Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1)

by Deborah Dee Harper

  “Well, your heart was in the right place, but they’re madder’n all get-out, as you can imagine. Bristol managed to wing one of them—the bad guy started it, by the way—and we dragged him to the shed. Delbert Jackson’s in there, too. Long story—I’ll tell you about it later. But now at least one of them is in the house with the women. Emma here, bless her brave heart, managed to escape and alerted us.”

  “Bristol?” That was Leo.

  “He’s still over there, watching to make sure nothing happens to those ladies. But we need to get over there now. Sherman, get the men over here, would you? Tell ’em to hurry it up. We don’t have a second to spare. And do we have an extra coat I can wear?”

  Five minutes later, the men were filled in on the latest developments. I looked around the sanctuary at my army. We were an interesting bunch, I’ll give us that much. Only three men were younger than me—the dynamite-toting, orange-haired, camel-hauling Sherman DeSoto, currently on loan from his proud papa, and the town paramedics, Joe Rich and Rudy Wallenberg. That knowledge brought me minimal joy and even less confidence. It was agreed that Pastor Parry would stay behind to take care of the church, so that left me with nineteen men—fifteen of them above the age of seventy-five—and an eighty-three-year-old, half-frozen woman who hadn’t spoken a civil word to anyone in town since the FDR administration. Each man was armed with his weapon-of-choice, ranging in sophistication from Frank’s baseball bat to the rifle Leo must have found at the site of some Civil War battle. I hoped Frank could stay awake long enough to stay alive. If the thought of imminent death by gunshot or the discomfort of traipsing through a blizzard couldn’t keep him awake, he was a goner because that was all I had to offer.

  I didn’t know whether to pray or march over to the inn and surrender on the spot. I chose what I always choose.

  “Men—and Emma—let’s pray before we leave.” Heads bowed, some of the men kneeled. “Heavenly Father, we thank You for being by our side at all times. Please watch over us as we take back what those men have taken from us—Your children and our wives and friends and neighbors. Be with the women as they await our return. Fill us with Your peace, remind us of Your everlasting glory, surround us with Your strength and awesome power. In Jesus’ precious Name we pray. Amen.”

  Amens were said, heads popped up, chatter resumed, and the men paired up in groups of two and headed toward both doors. George and Dewey managed to find something to tussle over before they’d walked ten feet, but I didn’t have the energy or the heart to mediate. Guthrie Jones hoisted his weapon, an ax, of all things, over his shoulder. He looked like he was about to fell a tree and cut himself a cord of firewood. Good luck with that, Guthrie.

  I decided that Sherman, Emma, and I would slip out the back door first, then George and Dewey, assuming they didn’t kill each other first, would leave the building through the front door, followed by Joe and Rudy out the back. Dewey and George took time out from their bickering to walk over to Emma. They both extended their hands to her; I presumed they were thanking her for her act of bravery. The look on her face was priceless. I don’t think anyone’s said a decent word to her in decades. She said something to the two men, then stood, threw off the blankets, and walked over to me. “Ready, Hugh? Let’s get going.”

  Dewey did a double-take. “Ready?” He turned to me. “What’s she talking about, Hugh? She’s not going anywhere. This is man’s work. ’Sides, she’s been through enough tonight. You don’t need to do no more, Emma. You just rest up…”

  “Shut it, Dewey. I’m going and that’s that.” She looked up at me. “You tell ’em yet? About the passage?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not saying you’re not right, but are you sure about this? I mean, you were a little girl. Maybe you and your sister were just exercising vivid imaginations, just sort of … well, dreamed up this …”

  “Don’t be insulting, Hugh. I might be old, but I’m not stupid. And I’m certainly not mistaken about a tunnel I played in—I don’t care how many years ago it was. That tunnel is there, and that’s all there is to it. Now, are you fellows coming with me to rescue those women or are you going to stand around all night calling me a crazy old liar?”

  Put that way, I could see her reasoning. That tunnel was either there or it wasn’t; we were going to either find it or we weren’t. Arguing about it wasn’t going to help Mel and the other women one little bit. Besides, what did we have to lose? Well, besides our lives and all.

  “Okay, you’re right, Emma. Let’s get going.” I raised my voice and motioned to the group of men by the door. “Guys, we can’t all go out that way. We might as well give ’em a call and tell ’em we’re on our way. We’ll leave in groups of two from both the front and back doors a minute or so apart. Sherman, Emma, and I will leave first. We’ll meet up in that line of trees by the lane. Now remember, we don’t know if any of those men are still outdoors. I think they’re all inside, but I’m not certain of that. We don’t need anyone getting shot. Pair up now, and let’s get going. See you outdoors … and God bless.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Mel jerked her arm away from the man shoving her into the bedroom, stumbled, and caught herself against one of the posts on the bed. “Get your filthy hands off me!” She whirled and pointed at him. “And don’t you dare hurt any of these ladies.”

  White Suit sneered. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be telling me what to do, lady. Now shut up and sit on the floor. There.” He jerked the gun toward the foot of the bed.

  She slid down until she was leaning against the sideboard. One by one, the ladies joined her, Sadie and Hazel to her left, Lorena on her right, Grace and Ruby across from them against the dresser, and Martha and Winnie against the wall beneath the window. Grace put her arm around her mother’s shoulders and held her close. Ruby looked indignant, Martha sputtered, and Winnie clutched her chest.

  The armed man jerked the gun toward Winnie. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I said what’s wrong with her?”

  Winnie looked up and said, “I have a weak heart.”

  Right on cue, Sadie spoke up. “Do not.”

  Winnie glared at Sadie. “Do too and you know it, Sadie Simms! I could drop dead at any moment.”

  Mel couldn’t tell if the fire in her eyes was a reflection of the flickering candle beside her on the nightstand or an expression of fury that someone—Sadie, in particular—had the audacity to tell her she would live. Either way, Mel thought, she looked scary.

  Sadie had to lean across Melanie to reply. “You’re not gonna drop dead, Winnie.” She turned back to White Suit. “She’s not gonna drop dead.”

  “Why, I never!”

  “Shut up, you two! You’re both gonna drop dead if you don’t shut your mouths!”

  Melanie reached for Sadie’s hand. “Why don’t we let this go for now, okay?”

  Sadie looked at her, gave a loud sigh, and nodded slowly.

  With his gun still trained on the women, the man in white stepped back into the hallway, and said something to a second man. Melanie couldn’t make out what it was, but he didn’t sound happy. While they argued, Melanie looked around at the women. “Everybody okay? Besides you, Winnie. I know you’re feeling weak.”

  Winnie looked grimly satisfied at the acknowledgement that she was feeling poorly. The other women assured Melanie they were fine, but furious.

  “What are we going to do, Melanie?” Sadie spoke up in a loud whisper. “We can’t let them keep us up here. We just can’t. And I refuse to be held at gunpoint. I haven’t lived this long to be shot. It just isn’t right. Nosirreebob!”

  Melanie didn’t know what to say. She didn’t relish being held at gunpoint either, but at the moment that seemed to be the situation they were in. “Well, at least they haven’t tied us up. And Hugh knows we’re here. He’ll do something.” She paused, as if gathering steam, then said, more to herself than to anyone else. “Yes, he and Bristol will think
of something.” She looked around at the bevy of worried faces. “Ladies, you know what we need to do, don’t you?”

  “Crack some heads?” That was sentimental Sadie.

  Melanie grinned. “Let’s leave the head-cracking to the men, shall we? No, we need to pray. Let’s bow our heads.” Melanie prayed; seven amens followed.

  “Shut up in there!” The man in white wasn’t in sight but was apparently still close enough to hear their voices. Melanie put her finger to her lips.”Sh-h-h-h,” she said then tapped the side of her head and mouthed the word “think.”

  The women nodded.

  Melanie could still hear the men’s raised, but muffled voices in the hallway. There were at least two of them, she knew, but when she heard one of them say, “What about him?” she began to suspect there was a third somewhere in the house.

  White Suit stepped into the room and growled, “Got any bandages?”

  Mel looked at him. “Why?”

  “’Cause I asked you, lady, that’s why.” Then in measured tones, he repeated, “Don’t mess with me. Now, do you have any bandages?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I do. In the bathroom down the hall. Cupboard to your left.”

  “Stay put.” He waved the weapon. “Remember, I’m the one with the gun.”

  He backed out of the room and turned right. No sign of the second man; Melanie assumed he was probably standing guard at the top of the staircase.

  “Well, one of them is hurt, I guess,” she said. “Lord forgive me, but that helps a little.”

  Sadie sputtered. “You don’t need forgiving for wanting to even up the score a little, Melanie. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if putting one of them out of commission for a while is God’s way of helping us out.”

  “Sadie, I don’t know if you should be saying the Lord would condone someone being hurt just so we…”

  “Hazel, be quiet. They’re the bad guys, remember? I didn’t say He was gonna kill him; I just said He might be leveling up the playing field a bit. Besides, they came to us. We didn’t invite them to town to break in here and kidnap us and wave their guns around and … and let’s not forget they vandalized our church.”

  Hazel quickly acquiesced. She probably figured it was in her best interests not to argue with Sadie Simms. Melanie wondered if there was any scenario in which these women couldn’t find something to argue about. Probably not, but they had bigger problems at the moment.

  Melanie looked around the room, counting heads, then whispered, “Ladies, don’t say anything aloud, but has anyone seen Emma?”

  I don’t know how she did it so soon after being outdoors in a blizzard, but Emma plowed right off the back porch of the church into the snow and forged ahead of me. I had to lunge to grab her arm before she went traipsing off into the dark alone. Sherman brought up the rear and was—I hoped, at least—keeping a sharp eye out for anyone skulking about with evil on his mind.

  During a lull in the whirlwind of snow being tossed about by the howling gusts, I made a small correction in our direction and steered Emma toward the line of trees that ran along Rivermanse Lane—the scene of my recent assault from above. I didn’t relish the embarrassment of being thumped again, so I scouted out the branches overhead as best I could. To my knowledge, there were no limb-lurkers poised to shovel the snow with my face again, but then one never knows in this line of work. Just what is your line of work, Hugh? Retired chaplain, pastor, innkeeper, camel keeper, Junior Chipmunk FBI agent? I didn’t seem to be very good at any of them at the moment. I could only hope I wouldn’t wake up in heaven before I had a chance to learn the ropes.

  Once we reached the trees, Sherman stayed on lookout duty and I turned to Emma. “Okay, where do we go from here?”

  She didn’t hesitate for a second. “Over there.” She pointed to the expanse of white behind the inn. “Not far.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re the boss. As soon as everyone’s here, we’ll get started.”

  Five minutes later, the men were assembled and spread out under the branches to avoid spilling from the cover of the trees to the yard beyond. Leo stood beside me. “What do you think, Leo? Want to send half the men to surround the house and the rest of us head for the tunnel?”

  He thought about that for a second, opened his mouth, said nothing, shut it back up again, then nodded. At my request and to avoid detection by the bad guys, Leo had considerately left his pipe and its distinctive scent behind at the church; without it he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. His right hand, fingers curled as if wrapped around the bowl of his pipe, just sort of hovered around his mouth. Apparently it possesses a mind of its own because he had to use his left hand to push it away. But he recovered quickly and said, “Yep.”

  Blabbermouth.

  Another couple of minutes passed while the men decided who was going where. George and Dewey engaged in one last tiff—just in case they didn’t live long enough to grate on one another’s nerves after tonight, I guess—and a few seconds later Rudy Wallenberg and his group of men scuttled their way across the lane and over to the garden-side of the inn. I lost sight of them about halfway across the road, but I envisioned them encircling the house shortly after I lost sight of them. At least that was the plan. For all I knew, they were swallowed up by a sinkhole or ran into a pack of ravenous dinosaurs who downed them as appetizers on their way to the main course—us. At this point, nothing would surprise me.

  The rest of us—George, Dewey, Joe Rich, Leo, Frank, Emma, Sherman, and I—huddled for a minute while I gave some last minute instructions. “We’re going to find that tunnel, get into it as quietly as possible, and get into the house. No flashlights out here ’til I turn mine on, okay? If they’re smart, they’re keeping an eye out the window. And flashlights go out once we get into the house. Nobody does anything on their own. No heroes, okay? Please. You have to promise me.”

  Everyone nodded solemnly. I lowered my hand to signify to the men to stay as low as possible, and everyone assumed a crouching position. I took Emma’s arm, and we crept out from the cover of the trees and into the middle of Rivermanse Lane. This was it.

  Emma didn’t relish having Hugh hang on to her as if she were some old, helpless woman, but the first time she stumbled and nearly fell headlong into the snow, stopped only by his hand under her elbow, she changed her mind. Yes, she was experienced in this kind of stuff—not that anyone in this town knew about that part of her life or would care if they did—but she’d passed the eighty-year mark a while ago, and her balance wasn’t what it used to be. No doubt about that. Besides, it wasn’t far to the entrance of the tunnel, and she could put up with his assistance until then.

  She and her sister had found the tunnel entrance. Purely by accident, of course. Who’d have expected to find something like that in Road’s End? Sure, there were stories, but for every person who swore those tales were true, there was another who branded them only frivolous fables, myths manufactured by romantics who wanted to believe Road’s End had played a role in history not once, but twice. Since Emma and Rachel had nobody left to trust—their father was absent and their aunt and uncle couldn’t be counted on—they were left in the dark. And that turned literal when they stumbled upon the tunnel.

  Given they were only ten years old, it took a lot of guts to go inside that first time, as well as during each subsequent visit. After all, who knew what lurked in the depths of a dark passageway chiseled through the earth beneath their closest neighbor’s house? But despite their trepidation, the existence of the tunnel remained the one thing the sisters shared that no one could take away from them, the one truth they could hang on to that no one else knew about or had taken the time to figure out. It gave them a reason to feel useful, adventurous, and part of a world that others didn’t inhabit. Emma couldn’t help but smile at that last thought. Inhabiting a world in which nobody else resided was about all she and her sister did do. Theirs were solitary lives filled with only the adventures and dreams the two of them we
re able to conjure up, then chase, and sometimes when they were very lucky, finally achieve.

  She remembered the smell, a dank, musty odor, not exactly repulsive, but not pleasant either. In her ten-year-old mind, she used to imagine that what she smelled down there—the damp, fusty scent of earth and roots and rotting leaves—was the stench of fear. Others had been there before them. Small traces of their visits remained—a candle stub, a shred of cloth, footprints, even the handprint of a child imprinted low on the earthen wall. But it was the aura of fear that spoke most eloquently of the passage of others through this tunnel so long ago.

  The very last time she and her sister had entered was two days before Rachel died, and they were doing what they always did when they could escape from their lonely existence at the mansion on the hill overlooking the river. They were pretending to be adventuresses, to have a life outside the suffocating walls of Rivermanse, to escape—at least temporarily—the condemning gaze of Aunt Louanna and the tyrannical fury of Uncle George. In that way, they were not much different from the slaves who hid in this tunnel on their perilous journey to freedom in the north. Emma supposed we were all slaves in one way or another.

  Rachel had always been the adventurous one, the nature lover, the one who led both girls into situations like this. Finding the tunnel had been a fluke, yes, but had Rachel not encouraged Emma to investigate the rumors they’d heard from the household staff as far back as they could remember, they would never have found themselves underground walking in the wary footsteps of runaway slaves. Their subterranean explorations and the pleasure both girls derived from sharing a secret world beneath the town of Road’s End was due to Rachel’s wanderlust, her need to know something outside the confines of their family’s wealth. Rachel was no more, but Emma never forgot the things her sister loved.

  A visit to the tunnel was long overdue.

  True to her word, Emma seemed to know precisely where she was headed. I could tell she didn’t want anything to do with me hanging on to her, but my manly instincts were already stretched to the limits just letting an octogenarian wander around out here in the blizzard with armed men in the vicinity and smoldering car parts lying in piles around the neighborhood. No sense feeling any more useless than I already did. So I hung on to her and pretended I was doing her the favor, not the other way around.