Sydney woke and instinctively reached over for Nigel, who to her disappointment was not there. She had dreamt about him riding up on magnificent stallion coming to her rescue. Smiling to herself she got up and headed to take a quick shower, Nigel a cowboy with his black hat and his British accent, the dreams she had sometimes. Quickly getting dressed she gathered up her things and placed them in the backpack she bought for the journey, she heard a light knocking at her door and when she went to answer it she saw her dream standing in front of her. Nigel had on the cowboy hat she had bought him, hiking boots, a white tank top covered with a lightweight shirt, and black denim jeans, okay not quite her dream, no cowboy boots, but damn close enough.
"Morning". he said with a smile "Miss me?"
"What do you think." she looked him up and down. "Nice jeans, you should wear them more often." she locked the door behind and she scooted him out of the way.
"I’ll keep that mind, come on lets go get a good breakfast before heading out, my treat."
After finishing breakfast they headed over to Zach’s place and to their surprise they found not only Zach, but three other people they had not seen before. Zach quickly explained that after they had left the previous day the other three had shown up and signed up for the outing. Since they had not told him the true reason they were there they couldn’t really say anything, he was just a man conducting business. The new arrivals were a mixed bunch, one woman in her early to mid twenties and two men, one who looked like he was barely out of high school, while the other had to be in his late thirties to early forties. With the new arrivals Zach said it would be better to just go out on horseback, he asked if they minded and both said no.
Moving off toward the side Nigel could see Sydney looking over the new additions with a critical eye. "Well this complicates things doesn’t it." before Syd could answer he answered for her "I know exactly what your going to say, go with the flow Nigel."
Giving him a mock frown "Exactly. I have a hunch whoever stole the map is close by."
"You think one of the new arrivals is the one who attacked Joe and took the map?"
"That’s a good possibility, we’ll just need to keep a close eye on them and see if my hunch plays out."
"They usually do." Nigel said remembering the other times Syd’s hunches had played out, usually involving gun fire, knives and everything in between. Just once he would like to go on a hunt that didn’t involve rivals and everything else.
"We should go and introduce ourselves, see what we can find out" she gave him a light thump on the arm. "Come on Nigel it will be fun."
"Oh yea, I know your idea of fun and........." he stopped in mid sentence as Zach and his assistant headed their way with the horses. He was instantly captivated by the black following Zach it was a beautiful animal.
Sydney noticed Nigel’s silence and followed his gaze. "Is something wrong?"
"No, you go ahead I want to go talk to Zach."
Before Sydney could say anything Nigel was gone. Shaking her head she went to go introduce her self to the others.
Go to Part Seven.