Nick barely managed to reach out and grab hold of Joseph’s arm before the rancher bolted toward his house.
“Let go of me,” Joseph snarled. “My family needs me!”
“You’ll be captured or killed in a second if you run out there like that. Come with me and we might be able to turn this around.”
Joseph shook his head slowly. “I can’t wait any longer. If anything happens to them…”
“Then at least take this,” Nick said.
When Joseph looked down, he saw a small revolver in Nick’s hand. He reached out to take it, only to have it snatched away at the last possible moment.
Having caught a bit of movement from the corner of his eye, Nick turned on the balls of his feet toward it and gripped the pistol tightly. After a quarter turn, he saw an armed man rushing toward him and taking aim.
In the space of a half second, Nick weighed his options and realized the element of surprise was going to be blown no matter who pulled their trigger. Nick’s hand flashed to the holster buckled over his stomach and took hold of his pistol’s grip. His fingers seemed to melt into the specially carved handle and the gun came out as if it had a will of its own. Pointing the weapon like an extension of his own arm, Nick took his shot, which knocked the other man off his feet.
“Take this,” Nick said while tossing the other pistol to Joseph. “But don’t waste your bullets.”
Joseph grabbed the gun and rushed toward the main house. Nick was about to follow when he saw some more figures running toward him from another direction. The larger of the two didn’t even notice the body lying on the ground. He was too busy chasing the smaller one, a four-foot bundle of flailing arms and legs.
“Get back here, you little shit,” the man grunted.
Nick caught sight of the little boy’s face and was drawn to a pair of wide, terrified eyes. The boy’s mouth hung open in a silent scream. Since Joseph was already gone, Nick ran to help the child.
Still reaching out to try and grab the boy, the boy’s pursuer glanced over to Nick and he immediately shifted to guard against him. His gun arm bent at the elbow, allowing him to fire off a quick hipshot. The bullet blazed through empty air, forcing Nick to duck rather than fire back.
As he rushed toward the boy and his attacker, Nick saw a second armed man close in on the kid from behind.
“Look behind you, boy!” Nick shouted.
The kid flinched and huddled down out of fear, rooting himself to the spot.
Nick swung his arm around to fire a shot at the second man to buy a few more seconds for the boy to escape. Just as he tightened a finger around his trigger, Nick heard the first gunman fire again. The bullet came closer than the first, but snagged Nick’s coat rather than anything vital. Nick returned fire, which sent the first gunman diving for cover. Pulling his trigger again, Nick put a round into the gunman’s chest before he hit the ground.
By this time, the first gunman was running straight for Nick. Before Nick could react, the gunman reached out and shoved the barrel of his pistol in Nick’s face.
Nick swiped his left arm up and out to knock the man’s gun away. The pistol discharged a round straight up, but remained in its owner’s hand. Nick then swung his other hand in a vicious chopping motion, which ended with his gun’s handle slamming down upon the other man’s collarbone.
Letting out a surprised grunt, the gunman dropped to one knee. The next thing he felt was Nick’s knee slamming into his face. There was a dull thump before the gunman’s head snapped back. His eyes were still open, but completely vacant as he hit the ground on his back.
Nick could hear people shouting and a woman screaming. Men were swearing and shooting at each other. All of that chaos swirled amid the building roar of flames as the fire spread from the bunkhouse and made its way to the other buildings, filling Nick’s senses until everything became damn near incomprehensible.
The one thing he could focus on was that boy.
The kid was scared and still running for his life.
It was only due to the raging fire that Nick had enough light to catch sight of the boy as he raced toward the open land surrounding the circle of buildings. There was a rumble of hooves in the distance, which may very well have been a stampede of spooked cattle.
Without another thought, Nick took off after the boy. He prayed Joseph could hold on until he got back.
NINE
Anne was screaming.
Through all the gunshots and men shouting back and forth, Joseph could hear his wife’s panicked screams as plain as day. Those screams drove him forward, in spite of the pain that lanced through his body.
Joseph raised the gun Nick had given him and thumbed back the trigger. His eyes anxiously searched for a target.
A skinny man with a grimy face and sparse beard walked out the front door of Joseph’s house dragging Laurie by the arm. His bony hand clutched her wrist, bringing a pained wince to her face with each step. The man didn’t even look to his left as he came out. He was too intent on making sure he had Dutch’s attention.
“Lookee here what I found!” the man said. “This sweet little thang looks real tasty, don’t she? Can I keep her?”
Laurie struggled against the man’s grip, but wasn’t strong enough to break it. She kicked and screamed and punched, but that only served to widen the smile on her captor’s face. Behind the girl, Anne’s shouts were eclipsed by the sounds of breaking furniture and heavy fists landing again and again.
Just then, Laurie heard a voice cut through the chaos.
“Close your eyes, sweetie.”
Laurie stopped fighting and looked in the direction of the voice. When she saw her father standing to one side with a gun in his hand, she hunkered down and did exactly as she was told.
Joseph fired at the man holding his daughter. The man’s head snapped back as his face exploded amid a spray of blood. His grip loosened and he fell back into the doorway of the house.
Laurie peeked out from behind her eyelids and started to run toward her father. She was stopped by a bullet that tore through her right calf muscle and sent her, stumbling, to the ground.
“See what happens when you don’t follow the plan?” Dutch asked as he rode forward with smoke still curling from the gun in his hand.
Rushing toward his daughter, Joseph didn’t bother looking at anything else around him. He dropped to his knees and scooped her up with his free arm. “It’s all right, Laurie. Daddy’s here.”
The twelve-year-old was only slightly shorter than her mother, but felt light as a feather in his arms. She winced and blinked a few times, but was more than able to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight. “Ma’s still inside, they’re—”
From inside the house, Anne let out another scream. The sound of it ripped a hole through Joseph’s heart. When he looked into the house, all he could see was a mess of overturned shelves, splintered wood and shattered glass. He picked his daughter up and started inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re gonna do?” Dutch asked, watching the scene with an amused grin as more and more of his men gathered around him. “You got lucky and killed a few of my men, but you don’t think you’re actually walking out of here, do you?”
Joseph was still moving. As much as he wanted to run to his wife’s aid, he wasn’t about to put his daughter down. The only compromise he could stomach was carrying her with him as he headed toward the dwindling sound of his wife’s screams. “Where’s your brother?” he asked Laurie.
Laurie was breathing in frantic gulps. Between them, she said, “He ran off when they kicked the door in. I don’t know where he is.”