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Page 264
different from his fictionalized version, that Mariah couldn't depend on his rescuing her?
Did he care?
He must. He wanted her, after all, to right his grievous wrong. But what if she were wrong, that his intentions had nothing to do with Thorn's duel?
Still, his presence in the past, his message, gave her hope.
"Now, come," Little Elk said. "I can help you while I am here." She drew Mariah to her feeta difficult task since her muscles had cramped from her exertion the day before and from sleeping on the ground. Little Elk took Mariah outside the cave to relieve herself and wash her face.
The river they'd camped beside was wide here. Mariah wondered which it was, in this area where rivers were plentiful. The Ohio, she suspected, for it was wide, forested on both sides except for this boulder-strewn clearing beneath the cliff.
The sky was overcast, and humidity hung in the airsuitably morose weather for Mariah's feeling of despair. What could she do now?
Escape, she decided. As soon as she could, without Little Elk's help, without Thorn's. Without Pierce's.
On her own.
And if she had to leave Will herewell, maybe she could prevent him from dueling with Thorn that way.
But how would she feel if he died here?
Little Elk took her to a fire, where her husband and son sat with Nahtana and some other Indians.
"Hello," Mariah said, greeting Rafferty and Zeb. How could they live with themselves if they left her at the mercy of these Indians?
Rafferty, his gray beard even more scruffy than Mariah remembered, scratched under his ann and said, "Miss Walker, ain't it? From Thorn's inn?"
She nodded. "I was taken from there yesterday and would like to go back."
He shrugged.
Zeb just looked at her with a speculative gleam in his beady eyes. "I hear tell these braves know how to handle a

 
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