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body from the jarring drop.
    Baylor hit next to her.
    She heard him grunt.
    Dust clogged her mouth and nose, grit showering her tongue and grating on her teeth.
    She lay still and opened her eyes.
    It was dark at the bottom of the hole, and it took a moment for them to adjust. She scanned the earthen walls of the mine shaft. They were trapped.
    She choked back a sob, drawing on her training instead. A cool head was the best tool in a situation like this.
    “Baylor, can you hear me?” she asked, encouraged by a scraping noise and a grunt.
    “Yeah.”
    The sound of his voice sent a charge of excitement through her. He was alive.
    “How deep do you suppose this shaft is?”
    “Thirty feet maybe.”
    May as well be a hundred, she thought as she pulled herself up into a sitting position, looking for anything that could help them escape.
    “Are you hurt?”
    “Does my pride count?”
    She smiled in the darkness. “No.”
    “Good.”
    Mariah pulled herself to her feet, dusting off the layer of dirt that coated her body. She watched Baylor stand up, testing his feet under him before he put his head back and gazed up at the beams of light pouring through the jagged slats of wood above their heads.
    The shaft was tight, maybe six by six.
    A chill rocked her body and she fought a wave of hopelessness. They had to find a way out or this hole would become their grave.
    Baylor wiped a trickle of blood off his forehead with the back of his hand and stared up at the opening.
    The walls of the vertical shaft were laced with tree roots, the only thing that had slowed their fall. Worry hammered through him, pounding his nerves to a pulp. In frustration he grabbed a root and tested it for stability, but after a hard jerk it pulled out of the wall, coating him in more dirt.
    “Dammit.” He sucked in a breath and focused on Mariah, who stood still, her head cocked at an odd angle.
    “Do you hear that?”
    “Hear what?”
    “A horse.”
    Baylor listened, hearing nothing at first, then in the distance the thud of horse hooves against the earth. More than one horse. Their horses, he guessed.
    Caution exploded inside of him and he pulled Mariah into his arms, moving her back against the wall of the shaft. “Shh,” he whispered against her ear, as a shadow fell across the opening of the hole, blocking the sunlight for an instant.
    First his hat landed at their feet, popping up a ring of dust, then the saddlebags followed, dropping at his feet with a thud.
    His pulse began to hammer in his ears. Whoever had taken shots at them didn’t want there to be any evidence left aboveground. Nothing to indicate they’d ever been in the meadow. Baylor held Mariah closer. Would the shooter stare into the hole? Would he pick them off with his rifle one after the other like caged animals with nowhere to run?
    The sickening clank of a board dropping into place set Baylor’s nerves on end.
    The shaft of light streaming into the hole from above narrowed. Then another board and another were laid over the top until the opening was covered.
    He felt Mariah shudder, and stroked her hair. “Hold on,” he whispered, attempting to calm her. They had to stay quiet; they had to let him believe they were dead, or close to it. They didn’t stand a chance of surviving if he opened fire on them in the hole.
    Baylor waited, counting the minutes, then the hour, before he let go of her and dropped to his knees, searching for his saddlebags in the darkness. He locked his hands on them and fumbled inside, pulling out the flashlight he always carried. He switched it on, and their prison became illuminated.
    “It’s probably safe to talk.” He shined the light up at the opening, covered over with old boards. Anxious to test a theory, he found a rock on the floor of the shaft.
    “Watch yourself,” he warned before he pitched the rock up at the boards. It hit hard, jarring them, before dropping to the ground at his feet.
    “They’re not secured. Maybe we can knock