Dashing Druid (Texas Druids) (41 page)

“We’ve a small army now as ye can see. It shouldn’t be much longer before we clear away the blockage.”

“Sul told us you think there’s a cave. And Nora’s in there?”

He nodded. “’Tis the only explanation for what I sensed from her.”

“Have you tried connecting with her again?” she asked as they unloaded the food baskets.

“Nay. ’Tisn’t possible with all these others around. If I were to open my mind, I’d pick up so much racket from them that I’d not be able to reach her.”

Cutting off any more discussion on the subject, Thea and Arni joined them, toting more food stuffs. While the two women began unpacking the contents of the baskets, Tye and Arni gathered wood and started a fire for brewing coffee.

Although Tye could see David was reluctant to stop working, it was obvious even to him that they all needed to eat and rest for a short while. Lil offered to stay and keep coffee ready through the night, but David assured her they could do that for themselves, for which Tye was grateful. Stealing a quick kiss, he saw her off with Thea to the home place.

* * *

They uncovered the cave a few hours later. Packed with dirt and rocky debris from the landslide, the outline of the opening was barely noticeable by lantern light. Excitement spread among the men, and Tye detected David’s burst of hope, but by the time they cleared the mouth of the cave back as far as possible with pickaxes and shovels, emotions had plummeted.

The cave mouth was no more than four feet high, forcing Tye and David to squat as they examined the exposed interior. It extended back a couple of arms’ length. Beyond that the cleft was blocked solid.

“The ceiling must have caved in from the shaking of the landslide,” David said glumly.

“Aye. How far back the blockage goes, I can’t say, but there’s open space beyond it. That much I know.”

“But how big is it? How much air does my daughter have left? Is she even still alive? Can you tell me that?”

Hearing the desperation in his brother-in-law’s angry questions, Tye took no offense. “I can’t, but I can maybe find out if I move off away from the others. If ye truly want to know.”

David stared into the cave and sighed. “I reckon not. This way there’s hope. I’d rather hang on to it as long as I can. So would Jessie.”

“Right.” Clearing his throat, Tye said briskly, “We’ll need tools and a way of moving waste rock out as we work.” As he spoke, the thought of working underground again, even close to the surface, awakened his old fear. Lil had saved him from having to face it by showing up in Silver Plume before he was forced to return to the mines to support himself. Now there would be no reprieve. He must conquer the demon fear if he was to help save his niece’s life.

At first it wasn’t bad. Working side by side, Tye and David wielded pickaxes with handles cut down to the length of miners’ picks to hack away at the rocky barrier. Behind them, other men shoveled the loosened rubble into buckets and crates of various sizes, then passed them back along a growing line of men to the outside. It was hard, dirty work, but as long as Tye could see the light behind him, he managed to quiet his fear of being trapped. Later, that became more difficult as they burrowed farther into the hillside.

Worse still was David’s impatience. Anxious to reach Nora as quickly as possible, he balked when Tye urged that they shore up the unstable earth above their heads. Remembering all too well how Tom Pearce’s refusal to listen to the same advice had ended, Tye grabbed David’s arm, stopping him as he raised his pick for another swing.

“I watched my partner die, crushed beneath a mountain of stone because he wouldn’t take time to timber the stope we were working. I’ll not see that happen again, to you or any of these others, or to myself for that matter.”

“Turn loose!” David growled. His face was a mask of fury in the dim lantern light they worked by. Behind them, the other men went silent, waiting to see who would win the argument.

“Nay. Not until ye listen. What d’ye think Jessie would have to say about this? D’ye think she wants to lose you and Nora? That’s what will happen if there’s another cave-in. Even if those left alive managed to dig us out, they’d never reach your daughter in time.”

David’s anger slowly faded. He nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t think. Sorry.”

Releasing him, Tye said, “Let’s cut some wood, aye?”

There were plenty of young trees along the creek with trunks small enough to use as timber. Although hampered by darkness, the cutting went fairly fast. With a dozen men pitching in to help, they’d finished shoring up the cleared portion of the cave tunnel before dawn and were moving forward again. By then Tye had overcome his fear, or thought he had.

He and David were chopping away at the rock face when a cracking noise sounded overhead. Shouting “Look out!” Tye shoved David backward and threw himself out of the way just as a slab of limestone hurtled downward. It caught him with a glancing blow to his right leg, wringing a gasp of pain from him.

“Tye, are you hurt?” David called out.

Coughing dust from the fall, he said, “I took a wee bump to my leg is all.”

David crawled over to him and checked his leg for damage, drawing a hiss from him when he found the injury. “You’ve got more than a bump here. You’re bleeding.”

“He all right, boss?” Dewey asked. Working behind Tye, he’d been gathering rocks into a bucket. Now he duck-walked over to them.

“He’ll live, but his leg needs tending. Give him a hand out of here, will you?”

“Sure thing. Come on, Irish. Let’s go get yuh fixed up.”

Tye didn’t argue. The shock of what had happened was setting in. He couldn’t help but think of that other cave-in and the black fear it had instilled in him. He needed to see daylight, if only for a short while.

As luck would have it, Lil, Thea and two other women, wives of men who’d come to help, had just arrived with breakfast. When he limped from the cave leaning on Dewey, Lil spotted him, yelled his name and came running.

“Uh oh, Miz Lil looks mighty upset,” Dewey observed.

“Aye, she does.” Tye found out just how upset his wife was while she tended his wound beside the campfire.

“You could have been killed,” she said, voice trembling as she washed out the shallow gash down his right calf. “I don’t want you to go back in there.”

“Ah, Lily, don’t be making it out to be worse than ’tis.”

“Listen to me. It was risky enough before. Now, with your leg hurt, if another accident happens, you might not be able to move fast enough to get out of the way.”

He sighed, wishing she hadn’t pointed that out. Trying to ignore his own fears, he said, “Just bandage it up so I can grab something to eat and get back to work. Please.”

She did as he asked without another word, even fetching him coffee and a plate of beef, biscuits and gravy. Sitting silently beside him while he ate, she waited for him to finish, then took his hand.

“Can I have a few minutes alone with my husband at least?” she asked with a smile that would have melted a sterner man than him.

“Your husband would like that fine,” he replied in a husky whisper. Pushing to his feet, he paid no attention to his sore leg as he led her off a short distance to a clump of tall brush that offered a bit of privacy. She came into his arms and they kissed long and deep. At last, Tye tore his mouth from hers and buried his face against her throat, drinking in her sweet, familiar scent.

“Ah, woman, you’re enough to drive me mad. I wish I had time to do far more than kiss ye, but I need to get back.”

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, fingers twined through his hair. “Please, I don’t want you to go in there again. Let someone else do it.”

He lifted his head to look at her. “We’ve been through this, Lily. I can’t abandon little Nora. How would I live with myself?”

“But I’m so afraid of losing you.” Her voice wavered and her eyes held a sheen of tears. “And you must be afraid, too, after being trapped for six days and nearly dying in that mine.”

Tye frowned. “Aye, I am afraid,
mavourneen
. But if I let the fear drive me off again, as it did that other time, I’ll never be a whole man again. And I’ll be useless to ye, don’t ye see?”

She stared at him, lips set and expression darkening with anger. Tearing free of him, she backed away. “No, I don’t see. You spoke vows to me, Tye Devlin. Now you’re saying you’d rather risk dying than stay here, safe with me. It’s just like when you insisted on facing Frank Howard. You care more about proving how brave you are than you do about me!”

Stung by her accusation, he said through his teeth, “Since ye believe that, I’m sure you’ll not be wanting my company any longer.” Swinging on his heel, he stomped off.

Lil stood rooted where she was for a long moment. Then a sob squeezed past her constricted throat. Hot tears pooled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “Tye! Come back!” she choked out, but he didn’t hear. Ordering her frozen limbs to move, she dashed after him, but she was too late. He had already disappeared into the cave.

Dear God, why had she said those awful things to him? He didn’t want to see himself as a coward, didn’t want her to see him that way. Not that she ever could. But if she was in his place she’d feel the same as he did. When, not if, he came back out she’d apologize, she’d tell him she understood, no matter what it cost her.

Her father and Uncle Jeb ducked out of the cave a few moments later, looking tired and dirty. Telling them to sit down and rest, she brought them their grub and kept them company while they ate. When she asked what it was like in the cave, their vague answers confirmed her worst fears. She hated watching them go back in there, but like Tye, they weren’t the kind to abandon a trapped child. If she was honest with herself, she was proud of all three – and ashamed of herself for attempting to seduce Tye into not following his conscience.

Telling Thea and their companions that she was going to go sit with Jessie for a while, Lil rode back to the main house. When she walked in, the clatter of pots drew her to the kitchen, where two other women were engaged in clean up work. She exchanged a few words with them, assuring them their husbands were all right, then went in search of Jessie.

She found her sitting on a bench behind the house, staring at the empty courtyard. Baby Reece was asleep on her lap, pressed against her rounded middle.

“Are you all right?” Lil asked quietly, noting her sister-in-law’s drawn face and the dark circles under her eyes. She probably hadn’t slept a wink since Nora’s disappearance.

Jessie gave a start. Looking up, she seemed confused, as if she didn’t know how to respond. Finally she said, “Aye, don’t worry about me. Reece was afraid of the strangers and all the noise, so I brought him out here. ’Tis quiet and peaceful.”

“Yeah, it’s a whole lot quieter than the kitchen.” Lil sat down next to her on the bench.

After a long silence, Jessie asked, “D’ye think Nora’s still alive?”

“Sure. Tye said she was.” Lil shot her a sideways glance. “You believe him, don’t you?”

“Aye, but that was yesterday. What if there’s no air left in the cave?”

“Ah, there’s plenty, I bet. She’s so little, she doesn’t take much,” Lil said, trying to sound confident. It was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“She’s so little!” Jessie repeated. Her fragile control snapped and she began to weep, sorrow pouring out of her like a river.

Acting fast, Lil scooped up Reece before his mother’s sobs woke him. Cuddling him with one arm, she wrapped her other arm around Jessie and let her cry on her shoulder. How much her life had changed, she thought. Here she was comforting the woman she’d once come close to hating. Feeling profound pity for her now, she patted Jessie’s back and crooned words of reassurance, hoping to God they turned out to be true.

Eventually, the flood ended. Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, Jessie wiped her face and blew her nose. “Thank you. I’m sorry for blubbering all over ye.”