Something scurried behind her. Rats! She clenched her teeth, forcing herself to stay calm. Of all the animals on this earth, rats were the only ones that made her shiver. She’d face a wolf, or a bear, or even an angry porcupine before getting close to a rat.
Another movement, rattling something near her feet. Two rats. Maybe she hated them so much because they thought they owned the night.
Probably a tiny one, she thought, only traveling over broken bottles or bits of trash. The rats weren’t interested in her, she reasoned. Keep moving! Find the tunnel.
A weight scurried across the toe of her boot. Not a tiny mouse, but a long fat rat that widened as it moved until the body covered her boot and pressed against her leg.
Nichole couldn’t stand still. She twisted, kicking the varmint off her foot. It hit a wall and let out a cry, causing the floor to liquify with movement. They were everywhere. Not one or a dozen, but a hundred running past her boots, sniffing up her legs almost to the knee, pushing other rats into her shins.
She kicked again, almost losing her balance. Her hand reached out to steady her. She touched a shelf in the blackness. A moment later something ran across her fingers and jumped from the shelf. Reacting, before thinking, she stepped away and bumped into another shelf. It toppled, sending rats squealing as they fell to the floor.
Panic climbed up her spine on tiny feet. It took all her willpower not to scream or run. But if she ran, she was sure to step on one and in the blackness she might fall or they might bite through the thin leather of her boot. If she fell, they’d be all over her in victory.
She’d lost her bearing in the blackness. She no longer knew where the wall was. If she took the wrong step, she could trip and fall, or bump into something, or feel another rat. There was as great a chance of her moving away from the wall as toward it.
Nothing, not a single beam of light pointed the way. Not even a smell or sound to follow. If she made the wrong choice and fell… Oh, God, if she fell she’d die of fright.
“Help me,” she whispered to the stale air as a rat tried to climb her leg. “Help me!”
Adam and Wes were only a matter of feet above her, but with the trapdoor and rug, she knew they wouldn’t hear her cries even if she screamed. She couldn’t force herself to reach out again and try to find the wall. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe in the heavy musty air.
“Help me,” she whispered in panic to no one.
Something shifted to her left. A shuffling sound unlike that a rodent would make.
“Easy, now,” someone said to her as the shuffling sound came again. “Don’t lose control of your senses. And don’t be afraid of me. I was told to help if needed.”
For a moment, she thought she was imagining a voice. Nichole forced herself to remain perfectly still, not even breathing.
“Who are you?”
Movement came again. “I’m Celestine’s brother. She said we had to help you, even if it meant my getting caught and being sent back to prison. She said I had to do what I could to see you safely away.”
“You killed a guard.” Nichole remembered the nun’s confession.
“I did. I killed the man who murdered my partner, Nance’s father.”
Nick didn’t say a word. She was trapped in a cellar with a killer and a hundred rats. There was no light to point her way. If she hoped to get out, she had to trust a murderer.
“Hold your hand out,” the voice commanded so softly she still wasn’t sure she heard it. “Stay real still, I’ll find you and see you out.”
Nick slowly raised her hand out in front of her, ready to pull back the moment she encountered anything.
“I’m not going to harm you,” the voice moved closer. “I’m only going to touch your hand.”
She breathed. The voice had anchored her in the blackness. Panic began to recede. This man in the cellar with her was making the world return and her fears move back to nightmares.
A wrinkled hand, not much larger than her own, grasped hers. “I’ll show you the way,” he whispered in a voice rusted with age. “I’ve walked this tunnel many a night. I’ve seen you travel the darkness also. Only you do good, I only want to disappear.”
Slowly, one step at a time, she followed as they moved across the room. She could still hear the rats running about, but they no longer crossed her path.
“Lower your head,” he mumbled as he pulled her down into a crouch. “The tunnel’s free of rats mostly, but when it rains the walls get muddy. Be careful of the uneven ground. My sister, Cel, will have my hide if I let anything happen to you.”
She followed as they shuffled through the tunnel slowly. A dozen questions came to mind, but she didn’t speak. This guardian angel was risking his life and his freedom to help her.
The air was a little easier to breathe as they came out of the tunnel and into what must be the cellar across the street from the boardinghouse. Here a few cracks in the trapdoor provided enough light to get a vague view of the room.
The man turned loose of her hand and slid a box between them. “All you have to do is stand on this box and push the door gently. I checked to see that it was unblocked when I heard Nance tell you about the secret passage. I guessed you’d choose this way out.”
“Thanks.” She waited, hoping he’d tell her his name. “You saved my life.”
“No,” he stepped away. “I’ve watched you in action. You would have found your own path. I just helped out a bit. We all need help now and then.”
Before she could say more, he was gone. She could hear him moving back through the tunnel, brushing the wall with his hand. The rats scurrying to get out of his path. Someday, maybe they’d meet again. She’d always remember the feel of his old hand.
Straightening her stance, she touched her Colt and took a deep breath. It was time to do what she had to do, she thought. It was sunset.
TWENTY-FOUR
WITH A SHOVE, Nichole pushed the trapdoor open and pulled herself into the remains of what once had been a building. The roof was half caved in and the last glow from the sun could still be seen lighting the sky. The air felt good on her face and in her lungs.
Sister Cel’s brother had saved her life in the tunnel and when everything settled down, she planned to see what she could do to help him.
She walked silently across the cluttered floor, careful not to step on a loose board that might make a sound. Slipping out the back where a door had once stood, Nichole moved down the alley toward the stables.
No one was in sight. If the shooter were near, he couldn’t see her in the dying light. She slipped through the skeleton of what once had been a settlement. The town might be growing, but it seemed content to allow the quickly erected old fort to die.
The fine black stallion Wes had bragged of trading for at Emery’s Post was tied by the door of the barn, still saddled. Wes said it had been trained to respond to a touch or a tug on the bridle.
A gunshot sounded from behind her. She glanced at the prairie beyond the stables. She could be away and free before full dark.
Another gun fired from the direction of the boardinghouse. They should be safe once it was dark, she reasoned. Unless they lit a lamp. Unless they tried to come out. Unless the shooter managed to crawl through the night and get to a window of the house. If he shot Wes or Adam, there wouldn’t be anyone left to cover all the sides. It would only be a matter of time before he’d be in the house. Everyone might be dead before the shooter figured out Nichole wasn’t in the house.
She swung into the saddle and turned Wes’s horse toward the boardinghouse. She couldn’t leave without helping them.
At full gallop she rode between Adam and the shooter. The dusty, deserted street made a perfect racetrack and Wes’s stallion was all Wes promised he would be.