J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

The thought of being in the presence of the Bad People plunged Lani back into despair. Behind her Mitch heard her sharp intake of breath.

His clawlike fingers clamped shut across the top of her shoulder. "What is it?" he demanded. "What did you see? A snake, maybe? Where?"

He shone the flashlight directly into Lani's eyes, temporarily blinding her and then turning away as he scanned the ground around him. But something had happened in that moment as his face pressed so close to hers that Lani could feel his hot breath on her skin. She had heard something in his voice that hadn't been there before and her heart beat fast when she realized what it was-fear. Not a lot of it. No, just the tiniest trace. But still, it was fear, and knowing Mitch Vega was afraid gave Lani something else that hadn't been there before-hope, and the possibility that maybe somehow, someway, she would survive.

She looked again at Quentin. The walk up the mountain seemed to have sobered him some. At least his movements were steadier. If Mitch had given him some of the drug, perhaps that was wearing off as well. Maybe, between the two of them…

The thought that Quentin's dose of scopolamine might be wearing off too soon was worrisome to Mitch Johnson. He needed the right combination of mobility and control. It was important to have Quentin able to get around under his own steam, but it was also important for his thinking capabilities to be somewhat impaired.

Following Quentin and Lani through the cavern, Mitch was shocked when Quentin suddenly seemed to melt into a solid rock wall, taking Lani with him. Mitch, limping hurriedly after them, had to pause and examine the wall with the beam from his flashlight before discovering a jagged fissure in the rock. After squeezing through the narrow aperture, he found himself in a long narrow shaft that seemed to lead off into the interior of the mountain, away from the much larger cavern behind them. Yards ahead, Mitch could see Lani Walker disappearing around a curve.

As soon as Mitch stepped into the passage, the ground underfoot was different-smoother, but slicker as well. Here, the rocky floor had been painstakingly covered with a layer of dirt that constant moisture kept in a state of goopy muck. It was possible there had once been stalactites and stalagmites, just as there were in the other room. If so, they had been cut down and carted away, making the narrow shaft passable.

Hurrying after the others, Mitch rounded the curve and was suddenly conscious of a slight lifting in the total darkness that had surrounded him before. Now his flashlight probed ahead toward a hazy gray glow. At first Mitch thought that maybe Quentin had lit a lantern of some kind. Instead, as Mitch entered a second, much smaller, chamber, he realized this one was lit-almost brilliantly so-by a shaft of silvery moonlight slanting into the cave from outside, from a narrow crack at the top of a huge pile of debris.

Mitch had thought that the passageway was leading them deeper into the mountain. Instead, they had evidently angled off to the side, to a place where the shell of mountain was very thin.

"There used to be another entrance here," Quentin was saying, pointing the beam of his light up toward the narrow hole at the top of the debris. "At one time this was probably the main entrance. I figure it used to be larger than the one we came in, but it looks like a landslide pretty well covered it up. All that's left of it is that little opening way up there."

Not only was there more light here but, because of the presence of some outside air, the second chamber was also slightly warmer and dryer. Here the texture of the dirt underfoot changed from mud to the caliche-like crust that forms in desert washes after a summertime flood.

"You said you came out here earlier today?" Mitch asked.

Quentin nodded.

"Why? What were you doing?"

"Just checking things out," Quentin said. "Making sure nothing had happened to any of this stuff since the last time I was here. It turns out nothing did. The pots are all still here. Come take a look." As Quentin spoke, he aimed the beam from his flashlight at something in the far corner of the room. "What do you think?" he added.

Mitch Johnson thrust Lani aside and hurried past her. There on the floor, half-buried in the dirt, lay the shiny white bones of a human skeleton. And around those bleached bones, spilled onto their sides as though having been investigated by some marauding, hungry beast, lay a whole collection of pots-medium-sized ones for holding corn and pinon nuts, grain and pinole, and larger ones as well-the kind used for carrying water and for cooking meat and beans.

"It doesn't look like all that much to me," Mitch said, "but the guy I told you about wants them, so we'd better pack 'em up and get 'em out of here."

"You can't," Lani Walker said. Those were the first words she had spoken since Mitch had dragged her out of the Bronco down by the wash. She hadn't intended to say anything at all, but the words came choking out of her in spite of her best effort to hold them back.

Mitch swung around and looked at her. "We can't what?"

"Take the pots," she answered. "It's wrong. The spirit of the woman who made them is always trapped inside the pots she makes. That's why a woman's pottery is always broken when she dies, so her spirit won't be trapped. So she can go free."

"Trapped in her pots? Right!" Mitch scoffed. "If you asked me, it looks more like she was trapped in the mountain, not in her damn pots. Now sit down and shut the hell up," he added. "I don't remember anybody asking for your opinion."

Without a word, Lani sank down and sat cross-legged on the caliche-covered floor. When Mitch looked back at Quentin, he was staring at the girl while a puzzled frown knotted his forehead.

"What's she doing here anyway?" he asked. "I don't understand."

"She just came along for the ride, Quentin," Mitch said jokingly. "For the fun of it. Once we get all these pots out of here, the three of us are going to have a little party." Mitch paused and patted his shirt pocket. "I brought along a few mood-altering substances, Quentin. When the work's all done, the three of us can have a blast."

"You mean Little Miss Perfect here takes drugs, too?" Quentin's frown dissolved into a grin. "I never would have guessed it. Neither would Dad, I'll bet. He'll have a cow if he ever finds out."

Lani started to reply, but before she could answer, a swift and vicious kick from the toe of Mitch's hiking boot smashed into her thigh. She said nothing.

"Tripping out is for dessert," Mitch said quickly. "First let's worry about the pots."

"How are we going to carry them out?" Quentin asked.

"In your backpack."

"But we only have one."

"You should have thought of that before. I guess you'll have to do it by yourself then, won't you?"

"By myself?"

"Sure," Mitch responded. "You're the one getting paid for it, aren't you?"

"But if everybody does their share…" Quentin began.

"I said for you to do it," Mitch said, his voice hardening as he spoke. "If the damned pots don't get down the mountain to that car of yours, you don't get your five thousand bucks, understand?"

Obligingly, Quentin slipped off his backpack, went over to the corner, and loaded three of the larger pots into it. "That's all that'll fit for right now," he said.

"That's all right," Mitch said. "Make as many trips as you need to. We have all the time in the world."

As Quentin turned to leave, Mitch breathed a sigh of relief. The drug was still working well enough. With Mitch's knee acting up, he needed Quentin's physical strength to haul the pots down the mountain to the car. After that, all bets were off.

As Quentin took flashlight in hand and started back through the passage, Lani sat on the floor of the cave, staring at the bones glowing with an eerie phosphorescence in the indirect haze of moonlight.