Running Thoughts

I just killed a man.

I kept both eyes open, just like John told me, and pulled the trigger, and he fell backwards into the water, dead. Lon and Ben would say that I'm a man now, now that I've killed myself an Indian, but I'm not so sure if they'd be right. He was so alive, furious at John for kissing the Indian woman, screaming and howling and trying to kill John. Then I pulled the trigger, and he fell backwards and was dead. Just like that.

Maybe the woman was his wife. Do Indians even get married? I'm sure I don't know, although to hear the men at camp talk, they just make love with whoever whenever they feel like it. But the look in the Indian's eyes as he came screaming out of the bushes—he must have cared for the woman John was kissing. That's why he tried to kill him. I suppose I can understand that.

But then I killed him. It was right, I think. He was trying to kill John, my mentor, my savior, my friend. And Ratcliffe had said that any man who saw an Indian without shooting him would be tried for treason and hanged. I don't want to die, and have my family think I was a traitor.

But John didn't shoot any Indians at all, at least none I could see. And he saw them, all right. He was kissing one. Ratcliffe hates John, he'd probably be thrilled to pieces for an excuse to have him hanged. But the men all love him, including me. Ratcliffe isn't stupid. He wouldn't hang John because he knows that if he did, he'd have a mutiny.

He'd hang me, though. No one cares about me. I'm just Thomas, the clumsy lad who can't shoot.

But I can shoot. I shot the Indian. And now I'm running like a coward, leaving John behind to be killed or taken or both. I should have stayed with him, but John told me to run. I don't want to die, so I'm running. Running back to camp, my thoughts running wild in my head so that I think I'm going mad. The image of the Indian falling backwards into the water, the Indian woman screaming at me, John shouting for me to run. I don't know if I can stand it. He was so alive, and then he was dead.

I just killed a man.