Look at you...
If I had the possibility, I would have beaten this disgusting grin from Nathan´s face. I also would have spat at him but both were denied to me, thanks to the gag and the bonds. So I could only give him the most devastating gaze I was able to put on while he stopped next to me and looked me over, clicking his tongue.
"Which idiot has sat you onto the horse like this?"
He glanced over his shoulder to Pete who grimly steered his horse into our direction.
"I thought you would sit in front of her in the saddle anyway."
"And how is she supposed to grab hold or keep her balance, you fool?"
Pete didn´t answer but his gaze became even grimmer. It seemed like he had a low opinion of Nathan and it made him almost likeable. Nathan himself looked at me again, an apparently apologetic smile on his lips.
"If you don´t do some things on your own, it´s never done right. Luckily some horses became available so the lady gets her own, of course."
He pushed an arm under my knees, lifted me a bit and sat me into the saddle. Then he shortened the stirrup, pushed my left foot inside and the stirrup on the other side completely up. He paused for a moment and regarded my dressing gown with his head cocked. It had slid up a bit and granted a view on my naked knees. Nathan grabbed the hem with his fingertips and tugged it down again. What a gentleman.
"Good", he said satisfied. "Hold on and I will do the rest."
He grabbed the reins of the horse I was sitting at and led it to the others.
When he just wanted to get into the saddle, a whizzing and the cry of pain of a man sounded from the edge of the clearing. All gazes turned towards their source and it became clear that the cry of pain had rather been a cry of death. A rope, weighted with a blade had wrapped around the unlucky one´s neck and I only saw his wide eyes before he was torn up into the trees, when a figure in the white clothes of an assassin jumped to the ground with the end of the rope in its hand.
A death rattle, the legs of the man wriggled and then everything was silent. The dead body landed on the ground with a muffled noise as the rope was released.
Again it was deadly silent on the clearing while the bandits stared at the assassin with a mixture of anger and horror and I just looked at him with relief. Connor pulled out his tomahawk, rotated it around its own axis and then pointed at Nathan with its blade.
"You", he growled. "You are behind all this, I should have known it." His gaze slid to me. "Let her go and give up."
Connor and his unshakable idealism. He always hoped to solve conflicts with words first, before proceeding to action. But couldn´t he expect that Nathan wouldn´t give up just like that? That he wouldn´t do it was proven after the assassin´s words.
Nathan leaped into the saddle, grabbed the reins of my horse additionally and pointed at a group of six men who were sitting motionless on their horses, close to Connor.
"Take care of him!", their boss shouted at them and thrust his heels into his horse´s flanks. I barely saw how Connor started to sprint into our direction, while the men steered their horses towards him, as my horse started moving and ran along Nathan´s in full gallop.
The sudden jerk that went through the horse´s body, had almost thrown me out of the saddle, but I had the good sense to cling to the saddle knob and now I tried to get my balance back. A fall would have meant my certain death because I was still tied to the saddle. I would fall between the horse´s legs and so I had no other choice than keeping my balance and watching helplessly how Connor became smaller behind us. He was fast but the six remaining men on their horses had surrounded him and he had to get rid of them before he could follow us. But he would be barely able to manage the latter. Nathan and his remaining comrades were amazingly good in manoeuvre their galloping horses through the dense groups of trees, even Nathan with mine as a near horse. Soon we had reached the main path through the forest and I couldn´t see anything from Connor and the other men and tears burned in my eyes. I had hoped so much that he would put an end to Nathan´s game and free me. But how should he do it on foot? We would be gone already before he could go back to Davenport and take a horse. The only hope I had was that the horses weren´t able to keep on this pace for ever. Sometime they needed to rest and if Connor followed our trace, he could catch up with us. But Nathan must have thought of this, too. On the next fork of the path, he gave a signal and the group split up. One part took the left path, while we took the right. If it had been difficult for Connor to find our trail before, they had misled him now.
How long we were riding and how many miles we left behind us, I didn´t know it. I had given up the try to remember my environment because sometime I was rather busy with myself. Even though the horses weren´t galloping anymore and we were moving either trotting or in walk, it was difficult for me to stay in the saddle. I really was used to it to ride side-saddle and had done several hour-long ride outs in the past. But the saddle I was sitting in wasn´t a side-saddle. The seat wasn´t made for sitting sideward on it, my right leg hadn´t the support from the horn. It was only supported from my left leg whose foot was in the stirrup. Every time I felt that I slipped to the side, I lifted myself with my arms and my left leg against my own weight and again and again I asked myself, if the saddle itself could start to slip sometime. I felt how my strength vanished more and more and I knew that it was only a matter of time until I would fall. But no matter if he had noticed my struggle or not, at the break of dawn Nathan gave the signal and we left the road and moved into the forest.
On a clearing the men reined their horses in and after Nathan had dismounted and had ordered that the men erect a camp, he came to me, untied the rope from the saddle knob and lifted me from the saddle. When he put me down, my legs were so shaky that I fell directly into his arms again what he couldn´t let pass without comment.
"So devoted all of the sudden?" Nathan put on his dirty grin again. "You could have had it earlier, beautiful."
He lifted me onto his arms again and didn´t care about my kicking and writhing. He just pressed me closer against himself what didn´t make me calm down. I really wanted to curse him but suppressed this desire. I was only wearing my night gown and my dressing gown, was tied, gagged and had to be carried by a creep because I was basically too tired to walk on my own. All of this was demeaning enough so no muffled sound was going to escape my lips through the gag.
Nathan sat me down by a tree, tightened the rope around my wrists and used the rope, which had been tied at the saddle knob, to tie my ankles. Angry I tried to kick at him but he kneeled onto my legs and a muffled cry of pain came over my lips because he used his whole weight to keep my legs down.
"Don´t take it amiss but we don´t want you to escape, don´t we?", he said when he stood up finally and kneeled down beside me. Cocking his head he looked at me and reached out his hand to loosen the gag.
"I think we don´t need this. If you cry or try to do something else with your pretty mouth, it´s going to be unpleasant for you. Unless whatever you want to do is to my advantage of course." A dirty grin again and if I could, I would have stabbed him with my gaze. But when this disgusting piece of fabric was finally out of my mouth, I just pressed my lips together and suppressed the desire to spit at him because I took his threat serious. Nathan appeared unpredictable and quick-tempered to me and I didn´t want to expose myself to his anger while I was sitting defenceless in front of him. Even though I didn´t want to confess it: I was afraid of him. Especially because I didn´t know what he wanted from me. Had he kidnapped me to take what I had refused him? I felt sick with the thought and pressed my legs together in an unconscious action. As if I could protect myself from an assault like that. Nathan seemed to notice it and now I saw scorn in his eyes.
"Do you think I will pounce on you?" He laughed joylessly and leaned a bit forward. His breath brushed my cheek as he laid his lips against my ear and murmured: "There is a place and time for everything, beautiful." This laugh again and together with his words, it sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
Six days passed, we left Boston behind us and were now close to New York. Nathan and his men paid careful attention to avoid the towns and villages and a few men were the vanguard who warned the others, if there were people nearby. We left the street then and hid in the forest. A large group of men who had a tied woman with them would attract too much attention. I couldn´t call any attention to myself because every time, Nathan pressed a hand against my mouth and a knife against my throat. So I could only watch people passing by who could have helped me. I spent the time on the horseback in silence, concentrated on keeping my balance and don´t showing any weakness because after three days, I felt miserable. I was constantly freezing, despite the coat Nathan had given me. The ropes had already chafed the skin of my wrists and ankles to the blood, I barely slept and felt like I was starving and dying of thirst. Nathan often offered me something to drink and eat but I refused likewise often. I questioned it myself, but somehow it felt like I would show weakness if I accepted. But maybe I just hoped that I wouldn´t care about anything sometime, if I was just weak enough.
Because every evening we camped somewhere, I feared that Nathan could abuse me. He always sat me down aside the camp so that we were undisturbed, as he said. Then he came to me, kneeled next to me and enjoyed it to agonise me. Not through pain, no. In the contrary. He stroked through my hair, played with my curls, stroked over every piece of bare skin he could reach and not only once he had the boldness to push my night and dressing gown up a bit and stroked over my thighs. But every time I thought that he wanted to expose me, he stopped, rearranged everything and said this one sentence: "There is a place and time for everything, beautiful."
He knew that I was afraid and he enjoyed playing with it.
But I had nothing to fear of Nathan´s men. They had the strict order to keep away from me and they did. All in all they were six men left. From the six men who had stayed behind to take care of Connor, only two had returned. They had fled but claimed that they had wounded the assassin enough to force him to retreat instead of following them. Nathan had slit their throats for their cowardice.
I didn´t want to believe that Connor really was wounded. Every evening in the camp, I listened into the environment and hoped with every rustling, every cracking noise in the undergrowth that he would storm out and rescue me. But he never came and the farther we travelled, the lower my hope, that he would find us, became. But I still didn´t want to give it up. I knew that Connor would do everything to find us and bring me home. I needed to stand it so long but I also wasn´t entirely idly in terms of escaping plans.
I often thought about how I could escape but until now, none of my plans had been viable. Nathan was smart and made every effort to withdraw every opportunity from me. He checked my bonds doubly and more, searched my environment for every object I could use to loosen them and instructed the guards to always have an eye on me. He himself always chose a fireplace close to me. Also in this evening he followed this concept but he made one mistake: He didn´t check my bonds.
Like after every day on the horseback the rope around my wrists had loosened. Not so much that I could move my hands but enough to give me the possibility to undo them with some skill. I thought of that as Nathan had tied my ankles, had played his games with me and had finally gone to sleep. I lay down, too but kept my eyes on the guards close to the fire. I was laying aside the light so that they could see my silhouette at best and when I saw that Nathan had turned his back to me sleeping, I lifted my wrists to my lips and tried to undo the knots of the bond with my teeth.
First I squinched up my face because of the disgusting taste in my mouth. Leather, horse, blood and my own sweat. But when I felt how the first knot actually loosened, I forget every kind of disgust. I also undid the second knot with some effort and I had to suppress a sigh of relief when the bonds fell from my wrists. Still having an eye on Nathan and the men, I pulled my knees to my chest and fumbled with the rope around my ankles. These knots were tight and it took half an eternity but finally my legs were freed, too. My heart beat wildly in my chest. I wasn´t tied anymore, but what now? Leap up and just run off? Slowly crawl into the thicket and run? Or risk it to reach the horses which were tied up not far from me?
The latter was risky but if I could get onto one of the horses without being noticed, I would have the moment of surprise with me. I could flee before the men knew what was happening. On horseback I furthermore had more chances to get away far enough than on foot. Because I was weak. I never would be able to run fast and long enough. I had to risk it.
I kept watching the guards and Nathan while I crawled slowly over the ground to the horses. They weren´t saddled but at least bridled and were peacefully and partly sleeping. When I reached the first one I stood up slowly and carefully stroked over the animal´s nostrils when it snorted noisily. A short look to the guards told me that they hadn´t noticed anything until now and also Nathan was still deeply asleep.
"Easy", I whispered when I untied the reins and laid them over the horse´s neck. No I had only one problem: How should I mount it without stirrups? Again I swore about being a small person.
Carefully I led the horse slightly away from the others and to my fiendish joy, the men by the fire were the worst guards in history. One of them was sleeping while the other one stared into the void and seemed to be somewhere else in his thoughts. Close to the horses was a small rock. Its surface was smooth but barefooted I had no problems with climbing it and pulled myself onto the horseback. When I sat, I felt euphoria rising inside of me and grinned widely, but there was still one thing I had to do: To dare the escape.
The reins firmly in my hands, I additionally clung onto the soft mane, sent a short grateful prayer to my grandfather, who had allowed me to be a child on a bare horseback during all my summers in the country instead of a distinguished lady in long robes and on a side-saddle. Then I thrust my heels into the horse´s sides. It neighed and leaped forward, past its comrades and through the camp where the men finally noticed that something was wrong. I heard them swearing and shouting when I rode past them in full gallop and headed for the edge of the forest. My euphoria grew with every metre I came closer to the road, but when I just broke through the undergrowth, I heard the clatter of hooves behind me. They neither had taken their time to saddle the horses and were following me.
"Come on!", I shouted at my horse which really quickened up its pace. Its hooves clattered in a wild rhythm onto the street and I felt its muscles working intensively. It sensed my own exertion and it urged it to maximum effort but our pursuers were still after us. With a glance over my shoulder I saw that Nathan was leading them and I winced when I saw something metallic flashing up in his hand. I had no time to react when a loud shot sounded.
The horse underneath me screamed when the bullet tore the upper muscle of its right hind leg and I was also thrown to the side, when it collapsed and instinctively I rolled away from it before it could fall on me and I stayed laying in the dirt, trembling and staring at the animal. I could see the white in its eyes, it breathed heavily and tried to stand up in panic. But it had broken its foreleg which lay in an unnatural angle. I was unharmed but paralyzed by shock and fear. I heard how the other horses came nearer but I only had eyes for the suffering animal next to me. Steps came closer, then I saw Nathan´s boots and I winced when another shot sounded. Now the horse was laying still. Dead.
An uncontrollable sob found its way outside through my throat. Then another and before I could prevent it, I burst into tears. My mind screamed that I had to stop, that I had to stay strong but my body didn´t obey. It trembled, was shaken by my crying and I was struggling for breath because my neck felt like it was laced up.
Tears blurred my vision when Nathan approached me, kneeled down next to me, brought me to my feet and forced me to look at him. His gaze was icy when he clicked his tongue.
"Oh, beautiful. I thought you were smarter. Did you really think that you could escape? Did you really think if you steal a horse, we couldn´t follow you?" He shook his head almost sympathetically. "You should have thought twice."
He grabbed my arm roughly and tore me upwards. After I´d had the feeling that I wasn´t able to move anymore, life returned to my body now.
I screamed at him, struck out at him, kicked at him and tried to writhe out of his grip. But his expression just darkened and clenching his jaws in anger, he pushed me backwards against a tree, laid his hand around my throat and choked me. I uttered a rasping breath, gave up my defence and stared at him wide-eyed. In his gaze lay pure anger. Just exactly the anger I had been afraid of and which also scared me now.
"Don´t carry it too far", Nathan hissed. "I don´t mind changing my plans for you and it could become really uncomfortable. So: Don´t challenge me, you little bitch."
Plans? What plans? Until now we had been riding around, apparently aimlessly and I had never learned something about the gang´s next steps. When he wanted only me, what were his plans then?
I laid my hands around his fingers which were choking me and tried to loosen their grip.
"Please!", I uttered. "Whatever you want from me, for goodness sake, take it."
Tears ran over my cheeks and every pride was forgotten when I looked at him pleadingly. I just wanted it to end. I couldn´t be proud anymore.
A bitter smile played about Nathan´s lips when he came closer to my face.
"You want that, don´t you?", he asked and I nodded shakily. Did I have a choice? My escape had failed. I was just tired and had the naive hope that he would let me go, if he got what he wanted. There could be no talk of wanting it and a short whimper came over my lips when Nathan´s free hand roamed over my torso, while his face came even closer to mine.
"So you give up your resistance?", he asked. His breath brushed my face and our lips touched slightly when he spoke. "You really want to spread your legs? You want that?"
I nodded reluctantly but he choked me again. "I want you to answer."
"Y...yes", I cawed and a diabolic smile appeared on Nathan´s lips.
"I thought so."
The hand, which had explored my torso, disappeared and Nathan pulled away without loosening the grip around my throat. "I said that all women give in sometime and I judged you correctly, too. You only need to be under pressure and you begin to cry and to whimper and before you know it, you´re lying down willingly. Nothing more than a cheap whore but she let herself be paid at least."
He let me go and gave me a disparaging gaze when I sank to my knees coughing. My legs were shaking and refused to carry me.
"In your homestead you could hide behind strong men and your savage. But now? Look at you. A miserable woman who would have given herself to me. And why? For her freedom? So that I will leave her alone? Was that the kind of relationship you had to your oh so beloved husband? He scared you and you let him do it with you? Is that everything a man has to do?"
He grabbed my arm again and forced me to stand up. Icy and scornfully he looked into my eyes.
"Don´t worry. Like I already said it before: I don´t want a woman who did it with a mangy dog but don´t worry: I will bring you to a place, far enough from the savage. Where you can be who you are and where nobody will judge you. Just have faith, beautiful."