Chapter 1 #2
As they neared Boone’s horse, Tex managed to grab its reins and swing up into the saddle while still leading three horses, one with Stan’s body, another with the utterly still Boone, the third with a writhing but silent Marley.
He had a tourniquet around his lower leg, almost ensuring they’d need to amputate it later.
Soon Tex was out of sight around an outcropping of stone.
When Morgan reached the rocks, he turned and rode uphill.
Then Owen mounted up, trotted around the stones, and caught up to Morgan. “Let’s make a run for Fort Collins,” he said.
Morgan glanced back at him. “That’s too far, at least for Marley.”
Usually when Owen gave orders, he expected them to be obeyed, but he knew how to listen, too. He looked at Morgan. “Where then?”
They were closest to Elk Point, Colorado.
Going there meant Owen would be bringing danger to a small town ill-equipped to face it.
While there was no longer a fort in town, Fort Collins was bigger and the nearest place to offer safety.
But they’d have to make it there while fighting a running gunbattle the whole way, with Delaney right in the middle of it.
“I know this land. We’re going right up that slope.” Morgan pointed to the mountain right in front of them. A mountain with no way up, not on horseback.
“Move out, and fast.” Morgan spurred his horse straight toward what looked very much like a dead end.
If that was true, they’d be trapped and under the guns of the outlaws in minutes.
Yet Owen didn’t protest. Morgan was the toughest of a real tough bunch.
If he said they could ride up the side of a mountain, Owen was going to spur his horse too and try to keep up with him.
So Morgan took the lead. Tex, without a word of complaint, fell in as well, leading his trio of horses that carried the wounded. Owen wondered if Tex was as worried as he was at the prospect of scaling the wickedly steep slope.
Delaney came next, her jaw clenched, her eyes flashing with grim determination.
Just minutes later, Morgan rode up a slope so steep it seemed impossible.
Tex was next, trusting his horse, riding at a gallop.
Delaney climbed right behind him as though she and her Thoroughbred bay gelding could fly.
Owen glanced behind him before urging his own horse forward, half figuring he’d see gunmen coming after them any second.
Morgan was already out of sight, and Tex vanished as he rounded a jumble of rocks, Delaney not far behind him. After following, Owen got there in time to see Morgan climbing the jumble of rocks and setting himself up to shoot any attacker who dared to show his ugly face.
Tex moved Marley to the ground. Since Owen was the best of the three at doctoring, he went to Marley and got to work.
Delaney checked Boone’s head wound, who had yet to so much as groan.
“It’s not as bad as I feared.” Owen removed Marley’s tourniquet, and the gunshot wound immediately started bleeding again.
Fortunately, the leg was still warm, as the blood flow hadn’t been cut off for very long.
And the leg didn’t appear to be broken. A bone broken by a bullet was usually more than broken; it was shattered, with fragments of bone scattered around inside, making it near impossible for the limb to heal properly.
Thankfully, it looked as though the bullet had penetrated deep into the muscle of Marley’s leg but had missed the bone.
A gunshot sounded from below them. Their pursuer was coming fast, unloading his gun again. Bits of rock exploded right by Morgan.
Morgan opened fire. One shot.
There were none in return. Owen heard hooves pounding below, but they didn’t come closer. If anything they were moving away from them. And no one did any more shooting.
“Morg can probably hold off an army from here.” Tex looked away from Marley, who lay with his teeth gritted while Owen retied a new bandage, but not so tight that circulation was cut off to the stubbornly bleeding leg. “Reckon I oughta help him, though.”
“Does the leg need to come off, boss?” Though his grizzled face flushed from pain, Marley didn’t protest or howl or swear. A lot of men would have done all three.
“Nope, you’re gonna keep your leg and heal up fine so long as the wound doesn’t become infected. And we’ll see it doesn’t.”
Marley, already flat on his back, seemed to collapse further as the tension leeched out of him. The man hadn’t complained about Owen’s rough doctoring skills, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been fearing maybe losing his leg. “How’s Ross?”
Owen looked at Marley, shook his head sadly, and didn’t say a word.
“Good man, Ross. He was still a youngster and deserved better. It’s the Duncan family’s doing, I reckon.”
This time Owen’s eyes slid to their prisoner, Clive Duncan. “If the gang was coming to set Clive free, they didn’t do him no favors. If he dies, I reckon those polecats will blame us even with their bullet in his gut.”
“I got the first one up the slope, the one who shot at me,” Morgan said from his perch on the boulder that overlooked the trail they’d come up on. “They can’t get up here while we’ve got the high ground, and they know it. But they ain’t goin’ nowhere either.”
“I had no hope they’d be easy on us,” Tex said in his drawl that reminded everyone that he’d gotten his name from his days as a Texas Ranger.
“They already broke Clive out of the jail at Fort Russell. It figures they’d keep at it.
The fool had gotten away clean, but he had to wander into a Denver saloon and get himself rounded up again.
” Tex shook his head. “I’ll see to him before I go shoot it out with his family. ”
“How far are we from where you’re aiming, Morg? Or is this it?”
“This ain’t it,” Morgan replied, moving behind a stack of boulders. But there was no more shooting from below, so Morgan just watched.
Owen noticed Delaney kneeling beside her brother, tending to the thick bandage around his head. He saw her lips moving and figured she was praying as she worked on him.
Owen had seen a graze to the head like that a time or two before.
Usually there was a good amount of bleeding, but other than stanching it, there wasn’t much to be done.
Stitches maybe, once the bleeding stopped, but there wasn’t time for that now.
The stitches would probably bust open during the long ride anyway.
Tex gave Marley a pat on the arm and went to check on Clive, who was still unconscious.
“How’s his belly wound?” Marley asked.
“Hard to say. I’ll stanch it, then leave him tied up, even if he is unconscious. He’s a mean one. I don’t want him getting into a fight.”
“I saw seven men, with six of them scattered among the trees at the base of the mountain. I thinned the herd by one—the one who was shooting at me.” Morgan kept to his spot, still watching.
“They can’t get any closer, not with there being no decent cover.
They’ll be looking for another way up, but there ain’t one. ”
“How do you know this land so well, Morg? You’re from Colorado, right?”
“My pa has a ranch up here. But it’s a rattlesnake of a trail to Pa’s place. Long ways from here, but easier to defend. He ain’t gonna be happy seeing me bring a group of strangers home for dinner with outlaws after us.” More quietly he added, “He ain’t gonna be all that happy seeing me either.”
Owen didn’t ask about that. He’d never learned much about where Morgan Sawyer had come from. But Morgan was the finest tracker Owen had ever seen, and he’d seen some good ones. He was mighty good himself. But no one could top Morgan Sawyer.
Delaney rose from her brother’s side and walked over to Owen. “What needs doing?” she asked.
“Nothing much, Miss Bridger. I think your brother will be all right, but he might be addled for a while. A bullet graze like that takes some time to heal fully.” Owen looked up at her from where he was crouched next to Marley. He saw such fire in her eyes, he felt burned just looking.
“If there’s no work to be done, show me where the men are who shot Boone so I can blow them all straight to the devil.”
Owen flinched at the fury flashing from her eyes. He had a feeling the Duncan Gang oughta just run for their lives straight out of Colorado, maybe out of the country. She might not be able to find them in China.
But he knew better. The Duncans weren’t gonna run. In fact, they were going to keep coming. And instead of Delaney being smart and hiding behind him like she should, she was going to give Owen all he could handle to keep her from unleashing her revenge.
And probably getting herself killed in the process.