Luca Orvane's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The coffee went cold on the porch rail. Luca stood and looked east, where the reinforcements would ride in before dark. Six men sat caged behind him. A dozen more wanted them freed. One sheriff, two deputies, and a cowboy would not win a straight gunfight. Luca turned to Cole. "We don't fight them head-on," he said. "We make them think the fight already happened." Cole frowned under his hat. "Explain." "Their boss told them to meet at the smelter. They don't know he's caged. If they reach this station, they see cells. But if we move the prisoners out before they come, they find an empty town and no trail." Luca pointed at the stables beside the station. "We load the wagon. We drive the other way. They chase ghosts." The young deputy stepped out, blond and quick-eyed, a star pinned crooked on his vest. He had hauled the prisoners into the cells the day before and watched the leader the whole time. "Riders are already close," he said. "Dust on the flats. Two miles, maybe less." His hand shook on the door frame. Luca saw it and spoke steady, the way he calmed a spooked horse. "Then we move now," Luca said. He crossed to his saddle and pulled free a short, sawed-off shotgun, both barrels loaded. "I'll stay on the porch. One man, in plain sight. If they ride up, they see a fool alone. They won't expect a cage already rolling off the back road." Cole studied him, then nodded once. "Deputies take the wagon. I hold the door with you." He drew his pistol and checked it. They worked fast. The deputies hitched the black steed and the prisoners again, roped tight to the slats. The leader spat through the bars of the wagon. "They'll gut you, cowboy." Luca tipped his hat at him and slammed the gate. The wagon rolled out the back as the riders crested the flats. Then the wind turned. A wall of dust climbed the horizon, brown and churning, swallowing the sun. The storm rolled straight between the station and the approaching men. The riders slowed, blind in the swirl. Luca grinned. He could not have asked for better cover. He fired both barrels into the air. The boom cracked through the dust. The riders scattered, sure they rode into an ambush. By the time the storm thinned, the wagon was gone over the ridge, the prisoners moving to a courthouse two counties east. The reinforcements found an empty station and a cowboy on the porch, reloading. They cursed and wheeled their horses and rode after the wagon's faint tracks. Cole wiped grit from his eyes. "You bought us the prisoners. But you sent that gang east, straight toward your ranch road." Luca holstered the shotgun. The men who burned his home were running now, and they ran toward the only thing he had left to take back.