Chapter 9
The dawn light was gray and dull. Michael rolled over on his side and stared at the world through the sliver of space between the tent flap and the tent wall.
Another day. There was a time when he would have greeted the new day with a smile and enthusiasm.
Not now. Not with so much hanging over his head.
There was a lot that he had to get done. There was another shipment heading out today, and Kevin would be taking it with Perez and Stevens. If this lot, which looked solid, fetched a good price, they would be in the clear.
Then Michael would be smiling all day. But for now, the smelter was short-staffed, and he would be working that morning, getting to know Adams and the other men a little better.
He still had to work out who was skimming the ore and how they were doing it.
He hoped that pulling shifts with the various workers in the smelter would lead him to the culprit.
Michael finally managed to get himself up and out the door. He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes when he went to the campfire and found Stevens and Perez getting ready to leave. Kevin was over by the cart, and he went to speak to his friend after waving to the two smelters.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked Kevin.
His friend nodded. “They’re not bad fellows. We’ll make the drop and then hurry back. Hopefully no one will be shot this time.”
“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Michael said. “Be safe out there.”
Kevin nodded and checked the loaded shotgun under the seat. “We’ll be just fine.”
He waved Perez and Stevens over, and soon, they were heading out of the camp.
Michael turned back to the campfire and went in search of coffee. He found Lizzy sitting there right by the kettle. She looked as though she hadn’t slept much that night. She was clutching a mug of something hot.
“Hi, Lizzy, were you up all night?” Michael asked. “Or is it just an early start today?”
Lizzy looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “Emily left me last night in the medical tent. She said she would wake me when she got tired, but she just left instead. What if something had happened? Ethan could have died. She knows better than to leave a patient with no one watching them all night.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Michael said. “She left you to sleep. Shouldn’t you feel better?”
“She didn’t wake me up, so when Ethan cried out during the night, I got such a fright!” Lizzy said. “My heart was racing for ages after that. She didn’t come back or leave a note. It was just bad form.” She yawned. “I’m going to try and get some sleep now.”
“Wait? What do you mean Emily didn’t leave a note or come back? She would never just leave,” Michael said, finally waking up enough to catch up to speed.
Lizzy shrugged. “In case you haven’t noticed, she doesn’t like me too much. I wouldn’t put it past her to decide to go to bed and just leave me there.”
Michael watched her go. He poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down on a log to drink it.
Emily wouldn’t just leave, no matter what Lizzy thought.
She wasn’t like that. Emily was a considerate, caring person.
If she needed to leave, she would have told Lizzy unless she was only stepping out for a moment.
But then why hadn’t she gone back? Why was there no note or anything?
He drained his mug quickly and decided to go and find her.
She had most likely woken Lizzy from her nap in the medical tent but hadn’t woken her all the way.
Lizzy was a deep sleeper, according to Troy, and it was possible that she hadn’t woken enough to be able to register what Emily was telling her.
Emily had probably come to the end of her shift in the tent watching Ethan sleep and gone to her own tent to get some rest, believing that Lizzy knew what was going on. There was nothing odd about it.
Reaching Emily’s tent, Michael called, “Emily? Are you in there?” He waited for a response. When none came, he tried again. “Emily? Em?”
He pulled the flap back a bit and spoke directly into her tent. “Emily, are you in there?”
Nothing.
Pulling the flap aside and fully aware that he might get himself into trouble by doing this, Michael stepped into the tent. It was dim in there, with no lamp lit, but he could clearly see that Emily wasn’t in the tent. Her cot hadn’t been slept on. There was no sign of her.
He quickly checked and found that all her things were there. So, she hadn’t been so upset by Felix that she’d run off into the night with all her belongings and left the camp. That was good. But it raised the question of where she was.
Michael would need to answer that before he went to the smelter. His gut was in a knot at not finding her where she should be.
He left Emily’s tent and headed out to find her.
An hour later, Michael had run out of places to look, and he still hadn’t found anything. Not so much as a whisper of where she might be. This was not good. Could a bandit or someone have gotten into the camp during the night? It made no sense. Why take the schoolteacher?
He spotted Felix emerging from a tent. The older man stretched and yawned and scratched his belly as though he’d only just woken up, but his eyes were clear and focused as though he had been awake a while. Michael didn’t have time for whatever game Felix was playing.
“Felix!”
Felix jumped as though Michael had sent a jolt of lightning through him. He stared at Michael, his eyes wide. “W-what’s wrong?”
There was no time for silliness. Emily was missing, and Michael was somehow certain that Felix had something to do with it.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Felix looked blank. “Who?” he asked, tasting the word as though it was new on his tongue.
Michael, his nerves frayed, glared at Felix and came a couple of angry steps closer. Felix moved back, looking scared.
“Who?” he asked. “Who are you looking for?”
“Emily, of course!” Michael snapped.
“Hey, what’s going on?” That was Troy. He had appeared out of the tent that he shared with Lizzy. “Lizzy said that you think Emily is missing?”
“I can’t find her,” Michael admitted. “And I think he knows something about it.”
Troy looked from Michael to Felix and back again. Something passed across his face, and he turned to his brother. “Mike, she’s his niece.”
“And?”
“And let’s not be hasty,” Troy said. “Felix, do you have any idea where Emily could be? Did you see her last night after you left the gin rummy games at the campfire?”
Felix thought a moment and then shook his head. “She went to the medical tent with Lizzy. That’s the last I know of it. If she’s missing, then we have to find her. She could be in danger.”
“Why would you say that?” Troy asked.
“Because it’s Emily,” Felix said with a sigh. “She’s always neck deep in something.”
Michael thought that was rich coming from a man who had brought nothing but trouble into Emily’s life. Surely he could see that he was the problem? Or maybe not. Felix didn’t seem the type to waste time on too much introspection.
Just then there was the sound of running feet, and Tim came bounding around a tent. He saw the knot of men and slid to a halt, Critter holding onto him for dear life.
“Michael!” he called, looking relieved. “I’m so glad I found you. Something or someone is in one of the traps.”
“What?” Michael asked. “What do you mean?”
Tim frowned. “We caught something. Something big. It’s in one of the pits.”
Michael’s blood suddenly ran cold. It couldn’t be. Turning to Troy, he saw that his brother was now thinking the same thing.
“Which pit is it?” Michael asked.
“I’ll show you,” Tim said.
They hurried off the way the boy had come.
Michael moved as though his body was covered in taffy. It felt stiff and heavy, as though his limbs were made of lead. Getting to the trap, avoiding the others along the way, was not easy for him, and each step brought a new level of dread.
What if it was Emily in the trap? How had she gotten there? Was she okay? Was she dead? Some of the traps were lethal. If she was dead … No, he couldn’t think about that. She had to be okay. But then, why hadn’t she spoken to Tim when he was there? Was she badly hurt?
“I’m sure it’s not her,” Troy said softly to Michael as they walked swiftly, passing others who were emerging from their tents. On Saturday the camp generally rose later, with folks taking the opportunity to rest and do the jobs that needed doing above ground rather than in the mine.
Worried faces followed the knot of men as they made their way around the side of the camp to an apparently open patch of ground.
It was a treacherous place, full of carefully designed deception.
Michael had had a hand in designing and building the traps, but it was mostly Lizzy, Troy, and Tim’s work.
Tim knew the route through the traps blindfolded, and Troy seemed to also know precisely where to step. Michael followed with more confidence than Felix, who teetered and tottered on one foot and then another like a wobbly drunk.
“Be careful, Felix,” Troy said, not unkindly. “One wrong step and we’ll be fishing you out of a hole in the ground.”
“Are they all holes?” Felix asked. “Are they deep?”
“Some are,” Tim said. “That one under your right foot is pretty deep. Come over to the left side.”
Felix swallowed and carefully put his right foot down more to the left. “How do you know where to step?”
“I check all the traps every morning,” Tim said proudly.
“And we set them up,” Michael said.
“Also, there’s a trick to it,” Troy said with a grin. He didn’t elaborate.
The trick was a thin piece of string that had been woven between the traps. It showed the path through. That was how Tim could find his way even in the dark. He would take his shoes off, feel around with his toes for the string, and then make sure that each footstep touched it.
Only a handful of people knew about it—those who needed to know. Which meant that it was unlikely to be spread around. The moment that happened, camp security would be ruined.