Maggie stood up and stretched as she moved stiffly towards the loading door and looked out. It had been a long night and her eyes stung with tiredness, watering as she focused on the far distance. Not to mention that the strain of a night watch and the threat of discovery had frayed her nerves and drained her mentally. Despite all of that and her forebodings about what the day would bring, she was glad to finally see the sun rising and to be able to make out colors and shapes.
Not that it made any difference. For as far as the eye could see, the flat, open landscape yielded nothing that would give her cause to hope. She blinked slowly, trying to ease the tiredness that burned behind her lids, at the same time hoping that she would see riders coming, or a dust cloud far off in the distance. Sadly, nothing changed.
Despondent, she started to pace, kicking up hay with each step. Back and forth. Back and forth. For a while, the simple movement seemed to help soothe her unease until suddenly, she faltered, stopping dead at some unexpected sound. She held her breath, hoping she was wrong, but there was no mistaking it. Living in relative isolation had heightened her sense of hearing and although it was faint, there was no mistaking the creak of a dry hinge or the rasp of a rain-swollen door being shoved over uneven ground.
Grabbing the Schofield, she pulled back the hammer as she skittered on tiptoes across the loft. Tentatively, she peered over the edge at the empty stalls below. Slowly, a shaft of light lengthened across the dusty floor as the door opened wider, then disappeared in shadow as someone moved inside and closed it. Directly below her, she heard the soft tread of boots.
She forced her hand to be steady and tightened her finger on the trigger.
‘Maggie?’ someone called. ‘Are you in here?’
She didn’t recognize the husky voice. It could have been anyone but she felt sure it was Braddock.
The footsteps stopped. He said her name again.
‘Are you there, Maggie?’
Almost as if she believed he could see her, she recoiled, stumbling backwards towards the loading window. Immediately, she realized her mistake as the loft ladder shifted under his weight. With a few quick steps he was at the top ready to pull himself over the edge.
~*~
In a town cowed by recent death and the promise of fresh violence, the shrill scream sounded like a war cry. Doc and Rick had been working their way cautiously towards the centre of town but now they both stopped. Doc couldn’t remember a time when he had actually felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but it did now.
‘Where do you think that came from?’ Rick asked. The color had drained from his face.
‘Only one way to know for sure.’
Doc felt Rick on his heels as they broke in to a run. As another scream echoed between the buildings, there seemed no need for caution. Wherever the sound was coming from, that’s where they’d find Braddock.
A couple of minutes later, they emerged between a bathhouse and an abandoned haberdashery in the centre of town. The screaming had stopped abruptly and now several men stood on the main street, armed but seemingly reluctant to make a move.
‘Anybody know where it came from?’ Doc shouted as he ran towards them.
A stoop-shouldered old man, holding a ’66 Winchester across his chest, pointed up ahead. ‘It sounded like it came from your place, Doc. Someone saw that feller the posse went after hanging around there earlier. We don’t know who’s in there with him.’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
Jacking a shell in to the chamber of his own ’73 Winchester, he swerved around them and headed for the relative safety of the saloon’s covered plank walk. Footsteps sounded behind him but when he stopped and slammed his back against the wall, only Rick had followed. He waved for the others to come on but, instead of joining him, they seemed to move backwards.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouted, at the same time trying to keep his voice low. ‘Come on.’
The group of five men and a boy of about sixteen started to spread out, seeking cover, but none came any nearer.
‘Come on!’ Doc shouted again.
‘Forget it, Doc. They’re too scared.’ Rick shook his head with disdain. ‘Look at them. There’s a reason they didn’t ride out with the posse. This is just going to be you and me.’
Doc swore. It didn’t happen often but sometimes he just had to let it out and this was one of those times. He gripped the rifle between both hands, his knuckles turning white as he tried to come up with a plan that didn’t involve getting him killed.
‘Hey, JT, are you out there?’ Braddock shouted.
Doc stiffened. No one but his mother had ever called him that. Hearing it from Braddock’s mouth was close to blasphemy.
‘I’m here. What do you want?’
‘Why don’t you come and join us?’
‘Let Maggie go first then you and me can settle this.’
‘If you want her, you’ll have to come and get her.’
Another short sharp scream tore along the street. Rick fired off a shot as he made a lunge. Doc grabbed his arm, pulling him back as two shots sounded in return. It wasn’t easy holding him and as they scuffled Doc recognized the same blind panic in Rick’s eyes that he had seen the day Braddock and Harris had first ridden in to town. For his own good, Doc slammed Rick against the wall, winding him but still needing the full weight of his own body to hold him.
‘Let me go, Doc.’
‘Why? So you can get your head blown off? Calm down, man. Think what you’re doing. How’s that going to help Maggie?’
‘Well, standing here ain’t doing her much good. If you’ve got a better idea I’m all ears.’
Doc shook his head in frustration. He was a medic not a fighting man. Give him a cough or a festering wound and he could handle it but against a maniac without morals or principles he felt as useless as a fish trying to climb a tree.
He took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘The best I can come up with is one of us goes in the back way while the other one keeps Braddock talking at the front.’
‘Talking? He’s killing her!’
‘He’s hurting her,’ Doc stated, feeling ashamed.
‘And that’s better?’
Doc hated himself for what he had to say. ‘No, it isn’t but it buys us some time. He won’t kill her until he’s sure he’s got me where he wants me. That gives us one chance to stop him.’
It was a foolhardy plan that would probably get them killed but it was all they had. Rick gave a single, tight nod and Doc eased off, finally stepping away when he saw sanity returning to the younger man’s eyes.
‘Do you want to take the front or the back?’ Doc asked.
Rick emptied out the spent cartridge from his six-gun then reloaded it. ‘You’re the one he wants to kill so you keep him talking at the front. When you hear shooting, come running, all right?’ He thrust out his hand and they shook on it. ‘Good luck, Doc.’
‘We’re going to need it,’ Doc muttered as he watched Rick run to the alley at the side of the saloon and disappear from sight.