The Daredevil Snared

by Stephanie Laurens

  Hillsythe leaned forward. “If you could manage that, it will help enormously. If at all possible, we want to keep Muldoon out of the mine for the rest of the day.”

  “Can you word up one of the children ahead of time,” Caleb asked, “so that when Muldoon is with you and the children, if he makes noises about coming to the mine, that child can run ahead and warn us?”

  “Of course.” Kate looked from one man to the other. “Is it really that important—keeping Muldoon out of the mine?”

  Caleb’s features hardened. “If we want to bury the truth about the lower level, then yes, it is.”

  They didn’t have time for more. They’d finished their meals, and a stir on the barracks’ porch heralded the re-emergence of Muldoon and Dubois. The women rose. With one last glance at Caleb, Kate went with the others, trooping back to the cleaning shed.

  Caleb fell in with Phillipe and several of their men as they made their way back into the mine.

  As they turned into the second tunnel, Caleb glanced at Phillipe. “We need to get this done today.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me. Muldoon...makes my skin itch. Dubois is bad enough, and undoubtedly the greater nightmare, but it’s occurred to me that Muldoon is one who could order any one of us put to death—and Dubois would obey.”

  Curtly, Caleb nodded. “Without a blink.”

  Their men went back to their assigned stations among the gangs supposedly mining. Caleb and Phillipe picked their way past the miners to the far end of the upper level and joined the small group on whose shoulders the future of the captives now rode.

  Another hour and a half, and they had the trigger mechanism completed. Without attaching it to the beam it was designed to dislodge, they tested it—and breathed a little easier when the timing mechanism worked perfectly, giving them a delay of close to twenty minutes. They all exchanged grins, Hillsythe, Caleb, and Phillipe sharing in the sense of achievement.

  Then their grins faded, and they got down to the truly tricky task of making the final cuts that, essentially, dismantled the frame holding up the entrance to the lower level.

  This was the truly dangerous—truly scarifying—part of the procedure, with them literally standing beneath tons of rock and effectively removing the supports that held it up. For every beam they compromised, they had to brace the structure—initially with their own strength while others rapidly shifted temporary supports into place. They had to call on Quilley, Ducasse, and several of the taller, stronger men to help hold up the tunnel roof while Dixon and the carpenters quickly knocked in temporary chocks, struts, and bracing timbers.

  Deep creaks and groans started emanating from the rock above their heads.

  The sounds ignited a primitive impulse to flee, but they grimly stood their ground, put their faith in Dixon, and continued to work steadily.

  They couldn’t afford to panic now.

  The men mining farther along the upper level started sending uneasy looks their way. But no one left; they held their positions and continued to mine the rock face, providing camouflage for the men working at the end of the tunnel.

  When, late in the afternoon, a pair of guards looked in, Hopkins—deploying his own cheery, easygoing façade—intercepted them at the mouth of the second tunnel.

  The men at the end continued to move, to appear to be working, but in reality, they did not shift any of the beams they were adjusting by even half an inch.

  The guards joked with Hopkins.

  Then a low, prolonged groan drifted through the mine.

  The guards started. “What was that?” one of them demanded.

  The men mining hadn’t reacted. Hopkins looked nonplussed. Then he said, “Oh, you mean the noise?”

  “Yes. That.” Both guards’ eyes gleamed white in the lanternlight.

  Hopkins shrugged. “Just a noise. It happens now and then.” Unhurriedly, he looked up at the roof of the tunnel, then grinned. “Perhaps it’s the god of the hillside venting his displeasure.”

  At the end of the tunnel, Caleb caught Hillsythe’s eyes; Hopkins had just turned near-disaster into an advantage.

  Needless to say, after one shocked look down the tunnel, the guards couldn’t get out of the mine fast enough.

  Phillipe chuckled. “They’ll rush to babble to their mates. With any luck, that will be the last interruption we’ll get from them.”

  So it proved, which was just as well. It took their combined efforts to complete their preparations to Dixon’s and the carpenters’ satisfaction and then connect the trigger mechanism before the call for the evening meal echoed through the mine.

  Dixon and the carpenters checked the installation one last time, then they all stepped back and studied the final structure.

  Then Dixon turned and looked along the upper level, at the beams holding up the roof. “We have to do this, don’t we?” The entrance would fall and would almost certainly bring down the adjoining section of the upper-level roof, but how much of the upper level would remain, not one of them could even hazard a guess.

  “We don’t have a choice. We have to take the risk.” Caleb made the statements crisp and unequivocal. If they brought the whole hillside down, they would move from the frying pan into the fire, but with the flames threatening anyway, they had to place their faith in Dixon’s expertise and roll the dice. Caleb nodded at the others. Hillsythe and Phillipe turned and walked out, falling in at the rear of the mining gang. The three carpenters took one last look at the framing, then followed.

  Leaving Caleb and Dixon.

  As the sounds of the others’ footsteps faded, Dixon looked at Caleb, then waved to the timing mechanism’s lever. “It’s your plan.

  Caleb met his gaze. “It’s your tunnel.”

  Involuntarily, Dixon huffed out a laugh. “All right. You go on.”

  “No. I’ll wait.”

  Dixon shook his head. He hesitated, then he wiped his hands on his dusty breeches, reached out, and tipped the lever.

  They held their breaths.

  The pendulum of the mechanism started to swing. Exactly as it was supposed to.

  A little creak sounded, but nothing came crashing down.

  Caleb wanted to say “Come on,” but some primitive instinct had seized his vocal cords. Instead, he tapped Dixon on the shoulder and, when the engineer glanced his way, pointed up the tunnel.

  They turned and, side by side, walked—unhurriedly—out of the mine.

  CHAPTER 17

  Caleb walked out of the mine beside Dixon, and they joined the gathering around the fire pit. Many of the men briefly glanced their way as they accepted their plates and took their seats beside their respective ladies, but there was nothing in that to alert said ladies or anyone else to anything being afoot.

  Seated between Kate and Harriet, after swallowing his first mouthful, Caleb thanked them for keeping Muldoon occupied for the whole afternoon, then asked for their impressions of the ex-naval attaché.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, both women were scathing. “He’s unbelievably shallow,” Kate said. “More so than most children.”

  “All he cared about were the diamonds.” Harriet poked at the lumpy meat in her plate. “Nothing else even impinged on his awareness.”

  “I don’t come from much.” Annie spoke from beyond Kate. “So I can understand that, to him, the diamonds might mean a lot. But I’d never’ve thought greed could turn a body so blind. He didn’t even notice how thin and worn-down some of the children are. Seemed he thought it was fine to have them slaving for him and his friends.”

  There were mutters of agreement from the rest of the women and even less laudatory comments from some of the children.

  Caleb glanced around the circle and had to give the men credit for doing a reasonable job of appearing unconcerned and unaware,
rather than alert and tense, waiting for something to happen.

  During the debate over telling the women, one of the strongest arguments against had been that when the tunnel imploded, the women and children would be genuinely shocked—and Dubois and his men would notice and instantly discount any notion that any of the women or children had been involved in engineering the disaster.

  Of course, their fondest hope was that the falling rock would shatter and bury the timing mechanism and hide all signs that anyone had engineered the collapse at all.

  Regardless, the men clearly knew their role and were intent on keeping to the script. When the mine fell, they would ensure that no matter what happened, the women and children remained safe—pulling them away to the other side of the compound if necessary. No one knew how much of the hillside would cave in, so they’d formulated their plans on a worst-case basis.

  Caleb glanced at Dixon just as the engineer pulled out his watch. As he was the one who timed their breaks, he was one of the few with both a timepiece and a reason to check it. By Caleb’s estimation, Dixon had pulled the lever more than ten minutes ago.

  A slight frown on his face, Dixon tucked his watch back into his pocket, then looked across the circle to respond to something Hillsythe had said.

  Caleb finished the muddy stew, mopped up the thin gravy with the heel of bread he’d been given, then set his plate down on the ground before his feet. His expression relaxed, he looked around the circle. He was seated in the quadrant closest to the mine, with his back more or less to the entrance. The position gave him a clear view of the barracks’ porch. Dubois was there, leaning against a post, his back to the fire pit as he conversed with Muldoon, who slouched at his ease in a chair that must have been carried out to accommodate him.

  As Caleb watched, Muldoon waved his hand in response to some comment, and light glinted on glass. No doubt the bugger was enjoying a postprandial brandy.

  Caleb rarely entertained thoughts of summary justice; he usually left justice to those whose business it was. But for Muldoon, Winton, and whoever their coconspirator in the governor’s office was, he would make an exception. He could very easily envisage a long, slow, and excruciatingly painful death for all three.

  Bad enough what they’d done in enslaving the men and the women. But the children?

  Children like Amy, a little girl who was currently circling the ring of bodies seated on the logs; her fair hair had caught Caleb’s eye. He hadn’t yet learned all the children’s names, any more than he had all the men’s, but he had noticed Amy. She was one of the smaller, nimbler children sent into the mine to clear the rubble from beneath the men’s feet. Caleb guessed she was about seven years old, and she was a bright little thing. Despite the situation, she always wore a cheery smile and spoke in a light, piping voice that made the men smile.

  Making people smile, especially when they were in godawful situations, ranked as a gift in Caleb’s estimation.

  He watched Amy stop beside each of the groups of children scattered about the circle. She would smile, talk, then apparently ask a question before, eventually, moving on.

  Beside him, Kate rose.

  When he glanced at her, she smiled reassuringly and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m just going to check on Amy.”

  Caleb returned her smile, caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze, then released her.

  Hopkins asked him a question about Hopkins’s sister. Tangentially, it was a question about Caleb’s brother Robert and their family. Feeling he owed a certain duty to Robert and the Frobisher clan, Caleb seized on the distraction—it would keep him from turning around and looking at the mine.

  Surely it would implode any second now.

  After satisfying Hopkins at some length, Caleb sat back, aware of mounting impatience.

  Then he noticed Kate hadn’t returned to her place beside him.

  He looked up and scanned the circle...

  He couldn’t see her anywhere.

  A chill touched his spine.

  He turned around—and saw Kate walking, slowly, toward the mine.

  He couldn’t race to her. He forced himself to rise slowly. As he straightened, he followed her gaze and saw the glow of a bobbing lantern fade into the darkness inside the mine.

  He couldn’t run. He couldn’t rush. But he took very long strides as he closed the distance to Kate.

  Ten paces from the mine, he reached out and seized her arm. Placing his body between her and any watchers, he hauled her to a halt and looked into her startled face. “Was that Amy who went into the mine?”

  Her eyes wide, Kate must have heard the pounding terror in his voice. “Y-yes. She’s looking for her hair ribbon—it’s the last thing of her own she has, and she thinks she must have dropped it in the second tunnel.”

  He looked at the dark mouth of the mine.

  He had no idea how many minutes remained before the timing mechanism reached the end of its cycle, jerked out the critical beam, and the tunnel came crashing down. “I need you to go back and sit down as if nothing at all troubling is happening.” He met Kate’s eyes. “Please—trust me.” He put every ounce of command he possessed into his tone. “Go back. Sit down. And I’ll get Amy.”

  Kate stared at him for a split second. Then she swallowed and nodded. “All right.”

  He released her. “Go. Please.”

  He didn’t look back to see if she did but continued to stride—still unhurriedly—to the mine.

  The instant the darkness engulfed him, he ran. Guided by the faint light ahead, he pelted down the main shaft and into the second tunnel.

  Sure enough, Amy was there. She was at the far end—of course—shining the lantern beam onto a pile of rubble. As Caleb pounded toward her, she grinned, bent, reached into the rubble, and pulled out a piece of red ribbon.

  Then she turned and, brandishing her find, beamed at Caleb. “It’s all right. I found it!”

  The timing mechanism lay still, the critical beam jutting at an angle with other timbers already slowly tumbling four yards behind her.

  Caleb grabbed Amy up. The lantern went flying but didn’t go out.

  Holding her head against his chest, clutching her body to his own, he put his head down and tore back along the tunnel.

  He felt as if he were moving underwater.

  A shudder rippled through the air, then through the rock all around them.

  A hideous, long-drawn groan of tortured rock followed.

  Then, unexpectedly, came a high-pitched ping.

  Then the air whooshed past them, and a roar filled his ears as the tunnel roof came crashing down behind them.

  Stygian darkness fell.

  Rocks tumbled and bounced; some hit the backs of his legs and shoulders, his hips and back. Unable to see, he’d slowed; he had no clear idea of how far he had to go to get them out of the second tunnel. He stumbled, but struggled back to his feet. Clutching a terrified Amy to him with one arm, he stretched out his other hand and tried to forge on.

  The initial collapse had been the entrance to the lower level giving way.

  Now the roof of the upper level started to fall.

  Rocks rained down on them. Instinctively, he curled his head and shoulders about Amy.

  A beam struck his back, and he felt himself falling.

  Then something hit his head, and his senses shut down.

  Blackness engulfed him.

  * * *

  Kate had reached the logs about the fire pit when a horrible moan came out of the mine. She swung about—in time to see dust start to billow out.

  Then a deafening roar shook the compound, and a huge cloud of dust belched out of the mine.

  Shock held her immobile. She and everyone else just stared.

  Then reality crashed into her, and she s
creamed, “No! Caleb!” Picking up her skirts, she raced toward the mine. “Amy!”

  The cloud of dust enveloped her, and she had to stop. She couldn’t see. She could barely breathe.

  She choked, coughed.

  Then Lascelle was there.

  He caught her arm in an unbreakable grip and drew her bodily back. “Is Caleb in there?” he demanded.

  “Yes! Yes! He told me to come back and sit down while he went after Amy—” A coughing fit made her double up.

  “Here.” Lascelle pushed his neckerchief into her hand. “Try not to breathe so deeply.”

  Kate clapped the kerchief over her nose and mouth. Panic stricken and horrified, she couldn’t calm her rapid, panting breaths. She went to press forward, but Lascelle wouldn’t let her move.

  “Wait!” he snapped.

  The damned man was as fond of orders as Caleb. Her Caleb, who was somewhere in the mine.

  Hillsythe materialized on her other side, a kerchief knotted like a mask over his nose and mouth. “Let’s give it a moment and see if he comes out.”

  The dust cloud was still so thick they could barely make out the maw of the mine.

  Then Dixon and the other men arrived, along with the women and most of the children. They all stood in a group ten yards from the mine entrance and waited as the dust cloud thinned.

  As the rumbles from the hillside and the heavy thud of falling rocks and the clatter of loose timbers faded.

  Everyone stared at the mine mouth, but it remained empty; no figures emerged, staggering through the murk.

  Her jaw firming, Kate tugged against Lascelle’s hold. “Let me go!”

  “The whole hillside might be unstable.” Dixon sounded as if the words were dragged from him—something he felt he had to say, rather than wanted to say.

  Kate looked at him, then she wrenched her elbow free and rushed toward the mine.

  Only to find Lascelle and Hillsythe flanking her.