lives were at stake, which meant more than a few bruises and broken ribs.
Sheriff Carter hunkered down near him, his labored breathing loud in the silence. They’d left the horses and walked the last half mile. The sheriff shouldn’t have come, but as sheriff, he felt responsible for those kids. Jake could understand his determination to do whatever it took to save them.
Gibbons’s thugs were nowhere to be seen, but the boards had been ripped from the entrance, so they’d been here and might still be inside.
Simply looking at the gaping black hole made him break out in a cold sweat. He knew this mine as well as anybody alive other than Gus. It boasted more twists and turns than poison on an oak tree. If those kids were to survive, he’d have to find them and lead them out. But could he force himself to go inside?
He didn’t have a choice, did he?
Two men who looked like the two he’d tangled with the night before came out of the entrance, pouring a stream of black powder on the ground. In a matter of minutes, they’d strike a match and blow the entrance.
Where were Smitty and Harvey? They couldn’t wait any longer.
The sheriff tapped Jake on the shoulder and motioned for him to track around behind the men. Jake slid silently through the underbrush, easing closer. In position, he waited for Sheriff Carter to make the next move.
A match flared, and Jake’s heart leapt. They were out of time. What was taking the sheriff so long?
Sheriff Carter stepped into the open, his shotgun trained on the men. “Put your hands in the air. You’re under arrest.”
The man with the match dropped the flame to the black powder and went for his gun. A sizzling stream of fire zigzagged like lightning toward the entrance to the mine. Jake dove for the black powder line in the rocky sand. Before he hit the ground, he saw Sheriff Carter’s eyes go wide, one hand clutching his chest as he staggered backward. The double-barreled shotgun fell from his limp fingers.
Oh, God, no!
Jake’s body severed the line of powder as the blaze sputtered toward him. Praying he’d done all he could to stop the path of the flame, he rolled and came up with gun in hand.
Too late.
He stared into the emotionless face of the man who held a pistol against the sheriff’s pasty-white temple. Jake sought the sheriff’s pain-glazed eyes.
“Don’t worry ’bout me, Jake. Do what you gotta do.”
“Shut up, old man.” The one with the gun pinned Jake with a hard look. “Toss your gun over here.”
Jake hesitated.
The man cocked his pistol. “Do it. Now.”
The thug would blow the sheriff’s head off without any more thought than he’d give to squashing a bug. Jake tossed his gun on the ground. The second man palmed it and pressed it into the small of Jake’s back.
Sheriff Carter clutched his chest and groaned. Jake surged toward him only to be jerked back. “Can’t you see he’s dying?”
The man let go of the sheriff’s collar, and he slumped to the ground in a heap, unmoving. “No different than if I’d shot him, I reckon.” He leveled the cocked gun at Jake. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you? Well, this time there won’t be no coming back.”
Jake squinted at the thug, intent on finally getting a good look at him. A wide face, scarred and battered, with a misshapen nose. The face of a prizefighter. Jake winced. No wonder his fist packed the power of a sledgehammer.
So this is it, Lord? I’m going to die? Leaving Ma, Tommy, and the girls to fend for themselves. And the kids in the mine. Even if I can’t get to them, send someone else. They don’t deserve this. And Livy.
Oh, Lord, Livy.
His heart shattered into a million pieces. He’d hoped to ask her to marry him, to have children with her, to grow old together. But it would never happen.
“No, don’t shoot,” the second man said. “I’ve got a better idea. Throw him in the mine with the others. He can enjoy a long, slow death if the explosion doesn’t get him first.”
A grin slashed across the wide face of the prizefighter, and he laughed, a low, guttural sound that left Jake in no doubt he relished killing. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
Jake tried to jerk away as the prizefighter slammed the pistol against his temple. They grabbed him by the arms and hauled him into