Chapter 5 - The Siege of Black Ridge
Gideon crouched beneath the window ledge, his pale eyes burning with a cold, terrifying light.
He glanced back at Christa. She was holding her brothers tight beneath the flipped table, her face pale, but her eyes were fixed on him—not with terror of him, but with absolute trust.
"Can you shoot?" Gideon asked her in a low, sharp whisper.
Christa looked at the heavy Colt .45 revolver sitting in the gun belt hanging on the peg near the door. "My father taught me on a smoothbore shotgun."
Gideon unbuckled the holster, pulled the heavy revolver, and tossed it across the floor to her. "It has six rounds. Don't pull the trigger until you see the grease on their coats."
He looked at Samuel. "Boy. You keep your brother in the corner behind the chimney. If anyone comes through that door, you hit them with the iron poker."
Samuel nodded fiercely, gripping the heavy iron rod from the hearth with both small hands.
Gideon turned back to the window, racking a heavy .44-40 cartridge into the chamber of his Winchester.
"Higgins!" Gideon’s voice rumbled through the broken window, carrying across the snow like a avalanche roar. "You have five seconds to turn those horses around and go back to Rooker!"
"You don't dictate terms no more, trapper!" Higgins yelled back. "Burn 'em out!"
Two flaming torches were thrown from the treeline, landing on the sod roof of the lean-to shed attached to the side of the cabin. Dry pine needles beneath the snow began to hiss and smoke, yellow flames licking up the timber walls.
Gideon didn't wait.
He leaned into the broken window frame, brought the Winchester to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
Fifty yards away, the miner holding the torch supply dropped his lantern, doubling over as the .44 slug struck him squarely in the chest.
BANG-BANG.
Gideon worked the iron lever with blinding speed, sending a stream of lead into the tree line. Another mercenary screamed, dropping his rifle as a bullet splintered the pine trunk he was hiding behind.
"Get to the door!" Higgins screamed, panic creeping into his voice as he saw two of his five men go down in five seconds. "Break it down!"
Two heavy-set men carrying a cedar log ran through the deep snow toward the front door, using the log as a battering ram.
CRASH.
The heavy oak door groaned on its iron hinges as the ram struck it. The wooden bar held, but a split opened along the grain of the center plank.
Christa didn't hesitate. She raised the heavy Colt revolver with both hands, rested her wrists over the edge of the flipped table, and aimed directly at the splintered crack in the wooden door.
BOOM.
The heavy .45 slug tore through the wooden door, striking the man holding the front of the battering ram. He yelled, dropping his side of the log and falling backward into the snow.
"They got guns inside!" the remaining man shrieked, throwing his hands up and sprinting back toward the trees.
Outside, Higgins realized the assault was failing. He mounted his horse in panic, kicking the animal’s flanks to flee back down the mountain trail toward Black Creek.
Gideon didn't let him go.
He stepped out onto the cabin porch into the blinding white snow, raised his Winchester, and fired a single shot at the fleeing rider.
The bullet struck Higgins’s horse in the rump, sending the mount rearing wilding. Higgins fell backward from the saddle, crashing heavily into a deep snowdrift, his rifle flying into the brush.
Before Higgins could pull himself out of the snow, a massive leather boot stepped onto his chest, pinning him to the frozen ground like a beetle on a pin.
Higgins looked up, gasping for air, into the face of Gideon Sullivan.
Gideon’s beard was frosted white, his gray eyes cold as glacier ice, the black muzzle of his Winchester pressed directly between Higgins’s eyes.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot, Sullivan!" Higgins blubbered, urine soaking through his frozen trousers. "Rooker paid us! Fifty dollars each to burn the place and bring the girl back!"
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Gideon leaned down until his face was inches from the trembling miner.
"You go back to Black Creek," Gideon whispered, his voice vibrating through Higgins’s chest. "You tell Jebediah Rooker that Captain Gideon Sullivan is coming down the mountain to settle his ledger."
