Chapter 29 #2
“Don't.” She stepped forward and took the kit from Theda’s hands without being asked. “Don't tell me to go back to Oren because Oren is the one who told me to find you.”
Theda looked at her. Della looked back, steady and unhurried.
“Okay. Thank you. Let’s sneak against the wagons, until we can see what’s going on. We can stay hidden, and then we can decide if we’re needed anywhere.” Theda bit the inside of her cheek, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.
They moved together along the line of wagons, low and close to the canvas, stepping over a dropped lantern and then a coil of rope somebody had left in the path.
She could hear Phineas somewhere ahead, still directing, still holding the thing together. The tension was thick in the air. They were all waiting, to see what Ransom would do, what he would demand.
They stopped behind the second to last wagon before the barricade, created by the men in the wagon train. Theda pressed her back against it and looked at Della beside her. Della's jaw was set and her knuckles were white where she gripped the kit but her eyes were clear.
“Stay low,” Theda said.
“I know how to stay low,” Della came closer until they were shoulder to shoulder.
The riders crested the rise at full speed and Theda's breath left her.
Seven of them. They rode low and hard, spread in a loose line, the kind of formation designed to hit wide, to make the defenders choose where to look.
Their horses were dark with sweat, and their coats were rough from hard travel.
Theda pressed flat against the wagon and watched through the gap. The man at the center rode slightly ahead of the others. That was the first thing she noticed. Not because anyone had pointed him out, but because of the way the others moved around him
She looked at him.
He was tall in the saddle, broad through the shoulders, his coat dark with trail dust. His hair was light brown where it showed beneath his hat, and even at this distance, even through the chaos and the noise and the cold morning air, something about the line of his jaw and the set of his mouth stopped her cold.
She knew that face.
Not him. Not this man. But the shape of him.
He turned his head as he rode, scanning the barricade with eyes that even from there caught the morning light in a way that made them look pale. Almost grey.
Theda's chest tightened.
Della pressed in close beside her. “Is that--”
“Ransom,” Theda said quietly. “He looks like Jem.”
She said the name and felt the full weight of it settle over her. Theda looked up, behind the first seven men, were more men, they seemed to be coming from the trees, so many of them. At least another dozen.
So many more than Jem first said…
She swallowed hard. Maybe Ransom would talk first before attacking.
Before she’d finished the thought, she watched in slow motion as the man who looked like Jem raised his pistol and the world narrowed to that single image, his arm extended, his stance wide, the line of riders bearing down on the barricade with everything they had.
Theda stood up.
She screamed Phineas' name. He was out there. He could be hurt, he could be…
Della's arm came around her waist and pulled her down hard before the sound had finished leaving her throat. They hit the ground together against the wagon wheel, Della's arms locked around her, and the world above them erupted.
Gunshots. Close and sharp and overlapping until she couldn't count them. The thunder of hooves on frozen ground. Men's voices breaking into desperation. The crack of wood somewhere to the left, something giving way under force.
“We have to pray.” Della's voice was right against her ear, shaking badly. “Theda. We have to pray right now.”
Theda squeezed her eyes shut.
“You go first,” she managed.
Della's arms tightened around her. “Lord.” Her voice broke on the word and she gathered it back.
“Lord, You see every one of them out there. Phineas and Jem and Leland and Oren and all of them.” A shot rang out directly overhead and Della flinched but kept going.
“You know their names better than we do. Please. Please keep them.”
She stopped. Theda felt her shaking against her.
“Your turn,” Della whispered.
Theda pressed her fist against her mouth for a moment. Then she pulled in a breath.
“God.” The word came out ragged. “I don't have pretty words right now.
I can't.” Another shot, closer, and she heard a man shout in pain somewhere nearby, and her throat closed around whatever she'd been about to say.
She pushed through it. “Just don't let me lose them. Not Phineas. Not any of them.” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “Please. I can't do this without them.”
The horses were so close she could feel the ground shaking under her palms.
Della found her hand and gripped it, and Theda gripped back. The two of them stayed pressed against the wagon wheel with their eyes shut and their heads down while the world above them crashed and roared. T he battle they couldn't stop moved through the camp around them like a storm .
A flash of movement caught her eye. Nora Crenshaw.
She was out in the open, standing frozen between two wagons, one of the riders bearing down on the gap without seeing her or not caring, and Theda was moving .
Phineas would have been furious, and Jem would have been too, but she couldn't think about that.
All she could see was the nine-year-old little girl who needed her help. She came around the wagon at a run and hit Nora at the waist, her arms locking around the girl's small shoulders, and drove them both sideways.
They went down hard together in the dirt, Theda's arm catching the edge of the wagon step as they fell. Pain flared white and immediately from her elbow to her wrist. She ignored it. The rider thundered through the gap where Nora had been standing.
Nora was safe, for the moment. Now they had to get back to Della. How had Nora gotten separated from her family? Theda tried not to let her mind race and instead forced herself to focus.