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From the complexion of the heart,
As landscapes their variety from light.
—Bacon
Blue Thunder rode down a steep slope to where his warriors and Gray Eyes awaited his return from scouting.
Knowing that it would be best for only one man to go spy on the travelers, Blue Thunder had chosen to ride alone to the top of the hill. He was eager to see if they had found Big Nose, and especially to see if he had red-skinned captives with him.
Blue Thunder knew the warriors from Gray Eyes’ village as well as their own chief did because they met in joint council so often.
Blue Thunder was glad that he had not been seen by any of the renegades. He would have the element of surprise on his side when he chose to attack. Only one person had looked up at him, and that had been a white woman.
He had known instantly that she was the only survivor of the recent ambush.
He doubted that she would alert the Comanche renegades about having seen him. Surely she was hoping that he would find a way to help her as well as the other captives.
And . . . he . . . would!
As he rode onward to where his men and Gray Eyes awaited his return in the darkest shadows of a nearby forest, bitterness overwhelmed him.
He would never forget the sight of Gray Eyes’ captured warriors tied in a long line along with the lone white woman.
From his vantage point, on his steed on the hill, he had not been able to pick out Big Nose from the others, but he did know that those were Big Nose’s warriors.
Hatred for the Comanche renegade filled his heart when he had looked more carefully at Gray Eyes’ captured warriors.
Some could barely stand, much less walk. When one fell, another quickly helped him to his feet.
Hardly able to bear the sight, Blue Thunder had quickly shifted his gaze elsewhere, to the one white captive.
After having seen the aftermath of the ambush, and the carnage left behind by the renegades, he wondered how this woman had survived. What made her different from the others who had been left dead along the ground, the women all heartlessly scalped and raped?
He could not seem to tear his thoughts from the surviving white woman. She was a woman with flaming red hair, so tiny and vulnerable; yet she had walked with a lifted, proud chin.
She had not stumbled once while he watched her.
Now, as then, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of what her final fate would be at the hands of the Comanche renegades. She would eventually be passed around to all of the renegades, raped and tortured, and then killed.
His thoughts went suddenly to the white woman who lived in his village. She was a much different sort of woman in appearance from Big Nose’s flame-haired captive. She was big-boned and strong.
Every time Blue Thunder thought about how she happened to live in his village, he could not help smiling, yet, in truth, he wished she was not a part of his people’s lives.
Knowing this was not the time to be thinking about Speckled Fawn, he sank his heels into the flanks of his white steed and rode hard until he finally came to the spot where he had left his warriors and Gray Eyes.
He dismounted and led his horse into the dark shadows of the towering trees. Gray Eyes was waiting there, his expression eager.
“Who were the travelers that we heard?” Gray Eyes asked, his tone filled with anticipation.
Seeing Gray Eyes’ warriors in his mind’s eye again, how exhausted they were, stumbling along as the ropes yanked on them, Blue Thunder was suddenly hesitant to tell his friend what he had seen.
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Yet he must, for each moment they waited before they went to rescue the men were moments that might bring death to one or more of them.
They were at the mercy of heartless renegades who murdered for the sheer pleasure of it.
“They were who we thought they might be,” Blue Thunder said thickly. “The renegades have your warriors tied together by ropes. They are being forced to walk to their destination.”
