Free Come Spring by Jill Marie Landis

climbed. Soon they were surrounded by lodge-pole pines and aspen. The air was colder, dryer. She was glad Buck Scott had seen fit to give her the blanket, and although she tried to convince herself it was the least he could have done, she wondered how he could stand the cold now that he had given her his own gloves.
    The mare beneath her was so hot that its sweating hide steamed around her. The horse snorted and blew as it struggled ever upward. She thought to call out to Scott, to beg him to spare the animals, but since her teeth rattled, her bones jarred, and she ached all over, she knew she wouldn’t really care if the mare did collapse beneath her. At least then this insane journey would halt.
    Annika did not know exactly when they slowed down, for she had dozed in the saddle, but she woke with a start when Buck Scott shouted, “Wake up, Alice, before you fall off.”
    She had long since stopped protesting that she was not Alice, but at the mention of the other woman’s name she wished she could put her hands around Alice Soams’s throat and squeeze the life out of her. Or perhaps, she thought, Sioux torture would be more fitting. She had never paid particular attention to her father’s vast collection of Indian weapons, but she wished she had some of them right now.
    It had grown increasingly dark and gloomy. While she’d dozed the sun had dropped behind the mountains and darkness had gathered in the hollows and ravines that creased the mountainside. She thought they were still traveling northwest, but could not be certain without the sun. She realized, too, that she had lost the urge to escape her captor, at least for now. There was no way she could survive alone in the darkness, no way she could find her way down the mountain. She was in the middle of nowhere, as far as she was concerned, and she did not intend to endanger herself further.
    Ignoring the man riding beside her, she straightened, refusing to let him see her exhaustion. She tried to think of a story to take her mind off her mounting trepidation, but unfortunately, the novel in her satchel was Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. Since she was at the point in the story where Esmeralda had just been carried to the bell tower by Quasimodo, she couldn’t help but liken the poor Gypsy’s experience with her own. Between the haunting questions that plagued her, between asking herself where Buck Scott was taking her and what he was planning, she could only relate to the darkness and terror of the tale. Annika surreptitiously glanced over at Buck and then away. There was nothing comforting in thinking about the hunchback. Nothing whatsoever.
    So she thought about her family. Had the train pulled into Cheyenne yet? If so, what must Kase be thinking? She hoped that her brother would have the presence of mind not to wire their parents until he attempted to find her himself. She hoped to spare her mother worry, for she knew how frantic Analisa would become. Although her mother had tried to hide her worry behind a brave facade, Annika knew Analisa had been very concerned about her traveling alone. When her mother learned of this abduction, there was no telling how upset she would get.
    Annika had no inkling where Buck Scott was headed, nor did she even want to guess what he planned to do to her when they got there. If she had not insisted on experiencing life on her own, if she had not sought adventure, she would not be in this predicament. Silently she cursed a niggling, perverse sense inside her that secretly thrilled to the idea that she was, indeed, having an adventure the likes of which she had never dreamed. And as was her way, she would not let herself accept anything but a hopeful outcome: Kase would find her before anything happened.
    He had to.
    Except for the short time they paused for a hasty meal of shoe-leather-tough jerky and dry cornbread washed down with a swig of water from his canteen, they did not stop. Reneging on her promise, Annika complained