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  She already used three.

  Nine rounds.

  Time to spend ’em.

  Pointing her left shoulder toward the cave opening, Marshal Bess was facing the deputies as she ran sideways toward the entrance—with a gun in each hand, she aimed straight-armed, shooting both Colt pistols in a steady string of fire, bombarding the men’s positions with lead to cover her escape.

  Guessing rightly that the five gutless lawmen thugs would all duck while the bullets were coming at them during the exchange of gunfire—the yellow bastards—Bess made it to the cave opening without taking any fire.

  The cold fresh air hitting her lungs was a shock.

  It cleared her head.

  She was outside.

  Running for her life

  And out of bullets.

  * * *

  He was here.

  The smoke rising from the chimney of his cabin told Sheriff Bull Conrad that much.

  Observing the log cabin from a position in the rocks from where he knew he could not be observed in return, the lawman saw that the window shutters had been closed. Somebody else had lit his fireplace because he sure as hell hadn’t. And he had left the shutters open the last time he closed up the cabin.

  The Brander was in his house, right now, waiting for him to show up, not even bothering to hide his presence. Letting the sheriff know that he was there, in fact. That cocky son of a bitch. Abraham Quaid had a pair on him, for sure, or maybe the old man was just plain nuts. Crazy or brave, it was hard to tell the difference with some folks sometimes.

  Either way, Abe Quaid was a dead man walking. The sheriff was going to kill him in the next five minutes.

  The Brander had pissed away his advantage squandering the opportunity of picking a time and place of his own choosing for them to shoot it out. Of all the places he could have picked, he picked Conrad’s house, choosing to fight literally in his enemy’s own backyard. The sheriff couldn’t get over how stupid he was.

  As he hunkered in the rocks buffeted by driving snow, Sheriff Conrad checked the loads on his two revolvers and rifles. Best to double-check his weapons and not be overconfident or underestimate the old man who had come this far—Abe Quaid might still have a few tricks up his sleeve.

  The sheriff was certain the old man could not see him. Conrad had selected the location to build the cabin he liked to think of as his castle for the natural fortifications it afforded; the sheriff knew every vantage point from which to launch or defend against any assault. Where the lawman was presently positioned could not be seen from the house.

  Taking out his field glasses, Conrad cleaned snow off the lenses and brought them to his eyes, peering through his binoculars at his quiet cabin three hundred yards away. Scanning the front and right side that was exposed to him, the windows were all shuttered so he couldn’t see inside his place, but he did see the mussed-up snow around the porch, like something was dragged.

  What?

  What would he do in Abraham Quaid’s position? he wondered. Thinking tactically like the enemy was always a good strategy. And deception was the best tactic.

  If Conrad were Quaid, he’d make it look like he was in the house so when he, Conrad, got there he’d see the smoke in the chimney and the shuttered windows and make an assault on the cabin—but he, Quaid, would not be in the house. He’d be outside nearby, lying in wait with a gun.

  But Abe Quaid had a big surprise in store for him if he was dug in with a rifle intending to get a shot off at Conrad when he came in through the front yard.

  The sheriff had a back way in.

  And a secret entrance.

  Time to finish this.

  Holstering his pistols and scooping up his rifle, Sheriff Bull Conrad sprinted across an outcropping in the cliff leading to a declination in the rocks, and forty paces later had reached the bottom.

  The stone weighed about forty pounds and looked like part of the cliff. Conrad grunted with effort. Rolling the rock away exposed the man-made hole in the ground he dropped into.

  The tunnel was four feet wide by five feet high and the sheriff had to duck the two hundred feet he had to trek to bring him under the cabin. It was black as pitch, but he knew the path by feel because he dug it himself. His hand touched the ladder and he was there. The wooden rungs were covered with carpet to muffle sound. Climbing rung over rung, he reached the top.

  Pushing gently with his glove against the wall, it gave, and the wooden wall swung open on silent oiled hinges. Sheriff Conrad just opened the secret panel a crack, enough to peek through without being seen by Abraham Quaid if his enemy was hiding in the cabin somewhere.

  Conrad saw nothing except dark.

  The heavy metal shutters were closed, sealing out the daylight, leaving the cabin in total darkness.

  But that didn’t concern the sheriff; he didn’t need to see. He knew his way around every square inch of the place in the dark because he built the cabin with his own hands.

  He would step forth and face his enemy.

  Setting the rifle against the wall of the secret passageway, he pulled off his gloves and drew his two Colt Navy revolvers so he was heeled in both hands. Anticipating stepping into a game of cat-and-mouse with firearms played in the dark with the chance of getting jumped from either side, Conrad thought it wise to be able to shoot in both directions quickly; thus a revolver in his right and left hand equipped him better to do that than the cumbersome Henry rifle.

  Cocking the pistols with his thumbs he was loaded and locked down. Ready.

  Sheriff Bull Conrad stepped into his house, fixing for a gunfight.

  Walking into the cabin, he stood in the living room in a ubiquitous darkness his eyes did not adjust to. The cozy scents were familiar and comforting. But there was another smell in the house. What was it? He took a few steps without a sound, avoiding by memory the wood floor planks that would creak beneath his boots. Both pistols were raised. Impenetrable gloom. Silence. Turning slowly, he rotated on his heels, a pistol pointed in each direction, searching the darkness. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Where was Quaid? Wind whistling through the chimney in an eerie banshee cadence drew his attention to the rear of the cabin and the fireplace. His eyes were adjusting a little to the dark. Just enough to see the faint glowing red coats by the andirons. No, now he looked close, not coals.

  A branding iron, the metal Q red-hot and glowing, rippling heat rising off it.

  He was here.

  Sheriff Bull Conrad leveled his smoke wagons at the brand and took a step toward it.

  It would be his last.

  CRRRRRRASSSH-ANNNKKK!

  He walked right into the open bear trap. Putting the weight of his boot on the trigger mechanism set it off. Two heavy steel jaws with jagged teeth violently swung up and snapped closed—the trap closed on his legs with bone-crushing force, the sharp teeth crunching through the meat and bone of his thighs, nearly severing his legs.

  Sheriff Conrad went down screaming in unimaginable agony, blood firehosing everywhere from his severed femoral artery, the shattered bones of his legs breaking apart and bursting through his skin as he toppled, hitting the ground hard, caught in the bear trap.

  On his way down to the floor, Conrad caught a glimpse of The Brander standing by the fireplace, dimly illuminated in sinister bas-relief by the glimmering red glow of the brand. While the tough sheriff knew he was done, he still had a revolver in each hand as he fell, and hard and mean as he was, had a notion to put a bullet in Abraham Quaid so they could ride down to Hell together.

  It was not to be.

  Conrad landed on his back hard on the floor, his right arm hitting the bear trap set to one side, his left arm hitting the smaller wolf trap on the other—the former was chopped cleanly off above the elbow and that revolver was lost, the latter broken in the snapping teeth so badly the bone tore through the flesh and while the reliable Remington revolver remained in the palm, the tendons to the hand had been cut leaving the finger unable to pull the trigger.

>   The corrupt lawman was a bad man, a very bad man, and he died a very, very bad death, in unendurable agony and terror—his final seconds were so bad even Hell was a relief. Sheriff Conrad lay broken like a shattered doll, his life draining out of him in the gushing geyser of blood from his severed femoral, drenched head to foot in his own blood that pooled in a blackly gleaming lake around him on the floor.

  His dimming eyes registered The Brander walk up to him and look down pitilessly, opening the big can of coal oil in his glove.

  He poured the flammable accelerant all over Sheriff Conrad, soaking him head to foot. The dying man screamed even louder as it got into his eyes and down his throat, gagging him. When the sheriff was drenched with coal oil, The Brander splashed the remaining contents of the can around the walls and floor of the cabin.

  Then, and only then, did he get the brand.

  Sheriff Bull Conrad had enough life left in him to see it and feel it as The Brander approached with the red-hot Q brand, coming closer and closer until he stopped, pressing the scalding metal against his final victim’s face, and the instant the blazing brand seared flesh it ignited the coal oil and Conrad went up in flames, burning alive.

  CHAPTER 35

  Bess Sugarland dived at her saddle. Both hands grabbed the pommel and she heaved herself up, swinging a leg over into the stirrups and driving her spurs into her Appaloosa mare’s flanks, unhappy about hurting the horse but needing it to move, fast, or they would both be dead. Taking off at the full gallop, energized by the pain, the mare bolted off into the snowy tundra.

  Behind Bess was loud yelling and voices over her pounding hooves and she heard the clanking and squeaking of guns and rifles being unholstered and quickly cocked. The first bullets were seconds away.

  Making fast her escape but certain she would not make it, when the first gunshots sounded the lady marshal rode the only direction she could . . . dead ahead. Before her lay the frozen lake, a quarter mile of sheet ice. The surface was a foreboding frozen white and blue and black of indeterminate thickness over unseen frigid water unimaginably cold at this high elevation. Over the ice lay her crossing, the only escape route. Her horse was over a thousand pounds, a half ton. The frozen lake couldn’t support the mare and the ice would surely collapse beneath its hooves moments after it stepped on it. Then both horse and rider would be plunged into ice water that would paralyze and incapacitate them, drowning them in less than a minute.

  If the bullets didn’t kill them first.

  Between the rock and the hard place. Death by gunshot or drowning. Those were the choices. The first two slugs whistling past the lady marshal’s head made the decision simple—on the ice she maybe had a chance not afforded by the sheer volume of hot lead coming at her like a swarm of angry hornets.

  The mare, unaware that the vast icy flatness was a lake, galloped straight for the glassy surface without fear.

  Twenty yards.

  Ten.

  More and more shots.

  As her horse’s hooves met the ice, Marshal Bess Sugarland knew a successful crossing of the iced-over lake was impossible. Unless, just maybe, she rode very, very fast.

  And so she did.

  Horse and rider thundered out onto the frozen lake, the animal’s legs and shod hooves piledriving against the ice, leaving deep indentations in the frosted surface. In moments, they had traveled far out onto the opaque void, a discolored white emptiness. Each hoofbeat made a sharp crack, each successive crack sounding like breaking ice to Bess’s ears. All Bess could hear were the staccato tattoos of her galloping mare’s footfalls like hammers hitting the ice, but still the ice held.

  This was a suicide ride.

  At least it was a hell of a way to go.

  The other side of the lake a quarter mile distant looked farther—ahead were ominous patches of black ice indicating it was thinner there. She reined her horse sharp right. The mare leaned hard, hooves clacking across the frozen lake, giving a wide berth to the black ice.

  Dropping her center of gravity, the lady marshal leaned down in the saddle and pressed her bosom against the mare’s neck and withers, flattening herself as tight as she could against the animal for speed. Staring straight ahead at the approaching shore so far away, Bess kept a lookout for more thin ice as the howling winds pummeled her. Snow and sleet pelted her face and stung her eyes, and she squinted to see.

  The staccato strings of gunshots rang out like firecrackers behind her, closer now, and she saw bullets strike the ice right and left of her horse, wincing each time the slugs cracked against the ice lake top, craters of splintering spiderwebs in the glassy slick surface.

  Now, over the drumbeat of her own horse’s hoofbeats, Bess heard a thundering of hooves behind her . . . more horses!

  With a toss of her head, Bess swung an urgent look over her shoulder and saw the entire five-man posse had mounted their horses and ridden onto the ice, giving chase and charging after her in a horseback phalanx across the frozen lake. Recklessly emboldened by how the ice held for their quarry, the foolhardy mounted deputies chanced the dangerous ride. Hazy figures ignited by explosive flashes detonating from the discharges of their guns.

  Cr-ra-ack!

  That was when she saw the big crack in the ice.

  A fracture in the frozen surface of the lake appeared, spreading outward from the shore, a fissure of breaking ice zigzagging in jagged advance toward the horses and riders. The weight of their combined horses, several tons, was too much for the ice to support.

  Crack!

  Cr-crack!

  Bullets flew past Bess’s head.

  Thud! One round slammed into the leather of her saddle with such force her running Appaloosa almost lost its footing with the impact. It left a blasted smoking hole.

  A deafening noise like splintering timber snapped her eyes face front—another deadly crack jigsawed across the glacial surface of the lake, closing in on her horse with the slow-motion dread of a nightmare. The lengthening crack in the ice was inescapable, the faster the marshal rode the nearer it got. The ice was about to collapse under her hooves at any moment. She would not be able to outrun it. Then the marshal’s Appaloosa would fall with her in the saddle into the subfreezing waters to drown.

  The mass of horseflesh between her legs suddenly shifted its center of gravity, her ride skidding drunkenly to and fro, saddle wobbling, Bess realizing the Appaloosa had lost its footing and was going down.

  A split-second decision to make.

  Her or it.

  Visions of doom flashed before her eyes—when the horse went under, she would get tangled in the stirrups and reins, unable to extricate herself from her saddle in the hypothermic temperatures of the lake that within seconds would numb her limbs to paralysis so she couldn’t swim, if the half-ton drowning animal didn’t kick her in the head knocking her out first, trapping her unconscious body under itself as it sank lifeless to the bottom of a black, cold liquid void that would be her tomb . . .

  If Bess was going to fall into the lake, it had better not be on a horse.

  So she got off . . . the hard way.

  Yanking her boots out of the stirrups, the marshal launched herself bodily out of the saddle, heaving herself off the horse dropping under her, throwing her arms out in front of her face protectively as she flew through the chill air, hitting the ice in a hard impact on her belly, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

  The bad news was she heard one of her ribs break.

  The good news was she was still on top of the ice.

  Stunned, the marshal lay on the hard glacial surface facing the direction she rode but didn’t see her mare, wondering where a huge horse could have disappeared to, coming to her senses when she saw a huge soaking equine head burst explosively up for air from the hole in the ice, expelling water from snout and nose, rolling eyes bulging in terror and suffocation as pawing hooves treaded water, then the head sank from view below the ice forever.

  Knowing the same fate soon awaited her, Bess got o
ff her ass. Rolling up on her boots, she made off on foot running as fast as her spurs would carry her across the glassy countertop of the frozen lake. A hundred yards dead ahead lay the shoreline and the safety of solid footing if she could just make it those last few yards. The marshal ran for her life, struggling to stay on her feet, recovering her balance as her boots repeatedly slipped on the slick unstable footing.

  The ice was cracking and shattering everywhere around her now, icebergs breaking off and tilting sideways to sink. It was not more than fifty yards to the shore when behind her, Bess heard the galloping hooves and reports of gunfire way too damn close.

  In all the excitement, Marshal Bess had disremembered the heavily armed five badmen with deputy badges chasing her on horseback to gun her down after she escaped their attempt to rape her.

  A bullet buzzed past her ear.

  It came back to her.

  Throwing a desperate glance over her shoulder, she saw the five mounted gunmen bearing down to the rear, low in their saddles, driving their spurs into their galloping horses, whooping and hollering, firing pistols at her in a kill-crazy frenzy.

  Had they been less trigger-happy fiends for action, the deputies would have noticed the cracks in the ice below the hooves of their steeds.

  All at once the ice collapsed beneath the riders and horses, dropping them into the frozen lake in an enormous explosion of frigid water, dunking the men and horses up to their necks in it. The broken hole in the frozen surface became a splashing chaos, a knot of humans and horses tied up in each other’s reins, paddling and screaming and drowning, the submerged deputies feeling brutal subzero lake waters paralyze their extremities, shutting down their bodies, and they realized they were doomed.

  “Watch where you’re riding, assholes!” were Bess’s parting words as she ran the last few yards across the ice to shore. She exhaled in relief the moment she had boots again on solid ground, even with snow up to her knees.

  By the time the marshal looked back, her pursuers had vanished from sight, drowned in the lake and sunk below the ice. Their lives had ended with grim suddenness, but it is surprising how quick you can die. Screw ’em. She didn’t give the bastards a second thought. Serves ’em right.