“First off, they made a big mistake. They warned us of their presence, but they’re still high up in the mountains. My guess is that they sent someone down ahead of the rest, someone to scout a trail through the trees. Ben surprised him somehow, and rather than just walking away from an easy shot, the fool just had to take it. That tells me we’ve all got a price on our head. The fella couldn’t turn down easy money. How I’m sure they wanted it to go was to get up close on us before any shots were fired. Probably wanted to burn us out, then shoot us when we can’t take the heat or the smoke. Can’t do that now without showing themselves.”
Ben removed his neckerchief, folded it neatly in a square, and then pressed it to the wound on his side. It was bleeding profusely because there was a four-inch, ragged gash along his ribs, but despite the blood loss and the burning pain, the truth was that he could have been hit a lot worse. And aside from an unpleasant scar, he’d live a long life.
Later on, naked in bed, with Ella at his side, he’d have a thrilling story to tell of how he had acquired his “war wound.”
“How many do you think there are?” Dirk asked Ben.
“At least six, from what I could see. And Tim Cutler’s with them. He’s the one who winged me.”
“What do you know about that?” Dirk chuckled, his mouth twisted up on one side in a snarl. “We’ve got ‘em pretty shaken if even that cowardly bastard’s scared enough to pick up a rifle.”
Outside, it was Ella’s fiancé who began shouting demands, and Ben gritted his teeth. “All right, you boys in there, come on out with your hands up! We’ve got you surrounded!”
Blue muttered a very foul word before replying, “Why should we come out?”
“Because you’re all wanted men! Wanted for cattle rustling!”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, all three men in the small cabin laughed softly.
“I count three of them over here,” Blue said quietly, peering through the partially opened, fortified window.
“I count three over here,” Dirk said.
Ben said, “I’ve got three over here, not counting Tim. That makes ten in all.”
“Ten against three. Doesn’t seem like a fair fight, does it?” Ben asked Dirk with a broad smile.
“Not fair at all. Maybe we should let them round up half a dozen more men just to even up the odds.”
Bravado vanished when Tim shouted “Now!” and all nine of his gunmen began unloading their weapons on the small cabin. The .44 caliber bullets punched through the window reinforcements where the wood was only a single layer deep. A bullet took the hat off Dirk’s head, nearly parting his hair. Another bullet ricocheted off the shoulder stock of Ben’s rifle, drastically limiting the weapon’s usefulness.
“I’m guessing they’re not really looking for us to surrender,” Ben said, searching for the bravado that had come so easily just a few moments earlier. On the dinner table, the coffee pot took a direct hit, and dark fluid spewed from two holes.
“Wally! Hey, Wally!” Tim shouted. “You get those torches lit! Everybody else, keep shooting! We’ll either burn ‘em alive or shoot the bastards when they come out!”
“Gentlemen,” Ben said, “I think we’ve got more of a problem than we anticipated.”
Peering through the crack in the window, Ben watched as two men, neither one a man he recognized, slipped out from behind trees, rushing closer. Each man carried a five-gallon kerosene can and an armload of thick sticks with cloth wrapped around the ends. Both men were grinning. They stopped perhaps fifty yards from the cabin, apparently to prepare the torches before they moved closer.
Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, Ben waited. He’d have to shoot through tree limbs, but there was a chance—a slim chance, but a chance, nevertheless—that his bullet would fly straight. Perhaps he could take out one killer.
Though Ben’s view of what they were doing was obscured by trees, by their movements he assumed that the torches had been laid out on the ground, and now the men were saturating the cloth heads with kerosene. They were laughing between themselves. This was their idea of a well-spent afternoon. Ben wondered just how much of a bounty Tim Cutler placed on their heads.
From his right, from farther up the hillside, three more men showed up. They were too far away with too many branches in the line of fire for Ben to have an easy shot. But he could see them, and now he even recognized some of his own men, and the blood began to boil in his veins.
“We can’t let them get this cabin started on fire,” Ben warned. He couldn’t imagine a more hideous death than dying in a fire.
“I’ve got a foot of dirt piled on the roof,” Blue explained. “If they’re going to get it started, they’ll have to get it started from below, or throw one of those torches through a window.”
“Dirt on the roof, eh?” Ben chuckled. “You’re one smart fella. I’ll grant you that.”
There were five of the killers crowded together, and Ben figured that even if his bullet ricocheted a little, he’d still likely hit one of the outlaws. They lit one torch, and with it they lit the others. As he lined up his sights, the booming report of a Winchester echoed through the narrow valley. The man holding the one lighted torch staggered. More gunshots rang out, fast shots coming from a carbine, paced at less than a second a piece. Kerosene sluiced into the air as the metal containers were struck rapid-fire. Another shot caught one of the thieves in the throat. As he sputtered, he dropped his burning torch onto the kerosene can at his feet.
It took just two or three seconds. It began and ended so quickly, it took a moment for Ben to understand exactly what happened. Tim’s gunmen were preparing their torches when Ella, behind them, opened fire. She shot the ringleader, then put holes in the kerosene containers, then started shooting the men again. Three went down with her bullets. When the lit torches landed in the spreading pool of kerosene, there was a great whoosh! and then the men on the ground were in flames. A final man, his clothes drenched in kerosene but unharmed by bullets, let out a pitiful scream of agony as he ran down into the valley, his body engulfed in flames from his thighs to his head.
Ben soon heard the sound of pounding hooves. Tim, and what few men he had left, was on horseback and riding hard. This was more of a fight than they had imagined, more than they could tolerate, and the thought of it brought a smile to Ben’s lips.
“Hail the camp!” Ella called out.
Ben looked at the two men in the cabin with him, his smile filled with pride. “It’s Ella! She’s the one who saved our bacon.” He looked at Blue, whose body was now dry but still completely naked. “You might want to put something on. Ella will be here in a minute.” He chuckled. “Or Dirk and I could just take our clothes off, so you wouldn’t feel left out.”
Chapter Sixteen
“It is…so…unfortunate that we have to maintain this charade,” Ella said with mild annoyance as she reclined in an enormous wing-backed chair near the fireplace. She had on her robe, the very sheer white silk one that covered her to the ankles but showed every curve of her body when she wore it without anything beneath.
Dirk’s head appeared as he climbed up the ladder, squeezing his broad shoulders through the trap door in the floor.
“It’s for your own good, my love,” the big man said, getting to his feet and then turning around to help Blue climb up into the room. Ben was last to reach the hotel’s lavishly appointed luxury suite. “Appearances must be maintained.”
“To hell with appearances!” Ella shot back, piqued that she should have to hide the love she felt for these three men.
“Let’s not get that started all over again. It’s best for you to not flout convention.” Blue ran fingers through his shoulder-length black hair in a gesture of frustration. An outcast from so many cultures, she knew he had an understanding of the subject. “Some secrets are best left secrets.”
* * * *
After Tim’s attempt to kill the men she loved, Ella’s cowardly fiancé had run away. Ella heard t
hat he’d gone to Deadwood to become a professional gambler. She didn’t care where he went, so long as he stayed away from the T-3 ranch and the three men she loved. The men, however, were not so quick to forgive their lover’s ex-fiancé. They put a “Dead or Alive” bounty of two thousand dollars on Tim Cutler’s head—a bounty which was never collected. Ella, not approving of the bounty but unable to convince her men to withdraw the money, insisted that the bounty not be “Dead or Alive.” Too much blood had already been spilled, she insisted. The men relented to her wishes, though they grumbled about Tim being more worthy of having a deadly bounty on his head than anyone else in the territory. But Tim, most uncharacteristically, drew a derringer when apprehended. He came within an inch of killing his abductor. The bounty hunter, more experienced in matters regarding weaponry and their use, put a bullet through Tim Cutler’s chest.
As for Rosamond, she actually did try to shoot her daughter. Ella’s quick defensive move caused the bullet to miss, and though Rosamond claimed it was an accident, she was immediately shipped off to a pleasant boarding house in St. Paul and given a small, monthly allowance. Rosamond, however, claimed there was nothing pleasant about the boarding house. Her claims fell on deaf ears. Provided she stayed in St. Paul, the monthly allowance would continue.
When the four-story Grand Hotel came up for sale, Ella did not hesitate. The first thing she did was have the entire top floor renovated into her private living quarters, which she called the Presidential Suite. The second thing she did was have three of the rooms directly below the Presidential Suite completely renovated, attached with side doors for each room. The three rooms were very comfortable, each with a large bed and even walk-in closets.
The last thing she did during the renovation process was to put a trap door in the floor of her Presidential Suite that lead down into the middle room of the three below.
Ella was often seen in her Presidential Suite, sometimes walking on the balcony outside. Townsfolk would think it only proper that she spend time away from the T-3 Ranch, particularly after the unpleasantness caused by the loathsome man she nearly married. Nobody faulted her for spending time away from a ranch that held so many horrible memories.
Ben, Dirk, and Blue, rakes that they were, decided to rent rooms on the third floor. Everyone in town knew they’d taken the rooms on a permanent basis so they would have a comfortable place to drink and gamble and bring their lovers.
There wasn’t a busybody in town who suspected that once Ella pulled the curtains on her fourth floor penthouse, three of the town’s most handsome and eligible bachelors would climb a short ladder up into her suite, and the loving, sometimes tender, sometimes strenuous, always unconventional, would begin.
THE END
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