“Go! Go!”
Little Jake took off, hanging on to the two extra horses.
“Hey!”
Stephen turned to see Clyde Pace standing at the corner of the cabin. “What the hell—” He stood there with no gun. “Brad! They’re takin’ our horses!” Clyde started after Stephen.
Stephen bent down and grasped his rifle.
“It’s the goddamn Harkner kids!”
Stephen raised the rifle and fired. Clyde whirled and went down.
“What the fuck—” Someone inside yelled the words.
Stephen couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Clyde started moving and got back to his feet. To his surprise, Little Jake rode back up toward the cabin and took out the Colt .45 he’d stolen from Cole. He held it with two hands and shot at Clyde but missed.
“Ride, Stephen!” Little Jake yelled.
“Get out of the way!” Jake roared the words from the rocks above. “Get the hell out of there!”
The boys heard rifle fire, and Clyde flew forward into a watering trough.
Stephen dropped his rifle and jumped onto another of the horses. He grabbed the reins to one other, leaving the last horse behind as he and Little Jake kicked their horses into a hard ride, flying down the hill as more shots were fired.
Stephen wasn’t quite sure whether to be glad or sorry he’d shot a man. He remembered Jake telling them once that it wasn’t a good feeling…killing a man, but at least Clyde got back up. More likely it was the second shot that killed him, and it probably came from his father or grandfather.
He could hear Little Jake behind him, whooping like an Indian. He caught up to Stephen as they neared the bottom of the hill. The boys yelled in victory and laughed.
“We did it!” Little Jake rejoiced. “We chased off their horses, and we got one of ’em!”
“Let’s go find Grandpa!” Stephen yelled, turning his horse to the left and heading up into the high rocks at the side of the cabin. More gunfire rang out, bullets from the cabin, pinging against the rocks as the boys headed into them. Return gunfire was blasting the cabin to pieces. By the time the boys reached their father and grandfather, the shooting had stopped.
“Hold up!” Jake ordered. “Randy could get hit from a stray bullet! We need to flush them out of there.”
“You’re dead meat, Harkner!” Brad Buckley yelled from the cabin. “Leave now, or your wife is dead!”
Stephen saw puffs of smoke where someone fired at them from the cabin windows. Clyde Pace was still alive and trying to drag himself out of the watering trough.
“Stay back!” Lloyd screamed to the boys when he saw them climbing up toward them. “Get behind some shelter!”
The boys clambered into the trees and ducked behind a large boulder.
“You don’t have a chance, Buckley! There’s no place to run!” Jake yelled. “I’ve got Lloyd and three other men with me, and you’ve got no horses!”
“How’d you get up here, you bastard!” Brad yelled. “We’ve been watchin’ clear across the valley for you!”
“Those men with you don’t know this land as well as they thought!” Jake answered. “My grandsons know it even better than I do! They got us up here, you sonofabitch! You messed with the wrong Harkners this time!”
Both boys grinned excitedly, feeling like men now.
“I’ve got your wife, Jake! You’re the one who’d better give up, or she’s dead!” More shots came from the cabin. “I’ve hated you ever since you killed my pa and brothers, you murderin’ sonofabitch!” Brad screamed. “I’ve got you back for it. Takin’ your wife is better than killing you!”
“You’ll live to regret it!”
“And you’ll never get out from behind those rocks alive!”
Jake noticed Clyde still struggling to get out of the trough. He aimed his rifle and fired, and Clyde cried out and tumbled back into the water.
“Just three of you left, Brad!” Jake yelled. “Three of you and six of us! Ronald Beck is dead, too! You shouldn’t have left him behind to tell us where you were.”
“You always were a stupid sonofabitch!” Lloyd shouted, moving as far behind the cabin as he could get. It was impossible to get directly behind it because of the steep cliff that rose up in back of it.
“Bring my wife out of there, and we might let you live!” Jake ordered.
“Like hell! You don’t never let nobody live, Jake Harkner!”
“You should have thought of that before you took my wife!”
“I’ll kill her, Harkner! I’ll kill her because you’re gonna kill me anyway! And you’re gonna live the rest of your life knowin’ the last man who had her was me, Brad Buckley! She ain’t bad for her age, Harkner!”