But the worst was the grisly object that went with them, the face a color it had never been in life, the eyes open, staring, seeing nothing, fixed in the terrifying mystery of death. At night Nan had to sleep with the dreadful thing close to her. Once she touched the lifeless face in her sleep and woke with the feel and smell of it on her hand. Then Claire had to choke her to stop the screaming.

The third day Nan said she could walk no more. It was barely daylight under the trees when Claire shook her awake. She had to twist her wrist to get her up and still her complaints. All day Claire harassed her, driving her on, refusing to let her speak aloud, treating her worse than the savages had. Surely, the child thought, there was no more danger, yet whenever they stopped for even a moment to rest, Claire sat poised for instant flight. By afternoon Nan could go no farther. She lay on the ground and refused to get up. Not even the fierce hallooing of voices from mountain to mountain roused her.

“I’d sooner stay and be killed,” she whimpered, but Claire would have none of it, shaking the child, pinching her arms and legs, jerking her to her feet again and again, forcing her to take one step then another, and finally dragging her like a sack of deadwood over roots and rocks till Nan didn’t know if she were alive or dead.

Late that afternoon Claire pulled her into a dense thicket of thorn trees. When the child complained at the formidable scratches, Claire clapped a hand over her mouth but not quickly enough. The dread hallooing sounded closer now. Soon low voices came from outside the thicket.

That night they lay there scarcely breathing. At the first sign of restlessness from Nan, the pitiless hand tightened on her small throat. When daylight came Claire made no movement to leave. Through the night all had been silence, and well into the morning, yet Claire sat there, rigid, head back, listening, sniffing. Hardly a muscle of her face changed when outside of the thicket sudden blood-curdling yells tried to flush them. A frightened bird flew out but Claire’s only movement was to lay her hand in warning on Nan’s mouth. The wild yells came again and someone shot into the thicket. Nan could hear the bullet plow through the leaves and into the ground nearby but Claire still sat motionless, her hand tight now on Nan’s mouth so that the child could scarcely breathe. At last the guttural voices outside spoke freely together.

“They go now,” Claire mouthed with her lips, and in a little while the child heard the voices recede into the forest.

Still Claire would not leave. They spent a second night in the thicket before the hard journey was resumed. No musket shot was heard that day nor any voice but their own.

“Now we have time for the small valiant one,” she said.