Shadow's Stand

by Sarah McCarty

  He knelt beside her and took the sticks from her hand before setting them carefully on the ground.

  “Fei, it’s time to go.” She didn’t move. He could hear more men coming. Caution would slow them down, but not for long.

  Shaking her arm, he hauled her up against him. “Fei!”

  She blinked. “Shadow?”

  “Who else?”

  Staring at the carnage behind him, she whispered, “I didn’t have a choice.”

  She was looking for absolution. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I had to stop them. They wanted Lin.”

  Lin must be the woman he’d found in the trees. “You did exactly what you had to do, honey. Don’t be apologizing for it. But there are more. We’ve got to run.”

  She reached for her pack. “Just let me—”

  “Leave it.”

  “No, I can’t. I have to do this.”

  He’d thought she was talking about the pack, but reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a strip of cloth. She draped it over a branch. It was silk from the sheen but of a different design than she wore.

  Grabbing her arm with one hand, his revolver in the other, he hauled her along. “You can explain that later.”

  He shoved her down the path. “Any more traps along the way I should know about?”

  “I was going to do one farther down, but there wasn’t time.”

  “Good.”

  “Wait.” She turned back. “I need to find Lin.”

  He propelled her forward. “She’s waiting with your mare.”

  “She’s with Jewel?”

  Because she seemed to do better when distracted, he asked, “You named the horse Jewel?”

  “Yes.”

  She stumbled and he picked her up, half carrying her along as the sound of pursuit grew. They were close. Too close. Setting Fei down, he pushed her ahead of him.

  “Go.”

  She planted her feet. “I can’t leave you.”

  “Yes, you can. This is what I do best.”

  “This is not the best of anyone.”

  He shoved her. “Go.”

  She turned, clutching the pack, lip clenched between her teeth. “I can’t.”

  “Lin needs you.”

  That did the trick. She turned and ran. He turned and blended back into the shadows. Surprise was going to be his only advantage. From the sound of it, there were three, maybe four, men coming. He stayed tucked in the shadows until they passed, then came up behind the last one. Shadow didn’t waste time. Covering the man’s mouth with his hand, he slit his throat. Blood sprayed as he lowered him silently to the ground before dropping back to the shadows. One down, three to go.

  The men were moving fast, faster than Fei.

  “She went off to the right,” the point man called.

  The hell she did. He’d told her to go straight to the horses. He followed more cautiously. One of the men went to the right. Two steps later, the ground blew up in his face.

  Goddamn it, Fei.

  She was bad with orders, but hell on wheels when it came to dynamite. If that explosion had gone off a second on either side of when it had, it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. Two down. Two to go. As the men milled about in indecision, he circled around behind them. It was time to end this.

  He drop-kicked the man on the left, landing just behind the other, rolling to his feet as he’d done in many other battles many times before. Snatching the knife from his mouth as he landed. Throwing it with deadly accuracy. Blood sprayed in a high arc as the second man dropped to the ground, clutching his throat. The man he’d kicked rolled to his feet. He looked at his partner and then at Shadow before dropping into a fighting stance. With a crook of his fingers, he invited Shadow in. Shadow smiled. A good fight was a good fight, no matter where a man found it.

  “I’m going to take care of you, injun, and then I’m going to take care of that pretty girl you’re running with.” Ice-cold rage settled over Shadow. “You won’t touch my wife. Ever.”

  “Wife? You put your hands on a white woman? That’s a hanging offense.”

  “So is rape.” Soft, sweet Fei, who should have been racing up the trail, made her contribution to the conversation, holding two sticks of dynamite in her hand.

  “Fei, don’t be blowing us both up.”

  “Then run.”

  He wasn’t running. He was in the middle of a fight and Fei being there gave the other man the advantage, because Shadow had to watch both of them.

  Fei took a step in as the man circled, looking for that moment of distraction that would allow him to get a blow in. She waved the dynamite like a sword.

  “Get the hell back, woman.”

  “We need to run.”

  “You need to do as I told you.”

  The man landed a blow to his midsection. Shadow countered with one to his jaw. The man blinked and stumbled before shaking his head. If Shadow had managed a direct hit, he likely would have gone down.

  “We have not time for this.”

  “It’s not like I’m having a drink here.”

  Jumping back, he evaded the other man’s next lunge.

  “Kill him.”

  “Bloodthirsty little thing, isn’t she?” the stranger grunted.

  The man feinted in. He was quick, but not quick enough. He also favored his right side where Shadow had kicked him. Shadow brought his elbow down on the back of the man’s neck. He fell but rolled to his feet.

  “She’s just got an eye for what’s not worth saving.”

  A sulfur scratched across rock. Fei stood there, a lit sulfur in one hand, dynamite in the other.

  “Don’t do it, Fei.”

  The other man swore and stopped short. “That’s dynamite.”

  “Yup.”

  Now the odds were even. The other man was as worried about Fei as he. Just for different reasons.

  Fei touched the match to the fuse. It immediately began the familiar sizzle.

  “Hell!”

  Fei brandished the stick. “Get away from him.”

  “You letting a woman fight your battles?”

  Shadow eyed the sputtering fuse. It didn’t look nearly long enough. “Apparently, I’m not getting a choice.”

  “Tell her to put it down.”

  Shadow obliged. “Put it down, Fei.”

  “I said, get away from him.”

  Shadow shrugged and met the other man’s gaze. “She doesn’t want to.”

  The man backed up, one step, two, but not far enough for Shadow to be safe from the blast if Fei tossed the dynamite. “No wonder her family let her marry up with you. She’s fucking crazy.”

  The fuse was getting dangerously low. “They don’t know yet.”

  “In that case, give her back.”

  Shit, he hated dynamite. It was unpredictable, unstable and rarely gave the results one hoped for. “I might just do that.”

  He could see from the wildness in Fei’s eyes that she was operating on nerves and fear. “We don’t need the dynamite.”

  “He will hurt you.”

  The hell he would. “We’re just having a discussion.”

  He glanced pointedly at the other man.

  “You might be having a discussion, but I’m—”

  Shadow jerked his chin in the direction of the dynamite. The man raised both hands and stepped back.

  “Two dollars a week ain’t enough for this shit.”

  Shadow turned back to Fei. “See, he was just about to leave.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “You don’t have to. Just trust me.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  It was safer than that dynamite. She’d told Lin it was unstable and she was holding it in her hand as if she had all day. Son of a bitch.

  “What do you have against this guy, honey?”

  “He hurt my cousin.”

  The man shook his head and took yet another step back. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

&nbs
p; “You lie!”

  “I just signed on today.”

  It might be true, or it might be a lie. Either way, it didn’t matter. That fuse was going to take the choice away from all of them. “Honey, do you remember me telling you all you had to do is ask?”

  She nodded.

  “Ask me now.”

  “I can’t.”

  The man took another step back.

  With a shake of his head, Shadow drew him back with a soft warning, “Don’t.”

  Immediately realizing his mistake in putting distance between them, the man stepped back into the safe area. Shadow was waiting. With a sharp uppercut to his chin, Shadow sent him flying backward. He hit the ground with a thump. He didn’t get up.

  “It’s about time,” Fei snapped. Gone was the irrational, panicked woman. In her place was the Fei he was used to seeing. Calm and composed. As cool as a cucumber, Fei plucked the fuse from the dynamite and dropped it on the ground.

  It took Shadow a moment to comprehend. “You were bluffing?”

  “I bluff much better than I kill.” She shrugged. “Is he dead?”

  “He’s out cold.”

  “I would prefer him dead.”

  Very carefully, Shadow took the dynamite from her hand. Shit, this stuff made him nervous. Always had. The fuse sputtered on the ground. He ground it under his moccasin while sliding his knife back into his sheath. “He’s going to have a hell of a headache when he gets up and be out of a job.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t be about blowing us both up just to get even.”

  “I won’t.”

  She was glaring at the man, rage darkening her eyes, tightening her lips. She wanted revenge. Shadow understood that, understood the rage that demanded retribution against any and all. Hell’s Eight had been formed under such rage. When the Mexican army had devastated their village leaving eight boys orphaned, they could have just given up and died. Instead, they’d banded together, scrabbled to stay alive and sworn revenge against the men who’d killed their families.

  Not that Tracker’s and his family was anything to mourn, but Caine’s family had been. The Allens’ house had been the Ochoas’ sanctuary. There, he and Tracker had always been able to get their bruises treated, their bellies filled and, even though it had made them uncomfortable, they’d gotten a few hugs. The Allens had been the embodiment of every fairy tale Shadow had ever heard. A loving family who hugged, not hit, who laughed, not raged. Who’d open their doors to two boys who’d only had them slammed in their faces. And those people had been viciously murdered.

  As Shadow had dug their graves, he’d felt the first touch of what purpose could do to rage. As he’d tossed the first shovelful of dirt on the mutilated bodies, he’d made a vow. The ones responsible would die. That vow had been picked up by each and every one of Hell’s Eight. And it had been kept.

  Eventually, they’d hunted down and killed all those who had murdered their families. And in the process, they’d developed skills and a hell of a reputation. When the last man had been killed, Shadow had waited for the satisfaction to fill the hole where the rage had lived so long. It hadn’t come. There’d just been rage with no purpose. So when the Texas Rangers had offered him a job, he’d accepted, as had all of Hell’s Eight. Not because he’d wanted to uphold the laws of Texas—he had no use for any laws except those he made himself—but because rage without purpose could eat a man alive.

  Hiking his sleeve over the heel of his hand, he wiped a smudge of dirt off Fei’s cheek. He didn’t want that empty rage consuming Fei from the inside out. For her, he wanted a future filled with light and love. A home like the Allens’ with a man who saw her as the best part of his day. For that to happen, this needed to be settled.

  He palmed his knife. “Do you want me to kill him?”

  She blinked. “I don’t know.”

  “Make up your mind, but make it now. Don’t carry it around like a cancer in your gut.”

  She bit her lip. “It’s not the same, killing him now.”

  “As killing in the heat of the moment to defend yourself? No, it’s not, but in the end, killing is killing.”

  She touched her hand to her throat. “You would really kill him for me?”

  “Ask and find out.”

  “What kind of man are you?”

  Picking up her pack, he emptied out the last few sticks of dynamite onto the ground. “The kind you need right now.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THEY WERE MAKING GOOD TIME, all things considered. It was doubtful Lin had ever been on a horse before, so anything faster than a walk was likely to pitch her to the ground. He didn’t know, however, how much longer they could go on. The horses were tired. They were tired. He looked over his shoulder to see how Lin was faring.

  “We need to stop,” Fei said.

  Shadow held her a little tighter, remembering those moments when he’d heard the gunshots and her screams. “No, we don’t. Culbart is going to want revenge for what you did.”

  “I only took revenge for what he did.”

  “That’s the way it goes. Someone starts something and then someone feels the need to get even. And then that revenge begs its own retaliation.”

  “He bought my cousin as if she were a bag of flour.”

  “Fei!”

  Shadow felt sorry for Lin, who appeared as if she wanted to sink into the ground.

  “When I tried to explain the mistake, he would not release her. He laughed and said I would have to pay twice as much to get her back.”

  Enough for a new beginning.

  “That’s why you wanted the gold.”

  “Yes. To buy her freedom and to leave.”

  “Who sold her in the first place?”

  It was Fei’s turn to look ashamed. “My family has lost much face over this.”

  “That a fancy way of saying your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Culbart thinks he made a deal, fair and square?”

  “No one has right to buy another.”

  “I agree, but that doesn’t change the man’s belief that you just stole something from him.”

  “I will go to the claim and get his gold.”

  “I think the opportunity to make a deal is pretty much dead and gone.”

  “He will want the money.”

  “By the time you get that gold cashed out, you’re going to have every yahoo in the territory on your tail.”

  “For this, I have you.”

  Shit. “For a plan that stupid, you’re going to need the whole U.S. Army.”

  “The army that doesn’t like you?”

  Shadow nodded. “That would be the one.”

  “Then there is no choice. We go to the claim.”

  “Only if you want to kiss your gold goodbye. You won’t be able to go back there until things calm down. Likely for a few months. The claim is too close to the Culbart ranch. There’s no place to hide the horses. No way to hide your presence there. And unless you’ve got a supply of jerky there, there’s no way to cook without the smell carrying.”

  Lin gasped. “You think they hunt us?”

  “I’d bet my horse on it.”

  She exchanged a glance with Fei. “We must go home.”

  “That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”

  “Uncle is there alone,” Lin countered.

  “Is this the uncle that sold you to Culbart?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m having a hard time working up to concern.”

  “He is ill.”

  “So?”

  Fei made a motion with her hands. “In his head. He does not always know where he is, what he does.”

  He didn’t care how crazy he got, Shadow couldn’t see himself selling his niece. “No.”

  Fei’s chin came up. “He is my father. I have a daughter’s duty.”

  He noticed she wasn’t making a claim of love. “And I’m your husband, which means I have a few duties of
my own.”