Rose scurried after the Doctor struggling to get her parasol unfurled before the sun baked her brains. She got it open and caught up with his longlegged stride.

"Why are we going to the mines?" she asked. "I thought we were meant to be looking for that rabbit?"

"Rose, when that rabbit disappeared, it didn't just pop down a rabbit hole or scramble under a porch, it literally disappeared." He ticked off items as he walked. "It's a kachina, a Hopi spirit. The Hopi are known for their silver jewelry. Tombstone is a silver-mining town. I'd be very surprised if the two weren't related."

"But, what's that got to do with dead babies and gardens?"

"This is the kachina that brings fertility and spring. Obviously, both those things are going wrong."

The mine office was a tall, thin building on the other edge of town. A narrow porch led up to a glass fronted door, Rose tried the handle but it was locked. She cupped her hands and pressed her face to the dusty glass. There was a desk inside, and a chair, a file cabinet and not much else. The Doctor tinked his fingernail on the glass beside her head. She pulled back and looked.

There was a small placard hanging inside the glass of the door, it said, "Gone to Lunch."

"So what now?"

The Doctor nodded over to the wide board fence that backed the building, loud noises of industry were coming from inside. The gate had a huge padlock, but the Doctor quickly soniced it open. They pushed open the wide wooden gates to reveal a busy courtyard. Huge mounds of ore were piled around the sides of a small hill. Men were shoveling ore, pushing carts, tending tools, and there were guards lined all along the high pallasade wooden fence. A guard turned and saw them and scowled, raising his shotgun. He jerked it upward in a clear message, and they raised their hands.

"How did you get in here?" he demanded, looking past them at the open gate, the chain hanging free.

The Doctor gave him an innocent look and looked back at the gate. "It was open." The Doctor turned back, giving him his best "Who me?" look. Rose gritted her teeth to keep her face straight. Despite the Doctor's hamming, there was something decidedly not funny about being on the open end of a loaded shotgun.

"We just wanted to see the mines." Rose said.

The man lowered his shotgun slightly, apparently deciding they weren't dangerous. "We ain't open for sightseeing, and you don't work here, so git. You wanna see the mines, you talk to the boss."

"There was no one in the office," Rose pointed out.

"Well, I'm right sorry about that miss, they probably went out to get a bite to eat. But I can't have strangers just walking into a silver mine. You go on out and wait at the porch. Or better yet, go on down to Clancey's," he motioned with the gun with one hand, much more polite, and holding it casually now. Although Rose noticed there were two other guards farther back that were keeping them covered. "Boss usually stops at Clancey's for lunch. You ask him if it's okay." He herded them toward the gate.

"What now," Rose whispered as they walked ahead of their guard. "Sneak in?"

The Doctor nodded toward the entrance to the mine, an eight foot hole dug into the side of the hill. Rose watched as one miner flattened himself against the side of the entrance, as another pushed a wood sided cart up the tracks out of the mine. There was barely room for them both.

The guard ushered them out of the gates and reclosed the doors, taking the padlock and chain with him. The Doctor tipped his hat mockingly to the empty doors, and any eyes watching. "There's no way to sneak into a mine. No room, no place to hide. Just straight hewn out tunnels."

"So what now?"

"Back to the Tardis, I think."

The Tardis materialized in a small cave. The door opened and Rose stepped out still in her gingham dress and bonnet. "Where are all the miners?" she asked back over her shoulder as the Doctor stepped out.

"I went forward a few hours, it's the middle of the night. Everyone's asleep."

Rose looked around and saw the wood timbers bracing the roof, and the unlit lanterns hanging off hooks. Wondering how she could see underground, she turned and saw the Doctor had somehow turned the Tardis roof light on, its blue light illuminated a small gallery, a wide spot in the tunnel that came toward them in the front, and continued on behind the Tardis.

"So what are we looking for then?" she asked, casually picking up a pick ax and giving it a couple of experimental swings.

"Anything out of the ordinary. Like this." He nodded at the opposite wall. It was just rock from what Rose could see. It was threaded through with white and green streaks that she supposed was the silver and there were some black patches running down the wall that looked like someone had thrown sooty water on it.

"Silver oxide," the Doctor said, seeing her look. He swiped his fingertips through the soot and tapped her on the nose, leaving a black streak. She scowled at him and scrubbed at her face. "Doesn't that mean there's water getting in here?" she asked.

The Doctor stared at her, wide eyed, "Very good!" She smiled smugly, for having surprised him. "But no. Probably just bad ventilation, too much humidity building up from the miner's breathing, condensing on the walls. "That, or they're throwing coffee on the walls. No. This is the interesting bit." He tapped a wide silver vein that ran down the wall, parallel to the floor. It was about three feet wide, someplaces wider, some narrower, but mostly level and never smaller than three feet. Other veins ran off of it here and there, but this was obviously the main vein the miners were working.

"It's a silver vein in a silver mine, what's so strange about that?" Her eyes got wide. "You don't mean they're mining his spaceship!"

He gave her an aggrieved look.

"Sorry," she grumbled, looking down. She kicked at the dun colored, uneven floor.

"You've got spaceships on the brain. No, this is natural ore, unrefined," he ran his fingers along the rock wall, studying the seam, "traces of gold," She looked up at that, leaning to look past his shoulder. His bulk threw a gunslingers shadow across the wall from the Tardis light behind him, "If I can analyze a sample," she heard him mutter and she saw a pinpoint of blue light flare in the shadow in front of him, as he activated the sonic screwdriver. He pressed it to the seam of ore, angling it on a jutting bit, to chisel a piece off. He buzzed the sonic screwdriver. Blue lightning flashed down the whole length of the tunnel seam.

"Whoa!" He jumped back, pushing Rose back behind him. The silver in the wall gleamed electric blue for a moment then faded.

"What was that?" Rose asked, the hair on her nape still standing up.

A wind blew down the tunnel. Startled, they turned into it, peering down the black deserted tunnel. The wind grew, pressing the Doctor's coat back against his chest, causing Rose's hat to flap and jerk against its ribbon under her chin. As the wind grew, they could hear a high breathy undertone, the playing of an evil flute, sounding like the enraged snarling of a cougar, going from ghostly to all too real. The sound grew, coming closer. Rose felt her muscles lock, paralyzed with terror, her eyes straining to see the approaching wildcat, even while her rational mind told her there was nothing there.

Her body wasn't listening, she grabbed the Doctor's sleeve in a clawed hand. The sound grew and grew, the wind howling around them until even the walls began to shake, the stones vibrating against each other as the sound rattled their bones. Dust started filtering down from the roof. A stone fell. More debris, gravel bouncing off the rims of their hats.

"Get inside the Tardis, Rose!" The Doctor yelled over the tumult. She was looking right at him but could barely hear him. Her muscles were locked, too terrified to move. The snarling was all around her now, clawing at her brain, activating the instincts of a small mammal hiding in its burrow.

"Rose! Now!" The Doctor shoved her toward the Tardis, forcing her to stumble or fall.

The wind raised a high piercing shriek, like souls being branded in hell. Rose sobbed, covered her ears, closed her eyes and ran. The Tardis door fell open under her hand and she fell inside, crawling forward to give the Doctor room, not thinking, just reacting. The sting of the ramp grating against her palms, the feel of the Doctor's boots bumping against her ankles as he turned and slammed the doors shut, were her only connections to reality.

The snarling wind continued screaming outside, she could hear it, even over the hum of the Tardis console engaging and the Time Rotor starting up. Ghostly screams of rage clawed at the exterior until the rotor fell and the Tardis slipped into the vortex.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor leaned down to look at her, crouched halfway up the Tardis ramp. She was laying in a pool of her skirts at the end of the ramp, her fingers gripped into the mesh as if she feared she'd be sucked out of the Tardis by the maniacal wind.

It was quiet.

She looked up at the Doctor's face, her eyes huge, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked around. She was safe in the Tardis. The Doctor tipped his hat back, crouching before her in his black leather duster. She could see the silver threads tracing loopy patterns on his cowboy boots in front of her nose. He held down a large, sinewy hand to her. "Need some help?"

She grabbed onto his hand like a lifeline. The Doctor's hand. Big, cool, hard, safe. He lifted her up as if she weighed nothing. He looked at her eyes, then unexpectedly pulled her into his arms. He hugged her, hard.

The feel of him wiped all traces of shock out of her mind. Hard, tall, strong as a tree, and infinitely comforting, all she wanted to do was burrow closer.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

"Good."


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