The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(71)

Three horses. Not four.

Tse—the big roan, Rock, Laurel’s horse—was gone.

“She couldn’t have,” I said.

“She knows well enough how to do it,” said Olin. “It’d take some effort for a mite like her, but she could do it.”

Relief pulsed through me till I thought my head would burst. I tried to laugh but I huffed instead, catching my breath.

So Laurel hadn’t been kidnapped after all. Jim hadn’t snuck in while my guard was down and snatched her up.

“But why?” I said. “And where?”

Once more I scanned both ends of the valley, east and west. Then north at the foothills darkening under the setting sun, this time looking for a rider.

But Olin was peering up.

Up at the Mountain.

“I figure,” he said, “she went a-lookin’ for that little dog of hers.”


*

Simon arrived by the time we’d saddled the three remaining horses, but supper would have to wait. It was decided Jessie would stay behind in case Laurel came home on her own. Simon would take Yas.

The three of us made for town at a canter, pulling up once we hit the asphalt. There we could see another rider waiting in front of the general store, watching us approach. It was Faro LaGow on a big Appaloosa.

“Heard your little gal went up the Mountain,” he told me as we pulled up. “Figured to help out.”

I didn’t ask how he’d heard—he was one more pair of eyes on a good horse, and a cold night was falling fast.

“Thank you,” I said.

At the far end of town where the main road and the secondary splintered off, we stopped to carve out a plan. While the men briskly sorted it out, I glared up at the Mountain, impatient to be off.

This time there was none of the old, fearful reluctance. Its magnetic pull was just as sharp, but this time I wasn’t resisting it. This landmass was a barrier between me and my daughter, and as far as I was concerned it had lured her there under false pretenses. Played on her affection for a dog that was long gone. This time I couldn’t assail it soon enough.

It was decided that Olin and Faro would take the steeper main road that switchbacked up the side, while Simon and I took the narrower one that rounded it at a lower pitch and led to his cabin and beyond. I knew both routes also had any number of trails leading off into the forest.

I half expected someone to raise an objection about the futility of searching in the dark, especially with no clear sense of where to start and so much ground to cover. I thought someone might even suggest waiting to fetch some hunting dogs to try to sniff out a proper trail. If I’d been in my right mind, I might have suggested such a thing myself.

Olin wheeled Kilchii around to fall in beside me. His slight smile was meant to be comforting.

“Young’uns have lit out on their own before, up the Mountain or down the valley,” he said. “And we always find ’em safe and sound. We’ll find your girl, too.”

There was a choking lump snagged in my throat. I nodded.

Then Olin and Faro trotted off to the left without a backward glance, disappearing into the gloom and the first bend in the road.

I turned to Simon, who was watching me with sympathy.

“Ready?” he asked.

Again, all I could do was nod, flick the reins and kick off.


*

Simon rode ahead where I could barely make him out in the darkness. But I could hear him plainly enough, calling Laurel’s name. I called, too, our voices carrying into the dim woods on either side of us. Now and then I’d hear a dry rustle in the distance or the call of some creature or other, but never Laurel’s voice calling back.

After an hour or so, Simon pulled up and handed me a canteen. It was coffee, still hot. He offered a sandwich Jessie had packed, but I had no appetite. Laurel was out there somewhere. Likely hungry and scared. Had she taken her jacket with her? Her mittens? Had she even thought that far ahead? Or had she just figured to point Tse in the general direction of that barking dog and be back with Tinkerbell in time for supper?

“How cold is it expected to get tonight?” I asked.

Simon was tucking his canteen back in his saddlebag. “Try not to worry.”

“Freezing?” I continued, ignoring him. “Even if it doesn’t drop that far, hypothermia can set in well above freezing.”

I ran a guilty gloved hand down the arm of my warm sheepskin coat. The moon was slipping out from behind a bank of clouds; it was still a few days from full but bright enough now that I could make out my breaths hitting the chilly air in puffs.