Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,64
a team of spelunkers to explore these pits if they keep going on deeper into the mountain!”
Kenlaw laughed gruffly. “Lost mines to the romantic imagination, I suppose—but not to the trained mind. This is a common enough formation—underground streams have forced their way through faults in the rock, hollowed out big chambers wherever they’ve encountered softer stone. Come on, we’ve wasted enough time on this one.”
“Soft rock? ” Brandon pushed past him. “Hell, this is quartz!”
He stared at the quartz dike where Kenlaw had been working. Under the flashlight beam, golden highlights shimmered from the chipped matrix.
“Oh my god.” Brandon managed to whisper.
These were good words for a final prayer, although Kenlaw probably had no such consideration in mind. The rush of motion from the darkness triggered some instinctive reflex. Brandon started to whirl about, and the pick of the geologist’s hammer only tore a furrow across his scalp instead of plunging into his skull.
The glancing blow was enough; Brandon went down as if poleaxed. Crouching over him, Kenlaw raised the hammer for the coup de grace.
When Brandon made no move, the murderous light in the other man’s eyes subsided to cunning. Brandon was still breathing, although bare bone gleamed beneath the blood-matted hair. Kenlaw balanced the geologist’s pick pensively.
“Got to make this look like an accident,” he muttered. “Can’t risk an investigation. Tell them you took a bad fall. Damn you, Brandon! You would have to butt in the one time I finally found what I was after! This goddamn mountain is made out of gold, and that’s going to be my secret until I can lock up the mining rights.” He hefted a rock—improvising quickly, for all that his attack had been born of the moment. “Just as well the pick only grazed you. Going to have to look like you busted your head on the rocks. Can’t have it happen in here, though—this has to be kept hidden. Out there on the ledge where we first climbed down—that’s where you fell. I’ll block the tunnel entrance back up again. All they’ll know is that we found some old bones in a cave, and you fell to your death climbing back up.”
He raised the rock over Brandon’s head, then threw it aside. “Hell, you may never wake up from that one there. Got to make this look natural as possible. If they don’t suspect now, they might later on. Push you off the top of the ledge headfirst, and it’ll just be a natural accident.”
Working quickly, Kenlaw tied a length of rope to Brandon’s ankles. The man was breathing hoarsely, his pulse erratic. He had a concussion, maybe worse. Kenlaw debated again whether to kill him now, but considered it unlikely that he would regain consciousness before they reached the ledge. An astute coroner might know the difference between injuries suffered through a fatal fall and trauma inflicted upon a lifeless body—they always did on television.
Brandon was heavy, but Kenlaw was no weakling for all his fat. Taking hold of the rope, he dragged the unconscious body across the cavern floor—any minor scrapes would be attributed to the fall. At the mouth of the tunnel he paused to pay out his coil of rope. Once on the other side, he could haul in Brandon’s limp form like a fish on a line. It would only take minutes to finish the job.
The tunnel seemed far more cramped as he wriggled into it. The miners must have had small frames, but then people were smaller four centuries ago. Moreover, the Spaniards, who almost certainly would have used slave labor to drive these shafts, weren’t men to let their slaves grow fat.
It was tighter, Kenlaw realized with growing alarm. For a moment he attempted to pass it off to claustrophobia, but as he reached a narrower section of the tunnel, the crushing pressure on his stout sides could not be denied. Panic whispered through his brain, and then suddenly he understood. He had crammed his baggy jacket pockets with rock samples and chunks of ore from the quartz dike; he was a good twenty pounds heavier and inches bulkier now than when he had crawled through before.
He could back out, but to do so would lose time. Brandon might revive; Reynolds might come looking for them. Gritting his teeth against the pressure on his ribs, Kenlaw pushed his light on ahead and forced his body onward. This was the tightest point, and beyond that the way would be easier. He sucked