Innocence and the Outlaw

Chapter Three

 Leah woke with a start and sat straight up as her eyes flew open and she quickly took in her surroundings and tried to figure out where she was and how she had gotten here. She was in a dirty, dingy and fairly dark tent. The fabric had clearly once been a white or cream color but it had turned tan and brown from use and weather. The cot she was on was long and narrow and there was a dark green sack in the corner.

Leah thought back, trying desperately to remember how she had gotten here. Flashbacks of Benjamin’s body being stomped and kicked had her clamping her eyes closed and clutching at the thin wool blanket covering her. She was about to break down into tears when she became aware of the sound of people stirring outside the tent.

She heard men talking, burping, spitting. She heard iron pans clanking together and women giggling. Had those murdering outlaws brought her to a camp? And if they were all busy doing other things maybe she could escape. She quickly scrambled from the cot only to realize that her entire body ached.

She wondered what had made her so sore and wondered if maybe the men had kicked her while she’d been unconscious. She remembered again the way those boots had sounded when they had made contact with Benjamin’s flesh and she shoved her fists in her eyes to hold back her tears.

Her beloved Benjamin was dead. He was gone. Never again would she hear his gentle voice whispering her poetry. Never again would his soft blue eyes gaze into hers and promise her forever.

She had to get away. She had to get home so that she could make sure his body was given a proper burial. She couldn’t just let him rot out there on the plains. Leah took several deep breaths through her nose to calm herself and ease the nausea in her belly before crawling as silently as she could to the closed tent flap.

She pulled it back just a crack and looked out. It was early morning and the cool air was heavy with moisture and fog. She could see men gathering around a large campfire and there were women too… Women unlike any she had ever seen before. They were wearing skirts with no petticoats and their shirts draped off of them and showed their bare shoulders and collarbones.

She stuck her head out a little further to look around the edge of the tent. No one was looking toward her and she seemed to have a clear path into the small forest beside them. Maybe she could make it into the trees and away before anyone ever realized that she was gone!

“Off with her head! Ha! Ha! Hee!” Leah quickly looked back toward the men to see a scraggly haired, skinny, bowlegged man pointing at her and laughing.

“Shut the hell up, Tig. You’re a damn crazy ass.” another man shouted in the early morning air. Leah was so busy staring at the strange man named Tig as he bounced from foot to foot and scratched between his legs in a vulgar way that she did not even notice anyone nearing the tent until a dark shadow fell over her.

She looked up for what felt like miles until her eyes fell on a dark face, hidden in blackness beneath a dark black hat. Leah let out a squeak and crawled backward on her hands her hands and knees. Scurrying across the dirty packed ground and onto the cot where she pulled her knees into her chest.

She was trembling as the man bent low and pushed the flap aside. He dropped it closed behind him and then stood straight and stared down at her. Leah felt her breath catch in her chest at the sight of him. He was the scariest man she had ever seen. Not ugly. No he was actually quite handsome, but he had a coldness in his black eyes that frightened her beyond words.

He was well over six feet tall and he was lean and rangy. He was clearly a man who had been born and raised on horseback and slept under the stars. His skin was dark from the sun and his high cheekbones and dimpled chin were covered in a thick coat of stubble. His gaze was stern and his brow drawn as he looked down at her.