Chapter 4 - The Battle of Willow Creek
The night air was freezing by the time the riders reached the perimeter fence.
There were eight of them. At the head of the group rode Sheriff Amos Dell, wearing a sheepskin coat with a tarnished silver star pinned to his lapel. Beside him was Silas Vane, dressed in a heavy dark duster, his silver-handled revolver gleaming in the torchlight. Behind them sat Cole Briggs and five heavily armed mercenaries recruited from the saloons of Oakhaven.
They spread out in a wide semicircle around the log house, keeping their horses fifty yards back from the open yard.
"Jesse Vance!" Sheriff Dell’s voice boomed out across the clearing. "I am the lawful authority of Cook County! You are wanted for assault, illegal brandishing, and harboring a fugitive! Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up!"
Inside the house, Jesse stood beside the front window, his Winchester resting on the wooden sill.
"You're a long way from your jurisdiction, Dell!" Jesse shouted back, his voice cutting clean through the wind. "And that star on your chest doesn't cover up the gold you stole at Blackwood Pass!"
Out in the yard, Sheriff Dell flinched as if he’d been struck with a whip. He looked sideways at Silas Vane.
"He knows," Dell growled under his breath. "I told you we should have killed him twelve years ago when he was still trailing us!"
"Shut up and burn the house!" Vane hissed back, his face twisted in ruthless fury. "If those papers get out, we both swing from a oak branch! Kill everything that moves!"
Dell raised his revolver. "Fire!"
A deafening volley of gunfire shattered the quiet of the valley.
Lead balls and heavy rifle bullets slammed into the log walls of the house, shattering window glass and splattering plaster across the kitchen floor. The roar of eight rifles echoed off the canyon walls like continuous thunder.
Roslyn lay flat on the hardwood floor behind a heavy oak sideboard, holding a double-barreled shotgun she had retrieved from Elijah’s gun rack.
Jesse didn't flinch. He waited for the initial volley to slacken, then leaned into his sightline.
BANG.
His Winchester spat fire. Sixty yards away, one of Vane’s hired mercenaries dropped from his saddle, his rifle clattering against the rocks.
BANG.
Jesse cycled the lever with smooth, rhythmic precision. A second rider doubled over his saddle horn, screaming as his horse bolted back into the darkness.
"Flank the barn!" Briggs shouted, kicking his mount forward toward the timber structures on the left. "Get around the back!"
"Roslyn!" Jesse called out over the roar of gunfire. "The rear window! Don't let them reach the blacksmith shop!"
Roslyn crawled across the floor, staying low beneath the bullet-riddled window sills. She pulled herself up at the kitchen window overlooking the forge. Through the darkness, she saw two men on foot running toward the barn with burning torches in their hands.
Her hands shook, but she remembered Elijah’s voice teaching her how to shoot targets behind the barn three summers ago.
She raised the heavy 12-gauge shotgun, rested the barrel on the wooden frame, and pulled both triggers at once.
BOOM-BOOM!
The heavy buckshot charge hit the ground five feet in front of the two men, showering them with dirt and iron scrap. One man tumbled backward, clutching his leg, while the other dropped his torch in panic and sprinted back toward the tree line.
"Good girl!" Jesse yelled over his shoulder, cycling his Winchester again.
Outside, Vane’s attack was stalling. The unexpected marksmanship from inside the house had taken down three of his eight men in less than three minutes.
"Use the dynamite, Briggs!" Vane screamed, his voice wild with desperation. "Throw it through the front window! Burn them out!"
Briggs reached into his saddlebags, pulling out two sticks of gray blasting powder tied together with twine. He struck a match against his leather saddle, sparking the short fuse into a sputtering, hissing red flame.
He stood up in his stirrups, preparing to throw the explosive charge straight through the shattered front window.
Jesse saw the sputtering flame in the dark.
He didn't fire at Briggs’s chest. He adjusted his aim by three inches, targeting the dynamite sticks held high in Briggs’s hand.
BANG.
The Winchester bullet struck the dynamite cap at eighty yards.
A blinding flash of yellow orange fire exploded in the center of Vane’s line. The shockwave rattled the log house to its foundations, blowing out the remaining window frames and sending a shower of dirt and debris forty feet into the air.
When the smoke cleared, Briggs’s horse was gone, and the remaining mercenaries were fleeing in terror back toward the main trail, throwing away their weapons as they ran.
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Only two men remained standing in the clearing.
Silas Vane and Sheriff Amos Dell.
