Chapter 25 #2
She went out the open door and onto the porch, but the yellow dog was off the bed and there before her.
Paddy was racing toward her from the unfinished barn as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Riders,” he cried out, pointing toward the river. “Gabe said to tell you. Someone’s coming.”
Sheila raised her hand to her eyes to block the sun and peered across the wide meadow to where he was pointing.
“Could it be Marlowe’s neighbor?”
“No.” Paddy shook his head. “Mr. Stubbs comes from that other way.”
“Where’s Gabe?”
Before he could answer, Gabriel came running up too. This was another difference between life in New York and here in the Rockies. Back East, visitors came to call and simply sent up their cards. Here, when someone appeared, folks expected trouble. Often they were right.
“I counted eight of them,” he said. “Far as I can tell, they’re strangers.”
Bear was looking toward the river and already growling. Sheila turned to Paddy.
“Tie Bear up, will you?” she directed.
“What for?”
“We don’t want to frighten any visitors.” Much more importantly, Sheila thought, she didn’t want some dolt shooting the dog.
With a shrug, Paddy ran off to fetch a rope from the barn area.
Sheila wondered what she could do. The wagon was their only means of transportation.
They’d left the mules hitched, but they couldn’t outrun anyone with that load of lumber.
She cast another glance in the direction of the visitors, and an uneasy feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. There were too many of them.
She put a hand on Gabe’s arm. “I want you to get to the woods and hide.”
“But I—”
“There’s no time to argue. When you get to the woods, wait and watch. These men might mean us no harm and they’ll move on. But if you think there’s something wrong, you need to run as fast as you can to Elkhorn and bring help.”
“Who’s going to protect you, miss?”
She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You will, by bringing help. The three of us can’t handle them if they mean trouble.”
Gabe stared at her a moment, then nodded and ran back past the barn and across the meadow toward the line of trees.
Because they would be traveling up the Denver road to Imala’s place, Sheila had taken her father’s shotgun with her.
She went to the wagon and retrieved it now.
By the time she returned to the cabin, Paddy had the dog tied to a post on the porch.
Bear continued to growl menacingly in the direction of the riders.
As the men forded the river and rode toward the cabin, her uneasiness grew. They were coming too fast. Sheila quickly explained her plan, such as it was, to the younger boy.
“No matter what,” she said to him, “stay by me and go along with whatever story I come up with.”
Paddy nodded.
“And if I tell you to run,” she continued, “you run. Don't argue. Don't be brave. Just run.”
“All right, Miss Sheila. But don’t you worry none, I’ll protect you.”
First Gabe, now him. The chivalry of these boys was precious. She looked down at the ginger-haired urchin and replied earnestly, “Thank you, Paddy. But don’t forget what I told you.”
It took only a few minutes for the riders to cross the meadow. When they disappeared for a few moments in a dip before climbing the rise to the cabin, Sheila cocked both barrels of the Greener.
They came into view and she counted them.
Gabe had been correct. Eight men on horseback, all in dark-colored dusters, fanned out across the meadow like angels of death.
The worry in her stomach seethed, hot and poisonous.
All of Caleb’s warnings about the outlaws who occasionally passed through these hills came back to her.
She found herself wishing Caleb were here.
Not because she needed rescuing. Because she'd feel better knowing he was standing beside her.
Slightly ahead of the others, a grim-visaged man, wearing a black bowler and a patch over one eye, rode a fine chestnut stallion. He raised his hand and the others followed his signal, reining in about ten feet from the porch.
Bear was barking and straining at the rope that held him.
“Quiet, boy,” she ordered, and to her surprise, the dog calmed down, but continued to growl ominously, his teeth showing.
“Ma’am.” Eye-patch nodded curtly and touched the brim of his hat.
He sat tall in the saddle and appeared to be broader in the shoulders than most of his men.
He ran a gloved hand over his moustache, gazing steadily at her.
He shrugged out of his duster and laid it across the saddle in front of him.
His clothes were finely tailored and stylish enough that he would not have looked odd among Manhattan’s elite.
His suit was blue, but it was as dark as the midnight sky and had subtle gray stripes running vertically in the material.
His vest was silk brocade of a deep maroon color, and his tie a blue that matched his coat and pants.