and now her stomach pinched with hunger. They’d had nothing to eat since the breakfast meal back at the mission home. She wrapped her arms about her drawn-up legs and rested her chin on her knees. Closing her eyes, she prayed for rest, for safety, for the lawmakers to release them in the morning.
Shuffling footsteps sounded outside the jail cell, and Dolly went immediately on the alert. “Who is it?” she called out.
The jailer’s voice came through the door. “Someone is here to pay bail for the Chinese girl.”
Dolly scrambled to her feet. “Who?” Miss Culbertson had told her of tricks played by Chinese owners and how they pretended to bail out their slaves, only to keep them in hiding, often under worse conditions than before.
“It is a friend of Kum Quai,” the jailer said.
The whimper from the makeshift bed told Dolly that Kum Quai was awake. Dolly crossed to the door. “She has no friends. We will wait here for tomorrow’s trial.”
The scrape of a key turning the lock sent Dolly’s pulse jumping. She grabbed one of the lumber scraps and propped it against the door, then lifted another lumber piece and did the same thing.
“Don’t come in,” Dolly called out. “We reject the bail money.”
The door rattled as the jailer pushed against it. Dolly shoved the opposite way with all her weight. Moments later, Kum Quai joined her and helped push as well. Together, with the help of the lumber pieces, they could deter the jailer.
When he left in a huff, Dolly sagged against the door. She couldn’t very well explain what was going on to Kum Quai, but the girl’s wide eyes told Dolly that she knew enough.
“Lo Mo,” Kum Quai whispered.
Those two small words said everything that Kum Quai couldn’t express. Lo Mo meant “old mother,” but it was an endearment full of respect. The affectionate title of Lo Mo had been bestowed on Miss Culbertson. Dolly reached for the girl’s trembling hand.
Then, a terrific shudder ripped through the door.
The jailer had an axe.
Dolly grabbed Kum Quai and pulled her away from the door. They clung to each other as the jailer broke a hole through the door, then reached through and pushed aside the lumber.
Kum Quai screamed.
There was nowhere for the women to go. They were trapped.
The jailer had no qualms about crossing the room and wrenching Kum Quai from Dolly’s grasp.
“Don’t you touch her,” Dolly yelled, but the jailer was already half dragging the girl out of the cell.
Dolly ran after the jailer, grabbing for Kum Quai, but the man seemed to have the power of an ox. He half carried, half dragged Kum Quai out of the shack and across the dirt yard beneath the moonlit night to where a buggy waited. The jailer loaded the crying Kum Quai into the buggy, handing her off to two other men. Dolly wasn’t going to let her go alone, and she grabbed the edges and climbed in too.
One of the men inside struggled to keep Kum Quai’s screams quiet. The only thing Dolly could decipher from the girl’s Chinese was “Lo Mo,” cried over and over.
“Let her go!” Dolly reached for Kum Quai, but the closest man shoved Dolly hard. She grabbed for something to hold onto, anything, but just then the buggy lurched forward, and she tipped out. She tumbled onto the road, scraping her arms and bruising her hip.
“Stop!” Dolly scrambled to her feet, ignoring the aching and throbbing. Even if she ran, there was no way she could catch up to the buggy.
Slowly she spun, the darkness of the cold night unreal and eerie. The jailer had disappeared inside the jail, and Dolly had never felt so alone and unsure. She looked toward town. If the jailer wouldn’t help her, surely someone in town had a reasonable head. There wasn’t time to assess any injuries with the buggy getting farther away.
She began to walk, limping with the pain of one of her ankles. But she didn’t care about any physical pain; she cared only about finding someone to track down a helpless girl.
Dolly’s limping turned to a loping run as she picked up her skirts and headed for the nearest building, the girl’s cries for Lo Mo still ringing through her head. The darkness from every window of the druggist shop was disconcerting, but someone had to help her. She pounded on the door, then the windows. “Help me!” she cried. “Someone please help!”
She could only guess that it was well after