Free A Good Day to Die by William W. Johnstone Page A

wreck of one who’d once been fancied by appreciative males as “a damned handsome woman.” Hard times and privation had worn her down. Her gray-streaked brown hair was pinned up so as not to interfere with the daily round of household chores. A deeply lined, square-shaped face showed a strong chin and a lot of jaw.
    Movement outside caught her eye as four Indians on horseback cut off Seton and Eben from the house. Immediately, she closed and barred the front door, and shuttered the front window. Stuffing her pockets with shells from a box nestled on a ledge nearby, she grabbed the shotgun from where it stood against the wall beside the front door. Her eyes, usually dull with fatigue, were hard and intent.
    Lydia went through the dogtrot into the east room. The twin of its opposite number, it was a low-ceilinged cube, bright where sunlight shone through the south-facing window and dim where shadows massed.
    A rear corner had been partitioned into a kind of alcove, which was used as a storeroom. The windowless enclosure was thick with stuffy brown gloom.
    Lydia stepped inside, looking for the wicker basket containing her mother’s sewing kit with its spare bobbins of thread. She rummaged through boxes of household goods and domestic implements in search of the kit, but couldn’t find it.
    Hunkering down, not wanting to soil her dress by kneeling on the hard-packed dirt floor, she searched the lower shelves. The sewing kit continued to elude her. Frowning, she started pulling out boxes and looking inside them.
    She grew aware of a commotion outside. Like a garment snagged on a nail, her attention was caught up by the sound of laughter—a sound rarely heard on the hardscrabble, just-getting-by-if-that Fisher ranch.
    Lydia’s frown deepened. She disliked something in the laughter, a note of meanness. Or craziness. Or both.
    The laughter stopped. Lydia rose to see what it was all about. After the gloom of the storage space, the sunlight shafting through the window was dazzling. She squinted against it, eyes narrowed.
    A shot sounded from outside.
    Ada Jenks Fisher came barreling out of the west room. Usually too worn out by hard work for speed, she moved fast, rushing along the dogtrot into the east room, carrying the shotgun. Brushing past Lydia, she slammed the front window shutters closed. Made of hardwood several inches thick, they had loopholes for shooting through. “Help me bar the window! Quick!”
    A voice started screaming, ragged, high-pitched.
    Eben?
    Another shot boomed, followed by an outcry.
    A third shot.
    Silence.
    Laughter again, thinner than before.
    â€œMa, what?”
    â€œQuick!”
    Stung, Lydia took hold of a stout wooden bar lying on the floor below the window. With both hands, she lifted it and wrestled it into the pair of U-shaped metal staples bracketing the window frame. Ada’s free hand helped push it solidly into place.
    No sooner was the job done than Ada caught Lydia by the arm, clutching her thin wrist. Turning, she started back the way she came, pulling Lydia after her with a wrench that nearly yanked her off her feet.
    â€œMa! You’re hurting me!”
    â€œHush up, you fool girl!”
    They hustled through the dogtrot into the west room, shadowed in brown murk.
    Outside, screaming broke out, raw and terrible. Counterpointing the screams came shrill exultant cries, sounding like a cross between a screech owl and a coyote.
    Lydia put her hand to her mouth, gasping. “What is it, Ma?”
    â€œIndians!”
    The rear half of the west room was partitioned into two cramped, criblike rooms. Blankets strung on head-high, horizontal poles served as doors. Ada went into a room, pulling Lydia, dazed and numb, after her.
    The room was hot, dim, and stuffy. Set high in the rear wall was a small, square window. The shutter was open, unfastened.
    Ada put her mouth close to Lydia’s ear, speaking low. “Comanches killed Fisher,” she