Putting one gunman down kept the others busy for a few seconds, which was all the time Clint needed to ride away from the camp and platform. Gunfire erupted from behind him, but it only added some fuel to Eclipse's fire. The Darley Arabian galloped away amid a cloud of dust and it was all Clint could do to hang on.
Every so often, Clint glanced over his shoulder to look for any trace of a pursuit. The gunmen might have gotten to their horses to try and catch him, but all Clint could see was a few specks on the horizon. After another few minutes, he couldn't even see that much.
THIRTEEN
Clint took a roundabout way back to Madeline's house, just in case those gunmen were still following him. He circled and doubled back a few times before even truly getting halfway back to her town. From what he'd heard, those men didn't even know where to start looking for her home, but Clint took those extra precautions to make certain of it. Between his backtracking and Eclipse's natural speed, they never got close enough to any pursuers for Clint to catch sight of them.
Once he got close enough to the town to see it, Clint pulled back on his reins and removed the spyglass from his saddlebag. A careful study of the terrain behind and around him revealed nothing but a few coyotes and one wagon making its way into town. After dropping the spyglass back into the pack, Clint took Maddy's letter from his pocket and read it all the way through.
Clint,
If you're reading this, that means you're at the platform waiting for me to arrive. You must leave this instant before you're seen. There are men after me and they might hurt you if they know you're a friend of mine.
“Too late for that,” Clint chuckled. He shifted in his saddle and continued reading.
Sam and Chen are safe, but I've acquired another one of my cherished strays. I call her Lylah, but I'm not certain what her true name is. Because of my current circumstances, I arranged for Lylah to arrive at my house before me. That way, I hope to prevent any trouble with the same men who have forced Lylah into my care.
I know it's a lot to ask, but I implore you to go to my house and make sure Lylah is all right. I hope to be there to meet you, but if not, you'll need to make sure she gets to the proper authorities. She has information about a killer named Kyle Morrow. If you're unable to come back to my house, please get this information to someone who can help. I fear the local law isn't quite up to the task.
Maddy
Clint smirked at the thought of just how much he agreed with that last sentence. From what he'd seen of Maddy's local law, it wasn't quite up to the task of tossing drunks. Protecting anyone from a known killer seemed to be way too much trouble for someone like Sheriff Bailey. As Clint folded the letter and placed it back into his pocket, he realized that the gunmen at the stagecoach platform might not have been referring to Chen after all.
Without letting another moment slip by, Clint tapped his heels against Eclipse's sides and rode into town. He didn't stop at the sheriff's office and didn't waste a second in looking around at the folks on either side of the street. Nobody was shooting at him and, as far as he could tell, nobody was following him. Everything else was beneath his notice.
Upon arriving at Maddy's house, Clint drew his pistol and circled the place. His eyes darted up and down, side to side, looking for anyone peeking from a window or waiting in any kind of possible ambush. There was no one on the roof and not so much as a hint of movement that he could see. Bringing Eclipse to a halt at the back of the house, Clint dismounted and carefully approached the back door.
It wasn't until that moment that he realized just how long he'd gone without taking a slow breath. The stagecoach platform was a sizable distance away, but Clint had covered it in record time. Although Eclipse did most of the work in that regard, Clint's muscles were feeling the strain of being in the saddle for so many hours without letting up on his pace. To go along with the physical strain of making such a rushed journey, being ready for a fight or watching for an ambush for all of that time took a toll of its own. Clint's blood raced through his veins. His breath came in shallow gulps. His muscles all felt as if they'd been drawn taut and stretched thin over his bones. Even his eyeballs felt as if they'd spent the day rattling around in their sockets.
Standing with one foot propped against the step leading up to the back door, Clint filled his lungs and let out his breath in a steady sigh. It didn't relax him completely, but at least the rushing in his ears died down enough for him to hear a bit more than his own heartbeat. And then, to set his whole system to running again, Clint slammed his shoulder against the door and pushed it open.
He jumped into Maddy's kitchen with his gun in hand. Although he could still hear the echo of splintering wood, he could tell the entire house was a bit too still for its own good. His instincts had been to come in like a bull rather than take his chances announcing his presence with a polite knock. Stalking forward into the familiar home, he could tell those instincts had been correct.
The house didn't feel the way it had when he'd left it.
The air was thick and had the feel of a tomb.
But there was something more than that. Clint could sense something on an animal level that caught somewhere between his nose and his brain. It was something that let him know he was being watched, mixed in with a liberal dose of fear. More often than not, those things hinted at an ambush. He could be wrong about that, but Clint wasn't going to be caught unaware.
“Maddy?” he called out.
There was no response.
“Maddy? It's Clint.”
Still nothing.
Clint set his sights upon the doorway leading from the kitchen to the dining room. Just as he was stepping through, the ambush he'd been waiting for finally arrived. And, despite all his preparation and jangling nerves, the damn thing still caught him by surprise.
FOURTEEN
There really wasn't much to see in the kitchen. Apart from the stove, several cupboards, and the table where Maddy did most of her cooking preparation, there were only a couple of stools scattered throughout the room. Since nobody could really hide behind one of those stools, Clint had moved along. Unfortunately, someone could hide in one of the cupboards. Clint discovered that the hard way when a wild banshee exploded from the cupboard where it had been hiding to swat furiously at Clint's back and arm.
Clint wheeled around and swung his arm reflexively at whatever was attacking him. Since none of the blows had really hurt him, he only swung his arm at about half its strength. His effort didn't matter either way, since the banshee easily ducked under it to start kicking his shins. Unlike the first round of attacks, those kicks hurt.
“Hey!” Clint yelled as he backed away. “What the hell?”
He held his gun in hand, but had yet to get a clear look at his target. When he tried to move away, he merely caught another batch of kicks in a different spot. The banshee looked to be about the size of a small woman, but was hunched over to the height of a child. Long, straight black hair hung down to cover the banshee's face. The arms and legs that continued to batter Clint were thin, but strong enough to do some damage.
Since he wasn't about to shoot the banshee just yet, Clint grabbed the first body part he could reach that wasn't flailing too much to be caught. Once he closed his fist around a clump of hair, he pulled the banshee away and stepped back.
The banshee looked up at him and bared its teeth. Despite the twisted features and sweaty skin, it was obviously the face of a woman.
“Who are you?” Clint asked.
The woman looked to be somewhere in her late teens or early twenties. Before Clint could see much more than that, she snarled and reached up to sink both sets of fingernails into the hand that had grabbed her hair. She growled viciously as she drove her nails in deep enough to start a trickle of blood flowing down from Clint's hand.
“Ow, son of aâ” was all Clint could say before a kick landed squarely on his shin. He'd been about to let her go before, but he sure as hell let go of her now. The instant she'd hopped back a step, the banshee stood up straight and delivered a solid kick between Clint's legs.
A wave of cold flowed up from Clint's privates and flooded into his stomach. He tried to pull in a breath, but could only draw enough air to let out a hacking wheeze. He reached down to hold on to the spot where he'd been kicked, knowing all too well what was coming next. Sure enough, the pain exploded in him a few seconds later. It erupted in a white-hot torrent that went straight up to his spinal cord.
Clint's first instinct was to grit his teeth and beat to a pulp whoever had caused that very distinctive pain. His fist tightened around his Colt and his gaze fixed upon the wild, panicked eyes of the woman in front of him. Although he choked down the bloodthirsty impulse triggered by the pain, enough of it must have shone through in his eyes to put the fear of God into the scraggly young woman.
The banshee spun toward the doorway and ran into the dining room.
“Wait,” Clint croaked. He tried to run after her, but wasn't able to get up to full speed. The banshee's legs and feet might have been slender, but they'd hit him with a sharp impact that Clint knew he would be feeling for a long time.
She bolted from the kitchen in a flurry of scrambling limbs and wild hair. Her breaths were short and choppy, filling the otherwise empty house like moans from a ghost.
Clint dragged himself toward the dining room. It took a couple of fumbling attempts, but he managed to drop his Colt back into its holster. Still grabbing himself in his tender nether regions, he grunted, “I'm . . . a friend of Madeline's. She sent me . . . here.”
The banshee didn't respond to that in the slightest. In fact, she seemed to have been thrown into a tizzy as she yelped and sent a bunch of heavy objects smashing to the floor. By the time Clint made it to the front room, he found her climbing back to her feet after tripping over a footstool.
Sucking in a breath, Clint pushed as much of it as he could behind his voice. When he spoke, his words sounded almost as feral as the wild woman looked. “I put my gun away. See?” he held out his hands to show her they were empty.
The banshee looked at him and froze.
FIFTEEN
As she stood there in front of him, the banshee seemed to be contemplating whether she was going to bolt for the front door or take another run at Clint.
“My name's Clint Adams. Are you Lylah?”
The banshee's head pulled back and she studied him carefully.
Clint nodded, but didn't take a step toward her and kept his hands away from his holster. “Madeline Gerard brought you here, didn't she?”
Now that the young woman didn't have her hackles up, she looked less like a wild animal. Her eyes widened a bit so they were no longer angry slits. Although they were very pretty and very, very green, those eyes were still frightened.
“Did Madeline tell you about me? Did she mention that Clint Adams might be coming here?”
The woman's eyes darted from Clint's face, to the holster strapped around his waist, and then to the Colt that hung at his side.
“Don't worry,” Clint assured her. “If I didn't shoot you after you kicked me in the stones, I won't shoot you now. Why don't I just put this away?” When he slowly inched his hand toward the Colt, Clint could see her eyes widen.
“I'm not going to shoot,” he said again. “I'll just toss my gun away so you won't have to worry about it. Would that make you feel better?”
She wasn't about to answer the question. The woman was staring at the gun so intently that she didn't even seem to hear what Clint was saying. The terror in her eyes didn't ease up in the slightest until Clint finally took his hand away from the holster altogether.
“All right,” Clint said. “I'll leave the gun where it is. But see for yourself,” he added as he held his hands up high. “I'm not going to shoot you.”
The woman's brow furrowed, but her shoulders dropped as if she'd just let out a breath that she'd been holding.
Patting the air in front of him, Clint said, “That's better. Why don't we both just sit down and stop all this running?” Knowing there was a chair behind him, Clint reached back for it and sat down. When he bent at the waist, a fresh batch of pain shot through his groin to give him the impression that blood might be trickling down his leg. Getting hit in the family jewels wasn't exactly a fun experience, but it wasn't a new one either. He clenched his jaw and lowered himself onto the chair, praying the pain would let up sooner rather than later.
The woman watched him carefully. As Clint shifted to try to find a comfortable spot in his chair, she flinched with what might have been a touch of sympathy pain. Well, as sympathetic as any woman could get, considering the situation.
“See?” Clint grunted. “We can relax and have a friendly talk. I'm Clint.” When he didn't get a response from her, he stretched out his hand.
The woman twitched and backed away.
“Go on and shake it,” Clint said as he waggled his hand a bit.
It took a few seconds, but the woman eventually approached his hand the way a curious mouse might approach a piece of bread that had fallen onto the floor. When she reached out to grab his hand, she still looked like a mouse snatching that same crumb.
There was strength in her grip, but the greeting was short-lived. “There,” Clint said. “Nice and friendly. Are you Lylah?”
The woman's eyes brightened when she heard that name.