Kimani screams in rage and swims after her friend, but she pushed under the water again. A body slams into her, and she screams in anger as her sister’s dead body is strung with a rope to pull her from the water. Without a second thought, she pushes towards Nashca and wraps her arms around her waist. “No!” she screams as her face breaks out of the bloody water.
The soldier eyes meet hers, and he backs his horse up dragging them both to the shore. Kimani coughs out the water from the river, and trembles beside her dead sister. “Nashca,” she pleads, ignoring the man who dismounts and points his pistol at her. He fists a hand in Kimani’s hair and lifts her screaming to her knees.
“Look what I caught, a live one!” Laughter flows around them. Kimani glares at him, and he’s shocked when he realizes she is white with green eyes.
“General Barclay, this one’s not a savage!” he shouts.
A man rides over on his mount and demands, “Are you a captive? Speak woman!”
“They are my family.” Kimani glares up at the deep voiced stranger sitting on his horse. Red hair, and a goatee. She memorizes his face, from the color of his uniform to the medals he wears on his jacket. Her eyes drop to his saddle where he proudly carries a string of scalps from the Indians he has murdered. “Barclay?” she murmurs. He jerks when she says his name.
“Why are you doing this?” She screams.
“Your tribe was caught with stolen weapons. U.S. Army rifles to be exact and they’ve been using them to kill our soldiers and other peaceful families traveling across this land.”
“That’s a lie! We are peaceful!”
The soldier laughs, and his hand squeezes her hair tighter.
“Savages are never peaceful. The woman is clearly stained by these vermin.” The General sighs and glances at the soldiers. “We can’t afford witnesses. Kill them all but save her scalp for me.” He grins at the disgust on her face. “Perhaps we are doing you a favor, protecting you from the truth.”
A pain filled whaling scream erupts from Kimani. She twists and struggles free, lunging, she plunges a knife she pulled from her dead sister’s waist belt hilt deep into the closest soldier’s chest. When she falls to the ground to crawl away, she is surrounded by five more soldiers. A booted foot kicks her in the stomach and Kimani curls into a ball to protect herself from the blows she is sure will come.
“Not a savage?” Barclay snorts and watches as the bloody knife is pulled from the screaming soldier’s chest. He’s taken away by another man.
General Barclay turns on his horse, “Give the order, the other two Gatling guns are in place. They don’t stand a chance, wipe out these vermin.” He rides away with a laugh to the tree line towards the main camp. As he passes into the trees the guns begin again with rapid reports of the bullets banging from the spinning barrels.
Ahote sees the men turning to attack Kimani and ghosts through the trees as close as he can. He watches, waiting, while the men laugh, kicking at his wife. A couple start to unzip their pants as the noise of the guns begin again. He uses that to mask his final leap at the distracted group. He swings his war club at the closest soldier kicking at her. The weighted hard wooden ball shatters the skull with a sick crunch of broken bone. Her attackers drop around her, dead. Kimani watches in awe as she now understands why he is called the Hammer. Ahote knows he only has a few moments left. More soldiers are coming this way!
“Get in the water now!” Ahote shouts at her.
Kimani stares in confusion, but she obeys her husband as he picks up a dead soldier. “I’m sorry, butterfly, I brought this to you.” Kimani turns and looks at him in confusion.
“No,” she whimpers and watches as Ahote tosses the dead man’s body at her in the water, just as bullets pepper through his body.
Kimani screams as the dead soldier strikes her and takes her under. Instinct has her clutching at the lifeless body, trying desperately to surface. The water is deep and moving faster now. She is pulled along with him towards rapids. Breaking through the frigid water she clutches at the soldier, using his body as a float and a shield from the bullets that never seem to stop.
The river picks up speed around the next bend, and Kimani knows that this is her last chance to get free of the water. The river narrows in front of her but cuts through large boulders causing fast moving rapids to drag at her. She releases the soldier and flips onto her back the way her father taught her too. Lifting her feet, she scans the riverbank looking for the narrowest point of rushing water to attempt a swim towards shore. Allow the river to carry you, her father’s voice replays in her mind, Seek your target and swim hard!
A wave slams over her, instinctively she holds her breath and turns her head to the side, only to scream at the wall of bodies clogging the river in front of her. Grasping for anything, she clutches onto a body and climbs, pulling herself up over a mountain of the lost. Coughing and sobbing she realizes she’s close enough to make a jump for the shoreline.
Kimani plants her feet into a fleshy mound and leaps for a large boulder, slamming against the slippery stone. Arms flailing,
