No Greater Glory

by Cindy Nord

  She nearly retched at the stench yet she forced herself to swallow her revulsion. Despite Reece’s growing strength, how could he hold his own against these three monsters? “Th—there’s no one else,” she mumbled.

  Red kicked at Tacker’s prostrate form. “You think he’s dead?”

  Blue pressed the barrel against the old man’s head. “I’ll put a bullet in him, just to be sure.”

  Emaline gasped.

  “Put that damn thing away,” Blackie snapped. “We’ve got better things to do than kill some worthless old coot.” He headed toward the stable, tugging Emaline behind him. She balked with every step, fighting to free herself from his grip.

  “Take care of the horses,” he tossed over his shoulder.

  Blue sulked. “Hey, I’m wounded here, I should get her first. Remember what happened the last time? No one had a chance after you got done with the damn wench.”

  “Just don’t use a knife on this one,” Red pleaded.

  The sergeant cast a threatening scowl in their direction as he shoved Emaline through the doorway.

  “He always goes first,” Red grumbled, looping the reins of the horses over a post.

  Blue pushed past him. “Not anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The cool interior enveloped Emaline the moment she stumbled inside the stable. The soldier shoved her toward the closest stall.

  “That’s far enough,” he ordered.

  She spun around, and scanned the hazy room to search for some kind of weapon. Her skim came up empty; Tacker kept everything in its proper place.

  “It’s time to see what you’ve got hidden under all this,” Blackie said, lust brightening his watery blue eyes. Both hands seized the front of her blouse and he gathered up the material. With a hard jerk, he ripped away the ivory buttons.

  They scattered into the hay beneath Emaline’s feet. Her heart beat so fast, she nearly fainted. Swaying, she caught herself and shuffled her feet wider apart.

  Blackie’s hands dropped to the scuffed buckle of his worn belt. A sarcastic chuckle reached out from across the dim interior to halt his actions.

  Blue stood inside the opening of the stable. The sun penetrated the paper-thin spaces between the planked walls, illuminating the challenge scrawled across his features. “This time I’ll take the woman first. Kindly step aside.”

  Emaline pulled the ragged edges of her blouse closed and melded back into the shadows.

  Blackie pivoted to face his comrade. “You know, you’re startin’ to annoy me.”

  “Well, that’s too damn bad. I’m tired of you givin’ the orders around here. If I wanted that shit, I’d have stayed in the army.”

  “If it wasn’t for me, you’d have been dead long ago. I got us past them pickets, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t need you to get me past any guards.” His wicked grin widened. “In fact, I don’t need you for a goddamn thing.”

  Blue lowered the repeater and fired, sending lead into the center of Blackie’s chest. The jacket washed crimson with the final beat of the man’s heart.

  The deserter collapsed to the ground inches from Emaline. Her ears rang from the rifle’s report. Her gaze slowly shifted from the dead man back to Blue. He showed no mercy, his calm demeanor that of a man who had murdered before and knew nothing of remorse.

  He was quite insane, the act a cutting blow of hatred.

  Emaline’s breath quickened, the flash of panic inside her expanding. The horrific picture bruised every corridor in her mind. She stepped back. He followed. She bumped into the plank boards of the empty stall, her body shaking in abject terror, yet she met his scowl with a determined glare.

  Her chin lifted.

  Red rushed into the stable to encounter the bloody scene. His voice penetrated the haze of gunpowder. “What the hell…?”

  The maniac turned, and offered a grin. “We had a disagreement over who would be first and I won. You got a problem with that?”

  Red’s hands splayed wide. “I don’t mind at all. I never much cared for the sickly sonofabitch anyway.” He inched his foot out to nudge the body. “You take all the time you want with her, my friend. I’m more than willin’ to wait my turn.”

  Emaline fought back another wave of nausea, then gasped, her eyes widening further when Blue pressed the warm steel barrel against her throat.

  “Nooooo!” she screamed, kicking at the barbarian.

  He backhanded her across the mouth, rocking her head to the side. Emaline recoiled to glare at him, the taste of blood filling her mouth.

  The murderer loomed closer. Grasping her arms, he pinned them behind her back, wrenching her shoulder blades together. She tried to tear herself away from him, but the attempt sent a wracking jolt of pain down her spine.

  “If you do exactly as I say,” he whispered into her ear, “we won’t have to bury anyone else today. You got that?”

  Emaline nodded frantically.

  “Now stand still while I undo this pretty little thing.” He released her and she immediately shuffled sideways and grasped the edges of her torn blouse. She tugged the material together but he knocked aside her trembling hands, and ripped the material off her body.

  Emaline squeezed her eyes shut against the raw, visceral shock coursing through her. In Reece’s arms last night, she’d found exquisite paradise. She now floundered in a cavernous pit of hell.

  In her mind, she willed herself to float away from the ordeal. Tears gathered, skimmed down her cheeks. If she fought this vicious violator, he would simply kill her. But if she complied, perhaps he might let her live. In the deep recesses of her mind, her surrender resembled nothing so much as a victory.

  Another hard tug from the monster’s hand and Emaline felt the delicate stitches tear. The peach-colored ribbon snaked through the tiny casing to scour her skin. The batiste camisole drifted from her body like a broken wing.

  Her breath caught in her throat when he shoved her backward into the wooden planks of the stall. The smell of the mules mingled with the stink of the man.

  Her wildly pounding pulse echoed in her ears.

  “I don’t believe you need this either,” Blue mumbled. With a greedy roughness fueled by his growing lust, he wrenched her chemise downward. Her head snapped back from the force, sending a spike of pain down her spine. The stitches yielded and the organdy also fluttered to the ground. Her bare breasts met the sultry air. A low growl rushed up from deep in his throat and she heard the rifle drop. Calloused hands cupped her fullness, his fingers squeezing her already sensitive flesh.

  Nausea rolled upward and Emaline feared she might vomit.

  Reece jerked awake.

  He hadn’t slept so deeply in ages, but too many times over the past three years, he’d been awakened by the same sharp sound. The seasoned soldier inside him identified the unmistakable report of a rifle.

  He surged from the rumpled bed sheets. Pulling on his pants, he scanned the room.

  Emaline was gone.

  He shoved his arms into a white cotton shirt and stumbled into the hallway. Pushing open several doors, he peered inside the upstairs chambers. All were empty.

  I damn well know I heard a shot.

  Four strides took him to the bedroom window that overlooked the service yard. He scanned the area near the summer kitchen, skimmed past the outbuildings and chicken coops, the water well and the smokehouse. His gaze finally settled on the garden.

  Reece leaned forward. His fingers gripped the window sash as his eyes narrowed on the prone body.

  Tacker?

  A pitchfork lay at a cockeyed angle near his legs. Even from this distance, Reece saw the smattering of dark blood coagulating in the tight coils across the top of the old man’s snow-colored head. Reece glanced around wildly until he spotted Emaline’s sun hat flattened on the ground near the stable’s entrance. To the left, three horses hobbled together, their reins looped over the plank railing in front of the building. They’d been ridden hard, their coats un
kempt and matted with sweat.

  A movement caught his attention and his gaze lanced to the open door.

  Someone’s inside.

  Emaline?

  Panic nearly suffocated him.

  He reached for his holstered Remington and in one smooth move brought the belt around his hips. He buckled it as he headed down the hallway. This was not the way he envisioned taking the stairs for the first time, but he’d get down the damn things one way or another.

  Reece reined in hard on his emotions, and descended. He shoved aside the throbbing ache in his chest and as he reached the last step, he slid the revolver from its holster and checked the blue-chambered cylinders.

  Dammit, only two rounds…

  …and three horses.

  There was no time to reload; he had no choice but to push on. He slipped from the house and stumbled down the back steps. Crouching as low as he could, he headed for the dubious protection of the garden and Tacker. Working his way down a row of corn, Reece reached the body lying prone at the other end. His fingers pressed against the old man’s throat to check a pulse.

  He found the strong heartbeat.

  “Tacker?” he hissed into the farrier’s ear. “Wake up!” He shook the frail shoulder until a low moan fell from the thin, pale lips. Anxiously, Reece repeated, “Come on—wake up.”

  ”C—Colonel?” Tacker stammered, trying to shift to his side. “Are dey gone?”

  “Who? Damnit, man, tell me what’s happened.”

  “Th—three of ’em…dey’s got Miz Emaline. Dey be violatin’ her.” He paused, unable to complete the rest without a ragged breath. “I-I tried to stop ’em, to help her, but…”

  A raging, raw anger breathed to life inside Reece and he heard no more. A nauseating feeling of dread enveloped him.

  Dear God, not again. First his wife…and now Emaline!

  With a mighty heave, he rose from the ground and crossed the thirty feet to the stable, then flattened against the wall near the open door.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Get over here and drag him out of the way,” Blue ordered, never taking his glower off Emaline. “I’m gonna need more room to satisfy this one.”

  Red shrugged and followed orders, grabbing one of the dead man’s boots. Unceremoniously, he pulled the body through the dirt and dumped him a short distance away.

  Blue pointed to a mound of straw near the back of the stable. “Now you just lie down and do exactly what I say. And if you’re good, I just might let you live after I’m finished.”

  “You sure as hell ain’t gonna kill her before I get a piece,” Red scoffed. He pulled a stool over and sat down to watch.

  A hard shove sent Emaline to the ground. Her gasp zipped through the stable.

  “You stupid wench. You’ll move when I say so.” Eager fingers fumbled at the buttons on his pants. “You’re gonna like this ’cause you ain’t never had a real man—”

  A cocking revolver resonated through the hazy stable. Blue sliced his gaze toward the entrance. Sunlight poured around a tall form silhouetted in the doorway. “As a matter of fact, she has. Me.”

  Reece would only need to kill two now, having spotted a third body sprawled nearby. Streaks of blood across the straw-strewn ground told the story.

  Regardless, the odds had narrowed.

  A red-haired, pot-bellied mongrel closest to him, surged to his feet, knocking over a stool in the process. His hands rose slowly. “Take it easy, mister. We didn’t know she was your woman.”

  Reece dismissed him, glaring instead at the man straddling Emaline’s nearly naked form. Her sobs wrenched an agonizing hole in Reece’s heart. The blood in his veins, already a hard boil, bubbled over into a blistering roll. He carved out words from deep inside his throat and threw them toward her tormentor. “If you so much as breathe in her direction again, you’re a dead man.”

  Focusing on the horrid sight, Reece sorely misjudged the danger posed by the man on his right. The pistol had already cleared its leather holster before Reece reacted. Pivoting, he squeezed off his first round. The bullet blew a gaping hole in the bastard’s chest that drove him backward into a rack of saddles. Blood spread in a scarlet bloom as the Colt slid from a lifeless hand and hit the ground with a thud.

  A warning scream from Emaline and Reece swung back. The last deserter clutched a sixteen-shot Henry. Reece emptied his second and final round, but with unexpected agility, the man lunged sideways and the shot burrowed instead into the wall.

  Reece dropped to the ground just as the Henry levered, then fired. Again and again, sharp reports rang through the stable. Reece rolled, and bullets chased him across the hard-packed earth, inches from his thigh, his shoulder, his head. Chaff and dust rose into the hazy air.

  Pungent gunpowder fused with the smell of fresh hay.

  The shooter readjusted but aimed too high, his next shots thumping into the wood, shattering glass, embedding into a bag of grain behind Reece. A spilling hiss joined the clicking dissonance of the Henry and shell casings dropped to the ground in chinking pings.

  The bray of the mules coupled with the high-pitched shriek of horses.

  Reece slammed up against the stool and his hand swept across the ground near the dead man’s boots, fingers scraping the dirt in a wild search. They closed around the wooden grip of the Colt.

  An eyeblink later, Reece angled up onto one hip, sighted in the bastard, and fired before the Henry could lever again. The pistol ball struck the man between the eyes, snapping his head backward.

  He crumpled into a lifeless heap.

  “I said you’d be a dead man,” Reece hissed. His slitted gaze stayed in constant motion and a split-second later, he saw Emaline climb to her feet, tears streaming down her face. She scrambled toward him in a stumble, her breasts jostling with each frantic step she took. Pieces of straw clung to the tangles in her hair. She tripped over her skirt, then righted herself.

  Reece surged to his feet and met her halfway, sweeping her into his arms. He pushed the dull throbbing in his chest to the back of his mind. She melted against him and his mouth found hers in a frantic kiss, his fingers plowing through her tangled mane. He swept his lips over her face, his breath warm gasps that still carried his fear. He kissed her cheeks, the side of her head, inhaling deeply in an effort to control his pounding heart. Heavenly lavender fused with the stench of gunpowder.

  “Did they…are you hurt?” he asked, his voice a rush of concern and frustration. He smoothed his hands over her bare shoulders, brushed away the dust and debris that clung to the curve of her back.

  “No, no, I’m fine. You got here in time.” She muffled her words against his chest, her hands sweeping up and over his shoulders. She climbed higher in his embrace. His hold tightened around her. “You saved me, Reece.”

  The emotional impact of her words swelled inside him. All the years of heartbreak, everything that defined him to this moment, Jenny’s death, the fears, the scars he carried deep. With his next inhalation, Reece buried them forever.

  His gaze swept the stable, spotting a faded work shirt hanging from a nail near the entrance. He guided Emaline toward it, his hands folding around the faded cotton. He eased her into the butter-soft folds.

  “They k-killed Tacker,” she sobbed, her fingers trembling. She tried to push the garment’s small wooden discs through the buttonholes, but she struggled. “He was t-trying to save me and they killed him.”

  “No, love, no,” Reece reassured her, sweeping her fingers aside to finish the task. His lips pressed against her damp forehead, slid over the tear-streaked curve of her cheek. He nipped her lips. “He’s alive—just took a nasty blow to the head.”

  She stared at him. “W-What?”

  “I spoke to him. Come on, I’ll show you.” Reece ushered her from the stable and across the service yard toward the old man. Tacker still sat on the ground next to Emaline’s vegetable garden, the pitchfork once again clutched in his hand. She dropped to her knees beside the farrier.
Ignoring his protests, she inspected the wicked gash on his head. The rattle of an approaching wagon caused them to look up. From around the side of the mansion, Euley and Israel came into view, a mixture of curiosity and concern highlighting their ebony faces.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Unmarked graves left no tales.

  Reece dusted his hands against his pants, then leaned on the shovel to catch his breath. His chest throbbed from the unexpected exertion of the afternoon.

  “You shouldn’t have lifted him, Colonel,” Israel said. “You ain’t done healin’ yet.”

  Reece glanced at the black man beneath the arm he wiped across his sweaty brow. “You did most of the work.”

  Sweat ran in shimmering beads down the field hand’s weathered face. His features momentarily disappeared behind the folds of a blue-checked handkerchief before the ragged cloth crumpled into a pocket. “What you done to put ’em here was a heap more important than me diggin’ dese here graves.”

  Reece nodded, then gestured toward the line of shanties in the distance. “Let’s go check on Tacker. He took a bad hit.”

  “Oh, he’s a tough ol’ coot, Colonel. He be just fine.” Israel heaved both shovels upward, settling the implements across his brawny shoulders. Long arms draped over the durable ash handles.

  The men crossed the field, heading in stony silence toward the last cabin in an orderly line of twelve. Inside, the women cared for Tacker’s wound.

  Cotton strips encased the top-half of the farrier’s head. He squirmed on the rickety chair as Euley secured the dressing.

  “Sit still,” she barked.

  Tacker groused. “You’s pullin’ my hair, woman.”