«Indians!» the girl screamed, crossing herself frantically. «Jesus and Mary, save me!»
Jessica bolted upright and yanked open the side curtain while the young Mrs. O’Conner’s screams pierced the interior of the coach. At first Jessica could see nothing but the flat landscape. Then she realized the terrain wasn’t as flat as it seemed. The land was folded gently, providing shelter for men and animals. It also provided ambush sites for unwary travelers. Apparently, a band of Indians had waited in one of those folds for the stage to approach.
«Dear God,» Jessica breathed as she heard rifle fire booming from the low hills.
Wolfe was on top of the stagecoach, exposed to every shot. He could use the driver’s shotgun, but there was no accuracy with such a weapon. It was intended to deter hold-ups, not an Indian attack.
The driver’s whip cracked repeatedly as he yelled at the team, demanding every bit of speed from the big horses. The coach bucked and swayed wildly each time it hit a rough spot on the road, and there were many spots. Jessica braced herself as best she could and stared out the window.
The Indians were a bit ahead and considerably to the left of the coach. They were too far away for accurate shooting. Granted, they were racing closer with every moment, and firing as they came. Even so, Jessica had hunted enough game to realize that the trap — if indeed it was a trap — had been sprung too soon.
Mrs. O’Conner’s screams rose to the point of pain as she began to claw frantically at the door, as though she believed safety lay outside the coach rather than within. When Jessica grabbed the girl’s hands and dragged them away from the door, Mrs. O’Conner turned on her like a wildcat. Jessica’s palm smacked against the girl’s cheek with a force that cut through her hysteria. Abruptly her screams gave way to sobbing. She sank to the floor and hid her face in her hands.
In the silence, Jessica suddenly heard Wolfe’s rough voice and his fist pounding on the outside of the stage. Apparently, he had been trying to make himself heard over the screaming for long enough to lose his temper.
«Jessica, stop that damned screaming and hand me the rifle case!»
The frightened Mrs. O’Conner heard only a harsh male voice demanding something unknown.
«What?» she screamed, her voice so shrill it was almost unrecognizable.
«The case on the floor!» Wolfe yelled fiercely. «Pass it up to me!»
Jessica had already grabbed the presentation case and was shoving it through the window opening. Before she finished, the case was yanked from her hands. It leaped upward as though it had wings and vanished from sight. Bracing herself against the wild swaying of the coach, Jessica looked out the window. The Indians had disappeared behind a fold in the land.
Suddenly a horse burst up over a nearby rise, running flat out. A rider was bent low over the horse’s neck, urging the lathered animal on. The rider was white, not Indian.
A ragged line of pursuing Indians thundered up over the rise several hundred yards behind the man. They fired sporadically, trying to bring down the fleeing rider.
On top of the stage, Wolfe braced himself and sighted down the gleaming barrel. The Indians were more than a thousand feet away and the stage swayed unpredictably. Real accuracy shouldn’t have been possible under those conditions, even for someone with Wolfe’s uncanny rifle skills.
Wolfe began shooting methodically, picking targets, squeezing the trigger, levering in another cartridge, shifting the barrel to a new target, squeezing the trigger again, ignoring the return fire despite his vulnerable position atop the stage. The man fleeing the Indians was in much more immediate trouble than Wolfe was.
The horse’s pace fell off a few hundred yards from the stage. All that prevented the Indians from closing in for the kill was the withering fire Wolfe poured down on them from his swaying perch.
Praying through clenched teeth, her hands curled into fists, Jessica watched the man rein his horse into a long, shallow curve that brought him up to the stage. When the man was alongside, she kicked the door open and dragged Mrs. O’Conner out of the way.
The rider stood in the stirrups, grabbed the luggage railing with his right hand, and swung himself into the stage through the open door. She realized suddenly that he was a big man, bigger even than Wolfe.
Jessica yanked the door shut behind the man. A bullet ricocheted off the iron rim of a wheel with an eerie whine.
«Obliged, ma’am,» the stranger said. «Might you know if the rifleman up top is getting low on cartridges?»
«Oh, Lord!» Jessica grabbed Wolfe’s travel bag and rummaged quickly inside. «He has some in here. They were one of our wedding presents, like the repeating rifles.»
«Sounds like my kind of wedding.»
Jessica looked up into a pair of tired, yet amused gray eyes. Wordlessly, she held out her hands. There was a full box of cartridges in each. Then her breath came in with a harsh sound as she saw the blood sliding out from beneath the cuff of the stranger’s jacket.
«You’re wounded!»
«I’ll live, thanks to you and your husband. I can’t shoot worth a damn right-handed and I’d run my horse into the ground trying to get free of those Indians.»
Reflexively, Jessica and the man ducked as bullets thudded against the stage. An arrow pierced one of the side curtains and buried its lethal point in the opposite side of the stage where Mrs. O’Conner huddled. The sight of the arrow set her to screaming again.
The stranger ignored the pregnant girl. He scooped both boxes of cartridges into one big hand and turned to a front window. His shrill whistle pierced the sound of screaming. He shoved his arm out the ruined curtain and held the boxes up as close to the roof of the stage as he could. The cartridges were taken from his hands instantly.
The stage lurched and staggered, slamming the man against his wounded arm. With a stifled curse he lowered himself to the seat, reached across his body awkwardly, and drew his six-shooter with his right hand.
Mrs. O’Conner kept screaming.
Jessica leaned past the broad-shouldered stranger and shook Mrs. O’Conner. When that had no effect, Jessica slapped her just hard enough to get her attention. The screams stopped as abruptly as they had begun.
«There, there,» Jessica said, hugging the terrified girl and stroking her disheveled hair. «Screaming doesn’t do a bit of good. It only makes your throat raw. We’ll be all right. There’s no finer rifleman alive than my husband.»
«I’ll second that,» the stranger said without looking away from the window. «He sat up there cool as a gentleman at a turkey shoot. And what he aimed at, he hit.»
Mrs. O’Conner cringed when Wolfe opened fire once more, but she didn’t scream again. She simply wrapped her arms protectively over her womb and trembled while the coach shook and bounced her around. Jessica smiled encouragingly before she turned back to the stranger.
«Let me help you, sir.»
«It’s been a long time since anyone called me sir,» he said, smiling oddly. «My name isRafe.»
«Mr.Rafe,» she began.
«JustRafe.»
He squeezed off a shot, then hissed through his teeth as the stagecoach lurched and banged against his wounded arm.
«Save your bullets,» Jessica said as she began undoing buttons onRafe’s jacket. «Wolfe has enough for a time. Let me see to your wound.»
«Wolfe? Is that your husband?»
She nodded.
«Lucky man.»
Startled, Jessica looked up.Rafe was watching her with clear gray eyes. There was appreciation in his glance, but nothing impolite. She smiled uncertainly and went back to work removingRafe’s jacket.
«Luck is a matter of opinion,» Jessica said. «Can you get your jacket off your right shoulder?»