“The large anteroom could be evidence that this is, or was, a mine. Manmade or, at least, man enlarged. In inclement climates, the mine entrance is made large enough to store equipment during the off-season when the snow gets too deep to get in and out. Also, for use as dry shop space during the working season. Once, of course, the workings are large enough so as to present no danger from any blasting that may occur further down the tunnel,” says Mose.
“Um, Mose?” I ask.
“Yes’m?”
“What happened to yore accent?”
“I’se a mountain man, I tawlks like one. When I am a mining engineer I use engineer speak.”
“Shit, yore as bad as us cowboys. Cain’t speak neither good nor well.”
“I’se thinkin’ that alien of ours is the only true English speaker in the bunch. He talkin’ English as a second language. He reverts to Bãngh, we in trouble,” says Mose.
“Injin speak true concise tongue. Easy to understand.”
“Pfft,” I say. “Shaz here is the smart one. Keeps her thoughts to herself.”
During this exchange, we have been walking around the perimeter of the room searching for tunnels. Of course, as we turn to look at Shaz, it finally sinks in that she knows where to go, having been here before. We follow her.
She goes over to a blank wall with some boulders in front of it. As we go around between two of the honking big rocks we come into an area where pillars have been left intact to support the weight of the ceiling. As we wind through the pillars, a tunnel comes into sight. It is the definition of dark.
“Who brought the candles?” I ask.
Mose opens the bag he was carrying over his shoulder and passes out hardhats with carbide headlamps.
“Betta safe than sorry,” he says as we roll the strikers and get the lights adjusted. “Dese ol’ mine ceilings like to shed a few rocks now an’ den. Keep dem eyes peeled. This are a heads up sitiation.”
We head on into the dark tunnel.
“Spelunkers,” says Mose.
I turn back to look at Mose and say, “I thought spelunkers was caves not mines?”
“Suit yesse’f. This likely both.”
“Oh. Look here in the wall, crystals.” I say, pointing. “The back entrance, where I found Shaz, has huge masses of crystals.”
“Likely the original cave entrance,” says Mose.
I start peering at the areas of crystals gleaming in the light of my carbide lamp. They are amazing. There is a whole vein of them crosscutting the tunnel. They run across the floor up the wall. Way up high in the ceiling is a cavity with more and bigger specimens.
“Fuckin’ awesome, amethyst, too! Amethyst is so beautiful. Wow, this spelunkin’ shit is cool.”
“On Britannia, it is called potholing.”
Jeez! I drop and roll instinctively.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim with my pistol in my hand. My headlamp shines far down the black tunnel onto Buzz.
“Man! Wolf already sneaks up on me, now you? Ay yi yi.” I reholster my weapon and stand up.
“Apologies. Did you not see me?” he asks.
“It’s dark in here.” I say and walk on down the tunnel to where Buzz is standing.
“Ah,” says Buzz, as I approach him. “of course, I forget.”
“Forget?”
“Humans have not the vision of the Bãngh.”
“Oh? That’s yore power?” Unimpressed.
Buzz nods and says , “We have a reflective area in the posterior of the eye not unlike that of the Panthera genus, the cats, of old Earth. A useful mutation which apparently you Earth humans do not have.”
I shine my headlamp into his eyes again. “They don’t light up like cat eyes,” I say.
“No, they act similarly in darkness,” says Buzz. “However, the reflective mechanism is, actually, alien.” He smiles at his witticism.
“Hey Wolf,” I say and turn back around to look. Wolf is not there. Neither is Mose or Shaz.
“Yeesh. This is getting to be like those horror stories. If we split up, we die. I was just lookin’ at ‘em.”
“I saw only you.”
“That’s a bit spooky fer my blood. I ain’t a horror story fan. Nightmares. Speaking of which, here I am in a cave alone with a’ alien. That sounds like the plot of a horror story, right there.”
“This must be where I chop you up. Then I dip you in, er, ketchup, was it? No, as I said, I prefer mustard. And eat you,” says Buzz, his eyes and teeth glowing brightly in the headlamp lit dark.
I gulp and blink.
“Come, not to worry. We shall backtrack and find the others.”
“But there was just the one tunnel.”
“We shall see.”
We walk back to where I had been admiring crystals and continue just beyond there.
“Look here, a side tunnel,” says Buzz. “It heads off at an obtuse angle from the direction you entered. It is hard to spot if one is mesmerized by crystalline structures.
“I must have missed it, like you say. I were bee lining fer the crystals. So much fer my bein’ observant.”
“Here, on the ground, you can see their tracks.”
We turn down the side tunnel, following the tracks of the others.
“Which way did you come in here?” I ask. “We never saw yore tracks.”
“I found an entrance on the north side of the hill.”
“We came in from the west just now. Yesterday, I came in the crawlway from the south. There’s a room the size of a barn just inside the west entrance. We left the horses there. Serves to make our presence less obvious from outside.”
“Quite a complex.”
“Yep.”
“But, why?” asks Buzz
“Why what?”
“Yes, what. What do you suppose was, or is, the purpose of this complex?”
“Excellent question.”
“Ah, there are the others. Perhaps they have an idea.”
We catch up to Wolf, Mose and Shaz, who are standing together talking.
Wolf turns to us and asks, “Where you find alien?”
“Buzz was just a ways farther down the tunnel from where you three turned off,” I say.
“Y’awl get lost, cowgirl?” asks Mose.
“Actually, you did. I stopped to examine a crystalline outcrop. When I looked up, I saw Buzz in the distance. I walked on down the tunnel to meet him. When I looked back to talk to you, I realized you all were gone,” I say. “We had to backtrack. I never saw the fork in the tunnel the first time through.”
“White girl need more ‘how to be Injin’ lessons,” says Wolf.
“I reckon so,” I say. “And, I’ll thank you to remember, I am not white, rather a dark tan.”
Wolf smiles.
“Shaz was just showin’ us,” says Mose, turning around. “Hey, whea she go?”
“You know, maybe we should all work harder on stayin’ together. We already know that there are wild bear girl kidnappers about,” I suggest. “Maybe hold hands?”
“Mm,” says Wolf.
“Yes’m,” says Mose.
“Rather,” says Buzz.
“Fuck me,” I say, just for the hell of it. Getting separated isn’t my idea of fun.
“Okay, let’s go,” says Mose as he heads out. “No way she coulda passed us. She gotta be ahead of us.”
My headlamp flickers. I ask, “How long our carbide gonna last?”
“Not to worry,” says Buzz.
“Oh,” I look at Buzz. “Right.”
“Don’t disappear,” I say. “I am not a fan of explorin’ in the pitch dark.”
“Righto, I shall not disappear.”
I look him in the eye and ask, “Can you actually disappear?”
“Can’t you?”
Aliens. What can I say? Will this smartass guy ever explain his powers? Yeesh. Still liking him though. Something about mysterious men, aliens, whatevs. I love a mystery.
28 Powers
Cowgirl Thrillers Page 80