The Marshal's Surrender (Holidays in Mountain Home Book 3) Page 10

  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  His mind flashed from an image of Cliff to Elias and Raymond—his deputies. He’d left the men in the kitchen with Noelle and her mother. Were the three men working together?

  “Look for her—now,” he yelled at the startled sisters as he clomped back down the stairs. “Stay inside, but find her.”

  He bounded down the stairs, shoved past a knot of young men, searching faces for those who’d seen her last. “Raymond. Elias. Cliff. Where are they?”

  “Here, Sheriff.” Both deputies, right behind the knot of brothers. “We were in the dining room, working out a trade for guard shift.”

  “That doesn’t matter—not anymore.” God help him, nothing mattered anymore. He had to get to Noelle, now.

  She wouldn’t have headed to the necessary. She’d been cooperative. Stayed in the presence of several family members. For Pete’s sake, he’d seen her peeking at him from behind the kitchen curtains not ten minutes earlier.

  His heart pounded. “Where’s Cliff?”

  “Don’t know.” Murphy looked to Dillinger.

  “He didn’t come out back.” Three cigarettes. No one had gone through that door but himself.

  The men who’d lounged in the front parlor shook their heads. No Cliff.

  Noelle’s sisters clattered down the stairs.

  “He was in this house—” Gus’s throat closed.

  “She’s not up there,” one sister cried. “We searched. Everywhere.”

  Cliff Cox…

  Heaven help them all.

  One way or the other, Cliff had gone missing with Noelle. He might have been subdued and carried off against his will. Or he might be a bad egg.

  Gus leaned toward the bad egg theory. ‘Cause somebody on the inside had to have unlocked a window. No other egress made sense.

  “Sheriff?” Phil demanded, in the broken tones of a grieving parent.

  Gus’s stomach pitched. Finally, the pieces of this puzzle slid into place with a nearly audible click.

  “Cliff Cox has her.” A lackey. Persuaded by money, most likely. If it turned out Cox was innocent, Gus would apologize. The man was guilty ‘til proved innocent.

  He banged through the office door, grabbed her stack of lifelike images, his hands shaking. His heart tripped over itself, rolled, and slammed against his ribs. He riffled through the pencil drawings, tossing the top two, then three.

  Luke struck a match, lit the lamp. Hot light spilled over the face of the man they called Boss.

  There.

  Boss was none other than Jedediah Smythe, Esquire. Dark brown hair cut short, fully shaved, expensive suit of clothes. The posture of a confident and successful attorney, grilling Gus on the witness stand.

  He saw it now, beneath the reddish beard, the sun-bleached, unkempt hair so long it brushed his shoulders. Beneath the tanned skin lurked the attorney who’d blamed Gus.

  Gus’s testimony had led to the conviction of Zachary Evans, Jedediah Smythe’s half-brother, for the murder of Judge Rathburn. He’d died less than a week later, knifed in an inmate brawl.

  The last puzzle piece lay figuratively in his hand.

  Boss wanted a life for a life.

  He’d held onto the hope that they wanted his life, not Noelle’s. Yes, Jedediah wanted Gus to suffer as he’d suffered the loss of his brother.

  If he’d pegged the warped motivation, the gang would wait to kill her until Gus arrived, to make him undergo the horror as they took her life.

  They wanted Gus to follow—and that might be their Achilles Heel.

  He grabbed his coat, bellowed for the others to follow, and bolted for the barn and their mounts.

  With a half-pint of luck, they had a chance of overtaking the gang, freeing Noelle, and capturing at least part of the vermin.

  If they so much as broke the delicate skin at her wrists with rope, he’d see them shot through the heart.

  No citified trial for them.

  They’d caught themselves a spitting-mad U.S. Marshal.

  Watch out, boys. Here I come.

  The men had gagged her, tied her wrists and ankles, tossed her over a saddle, and left her to jostle and bounce with every running step the mare took on its lead rope. She’d given up any pretense of unconsciousness and did her best to hold on. A thick knot secured her bonds to the front cinch strap.

  She’d escaped once. They wouldn’t trust her again.

  Five horses, maybe six, bolted once they’d reached the main road.

  The threat of a brutal death, dragged beneath running hooves, stole her sanity. Numb from the bitter cold and the ropes biting into her flesh, her hold slipped. She jounced on the saddle, her ribs bruising. Blood pounded in her head. She fought for a secure hold on the cinch strap and finally managed.

  Winter sliced through her gray woolen dress, her petticoats and stockings. She shivered uncontrollably from fear and below-freezing temperatures.

  Despite her confession of love, he would come for her again.

  That eventuality terrified her more than the risk of being trampled.

  He’d lead a speedy charge to her rescue. Most of the riders would be her immediate family. Pa. Luke. Gerald. Timothy and Dallas. Hunter, Miranda’s husband. They’d follow swiftly…if they could discern their fresh tracks from those left by the many visitors earlier in the day.

  After what seemed to be an hour, but it couldn’t have been so long, the party left the road and swung about sharply.

  Behind an outcropping of rock, more men waited with lanterns.

  In an instant, she identified the location. Dead Man’s Drop—a narrow pass between the mountainside and an enormous boulder that had crashed to the earth long before white men settled Colorado.

  Coming from the ranch, Gus would never see the Ruffian Gang until it was too late, ‘til her family had ridden through the narrow neck of road between the boulder and mountainside. They’d be on the lookout for the gang ahead.

  The Ruffian Gang intended an ambush—right here. They’d slaughter her family.

  Bile burned her throat. Her empty stomach, abused by the saddle and unnatural motion, churned with nausea. If she vomited into her gag, she’d suffocate. With her wrists tied, she might wrench the cloth free from her mouth, but at great risk to her precarious balance across the saddle.

  She fought to clear her pounding head by breathing deeply through her nose, forcing her respirations to slow.

  With her head still lower than her heart, her ears pounded in time with her racing pulse. She must do something, beginning with freeing herself.

  A rhythmic thumping of a mallet rang against wood. Were they driving a stake into the frozen earth?

  She darted a glance both left and right. No one watched her.

  Before she could think too hard, she wiggled, pulled, and kicked her bound feet. Gravity worked in her favor. She tumbled, landing on her rump in the snow. The incredible pressure in her head immediately waned. The mare swung her head around and nickered at the unladylike dismount.

  Noelle hadn’t much time. Mother and Gus had kept a constant eye on her. They’d notice her missing within minutes.

  Pulling on the cinch strap, fighting the lack of balance from trussed ankles, she finally made it to her feet. Yes! At this angle, it was possible to get a thumb beneath her gag and rip it—

  “You gonna make me babysit you?” Slim, the outlaw who’d been kind, the first time around. Now sour-natured, narrow-eyed, and dangerous.

  She froze, the gag barely out of her mouth. “I’m—”

  “Put that back.” He pulled her hands away and shoved the wad of soggy fabric deep behind her teeth.

  Fear collided with frustration and her stomach roiled. Not like it had when she’d been rump-high, but almost. She gagged.

  Slim’s eyes widened. He pointed a bony finger at her. “Now none of that.”

  She shook her head, desperate to convince him she would lose her stomach. Maybe the threat would be enough for him to skedadd
le and leave her be long enough to wrest herself free of the restraints.

  She squeezed her eyes shut in case he could see her lie in her eyes, and emphasized a dry heave. Playacting of course, but in her desperation, it was almost real.

  “Aw, Jerusalem crickets!”

  The gag muffled her moan, so she grumbled louder. The gurgle sounded an awful lot like she would, indeed, spew the gag down the front of Slim’s jacket. He took a giant step away from her. He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his gang.

  From here, all movement had stopped with the gang settled in to wait. Lamps doused. With only a hint of moonlight peeking through the clouds, they seemed ready to pounce.

  She strained to hear sounds of an approaching rescue party.

  Not yet. Please, not yet.

  If she didn’t do something, and fast, this would end badly.

  Her father, brothers, the man she loved—would be massacred.

  Her stomach seized, and she barely had time to thrust her head close to her bound hands and wrench the gag free before she threw up.

  “Come on, come on!” Gus swung into the saddle, wheeled Beau toward the gate, and gestured with the swing of an arm to the posse. If they hadn’t managed to saddle up as fast as him, they’d have to ride hard and catch up.

  Every second lost could cost Noelle her life.

  The moon peeked from behind the nighttime clouds, illuminating the yard about the house just enough…disturbed snow drifts beneath the window on this side of the house. The office.

  He’d made a circuit of the house just before those three cigarettes, and not a single footprint had marred the pristine drifts of snow.

  The churned mass revealed many more footprints less than fifteen feet from that window—the way they’d obviously stolen Noelle.

  He held up a hand to silence the others. He glanced, quick enough to see nearly all the men had caught up. He stood in the stirrups and tried to untangle the tell-tale signs on the bare canvas of the side yard where they meshed with the drive toward the gate.

  If the whole yard hadn’t been trampled by that impromptu town meeting, he’d be able to see precisely what had happened.

  Almost as if her captors had taken the time to arrange two dozen pebbles into the shape of an arrow, pointing the way, he discerned where they’d cut across the yard, snaking their way around the front—unseen by everyone behind the lacy curtains at the parlor windows—and headed due west.

  As expected, they wanted him to follow. The gang had to guess he’d be less than five minutes behind.

  He scanned the countryside and strained to listen. Nothing.

  “Which way, Sheriff?” Phil’s warm breath clouded his face. Hiding his identity.

  In that instant, Gus knew what the gang would do, If not precisely where.

  “Where would you go, less than two miles from here, to set up an ambush?”

  The Finlay men glanced at each other.

  Luke shifted in the saddle. “Dead Man’s Drop.”

  Gus knew the place, but not well.

  “Ambush?” Dallas’s voice sounded small. Like a child.

  “Maybe you ought to stay home, son.” Phil gestured toward the house. “Watch out for your mama.”

  “I’m a Deputy Sheriff, Pa. I have responsibilities.”

  “Other options?” Gus demanded. If Dead Man’s Drop wasn’t the place…

  “That’s it.” Phil nodded with certainty. “Fits the bill perfectly. Only place like it within twenty miles.”

  With a sweep of his arm, Gus touched his heels to Beau’s flanks and set out at a run, the others following.

  Noelle bent at the waist, breathed through her mouth, and fought ongoing nausea. She spat, trying to clear her mouth.

  “Did ya have to go and do that?” Slim’s loud whisper barely carried to her ears. He avoided the sour mess, giving it a wide berth, grabbed her elbow and jerked her upright.

  And to think this man had been solicitous during her captivity in the cabin.

  Something had definitely changed.

  Without warning, Slim and two other men wrestled her into submission. One wrenched her arms behind her back while another pulled her teeth apart and shoved the gag back in.

  Panic had her fighting, kicking, attempting the impossible—to free herself from three much stronger men.

  Boss, who’d not been paying her a lick of attention until now, stepped into her line of sight. Two long strides, and he pointed a blunt forefinger in her face. “I don’t much care if you’re dead or alive when the illustrious August Rose comes for you, woman.”

  Something hard and pointed jabbed her ribs. A pistol?

  Terror snaked its way up her spine, rendering her motionless in the overpowering grip of her enemies.

  Boss’s breath fanned her face, warm and surprisingly fresh with a recent brushing.

  The ridiculous idea that he’d focus on oral hygiene in preparation for tonight’s outing made her incredulous. But the jab of a pistol barrel—she would bruise, if she lived long enough to care—demanded her attention.

  “Do I,” Boss said softly, almost like a courtly gentleman, “make myself clear?”

  She nodded, jerking. Her stomach heaved.

  She would not vomit behind the gag. She couldn’t.

  Boss dismissed her, turning to his minions. “Get her on the nag.”

  It was too dark to see who led a dark horse forward, but the toss of the animal’s head and the way its ears pricked and twitched had a bad omen. She twisted against the bonds securing her wrists behind her back. She’d have a hard time staying in the saddle, even with the full use of her hands upon the reins and soothing the beast with crooning sounds.

  She had no choice.

  The men hefted her onto the saddle. “Swing a leg over, Missy.” He hiked up her skirts. Someone else grabbed her calf and pulled her leg over the horse’s back. If she weren’t furious, she’d be embarrassed.

  Freezing air stung through her wool stockings. Her toes had numbed with cold, and that made finding the stirrups, set far too long for her legs, impossible. The horse flinched and Noelle hung on with her knees. Terror clogged her throat and made it impossible to draw enough breath through her nose.

  She would die.

  Tonight.

  Whether thrown from this horse or by the hand of one of her captors.

  Brilliant light flared as someone put a match to a torch and the fuel caught.

  Her mount pinned its ears, shuffled two or three steps to the rear, and finally responded to the tug on its halter to move forward.

  Through the narrow pass, toward home.

  Where Gus would see her by the light of that burning torch when he rounded the bend.

  Rough hands shoved a loop of rope over her head. Specks of light flashed before her eyes. She fought for air, couldn’t breathe!

  A noose.

  What a waste. She’d only had nineteen short years. Hadn’t even seen her nineteenth birthday, likely never would. She’d had too few days with Gus. A handful of kisses.

  It wasn’t enough.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The moon slipped behind a gauzy veil of clouds, shading the snowy landscape an inky blue.

  The well-traveled road had turned to slushy mud, churned under countless hooves, wagon wheels and sleighs, slowing the rescue party’s progress.

  In his gut, he knew Jedediah Smythe intended to end this. Tonight.

  That meant ensuring Gus followed.

  Jed had obviously started on this road. If he deviated from it, he’d make obvious tracks.

  Elevation climbed as the road veered around a curve to the right. What began as a gentle slope from the shoulder of the road gradually became a sheer cliff for fifty yards, he recalled, and around another sharp bend came the landmark the locals referred to as Dead Man’s Drop.

  The image of Smythe’s calculated smile that day in the courtroom paraded through Gus’s memory. He pulled Beau up short.

  Smythe had the sha
rpest mind Gus had encountered. In the Service or since.

  And he’d had months to plan.

  Only a fool would ride in, heedless, endangering his own life and the lives of Noelle’s loved ones.

  Or expect the set-up to be simple.

  Gus swallowed a litany of curses.

  With Jed Smythe, nothing would be simple.

  He held up a hand to silence the men. Horses blew puffs of white. Beneath him, Beau side-stepped and tossed his head. The gelding sensed the threat.

  At any moment, the entire gang might open fire from the dense evergreens on both sides of the road. Why hadn’t he seen that threat before he’d lined his men up like sitting ducks?

  As if circling a lariat, he motioned for the group to turn about, and led the retreat. They halted at the main intersection where sparse foliage provided poor cover.

  “We’ll divide up, approach from three sides.” The steep mountainside shielded the fourth. “Phil, I want you and the boys to skirt around, come at them from the far side. Stay back ‘til the shooting starts. Don’t let ‘em retreat.”

  He turned to Noelle’s elder brothers. “They’re expecting us to charge through, in pursuit. I need at least six of us so it looks and sounds like our whole party. Ride tight with me to the gate. I’ll charge through while you wheel about and fire on anything that moves.”

  Murphy shook his head with vehemence. “Sheriff, you can’t—”

  “Don’t hand yourself over.” Luke yelled over the top of Murphy. “Noelle will tan my hide for shoe leather if I don’t stop you.”

  Twin Colts provided reassuring weight in his holsters. “I’ll charge into the hornet’s nest, and I’ll fight. With all of ‘em focused on me,” —he prayed— “I’m counting on you three to get Noelle out.”

  Noelle.

  Everything came down to her. Nothing else mattered. Not Gus’s reputation with the people of Mountain Home. Not proving himself worthy to the naysayers. Nor to Luke and Effie Finlay. In fact, it seemed like years since those factors mattered.

  “Hunter, I need your gun arm.”

  Hunter nodded in consent.

  “As we approach, you hold back. Watch for them to pop up like Prairie Dogs. Shoot to kill. If it moves, and it ain’t wearing a skirt, kill it.”