Chapter 17

Dirk

Hooves plodded loudly against the snow as Dirk pushed onward. The tracks were still visible, but barely. He hated himself for pushing the horse as hard as he was, but he had to get to Gabriella before it was too late. No matter what happened between them, one thing was certain: Gabriella needed him… and he was going after her.

Suddenly, the direction of the tracks changed. They were headed toward the bluffs. "Dear God. No! Please don't let anything happen to her," he muttered a prayer as he pushed the horse onward. When they neared the edge of the cliff, he pulled back. From the look of the tracks, there were four horses, and one set of tracks looked as if it had skidded to a stop by the cliff.

His horse was panting as Dirk slid off him and walked over to the edge. Dirk looked down as a few pebbles rained down the mountainside. He took a step back, and then something red in the snow caught his eye. Stooping down to take a closer look, he saw that it was a large red spot in the white snow, resembling a bulls-eye. Only one substance splattered like that. Blood. How he'd seen it in the falling snow was beyond him. It must have been fresh. They had to have been only minutes ahead of him. Dirk ran over to his horse and jumped back into the saddle, hoping it wasn't Gabby's blood he saw in the snow.

"Yah!" Dirk leaned forward in the saddle, following the tracks through the woods, pushing the horse onward in a dead run, knowing they couldn't get far with one of them losing so much blood. Soon, he looked up and there was a cabin that looked abandoned up ahead. Even though it was still morning, he hoped that they knew enough to take her there. Surely, they wouldn't try to make it to Laramie with one of them bleeding.

When Dirk neared the cottage, he pulled his horse to a walk. He didn't want them to hear him coming. He had the element of surprise, and he wanted to keep it that way, especially since there was only one of him and three of them.

As he drew near, smoke came from the chimney. They had obviously lit a fire. He pulled his collar up and petted the horse lightly on his neck. "Good boy," he cooed as he slid off. "Stay here. I won't be long."

The horse bobbed his head furiously up and down. He walked away, pushed some snow aside on the ground, and started nibbling at the dead grass beneath.

As quietly as he could manage, Dirk snuck up outside the house.

"I think we should do it now," a voice boomed from inside.

Another man let out an exasperated breath. "We have to wait until the poker is hot enough."

Dirk shook his head. One of them was shot, and they were going to cauterize the wound.

He walked around to the other side of the house, being careful not to make noise. If they kept yelling as loudly as they were, there was no way they would hear his quiet footsteps. But he wasn't going to take the chance.

Dirk peered in through the kitchen window, and he could see all the way through into the living room. When he saw Gabriella leaning back in a chair near the fire with a rag pressed to the outside of her coat, he almost kicked the door in right then and killed them all. But he didn't want Gabby to get caught in the crossfire. From the look of it, they hadn't been there long. They all still had their coats on, dust covered everything, and the snow from their boots hadn't yet melted on the floor.

A redheaded man had his back to Gabriella and was turning a poker in the fire. Dirk gritted his teeth. There was no way he was going to let those assholes touch her. Not his Gabby.

One of them walked into the kitchen, and then he heard footsteps going down, obviously into a cellar. The other one was nowhere to be seen.

Dirk stood outside the window, waving, trying to get Gabby's attention, but she didn't see him. Dirk didn't want to call too much attention to himself, for fear of being discovered before he was ready. He bit his lower lip, trying to think of a way to get her attention, when an idea came to him.