Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 (22 page)

The twang of bowstrings, the whiz and thwack of arrows, the crack of gunshots, people shouting, and horses whinnying all carried through the crisp air. Men from both sides moved so much, it was hard to tell who was a bandit and who was our guard. A volley of arrows from our guard took down a few bandits, but people fell to the ground everywhere. By the urgency in Stott’s voice, things weren’t going as planned. It was chaos. I couldn’t
tell how many men lying on the ground were from White Rock. I couldn’t even tell who was winning.

A movement downhill drew my attention. Mickelson and the other bandit who was always with him were sneaking away from the fight, toward the community center. I gasped. “The horses!” I said as I pointed in their direction. “They’re going back down to the horses to escape!”

The guard and the bandits were so caught up in the battle, no one noticed the two men leaving. I yelled as loud as I could, “Stott! Stott!” But the noise from the battle was too loud, and we were too far away. There wasn’t a chance in the world he’d hear me.

“If they get to the horses,” Brock said, “they can ride up through the woods and take the road to the mines. They’d bypass the fighting and get away.”

“Stott!” I screamed. I stood on top of the roof and waved my arms. “Stott!”

Aaren put a hand on my leg. “They’ll never get to them in time.”

I watched as Mickelson and the other man disappeared behind the tall bushes. Aaren was right. Even if Stott could hear me, the fighting was happening a lot farther up the tram path than where Mickelson and the other bandit were. The guard would never catch them in time. Nothing we had done mattered.

I stood on the roof, feeling more helpless than ever. I’d thought that by going to Browning to get our guard, we’d save our town. But they weren’t saved. Mickelson was still getting away with the Ameiphus.

“We have to do something,” I said as I slid off the roof into a bank of snow. Aaren and Brock scrambled down after me. We all untied our snowshoes from our backs and put them on.

Brock pulled his bale grabber from my bag and said to Aaren, “I saw a bin of coal by the fireplace for your slingshot.”

Aaren took off into the house and called out, “Go! I’ll catch up.”

I ran as fast as I could toward the tram path; then I
remembered the grain tram. I’d noticed it was lodged in the snow along the path. It would make getting to the community center a lot faster. I told Brock about the tram as we ran. He said, “Get it unstuck. I’ll be there in a minute.” Then he veered to the left.

When I got to the path, I turned right without even looking toward the sounds of the fight. The battle was the guard’s problem. Mine was in front of me, and he was much farther down the path than I’d hoped. I found the tram a couple hundred yards down, grabbed the platform, and gave it a hard tug. It wasn’t until Aaren’s hands joined mine on the third tug that it came free from the bank and hung from its ropes in the middle of the path.

Brock ran toward us with a coil of rope in his hands that he must have grabbed from a barn. As Brock got closer, I called out, “One … two … three!” We all jumped onto the platform of the tram at the same time, and the sudden weight launched it down the path.

The wind rushed past as we sped along, snow billowing out behind us. I sat with my legs hanging over the short wall in the front so my snowshoes were out of the way, and put my hands on the brakes. We needed speed to catch up, but I didn’t want to hit the ending pole, either.

The bandits pounded through the snow ahead of us, nearing the horses. The sounds of the battle behind us
and their running must have covered the sounds of the tram, because they didn’t notice us. We’d been on the path for less than a minute and were already two-thirds of the way down. I leaned forward to make us go even faster.

Several hundred yards ahead, the horses stood to the left of the tram path, in the open space just before the ditch and the shops that circled the community center. If we went as far as the tram would go, it would take us past the horses, the ditch, and the buildings and land us right on the road. I set my sights on the buildings, because nothing else would block us from a bullet. It meant we’d pass by Mickelson and the other bandit, but I hoped we’d go by so fast they couldn’t get us.

As we neared the last upright post before the horses, I positioned my feet on the brakes, but it didn’t matter. The rope for the last section wasn’t tight. The tram sagged and we went slower and slower until it lodged itself in the snow. Unfortunately, the bandit with Mickelson chose that moment to glance back.

“Hey!” the man yelled, and by the look of surprise on Mickelson’s face when he turned, I guessed he actually thought we had died. We jumped off the tram and ran as fast as we could toward the buildings. We had snowshoes, but they had longer legs. We could tell we’d never make it to the buildings, so as soon as we reached the ditch, we dove into it.

It blocked us from them, but we knew it wouldn’t save us for long.

“The guy with Mickelson used all his bullets before they left the fight,” Brock said. “I didn’t see Mickelson, though.”

Aaren pulled his slingshot out of his bag as we hunched down in the ditch. “I did. He didn’t fire a single shot.”

I poked my head up, then ducked just as quickly when I saw the bandits running toward us, less than twenty-five feet away. “There’s no way he gave all the bullets to his men,” I said. “He has some.”

Brock uncoiled his bale grabber and shortened it as much as it would go, while Aaren gave me his schoolbag of coal and asked me to keep handing him one piece at a time. He stood up and shot piece after piece of coal with his slingshot, faster than I’d ever seen him shoot. I could barely keep up with him. Each shot made the two bandits move away from each other.

Mickelson stayed back, but the other man inched closer, trying to reach us. Brock swung the ends of his bale grabber around and around while I kept handing coal to Aaren.

“Now,” Aaren said, his lips barely moving.

Brock stood up and flung his bale grabber toward the man. The grabber wrapped around his legs, and the
man fell to the ground. He cursed as he struggled to free himself.

“Cover me,” Brock said as he grabbed the rope from the ground and ran to the man.

I hesitated, not knowing if I should run forward to help Brock tie up the bandit or continue handing coal to Aaren so he could keep Mickelson away from Brock.

Mickelson stood close enough that I saw a vein in his forehead bulge as he ground his teeth. He had always been so calm and in control. I wasn’t sure which scared me worse—the Purposeful Mickelson, or this Out-of-Control Mickelson.

I should have ducked. I should have run. I should have hid.
Something
. Instead, I froze like I had stone legs as Mickelson raised his gun and aimed it right at me.

Maybe my entire body turned to stone, because I couldn’t breathe. Or hear the yelling from Brock and Aaren. I just stared into Mickelson’s eyes, petrified.

And then I heard a loud
crack!
and Mickelson’s hand flew to the side. His gun landed in the snow half a dozen feet from where he stood, and I was no longer frozen like a statue. I whirled to face Aaren. He stood, slingshot in hand, a look of calm concentration on his face, the same look he got when he helped his mom treat someone who was badly injured. He loaded another piece of coal into his slingshot.

Mickelson grabbed his hurt hand and lunged for the gun. Before he got to it, Aaren fired a second shot and hit him in the shoulder. Mickelson threw a look of barely
contained fury in Aaren’s direction; then the calm, controlled Mickelson returned.

He stared at Brock and the other bandit, then at Aaren and me, then he turned. Away from the gun, away from us. Like we didn’t matter at all.

“He doesn’t have to beat us,” I breathed. “He just has to leave with the Ameiphus and he wins.”

As the words came out of my mouth, Mickelson took off running toward the horses, leaving the other bandit behind. He untied Arabelle’s reins, swung onto her back, and galloped toward the woods.

We scrambled out of the ditch, and Aaren ran to help hold down the bandit Brock was struggling to tie up.

My breath came fast. “I have to go after Mickelson. I have to get the Ameiphus.” I paused long enough to see the worried look on Aaren’s face, the one that said he didn’t want me to go but knew I would anyway, and to be careful. He nodded once before he turned away, and I ran for Chance.

I couldn’t believe Mickelson took Arabelle and left me Chance.
Chance
, of all horses! He was saddled—that was something, at least. I flung off my snowshoes, untied him, climbed into the saddle, and jabbed my heels into his sides.

The wind bit my face and I bounced up and down as Chance galloped through the snow toward Mickelson.
Most of the time I couldn’t see Mickelson as he went around houses, barns, and fences on his way through the first ring. At least with Chance, I didn’t have to go around low fences—he’d jump right over them … some of the time. He jumped the first two fences, but at the third he stopped. His stubbornness could have ended it all for me. The only thing Chance hated more than doing what he was supposed to, though, was being saddled and picketed. It made him want to run.

It took me nearly a mile to catch up to Mickelson at the end of the second ring, half a mile into the woods. I was close enough to see the white bag of Ameiphus tied to his belt. If I didn’t get it before Mickelson reached the end of the third ring, he could turn left on the road and go straight to the mines. I urged Chance closer so I could grab it.

The sound of his hooves pounding through the snow into the frozen ground felt as loud as my heartbeat as I got closer and closer. My outstretched hand was a foot away from the bag when Mickelson kicked at Chance’s shoulder and made him turn away. I got Chance to edge near them a second time, and Mickelson kicked Chance again.

Chance’s body was too big a target—I had to give Mickelson a smaller one. My mind went back to all the times I had watched Cass stunt-ride on Arabelle. I thought of the tricks they did and cursed again the fact that Mickelson rode Arabelle and I got Chance. The best trick was one
where Cass hung by a hand on the pommel and one foot in a stirrup, and lay with her back pressed against the side of her horse. That could put me lower, and if I stretched, only Chance’s head would be within Mickelson’s reach. I hoped it was as easy as Cass made it look, because it was my only idea.

Cass had worked with Arabelle for weeks before they’d succeeded with the trick. At first, whenever Cass swung over her side, Arabelle would assume she’d fallen off and stop dead in her tracks. Eventually Arabelle learned to trust Cass. But it had always been my experience with riding Chance that he didn’t care even a little bit if his rider fell off.

Mickelson rode on my left, so I grabbed the pommel tightly with my left hand, planted my left foot in the stirrup, and then threw my body off the left side of the horse. As my back hit Chance’s side, I got the wind knocked out of me and my hand was nearly pulled off the pommel, but I did it. I was lying flat against Chance’s side. With my head against his neck, I imagined the bag in my hand as I reached forward as far as I could to grab it. I was within inches when Chance decided he was more interested in something off to the right than he was in Mickelson and slowed way down.

Sometimes I hated that horse.

I grabbed the cheek piece of his bridle with my free
arm and jabbed him in the hindquarter with my free foot, aiming his head toward Mickelson. Chance closed the gap between us. I didn’t let go of his bridle until his head was almost to Mickelson’s waist. I gave Chance another nudge in the hindquarter. When he pulled forward, I let go of his bridle, then reached out and ripped the bag from Mickelson’s belt just as Mickelson reached out and shoved Chance’s head to the side.

Chance turned to the right and slowed to a walk, but not before I held the little white bag in my hand. The bag worth invasions and battles and gunshots and lives.

Mickelson jerked Arabelle to a stop and yanked her head toward me. He swore so loudly it startled Chance, making him almost fall when my unbalanced weight and his sidestep made his hoof hit a toppled tree hidden under the snow. As soon as he regained his footing, he took off running. My left arm shook with exhaustion, but I somehow managed to pull myself back into the saddle and shove the Ameiphus inside my schoolbag.