McKettrick's Choice (26 page)

“These horses are goin' to give out if we don't let 'em rest pretty soon,” John called to Rafe.

“There's a stream up ahead,” Rafe shouted back. “Maybe two miles from here. Holt says we'll have an hour, and then get moving again. Keep going until dark.”

John nodded, adjusted his sweat-banded hat.

Melina shifted uncomfortably on the seat, and even Sorrowful began to prowl back and forth among the crates and rifles and bags of beans in the back of the wagon.

Lorelei yearned to stop, to feel solid ground under her feet and drink all the water she could hold. At the same time, she dreaded it.

The two miles Rafe had mentioned felt like twenty, but finally the stream came into view, a shimmering ribbon of cool, sparkling blue snaking through acres of dry, sparse grass. Lorelei kept riding until John finally hauled back on the reins and yelled, “Whoa!” to the team.

John helped Melina down, as soon as he'd set the brake lever and walked around behind the wagon, and his motions were so solicitous that Lorelei was worried. What if Melina's baby was coming? Maybe it was time— Lorelei didn't know—and maybe it was too early.

She dismounted, approached her friend, who was pressing both hands into the small of her back.

“Melina,” she whispered. “Are you—is it—?”

Melina laughed and patted her arm. “No, Lorelei. I'm just tired, that's all. I got spoiled, sleeping in that featherbed at Heddy's, and back there at Reynosa, too.” The word
bed
snapped Lorelei right back inside herself. Her cheeks pulsed, and she knew it wasn't just from the sunburn.

Melina looked at her curiously, took her by the arm, and led her to one side. “What's the matter with you, Lorelei? You're not coming down with something, are you?”

Lorelei peered at her friend. “Coming down with…?” She paused. Shifted from one foot to the other. “What?”

“When Holt came in from the herd this morning, he said you were probably late because you felt puny or something. That's when he sent Mr. Cavanagh to fetch you.”

Lorelei felt a little better. Her heart, riding behind her navel all morning, rose to its proper place. “Holt spent the night with the cattle?” she asked carefully.

“Sure,” Melina said. She frowned. “Where did you think he was?”

As tired as she was, with her shoes pinching and dust clodded in her hair and imbedded in every pore, Lorelei wanted to jump for joy. Not that she would have done anything so undignified, that is. Not in broad daylight, anyway.

“I didn't know,” she lied.

Sorrowful leaped over the tailgate of the wagon, found a rock to do his business against and trotted over to nudge at Lorelei's thigh with his big head. She laughed, bent to pick up a stick and threw it for him.

He dashed after it.

“You ladies come and have some of this cold chicken from last night's supper,” John said. “No tellin' how long it will be till we stop again.”

The herd was blessedly quiet, lining the stream banks to drink, grazing on what grass they could find, but they'd brought legions of flies with them, and they buzzed around the horses and people, looking for something to bite.

Lorelei nodded to John to let him know she'd heard, and walked downstream a ways, away from the herd, to visit the bushes and then wash her hands. Fortunately, she had left the brush and was crouching beside the water when Holt approached, leading his horse.

He'd taken care not to let the company know he'd spent the night in her bed, she knew that now, but she was still irked by the way he'd treated her when they were leaving Reynosa.

“You feeling all right?” he asked, when she didn't
speak first. Hell would have frozen over before that happened, and maybe he knew it.

“I'm feeling just
grand,
Mr. McKettrick,” Lorelei said, getting to her feet and starting past him. She'd splashed her face and swallowed about a gallon of water by that time. Now, she wanted some of that chicken John had mentioned, before the flies got to it.

Holt reached out and caught hold of her arm, and his touch brought back a rush of memories. Oddly, they didn't come from her head, where memories usually resided, but from the secret folds and curves of her body. “There's no call to be snippish,” he said.

“Maybe not from your point of view,” she replied, trying in vain to pull away.

He had the nerve to glare at her. “What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” Lorelei snapped. “I give my virtue to a new man every night, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest when, the very next morning, he acts as if he's never met me before!”

Holt slammed his hat against one thigh. “Dammit, Lorelei, what would you have me do? Hand you a rose in front of the whole outfit? Quote poetry, maybe?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

He wouldn't let her off the hook. “Well?” he demanded.

She folded her arms, rocked back on her heels. “You wanted to give me a rose and quote poetry?”

Color surged up his neck and flared beneath his new beard. “It was a figure of speech!”

“Holt!” It was Rafe, galloping toward them on his dusty horse. “There's a signal fire to the east—might be Comanches.”

Holt swore, took a startled Lorelei by the waist and
literally flung her up onto Traveler's back. He was behind her and reining the gelding toward the rest of the party before Lorelei caught her breath.

As soon as they reached the wagon, he threw her off again, with such haste that she landed on her backside in the grass. Sorrowful wandered over and licked her face.

Melina helped her to her feet, and Mr. Cavanagh thrust a rifle into her hands.

“Get under that wagon!” he ordered.

Breathless, Lorelei scrambled to obey. Melina followed, and Sorrowful belly-crawled to join them. Lorelei waited for an arrow to thud into the dirt, inches from her nose.

Nothing happened.

Lorelei's hands began to sweat where she gripped the rifle. She watched Mr. Cavanagh's boots go by as he paced beside the wagon, swearing a colorful oath every once in a while.

“Do you see them?” Lorelei finally found the nerve to ask.

“No!” Mr. Cavanagh barked.

“Shouldn't you be under the wagon, with us? It wouldn't do at all if you got shot.”

“Hush up, Miss Lorelei,” he said. “I am tryin' to think.”

Lorelei, for her part, was trying
not
to think.

“It's the cattle,” Melina whispered. “They want the cattle, just like Holt said they would.”

“Well, maybe if he just gives them a few—”

Melina looked surprised by this suggestion. “He won't.”

“That seems unreasonable.”

“He didn't travel all the way to Reynosa so he could give away the herd, Lorelei!”

Lorelei sniffed. “You needn't be so brusque about it.”

“Give them some of yours, then,” Melina challenged.

“I will,” Lorelei decided. “They can have several. By the time they cook them, and eat and dance around the fire the way they do, we'll be safe and sound in Laredo.” With that, she started to crawl out from under the wagon, bent on going right out there and presenting her proposal to the first Indian she happened to encounter.

Melina grabbed her shirt and pulled her back with surprising strength. “If you try that again, I swear I'll scalp you myself!” she hissed, wide-eyed. “You let the men handle this!”

“Shut up down there,” Mr. Cavanagh ordered. The wagon shifted and creaked, and Lorelei figured he'd climbed into the box to get a better look at whatever was going on. She wished she could see, too.

Lorelei held her tongue as long as she could. Then she called, “Excuse me, Mr. Cavanagh, but do you see any savages?”

“I see a bunch of cowboys cinching in the herd,” he replied, none too graciously.

“Maybe you shouldn't stand up there, like a lightning rod in a rainstorm,” Lorelei suggested.

The wagon shimmied as Mr. Cavanagh jumped to the ground. His boots appeared, and then his face. He was bending from the waist, and he looked unfriendly.

“Miss Lorelei,” he said evenly, “if those Indians do show up, I'd just as soon fight as answer any more of your infernal questions!”

Lorelei blushed.

He straightened again, mercifully, and Lorelei heard riders. She got her rifle ready.

The next face she saw was Holt's. He crouched in Mr. Cavanagh's former place, grinning. “You can come out now,” he said.

“You might have announced yourself,” Lorelei said. “I almost shot you.”

“What happened to the Indians?” Melina asked. She crawled out from under the wagon, and somebody helped her up.

“They kept their distance,” Holt told Melina, but he was still looking at Lorelei. “Maybe we've got a few ghosts riding with us yet.” He extended a hand. “Are you coming out of there?”

Even the dog was gone.

Lorelei ignored Holt's hand and crawled back into the sunlight.

“If they want cattle—the Indians, I mean—you may give them some of mine.” She got to her feet, brushing off her trousers and avoiding Holt's gaze.

He was too close, and she could feel him watching her. He stood. “I won't give them a damn thing,” he said. “Except a bullet.”

Lorelei felt exasperated. “Not even to buy safe passage?”

“Comanches don't make deals like that,” he told her.

“And if they do, they don't keep them.”

“One too many broken treaties, I guess,” Lorelei said. Now that her terror was ebbing, she felt irritable. “It's no wonder they don't trust us.”

“Hellfire and spit,” Holt muttered. “I didn't break any damn treaties.” He strode away, still talking, slapping at his thigh with his hat. “All I'm trying to do is get these cattle back to San Antonio—”

“Now he's going to be even harder to live with than usual,” Rafe said, with humorous resignation. He was standing right beside Lorelei, and he'd almost startled her out of her skin, popping up out of nowhere like that. She was glad she'd left the rifle under the wagon, because it might have gone off.

“What about the Indians?” Lorelei asked. “Aren't they coming?”

“You make it sound like you're giving a party and they're invited,” Rafe observed, grinning. He stooped, retrieved her rifle and handed it to her. “They're not real sociable, as a rule.”

Lorelei laid the rifle carefully in the back of the wagon.

“Better unload that first,” Rafe said. “Otherwise, John might hit a bump in the trail and find himself missing an ear.”

Lorelei sighed. “There are so many things to remember, I can't keep track of them all,” she fretted.

Rafe took care of the rifle, dropped the bullets into the pocket of his leather vest. “You ever think of settling down somewhere besides Texas?” he ventured. “Say, the Arizona Territory?”

Puzzled, Lorelei studied his face. He didn't look as if he were teasing. “Do you have Indians there?”

“Apaches,” Rafe admitted. “But they mostly leave us alone, up north. Cause more trouble around Tucson.”

“Why would I travel all the way to the Arizona Territory?” Lorelei asked. “I have my ranch.”

Rafe sighed, let his gaze follow his brother, now mounted on that fancy Appaloosa again, getting ready to spout more orders. She hadn't even had a piece of chicken yet.

Rafe's meaning finally hit her.

She put the back of one hand to her mouth. She'd thought her secret was safe after all. Now, she knew it wasn't. “Did he tell you about last night?” Her voice was very small.

“He didn't have to tell me,” Rafe said, and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “I know that look, when it's Holt wearing it.”

“I'm such a fool,” Lorelei whispered, unable to meet Rafe's gaze.

Rafe lifted off her hat and planted a brotherly kiss on top of her head. “Be careful,” he said. And then he replaced her hat and walked away.

Before Lorelei could move at all, he was back on his horse, riding off to join Holt.

You ever thought of settling down anywhere besides Texas? Say the Arizona Territory?

He didn't have to tell me. I know that look…

Be careful.

Just a few words, but Lorelei knew she'd be the rest of the day sorting them through.

Mr. Cavanagh helped Melina carefully up into the wagon box, then opened the tailgate for the dog.

Lorelei caught Seesaw's reins, tossed them up over his neck and put her foot in the stirrup. The saddle seemed even higher off the ground and harder than before, and there was a wide stream ahead, waiting to be crossed. If she didn't drown doing that, well, there were still the Comanches.

She straightened her spine, drew a deep breath and kicked Seesaw into motion. Did she ever think of moving to the Arizona Territory? Land sakes, she had all she could do to survive Texas.

A
FTER TWO DAYS
of hard travel, they'd reached the outskirts of Laredo, unscathed. By Holt's reckoning, that was a miracle; the Comanches had made themselves visible, always at a distance, but for some reason he couldn't fathom, they had yet to make a move. Instead of easing his mind, this made him skittish, on a gut level, where words and thoughts didn't reach.

They were waiting, those Indians. Watching. And they wanted him to know it.

Right outside of town, Holt paid a local rancher for grazing and precious water, and kept the herd corralled as best he could. On the evening of September ninth, when Lorelei and Melina were safely housed in town with Heddy, Tillie and the baby, he rounded up John, Rafe, the Captain and Frank Corrales for some serious palavering. Mac Kahill had done his best to get in on the meeting, but Holt didn't want any wild cards. The cowboy had done his work ably, served as a ramrod with that sorry bunch of new wranglers Holt and Rafe had virtually scraped up off various saloon floors, but Holt still didn't trust the man enough to make him privy to his plans.

“These cattle, here,” John said, when they'd all hunkered down in a circle, like Comanche warriors at a powwow, “they may end up with the Cavanagh brand on them, Holt, but they're really yours. Bought and paid for.”

Holt was having a devil of a time keeping his mind on business. It had been that way since Reynosa, when Lorelei had let him into her bed, and even though he couldn't bring himself to regret what they'd shared, he
did
regret his timing. The middle of a cattle drive was no place for sparking, and he would have known that if he'd been thinking with his head instead of his groin. He'd mostly stayed clear of her ever since, trying to get some perspective, but the damage was done.

“You sound like a man about to propose something,” he told his foster father. It was too hot for a fire, so they were gathered around a flat rock, by the light of a kerosene lantern. After the chin-wagging, there would be a poker game, if Frank and the Captain had their way.

Even that made Holt think of Lorelei. She didn't know a damn thing about five card stud, but what she lacked in skill, she made up for in reckless audacity. He smiled, and wondered what she was doing right then—reading a book? Sitting down at Heddy's table for supper?

Taking a bath?

Oh, God. Don't think about Lorelei naked, her skin slick with water and soap….

“I won't feel right about this until I know you're going to recover every nickel you put into those cattle, and the land, too,” John said. The dog huddled close beside him, and he stroked the critter's long yellow back as he spoke. “I say we make an agreement and sign papers so it's legal. I even have a name for the outfit— The McKettrick Cattle Company.”

“I like that,” Holt allowed, with a slight grin. “But the ranch is still yours, John. You built it, you fought for it. You did the sweating and the bleeding.”

“I meant to leave it to you anyway,” John insisted, “because I know you'll take care of Tillie if anything happens to me.”

Holt met the old man's gaze, glittering in the flickery light of that kerosene lantern. “You planning on dying right away?” he asked, with a lightness he didn't feel. Holt had been born independent, and he knew he could make it on his own, but there were two pillars supporting his concept of the man he wanted to become—Angus McKettrick and John Cavanagh. If either of them fell, he'd go on from there, having no other choice, but the idea of it shook him to his boot soles.

“It could happen any time,” John said, quietlike.

“That's so,” Holt admitted, surprised at the way his throat tightened. “But the same goes for the rest of us. Nobody here can swear he'll wake up tomorrow morning and saddle his horse.”

“Just the same,” John insisted, in a way that let Holt know he'd made up his mind, “I want the papers drawn up. That way, if some Comanche puts an arrow through my chest, I'll rest easy, knowin' two things…Templeton won't be running his fancy red cattle on my land, and Tillie will be all right.”

“You'd best agree, Holt,” the Captain said, leaning back on his elbows in the grass, booted feet crossed at the ankles. “I don't reckon John's going to pull his teeth out of this subject until you do.”

“All right,” Holt said, looking at John, remembering when he was a scared, defiant kid, with a chip on his shoulder. John had taken him in, straightened him out. Taught him to work and keep his word, and a thousand
other things that went into the making of a man. “But I can't run that spread from Arizona, and I mean to go back there with Rafe, as soon as Gabe's free and Templeton's been dealt with.” He shifted his gaze, took in Frank and the Captain. “I'll need partners, besides the old man, here. You two willing to help run this ‘McKettrick Cattle Company' for a share in the profits?”

The Captain thrust himself upright, to a sitting position. “You mean that, Holt? Hell, I don't have a nickel to throw into the pot, and I'm getting on in years myself.”

“You've got gumption, you're good with a gun and you know how to handle men like Isaac Templeton. That's good enough for me.” Holt turned to Frank, who looked thoughtful. “What about you, Corrales? Will you throw in with us?”

“I think I'd rather have me a look at the Arizona Territory,” he said. “You need any hands up there?”

“Always,” Rafe threw in, before Holt could answer.

“What about Gabe?” the Captain asked. “You figure he'd want to stay around San Antonio? Provided, of course, that he doesn't end up with a noose around his neck.”

Holt glanced toward Laredo, though this time he wasn't thinking about Lorelei. It was Melina who filled his mind, and that baby she was carrying. “I couldn't say,” he said. “We'll have to ask him, soon as we get back. And he isn't going to hang, Cap'n. If I know one thing for sure, it's that.”

The Captain smiled slightly, and gave an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

“I reckon Navarro will want to make a home for himself and his woman,” John reflected, still petting the dog.

“If he doesn't, I mean to tear off a strip of his hide.”

Frank chuckled. “Gabe with a wife and a kid. Now, there's a picture.”

Holt rubbed the back of his neck, felt a stirring in the pit of his stomach. It usually meant he should be on the lookout for trouble, that feeling, but now that Lorelei had to be taken into account, nothing was that cut-and-dried. “We'll have the papers drawn up soon as we get back to San Antonio,” he said. “In the meantime, we've got a lot of miles still to cover, and a Comanche for every one of them.” He reached for a stick he'd selected earlier, for the purpose, and sketched a map in the dirt. Everybody leaned in to peer at it. “I figure this is the easiest route, back the way we came.” He scratched it out, drew another. A few pairs of eyes widened. “Not much water and damn little grass, but it's open country most of the way. Only a few places where the Indians might jump us, and Rafe and I can scout those out ahead of time.”

Frank frowned. “
Jesu Cristo,
Holt,” he muttered. “That's tough ground. Nothing but rocks, briars and snakes. Those cattle will be nothing but guts and bones by the time we get through there—
if
those Comanche devils let us pass, which they're not likely to do.”

“They'll be expecting us to go the other way,” Rafe mused.

“It doesn't matter what they expect,” Holt said moderately. “All they have to do is watch us, like they've been doing ever since we set out on this trip. With a wagon, two women and over five hundred head of cattle, we'd be hard to miss, on any account. But I figure this is the best trail—it's more dangerous, but it's faster. We could cross it in three days, with a little luck.”

Rafe frowned. “You can plan on
damn
little of that,” he said.

“You have a better idea?” Holt asked mildly. Rafe
might be younger than he was, but he had experience driving cattle, having grown up on the Triple M, and while he wasn't book-smart, like their brother Kade, he was practical to the bone.

Rafe considered the question carefully, then sighed. “Nope,” he said. Then he grinned. “I'd sure like to keep this hair on my head, though. Emmeline likes to run her fingers through it.”

Holt chuckled, though he felt a tightening inside. If he didn't bring Rafe back to his Emmeline, safe and sound, he reckoned he'd never get over it. Never be able to face her
or
the old man, waiting up there in Arizona, hoping for word from Texas and probably trying to divine his and Rafe's whereabouts on some map.

“Everybody's in, then?” Holt asked. “If any one of you wants to stay right here in Laredo and call it good, there'll be no hard feelings on my part.”

“In,” said the Captain, pulling a deck of cards from his vest pocket.

“In,” voted John, solemn as St. Peter overseeing the last judgment.

“Nothing better to do,” Frank put in, with a wicked grin. He was still favoring those sore ribs of his, but other than that, he seemed fitter with every passing day. He wasn't cut out to do his recuperating on a cot in his pa's house, counting how many chickens pecked their way across the threshold.

That left Rafe. “Laredo's a fine town,” he said affably, “but it's not the Triple M and it hasn't got Emmeline. Sooner we get these bawling critters up the trail to San Antonio, the better.”

Holt stood, rubbed out the dirt-map with the sole of his right boot. “It's decided, then,” he said. He nodded to the Captain, already shuffling his deck. “Don't be
keeping these boys up half the night playing poker,” he finished. “We're moving at dawn.”

“What about you?” Rafe asked, following along as Holt started for his horse, still saddled and grazing under an oak tree nearby. “You planning to get a good night's sleep?”

“Unfortunately,” Holt replied, noting his brother's grin and tolerating it. He hadn't told Rafe about that round with Lorelei, in the inn at Reynosa, but Rafe knew, just the same. “Yes. I'll be back here in my bedroll before that game winds down.”

Rafe watched as Holt gathered the reins and mounted. The grin was gone. “Lorelei's a good woman,” he said. “If you trifle with her, Holt, I will not take kindly to it. You hear me?”

Holt set his jaw. Tugged at the brim of his hat. “With both ears,” he said, and urged the Appaloosa toward the scattering of lights up ahead.

 

“I
TOOK ME A SHINE
to John Cavanagh,” Heddy confided, in a loud whisper, “and that's a fact. I'm wonderin' if he'd have me. Tillie says he don't have a wife.”

Lorelei, seated beside Heddy on the back step, was grateful for the darkness, because it hid the expression on her face. Behind them, in the kitchen, Tillie and Melina were busy washing up the supper dishes. “It seems a little sudden,” she ventured carefully. Mr. Cavanagh had never given any indication that he
wanted
a helpmate, as far as she'd noticed, and she didn't want Heddy to get her feelings hurt.

“When a body gets to be my age,” Heddy answered, “‘sudden' don't cipher up. John likes my cookin', and he knows I'd be good to his girl. I reckon if he comes back here, I'll just ask him, straight out.”

Lorelei couldn't help thinking of Holt. He'd never mentioned marriage, and she wasn't sure she'd be amenable if he did, but watching Melina's belly grow, day by day, she had to wonder what she'd do if
she
was in the family way. The idea stirred a certain warmth in the tenderest regions of her heart, but it also scared her half to death. Suppose she was like her mother, and went mad from having a baby?

Holt had made no secret of his intentions—once he'd gotten Mr. Cavanagh's ranch on solid footing and cleared Gabe Navarro's name, he meant to go back to Arizona, home to his daughter and the Triple M. “Be careful, Heddy,” she said gently. “Men are contrary creatures.”

Heddy laughed. “That's one of the things I like best about 'em,” she said, just as a rider came into the dooryard.

Holt. Even without the showy Appaloosa, or the waning moonlight, Lorelei would have known him by the quickening in her chest and the clench in the pit of her stomach.

He swung down from the saddle, in that easy way he had, and left the horse to drink at Heddy's trough. He took off his hat as he walked toward the two women, his teeth flashing in a trail-weary grin.

“Heddy,” he said. “Miss Lorelei.”

Heddy smiled and hoisted herself up off the step, smoothing her apron with large, rough hands. “Evenin', Holt,” she answered. “Where's Mr. Cavanagh? I want a word with him.”

“He's in camp,” Holt said. “We're getting an early start in the morning.”

Lorelei felt Heddy's disappointment as if it were her own. “I reckon I'll just have to go out there, then,” Heddy
decided. “You mind hitchin' up my horse and buggy for me, Holt?”

“I'll do it,” he agreed, but he was looking at Lorelei.

She squirmed a little but didn't rise off the step. She liked being outside, under the stars. And anyway, Holt was there. Right or wrong, smart or foolish, she needed to be close to him, if only for a little while.

“Don't you go without me,” Heddy told him. “I'm goin' in to put on my Sunday dress and get my shawl.”

“I'll wait,” Holt promised, still watching Lorelei. He stood at a distance of about a dozen feet and didn't show any signs of coming closer, which Lorelei supposed was a good thing, given past experience.

Lorelei didn't speak. She was afraid she might say something stupid if she did, or even burst into silly tears. Where this man was concerned, her emotions were a hopeless tangle; she was furious one moment and full of yearning the next, and there was no telling which one would come to prominence if she opened her mouth too soon.