by Carol Arens
In horror he watched Melinda slide off her horse at the same time Leland King galloped into the yard.
* * *
Melinda’d had every intention of staying in the wagon. Then, fifteen minutes out, she’d heard gunfire.
It had come from the east—from the homestead. Clearly, the wagon was not being followed.
But unless Boone had help, it would be. If their protector was overcome, they all would be, as well.
No one would be safe unless the Kings were dealt with at the homestead.
Boone would not be happy about her decision, but she’s spun her horse around and urged it toward the homestead at a full run.
Charging into the yard, she didn’t see Boone. She slipped off the horse, shouting his name.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Walker.”
Startled, Melinda turned.
The snake charmer sat upon his horse, his forearm resting across his saddle horn, an indulgent smile upon his handsome face.
“As it is to see you.” Melinda felt reassured by the weight of the gun in her skirt pocket, but she didn’t dare pull it out and begin firing. Even if she did not hesitate, he would be faster. “Our last meeting was interrupted in such a distressing way. I trust the dog didn’t wound you too terribly. I would be devastated if that were the case.”
His jaw tensed but the false smile continued to slither across his face.
Dread shot a chill up her neck. Where was Boone? Had Leland beaten her here, taken him by surprise?
“Don’t give it a thought. It was well worth the cost of making your lovely acquaintance.”
He made no move to dismount but rather stared down at her. No doubt behind the wink he just stabbed at her, he was frightened of encountering Billbro.
She was almost relieved to hear hoofbeats coming out from behind the house, if only to end this cat-and-mouse trifling. Putting on a charming front was more than she was up to.
It would be ever so much more productive if she could simply draw her gun and fire it.
“Can’t find my Trudy gal anywhere.”
Productive and satisfying.
Lump circled into her line of vision. He reminded her of a maggot, all white and squirmy.
“Take this one instead.” Leland grinned at his brother. “She’s more a woman than that other one, anyway.”
“Not instead—but before—then at the same time.” The maggot licked his lips. “You and me together, Leland?”
“Together, little brother. But it’s a shame, really.” Leland shook his head slowly from side to side. “Pure loveliness put to such dastardly use.”
The pair of them began to circle their horses, sweeping around her in an ever-tightening circle. She clenched her fists, raised her chin and squared her shoulders because she was so very frightened. Instinct told her that running would only make things happen quicker, before she had time to devise a plan of escape—if there was one.
“I’ll tie the girlies to that post over yonder. One on each side to make sure they don’t get away. We can just mate around and around, like they’s one but with twice as many lady parts.”
“When one wears out...” Leland’s laugh echoed across the yard. “We’ve still got the other.”
Lump’s horse trotted from her line of vision. Leland reappeared, his eyes grazing her, his expression speculative. He drew his pistol and pointed it at her face.
“Where’s your husband?”
Her shoulders nearly slipped with relief but she held them firm. If Leland had to ask where Boone was, he hadn’t killed him.
“That scoundrel left me high and dry. One would think I meant no more to him than a flea.”
Lump reappeared.
“Where’s my woman?”
“Clearly, Trudy did mean more to Boone than a flea. He took her with him. They rode west hours ago.”
“Is that why you were just hollering for him?” Leland circled once more into her line of vision.
Blast! She had been doing that. It was unlike her to miss such a detail.
“Not for. At! Put yourself in my place. You can only imagine how angry I am.”
He didn’t believe her. Although she suspected that Lump did because he began to turn his horse’s head toward the west.
Suddenly, Efrin and Buck galloped into the yard. They joined the circle. The four of them revolved around her at a distance of only twenty feet.
The steady clop of sixteen hooves in the mud, going round and round, was unnerving. She wanted to scream, to roll up in a ball and cover her head.
Instead she reached into her pocket and curled her fingers around her weapon.
Instantly, Efrin and Lump drew their pistols, pointed them at her. Laughing, Leland wagged his polished gun at her. Even in the dark she saw its wicked gleam.
Buck sat tall in his saddle with a shotgun across his lap. He wasn’t looking at her but at his oldest brother.
“Where is Walker?” Efrin demanded.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth, she didn’t know.
Efrin fired at the mud. The hem of her skirt stirred when the bullet brushed it.
Even though it was past midnight, she was not swallowed up by the dark. She was as exposed as a hatchling tumbled from its nest.
The brothers followed Efrin’s lead, taking shots that exploded in the mud and put holes in the ruffle of her skirt.
Without warning, something hit her back. A vision of mud rushed at her face. A heavy body crushed the breath out of her.
Boone! Nearly suffocating from the weight pressing her down, she squirmed, elbowed him in the ribs.
He lifted up on his forearms, giving her the space to drag in a gasping breath.
“You fools are under arrest. Throw your weapons on the ground.” Melinda felt Boone’s order rumble against her back.
Efrin laughed, but nervously. Leland chuckled. Lump and Buck remained silent.
After the false humor ran out, they resumed their deadly game of sniping.
Peeking out from under Boone’s armpit, she saw red flashes erupting from the tips of the King’s pistols. Mud splattered on Boone from the impact of the bullets.
The outlaws were toying with them. Taunting them with the certainty of imminent death.
The game changed when Boone drew his gun and fired back.
She plucked the pistol from her pocket, took aim on Lump then pulled the trigger. Missed. Hitting a moving target was a far different thing than knocking a can from a post.
Panic closed her throat because she and Boone were sedentary, stuck in the mud. It was unlikely that she would be the first wounded, not with her husband a living bulwark on top of her.
But only living for the moment.
She pointed her gun again, this time at Efrin because he had reined in his horse to grin down at them, to make sure they knew that the shot he was sighting on Boone would be the lethal one. With her finger on the trigger, she drew a bead on his heart.
All she had to do was squeeze. The man would be dead. One less villain intent on murder. She could do it. She took a breath, stuffed down the natural revulsion of—
Efrin blew backward out of his saddle. He hit the ground. Rolling and groaning, he crawled toward the open barn door.
Boone had warned her about that half second of hesitation. Had it been up to her to bring down Efrin, Boone would have been killed.
“I’m going to stand up,” Boone’s voice rasped in her ear. “When I do, run for the house.”
An instant later the pressure lifted from her back. She pushed up from the mud, ran.
Boone must be backing up behind her. She heard his gun firing.
She felt a thud hit her boot along with a flash of heat. She would have to see later if she ha
d been wounded. It didn’t hurt but, she’d learned from Lantree, that sometimes shock blocked pain.
With a backward glance she saw Lump slide off his horse, flail on the ground holding his belly. His screech was unnerving but stopped when he went suddenly still.
Rushing up the front steps, she tripped on her skirt. On hands and knees she scrambled toward the door. Wood splintered around her but she made it inside.
“Boone!” she called into the dim interior. There was no sound, no voice or rustle of clothing to indicate that he had followed her inside.
Rushing to the window, she pushed aside the curtain.
She saw him in profile, standing on the porch. His rifle lifted to his shoulder while he fired into the darkness.
In the distance she heard a mule braying. Too great a distance, she feared, to help Boone.
Chapter Fifteen
With Melinda in the house, the front porch was the worst place he could be. While shooting at him they might easily hit her.
He leaped over the porch rail, ran to the center of the yard, his rifle at the ready even though his bullets were spent.
Buck and Leland circled him.
A mule brayed but was still some distance from the house.
Watching the brothers go ’round and ’round, their murderous intentions evident even in the dark, he hoped that Stanley would be delayed.
Smythe had given a lot to secure Boone’s future; it wouldn’t be right for him to have to watch his client die. To watch his friend cut down.
But with no ammunition left and two killers eyeing him, that was likely to happen.
Not that he meant to roll over and allow it to occur without a fight. For the one thing, Melinda was watching through the window.
At the least, if he could disable Leland before he went down, it would give Melinda and Stanley a fair shot at Buck.
“Throw your weapons down. Raise your hands in the air,” he demanded but couldn’t figure why they should do it.
With things going in their favor, the Kings quit shooting. No doubt to prolong his execution. They were having far too much fun, whooping and cackling, to let it end quickly.
“I believe I’ll reload instead.” Buck made a show of lazily opening the chamber of his shotgun, casually inspecting each bullet as he dropped it in. “This one here’s for your shoulder. This one? It’s for your knee. Ah, here’s one for your gut and—”
The show of bravado turned out to be a mistake because a snarling, snapping blur of angry canine burst out of the darkness.
Buck’s horse reared, unseating him. The animal took off across open land before his rider had his foot clear of the stirrup.
Buck was visible for a moment while being dragged into the darkness. It took a mite longer for his screams to fade into the distance.
Billbro raced for the house and Melinda.
Leland aimed his gun at Boone’s chest, pulled the trigger. An impotent click erupted instead of a bullet.
Leland tried to reload, but Boone was damned if he was going to wait for that.
He charged, dragged Leland from the saddle.
Locking his arm around King’s neck, he slammed him down, heard him grunt when they both hit the ground. Boone knocked the gun away with a backward blow of his hand. It sailed into the dark.
Leland was strong; giving back all that Boone gave him. A blow to the gut for one on the face. A knee to the back for an elbow in the ribs. They were equally matched and his opponent showed no sign of tiring.
Amid the grunts, curses and the slaps of fists on flesh, Boone heard the front door open.
“Get back!” he shouted. But short of Melinda tripping on a rock in the dark, she would rush to help.
He’d need to bring Leland to heel now. The trouble was, his enemy was every bit of the scrapper that Boone was, and he had the advantage of being a remorseless killer.
But Boone was defending someone he loved.
On the fringe of his awareness, he dimly heard the dog barking.
Leland took the advantage when Boone tripped on a rock and went down. He fell upon Boone, shoved his jaw up and to the side, forcing his gaze upon the porch.
Melinda was trying to come down the steps but Billbro blocked her way.
Seeing his wife’s face, he knew she was screaming, but all he heard was the clamor of battle. Odd, that it was silent and roaring all at one time.
All of a sudden something stung his neck. A warm trickle dripped down his throat. Hell, Leland must have a blade!
With his head being crushed into the mud, Boone’s gaze was locked on Melinda’s horrified expression, on the dog turning away from the porch, charging toward him with saliva and blood dripping from his muzzle. On Stanley’s frantic dash across the yard.
The hell if this is how he was going to die, murdered in view of those who loved him.
With a prayer for strength, he shoved his knee into Leland’s belly and bit the hand holding his jaw. The movement only made the prick on his neck feel like a burning gash.
Then the knife was no longer at his throat. He scrambled out from under King’s weight in time to see the blade arch toward the lawyer’s back.
Boone buried his balled fist in Leland’s throat, but too late. The knife’s arch was only deflected.
A crimson splotch blossomed from under Stanley’s coat at the shoulder.
Leland lay in an unconscious heap. The deputy stood over him, watching with bared teeth in case the man was fool enough to come to.
* * *
Boone lifted Melinda off her feet and, even with his breathing fast, labored from the fight, wrapped her in a great hug. She could not squeeze him back tight enough.
Sometime during the clash, the wind had come up and blown the storm east. She had not even been aware of the change until the breeze stirred her hair.
When she opened her eyes and glanced past Boone’s shoulder, she saw their moon-cast shadows as one on the mud.
“We’re alive.” Otherwise they would not be casting shadows. Boone’s skin wouldn’t smell damp with sweat. Her belly would not be dizzy with joy.
“I’d better see if everyone else is.” Boone set her on her feet then kissed her one more time before he turned to see to the grim business.
“Wait!” She touched his arm then his throat. There was a fair amount of blood but the wound was not as bad as it might have been. “It’s not so horrible.”
Stanley was alive. More than alive, really. He was actually beaming as he poked at the sticky red stain on the shoulder of his coat.
“You won’t be so pleased if I need to stitch it up,” she warned him. “Let me fetch a lantern from the house and we’ll see.”
She could go in the house to take care of Stanley’s needs, but even with the outlaws disabled, she did not want to leave Boone alone with them.
“You know how to apply sutures?”
She shrugged. “I’ve seen it done.”
All of a sudden Stanley’s bravado faded.
“There, Boone’s just brought a lantern out of the barn. Let’s have a look-see out here.” The dog-wolf trotted between her and Stanley while they walked toward the barn, wagging his great tail then stopping to shake the leftover raindrops from his fur. “Oh, and he’s dragging Edwin King behind him.”
“He doesn’t look dead.”
Lamentably, the dark side of her nature observed, he did not. What he did look is spitting angry that Boone had tied him up and propped him against the barn.
He did not appear regal by any standard. He looked to be who he really was: a wicked man. If she imagined it just right, she could see his black heart sputtering in his chest.
Next, Boone tied up Leland and dropped him beside his brother. He was only now beginning to moan and come to aware
ness.
Last, Boone secured Lump with a coarse rope. Dragging him across the mud, he deposited him beside his brothers.
“Not a mortal wound, but it will change his life,” Boone announced.
Seeing the three of them helpless—their evil contained—Melinda was able to relax for the first time in...oh, she couldn’t think of when. Probably since Judge Mathers had proposed this misadventure.
Melinda snuggled under his arm while they looked down on the disabled criminals. She hugged him tight.
“You did it, Boone. You captured them without killing a single one. Not, of course, that they didn’t have it coming.” She was so proud of him she felt as if she might burst out of her soggy dress. “You’re a free man.”
“I will be.” He pressed her shoulder to pull her even closer. She felt his lungs expand against her side. “I’ve still got to go after Buck.”
“Not without me.” Stanley tested his shoulder by rolling it in a circular motion. He grinned. “Only a scratch.”
It had to be more than a scratch. No doubt he was pleased as punch, the threat of stitches not withstanding.
Lump must have just noticed the severity and the location of his own wound and realized for the first time that he would be neutered, because he began to squeal. The high-pitched screech probably hurt Billbro’s ears because he set to howling.
“Shut your face!” She was certain that Leland intended to shout at his brother, but with his throat half crushed all he managed was a croak.
All at once Efrin’s gaze sharpened, he sat up straight.
Curiously he began to smile—no, not smile, smirk.
“Shoot ’em, Buck! Every disrespectful one of them.”
Boone spun around, shoving Melinda behind him.
Peeking out from behind his arm, she spotted Buck limping into the lamplight, his shotgun gripped tight in his fist.
“Sittin’ there all trussed up like a hog, and you’re still giving orders, big brother?”
“Shoot her first. Then once he’s licking her brains off his face, slit his throat.”
Buck chuckled, shook his head. “The devil take you, Efrin.”
Boone moved her more fully behind him. She pressed her face against his back and squeezed her eyes shut.