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THE MORNING CHILL WRAPPED around Lee. Carter tapped his shoulder and held out a steaming tin mug of dark, pungent coffee. As the warming smell drifted into his nostrils, Lee nodded his thanks.
For the first time since the previous evening, he holstered his gun and rubbed his raw eyes. With a creaking flex of his fingers, he took the mug from Carter and huddled over the coffee, letting the warmth seep into his tired bones.
By degrees his spirits livened as he slurped down the brew, but just as reached the dregs, something moved outside. Against the horizon, cresting the nearest ridge, a lone rider appeared.
Lee nudged Carter, who nodded and whistled. As the ranch hands kneeled by their windows, five more men trotted into view and stretched across the ridge. The man in the middle was Abe and even when sitting he was a head taller than the rest.
At a steady trot, the riders slipped through the ranch gates and drew to a halt ten yards in from the gates. Abe trotted forward a horse-length.
“I only bear a grudge against one man inside,” he called. “So the rest can choose whether they want to live or die. You have one minute.”
Lee leaned close to the window and steadied his gun arm. Each of the ranch hands had their jaws set firm, their guns held out, a self-respect in their postures that Lee hadn’t seen before. Abe spun his horse around and spoke to Elliott, who grinned.
Then, with a whoop of bravado, Elliott dragged his horse to the right and led the riders in a line in front of the ranch. They arced around and disappeared from view around the side of the house.
Inside, everyone shrugged, but as there was only one way into the building, and that was from the front, they returned to facing the windows. The riders completed a circle of the house, but Elliott led them across to the front again.
They disappeared from view around the corner of the house, only to reappear a minute later at the other side of it. On this circuit, the riders drew back, creating a wider gap between themselves and the rider in front, and they increased their speed.
Lee closed his eyes for a moment to avoid the mesmerizing blur of horses charging before him. Then he realized something. Five men had started circling, but on this pass he’d seen only four men.
“Boss, one of the riders hasn’t followed them around,” he called.
As the riders slipped around the corner, Lorne pointed at the farthest windows on either side of the room and ordered Dave and William to guard against the attackers gaining positions on the sides on the house. As Dave and William dashed to the flanking windows, a crunch sounded from above, and then a hammering.
Everyone raised their heads, but then Elliott led his horses on another pass. On this pass, Abe fired a single shot, which slammed into the wall beside Lee’s window. Outside, each rider fired when he was at his nearest point to the building.
Each shot clattered above the windows or plumed into the dirt in front of the house. The men inside judged that they were just trying to rile them and didn’t return fire, preferring instead to let them waste bullets.
The riders disappeared from view around the corner again, but this time their trail of hoofprints was inside the line they’d created previously. On their next pass before the house, the first three riders each fired once.
Again each shot was wild, although Elliott smashed a bullet through the window above Lee. Glass cascaded around him, but Lee avoided ducking and as soon as Elliott was level with the window, Lee let rip with a speculative shot through the broken window.
The riders returned a volley of gunfire. All around Lee, the windows shattered. He ducked and so did the other defenders. Lee bobbed up above the windowsill and fired back, but the riders were already galloping around the side of the house. When the man on the roof hammered again, Lee rose to his feet and faced Lorne.
“Sir, no man could break through the roof, could he?” he said.
Lorne concentrated on his window and firmed his gun hand.
“Nobody could.”
“Abe might.”
“He’s in the line of riders outside.”
Lee shook his head. “That last volley could have been a distraction.”
Lorne, and then everyone else, flinched as with a crashing and grinding of struts, a wide block of the roof collapsed. In a blast of dust and splinters, Abe dropped to the floor through the ruined roof.
He landed on bent knees, a fence post held aloft. With a vast fist, he clubbed Lorne aside and then turned to the other men. Lee dashed toward Abe, but the eight-foot post blurred toward him, Abe was wielding it with just one hand.
Desperately, Lee dove to the floor and the post whistled over him, clipping his shoulder as he fell. Without stopping, the post swung around in an arc, scything Carter and the next three men in seconds.
On the floor, Lee rubbed his shoulder. He staggered to his feet and tottered toward Abe, drawing his gun as he fought to regain his senses. To avoid the swirling post, Stem and William dropped to the floor.
Even as the few men whom Abe hadn’t scythed down were dragging themselves to their feet, Orem and Pancho crashed through the windows to face the ragged survivors. Lee turned on his heel and blasted a shot into Pancho’s guts.
Pancho went down, clutching his chest, but Orem barged into Lee, forcing his gun arm upward. An involuntary trigger-pull wasted a shot into the ceiling. Orem ripped the gun from Lee’s hand and the two men rocked back and forth.
Then, with a wry smile to himself, Lee swung his leg up, slamming his knee between his opponent’s legs. Orem folded over, and Lee pushed him away to face Abe, who was swinging the fence post on a second arc, scything through Stem and William.
Then, with everyone but Lee pole-axed, he rocked the post back on a shoulder and chuckled. Lee confirmed that all the defenders were down. Orem was climbing to his feet and outside Elliott and Rufus were galloping toward the house.
“What’s it to be, little man?” Abe said.
Lee stood tall. “You’ll take Lorne over my dead body.”
Abe nodded, his vast beard rising and falling. He smiled with an arc of gleaming teeth.
“If you insist.” Abe swung the post high above his head, but as Lee jutted his chin, he hurled the post against the wall. “Your threat just forced me to retreat.”
Abe swaggered past the open-mouthed Lee to Orem. He hoisted Orem to his feet and marched outside, the climb through the broken window barely breaking his stride.
“But we have them!” Orem shouted but already they were outside.
Lee shuffled to the window, his thoughts more confused than they’d ever been in his life. Outside, Abe collected Elliott and Rufus. The two men yelled their disagreement at Abe and gestured back at the house, but Abe silenced them with a snarl, and without further argument, the four men retreated to hide behind an overturned cart in front of the barn.
There, they hunkered down out of view. Carter staggered to his feet and joined Lee at the window, rubbing his chest.
“Why did he do that?” he asked, his voice high and bewildered.
Lee shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“He must have recognized you, but why did you scare him off?”
Lee tipped back his hat. “Like I said, I’ve got as much idea as to why he didn’t kill me as you have.”
Lee rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off his confusion, but when that failed he helped Carter get the other men to their feet. As each man stood up, they asked the same question as Carter had, but only Lorne ventured an answer.
“I reckon Abe is just making us suffer,” he said, rubbing his head.
For the fifth time in as many minutes, Lee shrugged. Still bewildered, he joined everyone in resuming their positions by the broken windows. When long minutes had passed, and Abe and his gang still stayed behind their cart, the ranch hands accepted that death wasn’t imminent and counted through their injuries.
None were severe and they had lost no men. Abe had lost the one man whom Lee had shot – Pancho. For another ten minutes they waited, but Abe still remained behind the cart, nobody even getting a sight of him or any of the other men.
“Perhaps they’ve run away,” Finch said.
Such was the bemusement that everyone still felt, a general murmuring agreement drifted around the room.
“Perhaps Finch is right,” Lorne said. He rubbed his chin and then turned to Lee and Carter. “You two did well reporting back from the Marriott ranch. Are you ready for another mission?”