Jordy slammed the door after us.
Everyone else was down low. Hannah and Daisy half dragged, half carried me to a far corner and gently eased me down so I had my back to the wall. A strange weakness had come over me, and it was all I could do to hold my head up.
“She shot him!” Daisy exclaimed. “She shot the parson!”
“I wouldn’t put anything past that monster,” Hannah said while plucking at my shirt. “Let’s see how bad off he is.” She flicked my jacket aside. I tried to reach up to stop her but couldn’t. Suddenly she recoiled as if I had slapped her. “What in the world is this?”
“It’s a pistol!”
“I can see that, daughter.” Hannah slid the short-barreled Remington from my shoulder holster. “But what in the world is the preacher doing with a hideout? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“He has a rifle, too. I saw it in his saddle scabbard.”
“Even preachers shoot game for the dinner table,” Hannah said. “But this”—she hefted the Remington—“this is something a gambler or an assassin would carry.”
I had to say something. She was close to guessing the truth. But I was so weak that all I could croak was, “Pro—tect—you.”
“What did he say?” Hannah asked.
“I think he said he brought the gun to protect us,” Daisy said, and tenderly clasped my hand.
Disbelief was written plain on Hannah’s face.
Just then another volley peppered the cabin to the accompaniment of whoops and yips from the cowboys. The window shattered in a spray of shards. Slugs cored the door, narrowly missing Kip.
“Douse the lamp!”
Sam leaped to obey. As he rose to extinguish the wick, a rifle cracked. He had exposed himself through the window to a shooter in the woods. The slug caught him high in the shoulder and spun him around. He braced himself against the wall to keep from falling, but would have collapsed if not for Jordy, who caught him and lowered him into a chair. It was Ty who blew out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
Hannah crabbed toward her youngest. “Keep low!” she cautioned. “Jordy, bolt the door. Carson and Ty, scoot over by the window.”
I attempted to sit up, but my legs would not cooperate. Seldom had I felt so defenseless. Hannah had taken my Remington, leaving me with nothing but the boot knife. The shooting, though, had stopped.
The way I saw it, Gertrude had four choices. She could wait us out until we were so low on food and water, her cowboys could overrun us. But that would take days, and by then the Texas Rangers would arrive. Her second choice was to rush us, but she was bound to lose a lot of punchers. Her third option was the one I would pick: sit out there and pepper us with lead for ten to twelve hours, whittling us down so when she did give the order for her cowhands to attack, they would overwhelm us with little loss of life on their side.
As if Gertrude was able to read my mind, she shouted, and leaden hail blistered the cabin on four sides. She had not been exaggerating when she said she had it surrounded.
Laughter pealed in the silence that followed the shots. “Are you still alive in there, Hannah? If so, you won’t be for long. By daybreak all of you will be dead and your cabin burned to the ground.”
Hannah was bent over Sam. Without raising her head she called out, “What did we do to you that you hate us so?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Gertrude rejoined. “But it will stay my little secret this side of the grave.”
“Please, for the sake of my children, don’t take the law into your own hands. Turn us over to the Texas Rangers.”
“Beg all you want, but my mind is made up. None of you are getting out of there alive. That includes your parson friend, in case he’s still breathing.”
God, how I hankered to blow out her wick. In my fury I clenched my fists and realized my strength was returning. Pain was setting in, as well. My temples pounded and my mouth became as dry as Death Valley. I did not have the warm, wet feeling deep inside, that warned of internal bleeding, which was a good sign. Nor was blood leaking out of my mouth and nose.
Daisy had slid over by her mother, but now she returned and wanted to know, “How are you holding up?”
I had to lick my lips and swallow a few times before saying, “It’s no worse than being stomped by a bull. How is your brother?”
Bending so close her warm breath fluttered my cheek, Daisy said, “The bullet nicked his shoulder bone, but Ma thinks Sam will live.”
“We can’t stay cooped up in here,” I said.
“What else can we do? Ma says it would be suicide to make a break for the woods. They would drop us one by one as we go out the door.”
That they would. “Give me a revolver or a rifle and I will cover you,” I offered. My thinking was that the cowboys would chase after them, giving me the chance to crawl into the woods and hide.
Daisy misunderstood. “You are the noblest man I’ve ever met. But we’re not about to run off and leave you.”
At that juncture something struck the front of the cabin with a loud thump, and seconds later a flickering glow lit the window.
“Dear Lord!” Hannah cried. “They’re trying to set the cabin on fire!”
That was the fourth choice.
Chapter 14
A bucket of water was on the counter. Jordy grabbed it and ran to the window, where fingers of flame were licking at the sill. To douse them, he had to lean out and upend the bucket. The moment he did, a rifle cracked off in the trees. Jordy dropped the bucket and tottered back, his right arm suddenly limp.
Hannah and Daisy rushed to render aid. They brought Jordy over near me and had him sit. Kip joined them and handed his mother his belt knife, which Hannah used to cut open Jordy’s sleeve. She gingerly examined the wound. The slug had drilled Jordy above the elbow, shattering the bone and leaving an exit hole the size of a walnut. Blood pumped in a torrent.
“We have to stop the bleeding,” Hannah said. “Daughter, rip a sheet into strips. Kip, find me something to use as a splint.”
I was feeling weak again. I stared at my own wound, wondering if I would live. Internal bleeding was not always apparent. If I was bleeding inside, there was nothing Hannah could do for me. I thought of Gertrude’s treachery and yearned to slip a garrote around her throat or, better yet, strangle her with my hands.
I had only myself to blame for being shot. When I started in the regulating business, I would never turn my back on someone like Gertrude. I had become too sure of myself, too careless. I had taken to assuming my reputation would protect me.
As I watched the glow at the front of the cabin grow, I did something I had not done since I was knee high to a foal. I prayed. I asked God Almighty to let me live so I could have my revenge on the woman who had done this to me. With every iota of my being, I prayed. When it hit me what I was doing, I grinned at my silliness.
Long ago I learned that God never answered my prayers. As a boy, night after night, I prayed that my father would stop beating my mother. Night after night, I prayed he would stop drowning himself in drink and treat us as a father was supposed to treat us. But my prayers did no good. My father did not stop drinking. He did not stop beating her. He did not treat us as a caring father should.
I had heard that God answered the prayers of others: Folks have told me that the Almighty answered theirs. Why God never answered mine, I couldn’t rightly say. Maybe I made God mad at me somehow. Maybe I prayed wrong. Whatever it was, as I sat there with that bullet hole in me and realized I was praying, I not only grinned, I had a lump in my throat.