Return to Dodge: Chapter 9
Lena was cold. To the bone cold.
When she and newly had first left Dodge City, it had been quite a warm day. At this higher elevation, the temperature was dropping fast, along with her blood sugar.
Afraid to rest, she sat down anyway. Exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. Never in her life she ever been so hungry. She thought back to some of the awful buggy or critter like dishes that her mother's cook Velira had tried to feed her throughout her childhood. Lena would never admit it, but that mess would have looked pretty tasty right now.
Her rear and thighs were sore and her legs and feet ached from walking in new boots. Damn her vanity. She just had to have these things didn't she?
Lena was so preoccupied that she didn't know the man was behind her until he had clamped his hand down onto her shoulder.
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Streaks of light had barely begun to illuminate the morning's dark sky when Matt and Kitty had saddled up and were on their way.
Although the anxiety about their daughter remained, the tension between them had disappeared, and they were once again the powerful team they had been, almost able to read the other's thoughts derive strength and courage from each other.
Kitty watched Matt when he dismounted every single time, as though she could will extrasensory power into him so he could glean more information from the ground and any clues that it might give up.
Matt swung one long leg up over the saddle and Kitty rode up beside him.
"They seem to be goin' north mostly," Matt said, "And I just don't understand where he seems to be headed or why."
As they pushed their mounts into a light trot, Kitty remarked, "It's going to get colder, too, isn't it? I mean, we are moving into the mountains. You don't think that we could get a late spring storm, do you, Matt?"
"Kitty, honey, anything is possible in a Kansas spring; you know that. I'm hoping that we'll find them before we have to worry about bad weather along with everything else."
He grinned at her, wrinkles on his face appearing to create a map of his life's experiences. "I suspect we'll be onto 'em before too long. Don't worry; your baby will be wantin' to kick her old man's ass in no time at all."
Kitty smiled back, her face smoother and less lined. Her stomach though felt as if it contained a huge burning mix of terror and trepidation.
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Lena sat close by the fire, an old smelly blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a battered cup filled with some of the worst coffee that she'd ever tasted. It was also some of the best. As Ben Franklin once said, "Hunger is the best sauce," and that was so true.
"I'm sorry about your nose," the girl apologized for the third time since the old man had tried to offer assistance and instead Lena had slammed her fist into his face. Blood had spewed from his nose, and he still had pieces of rags stuck up into each nostril which made him look ridiculous.
The old man's whiskers were wildly out of control and he took off an old ten gallon hat that had seen better days twenty years ago and dusted it off on his britches' leg.
"I done tolt you to fergit about my nose, now. Jest warm yerself," he gestured with his hands toward the fire, "And tell me more about this yay-hoo that's after you."
Lena smiled at him, and there was just something so dang funny about this young woman that the stranger just couldn't quite put his finger on.
"It'd shore be nice to know who I was talkin' to. You gotta name, miss?"
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Mannon had picked up the Russell girl's trail. She'd done fair for a green horn, but once he found that bastard child, she was gonna pay for the bruises and cuts on his face and his collar bone that he was fairly sure was broken when she rode her damn horse over top of him to get away.
His father had written him letters describing how he had bested Dillon, but that whore, Dillon's woman, had unsettled him and cost him years of his life that he'd never get back. His father had also written to him about what he was going to do to both Dillon and the redhead when he was released.
Unfortunately, once again, his father had been the loser, but Mannon's son, "Junior," indeed, was his name, had come across an ace in the hole that could be used to crush the redhead and the old marshal that not even his father could have foreseen, their daughter. He planned to use her in every way possible, like his father had used her mother, then he would break them both by taking her life.