Jared stepped out and started down the street. His Colt was in his holster, and he’d tucked one of Mac’s spare pistols in his belt. He glanced around and counted at least ten rifles propped in the windows. They looked ready for action.
He took a few more steps, trying not to let the limp show. He wanted to get at least fifteen feet in front of the first dynamite sticks. It took all his concentration.
He stopped at the predetermined position. Not in the middle of the street but more to the side. An empty water trough was inches away. He stood and waited. This last attempt at peace was probably futile, but it was his duty to avoid bloodshed if he could.
The riders came in slowly, cautious. He saw them stop at the edge of town, their gazes searching the few buildings. One pointed to a rifle in a window, then another. They kept coming.
The leader appeared to be the heavy, bearded man. Jared knew the tracker who rode at his side. They stopped twelve feet from him and he watched as some of the posse placed hands on their gun butts.
“Thought you had better taste,” he said to the tracker.
“It’s a job,” the tracker said. “Didn’t think you would be protecting a killer.”
“That’s yet to be decided. I’m on the side of the law, and every marshal in the territory will hunt each of you down if you kill one of theirs. We don’t forget and we don’t give up.”
“We don’t want trouble,” the big man said. “We just want my son’s killer.”
Benson. “No,” Jared said flatly. “Look around. I have more than enough guns backing me.” He watched as they took note of the rifles. Some of the men dropped their hands from their guns. “I don’t know how much Benson offered you,” Jared continued as he searched the faces of the men in front of him, “but I guarantee it’s not enough for the trouble you face.”
“I didn’t sign up for killing no marshal,” one man said. He backed up his horse and turned in the other direction. Three others followed him.
“Cowards,” yelled Benson. “He’s protecting my son’s murderer.” He drew and fired as Jared leaped behind the trough. Adrenaline dulled the pain in his leg, but he knew he couldn’t depend on it to support him. He felt a dampness and looked down. A bullet had nicked his right leg again.
Explosions ripped through the street just feet from the horses. At least a third of them reared, throwing off their riders and racing back toward the pass.
The remaining gunmen struggled to control their horses. Rifles fired from the saloon, stable and abandoned house. Several men fell.
Benson tried to rally his posse. “Five hundred dollars to every man who stays, and twenty thousand to the one who takes Thornton.” Men about to ride away turned back.
“The marshal,” the leader said. “Take the marshal. Surround him.”
Jared knew he was in trouble. He had damned little protection. It had probably been a stupid thing to do, to walk out, but he’d had to try it. He knew the tracker. He’d hoped if he could convince him, he could turn the others.
He heard more explosions, but they were farther down the street. They startled the horses but only one man was unseated this time. Riders began to circle him. He drew and fired, and a man went down. Another man was felled before he could fire again. Reese? Archie?
“No!” A woman’s voice sounded above the melee. He turned, as did the riders.
MacDonald stood in the middle of the street, cradling the rifle with his ruined right arm. His left fingers were on the trigger. He swayed slightly with the effort.
Jared knew instantly what he intended to do. Jared was trapped. MacDonald was giving him a chance at the cost of his own life. He was gambling that once he was dead, the vigilantes would quit.
Jared knew differently. He had seen the faces. They couldn’t afford to let him live now.
Before he could react, Samantha ran out the saloon door, Colt in hand.
“No,” MacDonald yelled like a man in pain. He dropped the rifle and threw her to the ground, covering her body with his, just as two shots rang out.
Jared turned and fired three bullets at the leader. The big man fell from his horse. More shots rang out from the saloon, the livery and the house. One man fell from his horse, then another. The rest dropped their guns and put their hands up.
Jared stood awkwardly, his gun in hand. “The first man that moves is dead.”
Jared limped as quickly as he could over to MacDonald. Blood spread out from his back. Jared checked his pulse. Still alive. He felt him stir. “Don’t move,” he said in a low voice. “Play dead.”
He lifted MacDonald gently from Samantha. She was bloodied from Mac’s wound but her eyes flickered. The wind had been knocked out of her. Nothing more. Thank God. He pretended to be listening to her heart. “Play dead,” he whispered. “For MacDonald.” Her eyes flickered and he knew she understood. He picked her up. Her hat fell off and her shirt stretched tight over her breasts. He could hear the exclamations from the horsemen.
“Your friend just killed a woman, along with Thornton. You attacked a U.S. Marshal. I can’t take you all in, but by God I’ve looked at every one of your faces, and you’d better make tracks out of this territory.”
Slowly, one by one they turned to leave. With the leader gone, several of their posse on the ground and rifles still protruding out of windows, they had no more stomach for the business. Two dismounted and helped the wounded on horses, then they put their leader’s body on his horse. They turned and galloped toward the pass as if the devil was after them.
Jared lowered Samantha to the ground and scanned her body as she protested, obviously wanting to get over to MacDonald. “Stay still,” he warned.
Archie hobbled toward them, his bag in his hand.
Jared searched the road ahead. The riders were all gone.
Archie examined MacDonald, who bore it with the patience of a man too used to wounds.
“That man has more lives than a durn cat,” Archie grumbled. “Bullet went through his side. Don’t think it hit anything bad.”
Reese appeared along with Jake and Ike. Reese and Ike, the two strongest, carried Mac inside. Sam shook herself as if surprised to be alive.
Jared took her in his arms. “You’ve got to stop doing this,” he scolded, his voice breaking.
“You, too,” she said, looking him over. “I think you’re bleeding again.” She hesitated, then added, “That was a damn fool thing for you to do.” He was bleeding, but at the moment nothing mattered more than feeling her in his arms. Knowing she was still alive. Unhurt.
“How’s Mac?”
“You must mean Thornton,” he said slowly. “He just died. So did you. There were at least ten witnesses, not including Reese and Ike and Jake and Burley. Maybe no one cares about Thornton, but they know they could hang for killing you. We shouldn’t have any more trouble.”
She searched his face, then closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Seems to me you two saved my life, as well.” He nuzzled her cheek. “But I have another problem.”
“What?” she asked in a breathless voice.
“I think I’m in love with a sprite who doesn’t know how to stay out of trouble.” He wanted to caress every part of her. He tried to resist. Foolish thought. “I’m afraid I have to keep you with me to keep you safe.”
“Look where that has gotten me so far,” she replied, snuggling herself farther into his arms. “I think we might be dangerous for each other.”
“I can live with it,” he said. He eased away from her slightly. “Can you?”
She lifted her face to look up at him. Tumultuous emotions shone in her eyes, and he lowered his head until their lips met in an explosion as bright as lightning striking the earth.
He didn’t need a better answer.
Epilogue
Montana
“IT’S AS BEAUTIFUL as Colorado,” Samantha said. She stood with Jared in front of their new home and watched the clouds float by in the biggest sky she’d ever seen.
> Cattle munched rich grass along the river. Their cattle.
They’d found their ranch land three months earlier and filed claims for it under the Homestead Act. Today her home was finally finished and the last of the furniture moved in, including a cradle Archie made. The godfathers were celebrating with a picnic, but Sam and Jared had broken away for a quiet moment.
Sam felt Jared’s hands on her shoulder as they gazed over the grasslands and the river that bordered it. Then those hands went around her swelling middle. She was four months along now. The three godfathers and Burley, who’d helped put in the last of the glass windows, were, to say the least, delighted.
They—the six of them—now had five homesteads, one hundred and sixty acres each, for a total of eight hundred acres. Beyond their homestead was open range, allowing them to own a large cattle herd. She and Jared had filed together since they were married on the trail when they met up with a circuit preacher. Archie, Burley, Reese and Mac had filed separate claims, all touching one another. She and Jared were given the best piece of land, the top of a hill overlooking the river.
To keep the claims, they had to build a house of some kind on their property. Burley had a one-room cabin. Mac had two rooms, but he planned on building more. Now that Thornton was good and truly dead, he had his eye on a pretty widowed dressmaker in the closest town.
Reese built a substantial one-room home, but he had plans to keep adding to it, as well. He’d limited his gaming to the saloon in the nearest town, but she felt sure his wanderlust would soon take him to the mining towns.
Archie built a little two-room building, half of which he used as a medical office. Sam usually helped him. There were no regular doctors within fifty miles, and both of them had been in high demand.
She and Jared had taken more time to build their place. He’d wanted a house that would stand for a hundred years, he said, and one big enough for a family. He was tired of wandering. Their home had one room large enough to entertain at least four frequent visitors and any additional family members, a large bedroom for her and Jared, a kitchen and two additional bedrooms, along with a loft.
“For guests,” Jared said, “until family fills it.” He made it clear he meant the godfathers. Their house was always open to them. The four men had worked well on their way to Montana; they’d become good friends as well as partners in the ranch.
She loved the land, but then she would love anyplace where Jared was. Jared and the godfathers. They had used their collective money to buy cattle. They bought some along the way, then several hundred more head from a rancher in south Montana.
Jared leaned down and kissed her neck. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her, but that was all right. She couldn’t stop touching him, either. She’d fallen in love with him quickly, but now she loved him deeply and thoroughly and unconditionally. She knew the difference now. Loving meant trusting. Loving meant believing. Loving meant forever.
He’d left after that violent day, and she and Mac had retreated to the mine shaft for several weeks. It was possible the law, or some of those men, would return. Jared thought it doubtful, though. Benson was dead, and one of the posse had taken the body home. He’d been killed by a U.S. Marshal. Dead along with a wanted outlaw named Thornton and a woman called Samantha Blair. They were buried in the same cemetery as her mother and father. Jared had made sure the news was in all the papers and he’d made the report to his superiors in Denver. Then he resigned.
Then he’d returned to Gideon’s Hope for Sam and the others. They were his family, as well, now. An outlaw, a cardsharp and a cussing mule skinner. And Burley, who swore he wouldn’t drink anymore—the devil had been plumb scared out of him. Jake and Ike stayed behind. Like Jake said, he wanted to be buried looking toward the mountains he loved.
She felt his fingers in her hair. She was letting it grow out. And she was wearing a dress. She found it more comfortable now that she was expecting. And she liked looking pretty for Jared. After the baby, though, she told him right enough that she was going to wear britches when she rode.
“They say there’s hard winters,” he said.
She grinned up at him. “Better, then, to stay inside and—”
He stopped the last word with a kiss. She barely heard the snickers behind her as once more her world spun to magical places and she melted against him.
She was home.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6572-5
THE LAWMAN
Copyright © 2010 by Patricia Potter.
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