Savage Skies

Then he smiled cruelly at Shirleen. “Yep, I saw you with a savage,” he said. “You’re living in sin with that savage, you know, because you are still legally my wife.”

“I am nothing to you,” Shirleen said, frowning at him. She was so afraid, she could hardly stand. “The father of my child is my husband in all respects . . . my true husband. In my eyes, and God’s, you are no longer my husband. You lost the right to call me your wife after you abandoned me, and after you stole my daughter from me.”

Shirleen placed her fists on her hips, trying to stare him down. “In fact, Earl Mingus, you are nothing to anybody. You are no longer a father to my Megan. The man I married is everything to me and Megan. Do you hear? Everything.”

She prayed that Megan would arrive soon with Blue Thunder, for out of the corner of her eye she had seen Megan run off toward the village.

“Well, I’d never even want to touch you again after you’ve slept with a lice-infested savage,” Earl snarled. He motioned with his rifle toward the darker depths of the aspen forest. “I have one extra horse besides my own, but both of you women can share it. I’ll get you far enough away from the Injun village, and then kill you both. And to hell with Megan. I don’t care what happens to her. She’s been nothin’ but trouble since the day she was born.”

The hatred that Shirleen felt for Earl at this moment was so intense, she was ready to try to grab his shotgun, but knew she didn’t have a chance against him.

And she wanted this baby that grew inside her womb so badly, she would do nothing to harm it.

She only hoped that Megan’s little legs would take her to Blue Thunder in time.

“You will never get out of this alive and you are a fool if you think otherwise,” Shirleen said, trying to buy time. “I’m not sure if you realize just who my husband is. He is Chief Blue Thunder. He will hunt you down, and when he finds you, he will scalp you slowly and painfully while you are still alive, and then he will kill you.”

Earl took an unsteady step away from her. He had grown pale. “I knew you were married to an Injun, but had no idea it . . . was . . . such a powerful chief,” he said. “I had no idea it was his village I had been stalking. I just knew it was a village of redskin heathens and that you and Judith lived there. I even watched you from afar, and also Megan, waiting for the chance to get you.”

He laughed cynically. “You probably think you’ve done yourself good by marrying a chief,” he said.

He looked past her, at the spot where he had seen Megan hide. “Megan, come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said. “If you don’t, Papa is going to come for you. You don’t want Papa to spank you with his belt, do you?”

Just as he spoke the last threatening words, an arrow came whizzing past Shirleen and Speckled Fawn, landing directly in the arm that held the shotgun. Earl dropped it immediately.

And then another arrow came just as quickly, sinking into Earl’s stomach. He screamed in pain and fell to his knees, trying to yank the arrow from his stomach.

“You son of a bitch!” Earl cried out as Blue Thunder stepped into view, his bowstring readied with another arrow.

Shirleen hurried and grabbed up Earl’s shotgun, then stepped quickly away as Blue Thunder ran up to her side.

He held the bow steady as he glared down at the injured man. “The girls came and warned me,” he said as he looked from Shirleen to Speckled Fawn, and then gazed down at Earl again. “I told them to stay with Aunt Bright Sun while I went to save her mother and Aunt Speckled Fawn.”

Speckled Fawn smiled widely at her new title of aunt.

Every day she felt more accepted by Blue Thunder and his people.

Shirleen gazed unblinkling down at Earl as he fell over to one side and lay in his own blood, his eyes glassy now as he looked back at her, pleadingly.

“Save me,” Earl begged. “I was something to you once. Please . . . save . . . me. Your papa would want you to save me. Don’t you remember? He thought I was something special.”

Blue Thunder eased his bow across his shoulder and slid the arrow that had been locked on its string back into his quiver. He took Shirleen’s hand. “Let us go home,” he said, totally ignoring Earl as he clung to his last moments of life, begging for mercy.

Shirleen could not help staring at Earl as his breathing became slower and slower and his eyes grew dull. “What about him?” she asked, looking quickly up at Blue Thunder.

“Leave him be,” Blue Thunder said coldly. “He deserves to die alone, and he will. He will die soon. He will be food for the animals that roam the darkness of night.”

Earl heard that last comment. “No!” he screamed pitifully. “How . . . can . . . you be so inhumane? Shirleen, how . . . can . . . you . . . ?”

Shirleen turned away from him with Blue Thunder and Speckled Fawn at her side. Together they walked away from Earl, his screams growing weaker and weaker.

“It does seem so inhumane,” Shirleen said, visibly shuddering.

“Consider who the man is, and then you will see why he should die in such a way,” Blue Thunder said implacably. “I will send warriors later to make sure he is dead. When word of his death is brought to me, I shall do what is right in your eyes. I shall have him buried, but far, far away, so we will never come across his resting place. I want no reminders of him to trouble us.”

Shirleen sighed with relief that Earl would get a proper burial even though she knew he deserved much less.

When they reached the outer edges of the village, Megan came running toward Shirleen.