A Worthy Pursuit (26 page)

Yes! Run, Stephen. Get help. Get Stone.

Charlotte thrashed harder, twisting her head from side to side, hoping to distract her captor. Stephen made it to the door, lifted the bar, and had just started to pull it inward when a booted foot kicked it closed.

Jimmy.

Charlotte nearly wept, but smothered the inclination. She’d not give these men that victory over her. Besides, a stuffy nose would make breathing rather difficult with a gag stuffed in her mouth. She’d be strong for the children. Not that emotional strength did her much good when her hands were bound, and
now her ankles as well. Winston’s boney knees pinned her feet to the floor as he fastened a leather strap below her calves.

The minute he finished with her, he grabbed Stephen and gave him the same treatment—bound his hands and feet and gagged him. Stephen glared daggers at the man—daggers the man ignored. At least Stephen was too angry to be afraid. Poor John must be falling apart. Charlotte glanced over to the corner where the boy had been sitting.

He was gone.

25

Charlotte jerked her attention back to the men stomping about the main room. They didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Never had she been more thankful for John’s quiet nature. If ever there was a time for the little boy to slip past someone’s notice, it was now. But where had he gone? The cabin only had one door, and he’d not exited there. She would have seen him.

A window? Mr. Barrett had a small one in his bedroom, but the latch stuck something awful. She’d barely been able to pry the thing open herself when she and Marietta had aired out the room that first morning. She couldn’t imagine John’s tiny fingers managing the task.

Well, wherever the boy was, he was out of sight and out of mind as far as the two villains were concerned, and that was victory enough for now.

“We’ll wrap her up in this.” Winston flung the charcoal-gray blanket from Stephen’s pallet into the air with a snap. It fluttered gently to the floor. “Lay her down, and hold her arms and legs steady.” He was ready with another handkerchief to
secure Lily’s gag the instant Jimmy relaxed his hold on her to lay her down.

Lily’s eyes met Charlotte’s. Swollen. Red-rimmed. Glistening with terror. Pleading with her teacher to
do
something.

Charlotte longed for the strength of Samson, to snap her bonds and crack the imbecilic skulls of the cowboys holding her precious Lily down. But she had no such strength. She was helpless.

Or was she?

Charlotte calmed her desperate flailing and straightened her spine against the frame of the settee until she sat with all the elegance of a queen upon a throne. She had no physical strength to offer Lily, but she could fortify the child’s spirit. Give her reason to hope. Grant her assurance that no matter what these men intended, they wouldn’t win in the end. God would watch over her. And Stone would come for her.

Lily’s chin lifted just a hair. Her sniffling ceased. Her legs and arms stilled. Then her head dipped ever so slightly, and Charlotte knew she’d taken the message to heart. Rescue would come.

“Wrap the blanket ’round the girl good and tight, Jimmy, but leave that top part open to flap over her face when we get to the patrol. The dark color will make her invisible this time of night, but I’ll have to sit in the wagon bed with her to make sure she don’t wiggle enough to draw notice while you get us past the guard.”

The foul man had the audacity to grin as his brother cocooned Lily like an unwilling caterpillar. “Yes, sirree.” He rubbed his hands together. “My luck’s finally turnin’ around. First, I’m the only one of Gordon’s gang to get away from that Hammond fellow without a scratch, then when I meet up with my kid brother for a drink at the Coyote, he tells me about Hammond, a teacher, and a group of kids hidden away on the Double H.
The very same combination we met on the road. Too good to be coincidence.” The wolfish gleam in his eye raised Charlotte’s hackles. “Some might say I was
destined
to collect that reward. Hard to argue with that, ain’t it, teacher?”

Only because she had a gag stuffed in her mouth. She glared at him since she had no other recourse.

He laughed.

“Let’s get outta here before someone catches us, Win. If I ain’t long gone by the time Barrett figures out who took the girl, I ain’t gonna live long enough to enjoy that reward. Neither of us will.” Jimmy tossed the blanketed bundle over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Lily hung lax. No more fighting. No more weeping. Just a single haughty glare she raised up long enough to drill into Winston as he moved past her to unbar the door. A glare that promised retribution.

The man’s step stuttered. He looked away, cursed, then wrenched the door open. “C’mon. That Houston fella should be waitin’ on us by now. I wired him about the delivery. If we hurry, we can be out of the county before daybreak.”

Jimmy grunted and followed. Charlotte strained against her bonds, desperate to help her daughter, but helpless to do so. Before she could even pull up to her knees, the door slammed shut.

They’re getting away!

Charlotte twisted to her side and scooted her rump across the floor until she could reach the arm of the settee with her mouth. She scraped her face against the upholstered edge. Again. The handkerchief refused to budge. Again and again. She had to get the thing off. Had to alert Stone. Finding a rough spot where an upholstery tack jutted out from the fabric, she intensified her efforts, trying to hook it like a fish. She had just found a promising grip when a sharp thump echoed against the cabin wall.

Her gaze flashed over to Stephen. He’d managed to wiggle
his way to his feet but stilled at the unexpected sound. A second thump rattled the window behind her. What little light had been filtering in from outside suddenly vanished.

The storm shutters. The men were covering the windows. Locking her and the boys inside. Even as the thought registered, the rapping of a hammer carried through the air. First at the shutters. Then the door. They’d sealed every possible exit.

Charlotte and the boys were trapped. Trapped inside until someone discovered them in the morning. By then it would be too late. Lily would be in Franklin’s hands.

Unless John had somehow found a way to escape. He was a tiny scrap of a boy. Even if he couldn’t get the window open, perhaps he’d gotten out some other way. A loose floorboard opening into a crawl space beneath the cabin? The hole for the stovepipe in the ceiling? He wasn’t exactly the adventurous type, but if he were frightened enough . . .

“Are the bad men gone, Miss Lottie?”

John
. His small frame stood silhouetted against the light of the bedroom lamp. Charlotte swallowed her disappointment as the boy crept into the main room, trailing his blanket behind him. He was safe. Unharmed. Reason enough to be grateful.

“Mm-hmm.” Charlotte circled her head to direct John closer. Seeing her state, he dropped his blanket and ran to her. He cupped her cheeks in his hands for a moment, turning her face from side to side, then hooked his fingers around the handkerchief and tugged it down onto her neck. She nodded encouragement to him and thrust her chin out so he would remove the gag. As soon as the foul thing was out, she told John to help Stephen then aimed her face toward the newly covered window and screamed as loud as she could.

“Stone!”

Stephen and John soon joined the chorus. “Help us!”

They screamed until they were hoarse, but no one came. The cabin was too far removed. The walls too thick. The boarded-up windows too solid. As foreman, Daniel Barrett lived apart from the other men, his cabin situated in a lovely spot on the front side of the corral. She’d thought it pretty, located near the paddock, away from the smells of the barn and the noise of the bunkhouse. Now it was an isolated prison, keeping her from going after her daughter.

“It’s no use,” she finally rasped, urging the boys to cease their shouts. “They can’t hear us.” Defeat brought tears to her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She leaned against the settee and set her shoulders. If Plan A didn’t work, she’d simply have to move on to Plan B. And C and D and on down the list until they found a way out of this mess. Lily was counting on her, and she’d not quit. They were all intelligent people. Surely they could think of something.

She turned her back to John then twisted her neck to glance at him over her shoulder. “Come here, sweetheart, and help me with this knot.”

John stepped close, but instead of picking at the knot, he buried his face in Charlotte’s neck.

“I’m sorry I hid, Miss Lottie. I should have helped you fight the bad men.” Wetness leaked onto Charlotte’s skin. “I was too scared.”

Charlotte crooked her head around him and raised her shoulder, embracing the boy as best she could while still bound. “Shhh, sweetheart. You did exactly the right thing. Why, if you hadn’t hidden away, you’d be just as tied up as the rest of us. But since you were so clever, you can be the hero of our story and set Stephen and me free.”

John pulled away and blinked up at her, his short, damp lashes clumped together. “Wh-where’s Lily?”

“Waiting for us to rescue her, so we must hurry.” Not wanting the child to get worked up again, she nodded toward Stephen. “I need you to untie my wrists. If we can figure out a way out of here, we can send Stone after Lily.”

With all the possible exits nailed shut, she found it difficult to grasp much optimism. Still, she scanned the room, examining every section of wall for weakness. Too bad the cabin was made of logs. Not exactly something she could chop a hole in with Stephen’s pocketknife.

Barrett had taken all his firearms out of the cabin at her insistence. She hadn’t wanted the children exposed to the danger of such weapons. Now, as she examined the top of the tall bookshelf across the room, she prayed he’d forgotten one. A gunshot would bring the men running.

She squinted. There
could
be a rifle or shotgun secreted up there. Close to the door, handy for a tall man to reach up and grab as he left. The shadows tantalized her with imagined bounty. She couldn’t see far enough into them from her position on the floor to tell if anything real lingered there or not, but somehow she knew the top of the cabinet would prove to be bare. Daniel Barrett didn’t strike her as the type of man who’d lose track of his guns.

Please, Lord. We need to get out of here
in time to save Lily.

“I think I know a way to get out.” Stephen’s words rang through the room as if God himself had sent her an answer to her prayer. His gag drooping around his neck, Stephen hopped over to the door, his gaze assessing both edges. “They nailed it shut on the handle side but not on the hinge side. I’ve got a screwdriver in my bag. If we can pry out the hinge pins, we should be able to push the door open. At least far enough to squeeze through.”

Tears moistened Charlotte’s eyes. Never would she let this
boy think he was anything less than exceptional. At this moment, she truly believed him the single most exceptional youth the Sullivan Academy had ever produced. “It’s a brilliant plan, Stephen. Absolutely brilliant.” And undoubtedly God-sent.

Stephen turned to face her, his eyes alight with pride and a hope so fierce it brought her own flagging coals flaring back to life.

“This will work,” she said, blinking away the dampness from her eyes. She smiled at Stephen then glanced over her shoulder to nod encouragingly at John, who was busy picking at the tie at her wrists. “I’m sure of it.”

John offered a timid smile in answer then went back to work.

Charlotte bit her lip. She wasn’t truly sure of anything, but for the first time in a long while, she was willing to hope for the best instead of expecting the worst.

Stone stretched out on his bed and propped his hands behind his head. Sounds from the bunkhouse filtered over him. The click of poker chips and the occasional ruffle of cards from the game in the back corner. The snores from the hands who had early-morning patrol duty. Even the scratch of pen on paper from a lovesick young pup trying desperately to write a half-decent line of poetry for the town girl he was courting. Masculine sounds. Comfortable, easy, familiar. So why couldn’t he fall asleep?

Because he didn’t want to sleep among a bunch of hairy-faced men who smelled like sweat and smoke, who thought nothing of belching and scratching and walking around in their drawers. He wanted a fussy, prim-and-proper woman who smelled of lilies and fit perfectly against his side during a sunset stroll. He wanted children around him—girls who dreamed about riding herd on outlaws, and boys who built crazy contraptions
or who rarely made a sound unless they sat at a piano and spit out jaw-dropping masterpieces. That’s what he wanted surrounding him at night. A family.

“You ever think about gettin’ your own spread, Dan?” Stone asked in a voice that would carry no farther than the bunk beside his. “Settlin’ down with a good woman and havin’ some kids?”

“Don’t know about the woman and kids part, but I do got my eye on a piece of land not far from here. Thought about training mules. Sold a few in the past, and I keep getting requests for more. Hawkins lets me train ’em in my spare time, but I won’t really be able to make a go of it unless I strike out on my own.”