Disrupted: Day 13

Word Count: 78,007

Summary of Events:

Ezra heard a tree branch break while waiting for his fellow hands to wake up and followed its sound to find one of the missing cattle before waking the hands to see if they could find some more. Gwendolen and the boys were cleaning the house when the boys broke a box that contained, among other papers, Ezra's wife's death certificate. Ezra and the hands continued to search for cattle and eventually recovered all the adults, proving that all of the calves had died; but one cow hadn't wanted to leave her dead calf, and her bellowing after it roused the rustlers . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Ezra had never ridden so fast in his life, in fact, not even Tobias' temper had put the sort of ice-cold fear in his soul that he knew at this moment.

Usually criminals and danger didn't frighten him, but here he was, riding his horse as fast as it could run, desperately fleeing death itself, carried in the hands of a dozen crooks behind him.

He saw images flashing through his mind of Sarah, Jeremiah, and Jonathan, their fear and uncertainty as he'd left them — Sarah's weeping filled his ears.

Then other images came to mind, Ma, Hannah, Agatha, even Pa came to mind. Ezra shook his head to get the images to leave. He didn't want to see any of them, he didn't want to think of that.

They had to make it, they had to get out of this, and if nothing else they had to get close enough to White Pine for help to come and save them. They weren't likely to make it without help, they were, after all, outnumbered.

A cry of agony sounded close to Ezra and he shut his eyes tightly, which only brought to mind that horrible day. Opening his eyes at the sound of water splashing, he startled when realising Lachlan was running on the edge of the river, preparing to pass Wayne's horse.

The sight of Lachlan approaching to pass him seemed to cause Wayne's horse to pick up speed, preventing Lachlan from passing him as swiftly as Ezra had expected.

Ezra considered doing like a jockey and whipping Lachlan's hindquarters, but he knew Lachlan was already going as fast as he could, he couldn't give any more, he was probably just as frightened as Ezra was at the sound of the gunfire.

He was tempted to look over his shoulder, but he didn't dare. He was sure his fellow hands were wounded, if their horses weren't carrying their dead bodies and still running at a wild panic due to the gunfire and the horses chasing after them.

Suddenly Ezra felt a white-hot pain tear through his side. He dallied his reins around the saddle horn so they wouldn't trip Lachlan and grabbed hold of his side. It was warm and moist.

Looking down, a wave of ill nausea swept over him. Blood soaked his vest and was already seeping through his fingers. He'd been shot.

"Take me home Lachlan," he whispered.

His house was closer than White Pine, and hopefully there would be someone there who could help him, or Lachlan would carry him to the Lloyd place. He would get help sooner if he were to go there.

On top of that he'd see his children again. He grimaced at the thought, though, he didn't want Sarah to see him like this. She was sensitive enough as it was, to see her father with a bloody hole in his side was not something she needed to see.

But he couldn't do anything about it. If this was the end, if he was going to die, he wanted to see his children one last time."