Desperation

Joh

He listened for some comforting word from Terry, but Terry had split the scene. Maybe just as well.

“David.” His voice, trembling. “Will you light us on our way.”

“I don’t want to,’, David whispered. Then, pulling in a deep breath, he looked up at a sky in which the stars were just begi

The last four words came out in a desperate, throat—tearing shriek. Mary started forward.

Joh

“Take your hand off me,” she said, and started forward again.

Joh

She subsided.

Joh

David looked up at his father with tears ru

Ralph shook his head. “If you go in, I go in.”

“Don’t. I’m telling you. It won’t be good for you.”

Ralph simply stood his ground and looked patiently at his son.

David looked back up at him, then at Joh

Something that might have caused the heart of an old prospector to beat faster. A glint of gold, there and then gone.

Ralph followed David. Steve came next. The light moved in the boy’s hand, tracing first along a rock wall, then an ancient support with a trio of symbols carved into it-some long-dead Chinese miner’s name, perhaps, or the name of his sweetheart, left far behind in the marsh—side huts — of Pc Yang-and then to the floor, where it picked out a litter of bones: cracked skulls and ribcages that curved like ghastly Cheshire cat grins. It shifted upward again and to the left. The gold-gleam came again, this time brighter and more defined.

“Hey, look out!” Cynthia cried. “Something’s in here with us!”

There was a fluttering explosion in the dark. It was a sound Joh

Mary screamed. The flashlight beam jagged upward at an angle, and for just one moment it pinpointed a night-marish midair apparition, something with wings and glar-ing golden eyes and outstretched talons. It was David the eyes were glaring at, David it wanted.

“Look out!” Ralph yelled, and threw himself over David’s back, driving him down to the bone-littered floor of the shaft.

The flashlight fell from the boy’s hand as he went down, kicking up just enough light to be confusing. Unclear shapes strove together in its reflected glow: David under his father, and the shadow of the eagle flexing and swelling above them both.

“Shoot it!” Cynthia screamed. “Steve, shoot it, it’s go

Joh

The eagle screeched, wings battering Carver’s head.

Ralph tried to fend the bird off with his left hand. It seized one of his fingers in the hook of its beak and tore it off. And then its talons plunged into Ralph Carver’s face like strong fingers into dough.

“DADDY, NO!” David shrieked.

Steve shoved into the tangle of shadows, and when the side of his foot kicked the downed flashlight, Joh

Steve drew the rifle back, meaning to swing it, and the butt cracked against the wall.

There wasn’t room. He jabbed it forward instead, like a lance. The eagle turned its gimlet gaze on him, talons shifting their grip on Ralph. Its wings were soft thunder in the closed space. Joh

“GOD, No!” David howled, his voice cracking. “OH GOD, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP HURTING MY DADDY!”

This is hell, Joh

Awing battered down on Joh

The bird came toward him, squalling its ugly, ear-splitting cry, and Ralph came with it, pulled by the talon still buried in his cheek, temple, and orbit of his left eye. Joh

David crawled out from under, face dazed, his shirt soaked with his father’s blood. In a moment he would seize the flashlight and plunge deeper into the mine, if they weren’t quick.

“Steve!” Joh

It plunged and twisted in his hold like the spine of a bucking bronco. “Steve, finish it!

Finish it!”

Steve drove the stock of the rifle into the bird’s gullet, tilting its shadowy head toward the ceiling. At that moment Mary darted forward. She seized the eagle’s neck and wrung it with bitter efficiency. There was a muffled crack, and suddenly the talon buried in Ralph’s face relaxed. David’s father fell to the floor of the mine, his forehead striking a ribcage and powdering it to dust.

David turned, saw his father lying motionless and face-down. His eyes cleared. He even nodded, as if to say Pretty much what I expected, then bent to pick up the flashlight. It was only when Joh

“Let go!” he screamed. “it’s my job! MiNE!”

“No, David,” Joh

“He can’t take them all and then not let me finish! He can’t do that! He can’t!”

Joh

Steve was staring with horrified fascination at the eagle, which was still twitching and slowly fa

“Steve, goddammit!”

He looked up, as if startled out of a dream. Cynthia was kneeling beside Ralph, feeling for a pulse and crying loudly.

“Steve, come here!” Joh

Steve came over and grabbed David, who began to struggle even harder.

“No!” David whipped his head from side to side in a frenzy. “No, it’s my job! It’s mine!