Chapter 32 #2
Another gunshot split the night, then another. In the chaos, Wade had pulled the trigger. Sickened, he didn’t waver. He rushed toward the man. It wasn’t Red—Wade was sure of it. But that bullet could have gone wild.
The man, face down on the ground, groaned in agony.
Wade knelt and rolled him onto his back.
“You got him?” Red reached Wade’s side, sounding desperate.
“Yes.” Wade bound this man’s legs and hands just as he had the other’s.
“He fired his gun too close to Cassie. I’ve got to see if she’s all right.” Red vanished.
Wade kicked away the gun that lay within the outlaw’s reach, then searched the man for hidden weapons.
As he frisked the attacker, he became aware of wetness soaking the man’s shoulder.
Blood. Wade ripped another long fringe off his jacket and bound the man as quickly as he would have bulldogged a calf.
Seconds ticked by as Wade waited, hoping and praying Red would come back and tell him Cassie and the children were all right. The time crawled.
Finally, Red emerged from the woods.
“Everything all right, Red?”
“Yep.”
“You weren’t hurt? Your family’s All right?”
“They’re fine.”
“Did you shoot him?”
“Nope, I never even fired my gun.”
“Then this must be my bullet in his shoulder.” Wade reached for the bleeding shoulder and ripped the shirt aside. A flare of lightning revealed not one but two bullet wounds. A new one and an old one. “This one was in on the massacre of Abby’s people.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I shot one of them that day near Abby’s village, and I can see the bullet wound right here.” Wade jabbed a finger at the two wounds.
“And if it’s like it sounded…” Red didn’t continue, likely because it was too sickening.
Someone had to say it. “They’ve got Abby.” Wade stood. His foot slipped, and he accidentally kicked his prisoner.
The man howled in pain in a way that struck Wade as ridiculous for such a minor bump.
Then Wade looked closer. A knife stuck out of the man’s boot. He shook his head in disbelief, for he’d seen that knife before.
“Can I have my knife back?” As polite as a schoolmarm, Cassie approached Wade’s prisoner. She had Susannah in her arms and Michael on her back, and she held the reins of all three horses.
That man’s cry of pain in the woods…was wrung from this man when Cassie’s knife had embedded in the leather and obviously gotten some toes. Honestly, they’d made her do more than her share of the work tonight, and now it looked as if she’d taken a big hand in bagging an outlaw.
Wade hoped there was a reward. “You have got yourself a handy little woman, Red.”
Red reached down and retrieved Cassie’s knife with no oversupply of gentleness. The outlaw howled in pain. Red handed the weapon to his wife and took Susannah. “You should get out of here, Cassie, but I can’t leave Wade, and I can’t let you go off alone.”
“I’m fine, Red. I’ll be careful.”
“Like you were this time?”
“I’d say stabbing that man was real careful of me.”
Wade would have laughed if he hadn’t been so scared for Abby.
“This trail doesn’t lead anywhere but to your old house, Cass. I’ll bet they’ve got Abby there.”
In a tearing hurry, Wade and Red made short work of dragging the two men well off the trail, making sure they were trussed up tight and had no concealed knives to cut themselves loose.
Red held Susannah and helped Cassie to mount with little Michael on her back. Then he and Wade swung up on horseback, and the three of them moved swiftly down the trail.
Wade kept hearing those men talk. Kept thinking of Abby in the hands of these brutes.
He took the lead this time, leaving the Dawsons to bring up the rear with their children. He set a dangerously fast pace. It was so dark now, Wade could barely make out Cassie when he looked behind him.
One thing did bother him about that attack… .
He dropped back beside Cassie. They were far enough from the Griffin place, and the wind whipped wildly enough, making it safe to talk. “Why’d you stab him in the foot, Cassie? That’s a pretty small target.”
There was no answer except Red’s laughter. A shocking sound considering what had just happened and the danger that lay ahead.
“It’s not funny, Red.” Cassie sounded huffy. It was too dark to see her face, and no handy lightning bolt supplied illumination, but the little woman sounded for all the world as though she was pouting.
“It’s a little bit funny,” Red said quietly from behind them.
“It is not!”
“What’s funny?” Wade asked.
“Nothing.” Cassie said no more.
“Then what’s not funny?”
But Red wasn’t done talking. “She wasn’t aiming for his foot.”
“You don’t know that for a fact. I might well have been aiming for his foot.” Cassie sounded as though she was trying to threaten Red into silence.
Wade’s good friend Red apparently wasn’t scared at all. “She was aiming for his…uh…his bull’s-eye.”
“You’re mine, you wildcat.” Harv sank his fingers deep into Abby’s hair. “And I’m gonna make you pay for this cut on my face.”
She slashed out with her knife and gave him a new cut to worry about.
Harv stumbled back.
Abby, her feet bound, dove at him. Her weight slammed into him, and she jerked his gun out of his holster as he fell backward.
His cry of fear gave her a purely sinful surge of satisfaction.
She flipped the gun so it faced away from the filthy pig and brought a clean, hard butt stroke down on his head.
His turn to hurt, his turn to be overpowered.
She felt the vicious pleasure of that blow.
She really needed to talk with God more about this desire she had to hurt, or threaten to hurt, white men.
It wasn’t biblical—she was nearly certain of it.
She didn’t think it was a sin to defend herself, but enjoying it was most likely not something God approved of.
Once she was sure the stinking outlaw was knocked into a sound sleep and she’d gotten well away from here, she’d spend serious time in prayer and repentance.
He slumped to the floor unconscious on the first blow.
Infuriated that she had no excuse to keep beating on him, Abby quickly slit the bindings on her ankles and jumped to her feet. “One of your men is still around,” Abby said to the still figure in front of her. She wasn’t going to stand around waiting for him to come back.
She eyed the gun with distaste. There was no reason to leave it behind for him to use on her or another innocent. She took it and ran out the front door, dashing into the woods. Hopefully, the second man wasn’t watching.
The trees surrounded her. She crouched down, watchful, worried about the location of the other outlaw. The first two who’d left would be on their way far down the trail by now. But the second one was close at hand, and he’d intended to return after Harv did his worst.
The fools had tied her hands behind her back and not taken her knife.
The slim weapon was hard for others to find in its pouch.
The stiffness of the blade was concealed by the beading, so if they searched her at all—she’d been unconscious at the time, so she wasn’t sure—they’d missed it.
But she’d awakened in that room and watched them through eyes opened just a slit while she’d found her knife and cut her hands free.
Then while they plotted, she prepared to make them sorry they’d touched her.
These were the men who had massacred her village.
The man’s injured face was testimony to that, and his threats to make her pay for his scars were as good as a confession.
She would have to do some serious work on the state of her soul to find an ounce of regret in her that she’d hurt that dreadful, stinking man. But she’d do it. She promised God.
Not now but soon.
She expected no white lawman to exact justice for the murder of a village of Flatheads, so she didn’t consider trying to take the men to the sheriff, even if she could have figured out a way.
Staring at the house, she tried to decide what to do.
These men were dangerous, and though she’d hurt this one, he’d be fine, and all four men were still free.
She’d heard them plotting to kill her and Wade and Mort and take Mort’s ranch.
It made sense to kill her because she’d witnessed them committing murder, and Wade had seen this man’s face.
But Mort? What did he have to do with this?
Was he just another victim, another chance to do evil?
Crouching there in the woods like a frightened rabbit didn’t suit her.
But what should she do? Where should she go?
The forests weren’t safe, and she needed to warn Wade.
She could have lived in the wilderness alone.
Hadn’t she just proved she was tough enough?
But did she want to be this tough? Did she want to fight for her life every day?
Abby had lived through a disease that killed her white family.
She’d survived a brutal massacre that finished her Salish family.
She’d never been allowed time to grieve for either as she’d been torn away from both of those lives.
Twice now, her life had been broken into pieces.
And with her aching head, fresh blood on her hands, and the man she now knew she loved in danger, she couldn’t make a decision.
She had to protect Wade. She had to leave the white world.
God, I belong nowhere.
Wind whipped around her and laughed as if the devil himself mocked her.
She was utterly alone. The whole wide world seemed closed to her. A moment of loneliness so profound it nearly choked her held her in place. Go forward. Go back. Every choice was hostile.
This was undoubtedly the lowest moment of her life. The utter loneliness sank into her bones until she knew things could never get any worse.
A crack of thunder proved her wrong.
The heavens split open, and slashing, frigid rain poured down on her head.