At one point, they were so loud that Lana was certain they could be heard all the way down in town. Then she remembered how long it had taken David to bring her here. The town was a good distance away. It was unlikely that anyone would hear them no matter how loud they were.
As she thought of the distance, her heart began to weigh heavily with anxiousness once more. Would Nick be able to find her? Had anyone even talked with Ginger about what was going on? She had thought they were at the doctor's house.
They were supposed to have been home for supper. Poor Ginger must be worried sick home alone with the children, with one good leg and no one to help.
Lana’s heart ached with loneliness and homesickness. Her stomach ached with hunger and her throat burned from thirst.
Little scratches and cuts all over her face and arms and legs stung and her feet felt as if she would never be able to use them again.
But as much misery as she was in, Lana did not complain and she did not cry. She was not about to show Jake or his men that she had any weakness. She was going to stay strong until the end of this nightmare, whenever that might be.
Chapter 36
Nick looked back to make sure that everyone was following. He was the first in the group since the dogs were his. His ranch was somewhat on the way of the route they’d decided to take and thankfully, it had given him time to get them.
He wasn’t sure how much help they were going to be in finding Lana. He had tried his best to train them to find things by scent, but it was still a work in progress.
“Anything?” The sheriff called from behind.
“I think they picked up a trail,” Nick answered.
The dogs had been leading them in a definite direction for the past several minutes.
They had been searching for hours though. They had broken up into three groups so that they could cover more ground.
The sheriff had been right. Nearly every man in town had volunteered to help with the search. Some did it because they knew Nick and they wanted to help Lana. Others did it because they had money in the bank and they wanted it back or because someone they cared about had been in the bank robbery and they wanted justice to be served. All of them were angry that the gang had deceived the townsfolk by pretending to be men that they weren’t.
Nick looked around him and felt the warmth as they worked together as a team. This was what the community looked like.
“Hey! Over here!” A man called out in the night.
Nick turned his horse and headed toward the voice. Had someone found something definite at last? He was getting discouraged with the tedious search that had shown up nothing.
Every moment was filled with memories of Lana and hopes he hadn’t known he’d had. He was beginning to realize just how important she had become to him. He couldn’t imagine Ginger’s ranch without her. Goodness, he couldn’t imagine his own life without her.
When he caught up to the men, they were holding torches and lamps above a place on the ground where muddy boot prints could be made out in the ground.
“Do you think it’s them? The tracks are headed that way, into the hills,” one of the men said.
“I don’t know, could be some moonshiner. You know there are plenty of those around here. Or a homesteader who was looking for some lost animal in the woods earlier,” the sheriff said as he shrugged.
“Or it could be them,” Nick pointed out. He wanted it to be them, he wanted a path to follow, some sort of clue that might lead them to a fruitful destination.
“How about we split again. There’s nearly ten of us here. Half of us can go on with you and the dogs and the rest can see where these tracks lead.” One of the men suggested.
Murmurs of approval went up amongst the men and Nick agreed. It might be worth it. He wasn’t sure if he was happy about being on the team with the dogs.
He gave the command and his group continued trudging on. He tried not to think about the fact that there were fewer of them than ever. Now that they had split again there were only six men on his team and four on the other team.
Between the three robbers at the bank and deputy David, they knew that the gang had at least four members, possibly more. Would they be able to take on hardened criminals safely if they found them?
Nick shook his head, trying to keep his thoughts in the positive.
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” Derek’s soft voice beside him startled him. He had been so consumed by his worries that he had let his surroundings slip away.
“She does. You know, I never expected her to be anything to me. You remember how I was when she first came.”
Derek chuckled. “I do. You were coming up with some pretty daring plans to scare her away back to the city. I’m not sure whether to be happy or not that they didn’t work.”
Nick gave his friend a sideways glance, “Happy of course. I was a total and complete fool. Lana didn’t deserve that. I should have helped her adapt out here instead of pushing her away. She reminds me of me when I first came out here.”
Derek grunted, “How so?”
“You know, when I first came out here, I was as green as anyone else. I didn’t even know how to plant a single thing properly. If it hadn’t been for Eric and Daniel, I would have starved to death.”
“Let’s not be dramatic. And you’re forgetting me.” Derek sounded offended, but Nick knew it was just an act.
“How could I forget you? Though I didn’t meet you until four months after I came here and I’m not sure whether that was a good or bad thing to this day.”
“Well, I never…” This time, Nick wasn’t sure if Derek really was offended or not.
“You know what I mean. Of all the people I thought would become my best friend… I guess we just don’t have a lot in common, you know?”
Derek grunted again and Nick could imagine he was nodding. He couldn’t see him well enough to tell. The lamps were lighting up the way in front of them, so it made it hard to see one another.
“I know, I thought the same about you. Actually, I thought you were kind of a know it all, not worth my time.”
The two of them threw back their heads and laughed.
Nick glanced over at the horizon. A thin grey light was beginning to form. The sun was rising.
Nick’s heart beat faster. It had already been a whole night and they hadn’t found her. He wondered if she was safe. Had she eaten something for dinner? Had she slept somewhere warm? Had they hurt or violated her?
“She’s going to be all right, Nick.” Derek’s voice was somber now, all jokes forgotten.
“How do you know? I said the same thing about our plan to stop the robbers and look how that worked out.”
“I think that God has a plan for everything, he does.”
Nick scoffed a bit, “You haven’t been to Sunday service for nearly two months.”
“That does not mean that I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Derek huffed. “God has a plan, you just need to be patient and see what that is. He doesn’t often talk about it, you know.”
“Nick nodded and forced himself to take a couple of deep breaths. His friend was right. This was a moment to trust because there was absolutely nothing more that he could do.
Lana was in God’s hands right now.
---*---
The sun had finished coming up several hours ago. Nick couldn’t be certain but if he had to guess, he’d say it was eight or nine in the morning. He wasn’t certain, but it felt as if they had made good progress through the night.
When the dogs started howling, he thought that he was imagining things.
“Come on, Nick, they’ve found something.” Derek was already off his horse and running toward the dogs.
Nick followed him and the two arrived almost at the same time.
Buddy was sniffing a spot near a tree. He was barking and whining and sniffing around the whole area with excitement.
Nick patted him encouragingly. “Good dog, Buddy. Yeah, you fi
nd Lana, Boy. You can do this,” he said.
Nick bent down and picked up a piece of blue fabric. In the center of it was a little white flower. He knew that flower. It was from Lana’s dress.
She had been wearing a blue dress with a white flower print. The tear from the dress’s fabric was small, it must have been ripped off by one of the tree branches. Anger ran through his veins. They must have been practically pulling her through the forests for the branches to have ripped her dress like that.
“Up here! We found something!” the shouts came from the other men. They had been working spread out, close enough that they could hear each other if they ran into any trouble, but far away enough to cover six times the ground.
Nick and Derek exchanged glances and hurried to catch up. As they broke away from the trees, they spotted a tight grove of trees up ahead. On one side there was a large rock that was nearly as tall as a man. Passing the rock, they entered into a medium-sized clearing.
It was surrounded on all sides except for the entrance which was barely large enough for two men walking or a horse to go through.
The camping spot was quite nice for someone to be hiding out at. The men who had called were knelt down beside a campfire that was still smoldering. Jake and his gang had been here recently.
Or at least Nick certainly hoped they had.
“There’s an exit over here!” Derek called.
Nick hurried over. Through the trees, there was an equally narrow exit that was similar to the entrance. He led his horse through it, and they emerged into thick forest beyond.
While at first they trail of their enemy wasn’t clear, after looking closely, Nick spotted the signs. There were broken branches and scuff marks on the ground.
Some of them seemed quite obvious; maybe Lana was managing to leave them a trail.
This only invigorated Nick. Finally, they had found a real clue, a real path that would bring them closer.
Nick thought back to Derek’s words from last night. He wondered what God’s plan was with having Lana kidnapped.
He wondered why God let bad things happen to good people. He remembered what his mother used to say. She said that bad people sometimes needed a little more love shown to them. She had also said that just like with children, a good father gave people challenges they could handle, and maybe bad people couldn’t handle a lot of things happening to them.
While it made sense, Nick wasn’t sure that he agreed. He hated to see good, undeserving people suffer. Daniel had been a good man. He’d taken care of his family and gone to church on Sunday. Why would God take him away so soon?
There wasn’t a soul in town who didn’t know him and miss him; he had died too young. Lana had come here to help Ginger. She had gone out of her way to help him find Daniel’s killers and bring them to justice, and yet here she was suffering.
Nick hated to think that way and he knew that he needed to change that. Maybe he needed to trust God more. Maybe that was the lesson to be learned here.
He clenched his jaw and peeled his eyes for every little detail. He was going to get Lana back. This time, he could do something about losing a member of his family. It still wasn't too late.
Chapter 37
The trees seemed to grow thicker as they went. This part of the forest must not have been traveled often because it was resistant to Nick and the men pushing through it.
The first bit of movement that Nick saw ahead, he thought he was imagining, but then he saw it again. It was faint, and far in the distance, among the trees, the color of a man's coat in the shape of a man.
Someone was up ahead.
He held up his hand for everyone to stop. They all huddled together. “I think I see someone up ahead. It might be them.”
“What should we do?” one of the men asked, looking around with what Nick would describe as fear on his face. “Should one of us go to fetch the others for backup?”
Nick nodded, “Why don’t you go fetch the others? The rest of us will try to follow them at a distance and hope that they haven't spotted us yet. We have the advantage if we catch them by surprise.”
The man who had spoken looked relieved to have been chosen to go and get help. He nodded and then turned his horse around and disappeared into the trees.
He made a bit of noise, but nothing too terrible. There were natural noises all around them and Nick was counting on that to mask their own. There were birds singing and the rustling of rabbits as they raced through the foliage underfoot.
Nick hoped also that the noise of the enemy riders would mask anything they might hear behind them.
He wanted to rush forward and confront them and demand they give Lana back, but he knew that the smart thing would be to wait for back up. The more of them there were, the more chances they had of winning this without a loss of life on either side.
Nick knew that Lana wouldn’t want anyone to die to get her back. He kept his eyes glued to the spot he had seen the movement.
Every once in a while he would feel panic as he thought that he had lost them, and then he would spot a bit of movement again, this time a different colored garment. He counted five men in total and one time, he was certain he spotted Lana.
They had found them. Maybe Derek had been right. Maybe, just maybe, this would all work out okay.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, things began to happen. The first thing he noticed was that the group ahead of them began to spread out. He held up his hand once again to stop his companions.
“I think they’ve spotted us. They’re splitting up. We need to act now.”
The others nodded in agreement. They rode forward, guns in hand, no longer worrying about stealth or surprise. They were already found out.
They caught up with three men, and shots began to be fired. Nick jumped from his horse and slapped it hard to send it away. He knew it was a risky move to be stuck without a horse, but from what he could tell, the enemy had done the same.
Keeping his horse would only make him a larger target and easier for his enemies to shoot.
He tucked his body against a large tree and tried to get a good look at his target. He didn’t want to accidentally shoot Lana, but he needed to protect himself and his companions.
He caught Derek’s eyes. His friend was a few feet away, also taking shelter behind a tree.
Nick caught sight of one of the enemy men and took a shot. He missed.
There were bullets flying and the air was full of loud bangs coming from the weapons.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually, he realized that there were more men on his side.
They filtered in from the woods. It seemed that the man who had gone for help had been successful.
With the reinforcements it didn’t take them long to overpower the enemy but when they did, it only felt like half a victory.
Jake wasn’t with them. One of them had been shot in the arm and another in the leg.
“Can you guys stay with them? I need to go on. Jake still has Lana.” Nick paced back and forth as his companions tied up the gang members that they had captured.
“We’ll go with you.” Derek held up a freshly loaded pistol and Nick nodded.
An Encounter of Courageous Hearts: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 26
