Chapter 4
"We got your man and the girl from the stage. Five hundred dollars at Archer's Pass. Dawn Thursday or they both die." Those handful of words dangled hauntingly in the air after Chris read them aloud for the second time. Josiah turned his attention back from the note to the conversation swirling around him.
"I knew it!" JD exclaimed. "I knew that he would never run out on us!"
"What are we goin' to do?" Buck asked, leaning back against the wall, trying to direct Chris' attention to the problem at hand. "Where do we start lookin'?" The others looked at the tracker with new hope.
"Seein' as how it's been four days, an' I don't have a real good idea where he was when they took him, I ain't sure. Maybe we can try to retrace our path and hope that there's somethin' "we missed," Vin softly stated, staring at Chris.
The others followed his gaze, shifting their attention to their leader. "Guess that means we pay 'em," Larabee growled as he tossed back the remainder of his drink.
In one final attempt, Chris and Vin rode out late that night, desperate to find the stagecoach. The two men rode along the trail in their typical silence. The serenity of the night was marred by the tension that was arising from the dire situation they found themselves thrust in. Larabee chewed on the end of his cheroot going over the events of the past few days yet again. He felt that if they could find the stage and bring his sister home safe, then he would be able to focus his complete attention on when they went to ransom Ezra and the girl the next morning.
They came across the overturned coach at day-break. Contents were strewn everywhere. The body of a man lay sprawled about a hundred yards from the coach. Dried blood caked around a head wound. Tanner moved silently among the wreckage, poking a hand here and there looking for clues. Following his friend's progress, Larabee's gaze came to rest on a familiar looking trunk that was tilted over onto its side. Throwing curse words into the wind, Chris ran over to it, and placed a gloved hand on its exterior. He had recognized it immediately as the trunk that his father had made for his mother for as her birthday gift so many years ago. It was the same trunk into which he had packed his baby sister's belongings before sending her to live at their aunt's house after the death of their parents.
Chris gasped for breath as he fell to his knees in front of the broken trunk, never losing his physical connection with it. Until just minutes ago, he had convinced himself that Julian hadn't been the girl mentioned in the ransom note. Now, even that small hope was wrenched from him as he looked at the trunk. This same trunk gave Chris all the proof that he needed to know that Julian was indeed the unnamed girl that was being held with Ezra.
Vin, watching his friend closely as he stood off just to the side in an effort to give Chris his privacy, leaned forward and placed a hand on the tense shoulder.
Chris climbed to his feet and faced his friend. "Let's get someone out here to clean this up." With that said, Larabee shoved his hat back over his blonde hair and jumped back into his saddle. The return trip to town was made in silence, with Vin keeping a worried vigil over his troubled friend.