Anger raced like a hot flash of fire through him when he thought of the day of the bear attack. Swift Horse was not worthy of such a sacrifice. If he were, he would fight to save One Eye from the fate that now awaited him, and would never believe anyone who pointed an accusing finger at One Eye.
First he would kill the women, and then he would kill Abraham, and then it would be done and over with.
He would wait for Swift Horse, and just as Swift Horse came close enough to One Eye, the hate and the need for vengeance visible in his eyes, One Eye would kill himself as Swift Horse looked on. One Eye’s last act to make the hurt run more deeply within Swift Horse was to see the man he had loved as a friend kill himself. His only regret was that he had not killed Marsha, too.
Needing to secure Abraham before attempting to kill the two women, he gave Abraham a shove. “Hurry onward,” he said in a quiet yet threatening command. “You see my horse. Hurry to it.”
Abraham did as he was told, his knees visibly trembling, and when he did reach the horse, he was grabbed and shoved against a tree.
“You stay there,” One Eye growled out. “If you try to run, I throw an accurate knife. You think the pain of your wounds made by a whip were bad, you will not know true pain until a knife slams into your body.”
“I won’t go nowhere,” Abraham said, his eyes wide as he watched the one-eyed man go to his horse and take a rope from the bag that hung at the horse’s right side.
“Are you gonna hang me?” Abraham gasped raspily as One Eye uncoiled the rope and walked toward him with it. One Eye’s only response was a guttural laugh.
He used the rope to secure Abraham to the tree.
One Eye stood before Abraham as he yanked his knife from the sheath at his right side. “If you cry out for help, I will not kill you instantly when I return, I will kill you slowly and painfully.”
Abraham visibly trembled, the rope cutting into his flesh where it held him in place against the tree.
One Eye glared at him, then ran stealthily toward the clearing.
Just as he got there and was poised to plunge the knife into Soft Wind’s chest, a gun blast rang out.
One Eye felt an instant sting in his belly and realized that he had just been shot. He dropped his knife and grabbed at his stomach, feeling the heat of blood as it seeped between his fingers.
Just as his knees buckled beneath him, he saw Swift Horse step out into the open, smoke spiraling upward from the barrel of his rifle.
“You . . .” One Eye gasped, now on his knees, blinking his one eye over and over again as he fought off dying. “Swift Horse, you . . . would . . . do this . . . ?”
Swift Horse felt a keen remorse intermingled with pangs of hate as he watched One Eye’s lone eye close and One Eye topple over onto his stomach, headfirst.
Marsha ran to Swift Horse’s side as Edward James gathered Soft Wind into his arms.
“He . . . was going . . . to kill me,” Soft Wind gulped out, clinging hard to her husband. “One Eye was the one-eyed renegade.”
“Yes, he was guilty all along and I was too blinded to see it,” Swift Horse said, dropping his rifle to the ground. He hung his head in his hands. “Because of me, because of my faith in that man, many had to suffer.”
“I found Abraham,” a voice rang out as one of Swift Horse’s warriors found Abraham tied to the tree. “He is all right.”
That news came to Swift Horse like a breath of fresh air, because if Abraham had died, Swift Horse might not have forgiven himself.
“It’s over now,” Marsha reassured, as Swift Horse looked at her with an apologetic gaze. “Please don’t feel guilty for anything that has to do with One Eye. You were a dedicated, loyal friend, who just did not want to believe there was evil in your longtime friend.”
“You did what only a true friend would do,” Edward James said, walking up closer to Swift Horse and Marsha, Soft Wind at his side, his arm around her waist. “You believed in a friend and your friendship.”
Abraham came toward Swift Horse, smiling broadly. “I am all right,” he said, reassuring Swift Horse that he was. “The ropes were tight on me, but tha’s all. I’m alive. But had you not come . . .”
“Let’s not think about what-if’s,” Marsha said, giving Abraham a soft smile. “Let’s just thank the Lord that that man’s evil has been silenced forever.”
The other women who had walked farther away from Soft Wind and her friend came running toward them, baskets in hand, their eyes wide with fear. When they saw One Eye lying there, stilled by a bullet in his belly, they stopped and stared down at him, then gazed up at Swift Horse with questioning in their eyes.
“He was evil, through and through,” Swift Horse said thickly. He gazed down at One Eye. “But he was not always that way.” He swallowed hard. “I believe the day the bear attacked him and took away one of his eyes was the day that One Eye changed. For so long he could not look at his reflection in the mirror of the river water, for he was ashamed of how he looked. I tried to reassure him by telling him that everyone looked past those scars and saw, instead, his inner self, which was good. But he could not get past how the women looked away from him in disgust since that day. There was no changing that.”
“I feel to blame,” Soft Wind said, a sob lodging in the depths of her throat. “I knew that he cared deeply for me, yet I did not love him even before his accident.”
“Never blame yourself for any of this,” Edward James said, placing his hands at his wife’s shoulders and turning her to face him. “He is what he made himself to be. There had to have been something in him long before that day of the bear’s attack for him to have become so evil. He was born evil, but just did not allow anyone to see it.”