Keegan's Lady (2 page)

It was the craziest thing Jamie had ever heard.

Jamie's thoughts were cut short by his mother's scream, which was followed by "Oh, my God, no! Are you mad? Turn loose of my husband. Please! He hasn't murdered anyone! He's never hurt anyone in his entire life. Oh, my God! Stop this. Stop it this instant!"

Spurred into motion by the fear in his mother's voice, Jamie tumbled from the wagon. The instant his feet touched the ground, he froze to get his bearings.

The four men had gotten off their horses and thrust the ends of their torches into the ground. Patch, Joseph's dun gelding, had been unhitched from his traces and stood at the center of the men, one of whom held fast to the cheek strap of the animal's harness while two others tossed a struggling Joseph, hands tied behind his back, onto the gelding's back.

Fear slammed into Jamie. Like the lawless outlaws in a dime novel his ma had once read to him, these men meant to lynch his pa.

Dory threw herself forward and clung to Joseph's leg, pleading for his life between ragged sobs. One of the men flung her to the side, and she landed hard.

Jamie felt his knees give, but somehow he remained standing, dumb with terror. And then he remembered the rifle. It was his pa's only chance.

"You let my pa go!" he cried as he swung the rifle butt to his shoulder. "Let him go, I said, or I'll shoot. I mean it!"

Jamie had no sooner issued the threat than a beefy hand jerked the gun from his grasp. He looked up to see Conor O'Shannessy looming over him. The burly redhead reeked of whiskey and horse sweat. He staggered slightly as he lifted the rifle in his capable hands.

"Git outa here, boy. You can't help your pa. Nobody can."

Dory sobbed piteously. "Joseph! Oh, dear God, Joseph!"

Jamie whirled back around. His heart nearly stopped when he saw that Joseph, still helplessly astride Patch's broad back, was sitting under a nearby oak tree, a noose dangling before his pale face.

"No! You let my pa go! Lynchin' a man is against the law."

"We are the law," Estyn Beiler hollered. "I'm the marshal in No Name, boy!"

The marshal? Jamie started forward, only to be pulled back by Conor O'Shannessy. "You can't hang my pa," Jamie protested. "He ain't done nothin'!"

"Oh, yes, he has, boy. Murdered Camlin Beckett! Shot him in the back."

"You're wrong! It wasn't
Pa.
It wasn’t!”

"Who else would've done it? Camlin was a good man. There isn't a soul for a hundred miles who wished him ill. Nobody except your father. I should've known to expect trouble. Goddamn, no good squatters. There ain't a one of you worth the powder it'd take to blow you straight to hell."

Jamie saw that the other men were lowering the noose over Joseph's head. Fists and feet flying, he threw himself at O'Shannessy. "You let him go! You let him go!"

"Why, you miserable little shit!"

The metal plate of the rifle butt glinted in the torchlight as O'Shannessy drew the weapon back. The next instant, Jamie's head seemed to explode. A horrible, bone-shattering pain radiated from his left cheek to fill his vision with flashes of white. With a whoosh of expelled breath, he landed in a loose-jointed sprawl, too dazed even to spit the dirt from his mouth. Curiously, he felt little pain when O'Shannessy followed the blow to his face with a kick to his body, the toe of his boot connecting sharply with Jamie's right hip.

"Jamie!"

Feeling as though he were separated from reality by heat shimmers, Jamie heard his mother's scream, then saw her lift her skirts and run toward him. An instant before she reached him, Conor O'Shannessy snaked out a hand and brought her reeling to a stop. Her petticoats flashed beneath her swirling skirts as he jerked her against him and gave a low, evil laugh.

O'Shannessy tossed away the rifle. "Well, now, aren't you a fine little swatch of calico."

Dory struggled to escape his grasp. "Let go of me! My son—"

"Deserved what he got, just like that no good bastard yonder."

Jamie worked his mouth to tell his ma that he was all right, but for the life of him, he couldn't make the words come out. He looked past her at the oak tree. Joseph was jerking frantically from side to side to avoid having the noose lowered over his head.

"Ma, help Pa," he finally managed to gasp out.

Following his gaze, Dory saw what was happening and stopped struggling. What little color remained in her face drained away. "I'm begging you, mister. Don't do this terrible thing. You have to believe me. Joseph would never, never shoot anyone. I swear it. Please, at least allow him a trial before a jury!"

O'Shannessy shook his head. "He's had all the trial he's gonna get, and we've found him guilty."

"Please. Don't kill him. I'll give you anything. The wagon, our horses, what little money we have. Anything!"

O'Shannessy snorted. "I don't want your old wagon and broken-down horses, woman."

"Then what? Anything. Just name it, and it's yours. Please, Mr. O'Shannessy, please."

Dory's plea ended with a horrible, tearing sob. O'Shannessy peered down at her for a moment. Then his broad face creased in another drunken grin. After signaling to his friends that he wanted them to hold off on the hanging for a moment, he said, "Well, now, darlin’, that's a mighty tempting offer."

"Dory, no!" Joseph cried. "Dear God in heaven, no. I'd rather—"

One of the other men cut Joseph short by shoving a wadded handkerchief into his mouth. Dory laughed, a horrible, wet, shrill little laugh that didn't sound quite sane. Desperate to stand up, Jamie fought with all his will to move, but even as he struggled, O'Shannessy was leading his ma away from the light.

Sensation slowly returned to Jamie's body, first to his fingers, then to his hands. He managed to push onto his knees, but then another wave of dizziness took him down again.

He had no idea how much time passed before O'Shannessy reappeared. Still fastening his trousers, he staggered toward the oak tree.

"Gentlemen," he said with a flourish of one hand, "you may now hasten to make an honorable man of me. As you know, I don't consort with married ladies. Widows, however, are fair game."

"No!" The bodice of her dress agape, Dory came tearing out of the bushes. "You promised! You gave me your word!"

O'Shannessy let loose with a loud, coarse burst of laughter. One of his cohorts slapped Patch on the rump. Startled, the gentle dun gelding surged forward, taking the man astride his back along with him.

When Joseph reached the end of the rope, he was jerked from Patch's back. As the noose cut cruelly into his windpipe, he arched spasmodically. Then, as though in time to his wife's horrible sobbing, he kicked and twitched, the macabre cast of his shadow dancing across the ground. His gasping mouth seemed to grin around the wad of handkerchief between his teeth.

When at last Joseph hung lifeless, O'Shannessy staggered to his horse. Hollering for his friends to do the same, he climbed into the saddle.

"Leave the torches," he yelled, still laughing. "The boy'll be needin' light to bury the bastard by." With that, they rode away into the darkness.

CHAPTER ONE

No Name,
Colorado

June 1885

Startled awake by a thunderous noise, Caitlin O'Shannessy sat bolt upright. Disoriented from sleep, her first thought was that her father had come home drunk again and was storming through the house toward her room. She had already leaped from bed and was throwing on her wrapper when it occurred to her that Conor O'Shannessy had been dead for nearly a year.

Heart still pounding, Caitlin went utterly motionless in the inky darkness and cocked her head to listen. The noise, she realized now, was coming from outside. Horses? Judging by the din, there were six or seven, and all of them seemed to be heading toward the barn.

Pushing a shank of long, curly hair back from her eyes and quickly tying the sash of her wrapper, she padded across the bare wood floor to the window where light from a waning moon shone faintly through Irish lace. As she swept aside the curtains to peer out, several months' accumulation of dust stung her nostrils. Disgusted, she waved a hand to clear the air.

The barn, which sat facing the house about a hundred feet away, looked dark and quiet, just as it should. Above its hip roof, the pale half-moon resembled a broken ivory button dangling by an invisible thread from sequined blue velvet. Though she stared until her eyes started to burn, Caitlin could detect no sign of movement in the patches of darkness under the billowy oak trees scattered about the yard.

Strange, that. She felt certain she'd heard horses. So where were they?

The question no sooner presented itself than she saw lantern light flicker faintly inside the barn. As the glow gained brightness, elongated shadows leaped to life upon the interior plank walls. Having spent more than one night in the barn tending sick animals by lantern light, she recognized the distorted shadow shapes as those of men and horses. Several of each, judging by the jumble.

Though it was too dark to see the clock beside her bed, she guessed it to be well after
midnight
, a late hour for company to come calling. But since her brother Patrick had taken up drinking as his favorite pastime three months ago, very little surprised her.

Thoroughly awake now, she sighed and leaned a shoulder against the window frame. Here she was, in the middle of cutting and baling the season's first stand of grass hay, and Patrick had come home with a passel of friends in tow? He was twenty years old, for Pete's sake only two years younger than she was. When in heaven's name was he going to stop this infernal carousing and get back to the business of running the ranch?

Since he'd started drinking, Patrick rarely spent much time at home anymore, which left her to do all his work as well as her own. With the additional load, she seldom found opportunity to clean the house. And now he'd brought friends home with him? They would undoubtedly make a big mess in the kitchen, and if any of them spent the night, she'd have linen off all the beds to wash next week as well. As if she had time for things like that? While Patrick was trying to drown his demons in a whiskey bottle, someone had to keep food on the table. It seemed little enough to ask that he at least show her some consideration.