Who were they? Three distinct voices. Two of them rather young, while the other sounded as though it belonged to an old man. He was the leader of this little group, the one who had come up with the plan.
The plan to kidnap her.
For that was where she had found herself. In the middle of a kidnapping.
And now, she recalled seeing the older man from the corner of her eye just before he took hold of her and pressed the strange-smelling handkerchief to her face.
A flash of mind-numbing fear had raced through her in those final moments between awareness and the sweet, painless oblivion into which she had floated. The place where there was no fear, no terror.
That terror had returned, and it was only by the grace of God that she managed to keep a hold of it before it overwhelmed her.
It would hardly do for her to collapse into sobs when she could not breathe through her mouth and clogging her nose would leave her unable to draw air.
To say nothing of the fact that she needed to see her way out of this. To panic would mean to take leave of her senses, and she could ill afford such a luxury. She would need every bit of her intelligence to get out of this.
After taking a series of long, slow breaths, the painful racing of her heart slowed considerably. She made a point of imagining herself free of her bindings, of the wagon in which she had been so unceremoniously thrown. They had positioned her between a canvas bag which reeked as though it held spoiled game and a sack of what felt like grain as she leaned back against it. She hardly dared upset it too much for fear of alerting her captors to her wakefulness.
The longer they believed her unaware, the better.
She held her breath, listening harder than she ever had in her life as the men discussed their plans. The older one snickered. “Just imagine how that family of hers is running about like chickens with their heads cut off. They must know by now that she’s gone.”
The men shared a nasty laugh, making her skin crawl and her eyes water. To think, taking pleasure from what could only be the pain her sisters were currently suffering. How could anyone be so cruel?
One of the younger men asked, “When are we gonna send the note? How long do you think it’ll take before it gets there?”
Note? What was this about?
“First thing in the morning, of course. Joe will ride into town and leave it with the postmaster. Just be sure to keep your face covered when you do,” he added.
The third man, most likely the one referred to as Joe, replied, “It ain’t like this is the first time I ever done something like this.”
The men laughed again, nastier than before.
Not the first time? The first time doing what? Kidnapping a young woman?
“And how much we gonna ask for?” The second younger man asked, greedy and eager. She imagined him rubbing his hands together in glee.
“Just like we said before. Fifteen thousand, split three ways. We’ll each have more than enough to set us up for life if we play our cards right.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. It couldn’t be. Fifteen thousand dollars?
Well, they weren’t asking for fifteen thousand eggs or fifteen thousand hat pins.
Did they truly believe the Reeds had that sort of money simply lying about the place?
It was all so clear now. They must have taken note of her family and had believed rumors in and around Carson City regarding wealthy heiresses living out on Reed Ranch. How she did wish people would mind their business and leave others to theirs.
No one aside from the sisters and their husbands, save the bank and the lawyer who had drawn up the will, understood the situation for what it was. The girls did not own the ranch and whatnot for another seven months.
And even then, the ranch would only legally be theirs so long as all five sisters maintained a residence there.
Were the ranch theirs by rights, there would be little hope of putting one’s hands on so much money in such a short amount of time. She supposed Lewis might sell off some of the cattle, but she would rather he didn’t. The livestock, along with the land from which they fed, meant a great deal to him.
It meant a great deal to all of them. Much more than they ever could have imagined upon first arriving in Carson City.
And now, these fools wanted to take what Lewis and her father and every hand that ever worked the ranch had struggled and sacrificed to build up. All because they were too lazy and too greedy and, more than likely, too weak-minded to build up anything of their own.
They would rather terrorize young women and make their money the easy way. They preferred to sit around a fire, laughing together over how they’d managed to trick her with nearly no effort.
She wondered just what they planned to do with her until they received their payment. A number of unsavory images occurred to her then, making her stomach churn and her eyes water.
She could not afford to give in to an emotion, and she knew it well.
This did not mean, however, that she was made of stone.
What if they attempted to harm her? What if they abused her in some way?
And how much worse would it be once they discovered they would not be collecting such a princely sum?
The answer to all of this was quite simple. She could not allow enough time to pass for them to make that discovery. She could not give them the opportunity to abuse her. She needed to go, and to go now.
How she would manage it was a different matter altogether.
The men continued to talk, and the smell of roasting meat soon filled the air and made her mouth water despite the handkerchief which had been balled up inside. How hungry she was, even in the midst of her agony. She had only just been on her way to the house which Rance and Mason shared, where Phoebe and Rachel had prepared supper.
She had driven to town in order to fetch the girls and return them to the ranch for a few days. To think, at the time she had considered her greatest concern to be the melancholy her sisters would surely descend into upon leaving their husbands.
How was she to know that something far more terrible had awaited her? She had been mere minutes from reaching Carson Street when she’d found the young man lying in the road.
Yes, it was all coming back to her. She’d brought the team to a halt and had quickly climbed down from the buggy, prepared to drive the man the rest of the way into town if he required assistance. He’d appeared injured, but she now knew that was a ruse designed to catch her unawares.
Only when she had bent over him had the older man appeared beside her. With his strange smelling handkerchief, one she now supposed had been soaked in ether or some other such substance.
She had made it so easy for them. She cursed herself at the memory, remembering the many times Lewis had warned her against ever leaving the buggy for any reason. “You never know who you will run into on the way to or from town,” he’d warned time and again.
And to think, she had brushed his warnings aside as merely being a result of a fond brother-in-law concerned for his wife’s twin sister’s safety.
When she got out of this and made it home, she would apologize profusely and promise to never take his warnings lightly ever again.
Just how far were they from Carson City? There was no way of telling, for when she craned her neck to look up at the sky all she could see was stars and darkness. Nothing to give her an idea of how far her captors had taken her. She supposed they would be a good distance from the ranch, though near enough to make a ride into town to drop off a ransom note.
This still told her nothing. If she were to escape the wagon and even steal a horse, she would not know which direction to take the thing. She had not learned the constellations, had no sense of which direction was east and which was west. She knew nothing about the open plains, nor of the mountains which sat beyond them.
What was she to do?
What had she always told her students? That it was best to take things one step at a time. Whenever there was a problem, looki
ng at the problem in its entirety only served to cause a feeling of hopelessness. Rarely could a sizable problem be solved all at once.
She needed to heed to her own advice now.
The first problem was her bindings. The conversation around the fire had quieted, leaving her to wonder if the men had fallen asleep. Were they truly that thoughtless? None of them had checked on her since she had awoken. Perhaps they assumed she would cause a great deal of commotion when she did and would alert them to her awareness.
If the men were sleeping and she could manage to free her hands, that would mean being able to free the rest of herself. But she would have to be very quiet, moving as lightly as possible so as to avoid shaking the wagon.
With this in mind, she began moving her wrists back and forth in hopes of loosening the ropes around them. It was slow going, as whoever had bound her had not exercised much mercy. Her hands had long since gone numb from lack of circulation.
Even so, she felt a bit of slack after a while, which encouraged her to try harder in spite of the way the rope bit into her skin. It felt raw, exposed, and she suspected she had already bled.
That could not matter, not now. Not when her life and her virtue were at stake. Just the thought of being defiled by one of the wretched monsters who’d kidnapped her was enough to make her forget any pain.
It might have been minutes, or it might have been hours. Regardless of how long it took, she managed after a great deal of struggle to slide one wrist free of the rope. Her arms ached terribly as she moved them, the blood flowing to her hands and making her bite her lip against the pain.
At least she could feel something. That was good. It meant she was alive and had survived so far.
The moment she was able, she hooked her fingers beneath the bandana and pulled it down around her neck, then spat out the handkerchief. Her mouth was as dry as cotton, but she could breathe through it again. She took advantage of this and inhaled deeply, fairly gulping the night air and savoring the way it filled her lungs.
Bending to free her ankles would be another matter entirely, as it would require more movement and thus greater chance of being heard. It was sheer torture, but she forced herself to wait. To make certain the men were asleep before making a move.
Even when her instincts told her to run, to flee, to race away before any of them could catch her. Every passing moment could mean one of them waking up and coming to check on her. But it was a chance she had to take.
She listened hard, holding her breath, attuned to the sounds of their heavy breathing. Two of them were snoring, the other muttering softly to himself. None of them moved.
Even so, she forced herself to count to one hundred before daring to continue. When she did, she took her time.
Her nerves had never been so strained, near to the point of breaking by the time she was able to reach the ropes. She worked on them with trembling fingers before forcing herself into calmness. No sense fumbling about, wasting even more time.
Before long, the ropes loosened, and she repeated the act of getting the blood flowing once again. The pain was even greater this time, and she bit down hard on her lip to hold back her groans of agony as muscles which had tightened and gone numb suddenly returned to life.
After what felt like a lifetime, the pain eased, and she could move without hurting. Once that was the case, she held her breath again and listened carefully before pushing herself up far enough that she might peer over the top of the grain sack.
The fire had all but gone out by then, and the three men sleeping around it were unaware of her freedom. Just as she had imagined, one of the men was rather grizzled, his whiskers gray and his face deeply lined. He was the one who muttered to himself in his sleep. The other two slept with their backs to her, and she watched closely to make certain that neither of them was lying in wait, aware of her wakefulness and simply waiting for her to try to escape.
After what seemed a reasonable length of time, she concluded that they too were asleep.
Their horses were hobbled a short distance away, where they might graze on the grass and wait for their owners to call them into service. Two of them were unsaddled, telling her they were the team in charge of pulling the wagon. The other still wore a saddle, perhaps in anticipation of the need for a quick escape.
Perhaps something had finally gone her way. She sent up a silent prayer, both of thanks for having made it this far and in supplication. She needed divine guidance so desperately now.
There was nothing left to do but climb from the wagon and take the horse.
This was the hardest of all, and fear froze her muscles. She could not bring herself to move.
But if she did not move, how would she escape? How might she put this behind her? And what would the men do if they awoke and found that she had freed herself?
Once again, the notion of any of them putting their hands on her was what it took to get her moving. She slid along the rough, splinter-laden planks until she reached the far end. A pair of hinges set into the wood told her the door would swing down, but she did not dare allow that for fear of hinges squeaking.
Instead, she stood on shaky legs, took hold of the side of the wagon and climbed over with her heart in her throat.
The wagon swayed, but only slightly. Though it made little noise, she still crouched behind one of the wheels and watched the men on the other side. One of the younger two grunted and shifted in place but resumed his snoring moments later.
She released the breath she had been holding, her eyes darting all around. It was so dark, the moon little more than a sliver and the stars giving off not nearly enough light. To her right, in the distance, she sat a series of foothills which then gave way to mountains. She knew this to be the Sierra Nevada chain.
The chances of escaping without being spotted by the men were much greater if she managed to make it to the foothills before they woke. Otherwise, they might easily be able to spot her on the flat, open prairie. It stretched out for miles in all directions except for the mountains. She might wait there a while, until she was certain they had moved on without her, before emerging again and fleeing to her home.
There was hardly time to question this plan as she dashed toward the horses, half-bent and hiding herself behind them once she made it that far. They seemed startled at her presence, and she was desperate to soothe them, anxious when she imagined them alerting her kidnappers.
She hoisted herself into the saddle after freeing the gray gelding and turned the horse in the direction of the hills.
How she longed to take off at a full gallop, to kick up dust and put as many miles between herself and these three wretches as possible. But that, too, would only awaken them.
It took perhaps the greatest amount of self-control she had ever exhibited to walk the horse from the campsite. One slow, plodding hoof beat after another. Her heart beat three times as fast, perhaps faster. Enough to sicken her.
Only when she looked over her shoulder to confirm that the men and the remaining horses were far behind her did she allow the horse to pick up speed. She allowed it to run, to run as long and as hard as it wished.
She was free, and the awareness this caused created tightness in her chest that made it difficult to breathe. She was uncertain whether she wanted to laugh or cry or scream or all three at once.
For the time being, she would settle for holding back her glee until she was home again.
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An Undercover Detective’s Bride!
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Copyright © 2018 by Blythe Carver
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