by Bess McBride
“Last I saw you, little miss, you were running off into the desert. Glad to see you survived,” Larry said, standing over Sarah.
“No thanks to you,” Elias said.
Larry swung the butt of his pistol toward Elias’s head, toppling him out of his seat. Agnes shrieked at the same time that Sarah did and dropped to her knees at his side.
“Elias,” Agnes cried out, cradling Elias’s head in her lap. Sarah saw no blood and hoped that he hadn’t been hit as severely as Jeremiah had been.
“I guess he’s done talking,” Larry said, looking down and then ignoring them.
“Del, what do you say? Let’s take the little lady with us. The sheriff is going to wake up soon enough and come after us with a posse. They let us go, and we’ll let her go.”
“A hostage,” Del said from the doorway. “That’s a good idea. You about done collecting stuff?”
“Just a couple more,” Larry said. He held out his hat, and Faith emptied a few coins out of her purse and put them in with a shaking hand.
“Get up,” Larry said to Sarah.
Sarah rose on shaking legs. Her stomach ached, her head ached and her chest ached. Terror battered her, and she hung on to the back of the chair.
Larry grabbed her by the arm and dragged her past the tables toward the dining room door.
“Sarah!” Faith called after her, to no avail. So fast did Larry drag her that she didn’t even have time to look over her shoulder. Larry joined Del, and together they hurried through the lobby. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Eric lying on the carpeted floor near the office door. She couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or dead, and she moaned.
“Shhh, no talking,” Larry said. “Just walk normal when we get outside. We’re getting on horses. You’ll ride with me. And don’t plan on screaming. You won’t make it to the end.”
She bit her lip as they emerged into the midday sun. Everything looked normal. Wagons and carriages rolled along. Pedestrians strolled. But nothing was normal about the painful grip on her arm. She didn’t dare scream. What if her skull was thinner than others?
Two horses were tied up in front of the building next door.
“Hold her while I get on, Del,” Larry said.
Del grabbed Sarah’s arm, and Larry mounted his horse. Del pushed Sarah forward, half lifting her while Larry pulled her up by her arms.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me,” she protested.
“Shut up,” Larry said, settling her roughly in front of him.
The saddle horn jabbed her groin, and she clutched at it to protect herself. Del jumped on his horse, and Sarah searched the street in hopes of seeing the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday running down the road to her rescue.
No one came though, and Larry and Del turned their horses toward the east to head out of Benson. Sarah knew that road could continue to the east or to the south toward Samuel’s ranch and farther south toward Tombstone. They didn’t spur their horses to a gallop but merely trotted, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. She assumed they didn’t want to call attention to themselves.
Sarah despised the feeling of Larry’s body pressed against her back. He smelled of sweat, filth, old liquor and evil. She hated him, and she hated Del. But her hate couldn’t overcome the fear she felt. She had no idea what was going to happen to her. Had Larry’s arm not been wrapped tightly around her waist, she might have jumped off the horse and tried to survive the fall or possible stomping under the horse’s hooves.
The last building fell behind, and Sarah’s fear grew exponentially. Larry and Del picked up their pace and set the horses to a fast trot. Sarah bounced so hard, she thought her brain would shake loose from her skull.
“Where are we going?” she called out, her voice broken by gasps as the horse bounced.
“Wherever we want, missy. Ain’t life great?”
“Where are we going, Larry?” Del asked.
“I dunno, Del. Too much law enforcement in Tombstone. What about Bisbee? Or should we just head east for New Mexico or Texas? Gotta make our minds up soon. The road for Tombstone is coming up.”
“Hey! How about Mexico?” Del said. “Let’s go try our luck down there. Posse will be after us soon.”
“Mexico! Great idea!” Larry said. “Got your answer, little miss. We’ll head south for Mexico.”
“How far is that?”
“Doesn’t really matter to you. You’re staying with us till we don’t need you anymore.”
Any oxygen Sarah might have had in her body flew out her open mouth. “I don’t know what that means,” she whispered to herself.
“It means we’re going to have some fun!”
Sarah bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. She started studying the road in earnest, looking for places that might hurt less if she managed to wriggle out of Larry’s vice grip and hurl herself from the horse. She hoped he would tire in time and loosen his grip.
They turned south, as the carriage had the previous night, and Sarah’s heart jumped when she realized they might pass Samuel’s ranch. She didn’t know if Samuel had returned to the ranch, but Jeremiah was most certainly still there. To pass so close to him would be torture.
The dirt road was packed hard. She couldn’t imagine a soft landing. Still, she was going to have to try. Whatever Larry had in mind was worse than getting stomped by a horse or breaking a rib on impact. Wasn’t it?
They trotted on, and Sarah thought she recognized the spot where Larry and Del had robbed them the previous evening. Samuel had pointed it out earlier that morning, and she had oriented herself with the mountains on both sides of the valley.
They were only twenty minutes from Samuel’s ranch then. She knew that meant almost nothing. Even were Jeremiah finally awake, he couldn’t just jump on a horse and come racing after them. The jostling of trotting had shaken her brain into pulp. There was no telling what it would do to a man with an open head wound and concussion. Nor would Jeremiah even know they were passing by. No one from town had raced past them, alerting any and all that two robbers had kidnapped a woman lost in time and would be passing through the neighborhood, so could they please be on the lookout.
As if Larry had read her mind, he spoke. His breath near her face turned her stomach.
“How are those two fellas we knocked out? Hope we didn’t kill them. I’m not a killer, you know.”
Sarah didn’t know that at all. “I wouldn’t know,” she responded, not about to tell him that they lived.
“The man with you—that was the hotel owner, right? Del said so when we rode by the first time, and darn if we didn’t decide he probably had some money on him. Which he did.”
“You didn’t have to hit them.”
“Seems like we did. That little driver just didn’t know how to shut up, and your man wouldn’t sit down. He is your man, isn’t he? Or was? I hope he’s not dead. I don’t need a murder charge. Del might have gotten a bit too heavy handed there.”
Sarah still had no intention of reassuring him, nor was she willing to share personal information about Jeremiah and her. She said nothing.
“Well?” Larry prompted. Again, his breath nauseated her.
“Well what?”
“Is he your man?”
She debated quickly on a safe response. “Yes, yes, he is. He is my man,” she said, hoping a relationship with a man would give her some sort of protection from the kidnappers.
“So he’s alive!” Larry crowed.
“I hope so for your sake.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about my sake one little bit, missy. You probably ought to be worrying about yourself.”
Sarah’s hair stood on end. “Don’t you think I am?”
“Good,” Larry said with a laugh that made Sarah gasp with its stench.
They rode on, Sarah desperately searching for the ranch and wishing someone could see them and save her.
Chapter Eighteen
By the time, Jeremiah reached the main road, the pain in his head throbbed so vic
iously that he could barely keep his eyes open. The sun beat down onto the desert, making the colors crisp, brilliant and hard to look at.
He paused and looked over his shoulder toward the ranch, the memory of the cool darkened bedroom a tempting image. He was not so stupid that he didn’t realize he should not be traveling, that he should have waited at least one more day, if not more, to venture out onto horseback.
But he had to find Sarah. If nothing else, he had to help her get her train ticket. Though the train was not due for at least another day, Jeremiah could not rid himself of the abject fear that she would disappear, perhaps as quickly as she had come, and in the same way. He had to reach her.
He turned his head forward and looked to the north. The road seemed much longer than it truly was. To bounce along on horseback for those miles would be excruciating, and he might even have considered the carriage had it returned to the ranch by the time he left. Samuel had not returned.
Urging his horse on, he looked to the south before entering the road. A cloud of dust caught his eyes, as if someone traveled along the road, perhaps a wagon. Through the dust, he saw not a wagon but two riders on horseback. No, not two, three riders. One of the horses carried two people.
Something odd about the group caught his attention, and he squinted painfully. His eyes simply did not want to cooperate. He spotted the oddity. A light swath of cloth covered the flank of the horse on the left, as if one of the double riders wore skirts. A woman.
He sighed. They had nothing to do with him. He turned his horse north and set out at a trot. The jostling soon brought him near to tears, and he slowed the horse. He had traveled only about a mile when he saw dust on the road ahead. A rider approached, and at an ungainly gallop.
Jeremiah saw the tall ears of the mule before he recognized the small form of Elias galloping to the south. He held up his horse and shouted. Even that movement sent a spasm through his head.
“Elias!” he called out, as it seemed as if Elias would gallop past him.
Elias saw him and reined in his mule, Fester. “Mr. Stone!” he gasped, panting.
“What has happened? Where are you galloping to?”
“Miss Chilton! She’s been kidnapped by those desperados!”
“Sarah!” Jeremiah gasped. “Where is she? Who took her?”
“I’m heading south. Sheriff is heading east. Some other folks heading west, but reports were the kidnappers headed east out of town. Let’s go!” Elias moved to spur Fester forward.
“Wait!” Jeremiah shouted, trying to control his restless horse. “Who took her?”
“Larry and Del, the robbers who attacked you last night.”
“What? I thought they had been arrested.”
“They got out. I don’t know how. Robbed the hotel. Saw Miss Chilton there. Took her as a hostage.”
Jeremiah finally understood all and whirled his horse around.
“How long ago?” he yelled as they took off.
“Not long. Maybe fifteen-minute head start. Had to get Fester. Not sure which way they went though.”
Jeremiah realized then what he had seen—the light cloth on the horse. The skirts had belonged to Sarah. He had abandoned her, turned his back on her. “They’re ahead of us! I saw them, but I didn’t know it was Sarah. I didn’t know,” he panted, the pain in his head no longer important.
Jeremiah rode the faster animal, but Fester kept pace in his ungainly way. They passed the entrance to the ranch and kept on. Jeremiah rode high in his seat in an attempt to scan the road ahead. He saw the cloud of dust before Elias, but then he had known what to expect.
“Whoa!” Jeremiah called out. He held up a hand to slow Elias and bring him to a stop.
“What are ya waiting for?” Elias called out, panting. “Is that them?”
“We have to have a plan!” Jeremiah said. “We can’t just run them down. Do you have a gun?”
Elias shook his head. “I just ran to the stable to saddle up Fester. I left it in my room.”
“Well, I don’t have one either,” Jeremiah said, his heart sinking. He kept an eye on the dust ahead of them. “We can’t just chase them down without guns. What if they kill Sarah?”
“I know,” Elias said, his skinny shoulders sagging. “I know. I was halfway out of town when I remembered that I didn’t get my gun.”
“Ride back to the Treadwell ranch. Tell them what’s happened. Get some ranch hands and guns and ride out after us. I’m going to follow them.”
Elias wasted no time and turned Fester around to race back up the road again. Jeremiah, with absolutely no idea how to rescue Sarah, continued forward, keeping his horse at a walk. As long as he could see their dust, he would know where they were.
He wondered where they were headed. The road they were on led south to Tombstone, Bisbee and even to Mexico. He supposed if he were a kidnapper also wanted for robbery and jailbreak, he would head for Mexico. Dread filled him as he contemplated what they might do to Sarah.
He rode on, speaking to Sarah and hoping she could hear him in her heart.
“Please don’t be afraid, my love. I am here. I am right behind you. I am with you. You are not alone. Can you hear me, Sarah?”
If she had special powers that allowed her to travel through time, maybe she could hear him.
“Can you hear me, Sarah?” he said, forcing himself to keep his horse at slow pace. “I love you. You can go home if you want. I will help you. I just want you to be safe. I would much rather you stayed with me, but I understand if this has convinced you that you wish to leave. I am so sorry I didn’t protect you.”
He paused and listened. He heard nothing but the sound of his horse’s hooves on the road, the jingling of its harness, the creaking of the saddle.
Jeremiah desperately hoped that Elias would return soon with an informal posse. He didn’t want the kidnappers to reach Tombstone, where they might disappear amid the other traffic. Several roads led out of Tombstone, and Jeremiah feared he would lose sight of Sarah.
“Have courage, my love,” he said. “I am right behind you.”
His head felt as if it might explode, but he attempted to ignore the pain. His pain could be nothing compared to what must have been Sarah’s fear.
He rose up in his stirrups to peer through the dust ahead. He could make out no figures, but then again, he did not want them to look over their shoulders and see him.
They trudged on, and Jeremiah felt more dizzy and lightheaded as time passed. Becoming aware that he was holding his breath, he tried to take in deep breaths. He twisted his head ever so slightly on occasion to listen toward the rear, awaiting Elias’s return.
The dust ahead continued. Was it growing distant? Was he getting too close? He couldn’t tell. He tried to breathe deeply again. A cup of tea would have been nice.
“Sarah? Can you hear me? I’m right behind you. Have faith.”
I know you’re there, Jeremiah. Jeremiah thought he heard her voice. The bright colors of the desert faded, and he felt himself falling.
“Mr. Stone!” a voice crackled nearby. “Mr. Stone! Wake up!”
Someone shook his shoulder, and he was aware of pain in his shoulder.
“Stop!” he groused, and opened his eyes.
Elias, on his knees beside him, shook his shoulder. Above him, four men sat on horseback, looking down at Jeremiah.
“Sarah!” Jeremiah rasped. He pushed himself upright.
“Give him some water,” an older rider said.
Jeremiah recognized him as Samuel Treadwell’s foreman, Richard Sting. One of the ranch hands gave Elias a canteen, and he held it to Jeremiah’s lips. Jeremiah drank, then pushed Elias’s hand away. He tried to rise but fell back. His shoulder ached, and he realized he must have fallen off his horse onto his shoulder. Better his shoulder than his head.
“Where is my horse?” he said. “I can’t believe I fell off.”
“You probably passed out,” Richard said.
“The horse didn’t go
far,” Elias said, rising. He retrieved the horse, snacking on brush, and brought it to Jeremiah. Jeremiah leaned on Elias to stand, then he looked to the south.
“Can you see them? How long was I out?”
“Nope,” Richard said. “Don’t see anyone.”
Jeremiah’s heart raced, and he felt a sense of urgency. How could he have failed Sarah as he did?
“I only hope they haven’t reached Tombstone. I won’t know if they stop in town or bypass it.” Jeremiah climbed onto his horse, and Elias handed the canteen back to its owner and returned to Fester.
“We need to ride fast,” Jeremiah called out.
“And have you fall off again?” Richard asked. “Me and the boys will ride ahead. You and Elias follow.”
“No!” Jeremiah shouted. “I’m coming! I have to be there!”
“Mr. Stone,” Elias said, grabbing Jeremiah’s horse’s bridle as the ranch foreman and his men took off. “You can’t. We’ll catch up soon enough.”
Jeremiah turned wild eyes to Elias.
“This is my fault. I should have ridden back to the ranch to get help.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Stone. We’ll get her back.”
Elias urged his mule forward, and Jeremiah joined him in a trot. He hugged the horse with his knees, refusing to fall off again, refusing to faint again.
Ahead, they saw a cloud of dust, and Jeremiah knew it must be Richard and his men. The cloud soon dissipated as Jeremiah and Elias fell behind.
“We must go faster!” Jeremiah called out.
“The men will get her,” Elias said.
“I need to be there! She will not understand what is happening, who Richard and his men are.”
“Miss Chilton’s a pretty tough gal, Mr. Stone. She’ll be thankful to see anyone but those two desperados. You fall off your horse again, you’re going to be no good to anyone, least of all Miss Chilton.”
Jeremiah, on the point of urging his horse into a gallop, sat back in his saddle. Admittedly, the constant bounce of the horse was excruciating enough. “Richard is a good man,” Jeremiah said, reassuring himself.
“He is, Mr. Stone. He is. He’ll take care of Miss Chilton...if they find them.”