Note: I want to be up front and say that I too was not happy with this movie. When I saw the second one had to do with 'Mike' and not Kitty, I didn't even watch it. My loyalty to Kitty wouldn't allow it. I can honestly say that I've never watched the others either. From the reviews, not many people did like it. It had so much potential and the writers just seemed to 'cheap out' and used old footage and chose to have a side story that I didn't care about AT ALL.

I hope I can keep you entertained. For me this is canon because I refuse to recognize any movie past RTD. So to me, it's an open universe. Thanks for the followers and reviews. I appreciate every single one of you.

Chapter 7

Matt and Kitty were forced to stop for the night or risk losing the trail. The best human tracker wasn't a bloodhound and it was easy to go completely astray and lose precious time.

The night was chilly, and they discovered a small depression in the grasslands, with a feeble spring, where they would be shielded from the wind and the light from the fire might be muted, though anyone actively looking for them and worth his salt as a tracker would find them.

Matt asked Kitty to rest while he hunted around for enough dead wood, grass, or cow chips for the fire, but he was wasting his breath.

Kitty could find no peace. Her child had vanished, obviously taken by someone with a perverse purpose, and she had been on the end of that often enough to know what her daughter might be going through. The thoughts filled her with a fear that would make most women quail and freeze in their tracks. She couldn't be still because her gut was churning with dread.

While Matt was seeing to the camp, after they'd tethered and unsaddled their horses, Kitty had walked to the top of the rise, and stood looking out over the prairie, slowly, in every direction.

There was no moonlight, but stars sprinkled liberally over the sky made the view, under happier circumstances, nothing short of glorious. The tall grass waved in a slight breeze and smelled liked sage. So different from New Orleans.

"Kitty." Matt's voice, in the silence, was full of tenderness and concern.

Her voice when she answered was heavy with despair and desperation. "Where is she, Matt? Please, tell me we'll find her alive."

He wrapped both his arms around her from behind and pulled her tightly against his chest, strong and comforting as always.

"We'll find her, Kitty. She's tough and strong-willed, and we'll be lucky to find her before she beats the hell outta whoever has her."

Kitty had to laugh, knowing her daughter.

"Come on," Matt put his arm around her shoulders and steered her back down the slope. "We need to get some rest and get an early start. We want to narrow the distance between us and them. Catch up with them as fast as possible."

As they approached the fire, Kitty noticed that Matt had laid out two separate bedrolls. She sat down on hers and pulled off her boots.

"Are you afraid, Cowboy? I promise I won't compromise your virtue if you get closer," she quirked an eyebrow at him.

Matt looked uncertain about how to answer. "I didn't want to push, Kitty, or make you think I was-"

"When have you ever added to my suffering by holding me," her voice choked with misery. "You're the only thing that might help me survive tonight."

He grabbed his bedroll and blankets and placed them side by side with hers.

"Come here," he said, his voice husky with emotion.

Kitty scooted over beside him, and, for a long time, they lay there, entwined, silent, staring at the stars.

Matt's throaty voice, low, said, "I've missed you. Not a day has gone by since you left that you haven't crossed my mind. I messed up, Kitty."

When she didn't answer, he said, "I'm sorry. I'm gonna bring our daughter home."

He looked down and her eyes were closed. The stress lines on her face caused by the last few days had relaxed in sleep; she looked peaceful.

Once they found Lena, he was going to do his damnedest to see as few of those lines as possible for as long as she'd let him stay around.

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"How about letting me in on your master plan?" Lena's voice was filled with disdain.

So far Mannon, Jr., as she'd called him in her head, hadn't shown his hand when it came to figuring out where they were headed, and Lena wondered if he really had a specific destination in mind. They'd been traveling consistently northwest, and it was getting chillier, hillier, and there was more ground cover.

"How about you shut the hell up," he replied. It was dark and yet they still rode on.

Lena was no westerner but she had enough sense to know a horse could step in a hole and leave them stranded, if not in the middle of nowhere, a place where you could throw a rock to it.

"Where are we going?"

No answer.

"Would you at least tell me your name? I gotta call you something, don't I? I mean, if a pack of wolves come over the hill, what am I supposed to do, yell, 'Hey you, wolves coming?" He looked to be around 30 years old, but it was difficult to tell out here. Living rough could age a person fast.

Silence.

"I need to go to the bathroom. Really bad."

He ignored her.

"Come on! Even murderers get to go to the bathroom. Do you really want to ride to Timbuktu while you smell-"

"Alright! We'll stop, but if you try to run, I'll shoot you right here," her captor said, in a by-god-I-mean-it tone of voice.

He stopped his horse and pulled hers up by the lead rope.

"Get off."

Lena held up her hands, tied together and hooked over the saddle horn. "Just how am I supposed to do that?"

"Your problem. You gotta piss, then you get down. Fall off, if you need to go bad enough."

Bastard, Lena thought. She pulled her hands over the horn, balanced herself, gripped the horn and slid off. It was easier than she'd thought it would be. She was glad at least that the horse that Newly had chosen for her was a steady, calm gelding. If he hadn't been, she'd probably be on her ass.

"Right there, where ya are."

"How about I step behind my horse?"

A heavy sigh escaped her abductor. "Just do it, already."

When finished, she stood up and stretched. Lena'd never been in the saddle this long in one day.

"Water?" She asked.

"Would you like a steak with that? Perhaps a feather bed?" He asked sarcastically.

She stood looking at him, her silence showing her disdain. "Without water, I'm not going to get wherever we're headed alive, but if that doesn't matter..."

"Fine." He swung an open canteen out to her and she just managed to catch it.

Taking a long drink, she walked up to his horse and reached to hand it back. He leaned over, his balance off center.

Lena figured this was her best chance. She swung the canteen hitting his horse on the hindquarters and yelling as loud as she could.

Sure enough, his mount whirled in a quick circle and Mannon, Jr. lost his balance and fell hard, shoulders first.

She grabbed her reins before her horse could take off with the other one and hooked her hands over the horn, planting one foot precariously in a stirrup.

Mannon was on his feet and was desperately trying to get a hold on her horse's head stall, but Lena pulled the reins, turning in a circle and finally managed to get her other foot into the right stirrup.

Kicking the sorrel in the flank, she was moving off, her kidnapper still trying to hang on, pulling her back to him.

She pulled the horse's head back toward and into him, and Mannon was caught off guard. She felt the horse hit him as it finally gathered up its hindquarters and took off at a gallop.

Lena had no idea where she was headed at the moment, but she was heading there fast as she could possibly ride.