Chapter 3: Search Party
By the time the noon sun was high in the sky, Sully stumbled into Colorado Springs with his twin sons in his arms. Something didn't feel right, however. He hadn't hurt himself, but for some reason, his arm was throbbing as if it had been broken. He was trying not to concentrate on that, but for some reason, that throbbing made him feel as if Michaela had been hurt. If she'd been hurt, only God knew what else had happened to her.
The children were in town having lunch at Grace's when they saw their father walking in with the boys. Both boys were crying out of hunger, and Sully knew he'd have to get them fed soon. He hoped they'd take cow's milk as a substitute until he could get Michaela back.
"Pa!" Colleen exclaimed. She, Matthew, and Brian got up from the table and ran toward Sully. A few other townsfolk followed once they saw that Sully had come back without Michaela and without a stagecoach.
"Pa! What happened?" Matthew demanded. Sully, who had been walking for the past seven hours straight, stumbled forward. Colleen quickly took Connor into her arms while Matthew took Daniel.
"Sully? What's goin' on?" Jake asked quickly. "Where's Dr. Mike?"
"We were ambushed," Sully choked out. Yesterday before the sun went down, a man killed the drivers and took off with Michaela."
"Why didn't you stop 'em?!" Brian demanded.
"I had the boys in my arms. I couldn't do anything," Sully breathed slowly. "I wanted to help her, but he was too fast. He rode away with her, and the boys are hungry."
"Those babies need to eat," Holly spoke up. "Dr. Mike's got some small glass bottles stored under her medicine cabinet at the clinic. We could fill them with cow's milk and feed them. Horace, come help me."
"Thank you, Miss Tucker," Sully said with a nod. Holly took Daniel and Horace took Connor. They started off toward the clinic. Horace was surprised that Holly had thought of him first, and that was when he began to realize that she really did want him around.
"What do ya need us to do?" Robert E. asked.
"I need a search party. I can lead it out to where Michaela was kidnapped. After that, we can split up and cover more territory."
"I'll go saddle the horses in the stables."
"Thanks Robert E." Robert E. headed off.
"I'll go get Hank and Loren," Jake offered. He started off and the children led Sully over to Grace's. Grace rushed to put together a plate of food for Sully, who was obviously very hungry. Sully didn't want to eat. He wanted to go right back out and find his wife, but he knew it would be foolish to go out there on an empty stomach.
Sully ate the food that had been placed in front of him. Brian was now holding onto Matthew, crying because he knew his mother was in danger.
"We're gonna find her, Brian. I swear to you that I'm gonna bring your ma back home." Jake, Loren, Hank, and Robert E. all came running. Robert E. had all of the horses with him.
"When do ya want us to head out?"
"Soon as I check on the boys." Sully finished down his last bite of food and hugged Colleen, Brian, and Matthew. "I want ya to stay in town at the clinic. If ya need anything, Miss Tucker, Myra, Grace, and Miss Dorothy will be there, alright?"
"We'll be alright. You just bring ma home," Colleen replied. They all hugged again, and Sully hurried across the town, the throbbing in his arm continuing as a sign that Michaela was in pain. Once he reached the clinic, he went inside to see Holly and Horace both holding the infants in their arms, feeding them with makeshift bottles.
"These will do for now. If they don't take to the cow's milk, we'll try goat's milk," Holly offered.
"We're headin' out," Sully replied.
"I'll go with ya."
"Horace?" Holly asked.
"Sully, go tell the men to saddle a horse for me." Sully nodded and left the clinic. Horace looked at Holly. "I ain't never told ya this before, but . . ."
"Yeah?"
"I love you," he whispered. "I'm sorry if I blew our chance at bein' together." Holly shook her head and silenced him with a gentle kiss to his lips. When she pulled away, a tear slid down her cheek.
"I love you too," she answered. "You come back safely, and when you do, we're gonna have a lot of years ahead of us, alright?" Horace smiled at the woman he loved and placed the baby into her arms. She held both boys at the same time and realized she was going to need help with feeding them. She waited until Horace had left, and started out the door to get some help from Dorothy.
Myra was clinging to Hank as hugged her goodbye. He hated to leave her now, but he couldn't just let Dr. Mike stay away from her friends and family. They all needed her, and he had to help bring her home.
"I ain't gonna be gone long," he promised. "You stay in town and help the ladies with the kids. As soon as I get back, we'll get on with our lives, and we'll bring Zach out here to live with us."
"Promise me you'll be careful."
"I promise," he replied, kissing her lips tenderly.
"I love you."
"I love ya too," Hank replied.
"C'mon boys. Let's head out," Loren called.
"Pa, I want to go too," Matthew spoke up from the crowd. Sully was standing beside Dorothy and Holly who were now holding the twins and feeding them. He had just been saying goodbye to his little boys, promising them that he'd bring their mama back.
"Matthew, ya gotta stay here and look after your brothers and sister."
"I wanna go with you! She's my ma!"
"I know, son, but I need ya to stay here. The boys and Colleen need ya." Matthew sighed and watched as Sully mounted his horse.
"We'll bring her back, kids," Loren promised. The men headed out and Sully took one last look at his family before he turned to face the road ahead; a road that would lead him to Michaela. He began to pray silently that Michaela was going to be alright, hoping his prayers would reach her, and she would fight to get back home.
Hours later, Michaela bent down at a nearby creek to scoop some water up into her hand. She drank the cool liquid down and it soothed her dry throat. She felt as if something or someone was telling her to hold on and fight, and she had a sudden re-birth of energy.
She didn't know where she was, but she knew she'd been walking for hours on a twisted ankle. Her broken arm was now giving out a dull ache. She winced as she moved it, and she knew that she was going to be feeling quite a bit of pain once she let herself sit down and actually focus on what was aching.
She looked around and discovered that she was nearing an abandoned shack. She hoped it was abandoned anyway, because who was she to know if anyone around these parts was working for David Luther?
She hurried as fast as she could on her sprained ankle, and found the shack was abandoned once she walked inside. There were two beds, and one of them looked like it had been slept in recently. That was when she noticed something. There was a baby's bootie on one of the beds. She rushed over to it and picked it up in her hands. It was one of Connor's booties! She held it tenderly in her hand and brought it up to brush against her cheek.
"My baby," she cried. "My baby . . ." She began to sob, and walked over to the other bed, gripping the bootie tightly in her hand. She sat down on the other bed and opened her medical bag. She placed the bootie inside to keep it safe, and she collapsed onto the bed with exhaustion. Her arm was beginning to throb painfully again, and she sucked in a sharp breath. As she breathed in, she inhaled a familiar scent. Sully! Sully had slept in that bed. "Sully, please find me. Please. I'm here. Please come back."
It was then that Michaela head a voice; a cry out.
"Millicent! Millicent! Where are ya, darlin'?!" She could hear that he was on horseback, and she knew he was looking for her.
"Oh God," she whispered. "Oh God."
After taking a detour to pick up Wolf from the homestead, the search party had started out in search of Michaela. Sully had held one of Michaela's blouses at Wolf's nose, and he had immediately picked up the scent.
After a few hours, Sully and the men stopped in a clearing to rest their horses. Wolf had lost the scent, so Sully bent down to wave the shirt in front of his nose again. When the wolf didn't pick up a scent, Sully sighed heavily and looked at Robert E.
"I stopped in a shack just past those woods last night." Robert E. swallowed hard and removed his hat to brush the sweat off of the top of his head.
"Ya think she might be 'round here?" Loren asked.
"It's a long shot," Jake replied. Sully swallowed hard. The men were right, it was a long shot.
"Hey, what's that?!" Horace asked quickly. Everyone became silent, and the sound of David Luther's cries out were heard.
"Millicent! Where are ya?!" Sully looked at the men and pulled his tomahawk into his hand.
"You fellas stay here. I'll check it out." He started off in the sound of the man's cries. The other men stood around glancing at one another.
"Maybe we should go after 'im," Horace suggested.
"Maybe we should stay here and do what Sully said to do," Hank replied. The man turned to look at him.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Jake wondered.
"What?"
"You ain't the same Hank ya used to be."
"Well, I guess bein' in love changes a man," Hank replied, pulling a flask from his coat and taking a sip of whatever liquor was inside of it.
As the men stood around bickering at one another, Sully was scouting for the man who's voice he'd heard. He was climbing up onto a rock to look out over the pass, and he could hear a horse approaching. Sully crouched down and watched as the rider came into view. Sure enough, it was the man who had taken Michaela.
Anger rose up inside of Sully, and he jumped down off of the rock and knocked David off of his horse. David screamed out in pain as he landed on his right leg, snapping it loudly.
"Son of a bitch!" David screamed. "Ya broke my damn leg!" Sully grabbed David by the throat and pinned him against the ground.
"That's better than what you deserve, you pathetic excuse for a human being," he said through clenched teeth. "Where is my wife?"
"You're the man who took my Millicent!" David growled.
"I don't know who Millicent is, but if you don't tell me where my wife is, I swear I'll rip your heart out." Sully began to worry himself. The anger was bubbling up so high that he was actually fearing that he might kill the man. But, he knew he needed the man alive to find Michaela.
"You know who Millicent is," David replied. "She's my Millicent. You took her from me and they told me she died in a fire."
"I'm only gonna ask you one more time."
"She wasn't your wife! She was mine!" Sully tightened his hold on David's neck. "Go on! Kill me! But you'll never get my Millicent! She'll never go back to you!" Sully let go of David and pulled his tomahawk to the man's throat.
"I'm givin' you one last chance. I'll make it quick and painless . . ."
"Sully!" Jake called from nearby. "Wolf's picked up a scent!" Sully put his tomahawk back in its rightful place on his belt and knocked David out cold. He knew the man wouldn't die, but he'd wake up with a horrible headache.
Sully rushed after the sound of Jake's voice, his heart beginning to pound. Suddenly he felt his heart skip a beat and he knew that Michaela was close. He could sense her! She was near."
"Michaela!" he called out. He saw Wolf running toward the old cabin he had stayed in last night with the boys. At that moment, he felt a bullet hit him in the back.
Sully screamed out and fell to the ground with a hard thud. Blood began to pour from the bullet wound. For a moment, he thought he had been paralyzed, but he could feel blood coming out of his side in the front. The bullet had gone through, and it hadn't hit any vital organs. But he was bleeding so profusely that he felt as if he was going to die.
"Sully!" the men ran after him as Hank went to find the shooter. He immediately came to the badly injured David, and held a shotgun on him, taking David's own gun away. He decided not to kill the man, because Sully probably wanted to take care of him by himself.
"Oh damn it," Jake whispered as he examined Sully's wound.
"Michaela!" Sully screamed out again. "She's near!"
"Where?" Loren asked. "We'll find her?"
"The cabin!" Sully cried out, pointing in that direction. "Follow wolf." Robert E., Horace, and Loren started after Wolf. Jake noticed the pool of blood forming under Sully. He rolled him around to lie on his side.
"You're lucky it didn't hit any organs. But the bad news is that I ain't got the equipment to sew you up." Sully felt his life slipping away by the moment, but he could hear Michaela screaming for him to fight in the back of his mind.
Hank walked over to kneel beside Jake as Sully passed out from the loss of blood.
"How's he doin'?" Hank asked, knowing the answer.
"I think we're gonna lose him," Jake replied quietly. "He hardly has a prayer." Wolf's barking made both Jake and Hank look up.
Robert E., Horace, and Loren were closing in around the little shack.
"Dr. Mike!" Loren called! "Dr. Mike, if you're in there, let us know!" Robert E.'s hand moved to push the door open, and all three men prepared to go inside.