And then Cora heard herself scream.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Roy’s boots skidded to a halt at the sight of Sheriff Williams lying in a pool of his own blood with a gunshot wound in his chest. Cora had remained frozen beside him, but within seconds, her agonizing scream rang through the house, her hands digging into both sides of her scalp, pulling at her hair. Her body was hunched forward.
Her scream jolted Roy out of his own shock and kicked his instincts in gear. He dove to his knees beside Sheriff Williams, ignoring the blood now soaking through the legs of his own pants. Remembering what the doctor in Wheats Ridge did when one of the hands had fallen from the roof of the barn and was left unconscious, Roy placed two fingers against the side of the sheriff’s neck to check for a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt faint movement beneath his fingertips.
“He’s alive!” Roy shouted over his shoulder at Cora, who was now on her knees in the same place where she had stood frozen. She was no longer screaming but was now whimpering like a wounded animal, rocking back and forth. Roy placed both of his palms hard over the bullet wound.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, so we need to move quickly. Go into the kitchen and fetch as many cloth towels as you can find. And hurry.” Roy was making every effort to keep his voice steady, to be strong for Cora, but he was not ignorant of the severity of the situation. The sheriff’s pulse was present but faint, and he couldn’t afford to lose any more blood.
At Roy’s command, Cora was on her feet, running into the kitchen and returning within seconds with a handful of dishrags. Roy took them from her with one hand, maintaining pressure on the wound with the other, and then began packing the wound with the rags. The first couple of cloths became immediately saturated with blood, but with Roy maintaining pressure and adding the additional rags, the blood flow seemed to slow. A shiver went up Roy’s spine when he realized how fresh this injury was, and what the consequences would have been if they had left the Burns’ property even a minute later.
“Okay, Cora, listen to me carefully. I’m going to stay here and keep pressure on the wound, so he doesn’t bleed out. I need you to run as fast as you can to Dr. Davenport’s place. If he’s not at his clinic, then try next door at his house. Tell him your father has been shot and that it’s an emergency.”
Cora didn’t hesitate and immediately turned toward the door. Before she could pull it open, however, the room was invaded by a new sound—the distinctive, metallic click of a gun cocking.
Roy looked up at the doorway between the kitchen and the living room to see Alfred Mills standing before them with a gun in his hand. He must have been hiding in one of the bedrooms when Cora had gone for the rags, or maybe he’d just let himself in through the back door when he saw their wagon parked outside. Whatever the case, his ugly, twisted smirk left no room for speculation about his intentions. He was here to finish the job he started on Sheriff Williams—to enact his revenge.
“Nobody is going anywhere,” Alfred said coolly, fixing his gun on Cora, whose hand was still frozen on the doorknob. “Let go of the door and back away slowly.”
Cora didn’t move, her eyes closed, either in prayer or shock or a combination of both. Alfred took another step toward her.
“Cora, do what he says,” Roy said firmly, trying and failing to hide the trembling in his voice. At the sound of Roy’s voice, Cora lifted her hand from the knob and turned around slowly, her hands slightly raised in surrender.
“Good girl,” Alfred sneered.
“Alfred, please,” Roy said as calmly as he could manage, one hand raised and the other pressing down on the sheriff’s wound. “Please put away your gun. We can talk about this like adults, and no one else has to get hurt.”
“Oh, I think we’re way past that, don’t you, Burns?” Alfred pointed his gun now at Roy, rubbing the area of his jaw where Roy had punched him with his other hand. “I tried to play nice, remember? I told you to stay away from Cora. I told you that everything had been arranged. But you just couldn’t help but take what isn’t yours, could you?”
“I’m not yours!” Cora said, suddenly finding her voice. “I never belonged to you, Alfred. I made my own choice, so if there’s anyone you should want to shoot, it should be me.”
“Cora, stop…” Roy pleaded, wishing she would stay quiet and not draw attention to herself. If only he could keep Alfred talking, he could detract attention away from Cora.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any reason to be picky, Cora,” Alfred said, his face contorted in a wicked smile. “But you’re actually right, you know. I first came here just to kill you, Cora. I have no tolerance for opinionated, stubborn women who don’t know their place, and I especially wasn’t going to let that kind of woman make a fool of the Mills family name.” He looked down at Sheriff Williams and laughed. “But you weren’t here when I showed up, and your father chose to get in my way. And now that you’re both here, I don’t see any reason to let either of you live. It was, after all, this no-good, lowly ranch hand who influenced you to begin with.”
“He did not influence me,” Cora said, lifting her chin in the air in spite of the terror that had to be surging through her veins. “I know you don’t think very highly of women, but believe it or not, we can think for ourselves. I’ve known all along that you are a vile, corrupt, and godless human being. And tonight, you’ve proved it. Coming here and killing an innocent man!”
Roy suspected that Cora knew her father was still alive, being that he had confirmed it before Alfred walked in, but he didn’t dare correct Alfred. It was better for him to think that Sheriff Williams was dead so that would be one less person for him to focus his attention on. Sheriff Williams was still breathing, and Roy pressed down tighter on the wound, silently praying that his efforts would be enough.
“It’s funny that you say that, Cora. That I came down here to kill. You see, Mother didn’t want me to come down here and do this myself,” Alfred said, keeping his gun fixed on the space between Roy and Cora. “After all, what good is being the wealthiest man in the county if you don’t pay people to do your dirty work for you? I listened to her advice when it came to the church, paid a pretty penny to get that job done.”
Alfred let out another evil laugh, and Roy could practically see the embers dancing in his eyes, the flames that brought his father’s church crumbling to the ground.
“But this? No, this is too personal. I had to come do this myself. I wanted to see the fear in your eyes when you stared down the barrel of my gun.” He took a step closer to Cora, and Roy’s muscles twitched, ready at any moment to abandon post at Sheriff Williams’ side and throw himself in between Cora and Alfred. But he stopped several feet away from her.
“That’s the look right there. The look of a deer right before they die. Now the only question is, which one of you do I shoot first?”
“Me!” Roy said without hesitation, pressing down on the rags one more time to make sure they were compacted hard against the wound, and lifting both hands in the air. This was one decision that he didn’t have to think twice about. He was more than willing to lay down his life for Cora, and maybe while he was distracted by shooting Roy, Cora would be able to escape. Roy prayed that would be the case.
“Go ahead. Shoot me first,” Roy repeated with confidence, rising to his feet to face Alfred like a man.
Alfred turned around to face Roy, and Cora shrunk down to the ground, her back against the door and her knees pressed to her chest.
“No,” she whimpered. “Please, please don’t do this.” It was clear to Roy that Cora’s confident posture had faltered, and Alfred’s eyes twinkled with pleasure at watching her distressed state.
“You know what, lover boy? I think that’s a great idea. If I shoot you first, then she has to watch the man she loves die right before her eyes.”
