I kept backing up. From the way he kept glancing behind him, I knew Hawk was none too eager to be found there arguing with a girl when the whole US Army thundered up. I wasn’t willing to get back on Methuselah for more punishment. I turned to run, but I could barely shuffle my feet.

Hawk grabbed me around the waist and lifted me onto my horse. “You have no idea what the scouts will do to you. Please believe me,” he said.

I had barely got my leg crooked around the lower horn when he slapped the horse and I was off again. Only a complete greenie who has ridden for nine hours straight, and forced to ride again can fully appreciate my situation. I felt myself falling, even as I jerked myself upright. As I did, I looked over my shoulder and saw something that put my heart in my throat and kept it there for the whole day.

A cluster of yelling warriors came at us riding fast. They looked pretty much like Nimiipuu to me, but then all Indians looked alike to me then, so perhaps I can be forgiven my error. They yelled, yipped like dogs and shot at us. Hawk was right. In the early light of dawn, I was just another body on a horse. My life would be worth less than nothing if I hung back and tried to tell them I was Elizabeth Ann Everett from Omaha, Nebraska.

One scout raced into the clearing ahead of the others. Hawk fitted arrow to bow and let fly. The arrow slammed into the man’s chest and he fell off his horse. I figured Hawk had taken complete leave of his senses when he jumped off his mount, ran to the fallen scout and tugged on the arrow.

“What on earth are you doing?” I shrieked at him.

“Getting the arrow out,” he grunted as he yanked. “Cannot waste’um.”

If ever I needed convincing that Hawk had the blood of a Scot in his veins, that did it. I covered my ears as he tugged out the arrow, bringing with it innards I had no desire to see.

Hawk leaped on his horse again, bloody arrow in his hand. From the noise coming through the pines behind us, the clearing was about to become as crowded as our parlor on Thanksgiving. Hawk let out with his patented shriek and Methuselah was energized all over again.

My horse was as frightened as I was. His long legs ate up the ground in a fierce desire to put as much real estate between him and those scouts. “Death, where is thy sting,” I muttered as we galloped and bounced after The People. My body was in such desperate shape that I wished I could have cached it somewhere and picked it up later.

I must give Hawk credit here. I know his horse could have outdistanced Methuselah without even pausing to take a deep breath, but he stayed behind me all the way. I know I should have been more grateful, but all I wanted to do was crawl away and suffer in peace.