Black Water

Chapter 2

Kyoko's panic rose ten fold when the Indians screamed their war cry's and one of them jumped up from his hiding spot, unblending out of the tall grass. She scrambled for the reins still being held by Sam and whipped it as hard as she could bracing for the lurch forward. The horses whined in protest but jumped forward at breakneck speeds. Kyoko hears the Indians pursuing her with their cry's and the arrows that pass her head and pierce the luggage behind her.

The injured horse from before slows the three others and she turns to see the Indians gaining. She glances over at Sam and he's white as a sheet; either unconscious or dead, she can't tell with all the jostling of the racing stage. Sam's gun belt catches Kyoko's eye. She lets one hand off the reins, unlatches the gun and pulls it free. As she does an Indian surges forward and comes up parallel to Sam his spear raised to throw. She stares into his black charcoal eyes as she squeezes the trigger in his direction, the shot hits the horse and it falls into a cloud of dust. She drops the pistol into her lap in the folds of her dress as she urges the horses forward, breathing heavy and white foam from there mouths flying down there sides. An arrow grazes her arm and with the sudden pain she jerks her arm, turning the horses from the path by mistake. The stage kicks up undisturbed sand and bounces as the wheels find rocks. Kyoko's unable to guide the horses back to the path and the landscape gets rougher. Another arrow fly's inches from her head and distracts her as the front wheel catches a large rock and she feels the stage coach begin to tip.

It seems like slow motion as the stage flips over, Kyoko's thrown from the drivers seat and crashes into the ground. Her scream tears out of her lungs. The stage slides on its side through the dirt and when it stops it pins one of Kyoko's feet underneath. The pain feels excruciating but she knows the Indians are seconds away. She searches around her for the pistol that had previously been in her lap but with all the flying dirt her eyes are irritated and she can't find it anywhere. Instead she sees Sam and from the way he's laying Kyoko's positive he's already dead. She starts working on freeing her leg, not ready to give into the Indians yet. As she digs at the sand as quietly as she can trying not to be seen, they start to circle around on the opposite side of the wagon and dismount from their horses. The horses hitched to the stage coach aren't much better than Sam, half dead from exhaustion, looks like one is dead with a broken neck.

The Indians seem momentarily preoccupied with the luggage that was thrown about and Kyoko prays they think her already dead, her body being hidden from view by the bulk of the stage. She feels the dirt shift around her foot and she thinks she could move it now, she quietly tries to pull it out from under the stage. She can't stifle the moan of pain that escapes her lips as a bolt of pain fires up her leg. Now no longer invisible from the Indians they stalk closer to her moving through the maze of luggage. Just as her golden eyes make contact with the man in the lead a shot rings out and the man disappears from view. Another shot comes from behind her, winging the second Indian then taking another bullet in the chest he goes down. The last man bolts to his horse making a clean get away, followed by more than a few near misses.

Kyoko exhales the breath she was holding and relaxes somewhat in the dirt, suddenly exhausted and in pain. She watches the clouds roll by slowly as she waits for her rescuers but the world suddenly begins to spin and she feels light headed and she's unable to keep her eyes open. A shadow falls over her and she squints up weakly. She can just make out the golden hair peaking from underneath the cowboy hat and she smiles when she remembers something from her past. She whispers his name before passing out.

"Kuon..."

{5 Minutes Earlier }

A shot rings out over the plains and Ren's eyes search north where the sound came from. The only thing out that way would be the trail that the stage coach uses. Being at the edge of Sioux Territory he only needed one guess as to what was going on. He whips his horse around and they begin racing in that direction and soon he sees a dust trail that the runaway stage is causing and then he passes a downed horse on the trail. Definitely Sioux based off the paintings on the horse, and there looks to be two more to this raiding party.

He hears horses cry, a woman's scream and then crashing sounds just off the path ahead and thunders to the location. He slows just as he reaches a slight ridge and dismounts unsheathing his Henry lever action rifle from just below his saddle. He lays flat on the slight ridge, from above he can see everything. The woman working to free her trapped leg in front of him. The stage driver Sam Childers not far off with two arrows sticking out of him, more than likely dead. And the three Sioux braves picking through the luggage, only two horses behind them, meaning the horse back on the path was without a doubt one of theirs.

Ren watches through his gun sight as they inch closer to the woman. She seems to free herself but alerts the braves and tenses when they notice her. Ren breaths in deeply then squeezes off the rounds in quick succession, cursing lightly when the last one gallops out of range.

When positive the coast is clear, he runs back to his horse and leads him to the woman first, positive Sam's dead.

When he stands over her he's completely baffled by the woman, she looks vaguely familiar. Then he hears her speak his long discarded name and her eyes close.

"...Kyoko..."