Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 01] (36 page)

“No!” Berry said vehemently. She jumped to her feet and crossed the room to Jackson. “I can’t sit here doing nothing.” She held out her bound hands. “Take off the rope so I can make coffee.”

His eyes roamed over her, from her cut, bruised face and tangled ebony hair to the huge cloth shirt and buckskin breeches that failed to hide her slender form. Then his eyes swept up to meet her steady green ones. Without a change of expression he whipped out a thin-bladed knife and sliced the rope between her wrists. The rope fell to the floor and Berry turned away.

She rekindled the fire, filled the teakettle from the oaken bucket that sat on the shelf beside the door, and swung it over the blaze. At the workbench she opened a small wooden cask, peered in, and closed it. She uncorked a crock. It contained salt.

“Where’s the coffee, Rachel?” She spoke louder than usual, not sure that Rachel would hear her or answer if she did.

To her surprise, Rachel shifted the sleeping child to her shoulder and came up close beside her. With her free hand she reached for the small bag on the second shelf and set it on the workbench. As she did so, she flipped back a cloth, exposing a small dirk, then covered it and walked away.

Berry scooped the coffee from the bag and poured the coarse grounds into the boiling water. Thank God! Rachel still had her wits after all!
How could she get the dirk off the workbench and on her person?

A moaning cry from Rachel brought the front legs of Jackson’s chair crashing to the floor and a fresh stab of terror to Berry’s heart. She ran to the window and went up on her toes so that she could see over Rachel’s shoulder. Her mouth dropped and a wave of nausea rolled up into her throat. “Oh, Lordy! Oh, sweet Jesus!” The feeling of hate and terror clamped down around her.

Linc pulled back the whip and applied it to Simon’s back with all his strength. Simon’s body jerked and the skin split. A stream of blood blossomed and crisscrossed other streams of blood. The second strike wrapped the thin cruel leather around his body. A scream of rage tore from Berry’s throat. She turned and sped to the door. An arm as hard as steel closed around her and lifted her off the floor.

“Ber . . . ry! I love you! I love you!”

Simon’s agonized cry tore through her heart like a knife. She fell into a fit of helpless sobbing. The words she had spoken to him came back to haunt her cruelly.
Someday you’ll shout it,
she’d said.
It’ll just come boilin’ up out of you!

“Simon . . . Simon . . .” Berry went limp and the arm holding her let go. She dropped to the floor, lay there, then slowly got to her hands and knees and crawled to Rachel. She wrapped her arms around Rachel’s legs and buried her face in her skirts. She cried as she had not done since her mother died and left her so long ago.

Rachel pulled on her arm and said, “Stand up and look, Berry.”

Linc had cut Simon down from the tree and he lay face down in the dirt. They couldn’t hear what Fain and Fish were saying, but they saw that Fain had a rifle and was angry. Then Berry saw Linc coming toward the cabin. The silent approach of this evil man gave the whole scene an air of unreality that came to her like a numbing coldness rising from the ground and working its way through her. She was cold, yet her insides quivered hotly.

She sidled toward the workbench and the dirk hidden under the cloth. More than anything in the world she wanted to go to Simon, but first she would kill Linc Smith.

*    *    *

Fain led the way to the shooting range he had set up the year before to test his guns. He had marked the distances of sixty yards, eighty yards, and one hundred yards from the target with stakes driven into the ground. The target was a heavy-skinned log propped against the crotch of a tree. A piece of tin, showing many bullet holes, was nailed to the log.

Fain stopped beside the stake marking one hundred yards from the target. His hands caressed the rifle. He’d spent a year working on the gun and he considered it his masterpiece. His blue eyes bored into those of the man who had worked beside him as a friend, but who now stood beside him as a bitter enemy, a murderer. He knew better than to ask what would happen after the rifle was tested. There was no way Fish would allow any of them to live after he had stolen the gun and passed it off as his.

“Let’s see what it will do,” Fish said impatiently.

Fain backed several steps from the stake, raised the gun to his shoulder, sighted carefully down the long barrel, and fired. The bullet smashed directly into the center of the target.

“By the Lord Henry! Good God Almighty!” Fish proclaimed loudly. “It works! This gun can win wars. It can change the course of history!” He reached for it.

“I’ll show ya how it’s loaded.” Sweat rolled from Fain’s face as if he had dunked his head into a bucket of water. He took the second bullet from his pocket. Fish watched closely. Fain could feel the prod of Fish’s silver-plated musket in his back and was careful how he handled the gun. In five seconds the rifle was reloaded and he shoved it into Fish’s hands. His own hands were trembling like leaves in a light breeze.

“Ya can’t best my shot,” he said in a wintry voice that betrayed none of the agonizing suspense he had just endured.

“Move back.” Fish gestured with the musket and Fain moved to the side. “Over there.” He pointed to a tree some distance away. Fain backed until he was against a huge oak. Fish tucked the musket into his belt. His face was flushed with excitement.

Fain watched Fish handle the gun. He lifted it for balance and sighted down the long barrel. It was the longest moment of Fain’s life. The cocky, deceitful little sonofabitch might turn the gun on him, using him for a target. He started to speak, to goad him about his marksmanship, but didn’t want to draw attention to himself unless he had no other choice.

“It galled you that I could outshoot you, didn’t it, Fain?” Fish shot him a smiling, superior glance.

“Ya’ll have to hit dead center to beat me, and if’n ya wait much longer, your excuse’ll be it was too dark ta see.” All of Fain’s muscles were bunched. He had never been so afraid in his life. This could be the last few seconds he’d spend on earth.

Fish spread his feet in the stance of a military rifleman and raised the gun to his shoulder. He moved the barrel up and down and swung it in a wide arc before he leveled it on the target. He sighted carefully down the long barrel. It seemed to Fain he stood there for an eternity before he pulled the trigger.

The explosion was deafening. The metal plate fragmented and flew off the side of the rifle as Fain had suspected it would. The flying metal took part of Fish’s head with it. He was thrown to the side like a sack of grain, his feathered hat tossed high. Bits of flesh and bone, blood, and tufts of blond hair were all that remained atop his body.

The echo of the blast was still resounding in Fain’s head as he leaped forward to get the musket from Fish’s body. There was a flash of color, a shot, and a bullet went whizzing past his head. Emil came running toward him, pulling his musket out of his belt, his rifle still in his hand. Fain wheeled.
He had thought the man was at the landing on the river!
If not for the musket, he could reach Fish before the riverman could reload. But now . . .

Fain’s stout legs carried him into the woods. He’d played the only card he had. He could hear Emil crashing through the brush after him. He ran on, praying he’d not sealed the fate of the others at the cabin.

B
erry stood with her back to the workbench, her eyes on the door. The instant Linc entered the room and Jackson’s eyes swung to him, she snatched the dirk from beneath the cloth and held it behind her.

The man’s small, watery eye, under the bushy brow and thinning hair, leveled on her. A minute passed—or was it an hour? The eye stabbed into her. Terror took hold and shook her. Fear gnawed at the very core of her being, and she hit back in the only way she knew—verbally, abusively.

“I shoulda made sure you died! I shoulda followed you and cut your rotten heart out!” Her voice started out weak but quickly gained strength. “You’re no more human than a belly-crawlin’ snake. You knifed my pa, took his money, then you and that bastard you hung out with thought you’d get me and Rachel,” she yelled at the top of her voice. Faith began to cry. “You’re all that’s left of the scum that come for us, and damn you, I’ll see you dead!”

A strained growl came from Linc’s throat. “Ya goddamn bitch! Ya ruint me!” he shouted.

“You filthy, disgustin’, stinkin’ animal!” Her fury burst forth in a strangled shout, her enraged voice overriding his. Suddenly she realized she was close to losing control. She ceased her strident outburst and stood in the wavering light of the guttering fire, loathing washing over her like a sizzling gush from a hot spring. She forgot Rachel, forgot the black-bearded man watching. She only vaguely heard the baby’s cries.

Linc’s fuddled brain saw in the girl confronting him the essence of all that had gone wrong in his life. He wanted to choke the life from her with his bare hands! He opened his mouth as if being strangled, clenched his fists, and reached for his knife, which wasn’t there. He started around the table for her. The sound of a shot stopped him. He glanced at Jackson, who sat up in the chair.

“They’s testin’ the gun.” The guttural sounds came from Linc’s slanted mouth, and spittle fell onto his shirt, still wet with Simon’s blood.

Jackson leaned back in the chair. Rachel walked back and forth in front of the bedroom door with Faith in her arms. Berry didn’t take her eyes off Linc. The sound of the shot had distracted him, but now his eye shifted between her, Rachel, and Jackson.

Boom!
The sound of the explosion reverberated in the room like a clap of thunder. Linc wheeled, and Jackson jumped to his feet. The sharp crack of a rifle, and then a shout, reached them.

Berry’s mind was locked in on one thing—killing Linc. She leaped toward him, the dirk raised to strike. He turned and the blade struck his shoulder blade. The surprise attack caught him off balance and he fell to his knees. Berry jumped onto his back and jabbed viciously with the short blade. Her mind had gone blank. She was in a frenzy to kill him. He roared with anger and pain. Suddenly she was plucked from Linc’s sweating body and slammed against the wall. Her head cracked against a hard object and the room whirled, then straightened.

Linc crawled out the door, bleeding from the cuts, roaring curses at the top of his voice.

Jackson scowled down at the small, plucky girl he’d jerked off Linc. Abruptly, as if sensing danger, he wheeled around. Rachel stood in the sleeping-room doorway holding the rifle. She fired. The sound of the shot was deafening. The bullet struck him in the right shoulder and spun him around. He grabbed the door frame to keep from falling. Rachel lowered the rifle and waited for him to kill her. She had missed her one chance. His face showed surprise, the first readable emotion she had seen there.

“What’d you do that for? I’d-a took ya with me.” There was a note of disappointment in his voice. He backed from the door.

Rachel had been sure that he was going to kill her. She stood, suspended in stunned silence, for a long moment. Then terror moved her to action. She rushed to the door, slammed it, and dropped the bar. She was seized with panic and quickly dropped the solid wood shutter down over the window, her body working independently of her mind. The room was almost dark without the light from the window and the door.

“Berry! Get up!”

Berry got to her feet and held on to Rachel until the floor stopped moving. “I’m all right. Did you kill him?”

“No, but I hurt him . . . bad. He could’ve shot me, but he didn’t.”

“Linc?”

“You hurt him. He was bleedin’, but I don’t think it was bad. He was crawling for the door when I got the gun.” Faith was bawling lustily. Rachel went to her, returned, and opened her dress. She put the child to her breast and instantly the loud cries ceased. Rachel wiped the dampness from the baby’s head. “Poor little thing,” she crooned. “Poor, helpless, little babe.”

Berry unhooked the shutter covering the window and lifted it so that she could look out. The sky was darkening. Already a few twinkling stars dotted the sky. There was no one within the range of her vision. She could faintly see the outline of Simon’s body lying in the dirt beneath the tree. The birds came to roost in the branches over his head. She heard their tittering and saw one after another silhouetted against the sky as they gathered for the night.

“I’m going to Simon.” Berry closed the shutter and locked it. “I’m going out to get him, Rachel. If I’m going to die, I’ll die out there with him.”

“He’s unconscious. You can’t lift him. Please . . . wait . . .” Rachel began to cry. Sobs shook her shoulders. “Fain is dead! I know he is. . . .”

“We don’t know that.”

“He told me many times he didn’t have a metal strong enough to hold the explosion. He had some that he thought would hold one time, but not twice. Fish made him fire it, and it killed him!” She bent over and pounded her forehead against the wall. “I can’t bear . . . not knowing!” she wailed.

“Stop it! Fain wouldn’t want you to act like this. If the gun had blown up, Fish would be back here by now. Something else has happened, and I’m going to get Simon before they come back.”

“You can’t! They’ll kill you, or . . . take you off!” Rachel grabbed Berry’s arm and clung to her. “But I understand. Let me put Faith down and I’ll go with you.”

“No. It’s best if one of us stays here. If both of us should die out there, what would become of Faith?” Berry kissed the woman who had been both mother and friend to her. “Finish feeding that youngun so you can open the door when you see me coming with Simon.” She dropped a kiss on the baby’s head.

Berry tied a cloth around her waist and tucked the dirk inside. “Is there powder and shot in the other room?” she asked hopefully, looking longingly at the rifle Rachel had dropped when she went to bar the door.

“Fish took everything except Fain’s stock of guns, and they don’t have the firing pins.”