Chapter 19
Ben’s eyes flew open. He breathed hard for a moment as he stared at the odd grayness above him. He didn’t remember where he was or why he was there.
Slowly, it came back to him. He’d traveled a lot while with the army, particularly as he moved from camp to camp as a courier. There were nights he slept on the ground, others in a tent. Every now and then he slept in an actual building.
No matter where he bedded down for the night, it was always unfamiliar in the morning. He had to lie there for a moment, remembering who he was, where he was, and what he was doing.
Though Ben’s dreams had taken him back to that awful day on the outskirts of Tombstone, Ben was far from that hot desert. He was cold and stiff, and he needed to get to Antelope Springs.
The only part of him that wasn’t cold was the left side of his body, which Hattie lay against. She slept soundly, her curls thrown over her face. When she wasn’t awake and trying to sabotage everything he did, she was actually kind of pretty.
The crunch of footsteps in the snow alarmed him. Ben shoved himself forward, knocking the layer of snow that’d fallen overnight off the tarp as he lifted it up.
Two men stood near the horses. They were scruffy-looking mountain men with long beards and fur caps. They nodded to each other as they untied the horses.
“Hey!” Ben yelled as his heart thumped in his chest. He’d thought they were safe in their little grove of cedars. “What do you think you’re doing?”
One of the men turned casually to look at him, not seeming disturbed at all by being caught. He had a large knife sheathed on his belt and a bow across his broad back. The fringe on his buckskin jacket was decorated with beads that clacked gently with every movement. “These your horses?”
“Yes, and I’d like you to leave them alone.” Ben was glad he’d slept with his boots and coat on, although the weather wouldn’t have allowed much else. He jumped off the tailgate and into the snow.
“It’s not safe to leave them out here like this, exposed to the elements.” the second man said. He was thinner, but he was still at least a head taller than Ben. The thick tail of a coonskin cap hung down over his shoulder. “They could die on you.”
“I had a fire going,” Ben grunted, even though the fire had gone out at some point in the night and now left nothing more than a black circle in the middle of the clearing. How had he slept through tending it?
“It sure isn’t now,” Beaded Jacket pointed out.
“Seems like that’s my problem and not yours.” Ben knew better than to trust a good Samaritan in the middle of the wilderness. Elliot had taught him that, but it wasn’t a lesson he enjoyed learning.
“Is it?” Coonskin Cap looked at Beaded Jacket and smiled, showing several black gaps where his teeth were missing. “Could be our problem instead.”
“Leave them alone,” Ben ordered. He pulled his gun from his holster and aimed it at the two men. His finger rested on the trigger, but all the muscles in his arm tightened up.
“You know, these parts are dangerous, especially for a young man like you. There are Apache all over the place, and they’ve been hassling more people than usual.” Beaded Jacket’s eyes flicked to something behind Ben.
Ben refused to be fooled. He wouldn’t turn around and look for what had caught the man’s attention. The men would have the advantage the moment Ben took his eyes off of them.
“Oh, yeah. Even the folks who had agreements with them, like us,” Coonskin Cap agreed. “They say this is a spiritual place for them, or something like that. A young man like you doesn’t belong here.”
He, too, looked behind Ben.
Ben’s spine tingled. His shoulder muscles bunched and coiled. “I’ve already gotten past them, and I’m heading out of here. Now get back and leave me be.”
But Beaded Jacket jerked the slipknot that held one of the horses to the tree. “We’ll go, and we’re taking these horses with us. If you’re lucky, that’s the only thing we’ll take.”
“Absolutely not.” Ben raised his revolver so that it was aimed at the man’s head and not just his middle. “Let go, and get back, or else you won’t be going anywhere.”
A shriek split the icy air.
Hattie.
Ben jerked in surprise. He turned to find that Beaded Jacket and Coonskin Cap hadn’t been trying to fool him at all. They were just waiting for their partner to get into position. A third man had climbed into the back of the wagon and had his arm around Hattie’s throat.
She wriggled and squirmed, her green eyes blazing with fury. She slammed her elbow into the man’s stomach.
He let out a grunt of air and then clamped his arm tighter around her neck. With his free hand, he tried to get a hold of her waist.
“The horses!” Hattie screamed.
Ben swiveled back. Coonskin Cap and Beaded Jacket had snagged the horses and were working their way out of the thicket of cedar. Ben’s finger pulled the trigger without his permission, and a spray of blood dotted the snow as the bullet bit into Beaded Jacket’s leg.
“Agh!” he cried, but it wasn’t enough to bring him down. Beaded Jacket let go of the horse and turned back toward Ben. He charged at him with his bare hands, looking like an angry bear who’d been disturbed from his hibernation.
Ben’s heart clenched as he prepared to pull the trigger a second time, but he was hit from behind. He stumbled forward as the third man, still struggling with Hattie, barreled into him and pushed him forward.
“Get off of me, you bastard!” Hattie screamed. She snarled and snapped, sounding like a wild animal as she tried to fight off her attacker.
Coonskin Cap moved faster than his injured partner and was in front of Ben in a flash. His beefy fist pounded into Ben’s jaw, sending sparks across his vision. His thick fingers tried to pry the revolver from Ben’s hand.
He refused to let go, holding onto it tightly. He was too close to his attacker for the gun to do him any good, but he had to keep it. He had to fight these men off. He had to survive.
What would happen to the orphanage if he didn’t? What about Sister Matthews and Sister Andrews?
And what about Hattie? If Ben didn’t survive this, then neither would she.
Ben twisted to his right, jerking his gun hand away from Coonskin Cap. He shoved forward, leading with his shoulder and pushing the bigger man back. Then he swung his gun hand around and clocked him on the side of the face.
A fresh wash of blood arced through the bright morning air from Coonskin’s nose. It only gave him pause for a moment before he began pummeling Ben once again.
He put up his hands to protect himself, but Coonskin’s fists were everywhere.
They pounded his face and chest. He landed a couple of blows to Ben’s stomach, getting dangerously close to the old wound.
Ben had the disadvantage of lying on the ground, where there was no room for him to pull his arm back and get any strength into his punches.
Ben thrashed. He landed a punch in the man’s neck, which earned him a satisfying strangling sound, but it wasn’t enough. He just couldn’t get any power. Ben felt like a weakling as Coonskin throttled him.
“Ow! The bitch bit me!” the third man yelped.
Despite his pain and terror and the fact that his mouth was full of blood, Ben smiled. Hattie was fighting dirty. She was doing whatever needed to be done, and it was time he did the same. Ben didn’t have any elbow room while he lay on the ground, but he still had his legs.
He brought up his knee, hard and fast. It hit Coonskin Cap between the legs.
Coonskin’s eyes went wide and his face turned purple. He struggled as all the air left his lungs, and little groans of pain seeped from his lips, but he managed to pound Ben with another punch to the chest.
Ben spat blood up into his face, blinding Coonskin as he slammed his other knee into the same sensitive spot.
This time, Coonskin rolled off of Ben and to the side, gasping and squeaking.
Ben pressed the revolver’s barrel to the man’s chest and pulled the trigger.
“Little bastard!” Beaded Jacket had caught up, limping on his injured leg. He fell onto Ben in his fellow’s place. He’d been watching, and he pinned Ben’s legs to the ground with his lower half.
Shit. What worked for one wasn’t going to work for the other. Ben heard another scream from Hattie as he dodged Jacket’s first punch, but the second blow landed toward the bottom of his ribs. Ben’s wound was scarred over, but it was fresh enough to hurt if Jacket managed to get him there.
A wild desperation took over Ben. He threw his arms back over his head. It left him vulnerable for a brief moment, but he gripped his revolver with both hands and brought it down hard. He couldn’t shoot a man that close, but the iron reinforced his blow.
Ben slammed Beaded Jacket in the cheek. Still holding his gun with both hands, he went for the other cheek.
Beaded Jacket had caught on. He dodged, and then he went for the gun. He blocked the next hit with his forearm. When Ben came in for another blow, he swept one meaty paw through the air.
The revolver flew from Ben’s hands. It spun as it arced through the air, the metal shining in the sun, flying past Coonskin’s dead body and sinking into the snow.
“Thought you were smart, you little asshole.” Beaded Jacket clamped his left hand over Ben’s neck, pushing him hard against the ground and squeezing as he reached for his knife.
This was it. There had been so many times in Ben’s life that he thought he might die, but it was actually going to happen this time.
Then a gunshot cracked through the air from behind them, near the wagon. Beaded Jacket looked up, startled.
Hattie.
It distracted his enemy for only a fraction of a second, but it was enough.
Ben snagged the man’s knife. His fingers were bruised and sore, but he wrapped them around the handle and jerked it from the sheath.
It took only a small change in direction to swing the blade upward into Beaded Jacket’s guts.
A sick gurgling sound emanated from Jacket’s throat. His warm blood cascaded down onto Ben’s stomach. His body went tight and then limp as all of his heavy weight fell onto Ben.
He’d won, but he still felt like he was dying as he lay pinned under Beaded Jacket. His arms were weak, but he shoved and squirmed. There was still one more man.
Ben pushed hard, rolling Beaded Jacket so that he lay next to his fallen comrade. He wretched and gagged at the blood and guts that covered his clothes as he got to his hands and knees. “Let go of her, or you’ll meet the same fate!” he warned the third man.
But as he looked up, he saw two other figures lying in the snow besides the ones he’d killed. Hattie lay with her arms and legs flailed out, like she was trying to make a snow angel. The third man was crumpled on his side next to her. He didn’t move.
Ben crawled to Hattie’s side. “Oh, God. Please let her be all right. Please, please, don’t do this to me. Hattie, I’m sorry. I tried. I didn’t hear them.”
“I’m fine,” she groaned, her eyelids fluttering. Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath. “I’m probably going to be sore as hell later today after all that, but I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” He tried to check her over for wounds, but there was enough blood coating the front of her dress that it was hard to tell. Ben reached out, but his hand hovered over her as he hesitated to touch her.
Hattie grabbed his hand and held it between her own. “I’m okay. Really. Or at least as okay as I can be. Help me up.”
They staggered to their feet and examined the massacre around them. The snow was stained pink, and dirt had been churned up into it. The tarp hung off the side of the wagon, flapping limply in the breeze. The horses had spooked at the gunshots, but they hadn’t gone far.
There were also three dead bodies, their mouths open and their eyes wide with shock.
Hot shame flooded through him. He hadn’t wanted to kill anybody. It would’ve all been so much easier if the men had just left when he’d asked them to, or if they’d never shown up at all. Nausea crept through his stomach and up into his throat.
I had to do it, he reminded himself. They’d have killed me first, and I don’t even want to think about what they’d have done to Hattie. It had to be this way.
“How’d you do it?” Hattie asked, frowning at Coonskin Cap and Beaded Jacket. “You took out two of them.”
The way he’d gained advantage on Coonskin Cap hadn’t exactly been honorable, but he couldn’t allow himself to regret it. “You asked what I’d learned at the orphanage. Even with a priest and a nun looking over us, boys will get into fights.”
“I’d say it paid off, or we’d be without horses just now.” She nodded with grim approval.
“What about you?” Ben had been so relieved she was alive that he hadn’t yet figured out how she was still alive.
Hattie returned to the indent in the snow where Ben had initially found her. She picked up a small pistol, brushed the snow off of it, and tucked it into her belt. “He underestimated me, and he never thought I’d get a hold of his gun. Now let’s get out of here before any of their friends show up.”
Ben gaped at her as she began pulling the tarp back to rights. As he fetched the horses, he began to wonder just who he was really traveling with.