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Swallowing back the urge to cry, Kaylene gave her mother one last hug, brushed a kiss across her cheek. Then she sat straight in the saddle and rode off with Fire Thunder.
As the sunset splashed Laredo the color of sin, the brilliant red color reflecting from the windows, Fire Thunder and Kaylene rode slowly down the main street. The town had a reputation for scenes of violence.
Kaylene now recalled having been to Laredo one time, when the carnival had set their tents on the far edge of town. She had been frightened by the gunmen who came and saw her show. It was so vivid in her memory that it was as though she were there now, performing on her panther. She could hear their bawdy talk as they shouted at her and tormented her with lewd teasings. If ever she had been afraid in her life, it had been then.
Even now, she tensed as she looked on both sides of her. There were mainly saloons and bawdy houses. She could hear the drunken laughter wafting from the saloons, the batwing doors swinging in the haze as drunks staggered from the establishments.
The voice of a barker for a street show, inviting cowhands to see the freak pig or watch the performance of “The Armless Lady,” caused Kaylene’s thoughts to return to her years at the carnival. Oh, she was so relieved to no longer be a part of that life.
She breathed more easily when they left that part of town and rode past adobe houses, church buildings, and plazas.
Kaylene glanced over at Fire Thunder. He seemed to know where he was going, as though he had been in Laredo many times before.
“You are familiar with this town?” Kaylene blurted out.
“Yes, I have been here many times to speak with the sheriff when my people lived close by, on land we never truly felt comfortable on,” Fire Thunder said, his voice drawn. “When our cattle were stolen, I reported it.” He gave her a half glance. “But the white sheriff scoffed and did nothing about it.”
“Then do you truly feel comfortable being here now?” Kaylene asked, seeing out of the corner of her eye a large adobe building that Fire Thunder was now directing his horse toward.
“That was many years ago,” Fire Thunder
said, drawing a tight rein beside a hitching rail. “There will be a different sheriff. Let us go and inquire about this woman named Eloisa Soriano, your mother.”
“Part of this town is lovely,” Kaylene said, dismounting. “The other part is ugly in its unpleasantness.”
“This town that sits on the Rio Grande, across from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, has had many faces,” Fire Thunder said, slinging his reins about the hitching rail. “It was established as a ferry crossing to Mexico.”
“You know so much about Laredo,” Kaylene said, flipping her horse’s reins around the rail, beside Fire Thunder’s. Her heart pounded to know she was in the very town where she might find her true mother. This small talk that she was making with Fire Thunder was helping her keep down her excitement.
“Living near it, as my people did, its history became familiar to us,” Fire Thunder said. He glanced over his shoulder as two horsemen rode past, their eyes on him and Kaylene. “After the revolt against Mexico in 1836, Laredo became the seat of the ‘Republic of the Rio Grande.’ Now it is just another town.”
Fire Thunder nodded toward the large adobe building, where above the door hung a plaque on which was painted in bold black letters the word JAIL. “Let us go inside and speak with the sheriff,” he said. “Perhaps he can direct us to your mother.”
“What if he can’t?” Kaylene said, stepping up on the wide porch beside Fire Thunder.
“Then we will go elsewhere in town for answers,” Fire Thunder said. He gave Kaylene a wavering glance. “But, Kaylene, if we do not find your mother in or near Laredo, we must give up the search. I have been gone from my village much longer than I had planned.”
“I understand,” Kaylene said softly, nodding. She said a prayer to herself that she would be given this one chance to see her true mother. If not, she despaired, what in life was fair?
Fire Thunder held the swinging door open for Kaylene.
She gave him a weak smile, then stepped inside.
She was glad when he was at her side again when she found herself suddenly face to face with a short, yet burly, aging man, whose dark eyes bore into her as he stared up at her. He then looked slowly over at Fire Thunder.
His gray hair hung to his collar. His face was lined with craters of wrinkles. He wore a buckskin outfit, a sheriff’s badge pinned to the shirt, with heavy pistols at both his hips.
Recognizing the man to be a much older Sheriff Adams than he had dealt with in the past, Fire Thunder stiffened.
“Fire Thunder?” Sheriff Adams said, taking a slow step toward him, away from the bulletin board where he had been pinning wanted posters. “Is that truly you?”
“Sheriff Adams, it has been many moons since we last talked,” Fire Thunder said, not taking the hand that the sheriff extended toward him. He had too many memories of this man that grated at his nerves.
“You are making your residence in Mexico now, I hear,” Sheriff Adams said, slowly easing his hand to his side.
“Yes, and now no Kickapoo are threatened by white rustlers,” Fire Thunder grumbled.
Kaylene gave him an uneasy glance, fearing that if bad feelings erupted between these two men who seemed to have had an uneasy past, the sheriff might not be willing to supply them with the information she so terribly wanted.
