Redemption (Book Two of the Shipwrecked Series) (15 page)

May he rot in Hell.

Quinn’s breath
came in small white puffs now.  The weather had turned cold.  Autumn was
quickly changing into the first stages of winter.  Quinn wondered if Sarah was
warm.  He wondered if she was safely home at the farm now.

  Quinn flexed his
fingers and clenched them into a fist, working them to force blood into his
fingers.  He knew that he would most likely get only one shot, two if he was lucky. 
He would never forgive himself if he missed his only chance.

He quickly untied
his hair and then rebound it at the base of his neck.  It would not do to have
his hair in his face while he trained the arrow on his target.  Plucking the
bow from where it rested at his feet, he gripped it firmly in his left hand and
settled into the brush to wait.  He spun the arrow in his right hand, checking
to see that the feathers were straight.  He knew that the arrow would fly true
for he had crafted it himself.          Deftly, his fingers fitted the hilt of
the arrow into the string of his bow.

Lord, I ken
that it’s a sin tae kill another man.  Grant me this.  I’ll spend the rest of
my life makin’ it up tae ye.  Let my aim be true.

Quinn bowed his
head and begged for forgiveness for the act that he was about to commit.  He
knew that he might be killed by the English if they caught him, but death was a
risk that he had resigned to take if it meant that Mairi would be avenged.  He
owed her this much.  Quinn suspected that her soul could not rest so long as
the likes of Meriwether Murdock still roamed the Earth.

This one solitary
man represented everything that Quinn abhorred.  To move on with Sarah, to
start anew as his heart ached to do, would simply not be possible until Murdock
had paid for what he had done.  His heart panged with guilt when he thought of
Sarah.  He knew that if he survived this, if he killed Murdock and was lucky
enough to return, he would have to explain his actions to Sarah.  He hoped that
she loved him enough to understand.

Quinn heard the
sound of horse hooves pounding the packed Earth of the narrow road.  Even from
such a great distance, he estimated that the English were traveling in a large
group.  The men were not making an effort to be quiet.  He could hear their
voices becoming clearer as they came closer to where he was hidden in the
brush.

Adrenaline coursed
through his vein and his heart beat so thunderously that he thought it might
burst.  He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.  He focused his mind inward and
calmed his body.  He breathed in and out slowly, collecting his thoughts and
running over what he was about to do again and again in his mind. 

The men were
closer now and he expected to see the first of them through the trees any second. 
He raised his bow, positioning the arrow so that it was poised and ready.  All
that he had to do now was wait.  Waiting was the hardest part. 

Quinn became
focused with precision, an expert hunter laying in wait of his prey.  His
breathing had quieted now and his muscles quivered in anticipation as his
fingers held the bow and arrow firmly within their grasp.

He saw the first
of the English men through the gaps in the bushes, their red coats glistening
in the light from the setting sun.  They chatted amiably, laughing every so
often.  Hatred boiled within Quinn.  The English had taken so much from him and
just hearing the lilt of their speech raised his blood pressure.

He sat concealed
by the bushes, poised like a statue, waiting. 

Suddenly, his
breath caught in his throat. 

Murdock.

Closing one eye,
he raised his bow into position, pulled back the arrow and trained it on
Murdock.  Murdock sat astride a large, dapple horse.  He rode by himself, apart
from the other men.  Quinn held his breath and waited for the perfect shot.  He
knew that he had only seconds before Murdock would pass out of his line of
shot.

Lord, guide my
arrow
, he whispered as he pulled back the arrow and let it fly.

The arrow whistled
through the bushes and Quinn’s adrenaline thundered in his veins.  He let out
the breath that he had been holding when he saw the arrow meet its mark. 

The arrow struck
Murdock through his left eye.  The force of impact knocked him from his horse.

Quinn knew that
the shot had been fatal.  He hastily tossed his quiver and bow over his
shoulder and ran like hell into the cover of the trees.

His plan had
worked perfectly.  Murdock was dead and he was freed of a great burden.  Mairi
could rest in peace now.  He said a silent prayer for both her soul and his as
he crashed through the brush, running for his life.

He never heard
them closing in on him from behind, so lost he was in his thoughts.  The bullet
struck him as a complete surprise and for a moment, he thought that he might
have been stung by a hornet.  Quinn raised his hand to his chest, just beneath
his left collarbone.  When he pulled his hand away, it was stained with his own
blood, looking almost black in the twilight.  His eyes looked down and he
realized what had happened when he saw the crimson blood that stained his white
shirt. 

The English had
shot him in the back.

..ooOoo..

“Got him!” the
soldier shouted as he leapt from his horse and tackled Quinn to the ground.

Pain tore through
Quinn’s arm as his full weight coupled with the weight of his assailant crushed
him to the ground.  He fought against the man viciously, struggling to
overpower him.  Quinn gained the upper hand and landed a sound punch to the
soldier’s jaw, knocking the man’s head back against the forest floor with the
reverberations of his blow.

He glanced down at
his shirt.  He was bleeding badly.  Had the bullet gone through his lung?  Had
it severed a major artery?  If so, he planned to make the most of what time he
had left.  He landed a left cuff to the other side of the man’s face, knocking
him out cold.  Quinn struggled to stand, fear coursing though his blood as a
sensation of nausea overtook him.  He was light headed and knew that he had
lost a dangerous amount of blood.

Two more soldiers
came out of nowhere and tackled Quinn to the ground.  He fought against them,
but his loss of blood had weakened him.  They overtook him and restrained him
on the ground.  Quinn stopped fighting when he saw that they were followed by
at least ten others.  He was a good fighter, but not that good.

A man stepped
forward and kicked Quinn harshly in the ribs.  For a moment, Quinn saw stars
and struggled to remain conscious.  His blood loss coupled with the pain of the
impact from the man’s boot was almost too much.

“Who are you?” the
man seethed, reaching down and grabbing a fistful of Quinn’s hair.  He forced
Quinn to look at him by yanking his head harshly.

Quinn’s steely
eyes met the man’s intense blue eyes.  He said nothing.

“Who are you? 
Dammit!  Speak!” the soldier roared, his spittle raining down on Quinn.

Still, Quinn said
nothing.  He feared that if he spoke, his Scots accent would give him away.  He
would die before he gave the English any clue about who he was.  He would
protect Sarah and his family until his dying breath.

The man shook his
head in exasperation.  “Tie him up, then.  Looks like he might not survive that
bullet wound anyhow,” he said, walking dismissively away from Quinn and
motioning for his men to bind his prisoner’s wrists.  “If he does survive it,
we’ll make him wish that he had not.”

..ooOoo..

Blood trickled
from Quinn’s mouth, dripped slowly from his bottom lip and onto the ground. 
The English had tied him to a tree and he was helpless to defend himself as
they beat him.

“Speak!” the
soldier referred to as Hudson bellowed as his fist resounded against Quinn’s
cheek.  “Are you a friend of the savages?” he asked, stepping back and rubbing
his knuckles.

The man stalked
angrily towards Quinn and clutched the beaded necklace that hung around his
neck.  “Did they give this to you?” he thundered as he held the blue and red
beaded necklace, Sarah’s necklace, in front of Quinn’s face.

Quinn’s vision
blurred as he struggled to focus on the beads.

Sarah.

Hudson shook his
head in frustration as he walked away from his prisoner.  The man who had
killed Murdock perplexed him.  He refused to speak despite being tortured to
the brink of death.  Nothing that his soldiers had done to the prisoner seemed
to affect him.  The prisoner had retreated to the solace of his mind.  His eyes
harbored intense hatred, hatred so intense that it rattled Hudson.   The man
would not speak, would not give clue to his identity no matter what they did to
him.

Quinn allowed his
head to hang forward.  He no longer had the strength to hold it up.  He focused
on the steady, rhythmic dripping of his blood onto the ground.  He counted the
drops in an effort to remain conscious.  His back and chest ached fiercely, and
the manner in which his arms had been bound behind the tree shot pain down his
left arm. 

He surmised that
the bullet had severed some nerves that went to his arm and the painful
throbbing near his shoulder threatened to make him black out.  He counted his
blessings that the bullet had gone through his body, narrowly missing his heart
and lungs, or at least so he hoped.  He figured that if his lung had been
compromised, he would have had trouble breathing by now.  So far, so good.

His mind drifted
to Sarah and baby Mairi.  This was not how his quest should have turned out. 
He had planned to kill Murdock and lay Mairi to rest so that he could finally
move on and put his past behind him. 

He had arrogantly
hoped that avenging Mairi would not get him killed.  It was becoming more and
more likely that this would be the case.  The English would not let him go and
if he did survive the bullet wound, they would make him stand trial for
Murdock’s murder or kill him outright.  Quinn suspected that they would not
make things simple and kill him outright.  He knew that the English loved to
make public examples of those who dared to defy them. 

A lump settled in
Quinn’s throat when he thought of just how the English might drag out his death
sentence.

“Do you think he’s
one of them?” Hudson asked his men, disregarding Quinn, who at the moment
appeared to be unconscious.

Quinn’s ears
piqued and he dared not to move.

“I don’t know.  I
reckon he had some reason for killing Murdock,” responded on of the English
soldiers.

“He was wearing
some of their beads.  Maybe the savages were friends of his.”

“Are you sure that
he’s not part savage?  His arrow looked the part and if he’s wearing their
beads…”

“No.  His skin’s
as white as yours and mine beneath all of that mud,” a second man chimed in. 
“He’s no savage.”

“Maybe he knew the
savages that we killed?” Hudson asked, fear evident in his voice.  Hudson had learned to be wary of the savages, and knew them to be ruthless when provoked.

“Doubtful.  We
were certain that we killed them all.  We checked before we left,” the soldier
said in response, seeking to quell Hudson’s concern.  The savages had most
certainly all been dead.

“Aye.  We checked
to make sure that they were all dead before we left.  I’m certain that none of
them escaped,” the second man said.

Hudson walked over
and grabbed the necklace that hung around Quinn’s neck.  Sarah’s necklace.  He
pulled the necklace roughly, breaking the strand of beads as the twine broke
free from Quinn’s neck.  Hudson tucked the necklace into his pocket and punched
Quinn ruthlessly, his fist causing Quinn’s neck to snap back with the force of
the blow.

“I demand that you
talk, you Bastard!” Hudson cursed as he looked at Quinn’s lifeless form.  The
prisoner had slumped forward and barely clung to life.  His breathing was
ragged and irregular.  Hudson doubted that he would survive the night, noticing
now how much blood the man had lost.

Quinn retreated
into the solace of unconsciousness.  His pain faded away and he felt warm.  A
soothing sensation of comfort flooded his senses and he smiled when his senses
recognized a familiar, feminine smell.  She smelled of heather and summer
sunshine.  Quinn opened his eyes and looked up, knowing that she would be
there.

Mairi smiled down
softly at him, her gray eyes overflowing with love.  Her black hair was unbound
and fell in loose masses down her side.  She cradled his head in her lap and
brushed his hair back from his face.  Her fingers tenderly caressed the skin of
his face and Mairi hummed softly as she held him.  He remembered the lilt of
her song.  It was one that she hummed when she was happy.

Quinn fell asleep
wrapped in Mairi’s arms, comforted by her presence and her sweet, heady aroma. 
Just before he drifted off, she kissed his cheek and whispered, “I’m alright
here sweetheart.  I love ye with all my heart, Quinn Murray.  Be strong so that
ye can go home tae Sarah.”

..ooOoo..

Quinn regained
consciousness with a start.  His head jerked up as an inhuman sound broke
through the trees.  His eyes scanned the darkness and he struggled to reconcile
where he was.

His heart beat
frantically in his chest.  Mairi.  He had been with Mairi.

Quinn’s captors
rushed around in the darkness, calling out in fear as they loaded their
weapons.  The savages had attacked while they slept.

The Cherokee war
cry resounded through the trees. In a cloud of arrows and tomahawks, the
Cherokee avenged the deaths of their fallen brothers.  They had no mercy for
the brigade of English soldiers and attacked them ruthlessly as they tried to
ready their weapons.  Many of the English had not even known that they were
attacked.  They were slain before they even had a chance to wake up.