“Hate it,” I muttered one more time. Then I began hauling myself into the tunnel.
Chapter 13
There was a trick to pulling yourself along without gouging your hands on the front corner of the cart. Rob had probably become expert. I’d only done this once before and hadn’t planned on ever doing it again. I’d have to be careful.
Instinct told me to pull as hard and fast as I could, to get through the tunnel as quickly as possible. But if I did that, in addition to the danger to my hands, I’d risk becoming exhausted midway. I definitely did not want to have to rest and catch my breath down there in the tunnel. So I reminded myself to pull slowly and steadily.
After what seemed like half a lifetime, the cart gently bumped to a stop at the end of the rope in an area where the tunnel became slightly taller and wider before narrowing again when it took off at a forty-five-degree angle from the first stretch. I had to crawl off the cart and onto its twin for the second half of the journey.
I wondered, not for the first time, why they hadn’t just dug a single tunnel. Was the jog deliberate? Or the result of a massive miscalculation? And if the builders had erred that badly on a simple compass reading—
Not something I wanted to think about while I was in the tunnel.
The second cart was, of course, at the courthouse end of the tunnel. Was I the only one who bothered to send the cart back for the next person? Once again I had to haul the rope hand over hand until the cart emerged from the tunnel into the junction area.
Waiting for the second cart to arrive was my least favorite part of the trip. For some reason, the extra foot or so of headroom at the junction only emphasized how very many tons of rock and dirt were looming over my head, waiting for just the right moment to fall down and crush me. And while the whole tunnel was damp and clammy, the junction was always the worst, with standing puddles in all but the driest weather.
Once the second steel mesh cart was ready for me, I turned around and sent the first cart back into the tunnel so it would be waiting for Horace when he climbed down. If waiting at the foot of the ladder for the cart to emerge unnerved me, I couldn’t imagine what it would do to Horace. More than a few would-be tunnel rats had lost their nerve and fled before the cart loomed out of the darkness. Our chances of getting Horace onto the cart were much higher if he found it waiting for him.
Then I flopped down on the second cart and began pulling myself along the second leg of my journey. Which, according to Rob, was actually the slightly shorter leg, though you couldn’t prove it by me. Several centuries appeared to drag by as I puffed and hauled, until finally I emerged in a small, stone-walled cell.
I rolled off the cart and onto my back, looking up at the stone ceiling, a spacious six feet above my head, and taking deep breaths until my heart slowed down a bit. Then I sat up and sent the cart back to wait for Horace.
That done, I lay back to savor being by myself for a few moments. No need to be encouraging for Horace or look brave in front of Michael or my brother.
And maybe before I had to go back through the tunnel, Chief Burke would decide to break up Mr. Throckmorton’s long siege.
Well, I could hope.
The stone cell was about eight feet square, with the tunnel entrance in one wall, a closed metal door with a barred window in the opposite wall, and a built-in stone bunk running the length of one of the remaining walls. An oversized gray metal supply cabinet occupied the fourth wall, and a dozen or so cardboard file boxes were stacked on either side of the tunnel entrance.
I stood up and tried the doorknob. Locked. But doubtless the cellar’s other occupants would open it eagerly as soon as I knocked. I reminded myself that it really had been a cell. Back in the days before the present police station and jail had been built, they’d kept prisoners in the courthouse basement.
I wondered if any of them had succeeded in escaping through the tunnel.
My heart had slowed and my breathing was back to normal by the time Horace popped out of the tunnel like a giant fur-clad missile. He propelled himself off the cart, ricocheted off the metal cabinet and then off the far wall before curling up in a fetal position, whimpering and hyperventilating.
I crawled over and patted him on the back.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re safe now. And if you like, you can stay here until the chief opens the blockade.”
Horace stopped whimpering.
“You think he might do that?” he whispered.
“Seems plausible,” I said. “Let’s get out of this tiny little room and into the main part of the basement.”
“Okay.” Horace bounded to his feet and looked around. I pointed to the door. He raced over and twisted the doorknob.