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Bettie Draper, her head hung far forward. Henry Lenard stood nearby, bound, an armed Indian holding him secure by a neck noose. Will looked for his mother-in-law and for Colonel Patton and Casper Barrier and Bill Preston and Jim Cull, all the other people who had been present at the settlement that morning, but could not see them. Either they had escaped or were lying dead somewhere, he guessed. He edged forward to the door of Casper’s cabin to look in. The most pressing desire in his hammering heart was to get his hands on a gun. Then he could try to imagine what to do next, though there seemed nothing he could do against so large a body of savages. But with a gun he would be a little less helpless …
    Two braves emerging just then from the smoky interior of Casper’s house, their arms full of blankets and clothing and utensils, almost stepped on Will. Their eyes bugged and they dropped their loot and yelled. Will turned and bolted back the way he had come.
    His feet thudded in the grass. He leaped the rail fence and plunged through the cornfield. He could hear both braves behind him, yipping, their bodies swishing through the corn-leaves as they came after him. He was sprinting with all his power, but they were swift and he was not getting away from them. Bursting out of the corn and pounding down across the meadow, he glanced back and saw them coming, each with a drawn tomahawk.
    He realized that he had started running directly toward the place where he had left Johnny Draper, as if Johnny might help him. But Johnny was unarmed, too. Mustn’t lead them onto him, Will thought. He veered to his left, heading toward the wooded gully where he had seen the deer vanish minutesbefore. If I can get in there … maybe lose them, he thought. Or at least find a stick to … fight ’em with …
    His legs were burning with exhaustion. His breath wheezed. But the Indians’ yells were coming from a little farther back now; he had gained ground here in the open.
    He plunged into the moist green shadow at the edge of the wood, down the gully. Leafy limbs lashed at his face and shoulders as he plunged headlong through them like a bullet. He could hear the rustling progress of the Indians in the woods behind him. They seemed to be gaining again.
    A huge fallen ash lay on the gully slope across his path. Its great root system jutted up from the hole in the forest floor where it had been anchored. Will had too much momentum to veer around it; instead he leaped to clear the trunk. He did not leap high enough. His foot struck the top of the log and he somersaulted through space. He landed with a grunting thump on his shoulders in a shower of last year’s dead leaves. Before he could regain his footing, the two warriors sped by, around the upturned tree roots and down the gully, disappearing into the underbrush below. They had not seen him!
    Will scrambled to his feet and struck off at a right angle from the path of the chase. They would discover soon that he was no longer ahead of them, and they would double back. He would have all he could handle to shake them. Later then he could find Johnny Draper. Then the two of them would …
    Would what? They were unarmed. They were helpless to follow and rescue Mary and Bettie and the children from so large a war party. And it would be at least a two-day trip back over the Blue Ridge to raise an armed company to go in pursuit—even if anyone would come …
    God, O God Eternal
, big Will Ingles thought as he trotted through the woods, feeling more hopeless and helpless with each step.
God tell me what to do!
In his mind he saw Mary’s comely face and the faces of his boys and the old gray head of Elenor Draper. He knew it was likely that they all would be murdered before this day was out. His entire family! And not a drop of his blood would then pump through any other living heart!
    Something kept telling him he should have plunged in among the Indians and fought and died with his