Halla didn’t seem at all interested in whose mine it was.
“Sit down over there,” she told us. “I’m going to go look for your sister. And I have to go find out if anyone saw you. I’ll bring you something to eat, but you have to stay here. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
Zander and I were still staring at all the gold, but Sukey had stepped forward and was standing in front of Halla, her feet apart, her hands at her sides. “How do you know we won’t just escape to look for her on our own?”
Halla looked her up and down, as though she found Sukey’s Neo clothes very strange. “I just know,” she said. “There are more of those cats out there. None of the people from the city leave this area after dusk, unless they’re in the Keedow’s guard or a trained hunter, like me. And there are guards everywhere. If they find you, they’ll probably kill you right away. You’re better off letting me look for her. Believe me.” She smiled right at me, making my stomach pitch a little, and then she was gone, slamming the trapdoor closed above our heads.
Sukey was the first to move. “Okay, everybody look for shovels, picks, anything like that. If we can surprise her when she comes back, we may be able to get the bow and arrows. Maybe we can take her hostage or something and make her show us the way out of here.” She jumped up and started searching around the mine. In one corner, she found a couple of shovels made of highly polished wood.
“These might work,” she said. “And you guys still have your Explorer’s vests and M.K.’s. Maybe there’s another utility in there that we can use to protect ourselves. Come on, let’s see what we’ve got! We’ve got to get going and find M.K. before that freak girl comes back. If these guards are as dangerous as she says they are, M.K. may not have much time.”
I couldn’t believe no one had said anything about the mine.
“I know,” I said, getting carried away with my excitement. “But do you all realize what this is? It’s Dan Foley’s mine. We found it! Do you know how much this gold is worth? Do you realize how famous we’re going to be when we get back and announce that we’ve found a hidden city and Dan Foley’s mine?”
“If we ever get back,” Sukey said. “But if we just wait for her to come back and do whatever it is she’s going to do to us, our problems are a lot bigger than some mine filled with gold. Not to mention poor M.K.”
“‘Some mine’?” I grumbled. “I don’t think you realize how huge this is. Dad was right. He knew the mine was here and he wanted us to find it. We have to find M.K. first, but then we…” Something was still knocking around at the back of my head, an idea about why he’d never told anyone, but the thought of M.K. in trouble and the idea of all the gold was distracting me. “What I can’t figure out, though, is why he didn’t tell anyone about it. He would have been rich. We would have been rich. Why haven’t we ever heard about this canyon? And how did these people get here?”
“I don’t know, but you still haven’t answered the question of how we’re going to get out of here,” Sukey said.
“Maybe we can convince her to let us go and find M.K.,” I said. “She doesn’t seem too worried about us knowing about the gold. Maybe we could hide it in our vests. We’ll have to figure out how to get it around the Nackleys. If we report it to someone, a newspaper, maybe, then the Nackleys and BNDL can’t take it from us.”
“BNDL can do whatever it wants,” Sukey said. “And what about M.K.? What makes you so sure she’s okay, anyway?”
“You don’t know M.K. as well as we do,” Zander told her, looking embarrassed. “If anyone could escape from a mutant cougar or armed guards, even wounded, it’s M.K. We’ve got her vest, but she’s still got her knife. She’s really, really good with that knife.”
I was embarrassed, too. Sukey was right. We’d been worried about the treasure and for all we knew M.K. was in serious trouble. “She’s right. We’ve got to find her,” I told Zander.
Zander was quiet for a minute and then he nodded. “Maybe we can ask Halla to help us find her and then show us the way out.”
“Halla?” Sukey’s eyes were wide. “Halla? Halla wants to kill us, or don’t you remember the part where she told us that? The only thing Halla wants to show us is the end of one of the arrows that killed the cat. She’s probably gone to get some of those guards to carry away our bodies.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Zander said. “She seems pretty nice.” “And pretty,” Sukey said. “I’m sure that doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”
“It is quite remarkable,” Zander said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl quite that beautiful before.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s really interesting how—”
“For Christ’s sake!” Sukey threw the shovel back down and sat down on the pile of gold bars again. “Are you really just going to wait for her to come back and kill us? Zander, you think you’re ever going to make it back to tell everyone about the West birds or the slugs or whatever if we let her shoot arrows through our hearts and seal us up in this mine? Forget being a world-famous naturalist. You’ll be a fossil someone will find in the ground a hundred years from now!”
That seemed to do it. Zander thought for a minute. “She’s right,” he said finally. “We haven’t given her any reason to just let us go. But what can we do? Pucci’s out there. He can’t help us. We at least have to see if she can help us find M.K. The truth is, I don’t think we have any choice but to trust her. I just wish we could—”
“What?” Sukey asked.
“I don’t know. I wish we weren’t being held prisoner, for one thing.”
“We don’t have any leverage,” I said. “That’s the problem. She’s holding all the cards.”
“You think?” Sukey gave me a sarcastic look. But she seemed to be thinking. “There are more of us than there are of her. What if we take her prisoner and demand that she find M.K. for us?”
“How are we going to do that?” I asked.
“Like I said.” Sukey stood up and picked up one of the shovels again. “There are three of us. And if she doesn’t bring anyone back with her, there’s only one of her. Now, she’s got a bow and arrow and it’s pretty clear she knows how to use it, but I don’t think she has any other weapons besides my pistol. And she won’t be very comfortable using it. There’s got to be a way we can overpower her. Quick, empty out your vests, let’s see what we have to work with.”
We did as she said, laying the utilities out on a board balanced over one of the stacks of gold bars.
“I don’t think my compass is going to do much good,” I said. “And unless I hit her on the head with the sextant, it’s useless.” I took my spyglass out and turned it over in my hands. “This, on the other hand…”
“What are you going to do with that thing?” Zander asked.
“Get some information.”
Sukey grinned. “He’s right.”
“What do you mean?” Zander looked up from what he was doing.
“I can find out if she’s coming back alone,” I explained. “And I can try to figure out what’s going on in that city. I’ll watch and you two work on a plan.”