She could shoot again. She had enough bullets. But then that Bryce fellow could shoot Mitchell.
Perspiration dripped down the sides of her forehead. What could she do? What would Josie do in this situation?
A shot rang out.
Chapter Twenty
Despite the fire inhis arm, Mitchell ducked when the shot flew past Clarkson—and barely missed Bryce. It hadn’t come from the person behind the bluff. The angle wasn’t right.
But wherever it had come from, it had distracted Bryce long enough to allow Mitchell to scoop his own pistol up from the ground. It felt odd in his left hand, but he didn’t have long to think about that. When Bryce turned back around, Mitchell aimed it at him.
“Who was that?” Clarkson roared at the sky. He turned this way and that, revolver held in his outstretched arms, searching for the source of the latest gunshot.
Mitchell didn’t pay him much mind. At least Bryce couldn’t up and shoot him now that Mitchell also aimed at him.
Another shot echoed off the bluff. It was close enough to make Clarkson’s horse dance sideways.
“Clarkson,” Bryce croaked from where he sat on the ground. When Clarkson glanced back at him, he nodded at the road toward the west.
Mitchell followed his gaze and saw the most welcome sight he thought he’d ever seen.
A cloud of dust rose in the distance, but he could just make out men on horseback. Multiple men on horseback.
Mitchell jerked his gaze toward the bluffs. The person hiding behind them and— A glint of silver shone from atop the lowest bluff. There was a second person up there.
They’d come for him. Arlen, George . . . It couldn’t be Lara, as Clarkson had thought. Could it? He didn’t know who it was, but they were there. And those riders headed toward them. She’d somehow alerted the sheriff.
“It’s too late,” he said to Clarkson. “They’re coming for you.”
Bryce shook his head and laid down his gun. “I’m done with this.”
But Clarkson wheeled around. Mitchell recognized that fire in his eyes. It was the same look he’d seen just before they’d been apprehended after trying to rob the train leaving Denver.
Clarkson was a man with nothing to lose.
He leveled his pistol at Mitchell.
