: “Well, Lass. I’ve been looking. I found this.” He opened a waxed-paper sandwich wrapper and showed me four cigarette butts, Camels.
.” I reached for them, but he closed the paper wrapper and the package disappeared into his pocket before I could protest.
“I’ll be holdin’ on to these,” he said.
We had made it inside. The cave was just a high-ceilinged chamber about twenty by forty feet.
Bletch and Snap were a well-oiled team. Bletch’s voice had already changed and his deep baritone bounced off the cave walls. “There’s another room, you know.”
“What!” came a chorus from the rest of us, sounding hollow with a faint echo as is common in caves.
Ratchet didn’t want to stand out like a sore thumb. Surveillance required melting into the scenery. The outfit channeled Rosie the Riveter. Rosie, as you may have heard, was another heroine in American history.
“What is all this about, Blue. I’ve never seen you so rattled.”
“I will let you hear it from Janet. I have some ideas of what to do, but I respect you, my elder, and need your wisdom. And Janet needs your understanding.