“I’m not,” Jim said. “I’m holstering this gun and you can cover me with that scattergun. Then I’m going directly across.”
Jim slid the pistol into its holster and the miner jerked the scattergun up. He paused, though, and without looking back Jim sent the horse into the stream. When they were across, Jim spurred the horse into a gallop.
How much time had he lost? How far ahead was Bannen?
Onward they rode until the bay stumbled. They were a mile out.
Jim patted the powerful horse’s neck. “I know. I know. Just a little farther. A mile more and we’re there. After that all the rest and feed you can hope for. I promise.”
Fast as the bay might be, Jim did not think he could match his Appaloosa. Not when they were equally fresh. But the Appaloosa had already put in a full day while the bay had been fresh. The Appaloosa would have killed himself getting Jim back to the cabin, and this time he wouldn’t have done it so quickly.
The cabin came into view at last. The clearing it lay in was silent. Not even the birds or insects made a sound.
Jim’s heart soared for a moment. He’d beaten them. Somehow, despite their lead, he’d made it before them. He and David could fort up and fight them off. They didn’t need to hold out long. The sheriff and his deputies wouldn’t be far behind. All they needed to do was—
The bay shied away from something to its left. Beside the trail, a dead man lay sprawled over a stump.
Jim’s pistol leaped into his hand. It would do no good. Bannen was long gone by now, but it comforted him just squeezing the solid butt.
Too late. I’m far too late.
The cabin door hung ajar, sagging on the bottom hinge. The top one had been busted free. He hesitated at the cabin’s threshold. Walt and Alma were almost certainly gone. There would have been more bodies if David had successfully fought them off.
Jim took a long breath. Would he find David and Abigail’s bodies inside? Those of his children? He’d expected Bannen to take them for ransom. But what if he’d murdered them outright? He’d failed utterly. How could he tell Ellen?
The floor creaked under his weight. He heard someone crying inside, a woman. Abigail? He took a quick step.
A shadow emerged from the back room. It held something long and black at waist level.
Jim dove to the side as the gun went off. Angry yellow flames leaped from the scattergun’s double barrels. In the confines of the cabin, the blast was terrific. He felt a hot pain in his side, then crashed onto the floor.
“Abigail?” he yelled. “Abigail, it’s Jim.”
“Jim? Jim, is that you?”
Jim struck a match, and the room flared with light.
“Thank God, Jim,” she said, and the scattergun clattered to the floor. Then she ran to him and began sobbing.
Jim wrapped his arms around her. He let her cry for a moment, taking time to look around the cabin. The place was a wreck. Pots and pans lay scattered all around. The furniture, chairs and tables alike, had been smashed or overturned. Shelves had been torn from the walls.
The gold. They were searching for the gold.
“Walt and Alma?”
Abigail stopped sobbing long enough to look up at him. “They took them.”
“Abigail.” Jim’s voice trembled as he considered his next words. “Where is David?”
She could only drop her head against him and cry.
Chapter 28
They buried him out behind Jim and Ellen’s cabin. A pastor came—Jim didn’t even know the town had one—and held the services. The sky shone a deep ocean blue, the trees a ripened summer green, the mountains, grand and gray, stood witness to it all.
The day…was perfect. Perfect except that David Barton, husband to Abigail, father to Ellen, Marsha, and Colton, grandfather to Alma and Walt, was gone.
They’d dressed him in his best, a black suit and tie. Unbeknownst to anyone but Ellen, Jim tucked a tobacco pouch stuffed with gold in his jacket pocket. David had certainly earned it.
Once Ellen and the sheriff arrived at the cabin, Jim had left Abigail in their care and rode out after Bannen. The outlaws had gone straight into Donovan’s Valley and vanished among the thousands of prospectors, gamblers, and other camp followers. He’d asked after them, of course. No one had seen a group of men ride in with two youngsters.
He spent every day leading up to the funeral walking through the camp, or riding around it, searching for some sign of Bannen, only to come up empty. After killing David and taking the children, the gang had simply fallen off the face of the earth.
Jim and Ellen posted a reward. Two thousand dollars for the return of their children, five hundred for each member of the Bannen gang killed, a thousand for Cord Bannen himself.
The sheriff, good man that he was, promised to do his best, but the truth was that with all those drawn to the valley in search of gold, he had his hands full. He took a posse out after the bank robbers. They returned after just two days. It seemed even bank robbers didn’t rank high enough for a proper search.
With Abigail’s help, Jim pieced it together. Half the Bannen gang had hit the bank while the rest came against the cabin. The plan was to have the sheriff distracted with the robbery, unable to search for the missing children. Jim had almost spoiled it by killing one at the bank and then discovering the map, but he’d been too late.
“They aren’t in the valley anymore,” Jim said one evening. A week had passed since Walt and Alma had been taken and he could draw no other conclusion. Between the reward and the rarity of youngsters in the valley, someone would have seen them by now.
“Where do you think he’s taken them?” Ellen said.
“I don’t know. I should go out and look for them. I should have ridden back here faster. This is my fault. After we fought them off, I thought they’d move on,” Jim said. “I should have killed Cord Bannen months ago.”
Ellen moved up beside him. “It is not your fault. We all thought the danger had passed. We all grew careless.”
Jim looked down at his wife. There were lines of worry around her eyes and mouth. She was doing well to keep herself together, but he could see the toll this was taking on her. He had to find Walt and Alma. He had to get them back home.
