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I looked around for Roscoe as the men slowly dispersed, back home to their own families now that the danger was over. When I was ready, they would help me rebuild but for now, they had done all they could do. Now I wanted to get back to Elise.
I found him at the edge of his corn field. The hail had been my fortune, but it was Roscoe’s tragedy. His crop was ruined. The corn was battered and bent, the harvest would be ruined.
He shook his head sadly as I approached. “All that work, gone. Elise will hate me now, just like my mother did my father. I won’t be good enough for her, not now that I have nothing to offer her.”
Anger flooded me. Elise was nothing like his parents! “Why don’t you let Elise be the judge of that?” I snapped at him, clenching my fists by my sides. I wanted to hit him, I was so mad. “None of this was your fault. Elise will know that.”
“Will she?”
“Yes.” I wanted to shake some sense into him, but I was afraid. I’d never seen Roscoe this despondent before, and I’d known him most of my life. What was wrong? Was he truly scared she would reject him?
“I’ll have to find her,” he mumbled, his voice low. “Tell her I’ve failed.”
“You haven’t failed!” I argued, but he didn’t respond. Just turned and walked away.
We hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Emma came running up, her face red from exertion, her features distorted in panic. Something was wrong. I broke into a run. Beside me, Roscoe did the same.
“Someone took Elise!” Emma yelled, as soon as she was close enough to be heard.
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
“Someone took Elise,” Emma repeated, panting for breath. “A man.”
“When?” Roscoe asked.
Emma looked down at the ground. “A long time ago,” she admitted. “When you first got here. The children saw it but didn’t think to say anything and I was too busy to notice she wasn’t there…. I’m sorry!”
“Which way did he take her?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t have time for her apologies. I pushed past her roughly, sprinting for my horse. We had to find her! The ruins of my blacksmith shop… Roscoe’s battered crop… none of it mattered any more. Our beautiful bride was gone!
Who had taken her? Why? Where was she? The questions flew around in my brain, tormenting me and I didn’t have the answers.
“There!” Roscoe yelled and I looked at where he pointed. There on the ground, not far from us, were obvious signs of a struggle. Is this where he had grabbed her? He better not have hurt her! A fury stronger than I’d ever felt before, raced through me, searing me with a hatred so intense it scared me. I clenched my fists as tension filled my body. Once I got my hands on the man who had taken our beautiful bride, his life wasn’t going to be worth living.
“You get the horses,” Roscoe ordered, taking charge as always. He’d always been good in a crisis: level-headed, calm, collected. Able to think clearly. He pointed to the ground where the hoof prints of two horses were clearly visible. “I’ll get the guns. We’ll follow the tracks. Come on!”
I ran for the horses.
By the time Roscoe returned with the rifle, ammunition and a pistol each, I had caught the horses, strapped on their bridles, and was starting on the saddles.
I strapped on the gun belt Roscoe threw me. He’d filled it with bullets already. He slid the rifle into the scabbard on his saddle then went to the well to fill the canteens. We didn’t have time to gather any food, but as long as we had water we would be okay. We didn’t have time to waste; we’d have to ride hard.
I’d never been as frantic in my life as I was now. I leaped into the saddle and kicked my horse into a gallop before I was even fully seated, leaning low over his withers, spurring him on.
It was easy enough to follow the hoof prints, even at full gallop; whoever had taken Elise clearly hadn’t bothered to try to cover his tracks. Had he been that confident he wouldn’t be followed? Now that we had left Bridgewater far behind, it didn’t look like he was going very fast, either. Neither Roscoe nor I were very good at tracking, but we both knew enough to know that the prints we were following hadn’t been left by a hurrying horse. After an initial burst of speed when Elise had first been taken, they were now walking along sedately, as though they had all the time in the world. Which was good for us, I told myself. That would give us a bit of time to catch them up.
Neither of us spoke, we just rode, as fast as our steeds could carry us. Every mile we galloped from Bridgewater was one mile closer to our bride, but how many miles did we have yet to go? It was impossible to tell. I tried to do a quick calculation in my head… how long did it take a horse to walk a mile, and how many hours had she been gone? But my brain was too numb to figure it out. Too much had happened and I couldn’t think clearly. All I could do was ride. We had to find her!
Our horses started to labor so we eased back to a steady lope to rest them a bit but still, we were silent. The only sound the rasping of our mounts breath, the steady drum of their hooves on the dusty ground.
If we found Elise… when we found her, I corrected myself hastily, what was she going to think when we told her that the men she was married to now had nothing? That we would both have to rebuild, virtually from scratch? Would she still want us?
14
ELISE
