing hard. “Be right back.” He moved through the tunnel until his lamp light was nothing more than a dim pinprick in the dark.
Behind her, a gust teased her hair, ruffling unseen fingers through it and sending another cold shiver down her back. She searched the dark cavern for any evidence of human activity, but aside from the passageway she crouched in, everything looked natural.
A scuff of a boot against rock had her turning her head to watch Smitty return with two more lamps. She edged out of the tunnel and into the cave. The movement of air through the space was stronger than in the passageway—almost a constant current going in the same direction.
Smitty lit one of the extra lamps and set it on the floor of the cave in front of the tunnel. He stood next to her quietly for a moment. “Do you feel that?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “There is definitely more to this cave than what we can see.”
“To have this kind of air current inside means at least two other outside openings. Maybe more.”
“Which way should we go?” Abby asked. “In the direction of the breeze or against it?”
“Against.” He pulled something out of one of his pockets and looked at it. A tiny compass.
He pointed off to the left, against the breeze. “East.” He glanced at her, then back at the man-made passageway. “You take point.”
“Me?” Normally he’d never let her lead an advance through unknown enemy territory.
He angled a thumb over his shoulder. “Biggest danger will come from behind.”
What about all the dangers in front of them? The mine had already swallowed more than two-thousand people whole. “I’m not going to go very fast.”
Some of the tension in his face relaxed. “I’m good with slow and steady. You deal with what’s in front of us, I’ll watch our backs.”
“If that’s supposed to reassure me, it didn’t work.”
The tension was back, lowering his eyebrows and tightening his eyes. “Good. It shouldn’t. This place is a death trap in more ways than one. The only way we’re going to survive is if we’re very careful, very smart, and very lucky.”
“Okay,” she muttered. “Okay, good. Glad we’re on the same page.” She lifted her lamp and picked out the most even terrain to take their first steps. “Here we go.”
The floor of the cave undulated in a curved path with clear water channels carved into it. At one time, water flowed freely through here, perhaps part of the underground river that had destroyed the mine and helped sink the town of Lost Lake. There were grooves and potholes cut into the rocky floor, as well as collections of polished stones at the edges of the old waterway.
They followed the riverbed for several minutes, finding nothing interesting or dangerous.
“This cave goes on and on,” she said in a low tone. The weight of all the rock above them making her want to whisper so she didn’t disturb it.
“Do you know how the mine got started?” Smitty asked, no louder than she’d been.
“No.” She considered his question a bit more. “I wonder if they started with natural caves and kept digging?”
“It’s possible. If some of the rock that makes up this mountain is porous, it would explain a lot.”
She pictured what a mountain would look like if some of it was more likely to be worn away by water than others. “So, if we could take an image of the mountain all the way through, we’d see water erosion throughout? Like a block of Swiss cheese?”
“Probably.”
He sounded so blasé about the possibility when it made her want to run back to the dirt cellar of her shed despite Virgil’s inevitable return. “That is a terrifying thought.”
“They were lucky the mine hadn’t caved in before it actually did.”
“They weren’t lucky at all.”
In the distance, her dim light reflected at her, revealing a pile of rocks that hadn’t been worn smooth. She lifted her light a little higher as she stepped closer. “Cave-in.”
Smitty lifted his light to join hers and they stared at the huge pile of stones and boulders clearly blocking the way. The walls of the cave were worn smooth up until the blockage. The rough edges of the rocks from the cave-in were much newer.
They used their lamps to try to see if there was a way around, but it completely blocked the way out, if this was a way out.
The breeze was moving from high above them, coming down like rain onto their heads.
“Must be some air holes way up there somewhere,” Smitty said. “One benefit of the Swiss cheese effect.”
“Don’t give it a name,” she moaned. “I’m nervous enough as it is.”
“I have great respect for this mountain,” he said without any trace of humor. “And I think your analogy is a good one. Something to keep in mind. The ceiling could fall, or the floor disintegrate beneath us at any time.”
“Not helping,” she said from between clenched teeth. “Let’s see what else is around here. Maybe there’s another way around all this.” Abby waved her hand at the rocks. They walked parallel to the cave-in and along the unbroken wall of the cave on the other side of it.
They’d gone about one hundred feet when something on the floor reflected the light from their lamps.
“Did you see that?” Abby said, moving her lamp until the reflection made it possible to pinpoint its location. She moved toward it and realized there was another smaller cave-in over here. Mixed in with the rocks and debris was a piece of glass.
Abby bent over and picked it up. It was dirty and thick. She held it up next to the glass of her lamp. They looked identical.
“People were here,” she whispered.
“I figured from the stuff we found in the man-made tunnel.”
She spun around and lifted her lamp up to examine this new cave-in. “Do you think anyone got caught in this?”
Smitty joined her in searching the stones. After a few seconds, he reached down and picked up something. A pickaxe.
She kept searching and found an object that was a lighter color than the surrounding rocks. After removing some of the debris around it, it became clear what it was. A skull. A human skull, covered in a thin layer of leathery skin and a few whisps of brown hair.
She pointed at it. “Well, here’s at least one person.” She kept sweeping away the rocks and dirt around it until she found more of the body. “Partially mummified.”
Smitty removed more of the debris around the body, uncovering an old, old style of hardhat, smashed, and cracked in multiple places.
Abby looked at the pattern of damage on the hat and noted the same pattern of breaks on the skull. She pointed them out. “He died in this cave-in.” She found the remains of clothing, torn and tattered. “His body has been here a long time.”
“A hundred years, give or take a few?” Smitty asked.
“It would take that long for the body to be mummified to this extent. There can’t be any insect or animal activity in here or we’d just be looking at bones.” She studied the body. “Was he alone? What was he doing in here?”
“I think I know,” Smitty said, his gaze on the rock wall above the cave-in.
Abby examined the wall but didn’t see anything unusual. “What?”
Smitty stood and went over to the edge of the rocks, then climbed over a few to lift his lamp higher. A golden metallic gleam reflected the light.
Abby got to her feet and moved closer. A vein of gold as thick as her arm ran through the rock wall, looking as though it came in through the cave-in in a wide arc, both ends of it disappearing into the fall of rocks. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “That is a lot of gold.”
“Enough to entice a lot of people to ignore their common sense.” Smitty’s voice was dry.
Abby agreed with him. “Greed makes a lot of people do disgusting, dumb things.”
Smitty moved away from the gold to shine his light over the cave-in, he paused a couple of times before looking at her. “There’s at least two more bodies under all this.” He bent to poke at the rocks again and pulled something out of the dirt. “Look what I found.” Dynamite. He pulled several more sticks of the stuff out of the debris and piled them on the cavern floor until more than a dozen rested there.
He shook his head. “This either happened at the same time as the mine collapse or shortly before.”
“How do you know that?”
“No one came looking for them. No one returned to this cave, even though there was a perfectly good entrance they could have gotten in through.” He looked down at the exposed parts of the body. “I wonder if one of these men originally owned the plot of land your grandmother left you? You’ll have to check the title history, maybe the owner went missing and your grandmother bought it.”
“No, she inherited the land from her grandparents. She didn’t know anything about this, or she would have told me.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“She did ask you to get rid of the old dynamite.”
“In a safe manner. Using it in here doesn’t qualify.”
“Point.”
“I know we thought it would be a good idea to lure Virgil away from the entrance by making him think we’d found gold,” Abby said, thinking it through. “Well, we’ve found gold, but I don’t think we should tell anyone about it. This place would be crawling with people in a heart-beat, and I don’t think more blasting is going to make it any safer.”
Smitty looked at the gold and crossed his arms over his chest. “That greed problem again.”
“Yeah.” She sucked in, then let out a deep breath. “So, what should we do? We still have to find a way out of here that doesn’t involve getting shot.”
“Part of me wants Virgil to see this then blow it to hell,” Smitty said with a grin that had a cruel edge to it. “It would probably give him a heart attack.”
“What if we surprised him? Couldn’t we overpower him?”
“He’s old, but there’s nothing wrong with his strategic thinking. He’s had a long time to think about how he would keep control of the situation. I’ll bet there have been other people who’ve misjudged him based on his age in the last few years.”
“What do you mean?” Abby stared at Smitty, horror freezing her insides solid. “Like he’s killed other people since coming home?”
“Yeah, people who are only here for a short time like hunters or weekend warriors. I wonder what the missing persons stats are like in this part of Montana?”
“A serial killer?” She had to force the words out of a tight throat.
“He’s too easy with the concept of killing you and me and even Jack.”
Abby’s stomach rolled over, and nausea tried to fight its way up her throat. She swallowed, breathing hard through her nose, while trying to smile as wide as she could. “Let’s not borrow trouble.”
“Abby?” he asked. “That’s the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen on your face.”
“Smiling helps to suppress your gag reflex.”
He frowned, then came over to crouch next to her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, we’re going to be okay.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said, struggling to keep the corners of her mouth pushed up and out wide.
“You’re right I can’t, but I can promise to put everything I’ve got into it. I can promise to not give up. Ever. I can even promise to be careful with my own life as well as yours.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “Promise me the same, pretty please.”
She rolled her eyes. “You and your pleases.” She breathed easier as the nausea faded. “Yes, I promise to do all that too.”
“Come on,” he said standing up and holding out his hand to her. “I have an idea.”
There was a hint of humor at the corners of his eyes and determination in the set of his jaw. “Do I want to hear this idea, or will it give me indigestion?”
“I think it’s okay to share. Your morning dynamite habit has inspired me.”
“Oh dear, this is going to be interesting.” She took his hand and allowed him to lift her to her feet. “Okay, give it to me straight.”
He grinned at her. “We really are going to blow this whole place up.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” Was there anything rational in this idea? “How does blowing up this cavern help us get out of here alive? Because, I’ll be honest, I’m not seeing a happy ending for us so far.”
“Virgil strikes me as a man with a plan,” Smitty said. “A man with fall-back plans on fall-back plans.”
“Obsessive, yes, I agree with that.”
“He’s not going to leave us in that hole alive for long. He’s going to come back and finish the job.”
“Why didn’t he just kill us in the first place?”
“Maybe he was afraid the noise would alert people? Maybe he wanted to be sure all the loose ends were tied up nice and tight? Maybe he’s got a sadistic streak and wanted us to suffer before he shot us? Whatever the reason, he’s going to come back and either shoot us in the shed or take us somewhere else to kill us.”
She let out a deep breath. “Okay, that makes sense, sort of.”
“But he wants to find a way into this mine, and to the gold, more than anything else. When he sees that tunnel, he’s not going to be able to resist it. Especially if we’re not where he left us. He’s going to think we’re taking his gold, and that panic is going to make him sloppy.”
“How long do you think we’ve got before he comes back?”
“Hard to know. It depends on what’s going on out there. Let’s assume that he’s coming sooner rather than later.” He crouched next to the stone covered body, his hands moving some of the rocks around. “I wonder if these guys had any longer detonator wicks?”
Abby stared at the body she’d found. “I wonder if they had families waiting for them?”
Smitty paused for a moment before he went back to his search. “It’s been how long? More than a hundred years? Any family they had will have written them off as dead.”
She pulled at the body’s tattered clothing, looking for a wallet or something else that might tell her who this had been, but there was nothing.
Smitty was having better luck, he’d found several more sticks of dynamite as well as a thick coil of detonator wick, a couple of knives, and a small pistol. “We’re in business.” He looked at the gun and shook his head. “It’s rusted.”
“Now what?”
“Now, I get to put all the training the Army gave me in demolitions to good use.”
She watched as he pulled the wicks out of the dynamite, cut new wicks in varying lengths from a couple of feet to ten and twenty feet, and inserted them into the dynamite.
After a few minutes, Abby got to her feet to study the vein of gold. How deep into the rock did it go? She moved farther down the wall, holding her lamp up, looking for the reflection of the light, and came to an abrupt stop. There was more gold, alright. An entire ten-foot-wide section of it.
“Smitty,” she said, her voice sounding lost even to herself.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, getting to his feet and moving to stand next to her. He was looking at her face, so she pointed at the rock.
He turned and his jaw dropped open and stayed that way for several seconds. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Abby agreed.
“No wonder these guys took the risks they did, this much gold would have made them insanely rich.” He reached out with one hand and stroked the metal as if it were a dog or a cat.
The nausea returned in a rolling rush. “It got them totally dead.”
His gaze was amused when he turned to her. “As opposed to partially dead?”
“We can’t take any of this gold,” she said, making it an order.
He blinked. “Why not?”
“Because it got over two thousand people killed. This isn’t a coal or gold mine, it’s a cemetery.” She pointed at the gold. “And this doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to them. They died for it.”
Smitty put his hands up. “Whoa, whoa, no need to be upset, I agree with you. Mostly. I’d take some if it were safe, but it would take some blasting or digging to get it out, and that would be a very bad idea.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Look up.” He pointed at the wall far above their heads and the gold that had, until now, completely captured her attention.
Large, jagged cracks created shadows in the lamplight. Cracks that went on into the darkness.
“It’s ready to come down. It wouldn’t take much of a blow to start another rockfall that would bury all of it, and not much more to bring the whole cavern down.”
She nodded slowly. “You’re right, we need to blow this entire place up.”
“Want to help?” He held out a stick of dynamite with a wick long enough that it needed to be coiled up. “Leave the wick here, then hide the dynamite as deep into the rock pile as you can get it.”
She hesitated, if they detonated the dynamite there, it would blow the bodies of the dead into nothing more than sticks and splinters.
But that was better than the alternative—more death and destruction.
She scrambled over the rocks until she was near the limit of the wick, then moved a couple of rocks to create a hole she could stick the dynamite into. She went back to Smitty who handed her another stick and nodded at her to repeat the process.
It took a while to plant all the dynamite. Smitty had found twenty-two sticks and it took several minutes for him to replace the original wicks with longer ones, then decide where to place them. Not all of them went into the rock pile, he wedged several into cracks and crevices in the walls of the cavern too.
When they were finished, they stood back and examined their handiwork. Some of the wicks were plainly visible, but not all. There was enough debris to camouflage more than half well enough that a casual glance would never see them. A handful were hard to see even if you knew exactly where they were.
“Well,” she said, trying to inject a positive note into her voice. “I’d say the gold is as safe as we can make it.”
“You sure you don’t want to see if there’s any that we can take safely.”
“I’m sure.” She frowned. “You?”
He shrugged, then glanced at her with a crooked grin. “You own the land that shed is on. This is your claim.”
“What? That can’t be... no, no one owns the mountain.”
“Just checking.”
“How long do you think we’ll have to wait before Virgil comes back?”
“Not much longer. He’s patient, but he also broke from his cover. He’ll be back.” Smitty glanced around the floor of the cave, then walked over and picked a rock up.
He grinned and held it out to her. “A souvenir.”
She lifted her hand and he dropped the stone on it. The bit that faced her looked like granite, but it changed when she turned it over. Large beads of gold were peppered through the rock. All it would take to free them was the judicious use of a hammer.
“You see any more like that when you were hiding the dynamite?” he asked.
She had, she just didn’t want anything to do with any of the gold, didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to think about how many people had died trying to find and take it.
“Nope,” she said in a steady tone.
He chuckled. “That much, huh?”
She opened her mouth to continue the lie, but he held his hands up again. “A couple of rocks like that one would be a great way to distract Virgil if we need a distraction.”
She studied him for a moment, then walked a few feet away, searched the debris for a few seconds, then came back with a solid chunk of gold about the size of a golf ball. She handed it to him. “Here, one distraction for you and one for me, but that’s all we’re taking.”
He shoved it into one of his pockets. “Yes, ma’am. Let’s go back to the tunnel.”
They retraced their steps, but about twenty feet away from the tunnel entrance, he brought her to an abrupt halt with a hand on her arm. She paused, looking for whatever alerted him.
The distant crunch of wood shattering into splinters wasn’t loud, but now that they weren’t walking, there was no other sound in the cavern. It was followed by intelligible yelling and a cry of pain.
Silence fell. It had to be Virgil and someone else. Jack?
Had Virgil hurt Jack?
An evil laugh as robust as any Hollywood villain’s echoed out of the tunnel and into the cavern.
“Get in there, Jack.”
“No.”
“Get in there,” Virgil roared. A shockingly loud sound.
Somewhere deeper in the cave system, stone crashed against stone.
Abby flinched and waited to see if any more rocks fell, but the cave was silent once again.
“We have got to get out of here,” she whispered to Smitty.
He shook his head.
“You think you’re going to find gold in there?” Jack asked, his tone laced with razor-sharp sarcasm. “You think you’re going to get rich and live high on the hog for the rest of your stupidly short life?”
“This fucking country owes it to me.” Virgil’s tone was so guttural she almost couldn’t make out his words. “Whatever is in there is mine.”