No Other Will Do (Ladies of Harper's Station #1)(95)

Bertie chuckled, her faith so complete it spilled out in joy. “I completely forgot about this section until I came down here looking for a crate I could use for packing Emma’s books. I know in my heart, the gold is here.”

Listening to his aunt’s chattering with half an ear, Mal scoured the basement for something he could use to . . . There. An old sadiron. That should do the trick. He strode over to the worktable, clasped the handle, and swung the hefty laundry tool around. In three strides, he was back in front of the wall. While Bertie nattered on about Emma hiring the same builder to shore up the basement that she’d used for the bank, Mal reared the iron back and smashed the pointed tip into the wall.

Plaster cracked and crumbled.

He struck again.

A chunk fell to the floor. White dust puffed into the air.

He struck again.

More plaster fell, revealing brick behind it. Brick that needed to come down.

Mal spun around and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Where are you going?” Bertie called after him.

“To get a sledge.”

“I don’t think we have . . .” The rest of her words died away as he cleared the last stair and raced for the barn.

Unfortunately, she was right. All he found in the barn was a measly nail hammer that he doubted would be good for much more than hanging pictures. Mal growled and threw the worthless hammer back onto the workbench. It bounced off a glass jar of nails with a loud clatter, but even then, the jar didn’t break. Just tipped over and spilled its contents.

Where was he supposed to find a sledge strong enough to break down a brick wall in a town full of dainty ladies with delicate tools? Betty might have something out at the farm, but riding out there and back would waste precious time. So what else could he use? What was strong enough to knock down brick and stone?

Suddenly, Mal grinned. He ran to his bunk, yanked out his saddlebags, and pulled out a fresh box of rifle cartridges. Tucking that under his arm, he ran back to the workbench and grabbed a chisel and the puny hammer he’d thrown down in disgust a moment earlier.

Confidence surging, he sprinted for the house.

The Good Book taught that with a grain of faith, a man could move a mountain. Not only did Mal have rapidly renewing faith, but he had a few hundred grains of something else.

Gunpowder.





36


“He’s going to do what?” Aunt Henry screeched.

“Blow up the basement, dear.” Bertie answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that she could have been describing the supper menu.

Mal swallowed as he focused on creating his fuse line. “I’m not blowing up the entire basement. Just the wall.”

“It’s going to be so exciting!” Bertie enthused. Mal swore she must be bouncing again, the way her voice jiggled. “He said we can watch from behind the support pillar at the back of the room if we want.”

“And wait for the house to come crashing down on our heads? No, thank you.” Henry huffed out an offended-sounding breath, most likely crossing her arms over her chest in that snippy way of hers. “I can’t believe you gave him permission to blow up our home.”

“Stop being so dramatic, sister. He’s an expert, remember? He earns his living creating explosions.”

“I never did approve of that.” Sniff.

Mal had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from responding. He didn’t have time to get into a long-winded argument over the merits of his chosen profession right now. He needed to finish making his fuses.

He’d already scraped the heads off a dozen matches and ground them into a fine powder with the handle end of his chisel. After dunking his finger into the glass of water Bertie had brought him earlier, he dripped a small amount of the liquid onto the match-head powder and stirred it into a paste. Then he rolled the paper fuses he’d twisted into tight little lines through the mixture until they were evenly coated.

He should only need one fuse, but it was always good to run a test first to make sure the homemade mixture didn’t burn too fast or too slow. Having a couple spares didn’t hurt, either, so he set up four six-inch fuses on Aunt Bertie’s cooling rack to dry and started in on the next project—chiseling a hole in the wall’s mortar.

When he pounded on the wall, Henry mumbled something about needing to make sure all the essentials were out of the house before Mal brought it down around their ears and clomped up the stairs. Bertie lingered. She stood against the back wall, out of his way, and watched. After a while he forgot she was even there.

Once he was satisfied with the size and depth of the hole he’d whittled, he moved back to the workbench and started taking the cartridges apart and extracting the gunpowder. He emptied cartridge after cartridge until he had a small bowlful of black powder. Then he spooned it into the crevice and packed it tight, careful not to use so much that he risked doing permanent damage to the house. Yet he needed an amount capable of knocking a hole into the wall large enough to weaken the structure and allow him to get at the stone beneath. A delicate calculation.

Mal tested the fuses, found them dry, and took one in hand for a trial run. Moving to a clean spot on the workbench, he took a glass jar of canned string beans and used it to weigh down the edge of the fuse, leaving the rest jutting out from the bench at a right angle. Mal poured what remained in the drinking glass over his palms and fingers and cleaned off any gunpowder residue. He dried his hands thoroughly on a clean rag, then struck a match and lit the fuse.