Emmy (Gold Rush Brides Book 2) (16 page)

Roy’s gut tied itself up in knots. Trying to keep a firm grip on his temper, he calmly asked, “What mark?”

“The star,” Jim replied, glancing out the window again. “Like the one on your hand. I scrape three crisscrossing lines in the dirt with my heel to make a star. That’s our mark!”

Roy was baffled at the pride he seemed to take in the action that could very well see them all dangling from a California collar. His hands shook with rage at Jim, but he had to know why one of his most valuable men would do something so profoundly stupid. “Why?” he simply asked, his voice quivering.

Sheriff Watson heard the quiver and saw the fire in Roy’s eyes, and shuffled sideways, away from him and out of the line of fire. He may be corrupt and two-faced, but he wasn’t stupid. Not as stupid as Jim, at least.

“Well, the way I hear it, all the best outlaw gangs have a mark they leave behind. Shows how tough they are or something. You’re our leader and you got that dandy scar, so I figured that could be our mark.” He shrugged indifferently and turned back to the window.

The steam was building inside Roy, and he was about to explode. Taking a deep, calming breath, he tried to keep his voice level when he spoke. “How many times have you done this, Jim?”

“Oh, all of ‘em. I did it on a lark on my first ride with you — what was that, two years ago? Just kep’ doing’ it. But don’t worry, Roy. I made ‘em off to the side where no one would spot ‘em. I ain’t stupid, ya know.” He was oblivious to the death stare Roy was giving him.

Every one? That meant more than twenty stagecoach robberies and at least that many murders could be linked to them, if anyone had noticed Jim’s star. And obviously Sheriff Wilder had.
 

“Lemme ask you something,” Roy said, his voice now deadly calm. “All those gangs you heard about using marks? Any of ‘em still riding free, or are they all in jail or dead?”

He could practically see the wheels turning in Jim’s head, puzzling out the question. Finally, he turned his surprised gaze to Roy. “Oh!”

“Yeah, oh. Every time you was scuffing that star in the dirt, Jim, you was signing our death warrant! You’re the reason we’re holed up in here right now! I outta blow your brains out right now!”

“Me?!” Jim shouted. “You’re blaming this all on me?! You’re the one who decided to retire and take a bride
who recognized you!
Way I see it,
you’re
the one to blame for all this madness, Roy. Maybe you should go blow your own brains out!”

Roy saw red and the next thing he knew, his hands were wrapped tightly around Jim’s neck, squeezing with all his strength. Jim’s face turned an alarming shade of red moving toward purple before hands pulled Roy away, leaving Jim gasping on the floor.
 

“Take it easy, Roy,” Boone was saying, leading him away. “What’s done is done. No sense crying over spilled milk and all that. Let’s just focus on surviving the night.”

Roy nodded, glaring over at Jim but settling in next to the fire, breathless. Once this was over, he’d have to take care of Jim in a permanent way — couldn’t trust him — but for now he lived, if only to shield Roy from Wilder’s bullets.
 

Time passed slowly until Boone drew in a sharp breath, then everything speeded up. “Roy!” he whispered, excitedly waving him over to his south-facing window. “I think I see something!”

Roy peeked out the window but only saw the moonlit land. “What? I don’t see nothin’.”

“Look, over there in the trees. I see a fire. It’s faint, but it’s there.”

Roy scanned the black nothingness of the woods. It took him a moment but, sure enough, a tiny flicker of light was burning out there. It looked to be at the edge of the woods, but it was hard to be certain. Blink too long and you had to search again to find it.

“That’s them,” Roy said excitedly. “They musta come east outta town and run south, thinking we wouldn’t expect ‘em to hit us from that side. It’s what I’d do if I was in their boots.”

“Musta made camp,” whispered Watson over Roy’s shoulder, crowding him.

“Where is it?” Jim asked eagerly.

“Right over there,” Boone said, pointing at the light. No sooner had he said it than the fire sparked and flickered out.

“What happened? Where’d it go?” The sharp smell of Watson’s fear made Roy sick.
 

“Calm down, Sheriff,” he said, smiling. “Someone kicked it out. One of the green deputies prolly started it up and Wilder or one of his more experienced men put it out before we could see it. Too late.”

Roy backed away from the window, rubbing his hands together greedily and chuckling. “We got ‘em now, boys. I’m half-tempted to sneak up on ‘em ourselves.”

“But Roy…”
 

He waved off the sheriff’s concern. “Don’t worry, we won’t, but just knowing they’re out there makes me hanker for a fight. Boone, go tell Collin what’s going on. We need all eyes watching for them to make their move. I’m guessing it’ll be in the wee hours, when they think we’ll all be sleepin’. That’s what I’d do.”

Before Boone reached the door, Roy heard two things that chased away his excitement and shrouded him in the blackest sense of dread. The first was a sharp crack off to the north. The second was the sound of Collin slamming against the door and falling to the ground.

Dead.

Mason had hoped to be a little closer to the cabin before taking out the man in front but he turned their way as they tore across the western clearing. If he spotted them, he’d send up the alarm to the men inside, so Mason took the shot. All of his men were excellent marksmen, but Mason was the best, and only the best could hit the target from that distance — riding on the back of a horse, no less. He took no pleasure in killing the man, but he had a job to do.

Jake and David pulled ahead of him and positioned themselves on either side of the cabin, rifles at the ready, while he rode to the front. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Fred galloping up from the south to join them.
 

Why did Mason always underestimate the man? Once again, he proved his brilliance by coming up with a plan to confuse Kirby and his men. He rode the long way around the property so he wouldn’t be spotted and lit a small campfire in the southern woods. The idea was that Kirby’s men would all be focusing in that direction, while Mason, Jake and David rode in as hard as they could from the north. There was a lot of luck involved but it was the only chance they’d had to ride up on the cabin unseen. And now they had the place surrounded.

“Kirby, we know you’re in there,” Mason shouted to the chilly night air. Whispers of fog drifted up from his mouth with every breath. “Come out with your hands raised and you’ll live at least as long as your trial, I promise you that!”

He was answered with a single gunshot that went wild, then the firefight began. He and his men dismounted, the horses tearing off toward the safety of the trees, and rushed the cabin, pressing their backs against the rough log timbers. With only two windows and one door, the men inside couldn’t shoot what they couldn’t see.

“I can’t see ‘em,” came a shout from inside.

“Where the devil’d they go?” shouted someone else.

Mason waited a moment to let the panic fully set in, then shouted, “Now!”

On either side of the cabin, Jake and David popped out in front of each small window and blasted whoever had the bad luck to be standing on the other side. Before anyone inside knew what was happening, they ducked out of sight again. Screams of pain and panic and fury echoed from inside.

“Kirby! I’ll give you one last chance. Throw your weapons out the windows and come out with your hands high. You and your men will get a fair trial up in Nevada County, which I’m sure isn’t what you want, is it? Hey, is Sheriff Watson in there with ya? Tell him the same goes for him.”

Once again, he was answered with a shot, but this one found its mark. Fred screamed from behind the cabin. Another shot rang out and the screaming stopped.
 

“No!” Mason cried.
 

How could they have gotten to Fred back there? They’d watched for hours and only seen the one man outside. Was there a window back there? That would be unusual, considering how expensive plate glass was in these parts. Besides, Fred would never have stepped in front of one.

Mason’s heart broke, then turned black with hate for the man inside. He’d killed everyone in Mason’s life he considered family. Now it was time for Mason to kill him.

“To me!” he shouted to Jake and David, who rounded the corner of the cabin in seconds and pulled the dead man off to the side. Mason backed up a few steps and took a running leap at the door, throwing his full weight against it. The flimsy thing barely resisted his bulk before splintering and collapsing inward. As he was falling to the floor, his deputies ran in behind him, guns blazing.
 

It only took him a second or two to take a full survey of the room: One man dead with a gunshot wound to the head, another bleeding from a non-fatal shot to his shooting arm, Sheriff Watson trying to make himself the smallest target possible in a corner and Kirby standing in the middle of the room with his revolver smoking as he shot wildly at the three men bursting into his cabin.

Jake took out the injured man quickly enough and David drew Kirby’s fire away from Mason so he could gain his feet. Kirby only had one man left, and that was the coward of a sheriff hiding under his arms like he wished they were his mama’s skirts.

Coming from behind, Jake lunged at Kirby, knocking him to the floor. Kirby was a slightly bigger man, and almost gained the upper hand as they wrestled, but Jake was much younger. He managed to flip out from under him and pin him to the floor, but not before Kirby’s gun went off.
 

Not wanting a stray bullet to hit any one of them, David kicked Kirby’s gun hand so hard that Mason heard bones cracking all the way across the room. If it had been any other man, he would have winced but it wasn’t any other man. It was Roy Kirby, the man who murdered his wife, the man responsible for Fred’s death, the man who tricked Emmy into marrying him. Mason couldn’t do anything but smile.

Kirby grunted with pain but remained still, knowing he was beaten. David held his Winchester on him anyway, as Mason aimed at the huddled form of Sheriff Watson.
 

“Time to face the music, Sheriff,” he said, edging closer to the man. But he wouldn’t move. He stayed curled up in a ball.

“Come on, Watson. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a sympathetic jury. Time to go.” Still nothing.

Mason reached out and prodded the man with the tip of his boot. Watson slid sideways and fell over, dead. Kirby’s last wild shot had torn into his chest, leaving him in a pool of blood.

“Well, ain’t that just a dag-blamed shame,” Mason said, kneeling down to peer into Kirby’s fiery gaze. “You went and shot your last friend.”

“Not his
last
friend,” said a husky voice from behind them.
 

Mason whirled around and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. A small man with a bushy black beard hidden under a bandana was standing in the doorway holding a gun in one hand.

Emmy was in the other.

As the men faded from her sight, Emmy leaned on Blaze’s shoulder, stroking the horse’s neck the way he liked. He reciprocated by nuzzling her hand and chuffing at her. It was so comforting to have him with her, otherwise she’d be completely alone.
 

That would have terrified her a few days ago, but she’d learned a lot from the sheriff and his men, and she was feeling more and more confident in herself every day. It seemed like years ago that she’d run away from New York, and she was no longer the same woman. Mason’s men had taken her under their wings, mostly when Mason wasn’t watching, of course, and taught her the basics she needed to stay alive in the wild.
 

David took her hunting one time and showed her how to set up a rabbit snare. It wasn’t as effective as a gun but he said Mason would have his head if he handed his weapon over to her.
 

Fred taught her which berries, mushrooms and nuts were edible and admonished her to never eat one she didn’t recognize because it might make her sick…or dead.
 

Jake even gave her an extra flint so she could practice starting a fire. Mason had chuckled at the sad little wisp of smoke that was the only result of her first attempt, but that had only made her more determined to show him she could do it. Over and over she practiced, imitating Jake’s method of putting a little patch of moss on broken-up twigs, and over and over she ended up with a single tendril of smoke wafting up to mock her.
 

Tonight would be different. Mason wasn’t standing over her shoulder, teasing her and making her nervous. Plus, if she didn’t get the fire going, she was going to be mighty cold all night. The sun was already close to the horizon, so the first thing she needed to do was try her hand at catching a rabbit.
 

Edging a little deeper into the woods, she spotted a faint track that David taught her might be a rabbit trail, and it didn’t take long to find the burrow. She only had a little trouble remembering how to set up the little net, but was pleased with the result. Ideally, she would have figured out a way to scare the critter out of its hidey hole but aside from stomping around on top of it, she wasn’t sure how. Hopefully it would venture out soon enough for dinner.

On her way back to the clearing, she collected supplies to make a fire. A handful of twigs here, a little patch of dry moss there and some good-sized sticks. Once it was burning nicely, she’d go collect heftier pieces of wood to keep it going. There was enough within a few steps of the clearing to keep her warm for a week, but she only needed enough for the night. But right now she needed to get the blasted thing started.

She couldn’t help envisioning Mason’s face when he arrived back at the clearing only to find leftover rabbit and a blazing campfire. It would prove to him, once and for all, that she was a changed woman. She wasn’t the same mollycoddled child who’d shown up on his doorstep stomping her feet and expecting to be taken care of. This trip had taught her how to take care of herself, mostly, and she couldn’t wait to prove it to him. He’d warmed to her, certainly, but the satisfaction of that scene would be sweet.