McKettrick's Choice (16 page)

Holt sipped his coffee, tilted his head back to assess the sky. “You're getting soft in your old age, John,” he said.

Mr. Cavanagh laughed. Cowboys began to stir from their bedrolls, muttering, shoving their hands through their hair, getting a fix on the coffeepot and coming straight for it.

Lorelei's anxious plea was out before she could catch it. “Please don't say anything,” she whispered.

Holt gave her a sidelong glance and took another sip of coffee. Spared her a nod. “Like I said last night,” he whispered back, meeting her eyes, “when I run across a woman in the altogether, I like to savor the experience. Keep it private, for my own entertainment.”

Her cheeks throbbed. “When are you going to let this drop?” she hissed.

“Oh, Miss Lorelei,” he beamed, “when I've been in heaven ten thousand years, I'll still be thinking what a fine thing leeches are.”

Lorelei clamped her back teeth together, nearly bit off her tongue. “I wouldn't count on going to heaven if I were you,” she said.

He raised his coffee mug in a toast. “Even hell would be bearable,” he said, “with an image like that in my head.”

“I truly despise you.”

“So you've said,” Holt replied, and walked away.

After breakfast, the cowboys saddled the horses and mules, and John hitched the team to the wagon. Holt put the fire out with a bucket of water, carried from the homesteaders well, and mounted up, bold as Hannibal about to cross the Alps.

Lorelei led Seesaw over to the copse of trees where the four fresh graves were. “We'll take care of your little boy,” she said, very softly. When she turned to mount the mule, she saw Holt nearby, on his Appaloosa gelding, watching her from under the brim of his hat.

She braced herself, expecting him to reprimand her for holding up the rest of the party. Instead, he simply reined the gelding away and galloped off.

The men seemed especially watchful as they rode, Lorelei noticed uneasily. They traveled more slowly than the day before, staying close by the wagon. She knew they were on the lookout for Indians, mainly, and probably a few other deadly perils she had yet to think about.

All morning long, the women of the party took turns riding in the wagon with John, Sorrowful and the baby. The child was an amazingly durable little creature; except for a happy gurgling, he didn't make a sound.

Lorelei was sorry when it was time to give him up to an eager Tillie and get back on the mule.

 

A
ROUND NOON
, they came upon another homestead. This one, blessedly, was still standing, and there were welcome signs of life everywhere.

Chickens, pecking at the dirt.

A black and white milk cow, grazing on lush green grass.

A man came out of the shed that probably served as a barn, carrying a rifle and looking earnest. He gestured at the house with a stay-back motion of his hand—a warning, no doubt, to his wife.

“Howdy,” he said cautiously, looking the party over with measuring eyes.

Holt swung down off Traveler's back and pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Holt McKettrick,” he said, though he didn't put out his hand. “We're on our way to pick up some cattle, by way of Laredo.”

The man nodded, lowered the rifle and introduced himself, cautiously friendly. “My name's Bill Davis,” he
said. “You can water your horses if you like. Let them graze a while.”

“Thanks,” Holt said, and turned to signal the riders to dismount.

When he faced Mr. Davis again, he cleared his throat. “You know your neighbors, over on the other side of that valley?” he asked.

Mr. Davis smiled. “Good people. Don't know them too well, though. Proving up on a homestead doesn't leave much time for socializing.”

Lorelei stayed close, trying to pretend she wasn't listening as she let Seesaw slurp from the Davis's water trough.

Holt looked down at his boots, then met the other man's gaze again. “They're all dead, except for the baby,” he said. “Comanches.”

Davis paled. Turned toward the house, where a slender woman in a calico dress, washed so often it had no discernible color, hovered in the doorway, looking on. A little boy, no older than two, clung to her skirts, his thumb jammed into his mouth.

“Mary,” he called hoarsely. “Those folks that settled over yonder, last spring? They've been kilt by Comanches.”

Mary put a hand to her mouth.

“Like I said,” Holt went on quietly, “we found the baby alive. We don't know what to call him.”

Davis frowned. “I reckon their name was…Johnson, or Jefferson, something like that.” He looked back at his wife. “Mary?”

The woman hefted her little boy into her arms, scanned the horizon, probably for Comanche war parties, and came out to stand next to her husband. “Jackson,” she said, pale behind a spattering of delicate
freckles. “Horace and Callie Jackson.” She blinked. “The children…?”

“These folks found the baby,” Davis explained, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You happen to know his name?”

“It's Pearl,” Tillie put in fiercely, from behind the wagon seat. She was holding onto the baby with both arms, like she thought someone would try to wrench him from her.

Mary glanced at Tillie, obviously confounded, then shook her head. “I only met them a couple of times—the first time was when they came over in the wagon to ask to buy some milk. Their cow went dry. Callie was still carrying the boy then.” Tears filled her faded blue eyes, and she held her son a bit more tightly. “Those little girls were such good children. Polite as could be. I'd baked molasses cookies the morning they came, and when I offered them some, you'd have thought it was Christmas.”

“You know if they had family around here anyplace?” Holt asked.

Again, Davis looked to his wife for the answer.

She shook her head. “Callie told me they hailed from someplace in Illinois. She was right homesick. Broke down and cried when she ate that cookie—said her mama used to make them, once upon a time. They didn't say for sure, but I figured they couldn't afford to buy sugar and cinnamon and the like.” Mary's gaze wandered back to the boy Tillie called Pearl and stuck there. “We could take him in,” she said. “We've just got little Gideon, here.”

“No, Mary,” Davis said gently. “It's all we can do to feed ourselves. Anyways, he can't hear proper.”

Lorelei was startled, and a bit unsettled, by the degree
of relief she felt. It was selfish of her, she knew, but she was already dreading the inevitable parting from the baby. Of all of them, though, Tillie would take it hardest. She simply wouldn't understand.

“We've got a cow,” Mary said, not looking at him. “Plenty of chickens and eggs, too. He's just a baby, Bill.”

“He's my baby,” Tillie said, jutting out her chin.

John, still sitting in the wagon seat, reached back to touch her arm. “No, girl,” he told her gruffly. “We've just borrowed him for a little bit.”

An uncomfortable silence fell. A tear slipped down Mary's cheek, but she held her head high and proud. “Bill and me, we don't get much company,” she said. “We'd be grateful if you'd stay for a meal. Pass the night, if you want to.”

Holt tried for a smile, but fell short. “Best we move on, while there's still plenty of daylight,” he said, with a shake of his head. “We'd be grateful if you'd sell us some milk, though, and whatever eggs and butter you might be able to spare.”

“Glad to do it,” Bill replied. “I'd just give you those things outright, but winter's coming on and the money will run low, like it always does. Mary, you put Gideon in the house and bring out what the hens laid this morning.” He turned back to Holt. “I reckon we could let you have half a dozen chickens if you want them.”

Mary hesitated, then turned to do her husband's bidding. Lorelei felt the other woman's disappointment as though it were her own; Mrs. Davis longed for company. Leaving Seesaw's reins to dangle while he continued to monopolize the water trough, she followed as far as the doorway.

The inside of the house was plain but tidy. The walls
were lined with shelves of preserves, and the fifty-gallon barrels supporting the worktable next to the stove were probably filled with flour, beans or cornmeal. There was no stove, but the fireplace served for cooking. The bed was of carved wood, covered with a quilt—probably a relic of another life, in a more civilized place. Gideon lay in the center of the mattress, sound asleep.

“Did you see those Indians with your own two eyes?” Mary asked. Until that moment, Lorelei hadn't realized the other woman knew she was there.

“No,” Lorelei said.

“I lie awake some nights, worrying that they'll come and scalp us all.” As Mary spoke, she was busily taking eggs from a crock filled with water glass, setting each one carefully in a bowl. “Times like this, I wish we'd stayed in Iowa.”

“You must get pretty lonesome out here,” Lorelei observed, stepping over the high threshold.

Mary dashed at one cheek with the back of her hand and went right on counting out eggs. “Sometimes I think I'll die of it,” she said, very softly.

Lorelei didn't know how to respond to that stark admission. She wondered, in fact, what Mary would say if she knew about the safe and easy life Lorelei had left behind in San Antonio. She'd probably think her a fool to throw it all away.

“What's your name?” Mary asked.

“Lorelei Fellows.”

“That good-looking man, the one who did all the talking—he must be your husband?”

Lorelei felt that odd heat rise in her again, and shook her head. Holt McKettrick, her husband? Now there was a disturbing thought. “I'm not married,” she said.

Mary stopped, stared at her. “Not married?” she asked
practically. Then she blushed. “I'm sorry. I've got no right asking questions like that.”

Lorelei summoned up a smile, though the mention of Holt and the word
husband
in the same sentence had shaken her. “It's all right, Mary. I'm on my way to Mexico, to buy cattle for my ranch. Mr. McKettrick was headed that way, too, so—”

“Where are my manners?” Mary spouted, smiling, when Lorelei's words fell away like so many pebbles rolling downhill. “Sit yourself down. I'll make you a cup of tea.”

Lorelei would have given just about anything for tea, but there had been no mention of including Tillie and Melina inside, so she was reluctant. She averted her eyes and caught sight of a large pan of cinnamon buns, cooling on the table. Her mouth watered.

“I don't think there's time,” she said at last. “Mr. McKettrick wants to keep moving.” When she looked back at Mary, she saw that the other woman had followed her gaze.

“Nonsense. Men are always in a hurry. You go out there and get your lady friends, and we'll all four have a chat, whether any of
them
like it or not.”

Lorelei's throat tightened. She turned and hurried outside to collect Tillie and Melina. Melina came eagerly, if a little shyly, while Tillie looked wary. Maybe she thought it was a trap, that they were all going to gang up on her and take away the baby.

“Please join us, Tillie,” Lorelei urged gently. “It won't be a tea party without you.”

“I've never been to a tea party,” Tillie said, wavering. “And I'll bet Pearl ain't, either.”

Mary was tidying her hair in front of a small cracked mirror when they came in. She'd set out four pretty,
if mismatched, plates and some cracked china cups. “There's hot water in that kettle on the hearth,” she said cheerfully, “and the basin's over there, on the washstand.” She smiled at Tillie. “Put the baby down on the bed, with my boy. He'll be tuckered from riding in that wagon.”

Tillie hesitated, then did as Mary asked.

They all washed up at the basin, in their turn, and sat down at Mary's table for tea and cinnamon buns.

Lorelei couldn't remember when she'd eaten anything better.

“Will you be passing by this way again? On your way back to San Antonio, I mean?” Mary asked, when they'd chatted about weather, eastern fashions and the obscene price of sugar. Time was running out; any minute, one of the men, probably Holt, would come to the doorway and tell them it was time to get back on the trail.

“I don't know,” Lorelei said.

“Probably,” Melina put in. She'd been careful of her manners throughout the visit, saying little.

“If you could bring me back a bolt of checked gingham,” Mary said, her cheeks pink with the difficulty of asking a favor of strangers, “I'd be mighty grateful. I haven't had the material to make a new dress since I don't know when.” She got up from her short-legged stool, probably built by her husband, and opened a canister on the worktable. “I've got five dollars saved,” she confided, lowering her voice. “That ought to be plenty.”

“We'll bring the gingham if we can,” Lorelei said, touched by Mary's childlike eagerness. “You can pay us then.”

Mary withdrew her hand from the canister, looking baffled and shy. “I do hope you can come back. And not just because of the gingham, either.”

Rafe loomed in the doorway. “Time to go,” he said. “Holt's chomping at the bit.”

On impulse, Lorelei went to Mary, hugged her. “What color?” she asked.

Tillie gathered up the baby, and Melina said a muffled “thank you.” They both left the house.

“What color?” Mary echoed, confused.

“The gingham,” Lorelei said, thinking of all the grand dresses stuffed into her wardrobe in the San Antonio house. She wished she could fetch them, somehow, and give them all to Mary Davis.

Mary's eyes twinkled with hope. “Blue,” she said. “I do dearly love blue.”

“Blue,” Lorelei confirmed, and took her leave.

M
OUNTED ON
S
EESAW,
but reluctant to leave the Davis place, Lorelei watched from beneath the brim of her hat, tugged down low over her face, as Mary went from one rider to another, platter upraised in both hands, making sure every member of the party got one of her cinnamon buns. That this represented a significant personal sacrifice, Lorelei did not doubt. Sugar, flour, yeast and spices were all hard to come by, especially on a hardscrabble ranch in the middle of nowhere.

She swallowed painfully. When, in all her sheltered life, had she ever made a genuine sacrifice? She couldn't think of a single instance, and that shamed her.

“You look mighty pensive,” Rafe commented, riding up beside her. He'd pulled off his leather trail gloves to accept one of Mary's rolls, and he was just finishing it off.

Lorelei swallowed again. “I was just thinking about what a hard life it is, way out here,” she said. “Lonely and dangerous.” That wasn't all of it, of course, and maybe he'd guessed that, but the regrets she felt were too personal to share.

Rafe adjusted his hat, rested one forearm on the horn
of his saddle. “Folks like the Davises here, and the Jacksons, they're a special breed. They aren't satisfied with getting by in some safe, settled town. There's something in them that makes them grit their teeth and step over any line in the dirt, if only to see what's on the other side.”

“I admire that,” Lorelei said. Holt gave the customary signal, raising an arm and spurring his own horse forward, and the party began its lumbering movement back onto the trail.

“So do I,” Rafe answered. “I'd venture to say you're a lot like them, Miss Lorelei. Real brave, and real stubborn. You know the truth—that anything is better than living a half life. Even dying.”

Lorelei kept her mule alongside Rafe's magnificent black gelding. She wanted to look back, but she knew it wouldn't serve any purpose except to make her sorrowful. “You're not afraid of that? Dying, I mean?”

Rafe sighed. “I don't want to leave this party any sooner than I have to,” he said. “But just about the first thing our pa taught us was that a man
decides
whether he's going to be scared or not. That decision determines whatever he does after that. Same goes for a woman, naturally.”

Being fairly certain that her eyes were in shadow, thanks to her hat brim, Lorelei let her gaze stray to Holt, riding ahead. His back was straight, and she knew every one of his senses was in full play. Wondered what it was like to be so sure of oneself, trusting in an innate ability to handle whatever presented itself, be it expected or unexpected.

“So that's why your brother is like he is,” she mused.

Rafe shifted in the saddle. They'd gained the trail now, and the whole party was picking up speed. Chief traveled
at a trot, and Seesaw kept pace. “Holt didn't grow up with the rest of the family,” he said. “Pa left him behind with his first wife's people, here in Texas, after she gave up the ghost. I know Pa thought it was for the best, at the time, since Holt was about the size of Pearl there, and needed a mother and a roof over his head. I'm not sure Holt would agree, though. He went through some hard times, until Mr. Cavanagh took him in. He and Pa have had their go-rounds about the matter right along, that's for sure.”

Lorelei was intrigued, and there was a long, hard and perilous ride ahead. A conversation would serve as a welcome distraction, and fill in some gaps between wondering and knowing, too. “Do you come from a large family?” she ventured, keeping her tone carefully light. She still missed William, and wished there had been other brothers and sisters to grow up with.

“We've got two younger brothers—Kade and Jeb. The three of us were born and raised on the Triple M Ranch, up in the Arizona Territory. Our ma died when we were boys—took a fever after a horse spilled her off in the creek—but we were lucky, just the same. We had Concepcion, the housekeeper, and she mothered us from there.” He paused, smiled. “Pa married up with Concepcion a while back, and now we've got a sister, too. Her name is Katie and she's something. Then there's Lizzie, that's Holt's girl. My wife and I, we've got a daughter, Georgia, and Kade and Jeb are both married, too, with little girls of their own.”

“That's wonderful,” Lorelei said, and she meant it, but something inside her cracked, saying the words. Opened up a bleak and lonely place, yawning square in the middle of who she was.

“I guess I'm talking your leg off,” Rafe said.

“I'm enjoying it,” she answered.

“What about you, Lorelei? How'd you grow up?”

Lorelei supposed turn-about was fair play. “My brother and mother both died when I was pretty young. Angelina and Raul took care of me.”

“The judge never remarried, then?”

“No,” Lorelei said, and for the first time in her life, she realized she was sorry about that. A stepmother might have changed everything—maybe for the worse, but more likely, for the better.

Rafe stood in the stirrups, stretching his long, powerful legs. “I'd better ride up ahead and keep Holt company for a while,” he said, with some resignation. “Don't want him thinking I'm a slacker.”

Lorelei smiled at that, though she was sorry to see Rafe go. She liked him, and wanted to know more about the McKettrick tribe, though she couldn't have said what any of their doings had to do with her. “Go ahead,” she said.

They stopped at midday, to rest and water the horses at a stream, and made a meal of what was left of the beans and biscuits. Mr. Cavanagh washed out the big kettle he carried in the back of the wagon, filled it with water, and poured in hard pinto beans to soak until supper.

Lorelei stayed clear of Holt during the stop, and he stayed clear of her. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, but it seemed prudent, so she just let things be.

When it was time to move on again, she took her turn in the back of the wagon with Sorrowful and baby Pearl.

Once or twice, they spotted figures on the distant hills. Indians, most likely, watching the party pass from the backs of their war ponies. Lorelei remembered what Rafe had said his pa had taught him and his brothers, and
decided not to be afraid. It wasn't as easy as he'd made it sound, but just the effort helped, because it kept her mind off all the things that could happen if the Comanches descended upon them.

She fixed her mind on purchasing blue gingham for Mary Davis, once she got to Laredo, and finding a way to get the material back to Mary. She thought about the cattle she'd buy, when they got to Mexico, and prayed that Raul and Angelina were all right.

She considered the prisoner, Gabe Navarro, jailed in San Antonio and sentenced, by her father, to hang by the neck until dead. If Holt believed in Navarro enough to come all the way to Texas to take his part, maybe he really was innocent. Melina certainly thought so. And his care for Sorrowful spoke in his favor.

Just before sunset, they stopped for the night at another mission. This one wasn't abandoned, though. It had walls and a couple of small houses, with garden plots, recently harvested, and an apple orchard. The padre, a rotund man in a rope-belted robe and sandals, came out to welcome them.

His bald head gleamed in the fading sunlight, and his smile was broad. “Travelers!” he exulted joyously, gesturing to the open gate behind him. “God has blessed us with travelers! Come in, come in. You must be weary of the road.”

Holt tipped his hat in acknowledgment of the invitation and led the way through the rustic portal into a large courtyard. The horses and mules gravitated to the spring-fed fountain, tumbling clear water into a wide brick pool.

“You all alone here, Father?” Mr. Cavanagh asked, glancing around from his perch on the wagon seat. Lorelei had been about to ask pretty much the same question,
confused that the priest had used the word
us
when there didn't seem to be another soul around.

“Of course not,” the padre said happily. “All my brothers are here.”

Lorelei looked around again, in case she'd missed them, but if there were other friars at the mission, they were inside the various buildings, or up in the branches of some of the apple trees. Her mouth watered, just from thinking of those apples.

“Make yourselves at home,” the padre boomed, moving from man to man and horse to horse. “That's the stable, over there. And Brother Lawrence's kitchen is that way. I dare say the ladies will appreciate their own quarters—just past the fountain, there, on the right.”

Lorelei dismounted and took Seesaw's reins to lead him toward the big stone barn. Lord, it would be a pleasure to sleep in “quarters,” maybe on a real bed. And there might be a bathtub, too.

She was only a little surprised when Holt came up alongside her, leading his own horse. He looked thoughtful.

“Is it just me,” he asked, “or is there something strange about this place?”

Lorelei felt a small dust-devil of delight spin up from her center, and she would have quelled it if she could have. It galled her that a simple question from this man could excite her that way. “It does seem a little—quiet,” she said, without looking directly at him. There was a danger that he'd see something in her face if she did.

“Where is everybody?” Holt asked, though whether he was putting the question to her or to himself she didn't know.

Lorelei answered with a question of her own. “Have you ever been here before?”

Holt shook his head. “I've seen the place from a distance,” he said. They'd reached the doorway of the barn, and he stopped to let her and Seesaw go in first. “Always thought it was deserted.”

There were stalls on either side of the long stable, every one of them empty. The place was immaculate, and when Lorelei peered inside one of the large wooden bins just inside the door, she found it full of grain. The next one held oats.

Holt left his gelding in the aisle and took Seesaw by the reins, leading him into a stall, relieving him of his saddle and bridle. Lorelei walked the length of the barn, peering into the other stalls. Every one boasted its own water trough, and a thick bed of clean straw on the floor.

“You'd think he'd have a donkey, at least,” she called back to Holt, bemused.

He'd left Seesaw by then to take care of his own horse. “I'd like to see those ‘brothers' he mentioned,” he replied.

About then, the other cowboys began wandering in, putting away their mounts, filling the water troughs with buckets from the neat stack out by the fountain.

Lorelei went back outside, looking for Melina, Tillie and the baby. The padre was still standing in the middle of the courtyard, glowing with pleasure, but the other monks remained out of sight.

A chill shivered up Lorelei's spine. She smiled at the padre and headed for the quarters he'd mentioned earlier, where she and the other women would pass the night.

Sure enough, there were cots, four of them, complete with pillows and blankets.

Tillie sat stiffly in a straight-backed chair, watch
ing while Melina settled the baby on one of the narrow beds.

Lorelei touched Tillie's shoulder, and the other woman flinched as though she'd been startled out of a sound sleep. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at Lorelei.

“They're all dead,” she said.

Lorelei went still, and so did Melina.

“Who?” Melina asked, when a few moments had passed.

Lorelei laid her hand to Tillie's forehead, in case of fever.

“The other padres,” Tillie said, and trembled.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Melina wanted to know. Her hands rested on her hips now, and she looked peevish.

Tillie gulped. “They're out there, walking around. But I can see through them.”

Melina crossed herself.

Lorelei crouched in front of Tillie's chair, gripping her hands. They were trembling, and as cold as if she'd just dipped them in a mountain spring. “Tillie,” she said softly. “You're tired. You lie down, and I'll bring you some water and something to eat—”

Tillie wrenched her hands back. “I'm not hungry or thirsty, and I'm not
tired,
neither,” she said adamantly.

“Tillie, of course you are. We're all—”

“I wish we'd camped on the trail,” Tillie broke in. “I don't cotton to dead people.”

Lorelei and Melina exchanged a look.

“Maybe I'd better go get Mr. Cavanagh,” Melina said.

“So many of them,” Tillie whispered. Then she lowered her head and began to cry.

Lorelei stood, laid a hand on Tillie's shoulder. Nodded at Melina.

Melina hurried out, and soon returned with Mr. Cavanagh.

The baby slept soundly on the cot, sucking his thumb.

Mr. Cavanagh dragged up another chair, facing his daughter. “Look at me, girl,” he said gently, as Lorelei stepped through the doorway, followed by Melina.

The courtyard was empty now, and for a moment, Lorelei was frightened—until she looked toward the orchard and saw Holt and the others sitting around under the trees, eating apples. She was hungry, and headed off in that direction.

Melina hurried to keep up. “Do you think it's all been—well—too much for Tillie? Our running across those dead homesteaders and all?”

“I don't know,” Lorelei said. She wondered if she should fetch Tillie food and drink, in spite of her refusal, and decided it would be best to wait.

“She's slow,” Melina mused, “but I didn't think she was crazy.”

The word
crazy
lodged in Lorelei's middle like a Comanche arrow. “Tillie's as sane as anybody,” she said, and instantly regretted her terseness.

As they approached, Rafe tossed Lorelei an apple, and she caught it handily. He smiled.

She polished the morsel on her shirtsleeve and bit into it. “Thanks,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Holt watching her. He wasn't smiling like his brother.