“Ma’am, will you help us? I’ll do everything I can to help you get out of this place.”
The woman appeared shocked that a voice was coming from a hole in the wall. She scurried to the opening in the wallpaper and stared at him. He worried that maybe she enjoyed being a whore. Maybe she was one of Miss Champe’s prized employees.
“Even put me on a stagecoach to California?”
“Absolutely,” Wesley said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to let me bust down this wall. Do you have a window in your room?”
“Yes, but it’s a second-story window.”
That could be a challenge.
“I have about five minutes before my next client arrives,” she said.
“Hand me your sheets on the bed. Then after you service your next client, I’ll break down the wall between the rooms and we’ll all escape out the window.”
The woman frowned. “You’re sure this will work?”
“No, but do you want to continue what you’re doing?”
“No,” she said.
“Then let’s give it a try,” he told her.
She moved away from the hole in the wall and soon returned with the sheets. He had to make the hole bigger, but they soon managed to get the material through the hole. Then she moved a picture over the opening just as her next customer arrived.
Thirty minutes later, he heard the door close and she moved the picture.
“Come on,” she said.
Wesley began to knock out the boards between the walls. Anthony stepped over and helped him.
As soon as they were done, the three of them rushed into her bedroom. Wesley tied the sheet to her bed, making certain that he double-knotted it, so it wouldn’t come undone.
Anthony went first and slid down the sheet to the alley below. Thank goodness her window was at the back of the building. Then Pearl slipped down, wearing nearly nothing. Then Christine glided down the sheet.
Wesley was last and he’d just climbed through the window when in walked the big burly man.
“What the hell?” he screamed. “They’re escaping.”
“Fuck you, big guy, and if you come back to our ranch, you’re a dead man,” Wesley told him as he shimmied out the window.
Knowing the man was untying the sheet, he jumped to the ground when he was halfway and the sheet floated down to the alley.
The four of them took off running.
“Sheriff’s office,” Anthony said.
They ran down Main Street with people gazing at them.
As soon as he could get to his horse, Wesley was going to pull a blanket and put it around Pearl, but now she had to run with the rest of them.
When they reached the sheriff’s office, they rushed through the door.
“What the hell?” he said staring up at them from his desk.