“My name is Kate Kerrigan. This is my property and you are on it.”
“I beg to differ,” the man said. He gave a deep bow. “Rueben St. James at your service.”
Suddenly very conscious of how tightly her corseted riding habit fitted at the waist and bust, Kate said, “I’ve heard of you. What can I do for you, Mr. St. James?”
The man’s grin was not pleasant. “There’s a lot you can do for me, little lady.”
“I have riders close,” Kate said.
“Not close enough.” St. James took a step toward Kate, another, then stopped. “I’ve claimed this ranch, but here’s my deal. You can have it back after the spring roundup.” The man’s grin showed he was used to getting anything he wanted. “I expect you’ll have a big belly by then and you’ll have me to thank for it.”
“Just don’t hurt me,” Kate said. “I’ll give you anything you want, but don’t beat me.”
St. James’s grin turned to a sneer. “Oh, but I plan to hurt you a lot.”
“No, please . . .”
St. James grabbed her, his hands moving all over her body, squeezing hard. He forced his open mouth on hers and said, “Into the cabin.”
“Yes . . . yes . . . just don’t hurt me.” Kate dropped her hand to her pocket and she thumbed back the hammer of the Remington. She tilted the little pistol and fired from there. The .41 caliber bullet ripped through the material of her dress and slammed into St. James’s left side just under the ribs and plowed eight inches into his belly. He was a dead man and he knew it.
He screamed, a primal screech of rage, pain, and fear. With his red eyes fixed on Kate, he took a step to his right, and brought his Colt up fast. The hammer of her derringer snagged in her pocket and she felt the spike of her own fear.
Blam!
The rifle shot that dropped Rube St. James shattered the silence of the morning like a rock through glass. Hitting between his left temple and the top of his ear, the .44-40 scattered his brains, and in an instant the dying man was a dead man.
Kate managed to yank clear the derringer and turned to see Trace sitting his horse, a smoking Henry in his hands.
“Sorry I was late, Ma.”
Still shaken, she gave a little grunt. “You weren’t late. You were just in time.”
Trace dismounted and looked at the dead man. “Who is he?”
“That’s Reuben St. James. He was a piece of filth who thought I was too scared of him to fight.”
“Well, I reckon you taught him otherwise.” Trace’s eyes met his mother’s. “Is it over now, Ma?”
“No, it’s not. I have a feeling it’s only beginning. This morning I lit the fuse.”
“What do we do with him?” Trace said.
“Tie him on his horse and send him home to his sister,” Kate said.
Trace sensed the steel in his mother. “I’ll get it done.”
“Good. I’ll be right back.” She went back to the cabin, sat at Jason Hunt’s desk, and found pen, ink, and paper. The note she penned was short and to the point.
STAY OFF MY LAND.
~Kate Kerrigan
She went back outside where Trace had begun to rope Rube St. James across his horse. “Put this in his shirt pocket,” she said, passing the folded note to her son. “I want Savannah St. James to know that it’s me she’s dealing with.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The vaquero stood uncomfortably in the scented brass and red velvet interior of the Emperor Maximilian, his sombrero dangling from his brown, rope-scarred hands.
Savannah St. James frowned. “You mean all of them?”
“Sí, patrón. They are very sick.”
Savannah’s crimson robe slid from her crossed thighs, but the vaquero’s news was so terrible she didn’t notice or care. “Are you sure?” she asked, knowing what the answer would be.
“Sí, patrón. The cows have tick fever.” The vaquero shrugged. “They will die, I think.”
She kept pushing. “Will they last long enough for the Chisholm?”
“Maybe some, patrón. But you will not be allowed to drive sick cattle on the trail. It will become a matter for the Texas Rangers. You will be stopped and your cows will be shot.”
Savannah rang the bell beside her, and when her maid appeared, she said, “Leah, a bourbon. Make it a large one.”
“Mr. Tweng replaced the cogwheels and repaired the steam pipe for the ice machine, Miss St. James,” Leah said.
“How clever of him,” Savannah said. “Then I’ll have ice with my bourbon.” She waved a dismissive hand at the vaquero. “That will be all for now. I will discuss the matter of the cattle with my brother when he gets back.”
The man bowed and left and Savannah rubbed the temples of her suddenly throbbing head. The vaquero’s news was devastating, but Reuben would find a way out of the unholy mess. He always did.
She accepted her drink from Leah and said, “Ask Mr. Tweng to come see me.” She felt the need of someone to talk to. Leah was available, but she was a domestic and one didn’t confide in servants.
Leah nodded and went in search of Tweng.
He appeared shortly, wearing his hooded leather coat, closed at the front by a row of eight brass buckles, his round hat, and ever-present goggles.
Savannah waved him into a chair. “I have bad news, I’m afraid.”
“I am distraught, dear lady. Pray, what could the matter be?”
Savannah recounted what the vaquero had told her, then, “Since this is a matter of the greatest moment, I am open to advice.”
Tweng sat up in the chair. “I have this to offer. We must avoid any involvement with the Texas Rangers or authorities of any kind. They may pry too closely into the origin of the herd. We can’t explain away the fact that we lifted the cattle in Mexico and left eight or nine dead vaqueros in our wake.”
“Indeed, Mr. Tweng. Once again, you have come to the crux of the problem,” Savannah said. “But you offer no solution.”
“There is one answer. Pick up and flee north into the territories.”
“And spend the rest of my life in poverty? That I will not do.”
“You could wed,” Tweng suggested.
“And that is a typical male solution. Wed? Wed what? A pasty bank clerk? An army officer, only to find myself withering away in some dusty outpost of civilization? Perhaps you’d wish me to become a farmer’s wife, pushing a plow, staring all day and every day at an ox’s ass? Or perhaps I could wed a reverend and he could preach to me about the errors of my wicked ways?”
Tweng sat back. “I stand chastised, Miss St. James. My suggestion was ill-considered.”
“I need a herd, Mr. Tweng. I must sell it and get out of this godforsaken wilderness forever.”
“Then you must acquire another, healthier herd,” Tweng said.
Savannah looked like she’d just been slapped. Then she clapped her hands. “Huzzah! Mr. Tweng, you have come up with the perfect solution! I will talk to Reuben when he returns and we’ll make our plans. How wonderfully clever you are.” She raised her glass and smiled. “And thank you for once again making my ice possible.”
Jack Hickam and Pete Slicer found the dead man roped across his horse. The big stud grazed just a hundred yards from the western limit of the cattle herd, a sea of hide and horn that seemed to go on forever.
Hickam dismounted, grabbed the corpse by the hair, and yanked up the head. “Yeah, it’s him all right. It’s Rube St. James.”
Slicer leaned forward in the saddle. “Looks like he’s been shot, huh?”
“A couple times,” Hickam said. “But a bullet through the head done for him.”
“What’s the paper in his pocket, Jack?” Slicer expertly rolled a cigarette and thumbed a match into flame. Through a cloud of smoke, he asked, “What does it say?”
Hickam took the paper and unfolded it. “It’s got writing on it, Pete.”
“Well, read it,” Slicer said.
Hickam shook his head. “I don’t have
the knack, Pete. I never did learn how.”
“Then let me see it.” Slicer scanned the note. “Looks like he was shot by a gal named Kate Kerrigan. That’s what I read into it.”
“Must be a rancher hereabouts.” Hickam gathered the reins of Rube’s horse and swung into the saddle. “Well, let’s get this back to his kin.”
“I hope this ain’t going to affect our wages,” Slicer said. “Rube being dead an’ all.”
“Savannah has plenty of money, I reckon,” Hickam said. “And if she don’t, then we’ll take it out in trade.”
“Do her, you mean?”
“Well, it’s a thought,” Hickam said, grinning.
Savannah St. James’s grief was a terrible thing to see. Racked by sobs, she threw herself on her brother’s body and screamed and screamed. Her robe had fallen open and his dried blood stained her naked breasts and belly like rust. “My brother,” she shrieked. “My friend, my beloved.” She lifted her head to the blue, uncaring sky and her screeching cries rang through her bared teeth.
Hickam, Slicer, and the other guns stood in an impotent semicircle around the hysterical woman. It looked like they were frozen in place, their staring eyes wide like men who’d just seen a phantom in an abandoned graveyard. Even Marmaduke Tweng was shaken to the core and the hand that held his leather gauntlets shook.
Then her tone changed. Her screams became cries of rage, of the desire for vengeance, of her need to strike out and kill, kill, kill.
The face she turned to Hickam was a mask of fury. Her beautiful features twisted, distorted into the face of a demented demon. “Who . . . did . . . this?” Her voice was hollow as a funeral drum.
Hickam, a man with sand, felt a surge of horror not unmixed with fear. “Here,” he said, quickly passing the note to Slicer. “You tell her.”
“Somebody tell me!” Savannah screamed.
Slicer, as affected as the rest, swallowed hard. “The note on your brother’s body was signed Kate Kerrigan and it said to stay off her land.”
Savannah St. James stood, heedless that her bloodstained body was on display under her open robe. “Find her. Find her and bring her to me.” Distorted by hate, Savannah’s face was the stuff of nightmares. “All of you go and as you bring her back, use her, use her often and hard. Break her, Mr. Hickam, break her.” Finally aware of her nakedness, she closed her robe. “Every ship needs a figurehead and Kate Kerrigan will be mine.” She pointed to the tangle of brass pipes and valves above the driver’s cab of the Emperor Maximilian. “I will tie her up there and when I take possession of her land, she will be the first to know it. Then I will kill her. Only then will Reuben’s soul be at rest.”
Suddenly, Marmaduke Tweng was alarmed. “Miss St. James, hold off on that plan until I talk to you privately.”
Savannah turned to him, her eyes glaring. “I have made up my mind, Mr. Tweng. The Kerrigan woman must die.”
Tweng tried again. “Just a few minutes, I pray you. While your brother’s body is prepared for burial.”
Savannah tilted back her head and screamed. Then, she gave a shrieking yell. “No! I will not lay Reuben to rest in foreign soil. Mr. Tweng, you will use one of your infernal machines to burn him and I’ll carry his ashes to his new home.”
“Yes, yes of course,” the little engineer said. “But first we must talk.”
Jack Hickam spat. “The time for talking is done. We’ll ride, Miz St. James, and bring back that Kerrigan woman.”
Tweng had spent most of his life tending to temperamental steam engines and was thus a patient man and slow to anger. But his rage flared, directed at Hickam, not Savannah. “You fool,” he snapped. “Don’t you think the Kerrigan woman will have her own armed men? You’re headed into a gunfight that you might not win. Even if you do, it takes only one survivor to bring the Texas Rangers down on us. From what I’ve been told, they don’t take kindly to men who abuse women. In Texas, that’s a hanging offense.”
“There’s ten of us here,” Hickam said. “Look at us—me, Slicer, Duke Lake over there, the rest of them—the fastest guns money can buy. I think we can take care of a few”—the big man searched for the most demeaning name he could use—“waddies. We’ll kill them all. Don’t worry about that. There won’t be any survivors, man, woman, or child.”
Savannah listened to the exchange in silence, staring at the body of her brother. Finally, she asked, “Have you anything else to say, Mr. Tweng?”
“Yes I have, Miss St. James.” A cloud crossed the face of the sun and a dark shadow raced over the grassland. “You have ten thousand diseased cattle that you can do nothing with. Between now and spring they’ll drift in all directions and infect any new herd you might acquire.”
“And your point is?” Savannah’s eyes never left Rube’s body.
“My point is an urgent one. Use your men to help the vaqueros drive the herd over the border into Mexico and let the cattle die off in the Chihuahua badlands. Only then, turn your attention to killing the Kerrigan woman and taking over her herd.”
“Hell, no,” Hickam said. “I say we get the Kerrigan gal first. The herd can wait.”
“Look around you, man! They’re already drifting east,” Tweng said. “Three of the vaqueros quit yesterday. They don’t want to be associated with sick cows and cattle ticks. The vaqueros that are left can barely hold the herd together. Miss St. James, for God’s sake, use these men to drive the cattle into Mexico now before it’s too late.”
“I say this little man has a yellow streak,” Hickam said. “First we have some fun with the Kerrigan lady and then take care of the goddamned herd.”
Savannah was instantly angry. “Sir! Don’t you dare use that kind of language while my brother lies cold on the ground! I can’t take the slightest risk on anything that might imperil my future. We’ll do as Mr. Tweng says. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and I can wait for a few more days.”
Hickam was angry. “Damn it, lady, we’re not cowpokes.”
“I know that, but you will be amply rewarded once this enterprise is concluded. You have my word on that.”
A realization struck her like a blow. For the first time, she realized that she no longer had the protection of Reuben’s fast gun and his reputation as a man killer. She saw in Hickam’s insolent eyes that he had become aware of that fact the moment he found her brother’s body.
Despite her grief, despite her anger, Savannah knew she must use her feminine wiles. “Mr. Hickam . . . Jack . . . do this for me and I’ll be so grateful. I will be in your debt.” She smiled. “And I always repay what I owe with interest.”
Hickam’s eyes explored the woman’s body and saliva formed at the corners of his mouth. “No limits?”
“No limits. None at all. I need a strong man at my side now that I’ve lost Reuben.”
“Then we’ll drive the herd into Old Mexico,” Hickam said. “And when I get back, I’ll demand my due.”
“It will be waiting for you,” Savannah said.
One of the guns sneered. “And what will be waiting for the rest of us? The answer is nothing. I ain’t gonna nurse a bunch o’ cows over the border unless I get Yankee gold money in my hand right now.”
The speaker was a weasel-faced youngster with lank, pale hair that fell over the collar of his shirt. His name was Jim Clewiston, some said Crawford, and his main claim to a revolver rep was that he’d shot and killed Red Adams, the Killeen draw fighter. That scrape gave Clewiston a false sense of his own importance and an inflated idea of his shooting skills.
Hickam disabused him of both when he pumped two bullets into his chest.
Gray gun smoke trickled from Hickam’s Colt as he looked straight at the rest of the gunfighters. “Anybody else say he ain’t gonna nurse a bunch o’ cows?”
He got no takers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kate Kerrigan was well used to crying babies, but Jazmin Salas’s daughter was the noisiest she’d ever heard, her little face bright red with a temper tan
trum. As Jazmin prepared dinner, Kate sat in her chair by the fire, bounced the baby on her knee, and sang the old Irish Ballyeamon Cradle Song as she’d sung it a hundred times before.
“Sleep, sleep, grah mo chree,
Here on your mamma’s knee,
Angels are guarding,
And they watch o’er thee.”
Having none of it, the baby still fussed and bawled. Trace, Quinn, and Cobb had already beat a path to the door and Dr. Mary Fullerton suddenly remembered that she had some studying to do.
“The birdeens sing a fluting song,
They sing to you the whole day long.
Wee fairies dance o’er hill and dale
For very love of thee.”
Jazmin pushed a pot off the hot plate and said, “I’ll take her now, Mrs. Kerrigan.”
“She just won’t settle. She’s very fussy.”
“She’s hungry.” Jazmin sat opposite Kate, pulled down the neck of her blouse, and gave the child her breast. Immediately, there was a blessed silence.
“I really don’t think she likes the cradle Marco made for her,” Kate said.
Jazmin shook her head. “She doesn’t. But he’s very proud of it, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
The cradle was an oval-shaped contraption made out of riveted steel and brass pipe that looked like a miniature ironclad. A system of gears and pulleys allowed the cradle to be rocked by a foot pedal and Marco was looking into a way to utilize steam power so that no human had to be present.
The baby hated it. Moses considered it a work of art and was forever polishing the brass.
Kate heard men talking outside and she rose from her chair and walked to the window. Because of the darkness she could see little, but she made out the shape of a horseman and heard Frank talk to the man. She stepped outside just as a young, good-looking man swung gracefully out of the saddle.
He saw Kate, swept of his hat, and bowed low. “John Wesley Hardin at your service, ma’am.”
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