I didn't think I'd ever been so scared in my life as I was, standing in the rain beside him.
"Did you see him?" he asked with some impatience.
"Not clearly," I murmured. "He went that way." I pointed past the barn into the rainy darkness. "One man on foot and …" Was there a second man? I focused on the image. It was even blurrier than the rest of his memories but I thought I saw two.
"I will find him." The cold, soulless glint in his eyes made me instantly regret telling him where the man had gone. Fighting Badger started away but not before I got a glimpse of what he planned to do.
"He's not for your collection!" I called anxiously, horrified by the idea of putting out a hit on the unknown man.
"I do not want him for my friend."
Oh, Jesus. How do I talk sense to a man like this? "Please, Fighting Badger! I need to know why he wants to hurt me, and if he hurt the others that came before me!"
"I will ask him before he dies." The native melted into the night.
Holy shit. I stood, staring after him. As with the first time we met, my pulse raced hard enough that I felt ill, and I had trouble breathing. No singular event or person in my life - aside from the death of my parents that I only vaguely recalled - had ever impacted me the way dealing with him did. The urge to weep was almost overpowering. It came as much from the knowledge of what he'd done as acknowledgment that such darkness existed in the world. I was unaware of how obliviously naïve I had been.
Someone else was there. The memories were too fleeting, too far for me to pin down, but I sensed the second shadow I'd seen in Fighting Badger's mind. Twisting to face the direction of the hill, I knew without understanding how that whoever it was, was there. Watching.
"You all right?" Taylor asked, studying me as he returned with two horses.
Quivering on the inside, I nonetheless managed to smile. "Yes. A little shaken." I took the reins of one horse and turned away from the hill.
"Let's get you home."
My eyes strayed once more in the direction that Fighting Badger had gone. For the first time since arriving, I almost didn't care why I was here. I wanted to leave. Now.
"Can we swing by where you found me?" I asked with a glance at the sky. The drizzle continued, though the lightning had subsided.
"Not tonight."