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She kicked him in the groin. Groaning and holding himself, he fell beside her on the bed.
Mary Beth grabbed a knife from a sheath at his right side, then leapt from the bed and held the knife between herself and the man.
“Get out of here!” she screamed, her heart thumping wildly within her chest.
He held on to his groin as he climbed slowly from the bed and backed away from her, stopping when he came to the opened door.
“You’re a no-good Injun lover,” he growled. “Just look at you and the way you’re dressed. You’re no better than a savage. You won’t live long, I can promise you that.”
He groaned as he staggered from the cabin, leaving Mary Beth, stunned and afraid.
Chapter Seventeen
From their eyelids as they
glanced dripped love.
—Hesiod
Still holding the knife for protection, and hoping that her assailant wouldn’t pounce on her in the dark, Mary Beth ran from the cabin.
She searched the spots where sentries were usually posted and saw none.
She saw no one!
She had wanted to cry out for help, hoping some soldier would come to her defense. But none were anywhere to be seen.
In the light of the moon, she looked desperately around as she walked guardedly onward. But still she saw no one to assist her. Even the barracks where the soldiers slept were all dark.
The night was as still as death, except for the sudden frightening yelp of a coyote from somewhere outside the fort’s walls.
She recalled what Brave Wolf had said about coyotes . . . that they would still be on earth when man was gone.
It seemed that was true tonight. She imagined a coyote lurking near by, perhaps sniffing out her fear, wanting to be a part of the terror that had her in its grip.
“Brave Wolf,” she whispered as sudden tears fell from her eyes. “If only he were here. I . . . am . . . so alone. I’m so scared.”
When she heard a movement close by in the darkness, she stopped and turned, the knife poised to strike. She imagined that horrible man, whose hands were like a vise squeezing her neck, standing in the shadows, ready to finish what he had started. The skin of her neck burned and ached even now from the man trying to choke the breath from her. Surely his hands had left an imprint that would never go away.
She breathed more easily when a pretty calico cat suddenly ran up to her, purring, then rubbed against her leg as her cat had done at home in Kentucky.
She missed her cat.
She missed Kentucky.
She missed the innocence of the life she had left behind.
“Pretty kitty,” Mary Beth whispered as she bent and lifted it into her arms. “You’ll keep me company, won’t you?”
The cat meowed and rubbed up against Mary Beth’s cheek as she gave it a gentle hug.
Then still holding the knife, Mary Beth stood up again and looked slowly around her as she walked slowly onward.
She was going to tell the colonel about tonight’s incident. Surely he would find the man responsible and throw him in the guardhouse.
Only a coward would assault a woman!
She hurried now with determined steps toward the colonel’s cabin. She saw no lamplight at the windows, which meant that he was surely sound asleep. But that mattered not to Mary Beth. She had to get his help.
