had learned that he didn’t care. He didn’t care about much of anything that didn’t concern him directly and personally and right now. His wife was not one of those things.
In a louder tone, he said, “Jenny, did you hear me? I said I’m pretty sure—”
She pursed her lips and hissed a short, “Shh!” at him. The idiot. Didn’t he know they could be up there right now, one of their heathen ears pressed to the other side of that floorboard?
Her hands gripped her arms tighter, and she felt herself shiver. Oh, how she wished she’d gone into town with Megan this morning! She would have liked to have seen her brother Jason one more time, if this was indeed her day to die….
Matt, now silent, came back down the ladder, unhooked the lantern, and carried it over. He sat down beside her, the lantern light washing over his hair and face before the dust kicked up by his boots rose to momentarily obscure his features. He coughed halfheartedly into his hands, then scrubbed his furrowed brow with manicured fingertips.
Jenny saw his hands tremble. He was scared. Not just scared of the Indians, scared of everything.
Perhaps even a little frightened of her.
She bit back the smile that threatened to pop out. Now was not the time for grinning like a fool. But she had suddenly realized why her husband could be—and usually was—such an ass. She supposed he was like a cur dog who snapped and growled at the person who tried to feed it. What had happened to make him so afraid?
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She supposed it didn’t even matter what had spooked him so bad, probably when he was just a kid. Probably something to do with that father of his.
But it didn’t matter. What mattered, right at this particular moment, was keeping him from opening that trapdoor until she was absolutely positive that the danger had passed.
And she wasn’t sure.
Not yet.
Having gotten a doped and unconscious Saul and an equally drugged Rachael down the stairs and into the store’s back room, Jason gave their boys firm orders to stay put and stay down, and left them all in the store room before he started for the saloon.
Outside, the town square rang with gunfire, and Jason was narrowly missed by an arrow, which instead of clipping him in the neck, buried itself in the side of Cohen’s Hardware. The roof of Reverend Milcher’s church was already afire, he noticed as he made his way along the sidewalk.
Nobody was putting that out, but he saw that Ward Wanamaker was passing buckets along a line to the roof of the livery stable, which was also ablaze. Several of the newcomers were also helping with the stable, leading animals out and hitching them across the way, north of the town square.
Somebody had best see to the church, he thought as he ducked into the saloon.
“Jason!” shrieked Abigail, peeking over the bar top.
“Down!” he shouted back, and her head disappeared behind the bar like a pond turtle’s into its shell.
Rollie Biggston, the Cockney from California with whom Abigail was now in business, had vacated com pletely, but Gil Collins was at the window, watching the top of the wall and shooting any poor savage who managed to climb to the top. So far as Jason could tell, no Indian had yet made it over alive.
“Good man, Gil,” he said as Gil picked off yet another warrior coming over the gate. Jason had always thought they should have built it higher, and now it appeared he’d been right.
“Fish in a barrel, Sheriff,” Gil replied without looking around. He was busy reloading his rifle.
Jason drew and shot over Gil’s head, breaking a new windowpane but picking off a warrior who’d been right behind the one Gil had hit. The body toppled backward and out of sight.
Gil muttered, “Thanks, Jason,” before he brought up his rifle again and trained it on the top of the gate. “Sneaky critters, ain’t they?”
“They surely are. If you’re all right in here, I’m going to help with the fire at the church,” Jason said. His gun was still out, but he was backing toward the door.
“Go then,” Gil said, and took another shot.
Jason didn’t get a chance to see who Gil was aiming at. Or whether his shot had struck its target. He just ran like the devil was after him, ran through a barrage of arrows, and all the way across the street toward the flaming corner church.
The Milcher kids had been hurried across the way by their mother, and Jason gave them a reassuring wave as he scurried past. Then the horses and wagons ringing the center well blocked his sight of them, and he was in front of the church.
Everybody was still hard at work passing buckets toward the stable, but he got Salmon Kendall’s attention. “Half to the church!” he shouted over the battle noise. Salmon heard him, and directed every other man to make a second water line to the west and Milcher’s church.
Muttering, “Someday that sonofagun’s going to take my advice and not build that consarned thing so damned high!” Jason grabbed a full bucket from the closest man and made for the church doors.
Inside, he found that the flames hadn’t worked their way down to the first floor yet, but the smoke certainly had. The Reverend Milcher was stretched out behind his pulpit, unconscious and covered with ash. An empty bucket lay beside his hand.
First things first.
Jason set down his bucket, tied his bandanna over his mouth and nose, and proceeded to drag Milcher outside. Mayor Kendall and a new face greeted him outside. Both men were carrying buckets, and Kendall had his halfway to the ground before Jason waved him off. “Second floor,” he said raggedly. The smoke was getting to him, despite his efforts.
He dragged Milcher as far as he could, which was just to the other side of the circled wagons, and left him to regain consciousness in his wife’s arms. He barely heard Lavinia’s thankful cry of “Bless you, Jason, bless you!” as he sprinted back across the way.
The bucket line had reached the front of the church by now, and Jason arrived just in time to grab a full one from the front man, an enormous black man built like a stevedore and stripped to the waist. Jason took the bucket with a murmured “Thanks,” and headed toward the stairs at the backside of the first floor.
The smoke was thick, and it stung his eyes and nose as he felt his way up the steps. He bumped into somebody on his way up—Salmon, he thought, squinting against the smoke—but he kept moving until he reached the top landing and the Milchers’ living quarters.
The place was ablaze. Rugs sprouted flames like prairie sprouts grass. The sofa and chairs pocked the room like burning brush, and the heavier pieces—the breakfront and dining table and some wooden shelving—smoked in some places, flickered with infant flame in others.
Jason didn’t take the time to pick a target. He simply threw his bucket of water toward the couch, barely seeing the water fly through the smoke-filled room. But he heard it hit the target with a satisfying hiss. And immediately, he turned on his heel and found his way back to the stairs.
Halfway down, he ran into someone coming up. Salmon again. Wordlessly, through the roiling smoke, he traded
