May. 8, 2008
My Story [Part 2] --

Posted in My Main Story

“Heya Kit,” a tall brown-haired man waved as she neared them.

“Hey Jeremy,” Kit smiled and glanced around at the buildings. “Is the owner here?”

A short, brown haired woman stepped forward. “That'd be me,” she offered a hand. “I'm Ashley Carroway.”

Kit shook her hand. “Kit Schwester. Daniel sent me to have a look around, mostly at the riding trails.”

Ashley nodded. “Right. Well the trails are down that way, they branch off in quite a few different ways. Beth wrote in the log book that she was taking the red trail. It's marked by a red ribbon.”

“And the horse? It didn't come back?”

“No. I noticed that he wasn't in his stall and that is Beth's horse so I figured that she had gone out with him. The problem was that she was usually back by then. So I went to check the log, I thought maybe she had headed out late and I saw that she had left, as usual, at six thirty.”

“What does the horse look like?”

Ashley motioned for her to follow. “There's a picture of him in the stables.”

As they walked to the main building, Kit looked curiously around at everything. She had never really like horses all that much and so had never been to a stables. Now that she was at one she wanted to get as much information as she could from the experience.

The stable smelled of fresh straw on the inside, and one could hear quiet crunching as the horses ate their hay.

“There, that's Joseph.” Ashley pointed to a picture on the wall of a horse. It had a unique coat, that was for sure. White with black spots, outlined with brown and with grey speckles. “She named him Joseph after the Joseph in the Bible.”

Kit blinked and looked at Ashley. “What?”

“You know, the Joseph with the multi-colored coat that got sold by his brothers?”

Kit shook her head. “No idea what you're talking about,” she turned back to study the picture.

Ashley seemed a little taken aback, but she said nothing more about it. “Did you want to see the paths?”

“Yeah,” Kit stepped away from the picture. “I don't generally care for horses, but that is one nice looking horse. Are there many with that coloring?”

“Nope, that's the first one I've seen with those markings, and I've been around horses for a while.”

Kit glanced at the picture again and then followed Ashley out. Ashley led her to a well worn path that led off towards a patch of wooded land and then pointed. “There's the main path. Follow it down and just keep on it 'till you see another path jutting off that is marked with a red ribbon. That is the path she took.”

“Okay, thanks,” Kit thanked Ashley before setting off down the path. She hadn't gone far when she heard, “Hey, wait up!” She turned around to see Jeremy running towards her.

“What do you think you're doing?” he demanded.

“Dan said that I could check out the path.”

“By yourself? You don't know if kidnappers might still be lurking in there. I'm coming with you.”

“Don't think I can take care of myself huh?” Kit giggled. “Fine, I don't care if you come or go but let's get moving whatever we do.”

“What do you think you're going to find?” Jeremy quired as they entered the woods.

“Well, we could see where exactly she was kidnapped. Luckily for us it rained not too long ago so the mud should have some hints. Like how many people there might have been and just other little things.”

“Ah, I see,” Jeremy stuck his hands in his pockets and strode along beside Kit, looking as serious as he could. He was twenty and had just finished his police training. He and Kit hadn't spent much time together but they were already better friends than Kit had been with any other guy. Kit thought him the only guy that was tolerable to be around for any length of time, most of the time men got on her nerves, but he was different.

The woods were quiet, broken now and then by the song of a bird. The path was very clear and large. The ground was smooth, or it would have been if it weren't muddy. There were hoof prints very clearly marked on the ground and Kit kept her eyes on them as they walked. They swerved off after a little while and when Kit looked up she saw that they entered a path marked with a red ribbon. Without a word she kept after the hoof prints. This path had thicker growth around it and Kit kept her wits about her as they made their way deeper and deeper into the woods. The hoof prints began getting farther apart, Kit knew that the horse had been running. Jeremy had noticed too, though as soon as he did he started looking around more, making sure that nothing would sneak up on them. The prints came to an abrupt halt and were trampled over with shoes, more than one tread too. It looked like there had been a bit of a struggle, but then the prints led off of the path. Kit dove into the underbrush, looking cautiously around before looking back at the tracks. They led away, horse prints and three different shoe treads. The shoes were large, definitely that of a man, and one set had sunk farther into the soft ground than the others. Kit pointed at this set.

“See that? What do you notice that is different about those?”

Jeremy knelt down quickly, clearly eager to show that he was just as good at tracking as Kit. “Um... this one has little squiggly marks instead of dots on the tread!” He looked up eagerly.

Kit nodded and knelt beside him. “Yes, what is something else?”

Jeremy studied the prints and then shook his head. “I don't know,” he said, looking abashed.

“They've sunk into the ground more than the others.”

“Oh! So he must be fatter!”

Kit fought the urge to laugh as she shook her head. “That could be true, but what is more likely is that he's carrying the kidnapped girl. I don't see any footprints that could be a girls either.”

Jeremy's shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

“It takes a while to get good at tracking,” Kit tried to comfort him. “They don't focus much on that subject at the training center you went to. I was at the same one for a little bit, and it just takes practice,” she patted him on the back and stood up. “Look on the bright side, you had the sense not to stomp all over the tracks.”

Jeremy chuckled. “I guess so. But everyone knows not to mess up clues.”

“Come on, let's see how far these tracks lead.”

They followed the tracks only for a moment or two more, for they ended up disappeared into thick grass.

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Mar. 11, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by SeaChel

Yay! You posted more of it!!! Can't wait fopr the next part!

~SeaChel

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Mar. 17, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by skmarlow

Great continuation....I like the humor (the fat guy sinking down. No, the kidnapper carrying the girl...) :-)

You do dialogue very well. That looks like one of your strengths. And you do weave narration, etc. into the dialogue so it's not just one long conversation.

Oh...I don't think people refer to 20-something young men as "boys." "Guy" would work, or young man. But boy is more for the young teen and....younger. What do you think? The term "boy" for Jeremy kept throwing me off. You might want to consider revising that. :-)

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