Chapter 8 - The Dark Gallery
The second entrance was a narrow cleft in the rock behind a frozen curtain of moss and cascading springwater, hidden from the main trail by a shoulder of granite. Slipping through it required squeezing sideways through a gap barely wider than a man's shoulders, plunging them instantly from the gray mountain light into absolute, velvet blackness.
Jonathan struck a match, shielding the tiny flame with his palm until he could light the small tallow candle he had brought in his pocket. The yellow glow flickered to life, casting long, dancing shadows against walls of glistening, wet stone that had been carved out by pickaxes half a century ago.
"Stay close behind me," Jonathan murmured, drawing his revolver with his free hand.
Clara didn't need the warning. She moved like a ghost in his wake, her hand resting lightly on the back of his belt to guide her through the twists and turns of the tunnel. The air down here was stagnant and heavy, smelling of ancient dust, damp iron, and the faint, unmistakable scent of recent woodsmoke.
They followed the gallery deeper into the heart of the mountain, descending a series of rough-hewn stone steps cut directly into the floor. The silence was absolute, save for the dripping of water from the ceiling and the soft scrape of their boots against the rock.
After twenty minutes of careful navigation, the tunnel opened up into a wider chamber—a subterranean crosscut where several abandoned side drifts branched off into the dark. In the center of the room, a rusted iron ore cart sat beside a pile of rotting timbers.
And leaning against the cart, smoking a foul-smelling cheroot, was one of Vance’s hired thugs.
The man froze, the red ember of his cigar glowing sharply in the dark as the candle light hit him. He scrambled for the Remington revolver holstered at his thigh, his eyes wide with startled panic.
Jonathan didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, slamming the barrel of his revolver across the man's jaw with a sickening crack before he could clear leather. The thug collapsed into the dirt without a sound, sliding sideways against the iron wheels of the ore cart.
Clara stepped up beside Jonathan, her breath hitching as she looked down at the unconscious man. She pointed toward the drift on the far side of the chamber, where a faint yellow glow spilled out from around a sagging wooden door.
"The office," she whispered.
Jonathan wiped sweat from his forehead, listening intently. From behind the wooden door came the muffled sound of men shouting and the heavy thud of an iron crowbar hitting stone.
"They're trying to break open the wall safe," Jonathan said, his voice hard as flint. He looked at Clara, signaling for her to stay back against the tunnel wall. "I'm going in. If anyone comes out of that room besides me, shoot."
Before Clara could object, Jonathan crept forward, stepping silently over the unconscious guard and pressing his back against the rough timber frame of the doorway.
Inside the small, rock-walled chamber, two men were illuminated by the harsh glare of a kerosene lantern. One was a thick-set brute with a scarred cheek who was swinging a heavy pry bar against a small iron wall safe embedded in the granite. The other—shorter, dressed in city clothes that looked entirely out of place in a mine—was holding a sheaf of papers he had already managed to pry loose from a wooden crate on the floor.
"Keep hitting it, damn you!" the city man snapped, waving the papers. "Vance said the land deeds and the Redemption Bank notes were in that box. If we don't clear this out before the marshal starts sniffing around, the whole syndicate deal falls apart!"
Jonathan stepped fully into the doorway, his revolver leveled dead-center at the short man's chest.
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"Drop the papers," Jonathan said, his voice echoing off the stone walls with terrifying calm. "And drop the crowbar, or the next sound you hear will be a funeral bell."
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