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.

Leah sunk further back against the cloth wall of the tent as she watched his big hands and long fingers go to his black leather vest and pull out a box of matches and a rolled cigarette. He continued to stare at her the way a hawk would a mouse as he placed the cigarette between his firm lips and covered the end with his hand to light it. He swiped the match across the bottom of his boot to bring a flame and took a deep draw off his cigarette, blowing it out slowly through both his nose and mouth.

Leah watched the smoke cloud swirl around his hell and was reminded of the fires of hell probably burning inside this man.

When Leah was certain she would be frozen by the ice in the mans eyes he turned away from her and walked to the sack on the floor. He reached inside and pulled out a canteen which he held out to Leah.

She stared at it and wondered if she should risk taking it from him. She suddenly felt as if she were dying of thirst and her tongue seemed to be sticking to the roof of her mouth. She could taste grit and dust and wanted nothing more than to wash it all away. But what if it was poison?

The man saw that she wasn’t going to take the offered drink, opened the canteen, took a long drink himself and then stuck it back in the sack. He began going through the sack again, digging around for something else when Leah finally found her voice.

“W..who are y..you?” she stammered, unable to keep her jaw from trembling.

“Chase.” he grunted as he continued to search through the sack.

“Am..Am I your prisoner?” Chase didn’t answer right away. He continued to rummage through the sack and then stood straight with a tiny burlap sack in his hands. He tossed it to Leah and she let it bounce of her arm as she scooted further away from it.

Chase just shrugged and headed back toward the flap.

“Wait!” Leah exclaimed, holding out her hand. She saw his shoulders tense and then he turned so that his side was facing her and looked at her expectantly. Realizing he wanted her to say whatever it was she wanted to say Leah quickly stood up.

“I want to go home.” she said and Chase simply shrugged. Leah frowned. “Can I go home?” she asked and he shook his head no. Leah felt fear gripping her heart.

“You killed my Benjamin.” she accused and Chase shook his head again. Leah nearly cried out with her frustration, desperation and fear. She wanted this man to speak to her! Let her know exactly where she stood. But apparently he wasn’t about to do that!

“Are you going to kill me too?” she whispered quietly and Chase just shrugged. She searched his face but could see no emotion. Nothing to give away what he was thinking or feeling.

“Am I your prisoner?” she managed to choke out around the lump in her throat and this time Chase nodded. Leah collapsed back on the cot, curled up on her side with her knees pulled into her chest and began to sob.

“Better me than them.” Chase stated with indifference and he left the tent. Leah’s mind was racing and her eyes seemed to have an endless supply of tears. Benjamin was dead. She was a prisoner. Her parents and brother had been right all along and now Leah was probably going to die because she hadn’t listened to them.

***

Chase could hear the woman sobbing from where he sat on his log stump about ten feet from the tent. He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles as he pulled his hat low, leaned back and took long, slow puffs off his cigarette.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d told that woman in there better him than the other men at the camp. Chase had never nor would he ever take a woman against her will and he didn’t stand by and watch anyone else do it either. Most of the men at camp knew how his mother had died and the certain aversions that had caused him to have.

Now, he would steal a blind mans cane, take a lollipop from a babies hand and take a herd of cattle for his own if the mood struck him but he didn’t take a woman’s body if she wasn’t willing. Hell, there were plenty of women that were more than willing to bed him.

She had called herself a prisoner and that’s exactly what she was. Chase could use the company and she needed the protection. He just wished the woman would stop with those damn tears. Chase’s father had been a half blood apache and his mother had been full blooded apache and most men liked to say that Chase had inherited their savage senses. That’s why loud noise had always bothered him. Being in camp was nearly more than he could stand most of the time and he spent a lot of time away and wandering on his own.

But his father had been loyal to Boss Henderson and Chase respected his fathers loyalty and therefore tried his best to carry on the tradition and friendship. Though Chase did not and would not ever see the man as his ‘boss’. No man was Chase Caldwell’s boss. Chase Caldwell was a man who could not be controlled. He would die first.

It seemed as if it took hours but finally the woman’s tears turned into silence and Chase assumed she must have finally cried herself to sleep. He shook his head. He hadn’t wanted to attack she and her man. It had been clear to him they didn’t have much and therefore it would be a waste of time but you couldn’t tell these ignorant men anything. They enjoyed proving how tough and deadly they were. There was nothing tough about ten against one man and kicking him as he lay on the ground bleeding out and his woman screamed for you to spare his life.

Chase had never once felt the need to prove himself and yet still everyone knew to give him space and stay out of his way. Chase knew the woman wasn’t happy but she would have to get used to it. This was her life now. She could cook for him, clean for him and keep him company. In return he would keep these men away from her and make sure she had food and water. It seemed like a fair arrangement to him.