I’m getting A Most Excellent Adventure prepared for publication. Here’s a sample:
Paul Baldwin had not spent as long as expected in the collieries of the Nettlebridge Valley. The enterprises were well enough, but the price they put on their shares was beyond what Paul was prepared to pay. The tramways and canals that had made a difference in getting the East Somerset coal to market had not reached the valley, and coal was still transported by horse and cart. Or, sometimes, in hard economic times, carts pulled by teams of men, women and children.
In fact, even if the investment had made economic sense, Paul would have turned away from it. He might now be a wealthy baron, but he had been raised as a gamekeeper’s son and had seen plenty of rural poverty and the human misery that it caused. He wanted no part in profiting from the desperate need of others.
His next meetings were tomorrow, in Wells. At this rate, he’d be there in time for a noontide snack and a relaxed look around the town. Meanwhile, he and the horse he’d hired at Shepton Mallet were in no hurry.
The weather was pleasant and the countryside pretty. The traffic was fairly light, too, though a cluster of horses around a gig in front of him drew his attention. Odd. Four riders had approached the vehicle from behind and stopped it. It was now turning towards Paul.
He narrowed his eyes to sharpen his vision. They were the same horses that had passed him ten minutes ago, on the other side of Cranston, and one of the riders was waving what looked suspiciously like a gun.
Paul urged his horse onto the grass, where its hooves would make less noise, and nudged it into a fast walk as he unlatched the leather cover of his saddle holster. His pistol was handier, but the rifle would be more accurate at a distance. He would get only two shots, but by then he’d be close enough to use the smaller weapon.
The woman at the reins of the gig was saying something that drew the attention of all the riders. The girl beside her had her head buried in the woman’s shoulder, so no one was watching Paul’s approach.
Yes. It is a gun. Paul halted the horse, sent up a quick prayer that the beast was not gun shy, raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted on the gunman’s hand, and fired. His horse, thank all the powers of heaven, had stayed rock steady under him, which was more than could be said for the gig’s mule, broke free from the man holding it and took off at a gallop, shying away from the road to bounce the gig across the pasture beside the road.
Which at least removed the two in the gig from the firing line. His shot had hit its mark, too. Either the gun or the hand. The man who had been threatening the pair was bent over his hand and more or less out of the game.
However, Paul had also lost the advantage of stealth, for the other three had turned to see him. Two more guns had appeared. The man who had been holding the mule fired at Paul. Paul shot at his hand, too, but the man shifted at the last minute and the bullet must have hit him somewhere, for he gave a cry and slumped over in his saddle. Paul shoved his rifle back into its holster, drew his pistol, and nudged his horse into action.
He felt the impact just after the third gun fired. His left arm, and in the fleshy part of the muscle. It could be ignored for the moment. He shot again, this time taking the hat off the woman who had shot at him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to cause bodily harm to a female.
She had no such compunction, and was reloading her weapon, but the third man spoke sharply to her and their wounded companions. He collected the reins of the second man, and the woman and the first man followed him across the fields, the first man stopping to shake his uninjured fist in Paul’s direction before they disappeared out of sight behind a small cluster of trees.
Paul turned to look for their victims. The gig had come to a halt on the other side of the pasture. Halfway between him and the vehicle, the girl was bent over a huddled form on the ground. Paul sent his horse into a walk, and the girl looked up as he approached. The woman lay still and pale, and tears streamed down the girl’s face.
