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Page 292
which the homesteaders were set upon by soldiers after their arrival at the inn.
Had her knowing intervention prevented Francis and the rest from being injured by the soldiers?
Then, the Matilda character, on an outing away from the inn, was stolen by Indians. The fictional Thorn had stalwartly rescued her.
And he, when Mariah was taken? He had been far from stalwart. But he had gone to her assistance.
Look where that had gotten her. She had warned him of raiders invading his inn, and he had scoffed. Those very raiders had shot her. The knot in his gut twisted even further as he thought of it.
Her notes did not reflect Matilda's injury. Perhaps it had not happened in her play.
Perhaps it had happened instead to Mariah because of his own stupidity. His unreliability. He cursed aloud. "I am sorry, Mariah."
There was only one more item on the page. The duel. At the rivers' confluence. "This must be the 'grievous wrong' Pierce dragged me here to right," Mariah had written.
Pierce. Thorn had been jealous that Mariah sought this strange man, yet she had explained who he was and that she was to right Pierce's "grievous wrong." That he had brought her to this time to do so.
And if she lived, if she succeeded, would Pierce send her back to her own time?
He laughed aloud, an utterly unpleasant sound in the stillness. He was beginning to think her tale might be true.
More likely, she was delusional.
More likely, if she survived, when she left him it would be to return east, where she had come from in the first place. But no matter where she went, she would go.
The devastation to him would be excruciating.
But most likely of all was that she would die.
A spasm shot through him, so sharp he nearly cried out. "No!" he whispered. He loved her. Despite all his warnings to himself, that, at least, was true.

 
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