What the hell are you doing, you coward?

  Get up. Get out of this room!

  But it was as though my limbs were paralyzed. It had been a long while since I'd had water, even longer since I had eaten. How long were they going to keep me in here?

  Please, God. Give me the strength to get through this. Lead me out of this room!

  Gradually, I found the will to slide back out from under the bed, and as I popped my head out, I noticed the sound of gunfire was less intense.

  Rising to the window, I looked out and saw the bursts of light from the ends of rifles. There were at least half a dozen at first, then just a few, until there was only one. Then, a single shot rang out and there was silence.

  Is it over?

  Who won the battle?

  Who has been hurt?

  In the distance, there came the sound of a wounded fox. Then I realized it wasn't a fox at all, but a man screaming in agony. It was the sound of pure pain, of complete terror and fear, and it was a thousand times worse than the gunfire.

  Pressing my hands up to the glass, I tried to look through the trees to where the sound was coming from, but all I could see was the faint glow of a lantern.

  Who is it? Please don't let it be him.

  Suddenly, the door burst open and I flinched so hard my feet left the ground.

  "Pa!"

  He stood in the doorway for a second and regarded me with disdain.

  "I bet you think you're clever for escaping Lucas' clutches. Well, you ain't gettin' free from here."

  He strode into the room, his rifle slung over his shoulder. My eyes fell on the gap in the doorway.

  All I have to do is run. If only I can just get out of the room and down the stairs, then I've got a fighting chance.

  "Don't even think about it," said Pa, slamming the door closed and locking it tight.

  He slipped the key into his pocket and walked over.

  Was it really that obvious what I was thinking?

  "Looks like we got' em," he said, looking pleased as punch as he rocked back on his heels.

  He joined me at the window, and we both looked out into the darkness. The lantern was still glowing in the distance but had grown fainter. Except the anguished screaming of the wounded was louder than ever, the screams so loud it felt as though they could puncture my ears.

  "My boy, Eugene, hit him real good," laughed Pa.

  His eyes were twinkling at the memory.

  Savage. You absolute savage. You're not a man. You're not even my father anymore. You're an animal!

  "Don't look at me like that," he said, "Or I'll wipe your face clean of that insolence."

  I began to shake again, my hands trembling as though I had no control of them, as though they weren't even attached to me.

  "Who did you hit, Pa?"

  He paused for a second, enjoying the fear he was instilling in me.

  "Pa? Tell me. Who did you hit?"

  His lips spread into a smile that made my stomach churn.

  "Why that sheriff of yours, of course" he said. "Shot him real good."

  It felt as though the ground didn't exist anymore, as though my limbs had gone completely numb. All I could do was drop to the floor, the whole room spinning around my head as I tried to process what I heard.

  "No... No. No!"

  I threw myself at the window, pounding my fists off the glass as I listened to the sound of his screaming.

  "Let me out!" I cried. "Let me see him!"

  "You quit your crying!"

  Pa grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet.

  "You traitor. You're one of us. What are you doin' crying over some godforsaken sheriff? You think he cares about you? No... Like hell he does. All he wants to do is string up us O'Laneys."

  "No, Pa! He's not like that. I love him!"

  "Love him?"

  He dropped me and I fell to the floor.

  "Love him!"

  He towered over me, the anger frothing out of his mouth as he raged.

  "You're even wickeder than I thought.”

  If I had any sense, I would have shut my mouth and cowered beneath him, but I couldn't because all I could think about was Maxwell, and how he was crying in agony down there in the trees with a bullet stuck in him. The noise that came from his mouth was ungodly.

  "Pa! He's gonna die out there! I need to see him. Please. Please let me go!"

  I grabbed at his legs, and begged, but he kicked me away.

  "Shut the hell up with your sniveling!" he yelled and slapped me hard across the face.

  "You bastard!" I screamed. "You'll never hit me again."

  And I did something I'd never done in my life before, I hit him back, beating my fists off his chest. It felt like hitting a solid wall, and all it did was make him even madder.

  "Be silent!" he yelled and grabbed me by the arms. "Be silent or I'll shut you up myself and Lord knows it won't be the chicken coop I put you in."

  I was too angry to be afraid, and I stared into his old eyes, wishing he was dead.

  "Don't you ever think about that sheriff again," he said. "As of daybreak you'll be Lucas' wife and that's that."

  Outside, the sound of screaming stopped, and my heart skipped. The silence filled the room, sudden and oppressive.

  "That's him—dead," said Pa, his voice cold and unfeeling.

  No, it can't be! No!

  A devilish smile twitched at Pa's lips.

  "Forget about him," he said. "He's in the hands of God now."

  Chapter 24 – Maxwell

  "Aaaargh! Sweet baby Jesus," screamed Barney as he rocked back and forth clutching his leg. "This is agony!"

  "At least you're alive," Eileen told him and handed him a bottle of scotch.

  He drank from it thirstily, but it did nothing to ease the pain.

  "I'm gonna lose my leg. I know I am."

  He was crying like a baby, tears streaking his face.

  "You might," said Eileen, unperturbed. "But at least you're alive. Plenty of men wouldn't be."

  "I dunno," weighed in Dylan. "I reckon there's still time for him to lose his life yet. Look at all the blood."

  "Well thanks for your enthusiasm," said Barney before he started howling again.

  “We need to get a doctor,” said Dylan.

  “A doctor?” laughed Eileen. “I've lived my whole life without seeing one of those and I've turned out just fine.”

  “Yeah, but you ain't been close to losing your leg before. What do you say, Barney? I reckon one of us should head off in search of Dr. Sturgeon. He'll see you right. At least he might have some ether to calm your nerves.”

  “No!” gasped Barney. “No Dr. Sturgeon. The man's a butcher.”

  “But you need professional help!”

  “But that man once pulled one of my teeth and left me with a gaping abscess the size of a quarter. I ain't lettin' that rummy anywhere near my leg. Can't trust him. He'll probably chop the thing off for the hell of it.”

  I didn't doubt it. As the town's only doctor, Sturgeon was the only person we could turn to for help. The problem was that he loved that scalpel of his as much as he loved his rum, and the two were a lethal combination.

  “I agree,” I said. “No doctor. Not yet.”

  Barney looked up at me with pure gratitude in his eyes.

  It was my turn now to grab the tourniquet and tighten it. Gradually, the flow of blood stopped, but as I lifted up his pants, I could see his leg was turning an abnormal shade of green and purple.

  "Aw, Christ. It's hideous," said Dylan. "Cut it off. Cut the whole damn thing off!"

  "Not yet you don't!" replied Barney, still screaming through his gritted teeth. "Oh God, it hurts so much."

  "Here, this'll help," said Eileen and once again poured a liberal splash of liquor onto his wound.

  All it did was make him scream even louder until I felt as though my head would burst.

  "You maniac!" he yelled at Eileen and picked up the nearest thing, his rag, and hurled it at her head. "Why would you do that?"

  "It'll stop the spread of infection. I swear, there ain't nothing that can't be healed with a bit of liquor."

  Barney continued to scream until the energy was drained from him, and eventually, his yelling turned to whimpering.

  "Stay with me," I told him. "You're gonna have to just grin and bear it for now."

  "I'm bearing it as much as I can!"

  Eileen just watched him, shaking her head.

  "You know it's your own damn fault," she said. "If you hadn't ignored me and taken off like that you wouldn't have a chunk of lead in your leg, and we'd have rescued my sister by now."

  "Shut the hell up!"

  "Well, it's true," I told Barney. "You compromised the whole operation."

  "Operation?" laughed Dylan. "Who are you now, Colonel Shafter?"

  "No... I'm the sheriff," I reminded him. "So watch your mouth."

  He held his tongue and angrily looked at the floor.

  "Besides," said Barney as he struggled to breathe through the pain. "The operation was ruined when they all started fleeing like cowards. Where are they all now?"

  "Ran home to their wives, so they did," said Dylan.

  "Cowards," agreed Eileen. "They were all talk until the guns went off."

  "Useless idiots."

  I checked on Barney's leg one last time and saw nothing but a raw hole in his thigh and the tip of the bullet. It was a beast of a thing that had wormed a big chunk out of his flesh.

  "It's gonna have to come out," I said.

  "What is?" he asked, his eyes widening with terror.

  "The bullet."

  "No. No way you leave it right there! You leave it where it is!"

  But Eileen was already making preparations to play surgeon.

  "I need a knife," she said.

  "I can do it," I said. "I've done it before."

  "Done it as many times as I have?"

  The look in her eyes told me I was just a novice.

  "Probably not," I replied.

  "Uh-uh."

  She went off in search of a knife, clattering her way through the cupboards as Dylan sidled up to me.

  "I ain't ever met a girl like her," he said. "She's wild. It's like she's not afraid of anything."

  "She's not. And is that a hint of admiration I detect?"

  "It's no such thing. I was just sayin'..."

  He could pretend he hated the O'Laneys just as much as anyone else, but I could see the way he was looking at Eileen now. Something had changed.

  "Got one!" came her voice from the back room.

  Eileen came sauntering out with a filleting knife the length of her forearm with a curved, thin blade. It was a deadly looking thing, and we all instinctively backed away from her as she pointed it in our direction.

  "Woah, be careful with that thing, sweetheart," said Dylan. "You could take a boy's eye out with that thing."

  "Or their heart..."

  She fixed her eyes on his, and he froze to the spot. Finally, after all these years of being the bad boy around town, he had met his match.

  "Now, come here, Barney. I'm gonna get that thing out of you clean and proper."

  She moved to grab his thigh, and he started shrieking and backing away from her.

  "Get away from me," he yelled and, losing his balance, he slid off the edge of the bar and fell flat on his back.

  He lay dazed for a minute as Eileen stuck the blade between her teeth and jumped over the bar with the physical ease and strength of the most experienced cowboy.

  "Don't you come near me," he said, sliding along the floor on his butt to get away from her.

  "Barney, listen. That thing gotta come out or it'll get infected. You could die if you leave it there."

  "I could die anyhow."

  He was now scrambling beneath the table in a desperate bid to protect himself from Eileen, but she simply grabbed him by an ankle and yanked him back out.

  "Stop being such a baby," she said. "You're acting like you're the only person in existence to get a bullet torn out of their leg before. Now stay still and bite down on this."

  She grabbed his old, rotten rag from the bar and stuffed it into his mouth.

  "Okay, three, two, one."

  She pushed the edge of the blade into his wound as Dylan and I winced and glanced away. A blood-curdling scream escaped through the rag in Barney's mouth, and a second later, a slight popping noise was heard as the bullet was forced free. It bounced along the floor for a few seconds before rolling toward the saloon doors where it came to a rest.

  It was then that I saw what lay behind it.

  Boots.

  Pointed and scuffed and attached to the weary legs of the gnarliest lady in town.

  "Betsy," Dylan and I said in unison as she entered the room.

  Her swagger was more exaggerated than usual, and she was smiling wolfishly as she circled her way around to us.

  "I hope you don't mind me bringing some friends," she said, waving her hand. "Come on in, girls."

  Gemma, her friend from the bordello was the first to enter, then behind her more battle-hardened women came in.

  "We heard you were having some difficulty with your ... force," laughed Betsy. "Or should I say lack thereof."

  "Betsy, what's going on here?"

  We were all confused, all staring. Even Barney had finally fallen silent and was just gawping at the group of women wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

  "We've come to help you," she said. "Seeing as the men in this town couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone defeat the O'Laneys."

  "Betsy, you can't be serious. You don't know how to—"

  "Don't know how to what?" she said. "You think I don't know how to fight? How to handle a gun? Ladies, show'em what you're packing."

  They all reached down to their ankles and began hoicking up their dresses.

 

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