“You got it.”
He’d caught up. “When he had that blowup with Audrey?”
“I’d avoid using the term blowup, considering our current situation.”
He shook his head. “There aren’t any fire sources down here; they’re all up in the utility areas.”
“That’s not what concerns me.”
“What, then?”
We arrived at the central stairwell. “I’ll tell you if the doors at the top of these stairs are locked, too.”
We hustled up the steps, and it was with a great deal of resignation that I pushed down on the latch. I pushed again, just to make sure, but there was only a little movement and the doors wouldn’t open. “Damn.”
Barrett stepped in as I peered through the small, rectangular windows and down at the bars on the other side, securely chained together with a heavy padlock. He shoved as hard as he could, but the two doors only budged open about an inch.
“Barrett, do they normally chain the security doors together when the building is closed?”
His eyes were widening a little as the realization of our predicament started settling in. “No, never. It’s against the law.” He went up on tiptoe again to look down at the heavy chains wrapped around the bars on the other side. “Jesus.”
I nodded. “Like rats.”
“We gotta get to another door.”
“They’re all going to be locked.”
His hands slammed against the solid surface. “Then we gotta get this one open.”
I looked up and could see that the doors were hinged from the other side. “Is there any way out of the basement other than the doors? Utility hatches, air ducts, dumbwaiters?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep, polluted breath. “We’re safe, right? I mean, if all the doors are locked then there’s no way that anybody could light the gas.”
“Sure they could; all you’d have to do is drill a hole in the floor and drop a match into the basement. Of course, they have to figure out how to get away before the explosion.”
“Then why don’t we just stay up here above the propane?”
“Because if that gas ignites, it’s going to expand and take out every door in the place, probably with parts of us, and I don’t mean gently.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I’m trying to figure that out, if you’d stop asking questions.” I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Albert about the sordid history of the structure. “Is this building sitting on top of the original tribal headquarters that burnt down twice?”
“Yeah, part of it.”
“Do you have any idea how they used to heat that building back in the sixties and before?”
He shook his head but then pointed at it. “Duh, the one thing we have plenty of on the Rez-coal.”
I nodded. “That means there’s a coal chute back there somewhere if it hasn’t been filled in and sealed off.”
I watched as he thought about it. “Like a cellar.”
“Yep.”
“It’s there; I mean the doors are.”
As we gingerly made our way down the steps and opened the door at the bottom, we could tell the limited airspace in the basement was filling with even more of the gas. “Same rules; don’t flip any switches and stay clear of those lightbulbs-you break one and we’re dead.”
We ignored the stairwell doors at the southeastern corner of the building, and we could see where the poured concrete walls changed to block. By the time we got to the rear of the building, it had changed once again to a slip-form foundation with large rocks imbedded in the concrete.
There was a section of the wall with T-111 siding sealing off the opening. “Is this it?”
Barrett nodded his head. “Yeah, but don’t you think it’s sealed?”
“One way to find out.” I pulled my Case XX from my pocket, slipped it between the thin sheath of wood, and pried loose a corner, revealing the stud wall underneath. I placed a hand up to the opening. “I feel warm air.”
I wrapped my fingers around the paneling and pulled it loose, yanking it with a little more urgency. “C’mon, help me.”
“What if a nail scratches the concrete?”
“Let’s try to make sure that that doesn’t happen, shall we?”
Once we’d worked the plywood loose, we could see the facing on the other side, along with the cobwebs where the wall had been undisturbed for decades. I pushed at the top and was able to smell the freshness of clean air, spread my fingers across the splintering wood, and forced it on top of the poured concrete they had used to fill the open space behind the wall. I braced a boot against one of the two-by-fours and lodged a shoulder in the opening just enough to give me the leverage I needed to pull the stud loose from the header. “It’s been filled in, but there’s room at the top where you might be able to squeeze through.”
“What about you?”
I shook my head. “I’m too big, I’ll never fit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait for you to come back and get me out of here.” I laced my hands in a stirrup to give him a boost up. “C’mon, we’re wasting time.”
“What if I don’t find a way?”
I smiled. “You will.”
He placed his hiking boot into my hands, and I lifted him up to where he could flatten out and climb onto the surface of the concrete where there was about eighteen inches of space. “What if I can’t get the cellar doors open; what if they’re chained, too?”
“Are the doors old or new?”
“Old.”
“Then break the wood.”
I listened as he crawled through, carefully avoiding the nails, and slithered into the darkness. “I can see the light where the doors come together.”
I waited and listened as he grunted with the strain of attempting to push them open. “They’re locked or something but it gives, so let me give it a try with my legs.” The sound of his exertions was accompanied by the noise of splintering wood, as a little more air broke through. “I got it, it broke the clasp, and I think I can make it. Where should I meet you?”
“The nearest stairwell to the left, the southeast corner. Find something to cut the chain or break the padlock.” I thought about it. “And call your sister. Hell, call everybody.”
“I thought this was a covert operation?”
“Not anymore.”
He laughed, and I listened as he kicked more of the wood away.
“Anything else?”
“Find the propane tank and turn it off.”
“Okay.”
“And Barrett? Be careful.”
“I will.”
He didn’t say anything else, and I could hear the pounding of his feet as he ran away.
I slumped against the wall. “And hurry.”
The stairwell was now to my right at the corner of the building. I was looking forward to more oxygen than the hallway was providing. When I got to the corner, I thought for just a split second that I might’ve heard something. “Albert?” A cough, and I adjusted my eyes to the partial darkness. “Albert!”
There was a faint response, whispered and hoarse, from far down the hall, “Here.”
The temptation to pull my sidearm was great but knowing that if I fired it the place would go off like a Roman candle in a fireworks trailer was enough to give me pause. I hustled down the hall-Albert lay in the doorway of the far stairwell and was trying to prop himself up. He was bleeding from a wound at the back of his head but not too
