Chapter 13
“It’s the shaft to the northwest of here which is supposed to be haunted, is that right?” Hawk was posing the question, and though Shawna was aware that he was speaking, she didn’t immediately respond. A huge yawn prevented her from doing so…
“Shawna?” he repeated, frowning. “Shawna, this is the shaft which is supposed to be haunted, right?”
She couldn’t believe it, but she had actually been nearly asleep. Nearly asleep and standing. Deep in one of the tunnels of the coal mine.
But then, she hadn’t had much sleep in what was beginning to seem like a very long time, this morning less than usual.
It was just barely dawn. She couldn’t have closed her eyes for more than a few moments after David had left before she had heard a pounding at her door—his brother, determined on touring the mines before the workers started for the day.
“Aye,” she said quickly, “this is where the trouble has been, where we’ve had the accidents, though I believe it is your brother who has done the ‘haunting.’”
“Perhaps. But this is where the cave-in took place?”
Shawna lifted the kerosene lamp she carried to shed more light around them.
“You can see where they have worked to shore up the walls here.” She pointed out where carpentry had been done with solid columns of sturdy wood to prevent any more rocks from falling from above.
“We’re not far from the loch now, of course, and many of the tunnels beneath are waterways.
So far, we’ve had no problems with the tunnels getting flooded.
You’ve already heard that we nearly lost a child in the cave-in, but luckily, your brother was nearby ‘haunting,’ and he rescued the boy. ”
“The lad who works at the castle now?” Hawk queried.
Shawna shrugged.
“He’s the look of a MacGinnis about him,” Hawk commented.
Shawna felt a rush of warmth sweep through her. “So do many hereabouts. Just as we’ve a plentiful group of green-eyed, auburn-haired children among us.”
Hawk didn’t reply. He frowned suddenly, pressing a finger to his lips. “Perhaps we should cease to discuss matters pertinent to either the Douglases or the MacGinnises,” he murmured. Then they both heard a tapping. It seemed to be coming from the north, where the shaft made a natural, curving turn.
“Do you hear it?” He barely mouthed the words.
She nodded.
He started forward, and she quickly followed him. They had come here alone. Skylar was waiting at the entrance to the mines, ready to warn them when the workers began to arrive for the day, but within the mine itself, they should have been completely alone.
He paused after a few steps, listening again.
There came a tap, then another.
Hawk moved his booted feet over the ground, moving in a circle. He stopped. The sound came again.
He watched her, a curious smile curving into his features.
“We’re being lured!” Shawna murmured.
Hawk nodded.
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t move forward,” she said. “We should go back. Get help—”
“And add to the belief that the mine is haunted?” he asked her lightly.
She exhaled. “If we go forward…”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he assured her.
“I wasn’t—”
“What?” he asked.
“I wasn’t worried for myself.”
He arched a brow to her. “I have handled myself well against the US Cavalry, Rebs, Crows, and others. Would you have me run from a tapping in a mine shaft?”
Shawna nodded strenuously. He laughed softly, pulling her close for just a moment to set a brotherly kiss upon her forehead.
“We have to find out what’s going on.”
“It’s probably David, preparing his morning tea,” Shawna murmured dryly.
“Shush!” he warned her.
“Oh, aye. We don’t know who might be listening!”
He proceeded forward again, amazingly silent though he wore boots. She crept quietly behind him with a deep sense of dread. She was afraid. Not just for herself. For them both.
Ahead of her, Hawk paused. Listened.
The tapping came again. More persistent. As if whoever was tapping had become annoyed because the noise wasn’t causing them to react swiftly enough.
Hawk turned, lifting a hand to stop her.
Even as he did so, a curious gust of air suddenly burst into the tunnel.
And Shawna’s lantern was extinguished.
Total darkness instantly fell upon the tunnel shaft.
For a moment, there was silence.
The tapping began again.
“Shawna!” Hawk said softly.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t move. Don’t move, do you hear me?”
“I won’t move. I can’t move. I can’t see anything at all. Hawk? Don’t you move—”
“I have matches,” Hawk said. “I’ve got to reach you to relight the lantern.” A small burst of flame appeared against his cupped hands, and he called out irritably, “I told you to stay still!”
“I am still!” Shawna said indignantly.
“I can see your shadow. Shawna, dammit, get back here!”
The match went out. Shawna heard footsteps, his, moving hard and boldly in the darkness toward the natural curve of the shaft.
But she hadn’t moved a muscle. She was still grasping her extinguished lantern, her back now against the wall as she stared blindly around her.
“Hawk!” she cried, ascertaining with panic that they were not alone, that he was being lured forward by more than just the tapping noise. Someone was with them. Someone who had misled Hawk into thinking that she was the shadow moving forward.
“Hawk! Stop—” she began.
Too late. She suddenly heard the sound of breaking, splintering wood beams, and she heard him cursing as he fell. Screaming, and moving blindly then herself, she started inching forward in the darkness.
“Hawk—”
“Shawna, stay still!” he thundered back to her. “Stay still, or you’ll wind up down here.”
“Where are you?”
“A few levels below. I can’t see a thing down here. And naturally,” he said, then paused in embarrassment, “I’ve dropped my matches.”
“I’ll get help.”
“I can hear the water.”
“Is there a way out?”
“Not that I can see. Well, if there was, I’m not so sure that even I could see it.” He suddenly swore with a vengeance. “The water is rising in here. There didn’t seem to be water when I first fell. Now it’s over my ankles.”
“Oh god!” Shawna breathed. “It’s the tide.”
“The tide?” Hawk repeated. “From the loch? Oh god yes, from the loch!”
Shawna knew that he’d forgotten the peculiar phenomena of Craig Loch. It was connected with the Irish Sea through several underground rivers, and they were close enough to the open water for the tides to cause great changes in water levels in the caves that rose at the edge of the loch.
“Oh my god! I’ll get help.”
“You can’t get help. You’ll kill yourself trying to maneuver in the mine in the darkness.”
“No, I won’t! I can see better now…” she began, but her voice trailed away as she frowned and turned desperately to try to see around herself.
Then she screamed in wild panic as she suddenly felt hands roughly upon her, settling upon her shoulders, spinning her around.
She dropped the lantern, wildly trying to free herself, gasping and screaming again in protest, fighting to no avail. She suddenly felt herself being shaken hard, and the voice grating out to her finally penetrated through her panic.
“M’lady, cease and desist, now!”
It was David. David—whose voice was less than reassuring at that moment.
“Get the lantern!” he ordered.
She was shaking and found it nearly impossible to locate the lantern she had dropped.
She heard him striking a match against the stone of the tunnel wall, saw it blaze.
She had managed to get the lantern. He managed to light it.
She was vaguely aware of green fire in his eyes as they briefly met hers, then he was moving past her.
“Hawk!”
“Here!”
Following him, Shawna saw where the cave flooring had given way to a break, and where that break had been covered over by a thin plank of wood—one that had cracked easily beneath Hawk’s weight.
David didn’t follow his brother into the breech. He flattened himself to the ground before it, waving the lantern over the gaping hole until he saw his brother.
The water was now up to Hawk’s knees.
“What the hell are you doing down there?” David demanded.
“Wading?” Hawk suggested pleasantly.
“Indians are supposed to be able to see in the dark,” David reminded hawk.
“I did see in the dark. I followed Shawn—” He broke off, apparently aware before Shawna realized herself just how angry David was. Why?
Because he had assumed that she had led Hawk here, that she had known about the break in the flooring within the cave.
She wanted to shout at David, to tear into him. But the water was rising, and Hawk remained trapped below.
David set the lantern by the hole, pushing himself quickly to his feet. He spun around suddenly, grasping Shawna’s wrists. “Get rope. There’s sure to be some in the front tunnels. Get back here as fast as you can, or I shall take you apart piece by piece myself, I swear it.”
She wrenched free from him with an energy born of pure fury, somehow maintaining complete dignity as she did so. “I’ll get rope because I’d do anything in my power to save Hawk.”
She squared her shoulders, plucking up the lantern and hurrying down the tunnel as fast as she could go. As she hurried along, she heard David say, “I’ll have her yet, I swear it! She’d best get back—”
“I can swim,” Hawk reminded his brother. “If the currents don’t sweep me from the opening.”
He probably could rescue himself, Shawna thought, hurrying down the mine shaft.
He was strong, and resourceful, and now David was with him.
Whether she did or didn’t find rope, Hawk would escape.
But she remembered passing a heavy coil of rope when they had entered the outer tunnel, and as she ran through the shafts, she could picture it exactly in her mind’s eye.