Paul Revere looked into the innocent looking eyes of his young granddaughter with pride. Only a person with pure unadulterated larceny in her heart could look so completely guiltless while holding the reins of a horse she had just stolen. Well, borrowed. He'd give it back in due course but first he was going to ride to Lexington whether the rest of his family liked it or not! At 83 he was too old they told him, did anybody ask him how old he was on that night in 1775? It didn't matter what they thought now as long as he had his little ally working for him. Only 8 years old and she had more grit than the rest of them put together.
    "Okay honey, hold him steady while I climb up. What's his name?"
    The girl looked pensive as she tried to remember what their neighbor the blacksmith called his new horse.
    "Um, let me see. It's spelled S-A-T-A-N. Satin! That's his name."
    "No, dear. Satin is spelled S-A-T-I-N. What you spelled is Satan."
    The horse whinnied as he said the name and steam came out of his nostrils even though it was a warm May night. Paul looked into his gleaming eyes with sudden apprehension, they looked almost like burning coals. No, it must be a reflection of the setting Sun.
    "Are you sure about this horse, sweety? He seems a lot bigger than the blacksmith's horse."
    "Oh, this is his new horse. Mr. Blacksmith says he bought him cheap in Salem last week."
    "Salem?"
    "Yup. Know what? He used to graze on Gallows Hill where they used to hang witches! Mr. Blacksmith says nobody knows how old he is 'cause it seems like he's been there forever and ever."
    The horse whinnied again as the apprehensive man pulled himself into the saddle. He stamped his hooves impatiently as Paul reined him in with difficulty.
    "Tell your grandmother I'll be back in the morning!"
    Paul pulled his old flintlock pistol from his coat and waved it in the air as he set off down the road. He had planned on a leisurely ride but the horse seemed to have other ideas. As darkness set in the horse got more and more impatient until they got beyond the confines of Boston at which point he promptly set off at a brisk gallop. Paul began to get nervous as he struggled to hold on to the animal. In the same situation in 1775 he had talked to his horse to calm them both down but he didn't care to go riding through Massachusetts in the dark of night on a black horse yelling "Satan!"
    Faster and faster the horse sped onward into the thickening night. Paul could no longer make out any landmarks but looking heavenwards he saw the North Star ahead of him so he could tell that they weren't going west toward Lexington, they were going north - north toward Salem! As the speed of the horse increased, even the heavens seemed to become lost in the blur of motion. Paul had the feeling that he was being swept along on a rapid eddy in the endless sea of time. But backwards in time, yes, he was certain that he was being carried backwards in time.
    Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the horse's pace slackened. He began to be able to make out shapes of houses and even saw the occasional light in a window. The horse moved with steady purpose until finally it stopped at the bottom of a hill. Looking up, Paul saw the unmistakable shapes of bodies hanging from the thick limbs of a tree. The Gallows Tree. He had been brought up hearing tales of the witch trials from people who had been there themselves, tales of how innocent people had been swept to their deaths by hysteria and fear. The memories of those events were still fairly fresh when he was young, having occurred only 42 years before his birth but it was only now, looking up at those forlorn shapes swaying in the breeze, that the magnitude of the crime carried out in the name of the law was brought home to him. He wanted the horse to move on, to go back a little further in time so he could try to put a stop to it, but he knew it couldn't be done. This deed, as dark as it was, had helped to shape the destiny of a country and his along with it.
    He gently nudged the horse and it turned and went back down the road of time from whence it came. The road of time. The road that never ends.