Samantha's eyes fluttered open and she looked at the sun rising up over the rocky cliffs that stuck out from the canyon walls above. She turned on her side to look across the gray ashes that was what was left of the fire Chavez had built the night before. Her eyes fell on the sleeping figure on the other side. She rolled her eyes and stood up quietly, careful not to wake him. The man was an idiot, she thought to herself as she walked over towardhis horse.
She patted Chavez's horse gently and untied it from the tree the horse had been tied to the day before. She had picked up the saddle and was just about to put it on the horse's back when she heard his voice coming from behind her.
"Put the saddle back down, tie the horse back to the tree and get back over here," Chavez said, glaring at the girl's back. Samantha rolled her eyes but turned and did as he told her to. She glared at him as she sat back down on the bedroll.
"How stupid do you think I am?" Chavez asked, instantly regretting his question when he saw the smirk that suddenly appeared on her face.
"I don't know," Samantha replied, "how stupid is there?"
Josh rode into Austin, Texas as fast as he could make his horse run and didn't slow down until he saw the marshal sitting on the porch in front of the jail. A look of surprise came over the marshal's face as Josh pulled the reins tightly and jumped down off of his horse before the horse had even stopped moving. The marshal stood up and rushed over to the edge of the porch to meet Josh as he ran up to the edge of the porch.
"What's going on, son?" the marshal asked, concern showing in his brown eyes as most of the people in the town came running over to find out what the trouble was.
"Sammie's gone, Marshall Wilkes," Josh said, stopping for only a moment to catch his breath before continuing, "she took daddy's rifle. We went looking for her last night. Daddy found one of our bulls that had been killed with a knife and I saw two sets of footprints on the cliff overlooking the river just south of our place. One of them was too big to be a woman's." Some of the women in the crowd that had gathered and had heard what Josh said gasped in shock and fear.
"Marshall, there was blood on the ground at the cliff's," Josh finished. There was a mixture of gasps and whispers throughout the crowd when they heard Josh's last words. The marshal stepped down off of the jail porch and put a hand on Josh's shoulder.
"Go tell your pa that I'll have a good size posse out at your place by dusk, Josh," Marshall Wilkes said, a sympathetic expression on his face, "I promise you we will find Sammie." Josh nodded, climbed back onto his horse and started riding back in the direction he had come.
Marshall Wilke's skimmed slowly over the crowd that had gathered on the street in front of the jail during his conversation with Josh.
"Well, you all heard what the boy said," Marshall Wilkes said, loud enough so that everyone in the crowd could hear him speak, "I'm gonna need a posse of about twenty or so men to go along with me to find Miss Allen. One of our young girl's is missing men, let's not let her down."
It didn't take the marshal long until he had twenty good men volunteering to ride with the posse.
William Allen sat on the edge of the bed, his arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders. Elizabeth hadn't stopped crying for more than a few minutes ever since the day before when she had realized that Samantha was gone. They both glanced up from where they sat when Luke came barging into the room through the bedroom door.
"Josh is riding up, Mr. Allen," Luke said before running back downstairs and out through the front door. William jumped up and ran down the stairs not far behind Luke.
As William ran out the door Josh had just pulled the reins on his horse and was jumping down off of the horse. Josh ran over to the porch and looked up at his father.
"The marshal said he'd be here with a posse at dusk," Josh replied, answering the question he knew his father was about to ask him. William Allen just nodded and walked back into the house.