A Rancher's Vow

by Patricia Rosemoor

  No shots rang out. No shouts of warning.

  Then they were at the entrance. And the boards that had looked loose to him earlier were easily pried open, enough for them to squeeze through.

  And then they were in.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alcina took a shaky breath and whispered, “We did it!”

  “Take this,” Reed said in a low tone, pressing a flashlight into her hand. “But don’t flip it on yet. Let’s get away from the entrance.”

  Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark. A bit of moonlight filtered through the cracks between boards and into the mouth of the mine. She could see the direction the tunnel took. And then only darkness lay beyond.

  “Be careful of your footing. The mine floor can be treacherous,” Reed warned her, guiding her by the arm for several yards.

  Then he switched on his flashlight and aimed the beam along the wall.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “This.” He’d pinned a piece of equipment in the bright beam. “A generator. Let’s see if it’s working.”

  A moment later, bare bulbs, strung every dozen yards or so, faintly glowed down the length of the tunnel. Minimal light, but it meant making their going easier. And they could save on flashlight batteries if necessary.

  Alcina had never been inside a mine before, and this was one of the old ones, originally dug earlier in the century by a handful of men before the development of sophisticated equipment. On a slight downward incline, the tunnel was less than six feet wide and somewhere between seven and eight feet high. The support beams appeared rotted to her, and she wondered how they still held the roof from falling in. Water seeped down the walls. The floor beneath her feet was slick in spots. A thin skin of mud oozed over the metal tracks meant to convey ore cars back to the entrance.

  Reed indicated a hole in the side of the wall ahead.

  “That’s a stope,” he told her. “Men blasted and dug their way down to a lower level and sent the debris back up in an ore bucket.”

  He hunkered down and shone his flashlight through the ragged opening half blocked by a fallen beam. Fearing what they might find, Alcina held her breath. Debris everywhere, nearly filling the cavity.

  Reed muttered, “Looks like a cave-in.”

  No bodies, though, at least none they could see.

  Alcina shivered, but not because she was cold. The temperature was far warmer than it had been outside. Like a cave, an underground mine would keep a steady, moderate temperature all year round. She shivered because she’d never felt quite so claustrophobic.

  Her uneasiness at whether or not they’d find their fathers alive growing, she followed Reed without comment. Every so often, he stopped to check an area more thoroughly for signs. Mostly what he found was that someone had been chipping away in search of new veins.

  They came across another stope, in better shape than the last, but their view was partially blocked.

  “Pa!” Reed yelled. “Tucker?”

  “Daddy, are you there?”

  Their voices echoed hollowly along the damp walls, but only someone inside the mine itself would be able to hear, she knew. Her stomach knotted at the thought.

  “Nothing,” Reed said.

  Alcina didn’t know what she had expected—Daddy and Emmett wouldn’t be waiting for them at the entrance with open arms—but her sense of an impending crisis multiplied.

  And her paranoia. For now she feared they weren’t alone. That the villain was lurking in the shadows, waiting to surprise them, to bury them alive…

  They hadn’t gone very far before Reed stopped and shone his light through another low opening.

  “Pa!”

  “Daddy!”

  “Hang on,” Reed said. “This stope is clear. We’re going down.”

  “Down?” she gasped, glancing over her shoulder into the dimness they’d left behind. “How far?”

  Had she actually heard something—a foot slipping on the muck—or was her imagination playing tricks on her?

  “Down to the next level and a lower tunnel.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and she grabbed his arm. “Reed, I’m not sure about this. What if…what if we’re not alone in here?”

  He turned to her and cupped her face, stroked her cheek with his thumb.

  “You’re spooked, I know,” he said. “But we’re here now and if Tucker and Pa are still alive, we have to find them before it’s too late. I’m willing to try whatever is necessary.”

  “Of course. You’re right.” She pressed her face into the warmth of his palm, but that didn’t dispel the uncertainty that overtook her. “Whatever it takes.”

  “Let me go first.”

  She watched the tunnel behind them as he led the way down the ladder that was hooked into the side of the vertical tunnel. No movement. No sound. So why did she have this pressing sensation that they were being watched?

  As she followed, she tried not to shake as the ladder moved under her weight. What was left of a pulley system dangled next to her, reminding her of how very dangerous the old mine could be. As hard as she tried to focus on the positive, she kept imagining Cesar Cardona stalking them, waiting for his chance to trap them forever…as he might already have trapped their fathers.

  “You’re almost there,” Reed said from behind her.

  He put his hands around her waist and helped her down. She settled back against him for a moment and he hugged her.

  “C’mon, the tunnel’s clear.”

  The tunnel narrowed and split.

  “What do we do now?” Alcina asked.

  “Check both branches, one at a time.”

  “That would take forever.” And she wanted out in the worst way. “Let’s split up.”

  “No.”

  “It’ll be faster.”

  “No.”

  “Reed…whatever it takes, remember? If I find them, I’ll yell for you and you’ll come running. Or you’ll yell and I’ll come.”

  Though still reluctant, Reed agreed that her plan made sense. He gave her a swift kiss, admonished her to be careful of where she stepped, and went down the passage to the right.

  Taking a deep breath, Alcina explored the tunnel to the left, checking every crevasse, and continuing to call out for her father and Emmett.

  The tunnel seemed to go on forever, and just when her hope faded, she heard a faint “Over here…”

  “Daddy? Emmett? I’m coming. Say something so I can find you.”

  “Here…hurry…”

  The voice was clearer now. Clear enough to make her stop dead in her tracks. That voice didn’t belong to either of the old men.

  “Alcina, over here,” came the ghostly voice. “Come to Daddy.”

  Her skin crawled and her heart thundered so loud in her ears she almost missed the closer warning.

  “No, go back…” came a weak, aged voice. “…a trick.”

  “Daddy!” she cried, just as the lights went out.

  Pulse racing, Alcina fumbled with her flashlight, her fingers suddenly turning uncooperative. At last she switched it on and almost dropped it again when she saw the villain standing within reach of its beam.

  “You!”

  “Keep your mouth shut or I’ll shoot,” he warned her.

  She stared stupidly at the gun in his hand. And when he grabbed her arm and put the metal barrel to her temple, she didn’t fight him.

  “Too late…too late…” came a moaning from below.

  “Daddy, are you all right?” she called out.

  “I told you to shut up!” He jerked her around. “But I guess you won’t be satisfied unless you see for yourself. Point the flashlight down to your left.”

  She did as ordered.

  Another opening. Another shaft. Two men, looking older than she’d ever seen them, huddled together on the floor, more than a dozen feet below.

  “Are you all right?” she asked again.

  “See for yourself, bitch.”

  With that, he
r captor gave her a sharp shove.

  Alcina screamed as she flew forward, her stomach dropping faster than the rest of her. She landed directly on top of her father and Emmett. They sprawled across the floor in a tangle of arms and legs and loops of the rope that had fallen free from her body.

  “Sweetheart, are you all right?”

  “Daddy,” she cried, righting herself. If she was hurt, she’d figure it out later. “Thank God the two of you are alive.”

  “Not for long,” Emmett muttered darkly. “You, neither. My fault. Never should have involved you. For once, I should have kept my nose where it belonged.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alcina asked. “It’s not your fault that we came looking for you instead of leaving it to the authorities.”

  “I didn’t know it would come to this,” Emmett protested weakly. “I didn’t know that I would put your life in danger when I made Reed marry you.”

  “You made Reed marry me?” a stunned Alcina echoed. He’d told her to think of it as a business deal…but this? Unthinkable! Only, she had to know. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “How? Why?”

  Sounding like a man doomed by his own hand, Emmett said, “I guilted him into it to save the ranch…but it was already too late.”

  ALCINA’S SCREAM raised the hair on Reed’s neck and arms.

  Without giving it a second thought, he dropped the saddlebag off his shoulder and raced down the tunnel, rifle in one hand, flashlight in the other. He had to get to her—she must have hurt herself in the dark. He should have known that old generator wouldn’t be reliable.

  He slowed as he reached the split in the tunnel and shifted gears to enter the other branch.

  “Alcina!” he cried. “Say something, sweetheart! I’m coming for you!”

  He heard a scuffle directly ahead. His flashlight beam hit not his wife, but a hulk of a man. Staring into the barrel of a gun, Reed stopped and fought for breath.

  “Well, ain’t that sweet? You’re just in time to die with your loved ones. Drop the rifle, Quarrels.”

  The man grinned but the smile didn’t reach his pale eyes. His silver buzz cut gleamed in the darkened tunnel. So they’d been wrong about Cardona, Reed thought, taking inventory.

  Hugh Ruskin was standing next to an opening. Had he thrown Alcina down that shaft?

  A fist closed around Reed’s heart, and he feared he was already too late. He dropped the rifle.

  “Ruskin, where are they?”

  “Ah, so anxious.” The bartender flicked on a miner’s light that he’d attached to his jacket. “Don’t worry, they’re all still alive. You’ll have time for a last goodbye. Now kick that rifle over here.”

  Reed nearly collapsed with relief. Anything was still possible, then. He kicked the rifle just short of the other man. The bartender waved the gun as if Reed should start walking, but Reed wasn’t in a cooperative mood.

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  Ruskin moved closer, stepping over the rifle. “You’re mistaken, Quarrels. My father might have been a weak man, but I suggest you don’t underestimate me. Your pa and Tucker Dale forced him out of their partnership for a pittance, but I intend to reclaim my rightful inheritance.”

  Reed thought he heard a thunk somewhere behind Ruskin. Not knowing who was back there or what the person was up to, Reed decided to keep the bartender talking and distracted.

  “Your father? Your father was Noah Warner?” Reed asked. “Noah sold out. You have no claim to the mine.”

  “His partners cheated him!” Ruskin boomed. “And when he lost what they gave him gambling, he ate a gun, leaving my mother and me to fend for ourselves. Noah Warner’s legacy consisted of a lousy diamond stickpin and a silver ring he had made from the first piece of ore he brought out of this mine. I’ll bet your pa never told you that my father was the one who found the new vein in the first place. Just like I found the vein of molybdenum that’ll make me as rich as I deserve to be.”

  “So you were behind all the bad-luck incidents on the Curly-Q, starting with the anthrax outbreak?”

  “You figured that out. You’re smarter than I thought. And with the Curly-Q on the auction block I would have gotten my hands on it all. I have friends with deep pockets and a taste for big profits.”

  “Tell me, Ruskin, what did Peter Dagget and Reba Gantry ever do to you?”

  “They got in the way. Just like you.” Ruskin pulled something from his pocket. “But I intend to fix it so no one finds any of you unless they dig up a couple of tons of rock.”

  Ruskin was holding a cell phone.

  Reed’s mouth went dry. He’d bet dollars to doughnuts that a pager was wired nearby. And this time it wouldn’t be set to start a fire.

  Reed was certain that Ruskin had hooked the damn thing up to sticks of dynamite that could blow them all to kingdom come.

  “TRY AGAIN, Emmett!” Alcina urged, aiming the flashlight beam upward. “You can do it!”

  Looped rope in hand, Emmett whirled it around his head and let it free. It flew straight up to the mechanism controlling the ore bucket that was stalled at the top of the shaft. This time it held.

  “Good job.” Her plan was working already. She handed him the flashlight so he could use it to guide her. “I’m ready, Daddy.”

  Alcina waved her father to the wall.

  That the old men were down here was her fault. Daddy had recognized the diamond, and when Emmett had accused him of being responsible for the Curly-Q’s troubles, Daddy had shoved the thing in his face. Emmett had remembered seeing Noah’s silver ring on the bartender at Chance’s wedding, but it hadn’t registered then.

  Together, the men had lain in wait for Ruskin, who had in turn trapped them in the mine.

  The bastard had bragged about how he’d shot at her and Reed when they’d come poking their noses around the mine earlier. Alcina supposed he got some perverse pleasure in trying to break their spirits.

  But both men had plenty of spirit left.

  Her father gave Alcina a leg up. She latched onto the rope, braced her free foot against the wall and half pulled, half climbed her way up, inches rather than feet at a time.

  “That’s it,” her father whispered encouragingly. “You’ve almost got it, sweetheart.”

  Her arms burned, her fingers stung, her legs protested wildly. She stalled out a few feet from the top to catch her breath and to find her reserve of energy.

  “Only a little farther,” Emmett urged.

  Alcina heard other voices, too—faint but not too far away—Reed arguing with Ruskin. No doubt the bastard had the drop on her husband and would soon force him to join the party.

  She figured she didn’t have much time.

  Clenching her jaw against the pain, she managed the last few feet and grabbed the heavy steel ore bucket that was big enough to hold a person. The bucket gave unexpectedly and Alcina cried out as her feet swung away from the wall. She hung on fiercely and waited for it to settle back against the rock.

  Then she clambered up onto the tunnel floor.

  “Shine the light up here,” she whispered.

  She needed to see what she was doing. While the pulley system was normally run by generator, Emmett had told her it could be operated manually in case of power failure. The men would attempt to come up in the bucket, one at a time, using their own combined strength to work the pulley cables. She released the brake and carefully lowered the bucket.

  Now it was up to them to get themselves out. She had to do something to even the playing field with Ruskin.

  Crouching in the dark, she felt around the slime-covered floor for something she could use as a weapon. Daddy had told her he’d seen some handheld mining tools against the opposite wall. Her fingers nicked a length of metal—one of the rods a worker drove into the rock to make a niche for explosives. It was long, she estimated three feet, and heavy.

  Drawing on strength she wouldn’t have bet she still had, Alcina lifted the drill rod. She glanced down the
shaft to see how the men were doing. Daddy was in the ore bucket and he and Emmett were using the pulley system to inch him up.

  No time to wait.

  Weapon balanced in both hands, she crept forward and prayed for a clear shot at the man who would see them all dead.

  “LOOK, we can fix this like reasonable men.”

  Reed was stalling for time. He’d sworn he’d seen movement beyond the rim of his light.

  “What if I don’t want to be reasonable?”

  “You want to be rich, right? And wouldn’t you rather do that without the law looking over your shoulder?”

  “You mean your brother?”

  Reed was hoping for an opening to rush the bartender, but Ruskin wasn’t giving him one.

  “Bart won’t take our deaths lightly. And he’ll know, when you try to buy the property—”

  “Ah, stuff it! I can take care of him if I need to. And your little brother—”

  “Ee-yah-ah!”

  The scream cut through Ruskin’s words and took him off guard. He swung around, gun hand first. Even as Reed rushed forward, Alcina swung a long metal rod and whomped his arm.

  Ruskin screamed, “Bitch!” as both gun and cell phone went flying. They skittered along the slippery floor.

  Reed was flying, too. He tackled the bastard, and they rolled, Reed landing beneath the bigger man, who elbowed him hard.

  “Reed!” Alcina screamed.

  “Stay away,” he managed to grunt, fearing Ruskin might hurt her.

  The breath was knocked out of him, but as Ruskin started to get up, Reed managed to hook a foot around the bartender’s ankle. The man pitched forward, landing on hands and knees.

  A temporary reprieve.

  Ruskin was up on his feet in seconds. Spinning, he kicked out at Reed who rolled again, narrowly avoiding the boot.

  Then Ruskin made a dive for the ground.

  The rifle!

  Reed flew for it, too.

  Both men locked hands on the weapon at the same time. Ruskin was bigger. Stronger. But Reed had wrestled thousands of calves to the ground to brand them. Leverage was everything. He let go of the rifle and grabbed on to Ruskin’s leg and gave it an expert twist and jerk.