58
“Son of a bitch,” said Colcord as the water gushed in around his feet. He scrabbled over to Cash, who was panting and lying against the gunwale of the boat. Blood swirled in the water around her. “Frankie?”
Cash winced and sat up, the fingers clutching her upper arm and coming away with red.
“I got you, I got you,” Colcord said. He made a quick inspection. “Went clean through. Didn’t break the bone.” He ripped one of his sleeves off and secured it tightly around her upper bicep.
The boat was filling with water. Cash would hardly be able to swim, not with her arm like this. Colcord desperately looked around, but there was nothing to plug the leak beyond an old rubber dry bag swilling around in the bottom of the boat. He grabbed it and stuffed it in. It seemed to stem the flow, for now. More shots from their pursuers sent up columns of water near them. Colcord grabbed her Glock and returned fire, causing their pursuers to drop down in the boat.
“Son of a bitch,” Colcord said as the Glock’s slide locked back. The magazine had been emptied.
“Can you bail with your good arm while I paddle?” he asked Cash.
Cash gritted her teeth. “Yes.”
She began scooping up the water with a cupped hand. Another shot rang out and struck the water behind him.
“Christ!” he exclaimed. He shifted his position forward, paddling on his knees from amidships like the voyageurs of old. The shift in weightsteadied the canoe, keeping it on an even keel and lessening the water coming in the stern.
“Cash, move forward; let’s get the stern more out of the water.”
Cash slid forward gingerly.
Behind them, the monk fired again, and the bullet skipped through the waves to their right. The shooter was having trouble taking aim in the brutal slap and chop of the lake’s surface.
“Go to the waterfall,” Cash called out to Colcord. “There’s a cave or something behind it. Maybe we can lose them in there.”
Colcord paddled furiously. He was an experienced canoeist, and in glancing back, he could see that even with everything slowing them down, they were holding their own against the pursuers. Every once in a while, they heard a shot and smack where it would hit the water, but the roiling lake was their friend, making aiming the long rifle in a tippy canoe nearly impossible.
As they approached the waterfall, the dark opening behind it loomed up. It would, Colcord hoped, lead to an escape route.
The canoe shot into the waterfall, suddenly dousing them in an icy blast of water. A moment later, they were through it, gliding into a flooded tunnel.
It wasn’t a cave; it was a mine shaft.
The water calmed, and the sound of the storm behind them was drowned out by the steady noise of the waterfall. Cash fumbled out a penlight with her good arm and flicked it on. She shone it ahead, and it revealed a curving waterway that led into the mountain. As they came around the bend, they saw the water ended at a sandy cove. Driving the canoe forward, they grounded it, and Colcord jumped out along with Cash. He stumbled slightly, swearing, as his leg hit the ground and hot fire shot through the sole of his foot.
Cash’s brows drew together in concern, and she held out her good arm to steady him.
“I’m all right,” he said. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep his expression from showing the pain.
On a shelf of rock nearby, new mining equipment had been neatly laid out.
Cash quickly shone her light over it. Colcord could see there was a canvas pack, a respiratory mask, a bottle of oxygen with a hose and harness, and a handheld device with a screen. He suddenly recalled the hand-drawn map that they had found in Grooms’s cabin, among the golden nuggets. That blue symbol at the mine entrance—the sidewaysJ—maybe was a symbol for the waterfall at the entrance. A darker thought crossed his mind. CO2and CH4had also been written underneath. This mine—if he was correct—was deadly.
“What’s that?” Cash asked, shining the light on the electronic device.
Colcord snatched it up. “A gas monitor. Looks like there’s an air problem in here.”
“Let’s go,” said Cash. She paused. “Think we’ll be okay?”
“Maybe. Not a lot of options here.” He switched on the device. “Still charged,” he said. “If it goes off, we’ll start sharing the mask.”
Cash nodded, brow furrowed.
He squeezed her good arm reassuringly. “We’ll be all right.”
They continued deeper into the mine, the weak penlight barely penetrating the murk. Colcord’s sliced-up foot hurt like hell, and he could feel the blood accumulating in his boot, squelching with each step. He watched with concern as blood dribbled down Cash’s arm, dripping off her fingers and leaving a trail of ruby droplets in the sand. She was bleeding despite the makeshift bandage. He stopped to tear the other sleeve off his shirt, securing it around her gunshot wound. They hurried on.
