Chapter 11
To be fair, Grace hadn’t had much experience with bandits. Perhaps if she had, she would have noticed some telltale signs. By the time she realized that there was danger, she was already hip-deep in it, with no way out.
Like monsters from a nightmarish storybook, the bandits stepped out of the deepening shadows surrounding the sheriff’s office. They came creeping up before she even knew what was happening. One of them grabbed her, covering her mouth so that she couldn’t scream.
“You will get the sheriff to open the door,” the bandit said in her ear, speaking softly in a hiss.
Grace nodded. What else could she do? Her heart was beating terribly quickly, and she was so very afraid. Would she faint again now? Would she be left at these men’s mercy? She couldn’t let that happen. There would be nothing stopping them from doing unspeakable things to her.
With a gargantuan force of will, she pushed back the blackness that was already creeping in. How long she could try and force herself to stay in the world, she didn’t know, but she would try very hard indeed.
She was forced bodily up the steps to the front door of the station. It wasn’t locked. Grace opened the door.
“Oh, Grace, it’s you,” Robert said with a quick glance in her direction before he looked down at his paperwork again. “Come on in.”
The bandit who had spoken to her had his gun in the small of her back. If he fired, she knew she’d never walk again, even if she survived. Grace didn’t know what to do, but she needed to warn Robert somehow that there were men hiding behind her. Armed, dangerous men.
“Grace? Is everything okay?” Robert asked, looking up again when she didn’t move from the door.
“Speak!” the bandit hissed at her. “Tell him you’re just worried about your husband.”
“I … I’m just worried about Hunter,” she said, her voice quavering. She wasn’t brave enough for this. She was just a simple girl from a little town in the mountains. Surely, this was beyond her.
No, she thought suddenly. No, it wasn’t.
She was brave. She had come all this way to marry a man she’d never met.
She had endured a terrible train ride, followed by multiple bandit attacks in quick succession.
She was building a new life with Hunter, learning to love this new world in spite of its myriad challenges, none of which she’d ever encountered back home.
She could do this. She could somehow figure out how to tell Robert there was a problem. She had to gamble on the fact that even though these were evil men, they needed her alive more than dead.
“I don’t think Hunter is okay,” she said, taking a step forward and feeling the pressure of the gun lift from her spine as she moved away. The bandit tried to grab her, but she turned and, with a rush of adrenaline, slammed the door shut, threw the deadbolt across the latch, and fell to her knees.
“Robert! They’re here for their friends,” she gasped, flinging herself to the side. “The bandits! They’re at the door.”
Bullets thudded against the heavy wooden door, and Grace slumped to the floor, the world spinning. The blackness wanted to close in and wrap her in its warm embrace, but that wouldn’t help. She would be shot for sure. She had to get behind some sort of cover before the door finally splintered.
And then hands grabbed her and she was being half-dragged, half-steered behind Robert’s desk, which had been upended. When had that happened?
“Stay down,” Robert instructed her.
Grace didn’t need to be told twice.
She lay on the ground, her hands over her ears. There was a crashing sound, and the back door swung inward on the broken single hinge that was left. The bandits came flooding in.
Robert shot several of them, but it was clear they had no hope. In seconds, the men had overpowered Robert and Grace.
One bandit smashed the butt of his gun into Grace’s cheek and she cried out, blood filling her mouth and eyes. He snickered at her maliciously, such evil in his eyes as she had never before seen.
“The others will be on their way,” Robert said. “You’ll never get even a mile out of camp.”
“We’ll see,” the bandit said.
There was a clang as the cell door in the back opened, and then happy whoops were heard as Miguel and Alberto were released.
“Say goodbye,” the bandit said, pointing his gun at Grace and Robert.
“No,” Alberto said. “Don’t shoot her. We can use her. You can shoot him.”
Grace watched, helpless and horrified, as the bandit casually pointed his gun at Robert and shot him. Robert collapsed and fell to the floor, blood pooling on the ground from the large wound in his side.
Grace screamed and then was picked up bodily and slung over a large bandit’s back.
He hurried out the back with her and ran.
Her world dwindled to a narrow tunnel, so she had little idea of where they were going.
He held her tightly, and although she kicked and bucked and tried to get free, it was to no avail.
The sounds of gunfire rang in the twilight air.
It was starting to get dark now, and Grace was terribly turned around.
She wanted to get her bearings, but she was so scared that nothing looked familiar.
And she was looking at the world through a dark shroud that was closing in.
It was only some miracle that was keeping her conscious.
She gritted her teeth and hoped that it would all end soon, one way or another.
After a little while, Grace was deposited on the ground with a thump. She wondered if they would leave her out here in the fields near the town. She wanted to run, but her legs were oddly numb.
“Get up!” the bandit said. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, with a full beard that was black and glossy. “Get on the horse.”
“No!” she cried, shaking her head. “I’m not going with you.”
“You are,” the man said. He pointed his gun in her face. “You are coming with us.”
“Why? I’m no one special. You don’t want me,” she pleaded.
“Either you get on the horse, or I shoot you in the head,” the bandit said.
Grace somehow managed to drag herself into the saddle, though how she would never know. A moment later the man got up behind her.
“If you try anything, my men will shoot you dead in the saddle—and they are good enough shots to do it without hitting me, have no doubt,” the man said.
Grace swallowed thickly, her stomach in her throat.
Soon they were off, galloping across the grasslands. Where were they going? To El Aguila’s camp? Could that be it?
Could she be heading to the place that Hunter and the others were struggling to find? If she kept her wits and managed to escape, perhaps she could help them to find the monster and remove him from the world.
She hung on and tried not to fall into darkness.
The sun set completely, and the stars came out in a clear night sky. It was really beautiful. Grace would have liked to be having a moonlight picnic with Hunter, looking up at the stars and not in the arms of a bandit who smelled like sweat and horse.
Hunter. Gosh, she missed him so much. They were supposed to be playing cards together right about now.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t how her story was supposed to go.
She had never wanted big adventure or risk in her life.
All she’d ever wanted was to bake delicious things to eat and to meet a good man, fall in love, get married, and have some children.
That was all she’d wanted to do. And yet here she was, having a blasted adventure.
She really wanted to swear, but Grace just wasn’t that kind of person.
She realized that if she was going to be of any help to Hunter, she would need to keep her wits and take stock of where she was and where they were headed.
If possible, she should try to escape. Grace knew she would have to wait for the right time, although she had no idea what that would look like.
The bandits, around twenty of them, headed toward the rising moon and then turned so that it was on their left. South. They were heading south.
Then they took turns to the left and right until Grace was confused and lost all sense of direction. To their right, a range of hills was black against the sky.
After putting quite a bit of distance between them and the town, the bandits slowed their pace and conversations broke out around Grace.
It seemed that both Miguel and Alberto were well-liked. Alberto was treated as though he was a general in an army or something.
Miguel seemed to have earned his own kind of respect. The men shook his hand and talked animatedly to him. He smiled and told them stories of being locked up. It was like a family reuniting after weeks apart.
That was an odd thought. A family of bandits.
Was that possible? Hunter and the others had always said that El Aguila seemed to treat his men as disposable tools. They never seemed to mean anything to him, what with the way he sent them into battle and let so many of them be killed.
Soon they turned toward the hills. Grace was starting to wonder just how far they had gone.
They came to a rushing creek and forded it at the ruins of a bridge that looked like it was only barely holding together.
The wood creaked under the horses’ hooves but seemed surprisingly sturdy.
Grace clung to the horse and prayed. She also belatedly sent up a prayer for Robert’s safety. Maybe Julie would be able to help him.
When the horse stepped onto solid ground, Grace let out a sigh of relief.
“You are a scared little mouse, aren’t you?” her captor asked with a chuckle. “Not far to go.”
He was right.
A short time later, after riding up the side of a hill, they came to an old building.
It was lit by lamplight that glowed golden and warm in the darkness.
They rode in through open gates that were immediately shut behind them.
Grace’s captor reined in his horse, and men grabbed her, pulling her down.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, trying to fight the men off. “Let me go.”