Chapter 10
The Catlin ranch was a Spanish-style hacienda, large and impressive. The high adobe walls that surrounded the house and outbuildings made it a veritable fortress with iron gates at the arched entrance. The gates weren’t closed, so Angel wasn’t stopped from riding in.
There was a lot of activity going on inside the walls. Three men at a corral breaking in a horse. A servant leaving the storehouse with an apron full of dried apples. Mexican children pretending to ward off an Indian massacre, stirring up dust near a small cemetery plot with three crosses in it. The sound of wood being chopped. A woman singing off-key, then laughing and trying again.
As Angel moved into the yard in front of the house, heads turned his way, movement stopped, the noise at the cemetery died down, the off-key singing sounded louder.
A young man stepped out on the veranda with a coffee mug in his hand. He had blond hair hanging to his shoulders, brown eyes, was of medium height and no more than a year or two over twenty. His chaps were rough hide; his six-shooter rested overly low on his hips to account for a long reach. And he stood with an overstated arrogance, telling Angel he was about to meet his first Catlin.
“Can I help you, mister?” the young man asked in a neutral tone.
Angel didn’t dismount, but he rested his hands nonthreateningly on his saddle horn. “I’m here to see the owner.”
“That’d be my ma. I’m Buck Catlin, and I do the hiring here.”
“I’m not looking for work. I’ve got a message for your ma, so if you wouldn’t mind fetching her, I’d appreciate it.”
Buck Catlin didn’t move, other than to take a sip of his coffee. “Ma’s busy. You can give me any message you got to deliver. I’ll see she gets it.”
“You’re welcome to hear it the same time she does, not before.”
Buck’s eyes narrowed with a frown at that answer. He wasn’t used to being told no. He’d been giving orders to men older than he since he was thirteen. The ranch would be his one day. He was already running it. No one told him no — except his ma.
“Who the hell are you, mister?”
“The name’s Angel.”
“And who’s your message from?”
“Me,” Angel replied, then elaborated. “Actually, it’s more in the way of a warning. So will you fetch your ma, or do I have to find her myself?”
“I don’t think you’ll be doing anything but leaving.”
Buck had started to draw his gun before he finished that statement. Angel’s weapon was palmed, cocked, and pointing at his belly before his hand had even got near it.
“You don’t want to do that,” Angel said in his slow drawl. “And Miss Cassie doesn’t want me to shoot anyone, so back off. This way, you get to live and I don’t upset the lady. We both win.”
Buck’s fingers twitched, then closed on empty air, and the hand slowly lowered. “Who did you say you were?” he asked in a choked voice.
“Angel.”
“Angel what?”
“Just Angel.”
“Should I know you?”
“No reason why you should.”
“But you know the Stuart girl. You said so. She hire you to come here?”
“No,” Angel replied. “Fact is, she asked me not to. She had this notion that I might shoot someone. That isn’t going to be necessary, is it?”
Buck Catlin turned a little bit pale with that gun still pointed at him and the new expression Angel wore of ominous intent. All he could manage at that point was to shake his head.
“Good,” Angel said. “Now, I’ve allowed you more questions than I usually do, so why don’t you return the favor and fetch your ma?”
“His ma is already here, mister,” Dorothy Catlin suddenly said behind Angel. “And I’ve got a rifle aimed at your head, so drop that gun if you want to live to leave here.”
Angel’s muscles tensed only a little. But his expression didn’t change, and it remained on Buck.
“I’m afraid I can’t oblige you, ma’am,” he said politely, though without looking around. “I’ll keep the gun until I do leave.”
“You think I won’t shoot you?” Dorothy demanded incredulously.
“I don’t particularly care whether you do or don’t, ma’am. ‘Course, your boy here will die, too. If that’s what you want, go ahead and shoot.”
A long silence followed that had Buck breaking out in a sweat. He was the one to break it when his mother still made no move to lower her rifle. “Ma, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not die today.”
“Son of a bitch,” she cursed then and came around to face Angel. Her rifle was now pointed at the ground. “What are you, a crazy man?”
“Just a man who’s lived with death too long to pay it much mind.” He tipped his hat at her as he gave her half his attention. His gun, however, remained pointed at Buck.
She was tall for a woman at only an inch or two shorter than her son. And she had the same blond hair and brown eyes. Angel guessed she hadn’t reached forty yet. Frankly, Dorothy Catlin was still a beautiful woman, so she must have been stunning when she was younger. And she was soft-looking in her full skirt and lace-edged blouse.
Holding a rifle didn’t suit her. Her shooting one seemed absurd. But Angel hadn’t survived this long by dismissing innocent-looking people. He’d learned long ago that anyone with the right provocation was capable of killing.
“I heard you mention the Stuart girl,” Dorothy said in a highly disgruntled tone. “If you’re here to apologize for her, you’re wasting your time.”
“I’m not. I don’t apologize for myself, much less anyone else.”
“That’s good, because what she’s done ain’t excusable.”
Buck spoke up to second that opinion. “You just look at my sister these days and she starts to bawling. That’s all she ever does anymore is cry, and Cassie Stuart and her meddling is the cause.”
Angel wondered about that, when it could be just as likely that the girl was crying because she was back home, rather than living with her new husband. But all he replied was, “So I hear.”
“Then state your business and get off my property,” Dorothy said.
“The Stuart herd was stampeded this morning, the cattle scattered clear to the MacKauley range. The shots that started it came from your direction.”
Dorothy’s face reddened with indignation. “You’re accusing me of starting a stampede?”
“I’m a cattleman, mister,” Buck added angrily. “I wouldn’t stampede cattle for any reason.”
“And the last thing we’d do is plump up the MacKauley herd,” Dorothy added, “even to get rid of that meddling Northerner.”
“But my guess is you’ve got men who work for you who might not take that into account,” Angel said. “And a stampede’s too dangerous to fool around with. Men have died in ‘em. So if I find who started this one, I’ll probably kill him.”
“You’ve made your point,” Dorothy gritted out with a good display of rage to accompany her supposed innocence.
“Not quite,” Angel replied, and a cold, steely edge entered his voice. “Cassie Stuart happened to be on the range and got caught in that stampede. If that wasn’t your intention, I’ll call this one an accident. Anything else happens, I won’t, and I’ll be back to hold him responsible.” He nodded at Buck so she wouldn’t mistake his meaning. “You don’t want me calling him out, ma’am. I don’t shoot to wound, so odds are he wouldn’t survive it.”
Buck swallowed hard. He’d already seen Angel draw. So had Dorothy as she’d come up behind him, but she didn’t address that now.
“Was she hurt?”
Angel reserved judgment on the concern that entered Dorothy’s expression as she’d asked that. “She could have been, should have been, since the idiot woman rode right into that stampede to stop it.”
“Don’t sound like you like her much,” Buck got up the nerve to comment.
“I’m still making up my mind about it,” Angel admitted.
“But whether I do or don’t‘s got nothing to do with my protecting her. I’ll be doing that until she leaves here, and she won’t be leaving until her pa gets back. So I would advise you folks to leave her alone from here on — unless you’re willing to take me on.”
“I don’t want her dead, mister, just gone,” Dorothy stated, belligerence back in her tone. “The sooner she is, the sooner my girl can forget what happened.”
“When she’s got a more potent reminder in a husband living only a few miles away?”
“Ex-husband, just as soon as the judge gets back from Santa Fe.”
Angel shook his head at that reasoning. A divorce paper wasn’t going to make Jenny Catlin MacKauley forget she’d been wedded, bedded, and abandoned.
“That’s your business,” he replied. “Cassie Stuart is now mine.”
“You’ve got your nerve, coming in here and threatening me, I’ll give you that,” Dorothy told him. “You’d be easy enough to get rid of, fast gun or not.”
“You’re welcome to try, if you want bloodshed added to this thing. But for the record, I rarely threaten, ma’am. I state facts as they currently stand. What you do with ‘em is up to you.”
Dorothy was red-faced with anger again. “All right, you’ve stated your facts, now here’s one of mine. You show up here again and you’ll be shot on sight.”
Angel grinned at that point. “Fair enough, though I ought to warn you that isn’t likely to stop me. Good day, Mrs. Catlin.”
He tipped his hat to her again, holstered his gun, and turned his back on them. He’d gone several yards before she called out, “If the Stuart girl didn’t hire you, what’s she to you?”
“A favor.”
Dorothy didn’t say anything else, just watched him leave without the least concern that he’d be shot in the back. She hated gunfighters, she really did. You couldn’t deal with a man who lacked fear.
“Find out who he is, Buck,” she said, still bristling. “A man don’t talk like that unless he can back it up. And find out which one of the boys is taking matters further than ordered. I want whoever it is gone by sundown.”
Chapter 11
Cassie walked from one end of the porch to the other, then back again, her arms crossed tightly beneath her breasts, her eyes anxiously scanning the distant road in both directions. She’d cleaned up after returning to the ranch. She was now wearing a very stylish skirt with three deep flounces in a cream-colored sateen sprigged with tiny flowers. The white silk blouse was trimmed with soft Sicilian lace at the cuffs and the collar, all exposed beneath a thick white shawl. And she’d managed a plain yet becoming coiffure with Maria’s help.
The overall effect was not too fancy, not too understated—“armed,” as her mama would put it, though unlike her mama, Cassie had always chosen subtlety over blatancy when she dressed for a specific reason. Her reason now was to give the appearance of being calm and collected when she was anything but.
She was waiting for Angel to return to the ranch. She’d been waiting for several hours already. And the things she was imagining happening at the Catlin ranch kept her pacing the front porch.
Marabelle paced right alongside her. Occasionally the panther would nudge her leg and Cassie would drop a hand to absently pet the sleek cat. She’d tried once to put her in the house, but Marabelle had just sat back on her haunches and roared her refusal, so Cassie didn’t try again. But then, the feline could always sense when something was wrong with Cassie, and would refuse to leave her side when she did. Appearances couldn’t fool the cat.
It was late afternoon when Cassie finally heard a horse ride in, though she didn’t know if it was Angel’s, since the sound came from behind the house. But she didn’t wait to find out, hurrying around the side of the house and reaching the stable just as Angel did.
“What happened?” she asked before he could even dismount.
She was also wringing her hands. So much for the effort she had put into appearing calm and collected. And the infuriating man didn’t answer immediately — well, possibly because he was having some difficulty with his horse now, since Marabelle had followed Cassie to the stable.
Angel glared down at her from the back of the rearing horse. “I thought I told you to keep that cat away from me.”
“She won’t hurt — never mind. Don’t go away,” she added before she ran back to the house.
She entered through the kitchen, waited until Marabelle had followed her in, then slipped back out, closing the door firmly. A roar of displeasure sounded behind her, but Cassie ignored it and ran back to the stable. Angel was dismounting, though his horse was still acting skittish.
“Well?” she demanded, a bit breathlessly.
He started to lead his horse into the stable, and his voice was on the testy side as he tossed back, “I didn’t have to shoot anyone, if that’s what you’re hankering to hear.”
Cassie felt like collapsing in a puddle of relief. She followed him into the stable instead, despite the disgruntlement he was displaying over what had just happened.
In her lightened mood, she thought to reassure him. “Marabelle wouldn’t hurt you… well, as long as you keep your boots on when she’s around.”
That stopped him. “Why?”
“She’s got a real fondness for feet, mine in particular, but anyone’s will do when she’s in the mood. She loves to rub her face all over them, and occasionally clean her teeth on them.”
“Clean her — how the hell does she do that?”
Cassie grinned. “Not by chewing, I assure you. She just scrapes the surface of her teeth on you, but that can be a bit painful if your feet happen to be bare when she does it.”
He didn’t look reassured. In fact, he looked even more disgruntled. “I don’t intend to find out,” he said with finality and led his horse into the nearest empty stall.
Cassie shrugged behind him. She knew from experience that strangers had a hard time getting used to Marabelle, and an even harder time relaxing around her. Angel wasn’t proving any different in that respect, though there was one major difference in him. He was more likely to shoot her pet if he felt threatened, whereas most folks would simply run from it. So she wasn’t going to give up trying to convince him that Marabelle was harmless, but she let the subject drop for now in favor of her other concern.
“So did you find the Catlins?”
He went about unsaddling his horse as he answered. “I found ‘em.”
“And?”
“And they didn’t take too kindly to the advice I offered.”
“Which was?”
“To leave you alone or end up taking me on. I explained why they might not want to do that.”
She could just imagine. “You didn’t threaten them, did you?”
“Just gave ‘em the new consequences of continuing as they have been.”
Which still told her nothing and she finally was annoyed enough to say, “I swear, getting information out of you is worse than getting a mule to do what you want. Can’t you give it all to me in one dose?”
He gave her a long look. “If anything else happens to you, I’ll be calling on Buck Catlin again. He knows it. His ma knows it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“To shoot him?”
“Probably.”
Cassie groaned. “I wish you would look a little more reluctant when you say that.”
He frowned at her. “You think I like killing?”
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then why don’t you change what you do for a living?”
“Tell me what else I’m suited for. I tried ranching and it didn’t work. I don’t know anything about farming. I could probably open a saloon in some place, but I doubt I’d have the patience to learn the business end of it. The only other thing I know is trapping, but I think I’d rather die than live alone up in the mountains again.”
She was amazed he’d said so much, and that he’d obviously considered other means
of work. “You’d make a good sheriff,” she suggested hesitantly. “Didn’t they offer you the job in Cheyenne?”
He went back to tending his horse. “If d take a couple of years as sheriff to earn what I do now for one job. Can’t see as how if d be worth it when I’m risking my life either way.”
He had a point. And she’d had no idea he was so expensive to hire.
The remark stirred her curiosity enough to ask, “You’ve been doing this for quite a few years. Does that make you rich, or do you spend it as soon as you get it?”
He came out to close the stall, then turned to give her his full attention. There was a slight curve to his lower lip when he replied, “Now, what would I have to spend that kind of money on?”
She knew what most young men spent their money on, all of which could be found in a saloon. If he didn’t, he must have a sizable bank account by now.
“Have you thought of retiring?” she wondered aloud, then pressed the point by adding, “Of never killing again?”
“I’ve thought about it, but retiring wouldn’t keep the gloryseekers from finding me and calling me out. I’d have to change my name.”
“So why don’t you?”
“What?”
“Change your name?”
He was silent for so long, she began to fidget under his direct gaze, and then he said, “The last woman who pestered me with so much chattering, I offered to marry — so I’d have the right to beat her.”
Her eyes flared for a moment before she snorted, saying confidently, “You wouldn’t do it. You said it disgusted you to see a man treat his wife that way.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t, it’s that I wouldn’t want to,” he said in his lazy drawl. “There are nicer things to do with a woman — when she’s not being a pest.” Then with a grin he inquired, “Are you blushing, honey?”
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