Ellen's Arc

Chapter 10 of 45

Ellen packed the last water skin into the coat and looked at the black tunnel mouth. Vincent's men waited at the far end, out on the flats. She could not lead six women into their guns. She needed them gone before dawn. She climbed the stairs and cracked the front door. The night was cold and empty. Somewhere past the drain outlet, torchlight moved. Two lights. Maybe three. They were watching the exit. Cade came up beside her, rifle in hand. He counted the lights the way he counted everything. "Three men," Cade said. "Watching the drain. We can't move six people past three guns." "Then we pull them off it," Ellen said. "Give them something louder to chase." Cade studied her. He knew this game. He had helped her stage a false fight in the barn, and a false fire trail on the plain. He did not smile, but he nodded once. "You need a fire," he said. "East, away from the drain. Big enough they leave their post." Ellen thought of the last time she used fire against hunters. It had worked, and it had also brought two bands together. But she had no better tool. She soaked a rag in the last lamp oil and tied it to a length of broken crate. "I set it," she said. "You hold the door. When they run east, you send the women through the tunnel." "No," Cade said. He racked the shotgun off his back and set it on the table. "You don't go alone. Brennan's men are out there too." The name landed hard. Marcus Brennan led eight guns and hunted Cade for burning his town. His men had joined Vincent's. If Ellen drew a crowd, she might draw them all. "That's why it has to be me," Ellen said. "They want you dead. They'll only chase me for a look." Cade held her eyes a long moment. Then he stepped back. "Go fast," he said. "Don't look at the fire once it's lit. It ruins your eyes." Ellen slipped out the rear and ran wide across the flats, east of the drain. She struck the flint. The oil rag caught. She jammed the burning crate into a stand of dry brush and it roared up orange. She did not look at it. She ran back low through the dark. The torches at the drain broke apart. Men shouted. The lights swung east, toward the fire, away from the tunnel. She counted them go. Three. All three. Inside, Cade had the women lined at the tunnel mouth. "Now," Ellen breathed. They crawled through one by one, into the flats the guns had just left. The last woman vanished into the dark. The drain was open. The women were out. But the fire had done more than pull three men. It rose bright over the plain, a signal any hunter could read. Somewhere behind it, Brennan's men would be riding toward the light.