Shadow's Stand

by Sarah McCarty

  “Fei!”

  She jumped at the loud echo of her name. Daniels and his men had made it into the cave.

  “Where are you?”

  She didn’t answer, just quickly moved on to the next location.

  “Shit,” she heard one of them mumble. “There’s no gold here.”

  Something was dumped on the floor. “The hell there’s not. Look at this!”

  They’d found the gold she’d collected before she’d gone to free Lin. Good. That should keep them busy. The next connection was the same as the first—the wires connected and covered with pebbles. She knew she hadn’t done that, which begged the question, who had? Her heart started racing an the sick feeling in her stomach grew.

  There was a hoot when the men found her supplies. Cans clunked against stone as they emptied the sacks out on the ground. She had to hurry. The gold pulled on her shoulders, dragging her down.

  “Follow the stream. I think I hear a waterfall back there.”

  “Usually do find gold in rushing water.” She thought that might be John.

  “Nature’s shovel is what I call it.”

  It made it easier for Fei to find the other connections now that she knew what she was looking for. Her muscles burned as she strained to carry the weight of her load as she went from point to point. A little voice inside said leave it, but she couldn’t. It was her fresh start. Shadows danced on the walls as she passed, rocks scraped under her feet. Too much noise. Too much noise. She tried to walk more carefully. Instead of silence, she started a little landslide. Sound reverberated around the cave. Pressing against the wall, she watched the ceiling, expecting it to come down any minute. It didn’t, but she’d drawn the attention of the men. She heard them closer. It wasn’t a bad thing.

  “I think I have her!”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a light down here.”

  “Is it the woman?”

  “Damn, I hope so. I haven’t had me a decent woman in a coon’s age.”

  Fei sprinted to the waterfall. Grabbing nuggets out of the water, she tossed them on the bank. She needed greed to hold the men in place. Just for a little while longer.

  Fei checked her sulfurs. They were dry and ready to go. Taking a breath, she nodded confidently. So was she.

  She set the lantern behind her, letting the light illuminate the spot, drawing in the colonel and his men. “There she is,” someone hollered.

  As if he were inviting her to dinner, Daniels called, “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and come here, my dear.”

  My dear. He made the endearment an obscenity. Adopting a calm she didn’t feel, Fei held the dynamite, listening to the soothing hiss of the fuse, and didn’t answer. The men advanced, making obscene comments, telling her what they were going to do with her body. Just a little more. Just a little farther. Something flew past her ear, drawing a small scream past her resolve. The man who’d just uttered the most vile comment dropped, a knife in his throat. His last obscenity ended in a gurgle.

  From the shadows she heard a deep rumble of sound, “A man ought to know how to talk to a lady.”

  Oh, my God. Someone else was in here. Who are you? She couldn’t get the question past the knot in her throat. The immediate question of friend or foe was answered by the stranger’s next question, “You ready to throw that yet?”

  Her heart started beating again. Friend. He had to be friend. “Almost.”

  Daniel’s men crouched and drew their guns.

  She stood there, giving them a target.

  “Get the hell down!” the stranger ordered.

  She shook her head. Heart thundering in her chest, she stood stock-still and started counting. She needed them to stay where they were.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  By the time they recognized what was flying through the air at them, Daniels and his men had no time to react. The walls shivered and groaned, the explosion reverberating with a deafening thunder. A hand latched onto the back of her shirt and lifted her off her feet, knocking her down behind a boulder. She had a vague impression of long hair and broad shoulders before the stranger picked up the lantern, grabbed her hand and dragged her with him as he ran faster than she could ever run by herself.

  “Wrong way,” she gasped.

  The stranger either didn’t hear or didn’t care. Just before he reached the back side of the waterfall, he took an immediate left, navigating the treacherous paths with precision, circumventing the men between them with the shortcut. She knew he’d had to have been inside her claim a while to know about this shortcut back to the front of the cave. When they got to the chamber to the right of the entry, he set the lantern down, grabbed her by the waist and tossed her across the narrow ravine as if she weighed nothing. Pebbles and small rocks pinged off her shoulder as rocks rolled and crashed. Rolling to her feet, she glanced back over her shoulder, getting her first good look at the man as he prepared to jump. And gasped.

  He wasn’t just big, he was massive. Tall and broad shouldered, he wore a black vest with no shirt, displaying the thickly slabbed muscles of his abdomen. He had the powerful arms and chest of a blacksmith, but he moved with the grace of a warrior. His skin was dark. His shoulder-length, black hair flared back from his rugged face as he ran toward the ravine. Just before he jumped, a rock fell from above.

  “Look out!”

  It was too late. It hit his head. His shadow flared up on the far wall in a dramatic crescendo as he fell to his knees, inches from the ravine. Beyond the entry, a dog barked.

  The choice of what to do was taken out of her hands. She couldn’t leave him. Getting a running start, she leaped back over the ravine. She checked his pulse. Alive but unconscious. Grabbing his legs, she pulled him away from the edge. The muscles in the back of her thighs burned and ached, but she’d only managed to move him a foot.

  From the sound of the angry voices, the colonel and his men were disoriented but regrouping. It was doubtful they’d find this chamber. From their perspective, the entrance was at the edge of what looked like a small dead-end tunnel. The men’s voices faded. They’d turned down the dead end. She turned the lantern down to a flicker. That would give her time, but they’d be back. She needed to get around to the left to set off the dynamite on that side first. That was the plan. To keep them in the middle as the whole claim came crashing down around them.

  It was a well-thought-out plan. Her father’s plans always were. But nowhere in it was the need to move an unconscious giant. From the back of the tunnel, the dog barked again. It had to be from the second entrance. Was there help out there? Friends of this man? She had to risk calling for them. She couldn’t move the man herself and she couldn’t fight off Daniels, sitting in this chamber. Hidden though it was, they would find it eventually if they kept looking. And they would look. These men would not leave her claim until they’d searched every nook and cranny. Greed made men thorough.

  “Hel—”

  A hand slapped over her mouth. The palm tasted like dirt. She looked down. The man was looking up at her. At least he was awake.

  “Fei Yen?”

  He knew her name? Cautiously she nodded.

  The stranger removed his hand. His drawl was low and deep, not as compelling as Shadow’s, but somehow soothing. It said that here was a man who could handle anything. “We’ve been looking for you.”

  “Who are ‘we’?”

  “Hell’s Eight.”

  That was Shadow’s family. Relief made her giddy. Definitely friend. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tucker McCade, ma’am. Shadow sent me for you.”

  “He is alive still?” More relief flooded over her.

  Tucker sat up and touched his head before pulling his hand away and looking at it. Blood coated the surface. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She closed her eyes and thanked the ancestors.

  “Where’d you pick up the colonel?” he asked in
the same hushed baritone.

  “In Simple. He tracked me through my search for employment. I didn’t know… I was upset, he offered me a handkerchief…”

  Tucker nodded, pressing his fingers to his head again.

  “And next thing you knew, you were his prisoner.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Everything in her told her shut up, leave, detonate the dynamite, but Tucker was still woozy from the blow. She had to wait. Had to find patience while inside her the clock ticked. “How did you know?”

  “You don’t have to tell me about the colonel, ma’am.”

  “How do I know you’re Shadow’s friend?”

  “You saying I’m lying?”

  She licked her lips. Nobody in their right mind would call this man a liar, even if he said it was night in the middle of the day. “I want you to prove you’re his friend.”

  “You and your cousin Lin killed a wild boar by supposedly tripping and falling on it.”

  She sighed and shook her head. It was not her most womanly moment. “That would be the thing Shadow would tell you.”

  Tucker chuckled and pressed his hand to his head. “Shadow doesn’t just tell it, he brags on it.”

  “He is proud of such a thing?”

  Tucker smiled. “The man thinks the world of you, Mrs. Ochoa.”

  Inside Fei, a little of the coldness warmed. Shadow had bragged on her, and he’d claimed her as wife to his family.

  “He is not ashamed of me.”

  Tucker cast her a sharp glance. “I’d say just the opposite.”

  She closed her eyes to fight the bite of bittersweet tears. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I won’t.” It was just good to know. If the plan failed and she died, she had that knowledge to add to the memories.

  The men’s voices were getting louder. The colonel and his men were finding their way back. They needed to move. “Can I trust you?”

  “Do you want to?”

  She wasn’t sure, and she was running out of time.

  “Will it make it easier for you if I tell you my wife says I’m cuddly?”

  Cuddly? This man? “You are married?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked. And yes, to an opinionated little pacifist.”

  She took in all that muscle, accentuated with scars that had to have been accumulated through years of battle. She remembered how he’d thrown that knife. “You are a pacifist?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Then what good will you do me?”

  He smiled and held out his hand, helping her to her feet before getting to his. His smile transformed his face. Taking it from austere to…kind. “Today, I’m not working on it that hard.”

  “I’m not sure I should trust you.”

  “Because of the gold?”

  She nodded. He shrugged. “If I wanted your gold, I could have taken it long before now and there isn’t anything you could do to stop me.”

  She jerked her chin in the direction of the approaching voices. “I could sic them on you.”

  Daniels and his men had grown bolder since there were no more explosions. They were almost back at the waterfall.

  “Yeah, you could, but there’s nothing they could do to stop me, either.”

  It wasn’t a boast. He said it the way Shadow said those kinds of things. As if it were a matter of fact. And it probably was. If all he wanted was the gold and escape, he could have done it long before now.

  “Besides, you’re planning on blowing up their asses.”

  “Yes.” She cocked her head to the side. “You’re the one who connected my fuses.”

  “Couldn’t help myself. Sweet pattern you laid down there. Got them all corralled in. Beats picking them off one by one.”

  “It was my father’s pattern, but I need to finish it.”

  They couldn’t get out without finishing it. There were too many of the others. He nodded. “Yeah. Between the men here and the snipers outside, they’ve got us pinned down.”

  “Snipers?”

  “Shadow and the others are handling the snipers, but it’s not likely that they’ll get them before these yahoos force our hand.”

  She swallowed and nodded. She understood. Her situation hadn’t changed much. It was still them or her. “Shadow is all right?”

  “Just worried about you. If he didn’t have such a dislike of small places, he’d have been the one scouting in here. As it was, Caine had to force the issue.” He held her gaze. “He wanted to be with you.”

  She was glad he wasn’t. The chances of her plan succeeding were not good. “I think I see the way out!” someone called.

  “You go and run,” another snapped. “I’m not leaving without some of this gold.”

  Tucker looked at her knowingly. “They’re right where you want them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Gold nuggets don’t just pile up like that in a stream. Someone salted it for a reason.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Apparently, Tucker didn’t require anything. He was back to studying the map.

  “How are you going to get back to light the fuse?”

  She pulled out her map. “There’s a tunnel to the right that circles around to this spot behind the waterfall.”

  He studied the layout. “You need to set off the front first, for that to work.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll handle that.”

  “You’ll be trapped.”

  He tapped the paper. “There’s a bigger opening now, just a bit farther down.”

  “The air hole?”

  “There was no way I was getting out the back way so I expanded it. Hope you don’t mind.”

  He would have needed to. For the first time since she entered the cave, hope flared. She just might survive this. “I do not mind. What about the snipers?”

  “It won’t be the first time I’ve ruined a sniper’s day.”

  The gold would not distract them forever. It was now or never. Tucker covered her hand with his, bringing her gaze to his. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  There was no question. “The gold is not my destiny.”

  “Just your fresh start.”

  “Shadow talks too much.”

  Tucker chuckled. “Can you make it to here?” He tapped the map at the location of the other detonator.

  “Yes. They will not see me.”

  “I’m going to need a distraction.”

  He was right. His detonator was in sight of the salted streambed. She took the dynamite out of her pocket. “I will provide it.”

  “Take the lantern.” She picked it up. “And, Fei?”

  She stopped and turned back.

  “Be careful.”

  She nodded. She was always careful. Especially now when she might have a future. She just needed to get to that one spot. The terrain was tricky, full of loose rocks and drop-offs, but it was where she needed to be. There was only one place the dynamite would be effective. If Daniels got past it, Tucker would be trapped. Not that the explosion she was planning would kill them. It would just block them from the front exit and send them back to the middle of the cave. The charges she’d planted two months ago would take care of the rest.

  Across the way, she saw Tucker move into place. Partially hidden by rock, he gave her the thumbs-up. She lit the sulfur. Daniels’s men turned at the flare of light.

  “There she is!”

  “Get her!”

  She shook her head, touching the match to the short fuse on the dynamite. She needed them to stay where they were.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TUCKER HAD DONE HIS JOB. The explosions came one right after the other. One man standing near a charge was catapulted through the air like a doll. Another swore and dived for cover. Only the colonel didn’t panic. With unswerving determination, he came running toward her as rock cra
shed down on rock and dust billowed thicker than smoke. It was hard to hear, hard to breathe, hard to think. She hadn’t realized how loud it was all going to be. How devastating. It was as though the world was ending. Turning, she sprinted for the back of the cave. She didn’t have much time. The cave was rigged to blow in sections. It was her last-resort plan. And now that it was set in motion, there was no stopping it.