Flight by Sherman Alexie

who drop their weapons and run. The ones who drop their weapons and stand still. The ones who shoot themselves in the foot, heart, and head.
    Traitors, all traitors.
    I scream as I reach General Mustache. He turns, and fires his weapon at me. But he misses wide as I swing my rifle and smash him in the face. He falls.
    And I ride after Small Saint and Bow Boy.
    Other soldiers pursue me. I can hear the curses and hoofbeats behind me. I can hear and feel their gunfire. All around me, running Indians, the old people, women, and children, so many of them fall to gunfire.
    How many rifles are behind me? How many soldiers? I don’t know.
    Some part of me, the part that is Gus, wants me to stop, to turn around and re-swear my allegiance to the other soldiers. But I can defeat Gus now. I am doing the right thing. I am trying to save the soldier who is trying to save Bow Boy.
    My painted pony is fast, faster than the other horses. He runs for his life, too. I wonder if the soldiers’ horses are cursing this Indian pony. I wonder if horses judge each other based on their human riders.
    I catch up to Small Saint and Bow Boy. For a second, Small Saint thinks he’s been caught, that I am there to kill them.
    But I reach out a hand, Small Saint grabs it, and I haul him and the boy on the horse, all of this at full gallop.
    With his ancient broken body, Gus could never have done that. I own this body now.
    And how can this small pony carry three people and not collapse or slow down?
    Because of fear. Because of grace. Because we want to live.
    Terrified, overloaded, on our powerful pony we outrace the soldiers and their horses.
    We all race for the faraway hills. The faraway trees. Getting closer now, so close.
    Faster, faster now, faster than I thought possible. I wonder if the pony will catch fire. If the pony has caught fire. If the pony is leaving behind hoofprints that spark and smolder.
    We are two hundred yards from the trees, one hundred yards, fifty yards.
    I don’t want to look behind me, but the sounds of gunfire and hooves and curses grow fainter and fainter. We are leaving our enemies behind. They will not catch us on horseback. But they can still catch us with gunfire.
    I hear the bullets sizzle past us.
    Thirty, twenty, ten yards. The pony leaps into the air. It grows wings and flies into the forest.
    No, of course not. It doesn’t grow wings. How can a horse grow wings?
    That kind of extraordinary magic is not permitted here. No, the only magic here is ordinary. It’s so ordinary that it might not be magic at all. It might only be luck.
    But I’ll take luck.
    As we crash through the underbrush and leap over stumps and fallen trees, I praise luck. As we leave behind the soldiers who want to kill us, who have killed so many others, I praise luck. As I hear the weeping of Small Saint and Bow Boy, who are happy to be alive, however temporarily, I praise luck. As we outrun horses and bullets, as we outrun that monster revenge, I praise luck.

Twelve
    T HIS IS WHAT IT feels like to be old.
    After crashing headfirst off a horse into a campfire, and swinging two people onto the back of your pony with one arm, and all the excitement of outrunning killer soldiers with rifles, you have a few bruises and burns and scrapes and cuts and sore muscles.
    In fact, after you ride fast and hard a mile or two into the trees, and think you have left behind your enemies, you need to slow down.
    And when an old guy relaxes, when the fear juices leave his body, he is immediately reminded of exactly how old he is.
    How old am I? How old is this body?
    After I relax, my back seizes up. It goes completely stiff, like I’m made out of steel. And I fall off my pony.
    I hit the ground and hurt my ribs. I think I might have cracked something. I can barely breathe.
    Small Saint and Bow Boy are still on the horse. Small Saint has taken the reins and spins the pony back toward me.
    There are sixteen tiny little men with sharp knives slashing my spine.