Page 88 of At Love’s Command

Taggart fell forward, but stayed in the saddle. Slumped, but mounted.

Seventy-five yards.

Matt shot again, but Taggart was out of pistol range. He needed the Winchester.

He lurched to his feet and limped back to Phineas, steeling himself against the agonizing sight of his beloved horse writhing on the ground. Phin would have to wait. Matt snatched the rifle from the scabbard, turned, and took aim.

As he sighted the target, however, it moved. Taggart’s horse jumped over something in its path, and the jarring landing unseated the outlaw. Taggart slid sideways. Matt lifted his gaze from the rifle sight and squinted at the black figure nearly a hundred yards out.

Taggart listed farther left, grappling for a hold on the saddle. But his weight was too unevenly distributed. He tumbled from the horse.

Matt dropped his rifle into a one-handed grip and started running. Limping, really, but his pain-filled, ungainly stride smoothed out the more he ran. And he ran for all he was worth. He had to get to Taggart before the outlaw had a chance to reload. He might be down, but he still posed a threat.

Taggart scrambled backward on his rump and heels, his revolver cradled against his belly as he fumbled to pull bullets from his gun belt. His left arm hung useless from its socket, blood staining his black shirt.

Matt ran harder. The stitches in his side tore open, but he refused to relent.

Taggart got one bullet loaded. Then another. He snapped the cylinder into place. Raised his weapon as Matt descended upon him.

Matt swung the stock of his rifle and knocked the gun from the outlaw’s hand. Taggart lunged for the fallen weapon, and Matt dove atop him, pinning him to the ground. He knocked the gun out of reach. Taggart head-butted him, and daggers stabbed the backs of Matt’s eyes. He reared up, silver specks dancing through his vision. Then a fist danced into view and slammed against his jaw. The blow snapped Matt’s head around but failed to dislodge him.

In a swift motion, Matt brought his rifle around, clasped it lengthwise in both hands, and brought it down across Taggart’s collarbone, neatly trapping the outlaw’s right arm beneath the stock and pinning it to the ground beside his head.

“It’s over, Taggart,” Matt gritted out as he pressed his body weight onto the rifle, causing the barrel to dig into Taggart’s windpipe.

The outlaw cursed and tried to buck Matt off. In response, Matt planted his knee atop the bloodied fabric covering Taggart’s left bicep. Taggart howled, then stilled. Hatred glared from his eyes.

“You’ll pay for this, Hanger,” he rasped.

Matt shrugged off the threat, recognizing it for what it was—a toothless attempt at intimidation from a man newly stripped of power.

“Probably.” He would certainly pay in blood and bruises. But the reward of knowing Josie was safe and the outlaw who’d taken her was behind bars would be well worth the personal cost.

Matt shifted his hold on the rifle and grabbed Taggart’s good arm. Lifting up, he flipped the outlaw onto his belly, planted his knee in the small of his back, and twisted his arm behind him. He yanked the injured arm behind him as well, earning another string of curses. Taking a coil of thin rope from inside his vest pocket, he wound the binding around Taggart’s wrists, tied it off, then yanked the outlaw to his feet and dragged him toward the horse that had halted about a dozen yards away after losing its rider.

“Just be glad I’m not shooting you and leaving you for dead,” Matt said, a touch of irony lacing his tone.

Taggart, his face mottled with rage, tried to jerk away, but Matt’s grip proved too strong. “I should have put you down when I had the chance. Ridden up and put a bullet between your eyes while your woman watched.”

“Yep. You should have.” Matt grinned. “Though if you think she would have been a passive spectator, you’re sadly mistaken. Josie’s never passive about anything.”

“Jonah Brooks, quit fiddling with that pile of saddlebags and come here so I can tend that wound.” Josephine badgered the last Horseman to submit to her doctoring. She’d already seen to the others, after tending the more serious injuries sustained by the outlaws, but Mr. Brooks was proving elusive.

Jonah didn’t look up from where he rifled through the outlaw bags piled atop a sawhorse table at the back of the barn. “Leave me be. I’m busy.”

“Fine. I’ll come to you.” Josephine grabbed her medical bag and the last of the bandages Arnold had made for her from the moth-nibbled sheet he’d found in the farmhouse linen closet.

The camp cook had hidden for most of the battle, dashing into neutral territory behind the bushes that guarded the camp latrine after delivering Charlie to the chuck wagon. Once the gunfire ceased, he’d emerged to lend a hand, becoming Josephine’s medical assistant. At the moment, he was making the rounds through the barn-turned-infirmary, taking water to the outlaw patients who were conscious.

Amazingly, there had been only two fatalities. The red-bearded Dawson had died where he’d fallen next to the farmhouse, and Carver had succumbed to his wounds despite Josephine’s efforts to save him. He’d been the most critically injured and therefore the one she’d tended first. She’d thrust his wickedly large knife into the coals of the cook fire and used it to cauterize the wound in his chest as quickly as she could in order to stem the massive blood loss, but it had been too late.

By Mark’s count, five of Taggart’s men had escaped, two had perished, and four lay secured to their bunks in various states of injury. Over the last two hours, she’d cleaned wounds, sutured tissue, and pulled lead out of the very men who’d tried to destroy her family. Not that she’d thought of them that way while she worked. They’d simply been patients in need of a doctor.

Looking at them now as she strode past them to get to Jonah, her clinical frame of mind numbed her emotions and allowed her to see them with a level of objectivity. How many had started off as foolish young men running with the wrong crowd, just like Charlie? They’d hardened over time, crime and rough living callousing their consciences until they no longer cared who they hurt in pursuit of gold, drink, and loose women. But they’d been children once, little boys with skinned knees and runny noses. Did they have family praying for them somewhere? Mothers? Sisters?

Take away their hearts of stone, Lord, and replace them with hearts of flesh so that they might repent and turn their lives toward you.

She’d seen the change in Charlie and prayed fervently that he would continue along redemption’s path. She prayed her father would not stand in the way, but would offer forgiveness and guidance instead of blame and anger.