by Lisa Bingham
Batchwell’s eyes glittered with a newfound respect. “How do you know all that, gel?”
“I—I confess to having read a sensational article or two in certain...women’s periodicals.”
A bark of surprised laughter burst from his throat. “Never knew that women had an interest in such things.”
She regarded him wryly. “We do manage to keep abreast of the world around us, Mr. Batchwell.”
“I don’t doubt you do.”
“Anyhow, I’ve sent Charles’s man to help down below. That leaves you, me and four other women to guard you and your house, Mr. Batchwell.”
“Me?” The word dripped with scorn. “I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t doubt that at all.”
“I should be down there with the rest of them!”
“Normally, Mr. Batchwell, I’d agree with you. But we have to look at the facts. We don’t have time to get a buggy, and there’s no way, even with the help of the other women, that we could assist you in limping closer to the mine.”
He seemed to sag a little when confronted with the truth.
“Mr. Batchwell, if the Tommy Gang runs true to form, they’ll have researched this valley. They may have had someone watching us for days without our even knowing it. And one of the things they’ll be looking for...is you.”
Some of the redness eased from his cheeks.
“I’ve got the girls downstairs loading every weapon you own. In a minute, they’ll bring us a couple of rifles and a few boxes of ammunition. I’ve told them to take the rear and side balconies. I’m going to head to the room next door and take up my position there. That leaves you to watch everything from this window here.” She gripped the gnarled hand resting on the chair. “I’m trusting you to take care of my babies, Mr. Batchwell. If anything should happen, if someone manages to get into the house, I’m counting on you to stop them at the door, do you hear?”
Batchwell’s gaze flicked from the guillotine windows, to the drawer beneath the bed, to the revolver in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were a steely blue.
“You have my word, Mrs. Wanlass.”
She squeezed his wrist, then stood as Iona came into the room with a rifle in each hand. Her apron pockets bulged with boxes of ammunition.
“I was told to bring these up here. They’re loaded.”
“Thank you, Iona. Can you help me pull Mr. Batchwell’s chair a little closer to the window? Then turn it slightly, so he has a proper view of the bedroom doors as well as the view below.”
Iona gingerly set the rifles on the bed while Willow pulled Batchwell to his feet. He hissed when his broken leg touched the floor, but otherwise didn’t complain. Bracing his weight with her shoulder, she waited while Iona moved the chair. Then the two of them supported the man on either arm well enough for him to hop the few feet necessary. When he collapsed back onto the tufted seat, Willow could see a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
“How will that work, Mr. Batchwell?” He glanced in one direction to survey the street below, then back to the doors.
“Fine, fine. I just wish everything weren’t so far away.”
“I saw a pair of field glasses in the same chest as the boxes of ammunition,” Iona said. “Would you like me to get them?”
Batchwell thumped the chair again, this time in agreement. “I like your way of thinking, Mrs. Skye.”
While Iona ran back downstairs, Willow pulled the little table close and set the box of ammunition in the middle.
“Dump everything out loose. I can reload quicker that way.”
She did what she was told, then grasped the rifle, leaning it against the window frame.
“Can you think of anything else you’ll need?”
He shook his head. “You’ve thought of everything, it seems.”
When she would have moved to retrieve her own weapons, Batchwell grasped her elbow. She looked down, wondering if he’d changed his mind about manning the room alone, but he merely stared up at her with quiet eyes.
“Forgive an old man?”
Willow shook her head in confusion. “For what?”
“I... I wasn’t very kind to you. Especially that night when I found you and Charles and the twins...”
She shook her head.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Mr. Batchwell. I think we’ve both moved beyond that first bad impression to become...friends.”
His lips seemed to tremble ever so slightly. “Yes. I do believe you’re right.”
Iona rushed into the room panting. She set a pair of ornate brass field glasses on the table.
“Now what?”
Willow slipped from Batchwell’s grip and reached for her own rifle. “You’ll come with me. If we have to shoot, I’ll empty the long gun first, hand it to you to reload, then use the revolver.”
“Brilliant.”
Only at the door to the hallway did Willow pause one last time.
Batchwell seemed to instinctively understand her hesitation.
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Wanlass. The babes will be safe with me.”
“Thank you... Ezra.”
Then, knowing there was no more time to waste, Willow forced herself to leave the room.
* * *
As soon as Lydia had ascertained that every last bullet had been taken from the Dovecote to the cook shack, she silently stepped away from the others and hurried across the street, then down the boardwalk to the stables.
Around her, Bachelor Bottoms looked like a ghost town. Granted, things had been quiet for the last few days as the men had been gathered up and locked away. But this...
A gusting wind had begun to blow, ruffling the surface of the puddles, bringing a chill from the upper slopes where the snow still coated the top half of the mountains. Even the sun had seemed to desert them, hiding behind thick black clouds that hinted a storm could be looming, bringing an artificial twilight.
If she hadn’t known any better, Lydia would have thought the people of Aspen Valley had been whisked away. But the prickling between her shoulder blades warned her that her progress was being watched by dozens of pairs of eyes. She knew full well that there were men waiting behind the false fronts of the buildings and more behind every window. The narrow alleys that connected with the miners’ row houses had at least one or two men peering out from the corners.
She knew the moment that the Tommy Gang appeared at the mouth of the canyon. One of the men posted on the edge of town offered the long mournful call of a barn owl. A staggered succession of bird calls passed the news over her head until the mine itself had been warned.
Dodging into the livery, Lydia hurried from stall to stall, looking for the mare that she’d ridden only days before, when she and Gideon had ridden to check the pass. She’d gone down one full side without finding it when she happened upon Gideon’s strawberry roan gelding.
The animal would have to do.
She held out her closed fist, allowing the animal to become accustomed to her scent. He may have even recognized her, because his ears twitched and he obligingly shifted in his stall, tacitly giving permission for her to saddle him, should she care to do so.
“Good boy,” she murmured, scratching his long nose, his ears, then his neck. “How about you and I take a ride?”
The horse nickered softly as if he’d understood.
As far as she could tell, the tack for each animal had been positioned on a series of pegs and rails at the front of each stall. She gathered up the heavy blanket and entered the stall, settling it over the horse’s back. When he didn’t object, she lugged the saddle in as well.
Within minutes, Lydia had the horse completely outfitted and led him into the center aisle. She drew him close to a pile of grain sacks near the back entrance. After pulling the sliding door open enough for a horse and rider to exit, s
he used the bags as a makeshift mounting block. Somehow, she managed to get her feet into the stirrup and swing herself onto the animal’s back.
It took a moment to adjust the layers of her skirts and petticoats—and she rued the fact that she hadn’t been able to change into her riding costume. But there simply hadn’t been time.
Bending forward, she ran her hand down the horse’s neck and closed her eyes.
Dear Lord, please help me. These people are so dear to me. They’ve become my family, and this valley has become my home. I know I’m not the only person to claim such a thing. You understand better than I that these are hardworking, God-fearing people. They’ve all banded together to protect one another. Please keep them safe. And if it be Thy will, please help me to find my father. It may be the only way to avert the violence that he has probably planned. In this and in all Thy blessings, I am so very grateful. Amen.
The moment her prayer was finished, she whispered, “All right, let’s ride!” Then she and the strawberry roan burst from the livery and galloped toward the hills.
* * *
“Where’s she going?”
Gideon looked up from his field glasses. Following the line of Dobbs’s finger, he noted the rider galloping out of town.
Although he knew full well the identity of the familiar figure, he peered through the glasses again.
What was she doing?
He swept the glasses ahead of her, then onto the foothills above. Near as he could tell, she had no particular goal. For some reason, she was heading up the slope of the mountain, making a wide circle toward the mouth of the canyon. But other than a thick stand of pines and aspen, he couldn’t see a logical objective.
Gideon felt his gut tightening in panic. Lydia had ridden out of town, away from the protection of the volunteer army that waited for the Tommy Gang to arrive.
It didn’t make any sense.
For a moment, a traitorous thought flashed through his brain. She could be meeting the gang. She could be colluding with them. She could have feigned her panic when the so-called Pinkerton had arrived in town, simply to throw Gideon off the scent.
As soon as the idea took shape, Gideon thrust it away. No. He trusted Lydia. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, but despite her efforts to round up the men of the valley and attempt to overthrow its leadership, he knew she would never do anything to hurt the people of Aspen Valley.
She would never do anything to hurt him.
He panned the field glasses back toward the mouth of the canyon. Although the warning system they’d devised had already spread through town, he still felt a jolt of shock when the hills themselves seemed to darken, shift, then reform. What had been an ominous shadow on the ridge soon separated to reveal an army of men on horseback forming at the mouth of the canyon.
Gideon quickly whipped the glasses, searching for Lydia. She wouldn’t have had time to hide herself.
But after scanning the entire area, he realized that she must have taken cover in the trees. And those trees...
Were nearly parallel to the men on the ridge.
Gideon checked again without the glasses, then peered through the lenses again. The warning prickle that he’d felt off and on for days exploded outward in waves of panic.
She wouldn’t do it.
She couldn’t.
He adjusted the focus on the field glasses. Although they weren’t strong enough to pick out individual faces, he could tell by body language alone which one of the riders was in charge.
Clinton Tomlinson.
Lydia’s father.
Gideon thrust the glasses in Dobbs’s direction, then rose to a crouch position. “You’re in charge of things here.”
Dobbs nearly dropped the field glasses in his surprise.
“Where are you going?”
Gideon pointed to the spot where Lydia had disappeared. “She’s already three steps ahead of us, don’t you see? When the Tommy Gang rides into town, Clinton Tomlinson hangs back like a general on a battlefield, usually choosing a spot above the fray. Soon enough, he’ll be sending his army of men down that hill.” Gideon pointed an emphatic finger at Dobbs. “When he does, you are going to take charge of the men under our direction.” He waved his hand toward the upper slopes. “Meanwhile, she’s going to do her best to sneak up behind Clinton Tomlinson and take him down. I aim to see to it that she doesn’t have to do it alone.”
Dobbs’s eyes grew wide, but he offered a quick, “Yes, sir. God bless you both.”
* * *
Charles and his men huddled in the copse of trees just off the main track. They’d had to rush to lay their charges and their cords—and he prayed that the advancing men wouldn’t see their tracks in the weeds.
“You know what to do. Our main objective is that cannon. Keep your eyes on it at all times. If you see it coming into range, blow it up.”
His men grinned in response. After years of carefully orchestrated blastings in the mine—where safety was paramount and hours of precise planning led up to each explosion—they were looking forward to a bit of mayhem. The eager expressions they wore reminded him of a congregation of arsonists being handed a box of matches.
Charles pointed to Al Meadows.
“Keep those coals hot. I don’t want to have to rely on friction matches.”
The man nodded. They’d made a small fire in a bed of gravel, and they’d been feeding it chunks of wood since they’d taken their position. A few feet away lay a crate of loose dynamite sticks, each one already prepared with blasting caps and a short fuse. Once the controlled charges had been set off farther up the hill, they’d start lighting the individual pieces of dynamite and lobbing them into the road.
“Stay alert and stay safe,” Charles said. Then he moved to the first of the blasting boxes and placed his hands on the plunger.
* * *
Gideon had just managed to saddle a horse and exit the livery when the first explosion shuddered through the valley like thunder. Praying that the charges would provide a diversion, he pointed his mount up the hill.
As much as he wanted to ride full force to the stand of trees where he suspected that Lydia had hidden, he didn’t want to give her position away, so he zigzagged from row house to row house, then kept to the trees as much as possible, waiting for the rhythm of the charges to move into the open.
Boom!
He managed to glance in the direction of the pass in time to see a cloud of dirt and broken tree limbs bloom in the air above the treetops. He burst forward several yards, then hugged the tree line.
Boom!
Another dash. He managed to close the gap between him and his objective to fifty yards. If Charles had managed to lay at least one more charge...
Boom!
He slapped the horse’s rump with the reins, urging him forward, closing the last few feet until he went crashing through a stand of aspen. Pine boughs slapped and scratched him before he was able to rein to a stop. Ahead of him, he could see a dark shape in the shadows.
The unmistakable click of a hammer being locked into place caused him to freeze. Then he heard a gasp and “Gideon?”
He moved more carefully this time, weaving his way through the brush until Lydia’s shape coalesced in front of him.
“What are you doing here?”
He eased forward until they were side by side, their knees nearly touching. “I saw you ride out of town.”
“Shouldn’t you be with them? They’ll need you.”
He shook his head. “I’m right where I ought to be.” Gideon reached out to touch her cheek, and a warmth gathered in his heart when he felt her lean into the caress. “You shouldn’t have ridden out here on your own.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, her jaw growing hard. “Go back to town, Gideon.”
“Only if you come with me.”
She shook her head. A glint of moisture pooled in her eyes. “You go ahead. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
His hand slid to her nape, holding her there, forcing her to look at him.
“Why? So, you can confront your father?”
Her lashes lowered, shielding those expressive blue eyes, confirming what he had suspected.
“I need to do this alone.”
His thumb strayed to the corner of her mouth. “Why?”
“Because this is all my fault.”
Gideon shook his head, realizing that she truly believed that statement. “How can any of this be your doing?”
When she finally met his gaze, he was struck by the misery she’d tried so hard to hide.
“Don’t you see? When I sent my father to prison, he vowed that he would get even. He means to ruin this valley and steal the silver as a...twisted sort of vengeance.”
Gideon shook his head. “Maybe it started out that way. Maybe he wanted to find you, and all of the newspaper coverage about the avalanche and the missing mail-order brides gave him an inkling of where to go. But I doubt that’s why he’s here now. He’d have no way of knowing about the friendships you’ve made. As far as he’s aware, this valley and the mine mean absolutely nothing to you.” He leaned forward, willing her to believe him. “Frankly, I think all of his motives boil down to greed. He heard about the Batchwell Bottoms Mine and realized that, after the avalanche, we’d be vulnerable. We’re cut off from communication with the outside world and low on supplies. None of those things can be laid at your door.”
She blinked furiously, but even so, a tear plunged down her cheek.
“I still need to confront him, Gideon.”
“All right. But we do it together. Charles is making enough noise down there to provide us with the element of surprise. The moment you find your father alone and wrapped up in what’s going on in the valley, you can make your move. I’ll follow your lead and hang back, keep the man in my sights.”
He felt rather than saw the shuddering breath that escaped from her lungs.
“Thank you, Gideon.”