“Don’t worry yourself into a snit; all you do then is attract attention. And it’s not like you need anymore, walking around half-naked. Lord knows, what your Pa is thinking of, letting you—” He stopped abruptly and scowled. “You never said where John got off to.”
Katie snapped. “He felt tired and left a little while ago. Billy Simpkins said he’d accompany me back to the Sternes’.”
“Your father left you in the hands of that Lothario?” Branch asked incredulously. “And to think I gave John Gallagher credit for a little sense.”
Katie lilted her chin. “What is it about you and Shakespeare, Kincaid? I happen to think Mr. Simpkins is a very nice man. Now I’d like to speak with Keeper, if you please.”
Branch reluctantly gave in. “Wait right here. I’ll bring the boy outside.” He walked toward the door, then stopped, adding, “But you can be damn sure we’ve not finished this particular discussion.”
As he returned to the tavern, Katie absently fingered the petals of a yellow daffodil blooming in a pot set atop the porch railing. The ladies of town did their best to spruce up the tavern for the ball.
Where was Da? He was supposed to bring Keeper to the church. Who’d have thought the boy would show up at the dance? Da must be searching all over town for him.
What should she do now? How was she going to get rid of Branch? She shouldn’t have stopped him from going after Daniel. Dumb, Katie, dumb, she scolded herself. Why had she hesitated in sending him off on a wild-goose chase?
That little voice in her head that enjoyed arguing so much answered. Because you didn’t want to worry him. Because you know he really wants to help your family. Because you trust him. “Dumb, Katie, dumb.”
The greenery surrounding the flower was smooth beneath her fingers. She looked down at her hand. She was angry with herself, angry at her errant emotions, which had intruded in such an untimely manner. Then she glanced around. Two clay pots filled with flowers framed the doorway. Branch’s collar hung over the rim of the one on the left.
She never would have considered it had the little voice not been shouting in her head. Sometimes only actions could quiet unruly thoughts.
Katie smiled.
JOHN GALLAGHER worriedly rubbed his palm against his whiskered jaw. It was nearing two o’clock in the morning, and Keeper McShane was missing from his cot in his jail cell home. Where could the boy be?
“I must find the lad, and soon,” he muttered. So much of this plan rode on the boy, and he feared they’d need time to convince Keeper to do as they asked. He turned to leave the cell and heard the front door of the jailhouse bang open. Pressing himself into the room’s darkest corner, he listened to heavy footsteps shuffle across the outer room. A chair creaked and a desk drawer rasped open.
“That boy! He’s done it again,” came the disgusted voice. Then Jack Strickland bellowed, “Boy! Boy, get your butt out of bed and come here.”
Saints a ‘mighty, the sheriff wasn’t supposed to be here!
The drawer banged shut. “Boy, I am talking to you. You’ve been in my whiskey again, haven’t you? Son, I’m through warning you. Get out here now.” He mumbled then, saying, “That Kincaid, this is probably his fault. He evidently encourages the boy. And the nerve of him, taking a woman on his rounds. I should have gone after them instead of ducking out the back. The woman’s a jewel. How could I have missed seeing it before?”
Again he shouted, “Boy!” The chair scraped across the floor as he stood.
Hearing the footsteps approach Keeper’s cell, John felt around in the darkness for some sort of weapon. His hands closed around the familiar neck of a whiskey jug. A boy Keeper’s age shouldn’t be drinking, he thought as he lifted the bottle above his head. He prepared himself to strike.
But he made a terrible mistake.
He hadn’t figured Strickland would be carrying a lantern. He swung the glass container, clipping Strickland on the forehead, but not before the light illuminated his face. Strickland mumbled the word “Gallagher,” and slumped to the floor.
“May the Good Lord strike me for a fool,” John said, scooping up the lamp before it could start anything afire. This entire plan had gone to hell in a hand-basket. A man wouldn’t be getting by, conkin’ a sheriff over the head.
Especially when that sheriff was a Regulator and himself a Moderator.
This would change everything. “Your seein’ me face has mucked it up but good,” he told the unconscious man. “I’m too near to dying to start killing people now.” The pains in his gut had been occurring with increasing frequency, and John wasn’t one to fool himself about such things. He frowned, glaring at the heap at his feet. “Couldn’t you have waited a bit a’fore allowin’ the thirst to overcome you?”
Grabbing the sheriff’s boots, John tugged the man farther into the cell and slammed the door. Every bit of time he could gain would serve them well, he thought. Whether he liked it or not, it appeared now that a whole passel of folks would be leaving with Shaddoe for the Territory.
“I still have to find the boy, though,” he murmured. Stealthily, he left the jailhouse and hurried up the street, checking the windows at the church as he passed. Should I stop and see if Daniel and Shaddoe are there waiting for me?
“No,” he whispered. He had to find the boy first.
He reached the square and turned toward Brown’s Tavern, thinking the dance might have been what lured the youngster from his bed. The sight of Katie, standing in the street, struggling with Keeper McShane, nudged him into a run.
But the sight of Branch Kincaid, lying flat on his back in the dirt, the broken stem of a daffodil drooping across his nose, and soil and pieces of clay clinging to his dirty white shirt stopped John Gallagher cold.
“Katie me love, what have you done this time?”
CHAPTER 9
SCENT TICKLED HIS NOSE. No, something soft. A woman. Not a woman, something connected with a woman. He opened his mouth a bit. His tongue touched the heaviness at the corner of his lips. Ugh. Dirt. Why was there dirt in his bed?
He wasn’t in bed. Damn that Katie Starr. As Branch strained to lift his eyelids, he heard the whispers.
The feminine voice said, “Don’t hurt him, Da.”
“I’m not hurting him. I’ll take the gag from his mouth the moment we reach the church. Boy, you be still now. We’ll not be a’painin’ you.”
Keeper, Branch thought. They’re doing something with Keeper.
Katie’s skirt rustled as she walked by him. He knew it was her. By God, was that a giggle he heard?
His head pounded mercilessly. Was she using his face for a dance floor now that his feet weren’t available? Finally, minutes later, he opened his eyes. He couldn’t see Katie Starr, but as he gingerly prodded the lump atop his head, he knew damn well she’d been there.
The music coming from within the tavern ended, and couples began exiting the building. “Why, Deputy!” a woman’s concerned voice exclaimed. “What has happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m just fine, ma’am,” Branch answered. Beneath his breath he added, “Angry enough to chew nails, but just fine.”
An amused voice asked, “What’s the matter, Kincaid? Courting get a little dirty tonight?”
Branch groaned. Why didn’t the blasted dance last just fifteen minutes longer? His smile didn’t reach his eyes as he answered, “The lady seemed to believe my language was too flowery.”
Couples ringed him as he climbed to his feet and accepted the good-natured ribbing offered by the partygoers. How nice to provide the final entertainment of the evening, he thought sardonically. He flicked the mud from his clothing as best he could, more to give himself time for his temper to cool than from any concern over his appearance.
He waited for the square to empty. All was black and silent. As quiet as the night, he made his way toward the Catholic church, his smile gleaming wicked in the starlight. Little does she know it, he thought, but Katie’s party is just beginning.
&nb
sp; Jack Strickland woke up cursing. The stink of the jail floor had soaked into his clothing, and he rubbed something sticky from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “That gray-beard Irishman will pay for this,” he declared.
His head pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer, and he lifted his hand to touch the tender lump above his ear. Bottle whipped by an old man. It was embarrassing.
Sheriff Strickland did not enjoy being embarrassed.
What mischief took place here tonight? Why had Gallagher been at the jailhouse? Did this business concern his daughter and Kincaid, or did it involve something more sinister?
Jack climbed to his feet and pushed against the cell door. He gave a grim laugh. That fool had locked the door but foolishly failed to search his victim’s pockets. Strickland reached into his vest and withdrew his ring of keys.
Once out of the cell, Strickland grabbed his Hawken rifle and left the jailhouse intent on locating Kincaid. He intended to set the deputy on Gallagher’s trail, then call out the Regulators. The Moderators might very well have planned an operation for tonight.
Well past two in the morning, only night creatures roamed the town. Strickland noticed a raccoon digging in the trash alongside the mercantile, and as he passed the doctor’s office, he heard a strange thumping noise. Could it be Gallagher?
His left hand held his gun, a finger fondling the trigger, and with his right he tried the door. Unlocked. Cautiously, he nudged it open.
Doc Mayfair was the source of the noise. He and Sidney Wilson lay on the floor, tied and gagged, with the doctor banging his legs against the wall.
Wilson started squawking the minute Strickland loosened the rag around his mouth. “An Injun, Sheriff. An honest-to-goodness Injun. The red bastard got me and the Doc, scared the bejeezus out of me. He said something in one of those crazy tongues and smiled like the devil himself. Naked and painted he was. His entire face was red and black, colored like some creature let loose from hell. Damn, I’m lucky to have my hair!”
Jack frowned. “Are you certain, Wilson? Are you positive he was Indian? There haven’t been Indians in this part of Texas since ’39.”
Wilson shook his head excitedly. “He was an Injun, all right. Tell him, Doc. You saw him too.”
Mayfair, still tied and gagged, agreed with a nod. When the sheriff took the kerchief from his mouth, he said, “It was an Indian, all right. Painted and feathered. Comanche, I imagine. And he had the Gallagher boy with him. They came in through the back window and broke into my medicines.”
“Gallagher!” Strickland exclaimed. “What is it with that family tonight?” He bent over Wilson and worked the knots. He said, “Something’s going on; we may have a Moderator incident on our hands. Doc, I’m calling out the men. You ride over to Davis’s place and have him start the word. Sid, you go tell George Taylor to do the same. We’ll meet in front of my office immediately.”
“But, Sheriff,” Wilson piped up, “what if there’s Indians out there?”
Strickland gave him a look that would scare a dead man.
“I’m on my way, sir,” Wilson said, his voice trembling as he cautiously eased out the front door.
“Wait.” Strickland snapped upright and fixed a cold stare on first Wilson and then Doc Mayfair. “I want it clear to every man out there tonight that no one is to hurt old man Gallagher if they discover him. I want information from him—him and his boy.”
Twenty minutes later Wilson made the comment to George Taylor, “Sheriff sure looks mad. If that Irishman had any sense at all, he’d be over at that church of his taking the last rites from the padre.”
VOTIVE CANDLES in red and blue glass cast a muted glow beside the altar. Shadow-faced statues flanked the wrought iron candle stand, and the scent of vanilla hung heavy on the air.
Keeper McShane sat within the circle of light, scratching his head like a flea-bit hound, cogitating on the Cherokee’s proposal. “I dunno,” he finally said. “You sure something like that will work? It seems kind of farfetched to me.”
His eyes searched the darkness for the one person in the group he still trusted in spite of tonight’s misdeeds. “Miz Katie, I guess you think I should go along with this or else you wouldn’t have brought me here.”
Katie moved into the candlelight and sat beside him. She clasped his hands between hers and stared imploringly into his eyes. “Please forgive me, Keeper. I didn’t mean to frighten you, and I didn’t mean to hurt Mr. Kincaid. It’s just that this plan is so important. So many people are depending on us, on you. They are my friends. I love them, and I’m so afraid they’ll die without your help.” She squeezed his hands tightly and said, “You see, you are the only man I know who can do this. You can save hundreds of lives. You’ll be a hero, Keeper.”
Keeper swallowed hard. Miz Katie was an angel, one of them statues come to life. At that moment, he’d have jumped off the bell tower if she’d asked. He squared his shoulders and said, “Okay, let’s get started.” He tried his best not to think about disappointing Sheriff Jack or Deputy Kincaid.
He grew a foot taller beneath Katie’s radiant smile. Then she kissed him—on the lips—and he got dizzy in the head. But when he caught sight of the knife in the Cherokee’s hand, a knife the size of Mississippi, he thought he’d faint dead away.
“Do you think Miz Katie could do it, please?” he asked the Indian in a timid voice.
Shaddoe’s smile reassured him. “Anything you ask, my brave young friend.” He passed the knife to Katie.
She lifted Keeper’s arm, then hesitated. “I’ll be right back.”
“What are you about, young lady?” John Gallagher whispered. They were the first words he’d uttered since entering the church with a straggling Keeper in tow. The youngster had wondered what was keeping the usually talkative man quiet.
Katie’s dancing slippers made not a sound as she disappeared into the gloom at the front of the church. A moment later she returned, and Keeper could see that the blade was wet. “I was afraid it was dirty,” she explained, “and I thought a little holy water couldn’t hurt. Daniel, do you have everything ready?”
Daniel Gallagher came out of the darkness like a ghost. A dark red stain seeped through the bandage wrapped around his arm. He passed two bottles to Katie. “I’m going to do this twice,” she told Keeper. “Just in case one of the samples is no longer alive, I’ll use both. It won’t hurt you, and it may prevent this whole effort from being a waste of time.”
Uncorking the first ampoule, she withdrew a single thread. “The vaccine has been dried on here. Shaddoe, you remember to remove this from the cut tomorrow afternoon.” She mumbled her next words, but Keeper heard them. She said, “I guess that’ll be long enough, I hope.” She bit her lower lip and raised the knife.
Keeper shut his eyes, scareder than the time he kissed ol’ Milly, the droop-tittied whore at The Mansion of Joy.
The blade sliced into the fleshy part of his arm, and a blaze of pain called water to his eyes. Blood dribbled from the wound.
Daniel winced. “Hell, Katie. Go easy on him.”
“Watch your mouth, Daniel Gallagher,” Katie snapped. She stared at Keeper, worry dimming her eyes. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve done it right. I only watched Doc do this one time, when he did us. I just don’t remember.”
Actually, the slash didn’t hurt too much, Keeper decided. He’d felt worse from the toes of his mama’s shoes.
Katie dabbed a fold of cloth to the cut until the bleeding slowed. Carefully, she inserted the thread and wrapped a strip of her petticoat around his arm as a bandage. “Are you in pain?” she asked, frowning.
Keeper grinned. This hero stuff was all right. “Nothing to it, Miz Katie.”
When she smiled, she looked like the Madonna statue that stood out front of the church.
He sat up straight and puffed out his chest as Daniel handed Katie a needle and the second bottle. Tipping the amber container, she dipped the needle into its neck. Keeper wrinkled his nose when he saw the th
ick yellow slime that clung to the darner as she withdrew it.
The next time didn’t hurt as much, and Keeper turned his head away when she wiped the matter into his cut. She had just finished bandaging his arm when the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked exploded through the quiet church.
The needle slipped from Katie’s fingers. Keeper heard it hit the floor.
The slow drawl floated from the darkness. “Anybody care to tell me just what the hell is going on here?”
Shaddoe recognized the voice. So the deputy sheriff had his quarry beneath his gunsight. But would he go so far as to hurt the Gallaghers, hurt Kathleen?
When he spoke, the Cherokee’s tone was an open challenge. “Kathleen, is your hunter a just man?”
Katie groaned. “I think the paint on your face must have bled over and clogged up your ears. He’s not my hunter. You know what? You two are really very much alike.”
“Quit the yammerin’ and answer my question. What’s going on?” Kincaid had moved since the first time he spoke. Now his voice came from off to the side.
He walks as quietly as I, thought Shaddoe. I wish I could see his face, read his expression. But though she denies it, Kathleen cares for her hunter, therefore, he must be a good man.
John and Daniel were attempting to convince Kincaid to leave the church. Shaddoe interrupted. “I will tell you the whole of it, Branch Kincaid. Your honor will decide.”
He turned to face the darkness where he believed Branch was standing. He said, “Not long ago, during the depths of winter, a man from an Indian settlement north of my people’s village stole a blanket from a white man on a riverboat. The boat carried smallpox. We heard rumors. A trader reported that within weeks, every member of that man’s village had died. I had previously received the vaccination, so I went to investigate.”
Shaddoe heard the horror in his own voice, horror that would not leave. “I found bodies, black and swelled to thrice normal size, one atop the other. A stench that is indescribable. The entire village was dead. Those not afflicted with the disease were apparent suicides. Mothers and babies, a buzzard’s feast, rotted beneath the sun.”
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