Sam ran through the darkness of the Cheyenne Crossing Caves for what seemed like an unrealistic amount of time. Even more unrealistic was how, despite the darkness and extremely rugged and uneven terrain of the caverns around him, Sam failed to run into a wall or get more serious injury from the sharp rocks sticking out every which way. It just seemed luck was on his side that day.
Well, not really. He was being pursued by an angry cave buffalo, and his companion had suddenly gone silent to meet a fate unknown. That actually made things pretty awful for Sam at that moment. But at least being impaled on a stalagtite was not also part of his current problems. Sometimes one had to think of the little things.
The cave buffalo let out deep roar; it clearly had Sam in its sight and was not planning to let up in its pursuit. It was just by pure happenstance the creature hadn't managed to reach the racing man yet- its four legs certainly gave it an advantage in speed over Sam's two. As the buffalo lowered its head, intent to impale Sam while it had him in its sights, Sam suddenly took off running to his left in an attempt to shake the beast. Once more, he managed to avoid running into any of the cave's jagged edges as he made the turn. In a sense his quick change of direction paid off, for Sam avoided the painful possibly of a horn through him, though the buffalo's low-light vision meant it could see Sam much better than Sam could see it. It noted his changed path and likewise turned to follow.
It did nothing to help Sam at this current moment that he was not in the best of shape. That wasn't to say he was totally unprepared; he was no slouch, as stealing horses and fleeing states to avoid marshals did require some physical fitness. But Sam was not exactly used to running at top speeds for the length of time this chase was turning out to be. His legs were getting tired. He could only go so much farther.
From behind him, Sam could feel the heat of the cave buffalo's snorts; the creature must have nearly been upon him, he figured.
I hope Flat can find my body, Sam grimly thought to himself, assuming the end nigh, my mother is going to be so sad when she learns, even if I was always a bad son and did not write her often enough.
It was at that moment fate finally caught up to him. As Sam raced in the dark, a nearby stalagmite, sharp as a knife at its tip, jabbed into the horse thief's leg as he passed by it.
"Yowch!" Sam exclaimed at the sudden burning pain. The stab caused him to stumble, which sent him flying headfirst through a narrow passageway that he would not have entered otherwise, albeit because he couldn't see shit.
He slammed into the ground with an oomph, and quickly spun around, expecting to find the hooves of the cave buffalo upon him. But instead, he found nothing- sure, he could hear the cave bison nearby, snorting and stomping, trying to get to him, but the passageway he had unintentionally fallen into was too small a space for such a large animal. Try as it may, headbutting the rocks and pushing itself forward, the creature could not get in. Sam, it seemed, was safe for now.
Of course, Sam didn't fully know this. It was still too dark for him to see what was going on. He could put two and two together to know something had stopped the cave buffalo, but he didn't know what. If only he could see what was going on...
Then a thought suddenly occured to him. He had been so stupid- this whole time, he had had a small box of matches in his pocket! He had picked some up for fire-starting purposes when he and Flat had left Kansas; they had needed to camp some nights off-the-grid while making their getaway. Since arriving in Fox Den he hadn't had need for matches so that he had a box from before had skipped his mind, but there was no reason to think the matches weren't in his jacket's pocket still. Quickly he fumbled for them and was delighted when he felt the box's familiar rectangular shape.
"Ha ha haaaa," Sam laughed to himself, striking a match and holding it before him. The light shown bright, allowing him to see the narrow passageway and the unhappy cave bison glaring through it at him. The creature was even more aggressive with the match lit, snorting and groaning, trying hard to get through but clearly unable. For that, Sam was grateful.
"Not today, pardner," he said to the cave buffalo, "you'll have to try again later. If you get a later. I'll do what I can to avoid that."
The match was burned to its end so Sam lit another one. This time his goal was to shine a light on his leg and see just what damage had been done. To his chagrin, the light revealed a large amount of blood on his pants leg with a tear suggesting a deep wound. The rock had got him good.
"Great," he muttered to himself, wincing as he leaned forward to get a better look while keeping the match up high. Yes, the cut was a nasty one, and did not seem like it planned to let up on its bleeding anytime soon. He would need to do something about that and stop the blood loss or he was going to be in trouble.
He waved the match around, looking for anything ground his new surroundings he could use to wrap the wound. All he found to his left was more piles of rocks. To his right all he found was-
Sam froze. In the light of the match, not more than five feet away, stood a man. A very tall man. He was dressed all in gray and even with the limited light had a significantly more muscular right arm than left arm. He also had a face that looked like a cat had barfed numerous hairballs on it after scratching it up and knotted, unkempt hair.
The man, with his dark, heavy eyes was staring back at Sam with an uncertain expression.
Before Sam could truly process what he was seeing, the second match burned down, causing him to involuntarily drop it as it got too hot fir his fingers to hold. At once he was returned to darkness.