Dead Before Sundown

When Joseph was a boy, his father had been friends with Gabriel Dumont, the famous hunter and plainsman who was Louis Riel’s second-in-command. Dumont had taught Joseph how to track game, and that involved being able to move silently through the woods, even in darkness.

Joseph used those lessons now, taking care each time he put a foot down not to make any noise. It was slow, painstaking work, but such caution could save a man’s life.

He paused frequently to listen, but he couldn’t hear anything except the faint crackling of the fire as it burned down. Had he been too suspicious? Was there really nothing dangerous out here?

“Joseph?” That was Charlotte calling out to him. “Joseph, are you all right?”

Blast it, Joseph thought bitterly. He couldn’t answer her without giving away his position, but if he failed to respond and there really was someone out here watching the camp, that silence might warn the lurker that he had been discovered.

Joseph was trying to decide what to do when the brush crackled again, right in front of him this time. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness since he had been away from the fire for several minutes, saw a patch of deeper darkness shift and reveal itself to be the rough shape of a man.

Certain now that something was wrong, Joseph lunged forward and thrust the barrel of his rifle into the stranger’s back. “Don’t move!” he shouted. “Charlotte, stay where you are!”

Instead of obeying the order, as would any sane man who had a rifle barrel prodding him in the back, the stranger suddenly twisted around and threw himself out of the line of fire. Joseph started to pull the trigger anyway, but his finger froze on the trigger as he realized the rifle was pointing toward the camp. If he fired, he might hit Charlotte by accident.

That second of indecision was enough. The man grabbed the rifle barrel and wrenched upward. That move made Joseph jerk the trigger involuntarily. The shot was deafeningly loud under the thick canopy of tree branches.

The stranger drove the rifle toward Joseph, ripping the weapon from his hands and slamming it into his chest. The impact made Joseph stagger backwards. He felt stunned, as if the blow had caused his heart to stop beating. He couldn’t seem to get his breath. While he was off-balance and struggling, the man barreled into him and knocked him off his feet.

Joseph landed hard on the ground, stunning him even more. A knee dug painfully into his belly and pinned him there. The next second, he felt the cold, hard bite of steel as the stranger pressed a gun muzzle into the soft flesh of his neck.

“Don’t move, mister,” the man warned, “or I’ll blow your head off.”

He was about to die, Joseph thought, and things couldn’t get any worse.

But then they did, as Charlotte’s voice, tight with fear, said, “No, m’sieu, it is you who should not move, or I will blow your head off!”

Chapter 8

Joe Palmer had been threatened plenty of times in his life. He had a pretty good feeling for when somebody actually meant to kill him, and for when they didn’t.

The gal who had just called out might think she meant the threat, but she really didn’t. When it came down to the nub, she wouldn’t pull the trigger.

He was betting his life on that.

Palmer didn’t take his gun away from the man who’d tried to jump him. Instead he said, “Lady, you better be careful. Even if you shoot me, you can’t do it fast enough to stop me from killin’ your husband.”

“He is not my husband,” she said. “He is my brother. And all I have to do is pull the trigger—”

“All that’s holding back the hammer of this revolver in my hand is my thumb,” Palmer interrupted her. “You shoot me, and the hammer falls. Your brother dies. Simple as that.”

For a moment, a tense silence filled the darkness. Then the woman said, “What do you want me to do?”

Something inside Palmer eased. He wasn’t going to die tonight. Not from being ventilated by this woman, anyway. His bet had paid off.

“Look,” he said, trying to strike a reasonable tone, “I don’t mean any harm to you folks. Your brother’s the one who jumped me. He stuck a rifle in my back. I’m just defending myself here. Why don’t you come around where I can see you?”

She didn’t respond right away, but after a second he heard her moving. She circled through the brush and stepped into his line of sight. In the shadows under the trees, he couldn’t make her out very well, but he saw that she had lowered the rifle.

“Put the gun on the ground,” Palmer ordered.

“Charlotte, don’t do it!” the man choked out. The gun barrel pushing into his neck half strangled him. “Shoot him!”

“Better not,” Palmer warned. “Damn it, I’m tryin’ to be friendly here.”

He wasn’t actually interested in being friends with these two, although from what he had seen of the woman as she sat by the fire while he eavesdropped on their conversation, he wouldn’t mind getting better acquainted with her.

However, they had mentioned that they were waiting for somebody, and the word “guns” had been dropped casually. Palmer found that intriguing. He wanted to know more about what they were doing out here, hundreds of miles from anywhere.

“Don’t trust him,” the man warned his sister again. “Shoot him, Charlotte!”

“I … I cannot,” Charlotte said.