Mary

by Raine Cantrell

  He looked down at his daughter. For Beth’s sake, for her life, he had to trust these women. But he thought of the danger he brought to them, too.

  “Rafe, from your changed attitude, I know…I feel as if—”

  “Someone set me up. Someone paid those Apaches to attack that army detail. Paid them, because they knew I would be riding with them.”

  Mary looked not at him, but at Beth. She gently cupped the child’s fever-flushed cheek. “I hear the belief in your voice that what you’re saying is true. I am not calling you a liar, but you must know that the Apache have been riding the war trail all year. This is the worst it has been in a long time. Wherever men gather, and women, too, that is all they talk about. Do you understand what you are saying, Rafe?”

  “Better than you, Mary.”

  “But who would want a man dead, a child hurt?” She had to look at him. “What kind of a man are you, Rafe McCade?”

  “A man with enemies.”

  She saw the heel of his hand brush against the butt of his gun. She didn’t think he was conscious of the move.

  Men who lived by the gun died by the gun. Mary had heard those words long ago, but couldn’t remember where.

  It didn’t matter. Beth mattered. She mattered a great deal. What would happen to her if Rafe was killed?

  “I won’t be.” He held her startled gaze with his own steady one. “Killed. Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “A man grateful his child found a compassionate woman to care for her.”

  Mary became aware that he had taken hold of her hand. She made no move to pull away as their joined hands formed a bridge across the bed. She trembled as he bent toward her and lifted her hand to his lips.

  The feel of his warm breath touching her skin made her close her eyes. She couldn’t summon the will to ask him what he thought he was doing.

  And then his lips touched her flesh, as softly and as gently as the kiss he had given to his daughter.

  But Mary wasn’t a child. She opened her eyes to look at him.

  Who are you?

  A man who has enemies. A grateful man.

  She accepted the words as true. The shimmering warmth making her flush from the inside out left no doubt that whatever tags Rafe McCade added, he was all man.

  Gentle, yes. But there was to her the danger of his overwhelming masculine presence, which awakened long-dormant senses. Mary snatched her hand from his.

  Rafe made no move to stop her.

  “I’m going to take a look around outside. Then I’ll be back.” He leaned over and kissed his daughter.

  Mary didn’t answer him. She gazed at the child. Her arms ached to hold her. The ache came from the fear Rafe had brought into the open, and her own desperate needs.

  She wanted the child. But she was afraid to want the man.

  Chapter Nine

  Rafe passed Catherine on the stairs.

  “That was a mighty nice gift you gave Sarah.”

  “No more than she deserved. Catherine, I’ll be out for a while. Mary will explain, but sleep light and keep your gun handy.”

  “My gun?” But the words were met with no response. Rafe was already down the stairs and out of sight.

  Catherine wasted no time, and hurried into Mary’s room, whispering a demand to know what was going on.

  As Mary spoke to her, Rafe repeated what he had said to Sarah, who had just come inside, brushing off rain from the light drizzle that had started. “No need for you to go out. I just checked the horses.”

  “I’ll be doing more than looking around here. I want to go down to the saloons. News travels fast and free when men are drinking. I need to hear what’s being said.”

  “Straight on the line, Rafe. Do you believe that someone trailed you here?”

  “I don’t know. I want to be sure, whichever way it goes. I don’t want my presence, and Beth’s, too, bringing trouble here.”

  Sarah sensed his impatience to go. “Take the brown gelding. He’s got no markings to make him stand out. And he’s eight months off the range. Spooks like a devil when something’s not right.”

  She blew out the lantern. Rafe opened the door with a nod of thanks for her savvy. If someone was waiting in the dark drizzle for him, he would have presented a perfect target silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Be careful,” Sarah whispered as he melted into the shadows. She bolted the door, took up her rifle, and after pouring a cup of coffee, she sat at the table to await his return.

  Upstairs, Mary hurried to the hall window. There was nothing to see beyond the glass but darkness. She stood for a few minutes, searching the ground below, then turned away.

  Rafe was no longer there. She had not seen one shadow move, but there was no doubt in her mind that he had gone.

  “Go with God,” she whispered, and returned to her vigil.

  Someone wanted to kill him.

  It wasn’t until he stepped into the saddle and rode out away from the road that Rafe blocked all else from his mind.

  Before he could look into his past, the future beckoned like a wicked temptress.

  Who would benefit from his death?

  The obvious answer was Beth, for she would inherit the bulk of his holdings. Eliminate Beth, and the trust set up to protect her dissolved into so many minor bequests only the lawyers processing the will would earn an extra dollar.

  The trust itself was ironclad. Anyone attempting to control his daughter and his fortune had to buck men honed in hell, who walked away after supping with the devil.

  He would trust each of the four men named as trustees with his life. Truth was, he had, and so had each of them in return.

  The gelding stepped with care on the rocky ground of the east-running wash. Rafe deliberately swung wide of the town to come in from the north end. The cool rain held to an intermittent drizzle that posed no problem. Several times he drew rein and sat listening to the night sounds around him.

  And he thought of the many times he had ridden through the night. There was a difference, though—he could not bring the fight to this unknown enemy. He would not, could not, leave his daughter.

  Rafe rode into the north end of town. Approaching the Paradise Saloon, he paused to study the main street of town. Lights beckoned down the opposite side of the street, from the Red Horse Saloon.

  He swung the gelding away from the hitching rail, into the middle of the street, toward the other saloon. Beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes moved along the shadows of hidden doorways and alleys.

  Two reasons made his decision for him. The hitching rails in front and on either side of the Red Horse were thick with horses. More men drinking there meant more news. More men could also mean more trouble for a stranger, too.

  But Rafe rode with the knowledge that he had ridden into more raw-at-the-edge cow and mining towns than he cared to number. And usually he’d been the stranger.

  His other reason had to do with his unwillingness to confront the doctor he had needed. He didn’t quite trust himself not to have words with a man intent on drowning his sorrows.

  At the Red Horse, he pulled up and swung down. He glanced at the lights from the windows, then tied his horse and loosened the cinch.

  Rafe stood for a minute, looking along the street. Then he hitched up his gunbelt and slipped the thong from his gun. Rafe knew he wasn’t looking for trouble, but he was as ready as he could be if it came calling on him.

  He pushed through the doors into the saloon and paused briefly to allow his eyes to adjust to the change in light.

  The habit was so ingrained that he didn’t even think about doing it. Just as he didn’t look directly at any of the lights now. Coal-oil fixtures, like campfires, proved the death of men who tried finding an enemy in the dark or the shadows with eyes accustomed to bright lights.

  Rafe swept the room with a comprehensive glance. It told him he knew no one there, and it was unlikely anyone knew him.

&
nbsp; Choosing the empty place at the end of the bar, where the wall protected his back and the door remained a few steps at his side, he ordered a whiskey.

  Only three men stood at the bar. One looked to be a drummer, from his derby hat and plaid box jacket. The other two were cowpunchers.

  The bartender ceased mopping the bar and brought Rafe his whiskey.

  The tables scattered over the sawdust-covered floor were mostly filled with men playing cards or deep in talk.

  Rafe, seeing the looks directed his way as the curiosity offered any stranger, sipped his drink and listened to their conversations.

  Railroads were the topic of a heated discussion at one table. Rafe’s mouth held a hint of a smile when he heard about the money that could have been made since the Central and Pacific Railroad Company and the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad Company had opened traffic from Kansas City to San Francisco. He had made a tidy sum on the deal.

  A cousin spoke of a letter received from family members in Council Bluffs, telling of the Union Elevator Company filing their articles of incorporation with half a million in capital in the Iowa city.

  Rafe moved a bit closer to the end of the bar, for Council Bluffs was a major grain-buying center, and several roads terminated there. He didn’t know Sidney Dillion or Hugh Riddle, two of the incorporators named, but had a passing acquaintance with Al Keep. He listened, for this was the way he had begun his fortune.

  The crusty old miner at the table, who wore his years well, remarked, “Ain’t ever seen the like of no half a million. Ain’t likely to ‘fore I meet my Maker.”

  Rafe listened to the old miner, gathering he had been out on the trail for some time. He spoke knowingly of California and Nevada capitalists, with their mining experts, visiting camps to look over ore and mining operations for investments.

  Rafe motioned for another drink. The Cañón del Agua and San Pedro company, in which he had recently won a major share, had just had a new smelter put in, and yet he was hearing that they had suspended operations and had a large force employed in building fortifications around the mine, armed with the latest and most improved arms, including the explosive-shell cartridge.

  The voices lowered, and Rafe couldn’t hear what they said, but it had something to do with the lone man seated in the corner.

  “Ask me,” one of the men at the table said, “he looks like a kid still wet behind the ears.”

  “Look again,” the old miner warned. “That tied-down gun don’t make him a green kid. Hear he’s been offering fightin’ wages up to seventy-five dollars a day. Them boys up at the Cañón del Agua is fixin’ to fight.”

  “Well, I ain’t but passable handy with a gun,” another man said. “An’ I’d want one of them New York Life insurance policies like my sister got. Her man got killed with Custer, an’ they paid her two thousand dollars ‘cause he was an officer. Hear tell they paid out close to forty thousand just to families in our territory.”

  Rafe took another, closer look at the lone man. He had already decided to leave, since he wasn’t hearing the type of news he had come for. He thought about finishing off his drink, and while he did, he saw that he was about to have company.

  A man wearing double holsters, tied down, was a rare sight. Rafe always figured that if a man couldn’t do the job needed with one gun, he shouldn’t be packing any weapon.

  Rafe thought the young man resembled William Bonney, but the outlaw people knew as Billy the Kid had been killed in July.

  The man set his drink on the corner of the bar, near where Rafe stood. Slim, wiry, the man was better dressed than most cowhands. Along with the double tied-down guns, he sported polished black boots dressed with fancy large-roweled Mexican spurs. He was dressed entirely in black, including a flat-brimmed hat similar to Rafe’s.

  The young man’s cool brown eyes swept over Rafe with a sharp glance. “Don’t I know you?” he demanded.

  Rafe shrugged, his own gaze expressionless. “You might.”

  “Passin’ through?”

  “Maybe. Ain’t decided.”

  “Want a job?”

  Rafe sipped his drink and found that conversations had quieted while gazes focused on the two of them.

  “Asked you a question, stranger.”

  “So you did.”

  “Well? You any good with that gun, mister?”

  “Maybe.” Rafe pushed aside his glass. He could smell the type of trouble coming his way.

  “I’m hiring for a mining outfit. We’ll pay well…very well.”

  “What outfit’s that?”

  “Ain’t important.” The kid’s voice grew sharp. “I’m doing the hiring.”

  “Good for you.”

  Rafe saw his mouth tighten, and excitement light his brown eyes. He knew what he was going to hear before the eager, aggressive voice was raised in challenge.

  “I don’t like your answer. I don’t like it at all.”

  Rafe looked at him, sized up the youth, then looked away. Every man found his own path to prove his manhood to others. He offered no remark to the challenge, but then, his cool gray-eyed look was enough.

  “Fact is, mister, I don’t like you.”

  Rafe’s hand curled over the edge of the bar. He took his time answering. The other three men at the bar moved away. The bartender found a spot at the far end of the bar that required vigorous mopping. The whispered conversations abruptly ceased.

  “You hear me, hombre? I don’t like you.”

  “Does it really matter?” Rafe asked in a soft drawl.

  Rafe could feel the young man staring at him. He heard the scrape of chairs pushed back and the shuffle of feet as men moved away from them, to get out of the line of any gunfire.

  Rafe thought of his own feelings the first time he had been challenged by a man older and wiser. There had been an icy chill down his spine that night. He had felt fear that never quite left him. Only a stupid man never felt it. He had remembered his father’s words when he first taught him to shoot. It wasn’t always the one fastest to draw and shoot first that walked away.

  It was the man who made his shots count.

  His father had long been dead, and Rafe remembered thinking he had to fight or be branded a coward. He spared a quick look at the kid’s darting eyes. Yeah, he was feeling the same sort of fear.

  But he didn’t back down.

  “I figure it does matter, mister. I’ll make it matter.” His voice broke over the last words, but his hand hovered over his gun.

  The onlookers sent their tension crawling through the saloon.

  Rafe tipped his hat back and looked directly into the kid’s eyes, and then he smiled. There was humor in his gaze, not mockery.

  “Well, kid,” Rafe said, in a soft but carrying voice, “don’t shoot me now. I ain’t finished my drink.”

  Rafe deliberately turned to face the bartender. He motioned with his left hand. “Top this one off, then I’ll be leaving. I ate all the dust I wanted this morning.”

  Men started talking, in whispers at first, and then their voices rose as cards were shuffled and bets made.

  Rafe picked up his full glass of whiskey. The kid moved to the other end of the bar.

  “Mister,” the bartender said, “he don’t know how lucky he is. I’m of a mind that this wasn’t new to you. Ain’t so many men so sure of themselves that they could step casually aside.”

  “I had nothing to prove to him or anyone,” Rafe answered. He lifted his glass, and as he did, he saw a square-shouldered man, his buckskin jacket barely covering his barrel-shaped chest, slide from his chair and go out the back door.

  If the hostility in the man’s gaze had been a bullet, Rafe would be dead. He said nothing. He had walked this path before. A quick glance around the room told him no one else had paid any attention to the man leaving.

  Rafe swallowed his drink, turned quietly and went outside. Some of those men in the saloon would say he’d backed down, while others, like the bartender, might realize that
he had avoided a shooting.

  The bartender, Ross Durvarey, rarely debated with himself, but he did so now. He had half ownership in the Red Horse, after a life of drifting over freight trails and mining camps when his stint as a quartermaster in the Union army was finished. He set a fresh drink in front of the kid.

  “I’ve stayed alive by keeping out of other men’s business,” Ross said. “You’re real lucky. That hombre rode out of an Apache attack today. Not many could say as much. He brought in his kid on a travois. So drink up. Man ought to celebrate another night of living.”

  Outside, Rafe had stepped to the side of the building, where no light from the windows touched him. He waited for the barrel-chested man to claim his horse.

  When minutes slipped by, Rafe realized he was not coming.

  If his horse was not one of those tied at the hitching rails, the animal was in the livery, or hidden in one of the shallow washes outside of town. It was where he would have put his horse, ready for a hard ride, after dry-gulching a man.

  Not that he had ever dry-gulched a man. He’d never shot one in the back, or fired at an unarmed man. But he was aware of the thin line dividing those who would not, and those who could and often did.

  Rafe could not shake the feeling that the man had known him.

  Or was it the kid who had earned that hostile look for failing to draw him into a gunfight?

  Rafe figured close to the minute how long he had been gone. He wanted to track the man down—no easy task in the dark. But the rain would wash away his tracks.

  Yet he had to give some thought to this being a ruse to draw him out.

  And there was Beth to consider. If she called for him and he was not there, she would be afraid.

  Or would she be?

  Mary was there with her.

  The thought of Mary with his daughter settled far too easily in his mind, with a rightness he did not question. He never trusted quickly, but that woman, with her sad, lovely eyes had broken his guard.

  Rafe suddenly felt anxious to get to the woman and the child he had left. For all he knew, the kid could have delayed him while the man he waited for went hunting.