Page 54 of Love Me Fearless

Most mines up here are long-abandoned, and the shafts can be dangerous. The BLM and Forest Service make sure old shafts get closed up, but kids or poachers often break in. Badger Thornton is likely poaching.

The trail rises above York Springs Canyon, the slope above rocky and treeless. I spot the mine and a faint trail through the rocks to get there.

When I reach the opening, I call down. “Mr. Thornton?”

“About time,” he calls back.

Cantankerous is right. “I’ll be down soon.”

I drop my pack and get to work. Professor Baby Face arrives just as I’m putting on my harness and braking device.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asks, panting.

Do I take pleasure in seeing him winded when I’ve barely broken a sweat? Fuck yes and I’m not one bit ashamed.

I don’t bother replying, and duck into the mine opening. A dry, earthy scent thick with dust assaults my senses as I double-check all my systems.

“All right, Mr. Thornton. I’m coming down,” I call over my shoulder.

The shaft slopes away into darkness, so I switch on my headlamp. Dust particles dance in the swath of light as I pause to get my bearings. The mine shaft is lined with pale cylindrical blast hole markings,and the rock is a dark gray glinting with tiny crystals. There’s a remnant of an ancient ladder, but it hangs into space, like the bottom half of it rusted free long ago.

I glance behind me, but my light doesn’t penetrate very far. “Keep covered,” I call out. “I might kick loose a few rocks.”

“Just hurry.”

I lean back in my harness and walk carefully down the steep, rocky slope, the oval hole to the outside world getting smaller and smaller above me, until it’s out of sight. The echo of water dripping somewhere below me gets louder, until I hear Mr. Thornton’s wheezing breaths. He’s on a wide shelf, his back to the side of the shaft. His lean, whiskered face is scratched, and he’s got a lump on his forehead. His left ankle is definitely broken but I don’t see blood or signs of other injuries.

“I’m Ryan Hutchins, Mr. Thornton,” I say. “I’ll do an assessment, and probably splint that ankle, then we’ll get an evacuation going.”

“Can’t we skip the first two and get out of here?” he asks.

“It doesn’t work that way,” I say. “You can refuse treatment, though. Is that what you want?”

He huffs. “No.”

When I lock off my rope and slip off my pack, something in my beam of light sends alarm bells blaring in my mind.

At first, I think it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me. But then I take another slow scan of the shelf, opposite my patient.

“What in the hell is that?” Mr. Thornton barks as I turn away from the jumble of pale white bones.

My radio squawks from inside my pack with a barrage from Captain Greely. “…blatant disregard for ord?—”

I unclip my unit. “We’ve got a ten fifty-four down here, Captain.”

Captain Greely halts his barrage. “Repeat that?”

“Looks like skeletal remains.” Thankfully only bones, but I think I saw a partially decomposed shoe.

“Fuck a duck,” Captain Greely says. “You’re sure?”

I click my mike.

After a long pause, he says, “Don’t move it or disturb the scene, got that?”

“I’ll do my best.” I refocus on tending to my patient. But while prepping him for the extraction, a chill slowly works into my skin.

Who do those bones belong to?

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