Accepting His Love

Accepting His Love: Chapter Seven

Whoever had intruded into her wagon, muttered a curse. The sound of a gun being cocked was heard and then the clap of a gunshot echoed in the still night air.

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Abigail's eyes screwed shut with the loud clap of the gun. She felt something whiz by her head at an alarming speed, but she didn't feel anything. She thought that maybe she had been hurt, but the more seconds that ticked by, she was relieved that there was no pain felt anywhere on her body.

Then, the sound of liquid dropping to the ground in plops and splats reached her ears along with a string of bit back curses.

"Son of a..... N*gger! You shot me!" The stranger snarled at me. She flinched at the insult. Whatever courageous energy that had overcome her to pull the trigger was now gone. Abigail was too terrified at the moment to even realize what the man was doing now.

The person took her dazed moment for a chance to escape, and bolted for the exit. Abigail only had time to register what was happening when the horse he had hopped on gave a shrill whinny.

"Hey!" She shouted in anger. That man had broken into her wagon and would've shot her if she hadn't gotten him first, and now he thought that he was getting away?!

It was probably foolish rushing out into the dark night so openly, but she needed to know who had violated her like this. It was dark outside save for the silver lighting offered by the moon, and though she could scarcely see her hand in front of her own face, the intruder had ridden right into the path of a beam of moonlight.

As she strained her eyes to see if she could recognize him, the moonlight glinted off of his skin. A pale shade reflected back at her.

For certain, it was a white man.

She tried to see more, but there was nothing but a cloud of dust in his wake. Whoever the criminal was, he was long gone now.

Abigail stood rooted in her spot, the dust getting caught in her hair and stinging her cheeks.

All at once, the emotions started to fling themselves at her. Anger, confusion, frustration, sadness and most of all, fear.

She hadn't done anything to warrant someone trying to take her life. For what? The color of her skin?

If he had wanted to kill her because she was black, why didn't he do it while she was sleeping? She wasn't complaining, but it just didn't make sense to her.

She didn't sleep a wink for the remainder of the night and as she watched the first signs of dawn appear, the realization of what had actually occurred the night before struck her sharply.

Someone had tried to hurt her, but the question remained. For what? As she raked her mind for possible reasons besides her obvious skin color and gender as to why someone would attack her, it finally hit her.

Her flag.

Scrambling across the wagon, she frantically started to un-stack boxes until she got to a wooden crate with an 'X' marked on the front. Opening the lid and reaching her hand into the side, she had felt relieved when she felt the coarse fabric of the flag.

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It had been a week since the incident and Abigail still hadn't slept properly yet. Fear from the break-in coupled with nightmares of Susahnna had frazzled her every nerve. Every night was spent with her back propped against the wagon, gun in hand and waiting for another break-in.

She was sure that Derek most likely had noticed a change in her character because he was constantly eyeing her suspiciously. She knew she looked a mess, but she had hoped that she wasn't too transparent with her emotions. The last thing she needed was added stress from Derek.