Chapter 23 #2
Boone has gone pink at the ears, as if Okee’s plainness embarrasses him more than his own outburst did. Okee only reaches for his shirt with studied calm, though he does not quite meet my eyes.
As I gather up my scattered clothes and turn away to dress, I cannot quite stop thinking about the possibility that they might want me to stay.
I can scarcely imagine how we’ll survive winter cooped up in here. Beyond this?
After we’re clothed and we’ve tidied our sleeping area, Okee puts coffee on.
Boone and I sit at the table. His gaze has gone distant and he stares off beyond the table, beyond the cabin.
The man has just bared his heart and been met with near hysteria.
He is entitled to a little injured pride.
But then his brow furrows, not wounded but intent, and he turns his head slightly, as if listening.
“What?” I ask.
“You hear that?” he says.
Then—
—CRACK!
Glass shatters and something sharp whizzes by my ear.
What on earth was that?
I can barely complete my thought before Okee is on top of me, pressing me down with the full weight of his body. His chest flush against my back, one arm curled over my head. I feel the thud of his heart.
My ears ring.
Overhead, wood splinters. Smoke curls from the stove.
“Are you hit?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”
He inspects me—my face, my neck—then exhales, tight and quiet through his nose. The room stills.
“Boone,” Okee calls.
“I’m all right,” Boone replies, already moving—rolling across the floor, grabbing the rifles from beneath the bed, checking the bolt. He’s up, pressed to the wall, eyes scanning the snow beyond the shattered glass.
Okee shifts off me, slow and careful, crawling toward the wall for cover.
Boone’s at the doorframe, rifle raised, steady hands.
A man shouts—harsh and clear, “Come on out, boys! You owe for what you done to Hollister’s crew!”
Another joins in, closer, “You got one chance to show your faces and settle this straight! Otherwise we’ll smoke you out like hogs in a pit! Ain’t nothin’ worse than dyin’ by burnin’.”
Okee turns to me, sharp and urgent. He guides me toward the side wall, tucks me low into the corner behind the stove.
“Don’t you move,” he says, brushing my hair back once. “Not unless this place starts to burn, you hear me?”
I nod, heart thudding.
“Two men,” Boone mutters, peering out the window. “Too close for a shot like that. That came up high and straight. From a distance.”
“Wasn’t that Jessup fellow a sharpshooter?” Okee asks.
“He was. You think they’re tryin’ to draw us out so he can pick us off?”
“That’s my bet,” Okee says. “The window in the loft. I’ll see if I can get a sightline.”
Okee’s already halfway up the ladder. He disappears into the loft above.
Boone’s eyes flick to me. No grin now. Only that hard, measuring focus. “Stay low.”
Okee’s rifle cracks from the loft almost at once. A grunt answers from outside, followed by a body hitting snow.
Boone crouches low by the doorframe and leans out for half a breath, just enough to look, then jerks back as a shot splinters the wood beside him. “Shooter’s up high,” he says. “Tree line.”
Another bullet punches through the wall, and glass and splintered wood rain across the floor. Shards bite into my palms as I crawl for the iron stove. I have only just curled beside it when the stove snaps with a hard metallic ping.
Outside, someone shouts, “Keep ’em pinned!”
Boone drops to one knee and fires through the broken window. A curse rings out, then the thud of boots retreating over snow.
“They’re spread out, more of ’em,” Boone says. “One by the woodpile. One out near the shed.”
“And Jessup?” Okee calls.
“Still ain’t shown his head.”
“How can you tell?” I ask.
The answer comes a second later in the sharp whine of a shot from above. Glass rains from the loft window. Okee ducks with a hissed curse, and Boone’s face goes flat.
“Tree line,” he says again, certain now. “High up.”
Then the smell hits me. Not powder. Oil.
Boone’s head jerks toward the front wall. “Shit.”
Something strikes the side of the cabin with a wet thump. A bottle, maybe. Then another. I hear liquid glug down the outer boards.
“They mean to burn us out,” Okee says.
As if to prove him right, flame blooms orange at the corner of the window, catches, and begins to climb. Smoke creeps in at once, thin and gray.
“Boone—” Okee starts.
“Can’t let ’em box us in,” Boone snaps. He ducks out into the smoke before either of us can stop him. “We can use the cover.”
“Boone!” I shout.
My voice is swallowed by gunfire. Okee fires twice in quick succession from the loft, covering whatever mad thing Boone is doing outside. Men yell. One screams. Another shot answers from the trees.
Then for one terrible stretch of seconds there is nothing I can see of Boone at all. Only smoke drifting past the broken window. Snow kicking up. Shadows moving through flames.
I press myself tighter into the corner, breathing through my scarf. The cabin fills with crackling heat and the sting of smoke. Above me, Okee works the bolt again. Outside, someone is cursing in pain. Someone else is laughing.
And I am here. Crouched on the floor. Waiting.
Gunshots, shouts. A blur of voices, Boone’s among them. Then a thud against the outer wall. A second. Then silence.
Boots on packed snow.
I hear scraping, hurried breathing, the crunch of snow shoveled by bare hands. Okee rushes down the ladder and outside.
The cabin crackles. Not from gunfire now but from the slow, hungry spread of flame finding dry wood. I press my back to the wall, heart pounding. The smoke makes my eyes sting. I try not to cough. Try not to cry. I can hear Okee outside.
Another shot rings out, closer this time. No return fire.
I crawl out from my hiding place, pull my scarf up over my mouth, cross the room low toward a pistol resting beside the cot, and make for the door. The heat has started warping the boards near the stove.
I can’t just sit around and wait.
Outside, men cuss and bullets scream through the air.
No. Not again. Not this time.