“Sheriff,” he called. “You can let me out now. I found out what I wanted to know.”
“Not on your life, Taggert,” the man answered, laughter in his voice. “The city of Chandler needs the revenue that I’m gonna charge you for a night’s accommodations.”
Without a word of protest, Kane went back to the cot. He didn’t really care where he spent tonight.
Chapter 31
“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” Houston once again asked Ian.
Solemnly, Ian nodded as he glanced back at the small wooden crate in the back of the wagon. Beside him sat Zachary, his eyes straight ahead and alive with excitement. He wasn’t yet old enough to be fully aware of the dangers of what they’d planned.
“It isn’t in any danger of going off by itself, is it?” Houston asked.
“No,” Ian answered, but he couldn’t help glancing back at the little wooden box that held the dynamite.
Houston’s hands on the reins were white with the strain of holding them as tightly as she was.
It had taken nearly twenty-four hours to arrange what was going to happen tonight. She had known what she wanted to do, and right away she had also known that no adult would help her. When she’d asked Ian, she’d explained to him that he was taking a risk and could get into serious trouble if he was openly involved, but Ian had said that he owed Houston for all that he had now, and he was willing to risk anything. Much to Houston’s chagrin, Ian’d asked young Zachary to come along, saying that they needed someone to hold the horses.
Tonight, at midnight, Houston had met Ian at the Little Pamela mine and, counting on the confusion caused by the mine explosion, they’d broken the chains on the dynamite shack and stolen enough to blow away about two city blocks. Against Ian’s protest of the time it would take, Houston had rechained and relocked the shack.
Slipping about, neither of them very good at hiding the fact that they were doing something illegal, they managed to get the box into the waiting wagon. A few people said hello to Houston, but they’d seen her often in the last few days and thought nothing of her presence.
She and Ian were halfway down the mountainside when they met Zachary walking toward them. He’d climbed out his window, using a knotted rope, hours ago and had planned to walk all the way to the mine.
“You’re to do nothing but stay with the horses, nothing more,” Houston warned. “And, as soon as your father and I get on the horses, I want both of you out of there. Ian, can you get back into Edan’s house all right?”
“Of course.”
“And you, Zach?”
Zachary swallowed hard, because the rope had given way when he was still four feet off the ground. There was no way he could slip back into his house unnoticed. “Sure,” he answered. “No problem at all.”
Houston didn’t relax as they neared the sleeping town. It
was three o’clock when they reached the jail. Earlier, she’d hidden two saddle horses outside the jail, their bags laden with food, clothes and enough cash to carry them through a couple of months in hiding.
She stopped the wagon quite a distance from the jail and watched nervously as Ian removed the box of dynamite. She knew that he had trained in the mines as a shot-firer, but she wasn’t convinced that he knew how to blow up the side of the stone jail.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Ian started talking. “I’ll put a few sticks in the base of that wall that’s in the hill, then, when it blows, the entire wall will come sliding down. It’ll be like opening a very large window. Kane will have to jump down from the floorboards onto a horse, and then you’ll be off. It couldn’t be simpler.”
“A very simple plan, for which we could all go to prison for the rest of our lives,” she murmured.
Yesterday, when Kane had told her that he might be hanged for a murder that he didn’t commit—and, when Houston was honest with herself, she admitted that she didn’t really care whether he was a murderer or not—she knew that something had to be done to get him released. The town’s sympathy would be on Kane’s side after the way he’d helped with the disaster, but the trial would probably go to Denver, and Fenton Coal and Iron was a powerful force in Denver. She did not think he’d have a fair trial and, with no witnesses except to say that Kane had been found at the top of the stairs with a dead Jacob at the bottom, she had no doubt that Kane would be found guilty.
After only a moment’s soul-searching, she knew what had to be done. She had to get him out of the jail, and even if it meant that they had to spend the rest of their lives in hiding, she meant to do it. They’d go to Mexico, and she thought that she could get Blair to send them enough money to live on. As long as Kane kept a quiet profile and didn’t call too much attention to himself, she thought they could get away from the American law. It was too bad that Kane was so well known in so many parts of the country, so they couldn’t possibly hide in the United States.
Houston’s only regret was that she wouldn’t be able to say good-bye to her family and her friends. She probably wouldn’t even be able to write to them, as her letters might lead to Kane’s capture.
But she knew what had to be done, and she felt that as long as she had Kane she could be happy, no matter where they lived or in what hardship.
Now, in the darkness, she directed Zach to get the horses from their hiding places, to tighten the girths and to bring the horses closer to the jail.
Her hands were trembling as she helped Ian insert the sticks of dynamite into the chinks of the stone wall. When everything was set, she motioned Ian to let her stand on his shoulders so she could see inside the window.
“Tell him to put the mattress around his head,” Ian said as he lifted her.
“We don’t have enough dynamite to hurt him, do we?” she asked.