Seneca Surrender Read Free Page A

into her throat.
    Meanwhile the canoe picked up speed, heading toward the waterfall at a pace Sarah knew was deadly. Marisa was still leaning back into Sarah’s arms, and Sarah instinctively tightened her hold on her friend. There was no changing course now. The speed of the water had them within its grips.
    Sarah threw a look over her shoulder. Even now the enemy was almost upon them.
    Truly it was a test. Which would come first: the watery death on the rapids, or the sure hand of the Ottawas?
    The velocity of the current pushed at them and thrust them one way and then the other, taking them into an ever faster speed toward the noise that signified the end: the waterfall.
    Another well-aimed arrow knocked against the canoe’s lining, barely missing Sarah’s shoulder. Was the enemy, too, chancing the rapids? Sarah glanced back again, this time hurriedly. No, the French and Ottawa were turning back, paddling their boat toward the southern shore of the lake. Sarah inhaled deeply. But her relief was short-lived.
    Before them lay perhaps a greater danger and surely as deadly a hazard as the Ottawa.
    Sarah watched as Black Eagle struggled to turn their canoe toward the northern shoreline, away from the enemy, but the currents pulled him back.
    “Damn!” Black Eagle muttered. The curse word seemed unusual coming from his lips. In all their adventures so far on the trail, Sarah had never heard him utter anything but the more formal speech. She watched helplessly as Black Eagle set his paddle into the water once again, struggling toward the northern shoreline. But he had no more than set his course when a hidden eddy took hold of their canoe and swung it round and round.
    Then the worst happened: The canoe rocked back and forth unnaturally, and Sarah, looking back over her shoulder, was startled that Thompson had come up onto his knees and was struggling forward. Then it came. Reaching down, he grabbed Marisa out of Sarah’s grasp.
    Instinctively, Sarah tugged at Marisa, trying to keep hold of her. When that failed, she used all her strength to pummel Thompson with her fists, but he was much too big and strong, and he kept a grasp on Marisa despite all of Sarah’s attempts to thwart him. It looked bad. He raised Marisa up high, to his shoulder level, and would have thrown her from the canoe, into the lethal undercurrents of the eddy had Sarah not bitten his arm.
    Thompson and Marisa screamed at the same time, but Sarah clutched at Marisa and Marisa fell back into the canoe, guided by Sarah’s hand. But Thompson didn’t give up. He grabbed hold of Marisa again.
    At last Black Eagle, who seemed to have had been centering his effort in the struggle to save their canoe, became aware of the fight. Throwing down his paddle, he surged back toward the skirmish to confront Thompson.
    Thompson had no choice now but to let Marisa go, and the two men, fighting in an upright position, sent the boat rocking so greatly that Sarah feared it would tip over and throw them all into the tumultuous water.
    By the good luck of the Lord, it didn’t happen. However, their fate appeared to hang on the ability of a single man, Black Eagle, to best a man who was both bigger and stronger than he.
    Thompson raised a knife; Black Eagle blocked Thompson’s hand, thrusting the man’s arm high in the air. Each struggled for supremacy. The canoe lurched precariously against the currents, and both Sarah and Marisa used their energy to keep the boat afloat.
    The struggle pitched the canoe out of the eddy. However, the forceful motion hurled the boat more furiously than ever into the rushing current, washing the canoe steadily toward the thundering sound of the rapids. Just how high was this waterfall?
    The two men didn’t notice, locked as they were in their own deadly struggle. Thompson launched out at Black Eagle, socking him in the jaw. The blow knocked Black Eagle backward, but he recovered easily and shot forward, catching hold of Thompson’s arm and