by Angela Lain
“How did you find me you evil, misbegotten excuse for a man?” she hissed at him
Forncett stepped off the horse and swung a slap at her. “Mind your mouth. When I first saw you, I had thought to take you to wife. Then I discovered what you were, a squaw woman, I was prepared to overlook the fact, because it’s not that obvious. But your attitude says different. You are an uncouth native at heart, I will find a better use for you. You are pretty enough, men will pay good money for you.”
“I will never…”
“You will. Anyhow, don’t you know, some men like a girl who fights? There’s nothing better than making you submit. Yes, I could make a mint out of you.” He sneered at her. “Of course, wearing britches is pretty much a turn off for any man, need to get you in a dress. I suppose I should be grateful you’re not dressed like a savage.”
She stared in disbelief, she’d met all sorts of men, but never one as cold and calculating as this. He was pure evil.
“As to how I found you. Simple. People love to talk, to shout their mouths off about what they know. People were happy to tell me where Mr. McGrath hid his wild daughter. The woman at the bank always thought you put on airs and graces when you were just a savage.”
“I am not a savage and Papa never hid me,” she hissed at him. “My grandmother was Cree, that makes me only one quarter savage, as you put it.”
“It still shows. You are no lady. I had thought to take you to the city, but I don’t think you would fit in there, despite what she said about airs and graces.”
He pulled a water bottle from his saddle bag and took a long drink. He held it out to her, for a second she was tempted to knock it from his hand, but she needed the water. To fight constantly would serve no purpose. She accepted the bottle and drank, hating the fact that his evil lips had touched that rim.
“Now, do you want to ride the other horse?”
Ride the horse and get away from his disgusting body? Of course she did.
“Yes.”
“You will behave?”
Not a chance, never ever, she would fight him till death.
“Yes.”
She trusted the Good Lord would not strike her down for lying to such an evil fiend.
He yanked her to her feet and pushed her to the other horse and shoved the pack on the saddle out of the way. “Get on.”
“But, my hands are tied, I can’t…” A second later these were words she wished she had not uttered.
“You want help?” He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her against the horse, sliding one hand up to fondle her breast. “Hmm, wish I had the time, but we need to be getting on.” He swept her off her feet and plonked her aboard. “I’m sure a savage like you can manage easily with one hand.”
He set off at a spanking trot, for two seconds Kanti thought to spin the horse around and run for it. But he looked back at her with an evil grin.
“Don’t try it. That’s a pack horse, he is slow. If you run you will suffer for it later.”
She took the prudent course and followed him. Escape would have to come later, when she had made him believe she was cowed.
Thoughts teemed through her head. If she could not escape she needed at least to slow him down. Papa would come for her. She knew this man had struck him down, but she had heard Papa moaning, so he hadn’t been killed. As soon as he could rouse himself he would look for her, he may even ride to town and enlist the help of others. Except… town was in the opposite direction, she knew the land well enough to know they were heading north.
North, into the mountains. At this time of year it was madness.
They moved on for another two hours before he pulled up in the shelter of some rocks.
“Tonight we will go hungry. I got food in the pack, but I’m not lighting a fire.” He got off the horse and pulled off his pack. “You can have some jerky, it’s as good as I will eat tonight.”
He turned to look at her. “Get down.”
She struggled to the ground, her hands were still secured. She knew the binding was loosening, she would work on it overnight, hopefully she could make her escape in the morning.
He handed her the jerky and pushed her into the lee of the rocks. “Stay there, and don’t whine.”
It was cold, so cold. He had at least thrown her coat over the saddle with her, but she had no blankets. She honestly wondered if she would die this night, in the cold wind and the snow. She doubted he would touch her until they reached some sort of proper shelter, so she needed to think, to plan her escape. Throughout the night she worked on the bindings and slept fitfully.
***
The weather was cold and windy, but it was clear. Rueben was proved right about the moon, it rose above the tree line and gave Jared at least some light by which to travel. He had settled Reuben as best he could, he had fed them both and had left his friend with food and drink close by. Reuben could survive for a while without help, but if Jared didn’t return he might be in trouble.
If Jared didn’t return, it would be because he was dead, and very probably, so was Kanti. It wasn’t a scenario either he or Reuben wished to dwell upon.
“You go get her and come back. I will be fine. Hurry and find my girl.”
Jared patted his arm. “I will. You know I won’t rest until she is safe.”
With that he set out into the dark woods. The trail was visible at times, he could see where horses had recently trodden, but he couldn’t move at any speed. He was pretty sure he could have made much faster progress in daylight, that he probably wasn’t gaining a great deal by travelling at night. But it satisfied the need to be doing something, and Reuben had been insistent that he must do exactly that.
Sometime around midnight the moon became obscured by clouds and Jared had to stop. He could see nothing. If he carried on he might miss a vital clue. At this time he believed he was on the trail, he couldn’t afford to lose what little he had gained by getting this far. They were hours ahead of him, he knew this, but he wouldn’t give up until he found them, until he found his girl.
He would never give up.
He found a little shelter and sat down to wait out the hours of darkness.
To his dismay it began to snow lightly. Please God it would get no heavier.
CHAPTER EIGHT
December 19th
T he day dawned. Kanti needed to relieve herself. She was getting desperate, and she’d not wanted to soil the place she was sitting.
“Please, I need to… go behind the rocks.”
He scowled at her in the new daylight. “Get behind there and hurry up about it.”
“If you untie my hands I will be quicker.”
He gave a nasty laugh. “Do you think I was born yesterday? No. Get on with it.”
She made her way out of his sight. The bindings on her wrist were much looser than they had been, she had worked on them for a good deal of the night. Her wrists were raw, but she did wonder if she might now get out of the restraint.
She yanked down her britches and did the necessary, then she found a rough piece of rock, and sawed desperately at the rawhide thong. To her amazement it parted. She pulled her britches up and fashioned two loops from the rawhide, hopefully he wouldn’t check. Now she felt she might make a reasonable attempt at escape.
“Hurry up,” he shouted. She had to admit he’d given her longer than she had expected.
“I’m coming,” she walked around the rock, pulling at her britches. “It’s hard to do this with my hands tied.”
“You managed, didn’t you? Get on, we need to move.”
The pony waited patiently for her. The poor creature had spent all night wearing his saddle, this man was cruel to animals as well as people.
She settled herself in the saddle,
“Where are we going?”
“The Hole in the Wall sounds a good idea to me.” Forncett set off at a lope. Her pony followed on, it was what he’d been trained to do.
Now she had her hands free she began to
look for an opportunity to run. It wouldn’t be simple. To run on the open land was doomed to failure. Even assuming her pony, who was a stocky animal with short legs, could gallop fast enough to escape the bigger horse, Forncett would most likely shoot her if he thought she was getting away.
No, her best chance was to dive into the tree cover.
Ten minutes later they dropped into a fold of the land, trees flanked the trail.
Kanti took her chance. She slipped her hands from the loops, pulled the pony to one side and clapped her heels into his flanks. He responded, but not with the speed of a trained riding horse. He charged off beneath the branches. She heard Forncett yell behind her.
“Get back here you stupid little cow!”
She put her head down and rode for her life. Branches whipped around her, and suddenly they burst into the open. From then on she didn’t stand a chance. It was not the pony’s fault he was too slow.
Forncett overhauled her and grabbed the pony’s rein, pulling them both up sharply by hauling on their mouths. Once again, Kanti saw first-hand how needlessly cruel this man could be.
“You’ll pay for that, you silly little bitch,” he snarled, yanking the horses to a standstill.
He jumped from the saddle and dragged her off the pony to throw her onto the ground, tearing her shirt as he did so.
She tried to get up, to fight, but he kicked at her, and placed a heavy boot on her stomach.
“Don’t move. If you stay still I won’t stamp on you, if you dare to move, you will suffer for it.”
He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out another length of rawhide. This time he tied it even tighter.
“Let’s see you get out of that one,” he sneered. “Get on.”
Kanti had no choice. She remounted. This time he took her rein and led her. She’d tried and failed, she would not escape again, not unless something changed significantly.
***
Daybreak saw Jared on the move once more. He’d been riding as speedily as he could for several hours when he saw hoof prints beneath the trees. Shielded by the trees, last night’s snow had not filled them, but he had no idea how old they might be. They were prints made by a horse moving at speed. Jared followed.
The trail was easy to follow and within a hundred yards a second set of prints had joined and over laid the first from a parallel track. Could this be Kanti and the man who had taken her from the cabin? Had she escaped him? Had she been recaptured?
Jared rode on, he came to a point where the tracks were churned up and confused. The horses had been pulled up and they had stamped about a good deal. He dismounted, left Topper standing away from the tracks and went on foot to study more closely. He would never have called himself anything like an expert, but he could make some guesses, based on what he already knew.
One horse was pursued by the other, and had been caught.
He cast around in the bushes for other clues and finally found something that cast terror in the pit of his stomach. A scrap of white cloth, fine white cotton, which appeared to be from a shirt cuff. He looked a little further and found a small pearl button, it confirmed what he thought, it belonged to Kanti.
It fitted. To his eye the smaller horse had been in front, it had made lighter prints as if it had not been carrying a great deal of weight. The horse was carrying a woman.
He followed the tracks of the two horses, but when the trail moved from under the trees onto the springy mountain grass and fresh snow he could only make a best guess at their direction.
Kanti was in so much trouble.
***
He moved down into a small valley and as he rode he began to get the strangest sensation of being watched. He scoured the tree cover on the slope; whoever was there was well concealed. It wasn’t a nice feeling. He was exposed, there could be a rifle trained on him at this very moment. If a shot came he would know little, if anything, about it.
Then he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned to see a slight, drably clothed figure step from the trees to stand and await his arrival. Jared obliged and rode towards the figure. It was a young native woman.
For a second he wondered if she had been the one riding the horse, but no, she was dressed in a buckskin tunic and an elderly Confederate army jacket.
Jared pulled up several yards from the girl. She was watching him apprehensively, poised to run. He judged her to be little more than seventeen years old.
She motioned him to dismount and follow.
“Come,” she said in English.
He slipped off Topper and left him to graze on what little he could find.
He followed her beneath the tree cover, and a brave of a similar age to the girl stepped into their path. In his hand he carried a rifle.
“White man, he take girl,” he pronounced, waving along the trail. “You seek her.”
Jared had no clue how the man could know, but he was obviously concerned for Kanti, and had no hostile intentions, which was all to the good. It would appear these two knew of the homestead, but why should he be concerned for a white girl?
“Why? You know Reuben?”
“Girl is Cree.” The man shrugged. “Man is evil. Not right.”
“You will help me?” Jared ventured.
The brave agreed to this after a few moments of thought.
“Woman, she stay.”
Jared realized he meant his girl. He would leave her alone? Out here? True, she belonged to the land, but she was still a young girl, alone.
“You know Reuben McGrath?”
The brave gave a small nod, “We meet. He good man.”
“He is injured. Maybe your woman can go to him? Help him and stay safer too?”
The brave nodded and spoke with the girl in his own tongue. She picked up her belongings, and the gun, and walked off into the trees with no further ado.
“She go to McGrath. We go after girl.”
“She has the gun?”
The boy shrugged. “We have no bullets.”
***
Jared turned to follow the trail of the two horses, but his companion stopped him.
“No. They go Hole in Wall. We go this way.”
Jared stared at him in horror, even he had heard of the Hole in the Wall, the place where several outlaw gangs holed up to hide from the law.
“You are sure?”
The young man shrugged. “Men come this way, bad men. All go there.”
Now he was faced with a dilemma, did he follow the trail, or follow this young man?
Jared knew his limitations. This man was of the land, if he would help there was so much more chance of rescuing Kanti alive. He made his decision.
“Lead on. What do I call you?”
“Joe.”
Jared was pretty sure his name wasn’t Joe, but it would suffice.
They set off on a course that should cross the trail leading to the Hole in the Wall. For the next two hours they rode, all the while Jared was wondering, worrying if he had made the right decision. They struck it lucky, they came upon tracks left by their quarry.
When they could no longer see the tracks they camped for the night.
***
At dawn they rose and were back on the trail as soon as it was light enough to see. Conversation was limited, Jared had all the time in the world to worry, and to think.
This was not the way he had meant to spend Christmas. If he’d been better organized he would be sitting with his brother Eddie, preparing to enjoy the season with Charlene and his three nephews. But if he’d done that, what would that have meant for Kanti? She would be a prisoner, heading for the Hole in the Wall with no hope of rescue.
He could never regret meeting Kanti.
In five days it would be Christmas Day. Wouldn’t that be the best Christmas miracle he could ever wish for, to have the girl he loved in his arms?
God willing he would get her back and they would spend this Christmas together.
They travelled on, the tracks w
ere still visible to his companion, and Jared could only give thanks that he had met young Joe. He didn’t think he had ever talked to God this much. He found himself praying as he rode. It made him feel guilty, but it gave him a measure of hope. Surely God would not desert them, not at Christmas.
Joe said the riders were still heading towards the Hole in the Wall. He said Kanti was tied and being led, Jared wasn’t surprised; he couldn’t see his girl failing to fight.
Over the last hours he had accepted that, whatever society, his distant family or even Kanti might think, she was his girl. He was going to get her back and prove to her he was worthy of her love. As they rode he wondered what this man had hoped to achieve. He surely didn’t want her for a wife. What good was a captive, reluctant wife? Surely the point of having a woman was to make life more pleasant, in every way! Taking a girl by force was no way to achieve that.
***
Late that morning they found the place where Kanti and her captor had spent another night. They were steadily catching up, but was it fast enough? At this rate Jared thought they might overhaul the couple in twenty-four hours.
It was a long rough slog, but before noon the next day Joe announced. “They are near.”
Jared slipped from Topper to study the track Joe had found, he was no expert, but it appeared fresh.
“Now we have to decide how to do this without getting either ourselves or Kanti killed,” Jared observed dryly.
They walked on quietly discussing the problem in their rather broken fashion. From all he had seen and heard this man was a callous individual, when cornered he would fight like a rat and probably use Kanti to protect himself. Indeed, it may be that if he couldn’t have her, he would prefer to see her dead.
“Get girl first. Then kill man.”
Jared wasn’t too certain about the killing part, it wasn’t something he took lightly, but it might prove to be the only course of action.
The final decision was made to wait until their quarry had camped for the night and then to try to sneak Kanti away. To wait further hours was torture for Jared, but he knew it was the correct decision. They had but one gun between them, and this man would fight. As Joe’s elder, it was only right that he thought of the boy’s safety in all this.