into the dusty aisle between the rows of stalls for cover and confusion as he drew his first pistol. As he ducked back into the dark of a far stall, he dragged the Winchester from its scabbard beneath the stirrup fender.
So that was all he had, Hook thought as he made himself small. Two pistols and a seventeen-shot Model 1866. Maybe, if he was lucky and made each ball count, he could hold both sides of the stable at bay. Whittling them down one by one.
Then he heard some of them coming, whispering … footsteps from both directions. And he knew if they rushed him like that—it was all but over. He started to move to a crouched position, putting a hand out to steady himself, when he had found the flake of a hay bale. Big enough, he figured.
He waited, breathless and listening. Then flung the flake into the murky lamplight and shadows, across the aisle into the far row of stalls.
It had done the trick. The four gunmen spooked, firing into one another. And Jonah had himself made sure of two of them before he ducked back into the darkness once more.
From the sounds of things, the four were done and out of the way.
Then he thought on it hard and knew they still might rush him. And that would be the end—unless he put a little more fear into their hearts. More so some downright simple confusion to keep them off balance.
That’s when he started talking to Hastings, recognizing his voice at the back of the livery. Hearing Wiser at the front of the stable. And glory of glories—it had worked.
Better than Jonah had hoped: the major shot Hastings. Gone right mad, Wiser had. Mad with frustration, even hate. He heard him shooting up there among the front stalls. Lead smacking wood, scattering hay dust. Gun smoke hanging like dirty gauze, suspended over the stable, made a greasy yellow by the single lamp.
Wiser was a madman. Shooting at his own men. None of the last shots came Jonah’s way.
Then some quiet. Quickly sorting it out, Jonah figured Wiser was reloading. Or waiting with that second pistol—wanting Hook to grow impatient and show himself. How Jonah wanted to watch the bastard squirm ….
More than anything, Hook knew he had to swallow his own hate down now—keep thinking things through or he would not last. Not long enough to get Hattie out of there. And that fear of failing her stabbed something down deep inside him now.
“I’m with you, Major!” cried a voice from the back of the stable, near the big opened doors.
“Your glory will be made in Zion, boys!” Wiser called back. “Let’s go in and get the Gentile!”
Hook stood, sensed where Wiser was, and pulled off two quick shots that barked but bit only stall uprights. Yet before he himself ducked back down, Jonah watched Wiser going for cover.
Overhead sang more than a half dozen bullets as Hastings’s scout fired at the disappearing target. Jonah counted shots, with his left hand reaching for the security of the repeater.
More gunfire exploded at the back of the livery, although these did not echo like those before inside the stable. These shots were instead swallowed by the night. Outside. Beyond those big open doors leading onto the black prairie.
Jonah strained his eyes, shading them from the pale, murky lamplight—trying his best to get his night- eyes.
A man reeled backward into the barn from the doors. Then he made out three of the gunmen crouching, turning to fire into the night with quick orange muzzle blasts.
Then a second gunman sank back on his haunches, clutching the side of his chest. In a moment he lay down, rolled onto his belly, and did not move again.
The last two of Hastings’s scouts yelled at one another and flung their voices to Wiser at the far side of the stables. Then the pair bolted to their feet and at a dead run plunged into the blackness of night, their pistols spitting yellow flames ahead of them.
There came a flurry of more gunfire outside the building. Not only pistols, but big guns as well. Booming amid the cracks of the smaller-bore pistols.
An agonizing silence followed … until Wiser called out.
“Men? The rest of you able, get back in here so we can finish what we’ve started!”
There came no answer.
Hook heard the shuffle of steps in Wiser’s direction, the murmur of voices. Wiser was arguing with those two he had left in his command.
“Jonah?”
On guard, Hook snapped around, to the back of the stable.
“Jonah Hook! You in there, son?”
“Shad Sweete? That you?”
“By damn, it is—his own self!” Sweete roared.
He was flush with confusion, joy, relief, and then again fear. “Keep covered. This fella’s got him some gunmen left, Shad.”
A bullet whined overhead.
“How many, Jonah?”
“Don’t know—”
“You’re still mine, Hook. And the girl too!”
“Girl, Jonah?”
“My daughter, Shad.”
“Hattie’s there with you?” a new voice sang out.
Something familiar to it, but not like the hominess of Shad Sweete’s colicky bellow.
“Who’s asking?”
“It’s Riley Fordham, Jonah.”
“She’s here with me, Riley,” he called into the dark.
“Ah—Mr. Fordham!” Wiser cried. “What an unexpected pleasure. Not only will I get to watch Hook die—as slow and painfully as possible—but I will have the pleasure of killing you as well. Cutting off your head and presenting it to Colonel Usher when next I see him at Fort Laramie.”
Wiser laughed, loud enough that Hook stood, without thinking, firing the last two shots in the one pistol, then aiming the second into the dark. One, two … then three shots—
A scream, then many footsteps pounded the hard earth, flinging the small door aside noisily. Until there was no more noise from the front of the stables.
Hook listened to the quiet for a long, long time.
“Go ’round front, Fordham,” Jonah called out.
“Already sent him, Jonah,” Sweete replied.
Jonah cautiously stepped to the corner of the stall, listening. All he heard between each of his own steps was the labored breathing of one of them. Then the creak of the hinges at the front door.
“The rest run off, Jonah,” Fordham called out. “Likely they’re on their way to their camp—get the rest. We gotta be making tracks, and now.”
“Fordham’s right, Jonah,” Shad said.
“This ain’t finished.”
They joined him, finding Hook standing over Wiser, one boot on his gun hand.
Sweete knelt beside the man, putting his ear against his wet, dark-slicked chest. “He ain’t got long, Jonah. You plugged him in the lights twice’t. Who is he?”
“Damn.” Hook used his boot toe to knock the man’s pistol aside. “This one had Hattie.”
“We gotta go,” Fordham said anxiously. “Get her out—”
“G’won, then. I appreciate what you done, coming to help me. You can go now. Save your hide, Riley.”
“Listen, dammit. I put my own neck on the line to come back to make sure Hattie was safe. No different from you, Jonah.”
“She’s safe.”
“Where’s she?”
“Back there. They got her pretty sleepy. She don’t know nothing that’s going on.”
Fordham stepped away as Jonah knelt over Wiser. Shad shifted, turning his head first this way, then that, as he listened for sounds of the gunmen returning.
Hook stuffed the muzzle of his pistol up under Boothog’s nose. “Before you go, you sonofabitch—why don’t
