Mildred ripped a shirtsleeve free, then wrapped it around the bottom four inches or so of the glass shard she’d picked up. The cloth wrapped around enough times that the glass didn’t immediately slash through. She fisted it, feeling somewhat better for having it.
The glass shard wasn’t much of a weapon, but she could make do.
The trapdoor opened. More darkness greeted her, this slightly more gray than the shadows filling the underground room. She didn’t know why the man entering the room wasn’t carrying a lantern.
Reaching out, she touched the ladder, making sure of the distance. Then she tightened her grip on the glass shard and waited.
The footsteps continued coming down the ladder for another few rungs, then halted. “Mildred?” whispered a voice she recognized.
Positioned behind the old man, Mildred halted her blow just in time. She’d intended to slash across whoever was hanging from the ladder. Legs or back, the wounds would have given her an edge.
“Doc?” Mildred whispered back.
“It is I, dear lady, come to your rescue I had thought. But I fear we are not going to be alone for much longer.”
Without warning, light appeared around the edges of a second door above Doc. The weak yellow illumination flared down through the sides of a second trapdoor above the one Doc was halfway through.
“Somebody’s been here, Harold,” a man said in a quiet voice that barely got through the muffling effects of the trapdoor. “All the straw’s been moved.”
“I can see that, Miner. Get that lantern over here and let’s take a look before we get anybody else.”
“Betwixt a hard place and a rock,” Doc whispered, “that’s surely where we find ourselves in this quandary.”
“Haul your bony butt down off that ladder,” Mildred ordered. “All you’re doing up there is making a fine target.”
Doc clambered down.
The shadows drew back as the light from the lantern above filtered into the room. Dust particles raced like wild comets through the haze drifting through the trapdoor above.
“Your blaster, Doc,” Mildred prompted. “That scattergun of yours is good in close quarters. And those bastards aren’t going to have many places to run.” She hung on to her anger, using it to force her fear away.
Doc’s Le Mat clicked as he made the adjustments necessary to swivel the shotgun barrel into the active role. “Stand back, dear Dr. Wyeth, because those concrete walls are going to be just as hard on us as they are on them.”
Then the trapdoor above opened.
Pulled back against the wall, Mildred suddenly went deaf and blind as the Le Mat discharged. Shotgun pellets bounced wildly, and men started to scream.
Chapter Fifteen
“Jak and Dean have got horses rounded up and waiting for us just outside of Hazard,” Ryan said to J.B. He sat at the table in the back of the gun shop. “If we make it that far, we can get out of here with a whole skin.”
“Sounds to me like your skin is the only one you’re worried about.”
Ryan looked at the woman, remembering her name with effort. “Anna, my skin and those of my friends are the only ones I ever worry about.”
From the looks on the faces of Tinker Phillips and his sons, Ryan’s views didn’t sit well.
“If it hadn’t been for us,” Anna protested, “you bastards wouldn’t have been outfitted as well as you’re going to be.”
Ryan knew that was true. J.B. had already shown him the ammo that Phillips had contributed to the cause. He fixed the woman with his hard stare. “Just because I’m making plans to take care of my people doesn’t mean I’m leaving you out in the open with a busted wheel. You expect somebody to come riding into this town like some kind of vid hero and chill Kirkland?”
“Been nights I dreamed of nothing else, mister,” one of the men commented.
Ryan shook his head. “You people have been cooped up in this retreat too long. I just chilled two men to get in here and talk to J.B. Kirkland’s going to know about it, and he’s going to know pretty much who did it. I don’t see him letting us walk away after that.”