Page 19 of Red Hawk's Woman

Silence.

Timidly at first, she sat up in bed, picking up an object that always stayed close to her. “I should warn you,” she spoke as though with ease, “that I sleep with a gun. I have done so since I was a child.”

Holding the weapon with both hands, she cocked the pistol to give emphasis to the fact. The sound of the catch was loud in the otherwise silent room.

She continued, “I have this pretty little Colt revolver pointed at your head. If I were you, I would leave as silently as I came. For if you don’t, you will soon not have the means to do so.”

The figure made no further movement. However, the sound of another pistol being cocked shot through the room.

Effie’s heart leapt into her throat. Summoning her courage, she kept her voice steady as she said, “My father always encouraged me to expect the best in people and to give fair warning, and so I will with you. I will give you only until I count to ten, and if you are still here then, I promise that I will shoot you. One…two…”

The black figure crept closer.

“Three…four…five…”

The figure darted to the side, but in doing so, had come one step closer to her.

“I am not pretending a skill I do not have,” Effie elaborated. “I may be a woman, but I have no reservations about shooting you. Six…seven…”

The man in black leapt forward but was still too far away to reach her.

Shocked, but with the gun held steadily in front of her, she counted down more swiftly, “Eight…nine.”

A blast filled the room, but not from her revolver. Her assailant’s bullet must have hit the bedding close by her. Feathers flew everywhere.

Pretending a calmness she was far from feeling, Effie said, “You missed. Ten.”

Effie pulled the trigger, and the sound of the explosion was deafening.

Had she hit her target? She peeped around the bedpost.

No. But then what should she have expected? She had not aimed to kill, only to hurt, to disable.

But the intruder, as though a mere shot had taken away his boldness, turned, and executing a rather classical pirouette, opened the door and disappeared beyond it.

Gun still clutched with both hands, still pointed toward a now absent “guest,” Effie sat quietly in the aftermath. She let out her breath, hardly able to account for the fact that someone had to know what treasure she carried. Indeed, someone had to know what her project intended to do.

How had this happened? How had this news leaked out to society’s unsavory element?

A few moments passed, and Effie became aware of the sounds of people—probably other hotel guests and her crew—who were on the other side of her door. However, it was beyond her ability to move, let alone speak or explain what had happened. Briefly, she was glad they were out there, not in here.

She was unnerved. True, she slept with a gun. True, she knew how to use one.

But never had she been forced to take action against another human being with one. She found the experience far from pleasant.

Gradually, someone opened her door—it wasn’t, after all, locked. Not anymore. One of her colleagues, Carl Bell, was followed immediately by another one of her associates, Henry Smith. Then came the rest of her crew, Lesley and Madeline, who were followed by a few others Effie didn’t know. As people began to filter into the room, it occurred to her that the worst thing that could have possibly happened to the project just had.

Not only were the artifacts no longer safe, neither was she.

I… We need protection.

On this thought, she steeled herself to explain, as best she could, what had transpired only a moment earlier.

The very next day the man she had hired as their guide quit, stating that she had misinformed him of the exact sort of danger her project entailed.

“How on God’s green earth did my guide hear about the raid on the project? On me? And so quickly?”

“Bad news travels fast, ma’am.”