Judith E French (35 page)

Shane drank from her hands and then met her gaze steadily. “You are like this to my soul, Caity,” he said. “Springwater to a thirsty man.”

She went into his arms and kissed his cracked lips. “Shane,” she murmured. “I love you so much.”

He held her so tightly against his chest that she could feel the thump of his heart. “And I love you, too. I wouldn’t want to live a day without you.”

“You never said the words,” she whispered. “I’ve waited and waited for you to tell me so.”

“I should have,” he said. “Maybe I was afraid to admit how much I loved you … even to myself … for fear of losing you.”

“You’ll never lose me.”

And then she remembered Justice, and a chill settled over her joy. Pushing away, she got to her feet. “Justice,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to him. We were separated and—”

“He’s fine,” Shane assured her. “An hour’s ride behind me with Gabe and Rachel Thompson. Gabe took a bullet in his arm, but he’ll survive it. They’re gathering up the loose stock that got left behind.”

“Justice is safe?” How could she have forgotten him? Or Gabriel? “Justice fought Beau to save me,” she said. “If anything happened to him—”

“He was trackin’ the herd when Gabe found him. Like you, the boy’s got a few bruises, but nothin’ serious.”

“Why did you come alone?” she demanded as she brought him more water in her clasped hands.

He waited until after he’d drank to answer. “Gabe lost a lot of blood. I knew if he came with me, there’d be no
way to keep Justice out of trouble. I asked Gabe to watch out for our son.” He exhaled slowly. “I figured there were only two rustlers, and I should have been able to take them.” His mouth tightened. “I was wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong,” she answered. “You did …” She trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words. Killing Nate seemed unreal. She’d done it because she had to, and she supposed she should feel some sense of horror at committing such a violent act. But instead she just felt numb. It was Shane or Nate. Nate never had a chance.

“He was a predator, Caity,” Shane said. “Put him out of your mind.”

“But the church teaches us that killing is wrong. Does what I did make me as evil as Nate?”

“I’m a poor one to ask about religion, Caity. But you saved two lives by takin’ his.”

She nodded. “He can’t hurt us or anyone else again, can he?”

“No more, darlin’. Not anymore.”

Caitlin sat beside him on the grass and laid her head against his shoulder. “Where’s Derry? Did you leave her with Mary? Will she be safe at Kilronan?”

“Yes … and no.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a long story, Caity, and I haven’t eaten in days. If I tell you, do you think you could find me something—”

“Not a bite until you tell me where my daughter is.”

“Just like a woman,” he teased. “You take advantage of a man when he’s too weak to fight back.”

“Where is Derry?”

“Mary is bringing her in the wagon. Mary didn’t think I could ride. I proved her wrong—didn’t I?” He managed a crooked grin.

“I think we both proved her wrong,” Caitlin replied. “But now what do we do?”

“Gather the troops and press on to Independence,” he said. “We’ve come too far to turn back. And the way you and Gabe and Justice moved that herd, we might just get to the fort in time to get a decent price for our stock.”

A week later, Caitlin came out of a dry-goods store in Independence with her arms full of fabric, thread, a dozen pairs of stockings in various sizes, and two pairs of leather boots. Shane had promised that he would take her to Saint Louis to stock up on supplies in a few months, but she couldn’t pass up the first opportunity she’d had to shop since coming to Missouri.

Shane got stiffly down from the wagon seat and helped her to load the purchases into the back, while Derry bounced up and down in excitement. Shane had insisted on buying her candy earlier, and the child had managed to smear peppermint all over her face and onto her bonnet strings.

“Look at you,” Caitlin scolded mildly as she pulled Derry into her lap. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch anything until we wash those hands.”

“Is that it?” Shane asked as he climbed back into the wagon and gathered the reins. His wounds were healing slowly, and Caitlin worried about him, but he’d refused to see a doctor and insisted time would make him right.

“I’m done,” she replied.

Shane nodded and urged the team back into the main flow of traffic down the dusty street.

Caitlin still couldn’t believe how many people were
traveling west on the Oregon Trail this spring. She’d long since given up counting the farm wagons, two-wheeled carts, and even pushcarts that she’d seen since arriving at Fort Independence.

The dust and the noise were frightful. Cowboys, pale-faced easterners, Mormons, mountain men, Tennessee farmers, Indians, and Mexicans flowed through the streets, laughing, arguing, bargaining, and commenting on the weather. Dogs barked and scrapped; chickens, packed into small crates and tied to the backs of wagons, cackled, and pigs squealed.

Riders and barefoot children herded horses, mules, oxen, and cows amid the tangle of wagons. Babies wailed and men cursed. Caitlin longed for the peace and quiet of Kilronan.

“You wanted civilization,” Shane reminded her as they barely missed colliding with a freight wagon loaded with barrels of flour. Caitlin clung to Derry with one hand and the wagon seat with the other.

“This isn’t what I had in mind,” she replied, coughing.

He laughed. “We’ll head for home tomorrow. Our business here is finished until next year.”

“I don’t understand why all these people want to go to Oregon instead of staying in Missouri or settling in Kansas or—”

“Indians in Kansas. And there’s no free land left in Missouri. They want free, not cheap.”

Caitlin looked at the rickety farm wagon ahead of them pulled by two slat-ribbed mules. A heavily bearded man in a shiny black suit two sizes too small limped beside the team. Caitlin counted eight skinny children of various ages and at least three dogs hanging out the back of the wagon. A hugely pregnant woman with stringy blond hair walked behind carrying a runny-nosed infant.

“I can’t believe that family will ever make it to the mountains,” Caitlin said, “let alone over them to Oregon.”

“Some won’t,” Shane admitted. “But this is America. They don’t hang you for tryin’.”

She and Shane had remained at the camp near the spring for several days while Shane regained his strength. Gabe, Justice, and Rachel had joined them the day after Caitlin had killed Nate. Since Shane was running a fever, he’d decided that he and Caitlin would wait for Mary while the other three drove the herd on to Independence.

“Damned if I won’t get top price for your stock!” Rachel had boasted. “And we might just get them there ahead of Big Earl, too. I know which trail he’s takin’. Gabe and me can take the shortcut.”

Caitlin had tended Shane’s injuries and prayed for Derry and the Indian woman’s safety. And eventually they’d arrived.

“Mary not go fast like lightning,” Mary had clarified for Caitlin. “Slow like oak tree. Live long time.”

Derry’s nose was sunburned, and she wore moccasins on her feet instead of shoes. But the child’s cheeks were rosy, and she was as talkative as always.

“We saw wolfs!” she proclaimed. “A mama wolf and a baby wolf. And a buff-a-fant.”

“A buff-a-fant?” Caitlin had asked with a glance at Mary.

“Buffalo,” Mary supplied.

Derry had nodded. “That’s right. I see a buff-a-go.”

Their arrival in Independence would have been exciting for Caitlin, but the past weeks had been so overwhelming that she was ready to accept almost anything as normal. Gabe, Justice, and Rachel had met them near an old trading post just west of the fort, as planned.

“I told you I’d get prime money for them broomtails,”
Rachel had said proudly. “Sold every head of them in two hours, most to the army.”

Nancy the bell mare, Bessie, and a few of the herd remained. Shane hadn’t intended to sell them. They would need extra mounts for the trip home, and Nancy would lead next year’s drive. “That ole mare knows the trail so well that Gabe and me don’t have to ride herd on them,” Justice said. “We can just set her on her way and meet her here.”

“Ought to be some way to teach Nancy how to bargain with the dealers,” Rachel teased.

“I’m plannin’ on teachin’ her that,” Gabe insisted, “as soon as she learns to talk.”

Rachel grinned and then glanced at Shane. “Gabe wants to speak to you, McKenna. It’s important.”

Gabe pulled off his hat and crumpled the brim in his hand. “It’s best told in private.”

“All right. But Caity is my wife. I want no more secrets from her.”

“Derry, would you like to have a ride on my horse?” Rachel asked the child. Derry nodded, and Rachel led her away. Mary followed them.

“I got to stay,” Justice said.

Gabe exhaled slowly. “First off, you should know that Justice is my nephew. Cerise was my sister.”

“Mary told me that,” Shane answered quietly. “Just before I left Kilronan. She said she was Justice’s grandmother.”

“You never said a word to me,” Caitlin said. “Why—”

“You knew, didn’t you?”

Caitlin nodded. “Were we wrong to hide it? Mary was afraid you’d send her away. Would you have?”

“If I’d known who she was when she first came, I probably would have,” Shane admitted.

“When you brought Justice home, I thought he needed
a grandmother’s hand,” Gabe said. “Isn’t that what happened with Moses in the Bible? Somebody got the boy’s mother to act as—”

“I don’t need any preaching this morning,” Shane said. “You all pulled one over on me, and I was fool enough to fall for it.”

Gabe grinned. “Well, one Indian looks pretty much like another, don’t they?”

“But there’s more,” Justice put in, grinding the sole of his boot into the dirt. “I was hidin’ under the bed the night my mother died. I saw what happened, or most of it.”

Shane’s face paled. “Then you knew I didn’t kill her.”

“It was an accident,” Justice continued. “There was another man in that room besides you, but he didn’t stab her either. She fell on her own knife.”

“I was that man,” Gabe admitted.

“You?” Shane stared at him.

Gabe nodded. “I was angry with her for the way she was living. We argued, and she tried to cut me with the knife. I tried to take it away from her, but …” He trailed off. “I should have told you, McKenna. I was afraid—afraid to tell my mother and afraid that they’d hang me for killing her.” He met Shane’s gaze. “I loved her, too. And I’ve got to live with knowing that I was partly to blame.”

“Cerise was the only one to blame,” Justice said. “I loved her … I love her, but she died by her own hand. Drink killed her, and maybe unhappiness.” He looked up into Shane’s face. “But it wasn’t Gabe, and it wasn’t you.”

“I’ll understand if you want me and my mother off Kilronan,” Gabe said.

Caitlin shook her head. “No! You—”

“It’s all past and done with,” Shane said. “Best we get on with livin’ and let Cerise stop tearin’ us apart.”

Later that morning, Gabe and Rachel had vanished without saying where they were going, and Shane had driven Caitlin to do her shopping.

Justice and his grandmother stayed to set up camp beside the trading post. Sleeping rooms were impossible to find in the town, so every year Shane rented the same open-sided shed from an Omaha Indian woman.

Shane turned the team onto another street, past several buildings in various stages of construction, and circled around a tent city of peddlers, laundresses, and snake-oil salesmen.

“They’ll sell these settlers anything,” Shane said, pointing out a man in a frock coat displaying a folding table to a young couple. “Guns that won’t shoot, elixirs that won’t cure warts, and worthless gewgaws to trade to the Indians. Not that any self-respecting Indian would buy such trash, but the settlers won’t find that out until it’s too late.”

Caitlin knew that Shane had been shaken by what Gabe and Justice had told him about Cerise’s death, but she felt it was best to wait until he wanted to talk about it.

“Gabe said that there was one wagon train forming up on the north side of the fort that was all Irish immigrants,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we could ride over there this afternoon and see if any of them are from County Clare. I mailed a letter to my sister yesterday, but it will take months to get news from home. Someone might know if the potatoes failed again last fall or—”

“I’ll take you if you want to go, Caity,” he replied, “but don’t count on seeing anyone you know. Thousands of Irish are headin’ west.”

Derry wiggled on Caitlin’s lap. “Can I have more candy?” she begged.

“No more peppermint,” Caitlin said. “You’ll get a bellyache. If you eat it all now, you—” She broke off as she caught sight of Justice galloping toward the wagon on his pinto pony.

“McKenna! McKenna! Come quick!” the boy shouted. “Big Earl’s gonna shoot Gabe!”

“Hold on tight,” Shane ordered and slapped the reins over the team’s back. The wagon lurched forward and bounced over the rutted trail.

When Shane got close enough to see the shelter and the horsemen gathered near it, he yanked back on the reins. “Whoa! Justice! Stay here and watch out for the women!” He jumped down, grabbed his rifle, and ran toward Big Earl.

Caitlin scrambled from the wagon seat, lifted Derry down, and turned to Justice. “Give me your pony.”

“But McKenna said—”

“Now, Justice!”

He dismounted, and Caitlin swung up into the saddle. She gathered the reins in hand and glanced back at the children. “Justice, you watch Derry here. Keep her safe. I’m counting on you.” Then she pulled the pony’s head around and kicked him into a gallop toward the confrontation.

Caitlin didn’t stop until she’d reached Shane’s side. He stood facing Earl Thompson, three of his hired hands, and a dark-haired man who looked vaguely familiar to Caitlin. But Big Earl wasn’t paying any attention to Shane; he was yelling at his daughter.

Rachel and Gabe were on foot, and Gabriel had an arm around Rachel’s shoulders. Both of them looked very pleased with themselves, considering Big Earl’s temper and the torrent of abuse he was heaping on them.