by AmyFleming
The Deputy may not have been the sharpest nail in the box, but he’d probably guessed that if Dredger had killed everyone he said he had, he would kill them all. Alec held his breath, hoping Frank would make the right decision. A moment later, he did.
“Let’s go,” Frank said and gestured with his gun up the cliff.
Annie tried to pull Branigan to his feet, but he could barely pull himself along.
Alec was a little better. Frank helped him up. Alec looked over at Annie. “I don’t know which is safer, Annie, up there with Dredger and his guns, or down here on the ledge.”
“Go, Sheriff. Maybe you and Frank can stop him. I’ll stay here with Luc and Tommy.”
*****
Annie waited with Luc and Tommy on the exposed ledge. The second blast rocked the ledge even more, and then a huge mass of rock tumbled off the edge of the cliff, down onto the ledge.
The cave was at the farthest end of the ledge. The three of them edged along towards it.
The third blast sent more rock plunging over the edge of the cliff. The force of the rock broke through the ledge and sent part of it crashing into the valley below. The path to the top of the cliff was obliterated.
“Tommy, let’s go in the cave,” Annie said. “We’ll be safe in there.” Tommy got under one of Branigan’s arms and Annie took the other. They eased him back towards the crevice in the rocks and into the cave.
Inside the cave a torch still burned. Annie could see the empty dynamite boxes and she pulled Branigan to the very back of the cavern.
“Annie, why didn’t you leave me out there to die?” Branigan said. “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve said to you, why are you trying to save me? You should save yourself and the boy.”
“Branigan, we don’t have very much time,” Annie said. “We’re all going to die here, whatever we do. If we survive these blasts, Dredger is going to kill us. If you don’t know why I’m trying to save you, you never will.”
She turned to her son. “Tommy, there’s something I need to tell you. Otto Dredger is not your father. This man here is your dad.”
“Is that what Dad meant when he said I had Branigan eyes?” the boy asked.
Annie never had a chance to answer. Another blast shook the cave around them. “I’m not sure coming in this cave was the best idea,” she said. The next blast sent the roof of the cave falling around them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charlotte heard the first blast when she was crossing Bandit Creek down at the ford. She looked up the trail and she could see a mule train coming towards her. She ignored the mules and drove the car straight across the creek. The second blast happened while she was driving up the road on the other side. The Oldsmobile had the power to climb the hill. She should have left the car where the trail snaked away from the road, but she pushed the gas pedal down as hard as she could. When the car wouldn’t climb any further, she turned it sideways on the trail and set the hand break. She heard the third blast while she was climbing the trail.
There at the top of the cliff, she could see Alec and his deputy. Dredger was fifty yards away setting off another blast.
And then the entire side of the cliff tore away, plummeting to the valley below. Alec and his Deputy dropped about six feet on the other side of a deep chasm.
Dredger looked over the edge, obviously amazed at what happened. Charlotte felt the ground trembling under her feet. It felt like an earthquake. Dredger looked around and saw Alec and his deputy. He raced towards his horse and Alec’s shotgun. “Run,” she shouted at Alec. Alec looked towards her. Mr. Dredger saw her at the same time.
Dredger didn’t change direction. He kept on towards the shotgun. Charlotte crossed the top of the cliff towards the horse. Dredger reached it first and grabbed the shotgun. He turned to point it at Alec. And then Charlotte reached Mr. Dredger.
He turned to her. “I can’t believe you’re up here too. How many people are sticking their nose in my business today?”
“I saw you shoot the sheriff.”
“And I’m going to shoot him again,” Dredger said. Charlotte was obviously no threat to him. Dredger turned the shotgun towards Alec and she saw the insane anger in his eyes. How had she missed it before?
“Stop it, Mr. Dredger. I have something to show you,” she shouted.
Her words must have cut through the demons that were driving him, because he looked over his shoulder at her. “What’s that girl?” he asked.
She’d taken the little revolver out of her purse. “This,” she said, and she shot him. It took all seven of her bullets before he stopped moving.
But the ground kept moving. Suddenly, the whole cliff fell away from her feet. Dredger went with it.
*****
The ground rumbled like a freight train coming towards to Luc Branigan. By the light of the torch, he could see the fear in Annie’s face. He looked over at the boy, his eyes were wide with fear. Branigan eyes, Dredger had called them. Luc considered that the boy might be his son. He only had known it for a matter of minutes before they all were going to die. He pulled Annie and the boy towards him. At least if they were going to die, they would be together.
*****
At the top of the cliff, Charlotte ventured towards the new edge and peered over. The rockslide had torn away the face of the mountain sending it all crashing down into the creek below. The mule train that Charlotte had seen on her trip up the mountain was below her. Most of the animals lay dead. A few men had run back up the trail and were now making their way back to the rubble of stone. Charlotte waved down at them.
Alec and his deputy were nowhere to be seen. She’d seen Alec killed twice today. Once when Otto Dredger shot him, and then again in the rockslide. It was in that minute she realized she loved Alec. And she had lost him. Just like that.
Charlotte sank to the ground at the edge of the cliff, exhausted. She didn’t want to move. Alec was not the only one missing. There was no sign of the deputy or Annie Hamilton or Luc Branigan or Tommy. All those people killed, so Dredger could rob the gold shipment.
The grief she felt when she’d lost Gilbert was nothing compared to her feelings of helpless loss now. Alec was gone.
She peered out over the edge looking for anything that moved. Maybe Alec was down there somewhere. Something or someone was moving on the sharp surface below. A black arm was waving, reaching out from a crevice. Annie, it must be Annie.
“Annie,” Charlotte called out. “Annie.” Maybe someone had survived that rock fall. “I’ll get help,” she shouted, relieved to be doing something, anything. She ran back from the cliff to the trail leading to Alex’s car. She could cry later. For now, Annie needed to be rescued.
The car was where she left it, the same as she had left it. It was hard to believe that anything could be the same after the rockslide she had witnessed.
She got in and drove down the twisting trail that led to the creek bed to where the men were below. They would help rescue Annie from her gap in the rock.
Charlotte could smell death in the canyon. Two men, at the bottom of the trail were moving along the line of mules lying at the bottom of Deadman’s Gap. Any that were moving, they either cut loose from the mule train, or if their injuries were too bad, they dispatched them with a single shot.
Charlotte wound down the window of the car and called out to them. They were miners, still shaky from the rockslide. She got out of the car and pointed up to Annie’s black arm sticking out of the wall of rock. “You’ve got to try to save her,” Charlotte pleaded.
The creek was backing up against the wall of rock that had plunged from the side of Crow Mountain. The two men had to wade in ankle deep water to find some rope in the ruins of the mule train. Then they got into the car with Charlotte.
She drove them as high up the mountain as the car would take them. She let the two men go the rest of the way on their own. She was not likely to be of any help and the events of the day began to tell on her. She climbed up on the h
ood of the car to wait for the men to return.
“Did I say you could drive my car up here?” a voice asked from the bush. “Didn’t I tell you to go home?”
“Sheriff?” Charlotte said. She stared at him, transfixed for a moment. “I thought you were dead.” Her voice was a whisper. She slipped off the car and threw herself into his arms. Not until he wrapped his arms around her did she allow herself to believe he was alive.
“I think you need to quit calling me Sheriff,” he said. “If you’re going to drive my car, I think you better start calling me Alec.”
“You’re always trying to tell me what to do,” she said. “Shut up and kiss me.”
*****
Mrs. Miles was carrying one small suitcase when she got on the four o’clock train to Missoula. She walked down the aisle and found her husband. She slowly sank into the seat beside him. The surprised look on his face broke her heart.
“I’ve decided to come with you,” she said.
He obviously didn’t know what to say. “Annie Hamilton gave me her ticket.” Mrs. Miles took a deep breath and continued. “Just tell me one thing. What did she give you that I couldn’t?”
*****
The stationmaster, Sam Wilberforce, walked to the front of the train to talk to the engineer. The mule train from the Ellis Mine still hadn’t arrived but he didn’t want to hold the train any longer. The creek had been backing up since early that afternoon, and if he waited any longer, it looked like the whole track might flood.
As soon as the train left, Sam locked up the station and went home for dinner. No one would want anything more at the station on Thanksgiving and if Ellis did bring his gold into town, Sam didn’t want to store it that night.
The water from Bandit Creek had risen at least six inches and Sam knew he made the right decision to send the train out. There must be an ice dam some place down the river causing the level to rise.
*****
Luc Branigan and Annie Hamilton had to leave town. They knew with Annie’s past, they would never have any peace in Bandit Creek. Luc had a long talk with his brother, Ty. He signed the ranch over to his brother. Ty would take care of their mother and the children. Luc and Annie took their son, Tommy, and left the next day on the four o’clock train to Missoula.
*****
The water from the creek continued to rise for the next three days. It was slow, but as Bandit Creek continued to flow, it gradually filled the creek bed and then broke through the banks.
That day on the mountain, Alec Forrest had managed to grab on to some scrubby bushes as the face of the cliff thundered down into the valley. They never found Otto Dredger’s body and the deputy was missing as well.
By Monday, the Sheriff moved his piano out of his house and into the teacherage up on the hill with Charlotte. If the creek continued to rise, they knew it would just be a matter of time before they would have to move out of the teacherage as well.
“You can’t be living with me like this,” Alec said. “You’ll scandalize everyone in town.”
“We probably have a few days before anyone figures out you’re staying here,” Charlotte said.
And then he said the words he never imagined he would say to anyone. “We’ll have to get married, Charlotte.”
“I want to be a teacher.”
“We’ll work it out, Charlotte.”
“And I want to ride astride.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, I’d like to vote.”
“You’re a woman before your time, Charlotte.”
Turn the page for an exciting glimpse of the next Bandit Creek book, QUINN’S CHRISTMAS WISH by Lawna Mackie, coming December 1, 2011.
QUINN’S CHRISTMAS WISH
by
Lawna Mackie
Copyright 2011 Lawna Mackie
Chapter One
BANDIT CREEK, MONTANA, 1912
Dried leaves crunched beneath twelve-year old Quinn’s weight as he sank to his knees. His throat burned and he swallowed hard with his breath catching in his chest. He would not cry. He wouldn’t! In slow motion he watched a drop of his crimson blood splatter against the carpet of fall leaves. Anger and hurt brought unshed tears to his eyes.
The wind gusted amongst the trees blowing the hair away from his face and forcing him to sit up. Whatever leaves were left on the poplars rustled and the tall spruce groaned and cracked, swaying along in the breeze.
Quinn shook his head and pounded the ground with his fist.
The flood of Bandit Creek a year ago had stolen his hopes, dreams and happiness. Despite the rebuilding of the town, evil thrived in many forms. Countless bodies had never been recovered. Men, women and children…drowned, trapped at the bottom of the lake…Lost Lake as it was now called. A year later, murder, superstition, possession, and mysterious illnesses engulfed the town and survivors of the flood.
Choking back the painful memories, his fingertips traced his father’s name etched in the tombstone. Quinn could almost hear his Pa’s deep soothing voice telling him everything would be okay. Deep down he hoped his father would be right. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood away from his nose and mouth. He could almost hear his words. “You’re strong Quinn. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Did you enjoy Bandit Creek?
Be sure to visit BanditCreekbooks.com for more information on the series.
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Hard Candy by Jade Buchanan
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About the Author – Amy Jo Fleming
Amy Jo Fleming writes romantic suspense and she loves a story that leaves you wondering about the characters after you read the final page. Amy Jo has always been a writer. In university, she wrote poetry when she should have been studying. She loves to read a good mystery or legal thriller.
In her day job, Amy Jo, a freelance writer, writes about law and education issues. Amy Jo loves to hike and has gone hiking all over the world, from Calgary to Australia, Scotland, to the Caribbean. Her favorite place to hike is in the Rocky Mountains just a few miles up the road from her home in Calgary.
She lives in Calgary with her husband David (an engineer), her dog Snowflake and her two boomerang children, Cat, a chemical engineer and Scott, an engineering student.
www.amyjofleming.com
@AmyJoFlemingLLB