“Looks like we found ’em!” Gideon cried out as he reared his horse around to pull back behind a copse of trees.
“Reid!” Clint called, crouching down himself and scanning the clearing for the best possible position. “You okay?”
In answer, Reid came sliding back down the small incline. “Fine. But I saw the building. Tiny cabin of a thing with a shed alongside. One window, a pair of horses tied up outside.”
“They know we’re here,” Gideon said just before a second rifle shot rang out overhead through the trees.
“The last thing we need is a gunfight.” Clint cast his eyes back and forth between the two men beside him. “We’re all good shots, but there are women in there. We can’t just storm the place.” Clint pinched the bridge of his nose, weighing the options. “Reid, could you make out where Katrine and Evelyn might be?”
“Looks like a one-room cabin with some sort of shack attached,” Reid replied, checking his pistol. “They’ve got to be in there.”
“Then we’ve got to draw them out. As long as they’re in there, they’ve got the upper hand.”
“Can’t say I wouldn’t welcome the chance to smoke them out if it weren’t for Evelyn and Katrine. Those boys ought to get a taste of their own medicine.” Gideon looked over his shoulder in the direction of the cabin. “I tell you, if he’s so much as laid one greasy hand on my Evelyn...”
Clint put a hand on Gideon’s arm. He was a boiling pot of anger himself, but anger wouldn’t get Katrine and Evelyn home safely. “Steady, brother. We’re smarter than those two and don’t you forget it.” After a second’s pondering, Clint had an idea. “So let’s find out what they’ve done. Gideon, yell to your wife. Whether or not she answers could tell us a lot.”
Gideon closed his eyes for a second, and Clint found himself praying, as well. God’s intervention seemed the only way to come out of this whole mess alive, seeing as those bandits had become so unpredictable. When Gideon opened his eyes, Clint met his gaze and nodded.
“Evelyn!”
* * *
Katrine could hardly believe she had dozed off, even though they had been up all night. Still, the sound of Evelyn’s name shot both of them wide awake as they sat slumped against the shed wall.
She looked at Evelyn’s wide eyes, still not yet sure she hadn’t dreamed the sound.
“Evelyn!”
“Gideon!” Evelyn said it in an astonished whisper, her hands flying first to her chest in surprise, and then to the floor to push herself upright. “Gideon!” she shouted back. “Gideon!”
The shed door banged open, Private Wellington and his cocked pistol pushing through the doorway. “That’s enough of that!”
Evelyn, clearly emboldened by how close her husband now was, took in a breath to continue shouting just as the private pulled back to hit her with the handle of his gun. Katrine pulled Evelyn down just in time to miss the blow. Monsters. These men were monsters.
“Y’all hush it in there!” came McGraw’s voice as he limped into the shed. Katrine drew in a breath of shock at his appearance. They had not been kept that long in the shed, but the man looked far worse for the passage of time. The bandage Evelyn had applied earlier was now soaked through, mottled brown and red. He could barely put weight on the leg, and his blotchy face was both flushed and ghostly pale. Katrine watched him waver a bit before slumping against the doorjamb, the flimsy shack groaning under his weight.
“McGraw!” Katrine’s entire body reacted to the sound of Clint’s fearsome roar. “Samuel McGraw!”
“Jesse Wellington!” a third voice called out. Two more distinct voices repeated each of the men’s names.
That meant four men were now surrounding the shack. Katrine grabbed Evelyn’s hand.
“I heard Reid’s voice!” Evelyn said on a rush of breath. “Our prayers have been answered. They’re here to rescue us.”
“Stop that nonsense. Ain’t no rescue going on—this here’s a trap.” McGraw used the tip of his gun to lift Katrine’s long braid off her shoulder. “And you’re the bait.” Katrine’s skin shivered where the metal of the gun had skimmed her shoulder.
“Evelyn!” Gideon’s call came through the trees again. Evelyn began to inch toward the sound as if drawn, even though it placed her closer to McGraw.
McGraw lifted his rifle and used the stock to knock out a corner of the shed’s flimsy wall closest to Gideon’s voice. Then, without even aiming, he shot a round into the air. Katrine and Evelyn both flinched at the blast, covering their ears and crouching back down against the far wall.
“Next one goes through your little missy here!” McGraw called into the trees.
“No one said nothing about killing them!” Wellington hissed to McGraw.
“Don’t kill us,” Katrine found her voice, pleading to Wellington with her eyes, as well. “We’ve done nothing to you.”
“Nothing’s right,” McGraw growled, spinning to face Katrine and Evelyn. “Most of you don’t pay us no mind. Men of the U.S. Cavalry. Used to be that counted for something.” He pointed his rifle at Katrine, and she felt her blood halt in her veins. “Only you pay that misguided sheriff more mind than you do me.”
Katrine decided every second McGraw was talking to her was a second he was not shooting at Clint, so she engaged him. “You have the respect that comes with your uniform. You need not kill to get more.”
“I got more men out here than you have in there, McGraw,” came Clint’s commanding voice. “End this before anyone gets hurt.”
“Listen to him,” Evelyn pleaded.
“I don’t take orders from the likes of you!” McGraw snarled.
Wellington peered through the hole McGraw had knocked in the wall. “How many you reckon he’s got out there?”
“He’s bluffin’,” McGraw answered, wiping his brow with his grimy sleeve. The thick, coppery scent of blood combined with the sour order of sweat to fill the room and turn Katrine’s stomach. “He’s got two. Three at the most.”
“I dunno, Sam. I counted at least four.” Wellington was beginning to look worried.
“You!” McGraw barked, pointing at Katrine with an unsteady hand. “Up!”
Evelyn grabbed Katrine’s hand. “Don’t.”
“I said up!” McGraw’s voice was beyond mean.
Without a word, Katrine rose slowly to her feet.
“Jesse, tie her hands and hobble her feet so’s she can’t run. Enough to walk, though. Just a few steps.”
As Wellington began to do as he was told, Katrine forced herself to stand tall, nearly eye to eye with McGraw. “You burned down my house.” The words were thin as paper, but something hardened in her spine as she forced them out. “You tried to kill Lars.” If she was going to be paraded out onto the soil to die, Katrine was going to speak McGraw’s crimes to his face.
“No news to me, missy. You done yet?” he snapped at Wellington, who was tying off the line he’d lashed around Katrine’s boots. “Hurry it up.”
Katrine was not done. “All the accidents. The fences, the cattle, the wells...they were you.”
“That’s enough!” With a shove rough enough to send Katrine nearly tumbling to the floor, McGraw pushed her through the shed and into the larger cabin. Limping ahead of her, he pushed open the cabin door and motioned with his rifle. “Walk out there nice and slow. Make sure Thornton gets a good look at ya. Just remember, if you even look like you’re tryin’ to run, I’ll shoot you down sure as we stand here.”
Slowly, Katrine shuffled to the door as McGraw stood out of sight beside it. The bright sunlight hurt her eyes, trapped for so many hours in the dim shed as they had been. She had no idea what time it was or where they were, only prayed as she hobbled out into the clearing that this sunshine wouldn’t be her last.
“Katrine?” Clint’s voice was tight and sharp from beyond the trees where she strained to see him but could not. “You hurt?”
“Not yet she ain’t!” McGraw’s voice came from behind Katrine. “But I got a clear shot and like you said, you already seen how I treat my enemies.”
Branches ahead of her shifted and Clint appeared from behind a copse of trees. He placed his rifle down on the ground and walked slowly.
The sight of him brought such a flood of relief to her body that Katrine felt herself wobble a bit. His eyes held hers for a moment, then looked over her shoulder. His face tightened into a dark, focused expression and she knew he was doing what he did so well—gathering details, plotting tactics, assessing danger. How he managed to look so calm and still while his mind worked that fast, she could not guess, but the effect of his control gave her courage.
She wanted him to come closer, but he stopped several yards away. He seemed deliberate in his choice of spot, but she had no idea of his plan. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” his eyes said, even though he simply repeated his earlier question. “Are you hurt?”
Katrine shook her head. She was many things— terrified, tired, assured, confused—but not hurt.
Clint pointed up to his face as if to say, “Keep your eyes on me.” It wasn’t hard to comply with his silent request. Katrine felt if she didn’t keep her eyes on Clint she might very well fall over. Her pulse galloped in her ears as it was.
“This has gone far enough, McGraw. I got nothing you want, and these women will only slow you down if you escape.” Clint’s voice was remarkably steady despite his current position as a clear target out in the open. Then again, so was she. Katrine felt her head spin again. She did not want to end her life shot in the back by the likes of Sam McGraw.
“Got you here, didn’t it?”
Katrine watched Clint’s hand move behind his back, a small, almost imperceptible gesture. Clint raised an eyebrow—just a tiny bit—and his head fell a fraction of an inch. “Let ’em go, Sam. This is between you and me, anyways.” She watched his eyes dart back and forth between her and the cabin behind her. He had positioned himself, she guessed, so that her stance blocked part of his body from McGraw. When his fingers flicked, Katrine caught movement in the bushes far to her left.
“I came for her, not for you. I’d love to hunt you down like the weasel you are, but right now I’d just as soon never see you again.”
I came for her. The words sank themselves deep into Katrine’s fear, giving her something to hold on to. He was reaching for her even now, just the same as when he pulled her out from the fire.
“As if I’d believe the likes of you would just stand there while I waltzed away.”
“Let her go, let Evelyn go, and I may surprise you.”
A twig snapped far to Katrine’s right, and she fought the urge to swing her head around toward the noise. Clint’s eyes told her not to move, and she heard the command as clearly as if he’d spoken.
“You telling me you got eyes for this one?” McGraw ground out. “What makes you think I don’t already know that? What makes you think that ain’t exactly why I took her? Why I might not just keep her for myself just to spite you?”
While Sam was talking, Clint cast his eyes down toward his left hand, his fingers spread flat against the leg of his pants. When she looked back up again, it took her a second to realize he was mouthing something to her, but she could not make it out. She gave Clint a puzzled look.
“’Cause even you’re not that much of a snake, McGraw,” Clint went on, his eyes continuing to dart between her and what she could only assume was the rifle-ready stance of Sam McGraw behind her. “Or do you want to prove me wrong?” Clint said. His face was taut and fierce, yet somehow he managed to keep his words casual, almost like children daring each other in the schoolyard.
He cast his glance down to his hand again, which now had four fingers flat against his pant leg. When she looked up again, it only took Katrine a second to realize he was mouthing the word fire—four in Danish.
He was counting down. Counting down to do something—but what?