“I’ll take care of it,” David said.
They did not have to wait long. The shadows shifted at the corner of the barn. Jim smiled as he recognized the ploy. One of Bannen’s men was waving his hat, trying to draw their fire.
He drew the rifle up tight against his shoulder. His finger took up the slack on the trigger.
Apparently satisfied they’d caught the cabin unaware, a man stepped out from the edge of the barn and started forward. Jim let him take two steps, enough that a second attacker had stepped out, then he opened fire.
Jim’s first bullet caught the man dead center. The man let out a grunt. He rose up on his toes, then keeled over. Jim cycled the action and snapped off a quick shot at the next man. The bullet splintered the edge of the barn a half second after the fleeing man reached cover.
“They try that way yet?” Jim asked.
“Nothing,” David said. “Did you get any?”
“One,” Jim studied the fallen man in the faint light. “Dusted another, I think.”
“How many are there?” Ellen said.
“No way of knowing,” Jim answered. “At least eight chased me out of Bidwell’s.”
“So many,” Abigail said. Ellen’s mother was watching the window that looked out into the rolling hills. The direction they’d least likely attack from.
“He could have more, and he could have recruited more in the meantime,” Jim said.
“It doesn’t matter,” David said. “We will hold them off. Help will arrive. Captain Neill will come back with men and guns enough to run this trash off.”
“We just have to hold until then,” Jim said.
“I see something,” Ellen said. “Out on the plains.”
David shifted to the window Ellen guarded. “I don’t see,” he said.
“There…riders,” Ellen pointed.
“Captain Neill?” Abigail said.
Shots struck the wall near Ellen’s window. Jim shifted over, but just then a man leaned out around the barn and fired into the door. Jim returned fire. His bullet went through. Fragments of wood splintered from the impact.
Jim shifted himself away from the door and into the cover of the thicker wall. “They’re shooting through the door,” he said.
He fired twice more without aiming. One shot struck the side of the barn with no effect; the second hit close enough that Bannen’s man ducked back out of sight.
Then David was at the window Ellen had been holding, firing as quickly as he could work the action.
Jim went to the table and began dragging it toward the front door. When it was close, he grabbed one side and tipped it until the tabletop lay flush with the door.
Then he shifted to the nearest window where he could still cover the barn. A man with a coonskin cap leaned out again and emptied his rifle into the door. Jim lined up a shot, squeezed the trigger. Another miss, but once again, the man retreated.
“They’re coming around your way,” David said.
“Which way?” Jim said.
“North.”
Jim swung his aim in that direction and waited. The first rider broke into view with his horse at a run. Jim tracked him with his rifle, fired. The man jerked as the bullet struck home. Jim kept firing. He managed two more shots before his rifle ran dry. He didn’t remember firing so many. Then he pulled back from the window, shoving bullets into the magazine as fast as his fingers would allow.
The riders put several shots into the cabin through the unguarded window.
“Down. Get down!” Jim said.
David let out a yelp when a bullet burned along his arm. Abigail screamed. Ellen moved toward her father, and David pulled both women down.
Bullets kept crashing all around them. Jim raised up just enough to fire. The riders had come in close now. Jim blew the nearest out of the saddle. He missed a second man and then the riders swung past.
Jim shifted windows, expecting them to appear. The drumbeat of their horses’ hooves tapered off into the night.
“I think they’re leaving,” Jim said.
“Father, you’re hurt,” Ellen said.
“Never mind me,” David said. “Keep watch for them.”
“David, you’re bleeding,” Abigail said.
“I’ll be fine.”
Ellen moved up beside Jim and peered out the window. Jim heard her breath fast and shallow. Beads of sweat clung to her forehead. “Are they really gone?”
“I think so,” Jim said. He looked out the window into the deep night. “But this isn’t over. I think they’ll be back.”
