Free Ghost Trackers by Grant Wilson Jason Hawes

They stood there, watching and doing nothing! But when she looked again at the white men, she understood. While the men of her village outnumbered them, they’d placed their lanterns on the ground near their feet, flintlocks held at the ready. If any of the men from her village made a move, the white men would fire their weapons.
    Her father was a tall man, strong and brave, but the white man—while shorter of stature and leaner of limb—was younger, and after several moments of struggling, he broke Four Winds’ grip on his rifle, swung the weapon’s butt upward in a vicious arc, and struck her father a solid blow on
    the chin. Four Winds staggered backward, but he did not fall. He remained on his feet and glared at the white man, who grinned, leveled his rifle, aimed, and fired. There was a bright flash accompanied by a crack of thunder, and Four Winds cried out in pain as the gun’s round struck him in the chest. The impact spun him around, and Little Eyes saw the agony on her father’s face along with the blood spreading on his buckskin shirt as he fell to the ground.
    She wailed in anguish, but her voice was drowned out by the crack of gunfire as the rest of the white men began firing. She wanted nothing more than to run outside and go to her father, but instinct prompted her to crawl to the other end of the house and hide beneath the blanket, like a small frightened animal seeking shelter in its burrow. She clapped her hands over her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to see her father’s face as he fell, tried not to hear once again the sound he made when the rifle ball pierced his flesh.
    The first round of gunfire ended, and she wondered how many of the village men survived. Would the survivors, if any, attack the white men now with drawn knives or bare hands, or would they instead take advantage of the time it took the white men to reload their flintlocks to get their wives and children and flee into the woods?
    Running. That was a good idea. She shoulddo that. Now, while she still had the chance. But she was too frightened and in too much shock from witnessing her father’s murder to move, and so she remained where she was, hiding beneath the blanket, hands over her ears. It didn’t take the white men as long to reload as she thought, and a second round of thunder passed through the village. When it ended, the white men cheered, and she knew that the men of her village had fallen.
    The screams of women and children came next, and she knew there would be no more gunfire—not for a while, anyway. The white men had conquered her village and would now take their pleasure, and there would be no more killing until they were finished.
    Little Eyes heard the soft rustle of the deer-hide flap being pushed aside as someone entered her home. And it was hers now, hers alone, for her father was dead, just like her mother. She knew what the man, or men, had come for, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop them.
    “It’s OK, Amber. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
    It was the man who’d killed her father, but he sounded different now. His accent had changed. He no longer sounded British, he sounded . . . something else. And that name he’d called her.
Amber
. A strange name, but familiar somehow,too. There was kindness in his voice, and despite everything that had happened, she found it reassuring, and it prompted her to take her hands from her ears and draw back the blanket so she could look at him.
    The man carried a lantern, and its glow filled the bark house. He was dressed in a well-worn wool coat, breeches, and scuffed boots, and he held a flintlock rifle—the weapon that had killed her father—in his other hand. She could smell the harsh tang of burned gunpowder, and she thought that must be what death smelled like. Now that the man was up close, she could make out his features. His black hair was overlong, tangled, and sweat-matted, and his beard was bushy