The raiders, a mix of Evergreenhands and Cases riders came thundering past the house Winchesters firing as they raced past the house. One handed use of their rifles meant that the shots were wild, but there were enough from the five that any sane person would have ducked.
Somehow the boy had slipped past the riders, not that some were not above killing a child, but their attention had been elsewhere, so they failed to see the boy reach the barn. They crossed each other and each group slid their mounts to a halt turning them, levering another cartridge into the chamber as they made another pass, with a pair of them using both hands to operate their rifles and sending several shots at the house, slugs thudding into the walls, and shattering window glass.
The idea was to keep the farmers from getting to the barn or try to quell the blaze in the field. If they hit anyone, with their charges past the house so much the better.
"Yes, Dear"
Jacob was on his feet and found himself mechanically picking up his old Springfield 1840 musket from the corner where he'd leaned it and priming it with a percussion cap. It had, once upon a time, been a smoothbore flintlock model, but his Pa had had it converted long time past into a percussion model and had its thick, heavy barrel rifled. The young father-to-be forced himself to do everything slowly and calmly: this felt like a serious attack on his Father-in-Law's homestead and frankly, he expected they all might be massacred: if Clara, and the baby she carried inside her, survived and he didn't, he wanted her to remember him acting dying bravely.
"There's fire everywhere!" she cried out.
"You'd best step back from that window, Clara" he advised laconically. Looking at Aurelian, he simply asked "Where'd you want me, Sir?" as he hefted his familiar and surprisingly accurate, if slow loading, weapon, his companion on many a hunting expedition.
At first Lucinda had thought the barn fire was just a little fire. Maybe Wyatt had been playing with cigarettes and had left one smoldering near the barn. But it very quickly became obvious that this was not a little fire.
"Aurelian, what can I do?" She was ready to get wet rags, buckets of water, anything to smother the fire and keep it from coming towards the house. She didn't know if it was possible for fire to spread that way, but who knew? Fire was unpredictable.
She crossed to one of the windows and peered out at the blaze coming from the barn. The strange thing was, Aurelian and Jacob seemed to be preoccupied with something besides the fire. They both had their guns to hand. Why? Guns weren't going to help putting out the fire. But when the first of the gunshots rang out, Lucinda knew this wasn't an ordinary fire. People had started this fire. As Jacob advised Clara to get away from the windows, Lucinda took a step back. That was probably a smart idea.
The glass shattered suddenly, and Lucinda screamed. She couldn't help it. It had been so sudden. As she staggered further back into the house, she found herself grabbing for Clara's hand. This was horrible. Clara was with child, and Wyatt was out there somewhere where all the shots were coming from.
"What should we do?" she demanded, her voice shaking. Surely Clara had more experience with this sort of thing than she did. Were they supposed to hide? Were they supposed to try to dash out to the barn to help Wyatt with the animals? Or maybe help the men reload their guns? She didn't even know how to load a gun.
The five riders made another pass when Grothe saw the barn door was wide open and the stock was streaming out, how this happened he had no idea but they still needed to make their passes until there were some objections made, like being shot at, and he, as well as the others, were beginning to sober up to the fact of what they had done, and were doing.
For Case's men, most had been on other raids, so this was second nature to them. Burning out nesters was all but second nature to them. In fact, the only thing worse than sodbusters were sheepherders. Them they would shoot on sight.
So far they had not been shot at which was something of a surprise but all of them knew sooner than later someone would start taking potshots at them, and then there would be a decision to make, ride out, the damage done, or, press their attack and kill them all.
"Wyatt! Get down!" Aurelian was furious, not so much at the boy though he had done a very foolhardly thing, but at what was happening to their home. Their lives. And he was quite certain he knew whose men these were. Despite the wild shots being fired, he was a combat veteran and knew one had to remain calm and collected at all costs. He knelt down to present a smaller target then fired at one of the men riding by. He had always been a good shot with the Sharps carbine but the last time he'd killed a man had been back in the war. He hadn't hated the rebs, he DID hate these bastards!
The main drawback to the Sharps was it was a one shot and then reload open, he opened the breech and reached for another round to reload.
There were excited voices inside the house, Jacob's was surprisingly calm, took a lot to rattle that lad, yet another reason he liked Clara's husband.
"Where'd you want me, Sir?"
"Pick a window and rest your gun then shoot every chance you can!" Aurelian answered as he reloaded, wincing when a bullet imbedded not a foot from him.
Lucinda was talking too but he just didn't have time for conversation. Not that there was much the poor woman could do. They depended on their well for water so she wasn't going to be able to even collect water to fight off a possible fire on the farm house itself. They would just have to make sure it never would start.
He leveled his weapon and aimed at another target.
Both Jacob and Lucinda were wanting Clara to seek cover but fat chance of that. Of all the Redmonds, it was Clara who was probably the most combative ornery sort. Her father had taught her how to use his Dragoon Colt and she had done alright in practice shooting. This would be for real though. But Clara didn't listen to the voices, she had just then seized the big pistol which was holstered on a wall hook. It was already loaded.
She felt Lucinda grabbing for her hand and saying something but Clara simply pulled away, no time for talk!
"Get on the floor!" was all the advice she had to give. Lucinda had no weapon, there was nothing else the poor thing could do.
With that Clara took up position so she could see out the front door, next to her kneeling father as she cocked the heavy revolver then holding it with both hands took aim. A horseman rode right by, firing wildly from the saddle, it was almost like the man was having a good old time of it. Well, Clara would see about that.
She squeezed the trigger and the Dragoon kicked, fortunately she was well aware of the recoil.
***
Wyatt had succeeded in letting the horses out at least but now he was lying on his stomach in the grass by the barn as these attackers rode back and forth. He could only hope they were too busy with the farm house to even see him in the poor light.
"Yes, Dear"
Jacob poked his long nose out of the shot-in window, but all he could see was smoke. After a second of that useless exercise he jogged to the door where his pregnant wife was taking pot shots with a revolver that looked massive in her small hands, but which she wielded with no little determination and skill.
"Say, Clara, cover me - shootin' from in here's a dead loss, I'm going to try and get up on the roof. I'll see if Wy's out there while I'm at it." he told her and ran out as soon as he'd said it before she could object. He loved her dearly, but sometimes she thought a little too much for a woman, and was apt to tell him what she thought.
He ran round the side of the little house where he remembered the roof stooped low and a water barrel was conveniently situated, ignoring a couple of bullets that whizzed through the air from out of the smoke. He wasn't going to point his slow-loading rifled musket at any one or anything until he'd got a clear shot. Maybe at this point he should have regretted refusing the suspicious offer of a brand spanking new repeater from the gunsmith Roland Smith... but it'd be a cold day in Hell before he'd accept a loaded 'gift' from that sidewinder!
His lanky form managed to get up on the shingles and scrabble upwards on all fours like a lizard, and could he only hope the original owners had made the roof strong enough to bear a man's weight, else he'd soon be back where he started. He couldn't see Wyatt and didn't have the time nor the inclination to dwell too deeply on what might have happened to the lovable little scamp. What he did see was one of their assailants, mounted, looking around for further havoc to wreak.
This was it, if nothing else he could send one of the varmints straight to Hell before they all succumbed. Laying prone on the roof, he was able to draw a steady bead on the man, just like when he was hunting rabbits and squirrels, and let loose a blast from his ancient but loyal piece.
From inside the house, the others heard a triumphant whoop from up above.
Making another pass at the house where shots were now coming from, Knox spurred his mount for another pass, levering and firing as he galloped past the front of the house when he saw someone on the roof, but a moment too late as he saw the flame blossom from whatever gun the man was using, and just as suddenly felt the slug slam into his shoulder, sending him off his horse, and sprawling in the dust as the others converged on him, firing as fast as they could lever rounds into their rifles.
Pecos rode up next to the dazed outlaw and reached for him, Knox had the clarity to grab on and swing up as Pecos spurred his mount out of the line of fire and toward the road, it was Grothe that caught up Knopx's horse, as the men kept up the barrage of rifle fire covering Pecos' retreat and escape.
Gorthe kept up the firing from his horse as did the others. But they were all on the verge of needing to reload, fifteen rounds only go so far and once they were expended they would be defenseless even though the fire coming from the house was from single-shot rifles. They could kill or wound as easily as any repeater!
One of the riders toppled off his horse! That was something, Aurelian knew it wasn't from his shooting though as he was reloading. But the other riders rallied about the man firing off their repeaters as fast as they could. It was inaccurate but it was still a lot of rounds peppering the cabin wall and doorside forcing back Aurelian and even Clara wasn't fool enough to risk returning fire against that barrage.
Thing was it couldn't last forever and sure enough the firing petered off as the sound of hooves were heading away from the farmhouse. They were beating a retreat. It seemed they had rescued the fallen thug, Aurelian noted as he peeked around the corner and the last man had just fired and turned his horse to join his companions. His back was to the farmer. There was nothing about this whole thing that was sporting though.
Aurelian aimed square at the man's back and fired.
***
Clara had fired off three rounds of the Dragoon but what with the gun kicking and the terrifying shots splintering all around her, she was pretty certain she hadn't hit a thing. So she had ducked back into the building even as she thumbed the hammer back on the Colt. It sounded like they were leaving though. Thank the Good Lord!
The shot from the sodbuster caught Nate in the back and blew out through the front of his chest, the force of the shot shoved him forward and then he toppled backward, but to his left, his boot caught in a stirrup, he left the saddle and was drug after the other others as they galloped away from the house, burning barn, and some accurate shooting from the house.
They held up on the road. "Damn that back shootin' sod buster!!" Pecos snarled.
"Got us one dead, one winged. Glad them folks is all joyful, cus this here ain't hardly the last of it!" Grothe hissed. Ol' man Steelgrave won't cotton ta this one bit."
"Well I can tell ya this, there' gonna be hell ta pay, we git on back to the hideout! This here place is gonna be a pile'a ashes! Case, he won't take lightly ta this, an' I 'spect the same'll be true of his pap! We need ta burn 'em all out!"
"Let's git. load up Vernon there an' skedaddle." Grothe stated. "We'll talk." and the riders moved out, Evergreen hands, one dead, and the outlaw gang of Case Teelgrve toward their hideout
So the oft-mentioned, sometimes threatened range war between the Steelgraves and the Thortons might well become a war on those that tilled the soil and raised crops, not that Cases's men had not been engaged in that all along. But now, that strange vengeance of the outlaws that had one of their own killed by those they had meant to do harm to would enrage them to further violence and loss of life. Only this time it would not be random, it would be aimed at one place, providing the two Steelgraves were of like mind over this.