I lay on my back, gasping in the clean, fresh air. “Thank You, God,” I breathed. Maybe I did believe in God. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
How else would we have made it out in time?
The geyser’s outburst stopped, leaving the stench of rotten eggs.
The sun was still shining, a Steller’s jay scolded me with a shook, shook, shook, and a fly buzzed my face. The world was going on as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Whoever put me in that mine knew it was an active geyser and removed my prosthesis so I wouldn’t be able to run.
Someone tried to murder me.
Would they be watching to ensure I didn’t make it out alive?
I jerked upright and looked around. The mine was tucked into a narrow gulch with a creek, now swollen with superheated water flowing down the middle. In front of me rose a steep, rocky hillside where only mountain goats and bighorn sheep would be comfortable. This side had a gentler slope populated with ponderosa pines.
We seemed to be alone. The dogs casually drank from the stream above where the geyser had sprayed.
I exhaled and waited for my racing pulse to return to a somewhat normal rate.
My head ached from the blow and my good leg throbbed from the frantic hopping. I rubbed my leg, then itched my neck. Whoever had taken my prosthetic leg took the liner as well. Phantom pain surged from my missing limb.
The darkness. I’d faced darkness and come out sane. I grabbed one of the two remaining rocks from my pocket and stared at it. “As the saying goes, the only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping-stones is the way you use them.” I tossed the rock into the mine opening. That felt good.
There was a good chance the would-be killer would return to be sure the geyser had done its job. I had to get moving, but where?
I could hide, wait for the killer’s return, and follow him out. Right. He’d never notice two dogs and a hopping woman behind him. Any more stupid ideas?
Obviously my brain was still muddy, and the adrenaline rush had left me shaky. “Ground yourself in the present. Come up with a plan. What can you use to help yourself?”
At some earlier eruption, a mine cart had been shoved out and tossed on its side. Black ore and a miner’s pick lay in a pile next to the cart.
I pushed up from the ground. Maverick, as if trained since puppyhood to be a service dog, moved next to me. His shoulder was almost as high as a kitchen counter. With his help, I maneuvered over to the cart. The ore didn’t appear to be worth the effort it must have taken to haul it out. On impulse I selected one of the smaller pieces and stuck it into my pocket. Peeking out from some of the rocks was something gray. I brushed the stones away. The gray turned out to be a baseball cap.
Leaning against the cart, I took a closer look at the hat. It was still in good shape, so it couldn’t have been here for years. Was it evidence of someone mining here recently? How remote was this place?
I called Holly over and held out the hat. “Find. Holly, find.”
Holly sniffed the cap, sat, and scratched her ear.
Placing the cap under Maverick’s nose made him sneeze. So much for search-and-rescue dogs.
Straightening, I examined the area again, this time paying close attention to the landscape.
The area where the geyser sprayed was rocky and without vegetation, which would make sense. A couple of bushes on the perimeter were dead, a few more farther away were dying, and a nearby ponderosa had turned yellow and dropped the needles on the lower branches.
Leaning on Maverick, I made my way toward a flat area of dead grass next to the creek. A round rock about the size of a softball caught my attention. When I picked it up, black soot came off in my hand. I dropped the rock and looked for more. I quickly spotted a number of same-sized rocks scattered around the area. Now that I was closer to the dead grasses, I could see they formed a square.
A campfire ring? The square outline of a tent? But no garbage, cigarette butts, tin cans. If someone had pitched a tent here, it wasn’t there long enough to permanently kill the grasses.
So the miner had gotten what he wanted after a short amount of time, picked up, and left, taking care to erase his presence. He would have to have known that mining this close to Yellowstone was illegal.
Of course, the chances of getting caught would be slim to none. If not for the dead vegetation, the opening would be hidden from above and from anyone coming up the gulch. So why—
Dead and dying bushes. If this geyser had been active for a long period of time, there would be nothing growing around it. The ground around Yellowstone’s Old Faithful was barren.
A seed of an idea sprouted in my mind. Again I replayed Grace’s comments. Yellowstone’s incredibly fragile geothermal pools and geysers can be destroyed or altered by man. For example, people routinely throw pennies, garbage, even soap into geysers and pools. This can change the direction of a geyser or . . .
Another thing could alter the course. Mining, especially mining that used explosives to loosen the rock. What if someone accidentally blew an opening into an existing vent? Once that happened, there would be no safe way to remove the ore. Maybe that’s why this place was abandoned—not because the mine tapped out but because it was too dangerous to work here.
The sun had shifted and was now directly overhead. I needed to move on. The killer could return at any time.
I hoped one of the riders had made it to civilization by now and notified authorities of the situation at Mule Shoe. When I didn’t show up, they’d come looking for me. I needed to be where I could be spotted from the air. I’d follow the stream downhill.
A faint path, little more than a game trail, paralleled the creek, heading roughly east. Maverick paced himself to my slow, hopping speed. I had to pause often to give my good leg a rest. I kept my eyes and ears open to any indication of someone returning.
The trail narrowed, with dense bushes pushing in on all sides, and shifted to a southeast direction. I had to let go of Maverick’s shoulder and hop behind him. Holly followed me.
The trail suddenly split, the right side following the stream and the left heading north. I stayed with the stream. The path widened but became steep. Not good. A fall at any point would be a disaster, but especially downhill. I sat and continued by scooting on my rear.
The track finally leveled and snaked around a large boulder. I stood, brushed off my pants, and patted my leg for Maverick to return to my side. We stepped around the boulder.
I froze.
I was back at Mae’s house.