A murmur of voice rose at the idea that the sheriff could be on the way. Jeb winced when he realized how many of them there must be down here with him. He wondered if they were really a bandit gang or just a group of people that saw opportunity and struck. Jeb wasn't sure what was going on yet but it was starting to come together a little bit. There was a female hostage and she was pregnant. The bandits wanted to use the baby to blackmail someone. The someone was probably at least a little bit rich and important since these assholes wanted to blackmail him. But one of the bandits wanted to kill the girl.
In Jeb's experience this happened a lot more than people realized. That is to say, a gang of people act out some crime where the pay off is delayed and the greatest amount of risk happens while that payoff is being waited on. Someone always gets cold feet, panics, and wants to kill and or get rid of whatever the thing is that will cause everyone to get rich for whatever reason. Jeb wondered what the best thing to do in this situation would be. He hoped that the bandits didn't end up deciding to kill the female, because that would really force his hand.
“We should put it to a vote,” a voice said. “Since there are so few of us it shouldn't matter if we vote, right. I never agreed to that we should harbor a witch, even if she is pregnant with his baby and we'll get rich as all hell by blackmailing the man.”
“Oh for fucking Christ's sake. Are we really going to pretend that we think this young woman can actually control some element of magic? Is that really something we are willing to say is a thing? Please, gentlemen, let's think for a moment.”
Whoever that voice belonged to was a lot smarter than the rest of them, but wasn't smart enough to know that the crowd he was running with wasn't made up of the kind of people that took pride in thinking. The run and gun bandits that the were having a pow wow up ahead had no intention of thinking ahead to the pay off that would come to them eventually. They were going to vote to kill the female. That much Jeb was certain of now. His mind raced as he thought of what he should do. Obviously he should help the woman. But he didn't know where she was at. Because right now, off the top of his head as he listened to the crooks in front of him vote, compelled by the fear that someone might be a witch, Jeb's only plan was to ricochet bullets around the curve in the tunnel in front of him and hope to take a few people out. He realized he probably wouldn't, but knew that as soon as the criminals heard bullets zipping by them they would beat a hasty retreat further down the tunnel. Even if there were dozens of them they would run. People really didn't know how to handle bullets skipping around corners. It usually inspired enough fear that people stampeded away from where ever the skipping was coming from.
“The votes are cast,” a voice said. “Someone count them up. And quickly now! We don't have all day with this shit. I can only hope that the rest of you saw reason and voted against killing an unarmed woman simply because you think she can hocus pocus you to death.”
“You don't give a good God damn about that woman,” someone else said. “You just want the money. Which isn't something I'm trying to look down on right now, I'm just saying that you should drop the act because it isn't fooling anyone.”
More murmuring as the chosen vote counter fumbled the count several times in a row and had to start over.
“You see,” a new voice said. “This is why I didn't want to do anything of this sort with you people. No matter what you folks get involved with it always ends up fucked up for reasons that are fucked up. Like right now. We are in a fucking abandoned gold mine casting votes on murdering someone or not for pretty much no reason but that she may or may not have the ability to slightly confuse people. Yeah, what a fucking power to have. Better kill her or she might confuse someone else.”
A clamor of voice rose in the tunnel as more people started to argue. Jeb started to sweat as he realized there had to be around fifty people around the bend. There just had to be considering how many voices were echoing around the corner. Cacophony filled the tunnel, making Jeb want to cover his ears when a shrill voice cried out.
“I've got the count I've got the count.”
“Well,” the smart voice said. “Let's have it.”
A long pause. Inside the pause people scraped their boots across the tunnel's floor, filling the dark with the sounds of scraping.
“The people that,” the counter started saying and then stopped.
“Well!” Someone yelled. “Out with it for the love of fucking God. Just tells us God damn it!”
“The people who want her head have it won,” the counter said. “I guess we'll to do away with her. Pretty young thing.”
Voice rose again, and this time the clamor was even louder than before. But it died back quickly as someone shouted in the din to get some attention.
But Jeb wasn't interested in whatever they were going to say. He was almost sure he could her the muffled cries of the young woman. He knew he needed to act sooner than later. Drawing his six shooter from its holster he pointed it at the curvature in the tunnel wall that he thought would create a decent ricochet. Before he had time to lose the nerve Jeb started squeezing the trigger.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Jeb's six shooter belched flame and smoke, lighting up the tunnel like a strobe light as sparks shot off the wall where Jeb had been pointing his six shooter. From the way the sparks showered he knew he'd gotten some decent bounce out of the wall. Jeb stopped moving to try to listen for the sound of wounded men moaning but couldn't hear anything because his ears were ringing. So he fired two more times in an effort to skip rounds around the curve of the tunnel.