Chapter 5 - The Line at the Wash
Gideon didn't run, but his stride lengthened into that long, ground-eating walk that ranchers use when they find a downed steer in the brush. He reached the kitchen in three steps, his left hand dropping instinctively to the hammer of the Winchester.
Through the north window, where the dry arroyo cut a deep, jagged scar through the caliche flats behind the barn, three horses were moving at a slow, deliberate walk. They weren't hiding now. The sun was sitting low enough behind the western ridge to cast long, distorted shadows across the scrub, and the riders were coming up out of the wash in single file, their horses' heads low, breath steaming slightly in the cooling air.
Sodto wasn't leading them. A younger man—broad-shouldered, wearing a faded Union cavalry blouse with the buttons ripped off—rode at the front, holding a short-barreled Springfield carbine across his saddle pommel. Behind him came another rider leading a riderless pack pony rigged with empty panniers.
"They aren't here to talk," Elias muttered, reaching into his coat and pulling out an old, nickel-plated pocket revolver—a relic from the war that looked like it hadn't been fired since the Appomattox surrender. "That's Black Jack Miller. He killed two freighters down near Tombstone last winter and walked out of the circuit court because the jury was too scared of his cousins to bring in a bill."
Gideon didn't look at his father. He was watching the lead rider's hands. Miller wasn't holding the reins with any urgency; he was riding with the casual, bored cruelty of a man who had done this a hundred times before and knew that most homesteaders would throw their hands up the minute they saw lead coming toward their chimney.
"Nala," Gideon said without turning around. "Get Ren and Cody into the root cellar under the pantry. Now."
"No," she said, stepping up beside him with a heavy cast-iron skillet she had taken off the stove. Her knuckles were white against the black iron. "If they find the cellar, we are trapped like rabbits in a hole. There is only one way out of that pit, and Miller knows these ranches better than you do. He worked the survey crew here in seventy-eight."
Gideon looked at her, his mind racing through the tactical layout of the house—the adobe walls three bricks thick, the narrow windows designed to keep out arrows and rifle balls alike, the lack of water inside the main bunker. She was right. A root cellar was a tomb if someone dropped a bundle of burning greasewood down the hatch.
"Then we take the porch," Gideon said.
Elias let out a dry, hacking laugh that sounded like gravel sliding down a chute. "On the porch? There's three of them and two of us, and one of us is eighty years old with an asthmatic lung."
"Three of them," Gideon corrected, lifting the Winchester and pulling the lever back to ensure the round was seated tight in the chamber, "and they're riding into an open yard with no cover for fifty yards in any direction. Miller's a bully, not a soldier. He likes shooting men who are sitting down to supper."
Nala walked past them both, pushing open the heavy oak front door that led out onto the porch. The dry evening wind rushed in, carrying the scent of creosote and dust. She didn't cower behind the doorframe; she stepped right out into the fading light, her head held high, her dark hair catching the amber glow of the desert sunset.
Down at the cattle guard, Miller pulled his horse to a halt. The other two riders spread out in a loose V-shape, blocking the track toward the creek. Miller raised his left hand, shading his eyes against the glare of the setting sun, and shouted across the fifty yards of open dirt.
"Nala!" Miller's voice was flat, carrying easily across the hardpan. "Sodto says you can bring the boy back now, or we can burn the roof off your new friend's house and sort through the ashes for him. Makes no difference to us either way. The marshal already signed the abandonment papers this morning!"
Gideon stepped out onto the porch beside her, his boots coming down hard on the pine boards. He didn't raise the rifle yet; he held it cradled in his arm, resting comfortably against his ribs, his expression entirely unreadable.
"Tell your boss his paperwork's no good in this county, Miller," Gideon called out, his voice carrying a dry, iron resonance that didn't need to be raised to reach across the yard. "And tell him if he wants the boy, he has to come up these steps and ask me himself."
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Miller’s horse sidestepped nervously, its iron shoes scraping against the gravel of the track. The rider leaned forward over his saddle horn, his hand dropping toward the carbine resting across his knees, a slow, ugly grin spreading across his sun-darkened face.
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