Swift Horse

“You’re . . . drunk . . .” she gasped, a new sort of fear grabbing at her heart with this knowledge.

“Perhaps I am, perhaps I ain’t,” Alan said, shrugging and chuckling.

He stepped back into the outer room again and grabbed the bottle of whiskey and the glass, then reentered the storage room. Enough light came through the door for him to see Marsha’s face.

“You’re mighty pretty, don’tcha know?” he said, his hands too full to be able to reach out and touch her. Instead, he leaned down into her face. “You’re gonna make a mighty fine and pretty bride for this cowkeeper.”

“There’s nothing in hell you could do to make me accept marrying you,” Marsha found the courage to say, yet gazing in fear at the whiskey, realizing how drunk Alan Burton already was.

He could hardly stand, and his speech was terribly slurred. She could smell his intoxication. His breath reeked of it as he stood now with his face so close to hers.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter, Miss Prissy,” Alan said, then threw his head back in a fit of laughter.

“You are more insane than I first thought,” Marsha said, her voice breaking. “How can you think you will get away with what you have done to me?”

“I don’t think it, I know it,” Alan said, again idly shrugging.

He straightened his back and tried to pour some whiskey into the glass, but laughed crookedly when he discovered that he got more on the sides of the glass than in it.

“Whoops,” he said, trying again.

“Please leave me alone,” Marsha asked, pleading with her eyes. “At least until you are sober . . .”

“If you’d drink with me, you’d think better of arguin’ about what your future holds for you,” Alan said, finally able to get enough whiskey in the glass.

He set the bottle on the floor, then stepped closer to Marsha.

He tipped the glass to her lips and began slowly feeding her the whiskey, Marsha gagging.

But soon her eyes were drawn quickly elsewhere.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw a shadowy figure suddenly at the door, the light from the outer room illuminating it enough for her to see who it was!

Alan saw her eyes widening. He drew the glass slowly away.

“One Eye . . .” she gasped, knowing it was he even though he wasn’t dressed as he did when he portrayed a man of peace. Tonight he wore war paint and a brief breechclout the same as he had on the day of the ambush.

But she knew without a doubt that it was One Eye. She recognized the same leer, the same stance . . . !

Hearing that name and seeing Marsha’s alarm, Alan turned his head with a start. He froze when he saw the Indian painted in war paint, and with one eye, make a lunge toward him with a knife ready for its death plunge.

Alan turned and gave Marsha a terrified look just as One Eye sank the knife into his back.

One Eye watched Alan fall to the floor. He then kicked him aside and stood with his fists on his hips as he glared down at Marsha. “The cowkeeper getting drunk made my plan for you much more simple,” One Eye said, laughing throatily.

He leaned closer to Marsha. “I had planned to kill both of you, but changed my mind,” he said. He smiled wickedly at her. “That would be too simple . . . too quick. I want to make things more difficult and uncomfortable for you before killing you. You white witch, you almost caused my friend to believe you when you told him that I was the one-eyed man who killed your parents.”

He threw his head back in a fit of laughter, then he looked soberly into Marsha’s fearful eyes. “Little does my friend Swift Horse know, but I also killed his parents,” he said tightly.

“No . . .” Marsha sobbed. “Oh, how can Swift Horse not see past your front of being a friend—of being an innocent man? He is so astute in everything else.”

“We were young braves, learning ways of proud warriors together,” One Eye said. “He will not allow himself to see that side of me that could never be as he wished me to be. I will never allow him to see it.”

“What are you going to do with me?” Marsha asked warily, every bone in her body afraid.

“Enough has been said,” One Eye said, reaching down and retrieving his knife from Alan’s back. He wiped the blade clean on Alan’s pants leg, then used it to slice the ropes away that held Marsha tied into the chair.

He quickly tied her wrists the minute she was freed of the chair, and then gagged her.