Trail of Deceptions

Chapter Five

 In the morning, Sam woke up hearing the birds singing as she got up and dressed. She fixed her breakfast and once she cleaned everything up and made sure the fire was out in the cook stove she saddled Goldie to head for home. It was a beautiful clear warm morning and she thought about her plans for the day and her future as she rode along enjoying the scenery on the ranch.

She'd ridden about two miles when she saw a horse with a man lying on the ground next to the horse. "Oh God please don't let it be him," Sam said as she urged Goldie to a gallop. Reining Goldie in Sam jumped from her horse as she came to the man on the ground.

Bill Roberts was dead.

"Noooo!" she screamed before she sat on the grass next to him cradling his head in her lap putting a hand on his cheek she felt how cold he was.

She didn't know how long she had sat there cradling his head in her hands as she sobbed. He'd been shot in the back and she wondered who did it and why. "I promise you I'll find whoever did this and kill them," she told him. Somehow, her hands ended up covered in his blood, as was the ground under him. "I promise you!"

 She knew she should ride to the ranch house to get help, but she couldn't stand the thought of her father left there all alone. He'd been there all night alone while she slept only a few miles away. "I'm so sorry I didn't ride home with you last night," she told him. "Maybe if I'd been with you this wouldn't have happened. Maybe I could have helped you. I'm so sorry .I'm so sorry."

 As she sat there trying to decide what to do she thought about how Gray Eagle had shown her years ago how to make a travois to carry supplies or someone that was injured on. Sam gently put her father's head back on the ground and rose. Walking to Goldie, she searched her saddlebags and found the large knife she always carried with her and walked toward the grove of nearby trees.

Using it, she cut large limbs and branches to make the travois. In her father's saddlebags she found a shirt of his and cutting it into strips she used it to tie the limbs and branches together all the time her tears never stopped as she kept brushing them aside in order to see what she was doing. In her mind she kept asking over and over again why her father and who wanted him dead? Did this have something to do with the raid several months ago? She had a hundred questions with no answers.

Once she finished the frame, she used his bedroll to tie to the frame to support his body on before she tied the travois to his horse. Moving Big Boy close to her father's body Sam tried to get him on the litter. It took three attempts before she managed to do it. Taking the reins of his horse, she climbed on Goldie for the long ride home. She wiped away the tears as she rode home thinking it was taking forever to get there. 

And how was she going to tell her mother.

Cord was coming from the cookhouse when she arrived. He came running up to her looking at Bill first before came to help her from her horse as he called for help. The men soon came running to see what he needed.

Cord wrapped his arms around her and Sam sobbed as she buried her head in his shoulder. He held her until she was able to tell him what happened. "I couldn't leave him there Cord. He'd been alone all night," Sam, cried at the end as Cord patted her back.

 Sam listened as Cord told some of the men to take care of Bill while he walked her over to the house to tell her mother. Once inside Sam was still to upset to do it so Cord did most of the talking telling Julie that Bill was dead and how Sam had found him this morning.

Sam saw her mother's shocked reaction to the news before tears came to her mother's eyes and she cried. Sam held her tight as they both cried in each other's arms. Cord left them for a while and later returned telling them he had send Slim and Webb into town to tell the Sheriff and on to let her aunt and uncle know along with Gray Eagle. Julie and Sam both thanked him.