Outlaw-Creek--Excerpt

Outlaw Creek Excerpt:

Sawtell felt the floor of the abandoned mine shift slightly, then the bottom dropped out like the trapdoor of a gallows. He experienced weightlessness, heard the crack and boom of cascading rocks, then both felt and sensed a rumble like a summer thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountain high country.

Somewhere removed from the deafening roar he heard the voice of his partner, Cat Bonner, shrieking his name. Clouds of billowing, chalky limestone dust stung his eyes and threatened to plug his nose as he catapulted down. The vision of a near endless fall to the bottom of a thousand-foot shaft seared his brain.

A human body falls at a rate of one hundred-twenty five miles an hour after it reaches terminal velocity in twelve seconds. Sawtell's mind processed that useless bit of information in the millisecond before he even thought to cry out.