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“You can barely get a horse up that trail,” Colt pointed out.
“I know. I figure maybe he was looking for some place to hide out for the night. Anyway, Anna said they ran over something or something got caught in the wheel. Dun lit a lantern and got out to investigate. One Eye came out of the darkness and chose Dun for dinner. I was close by checking traps when I heard what sounded like a man tangling with a cat. He was yelling, the cat was snarling and yowling, and a child was screaming.”
Regan’s heart broke. Anna had to have been terrified.
“When I got there, I swung my lantern towards the buggy and saw One Eye feasting on a body on the ground. The cat looked up. I saw it was Dun, so I let him have his meal, and he dragged the body off into the dark. Inside the buggy I saw Minnie slumped over and then Anna.”
“Thank you for bringing her home,” Colt said.
“Why was Anna with them to begin with?” Ben asked.
Colt told him about Minnie wanting to take Anna back East, and how she’d tricked Anna into leaving the Founders Day gathering.
Ben said, “Minnie needed a better plan and a better partner.”
Regan said, “I’m glad she had neither.”
“But Dun and Minnie having Colleen’s buggy worries me,” Colt said. “I don’t believe she’d play a part in Anna’s abduction, but I’m going to ride over to her place to see what I can find out. I’m hoping he didn’t harm her or Felicity.”
Regan wanted answers, too, and hoped he was right about Colleen not being involved, and that she and her daughter were safe.
“I’ll go with you,” Ben said. “Then I’ll take Minnie’s body into town and turn her over to Beck.”
“Tell him I’ll pay for the burial,” Colt said and looked to Regan for approval and she nodded in agreement. The old woman needed to be buried and she was family.
Ben said, “You’re a better man than me, Colton, but then you always were.”
Their eyes met and a silent moment passed between them.
Ben rose to his feet and Regan said, “Thank you for saving Anna. You’re still welcome here, Mr. Lee. You always will be.”
He responded by heading to the door and leaving.
Regan shook her head in frustration and asked Colt, “Do you think he’ll ever bend?”
He shrugged and placed a kiss on her brow. “Time will tell. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
No one answered Colt’s knock at the Enrights’ small cabin.
“Try the latch,” Ben said.
Colt did and the door opened. In the small front parlor, a gagged and tied-up Colleen was seated on the floor, her back against the wall. Felicity, tied and gagged as well, lay sleeping with her head in her mother’s lap.
Grateful tears sprang to Colleen’s eyes as they moved quickly to her side. Felicity awakened and Ben’s hunting knife made short work of the ropes binding their wrists and ankles.
Colt untied the bandanas in their mouths and a tearful Colleen grabbed him around the neck and sobbed, “Oh thank you for finding us. Thank you!”
He patted her back consolingly and let her hold on for a few moments longer before gently prying himself loose. “Are you injured anywhere?”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.
“How about you, Felicity?” he asked.
“My hands and ankles hurt.”
“It’s from being tied up. You should get the feeling back shortly. Are you hurting anywhere else?”
She shook her head.
