Under Starry Skies (26 page)

Tye snorted. “At least some of us really
work
. Now Doc, here, was up most of the night delivering a baby for Joseph Sarowski’s eldest daughter, Eleanor. A big, healthy boy.”

“And her second son,” Betsy added, smiling. “Joe will be pleased as punch since all the other daughters have given him eight granddaughters. He longs for grandsons to teach them the trade. Until last night, Isaac—who hangs around with Lenny Sanderson—was his only grandson.”

Dr. Wade laughed. “Joe was so excited he reverted to speaking Russian, and the only thing I understood was the glass of vodka he pushed into my hand while he mumbled some heavenly incantation his son-in-law later translated as ‘God bless you, Doctor.’ Then shortly thereafter, someone came running and said Lang Redford needed his arm sewn up, so I had to leave the festivities.” He laughed. “Good thing, too. I could have been sporting a terrific hangover.”

“Lang Redford was knifed?” Betsy asked. “By whom?”

“A misunderstanding in a card game, according to him.” Cullen set the coffeepot back on the stove and sat back down. “When he’s not gambling at the saloon, he’s at a back table in the barroom playing with some old cronies who hang out there. I don’t know how he fits his work in between card games.”

Betsy put the platter of bacon on the table and took everyone’s plates one at a time as they handed them around the table to her. Leaving her two eggs in the pan, she filled each plate before she took a seat next to Cullen Wade who rose and politely poured her a cup of coffee before sitting again to resume eating.

“Tell me, Dr. Wade, what do you know about Emma McNeil?” She buttered a piece of bread. She suspected her brothers had already told him about Emma’s unsettling exit when his name was mentioned at the opening of the Mule Shed Inn.

“It’s Doc or Cullen,” he said gently while smiling. “I’ve known these idiot brothers of yours for far too long for you to be formal.” He took a sip of coffee. “I knew her cousin who served in the War as an assistant to our medical staff.” He shrugged. “We once briefly discussed Emma’s first husband’s death. He said he was there when they found the body, pulling it from the millpond some three days later after he’d been missing. We discussed the outward appearance of a body having been in the water for a lengthy time—” He looked around the table and then focused his gaze back on Betsy. “Should we be discussing this at the breakfast table?”

“I assure you, Cullen, there is nothing these foolhardy brothers of mine haven’t discussed at the table that would cause me any distress. You were saying…”

Cullen shrugged again. “It appears, from the information the cousin provided, Emma’s husband was killed initially, then thrown into the millpond where he was submerged for a short time, rather than three days. However, the death was ruled as a drowning.”

Marcus leaned back in his chair. “Tell us, Tye, have you had to duck any more bullets or dodge anything lately? Every time you take the little schoolmarm on an outing, you get into some sort of trouble.”

“It’s not amusing,” Betsy admonished above the chuckles around the table.

“Pretty soon she’s going to dump him for someone who’s a tad bit safer,” Marcus added.

“Stop it, right now.” Betsy gave Marcus a warning look and was glad he relented. Despite the big man’s physique and his jovial nature, his persistent humor could be wearisome at times.

“Maybe someone’s trying to scare Tye away from Maria.” Flint stared at the group with a concerned look.

“Or maybe, someone is trying to scare Maria away from Tye,” Betsy muttered uneasily. She decided she’d have to tell Tye about Maria’s recent visit to learn how to handle a firearm. But she would have to wait until she could get him alone.

Marcus looked at Betsy’s plate which held only a slice of bread she had been nibbling on. “Aren’t you going to eat those last two eggs in the pan?”

Betsy shook her head and rose, sliding an egg on Marcus’s plate. “Anyone else?” When no one spoke, she dropped the last one on the big man’s plate as well. “I have no idea where you stow all this food, Marcus. Your poor, poor wife.”

“Luckily his wife is an excellent baker.” Tye grinned.

They were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the parlor door. Tye, closest to the door, rose to answer it. He found a harried-looking Maria on the other side.

“What’s wrong?” Eyebrows knitted, he reached out and pulled her inside.

“Both Lenny Sanderson and Joseph Sarowski’s grandson, Isaac, didn’t show up for school today,” she said in a frightened voice. “They started the schoolhouse stove and then must have left.”

“Boys skip school, Maria,” Tye said in a reassuring tone.

Behind him, Flint, Brett, Marcus, and Cullen came through the archway and stopped.

“Not these two,” Maria insisted. “They are my best and brightest students. They’ve never missed a day of school.” She bit her lip and wrung her hands. “Isaac’s father stopped by the school this morning. In all the excitement of the new baby, Isaac forgot to take his lunch pail. When he didn’t find his son with me, he was most upset.” She looked at Tye with pleading eyes. “We have to look for them. I have Abigail at the school house watching the rest of my students.”

“Then we better find those boys quickly,” Brett said in a droll voice, “to rescue the rest of the class from the hands of your sister. She would have more luck teaching a bear to drink whiskey than instructing those poor innocents.”

Tye whistled for Swamp and laid a reassuring hand on Maria’s arm. “Brett and I will meet you at the school house with horses. We’ll try to track the boys from the schoolhouse onward. Marcus can go up the mountain and check on the Sanderson homestead to see if Lenny returned there. Flint can round up a couple of men and search the town and surrounding area, then fan out to the woods to the north. Doc should stay in town in case we need him. Three rapid shots in the air means we found them.”

“I’m going with you,” Maria insisted. “I feel responsible.”

“Get something from the classroom he’s touched,” Tye instructed her.

Later, as Tye and Brett drew up in front of the schoolhouse with Swamp trotting along beside them and an extra mount behind Tye, they found Maria waiting. She was dressed in a split riding skirt and held a ring flask, a lantern, a rope, and a sketchpad in her hands. “The boys tell me Isaac and Lenny often talked about the old mines and finding gold,” she said. “I dismissed the class for the rest of the afternoon and sent Abigail to the inn to alert the men there to help Flint round up some search parties.”

“Everyone dreams of finding gold,” Brett said. “Every boy dreams of having adventures.” He looked at the sketchbook with a puzzled gaze.

“This is all I have of Lenny’s,” she said with a shrug.

“Swamp doesn’t need much to make a connection.” Tye dismounted. Behind his saddle, he had tied on another lantern and a shovel. He took Maria’s lantern and rope and fastened it to her horse, then took the offered sketchbook and called the dog, letting him sniff the paper. “We need to
find
him, boy.” He patted the dog on his head. “
Find
him,” he repeated and waited as the dog smelled the sketchbook yet again, then sniffed the ground around the doorstep of the school before barking and taking off toward a copse of aspen behind the school.

They mounted and followed until they came to a clearing slowly taken over by bright yellow plumes of goldenrod and blackberry bushes with a splattering of late berries wildlife had yet to find. Entering a small path lined with bull thistle and half-dried weeds, they climbed up and over a hillside toward higher ground, always vigilant of the route the dog was taking.

Suddenly Tye pulled up and the others stopped beside him, leather creaking. His frisky horse snorted and danced sideways, eager to proceed. He looked at Brett and Maria with a disturbing gaze and brought his mount under control. “If Swamp does have their scent like I reckon he does, then those boys are headed for the old caved in mine Lenny’s dad owned. You know the one, Brett—where he buried his wife when the mine caved in?”

A rumble of thunder above their heads brought them all to attention. Clouds began to gather in the sky, turning black, looming dark and threatening. Around them the sunshine had disappeared along with the trill of songbirds. Nighthawks and swallows prowled the sky, wheeling and diving, catching insects gathering before the storm. Far off, they could hear the roll of thunder.

“You should go back, Maria.” Tye checked the sky with a nervous gaze. “This is going to be a wet one. A dandy.”

She shook her head and nudged her horse forward. “I’m not quitting until we find those boys. They were my responsibility.” Together, they watched Swamp lope easily up an embankment and over a ridge.

“Yep, it’s the old mine.” Tye kicked his mount forward.

They reached the spot just as the first fat drops of water fell from the sky. Tye was the first to slip off his horse and approach the cave from the front. Swamp was running in circles and barking at the piles of slag and rubble barricading the entrance.

“Lenny! Isaac,” he yelled above the rumble of thunder. He started up a small spoil pile footpath winding its way upward to the top of the mine with Swamp in front of him. “There’s an air shaft up on top leading straight down into the mine if it hasn’t caved in by now,” he shouted to the others. He turned and motioned to Maria to take his horse and circle around from the other side where a better path led to the top of the mine. She and Brett reached it about the same time. Tye knelt before the opening and shouted down the long dark shaft lined with timber. “Lenny and Isaac, can you hear me?”

The faint sound of “help,” like a distant echo, filtered up from the mine shaft between the rolls of thunder from above.

“One of us has to go down there,” Tye said to Brett. They barely exchanged glances when Tye scrambled up and hurried to the horses. He removed a rope, a pair of leather gloves, and the two lanterns.

“Since I know your wish is to overcome your fear of caves and dark, small places, I think you should have the honors.” Brett took a tin of matches from his coat and handed it to him. He grinned his cocky grin. When Tye shot him a sour expression, he plucked at his new sack coat. “What?” His hand flew up in the air. “You know I was planning to meet with the town council today at the lumber yard.”

Tye shook his head and cursed softly. For a fleeting second, he thought about throwing him head first down the chute. Instead, he dropped to the ground, removed his hat, made a lasso in the rope, and pulled it over his head to settle at his waist. “Any idea how far down this shaft goes?” he asked no one in particular.

Maria was already lighting a lantern and tying it onto a rope she had taken from her saddle. “We’ll lower this first lantern down to try to determine the depth,” she said as a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. “We may be able to get an idea of how sound the timbers are lining the chute.” Her hair had come undone and whipped about her head and shoulders, blowing strands into her eyes as the wind began to pick up in strength with the incoming storm. She knelt in front of Tye, hands on her knees. “You need to signal us if you need help, if someone is injured. Pull once on the lantern rope. Leave it at the entrance to guide you back to the chute. I’ll have it in my hands to feel the tug. One of us can come down. Pull twice on the other rope when you need us to pull someone up.”

He reached out and carefully pushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. They stared at each other without speaking. Finally he said, “I don’t want you down there under any circumstances, do you hear me, Maria? Send down fancy pants over there in the new duds. I don’t give a damn about his going-to-the-meeting clothes. Use my horse to pull us up. Dreamkeeper’s a good cow pony, and he knows what he’s doing even in the worst situations. That’s why I brought him. He’s steady, and he won’t shy from a rope.”

“Please be careful, Tye,” she said, her voice cracking. “Remember, yank twice on the rope when you need us to pull someone up.”

He took off his hat and handed it to her, then raised a hand and cupped the side of her face. He could see her spirits sagging. “Hey, don’t worry. How hard can this be? No one will be shooting at us, and I can guarantee there are no snakes in that blasted cold mine down there.” He touched his lips to hers and kissed her quickly.

She pulled away and sighed. “Don’t joke.”

Chapter Twenty

Tye slipped down the hole into the inky blackness, pleased to find Maria’s lantern sitting at the bottom, casting a dim light to illuminate the floor of the mine. As soon as he hit bottom, he tied his rope to a nearby piece of rotted timber and lit the second lantern he had secured at his waist. Above him, he heard Brett fire three rapid rounds from his gun to signal their whereabouts and to alert other search parties they had found the boys. Beside him, he heard the steady drip, drip, drip of water coming from a crack in the rock ceiling and hitting the mine floor. He surveyed the gloomy walls around him and yelled the boys names again, waiting patiently for a response.

From somewhere down a long low tunnel to his right, a voice called out, “Here! We’re over here.”

“Can you see the light?” Tye shouted. He held the lantern higher.

“Yes!” Lenny replied from the depths of a long tunnel in front of him. “Isaac’s foot is caught under a fallen rock.”

Tye closed his eyes and sighed. He thought about the barn at the ranch and the dark crawl space under its foundation where he had sent Flint instead of himself to check the foundation. Now, even the barn space looked better than the narrow, black, gaping mouth ahead of him ready to swallow him up. He stepped over a puddle of water and stooped to peer into the tunnel. The ceiling was low, and its walls were slimy and black. A drip of water fell on the back of his neck and slipped under his shirt. He cursed, took a deep breath, and ducked down, moving into the tunnel’s entrance. Inching forward into the blackness, he felt the rock ceiling graze the top of his head. Another drip fell down onto the back of his shirt as he crept along, taking care not to stumble or dislodge any debris from the sides.