by Linda Howard
Sophie put her head over the top of the stall, and down at the far end of the barn Victoria could see the stallion’s well-formed head, showing as a dark shadow rather than the red she knew it to be. How much better it would have been if the double doors at that end of the barn had opened into a free pasture rather than a series of corrals and pens, but they did, which meant she would have to drive the stallion back the entire length of the barn.
She knew she couldn’t shoot the horse. As much as she hated him, she couldn’t put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Jake was right; he was a dumb animal. She could have shot him in self-defense or to defend anyone from an immediate attack, but not otherwise.
“You’re safe from me,” she whispered as she approached his stall, “as long as you don’t start in my direction. Do you hear me, horse? Then I will kill you.”
His ears went back and he watched her with unconcealed hostility. He began stamping, one hoof thudding down repeatedly. In her stall Sophie whinnied and kicked out, sensing the stallion’s agitation.
Victoria gripped the pistol in her right hand and used both thumbs to pull the hammer back and cock it. She had to be ready in case he did charge at her. Then she unlatched the stall door and pulled it open, backing up with it, keeping the sturdy wood between her and the horse at all times.
He screamed and backed farther into the stall. “Get out,” she hissed. She never wanted to see the stallion again. She had thought about it and in her exhaustion arrived at the truth: she couldn’t live on this ranch if Rubio remained. The hate would fester, and every time she saw him she would remember that he’d killed her sister.
He reared, screaming shrilly again. “Go on, get out!” Victoria yelled. She grabbed a length of bridle from the wall, swinging it over the stall at him. “Get out!”
He bolted out of the stall and down the center of the barn, but halted midway, hooves stamping. His ears were still back and he reared, turning to face her. Victoria braced the gun on top of the stall door. “Come on, then,” she whispered.
He screamed and ran for freedom, hooves thundering in the night. Other horses all over the ranch were awake now, kicking and whinnying. Lights were appearing as candles and lamps were lit, men were spilling out of the bunkhouse pulling on their pants and stomping their feet into boots. Victoria was half-frozen and wobbling with exhaustion as she left the barn after extinguishing the lantern. It was all she could do to push the double doors together again and fasten them.
Jake was running toward her with Ben right behind him. Both of them were armed, pistols in hand. When he saw her with his other pistol in her hand, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “What did you do?” he yelled.
“I let him go,” she said simply, and handed Jake his pistol.
He shoved it into the empty holster. “You what?” Equal amounts of rage and incredulousness were in his voice.
“I let him go. I couldn’t live here with him safe and sound in the barn and Celia in a grave. You’ll have to make do with the foals he’s already sired.”
He swore violently, then shut up when he looked down at her. She was as white as her nightgown and shivering with cold; she had only a shawl thrown around her to protect her from the weather. She swayed, and he picked her up. “All right, darling,” he said in a far gentler tone. “All right.” He carried her back to the house and put her to bed. For the first time since Celia’s death, she went soundly to sleep.
March came, bringing hints of spring that lasted just long enough to make them all start hoping. Victoria was awkward and slow-moving, unable to get up out of a chair by herself. She hadn’t recovered her spirits, but was able to smile a little when Jake teased her. Her bulk had its own dampening effect on her moods; her back ached constantly now and she was unable to find a comfortable position for sleeping. The baby had settled so low that she found it difficult even to walk. If only this pregnancy would end! She found herself even looking forward to labor, for it would mean an end to this constant physical wretchedness.
Jake had never particularly considered himself a family man, despite the fact that he was now married and increasingly in love with his wife. It was with some surprise that he realized he was staying close to the house these days, just in case. He rubbed her back for her every night, and helped her out of bed for her numerous nightly visits to the chamberpot. The size of her belly alarmed him, for he knew how slender her hips were. Angelina had died in childbirth; he was terrified that the same might happen to Victoria.
The last of March came and went. Everyone watched her like a hawk. The third of April, it began snowing again and Victoria felt like screaming with frustration. Would spring and this baby never get here?
She couldn’t sleep that night; she was more restless than usual, and the sheets kept tangling about her legs. Jake rubbed her back, but it didn’t help. She got up to wash her face with cool water, and he got up with her. Since the night she had sneaked out to the barn and let Rubio go, she hadn’t been able to stir without disturbing him. Neither of them bothered to light a candle; the snowfall filled the room with a pale, unearthly light and she was able to see quite well though everything was without color.
Suddenly Jake stiffened. She sensed his alertness and looked at him. He was staring out the window. She looked out the window, too, but could see nothing. “Get dressed,” he said sharply, and reached for his pants. “Don’t light any candles or lamps.” He had barely buttoned his pants before he was out the door, buckling his guns around his lean waist.
He called down the hallway, “Ben. Riders.”
Ben sat up in bed at the first sound of Jake’s voice, disturbing Emma who had been sleeping on his arm. “Get up, honey,” he said in a quiet, level voice. “We have trouble.”
He was already up and pulling on his pants before she pushed the hair out of her eyes, but his urgency was contagious. She grabbed her nightgown and pulled it on over her head, shivering as the chill struck her bare body.
“Who is it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Victoria would need her. Emma dashed out of the room ahead of Ben, who was putting on his boots, and ran to her own room, which had been largely unoccupied these past couple of months. She didn’t know what had kept her from completely moving in with Ben, because certainly no one had been censorious of their relationship. In fact, in the sadness following Celia’s death, they had all pulled closer together, and Emma’s happiness had seemed to cheer Victoria.
Victoria had never been more aware of her ungainly bulk than she was now, when she was trying to hurry. Jake was back in the bedroom a heartbeat after calling to Ben, putting on his boots, shrugging into a shirt but not taking the time to button it. He grabbed his heavy coat on the way out the door a second time. Over his shoulder he said, “Damn it, Victoria, get dressed!”
She was trying. She didn’t bother to remove her nightgown, but pulled on one of her loose dresses over it. Emma came in, dressed herself, as Victoria was struggling to put on her stockings and shoes. “I’ll do it,” Emma whispered, going down on her knees and rolling the stockings up Victoria’s legs. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Jake saw something and told Ben there were riders.”
They listened, but couldn’t hear anything. When they went downstairs they found that the men had roused the rest of the household, and the three other women were standing in their nightgowns in a terrified knot. Jake tossed Ben a rifle, then gave Victoria and Emma an assessing glance. “Both of you get a rifle and find a place where you have plenty of cover but can see to shoot. I’m going down to the bunkhouse to wake up the men.”
“I’m going down to the bunkhouse,” Ben corrected, and both of them thought of Victoria, heavily pregnant. It was better that Jake stay with her.
Before he slipped out the door, Ben put his hand behind Emma’s neck and pulled her to him for a quick, hard kiss. It wasn’t until he was gone that she realized he had kissed her good-bye, just in case.
“What’s happening?” Victoria asked calmly.
“I saw a light where there shouldn’t have been one. Someone lit a cigarette, probably.”
“What makes you think it was more than one man?”
“Experience.” He shoved a handful of shells in each pocket and pushed the box toward them. “Fill up your pockets. Carmita, can any of you shoot?”
“Yes, Señor Jake,” she said. “I can, and so can Juana.”
“And I,” Lola said.
“Good. All of you, get a rifle. It may be nothing, but by God if it’s something we’ll be ready for them.”
“Indians?” Juana posed timidly.
“No. Indians would never have made that light.”
White men. Raiders.
Emma watched the door by which Ben had left, willing him to come back through it.
The first shot made them all jump, except for Jake. He ran toward the front of the house and broke out a window with the stock of his rifle. “Find cover!” he yelled.
They scrambled for positions. “Coming in!” Ben yelled from outside, and the door burst open. He came in low, running, and was followed by five other men. “Thought you could use some extra guns in here,” he said. Luis was one of them, his lean, dark face more alive than it had been in two months.
The women went upstairs, their hearts pounding as they chose windows. Following Jake’s example, Victoria smashed the glass out with her rifle and cold air poured in. “At least I won’t go to sleep,” she mumbled.
The barrage of shooting opened all at once, and it seemed like it came from all directions. The house echoed with shots and the sharp smell of cordite burned her nostrils. She peered out the window, searching for a target. She could see dark shapes moving around and chose the ones on horseback; their men wouldn’t be mounted, she reasoned.
A man on foot raised his head from behind a bush and aimed at the house. Victoria carefully aimed and pulled the trigger. The man fell back in a boneless sprawl.
She had killed a man. It left her surprisingly unmoved. Later, perhaps, would be time for reaction.
There were more shots from the upper floor now, and the others began picking their targets. Victoria shot at a man on horseback, but missed.
A cry of pain came from one of the bedrooms. Victoria started, but didn’t dare leave her post. “Emma?” she called.
“I’m fine! Carmita? Lola? Juana?”
Everyone answered except Lola. Victoria heard a low moan.
Just then an orange glow flickered across the white ground. A man galloped toward the house, a blazing torch in his right hand. Terror struck Victoria’s heart. They were trying to burn the house! She shot the man in the face and he tumbled backward off the horse, the torch flying from his hand and sputtering out in the snow.
Bullets struck the adobe walls and shattered what little glass was left in the window. Shards rained down on her ducked head. When she lifted it again, she saw another man carrying a flaming torch die before he could throw it at the house.
The adobe walls would be difficult to burn, she thought, as would the clay tile roof, but what if a torch came through one of the glassless windows?
She fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded, for what seemed like hours. Her entire body felt squeezed by a great fist. Terror ate at her, because she didn’t know if Jake was still alive or if a bullet had found him.
Emma ran into the room, bent low. “Lola’s dead, and Juana has been wounded, but not bad. She’s still shooting.”
“What about Jake? And Ben?”
“I heard Jake downstairs. I don’t know about Ben.” Agony was in Emma’s voice. Victoria squeezed her hand.
“Who is doing this?” Victoria moaned. Every muscle in her was aching. She didn’t know how much longer she could stay on her feet.
“I don’t know. It should be dawn soon. At least then we’ll be able to see.”
Dawn. Had that much time passed? It had seemed like forever, but at the same time she would have measured it in minutes instead of hours.
She caught the acrid smell of smoke.
“Get water!” she yelled. “Fire! Get water!” She grabbed the pitcher of water from the table and ran out into the hallway. Pale smoke was drifting up the stairs. She ran down them, bending over as far as she could. Someone rose up in front of her, a face from hell. It was Jake, his face blackened with gunsmoke.
“Get down!” he yelled.
“The house is on fire!”
He cursed and swung around. None of them had noticed the smoke, but now they could see it coming from the kitchen. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the floor. “Stay here, do you hear me? Stay here! I’m going to get the others. We’ll have to get out of here!”
How could they? They would run into a hail of bullets outside. But as Jake had said, they had to get out. They couldn’t fight the fire and the raiders at the same time.
The smoke was getting thicker. She began ripping squares out of her skirt and soaking them in water from the pitcher she had grabbed. Ben crawled up beside her, grinning like a fiend. She hit him in the face with a sodden piece of material. “Tie that over your nose and mouth,” she said. Her throat was burning, and she obeyed her own instructions.
“Is Emma all right?” Ben grunted.
“Yes. Jake has gone up to get them. Lola’s dead.”
Ben called the five other men together, and they pulled back from their positions as Jake came down the stairs with the three women. Victoria gave them all wet squares to cover their faces. Jake hunkered down beside her as he tied the cloth over his mouth and nose.
“We’ll go out through the courtyard,” he said, his voice muffled. “It’s the only way that’ll give us any protection. I’ll go out first, then another man, then the women. The rest of you come after the women and cover them.”
Luis said, “We have to get word to Lonny, or our own men are liable to shoot us.”
“We don’t have time. Go, now!”
Jake dragged Victoria to her feet and down the hall to one of the courtyard entrances. “We’ll take you to the smithy,” he said. “It’s closest.”
The smithy was just a three-sided shed, equipped with the basic blacksmith tools, but it had the advantage of being directly behind the house. They would have some shelter there, but not much.
Jake went out first. He saw a muzzle flash as someone fired, the bullet singing close by his head with the sound of an angry hornet. He fired but must have missed because he saw a shadow dodging to the side. He fired at the shadow, and this time was rewarded by a howl of pain that swiftly disintegrated into silence.
Behind him he could hear Victoria breathing in hard, quick gasps as the smoke got thicker. Then he heard Luis, who came out after him, his dark eyes flashing in the light of the flames that were beginning to flicker through the roof. “Get your wife,” he said to Jake. “I’ll guard you.”
Jake put his arm around Victoria’s back and ran. She tried to stay up with him but stumbled, and he held her up with the sheer force of his arm, keeping himself between her and the most likely line of fire. “I can make it, just watch your back!” she gasped.
“Don’t talk, just run!”
The men behind them were firing steadily, snapping off shots at anyone who moved. From the bunkhouse and stable came a furious volley, as someone spotted the women trying to flee the house and laid down covering fire so they could reach safety. Bullets zinged overhead, but they ran and ducked and weaved, never giving anyone a steady target.
Jake made it to the smithy with Victoria and placed her on the ground at the back of the shed. He was already turning around to leave her as he said, “Stay down. Don’t raise your head for anything.” Then he took up position beside Luis, picking his shots and snapping them off, firing for effect rather than cover.
Emma tumbled into the smithy in a tangle of skirts, but she quickly got to her hands and knees and crawled to Victoria, swearing as the cloth tangled her legs again. Illogically, Victoria lau
ghed at hearing those sort of words leaving Emma’s proper mouth. Emma looked up and grinned. Most of her dark hair had come loose from its braid, and her pale skin was smeared with soot and gunpowder. “Well,” she said, “there’s no point in worrying about manners right now.”
“I agree.” Victoria laughed again, a bit disoriented. They had both killed tonight, so why worry about propriety?
Carmita and Juana scrambled in after them. Juana was bleeding from a cut high on her shoulder where a splinter of glass had sliced through the air. She sank down on the ground, still clutching a rifle in her hand.
Ben’s left leg was suddenly knocked out from under him, and he went down as abruptly as if he had been tripped. Emma made a high, thin sound and despite Jake’s shouted warning darted out of the shelter.
Ben was already rolling over, trying to get his good leg under him, when Emma slid into the snow beside him. She grabbed his collar and began dragging him, screaming and crying and swearing all at the same time. He was swearing, too, yelling at Emma to let go of him and get the hell back into the smithy, but she refused. Her strength amazed him. Though he far outweighed her, she dug her heels in and pulled and there was nothing he could do to stop her, no way he could break her grip. She dragged him into the smithy and immediately began tearing his pants leg open so she could see the wound.
“How is he?” Jake barked.
“I’ll live,” Ben replied for himself, though it wasn’t by any means certain. The bullet had punched completely through his thigh. Still, if he didn’t bleed to death and if he didn’t get gangrene, he would be all right.
“Sarratt! Goddamn you, Sarratt, where are you?”
Jake’s head came up, and an unholy look crossed his face, a cold glitter coming into his eyes. “Garnet,” he hissed. A small smile of anticipation touched his lips, and he snaked a run across the yard. Now he knew who to hunt; it was what he’d been waiting for. This time Garnet wasn’t going to get away.