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Each man positioned his quiver of arrows on his back, and carrying their powerful bows, they crept stealthily closer to the campsite.
When they got close enough to see more clearly, they halted in surprise.
“A woman,” Brave Wolf gasped as he gazed with troubled eyes at a white woman who was tied to a tree behind the campfire. Gathered around the flames, the renegades were laughing, talking, and eating. “A . . . white woman.”
Brave Wolf felt great hatred for the shameful men who took whites captive, especially women. To him such men were the worst of cowards.
He himself had worked hard at keeping a peaceful relationship with the washechu, white eyes, for he saw that it was necessary in a world where whites now outnumbered his own people.
Brave Wolf had learned from his peace-loving ahte how to make things work with the white eyes. So many people of other clans, who had fought against the whites, had lost their freedom, confined on plots of land called reservations.
Brave Wolf had hoped that if he proved to be a strong and peaceful leader, he could keep his people on their own land at least for a while longer. He did not want to see them forced onto land where the deer were not as plentiful, and where the soil might not be fertile enough for growing food.
Tonight as he gazed at the white woman being held captive, he knew there was only one thing to do: release her and reunite her with her people.
“The woman must be saved from a fate worse than death,” Brave Wolf said, his gaze moving from renegade to renegade. “I hope that she has not yet suffered the disgrace and shame of being raped by those who took her.”
Brave Wolf nodded at his warriors. “We shall make a wide circle around the camp, and then I shall shout at them and tell them how it must be if they wish to live to see another sunrise,” he growled out. “We must try our best to settle this peacefully. It is not best that we enter into a fight with these renegades. I am on a quest. I do not want it hampered by more spilled blood, even if it is not our own.”
His jaw tightened. “But have an arrow notched to your bowstring in case they do not listen to reason,” he said, his eyes narrowed.
Their bows notched with feathered death, they circled the camp. Brave Wolf positioned himself somewhat closer than his warriors, with his friend Two Tails only a short distance behind him.
“Renegades, you are surrounded!” he then shouted. “But there need be no fight tonight. Just hand over the white woman and then you can be on your way, unharmed. If you do not comply with my demands, you will all die. There is an arrow readied for each of you renegades. So which shall it be? Life? Or death?”
Mary Beth’s heart skipped a nervous beat as the voice in the dark came to her. She couldn’t help believing that things were getting worse for her by the minute, for surely the presence of other Indians meant still more men who would want to take their pleasure of her.
After the renegade had abducted her, he was soon joined by others. But her heart had sunk when she had seen that none of them had David with them. She could only conclude that the renegade who took him had gone on elsewhere, or . . . he had killed her son and left him somewhere for animals to feast upon.
The possibility of her son dying such a death made her heartsick and ill.
And now?
What was going to happen to her? Would she become a pawn between two factions?
She was even more afraid than before. Whichever group won her, she would more than likely end up being raped, perhaps by many, then surely slaughtered.
She waited breathlessly to see what the response of the renegades would be to this new threat.
She watched, then flinched and screamed when one of the renegades raised a rifle and shot it. A cry of pain from the hidden Indians was proof that although the renegades could not see whom they were shooting at, a man had been hit.
Brave Wolf turned and gazed in disbelief at Two Tails as he crumpled to the ground, a bloody wound gaping in his chest. By the stare of Two Tails’s eyes, Brave Wolf knew that he had been killed instantly.
A rage he had not known since the death of his father swept through him. He shouted at his men to release their arrows.
Mary Beth gasped as she heard the whine of flying arrows. The deadly missiles sped from the darkness and showered onto the renegades until they had all fallen.
She felt a bitter taste rise from her throat at the sight of all that blood . . . even though those who had died were her ardent enemies.
Everything was now eerily quiet. All that could be heard was the crackling of the campfire.
Mary Beth watched, wide-eyed, as the killers stepped from the darkness and entered the camp, their bows now resting over their shoulders, their eyes moving from one fallen renegade to another.
“They are silenced forever,” Brave Wolf said quietly.
His gaze moved to Mary Beth; then he looked over his shoulder
at one of his warriors. “Big Hawk, take our valiant fallen warrior home for burial,” he said, his voice hoarse with sadness. “Tell his mother, ahte, and wife that a piece of my heart died with him, and that he will be honored in death, as he was in life. Take his children into your arms and tell them they will be cared for and loved, forever and ever.”
