A/N: UPDATE 9.25.21- Combining this fic with its prequel. No need to be alarmed.

There's not a lot he thought could top the feeling of a fresh horse on a crisp morning. The gelding shuffled and tossed its nose at sparse snowflakes tickling frost-tipped whiskers, and Candy didn't bother to check animal vying for its head or the short little crowhops with which it danced down the hard-crusted trail. There was more on his mind than his mount's behavior: namely the month's pay- and a small holiday bonus to fatten it- weighing in his pocket. The ranch foreman was told under no uncertain terms to take some time for himself- enjoy himself- and bring his appetite back with him in four days for Christmas dinner on the Ponderosa.

The light feeling in his chest dropped like a stone when, rounding the corner, he found himself face to face with a group of broad men draped in buffalo hides.

"Whoa there, fella," one called, reining his horse in front of Candy's. He was a mountain of a man, and his pale eyes peeked ghoulishly out of a face trimmed in thick black hair. He rested the butt of a cavalry carbine on his knee and leaned his face almost idly against the forearm of the weapon.

"What's going on here, boys?" Candy felt the weight of his pistol on his hip. He didn't reach for it. He counted seven men in all- about half mounted on tired looking mules and the other half on thin horses. A couple carried carbines, a couple of them sharps rifles.

"Take it easy son," a greybeard edged up from near the back of the group. He appeared unarmed. "We're only stoppin' ya to ask a question or two."

"And what question would that be?" He was out-gunned to be sure, but his horse was fresh. The cowhand was grateful for that.

"Little girl about twenty ran off with one of our mules and some supplies." The greybeard searched his face from under a low hat brim. "Wonder if you've seen 'er nearabouts?"

Candy denied him.

"Well we ain't far off her trail," the stranger hummed, his eyes wandering the silent pines. "Where's the nearest town, son?"

"That'd be Virginia City- about half a day's ride north."

Candy held his horse despite his misgivings as the group edged around him one at a time. The greybeard stood in place, considering the younger man's horse, and the iron on his hip. The gelding stamped and sidled one way and another.

"Name's Lonnie Meyers. You come across a girl out here on my mule, you give me a nice holler in town."

Meyers didn't wait for Candy to reply, but edged around him without another word and lifted his hand high to send his boys on down the track. Candy felt a lingering tension as they rode off, and spurred his mount into a trot to be rid of them.

The group hadn't left his mind when an hour later his gelding's ears perked and a snort sounded off to his right. Candy didn't have a moment to look at the woman or the mule before there was a single-barreled shotgun pointing square at his chest.

"You sure have some timing don't you," he tried to joke, turning his horse and fighting with the animal to keep himself at a less-shootable angle to the woman. She didn't speak. "The men looking for you have gone on ahead toward Virginia City."

She had green eyes, or they looked green, glaring out from under a shock of coffee-colored hair that was cropped short as a man's. She was dressed warmly enough, bundled in thick wool and a buffalo hide similar to her trackers' draped around her shoulders. Her nose and mouth were covered in a twisted pile of scarf, and the very edges of her skin above it were blushing with cold.

"They told me to holler if I found you." The shotgun raised minutely.

"I'd make a better decision if I was you," the woman growled. "This ain't loaded with birdshot."

Candy leaned over his saddle horn, fingers trailing to his pistol. "It's the wrong way for me, sweets." He tried offering a smile, but he knew his face was as cold and hard as her own. "Now it's not my business, but you mind telling me what they're hunting you for? Minus the obvious." He gestured to the stolen mule.

"I do mi-" a shot splintered the pine beside her.

Candy spun his horse around and let off a single round behind him. Three more answered him, and three men emerged from the trees thirty yards away. The woman was already spurring the mule- kicking it bodily and tearing the reins in a tight circle- and whether or not Candy'd meant to follow her, his gelding wasn't taking no for an answer. They bounded four strides when he felt a punch through his left shoulder, and another below that, and nausea followed with the sheets of blood that opened up down his side.

His horse kept running. He stayed in the saddle. He had a brief forethought of shoving both legs through the stirrups to keep from being unseated, but darkness was coming on him fast.

Candy woke to the smell of pine burning in close quarters. There was movement- whether it was the girl or the men chasing her, he couldn't tell. The pain in his chest came creeping in with the simultaneous needs to vomit and clenched his eyes shut. A hand touched his forehead and he leaned away from it without opening his eyes. It returned none too gently, warm and rough on his skin.

"Let me out to shit before you kill me," the man slurred, struggling to right himself.

"Umm… alright. But if I'd wanted to kill you I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to save you in the first place."

It was the girl, of course. Flushing to her eartips and trying not to stare. Candy felt his own blush rising. She helped him to his feet, and he sagged against her.

"Where…?"

"You're not shitting in my cave, that's for sure."

The situation passed with the exact amount of embarrassment one might expect from it, and soon enough the foreman was on his back again on a stinking hide and bundled over in wool blankets. The woman tugged her clothes tighter around her and poked at her fire.

"Why were they chasing you?"

"They won't find us here."

She wrapped a tin cup in a kerchief and handed it to him. The metal still burned him through the cloth. In it was coffee, and something else strong and bitter and aromatic. She didn't explain it. Candy decided it didn't quite taste as bad as it smelled, and continued watching the woman busy herself with a pile of bandages. He repeated his question. Instead of answering asked for his name, and Candy raised himself tenderly on his right arm to glare at her. She seemed unaffected.

"They were keeping me." The woman passed him a chunk of stale cornbread and a chipped plate of beans. "Daddy sold me for a poker debt. I've been trying to escape since leaving Indian Territory. Did it just two weeks ago, been living here a week, thought they'd have passed me up by now but something must have slowed them down." She washed her words down with a long drink from a cup not dissimilar to his own. Candy's head was growing heavy. "What's your name?"

"Candy."

"Mmm."

His jaw struggled to work against the onset of fatigue. He was half afraid the food would come tumbling straight out of his mouth, but the man was able to swallow and chase it with the bitter herbal-coffee-tincture.

"Th' won't fin' us?"

"I hope not."

The next day was a blur of fever and pain. The day after that, worse. On the third day Candy managed to wake up only to be force fed two small bites of quail and a mouthful of watery, thin, potato mash.

"Where's my horse?"

"You're not riding away on it anyways."

"Where?"

He was shirtless, trying not to look at the fat black holes winking at him from just above his collarbone and just below his left breast. The girl was dabbing them with a stinging sort of ointment, her fingers bloody and ungentle.

"With my mule, across the river. They come back, they think we were both hit and killed and washed downstream." She wrung out her rag in a shallow dish. "I hope."

He followed the line of her arm up to her shoulder, up her neck to her face that was eclipsed in shadow. She had the smallest double chin, and an irregularity to her profile he couldn't quite grasp. He grunted when she rebandaged him.

"What's your name."

She didn't look at him when she replied, "Anna."

By the fourth day he was slightly better, and aware he'd had prior obligations.

"I need to leave," his voice was thin. Anna paid him no mind, but continued to stir the thin gruel she'd concocted from raven's meat and spotty potatoes. "My boss'll be expecting me."

"Can't go anywhere now. Storm's coming in."

They were warm this deep in the cave- Candy wondered for the first time how the smoke from the fire hadn't smothered them by now- and he struggled to hear the whistle of winter wind. He'd grown weaker, and though it hurt his pride he allowed her to spoon the gruel into his mouth.

"If you can walk out of the cave and mount your horse, I'll let you."

Candy didn't even consider moving. Anna touched his arm lightly and frowned. Their faces burned from proximity to the flame.

"At least walk me out for some fresh air."

She was a strong girl. She helped him into the pale light at the mouth of the cave- disguised as a shallow fissure by naturally growing cedars. She kept her face turned away from him until a moment of weakness in the awkward silence claimed her. Candy's stomach sank in knots.

Her voice had been a little nasal. A little shaky at times. She drank the same bitter concoction as him, but he'd assumed it was for nutrient benefit considering how poorly they'd been eating. She'd looked so fiercely at him the day of their attack that he hadn't noticed the bloom of color over her left temple. The bruise was healing- fading to dull green and yellow, but still black underneath; still deep and slow-healing. Her nose was broken. From cheek to cheek across it stretched a black, ugly scab tinged red with irritation about the edges. Her eyes were dull and tired and still a little frightened.

"I can't imagine where that boy'd be."

"He miss special dinner. Shame, shame. Cook plenty-nuff. Plenty, he no come. He-"

"Now now, Hop Sing, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation."

Evening was falling on the Ponderosa. That there were leftovers from their Christmas feast was no small testament to the effort put in by the Cartwright's family cook. Ben chewed softly at the bit of his pipe, and listened to his son's worries. Candy should have been back this morning. They'd thought the man was long out of the flighty phase he'd been in when they'd first made his acquaintance, and it was fear and a little bit of hurt that ran through the Cartwright brood at his absence.

"You don't think he got held up by the storm, do ya pa?" Ben's middle boy was chewing on his cheek.

"No, no, he should have been near enough back by now."

"You don't think he found trouble, do you?" His youngest's eyes were flicking with challenge.

"I'm sure we'll hear word from him in the next days, boys-"

There was a heavy knock at the door. The Cartwright men eyed each other dangerously, and it was with no small amount of dread that Ben rose from his chair to answer. On the porch, tamping snow from their boots, were seven men in buffalo robes. A man about Ben's age approached the open door with his hands clasped in peace.

"Scuse me, sir." The stranger's eyes fell past Ben and into the warm house. "Beggin' your pardon, the storm's made travel a bit wearisome. Do you happen to have a bite to eat and a place to rest our stock?"

Ben's sons appeared behind him. A dark feeling urged him to send the men on their way, but it was Hoss that opened the door a little wider.

"Well what kinda folk would we be to turn ya away. Stow your horses in the barn there- there ain't enough stalls, but it's out of the weather. Then come in for a bite of Christmas dinner."

"You didn't happen to pass a man on the road, did you?" Ben felt a little easier with the men's weapons all piled near the front door, but not terribly so. Lonnie Meyer's men spoke little- and Lonnie had a peculiar way about finding eye contact and squeezing at it like a rat snake. "A little lean, riding a red gelding?"

"Why not at all sir," Lonnie lied through his teeth and through his ghoulish gray eyes. "And we were looking, in fact, for one of our own- my little niece has run off with one of my mules."

"Yours are the only mules we've seen by in a few weeks," Joe chewed idly on a hangnail while he spoke. "And no girl either."

"Hmm. Maybe once this weather clears, we can take us a look for both of 'em."

Day five, and Candy felt almost like walking again. Anna looked more uncomfortable by the day, and spoke little. He watched her at odd times clutch a hand near her abdomen, and he wondered if she'd been beaten there too. There was little to occupy them in the cave, and with his companion not speaking they did a lot of napping on their separate sides of the fire.

He managed to stand, and stump his way from the light end of cave to the edge of the darkest shadows. He made this circuit twice, feeling Anna's eyes on him. Her cheeks had grown hollow. Her daily gruel grew thinner. Candy was on his feet, stir crazy, and ready to head home.

"You don't have to come with me," he started. "But Meyers's gang has gotta still be looking for you. You'll be safe on the Ponderosa until they move on."

"Candy, you're not well yet," Anna started quietly.

"I'm well enough to get out of here and find an actual doctor."

There was something she was hiding from him. He saw it clear as day. But she was pretty, and she'd saved him, and he wanted to return the favor.

"You're running out of food, Anna. Please, come with me."

Anna packed the last of her food while Candy rested from his exercise. She didn't argue with him. When they stepped out of the cave and into the cold December air, it was midday, and he could see in the light how thin she'd become. The followed an old shepherd's trail down the hillside and to the banks of the river. It was narrow here, with slick broad stones crossing it's breadth.

Candy saw their animals browsing a low treeline just on the other side, and regretfully realized they'd been fending for themselves the duration of his stay. His horse was happy to see him at least, and had fared well enough on its own. Candy was across the river quicker than he expected, mildly dizzy and with a dull throbbing ache. Anna's mule regarded him balefully with one ear tipped in the direction of his master's crossing.

She screamed.

She was holding tight to the boulder she slipped on. Not in any terrible danger of being swept away, as Candy hastened to give her a hand up. But there was a look of distress and pain on her face that worried him.

"I'll be fine," Anna waved him off shakily, dug in her pack for two miserable handfuls of grain, and tipped a hand out to each animal. She was slumped about her middle, and staggering as she walked. The bottom half of her skirt clung wetly to her legs.

"Anna, take a rest a minute-"

"I'll be okay."

Her face screwed up, then evened out, the broad scar across her nose crinkling. There was something in her posture. He could feel the tension in her body. Another wave of pain crossed her features and Candy made a show of sitting on a fallen log.

"Well maybe I need a rest."

There were tears pinching in her eyes, and for the sake of her pride Candy pretended not to notice.

"You're the one that insisted we leave today."

"And you're the one that's being stubborn when you know you're hurt," the man countered. "Will you… will you let me take a look? Make sure you didn't break a rib?"

"No." She leaned against her mule for several long minutes, ignoring its seeking nose. With a stilted cry she vaulted into the saddle. "Which die-direction did you say?"

Seeing he was going to mount up or be left behind, Candy caught his horse. "About northwest. If-"

Anna was already whipping the mule into a trot, slumping over in the saddle as she went. Candy spurred after them.

"If we can get to the road, it'll be easier traveling," he called, his gut clenching both at the jostle of his own injuries and the look of fearful despair he could see pulling at the girl's mouth.

"L-Lonnie'll find us on the road," her voice was tight. "Can- can't go that way."

An hour later she'd nearly fallen from the saddle. Candy caught her shoulder with his good arm and reined his horse to cut off her mule.

"Anna," she fought his grip. "Anna, stop!"

She was crying, her face reddened by the bitter north wind. She allowed her mule to come to a puzzled stop. Candy hopped down and wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her with him. When her feet touched the ground, she gave out, falling beneath the mule and taking Candy with her.

"Easy! Easy!" The spooked animal sidestepped them without incident, its ears pinned flat and its hide jumping. Its saddle was smeared in bright blood.

"Anna?" Candy stiffened on top of her, feeling her body tremble. He was laying over her abdomen, over a graceful swell hidden by her many layers. His voice came out very small. "Anna, what's happening?"

Some miles away, ravens flushed from the canopy. Ben frowned, listening, but couldn't hear any sign of disturbance over the clatter and murmur of horses and men. Lonnie's men were characteristically quiet, holding their weapons at ease and smoking idly. The smallest of them was discussing the finer points of fine dining with Hoss, and the largest was mimicking the chatter of birds wintering in the pines. Ben couldn't shake a feeling of uneasiness.

He'd drug her in a low swell surrounding an aspen, untangling her from her outermost layers and fighting the panic rising in his heart. Anna was trying not to scream, clutching and scrabbling at his good arm with each wracking contraction.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Candy muttered. Hysteria was cold in his throat. "Why didn't you say something, anything?"

The swell of her belly was evident now- he lacked the experience to tell how far along she was- and he caught glimpses of her bare legs kicking uselessly in the snow. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do, so he hugged her, sheltered her with his body at the base of the tree.

"It's dead," there were tears and snot running down to her chin. "It's dead, it's dead-"

"You don't know that," Candy shushed, holding her against her pain and against his own trembling.

"I haven't felt it move in days!" Her wail seemed to shake the trees.

Candy shushed her again, rubbing warmth into her arms and rewrapping her spent garments more usefully around her shoulders. He didn't know what to do. He'd heard of boiling water, of medicating with whiskey, but he hadn't any whiskey and the faint dusting of snow and everything under it was too wet to burn. He counted the minutes until her next contraction.

"Tell me about it." He wasn't sure if that was an appropriate thing to say. "Tell me about the baby, please."

She shivered and groaned. He felt her sweating.

"I was in love with a cavalry scout." More sobbing. "Daddy ran him off. Meyers killed him when he came after us."

Candy was only half listening, counting minutes and seconds and the painful, bone rending squeezing of her hands on his.

"I-I-I hid it so well," she screamed loud in his ears, but they were already ringing. "Six months. Since June. They found out before I escaped."

He looked at the ugly black scar that split her face. She was beet red. A vein pounded in her temple. She hadn't stopped crying. He thought about horses, giving birth upright, and knew better than to tell her to stand. He remembered being a boy, following the camps with his mother. Her talking with the squaws wedded to their scouts.

"I have an idea, Anna." He lifted her, grimacing against the pain in his shoulder. "Roll onto your knees."

They found where Candy had quit the trail. The Cartwright's grew tense at the evidence of not one, but two horses crashing off the track. Ben searched the faces of the strangers while struggling to keep his own expressionless. The smallest rider wore a knowing smirk. Wordlessly they followed the trail to the river, struggling at times to find it under the fresher snow. There was sign of the horses browsing. A brown smear of blood. Twin trails left the riverside, marking an uncertain path in the direction of the Ponderosa. More of the men were smirking now. The smoking and the small chatter ceased. Lonnie wore a look as though passing judgement as he took point.

They heard the hoarse moaning before they found them. Candy's gelding and a mule stood uncertainly to the side, shivering at the smell of blood palpable in the woman looked pale and weak, supported from the side by their missing foreman. She shivered once and collapsed face-down in the snow. Candy lifted her to his chest, and caught sight of the ten riders in the trees.

"Well boys, ya didn't quite miss, did ya?" Lonnie smirked.

Candy reached to pull the woman to his side, putting himself between the groups. He fumbled in the snow with a wadded up shirt instead of reaching for his gun.

"Give her back to me now, son."

Ben thumbed the hammer of his pistol, eyeing his boys fiercely while Lonnie stepped off his horse and toward the prone pair in the snow.

"Stay back." Candy's voice was weak, his attention split between the aggressor and the bundle in his arms.

"I don't mean the whelp, now. Just the woman and the mule, and we'll be on our way."

It was Joe that fired first, and it went wide, splintering a tree. Hoss and Ben were shooting by the time Lonnie's gang had returned the favor. The chaos to follow was more than Ben could follow. Three men went down in the space of a moment. Lonnie tugged at the wadded shirt in Candy's grasp and the woman, nearly dead, threw herself between them.

A shot took out the gang leader's knee, and Hoss was down and grabbing the woman over his shoulder and Candy under his arm. They fled for the horse and the mule, the latter of which was killed unceremoniously by a misplaced shot. Four men were dead. Two were wounded. Oddly, there was little in the way of screaming.

Before Ben could quite comprehend the sweat rolling down his back, they were riding at a reckless gallop through the trees and toward the trail. When they slowed, Candy was grey as a stone, and the woman was no better.

"Hoss, bring Anna here."

There was some safety in the moment. Ben and Joe kept watch, biting their tongues to keep from diving into questions.

"Anna. Anna, here," the woman didn't respond. Candy nudged the wadded shirt in her direction. The woman moaned tearfully. "Anna, I got him. I grabbed him, Anna."

Hoss looked down at a bloodied mat of black hair on a still, grey face.

"Pa." It wasn't breathing. "Pa."

He fought the urge to vomit while his father took the lifeless infant from Candy's arms. Candy didn't seem to notice. He was staring at the woman.

"I got him Anna. I didn't leave him. I got him, Anna."

A/N: Well wasn't that just short and sweet. Whipped this baby out this afternoon in between bouts of existential dread and letting the dog out to potty. I'm hoping to start on the sequel tomorrow. The title comes from Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods"

Let me know what you think! I know she was a little rushed, but I'm happy with it and I hope yall are too ^-^