Into the Prairie by Rosanne Bittner

Author:Rosanne Bittner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2004-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

24

Sadie closed her eyes and covered Paul’s ears, hoping to keep him calm. If the screams they heard made him cry, their bloodthirsty captors just might decide to add his white hair to their scalp belts. Wapmimi had said Paul would not be harmed as long as she cooperated. He’d even told her the Shawnee did not kill children, but she knew better. What kind of fool did he take her for? She’d lived with the danger of Indians all her life, and she’d heard plenty of stories, even of babies being killed and scalped.

She hated being at the mercy of such an unpredictable people. If only she better understood their way of thinking, their customs and beliefs, maybe then she could feel more confident about how she should behave. She heard the gunfire as yet another settlement was attacked, heard the screams…screams of women, a young child crying. Then the crying suddenly stopped.

She thanked God she and Paul had been left behind in the high grass so Paul could not witness whatever was happening. Wapmimi and his cohorts had no idea just how angry Harrison and his militia would be over this new raiding. They would come against the Shawnee and those who’d joined them with a vengeance. She was sure of it. If she could just wait out whatever was her fate and keep her precious Paul alive and unharmed, help would surely come.

She had to think positively. There was nothing else left if she wanted to go on living and bear whatever was to come. If Jonah were alive, he would tell her to do whatever she had to do to save their son, and she was trying to prepare herself for just that, steeling herself against panic and terror, trying to put Jonah’s death and the deaths of Louise and Jack and Marvin to the back of her mind. Someday when this hell was over, there would be time for mourning. For now she dared not show fear or cowardice.

Now she smelled smoke. She could see black billows of it rising above the high grass. She glanced at the greased, painted warrior who watched her and saw nothing in his dark eyes. She wondered whether he was devoid of any human emotions.

“Mommy,” Paul said, cringing against her breast. “Where Daddy?”

A lump rose in Sadie’s throat. “Daddy is…he went for help, Paul. He’ll send us help and we’ll get to go home in a few days.” She grasped his face in her hands. “And until then, you have to be very brave and not cry. As long as Mommy is here with you, you have no reason to cry, okay?”

The boy nodded, his big blue eyes showing his implicit trust in her. Dear God, please let my words be true, she prayed. Don’t ever let us be parted. Send us help! And let my Jonah be alive!

The distant raid seemed to last forever. When would the shooting and war whooping and screaming stop? She waited for what seemed another hour, until finally she heard laughter and whooping and talking coming closer.

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