Chapter Thirty
Sam pushed the mare as hard as he could without overly exhausting her.
After all, he had no idea how far he’d have to go and where his search would lead him.
It took all of his restraint, because his heart didn’t want to listen to any logic in that moment.
His heart wanted to get to his daughter as quickly as possible.
The thought of losing her was unbearable. It threatened to choke him, render him useless, so he pushed it down. He couldn’t dwell on that right in that moment. He needed to focus.
At first, his pursuit seemed aimless and lonely, because he didn’t know which of the carriage wheel tracks he should follow, but the ruts in the mud became less and less and suddenly he was certain that the one fresh track he was following could be the right one. At least, he hoped that it was.
Another thing he noticed after a while were the riders that followed far behind him. He’d heard their whistles and looked back. There were even two other carriages in the distance, though the riders kept a steadier pace trying to catch up to him.
Sam didn’t know who these men were, but they didn’t look very organized to be some kind of group or posse. He decided that they weren’t important in that moment.
The tracks took a sharp turn up a hill through a small forest. Sam followed, carefully peeking through the trees. He thought he’d heard voices and slowed down.
Then he saw the black carriage parked in front of a barn. Two young men were untying the horse from the vehicle, chatting. Sam couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but so far, it seemed to fit the description of the women.
The place looked like a modest homestead with a long, single-story house, a small garden in the front, and few livestock in the fields in the back. Nothing out of the ordinary. It almost looked quaint.
Who were these people? Why would they take Ruby? Had they taken her?
Maybe they hadn’t been the ones who’d abducted his daughter.
Sam started to worry that he’d taken the wrong turn somewhere, read the wrong track to follow, questioning his own abilities.
“Dear God,” Sam whispered to himself. “Please, help me find my girl. I know I haven’t been very faithful to You, but Ruby needs You! She’s never given up on You, so please help her! And please help me find her!”
Sam tried to think of what to do next. He couldn’t just walk up to the two young men, confronting them. He didn’t even know if Ruby was around here somewhere. The house was very quiet.
Suddenly, a back door somewhere opened and Sam could hear lots of barking. They were yappy barks. Could those be puppies? Sam’s mind scrambled as he tried to think of the woman in the library, the one with white hair dressed in black. Hadn’t she been the one talking to Ruby about her puppies?
His heart skipped a beat. Please, God!
The front door to the house opened and Sam’s jaw almost fell to the ground.
Clayton Briggs stepped out of the house, contentedly hooking his thumbs into his suspenders as he casually strolled over to the young men at the carriage.
Was this his house? Sam was utterly shocked. He’d thought that Briggs had a place closer to his office somewhere in downtown. What was he doing here?
“My mother said you did a good job!” Briggs called out to them. “Did you run into any problems?” His mother? Sam’s thoughts were tumbling over each other like rocks in a gushing waterfall.
The two young men shook their heads. One of them finally led the horse into the barn, while the other walked toward Briggs.
“It was easy,” he told Briggs. “Nothing we haven’t done before.”
“Great,” the portly sheriff confirmed with a nod. “If you come down the office tomorrow, I’ll have the money to get you paid.” They shook hands. “I might even throw in a bonus. She looks exactly like her mother did.”
Sam paused for a second, as his head tried to catch up with what he was hearing.
“She even has the same mannerisms as Lizzy,” Briggs added.
Lizzy?
Sam held his breath. Realization slammed into him with full force. The nausea that suddenly took over Sam’s body threatened to render him unconscious. How was this even possible?
That man couldn’t possibly mean Elizabeth… Ruby’s mom… Could he?
“Glad it all worked out,” the younger man replied. “What are you going to do with her now?” he asked then and Sam strained his ears.
Briggs spit into the dirt, then shrugged.
“Ah, I don’t know yet,” he said nonchalantly. “My mother is enamored with her. I wanted to use her as leverage, but she reminds me so much of Lizzy, we might just keep her.” The younger man just nodded.
What was going on here? Sam couldn’t be sure what exactly they were talking about, but the things he was hearing made his blood boil. All of it just sounded too familiar, too close to home. Sam just couldn’t connect the dots yet.
It was most frustrating. He needed to find out if Briggs was actually talking about Ruby, and if his little daughter was actually in this house. Because if she wasn’t, Sam had just wasted precious minutes looking for her.
“We’ll come by tomorrow at your office, then,” the young man said as he turned to walk back to the carriage. Briggs stood there, deeply in thought, scratching his big round belly, smiling to himself. Then he turned and slowly walked back to the house.
Sam once again strained his ears when Briggs opened the door to walk inside.
Unfortunately, those two young men came out of the barn with their horses, and Sam assumed that they would probably come this way, since this seemed to be the only road leading to and from this place. Sam needed to go hide somewhere, quickly.
Turning around, he rode back the way he came.
The riders that had followed him all the way from town had found his tracks leading up that road. There were at least two dozen of them. Men of all ages. Thankfully, he didn’t see any of the carriages.
This posed a huge problem for Sam, because now the other two leaving Briggs’ place would see them and probably notify Briggs. And then what? He wouldn’t be able to sneak around the house to see if Ruby was there or not.
“Did you find her?” an older one called out to Sam as he came close enough.
Sam shook his head.
“You need to turn around!” he shouted at them, waving them to turn back. “Ride towards the canyon in the east!”
“What happened?” another man asked. More and more came toward Sam, asking the same questions.
“We’re here to help!” a brown-haired young man told him. “Tell us what to do!”
Sam only had seconds to think and come up with some kind of plan.
“You, you, and you,” he said to the youngest-looking ones, who seemed to carry weapons. “You’ll follow me! The rest of you, please ride toward the canyon in the east and take that route back toward town! Do it now!”
Not all of them listened immediately. But the three men he’d chosen instantly took up their positions by his side. Sam turned around to look whether the two young men he’d seen at Briggs’ house were already coming down toward them. So far, they were taking their sweet time.
“Go, now!” Sam yelled at all the others. “You are risking my daughter’s life!”
The ones that were still standing there quickly turned and rushed their horses in the direction Sam had told them.
Sam could see that most of them had turned toward the eastern canyon, which would lead them straight back to town, just a different, less visible route.
Sam could only hope that this diversion would work not to alarm the other riders, who’d show up any minute now.
He turned toward the three young riders he’d chosen.
“Follow me!” Sam told them. “I need you to do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“Yes, sir!” one of them replied. Oddly enough, all three of them looked a little alike. For all Sam knew, they could be brothers.
Sam led them away from the road straight into the woods. Given the wintery season, there was no foliage to hide them better, so they had to go deep and stay close to a tall rock wall. Then, they waited.
“There will be two men riding by here,” Sam whispered to them, as he explained what they were going to do.
“Once they are far enough away, we’ll ride back the way they came to a small homestead.
It doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary, but I need all three of you to be vigilant.
” The young men were glued to his every word.
“I need to scope out the house first,” Sam continued quietly. “So, you need to stay hidden until I call you, can you do that?” They all nodded silently. Sam smiled at them meekly.
“I am grateful for all three of you,” Sam said humbly. “Thank you for riding all the way out here with the others. I can’t thank all of you enough.”
The three were about to respond when they clearly heard the other two riders coming down the hill, loudly talking and laughing. Sam held up his hand and listened carefully.
“Briggs is a strange man,” one of the riders said. “Who goes and steals someone’s daughter, and then decides to keep her? That’s sick!” They both laughed.
At first, Sam wished that they rode faster, but the more they talked, the more he appreciated them going at a slow pace.
“I’ve known him for a long time,” the other replied.
“He’s been obsessed with that woman for decades.
As if a fat lump like him would ever stand a chance with such a beautiful lady.
” Sam held his breath. He wished he could just rush out there and ask them.
If Ruby’s life wasn’t on the line right then, he would have.
“Did you actually know her?” the first one asked.
“Oh, yes! Elizabeth Hayes, later Brown…” the other replied.
Sam froze. They were talking about his first wife.
“She was gorgeous!” the man continued. “Everybody was hot for her, even my brother! She married a small-town sheriff out by the bluff out west. We were only traveling through on our way to an assignment, but once Briggs saw her in town he was done for. That’s where Briggs’ obsession started.
After that, he even applied to become a sheriff, trying to copy Lizzy’s husband. ”
Sam’s body tensed up so much, it was physically painful.
“Like I said, Briggs is sick in the head!” the first one said and they both laughed again. “And the woman died?” he asked then.
Sam closed his eyes, as the memory came once again rushing back to him—this time more vividly than ever before.
“Unfortunately,” the other confirmed. “Briggs came up with this elaborate plan, where I had to go and get Sheriff Brown out of the house with some lie about a break-in that needed to be investigated in the middle of the night. Briggs went to the house and took the woman…”
Briggs had been behind Elizabeth’s murder?
Spending all those years relentlessly investigating the incident, everything fell so easily in place. Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How had he never noticed Briggs before? He must have been in his old town, always nearby, yet he couldn’t recall ever seeing him.
Sam’s hands balled into fists and he was ready to strangle that man.
As the two men rode on, their conversation disappeared into nothing, but Sam had all the information he needed. At this point, he didn’t even care about being seen anymore.
At this point, he had a personal vendetta against a sheriff gone rogue—the man who was in that house right up that hill.
Sam led the mare out of the woods; the three young men followed.
For a split second, he wondered if it was reckless to just show up there, but Sam saw red. Old feelings he’d long buried bubbled up to the surface and devoured every last shred of reasoning he had left. By all accounts, Ruby was in that house and he would get his daughter back one way or another.
Sam rode right up to the front door. He didn’t care about being stealthy or not making noise.
“Watch the front door,” he told the men.
“If you see a little girl—blonde hair, green eyes—that’s my daughter.
Make sure nothing happens to her. I don’t care about anybody else.
” The three men exchanged a pointed look, dismounted their horses and positioned themselves at critical points around the front of the house.
Sam drew his gun and started walking around the back, where the dogs were playing.
As soon as he saw the small fenced-in yard with around a dozen white and brown puppies, he noticed the old woman from the library—the one with the white hair and black dress—sitting in a rocking chair, watching them with a soft smile.
“Where is Ruby?” Sam’s thunderous voice made the woman scream. She stared at him with wide eyes as he marched toward her with long strides. She jumped up and ran into the house.
“Papa!” Ruby called out as she jumped up among the playful puppies. “Look at them! Aren’t they cute?” she asked him, seemingly completely oblivious. Sam was glad to see that she wasn’t hurt, but his relief seeing her only lasted another second.
The back door slammed open and Briggs stormed outside. He roared as he went to grab Ruby before Sam could get to her.
“She’s mine!” Briggs yelled maniacally, pulling the little girl violently in front of him. Then he held a knife at her throat. Ruby screamed.