Charlotte stood up again.  “I’ve been waiting for this day.  You can trust Chace and you can trust me a whole lot more than you could trust Conner Mathis.  I’m getting something out of the wagon and it’s not going to be a gun.”

She went over and reached into the back of the wagon where she kept it.  She sat back down at the fire.

“Abner Cross, I don’t know if you know what it’s like to be married.  For myself, I expected different.  Even though my marriage was arranged without my consent, still I thought there would at least be some consideration and decency, some sort of understanding that would come with time.  There was no such thing.  He wasn’t ever truthful once in his life and his anger was in his fists.  Without that shotgun, I’d have been the one dead.  Here,” she said, holding out what was in her hand.

Abner Cross reached for it.  It was a photograph.  He winced.  Her father had it taken as soon as he saw what had happened, dragged the Family member skilled with cameras into the horrible aftermath, knowing that it would be needed, aware of all that might come.  It showed her seated in a chair, her eye swollen shut, the cheek lumpy and vividly bruised down to the jaw, her neck bearing dark marks and the torn front of her dress covered in a large black stain that was obviously blood.  They had not yet had the chance to cut off her hair.

Abner Cross sighed heavily.  “I have a witness,” he said.

“A witness?  That can’t be true.”

“Not a witness to the event.  A witness to the intent.  Someone to whom Conner Mathis mentioned, not very wisely, that he wanted to kill you.”

Charlotte doubted that remark was made with any thought of what actually happened.  Leave it be if it got this federal marshal removed from her presence.

“I had to find you anyway just to make sure.  The days of the lawless west are over.  There’ll be accountability now.”  He glanced up at Chace one more time.  “I could’ve got to this sooner if I ever thought you’d gone so far south of the trail as you did.  That never occurred to me.”

Charlotte studied her hands.

“One other thing and then I’ll leave you in peace.  Miller Dawson, he was the pilot on a wagon train that passed through there a while back, he said if I ever found you, to tell you something.”

Charlotte was instantly on the alert.

“Tell me what?”

“It’s about a young girl.  Her name is Ada.”

Charlotte considered that she was about to be hysterical.  “Tell me what about Ada?”

“He said you’d want to know she’s at Fort Randall.”

“Why?  They were going to Oregon Territory.”