While working in the city, Buzz was known for his near ruthless efficiency. When it was needed, he became a work obsessed maniac who didn't stop until whatever case he was working on was done with. That was one of the reasons he had been transferred to Andy's Town; to put his good work into action where it was really needed, and to hopefully get him a little respite along the way.
Now, he would find and save Woody with that same efficiency.
The Deputy dumped the contents of the crate across the office floor, his eyes searching over the wave of old notes and files. The papers all pertained to Andy's town, its history, present and even some plans drawn up by the state governors concerning its future. Buzz ran his hand through the files, separating them so he could find what he was looking for at a glance. Quickly he found the stack of papers he needed; six or seven yellow sheets tied together with frayed string, along with a tag reading 'ordinance'.
He stood with the file in hand and brought it to his desk, leaving the avalanche of other documents heaped on the floor. He lit a lantern as he sat and quickly cut the messy knot keeping the sheets together, letting them spill out across the table top.
The maps all depicted Andy's Town and its surrounding area, but each during a different decade- the earliest one, which was faded and pale presented the town when it was only a couple of streets, barely providing for anything more than a handful of families. Most importantly however, the map showed a more comprehensively labelled depiction of the mountain range on the outskirts of town, exactly what Buzz was looking for.
These days no one in the town paid much mind to the mountains, they were just barren land, but apparently forty years earlier there had even been mines there.
The Deputy grabbed a magnifying glass and inched closer to the map, looking more closely at the poorly written notes and passage names.
He believed that what Woody had said to him the first day that had he arrived in town was correct- perhaps the reason the town had so many prolific criminals, was because they all worked in conjunction with one another. By cooperating, sharing information, maybe even teaming up, they could create more fool proof plans which assured their escape from the law. They probably had more going on behind the scenes than the Sheriff could ever even conceive of.
It wasn't even that much of a jump, Buzz had seen it all the time in the city- criminals rarely worked alone, crime was a network, the underbelly of society was one creature.
If he was correct, why then was he checking ordinance maps?
Bazooka Jane.
They had lost her in the canyon days earlier somehow; it had hardly seemed possible. Therefore, there had to be an explanation, a concealed entrance perhaps?
The Deputy's eyes skimmed the relief lines of the canyon carefully- there! An entrance to a mine, 'Stinky Pete's Mine'. (Now why was that so familiar to him?)
He checked it against the later maps, finding that the tunnel wasn't accounted for even a decade later. Swiftly he stood from the desk again and returned to the pile of spilled documents. Buzz found the mining manifest after a little routing around and opened it to the first page, finding that thankfully, there weren't all that many mines to choose from, even less with such unique names. He singled out the sheets pertaining to 'Stinky Pete's Mine' and went back to his desk again, already reading over them as he sat.
The mine had lasted a paltry four years, but not because it had been mined to exhaustion apparently. Instead, later notes spoke of cave-ins and collapses. Details of the related casualties were sparse, but the inference was that a lot of lives had been lost. The final report declared that after a monumental disintegration of cave walls in the mine, and somewhere in the range of fifty deaths due to one cataclysmic event, the place had been closed down and Stinky Pete himself, the mine owner, had been jailed.
That was where Buzz knew the name from!
During his and Woody's research he had read about the arrest of Stinky Pete. The Deputy turned and leaned in his chair, rifling around in a nearby box; eventually he identified the file he had gone over a few days earlier, and he opened it spread across the table top.
He winced; Pete was not a good man.
His entire work force, men, women and children, had effectively been slave labour. Each had worked day and night for next to no pay, they were even made to sleep in the tunnels they dug, being refused sunlight. No wonder there were so many collapses and causalities, the workers were hardly fit to lift their pickaxes, and when the inevitable cave-ins happened, there was nowhere for them to escape to.
Buzz shuddered at the thought of it, but he was at least glad that Stinky Pete had been detained for his misdeeds. The files even suggested that there had been talk of his execution by the gallows, but he couldn't find any confirmation of that, the Deputy instead preferred to think of Pete living out the rest of his days as an indentured slave, being put through the same torment he had imposed on others.
Regardless, it seemed that while the mines had been claimed by the state and then closed indefinitely, some chambers and shafts still existed, all just waiting behind a few wooden planks from what Buzz could tell.
That was it, it had to be where Bart and Betty, Jane and any other of the town's criminals were hiding, it had to be where Woody was being kept now.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, in that moment the Deputy couldn't help but let out a deep breath and smile softly to himself,
Now this was real detective work, and in Andy's Town of all places.
0o0o0
Buzz found the boarded-up passage into the mine fairly easily, it was concealed behind a few of the larger boulders and cast in shadows, but with the map in hand, it took him no more than five minutes to discover after arriving and dismounting from Buttercup.
The frame of wooden planks which had been used to barricade the entrance was no longer attached to the rock when he got there, instead it was just propped up vaguely over the gap it had originally been used to cover, giving the impression that the tunnel was still closed up.
Buzz lifted the boards out of the way with ease, finding that no dust or sand shifted as he did- so the frame had been moved recently, therefore someone had entered or left the mine probably in the last few hours.
As the Deputy stepped into the dark of the mine shaft, his gun felt heavier on his side than it ever had in his whole life. Woody had told him not long after arriving in Andy's Town, that carrying his weapon was often not necessary- it had taken a little getting used to, but after a few days Buzz learnt to simply leave it in the top drawer of his desk. Realistically, he didn't feel all that comfortable leaving it behind when he wasn't in the station, he knew that generally the public carried their own concealed firearms every day, and that people getting shot was an hourly incident in some areas of the country. The Sheriff's faith in people and indeed the town was infectious though apparently and as such, Buzz had barely touched the thing for a whole week.
Before leaving the station he did of course clean it piece by piece, as well as taking the time to fire a test shot once he was out of the immediate area about town- he snapped a piece of string tied between two fence posts from 50 fifty away.
Despite all of that, the Deputy found himself placing his hand over the firearm as he walked, half waiting to use it, half checking that it was in fact there.
After a few minutes of creeping through the tunnels, his eyes getting gradually accustom to the light, Buzz came to a parting of ways; it was a good old-fashioned fork in the road so to speak, one shaft led to the right and the other to the left.
The man licked his lips nervously and looked between the two options- there were no markings or indications, let alone plain signage to guide the way.
He wondered how people ever knew where to go in this place, although, he supposed that if the employees had been so discouraged from leaving, then a lack of signage made sense in a sort of morbid way. A tremor went through him at the thought of getting lost and dying in these mines too, although the idea that simply starvation and dehydration might kill him rather than being crushed by a cave-in or shot by some crazed criminal, was an odd comfort.
After a little thought and a deep sigh, the Deputy opted for the left tunnel at random and began down it, placing each foot with a carefully considered purpose. To his surprise, the shaft soon started to incline and brighten a bit- if the mine weren't set into the canyon wall, the very mountain itself, Buzz would've thought that he was heading to the surface again already.
In the newfound light he was surrounded by, no matter how dim it was, he could now make out the cave walls and their warm orange colour. As unremarkable and uniform as they were, he had never been in a mine before and so the pale scuff scar mark from pickaxes intrigued him, as well as the way the rock sparkled slightly, which left him in an odd sort of wonderment. All of that dried up however when he realised that he hadn't seen a single support beam against the walls since entering the place.
The man let out a shaky breath and involuntarily quickened his pace, hoping to find something before the whole mine fell down about him.
In the eerie silence of the tunnels, every sound was amplified. Buzz had become accustom to his own footsteps after only a few minutes, so of course the vague sounds of whispers spoken far ahead of him caught his attention immediately.
Instinctively he pulled his gun from his holster and gripped it tightly. With his knees now bent, lowering his centre of gravity and leaving him steadier and more prepared, he dashed as quietly as he was able towards the hint of voices.
The shaft gradually levelled out after a minute, and the Deputy discovered more or less where the growing light, as well as the sound of conversation seemed to be coming from. Ahead, although the tunnel came to something like an end, there was a large opening which appeared to look out over a lower chamber in the mine- no doubt a chamber that he would've found by taking the right in the earlier fork.
Buzz crept forward, keeping against the wall as he headed towards the opening; he faltered once more at the sound of speech, but continued when he was sure that what he heard wasn't an alert due to someone discovering him.
He could almost make out what was being said now, words stood out, although full sentences were a little too difficult to distinguish. Whatever was being said, it sounded like an argument at the very least, or a one-sided scolding perhaps. The man soon came to a stop when he was in a position to see into the chamber, and he peered down into it, straining his eyes in the still sparse light.
The space was full of old mining equipment like wooden carts for moving the stone and cumbersome tools, most of which were too rusted to be salvaged; it had all been haphazardly pushed to the edges of the chamber, allowing the cavern to take on a new purpose- a lair coming meeting room apparently. A few chairs had been set around, along with one large table which was covered in papers, there were also dozens of stacked crates dotted about, most of which Buzz assumed were full of stolen goods.
Presently, the most important matter was the five figures occupying the room however; One Eyed Bart, One Eyed Betty, a familiar looking cowboy, Bazooka Jane, and a large, imposing man in a black bowler that the Deputy could not see much of, but whom he took as the so called 'Evil Dr Porkchop'.
If he was still working with the force of the city police department behind him, this would be a raid, and not a single one of them would get away- it was a perfect opportunity.
In this potion though, he had to be smart, he had to take chances where he could, stay concealed where possible and collect all the information available to him. He couldn't afford to do anything rash.
"Taking the Sheriff was a stupid idea" Dr Porkchop announced, standing from his seat,
Bart and Betty seemed to shrink back, while Jane nodded her agreement,
"We've already established that. But it's too late now, what's done is done", the large man made his way over to the table and picked up a thick file which he brandished towards the bandit couple, "We'll make it work, using him as leverage- but if it doesn't, you two will pay for the consequences"
Bart's eyes widened and he wetted his lips nervously,
Betty stepped forward however, speaking for the two of them, "The Deputy won't stick around for much longer, he's not the sort to try and take us on. He's spineless"
"How do you know!" Dr Porkchop shouted, making everyone in the cavern startle, including Buzz himself. "You don't know this man, none of us do"
"B-but he's Woody's deputy" she replied with a stutter, having not entirely recovered from his outburst,
Her boss sighed and shook his head, "While the Sheriff can be about as wet as a swine's behind, it doesn't mean that his deputy is like that. Woody didn't train him, he's not from here; he was transferred here, and from the city no less"
"Are city copper's that different boss?" the cowboy asked once a moment of silence had passed.
Dr Porkchop huffed, "Oh yeah, I've dealt with city police before, those officers really think they're tough shit"
One Eyed Bart frowned, "So you think he's going to be trouble then?", he looked particularly worried now,
"Probably" he replied, going back to his chair, "Then again, if he is, there's an easy fix- we kill the Sheriff and put his corpse in the deputy's room"
Silence fell in the stone chamber, as all of its inhabitants exchanged uneasy looks.
"Or-" their leader said, catching their attention again, "-we just kill the Deputy and let the Sheriff go again- he's never given us much trouble before", he then nodded, looking straight across the room to Jane, who was stood right at the entrance of the cavern, "Acceptable?"
Thinking about it for a moment, the redhead finally gave a curt nod,
"Good" Dr Porkchop said, "Go on then, off with you all, we've got plenty to do"
With that, everyone started to move from their positions, all heading for the exit. Jane was the first to get away of course, slipping out of sight down the tunnel before anyone could even get a chance to talk more with her.
Buzz stood quickly from where he was crouched and started at a quiet jog back down the passage, making the split-second decision to take this opportunity which had presented itself.
It took him only a few minutes to make it back through the mine and to the fork that he had first encountered upon entering the place. With his gun still drawn and held low, he came to a stop at the mouth of the left-hand tunnel and leant with his back against the wall, waiting.
He could hear faint footsteps echoing through the other passage, quickly getting louder as the figure approached.
The Deputy could feel a bead of sweat crawling down the side of his face, collecting on his jaw and streaming down it to his chin.
Thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes, but as soon as the shape of Bazooka Jane came into view, time seemed to over correct and miraculously speed up.
As the woman lifted her foot to take another step, Buzz shot forwards and grabbed her, using her briefly interrupted balance to yank her backwards, back into the tunnel he had been waiting in.
Jane yelped and struggled, but the man quickly placed a hand over her already covered mouth, the other lifting his gun to place the cool barrel against her warm throat. She immediately stopped moving at the feeling of the gun pressed into her skin, and she lifted her hands in surrender.
"No moving" Buzz said, talking below a whisper and pulling her further back still,
She was taller than him -as most people were- so her back was curved awkwardly with his hands around her head; she winced in plain but didn't make any noise, allowing herself to be guided by him.
Soon, more figures came into view, leaving the right-hand tunnel and heading for the main exit- first the cowboy, and then Bart and Betty,
"Where'd Jane get to?" the cowboy asked, falling behind as he stalled,
"She probably rushed off, she never hangs about that one" Betty replied, waving her hand dismissively,
"Yeah, she's not one for conversation" Bart agreed,
The man shrugged and nodded his convincement at what they said, making to follow them out of the mine once more.
A minute or so later once they were gone, and it was clear the no one else was coming, Buzz shoved Jane away from him and raised his gun instead, aiming it at her head. She turned slowly, her hands still raised in surrender, and she regarded him, her bright eyes obscured by the brim of her hat,
"Bazooka Jane, I'm placing you under arrest"