Rania Ropes a Rancher Page 8

  “How will I explain about my dog in Hilda’s letter?”

  “Don’t mention it. Or, say you brought them back over to the Bar E Ranch to stay while you’re gone.” Sid waved the gun around impatiently. “Just write the dang letter so we can get out of here.”

  Rania sat down at the table, pulled the paper in front of her and uncapped the inkwell. She swallowed the lump in her throat. How could she send clues to Hilda that something was wrong? After dipping the pen in the ink and tapping the excess off the nib, she still wasn’t sure what to write.

  After a moment she wrote:

  My dearest Hilda Stida,

  I feel I need to break away due to my current situation. I’m traveling to connect with our parents, before they start their next trail ride north. I’ll see you soon.

  With much love, Rania Linnaea

  Sid grabbed the letter before the ink was dry to read it. “Why did you put your middle names in the letter?”

  “That’s how we’ve always signed our names to each other. It is a twin ritual between us,” Rania lied. “If I didn’t do that, she’d know something was wrong.” Actually Hilda’s middle name wasn’t Stida, but that’s the first Swedish name–like word she could think of to get a “d” on the same line. Rania tried to make the “s”, “i” and “d” more pronounced with her ink, hoping Hilda would see she was trying to name her abductor.

  Rania was glad she hadn’t touched the dried blue bonnets now. She had added the twin flower name of Linnaea as her middle name to point Hilda to the Texas flower she now loathed with a passion. She took the letter from Sid’s hand and set it under the vase, then put the cap on the ink well, trying to keep Sid from looking at the letter any closer.

  “I need to use the privy before we go,” Rania rose from her chair, hoping Sid would follow her out of the house.

  “Why? Got a little derringer tucked up in the rafters in your outhouse?” Sid grinned as he shoved her sack into her middle for her to carry, and then tightly grabbed her upper arm with his left hand. His right held the cocked revolver.

  “Get used to it,” Rania hissed. “Pregnant women have to answer calls to nature very often.”

  Rania was mortified when Sid pushed in behind her inside the outhouse. He looked over the inside walls before stepping out. He didn’t close the door so she could lock him out, but the flimsy hook latch could easily be broken if she had tried it. Almost worse was the fact she really had to relieve herself and he could hear it.

  “You’re done. Let’s go.” Sid yanked the door open while she was still tucking in her tight shirtwaist.

  Rania scanned the ranch yard as they walked out in the open. She hated to see a lifeless King lying somewhere, but she looked for him anyway. The place looked so forlorn without the dog and his little flock.

  Rose was by the water tank, but Rania didn’t see Sid’s gelding. “Where’s your horse?”

  “Tied conveniently behind the barn where you wouldn’t have seen it when riding in.” He forced her to walk behind the building first to untie his horse. It was the same mean–tempered, white gelding Sid had in Texas. The horse’s ears were back when he saw them, and he jerked his head away when Sid untied the reins from the wooden fence.

  “Walk to your horse, but don’t get on yet,” Sid warned. Rania found out why when he threw a lariat around Rose’s neck, and tied the rope to his saddle pommel. “Now put your wrists together so I can hogtie them.” Rania’s heart sank when she realized he was going to tie her hands to the saddle pommel after she mounted, and Rose was tied to his horse’s saddle.

  How was she going to get away from Sid and protect her baby, she thought, as they rode out of the ranch yard? Would it make any difference that the baby she carried was his? The thought made her shudder.

  Rania prayed that Hilda ignored her wishes to stay away. But even if Hilda came and found the note, it might not be soon enough to help her. Hoping Jacob would visit was a lost cause when she had emphatically told him to leave her alone.

  Chapter 9

  Jacob loved his father’s hat, but he needed his own back. He’d get his hat off the peg inside her front door and be on his way.

  Rania and Rose weren’t in sight, so maybe they took a different route home, or she was in the barn brushing down Rose after unsaddling her.

  After no answer to his knock, Jacob opened the door and walked into the Hamner house. As he reached for his hat, he couldn’t help but look at the vase he had given Rania as his first token of love. But now, instead of a bouquet of pink prairie roses, the vase held dried flowers, and a piece of paper lay under the glass. Curious, Jacob walked to the table to look at the note. He read “My dearest Hilda Stida” while the paper was lying on the table, so he moved the vase to pick up and read the rest of the letter.

  Jacob dropped the note on the table and looked around the room. He couldn’t believe Rania could just leave a short note to Hilda and take off by herself. Did the twins meet again and quarrel after Rania left town?

  He looked back at the paper on the table. It landed so he was looking at the note upside down. There were three letters that stood out with thicker ink. Jacob turned it around and read the letters. “S, i, d.” Sid. Was Sid Narker waiting for Rania here instead of taking the train as they assumed?

  Jacob pulled and cocked his revolver before moving to peek out the front door. Jacob left Clear Creek only fifteen or twenty minutes after Rania did. Were Narker and Rania in the barn?

  Jacob’s gaze swung to a distant woof coming from the pasture. King was racing toward the barn, with the sheep running far behind, trying to catch up. What the…?

  Stepping out the door and grabbing Duncan’s bridle, Jacob worked his way to the barn using the horse as a shield. He didn’t want his horse shot, but he wouldn’t be any help to Rania if Narker picked him off with a rifle from the barn door.

  He stopped in front of the barn to look at prints when no sound or motion came from the barn. Two horses, one that came around from the back side of the barn, and Rose’s smaller hoof prints were visible along with two sets of boot prints, a man’s and a woman’s.

  After thirstily lapping water from the horse tank, King trotted into the barn and sniffed around. With one look at his food bowl, King turned around and, with his back paws, threw dirt over the whole rabbit carcass that lay in it. Jacob thought back to noon meals he had eaten with Rania. If she was cooking a rabbit for King, it was cut up in bite size–pieces and the meat tender enough for a person to eat, let alone the dog.

  The first sheep raced into the barn, bleating in panic. The second sheep, limping, was slower coming into the yard. Where had the sheep gone and just now coming back? Then Jacob noticed the chewed off rope dangling around the second sheep’s neck. The tip of the frayed rope was a bright bloody red. Jacob looked at King again and noticed his gums were bleeding, even after he had gotten a drink of water.

  So Narker had been here a while, getting rid of King and the sheep so the dog couldn’t help Rania. Jacob bet that rabbit was poisoned and if that didn’t kill King, Narker knew the dog would go looking for his lost flock.

  Well, now Jacob needed to find the third member of “King’s flock” before it was too late.

  King sniffed around the footprints, searching for clues to find his mistress. Jacob was caught off guard and scrambling to get on Duncan when King let out a howl and took off north around the house and toward the river.

  Now Jacob could see the hoof prints every now and then and knew which direction the horses were going. Luckily, for tracking purposes, there had been a good thunderstorm last night, creating soft earth for the horses to leave hoof prints.

  Then King dropped to the ground near the river, listening intently to something. There had been a large amount of rain upstream last night causing the river here, downstream, to swell to the top of its banks. Did Narker try crossing the dangerous water? Besides the swift current, there were old trees down underwater that didn’t show with the higher water level.


  The dog took off forward again in a crouched position, as though he was sneaking up on a rabbit. Jacob kneed Duncan to catch up as he pulled his rifle free from the scabbard.

  Jacob quickly scanned the river scene when they stopped at the river bank. His heart almost stopped when he saw the horses in the middle of the flooded river that had swelled to over sixty feet wide. Narker’s white horse was ahead, swimming hard but not making much headway in the swift current. Rose was struggling to keep her head above water. That’s when Jacob noticed there was a rope tight around Rose’s neck, leading to the other horse’s saddle. The horse’s air supply was getting cut off besides her struggling to swim!

  Then a wave of water and debris knocked Rania’s legs from the saddle but she didn’t let go of the saddle horn. Jacob realized that Rania’s hands were tied to the saddle—and she would go down with the horse if Rose couldn’t get across.

  Jacob watched the horrifying scene, trying to figure out how to get across the river without endangering Duncan and himself too. There was a bridge across the river at Ellsworth, but he’d lose them in the time it would take to make the several-mile trip. Then he spied the root end of a large, old cottonwood tree drifting down the middle of the current behind the horses. Jacob cupped his hands and screamed, “Watch out behind you!”

  Both Narker and Rania turned their heads looking for the shout and saw the tree bearing down on them. Narker’s hands slacked on Rose’s rope in surprise, long enough to put some distance between the two horses.

  The tree floated faster downstream than the horses trying to cross against the current. When the tree passed between the two horses, the upright tree roots snagged their connecting rope, jerking the horses’ heads parallel to the log. But while Rose’s head was being held above water, the white horse was struggling for all its worth because it was being tugged under the tree roots.

  Both people were fighting for their lives, but tangled ropes were hampering both of them. Jacob saw a flash of silver and guessed Narker was trying to cut the lead rope with his knife. Both ends of the rope were caught tight in the floating roots and he couldn’t get it unwrapped off the saddle horn.

  Jacob watched as the white horse’s head bobbed back up, finally free to struggle its swim to the opposite river bank. Meanwhile Rose and Rania were still tethered to the floating tree. Jacob and Duncan followed the tree’s course down the river as close as they could get to the bank.

  The tree turned sideways for a moment when it caught in more debris at a bend in the river’s course. Jacob jerked his saddle tie off his lariat and formed a circle with the rope. He didn’t know if he and Duncan would be pulled into the river too, but he had to try to stop the tree if possible.

  Jacob heaved his rope toward the root mass, relieved when it tangled in the upright roots. Duncan pulled back, struggling to pull the roped roots closer to the edge of the bank, but the flooded water’s strong current was too much for him. Jacob reined Duncan sideways and back around a young cottonwood tree growing close to the river bank. Jacob leaned out of the saddle to wrap the rope all the way around the tree trunk and tie it in a quick knot. It wasn’t a big tree, but hopefully strong enough to stabilize the tree in the river.

  Now he had to get Rania, and hopefully Rose, out of the water before more debris slammed into them.

  “Rania! Rania!” Rania was floating alongside Rose, but she didn’t turn her head with his shouts. The mare’s left side was against the mass of tree limbs so it was a good thing Rania’s leg wasn’t still around the horse’s belly. Jacob knew Rania was still alive, as she was gasping for air. Rose had quit struggling though, and was only there because of the tangled rope that had originally tied the two horses together.

  Watching the shifting debris, Jacob eased into the dangerous water, hanging on to the taut rope tied between the two trees. He had to go fifteen feet to reach Rania and then return them both back to safety. Could he manage it if she was unconscious?

  “I’m coming to get you and you’ll be safe in a minute,” Jacob’s voice trembled as he tried to talk calmly to both the woman and the horse as he approached them. But King’s barking was what roused Rania’s eyes open, and then a flicker of Rose’s eye lid.

  Jacob pulled his knife out of his belt when he reached the pair. “Rania, I’m going to cut your hands loose from the pommel. Grab around my neck and hang on tight as soon as you’re free.” Jacob prayed as he worked to cut the rope holding Rania’s wrists. He almost dropped the knife instead of getting it back in his belt when Rania’s weak attempt to reach his neck failed. Jacob pulled one arm around his neck and then the other, urging her to hang on to him, as he fought to grip the rope line and keep debris from hitting them. It was a minefield of limbs—and who knows what else—careening down the swift current into Jacob as he struggled to pull them back across the raging river.

  “Cough it up, Rania. You need to get this nasty water out of your lungs,” Jacob hoarsely whispered after they both lay safely on the muddy river bank. Jacob couldn’t remember ever being so petrified by something he had to do. He lay back on the damp ground, thankful that he had succeeded in getting them out of the water.

  Jacob finally pushed King out of the way because he was trying to lick Rania’s face and lay on her, as if trying to protect her. The three of them were a sopping wet, muddy mess but finally safe.

  “Rose?” whispered Rania, even though she still had her eyes closed.

  “Don’t know. She’s breathing, but tangled up in the tree debris.” God he hated seeing the horse suffer, but was chicken to shoot her in front of Rania.

  Jacob struggled to his feet. “I’m going back out to cut the ropes around her and get the rope off the tree. Maybe she’ll float out of the mess if she can.” Jacob held on to the rope again, easing out to the stranded horse. Besides cutting the lariat around her neck, he reached down the right side of her belly to cut the cinch and strap off the saddle. Jacob tried pulling the saddle off her back, but it was wedged tight between her left side and the tree. Lastly, he worked the bridle off her head and the bit out of her mouth. It was up to fate and Rose whether she lived. He couldn’t tell if her legs were tangled in debris underwater.

  Jacob worked his way up to the tree roots and loosened the loop that connected the tree in the water, to the tree on the bank. He thought about looping the rope about Rose and trying to pull her out, but there was so much debris in the river that he was afraid she’d wind up tangled up in the rope again. “Sorry, Rose,” he choked out as he pulled himself out of the water.

  Rania sobbed as she looked at Rose one last time, and then let Jacob help her into Duncan’s saddle. Jacob barely mounted behind her when she fell forward from exhaustion.

  Before Jacob turned Duncan toward the ranch, he saw four white, stiff legs of an upside down horse float by in the center current. Jacob hoped Narker was still in that horse’s saddle.

  Chapter 10

  He needed to get Rania out of her dirty, wet clothes, into a hot bath and put her to bed. He knew her body had to be covered with scratches and bruises, because he could feel them on his own body, and he wasn’t in the water very long.

  But he hated to bring all this mud and water into the house.

  “Rania? I’m setting you down on the porch steps for a minute.” Rania wasn’t much help getting off Duncan, but managed to walk the few steps to the porch. She hissed in pain as she eased down on the top step and leaned against the porch pole.

  “Let me help get your boots off.” Rania stuck out her first leg, watching Jacob try to yank off her wet boot as carefully as he could. His hands were covered with the slimy river mud by the time he got it off and tipped the boot to pour out water. Jacob pulled off her other boot, then his own. Next he tugged the soggy water–brown socks off their feet.

  “Shucks,” Jacob said as he wiped his muddy hands on his trousers. “We just as well leave these muddy clothes out here on the porch instead of bringing this all in. Okay, Rania?” She just nodde
d, so Jacob unbuttoned his vest, then stopped, thinking about what was in his vest pockets. He pulled his pocket watch out by its chain and unfastened the clasp from the vest and popped open the case. The river water hadn’t ruined it. How was it still ticking?

  Jacob placed his watch on the chair on the porch, and then shrugged out of his vest. He unbuttoned his muddy trousers, pushing them off his legs, trying not to transfer too much mud from his trousers to his ankle–length drawers. Worse still, was unbuttoning the buttons on his shirt placket and pulling his soggy shirt over his head. The breeze hit his wet chest, causing his flesh to shiver. Jacob threw his clothes over the porch railing to drip the worst of the water out of them.

  “You’re next.” Rania had already eased out of her vest, but was having problems with the buttons of her shirtwaist.

  “Mind if I help?” She just barely dipped her head to answer so Jacob took a deep breath and fumbled with the buttons, trying not to press into her breasts too much as he worked her blouse open. They both gasped when he pulled her shirt off. Rania from the pain and Jacob from seeing how bruised and scratched her arms and back were.

  Jacob helped her stand, and as she gripped the porch post, he unbuttoned her skirt and eased it down her legs. “Step out of it and then I’ll help you inside.” He wasn’t about to take off her chemise and drawers outside on the porch. Jacob tossed her clothes over the railing before wrapping his arm around her waist.

  Rania shook uncontrollably by the time Jacob helped her sit cross–legged on the kitchen rug. It would be the warmest spot in the house once he added wood to the stove.

  He went into the bedroom to yank a quilt from her bed to wrap her up in, but paused when he thought of his muddy hands and her dirty body. Jacob stuck his head back out the bedroom door, “Rania, are there any old blankets we could use instead of your nice quilt?”

  It took Rania a few seconds to hoarsely answer him, “In the trunk at the foot of the bed.”