“Indians!” she shouted again. “God have mercy.

We’ll be scalped. Every one of us.”

“Apaches,” the man with the whiskey said as he finished off the bottle. “Must’ve got the driver, too. We’re on a runaway.” So saying, he drew his gun, made his way to the opposite window and began firing methodically.

Dazed, Sarah continued to stare out the window. She could hear screams and whoops and the thunder of horses’ hooves. Like devils, she thought dully. They sounded like devils. That was impossible. Ridiculous.

The United States was nearly a century old. Ulysses

S. Grant was president. Steamships crossed the Atlantic in less than two weeks. Devils simply didn’t exist in this day and age.

Then she saw one, bare chested, hair flying, on a tough paint pony. Sarah looked straight into his eyes. She could see the fever in them, just as she could see the bright streaks of paint on his face and the layer of dust that covered his gleaming skin. He raised his bow. She could have counted the feathers in the arrow.

Then, suddenly, he flew off the back of his horse. It was like a play, she thought, and she had to pinch herself viciously to keep from swooning.

Another horseman came into view, riding low, with pistols in both hands. He wasn’t an Indian, though in Sarah’s confusion he seemed just as wild. He wore a gray hat over dark hair, and his skin was nearly as dark as that of the Apache she’d seen. In his eyes, as they met hers, she saw not fever, but ice.

He didn’t shoot her, as she’d been almost certain he would, but fired over his shoulder, using his right hand, then his left, even as an arrow whizzed by his head.

Amazing, she thought as a thudding excitement began to race with her terror. He was magnificent- sweat and grime on his face, ice in his eyes, his lean, tense body glued to the racing horse. Then the fat lady grabbed her again and began to wail.