Only 05 - Autumn Lover

Penny.
    Blackie answered before Penny could.
    “It’s just my calf,” he said, disgusted. “Soon as Miss Penny wraps it up, I’ll be ready to fight.”
    “That’s not necessary,” Elyssa said.
    “The hell it ain’t,” he retorted. Then, “Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s more than forty raiders out there. We need every hand.”
    “Hold still,” Penny said. “I’m going to wash the wound.”
    “Hell, ma’am, just pour some whiskey through it and get me out of here.”
    “As you wish.”
    Liquid gurgled out of a bottle. Blackie hissed a string of words that both women pretended not to hear. Penny began wrapping the wound. She had barely knotted the bandage before Blackie swung his legs off the cot, crammed his foot back in his boot, and picked up his rifle.
    When Blackie’s injured leg took his weight, he grimaced, paled, swore…and walked unevenly to the stairway, using the butt of the rifle as a crutch.
    Elyssa turned to follow him.
    “Wait,” Penny said to her. “You’re bleeding.”
    “What?”
    “Your face,” Penny said simply.
    Elyssa held her hand up to her face. Her fingers came away red and sticky. She stared at them, shocked. Onlythen did she realize that her forehead and right cheek stung as though on fire.
    “Come here,” Penny said.
    She wrung out a cloth in warm water and started cleaning Elyssa’s face with gentle touches.
    “What happened?” Penny asked.
    “It must have been the glass,” Elyssa said, remembering. “It exploded before I could knock it out of the rifle slit.”
    Penny smiled wryly.
    “John warned Gloria that would happen, but she wouldn’t hear it,” Penny said. “She insisted that a proper home needed proper panes of glass, not thick shutters with gun slits in them. So they compromised. Glass and shutters both.”
    Gunfire came sporadically from inside and outside the house.
    Elyssa closed her eyes and tried not to think of Hunter out there in the night, unprotected.
    Hunter wounded, bleeding, alone.
    Dying.
    “Are you all right?” Penny asked, concerned.
    Elyssa nodded.
    “You turned white as salt,” Penny said.
    “Hunter.”
    “What?”
    “Hunter covered the men’s retreat. He’s still out there.”
    Penny made a small sound, then hugged Elyssa.
    Belatedly Elyssa realized that Bill also was out there in the dangerous dawn.
    Somewhere.
    “ Rider coming in! Hold your fire! ”
    Elyssa recognized Case’s voice. She turned and ran up the basement stairs and then up the stairway to the second floor.
    Case was standing at a rifle slit. Despite his shouted order, he was sighting down the barrel of his rifle, tracking the rider.
    “Is it Hunter?” Elyssa asked urgently.
    “Likely.”
    In the silence Elyssa could hear the sound of hoofbeats approaching rapidly.
    “Why aren’t the Culpeppers firing at him?” she asked.
    “It’s a goddam riderless mule!” Fox yelled from downstairs.
    “Hold your fire!” Morgan commanded harshly.
    Elyssa looked toward Case. He was tracking the mule over the rifle barrel with a single-minded intensity that was chilling.
    “Unbar the kitchen door!” Case yelled without looking away. “Morgan, stand by with your pistol!”
    “Yo!”
    Elyssa turned and ran downstairs. As she reached the kitchen, she heard Case yell for them to open the door and get the hell out of the way. She froze in place.
    No one noticed her. Every eye was on the kitchen door.
    Revolver cocked and drawn, Morgan stood to one side of the door as it swung open.
    A man dove through the door a bare instant before the mule careened into the side of the house. The force of the impact made the building shudder.
    The kitchen door slammed shut before the man stopped rolling.
    Morgan tracked every motion the man made. Then Morgan’s smile flashed and he holstered the pistol.
    “Welcome home, suh,” Morgan said.
    “Glad to be here,” Hunter said, coming to his feet fast. “What’s the situation?”
    The easy power of Hunter’s movements told Elyssathat he was unhurt. The relief she felt was so great that it made her dizzy.
    “Blackie is shot through the leg,” Morgan said. “Mano Herrera took a crease along his shoulder. Penny is patching him up now. Blackie’s already back on the job.”
    “Elyssa?” Hunter asked.
    “I’m here,” she said in a low voice. “I was—worried—about you.”
    Hunter let out a long breath.
    “So was I,” he said. “I was lucky. Damned lucky. All of us were.”
    “Yes, suh,” Morgan said. His