Code of the Wolf by Susan Krinard

your head out. I know how to get around them. You cover me.”
    Before she could protest, he was running around the rocks, crouched low and ready to shoot. He heard Serenity’s feet crunch on the gritty earth behind him. He prayed she was only getting into position to shoot if one of Leroy’s gang spotted him.
    They didn’t see him until he was within a few feet of the arroyo, and then only because someone out of his sight nearly got him in the leg. He half fell into the arroyo, twisting like a cat so that he landed on his feet and was firing before his boots touched ground.
    There were four horses and three men crowded between the steep walls of the arroyo—Leroy, Hunsaker and Silas—and two bodies sprawled behind them, one male and one female. The man was Stroud, clearly dead, and the woman was Bonnie Maguire. She was lying on her stomach, very still, but breathing.
    Leroy was heavily bandaged, but he wasn’t as badly hurt as Jacob had hoped when he’d seen the outlaw shot. Leroy’s eyes blazed with a very personal hatred.
    Three guns aimed at Jacob. He got Leroy in the bad shoulder again and watched the man go down before the first bullet grazed his own arm. He twisted out of the path of two more bullets and fired again.
    His shot missed, but someone else’s didn’t. Hunsaker fell with a cry. The horses shied and squealed. Hoofbeats pounded at the edge of the arroyo.
    Serenity had ignored his warning.
    â€œGo back!” he ordered.
    â€œYou’d better give up!” Serenity shouted from her position somewhere above them. “You’re outnumbered!”
    Silas looked wildly toward Jacob and aimed his revolver at the female body at his feet. “Tell her if anyone shoots again, I’ll kill this bitch!”
    Jacob lowered his gun. “Serenity!” he called. “Can you hear me?”
    â€œI hear you. Are you all right?”
    â€œYes.” The slight wound on his arm was already healing, and he was too worried to feel much pain. “Don’t shoot, and tell your friend to hold her fire. They’ve got Bonnie.”
    Neither Silas nor Leroy heard Serenity’s soft wail, but it tore at Jacob’s heart. He swallowed a growl and faced the two men who remained.
    â€œI warn you,” he said, “if you hurt the woman, you’ll never get out of here alive.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    S ILAS LAUGHED NERVOUSLY. “You’re going to let us go, Constantine, and we’ll be taking the woman. We’ll release her when we’re good and ready. If you try to follow us—”
    He continued with his threats, but Jacob was concentrating on the sounds of movement above the arroyo. Serenity had dismounted and was walking away. Not abandoning him or Bonnie, he knew, but planning some new and foolhardy tactic. He had no way to stop her, but at least the men hadn’t heard her. He could keep them occupied until something—or someone—broke the stalemate.
    â€œHow do I know the woman is still alive?” he asked.
    â€œShe’s alive,” Leroy said, clutching his bloody shoulder and rolling to his knees, his face pale as milk. “But she won’t be much longer if you don’t do what we say. Drop the gun.”
    Jacob let his pistol fall and raised his hands. “Why did you come back?” he asked.
    â€œYou think I’d let a bunch of ugly bitches drive us away?”
    â€œSo you thought you’d make them pay.”
    â€œThey will pay.”
    â€œDidn’t you plan to take the woman and leave?”
    â€œI’ll be back.”
    â€œAnd I’ll find you. You think I believe you’ll let the woman go once you’re out of here? You’ll kill her, and there won’t be anything to stop me from getting you.”
    Leroy glowered. It was obvious he knew Jacob wasn’t bluffing. The fight seemed to go out of him all at once, but Jacob wasn’t fooled.
    â€œI’ve got a deal