Wishful Seeing (16 page)

More scree fell, and now Thaddeus could see a piece of wood — a timber that had been knocked over to lean at an angle.

“Is there a cave or something on the other side of that pile of dirt?” he asked.

Caroline nodded. “We were there when the roof fell down. Digger was on the wrong side.”

“I don't see how we're going to get him out from here. Do you think we might be able to dig through from the other end?”

“Maybe.”

“Are there timbers along the walls and the roof? Pieces of wood that hold it up?”

“Yes.”

Thaddeus wasn't sure he liked the idea of going into a cave that had already collapsed once, but then, he decided, it hadn't been an inherent fault in the construction that had caused the roof to fall in, but rather the railroad crew's excavations. In any event, he figured he stood little chance of gaining Caroline Howell's trust unless he could somehow rescue her dog. Besides, he disliked the idea of just leaving the animal there to expire from thirst. Or to be shot by one of the rail crew who might yet return if it grew too noisy.

“We need to go back to your house and find shovels,” he said. “If there's just loose sand and gravel we can probably dig through it.”

“I'm not leaving Digger,” Caroline said, a stubborn set to her face. “What if the man with the gun comes back?”

The dog seemed to be preoccupied with his frantic digging and was unlikely to draw any more attention, but Thaddeus could understand the girl's concern.

“Martha can stay here. If the man comes back she can tell him to go away. Would that be all right?”

Caroline considered this for a moment, then nodded. Martha knelt down a few feet from the hole so she could keep an eye on the dog.

“If you run into trouble of any kind, give a shout,” he said to her. “I'm pretty sure we can hear you from the other side.”

“Don't worry. They won't get past me.”

James Small jumped up in alarm when Thaddeus came down the hill with an unfamiliar girl in tow.

“Where's Martha?” he asked anxiously.

“She's fine, but there's no time to explain,” Thaddeus said. “Right now we need to do some digging.”

Caroline found two shovels and another hay rake in the barn, then led the two men over the hill and past the pond. Twenty feet from the crest of the second hill, she pushed through a stand of thick bushes that screened a small hole at the base of a massive black oak. It would be impossible to find, Thaddeus realized, unless you knew exactly where it was. He had to get down on all fours to squeeze through the opening.

He didn't know what he had been expecting — a cavern, maybe, carved out of rock, or a series of honeycombed recesses. But it was not a large hill, and the substrate was loose and sandy, partly held in place by the roots of the tree, and partly shored up with sawn lumber. It was a small space, more like a burrow than a cave, the only light coming from the small opening at its entrance. Thaddeus could see, though, that the supports had collapsed at one end. It was going to be tricky to dig it out without bringing more of it down.

He turned to Caroline. “Can you find a couple of buckets?”

She nodded, and while she was getting them, Thaddeus and Small began tentatively to poke at the mound of soil in front of them. When Caroline returned, they started filling the buckets with dirt.

“Take them outside and dump them,” Thaddeus said.

She hesitated. “But Papa said not to leave any sign.”

“Sign of what?”

“Any sign that would tell somebody where the door is.”

So Leland Gordon was right. Howell had been here all along. Elegant, bewhiskered, silk-hatted George Howell had become a cornered animal cowering in a sandpit.

“I'm afraid we'll have to dump it outside,” Thaddeus said to the girl. “There's nowhere else to put the dirt. The cave is pretty much discovered anyway, now that the railway men have broken through the top.”

She blinked at him for a few moments, then without a word picked up a filled bucket and hauled it through the opening.

“Papa?” Small said, “Does she mean George Howell?”

“I guess so.” Thaddeus wasn't sure what to do about Small. He could scarcely ask his assistant to hide the fact that a wanted man was lurking nearby. He wasn't, in fact, sure what he was going to do himself. As Leland Gordon had pointed out, Howell's apprehension would in no way help his wife. But failing to report Howell's presence could open them all to charges of aiding and abetting. Get the dog out first, he decided. Worry about the rest of it later.

As it turned out, Thaddeus was glad he had James with him. The young man worked steadily, and before long they had reached the section where the timbers had fallen. One of them swung loose at the bottom, its top still embedded in the hill.

“Soon, now. But we'll have to be careful. In fact, we might want to shore this up a bit before we go any farther.”

No sooner had Thaddeus spoken when the dog wriggled through the remaining scree to its freedom. When it porpoised through the last inches, its back feet pushed against the bottom of the loose support, knocking it to one side. A pile of soil and gravel and lumber cascaded down on top of James Small.

Thaddeus wielded his shovel frantically to clear the mess of debris away from Small's head, so that at least he wouldn't suffocate before they figured out how to extract him. To his surprise, Caroline grabbed the other shovel and she, too, began to dig, although her efforts had little effect. After a few moments, Thaddeus realized that shovelling was futile — the sand and fine gravel quickly spilled back into whatever hole they managed to make.

“Put your shovel down,” he ordered the girl. “We're going to have to pull.”

“Is everything all right?” Martha could hear them from her perch at the edge of the hole.

“No. Get over here.” And then he said to Caroline, “You take one leg and I'll take the other and then we need to pull for all we're worth.”

He wasn't at all certain that their combined strength would be enough, but to his surprise they shifted the inert body a few inches with the first pull.

“Again!”

This time Small moved a foot or so. Thaddeus leaped forward and used his arms as a scoop to remove the debris around his assistant's head. To his surprise, a wad of paper was plastered over Small's face, largely shielding his mouth and nose from the sandy soil. Thaddeus swept it aside. Small began to cough and sputter, inhaling great shuddering gasps of air in between spasms, but the cave was filled with a fine dust that stung the eyes and filled the lungs. Thaddeus knew he needed to get the young man into the fresh air as quickly as possible.

Martha scrambled into the cave and together they scooped more soil away, until finally, with one last heave, they were able to pull Small entirely free. They dragged him over to the fresher air at the opening. Although he had by some miracle been saved from inhaling much sediment, he had a cut on the back of his head that was bleeding profusely. Thaddeus scrambled to retrieve the papers he had thrown to one side and jammed them against the wound.

“Put your hand here,” he said to Martha. “Keep pressing down, as hard as you can. We need to get the bleeding stopped.”

Suddenly Caroline crawled past them to paw through the fallen rubble. She scooped out several other bundles of paper, then she poked around until she uncovered a leather satchel. She pushed the papers inside it, climbed past them again, and disappeared.

Thaddeus pulled Small to a sitting position, then helped him manoeuvre through the small opening. Finally free of the cloying dust, his breathing gradually became easier.

“I thought we'd lost you there for a minute, James,” Thaddeus said.

Small looked around, blinking. “Lost? I'm not lost. I just got tangled in the quilt, that's all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I slept in. Couldn't get out of bed. I was too rolled up in the bedclothes.”

“Oh my,” Martha said. “What's wrong with him?”

Thaddeus knelt down beside him. “Do you know where you are, James?”

“In my house, of course. In Cobourg.”

“Look around you.” Thaddeus spoke in a gentle voice.

Small did as he was told, and then a puzzled expression crossed his face.

“Where am I? This isn't Cobourg. I have to get home. I need to milk the cow.”

This last statement was not as odd as it sounded. The Howells' cow had started a mournful low that was audible from where they sat.

“Listen to me, James,” Thaddeus said. “You were buried in a cave-in. You were struck on the head, and that's why you don't know where you are.”

“What cave? How did I get here?” Small was still bewildered. “Why does my head hurt?”

“You got a bump, I'm afraid. Martha is trying to stop the bleeding.”

His face dissolved into a sappy grin. “Ah, Martha,” he said. “Is Martha looking after me? That's wonderful.”

“We need to get him to a doctor,” Thaddeus said. “Perhaps the best thing to do is to take him back to the Gordons.” Then he turned to Small. “Do you think you can walk, James?”

Small nodded, and together Thaddeus and Martha hauled him to his feet. He could walk only a few paces before he had to stop for a moment to rest, but the downward slope helped and they made good progress until they reached the bottom of the hill, where he sank to the ground again.

“We'll rest for a bit, James,” Thaddeus said, “then we'll try the climb.”

He seemed to gain a little strength after that, and although the going was slow, Thaddeus and Martha managed to push and pull him up to the top of the hill overlooking the Howells' barn. After another rest, Small insisted that he could manage the descent without help. Thaddeus followed close behind, one hand clutching his coattails, just in case he fell.

Digger barked at them hysterically the whole time they were climbing down, adding his protests to the pleadings of the uncomfortable cow.

“Not very grateful at being rescued, is he?” Martha remarked.

Caroline came out of the house and called for the dog, which obediently ran back to her.

It was only then that Thaddeus realized that James's horse was missing. He pointed this out to Martha.

“Major Howell?” she asked. “If he got clear of the cave-in, he may have come back here.”

“It's the most likely explanation.” Thaddeus had no doubt that Caroline had been genuinely concerned about her dog, but its predicament had made a convenient diversion all the same. And if Howell had taken the horse, he could be a long way away by now. Thaddeus could only hope that his assistant wouldn't remember that he'd had a horse in the first place.

“Let's get James over to the cart, then see if we can borrow a blanket or something from the house,” Thaddeus said to Martha when they reached the Howells' dooryard. “He can lie in the back.”

“I'm fine,” Small protested. “Really.” And in fact, he was able to climb up into the back of the rig by himself, a relief for Thaddeus, who hadn't been sure how they were going to manage it otherwise.

Martha went to the house and knocked on the door. “Caroline,” she called.

Silence.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Go away.”

“Do you have a blanket we can use? Mr. Small is hurt and he needs to lie down in the wagon.”

There was no answer, but a few moments later the door opened and Caroline threw two old quilts onto the stoop. Martha took them back to the cart and helped Thaddeus arrange a cushion for Small's head with one of them. She covered him with the other. Then Thaddeus pulled her aside.

“We need to take the girl with us. Maybe it would be better if you talked to her.”

“I'll try,” Martha said, “but I don't know if I can get her to come.”

She walked up to the door again, while Thaddeus waited at the cart. “Caroline?”

There was no answer.

“Can you come out and talk to me?”

“No. Papa said don't talk to anybody.”

“Your Papa's gone now. He took our horse and rode away.”

“He'll come back.”

“No, Caroline, he won't. Too many people know he was here. He'll ride a long way away and he won't dare come back. You don't really want to be here all by yourself, do you?” There was no reply to this. “I'd be scared to be here all alone,” Martha went on. “You never know who might turn up.”

“The man's dead. He won't come back.”

“Which man? The man who fell in the hole?”

“No. The other man.”

“Do you mean the man who's hurt? That's a friend of my grandfather's. My grandfather's been trying to help your mother. She's in Cobourg. You could go see her. You could ask her what you should do.”

“Papa told me what to do.”

“Yes, but things are different now. Your Papa's gone and he's not coming back.”

Suddenly the dog burst through the door. He made a beeline for Martha, barking and snapping. She turned her body away to try to deflect the attack.

“Digger, sit!” Thaddeus commanded, in a voice that was as stern as he could muster.

To his surprise, the dog aborted its attack. It obediently sat, but continued a low growl.

Thaddeus walked over to Martha, ignoring the dog. “Do you feel like you're getting anywhere?” he asked.

“Not really.” He could see that she was shaking a little. Thaddeus knew he needed to resolve the situation one way or the other in short order. He was worried about Small's condition, and he was afraid that the dog might yet bite one of them. It was also getting late, and he didn't like the notion of trying to navigate the hilly road to Cobourg in the dark. It was frustrating to have found the girl and then be stymied by something so insubstantial as a cabin door and a scrappy dog. He didn't want to leave her behind, but he would if he had to.