Rud dreaded the next few miles as he knew he would be traveling as much through his past as he was down this road. It was a past he avoided as much as possible in his thoughts as he did this shorter route. Ahead Rud could see the dim glow from lanterns in his old village.

Even in the dark, he began to recognize houses whose residents he had known. Sadness overwhelmed him. The closer he came to where his parent's home had stood, the worse he felt.

Seven years ago, Rud's father and others had banded together to put their goods on the independent keelboats carrying cargo upriver. Without the middlemen in town, they were able to sell their products directly to the merchants in the cities. Even after the boat captains took their cut, Rud's father and the others made significantly more money.

The middlemen in town would not allow this arrangement to continue, though, and after burning several independent boats made it known they were coming after the leader of the group, Rud's father.

That they would come after Rud's father, a member of their community, caused a great deal of anger among the men in the village. All of them, whether they were part of the trading or not, vowed to stand against anyone the middlemen sent. The night came, and rough men rode into the village towards Rud's father's house. Rud's father sent Rud to alert the villagers.

The villagers had seen the large group of rough men and fear had spread through the village like wildfire. Although they had sworn to stand together, Rud was met with closed doors and no response. Even as the young boy pounded on their doors and begged for help, no one, not a single person, would come to his father's aid.

As the rough men ordered his father to come out and face them, Rud kept going door to door, begging for the promised help. When he was out of doors and with no help coming, Rud ran back to his home and saw flames coming from all of the windows. First, his father, then his mother, and finally, his older sister were shot dead right before his eyes. Their lifeless bodies left lying on the ground in front of their burning home.

Rud hid in some bushes as the men rode by heading back to town. Rud heard one ask if anyone had seen the boy. Another said the boy must have been hiding in the house, and if he wasn't, with the example they had just made of his family, no one would help him. A boy, alone and with no one to help, would not be hard to find and kill.

After the rough men left, Rud sat by the bodies of his mother, father, and sister. Rud did not cry. His grief had turned to hate for those who would not help.

Rud knew he could not stay. He collected what he could of the family's possessions from the outbuildings that had not burned - animal traps, his father's blacksmithing equipment, and their farming tools. If he did not get them now, the thieves in the village would help themselves to the family's possession as soon as the sun rose.

Rud had no way to take all these items with him. His father's wagon had been next to the house and had burned. So Rud hid his family's possessions in a nearby cave he had found while playing in the woods. He had even managed to carry his father's heavy blacksmith anvil to the cave. Rud found the strength in his anger and hate.

Exhausted, Rud sat on the anvil with only dim starlight lighting the cave's entrance. The darkness inside the cave enveloped him like a living thing. The warm, dark air, heavy with moisture, laid on his skin, and he felt comforted. Traumatic events change people, and it was here in the darkness, Rud was changed.

Rud loved and admired his father, but the only image he could recall of him now was his father, arms outstretched shielding his wife and daughter as the rough men fired their pistols. Shot after shot struck Rud's father until he finally fell. His mother's love was absolute. A kiss or the warmth of her embrace would always make Rud feel better. But all Rud could see now was the image of his mother reaching down for her husband as the men fired their pistols into her.

And his sister, with whom he often fought with as siblings do, screaming as she turned and tried to run only getting a few feet before a single shot to the back of her head ended her life. Her beautiful hair, which she was so proud of, and he had teased her often for spending so many hours brushing, was soaked in her blood. They were gone now. Their bodies left bleeding out in front of their burning home.

Reflected in the cave's darkness were the images of what Rud had lost and the horror and death he had seen. He breathed in the darkness and felt it inside his chest. It cast its shadow on his heart and mind. The horror and death became part of him. Gone was the happy boy Rud had been. Now there was only fear, anger, and hate. Rud left the cave, the darkness now part of him.

The next morning the villagers came and placed the bodies of his mother, father, and sister in hastily made wood coffins for burial in the local cemetery. Rud still did not cry when the villagers lowered the bodies into the graves and began covering them with dirt. These same villagers who would not come to his father's aid were as guilty in Rud's mind as the men who had killed them. Rud hated them for not helping.

Some of the women tried to comfort Rud, but their husbands, knowing the same rough men would be back for the boy, pulled their wives away. Rud, at the age of eleven, his eyes dark with anger and hate, was left alone to his fate next to three freshly filled graves.

By the time Rud returned from the cemetery, thieves had taken everything of value from the outbuildings Rud had not saved during the night. Rud had the family mule with him, or else it would have been stolen too. As Rud looked through the charred remains of his home, a thief, thinking he could take advantage of an eleven-year-old boy, attempted to steal the mule from right in front of Rud.

As the man jumped on the mules back and started to ride away, Rud used his sling and hit the man in the head with a small pebble. The sling his father had made him lacked the velocity to kill but hit hard enough to cause the man to fall from the mules back. Rud, filled with anger and hate, set upon the semi-conscious thief with a large knife he had retrieved the night before from his father's blacksmith shop.

Those who saw the scene turned away in horror as an eleven-year-old boy savagely stabbed and slashed the thief. When he was done, Rud stood over the thief's lifeless body now mutilated beyond recognition. Rud's face, hands, and clothes were covered with the man's blood. Rud, with a bloody knife in his hand, stood defiant for everyone in the village to see. No one dared to challenge Rud for killing the man, and there would be no more attempts to steal from him.

Rud loaded as many animal traps from the cave and what food provisions he could find into the mule packs. Then rode away from the village with his sling around his neck, the large knife, and his father's woodsman hatchet tucked in his belt.

Rud looked back at his childhood home only once. His thoughts were not of sorrow for the loss of his family and home, only his hate for having been abandoned by the villagers and left to be killed. A blood debt was owed, and one day Rud would collect on that debt.

It would have been foolish to stay. No one would take Rud in, and he had no shelter, no way to earn a living, or protection from the killers when they returned. Rud had a destination in mind, though, somewhere he would be safe and could survive.

Rud and his father would go on extended hunting and trapping trips each year. One year they had gone further than ever before and found an out of the way valley where the animals they hunted or trapped were plentiful. It had good water, a small lake, and a wonderful meadow surrounded by plenty of woods. There were lots of loose stones, and his father had picked a spot where he hoped to someday build a cabin.

Rud and his father loved this valley and had returned many times. It was not that it was very well hidden, it was a bit tough to get into, but mainly it just wasn't on the way to or from anywhere. And that is where eleven-year-old Rud went, to the valley deep in the wilderness.

In an abandoned homestead near the valley, Rud and his father had discovered an old two-wheel cart. His father thought fixing the cart was an excellent way to teach his son some of the skills he would need in life. They had pulled the old cart back to their lean-to and over several hunting trips, repaired the wheels, replaced the rotten floorboards, and added a new harness for the mule. Each visit seemed like they had found another use for the old cart, and when they went home, the cart was left under their sturdy lean-to ready for their next visit.

After leaving his village, Rud had ridden through the night, arriving in the valley late the next day. His first night in the valley, he slept in the back of the old two-wheel cart. Weeks later and under cover of night, Rud had used the two-wheel cart to retrieve the rest of his family's possessions hidden in the cave.

* * * * *

Rud, now eighteen, was still filled with hate and anger from the night his family was killed. The homes he passed were the same homes whose doors he had pounded on and begged for help seven years ago. Rud looked away when he passed the spot where his family's home had been, and his father, mother, and sister had been murdered. He flipped the reins again to quicken the mule's pace.

Rud thought if his father's spirit was watching, he would be proud of Rud for having survived these past seven years and would have smiled at seeing his son and the old two-wheel cart they had fixed together. His father would have hopefully been proud of his son's actions this day and the two lives he had saved also riding in their cart.

Rud dismissed those thoughts. His father was dead and in the ground. Right now, the men who allowed his family to be murdered were sleeping safely behind those very doors he had pounded on begging for help. Rud wanted to make them all pay, but he needed to get his passengers to safety. Collecting on the blood debt would wait for another day.