But when he rounded the rear corner of the truck, Julie Darwood turned to face him, a gun in each hand and a fierce look on her face. Max skidded to a halt and dived back behind the truck. Just in time, too, for the twin 9mm pistols roared and two bullets cut through the space he'd occupied a split second before.
"Ned!" he shouted. "It's Lara Croft! Get down here. Now!"
* * * * *
Britches had not had time to be scared. She had simply reacted, just as she'd done against Pete and Chad. She had snatched up Lara's guns and turned to face the threat she knew was coming.
She heard Max's shout and knew they were in trouble. She rammed one of the pistols into Mansfield's side. "Get off!" she hissed. "Or I'll blow a hole in you big enough for a haywagon." She felt the man stiffen and then roll off of Lara, leaving her gasping for breath.
The now-frightened man struggled to his feet.
"Get in the truck," Britches told him. "And stay there."
Britches shoved the pistol in her left hand into the waistband of her pants and grabbed Lara by the hand. "C'mon," she urged, pulling her friend to her feet. "We gotta hurry. Ned's coming."
* * * * *
Who's doing all the shooting, Ned wondered as he ran up the street. It couldn't be Lara Croft. He'd seen her die.
Well now, wait a minute. He hadn't actually seen her die. Could she have possibly escaped from the burning truck? It was unlikely, but then what was Max talking about?
Ned was so intrigued by the thought he made a mistake. He was running toward the truck's headlights and made a perfect, brightly-lit target. He saw a shadow moving, just to the left of the truck and swung the Uzi toward it. Actually it was two shadows. One lifted an arm and a bright orange flash lit the night.
* * * * *
Had it been Lara Croft shooting, Ned would have died then and there. But Britches was struggling with one arm around Lara and her hurried shot passed over Ned's left shoulder. Nevertheless, it had positive effect. Ned dived to the ground and rolled away, realizing his mistake, and trying to escape the pool of light.
Moving quickly, Britches half-dragged, half-carried Lara out of the street and into the alley. She didn't see the headlights turn from the main road into the drive.
"Britches," Lara said when they reached the relative safety of the alley. "Wait, please."
Lara leaned against the side of the building, bent over at the waist, breathing deeply.
* * * * *
"What the heck's goin' on, boss?" Reggie asked. "What was all the shootin?" A tall African-Amercian, Reggie looked like an athlete, and had, in fact, played basketball in school. He'd enlisted in the army to get away from his abusive father, but had been given a dishonorable discharge when he was caught stealing from someone's locker.
Reggie had thought about going back to school, but had discovered it was easier to make money working for Max than working hard. And so, a promising sports career had been abandoned for a life of easy, but dishonest money. Ten years later, he was street-wise and one of Max's top men.
Max quickly explained the situation to Reggie and the four men who had come with him. "I want the little blonde gal," he concluded. "Take her alive if possible. She's worth five mil alive and nothing dead. The other one is dangerous. Kill her."
"I don't know how she got away, Max," Ned said disgustedly. "You saw the truck burning, same as I did."
"Well, she's here now," Max replied angrily. "I don't care how you do it, but kill her. Don't come back until you can show me the body. Now get going."
* * * * *
"Gosh, Lara, it all happened so fast. Just like back at the mine. I was really scared. I saw him tackle you and then Max pulled his gun."
Lara straightened up. "You did great, Britches. I just never expected Mansfield would react like that."
Britches handed the pistols back to Lara. "What do we do now?"
"We try to get away." She handed one of the pistols back to Britches. "Keep it, you might need it. Just go easy. What's in the gun is all the ammunition we have. They took my spare magazines up at the mine."
Lara walked back to the street and peered around the corner. The headlights of a second vehicle shown brightly against the darkness. Max's friends must have arrived.
"Let's go," she said to Britches. "If we can make it into the woods, we've a chance."
The two women hurried to the rear of the building. Lara peered around the corner …and quickly withdrew her head.
"No good," she told Britches. "Somebody's coming."
* * * * *
Reggie opened the rear door of his big Chevy Suburban and lifted the lid of a large metal box. He then handed each of his men an Uzi and a spare magazine.
They had only moved a few yards down the street when one of the men shouted. "There goes one!" He brought up his weapon and bright orange flashes lit up the night as he fired a long burst.
Max looked up in surprise, just in time to see a dark shadow running across the street, geysers of dirt erupting behind it.
"Stop! Don't shoot," he cried, for he had seen a flash of bright colored hair. "Not her!"
But no sooner were the words out of his mouth when there were more gun flashes, these from down the street to the left. The man who had fired suddenly screamed and pitched over backwards.
Everyone quickly hit the dirt and Max was not the last one on the ground.
"Who the heck is that?" growled Reggie.
"I told you she was dangerous," replied Max angrily. "Now get there and…"
A shadow broke from where they'd seen the gun flashes and ran for the other side of street.
"Shoot!" yelled Max. "Kill her!"
Three automatic weapons and Max's pistol crashed out. Geysers of dirt kicked up in the street behind the running figure.
There more orange flashes from down the street, this time from the right side of the street. Three columns of dirt erupted right in front of Reggie, who promptly let out a choice string of curses and rolled away.
"What the…" cried Max. The Darwood kid must have gun, too, blast it. Where heck did she get it?
The running figure disappeared into the building and suddenly it was quiet.
"C'mon, Reggie," shouted Max. "Get down there and finish it! Now!"
Reggie scrambled to his feet and gathered his remaining men.
Max watched them go, furious. He was surrounded by fools.
* * * * *
"Hurry, Britches," Lara said when she passed the blonde girl kneeling in the doorway, her pistol pointed up the street.
"Gosh, Lara. Are you all right?" Britches replied once they were inside. "I never heard so much shooting at one time."
"Not a scratch. Not this time anyway." In truth, she hurt all over. "Come on. We need to get out of here before that army arrives."
The two women were in a big, two story structure that had been a hotel in the town's heyday. It had once been a pretty nice place, but now, many years later, the building was badly in need of repair. Britches didn't recognize it in the dark, but it was the same building she'd been in earlier when she chased the prospector.
They were standing in a little foyer (or front entrance hall.) A sitting parlor was to the right and a dining room to the left. In front of them was a narrow corridor, leading to the back, and a staircase, leading to the guestrooms upstairs.
They ran quickly through the foyer, down the long narrow hallway and through the kitchen. The outside door was standing open, but when Lara looked outside, she was greeted by burst of gunfire.
"Now what?" Britches asked.
Lara didn't answer, but headed back through the kitchen and up the hall.
"Upstairs," she told Britches quickly. "Maybe we can hide on the roof or jump to another building." Turning the corner, she headed up the steps, Britches two steps behind her.
In the darkness, neither saw the sign posted at the bottom of the steps.
As with all the buildings at The Bottoms, the hotel had been abandoned for a very long time. A large portion of the roof had blown off in a tornado, exposing the interior of the building to the weather. Open to the wind, rain and snow for decades, the wooden building had rotted away. When the property was purchased as part of Silverado, repairs had begun. But they had not yet been completed, and the now-invisible sign advised visitors that the second floor was unsafe.
The steps leading upstairs were an accident just waiting to happen. Not only was the wood rotten, but termites had destroyed almost all of wood that joined the steps to the adjacent wall.
Between the two of them, Lara and Britches weighed 250 pounds, and the impact of their running feet finished the work the termites had begun. Lara was three-fourths of the way up the steps when there was a loud crack and the floor gave way beneath her.
Suddenly the night was filled with crashing noises and she heard Britches cry out from behind her. Lara desperately reached for something to grab onto. An instant later she was hanging by her fingers, her boots dangling into the blackness below. It was fortunate that her remaining pistol was in her holster or she would have lost it in her struggle to keep from falling.
"Britches?" she called over her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
There was no answer, only a few more small noises as debris continued to fall.
Lara was no stranger to hanging by her fingertips, of course. She had done so many times in her adventures. But as with her attempted run to The Bottoms, tonight was different. She was exhausted and her whole body was a mass of pain.
Her fingers were holding precariously to one of the steps above her. But when she tried to pull herself up, she couldn't. She just couldn't. She simply didn't have the strength.
For a moment she hung there, her fingers getting more tired by the second. To her right was the wall and to her left was the frame of the stairs, complete with the banister (or handrail.) It was the steps themselves, the horizontal part, which had collapsed. Above her, four of the original steps remained and it was the lowest of these that she was holding onto.
Finally, she had an idea. Swinging her legs back and forth, she managed to shimmy her way over to the support structure to her left. Letting go with her left hand, she reached over and grabbed part of the handrail. That was much better, she could get her whole hand around it. A few seconds later, she had grabbed the handrail with both hands.
Encouraged, she swung her legs again and on her second attempt managed to hook her foot around the bannister a little below her. Slowly, painfully, she pulled herself upright, until at last she was standing on the frame that held the handrail. In front of and below her, on the other side of the handrail, was the hall leading back to the kitchen. Behind her was the black, apparently bottomless hole, where the steps had been a moment before.
"Britches?" She called, peering anxiously over her shoulder into the abyss. But couldn't see a thing, just the black pit.
Was she hurt? Or maybe…
She thrust that thought away quickly. Britches just had to be all right.
She was about to work her way down, when she heard a noise in the kitchen. Startled, she quickly remembered Max and his men. Hanging onto the handrail with her left hand, she drew her pistol.
A good thing, too. For just then a man came up the hall and even the dim light, there was no question of what was in his hands. They saw each other at the same instant .
The crash of the weapons was deafening in the enclosed space, the single, rapid shots from her pistol against the continuous roar of the Uzi. The distance was only ten feet.
Lara was a tiny bit faster because she was already facing down, whereas the man had to lift his gun to get a shot at her. Three 9mm rounds from her automatic struck the man in the center of his chest, and he staggered backward, finally twisting to his left and falling into the kitchen.
But his finger clutched the trigger of the weapon and the gun fired a long continuous burst that went wildly out of control. At first, the bullets hit the floor in front of him, but as he twisted and fell, the muzzle of the gun lifted…right at Lara.
Had the magazine of the gun held another ten rounds, Lara Croft would have been killed. But it didn't and she almost escaped unhurt.
But not quite. The last slug from the gun passed between two of the handrails and hit her just above her left ankle.
To be accurate, the bullet passed through her pants and into her cowboy boots, where the thick leather helped to deflect the bullet a little. Had the piece of lead continued on its original path, it would have hit the large bone in her leg. But thanks to the leather, the bullet turned just enough that it took only a small piece of skin before exiting through the back of the boot.
But that single bullet had another effect, this one almost disastrous. The impact of the slug jerked her left foot out from under her, spinning her around and causing her to lose her balance. For an instant she hung over the black hole, with only her right foot and left hand for support. Surprised by the sudden jerk, she almost lost her grip on the handrail.
But she held on long enough to recover and managed not to drop her pistol in the process. She had just gotten her left foot back on the banister when she heard running footsteps on the wooden sidewalk outside.
She quickly weighed her options and decided the only way was up. If she climbed down or over the railing it would put her right in the path of the approaching gunmen. She hated the thought of leaving Britches, but there was no choice for the moment.
Working with both feet and her left hand, she worked her way quickly up the banister, keeping her eyes and pistol pointed at the entrance. She was almost to the intact portion of the steps when they came through the door, both carrying Uzi's.
She froze, hoping they wouldn't see her in the darkness.
"I think they came from here, Reggie," said one man.
"Hey, Sam!" yelled the other man, apparently named Reggie. He was a big African-American and from the way he handled himself Lara thought he might have been a soldier. He was a tough, competent-looking fellow and she decided she wanted no part of any hand-to-hand combat with him.
"Sam!" he yelled again, but no one answered.
"All right, Bennie," Reggie said. "Search the back. I'll take a look in the front rooms." He turned and went into the Parlor and Bennie walked up the hallway below her. If he looked up, she would be in trouble, for her feet were only a meter above his head.
But from the way he looked down, Bennie was apparently more concerned about tripping over something in the semi-darkness. He did not look up.
Lara knew she had to move quickly. He would find the…
"Reggie!" Bennie shouted from the kitchen.
She had just moved to last step when he hurried under her.
"Hey, Reggie," he repeated. "I found…"
Lara put her foot on the step. But like the others, it had weakened from years of neglect. It did not collapse, but gave a loud squeak of protest as her full weight descended on it.
Startled, she froze. But it was too late. Bennie whirled, bringing his gun around, and his eyes widened when he looked up the steps.
Lara was off balance, with one foot on the banister and one on the rickety step and her first shot passed over his right shoulder. So did the second. By the third, he had rolled to his left into the dining room.
She hopped quickly onto the steps…which promptly swayed back and forth, threatening to collapse at any second. She stood helplessly, slightly off balance, holding her pistol with one hand and using the other hand against the wall keep herself from falling into the black hole.
"She on the stairs, Reggie," Bennie's voice said from the dining room. "Almost to the top."
Lara took a step backward, up another step. The stairs groaned and started swaying again.
"Which one, Bennie? The blonde?" asked Reggie. From the sound of his voice, he was right at the entrance to the parlor.
"Who cares, man?" Bennie replied in exasperation. "She's got a gun. And I found Sam back in the kitchen. He's dead."
"You, up there," Reggie called. "Throw down the gun. Or else you're gonna die in the next twenty seconds."
"No bloody likely, Mister Reggie," she taunted. She should have remained silent. Her accent gave her away.
"Kill her, Bennie. Now."
Bennie popped around the corner of the doorframe, and his weapon fired instantly. As before, the gunfire in the enclosed space assaulted her ears. But the shots were intended more as a distraction than anything else. Quick as a flash, Bennie crossed the corridor, intending to hide next to the steps where he could get a good angle upwards.
But he never made it. Because Bennie didn't realize who he was up against. He was halfway across the floor when the first 9mm slug hit him. It was a hurried shot at a moving target and it caught him in the left shoulder. But it was enough to spin him around. The second and third rounds came right behind the first and finished the job.
"Why you…" yelled Reggie and stuck his head around corner. But it was a very quick look because he saw the gun pointed up him. He ducked back just in time to avoid a bullet in the head.
"I'm gonna kill ya, lady!" he yelled.
"Better men than you have tried," she taunted. "You'll end up like your friend Bennie."
Let's face it, folks. Sometimes Lara is downright reckless. Why insult a man who's already mad at you?
Lara glanced behind her. Only two steps to go. How many shots did she have left? She couldn't remember. When she turned back, she saw movement below.
But instead of Reggie, it was the barrel of an Uzi. Only the gun and a dark hand were in sight when he pulled the trigger. Lara was paralyzed by the continuous string of orange flashes which lit up the foyer. And she was almost deafened by the crash of the gunshots as Reggie fired up the steps.
At her.