🌵⛏ MYSTERY MANOR ADVENTURE
BILL’S BLESSING
PART 2 — TARA’S PERSPECTIVE
Pickaxe in the Prairie
There are moments in life when you are presented with something extraordinary and must decide what kind of person you are going to be.
DeNae sees a mysterious pickaxe sticking out of the ground and thinks:
Potential hazard.
I see a mysterious pickaxe sticking out of the ground like Excalibur beneath an enormous western sky and think:
Obviously mine.
This is why our partnership works.
Wild Bill stood outside the saloon watching us.
At least, I was approximately ninety-eight percent sure it was Wild Bill.
The remaining two percent allowed for Mystery Manor sending us backward in time only to meet a completely unrelated cowboy with excellent facial hair.
“You gonna pull it?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“No,” DeNae said.
Bill grinned.
I liked him already.
DeNae folded her arms.
“We need more information.”
“It’s a pickaxe.”
“That has transported us through time.”
“Allegedly.”
She gestured at the horses.
“There were cars behind the Manor ten minutes ago.”
“Strong circumstantial evidence.”
“There is a chicken walking through the general store.”
I looked.
There was.
“That seems unhygienic.”
Bill walked toward us.
Up close, he looked exactly like somebody who belonged in a story people would still be telling 150 years later.
Dusty boots.
Weathered coat.
Eyes that looked amused even when the rest of him didn’t.
He stopped beside the pickaxe.
“That old thing’s been waiting a while.”
“For me?” I asked.
“For somebody.”
DeNae pointed toward it.
“Why is it stuck in the ground?”
Bill shrugged.
“Because that’s where I put it.”
That was somehow less helpful than I expected.
He rested one hand on the handle.
“Found my first real streak with this pick. Not the biggest strike anybody ever made. Wasn’t the richest man alive afterward.”
He looked toward the mountains.
“But it changed my luck.”
Then he looked back at us.
“Years later, I gave it to a boy with empty pockets and more nerve than sense.”
I nodded approvingly.
DeNae glanced at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Bill continued.
“Boy came back months later carrying gold.”
“And then he hung the pickaxe in the saloon,” I said.
Bill’s eyebrows lifted.
“You’ve heard the story.”
“We read it on a menu.”
He stared at me.
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
DeNae stepped in.
“According to the story, the tool became a kind of talisman. One prospector passed it to another.”
Bill nodded.
“That’s the idea.”
“Then why is it out here?”
His smile disappeared.
“Because somebody took it.”
Oh.
Now we had a mystery.
Much better.
Bill looked toward the mountains.
“Three nights ago, somebody pulled that pick off the saloon wall. Next morning I found it right here.”
He kicked the red dirt beside it.
“Been stuck ever since.”
“You couldn’t pull it out?” I asked.
“I could.”
I paused.
“That ruins the entire Sword in the Stone situation.”
“The what?”
“Nothing.”
Bill crouched and brushed dirt from the iron head.
“Problem isn’t getting it out.”
“Then what is?” DeNae asked.
“Every time somebody does…”
He looked toward the distant ridge.
“…it points somewhere different.”
I immediately grabbed the handle.
“Tara!”
Too late.
I pulled.
The pickaxe slid from the earth as easily as if someone had placed it there five minutes ago.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then the iron head jerked in my hands.
Hard.
“WHOA.”
The handle twisted.
I nearly dropped it.
The pickaxe swung around until the point faced northwest.
Toward the mountains.
Somewhere far beyond the pine forest.
A flicker of golden light flashed across the metal.
Then vanished.
I looked at DeNae.
She looked at Bill.
Bill looked at me.
I smiled.
“So we’re going gold hunting.”
“No,” DeNae said.
Bill said, “Yep.”
I pointed at him.
“See?”
“That is not how group decision-making works.”
Bill chuckled and started walking toward the hitching rail.
“You ladies know how to ride?”
“Yes,” I said.
DeNae said, “Define know.”
Twenty minutes later, we were riding out of town.
The landscape changed as we climbed.
Open prairie became pine forest.
Red earth turned darker beneath the trees.
Towering rock formations rose in the distance, glowing rust-red beneath the afternoon sun.
And beyond them—
something enormous rose against the sky.
A sheer stone tower.
Flat-topped.
Ancient.
Watching the land.
I stopped my horse.
“DeNae.”
“I see it.”
“It looks like—”
“Do not say aliens.”
“I was going to say Devil’s Tower.”
Pause.
“Which aliens have definitely visited.”
“Tara.”
“Fine.”
Bill rode ahead of us.
The pickaxe was strapped across my back.
Every few minutes it gave a faint little metallic hum.
Like it knew where we were going.
Eventually we reached a fork in the trail.
Bill stopped.
“Which way?”
I looked at him.
“You’re Wild Bill.”
“Probably.”
“Shouldn’t you know?”
“Nope.”
DeNae muttered something about historical reputations being misleading.
I pulled the pickaxe free.
The iron head swung toward the right-hand trail.
We followed.
An hour later, it pointed left.
Then toward a ravine.
Then through a narrow break between two walls of red rock.
Every time we followed it, the landscape grew wilder.
Until finally the trail ended.
Ahead of us stood an enormous boulder.
Nothing else.
No mine.
No cave.
No glittering pile of gold.
Just one extremely disappointing rock.
DeNae looked at me.
“Well?”
I held up the pickaxe.
It began vibrating.
“Oh.”
Bill dismounted.
“So that’s new.”
The pickaxe pulled downward.
Toward the earth directly beneath my boots.
I raised it.
DeNae backed away.
“That expression worries me.”
“What expression?”
“The one you get immediately before property damage.”
“This is historical property damage.”
“That is not better.”
I swung.
CLANG.
The pickaxe struck stone.
A golden crack spread through the ground.
We all froze.
Another crack appeared.
Then another.
Light poured through them.
Bill whispered something I couldn’t hear.
The earth trembled.
And beneath our feet, an outline slowly appeared.
Not a gold vein.
Not a mine shaft.
A door.
A massive wooden door buried beneath the red earth.
Across it was carved the same symbol from the pickaxe handle.
A four-leaf clover.
And beneath it:
WHAT WAS GIVEN IN LUCK
MUST NEVER BE TAKEN IN GREED.
DeNae read it twice.
“Well.”
I looked at her.
“That seems ominous.”
“Yes.”
“But treasure-door ominous.”
“Yes.”
“Which is much better than ordinary ominous.”
“No.”
Bill removed his hat.
For the first time since we’d met him, he didn’t look amused.
“I’ve seen that mark before.”
I turned.
“Where?”
He stared at the buried door.
“On the first claim where I ever found gold.”
The pickaxe glowed in my hand.
Then somewhere below us—
KNOCK.
DeNae took one step backward.
“No.”
Another knock.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
I grinned.
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Tara.”
“What?”
“We are not opening the mysterious underground door knocking back at us.”
I looked at Bill.
He looked at me.
Then both of us looked at DeNae.
She stared at us.
“You two have known each other for less than three hours and I already dislike this alliance.”
I handed Bill the pickaxe.
He handed it back.
“Your adventure.”
Fair.
I wrapped both hands around the handle.
Above us stretched endless blue sky.
Behind us towered red cliffs and pine-covered mountains.
And somewhere far in the distance, waiting beneath the summer sun, sat a little Wild West saloon containing one very important unfinished glass of whiskey.
I raised the pickaxe.
“Ready?”
DeNae sighed.
“No.”
Bill smiled.
“Close enough.”
And I swung.
⛏
⭐ TARA’S HANDY DANDY WESTERN NOTES
TODAY’S ORIGINAL OBJECTIVES
☑ Walk through Wild West village
☑ Drink whiskey
ACTUAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
☑ Travel through time
☑ Meet Wild Bill
☑ Find legendary pickaxe
☑ Pull legendary pickaxe from ground
☑ Become chosen holder of legendary pickaxe*
☑ Ride into mountains
☑ Locate secret underground door
☑ Discover ominous greed warning
☑ Hear something knock from underneath it
☐ Open door
☐ Find gold
☐ Prove aliens somehow involved
☐ Drink whiskey
*DeNae disputes wording.
She is wrong.
HANDY DANDY RULE #51:
If a magical pickaxe points toward a mountain…
FOLLOW THE PICKAXE.
Especially if there might be gold.
And whiskey afterward.
🥃🥃
🌵⛏ BILL’S BLESSING — ENDING
The Claim Beneath the Door
The buried door opened with a groan that sounded deeply unhappy about being disturbed.
Naturally, I took that as encouragement.
DeNae took it as evidence.
Wild Bill took it as Tuesday.
Beyond the door, stone steps descended into cool darkness. The pickaxe glowed faintly in my hand, just enough to illuminate old timber supports, rusted tools, and walls scratched with names that had probably belonged to men with very strong opinions about maps.
At the bottom, the passage opened into an abandoned claim.
Bill stopped.
His expression changed.
No grin.
No teasing.
Just quiet recognition.
“This was mine,” he said.
His first real claim.
The one where he had found the streak that changed everything.
Except there was no gold.
At least, none that we could see.
I held up the pickaxe.
Nothing.
I tapped the wall.
Nothing.
I swung at a promising-looking seam.
Nothing.
DeNae folded her arms.
“Perhaps it doesn’t respond to enthusiasm.”
“That seems like a design flaw.”
Bill crouched beside an old wooden box half-buried in dust.
Inside were a few scraps of paper, a broken lantern, and a tiny leather pouch.
He opened it.
Empty.
Then he smiled.
“I remember this.”
He turned the pouch over in his hand.
“When I left here, I thought the gold was the luck.”
The pickaxe gave a faint hum.
All three of us looked at it.
Bill continued.
“But the gold ran out. The claim dried up. Money came and went.”
The glow grew brighter.
“What stayed,” he said, “was what somebody had given me before I ever found any of it. A chance. A little help. Somebody believing I might amount to something.”
DeNae looked at the pickaxe.
“So the blessing wasn’t the tool.”
Bill shook his head.
“No.”
I looked at the carved clover.
“It was passing the chance along.”
The entire mine lit gold.
Not bright.
Not blinding.
Just warm.
Veins appeared in the rock all around us, thin ribbons of gold that had been invisible seconds earlier.
DeNae stared.
I smiled.
“Oh, that is satisfying.”
Bill laughed.
The pickaxe had not shown us where the gold was.
It had waited until somebody understood why the gold mattered.
Not to keep it.
To use it.
To help the next person.
Bill stepped back from the wall.
“Take what you need.”
I looked at DeNae.
She looked at me.
Then at the glittering veins.
“We do not need nineteenth-century gold.”
“Technically—”
“No.”
“Fine.”
I chipped off one tiny piece.
“For historical documentation.”
“For your pocket.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
Bill shook his head, smiling.
Then the pickaxe suddenly flashed.
The mine vanished.
The red cliffs vanished.
The horses vanished.
And DeNae and I were standing outside the Mystery Manor saloon in full summer sunshine.
Modern lights.
Modern signs.
A golf cart in the distance.
No temporal displacement.
No abandoned claim.
No Wild Bill.
I looked down.
The pickaxe was back in the ground.
Exactly where we had found it.
DeNae looked at me.
“Do not touch it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I cannot be held accountable for thoughts.”
We went straight to the saloon.
No detours.
No mysterious objects.
No glowing doors.
No chickens.
We ordered two whiskeys.
DeNae raised hers.
“To quiet summer afternoons.”
I clinked my glass against hers.
“May we never have one.”
Then someone sat down at the card table behind us.
Black coat.
Dark hat.
Long hair.
Mustache.
Gun belt.
I froze.
DeNae slowly turned.
The man began dealing cards.
I whispered, “Is that—”
“No.”
“He looks exactly like—”
“It’s probably an actor.”
“Reenactment?”
“Deadwood saloon. Famous card game. Entirely reasonable.”
“Wild Bill’s final hand?”
“Probably.”
The man looked up.
Straight at us.
I lifted my whiskey.
He smiled.
Then winked.
DeNae stared at him for a long moment.
I took a drink.
“So.”
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re going to say it was him.”
“It was him.”
DeNae drank her whiskey.
For once, she did not argue.
Behind us, the cards hit the table.
And somewhere outside—
very softly—
CLANG.
Отредактировано Tara 031cde (2026-08-30 21:36:55)
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