The Mine Read Free Page B

The mine was amazing.
    I picked the wrong term paper topic.
    He took a few tentative steps toward the darker rear of the room but saw nothing more of interest. The walls here were just as glossy and sheer but less illuminative.
    A distinctive noise punctuated the silence. Joel froze. He had heard the sound before – on television, in movies, and at the zoo. But he had never heard it in the wild and certainly never in a place like this. He heard it again. Any doubt about its source disappeared.
    He peered at the back wall and saw a poorly defined form move closer. Joel stepped back and lifted his flashlight. He stared at his cellmate. His cellmate stared back. Fat, brown, ugly, and four feet long, it appeared none too happy to share Studio 54 with a college senior. It was a Crotalus viridis, or badass prairie rattlesnake.
    At first the snake appeared to give its human intruder a break. It retreated into a tight coil, hissed, and stuck out its tongue. Twice!
    Joel got the hint and commenced a retreat. Even King Solomon's mine was not worth a trip to the hospital. Shining his light directly at the serpent, he took a few deliberate steps toward the main shaft and freedom. With fifteen feet to go, his confidence grew. Then he backed squarely into a pie-shaped depression, lost his balance, and hit the floor. The flashlight broke free and rolled toward the reptile.
    The snake darted out of its coil and slithered closer. Leaving the lamp behind, Joel shot up, turned around, and raced toward the exit. He saw a sliver of reflected light that had found its way into the primary passage. He did not see the low-hanging beam, which popped his forehead like a Louisville Slugger.
    The impact triggered stars and ringing but strangely no pain. For a few seconds, Joel felt nearly euphoric. He lifted his head and smiled. Then flashes of blue yielded to waves of black as the ground came up to meet him.
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    When Joel came to, the snake was gone.
    He checked for bite marks, saw none, and slowly rose from the gritty floor. His head hurt. His whole body hurt. But mostly his ego hurt. Wandering into this dark, dusty den of killer reptiles was not the smartest thing he had done in twenty-two years. Once again, Adam’s judgment had trumped his own.
    Then he remembered the room, the one glowing at his back. It was still there, still real, still enchanting. The questions about its astonishing features came flooding back. Joel looked forward to explaining his discovery to Adam and others. Leaving his flashlight to the snake, he stepped into the main shaft and walked toward a tiny sphere of daylight two hundred yards away.
    When he reached the mine’s entrance, he noticed that the boards he had labored so mightily to remove were gone. The rails at his feet appeared slightly less worn, as did the beams overhead. He stepped into bright sunshine and took a breath of fresh air.
    Joel embraced the day. Just getting into open space, free of crazy creatures and stifling particulates, improved his disposition. But as he slowly walked to the parking lot, his mood began to change.
    Adam was gone. So was the car. And surroundings that seemed familiar to him minutes earlier suddenly seemed foreign. Three buildings still guarded the entrance but looked less weathered. The one Joel had deemed structurally unsafe appeared upright and sturdy, even inviting. Unbroken panes filled every window. No persons, places, or things occupied the clearing, save a badly rusted, tire-free Model A Ford with a half-dozen bullet holes on the passenger side door.
    So Bonnie and Clyde liked mines.
    Joel grabbed his cell phone and dialed Adam but got no ring. Where was he? Had he returned to Helena for the glasses? Joel looked at his watch. Both hands pointed due north. Thirty minutes late. Not good. Still, Adam could have left a message.
    Rather than sit and wait and get angry, Joel proceeded down the goat trail, which looked wider, flatter, and smoother than the one he had