As she walked she said to herself: “Run, Jade run! Get on your horse, find your mother, free your father and mother, and live together happily with those horrible men with whatever punishment with the law…or the thing her mother wanted.”

She rode all night long the stars over her head, the hills and valleys and woods dark and the coyotes howled, and Rowdy snorted in his run.

“We are going to find mother and father, Rowdy. We are going to do it. I remember when mother first game you to me, she said you would always look after me…and you have.”

They kept on riding until Brooke was half asleep remembering her father when she gave him his birthday cake, or when her mother gave her Rowdy, or when they first got the ranch, she turned Rowdy and they went into the opening and went about twenty yards and then she plopped on the damp ground and fell into a deep sleep that she most certainly needed.

Everything was blurry in the morning as she rubbed her eyes and yawned, she looked at Rowdy who was eating once again, she chuckled. She went into the valley, they were behind another hill, she remembered her families ranch, it had hills like this, they were huge and full of green grass and they went up…and down, up…and down.

She climbed the hill careful not to fall backwards, her dress got stuck on a twig, but she pulled it off and she kept climbing. She peaked over the top of the hill but did not see one thing, nothing was in sight, except a few bids of course. But, as she turned away she noticed the birds went to the sky, Rowdy came to her and neighed, but she waved at him to shush as she kept watching…something was amiss. She curled her toes in her shoes. She curled her feet. Jade bit her lip… “what can it be??” she did not have to wait long.

Five horse’s ears and men’s hats…horse’s heads and men’s hands…feet and hooves came into view over the hill, it was Johnny, Daxton, Will, Garvin, and…Joan. “That is who he works for!” she looked at Rowdy, “they were trying to get information out of me…it was all a plan, I knew he had malicious intent.”

She saw them go to the right, they did not go towards her, they hadn’t an idea of where she was or which direction she went.

“Let’s go, Rowdy, quietly.” Rowdy seemed to understand and shyly stepped into the sunbeams.