Page 71 of Heart on the Line

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The closer they came to the clearing, the harder Amos’s heart pounded in his chest. Not from fear this time but from righteous anger. Flashes of Lockhart forcing Grace’s head into that water barrel rose in his memory to heat his blood, fueling his need for justice.

A gunshot pierced the quiet. The lantern Porter held aloft to light their path shattered. Hermes spooked and reared. Amos grabbed for Porter’s waist, but without stirrups to brace himself, he was helpless against gravity. He tumbled to the ground. Recalling the size of the draft horse’s hooves, Amos immediately rolled away from the skittish animal.

Porter settled the beast in admirable time, while Shaw circled his own mount to keep him under control.

“Bledsoe!” Porter hissed into the darkness. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” Amos got to his feet and brushed the dirt from his trousers. “Which direction did the shot come from?”

“West.” Shaw’s answer was definitive, as was his gaze as he searched the shadows for any sign of their attacker. “Toward the Gladstone place. Probably going for a horse. Gotta cut him off before he gets there. We need to split up, try to surround him. Bledsoe, take the rifle from my saddle boot. It’s got fifteen shots. There’s a box of cartridges in the side pouch, too.”

Amos did as instructed, the rifle heavy yet comforting in his hands.

Another shot rang out, and Amos ducked. Shaw’s horse sidestepped out of reach before Amos could retrieve the extra ammunition.

“Porter?”

“I’m good,” the freighter called from a few feet away. “But we can’t stay here and let him pick us off.”

“I’ll circle left. You go right. Bledsoe, take cover in that juniper over there.” Shaw pointed to a cluster of brush about twenty feet away. “Keep low to the ground. Flat on your stomach is best. Rifle aimed and ready. With as dark as it is, the closer you are to the ground, the harder it will be for him to distinguish you from the landscape.”

A third shot blasted.

Shaw spurred his mount. “Go!” He laid down cover, firing three shots in Lockhart’s general direction as they all took up their positions.

Amos ran toward the juniper, rifle in front of him. A yard out, he dropped to his belly and crawled on bent arms to the far side of the brush, not wanting Lockhart to see precisely where he was going to ground.

Then chaos ensued. Gunshots to the right, the left. They seemed to come from everywhere. Amos stared into the night, trying desperately to make out shapes. To identify his friends. He kept his rifle aimed low. Porter and Shaw were mounted. Lockhart was on foot. Yet Amos didn’t pull his trigger and add to the storm of bullets. He couldn’t risk shooting the wrong man.

The sounds grew closer. Louder. As if Shaw and Porter were herding Lockhart toward him, like dogs flushing quail for the hunter. Only Amos was the least qualified hunter of the pack.

Amos’s hands shook as he shifted the rifle to cradle it more securely in the hollow of his shoulder. He braced himself on his elbows and tried to relax his legs, recalling what his father had taught him about shooting when he’d been a boy. The prone position was the easiest and most accurate, his father had explained, because the ground would steady his shot. Amos lowered his head to sight along the barrel. The easiest and most accurate. He could do this. He would do this.

He might not be a lawman or have muscles the size of boulders, but he had heart. A heart that belonged to a beautiful woman who’d been willing to die rather than put the people she cared about in danger. A heart that demanded he protect this woman, no matter the personal cost.

His panic ebbed and his pulse steadied. Amos clenched his fist, then slowly unfolded his fingers one at a time before fitting his forefinger once again to the trigger.

Out of the darkness, a figure emerged. Hunched. Lumbering.

Lockhart.

He couldn’t be more than ten yards away. He looked nothing like the cocky, coldhearted ladies’ man he’d been the last time Amos had seen him. His hat was gone, and his hair stood on end as if he’d crawled through a bramble. His shirt had been torn off and fashioned into some kind of bandage around his left shoulder and across his torso. Dark streaks stained his chest and side—blood. Yet it was his eyes in the moonlight that made Amos catch his breath. Wild. Animalistic.

Lockhart pivoted back toward his pursuers and fired off another two shots from his rifle. He pumped the lever for a third shot, but nothing fired. With a growl, he threw the weapon to the ground and yanked a revolver from his waistband behind his back. The very revolver he’d confiscated from Amos. A revolver with six shots, any one of which could end Shaw or Porter’s life. Amos’s life. Grace’s life.

Amos took aim.

“I’ve got a bead on you, Lockhart,” Amos called. “Throw down your weapon.”

Lockhart paused. He raised his right hand, pointing his pistol harmlessly toward the sky. He started to turn.

“I said, throw down your weapon!” Amos couldn’t let him turn with the gun still in his hand. He was too good a marksman.

Hoofbeats echoed, coming closer. Shaw and Porter would be here any second. He only had to hold Lockhart a little—

Lockhart spun, dropping to a crouch. His eyes found Amos through the juniper and his jaw tightened. The revolver came around.