Too Far Down

by Mary Connealy

  Mel thought Cole knew his way around underground pretty well. And no one besides Uncle Walt was tougher than Justin. Maybe Seth had the right of it. Mel’s hopes rose, but they’d been in the dirt, so she was still plenty worried.

  “You can’t know how dangerous those mines are,” Sadie said. “You just got here.”

  “You’re right about me not knowing your mines, but I know my cavern on the Kincaid Ranch. It’s the most exciting and deadly cavern in the world, so your mines aren’t a patch on them, no matter what they’re like. Trust me, Heath will know what to do.”

  “You mentioned an idea?” Mel thought if he had one, they’d better go ahead and find out about it. Since they had a lunatic about to kill them all.

  Seth’s eyes flickered to Mel, and it struck her how much Seth looked like Heath. But there was a notable difference. Heath could smile and get a wild idea now and then, but mostly he was a solid, steady man.

  This man looked like he could be a lunatic with just the littlest encouragement.

  His eyes went right back to Sadie. “You’re not gonna like my idea.”

  Sadie rubbed a hand over her face. “Heath has told me a lot about you.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Mel cut into their talk. “You have an idea?”

  “Brace yourself. Especially you, baby sister.”

  Somehow Mel didn’t doubt for a second that they oughta take his advice, mostly because of the scared way he looked at Sadie. It meant the idea must be wild, and Mel was sorely afraid they were in need of some desperate act to save themselves.

  “I scouted around and you are surrounded for a fact. She’s got a lot of men—all of ’em seasoned and serious, all watching the house. I snuck up on the bunkhouse thinking to catch them, get ’em out of the fight one by one, yet there were too many for me to chance it. But I couldn’t get to the barn, or to the ones just west of the house, or those behind that tipped over the coach—not without stepping out into the open.”

  All his talk made Mel brace herself all the more, because he didn’t just tell them his idea straight out. That struck Mel as a bad sign. She suspected Seth Kincaid didn’t believe much in breaking things gently. He seemed more like the bald truth and blunt talk type.

  “I had to sneak my way along the ground across an open space between your bunkhouse and the woods. It took some doing.”

  “Which means,” she said, “we’re trapped in here unless we make a run for it the same way you came in? That’s your idea?”

  “Nope.” Seth shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not sure how that’ll work . . . four women sneaking across that open space.”

  “So, what should we do?”

  “I’ve thought of how we could slip away.”

  “I’m not going to abandon this house,” Sadie said in a crisp, no-nonsense voice.

  “I’m not advising you to abandon it. That’s not my idea. Exactly.” Seth didn’t seem too impressed with Sadie and her no-nonsense tone.

  “I think if we want to live,” Seth said, looking just plain unhappy as he hesitated to say what came next, “we’re gonna have to burn it down.”

  29

  Cole looked past Murray. The cavern they were in was different from the others. There was a desk for one thing, rustic as if maybe it’d been built down here. They could have smuggled in the wood for it a piece at a time. Two drawers, one on either side of the kneehole, were open with papers spilled out onto the floor, as if someone had been packing things up fast.

  Was Murray trying to cover his tracks in case they found this cave? Or was he planning to move his secret papers up to the main office building if things came out well?

  “You’ve been living down here?” Cole asked. Besides the desk, chair, and lantern, he saw a small stove and a doorless cupboard stacked with food. A bedframe with a thin mattress sat along one wall. The room wasn’t overly large so all the furniture, even small as it was, filled things up.

  “I’m a man of business. I’ve been keeping records and accounts down here. No one notices much after dark. I come here and keep the paper work up to date, talk with my men and arrange shipments of gold small enough they can be carried up by one man.”

  “And these men come back? They walk out of here with as much gold as they can carry and none of them just keeps walking?”

  “Sure we’ve lost some gold, but the men who work with me are building wealth. They almost all come back because they want more, and I make sure they get a healthy cut of all they find and all they carry away. It’s a good business, and my men aren’t fools.”

  “All except the ones you killed.”

  “I’m not a killer, Boden,” Murray sneered. “I’m a businessman. Just like you.”

  “Not like me. Not at all. And if you order someone killed, you’re a killer. No judge is going to pay much attention to that kind of attitude; he’ll order the noose for you same as the man who did the killing. And if you haven’t killed anyone up until now, you seem plenty eager to change that.”

  “I’m making a special exception for you, Boden. I’ll enjoy doing it, too.”

  Cole watched every move Murray made, waiting for an opening where Cole stood a chance of closing the distance between them before Murray could fire. Probably six feet, and Murray’s boast that he was no killer didn’t seem to bother his aim.

  “You were planning to hide out down here if things turned ugly for you. You could have come and gone in the dark, lived and slept here and kept on mining for gold. If I was dead and you got lucky with the new man running things, and he wasn’t paying close attention, you could keep this going for months, maybe years. Maybe forever.”

  “It’s a decent hideout. Even if they leased out the mine I’ve had in my name all these years—I’d stay behind the hidden door and dig my gold.”

  “You’ve built quite an operation underground. I’m impressed.” Cole was sort of impressed, in the sense that it was a very good tunnel. Of course, Murray was a low-down, murderous sidewinder, so he wasn’t all that impressed really.

  “I was a mining engineer in college.”

  “College? When did you fit college into your life of crime?”

  “I went before I started with the acting troupe. I found working in an office didn’t suit me so I joined up with my brother. Even then I handled the money for the group. But then I got the job here and remembered a few things from college. I knew how to look for the right books and study them.”

  “Why didn’t you just take this job honestly? What’s wrong with you?”

  Murray smiled again and shrugged. “I don’t reckon I know what’s wrong exactly. I just know I never had more fun than when Web and I were up to something.”

  A rock smashed through the opening right at Murray’s legs. It hit him hard, and he went down. Cole was on him with the speed of a cracking whip.

  Sadie’s gun swung up and leveled on Seth. “Get out, Kincaid. You’re not welcome here.”

  “Now, baby sister, let me explain.”

  A bullet whizzed in through the window between Sadie and Mel. It shattered a picture on the wall about a foot from Seth’s head. The wall exploded in plaster dust with shards of the lath cutting Seth’s face.

  He hit the floor. More gunfire from outside blasted away. The back door split and hung by one hinge. It distracted them all from Sadie wanting to shoot Seth.

  Return gunfire rang out from upstairs and from the back of the house where Rosita stood guard.

  The men sheltered behind the coach continued to rain lead on the house. The back door broke loose and collapsed, leaving them wide open to the outlaws.

  Seth stayed flat on the floor, and for a second Mel thought he’d been severely injured, but then he crawled on his belly under the flying lead and came up beside Sadie. He whispered to her. She crossed her arms and didn’t even bother shooting at the outlaws. He pulled her aside so that Mel couldn’t hear a thing over the roar.

  Mel rushed to the back door and fired, mindful of their shrinking st
ack of ammunition. She was afraid they might make a run at the house.

  Over the shots, Mel heard Seth say, “She wants the house. If it’s not here, then she’s not going to stick around.”

  Mel got busy again, but at some point Sadie’s voice rose to carry over the shootout, and Mel heard her speak the words Cimarron Legacy.

  Seth kept talking. Sadie poked him in the chest.

  Mel kept the varmints outside. She wouldn’t have minded some help.

  Then Seth smiled in a way that had Mel wondering if he was just the littlest bit touched in the head. Mel wasn’t sure what he said next, but Sadie went as pale as milk and sagged back against the wall, her hands clutching her belly.

  Mel was glad the house was made of adobe and logs, which stopped the bullets from getting through to Sadie—and held Sadie up or she’d’ve collapsed to the floor.

  Sadie turned to Mel. “Go get Angie and Rosita. We’re going out the back.”

  Seth belly-crawled to the kitchen stove and tossed in logs, getting a fire built up.

  “We’re leaving?”

  “Yep,” Sadie said, her eyes wide. “We’ll leave right after the house is burning to the point it can’t be saved. That’ll distract them so they won’t notice when we run across that open space. I’ll protect myself while my family home’s on fire and being overrun by murderers.”

  “Sadie, no! You can’t do that.”

  Her jaw tight, Sadie said through clenched teeth, “We have to. If we don’t, we’re all going to die.”

  Seth crawled back to Sadie’s side and pulled her down from where she crouched until she was flat on the floor. “Stay low.” He looked up. “Mel, go get Angie and Rosita. Be mindful of the back door, come all the way into the room, get down and move past it. Those men might charge the house any minute. It’s time we got out of here.” Then to Sadie, he said, “A family’s legacy isn’t a building. It’s blood. It’s loyalty and love and faith.”

  His words sounded strange given the backdrop of gunfire. “If you want a legacy, you have to be alive to hold on to it. And that woman out there, she’ll quit if the house catches fire. That’s why she hasn’t torched the place yet, despite her threats. She thinks this house is the Cimarron Legacy. But you know better. If the house is gone, she’ll go, too. With her gone, you live. The baby you’re carrying lives.”

  “Baby?” Mel’s eyes locked on Sadie. “What?” Then Mel remembered the way Sadie held her belly.

  “Heath wrote about it. If Heath really is d-dead—” Seth choked on the word, then lifted his chin and looked straight in Sadie’s eyes—“then your family’s legacy is contained right inside you. Those in this house are the legacy. Your child survives. Justin’s wife survives. Your parents have a daughter, grandchild, and daughter-in-law to come home to. You can build another house, but you can’t be replaced. That’s the legacy we’re fighting to save.”

  Seth laid a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “You aren’t destroying the Cimarron Legacy by starting this fire and running. You’re saving it. You’ll live to fight another day. There’s no glory in dying under this woman’s guns in some defiant refusal to abandon your home.”

  Sadie gave a firm nod of agreement. She went to the hot stove and used a metal poker to knock wood out onto the floor, then shoved it up against the wooden cupboards. She tossed a heap of towels on the burning logs. Then she got a mean look in her eye, reached for a chair, and smashed it against the wall.

  She held two pieces of it to the fire leaping up around the towels. When the wood caught, she hurried to the window and threw the pieces at the overturned coach. One hit its roof and bounced off, burning harmlessly on the ground. The other went right into a square opening on the coach, a trapdoor leading to the roof.

  A whoosh from inside told them Sadie had hit something flammable. Quickly she went to a lantern hanging on the wall and hurled it at the coach. It smashed against the wood and caught fire. Flames crawled and spread, eating at the wood with the vicious hunger of a starving wolf.

  “Get ready. Those men are going to come out from cover.” Sadie’s voice rose with the anguish and rage of what they were doing. “When they do I’m going to shoot every one of them. Then we’ll get out of here.”

  As the flames chewed their way up the walls of the kitchen, the fire grew and spread all over the coach outside. Finally one man leapt up and ran for the barn.

  Sadie’s gun came up, but rifle fire from the bunkhouse hammered at the window where she stood. Seth tackled her to the floor. The pepper of bullets sent splinters of wood in all directions. Mel opened fire on the bunkhouse, driving the shooter back.

  Another man broke from the cover of the coach. Mel aimed and got two rounds off. The man shouted in pain and fell facedown. Hattie and at least two other gunmen fired from the barn.

  Mel pressed her back against the wall beside the door, unable to take a shot. Gunfire poured down from upstairs and from the back of the house.

  Mel glanced out to see the man she’d shot jump back up. A crimson stain on his pant leg said she’d gotten a bullet in him that left his leg bleeding, though it wasn’t enough to stop him. He ran to the safety of the bunkhouse.

  Cover fire from the bunkhouse and barn allowed the rest of the men hiding behind the coach to make their escape without a scratch.

  Mel watched Sadie crawl to a second lantern hanging on the wall. She tossed it at the burning wall. Seth knocked more logs out of the cookstove, spreading fire around the kitchen.

  They were really going to do it—burn down the CR ranch house. But Seth was right. They had to get out, destroy the place themselves, and deny Hattie her prize. Only to lose the house this way felt like the worst kind of defeat. Listening to the crackling of the flames, Mel knew that Cole would be devastated by the destruction of this place so dear to his heart.

  Just to be truly involved, Mel ran to a fancy lantern hooked to a stand on the wall by the living room fireplace. She poured a line of kerosene from the fire to the center of the room and watched the flames leap higher.

  She would taste the ashes of this day for the rest of her life.

  30

  Cole slammed into Murray, but the man whipped his gun around and cracked it against Cole’s head.

  As he staggered back, tumbling to the floor, Cole hung on doggedly to Murray and dragged him down with him. The gun went off again and again. Cole grappled for it as Murray, with a howl of rage, rolled on top and fought to bring the weapon around to point it at Cole.

  Cole felt his back slam into the wall. He felt hands shoving at him. It was Justin trying to get through, but Murray had Cole pinned in front of the opening.

  Murray’s hand grasped at Cole’s throat. Cole threw himself sideways. Murray managed to hang on, however, keeping Justin and the others from entering the room and helping Cole.

  His air cut off, Cole gripped Murray’s gun hand, then caught his other wrist to try to gain a breath. With no success, he found himself weakening. Slowly, Murray’s gun began to descend, lower and lower, aiming for Cole’s head.

  With his last ounce of strength, Cole arched his back and heaved Murray to the side, spun around, and dove onto him before the pistol came back up. Murray twisted like a snake and pounced on Cole.

  Then Heath ripped the gun out of Murray’s hand. He grabbed Murray and tore him away. Cole watched as Justin rushed in to take Murray by the lapels of his suit coat and slam a fist into his face. Murray crumpled into a heap.

  Cole stumbled as he got to his feet. Walt was there to brace him. “Thanks.” He meant it for everyone.

  Walt chuckled. “You’re welcome,” he said and let Cole go.

  Cole found that he could stand on his own.

  Murray must’ve faked his collapse because he made a sudden lunge for the opening they’d all come through.

  Justin caught the outlaw by the back of his shirt. “This coyote’s not gonna admit defeat, is he?”

  “Tie him up,” Heath said, grabbing a ball of twine from Murray
’s desk.

  Justin used it to bind Murray’s hands together tight. “If this was a sturdier rope, I’d say we tie him up and leave him here. We could deal with him later. But if he escapes, he’s enough of a sly fox to hide so we never find him.”

  Heath nodded. “And since he’s evil to the bone, we need to keep our eye on him.”

  “Let’s take him with us,” Cole said. “But we gotta go now. We have to get to the CR, and fast.”

  Murray was conscious enough to stumble along beside them, though he had to be goaded to hurry.

  Soon they reached the pit. Murray had to be untied to climb. Heath went up first, then Justin and Murray, with Cole right below their prisoner. Walt brought up the rear.

  Cole itched to pass Murray’s slow-climbing form. Everything in Cole wanted to race up the ladder. They were climbing for what seemed an eternity when Cole remembered that Murray’s mine was on a lower level than the other men. They were farther down than he thought.

  Without warning, Murray dropped and stomped a heavy boot on Cole’s hand, knocking Cole from the ladder. But Cole had learned what a snake this man was. Despite the pain, he hung on to the ladder by the fingertips of his other hand.

  Without Cole there to stop Murray’s fall, the man plunged down. Walt dodged him too, and a scream of terror cut the air, fading as Murray dropped.

  The scream ended with a sickening thud. Walt scampered back down to round up the prisoner.

  Cole began descending, thinking to help, but Walt shouted, “Go on up. I can see him and he’s dead. Broke his neck. We don’t need to worry about our prisoner anymore.”

  With no time to feel much but relief, Cole started climbing again, doubling his speed now. He reached the surface, with Walt only a few steps behind him.