for a moment the nightmare remained with her , vivid and terrible ( the sap was running freely in the maples now , and irv had taken her with him that afternoon to change the buckets ; in her dream they had been sapping again , and she had heard something behind and had looked back to see john rainbird creeping up on them , flitting from tree to tree , barely visible ; his one eye glittered with a baleful lack of mercy , and his gun , the one he had shot her daddy with , was in one hand , and he was gaining ) .