The Mother Lode (28 page)

“That a promise?” Joe asked, not believing it. “Are you gonna pray all the Peabody gunmen away?”

Rip was resting in the aisle, tongue out but hackles still raised.

“I don't allow dogs in my church,” the priest said. “But in this one case, I'll make an exception.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.

“Joe Moss, you could have saved yourself by leaving me outside. That was very brave and I know in my heart that you're a good, Christian man. I didn't think that before, but I do now. Have a little faith because Jesus and I are going to save you.”

“Father, are you talking about my life . . . or my soul?”

“Both,” O'Connor whispered. “I know a secret place where you and that wolf can hide here and never be found.”

“Never?”

“Pick me up and we'll go there.”

Joe picked the priest up. Now he heard pounding on the church doors. “I hope this hiding place is real close, Father.”

“Very close,” the priest whispered, weakly pointing toward a hallway and then finally a little door. “In here, Joe Moss. In here.”

Joe and Rip rushed into a small library carrying the wounded priest. “Father, where do we go now? There's no place in here to hide.”

“That Bible on the shelf. Pick it up, Joe.”

“Father, I . . . .”

“Pick it up, Joe Moss!”

When Joe picked up the Bible, he was amazed, because the bookcase slowly turned to reveal a rock-lined passage, or maybe it was just a hiding hole. Joe couldn't tell.

“Put me down in that chair,” O'Connor commanded. “I'll take a moment to pray and then hobble out to face them.”

“And they won't kill you for hiding me?”

“They wouldn't dare!”

Joe and Rip disappeared into the priest's secret place, and when the bookshelf closed behind, they were plunged into total darkness.

“Good-bye, Joe Moss and Dog,” the priest whispered. “Please go far away and
never
return.”

Joe heard distant voices and then the pounding of boots on tile. He still had his handgun, his bowie knife, and his tomahawk. Beside him in the darkness, Rip growled low, and Joe asked the big dog to be still and quiet. Rip obeyed. Now Joe crouched in the darkness, wondering if he and his dog would be found. And if they were, he hoped that he would be able to sink the blade of his tomahawk into the last Peabody left standing.

I'll do 'er if they open that bookcase,
he vowed.
I'll kill as many more as I can get before they kill me so they can't hunt down my Fiona.

But the running footfalls faded, as did the angry shouting voices after a long time. Rip began to snore softly. The bookcase never opened and Joe Moss was never found.