Chapter 8
“No!” Caitlin tried to grab Shane’s arm, but he was too fast for her.
At the same instant Shane charged Beau, Earl snatched the bull whip off Rachel’s saddle and spurred his big gray horse between the two men. Earl slammed the coiled whip against the side of Beau’s head, and the younger Thompson toppled off his horse onto the ground.
“Haven’t I taught you better manners, boy?” Earl roared amid the stamping and snorting of the spooked horses. “Are you too damned stupid to tell a lady from a whore?”
One of Thompson’s cowboys swore as his horse reared. Another yanked his mount’s head up hard and reined the animal back away from Beau’s gelding. Rachel sat straight-backed in her saddle and stared stone-faced at Gabriel.
Caitlin bit her lower lip and tried to keep from saying words that no lady should ever think—let alone speak. They were all mad as May butter, the lot of them!
Why had she ever come to this wild place where honest men were shot at in ambush and women dressed like common cowhands?
Too angry to be frightened, Caitlin slipped her arm under Shane’s. “There’s no need for violence. My husband is no thief, Mr. Thompson. If you believe otherwise, you’re greatly mistaken.”
Shane shook off her hand and glared up at Earl. “I don’t need your help to defend my wife’s honor.”
Shane’s voice was low and deliberate, but Caitlin felt the air around them vibrate with imminent danger.
“Don’t tell me how to raise my son,” Earl answered gruffly. “But your wife has my apologies. It ain’t the Thompson way to insult ladies.” Earl’s eyes were hard as river stones in his grizzled face as he touched the brim of his hat and nodded to Caitlin. “Ma’am.”
“I accept,” Caitlin answered.
The older man’s harsh gaze flicked back to Shane. “If Beau forgets his manners to your missus again, that’ll be the last filth out of his mouth. You have my word on it.”
Beau picked himself up off the ground and climbed groggily back into the saddle. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and a purple welt rose from the outer corner of his left eye to his chin.
Rachel’s lips curved in a faint smile of mockery as she watched her brother wipe the blood off his face with his shirtsleeve. Her father tossed her back the whip, and she wrapped it around the saddle horn again.
Caitlin fought to retain her composure. “I am Mr. McKenna’s lawful wife,” she said to Earl in a strained voice. “What your son thinks or says to me is irrelevant. I have never concerned myself with the opinions of the ignorant.”
Earl nodded solemnly. “I never doubted you were who you claimed to be, ma’am, a lady and a wife.”
Beau hunched down in the saddle and scowled at his father as the other cowhands edged their horses away from him. Only one man, a sour-faced cowboy with an unshaven face and a drooping eyelid, remained at Beau’s side.
“Since you’re here,” Shane said, “you’ve saved me a trip. Somebody tried to kill me the other night. The shot came from Thompson land.”
“You accusin’ me?” Big Earl demanded.
“My fences are bein’ pulled down, calves slaughtered. Whoever’s behind it comes from your direction.”
“It ain’t me,” Earl answered.
“Glad to know it,” Shane said. “Because when I catch them, I mean to put a bullet through them.”
Big Earl nodded. “Same as I would do. But I can tell you, we’ve been hit, too. A blooded brood mare is missin’. And we’ve lost near a hundred head of cattle since Christmas.”
“Did we come here to argue over a few stray cows?” Beau asked. “Or did we come to fetch home our rightful property?”
“I’d like to take a look at that foal,” Big Earl said.
“My foal,” Shane warned. “Try to take it off Kilronan and that makes you a horse thief. The man who touches my horseflesh won’t live long enough to hang.”
A cold chill raised the hair on the back of Caitlin’s neck. What kind of man had Shane become, that he could threaten to kill another over a foal?
“Does that go for me?” Rachel pushed up the brim of her sweat-stained hat. “I don’t think you’ll shoot me, McKenna. I don’t think you’ve got the sand to try.”
“Nobody’s stealin’ our filly!” Justice shouted.
Caitlin turned to see the boy level Shane’s rifle at Earl Thompson. “Get your crew off Kilronan before I blow you to hell.”
“Put that gun down!” Shane ordered.
Gabriel snatched the rifle away from Justice.
“That was a fool’s trick,” Shane admonished. Then he looked back at Earl. “It seems both our sons lack common sense.”
“Son, hell. That ain’t your son,” the rancher replied. “That’s nothin’ but a snot-nosed Indian bastard. Your uncle would be turnin’ over in his grave if he knew that you were pinnin’ the McKenna name on a half-breed.”
Caitlin saw the muscles tense along Shane’s jawline. “Now it is you who are forgetting your manners, Mr. Thompson,” she said frostily. “Justice is our son, as legally a McKenna as I am.”
“That don’t settle our problem over the filly,” Rachel said. “Our prize stallion, Natchez, marks ever one of his foals. Black hide, white star. If your filly fits that description, it’s ours by right.”
“Come on, boys,” Earl said. “We’ll just take a look in McKenna’s barn.”
“Your stallion may well have fathered that foal,” Shane said. “But I didn’t tear down the fence between our land. And I doubt if a rustler would take the trouble.”
“You do think we’re behind the shootin’,” Rachel answered.
Shane shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Bull—” Earl’s wrinkled face flushed puce. “Manure,” he finished lamely with a quick glance at Caitlin. “Your uncle knew me for twenty years, McKenna. Have you ever heard of me backshootin’ a man?”
Shane shrugged. “I don’t think it’s you personal.”
“You think Big Earl ordered it done?” Rachel asked. Her voice was rough like a man’s, and Caitlin wondered again what kind of woman she was. “Nobody shoots anything on Thompson land without his say-so.”
“I guess we both have a pretty good idea what we think of each other,” Earl growled. Then he motioned to his daughter. “Take a look at that new filly. If it’s got a white star, we’re takin’ it home with us.”
“You lay a hand on my animal and—” Shane broke off with an oath as the cowboy with the drooping eyelid pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Shane’s chest. “Damn you, Nate Bone, I warned you to stay off Kilronan.”
The man grinned, exposing a broken picket fence of blackened teeth. “I work for Big Earl, not you, McKenna. You or Gabe move so much as a finger, and I’ll blow a hole in you that yer missus kin drive an ox through.”
Rachel turned her horse toward the stable. Not knowing what else to do, Caitlin followed.
“Wait,” Caitlin said as the woman dismounted.
“Your man ain’t stole no breedin’, you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.”
“Please, if you’d just listen to me,” Caitlin insisted. “Surely neighbors don’t need to fight over—”
Rachel yanked open the barn door, and Caitlin’s mouth went dry. Would Shane try to fight all these armed men when Rachel saw the white star on the new foal’s head?
She had only her husband’s word that he wasn’t responsible for breeding the mare to Thompson’s stallion. Could the accusation be true? Once she would have insisted that Shane would never be dishonest, but now she was no longer certain of anything about him.
It was dim inside the stable after the bright sunlight, but Caitlin didn’t need to see clearly. Star’s white patch would show up like a lit candle thrown down a well.
“Someone could be killed,” Caitlin insisted as Rachel strode from stall to stall, inspecting the animals. “Don’t you care?”
The Missouri woman spun to face her. “Look, fancy city gal, you’d best learn how things work out here. Nobody steals nothin’ from Thompson land. Not water, not stock, and not Natchez’s seed. If McKenna’s stooped to thieving, he deserves what he gets.”
“Surely there must be laws? Why must this be settled with angry words and guns?”
“What the hell do you know about anything?” Rachel demanded. “You and your puffy little sleeves and dainty shoes too good to get cow crap on! My mother and two of my brothers died for our land. We’ve fought Indians, wolves, and renegades to hold it, and we’re not about to start backin’ down now.”
Caitlin retreated a step, scorched by the venom in Rachel’s voice. Then something moved, and both she and Rachel caught sight of a figure in the shadows.
“Mary?” Caitlin asked. She’d left the Indian woman in the kitchen with Derry earlier. How had she gotten into the barn without being seen?
Mary grunted and stepped out into the center passageway. “Mary give new mother vinegar. Good for mare. Make milk for baby.”
“That baby’s what I want to see.” Rachel leaned against the box stall railing.
Caitlin held her breath.
“I’ll be damned,” Rachel swore. “Talk about black Irish luck.”
Caitlin ran to the gate. The foal lay curled in the straw beside her mother, ears up, bright eyes alert. The tiny filly’s black face was damp; milk dripped from the corner of her mouth, and her bottlebrush tail flicked back and forth.
Her white star was gone.
Caitlin blinked. The foal was as black as Satan’s chimney, without the slightest hint of white on her face.
“I’ll bet you ten silver dollars that horse has Natchez’s blood,” Rachel said as she began to chuckle. “Damned Irish luck, that’s what it is. Every filly and colt Natchez sires is the spitting image of him but this one.” She slapped her palm against the top rail of the gate. “Guess Big Earl owes your man another apology.”
Still chuckling, Rachel Thompson walked out of the barn and swung up on her horse. “We were wrong,” she called to her father. “Nothin’ here belongs to us.”
Caitlin stood in the barn doorway. “I don’t understand why there are bad feelings between your family and ours,” she said. “Now that I’m here, perhaps we can change that.”
Rachel threw her a scornful look. “Can’t decide if you’re for real, fancy woman, but you’re sure good for a laugh.” Digging her heels into her mount’s sides, Rachel slapped the end of the reins against the gelding’s neck and rode back to join her father.
Earl Thompson nodded to Shane and led his riders away at a hard trot. Rachel fell in behind them, and as she guided her horse out of the yard, she glanced back at Shane and Gabriel one final time.
“Caity,” Shane called. “What just happened here?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” When he started toward her, she went back into the barn. She knew Shane would chastise her for not remaining in the house. But right now, it was more important for her to find out how the filly had lost her white star and why the Thompsons were their enemies.
Mary was still in the stable. Caitlin walked past her and looked at the foal again. She could have sworn this was the same filly she’d seen Shane deliver the night before. “Mary?” Caitlin asked. “What did you do?”
The older woman shifted her pipe from one side of her mouth to the other and shrugged.
“This foal had a white star,” Caitlin insisted.
Mary stood, silent, unsmiling.
“You didn’t have time to put another foal in her place.”
Shane entered the barn and came to stare at the mare and filly. He didn’t speak to Caitlin, but she could feel his barely concealed anger.
“You should be in bed,” Caitlin murmured.
Shane glanced at Mary. She uttered a single word, then walked away without looking back.
“What did she say?” Caitlin asked. “Is that Indian she’s speaking?”
“Osage.”
“And you understand it? What did she say?”
Shane nodded. “I speak it some.” He leaned on the top rail of the stall gate and looked at the foal again. “Lampblack,” he said.
“What?”
“She dyed the filly’s white patch with lampblack.” He opened the gate and reached down to touch the foal’s head. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers were smeared with black.
“But how did Mary—”
“She’s an Indian, Caity. You live around them long enough, you’ll find out that they can do a lot of things that don’t seem possible. But that’s not what’s worryin’ me now.”
Caitlin brushed her hand against his fingers and stared at the stain. “What do you mean?”
“Rachel Thompson isn’t stupid. If I figured this out, she should have.”
“But she didn’t,” Caitlin insisted. “She told her father—”
“Never mind what she told Big Earl. It never pays to make quick decisions about people or situations, Caity. There’s more to Rachel than what you see.”
“Why do they dislike you so much?”
“Big Earl? He hates me. Beau hates everybody.”
“And Rachel? Does she hate you, too?”
Shane’s eyes narrowed. “Not as much as she’d like her father to think. I’ve known her since I first joined Uncle Jamie in Kentucky. Rachel was just a skinny kid in pigtails then.”
“Thompson knew your uncle?”
“They were friends and neighbors. Uncle Jamie and Earl scouted out this Missouri country together. They found Kilronan and bought it off a Spanish grandee.”
“You mean they were partners?” Caitlin asked.
“No. They divided the land right from the start. Half to Big Earl, half to Uncle Jamie. He won the toss of a coin and got first pick.”
“The families moved to Missouri together?”
Shane nodded. “Big Earl wanted to raise cattle and oxen. Uncle Jamie thought Kilronan was better for horses and mules.”
Caitlin clasped Shane’s hand gently, taking care not to put pressure on the lacerated palm. “I’d feel better if you’d come back in the house,” she said. “Your head and ribs . . . You shouldn’t be on your feet.”
He grimaced. “It doesn’t feel any better layin’ on my back,” he said before continuing. “The first two years here were rough—drunken trappers, army deserters, tornadoes. You name it. Earl’s wife and oldest son, Al, were murdered by an Indian war party. A younger boy was shot by rustlers. Big Earl took it hard, but for Rach it was harder. She was startin’ to fill out into a woman’s shape, and she had nobody to teach her how she was supposed to act. She would have turned out better if her mother had lived.”
Caitlin liked the feel of Shane’s hand in hers. For all his hard manner, he made her feel safe.
“Are you listenin’ to me, Caity?”
“Yes, Shane. I am.”
“Earl hadn’t been around women much, so he didn’t know how to raise a girl. He just treated Rach like a boy. Her brother Beau was always a rotten apple, and Rachel got in the habit of followin’ me around.” Shane met Caitlin’s eyes. “Rachel was a kid. There was nothin’ between us but friendship.”
“Did she think different?”
“There weren’t many eligible men around, and none that Big Earl would let near her. And Rachel took a notion that I . . .” He picked up a handful of straw and began to scrub at the lampblack on his hands.
Caitlin waited.
“She kissed me, and I didn’t handle it too well. I teased her and told her that she was too young to fool around with a married man. She told Big Earl that I’d tried to take advantage of her.”
Shane was telling the truth. He had to be, Caitlin told herself. Her husband would never try to seduce his neighbor’s innocent daughter. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
He nodded. “Aye, more. Big Earl lost his temper and rode over threatenin’ to horsewhip me. Uncle Jamie threw him off Kilronan. To my knowledge, the two of them never spoke to each other again.”
“And he blames you for that?”
“Earl blames me for Uncle Jamie’s and George’s deaths.”
“But why? It was an accident. You told me that they drowned in a flood.”
Shane’s mouth thinned. “They died, and I didn’t. And Kilronan came to me, lock, stock, and barrel. It seemed too much of a coincidence to Big Earl.”
“You loved your uncle. You would never have done anything to harm him or George. I remember you used to talk about them to me, years ago, before you came to America. You told me how you wished your Uncle Jamie was your father.”
“Aye, I did. Still do,” Shane admitted. “My father was a worthless drunk. He had a bad temper, and when he drank, it got worse. I never wanted to be like him.”
“You’re not.” She leaned her cheek against his upper arm. “You never were.”
Shane brushed the crown of her head lightly. “I’d like to think that, but I got his temper. Sometimes . . .” He drew in a slow, deep breath. “I’m tellin’ the truth about Rachel, Caity, and about what happened to my uncle. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“But you tried to make me think something about Justice’s mother that wasn’t true,” she reminded him. “You loved her—didn’t you?” Hurt shimmered in waves through Caitlin, but she braced herself for what she knew was coming.
“Maybe I did,” he said huskily. “Honestly, I don’t know if it was love or something else. But I care for Justice. Mostly, I think, I wanted to protect him. That’s why I didn’t tell you everything about Cerise.”
“She’s still here, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s dead.” Shane stiffened. “Dead and buried.”
“I wish she wasn’t,” Caitlin answered softly. “I wish she was still alive!”
“Why?”
“If she was alive, I’d have something to fight. How do I battle a dead woman’s ghost?”