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THE ARROW THAT FLIETH BY DAY
The course of her life diverted by a mistaken accusation, Mandy's journey now leads
her into a faith tested by fire, and a love tested by sacrifice.
Synopsis
Mandy Berringer is on the last leg of a homebound journey to Denver when a mistaken
accusation by Indian warriors diverts the course of her life. Believed dead by her
family, Mandy will do anything to get home. But a disabling accident, an epidemic,
and unexpected love and a tragic loss prolong her separation from her family until
she is finally reunited with them--only to be devastated by what she finds. The
man she loves undergoes crushing trials of his own, and their search for each other
leads them on separate journeys into new tests of faith and enduring love.
Excerpt
Mandy awoke to an awful smell. As she rolled over, her sleep-laden eyelids forced
themselves open, then revolted against the spears of sunbeams that shot down from
the tepee's open flaps nearly fifteen feet above her. Recognition of where she was
came to her, and the sickening knot formed once again in her stomach.
She lay on a mat in the dwelling into which she had been forcibly shoved two days
earlier. Judging by the amount of light coming through the top opening, she figured
it to be late morning. She did not chide herself for sleeping so late; she had spent
most of the night crying. And praying.
Glancing toward the back of the tepee, she noticed the empty mat of the middle-aged
woman whose lodge she shared. Mandy came to presume the woman was also a white captive,
but from long ago. Her eyes were blue, her hair light brown, but she wore it braided
and tied with beaded string. Her dress was hide, and she wore a necklace made of
some poor animal's teeth. She obviously did not feel so imprisoned as Mandy, who
had several times taken a stab at conversation. She had tried especially to get
through the idea of escaping, but the woman apparently spoke no English. She was
very kind to Mandy and her expression was sympathetic, but she strictly held to
Indian ways.
At their first meeting Mandy had pointed to herself and said, "Mandy," then pointed
to the woman. She pointed to herself and spoke a foreign name. Mandy shook her head
and said, "English name." The woman thought hard for a moment, then struggled, "Vi.
. .Vic. . .tor. . .i . . .a."
"Victoria! You do speak English!"
"English," the woman replied. But it wasn't long before Mandy realized that her
name was about all that this woman recalled of what had once been her primary language.
Rising from her mat, Mandy went to the flap door and peeked out to survey the camp
as she had done several times in the preceding days. The smell that her nostrils
repelled came from a pot of. . . whatever. . .that was left simmering over the fire
just outside the lodge. Though she was hungry, she was certain her stomach would
not have kept down food similar to what it had summarily rejected the day before.
The inhabitants of the camp were about their daily routines, it seemed, and paid
no attention to the lodge that held the white woman. She would need to familiarize
herself with those routines, and the layout of the village, for she had no intention
of becoming like the woman in her lodge. She would have to figure out a plan of
escape.
Returning inside, she picked up the brush that Victoria had offered her the morning
before when her hair had a kidnapping's worth of matting in it. As she brushed out
her long blond tresses, she recalled with disquietude the events of the past two
days.
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