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William had positioned by the fire. The one sitting by the fire
crumpled over into a heap and fell into the flames. The blanket around
it caught alight. The bedroll never moved.
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148
Cindy Crane
Jed kept his eyes firmly on the top of the crop of rocks, where he
too had first spied on the camp. The gun flash had come from up
there. But still he didn’t move. He just waited.
The shooter stood up and hollered excitedly, “I’ve got ’em. Got
’em both! They’re both dead.”
It would have been so easy to shoot him there and then, but all
three men resisted the temptation to fire. They needed to know
exactly how many other gunmen they would be dealing with.
The killer slithered down the rocks and into the clearing. He gave
a raucous hoot of laughter as he strode across the camp toward the
bedroll. He pulled back his foot to give it a good kick as five other
men rode into the clearing. As his foot made contact, he sent the pile
of provisions scattering over the ground and into the fire.
“Shit.” His eyes nervously met those of McCabe’s other cronies.
They all looked in unison at the burning hat and blanket, now well
ablaze in the flames. Comprehension dawned.
“Shit,” he repeated.
It was the last word he uttered as Jed put a bullet between his
eyes. At the same time, Jacob and William opened fire on the other
riders.
Simultaneously, two men fell to the ground, lifeless. Their horses
shied and whinnied in fear at the sudden explosion of noise. They
trampled supplies underfoot, and created further mayhem around the
camp. The three remaining riders attempted to whirl their horses
around. At the same time, they fired erratically into the trees, in the
hope of hitting the two men whom they’d come to kill.
Jed, Jacob, and William continued shooting.
Another of McCabe’s men clutched his chest. His mouth agape
and his eyes wide, he fell from his horse and thudded onto the ground.
His horse reared up. It cried out in terror and circled the camp
aimlessly with the others, kicking up clouds of dust and adding to the
chaos.
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Hannah’s Gold
149
The last two riders, realizing they’d been ambushed, hurriedly
made for the trees but Jed and William had already anticipated their
move and ran ahead of them. They fired from opposite sides of the
track. One man crashed straight down into the thick undergrowth. The
other slumped over his horse’s back. For a moment, he lay there very
still. As he finally slipped slowly down its flank, his foot caught in the
stirrup. His horse, terrified by the commotion going on around it,
bolted and dragged his lifeless body along the ground and through the
trees.
Jed and William stopped firing and listened. The only sounds they
now heard were those of the horses, crashing through the vegetation.
Soon, even that stopped and silence reigned over the forest once
more. Guns still clutched tightly in their grasp, they stepped into the
clearing to survey the damage, and the bodies strewn on the ground.
But where was Jacob? There was no sign of him.
Their eyes met anxiously.
Quickly, they rushed to where Jacob had taken up his position. A
pair of boots poked out from beneath the undergrowth.
“Fuck!” William swore. The two men exchanged fearful looks.
William took a step closer to where Jacob lay. Nervously, Jed
stepped up behind him. Both men stopped dead as they stood over
him. Jacob wasn’t moving. Flat on his back, blood covered the front
of his shirt.
“Fuck.” Jed whispered, echoing William’s expletive. It looked
like he’d failed in his mission, after all.
But even worse, McCabe had won.
Jacob wouldn’t be returning to pay off his father’s debt—or to
save Hannah from a life of hell.
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150
Cindy Crane
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dawn broke. It held all the promise of a beautiful day. But, other
than the weather, Luke knew there’d be nothing beautiful about what
today would bring. He placed a rifle by each window and a pile of
ammunition within easy reach. McCabe’s men would most likely
attack from all sides. Hannah would cover the back and he the front.
They’d be prepared for any eventuality and move to wherever the
fight took them.
Fully resigned to the fact that Jacob wouldn’t be coming back,
Hannah still protested that he didn’t need to get involved. It wasn’t
Luke’s fight. She’d honor her bargain, however repulsive it was. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]