"Can I help you with those?" Buck asked as he helped the pretty young woman he'd bumped into, pick up her fallen packages.
"Thank you," she smiled at him, "I'm just going down toward the livery stables."
"Well that's fine," Buck said.
He nodded to Sam as the Sweetwater Marshal told him where he could meet up with him and the others, before following the young woman across the street.
"I'm Buck," he said as they walked, "What's your name?"
"I'm Sadie."
"That's a pretty name. You live here in Blue Creek?"
"No, I'm just visiting with some friends," Sadie replied, glancing around as they neared the livery stable.
"What's wrong?" Buck asked, catching her glance, and turned toward her.
He saw her eyes widen, as her gaze traveled over his left shoulder. Sensing her widening gaze for the warning it was meant to be, Buck started to turn, but felt something solid and metal connect with the back of his head, before he could anything to defend himself. Blackness rose quickly, as he felt himself start to fall, and then he felt nothing at all.
His first conscious thought was of drums beating a staccato inside his head and there was something bound around his mouth. His next thought was of the odd sensation that his feet weren't touching the ground. His eyes flew open and he winced as bright sunshine shone in them, causing pain to slice through his head.
Squinting against the sunshine, Buck tried to bring a hand to his face to cover his eyes, but found that he couldn't. Tilting his head upward, he saw that his hands were bound by rope, his arms stretched above his head at a painful angle, and though he tugged hard on the rope, he could not free himself.
He glanced around and saw that he appeared to be in a circular enclosure of some sort. It took him a moment to realize that he was in a water tower. He recalled seeing one when he, Ike, Jimmy, and Lou had ridden into Blue Creek.
Judging by the sunshine pouring in through the hole in the top of the water tower, Buck figured he had been hanging in the water tower for several hours. Trouble was he had no recollection of how he had gotten in his current predicament. Concentrating hard, he remembered bumping into Sadie and offering to carry her packages. He realized now that she had probably bumped into him on purpose. She was the lure to get one of them alone so that Nickerson's men could force Ike's hand and prevent him from testifying against their boss.
His friends were looking for him, of that, he was sure. They wouldn't stop looking for him until they found him; he only hoped he was still alive when they arrived. Until they showed up to rescue him, he supposed there was nothing he could do but hang around and wait for them.