"What's going on here?" someone shouted out in the street.
The man on horseback jerked around in his saddle and the pistol cracked again. The young man running at them clutched his chest and crumbled to the street. His scream of agony was drowned by the rebel yells issuing from the throats of the riders on the five galloping horses, now a scant fifty feet away.
The instant the gunman turned his back, Cody flung himself forward and grabbed the woman and child. Another shot rang out as Cody's shoulder shattered the land office door, his momentum forcing the three of them through the opening. Diving behind the front wall, he carried the other two with him, partially breaking their fall with his own body.
"Stay down!" he ordered. He wrenched his gun from the holster and knocked out a bottom pane of glass. The hammer landed with a dull click when he pulled the trigger and the cylinder jammed tightly when he thumbed the hammer again. He cursed and grabbed the cylinder with his other hand, but it refused to revolve.
A barrage of shots shattered the top window pane. Cody instinctively dropped over the woman and child to shelter them from the falling glass, shoving the useless sixgun back into the holster. The woman grabbed his neck in a stranglehold with one arm, little whimpers of fear puffing her breath against his neck while she tightly clasped the boy in her other arm. He had to get them to a safer place.
"What the hell's going on out there, Cody?"
Cody loosened the woman's arm enough to turn his head toward the wizened figure barely poking his head over the wooden counter bisecting the room. "A gang of men are robbing the bank, Tom!" he called. "My gun's jammed! You got a rifle back there?"
"Hell, yeah. But I'm not going out there. That's the sheriff's job!"
Cody pried the woman's arm free and stiffened his arms to raise his body a few inches. Shaking his shoulders, he flung shards of glass from his coat and gazed down at the frightened faces beneath him. Two identical pairs of terrorized blue eyes met his.
"Listen to me now," he said grimly. "When I get up, I want you two to keep low and crawl across the floor. Go through that gate beside the counter and take shelter with Tom. You'll have to be careful of the glass. Do you think you can do that?"
The heart-shaped face of the young woman triggered some buried memory in Cody's mind, which he immediately disregarded when she shook her head frantically and rolled away from him, the little boy in her arms.
"No!" she cried. "We're safer here behind this wall!"
Cody grabbed her chin, turning her face to him. "Damn it, I don't have time to argue! Those bullets can penetrate this wall. If you don't want to get that boy killed, move your ass!"
Shanna gasped in understanding and tore her eyes away from the hypnotic brown gaze, cold now with anger and frustration. She scrambled to her knees, pulling Toby with her. When the man's hands circled her waist, urging her forward, she squeezed Toby's hand and raised up into a crouch, scurrying across the floor. Toby stumbled awkwardly beside her, while the masculine bulk behind her protected them both from more bullets.
New shots in the street gave the three figures impetus as they scrambled through the wooden gate. Cody administered a final shove to Shanna and Toby and looked across them at Tom.
"That rifle. Where is it?" Cody demanded.
"In the closet." Tom swung his head toward a closet door behind him, but made no move to reach for the doorknob.
Cody shot him a disgusted look and started for the closet. The woman gave a sob beside him and he hesitated when she cried out, "Toby. Oh, God, Toby, you're hurt!"
Cody looked down to see the young boy cuddled in the woman's lap, her blond head bent over the small palm cradled in her own. Blood poured from around the piece of glass embedded in the boy's hand.
"I fell on the glass, Shanna," the little boy whimpered. "It hurts!"
The woman reached for the embedded glass with shaking fingers, then gave a moan of dismay. She pulled her hand back and shook her head.
"Please. Get it out, Shanna," the boy cried, tears streaming down his face.
Cody glanced at the closet door, then back at the boy. Outside in the street, men shouted and horses neighed. The rifle he needed to help defend the town was only a couple feet away. But his immediate concern was for the child, only a few years older than his own daughter.
Cody jerked a handkerchief from his denim pocket and sat down by the woman. Tenderly he reached for the young boy's hand and held it firmly while he pulled the glass out and threw it aside. He probed the wound further, assuring himself there was no more glass in it, and the boy gave a gasp of pain. But when Cody scanned his face, the boy shot him a gutsy grimace through the tears.
The remaining panes of glass in the land office window rained onto the floor and a bullet thwacked into the wall above them. Damn it to hell! There was a bank robbery going on out there — and they were stealing his money while he knelt here tending this boy!
Cody stifled the urge to shake the woman — remind her that she should be the one caring for the boy. Instead, he grabbed her trembling hand and thrust the handkerchief into it.
"Wrap his hand for now," he growled softly. "I've got to get out there and help Dan."
When Cody started to pull his hand away, he felt the woman's fingers curl around his own.
"Be careful. Please," she whispered when he glanced up from their clasped fingers.
"Yeah. Yeah, I will," he returned gruffly, surprised at how deep the tender concern in those blue eyes touched him. He gently pried her fingers free and took a steadying breath before he crept to the closet door.
Carefully he reached for the doorknob, wrenching his hand back when the wood just above it splintered from yet another stray bullet. After an unconscious glance over his shoulder to make sure no splinters had landed on the woman, Cody groped for the knob again and swung the door open, reaching inside for the rifle propped in a corner. With it in his hands, he retraced his path to the front window.
Cautiously Cody raised his head, aware that the noise in the street had now diminished. The band of robbers was near the edge of town, the main body of horses galloping in a bunch while three men strung out behind covered their retreat. Quickly he flung the rifle to his shoulder and snapped off a shot. One of the fleeing bandits twisted in the saddle, but the rider closest to him reached over and pushed the man forward, onto the horse's neck.
Cody instinctively reached for the lever on the rifle before realizing it wasn't the Spencer repeater he'd left in his saddle scabbard. The last horse entered the trees beyond town and Cody stared down at Tom's single shot rifle. If he hadn't been distracted by the boy's injury, he'd have had time to search for the reloads in the closet. He gave a grimace of disgust and tossed the rifle aside. There wasn't anything left to shoot at now.
He stood and stared out the broken window until the sheriff emerged from behind a horse trough on the other side of the street. A barber's apron covered Dan's chest and white lather obscured half his face. The two deputies stepped out the door in the building behind the sheriff, wisps of smoke curling from their rifle barrels in the frigid air. One of them ran down the walkway toward the sprawled body in the street.
"Y'all all right over there, Cody?" the sheriff called.
"Yeah, Dan, go ahead and get Doc for that man out in the street."
"We been trying to get to him to see how bad he's hurt, but there were too many of them," Dan replied. "They kept us pinned down so we couldn't even get off a good shot at any of them. That poor son of a gun hasn't moved since we first spotted him, though."
"Where the hell is everyone? Why didn't they help?"
"Inside shaking in their boots, I reckon," Dan said scornfully. "Can't say as I blame them, I guess. That bunch meant business!"
Cody shook his head and turned from the window, striding to the counter to check on the woman and child. He found them huddled together, the woman's head bent protectively over the boy in her arms. For just a second he glared down at the woman, resenting the fact t
hat his need to protect her and the child had interfered with his aiding Dan — perhaps catching the robbers in a crossfire. Almost every penny he had in the world was in that bank, all of it earmarked for the needs of his daughter and aunt.
It wasn't her fault, he reminded himself just as quickly, realizing how absurd it was to blame the frightened figure on the floor. It was those damned cheap bullets — the only kind available after the war — that had jammed his sixgun.
"Are they gone, Cody?" Tom's strident whisper broke into Cody's concentration.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're gone," Cody replied with barely a glance at the old man. He laid a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder instead of the tousled curls the hand strained toward. "It's safe for you to come out now, ma'am," he said in a voice softened with consolation in an attempt to ease her abject fright.
Shanna clutched Toby even tighter, still hearing the echoes of shots and men's shouts in her mind. "No," she moaned with a shake of her head. "They'll kill us. I can't let anything happen to Toby."
"Ma'am, please," Cody soothed. He gripped her arms and tugged upward, but she resisted the pressure, still shaking her head. "It's all right now," he reassured her again. "Come on out of there so we can check the boy's hand a little better and make sure you're all right."
"Shanna." Toby struggled in Shanna's grasp. "Shanna, you're crushing me." He managed to get his uninjured hand free and swatted at Shanna's shoulder. "Shanna, let go!"
Shanna lifted her head a fraction of an inch and stared down into Toby's face. "Hush Toby. There's men...and...and guns. They shot at us! I'll take care of you. I promised you I always would."
"Ma'am, the men are gone," Cody repeated.
"Don't you hear him, Shanna?" Toby insisted. "He says they're gone. Come on, Shanna. Let go, so I can breathe."
Slowly Shanna loosened her hold on Toby and glanced up at the man standing over her. He gave her an encouraging nod and almost at once a good deal of her fear left her as she studied his warm, brown eyes for a brief instant. She allowed Toby to rise to his feet, grabbing his arm in a firm grip when he tried to move away from her.
"No! You stay right here with me, Toby!"
"But Shanna, I wanna go see what happened out in the street. There's probably all kinds of dead bodies out there! If we don't hurry, they'll carry them off before we get to see them!"
"Good lord," Shanna breathed. "You're not going anywhere, Toby. You mind me and stay here!"
"She's right, son," Shanna heard the man standing over them say. Keeping a tight hold on Toby's arm, she pulled her legs under her and awkwardly stood up. The man gripped her shoulders to steady her, his touch gentle, yet firm.
"Aw, some big sister," Toby grumbled under his breath. He scuffed the toe of one boot against the floor as he gazed longingly at the front of the land office. "I still wanna see."
"That's enough, Toby." The hands on her shoulders fell away and Shanna glanced behind her at the broad male chest. She had to tilt her head back at an ungainly angle to see the face above the wide shoulders. He stood so close she could smell the open-air scent of his coat, mixed with the masculine after shave, and reassurance flowed from the velvety pools of eyes set in a ruggedly handsome face.
A woman could rely on a man like this. The thought sprang unbidden into Shanna's mind as she found it difficult to tear her gaze away. Trust him with her life, as indeed she and Toby had just done. She cleared her throat to force her voice past the last, lingering terror in her chest.
"Toby and I owe you our heartfelt thanks," she said earnestly, wishing she could somehow think of stronger words to express her gratitude. But she was still struggling against the slowly receding fright and guilt over dragging Toby into the middle of a shootout. At least, that's what she told herself it was when she fought the urge to fling herself into those protective arms once again.
Abruptly, Cody sucked in his breath and stepped back, the memory surfacing again, demanding his acknowledgement this time. My God, how could he have missed it before? Even the clear, Yankee accent led credence to the nagging suspicion trying to claw its way up through the fast crumbling layers of resistance in his mind.
He quickly jerked his hat down over his eyes, though a corner of his mind told him she couldn't possibly know him. When he tore his eyes away from her puzzled expression, he glanced down at the child by her side. It couldn't possibly be....
Sensing his change of attitude, Shanna gasped and moved protectively between the man and Toby, drawing the walnut-hued inspection back to her own face. Fighting the thought that this man might be more of a threat than the entire gang of bank robbers and confused at the sudden stab of hurt the cold look now on Cody's face sent through her, she drew herself up to her full height and eyed him warily as she tried to edge past him.
"Excuse us," she said in a tight voice when he thrust out an arm to block her path. "We need to get to the hotel."
"Who the hell are you?" he growled deep in his throat.
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Mountain Magic Page 35
