Ignition: Day 1

 Word Count: 6,038

Summary of Events:

A thunderstorm was raging outside as Keiller cooked supper, and just as he finished it he was startled by a suspicious and distrustful old gold miner entering the back door, who told Keiller he had an intruder he wanted Keiller to come and arrest, which Keiller reluctantly obliged to do, even if he didn't appreciate being startled by the miner. Keiller followed the miner to his home, where he was told the intruder was in the barn, and had barricaded it shut, but Keiller found the rear hayloft door had blown off, and was able to jump inside, only to get knocked unconscious immediately. When he regained consciousness he found his gun was missing — and promptly got shot in the side with it — before the shooter fled, throwing his gun back at him. He pursued the shooter, discovering the shooter to be a woman as he saw her sprinting for his horse. He caught up to her before she could get there and quickly found himself in a fierce struggle to restrain her . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Finally, however, her teeth sunk deep into his wrist and he couldn’t tear his hand free; he swore at her and tried to wrench her jaw open, but she wouldn’t give, so he finally drew his pistol and did as she’d done to him before, striking her firmly at the base of her skull with the handle.

Immediately she dropped limp in his arms and he was able to drag her over to the porch, where he laid her down out of the rain, reaching for his handcuffs, only to find their pouch empty.

Swearing under his breath, he seized the end of a ribbon that was securing her hair and pulled it free of the locks he could only tell were dark in what was clearly waning light, using it to bind her wrists together securely.

He looked at her for a moment. Her clothes were quite gaudy, which led him to wonder where she’d come from, as Rock Creek prided itself in not having a place where women of her kind lived. The nearest town with such a place was Nevada City, whose name drove his blood up to a hot simmer.

Quickly he shoved himself to his feet and turned away, banishing the adoring face from his mind before it could assert itself. Conniving snake and her façade of innocence.

With a brisk stride he returned to the barn, up the ladder, and into the loft, where he actually succeeded in glimpsing a shiny object on the floor before he got very far. Going over to it, he found it was his missing handcuffs, and put them back in their pouch. Ribbons didn’t tear easily unless they had a cut in them, and since his captive was unconscious, she couldn’t exactly cut her ribbon on anything.

He returned down the ladder and over to the barn door. His eyes widened in horror when he saw Old Zach had recovered from the door in the face and had his rifle poised to kill the woman.

“Don’t!” he shouted, sprinting across to the porch and grabbing at Old Zach’s rifle stock, only to have the suspicious prospector move it out of his reach. “She’s not vermin, she’s human, despite your impersonal pronoun usage, and shooting humans can get you hanged.”

Old Zach stepped back, looking somewhat wary, but also angry.

“As if you’re going to do what you should with it,” Old Zach spat.

“Her,” he replied firmly, bending down and carefully hoisting her limp body over his shoulder.

He carried her over to Huntress, whose ears followed him the whole way, but didn’t sidestep or fuss as he gently laid the young woman across her withers before managing to swing aboard himself.

Gently, he then drew the young woman’s body onto his lap so the saddle horn wouldn’t be driving into her abdomen before immediately looking up to his mare’s head, lest he think about the fact that he had a woman lying across his lap, and cued his mare to bend her head toward him.

She obeyed and he was able to pick up his reins, passing the far one over her head before he settled them evenly into his hand and used them and a touch of the gentle spur on his left heel to ask her for a rightward turn.