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“We will search for him later,” Fire Thunder said, again focusing his attention on John Shelton. “Your name. Tell me your name.”
“That’s none of your damn business,” John said, squaring his shoulders.
Black Hair slapped John across the face. “Do not continue being insolent to my chief,” he said darkly. “Answer him. What is your name?”
Blood was trickling from the corner of John’s mouth and from his nose.
Anna ran to John and cowered beside him. She gave Fire Thunder a soft, pleading look. “His name is John. John Shelton. I am his wife,” she said meekly, as though it were unusual for her to speak up. “Let us go. John made a mistake. I apologize for him. Please let us be on our way.”
“Shelton,” Fire Thunder said, recalling the name Shelton written in bold letters on the covered wagons that belonged to the caravan. “So you are the owner of this carnival?”
Fire Thunder’s gaze slid slowly over to Kaylene. “What is she to you?” he asked, trying to hate her.
“She . . . is . . . Kaylene,” Anna said, giving Kaylene a warning look. “She is our daughter.” Anna then looked wildly up at Fire Thunder. “She isn’t to blame for any of this,” she blurted out. “Please don’t harm her.”
Fire Thunder and Kaylene’s eyes locked for a moment longer, causing Kaylene’s knees to weaken beneath his steady stare. Her heart throbbed and her face grew hot with a blush when his eyes lowered and she could feel his gaze hot on the cleavage of her breasts.
But when Fire Thunder jerked his eyes away and seemed to quickly forget her, Kaylene was torn with how to feel. A part of her was afraid of what he had planned for her and her family. A part of her wanted so badly to be liked by him.
No, not liked—she thought to herself. Loved.
For the first time in her life she had found a man who touched her deeply. From her head to her toes she felt a hungry desire . . . a strange yearning.
And she knew those feelings were foolish. Obviously she was nothing but an enemy to this man, someone he surely detested, for she was the daughter of the man guilty of having caged his sister.
Fire Thunder ignored the heat of his loins, the need to have this woman as his own threatening to overwhelm him. He forced himself to think of only one thing—revenge. He must make this man pay for what he did to his sister.
The fact that this evil man had even touched his sister’s flesh, dirtying her pureness, made Fire Thunder’s insides boil with a renewed rage. Surely, this evil man had further degradation planned for Little Sparrow. Fire Thunder quickly made his decision of how to make John pay for his dirty deed.
Fire Thunder looked over his shoulder at his men. “Little Beak! Many Horses! Come and take this man away!” he shouted. “Many Horses, tie him up. Take him on your horse. You know what we do with our enemies!”
His warriors dismounted and went to John.
Pale, Anna watched her husband taken away, half dragged to Many Horses’s mount and tied onto it behind the saddle. A part of her wanted to reach out and beg again for his release, for she was helpless without him. But a part of her was glad that he was being treated in such a way. For having treated her so unjustly for so many years, he deserved what he was getting now at the hands of the Indians.
Fire Thunder felt Anna’s eyes on him. He turned to her. “Woman, be thankful you are not included in this vengeance,” he said, as he placed Little Sparrow on his horse. “As for your husband, he must pay for the humiliation he has brought upon my sister. You know, deep in your heart, that he deserves being reprimanded for what he has done to an innocent child.”
Anna backed away from Fire Thunder, cowering even more.
Fire Thunder looked over at Kaylene. Again his heart leaped at the mere sight of her, and at her nearness. “Black Hair, seize the woman named Kaylene!” he suddenly blurted out.
Kaylene sucked in a wild breath and backed away from Fire Thunder. Every fiber of her being cried out in alarm as to what his intentions for her might be. But deep inside her, where her desires were formed, she only wanted one thing from him: To be loved! Not hated!
But it looked as though he was including her in his vengeance and she saw her future as bleak. She might even die before she saw another sunrise.
Kaylene started to turn and run away, but something held her there, as though something willed her not to be afraid, not to look foolish by trying to take flight when she knew that she could not possibly get far. There were too many warriors on horseback, and too many rifles pointed her way.
Black Hair questioned Fire Thunder with his eyes about the white woman. But not wanting to look insolent in front of the other warriors, he hurried to Kaylene and grabbed her by an arm and shoved her toward Fire Thunder’s horse.
Kaylene’s mother went wild. She found the courage to run to Black Hair and pound on his back as he lifted Kaylene to the front of the saddle.
Fire Thunder went to Anna and grabbed her around the waist and lifted her from the ground. He carried her over to stand among the other white people. He gave one of the men a cold stare. “Keep her here with you or she will die,” he said icily.
Then he shot warning glances all around him. “None of you follow with thoughts of freeing the man and woman,” he shouted. He lifted a fist into the air. “Or the man will be the first to die, and then the . . . woman.”
He smiled demonically. “And then I shall take delight in seeing you die a slow death for interfering with the vengeance of a mighty Kickapoo chief,” he snarled out.
Frightened by her brother’s anger, Little Sparrow slid quickly from Black Hair’s horse and ran to him. She stood before him and pleaded with him with wide, tearful eyes as she signed to him. She relayed to him with quick movement of her fingers that Kaylene was good, that she did not deserve to be harmed over the wrongful deeds of an evil father. She pleaded with her brother not to harm the beautiful, sweet, white woman.
