Unending Devotion (Michigan Brides #1)(82)

“They’re tearing apart the van!”

“My office?” the foreman roared.

Cookee nodded. “And the store.”

Connell’s mind flashed to the needless destruction he’d witnessed at the newspaper office and at Stuart’s home. Heated anger spurted through his blood at the picture of Carr’s men tearing through the small building where the foreman and scaler worked and slept, where they also kept a small inventory of store goods—mittens, socks, tobacco, and medicines.

“How many men, Cookee?” Connell’s grip on his knife tightened.

“Three.”

Herb had already started forward.

Connell threw him his ax, which he caught by the handle and wielded like a weapon. The hardness of the man’s face confirmed he’d fight alongside Connell. He was angry at the destruction and intimidation too.

“Anyone care to loan me his hunting knife?” Connell glanced around to the others. “I think I’ll have need of one or two more.”

The men had paused their work and were staring at him. What did they think? Would they support him or not?

“I won’t put up with Carr bullying any of my men or my camps.”

When several of the men nodded and a few others muttered oaths about Carr, the tightness in Connell’s chest eased. And when two of the send-up men handed him their knives, a jolt of confidence propelled him forward.

He nodded his thanks and then took off at a sprint after Herb.

After running at top speed the half mile back to the camp, they arrived in front of the van with their breaths puffing into the air like bursts of steam engine smoke.

The blacksmith, waiting in the doorway of his log shop, joined them, a hammer in one hand and a sledge in the other. His shiny black apron pulled taut across his wide girth. He lifted his hammer. “Some of us around here are fed up with how James Carr can do whatever he wants and get away with it.”

Connell stopped at the sight of the wrath boiling in the blacksmith’s eyes. Would the people of Harrison, the men of the camps, and the residents of Clare County be willing to fight Carr? Had he been wrong to assume everyone was afraid of him?

“I brought Carr’s anger upon myself,” Connell said to both the men. “You don’t need to do this—”

“We think you did the right thing,” the smith said. “We’re in this together.”

“Anyone who threatens this camp,” Herb added, “threatens me.”

The two men didn’t back down.

The shattering of the glass window on the side of the tiny log building was followed by the crash of a chair against the hard-packed snow.

Connell raised one of the knives and then kicked the door. The force flung it open and slammed it against the wall. The usual musty odor—a lingering scent of kerosene and tobacco—swelled over him.

“Well, look what we got here, boys” came a voice from within the dusky interior.

One of the men, in the process of tearing the pages out of Herb’s tally book, paused. A half page fluttered to the floor. Another man rummaging through a spilled carton of cigars straightened.

“Get out.” Connell drew mental targets on the two men in places that would hurt but not cause death.

“We’ve been waiting for you to get back to town.” Another man stepped closer to the door, the daylight revealing his face.

“Jimmy Neil?”

The man smiled, exposing the black gap in his cracked top teeth. The smile was followed by the glint of a pistol.

“So Carr’s got you doing his dirty work now?” Connell’s body tensed. He wasn’t sure he could fling his knife into Jimmy’s hand before he pulled the trigger.

“Putting a bullet in your heart isn’t dirty work,” Jimmy sneered. “It’s chopping your body into tiny pieces and tossing them into the well that gets messy.”

“Carr can’t kill me.” At least he was gambling upon the fact that Carr wouldn’t have him murdered in broad daylight.

Connell took a step toward Jimmy, but his heart quivered with the uncertainty of how to proceed, how to actually fight against Jimmy or anyone. Sure, he’d pounded Tierney until he was nearly unconscious, but how would he fight against three men?

“We’ve got orders to take you to Carr.” Jimmy’s aim didn’t budge. “Today. Now.”

“You can tell Carr I’ve been meaning to pay him a visit.” Connell flung one of his knives toward the bouncer with a stolen cigar in his mouth. The knife came within two inches of the man’s face and sliced the cigar so that only the head remained between his lips, dribbling tobacco to the floor.

With a twang, the knife embedded into the shelves behind the man—the shelves barren of all the camp-store supplies, which were dumped across the floor.

Connell had another knife in place and ready to throw before the man could even blink.

“Let Carr know I’ll make sure he’s more than compensated for the girl.” With a flick of his wrist, he threw the next knife into the center of the tally book the other bouncer was holding, missing his fingers by a mere half inch.

The man cursed and dropped the book as if it were glowing hot metal straight from the smith’s forge.

Connell aimed the last knife at the hand Jimmy was using to hold the pistol. “Now, go on and get out of here before I decide to do a little more target practice.”