“I’m sure of it,” Landry said, with a crisp nod. “I suppose they figure if they just stay gone long enough, Houghton will give up and move on.”
“Will he?”
Landry heaved a sigh, then shook his head. “I don’t reckon so,” he said. “He’s got some use in mind for the boy—probably to keep track of the horses while he and his friends hold up banks and stagecoaches.”
Miranda shivered, held her baby son close against her chest, even though he was well protected from the cold, being bundled in a woolen blanket Landry had searched out before they left the ranch for the preaching. “Toby could be shot,” she protested, “or arrested and hanged.”
“Houghton figures he’s expendable, I expect.”
“Ex—?”
Landry’s mouth crooked upwards at one side, but his eyes were kind. “Expendable. Something—or somebody—a person can get by without.”
Miranda ran her teeth over her lower lip once, weighing the word and its definition. “My pa felt the same way about me,” she said. And so does my husband, she added to herself. There was no bid for sympathy in her tone when she spoke aloud; what she meant was, she understood some of what Toby must feel. “What was your family like, Landry? The home-folks, I mean?”
He grinned at some private memory, urged the team to a slightly faster pace. The hills made a spectacle of brilliant color in the distance, and the air was sharp with the approach of winter. “My pa was a good man,” Landry replied. “He had a fair-sized farm, back in Missouri. Caroline’s family leased the land next to ours. I had two younger sisters and an older brother—my brother, Jack, died in the war, and one of my sisters, Mary Elizabeth, passed on, too, of a fever. My other sister, Polly, is a schoolmarm, like Rachel was.”
There were more questions Miranda wanted to ask, flocks of them, but she didn’t want to pry. “Your mother?”
“She died when I was little. Pa remarried her first cousin, Ruth. She had Mary Elizabeth and Polly. She still lives on the home place, though Pa died five years ago, around the time we lost Caroline.”
Miranda held her tongue. There was ever so much she wanted to know about Caroline, but she wasn’t going to ask. She wasn’t.
He didn’t volunteer anything more, either. Naturally, his mind was on the whereabouts of his sons, and young Toby, of course. “I’ll see you and the baby home safe,” he said, “and go out looking for those three little hooligans. I just hope I find them before they get themselves caught in an early snowstorm or come across some slat-ribbed cougar.”
She hadn’t allowed herself to think as far as wild animals and uncertain weather, not to mention the many other dangers the wilderness had to offer. Now, she cast a nervous glance at the sky. It was still a heart-piercing blue, that sky, with no clouds in sight, but Miranda had been in the west long enough to know that a blizzard could come up within a matter of hours, especially in Montana Territory.
Soon, they reached the cabin, and Landry lifted Miranda and the baby down from the wagon and watched them go inside before taking up the reins again and driving the team on toward the barn.
The inside of the house seemed unusually cold, and Miranda made haste to lay Isaiah in his basket, still wrapped in the blanket, so she could build up the fires, first in the stove, then on the hearth. When the place was reasonably warm, she unswaddled the baby and set about the wifely pursuits of lighting lamps and then peeling potatoes and onions to fry for an early supper. Landry meant to go out and search for his boys, but she intended to see that he ate first.
She brewed coffee—an extravagance, since the stuff was usually reserved for breakfast or for entertaining guests—and was adding fresh eggs to the sizzling skillet when Landry finally came in. He looked strained, and his ears and hands were red from the cold.
“I might be away overnight,” he warned, taking off his coat and setting the rifle he’d carried to town earlier, beneath the seat of the buckboard, in its rack near the door. He accepted the mug of coffee she’d poured for him with a grateful nod and took a sip right away. His hazel eyes searched her face. “You’ll be all right here by yourself?”
She had been alone for much of her life, even when she was in a room full of people, but the idea of Landry being away for a whole night seemed like an almost unbearable ordeal She couldn’t and wouldn’t let that response show, of course; he had enough on his mind, with three young boys missing. “I’ll be fine. Wash up and stand by the fire for a while, Landry. I’ll have your supper ready in just a few minutes.”
He nodded again and did as she asked, and when the mixture of potatoes, onions, and eggs was cooked, she served him a plate at the table and sat down to join him. Although it was only midafternoon by then, the days were getting shorter as October progressed toward November, and the first purple-gray shadows of nightfall were already darkening the windows. Now and then, he glanced uneasily toward the now nearly opaque squares of thick glass, no doubt growing more worried with every passing moment.
Miranda figured he was thinking what it would mean to lose Jamie and Marcus, the way he had lost their mother, and just then she could have shaken those boys for frightening him that way. On the other hand, though, she understood why they had done what they had.
“Don’t be hard on them,” she said quietly. “They’re doing the only thing they know to do to help their friend.”
Landry’s jaw hardened. “Running away from trouble never solved anything. No, ma’am. When I catch up to those little outlaws, they’ll be lucky if I don’t tan all three of them on the spot.”
She felt her eyes widen. “You wouldn’t really lay a hand on them—?”
He huffed out a breath, smiled a sad and rueful smile, and shook his head. “No, but it comforts me some to think of it.”
She laughed, though she was as frightened for those three rascally boys as he was. The wind was rising, beginning to howl around the corners of the house, and the fire danced and flickered in the hearth.
Landry finished his food and went to pull on his heavy coat, take down the rifle again, and gather spare ammunition. He went into his room and came out with a bedroll. She stood near the door when he was ready to leave, not quite daring to embrace him as she wanted to do, and whispered, “You’ll be careful?”
He took part of a step toward her, or perhaps she just imagined that part. He was looking at her, though, as he raised the wooden latch. “I will. You look out for little Isaiah there, and see you that you don’t open that door to anybody you don’t know. You’ll find a forty-four caliber pistol in the strongbox on the high shelf in that wardrobe in my room. Use it if you see the need.”
She swallowed. So far, she’d contrived to avoid laying hand to a firearm, and she did not want to start then. “Do you think—?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to finish, to ask if Landry expected Mike Houghton to turn up there, looking for Toby.
“There’s no telling,” Landry answered, when the silence lengthened. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. You’ll see to the animals if I’m not back by morning?”
She didn’t even want to think of Landry not returning before the sun rose, though she knew he probably wouldn’t. She simply nodded.
He hesitated—for a moment she thought he would kiss her good-bye, as any husband might do—but in the end he merely told her to fasten the latch behind him and went out, closing the door smartly behind him. Miranda stood there for several long moments, eyes closed, both palms pressed to the rough wooden panel.
Keep him safe, she prayed.
The wind rose still further, as if in answer, and nearly blew out the fire. Miranda bolted the door and turned away.
*
It made sense to look in at Springwater, to make sure the boys hadn’t found their way back there, once the wind came up and the temperature began to drop. Landry rode past the lively Brimstone Saloon, his collar drawn up around his ears and his hat drawn low over his face, making for the station.
Jacob greeted him at the door, and the e
xpression on his weathered face made it clear that he’d been cherishing the same vain hope Landry had—that the boys had given up on their flight and come home. Both men were disappointed.
“No word of them, then?’ Jacob asked, stepping back and nodding Landry into the warmth of the Springwater station.
“I was hoping to find them here,” Landry admitted. He wouldn’t stay long, but neither could he stand on the threshold on a cold night, forcing a friend to hold the door open to an autumn wind. “What about Houghton?”
“He seems content to drink up Trey’s liquor over at the Brimstone,” Jacob said grimly. “I guess Trey’s trying to keep him in sight as long as he can.”
Landry nodded. At least he didn’t have to worry that Houghton would head out to the ranch and give Miranda any trouble—not yet. He was surprised to realize how much that calmed him, given the fact that his sons were almost certainly in danger, along with young Toby. “I mean to go out looking for them,” he told Jacob. “They know this country almost as well as any Blackfoot or Sioux would, though. It won’t be easy finding them if they want to stay hidden.”
Jacob was reaching for his round black hat and heavy dark coat, both of which hung on sturdy pegs next to the door. “I’ll ride along, if you don’t mind.” He broke loose with something that might have been either a smile or a grimace. “Fact is, I intend to ride along whether you object or not.”
Landry knew better than to argue. Jacob was in no condition to go tearing off into the night looking for a trio of wily boys, but he probably knew that without being told. Not that telling him would have done any good.
June-bug appeared from the rear corridor, hands bunched into fists in her apron pockets. “You have a care, Jacob McCaffrey,” she said. “I can’t spare you, and that’s a fact.”
The big man crossed the room, kissed his wife’s upturned face. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “And if I have my way, so will those boys.” He stroked her cheek with a gentle pass of knuckles as gnarled as the roots of an old tree. “You tend to the prayin’. Don’t you give the Lord a moment’s peace until we’ve got young Toby and the Kildare boys back home safe, you hear?’
She smiled, her eyes overly bright. “Yes, Jacob,” she said. “I hear.”
The night outside was bitter cold, and the wind was sharp as the prongs of a new pitchfork, but Jacob had his big mule saddled in the time it took to whistle twice and spit, and Landry welcomed his presence, even if he wasn’t one to say much of anything. Thus the two men rode in easy silence, each one keeping his own counsel.
*
Miranda stayed busy for a while, feeding and bathing the baby, rocking him to sleep, clearing up the dishes, and banking the fire. After she’d bedded Isaiah down in his basket, she tried to settle at the table, with the reading primer Rachel had given her to study on, but she couldn’t concentrate and that made it hard to pin the words down to where they made sense.
She rose and went to the window, once, twice, a third time. She hoped to see her stepsons, and poor Toby, and of course Landry. Without Jamie and Marcus, without her husband, that modest house seemed huge and very empty.
Eventually, she gave up and went to bed, but she heard every coyote, every change in the wind, every creak of the house’s heavy wooden walls and tightly laid floors. After several hours of tossing and turning, Miranda got up and, carrying Isaiah and his basket, took herself off to Landry’s room. She had no right to be there, wife or none, but her longing for him was an ache, souldeep, and she could no longer ignore it. Boldly, she set Isaiah down close at hand, then threw back the covers and climbed right into Landry’s bed.
The sheets smelled deliciously of him, a unique combination of fresh grass and sun-dried linens and hardworking man, and it was a comfort to lie where he had lain, to rest her head on his pillow. She would make the bed up in the morning, she promised herself, as she finally began the long, slow tumble toward the solace of sleep, and he would never know she’d been there.
*
“Pa! Over here, Pa—come quick!”
The voice was Jamie’s, and the panicked sound of it wrenched Landry’s breathing to a painful stop in his throat. Still, he spurred his horse forward, knew the direction to take. Jacob kept pace, and it was he who called out, “We’re comin’, boy!”
Jamie stumbled out of the brush, teeth chattering, face bloodied and scratched. “Pa, Mr. McCaffrey—it’s Toby. He’s bad hurt. We figured to hide in our cave—that one you showed us when we was huntin’ bear last year—and Toby fell a long way—” When Landry leaned down to offer his younger son a hand, Jamie took it and sprang onto the horse behind him, agile as a monkey. “It’s up ahead there, through that little draw. Marcus is with him. We covered him up with a blanket, but we was—were—scairt to move him.”
“You did right,” Landry said. They’d discuss the drawbacks of running off some other time, when all three boys were safe.
Jacob was the first to reach the place where the boy lay, and he was off the mule and crouched on the ground next to him before Landry had even dismounted. A kerosene lantern, no doubt purloined from the barn at home, glowed next to the prone figure of Toby and the kneeling one of Landry’s elder son.
“Tell me where it hurts, boy,” Jacob said, and Landry felt a sweep of relief. Until then, he hadn’t known whether or not the lad was conscious. “We’re here now, Landry and me, and we’re going to take you back home. Doc Parrish will fix you up neat and tidy.”
Drawing near, Landry saw that Toby had a broken leg. Marcus, white with fear for his friend, looked up at his father with a plea in his eyes.
Landry simply held out his arm, and as quick as that, he had a son on either side, clinging to him as if to keep from toppling over the edge of a cliff.
“We didn’t figure on Toby getting hurt, Pa,” Marcus said.
Landry squeezed his son’s thin but widening shoulders. They’d be men all too soon, his boys. They were growing up fast. “I know you didn’t,” he said. He addressed his next words to Jacob, who was running practiced hands over Toby’s ribs, checking for more injuries. Until Pres Parrish came to Springwater, Jacob had been the closest thing to a doctor they had. “Is it all right to move him?”
Jacob didn’t look up. He was gazing down into Toby’s dirt-smudged, bruised face. “I reckon so,” he answered, “but it’s going to hurt some. You understand that, don’t you, boy?”
Toby nodded. Then Jacob lifted him off the ground in both arms, blanket and all, and his face reflected the child’s agony when Toby cried out from the pain. “Hand him up to me,” Jacob said, offering the boy to Landry, who held him while his friend mounted and then bent to recover his burden.
“Fetch that lantern,” Landry said to Marcus, when his sons’ spotted pony ambled out of the bushes, dragging its reins, “and we’ll follow Jacob into Springwater.”
Marcus nodded, picked up the light, and scrambled onto the pony’s back.
“You gonna whip us when we get home, Pa?” Jamie asked. For once, he seemed younger than Marcus, which he was.
“I ought to,” Landry replied. He was worried about Toby still, and about Jacob as well, but at the same time he was as thankful for finding his boys safe as he had ever been for anything.
“Will you?” Marcus wanted to know. He’d brought the pony alongside Landry’s gelding.
“I’ve never done it before,” he said, after keeping a judicious silence for a while. “I don’t reckon I’ll start now. But don’t go thinking you won’t be punished for this, because you will. That was a damn fool thing you did.”
Jacob and Toby and the mule were ahead, riding through the thin moonlight toward the warmth and safety of Springwater, and Landry saw no reason to keep pace. He reckoned, though, that he’d never forget the look of Jacob McCaffrey when he’d lifted that boy up into his arms and gathered him close against his broad chest.
He was worth ten of Mike Houghton, if you asked Landry Kildare.
CHAPTER
&n
bsp; 6
IT TOOK MIRANDA a long, sleep-fuddled moment to realize that the man looming at the foot of the bed wasn’t Landry, and when she did, the awareness brought her breathing to a hard stop and nearly did the same to her heart. She suppressed an urge to raise herself onto her elbows and peer through the thick darkness; better to pretend she was still asleep. Recalling the .44 Landry had told her about before he left the house, she wished she’d taken the time to get the pistol down and set it within reach on the bedside table.
“Where’s your man?” Mike Houghton demanded. He knew, then, that she was awake; she’d most likely gasped aloud when she saw him.
“How did you get in here?” Miranda countered. She’d latched the door and checked all the windows before retiring, and she would have heard any attempt at breaking in.
Houghton chuckled. He was a huge, featureless shadow in the gloom, but Miranda could see his bulky outline clearly enough, and catch the brew of sour smells coming off his skin and clothes. “Came up through the root cellar,” he said, with a degree of pride. “Now, like I asked you before, where’s that man of yours?”
Miranda wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, stalling. She was in powerful trouble, she knew that, but it was little Isaiah she was afraid for; all her instincts were geared toward protecting him. “He went out looking for his sons,” she said finally, when she was afraid the intruder might finally round the end of the bed and come at her. “I reckon he’ll be back any time now.”
Houghton heaved a sigh. He’d obviously thought Miranda and Landry were hiding Toby themselves, had him secreted away in the cabin someplace. Probably, he’d already searched every nook and cranny.
Miranda wondered when she’d gotten to be such a heavy sleeper, the slightest peep from Isaiah invariably awakened her instantly. Houghton was a big man, and not particularly graceful, so he’d surely made some noise. She guessed she’d been extra tired from the strain of the past few days.
“I’m getting real weary of dealing with you people,” Toby’s so-called father said, with another sigh, this one sounding long-suffering and much put-upon, “I reckon I’ll just have myself a seat at your table and wait for your husband to get home. You get up and make me something to eat. I’m starving.”
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