In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

Tom Lincoln hadn't been promoted to shift supervisor because he was slow on the uptake. Grasping the situation quickly, he went to the head of the shaft and pulled a lever several times. Immediately a loud whistle rang out three times, and the men poured out of the mine and the bunkhouses.

Quickly, Lincoln explained the situation to them and sent them down to help Carlos. "You can stay with the other women in the cook house, Mrs. Madonna," he told Iris kindly as he left.

"We've got a pot of coffee brewing, if you'd like some," one of the younger women offered.

Iris hesitated. "Thank you," she told her, "but that's my husband. I'm not going to sit here and wait to find out if he lives or not."

She checked the load in her gun and followed the men. She knew most of the miners were only carrying picks and shovels, and Franks and his men were armed with firearms. The mine workers would be vulnerable in a gunfight. As she got closer, she could hear Franks taunting Carlos about following her to Junction City, implying he had managed to bed her.

Iris was furious. If she could have done it, she would have shot Franks herself. She was still several hundred feet away when she realized Carlos and Franks were facing off outside the cabin. As she watched in horror, both men drew weapons and fired. Franks went down. Carlos staggered, but he was still standing.

Iris was drawing a breath of relief when she heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked off to her right. One of Franks men was drawing aim on Carlos who had his back to him.

Iris' soft mouth set in a hard line. Lifting her pistol, she took careful aim with both hands and fired, not caring if she was shooting at the man's broad back. A bloom of red flowered on his blue shirt and he stumbled forward, throwing gun up in the air.

Carlos wheeled and saw his wife standing behind him, her gun aimed at a man on the ground who had just tried to shoot him in the back.

Iris slowly lowered the gun as her husband walked toward her. Gently, Carlos removed it from her hand and stuck it in his belt.

"Thank you, darling," he said.

Holding herself under iron control, Iris looked him over, searching for a wound. A thin trickle of blood ran down the outside of his sleeve.

"You're bleeding," she said, her face stony.

Carlos realized his wife was furious although she had herself well in hand. He goggled as she took a long, thin knife out of her lacy, flowered bag to cut away his shirt sleeve.

"It could have been worse. The other guy would have hit me if it hadn't been for my sharpshooter wife," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"You're lucky you aren't dead!" Iris snapped, winding what was left of his sleeve around his arm to stop the bleeding. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen! You aren't a gunfighter! You—"

Carlos cut short further scolding by pulling his wife into his arms and shut her up by kissing her. Iris collapsed against his chest and burst into tears; the knife still clutched in her hand. Carlos removed it too and stuck it in his belt next to her pistol.

With Franks and the back-shooter dead, and no hope of robbing the office, the rest the raiders came out of the cabin with their hands in the air. They were promptly grabbed by the irate miners who made noises about a hanging.

Patting his wife on the back, Carlos looked up as Lincoln approached. "What do you want to do with them, boss?"

"Unfortunately, we can't hang them out of hand. Lock them in the assay shed, Lincoln," Carlos ordered. "We'll take them down to the sheriff in the morning."

When he arrived back at their cabin after locking up the raiders, he found Iris in a fury of cleaning.

Eyeing her warily, he asked "Iris?"

She set the broom against the wall and turned to face him. "Did you send me for help so I wouldn't have to watch him kill you?"

"If you had stayed with the other women the way I expected you to, you wouldn't have known about it. Did you think I was going to let Franks get away with calling you a whore?"

"Don't you try and say I was responsible for you walking out to face Franks with a gun! What were you trying to prove?"

"I wasn't trying to prove anything!" he snapped. In any case, I beat him," he reminded her.

"You wouldn't have beaten his man," she retorted. "You might be dead if I hadn't come back with the men. Did you think I was raised to sit on my hands when my husband was in danger?"

Her husband eyed her; he was so furious that she hadn't behaved like a delicate lady to be protected, and yet so proud of her for coming to fight beside him he didn't know what he wanted to say.

Trying to calm down, she went over to the sink and pumped water into the small pot used for measuring water into the stove. When she had the stones heating, she pumped more water into a coffee pot, poured coffee beans into the hand grinder to add to it.

"I'm sorry, Carlos," she said. "I'm reacting badly because I was afraid for you."

"I'm sorry too," he admitted. "You're right, I would have been wounded, maybe dead, if you hadn't shot to protect my back. I guess, I'm reacting badly too. You see, I've always thought of you as this delicate piece of porcelain who needs to be protected. It's hard for me to accept that isn't who you are, but I'm trying."

Iris set the coffee pot on the stove. "Porcelain? Oh, Carlos, that's sweet, but it isn't me."

"I said I was trying," he replied.

Iris laughed ruefully. "I guess you aren't the only one with an unrealistic vision, you know. I