Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

Sam chuckled. “She usually is.”

“Maybe your Blaylock isn’t crazy after all.”

“We’ll see.”

Sam dropped his pack, stripped to the waist, and donned a waterproof headlamp. He clicked it on, pointed the beam at his palm, and clicked it off.

“Just an exploratory probe, right?” said Remi.

“Right. Five minutes, no more.”

“Hold on a second,” the Kid said. He dug into his pack and came out first with a marine flare—“Crocs hate these”—then another revolver, this one similar to his own Webley. “Crocs hate these even more.”

Sam hefted the weapon, studied it. “I don’t recognize it. Another Webley?”

“The Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver. One of the first and only wheel-gun semiautomatics. Break-top design, .455 caliber, six rounds. Not much good past fifty yards, but whatever you hit goes down.”

“Thanks,” Sam said. “Exactly how many Webleys do you have?”

“Last count, eighteen. Kind of a hobby.”

“Antique revolvers and rare truffles,” Remi replied. “You are an interesting man.”

Sam shoved the flare into one of his shorts’ cargo pockets, the Webley into the other, then began picking his way around the lagoon’s edge, hopping from boulder to boulder and doing his best to avoid wet patches, a task that became harder the closer he came to the waterfall. When he was within arm’s length of the cascade, he turned, gave a short wave to Remi and the Kid, then ducked into the deluge and disappeared.

Four minutes later he reappeared, hopped onto a nearby boulder, shook the water from his hair, then made his way back to the beach.

“There’s a shallow grotto behind the falls,” he announced. “It’s about twenty feet deep and fifteen wide. It’s clogged with backwash—branches, rotting logs, heaps of grass that’ve formed into a loose dam—but behind all that I found an opening. It’s a horizontal gap, really, like a stone garage door that didn’t close all the way.”

“There goes our streak,” Remi replied with a smile.

“Pardon me?” asked the Kid.

Sam said, “So far on this particular adventure, we haven’t had to go subterranean, which is rare, given what we do. Before there were barable doors and lockable vaults, if you wanted to keep something safe or a secret you had only two reliable choices: bury it or hide it in a cave.”

Remi added, “Still pretty common today. Might have something to do with genetic memory: When in doubt, burrow.”

“So you’ve never had a completely aboveground adventure?”

Sam shook his head. Remi said, “It’s why we stay current on our climbing and spelunking skills.”

“Well, caves are far down my list of favorite places,” the Kid said. “So if you don’t mind, I’m going to let you two have all the fun. I’ll mind the fort.”

Ten minutes later, armed with the appropriate gear, Sam and Remi returned to the waterfall and ducked behind it into the grotto. The sunlight dimmed behind the curtain of water. They clicked on their headlamps.

Sam stepped close to Remi and said over the rush, ?

?Stand to one side. I’m going to see if we’ve got any company. Be ready with a flare.”

Remi stepped to the other side of the grotto while Sam selected a long branch from the dam pile and pulled it free. Systematically, he began probing the debris, jamming the branch’s tip into holes and gaps and wiggling it about. He got no reaction; nothing moved. He spent another two minutes heel-kicking the larger logs, trying to illicit a response, but fared no better.

“I think we’re okay,” Sam called.

They got to work, slowly dismantling the pile until they cleared a path to the rear wall. They knelt before the four-foot-tall gap. A shallow runnel trickled past their boots and across the grotto before joining the waterfall proper.

Sam jammed his branch into the opening and rattled it about. Again, nothing moved. He pulled the Webley from his pocket, leaned forward, pressed his face to the rock, and panned his headlamp from right to left. He straightened up and gave Remi the OK sign.

“Once more into the breach,” she yelled.