Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [63]
“You stay put and quit all this runnin’ and carryin’ on!” Jenkins growled, raising the whip high above his head and bringing it back down on Lionel as he lay in a heap on the forest floor.
Lionel felt the burn of the whip. He covered his head with his hands as another blow landed, then looked up through clenched fingers to see a streaking shadow pass directly in front of him and collide with Jenkins’s horse. Jenkins flew from his saddle, and his horse fell, barely missing him.
Lionel looked up to see Beatrice turn Ulysses on a dime. She was holding their grandfather’s rifle in one hand, the rawhide reins in the other. Her face was once again painted in the dark black mask that she had worn at the sweat lodge with Barney and Tom Gunn. She looked wild, like a creature of these woods, as she drove her heels harder into Ulysses’s side.
Jenkins pulled a large pistol from its holster as he stumbled to his feet. Beatrice and Ulysses countered, making another pass; this time Beatrice brought the butt of their grandfather’s rifle across the side of Jenkins’s head.
More soldiers emerged from the trees, and Lionel thought he heard shots fired. Before he knew it, he was running again; now somewhat frightened by the fierce intensity that showed in Beatrice’s blackened eyes.
Beatrice pulled Ulysses around to make another pass at Jenkins, but then, seeing the approaching men, thought better of it and spurred the big horse toward Lionel. The men fired their rifles despite the captain’s orders, so Lionel kept running, oblivious to the fact that Beatrice was behind him. The next thing Lionel knew, Beatrice had swooped him up into her arms and set him in front of her, straddling Ulysses’s withers. She pushed Lionel’s head down and drove the horse harder through the trees.
Lionel looked up trying to catch his breath. He couldn’t get more than a sip of air into his burning lungs. He saw flashes through the trees of government horsemen trying to get ahead of Ulysses and cut off their escape. Now, Lionel thought, we’ll see how fast Ulysses really is. Ulysses must have somehow heard what Lionel was thinking, because the big horse dug in and sped ahead of the men. Tree branches slapped at them as they outstripped the pursuing government horsemen.
Lionel looked back and saw that more horsemen had quickly joined them, and that one of them was Jenkins. Jenkins rode, beating his horse forward with unrelenting fury despite the steady stream of blood that poured down the creviced scar on his face.
“Beatrice!” Lionel cried. “They’re coming!”
Ulysses answered for her, putting more ground between the children and the soldiers. Lionel wrapped his arms around Ulysses’s neck and lowered his head further. He could see an opening in the trees ahead and thought that they must have reached the end of the Great wood. He looked to his right and saw another cluster of horsemen slashing across the trees in front of them.
Beatrice must have seen them too, because she pulled the big horse farther toward the opening in the trees; but one of the men cut with them, and as they reached the clearing, the two horses were running neck and neck. The government rider was just about on top of them when Lionel saw yet another horseman break from the tree line.
Lionel hung on for his life. The government rider was so close, Lionel could almost touch him. The rider pulled even closer and reached out to grab ahold of Ulysses’s reins; but Beatrice batted his arm away with the rifle.
The rider tried again, but then their grandfather suddenly appeared at the man’s side. Lionel could not believe his eyes. His grandfather was riding his mule on a direct collision course.
Beatrice spurred the big horse forward just as their grandfather sandwiched the government rider between his mule and Ulysses’s right flank. Beatrice and Lionel turned to see their grandfather reach up and effortlessly knock the man off the back of his horse. Lionel felt like cheering but knew that they were a long way from safety.
They rode fast, now side by side with their grandfather as they crossed the