Claim: A Novel of Colorado (The Homeward Trilogy) (11 page)

The boy sat up, trying to focus his vision, by the looks of him. “Trouble over at Sabine’s, I think,” Nic growled, handing him the rifle. “You lock the door behind me and sit against it until I get back, you hear? Don’t let anyone in but me. Got it?” He reached for a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around the boy’s shoulders. “Ev?”

Everett’s brown eyes were sharp now in the sparking light of the fire. He nodded.

Another shot echoed through the Gulch.

Nic’s eyes met Everett’s. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Promise?” the boy whispered, looking up at him, the gun huge in his small hands.

Nic cast about for an answer. How to promise what he could not know? “I’ll do my best,” he said. “But I have to go to Sabine. You stay here and be brave, all right?”

The boy nodded, his hair a mass of spikes going in all directions, the product of his rough dreams.

“Lock it behind me,” Nic repeated. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

Outside he waited until he heard the peg in the hole and the thump of the boy’s back against the thick door. And then he set off at a dead run toward Sabine’s.

He panted hard as he ran, struggling to see the path in the dim moonlight. He knew it was only a five-minute walk to her place; why did it seem that this was taking twice as long? No more gunfire split the air. Was that good? Or bad?

Nic hunched over and ran the last few paces as quietly as he could, stopping beside a tree to assess what had transpired and to catch his breath. Two men in black hoods were outside Sabine’s cabin. He could see them in the moonlight. He frowned. There were holes in her front door. They were trying to break in.

One man sat down heavily on the edge of the narrow front porch. Was he wounded? Nic hoped she had at least winged him. It would give him one less man to take down. The second backed up and ran at the door, crashing into it with the bulk of his shoulder. He immediately spun away, just as Sabine fired again. “Get out of here!” Sabine screamed from inside. “I’ll kill you if I have to!”

As if to emphasize her words, she shot through the door again.

Nic frowned as a third man came into the clearing, carrying a lit torch. Did they intend to burn her out? Or trap her inside? He clenched his teeth and slowly reached for his pistol, a six shooter. Could he get them all with the six bullets? Would it be enough? It comforted him to know Sabine had a shotgun inside. If he could get to her, they could fight their way out together.

The third man handed the torch to the second, who was still sitting down, and reached for a sheet of metal. Then he climbed on top of a tree stump beside the cabin and atop the roof. Smoking her out, Nic quickly decided. He had to move. One way or another, Sabine couldn’t make it in there for long.

He edged through a group of pines, keeping his eye on the man who stood beside the front door. The other two were distracted. But that one might well catch sight of him. The third had reached the chimney. A shot rang out—likely Sabine firing at the man on her roof. The man above swore and laughed with the man by the front door, and then Nic could hear the scraping sound of metal on stone. He was sliding the sheet into place.

Sabine had only a few minutes until she would be forced outside.

Nic moved slowly, not wanting any of the three to see him until the last possible moment. He edged forward, from one tree to the next, until all that was left was open space between him and them. The man on the roof was making his way down. It was now or never. Nic ran forward, stopped, and took aim at the tall man by the door. Just as he squeezed the trigger, the man on the roof spotted him and shouted out. The tall man dodged, but Nic hoped he had managed to get a piece of him.

The man on the porch was running toward their horses. To a gun? And the man on the roof took aim at Nic, who threw himself to the ground and rolled as a bullet hit the dirt beside him. He glanced at the man and rolled again and again, the bullets getting closer and closer to him as the shooter unloaded one shot after another. At six, he stopped rolling and came to his feet, guessing that the man on the roof would have to reload. He strained his eyes, trying to see the tall man, but could not spot him. The other two were now on horseback, and the first threw his torch on top of Sabine’s roof.

Smoke was pouring out from under her eaves. The torch’s fire caught and spread rapidly, fed by dry timber and the fierce wind, a tongue of orange licking its way across within seconds.

Nic shot at the men, making one of the horses rear, but then he saw that all three were on their horses, reeling them around and retreating. Whoever they were, they did not want their identities discovered.

Sabine
.

He ignored the men disappearing into the darkness and ran the rest of the way to the cabin. The fire was building now. It wouldn’t be long until the ceiling collapsed inward.

“Sabine!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot! It’s Nic! The men are gone, Sabine. Get out! Get out now!” He tried the door but it was locked.

Sabine did not answer.

“Sabine!” he screamed. “Sabine!”

He backed up and ran at the door with everything he had in him, making the hole just large enough to squeeze half his arm through. “Sabine!” It was hot, even here. His eyes stung from the smoke and he blinked rapidly, trying to see inside. He had to get her out of there.

Unless she was already dead.

He groaned and shoved his arm further in, ignoring the splinters of wood scraping his skin. There. The peg. He grabbed it and pulled it out, lifted the latch, and the door swung open.

He backed up half a step from the wave of black smoke that poured out. “Sabine!”

He bent over and moved inside, ignoring the flames covering the ceiling, dropping curled, blackened newsprint down upon the floor. He caught sight of her foot and then her white nightdress. She was unconscious.

Feeling as if his back were about to burst from the heat like a fat sausage over an open fire, he gathered her into his arms and rushed her outside. He gulped in the clean air, even as he laid her on the dirt, carefully setting her head down. He stared at her, clearly visible in the hot light of the cabin, and saw that she was not breathing.

“Come on, Sabine, please,” he said, touching her cheek. “I … Everett can’t take it, not another person close to him, dying. Come on, woman, take a breath. Just one breath.”

The cabin ceiling collapsed then, falling in two pieces.

When he looked back to Sabine, she moved. “Sabine?”

She gasped and then choked, coughing for a terribly long time. But at last she opened her eyes and looked up at him, as if he were an apparition. “Nic?” she asked, her voice strangled.

“I’m here,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his chest. He grinned in elation. She was alive! She was going to be all right!

She frowned and looked over to her cabin. “They … they burned it?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. We can help you rebuild. I know how you loved that place. You were lucky you weren’t inside when it came down.”

“You … you pulled me out?”

He nodded again and then pushed her hair from her face.

She closed her eyes and gave in to another weary fit of coughing.

“Come on,” he said, picking her up again. “I’m taking you home. We’ll figure out what to do come sunup.”

He was carrying her out of the clearing when she said, “Wait. One last look.” He turned, and they stared at the cabin, the flames lessening now. She stared at it for a long moment, her eyes wet with tears, and then she turned her face to his chest and closed them.

Whoever they are,
Nic vowed as he walked down the path,
I’ll find them.

Sabine’s head lolled back, over his arm. He paused and set her down, holding his own breath as he did so. She was breathing. But she was unconscious again.

o

Sabine blinked her eyes and stared at the ceiling. It wasn’t hers.

She sat up fast, and spotted Nic asleep on the floor, with his arms crossed, head on a rolled-up blanket. She looked down. She was in her nightdress, covered in soot. In the other cot was Everett, softly snoring.

For a moment she thought she was in a dream, but then the terror of last night came back to her. The men. The guns. The smoke. She had just decided to burst out the door, shooting anyone in her way, when the smoke overtook her. She had collapsed and dimly watched the flames eat through her ceiling before she fell under the spell of unconsciousness.

Sabine glanced over at Nic again. He must’ve heard the gunfire and come and rescued her. Somehow. Dimly, she remembered being in his arms, watching her cabin burning, but no more. Where had the intruders gone? Who were they? She remembered their low voices, their laughter, the sound of her front door splintering, the footsteps on her roof, and shivered.

Quietly, she tiptoed over to the bucket of water, desperate for a drink. Nic’s eyes popped open, and he raised his head. “You all right?”

“As all right as I can be,” she whispered with a croaky voice. She could feel his eyes on her as she bent over the pail, lifted the ladle, and drank, then drank some more. She placed the ladle back on its perch on the lip and moved to the door, unable to meet Nic’s gaze. Quietly, she lifted the latch and moved outdoors, her still-burning eyes met by a brilliant pink sunrise seeping across the valley.

He’d think she owed him now. Coming to her aid like that. Risking his own life. What would he demand as payment?

She crossed her arms. It was cold out here, this early. And she, with nothing but a nightdress.

He came out after her then, rubbing his head and his face as if still trying to awaken. He carried a jacket with him and she turned away, feeling discomfited by his attentions. Still, she accepted the coat when he reached her and he settled it around her shoulders.

Sabine took a deep breath, waiting for him to speak, and inhaled the scent of him—smoke and pine pitch and saddle leather. It was a good smell, not like her husband’s had been. His had been alcohol and old sweat and rotting teeth.

“Pretty morning,” he said softly, standing beside her, crossing his arms as if trying to stay warm. She supposed she had on his only coat.

“It is,” she returned. “No matter what happens in the night, the sun rises in the morning.”

“True,” he said.

They stood there in companionable silence.

“Sabine, I’m sorry about your place.”

She shook her head and glanced down to her toes. Not even a pair of shoes for her to wear … “It was only a house. In a way, it’s a relief to be done with the bad memories of what happened there. Fitting, somehow, that it burned to the ground.” She cocked her head and glanced at him.

“You know who those men were last night?”

“No. But I can guess who sent them.”

“Who?”

She gave him a small, incredulous smile. “Who would want to scare me off?”

He lifted his chin, no trace of a smile on his face. “You think the men of the Dolly Mae would go to such great lengths?”

“There’s a reason they came to me and not you last night, Nic. You were ready to take the deal. I’m the obstacle.”

He stared at her a long moment and then rested his chin in one hand. “Men can be ruthless,” he said, looking her way. “But we’re hardly a match for them, Sabine. What do you want to do?”

“Hold them off. Find another buyer, if we must. Or our own investors. But I won’t let my beloved land—or Peter Vaughn’s—go to men who are underhanded.”

He caught and held his breath. “It won’t be easy.”

“No. I suppose it won’t.”

“It might not even be possible.”

“Maybe not. But we have to try.”

He thought on that for a while; then, “What about Everett? We’re putting him in danger, messing with men of this sort.”

“We’re showing him what it means to stand up for what’s right. We’re teaching him to demand the full value of his land, if someone wants to buy it. We’re teaching him to be a man. It’s what Peter would’ve wanted.”

“Peter? Or you?” he asked carefully.

“Both of us.”

Nic rubbed the back of his neck, as though it hurt. “You’ll have to hole up here with us. Unless you have some other safe place you can go. We can hang up a couple blankets between the beds. Give you privacy. Or I can sleep out on the front porch if you prefer.”

She looked down at her feet and then out to the view, embarrassed to be discussing such intimacies. “Thank you. We’ll find our way.” She looked up and met his intense, lingering gaze. She wished she could read what he was thinking. What he wanted from her, if anything.

He pulled away as if he was reluctant to be known so intimately and moved up to the house. “I’ll get some coffee on,” he muttered.

“Nic.”

He turned and looked over his broad shoulder at her, waiting.

“Thank you. I owe you my life.”

He gave her a small smile and a gentle shake of his head. “You owe me nothing, Sabine. But I find myself hoping …” He broke off, shook his head as if thinking better of his words, and then moved away.

“What? What are you hoping for?”