Chapter 18
Caitlin opened the kitchen door and stared at the ominous gray sky. It was two days before Christmas, and Shane had been gone a week and a half. She hadn’t looked for him to return from Saint Louis until yesterday, but now with the weather getting colder, she was beginning to worry about his safety.
Why had she argued with him about the children’s Christmas presents? If only she’d known that Shane was short of money. He’d said as much, but she hadn’t understood that in America land didn’t mean money. She hoped that her mistake hadn’t prompted him to go to Saint Louis to take out a loan on Kilronan or something equally as foolish.
Married eight years and they knew so little about each other. Had she and Shane been together from the time of their wedding, they would have smoothed out the wrinkles in their personalities by now—or at least they would have come to accept each other’s eccentricities.
She wondered if they’d ever bridge the chasm of mistrust between them, or if Cerise’s memory would fade. Shane had said that he had the woman’s blood on his hands but that he hadn’t killed her. Caitlin prayed that he and Justice were telling her the truth.
She’d missed Shane since he’d ridden off on Cherokee, but she was determined to go ahead with her plans for Christmas. With or without bought gifts and store candy, the children must have a special holiday.
She and Mary had baked pies while Urika plucked and cleaned a wild turkey that Justice had shot. Gabe had cut and dragged in a huge Yule log for the great-room fireplace. And Caitlin had decorated the house with holly and pine and crowfoot. She’d even managed to weave a mistletoe ball from willow sprigs and mistletoe that Justice had climbed a tree to retrieve.
At home, before the potatoes had blackened and rotted—when Mama and Papa had both been alive—Christmas had been a magical time. Her mother had played the great Irish harp, and her father the harpsichord. She would pluck the strings of the small ebony-framed lyre that her great-grandfather had brought back from Greece, and Maureen sang. If she closed her eyes, it seemed to her that she could almost hear the strains of music echoing through the house and the village children singing carols in the courtyard.
Those times seemed far away, Caitlin mused. There would be no music for Christmas this year in Missouri. Somehow she could not picture Big Earl or Rachel Thompson joining in a round of Yuletide chorus. Caitlin knew the words and melodies, of course, but her voice was not as sweet and clear as Maureen’s or Mama’s, and she would never have the nerve to sing alone without accompaniment.
This morning Caitlin was determined to ride to the Thompsons’ and invite them for Christmas dinner. It wasn’t right that the only families for miles around should be at odds with each other. Regardless of what had happened in the past, she hoped that if Shane and Earl Thompson got to know each other better, they would find a way to end their differences.
Caitlin longed for another woman to talk to—other than Mary and Urika. Mary was a good soul beneath her gruff exterior, but she was more aunt than confidant, and Urika rarely spoke at all. Caitlin missed her sister and her friends in County Clare. For all Rachel’s odd ways, she was only a little younger than Caitlin, and Caitlin hoped that they could find some common ground.
Mary had been dead set against Caitlin’s going to Earl Thompson’s house. “Big Earl no like McKenna. You go there, make trouble.”
“It isn’t far to the Thompson home, is it?”
“Not far.” Mary pointed to the lane that led out of the yard. “Big Earl live at end of road.”
“Good.” For all the unpleasantness that had occurred when the Thompsons had come to Kilronan, Caitlin was certain that she was in no personal danger from the neighbors.
She’d dressed warmly for her ride, and she’d packed a basket of jellies, sausage, and fresh-baked scones. Justice had gone to the barn to saddle her a horse. She’d decided to ride Ladybug. Despite Shane’s faith in Bessie, Caitlin didn’t want to show up at Rachel’s door on a mule.
“McKenna not want you go,” Mary insisted.
“Well, McKenna’s not at home, is he? If Mr. McKenna isn’t here to make the decisions, I must make them for him,” Caitlin said with more authority than she felt.
Gabe was away from the house as well, keeping vigil on the fences and checking the livestock. If the wrangler had been there, Caitlin knew he’d have insisted on riding with her, and she wanted to do this alone.
Even Justice had wanted to come, but she’d turned him down as well. Caitlin didn’t want the Thompsons to feel threatened, and a respectable woman extending a dinner invitation was certainly harmless.
Justice watched her mount Ladybug in silence.
“I’m counting on you to stay here and take care of Derry and the women,” Caitlin instructed.
Justice frowned, but he stayed put when she rode away from the house.
Ladybug held her head high as she stepped along. The mare’s mouth was dainty, and her gait was as soft as goose down. Caitlin had ridden for about ten minutes when she heard the sound of a running horse behind her.
Justice came over the ridge, riding flat out on his pinto. He galloped up to her and wheeled his pony around. Both boy and animal were damp with sweat. Justice’s hat had fallen off and was hanging down his back.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
Justice held out a heavy flintlock pistol. “Take this. If you need me, just shoot in the air and I’ll come.”
“I’ll be all right.” Justice’s willingness to put his own life in jeopardy to protect her made her want to hug him. “But I’ll take the gun, and I’ll signal if I need you.”
His gaze met hers, and in that instant she knew that the months of trying to reach this troubled child hadn’t been in vain. Somehow, amid the frogs in her laundry basket and the salt in her sugar bowl, Justice McKenna had begun to raise the curtain to his heart.
“I’m proud of you, Justice,” she said. “Your father would be, too. But you have to trust me in this. I’ll come to no harm. All that western gallantry—”
“It didn’t help my mother, did it?” Pain flashed in his fathomless obsidian eyes. “But she weren’t no lady.”
“No, I suppose you’re right,” Caitlin admitted. “She wasn’t. But it’s still all right for you to love her.”
“I don’t.” He spat the words so low that she almost missed them.
“Cerise loved you, Justice. No matter what she was, she did love you. Her last thought was not for her soul, but that Shane take you as his son.”
“The only person she ever loved was herself. She didn’t care nothin’ about McKenna neither.”
Caitlin prayed for the right answer. If she gave the wrong one, she was afraid that Justice would slip out of her grasp, and she’d never reach him again. “Maybe some of us have a deeper well of love to give,” she said. “How do you know she didn’t care about Shane?”
“ ’Cause he got her caught, and she didn’t want it.”
Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You know . . . he got her in the family way.”
“How did they know that he was the father? If . . .” Caitlin tried to put her question delicately. “If there were other men in her life . . .”
“Oh, you mean ’cause she was a whore.” Justice blushed beneath his heavy tan. “Cerise only slept with one man at a time. There were lots of them, but just one at a time. She earned her keep at Fat Rose’s by dancin’ and cheatin’ at cards.”
“Oh.” Caitlin averted her eyes.
“It was his baby growin’ in her belly, all right. But she got rid of it.”
Caitlin started to say that Cerise had asked Shane for money to abort the child, but the words lodged in her throat.
“I seen it,” Justice continued. “I seen it, a little thing no bigger than a . . .” He kicked his pony closer. “You cryin’? Don’t cry.”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “It’s not an evil a child should—”
“I ain’t no kid.”
“No, you aren’t, are you?” She forced a smile. “That was wrong of her . . . to do it, and to let you know.”
“She just wrapped it in a scarf and told me to throw it in the river behind Fat Rose’s.”
“Oh, Justice.” What kind of woman would involve her own son in such evil?
He shrugged. “I seen worse.”
“I hope not.”
He tugged his felt hat down over his forehead, and Caitlin noted that Justice had creased the hat to look like Shane’s. “I didn’t do what she said,” he confessed. “I went down to the bank of the Missouri, but I couldn’t throw it in like she wanted me to. I sprinkled some water on his head—I think it was a boy, but it was hard to tell. I knew you were supposed to have a name; the priest always says a name. So I said Gabriel.”
“Gabriel is a good name.” Caitlin longed to touch him, but she knew if she made a move in his direction, he would flee.
“Then I sneaked over to the churchyard in the middle of the night and buried it next to one of them big, stone angels. I thought it were fittin’.”
“It was, Justice. It was very fittin’.” Tears were coming again, and she couldn’t stop them. “Does Shane know?”
“Not about what I did.” The boy looked relieved and embarrassed at the same time. “Cerise said it wasn’t a baby, just a thing. She asked McKenna for money to get rid of his baby, and he didn’t want her to. He said she should have it, and he’d take care of us.”
Caitlin bit her lower lip until she tasted the salt of her own blood.
“Cerise lied to him,” Justice went on in a dry monotone. “The baby was already buried in the churchyard. She took poison. Fat Rose gave it to all the girls when they got caught.”
“Did Shane and Cerise argue about the baby the night your mother died?”
Justice nodded. “It was a bad fight. They was both drunk as French whores. Cerise hit him with her fists and bloodied his nose, but he never punched her back. She cursed him something fierce, and she tried to cut him with the knife. He got real mad, and he shoved her back on the bed. But McKenna never kilt her. Lots of folks claim he murdered her, ’cause it was his knife, but he didn’t do it.”
Caitlin felt numb all over, but she clung to the mare’s reins and tried to keep from trembling. “How do you know what happened, Justice? Were you there?”
He shrugged.
“Did you see who did kill your mother?”
“Maybe.” Justice yanked back on the reins hard enough to make the pinto rise on his hind legs. “Do what I said,” Justice ordered. “Fire that pistol if you need help.” Then he slapped the pony’s neck, and the animal bolted away, leaving Caitlin alone and shaken by the boy’s revelations.
That Justice confirmed Shane’s innocence in Cerise’s death reassured her. She’d never believed her husband capable of killing a woman, but at times nothing could keep uneasy suspicions from creeping into her mind.
Shane believed that his baby died with Cerise, so he mourned not only the woman but the life of his own unborn child as well. And yet he had managed to set aside his own pain and take Cerise’s fatherless boy to raise.
Caitlin looked at the pistol. She didn’t want it, but she knew that Justice would never forgive her if she threw it away, so she jammed it into the sack amid her loaves of bread and jellies.
The mare looked at Caitlin quizzically, and Caitlin clicked softly to her. The animal broke into a trot.
So many questions . . .
The wind was cold on Caitlin’s face. She thought of turning back.
If Shane hadn’t murdered Cerise, then who had? The thought that it might be Justice was too awful to consider. Who? And why? And if Justice knew the truth, why had he kept silent?
And why had the boy picked Gabriel as a name for Shane’s dead babe? Did Justice know Gabe before Shane brought the child to Kilronan? Or was there some stronger connection among Gabriel, Mary Red Jacket, and Shane’s adopted son?
Ladybug stopped so sharply that Caitlin almost lost her balance. Caitlin looked up to see a gate just ahead. Mary had told her that the fence marked the property line between Kilronan and the Thompson place.
Caitlin led the mare through the opening and replaced the poles. Getting back into the saddle without a mounting block was a challenge. She led Ladybug close to the fence and used the bottom railing to reach the stirrup.
Secure in the saddle again, Caitlin guided the mare along the barely visible trail. Off to her left grazed a herd of cattle with long, curving horns. She watched them uneasily, but they paid her no mind and went on eating.
The path wound across a low spot and then through a grove of trees. As she rode out into the field beyond, Caitlin caught sight of a low log house and outbuildings ahead.
As she approached the first paddock, two hounds began to bark at her. “Hello!” she called. “Is anyone here?”
“What have we here?” A man wearing a blacksmith’s apron stepped from the barn. He was one of Big Earl’s employees who’d come to Kilronan with the others. Caitlin thought that he must be the cowboy who’d worked for Shane and been fired. She tried to remember his name.
“How do you do?” Caitlin said. “I’ve come to see Mr. Thompson or Miss Rachel Thompson.”
“Miss Rachel, is it?” the man mocked. A pair of hoof nippers dangled from his left hand, a hammer from the other. He dropped the tools on the ground and came toward her.
Caitlin tried to urge the mare past him.
“Not so fast.” Smirking, he grabbed her reins, revealing yellow teeth in his unshaven, soot-streaked face. “McKennas ain’t welcome here.”
“Release my horse,” she said, more angry than frightened.
“Spunky, ain’t ya? Ole Nate likes that in a woman.” He put a filthy hand on her riding skirt.
Caitlin didn’t hesitate. She snatched up the bag of foodstuffs and swung it over Ladybug’s neck. The heavy sack slammed against the man’s head with a satisfying thud. He let go of her horse and clutched his chin. Caitlin yanked back on the reins and her mare reared. Ladybug’s front hoof struck the cowhand’s chest, and he fell back onto the ground. Caitlin fought to stay in the saddle without dropping the bag containing the pistol.
“What the blue hell’s goin’ on?” Rachel Thompson ran toward them with a rifle in her hands.
Nate Bone scrambled up with blood running from his nose and lunged at Caitlin’s horse. The mare threw up her head and shied away.
Rachel fired a shot into the air.
Nate stopped in his tracks.
Caitlin got her horse under control. Her hat had fallen off, her hair had come undone, but she was still in the saddle with the reins in her hands.
“What are you doin’ here?” Rachel demanded.
Caitlin pointed at the cowboy. “This ruffian needs to be taught manners. He laid hands on my mare and on my person. I don’t know what passes for decent behavior in Missouri, but in Ireland, he’d be horsewhipped.”
Rachel whirled on Nate. “You son of a bitch. Get your sorry ass back to shoeing that horse. The next time you forget yourself, you’re out of here.”
“Your brother would have somethin’ to say about that.” Nate wiped his face, streaking blood and soot down his chin and onto his already stained vest.
“Swive Beau, and swive you, too.” Rachel motioned with her rifle. “Get out of my sight.”
Swearing, Nate did as he was told. When he disappeared into the barn, Rachel turned her attention to Caitlin. “Why in hell are you here?”
Caitlin grimaced. “I think it was a bad idea.”
“Do you have many of these bad ideas?”
“I’m afraid so.” Suddenly the two of them were laughing.
“Since you’re here, you might as well step down.” Rachel motioned toward the house. “Least I can do before Big Earl gets back is offer you a cup of what passes around here for coffee.”
Caitlin extended the bag. “I brought you some bread and . . .”
“I kin smell it.” Rachel grinned, and for a moment her plain face with its overlarge mouth and chin was almost attractive. “Course, it must be pretty hard bread, the way you wacked Nate’s skull with it.”
“Actually,” Caitlin confessed, “there’s a pistol in there, too.”
“A pistol?” Rachel looked unconvinced. “Blue hell! McKenna’s got hisself a live one after all.” She began to laugh again. “Come on in and take a load off.”
Offering a silent prayer, Caitlin dismounted and followed Rachel Thompson toward the house.
The single-story log structure consisted of many additions and various rooflines. Two sections were joined by a roofed dogtrot and at least four stone chimneys. Windows seemed placed haphazardly; there weren’t many of them, and they were small.
More dogs spilled out of the house. These animals added their whines and sniffing to the clamor of the first two hounds, which had never stopped barking. Rachel motioned to a hitching rail. Caitlin tied her mare and followed Rachel inside.
The interior was spotlessly clean but smelled of dogs. Rachel waved Caitlin to a chair at a long, plank table and retrieved a coffeepot from a cast-iron cookstove.
“I hope you like it black and strong,” Rachel warned.
“Thank you.” Caitlin didn’t, but she had more sense than to admit it.
Over the cups of coffee, Caitlin explained the reason for her visit, and Rachel unwrapped the gifts of food and returned Caitlin’s cloth bag and her weapon.
“Big old horse leg like that,” Rachel said, pointing to the pistol, “knock you flat on your ass if you fired it.” She chuckled at her own joke. “Make a hole big enough to run a calf through. Give a man cause to think before he messed with you again.” She slathered a big slice of soda bread with jam. “Fine-tastin’ stuff,” she said. “My mother made such. She died before she could show me the hang of it. Wish I knowed how. I got me a sweet tooth, just like her.”
“I’d be glad to teach you; it’s easy.”
“Easy for you maybe,” Rachel replied. “Might take you up on that. Sweets do slide down good on a cold winter morning.” Then she fixed Caitlin with a hard look. “You know our stud Natchez has come up missin’, don’t you?”
Caitlin shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Gone, out of his pen without so much as a thank-you-ma’am. Two other good mares in there with him, and they’re still there. Ain’t natural. Most Injuns don’t stop at stealin’ one horse if there’s three to be had. And a man hangs just as high for stealin’ one as three.”
“We’ve had no trouble for weeks,” Caitlin answered. “Shane’s away in Saint Louis, but—”
“Away, is he?” Rachel licked the jam from her fingers. “Gabe said McKenna was—” She flushed and broke off. “I meant to say . . . Blue hell, Mizz McKenna—”
“Caitlin, or Cait if you like. We’re neighbors. I want us to be friends. Can’t we just be Cait and Rachel?”
Rachel got up and poured herself another mug of coffee. She offered the pot to Caitlin, but she didn’t think she could swallow another spoonful. The coffee was strong enough to take paint off a wagon wheel.
“Me and Gabe . . .” Rachel looked around and lowered her voice. “I like Gabe. He may be an Injun, but he’s a good friend. If Big Earl knew, he’d likely lynch Gabe. To him, the only good Injun is . . .” She shrugged. “They killed Ma, see, and Big Earl holds a grudge. Anyway, Gabe said that McKenna wasn’t to home. Bad for him if Big Earl finds out.”
“How so?” Caitlin asked.
“He’ll figure your Shane stole our stallion and sold him in Saint Louis. Big Earl and Beau are out lookin’ for Natchez now. All the boys are out except worthless Nate. Big Earl left him here to keep the McKennas from overrunning us.” She grinned. “Guess it didn’t work, huh?”
“Shane’s not a thief. I don’t know why he went to Saint Louis, but it wasn’t to sell your horse.”
“I know that. Hell, Big Earl would know that if he used his head. But Beau’s all the time filling his mind with shit. ’Scuse my mouth. I ain’t got much in the way of learnin’, Cait. You have to take me as you see me or not at all.”
“I think I like you fine,” Caitlin replied honestly. “Rough ways and all, and that invitation to Kilronan for Christmas still stands.”
Rachel sniffed and reached for another slice of soda bread. “Might just surprise you and take you up on it,” she said. “Stranger things have happened.”