“My people celebrate the new year at another time than you do, and in a different way,” Marsha murmured, aching when she recalled those New Year’s Eves with her parents, and how her mother always made black-eyed peas the next day, a ritual she never forgot. They gave hope to the new year, her mother had always told her.
“Will you spend the night with me?” Swift Horse suddenly blurted out. “Your brother and his new bride might need their privacy.”
“Yes, I had thought of that, too, since our cabin is not all that large,” Marsha said, remembering how her brother had cleaned up his own bedroom on the day of his wedding, shocking Marsha to no end when she watched from the door as he struggled to put the sheets on the bed.
“Then you will stay?” Swift Horse asked, gently touching her cheek.
“Yes, I will stay,” Marsha murmured, cuddling closer to him.
She hated it when she yawned, but it had been a long and tiring day and she only now realized how exhausted she was.
“You are tired,” Swift Horse said softly. “Sleep, my woman. I shall hold you as you sleep.”
“Then I shall dream of angels all night long,” she said, laughing softly.
“Angels?” he asked, searching her eyes.
“Mother always told me to dream of angels when she tucked me in at night when I was a child,” she murmured. “That was the same as telling me to sleep in peace and love.”
“And did you?” he asked, smoothing a fallen lock of hair back from her face.
“Always, until—” she said, her voice breaking.
“Until when?” he said, yet thinking he knew the answer. When her parents had died, that part of her that gave her peace at night had surely died, as well.
“Until my parents died,” she blurted out. Tears filling her eyes, she turned and clung to him. “But now I have you,” she said, her voice breaking. “Hold me, darling. Hold me and never let me go.”
He pulled her closer to him and held her there until he saw that she was asleep, then sighed deeply and gave in to sleep himself.
While he slept, he dreamed. In that dream he was in a cave, lit on all sides by torches burning brightly. These torches were lined up all along the walls on both sides, seemingly there to lead him to something.
He was alone. He felt the dampness of the cave all around him, and saw an occasional bat fly around his head, then disappear.
And then he saw something else. He saw a trunk at the far back of the cave. He hurried to it.
When he reached it, he bent to his knees and slowly opened the lid, then gasped and almost fell backward when he discovered scalps, jewelry—the sort that white people wore, intermingled—and so many other things that only an evil person would place there—someone who enjoyed killing and taking scalps.
There were many more things there, but Swift Horse was aware of something else—the crash of water from somewhere behind him.
Then he recognized it to be the sound of a waterfall.
He knew now that he was behind the waterfall that he loved, and that whoever had brought this trunk into this cave had done so by having stepped behind the waterfall to find a cave that Swift Horse had never been aware of.
He awakened in a sweat, so abruptly that it had disturbed Marsha. She leaned up on an elbow and gazed at him.
She saw that he was covered with sweat and she saw a look of horror in his eyes.
“Did you have a bad dream?” she asked, reaching a gentle hand to his face, then drew her hand away. “Darling, you are covered with sweat. Tell me. What did you dream about?”
“There is a cave behind the waterfall,” he blurted out, suddenly sitting up. He stroked his hands through his thick hair, bringing it back over his shoulders.
He turned to her. “The waterfall where we have made love?” he said. “In my dream, I discovered that someone else has been there.”
“I’m sure there has been,” Marsha said, sitting up beside him. “It’s such a lovely place.”
“Perhaps not,” Swift Horse said thickly. “You see, we sat there and enjoyed the falls. If my dream, which is always the same as my visions, is true, someone used the falls in a very different, evil way.”
“But how?” Marsha asked, drawing a blanket up and around her shoulders.
“Often my dreams—my visions—are true,” Swift Horse said. “If so, what I dreamed tonight is also true. If I go to the waterfall tomorrow, I will surely find a cave behind it. And in that cave I will surely find a trunk.”
“A trunk?” Marsha asked, searching his eyes, which seemed haunted.
“It is filled with many things that only an evil man would place there,” Swift Horse said, his voice breaking. “I saw scalps, jewelry that had to have been taken from white people . . .”
A shiver of disgust rippled across Marsha’s flesh. She hugged herself with her arms. “Do you think those things were placed there by the one-eyed man—by One Eye?” she asked guardedly.
“I will soon know,” he said determinedly.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, watching as he drew a blanket around his own shoulders.
“I will not disturb my people’s celebration tonight, but tomorrow is another day and the celebration will be behind us,” he said. “Tomorrow I will go and see if my dreams are real again. I will see if there is a cave behind the falls.”
“Won’t it be dangerous to go behind the falls?” Marsha asked softly.
“There is danger in many things, but when answers are needed, the fear of danger is not a problem,” he said, staring into the flames of the fire. “But if I do find what my dreams showed to me, yes, I believe it will be the work of the one-eyed man.”
He turned to her with determination in his eyes. “It will be the work of One Eye,” he said, finding it hard, himself, that he now truly believed that the man who was his friend for so long was the one who committed the crimes he was now being accused of.
“Finally you believe me,” Marsha said, dropping the blanket from around her. She flung herself into his arms, causing his own blanket to flutter down around his waist.
“May I go with you tomorrow?” Marsha blurted out.
“Yes, you can accompany me there,” he replied. “It is only right that you do. You see, I owe you an apology for not having listened to you from the beginning. I will repay you in every way that I can. Tomorrow is the beginning of those ways.”
“Thank you,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
Then she crept into his arms again and found peace and love within them, her cheek pressed against his powerful chest so comforting to her.
Chapter 31
O, let me once more rest
My soul upon that dazzling breast.
—John Keats
The day was gray, with low-hanging clouds and a smell of rain in the air, as Marsha rode with Swift Horse and several of his warriors toward the waterfall. She hated that perhaps her happy memories of this place were going to be clouded by something sinister, for if Swift Horse’s dream, or vision, was true, nothing about the waterfall would ever be beautiful again.
She was dressed today in her leather riding skirt, a leather jacket, and butter-soft boots and gloves, to ward off the chill of the morning. Her hair was drawn back from her face with a yellow bow, to keep her hair from blowing in her eyes on this windy day.
As they rode onward, they could hear the splash of the waterfall through the trees up ahead. A chill rippled along Marsha’s flesh.
They had arrived at the waterfall.
On this day, when everything was ugly and gray, the waterfall still held its beauty. As it splashed downward, many rainbows were created, the colors so beautiful it almost made Marsha forget the ugliness that could come into one’s life at the hands of a madman!
“I will investigate first,” Swift Horse said, quickly dismounting his steed.
He tied the reins to a low limb, gazed solemnly at Marsha as he came to help her from her horse, then held her in his arms and gaz
ed into her eyes.
“Soon this will all be over,” he said. “If I find the proof of One Eye’s crime, we shall take the trunk to Fort Hill.”
“And then who will be responsible for making the one-eyed man—for making One Eye—pay for his crimes?” Marsha said, almost chokingly as she returned Swift Horse’s steady gaze. “He must pay dearly, you know.”
“Yes, I know, and he will,” Swift Horse said tightly.
“One Eye will pay,” she softly corrected. “Not just ‘he’ or not just the ‘one-eyed man.’ Swift Horse, One Eye is the one who is guilty of these terrible things. Soon you will see.”
“I already know it is he,” Swift Horse said, his voice drawn. “I just need this proof before confronting him.”
“Darling, there is already enough proof and you know it,” Marsha said, searching his eyes now. She could see how hard he was struggling with this, and she understood, yet it was time for his struggles to end and for him to openly say what the reality was. But she would not force the issue.
Swift Horse brushed a soft kiss across her brow, then turned and trotted to the falls. He began to inch along a small outcropping of rock to investigate behind the falls.
When his moccasined foot slipped on the wet rock, Marsha gasped and covered her mouth with a hand. Her heart resumed its normal beats when she saw that he had grabbed on to a large, thick tree root that was growing from out of the wall of rock. He steadied himself, then took only two more steps and stopped.
His heart stopped for a moment when he did see an opening ahead, an opening that surely did lead into a cave.
“It is here!” he shouted. “There is a cave!”
Marsha’s pulse raced as the other warriors ran toward the ledge from which Swift Horse had stepped and was now coming back. When he reached Marsha, he placed his hands on her shoulders.
“It is too dangerous for you to go there. There is not much room for one to walk, and the rocky ledge is wet. I would rather you stay—”
She slipped a quick hand over his mouth. “No, I can’t stay here by myself and you know why,” she blurted out. “Who is to say that One Eye is not watching even now? If I am left alone . . .”
He reached for her hand and removed it from his face and nodded. “I was foolish even to think about leaving you alone,” he said, turning and seeing that the warriors, who were surely already inside the cave, were no longer in sight, leaving no one to stay with Marsha. He gazed into her eyes again. “I will keep you safe,” he said softly. “Come. You walk ahead of me along the ledge. I will keep hold of you.”
Marsha swallowed hard and nodded, then went with him to the ledge. Only now did she truly see and feel the danger of what she was doing with Swift Horse. The soles of her boots were smooth and each step she took on the wet ledge was a true challenge. But she continued onward, the feel of Swift Horse’s arm around her waist giving her the courage to make that final step into the cave.
She was filled with wonder when she saw many torches lighted along the walls of the cave, splashing their wavering, golden light along the ceiling, floor, and walls. She gave Swift Horse a questioning look.
“He must have been here recently, or how else would the torches have been lit?” he said, eyeing the long row of burning torches. “I doubt they would last for long, not with the wind and the dampness blowing into the cave.”
“Yes, it is terribly damp . . . and cold,” Marsha said, hugging herself in an effort to ward off as much of the chill as she could.
“Your vision was true! The trunk is here!” Sharp Nose’s voice from the far end of the cave came to them as though in an echo.
“It contains many things bad!” Sharp Nose then shouted.
“Oh, no,” Marsha said, a cold shudder of dread racing through her. She thought of the possibilities of something of her parents’ being in that damnable trunk. Yet she did not see how those renegades who came out of the shadows of the trees on the one side of the road that day could have had time to take any “mementoes,” for they had come and slaughtered, then had gone on their way.
“Do you want to stay here as I go get the trunk?” Swift Horse asked, placing gentle hands at her waist.
“No, I would be too afraid to stay alone, even this close to you,” she said, her voice breaking. She looked over her shoulder at the cave’s entrance, and at the water splashing in front of it, the rainbows no longer there, but instead, the image of One Eye laughingly staring back at her. She closed her eyes as she turned back to Swift Horse, then slowly opened them again.
“I would rather go with you,” she blurted out.
He took her by a hand, and as they walked past the burning torches, Marsha forced from her mind what she might see.
As they approached the trunk, the warriors were standing around it, gazing down inside it. Sharp Nose knelt at its side, his eyes now on Marsha as a warning of sorts that she must not look.
She recalled one part of the dream that Swift Horse had described to her.
A scalp.
A scalp had been in the trunk!
What if . . . ?
No!
It couldn’t be her parents! When they were rescued from where they had lain after the murder, they had, thankfully, their scalps. They were buried with their scalps. But seeing anyone’s scalp would be traumatic. It would be so gruesome!
Now standing over the trunk, the glow of the torches reaching inside it, Marsha had to force herself to look. And when she did, everything within Marsha found the peace of knowing that she saw nothing of her parents there.
Then Swift Horse examined the contents of the trunk, rose to his feet, and looked from warrior to warrior. “I see nothing here that points to anyone in particular’s guilt,” he said with a relief in his voice that Marsha dreaded hearing. If he didn’t absolutely see the proof he had wanted to see, then did he doubt all over again One Eye’s role in the murders?
“But . . .” Swift Horse said, his jaw tightening. “There is a way to know who placed it here. The lit torches prove that someone comes often. I imagine the guilty one comes to gloat over what he has taken from those he had killed.”
He looked over his shoulder, toward the cave’s entrance, then around him again, at his warriors. “I imagine he was here even moments before our arrival,” Swift Horse said. “He might have heard the horses and fled just in time. He might even now be out there, watching.”
“Should we go and search for him?” Sharp Nose asked.
“No. Let him come to us. Let us catch him in the act. We will post a nearby sentry.” He sighed heavily. “But the one I appoint must keep a close watch, for the guilty one will surely attempt to kill him,” he said. “And then he would destroy the trunk so that it could not be taken to the white authorities.”
“But it might take several days for One Eye to show himself,” Marsha said, still wishing that Swift Horse would just go to One Eye’s village and stop this nonsense right now!
“Each day a different sentry will stand guard,” Swift Horse said, nodding down at Marsha, then again looking at his warriors. He stopped at Sharp Nose. “Your day is now.”
Sharp Nose nodded.
They all filed out of the cave, Sharp Nose with them, then he went on away from them to find the perfect place for watching the cave’s entrance.
Swift Horse, Marsha, and the others rode in silence to the village. As Marsha stepped into her cabin, from the back door she smelled something familiar to her, then realized it was coming from the kitchen. Soft Wind was preparing the evening meal.
“Marsha? Is that you?” Soft Wind called from the kitchen.
“Yes, it is I,” Marsha said, removing her leather jacket and hanging it from a peg on the wall.
She pulled the damp ribbon from her hair and hung it on another peg, then removed her gloves, and thankfully her boots. Now that they were wet, they were too snug. It felt good to be able to wiggle her toes again.
Soft Wind came from the kitchen wearing an apron with evident sp
latters of tomato sauce on it, proof that she still wasn’t all that comfortable making dishes that until recently had been unknown to her.
That made Marsha smile, for it did seem strange to see someone dressed in doeskin wearing something of the white world, especially from the kitchen.
“What did you find?” Soft Wind asked, drying her hands on the tail end of the apron.
“The trunk that Swift Horse saw in his vision,” Marsha murmured, going and hugging Soft Wind. Then, being chilled through and through, she went and stood before the fireplace, soaking up its warmth.
“Did my brother take the trunk from the cave?” Soft Wind asked, coming to stand beside Marsha.
Marsha turned to her and wearily explained Swift Horse’s plan. Little did she know that at that moment One Eye would be planning yet another murder—that of Sharp Nose.
Chapter 32
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another. . . .
—William Shakespeare
One Eye smiled to himself as he sat on his horse, a bow slung across his shoulder, a quiver of arrows at his back. He had left the cave only long enough to get a drink from the river when he had heard the sound of horses approaching in the distance.
One Eye had had only enough time to reach the other side of the river and hide.
“Swift Horse,” he had whispered to himself as he watched Swift Horse and the others ride back in the direction of Swift Horse’s village after having all been in the cave.
“And the woman,” he said aloud, bitterly. Even she had been with Swift Horse and his warriors.
Ever since she had arrived at the village, she had been all things bad for One Eye. She had begun taking up valuable time with Swift Horse that had usually been One Eye’s time with his friend. And now that she had agreed to marry Swift Horse, One Eye had known that there would be no time, ever again, for two old friends to get together to talk, laugh, and discuss old times.
Swift Horse Page 17
