Nothing. He’d found absolutely nothing. And they were dangerously close to running out of time.
He’d set himself a deadline of three o’clock. If he didn’t have the gold by then, he’d have to revert to tracking. Tracking required light. And time. And hopefully help. Mal glanced across the paddock to where the road from Seymour curved past the station house. No one had come. Yet, Mal reminded himself. No one had come, yet. There was still time. Less than two hours, but it was something.
After a preliminary inspection of all the hearths and chimneys had turned up nothing of significance, Mal and Ben Porter had combined their efforts to conduct a deeper investigation. Since Mal was the more slender of the two, he’d had the pleasure of wedging head and shoulders up through the hearths in order to feel around from the inside, while Porter banged a broom handle down each chimney.
Mal had gotten a description of Angus from Flora and was certain the barrel-chested, broad-shouldered man could not have reached up any higher than Mal into the fireplace openings. Unfortunately, nothing had jarred loose from Porter’s thorough poking, either. So they’d moved on to checking all the exterior sections, climbing ladders and meticulously analyzing mortar for degraded places where stones could be loose. They’d found several, but none had yielded the prize they sought. Which meant either Angus’s comment about stone had been a false trail and had nothing to do with his actual hiding place, or they were missing something.
The creak of door hinges pulled Mal out of his troubled thoughts. He turned to find Bertie bustling toward him, a half-wrapped sandwich in her hands.
Mal released his hold on his shirt, letting the damp cotton flutter down to cover his exposed belly. “You’re supposed to be packing, aunt.”
“Yes, dear. I know. But Henry and I have decided to only bother with the irreplaceable things. Papa’s letters. Mama’s tea set. The Chandler family Bible. Things of that nature. We’ll be coming back soon enough. No sense in packing everything up just to unpack it again in a few days.”
“But we’re leaving Harper’s Station unprotected while a thief rummages through the place.” Mal couldn’t quite believe she was making so little of all this. Didn’t she realize that Angus was the type of man who’d be ornery enough to torch the place out of spite?
But the older woman just smiled at him and patted his arm. “You’ll stop him before he gets that far. Don’t worry.” She pulled her hand back, frowned at the gray smudges on her fingers, then shrugged as she wiped them on her apron. “Even if you don’t, there’s nothing here that a man seeking gold will care about. If anyone has cause to worry, it’s Tori at the store, but I’m sure that nice Mr. Porter will help her load up all her more expensive items.”
She held out the sandwich to him, the bottom half wrapped in a napkin. “Here. You should eat something.”
Mal glanced at his hands. His fingernails outlined with black grime, streaks of watered-down soot trailing down the backs, his palms little better.
“Just hold the napkin,” Bertie urged. “The rest will wash out later. You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to bring Emma back to us.”
For the first time, a line of strain appeared across her forehead. She nibbled a bit on her lower lip as Mal took the sandwich from her. “I’ve been packing Emma’s clothes,” she said, her gaze dropping to the ground. “Henry went to the bank to gather up the ledgers. We decided to leave the safe as is. It’s too heavy to move on such short notice, and Emma claimed it’s fireproof. Hopefully, this Angus fellow will be so focused on his gold he won’t want the trouble of trying to break in to a safe. Emma said that without the combination, a thief would have to use dynamite to get it open. And even then, chances are good that the steel construction would hold.”
Mal took a savage bite out of the sandwich, ripping the bread with his teeth and gnashing the thin slices of roast beef with vicious strokes, desperate to obliterate thoughts of Angus touching Emma’s bank vault. Emma’s clothes. Emma’s . . . person.
“Do you think she’s all right, Malachi?” Bertie’s soft-spoken question clawed like eagle talons across his heart.
He met his aunt’s gaze and swallowed what was left of the mangled meat in his mouth. “She should be safe as long as she has value to him,” Mal said, repeating the litany he’d been feeding himself the last several hours. “If he kills her, he loses his leverage.”
“But there are other ways to hurt her besides killing.” Bertie’s chin wobbled just a bit, and the sight nearly shattered Mal’s self-control. “She’s a beautiful girl. Alone with two men.”
“One man and a boy,” Mal forced out through his clenched jaw. “Angus might get a little rough in his treatment of her, he seems to like to knock females around, but I don’t think he’ll do anything more severe with his son looking on.”
At least that’s what Mal prayed for with every breath.
Bertie’s smile returned, subdued but optimistic. “I’m sure you’re right, dear. Now, finish your sandwich, then come carry Emma’s trunk downstairs for me.” She turned and sauntered away, sure he would do as she bid.
But Mal didn’t want to carry Emma’s trunk. He wanted to carry Emma—to safety. Which meant he had to find the gold. Unless the Lord had devised some other plan. Have you? Mal glanced toward the sky. A disgustingly happy sky, blue and cheerful with a sun so bright it hurt his eyes and puffy white clouds that showed no hint of the evil raging on the earth below them.
Do you see? Or are you so far away that our troubles seem too small for you to bother with? I haven’t found the gold, yet I haven’t been inspired with any other ideas, either. Mal forced his clenched jaw to relax. He needed to be open to the Lord’s leading, not angry and defensive. Please. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. Show me what to do. I’m begging—
A muffled shout had Mal dropping the remnants of his sandwich and grabbing the revolver at his hip. Heart racing, he tried to pinpoint the direction the sound had come from.
Another squeal. From the house.
Mal took off at a run, threw open the back door, and ran into the kitchen.
“Malachi! Oh, Malachi, come quick!” Bertie’s excited voice came from somewhere to his right.
“Bertie?” He thundered into the parlor just as his aunt flew through the entrance on the opposite side of the room, the one near the stairs.
She wore the biggest smile he’d ever seen.
Flummoxed, Mal holstered his gun and strode across the room to her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she enthused, her plump little body bobbing up and down in her excitement. “Something might be very, very right.” She grabbed his arm and started pulling him toward the stairs. “Come see!”
Instead of heading up to the bedrooms as he expected, she dragged him through the doorway that led to the basement where they stored canned goods, storm supplies, and other random paraphernalia that had no other home.
“Bertie—”
“I didn’t remember until I came down to fetch a crate.” Excitement bubbled from her, an excitement he failed to share. This was taking too long.
“What did you remember?” Mal fought to keep his exasperation in check out of respect for the woman who’d been the only mother figure he’d ever known. But it wasn’t easy.
Bertie reached the bottom of the stairs and smiled up at him as he clomped down the last two steps. Heavy, musty air filled his lungs, weighing him down even further until his aunt spoke again.
“The key to rescuing Emma, of course.”
Rescuing Emma? Malachi leapt forward, the weight dissipating from his limbs and his heart. He grabbed hold of Bertie’s hand. “How?”
She patted his arm, then pulled away from his hold, that unreasonably cheerful smile still etched on her face. Reaching overhead, she took down the single lantern illuminating the basement from its hook in the ceiling. Then she pivoted, took a handful of steps past a shelf full of canned goods, and held the light aloft so that it shine
d against the far wall.
“I’m certain the gold you’ve been looking for is behind there.” She pointed straight ahead.
The hope Bertie’s overactive imagination had spawned inside him withered as he stared at a perfectly normal, non-stone wall. The same non-stone wall where Angus had left the threatening note about Emma. A threat he would carry out by morning if Malachi didn’t find the gold.
“It’s plaster, aunt.”
She didn’t appear fazed by his observation. “On this side, yes,” she said, stepping forward and running her free hand over the smooth, whitewashed wall. “But on the other side is the remainder of the stonework from the chimney on the floor above. Stone that reaches all the way down to the floor of this basement.”
Mal’s gaze bored into the wall, as if he could find the stone if he just stared at it hard enough. Could it be that the note hadn’t been a scare tactic, but a misdirection, like the sack of leaves Angus kept on hand in the woods to cover his trail? He’d broken in to the station house to claim the gold, but when he’d found the stonework covered in plaster, he knew he’d not have enough time to bring down the wall and retrieve it. So when Porter’s shot warned him time was up, he’d left the note to throw anyone who searched the house off the scent.
And it worked, until Alberta Chandler figured out the truth, thanks to some heavenly guidance.
Mal rushed forward and placed his hand on the wall, his fingers trembling slightly.
Bertie chuckled, her faith so complete it spilled out in joy. “I completely forgot about this section until I came down here looking for a crate I could use for packing Emma’s books. I know in my heart, the gold is here.”
Listening to his aunt’s chattering with half an ear, Mal scoured the basement for something he could use to . . . There. An old sadiron. That should do the trick. He strode over to the worktable, clasped the handle, and swung the hefty laundry tool around. In three strides, he was back in front of the wall. While Bertie nattered on about Emma hiring the same builder to shore up the basement that she’d used for the bank, Mal reared the iron back and smashed the pointed tip into the wall.
Plaster cracked and crumbled.
He struck again.
A chunk fell to the floor. White dust puffed into the air.
He struck again.
More plaster fell, revealing brick behind it. Brick that needed to come down.
Mal spun around and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Where are you going?” Bertie called after him.
“To get a sledge.”
“I don’t think we have . . .” The rest of her words died away as he cleared the last stair and raced for the barn.
Unfortunately, she was right. All he found in the barn was a measly nail hammer that he doubted would be good for much more than hanging pictures. Mal growled and threw the worthless hammer back onto the workbench. It bounced off a glass jar of nails with a loud clatter, but even then, the jar didn’t break. Just tipped over and spilled its contents.
Where was he supposed to find a sledge strong enough to break down a brick wall in a town full of dainty ladies with delicate tools? Betty might have something out at the farm, but riding out there and back would waste precious time. So what else could he use? What was strong enough to knock down brick and stone?
Suddenly, Mal grinned. He ran to his bunk, yanked out his saddlebags, and pulled out a fresh box of rifle cartridges. Tucking that under his arm, he ran back to the workbench and grabbed a chisel and the puny hammer he’d thrown down in disgust a moment earlier.
Confidence surging, he sprinted for the house.
The Good Book taught that with a grain of faith, a man could move a mountain. Not only did Mal have rapidly renewing faith, but he had a few hundred grains of something else.
Gunpowder.
36
“He’s going to do what?” Aunt Henry screeched.
“Blow up the basement, dear.” Bertie answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that she could have been describing the supper menu.
Mal swallowed as he focused on creating his fuse line. “I’m not blowing up the entire basement. Just the wall.”
“It’s going to be so exciting!” Bertie enthused. Mal swore she must be bouncing again, the way her voice jiggled. “He said we can watch from behind the support pillar at the back of the room if we want.”
“And wait for the house to come crashing down on our heads? No, thank you.” Henry huffed out an offended-sounding breath, most likely crossing her arms over her chest in that snippy way of hers. “I can’t believe you gave him permission to blow up our home.”
“Stop being so dramatic, sister. He’s an expert, remember? He earns his living creating explosions.”
“I never did approve of that.” Sniff.
Mal had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from responding. He didn’t have time to get into a long-winded argument over the merits of his chosen profession right now. He needed to finish making his fuses.
He’d already scraped the heads off a dozen matches and ground them into a fine powder with the handle end of his chisel. After dunking his finger into the glass of water Bertie had brought him earlier, he dripped a small amount of the liquid onto the match-head powder and stirred it into a paste. Then he rolled the paper fuses he’d twisted into tight little lines through the mixture until they were evenly coated.
He should only need one fuse, but it was always good to run a test first to make sure the homemade mixture didn’t burn too fast or too slow. Having a couple spares didn’t hurt, either, so he set up four six-inch fuses on Aunt Bertie’s cooling rack to dry and started in on the next project—chiseling a hole in the wall’s mortar.
When he pounded on the wall, Henry mumbled something about needing to make sure all the essentials were out of the house before Mal brought it down around their ears and clomped up the stairs. Bertie lingered. She stood against the back wall, out of his way, and watched. After a while he forgot she was even there.
Once he was satisfied with the size and depth of the hole he’d whittled, he moved back to the workbench and started taking the cartridges apart and extracting the gunpowder. He emptied cartridge after cartridge until he had a small bowlful of black powder. Then he spooned it into the crevice and packed it tight, careful not to use so much that he risked doing permanent damage to the house. Yet he needed an amount capable of knocking a hole into the wall large enough to weaken the structure and allow him to get at the stone beneath. A delicate calculation.
Mal tested the fuses, found them dry, and took one in hand for a trial run. Moving to a clean spot on the workbench, he took a glass jar of canned string beans and used it to weigh down the edge of the fuse, leaving the rest jutting out from the bench at a right angle. Mal poured what remained in the drinking glass over his palms and fingers and cleaned off any gunpowder residue. He dried his hands thoroughly on a clean rag, then struck a match and lit the fuse.
It sizzled and hissed and burned fairly quickly, reaching the glass jar in about four seconds. He might have used a bit too much of the matchstick paste, but no matter. It worked.
“Should I warn Henry?” Bertie asked, her voice closer than he expected. He’d been so absorbed in the test, he hadn’t heard her approach.
Mal turned. “Yes. You might want to accompany her out of the house, too,” he said, rethinking his earlier position about letting her stay. The amount of powder was minimal, and the explosion would be small and well-contained, but debris could be unpredictable. He’d hate for her curiosity to result in an injury, no matter how minor.
“Don’t you dare light that fuse without me, Malachi Shaw. If you cheat me out of the chance to see you in action after reading about the excitement of your job in your letters for the past several years, I’ll never forgive you.”
The corners of Mal’s mouth twitched upward. Henry was usually the militant one, but it seemed Bertie had her fair share of bossiness, too. Reminded him of Emma. Which
tightened his mouth back into a hard, serious line.
“Hurry back, then,” he said as he shooed her toward the stairs. “We’re running out of time without a guarantee that this will work. If the gold’s not there . . .”
Bertie paused on the second step and glanced back at him. “It’s there, Malachi.”
He jerked his chin down in a stiff nod and went to work arranging the fuse in the hole.
Over the next fifteen minutes, while he waited for a loudly complaining Henry to vacate the house with the necessary belongings, he carefully moved all the glass jars that could possibly be in the blast zone to safer locations against the far wall. Then he draped a pair of quilts over the remaining shelves to keep out the dust and small shards that the blast would send flying.
When he was finished, he stepped back and examined his handiwork, double-checking to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. The room looked secure. All he needed was Bertie to get back so he could light the fuse.
This would work. It had to.
You’re in control, Lord. Not me. Protect us in the blast, and grant us success.
It was the prayer he prayed before igniting any charge, but today the words felt different. Deeper. More desperate. So much more than a paycheck or a reputation rested on this job. The life of the woman he loved was at stake, completely redefining success.
He pulled a new match from his vest pocket and held it between his thumb and forefinger. A creak on the stairs told him Bertie had returned, but he didn’t turn. He never looked away from a fuse before he lit it.
She must have sensed his intensity, for she didn’t speak until she’d taken up her position in the place behind the support pillar that he’d pointed out to her earlier. Even then, she whispered. “Everything’s ready, Malachi.”
He stepped up to the wall, set his left palm against it while a final wordless prayer groaned through his soul. Then he bent his knee and with a flick of his wrist, dragged the match head against the sole of his boot. Scratch. Hiss. Then a tiny whoosh as the matchstick flared to life.