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“We are going where Reginald Vineyard would not dare go,” Jade said tightly. “It will be a perfect place to hide from him, Lee-Lee. Perfect.”
“But where?” Lee-Lee implored. “No place is safe from him, especially once he finds us both gone.”
“We are going to the cave that Reginald has nightmares about every night,” Jade said, smiling in satisfaction at Lee-Lee. “It is a perfect hiding place because Reginald would never dare go there. To him it is cursed. The Indian spirits that dwell within haunt him.”
Lee-Lee took a quick step away from her mother. Fear entered her eyes. “Mother, if we go there, will not the Indian spirits also frighten us?”
“Nay because, sweet daughter, we have done nothing to harm them, or the Sioux people whose departed chiefs are buried there,” Jade said, stepping up to Lee-Lee and again pulling her into her arms. She hugged her tightly. “Daughter, it is the only place we can go where we will be safe from Reginald Vineyard’s evil.”
Lee-Lee clung for a moment, then stepped away from her mother. “And . . . then . . . what, Mother?” she asked, her eyes searching Jade’s.
“We will wait for a while, then go to the Indian village,” Jade said softly. “They are a kind band of Indians, and that’s where Jessie has gone.”
“Jessie?” Lee-Lee asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who is Jessie?”
“I will tell you all about her once we reach the cave,” Jade said, eyeing the basket of food that she had brought.
She grabbed it up and nodded at Lee-Lee. “Get the clothes you want to take with you,” she said. “Hurry, Lee-Lee. The longer we are here, the more likely someone will come and see what I am up to.”
Lee-Lee nodded and rolled some of her clothes in a towel as Jade took the food back to the wagon and quickly covered it with a blanket.
She had only taken it in the first place to provide an excuse for her visit in case someone spied her.
When no one had come down the alley, or from the other cribs, she felt safe enough to return the food to the wagon; it was what she and her daughter would exist on for the next couple of weeks.
They would have to wait at least that long to venture out again. After that period of time, Reginald would no longer be looking for her or Lee-Lee.
Jade hurried back inside the crib. She grabbed the rolled-up clothes, then gave Lee-Lee a quick glance. She saw that her daughter was dressed and ready. She nodded at her.
“Come on, daughter, but hurry,” she said. “And when we reach the wagon, Lee-Lee, hide beneath the blankets. That is the only way I can take you from Tombstone without someone seeing you.”
After Lee-Lee was safely hidden in the back of the wagon, Jade climbed aboard and drove away from the cribs. As she traveled down the main street, she was glad that there were no men loitering on the boardwalk or gambling in the saloons. The town had a peaceful air about it, even decent.
But soon that would all change. Soon men would be drinking and gambling and choosing pretty women to give them pleasure.
Jade smiled, for today no one could choose Lee-Lee.
She rode onward, traveled far from the town and into a forest of trees, only stopping when they were far from where any passersby could see the wagon.
“Lee-Lee,” Jade said, climbing down from the wagon. “It is safe now for you to leave the wagon. We’re close enough to the cave to walk the rest of the way.”
“Mother, how do you know?” Lee-Lee asked, throwing aside the blanket and climbing out of the wagon.
“I have seen the cave before,” Jade said, rolling up the blanket that had covered Lee-Lee, then handing it to her. “It suddenly came to me that the cave could be a perfect hideaway,” Jade said, taking the basket of supplies from the wagon.
Lee-Lee grabbed her clothes and as many blankets as she could carry.
“How far, Mother?” Lee-Lee asked as Jade started walking away from the wagon with Lee-Lee close beside her. She looked over her shoulder at the horse and wagon, then questioned her mother with her eyes. “And what about the horse? Will it be alright?”
Jade stopped abruptly. She looked over her shoulder at the horse, then set her supplies down and hurried back to the animal. She quickly released it from the wagon, then patted its rump and watched it run away, glad to see it ran in the opposite direction from Reginald’s house. She hoped it would find its way to the Indian village, where it could be fed and have a good home.
She hurried back to Lee-Lee and resumed their walk toward the cave. “I think the horse will be alright now,” she murmured. “As for the wagon? I only hope that Reginald doesn’t happen along and find it, but I doubt that he will. It’s way too close to the cave that haunts him.
“And we do not have much farther to go, Lee-Lee, to get to the cave,” she said, glancing down at the basket of supplies. She had made certain there was enough food, water, and even matches to last them for the two weeks she planned to be in the cave.
And Lee-Lee was carrying the blankets.
Ai, it did seem that she had planned everything well enough. She was beginning to believe she would pull off their escape.
