Trent drove his men—and Kelly—another three hours before they stopped. Kelly’s horse was beyond exhausted. The pitiful mount didn’t look like it could take another step. Kelly cared for him as best she could; the horse lay down and tried to roll in the dirt, but didn’t have the energy. It wouldn’t have shocked her if he didn’t last the night.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Monday night…
The nightmare of Sunday night returned. The man dragging Kelly up the hill again…she crying out my name…me chasing them…the edge of the cliff…the man falling backwards, Kelly losing her balance, calling for me…my desperate attempt to save her…over the edge she went…the gray fog…
And I woke up. More sweat, more agony, more fear. Twice she’s gone over that cliff…is she already dead?...I didn’t know that she wasn’t, of course.
But I did know that if she was dead…Trent Tolliver was, too. He might not know it yet. But he was a dead man.
Tuesday…the last day of Kelly’s life?...
“Who do you think we’ll be dealing with?” I asked Allie once we got started. “The same men as were in the schoolroom?”
It was just after sunup. We had traveled as far as we could the previous night, but it didn’t appear that we had gained on them. Part of the problem was, it was hard to see their tracks in the dark. But they seemed to be following a trail in the mountains so we followed it, too, and stopped occasionally to light a match and make sure we were still on course. Finally, Ol’ Paint and Ranger simply had to have some rest—Allie and I did, too, for that matter—so we made camp for a few hours.
Because of the nightmare, I didn’t sleep much. I was afraid to go back to sleep. It was near dawn anyway, and Allie arose soon after and we had, on horseback, what breakfast we ate. I tried not to show the incredible anxiety I felt deep within me, and I didn’t tell Allie about the nightmares, but the strain and stress were almost overwhelming. The two horses seemed to perceive the urgency and were willing to give us whatever we asked of them. They may have been running on adrenalin, like Allie and I were.
In answer to the question I asked, Allie responded, “I don’t know, for sure, but I suspect that’s probably the case. That big guy’s name is Hank Frobisher. I ran into him once before. I told you about Ed Monger. Terrell is no doubt among the group, so with Trent, that’s the four we’ll probably be facing.”
“What about the two trailing us?”
Allie glanced at me. “You saw the other one, too, huh.”
“Yeah. He’s pretty good, better than our first tail, but I spotted him a couple of times.”
“I don’t know who they are,” Allie replied. “It’s distinctly possible that Tolliver left two men to trail us. I can drop back and take care of them, if you want me to.”
“No, we need to concentrate on what’s ahead of us.” I pulled out my pocket watch and wound it. It was just after 7 o’clock. Kelly had five more hours to live, if we didn’t find her first. “Neither one of those two behind us seem to be gaining much. We’ll just have to watch our backside once we get close.” Then my eyes narrowed. “But at the moment, we need to watch our frontside.”
Allie nodded. “Let’s get into those trees,” she said.
The trail we were following was bordered by thick forest on the left and a near treeless, but high plateau to our right. What we had both seen was a rider in front of us, coming our way. Whether he had spotted us or not, I didn’t know. He was still about a mile away.
Once we were safely hidden—and, as best we could, we wound our way through the trees parallel to the trail—Allie said, “It might be harmless, but I’m betting that’s one of Tolliver’s men doing a little reconnoitering.”
“Yeah. We better leave him alone. If he doesn’t report back…”
“Agreed.”
It didn’t take us long to recognize Ed Monger…
“I told you that if that horse died, you’d walk,” Trent said to Kelly. “And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. And if you walk too slow, you’ll drag.”
As he was speaking, he was tying rope around Kelly’s wrists. When he finished, he looped the other end around the horn of his saddle. And he was right. She’d walk—or be dragged—behind him. She glanced over at the other men, but they didn’t seem to be too concerned about her discomfort.
“Trent, you want me to go back and see if I can spot Conners and the Ranger? See if they are close?” That from Ed Monger.
“Yeah. Check 2-3 miles back.”
“I can lay an ambush for them,” Monger said, suggestively.
“No. Just see if you see them, then come on back.” Monger nodded, mounted, and headed back north, the way they had come.
“You boys ready?” Trent asked Terrell and Hank.
“Ready when you are, boss,” Hank replied.
Kelly looked at him and Terrell. “Are you going to let him do this to me?”
And it was the younger brother’s turn to respond, “In a few hours, sweetheart, you aren’t going to care…”
Monger stopped at the top of a rise about 50 yards ahead of us; we were still in the trees, of course. We stopped, too, lest he hear us. He took a drink from his canteen and seemed to be staring down the trail—looking for us, no doubt. He must have sat there for 15 minutes, and I was getting more frustrated with each passing second. But he had a good panorama of the trail for quite a ways back, probably at least two miles, so he was obviously waiting to see if we came into view. When we didn’t, he turned his horse and rode back towards the Tollivers, his horse in a canter.
I heaved a sigh. “I didn’t think he would ever leave.”
“We’re close, Rob,” Allie said. “He wouldn’t have come back too far, and from where he was sitting, he would have seen anyone within two miles. He thinks we’re well behind them…”
And, indeed, when Ed Monger caught up with his traveling companions, he told Trent, “I went a couple miles, sat on the crest of a hill. I could see at least two miles back. Sat there for 15-20 minutes. Never saw them. They are at least five miles behind, probably more.”
Kelly heard that and wanted to cry.
Monger was wrong, of course. We let him get out of sight, then put Ol’ Paint and Ranger into a nice, ground-eating trot, at least as best we could in this terrain. We had gotten a little above the tree line, and the trail was winding through hills of various rises and undulations, mostly covered in grass and shrubs. The rabbitbrush was just starting to bloom, but most of the rest of the stuff—chokeberry, elderberry, currant, and a bunch of other plants I didn’t know—were fading. I wasn’t there to eat berries anyway.
I checked my pocket watch again. 10 o’clock.
My heart crawled into my throat…
Kelly was getting tired, to say the least. On occasion—rare occasion—Trent walked his horse, which meant Kelly could do the same. But usually he kept his mount at a slow trot, which meant Kelly was having to jog to keep pace. A couple of times she stumbled and fell; Trent didn’t even look back, he just kept going, dragging his “passenger” along behind him. Kelly yelled at him, but he paid her no mind. She managed to get back to her feet, and the second time it happened, she jerked the rope as hard as she could. The horse stopped, feeling this strong tug.
“What kind of a beast are you?” Kelly said, looking at Trent with fire in her eyes, her hair disheveled and sweat streaking down the dust on her face. Interestingly, her whole demeanor and appearance gave her quite a wild, sexy look. “And don’t tell me that in a few hours I’m not going to care.”
Trent actually looked amused. But there was no amusement in his voice when he said “I’m a man who avenges his blood. I have absolutely no pity for you, woman, and if you were me, you wouldn’t, either. How would you feel if I killed your father? Or your lover boy back there?” Then, another merciless smirk. “Oh, excuse me. Allie Summer’s lover boy.”
Kelly ignored that. She didn’t want her thoughts to go there and mainly because she was desperately trying to think of way to survive. “There’s a difference between justice and cold-blooded murder—“ Kelly started to say.
But Tolliver interrupted her. “Not to me there’s not. Not when one of my family is involved.” He turned back to the front and gigged his horse. “And, frankly, I don’t care if you die with a bullet between your eyes or being dragged to death. The latter might be preferable. Bullets cost money.”
Kelly realized she was wasting her breath trying to argue with him so she went quiet and turned her thoughts to survival. And to keeping pace with the horse. Trent had his animal at a slow trot again and Kelly had to keep pace or…be dragged. She was extremely weary. And very despondent. What’s the use? Rob is so far back that he’ll never catch up… But Kelly wouldn’t give up; she wasn’t made that way.
But she was realistic, too, and with Rob Conners nowhere to be found and four hardened, pitiless outlaws surrounding her, there wasn’t a whole lot of hope left in her soul.
11:30 A.M….
“Where are they, Allie?”
I was in almost as much despair as Kelly. In the past hour, we had topped a couple of knolls and saw nothing in front of us. And we had been keeping Ranger and Ol’ Paint moving fairly briskly.
“Let me find out,” she said. “The horses need a breather anyway.”
I didn’t want to stop, but she was right about Ranger and Ol’ Paint. We were on a straightaway in the road, perhaps a mile long and a quarter mile to the next crest. But directly to our left, a substantial mound rose above us and Allie jumped off Ranger and started scrambling up that hill. She was still favoring her left ankle, but even with that, she could move more rapidly and easily that 99% of humanity. She looked like a monkey scrambling up that hill. And even though it might have topped out at 200 feet, she was up there in less than two minutes. Without a bad ankle, she might have made it in 30 seconds.
And she stayed up there less than two minutes. And in 30 seconds she was back down. I could tell she was hurting a little, but she was also excited.
“They are maybe a mile and a half ahead of us. At most. The trees get thick again to the east”—our left—“and there is a high, long ridge in front of them. It looks like the trail bends rather severely back to the west which leads me to believe there might be a river on the other side of that ridge. I’ve never been in this part of the territory so I can’t say for sure.”
When she said they were only a mile and half ahead, my pulse sped up. “Are they moving fast?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “No,” is all she said, and I knew there was something behind that “no.”
I looked at her. “Did you see Kelly?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.” Allie wasn’t being a fountain of information here.
“Allie,” I said, meaning, “tell me what you saw.”
She sighed. “Apparently her horse died. Tolliver has her tied by the wrists and she’s stumbling along behind his horse. Oh, and the two behind us are gaining fast.”
I gritted my teeth, more determined than ever. “Well, then, we’re wasting time,” I said. I checked my gun and my rifle.
Death was going to come to somebody that day—and probably multiple somebodies.
11:35…
Kelly was exhausted and about to collapse. Given the kind of life she lived—active on a ranch—she was in excellent physical condition. But everybody has a limit. She was stumbling and about to fall. If Trent Tolliver noticed, he didn’t care, and neither did the rest of his men.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and shoot me?” she said, loud enough for Tolliver to hear. “Put me out of my misery.”
Kelly had given up hope. She didn’t know exactly what time it was, but not too many minutes before, Hank had asked Terrell what time it was, and the response was “11:25.”
“Cain’t we get one more good meal out o’ her before we shoot ‘er?” Hank had asked.
Nobody answered him, which was answer enough.
To Kelly’s question about ending her misery, Trent turned and looked at her. “It’s not noon yet? Don’t you want to enjoy the last 20 minutes of your life?”
“I don’t especially call this enjoyment,” she replied.
“It doesn’t look like Conners and his whore are going to show up, does it,” Trent said.
Kelly didn’t bother answering that question. She said, more for herself than for Tolliver, “He’ll find you. And he’ll kill you. If Allie Summer doesn’t get you first.” She looked up at him, a rather nasty expression on her face. “Do you really want Rob Conners and Allie Summer chasing you? Do you think you can get away from them? If you do, then you are as stupid as you are ugly. Your only chance to live, Tolliver, is to let me go and ride as fast as you can.”
Surprisingly, to Kelly, it appeared her words had had some affect on Tolliver. It was pretty obvious that, no, he did not relish the idea of having an enraged Rob Conners and a ruthless, merciless Allie Summer on his trail. He stopped his horse, and looked around at his men, who halted as well.
“You know, boys, she’s got a point. Another 15-20 minutes isn’t going to matter. We haven’t been traveling too fast, the horses are fairly rested. Let’s go ahead and end this and put some miles behind us.”
Terrell shrugged. “Wouldn’t bother me any.”
Trent looked at Hank and Ed. Hank wasn’t going to argue and Ed didn’t care. It was close enough to noon to satisfy his “honor." He was just staring into the trees to his left as if he wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation.
Trent nodded and pulled his gun. “Any final words, woman? This is the price you pay for killing a Tolliver…” He cocked the revolver and pointed it at her.
Kelly swallowed, her heart in her throat. This time, Terrell wasn’t going to stop his brother. And once more, the thoughts went through her head, good-bye, Rob…good-bye, dad…I love you both…She closed her eyes and lowered her head, prepared for the inevitable…
…an inevitable I wasn’t about to let happen.