Chapter 7

Audra rode as fast and as far east as she could before finding a road going north and turning for where she thought home would be. Her wrists were rope burned and really beginning to hurt, but she couldn't stop. She wasn't afraid the old man would be after her, but she was afraid the young one would come back and find her gone. Maybe there was a chance he wouldn't come after her, or would be unable to track her, but she wasn't counting on anything except her own mount.

But in an hour or so she had to slow down, and then she had to stop and rest her horse. He was gasping and lathered and she knew she had pushed him to the limit, especially given that right rear leg that was kicking out. She stopped by a creek, dismounted and let him drink.

All the while she listened. She was on a back road and didn't really expect to hear many riders, if any, but she had to be alert. There was no telling if she had gotten away clean. She paced anxiously for a bit, but then sat down on a rock to rest. She plotted the direction she thought home would be and tried to figure out how to get there. That was her only objective now – get home.

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At about the same time Audra stopped, Nick together with his men and the sheriff and his men found their way to the house where the Bakers had been holding Audra. It was the first abandoned house the sheriff knew of that was roughly on the way to Modesto, but they didn't see any horses there. Disheartened, Nick nearly turned to keep going, but the sheriff suggested they look around first, so they stopped.

It was a good thing they did. One of the hands from the Barkley spread rode slowly around the back of the house and saw the Baker father lying in the dirt.

"Nick!"

Nick and the others rode around back, where he spotted his man dismounted and kneeling next to the father on the ground. Nick jumped down and ran to them.

"This is Old Man Baker," Nick's man said.

Nick winced at the father's bloody eye. The old man groaned and whimpered but wasn't really coherent. Nick grabbed him anyway. "Where is she?! Where is my sister?!"

Nick's man said, "Nick, he's hurt bad, he ain't gonna answer you – and I got the feeling your sister did this to him. I can't think of anybody else who might have."

Nick let the father drop back into the dirt and stood up. "If that's so, she might have taken off someplace. Look around!" he yelled to the others. "Look for that track her horse leaves!"

"It's over here!" one of the sheriff's men yelled. "She's heading east!"

Nick ran over to him and looked in the dirt for the tracks. He saw her horse and another, but the other one didn't seem to be following her. "We gotta find her," he said and mounted up. "Stewy!" he called to the man kneeling by the father. "You and Macon take the old man to the doctor in Stockton. You be on the lookout for Calvin Baker on the way. You see him, you leave the old man and you grab Calvin, got that?"

"All right, Boss," Stewy said.

Nick and the rest of the men took off toward the east, following Audra's trail. For the first time, Nick felt optimistic. He was certain she had gotten away. Now all he had to do was find her before Calvin did.

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Heath and Cooper arrived at the south gate just as Nick was taking off after Audra. Heath dismounted and looked around the gate, his heart pounding because he was certain there would be something there, but he didn't see anything at first. Then he finally did see it, a folded piece of paper stuck under a rock not a foot from the base of the gate. He quickly picked it up.

"Five thousand dollars, right here by five pm. Anybody here or anybody follows me and the girl dies."

Heath slumped. Getting five thousand dollars by five might be tough, but what choice did they have? He looked all around, praying he would see somebody now somewhere around here, but he only saw Cooper. Cooper looked almost as distraught as Heath felt.

Heath mounted back up and without a word, he and Cooper went back to the house. When he got there, he found Jarrod up and around in the living room, Victoria nearby trying to busy herself with some sewing.

"What did you find?" Jarrod asked quickly.

Heath handed him the note. "They want five thousand dollars by five, left by the gate. If he sees anybody or anybody follows him, he'll kill Audra."

Victoria dropped her sewing and got up. Jarrod gave the note to her.

"I'll go to the bank and get the money," Heath said. And when Victoria started to protest, he said, "Mother, it's either me or Jarrod and he's not fit to ride."

"I can go," Victoria said.

"No," Jarrod said. "You go anywhere alone and you're fair game for kidnapping too. We can't risk that. Heath's right. He has to go. But come straight back here, Heath. Nick might be back anytime."

"If he is, I hope he has Audra with him," Heath said, and he hurried back out the front door.

Jarrod looked at his mother. She was in tears, finally. Jarrod put his good arm around her. "Don't give up yet, Lovely Lady. Heath and I made it home. So will Audra."

Victoria whispered, "If she doesn't – "

"She will," Jarrod cut her off. "She will."

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Nick and the men with him followed Audra's tracks until they veered off onto a side trail about three miles away. "She's still alone," the sheriff noted. "She's getting away."

Alone was not the way Nick wanted her to be, or to feel. "Audra?!" he yelled. "It's Nick!"

No one answered him.

"I know this trail," one of the other men said. "It circles back north and cuts back into the road to Stockton."

"Where do you think the Baker boy is?" Nick said, mostly to himself.

One of Nick's men said, "He might have headed back Stockton way. If they were holding her for ransom, he might be trying to deliver a note."

The sheriff said, "If this trail intersects the Stockton road, she's gonna be in trouble again if she runs into him."

Nick immediately took off again.

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After leaving the note, Calvin Baker headed back to the abandoned farmhouse where he had left his father and Audra. He was only a few miles away when he spotted two men coming toward Stockton on the Stockton road, along with a third man slumped on his horse. Calvin stopped and looked, and he recognized his father's horse.

Calvin also realized the men with his father had seen him. He kicked his horse into a gallop and headed east.

"That's Baker!" Macon yelled, and he and Stewy did as ordered. They left the father there in the middle of the road and took off after the son.

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Audra had rested and mounted up again, once again following that trail she hoped would lead her back to the west and to home. She had no idea that Nick and his men were only a couple miles behind her now, or that Calvin Baker was only a couple miles ahead. She only knew that she had to get home, to get safe.

She was tired, and her wrists hurt, and she was afraid, but she kept going. She thought about home and a warm bed and some food and some clean clothes. And then suddenly, she heard it – a rider ahead, or was it behind? And were there more than one rider? She stopped, frantic, not knowing what to do, and as they all closed in on her, she froze.