“I think he’s worried,” Jazmin said.
“He’s been listening to Frank, I think.”
“Marco says that Santa Muerte, the Angel of Death, will hover near the plague wagons. If we meet her we must bow our heads because she is a very powerful goddess and must be treated with great respect.”
“And I will say a prayer to the Blessed Virgin and ask her protection,” Kate said.
Jazmin nodded. “That is good, because the Blessed Virgin is also a mighty goddess.”
Kate did not think it the place and time to set Jazmin right on the status of the Holy Mother, but she made a mental note to instruct her at the earliest possible moment.
* * *
Something was wrong. A jagged crack in the day. The quietness of the insects, the lack of birds, and the air of menace that Kate inhaled like a bad odor sounded an alarm inside her.
Jazmin felt it, too. “Santa Muerte is close,” she whispered.
“Something is close.” Kate grabbed the Winchester and levered a round into the chamber. The wagon seat was not a good fighting platform and she dropped to the ground and motioned to Jazmin to do the same. Something was out there, close. Kate couldn’t see anything but rock, cactus, and a land dry as dust. In the old days, she would have suspected Apaches in hiding, but like the Comanche, they were long gone and all the dangers they’d brought to Texas had gone with them. Who . . . or what . . . was stalking her?
Kate stepped to the back of the wagon and again studied the terrain. There was no sound and nothing moved. She waited. The feeling that she was being watched was a palpable thing that made her skin crawl. It was as though the exploring, blue-veined hand of an aged lover was violating her body.
A step. Behind her!
Kate swung around, the Winchester ready in her hands. A bearded man came at her. His grin was fixed, amused, nasty, and he held a knife in his right hand. Kate had only a split second to react, no time to think it through. She triggered the rifle and slammed a shot into the center of the man’s buckskinned chest. He stopped, stared stupidly at what he knew was a death wound, then staggered toward Kate, knife upraised, his face savage. Kate levered the Winchester. She heard Jazmin scream as though from the end of a long tunnel. She fired again. The belly shot sent the man to his knees. He had time to meet Kate’s eyes for just a split second. His own were clouded in disbelief at the nearness of his death and then he pitched forward on his face and the darkness took him.
Kate turned in time to see a man drag Jazmin from the back of the buckboard. She worked the Winchester, but then strong arms grabbed her from behind and wrenched the rifle from her hands. Kate fought like a tigress, but the man was big, huge in the chest and shoulders. He held her at arm’s length with his left fist and backhanded her across the face with a wicked right. She fell and rolled away from the man’s swinging boot. Dust rising around, her head ringing, she staggered to her feet, her eyes blazing. Her hand almost dropped for the Remington derringer in the pocket of her plain cotton dress, but she hesitated. Her assailant had a Colt, hammer back in his hand, and she realized she was up against a stacked deck.
“You’ve lived too long, lady,” the man said, a surly, scar-faced brute with black eyes of a creature that eats the dead. He raised his revolver.
“No, Ben!” the other man yelled. He had an arm around Jazmin’s waist. “You know how much that redheaded witch will bring in Chihuahua?”
The man called Ben’s gun was still pointed at Kate’s head. Without turning he said, “How much?”
“A small fortune. Too much to throw away.”
“She killed Seth,” Ben Lucas said.
“Yeah, well, the woman is worth a sight more than Seth and now there’s one less to share the army payroll.”
Lucas thumbed down the hammer and slid the Colt into his holster. He jutted his chin in the direction of Kate. “You want a taste, Bob?”
Bob Corcoran said, “Hell, sure I do, Ben, but let’s keep her for Jesse. He’ll like that.”
“Like that? She gunned his brother,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, but even at the best of times he was never too fond of Seth. You know he wasn’t.”
“How much will Jesse give us for her?” Lucas said.
“An even thousand.”
“No woman is worth that.”
“This one is, and more.” Corcoran pulled Jazmin closer. “Besides, we got this Mexican mare all to ourselves.”
“Harm her and I swear to God I’ll see both of you hang,” Kate said.
Corcoran changed tactics. “What’s in the wagon?”
“Supplies for a stranded wagon train,” Kate said. “The people are sick and they need food.”
“Heard about that. They got the cholera. Ain’t that right?”
Kate said, “That is correct. I’m sorry about your friend, but we must be on our way or my men will come looking for us.”
“Men? What men?” Ben Lucas grinned. His teeth under his mustache looked like yellowed piano keys. “You got a bunch of husbands, pretty lady?”
Kate again thought about the derringer. Only two shots from a pistol that was both inaccurate at distance and awkward to shoot. Against gunmen like these two, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She put the idea out of her head and said, “My name is Kate Kerrigan and my ranch is nearby. Perhaps you’ve heard of Frank Cobb, my segundo. Behind him he’ll have a dozen riders, all well-armed and determined men.”
Corcoran was taken aback. “Big ranch?”
“The KK is big enough.”
“You go up the trail to Dodge last summer?”
“Yes, I did, with three thousand head.”
“Get a good price for the herd?”
“It was sufficient.”
Corcoran looked at Lucas. “Ben, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m way ahead of you.” Lucas stepped to Kate, grabbed her by the upper arm, and ducked the looping left she swung at his chin with her free hand. “Help me tie up this hellcat, Bob, and then we got some serious talking to do.”
Kate collected some bruises and so did Lucas and Corcoran before she was bound, gagged, and tied to one of the buckboard’s wheels.
Jazmin kneeled beside her and used a small handkerchief to dab a trickle of blood from her mouth. “Mr. Cobb and Trace will come looking for us soon, Miss Kate. And then you’ll be free.”
Kate nodded and smiled under the bandana that tightly covered her mouth, but she knew it could be a couple hours before Frank felt sufficiently alarmed to come searching for her. And by that time . . . well, she had no idea. Whatever was to come would not be pleasant.
* * *
Lucas and Corcoran had retrieved their horses from the dry wash where they’d been hidden and had tethered them to the wagon. They stood on the other side, away from the women.
“I asked you once, and I’ll ask you again,” Lucas said. “Can you shade Jesse Dobbs on the draw?”
Corcoran sighed. “And I’ll tell you what I told you before ... I don’t know.”
Lucas threw up his hands, “Man, this is impossible. I need an answer.”
“Can you shade him?” Corcoran said.
“No. There, I said it plain. No, I can’t.”
Corcoran said, “Then I’ll bide my time, shove my gun into his face, and pull the trigger. Bam! His damn skull explodes.”
“That will do ... if you can get close.”
“Man’s got to let his guard down sometime. Hell, Jesse James was straightening a picture on the wall when Bob Ford got close and scattered his brains. It can be done. Once we get to Eagle Pass I can get near to Dobbs.”
“What about Zeb Magan?” Lucas said.
“What about him?”
“Should he worry me?”
“He’s a two-bit chicken thief,” Corcoran said. “I can take care of him.”
“All right, then here’s how I see it, Bob. Here’s the play. We do for Jesse and the other feller and the payroll becomes a two-way split. A straight
fifty-fifty, no ifs, buts, or maybes.”
Corcoran extended his hand. “Amigos, in prison and out.”
Lucas took the other’s hand and said, “We trust each other, Bob, and that goes a long way.”
“Damn right it does,” Corcoran said. “We’re good pals, me and you.”
“Then to sweeten the pot, we let the Mex gal go and give her a hoss and a ransom note. This ransom note.” Lucas held out a scrap of paper.
Corcoran took it and read, his lips moving.
BRING TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS
TO EAGLE PASS OR KATE KERAGAN DIES.
NO LAW OR ELSE.
FROM TWO GOOD PALS.
“But how are them boys gonna know how to contact us with the money?” Corcoran asked.
“That’s their problem. If they ever want to see their woman boss alive again, they’d better figure a way. If they don’t, we’ll take her to Mexico with us as merchandise. Either way, we win.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“I’ll ram my cutlass into their guts and spit in their eyes as they writhe like speared fish on my blade,” Captain Black Barrie Delaney said after he’d read the ransom note. “I’ll use their guts for me garters, damn them. Strike me down dead this very minute if I don’t.”
Only half-listening to Delaney’s bloodthirsty rant, Trace said, “Frank, when do we ride? I’ll bring Quinn off the range.”
“Quinn stays where he is, Trace, and so do you,” Frank said. “Captain Delaney, you and your cutlass remain as well. Get Kate’s house finished.”
“And what about you?” Delaney said.
“I’m going alone. Well, with Ranger Brewster, I guess.”
“You can count me in,” Brewster said.
Anger flared in Trace’s face. “Why can’t I go? She’s my mother.”
“And that’s why you’re staying here at the ranch,” Frank said. “I don’t need a reckless kid going off half-cocked and announcing to everybody who’ll listen that you’re in Eagle Pass to rescue your ma.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Trace said.
“You don’t know what you’d do,” Frank said. “I don’t want you scaring the kidnappers. Abducting a woman is a hanging offense in Texas, and if they panic and want to get rid of the evidence, Kate’s life will be in danger. Working by ourselves, Brewster and me can find her without rousing suspicion.”
“Frank is right, youngster.” Brewster held a huge wedge of apple pie in his hand. “I reckon one of the pals is Jesse Dobbs’s brother Seth and the other is either Ben Lucas or Bob Corcoran. If they suspect a trap, they’ll kill Mrs. Kerrigan or take her across the Rio Grande and sell her in Mexico.”
“Sell my mother?” Trace said.
“There are rich men across the border who’ll buy a pretty woman,” Brewster said.
“As a slave?”
“Yeah, a special kind of slave.” He saw the shock in Trace’s face and said, “Don’t worry, son. We’ll bring your ma back safe and sound.”
Frank said. “I just had a thought. Do you think the presence of a ranger in Eagle Pass will tell Seth Dobbs that there’s something wrong?”
“Hell, Seth has never seen me and neither has Jesse,” Brewster said. “And another thing, do I look like a ranger to you?”
Frank smiled, giving Brewster the once-over from the battered crown of his hat to his scuffed, down-at-the-heel boots. The man wore his holstered Colt as though it was an afterthought and his sad brown eyes held no aggression. He looked about as dangerous as a circuit preacher.
“JC, you’re right. You don’t look like a ranger. You don’t look like any kind of lawman.”
Brewster smiled. “Gives me an edge when I come up against draw fighters like you, Frank.”
“You pegged me, huh?”
“Not too difficult,” Brewster said. “You got the gunman look. Something in your eyes draws folks’ attention.”
“I don’t mind looking look like a gunman in Eagle Pass. Plenty of them around that town from both sides of the border. I’ll be a face in the crowd is all.”
Trace’s protests and Delaney’s claim that Kate pretty near agreed to be his betrothed and was thus as near to being his bride, “dammit,” had no effect. Frank and JC Brewster rode out together the next day at first light.
There was no real hurry.
The terrain between the KK Ranch and Eagle Pass was flat, rocky country where their dust would be seen for miles and warn Seth Dobbs that riders were on his back trail. Frank’s bid to free Kate must happen in Eagle Pass, not in an open landscape where a man with good eyes could see forever.
They carried no money. Kate would never agree to pay a ransom . . . even for herself. What had to be done must be accomplished by the gun and there was no way around that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Apart from a sack of coffee and some sugar, Ben Lucas and Bob Corcoran had dumped the supplies for the cholera wagons and had taken great delight in ruining what they didn’t want. Flour lay scattered over the ground as though there had been a snowfall.
Bound hand and foot, Kate had been thrown into the empty buckboard and driven away
Across the broken country north of Eagle Pass, the buckboard bounced. Around Kate lay a wasteland of scattered mesquite, a few live oak, cat’s claw, hua-jilla, cenizo, and prickly pear, all of it struggling to survive on limestone bedrock. Of people or animals there was no sign. She knew that Frank would not follow closely, but that realization only increased her feeling of isolation and vulnerability. Thank God the derringer had not fallen out of her pocket during her struggles with her two captors. The weight of the little pistol in her pocket brought her comfort, slight as it was.
Kate had long since ceased to struggle against the ropes that bound her so tightly, and she lay on her back and watched the light change as the day shaded into night and a horned moon rose and gored aside the first stars. The desert smelled of dust and rock. She was thirsty, but would not ask her captors for water. She imagined that in all the vast expanse of barren wilderness somewhere lime green frogs dived into a blue, ice-cold pool, each one making a soft plop! under the overhanging ferns.
Despite her discomfort, Kate dozed. She was aware that the two men made a stop and cigar smoke drifted over her as they passed a bottle back and forth between them. Half an hour later the team once again lurched into motion.
At first light, she woke to the smell of boiling coffee. Ben Corcoran brought her a cup that she didn’t refuse. What was it her grandmother used to say? Ah yes. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. The coffee was strong, bitter, and black as mortal sin but it tasted heavenly.
The sun was just over the eastern horizon when Corcoran climbed into the buckboard’s seat and Ben Lucas mounted and took up his station a few yards to the rear where he could keep his eyes on Kate and his back trail.
Turning his head, Corcoran said, “You’ll be the guest of Tilly Madison until we get the ransom money. She has a cabin a mile outside of town.”
“Who is she, may I ask?” Kate said.
Corcoran grinned. “Sure you can ask. She’s a hunchback who done for seven husbands, maybe more. Before she gives you anything to eat or drink make sure she tastes it first.” Corcoran thought that last very amusing and launched into a roar of laughter. After he regained his composure and wiped a tear from his eyes, he said, “Some say Tilly is a witch and she probably is.”
“Did you say witch or . . . something else?” Kate asked.
“She’s both.” He laughed again and slapped his thigh.
* * *
The Madison cabin lay close to a narrow creek that was dry for nine months of the year. Nearby a single cottonwood struggled for life and cast thin shade onto the cabin’s tarpaper roof. When the buckboard rattled to a halt, the door opened and a small, bent old crone with an incredibly wrinkled face stepped outside.
Kate thought Tilly Madison looked like a wicked witch in a child’s picture book . . . but instead of a broom she held a .44-40
Winchester in her hands.
Her voice sounded like a rusty gate. “Hell, I heard you two had been hung fer outlaws in Huntsville. I see I was told wrong.”
“Yeah, Tilly, we’re still kicking,” Corcoran said. “Jesse Dobbs pass this way?”
“I ain’t seen him. Who’s that in the wagon?”
“A guest. We want you to take good care of her.”
“She looks hoity-toity.”
“She is,” Corcoran said. “Her name’s Kate Kerrigan and she owns a ranch northwest of here. She’s worth a pile of money to us.”
“Her kind doesn’t come cheap,” Tilly said. “Not when it’s crowned with red hair. You, Ben Lucas, get her down from there and let me take a look at her.”
When Lucas pulled Kate out of the buckboard and she stood in front of Tilly, the old woman said, “Look at those bold, insolent eyes. No mistake what she is.”
“I’m a respectable, widowed woman and I’ll ask you to keep a civil tongue in your head, missy,” Kate said. “If you don’t, I’ll slap your face.”
“And I’ll ask you to get off my property”—Tilly leveled the rifle—“if you know what’s good for you.”
“Tilly, the woman is worth thousands of dollars to us,” Corcoran said. “Harm her in any way and you’ll deal with Jesse.”
The old woman’s face changed, showing fear. “He’s a rum one, is Jesse. Got a demon in him. One time I heard it. Said to me that its name was Malphas, a great prince of hell.”
Corcoran said, “So now you know. Best you do what we told you.”
“Bring her inside,” Tilly said. “I’ll keep watch on her.”
To Kate’s surprise the cabin was clean, the wood polished, and the stove blackened and shiny. A red rug lay on the floor in front of the fireplace and something cooked in a pot. Peppers hung from the rafters like bunches of bloodred grapes and to Kate’s surprise, above the mantel, looking unamused and imperial, hung a portrait of Queen Victoria. Bonded by sponge cake, any friend of old queen Vic was a friend of Kate’s. But it seemed that Tilly Madison did not share that opinion.
“I don’t sleep, ever, so don’t think about making a fancy move,” she said. “I see you trying to escape, I’ll kill you.”
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