Chapter 4 - The Showdown at the Saloon
That partnership was tested to its absolute limit three weeks later when Vance Keller made his final, desperate play.
It was a blistering Tuesday afternoon when Cale and Nora walked into Dry Hollow to pick up a shipment of medical supplies and feed. The town felt unnaturally quiet. Storefront shutters were half-closed, and the boardwalks were entirely cleared of children and stray dogs.
Then Keller stepped out from behind the feed store, his hand hovering dangerously close to the butt of his Remington.
"Voss," Keller sneered, his voice cutting through the dusty street like a razor. "Looks like you brought your pretty little city wife to watch you drop."
Cale stepped smoothly in front of Nora, his hand drifting toward his holster with terrifying calm. "Clear out, Keller. The warrant for your arrest is signed by the judge. Your time in Dry Hollow is done."
"My time is just beginning," Keller snarled, drawing his weapon with lethal speed.
Cale moved faster, but Keller had the element of surprise, and a second gunman hidden on the second-story balcony of the dry goods store fired simultaneously. Cale grunted as the bullet tore through his side, spinning him sideways just as his own revolver cleared leather. Two deafening cracks echoed down Main Street. Keller staggered backward, clutching a shattered shoulder, while his accomplice on the balcony dropped his rifle and bolted down the alleyways.
That was how Cale ended up bleeding on the saloon floor, and how Nora found herself kneeling over him, cutting the bullet out of his chest while thirty townsmen watched in breathless silence.
When she finally dropped the bloody lead slug into the steel basin, the tension in the room broke like snapped wire.
"He's going to live," Nora announced, wiping her brow with the back of her blood-stained sleeve, leaving a streak of red across her forehead that made her look like a warrior queen.
Marcus the blacksmith stepped forward, his hat clutched tightly in his massive hands. "God bless you, Mrs. Voss. We... we didn't know what kind of woman Cale brought home. But by God, she's tougher than nails."
Cale opened his eyes slowly, looking up at her through a veil of exhaustion. The sharp, prickly isolation that had defined his life for thirty-two years was entirely gone, replaced by a fierce, blazing devotion.
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"You saved my life," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
"Consider us even," Nora replied softly, a faint, tired smile touching her lips as she began bandaging his chest. "You gave me a home and a practice. I just made sure you'd be around long enough to appreciate both."
