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Page 267
That hadn't happened to Matilda in the screenplay, but Mariah knew she couldn't depend on its prediction.
Tears joined the raindrops, but only for a minute. She gathered her courage, even as she decided to collect information that might help her out of this messand maybe even out of the past. "Will, did you see what happened to Holly or René, the other people from the inn?" He shook his head. "Paul, did you see them?"
"No, ma'am," said the other soldier. "I didn't see them killed, either, so maybe they escaped."
Mariah prayed that was so. She turned toward Will as best she could in her awkward position bound to the tree and asked, "Did you know Thorn before you came to the inn last week?"
He sat up straight. "Why are you asking?"
"Just wondering."
"He knew him, all right," Paul piped up behind them. "He's talked of no one else from the time he joined the cadre at the fort."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Let it suffice to say, Miss Walker, that the man is a damned coward, begging your pardon again, and I wish to teach him a lesson." The topic of conversation had perked up the young soldier, but Mariah didn't like what he had to say.
"You're wrong about Thorn" she began.
"No, miss, I'm not," he interrupted. Then he sighed. "But it makes no difference. These savages will not let me live long enough to do what I must."
Would she? Mariah wondered. Had she come all the way across the centuries to die here at the hands of an angry Indian for nothing? If Will died here, she'd not have to do anything to right Pierce's "grievous wrong."
She wiggled her hands. The ropes cut into her skin. She needed an escape planone that included finding a knife.
If only Thorn were around, skinning rabbits. She nearly laughed out loud in bitterness as she recalled his very first words to her: "No one should rely on me."
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