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She hurried inside the cabin, closed the door, then leaned her back against it. Her heart was throbbing. What had made her agree to stay in a place where she knew she was in danger? For no matter what the colonel said, she was at risk.
She didn’t know what to do. Leave? Or stay?
Disturbed by the perfume wafting from the dress, she dropped it to the floor.
Then knowing the colonel would be insulted if he saw the dress on the floor when he returned, she grabbed it quickly up again. For now, he was her only ally at the fort. She must make certain she didn’t lose his support, strained as it was.
Sighing, she draped the dress over the back of a chair. She lit a kerosene lamp and slowly unbraided her hair.
When it was hanging long and loose over her shoulders, she sighed again. Just as she was ready to climb onto the bed, she was startled by a knock at the door. She went cold inside as she stared at it.
“Don’t be frightened,” Colonel Downing said through the door. “It is I. It’s Colonel Downing.”
Heaving a sigh of relief, yet wondering what would bring him back to the cabin so quickly, she went to the door and cautiously opened it.
The moonlight revealed his dark frown.
“I came to tell you that Blackjack Tom can’t be arrested,” he said.
“Why not?” Mary Beth asked, her eyes searching his. “Have you changed your mind? Do you no longer see him as guilty? Look at my throat. He did this. I tell you . . . he did this to me.”
“Yes, I believe you,” Colonel Downing said heavily.
“Then why didn’t you arrest him?” Mary Beth demanded.
“Because he’s gone,” Colonel Downing said. “He’s nowhere to be found. I assume he expected you to tell what happened.”
“Gone?” Mary Beth repeated, suddenly feeling icy cold all over. “But what about your sentries? Surely they saw him leave the fort.”
“Mary Beth, he was tonight’s sentry,” he explained softly.
Now she recalled the absence of a sentry when she had needed someone to come to her rescue.
The sentry was Blackjack Tom!
Now she felt trapped. She couldn’t flee into the night to go to Brave Wolf because that evil man could be out there anywhere, just waiting for the opportunity to finish what he had started tonight.
Suddenly she was aware that many soldiers were leaving their barracks, dressed and carrying firearms.
She questioned the colonel with her eyes.
“I’m sending men out to look for Thomas,” he said, reaching a gentle hand to her arm. “I will post a guard outside your door. Go to bed. You can feel safe enough.”
She nodded, turned, and went back inside the cabin, yet she didn’t feel at all safe knowing that a soldier would be standing outside the cabin. What if that soldier had the same dark feelings about her as Blackjack Tom had had?
And . . . what about the window at the back of the cabin? Someone could break the glass and climb inside.
Truly feeling trapped, and so frightened that her knees were trembling, she didn’t go to bed. Instead she positioned the chair so that it faced the window and sat down and watched . . . and waited.
She eyed the knife that she had placed on the table. She scurried to it and grabbed it.
Then she eyed the lamp and the flame burning in it. She felt much safer with the fire in the lamp blown out. She had the light of the moon to help her see whoever might come to the window.
But no one could see her.
She would be sitting in the dark, ready to kill, if necessary!
“Brave Wolf, if you only knew what I’m going through. . . .” she whispered.
