Chapter 16
It all happened so quickly that Alice was taken completely by surprise. No sooner had the lead bandit shoved the barrel of his gun in the bank manager’s face than the robbery took on an element of urgency.
Suddenly, men shouted.
“Get on the ground!”
“Lie facedown!”
“And don’t look at us!”
And everyone complied.
The guns roamed over them, and to her great dismay and shame, Alice also lay down on the ground. The fear of being shot was very real. Her heart raced, her breathing came in shallow, panicked, little gasps, and she thought she might faint.
Nothing in her twenty-odd years of life had prepared her for this moment. Nothing at all. This was definitely not something she ever thought she would be forced to endure.
And then suddenly, someone grabbed her arm.
Alice let out a scream of surprise and terror as a bandit lifted her up. He had a bandana tied over the bottom part of his face now, and all she could see were his cold, angry eyes.
“You’re coming with us,” he snarled.
Why?
It made no sense. Why would they want her to go with them? She was nothing to them. Unless they knew she was Chrissie’s sister. Was that the issue?
“But we got hostages, boss,” one of the bandits said. “In the cart. Your cousin and his wife.”
“The more the merrier,” the man holding her arm said. “They won’t do us any good in the cart, now, will they?”
“So why did we bring them?” another bandit asked.
They were hefting heavy-looking money bags on their shoulders.
“Because I said so,” the man, who was almost certainly Joel, said.
He had cold eyes that seemed to stare right through Alice.
She wondered if he saw her resemblance to Chrissie.
It was hard to miss, but these people weren’t the brightest folks she’d ever encountered.
“Because, if we need to, we’ll have bargaining chips.
Now, take the mother and her baby and the old woman too.
I’ve got this looker. Then, when we go out, light the town up. ”
The men smiled. It seemed he liked the sound of that.
Alice belatedly realized that she should at least attempt to struggle. She tried to pull her arm free of Joel’s grasp, but he was very strong.
The blow came out of nowhere. One moment she was thinking about trying to kick him in the shins, and the next, she was lying on the floor, seeing stars. The pain really set in when her head cleared. Then her left cheek was on fire and her jaw ached.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Joel snarled at her. “Trying to fight me is pointless. You’re coming with us, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
That was true, Alice conceded, although she didn’t say anything.
There was nothing she could do. She wasn’t skilled in fighting.
It wasn’t something she had needed to know how to do— although that seemed a gross oversight now.
But she knew three men who were good at it.
Three men who were good at planning and were even now with the sheriff, working on a plan to put these evil men behind bars.
All she had to do was hold out hope that Kyle and his friends, together with Sheriff Butler and whatever manpower he could muster, would come bursting in through that door and save them all.
The mother and the old woman were both on their feet now. They were crying and looked as scared as Alice felt.
Joel, who had a vise-like grip on her arm, roughly shoved her in the direction of the front door.
When they reached it, he peered out at the street.
Alice saw that nothing seemed to be happening out of the ordinary.
Folks were going about their business, buying groceries, heading to the post office or the apothecary, all unaware of what was going on in the bank.
Just then a man, one who had stood near Alice in the line, jumped to his feet with two others.
They raced at the bandits. Joel shot them both with casual indifference.
One went down, his right leg blossoming red on the thigh.
The other twirled and fell, facing the other way.
He didn’t move again, and there was a terrible spreading pool of blood on the floor.
The mother screamed and the old lady began to whimper.
The last man came barreling at one of the bandits. He punched the man in the face and grabbed the bandit’s gun. Then he held the man in front of him like a shield.
“Okay, mister,” the man called. “I don’t want no trouble, ya hear? So, you let me go, and you can take whatever you want. I won’t bother you.”
“But you’re bothering me now,” Joel said flatly. He sighed and shook his head. Then he shot his man in the neck. The bullet must have gone right through the bandit and into the other man because they both fell to the ground, gurgling.
Alice let out a cry of horror. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded. She tried to pull away from Joel. “That man was your friend! You’re a monster!”
“He was my employee, and I’m a businessman,” Joel said, his voice carrying the edge of annoyance in it.
“I’m in this for the money. Okay? You all got that?
” He looked around at the people still on the floor, at Alice and the mother and the old woman.
“All my men are in it for the money too. We have no higher purpose; we’re criminals.
So, we don’t care about who we have to kill to get the money.
If we have to burn your town to ashes, we will.
Now, we’re going to go. And the rest of you are going to count to three hundred slowly.
If you set a toe out of here before three hundred, Wolf there will shoot you.
” He pointed to a man standing outside. The man tipped his hat.
“Now start counting!” Joel cried.
Those on the floor began to count. “One … two … three … four …”
Alice was dragged out the door.
Now things moved very quickly. She was surrounded by thugs, and then suddenly, they were all behind her and making their way to a waiting cart. She was bundled into it and the shooting started. The mother and old woman were dumped in the cart too, and it took off.
Alice got one look out at the town and spotted Kyle. He was across the street on the apothecary’s porch, hunkered down. But when he saw her, he raised his head. Their eyes met, and Alice allowed a tiny sliver of hope to enter her heart. A slice thinner than a sheet of paper.
Kyle knew she was in trouble. He would come for her, wouldn’t he?
They had grown quite close since the train wreck.
At least, she liked to think that they had.
Hadn’t they? He had dropped everything and gone to help her with Chrissie.
Kyle wouldn’t leave her to the whims of these men. He would come rescue her.
Still, there was an edge of doubt.
He wasn’t her beau, not officially anyway, and a little handholding could be forgotten quite easily when it all came down to it and bullets were flying. Would Kyle really save her? Would he do it because it was in his nature to be a hero or because he was developing feelings for her?
Alice looked around. The cart was hurtling at a terrible pace down the street and heading out of town.
The bandits were on horseback around them, but they were firing at the buildings and not right at the startled townsfolk, who were scattering in all directions.
It looked like they were more interested in causing material damage than in actually killing people. That was a blessing, at least.
Alice wasn’t bound. She hadn’t been gagged, and no one had a gun on her. Suddenly, she decided enough was enough and she wasn’t going to wait for anyone to rescue her. She would rescue herself.
Rising a little and grabbing the side of the cart, Alice lifted herself onto the side and, as the cart bounced and bumped along, launched herself into the air. She sailed for about five feet and then came crashing down.
If only she’d been born with wings.
The ground hit her with enough force to make her black out for a moment.
Her lungs lost the capacity to breathe, and she lay prone on the ground, gasping like a fish.
Dust and dirt filled her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and she choked on the first gasp of air she could manage to draw into her lungs.
And then there was the sound of hooves coming toward her.
There was a lot of pain in her left temple, down her left arm and her hip. Alice ignored it as best she could. She had to get away. Rolling over, she forced herself to her knees, then to her feet, and took a step.
Her ankle gave out under her and she fell to her knees, cracking them both on the stony ground. More pain.
She cried out but tried again. This time she moved more gingerly, and her ankle held. She was going to make it! She was going to get away. The hooves were louder. Someone came at her, leaning down over the side of his horse, and he picked her up and draped her over his horse in front of him.
Lying on her belly, face full of galloping horse, Alice had never been so uncomfortable in her life. She ached, and the horse running made her bump her face against its side over and over again.
Pushing back, she came off the horse, landing hard on her rump once more. The jolt was very painful. It shot up her backbone to her backside and clashed her teeth together. She sat in the dirt, stunned.
“You’re proving to be more trouble than you might be worth,” Joel warned. He was standing over her and shook his head. “I don’t have time for this.” He pulled his pistol from its holster.
So, this was it.
This was how she was going to die. Alice closed her eyes, not wanting to see the bullet that clearly had her name on it.
If only she had managed to make enough trouble for Kyle to be able to catch up to them. At least then he could help the mother and child and the old woman.
God, please protect them, she whispered as her final prayer.
But the bullet never came. Instead, there was a blinding pain in the side of her head, and everything went black.