Samuel understood.
“I’ll come back.”
“You had better.”
“Take the pistol.”
She did.
“And if I shout?”
“I shoot whatever comes through first.”
He blinked.
“Perhaps identify me.”
“Then announce yourself clearly.”
Samuel smiled.
It helped.
Then descended.
The stairway ended inside an old root cellar.
Stone walls.
Packed-earth floor.
Shelves collapsed from age.
Broken jars.
A rusted lantern hook.
Samuel’s light moved over the room.
One corner held something recent.
A footprint.
Small.
He crouched.
Leather sole.
Not a bare foot.
Child-sized or perhaps a small woman.
He lifted the lantern.
At the rear of the cellar, behind two rotted crates, a narrow tunnel opened.
Samuel whispered:
“Hello?”
Nothing.
He turned toward the stair.
“Clara!”
Her voice came faintly.
“What?”
“There’s a tunnel.”
“Of course there is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the cabbage has transportation.”
Samuel smiled despite himself.
Then entered the passage.
The tunnel ran upward through packed earth reinforced by old timber.
It was no mine shaft.
Too narrow.
Too rough.
Whoever dug it had wanted passage, not excavation.
Cold air flowed toward him.
Samuel moved slowly.
The ceiling brushed his hair.
Fifteen yards.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then he saw another footprint.
Fresh.
Beside it, a scrap of green cabbage leaf.
His stomach tightened.
He continued.
At the end stood a crude wooden door.
Light seeped beneath it.
Daylight.
Samuel placed the rifle on the ground.
He opened the door.
It led into another cellar.
He recognized the stonework.
But recognition took a moment because he had never entered from below.
The Hale cabin.
Samuel stood perfectly still.
The Hale homestead sat uphill through the trees, perhaps half a mile from his place by the surface trail.
The cabin had been abandoned since old Jacob Hale died three winters earlier.
Or so everyone believed.
Samuel climbed the steps.
The main room smelled of cold ashes, damp wool, and human beings.
He saw a blanket.
A tin cup.
A wooden spoon.
Then movement.
A child stepped from behind an overturned table.
Girl.
Perhaps nine.
Hair dark and tangled.
Face thin.
Dress patched so many times the original cloth was difficult to identify.
In both hands she held a kitchen knife.
Samuel stopped.
The knife shook.
The girl did not.
Not entirely.
“Hello.”
No answer.
“My name is Samuel.”