Only 05 - Autumn Lover

still shuddered through them.
     
    An hour later Hunter and Elyssa were awakened by Case’s knock on her bedroom door.
    The Ladder S was under attack again.

25
    E lyssa stood near the rifle slit, peering out into the slanting light of late afternoon with eyes that burned. Hunter stood just behind her, his body curving over hers almost protectively. He looked past her pale hair to the shimmering golden light and blackened ground that lay beyond the rifle slit.
    Involuntarily, Hunter took a deep breath. He was close enough to Elyssa to smell the mingled scents of rosemary and gun smoke. The vital warmth of her body reached up to him.
    Just lovers .
    “I don’t see anything,” Elyssa said, sighing.
    She straightened, only to find herself held between the shutter and the coiled power of Hunter’s body. Sensations cascaded through her, a glittering network of heat coupled with a yearning that had nothing to do with desire.
    “Do you—see anything?” she asked huskily.
    To Hunter the catch in Elyssa’s voice was like a caress. It took him a moment to answer, for he didn’t trust his own voice not to reveal his elemental response to her.
    “I guess,” Hunter said carefully, “they were just making sure we didn’t get any rest. But unless Case andI stop them, the raiders will come at us again with torches in the hours before dawn.”
    Fear tightened Elyssa’s body at the thought of Hunter out beyond the walls, feeling around bare-handed in the dark for rattlesnakes.
    And finding them.
    “Don’t go,” she said in a low voice.
    Hunter’s only answer was Elyssa’s name breathed into her hair.
    “I’d rather die with you,” she whispered. “Please, Hunter. Don’t go.”
    “It’s our only chance. And…” Hunter touched Elyssa’s hair with his lips. “I can’t let my brother go against Ab Culpepper alone.”
    Elyssa closed her eyes for an instant.
    What did I expect ? she asked herself ruthlessly. Hunter loves his brother .
    In bleak silence Elyssa opened her eyes and watched the burned land for signs of the raiders.
    “Elyssa?” Hunter whispered, bothered by her unnatural stillness.
    “No one.”
    “What?”
    “No one is coming.”
    “That’s not what I—”
    Whatever Hunter had meant to say was lost in simultaneous cries from Morgan and Case, who had the upstairs watch.
    “Gunfire! North and east!”
    “West and south sides, look alert!”
    “Get ready, men,” Hunter called. “Don’t shoot unless you’re sure of your target. We’re damned low on ammunition.”
    Elyssa bent to pick up her carbine.
    Hunter turned and headed for the stairs at a run, rifle in hand. The sound of rifle fire came from all directions,telling him that the attack wasn’t merely a feint to keep them stirred up. But there was something odd about the shooting.
    By the time Hunter raced upstairs, he figured out what was bothering him. The shots weren’t coming any closer.
    Nor was anyone in the house shooting back.
    “Well?” Hunter demanded as he strode into the nursery.
    “I can hear them, but I can’t see them,” Case said.
    “Morgan,” Hunter called. “What do you see?”
    “Nothing.”
    Yet the gunfire came without pause.
    “Army?” Case asked skeptically.
    “No bugles,” Hunter said.
    “Maybe the raiders are fighting each other.”
    Hunter’s grin was as savage as his crack of laughter.
    Then there was only tense silence as men waited and listened and watched. They saw nothing but the burned land and the rich light of late afternoon.
    Slowly a chilling sound swelled and drifted down to the ranch on the wind. Hunter and Case turned and looked at one another.
    “Sounds like war cries,” Hunter said.
    “When the cat’s away making maps and drinking whiskey, those mice sure do take advantage,” Case said dryly.
    “Maybe they’ll kill each other off.”
    Saying nothing, Case raised his rifle, sighted down the barrel, and waited to see whether it was Indians or raiders who would come at the Ladder S next.
    “Holler if you spot anything,” Hunter said.
    He turned and went through the house like a dark wraith, looking out every rifle slit, listening, waiting. Rifle fire and war cries came to him from all directions.
    Hunter went back to Elyssa. Like Case, she was look-ing down the barrel of her gun, waiting to see which enemy survived. Unlike Case, she had propped the barrel on the bottom of the rifle slit, taking the gun’s weight from her arms. Light from the slit made her eyes glow