Josiah nodded yes. “I am.”
“Now what in hell’s tarnation does the sheriff want with a man like you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What you mean you don’t know?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I ain’t got the time nor the patience for long stories or tall tales at the moment. Stand up.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Do I look like I care? You’re in my barn, causing me grief and they’re certain to come back once they figure where you done hid the night out. Ain’t that enough?”
“I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“I said stand up.” The girl bounced the barrel of the carbine, motioning for him to move sooner rather than later.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Why’s that?”
“Got a wound. A flesh wound I think.”
The girl stared at Josiah for a long, hard second, running her eyes up and down the mound of hay he’d buried himself in. There was a dried puddle of blood at his feet.
“Now all of this is about to cause me to scream. This is the last damn thing I need right now. Can’t you see I’m about to birth a baby?”
“I can see that,” Josiah said, looking away.
There was no way the girl could understand his sadness at the sight. The emotion trumped his fear, but only for a moment. He knew he had to push away any thought of his lost family and his living son if he wanted to get out of the barn, and Comanche, alive.
Dull morning light filtered into the barn. The double doors were open, and it looked to be a rainy day outside. The coolness of the night had yet to fade, overtaken by the wind of the day, running due west from one side of the barn to the other, droplets of rain pushing in through the cracks. It was easy to tell it was going to be an uncertain November day, the chill hanging on every breath of air like a bad memory.
The rain was steady—and from what Josiah had seen on the ride the day before, the town looked like it needed a big drink of water. But as far as he was concerned, the change in weather couldn’t have come at a worse moment.
If it were possible for him to flee, to escape unseen, then his footprints would be even easier to track in the fresh mud.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder clapped.
The girl looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “Ain’t liking that. Doc Foley don’t like coming out in a storm. His horse spooks easy the way it is.”
The barn smelled heavily of manure. Mixed with the natural rot of the hay, it added to Josiah’s sense that the barn hadn’t seen the work of human hands anytime in recent memory. There were no horses or other animals living in the barn. Maybe they were outside.
“My rifle is to my right. I’m going to move away from it,” Josiah said.
“Good idea.”
“Where’s your husband?”
“You need to mind your own damn business, you understand, Mr. Ranger?”
Josiah nodded again. “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend you. Just looks like you’re in a delicate condition. You got pains?”
She stared at him, bit her lip, then nodded yes.
“Pretty close together?”
“Close enough. Baby’ll be early by a month if it comes anytime soon.”
“I don’t know that I can help you.”
A cloud crossed the girl’s face. Something caused her concern, and her mood went right back to where it had started; foul and mad.
“You just need to shut the hell up right now and stand up and do what I tell you.” The girl looked over her shoulder quickly, like she’d heard a sound that Josiah didn’t. “Or you’re gonna be a dead man if you don’t do as I say and hide.”
It was then that Josiah heard the thunder of horse hooves, rounding the rear of the barn, heading right toward the open doors.
The girl stood squarely in the center of the open double doors, the rifle resting across her left forearm, her finger hovering over the trigger. Beyond her, three men sat on horses. Two of them Josiah didn’t recognize, the other one he did.
The man was Liam O’Reilly, there was no mistaking that. His hat had fallen back off his head, held by the string around his neck. His thick red hair glistened, soaked with rain but still bright as a redbird strutting around in full breeding feathers, trying to entice a female. O’Reilly’s hair was as tousled as the girl’s, and he looked like he’d been riding all night. His clothes were muddy, and the other feature that stuck out to Josiah from his position, hiding in the hay mound—where the girl had instructed him to go just moments before the riders arrived—was that O’Reilly didn’t wear a badge now, while the other two men did.
“Morning, Billie,” the man in the lead said.
He sat comfortably on a black stallion. The man was wearing a tall black Stetson, a black vest with a five- point star pinned to it, muddy riding boots, and a slicker opened up over his shoulders.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“We’re looking for a man.”
“Figured as much. That Ranger?”
Josiah stiffened. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust the girl—Billie, he figured, since that was what the sheriff had called her. But she’d told him to hide, and hide he had. He had no choice. Running was out of the question.
The sheriff eased the horse up a step, and he looked past Billie, peering curiously into the barn. “You seen him?”
“I heard your men out searchin’ last night. They stirred me out of my bed. Thought we was bein’ attacked by Comanche.”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“That’s what you say. I just came out to check the barn. Ain’t nothin’ missin’ or anybody around that I can see.”
O’Reilly pushed his horse up next to the sheriff’s. “Come on, Roy, let’s get on with it.”
“Billie deserves a moment.” The sheriff glared at O’Reilly. “Don’t you know who she is?”
“I know who she is. Everybody in Comanche knows who she is. No offense there, little lady,” O’Reilly said, the Irish in his voice not a lyrical lilt, but hard, like a cold-edged Bowie knife, “but we don’t have time for such niceties.”
“That Ranger killed Bill Clarmont last night. I lost another deputy,” the sheriff said.
“Something you’re gettin’ good at, Roy,” Billie snapped.
“Doc Foley’s busy tending to some of the other men who were hurt. You need me to send him out?”
Liam O’Reilly slid off his horse, a tall chestnut mare, and walked up to Billie like he’d known her all his life. He stopped inches from her face.
“He’s supposed to be out this way soon.” Billie didn’t flinch, didn’t seem to be intimidated by O’Reilly’s glare.
“Easy there, man,” the sheriff said to O’Reilly.
Josiah’s vantage point was partially obscured now, but he could still see the third man sitting on a horse next to the sheriff. The deputy was a brute of a fella, round like a big boulder, with a long, black beard, almost all covered up with a pommel slicker to protect himself from the rain. The man had access to his six-shooter on his hip, the rain shield open enough to expose the badge on his chest and any other weapons he’d equipped himself with.
