Kerrigans: A Texas Dynasty

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Lew got shot, Ma’am,” he said.

  Kate turned to Davis, seeking an explanation.

  “Tell you about it later, Mrs. Kerrigan. The wagons are in good shape I see, but first we’d better round up the livestock. They’re probably all scattered to hell and gone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Brock Davis, Ben, and Trace rode in herding the oxen and horses.

  “We’ve lost a horse and a couple of oxen, Ma’am,” Davis told Kate. “But we can make do with what we have. It could’ve have been a lot worse.”

  Despite their joy over Shannon’s safe return, the death of the man named Lew hung over the Kerrigans like a pall.

  Davis decided that the dead man should be buried right away.

  “We’ll plant him before it gets too dark,” he said. “I never did cotton to burying a man by lantern light.”

  Later they all stood around the grave as the day shaded into night and coyotes yipped in the distance.

  “Does anyone wish to say anything?” Kate said. She held her worn Bible.

  Lew lay gray and cold in the grave, but clean enough to meet his maker.

  As is the way of the Irish women, Kate had washed the Texan’s bloody body with her own hands.

  “Ben, you were the closest thing to a friend Lew had,” Davis said. “You want to say the words?”

  The lanky Texan nodded.

  Turning his hat in his hands, he looked down at the dead man.

  “His name was Lew and he told me no other,” he said. “He was a steady hand, fast on the draw and shoot, an’ I reckon he’s already drinking the devil’s whiskey in hell. Amen.”

  A silence fell over the group that no one seemed overly anxious to fill.

  Finally Kate said, “Thank you, Ben. That was very nice.”

  She bowed her head.

  “We’ll now say prayers for the immortal soul of Lew in the hope that he will enjoy life everlasting in the arms of our blessed Savior.”

  Ben nodded.

  Then, emboldened by Kate’s faint praise, he said, “He’ll be sadly missed.”

  When the burial was done and the lonely grave left behind, Brock urged them to great caution in travel, because there were dangerous men about.

  He revealed to Kate and Trace that the smoke he had investigated had been that of burning wagons from another, slightly larger wagon train than the Kerrigans’ small one.

  They had been destroyed by what had apparently been an attack of renegades, possibly Comancheros, though the notorious Rain Horse and his bandits could not be ruled out.

  There had been bodies, mutilated, the women and girls misused before they died, Davis said.

  The Kerrigans moved on and encountered no renegades, bandits, or Comancheros, and felt a lightening of spirits when finally they crossed into Texas.

  Still miles upon miles to go to reach their specific destination, but they were closer to home.

  Ivy drew closer to her mother and had become less critical and demanding.

  Right after they’d crossed into Texas, she took her mother aside and said, “I heard what Mr. Brock told you and Trace about the wagon train that was attacked and burned,” Ivy said. “And what I thought was, I’d rather die than have to suffer what the girls in the wagon train did.”

  “It won’t come to that, Ivy,” Kate said. “I won’t ever let it come to that.”

  The new Kerrigan ranch house near the Brazos headwaters, yet unfinished, took the breath away from the Kerrigans who were to live in it.

  It was a far cry from the Gothic splendor of the Hagan mansion, but much better than anything they’d been used to.

  “Joe, I wish you were here with me to see this together,” Kate said.

  Trace joined her. “I’m sure he sees it, Ma.”

  Kate smiled.

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Ma, when will you feel ready to tell us the reason Mr. Hagan seems so much like father?” Trace said.

  Given all that had happened on the trail and their final arrival here on the Brazos, Kate could find no compelling reason not to speak, especially to the oldest of her children.

  “I’ll tell you now, Trace. But please tell none of the others. I will do that myself in my good time.”

  Trace nodded. “I’ll keep your secret.”

  “Trace, the reason Cornelius Hagan so closely resembles your father is that they were sired by the same man, by your late grandfather who was constantly unfaithful to his wife. There is no need to throw a veil over it or pretend such things don’t sometimes happen in this world. Your grandfather fathered two sons, one in wedlock, the other outside it, that latter one being our benefactor, Cornelius. Cornelius got his fortune through the father who raised him, named Hagan, but his physical traits, obviously, through the father who sired him.”

  “So I have a blood relation in Mr. Hagan.”

  “You do. All you children do.”

  “You didn’t know, did you, when you first saw him, that he would be so much like Father. That was why you were so shocked.”

  “Yes. I looked at his face and saw the eyes of Joe Kerrigan. I’ll admit it certainly took me by surprise. It was as if I was seeing him again, alive before me—almost as though your father had come back from beyond the grave. I could make no sense of it until I talked to Cornelius later, and he told me the truth about it all.”

  “Why did you not just tell us right away, when we wanted to know?”

  “I was still trying to take it all in on my own. I didn’t know what I should and should not say, and to whom.”

  “I’m glad to know now.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to be a good life here, Ma. Quinn and me have talked it over with Ivy and Niall and Shannon and we’re all going to pitch in and make this ranch a success, for the sake of us and for the memories of father and well, Ma, even for good old Ireland.”

  “Our own ranch, Trace. A future for us all.”

  “For us all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  For the Kerrigans’ first days on the ranch, home was not the cabin currently being framed in by a crew of Hagan’s hired workers, but a large barn about two hundred feet from the house.

  Because the ranch was not yet operating, the barn was not in use except as a place for the builders to stable their horses and park their wagons.

  The Kerrigan family moved into the empty loft area.

  They bedded down each night on lumpy straw mattresses left there by the carpentry crew, which worked shifts, one group sleeping a few hours while the other labored. The workers were as starry-eyed over Kate as most men and readily agreed to give up their mattresses for use by the family.

  Ivy said she felt much like a princess in one of the fairy tales Kate often told the girls as bedtime stories, unable to nod off because the straw was “poking her like that pea.”

  But she stopped complaining after Trace pointed out that the straw beds were “a lot cleaner than the one I slept on when I was running from the law back in Nashville, and there’s no vermin here, either.”

  Some of the more thoughtful carpenters took kindness a step further and enclosed some rough rooms in the loft to allow for a degree of privacy and protection from the cool night winds that frequently lanced between the timber slats.

  Kate discovered that a ventilation window in the wall of the barn’s loft provided a good view of the house’s progress as well as the Texas brush flats that seemed to stretch forever.

  She charmed one of the carpenters into making her a chair from some of the lumber scrap and enjoyed sitting with her coffee in the mornings, looking out on what she was sure would be part of her own ranch one day.

  She was enjoying that view one waning afternoon when she caught sight of Ivy and Niall darting out into the plains, throwing back and forth a ball Ivy had crafted from an old sock she’d stuffed with one thing or another.

  She smiled, watching her twins enjoying their sport, but a chill ran through her vein
s when she glanced up beyond them and saw, on top of a low rise, several horsemen.

  At first Kate thought the riders were assessing the progress of the cabin, but a closer look persuaded her the men were actually watching her twins at play. Worried now, she wondered what manner of men these were and why they were there.

  Then she saw one of the riders, a bearded, un-curried man with a greasy mane of hair falling to his shoulders, walking his horse down the low rise in the direction of the children.

  Fear mixed with concern, Kate turned away from her window and headed to the ladder leading down from the loft to the barn floor. She all but leaped the last half of the distance, and grabbed the Henry that stood against the frame of the door as she went out.

  Rifle in hand, she ran hard toward the house.

  One of the workmen saw her.

  “Hey, Mrs. Kerrigan, what’s wrong?” he yelled.

  Wordlessly Kate pointed violently in the general direction of her twins and the horsemen beyond them.

  As she drew close enough for her children to notice her, they in fact did not do so, because the burly, bearded rider was not twelve feet away from Ivy.

  The little girl was looking bravely up at him, and Kate recognized Ivy’s posture as that she presented when she was afraid.

  Something the man was saying to her, or maybe merely the way he looked at her, scared the girl.

  Kate eyed the other horsemen and was pleased to see they had not moved from the rise. Only the big man that loomed over Ivy had moved.

  “Hey you!” Kate called. “Get the hell away from my daughter.”

  She held the Henry at her waist, the muzzle pointed at the big intruder.

  Her voice startled Niall, who was nearest her, and made Ivy turn her head fast to look.

  The man on the horse looked her way, too, heavy brows hanging low over his eyes like gigantic black caterpillars.

  “You talking to me, lady?”

  “Yes, I’m talking to you. Is there anyone else near my daughter?”

  His eyes did an up-and-down sweep of Kate, giving her an appraisal she was accustomed to receiving from all sorts of men.

  “So this is your daughter, is she? Well, Ma’am, I can see where the sweet little lady gets her fine looks. Same as me, I got mine from my mama’s side of the family.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Name’s Bodine, Ma’am. Bill Bodine at your service. And let me take a guess here. You’re the Kerrigan woman who everybody says is building that there ranch house.”

  “What is your concern with me or my family, Bodine? State your intentions.”

  “Well, Ma’am, you’re a right tart-tongued woman, that I’ll say. All I was doing, Ma’am, was asking your little miss if she could point me to the foreman so I could ask about maybe finding a little work here.”

  “It would seem to me that most men looking for work wouldn’t assume that a little girl playing ball with her brother would be a likely place to start inquiring.”

  “Just fond of children, I am. Me and my friends back there, we’re all fond of the young’uns.” He yelled. “Ain’t that right, boys?”

  A couple of faint grunts were all the response received.

  Kate knew just what Bodine was doing in calling back to them: he was reminding her that he was not alone, and that there was but one of her, several of them.

  “Mrs. Kerrigan, can I ask you why you’re hauling that Henry around?”

  “You can ask, and I’m glad to answer. I am carrying this rifle because, had you laid a hand on my little girl, I was going to use it to put a bullet in your head.”

  “Damn it all, woman! Oh, sorry about the cuss in front of tender little ears. But I got to say, Ma’am, that’s might mean-hearted of you, talking about killing a man. Why’re you so angry, ma’am?”

  “I nearly lost a daughter recently and since then I’ve become awfully fierce when it comes to protecting my children. When I see a stranger approach my child for no good reason, one like you who has the look of the outlaw about him, I grab this here Henry.”

  “I ain’t hurt your girl, Ma’am. Never would do such a thing. Like I said, I love the young’uns.” Then louder, “Yes, I love them a lot, and the ladies, too.”

  Laughter rippled through the riders on the ridge and angered Kate so greatly she would gladly have triggered the Henry and shot it out with them right then and there.

  Hearing someone approaching from behind her, she turned and was relieved to see it was Brock Davis.

  He was armed with a pair of Colts.

  Brock glared at the riders. “Where’s your friend Rain Horse?”

  The riders glanced at one another, and Bodine kneed his horse closer.

  Davis, almost casually, as though he didn’t really mean to do it, pointed the Colts in the direction of Bodine’s big belly.

  “Damned unfriendly folks around here,” Bodine said.

  “I asked you where Rain Horse is.”

  “Not here, that’s where he is,” Bodine said. “Last I seen him he was talking about going to be with his kept woman. She’s got a cabin up in the Nations that he likes to go to. If I was a betting man, I’d bet that’s where he is.”

  “You’re Bill Bodine.”

  “I am indeed, sir. And pray, who are you?”

  “My name is Brock Davis. And I’m going to ask you to get down off that horse, Bodine. I know some of your history, and I think it’s time to deal with it.”

  “You some kind of lawman, Davis?”

  “Not a bit of it. Just got no use for them who hurt innocent folk for their own entertainment.”

  Bodine looked at Kate. “You may want to take these children away. I think it’s about to get ugly around here.”

  Kate said, “Can we handle this many?”

  “She makes a good point there, Mr. Davis,” Bodine said. “If’n I was you I’d holster them Colts and find someplace to disappear to. You’ve put me in a bad mood.”

  “No matter what happens, Bodine,” Kate said. “You get my first bullet.”

  “But not today, lady. I like to bide my time, like.”

  Bodine glared at Davis.

  “I’m riding away. You’ll have to shoot me in the back, and you just don’t look the type, if you know what I mean.”

  “Don’t put your faith in how I look, Bodine,” Davis said.

  The big man swung his horse around and Kate and Davis waited until he and his companions rode away.

  When the renegades were out of sight, Kate said, “Come children, let’s get away from here. This is no company for us to be keeping. Will you come with us, Brock?”

  “I have a bad feeling about that bunch,” Davis said.

  “And so have I,” Kate said.

  “We ain’t seen the last of them.”

  “That’s why I’m sleeping tonight with my Henry beside me,” Kate said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  In the night, the frame of the rising cabin was like the skeleton of a giant animal slain on the Texas flats.

  So it seemed to young Niall Kerrigan as he walked back toward the barn from the rough outhouse that served for the only privy facilities on the construction site. Built for the use of the house builders, it now also served the barn-dwelling Kerrigans, and Niall despised having to make the long walk in the night just to answer a call of nature. It was troublesome, and the moon shadows cast by the cabin’s frame were eerie to a nine-year-old boy. Who would soon be ten, he reminded himself. His and Ivy’s shared birthday was coming up in just over a week. They would no longer be little children whose age could be shown in a single digit. For the rest of their lives, unless they lived very long indeed, they would have two-digit ages. Like grown-ups.

  It made Niall grin when he thought about the fact they resided in a barn now, since the house wasn’t far enough along for use. Like being a cow, or a horse. Kind of funny.

  No cow or horse, though, snored the way Mr. Brock did, or so Niall figured. The wagon master turned gener
al family aide and protector could saw logs with the best of them. Not tonight, though. Mr. Brock was not present, but gone again to the tiny settlement of Cornwall, on down the road about a mile and a quarter, to spend the night in the room up above the little saloon that was the heart, and most of the substance, of the tiny crossroads community. Niall had wondered aloud to Trace and Quinn if maybe Mr. Brock did that because the bed there was more comfortable than the straw ticks on which everybody slept in the barn loft.

  They’d laughed at him, and Trace had said there was a lot more to it than that. “Brock’s found him a woman there,” Trace had said. “The easy-to-find kind, who’ll let you be her fella if you’ll pay her for it.” Then he and Quinn had laughed and nudged one another as if they thought they were worldly fellows, much more manly than Niall.

  Ha! Niall could have told them he understood more things than his big brothers realized. He knew how things worked, why tomcats came bawling around writhing cats in the darkness at certain times, and why bulls jumped up on the backs of cows in that way that had always made Ivy laugh and point and tell everyone to “look—the cows are dancing.”

  Stupid Ivy. Now there was a child, even though she and Niall were exactly the same age. Girls just didn’t understand things the way boys did. They were naïve and innocent and silly that way. Even though Ivy had emerged from the womb first, he’d always seen himself as a little older than his twin sister.

  Niall wasn’t sure that Ivy had even grasped why that repellent man with the big beard had acted so strangely around her earlier in the day. She’d known there was something off and odd and probably dangerous about him, but he doubted she had a clue about what was behind it. Niall knew. The man was the sort that Quinn always called a “dirty fellow.” One who spent too much time thinking about women and girls and the things that could be done with them, and to them—girls way too young to be thought about that way, in the bearded man’s case. And that man, the one called Bodine, he probably did more than just think about them, Niall supposed.