From behind a blue cloud of cigar smoke, Clay said, “I wired Fort Concho to appraise the commandant of the refugee situation on the Rio Grande and also informed the Mexican government, but I can’t guarantee that either party will act before spring, if at all.” The big rancher shook his head. “Oh, Kate, dear Kate, I wish you would reconsider. My boys are as keen as mustard to attempt the rescue of your son. Hit fast and hit hard with overwhelming force is the best medicine for the outlaw breed.”
“Hiram, as I told you before, I will not roll the dice for my son’s life,” Kate said. “Any rescue attempt is out of the question.”
“Buffalo Bill Cody is wintering on your land, Kate,” Clay said. “Have you sought the advice of that gallant stalwart and my brother Freemason?”
“No I have not,” Kate said. “This is my problem, not his.”
“When does this McKenzie wretch come for his blood money?” Clay said.
“Four days from now.”
“Hang him, Kate.”
“And Trace will die.”
“Impasse,” Clay said.
Kate smiled. “Hiram, there’s a word I don’t hear every day.”
The rancher said, “I learned that from Colonel William ‘Pecos Bill’ Shafter, the commandant at Fort Concho. It was a few years ago and he was talking to his officers about the Apaches. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the savages have gone to ground and we have reached an impasse.’ Later I asked a young lieutenant what the word meant and he said, ‘A situation in which no progress is possible.’”
“It’s a ten-dollar word, all right,” Kate said. “And it fits my present circumstance exactly. While my son’s life hangs in the balance, no progress is possible.”
Clay stared into his glass and kept his eyes lowered as he said, “None of your fellow ranchers in the Cattlemen’s Association have mentioned it, but as president I fear I must.”
“When will I repay the loans?” Kate said.
Now Clay looked at her. “Unpleasant though it may be, it’s a question that needs answering, Kate.”
“Business is business, Hiram. I will sell the KK, and if necessary my shipping and railroad shares. Everyone will be paid in full and with interest.”
Clay was a picture of misery. “I had to ask, Kate. You understand?”
“I understand perfectly, Hiram. And you are right, you had to ask.”
“Will you stay in Texas?” Clay said.
“I have a ten-thousand-acre tract of rangeland in the New Mexico Territory. I can go there and start over.”
“But Texas is your home.”
Kate nodded and quickly turned her head away.
“Marry me, Kate,” Clay said. “Let me take care of you.”
Kate smiled. “I’m flattered by your offer, Hiram, but if I marry again it will be for love, not security. You’re a fine man and a great catch for any woman, but I’m not in love with you.”
“I’ll always be here if you change your mind, Kate,” Clay said.
“Thank you, Hiram,” Kate said. “And for my part I will always bear that in mind.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
At a time when they both had major problems to deal with, the last thing Kate Kerrigan and Bill Cody needed was the arrival of Isaiah Potts and his three moronic but vicious sons, Jerome, Franklin and Baptist, the last a homicidal menace to all humanity but especially pretty women . . . and the prettiest woman in all of West Texas was Kate Kerrigan.
Frontier trash like the Potts were attracted to isolated settlements where there was no gun-handy sheriff to keep them in line, and a tent city like Bill Cody’s encampment was very much to their liking. So too was the nearby four-pillared mansion, grandly built in the symmetrical Federal style with its central entrance, deep porches, balconies, and magnificent white columns.
Isaiah Potts, a dirty, matted piece of filth who wore two clean and oiled Remingtons in holsters, took note of the mansion and the pretty lady who had stepped outside to wave good-bye to a fat man in a carriage. His son Baptist also saw the pretty lady and he flexed the fingers of both hands like a bird of prey spreading its talons, his slack mouth wet, his black eyes eager.
Potts saw the expression on his son’s face and said, “We’ll try the tent town first. It must have whiskey and women.”
“Could be law there, Pa,” Franklin said. Like his father and brothers he was an uncurried brute, bearded, thin strands of long hair falling in greasy tangles to his shoulders.
“We go in grinning, like we’re visiting kinfolk,” Isaiah Potts said. “Ain’t no lawman gonna fault us for that.”
“Pa, it don’t look like a town to me,” Franklin said.
“And I say it’s a town,” his Pa said. “You don’t contradict me, boy, or I’ll have the hide off your back with a whip.”
“Like you ain’t done that to me a hunnerd times afore,” Franklin said.
Jerome, the youngest of the three and a little smarter, said, “Done that to all of us. One day we’re gonna kill you, old man.”
“Ain’t one of you got the guts to draw on me,” Potts said. “An’ I got eyes in the back of my head. Remember the Louisiana swamp witch that time. She cast a spell and gave me the power and don’t you ungrateful whelps forget it.”
“Her name was Lorena an’ I done her, recollect that, Pa?” Baptist said.
“We all done her,” Potts said. He glared at his son. “You didn’t have to kill her.”
“Sometimes I don’t know my own strength, Pa,” Baptist said. “I break women real easy.”
“And sometimes I don’t think you’re an idiot, Baptist, I know. Now enough of this talk,” Potts said. “Follow me and we’ll find out what shakes the bushes in this burg.”
* * *
It didn’t take Isaiah Potts long to figure out that he’d made a mistake. This wasn’t a tent town, it was Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. Already some hardcases, punchers by the look of them, had gathered together and were giving Potts and his sons some mighty tough looks. All of them were armed, and Potts thought he recognized Luke Pettigout in the crowd, a lawman and sometimes Pinkerton agent from over Denver way. Potts, not the bravest of men, wanted no part of him or the punchers, either. There were a few women around, pretty gals, but Potts ignored them. All he wanted was to get the hell out of there.
Then Buffalo Bill himself showed, wearing two Colts, and Potts’s heart sank. But the great man seemed affable enough. “What can I do for you boys?” he said. That was friendly, but Bill’s hands were close to his guns. His blue eyes were taking the measure of the Potts clan, and he obviously didn’t like what he saw.
Potts touched the brim of his battered top hat and said, “Me and my boys are just passin’ through, Mr. Cody. Smelled your coffee, like.”
“What a pity, we just ran out,” Bill said. A dozen of his riders backed him.
“Then we’ll be on our way,” Potts said. “Read about you in the dime novels an’ all them Indians and buffaloes you shot, Mr. Cody. I’m honored to meet you.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the dime novels,” Bill said.
“Then we’ll be on our way,” Potts said. He was glad to get away from there.
* * *
“Hell, Pa, I could’ve taken him,” Baptist said. “He didn’t look so tough.”
“Maybe so, but what about the rest of them?” Potts said. “They’d have gunned you fer sure.”
“Did you see them women, Pa?” Jerome said, his feral eyes gleaming.
“Yeah, I saw them,” Potts said. “But right now I’m looking at something a sight better.”
* * *
“I’m just going out for a short walk,” Kate said to her butler Moses Rice, the old black man who’d made the journey west with her.
“You want me to come with you, Miz Kate?” Moses said. “I don’t like you out there by yourself with a murderer on the loose.”
Kate smiled. “I’ll be fine. I’m not going far, and I have my derringer.”
> “Miz Kate, will Mr. Trace be home soon?” Moses said. “I sure miss him.”
“We all do, Moses,” Kate said. “Yes, he’ll be home soon. Please see that Ivy and Shannon eat their lunch.”
“Them young ladies ain’t to home, Miz Kate,” Moses said. “They said they were taking a walk to the Wild West show to talk to the buffaloes.”
“To talk to Bill Cody’s young cowboys, they mean,” Kate said.
“I tried to stop them, but they don’t listen to me,” Moses said.
“The girls are quite safe, Moses,” Kate said. “There will be no more murders.”
The old man seemed surprised. “How are you so sure, Miz Kate?”
“Because the score has been settled,” Kate said.
Moses Rice looked puzzled but said nothing.
* * *
They took them both. And the kidnap was done swiftly by experts.
Ivy Kerrigan, fifteen years old and in the first beautiful bloom of womanhood, fought desperately to save her little sister. But Isaiah Potts backhanded her across the face and threw her across his saddle. Stunned by the blow, Ivy was vaguely aware of Shannon’s scream before she lapsed into unconsciousness and heard no more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Kate Kerrigan was frantic with worry. Her daughters had not returned from the Cody encampment, and now it was mid-afternoon, and in a few hours the light would fade. Quinn and Frank Cobb were out with the hands while Bill Cody’s search parties scouted the high country to the west.
Unwilling to alarm Kate, Bill had earlier told Frank about the visit of the four saddle tramps to his camp. “Luke Pettigout thought he recognized them,” he said. “He says the oldest goes by the name Isaiah Potts and the other three could be his sons.”
“What’s he got on them?” Frank said.
“Nothing much,” Bill said. “They have a reputation for petty thievery, but he believes a while back one of the sons got into some trouble in Louisiana over a woman. That’s all he could tell me. But I can size up a man and I reckon all four of them are lowlife trash.”
That was enough for Frank. He quickly picked up the tracks of four horses heading east and sent a rider back to report this to Kate.
The cowboy rode in on a lathered horse and an anxious Kate met him at the front door. “You have news, Tom?” she said.
“Ma’am, we haven’t found the girls yet,” the puncher called Tom said. ‘But unless them four turned around, their tracks head east toward the Colorado, though Mr. Cobb doesn’t think they have any intention of riding that far. And if they did loop back they’ll run into Cody and his riders. Mr. Cobb says we got them in a vise and we’ll find them all right. Mrs. Kerrigan, we’ll bring Ivy and Shannon back to you, safe and sound.”
Kate read the young puncher’s eyes and knew he was hiding a terrible truth from her. Bill Cody’s description of the four suspects left little doubt about the fate that awaited Ivy and Shannon.
“Perhaps my daughters just wandered off somewhere,” Kate said.
“Yeah, that’s it, maybe that’s what happened,” the cowboy said.
But he didn’t believe it, and neither did Kate.
It had been Quinn’s idea that his mother stay home and wait for the girls.
“You should be here when they get back, Ma,” he’d said.
But three hours had passed since Quinn and the others had ridden out, and Kate couldn’t bear to be cooped up any longer, not when her children were in danger. She changed into riding clothes, took a. 44-40 Winchester from the rack and a box of shells from the drawer. Despite Moses’ protests and the wails of the distraught housemaids, she walked out the back door and headed for the barn. Kate had taken only a few steps when she heard someone call her name. She looked around her. “Who’s there?” Kate levered a round into the rifle. “I said, who’s there?”
“Look up, Mrs. Kerrigan.”
Josiah Mosely’s shouting voice came from above her. The hot-air balloon hovered about fifty feet above the ground, Mosely and Cloud Passing looking over the side of the basket. The Indian dropped a couple of sandbag anchors, and Mosely did something with the burner that made the balloon descend slowly. When he got within talking distance he said, “Wind’s from the west, Mrs. Kerrigan. We can cover a lot of ground.”
After she got over her initial shock, Kate said, “How . . . I mean . . .”
“Cloud Passing repaired the envelope and we dodged hanging posses to find the burner and hydrogen cylinder,” Mosely said. “She’s still a bit tattered and leaking hydrogen and the basket needs repairing, but she can fly, more or less. Hurry, Mrs. Kerrigan, get on board. We’re squandering daylight.”
Kate said, “Mr. Mosely, I don’t think . . .”
“Cloud Passing will help you into the basket,” Mosely said. “You want to find your daughters, don’t you? Then the balloon is your best chance.”
Despite the anchors the basket floated two feet above the ground, but Cloud Passing picked up Kate as easily as he would a child and carried her to the balloon. “Hand me your rifle, Mrs. Kerrigan,” Mosely said. The Indian hoisted Kate into the basket and then effortlessly climbed in himself. Cloud Passing hauled up the anchors, and the balloon soared vertically for fifty feet and then caught the upper level wind and drifted westward.
As the balloon gained altitude Kate closed her eyes and white-knuckled the rim of the basket, blaming herself for letting this happen. She should be on a horse. But Mosely seemed quite unconcerned and continually adjusted the burner or tested the wind. Cloud Passing squatted on the wicker floor and chanted what Kate was convinced was his death song. Up this high the wind blew stronger, and the balloon rocked as it kept on its westward course.
Kate opened her eyes and steeled herself to look down. How tiny her mansion looked from here, and even Bill Cody’s sprawling encampment disappeared into insignificance against the backdrop of the vast landscape. For the first time Kate realized just how immense was the KK ranch. From horizon to horizon where herds of sleek cattle grazed, the fair land that stretched on forever was hers, and so too was the great arch of the Texas sky where years before Kate had reached up and grabbed a handful of stars and watched them shimmer in the palm of her hand.
“Riders below,” Mosely said.
Kate followed the young man’s pointing finger and saw a dozen riders kick up dust as they rode out of a sunken dry wash and then regained the flat. Holding on tight to the basket rim, Kate thought she spotted Frank Cobb’s bay in the lead, but she wasn’t sure. Upturned faces followed the progress of the balloon as it glided past, and one of the riders waved. Kate feared to take a hand off the basket and didn’t wave back.
“Fine wind, a trade wind,” Mosely said, grinning. “We’re leaving them far behind.”
“Can you see anything ahead of us?” Kate said.
Mosely shook his head. “Nothing but empty range, sand, and sagebrush.”
“They may be south of us,” Kate said, almost frantic with worry.
“Or north of us,” Mosely said. “We’ll search on this course a little while longer and then I’ll take her up higher and see if we can catch a wind that will take us in a different direction.”
“We’re at the mercy of the damned wind?” Kate said, her terrible strain erupting into anger.
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Kerrigan,” Mosely said. “You can’t steer a balloon like a sailing ship.”
Cloud Passing stared critically at Mosely and then shook his head. The Cheyenne didn’t seem impressed by the balloon, either.
“Mr. Mosely, we must find my children,” Kate said.
“I know, Mrs. Kerrigan,” the young man said. “And we will.”
But then disaster.
The south wind that had been blowing steadily for most of the day suddenly dropped, and the balloon hung motionless like a red inkblot on the blue parchment of the sky.
“We’ve lost the wind,” Mosely said, stating the obvious. “I’m taking her down.”
“Wh
ere are we?” Kate said.
“Somewhere in Texas,” Mosely said. “That’s all I know.”
Even with the burner cut, the descent took the best part of five minutes, and the landing was hard. The basket hit the ground and tipped on its side, spilling its three occupants onto an area of cactus and bunchgrass.
Kate scrambled to her feet, and Mosely straightened up his spectacles and gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry, Mrs. Kerrigan. I never was much of a hand at landing this thing.”
Mosely looked like a guilty boy, like Pete when he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Kate did not have the heart to chide him for almost breaking her neck. She picked up her Winchester and said, “I’ll search on foot the rest of the way.”
Then Cloud Passing surprised her.
His nose lifted, he tested the still air and then said, “Smoke.”
“Where?” Kate said. “Wait. Yes, I can smell it. It’s close.”
This was rolling, hilly country mostly covered in prairie grasses, the most common bluestem and Indian grass. Half a mile to the north lay the southern edge of the cross-timbers region, where stands of wild oak, cedar, and scattered juniper prospered. It was to the tree line that Cloud Passing silently pointed.
“Let’s go take a look,” Kate said. “Mr. Mosely, are you armed?”
“No, I only flew the balloon,” Mosely said. He stared at the ground, unwilling to say what was in his mind.
Mrs. Kerrigan, the next time I take up my revolvers will be my last.
There were revolver-fighting men, and there were others who were not. Kate didn’t blame Mosely, and she didn’t push him. “Then you stay here with the balloon and tell Frank Cobb where I’ve gone.”
“Maybe you should wait until the others get here,” Mosely said.
“There’s no time to waste,” Kate said. “Just point Frank in the right direction.”
“Then take the Indian with you,” Mosely said. “If they find him here, more likely than not they’ll hang him just to pass the time.”
It seemed that Cloud Passing knew more English than he pretended. “I go with the woman,” he said.
Hate Thy Neighbor Page 15