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Several moments later, at the back of Mr Grant’s house, a loud bang echoed through the trees. The branch directly above Ben’s head exploded, covering his head and shoulders with splinters.
“Get down,” Marcus ordered.
Once on the floor, he drew his gun and returned fire.
Several returning shots ricocheted around the trees. The noise of the guns firing echoed sinisterly around them. Several birds screeched their protest and took to the skies, but Ben couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see much of anything except for Marcus’ back, and he daren’t tear his gaze away from that.
“Do you see them?” Joe whispered as he came alongside them.
“There is one over there by those trees to the left. Gillespie is on his way toward us with Ball. They are both armed,” Marcus replied quietly.
“I think they are already here,” Joe whispered.
“Smithers and the magistrate are around as well,” Ben replied.
Marcus cursed. He wondered if tonight could get any worse.
It had started out wonderfully but had gone downhill rapidly when he had woken up and realised he had overslept by a good hour.
The only positive thing to come out of this situation was that he knew Jess was safe. Everybody who posed a potential risk to her was now stomping through the woods firing at him. He now wished he had forced Ben to remain in the scullery. Just the thought of having to explain to Jess that her brother had been shot gave him the chills.
He realised then that Ben didn’t have a weapon on him and was, as a result, incredibly vulnerable.
“Can you s
ee if you can get back to the house, and check on Jess? Stay with her, Ben. Make sure nobody gets into that house. Lock all of the doors and close all of the shutters. Don’t let anybody in, no matter what they say to you.” He stopped and ducked when another flurry of gun shots carved splinters out of the trees around them. “Use the trees to protect you. Move when I shoot at them. Hurry. I will come to you when I have finished here. ”
Before Ben could move, several more shots were fired which carved grooves in the trees on either side of them. Marcus took aim and returned as many shots as he could. Even though they were encased in darkness, he was rewarded with a faint cry of pain when someone was hit.
“Over there,” Ben whispered, and pointed to a dark shadow moving steadily toward them.
Marcus spied the target and nodded. He suspected from the outline that it was Gillespie. There was nobody else in the village that tall.
Taking aim, he fired off a shot and watched the man jump back. With little light to see properly, he had no idea whether the man had been wounded or not. Either way, before Gillespie could advance any further, Marcus took aim again.
“Damn it,” he cursed as he studied the now empty space.
“I can’t go, Marcus,” Ben warned. “Jess is in the house. She doesn’t venture out at night. She is safe. You need me here.”
“He is right,” Joe bit out. “We need help.”
Marcus nodded at Ben. “Alright. Keep an eye out for any sign of movement.”
Peering out from behind a tree, Marcus took aim again and exchanged fire with a gunman now hidden only a few feet away.
“We need to get out of here,” he gasped when one bullet whizzed straight past his ear.
He hauled Ben to his feet and followed Joe through the undergrowth toward the main road. Rather than break their cover and make themselves a visible target, they stayed within the trees while they decided what to do.
“They don’t want us going to Mr Grant’s house.” Joe’s voice was full of determination to defy them.
“They have a lot to hide; that’s why. We can’t go into it now, or we will be boxing ourselves up for them to come in and pick us off at random,” Marcus warned.
“Do you know why they have chosen tonight to launch their attack?” Joe gasped as he fired into the trees.
“I think they may have gotten wind that someone has been searching their rooms. We were careful, but may have missed something somewhere. Maybe they have done what they wanted to do, and it is time to move on. I don’t know. I do know that they aren’t going to leave Smothey free men. Not if I have my way,” Marcus declared.
“Let’s get this lot subdued and then we can go and check on Jess. There isn’t much else we can do right now, except follow them wherever they try to go,” Joe whispered. “Barnaby hasn’t appeared in time to be of any use to us. We are on our own. It is best to use the cover of darkness to get into the Grant house and see for ourselves what they are protecting so fiercely,” Joe reasoned. “Come on. We are losing valuable time standing here.”
