“Viola, girl, come out. We don’t have time for you to act silly and hide,” Linc said, his loud voice sounding cold and harsh.
Viola strained to hear the deep voice that spoke to Linc, but it was too low to discern. The sound of glass breaking caused her to jump. She listened as Linc moved through the cabin, an explosion of noise following his footsteps. The sound muffled for a minute, and Viola hoped he’d left. Yet, with a loud growl from the cabin, she realized he had simply been in her and Beatrice’s room. She shuddered at the thought of him being in there, touching her things. The crashing got louder as Linc moved into her father’s room.
“Where is she?” Linc bellowed as the bookcase shook with his violence, the thud of books hitting the floor sounding through the wood.
Viola heard the low, steady voice of Robert speak. “She’s not here, Linc. Let’s go before the other two get back.”
“She’s here you idiot. Where else could she be? I saw movement by the clothesline,” Linc said, as the wood in front of her rattled again.
To Viola’s horror, the bookcase popped open an inch, causing light to point a line right to where she stayed frozen in the cold cave. Robert stood before the crack, his eyes widening in shock as he peered at her. He stepped quickly to the crack, pushing the case flush to the cave wall with a soft click.
“What was that?” Linc’s question shuddered the air from her chest. Would he find her now? Would she have to unload the pistol on him, scarring her soul from taking his life? If he found her, she knew she wouldn’t hesitate … at least she hoped she wouldn’t hesitate. She prayed she wouldn’t find out.
“Just what do you think it was, Linc? You’re throwing things around like a child throwing a tantrum; things are falling left and right. I just caught this bookcase from falling on your fool head.” Robert’s voice, firm and harsh as he lied to his brother, confused and elated her. She held her breath as Robert continued. “Viola’s not here, and I’m leaving. I’m not about to be caught here when the Thomases come back and find this place trashed.”
Viola heard heavy footsteps walk away. She let her breath out slowly and quietly took another in, listening, waiting. A loud, anguished roar full of rage and hurt sounded from the bedroom. Viola cried out in fear and quickly covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the noise. An eternity passed before feet stomped out of the cabin with another roar. As Viola heard the horses’ muffled retreating, she fell back against the cave wall, collapsed to the floor, curled into a ball, and sobbed.
Chapter 13
The anxiety that sat heavy on Hunter’s chest since the moment he and Beatrice had left the homestead now howled and gnawed at him like a two-hundred-pound lion. They shouldn’t have left Viola alone. Now that the hunting responsibility was fulfilled with the small elk laid across the back of his horse’s rump, the desire to kick into a full-out gallop proved almost overwhelming.
How was he ever going to survive in this time? He had always longed for the simple, uncomplicated life of long ago, a life where your focus stayed on surviving the elements, far from the constant intrusions and distractions of the future. But this time held its own distractions, mainly a beautiful blonde with eyes as calm as mountain lake water and a tender heart that made Hunter go all macho and insist on protecting her.
Hunter shook his head at the idiocy his thoughts were creating. Back home, he wouldn’t have hesitated in leaving his wife or girlfriend home alone, a woman who probably would have less skills at protecting herself than Viola did. So why was he suddenly pulling this chauvinistic stunt, practically thumping his chest and dragging her away by the hair? In truth, Viola and Beatrice could probably take care of themselves better without him, since he wasn’t adept at operating the firearms here. He also knew almost nothing of farming or ranching or whatever it was they did with their land and animals. He was just an extra body, and a broken one at that.
As Hunter and Beatrice rode into the homestead yard, Beatrice whipped out her revolver and scanned the area. Hunter’s focus sharpened as he pulled his own gun out. The sheets flapped on the line, and the wash pot still sat on a fire that had died low. A lone sheet laid piled in the dirt by the line. Everything was quiet—too quiet.
Hunter dismounted fast, sending a sharp pain up his bad leg, almost bringing him to his knees. He gritted his teeth through the pain and raced to the cabin where the door stood wide open. He flattened himself to the side of the door and took a deep breath, willing his training to the forefront. Beatrice landed on the opposite side of the door and glanced at him. Hunter pointed to himself and gave hand signals he’d go in first, then she’d cover him. She nodded her head, and he breached the room.
As Hunter scanned the front room for intruders, he noticed the cabin’s floor was littered with stuff, like a cyclone had gone through and ripped everything loose. Hunter motioned for Beatrice to check her room while he went to the other bedroom. The same disorder greeted him there, but no Sweeneys. No Viola.
“Viola!” His yell ripped from his chest as he turned in the bedroom doorway, peering for her in the corners of the front room as if she’d pop out from under the scattered books or crawl from beneath his bed. He knew they shouldn’t have left her. Now the Sweeneys had her. Beatrice looked about to say something as she pointed behind him, but he held his hand up to stop her. Anger at himself and at her filled him so much he couldn’t look at her, let alone hear any excuse she might give. She put her hands on her hips and glared.
As a bellow began to build within his chest he heard a soft click behind him. He turned, raising his gun when the most beautiful vision walked out from behind the bookcase that stood against the back wall. Viola. Her face smeared with dirt and tears. Her hair loose and tangled. She stood there alive, not kidnapped by a crazed man. A sob ripped from her as she launched herself across the room at him. Hunter holstered the gun and met her halfway, pulling her tight to him as her body shuddered in his arms.
“I thought they’d got you,” he hoarsely whispered. “I thought I had failed again, lost someone else.”
“What happened?” Beatrice asked from the bedroom doorway.
Viola pulled back, but just far enough that she could look at Hunter and Beatrice, which Hunter thought was wise since he wasn’t sure he could let her go yet. “The Sweeneys showed up while I was finishing the laundry. I didn’t have time to lift the bar. I barely made it into the cave.”
“They just trashed the place and left?” Beatrice asked in doubt.
Viola shook her head. “It was the oddest thing. Linc was in this room raging. He threw books off the case and accidentally sprung the lock, opening the case an inch. I knew for sure he was going to find me, and I was going to have to kill him.” Viola shook her head again, her forehead scrunching up in confusion.
“What happened?” Beatrice asked the question screaming in Hunter’s head.
“Robert stood by the opening, his eyes wide in shock. I know he saw me. He stared straight into my eyes. Next thing I know, he’s stepping up to the case and pushing it shut. When Linc asked what Robert was doing, Robert lied and said he stopped the bookshelf from falling on Linc. Robert then said he was leaving, that I wasn’t here, and he wasn’t about to get caught when you all returned.”
“Why would he do that?” Beatrice asked, her voice dripping with skepticism.
“He’s not quite sold on his brother’s scheme,” Hunter answered, brushing the hair from Viola’s face, running his thumb across her dirty, tear-stained cheek.
“Maybe Robert will talk Linc out of this insane obsession,” Viola said as she peered up at Hunter, the fear still evident in her eyes. He wished he could wipe that away as easily as he could the dirt and the tears.
“Linc’s loco. He’s not giving anything up this easily,” Beatrice said as she surveyed the cabin with a huff of disgust. “Did he really have to destroy the place? That polecat left a mountain-load of work behind on top of butchering that elk. Let’s move you two. We don’t have time to stand around, s
taring into each other’s eyes.”
Viola stepped out of Hunter’s arms, holding his stare with hers as she did. He trailed his hand down her arm and squeezed her fingers. He wanted to hold on forever but knew he didn’t have that privilege yet. As she pulled her hand from his and walked away, the sunlight from the open door turned her hair to spun gold. He knew he couldn’t claim her as his now, but he determined that distinction would be his the first chance he got.
As Viola and Beatrice got to work picking up books, Hunter turned toward the back of the room, where the hole was exposed behind the bookshelf.
“Are we just going to ignore the gaping hole in the back of the cabin?” Hunter asked. “Inquisitive minds want to know.”
“We can show you that later. There’s too much work to do,” Beatrice said as she headed toward the door outside. “Hunter, come help me hang that elk up in the springhouse before it gets too warm.”
“Fine, but when we are done with that, we are barring the door, and you two are showing me what’s in the secret passageway.” Hunter made his way through the mess, grabbing Viola’s hand and dragging her along on the way out. “You’re sticking close to me until my heart rate and my nerves are back to normal.”
Viola sighed and squeezed his hand in hers. He led his horse to the springhouse, which was really a small shed built up against a small cave that he’d been told stayed cool all summer. The entire time they worked at hanging the meat, Hunter’s mind roamed to that opening at the back of the cabin. He’d always been intrigued by secret passageways. He remembered begging his parents to build him one in between his and Chase’s room. One weekend, while his mom had been out of town at a conference, he, his dad, and Chase had built a secret door to connect their two bedrooms. That weekend, and the surprise on his mom’s face when she returned, remained one of his favorite memories.
Now a secret room no one cared to mention before begged to be explored, and he was stuck outside wrestling with an elk. He wasn’t going to allow the fact that he hadn’t been told about the cave pinch at him, at least not much. He tried not to inwardly pout that in all the hours he and Viola talked, not once did she mention a hidden passageway.
“I need to know if there’s enough ammo for me to practice shooting. I’m good with my gun I brought with me, but these old six-shooters are cumbersome, and I want to be comfortable handling them,” Hunter said, hoping if he talked, his mind wouldn’t obsess over why he hadn’t been told.
“Don’t worry. We have plenty,” Viola said, as she closed the door to the springhouse after he and Beatrice finished.
Hunter wasn’t sure his idea of plenty and hers would match, but with the elk hanging, he pointed his feet toward the cabin.
“We need to put the horses up,” Beatrice said, her tone chiding.
“The horses can wait five minutes … I’m about to bust at the seams with anticipation.” Hunter glared at her, daring her to contradict him.
Beatrice rolled her eyes and walked toward the cabin. “Well, let’s get to it. Those Sweeneys left us enough work for a whole week. We don’t have time for childish whims of exploring.”
“Really, Beatrice, do you have to be so rude?” Viola quickly glanced to Hunter.
Beatrice turned, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. She snickered as she jogged to the cabin. Hunter looked at Viola, winked, and took off after Beatrice. When he got to the cabin, he waited for Viola to enter and barred the door. He followed her to the bedroom, the swish of her skirts almost distracting him from the mystery awaiting.
Beatrice reached for a lantern hanging on an iron hook right inside of the hole. She struck a match along the wall, lit the lantern, and then held it up, revealing a tunnel that led into the heart of the mountain. The sharp scent of the match’s sulfur mingled with the musty scent of underground.
“What most people don’t know is that Pa’s primary reason for building here was so he’d have access to this cave without having to leave the house. It’s strategical, just not in the way people would think,” Viola grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the entrance.
Her voice bounced off the walls as they walked through the tunnel. It amazed him when he ducked in and immediately stood up straight. The roof of the tunnel was about six inches from his head and the width was a good five feet across. The musty, earthy scent of a dry cave instead of the dank smell of a moist one tinged the air, and the temperature dropped the farther they walked in the mountain. About fifteen feet in, the tunnel opened up to a cavernous room.
Beatrice walked to the center and hooked the lantern to a chain that hung from a metal hook hammered into the ceiling. How anyone had gotten the chain up that high baffled him, with the rough walls and the near vertical slant of them. With the place lit up, except in the farthest corner, he saw crates and crates of items organized along the walls and upon shelves that lined through the middle of the cave like their own personal mercantile. Labels described every crate as if he stood in the archive of some museum. Hunter willed his brain to shut his mouth from gaping like a caught trout. This cave was the best secret room he’d ever found.
“Pa never wanted to be caught unaware,” Viola said from next to him. “He always said if we got holed up in the cabin, whether from weather or miscreants, he didn’t want to worry about not being able to survive. He said if a man grew roots, he should be able to protect them, whether the threat was natural or man-made.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Hunter replied as he walked further into the cave and took inventory.
“The crates along the walls are all filled with ammunition.” Beatrice turned and pointed as she beamed with pride. “The shelves on the inside are food stores, fabric, bandages, and extra medicinal herbs and whatnot that we gather during the year. And the best part is, if you follow the crack in the back corner, there’s a fresh spring that comes out of the mountain and runs into the lake. The crack’s tight, so only Viola and I ever go back, though you could make it if you needed to. We have an endless supply of water, enough food to last half a year or more, and enough ammunition to wage a war.”
Hunter peered at the number of crates stacked as high as he could reach around the entire perimeter and wondered at the ingenuity and forethought put into this amount of storage. Thousands of rounds had to be stored here, and with the dry atmosphere of the cave, the ammunition wouldn’t be compromised and left useless. His military mind immediately went into overdrive.
“Can the water be tainted?” he asked as he walked around the wall, cataloguing what he saw.
“No, Pa searched for years for the source to make sure it couldn’t be tampered with. He never found where it began, and if he didn’t find it, there’s no way a knuckleheaded Sweeney will find it,” Beatrice said.
“What about where the spring leaves the mountain? Can that be followed into the cave?”
“Nope, it runs for a few feet through the cave, then disappears through a hole I couldn’t even get my head through. Pa searched for where it comes out of the mountain, and his best bet was that the spring feeds somewhere into the lake. Wherever it goes, there’s no way into here,” Beatrice answered.
“How’d your Pa get all this in here without anyone noticing?”
“We didn’t bring it in all at once,” Viola explained. “This has been years of gathering. Pa traveled each summer to a couple of different forts or trading posts located throughout the mountains. He’d hook up the buckboard, load the thing up with furs, even though driving the wagon is tricky with no good trails, sell the furs, stock up to the hilt on supplies, and sneak everything into the cave. He’d make sure food and household goods were stacked visibly on the top so no one watching would notice the ammo.”
“And going to different forts kept people from putting it all together.” Hunter whistled in admiration.
“We also use the springhouse for the storage of the items we use every day, like our milk, cheese and whatnot, so anyone visiting or coming and going won’t wonder how we keep things fresh,�
� Viola added.
“So even if you shot a whole case of lead for that Colt Navy you’ve got strapped to your leg, we’d still have more than enough to hold off those lowdown, dirty polecats,” Beatrice said.
“This is fantastic,” Hunter said rubbing his hands in satisfaction.
He peered across the shelves at Viola. Her face shone in the soft lantern light with pride. This was more prepared and more thoughtful than most people ever were in his time, and that included all those apocalyptic nuts he’d read about. Lord, please, help me be the man worthy of her. Help me protect her. To protect them.
Chapter 14
After hours of straightening and salvaging the items Linc had ravished, Viola, Beatrice, and Hunter sat at the table. Thankfully, she’d put a roast to simmer on the stove. All they had to do was slice some off and make sandwiches out of the leftover morning biscuits for supper. Even though they all sat in silence, the exhaustion of the day pulling all their shoulders down, Viola knew they still had a lot to discuss.
“I guess we should get to the serious stuff, so we can get to finishing up with the chores,” Beatrice said. “I’m not one for sitting around chatting over coffee, so let’s be out with it and move on.”
Hunter sat up in his chair and pushed his mug away. Viola could see his demeanor shift to one taking command. He’d trained for ten years for situations like this. She remembered him telling her his ability to assess the situation and neutralize the problem. While she knew she and Beatrice didn’t need him here, taking charge and making orders, she praised God for the comfort she felt because of Hunter’s presence.
Hunter looked at both her and Beatrice, his face set in serious lines. “We all understand that we haven’t seen the end of the Sweeneys, but what we don’t know is when they’ll show their ugly heads again.”
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