Free The Gunslinger (Barnett Ranch) by Pamela Ladner Page A

from the horse.  He dismounted and followed the tracks from the ground leading the horse.  The moon was full and its light provided the way. 
    He lost the tracks when he came to a creek bed.  He searched up and down both sides but it was too dark to find anything, and they could have ridden up the creek a ways.  He didn’t want to but he had to call it quits until morning.  Then he would pick up where he left off.  He noted which way was South, before drifting off to sleep.  He was a light sleeper, and he would awaken at the snap of a twig.  He leaned back against a tree, propped his hat over his eyes, stretched out his legs crossing them at the ankles and rested with his hand on the handle of his pistol.
     
    Virginia
                  Virginia fought every opportunity she got.  She tried to escape several times and when that didn’t work, she taunted them by spitting on them and cursing them.  One of the men, knocked her around a little bit, but she’d taken worse beatings from a surely horse, that didn’t want to behave.  She’d been dragged off her horse by a steer when she didn’t dally her rope in time and suffered the consequences of being drug because of it .  Over and over she taunted and took one beating after another.  “You don’t know what you’ve done.  You’ll be dead soon.  The Angel of Death will come for you, and when he does, he’ll send you to hell, where you belong.”  “The Angel of Death, huh, I think you’re full of shit is what I think.  Little lady, nobody has heard hide nor hair of the Angel of Death in over a year.  He’s probably lying dead somewhere.  I imagine if anybody’s been sent to hell it’s him.”  “He’ll come for me, you wait and see.”
                  The man backhanded her again, and she spit blood on him in retaliation.  The two men who’d taken her were two of the men who’d been with the man that twisted her arm in the restaurant.  She recognized them as soon as they removed their bandannas.  She didn’t know who the others were.  They’d joined up with them about two or three miles from town.  She wondered where the other man from the restaurant was, and she wondered if they were taking her to him.  If only her hands hadn’t been shaking when she fired that shot, she would have most likely escaped with her Granny in tow. 
    She watched as the man she’d shot doctored his shoulder .  She’d not missed by much.  He kept glaring at her.  He would retaliate the first chance he got.  She knew it.  She could see it in his eyes.
    Virginia did not sleep at night refusing to close her eyes, while they were camped.  She could sleep in the saddle, but she refused to let her guard down when all the men entered the camp.  She could see the lust in their eyes.  They would rape her , the first chance they got.  She wondered what was holding them back.  Were they saving her f or something, or perhaps somebody ?
                  She tried to slip the small knife she kept, out of her boot, but she could not get it. They had bound her ropes too tight.  They’d tied her hands behind her and tied her legs, too.  They also tied her to a tree.  The knots tightened every time she tried to wiggle her hands free, and they were chaffing her wrist causing them to bleed. 
                  She fought off sleep as her eyelids kept trying to close.  She was exhausted.  She could only hope and pray that Jax would come for her and find her before they done their worst to her.  She sent up a prayer to God asking for his protection.
                  She managed to keep herself awake that night, just barely.  She was not used to going without sleep, but she had to.  They awoke bright and early, before it was fully daylight.  She needed to use the bathroom, but didn’t dare say so.  She would rather piss her pants than have to squat in front of one of them.  She held it in; in spite of