Only 05 - Autumn Lover

Ladder S.
     
    Fully dressed, Elyssa paced her bedroom like a caged animal. Back and forth. Back and forth. She looked through first one gun slit, then the other. Then she paced.
    Back and forth. Back and forth.
    Peer through gun slits toward the B Bar.
    Back and forth. Back and forth.
    Stare out the other window, two more gun slits.
    Listen for the sound of shots.
    “Where are you, Hunter?” Elyssa whispered. “You and Morgan and all of the men. Are you all right? Have you found the cattle? Have the Culpeppers found you?”
    Only silence answered Elyssa’s questions. The ranch yard was empty. The dogs were quiet. Penny was in her room, trying to sleep. Lefty and Gimp were downstairs drinking coffee in the kitchen, trying not to sleep.
    Elyssa looked at her watch. More than an hour had gone by since the men had ridden out by twos into the darkness.
    Like a restless ghost she went from window to window. Back and forth. Back and forth.
    Stare out the gun slits.
    Dawn was coming on in a shimmer of pale orange and red and yellow. The peaks were already glowing. Soon daylight would slide down the rugged mountains and fill the Ruby Valley with light.
    Elyssa barely noticed the beauty of the gathering dawn. She simply paced back and forth.
    Three equally spaced shots shattered the night’s silence.
    Danger .
    Carbine in hand, Elyssa turned and ran downstairs, calling to the others every step of the way. When she reached the first floor, Penny was standing in her bedroom doorway. She was carrying Elyssa’s shotgun.
    “What is it?” Penny asked quickly.
    “I don’t know. Just three shots.”
    Suddenly the dogs erupted into a frenzy of barking.
    Elyssa ran to the shutter and peered through a slit. She saw a racing shadow in the darkness that preceded dawn. Moments later she made out the shape of a horse galloping flat out toward the ranch house from the direction of Wind Gap.
    Elyssa’s heart soared in the instant before she realized that big, broad-shouldered rider who was crouched low on the horse’s neck wasn’t Hunter.
    “Don’t shoot!” she yelled to Lefty and Gimp.
    “Sassy, you know we don’t never shoot at what we can’t personally i-den-ti-fy!”
    Ignoring the indignant reply, Elyssa stared into the darkness where hoofbeats made a rolling thunder.
    The horse galloped past the garden and right up to the front porch of the house.
    “Open up!” Case yelled.
    Elyssa was already yanking the bar out of its supports before she heard Case’s command. He dove through the doorway just as gunfire broke out beyond the barn.
    “Don’t shoot!” Case commanded. “Hunter and the rest are coming in behind me!”
    “Front or back?” Elyssa asked.
    “Any damned way they can. The Culpeppers will be all over them like a rash in about two minutes. Close that door, but don’t bar it yet.”
    Elyssa slammed the door shut behind Case. He went from rifle slit to rifle slit, peering into the fading darkness.
    The sound of galloping horses came from the distance like a mutter of drums.
    “Lefty!” Elyssa called out.
    “Yo!”
    “Come in here and cover me when I open the door. Penny, Gimp will cover you at the kitchen door. If you men see any strangers coming in, shoot.”
    “Hunter won’t like having you anywhere near the doors,” Case said bluntly. “A lot of bullets could be coming through with the men.”
    Elyssa said only, “How good are you with that rifle?”
    “Tolerable,” Case said dryly.
    “The approach to the back door can be covered from the nursery upstairs. The front approach can be covered from the first bedroom on the left.”
    Case was running for the stairs before Elyssa finished speaking. He went up them with the speed and coordination of a cougar. She could barely stand to watch. Case was so like Hunter in his size, his build, his way of moving.
    Gunfire erupted through the night in a deadly staccatohail, drowning out the growing rumble of horses’ hooves.
    Hunter , Elyssa thought. Oh, God. Hunter !
    Lefty came to stand beside Elyssa at the front door. The sound of glass shattering upstairs told her that Case was breaking out a windowpane to make room for his rifle barrel.
    The pounding of horses’ hooves became a rolling thunder sweeping toward the house.
    “Our men are coming in the back way!” Case called from upstairs. “Get ready!”
    Elyssa forced herself not to run toward the darkened kitchen. Her job was at the front of the house, not the back.
    Rifle fire erupted from