by Jenna Stone
Anna needed him. He glared at Murdock and relented to Quinn’s good sense. Shooting Murdock a steely glare, he turned and walked over to Anna. He enveloped her in his arms and held her against his chest as she cried.
“It’s alright, love,” he whispered as he worked to calm his nerves.
“I thought you were going to kill him,” Anna confessed, holding her husband tightly against her.
“I was,” Rowan confessed. “Thank God that Quinn was here or I would have.”
“I know that you want him dead, but I need you, Rowan. We need you,” Anna whispered softly as tears ran freely down her cheeks. She took Rowan’s hand and held it to her belly. “They’d hang you if you killed him,” she whispered.
“Aye. I ken that. I’m sorry, Anna,” he said softly as he gathered his wife against his chest. “I need ye too.”
Murdock took a step away from the oldest Murray brother. The man towered over him, glowering down at him as they stood tow to toe in the street. The restrained fury that Murdock saw in Quinn Murray’s gray eyes sent chills to the depths of his soul.
Murdock met his gaze in challenge and turned on his heel, walking back towards the tavern and the safety of his soldiers. He knew that Quinn wanted to kill him, but he also knew that the eldest Murray would bide his time. His eyes had held the promise of Murdock’s death. Murdock walked away, heart beating furiously as he wondered when Quinn would strike. Swallowing hard, Murdock realized that his days on Earth were now numbered.
Quinn Murray would have his vengeance.
Quinn walked briskly back towards his family. He put his arm firmly around Sarah and worked hard to calm himself before speaking to her. How could he begin to explain the history, the hatred that the Murrays had for Colonel Meriwether Murdock? It took every ounce of Quinn’s strength to get himself under control. His blood boiled with hatred for Murdock and he had reconciled that he could not leave things unfinished between them.
The time had come for Murdock to pay for his sins.
Quinn kissed Sarah passionately and settled her astride his horse. The controlled rage that Sarah felt in Quinn’s touch scared her. He leaned up and placed a soft kiss on Mairi’s head. Sarah’s heart sank when she looked at her husband. She could tell that he was leaving them, saying goodbye.
Seeing this man, this Murdock had caused something to change in Quinn. Sarah had watched helplessly as her loving husband was overtaken by the troubles of his past. Her heart ached for Quinn. She wanted to beg him not to do this, but she knew that her pleas would fall on deaf ears.
Although he was still here physically, Quinn had already left her.
Rowan had mounted his own horse and held Anna in his arms. Quinn shot Rowan a knowing look and nodded. Words were not needed to communicate what he was about to do.
Slapping the rump of the horse that carried Sarah and Mairi, Quinn turned away from his beloved family. The feelings of anger and resentment that had ruled him for so long bloomed up fresh within his being. He would end this once and for all. He would protect his family from the evil that Murdock continued to bring into their lives.
Enough was enough.
Chapter Ten
Quinn had morphed into the warrior that he was born to be. He thought of his father as he made his final preparations. Fergus Murray had trained his sons well in the art of war. Quinn employed these skills now, checking his weapons one final time and hiding himself in the dense brush beside the narrow road. He took mud from the forest floor and painted his face, camouflaging himself with the trees and bracken as he prepared for his ambush.
His hatred for the English coursed fiercely through his blood. They had taken so much from him. The very father who had taught him to shoot straight and true with his bow was killed at the hands of the English during the rising. The English had wrenched the Murray brothers from their home in Scotland, burning down the farm that had been home to their kin for centuries.
These losses had been great, but even the sum of these great losses had not been what had broken Quinn. It was what one man had done, what one man had taken from him that had broken Quinn to a point that was almost beyond repair. The deepest wound that had been inflicted on Quinn was the loss of his first love, Mairi. One man had taken her from him and try as he might, Quinn had not been able to forget this trespass. Colonel Meriwether Murdock was about to pay the ultimate price for his sins.
May he rot in Hell.
Quinn’s breath came in small white puffs now. The weather had turned cold. Autumn was quickly changing into the first stages of winter. Quinn wondered if Sarah was warm. He wondered if she was safely home at the farm now.
Quinn flexed his fingers and clenched them into a fist, working them to force blood into his fingers. He knew that he would most likely get only one shot, two if he was lucky. He would never forgive himself if he missed his only chance.
He quickly untied his hair and then rebound it at the base of his neck. It would not do to have his hair in his face while he trained the arrow on his target. Plucking the bow from where it rested at his feet, he gripped it firmly in his left hand and settled into the brush to wait. He spun the arrow in his right hand, checking to see that the feathers were straight. He knew that the arrow would fly true for he had crafted it himself. Deftly, his fingers fitted the hilt of the arrow into the string of his bow.
Lord, I ken that it’s a sin tae kill another man. Grant me this. I’ll spend the rest of my life makin’ it up tae ye. Let my aim be true.
Quinn bowed his head and begged for forgiveness for the act that he was about to commit. He knew that he might be killed by the English if they caught him, but death was a risk that he had resigned to take if it meant that Mairi would be avenged. He owed her this much. Quinn suspected that her soul could not rest so long as the likes of Meriwether Murdock still roamed the Earth.
This one solitary man represented everything that Quinn abhorred. To move on with Sarah, to start anew as his heart ached to do, would simply not be possible until Murdock had paid for what he had done. His heart panged with guilt when he thought of Sarah. He knew that if he survived this, if he killed Murdock and was lucky enough to return, he would have to explain his actions to Sarah. He hoped that she loved him enough to understand.
Quinn heard the sound of horse hooves pounding the packed Earth of the narrow road. Even from such a great distance, he estimated that the English were traveling in a large group. The men were not making an effort to be quiet. He could hear their voices becoming clearer as they came closer to where he was hidden in the brush.
Adrenaline coursed through his vein and his heart beat so thunderously that he thought it might burst. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He focused his mind inward and calmed his body. He breathed in and out slowly, collecting his thoughts and running over what he was about to do again and again in his mind.
The men were closer now and he expected to see the first of them through the trees any second. He raised his bow, positioning the arrow so that it was poised and ready. All that he had to do now was wait. Waiting was the hardest part.
Quinn became focused with precision, an expert hunter laying in wait of his prey. His breathing had quieted now and his muscles quivered in anticipation as his fingers held the bow and arrow firmly within their grasp.
He saw the first of the English men through the gaps in the bushes, their red coats glistening in the light from the setting sun. They chatted amiably, laughing every so often. Hatred boiled within Quinn. The English had taken so much from him and just hearing the lilt of their speech raised his blood pressure.
He sat concealed by the bushes, poised like a statue, waiting.
Suddenly, his breath caught in his throat.
Murdock.
Closing one eye, he raised his bow into position, pulled back the arrow and trained it on Murdock. Murdock sat astride a large, dapple horse. He rode by himself, apart from the other men. Quinn held his breath and waited for the perfect shot. He knew that he had only
seconds before Murdock would pass out of his line of shot.
Lord, guide my arrow, he whispered as he pulled back the arrow and let it fly.
The arrow whistled through the bushes and Quinn’s adrenaline thundered in his veins. He let out the breath that he had been holding when he saw the arrow meet its mark.
The arrow struck Murdock through his left eye. The force of impact knocked him from his horse.
Quinn knew that the shot had been fatal. He hastily tossed his quiver and bow over his shoulder and ran like hell into the cover of the trees.
His plan had worked perfectly. Murdock was dead and he was freed of a great burden. Mairi could rest in peace now. He said a silent prayer for both her soul and his as he crashed through the brush, running for his life.
He never heard them closing in on him from behind, so lost he was in his thoughts. The bullet struck him as a complete surprise and for a moment, he thought that he might have been stung by a hornet. Quinn raised his hand to his chest, just beneath his left collarbone. When he pulled his hand away, it was stained with his own blood, looking almost black in the twilight. His eyes looked down and he realized what had happened when he saw the crimson blood that stained his white shirt.
The English had shot him in the back.
..ooOoo..
“Got him!” the soldier shouted as he leapt from his horse and tackled Quinn to the ground.
Pain tore through Quinn’s arm as his full weight coupled with the weight of his assailant crushed him to the ground. He fought against the man viciously, struggling to overpower him. Quinn gained the upper hand and landed a sound punch to the soldier’s jaw, knocking the man’s head back against the forest floor with the reverberations of his blow.
He glanced down at his shirt. He was bleeding badly. Had the bullet gone through his lung? Had it severed a major artery? If so, he planned to make the most of what time he had left. He landed a left cuff to the other side of the man’s face, knocking him out cold. Quinn struggled to stand, fear coursing though his blood as a sensation of nausea overtook him. He was light headed and knew that he had lost a dangerous amount of blood.
Two more soldiers came out of nowhere and tackled Quinn to the ground. He fought against them, but his loss of blood had weakened him. They overtook him and restrained him on the ground. Quinn stopped fighting when he saw that they were followed by at least ten others. He was a good fighter, but not that good.
A man stepped forward and kicked Quinn harshly in the ribs. For a moment, Quinn saw stars and struggled to remain conscious. His blood loss coupled with the pain of the impact from the man’s boot was almost too much.
“Who are you?” the man seethed, reaching down and grabbing a fistful of Quinn’s hair. He forced Quinn to look at him by yanking his head harshly.
Quinn’s steely eyes met the man’s intense blue eyes. He said nothing.
“Who are you? Dammit! Speak!” the soldier roared, his spittle raining down on Quinn.
Still, Quinn said nothing. He feared that if he spoke, his Scots accent would give him away. He would die before he gave the English any clue about who he was. He would protect Sarah and his family until his dying breath.
The man shook his head in exasperation. “Tie him up, then. Looks like he might not survive that bullet wound anyhow,” he said, walking dismissively away from Quinn and motioning for his men to bind his prisoner’s wrists. “If he does survive it, we’ll make him wish that he had not.”
..ooOoo..
Blood trickled from Quinn’s mouth, dripped slowly from his bottom lip and onto the ground. The English had tied him to a tree and he was helpless to defend himself as they beat him.
“Speak!” the soldier referred to as Hudson bellowed as his fist resounded against Quinn’s cheek. “Are you a friend of the savages?” he asked, stepping back and rubbing his knuckles.
The man stalked angrily towards Quinn and clutched the beaded necklace that hung around his neck. “Did they give this to you?” he thundered as he held the blue and red beaded necklace, Sarah’s necklace, in front of Quinn’s face.
Quinn’s vision blurred as he struggled to focus on the beads.
Sarah.
Hudson shook his head in frustration as he walked away from his prisoner. The man who had killed Murdock perplexed him. He refused to speak despite being tortured to the brink of death. Nothing that his soldiers had done to the prisoner seemed to affect him. The prisoner had retreated to the solace of his mind. His eyes harbored intense hatred, hatred so intense that it rattled Hudson. The man would not speak, would not give clue to his identity no matter what they did to him.
Quinn allowed his head to hang forward. He no longer had the strength to hold it up. He focused on the steady, rhythmic dripping of his blood onto the ground. He counted the drops in an effort to remain conscious. His back and chest ached fiercely, and the manner in which his arms had been bound behind the tree shot pain down his left arm.
He surmised that the bullet had severed some nerves that went to his arm and the painful throbbing near his shoulder threatened to make him black out. He counted his blessings that the bullet had gone through his body, narrowly missing his heart and lungs, or at least so he hoped. He figured that if his lung had been compromised, he would have had trouble breathing by now. So far, so good.
His mind drifted to Sarah and baby Mairi. This was not how his quest should have turned out. He had planned to kill Murdock and lay Mairi to rest so that he could finally move on and put his past behind him.
He had arrogantly hoped that avenging Mairi would not get him killed. It was becoming more and more likely that this would be the case. The English would not let him go and if he did survive the bullet wound, they would make him stand trial for Murdock’s murder or kill him outright. Quinn suspected that they would not make things simple and kill him outright. He knew that the English loved to make public examples of those who dared to defy them.
A lump settled in Quinn’s throat when he thought of just how the English might drag out his death sentence.
“Do you think he’s one of them?” Hudson asked his men, disregarding Quinn, who at the moment appeared to be unconscious.
Quinn’s ears piqued and he dared not to move.
“I don’t know. I reckon he had some reason for killing Murdock,” responded on of the English soldiers.
“He was wearing some of their beads. Maybe the savages were friends of his.”
“Are you sure that he’s not part savage? His arrow looked the part and if he’s wearing their beads…”
“No. His skin’s as white as yours and mine beneath all of that mud,” a second man chimed in. “He’s no savage.”
“Maybe he knew the savages that we killed?” Hudson asked, fear evident in his voice. Hudson had learned to be wary of the savages, and knew them to be ruthless when provoked.
“Doubtful. We were certain that we killed them all. We checked before we left,” the soldier said in response, seeking to quell Hudson’s concern. The savages had most certainly all been dead.
“Aye. We checked to make sure that they were all dead before we left. I’m certain that none of them escaped,” the second man said.
Hudson walked over and grabbed the necklace that hung around Quinn’s neck. Sarah’s necklace. He pulled the necklace roughly, breaking the strand of beads as the twine broke free from Quinn’s neck. Hudson tucked the necklace into his pocket and punched Quinn ruthlessly, his fist causing Quinn’s neck to snap back with the force of the blow.
“I demand that you talk, you Bastard!” Hudson cursed as he looked at Quinn’s lifeless form. The prisoner had slumped forward and barely clung to life. His breathing was ragged and irregular. Hudson doubted that he would survive the night, noticing now how much blood the man had lost.
Quinn retreated into the solace of unconsciousness. His pain faded away and he felt warm. A soothing sensation of comfort flooded his senses and he smiled when his senses recognized a familiar, feminine smell. She
smelled of heather and summer sunshine. Quinn opened his eyes and looked up, knowing that she would be there.
Mairi smiled down softly at him, her gray eyes overflowing with love. Her black hair was unbound and fell in loose masses down her side. She cradled his head in her lap and brushed his hair back from his face. Her fingers tenderly caressed the skin of his face and Mairi hummed softly as she held him. He remembered the lilt of her song. It was one that she hummed when she was happy.
Quinn fell asleep wrapped in Mairi’s arms, comforted by her presence and her sweet, heady aroma. Just before he drifted off, she kissed his cheek and whispered, “I’m alright here sweetheart. I love ye with all my heart, Quinn Murray. Be strong so that ye can go home tae Sarah.”
..ooOoo..
Quinn regained consciousness with a start. His head jerked up as an inhuman sound broke through the trees. His eyes scanned the darkness and he struggled to reconcile where he was.
His heart beat frantically in his chest. Mairi. He had been with Mairi.
Quinn’s captors rushed around in the darkness, calling out in fear as they loaded their weapons. The savages had attacked while they slept.
The Cherokee war cry resounded through the trees. In a cloud of arrows and tomahawks, the Cherokee avenged the deaths of their fallen brothers. They had no mercy for the brigade of English soldiers and attacked them ruthlessly as they tried to ready their weapons. Many of the English had not even known that they were attacked. They were slain before they even had a chance to wake up.
The survivors of the initial wave of the attack scrambled in the darkness, grasping frantically for muskets and weapons in an attempt to save themselves. A few ran off into the trees only to be hunted down by the Cherokee warriors. The Cherokee were of the forest. They were in harmony with the forest and tracking prey through the dense trees came second nature to them.
