Tindall stared at me for a second. His expression was one of monstrous, impossible disbelief, as though the sun had sprouted legs and walked from the sky. His face went red, and he lifted his fowling piece, and I knew all too well he would not hesitate to use it.

I leaped into the air to take shelter behind our evening table. I hit the floor as the gun roared, and a rain of birdshot hit the wood, a sudden and nearly simultaneous series of wet, hard, smacking noises. Above me glass shattered, and whiskey trickled down. He had struck our only piece of porcelain, a flour jar, and the room was covered with shards and white powder. I was unharmed, but I knew I had not much time. We had both spent our weapons, and neither could take the time to reload. In a contest of strength, though he was an old man, Tindall would certainly best me.

Only then did I recall Phineas. More than half a minute had now passed since I’d struck Hendry. If Phineas were to fire upon me, surely he would have done so by now. I dared to peer out from behind my table, but I saw no one in the cabin but Tindall, and the door was open. Phineas had run off. It was hard to believe that a boy who would kill Indians in cold blood would flee from this, but perhaps the scene was too close to his own past. Perhaps, despite the hatred he felt toward me for knowing his heart, I still reminded him too much of the life he had lost, and he could neither go against Tindall nor strike out at me.

I could afford no time to sound the depths of the boy’s soul, however. I had to get away from Tindall before he reloaded, or came after me with a knife, or simply used his strength of body to overtake me. I lay but a few feet from our fireplace, and, having no other recourse, I reached into the fire and pulled out a burning branch. It was hot, but I grabbed an end as yet untouched by the fire. Gripping it tight, I pushed myself to my feet, using my free hand for leverage, and charged at Tindall. I suppose I must have been an unnatural figure, disheveled, blackened with powder, whitened by flour, red with anger, eyes wide with determined rage.

He maneuvered around me and made his way to the hearth. With two or three quick kicks he dislodged the logs, which spilled out and tumbled near our dining table. The flame from the logs began to lick at it, and I would have to act quickly to prevent the spread of fire.

It was what Tindall depended upon, because he used my moment of confusion to rush out the door.

I should have let him go. The cabin needed tending to, but I did not think of it. I had no reason to charge after him, and yet I did. I was so full of hatred for what he had done, what he had threatened to do, what he had made me do. The part of myself I knew as me, where my soul resided, retreated and shriveled. All that was left was a white-hot demon who yearned to do some unnamed, unknown, violence. At that moment, the thought of life, the thought of continuing to breathe upon an earth where Tindall still lived, was unsupportable. He ran to his horse and I chased him hard and fast, waving my burning branch and screaming I can hardly say what.

Coming down the path now was Andrew with Dalton and Skye, approaching from the path on the other side of the tree where Tindall had tied his horse. I saw them, though I did not think about what I saw, or I would have left Tindall to them. Little can I suppose what they must have made of this scene, Tindall running frantically, me chasing him with a club of fire.

Andrew came running to me. He did not care about Tindall, and he would have known that if there was violence to be done, Mr. Dalton should have been happy to do it. He only wanted to come to me, and if I had only wanted him, to be safe and in his arms, then all would have been different. I should have turned and dropped my weapon and gone to Andrew. Instead, I ignored him and continued toward Tindall. I had killed one man, and I wanted nothing more than to kill another. Phineas had said that the West would change me, and now I knew it had. I was so changed I did not even know myself.

Tindall reached his horse but did not mount. He looked and saw me, then looked past me. I was a crazed woman with a stick, he an officer beside his mount. He saw Andrew running, and that was another matter. He did not know that Andrew would not harm him, that he only wanted me, to make certain I was unharmed. Tindall might simply ride away. Instead, he took a pistol from his saddlebag and turned to Andrew.

I saw it happening, and I opened my mouth to call out, but I could make no noise. My voice betrayed me, though I know not what I should have shouted to make a difference.

Tindall fired the pistol at Andrew, discharging it at a distance of no more than ten feet. Andrew was thrown back and fell at once to the ground, striking hard and flat and with sudden force. He landed not like a living man but a lifeless weight.

I found my voice and let out a scream as I dropped my torch and rushed to Andrew, ignoring now the murderous Tindall. That Andrew was struck need not mean his end. He was young and strong and resilient. It is what I told myself, but it was all deceit. Even from a distance I saw the ball had struck his heart, and I believe he was dead before he fell. He lay there, eyes wide and lifeless. I reached him and knelt. I cradled his head in my arms, I stroked his hair, I called out to heaven, though heaven would not answer. I felt a heat upon my skin, and though I did not look up, I knew it was the cabin, awash in flames I had not troubled myself to extinguish.

Tindall knew he was in danger now, and he acted quickly. He climbed onto his horse and rode off. Dalton fired his rifle after him, but he had no clear shot. I hardly heard the crack of the weapon, the cries of anguish around me.

What did I lose that day? It pains me now to speak of it, for I lost everything. I lost my darling Andrew, who wanted only that I should live the life of my innermost desires. I lost his child, which died inside me, though I know not if it was from Hendry’s violence or from my shock at the events that unfolded. I lost my freedom, for Tindall put it about at once that I had murdered Hendry in cold blood and sought to murder the colonel too. And though it sounded trivial in my own ears, I lost my novel, taken by the flames that scorched my cabin. This too I lost-my innocence, for I had killed a man, and I could not regret doing so. Surely that made me into someone I was not before.

Everything I had desired and dreamed of and wanted in life was taken from me. Can it be wondered that I set myself against my enemies, and if my enemies were the first men in the nation itself, can I be blamed for seeking justice? The shape of that justice was not formed until later, and not formed alone, but even as I sat with my beloved husband’s body in my arms, the ghost of it was there, haunting me from the spectral realm of notions not yet conceived.