She laid it aside to replace the box lid just as a board creaked behind her. One of the children had left the room. Smiling, Deb straightened to turn and see who’d escaped.
Before she could look behind her, a callused hand slapped hard over her mouth.
An arm like a vise clamped around her waist and pinned her arms to her sides. Lifted clean off her feet, she was whirled around and carried right outside the wide-open door. Squeaking and thrashing, she tried to gain someone’s attention.
While the man wasn’t large, he was strong enough that she couldn’t even feel him straining himself as he carried her. He never stopped moving. He strode straight for the trees while she kicked and wrenched her arms to get free.
There were two horses waiting, grazing. Another man came out of the woods, smiling wickedly at her. The man who had her leapt onto a horse, dragging her along, and nudged the horse with his knees. Without saying a word, they rode out of the small clearing away from the cabin.
The other man came up close, and reaching across from his horse, he quickly bound her hands in front of her. The horses never stopped walking.
Still not a word was spoken. They didn’t do a thing to draw attention to themselves.
Terrified, she realized how calm they were behaving about everything. How silent. The horse’s gallop might’ve sounded an alarm. He hadn’t had to untie the well-trained horse or let Deb loose more than a second. They moved for long minutes while she twisted and fought. Furious, desperate, she bit the hand of the man who had her. Hard. He made a ruthless move that nearly jerked her teeth out, then shoved her chin up and held her jaw and mouth shut tight.
Finally, the distance must’ve been enough because the man holding her leaned forward, and his words were more hiss than a whisper. “You do that again and I’ll knock you cold. I may do it anyway. You’re a heap of trouble.”
She twisted her head, and he let her. He sneered as she saw who had her.
The recognition blazed in her eyes. The only man she’d seen at the wagon train massacre. A filthy, brutal murderer had her in his grip.
“Know me, don’tcha? I reckon you’re mighty scared. Well, I need you alive for now, and I’ll do my best to keep you that way, because we’re using you for bait to draw that man of yours out so we can kill him. He doesn’t know I saw him in those woods when the grizzly startled us, but I did. And we followed the two of you all the way home. Havin’ the two of you out of the way’ll make it a lot easier to attack another train. You just sit tight. The only thing I need from you is screaming—which you’ll do when the time is right. I don’t need that for hours yet.”
“Shut her up, Dalt,” the second man said with cold cruelty. “She’s gonna twist loose if we ain’t careful.”
Another move with the hand cut off her breath.
She fought the grip. He tightened it. There was no way to find even the smallest hint of air through her mouth or nose. The world began to narrow and her lungs heaved, fighting to inhale. She fought his grip with everything she had, and then her strength faded as her lungs starved. The narrow world went dark, and her last thoughts were of Trace and how, instead of being silently hurt because he didn’t tell her he loved her, she wished she’d told him. What difference would it have made whether he’d said it back or not? At least he’d’ve known.
God, deliver me. Give me the sense and strength to know what you want me to do, and when.
She realized her wild, silent prayer was, in its own way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
That was her last thought before the world turned pitch-black.
CHAPTER
27
God, please protect Deb while I’m away.
Trace was flooded with a powerful need to pray. And he did pray that he could catch these men without killing and without being killed. But suddenly that wasn’t enough. He was called to a prayer that was . . . deeper. He prayed for his wife left at home. He wasn’t sure why God put it on his heart, but it was a pleasure to pray for her, so he did as he galloped toward the trail through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
When he was close he, Black, and Wolf faded into the woods. He knew of a cave in this area that wasn’t usually a spot to hibernate. Finding it, he went in prepared to back out and search on if it was inhabited. A fight with a bear or a mountain lion was bound to be noisy, and Trace was aiming to be as silent as fog.
This cave was the very dickens to get into. Trace had to move several heavy stones, which he’d added to over the years to help keep it blocked. But he’d found a bear in here a couple of times.
The cave was unoccupied, so he led his horse in, stripped the leather off him, and gave him some oats. Wolf dashed away, and Trace figured he was hunting his own meal. Trace ate a quick meal himself, no fire. The smoke would probably disperse, and it was windy enough the smell of cooking food wouldn’t be noticeable, but Trace was in no mood to be careless.
When he was ready to go on,
