The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,199

was going to take was hard work, perseverance, and possibly more luck than anyone had a right to expect.

Another gunshot sounded, but she smiled, closed her eyes, and slept dreaming of a stream bed lined with gold nuggets.

Eulis woke up once and leaned over Letty’s cot, pulled the cover back up over her shoulder, and then looked around the room, making sure that all was as it should be. All but a half dozen beds were now full, and it appeared that everyone was asleep. However, he wasn’t so green as to trust anyone except Letty in a place like this. So he rolled over on his other side with his back to Letty and his face to the room, felt again for the barrel of his rifle just beneath his bedroll, and closed his eyes. After tonight, everything was going to be a new experience for him and for Letty. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of expectancy. In a place like this, anything was possible—then he amended the thought with another less comforting. Yes, anything was possible—but having gained it, knew that it could be taken away as quickly as it had come. So he slept and dreamed, unaware that someone from their past was ten beds away on the other side of the room.

It was sometime after midnight when a commotion began in the hall outside the sleeping area. Eulis woke first and reached for his rifle as Letty rolled over and sat up on her cot.

“What’s happening?” she said.

“I don’t know. Sounds like a fight.”

Several other sleepers in the room were roused as the noise became louder. They could distinguish Mrs. Cocker’s voice, but the others were unrecognizable. Eulis took his rifle and started to get up when Letty grabbed him by the arm.

“Wait… you might get hurt.”

“I think Mrs. Cocker is in trouble.”

“Oh lord… okay… but I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Eulis said. “Stay here.”

He got up and started toward the door, but he wasn’t going alone. The other men in the room had also been awakened, and a couple of them appeared to have the same thought as Eulis. Letty watched as they got up with guns in hand and fell in behind Eulis.

Someone lit a lantern, and then someone else cursed and told them to blow it out before they became targets for whatever was happening beyond the door.

Letty grabbed her new boots and slipped them on, then quickly stuffed all of their belongings into their bags. If they had to run, she wanted to be ready. She crawled into the corner of the bed, pulled her knees up beneath her chin, and hoped for the best.

When Eulis opened the door, he was momentarily silhouetted by the light from the next room, then the other men blocked Letty’s view and she couldn’t see any more. She held her breath, and like everyone else in the room, waited anxiously to learn what was happening.

“Get out of my inn and be quick about it!” Mrs. Cocker yelled, and then reached beneath the counter and pulled out a rifle. With one smooth movement, she had it cocked and aimed.

“You heard the lady,” Eulis said, as he joined her with his rifle aimed.

The two other men who’d come out did the same, adding their presence and fire power to the men who had challenged the innkeeper’s demand. Unfortunately, the half-dozen men who’d come charging into Four Mile Inn had an agenda of their own, and they didn’t appear to be in the mood to listen. One of them—a shaggy mountain of a man who appeared to be their leader—stepped forward.

“Now look here, Mrs. Cocker. We done told you why we come and we ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til we see if Art Masters is here.”

“I don’t know Art Masters,” Cocker said, “but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you a thing. But I know you, Will Hodges, and I know that you’re drunk. In fact, the whole lot of you are no better than a lynch mob.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Eulis asked.

The big man’s gaze swerved from the innkeeper’s face to Eulis. He frowned.

“What’s goin’ on is none of your business. That’s what’s goin’ on,” Hodges said.

“When you come into the place where I’m sleepin’ and raise enough hell to wake the dead, then it becomes my business… it becomes all our business,” he added, thereby reminding Will Hodges that there were now four guns aimed directly at their faces.

Hodges frowned, but acquiesced to the firepower.

“We don’t aim