“Our deal was for two weeks!” I object. “We shook on it!”
“New day, new deal: tell me where this tunnel goes and what you were planning to do with it, and you get a pair of one-way tickets on the next steamer out of town.” He pauses. When he next speaks, his voice is viper-like. “Refuse, or lie, or try to double-cross me, and you dear, sweet girls will wish you were never born.”
Clara blanches to the lips. “We understand,” she whispers.
“You changed your mind once,” I say, not even trying to control the shaking of my voice. “How can we be sure that you won’t change it again after we’ve told you?”
His smile is even more frightening than his voice. “You can’t.”
There is a long silence. Then, as though against our wills, Clara and I step toward the bar. From my position at the side, I can see both the hole and Red’s head just inside it.
I take several deep breaths. “It’s simple, really. Our neighbor Madame Robillard runs a boardinghouse. She has a safe where she keeps valuables for her lodgers: jewelry, gold nuggets, cash. And, well, we happen to know the combination.” Most of this is true.
Soapy’s eyes gleam. “How did you learn the combination?”
I fidget. “Her maid told me.”
“So you girls were digging for gold after all.” Soapy sounds impressed.
“If you had a light, you could see the direction of the tunnel,” Clara says helpfully. “Maybe if Red goes in deeper and sort of waves to you?”
Soapy motions Red to obey. The henchman slides farther into the tunnel and lets out a howl of pain.
“Oops,” says Clara. “Sounds like he spiked himself on the pick. I threw it down there when you first burst in. Sorry, Red!”
As Red inches through the tunnel — it’s a tight squeeze for a man, especially a broad-shouldered one — Soapy dips his head and watches. His grip on the pistol slackens.
“We’re making a beeline for Madame Robillard’s private parlor,” I explain. “See how the tunnel curves?”
“It’s at the very back of her house,” adds Clara. “About twenty paces from this wall, we reckon.”
Soapy kneels, pushing his face into the tunnel’s mouth. His gun lies just beside his right hand. “How far along did you get with the tunnel?”
In one practiced motion, I slip our loaded rifle from its hook on the side of the bar and press the muzzle to the back of his head. Hard. “About this far.”
Soapy freezes.
My whole body is trembling, but that probably makes things scarier for him. “Now,” I say, “very slowly, slide your right hand away from your gun.”
“What’s up, boss?” comes Red’s muffled voice.
“Tell him nothing, it’s all right, keep going.”
Soapy obeys, his voice stiff with outrage.
“Now stand up very slowly. That’s right. Hands in the air.”
Despite the chill of the room, streams of sweat trickle down Soapy’s face. Still, I admire his nerve. Two feet from the end of a loaded rifle, and he’s swearing at us using curses so inventive that even I, who grew up in a saloon, find them educational.
“Hey, Red,” sings out Clara, “can you catch?” She clocks Soapy over the head with our cast-iron frying pan. His eyes cross, his knees buckle, and with a little shove from Clara he drops, like a sandbag, down into the tunnel.
To the sound of Red’s much less creative swearing, Clara thumps the trapdoor into place and slaps a sheet of iron, salvaged from our woodstove, on top of it. Together, we roll a keg of beer on top of that, to weigh it down. We pause, panting and shaking from our exertions, and listen with satisfaction to Red’s muffled curses.
“Hey, Red,” calls Clara. Her curls are damp with sweat, and she’s grinning like a fool. “Did you find the shovel I left you?”
More swearing.
“You’ll never get out this side,” she says. “Trapdoor’s lined with iron and weighted. I suggest you make your way to the other end of the tunnel and dig straight up.”
We don’t linger to hear Red’s answer. Our supplies are already packed in satchels, our cash folded into oilcloth bags we’ve worn strapped under our skirts all week. We step out onto Broadway, and Clara catches the arm of Old Tom Hines, one of our faithfuls. “Tom,” she says in her perfect hostess’s voice, “the liquor cabinet’s wide open. Why don’t you go treat yourself and a hundred of your closest friends?”
We make our way up the street, spreading the word: drink Garrett’s dry, keep the glasses, take the furniture. By the time we stop at Shaw’s lumber merchants, telling him to help himself to the wood planks the saloon is built of, we have to shout to be understood. We link arms and fight the human tide to the very top of the street, to survey the full extent of the chaos we’ve inspired.
After a few minutes, Clara squeezes my arm. “Hey, why are you crying?”