Mail Order Mayhem (Mail Order Romance Book 2 - Benjamin and Annie) (3 page)

Carl swung into the saddle of another horse and, with a shout, charged down the valley trail toward the south with the rest of his gang
in his wake. Curtis, the young man who found the hunting knife, held the bridle of Annie’s horse and cantered next to her, giving her no opportunity to rein her own horse. Nothing remained for her to do but hold on and be carried along with the crowd. As the sun rose, the horsemen crossed the southern pass and streamed away toward the west.

Hours later, Benjamin Moran stirred on the hard wooden floor of his house. He pried open one eyelid, then immediately closed it again against the stabbing pain in his head. He rested his aching skull on the cold floor boards under him and labored to think. He wondered if his injuries might have blinded him, because only pure blackness squeezed between his eyelids when he did manage to open one of them. His hips and shoulders smarted from lying on the hard surface, and his neck wrenched in spasms from the twist imposed on it by his position. Eventually, his beleaguered brain recalled the horrors of the early morning, and concern for Annie induced him to drag his eyes open and raise his tormented head from the floor. The ponderous silence pervading the cabin and surrounding area told him she must be gone, or desperately in need of his help, or possibly both. Every fiber of nerve and muscle screamed in pain, but he goaded himself up to a sitting posture, leaning on one arm, and there paused to get his breath. Once sitting up, he saw the light of day through the crack under the cabin door, and from the angle of the sun’s rays, guessed that most of the day had passed and it was now late afternoon. He brushed his hand across his forehead and dry blood crumbled in his fingers from his tattered eyebrows. Prodding tenderly around his forehead, he outlined the gashes and welts gaping from his skin and jutting up into his hairline. With another herculean effort, he rotated onto his hands and knees, hanging his throbbing head down and gasping harshly. Through it all, he kept the image of Annie’s face in front of his eyes to force himself to move, reminding him at every crippling pang of the dangers to her safety. Only some disastrous occurrence could have driven her away from home. He guessed those bandits that broke into the house had absconded with her, but he refused to allow himself to speculate on what might befall her under such circumstances. The possibilities frightened and appalled him too much. He concentrated instead on compelling himself to crawl over to a chair and climb to his feet, in spite of the pain and crushing fatigue shooting through his head and body.

Holding first onto the chair and then the table, he teetered to his feet.
Step by brutal step, he staggered to the door and flung it open, sending a shaft of light into the room. Driving himself like a slave master, he coerced himself to look around the room, surveying the scene of destruction Annie herself witnessed at the hands of their intruders. Quilt stuffing covered the bed where he and Annie so lately rested, and he noticed right away that her dress, shawl, and shoes were gone. She must have departed fully dressed and still on her own feet. He could console himself with that, at least. He might not be a complete fool to hope that he could find her and get her back in one piece. But he would have to move. That was the crucial factor. If only he could propel himself to move. But it was so terribly difficult. Even his thoughts refused to follow one another in a competent sequence. He struggled to formulate a strategy for action. What was there that he, a lone man, could do against a gang of hardened criminals such as these must surely be? If they consciously and calculatingly planned this invasion, complete with the subterfuge of the father and son in distress from the storm, they would be capable of anything.

No matter, he thought. He must act. He could not leave Annie to her fate. That much remained clear. He suffered himself to examine the rest of the cabin, but left the scattered clothing from his own trunk
, the shattered crockery and ruined flour and smashed barrels from the lean-to, and the scattered dishes from the shelf where they lay on the floor. Somehow, a distant sound of animal voices reminded him of his livestock still locked inside the barn. When he slipped open the door and the cows and sheep charged out into the meadow to graze, he found the empty horse stall with the bridle and saddle missing. So she rode away on a horse. Another good sign. While he was there, he brought out the other horse and tied it by its halter to the hitching post, where he intended to saddle it and ride out after Annie. Then he returned to the cabin to fetch whatever he could find that might be useful for a rescue mission.

He
brought his rifle down from the hooks above the doorway. At least they hadn’t taken that. Casting a quick glance around the room, he could ascertain nothing missing. Only gratuitous destruction. He buckled on his gun belt and checked the charges in all his guns. He put all his extra ammunition into his saddlebag along with a spare rind of bacon he salvaged from the lean-to. He would work out the finer details of keeping himself fed once he hit the trail. He thought again about the dangers of facing a large gang of armed men alone, and wondered for a moment what other weapons he should take. When he remembered the hunting knife and searched for it in his trunk, he found it missing. He stood over the trunk and stared at it in bewilderment for several seconds, trying to decipher the meaning of its absence. He couldn’t imagine Annie taking it. Certainly, if theft motivated the attack, the rifle should have been one of their primary targets, not to mention the livestock, the other horse, even his pistols hanging in their holster on a hook by the cabin door. The pattern of wreckage around the house suggested they didn’t even make a very concerted effort to search the premises. They didn’t find his secret hiding place in the cabin wall where he kept a wad of bills and the few silver coins he saved for emergencies.

He dismissed the puzzle of the knife and focused once more on getting saddled up.
At the door, he heard another male voice hailing him by name from outside. “Benjamin Moran! Anybody home?”

His hand instinctively flew to his gun belt, but when he stooped under the lintel of the door and spied the man trotting up the trail, he relaxed when he recognized
Martin Christopher, the sheriff from the town of Patterson. The sheriff didn’t dismount, but he scrutinized Benjamin’s face as he reined his horse to a stop. “I can see they’ve been here already,” he remarked drily when he saw the bruises and encrusted blood. “Are you alright, then?”

“I’ll live,” Benjamin informed him.

“I don’t suppose you know which direction they went, do you?” the sheriff inquired.

“Sorry, I can’t help you,” Benjamin apologized
. “I was passed out on the floor when they left. Matter of fact, I was passed out on the floor almost from the moment they showed up. They didn’t give me much chance to fight back.”

“I’ve heard the same story from half a dozen other people around here,” the sheriff nodded. “They’re cutting a pathway of mayhem through the whole district. I suppose they showed up after the storm last night and gave you a big sob story about the poor son frozen half to death and begging for help? Is that it?”

“That’s about it,” Benjamin concurred. “I guess they know what will make country people open their doors.”

“I’m guessing they’re country people themselves, or come from that stock,” the sheriff speculated.

“Who are they?” Benjamin questioned him. “Do you know anything about them?”

“From what I hear, they’re some father and son team from Missouri,”
Sheriff Christopher replied. “They’ve been working their way south for months, raiding and wrecking their way through the mountains. I imagine they’ll be heading for the Iverson place next. At least they won’t find anyone living there.”

“Annie tried to warn me not to
open the door, but I wouldn’t listen to her,” Benjamin complained.

“She’s alright, too, then, is she?” the sheriff asked. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

“She’s gone,” Benjamin snapped. “I guess they took her with them. Her clothes and shoes are gone, and one of the horses, too, so it looks like she rode away with them. I’ll be going after them, just as soon as I get my horse saddled up.”

The sheriff shook his head gloomily. “
I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he cautioned. “You never know what sort of craziness men like this will resort to. They’re already on the wrong side of the law. They won’t hesitate to take drastic action to prevent themselves from being caught or punished. My deputies and I‘ll be going out after them either later today or tomorrow. We’ll track ‘em down and bring ‘em in. We’ve got the numbers to go up against a gang like this. You’ve already taken a beating from them once. Next time, you mightn’t be so lucky. I’d stay home, if I were you.”

“
Well, you ain’t me,” Benjamin growled. “They’ve got Annie, and I’ll be going after ‘em.”

“
Well, suit yourself,” the sheriff retorted. “But if you wait a little while, you can go with me and the deputies. Heck, I could even deputize you. We’ll have a much better chance together.”

“
I appreciate it, but I’ll go now,” Benjamin responded. “I won’t wait. Maybe we can meet up again later.”

“You’re a tough nut, Moran,” the sheriff scolded, wheeling his horse around to face the southward trail again. “I’d wish you luck if I thought you stood a chance of surviving such an insane project. I suppose we’ll be bringing your cold, dead body home in a wagon, and then you won’t be much good to Annie at all, if she comes out of this alive. But anyway, good luck, and I hope I’ll see you again.”

“Thank you,” Benjamin grumbled.

The sheriff galloped away, leaving Benjamin alone with his plans.

With his saddlebag packed, he needed no further motivation to leave the cabin. The vacuum normally filled by Annie yawned agonizingly in front of his face. He loathed the cabin without her in it. He shook his head at the irony that he lived here alone for over fifteen years before she arrived. How distant and nightmarish that time seemed to him now. Even in its shattered state, the cabin still bore all the hallmarks of her presence, each one a poignant reminder of their years together, their joint effort to render the valley livable, and a sharp prod stimulating him to go after her. Her spinning wheel rested in the corner by the stove, a flake of carded wool dangling from the leader. Her butter churn stood in the kitchen, its handle worn smooth by her hand. He changed into his woolen socks, the ones she carded, spun, and knitted from their own sheep’s wool. He still remembered the expression of satisfaction on her face when she completed them and he put them on for the first time. In her darning basket near the hearth, another pair waited for her to repair them. Every article in the room bore the stamp of her touch. Every facet of his life carried the irrevocable imprint of her influence. He wondered how he ever tolerated his own life without her sharing it with him, and he could not bear the thought of living any longer without her. He hoped that, if he could not bring her back, he would die in the attempt, so that he should not have to face the prospect of returning to the cabin alone. Secretly, he agreed with the sheriff that the whole enterprise must be hopeless. One man against a dozen or more dangerous felons could never hope to overcome them. Then again, he didn’t plan to overcome them, but merely to get Annie back alive. Perhaps some unforeseen development would eventuate to make that possible. Otherwise, his corpse could rot out there on the range, and good riddance. Only since he married Annie did he fully comprehend and appreciate the Biblical injunction that enjoins a man to take a wife and counsels that he will not reach his full completion as a human being until he does. In his decades of bachelorhood, he bucked against that idea and resented any suggestion of the sort, but now he understood it. He felt the truth of it in his own bones. All the work and consideration he put into his homestead before Annie arrived, which he thought at the time served to make his home more comfortable, in fact only paved the way to make it acceptable to her, and to prepare the foundation of their union.

Benjamin cinched the saddle to his horse and slipped the bridle into the creature’s mouth.
He tied his rifle onto one side of the pommel and a canteen of water to the other. He draped his saddle bags over the back of the seat and, with a fleeting review of the cabin, he sealed the door on the devastation inside and hoisted himself onto his mount. He kneed the animal to a trot along the trail in the direction of the south pass, in the same direction Sheriff Christopher had departed. He left the valley without looking back. He hated the idea of seeing the cabin, tucked in amongst the trees at the riverside, without its characteristic beacon of smoke floating up into the sky from the chimney. In years past, he always enjoyed that view from the top of the trail, either departing from or returning to the valley, and feeling the call of home emanating from misty modest vision. He always made sure, whenever possible, to keep the fire loaded up when he traveled outside the valley, so that he would see that welcoming signal when he returned. He knew the sight of the smoke rising from the cabin chimney in the distance particularly delighted Annie. From her first arrival in the valley, that faraway picture of domesticity warmed her heart and favored her to the place, informing her against all her prejudices that she could be happy here. If she was dead out there somewhere, Benjamin thought, the cabin could die, too. It could crumble with the weather and become a temporary shelter for mice and raccoons before the earth swallowed it up and the valley reverted to the trackless wilderness it had once been when he first purchased it.

As he traveled steadily southward, he let his thoughts bury the past behind him and entomb
ed himself in his own black depression. With the valley abandoned, he became a nameless, faceless, homeless wraith—a single, driving motivation to track down these marauders, and nothing more. He could no longer consider himself a man, but merely a thought, a thought toiling to fulfill itself, and then to blow away into the wind, leaving no trace of its passing.