Aurora had followed him out of the cabin. "I'm coming with you," she said.
Longarm looked at her in surprise. "You can't do that."
"The hell I can't, as you would say. I can be every bit as stubborn as you, Marshal."
Longarm had already figured that out about her, and even as he drew a breath to argue, he knew it would be useless. So he said instead, "All right. But if there's trouble, you stay out of the way."
She made no reply, just headed for a small corral near the cookshack where several saddle horses were kept.
The fire in the barracks was burning itself out following the collapse of the structure, and the flames didn't seem to have spread, as Longarm saw to his considerable relief. Jared Flint turned away from the ashes of the building and then started quickly toward Longarm and Aurora, his brow creasing in surprise and concern above his bushy eyebrows. "Miz Mcentire," he said as Aurora led a horse from the corral, "what are you doing, ma'am?"
"I'm going with Marshal Long," Aurora told him. "Will you saddle this horse for me, Mr. Flint?"
"Sure, but--are you certain that's a good idea?" Flint inclined his head toward Longarm. "No offense to the marshal, but he looks pretty banged up."
"He is," said Aurora, "but we're going to do what we can to stop the men from attacking the Diamond K. Marshal Long is worried--and I share his concern--that some of our men may be killed when they confront Kinsman and his bloodthirsty cowboys."
She just couldn't resist doing a little editorializing, thought Longarm. But overall, he was glad she had decided to come with him. If they reached Kinsman's ranch in time to stop the loggers from attacking, the men would be more likely to obey Aurora's orders than his. If she told them to give up their thoughts of revenge, they might go along with her wishes.
Of course, it might already be too late, and that thought gnawed at Longarm's gut. Just as he had worried that some harm might come to Aurora in the attack on the camp, now he was concerned about the safety of Molly Kinsman, not to mention the others on the ranch for whom he had felt an instinctive liking, such as Wing and Joe Traywick.
Not surprisingly, Jared Flint saddled a horse for himself as well as one for Aurora. When she saw that her foreman intended to go along, Aurora's mouth tightened, but she didn't say anything. Together with Longarm, they rode out of the camp, Flint taking the lead. Instead of following the usual trail, however, Flint took a smaller path that curved over the shoulder of the mountain.
"This is the way the boys went," he said. "It's a little closer to the Diamond K this way than it is going all the way back to the main trail."
So that explained why he hadn't run into the rampaging lumberjacks on his way to the camp, thought Longarm. They had taken a different route.
Even so, it seemed to take a long time to reach Matt Kinsman's ranch. Longarm rapidly became lost as the trail twisted and turned through the woods. After a while, Aurora grew concerned too, and asked Flint, "Shouldn't we be getting there by now?"
Before Flint could answer, the sound of distant gunfire came to their ears.
Longarm bit back a curse, knowing that what he was hearing signaled the beginning of the battle between the loggers and the cowboys of the Diamond K. Grimly, Flint said, "Sounds like we're too late."
"Maybe not," Longarm grated. "Maybe we can stop it before too many men get ventilated." He prodded the roan forward, not looking back to see if Aurora and Flint were following. The horse was getting tired--but then so was Longarm. The reserves of strength he had replenished earlier were running out again.
Guided by the gunfire, Longarm made his way through the pines. They grew closely together in places, so that he had to thread his way among them. Aurora and Flint had to ride single file behind him much of the time. The shooting grew steadily louder, and finally Longarm emerged on a long ridge that was more sparsely wooded than the slopes behind him. The ground fell away in front of him to the valley where the headquarters of the Diamond K were located.
Down below, the loggers from the Mcentire camp were advancing on the ranch, using trees and brush and rocks for cover as they fired Winchesters toward the cluster of buildings. There weren't enough rifles to go around, so the men who didn't have guns were armed with the double-bitted axes they used in their work. Those deadly tools could fell a tree in a matter of minutes in the skillful hands of their owners. In close fighting, they could chop down a human being even faster.
A heavy return fire came from the ranch buildings. Longarm scanned the slope below him, expecting to see that some of the lumberjacks had already fallen. They had been lucky, though; all of them were still on their feet.
That situation wouldn't stay the same. Sooner or later, some of the bullets flying around down there would find their targets in soft flesh.
And those in the ranch buildings were in danger too. Longarm could just imagine Molly Kinsman crouched near one of the windows in the house, reloading for her father and Joe Traywick. Either that, or she might even be wielding a rifle herself. A stray slug could find her just as easily as anyone else.
Longarm pulled his Colt and aimed into the air. He squeezed off three shots, then bellowed, "Hold your fire, damn it! Mcentire men, hold your fire!"
As he expected, they pretty much ignored him, except for quick glances that several of them threw over their shoulders before they went back to fighting. They didn't ignore Aurora, though. She burst past Longarm, gigging her horse into a breakneck run that carried her down the ridge toward her employees. Longarm yelled, "Wait-" but he was too late. As Aurora dashed downward into danger, Longarm said bitterly, fervently, "Hell!"
"Stop it! Stop shooting!" Aurora's voice rang out clear and strong, and even over the clamor of battle. Some of the men heard it. The ones who did turned and looked in amazement at her, galloping down the slope at such a pace that it seemed her horse was in imminent danger of falling and pitching her off. Somehow she stayed upright as she shouted for the loggers to put an end to the fight. Longarm and Flint were right behind her, struggling to keep up. Longarm hoped none of the ranch's defenders saw them and thought they were reinforcements for the attacking lumberjacks. Aurora's dark hair had come loose from its usual bun, and Longarm was glad of that. Streaming out behind her I as she rode, Aurora's hair immediately marked her as a woman. Longarm kept one hand on the reins and began waving the other over his head, hoping that those in the buildings below would see him and realize he was trying to get them to hold their fire. The loggers' rifles gradually fell silent, and so too did those of the Diamond K. Longarm spotted several men scurrying around the ranch buildings, no doubt spreading the word that a momentary cease-fire had been called. What he had to do now was insure that the cessation of hostilities was permanent, not temporary. He rode up next to Aurora and said in a low voice, "That was a damn fool stunt."
"it got them to stop shooting, didn't it?" she replied with a defiant toss of her head.
Longarm had to admit she was right about that. He looked along the line of men who had been attacking the ranch. Now that he was closer, he could see that they had not gone completely unscathed so far. One man's left arm hung limp from a bullet that had bored through it, while several others sported bloodstains on their clothes from creases much like the one on Longarm's back. Such wounds were messy but seldom fatal. Didn't stop them from hurting like blazes, though.
Longarm noticed as well that even though the guns had fallen silent, the loggers weren't emerging from their cover. The battle could start again in a matter of seconds if things didn't go well.
Jared Flint rode up beside Longarm and Aurora and said ominously, "I don't trust those cowboys down there, Miz Mcentire. If they start shooting again, you're right out in the open."