Chapter 23
It was midmorning the following day when Shane McKenna came upon Rachel kneeling in the ashes of Gabe’s campfire and holding her brother’s dying body.
“Where’s Caity,” McKenna demanded.
Rachel flinched under his gaze. She’d looked into the eyes of killers before; she’d even watched one hang in Saint Louis. But she’d never felt the chill she did now as she faced Shane McKenna’s merciless stare. Gabe had told her that McKenna was dead, and from the looks of him, he might well have ridden back from hell’s gate.
“No sign of her or Gabe.” Rachel lowered Beau’s head onto her lap. Her brother was past knowing whether she talked to him or not. He was past everything but meeting his final judgment.
McKenna couldn’t miss seeing Beau beside her, and Rachel knew he didn’t need to be told that Big Earl’s only son had been trampled beyond redemption. The animal tracks and the ruin of Beau’s body were plain to see.
“My boy?” McKenna asked.
McKenna’s skin was the color of old tallow, and he was hurting bad. Rachel noted the stained bandage around his waist and the blood seeping down his trouser leg. But he sat there in the saddle as proud and straight as a Comanche chief outlined against a clear blue sky.
She shook her head. “I tracked Beau, Long Neck Jack, and that useless piece of dog shit, Nate Bone, back here from our herd. When they cut out, I guessed they were up to no good.”
McKenna waited, his Black Irish features as hard and cold as the gray steel of his rifle barrel. His cheeks were sunken in, his lips dry. She wondered if he’d eaten or slept since he’d ridden off Kilronan.
“Beau could still talk when I found him,” Rachel said. Funny how a body could say the words as easy as if they were talking about frying up a chicken for supper. Maybe Big Earl was right, and she wasn’t a natural female. Or maybe, as a kid, she’d shed too many tears when she’d had to wash her dead mother’s ravaged body to make it decent for the coffin. Could it be that God only gave her one bucket of tears to last a lifetime and that her pail was empty?
Most folks thought her hard and mannish, but it was difficult to act like a woman when she’d had none to teach her how. And it was harder still to mourn a brother she’d had to fight away from her bed ever since she’d sprouted breasts.
Beau jerked and stiffened in her arms. He gasped once and sighed a hollow, whistling sound. When Rachel looked down at his eyes, she saw that the light had gone out of them like an extinguished candle.
For a minute she went numb, and then she realized that her tears were dripping onto Beau’s forehead. “Rot your greedy bowels.” She sniffed, ashamed of her own weakness. “You never were a brother, and you never were worth the powder to blow you away.”
Rachel closed his eyes. He almost looked asleep, if you didn’t notice what he looked like below the neck. “You’re s’posed to put pennies on their eyes to keep them shut,” she said. She dug in a pocket and came up empty, then glanced at McKenna. “You got any coin on you?”
He tossed two quarters into the dirt.
“Obliged.” Rachel wiped them on her pant leg and laid them on her brother’s eyelids. “I know he wasn’t no good,” she said. “But he was blood kin.”
McKenna nodded, but his fierce look didn’t soften. “Did Beau tell you what they meant to do?”
She took a breath and then let it all spill out. “They meant to steal your herd, I reckon. The same way they stole Big Earl’s Natchez. Beau told me, not an hour ago. Him and Nate Bone sold that horse to a Frenchman headed for New Orleans. The slimy little worm stole his father’s prize stud, stared him right in the face, and blamed it on you and Gabe.”
“What did I ever do to your brother to make him hate me?”
“Nate hates you, sure enough, but it was pure greed drivin’ Beau. Nate told him that he’d inherit Kilronan once you and Big Earl were dead.”
“Ahead of my wife and son?”
Rachel shrugged. She’d never been frightened of McKenna, not even when she was fifteen and lied to Big Earl about McKenna trying to force himself on her. She’d always thought McKenna was too decent of a man to hurt a woman.
Today was different. McKenna was different, and the icy sensation running down her spine was fear.
“Sorry’s too small a word to use, McKenna. But it wasn’t me done this wrong, and it wasn’t Big Earl. My father’s pigheaded, but he’s no horse thief, and he sure ain’t no murderer.” She went to her horse and took a canteen off the saddle. “You look like you could use a drink of water.”
He took the container and uncorked the neck. He drank long and deeply, and when he was finished, he wiped the stray drops off his mouth. “Thanks. Mary’s maybe a half day behind me in a wagon. She’s got Derry with her. If you want to wait, I know Mary will help you dig a grave.”
McKenna didn’t offer to help her himself, but Rachel didn’t need to ask why. A man in his shape could ride, but he couldn’t dismount and then get back into the saddle again.
“I wasn’t plannin’ on takin’ the time to bury him,” she answered. “There’s a tree yonder, and I’ve got a rope. I thought to pull him up high enough to keep the coyotes away from him and ride on to look for Gabe.”
“If he’s alive, he’ll be trackin’ the herd.”
“Beau said Nate was supposed to shoot Gabe while he grabbed Cait. I looked for blood, but if there was any, the horse sign covered it.” She let her breath out slowly. “I didn’t find no bodies. Only Beau’s. Maybe Nate’s got Justice and Cait.”
McKenna’s gray eyes narrowed. “You and Gabe?”
She nodded. “Injun or not, he loves me and I love him.”
“Big Earl won’t—”
“To hell with my father. I would have helped Beau if I could, but he’s dead and Gabe’s alive. I’m goin’ after my man.” She took the rope off her saddle. “I’ve got to finish here, but if I can catch up, would you mind if I rode along with you?”
McKenna removed his hat and wiped the sweat away from his forehead. “It’s a free country.”
“I can shoot straight, you know the truth of that,” she said. “You might need another rifle.”
“I might,” he admitted, “but if my family’s come to harm, I mean to take Nate Bone apart Osage fashion, one inch at a time.”
Caitlin vomited until she was reduced to dry heaves. She crouched on her hands and knees at the edge of a clearing in the woods. Nearby were the thirty horses and four mules that still remained of Shane’s herd. The others had been lost in the wild chase over rocky ridges and moor that had lasted until midafternoon.
Some of the animals had bolted away from the herd; others had simply vanished. One mule had broken a leg; Nate had left the animal braying in pain beside a ground-squirrel burrow, and Long Neck Jack had doubled back to shoot it.
Sometime around dawn, Nate had dropped a loop over Gabe’s pony and put Caitlin on it. He’d tied her ankles to a rope that ran under the paint’s belly and her wrists to the saddle horn. The hemp had cut into her flesh so tightly that her hands were streaked with blood.
Once during the day Nate and Long Neck Jack had driven the herd across a river. Water had risen up to Caitlin’s knees, but she’d been unable to drink. It was thirst that tortured her now.
Nate had water. She’d watched him drink from a leather flask, but he hadn’t given her any, and she’d been too proud to beg.
A shot rang out in the distance, and Nate gave a grunt of approval. “Reckon Long Neck has got us some supper.” He pulled a hunting knife from a waist sheath, strode over to Caitlin, and leaned down. In one quick motion he slashed through the ropes that bound her wrists. “Get on yer feet, bitch, and build a cook fire.”
She stood up and rubbed her lacerated wrists. Her back ached, and her head was splitting. She knew she needed water soon, or she’d be too weak to fight him.
“Why?” she asked. “What did I ever do to you?”
In answer, Nate seized the high neckline of her russet wool riding habit and ripped it, exposing the rise of her breasts above her camisole. “Nice tits,” he said.
Face flaming, she turned away and tried to cover herself, but a blow to the side of her head made her ears ring.
“I told you to build a fire,” he reminded her.
Caitlin bit back a retort and decided that staying alive was her best option. As a child she’d heard stories of her great-great-grandmother, who’d saved herself from ravishment by killing an English soldier with a knitting needle.
If she could be so courageous, so could Caitlin. She was Irish, and the Irish were survivors.
She would do whatever she had to. She carried Shane’s child under her heart, and so long as she bore that precious burden, she would put self-preservation before any other consideration. She would get the best of Nate Bone, and she would live to go home to her husband and children.
And when I get the chance, Caitlin thought, I’ll kill the bastard.
Gabe caught the big pinto gelding easily. He saw the horse nibbling grass in a gully and whistled. Babe nickered in reply and came trotting up to him. The wrangler fashioned an Indian bridle of wild grape vine and mounted despite the bullet wound in his arm.
He turned the horse’s head in the direction Nate Bone and the herd had gone, and kicked Babe into a gallop. He hadn’t gone an hour before he heard a shout, and Justice slid down out of a tree almost under the horse’s front hooves.
“Gabe! You ain’t dead!” the boy shouted. “I thought you was dead.”
Gabriel’s chest lost some of its tightness as he looked at the child he loved as much as he would a son of his own blood. Justice’s left eye was swollen almost shut, his lip was split, and his jaw was black-and-blue, but he didn’t seem to have any injuries that wouldn’t heal as right as rain.
He motioned for the boy to leap up behind him on the paint. “What did you think you were doin’?” Gabe asked once Justice was mounted and his arms were locked around his uncle’s waist.
“Trailin’ the herd,” Justice answered. “McKenna would expect me to get them horses back . . .” His voice cracked and the man faded, leaving only a frightened child. “. . . get her back,” he finished. “Beau Thompson was with them, but he’s done for.”
“Nate Bone’s got Caity.”
Justice swore. “Devil take’m.”
Each jolt of the horse made Gabe’s arm hurt something fierce, but the bullet had gone in one side and out the other. He knew he was lucky. “You tracked them this far on foot?”
“Course I did,” Justice said. “What took you so long?”
“I took a slug through my upper arm. It knocked me off my pony just before they stampeded the herd. And then, when things quieted down, I had a talk with Beau.”
“He talked to you?” Justice asked.
Gabe didn’t explain. Better the boy didn’t know what he’d done to get Beau to tell what he knew. “He said Nate wanted McKenna dead because that rustler McKenna hung was Frank Bone—Nate’s brother. After McKenna threw Nate off Kilronan, Nate and Frank took up thieving. The one that escaped the noose that night was Nate.”
“You were right,” Justice said. “McKenna should have shot them both last summer.”
Gabe nodded. “Shot them, buried the bodies, and driven the horses over the graves to hide the fresh dirt.”
They rode in silence for a while, and then Justice tightened his arms around his uncle. “I’m glad you ain’t dead, Gabe.”
“Me, too.”
Gabe smiled as the boy laid his head against his back and slept.
Caitlin looked at the bloody strips of venison with disgust. “You can’t expect me to cook this with all this dirt and hair on it,” she said to Nate.
The other man, the one Nate called Long Neck, pointed to an opening in the trees. “There’s a spring back there,” he said. “Wash the meat off.”
“And wash your face while you’re at it,” Nate taunted. “You’re filthy as a pig, and I like to see what I’m forkin’.”
Ignoring the threat, Caitlin straightened her shoulders and walked away with as much dignity as she could.
“And don’t think you can run away. There ain’t no place to run!” Nate shouted after her.
Her steps quickened as she smelled water and heard the gurgle of the spring. She dropped the piece of deer meat and ran to plunge her head and arms into the small clear pool below a rocky outcrop.
As much as she wanted to, she didn’t drink from the water hole. She shook the water out of her hair and waded through the natural sink to the place where the icy flow trickled out of a crack in the rocks. Then she pressed her lips against the stone and let the life-giving liquid fill her parched mouth.
She swallowed only a small amount, then went back to rinse her arms and face again. Her hair was a tangle of dust and knots, and she washed and braided it into a single plait before returning to drink from the spring.
“What’s takin’ you so long?” Nate yelled.
“I’m coming,” she answered. Reluctantly she went back for the meat and began cleaning it.
She needed a plan. If she could get to a horse, maybe she could outride them. But that was unlikely. Her ribs ached with each breath, and her legs were raw where they’d rubbed against the stirrup leathers.
“Do I have to come and get you?” Nate demanded.
“Coming.” She bent to pick up the venison and felt a faint fluttering sensation in her womb. “Oh.” She gasped. And then she felt the same movement again.
Her baby. Her baby was alive and kicking.
Instinctively Caitlin placed both palms over her belly. “I love you,” she whispered, “and I’ll protect you. I promise.”
The snap of a twig brought her instantly alert. She grabbed the venison and started back toward the campfire. Although it was the early part of April, the underbrush was thick with green leaves and growing vines. So green and lovely a place, she thought. Nothing terrible should happen in so beautiful a spot.
Nate’s gaze made her skin crawl as she entered the clearing. “Makin’ yourself all pretty for me, huh?”
“For us,” Long Neck Jack added with a chuckle. “I ain’t riskin’ my life for the money we get for these broncs. We’re partners, and I expect my share of everything.”
She could kill him as well as Nate, Caitlin thought. But she kept her face expressionless as she went to the fire and threw the meat down on a flat stone. “I need a knife to cut up the venison,” she said. “Unless you plan on waiting until tomorrow night to eat, I’ve got to—”
“I’ll do the only cuttin’ around here,” Nate said. She heard the hiss of steel against leather as he drew his knife. “You’d love to get your hands on this, wouldn’t you? Cut my throat, wouldn’t you?” He laughed. “Maybe not. Thinkin’ about killin’ is a lot easier than actually doin’ it, ain’t that so, Long Neck?”
He sliced through the meat with sharp, quick slashes. “Now, me, I don’t mind getting blood on my hands,” he continued. “I put a bullet through that man of yours, and I did for that dirty Injun cowboy.” He lifted the gorestained knife and held it to Caitlin’s throat.
She jerked back away from him and put the fire between them. “Barbarian,” she muttered.
Nate spat a wad of tobacco into the fire and laughed. “Wonderin’ if I’ll do for you, too, ain’t ya? Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. It jest depends on how sweet you are to me.”
Caitlin knotted her fingers into fists and didn’t answer. She wanted to scratch out his eyes and push him into the flames of the campfire. But what Nate said was true—killing a man was hard. She might have only one chance, and she didn’t intend to risk it by acting hastily.
By the time the venison was done, Nate and Long Neck were half drunk on whiskey and rolling dice to see which one would have her first. Caitlin told herself that she had to eat to keep up her strength. She put the grilled meat into her mouth and chewed, but she couldn’t force down a single bite.
The men cut hunks off the venison with their knives. They chewed noisily, wiping the fat off their mouths onto their shirtsleeves, and then washed the food down with more whiskey.
A golden dusk was settling around them. The sun had dropped below the trees, and the air was already turning cooler. It would be dark soon, and Caitlin knew that if she was going to act to save herself, it must be now.
“Please,” she said, coming close. “I need . . . I need to relieve myself.”
“Piss where we can see you,” Long Neck replied. “I’m winnin’, and I don’t want to lose sight of my prize.”
She felt a hot flush spread up her throat and face. “I need to . . . the other.”
“Go on, then,” Nate said as he threw the dice again. “But you try to run and I’ll carve your face so Long Neck will throw a saddle blanket over your head before he jumps ya.”
Caitlin entered the woods near the spring. Hastily she took another drink and then ran through the trees as fast as she could. She came up on the far side of the herd, near the hobbled bell mare, and tried to think straight.
Gabe might ride a horse without a saddle or bridle, even Shane or Justice might, but she couldn’t. Nate had ordered Long Neck to unsaddle the mounts they’d ridden into the camp, and he’d taken the bridles off so that the horses could graze.
Unsure what to do, Caitlin crept closer to Nancy, whispering to the mare in soft, soothing murmurs.
“Where are you, you bitch?” Nate shouted.
Nancy shied and her bell jingled. A small black mare with a white blaze pushed between Caitlin and Nancy. Caitlin seized hold of the black’s mane and flung herself belly down across the animal’s withers. The horse snorted and took a few steps as Caitlin struggled to get her right leg up over the animal’s back. In spite of her skirt and petticoats, she’d almost succeeded when she heard Long Neck Jack’s voice behind her.
“Goin’ somewhere?” The rustler’s hand closed on her thick braid, and he yanked her back off the horse. She hit the ground hard, and he knelt with one knee on either side of her. “You don’t want to go before the funnin’,” he said as he fondled her breast roughly.
He brought his face down to kiss her, and she screamed and drove the palm of her hand up into his nose. Blood sprayed. Long Neck let out a yelp and jumped back.
Caitlin scrambled up and ran, dodging through the milling horses. Cursing, he raced after her. A mule kicked out at Caitlin, and she tripped and nearly fell before steadying herself against a bay and then darting between two more animals.
Her spirits soared. A few more yards and she’d be in the trees, her flight hidden by the restless herd. She ducked under a gelding’s belly and dashed straight into the arms of Nate Bone.
“Goin’ somewhere?” He grabbed her by the arm and twisted it behind her back. “Not yet, you’re not.”
Caitlin screamed in fury and fought him with every ounce of her will. Her blows seemed useless as he dragged her away from the horses.
“Fight!” he taunted her. “I like it when my women are feisty.” As soon as he reached a clear spot in the trees, he threw her down in the grass.
“No!” she cried.
“This is as good a spot as any,” he said, fumbling with his trousers. “Once you see what I got here, you’ll scream a different tune.” He unbuckled his belt with its fringed knife sheath and holstered pistol and let it fall to the grass.
“No! You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you first!” she flung at him.
Nate laughed. “I told ya, you’re gonna love it.” He dropped his pants around his knees.
Caitlin rolled and made a grab for Nate’s gun, but he seized the belt and tossed it away. He kicked off his pants and lunged for her.
She screamed and struck out at him with her fists. She knew she was weakening fast, but she didn’t care anymore. She’d rather die than let him put his filthy hands on her.
Nate slapped her face and flung her back against a tree.
Caitlin’s head was ringing so that she didn’t hear the pounding of hooves until Shane was almost upon them. His lathered horse burst through the trees, scattering the herd. Shouting her name, he wheeled the exhausted gelding in a tight circle. “Caity!”
“Here!” she screamed. “I’m here!”
Shane spurred his horse at Nate and sighted down his rifle barrel at the outlaw. Nate dodged out of the path of Shane’s horse, but at the last second Shane took his finger off the trigger and smashed the rifle barrel against the cutthroat’s head.
“There’s another man!” she screamed. “There!” She pointed to where she’d last seen Long Neck Jack.
A shot rang out, and the horses panicked and began to scatter. Shane rose in his stirrups and fired his rifle. Another shot ricocheted through the clearing.
“Caity! Get down!” Shane shouted. He drew his pistol and tried to find his target through the trees.
Then a movement on the ground caught Caitlin’s eye. In spite of the blood running down his face from Shane’s blow, Nate had dragged himself into a half-sitting position. From a hidden holster strapped to his right calf, he pulled a small brass-plated derringer.
As Caitlin watched in horror, Nate raised the weapon, cocked it, and took aim at the center of Shane’s back. “Shane! Behind you!” she shouted as she scrambled for Nate’s discarded belt.
Shane heard her warning cry and glanced back. At the same instant Long Neck Jack appeared in the midst of the horses. His rifle spat smoke and lead, and Shane twisted in the saddle and returned fire with his pistol. Long Neck’s bullet missed; Shane’s didn’t. The outlaw went down.
“Look at me, McKenna!” Nate Bone shouted.
Shane turned to face him.
“Your pistol’s empty,” Nate said. “You’ve done for Long Neck, but I’ll swive your woman over your dead body.”
Sweat ran down Caitlin’s throat, and her heart hammered against her chest so loudly that she feared Nate would hear it. She crouched within arm’s length of Nate’s back, her fingers outstretched, desperately reaching for the ivory grip of Nate’s still holstered pistol.
“You thought you were smart, didn’t ya, McKenna?” Nate boasted. “But you never knew that I was the one stealin’ your stock, and you never knew it was my brother you hung.”
Caitlin felt Shane’s eyes on her, trusting her, adding his strength of will to her own. One final effort and she grasped the weapon. It slid from the worn, leather holster without making a sound.