Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity

by C. L. Bevill

  Without further ado, Bubba pulled the makeshift door out and pointed the flashlight beam inside. It was another staircase made by digging steps out of stone and dirt. It led downward and into blackness that the light wouldn’t penetrate.

  Bubba sighed heavily and went inside. He left the door off the hole just in case. In case of what? his inner voice asked him slyly. Boos, murderers, dead bodies, getting lost, and needing help, he answered himself.

  Also, just because leaving the door open sounded like a dandy idea. One never knew when one would need to make a hasty exit.

  Chapter 18

  Bubba and the Really, Really

  Big Hole in the Ground

  It was a crapshoot to begin with because Bubba didn’t know where exactly Hornbuckle had gone. Of course, the stairs did descend into a single tunnel that only went in one direction and that was jim-dandy with him because the former FBI agent couldn’t have vanished into the ether. Eagerly he went down that tunnel expecting to come across the woman sooner or later and then he could figure out if she was involved with Marquita Thaddeus’s disappearance or not. He kind of thought that she wasn’t involved because she was a former FBI agent and all that. He was almost in a happy mood when he came to a fork in the tunnel.

  Bubba stopped and stared, abruptly losing his happy state of being. (Ain’t nothing easy in life is what Ma always said, and she’s right. Dangit.) He controlled his breathing and tilted his head, listening to each tunnel, hoping for a hint of noise that might reveal the correct direction. After a minute he saw the mark that Hornbuckle had made on the side of the right-hand tunnel. She had used something to scratch an arrow in the wall.

  No neon-orange paint? Was it because she wasn’t the one who used the neon paint to begin with?

  Bubba followed the right-hand tunnel and kept going until he reached another fork. There was another scratched arrow in a wall, so he followed it again. Then there was a descent and another fork and it felt like he was going down, down, down. Whoever had made these tunnels hadn’t given up at the first sign of obstructions. Sometimes the tunnels went around large impediments of rocks that had chip marks and indications that someone had once tried to go through them. There were also dozens of holes dug into the walls where smaller tunnels had been started and then deserted for some reason. Sometimes it was obvious that someone had gone in another direction in order to find whatever it was that they were looking for.

  If it had been gold, Bubba told himself, they were processing it out of the rocks and it wasn’t just lying around waiting for someone to pluck it up. (Not Sutter’s Mill in 1848 for sure.) The rail tracks provided evidence that someone had been pulling stuff out of the tunnels and using a cart to do it. It might have been silver or lignite. It could have been some kind of semi-precious stone. Hell, it could have been petrified palmwood. The fact that he knew that petrified palmwood was the Texas state stone didn’t escape him. (Obscure facts that only Bubba knows for $500, Alex.)

  Bubba stopped to drink some water from his bottle and in a very random, but not too random, manner thought about teenage girls in horror movies. When someone watched the movie they would think, Dang, that girl is dumb. She heard a cat outside and went out alone to investigate. She dint tell no one where she was goin’. She dint take a shotgun or even a can of mace. She just went outside all la-de-da, and surprise there was a fella with a hockey mask or maybe a fella with a chainsaw or maybe even a fella with metal hook fingers waiting for her to conveniently fall asleep. That girl was D-U-M-B, dumb. Everyone in the audience knew it. Some of ‘em were saying it to the screen, too. “Don’t do it, dumbass!” But she did, otherwise it would have bin a real short-like movie.

  Did any of them go into a dark dank tunnel where a monster was known to have lurked and recently, too? Had any of them been that dumb? Why, no, they hadn’t.

  You’re the teenage girl, Bubba Nathanial Snoddy, he told himself. You dint tell anyone. You dint bring a weapon unless you count your Swiss Army knife, and it’s goin’ to be a mite hard to tell the Boo to wait until you dig in your pocket, pull it out, and unfold an appropriate blade. And ifin you hear a chainsaw, you’re goin’ to do a whoopsiedoodle in your jockeys.

  He thought about it for a moment and then came I ain’t goin’ to trip and fall runnin’ away from no maddog killer. Not this here Texan.

  Bubba finished the bottle of water and looked around. He wasn’t lost yet because he’d kept an eye on the arrows that Hornbuckle had scratched in the wall. If he simply reversed course, he would be out of the tunnels within an hour or two. (How long have I bin in here?) Then he would go home, snuggle the wife and the hound, and wake up cheery in the morning ready to make brekky and brush teeth and watch a little show about children finding weirdness in the 80s.

  But Marquita would still be missing.

  Bubba said a very bad word. He was tired, sweaty, and having second and third thoughts about his decision-making capabilities, but what he wasn’t was a quitter. Hornbuckle didn’t look like she was in peak condition, so if she could do it, then he could, too.

  Bubba plodded forward ready to do battle with all things mysterious.

  He began to wonder if this set of tunnels even met up with the ones under the Hovious place. That wasn’t that farfetched, either. If a miner knew that some precious mineral was in the area, he or she might spread out to see if there were other veins or deposits. There could be a dozen such sites, but Hornbuckle had settled on this one.

  Metal detector. What kind of metals does a detector find?

  Bubba thought about it as he moved carefully through the darkness. There were enough treasure hunters with metal detectors traipsing through the woods on the Snoddy Estate that he could have asked any of them that very question. Mostly they knew they weren’t supposed to be there and fled before he could get close to them.

  His cousin, Fudge, who was also Brownie’s father, had a passing interest in the Snoddy gold once upon a time until he’d realized there really wasn’t any gold and the most valuable things in the mansion truly belonged to Miz Demetrice. He’d also talked about his metal detector. It was a fancy one that had been a gift from his wife, Virtna, on their tenth wedding anniversary. (Virtna also had an interest in all things antique but only as it applied to eBay and auction houses and not actually physically exerting herself in order to become rich. She much preferred the fall-into-my-hands-as-if-by-magic method to becoming wealthy, but then, so did many people Bubba knew.)

  There had been something about an electromagnetic field that transmitted into the ground. There had also been something about discrimination of objects, such as bottle caps or pull tabs. Most importantly, his detector could tell the difference between gold and silver and other metals.

  That meant if Hornbuckle was all excited, then it was likely something like gold or silver.

  Bubba stopped. Would Hornbuckle kill someone to protect her discovery? And would she be logical enough to realize that the mineral rights of the land under the Hovious place didn’t belong to her? In fact, it was possible that the mineral rights of the land under the Hovious place didn’t even belong to the cousin who’d inherited the property. It depended on the legal language of the land grant to begin with. The Snoddy Estate’s mineral rights did belong to the Snoddys but that was because they’d owned the land since well before the Civil War, and it was written into the land deeds originally when such things were more important. His understanding of the purpose for the change of that tenet was that if a small homeowner found some gold in his front yard, he wouldn’t be able to dig a mine and destroy the neighborhood. Or maybe the state just wanted to declare eminent domain and keep the gold for itself.

  Bubba scratched his head. Too much thinking made a fella cranky. Also hungry. And there isn’t any snackies to be found in these tunnels.

  Thump.

  There had been that bag of Cheetos that Precious had found, but Bubba hadn’t an earthly clue as to where that had gone. Mores the pity, he thought to himself
. Two bites of Cheetos would go a long ways when a fella has nothing.

  Thump.

  Also, there was that beef jerky that the fake Boo had hidden. A Boo would et jerky just like in those commercials. Boos would definitely et jerky, but would they wander down to The Flying W Truck Stop to buy some? And mebe Boos liked more than meat. Mebe they liked them their veggies, too.

  Thump.

  Isn’t Marquita a vegetarian?

  Thump.

  Would a vegetarian leave a package of beef jerky in the tunnels?

  Thump.

  No, she would not. Possibly a bag of baby carrots or an apple. Or nuts. Didn’t vegetarians like their nuts?

  Thump.

  And what in the bloody blue blazes is that thumping noise?

  Bubba turned his head and listened carefully. It sounded as if someone was beating something else in a heavy-duty manner. He threaded his way through the tunnels, taking several forks before he realized that he hadn’t marked his path, and he hadn’t noticed if there had been marks already on the walls, although he was getting closer to the source of the noise.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Well, it could be the Boo, he said to himself. It could be the generator that he’d seen under the Hovious place. It could be the caving expert. It could be little orange chinchilla men from Planet X who secretly coveted human women and also Nutter Butters.

  It wasn’t any of those things. It was Hornbuckle. When Bubba turned a corner, he found the former FBI agent slamming a pickax against the far wall. She hadn’t brought it with her from her Tahoe, so he assumed she had been down in this area before and left it there previously.

  Hornbuckle was also talking to herself between hits. “Know you’re down here. Know it. Just have to work harder.” Thump. Thump. Thump. “No one else talked about this gold. No one. No one. No one.” Thump. Thump. Thump. “This might be my last chance.” Thump. Thump. Thump. “You rotten son of a dung beetle.”

  Bubba wasn’t a psychologist, but he thought that Hornbuckle might be nuttier than a fruitcake. Ma would say that the woman had a few lug nuts rattling around in her hubcap. Miz Adelia might say she was conducting without an orchestra.

  He looked over the small room that had three other openings. A barrage of 2x4s shored up two of them, and he could tell that most of this was freshly dug, and the unmarred boards looked as though they had just come from the Home Depot in Tyler. Had Hornbuckle managed to do all of this in mere weeks?

  The thumping stopped, and Bubba’s eyes went back to Hornbuckle. She had turned toward him and was staring at him as if she had seen a ghost. A small portable lantern sitting in the middle of the room showed her wild eyes and her heaving breast as well as the sharp, shiny end of the pickax she was still holding. “You!” she snarled vehemently. “A stinking Snoddy. You’ve come to steal my find away. You’ve come to push me down a hole. Just like the others.”

  “Uh,” Bubba said because he found himself fresh out of gambits. Finally, he got out, “No, just looking for that lady, Marquita, you know? The one who hired you to consult and all?”

  “Marquita,” Hornbuckle raged. “Marquita didn’t want me down here. She wanted to take it away from me, too. I showed her just like I’ll show you.”

  “Calm down,” Bubba advised. “I ain’t got no interest in what you found down here.”

  Hornbuckle swung the pickax as if she was preparing to swing it at him, which was exactly what Bubba thought she was doing. “It’s mine! It’s mine! I won’t give it up!” she yelled. “I worked down here for a full week when I saw the fresh diggings! I don’t care who was here first because it’s mine now!”

  “How kin it be yours ifin the property don’t belong to you?” Bubba asked carefully and then wished he hadn’t said that. However, since he was on a thread, he followed it as if it made perfect sense. “You’d have to buy it first and then be positive you git the mineral rights and all that. I got a good lawyer who kin hook you up. His name is Petrie. Persistent fella, but don’t let him drink any Pink Pantie Droppers.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?” Hornbuckle asked sarcastically and slightly hysterically. “I’ve been dealing with the Hovious cousin and negotiating for the purchase. That idiot thinks that since the movie is being filmed here that he can double the price and knock me on my ass. And all the others have the same idea, but I fixed their little red wagons just like I did hers. They marked their spots, but I took all their stuff so they wouldn’t know where to go, and I rubbed out their marks.” She glanced at the wall of rock and dirt and one of her hands drifted over to touch it. “So it’s really mine,” she whispered. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”

  Bubba was reminded of a certain creature in a movie that coveted a certain ancient ring in a way that was certainly creepy. For certain y’all.

  Okay, Bubba told himself, I kin just back away and go back to the surface. Then I kin tell Sheriff John about this entrance and how the former FBI agent won’t be bringing the tuna salad to the MENSA annual picnic this year. Those caving fellas kin come take a look in here and see if Marquita got tangled up with Hornbuckle, and… “How did you show Marquita?” he asked slowly. “You dint hurt her, did you?”

  Hornbuckle laughed crazily. The sound made Bubba’s hackles raise right up. “I showed that woman! I showed her good!” She looked Bubba over and shifted left and then right as if judging how best to come at him. As she weighed about half of his weight and was about a foot shorter, he wasn’t truly worried, but that pickax looked nasty, and there was always the possibility of other weapons. He had to wonder if the woman was still carrying around her service weapon. Surely the FBI had taken that back along with her identification. Even if they had, it didn’t mean she hadn’t purchased another one. (Texas, remember?)

  “Where is she?” Bubba asked carefully.

  Hornbuckle jerked the pickax in the direction of the left most tunnel. “In there, Bubba Snoddy. Not really happy at the moment. I had to put duct tape over her mouth to get her to shut up. I think you should go back and check on her.”

  Ain’t that stupid, Bubba thought. “How’s about we make an arrangement for you to go treasure hunting on the Snoddy Estate? As soon as them fellas are done with the back ten acres, you’ll have free range to look and dig and explore to your heart’s content.”

  “60/40?” Hornbuckle asked before that honey badger expression crossed over her face again. “You’re not serious. You’re just trying to get me to capitulate.”

  “I’m serious,” Bubba asserted, trying to remember what capitulate meant. “We’ll let you have a good go. I’m telling you that gold that Colonel Snoddy was supposed to have brought back from the Yankees is just hooey, but there might be somethin’ there. Snoddys bin trotting over hill and dale for the last two hundred years. Got to be somethin’ good, am I right?”

  Hornbuckle nodded hesitantly. “I’d really like the chance to explore your property properly,” she said in an almost eager tone. “We can get ground penetrating radar and map out the original foundations of the buildings that don’t exist anymore. Who knows what goodies we can find.”

  There was an abrupt moaning that came from one of the exits of the tunnel they stood in and Bubba winced. It sounded like the Boo was coming or that someone was waking up from being unconscious. (Bubba did have some previous experience with that.)

  Hornbuckle snapped right back into the dangerous mode that made him so nervous, and she glanced over her shoulder to the left most tunnel, which was also the one with most of the 2x4s around it. Then she looked at him, hefted the pickax, and muttered, “You aren’t telling the truth.” Finally, Hornbuckle charged him, raising the pickax up high for the killing shot.

  It wasn’t Bubba’s most defining moment. He knew he was going to have to choose between hitting a woman or getting spiked with a pickax and he didn’t care for either option. He also didn’t have the time that he needed to properly consider his choices.

  Before Bubba could make up his mind, Hornbu
ckle was at him. The former FBI agent didn’t have a lot of room to move in, so she wasn’t at full speed nor was her pickax at the right part of its apogee in order to effectively pierce his skull.

  The hand with the flashlight knocked the pickax away from him, and Bubba stepped to the side as if the pair was waltzing in the tunnels under a creepy house with an inauspicious reputation. Hornbuckle couldn’t pull up in time. Her booted feet slipped in the mud on the tunnel floor, and without delay, she plowed into the wall. There was a loud and uncomfortable sounding cracking noise that gave him goose bumps down his arms as she collapsed into a heap at his feet.

  “Uh?” Bubba asked after a long moment. “Hornbuckle? You okay?”

  Hornbuckle was not okay. She’d knocked herself out. She still had a steady pulse and seemed to be breathing alright. He carefully adjusted her neck because she might have done something really bad to it and patted her down for other weapons in case she returned to consciousness with the intent to do him bodily harm. All she had was a brick hammer with its distinctive elongated claw, a GPS device, and a Spyderco folding knife with the signature hole in the blade for one-handed opening. Bubba took the hammer and the knife because he didn’t want to be pounded or stabbed, either.

  The moan from the tunnel came again, and Bubba left Hornbuckle on the floor of the tunnel. He went about ten feet before the entire tunnel stopped at a large hole. The floor was muddy, and he could hear the sound of water running. When he shone the flashlight beam down into the hole, he saw a mud-covered figure looking up at him with large ticked-off brown eyes. Every part of the figure was covered with mud, and it moaned at him in a way that indicated that it was very, very angry. Only the legs and feet moved as it splashed around a foot’s worth of blackened water.

  The Boo? Bubba thought for a second.