Vin pulled back on the reins of his horse as he saw Ezra, Chris, Buck, JD, and Nathan riding towards them hard. "How'd you know?" We were going to scope out the ranch and figure out where he's holding her and then come back and get you.

Chris shook his head. "It's not just Hannah."

Vin frowned. "What?" He looked at the expressions on their faces and realized how bad things have gotten. "We got a plan?"

"Go get them." Chris glanced over at Ezra. He seemed a little more controlled than he had been at the jail. "Take them out as we go." It's all Chris knew to do. Royal had never been one to listen to reason so there was no point in talking.

Rain had managed to free herself and was working on the ropes binding Maddie's hands when they heard footsteps outside the door. Sliding the knife behind a bag of grain she put her arms behind her back hopeful that whoever was coming in wouldn't notice. Her legs were shielded from view by Maddie so with any luck no one would be any of the wiser.

The women looked up as a a group of men walked in. The last man in looked down at the group of women on the floor. "Royal. Should have know it was you." Nettie looked up at the man standing over them.

"This was surprisingly easy." Royal looked around the room with almost glee in his eye. "A full set."

"Why are you doing this?" Mary looked up at Royal. He had to know this was going to end badly for him. "You know they'll come."

"Oh, I'm counting on it." He took a cigar and matchbox out of his pocket. Lighting the cigar, he took a puff before looking back down at the women. "They destroyed my ranch…my livelihood." He took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed down at Nettie. "If you had just sold, I could have made a deal with the railroad and I would have had the funds I needed. Now, two bad seasons and I've lost most of my herd. That big rain a couple months ago flooded two of my pastures and has almost taken all of what's left." He walked back and forth in front of the women. "So…I thought it was only fair that I take what means the most to them. I've put what I have left into this little venture. To make sure I had enough manpower to do it." He took another puff of the cigar. "They'll get here and watch this place burn down, with the knowledge that you're in it." He grinned down at the women. "It'll destroy them." He turned and walked out of the room, the men trailing behind him.

Maddie waited until the door closed and turned her head to look at Mary and Nettie. "He's insane. What exactly did they do to him?"

Nettie shook her head. "Not a damn thing other than stop him from taking land unfairly and terrorizing honest folk. There was a rumor he was involved in the mess when those men killed the new sheriff and tried to burn the town down but no one was able to tie him to it so he got off scott free."

Mary watched Rain work on the rope binding Maddie's hands. "I had heard that he lost a lot of his herd to some kind of sickness. I just can't believe he thinks that killing us accomplishes anything. No one in their right mind would do this."

Maddie felt the rope give behind her and she pulled her hands free. "I'm pretty sure he's not in his right mind."Taking the knife from Rain, she slipped it through the rope binding her ankles and expertly cut it, freeing them.

Mary twisted around and let Maddie slice the rope around her wrists. "Seems like you've done this before."

"Not exactly this." Maddie freed Mary's ankles and turned to work on Nettie. "Lunatics aren't exactly predictable. Makes it hard to plan around." She turned to work on Casey's rope. "There's at least two men on the other side of the door." She cut Casey loose and moved onto Inez. "I can pick the lock but we'll have to go through them."

"Seven against two are pretty good odds in our favor isn't it?" Casey rubbed her wrists.

Maddie frowned at Mary and was met with a look that told her she was thinking the same thing. It wasn't exactly seven. Casey and Hannah weren't going to be of any help. She had only met Rain a handful of times and didn't know enough about her to know how helpful she would be. Nettie was a fighter but wasn't as agile as Maddie thought she once was. Which left herself, Inez, and Mary. With one knife.

Inez stood up to walk off the remaining effects of being knocked out. "How do you know there are only two? Five men walked in here with him."

Maddie met Hannah's eyes and smiled before moving behind her to free her hands. "When the door was open I could see two chairs. I don't think the room is much wider than this one and definitely more narrow. There's really not room for more than two." She finished freeing Hannah. "Maybe we'll luck out and there'll only be one." She looked over at Rain. "Rain, can you take Hannah?" She glanced back at Nettie. "Nettie, you've got Casey." Standing up she pulled one of the pins holding her hair up. Pulling the braid all the way down, she knelt by the door and worked on the lock. It was nice to know she hadn't lost her touch when she felt the lock give way.