The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [great reads .TXT] 📗

split from the group at some point. But, was it before or after the other men had been killed? Must have been before, but for some reason he had spent a considerable amount of time watching the camp from the cover of the trees. It could be, that he hadn’t trusted his compadres not to follow behind and kill him too. It was Sharps theory, that non of the criminals could trust each other, why would they? They were called criminals for a reason. No honor among thieves, and that sort of thing.
In any case, there was one more of those sneaky bastards out there somewhere. He would of liked to have rode out after him, maybe torture some information from him, but he couldn’t chance losing track of Gracie. He couldn’t follow them both, so he had no choice but to follow her, and hope the other would meet up with some injuns along the way. If he did, then justice would be served. Indian torture was the worst, they did things to a man that would send a shiver down the spine of Satan himself.

Sharp set out at dawn the next morning. He would travel nonstop, from sunup to sundown, in hopes of catching up to her quickly. By his count, he was four days behind her, and he would have to do some fast tracking to catch up.
Three days later he sat scratching his head. It was apparent from following her trail, that she had no idea where she was going. The trail zig zagged in a mostly south-westerly pattern across the countryside, with no clear rhyme or reason. She seemed to just be… wandering aimlessly, not a good thing in Indian country. She stayed out in the flats, making an easy target of herself. With no where to hide, her only hope in a surprise attack would be to outrun them. Not an easy thing to do, injun ponies were fast. They had to be, they were counted on to run down big game, enemy tribes, and the occasional trespasser, all while out maneuvering deadly obstacles at high speeds. Hitting a chuck hole or tripping over a mesquite root or large rock, meant certain death for both horse and rider.
An hour later he stopped to study a new set of tracks, two horses had crossed her trail and then turned, following her. By the look of the unshod hoof prints, he figured it was most likely Indians. But, were these two part of a hunting party out scouting for food, or were they hostiles out hunting for trouble. A few miles up head the tracks veered off and shot north again. Not good. That meant that they had found her trail worth following and had turned back, most likely, to report their findings to the rest of the group.
“Shit.” he cussed, when he came upon the tracks of about fifteen horses, all unshod, that joined her trail again from the north.
Nudging his horses into an easy canter he followed the war party as they made their way towards the west. Towards his Gracie.
Sharp followed the trail to where the Indians had dismounted, leaving their horses ground reigned. Then, the much harder to read tracks of their soft soled moccasins as they stole up upon Gracie’s camp. They had split the group into two, and half had made its way to the east, to circle around and attack from the opposite side, trapping her between the two. Sharp knew what was coming next, and he swallowed the big lump that had formed in his throat. “Aw, Gracie.”
She wouldn’t have had a chance. A lone woman on the prairie surrounded by fifteen Indians, there would have been no way to escape the red devils, no warning that they were even there, until it was too late. They could be as silent as ghosts one minute, and strike with the swiftness a panther the next. Most never even knew what was happening, until they had an arrow sticking out of their chest.
As he dismounted and walked to her cold deserted camp, he held a glimmer of hope. He knew that some women were taken captive, a fate that was worse than death, but if that was the case, he could track them down and steal her back, or at least die trying. But he would find her.
He stared at the empty camp in disbelief. The only set of tracks here, were her own. There were no signs of a struggle, or spent cartridges that would have meant that she had tried to defend herself, no dried blood trail leaving the area. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that anything out of the ordinary had happened.
Circling around the camp he followed the tracks of the Indians as they met up again on the west side and had turned back towards their waiting ponies. For some reason, they had just left. That didn’t make any sense, why would they get ready for an attack, and then just call it off? It wasn’t like an Indian to mount an attack and then just leave empty handed, but then again, they could be down right peculiar at times. Maybe the moon wasn’t right, or they heard the call of a night owl as some warning from beyond. What ever it was, it was a mystery to Sharp.
He picked up Gracie’s trail again, and resumed the pursuit. He followed along until night fall and then started looking for a good place to bed down for the night. As he scanned the countryside he notice a plume of smoke, far off in the distance, at the base of a hillside. Someone had a good sized campfire. He abandoned his search for cover and headed for the area up ahead. He didn’t know if it was Gracie, but he had to be sure.
He found her easily enough. The damn fire she had built was big enough to be used as a smoke signal. He was sure he wasn’t the only one who had seen it, a person would have to be half blind to have missed it. She sure had a lot to learn about survival in Indian country, and it just so happened, that he had a lot to teach her. But the first lesson he was planning on giving her, had nothing to do with basic survival skills. It was going to be about the dangers of rat poison. Even though it had been four days since he had cleaned up her little mess back yonder, the damn smell was still stuck in his nose, and he was not happy about that.
He had left his horse and snuck up on her camp to make sure that it was, in fact, Gracie, and not someone else. He was relieved to see that it was. She sat by the fire, within the circle of pines, dressed all in black. She wore a black cowboy hat, tipped low on her head to hide her face, but even from that distance, he knew in a second that it her.
He was about to hello the camp, when she raised her head and looked directly at his hiding spot, “You gonna stand in the bushes all night, or are you gonna come in.”
It wasn’t a question, it was more like a challenge.
He was surprised that she had known right where he was, he had been careful to not make a noise as he injun’d up on the camp, maybe he had spent too long behind the collar, maybe, he was losing his skills.
Smiling, Sharp shook his head in bewilderment and stood up, walking into camp, “Hello, Gracie,” he called. As he stepped into the ring of light, he asked, “How’d you know it was me?”
He stopped short when he seen the look on her face. It was a weird mixture of contempt and wariness, two things he had never seen on her before. “Because I‘ve been waiting for you.” she answered flatly, and went back to poking at the fire with a stick.
Sharp stood uncertainly. He thought that after following her erratic trail for the last few days that made it quite clear that she was lost, and that she would’ve been happy to see a familiar face, one that could guide her to where she needed to go, and one that had been her friend and confidant for a long time.
“Gracie? Are you alright?”
Without looking at him, she answered, “Of course, Reverend Sharp.”
It was evident that she wasn’t going to invite him to sit down, so he went ahead and did so anyway. But for some odd reason, he did so cautiously. All the fine hairs on his body were standing straight up.
After a minute he said, “I was so sorry to hear about what happened to you and your pa, Gracie…”
He had been going to tell her how he had tracked her all the way here, determined to help her find the men responsible, but the rest died on his lips as she turned to stare at him, and he looked into her flat black, soulless eyes, eyes that didn’t belong to her. “Oh my God…” he whispered, caught off guard.
Smirking, she said, “God’s not here, Reverend. But I’ve been waiting for you to show up, so I could tell you to go on back home. You don’t want any part of this. You need to leave while your conscious is clear, and your record is still clean.”
As she leaned forward to stare at him intently, the flames from the fire danced eerily in her large dark eyes, “I aim to find the men responsible for killing my daddy, and when I do, it will rain blood, Reverend. The streets will run thick with it. I won’t kill them quick, and there will be no mercy. Do you understand that? When I find them, I will rip them apart. I’ve already sealed my spot in hell, so whatever happens from now on, doesn’t matter, because I’m already damned. But you, you still have a chance.”
Sharp felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He had heard a lot of men make threats like that in the heat of the moment, but they had always sounded hollow and empty. He had learned that people liked to talk big, but most of the time they lacked the sand to back it up. Gracie’s words were different, they rang with truth and finality. She would do it. The men she spoke of were walking corpse’s, their violent end’s were inevitable. Their fates were sealed, written in stone and highlighted with blood, their blood, if she could get to them.
Gracie had turned back to the fire, so Sharp took a few minutes to think about his next words. The sheriff had been right. Gracie was different. So far, he hadn’t seen even the smallest hint of the kind, humble girl that she used to be. Revenge and the need for blood, was all that fueled her now. But none of that changed his mission any. He had started out to help her, and whatever she said now, wasn’t going to change that.
“Gracie…”
“I wish you’d quit calling me that.” she said flatly.
“Calling you what?”
“Gracie.”
Confused, he asked, “Well, that’s your name ain’t it?”
She turned to look at him once more, “Reverend, your Gracie’s not here anymore. She died the night her father was killed.”
“What are you talking about? Of course your Gracie.”
He watched her shrug her shoulders indifferently.
“Well, if your not Gracie, then who are you?” he asked cautiously.
“Angel.” she said softly.
Sharp immediately recognized her father’s pet name for her. “Angel, huh? That’s a… right nice name.” He