In the midst of his mental scrambling, a shrill whistle brought his head up.
There was Seb, leading one of the draft horses by its reins. Riding double with another hand.
Except as they got closer, he saw that the second person had long dark hair cascading down her back and was clinging to his brother, obviously not comfortable on the horse.
His heart began to race and he found himself running toward his brother.
Only to be disappointed.
Seb’s passenger was Emma.
Then he saw the dark stain on the side of Seb’s face and jaw, running down onto the shoulder of his shirt. Blood.
Edgar’s heart pounded. Seb had been hurt.
“They’ve got her!” Emma cried out before Seb had brought the horse completely alongside the three men.
“Who’s got her?” he asked, knowing before she even said what he knew was coming.
“Underhill’s men. They came in the night—”
“What happened?” he asked his brother, helping Emma off the horse.
“They got the jump on me. That marshal hit me over the head,” Seb said. He was obviously upset, jaw tight with emotion. “I’m sorry.”
Edgar squeezed his brother’s knee briefly. “I’m due my share of blame. I fell asleep. We’ve all been exhausted from pushing these cattle. We’ve been on edge the past two nights. It’s not your fault.”
Seb shook his head, jaw still tight.
“Are you all right?” Edgar asked. He held Seb’s gaze until his brother nodded tightly.
Edgar knew his brother would get over it eventually—especially when they got Fran back.
“Start at the beginning,” Edgar said to Emma. “What happened last night?”
The girl was shaking. He took her hands and had her sit down on the grass before she fell down.
He squeezed her hands gently. “Can you tell me? We need to know what we’re riding into.”
“Fran and I were scared in the wagon. We...we couldn’t tell if any of you cowboys were close by....”
Seb grunted and shifted, his horse shifting with him.
Emma sniffed. “And Fran got this idea to ride out to you. She said since we couldn’t sleep anyway, we could be awake with the cowboys!”
Edgar found the corner of his mouth turning up, even with the fear and desperation filling him. That sounded like Fran.
“We still had the trousers and shirt, so she made me put them on, just in case....”
He squeezed her shoulder when she started to break down.
“And we sneaked out, got to the horses...and there was noise behind us and voices...not you...”
She could barely get words out now, sobbing into her hands.
“Calm down,” he said, rubbing her back. “We’re going to get her back.”
“She got me up on the horse and slapped it. I can’t ride! I was so scared—”
“That’s about when I came to,” Seb said tightly. “Somehow I hung on to the horse, didn’t go down. Then her horse must’ve run past me. The rush of air about knocked me out of the saddle. I took off after it, not knowing who it was.”
“I couldn’t make it stop. It just kept running.”
“But you did a good job of staying on,” Seb told her.
She just shook her head, dissolving into sobs.
“I lost them in the dark, had to wait until it lightened up a little to follow the tracks. The horse was tucked up next to the creek, winded and worn-out. And she was still clinging to him like a burr on a dog’s butt.”
“Good job.” He hugged Emma again from the side, the same way he would’ve hugged Breanna if it had been her.
“But...but they’ve got Fran,” Emma gasped. “You’ve got to get her back—”
“We will.”
He had no other option. Fran belonged to him.
And she would expect him to comfort Emma. “But she wanted you safe. That was important to her. And it’s important to me.”
She quieted, staring into his eyes. He did everything he could to return her gaze levelly. He’d promised her sister his protection from the beginning. He wouldn’t shirk that duty now.
“I want you to stay with her,” he told Seb. “Until you get back to Tuck’s Station, ride as fast as you can. Bring the town marshal and any men you can round up to help us. And settle Emma with the preacher.”
“What about the cattle?”
Yes, what about them? They’d come this far, pushing the men past their endurance, endangering his wife...all so he could make the buyer’s deadline.
“There’s a box canyon about a quarter mile west of here. I remember passing it on a drive with Pa several years ago. Have John and Chester drive them into it, then come after us.”
He went to his horse and mounted up. “We’re going after her.”
He looked to Ricky. “I need you. Everything else between us can wait. Are you with me?”
* * *
By the time Matty and Ricky rounded up the other cowboys, Edgar realized they had a major problem.
The cattle had scattered in all directions before they’d gotten them under control, and the hoofprints of that many stampeding cattle had obliterated any tracks from Underhill’s men.
Smart.
It forced them to waste time ranging out to find the real tracks.
Edgar worried for Fran. What would Underhill do when he realized he’d captured her instead of Emma?
They were running out of time. He knew it.
A single shot brought his head up. Ricky. On a bluff within sighting distance. Must be about a quarter of a mile away.
He must’ve found the tracks they were all looking for.
Edgar kicked his horse into a gallop, noting that the other cowboys were making for Ricky’s location, too.
Before he’d gone half the distance to his brother, a lone rider coming from the wrong direction caught his gaze.
Edgar’s hand went to his rifle by instinct, and he went to meet the man.
He got close enough to see that the man rode like a city boy. The horse wasn’t any kind of decent. Seller probably took him for a ride. He was pale, not like he’d been surprised, but like he was sick.
And his dark hair and features were familiar.
“Hallooo!” Edgar hailed the man.
The man reined in the horse—badly—and his hand went to his waist. Armed.
“I’m looking for a pair of young women,” the dark-haired man called out. “My sisters.”
His familiar features suddenly made a lot more sense. “You Daniel?”
The man’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit. “You seem to know who I am,” the man said. “Might I have the pleasure...”
Edgar took off his hat. Took stock of himself. Hair, tangled and matted from his hat and the wild ride that morning. Beard, too long. Clothes, trail dusted and well worn.
He didn’t look like much.
“I’m Edgar White. Riding with my brothers and some other cowboys. I’m Fran’s husband.”
The brother looked surprised. “I understood she and Emma only came West several days ago. How did you come to marry her? Have you taken advantage of my sister?”
Edgar supposed he deserved that suspicion, but he had a little of his own. “I understood you abandoned the both of them. What do you care that she’s in trouble now?”
Daniel’s face took on the look of a thundercloud. “Is that what she told you?”
Edgar shrugged. “In as many words.” Although Fran had been more worried about what had happened to her brother than anything else.
Daniel suddenly coughed. And couldn’t stop. He hacked and hacked, nearly unseating himself from the horse. If the horse hadn’t been so old and un
interested, it might’ve taken offense, but as it was, it stood still, grazing on some of the grasses in front of its feet.
Finally, the cough stopped. Daniel took a white kerchief from one pocket and dabbed at his mouth.
The violent cough had brought some color to his cheeks, but he still looked peaked.
“I’ve been ill.”
Edgar could believe it, judging by the other man’s pallor. “All right now?”
Daniel nodded, still looking as if he could vomit or fall from the horse. “Where are my sisters?”
“Emma is with one of my brothers. Riding back toward Tuck’s Station.”
The other man didn’t look particularly happy that she wasn’t right there. “And Fran?”
“It’s complicated.”
The suspicion returned to Daniel’s face. “What do you mean?”
Edgar’s horse shifted beneath him, reminding him of the urgency of the situation. “Ride along, and I’ll explain,” he told Daniel.
By the time they reached the other cowboys, Daniel had been filled in and seemed angry at both Underhill and Edgar.
Edgar didn’t blame the man.
“What’s going on?” Edgar asked as they joined the other cowboys.
John, the best tracker among them, stood over a spot on the ground. “Looks like several of them convened here and stood for a while. Maybe right after those shots scared the herd into a stampede.”
“Can you tell which direction they went?” Edgar asked. His horse was fairly dancing beneath him, reading Edgar’s anticipation of the chase.
“Yes, that way,” John pointed.
“What’s the plan?” Ricky asked.
The other cowboys looked to Edgar for direction, and even Daniel seemed ready to defer to him. Seemed like the city boy didn’t really know how things were out there in the West.
“I don’t have a plan,” Edgar admitted. “I just have to get her back.”
* * *
Underhill had not been happy to see her.
Fran sat silently among the tall grasses, hands bound before her, head down. She pretended the prairie could hide her, would keep her safe until Edgar came. She knew he would, if he was alive.
She listened to everything.
Underhill’s men had left the overlook shortly after their exclamation that Edgar had gone down amongst the stampede.
Surely he’d survived. Surely God wouldn’t have let him die like that.
Not without giving her time to tell him she loved him.
She needed to keep her head, and figure a way to escape Underhill and his men.
Her only comfort was that they hadn’t found Emma.
“She can’t have gone far,” Underhill argued now. “She was with them up until nightfall, right?”
The federal marshal nodded, shifted the cigar he was chewing to the opposite side of his lips.
He was in on it. That had been a surprise to Fran as the sun had come up. Underhill must’ve paid him off. Or maybe he wasn’t even a real lawman, she didn’t know.
But knowing that he’d been collaborating with Underhill and apparently had assaulted Seb just made Fran angry.
And made her escape more urgent.
“Somebody got away on a horse, just before we grabbed her,” one of the other men reminded them all.
Underhill glared at her, but Fran simply turned her head on her bent knees and stared out at the horizon.
“You think the cowboys are still hiding her?” asked another of the men. “We’ve got more guns than them. Let’s go back and get her.”
Underhill shook his head. “We can get away with taking one girl back to Tennessee for trial. If we murder several men...someone will notice.”
“What if they come after her?” another of the men asked, motioning to Fran.
If Edgar was alive, and did come after her, he wouldn’t bring Emma, would he? He’d promised to protect Emma, and that would be bringing her right into the hornets’ nest of danger.
Would he even care enough to come after her?
She didn’t know.
And that was why she was doing her best to get herself out of this situation.
She’d worked at the knots behind her hands. Her skin felt chapped and raw beneath the rough ropes, but she had managed to loosen the bonds somewhat.
One problem was that she had to make sure Underhill or his men didn’t notice.
She’d also been unobtrusively attempting to gauge their surroundings. They’d convened near a wooded area. She thought if she could somehow get away from the men, she might have a chance in that direction. The trees were close together and it wouldn’t be easy for horses to move through them, meaning the men would be forced to chase her on foot.
But she wasn’t sure she was faster than them, especially hampered as she was by a skirt.
Other than the wooded area, there was open prairie all around, which meant the men would be able to run her down on horseback.
Unless she was able to get on one of the horses.
If she somehow broke away, could she get onto the horse? There was one smaller pony, but it was on the other side of the men, far away.
Perhaps if she could make some kind of diversion.
Why, oh, why, had she left the pistol back in the wagon?
“We’ve got to do something soon,” the man dressed as a federal marshal said. “Daylight’s burning.”
That meant her window for making an escape could be closing. She needed to make her move.
But what move?
There was a loud crack. A gunshot.
The men turned as one to face the noise—turning away from Fran.
She hadn’t been able to get her hands untied, but she pushed to her feet anyway and ran on wobbly legs toward the pony.
One of the men shouted.
She didn’t stop.
She reached for the saddle knob and got her hands on it.
The horse whickered and stepped away, maybe afraid of her skirt fluttering in the wind.
“Easy, boy,” she said, even as the shouts behind her probably spooked the animal more.
She managed to get her foot into the stirrup and pulled against the knob.
Her leg swung over the saddle, and she squeezed the way Edgar had shown her. The animal jumped forward, but a larger horse and rider got right in front of Fran.
Her horse pulled up, rearing.
She shrieked and bobbled, tried to stay balanced, grasped the saddle as best she could with her hands bound, but she couldn’t stay seated.
She hit the ground hard on her shoulder.
Rough hands grabbed her as the pony’s hooves hit the ground only inches from her face.
She scrambled, arm screaming with pain, trying to get up, get away.
It was no use. The men were upon her, fighting against her.
A loud whip cracked.
Everyone stilled. Including her.
Terrified, breathing hard and in pain, she looked up.
Underhill stood close, a long leather whip in hand. His eyes were a little wild.
“You’re the reason for all this,” he hissed. “You’ve brought me on this chase and kept Emma from me—”
“C’mon, Mr. Underhill, sir,” one of the men said, attempting to calm him.
The whip snapped again and the man recoiled, putting a hand to his cheek. His hand came away bloody.
There were murmurs from the other men.
It was clear Underhill had lost his mind, if he was attacking his own men.
He was dangerous and insane.
If the men were afraid, maybe she could convince them to help her escape.
“He’s crazy,” she said. Her voice wobbled, showi
ng her fear, but she pressed on. “He’s violent—”
“Quiet!” Underhill screamed, this time at her. The whip cracked again, a warning.
“Will you let him hit me—”
The whip cracked again and she rolled away, instinct bringing her arms to cover her head.
She cried out as the strike connected across her back.
Chapter Seventeen
Racing across the plain, his brothers, Daniel and the other cowboys following, Edgar knew real fear.
Fran was in danger. He could sense it.
This was all his fault. He should’ve kept her closer in the night, should’ve set more of a watch on the wagon.
But he’d been so worried about the cattle, and angry that she hadn’t told him everything.
He’d been so awful to her.
If they found her, he would do everything he could to make it right for her. He’d beg for forgiveness if he had to.
His heart thundered in time with the horse’s hooves.
Where were they?
He scanned the horizon. His eyes flew to each shadow and swell in the prairie. John had been in the lead at first, tracking the men’s horses, until Edgar could make out the tracks, the indents, the broken grasses.
They weren’t trying to hide.
Which scared him even more.
He prayed Seb and Emma were well on their way back to Tuck’s Station. He should’ve sent both the girls back the day before after Underhill had shown up. Instead, he’d wagered their safety against an insane man.
And lost.
He caught sight of the horses first, seeing a commotion as several moved and one reared up.
He strained his eyes. Was that Fran who had fallen in a heap of skirt and dark hair?
There was a sharp crack. A gunshot? No.
A whip. He recognized the sound from branding, as some of the other cowboys preferred it as a way of guiding the cows where they needed to be.
He saw movement, just Underhill’s men standing around. Fran on the ground.
He heard shouting over the ringing in his ears and then saw the whip fly through the air again, saw Fran roll on the ground, cover her head, flinch.
Blood bloomed across the back of her dress.
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