Chapter Nine:

  Marsh messaged Calli to update her on the outcome of the ambush, just the important points, to ease her mind before they returned. She reported that the wagon train had reached the next designated campsite and would wait there until they returned.

  The riders were following the four new hires, who were on foot since their hover transport had been destroyed. Laura explained they had been sheltering in a large cave at the base of a cliff face, a spot the late Mr. Boss (Eugene) had used as a base for years. It was less than two kilometers away.

  The four cons walked slowly, flanked by the dino riders. Marsh noted that the strange little man, Piggy, continuously grumbled something incomprehensible to himself. Piggy and the larger man, Ed’s files listed them having repeat offenses involving theft and elaborate tunneling plots. Tommy, the sickly man with the rebreather, was convicted for theft and company property damage, details unspecified.

  Laura’s file was the most complicated. Indentured as a child for theft and assault, her contract was later sold to the San Angels Athletic Entertainment Corporation. Marsh knew the company well; they primarily streamed gladiator bouts and gambling events. It was a semi-legal way for contract owners to offload difficult or unprofitable slaves while recouping their “investment” in high-stakes combat. Given Laura’s obvious competence and relatively young age, Marsh surmised she had been sold not because she was useless, but because she was too dangerous or defiant for typical labor, and therefore profitable in the pits. This woman likely had led a particularly difficult life.

  Marsh hoped this crew would take full advantage of the deal he offered, but he knew there were always a few who just couldn't outrun the troubles that led them to the contract system in the first place.

  Soon the cliff face was in sight. Laura pointed to a huge boulder that supposedly obscured the entrance. “The entrance is there, behind the large rock. You can’t see it until you're right up next to it.”

  Laura began to move forward but was stopped by a gesture from John. “Let us check it out first. Kate, take Jerry, Chad, and Chaz. Look for any surprises. Make sure it's all clear.”

  “Don’t trust your new employees?” Laura said with a smirk that didn’t meet her eyes.

  “No, I don’t,” John said bluntly, staring down at the woman.

  “Jobs are freely given, trust is earned over time,” Paul added, hoping to ease the tension.

  The four riders approached slowly on their mounts, led by Kate, and carefully entered the cave.

  The large man, Ed, stepped up between Laura and John and asked a question of Marsh. “Mr. McClintock, what actually happens if we complete our contracts? Few that I know ever make it that far. And those that do usually find themselves wishing they had just died in the fields or the battle pits.” Laura looked intently at Marsh, obviously curious.

  Marsh leaned in the saddle on one elbow. “Well, like I said, I don’t run a charity. When you work for the Thundersaur brand, you're paid a fair wage. We also typically provide food and lodging. It’ll be your responsibility to save for the future and plan for what you may need later in life. That said, we typically don’t let people starve, either.”

  Ed looked intrigued. Piggy grumbled something, and Ed relayed, “Has anyone under your employ made it to the end of their contract?”

  “There are several,” Paul said, reassuringly. “Many choose to stay on if able. Some find less physically demanding work, if needed.”

  Marsh looked at John. “How long until your contract is up?”

  That earned a look of genuine surprise from the four cons.

  “My contract was up more than ten years ago last summer,” the gruff trail boss said.

  Marsh straightened in his saddle. “You mean I could have been rid of you all this time?”

  A small smirk crossed John's face as he gave Marsh a rude gesture in return. All three men laughed.

  This revelation, that the intimidating trail boss was a former indentured worker who had completed his sentence and stayed on, treating his employer as a friend,troubled Laura deeply. This was not normal. She knew what to expect from her contract owners: at best, slavery, at worst, enduring their horrific appetites. To be in a situation where the boundaries of cruelty were suddenly erased was unsettling to her.

  A beep rang out on the rider’s arm bracers: ‘All clear.’

  The entire group, save for two riders left to keep watch, entered the massive cave. It was enormous, at least 100 meters wide and twice as long. A simple, sliding metal door sat within the entrance, painted to look like the surrounding rock, good enough to fool a drone or satellite surveillance.

  The cave was a logistical hub. Towards the front were two more hover trucks and one stripped down for parts. Behind that was a small living area: a tent filled with cots, a portable stove and food storage trailer, and a fresh water accumulator. Next to the tent was a large, windowless storage container with a small stairwell leading to a man-sized door. It had multiple cameras and antennas protruding from the roof. The rest of the cavern was filled with trailers and piles of boxes and crates loaded with tusks, furs, and contaband. Eugene’s operation was highly commercial.

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  Marsh ordered the four new hires to split up and show his riders what everything was, logging an inventory into a shared file. Marsh took Laura with him and his two sons to inspect the suspicious storage container, the mobile office.

  Laura stopped at the bottom of the steps. “This was Mr. Boss’s office. It’s also where he slept. He always kept it locked, and warned us that it was booby-trapped and only he could open it safely. I don’t know if it's true or not.”

  Marsh looked at Mateo and pointed to the door. “See if you can detect anything. Be careful. Let's assume he wasn’t lying.”

  Mateo put on a pair of clunky goggles and inspected the door. “No lethal traps, but there is a sensor at the door that sends an alert when it’s opened. Other than that, it's just locked.”

  Marsh walked up, pulled the keys he had taken from Eugene's body, and opened the door slowly. Laura, rigid and hugging herself, was clearly hesitant to move forward.

  Marsh gave the woman a sympathetic look. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to. Just stay there a moment, we won’t be long.”

  Laura looked sharply at Marsh, then softened her gaze. Her expression changed to one of hard determination, and she followed them up the stairs.

  Inside, they found a mess: empty food cans, alcohol bottles, and overflowing ashtrays. The largest part of the wall was dominated by a gun cage, only half-filled with weapons. At one end was a work table with rifle parts and one of the homemade suppressors. At the other end was a filthy, simple steel-framed bed.

  Mateo found several data crystal discs and quickly secured them.

  Jase was inspecting several specimen boxes stacked in the corner. They were battery-powered freezer boxes, identical to the ones Calli used to transport samples. Each box had a display screen with an image of the contents. Most showed various mastodon organs and tissues, but one box showed an insect Jase didn’t recognize. It was a big, worm-looking thing with serious pincers beneath two parallel lines of almond-shaped eyes.

  Marsh was trying to ask Laura questions, but only getting clipped, one-word answers. He noted she refused to look in the direction of the bed, remembering what she had done to Eugene he decided to leave her be.

  Jase called Marsh over to the boxes. “What do you make of this one, Pa?”

  Laura spoke unexpectedly, “ That's some kind of bug we found in another cave after an ambush last week. The mastodons passing by had caused the rocks to shift and revealed the small cave. The entrance was barely big enough for a person to pass through but he ordered us to check it out. He sent 4 guys down there with scanners and cameras and they sent him back a picture of those things sleeping, stuck to the walls of the cave. He checked it against some list on his bracer and got all excited. He ordered them to bring one back. All the sudden there was an unnatural humming sound that vibrated our teeth, even the rocks were buzzing. Then the screaming started, only one man made it out of the cave and that thing had half swallowed his arm. Eugene dropped a grenade down the hole to seal the cave and we ran. By the time we got the critter off of that guy's arm it had dissolved it down to the bone. He didn’t live very long after.” She returned her gaze back to the floor.

  Jase’s bracer beeped,”Ma says to bring it, but be sure it's locked securely, and absolutely don’t open it.”

  Large insect species weren’t something new, they were another long time addition to the planet since the same genetic arms race that brought dinosaurs back to the world almost a thousand years ago. For the most part, the ones that survived usually didn’t bother people, they seemed to go out of their way to avoid people. That wasn’t to say they weren’t dangerous. One of the only times in history the two fractious coastal regions worked together was to rid the continent of a spreading giant spider infestation that threatened to wipe out humanity. It was some long forgotten centuries old genetic experiment that crawled out of a hole in what was the New Mexico area. When it was all said and done the Western and Eastern barons had to work with the Mexican Empire to end the threat. The area was so devastated after it had left the opening for the Numanu to expand there a century later. The thought made Marsh shiver, he was glad he had missed that little conflict by a couple hundred years.

  Kate walked up to Marsh as everyone gathered back at the entrance of the cave. “We have a full inventory, Mr. McClintock. Mostly furs and tusks, a few other contraband items. Ed showed us a large, deep hole in the back where several human bodies were tossed. They were in various stages of decay, all the way to fully decomposed skeletons. They’ve been operating here for quite a while.”

  Marsh nodded, looking at the list. “Do those transports work?”

  Kate nodded. “According to Tommy, yes, apparently he is some kind of mechanic. He was the one stripping the third hover truck to refurbish the other two. He says one is in good working order now. I’m thinking we should take that with us unless we want these city folk to huff it all the way back to the Valley.”

  “I believe you’re right, Ms. Kate. Make it happen. Get that lot to gather what they need from their camp and load up in the transport. Keep an eye on them while they pack, though. Nothing more dangerous than a spork for now until we can get them sorted out back at the Ranch.”

  Kate nodded and jogged off. John and Paul walked up, holding more boxes with data crystal discs and a few miscellaneous items.

  “What do you want us to do with all this stuff?” John asked. “We can’t haul it with us.”

  “We could burn it,” Paul proposed, with a disgusted look on his face. “This whole cave stinks of death. We should burn it and everything in it.” John nodded in agreement.

  “I agree,”Marsh said,” but we're going to let someone else do it. Mateo is downloading all the data he found and sending it to Marshal Thorne. We're going to let him have the credit for this one. That way, we can be done with this mess, and he gets a nice feather in his cap for stopping a poaching operation. Won’t hurt to mend any hurt feelings we have there with the Marshall over that Franco business, either.”

  “Are you sure you can trust him to get rid of all of it?” John asked skeptically.

  Marsh nodded firmly. “I know we have had our run-ins with Thorne over the years, but I know him to be the genuine article when it comes to the law and upholding it. We can depend on him to do what's right here.”

  The riders, plus their new hires in their refurbished hover transport, sealed the entrance door behind them and rode to catch up to the camp.