His heart beat faster, but this wasn’t the first time he’d been trapped, and far from the worst. “I chased him down, Zeb. Wanted to choke the life out of him like all of us, but do you remember this cabin as well as I?” he shouted, placing his hand on one of his guns. The air smelled funny, almost too rich, but with the odor of burnt leather still potent in the air, he wasn’t sure what the scent was, so he focused on on the intruder’s voice instead.
Zeb stayed silent for a while. “I might recall it. What about it?”
“Ned’s their son. He remained hidden and saw everything you, Tom, and Scotch did. Now, I loved Tom like my own blood, but killin’ Ned for taking revenge won’t bring him back. So I made a judgment, Zeb,” Cole hollered, waiting for Zeb’s reaction to assess what the bastard’s plan was.
“A judgement? You have some nerve,” Zeb roared from farther away. He knew Cole’s methods all too well and must have taken cover. “I don’t care whose son he is! You pledged your loyalty to the Boys, not to some rat with a dead daddy and a grudge. Hell, maybe you should line up all those you’ve wronged yourself and let them each take a stab at you, huh?”
“Never claimed to be an innocent, Zeb. But if I knew the names of the men who shot up my pa, I’d have gone after them too. I owed my loyalty to Tom, and he’s now dead. It’s over.”
“I’ll give you one last chance, Cole, ‘cause I always liked you. Let’s say I believe that you hadn’t known the bastard was a rat all along. This only ends with a bullet in his head and you know it. Bring him out. Prove yourself. We get this over with, and then we’ll be square. Clean slate.”
Cole leaned against the wall and shut his eyes before glancing at Ned who stood across the room with his shotgun in hand. When their gazes met, there was a question in the green eyes. ‘Will you do it? Will you sell me out?’
The suspicion stung, but maybe Ned had as little reason to put complete trust in Cole as it was the other way around. For a moment, Cole considered using a ploy to their advantage. Were Ned ready to accept the risk, they could have pretended Cole managed to cuff Ned, gone out, and assessed the situation. But while Ned might have agreed to serving as bait, it struck him that he wasn’t ready to risk Ned’s life. He shook his head.
One way or another, this evening would end in bloodshed. Zeb might be a vengeful bastard, but he wasn’t stupid. After years of harboring a grudge toward them both, he wanted to lure Cole into a false sense of security. And if Cole chose to trust him, for old times’ sake and really did kill Ned, Zeb would unleash the brunt of the fury he’d lived with for so long on the one man left standing—Cole.
The man had never been smart enough to become the unpredictable force Tom had been, and while Cole knew what Zeb was feeling, he would not blindly follow the creed of a man who was long dead.
“I liked you too, Zeb. You taught me many things. But I always was more like Tom than you, and that’s why I understand this doesn’t have to end the one way you think it will,” Cole called out and reached for his coat. Whatever happened next, he needed to be ready.
“Have it your way, rat! Go and die for what your prick wants. I’ll smoke you out if I have to!”
A low, aggressive growl made Cole glance at Dog, but the beast remained still, pawing at his master, who stared at the door with his teeth bared in a wolf-like snarl.
It was only then that Cole realized Zeb had outsmarted them after all. All the talk had been meant to give the men outside time, but as smoke clouded the air under the roof, it became clear that the smell he’d noticed didn’t originate in their fireplace or the burnt boot.
“Oh, Devil’s piss!” he said and spat at the door, for a moment so overtaken with anger he was ready to pull back the latch and storm out, but that would have put him straight into the hands of Zeb and his company. He looked back at Ned, wondering which window offered the best chance for an escape, but for all he knew, they were surrounded. The choice was to either burn or walk into a trap.
“Damn you!”
Ned was hastily stuffing select belongings into a bag as he yelled. “Fuck you, Zeb! You can wait all night! I’ll sooner let the roof cave in on me than let you have me!” But when his eyes met Cole’s, his index finger pointed to the storage room.
Where the tunnel hid under the floorboards.
They had another way out. One Zeb couldn’t have known about, and if someone had hid in the barn, they’d have the advantage of surprise.
Cole’s mouth stretched into a smile, and he squeezed Ned’s hand so firmly he might have broken his fingers had they been daintier. “Get your things,” he urged and ran for the opening, shoving away the empty bottles resting on top of the hatch. The ceiling had already darkened, and with the cabin transforming into an oven, the blow of cool, earthy air from below was a beacon of hope.
Cole didn’t own much, and he always wore the most important bits on him anyway. With the bags he’d packed earlier tucked against his chest, he jumped into the tunnel and gestured at Dog, who gave a nervous whine, staring at the roof, where the flames had already snuck in. The view gave Cole a sense of dread, as if a primitive side of him couldn’t stand the sight of uncontrollable fire, but the animal ought to be even more frightened.
“Come’ere, Dog! You’re coming with us!”
The mutt only moved when its master joined them, but instead of going first and leaving the animal to follow, Ned pushed his pet in. Ned had been smart enough to remind Cole of the tunnel, but his wide eyes flicked from side to side all too fast, as if he couldn’t understand what was going on.
The whiff of dirt, its cold dampness on Cole’s palms felt like purgatory. He didn’t know if he’d emerge in heaven or hell at the end of the tunnel.
What if Dog got scared and stopped Ned from crawling forward? What if the tunnel collapsed? What if Zeb somehow made his way inside the house and found the secret entrance? So many things could go wrong, but the farther they were from the flames, the more he focused. After five years of solitude and using his guns solely for hunting, Ned wasn’t prepared to take a stand against a band of outlaws the way Cole was. If they were to both survive, Ned would have to obey orders and serve as Cole’s backup. Take care of Dog, the horses, and cover him while Cole took out their assailants one by one.
Whatever happened, they would both leave the battleground victorious.
He was surprised by how fast they reached the barn. The entrance from this side had been covered with hay, so once he smelled it and heard no sound other than the horses nervously beating their hooves against the floor, he realized that no one knew about this passage.
“Do we just mount up and go?” Ned whispered as Cole placed his hands against the wood of the trapdoor.
Cole swallowed and looked back, even though he could hardly see Dog’s nose, and nothing of Ned. “No. We need to get rid of them all. You prepare the horses and keep Dog’s muzzle shut,” he said, and pushed up the wooden board before throwing his bags to the floor above. He climbed out into Galahad’s empty stall, ecstatic to barely sense the smoke over the strong aroma of hay. Zeb didn’t know it, but he’d already lost at his own game.
He rushed out of the pen, but as he tried to assess whether their horses were both fine, a dark figure standing in the entrance made him freeze.