McCrory's Lady

by Henke, Shirl Henke

  Some self-punishing instinct would not relinquish its hold on Maggie as her thoughts kept returning to the old picture. “Tell me about her, Eileen.”

  The older woman sighed. “It's been so long ago.”

  “And yet Colin still grieves. He never remarried all those years while Eden was growing up.”

  “He blamed himself for Miz Elizabeth's death. A prime bit of foolishness. A man needs sons—especially one like the mister. Eden needed brothers and sisters, too. But it's a stubborn one he is.”

  Maggie smiled grimly. “How well I know that.”

  “I think his grief was part and parcel with his gratitude. He felt he owed everything to her.”

  A puzzled expression spread across Maggie's face. Colin McCrory had always appeared arrogant, never humble to her. “But I thought he was a wealthy man when he married her.”

  “Aye, and that he was, but he'd made his fortune with a strong back and a will of iron. He was as rough and unpolished as the likes ye'd see in any saloon. Could barely sign his own name on their marriage lines. Her family was from old money back east. I came west with them as her maid. Her pa had taken a commission from West Point and brought us to Arizona during the War Between the States. The first time Mister Colin went to the Army post to deliver a herd of horses, he was smitten. Her pa wouldn't have allowed the match if the mister hadn't been so successful, him bein' a foreigner with no fancy pedigree and no family.”

  “I imagine Elizabeth had something to say about that,” Maggie said, gazing at the photograph of a young dark-haired Colin with an intense expression on his handsome face. How could any woman have resisted him? She still remembered his charm when they had teased and laughed together that first afternoon in the Silver Eagle.

  “Oh, she loved him right enough…in her own way,” Eileen replied cryptically.

  And he still loves her, even beyond the grave.

  * * * *

  As Wolf and Colin rode toward the timber mill, Colin explained about the men and the problems with the lumbering operations, outlining what Wolf should do to forestall any further losses. After that they simply rode in silence. Both were taciturn men, comfortable with it.

  But although Wolf was comfortable with Colin, he was not at all comfortable around his daughter. Eden was constantly on his mind, and since he had rescued that mongrel dog her attitude toward him had changed considerably. Her accusatory standoffishness had now softened into shy smiles. He had caught her looking at him, fascinated and curious, on several occasions over the past week.

  He desired her, yet knew that acting on their mutual and unspoken attraction would be insane. Eden was a white woman from a rich, prominent family, even if her reputation had been besmirched by that scum who had abused her. She's probably afraid of any man's touch now. But she did think of him as her friend. I could show her how good it can be between a man and a woman. Madness! He forced the thought aside and concentrated on the magnificent country they rode through.

  The day promised that summer was coming to the high elevations of the Mogollon Rim country. The sky was azure and the sun warm, yet none of the merciless scorching heat of the south plagued them. Bright fairy slipper dotted the mossy ground and dark green cedars rose in dense stands across the river valley. Here and there, small groups of cattle grazed contentedly.

  “Those steers don't look up to your breeding standards,” Wolf said, surveying several cattle as they rode past.

  “They're a longhorn mix. I got rid of the last of my Texas stock ten years ago. They must be some of the cheap beeves the Tucson contractors sell to Lamp—at premium prices,” Colin added darkly.

  They rode past the stragglers, and McCrory inspected the brand with a frown creasing his forehead, then he cursed stridently. “I think these brands have been run—look, you can see the reservation's US stamp covered over to read WB.”

  “Win Barker's brand?”

  “You catch on quick,” Colin said as he scanned the horizon.

  “You think Barker's rustlers are still around?” Blake asked.

  “Not likely, but we could check.”

  Wordlessly agreeing, the two men began cutting for sign, but an hour's ride along the Crown Verde-reservation border revealed nothing.

  Just as Colin started to rein in and tell Blake they had best abandon the useless search, a shot whizzed past his head and hit the granite outcropping in front of him, stinging his face and arms with chips of rock. A man stood behind a cluster of boulders and took aim at Blake. McCrory yelled a warning to his companion and fired at the target.

  Everything erupted in chaos then. Colin whirled in the saddle and hit the bushwhacker with a hip shot from his Peacemaker. Grabbing his Remington repeater, he swung down and dove for cover in a brushy swale as several other men opened fire from the rocks nearby. Wolf slid from his horse, firing at them as he, too, found cover. The fierce exchange continued until one of the men let out a cry as Wolf's shot struck home.

  “I wish we knew how many are left,” McCrory said.

  “Three, but one's hit bad enough to slow him down, I think,” Blake replied, carefully squeezing off a shot. Another of the killers went down as the slug connected, sending him sprawling grotesquely out onto the open ground.

  “Damn, they got Charlie!” a voice called out. “I'm skedaddlin'.” In a moment the sounds of an outlaw's curses were drowned out by the pounding of hooves.

  “I think we're down to the last man. Let's try to take him alive—I want to know who hired them.”

  Wolf nodded. “You cover me with your rifle. I'm going to make a run for those rocks over there.” Without waiting for assent, Blake lunged over the edge of the swale and rolled behind a clump of tuna cactus. McCrory's Remington kept the outlaw pinned down until Wolf made it to the rocks. Then, they opened up a crossfire as Blake worked his way higher onto an overhang where he could see the gunman below. “Throw down your gun,” he yelled at the man he had shot earlier, who was on his side, wedged between two boulders. He complied, and Wolf began to climb down.

  Seeing Blake give the all clear, Colin stood up and began to approach the ambush site. Suddenly, a shot rang out from where he had taken down the first man. Colin felt a white-hot sear of pain and dropped to his knees.

  Wolf spun around and fired at the man who had shot Colin. He finished the job Colin had started, pumping three shots into the man's chest, but the assassin had done his work. Colin lay face down on the ground with a widening red stain on his right side.

  Before Wolf could move he heard the click of a gun being cocked behind him. Spinning around, he fired rapidly at the wounded outlaw lying in the rocks. The assassin's weapon dropped from his nerveless fingers. After quickly checking to be certain both of the bushwhackers were dead, Blake raced over to his fallen employer.

  Wolf knelt beside his boss and examined the wound. McCrory was losing blood fast. Wolf swiftly cut the shirt from the dead man's body and used it to stanch the flow at Colin's side.

  When he rolled Colin over, the older man's eyes opened and he grimaced in pain.

  “You're bleeding like a stuck pig. I'll get the bedroll off my saddle and cut it in strips to tie around your waist,” Wolf said, but McCrory's hand, surprisingly strong, seized his wrist and held it.

  “First see if that other one behind the rocks is alive. We need information out of him,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. “I can hold this rag over my side.”

  “Had to finish him. This is a bad hit, McCrory,” Blake said.

  “I've been shot before and it's never good, but I'll make it.”

  Without wasting any more time on the assassins, Wolf went to get his bedroll and cut it into bindings for Colin's injury. Then he returned to his fallen comrade, who now was unconscious. Wolf bound the wound tightly, noting with grim satisfaction that the bullet had exited through his right front side cleanly. At least, there was no slug to be dug out. He brought their horses around, then attempted to lift McCrory's inert form onto Sand, no easy ta
sk. Colin was a big man, several inches taller than Blake with heavier bones.

  “What’re you trying to do—yank my arms off?” Colin mumbled hoarsely as pain revived him. He staggered to his feet with Blake's help, then struggled atop Sand and clung to the pommel, hunched over the saddle. “You better tie me on,” he said, handing Wolf his lasso.

  Maggie heard the riders approach, then the shouts of alarm. Dropping her polishing cloth, she ran to the window. Colin! For some inexplicable reason she felt he was in danger. Then, she saw two hands untying his slumped form and pulling him from his big buckskin. Was he unconscious—or dead?

  “It's the mister, Miz Maggie. He's been shot!” Eileen's voice echoed from the parlor.

  By the time they had carried him up the front porch steps, Maggie was flying down the hall. “Bring him up here,” she said with a breathless catch in her voice. “Eileen, set some water to boil and bring clean bandages up to his room.” She whirled and followed the men, directing them to the last room on the right.

  Once they had laid him on the big bed and pulled off his boots, she shooed them all out but Riefe and Wolf, who seemed the calmest. As the old foreman helped her undress Colin, Blake explained what had happened.

  “On the way back here, we ran into some Crown Verde hands. One's ridden for the doc in Prescott while the other went after the bodies,” Wolf concluded. Maggie nodded absently. God, how pale Colin looked!

  “Be gone with ye, now. It's time for the women to get to work,” Eileen said, shooing Cates and Blake out of the room.

  As he walked through the door, Wolf collided with Eden, who looked up at him with huge, frightened eyes. “They said my father's been shot!”

  She tried to get past him, but Wolf held her fast. “Let Maggie and Eileen tend him. They've both had experience with gunshot wounds.”

  “Is it serious? I have to see him,” Eden persisted, shoving Wolf aside and rushing into the room where the two women were placing a cover over Colin.

  Eileen looked up and saw Eden's terrified expression. “He'll be fine, but we do need to clean that wound and pack it until Doc Torres gets here. It'd be most useful if ye carry up the water once it's boiled, Eden child,” she said, reassuring the frightened girl with a pat on her shoulder as she turned her away from the pale, unconscious figure lying so still on the bed.

  Maggie pressed more rags against Colin's side with trembling hands. The clean exit of the bullet was a mercy, but he was losing so much blood it terrified her.

  “Don't die, Colin. Don't you dare die on me before I tell you—” She stopped suddenly, aware of what she had almost blurted aloud. Before I tell you I love you.

  Did she? Maggie looked down at his face, bloodlessly pale yet oddly young-looking as he lay so still with those troubling whiskey eyes closed and that perpetual scowl erased from around his firmly molded mouth. She ran her fingers through the thick dark hair flecked with gray, watching the light glint on it. Silver dust, she'd once called it. She swept the hair off his forehead. His skin felt hot to her touch.

  Oh, Colin, what will I do if you die? The question made her realize that she did indeed love him, this bitter, distant stranger who loved his first wife and his daughter so devotedly. If only he could love Maggie half so well.

  Eileen bustled back into the room, having left Eden with Wolf to soothe her. The two women cleaned the wound, then packed and wrapped it tightly.

  “Doc Torres is real good with herbs 'n such. He's a strange one, he is, but niver did I see a finer doctor. He'll fix up the mister, right enough.” Eileen turned to inspect Maggie. “Maybe you'd better lie down a wee bit.”

  “No. I'm fine, I'll stay. He could begin bleeding again if he gets more feverish and starts to thrash.” She felt his head again and bit her lip with worry. “He feels warmer to me.”

  “Doc Torres has some strange ideas about fevers and such. Best wait until he gets here and not borrow trouble.”

  Maggie looked up. “What ideas?”

  Eileen shrugged. “Instead of sweatin' it out, it's cold he uses—wrappin' a fevered body with cool wet cloths to bring down the temperature.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Did on Louise Simpson about six years ago. That was when he first arrived. No one trusted him, what with him bein' a heathen 'n all.”

  “A heathen? Torres is a Spanish name. I'd assume he's as Catholic as you are, Eileen.”

  “His people were Spanish—way back, I guess, but he's a Jew. I'd not be knowin' anything about his family. The mister always liked him. They play chess on winter evenings when he stops off here while he's out on his rounds. Awfully particular he is about how food's prepared in my kitchen,” Eileen added huffily.

  Maggie smiled in spite of her fears as she stroked Colin's brow again. “I understand that Jewish dietary laws are rather strict.”

  “A good Catholic woman like meself wouldn't be knowin' about such things,” Eileen said.

  “Speaking of diets, you'd better see to dinner. I'll stay with my husband until the doctor arrives,” Maggie replied.

  As Dr. Aaron Torres reined in at the front steps and quickly dismounted, Eden flew out to meet him. “I'm so glad you're here! Father's been shot and Maggie and Eileen are keeping me out of the room. I'm afraid it's bad,” Eden said when the doctor entered the house in swift strides.

  As Eden ushered him into the master bedroom, Maggie looked up in surprise at the tall, slim man with gold hair and smiling green eyes. He was dazzlingly handsome, not at all the sort of small, dark, wizened old scholar Eileen had led her to imagine. “I'm Colin's wife, Dr. Torres,” she said as she pulled back the covers to reveal her husband's tightly wrapped injury.

  He smiled and nodded at her as he set down his leather satchel. “I only wish the circumstances of our acquaintance were not so dire, Mrs. McCrory.” Then, he looked over to Eden. “You'd best wait downstairs, Eden,” he said with surprising firmness for such a gentle voice. “I'll call if I need anything.”

  Wordlessly, she did as she was told, and the doctor began to unwrap the bandages. “You've done well—the bleeding has stopped.”

  “Wolf packed it before they rode back. I don't know how Colin endured two hours on horseback hurt this bad,” Maggie said, blanching when she again looked at the angry red hole in her husband's side. He was so still and silent, his breathing shallow.

  “The wound is clean. Here, help me turn him so I can check the back,” he instructed as he rolled Colin onto his left side. “Excellent. The lower-level bleed has nearly stopped.” He carefully swabbed the angry punctures with carbolic, then poured a dark yellow powder over the wounds. Maggie helped him wrap Colin's waist with clean bandages. Then they rolled him onto his back and covered him.

  “No vital organs seem to have been hit. The real enemy now is fever. You'll have to watch him closely·”

  “Eileen said you have some unorthodox treatments for fever.”

  “I'm unorthodox in most ways. I'm a member of the Reformed Movement of Judaism,” he said with a wry smile. “But I do come from a long line of excellent physicians. A distant great-grandfather of mine learned from the Caribbean natives that cooling a fevered body is far more effective than overheating it. I want you to follow my instructions precisely. I'm overdue at the Zeller place to deliver a baby, so I have to leave. Mrs. Zeller's already suffered two breech births and she'll be needing my help. I should be back here by morning.”

  Maggie nodded, listening to every word he said, intuitively trusting the earnest young physician with the gentle sense of humor and skilled, patient hands.

  By evening Dr. Torres's worst fears were realized when Colin began to thrash with a burning fever. Maggie at once set to work, stripping the bed linens back and covering him from head to foot with wet cool towels while Eileen and Eden fetched fresh ones and took the used ones to re-soak in cold water. They continued the process for hours.

  * * * *

  Colin was burning up. It was the damnable heat of Sonora, like the
furnace of hell. The sun beat down on his half-naked body as he plied his task.

  He could dreaded the hated sucking noise as he tugged with one hand while the sharp tip of his blade sheared around the dead Apache's scalp. Plop! The nasty trophy came free. His keen eyes swept the chaotic scene surrounding him as he tied the scalp to his belt and moved on to his next victim.

  “You only shoot the bucks, kid. Got a weak stomach for killin' she cats 'n cubs?” a grizzled old mountain man with one eye missing asked as he tied a dozen bloody hairpieces to his scalp pole.

  Colin McCrory shrugged as he went methodically about his task. “A buck brings a hundred dollars. Women fifty, children only twenty-five, ” he replied in his soft Scot's burr.

  Lebo spat a lob of tobacco into the thick red dust and laughed, revealing blackened stubs of teeth. “You ain't got no stomach fer killin' a female. Admit it.”

  “Leave the Scotty be, Ernst,” a big black scalper named Amos said quietly. “He done his share o' the fightin'.”

  “Yeah. And he don 't puke no more when he has to cut 'em up,” a huge Kanaka added. His big belly rolled with laughter as he hefted his scalp pole onto his horse.

  Colin could smell the acrid sweetness of blood congealing in the intense heat. Flies droned hungrily around the mutilated corpses, landing on his hands and greasy stained buckskin pants. He swatted them away furiously.

  The big Kanaka finished his task, then reached into the mochila on his saddle and pulled out a sack of pinole. Using some of the pooled blood from a dead squaw to moisten the cornmeal, sugar and cinnamon into a pasty ball, he licked the noisome mess from one big paw.

  “Bloody hell! I told you not to do that, you craven barbarian!” The words were barked in the sharp, twangy accent of Jeremy Nash. Colin had quickly learned why their leader held his Brit employers in such contempt. He was called the Aussie, and was an escapee from a British penal colony in Australia.