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Guilt spread throughout Kaylene, that she was, in part, responsible for John’s reappearance in Anna’s life. Now she wondered if it had been right to sacrifice Anna’s happiness to ensure her own.
John slid from his burro and
walked it on toward the camp, Anna walking a short distance behind him, now seemingly hesitant at how to react in his presence. He even ignored her.
Fire Thunder yanked his rifle from its gunboot. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, giving Kaylene a wavering stare.
“I was, until I was reminded of John’s cruelty to Anna,” Kaylene murmured. “But now?” Her jaw tightened and her eyes flared with a renewed anger over what had been kept from her all those years, and by whom.
“Yes, I’m quite positive I want to do this,” she said. She took a small derringer from her front skirt pocket and clutched its handle tightly.
“We will not use the firearms unless our lives are threatened,” Fire Thunder reassured her. “If gunfire breaks out, go into hiding. Kaylene, I do not want to lose you while I am trying to make life right for you.”
“I’ll be all right,” Kaylene said, swallowing hard.
Fire Thunder raised his rifle into the air as his men swarmed around him, their own firearms drawn.
Kaylene rode off with them. She kept close to Fire Thunder’s side. She scarcely breathed, she was so afraid. And in a matter of minutes she found herself with the Kickapoo warriors and Fire Thunder in a wide circle around the camp, the men in the camp rendered helpless beneath the aim of so many firearms.
John Shelton sent a seething glare at Fire Thunder, and then Kaylene. “I should have known that you weren’t letting me go just from the goodness of your hearts,” he said, his voice a low, angry hiss.
Ignoring him, Kaylene dismounted, her eyes locked with Anna’s. Her heart thundered wildly as she moved toward this woman she had loved from childhood, yet now was hesitant to embrace.
This woman had deceived her. How could she ever have any feelings for her again?
“Kaylene, darling,” Anna said, running toward her. Kaylene eased her derringer to her side as Anna came closer. She took a step away from Anna, not able to embrace her as they came face-to-face.
“Kaylene, what’s the matter?” Anna asked, tears filling her eyes. She gazed at the small gun in Kaylene’s hand, then questioned her again with her eyes. “Why are you behaving like this? Why was your father released, and then the Indians have come and surrounded us, their firearms drawn?” Again she looked at the derringer and stifled a sob behind her hand. “And, Lord, Kaylene, even you are armed.”
Kaylene could hardly stand there so cold and impersonal in the presence of this lady. Her very heart seemed to be wrenched from inside her. For no matter how much Anna had deceived her, Kaylene knew now, as she stood so close to her, that a part of her would always love her.
And pity overwhelmed Kaylene, pity for a woman who had always been forced to bend to the will of her husband.
Yet Kaylene still didn’t embrace her, even though she wanted to with every fiber of her being.
“I know that you are not my mother,” Kaylene finally blurted out. Anna’s whole body lurched as though she had been slapped.
In order to trick this woman into being truthful to her, Kaylene chose to use a tactic that might draw a quick reaction from Anna and, inevitably, the truth. “John Shelton, the man who professed to being my father as far back as I can remember, told me that you aren’t my parents,” Kaylene said, her voice drawn as she watched Anna cover a wild, disbelieving gasp behind one of her hands.
John stepped up next to Anna, his eyes wide.
Then he looked slowly down at Anna, whose eyes were on him, condemning him for having told such a truth. “I d-didn’t tell her,” John stammered out. “Anna, I swear it. I never told her anything of the kind. I have no idea where she got the idea!”
A dark scowl covered John’s face and he turned glaring eyes toward Fire Thunder. He started to say that this was all Fire Thunder’s fault, but stumbled over the words, knowing that anything he said now could mean life or death to him. John’s fate was all up to Fire Thunder. So not to antagonize him, he stopped in midsentence and gave his wife a wavering, apologetic stare.
Then what happened next was so fast, no one had any chance to stop it.
Anna grabbed the derringer from Kaylene’s hand. She aimed it at John. She pulled the trigger and shot John. Then she cried softly when he clutched his chest and fell to the ground, writhing at her feet.
As he gazed wildly up at Anna, she dropped the derringer and covered her mouth with a hand. “Why did you have to tell her?” she sobbed. “She’d have never known! She . . . was . . . all I had in life. I lost you long ago. All I was to you was something to beat on and berate when you were angry. Well, John Shelton, I’ve just changed that. Die then! Rot in hell!”
John shifted his gaze toward Kaylene. He reached a hand out for her, his eyes pleading. Then he rolled over in spasms, and lay quietly in his own pool of blood.
“Lord . . .” Kaylene said, numb from what had happened. She looked quickly over at Anna. “You . . . killed . . . him.”
“Yes, and I should have done it long ago,” Anna cried. She turned and ran from Kaylene, then fell in a heap as she fainted just outside her personal tent.
“I’m so stunned by all of this,” Kaylene murmured as Fire Thunder placed a gentle, comforting arm around her waist. “I never thought my tricking my mother into telling me the truth, herself, would cause this. She killed him, Fire Thunder. She actually killed him.”
