Two in the Field (45 page)

Oh, Jesus
. “He came here?”

Nodding, she held me even more tightly. “With two of his cutthroats.”

I had a nauseating presentiment. “Was one dark-skinned? Lean and rot-toothed?”

Another weary bob of her head. “His arm was in a sling and he moved like he’d been hurt—yet he was the one I most feared.”

Worst-case scenario. LeCaron had survived.

“Where were the townsmen? Where was Linc?”

“They were all out trying to round up our livestock,” she said. “McDermott’s men came in the night and set them loose, trying to make it seem the work of an Indian raiding party.”

A new fear struck me. “With Linc and the others gone … were you? … did McDermott? …?”

“He struck me in the back of my head,” she answered. “I was knocked flat and stunned, and Red Jim tried to drag me inside my soddy. I pretended to be senseless, and when he reached to open the door I broke free and ran for Kaija’s, where I knew she kept a rifle near the door. She saw us coming and fired at Red
Jim. He dove to the ground and didn’t come near after that. We spent that night barricaded there, keeping each other awake. Not until the next day did we learn the worst.”

The worst?
How bad could this get?

“They beat John nearly to death,” she said. “He and Tim, who had a fever, were the only men here. They wanted John to reveal where you were. They seemed to believe that either you were dead or that you’d already come back here. When they finally gave up with him, John was barely conscious. But he heard McDermott say he’d get the money he needed by staking out gold claims.”

Which suggested Morrissey must have assigned Red Jim the task of recovering the casino’s lost money. Probably with McDermott’s life at stake.

“What about Tim?” I said. “Is he okay?”

“That’s truly the worst.” Cait started to cry again as she pointed northward, in the general direction of the Black Hills. “They took him with them.”

 TWENTY-FOUR 

“Caitlin!”
We heard Kaija’s whisper from the entrance and moved toward her. I’d forgotten about Noola and Catriona, who stood beside her.

“Those terrible men,” Kaija said wrathfully to me. “Linc’s still chasing them.”

“He’ll bring Tim back,” I said, “if anybody can.”

Unfortunate phrasing. It came out grimmer than I intended, and I saw Cait’s face tighten.

Catriona picked that moment to present her with a St. Brigid’s cross. “To bless the land here,” she said, as Noola had coached her. “The good
Irish
land!”

Coming after everything else, the girl’s gesture was too much for Cait, who raised her hands to her eyes, her shoulders shaking. Like a chain reaction, her emotions spread. Kaija hugged her and they both burst into tears. Noola put a hand on Cait’s shoulder and choked up with sobs. A frightened Catriona began wailing.

I got out of there.

“This is where you’ll live.” Cait opened the door to Tip McKee’s soddy. Noola and Catriona followed her inside as I went to retrieve their trunk. Dealing with the newcomers offered a diversion, and Cait had brightened a bit.

“Where’s Tip?” I asked when I returned.

“He left soon after you did.” Her eyes met mine and the smile that curved her lips struck me as bittersweet. “He said that he recognized, finally, that my heart belonged to another.”

For an instant I felt exalted. Then I was uncertain. Did
another
mean me? Or Colm?

“I missed Tim terribly while he was gone,” she said, shifting the subject. “When he came back with Andy, I was so perfectly happy.” Her eyes brimmed over again.

I took her hand. “We’ll get him back.”

John O’Neill was awake and sitting up on his pillows. His mood lifted dramatically when I informed him of the deposit I’d made for the colony in an Omaha bank. In the lantern glow the bruises on his face looked like purple hollows.

“Why would McDermott such a risk?” I said. “You’ve got powerful friends.”

“None so powerful as John Morrissey, who’s put a mortal fear into Red Jim,” he said. “He’s frantic to get the money back, and he had a score to settle with me, too, for driving him away from here. I wish I’d shot the bastard when he was in my sights. Do you know what he told me when I lay there bleeding?”

I shook my head.

“That my nephew Colm was murdered at Antietam.” His voice grated out the words. “Shot down by Fearghus O’Donovan.”

For an instant some of the old milkiness seemed to be lurking in that room. “How could he know that?”

“Red Jim joined the Union Army repeatedly,” he explained. “He would serve a week or two, then desert and join elsewhere to collect a new enlistment bounty. One of his stints was to guard at Elmira Prison, where Meagher’s Irish Brigade rotated for noncombatant duty. Fearghus was among them there, waiting to muster out at war’s end.”

“I can’t believe he’d confess a murder.”

“He didn’t … quite. One night, in a fever, Fearghus started raving about Colm, and Red Jim heard him.”

In my memory: loamy scents … acrid smoke … a green battle flag … O’Donovan’s desperate face above a leveled pistol …

“He blackmailed Fearghus ever after that,” O’Neill finished.

Now I understood how McDermott could worm his way into high Fenian circles. O’Donovan had been his admission ticket.

“To have it come out like this is a great sadness,” O’Neill went on. “But you know, Sam, an odd thing happened while McDermott was telling it.”

“What was that?”

“Everything seemed to slow for an instant. It almost seemed that another presence was in here with us”

“Colm?”

The old man stared at me.

“I’ve felt his presence too.”

He nodded slowly. “I believe that we are past the worst of it now,” he said. “Even if Linc and the men can’t bring Red Jim in, he won’t dare come back. We’ll never again let our guard down.”

I realized than that Cait hadn’t told him about Tim.

I took a breath and broke the bad news.

Linc and the others rode in at sundown. They’d lost McDermott’s trail along the Niobrara River, some fifty miles to the northwest. It was clear that his small force—three men plus Tim—was moving fast, expecting pursuit. And that they were headed for the Black Hills.

“They’ll see you coming miles off and set an ambush if you try to follow them in there,” John O’Neill said, leaning over a map of the gold territory sold in the colony’s store. Linc and I flanked his bed. We’d been trying to come up with a strategy. “They’ll also hold hostage Tim against you.”

“No way to sneak around them?” I asked.

O’Neill pointed out that they were using the trail Custer had established—“the thieves’ road,” as the Sioux called it—and no shorter southern route existed.

“Won’t the army stop them?” I asked. “They’ve pulled everybody else out of there.”

“Everybody they
find,”
Linc amended. “Hundreds slip back through at night.”

“Can’t we just show up at a fort and ask for help?”

O’Neill shook his head doubtfully. “Grant has forbidden military action in the Hills during talks with the Indians,” he said. “We may have pulled all our troops out by now. No regimental commander would dare go against orders and send his men in.”

“So much for the army,” I said disgustedly.

“Custer might help us,” O’Neill said after a pause. “Not officially, of course, but maybe with a scout or a ‘volunteer’ squad.”

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Fort Lincoln.”

Linc looked startled. “That’s eight hundred miles north!”

“You could steam up the Missouri and be there in a fortnight,” O’Neill said. “Custer could show you how to come down through the Black Hills from the north, the last thing McDermott would expect.”