Chapter 3 - Blood in the Cellar
The acrid smell of gunpowder drifted across the empty street, mingling with the scent of sage and horse manure. Caleb kept his body pressed against the rough wooden planks of the barrel, his revolver now gripped firmly in his right hand. The window across the street was dark again, the sniper having vanished like smoke into the afternoon haze.
"Stay down," Caleb muttered to the twins.
They didn't answer. They simply slid off the wooden platform into the ankle-deep dust, crawling with practiced, silent grace toward the open cellar doors of the Lucky Star Saloon. The heavy oak doors lay flat against the dirt, slightly ajar, exhaling a draft of damp earth and rotting timber.
Caleb cursed under his breath. He couldn't leave them out in the open, and he certainly couldn't trust the bartender, who had already scrambled back inside the saloon and locked the heavy front doors.
Crouching low, Caleb moved swiftly across the gap, kicking the left cellar door fully open with the toe of his boot. He descended the wooden steps into the murky gloom, his eyes straining to adjust to the lack of light. The stairs creaked in agonizing rhythm with every pound of his boots.
"Anyone down here?" Caleb called out, his voice echoing off stone walls.
Silence answered him, save for the steady drip of water somewhere in the back corners of the root cellar. Rows of empty glass jars lined sagging pine shelves, alongside rusted farming tools and burlap sacks of rotting potatoes.
Then, he heard it—a soft, rhythmic scratching sound coming from behind a stack of empty whiskey barrels in the darkest corner.
Caleb raised his revolver, cocking the hammer with a sharp, metallic click that shattered the quiet. He crept forward, his boots making no sound on the damp dirt floor. As he rounded the corner of the stack, the barrel of his gun lowered in shock.
Tied securely to a wooden support beam was a man in a blood-stained sheriff’s vest. His mouth was gagged with a greasy rag, and his eyes were wide with panic. But it wasn't the captive sheriff that made Caleb’s blood run cold.
Pinned to the beam just above the sheriff’s head, right through the man’s Stetson hat, was a second silver locket—identical to the one in Caleb's coat pocket, but this one was dripping fresh, dark blood onto the floorboards.
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The sheriff shook his head violently, letting out a muffled scream through the gag as the floorboards directly above their heads groaned under the weight of heavy, purposeful footsteps.
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