As they went along, Cecilia kept her eyes peeled. She was looking for the prearranged signs that the ambush was ahead. To her dismay she didn’t see one, however about noon, Luke stiffened up, suddenly stopped, and pulled his horse off to the side of the road. He just made it look like he had to take a leak. After he was done, he motioned for Marion and Cecilia to join him.
“There’s an ambush about fifty paces ahead.”
“How could you possibly know that?” asked Cecilia. This probably wasn’t her ambush but one ambush was as good as another as far as she was concerned.
“Because I seen a glint in the brush near the road. The same place that I would set an ambush.”
“You sound like you have experience with ambushes” Marion said.
“I do” stated Luke in a hard flat tone that said the discussion was over.
“So, what are we going to do?” asked Marion.
“Simple, I’m going to ambush the ambushers.”
“How?” Marion was almost crying now.
“Just stay here and watch.” And with that, Luke pulled his handgun and knife out and disappeared into the forest. Within minutes, shots rang out up ahead and the ladies heard several screams. Marion looked like a ghost and even Cecilia had lost some color. Then everything was quiet. Both ladies were nervous; Marion for her lover and Cecilia because she wanted his knowledge.
“Miss me?” Luke said causing both ladies to almost jump out of their clothes.
“Damn it Luke” screamed Marion “Don’t do that to me ever again!”
“What’s that?” now Luke was feeling mischievous.
“I was so scared that you would be killed.” Said Marion so quietly that Cecilia could barely hear her. Luke just snorted.
“Me killed by those idiots.” Snorted Luke “Not likely. Come on ladies, we got some bodies to loot.”
Luke and Marion grabbed the horses and lead them to where the ambush had been. There was fifteen men laying on the ground.
“We’re not going to worry about burying them. There’s a nice dip in the ground back there” Luke pointed behind him “That we can dump the bodies into.” The three of them quicky gathered all the gear that they could use. Luke of course policed his brass. They even found some more horses to carry the loot. Part of the loot was a large bag of money and some really nice swords. Marion recognized the crest on one of the swords as one that belonged to a very wealthy family that lived a couple of days ride from her own home.
It was only the work of an hour or so to get all the new loot and get it stored for travel. As they were getting to leave, Marion heard more horses coming, and the three of them hide in the brush. Cecilia immediately recognized the men that went by, for they were the ones that she had hired. After they had went by Luke stood up.
“Come on ladies, let’s get the fuck out of here.” The three of them mounted back up and continued on their journey. It was obvious that Luke was now on high alert for anymore ambushes. Fortunately, they didn’t see anything the rest of the day. Problem was that they hadn’t come across any good places to stay for the night. To Luke this wasn’t a problem; they would push on through the night. They had light cloud cover and a particle moon.
“Hey Marion, how close are we, do you figure?”
Marion purged her lips as she figured, “probably four or five days. Why?”
“Ok, here is what we are going to do. I didn’t like the look of those guys that past by us earlier, and it’s too easy to ambush people in the forest so we are going to push on through the night.”
“But how about our sleep?” whined Cecilia
“Tired is just temporary, dead is permanent. We push on through the night, but if you want to stop for the night go ahead but I’m going to keep going.”
“Marion are you going to stop?” asked Cecilia
“Nope. I’m staying with Luke. I almost lost him once and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Now Cecilia was worried. They would probably go right past her ambush during the night and her guys wouldn’t see them because no one ever traveled at night.