The cellar door creaked as they lifted it only enough to slip inside. Dottie went first, then Rainey. The stairs were made of dirt with a few bricks shoved into places where rain had washed out what had been a rough step. As Rainey lowered the door closed, total blackness surrounded them.
Rainey was afraid to move. All her life she'd hated total darkness. When her father had taken away her candle at night, she'd cried for weeks and screamed for her mother. Her mother never came, and finally she'd learned to curl up into a ball and survive the night. But she never lost the feeling that something waited in the blackness only inches away. Something evil.
"Put your hand on my shoulder and follow me down," the widow whispered.
Rainey felt for Dottie's shoulder. At first there was nothing and she was a breath away from panic when her fingers finally connected with the widow's coat.
One step at a time they moved. The smell of dirt surrounded them, closing in as they lowered into the basement. Rainey felt like she was descending into a grave. A thin lace of spiderwebs brushed past her cheek, and she heard something far bigger than a spider scamper out of their path.
Dottie heard it, too. The widow was shaking so badly Rainey could feel it through her clothes. "There's as many rats down here as there are upstairs," she mumbled to herself.
When they reached the floor of the cellar, Rainey let out a breath and heard the sound echoed by Dottie.
"I know where the wine is hidden. It's only three steps away. If you'll stay exactly where you are, I'll get the first bottle and hand it back to you. If I only get two bottles, no one will notice. Then, to get out, all you'll have to do is turn around and go back up the steps."
Rainey nodded, then realized it was a waste of time. "I won't move until you return," she whispered. It took all her strength to let go of Dottie's shoulder.
"Hum," Dottie whispered. "So I won't lose my direction."
"Hmm, hmm." Rainey couldn't think of anything to hum. Not one song came to mind. "Hmm. Hmm." She sounded more like she was snoring. She giggled, then covered her mouth and tried to stop giggling long enough to hum. "Hmm. Hmm. Hmm," she tried, sounding flat and toneless.
Dottie's soft laughter came from a few feet away. "Stop laughing or I'll hit you with one of the bottles," she threatened through her own giggle. "If I ever find one. The stash is not nearly as big as it was when my husband lived."
Rainey closed her eyes and tried to pretend she wasn't standing in a cold damp cellar.
It didn't work.
She tried humming again but couldn't manage to carry a tune. After a few minutes she could stand the silence no longer. "Dottie," she whispered. "Dottie, are you all right?" Surely if the widow fell over something, Rainey would have heard the crash. "Dottie?"
Rainey considered running, but in the blackness it was hard to tell where the stairs were. Had they stepped one or two steps across the floor? If she moved and guessed wrong, she'd be lost down here with the rats until dawn. Or until someone came down from above, and she didn't even want to think about what the partner would do if he found thieves in his wine cellar.
"I got one," Dottie whispered. "Hold out your hand."
Rainey did, waving her hands slowly through the thick air.
A bottle tapped against her little finger a moment before she gripped it solid in her hand. "Got it."
Dottie's hand let go of the other end of the bottle.
Rainey waited again, hugging the wine against her.
"I've found another. Now, let's get out of here. I think I can make out a tiny bit of light where the cellar door didn't close completely." Dottie brushed against Rainey as she passed, and Rainey raised one hand to her friend's shoulder. As before, Dottie lead the way.
Within minutes they were back in the alley and retracing their steps. As before, they stayed well out of the light. Rainey counted her breaths until they were back at Askew House. Dottie passed the wine to Mamie and slipped through the window of the laundry room. Rainey handed over their treasure and followed. As soon as she was standing inside the laundry room, the two women hugged wildly, laughing and talking at the same time.
Mamie made tea and wanted to hear every detail of their adventure. They talked for an hour, then hid the bottles amid the stacks of dirty clothes and said good night.
As they climbed the back stairs, Dottie thanked Rainey. "I'll sell the bottles next week. If it's not enough to buy Mamie, are you willing to go with me again?"
"Yes," Rainey said without hesitation. "I've never had so much fun."
Dottie laughed. "I owe you one. Next time you want to commit a crime, just let me know and I'll go with you."
Rainey hugged the widow good night and climbed on to her room. Once she was in bed, she smiled, thinking that for the first time in her life, she had friends.
CHAPTER 18
As he drove the wagon toward Austin, Travis tried to think of the test he would take when he reached the capital, but his thoughts were full of the fairy. He relived every word they'd said to each other a hundred times. He thought of the way she'd felt, the way she kissed him, the way she jumped into his arms that first meeting as if she were his.
He remembered her letters, realizing he no longer had to look at them because he knew every word. She'd talked of her dream of starting a school someday, and she'd talked of how she thought of him, but she never talked about herself.
He spent hours thinking of what he'd say to her when they met. Assuming she was there and hadn't moved on. For all he knew she'd borrowed someone else's horse and ridden farther south. Texas was big enough that she could disappear, and he'd never see her again.
No, he corrected, they would meet again. She'd been in Austin when she'd written the last letter, and if she was there, he'd find her. Austin couldn't have more than a thousand people. Over two hundred of those were slaves, then well over half of the others would be men. Eliminating children, that left only a few hundred women to sort through to find a woman whose name started with R. She would be there and he would find her even if he had to stand on the street corners and stare at every person who walked by. He'd seen her real hair only once, but he remembered the sunny color. Of course she could have that hidden behind a bonnet, or be dressed like a boy again. For all he knew she had other wigs in a rainbow of colors.
But if he could touch every woman, he felt sure he'd know the feel of her.
He laughed. If he tried that method of identification, he'd be arrested.
Travis groaned. If he didn't stop thinking about her, he'd need to stop off at the new asylum being built and check himself in. The woman who signed her letters with an R. was driving him crazy. If he'd heard one of the younger Rangers going on about a woman so, he'd be tempted to shoot first and apologize later.
Sage leaned from the back of the wagon, where she and Duck had been sleeping on one of the buffalo hides. "You want me to take the reins for a while? I don't mind. Is your leg bothering you greatly?"
"No," Travis answered the last question first. His leg ached, but that wasn't his real problem. He was an idiot, driving to Austin, when he should be home healing, to look for a woman when he didn't even know her name.
He smiled back at his sister. "I'll handle the team a while longer."
Sage settled back down beside Duck. The journey to Austin hadn't proven near as exciting for her as she'd hoped, but Sage, as she always did, made the best of it. She'd drawn in her sketch book and mapped out roads in detail. Travis wasn't sure she did the drawings because she was bored, or because she planned to someday make the journey alone. He thought maybe she just wanted to make sure she could find her way back home. He'd felt like that the first time he'd left Whispering Mountain.