by Merry Farmer
As they gathered, Luke planted himself so close to her side that she was almost sitting in his lap. Eden continued to hold her Winchester with a tight grip.
“Go on,” Luke said softly. “Tell us the rest.”
Eden sent him a weak smile before sinking back into her memories. “Brent was revenge-minded from day one. I’ve never known anyone so full of hate. He taught us all how to shoot, how to ride, how to pick pockets and cheat at cards. Some of my brothers, like Braden and to a certain degree Bert, took to those evil ways like ducks to water. My youngest brother, Branch, and I only went along because if we didn’t, we’d get a beating. We both prayed to find a way out of that life and back to God’s grace.”
Luke tensed beside her, his arm holding her tight.
She shook her head and brushed that part of her past away. “I focused on what I liked best—shooting—and tried to pretend the rest didn’t exist.”
“You’re a good shot,” Lawson said, grinding coffee beans across the restarted fire.
“Yeah, we saw that,” Mike agreed.
Eden shrugged, her energy drained. “As long as I kept practicing and stayed good at it, Brent didn’t pay me any mind. When we all got old enough to pull a heist, he set me up as the sharpshooter. My job was to climb up to a roof near whatever bank the boys were robbing or to take cover nearby and to pick off any lawmen or anyone else who tried to come after them.”
Luke drew in a breath. Several of the others’ eyes grew wide with shock.
“You…you ever kill anybody?” Oscar asked what they all must be thinking.
Eden swallowed and shook her head. “I aimed for arms and legs. I never wanted to kill a soul in my life, and as God is my witness, I did everything I could not to. But I don’t know what happened to the men I shot once we rode out. We never stuck around after doing a job, we always ran.”
“Which is why you’re so adept out here on the drive,” Luke finished with an understanding nod.
“I’ve roughed it before,” Eden confirmed. “In fact, my entire life since I was thirteen has been roughing it, more or less.”
“That’s why you said you just want a house and a husband and children,” Luke said, letting out a long breath. He pulled her closer, planting a kiss on her head.
It was such a relief to have him understand—to have someone finally understand what her heart had longed for all these years—that it gave her the strength to get through the next part of her story.
“I left after Brent killed Branch.”
The camp went still, all eyes on her with a mixture of horror and pity. No one said a word, so she went on.
“We’d just robbed a train in eastern Kansas. That’s as far out West as we’d ever gone before. By that point, Branch and I were through. The robbery was messy, Braden broke his arm and Bert got shot. So did Branch, but it was only a graze. He’d had it, though. That night, Branch put his foot down. He said he was through, that he wanted to go clean and start a new life. Brent argued and threatened, said there was no better life. It got bad.”
Her voice failed on the last words. Her heart bled with sorrow and regret. Tears stung her eyes.
“I loved Branch,” she went on in a half sob. “He was the only good thing in my life. He was my brother, my true brother, heart and soul. But when Brent raised that gun and pointed it at his head, I froze. I didn’t do anything to stop him or protect Branch. I didn’t…I didn’t think he’d actually do it. But he did.”
She flinched at the memory of Brent’s gun firing, Branch jerking and twisting as the life snapped out of him. Now as it was then, she went numb, stomach churning.
Luke pulled her onto his lap and hugged her so hard the black memories flew away. He buried his face in her hair and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Eden was sorely tempted to disappear into the comfort of his embrace, but the story wasn’t over.
“I did nothing,” she whispered. “I stood by and let Brent shoot him. We all just sort of locked up and stared at Branch’s body on the floor afterwards. Even Braden and Bert were horrified. Brent didn’t have a lick of remorse, though. He spit on Branch’s body and said that that’s what any of us would get if we ever crossed him.” She took a deep breath and went on with, “I prayed for guidance that night, and stronger than any message I’d ever heard, God told me to leave. I left when they were all asleep.”
“Good,” Cody exclaimed with a fierce nod.
“And you went to Hurst Home?” Mason asked.
Eden shrugged. “Eventually. I didn’t know where I was going and I only had so much money. I zigzagged back from Kansas, but I knew I couldn’t go home to St. Louis. I drifted south, trying to stay away from big cities, until I figured out that there were more people in big cities and I could hide better. I ran into a traveling preacher and his wife in Memphis, and they told me about Hurst Home. I’ve never been more surprised in my life than when Mrs. Breashears took me in with no questions asked.”
“And thank the Lord she did,” Luke said, holding her as if he would never let go.
Eden did thank Him. Every day. Her story was over, so she let out the tension she’d been holding and sank into the warmth and protection of her husband’s embrace.
Her relief was short-lived, though.
With a wince, she said, “Braden wasn’t lying or making stuff up to scare us. Brent won’t be happy, and he will come after me.”
“He can try,” Cody growled from his seat across the campfire, hands balled to fists.
“Yeah,” Billy agreed. “If he shows his rotten face, we’ll bring him to justice.”
Eden’s heart swelled at the support, but it burned and ached all the same. She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Brent is a cold-blooded killer. Braden and Bert aren’t much better. Who knows who else Brent has with him. We have plenty of cousins who are just as mean and bent on reviving the Briscoe gang, and any number of them could be with Brent. I know it’s him following us because of the spyglass.”
“Spyglass?” Cody asked.
“Brent once stole this gold spyglass from a shop in St. Louis. It’s for ships at sea, to help captains see far distances. He uses it to scout out banks and trains.”
“And to see into cattle drives from long distances,” Luke finished her thought. His voice was deadly calm, like he was plotting how to take the entire Briscoe gang down.
Eden twisted in his arms to face him. “However many of them there are out there, they’re deadly, Luke. They’ve killed men without batting an eyelash. It’s what they do.” She twisted back to the others. “You’re all brave and kind and strong, but you’re ranch hands, not killers.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mason said, standing. “We brought weapons. We’ll protect you.”
A chorus of agreement rose up from the others. They stood as well, searching for whatever weapons they’d brought with them. Eden was bolstered by the show, but at the same time her heart broke.
“Could you really kill a man?” she asked them.
“If they threatened you, yes,” Luke answered. “I’d kill them with my bare hands.”
Tears stung her eyes, but still she smiled. “Thank you, but I sincerely hope you don’t have to.”
“We’ve still got the herd to worry about,” Travis said, jumping into action. “The stockyard isn’t that far, from what I know. We need to keep moving forward either way.”
The others hummed in agreement.
“Can we get the cattle to a safe spot, maybe a defensible area, and wait for the Briscoe Boys?” Lawson asked.
“Looks like we’ll have to,” Travis said. “What we need is a hill of some sort.”
Travis went on, plotting where they should go and how they could set up a defensible position to protect Eden and the cattle at the same time. Eden tried to listen, but the weight of her past pressed her down. She closed her eyes and hid her face against Luke’s shoulder, asking for God’s help.
“Hey,” he whispered, rubbing her back. �
�It’ll be all right.”
“Are you sure?” she muttered.
“Sure as I’ve ever been. I may not have ever killed a man, but I’ve been in fights before.” His sudden laugh brought her head up. “Who would’ve thought that the same skills that got me in trouble half a dozen times would help me out now?”
Eden relaxed into a smile. She rested a shaky hand against the side of his face. “Taking a chance and coming out here to marry you is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
His grin filled with pride and passion. “Honey, Chance is my name. Of course you would take a chance on me.”
She shook her head at his ability to joke in such dire circumstances. But then, that’s what made her heart sing when she looked at him. She leaned closer, bringing her lips to his. He answered by kissing her with a force of passion that said more than mere words ever could. He would protect and defend her for the rest of her days, like no one ever had before.
“Right,” he said with a rumbling confidence as their kiss ended. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got a fight to plan.”
Chapter 10
Every struggle for recognition and respect that Luke had ever fought through, every bitter, grumbling thought when he wasn’t taken seriously or when jokes were made about him, vanished. He sat astride Marshall—a rifle slanted across the saddle in front of him, Eden only a few yards to his left—with his jaw set. In that moment, he didn’t give two figs what anyone thought of him. His wife was in danger, and he would protect her.
“They still there?” Billy called from behind him in drag position.
Luke and Eden both twisted in their saddles to look past the dust kicked up by the herd at the same time as Oscar did to search the horizon behind them. They’d been moving the herd forward as fast as they dared since right after breakfast. The whole lot of them had silently agreed that their best course of action was to get Eden as far away from her brothers as they could before finding a defensible position to stand and fight. Luke wanted her to ride in the chuck wagon with Mike, but she wasn’t having any of that.
The first rider had appeared behind them barely fifteen minutes after they had moved out. Two more had joined the first within an hour. Now, as Luke squinted at the horizon, there were at least six of them. Brothers and cousins, if Eden was right. Ruthless, practiced thugs.
Luke tightened his hand on the rifle. “They’re still plenty far behind us.”
He glanced across to Eden, who had her Winchester loaded and ready and her revolvers only a breath away at her belt. As much as it had ripped Luke up to see her crying and afraid as she told the heartbreaking story of her life, it filled him with pride now to see her so determined. She didn’t smile when their eyes met, but she did nod with all the confidence of a woman who would rather die than return to the hell of her past.
Ahead of them, Travis and Lawson were riding at point. Luke was too far away to make out what they were saying to each other over the steady thunder of the herd, but he could tell by the expressions they both wore that they were worried. Of all the times for the land they traveled across to be flat and barren as far as the eye could see, this was the worst. They needed a hill. They needed a stream, trees, anything that could provide cover and keep the cattle out of the way.
“How much money will Mr. Haskell lose if the cattle don’t make it to the stockyard?” Eden asked, sensing the problem that only added to their worries.
“More than I’m worth,” Luke replied, scanning the tense herd.
“Aw, come on, Luke. You’re worth far more than that to me.”
Her reply was stilted and her smile didn’t hold, but the very fact that she had tried to make a joke stuck like a bone in Luke’s throat.
“Eden Chance, you are far and away the bravest woman I’ve ever met,” he told her, loud and sure.
Her cheeks flushed pink, and this time her smile held. “Does it still count as bravery if you have no choice?”
“Yes.” Luke winked at her. “In fact, I think it counts double because you have no choice.”
Her smile turned watery. “I can’t believe that I’ve known you for less than a week, but already I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
And that was another thing he was coming to learn about women, about this woman in particular. She could say the most beautiful things and still have them cut him like a knife.
“Sweetheart, next summer, you and I are gonna sit on the porch of our new house, rocking our baby and laughing about how we drove cattle and escaped crazy Uncle Brent on our honeymoon.”
Eden made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Let’s not confuse the little ’uns by calling him ‘Uncle Brent,’ okay?”
Luke shook his head, his expression turning deadly. “Well it’s not appropriate to call him what I’d like to call him around children.”
Eden huffed with unsteady laughter, then brushed at her face, blinking. Even though he knew better, Luke chose to tell himself she just had dust in her eyes. She was far too heroic for anything else.
“Luke!” The call came from Travis at the front of the herd. “Get up here!”
Luke waved at Travis, then turned to Eden. “You okay here on your own for a bit?”
“Yeah,” she answered with a nod.
Luke twisted in his saddle to gesture to Oscar anyhow. As Oscar adjusted his position from drag to somewhere between the back and the right flank, Luke kicked Marshall to a run up to the front of the herd. “What’s going on?”
Travis sighed and rubbed his dirty face. None of them had had time to wash up, and with the dust from the herd, they looked like vagabonds. “I don’t see any hills,” he said.
“Nope.” There was no sense beating around the bush when there weren’t any bushes either.
“What I do see is half a dozen men closing in on is from behind.”
Luke clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on his rifle and his reins. “Yep.”
Travis paused before going on with, “We’ve got to do something.”
“I agree, but what?” Luke asked.
It was impossible to stop and confer with the size of the herd and the way they plodded on. Even the cattle sensed that something was wrong. Rather than walk steadily, their eyes were wide and they lowed more than usual. They’d been gathering in strays from the edges of the herd all day. Now that the sun was high in the sky, they were hot and tired to boot.
“I don’t know,” Travis admitted. “We can’t be far from the stockyard, but I don’t see any sign of a town or civilization nearby.”
“We’re out in the middle of nowhere, that’s for sure,” Lawson added.
Knowing they were right didn’t help the situation. Luke glanced over his shoulder as much as he could while his horse kept moving. Eden had gone to chase after three cows that had veered to the right. Over on the other side, Mason and Cody had their hands full keeping the left flank from wandering off. They were all working too hard just to keep the herd in line, let alone to formulate a plan to take on the Briscoe Boys. Luke could still make them out beyond the cloud of dust lingering behind the herd. Worse still, they looked to be closer.
“We can’t just skip along and wait for them to catch up to us,” Luke said, half thinking aloud. “We need to be the ones who take this fight to them. For Eden’s sake.”
“I agree,” Travis said. “But how?”
Luke rubbed the dirt and sweat off his face and looked around at what they had. Not much. A couple hundred cattle and a whole mess of open land. They were out in the open, exposed. He’d be a fool to think that Eden was the only one of the Briscoes who was a good shot. All her brothers needed to do was get close enough to fire a rifle, and they’d be in trouble.
As if someone back there could hear his thoughts, a blast of smoke appeared near one of the pursuing riders. A moment later, a whizzing thud hit the dirt behind some of the cattle near the back of the herd on the left. A few bellowed and made a break for it.
“To the right, th
e right!” Travis called as Billy raced forward and Mason hung back to gather the terrified beasts in. They managed to steer the cows back into the herd, but the entire bunch of cattle on the left flank was now agitated.
“The last thing we need now is a stampede,” Travis grumbled.
Luke scowled at the thought. His heart pounded at the very thought of trying to control a rampaging mess of cattle while also evading a pack of killers. It would be complete chaos. The noise and the dust alone would—
As the idea hit him, Luke’s jaw dropped open. He blinked as he twisted the other way in his saddle to check on Eden. She was moving smoothly to the side of the right flank. Oscar was shadowing her. Farther behind, her brothers were closing the gap, slowly but surely.
“Stampede.” Luke nudged Marshall to take him closer to Travis. “We need a stampede.”
“Are you nuts?” Travis growled. “The herd would scatter. It would be madness. There wouldn’t be enough of us to—” He stopped, and his eyes went round.
Luke nodded. “Scare the cattle and get them running every which way. The faster the better. We start them running in a circle, move them to the right. We’ll keep Eden on the other side, in the middle if we have to.”
Travis shook his head. “She could be trampled.”
“She knows how to ride. She could keep out of their way. The cattle will act as a shield, stopping her brothers from getting to her,” Luke continued with his plan.
“They can still shoot at her,” Lawson worried.
“They can try, but they’ll have the rest of us charging right at them.”
“Not to mention a herd of terrified cattle,” Travis finished the thought.
“They might have the advantage when it comes to willingness to kill,” Luke went on, “but I’m willing to bet they’ve never faced a stampede. We have. All of us but Eden know how to handle that kind of mess, and so do our horses.”