hers.” He walked away, adding over his shoulder, “I think you’re smart enough to figure out what that means.”
Clenching and unclenching his fingers, Tate forced a deep breath between his gritted teeth. He wanted to slam his fist into something, though it wouldn’t change the situation. For better or worse, his fate—and his entire operation—now lay in the hands of Miss Essie Vanderfair. If he didn’t return with her, he’d be expelled from the gang at the very least and his case would go up in smoke. At the very worst, he’d wind up dead.
Which meant he’d better go back and retrieve her.
He marched to the horses and saddled his mount again. The other men glanced between him and Fletcher in obvious confusion. “Better hope she’s alive and well,” the outlaw leader called out, shooting him a condescending grin as Tate swung up onto his horse.
The anger in his gut iced into anxiety as his mind filled once more with horrible visions of Miss Vanderfair injured, or worse. He shoved aside the nagging thoughts. She was fine, most likely.
Still, he couldn’t help praying as he urged his horse back the direction he’d just come. Please, Lord. Let me find her and let her be all right. For both our sakes.
* * *
Essie eyed the darkening sky ahead and swallowed hard. In a short while she wouldn’t be able to see much of anything, let alone the robbers’ tracks, if the clouds dropped their rain. Sliding to the ground, she pressed her lips over a cry at the throbbing ache in her legs. Too many years had passed since she’d ridden bareback.
“Want some water, boy?” she said to the gelding. If she focused on something else, she could ignore the pain.
She set down her valise and cupped her hand to capture as much of the water from her canteen as she could. The liquid disappeared into the horse’s mouth at once. The poor animal was thirsty, even though she’d kept him moving at a slow gait. She allowed him another mouthful and then she drank from the canteen herself.
When she’d finished, she sloshed the water against the sides of the container. There wasn’t much left, judging by the sound. And she had nothing in the way of food for herself, either. But at least there was food for the horse.
“Why don’t you sample the grass over here?” She led the gelding to a patch of yellowing grass among the dirt and sagebrush. “I’ll see if I can’t spot their trail again.”
Looping the reins around a large sagebrush, Essie returned to the place where she’d dismounted. She walked slowly, searching the ground for tracks. A few yards away she found the imprints from the trio’s horses.
A feeling of optimism bloomed inside her. Her tracking skills, though a bit novice, had proved to be more than adequate. She’d be back with the train-robbing gang in no time at—
The crack of thunder from above made her jump and caused the gelding to skitter to one side. She hurried to soothe the horse as fat drops of rain began to strike her head and shoulders. If the downpour washed away the tracks...
Essie swatted away the troubling thought. Surely she’d stumble onto the men’s campsite before too long.
After tying up the canteen in the reins to free both her hands, she clutched the handle of her valise between her teeth once again and attempted to climb onto the gelding. But without the aid of a rock, she had to try three times before successfully hauling herself onto the horse’s back. By then the rain had picked up, pounding the prairie as though it were as angry as she’d been earlier.
Essie could hardly see more than a few feet in any direction. Wiping strands of hair from her face, she untied the canteen and turned her mount toward the spot where she’d last seen the tracks. She kept her valise and the water container crushed to her chest with one hand while she grasped the reins with the other.
Cold droplets slid down her dress collar and pulled her hair from its pins until it lay soaked against her back. There was nothing to do, though, but keep going. The horse plodded on, its head down. She wished she could lower hers, too, but she needed to make certain they were traveling in the right direction, drenched or not.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the rain ceased its thunderous fury and dwindled to a light sprinkle. After another few minutes it stopped altogether.
“Look at that, boy—we made it through.” Essie ventured a smile and shifted her grip on the reins to pat the gelding’s neck.
But her relief ended abruptly when she leaned to the side to study the ground. Any tracks made by the three horses were no longer visible. A pinprick of alarm punctured her hope further as she realized the light was beginning to fade around them.
She moved the horse in one direction then back in another. It was no use. The outlaws’ trail had disappeared and everywhere she looked the curve of the hills appeared the same. How was she to know where to go now?
Determination warred with her growing anxiety and she set her jaw. “We’re not giving up. We have to find them.” For more than just her interviews. The outlaws were her only ready source of food and fire and civilization. Unless, of course, she ran into other occupants of the plains...
She swallowed hard at the memory of the bloodcurdling tales she’d read, and those she had penned herself, of travelers beset by warring Indians. Although in her book The Indian Warrior’s Bride, the heroine had not only survived an attack on the wagon train but had found love, too.
Still, a shiver, that had nothing to do with her drenched clothes, ran up Essie’s spine. It was one thing to write such fanciful tales; it was another matter altogether to live them.
Which meant only one course of action remained open to her. She stopped the horse and bowed her chin. “As You can see, Lord, I’m in another predicament. Though I recognize, unlike earlier, this one is largely of my own making.” And the Texas Titan’s, she thought with a frown. “But if You wouldn’t mind sending some help...”
The gelding lifted his head and whinnied. Someone, or something, was coming their way.
Essie swallowed hard and peered through the dimming light. “Please let it be the two-legged kind of something,” she prayed, thinking of wolves and coyotes.
A rider crested a nearby rise. Essie’s heart slowed its frantic hammering, but only for a moment. While not a wolf, she hoped the stranger was good and decent and kind.
“Let him be a friend, not a foe,” she whispered. “A friend, not a foe.” She couldn’t see the man’s face beneath his hat, but she felt a flicker of relief that at least he was dressed in the clothes of a horseman and not an Indian on the warpath.
Just as she was about to call out a greeting from her dry throat, the man lifted his head, revealing the face of the Texan. The man who’d left her behind—on purpose.
“Very funny,” she muttered, lifting her eyes upward.
Sending her help in the form of that outlaw could only mean one thing—something she’d suspected for a while now. The Lord certainly had a sense of humor.
Tate’s mouth curved into a grin at the sight of Essie Vanderfair.
