Page 7 of Follow the Lonesome Trail

A Peculiar Kidnapping

A. Hartley

T here was a fly on her carpetbag.

From outside came all sorts of clanging and shouting, but the fly held Constance’s attention until a particularly loud bang made it buzz away, presumably attempting to prolong its already short lifespan.

She wondered if her own life was about to be much shorter than anticipated.

The pamphlet had said the West was won. Or something to that effect: she couldn’t quite remember what it had promised just now.

Only that the position it offered was one for a schoolteacher.

Absentmindedly, she dabbed the sweat trickling down her neck.

More shouting sent a shiver down her spine, followed by a bang, making everyone in the train car jolt. It broke the strange hold on her concentration and the reality of the situation came roaring back to the surface. Her palms grew damp.

A loud crash, different this time, then a voice shouted, “Sit right where you are.”

Constance glanced ever so slightly over her shoulder. A lanky man made his way down the aisle of the train car; a pistol gripped in his hand. As he passed her, she felt the incomprehensible urge to stick her foot out to see if he would trip. She did not, however, act upon this.

“Alright, who here is C. J. Morrow?” the man said.

Constance closed her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She should have known.

“I won’t ask again,” the man repeated, his voice low as he lifted his pistol higher.

He turned in the general direction of a gentleman across the aisle, the only one in the car near her age.

He had attempted to sweet talk her earlier.

She had ‘accidentally’ stabbed his leg with her knitting needles.

The gentleman’s hands and eyebrows went up at the same time.

“My name’s Bentley! I can prove it!” He gingerly pulled out a piece of paper from his vest. Constance couldn’t see what it was, but it seemed to satisfy the train robber.

He turned towards a small family clustered together near the front of the car and hesitated. He looked around the car again.

“C. J. Morrow is on this train. We’ve checked the other cars. If you don’t ‘fess up now, you’ll live to regret it.”

Constance already regretted getting on the train in the first place.

The man grabbed the father of the young family and pulled him away from his wife.

“What would your name be?” he growled.

“Douglas,” the father said, quickly.

The robber shook his head. “I think you’re a liar.” He moved his pistol and Constance spoke before she thought.

“I’m C. J. Morrow.” She swallowed. The father looked guilty and relieved all at once.

“You are not,” the robber huffed, then ignored her and turned back around.

Well, of all the…

“I am and I can prove it!” Constance said, becoming a bit irritated. If a person attempted to play the hero, the least the villain could do was go along with it.

The robber turned around again, as if stunned. Constance pulled out a letter she’d written earlier in the day as an escape from boredom.

“I sign all my letters with my initials. I wrote this one and sealed it this morning.” She waved it, emphatically.

Keeping his pistol up and his eyes on the gentlemen in the car, he motioned for Constance to open it. Or at least that’s what she supposed he meant for her to do. She ripped it open and showed him her signature.

The robber muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “just my luck,” but she couldn’t be sure.

“Fine then, Miss Morrow, you’re gonna walk right out that door down there.” He gestured toward the open car door.

Constance shook her head. Getting off this train was the last thing she’d…

He swung his pistol in her direction. She nodded quickly and stood up.

“The rest of you, just stay right where you are. The train’ll move on shortly,” the robber said, grabbing Constance’s arm and forcefully directing her out the door. She nearly fell off the steps coming down from the train car, one hand pressed to her hat which was already knocked askew.

“Are you crazy?” Another robber sat atop a horse, a rifle drawn up and ready to fire at the slightest provocation from the train conductors or whoever the rather sooty-looking gentlemen standing with their hands in the air were.

“I’ll explain later,” the robber next to her grumbled.

Between one thought and the next, the two robbers had her up on a horse and the three of them were riding away across the flat and dusty plain.

She wondered absently where her carpetbag would end up.

Back home, when a person planned to spend hours riding a horse in any direction at all, one wore something a bit more conducive to riding.

Constance was particularly disappointed that her hat had long since joined the wild western plains.

She’d be red as a tomato by afternoon. Or maybe it was already afternoon.

She couldn’t exactly see the watch on her shirtwaist.

Constance wasn’t a terrible rider, by any means, but she hadn’t spent this much time on the back of a horse in ages.

Her father had made sure she could ride, considering he was part-owner of one of the largest cattle ranches in the west. Not that he’d been out west much to see his investment, but he liked to pretend their family were well-to-do ranchers.

Constance thought it was ridiculous, but she’d learned to ride just like everyone else.

The two outlaws rode next to her. They’d stopped once out of sight of the train and had tied her hands to her pommel.

The outlaw to her left was tall and leaning towards lanky, while the other one seemed a bit shorter. Neither one had said a word since they’d finished tying her up.

The wind caught her honey-blond hair and whipped it into her mouth.

“I don’t suppose,” she said, while attempting to spit the hair out. “I don’t suppose either of you will tell me where we are going?” She rubbed her chin on her shoulder.

“You’ll find out when we get there,” the tall one said.

“Keep quiet, will you?” the other shot back, as if irritated. “You’ve already botched this enough!”

“I didn’t say nothing!” the first man continued. “Besides, she’ll see where we are once we’re there!”

His companion groaned. Both of them still had their faces covered with bandanas and their hats were pulled low over their foreheads, so Constance couldn’t quite tell what they looked like, but she was beginning to wonder about the validity of these outlaws.

Their voices didn’t sound quite as deep as they had during the train robbery, which had her questioning her original assumption of their ages.

“I really don’t suppose I could guess anything from what you said,” Constance began, “but I would like to know why you were looking for me in particular. You didn’t even bother to rob me.

I thought outlaws always stole a person’s belongings, especially jewelry.

I’ve got a lovely brooch clear as day but neither one of you even asked about it.

If this is the Wild West, I must say, I’m a bit disappointed. ”

“That’s cause we aren’t outlaws,” the shorter man huffed.

“Now who’s running his mouth?” the tall outlaw glared. “Technically we are, as of an hour ago.”

The other pulled his horse up short. “No, we aren’t. Outlaws make a living off robbing trains and such. We only did it the once. It ain’t like we plan on making a habit of it.”

The taller man had stopped his horse as well by this point. “Yes, but we did rob a train. Therefore, we are currently outside of the bounds of the law.” He waved a hand illustrating his point. “So, we’re outlaws.”

“But not real ones,” the other insisted, “more like…you know, how Robin Hood was an outlaw.”

“This is completely different.”

Constance watched the two argue for a moment, then considered letting her horse walk on.

As she didn’t know exactly where she was, it seemed foolish to strike out on her own just yet.

Though she was beginning to suspect it wouldn’t take much to initiate a “jailbreak” if she decided to make a run for it, considering how distracted her captors were.

Of course she’d been kidnapped by amateurs.

She wanted to roll her eyes, but instead pulled her horse to a halt.

It was a pretty little thing. She didn’t know a whole lot about horses, other than how to stay on top of one and direct it where you wanted it to go, but its gait was smooth as silk and it seemed to sense what it should do even before she did.

Constance reined in her train of thought and glanced at the two outlaws-who-weren’t-outlaws. They were still arguing, but the topic had changed to whether Robin Hood was even a real story, the semantics of outlaw-hood left behind.

The taller one seemed to come to his senses first and noticed her again. “Come on now, or we won’t get there ‘til nightfall,” he grunted—as if it was her fault they’d stopped.

The shorter man didn’t say anything, just pulled ahead as if he was upset the other one had realized they’d stopped before he did.

The tall one was nearly right. It was late afternoon before they stopped; the sun hot on Constance’s head and her stomach very empty when at long last the trio entered a small stand of trees near a bluff.

They wandered past a shining stream that ran alongside their pathway, glittering in the late sun.

Constance was simultaneously grateful for the shade the trees provided and strangely enthralled by the scenery.

They followed the stream around a bend until it reached a ranch house.

Constance sat back a little on her horse, in awe, as they approached the yard.

The sunlight cast a warm and loving glow on the small cabin, clean and cozy, nestled beneath several aspens that rustled gently in the breeze. Farther beyond it stood a large barn and a stable yard, all fenced in. A weathervane creaked mildly as it moved with the wind.

“How lovely,” Constance involuntarily said out loud.

“It is nice, isn’t it,” the tall outlaw replied, shooting her an angry look.

Well then .