Swift Horse

She gazed heavenward at the many twinkling stars, and prayed to herself that soon this nightmare would end. Her brother never went to bed late. As far back as she could remember he got sleepy long before she. Surely he had discovered that she was missing by now and had alarmed Swift Horse. Together they would find her. Finally One Eye would get his comeuppance.

“You asked for water, you have water,” One Eye said, drawing Marsha from her deep, troubled thoughts.

She gazed to the right as One Eye turned his horse in that direction. She smiled to herself and said a quiet prayer of thanks to the heavens when she saw the shine of water not that far away. It was one of the many creeks that dissected this land, where water was always refreshing and cold.

She tried the ropes at her wrists again, knowing that she had succeeded at getting them loose. Perhaps soon . . . ! And then she would find a way to disable One Eye and make her own escape without anyone’s help.

She was determined that this man wasn’t going to take her life, too, after having taken her parents’ lives as well as those of Swift Horse’s parents.

She would proudly take One Eye—dead—to Swift Horse, and once and for all prove to him that she had been right about his best friend.

One Eye reined in his black steed and dismounted, then reached up and took Marsha from the saddle.

“Thank you so much,” she murmured, pretending to be gracious. If at all possible, and if she got the courage, she was going to kill this man—a villain of villains.

She tried the ropes again, her heart thudding hard inside her chest when she discovered that now all she had to do was slide her hands free!

“Come with me,” One Eye said, nodding toward the creek as he began walking toward it, seeing that Marsha was staying directly at his side. “But hurry. I want to get you into hiding before daybreak.”

“We have that much farther to go?” Marsha asked, now playing along with him, knowing that true freedom was only a few heartbeats away if everything went as planned.

She eyed his knife.

It was at his left side, the side on which she was walking.

She could grab it in an instant.

But no, she quickly thought. No matter how much she hated this man, she couldn’t kill him with a knife. She couldn’t even think about how it must feel to sink a knife into another person’s flesh. No. There had to be a better way.

She stepped up to the water with One Eye. Suddenly he gave her a shove that made her fall quickly to the ground on her knees, causing pain to shoot through them—and her ropes to fall away.

But One Eye hadn’t noticed. An owl hooting suddenly in a tree above them startled him.

Marsha could tell that he was troubled by the owl, for he had gasped and searched the tree limbs above him for the night bird. Marsha realized why he was reacting to the owl in such a way. She had studied Indian lore while she was in school in Georgia, and had read that owls frightened some Indians, who took their presence for a bad omen.

Marsha’s heart pounded as she realized this was her opportunity to act, and act quickly.

One Eye still hadn’t noticed that her wrists were free. His back was to her as he continued to look for the owl that had repeated its call into the night, this time seeming to be closer, almost straight above her on the low-hanging limbs of a willow tree.

Forgetting how her knees ached from the hard fall and thinking only one thing now—escape—Marsha moved to her feet. Her eyes searched around her, then stopped when she saw a large rock. It wasn’t too large for her to pick up, yet large enough to hopefully crack open this evil man’s skull.

Breathing hard and knowing that every second counted now, she picked up the rock and stepped quickly behind him. Just as he started to turn, she lowered the rock to his head, hitting him on the left of his skull.

The sound when she hit him was like a walnut cracking. Marsha felt suddenly ill at her stomach, especially when she saw blood pouring from the head wound as One Eye crumpled to the ground, silent and still.

Marsha stared down at him. She had gotten the best of a man whom surely no one had ever bested!

And . . . and he did seem dead, but she was still afraid to get too close to him, to check for a pulse beat in the vein of his throat, because he might be conscious enough to grab her and kill her with his knife. Marsha decided to leave well enough alone.

She could return home! She could bring her brother and Swift Horse back there, so they could witness for themselves, once and for all, that she had not been imagining things when she had said that One Eye was the horrible one-eyed killer!

She ran to the horse, her knees suddenly rubbery and weak from the ordeal she had just been through, but managed to get in the saddle. She grabbed the reins, took one last look at One Eye, then wheeled the horse around and headed, hopefully, back in the direction of the Creek village. However, she soon realized that she wasn’t sure at all where she was. She was confused in the dark. Everywhere she looked things seemed the same, and if she rode in a circle, she might end up back where she had left One Eye.

She studied the stars, then the moon, and then the lay of the land. She still didn’t know which way to go. She was lost!

Near to tears, Marsha snapped the reins and prayed that she would somehow find the right way home. Then something worse sent a cold fear through her. It was the sound of an approaching horse! What if it was someone from One Eye’s renegade gang?

“Oh, please, no . . .” she sobbed, panic filling her very being.