by Merry Farmer
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.”
“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.
“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 Ten
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 damn choice?”
“Hell, 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, the 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.”
“Their horses will panic.” Lawson’s face lit up. “Let’s do it.”
Luke glanced to Travis. Eden was his and the idea was his, but for all intents and purposes, the cattle were Travis’s. A real leader knew when to rely on the strengths of others.
“We’ll need an insane amount of luck for this to work,” Travis said, but already Luke could see the flash of decision in his eyes.
“We’ll make our own luck.” Luke nodded.
The plan was set. Travis nodded and sent Lawson off to the left to let Mason and Cody know. Luke adjusted his hat to sit tight on his head, then turned and circled around to ride back to Eden’s side. Behind them, the Briscoe Boys were closer still, so close Luke was beginning to be able to tell them apart. He gestured for Oscar to ride up and join them.
“We haven’t got much time,” he said, fast and serious. “We’re going to start a stampede. Turn them to the right, confuse the Briscoes. Eden, stay behind the herd or inside of the circle once they start to run themselves out.”
“But I can fight,” she said. “I’ve got my guns.”
And Luke didn’t believe for a moment that she would use them against her own brothers, no matter how evil they were. “Can you shoot from the saddle? Over a distance?”
“Yeah,” she admitted.
“Then do what you do best. Pick them off from a distance, and let us go in close.”
Panic stretched the lines of her face. “Luke, if you end up in danger, if you get hurt—”
“Then I know you’ve got my back,” he finished. “You’ve always got my back.”
Her lips worked, pursing and opening like she had more to say, but she kept it to herself. At last, she nodded.
“What if we—”
Oscar’s question was snapped off as one of the Briscoes fired another shot at the herd. It ricocheted off the ground and bit into one of the cattle’s backsides. The injured animal let out a horrific cry and bolted forward. All of the cows around it panicked and burst into action as well. Oscar cursed under his breath, but Luke grinned with fatal humor.
“Nice of them to get things started for us,” he growled, ready to fight. “Let’s go!”
If the constant walking of the cattle that Eden has listened to for the last few days was like rumbling around her, the moment the herd broke into a run, stampeding, it was like thunder every way she turned. It was only right. Every time she’d looked over her shoulder for the last hour—making out first Braden and Bert’s faces, then Brent himself, then several of her cousins—she had felt the approaching storm. That didn’t prepare her for the terror of over two hundred cattle rampaging.
“Get around them!” Luke shouted. He waved and pointed to both her and Oscar.
She hesitated for only a second before kicking her horse to a run through the swirling cloud of dust in back of the charging herd. One minute the bulk of the herd had been right beside her, the next it was almost completely in front of her. She didn’t have time to yank up the scarf around her neck to cover her face and ended up tasting dirt, breathing it in.
There wasn’t time to be distracted by coughing either. Shots fired from the back of the cloud, and by the time she made it through and twisted to get her bearings, the Briscoe Boys had launched into a full gallop, guns blazing. She recognized Bert’s whooping cry, Brent’s wordless shouts. Her blood ra
n cold, but the ice turned to steel in her veins.
Gripping her Winchester for all she was worth, she tugged on her reins to turn her horse toward the front of the stampede. Luke had told her to get in front of it, to use the herd as a shield once they were able to get the cattle to turn and circle around. Frustrating though it was, her life had been saved by doing exactly what Brent said more times than she wanted to count. It was better to listen to Luke than to go rogue.
She questioned that thought almost as soon as she had it. As more gunshots fired—some from ahead of her now—confusion rose up to choke her more than dust. Everything was a blur of movement. The thick, black and brown bodies of the cows blended with clouds of dust. She couldn’t make out who was riding or even what direction they were riding in as her friends zipped past her, hollering. All she could do was point her horse forward, keeping the speeding chuck wagon in sight as a guide, and hope it knew where to take her.
“Eden, this way!”
Luke’s shout snapped her out of growing panic. She risked sticking her head up to find him. He rode far to the side, shouting and waving his arms at the cattle. When had they ridden so far in front of the herd?
It didn’t matter. Through the confusion, she could see Travis and Lawson up ahead, shouting and gesturing like wild men. It made no sense. Then again, the lead cattle were beginning to veer to the right.
Purpose caught hold in Eden’s brain once more, and she urged her horse to gallop on to the back of the growing curve. She sailed past Luke, and then Mason, who pulled their mounts up and charged for the back of the stampede. There was so much noise that Eden couldn’t make out what was the thunder of cattle and what was gunshot and shouting. All she knew was that she had to get in back of the herd.
By the time she galloped past Travis, the majority of the cattle at the back had arced into a huge curve. She could just make out Lawson—on the far side of that curve now—urging the beasts to run in a circle. They followed his direction—miraculously—turning and turning in on themselves until the force of so much forward motion swerved in on itself in a spiral. Eden gasped as the cattle in the center of the circle ground to a stop, standing and lowing as if nothing were out of the ordinary.