Chapter 5 - Buried Alive
Darkness swallowed the chamber.
Nathan rushed toward the iron door.
“It’s locked.”
“Move,” Catherine said.
She knelt beside the mechanism.
Her injured shoulder made every movement clumsy.
Elias stood between them and the eastern passage.
Caleb whispered, “They trapped us.”
“No,” Elias said.
“They trapped themselves.”
Caleb stared into the darkness.
“That sounds impressive. Want to explain?”
“They came through the only exit they know.”
Catherine understood.
“The ventilation shaft.”
Elias nodded.
Nathan looked at the map.
“We’re inside the sealed section.”
“And there’s another passage east.”
Caleb remembered the journal.
“The men were digging.”
Elias lit the lantern again.
Catherine worked on the lock.
The pins were jammed from the outside.
“I can’t open it.”
Elias nodded toward the east wall.
“Then we go forward.”
Caleb laughed nervously.
“Into a tunnel sealed for fifty years?”
“Stay here if you prefer.”
Caleb immediately followed.
The eastern passage was barely tall enough for Elias.
Pick marks scarred the rock.
Some were old.
Some were not.
Catherine touched one.
Dust came away fresh.
“Rourke’s men have been digging.”
Nathan nodded.
“They found another entrance.”
Elias raised the lantern.
Boot prints confirmed it.
Caleb cursed.
“They were already inside.”
Catherine looked at him.
“You told them more than you admitted.”
“I told Rourke about a tunnel.”
“Which tunnel?”
“I didn’t know there were two.”
Elias crouched beside a boot print.
“How many men?”
“Three. Maybe four.”
A sound echoed ahead.
Voices.
They extinguished the lantern.
Elias whispered.
“Stay against the wall.”
The voices approached.
Two men carrying lamps rounded the bend.
Elias moved first.
He struck one man’s wrist against the wall.
The pistol dropped.
Caleb tackled the second man.
Nathan kicked away another gun.
The struggle lasted seconds.
No shots.
When it ended, both intruders were tied with their own belts.
Catherine stared at Caleb.
He was breathing hard.
“You could’ve run.”
“Where?”
“Not the point.”
Caleb looked away.
Elias questioned the first man.
“Where’s Rourke?”
No answer.
Caleb crouched.
“His name’s Hollis.”
Hollis glared.
“You owe me money.”
“I owe everybody money.”
Nathan said, “At least he knows himself.”
Caleb ignored him.
“Hollis works for Rourke.”
“Worked,” Hollis muttered.
Caleb smiled.
“That bad?”
Hollis spat near his boot.
“Rourke leaves men behind.”
Elias looked toward the tunnel.
“He came himself?”
Hollis hesitated.
That was enough.
“Yes,” Elias said.
Catherine’s stomach tightened.
“Why?”
Hollis looked at the journal under her arm.
“For that.”
“The journal?”
“And whatever else Samuel Miller hid.”
Elias pointed toward the passage.
“What’s ahead?”
Hollis laughed.
“Your grave.”
Caleb punched him.
Catherine grabbed Caleb’s sleeve.
“Stop.”
“He threatened you.”
“He answered the question.”
Caleb looked at her.
Something in his face reminded her of the boy he had once been.
The boy who fought a schoolyard bully after the bully pushed her into mud.
Before cards.
Before anger.
Before resentment hollowed him out.
She hated that memory.
Because it made hating him harder.
They continued.
The passage opened into a large natural cavern.
Old mining equipment sat beneath decades of dust.
Broken carts.
Rusted drills.
Timber beams.
And in the far wall, a section had been recently opened.
Elias raised the lantern.
“Someone dug through.”
Catherine saw another set of tracks.
Lots of them.
Then she saw the bones.
She stopped.
A human skeleton lay partially covered beneath fallen stone.
A rusted belt buckle.
Boots.
Elias walked slowly forward.
He knelt.
Beside the remains lay a small silver pendant.
He picked it up.
His hand shook.
Catherine had never seen his hands shake.
“What is it?”
Elias opened the pendant.
Inside was a faded miniature portrait of a woman.
“My grandmother.”
Catherine said nothing.
These were Jacob Boone’s remains.
Elias closed his fingers around the pendant.
For a long time, he remained kneeling.
Then he noticed something near the ribs.
A flattened bullet.
Catherine looked away.
The story was true.
Jacob Boone had been shot.
Elias placed the pendant inside his coat.
“We take him home.”
Not now.
Later.
But the certainty in his voice made it sound like a promise already fulfilled.
Nathan found another skeleton nearby.
“Who’s this?”
No one knew.
Catherine opened Samuel’s journal again.
The missing pages.
Maybe the second body belonged to the mystery man.
Caleb found a metal box wedged behind rocks.
Locked.
Catherine opened it.
Inside were claim documents bearing three names.
Samuel Miller.
Jacob Boone.
Silas Rourke.
Equal partners.
Beneath them was a handwritten agreement.
If one partner died, his share passed to surviving descendants.
Elias read it.
Caleb stared.
“That means—”
“Don’t,” Catherine said.
He stopped.
This was not the time to calculate wealth beside a dead man’s bones.
They heard clapping.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Gideon Rourke stepped from the newly opened tunnel.
He was in his late fifties.
Clean coat.
Gray mustache.
Cold eyes.
Four armed men stood behind him.
“Well,” Rourke said. “The family reunion is complete.”
Elias moved in front of Catherine.
Rourke smiled.
“Just like your grandfather.”
Elias’s voice dropped.
“You never met him.”
“No. But my father described him.”
“Your father murdered him.”
“My father survived him.”
Catherine held up the revolver with S.R. carved into the grip.
“This belonged to Silas.”
Rourke’s smile faded.
“And the bullet beside Jacob matches the caliber.”
“You’re no sheriff.”
“No.”
She held the journal.
“But Judge Mercer might enjoy reading this.”
Rourke sighed.
“I was hoping Caleb would solve this quietly.”
Everyone looked at Caleb.
He went pale.
“You said you only wanted the land.”
“I wanted the land because I wanted what was inside it.”
“You never said anything about bodies.”
“Would it have changed your behavior?”
Caleb did not answer.
Rourke smiled.
“No.”
Catherine looked at her brother.
“That’s what he thinks of you.”
Caleb looked down.
Rourke extended one hand.
“The journal.”
“No,” Catherine said.
“The claim papers.”
“No.”
“The gun.”
“No.”
Rourke shrugged.
“Then I suppose the mountain keeps all of you.”
Nathan’s breathing quickened.
Elias looked toward the support beams.
Catherine followed his gaze.
Old.
Rotten.
Rourke saw it too.
“Don’t.”
Elias smiled slightly.
“You opened a tunnel through unstable rock.”
“So?”
“So you’re standing under it.”
Rourke’s men looked up.
That half-second was enough.
Caleb threw the lantern.
Darkness exploded.
Elias fired once into the ceiling beam—not at a person.
Wood shattered.
Rock fell.
Everyone ran.
Catherine grabbed Nathan.
Elias grabbed her.
The cavern filled with dust.
Rourke shouted.
A gun fired blindly.
Then another.
Catherine crawled through the east tunnel.
Caleb was ahead.
Nathan behind.
Elias came last.
Rock crashed behind them.
The passage shook.
They reached a fork.
“Which way?” Caleb shouted.
Catherine opened the map.
“I can’t see.”
Elias struck a match.
Left tunnel.
The flame died.
They ran left.
Behind them, voices.
Rourke had survived.
They reached another iron door.
Locked.
Catherine worked the mechanism.
Her fingers slipped.
“Come on.”
Caleb looked behind them.
“They’re coming.”
“I know!”
Nathan grabbed the lantern.
“Here.”
Catherine found the second pin.
Click.
The door opened.
Cold air rushed in.
They emerged onto the north side of the ridge.
Snow.
Moonlight.
Freedom.
For one second.
Then a man stepped from behind a tree and pointed a rifle at Catherine.
“Hands up.”
Elias raised his revolver.
Another rifle cocked behind him.
Then another.
They were surrounded.
Catherine looked toward the rider approaching through the snow.
Not Rourke.
Silas Vane.
He dismounted slowly.
“I told you,” Vane said, “I prefer lawful transactions.”
Catherine stared at the armed men.
“This is lawful?”
Vane looked toward the mine entrance.
“No.”
He handed her a folded paper.
“This is.”
Catherine opened it.
A court order.
Signed by Judge Mercer.
Suspending the forged deed.
She looked up.
“How?”
“I rode all night.”
“Why?”
Vane glanced toward the mine.
“Because Rourke tried to kill one of my men.”
Elias lowered his weapon slightly.
Vane continued.
“And because Judge Mercer sent a marshal with me.”
A second rider approached.
A silver badge reflected moonlight.
Catherine nearly collapsed with relief.
Then the mine entrance behind them erupted with noise.
Gideon Rourke stumbled into the snow.
He was bleeding from the forehead.
His gun remained in his hand.
The marshal shouted.
“Drop it!”
Rourke looked at Catherine.
Then at the court order.
Then at Caleb.
His expression became almost peaceful.
“You always were the weak one.”
Caleb froze.
Rourke raised his gun.
Not toward Elias.
Not toward Catherine.
May you like
Toward Nathan.
And Caleb stepped directly into the line of fire.
