Page 8 of Follow the Lonesome Trail

She started to comment that she had meant what she said, when a man of medium height and light brown hair walked out the front door, pulling up short when he saw the three riders.

She wondered if this was the ringleader, or if she ought to ask for help. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but she might as well try. “Excuse me, sir, but I have been kidnapped by these hoodlums…”

“Hoodlums!” interrupted the tall outlaw.

“…and I don’t know just where I am; so if you would kindly help me and possibly arrest these two, I would be grateful,” she finished, wiggling her fingers to get his attention drawn to the fact she was tied to her saddle.

The man continued walking towards them, with a pronounced limp, she noted. He grabbed hold of the bridle and shot a look that could kill towards the two outlaws.

“She’d best be lying,” he said, flatly, then, “Get those things off your faces, you look like a pair of idiots.”

Both of her kidnappers pulled the bandanas off their noses at the same time, expressions a bit sheepish.

A little smugly, she noticed her guess regarding their ages had been right.

The taller one might pass for eighteen, but the other couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

They looked suspiciously like failed attempts to copy the man standing in front of them.

“Oh dear, do they belong to you?” Constance asked, gently dabbing at the sweat running down her temple with her shoulder. At the very least they had to be cousins, though if she were a betting woman—which she was not—she’d guess they were brothers.

The man in front of her rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “Tate, untie her. And who in the blazes is she?”

“We can’t let her go, Gideon, she might run away!” The taller man, Tate presumably, took his hat off and rubbed at the dark sweat ring his hat had created.

“I swear by all that’s holy, you untie that woman right now, Tate Marshall, or I’m gonna beat you in front of her. You’d best have a good reason she’s here in the first place!”

Constance sighed. This was going a little better. Something told her, though, that her situation was only going to get more interesting from here. She didn’t mind much, but there was the principle of the thing to consider.

“She’s Morrow’s daughter!” said Tate.

Gideon’s hand tightened on her bridle and his face went very still.

“I don’t care,” he said, his voice low, “untie her. Now.”

Tate leaned over and untied her hands. She rubbed her sore wrists. They weren’t bruised or anything, but holding them in one position for so long had made them quite stiff.

“Marsh, you take care of the horses,” Gideon said, as he held out a hand to help her down off the saddle.

Constance let go of Gideon’s hand as soon as she had her feet under her. With what she thought was prim and proper grace she said, “I don’t suppose you have a place I could wash up? And then would you mind telling me what it is you’ve kidnapped me for?”

Marsh snorted as he led the horses away. Tate was the only one who responded. “You think we’d tell you, lady?”

Gideon slapped the back of his brother’s head. “Go get her some fresh water and put it in the back bedroom.”

Tate trundled off, looking mulish. Gideon waved his hand towards Constance, as if to say, “After you.”

Oh dear, she was sore in fiendish places. She tried to walk normally, but it had been quite a while since she’d ridden for so long and her muscles knew it. Besides, that was not a sidesaddle on that horse.

“Are you really Thomas Morrow’s daughter?” Gideon asked, in a quiet voice, as they walked towards the front door of the farmhouse.

Constance felt a bit uneasy at his tone.

“Does it matter if I am?” she replied, glancing at him as he opened the door for her.

“Unfortunately, it does.” He did not sound pleased with this fact.

To be honest, neither was she.

The bedroom was…pretty. Constance could admit that, despite her continued dismay at the lack of explanation she’d received regarding her kidnapping.

She dabbed her face and neck with the water Tate had brought— who still appeared to be sulking about the whole thing.

How very rude. If anyone should be sulking about anything it should be her . She’d never heard the like. Being kidnapped was one thing, finding out that your kidnappers weren’t even certain they wanted you was entirely another.

When she finished, she walked back towards the front of the cabin, until she came to what looked like a kitchen off the side of the house.

Gideon stood there slicing up a loaf of bread. She coughed discreetly so he would know she was there. He glanced over at her with a resigned expression on his face.

“You know you could have got away from those two nincompoops any time you wanted,” he said, sighing and setting a plate with the slices of bread next to a crock of butter on the little table near the center of the room.

“I did consider it, but I wasn’t paying attention during the train ride, so I really haven’t the faintest idea where I am.

It seemed a little foolish to run off and not know where you ought to go.

” She sat down at the table and began to eat.

Gideon placed a cup of water next to her plate and sat down across from her.

“Well on behalf of the whole lot of us, I want to apologize,” Gideon began, then paused, looking as if he wanted to say something else.

“Apology accepted,” Constance replied, with a laugh, “provided that you get me back to where I’m supposed to be just as soon as possible.”

“I…am very much afraid I can’t do that, ma’am,” Gideon said, staring at his hands clasped on the tabletop.

Constance blinked. “Well, whyever not?”

“A couple different reasons I’d rather not go into just now.” He met her gaze. “You’re your father’s only child, is that right?”

“I don’t believe I’m going to answer any questions until you answer one or two of mine.” She didn’t like this one bit. The two younger men she’d pegged as a bit ridiculous, but this one appeared to have some common sense. And common sense was oftentimes harder to reason with than ridiculousness.

Gideon sighed heavily then stood. “Why don’t you just finish up while I go talk to the boys, then we’ll figure out what’s to be done with you.”

“Done with me?” she spluttered, but he ignored her as he limped from the room.

She felt her face flush. Why, she had half a mind to go saddle a horse and be gone before he got back!

The nerve! Be done with her! She shoved her chair back.

Up until now, she thought she’d done a reasonable job at being a good kidnapping victim.

Considering the strange attitude of her kidnappers, especially.

Besides, one didn’t find an adventure of this sort these days without being in peril of life and limb (and she really hadn’t considered herself to be threatened in any measure much past the beginning).

To be perfectly frank, she’d not minded the excitement.

But this was the outside of enough! All three of them needed spanking, by her way of thinking.

She hurried outside and looked around. There, the barn door was still open. She’d bet anything they were inside. As she got closer to the door, she could hear them talking, the words a bit muffled.

“They’ll hang you both!” Gideon was nearly shouting.

“We only wanted to help…” Tate began.

“How is this supposed to help! We don’t even have right on our side anymore.”

“Yes, we do! It’s our land! That big shot can’t just go and take something of ours like that…”

“What, like you took something of his? Do you even hear yourself?”

“We’re sorry, Gid, we didn’t mean to make it worse. We only thought that if we had his kid…and besides we didn’t know she was a girl…”

“You actually mean to tell me you put thought into this? Then there can’t even be half a brain between the two of you, cause this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do.”

“Well, your way wasn’t working!” Marsh cut in.

“My way was the right way. Even if we lost everything, we still wouldn’t be kidnappers! And train robbers,” Gideon groaned as if the extent of what his brothers had done had hit him all over again. “What’s it gonna matter if we get to hold onto everything if you two are rotting in jail somewhere!”

“They won’t catch us, we made sure we kept our faces covered,” Tate said.

“Oh really, well you’ve got a whole walking, talking, breathing eyewitness sitting in the house just now.”

Silence from inside.

“What were you planning to do with her if you managed to pull this fool scheme off? Hm? Kill her and bury her out back?”

A chorus of “No!” and “That’s not fair at all…” rang from the barn, at which Constance felt great relief.

“Just as soon as you turn her back over, they’re gonna know exactly who kidnapped her and no matter what Morrow agrees to do, the lot of us are going to jail, if not to be hung.”

“Gid, we didn’t…”

“But we thought…”

Constance frowned at the lack of response from their older brother.

Then Tate said, “What do we do, Gid?”

Constance didn’t hear his response because a voice behind her said, “Where’d you come from?”

She screeched a little and spun around to face a fourth copy of the three men in the barn, only this one was a bit smaller. He couldn’t be older than seven or eight at the most. When she didn’t say anything, the boy repeated his question.

Constance stuttered, but finally managed, “The train.”

“The train is miles and miles from here, lady. You could'na walked that far. Where’s your horse? I love horses, we’ve got three, one for all the others, but I’m gonna get one next month for my birthday, Gid said so.

Do you like horses? They’re ‘bout smarter than people most times, I think, but Tate says his is dumber than a mule, which is awful mean to Rufus, cause he’s smart and… ”

“Walter, just take a breath, will ya?”

Constance jumped again, her heart rate slowing when she realized Tate had just come out of the barn.