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“While I was at the fort, talking with Shirleen’s husband, much was revealed to me that had nothing to do with Shirleen,” Speckled Fawn said.
“What was revealed?” Blue Thunder demanded, his jaw tight, for he was becoming more and more annoyed by all the delays.
“Shirleen’s husband, Earl Mingus, was the one responsible for your wife’s death, not Big Nose and his Comanche renegades,” Speckled Fawn finally found the courage to say.
Blue Thunder felt as though someone had struck him. The news that Speckled Fawn had just told him was so shocking, it seemed unreal.
“How would you know this?” he finally managed to ask, his voice drawn.
“Because he told me,” Speckled Fawn said solemnly. “He had consumed quite a bit of whiskey even before I arrived at his cabin. After he drank more of what I brought, his tongue was loosened. He bragged about things that he had done, mainly finding a lovely Indian maiden in the forest, alone, and . . . and . . . raping and killing her.”
Blue Thunder felt himself grow dizzy as he heard this horrible truth. Yet when it had sunk in, he became strong in mind and body again.
He doubled his hands into tight fists at his sides. “Tell me all that he told you,” he said thickly. “Leave nothing out, not even something you might think would hurt me too much to hear. Remember that I am strong in all ways. I am strong enough to hear the worst.”
His heart pounded hard in his chest as Speckled Fawn told him about everything Earl had said, and how the man was so proud to have raped and killed an Indian woman.
Nothing in Blue Thunder’s lifetime had been as devastating to hear as what Speckled Fawn had just told him.
He hungered now for vengeance against this man who was not even truly a man, but a gutless, cowardly animal.
He could finally avenge the terrible wrongs that had been done to his beloved wife.
To remember her was to remember sweetness, the sort of sweetness that he had found again in the woman he would soon marry.
To take such sweetness from this earth was the worst possible crime a man could commit, in Blue Thunder’s opinion.
“What are you going to do?” Speckled Fawn asked guardedly as she saw the rage in her chief’s eyes. “And when? The riverboat should be arriving soon. Earl plans to be on it.”
Then she gazed out the entrance flap at the torrential rain falling from the sky.
She turned toward Blue Thunder again. “Yet I doubt now that the boat will be arriving, or leaving, anytime soon,” she said, slowly smiling. “You see, I know riverboats and the habits of their captains. During my years of being alone, fleeing from one town to another, I spent many an hour hidden on riverboats. When the weather is as bad as it is today, the rivers rise too much for the boats to travel. The captains find a safe place to tie up, then wait out the storm. This will give you enough time to stop Earl Mingus before he boards the paddlewheeler.”
Blue Thunder gazed with grateful eyes at Speckled Fawn. He reached a hand out and placed it gently on her face. “During your time in my village I have not treated you as well as I should have,” he said quietly. “You see, I never understood why my uncle preferred a white woman over one of his own skin color, but now I think I know why he wanted you as his wife. He saw in you what I couldn’t, or should I say, refused to. That proves just how wise a man my uncle was, for there could not have been any better wife than you were to him.”
Deeply touched by what he’d said, Speckled Fawn flung herself into his arms, sobbing. Their wet clothes clung as they hugged.
Then, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, Speckled Fawn stepped away from him. “Are you going to tell Shirleen what I just told you?” she asked softly.
“Every word,” Blue Thunder said flatly. “She already knows how evil Earl Mingus is, and now she shall know just how fortunate she is to no longer be with this man. I will also tell her that when I avenge my wife’s death by killing him, I shall also take revenge for
the beatings she received. He will pay for each of the scars that he inflicted on her back!”
He walked past Speckled Fawn and held the flap aside as he gazed up at the black sky.
There was no letup.
The lightning continued to flash. The thunder and the wind continued to roar.
He gave Speckled Fawn a smile over his shoulder, thanked her for being who she was, then ran out into the cold rain.
He had promised Shirleen that he would protect her forever.
Now he was even more determined to do so, for he knew there were countless men, both white and red-skinned, who were as evil as Earl Mingus.
But Earl just might be the worst of them all.
Chapter Twenty-eight
