Chapter 7

I was a bit surprised by the lack of ore cart rails in the mine shaft until I examined the timbers shoring up the tunnel a little more closely. They were roughly cut from the spindly local pinion trees, suggesting a one- or two-person operation. As such, instead of ore carts on steel rails, they probably used wooden-wheeled hand carts or mule drawn sledges.

As I made my way into the tunnel, I watched carefully for branch shafts and dropshafts. To my relief, there were few of the former and none of the latter. At each juncture, I took the right-hand branch after stopping to chip a numeric designator and an arrow indicating the path back to the surface. These marks chipped into the stone of the walls were my 'bread crumbs' to help me find my way out on the return trip. The numbers would help find my way back to anything that might need revisiting later.

I had traversed to the ends of three branch tunnels without finding anything more interesting than some old miner's tools and ancient kerosene lanterns. In each case, I worked my way back to the previous junction and continued on as before. The general slope of the mine was downward from the entrance in the valley, and I figured I was probably a mile or more from that entrance when I came to a tunnel where the air had a different smell. At first, I worried that I might have stumbled on a pocket of gas or something, before I realized that the smell was familiar. In fact, it had been a constant part of my existence for several days before we made it to the oasis of the valley. It was the smell of the desert and its plants and animals, combined with a faint odor of rotting flesh that permeated the air even this far from civilization. I wondered how long it would take mother nature to dispose of the flesh on all those bodies so the air would no longer remind us of those we lost. I had gotten accustomed to it, but hadn't realized that it wasn't as strong here in the mine, or even that the mine's air had a different scent than the air outside...

I hurriedly made my marks with the rock hammer, then started down the tunnel. About a quarter-mile in, I had to work my way around a pile of debris where one wall of the shaft had collapsed, then, negotiating a sharp bend, I began to notice shadows pointing toward me that disappeared when my headlamp swung in their direction. I turned off the lamp, and sure enough, from somewhere ahead, a faint, reddish light was filtering into the tunnel.

For safety's sake, I turned my light back on until the tunnel suddenly levelled off and became a broad, low, man-made cavern, illuminated by the light of the late afternoon sun that filtered through some brush and a sagging wooden door. There were stacks of something under dusty, frayed canvas covers all around the cavern.

I lifted the corner of one of the tarps and was surprised to see that it covered a stack of metal boxes on a pallet. Each was painted olive drab and had USMC markings stencilled on it in yellow. In another place, printed in black, was the name and address of a company in Brisbane, Australia. I popped the latches on one of the boxes and lifted the lid.

From the look of it, this had to be some kind of automatic weapon, but I was damned if I had ever seen one like it. To begin with, there was no receiver for ammunition. In fact, there was no breech opening at all and no magazine. There were four stubby barrels, and a motorized mount with what appeared to be an array of sensors on one side, as if it could detect and acquire a target by itself. As near as I could tell, the barrels of the weapon were simply solid tubes - closed on one end and open on the other. I knew I had never seen anything like it, and wondered if Garcia had. I didn't really want to lug one of the things back to our base. Not having any idea what it was, I also had no idea how dangerous it might be.

The mere presence of military property in a cave on Archie's property, that was locked from the inside made me begin to wonder if there was more to Ruth and her family than I knew. Those would have to be questions for another time. It was getting late...

The door was held shut by a loop of rusty chain and a new padlock. A few blows from my rock hammer made short work of the lock. The newness of the lock and the presence of the weapons made me wonder about the use of this cavern, and I looked back to see if I could see any signs of recent traffic. Sure enough, there were footprints leading both into and out of the tunnel from which I had emerged. There was another tunnel mouth north of the one from which I had emerged, and it, too, showed footprints in the dust of its floor. My curiosity about this cavern was aroused, and I really wanted to take time to find out what was down that other tunnel, but it was getting late and it was more urgent to my purposes to see where this shaft came out of the mountain.

While the wood of the door had weathered and dried, it was still essentially solid, and though the bottom sagged to the dusty floor of the cavern, it was relatively easy to lift the free end and walk it a couple of feet back into the cavern. With this done, I stepped out and found that while a thick stand of brush overgrew the opening, there was a relatively open space between the brush and the rock to the right of the door. This was apparently the path taken from the outside by whoever used this cavern. There were no footprints outside the cave, perhaps because the wind had had time to erase them.

I paused to give a sidewinder time to make good his escape, then pushed through into a rocky ravine. Judging from the angle of the sun on the rocks, I estimated that I had come out somewhere on the southeast side of our mini mountain range. I walked out to the nearest bend of the ravine and found that I was perhaps a hundred feet above the desert floor, and the way down the ravine was relatively open. Certainly, people would have no trouble negotiating that path, and I figured horses could probably do it in both directions without too much trouble.

I was just turning back to the opening, when some movement caught my eye. I knelt behind a boulder and watched as a lone horseman walked his mount around a spur of rock, moving slowly northward. A rope lead from his saddle to something that followed along behind. Slowly, one by one, a string of eleven horses followed docilely along, daisy-chained behind the rider. Wishing I had brought binoculars, I studied the rider as he approached. Something looked familiar about him, but my mind couldn't make the connection between his clothing and posture and the memory that would tell me where I had seen them before.

As he passed almost opposite my position, the horseman removed what appeared to be a campaign hat and ran a hand through sweaty hair. That was when I realized where I had seen him before - going up the face of the cliff next to the waterfall in the valley.

"Matt!" I shouted through cupped hands as I rose from behind my rock.

An M16 appeared and the former stuntman turned his horse to face me, movie style. This made a smaller target of the horse, but a bigger target of him. I made a mental note to talk to him about that.

"Don't shoot!" I shouted, as he squinted into the setting sun, trying to make out who I was. "It's Gavin!"

"Gav? What the hell are you doing way the hell and gone out here?"

I made my way down the dry wash, occasionally dropping a foot or so down what would be small waterfalls in the rainy season until I was on a level with him.

"Got a spare mount?" I asked. "I was doing a little exploring in the mine and found another outlet. What are you doing all the way over here, and with a string of horses?"

"Found these horses in the upper valley with about a hundred head of cattle, and thought we might have a use for 'em, so I strung 'em along. At the southern end of the valley, I found another trail down the mountain. Thought I'd swing back around and see how far it was from the 'main entrance' when all of a sudden I run into somebody that, by all rights, ought to be about six hundred feet higher up, and a couple of miles eastward," he grinned and continued, "I figure all of these horses are saddle-broke, but if I was to pick one out for the supreme leader of human civilization, I reckon it'd be that gelding on the end, back there. He'll need a firm hand, but he's forgotten he was once a stud. Got no saddle or bridle, though, unless you want mine."

"I've ridden bareback before. If you could cut me off enough rope for a halter, that ought to be sufficient."

The gelding was skittish, and I took a few moments to let him become familiar with my scent, petting him and speaking low, soothing words to put him at ease. He was, indeed, a fine specimen, and soon calmed down enough to let me handle him. When his eyes had stopped rolling, and he began to nuzzle at me as I ran my hands over him, I scratched behind his ears. Like a dog, he leaned into the scratching, and nodded his magnificent head up and down against my fingers. Taking the ten foot length of rope that Matt handed me, I quickly fashioned a halter that looped behind the horse's ears and around his muzzle, leaving a long loop of rope whose ends attached at the muzzle loop. This loop would serve as reins.

"Watch him when you mount," Matt cautioned. "This one'll test you. He won't mind being ridden, as long as you don't mind showing him who's boss."

Still keeping contact with my palms and speaking soothingly, I grabbed the reins and a fistful of mane, and vaulted onto his back, coming to rest just behind his withers. I kept a tight grip on his mane and clamped my legs around his body. As I had expected after Matt's warning and my own observations, the gelding tried a few stiff-legged jumps as I hung on for dear life. Finally, I got the reins in my left hand and pulled his head up, making it difficult for him to buck. Still keeping my grip on his mane, I laid the reins against the left side of his neck.

I had expected that we'd find cutting horses where cattle were being run, and I wasn't disappointed. Now that he was convinced that I wasn't going to be unseated too easily, the animal's training took over. As soon as he felt the slight pressure of the rein on the left side of his neck, he started walking his front feet around toward the right, shifting his hind feet only enough to keep his stance stable as he pivoted. I shook the reins and made a clicking sound at the side of my mouth that I had been taught as a child.