Free Fifty Years of Peace (Abrupt Dissent Series) by Charlotte Andrews

parents’ camp on foot. She hoped they had enough supplies in the saddlebags her grandfather had filled. She hoped they could outrun the heavyset Texans on borrowed horses. A tree branch sheared off in front of her. A half-second later, she heard the crack of the pistol behind her and went cold. Most of all, she hoped the Texans wouldn’t hurt her grandfather. He’d always known what to do, and the feeling of being on her own for the first time in her life was terrifying.
     
    Glancing back again, she saw that the Texans hadn’t made up any ground. A few bullets whined through the trees but the men were too far behind for any kind of accuracy. She faced forward and snapped Zeus’s reigns as they closed on the river. His hooves hammered against the bridge logs and she was across. George followed a split second later. Another puff of bark knocked from a walnut tree in front of her, but no more shots followed. George pulled even with her as she slowed her horse to take the rutted game trail that led east.
     
    “They’ll catch us,” George said, “we need to go faster.”
     
    “The horses will break a leg if we do.”
     
    “My parents are dying!” he snarled. He snapped his reigns, and his panting horse edged in front of hers at an unsteady trot.
     
    “George wait!” she called. “We’ll get there in time, I promise, but if our horses get injured we’re all dead!”
     
    He didn’t look back.
     
    Another glance behind showed Jenny that the Texans still hadn’t reached the bridge, and she knew they’d lose even more ground once the Texans’ animals reached the unfamiliar footing of the track that Zeus had followed ever since Jenny had been riding him. She pushed Zeus forward at a wider point in the trail and nudged him perpendicular to George.
     
    “If you keep going like this you’re going to get someone hurt, do you understand?”
     
    Sweat bloomed on George’s face. Desperate breaths swelled in his chest. The fear for his parents he’d been holding back was all spilling out as he neared them.
     
    “We’ve almost lost them,” she said, “and we’ll be there soon.”
     
    He looked past her down the trail, his eyes burning.
     
    George exhaled a deep breath, and looked into Jenny’s eyes. “I’m sorry Jenny, I’m just worried about my parents…”
     
    “It’s okay George, I completely understand, but they are going to be all right.” Jenny grabbed his hand and held it firmly in support.
     
    George looked down at his hand in hers, and let out a brief smile though he still looked worried.
     
    “Let’s keep going.”
     
    ***
     
    Jenny eased their pace as they rode up the mountain. The trees soon swallowed them and she lost sight of the Texans. The air grew cooler, a relief for the sweated horses, and they rode in silence. After another thirty minutes, the trail opened out onto the rock fall exactly where she remembered. She pulled Zeus to a halt, dismounted, and threw the saddlebags over her shoulder. George dropped from his horse and followed her across the rocks. There would be no way for the Texans to track them from here, no way to know which direction they’d gone. They were safe.
     
    She opened her canteen as they hiked, offering the jug to George, but his face had hardened, and he took no water. Instead, he stepped in front of her and led the way toward his parents’ camp with a compass he wore strapped to his wrist. He kept a strong pace through the forest undergrowth, forcing his way through thickets of wild rose where no clear path existed, offering his hand when they needed to clamber over boulders and pulling her up. She thanked him, and he smiled back, but the concern on his face was clear and they spoke little.
     
    As the day wore on her stomach growled but there was no time to stop. They’d climbed high enough that they’d reached the pine forest, and the going had become easier. Here and there, breaks in the canopy let her see the whole valley stretched before