Page 9 of Follow the Lonesome Trail

“Ma’am, if you’d go back in the house now, we’d appreciate it,” Tate said, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t look pleased.

Gideon walked out behind him and stopped short at seeing Constance.

“Ma’am, why don’t you…”

“Yes, yes, I know. Go back to the house.” Constance felt tempted to stomp her foot, but resisted the urge. Instead, she stalked her way to the house and slammed the door.

The bed Constance was not sleeping on was surprisingly comfortable.

She shifted and it squeaked a little beneath her, but the mattress was gentle and the quilt frayed and soft at its edges.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Every once in a while, lightning would brighten the room. She shivered beneath her blankets.

Her erstwhile kidnappers had offered her dinner which she’d refused to eat out of spite.

Gideon told her that they would all be sleeping in the barn so she could have some privacy.

Surprisingly thoughtful considering they were all a pack of feral outlaws.

Possibly excluding young Walter. But if he stayed here with the rest of them, he was sure to turn out just as crazy as the older three.

She tossed and turned in bed a while longer, then jumped when she heard voices following the next boom of thunder.

The sound made her jolt upright. She waited for a moment, then heard a shout again.

Constance got up and put her blouse and skirt back on over her underthings and wrapped the quilt around her shoulders.

Her bare feet made nary a sound on the floorboards as she crept forward.

The door had been left open in an attempt to cool the house and she paused, taking in the sight of the four brothers sprawled on the porch.

Thunder rumbled again.

“I win!” Walter practically shouted and all three of the others shushed him. Marsh, who was lying flat on his back with his feet high on the porch railing, handed him a penny wordlessly.

“That was a long shot,” Tate huffed in a pseudo-whisper.

“Was not! I can always tell.” Walter sounded smug as he stacked the penny on top of a neat little pile laying in front of him.

The chair where Gideon sat creaked a little as he rocked it. “You’ve got to admit, he never loses.”

“We oughta take him to a side-show. Maybe we could make it rich off him.” Tate rubbed Walter’s hair so that it all stood on end.

Gideon laughed quietly. “There’s a thought. We could use him to make us some loot and then pay off the note.”

“How come you didn’t think of that a day and a half ago?” Marsh grumbled.

“Well, I might’ve if you all hadn’t been in such a hurry to…”

Constance unconsciously shifted and the floor creaked beneath her feet. Four heads spun in her direction.

“Spying on us?” That came from Tate who quickly shoved his hand over Walter’s mouth as the boy opened it.

Walter apparently didn’t appreciate that, because Tate yelped and pulled his smarting hand away, sticking it beneath his arm.

“Serves you right,” Gideon laughed, then looked toward Constance. “You want a seat?”

She eyed the rocker next to Gideon. Marsh lounged in her path, but he quickly swung his legs out of the way long enough for her to get around him.

The chair rocked smoothly as the thunder rumbled once more.

“I’m hungry,” Walter shuffled his pennies around with two fingers. “Dinner was ages ago and we worked hard after, and besides Marsh ate all the cornbread and I didn’t get none…”

“Then go get you something to eat.” Tate shoved him over. Walter glared at him but got up and went inside.

“And bring me something!” Tate shouted, then grinned at Walter’s, “Get your own!”

Lightning flashed and all three brothers still on the porch shouted numbers.

Constance opened her mouth to ask what they were doing, but jumped when the thunder cracked.

Marsh stuck his hand out, still lying half upside down, as Tate and Gideon both groaned and tossed pennies at him.

One hit him in the eye and he slapped Gideon’s foot in retaliation.

After a few moments more of silence, Gideon cleared his throat rather loudly. Constance turned to look at him, but noticed he was glaring in Tate’s direction.

“Ma’am, we shouldn’t’ve robbed you off the train.” Tate said it vaguely, waving a hand.

Constance blinked then stifled a grin when Gideon not-so-subtly kicked Marsh.

“We’re sorry and it won’t happen again.” Marsh sounded as if he was a schoolboy giving a recitation. It took everything in her not to laugh. Funny, but she wasn’t quite so upset with them anymore.

Gideon looked as if he wanted to smack both of them, but said, “With all of that being said…we are in a rough spot.”

Constance raised her hand as if she were in a classroom herself. “Might I ask a question?”

“If you’d like…” Gideon sounded skeptical.

“What exactly were you planning on doing with me once you had me? I mean, you must have had a plan to go to this much work to kidnap me. Robbing a train isn’t a simple thing I would think.”

“You’re darn tootin’ it ain’t! Do you know how hard it was to round up that many blanks?” Marsh blurted.

“And how hard it was to bribe Betty at the telegraph office to tell us what train you were coming on?” Tate added as he restacked Walter’s pile of pennies.

Constance waved a hand in his direction. “See there, I thought so. Wait,” she pulled up short. “How did you know I was coming out here?”

Tate sighed a little and said, “Everybody in town knew that Morrow’s kid was gonna come be the school master. Except we thought you was a he , considering everything you sent had nothing but your initials.”

“Well.” Constance frowned, then shook her head. “Anyway, back to the kidnapping itself: what was the plan in the first place?”

“Well, see…we didn’t know what we was gonna do… exactly .” He glanced at Marsh as if looking for backup. “We kinda thought we could hold you for ransom.”

Constance frowned. “But didn’t you realize you’d be arrested? Once you returned me?”

Gideon was rubbing the spot between his brows as if he had a headache coming on.

“Well…we hadn’t, exactly thought that far,” Tate admitted with a shrug, “We were just desperate for a way to get the ranch back.”

“Get the ranch back?”

As Constance spoke, Walter came back outside with several biscuits in his hands. He chucked one at Tate who managed to catch it after it bounced on the porch railing.

Gideon sighed. “I suppose you’ve the right, all things considered. It all sort of started two years ago. I tangled with a steer and ended up flat on my back for a while. The boys had a hard time keeping up with everything and we fell behind on the payment to the bank.”

Constance nodded, though she couldn’t imagine what this had to do with her.

“Problem was, about the time all that happened, something went on at the bank that they still won’t explain to us and they sold our loan off to somebody else.”

“Is that legal?” Constance asked, frowning.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.” He waved a hand, as if to redirect her attention back to his story. “Here’s the thing though, they sold it to the owners of a nearby cattle ranch. A big one by the name of the Bar Jessup.”

Here Constance frowned, because that was…

“The ranch in which your father is a fifty-fifty owner,” Gideon spoke her thought aloud.

“Now Tom Jessup, the other owner, lives out here for the most part and manages the ranch. He’s been trying for years to buy me and the boys out.

We’ve turned him down flat every time. So now he’s bought our loan and raised our interest then says the payment we’re making don’t cover what it should.

So now he’s threatening to take the land. ”

“There is no possible way that is legal!” said Constance, outraged.

“I wouldn’t know. We’ve tried hiring lawyers. The few we could afford got bought off by Jessup,” Gideon shrugged.

“But what does all this have to do with me? My father hasn’t threatened you or anything.”

“Yes, but your father does own fifty percent of the Bar Jessup. And that’s the party that took over our loan. Tom Jessup didn’t do it under his own name. Which means if your father wanted to call this whole thing off he could.”

Constance frowned. “He likely doesn’t even know about any of this!”

Gideon looked back up at her and said, “I’d wager he does now that his daughter got kidnapped off her train.”

Constance swallowed and bit her lip. “You and your brothers have miscalculated a bit I’m afraid.”

Gideon sat up a little straighter.

“My father didn’t even know I was on that train. Much less that I got off of it.”

It didn’t take long for Constance to explain that she had come all the way out here without her father’s permission or foreknowledge.

A year ago, her father had betrothed her to a man by the name of Jeremiah Blackstone.

Now, Jeremiah Blackstone was a handsome man with quite a lot of cash money behind his name, but faithful he was not.

Her cousin Edith had seen him swapping more than tales with a certain debutante behind a potted palm at a party hosted by the Vanderbilts.

Constance had never loved Jeremiah, so that wasn’t particularly the issue, but she did have her own pride to consider and being married to someone who was going to go around behind her back with the likes of empty-headed Araminta Goldwater was not Constance’s idea of a good match.

Her father had, unfortunately, disagreed.