Swift Horse

Swift Horse sat down on a pallet of blankets on the floor in front of the fire and Bright Moon sat beside him.

“Tell me what is troubling you,” Bright Moon said, placing a hand on one of Swift Horse’s.

“It is something hard to say,” Swift Horse said. He gave Bright Moon a troubled frown. “I am not certain, even, if I can.”

“You have not slept the full night,” Bright Moon said, studying Swift Horse’s weary eyes. “Why is that, my chief? What kept you from your bed?”

“You do not know?” Swift Horse said, searching his shaman’s pale brown eyes. Then he shook his head. “No. You would not know for I did not share what I was doing with anyone. Edward James’s sister was abducted tonight.”

“Marsha was abducted?” Bright Moon gasped, drawing his hand quickly away from Swift Horse. “Is she still missing?”

“No, she is safely home with her brother now. I found her and brought her home,” Swift Horse said, somewhat tightly. “But the fact that she was abducted lies heavy on my heart. I was not there to protect her. And she had to suffer at the hands of two men tonight, not one.”

“Two . . . ?” Bright Moon asked, his eyes widening. “Tell me about it, Swift Horse.”

“When I went to her cabin and saw that she was gone and that her sewing equipment was strewn across the floor, I knew that something had to have happened to her,” Swift Horse said thickly. “I went outside. I followed tracks to the cowkeeper’s house.”

“The cowkeeper?” Bright Moon said, leaning forward and gazing more intensely into Swift Horse’s eyes. “He did this?”

“He was the first,” Swift Horse said.

“The first?” Bright Moon asked, finding this more and more incredulous by the moment.

“He abducted Marsha from her home, and then the one-eyed renegade went there and killed Alan Burton and took Marsha with him,” Swift Horse said, now almost hoarsely, he was so troubled, still, by what had happened to his woman.

“You say . . . a one-eyed man?” Bright Moon said, his voice drawn. “The same who killed your parents, others of our village, and various white settlers who come to our land or pass through it?”

“It must be the same, and I need your guidance about what I am thinking now,” Swift Horse said, sighing heavily.

“What are you thinking?” Bright Moon asked.

When Swift Horse didn’t answer right away, Bright Moon reached over and gently patted him on a knee. “I see it is hard for you to say,” he said softly. “I urge you, though, to say it aloud instead of keeping it locked up inside your heart.”

“If I am right about what I am thinking, I doubt I shall ever be able to fully accept it, for it is something that will tear at my very being if it is true,” Swift Horse said stiffly. He reached up and pushed his heavy hair back from his shoulders, then again rested his hands on his knees. “But I know it is best to say it, not continue to just think it.”

“And that is why you came to your shaman this hour of morning, is it not?” Bright Moon said, placing his own hands now on his own knees.

“Yes, I need to say it and then know what your feelings are about it,” Swift Horse said, turning to gaze into his shaman’s old eyes once again. “Bright Moon, my woman has said more than once that the one-eyed man is One Eye. She saw him murder her parents and says that is why she can never forget him. This man’s face is in her mind’s eye, always. How can she be this wrong? And, Bright Moon, how can there be two men with the exact scarrings of One Eye?”

“She does believe it is he?” Bright Moon said softly.

“None other,” Swift Horse said, inhaling a deep, nervous breath. “I cannot continue to openly doubt her. She is taking offense, and I want no ill feelings between us. If she is so absolutely certain this man is One Eye, how can I continue to ignore this? He might be guilty of many crimes.”

“Your best friend, who has always professed to be our clan’s ally, might, instead, be our most ardent enemy?” Bright Moon said, now slowly shaking his head back and forth. “If that is

so . . .”

“If that is so, I must stop him,” Swift Horse rushed out. “I cannot allow him to put on a false face of friendship when, in truth, he might be the worst sort of man on this earth.”

“And so you are truly believing now that One Eye is the one-eyed man,” Bright Moon said, searching Swift Horse’s eyes. “I see it in your eyes . . . I hear it in your voice . . . the hurt, the humiliation . . . the anger.”

“Yes, I feel all of those things,” Swift Horse said. He placed a hand on Bright Moon’s shoulder. “Will you help me?”

“My chief, I have always been here for you, as I was here for your father and grandfather before you,” Bright Moon said, nodding. “Tell me. What would you ask of me?”

“I would like for you to make medicine that will harm the man who is guilty of crimes we have spoken of today,” Swift Horse said. “If word is brought to me that One Eye is ill, then I will know for certain that he is the one who should pay for the crimes committed by the one-eyed man.”

“His injury?” inquired Bright Moon.