Swift Horse

“Yes, it is terribly damp . . . and cold,” Marsha said, hugging herself in an effort to ward off as much of the chill as she could.

“Your vision was true! The trunk is here!” Sharp Nose’s voice from the far end of the cave came to them as though in an echo.

“It contains many things bad!” Sharp Nose then shouted.

“Oh, no,” Marsha said, a cold shudder of dread racing through her. She thought of the possibilities of something of her parents’ being in that damnable trunk. Yet she did not see how those renegades who came out of the shadows of the trees on the one side of the road that day could have had time to take any “mementoes,” for they had come and slaughtered, then had gone on their way.

“Do you want to stay here as I go get the trunk?” Swift Horse asked, placing gentle hands at her waist.

“No, I would be too afraid to stay alone, even this close to you,” she said, her voice breaking. She looked over her shoulder at the cave’s entrance, and at the water splashing in front of it, the rainbows no longer there, but instead, the image of One Eye laughingly staring back at her. She closed her eyes as she turned back to Swift Horse, then slowly opened them again.

“I would rather go with you,” she blurted out.

He took her by a hand, and as they walked past the burning torches, Marsha forced from her mind what she might see.

As they approached the trunk, the warriors were standing around it, gazing down inside it. Sharp Nose knelt at its side, his eyes now on Marsha as a warning of sorts that she must not look.

She recalled one part of the dream that Swift Horse had described to her.

A scalp.

A scalp had been in the trunk!

What if . . . ?

No!

It couldn’t be her parents! When they were rescued from where they had lain after the murder, they had, thankfully, their scalps. They were buried with their scalps. But seeing anyone’s scalp would be traumatic. It would be so gruesome!

Now standing over the trunk, the glow of the torches reaching inside it, Marsha had to force herself to look. And when she did, everything within Marsha found the peace of knowing that she saw nothing of her parents there.

Then Swift Horse examined the contents of the trunk, rose to his feet, and looked from warrior to warrior. “I see nothing here that points to anyone in particular’s guilt,” he said with a relief in his voice that Marsha dreaded hearing. If he didn’t absolutely see the proof he had wanted to see, then did he doubt all over again One Eye’s role in the murders?

“But . . .” Swift Horse said, his jaw tightening. “There is a way to know who placed it here. The lit torches prove that someone comes often. I imagine the guilty one comes to gloat over what he has taken from those he had killed.”

He looked over his shoulder, toward the cave’s entrance, then around him again, at his warriors. “I imagine he was here even moments before our arrival,” Swift Horse said. “He might have heard the horses and fled just in time. He might even now be out there, watching.”

“Should we go and search for him?” Sharp Nose asked.

“No. Let him come to us. Let us catch him in the act. We will post a nearby sentry.” He sighed heavily. “But the one I appoint must keep a close watch, for the guilty one will surely attempt to kill him,” he said. “And then he would destroy the trunk so that it could not be taken to the white authorities.”

“But it might take several days for One Eye to show himself,” Marsha said, still wishing that Swift Horse would just go to One Eye’s village and stop this nonsense right now!

“Each day a different sentry will stand guard,” Swift Horse said, nodding down at Marsha, then again looking at his warriors. He stopped at Sharp Nose. “Your day is now.”

Sharp Nose nodded.

They all filed out of the cave, Sharp Nose with them, then he went on away from them to find the perfect place for watching the cave’s entrance.

Swift Horse, Marsha, and the others rode in silence to the village. As Marsha stepped into her cabin, from the back door she smelled something familiar to her, then realized it was coming from the kitchen. Soft Wind was preparing the evening meal.

“Marsha? Is that you?” Soft Wind called from the kitchen.

“Yes, it is I,” Marsha said, removing her leather jacket and hanging it from a peg on the wall.

She pulled the damp ribbon from her hair and hung it on another peg, then removed her gloves, and thankfully her boots. Now that they were wet, they were too snug. It felt good to be able to wiggle her toes again.

Soft Wind came from the kitchen wearing an apron with evident sp