Jeeter decided that if he was to wear the britches in their marriage, he must put his foot down on occasion. This was an occasion. “No. Please. Lead is flying all over the place. I don’t want you taking a stray slug.” He cupped his hands for her use as a step. “I will run in quick, splash water on her face to bring her around, and run back to you. We can be gone in five minutes.”
“You are so sweet,” Ernestine said, and permitted him to give her a boost. He handed her the reins and gave her the reins to the gruella and the lead rope to the packhorse.
“In case they spook,” Jeeter said. Drawing his Colt Lightning, he retraced his steps to the general store. When he saw the kitchen was empty, he smiled. “The sow is all right.” He could return to his new bride.
From the front of the store came voices. The sow’s, and another’s. It might be some of the posse, Jeeter guessed, and she might be telling them about him and Ernestine. He had to find out. Stalking down the hall, he warily slunk to the counter. The front door was open. Out in the street men were hollering. Something about a woman being used as a hostage.
It was none of Jeeter’s business. He should go. But Ernestine might ask if he had seen the Luce woman with his own eyes, and he could not lie to her. He would never lie to her. Feeling supremely stupid, he cat-footed to the front door, and was momentarily stupefied.
Adolphina Luce had hold of the muzzle of a Winchester. The other end was held by a man Jeeter had never seen before. Even as he set eyes on them, the rifle went off. The lead tore into Adolphina’s chest and ruptured out her back. Recoiling in shock, she let go and said, “I didn’t think you would do it.”
“You dumb cluck!” the man snapped. “Don’t blame me. It went off when you pulled on it.”
From the saloon came a loud wail,
Jeeter had not liked the woman. He felt no regret when her thick legs folded and she keeled over. He had no cause to linger and was turning when the man with the rifle also turned—toward the store.
“Who the blazes are you?”
Jeeter was keenly aware the muzzle was pointed at him now, and he never could stand having guns pointed at him. “Drop your rifle,” he commanded.
“Like hell.”
“Suit yourself,” Jeeter said, and shot the stranger between the eyes. He backed away but had only gone a few steps when a younger man with a rifle materialized beside the twitching body.
“Abe! Abe! Who shot you?” The younger man glanced into the store. “It was you, you son of a bitch!” He started to raise the stock of his rifle to his shoulder.
“The hell with you, too.” Jeeter sent a slug into the man’s forehead. Ordinarily he liked to know who he was killing, and why, but these two had brought their rash ends on themselves. He continued to back up, past shelves crammed with merchandise, his Colt fixed on the doorway, and it was well he did.
Two more men appeared. By their features they were related to the first two. They did not bandy words but sprayed lead, working the levers of their Winchesters as rapidly as they could.
Jeeter dived behind shelves crammed with dry goods. Pieces of merchandise and wood slivers from the shelves rained around him. He scrambled along the bottom until he came to the end near the wall. The shelves were about a foot wide, six of them spaced evenly from bottom to top. The top came within several feet of the ceiling.
Jeeter kicked folded blankets aside and began climbing. He had maybe thirty seconds before the pair came in. Dishes fell and crashed. A box of silverware made a terrible racket. He reached the top and clung flat on his belly, his breath caught in his throat. The pair were bound to have heard the stuff fall. If they reasoned out where he was, they would drop him like a sitting duck.
Another moment, and the two men were at the aisle end of the shelves, rifles at the ready, sweeping the barrels back and forth.
“Where did he get to, Jefferson?” one asked.
“I don’t know,” the other said. “But he can’t have gotten far, Quince. He’s as good as dead.”
They were not too bright, these boys. They advanced between the shelves, looking right and left and left and right but not up. Never once up. Jeeter shot the one called Jefferson in the top of the head and the one called Quince in the face when Quince glanced at the top of the shelves.
Jeeter reloaded. Always reload right away; that was one of the most important rules, along with always kill with the first shot and never rush your aim if you had the time not to. He did not climb down until he had six pills in the wheel, and he held on to the Lightning as he descended.
He must get to Ernestine. But he had only taken three steps toward the back when feet thudded in the street and shadows flitted across the window.
Someone wailed in torment and cried, “No! No! No!”
“You in the store! This is Undersheriff Glickman! You will come out with your hands empty and up or we will come in with our hands filled and our guns spitting lead!”
“Oh, hell,” Jeeter Frost said.
