Heart Of Texas (Historical Romance) (5 page)

Casey held her breath as the wagon inched forward. She wanted to shout for joy when it pulled
out of the river and onto solid ground, but she
didn't. She watched the stranger wade out of the
water to stand dripping on the bank. She should
thank him for helping them, but she was still
seething from the unkind remarks he had made.

"I'd like to pay you," she said instead.

"You can pay me by keeping a closer watch on
your daughter. Anyone could have come along
and carried her off. It's dangerous out here,
ma'am."

He was the most dangerous person Casey had
seen so far. She turned her back to him, allowing
him to believe that she was jenny's mother.

"You have our gratitude," she said in a voice
that implied the opposite. She felt some satisfaction in the fact that he was as soaked to the skin
as she was. She hoped his boots were full of water.

"Your gratitude and a nickel will get you nothing out here. This country is no place for folks
who don't even know how to cross a river."

She turned and glared at him.

"Ma'am, if your husband were from around
here, he'd have known there were rocks in this
part of the river. If you had gone fifty yards downstream, you could have crossed with no trouble at
all."

He had driven the point home. She watched
him adjust his hat as he gave her a dark look. "If
you are figuring on camping around here, I think I should warn you that you are on private property."

She returned his frown with one of her own.
"Are you saying you own this land?"

"Nope. I'm just riding through. And, if I were
you, when your husband returns, I'd advise him
to do the same."

"This is the Spanish Spur ranch, isn't it?" Sam
asked.

"That's what they call it. If you are wise, you'll
load up and keep going until you are clear of this
place."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that
this was their land, and he was the trespasser. Instead, she watched him mount his horse and ride
away.

"Sam, if that was what they call `Texas hospitality,' I want none of it."

"He did do us a good turn," her brother reminded her. "But he didn't give his name, and he
didn't ask for ours."

"I hope we have seen the last of him," she answered. "He is an overbearing, arrogant man."
She frowned in contemplation. "What do you suppose he meant by warning us off our own land?
It's strange, don't you think?"

"Maybe we should have asked him."

Jenny drew back as she studied her sister. "You
look so funny with mud all over your face. I wish
I could have some on mine."

"Little girl," Casey said in annoyance, "don't you ever run away again. You could have been
lost. What if that man had taken you away from
us?"

Jenny lowered her head-she wasn't accustomed to Casey scolding her in such a hard tone.
"He wouldn't wear my flower," she said forlornly.

Casey set her sister on her feet. "You stay right
here while Sam and I load everything back in the
wagon-and don't move from this spot."

Glaring, the child sat down hard and folded her
arms across her chest in defiance. "I'm not going
with you to our new home. I'm staying here all by
myself. Then when I get hungry, I'll probably die,
and you'll be sorry you talked so mean to me."

Casey was already sorry. To make amends she
bent down and placed a kiss on the child's cheek,
which did nothing to soften jenny's expression.

"Let's get busy," Sam interjected, laying his rifle
on the wagon seat so he could get to it in a hurry.
"It'll probably be dark before we reach the
house."

Casey knelt at the river and washed the mud
from her face, then spoke encouragingly to her
brother. "We made it, Sam. Just like Papa would
have expected us to."

A smile tugged at Sam's lips. "Papa would have
been proud of us, wouldn't he?"

"That he would."

By the time they were finally ready to leave, the
sun shone on the high cliffs on the other side of
the river, washing them in a red glow. As they got farther away from the Brazos, the land leveled off
to scrub brush, mesquite trees, and cactus.

Sam balanced jenny on his knee, watching as
Casey drove the team. "This country is not a bit
like Virginia," he said, reflecting her own
thoughts.

"No, it isn't. And we are all feeling somewhat
lost at the moment. We know next to nothing
about ranching and raising cattle."

"We can learn," Sam said hopefully.

"We didn't know how to survive on the trail,
but we did it. We came this far against almost impossible odds. We'll learn what we need to know,
and figure out the rest as we go along." She tightened her hands on the reins. "We'll do whatever
it takes to make this our-"

"I see a house!" Jenny cried, waving her arms.
"Casey, Sam, it must be like our big house back
home-the one the soldiers burned up."

Casey reined in the team, and they all quietly
stared at the scene before them as their excitement turned to disappointment. The house was a
Spanish-style structure that had long been neglected and stood in desperate need of repair. In
the distance there was a large barn, as well as several outbuildings she couldn't identify.

As far as Casey could tell, there were no animals
and no people about. The place looked as if it
had been deserted for a long time.

As Casey urged the horses forward, she noticed
there was a brick well with a wooden bucket hang ing from a tattered rope. That was something,
anyway-at least they wouldn't have to depend on
the river for their water-if the well water was still
good.

She met Sam's gaze and felt his discouragement.

"The house we lived in after ours burned was
much smaller than this one," she said brightly.
"And this is our home-that one wasn't. Think of
it this way: we have all the time in the world to
make repairs."

Sam knew she was trying to be cheerful for his
sake, but he was old enough to be told the truth.
"How much money do we have to make those repairs?"

She nodded at Jenny, who was scrambling over
the side of the wagon. When she dropped to the
ground and ran toward the house as fast as her
little legs would take her, Casey answered her
brother. "I have in my possession forty-seven dollars. In the letter Papa got from that attorney, Mr.
Murdock, he wrote that we were to come to his
office as soon as we arrived. The letter was mailed
from a town called Mariposa Springs. I think it's
possible that Uncle Bob may have left us in debt,
and there may even be back taxes to pay on the
ranch."

Sam looked around. "It certainly doesn't appear to have been a prosperous ranch."

"No, it doesn't."

jenny came running back, laughing with delight. "This is the best house I have ever seen!
And you will never guess what! We get to live with
chickens!" She was so excited, she was jumping
up and down. "I saw them right there in the
house!"

Casey and Sam exchanged glances as Sam lifted
Jenny up in his arms.

"Our welcoming committee," Sam observed
with irony.

"Chickens," Casey said in a stunned voice.

Casey stepped over broken glass and scattered debris to reach the rickety porch step. A slight
breeze caught the door, and it creaked back and
forth with only one good hinge to hold it in place.
Her heart plummeted as she stepped into the
dark interior. There was no furniture at all, and
she could not identify the awful odor that permeated the air, making her want to gag.

She moved cautiously through the first room,
holding her hand over her nose. She didn't take
a deep breath until she moved into the kitchen.
She rushed for the window, which was stuck. She
pushed and tugged until she was finally able to
shove it open, letting in fresh air.

She hung herself out the window for a moment.
Then she glanced about the kitchen. Mercifully,
there was a large cookstove and an open hearth.
It must have once been a nice kitchen. There
even appeared to have been water at one time, because there was a broken pump handle on the
floor.

She backtracked through the front room and
found what must have been her uncle's bedroom.
It was now dreary, dismal, and empty. With a
heavy heart, she returned to the main room and
almost stumbled over a ladder that led up to a
loft, which must have served as a second bedroom. At the moment it seemed to be serving as
a chicken roost.

Jenny had been right. Huddled in the rafters,
clucking their annoyance at being disturbed, was
a flock of chickens! She closed her eyes and tried
not to think about what she had just stepped in
that squished beneath her shoe. She tried to
imagine the house as it might once have been,
but she could think only about the work it would
take to make it livable once more.

Sam stood in the doorway, holding jenny's
hand. "The barn is in bad shape and will need a
lot of repairing. The corrals are not too bad,
though-they just need a few boards replaced.
And, Casey, there is a small two-room cabin on
the other side of the bunkhouse, and someone is
living in it. There was a pot of coffee on the back
of the stove, and it was still hot. But no one
seemed to be around at the moment."

"I wanted to wait for them. Sam wouldn't let
me," Jenny said, jerking her hand from her
brother's.

"It's probably someone who worked for Uncle Bob." Casey tried to gather her wits about her.
"It's too late to do anything tonight, so it looks
like we'll be spending another night under the
stars."

Jenny had broken away from Sam and was
headed for the ladder. "I'm going to sleep with
the chickens."

Sam caught up with her and swung her into his
arms, but not before she had stepped in chicken
droppings.

Casey groaned as she untied her sister's shoes
and held them away from her nose. "The first
thing I want you to do tomorrow is to fix that
door. I'll be evicting the chickens."

Jenny seemed to be the only one who was
happy about their situation. This was certainly not
the welcome they had hoped for.

"Did you see any sign of stock, Sam?"

"None whatsoever-not cattle or horses. And it
doesn't look like there has been any here in a
long time."

Casey let out her breath. "It's just as well. We
wouldn't know what to do with-"

"Don't no one move!" A female voice cut
through the silence and echoed around the
empty house. "I got a gun aimed at your back,
and I know how to use it."

Casey turned slowly to face the newcomer, who
certainly did have a rifle trained on her. "Who are
you?" she asked, hoping the woman wasn't deranged.

"Now, seeing as how you three are the intruders, I'll be the one asking the questions. There
ain't going to be no squatters on this land. I drove
a family off last month, and I'm telling you to
leave right now."

The woman was the most unusual person Casey
had ever seen. She could not be over four feet
tall; she was angular and thin, her chin sharp and
prominent. She wore a gray skirt with the hem
tucked into her belt, showing a pair of cowboy
boots and a pair of men's red long johns. Her
gray hair was braided and then twisted into a knot
on the top of her head. Her eyes were dark,
maybe brown-it was hard to tell in the dim light.

Sam moved closer to Casey, and she handed
Jenny to him, then stepped in front of them.

.We aren't intruders; this is our land," Casey
stated clearly.

A doubtful expression moved over the woman's
face, but she loosened her grip on the rifle, aiming it at the floor. "Now, I know who this ranch
belongs to, and the last time I looked, it surely
wasn't you three. You have the look of squatters
to me."

"You are mistaken," Sam said, setting jenny
down and pushing her behind him. "The Spanish
Spur belonged to our uncle, and he left it to us
in his will. What we want to know is, who are you
and what you are doing here?"

"Never you mind about me. How do I know you
aren't from the Casa Mesa ranch, sent here to stir things up? Cyrus Slaughter is just mean enough
to send someone 'round to cause more trouble
for me."

Casey took a step toward the woman. If she was
crazed, she wanted to be standing in front of Sam
and Jenny. "You are on our land," she said cautiously. "You are the one who is the intruder."

"Now that ain't the way of it. I've been living
here way before you were even born. Do you have
some kind of proof to back up your claim?"

"I have a letter from my uncle's attorney in the
wagon. His office is in Mariposa Springs, and his
name is Mr. Bartholomew J.Murdock. My uncle
was Bob Reynolds."

The woman's hard expression eased a bit, and
she nodded. "Why didn't you say so straight off?
You'd be the ones I've been expecting. Where's
your pa?"

Casey stepped even closer and lowered her
voice so jenny wouldn't overhear her answer. "My
father... died on the way here. Jenny doesn't understand, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't
mention it in front of her."