“I know you’re in there,” a voice called. It was Bannen. Ellen had heard him before, and that voice had often filled her nightmares. Through the gunport, Ellen looked at the outlaws.
“I’ve got someone here who’d dearly like to see you,” Bannen taunted. “Bring him forward.”
A pair of men brought a hooded figure from the shadows. He was on horseback, a brown canvas hood pulled over his head, a swath of blood coloring his sleeve, and his hands were bound to the pommel.
“Jim. They have Jim,” Ellen cried.
She ran for the door, and Colton stopped her with an arm around her waist. “Wait…wait,” he said. “You can’t go out there.”
“But Jim—”
“Wouldn’t want you to run out there,” Colton said. “Get your rifle and cover that window.”
Ellen nodded, slowly at first, then with more conviction. He was right. Jim wouldn’t want her out there. She had to free him, but she had to be smart about it. Captain Neill and his men would come. They would help her free Jim, but not if she wasn’t smart about it.
“What do you want?” Colton said.
“What do I want?” Bannen crowed. “Gold. I want the gold and this time I want all of it.”
“Let me see him,” Ellen yelled. “Let me see my husband.”
Bannen motioned, and the hooded figure was moved back into the shadows. “You saw him,” he said. “He’s here and we’ve got him. He needs a doctor, though. He’s got a bullet in him; I put it there.”
A jolt ran through Ellen’s body. Jim was hurt. He’d been shot. She looked at the door, and Colton met her eyes.
“We have to hold out for help,” he said. Then louder, for those outside. “It’ll take us some time to get the gold together. It isn’t here. It’s at the mine.”
“Throw down your rifle and come out,” Bannen said. “Do that and ride out to get it. We’ll watch the house while you’re gone. Won’t we, boys?”
The outlaws laughed at that. Ellen’s determination steeled. Jim, her husband, was out there wounded and these men were keeping her from him. She sighted in on the nearest rider.
Jim told her to aim not just for the man but for something small, maybe a shirt button or pocket. Ellen’s target wore a leather necklace with an elk’s tooth hanging on it. She sighted in on the tooth.
Colton shouted back an answer. “I don’t think so. I think—”
A shot tore through the air, and one of the outlaws spilled from the saddle. Ellen, intent on her target, startled at the sound, and her own rifle bucked against her shoulder. The elk tooth shattered on the bullet’s impact and the man wearing it lurched back and fell. More shots whizzed through the trees.
The outlaws returned fire. They shot wild, unsure of where their attackers were. The cabin was an obvious target. A bullet struck the shutter near Ellen and she jerked back.
Colton aimed, fired, loaded a few rounds, fired again. He was screaming, but Ellen couldn’t hear him over the echo of the guns.
Ellen peered out. The outlaws were gone from her view, all but the man she’d shot, who’d fallen. Another figure was down. He wore a dirty canvas hood.
Jim. He wasn’t moving. Out of spite and denied their gold, they’d killed him.
Ellen screamed. She crossed the room to a different window. An outlaw stood behind the thick gray trunk of a pine. Ellen fired her rifle into the pine, once, twice, three times, showering him with splinters. She paused as smoke stung her eyes. He leaned out and her next bullet struck near his shoulder and spun him around. She screamed again.
Where were the rest?
Suddenly, there were more horses than just the outlaws’. Ellen saw Captain Neill riding at the head of three other men she recognized from the mine.
The guards, Captain Neill has roused the guards.
* * * *
Hoofbeats sounded like drumming thunder through the pines. Ellen caught glimpses of horses flashing through the trees, but all she truly saw was Jim. Her Jim. Jim lying there sprawled out in the dirt. Jim dying and alone.
Despite the occasional gunfire, Ellen could resist no longer. She threw open the cabin door and ran out to him.
He lay on his stomach, facing away from her. Ellen knelt at his side. She set the rifle aside.
“Oh, Jim,” she said, and turned him over.
Rough hands seized her around the arms and waist then, wrapping her painfully tight. She fought against her attacker. She drove her elbows into his sides. She snapped her head back and felt something shatter in his nose.
Cord Bannen was at her side. “Feisty one,” he said with a smile. “Here I was thinking we’d failed and now we’ve got everything we need.”
“I think she broke my nose,” his partner said.
“John, load her up on Red’s horse,” Bannen said. “We’ll take her up to the mine. Then we’ll have the gold.”
“Two-way split,” John said. “Better than cutting it up so many ways.”
“You’ll have none of it,” Ellen said. “Not after you killed Jim. I’ll die before I help you.”
Bannen laughed, a hard and cruel sound.
“That’s not your damned Jim,” he said. He kicked the body and it rolled over.
