AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Henry!” I shouted. “Henry, wait up!”
He stopped and turned, profound relief washing over his face when spotting me. I ran up to all three, huffing and gripping the stitch in my side.
“You have to leave for town now,” I ordered, catching my breath. “I don’t have time to explain, but you have to go.”
He shook his head, clutching the shoulder of Yellow Leaves and drawing her against his thin ribs.
Oh, like that, was it?
That was a surprise. No wonder the boy constantly pestered Bryant and me to let him visit the village with us.
“I won’t go,” he said stubbornly, but with a high nervous catch in his voice. “I heard what you said to Mike, that you’re staying. I’ll stay and fight too.”
Drat it all. Now was not the time for him to mimic my bad eavesdropping habits.
“You can best help by leaving now before those Arcan thugs get here and torch this place to the ground with you in it,” I said. “Your mother will very unhappy with me if I let you die today.”
When he didn’t look like he would agree, I added, “Take Yellow Leaves and her mother to hide at the store. That’s the safest place for all of you until this is over.”
That did the trick.
He agreed and raced with me to the corral with the last few circling, jittery horses left as they were quickly picked off by panicked owners. I grabbed Patty from another woman trying to claim her. A short battle between us and I led Patty out of the corral along with Henry’s anxious mule.
I helped the girl and her mother onto my mare as Henry mounted his mule, glaring a warning at another woman who looked to hijack their mounts.
“Ride down the valley out of harm’s way before arcing back upriver towards town,” I instructed, unsheathing my rifle.
“Will do,” Henry said. “Be careful.”
“I will. Go.” The clouds overhead were darkening and thickening, the wind picking up, droplets falling here and there. “Hurry, before you’re caught in this downpour, and the ground turns to mush.”
“One more thing,” Henry said before he left. “Yesterday, when I went to deliver the order for Mason Crafter...”
“Henry, there’s no time. You have to—”
“...passed the jail and overheard Sheriff Wilkens say that he figured out why his men found you with Mike at the old mountain that first day. Now he plans to go there himself to...travel.”
I fixed my widening stare with his at what he was suggesting. That the Arcan Hunter sheriff wasn’t satisfied with simply eliminating the shifter foretold to destroy their murderous organization. Wilkens planned to time jump himself and find a way to wipe out their entire were-kind race!
It was the scenario I feared most. The danger my mother warned me of in her letter—that a true monster with evil intensions possessing the ability to travel through time could and would affect history in the most despicable way.
“Holy guacamole,” I breathed.
“My words exactly,” Henry said. “Tell Mike.”
“I will. Go now. Don’t stop.”
Both the horse and mule took off down the meadow and valley. Armed and ready, I ran back for the longhouse to find Bryant. This might be my only chance to keep him alive, but I would, even if I had to die myself in the process.
But now I had another problem—stopping Raymond Wilkens from time jumping and effecting world history, which included the existence of Bryant himself.
A moral dilemma indeed.
The flash of lightning, then crack of thunder from the dark boiling clouds overhead was like a trigger warning, freezing me in my tracks.
Screams and pointing fingers snapped me out of my trance to look down the next hill at the approaching mob of men armed to the teeth with weapons much deadlier than pitchforks and torches.
Without thinking, I took a knee, aimed carefully, then fired, pumping the trigger and firing again, then again. Two down, but too many more to make a difference. All I had done was poke the boiling wasp’s nest as this army of men jumped away and took cover, then returned fire.
