We Just Gotta Do This Right.
Chapter 21 of The Ballad of Abigail Lambert
Abigail awoke inside of a large tent. She had no recollection of how she arrived here, as far as she remembered, she should’ve frozen to death out there in the snow. Yet, she found herself warm as she lay beside a small fire crackling in the middle of the space. Across the flames, an elderly Native woman sat and stared at her. Abigail sat upright.
“Hello,” Abigail told her.
The woman said nothing.
“You’re awake,” Abigail heard a familiar voice say. She turned to the entrance of the tent, to see her brother Benjamin in a thick winter coat.
“Benji?” She uttered in disbelief.
“You just can’t help but get yourself into trouble, can ya?” He asked with a smile.
“How did you find me?” She asked.
“After Colin and his crew burned down the farm, I came to Tennessee to come find you.”
“Why?”
“You’re about all the family I’ve got left in this world, Abby. Wadn’t about to leave that behind.”
Abigail smiled. She asked him who they were currently sharing the tent with who still hadn’t spoken a word.
“This is Prancing Elk,” he explained, “she’s been taking care of you the last five days.”
Abigail nodded in her direction with a smile. Prancing Elk replied in kind.
“Can you stand?” Benjamin asked of Abigail.
“I can try.”
Benjamin helped her onto her feet and escorted her out of the tent. It was dusk. There were six teepees around, including the one Abigail just stepped out of. She could spy a couple dozen Natives as they roamed about in winter gear.
“None of these people know you were a Texas Ranger, do they?” Abigail whispered.
“What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em,” he said. Benjamin spotted Yuma speaking with another member of the tribe and called out to him.
“Yuma?” Abigail muttered under her breath, hardly believing the sight of him. He now sported a headdress, similar to the one she’d seen Amaru wearing as he addressed the camp back when they first met.
“Glad to see you in better health, Abigail,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a pile of hammered shit.”
“At least your humor has been left intact.”
“What are you doing here? How did you even find each other?” Abigail asked.
“We crossed paths purely by accident. Bit of a misunderstanding at first,” Benjamin explained. “Truth be told, I thought I was a dead man.”
“When I understood this man was your brother,” Yuma interjected, “I knew we must assist in whichever way that we could.”
“But what about your tribe?” Abigail asked him.
“This is my tribe!” He said.
“Is this everyone?” Abigail looked around; there were easily less people than there had been on the night they met.
“There were some that refused to believe the truth of Amaru’s actions against my father, but those who did are here with us today,” he said.
“But how did you end up all the way in Tennessee?” She asked.
“We go where the land needs us, much as we did before my uncle changed that of our culture. And the land led us to your brother, who led us to you.”
“I’m guessing no one’s seen Esperanza.” She said.
“We were waiting for you to wake up to tell us,” Benjamin said.
“Colin took her,” she said.
“Where?” Benjamin asked.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“Might this have something to do with it?” Yuma asked as he pulled out a folded page from his pocket.
Abigail unfolded it and scanned the page. There was that word again: artifact.
“Take me to where you found this,” she demanded.
“In your condition?” Yuma asked her.
“We don’t have a second to waste.”
“Are you sure you can make it?” Her brother asked her.
“I don’t have a choice.”
Abigail staggered over to one of the horses at the front of the camp. She managed to mount it by herself, and both Yuma and her brother followed suit beside her. They rode out, Benjamin leading them to the spot where they found it initially. Night had fallen by the time they arrived.
“It was about here,” he told them.
Abigail got off her horse and looked around with a lantern in hand.
“We looked around after we found it but didn’t spot anything else,” he said.
Abigail held the lantern up to her head in hopes that maybe that might give her a better sight in the night. It was pitch dark, next to impossible to see much of anything at all, but she did see a strange color mixed in the brush in the dim glow of the lantern light. She approached the curiosity and found another torn page—stuck to a branch of a bush. She ripped the page off it.
“She’s leaving a trail,” Abigail figured.
She mounted her horse and trotted along in the direction she assumed she was being led. They continued further West and followed the trail of pages one by one for what must’ve been miles. All cleverly hidden as to not arouse the suspicions of her captors, had they waited for daybreak they might’ve had an easier time of finding the pages but Abigail knew time was not a luxury they could afford. By the time they’d arrived at the end of the trail, dawn had just broken.
They found themselves outside of an abandoned ghost town. They summited a hill to see the town below, and spotted a few lantern lights inside the windows of the houses. Benjamin took out a pair of binoculars to survey the scene. He spied Colin as he exited one house and entered another.
“It’s them,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
“We go down there and get her out,” Abigail said.
“Do we know how many men they have down there?” Yuma asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Abigail said.
“It just might,” Yuma replied, understanding her passion but still close to his rationality. “We can go get more men.”
“We don’t know if they’ll still be here by the time we get back,” Abigail said.
“I count nine of them,” Benjamin said as he put the binoculars back down.
“There are only three of us,” Yuma said.
“Three per person, I’ve played tables with worse odds.” Benjamin said.
“This is no game,” Yuma said.
“It’s not,” Abigail said, “but we can handle it. We just gotta do this right.”
“How?”
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