Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,56

and cupped her hands at the glass to get a better view, wondering why, if Pup was out there, he had not barked at the strange noises she had heard. She thought she saw shadowy figures darting silently about. She remembered Will saying how quiet and stealthy Indians could be, and instinct told her it was not white men moving about out there. "My God!" she whispered. Where were Zeb and Horace and Jim? What was going on?

She leaped to her feet and quickly closed the wooden shutters over the window, then ran to another window to do the same, but too late. A log came crashing through it, wielded by a painted warrior who quickly jumped inside, cutting his leg on the way in but paying no attention to the wound. Lettie screamed and ran for the rifle, but just as she reached it a tomahawk swished past her, narrowly missing her and landing in the wall beside the rifle. She gasped at the thud, whirled to see three more warriors had come inside, wielding an array of weapons ranging from rifles to knives. She decided that to fight them could only end in death, and with Luke helpless, what would happen to her children then?

She stared wide-eyed at the wild-looking intruders, petrified, not for herself but for the children and Luke. Were Zeb and Horace and Jim already all dead? "What... do you want?" she squeaked, feeling ridiculous asking the question. From the look in their wild eyes, they wanted blood. Maybe they were here to carry her off and do horrible things to her, or to kill Luke for killing one of their own. One of them stepped forward, his face disfigured, part of his nose gone.

Half Nose! This was the one Will had told them about, a warrior feared by all whites and even some of his own kind.

"Lettie? What's going on?"

Luke! She could not find her voice when he appeared in the bedroom doorway. Surely Half Nose wanted him dead!

Everything happened in a matter of seconds then. Luke lunged for the rifle, but quickly three warriors were on him, beating him. At the same time Nathan and Katie came out of their bedroom, awakened by Lettie's screams and Half Nose's loudly barked orders. Lettie started to run to the children, but by then three more braves had come inside, and two of them grabbed her and held her back. Nathan ran to her, grabbing the skirt of her dress and beginning to cry, keeping his stuffed horse, which he still slept with, enclosed tightly in one arm. Katie began crawling across the floor to her mother, also crying.

Half Nose shouted another command in the clipped Sioux tongue, and Luke's attackers let go of him and let him slump to the floor, still too weak from his injuries and now from the reopening of some of his wounds, to put up any real resistance. One of the warriors grabbed the rifle out of Lettie's hands and Half Nose stepped closer to Lettie, his dark eyes drilling into her. She waited in frozen terror, sure he was here to murder all four of them. He looked down at Luke then, knelt in front of him and grasped hold of his hair, jerking his head up to study his bloody face. He said something to him then in the Sioux tongue, the words spit out bitterly. Lettie waited for the man to take out a knife and lift Luke's scalp, but instead he let go of him. He said something to one of the other warriors, who came over and shoved a rifle against Luke's throat.

Half Nose looked at Lettie once more, then down at little Nathan, who stared back up at him with tear-filled blue eyes. By then Katie had reached her mother and was trying to pull herself up by hanging on to Lettie's dress, but Lettie could not reach down to lift her because two warriors continued to hold her arms. She kept her eyes on Half Nose, feeling sick at the way he was watching Nathan. She kicked at him, not knowing what else to do to make him get away from Nathan. The man only grinned wickedly, then grabbed Nathan, who wiggled and screamed as the fierce warrior carried him to the door.

"No! No!" Lettie screamed. "Take me! Take me, not my son!"

In an instant Half Nose had unbolted the door and walked out with Nathan under his arm. Luke tried to get