34

Chance’s troubles came in a hail of bullets.

The man held two six-shooters and fired them from where he stood in the hallway straight at the bed. Chance couldn’t get his gun aimed true without stepping out from cover. He held back from returning fire, bracing himself for the first break in the rain of bullets so he could make a move. He wished the man would be reckless enough to empty his guns.

A snarl from the man broke off his firing. Then a hard smack surprised Chance, then another and another. Pillows exploded feathers into the air, and the smell of cordite filled the room.

Ronnie had slammed the door into their assailant with strength that must have been powered by fury. After the third hard smack in the head, the man stumbled against the doorframe, and one gun went flying.

Quick as a striking snake, Chance reached him and snatched the other gun out of his hand while plowing a fist into the fool’s face.

Ronnie, a woman raised amongst cowhands, grabbed a rope off a table where they’d stacked a few things in the event of trouble. With moves so fast Chance could hardly see them, she snagged the gunman’s hands and whipped the ropes around his wrists. Hog-tied him like a calf ready to be branded. The man began fighting Ronnie, but she’d already jumped away like any good cowpoke would.

The man then lurched to his feet, and it was with grim satisfaction that Chance punched the varmint once more, this time so hard he might’ve broken his jaw.

He might also have broken a couple of fingers. Good thing there was a doctor nearby who knew his way around a fracture.

Finally, the man slumped to the floor and lay motionless. Ronnie hurried around him, struck a match, and lit a lantern so light flared into the room. Chance moved to grab the other gun, just to keep count of both weapons. The man was beyond using them now.

“Do you recognize him?” Ronnie, breathing hard, came to Chance’s side. She stooped to pick up his crutch, which he’d dropped, and tucked it under his arm.

“Never seen him before in my life.” Chance crouched awkwardly and searched the man, finding little in his pockets. But he did have a name on a letter he was carrying. If the letter was to him, they’d have his name. Chance quickly unfolded the letter, but it was near impossible to read. The name Dantalion popped out at him—if he was reading it right. The man whose name had figured prominently in John’s letters could have been close to the front of his thoughts.

“Help me up, Ronnie.” Chance was growing mighty tired of being slow moving. “We took him down, didn’t we?” He smiled at her as he tucked the letter inside his shirt pocket.

“We’ve been a fine team for a long while, Chance.” She leaned close, and together they managed to stand up without too much trouble.

A loud crash coming from the front of the house had them ready for the next fight, guns in hand.

“What’s going on in here? I heard gunfire. Come out with your hands in the air.”

Chance looked at Ronnie. “It’s the sheriff.”

Ronnie sniffed. “Our landlord. A lot of help he was.”

“We’re fine, Sheriff.” Chance raised his voice but stayed where he was. He’d probably trip over their prisoner. “A man broke into our house and tried to kill us.”

“We’re armed, Sheriff,” Ronnie called out. A woman’s voice was a good idea when it came to calming a nervous, armed lawman. “We’ve got an unconscious man, who broke into our house and did a lot of shooting. My husband has his leg in a cast and finds it hard to walk, so he can’t come out. You come on back, but slowly.”

“I’m obliged for the warning, ma’am. All right—I’m coming back.”

Soon he entered the room, a tall, bulky man with his gun drawn. “You said trouble was on your trail. Well, it looks like you were exactly right.”

Chance didn’t waste time answering. He and Ronnie would both be dead if it wasn’t for John’s steady letters, keeping them up on what was going on at home.

“Who do you think wants you dead?”

“A mighty good question, Sheriff. One I mean to get an answer to.”

“The trouble followed us from New Mexico Territory.” Ronnie glanced at Chance. “I think it’s high time we went back and got to the bottom of it.”

“Back home.” Chance felt his spirits lift.

“I want you here until I find out who this man is, and what he’s up to.”

Chance nodded. “I’d like to know that myself.” But the minute he thought it was time to go, he’d be on his way home.

It was nearer to morning than Chance thought. He felt like he hadn’t been sleeping long when their intruder arrived, but it was almost dawn now. The sheriff gave them time to dress, then helped Chance onto a buckboard. Ronnie sat beside him, their prisoner tied up in the back, wearing the sheriff’s shackles on his wrists and ankles, still unconscious.

“We need to send a telegram to the children. I’ve mostly been sending letters, except when I gave them the address of the house we moved into. But I want them to get this message quick.” Ronnie rested a hand on Chance’s arm. “I wish we knew this man’s name and could send that along.”

Chance’s arm twitched under her touch. He glanced at her quickly and knew she understood him. Right now he was mighty thankful for being able to send a wire. He was also thankful his children had written, even though they sugarcoated everything, while John told his news straight out. Chance wouldn’t know much at all if it wasn’t for John.

“It might change things for them back at the CR,” Chance said. “Sheriff, after you’ve talked with us however long you need to, I have to send a telegram. Is there an office close to the jail?”

“Yep, and close enough to walk there on crutches.”

All Chance needed was a few minutes alone with Ronnie. He wanted to read the letter he had and get any information he could glean from it, then send the telegram and afterward maybe give the sheriff the letter.

It was possible the sheriff would have something to say about that, but Chance didn’t much care. Even if he was a fine sheriff, no Denver lawman was apt to get real stirred up about trouble hundreds of miles away in New Mexico Territory. Chance wasn’t going to withhold this letter from the law here, yet he couldn’t risk it being taken away from him and leaving him without whatever information was in it.

He’d face whatever trouble that caused when he had to.

The sheriff had a good-sized staff of deputies, who helped carry the man into a cell. Since the outlaw didn’t stir, and the sheriff couldn’t find anything in his pockets, Chance and Ronnie told their story and things went quickly.

“Can we leave to send our telegram now?” Ronnie asked with a smile. Just like a concerned mother, which she was.

The Denver jail was a big building with a lot of men working. Right now every available man sifted through a mountain of wanted posters. They were busy trying to identify the man they’d just locked up.

The sheriff nodded without looking up. “Come on back, if you will. We’d appreciate the help searching for this outlaw.”

“We won’t be long.” Ronnie was doing all the talking.

Just as well, because Chance was afraid he wouldn’t be able to conceal his anxious desire to get out of there.

She asked, “Would it be all right if we stopped for breakfast on our way?”

“Yep, no hurry. There’s a diner a few doors down on this side of the street. The telegraph office is right across from it.”

Leaning on the crutch, thinking of how soon he planned to defy the doctor and head for home, Chance tried to be gentle with his leg. They headed for a sign that said Harvey’s Diner.

“Let’s read that letter.”

Chance smiled at her. “After you, wife.”

They both stepped inside the diner. It was early enough still that not many folks had shown up yet for their morning meal. Chance led Ronnie to a table around the corner from the door. He had the letter out before his backside had barely hit the chair.

It was one page long. “The address says Bert Collins.” He looked up at Ronnie. “We can’t be sure if this is a letter sent to the man we caught, so we can’t say it’s Bert Collins in that cell.”

A young woman came up and set a cup of coffee in front of each of them.

Ronnie said, “We’d like flapjacks and fried ham, please.” She looked across the table at Chance. “Is that enough or are you extra hungry?”

“Fry me up three eggs besides the flapjacks and give me a double serving of ham. That’s enough, to start.”

“And miss, can you bring me a paper and a pencil? We’d be glad to pay for it, but we need to make a list for our shopping.”

The waitress smiled sweetly. “I’m sure I can find that in the back. I’ll ask the owner if he wants to be paid.” She hurried away.

Chance said, “We’re taking notes?”

“We have to hand over that letter, and I’m not trusting one word of this to my memory.”

Chance groaned as he looked again at the chicken scratches on the letter. “I think we’re going to need more time. I can’t make this out.”

Ronnie took the letter from him, leaned closer and squinted her eyes. “The signature at the bottom says . . . it could be . . . Dantalion. But I’d never have said that if John hadn’t written that name to us.”

By the time she finished studying it, the waitress was back with their meals, along with paper and pencil. “My boss said you’re welcome to the paper at no cost, but he’d like the pencil back.”

“That will be fine, thank you.” Ronnie set it all aside and dug into her breakfast.

After they’d finished eating, both of them poured a fresh cup of coffee, Ronnie went back to her deciphering. Moments later, seeing her struggle, Chance finally said, “We have to take the note home. Whatever the trouble from that man who attacked us, the one possibly named Bert Collins, the fact that our bedroom got shot up is enough to keep him in jail for a while. Our problem is back in New Mexico Territory at the CR. We need this evidence more than the Denver sheriff does.”

“He would be furious if he knew we were taking it. Maybe if I found a magnifying glass and spent more time studying it, I could—”

“We don’t have more time, Ronnie.”

“We don’t?”

“The train leaves in less than an hour, and it’ll take us most of the time we have left to get there.”

“I know you’re itching to get home, Chance, but the doctor wants at least another week in this smaller cast before you leave.” She reached up and rested her hand on his cheek. “I want us to stay for as long as Dr. Radcliffe says we should—I want you to heal straight and strong.”

“And I want to get back to Skull Gulch and help fight for our children and for our home. We’ve been a long time gone.”

“Our children are smart and tough because we raised them right. They’ll be okay.”

Chance knew this wasn’t a battle of wills because they both wanted the same thing and almost equally as bad: Chance not to cripple himself with his need to rush home. Besides, he wouldn’t be much help in a fight if he ruined his leg permanently.

Chance blew out a breath. “That land is the legacy I’ve wanted for our children, Ronnie. Now that they’re fighting for it, it hurts I’m not there for them.”

“I know, but we need to stay right here in Denver. Now let’s go send that telegram. We can tell the children about Dantalion’s name, and add Bert Collins so that Sheriff Joe can look for someone with that name. I’ll explain about the trouble with the cramped handwriting.”

Chance nearly smiled to hear Cole, Justin, and Sadie referred to as “the children.”

“I’ll tell them I’m studying it and that I’ll write them a letter with more details just as soon as we have any.”

He nodded, then looked down at his broken leg. “I suppose the fact I can walk at all is a near miracle. I could have died. I could have lost my leg. I could have kept the leg, but been maimed to the point I couldn’t use it. I need to be grateful.” He raised his chin and looked his pretty wife in the eye. “I agree, Ronnie—I should wait for the doc’s okay before I head home.”

“And I’m doing my best to trust my children with this trouble.” Ronnie stood and offered a hand to Chance. He caught hold and stood. “We’re going to have to strike out on our own, too. It’s not the doctor’s fault or the sheriff’s that we were found. But someone knew, Chance. Someone followed one of them. The only way to be safe is to tell no one where we’re staying.”

“But I’m mighty noticeable with this crutch.”

She paused for a moment, lost in thought. Then she looked up at him, and a smile bloomed on her face. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I don’t have to ride in a casket again, do I?”

She shuddered, but never lost that beautiful smile. “Nope, I’ve thought of a better way. C’mon. Let’s go send that telegram.”