Ellen's Arc

Chapter 19 of 45

Twelve rounds. Ellen counted them in her head all night. At first light Cade came back from his walk with worse news. He knelt in the dirt and drew a line with his finger. "Brennan lived through the charge," he said. "His tracks circled us at dusk. He knows the wagon. He knows the guns run dry." Ellen looked at the six women asleep behind the plate. One more push and Brennan would take them all. A hum crossed the flats. Stark dropped beside the wheel, his faceplate glowing. He had pulled Brennan's last gunman off the plain days ago, but he did not deal in comfort. "He's massing east," Stark said. "Riders and a man on foot. You don't have the ammo to hold this ground. Move, or he pins you here." "Move where?" Ellen said. "There's nothing on this flat but us." Another voice answered from the dust. Vincent Marconi walked in from the west, hat low, suit gray with grit. He owned this wagon. He owned half her breaths. He stopped and looked at the sleeping women, then at Ellen, the way he read every stranger. "You want walls," he said. "I know walls." "You always know something," Ellen said. "What's it cost." "Later," Vincent said. He named it flatly, like a street fact. "There's a stone hotel south of here. Old. Six floors. The doors bar from inside. One road in. A man on the steps can hold it against ten." He met her eyes. "Your women live behind stone, not open dirt." Ellen weighed it. Brennan was massing east. The hotel lay south. If she ran now, she put stone between her people and his guns before the guns here ran empty. "We take the wagon," she said. "We use the twelve rounds to break clear, then run." Stark lifted off. "I'll blind him. Go." He shot east and hammered the ground where Brennan's riders gathered. Dust and fire climbed. The riders scattered to cover their eyes. Ellen drove the wagon south with Cade on the Gatling. Brennan's men wheeled after them through the haze. Cade spent the last twelve rounds in short bursts, cutting down two horses and holding the rest back. Vincent hung off the rail and pointed the road. The stone hotel rose ahead, tall and square, its high windows dark, its front doors thick as a table. The wagon slid to a stop at the steps. The women poured out and through the doors. Cade dropped the empty Gatling and drew his shotgun. Ellen and Vincent shouldered the doors shut and dropped the bar. Outside, Brennan's riders pulled up short at the one road in, out of range. Ellen leaned on the cold stone and breathed. Brennan knew where they were now. But he no longer faced open dirt. He faced six floors of walls and one road he had to climb.