“Reece?” Jesse asks, his eyes as desperate as his voice is fearful.
“I’m sorry. This is gonna hurt.”
I shove him off the train.
Chapter Forty-Four
* * *
Charlotte
I stare down the barrel.
There is no way I am going to make this shot. He’s too far away, the bulk of him hidden behind the horse. Even if I had been given an opportunity to practice with bullets, I don’t think I’d stand a chance. At this distance, the Rose Rider’s head is smaller than the bucket I used during target practice.
But the horse . . . I could probably hit the horse.
I can’t hit the horse. The poor creature didn’t pick its rider. It didn’t choose to trot into this clearing, to serve as this outlaw’s shield. It’s just an innocent animal and—
The Rider fires his pistol.
A bullet slices through the shutter. I flinch, feeling the sting of wood splinters on my cheek.
“Charlotte?” Kate yells from the bedroom.
Another gunshot.
This one misses the shutter altogether and instead hits the section of wall between the window and the door. It lodges in the wood and doesn’t enter the kitchen.
“Charlotte!”
The baby is crying now too.
I bring the rifle barrel back up to my eye, hold the butt firm to my shoulder as Reece taught me. I sight the man.
Yer shooting the rifle, the rifle ain’t shooting you.
All that remains is the one step I’ve never practiced. I pull the trigger.
The rifle recoils, sending a jolt of pain through my shoulder.
The bullet bites into the dirt just shy of my target, but the horse goes wild, whinnying and rearing. Its hooves slide along the sloped bank of the reservoir until the creature loses purchase and topples onto its side, pinning the Rose Rider in place. His screams rattle the afternoon. The horse rocks there for momentum and, after finally regaining its footing, runs off and disappears behind the house.
Cursing, the outlaw fires blindly in my direction. I duck for cover. Three more shots hit the walls before he’s empty.
Then I’m back on my feet, scanning out the shutter. The man is crawling for the shelter of some shrubs, what’s sure to be a broken leg dragging behind him. I fire again, but the severity of the situation has finally caught up to me and my hands shake against my will. Though the Rider is moving as slow as molasses, it proves too difficult. The rifle is empty before I’ve had any success, and by the time I reload, the man has dragged himself behind the shrubs and fallen still. I watch a few seconds, but he doesn’t move. Perhaps he’s dead.
I pull the rifle back from the shutter and check on Kate. The afterbirth has come and the bed is a mess. William is crying in her arms, and she looks as though she’s seen the devil.
“They’re here?” she gasps out.
“One Rider. I think I got him.”
“Check.”
There is nothing I want more than to stay in this room with her, door bolted and curtains drawn.
“Charlotte—” she urges.
Outside, a horse whinnies. At first I believe it to be the outlaw’s steed, returning to find its rider. But then comes the crackling snap of fire, the horse’s cry again. It’s coming from the direction of the stable.
The man I shot is not nearly as injured as I first thought if he’s managed to start a fire.
“Maybe I should just tell him where the gold is,” I say to Kate. “That’s why he’s here.”
“Yer a fool if you think that’s all he’ll want. That he’ll take the gold and just ride out.”
“It’s worth trying.”
“It ain’t.”
The horse’s screams get more frantic. If’n the wind picks up or the flames get strong enough, the house’ll be at risk. I grab the rifle and leave Kate with the baby.
I toe the front door open, wait a moment, then step onto the porch cautiously. Pulse pounding, I scan the whole of the clearing, only to find that the man is no longer behind the shrubs. I never should have turned away from the window. I should have unloaded the rifle into the brush until he was most certainly, undeniably dead.
I home in on the stable, where flames continue to spread. Reece and Jesse took three mares with them this morning—Rebel, Uncle’s sorrel, and a bay quarter—but Kate’s horse, Silver, remains. Her stall is farthest from the house, and also farthest from the fire, but she can smell the smoke and hear the crackling flames, and it’s worked her into a frenzy. She prods the earth with her front hoof, throws her head.
I run before I lose my nerve. Straight to her stall. When I throw open the door, she bolts, nearly trampling me and causing me to drop the rifle as I dive aside.
That’s when a bullet hits the dirt near my hand.
My head snaps up, searching for the shooter.
The very thing that protects this little clearing is now protecting my assailant. He is hidden somewhere among the pines and rocks and shrubs, as good as invisible. And I’ve foolishly run into the center of the gauntlet, with nothing to protect me but a wooden structure already aflame.
As I reach for the rifle, a bullet battles me back again. I shuffle into the safety of the stall. It is thick with smoke, and flames from the neighboring stall are starting to lick their way in. I cough, feeling blindly through the smoke for the rifle. Instead, I find only a heavy blanket Silver uses in the evenings. I use it to bat at the attacking flames, but for each tongue of fire that I smother, another seems to spring to life in its place. My lungs are starting to protest the dirty air. If I don’t run for it now, I’ll be trapped in this stall not just by enemy bullets, but by flames.
I turn and see a figure pushing through the thick smoke.
It is not the outlaw I shot at from the house. It’s a second Rose Rider. There are two.
This one wears a blood-red jacket and a bandanna over his mouth and nose. Beneath the brim of his black hat, dark eyes smile at me.
I bolt to the right. He trips me with his rifle, and I crash to all fours. A hand closes on my ankle, and I kick out wildly, catching him in the chest or face. I don’t pause to look. I scramble for the house and get only one stall closer before his grip closes over my ankle a second time.
He pulls me nearer. Dirt and pebbles lodge beneath my nails as I attempt to grab hold of something—anything. My skirt gets caught beneath my weight, bunching up around my hips.
Hands flip me over, and I kick and scream, but he straddles me, pinning me easily in place. Flames from the stable dance behind him, around us. The heat is unbearable.
“Where’s the gold, girlie?”
“I don’t know.”
He grabs at my chin, angling my face so that I’m forced to look at him. “Where’s the gold?”
“They never told me.” He pinches my mouth so tightly I stumble on my own words. Tears stream down my cheeks. “Please,” I beg. “I don’t know where it is.”
He has a knife now, drawn somewhere along his waist. He brandishes it in front of me, touching it to my nose, lips, the underside of my chin. He slips it beneath the collar of my dress and then yanks wide. The fabric rips, exposing my shoulder.