Her Dreadful State of Affairs

[Ladies' Man]

Crossing the street just wasn’t the frolicsome jaunt that it had always been during Gabriel’s childhood. He was halfway to the mayor when a snorting horse came plunging up the road at him, its mad gallop spurred on by the dark-haired man who sat on its back. Gabriel stopped walking as the mount approached, slightly shocked to recognize the crazed rider as Rayse Valentino, the very man he’d been hoping to find. What luck! The only trouble was that the bandit was heading very rapidly after the carriage and Gabriel wouldn’t have a hope of catching up with them on foot.

Thinking time ran out before he was ready. The horse thundered past him, nearly taking off his nose as he stumbled out of the charger’s path. In the split second that the horse was in front of him and close enough to really smell, Gabriel noticed that Valentino’s saddle was something of a cheap piece of crap. He wasn't a pundit when it came to horse-related gear, but growing up on what amounted to a really big farm had left him with a neophyte's eye for leather that deserved to have been retired decades ago. It was the kind of saddle one used on a draft horse if you were short on seats and needed someone to ride the poor animal that also had to pull the wagon. It was lighter than a normal saddle but the straps were stronger, and hanging off the side of one of these devices was usually a long braided rope that could be used to help secure the wagon to the saddle.

Gabriel’s eyes dropped to the ground by the horse’s feet, and not a moment later the rest of him followed, his body slamming to the dirt as his hands seized the rope hanging off the horse’s side and held on for all he was worth.

Given that he did weigh more than the average horseback stowaway—like a fly, for instance—the horse undoubtedly felt the sudden addition of several extra pounds to its burden. Being a working horse and much accustomed to being thoughtlessly forced to carry far more than an animal of its caliber ought to, the animal kept running, swerving only in surprise before it laboriously resumed its frenetic course.

Gabriel wasn’t nearly as nonchalant. In the first few seconds of being dragged across the ground, the only concern that popped into his mind was that his clothes would be absolutely filthy by the time the ordeal was over. A few seconds and several yards of unpaved road later, his priorities had shifted. He was wondering now whether or not rub burns left scars and if it was possible to lose necessary organs to friction. Sacks of potatoes made being towed across the ground look easy, but he was quickly discovering that the dragging process was far from painless.

A particularly large rock snagged on his hip and Gabriel instinctively bounced over, catching a glimpse of astounded villagers on the side of the road who were staring disapprovingly at the spectacle as if it were something a stupid boy had wanted to do for fun. He grimaced and tightened his grip on the rope, legs flailing as he tried to roll over again and failed. The small remainder of his rapidly depleting pride made him want to clench his jaw and Take It Like a Man, to climb up the rope hand over hand until he could pull himself into the saddle behind the bandit and knock his lights out and charge after Elise to rescue her single-handedly, but his fingers were wrapped so tightly around the rope that even the thought of detaching a hand made him cringe. He wasn't going to climb, he wasn't going to let go. If Valentino knew he was there, what would stop the rogue from dropping a knife onto his unprotected belly? A protruding rock scraped against the back of his head and dug its cheerful way down his spine, helping him make his decision.

“Valentino!” He barely heard himself over the horse’s dangerously close hooves. “Stop the horse!”

It was better to be a live coward than a dead hero.