A sudden ruckus in the barn and the whinny of a horse had Gideon Cross out of his bed and into a pair of pants in seconds. They were not stealing his horse again those sons of bitches. He grabbed the rifle from it's place at his bedpost and ran outside into the partial light of early morning not even bothering with his boots. He approached the partially open doors carefully wanting to get a look inside before he did anything else. What he saw was not the kind of horse thief he'd expected giving him a small sense of relief.
Gideon opened one of the barn doors revealing a young Indian woman with a child on her back who upon seeing him jumped upon a white horse and pummeled it's sides with her legs.
The thing she didn't know however was that Trigger wasn't going anywhere with him standing there and had almost reared until he intervened and grabbed the lead rope crudely attached to the bridle. When the woman could see that this wasn't going to work she jumped down and ran to the back of the barn looking for a way out all the time keeping an eye on him. There was a door but it wasn't likely that she would find it.
He held onto the horses bridle just watching the woman who at this point resembled a cornered rabbit and was desperate enough to kick out some of the back panels of the barn just to escape. When she finally did find the back door he couldn't let her go. Something had scared her this badly causing her to run and with the weather turning cold he worried for the baby.
She'd had a small head start out the back door but it was clear that as determined as she was to run her legs were weak and she was tired. When the woman realized he was running after her she picked up her speed but not enough to evade him. Gideon caught her around the waist being careful of the baby between them and as expected she fought doing every bit of harm to him in an attempt to get away. He let her fight knowing that she would eventually tire and when she did standing stock still for just a moment he tried pulling her back in the direction of the barn.
"I am not a mans posession" she screamed breathing heavily although as she had not spoken in English, he could not understand her "the only man I belonged to is dead and the others are stupid fools"
"I'm not going to hurt you" Gideon answered "but you can't keep running, your body is worn out and I'll almost bet you haven't eaten."
At that point the baby awoke and began to squirm. Gideon again pulled her towards the house and after a moment she relented pulling the baby carrier off her back.
To be continued, as always
No comments:
Post a Comment