“Whoa.” Jimmy spoke gently to the tired horse. Having just passed the mail pouch on to Noah, Jimmy climbed wearily down from his saddle and led the golden palomino to the stables. Ike was waiting inside and he took over the job of feeding and putting the horse away. Gratefully, Jimmy signed his thanks and stumbled his way to the bunkhouse, stopping by the washbasin only long enough to rinse the grit from his face.

“Mornin’, Jimmy.” Rachel greeted him as she removed a pan of steaming biscuits from the oven. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

“Hey, Rachel.” Jimmy quickly snatched a biscuit before Cody could grab them all. “Sure smells good.”

Kid yawned loudly and stretched. “Where’s Christy?”

“She must be sleeping in.” Rachel added a bowl of eggs to the table. “We stayed up a while talking last night, and she was still outside when I went to bed.”

Jimmy glanced quickly up from the piece of bacon he was fixing to bite into. “You left her outside? Alone?”

“Yes, Jimmy, why?” Rachel looked at him with obvious confusion.

He closed his eyes with frustration. “She didn’t tell ya’ll what happened yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?” Kid asked, his brows creasing.

“That fellow you saw her talking to in town was here yesterday. I walked in on them talking and he threatened her.” Jimmy explained.

“Threatened her, how?” Kid’s temper immediately flared.

Jimmy sighed. “Something about things weren’t finished between them. I told her to stay here in case he decided to come back.”

“You don’t think…” Rachel let her sentence die unfinished.

“I’ll go check the house.” Lou volunteered, rising quickly from the bench.

Kid pounded his fist on the table. “Why wouldn’t she tell me about something like this?”

“I think she’s still holding onto the way he used to be.” Jimmy replied.

Lou was back within minutes. “She’s not there.” She said breathlessly. “Her bed ain’t been slept in either.”

Kid began strapping on his gunbelt. His mind flashed back on the man he had found talking with Christy. Kid berated himself for not expressing his instant dislike for the drunken slob better. If anything happened to his cousin, he would never forgive himself.

Just then, Teaspoon came through the door, obviously tired from having worked all night. Quickly he sensed the tension in the air and became more alert. “What’s wrong, boys?”

“We think Christy has been kidnapped.” Rachel explained, her hands covering her face.

“Kidnapped! By who?” Teaspoon demanded.

Jimmy looked up from gathering supplies long enough to answer. “Harry Turner. They evidently go way back and I think he still holds a grudge that she’s moved on with her life.”

Teaspoon looked around at all the riders gathering up their gear. “Hold on a minute. Now, I know we’re all worried about Christy, but this outfit still has to operate. Some of you are going to have to stay here.”

Each one of them looked at the next and no one volunteered to stay.

“Alright. I guess I’ll have to do the pickin’. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?” Teaspoon asked.

Again there was silence.

“Alright, Buck you go on and start trackin’ them.” The young Kiowa ran dutifully out the door. “Kid, you and Jimmy and Cody come with me.”

Lou immediately began to protest being left behind and Ike nodded his agreement. “Lou, Ike, I know how much you want to come, but you can help more by staying here and seeing that the pouch gets through.”

“Teaspoon, be careful.” Rachel whispered.

The four of them soon set out, following Buck, who had picked up Harry and Christy’s trail heading south. Their tracks were undisturbed and Harry had made no attempt to hide the direction he was going. This worried Buck gravely, as a man who didn’t bother to cover his tracks was probably either in a hurry to get where he was going or he was panicking.

Silently they pushed on, unsure of how big a lead Harry had on them. Kid felt sick with worry. His face was drawn and his blue eyes were a dark shade of gray. Teaspoon noticed his condition and tried to soothe him.

“It’ll be alright, son. We’ll get her back.” Teaspoon said gravely.

Kid wanted to nod; wanted to say he believed the older man’s comforting words, but he found himself unable to respond.

“Kid?” Teaspoon prodded gently.

“I can’t lose her again, Teaspoon.”

Chapter Twelve

Christy awoke with a horrible headache. She tried to open her eyes, but the sunlight was so bright, it caused them to water. She was vaguely aware of being horseback, though where she was going she couldn’t remember. Try to focus, she told herself sternly, but the only thing she could really concentrate on was a gnawing feeling of uneasiness.

She wiped her eyes and caught a brief glimpse of a man riding ahead of her, leading her horse. “Kid?” She called out hopefully.

The man turned to her and smiled. She shuddered. It was Harry, but why was she with him? She clawed for some reasoning. What exactly had happened to her? She tried to think back. The last thing she clearly remembered was talking with Rachel on the porch swing. Everything afterwards was a blank.

“Harry, where are you taking me?” She tried to keep the unsteadiness out of her voice.

Harry laughed. “Home. Where do you think?”

Christy was silent. Home? Where could that be? Unless… “You’re taking me back to Charles’ farm?”

Harry looked back at her again. “Maybe. Right now, I’m just trying to get out of range of those Express friends of yours.”

Christy thought of Jimmy and Kid hopefully. “They’ll never let you get away with this. Kid will hunt you down like a dog.”

He snorted. “I doubt that seriously.”

They rode on for a while in silence. Every step the horse made jarred Christy’s head until it felt like it would explode. She tried to reach up and wipe the hair out of her eyes when she noticed that her hands were tied to the saddle. For the first time, Christy felt more than just annoyance at Harry for kidnapping her; she felt fear.

At dark, Kid and the others were forced to make camp. Kid prowled restlessly around the camp, unhappy at having to stop. Teaspoon built a fire, careful to keep an eye on Kid and Jimmy. He knew how impatient both of them could be, and wouldn’t put it past either of them to take off to search for Christy on their own. Jimy at least seemed to be resigned to stopping for the night, but Kid was like a caged panther.

“Kid, come sit down.” Teaspoon called. “You might as well save your strength for tomorrow. There’s nothing more we can do today.”

Kid reluctantly approached the fire and squatted beside it. “It don’t seem right, Teaspoon, us stopping while she’s still out there.”

“I know, son, I know.” Teaspoon offered him a piece of jerky. “But we can’t track ‘em at night, and we can’t afford to lose time by getting off course.”

Jimmy tiredly rubbed his forehead. “Where do you think they’re headed?”

Teaspoon raised his hands. “I don’t know, but he’s sure in a hurry to get them there.”

“If they keep going at this pace, the horses will be worn down.” Buck said.

“That’s fine, that’ll make them easier to catch.” Teaspoon replied.

Kid stood, then sat down again. “All I know is, if he hurt her, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t get anywhere sitting around here talkin’ all night. I say one of us goes on ahead.” Jimmy threw down his piece of jerky.

“Jimmy, you ain’t gonna find nothing at night. Now, not one of us wants to find her more than the other, so we best just wait till morning and leave together.” Teaspoon explained patiently.

“Why didn’t you tell me that lowlife threatened her?” Kid stared accusingly at Jimmy.

“Because!” Jimmy tried to hold his temper. “I thought she would tell you. I was leaving on a run, Kid, I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of time for talkin’.”

Cody looked anxiously between the two of them, sensing a fight. “Let’s not go through this again. We shouldn’t fight now, we have to stick together.”

“Cody’s right, boys. We need to worry about Christy right now, not whose fault it is.” Teaspoon had a feeling Jimmy and Kid were both at the boiling point. Tension had already been high between the two men, and with Christy in danger, their anger threatened to spill over.

“How far ahead of us are they, Buck?” Cody asked.

Buck considered it for a moment. “Probably half a day.”

“Our best bet would be to turn in.” Teaspoon advised finally.

Everyone lay down, making pillows from their coats. It was soon clear that no matter how long they lay there, no one was going to sleep this night. Kid finally sat back up, staring into the fire, lost in his thoughts. Teaspoon waited a few more minutes, then rose to join him.

“Can’t sleep, huh?” He poked at a log in the small fire.

Kid shook his head.

“You want to talk about anything?” Teaspoon asked casually.

Again Kid shook his head.

“I know what you must be going through, son. I just wish I could make it better.”

Kid spoke quietly, his gaze never leaving the fire. “I thought I would never get over when Jed-died. It was like a part of me went with him. But, it was nothing like this, Teaspoon. Christy and I went through a lot together, maybe even more than me and Jed. All this time I thought I’d never see her again….”

“Kid, I know it ain’t none of my business.” Teaspoon began. “But I’m going to ask you anyway. How did the three of you get separated?”

Kid sat motionless for a long while. He had always vowed to himself that he would never tell anyone what happened in Virginia so long ago. Happy as he was to see Christy, she stirred up those old feelings that he had thought were long forgotten. If something happened to Christy, he would lose his only link to the past. As bad as his past had been, there had been happy times, times only Christy would remember.

“Kid?” Teaspoon gently prodded. “It’s alright, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Kid leaned his head on his hand and made his decision. He could sense that the others were awake, waiting for his answer. Maybe it was time to tell someone…

“We took Christy in when she was pretty young. Her parents got scarlet fever and died, but she hardly got sick. Christy’s mother was my mother’s sister. Christy looks a lot like my mama actually… My pa, well, he was pretty rough, things were always bad, but they got worse after Christy came. It was like, like he resented having to take her in.

“One night they got to arguing worse than usual.” Kid swallowed, finding it difficult to continue. “Pa wanted to send Christy to an orphanage, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it. They started fighting. Christy and I hid under the kitchen table. They were upstairs, and-and Pa pushed her-“

Teaspoon gently laid a hand on Kid’s shoulder. “You don’t have to-“

“No, it’s alright.” Kid took a deep breath before going on. “Mama fell down the stairs. She just lay there even though we kept shaking her and telling her to get up. Pa came down the stairs and told us to leave her be.

“Jed came in, he had been out somewhere with his friends. He took one look at Mama and he jumped on Pa. I thought he would kill him right there, but Pa finally shook him off, then he left. Jed sent me to get the doc, but he said there wasn’t much he could do. Either she would live or she would die.”

Kid’s voice became quieter as he talked, but his tone also became harder. “Two days later, she died in her sleep. We never saw Pa again. A widower named Mrs. Williams took me and Christy in, but she didn’t have room or money enough to take Jed, too. We stayed with Mrs. Williams for almost five years, until she got the small pox. An old lady came and got Christy one day, said she would keep her until Mrs. Williams got better. She died a few days later, so I went to find Christy, but she had disappeared. Turns out the old lady was from an orphanage, she had planned to come back and get me after Mrs. Williams died. I spent the next few years looking for Christy and Jed, until I got the job with the Pony Express.”

Teaspoon shook his head in disbelief. “You young’uns have been through quite a bit.”

Kid turned to Jimmy. “That’s why I was so set against the two of you. Maybe I’m just being overprotective, but I don’t want her to get hurt again.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before, Kid?” Cody asked.

Kid looked down guiltily. “Maybe I should have, but I really didn’t want to remember much from that time. Mama had made each of us promise that if we ever got separated that we would try to find each other again. It’s almost like she knew what would happen. By the time I got my job here I had pretty much given up on ever finding Jed or Christy.” He laughed sadly. “I quit looking for them, and they both showed up.”

“Aren’t you glad to at least have found them?” Buck asked, noticing Kid’s forlorn expression.

“Not if just when I get them back, they both get killed.” Kid replied.

Teaspoon pointed a finger at Kid. “Now, you can’t think that way. We are going to find Christy and she’s going to be fine.”

“I hope you’re right, Teaspoon.” Kid looked at him earnestly. “I hope you’re right.”