Over the Edge
Authors: Mary Connealy
© 2012 by Mary Connealy
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-7108-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dan Pitts
Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC
Author is represented by Natasha Kern Literary Agency
In many ways I mark my writing life by my youngest daughter, Katy. I started writing my first book when she went to kindergarten. I held my first published book in my hands the year she graduated from high school. When I look at how she’s grown up I take pride in her at the same time I know it’s mostly coming from inside her and I have no right to pride. All that talent and charm and intelligence are her own, gifts given to her by God that she uses so well. I love you, Katy.
I also dedicate this book to Luke Hinrichs, my editor at Bethany House. He’s worked so hard and contributed so much to my books. Luke and Charlene Patterson have this great eye for weaknesses in the plot and how to make the book stronger. It’s a privilege to work with both of them and all the people at Bethany House.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Books by Mary Connealy
Back Cover
Chapter
1
OCTOBER 30, 1866
A bullet slammed through the door of the stagecoach, threading a needle to miss all four passengers.
“It’s a holdup!” Callie grabbed her rifle. “Get down!”
The stage driver yelled and cracked his whip. More flying lead hit, higher on the stagecoach. The man riding shotgun got his rifle into action.
“Get on the floor!” The woman sitting across from Callie was frozen with fear. That endangered Connor and it made Callie furious.
The bullets came fast. The stage was moving slow on a long uphill slope. With the driver’s shout they picked up speed. From the roof, she heard a steady volley of deafening return fire.
Reaching across, Callie grabbed the woman by the ruffled front of her pink gingham dress and dragged her off the seat. The woman shrieked but didn’t put up a fight, which was smart of her. Callie would’ve won that fight.
Somewhat more gently, Callie picked Connor up from the seat beside her and set him on the woman’s lap. Eight-month-old Connor yelped, more a shout of anger than a cry. But crying would come soon enough. Her little wild man didn’t do anything quietly.
“Can you shoot?” she shouted at the young man, hoping he’d snap out of whatever panic had seized him. He shook his head frantically. “Get on the floor, then.”
Callie used her whiplash voice and hoped it got the man moving. She threw herself across to the woman’s seat to face backward. With her Colt in her left hand and her Winchester in her right, she shoved the curtain aside. The flare of the orange and yellow aspen lining the road blocked any sign of the gunmen.
Callie didn’t bother to push the man to the floor. Let the idiot figure that out himself. She got a glimpse of the robbers riding around a curve. Bullets hailed on the coach. Callie held back, waiting for a clear shot.
Connor’s yelling turned to a cry. Callie was enraged that her son was in such terrible danger when he should have been safe on her father’s ranch in Texas.
The noise overhead said the driver’d slid off his high seat to use the stage as cover. She heard the man riding shotgun land flat on his belly on the roof. The driver’s shouting and the gunfire slashed like a sharp knife through the cool October morning.
“Try and calm Connor down.” Not much chance of that. Connor had been a whirlwind since birth. And the two caring for him were more upset than he was.
She counted four outlaws. The varmints had picked this uphill slope a few miles outside of Colorado City because the stage had slowed to a crawl.
Callie had plenty of bullets, but she was a conservative woman, and she didn’t intend to fire blind and waste lead. She was mighty low on money and she needed ammunition for when she finally tracked down that worthless Seth Kincaid.
The stagecoach yawed past a curve and it put them out of the line of fire until the outlaws could round it.
The young woman was hugging Connor. The man had wedged himself onto the floor, putting his body between Connor, his wife, and the gunfire. Maybe he wasn’t completely worthless.
A bullet cut through the stage door. Splinters exploded and slashed Callie’s left hand. She flinched and got her hand right back on the trigger of her Colt.
Callie braced her rifle against her shoulder and took careful aim; the whole world slowed down, the noise fading into the background. She felt pulled away, out of the action. Her mind was working clearly, her nerves steady. The bleeding hand didn’t hurt. As she looked at the trail behind, the colors were so vivid and her vision so sharp it was almost painful.
The pulsing hooves gave away the attackers’ exact location. And the slow-moving coach gave her a chance at a steady shot.
A glance over her shoulder told her the trail would twist just ahead. Their pursuers would be swallowed up by the heavy forest lining the road. They appeared and disappeared in the thick plumes of dust.
Callie saw shining silver on the band of a flat-topped black hat. The man was a fool to wear silver if he wanted to make his living sneaking around.
Callie inhaled slowly, then exhaled halfway to relax her chest, waited for the glint of silver, and fired.
A bright splash of red marked the desperado’s shirt as he fell backward and was gone. Another outlaw took his place at the front of the pack.
Connor shrieked at the loud sound of shooting so close. Callie separated herself from her mother’s need to comfort, because the real comfort came from a ma who would protect him. She’d dry his tears later.
With the cool ruthlessness of a mama wolf defending her young—a mama wolf with a fire iron—Callie drew a bead and fired. Her target kept coming. Bullets shattered the door just above her head. They’d aimed at the roof mostly, but now they knew someone inside the stage was in the fight.
Hating that she’d drawn their guns and further endangered Connor, she kept on firing. From overhead she heard the same. A steady man guarded the stage. The driver kept shouting, cracking his whip. Another steady man was at the reins.
A second outlaw went down. A third pressed forward. She’d counted four, so they were close to finishing this nonsense.
They crested the hill. A few more yards and they’d pick up speed. Colorado City was at the base of this rattlesnake of a trail.
Hold them off. A few more seconds.
Callie fired. A bullet whizzed so close she felt the heat.
A sudden snap under the stagecoach lurched them to the side. They tipped, lifting Callie’s side of the bench seat up, up, up. She saw the woman wrap her body around Connor and the man wrap his arms around both of them. Her son surrounded by a flesh-and-blood shield. A sickening crunch told her the stage had hit the rocky outcropping on the side of the trail. A chunk of wood bounced into the dust behind them. Part of one wheel.