Kerrigans: A Texas Dynasty

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Tell us of the first, Ma,” Trace said. “The second is of less importance.”

  “They are both equally important,” Kate said.

  Then, her beautiful face illuminated by the fire, she said, “Our lives are about to change and for the better. All of you children were born and raised in this city and have known no other place as your home. But soon to we are going to leave Tennessee and have a great adventure.”

  “Why, Mother?” asked Ivy, frowning. The nine-year-old said, “I have friends in Nashville and don’t want to move away and leave them.”

  “I said we were leaving on a great adventure,” Kate said. “But in the course of that enterprise we will all have to make sacrifices.”

  “I don’t want to leave my friends,” the girl said, her little face stubborn.

  “Ivy, Trace’s life is in terrible danger and if he’s caught a hangman’s rope awaits him,” Kate said. “He was seen running out of the gunsmith where he worked with a pistol in his hand. There were two men found dead there, and the police suspect Trace of the killing.”

  “You didn’t do it, did you, Trace?” asked Niall.

  “Of course not!” Trace whispered back, nervous even about speaking at a normal volume. “What a stupid thing to ask me.”

  Niall, looking chagrined, turned away and eyed his mother.

  “Trace,” Kate gently chided. “He was just trying to be sure. Children see everything in black and white. There are no shades of gray between.”

  “I know. I know. I’m just tired of being suspected of something I didn’t do, and having to hide like a rat in a wall.”

  “Well then why did you run, Trace?” asked Quinn.

  Trace glared at his younger brother.

  “I was scared, real scared. You would have run, too.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I would have shot it out with the police, stolen a horse and rode away into the woods,” Quinn said.

  “That’s enough, boys,” Kate said. “We all know Trace didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “So then why are we leaving and where are we going, Mama?” Ivy asked.

  Kate breathed slowly and tried to relax.

  A moment had come she had never anticipated and now wasn’t fully ready to handle.

  “Children, your father wrote this letter”—she held it up where all could see—“to me before his final battle. He carried it into the fight, and it was found on him after he died and Mike Feeny brought it to me tonight.

  “Much of the content expresses your pa’s love for his family, of his wish he could leave war behind and be with us, and his hopes for a bright future for the Kerrigan family.”

  Kate brushed away a random curl that had fallen over her forehead.

  “But he gave us, well, me, a word of advice should he not come home from the war. It is advice that I think will change our lives greatly, but cannot be done without the firmest dedication and hard work from all of us.”

  “Mother, please—” Trace said.

  “I’m getting to the point, Trace, be patient. With such a pressing need to leave this city upon us, I’ve decided to heed your father’s advice.”

  After a moment’s pause as she waited for the excitement to build, Kate said, “We will leave Tennessee by way of Kansas, then travel to Texas, there to enter the cattle business, which your father believed is destined to bring great success to many people.”

  Quinn looked stunned, Niall confused, and Ivy put her hands to her face and cried. Frail little Shannon clapped lightly and looked thrilled, while it was all Trace could do to keep in his seat.

  Unspoken to many, a move west had been Trace’s dream since he was eight years old, a dream old Arthur Lundy had reignited before his death.

  Kate surmised that Joe had probably done some further talking in the meantime with Texan soldiers who knew the facts of the cattle trade.

  Clearly he’d been persuaded that it was a business the Kerrigans could truly be part of.

  And now that Joe was gone, she saw it as falling to her to make his vision a reality.

  Trace looked at his mother’s face, smiled and nodded. She nodded back, a little more solemn than he, but the hint of a smile was there.

  “Well, then it’s settled,” Kate said. “Texas or Bust. Isn’t that what the pioneers used to say?”

  “That’s what they said, Ma,” Quinn said. “I read it in a book.”

  “And now you’re going to live it,” Kate said. “All of us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Due to the hunt for Trace, Kate felt that leaving Nashville was more like a desperate escape.

  Over the next days, the family had no choice but to abandon many of their possessions, because for them to be seen emptying their living space would have caused an entirely accurate perception that they were running from the legal difficulties facing Trace, who now was officially wanted by the authorities “on suspicion of murder or manslaughter.”

  “It’s for the best,” Kate told her children around the breakfast table two days after Trace’s visit home. He’d remained only that one night, shinning back down the trellis before dawn and going back into hiding.

  Using the little amount of money Kate gave him, her son was going it alone. His plan was to escape Nashville by dark, and then hopefully buy a cheap horse and saddle that could carry him to Kansas.

  Kate had not heard from Trace since and she worried constantly about him. This much she knew, the police had not found him yet or they would have told her.

  No news was good news, the saying went, but to Kate Kerrigan that was not necessarily true.

  “The more we carry between here and Kansas, the more difficult the journey in a small wagon pulled by a broken down horse. It is said that the trail between the East and the Northwest is littered with chairs and tables and chests of drawers, even pianos. Things travelers set out with and then discovered were too cumbersome to go on with. It’s best we go with no furniture at all, just bedrolls to sleep in along the way.”

  She saw disappointed faces and smiled.

  “Once we get to Texas, we will outfit ourselves again with new things. It’s exciting to think of! New place, new home, new things of our own, and a chance at true success! Your father smiles down on us, I am sure.”

  “I bet he’d smile even more if we took the bed he built for me,” Ivy said.

  Kate smiled and shook her head.

  “No, dear. He’d tell you that you could have a new and better one once we are in Texas and running our own cattle ranch.”

  “Mother,” Quinn said, “we’re poor people and you’ve spent all your money on a wagon and horse.”

  “And a Henry rifle,” Kate said. “Well used and abused but serviceable, the man who sold it to me said.”

  “Then how are we going to have the money to start a ranch? No one is going to loan us money for it.”

  “No loan will be needed,” Kate said. “The same good Irishman who befriended your grandfather and brought him to America is going to befriend us again, and help settle the Kerrigans in Texas, with sufficient means to obtain shelter, land, and cattle. Though there are many cattle free for the taking out on the plains, the offspring of cattle allowed to run loose during the war years.”

  “Who is this man?” Quinn asked.

  “His name is Hagan, Cornelius Hagan. In days past he was a wealthy man in the old country, owner of much land. He was and is a good man, devoted to Christian charity and help for the poor. His father, Lord William Hagan, was a famed and very wealthy Irish landlord. More than any other landlord on the Isle, he gave aid to his tenants when the potatoes went bad. He paid their poorhouse fees without complaint, and when the opportunity came, he did more than pay their ship’s fare to America. He outfitted a ship of his own to carry them. And no leaving the voyagers to survive on nothing more than the daily ship’s ration, a meager amount . . . oh no. He sent ample food to see them all well fed until they reached America.”

  Kate wiped Shannon’s mouth fre
e of oatmeal.

  “Your father and his kin had a much easier voyage than did I and my family,” she said. “Of course we were grateful for all our own English lord did for us, but I must confess that there was some aspect of leaping from the frying pan into the fire involved. We very nearly starved before we reached American shores.”

  “So is Lord Hagan the man we’ll see in Kansas?” Quinn said.

  “No, that was the father of the man we’ll see. Lord William Hagan is no longer living. His son, Cornelius, still lives, and left our homeland to build a new life for himself in America. It was he who befriended your father in a special way, grateful to him because your father once saved the life of Mr. Hagan’s sister when she was involved in a carriage and wagon accident at the edge of the Five Points in New York.”

  “What did Pa do?” Quinn said.

  “Your father, God rest him, lifted the end of a heavy wagon to allow the poor woman, who had been cast from the carriage and fallen beneath the wagon, to be pulled free. He was a strong man, your father, and willing to involve himself in help to others. Which is why we in turn are blessed with help when we need it.”

  “I’m not sure it is a good thing to take charity, Mother,” said Quinn.

  “Had you had more time to know your father, you would have learned a lesson from him regarding that very matter, son. He had a saying he’d been taught by his grandfather: A wise man knows when to give aid, and when to accept it, for there is no shame in either. The right thinking for us regarding what Mr. Hagan will do for us is simply one of gratitude, and a determination to be just as helpful to others as he is to us.”

  “But he’s rich. We’re poor,” said Ivy. “How can we help anyone?”

  “Another saying: It is oft true that the most valuable help is that which comes not from the purse but from the hand and the heart.”

  Quinn rolled his eyes. Still a boy as he was, he’d no love of Irish sayings and his mother knew hundreds of them.

  “How do we know this man will help us?”

  “Your father stayed in contact with Mr. Hagan through the years. Mr. Hagan is a dreamer of big dreams, and saw your father as a man with the heart and ability to help him carry them out. He intended to build success for himself in beef, agriculture, and railroads. And Joe told me a few times that sometimes Mr. Hagan talked of town building. Creating settlements across the country, linking them by good roads, and particularly by railroads. As I said, he is a dreamer of big dreams. He told your father that whenever he was ready, he would provide the backing for a ranching enterprise on the plains of western Texas. There was even mention of a town that would be named Kerrigan.”

  “After father?”

  “Yes. Your father would operate the ranch, make a fortune for himself and for Mr. Hagan, and a town would grow up and bear your father’s name.”

  “But Papa has been dead for five years now,” Quinn said. “Why do you think this Hagan fellow would still be willing to throw money our way when the man he counted on to carry out his plan is already dead and gone?”

  “I have had some correspondence of my own with Mr. Hagan since your father’s passing. His plans and dreams are unchanged. He believes that those of us who remain, bearing your father’s name as our own, have the ability to do what Joe is no longer here to do.”

  Ivy looked perplexed. “Ma, are you saying that a man believes that you, a woman, could develop and operate a cattle ranch?”

  “Not just a ranch, dear. An entire cattle empire, run by the family of Joseph Kerrigan, with initial backing from the Hagan fortune, and perhaps help along the way if it is needed. It is my plan that no such help be required. Any operation with the Kerrigan name on it should be self-supporting, and able to grow on its own. That is my dream, as it was your father’s.”

  “Will Trace be with us, Mother?” asked Shannon in her small little voice.

  “He will, dear. Arrangements have been made for us to meet him along the way. By the time we have reached Texas and work begins on our ranch, Trace will be almost a man grown and he’ll shoulder most of the work we do. As will you, Quinn.”

  “And the rest of us, too?” Ivy asked.

  “All of us, child. All of us.”

  Ivy crossed her arms over her chest and gave one of her typical frowns. “I don’t know that I want to be a ranch family.”

  “Want to be rich?” asked her twin brother. “Want to be able to go into the town of Kerrigan and buy yourself the best dresses in the shops? Then someday get married to a rich cattleman and live like that the rest of your life?”

  Kate Kerrigan chuckled. “I think there may be more than one dreamer of big dreams in this room.”

  “I want to go,” Shannon said, her wan face showing more color than it had in many months. Her coughing was mostly gone, and when she did cough, it lacked the wracking, wince-inducing quality it had once possessed. “How will we get to Texas, Mother? And do we have to go to Kansas first?”

  “Most of our journey will be on a better, larger wagon provided to us by Mr. Hagan,” Kate said. “We will receive that wagon in Kansas, where he lives. The town is called—”

  “Let me guess,” Quinn said. “Hagan.”

  “You are right, son—nearly. Haganville, to be more precise.”

  “Big rich man, stooping down to help the poor weak Irish—I don’t like it, Mother.”

  “Quinn, Mr. Hagan is as Irish as we are. And he is helping us because your father helped him rescue a sister he loved.”

  “Are you sure this is all really going to happen, Ma?”

  “I have no reason to think otherwise,” Kate said. “Because I’ll make it happen.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Ivy said.

  “We have to do things we don’t want sometimes, Ivy. Trace doesn’t want to be hiding out sleeping in some woodshed because he’s been wrongly accused. We’ll be together and we’ll make an adventure of it, just like your father would have wanted.”

  “Can he see us, Mama?” asked Shannon.

  “I believe he can,” Kate replied. “And I think he’ll be traveling with us every step of the way.”

  Quinn made a little snorting sound and wished Trace was around.

  Trace lived in the real world, not in a land of make-believe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  As towns went, this one was nothing to remember, a settlement perched at the ragged edge of nowhere with little past and no future.

  Its single dusty street lined with a few stores, a saloon and some scattered shacks, no one was glad at Trace Kerrigan’s coming and no one would regret his leaving.

  Riding an old but half-decent mare he’d gained through some itinerant farm labor in Kentucky on a meandering route to Missouri, he plodded through and cast uninterested glances around, trying to find something worth looking at.

  In this dismal little place he felt a long way from home.

  It was almost enough to make him rethink his assumptions about the world west of the Mississippi River. Like many Americans, Trace held a somewhat romanticized view of the expansion of the nation farther and farther into the western frontier— but if this little bit of nothing was typical of what one found in the West, maybe there were some wrongly exalted notions floating around the national consciousness.

  And just as he thought that, he saw her, and suddenly the town didn’t seem so dismal.

  A girl, who looked at first and second glance to be about the same age as himself, grinned at him from the lantern-lighted porch of the mean little saloon, a timber structure with a low false front and shingle roof.

  Her dress was too short at the bottom and too low at the top, and her hair had a spilled-out style that spoke of saloons and dance halls and rough living—but she was staring at him brazenly, her smile unwavering.

  She flounced out from her standing place and crossed the street toward him. “Hey, young feller!”

  “Ma’am.”

  “What the—what’s this ‘ma’am’ nonsense? I doubt I’m
a day older than you are, handsome!”

  Truth was, Trace couldn’t tell how old she was.

  She had that quality about her common to females who took the wrong path in life. The old ones tried to face-paint their way back to youth again, and the young ones tried to look older and worldly.

  Trace doubted this gal, whatever her age, had any notion he was only fifteen. For all he knew she might be fifteen herself, or fifteen years beyond that.

  “You looking for some company tonight, sparkles?”

  Sparkles? He gave her a quizzical look. What kind of name was that to call a man?

  “I’m just heading west to meet my kinfolk,” Trace said. “Looking for a town called Haganville.”

  “Well then, I thought you and me might have some fun, sparkles. Cost you though.”

  “That ain’t my name,” Trace said.

  “Then what is? Mine’s Erlean.”

  “Mine’s my own business. Good evening to you, Ma’am, Miss Erlean, or whatever you want to be called.”

  “You’re no fun at all, sparkles. I’d say you got the look of the preacher about you, if’n it wasn’t for the hog leg you’re carrying.”

  “I’m surely not a preacher, but you’re right about one thing. I’m no fun. Good night.”

  He rode on past. The woman glowered at him, then returned to her place on the saloon porch.

  He heard her holler after him.

  “You ain’t nothing but a boy, anyhow! I don’t need no boy! A woman like me needs a man! A real one!”

  “Hope you find one in this town,” Trace called back, grinning.

  Trace had but seventy-five cents left in his pocket and halfway out to a little general store on the edge of town where he hoped to buy some crackers and cheese, he rode past a stagecoach station. A bonfire burned on the station grounds, a beacon in the night for late-arriving passengers.

  A tall man wearing batwing chaps and a wide-brimmed, battered hat stood by the fire warming his hands since the night had turned cool. Scarlet light played along the front of the man’s lean form like blood on a blade.