'Who are you?' she says, almost to herself.
Logan squeezes her hand. The man hasn't noticed Logan hiding behind her. And Logan has a gun.
'Come on out now Miss Nixon, or I'll shoot you someplace painful.'
A door rattles.
The man turns to see where the noise is coming from. He fires.
Her ears are ringing from the gunshots but she still hears him make a strange sighing noise as he crumples slowly onto the floor. His gun skitters away and his cigar rolls out of his contorted mouth. She wipes something wet off her cheek.
'Who is it?' She calls out, not knowing who has killed the invader. Not hearing a response she adds 'Are you alright?'
There is still no response so she scrambles out from under the table. Logan pushes himself up to a seated position with his good arm. His gun lies unused on the floor. When she looks at him he says 'Wilson' but he says it so quietly that she can't hear his voice over the whooshing in her ears and has to guess what he has said from the movement of his lips.
She peers cautiously over to the door but can't make out who is there. Then she can make out a boot. A boot with the toes pointing in the air. A man lying on his back. Is he dead? Wilson, the man she didn't trust, the man she'd feared, her most dogged protector. Is he dead?
'Wilson!' she cries 'No!'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'We need to leave right now,' he says.
'He's hurt badly,' Emily says, crouching over Wilson who lies on the floor in a patch of slippery glistening blood.
'Even so, we really do need to leave right now.' Logan directs her attention to the other side of the room and she freezes in terror at the sight.
The whole wall is yellow with flame. Half of the table they had hidden behind is blackened and smoking. The burning cigar has rolled into the spilled lamp oil and created a fast spreading blaze that is already too big to be smothered.
'We can't leave him here,' he says.
She keeps staring at the spreading fire, tears rolling openly down her cheeks.
'Emily.' He says.
The surprise of hearing him call her that breaks the spell.
'I need you to help me move him. If he's hurt then he needs our help to get him away from the fire.'
'Where?' she says, still bewildered by seeing her childhood home burning.
'We'll take him to Billy's room, and stop up this door to buy us some time.'
'You think it will all burn?'
He nods, pitying her. This, she said, was her only haven. She wasn't able to think of anywhere else to run to, nowhere else to escape the attentions of Humby and McLaren. And now it was going up in flames. A slower destruction than the one he'd wreaked on McLaren's house, but just as certain.
They drag the unconscious deputy, boots skidding on the spilled blood, down the corridor and into Billy's room.
'Is he dead?'
'I don't think so.'
'Where was he shot?'
'I don't know. There's a lot of blood and he's out cold.'
'Why did you bring him in here?'
'The house is on fire.'
'What?'
Logan takes a deep breath and explains to Laura and Billy about the fire and how quickly it is spreading.
'We're going to have to get on those horses we saddled and ride away from here.' He says.
'Where will we go.'
'We can work that out later. We'll burn if we stay here, or choke on the smoke.'
'How are we going to get the horses?' Emily has stopped crying. 'The fire is cutting off our exit.'
'We'll use the window,' he says. 'I've done it before.' He remembers how the drop hurt his ankle. 'It's a long way down though. I suggest one person goes to get the horses and then the others can jump down onto the horses’ backs instead of all the way to the ground.'
'I don't mean to be any trouble Mister, but I don't think I'm in much of a shape for jumping onto anything,' Billy says.
'Oh, you'll jump Billy. And if you don't I'll throw you. And jumping is going to be nothing to riding your own horse at a full gallop so you'd better think again about what you can and can't do.'
Laura gasps at Logan's outburst.
'I'm having to battle a wound too you know.' He points at his injured shoulder. He's already pulled the arm clear of the sling to use it to steady himself while dragging Wilson. It throbs but he's doing his best to ignore it.
He crosses the room and pulls the window open, producing a sharp pain as his shoulder objects to him raising his arm. There doesn't appear to be any of McLaren's gang round this side of the house. Thin trails of smoke are wafting across the corral.
Wilson coughs.
'He's awake!' Emily shouts.
'What happened?' Wilson shakes his head as though trying to clear it.
'You got shot.'
'Damn, my leg.'
'Your leg? Are you sure? We thought you were dead.'
'It feels like I hit my head when I fell. My leg. It's a flesh wound I think. Damn, that hurts. Help me get my belt round it to stop the bleeding.'
Laura rushes to help him, bringing some bandages from by Billy's bed.
'I'm going to fetch the horses.' Logan says.
'Good idea.' Wilson nods his approval, immediately alert. How can he be so clear headed after getting shot and knocked out? 'Go through the window and run round through the smoke, it'll give you some cover. You might need to be shooting fast once you get near the horses though, those men will be watching for you. Of course they might have untied the horses themselves and driven them off already.'
Logan's been worrying about that. It seems like the obvious thing to do if you've got some people trapped in a house, to take away their horses. Maybe McLaren will be too drunk to have thought of it but he doesn't want to count on it. And even if the horses haven't been untied, the fire might spook them enough to pull free and run off on their own anyway.
'Laura, make sure Billy's bandages are good and tight, he's going to be on a horse in a couple of minutes whether he likes it or not.'
With that, he swings his leg out through the window and drops as carefully as he can onto the ground below. He manages not to hurt his ankle this time but his arm feels worse than ever.
The smoke is thickening and fire seems to be spreading fast. There is no time to lose. He drags the sling from round his neck and wraps it over his mouth and nose and then plunges into the smoke cloud.
When he returns he is leading five horses that follow uncomfortably behind him.
'What took you so long?' Emily says, coughing. There is smoke in the room now.
'Never mind that. Get Wilson and Billy out here first. I'll hold a horse under the window and you get them to climb out.'
'Wilson has gone.'
'What?'
'He went off to the other side of the house to give you some cover when you fetched the horses. He hasn't
